DC Damsel

One thing I’ve learned while living in the District is that Washingtonians take their free time almost as seriously as their work days. There’s no wasting time in the pursuit of low-brow pleasure. No hour is simply a happy one. No gathering is just social. No stone is turned unless an opportunity is to be had beneath the granite.  And sometimes I can’t help but wonder what would happen if all those tightly clenched cheeks loosened up for a night and let their internal winds blow with free will and no preconceived ambition.

Districters take Israeli combat fighting classes and creative writing seminars. They travel to places like South East Asia and spend summers on aid missions and at unpaid internships. They get master’s degrees, launch lucrative contracting businesses, and run the marine marathon. They raise money for squalor survivors in third world countries and build art collections. They shadow brilliance and soak up prestige, all the while adding things to a mental check list that can be recited at salon dinners and networking cocktail parties.

I tend to approach my free time a bit differently.

Here are a few examples/suggestions I thought I’d throw out to all those who call our nation’s capital home who just may need a break from all the pretense and bullshit:

Respectable Pursuit: Studying the culinary arts for a summer at the Sorbonne
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Eating Raisin Bran while watching Top Chef reruns in my Grand Marnier t-shirt I won at the bar last Thursday night.

Respectable Pursuit: Taking a wine tasting course on Thursday nights with your better-half
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Getting drunk with random acquaintances and working from home the following Friday with a hangover and a distant memory of the guy you let feel you up on the walk home.

Respectable Pursuit: Studying ancient Egyptian pottery
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Smoking a bowl out of the ceramic bong your buddy made in his 11th grade shop class while listening to the Bangles and experimenting with green eyeliner

Respectable Pursuit: Listening to live jazz in the Sculpture Garden
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Lying on your couch listening to Hendrix while watching the chronic masturbator who lives across the courtyard

Respectable Pursuit: Attending the Russian ballet at the Kennedy Center
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Dancing in your underpants while drunk on Stoli

Respectable Pursuit: Doing the crossword in the Sunday NYT and celebrating with a caramel macchiato at the Firehook
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Scooping the pot after throwing the boys on tilt by telling the dirtiest snatch joke of the evening

Respectable Pursuit: Pilates class at Washington Sports Club
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Giving head to a redhead on an inflatable air mattress

Respectable Pursuit: Brunching at the Tabbard Inn
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Drinking V-8 Bloody Marys and Minute Maid mimosas while eating Egg Beaters and corned beef hash out of the can

Respectable Pursuit: Dating an older Scottish man who works for the World Bank
Damsel’s Alternative: Masturbating with an eco-friendly purple vibrator while listening to The Proclaimers

Respectable Pursuit: Pondering romanticism while reading William Blake
Damsel’s Alternative: Sending dirty text messages to a BBC producer working the night shift

Filling open spaces with empty gestures.

That’s how I’m choosing to sum up my 10 days back in the DC dating sphere.

Two official dates with a lovely Scotsman who I’m desperate to feel something more for than friendly admiration.

One night spent with an ex who doesn’t qualify as a former boyfriend but kisses like a frequent lover all the same.

And two semi-impromptu, shall I say, “booty calls” with someone young, handsome, and not the least bit interested in ever spending the night and waking me with his lips the next morning.

Telling me he respected me before pushing me up against the refrigerator and removing my blouse was a nice touch.

Yet somehow the gratification seemed to fade after he left in time to catch the Metro home and send me a text that said,

“Thanks for that.”

I can’t begin to tell you how special he thinks I’m not.

I can’t begin to tell you how much I’m starting to agree.

I wonder constantly where my high expectations swell from.

Certainly not from the tide that tends to roll into my familiar shore

I’ve sharpened my tallons

But can’t seem to grasp the fish

It’s an ocean full of foolish promises

And I’m the bird who consistently misses her mark

And drops her dinner.

I officially jump back into the DC dating scene tomorrow night.

My suitor is a Scottish man in his late 30’s who works for the International Monetary Fund.

William Wallace taking on the global economy may be a bold choice for my ride back into the DC dating desert, but I’ve always had a brave heart and a Wild West kind of way about me.

I’ve decided on a black sweater dress and knee high stiletto boots.

I’m surveying multiple single friends for the best dark, intimate, grungy, DC pub they can come up with.

I need authenticity, heavy beer, and flattering lighting.

I’m going off the match-making skills of an older, more experienced, married friend, five witty email exchanges with my suitor, and one alluring voice mail.

I have to admit, his accent made me weak in the knees as I listened to his message tonight riding home on the Metro.

That gives him a definite leg up in terms of attraction.

So here I sit, mildly intimidated, drinking beer, and smoking like a cowgirl on her first cattle drive, mustering the strength to jump back on the horse and wrangle a steed to spend my life with.

Annie Oakley I ain’t.

But I’m sharpening my spurs nonetheless.

Hoping to successfully drive my herd to market.

Totally willing to buck a few broncos.

And endure some saddle sores if that’s what it takes.

To find love in our nation’s capital.

Yippie Kai Yay.

Head ‘em up.

Move ‘em out.

I of course steal the term from that distressingly long racially charged cable news infomercial from a few months back that all ended merrily at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with a few beers and a few uncomfortable looking white men.

My own teachable moments have been for the most part, less poignant, vital to our nation’s interest, and in less impressive settings than the White House lawn. That said a good many of them have involved beer and uncomfortable white men, but that’s neither here nor there.

The following list consists of a few of the teachable moments that have stuck in my gullet as of late:

Self Medicating Equals Artistic Genius
Cheap Pinot Grigio and cold medicine can only do so much damage to one’s writer’s block. But I’ve had a hell of a time trying to knock down the proverbial wall.

It’s The Little Things
The unpleasant girl down the hall who I avoid talking to at all costs lost her father to cancer 2 months ago. Last night she found out her mother had died suddenly at 56. From now on, I hold the fucking elevator door when I hear her coming.

Liz Phair Really Did Get It Right (#10 on Exile in Guyville)
Most boys chase you until they fuck you. A few of them like you enough after they fuck you to spend the night. A few of them hated you even before they fucked you and leave one precarious navy blue sock behind for you to remember them by. And far too many of them will never like you or fuck you no matter what you do.

Monkey See?
If the chronic masturbator who lives across the courtyard catches you watching once, he’ll never draw his blinds again.

Thou Shalt Not Covet…
One night can change the whole landscape of a friendship. Sometimes it’s worth it, sometimes it’s not. I’m leaning towards the latter. But I’ll never regret that kiss. Never.

You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks
I’ve extracted myself from the dating scene for at least 6 months now. I just couldn’t take it anymore. The rejection, the disappointment, the bar tabs split down the middle (if I had known I was paying for myself, I would have opted for the good vodka).

Unforgettable, That’s What You Are
There are some men who’ve been a part of my life for the most fleeting of moments that continue to make indelible impressions on my mind and on my heart. Every man I meet will be measured against them, until someday I find a man immeasurable. If only my ladder were as high as my hopes.

The Grass Is Always Greener
Sometimes the field is fertile. Sometimes it ain’t. Sometimes I shit rainbows, with buckets full of paint.

With Love Comes Fermentation
(In a drunken text message a few weeks ago) I told my friend Jen that heartache and wine have an awful lot in common. You take fruit in its most orgasmic of states… juicy, creamy, wet, and drunken, age it a bit and what are you left with? Bitter berries and a lip curling residue of what once was. Now all I can hope for is a refrigerated discount and an awkward lay.

Sad Songs Say So Much
The same songs that elicited crocodile tears when I was 17 years old, still have the same pathetic effect on me now. Hey Jude reminds me of Tobin. Romeo and Juliet remind me of Rolf.  Tangerine reminds me of Remmy. Slip Slidin Away reminds me of my marriage. Comfortably Numb reminds me of Ben. And Thunder Road is still awaiting a muse.

My recent dating dry spell has led me to seek affection from the most unassuming places.

I find myself looking at all manner of men in a curious light.

The bartender at my local watering hole.

The guy who sells flowers on the corner by my grocery store.

The Fed Ex guy who delivers my Zappos boxes (with much care I may add)

The guy who plays his violin for loose change by the Metro escalators

Random men who I run into in the laundry room or elevator in my apartment building.

The chronic masturbator who resides in the apartment across the courtyard from my living room window

No, not really.

I’m not *that* desperate.

Yet.

The maintenance man in my office building.

The Starbucks barista who makes my frappuccino extra yummy but continues to claim it’s low fat (I’m convinced I’m the only dairy damsel he takes the extra calories out for)

The beat cop who stops at the 7-11 every Thursday morning for long johns and coffee.

Most lonely women buy vibrators

I make passes as the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker.

I may have sunk to an all new low though this week when I tired hitting on my periodontist mid-root canal.

Looking lovely as ever with no makeup, mussed hair, running pants, and tears trickling down my face I can’t imagine how he wouldn’t have fallen victim to my girly guile.

Twenty shots of novocaine and white spittle collecting in the corners of my mouth must have convinced him I was not the most agreeable patient.

Or perhaps he started to imagine the amount of martinis he’d have to buy me in order for him to get laid on the first date (three and a half)

Perhaps my rampant gag reflex just didn’t scream sex appeal.

I thought I had hit a home run when at one point he exclaimed,

“You have such a tiny little mouth.”

But no such luck.

I chatted him up when the whole ordeal was done.

And mentioned to him that my dentist had told me I have excellent oral hygiene (wink).

“Ok, we’ll see you in 4 weeks for that bone/gum extraction. Call me if you have any questions.”

Yes doctor, you cunning hunk of white-coated yumminess.

You bring the sterilized surgical clamp.

And I’ll bring the wine.

(Growl)

“I’m a menace, a dentist, and oral hygientist…” -Eminem

I recently said goodbye to my friends Sean and Ken, a gay couple who lived in my apartment building I became fast friends with.

Sean, a fair-haired, blue-eyed cutie with big ears and a naughty smile worked in my office and asked me to coffee one day last November.

And I did what I always do when I meet a man my age without a ring on his left ring finger and a quick wit.

I hit on him.

In the Starbucks.

A week later after I had ample time to regain my pride (in truth, there’s never enough time) he introduced me to Ken, his better half.

And while I was certain from the onset Sean and I were related in another life, I wasn’t as immediately sure that Ken and I would hit it off.

Ken was the opposite of Sean

Dark hair, dark eyes, quiet, and reserved.

For every demoralizing insult Sean could so effectively level me with, Ken was shy and introspective and cautious and sweet.

It wasn’t until I presented Ken with the most random of Xmas gifts, a screaming sling-shot monkey (I buy them in bulk), and he accepted it with a look that was equal parts humor and suspicion that I knew we’d mesh.

I was absolutely giddy I had two friends who lived in my building.

Even if they were “cat people.”

It was like the dorms all over again.

They borrowed my dinner plates.

And forks.

And knives.

And aluminum foil.

And paper towels.

And vacuum cleaner.

And I, being the financial fuck-up in the relationship, always knew they’d lend me enough to get by until my next paycheck.

We shared walks home from the office and more than our fair share of cheap wine.

We did happy hours.

They became regular fixtures at brunches I organized

And I got invited to their Sunday dinners.

My friends became theirs and theirs became mine, and after a while I realized, these were exactly the kind of men I had been looking for.

(With that one gigantic exception)

I knew I would never be able to convince these boys that tits were terrific.

Or that vaginal sex was where it was at.

But I quickly learned, it didn’t matter.

I got to hang out with two hot guys, reap all the male attention I so desperately require, but without any of the complications of having to please either of their penises.

And they had all the kitchen accoutrement they needed without ever having to brave the aisles of Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

A match made in heaven as far as I was concerned.

Sean was the one who I could always count on to put my ego into check.

And Ken was the one who I could always count on to prop it back into place when need be.

Their relationship like any had its dichotomies.

Sean is originally from Texas, intensely laid back, and has an answer for everything.

Ken is a New Englander, high-strung, and modest.

Sean is an attorney.

Ken is a nurse.

Sean is the one who spills food on his clothes.

Ken is the one who cleans the toothpaste out of the sink.

Sean is the one who told me I looked like Bea Arthur’s couch when I wore a less-than-flattering silk blouse to the office one day.

Ken is the one who tells me I’m cuter than the boys who make me cry and always compliments me on my hair.

Sean hates being touched.

Ken is always ready for a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

And while no partnership is perfect, theirs is one I grew to admire greatly.

When they talked about moving out of our apartment building, I was ready to follow.

I thought they were going to leave Cleveland Park and move to the hipper U Street area.

You can imagine my surprise when Sean brought up a job opportunity in Beaumont, Texas.

Beaumont?

What the fuck is in Beaumont?

Not much.

Except a law firm specializing in hurricane insurance.

And an opportunity for Sean to use his degree and double his salary.

Both seemed less than thrilled to relocate to what can only be described as a backwater bumblefuck.

But eventually they decided to make the move.

Sean left first.

Ken stayed behind for a few weeks to pack and tie up loose ends.

Two Fridays ago I took the afternoon off of work to help them with the final push.

There aren’t many men I’d clean an algae-infested fish tank for.

Especially if coitus isn’t involved.

But for Ken and Sean, I obliged.

I said goodbye to my two friends in the late afternoon.

I spent much of that night drinking Grey Goose with my girlfriend Jen and thinking of the journey that lie ahead for them.

I got a plethora of road trip text messages.

A review of a Waffle House in Alabama.

A critique of the swamp-like temperatures in Mississippi.

And finally a last text to tell me they had arrived safely in the longhorn state.

It’s not until now I get a bit misty-eyed.

Thank goodness.

God knows Sean would have a field day with my tears.

Ken would be there with a wad of toilet paper and a reassuring glance.

It’s hard living in a city that fills its borders with transients.

I’ve said farewell to an inordinate amount of friends in the last three and a half years I’ve lived here.

And it never gets easier.

I try to convince myself that it’s simply one more tack on a map of places around the country I can fly to for long weekend visits.

But it still sucks.

Especially when the goodbyes come two for the price of one.

I’m convinced I learned considerably more from my third floor gay boyfriends in the last nine months than they learned from their hot mess of a heterosexual neighbor on the seventh floor.

Like just because you’re an urban gay man doesn’t mean you have good taste (someday I will write an ode to the purple abstract monstrosity which hung on their living room wall, but not now, the wounds are still too fresh)

That boys will be boys no matter what their sexual predisposition.

Gay men with cats vacuum a lot.

Gay men from Boston love the Red Sox as much as straight men from Boston.

I can spend a night getting drunk with two men and not end up in a compromising tri-lateral position. (Who knew?)

At one point or another, someone wears the pants in the relationship.

And the one who doesn’t gets a mustang convertible for agreeing to move to Beaumont.

More importantly, I learned a lot about what makes a relationship work.

Sacrifice.

Patience.

Humor.

Similar taste in Italian deli and video games.

Wearing the same size (fuck, for double the wardrobe even I may swing estrogen-east).

Passion.

Love.

And knowing each others’ preferred pizza toppings.

With all the obstacles this couple must face on a daily basis

In a world still enduringly devoid of tolerance and empathy

They somehow find a way past it.

Through it.

Around it.

And beyond it.

For every partnership that ends in turmoil and divorce.

Theirs endures.

I couldn’t survive three years with a ring on my finger.

Funny how they’ve made it ten without even being afforded the privilege.

The last day they were here, I watched as Ken grew anxious over the stresses of moving.

He said something under his breath and retreated to the kitchen.

I watched Sean follow him.

And in a fleeting moment that neither of them will ever remember but I am unlikely to forget, I watched as Sean put his hand on Ken’s shoulder and quietly reassured him.

Ken smiled at him.

Nodded his head.

And went back to cleaning the cat poop out of the litter box.

“When the rain is blowing on your face, and the whole world is on your case, I could offer you a warm embrace, to make you feel my love.” -Bob Dylan

If you live in DC and use the Metro as your main form of transportation like I do, you’re aware of the recent tragic collision of two Red Line trains that not only took the lives of nine people but also disabled our city’s main mode of mass transit to a most annoying degree.

Manual operation plus 35 miles an hour has made my three -stop  (Cleveland Park to Farragut North) morning and evening trips even more grating than usual.

Crowds of anonymous pedestrians have morphed into throngs of people so intimately located near my personal space I feel compelled to forgo foreplay and skip right to the proposal portion of the the rail ride.

For every hot young buck I get to press my D-cups up against in my attempt to get to work on time, there are as many, if not more, hygienically-challenged individuals who propel my propensity for motion sickness into hyper-drive.

I am a tiny woman and every time I’ve got to position my 5′2 flip flopped frame into some unwashed degenerate’s armpit, it pushes me that much closer to going “Falling Down” on all you dirty motherfuckers.

It’s called Speed Stick people and I implore you, spring for it. Please.

Understandably, I’ve had more than one Elaine Benes silent scream moment on my way to and and from home in the last several weeks.

Here are ten I needed to get off my chest:

1. I wear sunglasses on the Metro because there is no part of me that wants to make eye contact with any of you before my morning coffee. Unless of course said eye contact ends in outstanding fellatio before I reach my stop.

2. For all the “ladies” out there who opt for the orthopedic nurse shoes as their Metro footwear of choice, please, for God’s sake, invest in a pair of Havaianas Flip Flops or a cheap pair of ballet flats. Seriously, go to Target and fork over the $12.99 or I may have to lay the beat down on your dowdy asses.

3. Why do Lesbians insist on wearing brown pant suits one – three sizes too small? Who does this attract? Butch has its own special beauty, but camel toe ensconced in chocolate polyester doesn’t do anyone any good.

4. To the boy with the wavy blond hair in the white t-shirt who stared at me through three stops this morning, next time, grow a pair, and say “hi” to me. God only knows where that may have lead.

5. To the five hundred pound man who took it upon himself to turn around and back himself into an already overstuffed car this evening at the height of rush hour – I am all about equal rights for the obese, but if I ever catch you displaying such farm animal behavior on my  Metro train again, I will single-handedly remove you with my super human strength and launch you to the other side of the tracks. No more cheesecake, no more monster burgers, no more hot fudge sundaes, just my foot in your ass and the ride of your fat ass life. Prepare to buckle up.

6. Boys, I will be the first to admit, I’m a stacked little girl. And I consider most quick glances in the direction of my rack flattering.  But unless you’re a plastic surgeon admiring the God-given assets you try to emulate on a daily basis, bring those peepers to attention, learn some manners, and scrape your tongue off the floor. Look once, and then focus that gaze on something more benign. Burn them into your memory and move on. Save them for masturbatory posterity for all I care, just please, resist the deer in headlights mentality of your fellow neanderthals or I may have to start focusing my baby blues on your tiny little crotch for the duration of my ride … and trust me, neither of us wants to endure such embarrassment.

7. Let’s talk butt-sweat for a moment. I am the first to admit, I suffer from the affliction more than I care to admit. I am a Midwestern girl prone to moisture and the swampland that is DC in the summertime restricts my wardrobe to a ridiculous amount of 100% cotton black and navy blue skirts and trousers. Just once I want to break out that canary yellow skirt on the hottest of days and not be afraid to let people walk behind me through the Metro turnstiles. So I ask you, my fellow butt-sweaters, join with me now, and unite against the five percent body fat population who never seem to exhibit wetness in the nether regions.  We will wear pastels in hot weather and we will not be ashamed anymore!

8. The parents who let their children run ramshot on the Metro piss me off more than almost any other kind of public transportation patron. I’m a big believer in natural selection and firmly believe that at some point before you make the decision to procreate, you should have to pass all-manner of physical and psychiatric evaluations. Surely, the couples who choose to have children should have enough wear-with-all to keep their progeny from hanging like fucking orangutans from the Metro handrails. Riding public transportation shouldn’t be a right, it should be a privilege for civilized human beings and their non-offensive offspring. Teach your children some self-restraint and the world will be their oyster, if not, they’ll be flinging shit their whole lives, one way or the other.

9. Wonder if other Metro riders would join in on an impromptu dance party if I just took that first leap and turned my toe-tapping up several notches?

10. No one is so important they can’t wait for the next train.

After a salon appointment in Bethesda today, I stopped at Luna, one of my favorite local boutiques.

Without fail, I almost always succumb to some pretty little thing poking out of the store window.

Today it was a multi-strand turquoise necklace that screamed summer in the Hamptons. A mojito in one hand and the dick of a disgraced hedge fund broker in the other.

(I’ll wear it when I go home to Milwaukee and pretend Pabst Blue Ribbon penis is close enough)

I digress.

So I walked into the shop this afternoon knowing full well that 75% of the merchandise wouldn’t fit me and the other 25% would make me look like a well-endowed bloated circus clown.

But I pushed forward through the racks like the consummate fashion trooper I’ve bred myself to be.

I grabbed a flowy white cotton blouse that tied at a drop waist (drop waists are essential for us apple-shaped lovelies)

Then I examined a flowery, sheer top that most assuredly would leave me feeling like garden garbage the minute I pulled it over my head.

After a few more “Glamour Dont’s” I spied a navy blue cotton empire waist dress, realizing this might be exactly what a chubby girl from Wisconsin who is prone to butt sweat should be looking for as I look forward to DC in August.

And I bypassed at least 30 pieces of beautiful clothing that I, even in my wildest dreams could never wear.

The one shoulder black silk slip-on dress.

The clingy jersey Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress.

The red BCBG strapless maxi dress (I don’t even want to imagine what I would look like if I attempted to squeeze into that one. But it’s not improbable I wouldn’t become a cutter of epic razor worthy proportions in the aftermath)

I had snaked my way to the jewelry table, standing within just a few feet of the dressing room, when one of the sales girls sauntered over to me and asked if she could start a fitting room for me.

Drats! I had almost made it the whole way without the fashion foil of the 90 lb skinny girl who God knows makes more in commission on a random Wednesday than I probably make in a week of public policy think tank work.

“Um, sure,” I answered reluctantly.

I was so hoping I could duck the embarrassment of having the boutique beauty examine my choices only to mock me to her partner in crime at the register the minute I pulled the curtain shut.

“Oh, this one is so super cute, I have it in yellow and it’s so perfect for brunch and shopping.”

I muttered something under my breath along the likes of “uh, yeah, brunch, good.”

Once I was semi-safe in the dressing room, I made like the wind and changed into the first blouse like a cheetah changes its spots. Lightening fast, hoping beyond hope when I wrestled myself free from my generic J Crew skirt, the tag-team taunting twins couldn’t spot the stretch marks on my stomach or the pouch of fat that clings to each of my inner thighs.

Okay, white flowy tie-waist thingy wasn’t too bad from the front, but the minute I turned to examine my profile I turned into a smaller, cuter version of the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man. There’s a storm front approaching and it stars me the cumulonimbus cloud from Waukesha, Wisconsin.

The flowery sheer number was even worse.

And as I was standing there in my period underwear (girls you know of what I speak) and my purple Body by Victory bra pinching my back fat in all its glory, Sales Girl Number Two breezes by (she’s an even taller, thinner version of the initial catwalk culprit).

“How you doing in there?”

“Fine, thanks.”

Ugh, what’s the chance she caught a glimpse of my ass as I turned around and is now vomiting the three celery stalks she had for lunch into one of the designer handbags slung over the door?

Last but not least, I tried on the navy blue cotton dress.

Mind you, I was very strategic in saving it for last. It was the only thing in the pile that had any hope of looking decent on me. It would be just enough to scrape my self-worth off the dressing room floor if this dress looked okay.

It was … not bad.

Not great.

But not bad.

Granted had either of my handlers Anorexic Annie or Bulimic Betty tried the garment on, they’d have the most handsome of trust fund boys falling at their perfectly pedicured feet.

As for me, I simply had to settle for average (jesus, could a life-theme be developing here or what?)

“How did those work out for you?”

“Not bad, I’ll take this navy dress.”

“Oh my God, yeah, sooooo cute with a tiny denim jacket and flat sandals. And it will totally transition into Fall,” Annie exclaimed. (Annie was the type who ended all of her sentences with question marks whether they called for them or not.

“Totally,” I muttered. (My own question mark screaming silently in my head, “why does someone so fucking dumb get to be so unabashedly pretty?! Ugh!!!!)

Seriously though, why don’t these places employ more glandular-challenged sales girls? Why are they all 5′9 and 95 lbs with hair like a god-damned Pantene commercial and perfect pores?

Wouldn’t they sell more to normal girls like me who just want for five seconds to feel like the attractive half of the equation if they didn’t all resemble Heidi Klum on a thin day? Surely if I walked into a store encountered by a Jenny Craig candidate, I would slip on that maxi dress and feel less like a before than the after.

Just one time I’d like to drop 500 bucks and have the commission go to someone who grunts like I do when walking up a long flight of stairs.

I want to buy jeans from the girl who opted in on the bread basket and dessert menu at the steak house last night.

I want to pay the wage of someone who feels my pudgy pain and understands where I’m coming from when I tell her horizontal stripes may be all the rage this season but on this home girl’s heiny, they just won’t do.

Jodhpurs just won’t jive on this junk baby.

And no pair of skinny jeans, high waisted sailer pants or barely-there bikini will placate this en vogue pragmatist, no matter whose label is sewn into the back.

So a word to the wise, from me to all those chichi boutique owners out there…

Introduce those lithsome Luna ladies to a cheeseburger or two and watch the size 8s and 10s and 12s sell like sons of bitches on a sunny DC summer day.

I finally see the future and it’s full of Five Guys Fashionistas.

My luck with men has never been particularly good.

Perhaps more accurately stated, my ability to procure and maintain long-term, meaningful, romantic relationships with the male species has been what many would call unskilled, untamed, and just plain unfortunate.

If one were to sit down and psychoanalyze my romantic failings, any shrink worth his salt or his $250 an hour, would easily deduce that my trouble most certainly stems from my youth, where like many I endured much of my childhood without the presence my biological father playing any kind of significant role.

My early memories of my father are strewn with addiction, compulsion, psychosis, and on rare occasions, violence. That’s not to say I don’t have a few pleasant recollections sandwiched in between the heaps of shit. The day I caught my first catfish out of a small lake in Jackson, Tennessee is one of the better ones. And the tradition my father Jimmy and I had of driving through city alleys, making up stories and singing songs as we downed sugary jelly beans has yet to escape my adult memory.

Unfortunately, after year five or six of my life, memories of my father grow decidedly darker. Despite my mother’s most unselfish assertions that my father at one time was a “good” person, little in my mind or memories can confirm this.

He was an alcoholic, a drug addict, unfaithful to my mother, and he downright terrified me most of the time. To this day, my nightly dreams are cluttered with his most ominous faults.

The short ten years I knew him ended one snowy December Friday night when he simply failed to pick me up for our weekend visit. And that was that.

He fled, we think, or I was told, to escape mandatory child support payments. But the real reasons may never be completely understood. One thing can be sure, when the most significant man in your life leaves you when you’re still in training wheels, the men who come after will almost always be assured a rough go of it.

My mother remarried when I was eight-years-old to a kind man. But he was a man who represented nothing to me at that young age but competition for my mother’s heart. It certainly didn’t help things when I had a degenerate father whispering in my ear, “He’s not your Dad K***, he never will be, and don’t you fucking forget it.” So I’m sure, you can imagine, my childish heart strings were pulled in a plethora of uncomfortable, miserable directions. This man, D*** didn’t stand a chance in hell.

Despite consummate counseling sessions involving our new nuclear family, recommendations from all manner of child psychologists and so-called family relationship experts on how to properly assume his new role, he could do no right in my eyes.

I was unbelievably jealous and conflicted, but to this day, it seems like a weak excuse for how I treated D*** in the early years. Being a child of divorce teaches you a few things, the one I cultivated to an almost perfect science was my ability to manipulate my mother into a constant game of “who she loves more.” I knew, in the end, I’d always win out, but after you’re abandoned by one parent, testing the other for consistent loyalty becomes common practice.

I was, without mixing words, downright nasty to D***.  Door slams and snide remarks, silent treatments, tattling to my mother about every failing I could pick out in his 6′2 frame. I made his life, what I can only assume, fucking hell. Retribution for my mother’s insistence, she deserved to love again. Afterall, in a child’s naive eyes, I should have been enough for her. We were partners, living and struggling together, relying only on the certainty of each other to get through the days. Then she had the gall to want something besides a child’s love to sustain her.

I may never know exactly where my contempt for D***  stemmed from, but the hate I aimed his way may never fully be reconciled in either of our brains. And the regret I have for the way I treated him, haunts me to this day.

He tried so hard. Attention, gifts, pink platitudes. Anything I wanted I could have talked that man into. Worldwide tours of ice cream and teddy bears and he would have complied. He never missed a school play or concert or Hallmark holiday. He endured years of tantrums and torture and he never ran away. I alienated him to a degree that few could ever comprehend. He was, clearly, terrified of me. Whatever he said, whatever move he made, I found a way to criticize, sour his solicitations, dampen his dearest deeds.

After a while, as I grew older and held the standard contempt every teenager does for their parents, their keepers; the distance between us as human beings widened even more. The years he endured with my mother, of my eating disorders, substandard struggles, and mental illness, would have sunk the best of men. But somehow, for some reason, he stayed. It was something I never fully understood. If I were him, I would have gone running for the hills, never to look back at the woman he loved and her offensive offspring.

On a July day when I was seventeen, returning home from my summer tennis drills, my mother sat me down and told me she had something to tell me. I could have never anticipated what came out of her mouth next. My biological father, had been found dead from a self-inflicted gun shot wound to the head.

I cried and screamed and pushed my mother away at the sound of the news.

And for a time after that, I grew angry. I had always imagined at some point my father would reenter my life. And now that dreamy reunion I imagined countless times in my young mind, was dashed. He would miss every part of me growing up. My high school graduation, my college years, me falling in love for the first time, my wedding day. He’d never walk me down the aisle.

I prided myself in not crying at his funeral, where the majority of attendees didn’t even know I was his daughter.

I resented implicitly that I wasn’t enough to keep him from pulling that trigger. At what point, if any, did I enter his mind in those last moments and remind him he had at least one thing to live for?

Now, years later, the more mature me, understands that there are moments and depths of sadness and hurt we can’t always be pulled out of.

The last memory of Jimmy, was me placing flowers on his casket, my mother talking my hand, squeezing it tight as could be, and walking away, forever severed and changed.

It’s hard to live through some the things I did and not come out the other side worse for wear when it comes to healthy relationships with the opposite sex.

My stepfather, D*** is a shy, modest man, but in him lives, perhaps, the kindest soul I’ve encountered in my 32 years.

He loves to play golf.

Meatloaf.

And imbibes occasionally with a Brandy Old Fashioned.

He has a tendency to make up his own versions of popular songs, often replacing the protagonist’s name with that of their Airedale Terrior, and almost always to the tune of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland.”

He leaves newspaper smudged fingerprints on every door in the house.

He has a penchant for numbers and to my chagrin, conservative talk radio.

He flips his tie over his shoulder whenever soup is served.

And he has a voracious appetite for sports of any kind.

He just recently purchased a cell phone but almost never turns it on.

He drives in a succeeding pattern of gas on, gas off, gas on, gass off, that has caused me to upchuck in his car more often than I like to admit.

His jokes are, well, limited in scope, but he never fails to be the first to rumble in laughter at them.

He writes my mother an original poem every birthday, anniversary, and Valentine’s Day.

And he calls her “baby.”

He worked his ass off for the same company for over 30 years.

He tends to his mother the way all children should.

And, up until just a few years ago, when I moved to DC, he always responded “no problem” whenever I told him I loved him.

He’s endured the phenomenon that is my mother and I for countless, faithful, selfless years. No easy task, let me tell you. We are a tenacious, caustic, high-maintenance pair that few would ever choose to reckon with, albeit love.

Whenever he reads an article in a newspaper or magazine he thinks one of us will find interest in, he cuts it out in a perfect rectangle and lays it on our pillow or next to our keys, or our favorite countertop in the house.

He loves the Rolling Stones and Frank Sinatra.

He complies with every late night Dairy Queen or Good and Plenty request my mother and I have ever made.

And he has a collection of polo shirts that would elicit envy from Ralph Lauren himself.

He studied Latin.

He never had any children of his own.

He is tall and balding and handsome.

He asks me to bend the the brims of all his baseball caps.

And waits for me to come home (months at a time) to reset every clock in the house that ticks an hour ahead or tocks an hour behind because of Daylight’s Savings Time.

He’s been referred to by me by his first name for the full 25 years I’ve known him.

And despite introducing him as my “Dad” to casual acquintances and suitors alike, I’ve never once addressed him that way.

So maybe, now, decades later, and 800 miles away, it’s about time I refer to him by the title he has rightfully earned.

The father who has propped me up when I needed, and carried me when I needed even more.

The father who loved my mother without precedent or pretense.

The father who told me today he would teach me how to play golf when I head home in August.

The father who digs me out of self-imposed ditches.

And cleans up my messes without ridicule or resentment.

The father who made up for all the original one’s failures, and then some.

The father who walked me down the aisle on my wedding day.

I guess what I’m trying to say is.

Thanks Dad.

No problem.

I love you too.

“Well I’ve lost all the other bets I made…you’re my lucky day.” -Bruce Springsteen

midnight

and nothing left to say

to a world that awaits

someone else.

when ordinary

reeks of wrong

and escape

only to leave the remnants

for a lesser visionary

whimsy

and a swing set in the backyard

perhaps if life was more satisyfying

we wouldn’t fuck the first thing

that struts into view

training wheels

for everyone

a gift that keeps on giving

until it doesn’t anymore

I wonder sometimes

if that’s how my mother feels

knitting in her chair

in need of a new hip

how thankful she must be

for the girl

who keeps asking for more

in spite of herself

who summers in August

at half of 64

with little to show

but bad credit

and some notches in her belt

a disappointment

never my love

but extractible pride

may be pushing it a bit far