Being Nagged

My job is extremely stressful---my company got caught up in the subprime mortage scandal and as a result our stock plummeted 90% from its yearly high. Our CEO resigned in disgrace, but not before accepting a $10,000,000 golden parachute. Meanwhile, I discover that a significant portion of my bonus, which I had intended to use to pay off my credit card debt, will be paid in restricted company stock, meaning that it cannot be sold for three years. Add this to a highly volatile market which seems to collapse whenever Ben Bernanke sneezes and soar whenever he sports a hard-on beneath his tailored pants and a trading platform that goes down more than Monica Lewinsky and it's no wonder that several times a day everything disappears in a sea of red.



Yes, I deal with stress on the job. So, I really really hate to be nagged by the women in my life. And it seems that reproaches usually come from married women. Christy used to upbraid me for not calling her or emailing her:



"It would have been really nice if you had...."



"I don't understand why you have to be so busy for me....if you liked me, you'd...."



I got tired of it. An affair with a married woman can involve great sex---truthfully, there are few things hotter than violating societal norms. Safe, missionary position, government and church approved intercourse with the officially approved partner can get stale rather quickly. But so can being nagged.

Ginger was warned ahead of time by Len that I don't tolerate drama. If you would like a fun fling, I can provide you with a fun fling. When it stops being fun, there's really no point to it for either of us. Lately, when we trade emails, she writes things like:

"It would have been nice if you had...."

So, I'm debating ending things with her. We've arranged a rendez-vous for two weeks in the future which gives me two weeks to work up the courage for the Gracious Extrication. Or, on the other hand, I can go the passive-aggressive route. Case in point: Ginger has been emailing me a series of very hot and explicit sexual fantasies. She's been bugging me to send her one of mine. I could send her something like this:

"You enter my bedroom. I am standing by my bed. Beside me is a very large German Shepard. You notice that he is not neutered......"

Of course, that is not my better self speaking. I wouldn't do that. And, at the moment I'm only considering severing my ties with her. But her neediness is getting on my nerves....

OK.....here it is

I just got back from Nick's and I'm drunk. I want to write this unedited and on the spur of the moment.

I'm talking to this attractive college student at the bar. Getting Indications of Interest. And thinking: shit. This could be another Mar situation.

The truth is, I really haven't met any chick in her 20s that I want to date. I don't want to have to deal with the bullshit insecurity of 20-something-girls. No offense to my 20-something readers. You're all great. All four of you.

But, I'm a guy at 39.

I had a good conversation with her, and I punted. I asked for a check.

Marla is cool. This girl I'm talking to is nice, but Marla is more......worldly. This girl is a college student, possibly here on a fake ID, looking for a job as a kitchen worker. And, just moved to Chicago. Nice, friendly but not someone good for my piece of mind.

Marla is waaaaay cooler.

I have had a few shots and this may not be coherent but I hope the meaning is clear.....

I'll write a coherent post when I'm sober. But, alcohol does make the truth come out...

But You Don't Know the Real Me.....

Zibi paid me a great compliment a weekend ago. We were drinking scotch at my apartment with Len and Marla and Zibi was reminding me once again how he tried to discourage me from getting married. Zibi is Polish, as was my wife.

"David, I never liked her to begin with. She had her nose in the air all the time, she was just too good for everyone and I couldn't stand her."

An interesting thing about my wife----my female American friends liked her, my male Polish friends did not and I think everyone else fell somewhere in between.

"Well, Zibi," I replied, "I'm not gonna trash her. She had her faults and I had mine but it really takes two people to fuck up a marriage and that was true in our case."

"No, Dave, you're the coolest person I know....."

Marla chimed in, "You are cool, David."

Len didn't say anything because he knows I'm not.

Athletic skill? Not me. I was skinny and awkward and uncoordinated as a kid and if I wasn't the last person chosen for teams I was usually in the bottom five. I've gotten better at hiding my lack-of-coordination---it usually only manifests itself in, say, an inability to handle a wallet, movie tickets and house keys at the same time.

Sartorial splendor? Ha. My mom worked at JC Penney and used to buy me the most heinous clothes imaginable. I don't think I owned a pair of jeans until I was 11 or 12 and then they were the kind of ridiculous bargain-bin rejects with zippers in the back and after three washings they shrank so much that my nickname for a time was "flood". Also, I had an elastic strap to keep my glasses in place....

Looks? Uh-uh. Puberty left me with pimples all over my face. Add braces and the afore-mentioned glasses and awkwardness and you've got the kind of seventh grader who will be picked on by the eighth and ninth graders. Len has known me my whole life and this is the DLS he remembers when he looks at me.

I got my first kiss at 15 because a friend of mine took pity on my chickless existence and told his sometime girlfriend to make out with me. We both made out with her for awhile, until my dad came downstairs and drove her home. After that confidence boost, high school got a little better and I started going on dates. I also got contact lenses and started buying my own clothes, with help from my cooler friends. I also sported a ridiculous Eurofag hairstyle that makes me wince when I look at prom pictures but it was the 80s---you were supposed to wear your hair like that.

However, I still feel like a fraud much of the time. I remind myself to sit up straight and to smile and make eye contact. I post rock climbing pictures on my Myspace profile. I buy clothes at Urban Outfitters and Express. And I work out nearly every day. And yet I never escape the haunting fear that I'm about to be found out.....

Surviving the Rut

The key to survival is attitude. As Hamlet said, there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so. So, learn to love the cold, wet days on which the sun sets before 5:00. There is something depressing about such days, yes, but....learn to SAVOR the cold and the darkness. Learn to savor the depression.

Masturbation is key. Masturbation is a great stress release. If we lived in an actually sensible culture, masturbation would be taught in school and pupils would compare their sexual fantasies during classtime with the teacher moderating the discussion. It would give gym teachers something to do besides pairing everyone up for teams. Last night, I had a MARVELOUS wank. I really did. I remembered about twelve women that I have had sex with, remembered what I really loved about being with them, every lurch and thrust and the grace or lack thereof and it was enough to keep me going for about twenty minutes. I felt so much better afterwards and enjoyed a good night sleep.

Next morning, I woke up at 5:00 for a trip to the gym: 38 minutes on a treadmill at 8 mph. The equivalent of 5 miles, my iPod blaring mindless 80s cock-rock the entire time. YEAH! Returned home for a hot shower and a pot of kick-ass coffee, courtesy of my grind-and-brew. And music---how could any of us live without music? I chose Dvorak's Carnival Overture to lift my spirits---I defy anyone to resist uplift during that piece. How can you not love Dvorak?

Ah, but when it's followed by Bach---Martha Argerich performing Bach's Partita no. 2 in C minor......a performer you'd more probably associate with Prokofiev or Bartok. But just fucking listen to it.....

Anyway, that was enough to get my day started. What would really, really pick me up would be to have sex with a woman I haven't slept with yet. Someone I don't even know. To meet someone in a bar and go home with her. Or on a train or just on the street (I have had very very very bad luck in that department. I still have stories I haven't written about.) I don't mind being rejected; I would rather be an ass than shy. Not that I want to be an ass, of course, but if I must fall slightly on one side or the other (and we all do fall on one side or the other) I would rather be on the side of the ass.

That reminds me of the night and the girl that really really turned me against Notre Dame. Not the cathedral---the cathedral is great. The school, and especially the football team.

In the mid-90s I used to go to parties in Lincoln Park. Lincoln Park is the yuppie, post-collegiate neighborhood and it's filled with exactly that sort of people. The parties were very collegiate---a party was either a Boston College party, or an Illinois party (those were awful) or a Michigan party and so on and so forth. Not that everyone present attended that school but the 80% rule that governs American wine labelling also governed twenty-something Lincoln Park parties.

One night, I went to a Notre Dame party. A girl I knew gathered some friends for a pre-party at her place and one of the other attendees was a nordic looking girl in ultra-preppy clothes. We struck up a conversation and traded barbs back and forth. Flirting with an edge. The party itself was, I thought, awful. Everyone looked unbelievable stuffy in a 50s, Catholic prep-school, Bill Buckley-National Review kind of way and there was a smugness that permeated the entire room.

I pride myself on being able to get along with a wide variety of people, but I couldn't stand the crowd. So I asked the Valkyrie if everyone at Notre Dame was a stuck up as this group. She gave me a look and said,

"You're an ass."

I responded,

"You're a bitch."

Her mouth fell open and I realized that I had just gone too far. Oh, well, blame it on the Jager. I left soon after that, but I felt better about having gotten something off my chest. Likewise with women---I would a thousand times rather be rejected than not make the pass. Even an awkward, alcohol-infused pass is better than the sting of regret that comes from walking away and thinking,

"Maybe if I put an ad in the Reader under Missed Connections......"

Thus, the key to surviving the rut: take chances and leave no regrets on the table. If you can fill the unforgiving minute/ With sixty seconds worth of distance run/ Yours is the earth and everything that's in it/ And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son.

Time in the Rut

I always feel run down after the holiday season is over and the last Christmas tree has been taken down. Then, it's hunker down for the long cold winter. It's my historical Time in the Rut.

Being in a rut is like having a powerful, invisible leech on your forhead sucking your energy away. I continue to go to the gym everyday, lifting the same weights and running the same miles, but I do so with less energy. My sex drive wanes. My appetite drops. I go to Nick's but since the smoking ban took hold it's not really the same---the bartenders give off that tense vibe of smokers who will have to wait two more hours to greedily inhale a drag in freezing weather. A vibe I understand and remember, from my smoking days. And am I the only non-smoker who thinks the current ban is unnecessarily draconian?

Contributing to my rut was the news that a significant portion of my bonus will be paid out in restricted stock. Nice. I was counting on paying off my credit cards. Well, since my company's stock is down 85% on the year there's nowhere to go but up, right? Right?

My lovelife continues----everybody digs Marla. J emailed me that she has that "French chic" about her. Even Len remarked that she was even cooler than I said she was. She never ever gets dramatic or clingy or embarrasses me in front of my friends, either. And she cooked me a great pasta dinner last weekend. It would be just perfect if I loved her, but I don't. Somewhere there's a girl on her therapist's couch trying to figure out why her life is so messed up. She's taking a cocktail of drugs since prozac no longer does much for her. She's very well educated but has trouble holding a simple retail job. She cries often. She writes poetry. I will meet her in a bar this year and fall head over heels for her.

One thing I am able to do in the rut, however, is read. Beside my bed is a copy of Conscience of a Liberal, by Paul Krugman. His thesis is that the rise of the middle class and the great prosperity America enjoyed from the fifties through the early seventies were not the result of impersonal market forces but the result of government actions like the new deal, the wage controls of the Second World War and the rise of the power of unions. An intriguing thesis and he defends it well. It keeps me turning the pages.

Will it get me out of the rut? I don't know. Right now, I want spring to come. I want the coming recession to be brief. I want business analysts to stop using the words "possible bankruptcy" when referring to my company. I want Barack Obama to win the Democratic nomination. I want to visit Turkey. And I want to meet a woman who sweeps me totally off my feet in such a way that when we fuck I forget my own name and afterwards I tremble as if I have just climbed a high cliff without a harness and am aware now of the danger and proximity to death and because of that I know that I am truly alive.

Politics and Sex

I was very happy that Barack Obama won last night's Iowa caucus. You can call me an Obama boy---yes. I've got a man-crush on the senator. I was trading emails with Ginger and she asked me about some of his positions, and then wrote that she didn't like Hillary because a woman shouldn't be president---they're too emotional while men think much more logically.

Huh?

I blinked, but then sentence was still there. Wow.

OK. A little background here. I was very involved in politics while I was in college---student senate, United States Student Association, all that stuff. I was in charge of lobbying efforts for awhile, worked on campaigns, travelled to DC a few times and even got my ass whipped running for the state legislature. It seemed like a career in politics might be in front of me, if not as a candidate (I inhaled and did a lot more) then as an operative or PR flack or speechwriter. However, it became apparent that I really didn't have the "stuff" for serious politics. I acquired a reputation as a party boy---I spent a lot of time in Georgetown bars when I should have been going over presentations that I was to deliver the next morning and I found the allure of available sex with female political volunteers too tempting to pass up. Having my name and picture in the campus paper meant that I got laid on a pretty regular basis which ain't bad for someone who can't throw a football and that's really what I got out of my early political involvement. Many of my friends have risen highly in government, and I wish them all well.

Consequently, I tend toward political cynicism. The sort of speeches most candidates deliver on the trail are filled with the sort of cant that the average hack can whip up in ten minutes with a whiskey hangover. And the ambition of most candidates will usually exceed their intelligence.

However, I was left speechless by Ginger's political sexism. And I wondered---does she really believe the shit she just wrote? If I heard that opinion from a guy, I'd have a quip ready that would probably make him my lifelong enemy. But from a woman? I chose not to respond to the email. I didn't have time to get into a long email back-and-forth.

Just for the record, I'm also perplexed by those who support Hillary just because she is a woman. Bill ran on a fairly pro-feminist platform in 1992 and votes from women upset over the handling of the Clarence Thomas hearings played no small part in his electoral victory. Having a wife who was tight with the National Organization for Women didn't hurt either.

That Bill Clinton had a "woman" problem didn't bother me per se. Truthfully, if I had had access to the women he did I probably would have been just as bad. What did bother me was the use of private detectives to dig up dirt on the women he had had sex with. And what really really bothered me was when the Monica scandal broke and the first reaction out of the White House was to paint her as a deranged stalker.

Remember? Now, readers of this blog already know that I'm not a "nice" guy. I have juggled multiple girls and have had affairs with married women. I won't win any good citizenship awards in the near future. However, what the Clinton White House did was too much even for me.

I'm sorry. A girl is nice enough to give you a blowjob on request, you should at least be nice to her. Especially when there's an age difference and an imbalance of power like that. If you want to deny, then deny. You won't be the first to lie about an affair, nor the last. But to smear, to publicly smear the reputation of someone whose only sin was to blow you and tell a friend about it is beyond arrogant. It is sociopathic. And that detail tells me all I need to know about the power couple who are angling to get back into the White House.

Reunions, Part 2

I dated J during the summer before my senior year of high school, and slightly into the fall before we broke up. We met at a tennis tournament. She was two years behind me---one of those geeky, talkative high school girls who join the debate team and write poetry and whose lack of physical grace is endearing when remembered years later. I was living in a small town consisting of about 6000 people while J lived in a nearby university town and there wasn't anybody living in my town who was quite like her.

J was a virgin when I began dating her and she was a virgin when we broke up. I really wanted to be her first, and part of it was my competitive nature. I'd like to think I've overcome a good deal of that as I've gotten older, but any adolescent boy who says he doesn't care about being a girl's first is lying. Or gay.

We remained friendly post breakup and when she called me to tell me that she had lost her virginity to her new boyfriend I was devastated. She invited me to a party at her parents' place, and after arriving I scoured the faces of the guys present, trying to guess who it was. In between, I made small talk with a short, dweeby looking boy in thick glasses. J came over, gave me a hug and introduced me to the boy. He turned back to the food table and she said,

"Well....what do you think?"

"About?"

"...That's him."

My lips spread into a smile and I started laughing.

"Oh, David, please don't...."

She looked as disturbed as I have ever seen her.

"Please don't...oh, David...he's really nice.....please don't laugh..."

She ushered me into a private room and reassured me that he was a really nice guy. I spent the rest of the party flirting with one of her friends. I had a great time.

We stayed in touch until she left for a prestigious east coast women's college. I saw her when she came to Chicago in 1994 and we had lunch. She had come out of the closet during college and was living as a lesbian. She was also still writing poetry.

We got together four years ago when she was in Chicago for her book tour---a published volume of her poetry. She was living in Paris, teaching literature and writing courses and pursuing her doctorate from the Sorbonne. She was with her mother and a friend of hers and we grabbed dinner at a local Thai spot and caught up on our lives. Then it was off to the next city on her tour.

She decided to come to Chicago for New Year's this year so four of us got together: Her, a friend of hers she had previously dated and at whose house she was staying, me and Marla. It was New Year's Day and it was unbearably cold and it was snowing hard all day and because my favorite independent coffee house is now a bank and my backup was closed we met at Starbucks and drank coffee and talked for hours and the conversation flowed easily and freely.

We decided to catch Sweeney Todd and grabbed dinner and drinks afterward and J told us about her life in Paris. I thought, here is a genuine success story. She's not rich, but she's doing what she loves and living in what is arguably the most beautiful city in the world. I compared my reunion meeting with her to my meeting with M two days earlier---M had become very status conscious from her time in New York and it was odd, remembering how motivated she had been in college by her political ideals to see her so consumed by money as an adult. J had developed into a charming woman who seemed comfortable in her own skin----a woman with a variety of interests, a great conversationalist and someone who understood the genuine value of the finer things in life.

We parted company after a couple of hours in the restaurant (and when is the last time I spent hours in a restaurant?) and I hugged her good night. And thought to myself, I hope I'm lucky enough to see her again soon.

New Year's Eve

Marla and I had just eaten dinner and were at Nick's. At midnight, the smoking ban would go into effect so the staff was still putting up no smoking signs. However, no one had taken the ash trays away and people continued to puff.

Nick, the owner and namesake of the bar, came over to say hi. Before he opened his bars, Nick taught high school english and coached football. He is in his late 60s, cultured, always impeccably dressed and has the ruddy good-guy look that you see on so many successful businessmen and politicians. He is one suave muthafucka.

I introduced him to Marla and he regaled us with his latest effort to comply with city regulators: taverns are now required to install security cameras over their doors, at their own expense. He called city hall to tell them that he had installed the camera and asked where they wanted him to point it. He was transferred three times and no one could give him an answer. Finally, he said,

"Look, I've got the camera. I'm required to have it and I got it. Do you want me to show the street, the door or the women's restroom?"

We laughed. Marla flirted with Nick and it is a testament to her social skills that she knows how to flirt without making me uncomfortable. They took a turn on the dance floor and when Nick returned he complimented me on my choice in women. He told us about his philisophy regarding bars---too many bars are opened, in his opinion, by financial traders who just want to get laid. Then they hire penthouse types to work behind the bar but, as he put it,

".....are you gonna educate them? Are they gonna be able to talk about the election, or anything else for that matter? What kind of clients are they gonna draw? Some guys who never date might hang around the bar and stare at them, but they're not going to draw a good client base. You gotta have bartenders who are smart. And like people. I can't teach that......you'd make a great bartender, David."

"No way. I'd give too many free drinks."

I thought: actually, if money and benefits were the same as in my current field, I'd love to tend bar. Unfortunately, they are not. But I'd love to work for Nick.

He bought us another round and told us a couple more stories gleaned from his years of tavern ownership. He knows some good ones. He offered me a cigarette, which I declined.

"It's sad," he said, "but in five years this will not be the same neighborhood. It's changing."

He excused himself and went back to the poolroom. Marla and I continued to drink and listen to the band. She was the first to notice the commotion in the back. And the ambulance out front. I thought it was just another bar fight until I saw the ambulance team carrying Nick, strapped to a gurney, through the front door.

He waved as he was carried out.

Reunions, part I

My old college girlfriend M recently moved back to Chicago from Manhattan, where she worked as a legal recruiter. For background, see:
http://thechastenedgentleman.blogspot.com/2007/05/are-men-naturally-snoopy.html

M is a few years younger than I am. She is a slender woman of Filipino descent. We met in college where we were both involved in student government. She has recently battled back from cancer, and has recovered. She looks as good as she used to.

It was the day before New Year's Eve. We met at Nick's and she mentioned her old boyfriend N's recent marriage.

"I was really surprised he married someone who's Jewish."

"Why?", I asked.

"Because Jewish women are.....not attractive."

"Excuse me?"

"Asian women are objectively more attractive than Jewish women. Jewish women tend to be overweight. Asian women are thin. Also, Jewish women are just not....pretty."

I should mention here that M dated N on and off throughout the years beginning when she was in high school and continuing through law school. I don't think she ever got over him. I looked at her to see if she was joking. She was not. I decided to feel her out about the types of guys she had been dating in New York.

"A lot of Ivy League athletes. I don't click with arty guys, but I like guys in finance."

"As long as they can keep up with you sexually?"

"Yes. You always could."

"So could you."

I showed her some recent pics from my rock climbing trip, and she told me that I had gotten better looking as I aged. I then moved in to kiss her. She moved away.

"Uh....no. Nice try, though."

"Thank you. I try."

"It's funny, though. Most of my male friends want to hook up with me."

I thought, well, you do send out a hook-up vibe, but I didn't say it. Instead I smiled and said,

"Well, you still look very good. That's probably why."

My ego didn't get crushed by the rejection and it was nice seeing her again so why not leave her feeling good about herself? We shared some good moments and some shitty moments in college, but there are no grudges or hard feelings on my part or on hers. She's an ineluctable part of my past.

I brought out some old pictures of us together and talked about my own dating experiences. Then she opened up about hers. From there, we talked about our careers. And our lives. We talked well into the evening.

After she had left, I found myself wondering how we had managed to date at all. I had always admired her academic drive and ambition, but I considered her one of the least introspective women I've ever dated. She enjoyed the fact that I was well-read and took her to concerts and plays, but was appalled by what she considered my lack of ambition academically. She thought my friends were coffee shop phonies and I thought hers were shallow prigs. Yet, when everything was said and done, our relationship was the one that defined my college years.

And I wouldn't trade a moment of it for anything.