punch in the stomach

hey tootsie

so, been a while. things going on. i did a brutal honesty thing last night and told a fella to his face i don't want to be romantic with him. should i not have done that in person? should i have played along and then never returned a call or sheepishly sent an email? what is the intergrity-filled course of action?

text text text

i have long hated text messages, a passive form of communication (hmnn, is this that too? could be if anyone i wrote about knew of this blog, i guess). anyway, seems to me why text when a phone call will work? but i see its utility and i do it myself now sometimes.

the other evening i was walking about in the rain in the neighborhood of carroll gardens and i got a text that said, 'hi.' the prefix was 347, a cell phone code that, i think, is for new york city only. i was fairly certain it was my former super, the super super, writing hello. last we were in touch was around the time of obama's inauguration. earlier, he had given me the business about voting for hilary in the primary. mind you, he is not a citizen so cannot vote in any case, but felt that obama was the superior candidate. far be it for me to say that race was a factor in his choice (he is black, from trinidad), but i think race was a factor.

anyway, he stopped being my super last summer when my landlord sold the building to a new landlord. and i didn't much talk to the super anymore. by the time he contacted me around inauguration time, i had eliminated his number from my phone and this seemed to upset him (when he wrote then, i replied, is this ____? and he said yes, and asked a bit exasperatedly if i'd erased him. i didn't answer, in itself the answer).

flash forward to this past week and his 'hi.' i wrote back and said, i'd just been thinking about you. which was true, i had been the day before thinking that when we were in touch around inauguration we said we'd get a drink when i got back to nyc but then, of course, we never did. so he asked me, when was i thinking of him, and i replied, 'yesterday' and he wrote, 'i think of you always.'

which is a very lovely thing to write. it is probably even more lovely to hear it, or read it. and i suggested we finally get dinner. and he said, yes, sunday. well, guess what. it is sunday, coming up on 10 pm, i have heard nothing. now it's coming back to me that in two years of off and on flirting we never got more than one beer, because he has no follow through, not even for a simple, how've you been, what shifts and curves has your life ambled through in these past months? and i haven't even gotten a call or a text to say, sorry i've missed our date.

i don't even feel angry, or jilted, but a little annoyed since had i known i'd be free this evening, i'd have maybe gone to a movie or roasted beets i have in the fridge or any number of other things. but i don't care even enough to call or write myself and ask what happened. so that is that. i expect i won't hear from him for a while and then, some months hence, i'll get a totally unspecific note that says, simply, 'hi.'

rasta boys soccer coach

enough said.

market watch

so, i am the worst person to answer surveys, especially market research surveys. today some woman called and started asking questions before i realized what was happening. at one point, i wondered if i was even talking to a live person, so i asked. i was. but on and on about nuclear power. it is not an issue i follow. maybe i ought to. she'd read these long statements about a facility in nys and i'd have to say if i agree strongly or mildly or not at all and i lost concentration and felt like this whole thing is a big lie because i can't possibly offer any real opinion based on a statement read to me over the phone by someone whose voice sounds like it's computer-generated. and it seemed to go on and on and on. finally i said i didn't want to finish the survey, that i had other things to do, that my answers were in any case lies and random because i don't know enough about indian point nuclear facility to hear her statements and make responsible answers. she was a bit annoyed, i think, that we had gotten this far. and i understand she is just a market research telephone lady. but still, i hung up.

then i got a call from a man who sounded like he lived far, far away. i thought perhaps india. in fact, utah. that's far from me. he said he had 'a few more questions' to finish the survey. i said, how many really? he said, around 6. i told him a few usually is three. i told him all my answers are lies because i am hungry and can't even really pay attention to his long statements about reports and fish and water and coolants and nuclear and new york city and green power and so when he asks me to rate the statements according to like or dislike, approve or disapprove, my answers come out simply to move the process along, not because i care about this survey taking or because i know what i am talking about and in that way, again, my answers are lies and the market research they accumulate from me is flawed.

i asked him to acknowledge the absurdity of our interaction. he would not.

i asked him to simply reply, to the remainder of the questions, 'strongly disapprove.' he said he had to read me each statement. i told him i am not even paying attention, it makes no difference, i don't want to do this anymore.

then we finally hung up.

it made me realize anew how weird market research is. these folks needed an opinion from me, any opinion would do, it did not matter whether the opinion was based on knowledge or belief. just had to mark an answer, teach to the test.

i smell chicken cooking somewhere and it is making me want some.

this one's for jack

on account of his fast-twitch google reading and he caught me having deleted a post today and i deleted it because i explained i am trying to look inward. hey! i started yoga! i dig it. i dig focusing on a single thing like is my knee aligned with my ankle while i reach heavenward with one arm and try to make sure my back is parallel to the wall.

but here's another thing. valentine's day, that's what i wrote about before i erased my post. i don't like that holiday. never much have. it's so stupid it is stoopid. and i think cards that are shaped like hearts ought to be anatomically accurate. and they should never feature a lace border.

what are my valentine's plans? a concert, maybe, that a friend is performing. maybe a drink. maybe a piece of chocolate (i just had some to get ready). just today the doc listened to my heart with her stethascope.

part of me is cynical and part is hopeful. more of me is hopeful than cynical. i don't think that makes me less profound than someone with the opposite ratio. that's why movies like the wrestler annoy me - or rather, why the attention lavished on them vs the attention lavished on a movie like happy-go-lucky bugs me because there is an implication that joy is shallow and uninteresting. i am unconvinced that sadness is profound while happiness is a sign of idiocy. happiness is not naivete or ignorance.

anyway, in me these two parts - the sometimes cynical more often optimistic do battle, but the sort you find on dancing with the stars. sometimes it is a rumba, sometimes a cha cha, occasionally a waltz and from time to time a jig.

listening to bob dylan right now

long time, no blog. that's okay. not much to say. tonight i struck up a conversation with a guy named juan who works as a busboy at a middle eastern joint near my house that i favor. i don't go very frequently because i am trying not to eat out but i got home late, i was hungry, and there is no food in my house. so i got a sandwich to go. i used to go to this joint quite a lot. then i fairly o-d'ed on lamb sandwiches with lots of pickles. and everything in proximity to that possibility also repelled me. but tonight the mood struck.

in the past, that busboy and i would greet each other. nod. say hello. this, tonight, was the first real conversation. he asked if i work in the neighborhood. i said i work in manhattan. he said he had been there three times in the past year. there is nothing to this story. it only struck me that it often seems like men in the service industry like to talk to me, or flirt with me, and men who are my professional peers like me well enough but not in a flirty way. or maybe it's just that i am the type of person who makes eye contact all around. and most other people don't and so most other people don't wind up in conversations with busboys or owners of falafel joints or cabbies or building superintendents or federal marshalls.

ach. what's it amount to?

i went to the inauguration and it was invigorating. and it was nice, very nice, to get out of new york. good night.