Rainbortion (Part 2: Proposing Marriage To Strangers 101)

Proposing Marriage to Strangers 101

Like most Introductory Courses, we begin with a thesis statement. By the end of this course, I expect you will be able to walk up to someone you barely know and tell them you love them. You will fall in love with a laugh, the way he makes eye contact with a squirrel and doesn't even break it when he rests his hands on the small of your back, the way she makes the word "fuck" have three syllables. You will learn to say "I love you" before you know your betrothed's name. You will learn to actually be in love before, and despite, all those wonderful imperfections that lead to annoyance, arguments, divorce, and, ultimately love. You will realize that while "no" means "no", "you're crazy" means "not yet, but soon".

Syllabus

Week One, Forgetting the Complications of Previous Love Experience: During this class we will discuss why none of your past relationships were actually love. We will tear pages out of your photo albums, and smash all your When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, The English Patient, and all those other nonsensical "love" DVDs.

Week Two, Determining Your Type, Then Overcoming It: We will discuss your fetishes, and why they're wrong. You will learn to forget about hair styles and skin types and how much money people make, and learn to only follow the exquisite twist of stomach and the tingle of hair.

Week Three, Dropping Pick Up Lines in Favor of Honesty: This is not a week to fuck with the professor. Listen, learn. Pick up lines only work on prissies and prostitutes.

Week Four, Field Trip to End All Field Trips: Bring a lunch or money to buy a lunch. You'll all be blindfolded and dropped off at various parts of the city. The weather will be ideal for love. It may be snowing, or sunny, or raining cats and locusts. Whatever it will be will be perfect. You won't know where you are. You will be lost and dizzy. This is what love feels like. While you're pondering this (s)he will catch your ears, your eyes, your nose, your arms. You won't need a diploma. The only degrees you'll get are from the fever. Class difuckensmissed.

***

It's 8:00, and I'm in a bar. As usual. What's unusual is that I'm waiting for someone specific. I know his name, what he looks like, how he smells. I already know that he's often funny in person, that his voice, while not precisely soothing, won't send me running out to the pharmacy for earplugs. I'm prepared.

Who the fuck am I kidding? I'm a mess. My fingernails are chewed off, my bottom lip bears the indentation of my front teeth, and I've run my fingers through my hair so many times, clumps are falling out. God, I can't go bald on my first real date in...this millennium.

After the third Southern Comfort and Coke, I check my watch. I'm not wearing a watch. I never wear a watch. "What time is it?" I ask the bartender with laryngitis. She points to the massive clock on the wall behind her. It's 9:04. Both my date and my friends who offered to act as moral support (and to keep me from going home with him on our first date) are over an hour late. And I'm, if not already drunk, getting there.

The women next to me have spent forty-five minutes talking about Harry Potter, about friends who have also read Harry Potter, and about shunning one of their mutual exes because he hasn't read Harry Potter. I am about thirty seconds away from throwing my ice at them, and yelling It's a children's book. What the hell is wrong with you? when I see my date walk by the window, dressed in khakis and a blazer. I am wearing blue jeans and a Transformers t-shirt.

"Oh my God!" Ben says when I step outside. "I love the Transformers. I'm writing a webcomic about their sordid sexual proclivities. Oh," he puts his Galouises in his mouth, and shakes my hand, "sorry I'm late. We had this call from a woman claiming to be her daughter, and it was so" I think he's talking about his work, but my mind keeps looping the phrase Where's Celeste? over and over. If my support network doesn't show up, I'm liable to go home with him before we even order drinks. Well, before he even orders drinks.

"Adam!" someone shouts from across the street. It's thank God Celeste. She's with her boyfriend, Trick, and...I don't remember her friend's name. I think it's Steve. Most of her friends are named Steve. There's Steve the Bassist, Steve the Drummer, Anarchist Steve, Socialist Steve, Starbuck's Steve, Steve Jackson, Irish Steve, and THE Steve. I know this isn't THE Steve, but apart from that, I don't have a clue. He might not even be a Steve. "Sorry, I'm late." She says. "You remember Steve, right?"

"Of course." I say. "And this is my friend, Ben. Ben, Steve. Steve, Ben. Ben, Trick. Trick, Ben. Celeste, Ben. Ben, Celeste." Introductions make me dizzy.

Somebody Steve shakes his dreadlocks. "Adam and I were almost roommates." Oh, that Steve. "But I ended up getting my own place. It's much easier."

"Well that's not very socialist of you." I say. Celeste, Trick, and Steve all laugh.

"Steve is a socialist." Celeste explains. Ben laughs. Politely.

When we are all back inside, Ben takes off his blazer, revealing a wife beater. Now we look like a unit. Socialist Steve in his black jeans and Misfits hoodie, Celeste in her pink bunny shirt and skirt made of ties, Trick in jeans and a navy blue t-shirt, me, and Ben. If the waitress hadn't seen me sitting at the bar for an hour and a half, we could have been a group of scenesters coming from an all ages emo show. Something free. I can tell, as she takes our drink order, that she's calculating how much we're likely to tip her.

Socialist Steve orders an obscure lager that I've never heard of. Celeste gets a hard cider. Trick gets a Guinness. Ben asks about a good ale. I forgo the Southern Comfort and Cokes for a Midori Sour. When the waitress puts it down in front of me, a couple of minutes later, Ben says "That's the gayest drink I've ever seen."

Celeste asks "Where's the umbrella?"

And then Ben is bullet point talking at us. Celeste throwing in the occasional story which may or may not have anything to do with whatever it is Ben is talking about. Talk talk talk talk talk, meandering story, talk talk talk talk talk, meandering story, talk talk talk talk talk, Socialist Steve makes a dry remark about his beer, meandering story, talk talk "Mind if I try some?" Ben asks, reaching for my drink.

"Not at all. Here."

He takes a large sip from my straw, swishes it like wine, and swallows. "Too fruity."

In those two words, he's summed up the reason why I've fallen out of crush with every fag I've known since I started whoring dating.

When the food has been digested, and the check has been paid, the five of us head outside. Celeste gives me the Is It Okay For Us To Leave You Two Alone Eyebrow. I reply with the It Is Nod.

And we're alone.

"I don't think Steve paid enough to cover tip." Ben says.

"I don't think he paid enough to cover his beer." I say. "I put in five extra bucks."

"Me, too." He says.

"Stupid socialists."

There's about ten seconds of comfortable silence, and then Ben's tongue turns Gatling gun again. "You know the French are so mad about the way George Bush is ruining this country, that they're refusing to export Galouises here, which means I'm either going to have to quit smoking or find another brand. It sucks because I just started smoking Galouises a few months ago because my mom used to smoke them in high school and they're incredibly smooth, and I just really like them. I don't think I can go back to Marlboro Lites. It seems like every time I like something, it instantly disappears, like there's some vast fucken conspiracy against me. Well, bring it on Universe, I can take it, I can find another brand of cigarettes that I'll like even better. And"

And I should kiss him. That might just be the one thing that stops his nervous babbling. But I don't. And I don't care to analyze why.

"and I totally had fun and everything, and it was really nice to be on a date with someone who wasn't just trying to get into my pants on the first date or anything. Like my last exboyfriend, who's totally HIV positive. I'm not, by the way, I've been tested recently, and we haven't had sex in over a year. But he is, and I think I want to ask him to marry me, because then I can just marry him and do the whole 'til death do us part thing, and know that it won't be that far away. Though, honestly, I'll probably marry the first guy who asks me to."

And before I can stop myself, the words "Will you..." leap off my tongue, and cartwheel over the tightrope of desperation that serves as the only common thread between us. I can't marry Ben, I don't even know his last name. "Will you―really?"

***

"You didn't." Celeste says, when I relay the story to her later. "That's soooooo lame."

"I did."

"What about Dmitri?" She asks.

"What about him? I'm not going to wait for some confused gay guy in Chicago who has had the same boyfriend since he was fourteen. That's slow suicide."

"But he's a med student." Celeste says. "Wouldn't your mom be thrilled if you were marrying a nice, rich doctor?"

"Sure." I say. "If I were a woman." When my mother calls to ask how I'm doing, she always asks Do you have a new boyfriend or, her voice swells with hope, girlfriend? "I think she'd be content with me marrying a hair dresser, as long as the hair dresser has a vagina."

She rolls her eyes. "So, the proposal thing. You only proposed..."

"I didn't propose. I very nearly proposed."

"Wev, dude. You only very nearly proposed because you were drunk, right?"

"I guess."

"How many drinks did you have?"

I tap the tips of my fingers. "I lost count at four." The problem with mixed drinks is the problem with boys: the fruitier they are, the easier they go down, and eventually you lose track of how many you swallow. Not that either Ben or I did any going down or swallowing on the night I nearly almost proposed.

***

"Will I really what?" Ben asks.

"Marry the first guy who proposes."

And I wait for him to ask if that's a proposal, or if I'm kidding, or for him to say anything to end this awkward, depressing silence. "I don't know." He says, taking the last drag off his last cigarette. "Depends on the guy, I guess."

"Well, I'd hope so." And I throw in a fake laugh, that I hope sounds sincere.

"I should go." He says. "I don't want to miss the last train."

And I almost detain him just a long enough so we end up going back to my place to share either a great fuck, a huge mistake, or both. But I don't.

original posts: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/135181.html

Opening A Bottle Rocket With Your Teeth (Part 7: Returning A Bottle Rocket To Its Shelf))

Dmitri is on the phone with the airline. It's snowing. And while the snow looks heavy from inside the house, I know it's not heavy enough to ground him here for one more night. Dmitri is leaving to return to his what passes for normal life. Landlord has offered to drive us to the airport whenever Dmitri's flight leaves.

"Hello?" Dmitri asks, signaling he's finally through the robot barricade and talking to an actual living person over the phone.

I stare at his bags because I think this will make him more comfortable than if I were to stare at him. I hate it when most people look at me while I'm doing something uninteresting. And because I'm neurotic, and Dmitri is neurotic, I just assume he feels the same way, so I stare at his bags, then his shoes, then...his ass?

In the days before wireless phones, my mother used to tangle the fuck out of phone cords during nervous conversation. She always had to be doing something with her hands. Her nervous behavior, and my father's ascent into obesity are just a few reasons I'm glad I'm not biologically related to them. Of course, my birth father was a rapist, so maybe obesity wouldn't be so bad.

Rather than tangle the cord on the phone, Dmitri is playing with his pants. As he giggle something about "So you can't tell me whether or not the plane is leaving?" his pants ride just low enough for me to make out a few inches of crack. I hope this is a signal. The snow will pick up. The pants will come down. We'll soon be making out, and I'll be running my fingers down that crack and...look at the bags, Safey, look at the bags.

He hangs up the phone and repeats the conversation that I just half heard. He's impossibly cute.

Whatever we talk about for the next hour must be fleeting because all I can think of is want to kiss want to kiss want to kiss want to kiss. Then, it's time to head to the airport. Landlord gets the car running, we grab all of Dmitri's bags, and head to the car. We should be at the airport in...wait, we're headed in the wrong direction. Maybe Landlord is helping me kidnap Dmitri. This idea would intrigue me, except that Landlord is a sixty-something year old guy who likes to go to foreign countries and pick up young boys and do...whatever he does. I don't share well. But we are not on our way to the airport, we are clearly at the T station. I am tempted to say "This isn't the airport", but this week has gone particularly bad in every way except for Dmitri, and I'd rather just spend some time on the T with Dmitri anyway.

want to kiss want to kiss want to kiss want to kiss Talk about nothing. want to kiss want to kiss want to kiss want to kiss

And we're here. The airport. Dmitri is leaving. The lady behind the counter won't let him bring his bags carry on this time, so he checks them. I want to say how sorry I am that my friends let him down (because I'm used to them letting me down, that's no big deal to me, I let them down just as often). I want to say I wish we'd had more time. I want to kiss him, and follow him to the gate, and on the plane, and back to Chicago. I could move my life to Chicago. Steggy is there. Dmitri is there. I know loads of people in Chicago, why I could...kill myself rather than move again. I'm no longer a satellite in search of a planet. I am a star, and someone will make their orbit around me.

And it's time for him to go, and we shake hands. A handshake. We met because he liked the way I wrote about being a complete whore, and the only physical contact is a handshake? I'm so far off my game, I'm playing patty-cake.

His plane takes him home where his Mutually Exclusive Hookup Partner will soon become his Boyfriend. They'll make forts out of blankets and play video games. I'll be at home playing solitaire.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/115804.html

Opening A Bottle Rocket With Your Teeth (Part 6: Crush Crash))

I want the phone to ring. A trumpet flare or a sitar version of "Stay (Faraway, So Close!". I want the phone to ring, but only if there's a guy on the other end. I want the phone to crawl across the floor, lovingly nuzzle me, and say "It's for you." There's too many qualifications, but still I want the fucken phone to ring. It does. "Hello?" Please be Dmitri, please be Dmitri.

"Hey, it's Dmitri," He laughs. Lucky fucker is drunk. "Where do you live?" I give him directions for the cab ride back. An hour and a half later, he's sitting on the couch next to me. He tells me about $4 bottles of water, and finding "(his) people", hot guys who excitedly dance to Kelly Clarkson. I want His People in bed, but they must wear headphones in public. He heads to bed after "The Oblongs". I also decide to crash.

His whole visit has caused me to crash into contemplativityness reflection. After a delicious homecooked meal of fettuccine and Jiffy blueberry muffins, I stack the dishes on the table.

"You're so NEAT." Dmitri says. "Wht would you do if I made a mess?" He grabs a pile of Landlord's papers and scatters them over the floor.

I shrug. "Wait for you to pick it up." I say, knowing his OCD will kick in, and he'll be compelled to unmessify the floor. A few minutes later, he does.

I really want to kiss him, and it's bugging the fuck out of me. I'm supposed to be a top, the control guy, but I find myself wanting to wait hand and foot on this nudge. He's adorable and everything, but he's not that hot. Am I becoming a Middle Man? A "top" guy who waits for a "bottom" to tell him how to do everything? Shoot me yesterday.

"I'm bored." He says.

We go to The Trident to meet Clitty for lunch. I'm almost out of cash, so I have this long internal dialogue about cashing my check. I scan through some books while Dmitri paces. Like all of my other friends, Clitty is late. I locate her via cell, and determine that Dmitri and I have enough time to shop on Newbury Street before Clitty will show up. First stop, Diesel, where Dmitri spends over $100 on a t-shirt I could get at Garment District for $5. I taunt him for being a Fag. Then we go to the Hello Kitty Store. I no longer have the right to taunt anyone for being faggy.

Clitty is waiting when we get back to the cafe. Our server is hot but completely incompetent. Clitty and I are discussing whether I should cash my check when I hear Dmitri breathing heavily...into a straw...that's bent into his left ear. "It sounds like an airplane." So I'm in crush with a four year old.

I turn to Clitty to mock him, but she has MY straw bent into HER ear and says, "This feels sooooo good." Clitty needs to get laid.

In an effort to reclaim some semblance of normalcy, I start talking about asses. Clitty asks to see Dmitri's (because she's clASSy, mot socially obtrusive). He would have turned red, if his skintone allowed. He stood up and walked away from us. Due to his baggy jeans, I couldn't yet comment on his ass.

After Dmitri charmingly overpays the bill, we head to Central Square to cash my check. It's snowing. On the bus, Clitty and Dmitri serenade me with a Brittney Spears song. It's cute, weird, and incredibly out of tune.

The banks are closed, so we have to go to a Western Union to cash my meager checklet. Not having my ID, I sign the check over to Clitty. The woman behind the bulletproof glass says she's not allowed to cash it because it's now 3rd party. She does anyway, so I go across the street to buy her a flower. Dmitri chastises me for jaywalking, and Clitty finally realizes "You have red hair." This, after months of trying to tell me I don't have red hair. Chicks are dumb and colorblind.

After Western Union Lady has been flowered, and Clitty has left for a haircut, Dmitri and I head back to my house for what may be the last time. Unless the snow gets so bad, his flight gets delayed. Please, let it snow harder.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/114747.html

The Real Catty World (Part 4: Still Crushin')

Crush. Crush. Crush. Orange Crush. Grape Crush. High School Crush. Crushed Velvet. Crush from Demolition. Crush. Crush. Crush. I've had every sort of crush imaginable. Hot boys with no brains. Smart boys with no asses. Big dicked, boner-brained hipsters, hippies who've met every criteria associated with the word thick you can imagine, I've even crushed on dorks with overbites so big you could hang them from the Sears Tower by their upper jaw. Does anyone remember Strawberry Crush or Watermelon Crush? Back in the days of Fresca and Tab you could get any type of Crush you wanted. The options were...well...crushing. I've been all kinds of crushed. Emotionally, physically, spiritually, agnostically. I crush. You crush. We crush. I have been crushed.

The two people I've fallen hardest for, I haven't been able to write about. MAMIP and Liam. Liam was a pretty typical crush for me: cute nerd who everyone thinks is quiet, but is secretly a jaded neurotic type with a killer body and hot nerd tongue. Not that we ever kissed, but the ex-girlfriend who stole his virginity, then did the whole "I think I'm pregnant" routine with him TWICE when he tried to break up with her, she told me the things he could do with his tongue were amazing. Unfuck her for torturing me that way.

MAMIP was far from typical. Sweet, charming, sincere, honest, sexy. He has a voice that makes women (and ten percent of the guys) orgasm from fifty feet away just by saying the word "Oy." His Portuguese Oy has often caused me to give a Yiddish Oi. His voice. A man that hot, but so sweet and shy shouldn't have that kind of voice. He should have to talk through JAWS...with a lisp. But no, he's got Voice.

Imagine my pants splattering surprise when, after seven months of not talking to each other, he called me. When his name showed up on Caller ID, I dropped the phone on the sidewalk, then scrambled to pick it up, elbowing two old ladies, and a toddler with a clear learning disability. "Hey (let's for the fuck of it call him Mark) Marc!"

"¿Stevie?"

He had dialed the wrong number. "No, it's Safey."

"Oh, hey Safey. I'm sorry I was trying to dial someone else."

Imagine how disappointed I'd be if that's how the conversation had actually gone down. It didn't.

After seven months, I'd had all the silence I could take from him. So I called him when I KNEW he'd be at work. How did I know? Certainly not because I called his work first to find out if he was there. What kind of desperate psycho do you think I am? Surely not THAT kind.

When his voicemail picked up, I smoothly left him a message: "Oh, Marc, I'm sorry I was trying to call my friend Martin. Hey, I haven't talked to you in ages. I don't know what you've been up to lately, but I miss hanging out with you. Maybe I'll stop in and visit you at work one of these days. Happy Holidays."

Oh, yeah. I'm smoove like Smoove B. I combined my awkward lack of social skills, creative dishonesty, and free cell phone minutes into a looooooooooooooooove trap. And that's why I dropped the phone, and beat up a couple of septuagenarians and an infant to get at my cell.

"Hey, Marc, how are you?"

"I'm good." And the way he said good was just...soooo...goooooooooooooooooooooooo

ooooooooood. It was twenty-someodd degrees and I was melting. "How are you?"

Well, I was, if not depressed, very much apathetic. No Internet access, I'm not fully moved out of my old place or into my new one. I've been couch surfing by request. A few nights with Zuzu, a few with Cali, now with Celeste. All in all this week has gone from not very good to wow, this is going to suck. Until the call.

I'd regale you with all the sensual details of our conversation, like how we're going to get together for coffee, even though neither of us drink coffee, but that sort of thing is boring. Instead I'll talk about all the sex we aren't going to have because he's probably still not out, and he lives with his close-knit family, and I now live with...

Ahhh, the new house.

The Landlord is The King of Signs. The door tells the mailman where to leave which letters. There's a sign on the bottom stair telling you to watch your step, and clean your feet. At the top of the steps, each bedroom door is marked with which roommate lives in the room. There wil be four of us, including the landlord. We certainly don't want to get all confused thinking someone lives in the wrong room. The kitchen tells you which glasses The Landlord would rather you use, as well as which spices go with which kind of food, and how long to dry each type of dish. Don't even ask about the full colored manual in the washing room. It has graphs. Plural. GraphS.

The first night that I crashed at my future house, there was a note telling me how to turn on the lights. Unfortunately, I couldn't see the sign because all the lights were out. This caused me to stumble into Roommate #1: The Frat Boy, who was stumbling drunkenly down the stairs. He gave the typical Frat Boy Mating Call "What the Fuck?" when he bumped into me. I introduced myself, he went to the bathroom, and then to bed. I haven't seen him since.

Roommate #2 is on The Real South Beach Diet. Pills. Many many many pills. Even Barry Bonds has called the house asking Roommate #2 to stop taking so many goddamned pills. It's freakish. The way he hunches over when he shuffles downstairs to smoke or take some pills. It's the only thing he leaves the house for: to get more pills from the pharmacy. Luckily, Roommate #2 will be gone in two weeks. I'm not sure who will be replacing him. Frat Boy will also be gone in the new year.

Roommate #3 is...I didn't get his name. He was talking to me for about ten minutes, but the entire time he was talking, all I was thinking was "pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty", which I'm pretty sure means he's straight.

Which beings us back to Marc, who isn't straight but he plays one in his social groups. I've missed him like astronauts miss gravity. He wants to see my new place. In my mind this means we're going to fuck all day, fall in love, make beautiful Brazilian-Irish-American babies. But I know in his mind, he's just curious about where I live. I'm fairly pessimistically certain that he's incapable of loving me with the furor that I love him.

Next week, I'll be back in his orbit. He will pull every bone, muscle, and organ into a new alignment. I will be so atrophied that the gravity of his kiss will tear through my body, leaving me as a pile of bones on the carpet of my new place. Crushed. Again.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/93103.html