Saturday, November 29, 2008

My Super is Jack A**

just back from walking my dog after an infuriating confrontation with my super. my key broke in the lock last night and I was able to make a copy with the two pieces at the hardware store. lucky that it worked, but only provisionally. so first he said why don't you have a spare in the basement, then this key works but you can't come home wasted, then I said, it doesn't work. it works in an emergency but I can't stand here for 20 minutes trying to open my apartment door, then he said I'll get another lock from the basement, then he was slamming the door trying to close it and I was like dude, unlock the dead bolt. I was seriously afraid he was going to squash my dog. comes back up from the basement with a new door knob and lock, jerry rigs it in with a piece of cardboard, hands me a broke ass key, and said, try it. so there I am trying the new key and he's saying things like, you're not putting it in the right way. is he so stupid that he didn't get the sexual content of this? does he think that I don't know how to use a key and a lock? I was thisclose to saying, that's it, you're finished, good bye. so unbelievably patronizing. when he left I had to get out of the house, soak up some of the early winter light, try to equalize my equilibrium.

it's a fragile thing these days, finding balance. out on the streets with my dog and the sun setting I felt better, wished I could wash my face in the light. hold onto to it as long as possible. but now its ten to five and darkness descends. so the question becomes should I go out to dinner? there's a japanese restaurant in my neighborhood that makes an amazing teriyaki chicken which I wash down with two glasses of a white rioja. its a delectable meal but then i think, you spent one hundred dollars on thanksgiving dinner, can you really afford this? but can I afford to sit here in my apartment, alone? its a holiday weekend and friends and family are out of town.

ah, the single life of a woman in the new millenium. the lipstick wearing man loving feminist who hasn't had sex in three and a half years. the academic, the writer, the lover, the sister, the daughter. once I was interviewed for a book about being a single woman in nyc. the woman really threw me when she asked, after ten years of one night stands, did you ever fall in love and did anyone ever love you? now clearly I didn't love a single one of those men, but the question, did any one of them love you, hurt. I hadn't considered the second part of the equation. no, not one of them loved me. held me in high esteem? yes. thought of me affectionately? yes. respected me? yes. thought I was powerful? yes. loved me? no.

I tried internet dating and the results were a disaster. I can't go back to that. it's so haphazard. the people who create avatars and live vicariously in a virtual world miss the point of life. as human beings we are ineluctably tied into our bodies, our physicality, to deny that is insane. this is why the angels descended to earth, to have bodies. nothing compares else compares to it. I used to post ads when I was lonely. I knew full well I would never meet anyone this way. when my inbox was filled with excited and hopeful replies, it did assuage my loneliness but it was transitory. kind of like two glasses of wine. enough to blur the hard edges, but it doesn't last, and ultimately not meaningful.

this is all I have to say today.

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