Graceless. Tainted. Not Objectifying Last Night’s Date. Curiosity and Cats. Serial Dater. Cereal Addict. Don't Steal My Sunshine

--I realize, dealing with girls, all these dates, sincerity is the only grace I have.

----Driving to last night’s date, I see a clump of leaves and what looks like dirt on the passenger side floor of my Dodge. When I snatch this mess up to toss it from the window, I realize that I hold is a dried up piece of dog shit instead of a clump of dirt.

Friday’s date must have brought it in with her shoes.

And though of course it has nothing really to do with her, I find her sort of tainted by it.

Which is ok because since Friday, I’ve yet to hear from her.

--In any case, now I’m running late and hold this dried dog dung in my hand and realizing that when I get to the bar, tonight’s date will be waiting. I can not go immediately to the bathroom and wash; I’ll have to greet her.

I could hold up my hands and explain about the dog doo, but this is only our second date, and bringing the dog shit to her attention could taint me in the same way Friday’s date has been tainted by it.

And I don’t want that.

I’ll walk in, she’ll rise up; a touch is required.

Then she’ll be tainted.

--LA chastises me for objectifying women.

In honor of her, I will not mention the pleasure I felt when last night’s date turned out to be taller than I remembered, nearly as tall as I am, and how I longed when walking toward her greeting smile for her to be in a skirt again.

I will not write about how she kissed or didn’t.

I won’t talk about her fingernails or her collarbones; the small of her back or the swell of her bossom.

I’ll not in fact write about anything her at all.

--Friday’s date writes finally: Sorry I’ve been out of touch. I’ll explain later. I had a good time.

I imagine I know what she is up to. I imagine she is trying to shape this narrative. She wants to create of herself a character in which mystery still exists, for she has learned that what we call attraction is often really the quest to solve the other and that when a person seems solved we move toward a fresh mystery.

--I am always sad on the way to a date. I see in car windows the faces of girls I’d have not noticed if I were on my way to the grocery store or the gym.

I think: I am lost to this girl.
I think: On this night, in these circumstances, I cannot get to know her.

And I drive on, more sadly yet, her face disappearing, me moving toward that one particular person, that death of all possibility except that which she offers.

--That feeling will burst. As I get closer to her, I will get more real. Or perhaps it is less real that I will get.

I date because I want to be enraptured.

That happened a bit on Friday.

--But she doesn’t get in touch until Monday.

And I think I have her figured out.

I think, this is what she does: she comes on strong and then disappears. Steps out again but only long enough to say that the answers are coming later.

I think: She’s trying to preserve or even create a sense of mystery.
And I think: She wants to keep her reader.

Of course, there is the opposite spin to put on it.

And at this stage, it hardly matters.

--I don’t like to read authors who make me aware of them. When I think about the choices the author is making I’ve lost the feeling of being immersed in the story, and then the only experience I have relates to craft.

Perhaps I admire her craft.

Or maybe it is not craft at all. Perhaps that is just the story I myself am weaving.

--OD chatsizes me for a blog too dark. She writes that sometimes she wants to just take me into the sunshine and show me that the world can be full of light.

Agreed.

--This morning, just now really, I stumbled into the kitchen, still tired from the night, from good dreams and bad dreams and all dreams so intense that to have them is like not sleeping at all.

I opened the cupboard, took out a bowl, opened the pantry, glared at the cereal.

I’ve tasted it all too much.

And then, at the end of the row, something I’d forgotten. I heard myself say it out loud: I bought Raison Bran!

And it’s been some long time, and the idea of those raisons—sweet and thin and burstable--was so pleasurable, I nearly clapped hands.

--This is when I like myself the best. Reduced to simplicity and near innocence.

--And today, this Autumn afternoon, I will go walking beneath the leaves that have not fallen and over those that have; I will think of how in the Fall, everything has gone soft, the sky light blue, the grass light green, the sun the color of an egg yolk.

I will swing my arms and I will sing some song, or perhaps it is that I will humm.

I will genuinely feel a false sense of the benevolence at the heart of existence. And there will be no mysteries to solve.

And I will smile.

And OD, it will be all your fault.