Incomplete

I realize it's 4:40 am on a Sunday morning for you and there is absolutely no reason for you to be awake. But I miss you.
I went out last night with Sara from work and my friend Mike from school. It was his roommate's birthday so we checked out a couple of really cool new places by my house. Arlo and Esme's was part coffeeshop, part club, and the drinks weren't super-overpriced ($6 drafts and $7 whiskey gingers). The music was fun and it was a good crowd, but it felt like something was missing. Then we went to Boucarou, an unexpectedly sexy club playing hiphop, girls in dresses, packed to the gills. I would have loved this place, but still, something was missing. I went home and called you because all night, I had been thinking only of you, and how much more fun I would be having if you were there with me. And as I trudged home alone, the three blocks seemed painfully long, and all I wanted was to be going home with you, lying in bed with you, telling you that I love you. Today, I woke up around noon, dragged myself out of bed at 2 to make mac and cheese, then went to see the Murakami exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum with Suki and Boki. They both say hi, by the way. It was a really cool exhibit, and I wish you had seen it. I think you would have actually liked it. It was a little crazy, even creepy, but cartoonish and quirky. And funny. We watched the Kanye West music video there, too. We had dinner in Koreatown and then went our separate ways: Suki to Michele's, Boki to some dental party, and me to my apt. There's another party at Happy Ending tonight and I seriously don't want to go. I just want to putz around and play Puzzle Fighter while snacking on pretzels. I have been fine without you until now, and I can't believe I have written a message this long on BB messenger... Sorry if I am turning into Ruth. But I started writing and couldn't stop and now my eyes are a little teary and I am getting that squeezing feeling in my chest that I get when my heart hurts. So... I just wanted to say that I miss you. My life is incomplete without you. I love you.


Sent to John just after 11 pm via Blackberry Messenger Follow through...

Twas the night before Christmas

And all I wanna do is get dolled up and hit the town. It feels eerily empty without family around, and that makes me seek some sort of antidote to loneliness slash substitute for love in crowded bars with confused (but perhaps perfectly content to be so) others seeking the same. Follow through...

Sometimes I get lonely, too

There's blood in my mouth 'cause I've been biting my tongue all week
I keep on talkin' trash but I never say anything
And the talkin' leads to touchin'
And the touchin' leads to sex
And then there is no mystery left

And it's bad news
Baby I'm bad news
I'm just bad news, bad news, bad news

I know I'm alone if I'm with or without you
But just bein' around you offers me another form of relief
When the loneliness leads to bad dreams
And the bad dreams lead me to callin' you
And I call you and say "C'MERE!"

And it's bad news
Baby I'm bad news
I'm just bad news, bad news, bad news

And it's bad news
Baby it's bad news
It's just bad news, bad news, bad news

'Cause you're just damage control for a walking corpse like me... like you

'Cause we'll all be
Portions for foxes
Yeah we'll all be
Portions for foxes

There's a pretty young thing in front of you
And she's real pretty and she's real into you
And then she's sleepin' inside of you
And the talkin' leads to touchin'
Then touchin' leads to sex
And then there is no mystery left

And it's bad news
I don't blame you
I do the same thing
I get lonely too

And you're bad news
My friends tell me to leave you
That you're bad news, bad news, bad news

That you're bad news
Baby you're bad news
And you're bad news
Baby you're bad news
And you're bad news
I don't care I like you
And you're bad news
I don't care I like you
I like you

This Rilo Kiley song "Portions for Foxes" is an honest song. I dig that. It's a song about filling our loneliness with meaningless sex, quite simply. The mystery of the human form is unveiled in a desperate attempt to satiate a certain hunger, but when that mystery disappears, there is little left to be desired and we're empty all over again. We fill ourselves, if only for a little while, with these fleeting carnal pleasures despite knowing better. And somehow we find ourselves trapped in loveless non-relationships we keep falling back into... The music video (click on the title of this post) is a clever play on the fox bit and the emptiness bit, featuring taxidermists stuffing animals, making them appear to be alive when all they are are empty shells stuffed with fluff. Follow through...

Wanted: the quiet life

I was lying in bed chatting with Natalia online and watching the USC/ Texas game in my underwear when Megan comes barging into my room smelling strongly of liquor and cigarettes, demanding that I get dressed and accompany her back to the bar. She'd been at Q's since 3, tailgating before the game started at 5, but I really didn't feel like getting up and putting clothes on to go watch the game in a crowded bar full of drunk football fans. Not that I have anything against drunk football fans; I'm just tired and I want to lay in bed in my underwear and eat peanut butter straight from the jar. Is that so wrong?

Megan left disappointed. I refused to get up even after excruciating naked tickle torture (I feel so violated) and a couple of very painful smacks on the butt. So I returned to my conversation with Natalia and it went something like this:

Me: I don't want to go out. I just want to stay at home and have someone to play Scrabble with.
Natalia: I couldn't get my fitted sheets on my bed by myself and I really wanted a boyfriend there to help me.
Me: I totally know how you feel.

Yes, yes, yes... women need to be independent and needn't feel incomplete in the absence of male companionship. I know. But geeeeez. Sometimes I can't reach the top shelf and sometimes I want to spend a quiet night in bed reading a book or playing a rousing (haha... a-rousing... I'm so cool) game of Scrabble or cuddle with something other than my pillow when I watch sappy DVDs. I firmly believe that it's important for a woman in a relationship to have her own life separate from that of her boyfriend's, like having a group of friends who are not his friends, like having her own place/ space, and having some occupation whether it's a job or school or hobby that doesn't include him. I'm all about the together time, but I feel like there's got to be some girls' nights and boys' nights.

(Aside: this is a really really good game. I've been trying to type while watching, so it's taken me like an hour to get this far in the entry. Evenly matched, well played by both sides. And Vince Young was aMAZing. Much like his buttocks.)

I've been watching a lot of Sex and the City lately. It's the season where Carrie has the short hair and Miranda first has her baby. Carrie's all cynical and sad and is losing faith in love. There are these publishing ladies that want to compile some of her columns into a book and they ask her what the overall tone of the book would be: is there hope or should we all hang ourselves now? And the answer at the end of the episode was that tribute should be paid to the eternal optimists, our Charlottes. The ones who believe in love no matter what, even when that faith is tested time and time again. To some extent, there's a little bit of Charlotte in all of us, I think. No matter how jaded I think I've become; no matter how jaded my friends and I become, even as we throw our hands up in frustration and worry that we'll die alone and be discovered three days later after our cats have eaten our faces off, still, hope lives on. Follow through...

On the verge

Of giving up. I had a disheartening chat with an ex-turned-confidante today. I'm thisclose to throwing up my hands and giving up in the game of love. We were talking about reciprocity in relationships. It never seems to be even. One person always seems to dig the other person more. Sometimes it works out. When you meet your match, the one who can challenge you but still stay on the same level as you, that's it. Game over. But more often than not, one person is the chaser and the other simply concedes.

All of that is kind of a given. That isn't what depresses me. What depresses me is that during the course of our conversation, it became more and more apparent to me that the average guy suffers from a constant case of grass-is-greener syndrome when it comes to women. Particularly, the meticulous, borderline-anal, diligent nerdy types I find myself inexplixably attracted to time and time again, those guys are the worst because they can't shake that nagging feeling that there's something better out there, whether it's a better woman or a better job or a better lifestyle. I think women are more accepting of flaws. They don't expect their men to be absolutely perfect. Of course, there are the deal-breakers like furry backs or nervous ticks or chronic unemployment, but I think women are more forgiving when a man doesn't meet every item on her wishlist, and less inclined to stray if they've found a man they love.

The average man, however, can see better than he can think. So even when he's in a committed relationship, if he meets a girl that he thinks has the potential to meet more of his wishlist criteria, he becomes curious. He doesn't always stray, but he wonders if the cool girl he ran into at those parties is really as cool as she seemed the first few times he met her. If he pursues her, he's bound to discover that she, too, falls short of his fantasy. Most of the men I know have an ideal woman in mind. And whether they are cognizant of it or not, they chase this nonexistent figment of their imaginations, often leaving behind them a massacred trail of broken hearts. The hardworking, responsible types I tend to fall for are the types of guys who are annoyed by my flightiness and lack of planning and eagerness to cut corners in non-relationship-related arenas like school (I hardly ever attended class in college and cranked out 20 page papers in one night) or work. It bugs them that their mate may not be as dedicated as they are *gasp* to their work. They want the "good girl" type who is polite and proper but cute and fun, who works hard in school and after school trying to climb up that corporate ladder, who has had maybe one or two boyfriends but is not necessarily prude, the type you might run into at church or at the corner coffeeshop reading the latest bestseller. I'm not saying all guys dig that type of girl. I'm saying the ones I like always do.

Enter me: loves to party, dance, drink, and socialize. I work hard for the things/ people that I love. I am passionate, mostly about my loved ones. I'm the type of girl who flits about aimlessly, but when I fall, I fall like a wrecking ball at a demolition site: hard, fast, and a little dangerously. Except at a demolition site, someone's taking precautions to make sure no one gets hurt. There is no such caution exercised when I fall.

I'm not the perfect girl my nerdy boys have been chasing in their dreams. But I think they're being too closed-minded. Maybe I'm just what they need. I can be the kite, head in the clouds and a little unpredictable, and they can be my anchor, ground me, give me something stable to hold on to and come back to. I can't help falling for these guys who have an entirely different girl in mind as "the One." Wake up, fellas. The perfect woman is not some fish you have yet to meet in this vast sea of dating possibilities. She doesn't exist. At some point, you're going to find a fish who might not be as brilliant as you'd like, whose scales might not be quite as shiny as some of the other fish-chicks, who, God forbid, may not come from the best fish family in your neck of the sea, but who loves you unconditionally, despite all your shortcomings. You may not get to check everything off on your wishlist, but don't think of it as settling for something less than you deserve.

Life is not a movie. You can fall in desperately, hopelessly, perfectly, can't-live-without-you kind of love with a person who doesn't fit into some pre-conceived mold. Maybe there's a better mold out there for you that you just don't know about yet. Maybe I'm partly to blame since I can't seem to stop being attracted to the meticulous, borderline-anal, diligent nerdy types. Maybe I'm being hypocritical. If I liked a different type of guy, maybe he'd be more inclined to like me back. It's masochistic, really, going for a guy you know probably won't like you back as much as you like him. But don't let me give up, guys. Love me for who I am, dammit. Look no further. Follow through...