After I returned to the U.S. from my Peace Corps stint, I stayed with my mom and dad in Minnesota for a few months. I was chafing at living under someone else's rules at the age of 32, not that these rules were so arduous - mostly, I was not used to eating lunch at 11:30 and supper at 5:00, but that's when my mom and dad ate so there you go.
It's not like I had all these friends who wanted me to go out late (I knew nobody in Rochester) or that I wanted to bring men home (again, I knew nobody and how does one pick up someone at a bar, anyhow? my indiscretions seem to involve long-term flirting with Inappropriate Men). I was annoyed that my mother expected me to take out the trash and shovel the sidewalk. The first time I did the trash, Mom suggested I put on a hat and held one out to me. I glared at her - like I was going to put that nasty woolen thing on my head? It was totally unflattering.
Then I stepped outdoors. Guess what? At 30 below, you don't care how stupid your head looks.
The other thing that bugged me was that my car had to live in the driveway instead of in the garage. True, there wasn't room for my car because my parents' cars were in there. But my mom was not working* so why did her car have to stay warm?** I guess because she owned the house. Her house, her rules. Stupid property rights. They are fine for me but I don't like them so much when other people invoke them for themselves.
So I am living rent free with my mom and dad at the age of 32, which is killing me, not just because of the rules but also because oh for pity's sake, what kind of loser lives with her parents at that age?
And my dad, whom I have hardly seen for the past seven years because my parents were working in Saudi Arabia for five years and then I was in Chile for two years, wants me to go to the Salvation Army store with him. He wants me to watch TV with him. He wants me to work on the pine box derby car for the neighbors' Cub Scout with him.
My dad wants me to hang out with him.
And I roll my eyes and say, "Dad! I'm reading a book!"
That was winter 1996. A year later, my dad was in the hospital in San Antonio with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I was still unemployed, having gone through job-searching stints in Washington, D.C., San Diego and back to Austin. When he was released from the hospital after a month, my mom moved the two of them to an apartment and then went back to Italy to intercept their household goods, which they had shipped there for my dad's new as of August 1996 job as a Department of Defense 8th grade math teacher at the Navy base on Sicily.
Someone had to stay with my dad while my mom was gone. My brother and sister had already taken a lot of time off from work. I didn't have a job. Perfect.
My dad was weak. Underweight. Hairless. He felt like crap all the time even though he got as much morphine as he wanted. His chemo made him nauseated. The morphine made him constipated. You may think for yourself what this implies and the absolute love between my parents that my mom did what had to be done to solve this problem.
I was trapped in an apartment with a sick and, as it turned out, dying man.
I was pretty angry about the whole thing. Why didn't bad dads get cancer? It's not like there's not a list of people on this earth would be better off dead. But my dad was a great dad. We needed to keep him around.
So who do I take my anger out on?
My dad.
Oh yeah. Nice daughter.
I tried to be patient, but I didn't always succeed. We had nothing to do. We were in an apartment with rented furnishings. There was nothing worth watching on T.V. We couldn't go out: my dad was too weak and his immune system was too fragile.
One evening, my dad read the paper as I read a book. He kept interrupting me with items of interest from the paper. I would sigh, put down my book, and listen.
Finally, I had had enough. He related some factoid and I snapped at him, "Dad! I know that!"
He sighed and answered in a defeated voice. "Of course. You were always so much smarter than me. I won't bother you any more."
Instantly, the shame welled up in me, going from deep in my belly to the tips of my fingers. Even now, 13 years later, I am overcome with self-disgust as I think about how I couldn't bear to take a few seconds to be nice to the man who had given me life, carried me on his shoulders, pulled my teeth, taken me fishing, taught me to drive, built the beds for my college dorm, dried my tears, told me I was beautiful.
I don't remember what I said after that. Something nice, I hope. I also hope that I made up for my meanness in the subsequent months, but can you ever make up for making your father feel bad? Like he is an imposition because he has cancer and omigosh, it's soooo inconvenient for me?
I don't know. I hope so.
* I was doing temp work, which is hard to find in Rochester because Rochester is home of the Mayo Clinic and what does the Mayo Clinic have? It has medical residents. Medical residents have highly-educated wives and husbands who do things like manage the Payless Shoe Store even though they are lawyers or accountants. This is good for Rochester because there are very overqualified people doing work (although managing people and retail are their own skills and just because you have a PhD in English does not make you an expert on the restaurant business, just saying) they wouldn't otherwise consider. It's bad for other job seekers, though. Tough competition.
** Why does this matter, you southerners are asking? Because when it is 34 below, certain cars WILL NOT START. If they are housed in the garage, they stay a little warmer.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
In which I make more Bad Choices about men - the Plane Jumper Guy
I promised you that I would tell you about the older man who jumped out of helicopters or planes or whatever behind enemy lines during the Vietnam war* but wouldn't send me a darn email telling me he didn't want to see me any more. What is it with some men and breaking up? Get some backbone.
I was working and traveling for my job. I had gone to a trade show in California. On my flight back to Springfield, I was in line behind two men. Our flight was delayed and I made some inane comment that Plane Jumper thought was clever, so he started talking to me.
He oozed sexy. I wasn't too bad myself in my fitted suit and high heels. He was 21 years older than I,** but still sexy.
Yeah, I am bad about falling for that. Fortunately, Primo oozes sexy but is also respectable and responsible. What is it with me? Was I trying to make up for the tragedy of not being invited to any high school dances? Did I think being wanted by a Bad Boy made me more alluring to the entire world? Low self esteem that I would fall for crap that other women would dismiss without a second thought?
We bantered and flirted and I went into the bathroom and saw that my face was flushed. It was a coup de foudre.
He emailed. He called me from Japan and Germany and New Zealand. We would talk for an hour or two. He wrote me letters by hand. I got a 12-page letter telling me how desirable I was that he wrote when he was in Belgium. It is still stuck somewhere in my files.
No, he was not married. He was divorced, had raised his five children by himself. In his first marriage, he told me, he fell victim to "only white woman in the jungle" syndrome. That is, he was working in Guatemala and she was the only other American. When you are traveling or living abroad, being American is a lot to have in common. The two of you united against a foreign culture. But when you return to the US, that's not enough. There has to be more than a common nationality. Hence, the divorce.
A month after meeting, we both attended a trade show in Florida. He had late meetings with investors, but rode with me to the airport. We necked in the taxi, which seems so tawdry in retrospect, but it happens in New York all the time if the novels I read are to be believed. I felt very sophisticated then. Now - ick.
We got to the airport. We kept necking. May I say in my defense that we found an emtpy, unlit gate area. But yes. Tacky, tacky, tacky. May I also say in my defense that I hadn't been kissed for a year or two.
He kept calling and emailing. I could talk to him at work because at that time, I had an office. It was before my spineless boss let another department take our group's offices and banish us to cubicles in the converted warehouses 13 miles away. Oh yes I expensed my diet Coke every time I had to go to an offsite meeting. Make me work where people got carjacked on a regular basis and then you want me to pay 75 cents for a coke when I could just pull one out from under my desk where I stored the 12 pack?
The next month, there was another trade show, this time in Chicago. I am hearing wedding bells with this guy. I don't know why: he has given me no reason to think that he is thinking along those lines. I wait in my hotel room for him to call, skipping what would have been the politically smart dinner with colleagues.
Yes, I am self destructive.
Plane Jumper had said we would go out to eat, but then called and said he couldn't. He came over after and well. You know.
He wore purple bikini underwear, which I found shockingly inappropriate for a man his age.
The next night, he did take me out for supper and spent the entire time telling me about the tragedy of his childhood with an alcoholic mother, even though I was wearing this fabulous clingy dress that showed off my 20-pounds lighter body. I wanted to talk about me or at least be courted; he wanted to spill his sorrows.
Lord have mercy.
I thought I had a Marine and instead I had a 68er who was In Touch With His Feelings.
He did not call or email again.
I thought he was dead.
I called his place in Florida. Left messages. Finally got his roommate*** who said that of course Plane Guy was fine.
I realized what had happened and left him a scathing message that he could at least have bothered to tell me to go to hell.
To reinforce my lesson that this was a Bad Choice, I lost $5,000 when I invested in his company, which turned out to be a massive flop. Who knew that selling produce over the internet wouldn't work? He was a VP who had years in the industry and I had inside information. I think about that loss, which was the money my mother gave me after my dad died, saying that she thought my dad would have liked us kids to each have a small inheritance, every time a get rich quick scheme looks attractive. Nobody gets something for nothing.
* At least he didn't burn his draft card, which is what another Bad Choice did and then told me about proudly. Yes, I have dated many older men. Yes, I am now married to a man younger than I am. Yes, when Bad Choice Draft Card Burner told me what he had done, I asked, "I am the daughter of a career military officer who spent a year in Vietnam. Do you really think I am supposed to think what you did was OK?" We broke up shortly after. I never should have gotten involved with him in the first place, but not because of the draft card.
** And a year older than my mother.
*** Who lives with a roommate at that age?
I was working and traveling for my job. I had gone to a trade show in California. On my flight back to Springfield, I was in line behind two men. Our flight was delayed and I made some inane comment that Plane Jumper thought was clever, so he started talking to me.
He oozed sexy. I wasn't too bad myself in my fitted suit and high heels. He was 21 years older than I,** but still sexy.
Yeah, I am bad about falling for that. Fortunately, Primo oozes sexy but is also respectable and responsible. What is it with me? Was I trying to make up for the tragedy of not being invited to any high school dances? Did I think being wanted by a Bad Boy made me more alluring to the entire world? Low self esteem that I would fall for crap that other women would dismiss without a second thought?
We bantered and flirted and I went into the bathroom and saw that my face was flushed. It was a coup de foudre.
He emailed. He called me from Japan and Germany and New Zealand. We would talk for an hour or two. He wrote me letters by hand. I got a 12-page letter telling me how desirable I was that he wrote when he was in Belgium. It is still stuck somewhere in my files.
No, he was not married. He was divorced, had raised his five children by himself. In his first marriage, he told me, he fell victim to "only white woman in the jungle" syndrome. That is, he was working in Guatemala and she was the only other American. When you are traveling or living abroad, being American is a lot to have in common. The two of you united against a foreign culture. But when you return to the US, that's not enough. There has to be more than a common nationality. Hence, the divorce.
A month after meeting, we both attended a trade show in Florida. He had late meetings with investors, but rode with me to the airport. We necked in the taxi, which seems so tawdry in retrospect, but it happens in New York all the time if the novels I read are to be believed. I felt very sophisticated then. Now - ick.
We got to the airport. We kept necking. May I say in my defense that we found an emtpy, unlit gate area. But yes. Tacky, tacky, tacky. May I also say in my defense that I hadn't been kissed for a year or two.
He kept calling and emailing. I could talk to him at work because at that time, I had an office. It was before my spineless boss let another department take our group's offices and banish us to cubicles in the converted warehouses 13 miles away. Oh yes I expensed my diet Coke every time I had to go to an offsite meeting. Make me work where people got carjacked on a regular basis and then you want me to pay 75 cents for a coke when I could just pull one out from under my desk where I stored the 12 pack?
The next month, there was another trade show, this time in Chicago. I am hearing wedding bells with this guy. I don't know why: he has given me no reason to think that he is thinking along those lines. I wait in my hotel room for him to call, skipping what would have been the politically smart dinner with colleagues.
Yes, I am self destructive.
Plane Jumper had said we would go out to eat, but then called and said he couldn't. He came over after and well. You know.
He wore purple bikini underwear, which I found shockingly inappropriate for a man his age.
The next night, he did take me out for supper and spent the entire time telling me about the tragedy of his childhood with an alcoholic mother, even though I was wearing this fabulous clingy dress that showed off my 20-pounds lighter body. I wanted to talk about me or at least be courted; he wanted to spill his sorrows.
Lord have mercy.
I thought I had a Marine and instead I had a 68er who was In Touch With His Feelings.
He did not call or email again.
I thought he was dead.
I called his place in Florida. Left messages. Finally got his roommate*** who said that of course Plane Guy was fine.
I realized what had happened and left him a scathing message that he could at least have bothered to tell me to go to hell.
To reinforce my lesson that this was a Bad Choice, I lost $5,000 when I invested in his company, which turned out to be a massive flop. Who knew that selling produce over the internet wouldn't work? He was a VP who had years in the industry and I had inside information. I think about that loss, which was the money my mother gave me after my dad died, saying that she thought my dad would have liked us kids to each have a small inheritance, every time a get rich quick scheme looks attractive. Nobody gets something for nothing.
* At least he didn't burn his draft card, which is what another Bad Choice did and then told me about proudly. Yes, I have dated many older men. Yes, I am now married to a man younger than I am. Yes, when Bad Choice Draft Card Burner told me what he had done, I asked, "I am the daughter of a career military officer who spent a year in Vietnam. Do you really think I am supposed to think what you did was OK?" We broke up shortly after. I never should have gotten involved with him in the first place, but not because of the draft card.
** And a year older than my mother.
*** Who lives with a roommate at that age?
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
In which I take a job in the heroin district of Tijuana
This blog is evolving from an all about my in-laws and my wedding blog to a blog about the men mistakes I made before I met the wonderful hottie Primo and now to just life disasters in general. To get more in-law material, I would need to visit them or tell stories that are not mine to tell as long as the people involved in them are alive.
Anyhow, I do have more dating drama to tell you,* but I thought you might like a change of pace and one of my post-Peace Corps job stories instead.
When I returned from the Peace Corps in 1995 (I was a business volunteer in Chile), employers were not lining up to hire me. I know. Shock. Thank you every Peace Corps volunteer who has shown up to work in Birkenstocks, singing "Kum-Bay-Yah." You do no favors for the rest of us. I had legitimate business accomplishments to show for my two years (increased revenues and profits, reduced accounts receivables, which matters a lot in a country with high inflation, reduced expenses, etc, etc), but nobody cared.
So I loaded up my car and went to Washington, DC, the Mecca for those with apparent lack of accomplishment, which is what Peace Corps seemed to indicate to so many in the private sector. No luck there, but apparently I was a good enough temporary secretary at the World Bank that they were calling my mom and dad six months after I had left DC to see if I wanted more work. Yes. Because secretarial work is what I have aspired to all this time.
I went west. My Peace Corps friends Marty and Janet lived in a big San Diego house. Most of my things were in my parents' basement, but I loaded in my car some key items: all my high-heeled shoes, an inflatable queen-sized mattress and my grandmother's china.
No. I don't even remember why I felt compelled to haul a set of china from Minnesota to California. Surely there was a good reason.
In San Diego, I checked with the University of Texas alumni association for alums in manufacturing who might have some advice about international manufacturing work. When I called this guy, whom we shall call, "Bob," he invited me to come see him. I am all about the networking, so I went.
He explained that he had a small maquila just in Tijuana where he was building a revolutionary product for which he held the patent. He had some engineers and some skilled workers, but he didn't speak Spanish and didn't have someone to help him negotiate the Mexican bureaucracy. Yes, he had his Mexican liaison, but he needed to delegate some of those responsibilities.
Was I interested in seeing the operation?
Well yes!
I drove to Tijuana with Bob and his American engineers the next day. The factory was indeed what he had said: a small operation making a prototype of the product.
After I had looked around for a while, Bob asked if I would like to work for him. $1,000 a month plus 1,000 shares of stock a month. The stock was currently worthless, but soon - soon, we would all be rich!
Yes.
But I realized that I could not afford to live in San Diego for a mere $1,000 a month. Even in 1995. Staying with Janet and Marty for the duration was not an option. Houseguests and fish, etc, etc.
So I spent my first day looking for an apartment in Tijuana. I found one in someone's back yard. Small, but newly renovated and clean.
And without a toilet.
The landlord said, "You stay at my house until I install the toilet. Manana, I install."
Foolishly, I gave him my money.
The toilet remained uninstalled as the landlord played cards with his buddies and I slept several nights in his youngest daughter's bed. She, in turn, slept with her older sister.
Meanwhile, at work, my big accomplishment in the first few days was to get a shower curtain put across the opening to the toilet so I could pee without everyone watching.
I suggested that fire extinguishers might not be such a bad idea for a place where men were welding, but Bob did not jump on that one. One of the engineers said that Bob and his wife could pinch a penny hard enough to form copper wire.
I accompanied the Mexican liaison on various errands. I got to weld. At 4:30, when the factory closed, I went to see if the toilet had been installed in my apartment, then I went back to my landlord's, twiddling my thumbs trying to think of ways to kill time.
The engineers pulled me aside. "We're retired. We have pensions. We can wait this out," they told me. "But you're young. You need something that's going to pay out sooner."
The Mexican liaison dropped me off at my toilet-less apartment and recoiled in horror. "This is the main heroin-trading area here!" he told me.
How did he know? I demanded.
"Because all of our laborers are on a work-release program from the heroin rehab center and this is where they come to buy drugs!"
I looked at my toilet-less apartment, at the box of china sitting in the corner next to the inflatable queen-sized mattress and my shoes, and thought, "What am I doing?"
The next morning, I told Bob I was quitting. I told my landlord I wanted my rent back and amazingly, he gave it to me, albeit very reluctantly.
Then I returned to Texas and surrendered to the placement office at the business school at UT.
* The man I met in the airport who was older than my mother and had jumped out of helicopters behind enemy lines during Vietnam and who would call me from Japan and New Zealand and talk for hours but couldn't be bothered to tell me he didn't want to see me any more once I had slept with him. Oh yes. I will tell that story, even if it exposes more of my Bad Choices** about men, just because it's a good story.
** "Bad Choices," as someone wrote about taking her dog onto the plane and letting the dog out of its carrier so that the dog was free to run down the aisle and poop. The writer noted that the dog had made Bad Choices, but I would place the blame elsewhere.
Anyhow, I do have more dating drama to tell you,* but I thought you might like a change of pace and one of my post-Peace Corps job stories instead.
When I returned from the Peace Corps in 1995 (I was a business volunteer in Chile), employers were not lining up to hire me. I know. Shock. Thank you every Peace Corps volunteer who has shown up to work in Birkenstocks, singing "Kum-Bay-Yah." You do no favors for the rest of us. I had legitimate business accomplishments to show for my two years (increased revenues and profits, reduced accounts receivables, which matters a lot in a country with high inflation, reduced expenses, etc, etc), but nobody cared.
So I loaded up my car and went to Washington, DC, the Mecca for those with apparent lack of accomplishment, which is what Peace Corps seemed to indicate to so many in the private sector. No luck there, but apparently I was a good enough temporary secretary at the World Bank that they were calling my mom and dad six months after I had left DC to see if I wanted more work. Yes. Because secretarial work is what I have aspired to all this time.
I went west. My Peace Corps friends Marty and Janet lived in a big San Diego house. Most of my things were in my parents' basement, but I loaded in my car some key items: all my high-heeled shoes, an inflatable queen-sized mattress and my grandmother's china.
No. I don't even remember why I felt compelled to haul a set of china from Minnesota to California. Surely there was a good reason.
In San Diego, I checked with the University of Texas alumni association for alums in manufacturing who might have some advice about international manufacturing work. When I called this guy, whom we shall call, "Bob," he invited me to come see him. I am all about the networking, so I went.
He explained that he had a small maquila just in Tijuana where he was building a revolutionary product for which he held the patent. He had some engineers and some skilled workers, but he didn't speak Spanish and didn't have someone to help him negotiate the Mexican bureaucracy. Yes, he had his Mexican liaison, but he needed to delegate some of those responsibilities.
Was I interested in seeing the operation?
Well yes!
I drove to Tijuana with Bob and his American engineers the next day. The factory was indeed what he had said: a small operation making a prototype of the product.
After I had looked around for a while, Bob asked if I would like to work for him. $1,000 a month plus 1,000 shares of stock a month. The stock was currently worthless, but soon - soon, we would all be rich!
Yes.
But I realized that I could not afford to live in San Diego for a mere $1,000 a month. Even in 1995. Staying with Janet and Marty for the duration was not an option. Houseguests and fish, etc, etc.
So I spent my first day looking for an apartment in Tijuana. I found one in someone's back yard. Small, but newly renovated and clean.
And without a toilet.
The landlord said, "You stay at my house until I install the toilet. Manana, I install."
Foolishly, I gave him my money.
The toilet remained uninstalled as the landlord played cards with his buddies and I slept several nights in his youngest daughter's bed. She, in turn, slept with her older sister.
Meanwhile, at work, my big accomplishment in the first few days was to get a shower curtain put across the opening to the toilet so I could pee without everyone watching.
I suggested that fire extinguishers might not be such a bad idea for a place where men were welding, but Bob did not jump on that one. One of the engineers said that Bob and his wife could pinch a penny hard enough to form copper wire.
I accompanied the Mexican liaison on various errands. I got to weld. At 4:30, when the factory closed, I went to see if the toilet had been installed in my apartment, then I went back to my landlord's, twiddling my thumbs trying to think of ways to kill time.
The engineers pulled me aside. "We're retired. We have pensions. We can wait this out," they told me. "But you're young. You need something that's going to pay out sooner."
The Mexican liaison dropped me off at my toilet-less apartment and recoiled in horror. "This is the main heroin-trading area here!" he told me.
How did he know? I demanded.
"Because all of our laborers are on a work-release program from the heroin rehab center and this is where they come to buy drugs!"
I looked at my toilet-less apartment, at the box of china sitting in the corner next to the inflatable queen-sized mattress and my shoes, and thought, "What am I doing?"
The next morning, I told Bob I was quitting. I told my landlord I wanted my rent back and amazingly, he gave it to me, albeit very reluctantly.
Then I returned to Texas and surrendered to the placement office at the business school at UT.
* The man I met in the airport who was older than my mother and had jumped out of helicopters behind enemy lines during Vietnam and who would call me from Japan and New Zealand and talk for hours but couldn't be bothered to tell me he didn't want to see me any more once I had slept with him. Oh yes. I will tell that story, even if it exposes more of my Bad Choices** about men, just because it's a good story.
** "Bad Choices," as someone wrote about taking her dog onto the plane and letting the dog out of its carrier so that the dog was free to run down the aisle and poop. The writer noted that the dog had made Bad Choices, but I would place the blame elsewhere.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
In which I become rich and famous
Who should play me in the movie? That's what I am trying to decide. That's a far more interesting proposition than, "Who should change the cat box and does it have to be done today or can it wait until tomorrow because after all, the cat whined to come in the other day to use the box* rather than poop in the flower bed so the litter can't be that far gone" or, "If my husband whines while I am at the gym, does anybody hear it? Am I obligated to be sympathetic when I return or can I say, 'What's whined is whined and it's time to move on, buster.' Do you see me crying about trying to find shoes that are both 1. pretty and 2. non-crippling if I want to walk more than one block? No you do not even though that is probably the biggest problem facing mankind these days other than how to control the temperature in public spaces to everybody's satisfaction."
So yes. Who to play me in the movie.
What movie? you ask.
Oh, I say modestly as I look at my (unmanicured, dirty from pulling weeds in the vegetable garden and planting poppies and cosmos in the flowerbeds, which is how I am going to bankrupt Primo, which means next season, I just take up heroin as a hobby because it would be cheaper) fingernails. The one they'll be making from the book deal that I am sure to get now that I am a
Published
Author
Yes. I am.
Reader Sayya sent me to her sister in law, who is the editor in chief of Caribbean Belle magazine. SIL liked my stuff and asked me to write an essay for the most recent issue. I wrote about marrying late(r) in life and having to get used to living with someone else when you disagree on almost everything. I would link to the article, but they do not put their magazine online. If you want, you may go to Trinidad and Tobago to pick up a copy. I intend to get five copies for my mother and write the trip off as a business expense.
A book deal is surely next and then a movie, much like Julie and Julia, which I liked because it was about 1. food and 2. blogging and 3. whining, all of which are my favorite hobbies. She slept a lot, too. Win/win.
At first, I didn't want to see it because Primo said his mom and dad didn't like it, but then I thought, Since when do I take entertainment advice from people who read Mother Jones and think the Diane Ream show is the height of cool?
I asked Primo what they specifically didn't like and he said it was that it was about blogging.
Oh yes. Those nasty bloggers. We don't like them.
Who should play me? Who should play Primo? I think Amy Adams is as cute as a bug, but she's too young. Actresses who are age appropriate for me are not body and looks appropriate, if you know what I mean. Is there an actress who looks like a normal person? No Demi Moore just because I couldn't even stand to have lunch with her. Primo would love Diane Lane, but she'd have to put on 20 pounds. At least. Same with Sandra Bullock. But wouldn't you just love to have lunch with Sandra? She seems so nice and down to earth.
Primo. I need a very smart, very sexy but in an engineer used to be a nerd way guy. I've always loved John Cusack. Who doesn't want someone holding up the boom box with Peter Gabriel singing away? Maybe he's the right guy. I would have to audition him for sure. Clive Owen. Hubba. Gerard Butler. Double hubba.
Don't worry. I won't forget about you when I am famous.
* Yes. She did.
So yes. Who to play me in the movie.
What movie? you ask.
Oh, I say modestly as I look at my (unmanicured, dirty from pulling weeds in the vegetable garden and planting poppies and cosmos in the flowerbeds, which is how I am going to bankrupt Primo, which means next season, I just take up heroin as a hobby because it would be cheaper) fingernails. The one they'll be making from the book deal that I am sure to get now that I am a
Published
Author
Yes. I am.
Reader Sayya sent me to her sister in law, who is the editor in chief of Caribbean Belle magazine. SIL liked my stuff and asked me to write an essay for the most recent issue. I wrote about marrying late(r) in life and having to get used to living with someone else when you disagree on almost everything. I would link to the article, but they do not put their magazine online. If you want, you may go to Trinidad and Tobago to pick up a copy. I intend to get five copies for my mother and write the trip off as a business expense.
A book deal is surely next and then a movie, much like Julie and Julia, which I liked because it was about 1. food and 2. blogging and 3. whining, all of which are my favorite hobbies. She slept a lot, too. Win/win.
At first, I didn't want to see it because Primo said his mom and dad didn't like it, but then I thought, Since when do I take entertainment advice from people who read Mother Jones and think the Diane Ream show is the height of cool?
I asked Primo what they specifically didn't like and he said it was that it was about blogging.
Oh yes. Those nasty bloggers. We don't like them.
Who should play me? Who should play Primo? I think Amy Adams is as cute as a bug, but she's too young. Actresses who are age appropriate for me are not body and looks appropriate, if you know what I mean. Is there an actress who looks like a normal person? No Demi Moore just because I couldn't even stand to have lunch with her. Primo would love Diane Lane, but she'd have to put on 20 pounds. At least. Same with Sandra Bullock. But wouldn't you just love to have lunch with Sandra? She seems so nice and down to earth.
Primo. I need a very smart, very sexy but in an engineer used to be a nerd way guy. I've always loved John Cusack. Who doesn't want someone holding up the boom box with Peter Gabriel singing away? Maybe he's the right guy. I would have to audition him for sure. Clive Owen. Hubba. Gerard Butler. Double hubba.
Don't worry. I won't forget about you when I am famous.
* Yes. She did.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
In which Primo worries about our old age
After the falling out of bed debacle and after hearing that his parents have taken several falls - in the kitchen, in the living room, because his mom's socks were too slippery, because the carpet was too slippery - Primo asked, "Is this what our old age will be like?"
"Nope," I said.
"How can you be sure?" he asked.
"Because we are not alcoholics."
"Oh yeah," he mused. "That's right."
"Nope," I said.
"How can you be sure?" he asked.
"Because we are not alcoholics."
"Oh yeah," he mused. "That's right."
Friday, May 21, 2010
In which the grad school sociopath leaves me twisting in the wind and I TAKE IT BECAUSE I WAS AN IDIOT
I left you with my having returned from Holland after two days, yes, two days, because I missed Rick so much. I had moved my furniture into storage and given up my bargain duplex in Austin which trust me was not easy to find. I was homeless, furnitureless, and not registered for the fall semester. But I was sure that Rick would welcome me with open arms and that Love Would Conquer All.
You'd think a grown woman of 27 would be smarter than that but you would be wrong. I had seen what I wanted to see.
He had already asked my friend Debbie out and did not want to see me.
That's not exactly it. He claimed he wanted "time to think" about our relationship.
I told him either break up with me or date me.
He said he didn't know and that he really needed the time.
I, like an idiot (are you seeing the theme here?), said OK, and let him torture me for an entire semester because he wanted to be Mr Nice Guy, as in he didn't want to be the one to break up.
I have never been that way. It is cruel to leave someone in a state of limbo. If you are not interested, break up. Have the courtesy to tell the person that you are not interested, that the relationship is not going anywhere, and have a nice life.
Don't say you "want to think about it." If that's really the case, you still don't have the right to ask someone to wait around while you stare at your bellybutton and try to figure out what's in your head and in your heart.
You break up. You think. If you decide later that you made a big mistake, the appropriate step is to crawl back on your hands and knees, say that you were an idiot and don't know how you could have made such a mistake and your life is nothing, NOTHING without that person, and beg the person to take you back. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. You take your chances.
But back then, I was not the confident, sassy, whatever chick you see before you today. I didn't have the guts to tell him to go to hell, although I wish I could go back in time to my 27-year-old self and slap some sense into myself.
"He's not good enough for you!" I would hiss. "Listen to your gut about his character. He's a cheater! He thinks none of the rules apply to him. Do you really want to be with someone like this, even if his kisses make your head spin?"
Then I would say, after I had lost about 15 pounds overnight (best diet I have ever found, except I looked sick) and had written a series of very whiny, self-pitying columns for the B-school paper, "Snap out of it, girl! Have you no self respect?" I would have lost all patience with myself.
Instead, I moped and moaned and didn't eat, which was serious because nothing, but nothing puts me off my feed. Oddly enough, this thin whininess served only to make me more attractive to other men and I kept getting asked out. I swatted those guys away like flies: couldn't they see I was suffering? Plus, what if Rick heard I had been dating someone else? Then he wouldn't want me.
Yeah. I know. You want to go back in time and slap me, too.
Wait. It gets worse.
A big group of us went out dancing in the middle of the semester. I saw him in the parking lot. I clung to him and asked when he would know how he felt. "I'll be whoever you want me to be!" I told him. Dignity was my middle name.
This whole time, Debbie tried to talk to me. I wanted nothing to do with her. As the woman scorned so often do, I blamed the Other Woman instead of Rick, who rightly deserved any blame for choosing Debbie over me. I should have been mad at him, not her.
Finally, in January, at the beginning of the spring semester, I asked him for his decision. Oh, he still didn't know.
I snapped out of it. I had been (yes, you knew this was coming) an IDIOT. "Do not ever talk to me again," I told him. "Never. We are not friends."
Rick had used the same lines on us. ("Your fragrance is intoxicating" or something stupid like that.) He had been courting her the same time he had been "dating" me. She had asked him about me and he had told her there was nothing between us. He had taken her on a two-week drive from Texas to San Francisco, then treated her very badly on the trip. I won't go into details but he was very mean.
It was liberating. True liberation, not, "I can ask men out so they can sleep with me with with impunity and without commitment" liberation. It was the liberation of realizing that he was a jerk and that he had treated us both badly and that we were better off without him.
He has faded away (yeah, I've googled him - you wouldn't?) and Debbie and I are friends again. Which is how it should be. Who needs a man like that in her life?
You'd think a grown woman of 27 would be smarter than that but you would be wrong. I had seen what I wanted to see.
He had already asked my friend Debbie out and did not want to see me.
That's not exactly it. He claimed he wanted "time to think" about our relationship.
I told him either break up with me or date me.
He said he didn't know and that he really needed the time.
I, like an idiot (are you seeing the theme here?), said OK, and let him torture me for an entire semester because he wanted to be Mr Nice Guy, as in he didn't want to be the one to break up.
I have never been that way. It is cruel to leave someone in a state of limbo. If you are not interested, break up. Have the courtesy to tell the person that you are not interested, that the relationship is not going anywhere, and have a nice life.
Don't say you "want to think about it." If that's really the case, you still don't have the right to ask someone to wait around while you stare at your bellybutton and try to figure out what's in your head and in your heart.
You break up. You think. If you decide later that you made a big mistake, the appropriate step is to crawl back on your hands and knees, say that you were an idiot and don't know how you could have made such a mistake and your life is nothing, NOTHING without that person, and beg the person to take you back. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. You take your chances.
But back then, I was not the confident, sassy, whatever chick you see before you today. I didn't have the guts to tell him to go to hell, although I wish I could go back in time to my 27-year-old self and slap some sense into myself.
"He's not good enough for you!" I would hiss. "Listen to your gut about his character. He's a cheater! He thinks none of the rules apply to him. Do you really want to be with someone like this, even if his kisses make your head spin?"
Then I would say, after I had lost about 15 pounds overnight (best diet I have ever found, except I looked sick) and had written a series of very whiny, self-pitying columns for the B-school paper, "Snap out of it, girl! Have you no self respect?" I would have lost all patience with myself.
Instead, I moped and moaned and didn't eat, which was serious because nothing, but nothing puts me off my feed. Oddly enough, this thin whininess served only to make me more attractive to other men and I kept getting asked out. I swatted those guys away like flies: couldn't they see I was suffering? Plus, what if Rick heard I had been dating someone else? Then he wouldn't want me.
Yeah. I know. You want to go back in time and slap me, too.
Wait. It gets worse.
A big group of us went out dancing in the middle of the semester. I saw him in the parking lot. I clung to him and asked when he would know how he felt. "I'll be whoever you want me to be!" I told him. Dignity was my middle name.
This whole time, Debbie tried to talk to me. I wanted nothing to do with her. As the woman scorned so often do, I blamed the Other Woman instead of Rick, who rightly deserved any blame for choosing Debbie over me. I should have been mad at him, not her.
Finally, in January, at the beginning of the spring semester, I asked him for his decision. Oh, he still didn't know.
I snapped out of it. I had been (yes, you knew this was coming) an IDIOT. "Do not ever talk to me again," I told him. "Never. We are not friends."
He protested and I said talk to the hand. If he didn't have the guts to tell me it was over (as if I couldn't figure it out), then I would do the dirty work, but he wasn't going to get to pretend that we were all buddy buddy.
Debbie approached me again. I still didn't want to talk to her, but she insisted. She had things to tell me. I didn't want to hear her, but she sat me down and forced me to listen.Rick had used the same lines on us. ("Your fragrance is intoxicating" or something stupid like that.) He had been courting her the same time he had been "dating" me. She had asked him about me and he had told her there was nothing between us. He had taken her on a two-week drive from Texas to San Francisco, then treated her very badly on the trip. I won't go into details but he was very mean.
It was liberating. True liberation, not, "I can ask men out so they can sleep with me with with impunity and without commitment" liberation. It was the liberation of realizing that he was a jerk and that he had treated us both badly and that we were better off without him.
He has faded away (yeah, I've googled him - you wouldn't?) and Debbie and I are friends again. Which is how it should be. Who needs a man like that in her life?
Thursday, May 20, 2010
In which Primo proves once again that he is The Rememberer (but fortunately he does not hold a grudge)
Primo would be thrilled to change my political affiliations, but he would be even happier to get me to stay up late with him and not get up early.
He would also be thrilled if I would drink with him. Not drink to get drunk, as appealing as that sounds given his family history, but just share a glass of wine at supper.
He maintains I tricked him while we were dating because on our first date date (not the lunch at The Cupboard that he did not pay for), I ordered a glass of wine and actually drank some of it. I don't think I've ordered wine since. Maybe a Pimm's now and then and we tried a chocolate martini which was not too shabby but worth ten dollars I don't think so, but wine? No thanks.
He tricked me by not farting around me before we were married, so I would say we are even.
Anyhow, the Fourth of July to which Primo refers in this email was 2005, I think. He remembers. I do not.
Me: Do we want to get Adrienne a certificate from The Beauty Shop or Bari* or from The Cupboard?**
Primo: Adrienne is getting married, so a certificate for something nicer than the Cupboard is probably appropriate. I liked Bari. Another place I liked a lot was that bistro in the shopping center next to the theaters downtown--Encore, I think.
I don't remember exactly how good the food at the Beauty Shop was, because I was mad at you while we were eating there. It was when I had flown to Springfield to see you for July 4 weekend, and at some point during the meal you told me that you were getting up to go to boot camp at 7:00 the next morning, while I was expecting a lazy morning (with you staying in bed) because it was a holiday. This kind of recollection is why I am "The Rememberer."
Me: Oh Lord have mercy! You were mad so you didn't enjoy the food? You are crazy! Well, it was yummy. Encore is out of business.
Primo: Yes, I was really mad. I thought the holiday was a day for me to spend with you (and with nothing scheduled unless we decided to do something together).
I used to hate it when you got up for anything earlier than 8:30 boot camp or 9:00 classes at the Y. I hate getting up early! (Just as much as you hate staying up late.)
* Fancy restaurants.
** Not so fancy, but our absolute favorite place in Springfield.
He would also be thrilled if I would drink with him. Not drink to get drunk, as appealing as that sounds given his family history, but just share a glass of wine at supper.
He maintains I tricked him while we were dating because on our first date date (not the lunch at The Cupboard that he did not pay for), I ordered a glass of wine and actually drank some of it. I don't think I've ordered wine since. Maybe a Pimm's now and then and we tried a chocolate martini which was not too shabby but worth ten dollars I don't think so, but wine? No thanks.
He tricked me by not farting around me before we were married, so I would say we are even.
Anyhow, the Fourth of July to which Primo refers in this email was 2005, I think. He remembers. I do not.
Me: Do we want to get Adrienne a certificate from The Beauty Shop or Bari* or from The Cupboard?**
Primo: Adrienne is getting married, so a certificate for something nicer than the Cupboard is probably appropriate. I liked Bari. Another place I liked a lot was that bistro in the shopping center next to the theaters downtown--Encore, I think.
I don't remember exactly how good the food at the Beauty Shop was, because I was mad at you while we were eating there. It was when I had flown to Springfield to see you for July 4 weekend, and at some point during the meal you told me that you were getting up to go to boot camp at 7:00 the next morning, while I was expecting a lazy morning (with you staying in bed) because it was a holiday. This kind of recollection is why I am "The Rememberer."
Me: Oh Lord have mercy! You were mad so you didn't enjoy the food? You are crazy! Well, it was yummy. Encore is out of business.
Primo: Yes, I was really mad. I thought the holiday was a day for me to spend with you (and with nothing scheduled unless we decided to do something together).
I used to hate it when you got up for anything earlier than 8:30 boot camp or 9:00 classes at the Y. I hate getting up early! (Just as much as you hate staying up late.)
* Fancy restaurants.
** Not so fancy, but our absolute favorite place in Springfield.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
In which I throw myself at the grad school sociopath
As long as I am telling you about humilating relationships, I might as well reveal them all. Or at least one of the worst. I almost lost one of my best women friends over this guy, which would have been a true tragedy. I was better off without him, but Debbie I would have missed.
I don't want you to think that all my boyfriends have been jerks. Most of them have been really nice guys but just not the proper fit. When I moved to Fairview, I looked at 47 houses. I know because I kept a spreadsheet and don't try to tell me that's not normal because I think my friend Ilene, who organized her amazing wedding all by herself while she was also working doctor's hours, did the same thing for the 112 houses she looked at in Minneapolis.
Point is that you can walk into a gorgeous house but it might not have enough bedrooms. Or you want a finished basement. You can love a house but know you can't live in it.
Same thing with men. I was single for a long time before I met Primo, who must have been very tired of the Fairview bar scene because he puts up with a ton of crap from me, including having to be the straight man on my other blog, which means I - in theory - had a lot of boyfriends. I didn't, but I still had more time to date than someone who marries at 24.
But I had some lovely boyfriends and I am not going to write about them here unless it's to say something nice, so if you happen to be a former boyfriend whom I might have met on matchmaker.com and who plays the harmonica and gives fabulous birthday presents, like a belt sander, just know that you fall into the nice category and I would never say anything mean about you, mostly because there isn't anything to say but also because I am classy that way and my sister and my mother would beat me up if I hurt your feelings. Even though I know you're tough.
Back to the grad school guy. When I was in grad school, I "dated" this guy named "Rick." My mother was right. If a man is interested, he will chase you. He will call you.
Sure, a man will let you chase him and will sleep with you, but that does not mean he is interested. It just means he is lazy and horny. But if he is truly interested, he will do the work. If he does not call, it is not because his grandmother died or he was hit by a bus. It's because he is not interested.
But I ignored my mother. I had to have Rick. I was an idiot.
I was a many times idiot. I was liberated. I thought, I don't need to follow those old rules about men and women. These are new times! Women are free! Women can ask men out! It's all different now!
But it wasn't. Oh sure. I could ask men out. But that didn't mean that they were more interested. It just meant it was easier for them to get laid.
Rick walked into my operations managment class, oozing sexy, and I swooned. Somehow, even though he was out of my league for I am the nerd girl with glasses and not even Miss Sakamoto you're beautiful! when she removes her glasses and shakes out her hair, we went out.
Probably because I pursued him with the same intensity that I was pursuing a 4.0 GPA: with a strategy that I strictly executed. And probably because I gave off a, Oh yes I will sleep with you yes I will yes I said yes vibe.
I am mortified that this is becoming a theme on this blog because I have always thought of myself as a Nice Girl. I guess I am not. I guess I am an Easy Girl.
He never once implied that he had any romantic interest in me.
He waved red flag after red flag in my face.
Some of the flags were his lack of ethics. He was divorced with a little boy. They had married because his wife had gotten pregnant. She had just left him and taken their son. He was still in the married student housing, even though he had no need of it and even though there was a waiting list to get into it.
He would park in the pay parking but then leave late at night after the attendant was gone so he wouldn't have to pay. When he was in dental school (which he had attended before business school - on his parents' dime - another rich kid), he would sneak into the records office at night to pull his patient records so he wouldn't have to wait the next day like everyone else.
And there were flags were about his lack of emotional interest in me. His parents came to town after we had been "dating" for four months. Not only did he not invite me to meet them, but I learned that they did not know that I existed.
He mentioned running into my friend Debbie a lot, but then would say, "But there's nothing going on with us!" I was puzzled that he even thought he needed to mention it. The gentleman protests too much, I think. But I didn't. Think, that is.
So what that he had seen her at a festival downtown? And hung out with her? She was our mutual friend, right?
We met in the spring. I was supposed to spend the fall semester of my second year at a program in Holland. I put my things in storage, got on the plane after a big hug and a "love you!" from Rick, which made my head spin because he had never said Those Words before, went to Holland, spent two days there, couldn't stand missing him, and returned to Texas.
To find that he had already asked Debbie out and did not want to see me.
I don't want you to think that all my boyfriends have been jerks. Most of them have been really nice guys but just not the proper fit. When I moved to Fairview, I looked at 47 houses. I know because I kept a spreadsheet and don't try to tell me that's not normal because I think my friend Ilene, who organized her amazing wedding all by herself while she was also working doctor's hours, did the same thing for the 112 houses she looked at in Minneapolis.
Point is that you can walk into a gorgeous house but it might not have enough bedrooms. Or you want a finished basement. You can love a house but know you can't live in it.
Same thing with men. I was single for a long time before I met Primo, who must have been very tired of the Fairview bar scene because he puts up with a ton of crap from me, including having to be the straight man on my other blog, which means I - in theory - had a lot of boyfriends. I didn't, but I still had more time to date than someone who marries at 24.
But I had some lovely boyfriends and I am not going to write about them here unless it's to say something nice, so if you happen to be a former boyfriend whom I might have met on matchmaker.com and who plays the harmonica and gives fabulous birthday presents, like a belt sander, just know that you fall into the nice category and I would never say anything mean about you, mostly because there isn't anything to say but also because I am classy that way and my sister and my mother would beat me up if I hurt your feelings. Even though I know you're tough.
Back to the grad school guy. When I was in grad school, I "dated" this guy named "Rick." My mother was right. If a man is interested, he will chase you. He will call you.
Sure, a man will let you chase him and will sleep with you, but that does not mean he is interested. It just means he is lazy and horny. But if he is truly interested, he will do the work. If he does not call, it is not because his grandmother died or he was hit by a bus. It's because he is not interested.
But I ignored my mother. I had to have Rick. I was an idiot.
I was a many times idiot. I was liberated. I thought, I don't need to follow those old rules about men and women. These are new times! Women are free! Women can ask men out! It's all different now!
But it wasn't. Oh sure. I could ask men out. But that didn't mean that they were more interested. It just meant it was easier for them to get laid.
Rick walked into my operations managment class, oozing sexy, and I swooned. Somehow, even though he was out of my league for I am the nerd girl with glasses and not even Miss Sakamoto you're beautiful! when she removes her glasses and shakes out her hair, we went out.
Probably because I pursued him with the same intensity that I was pursuing a 4.0 GPA: with a strategy that I strictly executed. And probably because I gave off a, Oh yes I will sleep with you yes I will yes I said yes vibe.
I am mortified that this is becoming a theme on this blog because I have always thought of myself as a Nice Girl. I guess I am not. I guess I am an Easy Girl.
He never once implied that he had any romantic interest in me.
He waved red flag after red flag in my face.
Some of the flags were his lack of ethics. He was divorced with a little boy. They had married because his wife had gotten pregnant. She had just left him and taken their son. He was still in the married student housing, even though he had no need of it and even though there was a waiting list to get into it.
He would park in the pay parking but then leave late at night after the attendant was gone so he wouldn't have to pay. When he was in dental school (which he had attended before business school - on his parents' dime - another rich kid), he would sneak into the records office at night to pull his patient records so he wouldn't have to wait the next day like everyone else.
And there were flags were about his lack of emotional interest in me. His parents came to town after we had been "dating" for four months. Not only did he not invite me to meet them, but I learned that they did not know that I existed.
He mentioned running into my friend Debbie a lot, but then would say, "But there's nothing going on with us!" I was puzzled that he even thought he needed to mention it. The gentleman protests too much, I think. But I didn't. Think, that is.
So what that he had seen her at a festival downtown? And hung out with her? She was our mutual friend, right?
We met in the spring. I was supposed to spend the fall semester of my second year at a program in Holland. I put my things in storage, got on the plane after a big hug and a "love you!" from Rick, which made my head spin because he had never said Those Words before, went to Holland, spent two days there, couldn't stand missing him, and returned to Texas.
To find that he had already asked Debbie out and did not want to see me.
Monday, May 17, 2010
In which I iron Gomez's shirts don't hate me
Yes, I know you thought I was done with Gomez but then I ran across this old story in my other blog. Here it is, along with some other things I remember about that trip, like the shoes. Oh, the shoes. I remembered the shoes because on Saturday, I had to make the hard decision to toss my fancy BCBG high heel slingbacks with the pointy toes because I was hobbling after walking one block. That's right. One block. I thought of Gomez because he is the one who told me what BCBG means (Bon Chic, Bon Genre) and because I hobbled with him because I was stupid.
After our first meal, which consisted of bread, cheese and sausage for me and endive for him, which turns out to be about the only thing he eats besides ripe liquid grapes, and of course was at Salima's apartment because he wouldn't take me out IN PARIS because really, the food stinks in Paris so why would you go to a restaurant there, Gomez and I cleared the table and did the dishes, which seemed very normal to me. But he laughed and said, “Oh, ze sings I do for you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“At home, I never leeft a glass or wash a dish. I pay people to do zat for me. I have a maid who does zat. I mean, I am not exploiting her; but…”
I shrugged. “If I were paying someone to do that work, I wouldn’t do it myself, either.”
And I wouldn't. If I had to do the work I had hired someone else to do, I would fire her because it would mean that she wasn't doing it right. I would love to have a maid, but not a live-in one because I don't like having people in my space, but the kind who comes once a week while I'm at the gym and is like a little invisible fairy who waves her wand and ta dah! the bathroom sparkles and the laundry is done and the kitchen floor is washed (on the hands and knees, of course, because that is how one gets a floor clean).
Then he smoked a cigarette in the kitchen, blowing the smoke out of the kitchen window. I tried to give him an elementary lesson in fluid dynamics, explaining that when he blew the smoke out of the kitchen window, it just drifted back into the apartment through the dining room/living room/bedroom window, but he remained unconvinced, telling me that he had a PhD thank you very much and then he probably lectured me on US foreign policy and hurricane Katrina and how dare there be any poor people in the US.
Oh yeah, I should have said. Show me one child - ONE - in the US with an unrepaired cleft palate or a club foot. Ha. You can't. But I saw them all over in Morocco, so if you care so much about poverty Mr Knowitall, sell one of your Jaguars, stop your son's riding lessons and take care of some of the poor kids in your own country.
And then I should have gone into social mobility and the possibility of getting out of poverty, US 100, Morocco ZERO, but I didn't, even though I could have used the Moroccan taxi driver's line of, "I know what it's like in the US. Here, you work and work and work and you still stay poor. In the US, you work and you get to keep your money."
Back to the shirts. He wore a coat and tie. Every day. Which I thought was cute. At first.
I did him the extreme favor of ironing his shirts. Extreme because I don’t even iron for myself. I hate ironing that much. I just don’t buy clothes that need ironing. I told him I hate ironing and I am only doing this because I like him.
“But if I knew how to iron, I would iron for you,” he said. “You do it so well! It’s like you have a PhD in ironing! You iron better zan my maid.”
“Gee, thanks. You don’t need to flatter me. I’ve already said I would do it,” I answered dryly. “By the way, most women don’t really want to be known for their ironing skills.”
He was genuinely puzzled. “But I sink it’s nice that you can do sings for yourself and don’t need other people to do sings for you.”
The shoes
You know about the coat and tie. Gomez also polished his shoes every morning. At first, I thought oh how cute! What a sweet little quirk and isn't it nice that he is so careful about his grooming! Then I realized I looked like a slob next to him in my jeans, topsiders and sweater. "Don't you have any jeans?" I asked.
He gave me a look of horror and disdain, all mixed up in a bucket. "No," he said flatly.
The next day when we went out, I wore my black leather skirt, a red cashmere sweater and my black high-heeled boots. These boots have 2" square heels, so they are OK for some walking. I was in Paris, after all, and I should make some attempt to represent.
Except I didn't realize that Gomez was such a cheap you know what that he wanted to walk the four thousand blocks to the church where he hoped to find proof that aha! his ex-wife was not Lebanese or Armenian Christian as she claimed and Jewish instead and I was thinking, You are insane, truly insane, I cannot believe you are dragging me on this horrible errand and that I do not have the guts to tell you to go to hell and get my own hotel room until my plane leaves and by the time we got there, my feet hurt. so. bad.
So I said screw it and later, when he wanted to go shopping, I changed back into my jeans and not as uncomfortable for walking the cobbled, dog-pooped sidewalks of Paris shoes, which really made me stand out among the fancy ladies in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, which is a street with very, very expensive shops.
It is not fun to shop in very expensive shops if there is absolutely nothing there you could possibly ever afford unless you wanted to sell your car and I'd rather have my car than a blouse.
I watched as he spent $1,200 cash on a navy blazer exactly like the one he was wearing, then we went back to the apartment where he drank a bottle of wine and took a four-hour nap.
Oh I am getting mad all over again about wasting those frequent flier miles.
After our first meal, which consisted of bread, cheese and sausage for me and endive for him, which turns out to be about the only thing he eats besides ripe liquid grapes, and of course was at Salima's apartment because he wouldn't take me out IN PARIS because really, the food stinks in Paris so why would you go to a restaurant there, Gomez and I cleared the table and did the dishes, which seemed very normal to me. But he laughed and said, “Oh, ze sings I do for you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“At home, I never leeft a glass or wash a dish. I pay people to do zat for me. I have a maid who does zat. I mean, I am not exploiting her; but…”
I shrugged. “If I were paying someone to do that work, I wouldn’t do it myself, either.”
And I wouldn't. If I had to do the work I had hired someone else to do, I would fire her because it would mean that she wasn't doing it right. I would love to have a maid, but not a live-in one because I don't like having people in my space, but the kind who comes once a week while I'm at the gym and is like a little invisible fairy who waves her wand and ta dah! the bathroom sparkles and the laundry is done and the kitchen floor is washed (on the hands and knees, of course, because that is how one gets a floor clean).
Then he smoked a cigarette in the kitchen, blowing the smoke out of the kitchen window. I tried to give him an elementary lesson in fluid dynamics, explaining that when he blew the smoke out of the kitchen window, it just drifted back into the apartment through the dining room/living room/bedroom window, but he remained unconvinced, telling me that he had a PhD thank you very much and then he probably lectured me on US foreign policy and hurricane Katrina and how dare there be any poor people in the US.
Oh yeah, I should have said. Show me one child - ONE - in the US with an unrepaired cleft palate or a club foot. Ha. You can't. But I saw them all over in Morocco, so if you care so much about poverty Mr Knowitall, sell one of your Jaguars, stop your son's riding lessons and take care of some of the poor kids in your own country.
And then I should have gone into social mobility and the possibility of getting out of poverty, US 100, Morocco ZERO, but I didn't, even though I could have used the Moroccan taxi driver's line of, "I know what it's like in the US. Here, you work and work and work and you still stay poor. In the US, you work and you get to keep your money."
Back to the shirts. He wore a coat and tie. Every day. Which I thought was cute. At first.
I did him the extreme favor of ironing his shirts. Extreme because I don’t even iron for myself. I hate ironing that much. I just don’t buy clothes that need ironing. I told him I hate ironing and I am only doing this because I like him.
“But if I knew how to iron, I would iron for you,” he said. “You do it so well! It’s like you have a PhD in ironing! You iron better zan my maid.”
“Gee, thanks. You don’t need to flatter me. I’ve already said I would do it,” I answered dryly. “By the way, most women don’t really want to be known for their ironing skills.”
He was genuinely puzzled. “But I sink it’s nice that you can do sings for yourself and don’t need other people to do sings for you.”
The shoes
You know about the coat and tie. Gomez also polished his shoes every morning. At first, I thought oh how cute! What a sweet little quirk and isn't it nice that he is so careful about his grooming! Then I realized I looked like a slob next to him in my jeans, topsiders and sweater. "Don't you have any jeans?" I asked.
He gave me a look of horror and disdain, all mixed up in a bucket. "No," he said flatly.
The next day when we went out, I wore my black leather skirt, a red cashmere sweater and my black high-heeled boots. These boots have 2" square heels, so they are OK for some walking. I was in Paris, after all, and I should make some attempt to represent.
Except I didn't realize that Gomez was such a cheap you know what that he wanted to walk the four thousand blocks to the church where he hoped to find proof that aha! his ex-wife was not Lebanese or Armenian Christian as she claimed and Jewish instead and I was thinking, You are insane, truly insane, I cannot believe you are dragging me on this horrible errand and that I do not have the guts to tell you to go to hell and get my own hotel room until my plane leaves and by the time we got there, my feet hurt. so. bad.
So I said screw it and later, when he wanted to go shopping, I changed back into my jeans and not as uncomfortable for walking the cobbled, dog-pooped sidewalks of Paris shoes, which really made me stand out among the fancy ladies in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, which is a street with very, very expensive shops.
It is not fun to shop in very expensive shops if there is absolutely nothing there you could possibly ever afford unless you wanted to sell your car and I'd rather have my car than a blouse.
I watched as he spent $1,200 cash on a navy blazer exactly like the one he was wearing, then we went back to the apartment where he drank a bottle of wine and took a four-hour nap.
Oh I am getting mad all over again about wasting those frequent flier miles.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
In which Sly falls out of bed and wants the doctor to write him a prescription for a hospital bed
Disclaimer: I acknowledge that I do not have all the facts in this case and that I have presented the ones I do have in a way that make Sly look as bad as possible.
Primo gets an email from his mom: Don't worry, but your father fell out of bed last night. I couldn't get him back up, so we called the paramedics. They put him back into bed, but in the morning, Dad realized his hip was dislocated. He thinks the paramedics did it. We had to call them again to put his hip back in.
The next day, Primo calls to check on things and discovers that his father fell out of bed again. He learns that his parents have been having a lot of falls: because the carpet is slippery, because his mother's socks are slippery.
"Was alcohol involved?" I ask.
"He fell out of bed in the middle of the night," Primo says. "So probably not in that case."
"This is pretty bad," I say. "Your dad could break his hip. Plus it must cost them an arm and a leg every time they call the ambulance."
"I think their insurance covers it," Primo says.
"Then it costs us an arm and a leg every time they call the ambulance," I mutter.
"If they aren't going to move into assisted living, maybe they could get some live-in help," I suggest. "How about a young soldier who's home and going to school? He'd be gone during most of the day, but there at night when they would need help. He could do some errands in exchange for room and board."
"He would have had to change his position on the war to get along with my parents," Primo sighs.
"OK, what about a middle-aged lady to do the chores and the housecleaning and cooking and your dad sleeps on the floor?"
Primo calls his parents and suggests live-in help.
"What did they say?" I ask.
"They acknowledged receipt of my idea and that was it," he says. Then tells me, "My dad wants to ask his doctor for a prescription for a hospital bed."
"Why can't he just go buy one?"
"Because it will be cheaper if he can get his insurance to cover it."
"But why is it medically necessary for him to have a hospital bed? He's not sick."
"I don't know!"
I go to craigslist. Plenty of used hospital beds - $100, $200, $400. None of them have rails.
"Primo!" I say. "I thought the point of the hospital bed was to keep your father from falling out of bed. These beds don't have rails."
He looks. Acknowledges. Tells me that he has talked to his father again and that another issue is that his father, who is not a small man, has compressed the mattress on his side so that it slopes toward the floor, which might be part of the reason he is falling out of bed.
"So your dad is falling out of bed because he is fat? And has mashed the mattress down? Why doesn't he just buy a new mattress?"
"Because he wants to see if the insurance will pay for it."
"So I could go to my doctor and say, 'My high heels make my feet hurt so I need a prescription for pretty low-heeled shoes' and insurance should cover that? I like this system."
Primo gets an email from his mom: Don't worry, but your father fell out of bed last night. I couldn't get him back up, so we called the paramedics. They put him back into bed, but in the morning, Dad realized his hip was dislocated. He thinks the paramedics did it. We had to call them again to put his hip back in.
The next day, Primo calls to check on things and discovers that his father fell out of bed again. He learns that his parents have been having a lot of falls: because the carpet is slippery, because his mother's socks are slippery.
"Was alcohol involved?" I ask.
"He fell out of bed in the middle of the night," Primo says. "So probably not in that case."
"This is pretty bad," I say. "Your dad could break his hip. Plus it must cost them an arm and a leg every time they call the ambulance."
"I think their insurance covers it," Primo says.
"Then it costs us an arm and a leg every time they call the ambulance," I mutter.
"If they aren't going to move into assisted living, maybe they could get some live-in help," I suggest. "How about a young soldier who's home and going to school? He'd be gone during most of the day, but there at night when they would need help. He could do some errands in exchange for room and board."
"He would have had to change his position on the war to get along with my parents," Primo sighs.
"OK, what about a middle-aged lady to do the chores and the housecleaning and cooking and your dad sleeps on the floor?"
Primo calls his parents and suggests live-in help.
"What did they say?" I ask.
"They acknowledged receipt of my idea and that was it," he says. Then tells me, "My dad wants to ask his doctor for a prescription for a hospital bed."
"Why can't he just go buy one?"
"Because it will be cheaper if he can get his insurance to cover it."
"But why is it medically necessary for him to have a hospital bed? He's not sick."
"I don't know!"
I go to craigslist. Plenty of used hospital beds - $100, $200, $400. None of them have rails.
"Primo!" I say. "I thought the point of the hospital bed was to keep your father from falling out of bed. These beds don't have rails."
He looks. Acknowledges. Tells me that he has talked to his father again and that another issue is that his father, who is not a small man, has compressed the mattress on his side so that it slopes toward the floor, which might be part of the reason he is falling out of bed.
"So your dad is falling out of bed because he is fat? And has mashed the mattress down? Why doesn't he just buy a new mattress?"
"Because he wants to see if the insurance will pay for it."
"So I could go to my doctor and say, 'My high heels make my feet hurt so I need a prescription for pretty low-heeled shoes' and insurance should cover that? I like this system."
Thursday, April 29, 2010
In which I finally break up with Gomez, which I should have done a long, long time ago
After I met Primo in early November, I stopped calling or emailing Gomez. Yes, I know I should have broken up with Gomez immediately. It was poor form to leave him dangling, or, at the least, to be "involved" with two men at the same time, even if one of them was on another continent and the extent of our relationship after my return from Paris was a twice-weekly conversation in French from my cubicle while my co-workers pretended not to listen as I flipped through my French-English dictionary and then, exasperated, switched to English because really, who cares if they heard me talking to him about my division's soon to be disatrous (but not because of my efforts) SAP conversion?
He was the one saying all the "Oh mon amour I mees you I mees you" baloney. I wasn't saying that stuff because really, I was having some misgivings.
I was! I had lost my job, he wanted me to track down his born in New York ex-wife's birth certificate because he was worried she was Jewish, we completely disagreed on how children should be raised, and I had realized he had never had to work for a thing in his life.
I don't have a problem with inherited wealth (really, wouldn't it be nice if we all had inherited wealth and didn't have to work? how nice would that be?), but I also don't have a lot of respect - OK, any - for people who don't work.*
If you are lucky enough to have enough money that you don't have to work for it, then by golly, you better be doing something to make the world a better place. Yeah, you can party and gamble or whatever if you want - it's your money and your business what you do with it - but I don't want to be a part of it. I saw no evidence that his little hobby hotel was a legitimate business. Just a way to look like he was respectable.
So I stopped calling and emailing him.
And he stopped calling and emailing me.
This from a man who professed to loooooove me. I knew he was full of baloney. Who falls in love after just a few weeks?
So I finally had to break up with him. I was hoping he would go first. You know, a disgusted email saying, "Pah! You Americaine! I am done wiz you! I loaze you! You have no respect for me! I break wiz you, I break wiz you, I break wiz you!"
I know breaking up by email is tacky, but what was I supposed to do – fly to Morocco? Please. I had wasted all my frequent flier miles on the Paris trip. I sure wasn't going to waste any money on a millionaire who hadn't even bought me supper IN PARIS.
I didn’t want to call him, either, because my French wasn’t good enough to do it at work and remember, I was in a CUBICLE so couldn’t do anything in English. On the weekends, Primo was visiting me and I didn’t want to do it in front of him.
Primo told me he would give me the privacy to do it, but I really just didn’t want to talk to Gomez. I was chicken. And lazy.
So I sent him a very nice email in which I told him that the differences in our values (religion, money, how children should be raised) made a long-term relationship between us impossible, that I thought he was a great guy (except for the extreme anti-Semitism thing, which I thought made him an awful human being and was a total deal breaker) and that I wished him love and happiness. I had been coming to those conclusions anyhow. Marriages between Catholic girls and Muslim boys, even Muslim boys who claim to be non practicing, rarely work.
He tried to call me twice (on Skype, the free internet long-distance calling service, which was how we talked to each other, even though he was a millionaire with not one but two Jaguars looking at Bentleys and Lamborghinis and he cheated on his taxes and lived in a country where live-in help cost almost nothing so had even more money than an American millionaire has) and that was it. Finito. Over. So much for true love. (On his end. I never said such a thing to him. Ever.)
I broke up with him around Thanksgiving.
He never answered the email.
But he tried to call.
In February.
Using Skype.
Yeah. He cared.
* I work, OK? I cook, clean, cut the grass, do the laundry, do the shopping. I have worked in the corporate world. I have been a lifeguard, a Woolco clerk, a Macy's clerk, and a swimming teacher. Yeah, I am also a gold-digger living the life of Riley off my husband's sweat, but he has clean clothes, a clean bathroom, and three hot meals a day.
He was the one saying all the "Oh mon amour I mees you I mees you" baloney. I wasn't saying that stuff because really, I was having some misgivings.
I was! I had lost my job, he wanted me to track down his born in New York ex-wife's birth certificate because he was worried she was Jewish, we completely disagreed on how children should be raised, and I had realized he had never had to work for a thing in his life.
I don't have a problem with inherited wealth (really, wouldn't it be nice if we all had inherited wealth and didn't have to work? how nice would that be?), but I also don't have a lot of respect - OK, any - for people who don't work.*
If you are lucky enough to have enough money that you don't have to work for it, then by golly, you better be doing something to make the world a better place. Yeah, you can party and gamble or whatever if you want - it's your money and your business what you do with it - but I don't want to be a part of it. I saw no evidence that his little hobby hotel was a legitimate business. Just a way to look like he was respectable.
So I stopped calling and emailing him.
And he stopped calling and emailing me.
This from a man who professed to loooooove me. I knew he was full of baloney. Who falls in love after just a few weeks?
So I finally had to break up with him. I was hoping he would go first. You know, a disgusted email saying, "Pah! You Americaine! I am done wiz you! I loaze you! You have no respect for me! I break wiz you, I break wiz you, I break wiz you!"
I know breaking up by email is tacky, but what was I supposed to do – fly to Morocco? Please. I had wasted all my frequent flier miles on the Paris trip. I sure wasn't going to waste any money on a millionaire who hadn't even bought me supper IN PARIS.
I didn’t want to call him, either, because my French wasn’t good enough to do it at work and remember, I was in a CUBICLE so couldn’t do anything in English. On the weekends, Primo was visiting me and I didn’t want to do it in front of him.
Primo told me he would give me the privacy to do it, but I really just didn’t want to talk to Gomez. I was chicken. And lazy.
So I sent him a very nice email in which I told him that the differences in our values (religion, money, how children should be raised) made a long-term relationship between us impossible, that I thought he was a great guy (except for the extreme anti-Semitism thing, which I thought made him an awful human being and was a total deal breaker) and that I wished him love and happiness. I had been coming to those conclusions anyhow. Marriages between Catholic girls and Muslim boys, even Muslim boys who claim to be non practicing, rarely work.
He tried to call me twice (on Skype, the free internet long-distance calling service, which was how we talked to each other, even though he was a millionaire with not one but two Jaguars looking at Bentleys and Lamborghinis and he cheated on his taxes and lived in a country where live-in help cost almost nothing so had even more money than an American millionaire has) and that was it. Finito. Over. So much for true love. (On his end. I never said such a thing to him. Ever.)
I broke up with him around Thanksgiving.
He never answered the email.
But he tried to call.
In February.
Using Skype.
Yeah. He cared.
* I work, OK? I cook, clean, cut the grass, do the laundry, do the shopping. I have worked in the corporate world. I have been a lifeguard, a Woolco clerk, a Macy's clerk, and a swimming teacher. Yeah, I am also a gold-digger living the life of Riley off my husband's sweat, but he has clean clothes, a clean bathroom, and three hot meals a day.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
In which Gomez and I clean his cousin's apartment
Lest you think the Paris trip was nothing but horrible, let me tell you about getting Gomez to do household chores.
He is very quick to warn me the first time he washes the dishes and sets the table that he does not do this at home. “I hire people to do zis for me. At home, I do not leeft a finger. Do not get a wrong picture of me,” he says.
He persists all week in telling me this until I finally ask, exasperated, exactly how he thinks this makes him any different from other men. Having maids who clean up after him keeps his house from being a pigsty. But not cleaning up after himself does not make him different from most men.*
After lunch the second day, I say I hope Salima has a vacuum cleaner because those crusty French baguettes are leaving crumbs on the carpet. A few minutes later, when I emerge from the bathroom, he is vacuuming. I am impressed. I praise him profusely, as this is the way to get men to continue to doing housework, even though it’s unfair that we women do this sort of stuff every day and never get a word of thanks, no we don’t, do we, but this is just the way life is, so we deal with it. [Yes, I am in my indignant feminist phase, if it's not obvious. Now I am in my living the life of Riley eating bon bons on the couch phase and it is much more pleasant.]
“If my mother could see me,” he sighs as he shakes his head.
We do a full cleaning of the apartment before we leave. Actually, by midweek, I have started doing some real cleaning just because I can't stand it. Yes, I know it is a grave insult to clean another woman’s house without her invitation. What you are really doing is saying, “You are a lousy housekeeper,” but really, such is the case. The apartment is a pigsty. Salima is a rich brat who is obviously accustomed to life with maids. She has apparently never heard of the concept of "cleaning the tub"** or "cleaning the shower curtain" or "cleaning out the shower drain" so I have shuddered and thought of England every time I have bathed.***
I do a thorough cleaning of the kitchen and the bathroom, using flavored vinegar for the mirrors, sinks and fixtures because I can't find proper cleaning supplies. The apartment smells like salad but looks great. When Gomez walks into the bathroom, he gasps and exclaims, “Eet sparkles!”
When Gomez loses his shoehorn (yes, this is a man who packs a shoehorn and shoe polish and three suits but no blue jeans for his trip to Paris), I find it under the bed. When I tell him that’s where it is – I refuse to reach under there for it because the dust is so thick – he looks and says, “That’s what eet gets like when someone doesn’t live in an apartment for a few months, n'est pas? I’ll vacuum eet later.”
I just nod and say, “Uh huh” even though I am thinking, “No, that’s what it gets like when someone doesn’t off her lazy butt and clean under the bed for a year.”
When we are doing the final cleaning – washing towels and sheets by hand -- Gomez gets out the vacuum cleaner again. That’s when I learn this is the first time in his life he has ever used a vacuum cleaner. His cousin Ayisha and I had talked about the dishes and other chores. “Oh, he’s totally spoiled,” she told me. But I didn’t realize he had never in his life held a vacuum cleaner in his hands.
Then he impresses me even further. He grabs a rag and starts to dust. And not half-hearted dusting, either. He dusts the piano,**** the TV, the coffee table – he is a man with a mission. He looks at the candle holder on the table and says with dismay, “I just cleaned this yesterday and now eet’s dirty again!” He is shocked, shocked at real life. It must be hard to face reality. At least he gets to return to The Bubble.
* I generalize, I know. Unfair. And Primo does clean up after himself. Primo is so superior to Gomez in every way.
** My cousin tells a hilarious story about her husband's relative, bless her heart, who grew up in a household with maids. The girl married and moved into an apartment. After about two months, the young woman was horrified to see something on the tub. She called the apartment manager to come repair it. It was dirt.
*** You all know about my bathing thing -- I will betray my country rather than stand in a filthy, mildewy, standing water tub, even though I have showered my way through the F and G hotels in South and Central America. Maybe that's why I have this aversion. After you have stayed in a pay by the hour hotel in Panama City, you either develop a lifetime immunity or you swear that with God as your witness you will never shower in a filthy tub again.
**** She has a piano but no Ajax. Honestly.
He is very quick to warn me the first time he washes the dishes and sets the table that he does not do this at home. “I hire people to do zis for me. At home, I do not leeft a finger. Do not get a wrong picture of me,” he says.
He persists all week in telling me this until I finally ask, exasperated, exactly how he thinks this makes him any different from other men. Having maids who clean up after him keeps his house from being a pigsty. But not cleaning up after himself does not make him different from most men.*
After lunch the second day, I say I hope Salima has a vacuum cleaner because those crusty French baguettes are leaving crumbs on the carpet. A few minutes later, when I emerge from the bathroom, he is vacuuming. I am impressed. I praise him profusely, as this is the way to get men to continue to doing housework, even though it’s unfair that we women do this sort of stuff every day and never get a word of thanks, no we don’t, do we, but this is just the way life is, so we deal with it. [Yes, I am in my indignant feminist phase, if it's not obvious. Now I am in my living the life of Riley eating bon bons on the couch phase and it is much more pleasant.]
“If my mother could see me,” he sighs as he shakes his head.
We do a full cleaning of the apartment before we leave. Actually, by midweek, I have started doing some real cleaning just because I can't stand it. Yes, I know it is a grave insult to clean another woman’s house without her invitation. What you are really doing is saying, “You are a lousy housekeeper,” but really, such is the case. The apartment is a pigsty. Salima is a rich brat who is obviously accustomed to life with maids. She has apparently never heard of the concept of "cleaning the tub"** or "cleaning the shower curtain" or "cleaning out the shower drain" so I have shuddered and thought of England every time I have bathed.***
I do a thorough cleaning of the kitchen and the bathroom, using flavored vinegar for the mirrors, sinks and fixtures because I can't find proper cleaning supplies. The apartment smells like salad but looks great. When Gomez walks into the bathroom, he gasps and exclaims, “Eet sparkles!”
When Gomez loses his shoehorn (yes, this is a man who packs a shoehorn and shoe polish and three suits but no blue jeans for his trip to Paris), I find it under the bed. When I tell him that’s where it is – I refuse to reach under there for it because the dust is so thick – he looks and says, “That’s what eet gets like when someone doesn’t live in an apartment for a few months, n'est pas? I’ll vacuum eet later.”
I just nod and say, “Uh huh” even though I am thinking, “No, that’s what it gets like when someone doesn’t off her lazy butt and clean under the bed for a year.”
When we are doing the final cleaning – washing towels and sheets by hand -- Gomez gets out the vacuum cleaner again. That’s when I learn this is the first time in his life he has ever used a vacuum cleaner. His cousin Ayisha and I had talked about the dishes and other chores. “Oh, he’s totally spoiled,” she told me. But I didn’t realize he had never in his life held a vacuum cleaner in his hands.
Then he impresses me even further. He grabs a rag and starts to dust. And not half-hearted dusting, either. He dusts the piano,**** the TV, the coffee table – he is a man with a mission. He looks at the candle holder on the table and says with dismay, “I just cleaned this yesterday and now eet’s dirty again!” He is shocked, shocked at real life. It must be hard to face reality. At least he gets to return to The Bubble.
* I generalize, I know. Unfair. And Primo does clean up after himself. Primo is so superior to Gomez in every way.
** My cousin tells a hilarious story about her husband's relative, bless her heart, who grew up in a household with maids. The girl married and moved into an apartment. After about two months, the young woman was horrified to see something on the tub. She called the apartment manager to come repair it. It was dirt.
*** You all know about my bathing thing -- I will betray my country rather than stand in a filthy, mildewy, standing water tub, even though I have showered my way through the F and G hotels in South and Central America. Maybe that's why I have this aversion. After you have stayed in a pay by the hour hotel in Panama City, you either develop a lifetime immunity or you swear that with God as your witness you will never shower in a filthy tub again.
**** She has a piano but no Ajax. Honestly.
In which I tell you the embarrassing story of Gomez, Part 4 - It ends and not a moment too soon
I return to Springfield, ignoring the many, many red flags that were thrown into my face in Paris.
Gomez and I continue to talk. The red flags continue to fly.
"I am so sirsty," he sighs.
"So drink something."
"I cannot. Eet is Ramadan."
"I thought you weren't a practicing Muslim."
"Oh, eet is part of the culture. I must."
Right. Because Christians who aren't serious fast during Lent.
A week after I return from Paris, I lose my job. I am laid off in what is maybe the eighth round of layoffs my company has had in four years. I guess I should be happy that I lasted this long.
I tell Gomez I have lost my job.
"Oh you will find anozer one," he dismisses me.
"I don't know. I had a really hard time finding a job when I got out of the Peace Corps. I'm worried."
He is nonchalant. I have no need to worry! This job thing - pfft! For poor people! Why am I concerned? He changes the subject almost immediately.
I mention a co-worker whose teen son wants her to buy him a car.
"Why she does not buy him ze car?" he demands.
"Maybe she thinks he should work for it."
"But eef she can afford ze car, she should buy eet for him."
"Kids shouldn't get everything they want just because their parents can afford it," I retort.
"Why not?"
"Because kids should be taught that you don't get things without working."
He is unconvinced. But then, he has never had to work for a thing.
And yet. I put up with crap because he says things like this:
Mon amour, I miss you, I miss you terribly, I cannot tell you how much I miss you, it has been unbearable not to talk to you.
In French, of course. I am starting to understand why French used to be the language of diplomacy and why countries (=gullible Americaines) surrender to it.
Gomez and I continue to talk. The red flags continue to fly.
"I am so sirsty," he sighs.
"So drink something."
"I cannot. Eet is Ramadan."
"I thought you weren't a practicing Muslim."
"Oh, eet is part of the culture. I must."
Right. Because Christians who aren't serious fast during Lent.
A week after I return from Paris, I lose my job. I am laid off in what is maybe the eighth round of layoffs my company has had in four years. I guess I should be happy that I lasted this long.
I tell Gomez I have lost my job.
"Oh you will find anozer one," he dismisses me.
"I don't know. I had a really hard time finding a job when I got out of the Peace Corps. I'm worried."
He is nonchalant. I have no need to worry! This job thing - pfft! For poor people! Why am I concerned? He changes the subject almost immediately.
I mention a co-worker whose teen son wants her to buy him a car.
"Why she does not buy him ze car?" he demands.
"Maybe she thinks he should work for it."
"But eef she can afford ze car, she should buy eet for him."
"Kids shouldn't get everything they want just because their parents can afford it," I retort.
"Why not?"
"Because kids should be taught that you don't get things without working."
He is unconvinced. But then, he has never had to work for a thing.
And yet. I put up with crap because he says things like this:
Mon amour, I miss you, I miss you terribly, I cannot tell you how much I miss you, it has been unbearable not to talk to you.
In French, of course. I am starting to understand why French used to be the language of diplomacy and why countries (=gullible Americaines) surrender to it.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
In which I tell you the embarrassing story of Gomez, Part 3 - We meet in Paris
Gomez has called me. Not on the real phone. Via skype. He won't email. Makes me nuts because I prefer to write. Plus he calls while I am at work and as I am no longer in an office but am in a cubicle because my spineless boss let another department have my team's offices, I have no privacy. The good part is that my French is improving, as I speak it rather than be overheard by my co-workers, who are sitting right next to me in cubicles, not offices.
"Meet me in Paris," he urges. "I can spend the week with you."
He does not offer to pay for my ticket. What's a thousand dollars? Pocket change! Who thinks once about a thousand dollars?
I should have insisted he buy my ticket. I do not ask that he do so. I am a Liberated Woman. I Pay My Own Way. I don't want to be a Bought Woman. Ha. I was an idiot. I was a many times idiot with Gomez.
I cash in frequent flier miles for my ticket. I go to The Gap to get clothes for his seven year old son. ("The Gap is so expensive here," he tells me.) $115 I spend.
My friends, the clerk at The Gap, the women at the Junior League Thrift Shop where I seek the perfect dress, are all thrilled at my adventure. It's like a fairy tale. I have visions of True Love, of Being Rescued and Living a Life of Luxury. A Life Where I Never Have to Clean the Bathroom Again.
I arrive in Paris. He does not meet me at the airport. I am bothered by this. I mean - Primo has always picked me up. OK, I don't know this yet, but instinctively, I know that The Man Picks The Woman Up.
Gomez's excuse is that he is flying into Orly and I am flying into de Gaulle, but so the heck what? Is he a gentleman or not?* Can't he take a cab from one airport to another?
We meet at a cafe near his cousin's apartment, which is where we will be staying. When he said, "apartment," I had envisioned a place with you know, bedrooms. And a cousin. As in, a place where it would be easy not to share a bed or bedroom with Gomez because I am positive that You Know What is not going to happen because I am not That Kind Of Girl.
But it turns out to be a studio. Empty. The cousin, Salima, is not there. She has been summoned home because it's high time she married and her parents don't mean maybe. In the meantime, she keeps the apartment for her occasional jaunts to Paris.
Rich kids.
Being as it has been a while for me, I do prove to Gomez that yes, les Americaines are indeed facile. I am indeed, That Kind Of Girl. Oh, the shame.
I show him the things from The Gap. "Here's the receipt," I say politely. That's American middle class code for, "You may give me my money now."
Apparently, to a rich, never has had to work for his money Moroccan, that means, "Here is an insignificant piece of paper."
He does not give me my $115 until halfway through the week and that's after I flat-out ask for it.
I want to walk around Paris, go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, to Versailles, to the markets. "I 'ave done all zat," he says. "Zat is boring."
He wants to go to his bank. To the Ferrari dealer. To The Gap.
Yes. To The Gap.
We go to the Paris Gap not once, but three times.
We are in Paris and we are going to The Gap?
This is not what I had in mind.
We eat in almost every night because Gomez doesn't like restaurants.
"I eat at restaurants all of zee time," he says. "Eet is boring."
The one time we do go out for supper, it is with friends of his who speak English but prefer French. My French is not good enough to keep up with them, so I spend the meal gagging over the cigarette smoke - the couple next to us goes through an entire pack of cigarettes while we are there and no I am not making this up - and being bored.
We eat lunch in. After lunch, at which he drinks an entire bottle of wine, Gomez changes into his Frette pajamas (a fancy brand I had never heard of before) and takes a three hour nap. He drinks another bottle of wine at supper.
You'll be glad to know that he recyles the empty bottles.
I get tired of doing nothing while he sleeps, so insist on going out by myself. I am late returning one afternoon and Gomez is in a tizzy. I am five minutes late. Five minutes. Not five hours.
"What eef I don't know what happens to you?" he asks.
"I've been to Paris several times and I speak French," I tell him. I am torn between being happy someone is worried about me and being annoyed that I am being treated like a child.
He tells me about going to college and grad school in Paris. His mother send him to college with a Mercedes and a servant.
We are from different worlds, indeed.
We have lunch with one of his cousins and his aunt one day. The aunt refuses to talk to me. Ayisha, the cousin, is fine. She and I chat the entire time while the aunt alternates between giving me the evil eye and ignoring me. This is our only lunch out. We eat Chinese food.
The high point of the trip is Gomez's anti-Semitism. He is divorced and has custody of his son. His ex is American. We spend an afternoon walking (Gomez doesn't spend money on taxis, but he will spend $1,200 on a new sportcoat, which is another shopping adventure we have) to a Lebanese church so he can ask them about their records and his ex-wife's surname and is it really Lebanese Christian or - oh no - Jewish.
"Why does it matter?" I ask.
He gives me some BS answer that makes no sense to me - something about how he himself is not anti-Semitic but he is sure she lied to him about being Christian instead of Jewish and he's not anti-Semitic really - the ambassador from Israel lives down the street from him and is his friend.
When I return to Springfield, he asks me to get a copy of his ex's birth certificate. I refuse and tell him I want nothing to do with this little project of his.
He wears a suit and tie every day. I have jeans.
He smokes. In the apartment. Even though I ask him repeatedly not to.
He lectures me about US foreign policy.
He asks me to iron his shirts.
I put up with all of this.
Idiot, idiot, idiot.
* No, he is not.
"Meet me in Paris," he urges. "I can spend the week with you."
He does not offer to pay for my ticket. What's a thousand dollars? Pocket change! Who thinks once about a thousand dollars?
I should have insisted he buy my ticket. I do not ask that he do so. I am a Liberated Woman. I Pay My Own Way. I don't want to be a Bought Woman. Ha. I was an idiot. I was a many times idiot with Gomez.
I cash in frequent flier miles for my ticket. I go to The Gap to get clothes for his seven year old son. ("The Gap is so expensive here," he tells me.) $115 I spend.
My friends, the clerk at The Gap, the women at the Junior League Thrift Shop where I seek the perfect dress, are all thrilled at my adventure. It's like a fairy tale. I have visions of True Love, of Being Rescued and Living a Life of Luxury. A Life Where I Never Have to Clean the Bathroom Again.
I arrive in Paris. He does not meet me at the airport. I am bothered by this. I mean - Primo has always picked me up. OK, I don't know this yet, but instinctively, I know that The Man Picks The Woman Up.
Gomez's excuse is that he is flying into Orly and I am flying into de Gaulle, but so the heck what? Is he a gentleman or not?* Can't he take a cab from one airport to another?
We meet at a cafe near his cousin's apartment, which is where we will be staying. When he said, "apartment," I had envisioned a place with you know, bedrooms. And a cousin. As in, a place where it would be easy not to share a bed or bedroom with Gomez because I am positive that You Know What is not going to happen because I am not That Kind Of Girl.
But it turns out to be a studio. Empty. The cousin, Salima, is not there. She has been summoned home because it's high time she married and her parents don't mean maybe. In the meantime, she keeps the apartment for her occasional jaunts to Paris.
Rich kids.
Being as it has been a while for me, I do prove to Gomez that yes, les Americaines are indeed facile. I am indeed, That Kind Of Girl. Oh, the shame.
I show him the things from The Gap. "Here's the receipt," I say politely. That's American middle class code for, "You may give me my money now."
Apparently, to a rich, never has had to work for his money Moroccan, that means, "Here is an insignificant piece of paper."
He does not give me my $115 until halfway through the week and that's after I flat-out ask for it.
I want to walk around Paris, go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, to Versailles, to the markets. "I 'ave done all zat," he says. "Zat is boring."
He wants to go to his bank. To the Ferrari dealer. To The Gap.
Yes. To The Gap.
We go to the Paris Gap not once, but three times.
We are in Paris and we are going to The Gap?
This is not what I had in mind.
We eat in almost every night because Gomez doesn't like restaurants.
"I eat at restaurants all of zee time," he says. "Eet is boring."
The one time we do go out for supper, it is with friends of his who speak English but prefer French. My French is not good enough to keep up with them, so I spend the meal gagging over the cigarette smoke - the couple next to us goes through an entire pack of cigarettes while we are there and no I am not making this up - and being bored.
We eat lunch in. After lunch, at which he drinks an entire bottle of wine, Gomez changes into his Frette pajamas (a fancy brand I had never heard of before) and takes a three hour nap. He drinks another bottle of wine at supper.
You'll be glad to know that he recyles the empty bottles.
I get tired of doing nothing while he sleeps, so insist on going out by myself. I am late returning one afternoon and Gomez is in a tizzy. I am five minutes late. Five minutes. Not five hours.
"What eef I don't know what happens to you?" he asks.
"I've been to Paris several times and I speak French," I tell him. I am torn between being happy someone is worried about me and being annoyed that I am being treated like a child.
He tells me about going to college and grad school in Paris. His mother send him to college with a Mercedes and a servant.
We are from different worlds, indeed.
We have lunch with one of his cousins and his aunt one day. The aunt refuses to talk to me. Ayisha, the cousin, is fine. She and I chat the entire time while the aunt alternates between giving me the evil eye and ignoring me. This is our only lunch out. We eat Chinese food.
The high point of the trip is Gomez's anti-Semitism. He is divorced and has custody of his son. His ex is American. We spend an afternoon walking (Gomez doesn't spend money on taxis, but he will spend $1,200 on a new sportcoat, which is another shopping adventure we have) to a Lebanese church so he can ask them about their records and his ex-wife's surname and is it really Lebanese Christian or - oh no - Jewish.
"Why does it matter?" I ask.
He gives me some BS answer that makes no sense to me - something about how he himself is not anti-Semitic but he is sure she lied to him about being Christian instead of Jewish and he's not anti-Semitic really - the ambassador from Israel lives down the street from him and is his friend.
When I return to Springfield, he asks me to get a copy of his ex's birth certificate. I refuse and tell him I want nothing to do with this little project of his.
He wears a suit and tie every day. I have jeans.
He smokes. In the apartment. Even though I ask him repeatedly not to.
He lectures me about US foreign policy.
He asks me to iron his shirts.
I put up with all of this.
Idiot, idiot, idiot.
* No, he is not.
In which I tell you the embarrassing story of Gomez, the Moroccan millionaire, Part 2
I left you with my stupid, low self-esteem decision to see Gomez again, despite his attempt to manhandle me. Norah thought I was nuts, but Norah was already married to a wonderful man and had a cute little baby. Gomez was all, "Oh you are soooo wonderful and sexy and you would be the perfect wife" and he was saying it in French and I?
Was an idiot. I mean, what kind of man talks about marriage on the first date?
A man who is trying to get laid.
But he was trying to get laid in French. It sounded great.
So I agreed to see him again. We would meet at his hotel,* where we planned to eat in the hotel restaurant.
Henry laughed. "The guy owns the place! Like he's going to care that his employees are around? If he tries anything funny, they'll just avert their eyes."
Well, probably, but at least I would have an easier escape, as the hotel was only three blocks from Henry and Norah's apartment.
We sat in his restaurant. I ate. He didn't. He smoked. Don't they all? We spoke French. Why French, the language of the Colonial Oppressors of Morocco? Because that's what most educated Moroccans speak (in addition to Arabic and maybe Berber). Gomez also spoke English. Of course. But his French was flawless, as befits a man who got his PhD in economics in Paris.
He behaved. I knew he could. When he was behaving, he was super charming. Rich, (reasonably) good looking,** PhD.
He asked if he could take me to the airport the next day. Asked me in French.
"I'll have to check with Norah," I told him. "She's already planned to take me."
Norah was thrilled at the idea. "I have a meeting," she said. "I'd rather not miss it."
Again, I met Gomez at the hotel. Yes. I was a fool. A man who will not bother to pick you up? Wait. Maybe he did pick me up. I had luggage. Whatever.
Anyhow, we ended up back at the hotel for something. He told me he wanted to show me the roof view. What he really wanted to do was neck. I was OK with that because there was something so recklessly glamorous about the whole thing: handsome foreigner throwing himself at me.
Or, you could look at it this way: Foreigner thinking, "American women. All alike. Easy."
Then he wanted to "show me one of the rooms." Where I had to fight him off again.
I know. I know.
But it was somehow very exciting.
He waited with me at the airport, bought me a coke. He said he would call me and I thought, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever.
I flew home to Springfield and couldn't sleep from all the drama, so I went to Walgreen's in the middle of the night, bought some Natural Instincts Cinaberry and dyed my hair red.
* You are asking, "How does one own a hotel that apparently makes no money?" Well, one is born the child of wealthy, third-world parents in a country where those parents have strong connections to the royal family. Gomez' father died before he was born, so Gomez inherited that money, which consisted of factories. And stuff. Then his mother, who was wealthy in her own right, remarried and I think gave Gomez money as well.
** Not as handsome as Primo, for sure.
Was an idiot. I mean, what kind of man talks about marriage on the first date?
A man who is trying to get laid.
But he was trying to get laid in French. It sounded great.
So I agreed to see him again. We would meet at his hotel,* where we planned to eat in the hotel restaurant.
Henry laughed. "The guy owns the place! Like he's going to care that his employees are around? If he tries anything funny, they'll just avert their eyes."
Well, probably, but at least I would have an easier escape, as the hotel was only three blocks from Henry and Norah's apartment.
We sat in his restaurant. I ate. He didn't. He smoked. Don't they all? We spoke French. Why French, the language of the Colonial Oppressors of Morocco? Because that's what most educated Moroccans speak (in addition to Arabic and maybe Berber). Gomez also spoke English. Of course. But his French was flawless, as befits a man who got his PhD in economics in Paris.
He behaved. I knew he could. When he was behaving, he was super charming. Rich, (reasonably) good looking,** PhD.
He asked if he could take me to the airport the next day. Asked me in French.
"I'll have to check with Norah," I told him. "She's already planned to take me."
Norah was thrilled at the idea. "I have a meeting," she said. "I'd rather not miss it."
Again, I met Gomez at the hotel. Yes. I was a fool. A man who will not bother to pick you up? Wait. Maybe he did pick me up. I had luggage. Whatever.
Anyhow, we ended up back at the hotel for something. He told me he wanted to show me the roof view. What he really wanted to do was neck. I was OK with that because there was something so recklessly glamorous about the whole thing: handsome foreigner throwing himself at me.
Or, you could look at it this way: Foreigner thinking, "American women. All alike. Easy."
Then he wanted to "show me one of the rooms." Where I had to fight him off again.
I know. I know.
But it was somehow very exciting.
He waited with me at the airport, bought me a coke. He said he would call me and I thought, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever.
I flew home to Springfield and couldn't sleep from all the drama, so I went to Walgreen's in the middle of the night, bought some Natural Instincts Cinaberry and dyed my hair red.
* You are asking, "How does one own a hotel that apparently makes no money?" Well, one is born the child of wealthy, third-world parents in a country where those parents have strong connections to the royal family. Gomez' father died before he was born, so Gomez inherited that money, which consisted of factories. And stuff. Then his mother, who was wealthy in her own right, remarried and I think gave Gomez money as well.
** Not as handsome as Primo, for sure.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
