blogtastrophy

It's actually really early Monday morning - close to 1 a.m., I guess.  New York is being hit with what's already being called "Blizzard 2003."  I'm not sure if these predictions are right or not, but apparently we could get as much as 1 - 2 feet in the city.  That's saying something.  Usually, even when the areas around the city get slammed, the concentration of concrete and people tends to lessen the impact in the city itself.  Not so, this time, apparently.

This has been a bit of a disappointing weekend, all around.  I spent Valentines Day with the Lagemans and their friends the Burnetts, along with Ms. Shannon Brown and their friend Phil, whose wife Julie was off somewhere in the wilds of Virginia filming a student film.

It was wonderful, of course, to have any opportunity to hang out with this crowd, but it was hard to be one of the few single people - and the only gay man - at a Valentines party.  You'd think I'd be used to being single, after nearly two years of it;  I used to revel in my singleness back in the days before Gavan.  Someone told me a while back that it takes as long to get over a relationship as you were in it.... which means that apparently it's going to take me 4½ years to get over Gavan.  Man, that sucks.

So, that was my Valentines Day.  Feeling like the 11th wheel at a party full of breeders.  Kevin and Kirsten Lageman, god love 'em, fall over themselves to cheer me up about it, but there are just times when I let my own self-pity reign and just wallow in it like a pig in mud.  Valentines Day "alone" is definitely one of those times.

Don't think that I'm not sick of it, either.  I don't find my own self pity very charming, and I'm not really in the habit of displaying it for everyone to see, but there are times - like Valentines Day - when the lonliness is a palpable ache, and I can feel it like other emotions.  Once, in an acting class, a teacher pointed out to me that all emotions feel the same way, which makes it easier for an actor to use one emotion to simulate others.  Where, he asked, do you feel real, unmitigated joy?  The answer, for most people, is right in the bundle of nerves at your solar plexus.  Fear?  Anger?  Same place.  And when I allow myself to really wallow in self pity, that's where I feel the heartache.

The weekend wasn't much better.  I spent Saturday running errands and lounging around the apartment, and today I had dinner with Nathan, who's a bit of torture himself.  I could, sadly, totally fall for Nate, except for the pesky fact that he's not attracted to me and wants nothing that even remotely resembles a relationship.  So I get to torture myself by hanging out with him and having to endure his telling me what a catch I am.  My only response to that, of course, is, "Then why the fuck do I have so many first dates?!?"

As a capper to what has otherwise been a completely lovely weekend (do you smell the sarcasm there?), I had an online conversation with this guy, Richard, whom I'd met for dinner before and had enjoyed.  We were doing a little online flirting and the topic of the woman who'd sued McDonalds when she spilled hot coffee on herself came up.  We clearly were on opposite sides of this argument - him believing that McDonalds was totally at fault, and me believing that people should accept responsibility for the risks they take (i.e., drinking hot coffee in a car).  I apparently misunderstood that his rather ardent defense of the lady involved and vilification of McDonalds wasn't just the usually slightly ironic and wry tone we usually take in our online chats; but boy, was I wrong about that.  After he insisted that the lady had 3rd degree burns and required skin grafts and that McDonalds had served the coffee way too hot, and that all this had happened in a parked car, my reply - hewing to my belief that she had assumed responsibility by ordering hot coffee at a drive-through and should be appropriately careful - was simply, "I'm just not buying it, sorry."

Suddenly, out of nowhere, he sent "night" and signed off.  Maybe I have old fashioned standards of chat etiquette, but to me, that's the online equivalent of hanging up on someone.  As far as I'm concerned, there's just no need for that shit.  Apparently, though, Richard feels that there's just no need for people who won't be swayed by his arguments!