It has been almost a month since I’ve written and it hasn’t been because I don’t have anything to say, but because I am afraid to write what I have to say. Writing things makes things real. At least for me it does, and I have spent the better part of my life trying to believe that the now daily pain I feel is all in my head. And since it was all in my head, I saw no need to blog about it or even get help for it. That is, until the pain got so bad I just needed someone to cut something out of me. I needed someone to permanently remove whatever hideous and hellaciously angry part of me was causing so much pain that merely breathing sometimes exacerbated the problem.
Unfortunately, the doctor I finally went to see will not remove any of my angry organs. That bastard!
Over the course of the past fifteen years I have seen more doctors than I care count, to try and get answers about the stabbing pain on my right side. I remember exactly the day I first felt this pain. The summer before my junior year in high school I was 17 at cross country camp in New York with two of my friends. We were stretching before our run when out of nowhere came this searing pain in my right side. I doubled over in agony and was sent to the nurse who told me that I may have pulled something or maybe it was my appendix, we’d wait and see. While I was at camp the pain eventually subsided and was more or less forgotten about until the next month and the next month and the many, many months after that when it kept returning, always on my right side.
When the pain would return and when it would intensify, so too would the pain of my periods. Now, I don’t ever recall having “easy” periods since I started menstruating at 13, but they certainly became more painful with age, especially in college. It got to the point where I had such intense cramps I would curl up in a ball in bed all day, my tears as useless as the over-the-counter pain meds I tried furtively to numb myself with. Sometimes even without a period, I would get debilitating pain, again, always on my right side, which would come out of nowhere. I remember running through the woods one day in my early 20’s when a pain on my right side so fierce knocked me to the ground without any warning. All I could go was double over on the ground and wait for it to pass.
For over a decade since then, I’ve seen doctor after doctor, most of whom told me it was “in my head” or “the burden of being a woman” or “that’s just what happens when we menstruate” (which ALWAYS was said by a male doctor and left me wondering when the hell the last time he menstruated was!!). The few family members and friends I told about the pain over the years didn’t know what to do or they too told me it was all in my head, part of being a woman, nothing to worry my pretty little head about. Sometimes I believed them. Most times I didn’t but what the hell was I going to do? No one seemed to take me very seriously, especially since the pain would come and go, lessen and worsen, sometimes seem to disappear altogether for months or two at a time, only to return with a vengeance later on.
The doctor I was seeing at the time believed that my periods were the source of my “frustration” and prescribed birth control pills to get everything under control. My first negative experience with birth control pills occurred within the first few months of taking them. I was a freshman in college at the time and I was irregularly sexually active. A mere few months on the pill led to a weird tingling sensation on the left side of my face which appeared out of nowhere during a math exam. The tingling sensation spread down the left side of my face to my upper left arm until that went numb. From there the sensation slowly traveled down my lower left arm and eventually throughout the entire left side of my body to the point where I had trouble using my left hand, speaking, feeling my left foot or even thinking clearly. Finally, scared out of my mind, I had my sorta boyfriend take me to the emergency room. The ancient male doctor who finally saw me, without doing any medical exams, lectured me about how I was having symptoms of a stroke and how stupid could I be to keep taking these pills when they could, literally, kill me. I was too stunned and afraid to tell him why I was really taking these pills, although I did immediately stop taking them.
After that incident, other “more knowledgable” doctors and gynecologists prescribed different types of the pill which weren’t supposed to have the same side effects, and while it is true that I didn’t stay on them long enough to experience stroke-like side effects, I had a variety of other problems which caused me to go off them.
For awhile I relied on condoms, but I had problems with them too. It seemed like most (but not all) of the time when my partner used a condom I would get anything from a mild irritation in my vulva to a full out burning, acidic forest fire inside my vagina, the pain of which could last for a day or two. I discussed this once with my mom (yes, with my mom) and she suggested waiting until I was more aroused to have penetration and if that didn’t work, switching brands of condoms (I’d already tried quite a few and generally they all caused some negative reaction) and if that didn’t work, she suggested trying lube. No one ever suggested that I see a doctor about this (although given my past experiences, I doubt that it would have helped much anyway!). And anyway, condoms didn’t always cause such burning irritation, so when things were fine for awhile, I’d go back to telling myself what I was feeling was all in my head.
Once, while on charity care in New Jersey, (because even though I was working two jobs I didn’t make enough money to afford my own health care and neither job provided part time people with insurance) I sort of got a smattering of answers about my pain which refused to go away. The charity care doctor I saw initially told me that my pain “was part of being a woman” and saw no reason to pursue medical treatment. However when the nursing assistant tried to perform a routine gyn exam, I almost jumped off the table from the pain of her trying to insert the just the tip of her finger into my vagina. I fought back tears as she left the room, presumably to let the doctor know that something had to be done.
Reluctantly the doctor ordered an ultrasound to see what the hell might be wrong with me. He told me it might be an ovarian cyst or endometriosis, though he still seemed to think the tests were a waste of time and taxpayers’ money. Despite feeling that way, he did strongly suggest that if I have endometriosis, I really should consider getting pregnant because that would stop my periods (and presumably my problems) for at least 9 months…longer if I breast feed or had more kids. My highest paying job at the time was $6.50 an hour, never mind the fact that I never, ever want to have kids, and this was what the doctor thought was the best course of action for me?
The ultrasound revealed that I had a cyst on my right ovary (at least that wasn’t in my head!) and Doctor Charity Care begrudgingly consented to giving me a laparoscopy to remove the cyst.
Finally, on September 12, 2001, I had the first surgery of my life. The procedure revealed that the cyst on my right ovary had ruptured prior to surgery so that should not have been the cause of my current pain. It was also discovered that I had endometriosis; which I had suspected and attempted to discuss with the doctor when I first met him and he immediately dismissed. He told me they removed all the endometriosis they could see but since they weren’t expecting to find any in the first place, there was no way to tell, without further surgeries, if anything remained. At any rate, he “assured” me it would likely come back in a few years anyway, as long as I kept getting a period. Again he recommended the “cure” of pregnancy (which I later learned can often make endometriosis even worse!) as a means of “keeping the endometriosis at bay” since there is no cure for it.
Since I refused to get pregnant, this began years of failed treatments, increased pain, several new doctors and an increasing sense on my part that maybe this was really all in my head.
Over the years, when I was somewhat believed, doctors prescribed a plethora of birth control methods aimed at controlling my periods. I was on several types of birth control pills (both regular and progesterone only), even after the disaster I experienced in college because each new gyn “assured” me that this pill would not cause the same, or even similar side-effects. None of the pills worked for me since I appear to be unable to tolerate extra doses of estrogen.
From there I was prescribed “the patch”, which I thought was a miracle, since I had been able to use it longer than any form of birth control pills. That is, until the day I leaned over to pick something up off the floor of the nursing home where I was working and I felt an intense tightness in my chest followed by sharp shooting pains in my chest and down my left arm. Although I had tried to ignore the tightness in my chest that I was increasingly feeling on my drive into work that morning, even I wasn’t foolish enough to ignore these symptoms. My doctor diagnosed these symptoms as warning signs of a heart attack and ordered me to stop using the patch. I was twenty five at the time.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
I Loathe Christopher Columbus (And Some Other Random People I've Never Met)
This past Monday apparently was Columbus Day. Who knew? My mom did but that is only because she has a government job and is one of the few people who had this day off. Every year she looks forward to this holiday and every year I give her a lecture about how dumb it is and why we shouldn’t celebrate it. She stopped listening to me a long time ago.
When I was a kid I used to get sort of excited about Columbus Day, if it meant we didn’t have school. When I became an adult who had to start buying her own stuff, I liked the day a little bit because it meant sales, sales, sales at many of my favorite stores. The thing is, ever since I can remember learning about Columbus, I’ve hated, I mean HATED, even loathed the man and I have no idea why. I can’t tell you any sort of rationale reason why I would despise someone I’ve never met, but if I tried to have a conversation about this person, the hatred in my voice would probably cause you to wonder what the hell was wrong with me.
Even though I can’t explain why I loathe this man, I can tell you that I was thrilled, when, as a kid my mom told me a story about Colombus’s death. Even though I was no older than 10, I distinctly remember her telling me that Columbus was likely buried alive (although I can’t find anything to prove this statement). I think he was in a coma and the people who thought he was dead were merely unable to detect a very weak heartbeat, so the bastard got tossed in a tomb. My mom told me that when they (whoever they are) exhumed his body (I don’t know why this was done) there were claw marks inside the coffin. I guess he woke up and realized he was in a very bad place and tried desperately to get out.
I remember being filled with horror at the thought of being buried alive and also being filled with a sense of glee, yes, I mean joy, happiness, even elation, that Columbus was supposedly buried alive. Now, I am a relatively stable minded person who can be malicious but isn’t usually sadistic and I cannot rationally explain why the thought of some ancient moron who got credit for “discovering America” when he really thought he found India (and we celebrate this because why, exactly?) thrills me.
The compassionate side of me imagines that it must have sucked to wake up from a coma or whatever he was in, and realize that it was very dark and cold where he was. I imagine what it must have been like to try to figure out where he was and why couldn’t he move and then trying desperately to claw his way out of whatever he was in. It’s sick. I know. I really shouldn’t find satisfaction in this, even if I do despise the man.
My Aunt, who believes very deeply in past lives told me that if I feel this strongly about Christopher Columbus maybe it is because we had some sort of connection in a past life. I don’t really like to think about that sort of stuff, but if it is true, then I imagine whatever connection we had, it wasn’t a very good one!
I also have great disdain for other people I’ve never met and likely never will meet, despite the fact that they have done nothing to me. Among these people are Bill Clinton and Rachael Ray.
I know it is almost sacrilegious to say you hate Bill Clinton, but I haven’t really toned down my feelings towards the man over the years. I still loathe the no-good, lying, sleepy-eyed-basset hound and I never understood why anyone would find him attractive, never mind want to suck his dick! As far as that goes, I’d almost rather never have sex again than even think about fellating that pompous windbag! Having said that, I don’t really get my intense disdain for him either. I mean, I did vote for him at least once (I’ve chosen to “forget” if I voted for him the second time or not) and he hasn’t done much worse than so many arrogant little pricks in positions of power have, but still, when I passed by his book, “My Pathetic Life” or whatever it is called, at the library today, I wanted to heave my guts out all over his lecherous face. I have that reaction whenever I see his face, which fortunately isn’t very often!
My loathing of Rachel Ray is about the only one I can somewhat rationally explain. It began when I learned that my lover thought she was hot. For me, it was immediate. She was competition. She was a threat to our sanctuary, our relationship. Until I managed to shame my lover into no longer openly admitted that Rachael Ray is hot and has great tits, I was tormented with nightmares of her. Of course it didn’t help that my lover once admitted that she was on the” Celebrity Top Five People To Fuck If The Opportunity Ever Presented Itself” list.
“Ah ha!” You say, “So there’s the problem. You feel threatened.” Well, yes, in a way I do but it is not because my beloved wants to bang someone else, but because that someone else is Rachael-Fucking-I-Can-Make-Dog-Shit-Taste-Good- And-Smile-While-Children-Die-Of-Malnutrition-Ray! I don’t feel intimidated by Kathy Ireland, who has held the number one “Celebrity Fuck” spot since my lover was in high school. At least Kathy is hot, hot, hot, has red hair and is, or at least portrays herself as a highly intelligent, business savvy, I-Can-Conquer-The-World-In-My-Sleep kind of woman.
I feel threatened by Rachel-fucking-Ray because she is so much that I am not and never freaking will be! She is petite and perky, rich and friendly, can out cook me any day and is so goddamn optimistic I just want to grate her expensive plastic surgery smile off her face while simultaneously deep frying her airhead laugh and roasting her eye balls over an open fire (which was created with all of Bill Clinton’s books!). Besides, what the hell does Rachael Ray offer the world besides stupidly named dog food, more useless cookbooks and monthly magazine covers where her tits are the main feature?
My loathing of her is perfectly rational and it makes far more sense than my visceral loathing of Columbus. In my defense, at least I don’t want to bury her alive or vomit on the cover of her books!
Really, there might be something wrong with me for how strongly impassioned I can become about these people I will never meet, but before you write me off as a callous, threatened lover, a snarky bitch (well, I might like that one) or just plain insane, maybe you could take an afternoon or two to think of people you loath that you’ve never met. Brittney Spears…Paris Hilton…George Bush…Dick Cheney…Mother Theresa…? I’ll bet you have at least one or two people you loath that you’ve never met…so come on...‘fess up!
When I was a kid I used to get sort of excited about Columbus Day, if it meant we didn’t have school. When I became an adult who had to start buying her own stuff, I liked the day a little bit because it meant sales, sales, sales at many of my favorite stores. The thing is, ever since I can remember learning about Columbus, I’ve hated, I mean HATED, even loathed the man and I have no idea why. I can’t tell you any sort of rationale reason why I would despise someone I’ve never met, but if I tried to have a conversation about this person, the hatred in my voice would probably cause you to wonder what the hell was wrong with me.
Even though I can’t explain why I loathe this man, I can tell you that I was thrilled, when, as a kid my mom told me a story about Colombus’s death. Even though I was no older than 10, I distinctly remember her telling me that Columbus was likely buried alive (although I can’t find anything to prove this statement). I think he was in a coma and the people who thought he was dead were merely unable to detect a very weak heartbeat, so the bastard got tossed in a tomb. My mom told me that when they (whoever they are) exhumed his body (I don’t know why this was done) there were claw marks inside the coffin. I guess he woke up and realized he was in a very bad place and tried desperately to get out.
I remember being filled with horror at the thought of being buried alive and also being filled with a sense of glee, yes, I mean joy, happiness, even elation, that Columbus was supposedly buried alive. Now, I am a relatively stable minded person who can be malicious but isn’t usually sadistic and I cannot rationally explain why the thought of some ancient moron who got credit for “discovering America” when he really thought he found India (and we celebrate this because why, exactly?) thrills me.
The compassionate side of me imagines that it must have sucked to wake up from a coma or whatever he was in, and realize that it was very dark and cold where he was. I imagine what it must have been like to try to figure out where he was and why couldn’t he move and then trying desperately to claw his way out of whatever he was in. It’s sick. I know. I really shouldn’t find satisfaction in this, even if I do despise the man.
My Aunt, who believes very deeply in past lives told me that if I feel this strongly about Christopher Columbus maybe it is because we had some sort of connection in a past life. I don’t really like to think about that sort of stuff, but if it is true, then I imagine whatever connection we had, it wasn’t a very good one!
I also have great disdain for other people I’ve never met and likely never will meet, despite the fact that they have done nothing to me. Among these people are Bill Clinton and Rachael Ray.
I know it is almost sacrilegious to say you hate Bill Clinton, but I haven’t really toned down my feelings towards the man over the years. I still loathe the no-good, lying, sleepy-eyed-basset hound and I never understood why anyone would find him attractive, never mind want to suck his dick! As far as that goes, I’d almost rather never have sex again than even think about fellating that pompous windbag! Having said that, I don’t really get my intense disdain for him either. I mean, I did vote for him at least once (I’ve chosen to “forget” if I voted for him the second time or not) and he hasn’t done much worse than so many arrogant little pricks in positions of power have, but still, when I passed by his book, “My Pathetic Life” or whatever it is called, at the library today, I wanted to heave my guts out all over his lecherous face. I have that reaction whenever I see his face, which fortunately isn’t very often!
My loathing of Rachel Ray is about the only one I can somewhat rationally explain. It began when I learned that my lover thought she was hot. For me, it was immediate. She was competition. She was a threat to our sanctuary, our relationship. Until I managed to shame my lover into no longer openly admitted that Rachael Ray is hot and has great tits, I was tormented with nightmares of her. Of course it didn’t help that my lover once admitted that she was on the” Celebrity Top Five People To Fuck If The Opportunity Ever Presented Itself” list.
“Ah ha!” You say, “So there’s the problem. You feel threatened.” Well, yes, in a way I do but it is not because my beloved wants to bang someone else, but because that someone else is Rachael-Fucking-I-Can-Make-Dog-Shit-Taste-Good- And-Smile-While-Children-Die-Of-Malnutrition-Ray! I don’t feel intimidated by Kathy Ireland, who has held the number one “Celebrity Fuck” spot since my lover was in high school. At least Kathy is hot, hot, hot, has red hair and is, or at least portrays herself as a highly intelligent, business savvy, I-Can-Conquer-The-World-In-My-Sleep kind of woman.
I feel threatened by Rachel-fucking-Ray because she is so much that I am not and never freaking will be! She is petite and perky, rich and friendly, can out cook me any day and is so goddamn optimistic I just want to grate her expensive plastic surgery smile off her face while simultaneously deep frying her airhead laugh and roasting her eye balls over an open fire (which was created with all of Bill Clinton’s books!). Besides, what the hell does Rachael Ray offer the world besides stupidly named dog food, more useless cookbooks and monthly magazine covers where her tits are the main feature?
My loathing of her is perfectly rational and it makes far more sense than my visceral loathing of Columbus. In my defense, at least I don’t want to bury her alive or vomit on the cover of her books!
Really, there might be something wrong with me for how strongly impassioned I can become about these people I will never meet, but before you write me off as a callous, threatened lover, a snarky bitch (well, I might like that one) or just plain insane, maybe you could take an afternoon or two to think of people you loath that you’ve never met. Brittney Spears…Paris Hilton…George Bush…Dick Cheney…Mother Theresa…? I’ll bet you have at least one or two people you loath that you’ve never met…so come on...‘fess up!
Monday, October 5, 2009
Mr. Can't Get It Up, Part One
(The following is another excerpt from a book I am working on, currently entitled, "Dabbling with Dating Disasters" which I might some day get up the courage to submit for publication. The first excerpt, if you haven't been reading along, is entitled, My First Childhood Love.)
Mr. Can’t Get It Up remains one of my biggest regrets, and not, by the way, because of his unfortunate nickname.
I met Mr. Up when I was working at Kohl’s Department store in a town not too far from where I grew up. I had just moved back, temporarily, into my mom’s house and I was trying to get a job, a real job, doing something using my degree that I spend so much money for, as my mom liked to frequently remind me.
Since I wanted to use my degree and I was tired of waitressing, I naturally decided I would apply for a job at Kohl’s (or just about anywhere that would allow me to keep my clothes on and not have to serve food to people). Although I really couldn’t justify how a job there was using my degree, it was a paycheck while I was waiting to land the job of my dreams helping those less fortunate than me. (Really, I’m not that altruistic, but I really did want to find a job where I needed to have a bachelor’s degree, since it was long past time to start paying the loans back!) I was hired to convince people to sign up for credit cards and to run credit application checks on those people who were silly enough to actually sign up for them. It wasn’t a bad job. Interminably boring towards the end but I worked with some cool people and our supervisor was laid back.
I don’t recall meeting Mr. Can’t Get it Up at the new employee orientation meeting, where we were herded like sheep into a tiny room to learn about the benefits we would never be getting and watching movies about the proper way to lift boxes we would never move. If I had seen him there, that probably would have made the event far more memorable.
Mr. Up was unlike any guy I had ever been attracted to in so many ways. First of all, he was much shorter than me and while I’ve never been a stickler for a guy’s height, I still cringe when I think about my sisters dancing around with the family dog on it's hind legs, mocking the fact that my prom date was almost a foot shorter than me…before I put on shoes! In addition to being shorter than me, Mr. Up had (probably still has) the brightest red hair I’ve ever seen on someone and an explosion of freckles everywhere, or at least everywhere that I could see, and believe me, I wanted to see much, much more! In short, he looked like a little leprechaun and reminded me, with great longing, of the time I spent living in Ireland, and by default I guess, of a man I loved very deeply when I lived on the Emerald Isle and hadn’t heard from in ages. He (Mr. Up) even had an authentic Irish name to boot! I was smitten. Not instantly, of course, because I had been working really hard to ensure that kind of crap never happened again, but I was smitten nevertheless.
Mr. Up and I did not spend a lot of time working together at first. It was the store’s policy (or someone’s policy) that there had to be two greeters at each entrance trying to get people to apply for a credit card while the rest of the group stayed in the back and processed the applications. In the beginning, we were too busy smiling, pivoting, soliciting and processing credit card offers to have much of a chance to talk to one another. Sometimes though, especially as the weeks wore on and it became obvious who was better at what job, Mr. Up and I would get to sit next to each other and flirt shamelessly as we worked diligently to approve all the credit applications. It was somewhere amidst the piles of paperwork that I became aware of my attraction to him.
I don’t know what the clues were, maybe it was my embarrassing inability to put together coherent sentences when talking to him. Maybe it was my aching clitoris or the panties which constantly felt like they needed to be changed when he was around. Maybe it was the fantasies I had about being back in Ireland that made me attracted to him. I don’t know and I don’t really care. I just knew that I wanted to fuck him.
That was it really.
In the time we spent getting to know each other, both at work and hanging out with co-workers outside of work, I had gleaned enough information about him to know that dating him was a terrible idea. It would have been catapulting myself down the same dangerous road of all those other disastrous relationships…the ones that I tried to heal, to patch back up, to love ‘em ‘til they’re perfect, all the while forgetting about my own needs. Although I was lusting heartily for him (a lust which was made far stronger by the knowledge that I should not, could not, date him) I was also terrified that I would not be able to simply fuck him and walk away, even though I had more or less done this routine before. Mr. Up, I still believe, has a really big heart and he seemed like he was looking for more of a relationship than I was.
Nevertheless, the day came when I finally told him how I felt about him and it went something like this:
Me: “I think you’re kinda hot.”
Him: “Uh, thanks.”
Me: “I’d like to have sex with you.”
Him: “Uh, what?”
Me: “I would like to have sex with you and that’s it. I like you but I don’t want a relationship. I just want to fuck you and see what it is like.”
Him: (Long, very long period of silence. I begin to regret what I have just said) “Uh, isn’t that what the guy is supposed to say?”
Me: (Very long period of silence. Wondering why I thought I should share this with him.) “Well, that’s how I feel.”
Him: “Huh.”
End of conversation.
That may or may not be verbatim, but it sure is how the conversation felt! I was sitting there, all lusty in my loins and telling him that I wanted to have sex with him, which, by this point, I thought was obvious. No matter what I did though, I was feeling like I was about to get shot down. It was humiliating!
Turns out it really bothered him that all I wanted was sex, not a meaningful relationship.
Christ!
I thought I was supposed to be the one who, stereotypically, gets upset that someone just wants to fuck me. And here he is all questioning himself and me and my motives! It would have been a better idea to go home and masturbate for all the work this was becoming!
Mr. Can’t Get It Up remains one of my biggest regrets, and not, by the way, because of his unfortunate nickname.
I met Mr. Up when I was working at Kohl’s Department store in a town not too far from where I grew up. I had just moved back, temporarily, into my mom’s house and I was trying to get a job, a real job, doing something using my degree that I spend so much money for, as my mom liked to frequently remind me.
Since I wanted to use my degree and I was tired of waitressing, I naturally decided I would apply for a job at Kohl’s (or just about anywhere that would allow me to keep my clothes on and not have to serve food to people). Although I really couldn’t justify how a job there was using my degree, it was a paycheck while I was waiting to land the job of my dreams helping those less fortunate than me. (Really, I’m not that altruistic, but I really did want to find a job where I needed to have a bachelor’s degree, since it was long past time to start paying the loans back!) I was hired to convince people to sign up for credit cards and to run credit application checks on those people who were silly enough to actually sign up for them. It wasn’t a bad job. Interminably boring towards the end but I worked with some cool people and our supervisor was laid back.
I don’t recall meeting Mr. Can’t Get it Up at the new employee orientation meeting, where we were herded like sheep into a tiny room to learn about the benefits we would never be getting and watching movies about the proper way to lift boxes we would never move. If I had seen him there, that probably would have made the event far more memorable.
Mr. Up was unlike any guy I had ever been attracted to in so many ways. First of all, he was much shorter than me and while I’ve never been a stickler for a guy’s height, I still cringe when I think about my sisters dancing around with the family dog on it's hind legs, mocking the fact that my prom date was almost a foot shorter than me…before I put on shoes! In addition to being shorter than me, Mr. Up had (probably still has) the brightest red hair I’ve ever seen on someone and an explosion of freckles everywhere, or at least everywhere that I could see, and believe me, I wanted to see much, much more! In short, he looked like a little leprechaun and reminded me, with great longing, of the time I spent living in Ireland, and by default I guess, of a man I loved very deeply when I lived on the Emerald Isle and hadn’t heard from in ages. He (Mr. Up) even had an authentic Irish name to boot! I was smitten. Not instantly, of course, because I had been working really hard to ensure that kind of crap never happened again, but I was smitten nevertheless.
Mr. Up and I did not spend a lot of time working together at first. It was the store’s policy (or someone’s policy) that there had to be two greeters at each entrance trying to get people to apply for a credit card while the rest of the group stayed in the back and processed the applications. In the beginning, we were too busy smiling, pivoting, soliciting and processing credit card offers to have much of a chance to talk to one another. Sometimes though, especially as the weeks wore on and it became obvious who was better at what job, Mr. Up and I would get to sit next to each other and flirt shamelessly as we worked diligently to approve all the credit applications. It was somewhere amidst the piles of paperwork that I became aware of my attraction to him.
I don’t know what the clues were, maybe it was my embarrassing inability to put together coherent sentences when talking to him. Maybe it was my aching clitoris or the panties which constantly felt like they needed to be changed when he was around. Maybe it was the fantasies I had about being back in Ireland that made me attracted to him. I don’t know and I don’t really care. I just knew that I wanted to fuck him.
That was it really.
In the time we spent getting to know each other, both at work and hanging out with co-workers outside of work, I had gleaned enough information about him to know that dating him was a terrible idea. It would have been catapulting myself down the same dangerous road of all those other disastrous relationships…the ones that I tried to heal, to patch back up, to love ‘em ‘til they’re perfect, all the while forgetting about my own needs. Although I was lusting heartily for him (a lust which was made far stronger by the knowledge that I should not, could not, date him) I was also terrified that I would not be able to simply fuck him and walk away, even though I had more or less done this routine before. Mr. Up, I still believe, has a really big heart and he seemed like he was looking for more of a relationship than I was.
Nevertheless, the day came when I finally told him how I felt about him and it went something like this:
Me: “I think you’re kinda hot.”
Him: “Uh, thanks.”
Me: “I’d like to have sex with you.”
Him: “Uh, what?”
Me: “I would like to have sex with you and that’s it. I like you but I don’t want a relationship. I just want to fuck you and see what it is like.”
Him: (Long, very long period of silence. I begin to regret what I have just said) “Uh, isn’t that what the guy is supposed to say?”
Me: (Very long period of silence. Wondering why I thought I should share this with him.) “Well, that’s how I feel.”
Him: “Huh.”
End of conversation.
That may or may not be verbatim, but it sure is how the conversation felt! I was sitting there, all lusty in my loins and telling him that I wanted to have sex with him, which, by this point, I thought was obvious. No matter what I did though, I was feeling like I was about to get shot down. It was humiliating!
Turns out it really bothered him that all I wanted was sex, not a meaningful relationship.
Christ!
I thought I was supposed to be the one who, stereotypically, gets upset that someone just wants to fuck me. And here he is all questioning himself and me and my motives! It would have been a better idea to go home and masturbate for all the work this was becoming!
Mr. Can't Get It Up, Part Two
Sometime after I stopped working at Kohl’s and landed the job of my dreams (wow, did I ever actually feel that way about that hellacious place?) Mr. Up called and asked me if I wanted to go out for some drinks or something. I, sensing this was my chance to get some, or at least get the hell out of my mom’s house, said, “Hell yes!”…maybe a little too enthusiastically. After meeting up in the local Wendy’s parking lot, we ended up going to a country-western bar where I once worked for two and a half days (that is a story for another time).
That night was one of the most painfully awkward dates of my life.
Somehow, even though we had tons to talk about before my “I want to fuck you” disclosure, and even though we still managed to have a few good phone calls since I left Kohl’s, on this occasion, we had nothing to talk about. Nothing. Silence was the theme of the evening. It even overtook the awful, blaring country music and the piercing shattering of beer bottles as the surly waitresses prepared to serve another drunken customer.
We barely even touched each other as we sat side by side, nursing our respective beers and looking as pathetic as the rest of the hopeless crowd there. I think every time my bare leg brushed against his, he about jumped off the bar stool. At first I thought it was funny, that maybe he was nervous or something, but it quickly got on my nerves. I mean, I’m an attractive person, do you have to jump like I have leprosy every time I touch you? Jesus! I’ll find someone else in this dump to fuck!
After a lifetime, or several agonizing hours, or at least two beers and painfully limited conversation, we left the bar. As he drove me back to Wendy’s where I left my car, I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness that I had ever bothered to tell him how I felt in the first place. It felt like rejection and looked like rejection and I just couldn’t figure out what I did wrong. I mean, I was taught at a very early age that all guys wanted was sex, so why the fuck wasn’t this guy interested in me? Was he really serious about wanting a freaking relationship?
Ok. If it had to be that way, it had been such a long time since I got laid, at this point I would have gone back in time and undone my honest conversation and pretend I wanted to date him, if, and only if, after a short period of time it meant I could finally get to see the rest of those freckles and satisfy my curiosity about the real color of his pubic hair! Christ! Why did I have to fuck things up so badly by being honest?
He said nary a word to me in the short drive back, or none that I recall anyway. However, it turned out that the ambiance of an empty Wendy’s parking lot, or the effects of a few beers, finally managed to loosen his lips. I believe he finally made the first move and leaned in and kissed me around the same time that I finally figured out that he was probably waiting for me to make the first move all night; after all, I was the one looking to jump his bones whereas he apparently didn’t know what he wanted to do with me!
The kiss was pretty good. A little slobbery, tasting like beer and nervous saliva and very awkward, but still, a good kiss. It really had been a very, very long time for me! He pulled away almost as quickly as a race car driver and again we sat there in awkward silence. I guess this was the part where I was supposed to invite myself back to his place, but I didn’t. I was a lot more talk than action at this point. In my fantasies, everything went so much more smoothly than this and I had no idea what to do with this reality!
Finally, in a small, but trying to sound gruff and non-committal, voice, he asked me if I wanted to go back to his place and make good on my offer to, you know, um, have sex. I, trying to sound suave, said sure.
Perhaps it was a delayed response to the alcohol, or endorphins surging through my body, or the sight of a cowboy hat on his wall, whatever it was, once we finally got to his place, I was just about ready to go. I found a reduced inhibition and began making out with him furiously. Or trying to anyway. He still seemed to have reservations or concerns or something other than a raging desire to throw me on the bed and fuck like crazy. I, in my clear head, thought it would be a good idea to push him up against the wall, press my eager breasts upon him and make out even more passionately while simultaneously trying to untuck his shirt. That didn’t work so well either.
So, since he wasn’t being very co-operative, I thought I’d try and live out a fantasy of mine. I pried myself off him, took his cowboy hat off the wall, placed it upon his head and told him how hot I thought he looked. Certainly this would help things move along…right?
Um, not so much.
He just stood there looking a little confused. However, my sluttish eyes did notice a bulge, a small bulge, but a bulge nevertheless, in his pants. So again I took matters into my own hands and tried to guide him to the bed while unbuckling his pants. Perhaps somewhere along the way I should have stopped to ask him what he wanted, but I thought I already knew. I mean, we were here, weren’t we? For the purpose of having sex, right?
I flung myself on his bed and tried to pull him on top of me as he wrangled his jeans off. It was all very hot in my eyes (except for the part where he was not as enthusiastic as I was and the part where he certainly was not riding me like the hot cowboy I was pretending he was!). I closed my eyes and waited for things to move along, to get better. They never did. Turns out my little leprechaun (who really was rather endowed) couldn’t get an erection.
Now, this was the first time this had ever happened and I sure as shit didn’t know what to do. I thought that they were always supposed to rise in my presence! And while this one was making an attempt, it wasn’t getting very far, or very hard.
I did what seemed reasonable in the moment. I pulled him down next to me and held him in my arms and said it was cool, we could take our time, maybe even have some foreplay. I thought maybe that would help things. I tried to be understanding. I tried to be supportive. I tried not to be disappointed and I tried to figure out what the hell was going on. That is when he decided to enlighten me a little bit.
Mr. Up got really upset about not getting an erection, which I have since learned is a normal reaction, and told me that he was on some medicines, some anti-depressants and that must be the problem. It wasn’t me. It was the pills and the beer. The drinking and the expectation that he just had to perform for me. That and the fact that this was all moving so quickly, there was no time to get used to things, to get used to screwing around without the expectation of having sex. I think he almost started crying.
I was stunned.
It never occurred to me that he might have wanted to take things slower or that he would feel like he had to perform for me since all I wanted was is cock, not him as a person. I tried to console him, to tell him that I knew what it was like to be on anti-depressants and how that affected your sex life. I tried to tell him that we could take a break, or try again later or get together some other time, or do it his way and try messing around slowly, over many dates. In the end though, he was inconsolable and gave me the boot.
Since we took separate cars to his place, it was a short awkward walk to my car and a disappointing good-bye.
I never heard from him again despite my sincere voicemail message that I’d really like to see him again and we could even keep our clothes on this time. I only saw him once more and that was just outside the new Kohl’s he presumably worked at which was much closer to where I was currently living. The last time I last saw him I had just finished telling my agonizing story to my friend, who tried to help me figure out how to undo what I had done. We decided shopping would be a great distraction, and it was, until I saw him ambling through mall with his friend. He walked right by me like I never had my hand on his junk a few nights ago. Like I never existed. I knew I would never get a chance to see if my little leprechaun could get it up.
I wanted to melt into the floor and cry.
That night was one of the most painfully awkward dates of my life.
Somehow, even though we had tons to talk about before my “I want to fuck you” disclosure, and even though we still managed to have a few good phone calls since I left Kohl’s, on this occasion, we had nothing to talk about. Nothing. Silence was the theme of the evening. It even overtook the awful, blaring country music and the piercing shattering of beer bottles as the surly waitresses prepared to serve another drunken customer.
We barely even touched each other as we sat side by side, nursing our respective beers and looking as pathetic as the rest of the hopeless crowd there. I think every time my bare leg brushed against his, he about jumped off the bar stool. At first I thought it was funny, that maybe he was nervous or something, but it quickly got on my nerves. I mean, I’m an attractive person, do you have to jump like I have leprosy every time I touch you? Jesus! I’ll find someone else in this dump to fuck!
After a lifetime, or several agonizing hours, or at least two beers and painfully limited conversation, we left the bar. As he drove me back to Wendy’s where I left my car, I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness that I had ever bothered to tell him how I felt in the first place. It felt like rejection and looked like rejection and I just couldn’t figure out what I did wrong. I mean, I was taught at a very early age that all guys wanted was sex, so why the fuck wasn’t this guy interested in me? Was he really serious about wanting a freaking relationship?
Ok. If it had to be that way, it had been such a long time since I got laid, at this point I would have gone back in time and undone my honest conversation and pretend I wanted to date him, if, and only if, after a short period of time it meant I could finally get to see the rest of those freckles and satisfy my curiosity about the real color of his pubic hair! Christ! Why did I have to fuck things up so badly by being honest?
He said nary a word to me in the short drive back, or none that I recall anyway. However, it turned out that the ambiance of an empty Wendy’s parking lot, or the effects of a few beers, finally managed to loosen his lips. I believe he finally made the first move and leaned in and kissed me around the same time that I finally figured out that he was probably waiting for me to make the first move all night; after all, I was the one looking to jump his bones whereas he apparently didn’t know what he wanted to do with me!
The kiss was pretty good. A little slobbery, tasting like beer and nervous saliva and very awkward, but still, a good kiss. It really had been a very, very long time for me! He pulled away almost as quickly as a race car driver and again we sat there in awkward silence. I guess this was the part where I was supposed to invite myself back to his place, but I didn’t. I was a lot more talk than action at this point. In my fantasies, everything went so much more smoothly than this and I had no idea what to do with this reality!
Finally, in a small, but trying to sound gruff and non-committal, voice, he asked me if I wanted to go back to his place and make good on my offer to, you know, um, have sex. I, trying to sound suave, said sure.
Perhaps it was a delayed response to the alcohol, or endorphins surging through my body, or the sight of a cowboy hat on his wall, whatever it was, once we finally got to his place, I was just about ready to go. I found a reduced inhibition and began making out with him furiously. Or trying to anyway. He still seemed to have reservations or concerns or something other than a raging desire to throw me on the bed and fuck like crazy. I, in my clear head, thought it would be a good idea to push him up against the wall, press my eager breasts upon him and make out even more passionately while simultaneously trying to untuck his shirt. That didn’t work so well either.
So, since he wasn’t being very co-operative, I thought I’d try and live out a fantasy of mine. I pried myself off him, took his cowboy hat off the wall, placed it upon his head and told him how hot I thought he looked. Certainly this would help things move along…right?
Um, not so much.
He just stood there looking a little confused. However, my sluttish eyes did notice a bulge, a small bulge, but a bulge nevertheless, in his pants. So again I took matters into my own hands and tried to guide him to the bed while unbuckling his pants. Perhaps somewhere along the way I should have stopped to ask him what he wanted, but I thought I already knew. I mean, we were here, weren’t we? For the purpose of having sex, right?
I flung myself on his bed and tried to pull him on top of me as he wrangled his jeans off. It was all very hot in my eyes (except for the part where he was not as enthusiastic as I was and the part where he certainly was not riding me like the hot cowboy I was pretending he was!). I closed my eyes and waited for things to move along, to get better. They never did. Turns out my little leprechaun (who really was rather endowed) couldn’t get an erection.
Now, this was the first time this had ever happened and I sure as shit didn’t know what to do. I thought that they were always supposed to rise in my presence! And while this one was making an attempt, it wasn’t getting very far, or very hard.
I did what seemed reasonable in the moment. I pulled him down next to me and held him in my arms and said it was cool, we could take our time, maybe even have some foreplay. I thought maybe that would help things. I tried to be understanding. I tried to be supportive. I tried not to be disappointed and I tried to figure out what the hell was going on. That is when he decided to enlighten me a little bit.
Mr. Up got really upset about not getting an erection, which I have since learned is a normal reaction, and told me that he was on some medicines, some anti-depressants and that must be the problem. It wasn’t me. It was the pills and the beer. The drinking and the expectation that he just had to perform for me. That and the fact that this was all moving so quickly, there was no time to get used to things, to get used to screwing around without the expectation of having sex. I think he almost started crying.
I was stunned.
It never occurred to me that he might have wanted to take things slower or that he would feel like he had to perform for me since all I wanted was is cock, not him as a person. I tried to console him, to tell him that I knew what it was like to be on anti-depressants and how that affected your sex life. I tried to tell him that we could take a break, or try again later or get together some other time, or do it his way and try messing around slowly, over many dates. In the end though, he was inconsolable and gave me the boot.
Since we took separate cars to his place, it was a short awkward walk to my car and a disappointing good-bye.
I never heard from him again despite my sincere voicemail message that I’d really like to see him again and we could even keep our clothes on this time. I only saw him once more and that was just outside the new Kohl’s he presumably worked at which was much closer to where I was currently living. The last time I last saw him I had just finished telling my agonizing story to my friend, who tried to help me figure out how to undo what I had done. We decided shopping would be a great distraction, and it was, until I saw him ambling through mall with his friend. He walked right by me like I never had my hand on his junk a few nights ago. Like I never existed. I knew I would never get a chance to see if my little leprechaun could get it up.
I wanted to melt into the floor and cry.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
My Nephew's Visit
This weekend my second youngest nephew and his parents came for a visit. Although I knew we would be watching him in while his parents went to a Yankees game, having already baby-proofed my uterus, I never thought about the need to baby-proof our house.
For nap time, we, the trusting, childfree couple that we are, thought, in our infinite wisdom, it would be just fine to put the little one down, alone, in our room while we took a nap in the adjacent office. Now, in all honesty, my motives for putting my nephew to sleep in one room while we took a nap in another room had less to do with him and more to do with my fleeting desire to “get some” while the kid was asleep and his parents were away. However, as soon as my weary beloved and I sank onto the futon, we may as well have had kids of our own for how quickly the thoughts of sex fled our minds as the glory of sleep took over…in the middle of a conversation nonetheless! While we napped we were blissfully oblivious to the quite curiosities of a “sleeping” three-year-old.
Unbeknownst to me, as we slumbered peacefully, my perfect little nephew was surreptitiously teaching one of our cats what we keep in each of our dresser drawers; this despite both himself and the cat knowing that only people are allowed in this room. He was working his way through the bottom drawer, my lingerie drawer, when I stumbled into the room, foolishly thinking he was still asleep. As my befuddled brain tried to process the scene in front of me, my first, sleepy thought was, “How did the cat get in the bedroom and what is my nephew holding in his hand?” This was immediately followed by, “Oh crap, how do I explain to him what is in his hands? Do I lie? Do I tell him it is just lotion? What will my sister do when she finds out? Do I even need to tell her?”
With his wide blue eyes he turned to me and said, “Aunt Elizabeth, what’s this? Can I put it on?” Instantly grateful that he wasn’t talking about my lingerie, I quickly decided to tell him a version of the truth and explained that he was holding a bottle of lotion in his hands and that he doesn’t need that at his age. After all, what three-year-old needs arousal gel anyway? Somewhat satisfied with that answer, he went back to rummaging through the bag of assorted lubes we keep on hand and again asked if he can put some of this mysterious stuff on. I tried to shake the sleep out of my brain and diverted his attention to the bottle of hand lotion on my nightstand. “Here.” I said, “Put this lotion on. It smells really good and it is good for your hands.” Somehow I failed to notice he had already used that bottle. “I know.” He said. “I already tried it.” That was when the last vestiges of sleepiness left my brain and I thought, “Oh, shit, what else did he find in this room?”
I started to open my nightstand drawer, when, without a moment’s hesitation, he told me that he already looked in that drawer and, oh, by the way, “There’s a really big mess on the other side of the room.” I closed the drawer, looked at him, look at the cat, look at the lube that was still in his hand and mentally assessed what is on the other side of the room before slowly asking him what he meant and how the mess got there.
With all the innocence in the world he turned his face to me. “I don’t know.” He said again. “But there is a big mess.” As I got up and walked with him to the other side of the bed, I saw that my darling nephew had gutted my partner’s nightstand and dumped the contents on the floor. In doing so, he discovered our stash of condoms, my beloved’s journal, a Warren Buffet book and the rest of our adult toys. As if that weren’t enough, everything was lying in a heap with some sort of beige colored thing shrouding the pile. It took me a moment to realize not only had he discovered things he was too young to play with, but that he had also unleashed the fury of the Dark Chocolate Raspberry Body Powder. This would explain the sickly sweet scent of fake chocolate permeating the room.
I told myself that I should be angry about this, but truth be told, I never liked the taste of the body powder anyway, and shaking the nearly empty bottle, I realized we would not be using this stuff again. I was also beginning to realize how foolish we were to leave him alone in a room without any kid toys, telling ourselves that he would be just fine. I now understood that the subtle noises I heard in my sleep were not the other cats trying to get out of the bathroom where we had thought to confine them before our naps. No, likely those noises which I instantly dismissed, were the sounds of my nephew’s eager explorations and his inability to get out of the bedroom since I forgot to leave the door ajar and he couldn’t manage the doorknob by himself.
As I sat on the bed and contemplated how to address the situation at hand, I noticed my nephew was preoccupied with something else he discovered and that the cat was about to meander through the chocolate covered pile. I shooed the cat out of the room and asked my nephew if there was anything else he played with in the bedroom. Distractedly he told me no. But when I notice the top of my perfume bottle lying on the floor, I asked him again. Without looking up, he told me that he sprayed that in his eyes and unfazed, went back to playing with whatever was in his hands. Hoping I heard him wrong, since his sense of vision seemed to be fine, I asked him to repeat what he just said. When he did he also offered up that he put on my lipstick (which fortunately was just chapstick) and that it didn’t feel too good to put the perfume in his eyes.
Eventually I gathered my wits about me and remembered that childfree or not, I was supposed to be the adult here. I decided I wasn’t angry at him and instead I felt far more annoyed with myself, but that he needed to take some level of responsibility here. So I told him that he needed to stop playing with whatever is in his hand and clean up the mess he made.
That was when I learned that a child will make a far bigger mess when trying to clean up a pile of powder than if I had just cleaned it myself. In frustration I told him that he had to vacuum the mess up. No problem and no punishment. The kid loves to vacuum! Who knew? He acted like this was his reward for redecorating our room!
When everything was cleaned up and the room smelled a little less like a NutraSweet candy shop, I realized something else was amiss. Not only did my nephew smell like chocolate, chapstick and my perfume, but apparently I forgot to ask him if he needed to go to the bathroom before he took a nap and since I had inadvertently trapped him in our bedroom, he relieved himself in his pants. As we trudged off to the bathroom I reminded myself for the zillionth time all the ways in which I am not equipped to handle this parenting stuff and I began counting down the hours until I could hand Curious George over to his more qualified handlers, I mean, parents.
For nap time, we, the trusting, childfree couple that we are, thought, in our infinite wisdom, it would be just fine to put the little one down, alone, in our room while we took a nap in the adjacent office. Now, in all honesty, my motives for putting my nephew to sleep in one room while we took a nap in another room had less to do with him and more to do with my fleeting desire to “get some” while the kid was asleep and his parents were away. However, as soon as my weary beloved and I sank onto the futon, we may as well have had kids of our own for how quickly the thoughts of sex fled our minds as the glory of sleep took over…in the middle of a conversation nonetheless! While we napped we were blissfully oblivious to the quite curiosities of a “sleeping” three-year-old.
Unbeknownst to me, as we slumbered peacefully, my perfect little nephew was surreptitiously teaching one of our cats what we keep in each of our dresser drawers; this despite both himself and the cat knowing that only people are allowed in this room. He was working his way through the bottom drawer, my lingerie drawer, when I stumbled into the room, foolishly thinking he was still asleep. As my befuddled brain tried to process the scene in front of me, my first, sleepy thought was, “How did the cat get in the bedroom and what is my nephew holding in his hand?” This was immediately followed by, “Oh crap, how do I explain to him what is in his hands? Do I lie? Do I tell him it is just lotion? What will my sister do when she finds out? Do I even need to tell her?”
With his wide blue eyes he turned to me and said, “Aunt Elizabeth, what’s this? Can I put it on?” Instantly grateful that he wasn’t talking about my lingerie, I quickly decided to tell him a version of the truth and explained that he was holding a bottle of lotion in his hands and that he doesn’t need that at his age. After all, what three-year-old needs arousal gel anyway? Somewhat satisfied with that answer, he went back to rummaging through the bag of assorted lubes we keep on hand and again asked if he can put some of this mysterious stuff on. I tried to shake the sleep out of my brain and diverted his attention to the bottle of hand lotion on my nightstand. “Here.” I said, “Put this lotion on. It smells really good and it is good for your hands.” Somehow I failed to notice he had already used that bottle. “I know.” He said. “I already tried it.” That was when the last vestiges of sleepiness left my brain and I thought, “Oh, shit, what else did he find in this room?”
I started to open my nightstand drawer, when, without a moment’s hesitation, he told me that he already looked in that drawer and, oh, by the way, “There’s a really big mess on the other side of the room.” I closed the drawer, looked at him, look at the cat, look at the lube that was still in his hand and mentally assessed what is on the other side of the room before slowly asking him what he meant and how the mess got there.
With all the innocence in the world he turned his face to me. “I don’t know.” He said again. “But there is a big mess.” As I got up and walked with him to the other side of the bed, I saw that my darling nephew had gutted my partner’s nightstand and dumped the contents on the floor. In doing so, he discovered our stash of condoms, my beloved’s journal, a Warren Buffet book and the rest of our adult toys. As if that weren’t enough, everything was lying in a heap with some sort of beige colored thing shrouding the pile. It took me a moment to realize not only had he discovered things he was too young to play with, but that he had also unleashed the fury of the Dark Chocolate Raspberry Body Powder. This would explain the sickly sweet scent of fake chocolate permeating the room.
I told myself that I should be angry about this, but truth be told, I never liked the taste of the body powder anyway, and shaking the nearly empty bottle, I realized we would not be using this stuff again. I was also beginning to realize how foolish we were to leave him alone in a room without any kid toys, telling ourselves that he would be just fine. I now understood that the subtle noises I heard in my sleep were not the other cats trying to get out of the bathroom where we had thought to confine them before our naps. No, likely those noises which I instantly dismissed, were the sounds of my nephew’s eager explorations and his inability to get out of the bedroom since I forgot to leave the door ajar and he couldn’t manage the doorknob by himself.
As I sat on the bed and contemplated how to address the situation at hand, I noticed my nephew was preoccupied with something else he discovered and that the cat was about to meander through the chocolate covered pile. I shooed the cat out of the room and asked my nephew if there was anything else he played with in the bedroom. Distractedly he told me no. But when I notice the top of my perfume bottle lying on the floor, I asked him again. Without looking up, he told me that he sprayed that in his eyes and unfazed, went back to playing with whatever was in his hands. Hoping I heard him wrong, since his sense of vision seemed to be fine, I asked him to repeat what he just said. When he did he also offered up that he put on my lipstick (which fortunately was just chapstick) and that it didn’t feel too good to put the perfume in his eyes.
Eventually I gathered my wits about me and remembered that childfree or not, I was supposed to be the adult here. I decided I wasn’t angry at him and instead I felt far more annoyed with myself, but that he needed to take some level of responsibility here. So I told him that he needed to stop playing with whatever is in his hand and clean up the mess he made.
That was when I learned that a child will make a far bigger mess when trying to clean up a pile of powder than if I had just cleaned it myself. In frustration I told him that he had to vacuum the mess up. No problem and no punishment. The kid loves to vacuum! Who knew? He acted like this was his reward for redecorating our room!
When everything was cleaned up and the room smelled a little less like a NutraSweet candy shop, I realized something else was amiss. Not only did my nephew smell like chocolate, chapstick and my perfume, but apparently I forgot to ask him if he needed to go to the bathroom before he took a nap and since I had inadvertently trapped him in our bedroom, he relieved himself in his pants. As we trudged off to the bathroom I reminded myself for the zillionth time all the ways in which I am not equipped to handle this parenting stuff and I began counting down the hours until I could hand Curious George over to his more qualified handlers, I mean, parents.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Traveler's Guilt
I’ve just returned from a week in Jamaica and I am trying to keep my sense of guilt from ruining otherwise fond memories of this trip. I’d like to say my guilt started when I arrived in Jamaica, but that would be a lie. My guilt probably started as a young Catholic child and was exacerbated by being an unemployed adult who was preparing to take a vacation during a global recession. The vacation was a graduation present, so I tried to use that to alleviate some of what I was feeling, but it didn’t work very well. Months before the trip I was able to beat myself up with all the ways it was foolish to take this trip, spend this money, take this time off from looking for a job…you name it, I berated myself for it.
When we arrived in Jamaica, there were no shortage of opportunities for me to feel guilty…from listening to the travel advice and haughtily ignoring the people seeking to take us to our resort, to feeling cranky over three hours of sleep and just wanting to go to bed, to seeing firsthand the living conditions of so many people. All along the coast, from Montego Bay where we arrived, to the entrance of our resort, we were pummeled with the reality that people are living in dilapidated “homes” made of metal sheeting, roofless cement walls, even old ocean freight shipping containers while I was en route to my posh, all-inclusive resort, the likes of which I could never have afforded in the United States. The travel agent and almost everything I read beforehand told me that there is great poverty in Jamaica, but it also attempted to reassure me that the people there are “happy for what they have.” I had and still have a difficult time comprehending how people would be happy to live in glorified tin cans while their views of the pristine turquoise ocean are obliterated by endless acres of hundreds-of-dollar- a-night mega resorts.
During our first few days at our resort, I was nearly consumed with guilt over how much we spent on this trip, over how much food and alcohol we were readily able to consume and over how little the people who work here must make so that we were able to afford this vacation. I marveled at the few obnoxious travelers around me…the ones who are complaining that the bar was out of their top shelf liquor (even though they’ve been drinking since dawn and wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between top shelf and donkey piss. I stared disbelievingly at the people who ranted and raved about the lack of hot water when they chose to shower at the same time everyone else in the resort showered. These people appeared to me to be worse than oblivious to the poverty that surrounds them. They appeared to me to feel a sense of entitlement to the good life…a sense that I am almost certain they ridicule in the richer people back home.
One otherwise romantic starry, gorgeous night while lounging, fully satiated with food and drink, I decided to mention my guilt and concerns to my lover. I mean, why whisper sweet nothings in such an amorous setting when you can divulge all your feelings of inadequacy instead? I moaned and moped and mumbled on about my feelings of guilt and frustration and tried to wax philosophical about why I don’t often feel this way back at home. My lover, ever sensitive to my needs, gently reminded me that back at home we are almost always able to insulate ourselves from many of these realities by avoiding certain parts of certain cities, or by filling our lives with people who make so much more money than we do that we are the ones who look poor by comparison. Instead of making me feel better about my tumbling emotions, I felt so much worse, both for feeling the way I did and for ruining what could have otherwise been a passionate evening.
The following day, I saw a side of me that I try so hard to pretend isn’t there. My racist side. This awful side of me revealed itself when we went shopping in Ocho Rios and I was at first surprised, then frustrated and finally angry to see that all the shops we went in were apparently run by Indian men. I never knew that I had such a strong bias against Indian men, after all, the very few I have interacted with in my life have been at least cordial, even very friendly with me. However, on this particular trip, I wanted to give my money to a Jamaican store owner, which if I were being completely honest, I assumed would be someone who was black. I never considered the fact that Jamaica was once colonized by the English, as was India, and regardless, it was still possible that the men I assumed were Indian were just as much a Jamaican citizen as the stereotypical images I had of a “true” Jamaican.
The more determined I became to “give my money to a Jamaican” the more I realized how ridiculous I sounded, how racist I was being, and the more uncomfortable I became with my thoughts and the entire experience. Even now, back at home, I remain troubled by how much more “at ease” I felt when dealing with a “Jamaican” person versus an “Indian” person and I am ashamed and embarrassed to admit I had these reactions. Even in the straw markets when the “Jamaican” men kept trying to reassure me that no one was going to kidnap us here, I still felt, slightly, more at ease than I did when trying to barter with an “Indian” man…even though I was bartering with both people. I don’t know if I can’t or won’t fully explain to myself why I had these reactions and I would be mortified if my former classmate, an Indian man I have great respect for, found out I felt this way. I suppose it doesn’t do much good to lie and pretend I didn’t feel this way though. Even if other people never found out, I would still know how I felt, how I reacted. What I don’t know now is how to deal with all these emotions.
One of my final moments of guilt assailed me when we were passing time in the duty-free shops while waiting for our plane to arrive. I was looking at a huge wall of rubber flip-flops when a very young looking and very pregnant “Jamaican” woman approached me and told me that the entire wall of flip flops was on sale for $10. She just murmured one of my most favorite words and I stood entranced by a wall of colorful objects I did not need and rarely find comfortable. As I stood in silence, she told me that although the price is “a little dear”, they are the world’s most comfortable flip flops and the patterns on them will not fade. I was embarrassed by the fact that I was just thinking about how cheap they were, especially when the same brand was $30 at our resort. At $20 savings, I was contemplating if I should buy a pair even though I knew I didn’t need them and would just pack them away with the summer clothes once I returned.
As I continued to stand there in silence, I think it was embarrassment at thinking these shoes were so cheap and my feeling helpless to do anything…for the young woman next to me…for the poverty around me…for my sense of relief to be shopping in an airport instead of the chaotic straw markets…for my guilt at being able to have so many pairs of shoes…whatever it was, I picked out a pair of flip flops and convinced my beloved to buy a pair as well. When we left the store, I felt no less guilty for giving our money to a “Jamaican” and no great reward in my purchase.
I tried on my new flip flops as we continued to wait for our plane and they were so uncomfortable I regretted my impulsive purchase and I took them off as soon as we were seated. I haven’t worn them since. I also haven’t done a damn thing to alleviate my guilt, to reduce anyone’s poverty or eradicate my racist thoughts.
Other than all that, I had a fabulous time in Jamaica.
When we arrived in Jamaica, there were no shortage of opportunities for me to feel guilty…from listening to the travel advice and haughtily ignoring the people seeking to take us to our resort, to feeling cranky over three hours of sleep and just wanting to go to bed, to seeing firsthand the living conditions of so many people. All along the coast, from Montego Bay where we arrived, to the entrance of our resort, we were pummeled with the reality that people are living in dilapidated “homes” made of metal sheeting, roofless cement walls, even old ocean freight shipping containers while I was en route to my posh, all-inclusive resort, the likes of which I could never have afforded in the United States. The travel agent and almost everything I read beforehand told me that there is great poverty in Jamaica, but it also attempted to reassure me that the people there are “happy for what they have.” I had and still have a difficult time comprehending how people would be happy to live in glorified tin cans while their views of the pristine turquoise ocean are obliterated by endless acres of hundreds-of-dollar- a-night mega resorts.
During our first few days at our resort, I was nearly consumed with guilt over how much we spent on this trip, over how much food and alcohol we were readily able to consume and over how little the people who work here must make so that we were able to afford this vacation. I marveled at the few obnoxious travelers around me…the ones who are complaining that the bar was out of their top shelf liquor (even though they’ve been drinking since dawn and wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between top shelf and donkey piss. I stared disbelievingly at the people who ranted and raved about the lack of hot water when they chose to shower at the same time everyone else in the resort showered. These people appeared to me to be worse than oblivious to the poverty that surrounds them. They appeared to me to feel a sense of entitlement to the good life…a sense that I am almost certain they ridicule in the richer people back home.
One otherwise romantic starry, gorgeous night while lounging, fully satiated with food and drink, I decided to mention my guilt and concerns to my lover. I mean, why whisper sweet nothings in such an amorous setting when you can divulge all your feelings of inadequacy instead? I moaned and moped and mumbled on about my feelings of guilt and frustration and tried to wax philosophical about why I don’t often feel this way back at home. My lover, ever sensitive to my needs, gently reminded me that back at home we are almost always able to insulate ourselves from many of these realities by avoiding certain parts of certain cities, or by filling our lives with people who make so much more money than we do that we are the ones who look poor by comparison. Instead of making me feel better about my tumbling emotions, I felt so much worse, both for feeling the way I did and for ruining what could have otherwise been a passionate evening.
The following day, I saw a side of me that I try so hard to pretend isn’t there. My racist side. This awful side of me revealed itself when we went shopping in Ocho Rios and I was at first surprised, then frustrated and finally angry to see that all the shops we went in were apparently run by Indian men. I never knew that I had such a strong bias against Indian men, after all, the very few I have interacted with in my life have been at least cordial, even very friendly with me. However, on this particular trip, I wanted to give my money to a Jamaican store owner, which if I were being completely honest, I assumed would be someone who was black. I never considered the fact that Jamaica was once colonized by the English, as was India, and regardless, it was still possible that the men I assumed were Indian were just as much a Jamaican citizen as the stereotypical images I had of a “true” Jamaican.
The more determined I became to “give my money to a Jamaican” the more I realized how ridiculous I sounded, how racist I was being, and the more uncomfortable I became with my thoughts and the entire experience. Even now, back at home, I remain troubled by how much more “at ease” I felt when dealing with a “Jamaican” person versus an “Indian” person and I am ashamed and embarrassed to admit I had these reactions. Even in the straw markets when the “Jamaican” men kept trying to reassure me that no one was going to kidnap us here, I still felt, slightly, more at ease than I did when trying to barter with an “Indian” man…even though I was bartering with both people. I don’t know if I can’t or won’t fully explain to myself why I had these reactions and I would be mortified if my former classmate, an Indian man I have great respect for, found out I felt this way. I suppose it doesn’t do much good to lie and pretend I didn’t feel this way though. Even if other people never found out, I would still know how I felt, how I reacted. What I don’t know now is how to deal with all these emotions.
One of my final moments of guilt assailed me when we were passing time in the duty-free shops while waiting for our plane to arrive. I was looking at a huge wall of rubber flip-flops when a very young looking and very pregnant “Jamaican” woman approached me and told me that the entire wall of flip flops was on sale for $10. She just murmured one of my most favorite words and I stood entranced by a wall of colorful objects I did not need and rarely find comfortable. As I stood in silence, she told me that although the price is “a little dear”, they are the world’s most comfortable flip flops and the patterns on them will not fade. I was embarrassed by the fact that I was just thinking about how cheap they were, especially when the same brand was $30 at our resort. At $20 savings, I was contemplating if I should buy a pair even though I knew I didn’t need them and would just pack them away with the summer clothes once I returned.
As I continued to stand there in silence, I think it was embarrassment at thinking these shoes were so cheap and my feeling helpless to do anything…for the young woman next to me…for the poverty around me…for my sense of relief to be shopping in an airport instead of the chaotic straw markets…for my guilt at being able to have so many pairs of shoes…whatever it was, I picked out a pair of flip flops and convinced my beloved to buy a pair as well. When we left the store, I felt no less guilty for giving our money to a “Jamaican” and no great reward in my purchase.
I tried on my new flip flops as we continued to wait for our plane and they were so uncomfortable I regretted my impulsive purchase and I took them off as soon as we were seated. I haven’t worn them since. I also haven’t done a damn thing to alleviate my guilt, to reduce anyone’s poverty or eradicate my racist thoughts.
Other than all that, I had a fabulous time in Jamaica.
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