Selectivity

I dream that he sits on a patio sipping hot tea or cappuccino or Aquafina
(because someone once told me that Evian tastes like tap water)
shuffling his sandals while discussing politics and race relations
in southern cities with 1960's mentalities as I muse over the poem he wrote me
to go with the flowers he cut fresh this morning for my bedside table

While in reality, he is quiet, reading the town's daily newspaper
(or rather skimming the headlines for something "interesting")
with Wheel of Fortune on in the background
and the microwave humming with last night's pasta leftovers warming inside

And while he lacks sophistication, he looks at me with wisdom and kindness
and while we lack conversation and romance, he takes his plastic fork
and feeds me utensil-wound noodles in sauce,
shares his cranberry juice and burrows his feet under my thighs
just after kissing my cheek so I know he loves me

-- The Muse (2000)



Despite all the blah, blah I was talking when I wrote my first post, I did not start this blog for any drinking fest, blogger convention or any other such nonsense. I was conned into writing. I actually just wanted to post a comment to another blog but that person only allowed comments from bloggers. So I signed up. Of course I didn't have to actually use the blog just because I had a magic password. So why then?

See, I have a gift. Or curse. Depends on how you look at it. I give really great advice. I can see things in other people, or see things about them, that they don't necessarily see in themselves. I sometimes can be very inspirational. A real life muse. The bad thing is that I can't see the path of my own life. I feel sometimes that I'm too in it to see out of it. My sight is blocked and I undermine my own destiny.

The blog was kinda like my way of giving myself advice. Hence the moral of each story. I'm not preaching to you all. Just to myself. If someone else learns or gains something from my little stories, that's just an added bonus.

So bear with me as I work through some things. Today I'm blogging, a few days early, to try to get an understanding of myself. Of my biggest self-sabotage to date. My Achilles' heel. Or heels.

Men...

and Love.

I am and have always been a hopeless romantic, in the most dramatic sense of the word. I not only believe in love at first sight, I swear by it. Depend on it. In my mind, it is logical for two people to be cosmically connected. And I want that connection so bad...so deep in my core...that I have this very bad habit of testing every man with potential to see if he's "THE ONE." Not, do I try to find the value in him. Instead, that I woo him until he's convinced that he may be my soulmate and then I poke and prod until I find one little flaw and then it's..."Well, thanks for playing! Next contestant, please." I run relationships into the ground. All because I have this strange belief that when I find it, I'll know...and until then, nothing can satisfy me. It's like always having a taste for something but not knowing what that something is. I'm always thirsty.

I've heard others describe a similar condition...in relation to jobs and success. So I am by no means unique. But still, it's not a good feeling.

But what's strange now is that I have been, or have claimed to have been, in love so many times that I don't think I know anymore what real love is...what it looks like...what it feels like. And really, I'm not sure that I've ever known. I can't rely on my heart to tell me. My heart is unreliable. And it's finicky. One minutes it's in love; the next growing bored and longing for the next time passion that will make it go aflutter. My heart is in it for the thrill. I can't rely on my mind either, because it has a checklist that it bases its decision on, and that list is so far from comprehensive, it's scary.

• Cute?
• Nice chest?
• Decent-sized manhood?
• Good sense of humor?
• Ability to form intelligible sentence constructs?

No really...that's it. It seems that every universally attractive man who has a few funny, grammatically correct jokes in his arsenal and a nice package is enough for my mind to start thinking of names for our children. I know! It's pitiful. But at least I'm being honest, right?

Actually, I've always imagined myself with a scholarly and romantic kind of brother...someone to debate with...to talk passionately with about some of life's real issues. Someone whose depth is visible on the outside...who I can just look at and see his true being. Someone who gets excited about the simple things in life and who wants to share them.

Instead I find myself with the true MAN'S MAN. You know the type. He thinks you should know that he loves you because he does things with you that he hasn't with any other woman. He shares food from his plate. He lets you in his space that he used to relish having all alone. He does not communicate usually...not in the traditional sense. He's a jeans and t-shirt, football and beer, working on cars for fun kind of guy. But in my mind, he meets all the requirements. And in my heart I know he cares, and I know that should be enough.

SHOULD BE...but it's not.

I'm just too damn picky. But I'm holding out for perfection. I just hope when I find it/him, my sight is developed enough by then to recognize it.

And in the meantime, I'm always accepting applications.