strike that

Furious Angels Will Bring You Back To Me

It all started in college with The One Guy who dumped me for a different girl, and before the week was out had changed his mind. But by then I was on my way to Australia where I met The Other Guy, who a year later left me for another different girl. He has since called this a Terrible Mistake. And then there was BandBoy, who Would Not Leave New York, but who (once I did) implied that I really just needed to ask him again. Which I didn’t.

And is it too much to ask, for a boy who likes me the first time around? Apparently I am most attractive in retrospect. Because here’s Operaman, back again for Act II, proposing midweek adventures and procuring tickets. And here’s Latest Boy Disaster, tracking me down at a local bar in the middle of the night. Where I was definitely not drinking alone, by the way.

Last week I was on the phone with The Other Guy (who these days – along with The One Guy – is a person without whom my life would be diminished beyond recognition) and I asked him about the dump-disappear-doubt sequence. He constructed, as he is wont to do, an elaborate and hilarious metaphor to quell my confusion, in which my metaphorical counterpart was a blender at a garage sale. This is the loving rapport we have after ten years. It made the whole phenomenon more clear, but I still think it’s bullshit.

But I went ahead and saw my first Wagner. My First Wagner sounds like the sort of unfortunate thing sold at one of those new educational toy stores, doesn’t it? So on Tuesday it was The Flying Dutchman, and today I met Operaman’s kids. When we were dating in the fall this was discussed, but never pursued. Now that we are not dating he felt suddenly compelled to make it happen.

They’re some pretty cool kids. The frightening part, though, was post-gelato, when we all went to a supermarket so they could grab provisions for their weekend camping trip. Somewhere between the marshmallows and the hot dog buns I realized that everyone we passed naturally assumed they were my kids. They look not unlike me – dark blonde hair, blue eyes, light skin – and there we were buying groceries on a Friday afternoon. They pushed the cart, I got the high items off the shelf, and strangers smiled. It was profoundly weird. When did I become old enough to be a plausible mother of an eight and a ten year old? And how on earth would anyone think I could handle such a thing?

Back out on the street, walking the bags and the bundle of wood to the car, I made furtive eye contact with the pierced and corduroy-clad hipsters chatting and tapping laptops in front of the Hawthorne coffeeshops. I’m one of you, I tried to tell them telepathically. Today I was in pajamas until two! I stay out late; I don’t even have a dog to walk. I am single and it is spring. We could have Crazy Portland Fun.

Maybe you’d even like me before I’m gone.

I don’t think they heard me.

posted by tortaluga @ 9:19 PM