strike that

reprise

Operaman is lying on my floor doing chemistry homework, because he recently traded in his opera hat for a med student hat. That is also why he traded in Portland for Corvallis, one hour south. So he moved out of town and started med school, and let me go ahead and answer the two big questions on your mind: (1) No, I don’t think it’s really wise to start dating him, considering it didn’t work out when we gave it a shot in the fall, back when we lived in the same city and one of us wasn’t in med school. And (2) Yes, I will continue to call him Operaman.

But back to number one. Yeah, I don’t know what I’m thinking. I guess I’m thinking that I really enjoy spending time with him, and that when I’m not spending time with him he is often sending me youtube links to Richard Feynman lectures, or postcards on which he has sketched small chickens with pants.

Lately I have needed to remind myself that I’ve never been much interested in the American Experience thing, the one where you Get A Good Job and Marry A Nice Boy and Buy A Big House and Settle Down. I’ve always preferred having more than one job, and I’ve always preferred small houses, and I’ve always preferred moving around. Yet something about finding Portland threw me for a loop. Though I still want to travel a lot and live in other places when I can, this is my home base if ever there was one. That said, I still don’t want the rest of the package. Not a Work Wardrobe, and not a Home Entertainment System, and not Good Dishes. And not a Nice Boyfriend who wants these things, either.

Several years ago a few of us were sitting around some bar in Eugene trying to reduce what we were looking for in a significant other to the smallest number of qualities, and my two were these: Joy and Bravery. There are certainly other things, but if there are just two, these are they. As in: you recognize life is a marvelous unlikely thing, and you have the balls to go live it.

I think I can say pretty fairly that with all the fabulous people I have dated, I’ve never dated a boy who, at the time we were dating, had both of these qualities. I believe that everyone I’ve ever really liked had the capacity for these things, and likely a desire for them. Sometimes a good relationship makes us more of who we want to be. But it never worked out that way, in this case. So I’ve never actually gotten to see if my list works out in practice.

Operaman, however, is both joyous and brave. He sings opera, for God’s sake. And he quit the opera mid career to try something huge and new. You regret the things you don’t do, he said. At least if I fail it will be Adventure with a capital A.

So sure, it’s a bad idea, whatever. I appreciate all of you who are cringing as you read this, who have spent the last three years watching me walk – run, jump really - into one unwise relationship after another. What can I say? It makes for good blogging. And I’ve known for a long time, pretty much always, that the sort of relationship that would make me happy is one that involves a lot of movement, a lot of surprise and challenge and newness and experimentation, with someone who is so much an ally that it feels just the right amount of scary. It’s not going to look like it’s supposed to look. Which is why I keep trying on one wrong-looking thing after another. One of these wrong-looking things is going to shock us all with its rightness, and we’re not going to know which one it is until I try it on, and until then it’s at least an Adventure.

posted by tortaluga @ 2:15 PM