it takes two to tango.

cl ad posted 12.16.08:

I'm looking for someone that's interested in learning tango with me. I would like to go to the 18th street lounge on Tuesdays to learn and practice with someone dark haired and handsome.

My ideal partner would be around my age range, 5'8" or taller, of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern or South American decent, talented on a dance floor, and able to get in touch with the essence of tango.. what its about, the feeling, the passion, and so on.

Inconsequently, it would be nice for you to have a college degree, a decent paying job, an appreciation for art, and a general aversion to spending lots of time on a couch watching television.

It would really be amazing if I could meet said partner tonight, as I'm tempted to go myself despite my lacking in a partner. I look nice today and happen to have my dancing shoes on.

I'm Persian (born here) and artistic in both my profession and my spirit. I have blue eyes that will tell you too much about what I'm feeling and I am brazen and shy all at once. I'm looking for a specific kind of relationship with a specific kind of man, and while I'm mainly interested in a dance partner, am open to having said dance partner develop into something deeper. If our bodies can learn to match, I think that's a great part of the way there.

We'll write more about this when you respond.
For now, please heed the following:

If you don't like women that can be a handful, please don't answer this ad.
If you're frightened off easily by intensity, then do not answer this ad.
If you don't know how to dance, do not under any circumstance answer this ad.
If you don't live in the city, or near by, think hard before you answer this ad.
If you are french, please have mercy and don't answer this ad.
If your name is James, you had your chance. Do not answer this ad.

Thank you.

ice cream

tonight... i bought ice cream.
because when girls are sad, they're supposed to want ice cream.

a perfect lead up to a perfect date, with
quite possibly a perfect guy went sour.
date canceled due to attachment to an ex of a year ago?

my friend asks why don't i try choosing men that can handle me
or if i like being right that no one can,
just as i say cynically,
no one can fucking handle me.

i feel like this love chasing has a point, a nirvana
a realization that can be reached.
but fuck me in moments like this when
all i can see is the torture. the hopeless
impossibilities.
the once agains
the goddamnit alls
the shit im crazys
the does love really exist

all this study of seduction.
all this time and attention.
and im still as dumb as i was
to start with.

low. low. low. tired hurting eyes.
where are my guardian angels
my champions. my cheerleaders
i need them tonight.

the downfall of france

georgetown. ipod, scooter, pink helmet and me.
its 60 degrees in the middle of winter. music makes the ride sexy.
the shitty day doesn't bother me driving. im heading to the corner
of 16th and p, to meditate.
high attic apartment. skylight, a row of small windows,
that stretch next to the couch perpendicular.
its quiet here. clean always. distinct smell.
empty. echo
we're in my ex lover's apartment.
he's away in africa, and i'm to water his plant.
so i have the keys. use of his space.

i roll a joint, the french way. he was french.
and prop the middle window up with a piece of wood.
and smoke.
i want quiet.
i need to understand
how i got here again.

you know, three weeks ago to this day, a monday, i woke up in this apartment, on my 30th birthday, next to this guy i'd been dating for an intense few months. he loved me. he loved me so much that he lost himself in his love for me, and acted like an idiot. he wasted no opportunity to tell my friends how much he loved me, and spent his time with and away from me on a little cloud. we took two trips, we went to dinners. we went to shows. we looked great together and had fun often.

id gotten to know this apartment well. he left me the keys the first time he left for africa, and i anxiously waited the 3 weeks until his return. its high in the air, and serene. across the street from a church, you get the feeling that you're a little closer to god as well. there's a big screen sitting on the floor, for watching movies.

when he gets back, i'll have to excile myself from this beautiful space. so i return from time to time until then but have mixed feelings every time i do. the break up was one i'd never experienced. messy

44 and never married. never any kids. he smoked, drank, and could party with the best of them. when we met his stillness charmed me, and his age didnt matter. didn't show. but he lost himself in me. from meeting to leaving he lost himself. was it me? or was it where he was in life... having spent years running from love, to finally find it in my face. but once found he flung his arms in the air, with a metaphoric halleluliah and rushed to embrace me. just short he stopped himself.

intimidating. intense. sexual. animal. insatiable. me.
gentle. passionate. french. rigid. self conscious him.
insolent disrespectful challenging confrontational me
shut down sad older resigned him
disgusted and annoyed me.
confused and anxious him.

silence. "what's your problem" i asked him that morning. "why won't you touch me."
his french accent always cut throught the air, "because," he says tersely. "if i keep touching you i'll want to make love to you." and i indicate that id like that, thank you, and hesitation. i make him nervous. he's self conscious. still now, after months. maybe more ~ come on, be a man. ok its finally. it starts, birthday sex, this will make up for, oh, wow, ok and... done.

it was the last time we ever had sex. i left that day and never felt anything for him again. i think its strange to notice despite all my mental complexity, the sway that good sex has on my feelings about someone. birthday sex matters.

our last date was tango, about a week later. it went horribly.

"why are we together," i asked. "this obviously isnt working."
and here tears welled up, and here he turned away, and here he ran to go, and here i grabbed his jacket.... wait! no, he wouldn't. couldnt. left.

he cried for a long time. i tried to check in to see how he was doing but it seemed my presence made him cry even more. lots of crying. lots of pain. but not from me, from him. the first time i've seen my presence or lack there of cause someone so much pain.

but it was about giving up what i had to get what i wanted.
and what i wanted showed up. quick.
then left. with a complicated reason.
but im making it about me. my boldness.
my brazen personality. i'm blaming that.
what is it about life that shakes me so badly.
what is it about feeling that leaves us so damn raw.
why should i even give a fuck about this. i make grown men cry.

because its minor. and yet... this one really felt real.
so tonight i wondered if i should have really left. if i made up my discontent, if i should have never been single again to start with. i wondered about the one that loves me still and what he would think about the one who just jilted me in the name of honesty? what is that about.

that haunting, that happens. it happens when things are left unfinished. i don't have such feelings about those i oversaturated in, only those who kept the distance. so this will happen to laurent maybe about me. as it did to me with my old tiger. as its done to my hello goodbye friend mr watson. its born of disappointment. something unfinished.

this shouldnt be my everything, this piecing together of love.

this making up of why it doesn't ever work.
this insistance i have on being so bloody passionate.
and my conviction that no one can handle me
play it fucking cool! yeah i'm anything but cool.

tonight, sleep escapes. brutally
tomorrow will surely be better.