I was here on that fateful day of September 11, 2001.  I recall the horror and grief and dismay.  I recall the sights and sounds and terrible silences.  The ash.  The tears.  The smell of war, of loss.

And I recall the resolve.  The strength and unity of New Yorkers and Americans and citizens of the world.  The love and support and rebuilding alongside the unimaginable pain and loss.

And on this, the 10th anniversary of this still unfathomable tragedy, I have nothing new to say, no new words or thoughts to offer, that I didn’t already say in my piece from last year.  If you haven’t read it before, you can find it here.

Love and light, thoughts, prayers and my continued condolences to everyone who lost anyone as a result of 9-11.

Staci

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All is well in a lucky girl’s life.  Apart from the occasional malaise that may accompany what sometimes feels like the failure of a year life-long experiment.  I remind myself: they all fail until one doesn’t.

But sometimes I just get so tired of looking.

And so I stopped.

Enter a 25-year-old man who wants to make an honest woman of me and a dishonest 35-year-old who doesn’t.  And the only end game there, really, is that as long as either or both continue, there will be no cobwebs to speak of in my nether regions.

It’s not where I thought I’d be at the less than tender age of 40.

Nor is it altogether bad.

It’s fulfilling in some ways, disenchanting in others. Just like everything, it’s about perspective.  On some days, my perspective is one of failure and I find myself unable to grasp just how this came to be my life.  On other days, sunny.  I chose this.  And it leaves me free to enjoy my life, my friends, my city, my travels, my world.

I would trade that for the person with whom I want to share my life, my friends, my city, travels and our worlds.  But I wouldn’t trade it for just anyone.  I didn’t.  I won’t.

I sometimes look at my year of internet dating and wonder why?  I sometimes look at my year of internet dating and feel angry and bitter that the men who said they would show up again didn’t.  I sometimes look at my year of internet dating and feel sorry for myself.

And then I remember the other half.  The half that liked me.  The half I could have settled for.  And didn’t.

I don’t enjoy either feeling.  And it’s why, in part, that I stopped internet dating.

I can’t say what is to come.  And I can’t say whether I will take this opportunity to redirect this blog and write about something else.  That’s usually what I think will happen.

Until I came across this…

Sinéad O’Connor has taken to the internet in a vibrantly honest way to find herself a lover.  According to her, it seemed preferable to the vegetable stand, which had become a little too tempting.

The outpouring of response has been overwhelming.  And even Sinéad had to compromise her list of requirements (softening her ban on lesbians, Brians, and Nigels, apparently).

I’d say this, if I thought for one second that Sinéad and I swam, dipped our feet in, or even sunbathed next to the same dating pool: Send me your rejects.

But I’m not saying that.  I’m just saying hello to you, my dear readers.  I don’t know when I’ll be back.  But I will be back.

Love,
Staci

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Summer lovin’ had me a blast
Summer lovin’, happened so fast
I met a girl crazy for me
Met a boy, cute as can be
Summer days driftin’ away, to uh-oh those summer nights

Well-uh-well-uh-well-uh. Uh!

Tell me more, tell me more, did you get very far?
Tell me more, tell me more, like, does he have a car?

It was summer of 1978.  I was 7.  And apart from chasing Josh relentlessly, and without success, on Sadie Hawkins Day, there really is nothing more to tell.  But it was my first awareness of the idea of Summer Romance.

I had a crush on him, and if my cooties and I could have ever caught up with him that day, I was sure that he would be the one to push me on the swings, tell me secrets, share his afternoon snack, pick dandelion and daisy flowers for me, not slam the tetherball too hard when we played, hold my hand on hikes, shower me with the lanyard jewelry he’d made in Arts & Crafts, and never ever try to get me out in four-square.  He would be the Danny Zucco to my Sandy.  And while kissing was totally out of the question, I really kinda did want those skin-tight satin leggings and red Candies to wear on those hand-holding hikes.  And, of course, for our inevitable dance in the Shake Shack.  The summer would end and so would our romance, as we returned to our separate schools, without the surprise relocation and fate that had befallen our beloved Danny and Sandy.

This was the early-learned rule of the Summer Romance: Like the Hydrangea’s bloom, these loves would last only as long as the warm summer months.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older
Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long
And wouldn’t it be nice to live together
In the kind of world where we belong

You know its gonna make it that much better
When we can say goodnight and stay together

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could wake up
In the morning when the day is new
And after having spent the day together
Hold each other close the whole night through

Happy times together we’ve been spending
I wish that every kiss was neverending
Wouldn’t it be nice

I was 14.  Leo was 12.  He was a cute Texas boy with this beautiful auburn, swept ’80′s hair that reminded me of pretty much every brat-packer I’d ever fantasized about making out with.  As a side note, I’ll tell you that if he still has that hair, I’d pay good money to run my fingers through it.  Anyway, Leo was quiet, but not too quiet to ask if I’d go out with him.  Of course, I said yes, and of course we never actually went anywhere.  This was at summer camp.  Our cabins were seldom paired together at any co-ed activities since I was an “older” woman. Our time together was limited to free periods and evening activities that allowed for co-mingling.  Activities like Socials (the Saturday night dances) and Movie Nights.  And also Sunday Night Football.    We slipped away from the game that particular Sunday to go lay on the pole vault mats and star gaze.  We made out there, under the stars, until this was broken up by the clever counselor who’d found us.  We were promptly sent to our cabins.  I woke the next morning with a hickey on the front of my neck and a tick firmly nested in the back of it.  Both were obviously signs that this relationship was doomed, but there was no need to take any action.  Summer came to a close, we said our farewells, and I never saw or spoke to Leo again.

I never will forget those nights
I wonder if it was a dream
Remember how you made me crazy?
Remember how I made you scream
Now I don’t understand what happened to our love
But babe, when I get you back
I’m gonna show you what I’m made of

I most certainly will never forget those nights.  It was only one year after my summer romance with Leo and this time I’d resolved to have an older man.  And the man of my choice?  A handsome and hardy 19-year-old lifeguard-slash-theology student named Luke.  Yeah.  You heard me right.  Luke loved sunshine, swimming and God.  He was going to be a priest.  And if I was a betting lady, I’d say that this probably never worked out for him.  At all.  He loved girls way too much, as evidenced by the fact that I was his third Jewish girlfriend that summer.  I can’t say what that was about, his love of Christ and Jews, but the world might be a better place if there were more people like him.  I sometimes wonder who he married.  Because I’m beyond sure that it wasn’t God.  Anyway, when I wasn’t imagining my future residence in the cloister next to the rectory (and let’s be honest, I never once imagined my future there), I was busy plotting how Luke and I could sneak off and be together.  We were forbidden fruit to one another for more reasons than his pending vow to Christ.  We were forbidden fruit because he was a 19-year-old counselor and I was a 15-year-old camper.  That didn’t stop us.  In fact, I suspect it was a big part of the allure for both of us.

The last night of our summer fling coincided with the last night of camp.  It was an easy night to escape, since most campers and counselors were running amok, trying to get time in with whomever had captured their fancy that summer.  There was no one to stop us when Luke whistled outside my cabin door and I ran out to meet him.  We immediately raced into the woods, running far beyond the cabin clotheslines, past the tree line and into an open pasture where Luke had already laid a blanket and a bottle of cheap wine for us to enjoy.  We laid there under a crescent moon, drinking the Christian equivalent of Manischevitz and one another.  Until we heard a motor.  A loud motor.  The kind of motor that would belong to a pick-up truck, like, say, the one driven by the camp director.  We were about to be busted.  I jumped up and ran, occasionally glancing behind me to see where Luke and the truck were.  I was going to get away with this.  All I needed to do was make it to the tree line, where the pick-up truck could never follow me.  I got there and was greeted by a barbed wire fence.  And in a moment of supreme self-assuredness, and by “supreme” I mean “assinine” I jumped that fence, as if it were a sprint hurdle.

Unlike a sprint hurdle, it turns out that barbed wire fences don’t recede to the leg that doesn’t clear the bar.  No.  A barbed wire fence grabs on to the offending leg and digs its claws in firmly from your knee to your ankle leaving a quarter-inch deep trail redder than Georgia clay and which flows as fast as your heart can race.  I didn’t stop to tend to this injury.  Not until I was sure I’d escaped conviction.  Some girls keep a football jersey, a carnival stuffed animal or an item of jewelry as a souvenir of a long-lost romance.  I kept an 8-inch scar running down the front of my right leg.

It turned colder, that’s where it ends
so I told her we’d still be friends
Then we made our true love vow
Wonder what she’s doin’ now
Summer dreams ripped at the seams, but oh, those summer nights

There’ve been many other keepsakes, and scars, over the years.  But one thing remained consistent.  Each summer romance began like dawn and ended with dusk.  They never endured beyond this season of life.  Maybe that was a mirror of my expectations.  Maybe it was the knowledge of the season lurking off in the distance, the one which shed its growth in preparation for winter’s cold.  I can’t say.

I can only say that somewhere along the line, the rules changed.  It turned colder, that much was true.  But it wasn’t necessarily where it ended anymore…

Want more? See what the other Insomniacs have to say…

Our waiter Martin took great care to keep our glasses continually filled.  He also took great care to express his disappointment at our inability or unwillingness to make the champagne in our glasses magically disappear between pours.  It was 11:30am.  Back off, Martin. We had a full day of drinking ahead of us.  It wasn’t our first time at the rodeo, and we knew better than to leave the gate at a sprint.

Between Martin’s excessive visits-slash-heckling and the occasional bird boldy taking perch at our table in search of scraps, there was Javier.  I didn’t know him.  Neither of us did.  But he tore past our table several times, like a whippet on world tour, back and forth between the patio entrance and marina gate, each time waving and nodding familiarly.  We were momentarily befuddled by this stranger who appeared to think he knew us, but each time, he quickly returned to his rounds and we to our conversation.

Later in the day, my friend’s boyfriend joined us.  No sooner had he taken his seat than Javier buzzed by, this time stopping at our table to speak.

Hello.  I am Javier.

There was no hiding his heavy Argentinian accent.  He repeated our names as we revealed them, shook hands with my friend’s boyfriend and made his way around the table to stand beside my seat.

I love your hair.  It’s beautiful.  Does it take you a long time to do?

I smiled.  What an odd first question from a straight man.  Perhaps he wasn’t.

I can’t tell you my secrets, Javier.  A girl’s got to maintain some mystery.

He smiled and pointed toward the marina.

I would like to invite you to be my guests at a party I am having on my boat.

I looked at my friends.

Thanks, Javier.  We’re still finishing up brunch, but maybe we’ll come afterward.

OK, well, why don’t you give me your number, then.

Numbers poured out of my mouth.  None of them my actual phone number.  Apparently, Martin had been successful in his champagne coup.  Javier sent texts to each of the three inaccurate numbers I had given.

Javier, as it turns out, I don’t know my own number.  Why don’t you give me your number and I’ll send you a text.

Hola, Javier.  Es Staci. Success.

I need to get going, Staci.  But I hope I see you later.

With that, he was off, and my friends and I returned to our brunch.

Moments later a text arrived.

Señorita bonita, por favor, venga verme despues.

I looked at my friends.

OK, kids.  He’s a hot Argentinian.  He owns a yacht.  And he thinks I’m bonita.  We’re going.

Of course they had no objections.  Who wouldn’t want to spend the remainder of the day at sea?

I texted my new boyfriend and told him we were on our way.  He came to meet us at the gate and led us aboard his boat.  Javier introduced us to his friends in passing as he made his way below deck, gesturing for us to follow.  I felt overdressed.  There were 5 or 6 women in bikinis to my black and white print shell dress and black platform wedges.  I was the last to make it cautiously down the stairs.  Javier stood waiting with a glass of Veuve Rosé and an outstretched hand, smiling when I took it and telling me in a whisper that I looked very elegant.  I graciously accepted his compliment.  Of course I look elegant, I thought.  All the other girls look like they’re in a Columbian drug lord’s music video. Javier handed each of us a glass and toasted to his new friends, winking at me.

We went back above board and took seats along the bow of his Sundancer.  Javier took a seat beside me and we sat getting to know one another.  I learned about his childhood in Buenos Aires, his immigration to the states, his failed marriage, real estate ventures, hi-tech career, and mostly I learned that Javier couldn’t sit still.  All of this information was extracted over a multitude of seatings, each interrupted by a busy host fluttering about to ensure the comfort of his guests. During one such drive-by, he put his hand on my knee.

Come with me.

He took my hand and placed his other in the small of my back, guiding me to the transom, down the stairs and to the dinghy at the foot of the yacht.

Let’s go for a ride.

I removed my shoes as his dog made the decision to join us and jumped into the front of the dinghy.  Javier followed me into the back seat and off we went out of the basin towards the bay.  It was there, in the glassy bay, that he kissed me, and it was then that I knew I was going to go to bed with this man.  We sat, in a small boat under the setting sun, making out for a while, until the Javier I’d come to know in such a short time, could no longer sit still.  We headed back to his boat in the basin and crept below deck to his room where we furiously disrobed and jumped into the bed.

Javier was good with his hands.  He knew how to use them, and well, as he playfully explored my body.  The temperature and excitement increased a hundred-fold as we played with one another.  All leading to the obvious, but not before scrambling, sloppily, for a condom.

It was then that Javier started with the dirty talk.  Some of it in Spanish.  It was surprisingly sexy.  Up to the moment of this gem:

You love when I give you all 9-inches.

And the thing is, I would have.  Except that there were about 4-inches missing.  So maybe it was lost in translation.  Or maybe 9 inches is shorter in Argentina?

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Considering how it hasn’t exactly worked for me, this was like finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Or at the very least, some misery to accompany me. Not that I’m miserable. I’m not. Not even in the least bit. It’s just that I’m feeling a little down on the online dating marketplace. I’ve had a lot of great dates that have led nowhere. I’ve spent a lot of nights out with men who liked me or men that I liked, but, as yet, never mutually. I wouldn’t say that any of them have been bad experiences. I’ve grown and learned and laughed from all of them.

But it came at the price of sacrificing time with the people who really matter to me, of sacrificing the time to do things that I enjoy, of sacrificing time for me. A worthwhile compromise in pursuit of a life partner, perhaps.  But I hadn’t found that partner, and I was really starting to miss those other things. A quick sojourn online confirmed the relatively small pond of players. I’d seen most of them before. It’s all the same guys on all the same sites, and the only difference was that rather than contempt, familiarity was breeding, well, familiarity. Guys that never seemed even moderately interesting, started to seem so familiar that they became interesting. I felt as if I knew them, or should know them. Except that meeting them only confirmed the reasons we hadn’t met earlier and should not have met later.

I’ve taken interludes along the way, away from internet dating. And I’m in the midst of another, with no idea when or even if I will return. In part, this scares me. How will I find a partner if not online? I meet people everywhere I go, but increasingly rarely do those meetings turn into dates or relationships.

My limbo state. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. It felt like a long, dark alley with no end in sight. That is, until experts came along to tell me that it wasn’t me. It was online dating.

And they raised some very interesting points.

Points like: Research from Duke University shows that it takes about six hours of online dating activity to set up a real life date, but the odds of wanting a second date are low.

Check.  Been there, done that. A lot. And it certainly didn’t play well into my feeling of lost time.

Points like: Online dating distracts us from listening to our bodies, which are designed to find a compatible mate. And, also: Online dating is not a reliable indicator of chemistry.

News flash: neither of these are news. I’ve written about both before.

Kim and Luis go on to say that: The qualities that you need in a good lifetime partner, such as compassion, empathy and generosity can’t be tested in online dating. And they point out: (Almost) everyone lies in their profile.

I can’t say whether or not this made me feel any better, but it made me curious about Kim Lockhart and Luis Santiago. Just who were these dating experts with whom I was seeing eye-to-eye, and how could they help me?

Here’s how*:

Wait.  What?!!?

So online dating does not work…Unless you pay $599.

*image taken from Mix It Up LA, the dating and relationship website of Kim and Luis.

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He handed me a helmet and I got on the back of the motorcycle of the man I’d met only moments ago. It was just that cinematic. And potentially stupid.

Of course, it didn’t turn out to be stupid. He came home with me that night and was nothing short of a gentleman. A one-night-stand gentleman, but still, a gentleman. He stayed the night, which surprised me a bit, and when I woke the next morning I asked if he wanted a cup of coffee.

Sure. That’d be great.

I got up, threw on jeans, a t-shirt and my havainas and ran across the street to Starbucks, where I bought us each a cup of coffee, some pastries, and the Sunday Times. I don’t like touching newspapers. Years as a paper girl have resulted in my jumping at any chance to have someone else touch them and read the good stuff to me. I returned home hoping he might be that someone.

We sat in the garden that sun-soaked Sunday, drinking our coffee, reading the paper and talking. The brightest star made its way across the sky in a blink and it was five o’clock. I could hardly believe that we’d spent all night and day together. I’d really enjoyed his company. I liked him. He looked at his watch.

Do you wanna get some dinner?

That would be great. Can you give me a minute to change?

Of course. Take your time.

No way I was taking my time. I’d never see this guy again if he actually knew how much time I could spend getting ready. I ran inside, brushed my teeth, changed, powdered my face, put on mascara, blush and a little lipgloss, and threw my hair up in a speed that would suggest I had at least at least eight arms. I really wish I could do that more often.

We got back on his bike and he took me to his favorite restaurant. They knew him there. He went there every Sunday, he told me. He ordered for the both of us and we sat, enjoying a delicious meal and conversation. He gave me a ride home as the summer sun was setting.

He pulled up and idled just outside my apartment.  I removed my helmet and gave it to him along with my number.

I had a great time with you, Staci, but I just got out of a relationship.  I’m not ready for anything new, so I probably won’t call.

Well, take my number.  Just in case.

He kissed me goodbye, watched me climb the steps to my front door and rode off. I knew he wouldn’t call. But I hoped he would. He didn’t.

Years passed.

I was on the phone with my friend Ginger. She was excited. I could hear the kick in her step as she described the man she’d been dating. The details of him were shrouded in the stories of their meeting and of their first several dates. He sounded like a great guy for her. He sounded smart and kind and interesting. He sounded worldly. He sounded tall. And shaven-headed. He sounded like…

Ginger, is his name Emile?

Silence.  I knew it was.

Um. I have a confession. I fucked your boyfriend.

Ginger might be my only friend to whom I could say such a thing and who would have a good laugh about it. And she did. Thankfully. We both did.

She and Emile were a much better match than Emile and I ever would have been. I was happy for her. They were together for years, and although that first get-together with the three of us was beyond awkward, Emile and I grew comfortable around one another in our new roles. Sadly, life and circumstances change and their relationship couldn’t weather the storms. They broke up recently.

After taking some time to heal, Ginger was back in the saddle, online and dating regularly.

I texted her on Saturday.

are you working thursday? wanna get together?

Not working, might have a date but it is with a guy who I went out with once and we could certainly add him to the mix. He’s very funny, he’s a writer.

Holy fucking shit.

Ginger, is his name Jacob?

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If I had a nickel for every guy that was straightforward and sincere with me…

I’d have a nickel.

More on this later.

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I spent exactly one day feeling sad about the loss of the idea of Danny until I looked at the reality of Danny. I’d gone typically mad for him and done all the things we girls do, gone all the places in my head that I wished I hadn’t. I’d imagined this could be “the guy”, fantasized about our perfect relationship, clung to the stories of kindness and the notion that he said he wanted a committed relationship and more children. I’d cast him imaginarily into a role for which I never made him audition.

Maybe he sensed that. I can’t know. I can’t know because he never told me. We only went on two dates.

And I felt sad. Somehow robbed of the perfect future with the perfect guy. Until I realized the guy was hardly perfect and I didn’t want that future.  Not with him. Not at all.

This isn’t to say that I’m looking for perfection. I’m not. I’m just looking for someone who’s perfect for me. And Danny was not that someone.

He was not that someone because he didn’t want to be that someone. He was not that someone because he didn’t show me he thought of me, if he ever did think of me. He was not that someone because he never told me I looked beautiful to him. He was not that someone because the time he spent with me didn’t make him crave more time with me. He was not that someone because he didn’t think I was amazing. He was not that someone because he didn’t want to find out if I was amazing. He was not that someone because he didn’t think I was his someone.

And mostly, he was not that someone because he didn’t want to do any work or put forth any effort. If he couldn’t do that now, when it’s easiest, he certainly isn’t going to be able to do it when the stakes are higher, when life and relationships get harder, when there’s so much more riding on it, when it really matters, when we need it most. And, quite simply, that’s not good enough for me.  I want and expect and deserve better. So should he.

Maybe the woman will come along who makes him want to be that man.  I am not that woman. He never stated this, but he told me, all the same.  He told me everything I needed to know through his actions, even when they were confusing.  And for what felt like the first time in my life, I saw it and rejected it.

Danny may be a great guy. He’s smart and interesting and a seemingly wonderful and committed father. He is curious and worldly and cultured and free-thinking. He has a great sense of humor.  But he doesn’t have to offer what I require:  His interest.  His effort.  His heart.

And he told me all of this by telling me nothing at all.

He did write me a week or so later.

He just talked about himself and said that he hoped I was having a “nice week”.

I felt better having heard from him.  He made it clear that he wasn’t that interested, or at the very least that he wasn’t sure if he was interested. He’d made it clear that he would happily and willingly have sex with me, but as a wise woman once told me, there comes a moment for every man where he decides whether or not he wants to do the work that having any given woman will require, and Danny had clearly decided to opt out of the work. It may not have been as manly or as admirable as being direct may have been, but it made me feel a little better about not being completely wrong about him. He hadn’t struck me as the kind of guy that would just completely ignore a woman and vanish. And so I felt better knowing that he was not.

I thought at first to respond and then thought better of it.  Just as I learned to hear what he was saying without words, I knew what my decision was and that there was no need for words; he would hear what I had to say in the absence of my own, and we would both move on, better for it and perhaps closer to finding our someones.

.

After answering 27 different questions about what I was doing in Israel, I was directed to a baggage inspection area. I had two bags to check (one was mine, the other filled with gifts), a carry-on with my electronics, and my purse. They proceeded to empty each and every bag (and any bag within a bag) and scan everything for bomb residue. Once that was done, they insisted that I repack my bags – with the caveat that I had to put almost every item in a different bag than it had been originally. It was literally the Chinese Fire Drill of Luggage. And it took two hours.

The long flight home was infinitely more tolerable following a Xanax and a 6 hour nap.  I was happy to be home.  If only I didn’t have to wait an entire week to see Danny again.

I responded to his e-mail the day after I returned.  I relayed my airport security story and said

I’m happy to be back home. I’m also happy that you’re joining me to see the play.

Can’t wait to see you. I’ll even bring you some yummy halvah if I can succeed in keeping my sticky fingers off of it for a whole week!*

*NOTE: I did not succeed in keeping my sticky fingers off of said yummy halvah.

One day, two, three and four came to pass with no response.  I spent those days crazily deconstructing the words of my email.  I shouldn’t have e-mailed him.  I shouldn’t have told him I was happy he was coming to the play.  And I definitely shouldn’t have told him that I couldn’t wait to see him. I was unfairly critical of myself.  But I wasn’t yet ready to turn my focus where it actually belonged.

A week later, he responded.

Oh airtravel…. yes it can be a real exercise in inanity. (Writer me just wrote that but Editor me thinks pairing “in” with “inanity” is, well, inane.)

So glad you had a great time, as I knew you would. It must have been thrilling to make all those new discoveries.

Sorry to have taken so long to respond. This week in particular has been the heaviest workwise in a looooong time and I’ve been burning the candle at both ends. I’ve also been dating a couple of people. Not sure why I think you should know this–it may make no difference to you at all–but it seems right to mention it. Hard to believe our speakeasy pool night was over a month ago.

Looking forward to seeing you, too–and hearing of the adventure. Let’s grab a drink afterwards so that we can properly deconstruct the work of Mr. Shawn.(and swap travel stories).

Danny

I was speechless.  My palms were sweaty.  My mouth was dry.  I felt nauseated.  I hated this e-mail.  I hated everything about it.  I hated that he had taken a week to respond to me.  I hated how distant and mechanical it felt.  I hated that he had just told me he was dating other people.  And I hated that he still planned to join me at the theatre, despite that disclosure.

It’s not that he was dating other people.  Of course he was.  I’d assumed he was, and I’d be an idiot to think otherwise.  It’s that he’d felt the need to tell me.  I’d only ever told one person whom I was newly dating that I was dating other people.  And that was to get him to back off.  To tell him, without telling him, that I wasn’t that interested in him. And now, this had just been fed back to me. By someone I liked, or thought I liked.

I wrote him back.

Of course you’re dating other people. You don’t know how great I am yet.

That was it.  I had plenty else in my mind, but nothing else to say.  To him at least.

I figured he would call or text to find out where and when we were meeting for the play, but days came and went with no contact.  I was annoyed. He couldn’t put forth even a modicum of effort to solidify our plans?  He wasn’t doing me any favors by allowing me to treat him to a play at my expense.  And he was going to make me do all the work. Needless to say, I didn’t want to go. I wanted to cancel. But I decided that I would honor my invitation and that would be that.  He’d forced my hand.  I sent him a text the morning of the play.

Good morning, Danny. The theatre is on 42nd Street. Show starts at 7. Do you want to meet there at 6:30 so we can grab a pre-show cocktail?

Sounds good. See you then!

It didn’t sound so good to me.  I was dreading it.  But I left work a little early, went home and primped.  I was determined to look my best.  This man who wanted little to nothing to do with me was going to see what he was missing. A fitted black dress with a deep v-plunging neckline, that hugged my curves perfectly and showed off “the girls” beautifully?  Yes. That was the dress. Fixed my hair, went light on the make-up so I could wear a bold red lipstick, had a cocktail to calm my nerves, and shuffled off to meet him at the theatre.

He was there waiting when I arrived. He looked so handsome. Handsomer than I remembered him being. He had dressed for the theatre and looked so distinguished and charming.  My stomach was turning somersaults as I entered the door and forced a smile upon my face.  I figured he’d greet me with a kiss on the cheek, if anything.

I figured wrong.

He walked over, smiling, took me in his arms and kissed me.  Really kissed me.  It was hardly what I’d expected after basically being told he’s not that into me.  I was flustered and, once again, confused.

I told him he looked sharp. He thanked me, but didn’t return the compliment. He’s never mentioned my appearance.  It left me wondering if he even found me attractive.

I retrieved our tickets from the box office and handed them to him.  We went upstairs and had a seat at the bar.  I was nervous.  And distracted by how attracted I was to him. I felt as though I stumbled over all my words and thoughts.  I have no idea what I said in those moments, but I was convinced I sounded like an idiot.

We sat through the play. He loved it. I’d been invited to the Cast and Crew party afterward, so we stopped by for a moment, but decided to move on so we could talk. We found two seats at a bar across the street and took them, ordered cocktails and sat talking for a couple of hours. The conversation flowed smoothly and easily now. I wasn’t nervous anymore. Trouble is, I also hadn’t eaten anything since noon, so after that cocktail, I was basically drunk. Not good. Not good at all.

As a result, some of my memory of the rest of the night is fuzzy. It was clear that he seemed interesting and interested and engaged and there was smooching-a-plenty over the course of the evening. As to the fuzzy part, at one point he suggested that we go home together.  I stuck a pin in that and said that we wouldn’t be sleeping together while either of us was dating other people. He didn’t react much to this, but nor did he react to my question of when I’d see him again at the end of the night. That was hardly the most regrettable part of the evening.

That prize would go to the three drunken texts that I sent from my seat in the cab ride home.  The cocktail had decided that we should, in fact, go home together.  That he should come over.  Please.

No response.  Thank god.

I was so embarrassed by this when I woke the following morning that I e-mailed an apology. I thanked him for exercising the restraint that I would not have and for not indulging in my alcohol-infused texts.  This, too, he ignored.  Not completely, but just long enough for me to see clearly.

to be continued…

.

The computers were big and bulky in comparison to today’s models.  There was no login theme song, sign in or welcome screen.  No plethora of applications framing your desktop to choose from.  There was merely a flashing cursor following the word READY awaiting your instruction.

Our assignment?  To write a program in BASIC such that when it ran, the screen before you, using a series of x’s, o’s, stars, slashes and dashes, presented the image of a pitcher pouring its contents into a glass and then the glass being emptied through what appeared to be a straw.  We spent hours, days, weeks and months writing programming language all to type in the word RUN and see the fruits of our labors.

Sure, it was kinda cool.  But here’s, more or less, what I got out of that intensive computer programming class:

Clearly, I am never going to need a computer.

Visionary, I am not.  Nor could I have imagined just how we’d come to use them.

*****

There was a day, I might have been 13 or so.  I was getting out of the shower.  The phone was ringing.  No one was home, and so I ran to answer it.  And there was a fleeting moment between the shuffle of the shower curtain and the phone flush against my still wet face.  A moment of panic, in which I realized, some day there might be video phones and that day whoever was calling, whether it be my best friend, boyfriend, grandmother or Policemen’s Benevolent Association would catch me, wet-handed, in whatever god gave me.  Please god, don’t let that day come.

*****

When I was 16, my boyfriend and I would fall asleep on the phone together in hopes that our voices would wake one another the following morning, but usually one or both of us just got tangled up in phone cord and hung up at some point in the middle of the night. One such night as I was slowly drifting off to sleep, an utterance of my name stirred me out of a near slumber.  It sounded different than it usually did in our phone calls. It was surrounded by heavy breaths.  A lot of heavy breaths.  We had never done that before.  I had a nightbrace.  There’s nothing sexy about a nightbrace.  I was glad there weren’t video phones.

*****

And here we are today.  I do little without a computer.  I connect with friends via iChat and FaceTime (although never freshly out of the shower). And, well, you’ve read my KiSS & TELLS.  I don’t fall asleep with anyone on the phone anymore.  Mostly because folks rarely seem to use the phone.  Of all the dates that I’ve had over the past year-and-a-half, I think exactly two of them have used the old-fashioned phone call to make plans. Everyone else has relied exclusively on texts and e-mails.  This is not something I’m fond of, and is an entirely different topic for an entirely different post.

Today, all those things that I didn’t understand, dreaded and feared?  They’re very much our reality.  Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee decided to document their love for one another on a video tape, and a couple months later, a copy of it was rolling in my VCR. (Sidenote: Tommy Lee became very attractive to me after that.  Or at least part of him did.  Up until maybe the horn-honking moment.  Because it was completely ridiculous and not sexy at all.) But even that tape took a few months to circulate, and it circulated largely because they were celebrities.

Now, we’ve got iPhones and Androids and Flip Cameras and the internet and all those things that two consenting people did privately is much easier to share than it ever was. And it’s being shared more than it ever was.

I cringe to think that today, my teenage nightly phone call would have taken place on iChat or Skype or FaceTime.  It could have been recorded, replayed and shared. 16-year-old me, in what should be a private coming-of-age moment between two people, would instead be a viral video of a young girl, nightbrace and clearasil dots on her face, orgasming for an imagined lover on the other end of the line.

And that innocent-yet-not-at-all-innocent recording might stay safely on his or my or both of our computers for the rest of our days.  Or, one or both of us could share it with someone.  For bragging rights.  Or out of anger or spite.  And that someone could share it. And so on.

I don’t know about you, or about today’s 16-year-olds, but I was embarrassed by a pimple.  A stain on my shirt.  Accidentally snorting when someone made me laugh.  The dribble of beer on my chin after a failed attempt at a funnel.  I was young and developing and trying to make sense of the world.  I was bright and bold and bubbly and under all of it, I was so very self-conscious.  So I pretty much can’t even begin to imagine the painful embarrassment of my sexual experimentation being broadcast to an audience.  And yet this is happening.  And it’s ruining young lives.

What provokes a 13-year-old child to photograph themselves naked and send it to their boyfriend?  Or a Duke Student to publish her “F-list”? The answer could possibly be that they got their hands on the Pam and Tommy tape.  But seriously, like most things in life, our lessons must be learned. And most of them were hard enough before the days of narcissistic streaming, sexting, untiring voyeurism and prosecution of children for child pornography. I feared these things before they were happening. And now so many of the seemingly fearless, but more likely thoughtless, seem to pay high-priced social penance for them. It is, or has come to be, the Scarlet Letter of the Digital Age.

It all makes me long for a simpler time.  A simpler time when our largely unremarkable, private lives remained largely, unremarkably private.  A simpler time when sharing was a lot more complicated.

And yet, even in the simplest of times, Hester Prynne was publicly marked, scorned and condemned.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This post was inspired by A Girl’s Nude Photo, and Altered Lives appearing in the New York Times on March 26, 2011.  Want more?  See what the other Insomniacs have to say…