Living the Dream

someone else's arms

i think it's the brazilian women who say the fastest way to get over someone is to get under someone else.

this morning i woke up in Someone Else's Arms. and it felt good. real good. it's been five weeks since i got the call. five weeks since i confronted him and he lied to me again. five weeks to end up in Someone Else's Arms.

we went to this CAA donation fund-raiser party last night. so, for my twenty dollar donation i got drunk, very very drunk. and, i met a guy. a guy who happened to have a girlfriend but i didn't know that until i saw the earrings on his bedside table and the tampons in the master bath. but, i'm getting way ahead of myself.

this guy, we'll call him Troy (in real life, he has a weird name). anyway, Troy was safe and nice and maybe even felt safe because he had a girlfriend. he wasn't being aggressive, he was just going along for the ride. enjoying me, Casey and Perry tearing it up i suppose.

4 hours and 6 whiskey and coke's later, we wound up driving to his house in the hills where we made tofu hotdogs and sauteed spinach.

at some point i went upstairs to his bed and fell asleep. when i woke up, it was 7am and he was spooning me and i couldn't remember the last half hour of the night. i asked him how i got up to his bedroom and he said i walked up there. that he found me in bed asleep. i figured that meant we didn't kiss which i was quite fine with. fine, because then there was nothing to regret. i said i had a big hangover headache and that i had gotten very drunk and i was sorry about that. he took both of his hands and cupped my ears and started rubbing them in this way no one has ever done before. it felt really good and i was happy to learn there were parts of me no one had ever explored. that there were still things to find that felt good and that it could still feel good to be in someone else's bed in Someone Else's Arms.

when i got up to use the bathroom, i found the tampons. when i got back into his bed to get some more sleep, my eyes caught on the silver hoops on his bedside table. so, he had a girlfriend. made sense. i wasn't even sure if i liked him liked him anyway. i wasn't even sure if i knew him. clearly i did not know him. so, all this was ok. we just had a fun night and he was warm next to me and we both didn't cross any lines and it felt so innocent. maybe that's what i was in search of for the last three weeks. my innocence. my anger gone. myself.

i found it in Someone Else's Arms.

i got up to leave and he didn't wake up.

the new script

check it out

Download living_half_hour6.pdf

moving day

my brother and i moved into this new place in the Hollywood Hills with our friend Baz. we found a stash of coke in the built-ins in the dining room. it could've been there since 1970 -- as most stationary objects in the place look like they haven't been touched since then -- or it could've been from the last tenants who we know owned a lot of cats. we know this, because the place smells like cat urine.

anyway, my brother put the blow to his tongue and said it tasted OK. i told him not to do a rail but after all the moving and being pissed off that our other landlord had charged us for the cheap aluminum blinds, he said he needed it. anyway, Baz did one too and they survived. i guess that stuff lasts forever. they have this fantasy that it was Kurt Cobain’s stash as his friend supposedly lived there before us. they couldn’t stop talking about it all night.

beverly hills

i drove through Beverly Hills today instead of taking Sunset or the 10 or whatever other way there is go 15 miles in one hour. i like to meander the streets in the flats of Beverly Hills -- not just to beat the traffic or to look at the houses -- i do it for other reasons:

1. the trees. old growth trees. there are sycamores that are probably 75 years old and it’s shady on those streets which keeps my car out of the sun. i like the big old trees.

2. and, i can pee. if i have to go, i can pull over and run up an alley, drop trou and pee. i enjoy peeing outdoors much more than i like peeing in public restrooms. i think it’s cleaner and i get a thrill out of it too i suppose. finding a great spot to pee is one of life’s simple pleasures. and there are lots of these life’s pleasures in Bev Hills.

3. also, sometimes, when I’m in the alley, i find cool things. one person’s trash is another’s treasure. i once found a pretty nice wing chair in the Beverly Hills trash. frankly, if the people had any time they would have sold it at the flea market and made some decent money off of it – but, they don’t have the time i suppose. time, is one thing i do have.

so today, i drove around right before the sun set in order to think and to remember. today the light was so beautiful at 7:30 as it eked its way between the branches of the 200 foot tall Sycamores that it simply made me happy. today, i was able to pee just when i needed to, and today i was even able to pass up something i knew was just junk.

the lesbian thing

i tried the lesbian thing in college. i guess since what’s-his-name cheated on me, i’ve been thinking of revisiting that option. anyway, it’s got me thinking about my first time.

i remember thinking she looked so different with her clothes off. watching her play tennis in her short skirts and those thin tank tops, i thought i knew what she would look like naked. in fact, i had imagined her naked before, a tactic i learned from my 6th grade debate teacher who told us if we imagined people naked, we wouldn’t be nervous. it didn’t work, but it got me to imagining people naked when i was only twelve, everyone -- old, young, male female – and sixteen years later and i was still doing it.

another thing i remember is the conversation i had with a guy friend of mine who lived in my dorm. MD, lived on the first floor, and came up to my room one afternoon saying he wanted to talk which we hadn’t done that much of since his admission of his feelings and my consequent explaining of mine. so, i let him in.

“What’s going on with you and T?” he said.
“I don’t like what you’re implying.” i said.
“You’re making a big mistake,” he said.
“Now, you’re assuming.” i said.
“I see you holding her hand, I see you together -- I’m inferring.”
“I hold her hand because people like you like to talk so I like to give you something to talk about,” i said. “Honestly, I can’t even believe that us being lesbians would be an issue. This is supposed to be a liberal school.”
“Have you thought about the rest of your life?”
“Are you listening to me?”
“Someday you will want a family and kids. You should be looking for a husband.”
“Oh, that’s why I came to college, M-R-S. degree, I almost forgot.” i laughed.
He was serious, “I’m serious.”
“I’m not even with T, OK?”
“Like I believe that.”
“I think this whole thing is funny, people thinking we’re together.”
“Dan saw you,” he said.
“Saw us what?” i said.
“He saw you together, up here, in this room.”
“That’s impossible because we’ve never done anything.”
He gave me the I-Don’t-Believe-You look.
“What did he say he saw?” i said.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“So what are you talking about? This place is worse than high school - people spreading rumors.”
“He said he knocked on your door to do that Comm. project and you didn’t answer.”
“Oh, because I was fucking Tina?”
“We all know she sleeps in here now.”
and she did. my roommate had gone to Prague for the Spring quarter so i had an extra bed. my printer had broken and all the ones on campus were PC, i was Mac so i couldn’t print anywhere. T had a laptop and a desktop so she brought up her desktop and printer and we set it up on the now extra desk. she moved a few more things in and soon enough, she was sleeping over.
“There are two beds in here.” i said.
“But they’re pushed together.”

He was right. i had pushed them together before T had started sleeping over. i wanted to be like the rich girls who could afford to buy Queen size beds for themselves - it was makeshift but it worked.

i shook my head at MD. there was no use telling the truth if people weren’t going to listen. and, it was the truth. T and i hadn’t hooked up, hadn’t even talked about it -- yet.

when it did happen, she played the boy and i the girl. which i always think about now – like, i guess i really am a girl. because she gave me this long back massage as i was writing a paper and then she turned me around and kissed me – sort of aggressive and first-movey like a boy. anyway, i kissed her back because i was expecting it. and then she grabbed my boob and i grabbed hers and then i didn’t know what do with all those boobs. when she tried to go even further, i pulled away and said, “I’m het.”
she backed off, but not for long. just like a boy. she tried to cop a feel again when we were hanging out with some friends late night just talking. she and i were sharing a blanket and she started rubbing the outside of my jeans. it was pretty sensual, but that’s as far as we got because when i told my other friend, E, she said T had tried the same thing on her, under a blanket two night before! And E had let her. anyway, it was the exact same move. just like a boy… working it. so, i just dropped the whole thing after that because i think what i was really interested in, was something Different.

but lately, i’ve been thinking of going lesbian again. i guess i’m looking for something Different. Different than being such a cliché, just a girl who likes a guy that’s done her wrong.

long distance

sorry, i couldn’t write for a few days. what do you want me to say? i’m a total and complete idiot.

the conversation went like this.

me – hi
him – hi
me – how’s it been going?
him – good.
me – yeah?
him – i can’t wait to see you.
me - have you been doing anything fun at night?
him – eating dinner with the guys. that’s about it. you know that.
me – i don’t know anything.
him – oh jesus. what’s that supposed to mean?
me – you tell me?
him – i have nothing to tell you?
me – you might as well tell me now. i’ll just find out about it.
him – why don’t you just say what you want to say. you’re so paranoid.
me - you can only be paranoid if things aren’t true. these things are true.
him – what things?
me – Julie. Julie at the Lipton last year (this was the one i wasn’t sure of, so i lead with it)
him – she totally has a crush on me you know that. but i would never.
me – hmm. never?
him – never.
me – i saw the pictures.
him – pictures?
me – someone emailed me pictures.
him – who?
me – that’s not the point.
him – who. i have a right to know.
me – actually, i think it’s me that has a right to know.

and then we fought. i didn’t learn much more than i already knew. except that he said it was nothing. he said he and the blond didn’t sleep together. which i didn’t believe but once there was nothing more he seemed willing to confess i hung up the phone.

pictures stronger than his words

i got in to ofoto. he used his dead dog’s name as the password so it was easy.

the second most recent photo album is of her. they are in Australia. she visited him at the Open. she is blond. she is pretty. she has met his brother and his brother’s wife. all i can say is, i feel pathetic. and stupid. and humiliated.

angry moron

i tried to leave a message like nothing was up so he would call me back. he still hasn’t. he should be awake now, it’s the morning in Paris.

i have moved on from feeling just stupid to being angry. i feel like an angry moron. i should have known. i am such a cliché. a girl waiting for a guy who is traveling the world doing whatever he wants – and getting away with it.

the phone is ringing....

loving all the wrong people

he was the third boyfriend to break my heart so maybe i should have expected it. but i didn’t. i guess i'm an eternal optimist.

anyway, we had met in college. he was a senior. i was a junior. it was valentine’s day and a perfect day to get hammered. perfect if you weren’t on a cute candlelit dinner date somewhere with your sweetheart. he and i and sixteen others were not. so we gathered at someone’s apartment off campus and began the requisite drinking games.

that night, He invented a drinking game. we called it “drink”. He simply took some Peach Schnapps and poured it into a glass then took a beer and poured it into another glass. He put both glasses behind his back and told me to choose one. whichever one i chose, i would have to drink. then we’d switch and i’d put the glasses behind my back and he’d have to choose whether he got peach flavored hard liquor or Miller Lite. it was a great drinking game if your liked to drink. apparently, both of us did.

we kissed in line for the bathroom a few minutes later and somehow i would up driving his ex-girlfriend’s Porsche through two stoplights before i successfully got us to his frat house, luckily, in one piece.

nothing else happened that night except that he tried to have sex with me and i laughed at him telling him i was not THAT easy. i fell asleep in his bed as he kept partying. the next night he invited me out to skinny dip in the lake and i guess i’m sorta easy because i said yes to that. the rest, is history. he graduated a few weeks later and i think i had more fun in those few weeks than ever in my life. of course, i was heavily intoxicated through most of them, but there were some romantic moments -- a drive up the coast, a night beside a campfire, a rescue off the floor when i got too stoned.

anyway, we fell in love but he left town and no one made any promises. except that we started to call each other and then i drove to see him when he was playing in a tennis tournament on the East Coast and i swear, i couldn’t get enough of him. we officially started dating and we made it through my senior year – or so i thought. until i got the call. a call last week from my friend who lives in Boston. now I can’t get a hold of him and i am contemplating hacking into his ofoto account. i know his email address and all his passwords so i wonder if i can get in....