Things Babes Have Said To Me (Soon) After Sex

(Inspired by Things Dudes Have Said To Me After Sex.)

The worst: “I should have told you before, I’m sorry, but I just needed you, I have ..., but it isn’t flaring right now and probably not very contagious.”

The rest are in no particular order.

1. “Have I mentioned that I am an EMO?” (Yes, this cuts both ways … ;-)
2. “I think we should see each other again ... But not for dating or anything ... I mean just as friends ... But with benefits of course.” (Of course.)
3. “Did you fake that?”
4. “Why are you so surprised? I am a grown woman.” (First date.)
5. “Do you still respect me? You don’t think I’m easy do you? I never do that until after 5–6 dates.” (Different woman, second date.)
6. “Easy up, easy down.” (After the second time.)
7. “Am I your first?” (After the third time. And “Yes.”, but I didn’t admit it until a week later.)
8. “Maybe you should do some Kegels.” (During that week.)
9. “No, don’t do that! I don't know you well enough.”
10. “I don’t want you to tell anyone, I don’t want my husband finding out.”
11. “Honey, you woke my kids!”
12. “Yayy! We weren’t busted by the SFPD!”
13. “One more bookcase and we're done.”
14. “Should we eat now before the food gets cold?” 

The best: "Pizza?"

Let's just be friends 1

Hi Karen,
It was good to meet you yesterday and I would like to continue our conversations. I can meet this Friday afternoon in SF but have to leave by 4ish, if you can escape before then, or we can skype over the weekend and figure out a time to meet next week.
Ranjeet

....
Two days later:
Hi Ranjeet,

It was such a pleasure to meet you. Thanks for the great conversation. We'll have to meet up again. Unfortunately, this week has been quite busy and the weekend is filled with family obligations, being Chinese New Year, so we'll have to find another time.

I also wanted to be upfront with you that I'd welcome a friendship. I've found that for me relationships tend to happen when I feel a kind of chemistry that's different than the one we had. I hope that makes sense. Perhaps you feel the same! 

 

Warm regards,

Karen

...
1 week later:

Hi Karen,

Our conversation was so dominated by physics (literally) that the chemistry you refer to figuratively had no chance.
Let's do the whole "sub-text" thingy:

Given that you've made a very early decision about "no relationship" (essentially rejecting a part of me) I don't understand why you (and other women) then feel the need to have a friendship (with or without benefits), do nothing to cultivate the friendship and seek my approval to assuage your guilt. It is your decision, take ownership.

I don't do lame, not for free; my scintillating conversation is available at $150 per hour.

Chus,

Ranjeet

Mirror Mirror

Sex advice to the young (25 year-olds)

Not to the “young at heart”, just “young”.

If you expect to have a long and satisfying sex life, or just a long sex life, you should now start fucking a 30-year old, a 40-year old, a 50-year old, a 60-year old, a 70-year old … because if you expect to have a long sex life and hence a satisfying one, at some point you will be fucking a 30-year old, a 40-year old, a 50-year old, a 60-year old, a 70-year old …

… or you will be fucking somebody who is at that moment fucking a 30-year old, a 40-year old, a 50-year old, a 60-year old or a 70-year old …

… so you might as well start getting accustomed to it now.

Friday Night Epiphany

Most Private Thing I'm Willing to Admit Dept.

No matter how explosive the sex, no matter how available they were tonight and might be in the future, no matter how horny you were nor that you had just wanted to fuck and had imagined a long night of mutual pleasure, no matter that for a day or two it might help you avoid pining over someone or something unattainable - sex with someone who seems not to like you is just deeply unsatisfying.

Ask yourself, did you want to fuck them a second time?

Loud and Clear!

I love you sweetheart, I look forward to have the life I want with you. (I would never admit this to anyone, but know I think of you often, all the time!). I Love you :)))) and miss you and can't wait for our chats. When I come back I cannot wait to see you. :). You will come to the airport to pick me up, won't you, and take me back home? It will have been weeks, I can't imagine what it will feel like to be in your arms again  xoxo! Make that XOXO... :))

(Send the above to a real or imaginary actual loved one (for present purposes it doesn't matter which) and “accidentally on purpose” CC the one who doesn't seem to understand “N,O!”. Based on personal experience, I guarantee that it works like a charm. 

... Ouch!)

OkupyCupid3: The Art of Seduction

Not because she doesn't have thumbs or fingers --
   but because he will not be her clay;
Not because he doesn't have brushes or paint --
   but because she will not be his canvas;
Not because I don't have pen or ink --  
   but because you will not be my paper;
Not because you don't have the moves or music --
   but because I will not be your space:
The art of seduction --
   is lost.

This ain't no climbing saga

Or,

STONE-COLD LOVE

The hot shower makes me suddenly aware of the cuts, bruises, scrapes and general bloody spots ("gobies", Orlando called them) I've accumulated over the last two days. I have no clear recollection of how I came by them, not even the major ones. Only at the end of a route do I occasionally attain realisation – dark red drops appearing suddenly on shoes or on the rope as I untie, or a partner's comment, “Left a sacrifice for the rock gods huh?”

I have mixed feelings about showering at the end of a climbing trip. The heat soothes away the soreness and muscle aches – most acquired not from a heroic climb up some horrendously strenuous and unrelenting crack but from sitting cramped and huddled for hours in a van strewn with gear or wedged awkwardly in a car on the ride home. The flow of warm water is a comfort, but it is with regret that I watch the slightly grey water –sometimes muddy brown– flow off my body, washing away the rock, sloughing off the entire weekend experience as it carries away the little bits of sand or gravel that have been trapped in my hair for days. I have become accustomed to the dirt and rock-dust insulating me from … my own imagination? Perhaps, but in any case I am loathe to come out of this shell and re-enter whatever real world I happen to inhabit.

This smell on me, not just sweat –stale or fresh– but the smell of the earth on me. A while back, when I would return from climbing trips, my ex-cat (ex-girlfriend's cat?) would sniff my fingers and lick them, then sprawl on the mess of climbing gear spilled on the living room floor, purring and happily sniffing the metallic, rusty rock smell on stoppers and webbing, her nose on my climbing shoes, pink tongue parting her jet black face to tentatively flick over the leather. Her favorite rocks –sensed remotely in this way– were the pink gneiss of Little Falls and the pegmatite of the Gunks. She didn't care much for the Adirondacks, too licheny I suppose, and her probable love for the plentiful smell of blood (from jamming forgotten-to-tape-too-late-now fingers into cracks lined with sharp quartz crystals) was insufficient to overcome her dislike for the vegetation.

Lovers, even those whose profiles mandated “daily showers and fresh scents”, have eventually reveled in these rock-smells on me, welcomed me to Sunday night bed with warm naked bodies, demanding that I postpone my shower till the next morning. Non-climbers themselves, perhaps their bodies desired at that moment not really me but some long-forgotten connection with the earth, vicarious though it might have been. Can a protective carapace sometimes be flypaper?

Two days ago, I'd left during a period of tension, my lover and I both in need of a break from each other. That much had been clear, but not much else besides. I needed to think, to be alone, and where else can one be alone but on the sharp end of a rope – the feeling of mastery, the complete control, before the whole world explodes into understanding as the rope sings you to a stop, the slamming crescendo of stoppers, hexes and carabiners. In the brief void following the fall, my empty mind would have its epiphany.

However, as with most other climbing trips, this one too has been bereft of any clarifying visions; there were no moments of comprehension, no resolution of problems greater than that of the next move.

… At this point forty feet up, the crack flares sharply, as if a corner on one side has fallen off, and six inches deep, it narrows to a parallel sided hand crack. There are no edges or holds on the face that I can use. Past a bulge a few feet above me, I see some big bucket holds, the angle eases there, more features have been carved out of the rock – pockets, larger edges etc. But to get there …

I am on “Fantasy”, the first pitch of a well-trod trad route at the New, not hard, but very aesthetic, a beautiful hand crack in yellow sandstone tinged with red. It starts with a right-facing dihedral off the ground. Comfortable stems, made easier because of some edges for fingers and outer-foot placements, get me a few feet up this till I am under a half-roof topping the dihedral, split by the crack. Leaning out on a right hand jammed vertically up under the roof, I step left onto the arête, and using an in-cut edge off on the face for my left hand, I work my feet up till I can reach with my right hand over the roof and back into the crack. Standing above the roof, one leg stemmed wide, the other foot solidly jammed vertically in the crack, the weight supporting ankle twisted wickedly starts hurting, the pain causing my lower leg to shake a bit; but at least I don't get full-on “sewing machine leg”. I take too much time placing pro – I've lost my eye for sizes after half a season pulling on plastic – I fumble and drop a set of three or four hexes before I get something in. I've never dropped anything before, and for a few seconds I worry about whether I'll need them higher up. Then, as I did with the hexes, I drop the worry, without fumbling this time.
The next few moves are bomber hand eating crack, but the section is short. I discover an edge inside the crack which allows me to layback the crack up to a finger lock and then I reach a stance on edges formed by the weathered outer crust of the sandstone. It would be desert varnish but this is West Virginia. With a friend in place where I could have used one of my dropped hexes, I contemplate the next few moves...
At this point the crack flares sharply, as if a corner on one side has fallen off, and six inches deep, it narrows to a thin hand crack. Shimmering my fingers across the smooth contours of the rockfaces on either side, searching for a hold, I can feel the warm graininess of the rock gently abrading my skin. I fail to find anything – not even a quarter-thin sidepull nor a tiny nubbin. Past a bulge, a few feet above me I see some big bucket holds, and see that the angle eases there, with more features carved out of the rock – big pockets and large edges.
But to get there – the only way is the crack. Off a low two-finger lock with my left hand, I reach up and slide my right into the crack, thumb-up. The crack is parallel, and slightly wider than my flat palm. As I pull my thumb back, into my palm, the mound at the base of my palm widens, jamming me solidly in. I walk my feet up in the crack, unconscious of the immediate pain that must have been in my stacked and twisted toes, with my full weight on them. I savor my position for a few moments. The hand-jam is comfortable; secured by the pulled-back thumb, I sit back, weight on my feet, dangle and shake my left hand awhile, and then dip it into my chalk-bag. On this day, on this rock, the chalk is superfluous, force of habit only. The air is warm and dry, and unlike the granite-like ancient Tuscarora sandstone at Seneca, the hard sandstone here breathes and absorbs moisture off my palms.
Standing up, right hand low, I secure another jam with my left. This one, for some reason, is thumb down, and therefore I will not be able to reach up high over it. But that doesn't matter now. Leaning awkwardly, almost barndooring – swinging open as if I had been poorly hung – since all three points of contact are in the straight line of the crack, I fit my right hand not far above my left, reach over it with my left to the big jug and clamber to the narrow ledge. Above this the crack widens, I get sideways fist jams, feeling the forearm muscles contract and bulge as I clench my fist. A short while later, replaying the climb while setting up the belay, I am pleased that I have not worked my biceps as much as my shoulders and back muscles.
Later yet, on the ground, my legs are tired from the long day climbing, and I have a map of the crack in the loose, tension-free aches in my upper back, in the bloodied knuckles and in the bruises flowering on the back of my hands.

Returning home late, I look forward to sprawling alone, unhampered by the confining comfort of my sleeping bag. Not between clean fresh sheets though (Who has time to do laundry and make beds before a climbing trip?) but with my head on a pillow that has long strands of other hair on it, and lying between sheets stained with my lover's anchovies and ripe-brie, hint of rust wetness, inhaling the sheets, sniffing for a missed connection.
I will call her, tomorrow, maybe.

OkupyCupid2

or "MatchThatColumn", said very quickly. 

(To K.)

This is a series of e-mail exchanges on a dating website. Match the entries in Column R with the responses in Column V. Column R is on the left since R initiates the exchange. Read through Col. V, then through Col. R and attempt to order them independently before fully attempting the puzzle. R's e-mail 'C' is not in response to anything by V.

Col. R		Col. V
A	As Amartya Sen writes at the very beginning of his epo-synonymous book, “Prolixity is not alien to us in India. We are able to talk at some length.” I am ethnically, culturally, argumentatively and arguably Indian: I was born in India, came to the US for grad school and have since worked, lived and played here, except for two years that I lived in Argentina. I take it you were born here. Music appears to be a big part of your life, do you have either amateur or professional performances? Rakesh	0	You are a kind sympathetic man. Good luck to you. You are a bright star. Vivian
B	Hi V, The prosaic reality behind the photo is the following. In December I was at "Toni's haircuts" in the chicano part of Las Vegas and paid more attention to the attractive young woman cutting my hair and to chatting to her in Spanish than to what she was doing to my hair. Each time she asked, "?Asi bien o corto mas?" I of course responded with "Corte mas, por favor." The cut ended up much shorter than I usually have it, and than the increasing sparsity of my hair justifies. Then, on one of those supremely beautiful chilly but sunny days this January I hiked up to Black Mountain from Rhus Ridge and took this self-portrait - trying to avoid both my hair and the arm holding the cell phone and losing my smile by the time I got the frame approximately right. I know the off-angle looks artistic now, but it was pure inability to use that little mirror on the back of my cellphone. At that time my profile picture was one of the "pleasant smile" ones a friend of mine had taken and insisted I use, claiming to know something about what her gender wants in a man. Then yet another woman friend insisted that though they claim to want "nice guys", what women really want is a "bad boy" look. So there we have it. Previous to yours, the only comment on the photo was that I looked "very butch"! Regards, Rakesh	1	HI Rakesh, YOu are looking at the transitional girflriend who dated freshly divorced men for the last ten years. I am interested in you. However, let's meet once you are two years post divorce. Men frieshly divorced are in no place to get married and that means we are not on the same page....yet. I know this is the time when you regain your autonomy. Best of luck. contact me in 18 months if you would. Spare my heart. Vivian
C	Hi (for the last time today, I'm taking an editing break) Vivian, Here are the reasons I e-mailed you in the first place: your well-written profile, your work with soup kitchens and food banks (I cook weekly for OccupyOakland), sea-kayaking (I've paddled around the Channel islands off Ventura), Agno Nuevo (took my girls out of school last month to do the walk), "Guns, Germs and Steel", the three movies you've mentioned and your very attractive smile in your profile pic - not that I'm comparing you to Kelly McGillis. Rakesh	2	That's young! How many years are you post-divorce.? V
D	Hi Vivian, I am sorry for the confusion my message has caused. I was interested by you and by your profile. With the hope of enticing you to take a look at my profile I sent you some fiction I wrote - it was not meant for you, nor was it meant for anyone else. It was motivated by thinking of "what ifs" of the dating scene and the possible lives of others. You've misjudged me on multiple counts regarding (the importance of being an) Ivy grad, professional, light-hearted, defensive, but I can't change your perceptions. Again, accept my apologies for having sent you an e-mail open to being misconstrued. Good luck, and as the old Stones' song goes, I hope you get what you need. Rakesh	3	R, I Enjoy playing musoc. It's like unravelling a sound puzzle, for example Bach's Fugue No. 10 in WTC. Satisfying. I love kids. How old are your girls ? V
E	Hi Vivian, it will be a pleasure to talk to you! My cell phone is 555-1729. Very few get it. I have my daughters tonight, so the best times to talk would be after 9PM. I can talk in their presence, but it is best when they are doing their own stuff, which happens on the weekends, so we can talk then as well. - R	4	Hi R, Do you always write somch – your stpry about the photo? What is your ethnic background?
F	Hi Vivian, I am sorry for what you have been through, each cycle of the roller coaster necessarily making you question yourself and others more. You are absolutely right: regardless of my emotional state and possible willingness to commit, my situation makes it laughable and dishonest on my part to consider marriage or even a LTR. I can't even contemplate it, and since it took me long enough to get married in the first place ... A short while back my thought might have been "What difference does it make? If I say I am ready, I am ready." But it does make a difference, and you have done me, and numerous unknown women, a big favor: Your first two sentences have aroused much more sympathy in me for women out there and what some of them may be going through (guys as well) and led to my openly stating my status at the top of my profile - neither you nor anyone else should be obliged to ask for clarification of this. You are right about the autonomy as well: in my case it is not just about stereotypical sexual freedom, it does have to do with freedom to grow, to be, to associate, to think and to do, without the (willingly accepted) constraints of bondedness to a person. Your last letter in particular shows great thoughtfulness about my state and kindness towards me. It would speak poorly of this world if it weren't to sufficiently appreciate someone like you, so I hope in 18 months to find that you are in a fulfilling relationship and no longer on this site. Dear Vivian, thank you for giving me the opportunity to spare your heart. Rakesh	5	HI Rakesh, that was a succinct answer. I love seeing the elephant seals of año Nuevo. Shall we talk? Would you mind sharing your phone number ? Vivian
G	Thank you for the compliment. The last time I was compared to Tom Cruise, reference was made to Mission:Impossible - the air-guitar in underwear scene. Hah, I wish! As far as "Top Gun" goes, let's just say I have a better attitude towards female instructors. Rakesh	6
H	Hi, I've written a short piece you might like to read. Please take a look. If you are interested by it and by my profile, I would like to hear from you.	7	A favorite scene of mine. Where was the phto taken?
I	Post-divorce? Negative 6 months. Meaning we filed in January and some initial dates are set, have been living apart for the last 8 months or so. The emotional estrangement has been from at least a couple of years before, became near total about a year ago. There has been no crisis of action or behaviour that brought it on - just incomprehensibly growing apart. By the way I will endeavour to answer your questions fully. It means that I may share something that you are uncomfortable with, and hence I am prepared if you then do not wish to continue communication. Would you like to talk tonight? I'm usually up till midnight. - R	8	Yes. It was an odd reply. Good luck with your search. Your photo seems like Tom cruise in top gun. V
J	Hi Vivian, I have two daughters ages 10 and 5, and we do a lot of stuff together: climbing, hiking, camping, mudding in the garden, board games, cooking, museums and films, etc. I make an effort to interact with their friends, and they interact with mine. Do you have nieces or nephews, or the children of friends that you are close to? You teach music, is that mostly to kids? Would you mind if we e-mailed off-site, I can explain when we talk or meet? My e-mail is rakishrakesh@vanitymail.com Based on your science reading preferences –and the analogy of "sound puzzle" which is not a common way that people seem to think about western classical music except for Bach's as you mention or for jazz/fusion/Indian classical– you seem like you have a tech/engr/science background. And you play music and professionally a yoga teacher? How intriguing! Rakesh	9	Hi BelayMe2. You seem to be writing to a different woman. I was not involved in the occupy movement. I believe in God. I am an Ivy grad with a professional job. I need someone who is lighthearted, not defensive. Are you writing to someone else? Vivian

Column V is in reverse chronological order.

Solution: H-9-D-8-G-7-B-6-C-5-E-4-A-3-J-2-I-1-F-0

Hi,
I've written a short piece you might like to read. Please take a look. If you are interested by it and by my profile, I would like to hear from you.


Hi BelayMe2.


You seem to be writing to a different woman. I was not involved in the occupy movement. I believe in God. I am an Ivy grad with a professional job. I need someone who is lighthearted, not defensive. Are you writing to someone else?

Vivian


Hi Vivian, I am sorry for the confusion my message has caused. I was interested by you and your profile. With the hope of enticing you to take a look at my profile I sent you some _fiction_ I wrote - it was not meant for you, nor was it meant for anyone else. It was motivated by thinking of "what ifs" of the dating scene and the possible lives of others. You've misjudged me on multiple counts regarding Ivy grad, professional, light-hearted, defensive, but I can't change your perceptions.

Again, accept my apologies for having sent you an e-mail open to being misconstrued.

Good luck, and as the old Stones' song goes, I hope you get what you need.

Rakesh


Yes. It was an odd reply. Good luck with your search. Your photo seems like Tom cruise in top gun. V

Thank you for the compliment. The last time I was compared to Tom Cruise, reference was made to Mission:Impossible - the air-guitar in underwear scene. Hah, I wish! As far as "Top Gun" goes, let's just say I have a better attitude towards female instructors.

Rakesh


A favorite scene of mine. Where was the phto taken?


Hi V,


The prosaic reality behind the photo is the following. In December I was at "Toni's haircuts" in the chicano part of Las Vegas and paid more attention to the attractive young woman cutting my hair and to chatting to her in Spanish than to what she was doing to my hair. Each time she asked, "?Asi bien o corto mas?" I of course responded with "Corte mas, por favor." The cut ended up much shorter than I usually have it, and than the increasing sparsity of my hair justifies.

Then, on one of those supremely beautiful chilly but sunny days this January I hiked up to Black Mountain from Rhus Ridge and took this self-portrait - trying to avoid both my hair and the arm holding the cell phone and losing my smile by the time I got the frame approximately right. I know the off-angle looks artistic now, but it was pure inability to use that little mirror on the back of my cellphone.

At that time my profile picture was one of the "pleasant smile" ones a friend of mine had taken and insisted I use, claiming to know something about what her gender wants in a man. Then yet another woman friend insisted that though they claim to want "nice guys", what women really want is a "bad boy" look. So there we have it.

Previous to yours, the only comment on the photo was that I looked "very butch"!

Regards, Rakesh


…


Hi Vivian (for the last time today, I'm taking an editing break),

Here are the reasons I e-mailed you in the first place: your well-written profile, your work with soup kitchens and food banks (I cook weekly for OccupyOakland), sea-kayaking (I've paddled around the Channel islands off Ventura), Agno Nuevo (took my girls out of school last month to do the walk), "Guns, Germs and Steel", the three movies you've mentioned and your very attractive smile in your profile pic - not that I'm comparing you to Kelly McGillis.

Rakesh


HI Rakesh, that was a succinct answer. I love seeing the elephant seals of año Nuevo. Shall we talk? Would you mind sharing your phone number ? Vivian


Hi Vivian, it will be a pleasure to talk to you! My cell phone is 555-1729. I have my daughters tonight, so the best times to talk would be after 9PM. I can talk in their presence, but it is best when they are doing their own stuff, which happens on the weekends, so we can talk then as well.
- R


Hi R, Do you always write somch – your stpry about the photo? What is your ethnic background?


As Amartya Sen writes at the very beginning of his epo-synonymous book, “Prolixity is not alien to us in India. We are able to talk at some length.”


I am ethnically, culturally, argumentatively and arguably Indian: I was born in India, came to the US for grad school and have since worked, lived and played here, except for two years that I lived in Argentina.

I take it you were born here. Music appears to be a big part of your life, do you have either amateur or professional performances?

Rakesh


R, I Enjoy playing musoc. It's like unravelling a sound puzzle, for example Bach's Fugue No. 10 in WTC. Satisfying.


I love kids. How old are your girls ? V


Hi Vivian, I have two daughters ages 10 and 5, and we do a lot of stuff together: climbing, hiking, camping, mudding in the garden, board games, cooking, museums and films, etc. I make an effort to interact with their friends, and they interact with mine.

Do you have nieces or nephews, or the children of friends that you are close to? You teach music, is that mostly to kids?

Would you mind if we e-mailed off-site, I can explain when we talk or meet? Mine is rakishrakesh@vanitymail.com

Based on your science reading preferences –and the analogy of "sound puzzle" which is not a common way that people seem to think about western classical music except for Bach's as you mention or for jazz/fusion/Indian classical– you seem like you have a tech/engr/science background. And you play music and professionally a yoga teacher? How intriguing!

Rakesh


That's young! How many years are you post-divorce.?
V


Post-divorce? -6 months. Meaning we filed in january and some initial dates are set, have been living apart since July 2011. The emotional estrangement has been from at least a couple of years ago, became near total about a year ago. There has been no crisis of action or behaviour that brought it on - just incomprehensibly growing apart.

By the way I will endeavour to answer your questions fully. It means that I may share something that you are uncomfortable with, and hence I am prepared if you then do not wish to continue communication.

Of course I would like to get to know your personal background as well, perhaps in person and as you choose to share it.

Would you like to talk tonight? I'm usually up till midnight.
- R




HI Rakesh,

YOu are looking at the transitional girflriend who dated freshly divorced men for the last ten years. I am interested in you. However, let's meet once you are two years post divorce. Men frieshly divorced are in no place to get married and that means we are not on the same page....yet.

I know this is the time when you regain your autonomy.

Best of luck. contact me in 18 months if you would.

Spare my heart.

Vivian


Hi Vivian, I am sorry for what you have been through, each cycle of the roller coaster necessarily making you question yourself and others more.

You are absolutely right: regardless of my emotional state and possible willingness to commit, my situation makes it laughable and dishonest on my part to consider marriage or even a LTR.

A short while back my thought might have been "What difference does it make? If I say I am ready, I am ready." But it does make a difference, and you have done me, and numerous unknown women, a big favor: Your first two sentences have aroused much more sympathy in me for women out there and what they are going through (guys as well) and a resolve to honestly state my status at the top of my profile - neither you nor anyone else should be obliged to ask for clarification of this.

You are right about the autonomy as well: in my case it is not just about stereotypical sexual freedom, it does have to do with freedom to grow, to be, to associate, to think and to do, without the (willingly accepted) constraints of bondedness to a person.

Your last letter in particular shows great thoughtfulness about my state and kindness towards me. It would speak poorly of this world if it weren't to sufficiently appreciate someone like you, so I hope in 18 months to find that you are in a fulfilling relationship and no longer on this site.

Dear Vivian, thank you for giving me the opportunity to spare your heart.

Rakesh


You are a kind sympathetic man. Good luck to you. You are a bright star. Vivian

OKupyCupid1

Mel,

You wrote to me. Asked me to look at your profile. So I did.

In that first message, you said you'd liked what I'd written in my profile, that I was very direct, that I defined and declared myself and my tastes so I didn't seem to be appealing to a broad spectrum, that I “came out” as feminist, atheist and progressive. You contrasted that with “spiritual but not religious” and “middle of the road” that, seemingly, a lot of guys declare themselves to be. That I said nothing about “going from hiking boots to a tux in ten minutes”. That I seemed to be someone whose company you would enjoy, and would I mind taking a look at your profile to see if you interested me. 

So I did.

I mean, you wrote to me. Not that many women do. Not that many even favorite me. Plus you are very attractive in your photos – hair falling to the side of your face, as well as swept back, both photos do you honour. Then I looked at your profile, in some detail. Sure, you were a match (liberal, agnostic, right age, education, liked dogs, a foreign language, open to a range of ethnicities, little TV, Mervyn Peake (!), conscious food, no shopping etc.) but you already knew that, perhaps the GYMBII algorithm had suggested me to you. You came across as intelligent, unafraid yourself to distinguish yourself from the crowd, with a sense of humour about yourself and your expectations from web-dating (I have to say that there seems to be a lot more web-match-making going on (fifteen a day?!) than possible web-dating, though that feeling might just be a result of sour-grapes.). You were straightforward as well, without the earnestness and sincerity that just bores the hole out of me sometimes. And Mervyn Peake?! Seriously, I don't know anybody else who has even heard the name, other than Takla, who lent me the books in college, and the Englishwoman at the end of the affair. Also, no pretense about yoga! No humble but super-honed inverted postures at the edge of Half Dome. If all the women on the dating sites who claim to do yoga actually did so there wouldn't be enough space to do ek-padasan in the studios –you know how much space Americans need to be wunnn with the universe– leave alone one of the postures where you are on your palms, your forehead nearly kissing the ground, one leg extended back and the other over your elbow with your foot in your neighbour's underarm, don't you wish?

I wrote back to you. I asked you about your hiking (five to six times a year) and we exchanged emails about the kinds of hikes and landscapes we liked (all). I asked about your social justice work and you told me about your involvement with PP rallies, local Green candidates, food banks, water security and your current involvement with the local Occupy movement, which you said was very active. I said I was quite involved as well, though in a supporting role, taking food there for distribution to the homeless and hungry as well as for their General Assemblies every other weekend that I had my young daughters with me. You were curious that we hadn't noticed each other, you were there almost every weekend, with or without your tween, usually at the left front of the gathering as one faced away from the memorial to Cesar Chavez.

Memorial to Cesar Chavez? How had I missed it? That's when it occurred to me to look at your headline. But you are twelve hundred miles away from me! When I pointed that out, you checked as well, and oops, you'd thought I was located in the city you are moving to next month. I'm flattered, and you should be too, that we both got so carried away with each other over a few emails.

Mel! (I don't yet know whether it is Melissa or Melanie.) Stay! Don't go! 

But what am I saying? That I am offering or asking for a commitment without our having met even once? Based on a “match” determined by a third party? Based on physical, not even chemical attraction? Without knowing what sex –which, going by the sensual nature of your descriptions, I suspect is as important to you as it is to me– would be like?

But I've tried that before, an arranged marriage fifteen years ago. “Everything matches!”, my aunt had said, “Caste, economic status, education, family background –they are related to my Akka through the father's side– family outlook, the grandfather moved from a village in Mallapuram district but they have modernized quite nicely by now, they have dogs too, you know, family is Malayali but they speak Tamil as well, she is willing to move to US, one cousin-brother is already there, and the family is willing to overlook your age, I was so worried when you insisted on waiting till after your PhD, but no matter now! It's okay. Just take a look at the photos na! And read the ad., see if it interests you.”

So I had. And look where it has gotten me.

climbert8

Untying the knot in the slings of fate

Following up on the previous post, an even better way to compliment someone is to not only adopt an idea they use, but rather to adapt it or find a new application.

Remember when you first started seriously considering that a climbing partner could also be a life partner? I don't know how old or cheap you are, but I'm talking about back in the day, when climbers tied their own slings. Hanging out in the tent on a rainy day, or on a rest day, or maybe just at home by a sunny window on a lazy Sunday afternoon when you both decided to "organize climbing gear", which is Climberese for "avoid doing laundry or dishes", you thought it would be wonderfully romantic to put the initials of both of you on your climbing gear!

Then you tie the knot. How sweet!

Aah, but for the slings and arrows of fate! You stopped being climbing partners some years ago, perhaps even stopped climbing altogether, and then stopped being life partners more recently.

Now miserable you is left with the miserable half of your climbing gear, with those no-longer-such-a-good-idea other initials on it.

Should you just buy a whole new rack with only wire-gate carabiners and sewn slings and those pansy coloured anodized stoppers? Naah, you would rather first use "Hello Kitty" duct tape to hold the fender of your brand new Ford 150 dirtbag climber truck.

Should you then cut-off those 4 inches with the extra initials and re-knot the slings, and run the risk of desperately trying to protect -while hanging on to a melting crimp on the face next to it- a heinous 1.5" 5.7 crack that your delicate hands can no longer jam, unable to get the shorter sling off your padded-by-the-years shoulder and fat head and the helmet you wear as if anybody cared whether you lived or died? 

No need for all that! The "COSMIC sling" comes to the rescue:

and saves you from having to explain - to that cute young climber you just met after she or he soloed the 5.7 and rescued your over-cammed Friend- why you have two sets of initials on your gear.

As Austin Powers would have said when his newlywed fembot explodes on their honeymoon, were he to have been a climber, "Shag-a-licious! I'm now free to re-tie the knot!"

OccupyOaklandFail

Here is what the plan was:

1. Participate in a brain-storming session to develop “socializing games” for the duration of Occupy.
2. Participate in the march through downtown Oakland to a new site.
3. Camp overnight, donate various needed goods and food. I took fresh produce from my garden, stuff to make a cocido and also some idli mix. I was going to OccupyOccupyOakland'sKitchen.

Reality ended with an idiot walking out of a bar alone in SF.

1. Done: The game development session was quite structured and focussed, there was an agenda which was tightly stuck to and a wrap-up of the meeting and plan for the next session was e-mailed within a couple of hours or so of the end of the meeting.

2. Did do: Various members left to go and support the Occupy SF movement which had apparently faced some police action. Sage and I were the only two who would join the Oakland march, and it took us a while to get going, mostly so she could finish the meeting notes and so we could have lunch. The OccupyOakland website only stated where the march would end; I at least couldn't recall where it was supposed to start, but rather hopefully we headed downtown. We left late enough to give them time to actually start walking. In order to ensure that we would encounter the rest of the marchers, we started at the destination and walked towards them. It felt antidisestablishmentarian, to be walking in the direction opposite to the disestablishmentarians.

By the time we managed to join the march, we'd met various other people headed there, already at the destination or on their way there. One of them was a woman who, it turned out, had gone to the same small beyond liberal-arts college where you design your own program, in where else? … Massachusetts. Yaayy, joyful hugs between the two. (I wasn't included, even though I was wearing my “Kiss me, I'm Indian. Diwali was only 4 weeks ago.” T-shirt. Yes I update it, and will continue to do so until it works.) The “sharing” seemed like a good idea: “Arrey, Jasvinder, where did you do your undergrad?”, “IIT-Bombay, yaar”, “Yaayy, me too, group hug!”.

I tried to get some information from the cops at the destination about where the march was located at the moment, I'll fill in details later, however, the last comment to me was to look for the police helicopter and head directly under it. “Like towards the fire-bombs?” But I wouldn't say that to a man in a uniform with his hand on a truncheon.

The march was high-energy, lots of sloganeering, lots of racket, numerous marching bands, including the Brass Liberation Orchestra, and, lots and lots of smiling faces, which is NOT what you see at the typical Tea-Party or right-wing rallies, which is mostly bared fangs in tight rows. Two of the people in the game group had warned me not to expect too much organization that first night, and they turned out to be right. So I decided it would be better to make the donations etc some other day. There was little bit of a street party air to it, the fence around the park came down, quite a few tents and a music stage went up.

3. It started raining, nobody I knew was staying there, my car was a 40 minute walk away and it seemed pointless to stay overnight with the “white kids from Marin County” occupiers who were dancing on the street. Besides, I'd managed to get myself invited to a birthday party in SF, where we would be occupying bar-stools.

In SF, in the first bar, Sage introduced me to her friend from elementary school, whose birthday it was. The first thing I did was to join in loudly and sing “Happy Birthday Emily”, except it was Beth's birthday. One pitch, two strikes. Beth took it well.

We waited a bit for some more of the party to show up. A couple joined us: one of them was Dennis, who looked as Chinese as his name sounded. The other guy introduced himself, “Hi, I'm Hong.”. “Well, fuck you, and I have a PhD in Physics”, I replied. I mean, what a cheesy pick-up line, right in front of his boyfriend too! I'm not even gay! Not that there is anything wrong with that, I have that rainbow patterned bumper-sticker, the one that says, what … “Straight but not gay!” as a sign of support, I'm just waiting for the right car to put it on. Plus, the colors are in the wrong order, don't gays know anything about Rayleigh scattering?

I mean, come on, I am an Indian guy, there is no arranged marriage for gays, hello-o! Who would pay the dowry?

After a drink or two we walked into the next bar, where there was a stand-up comic night. These guys were bad, so bad that Sage pulled out her phone and started playing traffic jam, and three guys immediately gathered around to tell her what to do.

One of the comics had a bit of a riff about American guys marrying foreign women. “Why is that?”, he asked, I think rhetorically. One of our party -the neck-sucking-boyfriend- yelled out, “Because American women suck!”. I'm proud of you, man, don't let anyone domesticate you! Ever! “Apparently not well enough!”, I yelled back.

There was group of three beautiful brunettes in front of us. Two of them were tall, hair was the same length, their asses were the same shape and size, the hint of a roll just above their pants was the same shape as well. They even had the same smile, just toothy enough to draw attention to how attractive they were, and they were drinking the same beer. The third one was not drinking anything, must have been the DD – designated dyke. I went over to them, since I'd already struck out with two of the women in our group. After a run of really bad misogynistic jokes from the stage, I said something to the pretty ladeej about their seeming to really enjoy the show. One of the tall ones looked at the full beer in her hand, “As soon as this is done, we are out of here.” How bad were the jokes? The third woman grabbed the beer and proceeded to chug it.

Unfortunately for me, she didn't finish the beer.

The last comic was actually pretty good. Plus, the ice had been broken.

The comic picked on a guy in the audience, “You, yes you, you don't look American. Where are you from?”.

Big bright smile, “Europe!”.

The comic: “Europe isn't a fucking country, what country are you from, unless your parents were Euroswingers from 30 countries?”

“Moldova.”, came the reply.

I interjected, “Moldoova is the unhappiest country in the whole world!”

The comic: “Who said that? You?”. Addressing the audience, “This guy's from India, and he's saying the saddest country on the planet is Moldova? Besides, Euro-trash here doesn't look too sad to me!”

Me: “That's because he's OUT of Moldoova!”

Comic: “How do you know about all this, anyway?”

Me: “I'm a physicist, I read a book about happiness.”

That ended up being a bit of a non-sequitor, and the comic moved on to jokes about dating women. I leaned towards the tall brunette who was still drinking her own beer and said that the comic had women who are dating pegged, he must have been reading a lot of profiles of women on dating websites, that I didn't know if she, the brunette, was on those sites.

She said, “I'm on the dating sites, everybody does that nowadays.”

Me: “I don't know what men's profiles are like, and you don't see women's profiles, so ...”

She: “Oh I do, I'm a lesbian so I see women's profiles.” I should have read that, I actually had, but refused to recognize it and refused to allow myself that stereotype.

Me, digging myself deeper now: “Oh, I thought a lot of these sites prohibit ...”

She: “No, that was a long time back, now I'm on all these sites, and I'm a lesbian.”

I saw the opening, and I took it: “But you are too attractive to be a lesbian!”

She, freezing up now: “That is such an offensive stereotype! Look at my girlfriend, she is gorgeous.”

Me: “Well, yes, which is why I was trying to chat her up. But, I'm sorry, I hope I haven't offended you, I was playing off the stereotype...”

She: “I'm not offended, it's just idiotic! It is so old and repeated so often ...”

The Comic, from the stage: “Ma'am, is he bothering you?”

She: “No.”

Me: “No! I'm complimenting her!”

Comic: “Complimenting her? You looked like you were trying to kiss her!”

Me: “No, no, you are not understanding sir. I'm from India, and we Indians we are liking to be close to peepul.”

She then proceeded to lecture me. I listened for a while, tried to excuse myself again, no go. When I could get a word in, I said, “Of course you are a lesbian, you have no sense of humor!”

Just then her girlfriend said, “Dee-Dee is done with my beer, let's go.”

As the one I'd been talking to turned to leave, I tried to excuse myself again, “Let me just explain where I am coming from. Can I do that?”

She: “I'm leaving now.”

Me, further abasing myself: “Just half a minute, please?”

She assented with a nod of her head.

Me: “Look, I go to International Women's Day marches, with a T-shirt that says, “This is what a lesbian feminist looks like!”. Please sleep with me!” I didn't mean that! Or I must have meant it but not meant to say it. How fucked-up can I be on two beers?

To top it off, at the end of the night birthday girl Beth says to me, as she and Sage prepare to drive off into the sunset together, “You are such a sweet guy!” Oh those magic words of death!

Sometimes, you see an opening, and you take it. Often though, the opening is a trap you've set for yourself.

My Friday Night Love Life

A couple of months ago, not long after my separation, the girls' after-school had a talent show on an evening that M and E were with me. There was a very attractive European woman there, who liked the gazpacho I'd made and told me so. She didn't give off any “mommy” vibes, and it turned out that she was a very close family friend of one of M's Latina classmates. I chatted to the parents in Spanish, and to the friend, D. To cut a long story short, she and I have been on a few “dry-dates” since then - good ones, long ones, lots of talking ones, but ones that left me in blue-balled pain like I haven't experienced since, well, in a while.

Yesterday I'd called D to see if she was free tonight, but she said she was going to a party with her friends. What a great day for me to do my laundry and iron my underwear!

The after-school had a Diwali function this evening, and though they were with their mom, M and E both had expressly wanted me to come. So after work I went to the laundromat, started a couple of mega-loads in the washers and made it to the Diwali function in time. M had organized some of the younger kids into some kind of group play, E was very excited because she had mehndi on her hands, hence couldn't play and was facing the model vs. athlete dilemma for the first time. M had already come down in favor of "athlete".  Their mother was sitting with a group of Indian fellow-moms from the Cupertino colony. She was easily the most elegantly and appropriately dressed for Diwali, except for the after-school director, who is of Indian origin.

After a while I realised that M's Latina classmate had turned up and out of the corner of my eye I saw D. She is a striking woman, in fact it was the first thing about her that had struck me when I'd struck sight of her for the first time, and it had been a stroke of luck that she was also recently separated. It is another matter altogether that I had struck out.

I played it cool, approached her and mentioned what a pleasant surprise it was to see her there. She said, “But I told you I was going to be here with my friends!”. Huh? Am I already not processing what she is saying to me? Anyway, I sat and chatted with them for a while, then borrowed $5 in cash from M and E's mom for the dryers, and left for the laundromat - intending never to return. As I left I noticed that M and E's mom had met Maya's friend's Latina mom and D and they were all chatting quite pleasantly.

On the way to the laundromat, I first stopped at home, shaved and changed out of my grungy work clothes and into decent ones, and then went to the supermarket. As I paid and headed to my car, myself all spiffed up in a nice shirt and with a bunch of flowers in my hand for the woman I'd met in the laundromat an hour earlier and who I'd given my cell number to so we could go get a drink later, well, who should I run into but the Latina mom, my ex, my nex and all the kids!

The woman from the laundromat never called.

Anybody in the market for a bunch of second hand flowers?

Make Hunter proud!

Guys, we are only a few days away from our H-8 B-Wing reunion trip to Vegas, and I thought I would take the opportunity to inspire you to great feats.

Hunter S. Thompson did not write Fear and Loathing in Columbus, OH. Columbus, OH, has gambling, shows, drinking and prostitution. But it is not Las Vegas. And we, señores, are going to Las Vegas, which brings up the question: What are we, as individuals and as a group, going to do that will have to stay in Vegas: something that will make HST proud, Las Vegas what it is, and ourselves, laudably loathsome?

Now, you don't have to transgress my boundaries, leave alone those of HST. All you have to do is transgress your own. Let's consider some examples of transgressions that won't count.

• Lose more money gambling on this trip than your previous high. (Unless it is greater by an order of magnitude.)
• Eat till you are sick and have to be hospitalized. Obviously, this proscription applies only to Raj A. and Sanjay U., for everyone else, this is a fair challenge.
• Plain and simple vomiting. Unless

1. You do it from the top of a ride
2. You do it from a gondola into the canals of Venice
3. You first drop your glasses and then puke on them.

• Make a fool of yourself. This blanket proscription is in place because

1. It is too non-specific
2. You've done it before – Dude, we know you.

Let me throw out some ideas.

Gambling: Remember the order of magnitude rule. You have to risk at least 10 times your previous maximum net loss. OK, it doesn't mean you have to end the weekend with that much net loss, just that at some point during your stay you have to be down by that amount. You can, and in fact are encouraged to, stay at the table so you can win back your losses. This has the advantage of potentially lowering the amount you'll be obliged to risk next time you are in Vegas with us, a factor of 11 marginal benefit. For example, say your previous maximum net loss on a trip was $10. This time you have to risk $100. You play till you are down $ 101 and have met your goal. But are you satisfied? Next time, you'll have to risk $1010. Whereas if you stay at the table and win back $10, so that your net loss is only $91, next time you'll only have to risk $910! That is an overall saving of $110 over this trip and the next!

What does this translate to for me? $2.50! Why? Some decades ago, in a desperate attempt to read the romantic tea-leaves as it were, I played 3 quarters in the slots, one each for myself, for my fiancee at the time and for TWIWF. The quarter for TWIWF won back 50 cents, my fiancee and I broke up, and TWIWF went back to her cheating hubby. Isn't astrology amazing?

Climbing: Being jilted doesn't make you a better climber, it just makes you less concerned about your own mortality, makes you give even less of a shit. Within the space of a few months I'd repeatedly taken a 30 foot whipper on a 5.10+ trad route and one 35” whipper on a 5.10d sport route. My previous hardest climbs have been a 10b/c trad and 11b sport. So in Red Rocks my goal will be to do either a midlength 5.9+ or a very long 5.8. How exactly is this “upping the ante”? In the increasingly inaptly named Yosemite Decimal System, the grades go from 5.0 to 5.15a, passing through grades like 5.8+ (harder than 5.8 but not quite 5.9) and 5.9- (5.9, but just about) and grades like 5.12a, 5.12b, 5.12c, 5.12d after which comes 5.13a. Somewhere we also have 5.10b/c, and we also have qualifiers like sport vs. trad, a length scale from I through VI+ and a safety scale : PG, G, S, R and X. So now it should be perfectly clear why a long 5.8 is going to be a wordy challenge for me.

Sex: In increasing order of merit:

1. Pay for sex
2. Fall in love with an escort
3. Fall in love with an escort without realising his/her profession
4. Get into a barfight with the pimp in an attempt to “save” the person in question

Where am I on this ? I've struck-out on AshleyMadison, so (1.) will be a good goal for me. However,

mitigating circumstances exist. 

I'll be attempting to climb one of the tall, free standing, erect, towers in Red Rocks, and as any half-decent Freudian knows, that is an expression of my deep-seated and suppressed homo-erotic fantasies. For women, (and just by the way, why aren't there any women in our reunion?) the equivalent would be to climb in Owen's Gorge or the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Plus, after I'd taken that 40' whipper on the 5.10d, and Orlando had driven himself into a drunken black funk on New Year's Eve by expecting Las Vegas to be like a “plaza in Spain” and, hungover, had properly dishonoured himself on Fear&LoathingIII by dogging and pulling and hanging his way up, we were quietly getting stoned on the drive back to Santa Barbara, when he looked at me and said, “Hombre, if you were a woman, I'd kiss you right now.” To which I'd replied, “O-man, you are so beautiful I would have kissed you back.” Then we'd stopped just before the CA border, at the last chicken-ranch in NV, imagined the girls in the back rooms and looked up at the curtained windows. “Last chance!” he said. “No. Our cheating bitches will be pleading for us when we get back.” said I. And it was true.

That is when you know you are well and truly fucked, when she pleads for you, when she lies and promises and cajoles her way into your bed before washing herself off and going back home to her BF or husband. She can afford rejection from you because patient, kind, loving, or, this is a good one “He understands me!” is waiting for her at home, to comfort her should you be smart enough to reject her. She can afford to give you a choice which is no choice because you'll never, never, in that moment, say “no!”, because before that deeply miserable and lonely night you will have glory, and if you say “no!” you will have no glory and only slightly less miserable and lonely a night.

And O-man and I made a pact, that we would climb more, waste less time on the women who respectively and respectfully had us by the balls, a pact that we knew we wouldn't keep, because we would be admired for our bruises, for our sunburnt skin, for our stories of valor and failure, for our twisted, bent and damaged but strong fingers and other words would be said, words which would atrophy our brains but swell our heads and one other body part each. Where are you O-man?

So I'll give myself a pass on this one. What do you guys think?

Other, innocent ideas:

• See the wild burros in RRSP
• Listen to the coyotes howl in the desert
• Confess to us something that none of the rest of us know about you. (And fukinn make it good, I don't want to hear about some stolen patent or how you fired a 100 people, not unless you stole their panties and screwed half of them first.)

To conclude: You guys are all Masters of the Universe, goal-setters, accomplished followers of Stephen Covey. Set a goal, make a plan to accomplish it over the weekend and publicize it so you can be held accountable. Recall what Prof. Isaac, then Dean of Student Affairs, said to us: “You represent India's best. You are the brain in 'brain drain', you are the cream in 'sour cream'! You've floated to the top, like shit or Sorrow.”

And as Gandhi said, “If you don't plan to make an ass of yourself, you won't!”


Acknowledgements: This work was supported in part by Arun Yethiraj Patron of the Arts Grant LV-SEP2011.

I hardly know you!

As the party wound down after the dancing, we made our way outside to the cool air, the sweat clamming to our bodies. R went back inside to fetch me a drink, and Cathy and I watched him silently till he disappeared.

“Where did you find him, Cathy?” We'd been to high school together, we had both been under-the-radar smart ones, but we'd been in equally peripheral and non-interacting cliques – separated by god knows what! We'd even fought at the prom, when her date and I ended-up dancing together in the crowd. No big scenes, but she'd quickly and firmly interjected herself in between and hustled him off, leaving me alone on the floor. I was without a date, so it wouldn't have hurt her to let me have one dance, but I suppose it had been difficult enough for her to find her pimply-faced date. We'd then been thrown together and grown closer together in college, room-mates in fact for 3 years until the incompatibility of our boyfriends (her two or three always callow anglos, and mine -more frequently changed- graduate assistants of all available kinds) caused us to live apart, not without regret on both sides.

So it had come as a complete surprise to me, first that her 'guy' was, as her grand-mother (and, I will add for generational context, Cathy's high-school aged children's great-grandmother) put it, “not really Hispanic”. That bitter bitch's bile should have left her dead long-ago, maybe soon after that humiliating Thanksgiving I spent with Cathy, but at least it had brought her to confront the image of her own favorite grand-daughter being stuck on someone brown. … and second, after R had been considerate towards me ever since I'd arrived for the wedding, that when R had asked me to dance (and he was a surprisingly poor dancer!), Cathy had given us this peculiarly smug smile; and I don't think she was thinking “threesome” - we'd tried kissing each other one mutually bereft Saturday night in college, and had found comfort but nothing more. Either her divorce or the meditation she'd taken up or R himself had worked wonders on her.

Since we'd watched R enter the bar-area, Cathy had continued staring silently at me. “That's always been your first question. This is the first time it isn't tinged with 'What rock did you find him under?' ”.  I'll admit the truth of that, but … ohh! differing tastes I guess.

“Some years back, at our baby-sitting coop's annual camping trip, this guy gate-crashed with his two young daughters … I guess Anne-Marie's husband -one of only two dads with us- had helped him set-up his tent, and then Margaret quite independently invited the girls over for s'mores. Within minutes Emilia, his older daughter, was playing with our kids at the fire, and Silvia, who must have been 5 at the time, had snuggled up to Anne-Marie, and he was chatting us all up, in Spanish and English, even faking French with Anne-Marie. Soon enough it became "known" that he was recently separated and that after some years as a “full-time mom” he was in career transition. Almost immediately Cawley had gravitated to him and was giddily throwing herself at him, hanging on his every word ( and he had plenty of those!) and spouting her 'man-ego-builders' at him: “... this is the place to be for someone as smart as yourself … I've always found genetics fascinating … my boys were asking about cloning, would you explain it to them?”. Somehow they got talking about Cawley's career change to social media marketing and then 'gender-neutral writing'.”

I asked Cathy if she herself had been immune to his charm then, and she actually blushed. I suppose a 45 year old now can blush if a 40 year old then could have “giddily thrown herself”. From what I'd seen of Cawley on my visits to Cathy, she had struck me as a fairly no-nonsense woman.

“Any fool but he could see Cawley's infatuation with him. There were even moments when she was not worriedly shepherding her boys, you know how she's become so over-protective after her divorce. … but then he stopped flitting amongst the women like a hummingbird between flowers, once he got a good look at what Cawley was flaunting!”

“Cathy, not that I'm one to defend men, but aren't you being a little harsh?”

Cathy continued as if she hadn't heard me. “When it was time to put the kids to bed, he approached me and asked if I wanted to go for a walk afterwards. Jack wasn't feeling to good and I didn't really like the idea of leaving Jess and Jack alone without me in the tent ...”

“... 'and it will take me a while to get them settled and it could get quite late and won't your girls need you with them n the tent?' ...” I finished for her, she'd always been so predictably tentative.

“Lynn! Really ! … I did agree to go for a short walk, but back in the tent, I had second thoughts, because of Jack, and because of Cawley.”

“How loyal!”, I thought to myself, but kept a lid on it.

“When I came back out and walked towards his tent, it was moonless and all quiet and I didn't see him till he stood up from the rock he'd been lying on and greeted me. I told him I would have loved it, I really liked the idea of a walk, but I didn't feel comfortable leaving Jack without me in the tent with him.”

I just hoped Cathy hadn't apologized to him, and told her so.

“He wished me goodnight and started off down the path. After a few yards he turned back, called softly and came back to where I'd stopped. He came up close and thanked me for coming back out to tell him that I wouldn't join him on the walk. I said “Of course” or some such thing. The star-light, it must've been that, threw light through the trees, and his face was partly visible. Then he leaned in towards me, and I said “No! I hardly know you!”. He laughed silently -I've never seen anybody so pleased at a rejection- and said, 'And I don't know you, but have a good night!' and then turned around and walked away.”

I was getting confused by Cathy's story, and thirsty for my drink. I looked around, one or two cigarettes glowing in the dark, the unhappy looking middle-aged couple silently nursing their drinks...  I heard the lapping of waves in the pool as someone climbed out. “... and he showed up for the pancakes with your group the next morning?”

“He didn't seem to be awkward about it when he walked Silvia to the bathroom in the morning, the rest of the kids were all over the place … he greeted Cawley and myself and chatted quite happily, if a little subdued. Though it might have been something else …”

“What?”

“Cawley said he wrote to her, and mentioned something about realizing that “... he was going to die under unfamiliar stars...” and his feeling of "soudade" at knowing us ... I've held on to that word ever since.”

I love that girl, but seriously, where in a comfortable upper-middle class married with children drive them to swim lessons is there room for soudade? If I have my loneliness to bear, can't she leave soudade to me? “Have you never asked him about it?”

“No... that morning he came up to us ...”

“To who 'us'?”

“Cawley and myself. We found something in each other that morning..., AnneMarie claims we were almost in a huddle, that even she didn't want to interrupt us”

What a guy, I thought, helping females bond.

“ ...He came up and apologized for his actions the previous night.”

and what a 'SNAG' he was! I couldn't imagine the R I'd met today doing that … he seemed too proud, all things nice, but a bit of the torero in him. “.. and then?”

“Nothing, he went off to play with the kids, and then I could watch him. He played their games, by their rules, except when he wouldn't and would cause them to scatter in mock-fright. He hung upside down from Hanna and Jess' flimsy jump-rope obstacle course tied off the trees, never once seeming to test the strength… breaking every rule we'd set for our kids. He fought them to the top of their hollow tree-stump castle”

That I was sure none of the other adults had set foot near …

“ … and stood there a while, arms on his hips, ignoring the taunts of the kids, leaning over as if ready to fly, … an aging Adonis with a Peter Pan complex...”

You could never imagine that Cathy had been a Lit. major; didn't they have rules against such mixed metaphors? Her current tech-writing job suited her. Besides, from where I am, an aging Diana with what? a "Wendy" complex? (surrounded by a band of younger men), “an aging Adonis with a Peter Pan complex” sounds pretty good.

“... he never removed his shirt, it would have ruined the whole effect had he! … then they started sword-fighting, he went out of his way to get the girls involved in the rough and tumble. The older kids, his daughter Emilia included, formed one team, but Silvia was always on “Daddy's team” and the two of them sword-fought like the 3 Musketeers! Each time he let himself be disarmed, Silvia was magically there with an extra stick for him, which she would somehow manage to get to him through the pack.”

“Are they here now?”

“Who?”

“His daughters!”

“No! Why would they?”

I'd always known Cathy as rambling, but this was … I decided to let her go on. “You were creaming yourself looking at your Adonis, standing there in a shaft of sunlight under the evergreens, then what?”

Cathy had brought her wine out with her, and she took a sip before replying. “As we were all packing up, Cawley gave him her contact information and asked him to send her “that information”. He'd forgotten what she was talking about – the “gender-neutral language”. Here she is, studying to be a marketeer to the social web, and she can't think of googling that herself? ... Then when we were finally all packed up and it was time for us to go he looked at me very directly and said, “Find me … if you are interested.” as if he was starring in some French movie.”

Or a Spanish film, Julio Medem perhaps, but Cathy had never made it past Almodóvar and "Sexo y Lucia". Besides, if 9 year old girls can be continually narrating and starring in their own bio-pics, why not a grown man? Now after all that vacuous gallantry and courtesy I'd been subjected to this evening, I was finally beginning to find this guy intriguing, so I 'gently' pointed out, “Cathy, wasn't this around the time you were in your “eat olives, drink red wine, pray, love under the Provençal sun” phase?”

She was silent a minute, and then contritely apologized, adding, "I don't know what came over me.". Honey, I got news for you, I certainly don't know either.  “So then what did you do, Cathy?” I was almost shrieking at her slow indecisiveness!

"I thanked him."

"You thanked him?! You silly woman, you are supposed to stare them down! What favor is he doing you?"

“... Lynn, you sound as if you hate men. Besides, that afternoon we bumped into each other again at a cafe in Saratoga. While Emilia and Silvia joined our kids at their table, he declined my invitation to join us, saying he could see Cawley and I had a lot to catch up on. Over lunch Cawley and I gossiped about it all, while he sat with the kids and scribbled in his notebook until Emilia borrowed it from him.”

She sighed, “It took me a week to ask Cawley about him, since that afternoon, we'd always stepped around that topic. Then she somehow didn't get around to replying for a week, saying she thought she'd deleted his e-mail. Finally I noticed she'd already friended him on FB, and sent him a casual request. When I did get in touch with him, over the phone, he said he would be happy to have play-dates for the kids, but he'd already started seeing someone! Lynn, are we all that interchangeable to them?”

I didn't answer, " 'they'  are, to me!" I am quite happy with a pale, blond, goateed barista with artistic pretensions one week and a visiting professor on sabbatical from Europe the next. We can all be unique, and still be good solutions.

“When did the two of you get together then?”

“We never did. We had a couple of play-dates for the kids, once I even met the woman he was with, and he played wing-man for Cawley for a while, until she met her “techie” - a classmate of his from India, I think they are all good friends.”

“But Raúl...?”

“Raúl? I wasn't talking about Raúl! This was some Indian guy who'd walked in on us that night at camp!”

"... and why Spanish? Why was he speaking Spanish? His daughters' names?" 

"Lynn, his ex was Latina, didn't I mention that?"

I could have shaken her! No!, and neither that this wasn't Raúl she'd been talking about, nor that this guy was Indian! “Cathy! How did you meet Raúl?”

“... At a birthday party. He'd been hired to do a science show for Jess' friend's birthday. I was helping him pick up when out of the blue he invited me to have dinner with him that night." 

"Annnd...?"

"I said, “I hardly know you, but I will. Can I bring the kids?” ”

I looked up to see Raúl approaching us with Cawley and an Indian guy hanging on to her. “Look who's finally made it to the party!”, Raúl said, as he handed me my red wine and a plate of olives.

Some women have all the luck!