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A Ripping Good Date

Eleven Years Ago

This photo was taken eleven years ago at a garden side meeting in Garden Grove, California, captured by my CEO at the time who thought it was a great shot -- albeit with a tad too much sun from being in the Southland.

Later that year I would use it as a profile for one of my earliest -- and typically fruitless or more often fruity -- forays into internet dating profiles. Intriguingly, the most intent offers I received were from three women in Utah who said they thought I was their soul mate if only because I so reminded them of Donny Osmond. "Puppy Love". Urgh.

Internet dating. Dating. Don't get me started.

The Iceman Cometh -- Eventually

Having spent several hours during the past couple of days seeking the best option to have my refrigerator repaired or replaced, I was reminded why I prefer to live, if not alone, just with Bow. After waiting out the 2 to 4 p.m. window for the repairman's arrival, when he arrived at 7:30 p.m. and said that he would have to come back Monday -- between 1 and 5 p.m. -- I recalled often being put in that "I'll get back to you, sometime between tomorrow and never" attitude that wrecks both my ego and insistence on being precise.

This Joni Mitchell tune always best summed it up, and I've reached the point of thinking any amount of court and spark is not worth being put in the holding pattern.

Passing Through the Portal

About once every year since we split in 2002 R____ and I go on what I would not call exactly dates nor reunions, but meeting is too formal of a word. Since we were together the night of 9/11, I guess he'll always hold a special place in my life, and he's someone from my past I hold no ill will towards. But with each reconnection, it's clear why we see each other once a year and spend the other 364 days thinking of each other fondly.

Did I mention that both of his parents were members of Hitler's Youth (seriously)? And that his dad died the night of our first date, and his brother called right after we'd...well, I think you get the picture (double seriously).

It proved to be an early night, and we spent it in West Portal, a place just down the hill from where he used to live, and home to my favorite MUNI station. There's something dramatic about that emergence from that tunnel, as if one were making the final leg of the difficult journey to the golden shores of the Pacific. It really feels more like a bourgeois neighborhood in Antwerp or Rotterdam, not as high toned as Saint Francis Woods, perhaps, and a place tourists never visit. And though it has a Starbucks and local chains like Hahn's Korean barbecue, it has more things like Dake's light shop (below), run by a Russian man and with a selection shade knobs that could fuel my passion for them equal for my standing obsession for door knobs.

When R___ and I were together, it felt I was a card carrying member of the bourgeoisie, something that I've felt or been several times in life and with mixed emotions. I've never trashed the bourgeoisie since I think that's in its own way buying into the caste system. Even worse are those members of the privileged poor who take on the role of self-appointed advocates for the marginalized. As I once heard stated, the proletariat are the only ones who don't know the definition of the word.

About two hours is good enough for all I'd want to accomplish in West Portal, and heading back into the tunnel does make me feel I've escaped one world and headed back to another one.

And, for those that keep tabs, R____ is not the person mentioned in a similar post last week about Music and Meaning.

Music and Meaning

We met for tea, juice and scones the way we used to meet for real drinks and fancy sampler platters at half past six in some spot looking down at Market. I drink much less now, and he drinks not at all. The dog I gave him for the holidays six years ago may be dying, and I agree to tend to it Saturday night while he's on a date.

"Provided you don't have a date," he says with the usual after-the-fact concern that is more than familiar.

He laughs with genuine amusement when I counter, "A date, at my age I'd settle for a fig."

Hasn't he heard this a thousand times before? I've lost track myself of how many time's I've offered it like a plate of circus nuts.

We saunter across the street to Virgin Megastore, and he seems genuinely concerned when I mention speculation that it may soon be out of business, the final big box retailer offering music as tangible collateral, not some abstract concept that might disappear with the passing of a giant horse shoe magnet.

Both of us mask our likely disdain for the others selections as we sort through discs. All those years ago when he appeared at my door, he expressed such interest in what he might learn from me, like Ms. Doolittle arriving for tutoring to work in a shop or Leonard Bast following one of the Schlagel sisters through the rain from the "Music and Meaning" lecture, filled with pragmatic intent to recover his umbrella now lost in a sea of others in an exquisite porcelain vase in the hallway.

We part once more, neither finding anything of interest. I saunter up the hill, compelled to buy The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, a volume that called out to me months earlier but disappeared into some obscure mental cubbyhole. I realize that he never cared about the difference between Ives and Yves Saint Laurent, and I find myself searching for why the former once meant so much to me.

Walking home in solitude, its very essence brings a faint second of despair, and then I begin humming, finding new meaning in the lyric:

Flying too high with some guy in the sky
Is my idea of nothing to do

Music, meaning and lost umbrellas make me glad to be heading home.

Garden Variety

Is it a sign of one's impending dotage or is it the absolute verification of a full blown, now officially in advance stages dotage to keep a garden journal? I've kept a life journal since I was age nine with never more than a three week gap in entries. There are also travel journals, gym journals, house journals, spiritual journals, and journals on...oh, I'll just let you use your imagination. I swear, I am truly carrying the torch of Brigid Berlin.

One of my exes, a Jewish-Italian American from Connecticut who always said I reminded him of the people from the other side of Connecticut, once remarked that the garden journal was actually the quirk that he found most endearing about me. He kept cooking and entertaining journals. The fact that he was one of a still to be disclosed number of ex-beaus of Jewish-Italian heritage from the states of Connecticut and New Jersey that are a concurrent theme in my life should, perhaps, inspire me to keep a journal on that topic. But, believe me, I've written and typed endless pages on those boys in the other journals.

Regardless, I've had a few recent nudges asking me to post shots from the aforementioned journal. While not spectacular, at least they show my nifty birdbath and those rose rocks in the background of the iron lantern that come from the famed Lazy Acres estate. How many of you have rose rocks in your garden?

Interactive Sunday: Another Bachelor Girl Weekend

One of the best parts of up picking up vintage LPs at the Community Thrift Store (besides the fact that an often pristine LP costs little more or less than a single track on iTunes and sounds so much better), is that they often come with interesting back stories.
That was the case today with my finds of a few Mystic Moods Orchestra, Michel Legrand and Les Baxter LPs that were scattered throughout the bins. Only after I got home did I notice that there was a rubber stamp imprint letting me know that these had once been the property of one "MISS LORA DIRENZO 1526 6TH ST". Although it was not clarified which city that address was from, I feel strongly that Miss Direnzo was at this intersection of Sixth and Avenue B. What you think?

View Larger Map
So who was this Lora? A quick search revealed that there was a Lora DiRenzo who graduated from high school in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1946, and a woman of the same name who published a now out of print book of photographs of unknown topics. If she's still around, she'd be around 79 or 80. Did she stay forever a miss? How did her record collection make it all the way to the Pacific? Did she lose interest in the exotica of Les Baxter (best known for arranging the early records Yma Sumac and regaining hipster status in recent years through frequent samplings on Thievery Corporation albums) or does she also have them uploaded in her iPod? Was the woman with amber tinted white hair talking to herself as she ambled up Valencia pushing a shopping cart?

I prefer to believe that Lora is still out there somewhere, still hip and with it eight decades on, sometimes thinking back to her swinging bachelor girl days in 1950s Manhattan when she'd just come back from Haiti photographing traditional voodoo ceremonies. I picture her putting on a track like "Sway (Quien Era)" from Caribbean Moonlight while having a getting-ready-to-go martini before heading out with some friends to hear Dexter Gordon or Sonny Rollins play at some smoky downtown club until her eyes made contact with some charming yet slightly dodgy guy in a black turtleneck who'd just arrived from Lima.

What's your story on Lora?

Interactive Monday Assignment - Valentine Haiku

Junk Thief has been known to go on a date now and then, and with this being the week for exchanging Valentines, he thought that would make a good theme for an assignment.

Sometimes the best dating advice comes not from self-help books, advice columns or the dreaded Doctor Phil. The best advice comes from the side of cartons.

Here are a couple of examples:

"Can't decide between two shades? Try the lighter one first. You can always go darker later"
- Just for Men

"If possible, use weight to dose; otherwise use age."
- Walgreen's Anti-Diarrheal Caplets

See aren't these a lot more helpful and practical than the usual psycho-babble about open communication and respecting boundaries? Plus, they have the elegance of haiku.

Now share your own product label dating advice.

Deadly Desires and Pedal Extremities

Greed:	Low
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	Medium
Sloth:	Very Low
Envy:	Medium
Lust:	High
Pride:	Medium

Discover Your Sins - Click Here


A tip of the fedora to Huntington for alerting me to this interesting albeit somewhat dubious test. I don't fully agree with the assessment since I'd rank pride being in the high level, but most of the others seem pretty on target. I share the high level lust quotient with Huntington, however unlike him I am morally opposed to flashy jewelry. I can't explain why, but it offends me.

As a typical Thanksgiving ritual, I've been going through a process of various forms of taking stock and being thankful. I am in a far more thankful mode than I have been over the past seven years, having gone through dealing with several years of family illnesses and deaths.

On the material side, I've just completed a photographic inventory of my shoes, something I've done in the past and have found a useful way to keep my shoe lust in check. How many pairs are identical or so similar that they are indistinguishable from each other? Fortunately less than 3% of my current stock. So how many pairs would that be? Well, I won't reveal the exact number, but might run a contest to see who can guess how many digits are in that number. (The ten digits I put into those shoes each day don't count.)

I have mentioned before that one of the tipping points of dumping a guy I dated a couple of years ago was that he took pride in the fact that he could buy his entire wardrobe at Marshall's. (Or was it Mervyn's? Which is lower on the pecking order.) At the same time, I remember being with an ex at the Bloomingdale's at Stanford Shopping Center when a queen chased his significant other into a dressing room screaming, "Oh, no, you're not going to try that on. Not only is it plaid, it's button down!" I turned to my significant other and said, "If we ever get to that point, let's promise each other now that we'll call it quits." We did call it quits a couple of years later but it wasn't due to button down plaid but over whether or not it was insensitive to throw away a gift certificate a friend gave us to Pier 1. Perhaps that's why I ranked a little low on the pride scale because I ended up using the gift certificate. Pier 1 does have pretty decent candles, and once you pull off and throw away the labels no one knows the difference.

Knobs of the Born

It was exactly a week ago today that I nabbed the photos of these door knobs in the Born, sometime after the Picasso Museum and before lunch in San Antoni. A stated goal of Junk Thief since its launch has been to find the perfect door knob. Not quite there but getting warm. Very warm? Thoughts? Suggestions on appointed points on the map? Photos and phone numbers you might want to forward?

How's Your Euskera, Irene?

As someone who is in a plane at least two times a month, I have yet to pull out an in flight magazine and find, usually in the first dozen or so pages a full page ad with a photo of this woman. Her blinding white veneers and golden tresses. If I'd come across her photo without context I'd peg her as either a South Florida madame or Vegas realtor. No, Irene Valenti is a self avowed matchmaker bringing together busy professionals in what she calls the "European tradition". I was just in Europe and I certainly never saw anyone with such trashy, flashy audacity as Irene.

According to her online bio, she's originally from Edmonton, Alberta -- which I'm sure is where she picked up all those European traditions. Again, seeing the photo out of context and I were asked to guess where she grew up I'd say Ashbury Park at best, more likely Newark or even lower down on the Jersey pecking order.

It's kind of sad to think that there are people out there that get in touch with Irene, since she's obviously raking in enough bucks to have her work her reputed old world charms. I honestly wish I had some bucks to blow just to have the satisfaction of seeing her expression when I filled out my profile, handed it to her and said, "What I'm really looking for Irene, is a Baske fisherman, with a donkey dong." I bet Irene can't even speak Euskera. Okay, mine's not that great either. However, I did hear from a Baske dude online who's coming to SF in a few months and it didn't cost me a cent. Sure, I hear similar things from guys in Nigeria and Malaysia, but I always bend the rules for the Baske. Are you sensing that there may be a theme coming to Junk Thief in the months ahead? Could be.

Sometimes I Actually Have

I hope it doesn’t shock some of the younger Junk Thief readers, but from time to time your beloved old doddering Uncle Junk Thief has played a bit of the tramp role. Though I've never been the outright slut, if only due to a short attention span if not lack of will. However, there have been a few episodes in recent years that make me wonder why I went through the effort. Reading a recent entry over on Mr. Peenee’s blog got me to thinking of a few of these from the recent past and realizing that I wonder if I went through it all just to gain fodder for stand up comedy material. Perhaps with the holidays coming, I might do a more formal inventory, but I found these three surfacing this evening as I was washing dishes and not paying attention to an interview on KQED-FM with Barry Bonds at the Commonwealth Club. (By the way, the "Hims" are three different ones, not repeating players.)

Around May 2001

Him: (After realizing that his coworker R_______ had once dated my ex A_______ ) You’re so much better looking than R _______. Why would A _______ leave you for R_____?

Me: Oh, he didn’t. We were living together at the time, and A____ tried to convince me that he R _____ were just friends and that it was just a chance for him to go to the Oracle Christmas party so he could be introduced to Larry Ellison.

Him: You know everybody at Oracle was gossiping about that, how R ______ made such a fool of himself by dragging around that little gold digger A____ fawning over Larry Ellison. We thought he was going to try to get in Larry’s pants next. You were so lucky to get rid of A_____. You deserve so much better.

Me: (Kissing his forehead). I love you.

Him: Does this mean you’re going to let me go home with you after all?

Me: No, I’m still not going to do that, but I love you.

Around November 2001

Him: (Unbuckling his belt, looking at the comforter on this, his first time with me) I don’t remember it being brocade.

Me: (Unbuttoning the last button of my shirt) Oh-kay.

Him: D_____ doesn’t live here anymore…does he?

Me: No. (Standing motionless, almost ready to button up my shirt. He grabs the back of my head, a kiss begins and lasts about 90 seconds.)

Him: He couldn’t kiss worth a damn compared to you.

Me: (Repeating what we just did, taking about twice as long and with three times as much intensity.) Thanks. (My shirt on the floor, I maneuver off my pants seemingly without hands as I maneuver him onto the bed.)

Him: The hall was this ugly dusty rose then, not that gorgeous gold. It's not even gold...more like a royal butterscotch.

Me: Yeah, the dusty rose was D _________’s color.

Him: (After I let him gasp for air.) And the gold is your color. (I devour him again.)

Me: Yep. ( I continue.)

Him: You taste better and have better taste than D____ on top of it.

Me: You’ll stay for breakfast?

Him: Absolutely..

Around February 2002

Him: I hope this doesn’t sound too weird.

Me: Try me.

Him: The only way I can really get off is if you push your forehead into my right elbow.

Me: Okay.

Him: Seriously. And it has to be the right elbow. Left elbow: now pay dirt.

Me: Like this? (I push my head in the designated place lightly.)

Him: (With a shriek that is a cross between a rabid hyena and a five year-old girl getting tickled). WeeeeeHEEEEEEEE—AAAAAAHH!!!!!. Oh yes, like that.

Me: (Pushing again, with force this time.) Alright.

Him: WAHHHHHHAAAA-EEEEEEEH

Me: And that does the trick? (Pushing with firm force.)

Him: YahAAAAAHH-HEEEE-HEEEE! Almost there! Almost there!

Dating Decoded and More

I know that you've seen her. She always has those full page ads in major airline magazines offering her service to make personal introductions for busy professionals who are turned off by the bar scene and are just looking the make their successful, otherwise perfect lives finally complete. She has a fashion sense that's sort of a cross between a cousin of Tony Soprano, Ivana Trump and a mid-range Vegas madame. Usually her upswept blonde tresses tower above her white pantsuit and gold pumps as she stands under the archway of a Spanish Gothic mansion with a hand on one hip as she flashes a smile that displays her blindingly white veneers.

Damn, what's her name? Something like Angela Vanatelli or such. I was really wanting to track down a shot of her to kick off this post about recent dating adventures. Anyway, I've been tempted to call that number just to sit down with her and see her expression when I open by saying that what I'm looking for is a Jewish doctor with a donkey dong. Naw, as I always told my mom, Jewish doctors aren't for me since like janitors and butchers, they put their hands in nasty places.

Well, as mentioned earlier, I've given a stab at trying dating again by a variety of methods. As if the movie Sideways were not enough of a reminder that one should not resort to the mercy fuck or dip a few notches below your standards, I got a good taste of that this weekend. Besides being boring enough to make my C.P.A. brother-in-law seem like a hip, screaming queen, this guy managed to excuse himself by saying he had to go home to do laundry. Oh, and he was a C.P.A. too. I don't mind being pushed aside by guys that I know are out of my league and have far more exciting lives, but this sort of rejection is always a good reminder that I should go for what I'm interested in not someone I think will consider me generous for giving them the time of day. Perhaps he read me better than I realized and was giving me a taste of my own medicine.

This reminded me how much I really hate internet dating, the lies guys tell me and themselves and the absolute lack of self assessment so many of them have when posting their goods on those sites. Well, I blame much of it on the insulting formats and templates of those sites themselves. But anytime a guy posts an image of himself where you can see the camera in the picture, it's a good sign that there's not much there of interest for me.

For anyone not already aware of the double-speak on those sites, I offer this handy decoding tool to understand these frequently used terms.

He said	He means
My friends tell me that I am attractive	I’m a troll who can’t afford to buy a mirror and rely on a circle of passive-aggressive friends who tell me what I want to hear
Just another regular guy here	Regular guy = I work at Best Buy, and my entire wardrobe is from Mervyn’s Here = a shitty one bedroom apartment in Redwood City that I can barely afford equipped with shag carpet and coppertone appliances
Masculine guy here seeks the same	Was the sissy kid in elementary school that no one wanted on their dodgeball team. I’ve since learned to ape all the emotionally constipated mannerisms of my verbally abusive dad and older brothers that raped me at age 9
Not really much of a bar person	I’m tired of spending four hours holding a beer bottle and never getting laid or Currently in four 12-step programs
I’ve had my heart broken in the past but am still a romantic at heart	There are currently 12 restraining orders in four states out on me. Help me make it to lucky 13!
I’m a real low maintenance guy and easy to please	Gimme a bottle of poppers, a six pack and internet porn and my Saturday night is complete.
Though I’ve lived in crazy San Francisco for 10 years now, I guess my Midwest values just won’t go away	I’m a Log Cabin Republican. I gave head to Larry Craig in the men’s room of a Denny’s in Winnemucca in 1997.
Though I’ve lived in crazy San Francisco for 10 years now, I guess my Southern values just won’t go away	I’m a Log Cabin Republican. I let Mark Foley rim me when I attended Boys State the summer before my senior year in high school.
It’s really so hard to describe yourself.	Not only am I butt ugly, I’m inarticulate!
Spiritual but not religious	I’m the fat kid that became an altar boy hoping he’d get lucky but just got a pat on the head from that hot Father O’Reilly. Fuck the Vatican! I’m a Buddhist now. The Dalai Lama gets me hard.
New to this whole internet dating thing	Damn, is this the only option now that the Highway Patrol is cracking down on the rest stops?
I’m a down to earth, sane guy seeking the same	The meds do make me a lot more boring, but at least it’s safe to have knives in the house again.
Short time offer on this snazzy model. Has a few miles but still performs well. One previous owner, looking for the right match. Powerful engine under the hood.	Hope you won’t freak when you see my skid marks!

UPDATE: I keep hearing more as I cross paths with friends. At least one I forgot -

He said:
Financially and emotionally secure.

He meant:
Bankruptcy and Zoloft are my two favorite words.

UPDATE: Okay. I finally found an honest ad that, despite its pathos, is refreshingly direct albeit pathetic. I won't humiliate the poor guy (and his family) by showing his picture (which shows him in a John Deere cap holding a paint brush). All I can say is that this is 100% non-fiction and a direct cut and paste. Even my twisted mind could not dream up this one:

"I'm a fun loving, passionate, compassionate, hon-est 59 years old married man. Here's the situation my wife has become disabled. So I'm looking for a fem sub to keep me happy because she can't."

¿Y nada más?

Although I don't have plans to suddenly make this site about that, over the weekend I ended a three to four week (I actually wasn't keeping count) dating cycle. I couldn't even say that it fizzled, let alone blew up or crashed. It was just mutually clear that it had gone as far as it was going to go.

Were we to run into each other on the street tomorrow or two years from now, I suspect it would be civil. I would not even rule out resuming where we left off if the opportunity to do so. But I am neither longing nor fearing doing that. Is that a sign that there was nothing there to begin with? Perhaps. Does it mean I'm ready to move on to the next person? Yes. Does it mean I've been dating more recently than in a long time? Yes. Does it mean I'm going to go into details on this site? No.

Monday I arrived for what will be a week and a half long strategic planning conference. Gasp! That's a long time to feel you're held hostage in the middle of nowhere I'm sure I won't be dating anyone here since there is nobody here but coworkers. I'm definitely not interested in that.

1980s Fun Couple of the Week

Oh, Gary, what would Willis say!

Reproductive Rights for Cat Partners!

Besides the referred to movie, these illustrations have nothing to do with this post besides the fact that they were sights from this evening's walk as this post formed in my over-worked little brain. This is how my mind works. Talk about Strange Maps!

I’ve been watching Cat Girl Kiki this evening with the English subtitles turned off. For some reason it seems to make a heck of a lot more sense that way. It’s a good alternative to what’s been going on the rest of this week. Something called work. It’s pretty typical that I put in 50-60 hours a week. Not exactly the killer hours of my youth but probably above average. This week I’ve probably already put in 80 hours and plan to have a somewhat saner Friday. I had a coworker in town this week for a variety of foundation visits and work on a killer proposal. If I have to utter the words “reproductive health” or “uterine prolapse” one more time I will friggin’ freak out.

Non-profit culture often means that visiting coworkers do homestays when they are in town, something that I do not offer the way I used to, but this visitor is one I liked and we had a shitload of issues to cover. That meant 7 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. workdays, but we got a lot accomplished.

In the midst of all of that we had a variety of discussions on some of the most random of topics and the intent behind words. One phrase that we analyzed or over-analyzed is the term is reproductive health itself. Although I’ve raised a few million for this topic, I have never taken that much time to think about my own reproductive health. Guess what, I really don’t ever plan to use my reproductive organs for, well, you know that. So does that mean that I have no reproductive health? I’m sure that Surgeon General nominee James Holsinger (sorry, I refuse to refer to him as “Dr.” since we’re on the subtleties of nomenclature.) would say that my reproductive health needs a good dose of Drano to use his grotesque plumbing metaphors. I guess he gets out the monkey wrench when he and Mrs. Holsinger are feeling a little jiggy. If you aren’t aware of this quack and have any concern about the future of public health, be sure to go to the Human Right Campaign’s site and send this letter to your member of Congress.

Another word of annoyance that came up in our conversation is “partner.” When supposedly progressive employers hold gatherings for staff and their families, everyone is encouraged to “bring your partner.” Does this offend me because I don’t have one or because I haven’t gotten laid in a while? Or is it something deeper, more primal and condescending on the order of “Oh, since we’re so progressive we’ll call our husbands and wives partners so it feels as if we’re all equal.” It really feels like asking people with gaping head wounds whether they prefer to have cocoa or mint tea while waiting in line in the emergency room.

Mind you, I am all for employers embracing a comprehensive definition of domestic partners including allowing unmarried straight people to claim their significant others. However, I doubt that even the most progressive employer would allow me to claim my main squeeze of the past 18 years, my cat Bunter, as my domestic partner. That thought has certainly entered my head since he’s due for a check up at the vet in July. If, in the perfect Kafkaesque/Cat Girl Kiki world, I woke up tomorrow to find Bunter transformed into the adorable Yoshiro, the male lead of that movie, I’d sign him up in a second. On second thought, I love my cat partner just the way he is.

Flowers on the Grave of Bad Boyfriend Voodoo

In the spirit of Memorial Day, JunkThief was planning to write a post that paid tribute to the worst break-up lines or things that inspired JunkThief to dump his various past boyfriends. You know, sort of like putting flowers on the grave of love gone baf. But there were a number of distractions (also known as having a life).

However, JunkThief decided to post one that finally drove him over the edge after three months of dating this fellow from The South (Mississippi Queen, if you know what I mean...).

It went like this: "You know, I guess I'm really lucky that I've never been that much into clothes. I'm perfectly happy buying all my clothes at Mervyn's."

If he'd looked a bit better out of his clothes, this might have been forgiven, but, well...

Anyone with her/his own favorites is encouraged to comment. JunkThief may work on his own and submit them to Worst.Sex.Ever at the Bowery Poetry Club.

So Do I

Diving Further into the Blue, the Lure of the Lost

Two exes called this week. Exes ask questions they would never ask when we played house or held each other on groggy Sunday afternoons. Sunday afternoons with the cat still have some of that feel, of our breathing joining, harmonizing, each trying to guess when the distance will begin. Or was it always there? But when the cat walks away there is no second guessing. His departure has nothing to do with me. His return and that of the exes can be taken as the same. The exes offer to tend to the cat during my travels with an enthusiasm that was never there when they performed the same dutiful task during out time as a pair.

One ex wants to be together on Mother’s Day since we both are without parents in the living world. At what age is one not allowed to use the word orphan?

The other ex sighs with pity when I gleefully recount recent dinners and movies I’ve experienced alone, filled with the glory of being so fully in the moment bereft of explaining or apologizing to an ungrateful companion. Then the usual questions come up about when I had my last coupling, when will I have my next. “Aren’t you aware that time is finite?” I am asked, as if I must hunker down before the storm hits. I look out at the gray skies, knowing that it is fog not showers lingering in those clouds.

Although I sometimes miss the dramatic thunder and lightning of past venues and partners, I relate that I have one, possibly two suitors beyond the calm but murky horizon. Each holds promise, but there is no need to hide from tornadoes or hurricanes in this climate. Both are in the distance, but very real, I try to clarify. Both are a few hundred miles away which garners more guileless pity from the ex as I explain what a charge this anticipation brings.

“It’s always about the invitation, not the dance,” I say, seeing the familiar distance across the table that we shared for more than five years. That distance would still be there no matter how passionately I might hold him, something I am surprised to find myself wanting to do at this moment, then taking comfort in the safety of pulling back. As we part, we hold each other a bit longer than we should and promise to get together more often. He never kissed me with such need when we shared the same rooms. Walking home, I wonder how many messages are waiting for me.

I return home to the cat adrift in his own dreams, keeping his eyes closed and curling even closer into himself as I rub his shoulders, his purrs growing ever louder in acknowledgment without ever opening his eyes. I close my own, think of a remote landscape and release my hand to feel further connected.

As I think of the conversations with both exes, I wonder if I revealed too much, or if they only wanted to stick a toe in the shallow pool, unaware that the deepest shade of blue is never the water itself but what lies beneath and seduces the viewer to dive in, never able to reach the true source of that cobalt hue. Then I remember that just this week an ancient ship wreck was discovered off Ocean Beach. It was there all the time but nobody looked deep enough.