go on with your bad selves

Wednesday was tough. I'm not sure why that day decided to be hard on me. Even a year-and-a-half after his death, I have days that it's hard to believe I can't pick up the phone and call my dad. Grief is sneaky that way. Just when you think you're alright, it sneaks up and punches you in the gut. Maybe it's that my birthday is around the corner. Several years back my dad orchestrated having everyone in my family give me a bunny of some kind for my birthday. I had belly-ached to him that everyone sent my mother frog-themed gifts and sent my sister-in-law pig-themed gifts, but despite everyone knowing my fondness of rabbits, no one ever gifted me any. So that birthday was a deluge of bunnies. Those are the things fathers do for their daughters.

Wednesday evening a friend and I went out to see Josh Krajcik. This song hit me harder than usual. (I wish he'd have stuck to originals like this throughout the show; he's so talented he should leave the covers behind).

And although I want to think I am over the floppy-haired sailor guy, I dread running into him. Some friends say I'm not really over him yet. But I think I am, or at least have to believe I am. It is hard feeling that the connection I had thought we had was nothing; feeling we were melting into each other but realizing I was nothing. But do I want back someone who only cut me down and never lifted me up? Absolutely not. I deserve far better.

What I'm definitely not over is wanting a real connection. To be with someone with whom time stands still. To sit down for dinner in the evening and suddenly look at my watch and it's dawn, the whole night slipping by in conversation and lovemaking. Finding that connection won't be easy and may not come along soon. I don't think it's even something you can look for. Those connections are just something you stumble into. Friendship may grow over time, but passionate, romantic love is a spark that is either there or it's not. In a perfect world, friendship will grow, too, and help sustain a relationship when passions are challenged. Am I too uptight because I want sex and intimacy to be aligned? I certainly do not think so. Why would I want to be so vulnerable with someone I don't know or care about (and who doesn't care about me)? I think those who settle for meaningless sex are selling themselves (and the ones they are with) short.

Jenna Marbles' episode on sluts hits the nail on the head. Animals in general may have an imperative to fuck all the time, but humans have the luxury of logic and reasoning that lets us choose monogamy. Sluts can go on with their bad selves, but they shouldn't call me uptight because I value myself and my body more than they value themselves.

Although I am holding out for something meaningful, I still try to be a good wing man and help out my friends who are looking to hook up. While a friend of mine was trying to find sluts to slut around with, I took the hit and distracted a guy who had been interrupting my friend and the girl he was chatting up. It seemed like one of the longest beers of my life and then I excused myself and slipped outside. While having to listen to this schmuck, he endlessly talked about himself, how he's having a 25-year retrospective of his art, how shocking it was that I didn't know who he was, how he goes by "Hitch" but his last name is Hitchcock, "and, yes, I'm related to Alfred." (Not that I had asked or cared.) Wow. Just a tip for the men: don't be that guy. And to top it off, he actually said this: "You live on your sailboat? That is so sexy."