She's Got Personality

I am writing this entry on a Wednesday afternoon while at work. Makes me feel like I'm 21 again when I used to journal between customers. I worked in the Men's Shoes department at Sak's Fifth Avenue in San Francisco.

A little over a month ago that I had nothing left to say for this blog. I am amazed at my capacity to delude myself.

My friend Kevin is in town and we had dinner at Bar Bossa tonight. Kevin is gay and alone, doesn't know how to climb out of it. I told him what I'd been doing the last few months, and I could tell he couldn't quite understand how a girl like me could get around so much.

I am not a pretty woman.  I don't say that self pityingly.  I do have my charms, I can be sexy.  I am attractive to people who have talked to me a little, not necessarily by people who just look at me. She's got per-son-ality...I'm trying to quote a song. It's probably not working, is it?

Kevin is good looking but he doesn't pay attention. A lot of the time, he is looking at other things.  Maybe that's why I get more action than he does. He thinks my taking a break from men is a mistake.  He told me I'd be sorry I  pass up all these opportunities for "man sausage."

We were eating sausage. It was a wonderfully gross thing to say at the time.

On Tuesday I was on the phone with A for three hours. We talked about AL, his girlfriend, and all the other things we always talk about. We talk about how we aren't together anymore.

On Wednesday, I was on the phone with A for two hours. Soon A will be forced to commit to the girl who is a less attractive version of me.  I keep telling him how ugly she is and he laughs. Maybe she just takes bad pictures.

What would it have been like if I'd been working in the days and weeks that followed the abortion? Would I have managed to keep it together? I'm still a wreck sometimes. But I am a functional wreck. Working again marks a sort of rite of passage for me, I guess. It means I am cutting off the amount of time I can spend moping.

So three hours on the phone with A within a few days of breaking up with AL. This is a pretty clear sign that I need a bit more time to sort things out for myself. I actually don't believe that.  There is part of me that thinks that if AL liked me more, I would have less to sort out.  Could that be true?

I cannot count A as part of the equation because he has his own set of people to deal with. I told A that I wished he and I could be safe from one another, that he could look at me and say "nothing is going to happen here because I am with someone else."

But I seem to be the one in charge of saying no. It's easy when there's someone else in my life. Whatever my behavior as a single woman, I cannot be sexually involved with two men. It just isn't something I'm even tempted to do.

The odd thing is that I really like AL. I wish I wish I wish things were different. I want to say that I didn't screw up with AL too much -- he wasn't that into me either. Well, I guess I just said it. Is that my sincere believe or am I saying that to assuage the feeling that I was using him? I did like him. I don't even understand this. I like him.

Is it possible that I get into these ill-fated pseudorelationships as a respite from my grief and guilt and whatever else? A pseudoboyfriend means a few weeks of happy, sexy fun where love is possible and the future is not yet fixed. Then something in me snaps -- fun is not good enough all of a sudden when it was just the thing I wanted the day before. Is it when I realize that love is not possible with everyone?  Or is it when I am ready to face myself?

Whatever the reason, I find myself here, searching for different words to describe the same feelings I've had all year.

Hello again, Lucy.