You like me! You really like me!!

“Put this on. And hurry. The other girl is already ready to go.”

He tosses me a plastic Safeway bag and I pull out what looks like a child’s tank top. I reach into the bag for the rest of the outfit, but the bag is empty.

“Wait, I think you forgot the bottoms.”

He laughs. “That’s it honey.”

“But you must be joking. Have you seen my ass?”

“Put it on. You will be fine. No one is looking at your ass.”

I stand perfectly still with my mouth open. Staring at him. He stubs out a Winston on the bar and reaches for his cell phone, clipped neatly to his belt. Staring down at the number on the 1996 Nokia he turns to head outside for better reception and yells over his shoulder.

“Hurry the fuck up.”

But I can’t move. A woman comes around the corner and pushes me into the bathroom. She’s 6’2” in her 4 inch white pumps and she is already wearing the white spandex dress that spells out Budweiser from her ample cleavage to about an inch below her pelvic bone, where she is pulling the dress down to keep it from rising up in the back over her perfect uncellulited ass. Any higher and there is no mystery as to whether or not she is wearing panties.

And for the record, she is not.

“I can’t put this on. He must be kidding.”

“He’s not kidding. Do you need some help? Because we need to get going.”

But I can’t really hear her. I’m going into the early stages of physical shock. I can’t believe that I am here and that I am about to do this. Me. The geeky girl that played the clarinet in the marching band and had braces until my Junior year. I’m about to slip on the white spandex dress that will transform me into a Budweiser girl. Every 21 year old boys fantasy.

My knees are shaking and the other girl sounds like she is speaking to me from the top of a tunnel. What makes me think I was good enough to be looked at? What makes me think I am thin enough or pretty enough to have men clamoring for a Polaroid photo of me in this dress. This dress. This tinsy, tiny, white spandex dress. However did I get here?

What makes a card carrying feminist don a white spandex dress and frolic flippantly in front of an audience of toothless men?

Attention.

For most of my life, I have sought it. Craved it. Built a lifetime of hypocritical moments to attain it.

Look at me! Talk to me! Tell me I’m beautiful. Important. Special. Validate me.

I grew up in the William Hung generation, where anyone can be famous. The myth of celebrity that if you are famous then you adored. You are loved. You aren’t lonely any more.

One only needs to see an interview with Teri Hatcher to know that isn’t true.

So what is it about being seen that is so alluring, so intoxicating that we are willing to be made a fool of just to have a taste?

Filed under: Uncategorized, Family of Origin, Melancholy Reminiscing

The Woodland Park Zoo

“Well there is an example of behavior learned in captivity.”

Betty and I are at the Woodland Park Zoo, the day before I depart for Philadelphia, watching an ostrich peck incessantly at the metal cage that divides us. We have been watching for the last twenty minutes.

“It’s as if he thinks that eventually he will break through.”

“It’s disturbing.”

My cell phone rings and I can barely look away long enough to answer the phone

“It’s Paris calling.” I instantly recognize the French accent speaking to me on the other side of my cell.

“Didier!”

Didier tells me he wants to spend my birthday with me in August. This makes me nervous. I met him a year ago for a night of flirting and unrequited crushing. We have kept in touch. But our monthly phone calls have made us both real. And over the past year I have pretty much erased my fantasy image of him.

Gone is the mystery of that first night strolling through the streets of New Orleans, trying on the idea of something romantic and exciting with this foreign stranger. The last year has changed me. Now I’m afraid of things that move too fast. They feel false. They hurt.

I have to stay focused on my belief that patience and friendship are the true foundation of lasting relationships. I try not to be excited, but I am. More than a little.

I should know better.

I hang up the phone and chase after Betty who has already moved on to watch them feed the tigers.

Filed under: Uncategorized, Boys Suck, Life Lessons