Sigh.  I hate it when life interferes with art. 

Things have been hectic and crazy for me and I haven't had the chance to really write anything lately.  Also, I'm doing a lot of "field research" for my blog and, as such, am tired and often sticky - not great conditions for writing.  But, I do love all my MySpace friends and freaks - you're all near and dear to my heart, unique in every way.  I promise to write more often... just as soon as I get these handcuffs off...

Love you,

BE

There's a girl that I want.

The people I've desired most in my life were all very different:  men, women, large, small, white, non-white, educated, artistic – the list goes on and on.  And, I've had many of them – not all, but enough to have learned that mutual attraction is hard to explain and very hard to ignore.  I love to feel the sensual heat that sparks between us when I'm standing next to someone who I desire and who desires me.  To be so close, but not quite touching, both of us thinking of the next time/the last time/the best time we were or will be together… for me, the desire and the anticipation are sometimes better than the actual act.

But, sometimes, the act is just as good.

The girl I'm anticipating is a native daughter of my adopted city, with roots here that, even as a long-time transplant, I'll never be able to grow.  I love to hear in her speech the accents and idioms of New Orleans, her body is soft and she moves slow in languid, flowing motions.  She won't be hurried in word or deed.  Her skin is creamy and pale, and she has almond-shaped hazel eyes with brows that arch dramatically when she speaks and short hair that it blond, or sometimes red.  Her lips are plump, the color a light shade of rose.  She is so beautiful to me and I desire her.

We she calls me, I feel butterflies in my stomach – the quickening of breath, the faster heartbeat.  We went out to hear some music and I primped for an hour for my "date."  She's shy and reserved and blushes when she gets embarrassed.  She hasn't had many men and has never really been in love, although she's older than me.  She's not a scene-stealer or a party girl.  She'll never have a flock of men circling her or know the power that a beautiful woman can wield. 

I find her irresistible and I wonder if she ever thinks of being with a woman. 

To be attracted to the shiny promise, bright noise and quick, good-time pleasure of New Orleans is the easy, instant attraction – the model, the movie star.  Look longer and you'll find the quiet girl whose beauty is of a fern-drenched Quarter balcony, the sun/cloud shadows on the lake as you drive over the Causeway, and the perfect arch of ancient oaks over St. Charles Ave.  But, to find beauty in the leaning houses, the patchwork-quilt streets, the smell of burning coffee, the sometimes indifferent attitude to life itself – to find her beautiful in her darkest hour and to still desire her whole-heartedly with such heat is the very definition of passion.

The girl, my girl, embodies this city's humbled beauty and I want to embrace this daughter of New Orleans and, by having her, take them both.

I want to be in the circle of her arms, I want to kiss her eyelids, I want to make her smile, I need her mouth on mine, I need her fingers in me… my wants, my needs.  What does she want?  What does she want?  What does she want? 

Does she want me?

I'll keep you posted,

BE

While my married friend was out of town recently, her husband called me. I recognized the number on my cell but didn't answer the phone and he didn't leave a message.  He had no reason to phone me and no good would have come from answering his late-night call. 

I'm not completely innocent.  At social gatherings, often with his wife and two children present, we've exchanged glances that were a little too long, a little too intimate.  There was also the night we were both drunk and our customary goodbye kiss on the cheek became a kiss not quite on the lips and lingered almost, but not quite, too long.  His hands always find my waist, hips and back.  We're always aware of each other's presence in the room, what the other is doing.  I try to make him laugh with witty comments and he watches me when he thinks I'm not looking.  But I am looking.

Does he just want relief from the tedium of marriage and fatherhood – a quick fuck, followed by endless quilt and recrimination, or do his touches offer more? A promise of true love, our own life together, our own committed relationship.  Lie?

At a party not too long ago, another husband pinched me on the ass as I was bent over trying to take a picture of his baby.  I made a sarcastic comment, laughed it off, but then he pinched again – harder, deeper.  I moved away.  He was drunk and didn't mean it, but it's not the first time his touches were too friendly and it won't be the last.  These times depress me because I know how much he truly loves his wife, but… I've often wondered what would happen if he caught me when my defenses were down, my resistance low.  Cheat?

I was in love with a man for five years. He was fat, bald and boring, but I loved him wholeheartedly.  At work, he befriended a married mother of two who was fifteen years his senior.  She seduced him, left her husband and now those two are married and living in the Sunshine State.  I wonder if, in their deepest hearts, they'll ever really trust each other?  Steal.

My latest lover is in a ten-year committed relationship with the mother of his child.  He once asked me, "Am I cheating on her with you or on you with her?"  We were together for eight months, then he took another lover – but never gave me up.  So my answer, dear, is now you've done both.

Insert disclaimer here: I know women cheat just as often as men, I just haven't experienced it – either up close or second-hand – so it's not my story.  But no matter your sex, I think you'll agree that being cheated on feels…real bad.

I guess I've been naïve, underestimated the urge to cheat and the prevalence of cheating.  I'm still shocked by some of the stories I hear, some of the offers I get.  Of course, I understand the urge to have sex with someone other than your boyfriend/girlfriend/life partner/whatever, but to actually go through with it?  The lying, sneaking around, duplicity of it – why is that appealing?  I've been in love, in a relationship, and wanted to bed another man, but it never seemed worth the price.  Finding someone to fuck is easy.  Finding someone you love, who loves you back, is so very rare.

Love and sex – why are they so tangled up with each other?  I could have a fantastic sex life, if only I could keep from getting emotionally attached.  But, honestly, I just don't enjoy sport-fucking the way I used to and I really hate to share my men.  On the other hand, I know too many couples that have become, over time, just glorified roommates. How long can love last when the sexual spark is gone?  Monogamy – the perfect catch-22.

And so we cheat.  Americans seem to thrive on their ability to escape from the day-to-day reality of their lives and nowhere is that proclivity to exchange reality for fantasy more encouraged than in New Orleans.  Here, anyone can be a poet, artist, writer, actor, anything at all – whatever mask you want to wear, put it on and go dancing in the streets. Here, especially here, a quietly aging husband and father can become handsome, desirable and young again through the lens of another woman's stolen glances.

I've heard from several women, women who haven't spent their entire single lives in the Big Easy, that dating is a different game in our fair city.  They say that the men here seem to want to have their cake and eat it too…and have a piece of pie on the side.  (I find this demographic urban legend fascinating and, while I'm sure there may be some way to verify it with lots of numbers and fancy scientific calculations, for now I'll just have to rely on the stories I'm told of love's success and failure.)

But really, who can blame our men for being so hungry?  Have you seen the women in this town?  Take a good look around the next time you're out – you'll notice that we shine.  The women of New Orleans are smart and beautiful and it's so damn hot here that clothing is usually at a minimum.  And, of course we all know what free-flowing alcohol can do to a girl's better judgment.

Recently, while discussing my lover's cheating ways, my male friend explained it in the simplest of terms: "The best woman is a new woman."  So, women (and men) go forth and be someone's new New Orleanian.  Just be sure to leave your heart at home.

Take care,

BE

As I write this, fall has momentarily breezed into the Big Easy giving us a brief taste of what's to come in the next few months.  The humidity is low, the breezes cool and the sky is a clear, cobalt blue.  I turn off the a/c, open my windows and once again spend an evening on my front porch, hoping to catch sight of the flock of wild parrots in my neighborhood.  These days, sprinkled between oppressive heat and the brief cold of a Louisiana winter, are my best days, when my love for New Orleans is strong and true.

But we all know that these are the dog days of summer, that there will be more hot days ahead, and that the perfect weather, like even the truest love, can't always hold.  In love, I sometimes miss the enjoyment of the moment in my anxious, headlong rush for the stability of attachment.  Maybe I should view love as I do the weather - enjoy what I have, while I have it, accepting that another front is always on the horizon?

The reality of a break-up, however, is usually a lot messier than simply "letting go and moving on".  I've suffered some break-ups that were brutal and cruel - tears, public humiliation, cyber-stalking, old-fashioned stalking, drunk-dialing, drunk-emailing, just drunk.  Bad scenes, every one.  I've heard of "amicable" break-ups, of remaining friends, but I never seen it and, frankly, I don't think it actually exists.  Because one person always loves more, is willing to try harder, swears they'll change, can't let go - no matter how stormy it gets.

During my worst break-up, from a man I loved for many years, I was shocked at how many of my friends, when they heard the news, told me I should just "move on."  Move on?  To what? As if what we had could so easily be put aside, my tie to him neatly severed, my emotions switched off.  I suppose they pictured me shaking off the emotional detritus of my ravaged relationship and beginning my new life, the one without him, clean, whole and unmarred by my past.  Or maybe they just didn't know what to say; quietly happy it wasn't happening to them.  Either way, there is only so much solace you can give to someone going through a break-up.  And, in the end, kind words, support and vodka can only do so much to dull the sharp edges.  What I've lived and learned is really just an affirmation of an old lesson – that it takes time.  And, while most people suggested moving on, finding someone new, forgetting about him entirely, someone offered this:  "take all the time you need to get over him."  That was the advice I clung to on dark nights when I couldn't remember or forecast a single sunny day; that it was okay to take time to work this out, to come to peace with it, to accept it and, finally, finally, to move on.  So, I pass along this advice to anyone going through a break-up: Take your time. You'll come out on the other side stronger and wiser, but it's okay to do it at your own pace.  Just… take your time. And then let go and move on.

I have my own pace for letting go of a love and it's often slower than I, and my very patient friends, would like.  But with the change in season has come a change of heart and I've realized it's time for me to let go of the sultry, sweet, salty heat of my summer (see Attachment).  I think I'm ready for fall.

Be well,

BE

BE