01/01/02

There is nothing worse than waking up one morning and realizing that you may be somehow utterly repulsive to the opposite sex. You are not ugly, nor have an offensive personality. It's worse than that; you have no idea why, but at some gutteral level, women are not attracted to you. Some may say death is worse, but, frankly, if you are dead there is no chance you realize how repulsive you are and at that point it doesn't matter anyway.

Rationalization or internal reflection has always caused me to make short-term changes in behavior that never seem to change my circumstances: I am utterly alone. I haven't had a girlfriend in going on six years. I had to either accept that is my fate or wait for it to change. Fatalism....blech. After five years of hoping, I guess really I am giving up.

It has gotten to the point that I am conscious of every second of time that passes, seconds that are lost forever. Every day, the hair gets thinner, the waist gets fuller and the soul seems emptier. The lost seconds feel somehow wasted. It is not so much that I devalue myself and my own experience, but, things seem incomplete. And, I don't understand why I have been consigned to this.

I need a higher truth. Well, that and a woman.

1/15/02

I was a little distrustful of the first psychic I went to see with good reason. She was a first-generation Romanian woman with bad grammar, and even worse teeth, who kept interrupting the reading to yell at her four kids, all of whom seem to suffer from chronic clumsiness and attention deficit disorder. You think she would have been able to foresee when her ten year old was about to fall down that flight of steps.

I did seem to strike gold, though with the second psychic I saw, this waifish 15 year-old I met with who spoke in odd, non-rhythmic spurts like she was stricken with some sort of cosmic Tourrette's syndrome.

If, as the girl said, my soul mate's name has the letter "C" in it, I have trying to come up with a list of acceptable names for her. I always wanted to end up with one of my fellow Ethiopian women, but in the minute I spent thinking about I couldn't come up with one Ethiopian woman's name that started with the letter "C." Maybe "C," like the "th" sound -- its like Chinese water torture for my mother when she has to recite her social security number which, in a cruel twist of fate, has six 3s in it -- is consigned to Amharic purgatory. Maybe it is just a reflection of my general ex-pat ignorance.

Good:

1. Cassandra (rolls off tongue)
2. Cassiopia (sp? constellations=cool)
3. Cleopatra (I had more of the image of Pam Grier as Cleopatra Jones kicking some jive turkeys' asses than the Egyptian ruler in mind. I can see myself with a tall buxom, crime-fighting groovy mama with a big afro and bad attitude, giving her the sweet, quiet and gentle love she needs after a long day of dealing punishing karate kick blows to pimps and pushers as she makes the ghetto an overall safer place.)

Bad:

1. Carmella
2. Clarice
3. Charles

I realize the "good names" are all the names of ancient Greek "heroines," all of whom meet some grisly end in some soap opera-ish, tragic tale -- e.g., woman realizes that her husband is actually her son AND also his own father -- but it turns out some lesser god was a playing a trick because he was angry that Zeus, appearing in the form of an enchanted ox, slept with his true love, this siren who gets off on enchanting sailors to drown themselves -- sorrow stricken woman disembowels herself in angst, the gods drink ambrosia and lovingly chastise the lesser god for his mischief. It's a wonder any Greeks ever took Aristotle's theories of causality seriously.

01/21/02

Finally met a woman with the letter "C." But, I had been really hoping my soul mate's name began with the letter "S," because I became mesmerized by this woman who I watched give belly dancing lessons at the neighborhood recreational center named Saba. Maybe the psychics vision had come in blurry or something, because Saba was perfect. I couldn't stop thinking about the rippling, wave-like movement of her belly, and her loose hips undulating freely. And then she demonstrated that she could do that while balancing a sword on her head. Now put it all together, having sex with woman whose belly and hips are slowly rippling up and down.....all the while managing to balance a sword on her head. Incredible. And useful too. What if I am attacked by a bunch of marauding Huns or something while in the middle having sex? That sword and her ability to balance it would come in real handy then I would think. She agreed to have coffee with me, and I was in rapture.

The "C" was Cleo. Cleo is an obese, Berber woman from Niger who I met at the video store. She had just beat me to the last copy Orson Welles' "The Trial." When she saw my disappointment, she invited me over to watch it with her.

I told Cleo not to watch it for a couple of days and I'd get back to her. And there it was; Cleo might be my destiny. Maybe all Cleo and I have for companionship in this world is each other. That night I had a dream that Cleo was chasing me around. Finally, she captured me, wrapped her large, gelatinous arms around me and squeezed tightly, and I squirted out, shot through a window and got caught in a tree. When I woke up, I was hyperventilating.

1/22/02 -- Sweet, Sweet Saba.

This may sound arrogant, but I like hanging out with dumb people. Their likes, simple. Their goals, attainable. Their joy, infectious. But dumb people often define themselves by those around them. And, in the end, they get this warped caricature that has no grand meaning, rendering their steady, self-gratifying existence an polymorphous reflection in the spiritual equivalent of a funhouse mirror.

That, among other reasons, is why I had a good time with Saba last night. I soaked up her predictability joyfully, like I was dominating some facile video game. Making her laugh was a cinch, and tolerable even if she didn't get the jokes. After a while, it became clear that she was a walking, talking oxymoron; a paradoxical simpleton; a delicious canard. She'd reached a level of Zen simplicity which rendered her a perfectly clipped Bonsai tree, too much for my confused deciduousness.

The difference between intelligent people and smart people is that smart people have an occasional tendency to outthink themselves into stupidity. I guess I am just not ready for the existentialist joy she brings, and, because of it, I am the fool. I don't think I'll call her again. It is probably a smart decision.

1/23/02

Cleo loved "The Trial" for the very same reasons I did. She's been feeling disaffected for no particular reason either. She comprehending laughter was an absolute joy, except when she went into an asthma attack and broke the chair in my kitchen while heaving violently. Yeah, Cleo was going to be a good friend. And, when she hugged me, it didn't hurt. It felt good.

2/13/02

Yesterday, I met Tigist in the library. She was sprawled on the floor reading a book on automobile repair. On my way to the periodicals section, I tripped over her and banged my head against a combination of the shelf and Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow." Twenty minutes later, we sat in some chain coffee shop finding meaning in one another's every word, motion, sound.

That night, I went back to the 15 year-old psychic and asked if there was a way to change my soul mate from someone whose name starts with a "C" to someone who name starts with a "T." She said that for $200, she would burn some love candles, meditate and do some crystal work and it would so be. I handed her the cash, realizing that happiness does come with for a price. Thankfully, it was a lot cheaper than I thought it'd be.