What I'd forgotten...

was more or less the affective stress of being on Nerve. There's a certain addiction to it, a not-so-secret narcissistic indulgence. Getting in a loop of clicking to see who's been looking at me, not that I have any intention of meeting most of them, not that I write most people back. Sometimes there's a sense of regret in this, since it's not like I do a particularly good job of picking the people I do end up with--it all feels like a kind of willed randomness sometimes, undermining the sense that I think I'm getting better at all this.

I wasn't on the site long enough in January before I met D. to remember what this was like. It's only this week that the frenzied loops have come back, that I feel my schedule closing up, a kind of running running running and most of the time it never gets past that point. It's not entirely ideal to be doing this during the semester, especially when I have two writing projects on, but to some extent I know this is all related, that there is a necessity here, that this right now is part of the path in some sort of crazy and occasionally sordid way. After the whole thing with D. collapsed, the weekend I spent convinced that I was going to move to St Louis in less than two months, the weird convergence of various academic rockstar stuff, and going back on the site--at some point I feel like my entire sense of identity broke open and suddenly I'm asking myself questions about who I am, who I want to be with--basic things that I more or less try to ignore are suddenly pressing on me with a kind of urgency, and the thing that I realized about Nerve this weekend is that this is part of it, that I'm more or less trying out different identities in conflict with different people, trying to figure out who I want to be, trying to articulate some kind of sense of who I am--not so much in the sense that I have to be with someone to be anyone but more in the sense that being with different people helps me work out where I can find myself.

I'm not sure that makes any sense. But, then again, I'm not sure what I'm doing makes any sense. Not internet dating per se as much as the weird extremes my dating life in general seems to swing to, where I can go from The Poet to D. and learn what I gain and what I give up--and the truth is, I haven't decided yet, would like not have to decide, who I'm going to be. Suffice it to say there's a very big difference from being the 28-year-old woman with the 57-year-old man and being the 28-year-old chick with the 34-year-old guy and that some of these differences are irreconcilable. (Though this may help explain why I'm most comfortable with guys who are in their early 40s, even though this may also end up being a less happy medium.)

There are things about all this that I can only say elliptically. This is largely an attempt to empty out my own head, but keep the specifics to myself, the idea being to focus on a proposal related to my MLA panel tomorrow and so on. So I went out on dates Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The dude from Friday night was like many of the dates I remember from before. Very cute (in a kind of hipsterish, of course you live in Bushwick kind of way) with a lot in common with me on paper. We had a perfectly cordial and chemistry-less conversation over drinks and dinner, went our separate ways on the subway.

The guy I went out with on Thursday was in his mid-40s, runs a for-profit cultural organization out of his apartment. He's tall, big, kind of goofy-looking (think a more fit version of Jack Black, perhaps), and exactly as brash and unapologetic as you'd think a guy like this would be if he were also Australian. (As a result of this last thing, though, it's possible that I'd be willing to talk on the phone with him forever.) He was a little intense when I first met him, but we had a good time together. He turned out to be really nice. But not in that pushover nice-guy way. More in the way that The Poet is nice. Like, kind. I wasn't sure what to do with it all immediately afterwards. There were some complications, as there always are. But I found myself thinking about him (well, when I wasn't thinking about D. or The Poet) for a lot of the rest of the weekend. I sort of wish I'd been able to swing my own work to see him tonight; in a way it might have been comforting, though I know it's better to go to bed here relatively early, go to the gym so I can continue to fit into my skinny black jeans, head to the zendo to focus, and then work on everything else ever instead tomorrow.

Yesterday...yesterday is one of those days I probably won't ever talk about with anyone. If nothing else, it proved that I'm still capable of doing things that are kind of twisted and not all that enjoyable in the end. And it reminded me of something I really had blocked out about Nerve--the possibility of ending up meeting someone who, over the course of a day and several beers, brings out some of the worst things about you, who pushes you to something without even having to try, who under other circumstances you'd be indifferent to, but the right day, the right mood....And you will always be the crazy chick with the Snoopy tattoo for him to talk about and the next morning you're still a bit shaky, but it's mostly because--well, as I said before, it reminds me of what kind of things I'm capable of doing--and not in a good way. I am trying to let it be instructive. Fortunately, this doesn't happen to me often, but...wow.

Starting to line up a couple of other things for next week. One guy's really on the young side...I think he's okay, but I'm going to have to be more on guard than I'd like. I think I'm pretty much going to stay away from guys under, say, 38, for a bit...the younger ones tend to bring out the crazy.

Right now I'd very much like someone with decently broad shoulders to lean on. That I know for sure.

On the pleasures of the textual exchange

I don't have time to go into this right now--I need to get to Not-NYU well before 5:00 to make copies of a handout I have not yet created, et cetera--but I wanted to note this nonetheless...

I know there was that big article last year about the whole ritual of looking over the bookcase of a potential lover. Fine, of course. I've been judging people on the merits of their books my entire sexual life. However, at least for a certain type of people, there's another, more intimate exchange: the part where you begin to exchange texts that you've written--ones that are not explicitly addressed to the other person, but examples of whatever you're working on, whether it's creative, critical, or some combination of the two. There are a couple ways this can be presented, depending on what kind of feedback you want. There's the already-written move, where you send a lover something you've published in one form or another, looking more for a reaction or discussion than anything else. Many times this is posturing (especially when two academics are involved), but possibly not in every case.

At the other end of the spectrum, there is the work in progress submitted--at least ostensibly--to the lover and looking for feedback and critique. This is the more fraught situation, of course, for both parties, but particularly for the lover (or, I should say, potential lover) who is asked to respond. First, you have to determine whether they really want feedback, how serious it should be, how much criticism they can take. And then, of course, it's your critical skills on display....

Anyway. You know where I'm going with this. There's an intimacy in all this that really goes beyond the email thing, and I know that I'm probably (or was probably) more likely to sleep with someone than solicit his feedback on something. I'm beginning to think that this marks a specific milestone--at least in a certain kind of relationship--this moment of editing, or of textual exchange more generally. It was pretty much the hottest thing that The Professor and I ever did with each other, especially when we were both still dating other people. The Poet sent me all kinds of things he wrote, almost right away, too, and as our relationship went on he'd have me read things for school. Every now and then I'd reciprocate, but more in terms of "oh, this is what I did today."

And now, D's doing it. I spent the first part of my morning ripping up and restructuring something he sent me, this brilliant and funny hybrid piece. We talked about what he wanted me to do and I did it, with more confidence than I usually have at this point in a pseudo-relationship...mostly moving things around, leaving the sentences for him to play with. And it feels momentous, in a certain way...he's also sent me a poem and a song, but I don't read that kind of thing as critically. (It's a policy I have with the work of my friends in general.) It's a kind of intimacy that helps make up for not having seen him in awhile. (Though hopefully that changes tomorrow night.)

In return, I sent him a copy of the conference paper I gave on Friday. Obviously, not an entirely equal exchange, but one that I think helps make us even, where I'm exposing myself in the midst of What I Do and How I Think.

Also, I do sort of loosely follow his occasional online writing, mostly on sites attached to his band. It's kind of fun to see the things we've talked about (too crazy and too specific to discuss here) get transmuted into his prose; there's an intimacy in that too and I may be slowly figuring out how he thinks.

-----

In completely unrelated news, I haven't taken a shower today because there is a large roach in it. I'm pretty sure it's dead (hello, morning's epistemological debate!) but I'm still traumatized from having come face to face with it near my desk at 1:00 this morning. It's too big to vacuum and I really don't want to look at it. I'm out of paper towels. I'm wondering whether it will go down the drain if I poke it with a long stick. Augh.

Also, in spite of my best intentions, no gym today. Partially a time crunch with prep, but also continuing congestion and rundownness; would rather be reasonably healthy to teach and see D. tomorrow. And I realized that I'm not sure I'd really want to use a treadmill after myself today.

Words kicking around in my head makes it hard to deal with composition papers

Variations on the Search for Fresh Produce, scribbled in the margins of 3/8/09. Not really a poem or anything much.

Queen of the peppadaws
Strawberry season
Now it's turnips and fingerlings
As far as the eye can see
The market reminds us
That nothing is timeless
Hydroponic red peppers and mesculun mix

(And I'm not so sure about you this time)

Grand Army Plaza / Prospect Heights / Park Slope
But I'm the wrong side of the museum lights
(Where else can you express the bargain in those terms?)

Hazeleye bursting green
I looked up into them
Washington Avenue but you aren't there

Queen of the peppadaws
Strawberry season
I saw your face in a canvas bag back recycling back weekends of fresh eggs and summer squash

(And I'm not so sure about you this time)

The fountain's covered in ice
The socialists are patrolling the library steps
That car is heading right for me suddenly swerving
(It's just the road baby, you know where the lines are)
And this is only Saturday morning
This is only Saturday morning
Saturday's warning
This is only Saturday morning

Queen of the peppadaws
Dreaming of summer
Flatbush Avenue but it never pays to look ahead, no not that way
Setting up a day against the rest of your life
Attention veering off
Cars in the roundabout
Coming at you
Queen of the peppadaws
I'm not so sure about you this time