sunday in manhattan with mimi

7:30 a.m.

PLAN C: This morning is for you.

MIMI: Okay.

(Neither of us gets up.)

PLAN C: I want you to have fun this morning.

MIMI: Then it’s time for serious tooth-brushing and minor ablutions.

(Neither of us gets up.)

PLAN C (counting, so we’ll get up): One, two, three!

(Neither of us gets up.)

PLAN C: I’ll count to ten.

MIMI: Okay.

PLAN C (slowly): One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine….nine-and-a-half, nine-and-three-quartes….TEN.

As if following the same choreography, Plan C and I raise our legs in the air, stretch, sit up, and swing our legs over the left (Plan C) and right (me) sides of the bed.

Serious tooth-brushing (in different bathrooms) ensues.

* * *
7:40 - 9:30

Censored by Plan C.

“Nothing about what happens in bed,” he said, so I deleted my favorite parts of this post.

As I said last week,
!!! *** ?! ## > + ) >> + ) >>>> + ) !! + + + &! &!! &!!! + !@#$%^……

* * *

9:30 a.m.

PLAN C: You’re the most uninhibited woman I’ve ever been to bed with.

MIMI: I am???

PLAN C: What time is it?

MIMI: 9:30.

PLAN C: We better get up. Don’t want to miss Meet the Press today.

* * *

10 a.m.

Plan C’s cell phone rings. It’s his younger son, wishing him happy Father’s Day.

PLAN C (to son): You know I don’t do that.

SON: But I do.

* * *

10:30 - 11:15

Plan C and I watch Meet the Press. I’m most interested in the crumpled kleenex in Mary Matalin’s right hand. How can her make-up stay on so well when she’s been crying?

I hadn’t watched Meet the Press in a hundred years till Plan C began spending weekends with me. If you remember, I got cable so he could watch golf on television. There always seems to be golf on. It’s like the weather channel or the food channel: somewhere, someone is always playing golf. Plan C turns on the golf channel every time he is sitting in the living room.

I’m getting used to watching golf: the man in the green shirt tees off; the camera follows the trajectory of the ball in the air; the ball lands; the man putts; the ball goes in the hole; applause; the man in the pink shirt tees off; the camera follows the trajectory of the ball in the air; the ball lands; the man putts; the man putts again; the ball goes in the hole; shot of the people standing behind the fence; the man in the blue-and-white shirt tees off; the camera follows the trajectory of the ball in the air; the ball lands; the man putts; the ball goes in the hole; applause; commercial; end of commercial; the man in the yellow shirt…………etc. etc.

I see why golf is so relaxing: it’s hypnotic.

But Sunday morning it’s Tim Russert; or was.

After 45 minutes of this, Plan C (to my surprise) turns off the tv just as Brokaw and the other talking heads begin talking about the way Russert didn’t like criticism and remembered every little thing people said against him.

PLAN C (turning off television): What they mean is, he was an egomaniac.

* * *

noon

We’re dancing.

In our very first telephone conversation, on 6 February 2008, Plan C mentioned that he especially wanted a girlfriend because he had two weddings to go to this summer. (He was unguarded in so many ways in that first call, such as telling me that his late wife was ‘a beautiful woman.’ ) Weddings, to Plan C, mean opportunities to dance, and dancing, for me, is a great pleasure and a serious challenge.

We’ve been working on our dancing for a while.

“Our” means “my”, because Plan C is a good dancer, and I’m — depending on who’s judging — a “passable” dancer or an “okay” dancer. There’s no point in lessons for this purpose, because Plan C’s dancing is unpredictable and a bit eccentric, so I just have to learn to follow it. Last week it took me 45 minutes to warm up; Friday night late it only took me half an hour. This morning we don’t have much time (Sunday is golf day for Plan C, i.e. he plays golf), only 25 minutes altogether, so I have to loosen up and do my best almost immediately.

We dance to all Plan C’s favorites, including the Righteous Brothers doing That lovin’ feelin and Unchained melody and Patsy Cline singing Crazy.

(Remember, Plan C is 66.)

At some point in the morning I realize that I have to think of Plan C impersonally when I’m dancing with him. I’ll dance better if I think of the way we’re moving as a performance. I try to imitate the way he holds his head while he dances, the expression of his mouth, his whole stance. He sees I’m doing that and is (slightly, very slightly) amused. But I’m beginning to ‘get’ his dancing, which is full of little idiosyncratic variations and quirks and turns that require guesswork and anticipation.

At one point he sort of pulls back and then forward in a kind of swing-dancey way, the style I really like, and in my enthusiasm I end up stepping on his foot.

Plan C yells: he is barefoot and I’m breaking in the new strappy black heels I hope to wear at the wedding.

* * *
12:10, 12:15, 12:20, and 12:30

MIMI: Was that all right? am I getting better?

PLAN C: Yes. You were fine.

“Fine.”

That’s one of those words that…covers a lot of ground.

* * *
Anyone who dances with Plan C will show up a lot, because his dancing commands attention, so I’d better look decent even if I don’t dance beautifully. Come the July and August weddings, this is the dress I’ll dance in (it’s sleeveless, and I added the sheer white shrug because the reception is outdoors, and it will turn cool):

* * *

1 p.m.

Plan C takes off for home and then golf. I remain in my new heels for another half hour, testing them with all my clothes. They don’t hurt at all. They’re great shoes; let’s hope my clothes distract attention from my dancing.

But wait a moment: these weddings are not about me. Who will be looking at me anyway?

I’ll dance better if I think I look nice. Hoping for the best. As always, in everything.

a scare & a lovers’ quarrel

Here’s how it began:

WEDNESDAY 4 JUNE

WordPress lists all the phrases people googled that land them at my blog.

Often, one of those phrases is that most cruelly ambiguous of date-goodbyes, “I’ll call you”, or its brother-phrase “I’ll be in touch,” about which I have a post. A lot of people – mostly women, I bet – seem to feel a need to understand what has been said to them when they hear those words.

On a whim, I reread that post, and then, realizing the date that inspired it had taken place just about a year ago, I was curious to see what else was happening in my dating life a year ago. So I read a few posts from that time, and then I began to get curious about men I’d dated then. What were they doing now? Was Man 1, whom I had thought a perpetual dater, at best ‘good fling material,’ still online? And Man 2? And any of the others?

I went to jdate and noted that now you can log on with a fake name and email address and get access to all the profiles, though not to the site’s email system. So I logged on and began looking through the men in various zipcodes to see who was still around.

On a whim, I went to ‘Search for member’ and typed in Plan C’s profile name.

* * *

HIS PROFILE WAS UP.

* * *

When I saw that familiar face and that profile I knew almost by heart, my heart started beating so hard I thought it would come out of my chest.

I thought my heart was going to hit the wall behind my computer, it was beating so hard.

* * *
I saw he had logged on ‘3 days ago’.

You may remember that one of the most wonderful things about him, at the start of our romance, was that he took his profile down only two days after our first date, before I took mine down.

* * *
I did a search for him by zip code and age and did not get his profile. It was only visible if you looked him up under ‘Search for member’ – you had to know his profile name already.

* * *
I had been planning not to phone him that night – I fact, I try to let him phone me most of the time, unless there’s some compelling reason for me to call him – but I knew I wouldn’t have a moment’s peace – actually, I’d have non-stop anxiety – unless I found out what the story was here.

* * *

When I phoned, one of his sons was having dinner with him. He said he would call me back.

* * *

After I hung up, I realized I couldn’t wait and absolutely had to talk to him immediately. So I called back, and we spoke briefly.

Plan C was thoroughly irritated by what I called about.

He said he had just rejoined to see what had become of the women he’d met through jdate, whether they were still on the site or had left it; in short, he had rejoined to find out precisely what I had logged-on to find out.

I made it entirely clear, from the start, that I had been on the site for the same reason; that every once in a while I check out jdate and match.com to see which of the oldies are still there; but I don’t rejoin. I just do a brief scan. I don’t put my old profile up.

MIMI: But why did you join? Why did you put your profile up?

PLAN C: I thought you had to.

MIMI: But you don’t. You can just check them out free.

PLAN C: You know I don’t know anything about the web. I can’t do tech stuff the way you can.

MIMI: But you did that in the past. You managed to join and leave and rejoin without any problem.

PLAN C: I don’t know how I did it.

MIMI: Suppose you had seen my profile up: wouldn’t you be upset?

PLAN C: I’d be curious….

MIMI: But wouldn’t it upset you to see it there??

PLAN C: I’d just wonder why you had done it.

MIMI: I bet you’d be upset.

* * *
But his son was still there, so he said he’d call me back.

* * *
I did a few loads of laundry but was so upset I could barely do anything more demanding than that till he called back.

* * *
When he phoned, about an hour later, we had a dreadful two-hour conversation, a conversation that went in circles.

In late-night phone conversations, Plan C tends to get irritated easily, and to go from irritation to anger easily. And his mind becomes like a sieve – or like a rock. He can’t absorb anything. I can make the same to-me-entirely-clear point over and over, and he doesn’t get it.

I couldn’t define how my casual perusal of men on jdate and match.com without joining was different from his rejoining jdate so he could do the same, except that his profile was visible — to those who knew to look for it.

But I realized that all I wanted, now, was comfort from him. I could still feel in my chest the way my heart had been beating, and I just wanted him to speak comforting and reassuring words.

* * *

Plan C was unable to understand the difference between two matters that to me were so clearly distinct I didn’t see how they could be confused: 1) distress that he had rejoined jdate and put his profile up, and 2) a need for comfort and reassurance.

Faced with his continuing – and escalating – anger, I kept explaining that I wasn’t, at this point, being accusatory; that I had done the same thing myself; that I acknowledged that he had kept his profile hidden and understood that he was not looking for dates; but that, having been intensely upset, I just need to hear soothing words from him.

Plan C kept understanding that request as an accusation. You thought I was cheating on you, he said angrily.

Over and over, I insisted that I now understood he wasn’t, but I just wanted to hear him say something loving.

Over and over, he said that he had already explained the issue many times, and didn’t I believe him? Didn’t I understand him?

* * *
I didn’t see how anyone could fail to understand the difference between 1) and 2) above. Were his powers of cognition so poor that he really thought those two things were the same?

I told him his brain turned to a sieve after 8 pm.

I thought that was mildly amusing, but strangely enough, he didn’t.

* * *
Our conversation ended in a way that was minimally satisfactory to both of us. I can’t remember exactly how.

The moral, I told myself, was this: don’t ask anything complicated of Plan C in a phone call after 7:55 p.m.

We very rarely fight in person. This Tuesday, 10 June, will be the four-month anniversary of our first date, and in that time we’ve had very few fights – except in late-night phone calls.

THURSDAY 5 JUNE

The next morning at 10:30, in the midst of listening to Brian Lehrer and his guests rehash the HRC/BO primaries, I was putting away the clean laundry. Plan C had just finished playing 18 holes and called me from the clubhouse.
*******

PLAN C: (hearing male voice in background) Is somebody there with you?

MIMI: Brian Lehrer.

PLAN C [baffled; he hasn’t lived in New York City since the 1970s]: Who?

MIMI: I’m listening to the radio while I put the laundry away. They’re talking about the primaries.

PLAN C: Oh. [pause] [then] I just called to say I love you.

* * *
I was very glad he called to say that and I told him so.

He’s so clearly a morning person.

* * *

Then later that day, I got upset again.

I suddenly remembered that in our first conversation ever, on Wednesday 6 February, around 8:30 p.m., he had told me that he had been off jdate for a couple of months, had been scanning the profiles and seen mine, and had rejoined just because of me, so he could email me.

So he knew perfectly well that you could see who’s there without joining up!

That’s what he had done, or said he had done, in February.

Was he lying to me???

* * *
I got very upset again and was unable to do anything at all till I called him – in the evening, knowing full well it was not a thinking-clearly time for Plan C.

* * *
He was very irritated.

I thought we settled that already, he said.

I explained the cause of my renewed anxiety, hoping he would give a persuasive explanation.

Again, he said simply that he thought he had to join in order to see the women’s profiles.

I reminded him again of what he had told me when we spoke in February.

* * *

The exchange above was repeated at least ten times.

* * *
I kept saying, I’ve just told you that 10 times!
* * *
At length, he said he thought that jdate only allowed you limited viewing if you weren’t a member. You could look at one profile, but then a screen came up requiring you to join if you wanted to see more.

* * *
That had the ring of truth to me. I thought I remembered that, too, and realized that the new system, in which you can log on with a false name and see whatever you want, though you can’t email, had not been in place then.

Why didn’t you say that earlier?? I asked.

* * *
Plan C was angry and flustered and had no coherent answer. He didn’t know why he hadn’t said it earlier. And he didn’t know why he put his profile up, except that he had kept it ‘hidden’ because he didn’t want people to find it. He just wanted to be able to look.

* * *
That made sense, and I accepted that. But I wanted, once again, his help in calming down and reassuring me, and he couldn’t manage it.

Be reassured! he said in an irritated tone.

* * *
It took a while for my distress to die down. He couldn’t manage a loving tone, but he got minimally less angry, and we both wanted to end the call. I could see that it wasn’t going to go anywhere any better, and I thought, if there’s any more to be said, we can say it tomorrow.

At least I was convinced that he wasn’t lying; he was just not up-to-snuff on the web.

(And it’s true that he’s not the slightest bit tech-savvy; he can barely work a remote control. New Yorkers reading this may know that for certain parts of Manhattan and the Bronx Saturday, cable service was disrupted just at the moment the Belmont Stakes was about to be run. Plan C and I had been changing from the DVD player to the television at that time, and we both thought he had caused the problem….!! The service went back on later, but then we couldn’t get the sound. After 30 minutes of hopeless and confusing conversations with various techies at Time Warner, while I was cooking dinner, Plan C was finally able to get the sound up and running again. The conversations would have been hilarious if they hadn’t been so frustrating.)

FRIDAY 6 JUNE

Plan C was helping one of his sons move furniture (a chore to be spread out over two days). I didn’t see him, as I usually do on Friday. I think we talked on the phone, but I can’t remember anything about our conversation.

SATURDAY 7 JUNE

Plan C arrived arrived a little after 5 p.m. Still somewhat upset from Wednesday and Thursday, and having missed him Friday and most of Saturday, I was a bit down at first, but then we had a good (homemade) dinner together and practiced our dancing.

Let me correct: I practiced my dancing.

Plan C is a terrific dancer: idiosyncratic (his salsa is really a ‘travelling meringue,’ my swingdance teacher said; or was it that his meringue was really a ‘travelling salsa’?) but very graceful. My mother, seeing him dance a few steps once, called him ‘light-footed.’ He makes it up as he goes along, but he always looks good.

So good, in fact, that he can do a hilarious imitation of the way frat boys in the early 60s danced to ‘Wooly Bully,’ the way their dates danced, and the way a very sexy date of his once danced to ‘Twist and Shout’ – so sexily, it seems, that people were shocked. (Plan C liked it, of course.)

* * *

Having taken about 18 months, more or less, of swing, and having danced a bit with various men over the past six months, I finally figured out what it takes for me to be an okay dancer.

It takes about 45 minutes of dancing.

Then I loosen up and can do all right, even – depending on the music – be a bit inventive like Plan C.

But I really need to like the music a lot. My all-time favorite to dance to is the original Temptations ‘My Girl,’ a favorite since this past January. But I also had fun dancing to ‘I’m So Excited’ (the Pointer Sisters), ‘I’m Walkin’‘ (Fats Domino), and ‘Come On, Let’s Go’ (Ritchie Valens).

* * *
So after an hour and then another hour and then more dancing, I was doing very well.

* * *
We needed to ‘practice,’ or rather I did, because we’re going to two weddings in the coming months, and I wanted to make sure I could manage all right dancing in public with Plan C (haven’t done that yet).

Of course, what young couple is going to have Motown playing at their wedding in the summer of 2008??

Seems unlikely. But I have to practice to music I like and have available.

* * *
Very late, the quarrel started up again.

We were sitting on the sofa, too exhausted from dancing for 2.5 hours to get our asses upstairs.

Just a tad sweaty after all that aerobic exercise, and eager to take a shower before bed, I asked Plan C if he was going to take a shower.

He said no, quite emphatically; he’d already taken one that day, and he’d take another tomorrow.

I was surprised that a person who had been sweaty at least twice that day (he had arrived sweating from the heat) wouldn’t be as eager to shower as I was.

Don’t you like showers? I asked.

That got him angry.

For some reason, he was seriously irritated at the question.

* * *

There had been no malice behind my question. I enjoy showers, think of them (most of the time) as a pleasure, especially in hot weather. I like the idea of going to bed clean and refreshed and smelling of lavender (one my few concessions to Rachel Greenwald’s advice to use lavender soap because men like the smell; they do, so I use it). My question was inspired by surprise and curiosity. It had also crossed my mind that maybe the bathroom Plan C uses in my apartment was inadequate in the shower department, and that he would explain what was wrong with it.

* * *

There followed a longish tedious argument about whether my question about showers had been insulting. That argument led to a slight rehash of the previous day’s argument, and I was finally able to explain to Plan C, in person, that what upset me, really, was less his rejoining jdate than his failure to understand why I needed soothing and reassurance.

Finally (I’m skipping about 20 minutes and some embarrassing moments here) he appeared to understand, and we hugged. Actually we had to make up twice and hug twice.

* * *
In retrospect, I think he was so prickly because he was exhausted from 24 hours of moving furniture, travelling to Manhattan in the heat, and then dancing for a couple of hours (and oh yes, possibly those two dreadful phone calls were still a vivid memory).

* * *

I showered; Plan C didn’t.

When I got into bed he was almost asleep and asked me not to talk to him because he was almost asleep, and if I talked, he mumbled, he would wake up and not be able to sleep.

So I didn’t.

* * *
SUNDAY 8 JUNE

Around 6:45 a.m. or so we were both wide awake and sex was imminent….

Plan C – now rested, and anticipating sex – said (to my complete surprise), I’m sorry if I was mean or unkind. I can be very obstinate sometimes. You’re very sweet and I don’t want to make you unhappy.

Obstinate – yes, the perfect word for him sometimes! I thought – but didn’t say. I can’t remember what I did say, or if I said anything, but he knew I was happy to hear his words.

* * *

7 a.m. - 10 a.m.
!*?#@$!!!!!!***??+*&!&!&!!!

* * *
After breakfast we talked about the trip we’re taking together in a few weeks – the luggage, the clothing we’ll need, who pays for what, etc. etc. All easily determined.

* * *

I felt very good that he had said what he had earlier that morning. He didn’t really need to, but because he had, I felt confirmed in my sense of his goodness and his devotion.

And of his circadian rhythms.

Plan C really is a morning person.

’sex and the city’: the ultimate post-modern live-blogged hypertext review of the film and its audience, by a middle-aged dater who saw it with her 66-yr-old internet-met boyfriend

7 p.m. friday 30 may. we are there to be seen

Of course we are there to be seen; why else would Plan C and I set foot out of doors? Why else does anyone ever go out? And when you’re going to an AMC multiplex an hour from Manhattan, you know the paparazzi will be there in full force.

We also know that product placement is everything, so we are dressed with careful forethought.

I’m wearing a purple INC tank top camisole (94% nylon 6% spandex) with a built-in bra, size small, too insignificant to appear on the Macy’s website; cost on sale approx $19; a blue ‘woven trip racerback dress’ from GAP, size small, $54.50; a beige jersey THEORY shrug, size small, bought two years ago from Bloomingdales so I don’t remember the price, but whatever it cost I got my money’s-worth out of it because I’ve worn it a lot. My shoes are camper sandals by Helena , cost $144.00. I’m not wearing my trademark Celeste Stein socks because I’m wearing L’eggs premium nylon Day Sheer knee highs, suntan, with reinforced toes from Duane Reade , nor am I wearing my trademark Onlyhearts shrug (I was wearing the Theory shrug, remember??). Underneath, I’m wearing black Bali microfiber briefs, size 6, and black capri Flexees, size small, so old that I don’t think they make them any more.

The total cost of my visible clothes is about $217.50. If you add in the original costs of the less visible items I suppose the total would come to about $231.

* * *
I’m carrying a Vera Bradley black quilted microfiber backpack/pocketbook. I can’t get the link to appear, but it’s now available in a dark brown as “Espresso Microfiber Backpack.” I adore it and rarely leave the house without it.

* * *
Move over, Oscar de la Renta, Diane Von Furstenburg, Louis Vuitton.

* * *

Plan C is wearing David Leadbetter khaki golf shorts from Joseph Banks, currently on sale for $49; a striped short-sleeved polo shirt that says Sayle’s Point Golf Club (not Plan C’s golf club), which I cannot find on the web, so I’m inserting a picture of it:

Bass docksiders bought at an outlet mall chain (Bass seems to have updated its classic boat shoe, and the equivalent is not visible anywhere on the web, but this is more or less what they look like),

and full-cut knit briefs from Joseph Banks .

Total cost of Plan C’s visible clothing: probably about $125.

His and Hers, approximate total clothing cost: $356.00

* * *

The only paparazza was me.

* * *

7:35 p.m. ‘The scene in the theatre was more interesting than the movie.’

That’s what Plan C says. For a long time he is the only man in line (and also for a long time we are the only people over 20), and he is very self-conscious.

You’d think a man who had dated 84 women in a year-and-a-half wouldn’t much mind standing in line with 500 women, but he does. As you can see in this photo, he’s trying to be inconspicuous, blending into the wall:

Great excitement before the showing. I see for myself what ‘chick-flick’ means:

We sit about one-third of the way up, Plan C on an aisle. A woman who passes him says, ‘You’re a brave soul!’

7:45 p.m. ‘Looking at all these women is making me thirsty.’

We have a long wait. ‘Looking at all these women is making me thirsty,’ Plan C says, and gets up to get a lemonade.

* * *
8:04 p.m. the time cometh and now is.

By the time the lights go out, about 19 other men (Plan C is counting…) have entered the theatre. The other 500 people are female.

* * *

After the last preview, when the screen announces ‘feature presentation,’ the theatre erupts in screams.

Plan C laughs.

I’m reminded of footage showing girls at the Ed Sullivan studios reacting to the arrival of the Beatles in 1964.
.

* * *

A still photo of Sarah Jessica Parker appears on the screen: more screams.

As photos of each of the Big Four in the film appear, applause breaks out, and more screams, as if this were a live performance and each woman were making a separate entrance.

* * *

About two-thirds of the way through the film, during the New Year’s Eve scene with Miranda and Carrie, a disaster happens: the film breaks.

The screen goes black.

More screams. Several people audibly wonder if a riot will break out.

* * *
The screen stays blank for several minutes. Plan C recalls that the film broke the last time he went to a movie in this theatre and wonders (this is typical of Plan C) if it is somehow his fault.

Is he jinxing the films?

* * *

The movie comes back: Carrie is walking up the steps of her brownstone.

How did she get there? How did the rendezvous end?

No one in the theatre has any idea. We’ve missed three or four minutes of the film.

I guess we’ll all have to go again and see it a second time.

* * *

The movie vs. the tv series vs. me

As I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t watch the tv series, because I had a life then – a life very much like those of the women in the film: a marriage, children, a full-time job, stuff going on.

In the past 23 months, however, my life has been more like those of the women in the tv series: serial dating in Manhattan, one wacky man after another, until the arrival on the scene of the man who is sitting next to me, nursing his lemonade and feeling out of place in the theatre.

* * *

The film represents the supposedly ‘mature’, middle-aged life the tv characters have evolved into, the very life I was happy to leave behind to enter the life they evolved out of.

If you see what I mean.

* * *

So it’s all in ass-backwards order for me.

* * *

And I know what’s coming next! I can tell them:

Divorces, and then that surprising barely-chronicled phase of life when the divorced osteoporosis-ridden greying post-cataract empty-nested toe-separator-wearing AARP-mailing-listed women date the previously-married hearing-aided balding stomached cholesterol-medicated cialis-users.

* * *

I’ve seen about eight of the tv episodes, and they seem to me 70% comedy and 30% melodrama – like my life since June 2006.

The film, however, is 70% melodrama and 30% comedy.

It isn’t all that funny.

* * *

Dating is funnier than relationship angst. And I like funny.

so was it any good?? yes, when jennifer hudson arrives.

When Jennifer Hudson arrives on screen, things perk up. She energizes every scene she appears in. I feel my posture shift, my eyes open a little wider, my attention focus more sharply.

* * *

Thank god for Jennifer Hudson.

jennifer hudson and me

I found a video on-line taken during the shooting of SATC, featuring the Astor Place subway station and the Starbucks across the street.

OMG!

I have a romantic history at that very location.

That’s precisely the place where Rolly and I were standing during a very important conversation near the end of our first date, so probably around 10:30 pm on Friday 27 October 2006. Over dinner it had been established (as a result of my web research) that Rolly was not 69 but was 73, and although he had instantly said to me, when we met, ‘You’re pretty!’ with great surprise (not having liked my profile picture), nevertheless it seemed to be assumed that the age difference (14 years) would rule out a relationship. But we talked together better than any other man and I had on a first date, almost instantly teasing one another, on the identical wave length. And I had said to myself, This must be what ‘good chemistry’ means.

We had finished dinner at the no-longer-extant Trattoria Dante Ristorante, had strolled along MacDougal looking at stores, and had walked up to the Astor Place station, because neither of us knew where the Bleecker Street one was. As we approached the station, I turned to him and said, ‘At what point in the evening did it get established that you would be my — [I paused a long time here] — uncle?’

What I meant, of course, to be blunt now as I could not have been then, was when and how did it get established that we would not have a romance but just have a non-sexual relationship in which you acted as a kind of romantic mentor or older relative?

But that wasn’t spelled out. The pause over ‘uncle’ was a long one.

And Rolly’s response — I’ll never forget it. He said, ‘Let’s stop a moment’ or some such. At any rate, on that very rainy night, he paused and stood against the glass window of Starbucks (yes, the very same Starbucks in the video with Jennifer Hudson to which I’ve provided the link above!), holding his umbrella over both of us. So it was the first time we were standing face to face in the relative positions in which lovers would kiss, if they were going to, but we didn’t. That was when I noticed how broad his shoulders were, and how good he looked in his raincoat (a plain ordinary trench coat).

Over dinner at the restaurant I hadn’t found him especially attractive. This was the moment when I did.

In fact it was the first moment of a strong mutual attraction.

I can’t remember a single word of what we said then, but really, it was a conversation about our ‘relationship,’ such as it was.

I know he felt the same way about that moment, because this is what he wrote in an email the next day:

One of the things I liked last night is when we stopped by Starbucks and talked about the “Uncle” posture that I seemed to adopt. Probably it was a manifestation of my sheepishness (baa) about what we in the White House would call my “misspeaking” about my age; that is, taking myself out of contention for. . .oh, never mind, you know. I appreciate your trust in giving me your real e-mail address. But did I ever come out and actually say that I wasn’t a serial killer? I don’t remember. Anyway, I liked standing there in the rain with you.

Well, I liked standing there in the rain with him.

And it didn’t end in a kiss. It ended in crossing the street together to take the #6 train uptown.

(I wrote about that evening here but didn’t mention the outside-Starbucks conversation.)

11 p.m. A Marxist critique, please? The requisite attack on consumerism?

Why?

Does anyone complain about “Sleeping Beauty” or “The Princess and the Pea” – or, for that matter, Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It – by saying that ‘Most people don’t live in palaces’?

I’m tired of hearing people say that most people can’t afford those shoes blah blah blah.

* * *

A certain kind of narrative always tells about people richer or more beautiful or luckier than the members of its audience, and the audience loves that.

* * *

If I want to see bunions or clothes from GAP or Macy’s or Ann Taylor Loft, I can just look in the mirror.

* * *

I wouldn’t want to look at films about fashion all the time, but sometimes it’s fun. That’s why I watch royal weddings and even (shock) read Majesty or Royalty magazines occasionally. I love looking at the beautiful or exotic or outré clothes.

* * *

In fact, I’m disappointed when this film gets all moral on me, and the voiceover says that one of the characters is ‘dressed from head to toe in love; and that’s the one label that never goes out of style.’

* * *

Oh gosh, you mean I’m supposed to believe that labels aren’t important after all?

If so, then why do the credits show what seems like one hundred ‘name’ labels mentioned or shown in the film?

Don’t tell us labels aren’t important! Revel in the materiality! Be shameless!

Product placement revisited

But one label is undeniably important, and that’s Sex and the City.

There were SATC t-shirts and SATC popcorn bags (if you bought the large size) everywhere in the theatre.

That’s the product that’s marketed: the television series, the film, the musical, the novelization, the classic comic, the ‘concept.’

The film is about the television series, and the forthcoming musical will be about the television series and the film, and the novelization will be about…..etc.

* * *
Does that bother you?

* * *

Popular entertainment has always recycled characters, plots, little bits of stories. So long as there are consumers, why not keep it going? SATC’s producers are just recycling their own material, placing their own product, with all the mini-product-placements, out there in the marketplace (the AMC multiplex) for people to buy. If Ira Glass can go from radio to television, why can’t SATC go from television to film? And soon we’ll have the musical of This American Life.

If people buy your stuff, then keep selling it.

11:20 p.m. fresh air at last

As we leave, it is a little cooler than it was two weeks earlier or whenever we entered the theatre for this very long movie. Plan C thinks it was half an hour too long. I think it was one hour too long.

11:45 p.m. home again

We’re sitting at the kitchen table at Plan C’s house.

Plan C is drinking scotch, stroking and talking to his beloved cat, Polly.

I’m sitting opposite, taking sips of Plan C’s scotch and looking off into space thinking about Sarah Jessica Parker’s body. She’s only half an inch taller than I am, but I’m wondering how different our weights are.

MIMI: I wonder what she weighs…..

PLAN C: Thirteen pounds plus a little. We were at the vet’s last week.
* * *

cameo: gender stereotypes

At 9:45 pm Wednesday, May 28, I was at home watching an online video of the May 17th wedding of Princess Anne’s son Peter Phillips to Autumn Kelly (I love royal weddings, however they turn out in the long run), and Plan C was at home (his) watching the Phillies game.

a dating blogger’s holiday weekend

FRIDAY AFTERNOON: my date with Loverville

I met Loverville at last!

* * *

About a year ago we first established email contact and exchanged photographs (I sent her my profile pic, and she sent me one taken while travelling somewhere exotic). Then this past winter we got back in touch by email and expressed the desire to meet one another, but until recently, one of us was out of town on business trips when the other was around. Finally we determined that we’d both be free and available in late May. We worked out a day and time, and then LV gave me her cell phone number: “shall we talk before then? (ha! Just like a date!)” she wrote.

It was like a date (except that it took a year from first contact to meeting!), that gradual approach to one another, the ritual steps of increasing intimacy: email, telephone, face2face.

So we spoke on the phone, establishing one another’s basic sanity and suitability. LV sent me some recent photos of herself, and we met in Madison Square Park at ShakeShack, which I’d never heard of, but obviously a few million other people knew all about.

I remembered that when Cute Jewess met LV over a year ago, she described LV as a ‘beaut,’ and that’s true: she really is.

I wasn’t quite looking my best: I had recently gained an inch around the hips (it would be too depressing to weigh, so I just used a tape measure) but then lost a quarter of an inch, so I took the risk of wearing a skirt I didn’t quite fit into. Too late, once I’d set out from home, I discovered that as I walked, it rode up around my hips in a way that made walking almost impossible – or impossibly provocative and dreadful-looking. So half an hour before our date, I dashed into the 34th Street Ann Taylor Loft and bought a $39 skirt (great sale on there!) that looked minimally better than the one I’d started out in, and at least didn’t ride all the way up to my et cetera.

LV was easily recognizable from the photos she’d sent. After getting our snacks, we settled down on a bench and had a long chat about Everything (almost….), showing one another pix of our recent men. LV was exactly the way she comes across in her blog: warm, enthusiastic, spontaneous, positive, unaffected.

Late in our conversation, she mentioned a party she wanted Plan C and me to come to. I thought, How typically Loverville! She always seems to be giving, going to, and inviting people to parties! Then it turned out that I invited her to the one I was giving Saturday night, so the party-fever must have been contagious.

* * *
Although I’m old enough to have been LV’s mother (a very young mother….), we’re the same blog age: hers began 23 Feb ‘07, mine 18 Feb ‘07.

* * *
After LV learned, told me, and mentioned in her blog all the lies that Good Voice told her, I realized that lies are like allergies: they always come in groups. People aren’t usually allergic to just one thing: if they’re allergic to cats, they’re also allergic, it seems, to pollen or to down or to milk or nuts or something. And so in the case of lying: if a man (and this is probably true of women too) lies about his age, he’s probably also lying about other things – women, drinking, smoking, money, number of past marriages, whatever. (Or, as in the case of Performer, if he was ready to lie to his children, then he was, as my friend Marion pointed out, ready to lie to me also. As he did, big time.)

And to put this on the record for other internet daters: the sites I used for checking on basic info, and which LV found useful, are www.peoplefinders.com and www.birthdatabase.com
You don’t need to spend a penny to get the facts from either site.

FRIDAY EVENING: dinner with Plan C

We went to a local bar/restaurant for dinner, the very one where, almost a year ago, I spent “a somewhat unusual evening…with three men”. And lo and behold, the man I called ‘Nick’ in the post about that evening was there again! It was my first time there since that famous evening…he must be a regular. Or perhaps he thinks I’m a regular. We nodded briefly at one another across the crowded restaurant; I was surprised I recognized someone I’d seen only once, eleven months ago. He was still entirely unattractive to me: tall and skinny like a string bean, dyed blond hair, unhealthy-looking tanning-salon tan. From where Plan C and I were seated, we could see him and monitor the progress of his not-very-enthralling-looking date.

SATURDAY EVENING: party party

I /we gave a party for two friends who are getting married in a month. I gave a baby shower for other friends last Saturday: both these parties were planned in January, when I assumed (wrongly, as it turned out) that I’d have a lonely winter and wanted to make sure that I had something cheerful to look forward to. So months ahead I planned these parties for two couples I love, knowing that on at least two spring Saturdays my living room would be full of people talking, laughing and drinking.

So as it turned out, Plan C was around for both events –– the shopping, the party, and the cleaning-up, two weekends in a row.

On both occasions, I kept expecting, when I caught his eye, to see him scowl at me, out of boredom and anger, because that’s what my more-recent ex-husband used to do at parties at our house. He hated parties, people, small-talk, socializing with people, especially people he considered only ‘my’ friends. After sending a few darkly angry glances in my direction, he’d disappear upstairs in an obvious way, go to his study and look at television or work at his computer.

My first ex would do the same thing more surreptitiously: I’d just suddenly notice he wasn’t there.

* * *
So at one point in the evening this past Saturday, I saw Plan C sitting on the stairs for a moment, not talking to anyone. Oh oh, I thought: he’s not enjoying himself. – But when he caught my eye, he smiled and winked! He was just taking a breather from conversation, about three hours into the party.

I couldn’t believe it: he wasn’t angry; he was happy! Just resting a bit…

Then later in the evening, maybe 1:30 or so, I didn’t see him anywhere (and it didn’t take long to look around my smallish living room and very small kitchen). Oh oh, I thought again; he’s angry and has gone to bed. But no, he was just recycling beer bottles!

As you may not remember, Plan C is a neatness freak. He likes things to be tidy and folded and trash to be emptied all the time etc. Periodically during the evening (8:30 pm to 3 a.m., to give you the exact timespan of the party) he would wash out the beer and wine bottles and take them to this building’s recycling bins.

* * *

An amazing man.

* * *

And for the last hour of the party, 2 - 3 a.m., the nine of us left out of 22 or so were sitting around telling stories, talking politics, etc etc., and Plan C was sitting there with occasionally-closed eyes. (So also was a guest in her 30s who was eight months pregnant, and another guest in her 30s who was not pregnant. It was late, after all….). But Plan C made no motions to go upstairs….it never seemed to have occurred to him to go to bed while the party was still going on, though given the late hour, and the fact that he was twice the age of most of the people there, he certainly would have been excused.

Not only did he stay there; he later said he had a good time…

SUNDAY: crossing the Brooklyn Bridge

So what does a couple in their 60s do the day after they’ve given a party that lasted till 3 a.m.?

They cross the Brooklyn Bridge, of course.

Cross it twice, and take a 3-mile hike around Brooklyn Heights between crossings.

* * *

We and a few million other people crossed the bridge. Unless you’ve just arrived from Mars, you’ve heard that it’s the bridge’s 125th birthday, so on the sunny Sunday of a holiday weekend, it was a very crowded site.

* * *

As we were on our way there, me in my sandals with my bottle of Sprite Zero, my sunglasses and sunhat and camera, in full tourist mode, Plan C with no bottle, no sunglasses, no hat, and no camera, his ordinary self, I thought this expedition might be good practice for the 10-day trip we’re taking together in late June. For the first time we could see how we travel together, if we have the same energy for walking, make the same number of toilet-stops, enjoy the same moments and sights etc.

We did well together: after five miles or so, on the return crossing, we were both exhausted.

* * *

But we’d been in good humor. And I had teased Plan C about his yearning for statistics.

PLAN C: I wonder how many people will have crossed this bridge today.

MIMI: One point two million.

PLAN C (with excitement): You could be right!

MIMI: I wonder how many of them were wearing sunglasses.

* * *

But Plan C was also thinking about W, his late wife, to whom he was married for 36 years, and whose death was not quite three years ago. Back in the late sixties and early seventies, they had lived in Brooklyn Heights, and had eaten at restaurants on Montague Street, walked along the Promenade, seen the same views we were seeing.

They had never walked across the bridge.

So as we were approaching the mid-point of the bridge, on the way out to Brooklyn, and I was happy in the midst of a busy, happy weekend, Plan C said, “W would have loved this.”

* * *
He meant, the walk across the bridge.

* * *

Hmmm.

* * *

I wasn’t sure what to think.

Plan C is so spontaneous: that’s what he was feeling and that’s what he said.

* * *

Well, remember, this is the man who said I love you on the second date. That’s what he’s like.

* * *

At first my happy spirits were a bit dashed. He meant, he wished she were there with him, and not me.

Or maybe he simply wished she were the woman there with him.

Or maybe again, he simply was thinking, precisely as he had said, that she would really have loved the walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, and he wished they could have enjoyed it together.

* * *

And as we walked along Montague Street, he began to tear up at the sign for Armando’s restaurant, which had just closed, where Plan C and W ate dinner every Friday night.

In irritation that I was trying to hide, I got out a pack of kleenex for Plan C.

* * *

I think he accepted one tissue, but I can’t remember.

* * *

He looked carefully at every store and restaurant we passed, trying to find the laundromat, the popover place, the Indian restaurant, the movie theatre etc etc that they had patronized in 1970.

* * *

When we got within a block of the building where they had lived, I offered him (or did I push at him?) the pack of kleenex and urged him to go to the building. I said I would stay on Montague Street.

He didn’t want to go, even though I urged him again. He said he could see that the building looked the same, and that was enough.

* * *

I think my ‘offer’ also meant, so go already! Go have your nostalgic moment and leave me alone.

Not that I didn’t understand what he felt, not that I begrudged him his grief, but wasn’t this our walk in the sun, our expedition, and not a walk down his Memory Lane? It hadn’t been billed as a visit to all their places, but it was turning into one.

* * *
Later, as Plan C was walking toward me, having stopped at a water fountain for a drink, I thought, “This is someone else’s husband I’m with.”

But then I immediately had the thought, “At this age, every man is someone else’s husband.”

* * *

I’m still trying to get it right, to try to understand the best way to cope with his continuing mourning.

My first impulses were generous ones, realizing – or believing – that W and I were not in competition, that he could love both of us, though in different ways, and seeing in his dresser, where a framed picture of me sat only inches away from a framed picture of Plan C and his wife and sons, a model for the inside of his mind: room for both of us.

But it was in the heat of his early days of being in love with me that I thought that.

* * *
Then it began to be the case, that on Sunday evenings he thought about her and on Sunday nights he dreamed about her, because he felt guilty about sex with me.

* * *
Then I began to get irritated at being offered her jewelry and (just last week) her evening bags.

Today I asked Plan C, quite definitively, not to offer me any more of her stuff ever again.

He agreed, but he’ll probably forget and do it anyway.

* * *
I was talking to my friend B on the phone a couple of weeks ago. She was in W’s class in college and remembers her well, though they weren’t close friends. I brought up this general issue with her, Plan C’s continued mourning, and she (who has been married 39 years) said, “Well, it was 36 years…”

And that made sense of course: it was a very long time, more than half his entire life. She’s a strong presence and she always will be.

But as time goes on, I’ll have a stronger hold on Plan C’s heart and mind and imagination than I do now.

* * *
So (to paraphrase the late Diana, Princess of Wales, who famously said, ‘There were three of us in the marriage’), There were three of us crossing the Brooklyn Bridge.

SUNDAY EVENING: more social life

Okay, so having partied till 3 a.m., brunched (I forgot to say this) with one of Plan C’s sons, crossed the bridge twice etc., walked for about five hours, we then came home, showered, and had dinner at a restaurant with seven cousins of mine who were in town for the weekend.

MONDAY MORNING: a birthday present

Plan C will be 66 on Wednesday, and I won’t see him till next Friday. Because I wanted him to have his present early rather than late, and to be with him when he opened it, I gave it to him this morning. It was a box of lots of little things he likes, each wrapped individually, and the gift of a day’s golfing on our trip in June.

And then off he went home to rest, work, and golf, and off I went to blog.

Peaceful solitude for both of us.

* * *

before seeing ’sex and the city’ (the film)

Well, before seeing the rest of it, that is: on the New York Times web site and I suppose lots of other places on the web, you can see so many trailers that you wonder what’s left un-previewed.

In one sequence, Carrie is reading ‘Cinderella’ to a four-year-old girl, and as she closes the book, she says, “You know that this is just a fairytale, right, sweetheart? Things don’t always happen like that in real life. I just think you should know that now.”

And the little girl, gesturing toward the book, commands, “Again!”

To which Carrie responds, “And another one bites the dust.”

* * *

It’s possible that Sex and the City is the dating bloggers’ ‘Cinderella’, the fairy-tale notion that we’re all leggy, stylish, and white. For ‘fairytale,’ substitute ‘movie’: “Things don’t always happen like that in real life.”

* * *

But I need to confess my semi-ignorance: I never saw the television series. I heard of it, of course, but I didn’t watch it because I didn’t have the time or the interest. With two children at home, unpleasantly stressful work, and a husband about whom the less said, the better, Sex and the City was the last thing I wanted to see.

But in December 2006, as (during a subway ride) I was telling some friends about my new dating life — telling them, in fact, about some of Rolly’s eccentricities — my friend M suddenly said, in a loud voice, ‘Mimi, your life is just like Sex and the City!’ Her voice was so loud that everyone in the car turned to stare at me, to see who this woman was whose life was just like Sex and the City.

Then, a few weeks later, one of my dates (Yellow Tie, to be precise) asked me to meet him at the bar at Plaza Athénée, which advertises on its web site that an episode of Sex and the City was filmed there.

* * *
Clearly, I had to know more about this sub-culture.

So I went to the series web site, studied the photographs and read through the plots of each of its ninety-some episodes.

* * *
I was edified: their dates were more glamorous, but mine were weirder.

* * *
Then on a plane last summer I saw my first SATC episode. And now that I have a television, I’ve seen a couple more.

* * *

Yes, so, those four elegant young women represent only a tiny fraction of the New York dating population.

What about the divorced osteoporosis-ridden greying post-cataract empty-nested toe-separator-wearing AARP-mailing-listed women who date the eccentric hearing-aided balding stomached cholesterol-medicated cialis-users?

Yeah, what about us?

* * *
I’m going to see the film with the thought that my life is a sort of reality check, if the 33 men I dated can be thought of in terms of a word like ‘reality,’ and many of them can’t.

* * *

The New York Times article says that women are going to see this in ‘groups’ for a collective chick-flick experience. I’d sort of like to do that, but I want to see it the first night, and that’s a Friday, so I’ll be with Plan C. He dated 84 women, so he’ll offer another kind of reality check. He’s actually embarrassed about that statistic, but I’m proud of my 33.

* * *
I may be in the same area code as these women — my phone number does begin with 212 — but am I on the same planet?

Stay tuned to sexagenarian07.wordpress.com .

* * *

photo of the man who’s good to his cat

Here’s a (somewhat edited!) photo of Plan C taken at a baby shower I gave yesterday. (It’s possible to crop without using the cropping function…) Notice his crisp stylish conservative clothes. I left visible at bottom right a present wrapped in pink paper (the baby will, they say, most likely be a girl).

an interview with mimi about plan c

So Mimi, you’re still together with this wonderful man?

Yup. It’s been three months and two days. We met on February 10th.

Of course, you were also together with Performer for that long….

That’s true. I was.

How can you tell this relationship is better?

Oh god. Given my background — a terrible father, negligent, dishonest, disliked by all close to him, including his second wife, my half-sister, his parents sometimes, his siblings’ spouses — it’s amazing I can discriminate among men at all, in any way. But let’s see — well, at this stage, Performer was still promising to tell his children about my existence, an action postponed so long that in fact it never took place. At this stage — or a little later — I was (and with good reason) beginning to feel angry at Performer a bit of the time. And by about the fourth or fifth month, with P, I would occasionally ask myself, If there weren’t sex, would you want to spend time with this guy? would you want to take care of him as an old man? is he the person you want to converse with forever?

And that’s not what’s happening with Plan C?

Not at all. I’m hoping we can have at least 20 years together (he’s about to be 66), and with luck, 30 years. I was thinking about that lying in bed (alone, at home) this morning. And I asked myself, suppose he wasn’t up to much at 96. Suppose he was creaky and weak and forgetful — would you still want him? and my answer to myself was, I’d want to see the look in his eyes when he looks at me.

Wow. Okay. I get it.

He has much natural sweetness. Over dinner with his friends the other night, the wife of the other couple leaned over jokingly and put her cheek next to his, and her husband turned to me, smiled, and said, ‘My wife is in love with Plan C.’ He then explained he was only kidding, which of course I knew, but the little episode confirmed for me that I was right to see in him what I saw.

What surprises you most about Plan C?

His relationship with his cat.

With his cat???

They adore one another. The cat’s female — Polly — and Plan C gets really close to women: his mother, his late wife W, the cat, me….he gets more emotional about women than about men.

But a cat?

The cat sleeps in the bed with him (and with us, when I’m there). She slept with him and W. So when W died, Plan C was not altogether alone, because Polly was there. Taking care of her, feeding her, giving her treats, talking to her, and especially brushing her — their daily ritual, actually all their daily rituals — grounded him the way taking care of a child would have. He says, ‘She was all I had…’

Sniff sniff.

I know. He’s very sentimental. But so’s the cat. I’ve never seen a cat so attached to a human. If he’s lying in bed with the cat and gets up to go to the bathroom, the cat gets up also and sits outside the closed bathroom door… He keeps the radiator on in a back room off the kitchen so she can sit on the radiator and look out the window at the squirrels. He says, ‘That’s Polly’s Miami.’

‘Polly’s Miami’ is not helping global warming.

You can’t talk that way to Plan C about the cat’s needs. What’s the environment compared to keeping Polly happy?

Is he that devoted to you?

That’s a thought. Maybe I should ask him to brush me every day when we’re together. It might feel good.

Moving right along….No, actually, moving back…. you can accept this, the close relationship with the cat?

It’s not a problem. She accepts and loves me as another parent, not as a rival. In fact, she comes over to me to have her chin scratched and her neck rubbed almost as often as she goes to Plan C.

An honor.

It’s nice to be loved by a cat.

Speaking of other females, how does W figure in your relationship with Plan C?

That’s more complicated.

Duh!

She’s definitely a presence. He misses her and thinks about her a lot. Yesterday, as we were passing a photo of the two of them in which they both look terrific — tanned and happy in Hawaii, both wearing leis, W in a white skirt and shirt looking really nice, Plan C leaning in toward her with his arm around her — I said casually, ‘I really like that picture.’ And as we went into the hall, Plan C burst into tears.

Hmmmm.

And yesterday was a Sunday. He misses her more on Sundays.

Why?? he’s not religious or anything, is he? and anyway, they’re Jews…

My theory is that it’s because we have a lot of sex on Friday and Saturday, and by Sunday, he feels guilty — toward her. He feels he has been unfaithful to her.

Oy. This guy cries a lot…. Aren’t you concerned about all these emotions for his dead wife?

No, I’m not. Of course I don’t know what other widowers are like, but I guess you don’t get over 37 years of intimacy in three years. I’ve only known him three months…His feelings for me are very intense. After a while, I think the guilty feelings will diminish. I just have to watch out for Sundays….And anyway, his crying isn’t narcissistic, like Performer’s. Performer used to cry when he was moved by something in his own life or something he said.

You always define and praise the new man by contrast to the previous one.

How else to understand him? And anyway, there have been a lot of ‘previous’ ones.

How many?

Oh gosh, it depends what you count — boyfriends, husbands, lovers, recent ’serious’ dates and relationships. I’m a woman with a past.

You’re shameless.

Thank god.

???

When I first knew I was going to be divorced a second time, I felt ashamed: two failures! I didn’t feel bad about getting Ex out of my life, but about my public persona. But after a year or so of dating and six months or so of blogging, I began to feel sort of in-your-face-sexual,
like the Wife of Bath: ‘Welcome the sixte, whan that evere he shal. For sothe I wol nat kepe me chaast in al.’

Translation please?

‘Welcome the sixth, whenever he turns up. For truly you better believe it I’m not going to stay chaste forever.’ That’s a loose translation.

From a loose woman.

From a shameless woman.

Back to Plan C: all I hear about is his tears, his cat, and his late wife. Do you guys ever have any fun??

We have a lot of fun in bed…

Funny, you never seem to mention that. What is it, are you running your posts by the Pope or something for censorship? Where have all the details gone, long time passing?

Oh gosh. Gee…

Your interjections date you, you know. Next thing it’s going to be ‘gee whiz’ and you and Plan C doing the twist and talking about Dick Clark and Doris Day and Debbie Reynolds.

Who are they??

Very funny. As if you didn’t know.

Okay, well, back to sex. We have terrific sex. We can’t lie in bed together, even for an afternoon nap (with Polly….), without — you know — beginning things… Plan C is all-over erogenous zones. I’ve never known a man whose back was erogenous. Sometimes after sex if I touch his back he pulls away because it’s too sensitive….it arouses him so much he can’t take it.

This man is — well, I don’t know about him — the cat, the tears, the erogenous back — where did you find him?

Stupid, boring old jdate. That’s where I found him.

So when he’s not crying or brushing his cat or squirming because you’ve touched his back, do you guys ever fight? or disagree about anything?

Well, I mentioned the political fights two posts back. And we may have a little conflict about timing and logistics when we travel abroad together in about six weeks, because I like to get to the airport really really early, and he doesn’t. And there are other little trivial things we’ve annoyed one another about, but now, for instance, he knows not to talk about untidy parts of my apartment, because I’m working on them, and I know to leave him alone Sunday afternoons and evenings (when we’ve parted after spending the weekend together), because that’s when he’s likely to be missing W. I can hear in his voice when he’s going to get irritated, and I back off or stop talking to him or just disappear briefly.

And your socks?

Either he has gotten used to them or he has decided not to ‘fight that battle.’ I think a little of each. Whenever I put them on, when I’m with him, I say, ‘Are these all right?’ or ‘Do you mind if I wear these?’ and he always says they’re fine, whatever they are.

Money?

I pay when we go out for dinner with my friends and he pays when we go out with his. I pay for food at my house and he pays for my food at his house. I have to stop him from being too generous. Though it’s funny, once he lent me twenty dollars for a metrocard, and when we’d been home about half an hour, he said, ‘Don’t forget that twenty dollars.’

What are you giving him for his birthday?

Well, I’ll tell you this, I’m not spending the huge amount on him that he spent on me. I’m going to down the antes. But I have a very good idea, which I’ll whisper to you. {{{{ pssshhhh whsshhh pssshhh whsshh}}}}

That’s brilliant. He’ll love it. Very clever.

Thank you! I think so, too. And just because you’ve flattered me so much, I’ll tell you one more thing about Plan C and sex.

Goody.

‘Goody’??? Your interjections date you. —– Anyway, here’s the final thing: sometimes he likes me to talk dirty to him, so I do. And when he praised my dirty talk the other day, I said, ‘It’s not as if it requires a great deal of imagination. It’s just the same words over and over.’ And he laughed…

But doesn’t the cat sleep with you guys? you let her hear the dirty talk?

She likes it too.

Mimi, you’re perverse.

Thank god.

* * *
UPDATE: photo of Plan C’s cat Polly, reposted from ‘the sleepover’ [21 april 2008] in honor of DT & WG

a cat named mimi

Saturday we’re going to dinner at the house of Plan C’s old friends. He said there was something he needed to tell me ahead of time — mild fanfare mixed with anxiety — namely, that their cat was named Mimi.

* * *

But, he said (before I had time to respond), he would ask them, for the duration of our visit, not to address the cat as Mimi.

!?!?!?!?!?

Why?? I asked him. Why can’t they call the cat by its name when I’m there??

It would be embarrassing for you, responded the ever-thoughtful-but-sometimes-a-little-nutty Plan C.

Why would it be embarrassing for me? I asked. It’s not as if my name is Squeaky or Fuzzy or something. I don’t have a cat name; their cat has a person name.

* * *

It took a while for Plan C to stop laughing.

Finally, when he paused to breathe, he said that if I’d been named Squeaky or Fuzzy it would have been a deal-breaker, and he wouldn’t have dated me.

But you wouldn’t have been able to tell from the profile, I said. It might have been too late by the time you found out.

Maybe, he answered.

* * *

I think I’ll tell him that the next friends of mine we’re going to visit have a gerbil named Plan C, and so, to avoid embarrassment all round, I’m going to tell the friends that my new boyfriend is named Whiskers.

* * *

love in an election year

Forty-four years ago, long before most of my fellow dating-bloggers were born, I was enjoying (most of the time) my first romance.

* * *
When PJ and I met, on December 14, 1963 (yes, yes, the date December 14th has ever since been important to me; I always remember what happened on that date, when the day comes along), we were seniors in high school. By the summer of ‘64, when we were both college-bound, the presidential election was in full swing.

I wonder if he remembers this episode as vividly as I do. Probably not, because most men don’t remember things like this:

It was late August, and my mother had rented a small house on Fire Island. I went there every weekend, and one weekend PJ was visiting also.

He was for Goldwater, and I was for Johnson.

We were walking on the beach one night, and we began arguing about our candidates. It was not the first time we had that argument, but it was the longest one and, I think, the last.

* * *

We spent the entire night walking on the beach arguing.

Dawn had broken by the time we returned to the cottage.

* * *
I can’t remember if my mother was aware that we had been out the entire night.

Most parents, aware of such a fact, would have assumed the two seventeen-year-olds (yes,we were young to be going off to college) had been having sex or at least doing something sexual.

But not us.

No, we were arguing Goldwater v. Johnson the entire time.

* * *
I wonder what we were saying. I wonder how embarrassed I’d be now to read a transcript of our debate. Or maybe I’d be surprised at how smart I was. I don’t remember being especially articulate about politics then, just ‘convinced.’ Goldwater was perceived by left-wing Democrats to be the most outrageous candidate, and he lost by quite a lot. I don’t think he was assumed to be personally vicious, just wrong-headed.

* * *
At any rate, I can still remember the very bright morning light as PJ and I entered the tiny living room of the house.

* * *

As I remember, we didn’t resolve a thing; we just decided to stop fighting.

And of course, neither of us could vote.

* * *
Okay, so fast-forward to February 5, 2008. It was ‘Super Tuesday,’ and that’s the day Plan C first wrote me, the day our romance began, as the ballots were coming in.

Plan C assumed I was for Hillary. I can’t find the message, but he said something to this effect, that he assumed a professional woman of my generation would support her.

I thought that (around that time) I made my position clear to him, that I was undecided between the two main Democrats and had not voted at all in the NY primary because (my feeling at the time) I didn’t want to hurt either of them. However flawed that reasoning may have been, that was my position.

* * *
Within a few weeks, we were arguing about the candidates (HRC & BO). I was still undecided, still feeling that both were about equally qualified, though qualified perhaps in different ways, and that I’d vote for whichever was nominated. But I hated hearing Hillary attacked. Much has been written by now on the anti-feminist, misogynistic attacks on HRC, and I’m hardly the first to mention them, but they affected me personally. Because (in a professional context) I’ve been attacked by men in similar language and with similar venom, I identified with her — when she was attacked.

So when Plan C got — as he has occasionally tended — in a ranting mode about her, I was irritated and offended. And my attacks on his attacks made him believe — even though I had been completely unambiguous about my then-divided sympathies — that I supported her. In that mood he is simply non-rational and can’t take in whatever is said, however calmly, slowly, and rationally I say it.

I was particularly angry because at the same time as he was denouncing Hillary, Plan C would praise McCain as a ‘patriot.’

This from a fellow Democrat!! What gives???

These attacks on HRC always took place late at night, and mostly over the telephone. The next day, or some later time, he would say he had been ‘a schmuck’ or ‘an asshole’ and even ‘a misogynist’ (which I do not believe he is) and that if he started doing that again, I should tell him he was being an asshole.

He gets in that mode every now and then, and it’s not always about HRC. I recognize it now, and I know it goes away.

* * *
For instance, yesterday morning he was watching Tim Russert interview Obama on Meet the Press, and he began to get infuriated that Russert spent fifteen minutes at least rehashing the Reverent Wright stuff.

* * *
Before I was aware of what was happening, Plan C had picked up his Treo and was dialing Information.

Washington, DC I heard him say, and then, NBC.

And then (speaking, I inferred, into an NBC answering machine) I heard him denouncing NBC for allowing Russert to go on and on about Rev. Wright when they were so many more substantive issues — the economy, the war, etc. etc. — that should have been discussed. I heard the phrase ‘poor journalism’ and I think I heard the word ‘asshole,’ though I’m not sure.

* * *
Plan C was in full ranting mode, and he let it all loose at NBC.

I recognized the tone and was relieved it was directed at Russert.

* * *
For a number of reasons, I’m for Obama too, now, but I think — I hope — Plan C now understands the distinction between feeling offended by the anti-feminist attacks on Hillary and supporting her candidacy. I never really supported her; I was simply divided. And now, like so many others, I’ve swung my indecision toward Obama.

* * *

My dating adventures have been inseparable from politics.

A year ago now, I was visiting all those dreadful matchmakers: remember?

I was recently rereading the post I wrote about the first one and thinking that our exchange about politics should have clued me in immediately that a man who talked and thought this way was not going to be able to find a suitable mate for me.

This was the exchange, from the May 1 post:

Ah, but our main discussion was about politics. Remembering the polite disagreement with Nathan the previous day about Guantanamo Bay, I emphasized the importance of liberal-to-left politics for me.

Max: I don’t ask them about their politics.

Mimi: I can understand that. But I wanted to mention that it’s important to me.

Max: I can’t ask them about every little thing –

Mimi: I know you can’t. And anyway, most of the men I’ve dated, most of the men who fit those specs would be against the war anyway, so it’s probably not necessary. But –

Max: Yes?

Mimi: Well, I dated a man yesterday who thought Guantanamo Bay was a good idea, the right thing to do with people, and I really don’t want to date someone who feels like that. But I understand you can’t quiz everybody.

Max: Look at me: I’m 60, and I’m liberal. But I think, we’re at war! this is a war situation! And –

Mimi: And you think that’s what you have to do in wartime?

Max: Yes!

Mimi: Well, I wouldn’t want to date someone who felt that way. I don’t think that’s ‘liberal.’ Most Democrats wouldn’t agree with that.

Max: I’m a registered Democrat.

Mimi: That’s good. But anyway, maybe this kind of thing would come up in conversation before we actually met.

Max: You can’t go through a whole list of opinions with them.

Mimi: I know. I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t ask, you know, what do you think of welfare rights, the environment, immigration,
and so forth. But Guantanamo Bay is different.

Max (with genuine curiosity): How’s it different?

Mimi: It’s a matter of rights guaranteed by the Constitution, rights for everyone. This isn’t just a ‘political opinion.’ This is a deep conviction for me.

Max (beginning to understand): Okay…

Mimi: Anyway, I just wanted you to know that, because you say you give five ‘appropriate’ dates, and if I discovered beforehand that a man felt Guantanamo Bay was a good idea, I wouldn’t want to go out with him.

Max: Okay, okay. It’s not going to be easy…

Mimi: I know. The demographics are against me. There aren’t very many of them.

Max: I have plenty of them. But I have to go through my files and find them.

*****

‘Plenty of them’ my ass.

Max had no such men. He only came up with one seemingly-viable candidate, and the guy was a jerk.

* * *
But it was refreshing to hear Plan C ranting at Tim Russert. Better Russert than me.

And if it’s ever me again, I’ll know that the mood will pass.

* * *

And anyway, now that I know Plan C better, I can appreciate and even feel an amused fondness for the sincerity of his passions.

* * *
I don’t think — no, I know — I’ve never before met a man who urged me to call him an asshole or a misogynist if he ever got in a certain mood.

I haven’t yet said, Plan C, you’re being an asshole! Maybe when those rants were being sent in my direction, they formed part of some complex getting-to-know-you thing. We’ll see.

And anyway, perhaps soon McCain will be the ‘enemy.’ Who knows how that will affect our romance?

* * *
POSTSCRIPT
I have just discovered that there is a novel with the same title as this post! It’s by Tahira Naqvi. I hasten to mention this book, which I had never heard of till 1 minute ago. Clearly, the title was ‘in the language’ already and waiting to be used.