March 2006 Archives

He wrote me back, and claimed, among other things, to be a doctor, and from England. The perfect pedigree for me, right? So I replied, and expressed an interest in seeing him doing a singing, dancing chimney sweep impression. It could only be improved upon, I added, if he did it in blackface. Typical Lina banter.

Our repartee continued for a few emails, when we decided to exchange pictures. He sent me his, and I immediately realized the gaff I had made.

He was black.

His email said, "This is a picture of me and my friend. I'm the one in blackface."

Oops.

But unable to stop myself, I wrote back that something seemed off about his blackface routine. Something just wasn't right.

"Oh," he wrote back. "I couldn't find any white lipstick that day."

Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

I am sick and I am dull
and I am plain
how dearly I'd love to get carried away
oh but dreams have a knack of just not coming true
and time is against me now

Who and what to blame?
anything is hard to find
when you will not open your eyes
when will you accept yourself?
for heaven's sake
anything is hard to find
when you will not open your eyes
everyday you must say
how do I feel about the past

Others conquered love - but I ran
I sat in my room and I drew up a plan
but plans can fall through as so often they do
and time is against me now

And there's no one left to blame
tell me when will you
when will you accept your life
the one that you hate?

Micah and I stayed together after I left California to go to college in New York. We talked to each other on the phone every night, and I cried and carried on as if my heart would never heal from the separation. Micah had promised to move to New York to be with me, he was just taking a little bit of time to save some money before he came. Like the dutiful teenage girlfriend that I was, I had a large framed picture of him on my desk, and looked at it mournfully many times a day. Finally though, the lesbian influence at Sarah Lawrence affected me, and I allowed myself to be convinced that Micah would never, indeed, save the money he needed to move to New York, and therefore the relationship was doomed. I broke up with him, in a tearful long-distance call. It was only later that I discovered he had married a stripper three weeks earlier and neglected to mention it to me. A year later they had the marriage annulled, on the grounds that they had been under the influence of nitrous (in the form of whipped cream canister refills) at the time of the marriage.

Our relationship officially ended when I was still 17, but I've remained friends with him for the last decade of my life. The only thing more absurd than Micah is his awareness of his own absurdity--a rare trait. When you hear him tell the story of the time he was arrested for loitering with the intent to prostitute, you can't help but think he's got a great imagination. When I was a private investigator, though, I looked up his criminal record in San Francisco and there it was in black and white. The ridiculousness of him is overwhelming. Sometimes though, it's hard for me not to wonder what my life would be like if I had never gone to so many Fang shows and just kept shopping at J. Crew as I was meant to do. You can never really quantify how a relationship affects you, but I do know that my relationship with Micah shaped who I am, both in my teen years and to the present day, more than any I've had since.

And although I love him to this day, I can't help but think that perhaps he would be better served--not to mention the girls that he dates--if he dated women closer to his own age. When I walked in and saw him last weekend, he was with his band. A couple of eighteen year olds sitting around drinking cheap beer with spiked hair and sullen expressions. One of them was named Spaz. Seriously. Micah's new girlfriend was also there, and claimed to be 18. After a few beers though, it came out that she was not quite 18 yet, and I couldn't contain my horror. "I dated him when I was 17, and that was 10 years ago!" I squawked. He gets older and they stay the same age, as the joke goes. "Age is meaningless," the girl replied, snottily. "Yeah, call me in ten years and tell me how it works out," I said, sneering. Even while wearing pearl earrings, I can still make teenagers flinch with a well-aimed look.

Later, we all went to the show together. Mary and I stood and attempted to make conversation with the girl, who was clearly incapable of it. When she saw my new Converse, she said "Lucky!" unable to contain the wistfulness in her voice. I hadn't pined over a pair of $30 sneakers like that since I was, well, 17. Micah had only formed his band eight weeks ago, and had gotten a tattoo to commemorate each month of their survival. Onstage, they were better than I had anticipated, but still slightly horrifying. Besides Micah, I might have been the oldest person in the club, which was covered in graffiti and littered in Pabst Blue Ribbon cans. Underage drinking abounded. When Micah sang, he looked as if ha was going into convulsions and turned scarlet. I whooped when he started singing a Fang song and then caught myself. "Who am I?" I wondered. And then, watching the tattooed middle-aged man on stage screaming the word "fuck" over and over, I thought, "I can't believe I lost my virginity to this guy." I looked around at the crowd of 15-year-olds that had gathered to see the show, and snickered disdainfully. "I was going to punk shows when you were still in Pampers," I thought. And sadly, if any of them had some sort of delayed development--which, judging by the audience, seemed a distinct possibility--that might actually be true.

Mary told me that Micah said to her, "Sometimes Lina looks at me like I ruined her life." I can't help it though, I look at everyone that way.

My parents are the shittiest boyfriend I've ever had.

In a cab, trying to go home. The cab driver pulls the car over, and tries to grope me. Doesn't stop until I begin crying loudly. The same night, my brother was solicited by a prostitute and punched in the face.

Snapshot of my mother:

My mother recounts a time when my brother was a child and while swimming in the ocean, had to be rescued by a lifeguard. "Max was drowning and I just swam to shore," she laughs, a little proudly. "I could only think about saving myself."

Upon arrival, I began opening drawers as many travelers do, in a search to safely store my delicates. In the back of the first drawer I encountered a pair of socks. I gingerly picked them up, and only after a moment was hit by the most remarkable stink I may have ever encountered. Keep in mind that I have worked with the homeless, and do not throw around terms like 'remarkable stink' lightly. What was so extraordinary was that such a large smell came from so small an item. I began gagging uncontrollably and shouting loudly, until my mother ran in with a garbage bag. Unwilling to keep them in the house, even in a protective plastic covering, I threw them out the window and into the Roman slum below. But the smell remained--it had transferred to my hand in some horrific noxious, cosmic joke. My sense of smell is admittedly delicate--this is one reason that I decided on my current career choice. When presented with two job offers, one in field that involves me wearing dress shirts and making powerpoint presentations and the other working with homeless teens, I chose the path of least nasal offense.

After the incident with the socks, I scrubbed a number of layers of flesh off my skin just to be certain, and thought the matter was done with. Little did I know that the socks were a portentous predictor of my trip and Rome in general. I don't understand enough about plumbing to explain it fully, but apparently there are some major differences between the American and the Italian plumbing system; allegedly there are no 'traps' here, and therefore each toilet leads directly to some general stinkhole below the city where the stinks gather and fester, and then rise back up through the pipes and back into people's houses. This seems to affect most of the population, as I've smelled this same, sewer-y smell in the streets, in stores, and even the houses of those wealthy enough to afford any number of scented candles. However, I (and perhaps my mother and brother) seem to be the only one bothered by this odiforous problem as I see a sea of calm Italian faces wherever I go, while my nose constantly twitches in the aromatic trauma of being exposed to the funk of 40,000 years. This is perhaps what is most traumatic about the situation, no one seems to realize the horror they are living in and go about their daily lives, content.

A birthday update and the ways I have tried to abate the smell through creative uses of vomit coming at you the next time I get internet access.