June 2006 Archives

Aimlessly wandering around the miles long parking lot in business attire and heels while being pounded by the blazing California sun makes one, even a grown woman, reflect. Being Lina, my mind drifts to the ghosts of boyfriends past. I'm not sure what it was about the situation, perhaps the large amounts of dust I was inhaling had some sort of psychotropic effect or maybe I was just so enraged with myself for losing the car that I had to take it out on someone, if only the men of the world.

So many of the boys I go out with read this site--I've often speculated that my only readers are family members and dating victims that aren't on speaking terms with me--that I often don't include what should, and would, be my best material. Of course this leaves me feeling oppressed and with a deep sense of frustration. Why shouldn't I write about the painfully awkward things these boys do? What, really, do I owe them?

I'm not talking about anything big. The things that bother me most about the men that I date are the tiny, painful instances of awkwardness that make me release a grimace of a smile, like a dog baring its teeth, in my attempts not to openly cringe. I usually close my eye for a second and try to compose myself. I open them again, stare blankly ahead, and adopt a fake smile as quickly as possible. I can't say anything, after all; I'm too critical. Seriously stupid behavior doesn't bother me as much as these small acts of pretension gone awry that make my skin prickle and my fists clench.

Recently, I went on a date to see the newest Lindsey Lohan movie. The movie is about how this girl has good luck and some dude has bad luck and when they make out, they trade and their luck switches. Typical teen fare. I hadn't yet formed any strong feelings about the fellow sitting next to me until he started making grunts of derision at the film. "That would so never happen," he declared in a loud whisper more than one. "That's not realistic," he claimed while Lindsay frantically tried to reclaim her good luck. It was so painful as to be unbearable. Of course it was unrealistic, it was an effing Lindsay Lohan movie for gods sake. Finally, I leaned over and hissed, "Suspend your fucking disbelief, could you?"

My tolerance for pretension of any kind is shockingly low. Art is often a catalyst. I've never been so embarrassed as to hear these boys that I generally (or at least sometimes) respect talk about art, especially their own. I used to have a boyfriend who was as pretentious as he was low-class. He bought an expensive camera and began taking pictures, mainly of his friends, which I approved of, and of his shoes, artfully formed rocks, and people's eyelashes, which I did not. He bought an expensive journal cum photo album and began pasting his more creative works in it. He then cut letters out of the metrosexual magazines he subscribed to and embossed the cover of his album, in the style of a ransom note, with the words, 'Fuck you it's art!'

My reaction was visceral. I vomited a small amount into my mouth, swallowed it again, and closed my eyes. A moment later I opened them, flashed some teeth and artificial smile and said, "Good idea. Can we go out to dinner now?"

Tomorrow I am going to LA. In July I am going to Miami, and possibly New York. In September I am going to New York and Spain and Portugal. I'm a very busy girl, and yet, still the same.

This time, though, I didn't stay in a tiny, dirty shithole where I would feel intellectually superior to my lower-class fellow men staying in resorts. This time, I stayed in a hotel with air conditioning and three pools. I got my version of a tan--a large number of freckles on my shoulders that began to blend together and a burnt nose. My legs, luckily, remain pasty white.

I met a sweet Mexican boy in a club, seven years my junior, who claimed to be on hallucinogenics. He pulled out a cigarette and started flicking drops of water onto it until it was nearly soaked. I asked him what he was doing.

"It lasts longer this way," he explained. "I learned it in jail." I asked what he was in jail for. Stealing a truck, it turned out. And having marijuana on him at the time. The final blow was, he told me, when he beat up a police officer.

"Why did you do that?" I asked.

"He was kicking my..." The boy struggled for the correct word. "He kicked my puppy. My dog? No, he kicked my puppy." He smiled, glad to have properly conveyed his love for his puppy.

A few days after getting back from Mexico, I went on a business trip to LA. This was very exciting as I got a rental car with power windows and locks, and got to hit the LA freeways ala Clueless. I also got to see some old friends and talk smack about other old friends. I stayed at a loud hipster hotel that is notable only for the fact that they have a naked model lounging in a glass box behind the reception desk. When I checked in, she was listening to her ipod. If I wanted to see a chick in her underwear lazing around looking disaffected, I'd check out a mirror on any given weekend.

The hotel was filled with overly tan hipsters of all ages, clearly abusers of both children and cocaine. Bleached teeth (and probably assholes) were everywhere. Not long after checking in, I lay in bed, cursing youth. The pounding music in the club downstairs was shaking my room, and penetrating my earplugs. My hatred for hipsters grew by the second. By midnight, I became the woman that called the front desk begging that the bass be turned down. I had to wake up early, after all. It's official now, I've gotten old.