Saturday, April 28, 2007

Ouvrez ouvrez la cage aux oiseauuuux

Suitcase, check. Passport, check. Foreign currency, check. Plane tickets. Plane tickets?

I find them scattered in my left drawer. I look at the dates again, as if to make sure nothing has changed since I last looked 20 minutes ago. Flight AF019, from JFK to CDG. I have, had, 1 hour left.
In a moment I will go up to my unfinished rooftop above my Brooklyn apartment, take a deep breath and gaze at my empty Air France seat fly away in the horizon. Tonight, I will watch the plane take other passengers to the City of Lights. Then I will climb down the precarious emergency ladder and search in the fridge for an answer.

The answer is quite simple though: I booked a trip home to Paris, my boss booked a trip home to NY. At the "War" game, the King beat my Queen and I lost my plane ticket in the battle; I will stay here to attend to his Highness.
As most of you might not know since I only brag about my Ô so entertaining social life, I do spend quite a few hours a day dealing with matters only remotely related to sexual intercourse: I too have a job. (I will briefly admit here that I am the vile servant of an acclaimed artist who likes his loft clean and his subjects silent. Needless to say that even Yenta has plotted better matches.)

As a preemptive gesture, I put the plane tickets back in the drawer and accepted an invitation for tonight's wild party in Harlem. The fiesta promises to be one of these bday bash that should keep me hangover -and therefore quiet- for at least the duration of my boss' stay. In the meantime, I will call Sam to spread the "good news" and cry myself to sleep using that new long distance phone plan of mine.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Aphone Sex

My close friend Van' was leaving on a business trip to sunny Panama, and jokingly suggested the World Wide Web as a substitute for my ever growing need of motherly love. Within 5 hours after her departure, I was online on the website she had suggested and offered my A.D.D need for attention and care to the first stranger who had taken interest in my almost empty/photo-free profile. Two weeks later, my phone bill was on its way to vie with the French social security debt thanks to one click of the mouse.

My new phonepal -yes, I gave my cell number to a total stranger. Sue me- lives far away from Brooklyn -in France- because getting along so well would mean too much if we could actually stop playing tea and go out for real coffee. Oblivious of that "detail," we would voice everything and nothing for hours in the evening, until it would get so late that I could gradually feel dawn light up another day through his windows. Our long wired encounters also provided us with the forced decision to alternatively miss the wake-up call to work. I had not only pulverized my phone bill; I also became very good at imagining lame stories for showing up to the office 2 hours past the inexcusable. As for him, I later found out that he never worked before 6pm... -but since he was the one staying on the phone until 4 or 5am, I guess that evened things out a bit.

Sam, since this is his non-pseudo name, is a nice guy and, according to his picture, a 6'2 feet sun-tanned blue eyed tennis teacher who would make any story start like a bad Club Med prank. But I didn't care: with him I was temporarily escaping the "J" debacle, listening to his own promiscuous misfortunes while waiting on the couch for my friend to return. Life on the phone had no real drama to offer and everyone was pleased to see me quiet for a change.

But Van' eventually came back, and the phone kept ringing. 3 weeks in the process and hanging up from a 2.30 hour conversation, I felt I had somehow included the recurrent talks in my daily routine: get up, shower, eat, work, eat, work, go home, eat, talk to Sam, go to bed.

Wednesday before last, it probably hit him that the likelihood of us spending chat time towards some balance for sex time was as close to zero as this improbable freezing weather, and his msn avatar remained in the red. For an interminable 4 days, I stayed put and started to blame myself for talking to strangers, giving too much to fast –intellectually, that is. I was experiencing the Post-coitum blues of a phone sex that had never taken place. Aphone sex in the city (or so I concluded, and started yet another self pitying entry. )

Then I got sick. Hallucinating things sick. And the higher my fever got, the less likely I was to get my phone fix if I couldn't even go online to signify my presence. Then he called, without any warning. And from then on he would check-in up to 3 times a day to see if I was still feeling ill, if I had gone to a doctor, and how cute exactly were the imaginary people in my living room. With that last joke we also officially became long distance buddys who had never met, just like these far-away penpals in elementary school: one had been designated among millions to become your friend, and with the help of a blurry picture and respective broken languages it was our duty to learn how to make it happen.

Today saw our first month anniversary. I changed my phone plan to one more suitable to my new usage and hang up after a record of 2h48 min on the phone. He still sleeps around more often than they are available nights, (swearing that he will keep doing so until he finds again someone who will make him want to stop.) And on my table lays the remains of a home-sick driven fever: a plane ticket to Paris (via Barcelona) for the end of the month. Mom, dad, Sam, here I come.