From Black & White to Technicolor

       I took a walk to the other side of the encyclopedia, as Tori Amos would say.  She wrote this song, “Cornflake Girl” years ago and I’ve always loved it.  Then I saw the video where at the end these amazing women put a hot stud into a huge pot of water on a fire, cannibal style, and dance around him while he whittles a carrot into his bath/stew water.  It loses something in translation, but Youtube it;  I bet you’ll like it, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Eiv7H9XQRY

     Anyway, back to my walk.  I live in a black and white world, mostly, punctuated here and there with transcendent moments of laughter, bliss and fun.  When I get home from the job I mostly like, I walk my dog, put on the TV, blaze a while and then go to bed to do it all over again. 

      On days off I wake up at 11,  take a hot bath and luxuriate in it.  Then it’s clothes cleaning and dog cleaning and house cleaning and daytime TV court shows!  Once in a blue moon I’ll go out for a beer with my friend/ ex-lover and at least once a week I go find Sammy, my best 7 year old friend, and we play video games or he reads and talks to me about his current obsessions which right now are Skylander video games and Pokemon cards. 

     From time to time my huge, raucous family gets together and I go into this silly cocoon with my sisters where we dish, snark, throw around in-jokes and laugh way too loud for public.  No one but the sisters are included and the in-law guys shuffle around the periphery being ignored and talking about boats to each other.

         It’s not a horrible life, but it’s lonely.  It's kind of black and white, but when you live in that world for a while, you forget there's any such thing as a Technicolor world.

     Enter Jodi.  From the first time we talked I’ve been wildly attracted to her.  It wouldn’t be that unusual, except it is for me because I haven’t been remotely attracted to anyone for about the last decade.  It’s like that part of me shut down after a bad experience of two with lovers, and over time it’s bothered me less and less.  At least on a conscious level.  But I know I want more.  I want to connect with someone who challenges me to be more, exposes me to new ideas, and attracts me on way more than just one level. 

     And Jodi sure seems to fit that description.  She says what she thinks and touts herself as someone who doesn’t play games.  She’s honest to a fault, even when it doesn’t advance her agenda.  She's brilliant, with a photographic mind for what she reads and a photographic ear for all she hears.  She’s completely dedicated to the care and feeding of a pair of daughters she would kill or die for.  She’s incredibly sexy and brash and funny and when she laughs hard her whole body gets in on it.  And she laughs a lot.  She has integrity, except when she does not.  She is unapologetic and seems impervious to criticism.  Jodi is pretty close to perfect and I started out in awe of her.  Now it’s been a month of hanging out daily and it’s time to stop and catch my breath.

    I feel in love with her.  I think about her a lot, even when I’m trying not to.  I want to be wherever she is.

       I want to smell her jacket because that’s as close as I can get to her because she can’t stand my touch.  It’s nothing personal, she says.  But being touched or hugged or kissed makes her queasy.  I’m starving for her to touch me and let me touch her or hold her, but I’m not going to push her, ever.  That fact doesn’t mean sex is ruled out, somehow, but she can’t be my lover the way I currently and historically have defined the word. 

    So here I am, knowing better and still holding out hope.

    It’s kind of the worst of both worlds. But somehow it rolls off me and I still want to be near her. 

    She also bitches a lot, about anything and everything.  She rails at traffic, drivers, her kids, anyone she deems a “retard” for any reason.  She bitches at me, she bitches at her sinus congestion, she bitches that the weather is too cold or too hot.  Jodi does not believe in pent-up emotion.  She likes to un-pent hers often and in every direction except toward her 112 lb pitbull who she adores. 

     But I don't think she adores me.  If fact, sometimes I think she barely tolerates me.  I fell right into it with her; instant, strong attraction like I’ve rarely ever felt.  As for the way she thinks and feels about me, she’s  told me,  “I like your company,” and “I’m fond of you,” but she’s also called me contradictory, accused me of being a game player, called me a liar (but only when I was lying) and issued all kinds of ultimatums about what’ll happen if I don’t shape up. 

     She’s issued decrees telling me, “I’m done” where we’re concerned (not that there is any real “we” except in my head) then tried to gaslight me when I called her on it, saying, “I didn’t imply done forever; that was just you reading into it…”   

    In short, I’m pretty much screwed, and not in the good way.  Maybe the attraction will pass, but I don’t know if I want it to.  Probably I’m an idiot, but at least I feel alive for a little while. Here's to Technicolor Blindness.