Do you know what happens when you go on about how 2016 is your year for good skin and start investing money and a little more time in regimens (lol regimens)? You end up with the biggest zit of your life right in the middle of your cheek. I’m not convinced this isn’t a cyst or possibly a budding tumor. (I know it’s hard to believe, but I wake up like this.)
So, this is February.
This week I started having inexplicable scent and taste memories, which have never been natural to me. Like you hear people, food people in particular, describing a wine enjoyed decades ago or the scent of their blessed nonna’s marinara bubbling on the stove and I struggle to capture such sensory details. (I do have a distinct memory of wet dog/Juicy Fruit gum/cigarettes from hanging out at my grandparents’ manufactured home in Sandy, Oregon.)
While walking in the West Village a few nights ago I thought of Fendi, my high school perfume, mixed with cigarette smoke, hanging in the crisp air with a backbone of damp cement. I spent an inordinate of time just sitting around outside on stone benches downtown Portland in the late ‘80s. God, there is a tiny part of me that wants to wear Fendi now instead of the occasional fanciful Serge Lutens scent.
And for no reason, while sitting at my office desk, I was blasted with the thought of a white pie from Pizza Oasis (r.i.p.) topped with artichoke hearts and sun-dried tomatoes, sweet and acidic with a creamy base and toasty undercurrent, a combo that seemed really sophisticated in the early ‘90s despite both those ingredients being pretty 1980s elsewhere.
* * *
One of the benefits of having a relationship with a fellow stalker, even if long distance, is that they can tell you that they used to read your personal blog long after you lost touch and it’s not creepy in the least. In fact, it’s pretty sweet. I was told last night that this person had found himself mentioned over a decade ago in reference to my looking him up on Friendster, which I did not remember at all. This isn’t the reference I was alluding to in the previous post about explaining why he was the male me. That seems to be gone into the ether, but the Friendster keyword did turn up the 10/5/05 evidence. (Just scroll–I don’t even remember my Tripod password to go in and add an anchor tag. And for the love of God, would someone help me get that site that I’m still paying $8.95 a month for migrated to something less ridiculous.)
Wow, ok. The more time that passes, the more I’m glad that I used to document so much of my daily foibles. I’m too guarded and mature now. I used to name a lot of names. There is a lot packed into that decade-old post. I was just talking about the teenage semi-date-raper the other night, as well as my college obsession that I looked up a year or so ago and found out he’d recently died.
Most importantly, though, was my reiterating the criteria for knowing someone was the one for me. It was a most basic formula developed in the ‘90s that held in 2005 and serves me well today. Do they make you laugh? And do you want to touch them? That’s it. The rarity of this in my experience has been baffling.
In October 2005, my conundrum:
Do people like to date themselves? I don’t actually think so. In theory, it sounds good because you’d always get each other, but who says you’d be attracted to yourself. Like neither of us had that urge, at least I don’t think so, but we got along really well. You know people where you can just talk and talk and you get all the jokes, you’re coming from the same place and same background… It’s kind of rare, or maybe it’s just lacking in NYC. I can’t think of anyone I’ve met since moving here that fits that description…It’s weird that I value that easy conversation, funny as heck type, but have never ever dated guys like that at all.
In October 2005, my conclusion:
I then looked on Friendster to see if we had friends in common, and this message appeared “There is no direct connection between you and Chris.” It kind of summed things up. I don’t think you’re supposed to be with the mirror image of yourself.
Huh. And now I can’t wait to see what nonsense I’ll be spouting in June 2027.