Magic Tricks

I thought I got dumped this weekend. Ok, dumped isn't at all the right word for it, we'd only gone on four dates. Four hot dates, in two weeks. Then he disappeared. While I hadn't yet checked my magic eight ball, all signs had pointed to 'he liked me,' until he made a classic Houdini exit. He left my house on a Friday morning and come Monday afternoon, I still hadn't yet heard from him. He gave me a hot passionate kiss before leaving and said, "see you soon." Soon? Soon does not a date make. When there is no discussion of the next meeting or at the very least your mutual agendas, it is a sure sign that he's got other things cooking and you may be simmering on back burner until he's bored or left with an unexpected free evening or perhaps you are forgotten altogether until some random day far in the future when his number has long been erased from your phone.

These days we call, email, text, im, chat, facebook, twitter, not to mention countless other ways of keeping in touch I haven't even begun to involve myself. So, when you don't hear from someone right away, you are left to think they are not interested or maybe they lost their cell and their internet service and they are vacationing in the deepest jungle all at the same time. Of course, if you don't hear from someone in three days that's like Marianne Dashwood not hearing from Wiloughby the entire time she's in London, you can be sure he's slutting around.

In this age of uber communication, does the over-availability to reach friends, acquaintances, enemies and frienmies leave us concentrating too much on the subtext? Especially since most of our exchange is done in 160 characters or less. We can find ourselves over analyzing the placement of a comma, a capital letter, the use of an article. And gawd-forbid there's an emoticon or multi exclamation marks; that will send us forwarding the message to all our contacts for immediate examination. Even Jane Austen had them twisted up over the letters they received or didn't receive, the gossip they heard and who danced or spoke with whom at the ball, but it somehow seemed more sophisticated. 

The fact that we have such extensive and immediate access to communication puts a speed and urgency on friendship and dating. We have come to expect contact will ping-pong back and forth, ever questioning when someone drops the ball. And yet, I really like that I can keep in touch with someone far away or just around the corner with a quick bleep and a blip. I enjoy the closeness that it offers and the random invitation into someone's day. I just don't like waiting for a message to appear in my inbox and then wondering about what it may or may not mean.  The unblinking light on my blackberry is surely a frowning emoticon.  In fact, maybe the next redesign of cell phones should have a light in the shape of a smiley, glowing with a yes, your friends heart you and the date you had still has you on his mind.

We have so much of an ability to contact people and so when we don't hear from someone it begs the question immediately. What are they doing? Or more to the point, who else are they doing?  Do they like me? Are they just playing it cool? The four-day rule book and tips from the movie Swingers are no longer up to date.  Only, I don't know the new rules.  But I have obsessively checked my cell to make sure it is still on and there are currently no messages. 

Monday afternoon rolls around and I receive an email from Harry. It shows interest, but passively. There's a little blahblahblah about his day and the weekend and then an obtuse line about whether I'd be into meeting up with him this week. So, he's not an escape artist yet, but he's still not showing any of his cards - no plan suggested, no date requested and I'm beginning to wonder if the magic we had has blown out. I wait a few minutes before I email back and attempt to pin him down.

A consult of the daily horoscope: proceed with caution.  At least I can still rely on astrology.

Music Review - the Hot Left

Sexy, up-and-coming rock phenoms, the Hot Left, with their mysteriously provocative name, played hard and hot, and left the audience screaming last night at Arlene's Grocery. And for your audioerotic pleasure, cds were offered as gratis with handmade drawings all featuring inspiration from the Hot Left diaries - we blushingly tried asking for explanations, but they weren't telling. We can bet you, it's as dirty as we can dream.


www.thehotleft.com

Cosmo Quiz: Can you heat it up with your guy?

I had just returned from traveling in Asia and I was craving the food, flavors and especially that spicy chili not favored by most Americans. I got excited that I might have found a little Chiang Mai here in New York when I read a blog posting titled, "Can You Take the Heat?" A local Thai restaurant was offering a challenge to finish a super spicy five-course tasting menu. Now that's something I wanted to take on.

N and I had gone on seven or eight dates at this point. We matched wit well and kept a good-natured raillery between us. We'd been playing Scrabulous obsessively on Facebook, each outdoing the other with word and score. So, I sent him an email, "Re: Are you Game?" with the link to the posting.

We met up at the restaurant Saturday night and as the waiter sat us I was able to show off a bit, "Sawadee Ka!" A perfectly inflected Thai hello. We ordered Singha and the fiery palate-numbing tasting menu. Throughout the meal, we were attended by each of the waiters and waitresses on duty. They were all Thai and quick tell us they were impressed and that they couldn't handle that amount of spice. I would concede it delivered in being hotter than most American-Thai offerings, but none of the dishes were like the fried fish with chili sauce I ate on the house boat on the River Kwai; my only recourse that night was sucking palm sugar to finally resume a normal breathing pattern. At the same time, we ate five courses all focused on chili, spice and heat merely accented by a few other ingredients. Our taste buds were definitely going to need a little time to heal from the onslaught of spice.

By finishing the meal, we won our prize, a dinner for two at the chef's newest restaurant opening. Basking in the heat and our championship, we had a celebratory drink at the bar around the corner and then took a cab to my house. I'd been to his house several times at this point, but it was the first time N crossed the East River to mine.

Now I live in a typical New York studio. It's adorable, the location is perfect and the major selling point for me is the deck. But as with all 'cozy' apartments, the space can be bruise-inducing - it's taken me five years to get the furniture layout just right, I will never be able to pee siting straight forward for there is a vanity in the way and the location of my bicycle will always cause agra. Add a 6'3" man into the space and immediately the age old adage, size does matter, comes into play.

My living room and bedroom are one and the same, which always bothers me when I have a few friends over for dinner, but if you've invited over the guy you are seeing after a date, there's no question where you want to end up anyway. And we did.

In the morning we were lying in bed, messing around. At some point I slipped away and headed to the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth. A little later N followed suit and tread the three steps (for him) from my bed to the bathroom. I was still snuggled in bed with a heavy-lidded glow when he appeared back next to me and asked, "Do you have any headphones?" What?
"You want to listen to some music?"
"No, I want you to listen to some music." Strange request.
"Huh?"
"Your bathroom is...last night's dinner...my stomach...I, I don't want you to hear..." Lightbulb. Ohhh. Oh my god, we're still too early in this relationship to deal with bodily functions.

And suddenly I remember this article I read over fifteen years ago in Cosmo about what a girl should do the morning after a guy stays over. Cosmo said guys typically need a little private time in the morning and that the best thing you could do was to give them an opportunity to take care of business. They suggested to run out, get coffee and pick up a paper for the two of you. At the time I read this article, I was in early high school and was not sleeping with anyone, much less having guys stay the night, but for some reason the advice had always stuck with me. Somehow it seemed a little silly and contrived and never in the years post-virginity had I found any use for their Barbie-and-Ken advice for the morning after. But here I was being asked for headphones and Cosmo now seemed to offer a much better solution.

I popped up, "Actually, I think I'm going to run to the store, grab some breakfast for us and a paper. I'll be back in a little bit." I threw some clothes on quickly and headed out the door. I didn't know how long I should be gone, Cosmo didn't tell me that. Or, if they did, I had long forgot that detail. So I roamed. It was a chilly winter Sunday morning and still quite early. The streets were quiet and peaceful. When I returned with more than enough breakfast choices and a paper that was never read, N was tucked under the covers waiting for me, tummy settled.
"I didn't know where you were, so I climbed back in bed."
"I got a paper and some stuff to make a shake."
"I was going to light a candle, but I couldn't find any matches. I found lots of candles." Note to self: put matches in the bathroom, buy this month's Cosmo and the next time I decide to take on the spicy food challenge do it with someone that won't be coming home with me.