Sexually Speaking, You Are On Zee Air!

Man, I used to listen to Dr. Ruth when I could...her little voice would crack me up and I was always so amazed at how this little old lady could sit back and talk about sex like it was a cake recipe and all you needed to do was add the butter. I don't know what made me think of her this morning (because I know my online friends on this blog are mostly just waking up except for maybe Kat, since she's out here now) except for the problem that I'm having...I have no sex drive. None. At all. All desire to be with anyone went out the window. My mother attributes it to the fact that I am always busy at the library; I have taken to staying there even when I am not on duty. I don't want to go home. I think I must be depressed, since being alone watching TV or reading makes me feel like a social misfit as of late.

I went to two different clubs this past month, one of them at least three or four times, where some of my old lovers frequent for drinks, and I often have to remind friends that I don't ski anymore...funny how they have the ability to remember if you owe them money or if you said you would get them tickets backstage to a certain performer, but you tell them that you don't do drugs anymore (or, at least, the hard ones) and they act as if its a revelation.

Last night:

Cory scoots into the booth with me and a few people we know, her tank top low and the Queen of Hearts tattoo on her shoulder looking ghostly and trippy in the lighting of the bar. I can smell bourbon on her breath and peppermint gum as she crams in closer to me, allowing room for at least five more people into the booth which is really meant for only four. I feel her hand between my thighs, and I look at her with a question, to which she only smiles and turns her head to talk to our friend Zack. Her ears are pierced in several places and she is 12 years younger than me. Her hand, and what it starts to do, would normally be enough to get me excited and eager to pull her with me out of the bar and back to my apartment...but I feel nothing tonight. I have a beer and gently run my hand across her back and rub her shoulder, in a spot I know she often has pain. I feel bad, if she is intending for us to hook up later, but I just want to hang out tonight with everyone so I don't have to be alone.

But I want to go home alone. I won't be into it if we leave together, and although I'd be happy to please her, my mind will be on a vacation. I want company, not sex, and she only wants sex. So...therein lies our problem.

After a while, she removes her hand playfully, and gets up to put quarters in the jukebox. Somebody has been playing Michael Jackson for over an hour, and she announces she will add to the Motown groove. We all say cheers to Pride, cheers to Michael Jackson, cheers to Farrah...She grabs my hand and drags me to the player, and asks what she should play. I give a few suggestions, and kiss her forehead, and tell her I am going home, pleading an early day today. She looks a bit hurt, and I tell her that I have not been well lately...but run my hand over her ass and let her know that she is lovely. She is, but sex is too much effort for me right now.

Then, I leave.

I try yoga, my body betraying me in ways that I had not foreseen; how does one truly foresee getting older? We all think we're 25 when we're approaching 50. I cry, quietly, wondering why my body is devoid of feeling when my heart is not, why I turned down a lovely woman yet again (and two lovely men during the month) when I could have had them, and sob. Then, after a while, I smile at the thought that I only had one beer at the bar. At least I am in control of some things now in my life.

Booze, Drugs, One Night Stands: It's What's For Dinner

So I'm standing in line at the bank yesterday morning, nursing a mild hangover, and I'm really absorbed in the program on the little television that they have hung over the teller's station; I realize that although they never have anything really good on, it's a nice way to placate the masses so they don't have a riot in the middle of the exchange of money and crappy muzak versions of "The Girl From Ipanema" that are floating in the lobby.

It suddenly occurs to me that I'm really into this program; it happens to be some really badly done cartoon, but I'm watching it like it's Casablanca. That's what happens when you do three bong hits when you wake up after a night of Jack n' Coke. I'm mildly aware that the only people in the room as absorbed in this engaging program as me are all under the age of five. We're all very similar; we're drooling, wide-eyed (mine are bloodshot, however) and oblivious to the fact that this is a moving line.

"Uh, excuse me, they called next like three times," a hipster behind me tries to sound as polite as possible despite the fact that it wasn't in her contract for her trust fund. I giggle, cough, and walk up to the teller and make my transaction, finding out that I have about $500 less in my account than I thought I did. Yet another thing to worry about. I also started smoking cigarettes again - not seriously, just a couple over the last few days, but now I have a jones for it, so I'll have to try to ignore it.

My brain then travels to the last 24 hours. Due to a myriad of reasons, there was a lot of alcohol, drugs, merriment, and revelry over the last several days in fact; but it culminated in my waking up on a Saturday next to someone whom I had to think twice about what their name was. I still don't know his last name; something that started with the first letter of his first name, which was...Steve? Oh, Christ. I have to ask myself: how the HELL did this happen?

Sure, I'm in my 30's, and any self-respecting (or not, as the case may be) woman has a couple of one-night-stands under her belt, mostly from her days at college where she found her legs pinned behind her ears like Bugs Bunny more often than not. Then again, the same thing could be said for a gal in her 30's, considering what our sex drives go through the freaking roof. Nobody told me I would be hornier in this decade than the last to THIS extent. I thought "yeah, yeah, sexual peak, whatever," but I had NO idea that I would practically be humping people's legs everywhere I go.

So back to this one-night-stand. Sigh. I won't go into details, they aren't that memorable, but what is memorable is the way that I felt this morning; like a jack-ass. AHA! I thought, as I rolled over and realized that 1) I didn't even know this guy and 2) We weren't going to exchange numbers -- now I know why I haven't done anything like this since college! Why? Because you feel kinda shitty. I'll tell you, I've had sex with more than one man in a day; with several men in a week; it all was on my terms and I felt fine with it...sure, we've all had lousy lays and people that we look back on and wish maybe we would have thought twice about, but for the most part I've enjoyed my swinging pendulum between monogamy with the right person and absolute abandoned sexual revolution.

But this experience left me feeling...used. That's really the only word for it. At least the sex was relatively okay, but being hungover bigger than shit didn't help with that "oh-so-fresh" feeling this morning. His attitude really made it the worst, though; I've had sexual partners with whom we never really hit it off, but there was some semblance of respect to some degree...and this guy was like "UH. Thanks - how do I get out of here?"

I just hope that somewhere, he has a really bad hangover and gets stuck in an elevator with screaming children and a man with really bad gas. And they're playing a bad Muzak version of "Every Breath You Take." Yeah...that's probably a rung of inferno that would be good enough.