Dating like a grown-up

I'm feeling good about my dating life lately. Not that anything terribly exciting is happening; it's still rare for me to get to a third date, and I seem to have dates with an endless parade of men named either Matt or Dave. (Last week I had four dates, out of which 75% were named either Matt or Dave.  Can't anyone get a bit more creative with the names?) They're smart, interesting men, and I have fun with them, but it's hard to feel like I have skin in the game with any of them.

In the past, the men I've been seriously interested in I've liked instantly. It took me all of five hours to fall hopelessly in love with l'Artista (and there were no words exchanged during that time, since I spoke no Italian and he no English), and I became smitten with La Moustache the second time I met him. I was even quite taken with Dreamy on our first few dates, strange as that now seems. But these days it's hard to imagine that happening. I have a career, and a craft business on the side, and a million other things going on. I'm not sure I have it in me to meet someone and have them become the immediate focus of my attention (though if I have gleaned one rule about dating from my experiences, it's to never make predictions because you NEVER know what will happen).

There are a lot of positive aspects of not having skin in the game. For starters, I am finding it much easier to put myself out there. So, last night I was able to tell my date flirtatiously, just before I raced out the door to meet Slinky, "We should have a proper date next time!" My date eagerly agreed, but the next morning I thought back to the part of our date when he showed me about 30 photos of his cat and wondered if I had made a mistake. Last weekend, after a few glasses of wine, I walked up to a Bavarian-looking mountain man in a green vest and said, "I liked your moves on the dance floor." I started to walk away, but he was excited to find himself talking to a cute blond girl and stopped my progress. He didn't end up asking for my number, and I was fine with that; I knew he wanted to and probably kicked himself that he hadn't. And the other day I told Pottery Crush, who I've been sitting across from every Wednesday night for the past 1.5 years and somehow just noticed recently that a) he exists and b) he's a cute, single guy, that we should check out a concert together sometime. We also talked about getting together for some glaze firings... HOT!! (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

So even though I'm not feeling particularly excited about anyone, there are plenty of eligible bachelors out there. I'm not planning to get invested in any of them for a while. But I am looking forward to a sledding date later this weekend with 95%, a man who seemed so good on paper that I fully expected to feel an immediate connection with him when I met him. I didn't, but I'm going to keep going out with him and see if a connection starts to develop, because I think he's a good egg with a lot of potential. And maybe it's time to stop expecting to find someone who'll make me feel like a teenager, seeing as how it's been a decade and a half since I was one.

'Tis the season for exes to come crawling out of the woodwork

It's that time of year when people take stock of their lives, feel lonely, get sentimental, and contact their long-lost loves. I've seen signs of it all over the place, from my roommate mentioning over breakfast that she'd written a boyfriend she's barely spoken to in two years to headlines in Love Letters like Should she reach out to an ex over the holidays? and Contacting a old love [sic].

Some people do it well, like l'Artista, who sent me a sweet note telling me he's been thinking about me a lot lately. These people express their emotions without letting themselves get carried away by them. Other people do it poorly, such as Leif Ericson, who sent me an impersonal, self-serving, AA-style apology note. Six months after the fact, it was utterly unnecessary, and left me feeling that any connection I ever felt to him was imagined. I didn't reply; or maybe I did. (Gmail is giving me mixed messages about whether or not the reply I crafted was ever sent. But it's the thought that counts, and I didn't *mean* to reply.)

I also got an unexpected message from a long-lost date who I never thought I'd hear from again. (I'm a little bit hesitant to link to old posts about him, because I didn't say anything very positive about him and I want to keep an open mind. But what the hell.) He asked me to give him a second chance. I felt ambivalent about it and wasn't sure how to respond, so I asked some friends what they thought I should do. You know when you get the same exact advice from two of your very best advice-givers that it is really quality advice, so I followed it and requested that he provide me with a reason why I should go out with him again. He replied,

Hi Heathen, In the spring what happened was that I started seeing another girl more seriously right around the time when we went out. I agree I screwed up and should have been more straightforward with you and told you what was going on. I regret and and I'm sorry I ruined your Friday night. 

I think you should give me another chance because I thought we had a really good first date, because I think you're very smart and interesting, because on our date I made you laugh (a lot, as I recall), because I think we have a lot in common, because I think you're cute, because I want to talk more about education policy and French things with you, and because I'd like to spend more time with you. That's more than one reason, but I think they're all good. Have I persuaded you?

Man-sprout

I was charmed by this (I like nothing more than a man who likes me!), plus I remembered that he introduced me to one of my favorite music videos of all time, so I agreed. Time will tell if I live to regret this decision -- unless the world ends tonight, of course.

Dating, Italian-style

"Tell me about your most recent date," said my date last night, a blond, blue-eyed Mediterranean whose coloring, if not his sharp southern Italian esses, contrasts sharply with l'Artista's.

"D'accordo," I said, "although I have to warn you, it's not going to be a very interesting story. We met up for dinner last week after my sister's annual Christmas cookie-baking party. I brought along a few of the cookies we baked, so we had those for dessert. We talked a lot about New York since we both lived there for a long time. He was nice, but I wasn't feeling it."

I paused for a moment, then added, "How about you? Tell me about your most recent date."

"I haven't had any," he replied. "I hate dating, American-style. I know all the rules, and I hate them. But tell me, how come you didn't bring cookies on our date??"

"I'm sorry,"I told him, "I should have. But I do have a quiche in the car if you want some."

The date ended with us standing by my car, eating my half-frozen quiche, him pretending to enjoy it even though I had warned him it wasn't the most delicious thing I had ever made. And I thought, I sure do like Italians.

Lucio Battisti: one of many Italians I love.

How about we compromise and all vote Democrat?

I wasn't too worried about the election on Tuesday. Two men were responsible for my complacency: Nate Silver (who reassured me on November 2nd that "If the state polls are right, then Mr. Obama will win the Electoral College. If you can't acknowledge that after a day when Mr. Obama leads 19 out of 20 swing-state polls, then you should abandon the pretense that you goal is to inform rather than entertain the public.") and my Italian ex-boyfriend, l'Artista. 

When I spoke with l'Artista on Hurricane Sandy Day, 8 days before the election, he said, "Of course Obama's going to win! Don't waste your time worrying about it. That would be crazy if he didn't." My eccentric college roommate used to tease me for thinking that l'Artista knows everything, and I guess part of me still trusts him irrationally. I'm glad to say that, in this case, I was right to. 

After listening to This American Life's "Red State/Blue State" episode, which argued that our country is becoming increasingly politically divided and that we don't listen to each other because we are so certain we are correct in our beliefs, I am determined to try to reach out and bridge some of those divides. Only, there's one problem: I am completely, irrevocably convinced that I am right and they are wrong. There may be some arguments they are making that I could at least listen to, but there's just no way I can understand, empathize with, or give any credibility to a party that opposes gay marriage, uses the environment as a punch line, disrespects women, and wishes minorities would stay a small percentage of the U.S. population or at least stop voting. 

It often feels like Red State America is far, far away, and I don't need to worry about it in my day-to-day life. In my state, not a single county went red, and in my school's election -- in which I voted twice -- it was a landslide for Obama. Granted, these are five and six year olds, but they sure were excited about Obama's victory. 

Sometimes those Red Staters are closer than they appear, though. On Wednesday, one of my co-workers mentioned to me in passing that she sympathized with a little girl in her class, a staunch Scott Brown supporter who wrote him in as her choice for President. I thought my smile and quick escape were enough to send the message that I was not on the same page, but apparently not. Later in the day, as she dismantled her election display, she brought me a gift: a photo of Mitt Romney. "So sad!" she said, smiling, as she handed it to me. 

In my effort to reach out to Red State America, I have not ripped up the photo and thrown it in the trash. Instead, it sits upside-down beneath a giant mound of papers while I ponder what the heck to do with it. 

Packing up, moving on

This weekend, my friend M went off to work a craft fair out on the Cape. She crashed at the house of a friend of Leif's who she met a few weeks ago when we were both there for the weekend; at the time, he generously offered her his spare bedroom when she mentioned she'd be coming back. He also said she'd be welcome to bring a friend, so she told me I could tag along.

I was tempted. So much so that I seriously considered it, despite how impractical the timing is -- I'm in the midst of packing up my apartment and moving. I might have gone for it, too, except that I wasn't sure a) how Leif would feel about it (I texted him to say I was thinking of going, and by the time he got back to me to say he felt fine about it it was too late) and b) what my real motives were in wanting so much to go. Not that I was wanting to be all stalker-y and try to get to Leif through his friend, but I've been enjoying how carefree and fun this summer has been, thanks in large part to Leif, and I wanted to extend that/recreate it a little bit.

Leif is good people, and I might like to be friends with him eventually. I would definitely like to be friends with his friend on the Cape, provided it didn't feel to Leif like I'm stepping on his toes. But I've learned that the only way to have a healthy friendship with an ex (if such a thing is possible at all) is for it to happen when you don't care so much anymore. The intensity of my feeling of wanting to go to the Cape was a red flag for me, letting me know that I'm not ready to have that kind of contact -- even though it's not even Leif himself, just his friend.

Back when Dreamy and I broke up, he felt the same intense desire to be friends with me. He told me, "All I want is to be good friends, the way you are with l'Artista" -- one of the most ironic statements I've ever heard. It's true that l'Artista and I talk, and that we care about each other. But we had little communication for a solid three years after our breakup. And it would be a stretch to describe our friendship as platonic -- when we talk, he invariably slips up and calls me "amore"; when I was in Italy last summer, I became irrationally upset when he refused to invite me as his guest to a wedding he was attending. He described seeing me again, after six years, as being like a bomb exploding -- not exactly the foundation for a healthy, comfortable friendship.

L'Artista and I want to be in each others' lives despite this tension, because we care about each other and are an important part of each others' history. Since that's far from the case with Leif, I doubt we'll actually become friends or stay in touch. Nonetheless, it comforts me to think that it could happen when I have to stay home on a rainy Saturday night filling boxes rather than watching the stars and eating fresh fish on the Cape.

Sometimes even when you know you're in the cocoon of denial it can be a huge comfort. And on that note, it's time for me to face reality and get back to my packing.

The Fickle-o-meter

In a few days, Dreamy is taking off for New York for his year-long job. This leaves me pondering the same question I've been trying to get to the bottom of for months: Is he my future husband? Because if he is, then a year of long-distance is just a blip on the screen. And if not, it's a colossal waste of time.

I was hoping that things would become clearer over the past three months, since we started co-habiting in June. The problem is, my feelings about Dreamy have fluctuated crazily during that time. A trip to Italy involving a visit with my ex, l'Artista, made me feel for weeks afterward that I don't feel as connected to Dreamy as I once did to l'Artista. But then Dreamy was sweet, supportive and an amazing dancer during my sister's wedding, even though I had told him two days before it that I didn't see our relationship lasting past the summer. We bonded while ziplining and feeding hummingbirds during our Costa Rican vacation. Nose surgery in July that involved four days of nostril tampons made me feel a strange mixture of tenderness and revulsion. And last Sunday, as he stroked my hair while I puked following a few too many vodka shots, I felt sure he was the one.

Somehow, even though I may have felt totally differently five minutes earlier, I always feel convinced that what I'm feeling in that particular moment is a true reflection of how I really feel deep down about Dreamy. I've finally decided that to get to the bottom of this I need to start keeping records, à la my Man List. So I'm starting a new document on my computer (top-secret with a fake, boring name, of course) in which I'll keep track of how I'm feeling about Dreamy every day. I'll write a few notes as well as rate my feelings on a score from 1 to 10. I'm calling it the Fickle-o-meter because I've never felt so fickle in all my life, even when I was two and got kicked out of the candy store because I couldn't choose which candy to buy.

The crazy thing is that between when I first came up with the idea during my bike ride home and now, two hours later, Dreamy's score for today has somehow skyrocketed from a 6 to an 8, even though I haven't seen him during that time or had any communication with him. Talk about fickle! I guess I'll have to wait until after our date tonight to finalize his score for the day.

Incontro in Toscana

Last Wednesday, I left the villa we were staying at in a tiny town in Tuscany and set out on foot. I veered right at the vineyard, down a steep hill, and up again into the old half of the town. The paved road petered out eventually into a rutted dirt road, then ended at a gated villa, and I continued on a path so narrow that brambles plucked threads from my dress and scratched my legs. Finally, I came out onto another road in the slightly-less-teeny town nearby (about 25 houses over our town's 8 or so), and in front of me, sitting at the only bar in town and drinking an espresso as though it were the most natural thing in the world, was my ex-boyfriend, l'Artista.

It had been close to six years since the last time I saw him, in the fall of 2005 in England. The first few hours were surreal, in part because of how normal it felt, as though no time had passed whatsoever. I wasn't sure if I wanted to throw my arms around him or run the other way, but as the time passed we began to feel more normal around each other. Eventually, we made our way back to the villa in his little Yaris, where he got over his initial embarrassment at seeing my family again, settled into a chair next to the pool with a slice of watermelon, and chatted with my aunt, uncle and immediate family.

I wasn't sure how much I'd want to see him, but it turned out to be a lot, to try to get used to our new relationship and learn how to interact with each other non-romantically. Not that he didn't try; I politely declined his suggestion that I leave with him that evening and spend the next few days in Florence. I did make my way there as planned on the weekend, though, and on Saturday was able to realize my dream of eating a home-cooked l'Artista meal (he continues to be the best cook I have ever met). Watching the way he moves in the kitchen, how he slices vegetables, pinches salt and times everything perfectly, is mesmerizing. Unfortunately, I was so tired from waking up at 3:45 a.m. to catch the train that after a plate of pasta and a small glass of wine I conked out on his couch and missed course #2.

Last night, I came home to a clean house, a vase of flowers, and a sweet little "welcome home!" sign that Dreamy made with Crayola markers. I told him about the past few days since we had last spoken, including the plate of pasta. "You know," he said sweetly, "I could be a great cook, too, if someone would teach me."

Based on the contents of the kitchen (Honey Bunches of Oats, Alfredo sauce, sardines, and spaghetti), he's got a ways to go. Nice that he wants to try, though.

Old patterns die hard

Over the last couple of months, I had two fun, uneventful conversations with my Italian ex, l'Artista. Both were good, long conversations, and they were relatively painless. He apologized kindly for the pain he put me through when we broke up, and we talked about seeing each other next summer when I go to Tuscany for family vacation. When my sister got engaged, I wrote to inform him, and he wrote back telling me how happy he was to hear the news. I was beginning to think we could have a simple, non-fraught friendship.

Turns out I was a little too optimistic. During snow day #3 last week, l'Artista spotted me on Skype and suggested we have a third conversation (without the video, since he "didn't think we could handle that"). It went well for a short time, and then all of a sudden it wasn't going well. I'm not even sure what our first argument was about -- it didn't particularly feel like it was about anything -- but all of a sudden I felt like I had been catapulted back in time five years and we were still embroiled in our difficult, never-ending breakup. He interrupted me several times, until finally I said, "I notice you still interrupt me a lot." He countered that with, "You still reproach me exactly like you did ten years ago." Ouch. We were like one of those seventy-year-old couples who have been married for 45 years and can't stand each other who you want to get as far away from as possible.

When we talked again about my impending visit to Italy, he told me he's not sure we should see each other after all. He doesn't want to see me with Dreamy, and he feels uncomfortable seeing my family; I don't care who else is there, but I don't want it to be just the two of us. Perhaps we can meet for a quick coffee instead of the dinner I had been envisioning (just thinking about his dinners makes my stomach growl...). Clearly, it'll take some more time and thinking to figure out what role, if any, he can play in my life.

That evening, I told Dreamy about my conversation, and he asked if I still have feelings for l'Artista. I answered no because that seemed like the right thing to say to let Dreamy know he has nothing to worry about. The truth, however, is a bit more complicated than that. I do have feelings for l'Artista, lots of them. I feel anger, and affection, and anxiety (when I asked about his health, he reported that he had briefly reduced his cigarette and alcohol intakes, but wasn't able to maintain it). The one thing that I am clear on is that I do not want him to be my boyfriend ever again.

So, instead, I'm concentrating on my new favorite Skype buddy, Dreamy. We've been Skyping most nights before bed, and it's nice to be able to see him on the days when we're busy. I can't believe it's taken me this long to discover how great Skype is. Our conversations are straightforward and fun and not fraught, because he likes me and I like him and we both want to be with each other. It sounds so simple, but it's not easy to find.

The trees in the forest

Dreamy and I went up to Maine for a quick visit this weekend, along with my sister and her recently-promoted boyfriend (now fiance), the Sensitive Bostonian. On the drive home, Dreamy began querying me about different important relationships I've had in my life, both romantic and non. He loves doing this, just as he loves looking at the photographs of me as a child scattered around my parents' house; it's clear that he could listen to me talk for hours -- a very good trait in a boyfriend.

After he was done, Dreamy began responding to my descriptions, and I immediately laughed because he sounded so much like a therapist. "I notice a parallel between your relationship with X and your relationship with Z," he began, and went on to pontificate on the ways in which I have felt helped and hindered by various important people in my life. At the end, he queried, "Was that too therapist-y for you?"

"A little," I replied honestly, and went on to explain. What I was feeling as Dreamy talked was the same frustration I often felt during sessions with my own, now sadly neglected Wise Woman: Any description I could give during a car ride, or an hourlong session in a therapist's office, of a 4, or 8, or 31-year long relationship is bound to be an oversimplification. People are complicated, and relationships are complicated, and I find it next to impossible to describe a relationship without afterward remembering a gazillion examples of interactions that completely undermine what I just finished saying. For instance, what Dreamy gleaned from my tales was that I felt empowered during my relationship with my Italian ex, l'Artista, because he encouraged me to try new things and to be independent, and I felt stifled by La Moustache because he protected me too much. But l'Artista could also be very protective of me, and I can easily think of any number of things that I would never have tried had it not been for La Moustache.

I realize that it's a necessary skill to see past all the details and make decisions based on the forest, and not the trees, but it's one that I have trouble with, especially since I tend to live in the moment and be quite distracted by whatever tree happens to be right in front of me. I notice the same thing with Dreamy: 99% of the time he's wonderful and thoughtful, and he constantly says sweet, cheesy things to me, like "I just got shivers all over my body because I like you so much." However, he can also be a huge space cadet (as I may have mentioned once or twice), and can be quite thoughtless at times -- not because he means to at all, but purely for lack of noticing that he's being thoughtless. For instance, sometimes he forgets that his chin is scratchy and hurts me when he kisses me (I know this sounds innocuous, but seriously, his 5 o'clock shadow is CRAZY SCRATCHY -- as evidenced by the rugburn I got when we first started dating). Or, the other day he had to work late and I offered to bring him dinner after work, but he got hungry and decided to have a snack to tide him over, which turned into a full-fledged dinner -- and then he forgot to inform me that this had happened, until I started to unpack my overflowing tupperware filled with delicious home-cooked food, at which time he finally mentioned that he was stuffed.

Dreamy always feels terrible when he commits these faux pas, and apologizes profusely. Most of the time, even when he's being a bit clueless, I feel like the positives far outweigh the negatives; after all, if all else fails I know that I have only to tell Dreamy what to do to make me happy and he will spare no effort to do it. Still, there are moments when he behaves cluelessly and completely lose sight of all the great things about him.

And on that note, I'm off to watch the Patriots game and try really, really hard to like football, for Dreamy's sake.

Rapprochement

ra-prōsh-man. n. Derives from the French word rapprocher, "to bring together".

1) Establishment of or state of having cordial relations.
2) A human developmental milestone usually occurring between 15 to 24 months. The child moves away from and then returns to the mother for reassurance.

Definition #2 might be a bit of a stretch, but taken down a notch, it could possibly describe what is happening recently between me and my ex-boyfriend, l'Artista. He was such an important figure in my life that in some ways he was almost like a parent. Somehow, La Moustache managed to be such a douchebag during our breakup that he made l'Artista look good by comparison and changed the way I've been thinking about that relationship since it ended a few years ago. I realize that the fact that he's not quite as horrible as your other ex doesn't really constitute a good reason to be friends, but I thought about it a lot and felt there might be some value for me in trying to establish a relationship.

Still, each time he emails me it somehow takes me weeks before I feel ready to write back. I'm not really sure why. It's not just that I'm busy, although that is part of it. When I read his emails I feel strongly that I need to close them and not reply to them for a while.

So when I received an email in early November, in which he told me that he'd like to talk on the phone and specifically he'd like to discuss our breakup, which he's always felt bad about, I mentally put it in the category of "things to think about later." I finally turned my thoughts back to it yesterday afternoon. L'Artista didn't say why he felt bad about our breakup, but I suspected that he thought it was unfair of me to cut him off so completely. When we broke up, I refused to take his calls, read his emails, or give him any way to contact me. I put a block on my email and hung up when he figured out how to call me so I couldn't see who it was. Of course this was very, very hard for both of us. But I had to do it because after months and months of trying to break up I realized this was the only way it was going to happen.

I carefully constructed my reply, telling him I would be happy to discuss the breakup, but reminding him that as we both know my memory is much better than his. "I don't know how you remember our breakup," I said diplomatically, "but in case you remember it differently from how I remember it, I hope you are able to listen to what I have to say about it. Of course, I will listen to you, too. Feel free to give me a call."

A scant 40 minutes later, I was in the car driving to dinner with my sister. We had just pulled over so she could hop out and buy a sixpack when my phone rang. My sister rooted around in my bag to find my phone, and my heart sank a little when she reported that the number was unlisted. When I answered and heard l'Artista's voice, I had a sudden, irrational urge to hide the fact that he was calling from my sister, who still hadn't exited the car. (As it turns out, this was utterly useless since she told me later that she had recognized his voice the moment I answered.) "Oh, hi!" I said casually when I heard his voice, still as familiar as the back of my hand even though I haven't heard it in over four years, "hold on a sec." I tried to make it sound as normal as possible, as though I were actually talking with someone who speaks English.

I hoped Ms. Swamp would disappear quickly, but she was looking for her purse. "Who is it?" she asked, her curiosity obviously piqued.

"Get out of the car!" I hissed back, abandoning any pretense that it was a normal phone call. She threw me a quizzical look, grabbed her purse and left, at which point I told l'Artista that I was with my sister and couldn't talk. We made plans to talk another time.

We finally talked this evening, and it turns out my fears about his memories of our breakup were utterly unfounded. He feels awful about it, and says he feels that he went out of his way to create problems that he then couldn't face. I think he's right, and that it was a very weak, bad moment for a person who is overall decent and caring.

It was pleasant, if a bit surreal, to hear his voice. Mostly it felt as though no time at all has passed since we spoke last, whereas in reality my entire life has changed since then. It feels as though he knows me so well, but in fact there are so many things he doesn't know about me, since in many ways I'm not the same person I was when we broke up. Whether or not I know him is hard to say.

I may have the chance to explore this further soon. When we said goodbye, I told him to feel free to call again if he wants to. But we also might do more than talk on the phone soon, since I received the astonishing news a few weeks ago that my parents participated in a raffle and WON A WEEKLONG VACATION IN A VILLA IN TUSCANY. Crazy, right?? And actually it's not one villa but two, and it's on a vineyard, and there is a pool. In the photos it looks absolutely gorgeous. It's probable that we'll be going next July, if the dates work out.

Still not sure how I feel about actually seeing l'Artista, but if there's one thing I'm certain I'm excited about it's eating one of his amazing meals. My stomach is growling in anticipation already.

The Decider

Dreamy came over a couple of nights ago to check out my new place. He felt bad about not being able to help me move, so he asked if he could help me put together my new futon, and he also brought over a movie for us to watch. I was tired, though, and I suggested we put off work on the futon until the weekend and go straight to the movie.

"You're the boss," Dreamy replied. "Whatever you want to do is fine."

"Really?? I'm the boss?" I asked, half-jokingly.

"Of course," Dreamy said. "You're the woman, so you make the decisions. That's how it is. That's how it always has been."

It's nice to be the Decider, and frankly, that's how I think things should be. That's certainly the way it is in my family, and I was glad to note that Dreamy, too, believes that women should make the decisions. Not always, of course, but usually in a couple there is one person who makes more of the decisions than the other person -- kind of like a benevolent dictator.

This reminded me of a long-ago conversation with my Italian ex, l'Artista. We were in Maine, making plans with my parents for some getaway -- possibly a sailing trip, or a drive up the coast, or some such outing. In any case, we were trying to ascertain what my parents' plans were, and l'Artista suggested we discuss it with my dad.

"Hmm, interesting strategy," I said. "We could certainly do that. I'm not sure we'll get much information, though."

L'Artista, unlike Dreamy, did not come from a culture where women are the deciders. "What do you mean, we won't get much information?" he asked confusedly. "Where else would we go to find out what your parents' plans are?"

"Well, my mom would be the one to ask if we really want to get answers," I explained. "Let's try Dad, though. I've never tried before."

We went and talked to Dad, and he said exactly what I thought he'd say: "I'm not sure. Ask your mom what she thinks." Dad is really not the Decider. I don't think he wants to be the Decider; he'd much rather leave the decisions up to Mom. The whole process, however, was a bit mystifying to l'Artista.

So in my role as the Decider, I told Dreamy I didn't want to work on the futon, and I'd rather wait and do it on the weekend. Then he asked what other decisions I wanted to make, and I told him that I also want us to go to Ikea this weekend. Not very creative, I know, but I didn't realize until then that I was the Decider. I'll have to do some more thinking about it.

Fumo

For a few months now, I have been considering developing a friendship with my Italian artist ex-boyfriend, l'Artista. To that end, I wrote him a friendly email back in August telling him about my new job, my new bird, etc. I fully expected an email back immediately telling me how happy he was to hear from me, could we talk on the phone, and he misses me, but instead I heard nothing. That didn't bother me; in fact, it made me think that if he is less emotionally invested in me a friendship might actually be possible.

So a few weeks ago when I came across an antique French postcard that reminded me of him, I bought it and sent it to him for his 41st (!) birthday. It was a photo (not this one, but a similar style) of Marseille, a city I've never been to but one of his favorites; furthermore, the bridge in the photo was taken at an angle that is reminiscent of shots we took years ago during an early visit to New York of the Brooklyn Bridge. It felt strange to address the postcard to the same address in Florence, Italy where we lived together so long ago.

After l'Artista received the postcard, he finally sent the email I had been anticipating in August. He told me that it felt like he was hearing me talk to him as he read it, and asked if I'd like to come to Italy for a visit before he moves out of the apartment (his landlord is planning to move in, so after 13 years there he has to leave). He's an incredibly heartfelt, affectionate person, and just as he said of me, I could hear his voice talking as I read his email. I know him so very, very well, despite the five years that have passed since I last saw him, and I miss him and care about him. At the same time, I absolutely cannot let there be any romantic overtones to a correspondence between us, and I'm honestly unsure if he's capable of that.

Then this morning, before I had responded to the last email, I got another one. This one sent a chill down my spine. He's never taken very good care of himself; he smokes and drinks a lot, consumes strong coffee all day long and late into the evening, and doesn't exercise. Last week, he had to go to the emergency room because of pain in his stomach, and they told him that his stomach lining is seriously damaged and he absolutely has to change his lifestyle.

In order to begin going about this change, the first thing he thought to do was to unearth a book I made for him on October 26, 2000 -- almost exactly ten years ago. It's called "l'Artista's Cigarette Book," and I made it for him to keep track of how many cigarettes he smoked. Apparently, I painstakingly decorated every page and made little charts by hand for him to check off how many cigarettes he smokes. I have no memory of making it, but apparently he used it for quite a while -- he said more than half of it was already filled out. All these years later, he knew exactly which drawer he had tucked it away in.

I don't really know how serious his health is, but it doesn't seem like a good sign if someone has to go to the emergency room at age 41 because of damage they've done to themselves by living unhealthily. It's hard for me to imagine a world without l'Artista in it, and I hope that we are able to develop a platonic relationship. I also feel very grateful that my life doesn't center around someone who makes such poor choices.

Frittata all'Artista

I made myself an Italian omelette with fried zucchini for lunch the other day, the way l'Artista taught me, for the first time in ages. I was nineteen when he taught me how to make them, and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when I first tasted it. He'd make a salad dressed with lemon and olive oil to go with it, and he told me to take simultaneous bites of the omelette and greens so that the taste of the lemon and fried zucchinis mingled. It was the first of many culinary (and life) lessons I received from l'Artista, from how to fry an egg to how best to clean your shower (his technique was to do it while showering). He was the most amazing cook I've ever met, and I would give a lot of money to be able to eat one of his meals.

Later, in college, I tasted my friend the Father of Capitalism's French-style omelettes, and fell in love with them. They are cheesy and buttery and runny and gooey, totally different from l'Artista's omelettes. I got F of C to give me omelette lessons, starting in his mother's apartment overlooking Jeanne-Mance Park in Montreal and continuing several years later in the tiny kitchen of my Brooklyn studio, where I had to crane my neck around the doorway of the kitchen to follow his instructions because we couldn't both stand in the kitchen. He taught me to use a wooden spoon to swirl the egg around a bit so it cooks for the absolute minimum time possible, quite different from the Italian strategy of cooking the hell out of the eggs. I've been making F of C's omelettes ever since and still love them, and gradually stopped making l'Artista's.

L'Artista's are pretty damn good too, though, and they popped into my mind today as I was pondering what to do with the copious zucchinis and lettuce from my farm share. I think of them as more lunch or dinner-appropriate, whereas Father of Capitalism's are clearly a breakfast item. L'Artista would start by thinly slicing a zucchini, then sautee it in olive oil. When it was nice and brown, he'd toss in the eggs thinned with a bit of milk and seasoned with salt and pepper. After they got nice and brown on the bottom, he'd flip the omelette and cook it on the other side. Personally, I think you can never go wrong with cheese, so at this point I threw some grated comte, but that is definitely NOT the Italian way. Finally, he'd serve it with a salad composed only of greens and dressed with salt, olive oil, and lemon.

Yummm. Or, to use one of l'Artista's favorite words, squisita.

Sleeping Dogs (& Sleeping Birds)

Holy cow. I wanted to write a blog post last night but then I stepped out of my room for five minutes, stepped back in and couldn't find Persil. Thirteen hours later, I was STILL looking for him without having slept a wink, and finally found him hiding under a towel on the back of my door underneath about a million jackets, scarves and other miscellany. He's now having a looooooong time out in his cage to think about his behavior. (Update 3 hours later: His time out is over, I opened the door to his cage and he refuses to come out. Ingrate.)

Anyhow. After I'm done hyperventilating, I'll go back to reflecting on what I was thinking about before the shit hit the fan, which is my exes. Yesterday, I became Facebook friends with my very first boyfriend, the Modern Jewish Boy (so named because at one point he was reading a book entitled "The Modern Jewish Man"). I was in love with him from age 12 to 16, and we dated twice, once when I was 13 and again when I was 16. Both times he eventually lost interest, but rather than tell me that, he just faded away, letting more and more time pass before he returned my phone calls and being distant when we did talk. (Actually, I suspect that depression may have played some role in this behavior. But maybe that's just me making excuses.)

I still have a pretty big soft spot for him, and I was excited to see him on Facebook. I immediately went to his page and started to write a note saying hi, how's life, I'd love to get a beer with you sometime, I often think of you, etc. Before I hit "post" I glanced down at his page and read the updates he had written in his one day on Facebook. I had the same reaction I had the last time I saw him, which is: Oh, yeah. He's totally immature and exactly the same as he was when we were 13, and 16, and he's probably always going to be that way. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. I erased my friendly note.

This reminder caused me to reflect that, in the end, ALL my boyfriends have kinda been jerks. Not that they went out of their way to mistreat me (though I would say that La Moustache did), but they didn't treat me with the consideration I deserve because they were too wrapped up in themselves and their own needs. This is a worrisome thought. Do I go for jerks? Is that why I emailed the cute guy on OKC who sounded totally self-centered in his profile? I know I used to like the bad boys when I was in grade school, but I thought I was past that stage; have I moved on to the adult version of the same disease?

There is, however, one partial exception to my jerky ex-boyfriend rule: l'Artista, my painting teacher who I met when I was 18 and he was 28, who after my immediate family was probably the most formative figure in my life. I can honestly say that I would not be the person I am now if I had not met him. Yes, he should have let me go sooner than he did -- actually, he didn't exactly "let" me go, it was more like I had to claw my way out of that relationship, hanging up on him when he called, putting a block on my email, etc. It often felt like I was cutting the umbilical cord. So, in a way, he was a jerk too; but he did really, really care about me, and a huge part of him really wanted to be with me. He just couldn't do it.

I got the following email from him a couple of days ago:

Dearest Heathen,
It's always a pleasure to hear from you.
Prezzemolo [Parsley in Italian] is very cute. Be good with Heathen! You must be very happy now to have him at home.
And your vacation? What will the two of you do?
I am traveling in Germany, working a bit, it's not really vacation vacation.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Hugs.
l'Artista

Longtime readers of my blog may remember that, in an epic moment of bad timing, l'Artista asked me if we could be more involved in each others' lives at the very moment when I was breaking up with La Moustache. This prompted a very snarky response from me. I thought that my breakup with l'Artista would be the hardest breakup of my life, but that did not turn out to be the case. Hearing from l'Artista at that particular moment was a painful reminder that when I met Moustache I believed him to be the antithesis of l'Artista in so many ways, and I turned out to be very, very wrong.

Now I'm wondering again if I should perhaps let l'Artista back into my life a little bit, and maybe have a phone conversation with him once in a while. I've often considered calling him, even while I was with Moustache, and my friend Miami Nice always squelched the idea (feel free to squelch it again, Miami). I think I could handle it at this point without opening up a big old emotional can of worms, but I could be wrong. He feels like such an important part of my past, and I'd like to reconnect with that, but is it always better to let sleeping dogs lie?

Déjà déçu

It is not news to me that men can be disappointing. I've been reminded of that time and time again, in big and small ways, ranging from l'Artista's inability to decide whether he wanted to be with me to my live-in ex-boyfriend La Moustache's midlife crisis at the worst possible juncture in my life and his decision to travel the world solo to the failure of men I've gone out with to follow up after a date or send a quick note saying "Hi, I enjoyed meeting you, but I don't think you're what I'm looking for."

Nonetheless, I must be the most doggedly optimistic person on the planet, because I still have hopes for men. Most recently, I had hopes for Le Canadien. I've been looking forward all week to our weekend date, which started out as a plan to watch a movie in the park and ended up involving a trip to a lake for a swim. When he got here this afternoon, he told me that he had an appointment to go see an apartment later on, and he had to stop by his lab to do a bit of work. Fine, I don't mind having a break in the middle of the date, and I assumed he'd come back shortly thereafter.

So we drove to the lake, doggie paddled around and joked about how we're both terrible swimmers, drank surreptitious beers, and kissed on identical beach towels. It was nice. I feel a connection with him, maybe because he reminds me of the Quebecois boys I went to college with. I feel comfortable talking to him, and I think he feels the same way. I told him the story of how I fell in love at age 18 with my 28-year-old Italian painting teacher, l'Artista, and the sad ending to that story. I even told him a bit about La Moustache. He talked to me of a girl he liked and professed his love to while he lived in Italy (she liked him back, but the timing was off and nothing ever came of it), his father's death, and the house he inherited from his father in Quebec that he remodeled and rents out. He told me he is now leaning toward staying in Boston rather than moving to California, and I felt glad about it, without having any expectations. I like the idea of having the chance to get to know him better.

Eventually we moseyed back to the place where I'm housesitting and settled in for some more kissing. When 5:30 rolled around, I reminded him that he needed to get ready for his 6:00 appointment, and he tucked in his shirt and asked if he looked like someone I'd accept as a roommate. I assured him that he looked fine. He got up to go, and as he kissed me goodbye, I said, "You'll be back for the movie at 8, right?"

"Oh, maybe... I'm not sure I can make it. If not tonight, we can go another time," was his response. Oops. Not the right answer. It reminded me of a game I used to play with La Moustache where I'd ask him a question, then when he answered, I'd do my best machine voice and say, "Réponse incorrecte," until he gave me an answer I liked. This was definitely an incorrect response. I explained that this is not a movie that is in the theaters, it is a one-time showing in the park. He said he'll try to make it back, but somehow I doubt I'll be seeing him again tonight.

Am I overreacting to feel so disappointed? Other than that, from what I know of him so far he seems great -- thoughtful, smart, funny. He has thirteen days before he has to be out of his place, and he's (justifiably) stressed about finding a new place to live. However, a date is a date, and I'm not interested in spending time with someone who's unreliable and lets me down. Now, how to let him know that this is unacceptable without sounding high maintenance?

Finding a modality that works for me

During my drive up to Maine on Friday for the holiday weekend, I found myself pondering the events of the last couple of weeks and months, and wondering if perhaps I need to change my approach. Here is a sampling of my thoughts:

• I spent four days crying almost nonstop after I lost my bird, to the point where my contacts became so salt-encrusted that I couldn't see. Even as I was bawling over my little green featherball, I could feel that I was really upset over so much more.
  
• I got my knickers all twisted over a chubby guy with copious backhair who I made out with a few times in March. Why did I care so much?
• Dating has brought me frustration and bitterness, but no husbands.
  
• I spent Friday morning drinking bloody marys, watching the Netherlands/Brazil soccer game and flirting with the cute bartender with a tattoo of JFK on his wrist, who commiserated with me on my loss of Haricot by telling me how sad he was when his pet python escaped.
  
• I dismissed the cute, nice French Canadian who is the only good communicator of all the men I've dated since my breakup because he told me he's not looking for a wife at this time.

A piece of advice that my neighbor, the Cat Lady, gave me several months ago popped into my mind. "Maybe," she said (she prefaces all her advice this way because, as a single lesbian in her fifties, she doesn't feel totally qualified to give me advice), "you should just relax and have fun. You're young and attractive. Just see guys casually, and don't look at it as auditioning to find your next boyfriend."

When my sister, Ms. Swamp, began online dating a couple of years ago, her goal was to find a husband, and she did. Well, they're not quite married yet, but to all intents and purposes she did. As I sifted through my feelings, I wondered if perhaps what I need right now is not a husband, but a Mr. White Pants (or several Mr. White Pants). Pants was the guy I dated for four months after I broke up with my ex-ex-boyfriend, l'Artista. He took me to the opera and drove me around Manhattan in his convertible and bought me nice dinners and generally entertained me and distracted me, and when I was ready to be emotionally connected to someone again, I moved on.

So I'm going to try the Cat Lady's approach. I'm just going to relax and enjoy the summer and give myself time to get over my traumas of the past year. I sent Le Canadien a message and asked if he wants to get a beer, and within three hours we had a date set up, because that's the kind of communicator he is. And I'll probably swing by and visit my bartender this afternoon to watch the game and maybe hear more about his python.

Relationship Debris

Anyone who has spent longer than, say, 20 minutes with me knows that I am a huge fan of the Modern Love column in the New York Times. Actually, to be more precise, I have a love-hate relationship with it. Sometimes it makes me tear up a little or laugh out loud, other times it fills me with frustration and I have to e-mail it to a bunch of friends accompanied by snarky comments. The most recent memorable article was about a man whose grandfather joined Facebook, then, to his chagrin, became friends with his ex-girlfriend. It was hilarious. (And yes, of course, I've written several drafts of Modern Love columns about my recent breakup to submit to the Times. I still feel like I need to let some time pass before I'm ready to submit anything though – it is, after all, a very public forum.)

Last week's column, about how one woman handled a breakup, was a huge miss as far as I was concerned. First of all, it wasn't actually written by the woman whose relationship ended; it was by her friend, and second-hand stories are inherently lame. Second of all, it was about how her friend dealt with the breakup by having a performance artist dressed in a bear costume named the Death Bear visit her house and remove all paraphernalia related to her ex-boyfriend and bring it to his “den;” this is just weird and annoying. It took place in Park Slope, and when the New York Times writes articles like this, as it often does, it reinforces a lot of people's stereotypes about Park Slope, which as a former Sloper I find offensive. And, finally, it was hard for me to relate because this kind of cleansing ritual is utterly antithetical to my philosophy. (I support people who it does work for, though – it just doesn't happen to be a modality that works for me.)

My friend and dating guru, Li'l JC, is such a person. She received a lovely tangerine-hued KitchenAid mixer as a gift from an ex-boyfriend, and told me that she seriously considered giving it away when they broke up. I, on the other hand, received a crimson KitchenAid mixer from my ex-boyfriend, La Moustache, and the thought of giving away my $300 mixer never once crossed my mind. I also wear every single day, even in the shower, a necklace designed by my friend Yummy Mummy and purchased for me by Moustache, as well as a watch he bought me (not in the shower though). I frequently wear the fuzzy brown hat he had my milliner make for me, as well as the antique pearl earrings he gave me (except that I left them at a friend's house in December – accidentally on purpose, perhaps?). Even my vacuum cleaner and coffee grinder were former possessions of Moustache's that I received in the divorce settlement. As if that weren't enough, I have two paintings on my bedroom wall by my ex-ex-boyfriend, l'Artista. And, for Christ's sakes, La Moustache and I had a pet bird together! What am I supposed to do, give my little bird away to a crazy man dressed in a bear costume?? Over my dead body. Even if I did get rid of every single object connected to my exes, there are a thousand little habits that would remain: when I did my laundry recently, I was reminded that I learned my underwear-folding technique from La Moustache's mom.

You can't get rid of the past; every important person in your life shapes you in some way, and for me it's better to keep my memories and the possessions that go with them and use them to reflect and learn. I don't believe in karma, or that wearing a sweater given to me by an ex could condemn me to a life of celibacy. I can understand the urge to get rid of everything connected to someone who has hurt and betrayed you, and I have sometimes taken breaks from things that remind me of people I don't want to think about, putting them in storage until I am ready to see them again and remember that period with less pain.

One particularly difficult decision I had to make when I moved out of the apartment I shared with Moustache was whether to bring my own mattress with me, or Moustache's. I thought about it a lot, and finally chose Moustache's. It was better quality, and after three years of sleeping on it, I was used to it. Of course, it had a lot of memories attached to it, but when I got to my new apartment, I flipped it over. Now it's like brand new. I sleep very well in it each night, and only occasionally have nightmares about La Moustache.

Kissing Frogs

In her infinite maternal wisdom, my mom has counseled me and my sister that “In order to find a prince, you have to kiss a lot of frogs.” Even though this is contradicted by my mom's own experience – she got married at the ripe old age of 22-going-on-23, and I seriously doubt that she had the time to kiss many frogs before then – I am beginning to see her point. I met and began dating La Moustache six months (to the day, weirdly) after my breakup with l'Artista. When we met, I had been dating a man named Mr. White Pants for four months. Even though I knew that there were plenty of other men out there besides Mr. White Pants and La Moustache, it was hard not to feel like I had two choices before me, and one was very clearly superior to the other.

Mr. White Pants was a Southern gentleman, hailing from a tobacco city in North Carolina, the youngest of six or seven siblings. He was twelve years my senior, and I met him through his college roommate, who had been trying fruitlessly for some time to court me. In retrospect, it wasn't very nice of him to flirt with his friend's crush, but at the time I can't say I minded.

Mr. Pants worked for a bank and made a lot of money. He had gone to graduate school at Columbia, spoke fluent Russian, and lived for several years in Uzbekistan. He was on the board of a small theater company and invited me to the opera. Sometimes I thought that if he were a character on Sex and the City the ladies would think he was a really good catch. In the end, though, I'm not one of the Sex and the City ladies, and after a while I started to realize that despite his intelligence he was lacking in one very important area -- personality. Every time he talked to me about his work I was either bored stiff or horrified, like when he told me about financing open-top mines. He enjoyed tango dancing, but it seemed more like a hobby he had picked up to make himself seem interesting than a genuine passion.

And then there was the matter of the pants. He always dressed up for our dates, and frequently wore his favorite white pants. When I got to know him better, I found out that every time he wore the white pants he had to wear tighty whities to match them, because otherwise people could see his undergarments through the pants. I'm not saying I don't sometimes have to think about wearing underwear that you can't see through my clothes, but a man who matches his underpants and trousers was a turnoff, to say the least. In addition, one day my Wise Woman mentioned to me that when she was walking down the streets of Manhattan one day she passed a man who she wondered might be Mr. White Pants. When she described him to me, he sounded utterly ridiculous.

Just as I was starting to feel ready to move on, along came La Moustache. He was handsome, had an interesting job, he told me great stories about his recent trip to the West Bank to cover the war between Israel and Lebanon, he was funny, we were reading the same book when we met (Heat by Bill Buford, a great book), he loved the New Yorker like me, and I instantly felt more comfortable with him than I ever had with Mr. White Pants. But I wonder if, had I been dating other men, I would have thought more critically about him and kept my options open longer, rather than allowing myself to be convinced to jump headlong into a relationship as I did. Perhaps through the veneer of charm I would have discovered his underlying froggy qualities; or perhaps not, since (to give myself some credit) he was very good at hiding them.

In the interest of learning from my past mistakes, I have been working on meeting frogs. Here are some of my stats so far:

Frogs I've gone on dates with: 4
Frogs I've gone on second dates with: 2
Frogs kissed: 2 ½ (one was an awkward edge-of-the-mouth kiss that I was attempting to dodge)
Frogs kissed because my sister forced me to: 1
Second dates I've gone on because I had a bit too much to drink on the first date and got beer goggles: 1 (mental note: one drink maximum per date)
Very nice frogs I've gone out with: 3
Frogs who really liked me: 2
Frogs I found attractive: 0

Another piece of advice I received recently from my mother after I complained about the lack of attractiveness of my dates: “In the end, it's not really that important.” Again, this is contradicted by her own experience – my dad is very handsome, and even after nearly forty years of marriage Mom will occasionally pause when she sees him across the room and say, “He's really quite good-looking, don't you think?” This is one piece of advice I am ignoring: I want a hot boyfriend, and I think I deserve one.

Clearly, I have a ways to go. My sister went on dates with 26 men before she met her prince, the Sensitive Bostonian. And this time, I am determined not to be tricked by any frogs disguised as princes.

Ghosts of Relationships Past

Last week I traveled home, along with everybody else in this country, to spend Thanksgiving Weekend with my family. I was a little on the skinny side when I arrived, due to a post-breakup decrease in appetite, but found that, when I weighed myself every morning on the bathroom scale, I weighed a pound more each day than I had the previous day. By the end of the weekend, I was more or less back to my normal weight. Green Bean traveled with me and was happy to get lots of attention and to have free reign of the house, and was also appreciative that he's been forgiven for preferring La Moustache to me in the past. There were a couple of semi-close calls, but I managed to keep him safe from my parents' obese cat, Kiki, thanks largely to Kiki's unmaneuverability and slow reflexes.

While I was home, I had a brief visit with my oldest friend, Ms. B, who moved back home from New York a year and a half ago, built a house, had a baby, and transformed herself with astonishing rapidity into an adult. When we had a moment to ourselves, she told me something surprising: “If I were you, I would call up L'Artista. It's probably not the right thing to do, but I would if I were in your shoes.”

Up to that point, I had not allowed this thought to cross my mind. L'Artista was my first serious boyfriend. I met him when I was 18 and had just arrived in Florence, Italy for a semester of painting lessons, where he was my 28-year-old painting teacher. He was charming, handsome, hopelessly in love with me (as I was with him), the most amazing cook I've ever met, and a disaster when it came to committed relationships. Still, he was scrupulously honest about this last aspect of his personality, which puts him several notches above La Moustache in my book. He took me for rides on his Vespa, painted numerous paintings of me, and cooked fabulous meals for me and my friends. We embarked on a meandering, romantic relationship while I went to college, then moved to New York and began my life. It should have ended there, when I grew up a bit and began to want a real partner, but L'Artista got carried away by his own romanticism and began musing about moving to New York and starting a life together. I chose not to heed his earlier warnings, and we talked about this possibility for over a year, without making any discernible headway. My patience finally began to wear thin, and the situation culminated one day on a bus in England; during a discussion about our future together, L'Artista got up, ran to the bathroom, and was sick to his stomach. This was too much for me, and I ended it. As soon as I did so, he told me he was ready to move to New York and get serious about me. HA.

Since then, L'Artista has maintained his romanticism, and continues to call me “amore” in sporadic e-mails that I rarely reply to, and muses about what it would be like if we were to see each other again. The thought is terrifying and, I have to admit, enticing. I e-mailed him in September to wish him a happy 40th (!) birthday, and told him about some of the difficulties of my life lately (though no mention was made of La Moustache, since I had a feeling he would get ideas if he knew I am single). He e-mailed me back several times, and finally wrote a note saying that my silence was beginning to worry him; he asked me to let him know if everything was okay. Angry and embittered against all men, I wrote back a cryptic e-mail saying that I was fine, I just didn't need selfish people in my life at that moment, or maybe ever. I composed the e-mail rapidly, without thinking, and wrote it in French because it seemed like too much trouble to find the words in Italian (even though I often chat online with old friends in Italy with no language problems). I quickly hit “send” before I had a chance to reconsider.

The response was fast; a hurt L'Artista shot off four e-mails asking what he had done wrong, and if it is a crime for him to tell me that I am important to him. I suspect that he's forgotten all about his role in encouraging me to hope for more from our relationship. I didn't reply to any of these missives.

There is a fine balance when it comes to memories of past relationships. Too good a memory makes it impossible to move on, and too poor a memory leads one to keep making the same mistakes over and over again, like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. If given the chance, I feel sure that L'Artista would do it all over again with me, right down to vomiting in the bus restroom; absent that opportunity, I imagine he is making similar mistakes with other people (I flatter myself that I am still his first choice). Four years after the last time I saw L'Artista, I like to think that I am a wiser, better person because of that relationship. And despite his 40 years, I have a feeling I'm a lot wiser than L'Artista. For that, I am thankful.

Drawing of me at age 19 by L'Artista