Two years ago I fell madly in love with a fella named Bentley. His
piercing emerald green eyes and perfect shade of thick brown hair melted
my heart those first few moments we met. He makes me laugh everyday,
loves to travel, swim in the ocean with me and he'll go anywhere on a
whim. My perfect day is to stay home, lying on the sofa
with him, cooking him three perfect meals a day. We share a pillow at
night and sometimes I find myself staring at him while he sleeps.
Nothing and no one has ever halted my love to travel as much as him. I
find myself completely homesick when I leave him. When I packed my bags
to go to Juneau, Alaska last week I promised him I would bring home as
many salmon treats that would fit in my bag. But until the airlines
come up with a new rule that dogs can sit in a passenger seat, Bentley
will have to be left behind at the farm with my Mother.
Love
Love
A Love Story in Meatloaf
That night, we met over Kate Mantilini’s meatloaf, a generous slab of mixed roast beasts—beef, pork, and veal, seasoned with onions and garlic and the perfect soupcon of pepper and salt, and the conversation was delicious, too. It was mid winter 1987, and in terms of warming, filling, non-carb comfort food that goes down easily, meatloaf is probably the best darn thing one can ingest. Intellectual rapport is always an ideal accompaniment.
Small Talk
I have yet to go on a date in New York without breaking into a mental sweat. When scouting for potential mates, I have learned pretentious is better than shallow, irritatingly intelligent better than vapid. But every time I find myself two blocks away from any appointed date destination, panic ensues.
I literally go through the syllabi of every course I can remember from NYU and every legitimate news article I have come across in recent memory. A friend of mine once told me she discovered the best conversation starters from a semester seminar she took called 'The Darwinian Revolution.' To this day, I regret not enrolling in that class. I could be married by now.
Recently, I went on a second date at Casa Mono in Gramercy Park with a screenwriter. As we sat at the crowded bar, reviewing the tapas menu, all I could think of was the impending birth of the "Brangelina" twins.
"Hi, I'm Pam"
My husband Mike points out that the room goes silent as I watch a quivering gooey strand of icing bridge a hunk of pastry being pried apart by delicate hands in an Entenman's commercial. And when a pool of thick, rich Dove chocolate swirls around and folds itself magically over a brick of vanilla ice cream, my eyes glaze over. Then, when the caramel and chocolate of a Milky Way is fully exposed in delectable close up, my jaw goes slack. He tells me to face it: these commercials are, for me, like watching porn. Yes, I embarrassedly admit that I have fallen prey to the sexualized enticements of sugary things.
Two Hearts
I am not a social butterfly. I can dress, dazzle, chat, and spin with the best of them, but by nature, I am a loner; it’s who I am and I embrace that label. I relish my solo evenings.
I work, I write, I visit E-bay checking in on the gold and white pottery auctions, tearing pages from magazines, cataloguing the furniture I will buy in my next life. I eat pasta doused with weird combinations of toppings I dig out of the pantry and eat it in front of the TV watching back-to-back episodes of any Law and Orders I have tivoed. I like to hang alone, finding peace in the quiet, finding my voice in the empty air of my house. Even after J-date, after tapas and wine and a dance that never slowed and still hasn’t with the man I now love, I still longed for time away. Even when everything became more entertaining with him there, and the funny things I saw and did had weight because I finally had someone to share them with, I needed my time alone. While the kisses on the Ferris wheel, the late night phone calls from LA to Idaho, the electricity when we touched excited me and made me happy, I still needed to lack, to be without.
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