Bachelorhood Snapshots

What an effort it is to be beautiful. I've been working out (for
like 20 minutes) two days in three which is killing me, and I've been
trying to eat slightly healthy, and now I'm sweating in the sun on my
floor which is about the most uncomfortable way to write emails I've
ever known. Maybe I'd better finish my tanning session and then write,
I can't even fucking spell in this position.

. . .

OK, self-sunning successful. I burst into such rivers of sweat that the
flies who'd set up camp in my dirty dishes came over on an excursion to
play water fun park in the briny currents oozing between my developing
pecs. Then I took advantage of their distraction to do the dishes and
generally take back the kitchen and they have gone for the moment to
pick on someone their own size.

In the 2 weeks since I'm finished with tours I spent one of them
drinking alone at home and one of them drinking out with people. I'm
not sure which is better. While drinking at home I accomplished many
MANY things, played the guitar and piano, worked on Italian, worked
out, wrote letters and emails, cleaned and organized just a bit. But I
was also getting very weird, not seeing anyone real but imagining all
kinds of relationships with people I know online, and having borderline
attacks of paranoia. When I did go outside I felt like I was visiting a
human zoo and just stared at strangers and listened to their
conversations with a big goofy grin on my face.

Then this last week I went out and drank until the bars closed again
and again. That was much more shall we say acceptable to society and
prevented me from having any of the scary or useful thoughts I had been
having before. One funny adventure: This girl I met in a bar gave me
her number, and I called it, and she called me back, and it turned out
that Thursday was the only night I could see her before she left for
some weeks. So I blew off this guy I was gonna see, and went out with
her. We and another pair had some drinks and talks and just a generally
nice evening. As we seperate, she says thanks for a nice evening. She
says it was very good of me to cancel my other plans, and she hopes
there are no misunderstandings between us. I finally figure out that
she's trying to tell me that she won't sleep with me. So of course I
say far be it from me to have had such vulgar designs. So she says oh
isn't everything clear and pure now, and if I want maybe I can go to
Cologne with her to visit her boyfriend, and off she goes. It all
happened too fast for me to formulate my reaction and give it to her in
exchange for the frankness she was proud of as a central part of her
personality. But the reaction is: of course you silly babe I am seeing
you a second time because I want to sleep with you. What, you think I
go to bars and get into conversations with strange women because I'm
looking for FRIENDS? I've got more friends than I know what to do with,
I've got so many friends that to have a drink with each of them would
be a fulltime job from now until September. I don't need you to be my
friend, and even if you're a new friend the LAST activity in the world
I would enjoy doing with you is visiting your fucking BOYFRIEND. What
the hell is wrong with you? Let's go to bed.

The fact is that my friendship heart is full to the breaking point
whereas my romance heart is locked in the metro after the last train
waiting in an uncomfortable and dirty way for the first train of the
morning. As long as we're being honest...