I was sitting with SQ on the couch at the Lion's Den today when he announced, "Before I die, I want someone to write a musical about my life called 'Men Without Faces'...you know because I only look at their cocks."

Anyone who writes lyrics for such a musical especially the finale shall find themselves well ensconced in my heart.

Trust me that is quite a prize these days.

My dear friend Size Queen, the queeniest queen on the upper east side, was chatting with me yesterday. To give you an idea of how queeny he is, not only does he have pictures of Elizabeth Taylor on his phone ("God makes one perfect woman every century. There's only one Liz Taylor."), but he once sucked 26 dicks in one afternoon ("It was the 70's, darling. Times were different then.") and one of his favorite past times is discussing what nationality has the largest schlongs (He's a particular fan on the Dutch).

As we chatted the other day, he said to me, "Honey you could make ANY man gay. You're like Donna Summer. You should have a glitter ball behind you all the time." Well it certainly would explain why I've had so much luck with gay men and not so much luck with straight ones.
I was exhausted today, and I'm sick. My throat was scratchy and, of course, I was battling my depression on the subway ride home when a homeless guy (he looked to be in his fifties) gets on the train with a large bag filled with trash. He slowly surveyed the train and then, in a deep and sonorous voice, he began to sing:

Hello, is it me you're looking for?
'Cause I wonder where you are
And I wonder what you do
Are you somewhere feeling lonely or is someone loving you?
Tell me how to win your heart
For I haven't got a clue
But let me start by saying ... I love you


Yes, it's Lionel Richie people. I could barely keep myself from giggling even though what made it so funny was the soulfulness with which he sang it. Because I've dated lots of guys, but never a homeless one. Although I was hit on by a panhandler once. Well, he asked me out to dinner.

Seriously.

It was a summer night and I was walking back to my dorm (I was still young and too kind to strangers), when a guy in a wheelchair asked me something. I don't remember what, but it wasn't money. Somehow, he got me into a conversation, which he interrupted a few times to ask passerbys for change. Finally he said to me, "You know, there's a great place in Chinatown I know about. I'd love to take you to dinner there." To which I politely declined, but since then I wish I reconsidered. (Right now I could be living in his and hers adjoining refrigerator boxes.) After all, I've dated gainfully employed men who didn't even have the courtesy to pay for dinner.
Perhaps I have been lookin' for love in all the wrong places.
I should be asleep as of about three hours ago. I have to get up at five am. And grade. And do a lot of the work I didn't do over break. Not that I can do all of it tomorrow morning and of course I don't really trust myself to do it now. I'm exhausted and stressed. Tomorrow I'll just be exhausted. And then the rest of the week will just be about catching up, which much like my cat attempting to get her own tail, will be an exercise in futility.

I've been very depressed lately. Despite what I wrote on Friday. Don't believe everything I tell you. I mean, sure the hustler was here and yes he called twice on Friday, but it only made me feel better for a very short while. Very short. The massage I had on Friday had a longer lasting impact. Because the truth is as much as I want to feel attractive, because I don't, what I want more is to be loved. And that is not to be found in the lap of a gay hustler. Or any man last time I checked in my particular case. While I seem more together when I'm teaching, well, I feel more empty. Like I'm playing solitaire with the cat. Going through pantomime of being normal without any of the emotional reassurance of stability. Perhaps I like being a mess more. It seems more honest. More real. Although last week was a mess and hated myself for wasting so much time being depressed. Yet I couldn't just shake it off. Back when Eric left, sure I would break down crying everywhere, but it didn't take much to make me feel better. I found comfort in men taking me out. In dates. In bars. In going out. In having ridiculous dramatic affairs. Some virgin wanting to cheat on his girlfriend with me. Some former stripper hitting on me by a fire that I built in the middle of PA. Some idiot in the army driving seven hours just to see me. I even liked the way I looked. I went to the gym to purge my aggression not to look better.

Now I hate the way I look. I dread taking my clothes off. For the first time ever. I don't even enjoy these affairs. Well, OK there is some enjoyment, but then I think "Christ how pathetic at 32 years old I'm still the girl who gets picked up at gay bars." I'm a fucking professor for chrissake. I'm supposed to look back on those days fondly, with a smirk occasionally, while I'm sitting on the couch with some guy who is reading to me aloud or telling me about Japanese warfare or complaining about how no one in the office appreciates his understanding of Schopenhauer as I sip a glass of wine not while I sit on the couch with my cat contemplating how I can watch law and order for ten hours so I can have some idea that there is justice somewhere in the world even if it is fictional. That we can still pretend like Dante and Shakespeare that the universe is just. That our pain isn't meaningless. That we can still believe such things with a straight face.

I'm crying again. I'll never get to sleep now. Only four hours or so until I have to get up. I guess I will grade papers.

Neither one of the posts I wrote tonight are what I wanted to write about. I was working on a post about the fractured nature of a writer's persona (you'll see), but what's been on my mind as of last week is that I should go back on medication. Because I can't live like this anymore, and if I can't be happy the old fashioned way well I'll just do what everyone else on madison avenue does. I'll buy it.
I've been asked by many, even long time friends, why I finally settled on Bunni as my alternative identity. I've given some answers, but it was only recently I hit on some answers:

When I was in first grade, my class put on a musical called "Too Little is Big Enough." The play is about a small rabbit who is mocked because of her size, but then she saves a bunch of woodland creatures, including some other rabbits, because she is quite simply the only one who can because she is so small. Of course, the play is about accepting differences in others and understanding that diversity is a strength, a message I wish was still emphasized in American public schools. Because of my size, I was cast in the lead role-the first show I was ever in and, strangely, I still remember quite a bit about it. My friend Ivan played Odie the skunk, for example. The big showstopping song featured the chorus: "I'm so proud of myself, oh why be shy, I taught us a new way, what a wonderful bunny am I." Somewhere my father actually had a videotape of this very show. And the name of the character I played? BB Bunny.

In third grade, asked to play my favorite character from literature, I chose the Velveteen Rabbit-a story about love and rejection. A story about how the love of another defines not just who we are, but what we are as well as meditation on what makes something real.

Recently, I bought one of my favorite books from childhood a feminist tale called, "The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes" which is essentially the little engine that could with a single female mother rabbit (like the Velveteen Rabbit this story also features a sick child) as the main character.

So there are all these images of rabbits from my childhood with very positive connotations about overcoming obstacles and finding strength in an apparent weakness. Not a surprise then I would choose this as my alternative identity.

But the rabbit is known for its ability to run. The one thing I can't do. When it comes to fight or flight, I have to fight. It's s strength, but really it's instinct. When confronted with danger, a rabbit knows its only hope of survival stems from its ability to run. It doesn't have to talk to its therapist. It doesn't have to weight the options. It understands without a moment's thought how to survive. And thus I have fought in the same way that a rabbit runs, but I've always wanted to run. Most of my past exes have been runners. As if in loving them, I could run by extension. But it never works, they always run away. And so I give myself the name Bunni, the only way I can run.

Make sense?
Lifetime has been advertising it's new series Bloodties in which a female detective is romanced by a vampire. So it official that Vampirism has now gone the way of John Tesh and Kenny G-utterly unfathomably uncool. So all that Lolita Gothwear you've been gathering over the years...time to donate it to Goodwill.

I'm working on a real post, I swear, but I thought gathering your Cure albums together would give you a project to distract you until I get the next post together.