Curable

"Incurable"
by Dorothy Parker

And if my heart be scarred and burned,
The safer, I, for all I learned;
... The calmer, I, to see it true
That ways of love are never new-
The love that sets you daft and dazed
Is every love that ever blazed;
The happier, I, to fathom this:
A kiss is every other kiss.
The reckless vow, the lovely name,
When Helen walked, were spoke the same;
The weighted breast, the grinding woe,
When Phaon fled, were ever so.
Oh, it is sure as it is sad
That any lad is every lad,
And what's a girl, to dare implore
Her dear be hers forevermore?
Though he be tried and he be bold,
And swearing death should he be cold,
He'll run the path the others went....
But you, my sweet, are different.

As I alluded to in my last post my choices in men have been less than stellar. Even worse I could have written the above poem by Dorothy Parker, because as much as I hate to admit it, there was a period in the beginning of each relationship that I believed that this cad would be different.  I have not delved into the reasons that I choose the men that I do with a professional therapist, but there are a couple factors that I think may have played a role.  I was raised a Cub's fan and as such held a belief that it was okay for men to be losers.  If they were unemployed or abusive or slept with your friends you just kept on loving them and figured that surely things were going to get better.  When?  Maybe next year.  I've seen The Sound of Music dozens of times starting at the Palace Theater in downtown Peoria circa 1973 and at some point my mantra must have become, "If Maria VonTrapp can make play clothes out of curtains, then by god I can make healthy relationships out of red flags." 

And so it went.  I married my first husband, even though he hit me sometimes.  We were moving to Virginia and I assumed he wouldn't do it there.  WHAT?  The ocean is calming; it could happen.  I married my second husband because he didn't hit me.  Of course he would never stand up to me either.  Ever.  This got old fast.  A man without a backbone is even less attractive than  a man without a chin.  By the time I had had enough I wanted to have my first husband hit my second husband.  The next long term relationship was with an alcoholic, Hispanic musician.  I'm a crazy, red headed comedian and Lucy and Desi were hysterical so why not us?  We were a horrible combination and didn't last, but he has since quit drinking, we have a fabulous thirteen year old and he's one of my best friends. Do I want to be his woman now that he's living a good life?  Nope.  I wasted a couple of years on another man who was going to leave his wife and quit selling drugs as soon as he got his money right.  Neither of those things ever happened.  I finally got my head right and left.

I spent the day of my date with HUM (from the previous blog) running errands, taking my daughter to an art class and driving my son to his father's which is about a two hour round trip.  By the time I got home and got my other kids fed I had very little time to get ready before I was supposed to meet HUM at the show.  A funny side note: The first show at the club usually starts at eight.  I didn't realize that it started at seven that weekend so when I showed up at eight I must have appeared very "see you when I see you" casual when, if fact I was "can't freakin wait to see you".  After I got out of the tub and got dressed I was walking down the hall from the bathroom to the bedroom and had what I can only describe as a vision.  It consisted of receiving a letter from a man with whom I had had a three month relationship about a year before.  I could have made a circus tent out of the red flags that came with this guy.  I met him a day after he was released from prison.  None of his crimes had been violent, mostly a result of the stupidity brought on by drug addiction.  But he said he had learned his lesson and was all about making changes and a better life for himself.  I believed him and at the time I think he believed himself.  Things were fun for about two and half months and then he started using again.  You wouldn't think that someone with an ankle monitor that confined them to within 100 feet of their abode would be able to cheat even if they wanted to do so.  Not true.  When I found out he tried to deny it, but not with a lot of effort.  Over the next few months I found out she was a hooker.  He left me for a hooker.  Not long after that I saw her.  He left me for an ugly hooker.  In my mind they were happy and having a wonderful life together.  In reality they were in the grips of heroin addiction and their lives were falling apart.  She had her neck cut in the parking lot of her apartment building, allegedly by someone who wasn't amused by the fact that she wanted to pay for drugs with oral copulation instead of old fashioned cash.  He fell off a city bus, broke his foot which got infected and had to be partially amputated.  The swan song of their story is his being arrested for robbing two banks and escaping on foot.....literally.

This experience for me was the final nail in the coffin of me thinking that I deserved a decent man or that I would even recognize one if he bit me on the tit.  For a little over a year after it ended I busied myself with everything but a romantic relationship.  Then, out of the blue, I had this vision of hearing from him as I'm going out for my fairytale evening.  I didn't think anymore about it.  As you can imagine my thoughts that night were all on HUM and my thoughts the next day were all on......well, still HUM.  I was lying down for a nap the next afternoon and my twenty-one year old son came in my room with an envelope in his hand.  "You're not going to believe who this is from," he said.  I knew instantly who it was from (even before I saw the prison postmark) and the weirdest thing was that I wasn't surprised.

He basically was just apologizing and saying that I didn't deserve the way he ended up treating me.  Now logically I already knew that, but for some reason the combination of being pursued by a real gentleman who had lots of options when it came to women and having the man who chose drugs and a strumpet over me acknowledge that the choices he made were not a reflection of my worth sparked an epiphany in me.  Previously I thought that there was something that malfunctioned when I chose the men with whom I wanted to share my time and in some cases my life.  But it wasn't my judgment about the men that was off.  It was my judgment about myself.  About my worth, my zany uniqueness and the fabulous things that I bring to the table.  I am starting to look at perspective men through the eyes of my family and friends who love me, see the qualities that I have and can't always acknowledge and ask myself, "Is this a man they would pick for me?".  I believe and am determined to prove that this dog can be taught new tricks............first new trick ~ no more dogs.

 

A hand in the pants is just the prequel to two in the bush

I consider myself to be a smart and intuitive person, so the fact that it's taken until I am almost fifty to realize that I need to be crazy grateful for the life that I've had and continue to have is ridiculous.  It took a kick in the pants  (actually a hot celebrities hand in my pants) to awaken me to the fact that some cool (and often crazy unbelievable) shit happens to me and that not everyone is lucky enough to have the life experiences I've had.........

"You just lived out the fantasy of millions of women!" was my friend Bettina's response when I answered her "How was your weekend?" text the Monday morning after Mother's Day.

I knew I had had a fabulous weekend, with a fabulous guy and maybe that fact alone was so rare for me that my mind had yet to process the fact that over the past twenty some odd years of this man's television career there had literally been millions of women who fantasized that they were in the position (all the positions, in fact) that I had been in with him.  Now let me pause here and tell you that it is killing me not to be able to reveal who he is, but even if I have no respect for my own privacy I do have some respect for his. I first met him about a year and a half ago when we worked together and I was star struck.  At first it was hard to separate him from the suave, sexy character he was known for but it wasn't long before it became clear that the real life man was far more interesting than the one he had played. 

When he came back to town in May I decided I would go down and say hello, fully expecting to have to do the "I don't know if you remember me......" reintroduction.  (Note to me: work on self esteem)  However, as I was on my way, I got a text from a friend that said Hot Unnamed Man was asking about ME!!  I was momentarily filled with confidence and then momentarily panicked by the "What if the question he was asking about me was 'That weird red-head from last time isn't going to be here is she?'".  Fortunately I realized this was a ridiculous assumption (OK, I didn't "realize" it, I asked the guy who had texted me and he told me it was a ridiculous assumption) and I was able to greet HUM (Hot Unnamed Man) with some genuine confidence.  On his previous trip here he was married, but he mentioned casually that this was no longer the case and asked if I would be at all the shows over the weekend.........adding that he hoped I would.  PSA ~ pinching yourself in front of someone is weird. I base this on the look he gave me when I tested to see if I was dreaming. 

"I guess so, sure.  It would be good for me to get out.  I've been kind of a home body lately,"  I replied.  Even though the truth was that I had every intention of being there to bask in his beauty for the entire weekend and when he expressed that he would enjoy basking in whatever it is about me which he found appealing my "inner Billi" did a happy dance at several levels in the Billi Disco.  I know that my body is supposed to be a temple, but super cool dance club is as close as I'm able to come.  But trust me when I say that my tiny dance club patrons were shaking their booty's with delight on the rooftop and on the lower levels.

So, why then, can't my face and response reflect that?  Why can't I gush and purr and whisper that there is no place that I would rather be?  Something, at least, that doesn't scream ennui.  I was pondering whether this is a defense mechanism or some sort of apathy tourettes later that night in bed (alone)  and decided that I needed to do something to let him know that I really did want to spend time with him.  I decided to text him an invite for lunch the next day.  He responded quickly and said that he was busy during the day but would love to hang out after the shows the following night.  This was even better than lunch and my fairy tale was right on track.  I'm not talking "happily ever after".  I am, if nothing else, a realist.  This man had been a sex symbol, celebrity for a quarter of a century.  He worked day after day with beautiful, talented women with perfect bodies.  I wasn't sure what his attraction to me was about, but I WAS sure that it was a phase and I saw it as a perfect weekend that would end and be a wonderful memory.........and that would be enough.

Both shows went great the next night.  Great but S  L  O  W, because let's be honest, I just wanted it to be "after the show".  When he had signed all the autographs and taken all the pictures that were asked of him, he walked over to the bar and asked, "What do you want to do, monkey?".  Now this doesn't seem like it would be super sexy, but it HUM's voice it made me think I should have brought an extra set of panties.

I had no suggestions, so he proposed (I paused a while at this point to pretend that was the end of the sentence......I had no suggestions, so he proposed. Ahhhh)  that we go back to his hotel and watch a movie.  Now we're talking, I had wanted to "watch a movie" hard with this guy since 1987.  I nodded demurely and we were on our way.  I'd like to say that we got his room and barely made it through the door before he had me up against the wall, ripping off my clothes and confessing how hard it had been for him to keep his hands off me for so long. 

The truth is we watched a movie. 

Notice the lack of quotation marks around watched a movie? 

That's because we watched a movie. 

Not even a good movie. 

For an hour and a half. 

We watched a movie. 

Just when I thought that there were no air quotes in his watch a movie invitation he made his move.  He lifted up the arm he was leaning on to put it behind my back and...........elbowed me in the eye socket.  Hard.  I saw stars.  Him, plus the ones brought on by my frontal lobe assault.  It wasn't sexy, it wasn't suave, it wasn't something that would have ever happened to the character he played.  But what it was, was hilarious.  It was exactly what we needed to get us from movie watching to "movie watching".  I won't go into a bunch of detail, but his lovemaking was as generous and fun and wonderful as he is.  It was a lovely and memorable night and in the morning I kissed him on the forehead and turned to leave.

"Are you coming to the club tonight," HUM asked.

"Yes," I responded.

"I'll be there,"  he said.

"I know.  That's why I'm coming." 

One small step for Billi in admitting her true feelings.

"There's my girl," he called across the room when I arrived at the club that night.  This statement may not seem like a big deal to those of you who haven't spent time with shady folks.  But I have and it meant the world to me.  We had a lovely evening that, unlike the evening before went all too fast.  I thought it would be easy to say good-bye.  As I said, I'm usually not an emotional girl.  But it was starting to feel different. I really didn't want him to go.  Before he left he mentioned the possibility of our doing shows together in Chicago which for the comedian in me was fabulous.  When he turned to get in his car I said "See ya,".  "Soon I hope," was his answer which for the girl in me was also fabulous. 

I had seen him as a prince charming on television for years, and for the past couple of days he had been one in real life.  I felt like Cinderella, but it was midnight.  I don't know if there will be a "happily ever after" for this story, but while I'm waiting to find out, I'm determined to keep having more fabulous experiences with fabulous people and writing about them.  And maybe making a pie out of my car if it turns into a pumpkin.