Sexless in the City


Sometimes reading romance novels doesn’t quite prepare you for a love life...

For this 30-year-old urbanite, love is always a misadventure: The Harvard Lickwit, Hippie the Groper, the 5% Man, and the Ad Weasel. These and many other men wander in and out of her life — but never her bed.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Proof of spinster status?

While I still don’t own a cat — and probably never will — I do believe my plight worsened over the weekend. Instead of going out for a swinging Saturday night (as Ringleader expected), I stayed in. To do fall cleaning. Ah, the glamorous life, eh? ;) In addition to learning that my window frame is turning into squirrel food (photoblog proof coming soon), I did a little packing up.

Earlier this summer, I’d gotten out my posters, intending to spruce up the pad. The infamous Coltrane, I thought, would make an especially nice addition to the brickwork in our living room. But one thing led to another and somehow it ended up lying in untidy mess behind the futon. Tonight I taped up tears (see Exhibit A, bottom of the frame) in the aging poster and then rolled it up with the Miles Davis for another day, another pad, another wall. If all goes well, I could be moving by the new year. Why bother putting posters up for two months?

‘I decorate, therefore I am’
Besides, maybe the posters that once adorned the walls of college dorm room and then apartment aren’t quite the thing for a latter-20s single woman. Not that I recant any of my taste — two each for Barenaked Ladies and the Beatles, plus Fruhstück bei Tiffany, the jazz men and the Fred Astaire Swing Time poster — but surely I’m now old enough for something better than old masking tape or sticky-gum adhesive! Indeed, that’s the reason John never made it onto the wall; I wasn’t quite sure how to stick him there against the brick, the staples used in grad school an unlikely bet.

But more than anything, the social significance of this pad is not what it used to be. In college the posters served an important function: subtly showing off hipness and taste to the guests who ventured by. Without having to say “this is who I am,” they showed things I was proud of, about being me — much in the way I romantically thought my car would.

I guess because I’ve moved so many times, it just gets rather tiresome continually imprinting yourself on apartment walls. Besides, despite how much we pay for rent in New York, most of us don’t actually spend that much time at home, let alone do entertaining in which one could show off such prized, um, posters. Which is why, dear readers, New Yorkers are known for being such fashion-fiends. Take the shoes at left, for instance. Don’t they just tell you lots and lots about me? She blogs in heels. Meaning: a writer who relies on method blogging. She wears red shoes. Meaning: a writer with a Dorothy complex who really just wants to go home. And finally: her shoes are mirrored. Meaning: if reborn* as Marilyn, she’d be an even more self-conscious tease? ELO is singing “Evil Woman” from my stereo ... but I’m sure that’s just coincidence.

Back to my ap, dahlings. More blogging later on how I finally came by a wedding date. But don’t let that discourage you from planning a trip to New York anyway. The Sexless tour of the city ain’t limited to handbaggers, ya know.

*Not that I think this possible ... but you know — hypothetically speaking. Besides, I did pull an inadvertant Marilyn on my 25th b-day. Damn wind. Funny thing, too, almost all my party guests were male...