a poem I wrote in church this morning

From Pompeii to Hawaii

My heart is a dead thing
or a lost thing
or a buried thing.
When I open the doors of my chest
nothing but trash and dark mold tumble out.
It is ash and sulfur in me.
Which I suppose is a life of sorts,
volcanic life;
the sort that fissures out in heat and effervescence,
dying the rivers of my living a bright, cool-aid blue.
All because I have heard your voice
calling
--begging--
for me to return
(sort of).
So here's the thing I tell myself:
volcanic soil is the richest on earth.
yes, the initial years are barrent and stark
they stumble forward full of striated, homogenous nothing
on a geological timetable no less
but eventually (eventually)... you look like Hawaii.
I have faith that even though I mourn today
(and I mourned yesterday)
(and I will mourn tomorrow)
that I am wildly alive.
that my heart is strong in spite of its awkward beat.
Even though I am buried under acres of betrayal and sadness
I
am
wildly
alive.
And eventually the mold and the ash
will allow me to emerge
verdant and fecund.
that my smile will reach all the way to my eyes and warm the world around me
once again.
I have this faith -- this picture of who I will be.
it keeps me warm here
in the dark.

ghosts of boyfriends past

got this from Rob last night...

This will be a little disjointed. As i am starting this new year, I have been looking at the past one. There are somethings I would like forget. And some things if I don't adress, I will be doomed to repeat and I really do want to grow. So I am saying some of these things not to have you respond to them. I am simply saying them because they need to be said.

I am sorry I did not honor you or respect you in our relationship as you deserved. You surround yourself with people who are constantly open and greatful for the love that pours forth from you. I was blind to that and did not give you even a small part of what you so willingly gave and longed to have reciprocated. I'm sorry.

It brings me joy to know you are surrounded by happy loving people. I could go on but really just wanted to say that.

Thank you for all the love you gave.

And then I cried for awhile.

It always feels like a thunderstorm inside me to think about Rob. I miss him, I think about something I wish I could tell him or ask him to explain to me (or simply that I wish I could feel his calloused hand in mine) and my heart yearns for him. And then the other half of me starts screaming at me about all the horrific things he's done and how I could never trust him etc etc. And these two fronts create competing barometric pressures inside of me and I explode.

So it's just easier not to think about him.

but then he writes me and I remember that I will probably be in love with him for the rest of my life. Which is stupid, but so are republicans and they're just something I have to live with.

Still, can't stop thinking about this picture. One of my favorites of all time. We were just lying in bed talking and I held up my phone to take a picture of us, then at the last second he turned my face to him to kiss me and that was when the picture clicked...

for Valentine's Day

So some of you know this already, but I have this supersonic, out-of-control crush on my boss. Beyond steroetypical, I am verging on the cliche with this one (butterflies in the stomach, pit of fire where my heart used to be, wobbly thighs). Anyway, I wrote this poem about it and thought it might make a nice valentine's entry.

(ps. I just had the GREATEST time tango dancing!!! I love it!)

Cliche

I hate to admit it

but his eyes

--illumined and smiling--

looking at me like there is no one else in the room,

--inside a mile!--

shiver over me

like the morning after a snowfall

when the sun has returned

and the sky is a brilliant, calm blue

and a breeze puffs a handful of snow

from a tree branch.

That

shimmer

of cold, sparkling dust

is what I feel on my neck and shoulders,

down my arms and back

and all because he has smiled

the crooked, warm smile.

All because his eyes burn and reach for me

without ever thinking I'll reach back.

So we sit on our hands

and say nothing

--our mouths full of ashes.

And we wait for the situation to change.

Which is more important: love

or paying rent?

I know we all want to say 'love'

but it's hard on the 14th of the month to still not have rent.

I'm just sayin.

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugggnnnnhhh

I have been training at Jaleo for a week now and eating their food.

it is really tasty and really not vegan and I feel awful.

I can't wait to just eat what I want to eat and I hope I haven't irreprably pushed myself in the wrong direction.

Here's something odd: ever since I started eating regular food again I find myself missing Rob.

a lot.

I wonder if all this sugar and dairy and meat and alcohol is a depressant.

ugh.

going to sleep.

setting the alarm early so I can run before work (yesterday I went running after work when it was dark and snowing outside).

so yeah, I am eager for this training to be over; to not be completely broke; to go back to feeling healthy and slim; for warm weather; oh and it would be lovely to fall in love with a decent person and to get a job in my feild.

that is all for tonight.

The Curious Case of Argentinian Jeff Goldblum...

Well, since I am finally getting around to my 20s let me tell you a bit about the past few weeks. AJG did in fact send me an email first thing the next morning (in Spanish) saying that he'd had a great time the night before and that he hoped to see me again soon. I emailed back but then didn't hear from him for a few days. I wasn't really sure what I wanted. When he asked me what I was doing each night I said "I'm working" or "I have choir practise" and never mentioned how early any of those things might end and that I could see him afterwords. We wound up making plans for monday night; then I spent the entire weekend thinking about the moment when I would walk into his arms to dance with him; when I walked into his arms there was this moment when we'd just stand there, still. It was like his whole body was scanning mine to see where I was, listening for when to start moving with me. But it was also like his body was speaking to mine in his whisper, saying "don't worry about anything. I will take care of you now. All you have to do is dance."

and as the week got more and more harried, I just wanted to step back into that stillness. That care.

But I'd already blown him off, right? So I had to wait for our monday date.

We'd tentatively made plans to see "Avatar" in 3D but when the schedule came out, I didn't have monday off as I'd requested. I sent him an email saturday night saying that I still really wanted to see him and would he mind moving the date back to 10 or so. I got an email from him while I was sitting in the second service at church and was all excited. I showed it to Allison and was giddily whispering "look! look!" and she was like "I can't read that, it's in Spanish." But she got the gist from my expression. He said no problem, why don't we meet at my place for coffee and some tango dancing.

*eyebrow raise*

sure, why not.

So I went to his place after work on monday night (and was SO nervous!). I walked in the door and he took my coat and started kissing me. I'd forgotten how delicious he smells. I pulled out of the kissing after a bit and he offered me tea (I'd told him I don't drink caffiene). He brewed the hot water while I looked at the photos of his 12 year old son on the wall. We talked (I can't even remember about what), he put the cups of tea on the dining room table to cool, and there they sat -- untouched -- until morning. We sat on the sofa, my legs draped over his, his hand on my thigh, and we talked, relaxed. And then the kissing started again.

and this charming idea I'd had that I was in control, vanished.

Please allow me at this point to talk about just how astonishing this man is in bed.

His kissing is still a little tense for my mouth... but pretty much every other square inch of my body likes it.

I honestly don't know how much to write online. It's so pornographic! I always thought that Rob and I had sex that was amazing (and we did); but apparently, it gets better.

who knew?

Let's leave the online details as this:

1. I have never in my life had that many orgasms in that short a period of time

2. we pretty much hit every room in his apartment (including the bathroom where he opened the window and told me to arch my back so that my chest was pressed against the cold screen while he did things to the rest of my body that kept it extremely warm)

3. AJG is by FAR the largest I've been with (and, again, that's saying something considering past lovers)

4. I got about an hour and a half of sleep

5. he's also a massuse (of course. of course he's a massuse. I mean why wouldn't the hot, older, tango dancing, sex genius also be a fucking massuse)

6. he's very cuddly when he does sleep

7. (and this was the most confusing part) he made almost the entire night be about my pleasure.

seriously!

After the first orgasm I had from him going down on me, I fully expected things to move right into sex. Instead, he gathered me into his arms and started stroking my hair and back and just whispered "rest for now" and then was just saying sweet, quiet things.

I was like "what?!?!?!!"

what do you mean rest? don't you... I mean... why?....wow, I'm tired.

WHO KNEW!?!?!? who knew that it's really better if you take a moment after something like that. I didn't know. How could I. Things always progressed.

It was strange, this feeling that he knew my body better than I do.

Like I wasn't his lover so much as his musical instrument; like he was just playing me (and making me make all these outrageous sounds!)

We left the house about an hour after he needed to to get to work the next morning. Kissed goodbye at the metro and went our separate ways. Me to Open City to get some vegan breakfast before working a DOUBLE at PS7.

could not stop smiling, obviously.

Fortunately, Clementine was there so there was someone to tell. Also, Scott and I were blackberry chatting about the whole thing, so there was an outlet for the crazy details. AND there was an email from Fernando in my inbox!! I swear, it's like there's some kind of radar that men have! So while I'm emailing Fernando back, AJG emails me from work what a great time he had and how he wished we could have just stayed in bed all day. And while I'm emailing AJG back, Fernando emails me back saying how much he misses me and how he framed a Monet print that we'd spent a long time looking at and put it at his dining room table so that every time he sat down for a meal he thought of me. "you're in my thoughts more than you could possibly imagine" (I wrote him back, simply "you take my breath away").

it was a good day for my ego.

though it was a looooooooooooooooooooong ass day at work, let me tell you.

AJG and I emailed the next day, and the next. Very flirty, very sweet, but still no definitive plans to see each other again. Finally I email him and say "I'd like to see you again." He emailed back "I really want to see you too" which had me soaring. Then "but I'm really busy right now, what's your next two weeks look like?"

oh.

crash.

nevermind.

Then I didn't hear from him for 5 days.

So when I did, I had vacated Cloud 9 and was more feet-firmly-planted-on-the-ground. I still wanted to see him, but I was no longer carried away.

I went over to his house for another after work date last wednesday and... he answered the door in his underwear.

!?!?

Now, full disclosure, I will say this: once his clothes came off, I was surprised to see that he has a REALLY great body (especially considering he's 45!), so maybe he should always be required to walk around in his underwear. Or maybe he was sleeping because he knew that we wouldn't get much sleep once I got there. Whatever. Dude answered the door in his speedos! I kind of had to stop myself from laughing and saying "ok, guess we're skipping the niceties?"

but then he was kissing me and I didn't really care.

He kind of just assaults my senses. Takes me out of my body, throws me up into the sky, has me making all sorts of primal noises, then backs off and says -- very sweetly -- "would you like to take a shower? I know you had a long day. It will relax you."

whaaa......?

It's such a roller coaster ride spending time with him.

So I take my shower, he offers to make me dinner, I decline, we head to the bedroom for a repeat of the other night. More crazy, brilliant, outragous sex. More cuddling. More massage. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

At one point, we were wrapped together and he asks "have you ever had sex with a woman?" I said "I have been in a few menage a trois where there was a man and a woman with me, but never just a woman by herself." And I tell him the story from the last lingerie/mistletoe christmas party (both of us laughing when I got to the part where some guy was banging on my bedroom door saying that he was diabetic and his insulin was in the backpack in my room. So the man in my bed, got up, opened the door and the dude sees me on my bed with the other woman, looked at our partner and said "hey man, you need some help?" and our partner was like "no, dude, I got this").

But then I told him that I am way more of a location person when it comes to sex. At first he didn't understand, but then I explained that it was both outdoors (woods, beach, in sunlight, etc) or any place where I might get caught. So he wanted to know where I'd had sex (*evil smile* I LOVE having this conversation! I always win this conversation!). I told him a bunch of different locations (aiport runway, lighthouse, hanging off a cliff, etc) and then got to the top 2.

#2: on the altar of a church (he was very impressed)

and

#1: on the con tower of a submarine in a restricted area of the DC Navy Yard.

he was more impressed with the church altar and said that he had always wanted to have sex there. I told him (as I tell everyone) "good acoustics". I left out that at this point the only place I really want to have sex that I haven't yet is Disneyworld.

Eventually we went to sleep.

Or HE did. For some reason I could just not freaking fall asleep. It was driving me crazy. The longer I lay there, the more annoyed I got (and his darth vadar snoring didn't HELP!). I also started to think, uncharitably, that sometimes he was a lot less Argentinian Jeff Goldblum and a lot more Argentinian Garry Shandling!

But, whatever. Eventually I got some sleep (though he would frequently wake me up to DO things to me while he was asleep -- I guess he doesn't stop being Argentinian just because he's unconscious!). When his alarm went off at 6am he immediately woke up and started ravaging me. Though, at one point he stood up and reached for my hands saying "come with me". I was long past questioning his instructions; still, I was really surprised when he walked us to his front door, OPENED IT (both of us completely naked) and started having sex with me in the hallway of his apartment building.

*laughing*

seriously, this guy ... Nice to know that he was listening to me when I talked about what I like and found a way to give it to me.

Hilarious!!

Then he showered and we sat together over breakfast and just talked about random things. It was sweet and light. When we walked to the subway, though, he asked me not to link arms with him because he said kids from his son's school were around and he didn't want them to say "hey I saw your dad with some woman"

I get that. Still, it made me feel really trashy.

So we said goodbye at the subway (no kiss this time)(what with all the 12 year olds around) and I walked off to my car.

We've emailed a few times since but he hasn't mentioned seeing me again (actually, I haven't heard from him since thursday). Mostly I am ok with that. I REALLY enjoyed the sex, but the conversation was work. I kept wanting it to be like it is when Fernando and I talk, and it simply wasn't. Also, I don't need to be his girlfriend, but I need to be his date when we are together. If he can't hold my hand when we walk down the street, then perhaps he shouldn't be fucking me in the hallway of his apartment building.

new rule.

so that's most of the tale.

just minus the really salacious parts.

I'm happy to share those too, just not online.

later!

welcome to the new year

So, clearly a lot has been going on since last I sat down to type. I spent 72 hours with the world's hottest Mexican, I spent a couple of weeks getting over 72 hours w/ t.w.h.M., I spent christmas in Vermont with my family, I came back to DC for new year's, and now I'm already tripping through adventures in the first 4 days of this year.

Fernando.

*sigh*

I have not really been able to write about Fernando. It feels like too much. He came to DC and we spent 72 hours talking and kissing and laughing and having sex and sleeping in each others' arms. I had forgotten what it was like to be around him. I had forgotten that I'd started falling in love with him when we were in Monteverde and that I spent that first week trying to shake off the daydreams I was suddenly having of a future life with him.

I had forgotten everything amazing and overwhelming and dangerous about him. I just remembered that he was handsome and smart and funny. I even forgot just how handsome.

I was worried when I picked him up at the airport that I wouldn't feel anything anymore; that I wouldn't want to sleep with him and that he'd be here for 3 days and I wouldn't know what to even say to him. I was worried that he wouldn't want to sleep with me anymore. I just didn't know what to expect. But the moment I saw him I smiled. And the moment I saw him see me (and smile) all worries just dissappeared. And I was just with him. We hugged hello but he wouldn't let me go; he kept running his hands over my back and arms and hair while pressing me closer and closer to him. And then we were laughing and then we were kissing and then it just clicked into us.

I first drove him to my favorite place in Rock Creek Park; halfway up to the stables there is a meadow (no sparkly vampires) and in the summer you can sit there for hours and never hear the sounds of the city. We sat on a picnic table and held hands in the sun. And talked. And kissed.

I think, actually, it's just safe to assume that we were talking and kissing at all times.

We went to my house and dropped off his bags (and talked and kissed)(and almost didn't make it out the door) then we drove to Columbia Heights and we walked around my church. Then took the subway down to the Mall. I told him what all the museums were and he opted to start with The National Gallery of Art. We spent several hours wandering slowly past the paintings. Some of them we giggled about, some of them we marvelled over. Sometimes he would ask me what was happening in a painting and I would make up a story. His father is a Baptist preacher (cue dusty springfield http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZWEEm6xZvU&feature=related) so when we came across bible stories he told me them. When the rooms were empty we would kiss. We sat down in the Monet room and I curled up in his arms on the sofa; and we held hands and talked.

We went to other museums and walked the monuments. We walked through markets. We looked at the White House and the National Cathedral. We stopped for coffee and I would lie in his lap in the booth at the restaurant and laugh. He said I looked like a movie star trying to go incognito without my makeup on. We went to see a play at the Shakespeare Theatre (and as we sat in the dark his fingers would brush the side of my breast and everything went silent) that we spent hours deconstructing to figure out why it didn't work. We had fake fights. We argued about philosophy. We lay in bed and stared in each other's eyes. We danced in my room with the only the christmas lights on. I sang to him with the bench at my piano turned lengthwise (I have no idea why it never occurred to me to do this before in life) so that he could sit behind me -- press against me -- while I sang "the nearness of you" to him.

And here's the thing about Fernando; my favorite thing... My favorite thing is not his extraordinary mind or his debilitating charm; it's not his incredibly large brown eyes or his ridiculously handsome face; it's not his mouth or his dizzy kisses or his smooth skin (or his freckled shoulders); it's not his voice -- sexy enough in English but will knock me out when he speaks Spanish; it's not his soft, sweet, almost childlike kindness.

My favorite thing about Fernando is that when I am with him I feel completely like myself.

I suspect we would fight if we were a couple. I never fight. I have always tried so hard to be as diplomatic as possible; to say only the things that seemed most constructive to getting a situation where I thought it should be. I've always been proud of this. But it's exhausting. And it's a bit of a lie, isn't it? To not let someone know when they're hurting you, to not let them see they've pushed you too far? With Rob I got to the point where I couldn't say most of what I was thinking because I knew he'd freak out. With Jaime...? I think I was just a version of myself. And I liked that version, but it wasn't totally me.

With Fernando, I was just me. Right up to when I would yell at him (mostly laughing) "you're being an asshole right now!"

when have I ever said that to anyone I was dating??

When he left, when I turned my back on him at the airport and took the escalator down towards my car, I burst into tears. This didn't surprise me. What surprised me was that when I stopped crying I didn't feel normal. I didn't go home and write out my visit with him in juicy detail for this blog. I didn't bounce up to my friends and say "OH MY GOD I HAVE TO TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED."

I went home and I lay down in the bed he'd just been in and I stared into space until I fell asleep. When i woke, I went to choir practise and everytime someone touched me I started to cry because I wanted it to be him. I'd had my hand in his for 3 days.

I just felt this incredible loss. I felt like I would do anything to have him beside me for real. To have him and Lucas (his son) move to DC; to have him ask me to move to Mexico. Anything. It just felt so big this love I have had inside me for him just waiting all this time.

But the letters he wrote me, while kind, were not in any way loving or even passionate. They were, in fact, so chaste they could have been written by my father to me. And the feelings ebbed back into a comfortable, dormant, waiting place.

They're all there. I know. I still miss him, but not enough to entirely block Rob out. And not enough to stop me from meeting other men (more on that in a bit).

Everything else is the same level of detail. I could write out our conversations and our activities. I can remember the way he made love to me (highly innovative btw)(and I must say I like having a man as a lover who likes to wake me up in the middle of the night!) and the things he did that pissed me off. I should write all that down so I can read it sometime when I'm 90. I don't know why I resist it. It's like the most private thing to me. It's weird. Unlike me.

And I truly believe that all the things I feel for him, he feels for me. But I am one to embrace love, and I think he is one to run away from it as fast as his skinny, Mexican legs can carry him. Maybe he will decide not to run one of these days, but I feel it would be a mistake to bank on it.

So I move forward.

I went to Vermont for Christmas and I sang with my Mom's choir on Christmas Eve in the beautiful Old West Church with the entire community sharing the holiday together. I played hockey with my dad on the pond. I went hiking with my mom and watched silly videos with my brother. My mother had a stereotypical breakdown where she lamented the lack of grandchildren and suggested that I consider marrying my old friends Van or Seth because they seemed nice enough.

really.

I asked her later if she REALLY thought that I should marry someone I wasn't in love with. She said yes. This made me very angry.

But what would the holidays be if your family didn't piss you off once or twice.

Ben and I drove home together and were about 6 miles out of Montpelier when my car lost control in the snow and spun across the highway, narrowly missing another car before slamming to a stop against the guardrail.

that was scary.

But we were fine and the car was still driveable (I get really depressed when I see the damage, though) so we forged ahead.

Ben and I talked a lot and had fun while he was here (seeing SHERLOCK HOLMES together and going to Lisa's restaurant for dinner once).

I worked New Year's Eve at PS7 but we made very little money because there was a winter storm advisory and everyone cancelled their reservations.

grr.

whatever. I was done with money transactions by midnight so I chocked it up to more of the 2009 same and figured 2010 would be different.

New Year's started off with a 3 mile run and some yoga. I worked on my voice for awhile then met Lisa at Open City and we headed off to see NINE. Afterwords we stumbled through the freezing city and laughed and went to a bookstore but then she needed to go home and go to bed. I was still jazzed from all the singing and dancing in the movie and on a total whim decided to see what was happening at the Chevy Chase Ballroom (for those of you not in DC; chevy chase is a neighborhood, it's not named after the actor).

Turns out it was Tango night at the CCB and i have ALWAYS wanted to learn how to tango. There was a separate studio they were sending people to who were new to the tango, where a teacher would work with you for 20 minutes or so and help you get started with the basics. It was just enough for me to realize that I wouldn't have the easy transition from salsa to tango that I'd had from swing to salsa (much the same, just more hips). Tango happens all on your toes and very much from the waist down. It's so much about balance and smoothness. It was an entirely new physical language and I knew only enough to know that I was a totally inept.

My teacher sent me back out and told me to watch the other couples. I was almost exclusively watching everyone's feet. But there was one couple where I was looking at the way their whole body moved. It was so passionate. It made me think "the tango is like the most intimate conversation you can have". The expression on the man's face was so sensual that it made me think "THAT is why I want to dance tango. I want someone like that to dance with me." Really, I just wanted that guy to dance that way with me but he was REALLY good so clearly that wasn't going to happen. My teacher came out and sat beside me and asked me what I thought. I mentioned a few observations then pointed out the couple saying "I'm really liking watching them." and she said she knew the guy, that he was Argentinian, but that she'd never seen the woman before. I realized that the guy (when he didn't have his sexy tango face on) looked an awful lot like Jeff Goldblum and immediately started referring to him as "argeninian jeff goldblum" in my head.

Several men were kind enough to dance with me. When they asked I said "I'm really, really bad, I don't know if you want to dance with me." and they each smiled and said that was fine, they were happy to help me. So I got a little better with each partner....

... so when AJG (Argentinian Jeff Goldblum) DID ask me to dance I was moderately literate. Still, I could feel how clumsily I was moving. But AJG just pressed his chest to mine and put his face so close that our noses brushed and our mouths were right next to each other and he whispered directions now and then. But mostly he just talked to me with his body, and eventually, my body started to listen. At one point he smiled at me and said "can you tell? you're dancing now." and I could.

He danced with me for a very long time (maybe an hour, maybe 90 minutes, I don't know). We were together until they closed at 2am. There were other people around then and we stopped acting like we were lovers (which is totally how we were dancing -- especially with him massaging my back the way Fernando does when he wants to feel my body pressing into him and squeeze my skin in his hands...) and we started being polite strangers.

said that I would be back sunday night and he said he'd see me then.

I was totally glowing from the whole night, but I didn't really think he'd be there; this fall has taught me nothing if not "don't believe a single word a man says to you". But he was there. And we did dance -- in fact, he danced with me from the first to the last and didn't let anyone else get near me. At one point he got fed up with the music and said "follow me" and took me into the other room and pulled out his iPod. We each put an earphone in one ear and danced that way for the rest of the night.

He's not as good a kisser as he is a dancer; but I think I can fix that. If we wind up seeing each other again and if he gets all kissy w/ me again I want to say "you don't kiss me like you dance with me."

When he dances with me he waits before he starts until he can feel my whole body there with him, then he suggests something to me and waits to hear how my body answers him before moving onto something else. It's a very soft, but firm conversation.
when he kisses me it's just too aggressive; all hard lips and blunt tongue. completely different from how he moves otherwise. But he's a good mover, so I think it's possible I could like kissing him.

I had kind of a revolutionary moment with him, though, when we were kissing. At first I liked it, but then I thought "ok, I don't want to do this, I want to dance" so I [seriously, I have never done this before in my life!] pulled away from the kiss and said "can we dance for now?"

and he smiled and we started dancing again.

was it really that simple all along? All these years I've never known how to draw my own line and it's that easy??

Actually, I just felt so proud of myself!
I had to do it a few more times, but that was cool; it was nice that the dancing was so hot that every once in awhile he'd just grab me and kiss me.

Later, in the car he was kissing my neck (mi cuello) and I pulled away saying "ok that's enough" and he stopped but he is Argentinian after all so he said "why, doesn't it feel good?" and I said "yes, of course it feels good but just because my body likes it doesn't mean my brain is ready for it"
and he was like "I don't understand, if your body likes it..." so I said "look we've been dancing like we're lovers, but I don't know you. I don't know what I want yet."
again. I have never spoken to a man like that before. "No" was sort of drilled out of me (no pun intended) in terms of sex when I was a kid, so to find it so easy to use all of the sudden is kind of a heady thing.

It was also nice that he turned out to be fun to talk to too. We spoke some in English and some in Spanish. He is my age more or less (I never did find out how old he is, but he has creases around his eyes, so I know he is not a child). I asked him why he came to the US and he said that he wants to see as much of the world as possible. That he thinks of the world of his house, and Argentina as his bedroom, but that he doesn't just want to live in his bedroom.

He took my card and said he'd be in touch, but still (again, after this fall) I wasn't really sure what to expect. So color me surprised when I got an email from him today telling me what a lovely time he'd had last night (he wrote me in spanish :)

ok.

so that's some of what's been happening.

golly life is fun :)

so much to tell !

Ok, so I have no time and there is a lot I want to tell you all. So let's just say the major points are
1. I have an interview in an hour and a half with the board for The Actor's Center in DC. I have been nominated by my amazing friend Ricardo to be on the board which will allow me to be kind of at the heart of a lot of what's happening in the city in terms of theater. I already had one interview and everyone seems pretty sure I'm going to be voted on, but still, I'm excited/nervous about it all.
(then Lisa, Ricardo and I are going to see 2012 which I can tell you will involve the 3 of us being so ridiculous that we might need to be hospitalized for laughing so hard).

2. I sent in a job application to the University of Maryland to be a theater/voice professor. I am moderately/dimly hopeful. Doug knows someone over there and is going to call to ask them to keep an eye out for my application.

3. I met a guy 2 weeks ago. An amazing amazing, gorgeous, made me wonder what might come next kind of a guy. He seemed super into me. Wrote me all these emails (PLURAL!!) after our date about how much he was looking forward to seeing me when he got back from thanksgiving break. And then he never called.
retard.
whatever, it was nice to know I could get excited about a guy (made for a nice distraction from all the moronic missing of Rob that I do).
but it doesn't matter because...

4. FERNANDO is coming to DC tomorrow!!!!!!!
tomorrow!
I'm ... speechless. stunned. Lord only knows what will happen when I see him!?!?!
I just re-read (and posted in the entry before this one) the entire story I wrote about him when I was in Costa Rica. You may read if you are so inclined -- you should at least scroll through and see the photos. The man really is mega-hot!

5. I've been a vegan for 5 weeks now :)

6. I freaking love my friends in DC. I love that even though I don't have work in my field that I have the talent and the training that will allow me to have a fantastic career and that even though I don't have a house that is my own or even an apartment I have a home in this city because it is FULL of people I love and things that are important to me!!!!

ok
wish me luck!
jennifer