“I mean, look at all these rich nerds with fetching Asian ladies on their arms. We don’t want to sound “offensive” but it’s just a thing, you know?”

—Gawker: Following Hallowed Nerd Tradition, Michael Phelps Dates Asian Chick

And in the comments:

“Asian is the last stop before Gay.” #

“My wife already knows when she’s tired of me and kicks me out that my next wife will come from Korea or Sri Lanka.” #

“Mr. Butterfly Champion gets his Madame Butterfly*.” #

“He so horny**!” #

“White nerds dating Asian girls is a trend. I don’t think it’s offensive to point it out.” #

SERIOUSLY?!

- My friends and I make plenty of offensive comments about each other’s race/sexual orientation/etc. but we do so in private. So though I’ve been referred to as a Madame Butterfly, these things are said in jest and directed toward me specifically by my friends specifically, not directed at an entire group of people by anonymous commenters who don’t know them.
- Some argue that there’s truth to some stereotypes like “Asians are the last stop to Gay”. However, I can think of lots of stereotypes out there (”Blacks are thugs,” “Gays are diseased,” “Fat people are lazy”, etc.) that shouldn’t ever be said out loud. Why? Oh, that’s right. Because they’re stereotypes, which by definition, means that they have no empirical basis.
- Interracial relationships are not “trends”. Trends go out of style. I’m pretty sure this isn’t just a hot commodity for the season.
- People have no filter on the Internet, especially not on websites like Gawker, because they mistake “being offensive” for “being controversial”. A racist remark isn’t snarky humor, it’s just racist.

Call this an overreaction, but I’m seriously disturbed by some of these comments. The Gawker article is offensive, sure, but considering the website’s habitual outrage at other people’s displays of ignorance, I’m going to chalk this up to a poor attempt at humor. The commenters, though? I guess they demonstrate that some people out there — educated or not — clearly need a crash course on racism and its seemingly harmless manifestations.

* For those unfamiliar with the opera, Madame Butterfly depicts the relationship between a condescending American and a self-sacrificing, exoticized Japanese woman, who gets abandoned (after marriage, mind you) for a new and improved American wife.

** A reference to the Vietnamese prostitute in Full Metal Jacket. Everyone’s heard “Me so horny. Me love you long time”; no one ever knows where it’s from. Now you do.

(reposted from Tumblr)

BUSY? SKIP TO THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AT THE END.

1. When the polls close:

(map from Huffington Post)

2. What states matter:

According to the prediction models at Fivethirtyeight.com, McCain absolutely can’t win without Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Indiana and Montana. He has less chance of winning without taking both Ohio and North Carolina than you do of wearing a condom and getting HIV.

3. What states matter in what order:

I distilled this from 538’s Nate Silver:

At 6 PM EST, most of Indiana’s polls close. An early call for McCain means hold onto your butts (because it indicates unpredicted McCain support); an early call for Obama means pop the champagne (for the inverse reason).

At 7, the rest of Indiana closes and a McCain win isn’t as meaningful. But at the same time Virginia, Georgia, and most of Florida close. If Virginia goes Obama, again, champagne. Same for Florida. If Obama wins his long-shot Georgia because of the record number of black early voters, then call a Republican and do your best Nelson “Ha ha!” because this whole map’s going blue.

At 7:30, Ohio and North Carolina close. Bad voter turnout here actually helps Obama, thanks to his huge lead in early votes. Either way, by now McCain probably has to win both or…finally…champagne.

At 8, Pennsylvania wraps up. But the projections may be off depending on which votes are counted first. Again, if you’re still holding onto your butts, keep a grip.

At 9, if Obama is still struggling, he’d better win Colorado. But not much chance it’ll come down to this.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
AT THIS TIME, IF OBAMA HASN’T SWEPT:
6 PM: McCain needs to not already lose Indiana.

7 PM: McCain needs Florida and Virginia.

7:30: McCain needs Ohio and North Carolina.

8: McCain probably needs Pennsylvania.

9: McCain needs Colorado.

In terms of the presidential election, my absentee ballot will probably mean nada, but it’ll count quite a bit toward the vote against Prop 8. Despite some optimistic forecasts, I’m inclined to think that there’s more contention than being reported and at least one media source finds the majority in support of the ban on same-sex marriage.

As a staunch atheist, I have a simple — some might call it simplistic — opinion on the issue: don’t let the state have any say on what “marriage” is at all. In the ideal world, everyone could have civil unions and obtain the same rights historically associated with marriage. Those who actually care about the sanctity of the marriage label can go harass their church about who’s allowed slap that sticker on their forehead. Granted, there’s a cultural attachment to the word and idea of “marriage” (thanks for the early conditioning, media!), but I’m sure America can overcome that along with terrorism and its close cousin paganism.

Unfortunately, in the world we actually live in, people want their personal definition of marriage to prevail — and this is something both left and right are guilty of. The term “marriage” itself isn’t worth defense by anyone (no, not even LGBT activists). It’s a moot point after all. As a non-religious person, the title “domestic partner” means as much to me as the title of wife and let’s face it, there are greater things to fight for than technical terms here. What same-sex couples really need are equal legal consideration and societal tolerance. There wouldn’t even be a debate about “marriage” if those goals were achieved.

And by the way, I’m not even remotely interested in the idea of getting married in any official sense so maybe I just don’t care enough about marriage to defend it against the evil homosexuals. Knowing me, I’d be too lazy to plan the damn wedding and would probably even put off the city hall trip for a licensel. And given my blasé attitude on these matters, I’m supposed to think that my chick-dude relationship is somehow superior to same-sex couplings simply because I, like millions of women before me, can biologically produce squealing brats who will surely ruin my life? Please. Let someone else get married. Let them adopt the product of my womb. They will surely do as good — if not a better — job with both.

likepolishingfirewood:

new rule: you can’t volunteer to make someone a mixed tape like some john cusack circa “Say Anything” indie God out of my dreams, and then not respond to a fucking text message. it’s just MEAN.

Kennedy has a new blog on Tumblr, a new life in Seattle, and a new distrust for men. (Thanks flaky dude from last weekend!) We were discussing her most recent date and she asked me what I thought she should do regarding this maybe-interested/maybe-not guy. My advice:

I, being the type to not trust men, say you are one of many girls he is pursuing concurrently using the unfortunately effective technology of mass text messaging and copy/paste. My advice is to maximize orgasms while minimizing pain. I suggest dating as many people as possible at the same time so any single man’s attention is irrelevant since you are too busy anyway. Basically, don’t get invested. Men are shit.* Let’s not forget that just because one of us is operating under some sort of romantic delusion at the moment.

I should’ve probably added the disclaimer that following the above advice is the first step to lifelong commitmentphobia, but I figure Kennedy’s already well on her way toward that.

Anyway, it was interesting to talk about boys because I haven’t done it for months. Literally, months. The people I have been keeping in touch with in the States are mostly in serious relationships, so no one’s gushing about their drunken error in judgment from last weekend. You have to understand, I used to relish in drunken errors! And yes, I do mean my own. Everyone else was mostly horrified but I loved my crazy dating antics (almost as much as I love myself), so ever since I went off the market and stopped being so damn entertaining (to myself), I’ve been dying to live vicariously and single-y through someone else.

Until Kennedy and I chatted, at least. Then I remembered that dating was largely a complicated, terrible affair. Being single itself wasn’t so bad (and often times, it rocked), but when you were sick and tired of being alone and decided to get out there and look for someone with whom you could share takeout bills and pregnancy scares, the process for finding said partner came with so many rules and expectations that you would’ve thought “dating” was something invented by a particularly heinous schoolteacher. For example, what’s with waiting to call and not seeing each other on consecutive days? Or the do’s and don’ts of first date hanky-panky? Or generally keeping your feelings for someone guarded until he hands you a big rock? For reasons that escape me, playing hard to get has been marketed as the key to getting a mate, despite its incompatibility with our biological impulses and all evolutionary theory. On one hand, it reduces men to masochistic idiots who want the unattainable. On the other, it encourages women to behave manipulatively. Way to fulfill a stereotype!

The only thing that’s worse than playing hard to get is doing the opposite: pretending you like someone you don’t have the least bit of interest in, which actually seems to be a dating maxim itself. I’ve done this before and I’ve had it done to me, and my theory is that this behavior occurs when the disinterested party is afraid of offending the uninteresting one. (Like, what are you supposed to say, “I’ve been dating you for the water pressure”?) Also, I sometimes date guys for longer than I should simply for lack of other options. DO NOT DO THIS. I am terrible at breaking up with people, but seriously, suck it up and deal with being alone, because if you don’t, this is what will happen: Invariably, a more attractive option will come along. You will be forced to kill off your dalliance of the past few weeks without much warning. Your victim will go through all five stages of grief as their dreams of cohabitation slowly disintegrate while you watch on somewhat embarrassed by how long you took part in this charade. No one is happy, and if you fail to give adequate notice, you may even have a recent ex-lover phoning you at 2 a.m. while you try to play Just The Tip with the person you dumped them for. All in all, not hot.

Oh, last reason off the top of my head for why dating sucks: “dating” is a favorite activity of assholes with girlfriends. (Another possible theory, Kennedy. Take notes!)

Okay, let’s end this baby on a positive note since I’ve just spent several paragraphs criticizing an institution in which I no longer have to take part and everyone’s probably like, “Hypocrite!” So I would like to recap by saying that although I stick to the claim that dating is a sham, my last two relationships did start with first dates — the traditional kind that comes with dinner and ends in 69 — but that being said, let’s not attribute the successful outcum  to the dating process. After all, any non-kissing action on the first date is supposed to be a romance killer. Thus, I’m pretty sure the relationships evolved in spite of the rules and expectations, not because of them. So you see? It’s actually all in your hands! Be a maverick! Don’t wait to fuck! Answer your goddamn text messages as soon as you receive them! And stop listening to dating advice from oversexed college girls! Seriously, I don’t know jack.

* Men not actually shit.

And it’s not just memories either. It’s skills like how to use JSTOR (thank you, high school debate) or how to swim (thank you, community pool) that I must relearn because I’ve somehow magically forgotten despite everyone’s insistence that there are some things, like riding a bike, that you remember forever. Well, trust me, if there were ever a person who could forget, it’d be me. In Ibiza, for example, this was precisely my problem. Here I was with miles of unpolluted ocean before me, and I was terrified of wading too far out because I hadn’t swum in years. I was always scared to go into pools as a kid until I braved swimming lessons during early elementary school. Then I promptly forgot and had to learn again, this time during a summer around age 10. I don’t think I’ve really swum again since. Eventually in Ibiza, I gave it a go at a shallow beach but I conceded defeat after several gulpfuls of seawater. This was a performance from someone who used to relish jumping off diving boards several yards above her head.

And so I consider my life history a sort of project. Narcissistic it may be, but most of my writing concerns relationships; and my knowledge of relationships is inseparable from my understanding of myself. It’s too bad my mental timeline starts somewhere at last week. To help myself remember the important things, I sift through blog entries from high school, reread old instant messaging conversations, or simply ask questions to people who were paying attention when life was happening. I am endlessly recording and recalling the details of my existence in hopes that turning my laptop into a life library will offer some permanence to my fleeting memories. Last summer, I even paid a friend $40 to transcribe 200+ text messages. This spring, I requested from Harvard my mental health records from 2006 to 2007. It’d been a tumultuous year, and I thought these logs might come in handy some day, not just for “memoir research” (the reason I cited on my request form) but for … well, me. When I go home for the holidays, I dig up paper diaries of my youth and old notes passed from friends to my middle and high school self. I actually still have plenty, including mean ones that declared me a slut at as young an age as 12 and nice ones from girls who are still some of my closest friends today. I’m the type of person who doesn’t throw things away, despite easily blocking out large chunks of my childhood. I’m pretty sure that none of these habits are common, that I am straddling a fine line between forgetfulness and repression,that I likely appear crazy or self-obsessed or both . (That last one may be a correct assessment, since I am, after all, applying journalistic techniques to research my favorite subject: myself.)

The funny thing about reexamining the past is that I always find something new. I have a hard time remembering, and so the Lena of yesterday never seems familiar. I might as well be going through the personal documents of a stranger. Besides, I’ve changed so much that it’s hard to get a grasp of who I was or wanted to be at any given point in time. It’s a good thing that I do a better job than most of keeping track of feelings and thoughts in the moment or else my account of my life would begin somewhere at 17. Luckily, I’ve maintained multiple blogs for the past five years in which I have a record of everything from my adolescent sexual experiences to college admission anxieties to freshman year disillusionment to first loves and last loves. The girl preserved reads like a fictional character to me. Whoever I was then is always too far removed for me to get a good hold on her now. And it’s sad. It’s tragic that I forget.

It’s tragic because forgetting means throwing out the good along with the bad and though I think leaving behind the latter is a matter of self-preservation, it’s the former that makes life worth living, isn’t it? Besides, there are lessons I could learn from myself if only I had the will to remember them. I must admit that there are some things I did better at 15 than I do now. Somehow, things seemed clearer then, even when it came to what I wanted to accomplish with my writing. There are other things I’ve simply stopped knowing how to do, like letting myself fall in love without worrying about what risks it might entail.

Last night, while trying to dig up resume drafts from my inbox, I found an old email exchange with an ex-boyfriend I dated two summers ago. In it, Summer Guy (his pseudonym on my blog) said one of the most important things anyone has ever told me: “Your writing is beautiful; don’t ever stop.” To which I responded, “I’m more flattered than if you had said I was beautiful. Thank you.” The rest of the emails were about our relationship, about falling hard and fast, about — as I called it then — “love … or its short-term equivalent.” We were writing at the height of our passion for each other, and I found what I said to him remarkable because for once, reading the old Lena brought about a feeling of nostalgia, a sense that I had indeed felt that way in that moment. I remembered her. This hasn’t happened in a long time for me. Recognition of my former self, in place of embarrassment at who she was — or even worse, bafflement — has largely been rare, and yet last night, I could recall what it felt like to love someone.

I don’t love him anymore. At least not in the way that I used to. And though I consider us good friends, I enjoy Summer Guy’s company most from afar … or preferably in short spurts with breaks for good measure. But despite only harboring platonic feelings for him nowadays, recalling how much I once loved him made me smile. It reminded me that relationships are great, and believe it or not, I need the reminder. I’ve been spending the past month trying to convince myself that relationships are the precise opposite of great. Instead, they are emotionally precarious, troublesome, and unnecessary. Maybe I’m clinging desperately to my independence for fear that I will lose some part of myself in the process of falling for someone else. Maybe I simply don’t know how to respond to someone who exceeds the expectations I’ve habitually lowered in light of attached suitors and so-called liberal lovers who later balk at my ideals. Maybe I’m not willing to run the risk of abandonment. But though I’ve been afraid for weeks to make this concession, I must say: by and large, love is worth it. The fact that an email from a former boyfriend can conjure up this rare spark of recognition of the feeling is proof enough.

Love didn’t used to terrify me, and I certainly didn’t think I was scared of it but reading those emails I wrote to Summer Guy made me see how differently I am now behaving in this relationship. Because unlike the community pool, love is more like swimming in the ocean. Once you’re far out, there are no lifeguards or railings, and more often than not, your final destination is not forward but back from where you came. For the girl who used to throw herself headfirst into the water without hesitation, it seems like I’ve taken one too many steps away from the sand to remember that the view is worth it, that drowning is more fear than real possibility, that even those who never properly learned how to swim — or who have long forgotten — are capable of staying afloat.

And though this is beside the point, I think I’ve made it fairly obvious that the majority of my time here thus far has been spent in an un-air-conditioned dorm room with my sometimes-suicidal best friend. Her roommates are probably wondering when the hell I’m going to leave. It’s not like I’m rocking out in lavish hotels. I’m essentially a squatter in student housing, not the Marie Antoinette these online snarks are looking to stone. I mean, when I was hungry today, I had to go into the kitchen to steal someone else’s cake and eat it. Seriously.

Anyway, I’m writing this somewhat defensive entry because I find it irritating that there’s a stereotype of Harvard kids as being spoiled brats who have had everything handed to them in life. Certainly, this holds true for a portion of the population, but on the whole, the students here are probably some of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen, and there are plenty of them who aren’t working for money but rather for causes and beliefs that don’t even benefit them. Occasional pretension aside, my peers deserve a lot of credit for that. Of course, plenty of us — even someone like me whose annual family income qualified her for free school lunches back in the day — have had inherent advantages, be they particularly supportive parents or the necessary college prep classes. Still, those advantages shouldn’t discredit the many things we have earned for ourselves. In my case, I think this summer of travel has been well-earned, given the fact that it’s the first leisurely summer I’ve had since … just about ever.

Unlike comments about my sexual history, I take criticism about perceived privilege and exorbitant spending (of other people’s money) very personally. I consider “brat” far more insulting than “slut”, because though I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with sexual appetite, I do think that ignorant wastefulness and entitlement are major character flaws. Besides, the truth is that I do feel bad about not working this summer. I put myself through enough guilt without needing commenters to remind me about it. And this guilt is definitely an irrational manifestation of the capitalistic, work-a-holic system in which I grew up. Why do Americans feel so bad about taking a vacation!

This autumn, it’ll be back to work for me … and it’ll be much more work than usual too. I’m taking the year off from Harvard, and I’ll be the Boston area, close to friends and lover (note: that was singular, not plural). I’m looking for a part-time gig to balance out my freelancing. Having my own hours as a writer is fantastic but at my age, at least, it’s no way to pay the bills on the regular. So ideally, I’d like to be working at a non-profit that deals with women’s issues, LGBT advocacy, or disadvantaged youth. Come September, I’ll be more than ready for real life and the comfort of work. I wouldn’t trade this summer for anything, but I wouldn’t extend it either. Besides, when traveling becomes a full-time occupation, it ceases to be a vacation.

I didn’t expect anyone with any modicum of common sense to disseminate these rumors further than they’ve already been disseminated, but clearly I was wrong. It’s bad that completely anonymous strangers with no stake in my life have chosen to so thoroughly gut it and put it on display on my behalf. It’s worse that perfectly intelligent people believe what they say and encourage this rumor-mongering by reposting the defamatory content. You guys work for thisrecording. Don’t you have to fact-check or something before you just post something to the Internet? Anyway, that’s enough, now. I’ve been ignoring this mess for two months and it’s time for an explanation. A long one.

Even Julia Allison, who epitomizes the trials and triumphs of blogebrity, said after a tumultuous Tumblr run that “none of this has been worth it.” I don’t know what I’ll eventually get out of Sex and the Ivy, or out of The Chicktionary for that matter, but I’m also reaching the point where I can no longer see any benefit to doing what I have been doing for the past 22 months. A book deal? A reality TV show? A job at some “edgy” new media company too self-congratulatory to actually be edgy? None of these options — and all of them have been offered — are terribly interesting to me, perhaps because they require that I sacrifice my independence and creative control. What I’d really like to do is to graduate and to become a nomad, to read what I want to read and to write what I want to write, and (most of all) to just be left alone, at least as far as my personal life is concerned.

That last thing has always been the problem from the beginning: people misunderstand my choice to reveal certain elements of my life. It does not entitle them to dig for the parts I do not share or to actively interfere in events that have nothing to do with them. That’s why it’s not worth it anymore, or at least, that’s why I’m approaching a point where things are no longer worth it. I used to get irritated by the harassing emails that ruined my day; I used to get angry when other people — be they Gawker or my classmates — just didn’t understand me. But those things I eventually got used to. Something far more sinister is happening now, a line I didn’t even know existed is being crossed, and it makes everything that has preceded it seem awfully trivial in comparison. I wrote in a letter to Kennedy recently:

I wonder, of course, if this is all worth it. I wonder this all the time, from the beginning really, since the stakes rose with every month and it seemed like any given moment in time was a huge risk, that that moment was really it, really as bad as it was going to get for me and was I in or was I out?

Well, nearly two years later, I’m pretty sure that that moment is, in fact, this one.

I started blogging publicly two years ago in August 2006. I had just been dumped by a Republican investment banker, was living at home in LA with my mother and then-14-year-old sister, and worked 40 hours a week at marketing and PR internships. Freshman year at Harvard sucked. I considered that summer recuperation. I was certain sophomore year would get better. I had, after all, just gotten out of my first adult relationship. Did I really need further preparation than that for my 19th year?

The answer was a resounding yes. I had no idea what my blog would turn into. People ask, “But you had to know. With a name like Sex and the Ivy, what did you expect?” Not this. I’m on the verge of 21 and this is not at all what I had in mind. Actually, I couldn’t have predicted Year 2 of the Blogging Life even after Year 1. Because the first 12 months, bipolar and destabilizing as they were, were still exciting and educational once you subtracted the agonizing heartbreak and emotional dysregulation that came with dead-end boys and public scrutiny. The second 12 months? Pretty smooth sailing except for the nagging feeling that my world could crumble at any second. And it did. Once, twice, and again.

Two of those apocalypses have been blog-induced. The first was the naked photo debacle. The second has been the systematic deconstruction of my most recent relationship in online forums. Actually, “systematic deconstruction” sounds much too fair for the circumstances. It sounds like some of the commentary might even have merit. In reality, trolls on my blogs are accusing the guy I’m dating of sexual harassment, assault, and general unethical behavior despite having nothing to go on but a blog entry with a disclaimer. Patrick’s identity (as in, pertinent information like his full name, address, and occupation) wasn’t even public until someone conducted a witchhunt and posted that information on Juicy Campus. Up until then, the most I showed of him on my blog had been the back of his head. And then various gossip blogs were emailed about our supposedly illicit affair (luckily, they had the good sense to ignore these “tips”). The rumor mill continued churning. Posters on the notoriously defamatory AutoAdmit decided to dismantle his entire life, our entire relationship. They took my blog posts about aggressive, consensual sex to mean that I was being coerced or assaulted when I’ve never so much as fought with Patrick or heard him raise his voice. The funny thing is, no one is actually concerned about my well-being, even if they pretend as if this “investigation” into my relationship is for my own good. How do I know their intentions? Well, for one, Patrick has received multiple emails telling him what an awful person he is. I’ve received nothing, and I’m supposed to be the grateful victim of this rescue effort. I ignored it all and assumed that anyone remotely relevant would never read the trash being written. Then the trolls began emailing people in Harvard’s sociology department, people in the administration, people Patrick works with. Strangers I only knew through names on course catalogs and official announcements read skewed accounts that portrayed Patrick like a predator. I can deal with criticism. This is complete invasion of privacy. This is defamation.

Why the hoopla? He is a graduate student and he used to be my teaching assistant, which makes our relationship about as scandalous as a senior dating a freshman. Nonetheless, it’s a fact that the Internet ate up, distorted, and spat back out. Google the mess. There are more pages than I care to read about this matter. This is the first time I’ve blogged about how we met or how we know each other. I assumed that doing so would just encourage rumors and inaccuracies, but now that things have escalated, there’s no reason to protect an open secret. So these are the facts: He’s 28, a Ph.D candidate in my department (sociology), and German by birth and citizenship. He owns a bulldog. He went to Yale. He used to lead my discussion sections and grade my papers. By the time we went out on our first date, it’d been months since he last did either. Far from punishing him, all university sources consulted in the ugly PR aftermath are on his side, have confirmed that he has broken no rules, and believe he probably has a case for libel. Contrary to internet speculation, he was not removed from the Graduate Student Council but resigned after a two-year term. His name is Patrick and the only error in judgment he’s made in this entire ordeal is dating a girl who writes a blog with detractors vile enough to not just interfere in her life but also in his.

Is that enough? Here’s more: We met in 2006 during my sophomore fall. My best friend and I whispered about the cute TF in between taking lecture notes, but Patrick was just a distraction from my 10-11am on Mondays and Wednesdays, not an actual fixation. He never made a move on me when I was his student. He had a girlfriend and was, after all, my TF. It wasn’t a possibility either of us considered. Our only personal interaction was office hours, where I first met his dog Hamlet. A year and a half later, neither ethical barrier remained. He found out about my crush by coincidence through a Q&A in The Crimson. Our first date was at The Beehive in Boston’s South End. I saw him again the next night. That first week, I spent four nights with him. And so on until we got to where we are now. What else? He makes me soy lattes in the morning. Half my life is currently stored in his basement. The only photos of us together are on Polaroids. We do grocery shopping at Deluca’s on Charles Street. We give each other books to read. He met Kennedy when he visited Germany last month and held me the numerous times I cried about her this spring. He is an atheist. What more do you want to know? He takes photos of me with a Leica M6. His sister is an artist. Enough? Or more? How much am I supposed to give to prove there is nothing to hide?

I have a blog where I write more of the truth than most people are ever willing to admit, but whatever I keep private is construed as controversy and scandal. I can’t date someone without being worried that his name will be published, and Patrick is not even the first to get “outed”. For all of the above reasons and many others, I see suicide on the horizon. Sex and the Ivy is not dead, but it’s on its way there. Two weeks ago, Bluehost shut down Sex and the Ivy because my scripts were running inefficiently (whatever that means). Patrick twiddled on my control panel, upgraded my Wordpress, called customer service for me, and convinced them to put it back up again. The guy whose reputation I’m ruining helped me fix the website that’s made him infamous by association. Think about that for a second.

I don’t know how many Patricks there are in the world, but I’m going to guess not many. And my friends? It might not seem too difficult to be buds with the local sex blogger, but acquaintances dropped like flies after I started blogging. Nowadays, I have a pretty good idea of who my real friends are, and their job is not easy. So I’m tired of making their lives even harder. I’m tired of making my own life harder. I’m tired of the word “libel” in bed, of forwarding each other defamatory emails and links, of discussing “legal options” over dinner. I’m tired of having to check Google alerts on his name. I’m not a masochist, and I’m certainly not a sadist. I can’t give anything anymore because people then expect everything. I’ll always write but I doubt Lena the Sex Blogger will survive the year, and as far as suicides go, this is one that will hardly be mourned.

I told him in the very beginning that I didn’t want to make his life complicated. I tried to explain about my blog, about the drama that had already ensued. He didn’t believe that it could get so bad. “What are you,” he teased. “Like E-list celebrity?” I laughed. I agreed it was ludicrous. But I’d been in the game long enough to know that people fixate on the most asinine things. I prepared him for the worst case scenario, but no amount of preparation could ready someone for the type of fallout that occurred here. If he left, it would be easy for me to be sad or bitter and to blame my blog for ruining my life. But he hasn’t left and if he does, it won’t be because of this. And so I find myself with an odd kind of burden. I can’t simply be sad or bitter. I have to do everything I can to make things as right as possible. Because caring about me is far harder than it should be, and yet still, he makes me soy lattes in the morning.

I talked to Susannah Breslin today about what it’s like in college nowadays and what I think about what others think and how I handle all the shit that’s thrown at my blog and views on sexuality. Mid-interview, I verbalized for the first time something that I didn’t realize until recently. I don’t care anymore what people think.This hasn’t always been the case. I used to care what my friends thought, then I cared what my readers thought, then I cared what agents and producers and capitalist goons thought. And I’ve always cared what reporters and other bloggers thought. (But maybe that’s because I give more credit to those who write.)

Now? Hm. I pretty much only consult with Patrick and Kennedy about what I write, which is essentially consulting with myself (since I live at the former’s apartment and speak with the latter on a near hourly basis). I don’t get upset when commenters hate on me, or when other bloggers hate on me, or when I realize I am completely un-marketable and most likely going to be poor for a very long time.

I think that’s the point. Having no options, that is. I wrote a sex blog for nearly two years and during this time, not only did I write explicitly about sexual acts and depression and all my fuck-ups but also, I had a crazy ex who leaked my naked photos on the Internet. I mean, I’m not marketable in love and not marketable in the labor force and not marketable in civilized society, really. And when you begin to realize that you are the antithesis of everything acceptable or American, that your Ivy League resume is chock full of life experience but nothing more, that the only people who will love you are the rare ones who forgive first impressions, it’s then that you stop giving a shit and start living the way you want to live.

Because here is the thing: there is so much shit said about me on the Internet that I couldn’t wake up everyday worrying about it or I probably would’ve offed myself by now. I have no option but to stop caring and when I stopped caring, I realized something incredible: I don’t have to care. Whether someone thinks I’m a slut should make no difference to me. Why is that something I should cry about? Why should any of us care what anyone else thinks? It’s both hilarious and sad that in order to love myself fully and completely, to be totally comfortable with the decisions I make, it took everyone else hating me and deriding my choices.

Also? I may be a whore by societal standards, but I am not an attention whore. I go to Harvard for chrissakes. Do you think I don’t realize that the only reason anyone gives my blog the time of day is because I am a living, walking, subversive abomination that they expect to crash and burn? Do you think I’m so deluded as to believe that most people are cheering me on? I may be egotistic, but I’m not quite that naive. So I realize that the majority of “attention” I get is negative. Why in the world would I court that? Google Adsense profits of an incredible $1/day? I don’t think so. It’s not about money. It’s not about all publicity being good publicity. It’s about I can so I will.

Here’s a summation for the critics: this is just how I am and this is just how I’d be, whether or not you’re reading. I don’t care for your attention anymore than you care for my whoring. The difference between us is a matter of liberation. I can fuck whoever and live however I like and feel fine about it all at the end of the day. But even those who despise me find it hard to look away or to bite their tongue or to not personally intervene and yell “NO YOU ARE WRONG”. Think about that for a second, and tell me: which one of us is captive?

Anyway, remember that time I was abstinent? Yeah, it happened. April of last year. When I realized the guy I was into at the time was a cheater, compulsive liar, and probably a sociopath. (This was the same guy who later published nude photos of me.) After I compared stories with the OTHER girl he was fucking, I started screening his calls, quit believing in romance, and decided to let my hymen grow out. I was so angry (not heartbroken, not sad, but PISSED OFF) that I was determined to not repeat this mistake. So I took an absolute approach. No sex ’til love, I said. What I really meant was, “No sex until I fucking feel like it again, assholes.”

I moved to New York at the end of May, and my phonebook started filling up with numbers despite minimal effort on my part. It was summer in the City and everyone was feeling frisky. Yet despite feeling pressure from guys in the double digits, I managed to remain unpenetrated (and thus, appear totally game-less in New York magazine) for the first two months of summer. There were hot models and blogworthy exploits and everything, but I kept my legs SHUT. Trust me, temptation was in the air.

Not really.

Had I wanted sex bad, I probably would’ve had it, but I was still completely wary of anything with a dick. So I did what seemed reasonable at the time: I put dicks in my mouth. This was the summer of the grand blowjob. I have never before, nor have I since, given so much head and been so good at it. Seriously, I wish I had transcribed some of the post-orgasm reviews. But despite the fact that I blew so many people that I would need to refer to my Word document of hookups to tell you how many penises I sucked, this slut drew the line at third base. Why? Spite. I didn’t say no to sex and yes to oral because of some misguided notion of what “real sex” constitutes. I was just angry at men and I liked saying no. I liked the power that came with refusal almost as much as I liked the power of being able to clamp down my teeth at whim. Defiance for the sake of defiance has always been how I roll. Couple that with a mad desire for revenge and the result was a stubborn bitch who’d lick your balls but wouldn’t engage in either extreme of kissing or fucking. I drove guys crazy.

Anyway, I didn’t care. I didn’t give a shit about any of the dicks I sucked which is probably why I can barely recall half the men who were attached to said dicks. In the end, I broke my abstinence streak after four months with a former fling. He was someone familiar and safe and good. He was someone I used to really like, who I suppose, in one way or another, reminded me that there are men worth loving and fucking, and even if I hadn’t stumbled on the one I wanted to love yet, there were certainly others — unattached, decent, respectful others — who I could fuck in the meantime.

That being said, this was a guy I probably shouldn’t have slept with (because he once upon a time stomped all over my heart), as evidenced by this entry from my private journal the day after the de-revirgnization:

30 July 2007 @ 02:08 am
had sex last night. first time in four months. cannot really tell my blockmates or they will kill me. the end.

I didn’t tell them until weeks into the school year. Which probably speaks for itself.

So despite the vow on the blog back in April, I didn’t start having sex again because I fell in love. I had it because I felt like it. For whatever reason, the person (an old flame) and the occasion (a boozey birthday bash) felt like the appropriate circumstances under which to bid my short-lived abstinence streak adieu. Frankly, it was really immature in retrospect to react with vengeful abstinence after being deceived by some guy who really won’t even matter in the grand scheme of things. And my weird use of my vagina as some deranged tool of evening up the cosmic forces? Really weird. And deranged. What I did was every bit as fucked up as withholding sex until accumulating a certain number of dates with a guy. Or until getting a ring on my finger. Simply not wanting to have sex is one thing, but downright refusing it across the board on the basis of an ignorant and stubborn adherence to a rule (in this case, a self-made rule) is another. It reduces sex to a bargaining chip. And that’s not what it should be.

In my life, there have been plenty of guys who I fucked on the first date (for example, the one I’m currently involved with). There are some guys I didn’t fuck until the tenth date and only then because I wanted to know if there was reason to stick around for the 11th. And then there are the guys from New York, the ones from the summer of the blowjob. They were the ones I blew but wouldn’t fuck, who got no real explanation beyond “Someone was mean to me and now you have to suffer for it.” Well, this is your explanation M, J, N, B, M, and whoever the hell else there was. I’m sorry I wouldn’t let you stick it in, not even “just the tip.” If I could go back in time, I’d probably accept your valiant effort to make me cum via a series of thrusts. But hey, the likelihood of a time machine being invented is roughly equal to the likelihood of your success at triggering cunt spasms, so let’s just cut our losses and agree that things are what they are. I may have not fucked you, but at least I swallowed.

The problem with “boyfriend” is it suggests some natural progression in romance. You go from “boyfriend” to “fiance” to “husband”. You go from “dating” to “a relationship” to “engagement” to “marriage.” If you’ve been involved with someone for years and you have no plans to get married, people get confused. If you’ve been living together for years and you have no plans to get married, people get confused. If you decide to have children together and still don’t get married, people just write you off as “everything that is wrong with damn liberals these days.” Our society is unable to understand relationships beyond linguistic and legal boundaries, and that’s a problem. And then there’s the implication that there’s supposed to be some uniform set of attributes romantic relationships are supposed to share. My best friend Jason sleeps over at his boyfriend’s place every night. I sleep over at Patrick’s place every night. Therefore, he must be my boyfriend. My girlfriends bring their significant others to social events. I brought Patrick to my friend Tara’s birthday brunch. He must be my boyfriend. Except he’s not.

Certainly, our relationship shares some of the attributes of other people’s relationships, but nothing we do is exclusively what boyfriends and girlfriends do. If he weren’t around and Kennedy were in the country, I’d probably just drag her out to events I wanted to attend, but that wouldn’t make her my girlfriend in the romantic/sexual sense. And what about the things Patrick and I do that no one else does? What people forget with labels is that they fail to capture the uniqueness of individual relationships. I can’t be comfortable calling him my “boyfriend” because in my mind, it reduces our time together to a very limited spectrum of activities. This isn’t a condemnation of other people’s relationships. If you want to call your significant other “boyfriend,” “husband,” or “snuggly-poo,” that’s really up to you. Those terms (especially the last) probably carry a different connotation for you than it does for me. In my opinion, “boyfriend” doesn’t do justice to who he is to me. It sounds stagnant and limiting.

This is not just a problem exclusive to romantic relationships. It took months of delving into each other for me to really appreciate my best friends Jason or Kennedy fully, and at the end of it all, “best friend” seems like such an inadequate term. I wish there were some other way I could describe what they mean to me, because platonic labels, too, are limited. I hate that I refer to them as my best friends, simply because those words do not come close to conveying what I actually mean. But even with them, if I say “This is my friend, but also so much more,” people might understand. With Patrick, if I say “This is the person I sleep with, but also so much more,” the immediate response would be, “Is he your boyfriend?”

Part of the trouble is that “boyfriend” connotes exclusivity, and people seem to really like marking their territory (must be the history of imperialism or something). It’s not just “This is the person I fuck and do xyz with.” It’s “This is the only person I fuck and do xyz with.” It’s alarming to others that I’m not boxing Patrick up and calling him mine because forgoing the term “boyfriend” implies that there’s the possibility he might run off with some other girl or something. Okay, so he might. But if he wanted to do that, then labeling him “mine and only mine forever and always” really isn’t going to prevent that from happening. And I’m not exactly Miss Confidence either. I’m full of insecurities — ask anyone who knows me, Patrick included — but I’ve just come to realize that being able to say he’s my boyfriend is not going to resolve any of those issues.

In lieu of other people’s labels, I have better names for him. And he has many for me. They only make sense in the context of us, but isn’t that the way all things should be? Besides, it’s pointless to call him something when he’ll most likely be something else entirely to me in a matter of months. Maybe I’ll fall head over heels for Patrick this summer and get as close to him as I have with Kennedy or Jason. Maybe at some point, I’ll get sick of the cumbersome series of words “the guy I’m seeing.” Or maybe it’ll be him I get sick of during Week 6 of my 13-week European adventure. Maybe the sex will become boring and the dog will become annoying. Even if I decide that perhaps I don’t need him to pick me up from the airport or move me into my dorm come September, I still wouldn’t want to define what we were. Perhaps the biggest problem with the term “boyfriend” is that when you’re not together anymore, that person becomes your “ex.” That’s what they’ll always be from then on. And even though I’ve only known him for a few months, I think he deserves more than to be left with only two options for what he wants to be in my life.

Contentment is harder to express than the depression or rage of my nineteenth year. How do you say “I am happy” in any way but just that? Pain is common, universal, widely felt, and mulled over. Happiness is fleeting and even if everyone’s had a taste, no one really remembers it or knows it beyond the moment. We recall the details and circumstances, but not the feeling. There are just the moments and impressions.

Sunday morning. Early March of this year. I woke up in a soundless riot-proof dorm from nine and a half uninterrupted hours of much needed slumber. I tapped at my laptop and drew my curtains, finding an email from Patrick and unexpected sunniness in the process. The sun blinked back at me, demanding musical accompaniment, so I put iTunes on shuffle and made my way to the bathroom, taking a route littered with wrinkled clothing, unread books, and half-empty cigarette boxes — pieces of a scattered life. Sometime between the scent of jojoba on my cheeks and the opening strains of a Weakerthans tune, I jolted awake when I took in the full extent of my surroundings. Standing there amid my mess of a room, I realized that I had finally cleaned up my mess of a life; that I had done even better than I could’ve ever expected and found a comfort in my own skin I would’ve deemed inconceivable a year ago.

This clarity comes every once in a while, far more frequently this year than last. Some mornings, I will wake up so inexplicably content that I remain flat on my back with eyes stretched wide to take in the cars and morning joggers beyond my window. Everything else can wait while I celebrate this small moment. I like to think of these instances as an expression of my gratitude, as an appreciative reminder of what I have: the ability to be alone and happy. For the girl who used to find it a challenge to merely emerge from her bedroom, this is a veritable triumph over the melancholic ailments to which she was enslaved.

And now, May is today, and I hardly ever spend the night in my riot-proof dorm anymore. Most mornings, I wake up next to a man and his dog. There is no window above my head. The light of dawn streams into his living room but his bedroom remains cloaked in darkness. My Aveda cleanser sits in his bathroom cabinet and he keeps his hardwood floors uncluttered, save for vague evidence of my presence like the occasional earring separated from its twin.

Like my hard-earned felicity, he too is not something I can verbalize. How can one adequately express the experience of someone else? How do I do justice to the hours between dawn and waking, to the broad expanse of his chest, to morning showers with his soapy hands in my hair, to the weight and feel of him through cotton and denim? There are slivers and glimpses, and together, they pile up into impressions. This is the most I can hope for: impressions that come close enough but not quite. Impressions just close enough to extrapolate from and misinterpret or maybe to understand, hopefully to understand.

There are entire nights spent on his living room floor, the two of us face-to-face with me on his lap and his dog splayed out beside us. For minutes at a time, we look. There is looking and more looking and nothing but silence and the occasional peculiar facial expression. Sometimes, after we have maintained prolonged eye contact to the point of absurdity, he will make a cautiously affectionate remark such as “I really enjoy spending time with you.” When it comes to words, I don’t expect anything more from my stoic German. Enjoyment is concession enough. Invariably, one of us will concoct some sort of prank or ridiculous scheme. We are never up to any good, not on our own and certainly not together. More often than not, we will dissolve into laughter at the prospect of carrying out our ludicrous plans aimed at confusing and provoking ludicrous people. That’s what we spend most of our leisure time doing: plotting and giggling. I make this six-foot-something man giggle.

He’s been asking every once in a while how “that piece” is going. He knows that I’ve been having a hard time writing, that I’ve been working on something about him but I cannot manage to finish it. I have been sleeping beside him for weeks yet I cannot bring myself to contemplate what he or this means to me. It is not a conversation I’ve had with him, my friends, or anyone else; it is not even a conversation I’ve had with myself. And until a few nights ago, I wasn’t able to articulate why I was encountering so much trouble.

I’m afraid of getting you wrong, Patrick. I’ve told you before that I am constantly afraid of getting people wrong. That’s why I feel compelled to ask my first subject over and over if it’s okay to put his coarse curls and careless habits down into words. He has always told me to write what I want without worrying what he or other people might think. You say the same thing.

But how can I tell you what you mean when I can’t even tell myself what you mean? Maybe, what I am really scared of is not getting you wrong but getting you right. I don’t want to write about you because it is too much, because words might give you meaning that I have yet to grapple with. And I am not ready for that. Not quite.

There was one morning when I woke up crying in his bed. It wasn’t long after I’d come back from seeing Kennedy in Germany. She was doing fine when I got there, meaning she wasn’t 1) institutionalized or 2) suicidal, which were both improvements from the previous week. When I left Heidelberg, I felt immensely better — even hopeful — about my best friend’s mental state. But for whatever reason, I dreamed of her shortly after and I woke with an image of her pushing me away. I was visibly bothered and he wanted me to talk about it. Usually, I appreciate his willingness to listen but on this particular morning, I hated him for it, for his inability to leave things unsaid. Because here is the thing: I am so used to getting upset over stupid, superficial things that I don’t even know how to get upset over real, important things anymore. I don’t want to cry over pictures of me on the Internet because that would mean I’m weak. So I don’t want to cry over my best friend being incredibly depressed and lost because that too would mean I’m weak. Even if what it really means is that I’m human. And he seems to think I’m human, the silly boy.

Human, in fact, was the last thing I felt like being that morning but I made the mistake of telling him something that led to something else and then everything tumbled out after, little bits at first and finally, entire pieces. I told him about resentment and fear and love and fear and loss. I told him about loss. What I lost. What she lost. What I want so badly that I’m afraid she won’t give. I told him about what it means to be family, what it means to be friends. I told him that sometimes there is no difference, that it is my sister I’m afraid of losing.

He said things and I nodded and I was fine and then I wasn’t and I turned away. I was trembling and naked against the morning.

“Come here,” he said. He touched me, pulled me to him, his voice so soft, my throat so hard. That was all it took. That is all it takes. “Come here,” he always tells me in moments like these and I cannot help but break.

“Hey,” he said again. “Come here.”

So I did, and for a moment, I felt human. When I sobbed, I shook.

* Some people check their email during lecture. I do that too. But also, I cyber, which is why I have that creepy smile on my face.

* When I get really engrossed in a book and the professor directs us to a selection in it, I will often spend lecture finishing the book instead of paying attention to the professor. This is possibly the geekiest form of distraction ever.

* Section is fantastic because there’s such a diverse selection of guys I can fantasize about. Like the one who barges in fifteen minutes late every week from practice all panting and sweaty; or the cute one who makes cute points in his cute accent; or the stuttering, German philosophy-citing one who definitely thinks he’s smarter than the TF. Oh, and the hot TF. I definitely fantasize about him too.

* I know you judge me for my pink laptop but I don’t give a damn, fuckers. It’s not my fault you’re a conformist.

* If I seriously have no idea what is going on in a course, I purposely choose a seat outside the line of a TF’s vision and lock my eyes to the coursebook. No one ever really gets called on unless they want to speak, but I do this just in case I actually land in a section in which there are no overeager handraisers. Who am I kidding? There’s always a Harvard kid who gets jittery if he hasn’t heard his own voice in the past five minutes.

* See me furiously typing away as the prof covers a coup d’etat, two wars, and a crusade in one hour? That shit is boring. I’m obviously working on my memoir.

Of course, seeing as how I’m a junior, I’ll be in classes again in four months. So maybe I shouldn’t have written this. Oh well, what do I know about being a student anyway? I’m hardly ever on campus since I sleep in Boston and run off to New York at any given chance. As my friend Zac said, “Lena Chen isn’t actually an enrolled student at Harvard. She just hangs out on campus for a few days straight once every 3 or 4 weeks.”

Directed by visiting artist Shelley Bolman and staged in Beale Street Memphis, this Ja zz age retelling of a tale of mistaken identity and romantic pursuit plays out before the rich backdrop of the Roaring Twenties. A time of blues and booze, of post-war partying and prohibition, this period in American life paralleled the raucous Twelfth Night holiday around which the Bard’s tale was set. With a live jazz quartet, 20s choreography and original blues composition, it’s going to be an experience you won’t want to miss!

Performances:
Sat 5/3: 8:00pm
Sun 5/4: 2:00pm, 8:00pm
Thurs 5/8: 8:00pm
Fri 5/9: 8:00pm
Sat 5/10: 2:00pm, 8:00pm
Sun 5/11: 2:00pm

Tickets (at the Harvard Box Office):
$8/student
$12/general

Produced by this incomparable duo:

(Full disclosure: my close friends/pseudo-roomies Tara and Tiffanie)

We were supposed to go to Europe together that freshman summer but through a combination of my own irresponsibility (made a terrible impression on her family) and simple bad luck, we didn’t. She’s in Germany now and late this May, I’ll be joining her for nearly three months. So it looks like two years later, our trip is finally coming to fruition. This means a great deal to me.

So in celebration of our summer together, here is a compilation of entries about my greatest love of the past few years:

- - -

While riding on the Metro 70 this morning, I saw the man beside me reach over to his female companion and pick something out of her hair. A year ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about the gesture, but that was before I met CK.

CK is one of my closest friends at college. But more than that, she is also the first and only woman I have ever been romantically interested in. That fact is as public knowledge as it is a running joke. But it is also the truth.

Her hair and I are deeply involved. Poofy, unkempt, and unapologetically black, it shuns chemicals that threaten to smooth out its kinks. It has a life of its own. It has a spirit. My job is not to break that spirit, but to calm it. CK looks different when her tangles are neatly pried free. I wish I knew better how to handle black hair, because if I did, I’d pick out her hair completely for her. She rarely does it for herself, and so I find myself constantly retrieving odd pieces of paper and dust from her fro, when not busy taming it with my fingers.

CK doesn’t conform to traditional beauty standards — at all. And yet she has managed to capture my heart while piquing my sexual interest, no small task when considering that I am decidedly preoccupied with what our culture deems pretty. Here is a picture of her, if you can close your eyes and imagine: brown skin, full lips, big mouth, wide eyes, slender legs, round nose, and rounder bottom.

To me, CK is always attractive — but this is not merely an empty compliment I offer all my girlfriends. She is beautiful in a way that wine is better tasting once you have had a few sips to start. She is beautiful in the way that a lover is always beautiful. When she is fresh out of the shower, I sneak glances at her breasts and backside as she changes, because I might catch something new I haven’t discovered before on these seldom-seen spots. I have long determined through close observation that I have never seen a more beautiful body than hers.

For starters, CK has an amazing mouth. It is full and juicy, the most kissable I’ve ever encountered. Sometimes slick with gloss but usually bare, CK’s mouth is a contradiction of sorts. Peeks of metal and colored plastic hint at a tongue piercing, unexpected of this chaste Southern girl. The precise manner with which she bites down on her lower lip is altogether coy and disarmingly seductive. CK is a virgin. But of course.

Invariably, I am tempted to request a kiss, but the rare lip-to-lip contact she makes me crave often comes when I least expect it and never when I outright demand it. She is a frustrating lover who operates on a whim, most affectionate when least solicited.

CK is a small woman, and that too is part of her charm. She is compact, portable like me. Even with all her curves, CK is adorably petite, possessing a slender frame and the features of a cherub. Now that I have known the build of her body, I question whether I could ever be attracted to an Amazon, a taller, broad-shouldered species of girl. And the truth is, part of CK’s appeal lies in the fact that she reminds me astonishingly of me. We are girls who can be broken if squeezed a bit too hard, if pulled more forcefully than expected. And there is a kind of solidarity in living in the same five-foot-tall world.

This started as a piece about my relationship with CK’s hair but I realized in the middle of writing it that there is so much more that must be explained about her body and about her quirks in order to communicate the intimacy of my fingers working through her locks. So I will try, for the first time, to write more clearly than I ever have about what it means to love someone.

- - -

We met on the second night of school via our mutual friend Kam, although “met” implies handshakes and introductions while our meeting consisted of Kam escorting me from the door of a finals club to the door of my bedroom.

Immediately, she hated me. The feeling was more than mutual. She was the worst kind of abstinent. Laying no claim on holier-than-thou coolness, CK refrained from drugs, alcohol, and sex out of personal conviction alone. You could call her moral, but you wouldn’t dare call her straightedge. While she thought, “That rash, drunken whore is going to get herself killed,” I silently fumed, “Who is this short-haired, fully-clothed monster telling me what to do? Kam better get rid of this pint-sized bitch by morning.” Neither of us was particularly impressed with his taste in friends that night.

What followed that disastrous first encounter is a bit of a blur. Against all odds, we came around to liking each other. Precisely how, I can’t say because I barely remember. She informed the gay best friend that I was “actually cool” when sober. JB, in return, sang her praises. I decided that I was a fan of CK after all. After repeated run-ins through mutual friends, we became comfortable enough around each other to hang out, just us. One night in early fall, she stopped by my dorm room, upset at a guy’s inconsiderate actions. Mid-explanation, her voice cracked and eyes welled up. I didn’t expect it. The vulnerability she showed made the difference between friend and confidante. I trusted her completely after that.

Before two months had passed, we were living together. I relocated from my tense Canaday D suite into hers in the neighboring building. I liked her roommates better than my own. In a box by her closet, I kept a toothbrush, a towel, and flip-flops. Each evening between her sheets, I cradled my laptop, slept against her back, and crooned off-key the Bright Eyes that accompanied the late night. In the morning, I’d scurry down her stairs, across the courtyard, and up into my room where I quickly showered and changed. But after class and between meals, I’d be found in CK’s room more often than in mine, whether she was there with me or not. Sometimes, all the others were out, and they came home to no one but me, their adopted roommate, napping away in CK’s bed at the most content I’d been since college had begun.

I began to feel more comfortable in her skin than in my own. I took to wearing her clothes like I would wear a boyfriend’s, though I joked that her wardrobe (which ran more casual than mine) was reserved only for my grungy days. Her tshirts and sweatshirts and pants and even socks – they were all fair game, except for the size six shoes that would not fit. And although the mismatched outfits I constructed fit my frame, my appearance was that of a stranger invading fabrics not her own. I looked just as out-of-place in CK’s clothing as I did in the oversized garments of my male lovers.

- - -

I have learned CK’s curves from consecutive nights of side-by-side embraces, from furtive caresses over shoulders and under chins and down happy trails. I like to think that she has a body only I know how to hold and handle, that there are words and gestures belonging to us alone.

CK has a boyfriend now, but I don’t know if he picks at her hair like I do or if she drawls “baby” to him while teasing his cheek with her fingertips. I am certain that her paramour suspects me of being bitter. He would not be incorrect. As much as I adore him, I can’t help but think that he has somehow ruined our relationship.

My animosity toward her relationship is hypocritical. I date far more men than she ever has or will. But in my defense, none of them have ever presented an actual threat. I have been more fully exposed before CK than I have ever been before a boyfriend. And there is no man I have ever loved as deeply as I have loved her. There is a part of her not mine now but I do not begrudge her her contentment. In the same breath that I admit my jealousy, I confess I share in her happiness.

- - -

We were supposed to backpack through Europe this summer, just the two of us. We didn’t go, to our mutual disappointment. Now I don’t know if we missed the only opportunity we’ll ever get to take a trip like that together. Sometimes I wonder if a prolonged journey to another continent would have changed things. Away from boys and friends and boyfriends, I wonder if our thoughts would’ve turned more willingly toward each other; if during one warm, heavy night, we would’ve curled up on the floor of a hostel like we have countless times on her bed; if this time, we would have dared to press our noses together closer than we ever have before.

–September 2006

But this one I like for some reason. He took it Saturday night. We’d just gotten back to the hotel from coffee on the Lower East Side. I was looking at my Tumblr dashboard when he shot this (you can tell from the screen it’s Tumblr). I didn’t know until we scrolled through his photos later that he had taken anything at all.

An actual candid of me. Pretty rare.

Another interesting photo (from our coffee earlier that evening). I started taking pictures of him with my cell phone and he responded by snapping me with his digital camera at the same time. It was war.

Got back from New York this morning after sleeping at some atrocious hour last night. 72 hours in New York. Christ. Things I did this weekend (with helpful links):

* Got two dresses at AuH2O, this fantastic East Village clothing store with one-of-a-kind pieces made from recycled fabrics. Kate, the owner (who’s only 23!), is doing a custom piece for the Guy. New York fashion students, intern for this woman. She’s responsible for cool, creative, affordable stuff like this Metrocard dress.

* Had a cup of New York’s best coffee at Abraço

* Best meal of the weekend: dinner at a great French place in the East Village called Antibes Bistro. The desserts are amazing. What I recommend: butternut squash ravioli and the chocolate terrine.

* Brought the Guy and the dog along for a fascinating meeting with a downtown production company.

* Visited the International Center of Photography. Really enjoyed the Glenn Ligon exhibit critiquing Robert Mapplethorpe’s The Black Book (a volume of homoerotic images of black men)

* Saw a lot of people, just generally. Consumed a lot of coffee and Haribo gummi bears, just generally (the latter brought back from Germany when I visited Kennedy over spring break).

* Hung out at night with the Guy’s sister who studies fine arts in the city. Wound up in Williamsburg both Friday and Saturday night after disliking the pretentious crowd at Plumm and D’Or. Jules (my down-to-earth NYC companion from last summer who was the only person I knew who lived in Brooklyn) would’ve been proud.

* Took plenty of candid photos and video, somewhat against my perfectionist will, but oh well.

Good drive. Good company. Great weekend.