Fireworks

From the coffee table he suddenly grabs the bottle of chardonnay and pours, with intentional mess, the wine on my belly. His tongue makes no pretense of coyness as he licks it up . He is insistent and intense – the way he is about everything. I can do nothing but writhe beneath him. He’s that way: he does things on his own terms but they usually benefit me in some way.

That is the last whole thought I have before the bright mayhem of millions of fireworks, lighting up the dark sky of our like minds.

Knowing Cara by Evan Thomas

Cara just handed her computer to me and told me to write something. I think she wants the “other side of the story” about how we met, though I think she did just fine. It’s best to get these things over with.

I did not “meet” Cara Ellison as much as we smashed into each other at 100 miles per hour. She depicts herself on her blog as being a nervous wreck when we met. She may have been, but on the outside, she was a strange, small, tough, beautiful little thing, grandly ambitious, insistent that we see things her way, unrelenting about her own success. Those years of the tech bubble were full of people who could hype themselves and their companies to the heavens, but she was one of the few people who inspired confidence that she could actually deliver on her promises. (Incidentally, she did deliver. My confidence in her was well placed.) I thought she was cute and beautiful. Cute because she would lose her place and bite her lip and blush. Beautiful because, well, you saw those pictures of her “wasted” youth.

She has mellowed some since those days, but that’s not saying much. She is still restless and ambitious. Just about every day, she asks me to collaborate with her on some new project. It’s impossible to say no to Cara Ellison (hence this blog post). I find myself swept up in her excitement. The cool thing about her is that she still delivers. She’s not just talk. She has plans that will keep us busy for the rest of our lives.

I think she wants me to write about why I like her so much, what makes her so good for me and vice versa. I read once about a study that found that both genders have a wide micro-mix of certain biochemicals. And the study showed that men are chemically attracted to women who have a mix that contains biochemicals the men lack — the woman’s chemicals, in a sense, “complete” the man’s. It’s not a general thing — each individual’s chemical mix is different, like a fingerprint. And the strength of the chemical attraction between a man and a woman is directly proportional to the depth of the mutual biochemical void that the two fulfill with one another (kind of an opposites attract thing at the chemical level). This is romantic, I suppose, but it’s a bit spooky too. (Disclaimer: I probably have the science jumbled on this.) So maybe it’s just that her biochemicals fit with mine and mine with hers. It could be that easy to explain. Or it could be that I love her, and it doesn’t really matter why.

How We Became Us

I met him on June 8, 1998. It was a Tuesday. I was wearing a black dress with a racer back. He was wearing black trousers, a white shirt and a blue necktie. On any other man, that uniform he might have ensured anonymity, but he was an extraordinary man, and he somehow not only distinguished himself but made his clothes seem like bleeding-edge fashion.

We were at a local energy concern. I was a young, brash, silly girl. He did not seem to see the silliness. After the meeting, we got on the elevator and traveled down seven floors. We talked, but I don’t remember about what. When the doors opened, he walked off.

It would have been fine if I had never seen him again. He was beautiful but there are many beautiful people in the world. I had my whole life ahead of me. There was plenty of time for men.

A week later, I was late for a meeting. My car was obnoxiously fast and I was using it to my advantage, bursting down the downtown streets in blazing streaks of red paint and roaring turbo. The top was down. Music was blaring. The light turned red. I slowed to turn right, and two men stepped off the curb. I screeched the tires. In the shocked air, I heard Madonna screaming over traffic: “I made it through the wilderness… somehow I made it through…. “

The men crossed. I zipped through and parked and ran into the meeting. Ten other people there. Five minutes later, he walked in. For the first time, I made the connection. I’d nearly killed him out there. Panic spread through my body.

He didn’t even raise an eyebrow. He sat down and we had our meeting. When we took a break, I was too scared to move. I sat very still, hoping he didn’t recognize me, though the top was down, though he saw me, of course he saw me, I was three feet away, I was bearing down on him with a bright red German car, he knew it was me and I could not hide. We were alone. He looked up and with a teasing smile said, “Nice car.”

I smiled. I couldn’t help but smile. “I’m sorry…”

He shook off my apologies. By then, people were returning, and finally I relaxed and we got some work done.

We did not keep in touch. There was no reason to. But occasionally I would hear his name and it always made me feel good, knowing he was in the world.

When he began to comment on my blog, I was amused at the cycles of life, how people come and go and find each other again. He sent an email: Do you still have that car? If not, I’d like to see you.

I wrote back: Car sold. Meet me at the bar at the Four Seasons at 8pm.

The rest is not history. The history is documented and put away. The rest is present.

Open Letter: Dear One Who Endures

Dear One Who Endures,

I appreciate that you have decided to swear off sex since last night. I know the olives may have been a bit too much. But I promise if you just come back, and promise to have sex with me again, I will never ask you to lick another olive out of my belly button, or do anything with the martini glass, ever again.

You can still have all the cake you want. And I promise I’ll start being nicer to your family.

I am sorry to have completely destroyed your image of me. I promise to repair it if you just come back and give me what I want all the time.

Love,

C

PS. TDB

The Exception

I never wanted to be ordinary. I wanted to be the exception, the one who made the rules irrelevant.

I have found one person who understands the world I occupy, this world of good and evil, of outrageous luck and cinematic themes.  The one who understands my distaste for rules, how I ache to overcome them, to be the exception.

He loves rules, but makes the exception for me. I think it amuses him to see me so discontent. We are both very restless souls. But even in my wildest dreams, I never thought I would find him. I knew I wouldn’t settle but I didn’t think I would meet anyone who was truly my equal, someone who could both keep me off balance and make me feel completely secure.

He is the most intelligent life form I know or will ever know, and he adores me. And I must ask myself, “What does this say about me, that I have the ability to attract and hold such a one?” Once having known such a one, everyone else will seem ordinary.

It is a curse as much a blessing. But it is what I wanted. It is what I asked for.

I didn’t realize that by being the exception, the situation demands exceptionalism.   Every day, I strive to appreciate the struggle.

The After Sleep

In the languor that follows the things we do, I was lying down, happy and disheveled, disheveled in the extreme, and I had a semi-dream that he was wrapping me up in white comforters and then carrying me someplace, someplace sunny, and in the muscles of his arm, I felt the pure mathematics, and I knew what he was doing, and I was happy because this was the means to happiness of an even greater magnitude.

My Big Bang Post About Him

I find myself in a strange situation. I am drawing and making other kinds of art like no other time in my life. Hours vanish into collages and paintings and, most frequently, sketches. The art seems to absorb all my writing energy (I literally feel like my words have been used up) except for two things: The One Who Endures and Enron. On either of these subjects, I am happy to write or talk or gossip much like I always have. But politics or culture or business, I don’t really have anything to say. I am sure this is temporary. I hope it is as I’m becoming a bore to my friends who ask how I am and I answer, “Great” and then forget to ask what’s going on in their lives too because if its not about my new project – which includes him – I really can’t be bothered.

So I figure it’s best to just get this overwith, in one big-bang post that will embarrass him even and probably myself. Maybe if I just say it, all at once, it will sort of diffuse and I’ll be able to concentrate on other things. So here goes.

He’s lovely. And funny. And gorgeous. And sweet. And kind. And brilliant. And sexy. And romantic. And he does a million things that are endearing and then turns around and says, “You’re making me sappy!” He is better than chocolate cake, better than whipped cream on strawberries, better than whiteboards and flip charts! He’s amazing. The most complex, complete, interesting, brilliant person I’ve ever known. And even if it doesn’t make any sense from the outside, from the inside it makes perfect sense. It’s completely logical and rational and brilliant.

He’s divine. He’s more than divine. He’s just unaccountable.

[I'm sorry, I was going to burst if I didn't say something. ]

– C

The One Who Endures

Layer Cake

[For the one who endures, of course.]

When I get home

{from London;
from New York;
from shopping;
from the office;
}

I will drop my things in the nearest chair.

{my purse;
my jacket;
my gym bag;
my keys;
}

In my bedroom, I will remove my constraining jacket and pinching patent leather heels. I will lie on the bed as I dial your number. The moment I hear your voice, all the exhaustion of the busy day evaporates. I will tell you, come on over, we’re having cake.

I have one hour.

In the kitchen, I know I need the sweet things. Vanilla, for instance. Lots of vanilla.

When I was younger, I made the same mistake over and over. I would remove the cake from the oven and when it was still hot, slather the frosting on. The frosting would melt, making a big mess. But it was so good that way, with the chocolate dripping down the sides. You would have to lick your fingers clean after every taste.

I make the mistake again. I just never learn how to wait.

When you show up, just as you said you would, I invite you in.

And serve you layer cake.

Past Perfect

[For the one who endures]

Onions’s Etymologies says memory is related to mourning, but I contradict that. I do not grieve in the past. I am happy to remember 1997, when you moved so slowly because you were happy – the world expanded, time expanded, and every time you spent hours just removing my clothes, it was a confirmation of that happiness. I am happy to remember 1999 and all it entails, though you were too rushed to enjoy me. You were busy, you blanked on my birthday, you were a dervish of importance and activity. Even that is joyful.

My house has become Italy, where even the dust is sexual. My house lacks past. It was built in, I think, 2007. The walls smell of paint. The only thing it remembers is my cell phone conversations. But I see it in new light now, it has become a place of terracotta floors and walled gardens. It remembers that I am remembering you – everything becomes beautiful in that occult light.

In 2009 you are better. Brighter, hotter, like a comet. Surging to see what comes next. I shall sit here in the large bay window overlooking my peach trees and watch you live like this because it fascinates me. I am languid, there is no rush. The future finds you whether you are looking for it or not.

With so much history, it is difficult to know where I began to notice how magnificent you are. Memories and wishes. Oh, it must be such murderous traffic for small hearts!

It Does No Good

[For The One Who Endures]

It does no good to try not to think. Thoughts wander in starburst patterns or circles. They go off on long wild drives down lonesome bayou roads, lifting like Vs of geese into wild fluttering formations against blue twilight.

Effortless, unwilled, undirected.

It does no good to try not to think, so I think of you. Sometimes in the middle of the day, when I should be writing about mark to market accounting or energy warrants or Brady evidence, I become aware that I have, in fact, been thinking of you for hours. The monitor is blank as my face, as guilty as the thoughts that kept me from my work in the first place.

It does no good try not to think, so I think of you. Like you, I love knowing what to do and doing it. You do what you do because you must – there are so few choices for you – and I do what I do because I must. Scraps of conversation drift in and out of recall, but really I am thinking, even now, how I feel made entirely of gleaming surfaces you helped polish. I lie to you all the time. Even right now, I’m lying by omission. I’m lying and you know I’m lying. Yet you say nothing.

It does no good to try not to think, so I think about you. There are things I have seen or done. They don’t amount to anything but there seems to be no way to get rid of them, except to write and pass them on. You are one of those things, but I fear this story is going to follow me out the door.