So we had dinner at this kind of expensive restaurant on 18th Street, Eureka. Forebodingly, the food consisted of interesting ingredients that made no sense being together on the same plate. My gnocchi was pan fried. Why would they do that to gnocchi? The chocolate cake for dessert was slathered with more syrupy sauce than cake. But I adored my dinner companion, Mr. Right, and felt that we were really connecting. He leaned right across the table at one point and planted one right on my lips. I hadn’t realized when he drew me near that he wanted to kiss me, so thinking he wanted to whisper something, I offered my ear, which he had to kind of push out of the way to eventually get to my lips. I turned really red and the people at the opposite table smiled, except the guy who had been cruising him throughout our appetizers, annoyingly.
Back at the Cocoplex, my attention alternated between his little bald spot and his furry stubby fingers, with frequent exploratory forays into other regions. I flipped him over and over, my furry pancake. Perhaps you remember, dear reader, that shaving below the neck is forbidden in my erotic world? It was like fellating a cactus, but I put on a performance that the Academy surely would have awarded their top prize.
At midnight I pushed him out, reminding him that he had to get up and go to work the next day. Off he went. And away he went. In our brief online post-coital exchange, I sensed that he didn’t share my enthusiasm for supplemental complications. He hasn’t responded to any of my messages since, or even been online. Suprised, and yes, okay, completely devastated, I sent him a chirpy message saying that I imagined that we were looking for and ready for different things, that I was looking for someone who was on the same page. I admitted to being a serial dater. You’d think that there would be a lot of chubby hairy bald guys out there who’d be excited about an admirer dedicated to their complete physical and emotional stimulation, wouldn’t you? I evidently wasn’t Mr. Right’s cup of tea–Nestea, instant.
My disappointment was profound. Not so much in him specifically, I’m aware of that, but in the seemingly vast emptiness that San Francisco has offered lately for intellectual and emotional exchange. After staying in bed most of the day, calling Bob and Chrissy in the middle of the night, e-mailing Dean and Emily and Peter, not sleeping much, I decided that I needed to see some art to get my mind off of love gone wrong. I made Chrissy take me to Jessica Silverman’s gallery on Sutter Street. I fell in love with the gallery, with the work, and with Jessica. I want to show there. She’ll be my rebound!
Later I went to Zuni with Emily. I sat downstairs for a half hour waiting for her, while she sat upstairs for a half hour waiting for me. When we finally found each other, I was ready to fall apart, but Emily shook me back into the present with her charm, fabulous outfit, and juicy gossip. A succulently braised chicken leg seduced me further away from the lingering memory of Mr. Right’s stubbled appendage, my sanded lips finally caressed by something truly succulent.