2002-05-26 11:18 a.m.
it's a tightrope, a fucking tightrope

Surreal weekend, and it's only half-done.

Friday night I met up with my father for dinner with him and his girlfriend, and got ambushed with a pitch to move to back to Florida and become a partner in his business.

A few pertinent facts:

• the song "Bad Businessman" by the Squirrel Nut Zippers may have been written about my father
• I HATE Florida. I LOVE New York (especially my new place in Brooklyn).
• Working for my father during college remains one of the worst employment experiences of my life. His business is now in more distress than it was than, and it was going bankrupt then.
• The sales pitch was littered with this eager mix of desperation and Jewish guilt, two things that would make me walk away from a first date at the dinner table.
• The money is enticing, no doubt, but I've also watched my father bounce paychecks to his employees. He also owes my mother a hell of a lot of money in alimony.

Well, that question's answered.

Yesterday was sweet and simple.

I woke up early, lazed about the empty house eating cheese and crackers, surfing the Web, watching The Prisoner on DVD, and enjoying the calm.

I spent most of the day with a girl I met on Nerve. It was the kind of date that was warm, fun, and not something I was looking for...unexpected. I suppose the bit that I've been surfing Nerve, I haven't been looking for someone new to "be with," but rather, a bit of creature comfort, a friend here and there, maybe a lover or two, but nothing particularly heavy.

Last night was just cute, a silly date with someone ridiculously easy to get along with (which my stand-up comic friend will attribute to the fact that we're both Cancers). Kisses on deserted subway platforms, lots of talking about life, past relationships, anything and everything. It was a beginning-of-a-relationship date for two people who don't want to be in one...maybe a comfort date? (She's just really easy to be with, low pressure, energies in common.) Does that make sense?

oh, and this girl travels a fair bit the way I was planning on doing by cutting ties and walking the earth like Job, but on a regular basis. she's off to Mexico in a few months, and a few other places this year. some lessons to learn here.

an aside:

Artist Anissa Mack has a playhouse set up on the steps of the Brooklyn Library at Grand Army Plaza, where she bakes apple pies and then sets them on the windowsill, where passersby are free to steal them, completing an archetypal American image.

Yesterday, two kids wanted to come inside the playhouse, and she told them no, so they threw rocks through one of the windows. If you visit, please don't do that. She seemed like a nicer person than to deserve that.

But do go, if you're in the area. It's a sweet art notion and worth seeing, even if you don't have the balls to steal the pie.

Back to dating:

this is not to boast, but I'm pretty good in bed (some have said great)...but that's really hard to communicate at a bar or when you're dating, because outside of the bedroom, despite being confident, I'm not a physically forward person. Well, I am when I already know the other person.

This, to be honest, is the lesson I'm trying to learn right now. I can be in a relationship. I want to know how to *not* be in one, but still be a sexual being. Walk the tightrope without the net of emotional involvement.