The 12 Lays of Christmas, Part II

Did you catch Part 1? It kinda explains what's going on here--my holiday homage to young love--past years of crushes, ridonkulous encounters with the possibility, but not the actuality, of bonkage and hopefully, maybe, some sweet and impish bits to counter the lame moves (mostly on my part) you'll read about here. Although this time we have a coupla doozies whose lameness actually eclipses mine…

9 Painters Painting
College is a time when everyone gets their rocks off, but sadly it was like I shot my wad for the entire 4 years in the first week of freshman year alone. I met the painter the second day there; he said "hello" as I sat under the Nike of Samothrace outside our dorm, drinking ice water out of a wine glass.  I remember walking around with him that evening, smiling and kissing, hidden in some sort of thicket. I was wearing a white cotton v-neck sweater, sans shoes and brazeer (wtf?!), and black pants printed with little postcards from all over the world.

As soon as the older chicks got wind of the smouldery, sleepy-eyed freshman in Adams, they swooped in, which likely caused me to act immaturely. Somehow it turned in to this choice he had to make between me and a perky sophomore with a perfect nose. Rather than tell him to eff off, I waited for his answer, as if I were waiting for the cast list to be posted. How thoughtful of him to tell me why (can we get another eye roll please?!) he didn't pick me--apparently,  I "reminded him of his pain." As it turned out, he also had a crush on my best friend and rabidly made a play for her. It was a good thing he transferred to art school at the end of the year--it took way too much energy to walk out of the room whenever I saw him coming. I guess my heart broke a little; after all, it was only 18.

8 Cyber Stalkers Stalking
I liked this next gent because he sounded vaguely like a Hollywood gangster, had a beagle and gave me a "Right back at ya," when I shook his hand and said, "Nice to meet you." This was in ye olden days of the web--1995!!--when everyone, gakk!, was on aol. Truthfully, I thought he'd be an easy mark. Emboldened, I got his email address from a friend, composed a message, dialed up and sent it off:

zing went the strings.
let's talk.

signed, 
and the dish ran away with the s****.

He responded, charmingly:

my mother warned me about talking to strangers. Are you a stranger? if so this must stop immediately. Do you know that i spent 5 hours playing monopoly on saturday night? The first time i've played in many many years. I lost (and for a while there it looked good. I had boardwalk).

Oddly, I came across copies of these emails the other day (usually upon rejection, I smash all reminders of rejector, forget I ever knew them and quickly move on), but hadn't saved the one in which he told me he had a girlfriend after I suggested we meet. A few years later I saw him in a bar, where he was taking pictures with a little instamatic camera. Rather than chance a bad picture, I ensured it by taking off my shoe and pretending to eat it, mumbling something about a photo from the Beach Boys' Smile sessions, in which Brian Wilson was doing the same thing. Only Brian had a fork and knife, and the shoe was on a plate.

7 Directors Directing
There's no crushing involved here, just a little humiliation and faux-seduction, so I think it qualifies…In my freshman year of high school, my friend D's big sis was in a play at Guild Hall, and they were looking for people to do bit parts, including a cigarette girl and ticket-taker. They thought I'd be a good cigarette girl, and I also was asked to sub for a regular cast member who was out that day. The guy I was reading lines with made a snide-ish crack about my size (I was just this side of plump in freshman year). I made it through the rehearsal, albeit with a bright-red embarrassed face, but thus ended my dramatic career--until senior year, when I tried out for the class play. The student director? The fat crack-maker, who actually turned out to be a semi-friend of mine. (I'd evened the score, not even realizing it, by repeatedly throwing his physics notebook in the trash junior year.)

So, part of the audition was this exercise in which he gave us an emotion or word and we had to act it out while reciting (or stuttering, or screaming, as appropriate) the alphabet. Everyone else got fun/easy ones like anger, joy and surprise, but he looked at me and practically licked his lips in smugness when he gave me my word--seductive. Yup, I was supposed to be seducing the audience. At that point, I think the extent of my boy-girl experience were some bad, drool-filled kisses, so I had little to draw from. I was too nervous to think the whole thing through, but somehow registered these fly-by images and soundbytes of Marilyn Monroe. My seduction alphabet was whispery and plaintive, and I think I held my hand over my heart, like I was, uh, I don't know, begging for it. I can't help but laugh now, but trust me, I confused everyone there, like I decided to act out "pathetic" instead. Do I need to tell you I wasn't on the cast list? ; )







As their bloggy punishment for bad behavior, two of the individuals here will be represented musically by this cheesy Supertramp song: 

The 12 Lays of Christmas, Part I

No, this 4-part series ain't about no potato chips--but it's not about getting laid, either. More like not getting laid. Behold my holiday homage to young love--past years of crushes, ridonkulous encounters with the possibility, but not the actuality, of bonkage and hopefully, maybe, some sweet and impish bits to counter the lame moves (mostly on my part) you'll read about here. No big hits, all fazed cookies, for the Stones fans in the audience. Hot rocks for sure.

P.S. This series was inspired by Lorenzo, who woke me up at 4:30 3 mornings in a row by mumbling and snorting to himself. Strangely, each time I was freshly mid-dream in a scene featuring one of the guys you'll be reading about. Why they would pop up after all these years, I don't know. Maybe the Renzolio does.


12 Preppies Groping
First off, I wanna say that everyone in my series will be nameless or at least incorrectly named--I think it's much more fun, respectful and mysterious that way, and frankly, I never even knew this one's name--just that he wore a pink oxford shirt and liked to hang out near bushes.

It was the summer after junior year in high school, and a cool, smart, college-age coworker at the Paper Place in East Hampton invited me and a friend to a bar. We were 17 and the drinking age was 18, so she gave us both one of her IDs to use… Clueless, maniacal and cackling like some rabid sibling raccoons, we went up to the bouncer one by one, and yes, he let in 3 Jennifer Yes-I-Could-Probably-Remember-Her-Lastname-If-I-Really-Trieds in a row. (That's not her real first name either, btw.) I proceeded to get totally plastered, probably on 1 beer.

Eventually we left the bar and went to some house party in Sagoponack, where I drank some more and wound up lying down on the grass by myself. The pink oxford guy seemed to emerge from the bushes, and kept asking me really difficult questions. How nice of him (insert eye roll here) to try to have a conversation before stroking my cheek (not that one!) and shoving his tongue in my mouth. I was more irritated than scared, which is perhaps a blessing. But not as much a blessing as when I hauled off and vomited, daintily and not especially voluminously, all over him. He didn't even get angry, just sort of wandered off like a bear going into hibernation.

11 Pipers Piping
Senior year in college, second semester: I was just back from a semester in Greece, and my friends had expanded their circle, which was sort of rare, to include a pack of really sweet and smart pot-smoking, Dead Head types.

In spite of myself (I had Mia Farrow pixie hair, smoked Silk Cuts, listened to the Cocteau Twins, wore mostly black and, oh was a pretentious snob), I was sizzlingly attracted to one of these, uh, pipers who looked vaguely like Malcolm McDowell in If. Although he had two additional strikes against him--he was super, super nice* AND a jock--one evening we wound up alone in his dorm room, where we smoked a joint and kissed each other in lots of places while listening to "Dark Side of the Moon."

I responded by not going to dinner, where we all always met up, for an entire week. Isn't that the way you're supposed to let a guy know you like him? (Insert second eye roll here.) Like Syd, I left too early and realized it too late.  I was just scared.

* Ladies who've fallen for that narcissistic creative-loner shtick will understand, and if not, it will become even more clear when we get to the Misogynist Painter Painting.

10 Balls A-Dangling
Oh gawd, it's not looking good for me, is it? In 4th or 5th grade, a boy in my class at Most Holy Trinity was teasing me. I told my brother, who explained what I should do if it happened again. Imagine the surprise on everyone's face on the playground the day I grabbed Frankie Napolitano's (nope, still not using real names) scrotum and squeezed it as hard as I could. You have to know, I had NO idea what I was really doing. Or,uh, that it would inflict that much pain.

I hope you'll join me for Part 2. : )