What Possessed Me

The ghost of boyfriends past

The morning after I return from Addis, I am back at work, going through the motions of my day with robotic detachment. I remember telling Fauxhawk before our first big trip as a couple that I dread vacations because I always hate coming back – hate my job and hate the banal details of quotidian life.

Fauxhawk remembers it too. He sends me a text. You’re back. Do you still like your job?

No. But I have a present for you.

We meet briefly in Bryant Park and sit in the late afternoon sun. I hand him two kilos of fine Ethiopian coffee and he is delighted. You look so happy, he says. You look so different. I’m glad my good luck charm worked.

On my way to dinner with my brother, Fauxhawk texts me again. I wonder about you and me and the stuff we talked about before your trip and if any of it even matters to you. It must seem like months and irrelevant months ago to you.

Later than night, we speak - a tortuous, tortured conversation using all of our old tricks. We are outraged and traumatized and misunderstood. Finally, we call a truce and make peace. Fauxhawk wants another chance.

In between text messages and marathon phone calls with Fauxhawk, Dermonster sends me an email. Several years ago, I met Dermonster at a conference in the Netherlands and fell instantly and madly in love. We had many adventures together, Dermonster and I, and I felt with all of my heart that this interesting, passionate man was what the Greeks call a "psychoponio" – the one who understands your soul’s pain. I moved across an ocean to be with him, and things unraveled quickly. We both behaved badly. We broke up cataclysmically at an airport gate. Retreating back to New York, I cried every day for eleven months while watching old episodes of Felicity on TiVo. Then, two and a half years later, we see each other briefly and accept defeat. We return to our corners to lick old wounds.

His email is brief. It’s likely that I’ll be moving to Uganda with Saskia. We’re now going down a road I wanted to go with you. I don’t know if you belong to my past or my future. You always seemed so torn between an international life with me and your life in New York. How can you be your own person if you don’t go your own way?

And then, an early morning call from New Zealand. It’s the adorable and loving Kiwi, my pretend boyfriend of two months this spring. I am coming back to New York in five weeks.

I am mystified. Why this sudden concatenation of events, this unexpected interest and intrigue? Why now, after so many months, so many years of silence? And why isn’t any of it any fun at all?

I spend early mornings re-reading emails and text messages, agonizing over every word and trying to gauge my reactions. The dark sediment of past break-ups has been stirred and everything is now muddier than ever. There is no resolution in sight.

Addis Ababa Diary: Encore Blue Eyes

When I arrive in Addis, still high from my adventures in the beautiful city of Harar, I receive a note from Blue Eyes at the hotel where we’d agreed to meet that day.

I am here, the note said. Where are you? I will wait for you.

His room is empty. I walk out into the street, searching the internet cafes nearby, shivering a bit from cold and rain. I return the note.

I am here. I am in the room next to yours.

When we finally hug hello, I am inexplicably shy. You’ve changed, he says, looking at my skin, now brown from the sun.
Something else has changed. Smiling and chirping nervously, I say, I missed you.

That night, with two Americans in tow, we have a spectacular dinner with traditional music, exquisite dancers, and waitresses who look like runway models. At the end of the evening, the two Americans retire early to prepare for their morning flight, and Blue Eyes and I hang out in my enormous room. The hotel looks like Jamaica Inn – creepy, faded grandeur, haunted staff, cavernous rooms filled with dusty furniture. We deposit ourselves on one of the couches and settle in, half expecting to hear a chilling scream from down the corridor.

Between the hours of 11:00pm and 5:00am, an elaborate mating ritual ensues - hours and hours of sniffing, scratching, and circling. An eternity of plotting and planning and waiting. And finally, the sky begins to lighten.

I’m so tired, I say. Come, let’s take a nap.

Two days of napping and laughing and listening to the rain pour onto our balcony. I make Blue Eyes speak French and in between naps, I discover another person – someone delightfully tender and surprising.

What do I do with this person who rides the back of trucks through dangerous countries? Who solves math proofs in his travel journal? Whose optimism and sense of adventure amaze me? What do I do with this odd French boy who says the most outrageous things?

Things like, Je t’aime, Perséphone.

It’s almost too much – too romantic, too impossibly lovely. I am skeptical. What is this, Before Sunrise? You don’t know me. If you knew how much I abuse commas and adjectives, you’d never love me. I live in New York, you’re moving to Vienna. It’s too complicated.

I just have a feeling about us, he says. I’m not going to let you go that easily.

On the day I leave Addis, we are both depressed. Blue Eyes gives me a picture of an Ethiopian angel to keep me safe from the terrible scrapes I get myself into, and inscribes a message in my guidebook. I have half a mind to turn heel and jump on the back of a truck with him. I have the feeling I should follow Blue Eyes wherever he goes.

But I don’t. I get on my plane and land in Khartoum, then Frankfurt. Everything is shockingly shiny and abundant.

I don’t want to be here, I think. I don’t want this. But I get on a plane that lands in New York and meet my parents at the gate.

How was your trip? They are eager for stories and details.

It was wonderful, is all I can say. It was magic.

Important blog feedback from meatsticks

You know how your female friends will always tell you that you are totally justified in mailing your ex-boyfriends stool samples? Or how they applaud you for the elaborate and vaguely psychotic schemes you plot to humiliate/emasculate men after bad break-ups? Or how they clap with glee, even when your new haircut makes you look like Joan Jett fresh from a LGBT meeting?

Yeah. I’m lucky. But there are times when you need someone to tell you what time it is. This is when I survey my male friends who are capable of withering honesty, even when I don’t ask for it.

Me: So, what do you think about my blog?
MF#1: I think it’s overdone.
Me: What?! What do you mean?
MF#!: It’s trying too hard. Like you. You always try too hard.
Me: Oh my god! I can’t believe you just said that! I don’t try too hard…do I?
MF#1: Yes, you do. First of all, you smile too much. No one could possibly be that happy.
Me: I’m not…what? You’re such an asshole.
MF#1: See? That’s the spirit. Good girl.

And then, another revelation:

Me: How come you never read my blog?
MF#2: Because that shit is for girls, bro.
Me: But it’s not at all – it’s about the human spirit! There’s stuff in there for guys, too.
MF#2: Yeah? Like what?
Me: Like…
MF#2: Relationship angst? Arty pictures? I don’t think so.
Me: Okay, FINE. So how do I attract male readers?
MF#2: Post a picture. Preferably with cleavage. Dudes dig that.
Me: You are a Neanderthal.
MF#2: I’m just telling you the truth. If you post a sexy booby shot, the dudes will come.
Me: Wait - boobies exposed or partially exposed?
MF#2: Whatever.
Me: But someone just told me I had “teenaged breasts.” I think he meant “surprisingly and disappointingly small.” So I don’t think…
MF#2: Yeah. Probably best to post someone else’s breasts.


Dickhead. But in case he’s right, I’m posting a booby shot, for all you guys out there. Eat your hearts out, boys.