The Pursuit of Butterflies

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I've decided to donate my brain to psychiatry.
I would donate my hormones, id and libido but no one wants them.


Upon examination of my brain, someone very clever might finally understand what drives me to idiocy and self deprecation in my incessant pursuit of the wrong man. 

I hear that there are more women like me and that the literature on the subject is abundant, but I haven't read any of it because I would be forced to recognize myself and stop it. 

My attraction to the unattainable is teetering between the ridiculous and the absurd.

I've been told that even available - emotionally or otherwise - guys can be exciting, could keep my attention and would make the butterflies flutter. They did decades ago, but we were all available then. We married them, divorced them and the rest is history. 

There should be a speed dating event for us good ones -  women and men alike - those of us who like the bad boys and the bitches, respectively. We would speed interact with each other with kindness and attention and bore each other to death. When they finally scrape our corpses off the floor and donate our brains to psychiatry they will discover that we are basically fine human beings with a few scratches here and there, and a few wounds that never healed. 

At the very least, they will discover that we tried as hard as we could to do the ineffable right thing. Most of the time we managed. 

But once in a while we really missed those beautiful butterflies.

The Doctor Will See You Now

I wonder if I had been a Doctor if I would still be so intent on finding one. 

It's not my fault that the mystique surrounding Doctors lingers this many years and laughs in the face of every ounce of wisdom I have accumulated. Readers of my generation don't require any explanations or apologies. Certainly not the Jewish ones. And no, PhDs don't count. 

But I am not a doctor (I'll stop capitalizing the word now) and the mystique has led me off the path of common sense and verging on hussiness. 

A couple of years ago I came across a doctor on a dating site. He had the good sense to post a photo of himself in a white coat and a stethescope because he didn't have much else going for him personality wise. When he called me, I was smitten, and I stayed a smitten kitten much longer than he deserved. A Pediatrician in a major Pediatric hospital has a cache about it that other professions don't. 

So shoot me. 

Last year, I found myself in any number of outpatient procedures which required the whole shabang of ass flattering hospital gowns and recovery rooms. I shamelessly flirted with the Anasthesiologists who promptly rendered me unconscious. 

While I totally got off on the absolute black out and have found no other way to replicate it without the use of illicit drugs, I have to say to myself, "Good grief." Anasthesiologists knock their patients out. It hardly exudes doctors-without-borders emotion. It reminds me of an Inheritance Lawyer I dated who said he chose the specialty so that his clients wouldn't call him.

One month ago I had surgery. None of this child's play go home in a few hours "procedures." The hard-core stuff. 

A month of multiple hospital stays prior to surgery would have been a haven for me in my search, had I not been deathly ill and looking like crap. But leave it to my mom to ask what I was wearing and if I at least put on some makeup... 

I mercilessly berated her for her gross insensitivity to my condition, and assured her that a catheter and a bag of urine hanging over my  bed would not bring me dates even WITH mascara. 

Don't tell her, but I did purchase expensive pyjamas prior to my surgery a month later. 

Ah yes. Surgery. Surgeons. The cream of the crop. 

They meet you in their clinics in their fine clothes and leather chair and with a heart melting smile reassure you that everything will be fine.  

And when they meet you in their crocs and scrubs at 7am on the appointed day and again reassure you that everything will be fine, your naked vulnerability never crosses your mind because they are holding your hand as you count backward from 10.

At your groggiest you are vaguely aware that they are graciously instructing the recovery room staff to give you more morphine. Later in your room,  you can't wait for tomorrow when you might have enough strength to change into your new pyjamas before your Surgeon makes his rounds.

And for days and weeks thereafter, you rise above your condition and try to look your best. 

But all the Doctors were taken a long time ago. Probably by nurses with pony tails and perky boobs. Yet you tell yourself that this plethora of Doctors are stuck in marriages with bitchy fellow doctors and they just don't have the strength to do anything about it. 

The Surgeon has set the bar very high. I don't know how I will recover from this last incident of knowing that nothing less will do.

Then I recall that a comedy writer was as good as it could get, followed by an artist, and yes, even a Doctor here and there crossed my path. 

They were all as good as it gets. 

For now I want a Doctor. 
Or do I just want someone to take care of me?

You do the math.

I Have a Dream

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I have a dream that I will make enough money one day to pay off my mortgage. 
I have a dream that one day my errant soulmate will find me.

Now, here are my real dreams:
I dreamt that my entire house was filled with laundry that needed folding.
I dreamt that my house was surrounded by masked bandits.
I dreamt that all the good toilet stalls were taken and I had to pee in public. 

I recently went on a singles weekend to Eilat and was so disenchanted that I didn't care that I was seen in a bathing suit. Of course there were about 4 men to 50 women. 

Of the 4 about 2 were semi normal and he got my phone number... He even called me. 

We had a nice date. Really. We went out again. 

At some point I couldn't hold it back anymore and I started correcting his grammar.  

I think he barely noticed because he had stopped listening somewhere around appetizers on the second date. One of those people that call you and start right in talking from the middle of the conversation, as if you have been privy to their thoughts for the last hour. 

I still get dressed to run errands lest I meet someone. And of course that can't happen if I am wearing sneakers and no makeup. 

I hold the gaze of someone who I think is cute and bat my ever thinning eyelashes. 

I haven't given up. Keep rooting for me.

Soul Music

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I got a "new" car 6 months ago. I still haven't moved any CDs from the house to the car so I have been at the mercy of the radio; but I did finally give in and add music to my smart phone, once I learned that I can attach a cable to the car radio and listen. It only took me another two months to find the cable at a normal price. And voila. As of today, I have the perfect music in my car, and no warped CDs. 

I realized this morning on my way to work, how qualitatively different it is to listen to music in the morning than to listen to the news. 

I've mentioned here before that music has a way of setting me off into deep sadness. However, today it was different. The resulting melancholy blues notwithstanding, I realized how much closer I have become to defining myself without defining me in relationship to others. I was able to listen to music without remembering who I was with the last time I heard that song, or worse yet, who I wish I could be with while listening the song right now. 

OK. So I did sneak in a who-I-wish-I-could-be-with or two, and he knows who he is, but it didn't put me over the edge. 

Listening to the music I love, and not wallowing in self-pity, was a big step for me this morning. 

Listening to the music I love brought me back to this blog, with the understanding that it didn't just have to be about my search for a man anymore. 

This blog could now be just about being. 

I have decided that 2013 is my year.

Wish me luck.