MFG
Projekt Sunstorm

tags: sony, rolly, rollyinmotion, demonstration, video, uncut, diginfo

Whatever about the men, intimacy with them put me in touch with a wide variety of microcultures.

I wonder what legacies, if any, they have from me.

* * *

from my first husband
Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Mozart opera; some sense of how a genius thinks (he was -- still is, I suppose -- a genius); an understanding of what it was like to grow up Catholic in the U.S. in the 1950s; some sense of what 'Canadian' means; a visionary notion of political activism
(he was passionate about Native American education; against the then corrupt miltary regime in Chile; against capital punishment, etc.)

from my second husband
how to cook rice, except I don't do it much any more; ditto pasta; how to make salad dressing from oil & vinegar, though now I add mustard (the real thing, not mustard powder) and lemon & like it much better that way; the superiority of red wine to white, except I almost never drink wine, and sometimes I prefer white; the superiority of romaine lettuce to all others, except I'm really tired of it and mix it with other lettuces when I'm making a salad for company; how to cross-country ski, except I haven't done it in years; a taste for Barbara Pym -- now there's something. I've read more of her than he has. She's terrific.

from rolly
Central Park; Faje yogurt; it's okay to like the Everly brothers; the term 'near miss' for a certain kind of failed romantic relationship; a close-up view of claustrophobia...

from performer
the information that tupperware can be microwaved; confirmation of my dislike of stringed instruments, especially when unaccompanied by any other kind of instrument; and from his friends C & G (who said I was the only woman they ever saw him with who wasn't depressed and therefore the only one of his many women 'you could actually talk with') : Equal Exchange coffee beans
[update - addition -- exclude the banjo from that second category. i love the banjo, especially banjo duets or trios; but i don't think Performer ever came within a mile of a banjo. so to be precise: the kind of stringed instruments you would find in a conventional orchestra! okay? would never want to disparage the banjo. 'nuff said.]

and most recently...

from plan c
'you whistle when you're happy' (his observation about me); dancing (salsa, his version; the merengue, his version; and lots of lively, funny, charming unnameable steps he invented); I never heard of Cash Cab till Plan C told me about it and we watched it (he loves it...); a vague understanding of Billy Joel's importance in the world; knowledge of, if not great love for, the Righteous Brothers; an understanding of why many people love Patsy Cline's "Crazy"; a more detailed knowledge than I ever expected to have of the socio-politcal background of XXX, the area where Plan C lives -- perhaps I should just say, the geopolitics of an area of the East Coast I hitherto had very little interest in; greater appreciation of artichokes, or at least an understanding of the love of artichokes; manicures & pedicures; the art of folding

* * *

photo credit: fogcity.blogs.com

Programme du jour : Arrosage et voiture.

Dernier jour à Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume. Je me réveille à 7h30, je prends mon petit dej avec Papy et Mamie, puis ma douche avec Papa.

Mes cousins sont repartis à Montréal, alors je joue toute seule pendant que mes parents déjeunent.

Je décide d'aller m'amuser dans le parc, avec l'arrosage automatique. Heureusement, Maman a pris la précaution de m'enfiler mon maillot de bain. Je saute en évitant les gouttelettes, passe la tête sous le jet, et tente même de boire.

!!!

Une fois séchée, je joue avec Maman et aide Papa à faire nos bagages. Un petit repas léger, et à 14h, après avoir embrassé Papy Jean-Jacques, Mamie Rolly, et dit "bye" aux chiens (Anisse et Alex) et ä Mao le chat, nous prenons la route pour le Luxembourg. Il fait 38°C, un grand soleil, et 850 Km nous attendent. Heureusement, la voiture de Papa est très confortable.

Je passe les premières heures du voyage à jouer avec Lilly ma poupée. Je dois la nettoyer parce que "Elle mange comme une cochonne" (dixit !)

17h30, première vraie halte un peu après Lyon. Restaurant, je n'ai pas vraiment faim, je me détends, et vers 19h, nous reprenons la voiture, le GPS nous indique que nous avons encore 3h30 de route.

Je ne veux pas dormir mais je suis adorable... sauf quand je me détache de mon siège, ce qui me vaut une bonne "remontée de bretelles", c'est le cas de le dire.

Il est 22h30 (et il fait 20°C de moins qu'au départ du sud de la France !) quand nous arrivons à Luxembourg, je retrouve ma maison, ma chambre, prends un biberon, et m'endors vers 23h. Rédacteur : Patrick-Robin, mon Papa.

Programme du jour : 14 à table, et sieste sans couche.

Nous sommes toujours chez Papy Jean-Jacques et Mamie Rolly. Tonton Robin, le frère de Papa, Tata Nolwen et leur enfants, Laurian et Pacific, sont venus du Montréal où ils habitent, pour passer un peu de temps ici dans le Var, en famille.

Je me réveille à 7h30, Maman s'occupe de moi pendant que Papa se repose encore un peu. Je prends ma douche avec Laurian et Nolwen, et nous partons avec mes parents faire un peu de ravitaillement au supermarché du coin. Tout se passe très bien, et je fais un tour de manège avec Laurian en éclatant de rire. Nous nous entendons très bien, il a 2 ans de plus que moi, mais est très attentionné. On se "chicane" (comme on dit au Québec), mais on s'adore.

De retour chez mes grands-parents, je mange et vais me reposer 1h.

Après 2h d'embouteillage, mes "autres" grands-parents arrivent en provenance de Nimes. Papy Willy et Mamie Nadine nous rejoignent donc avec Erwan et Svetlana, mes cousins.

14 personnes, voilà une belle tablée pour un grand barbecue comme on sait les faire dans le sud de la France. Mes 2 papys sont en charge des opérations.

!!!

Je commence à fatiguer un peu, je fais 2 bêtises en 10 minutes, et demande d'aller au dodo. Je ne veux pas mettre de couche. Ok, on va tenter l'expérience. Papa insiste sur le fait que je ne dois pas faire pipi dans le lit.

1h30 plus tard, je me réveille... au sec ! Félicitations de l'assemblée. C'est la première fois. Nous allons retenter l'opération dès notre retour au Luxembourg.

Encore une bonne heure dans la piscine avec Svetlana et Maman, et je prends mon dîner à coté de Laurian. On fait les imbéciles sur le lit avec Laurian et Pacific et arrive l'heure de me coucher. Il est 20h15 quand Papa me chante une chanson pour clore cette belle journée. Rédacteur : Patrick-Robin mon Papa.

On their site this is the tag line:
"Experience a revolutionary new breakthrough in music enjoyment from Sony®. After years of development, the Rolly™ Sound Entertainment Player takes MP3s to a new dimension of fun."

Really? How long can you be entertained by this? If your autistic, probably hours. Otherwise if this is your biggest attraction at a party, you and your friends are a complete losers.

Sony posted a 45 million dollar loss and this is how they expect to trim that up?

Plan C phones with a lousy cold and coughs impressively.

MIMI: Some people will do anything not to have sex.

thursday 17 july

I finally play back all the messages on my landline, something I forget to do, and find one from Plan C from two days ago inquiring after my foot.

He has called twice since then.

I realize that my 'withdrawal' technique, begun in mid-June, appears to be working, slowly....not that I care now, because mene mene tekel upharsin, but Plan C's attention is returning....he has become more affectionate....at least, more affectionate than nothing, which he was for a while....and more attentive.

Well, it's useful to know that the tactic was successful, in case I ever decide to use it with someone else.

*****
RS (my excellent shrink) asked me last time to consider -- try to figure out -- why I had made 'so many bad choices' in men. When I started to say something about my dreadful father, he stopped me -- 'no no, nothing Freudian' -- so I'll have to come up with an idea that makes more sense in terms of the contexts of the choices themselves, I guess, and my conscious thinking about them. Not easy, but important to do.

*******

This morning (Wednesday 23 July) I suggested that the explanation was 'impatience.'

RS liked that theory, adding to it the word 'imprudence' as the inevitable result of the first.

Thus, he said, I should slow down -- festina lente, he was trying to remember, which does not mean 'slow down' but the subtler 'make haste slowly' -- when I meet the next one.

I certainly shall.

the title of this post

If you don't recognize it, google it.

* * *
Okay, I'll be nice and tell you:

it's from the Bible, the Book of Daniel, and it's commonly known as 'the handwriting on the wall' telling King Belshazzar of Babylon, the successor to Nebuchudnezzar, that his kingdom has been 'weighed in the balance and found wanting.' In Episcopal school a zillion years ago, I was told that the words meant 'weighed, weighed, balanced, divided.' For a more scholarly discussion, go google.

At any rate, that's what I'm saying....'the handwriting on the wall.'

* * *
I love that metaphor and that story.

he laughs

One of the best things about Plan C all along, from the beginning through the present: he laughs at my jokes. Always. The perfect audience....

the man on the train

Okay so yesterday, Tuesday 22 July, I was returning from a family gathering in a remote corner of this continent. During a very long train ride, I was sitting with my yogurts (not bought on board, of course, and therefore just a bit warmish) at one of those tables in what Amtrak calls the 'snack car.' The tables have seats for two people on each side, and the car has long, almost unobstructed windows, so it's a good place to enjoy the view.

There I was with three empty little yogurt containers, making progress on the fourth, when a man sat down opposite me.

A possibly-eligible man, I thought.

He could have sat at any of a number of other tables where there was only one person, but he sat With Me.

* * *

How deliberate was his choice? I wondered.

Of course my eyes went immediately to what I have often called the most important male body part for the cruising female, the second finger of the left hand.

Empty.

Eligible!

Or gay.

Probably not gay, I thought, stealing another glance. (Officially, I was looking out the window, to my right, not looking into the car, to my left.)

And not bad looking. Possible Jewish, or if not Jewish, Arab or Italian or something Mediterranean. Most likely Jewish.

And about my age.

* * *

So the question I pondered was, why had he chosen my table to sit at?

As I pondered this matter for about fifteen minutes, I came up with five answers.

Actually, I came up with the answers in about thirty seconds, but I mulled them over for almost fifteen minutes, until he got up and left.

1) He wanted to sit with me. He wanted to strike up a conversation with me and see where it went.

2) He didn't want to sit with any of the other people sitting at otherwise-empty tables, so he sat with me by default.

3) He didn't notice where he sat.

4) He wanted to sit where he could look at someone else. (After he left, I turned around to see what his view would have been; there was an attractive young blond woman in a low-backed shirt. She looked young enough to have been his daughter, but her age was irrelevant: they weren't breeding. He was just looking at her back....maybe.)

5) None of the above. Some other possibility that never occurred to me. Maybe the other available tables were sticky.

* * *

So we sat there together for fifteen minutes, I finishing my yogurt, he doing I'm not sure what. He may have had a cup of coffee or something but I can't remember.

I admired the view.

I admired it some more.

I pondered conversational gambits: Where are you getting off? or Hot enough for you? or Do you like trains? or Scared of flying, like everyone else on this train? or Like a bite of yogurt? I can get a clean spoon or Great view! or Do you take this train often? or Well, one of us has to speak first, and it's not going to be you, so I'll take the plunge.

* * *

I didn't say a word.

I thought we were sitting there in a very 'fraught' silence, but it crossed my mind that he might not be seeing it that way at all.

He might just be staying away from his seat because the car he was in smelled, or the person next to him smelled, or he wanted a change of scenery.

He might not be thinking at all about how to begin a conversation with me.

For all I knew, he might have a girlfriend. He might be bereaved. He might be unemployed and going to a job interview. He might be a divorced father visiting a child. He might be a foreign visitor (he had that look, sort of) who took the train by mistake, not knowing other means of travel between Points A and B, whatever they were.

* * *

I'll give him fifteen minutes, I said to myself, and if he hasn't spoken by then, I'll go.

* * *

After about thirteen minutes (having at one point shifted his body so that he was looking at the aisle and not even remotely in my direction), he got up and left.

Two minutes later, so did I.

* * *

But (I said to myself) you're cruising again.

That time has definitely come.

* * *

home again

So when I got home, finally, after two days on the road, after checking my email I logged on to jdate. I've been doing that irregularly for ages, originally to see what any of the men I've dated were up to, but more recently to see if Plan C has logged on.

As you may remember, in early June I was shocked to discover that Plan C had put his profile back up.

What I felt and said at the time you can read in that post. But after I decided definitively mene mene tekel upharsin, I've felt somewhat differently about the whole matter.

How I felt, I didn't know till last night and this morning.

For 45 days after our 'discussion'/quarrel, Plan C did not log on.

But last night, around midnight, when I checked, I was surprised and I have to admit a bit shocked to see that he had logged on '3 hours 45 minutes' ago.

Why?? I wondered.

Does Plan C, who claims to be a techno-ignoramus, think that because I was on the train and therefore away from my computer, I wouldn't be able to tell? or was his detachment about our relationship beginning to equal mine? was he (like me) getting restless to meet other people?

* * *
Then a terrifying possibility occurred to me: maybe (as one of my commenters suggested in the last post) he had been reading the blog, had discovered that I was planning to dump him, and had thought WTF and was beginning his new search.

I did notice that there was no message from him. Perhaps he was angry and had decided not to write me.

Whatever it was, I decided I would phone him in the morning to find out.

* * *

But this is the curious part:

my great fear was that if he had read the blog and was angry, then he wouldn't help me move the cartons we were planning to move (in his car) this weekend!!

Nothing, I said to myself, must interfere with that. If he's angry, then I'll just have to persuade him that I've been so good and nice and generous to him, that he ought to do me this one last favor. I thought maybe he might, if indeed that were the situation.

* * *

At nine in the morning today, Wednesday 23 July, my phone rang.

It was Plan C's Treo, which calls me faithfully! -- certainly more often than Plan C himself does. Dear old Treo -- Plan C is technologically challenged and can't control it, so it just dials his most-phoned numbers all by its little self.

Usually when that happens I just hear a lot of background noise, but Plan C never hears my voice.

This time he did hear my voice. He was on his way to get a haircut, and apologized for the accidental call.

'Is everything all right?' I asked.

Yes, he said. All was fine; why did I ask?

'Well,' I said, 'you logged on to jdate last night.'

'I was just curious,' he said.

'Oh' was my response.

* * *
Then we talked a bit about this coming weekend's logistics, and that was that.

* * *
Either Plan C is very clever and strategic, or he's not on the ball. He should have wondered why I was so relaxed about his having logged on to jdate for the first time in 45 days -- knowing, as he did, how upset it had made me in June -- and didn't appear to care at all.

I suppose it's a remote possibility that he has read this blog and is hiding the fact, but that would not be like him. If he had read that I called him 'uninteresting,' as I more-or-less did in a recent post, and a few other things I said about him, he'd be in a rage. I think. And the man I spoke with this morning was not in a rage.

But if he were on the ball, he'd wonder why I was so relaxed about his 'curiosity' about other women...

* * *
My true response?

I was just enormously relieved that our carton-moving expedition was still on.

* * *
Truly, I didn't give a fiddler's fuck what women he looked up.

I need his car and an extra pair of arms Saturday, and that's what mattered. I've been very good and kind and thoughtful to him, and I think (and RS agrees totally) that it's not asking too much to have him help me this weekend. So I'm really relieved he wasn't angry and is still going to help.

* * *

And he, possibly, is really relieved (though he should be baffled) that I wasn't angry about his logging on to jdate!

* * *

Now, no words, readers, about cyberstalking and all that. People stalk in the non-virtual world much more often. This little episode, like the previous similar one, helps me understand the way his mind works.

* * *

I didn't want to have that final Conversation too soon...

But it's only eleven days away, or so I think. We'll see.

* * *

from my forthcoming novel based on this blog

Rolly: The Beatles??? The Everly Brothers are much better.

Performer: The Beatles are okay to dance to but not to listen to.

Plan C: The Beatles are okay to listen to but not to dance to.

Mimi: I love The Beatles!!!

Sony entretient le mystère autour du Rolly, sensé devenir le prochain must du geek de base.
Les rumeurs vont bon train sur les fonctionnalités de ce mini robot, et ce n'est pas le teaser qui vous en apprendra plus, si ce n'est un compte à rebours avant le lancement, qu'on imagine en grande pompe !
Engadget nous montre l'objet au travers d'une vidéo, et emet quelques hypothèses (un genre de tamagoshi musical équipé de caméras, qui se balade dans la maison et te dit quand tu reçois un mail), mais en tout état de cause, la vérité ne sera connue que le 10 septembre, date théorique de la révélation ...

As compared to another Japanese ingenuity 'Miuro' where does Rolly stand? Well, again we don't have that liberty to see face to face as Miuro is still sperated by thousands of mile of waterland. Anyway, still have a look who haven't already -

I'm at Cornelia, the midtown spa to which Plan C gave me a gift certificate, the polish on my toenails drying after a pedicure.

Tears are rolling down my cheeks.

Why?

The music playing is “Let’s fall in love” (Harold Arlen) followed by “They can’t take that away from me” (Gershwin), two of the most wonderful love songs ever. They seem to frame my romance with Plan C. I can imagine him remembering “the way” I – what would he remember? – the way I whistle when I’m happy, the way I carry a little backpack almost everywhere (something he complained about but I’ll bet anything he’ll cry when he thinks of it months from now), the way I put a ton of sugar in one cup of tea, the way I’m funny and happy and bouncy so much of the time, the way I love to dance to “My Girl”, the way – lots of things.

And I’ll probably have memories like that of his idiosyncracies, though he doesn’t think he has any; the way he rants about Hillary or Lincoln or politics after about 10:30 in the evening, over the phone; the way he counts how many glasses of wine someone else has over dinner and says, “She kept up with me!”; the way he dances so unpredictably but gracefully; the way he rolls his eyes when he’s flirting and looks like the late Diana, Princess of Wales – I call it his ‘Diana eyes.’

The memory of all that....No, no, they can’t take that away from me.

And then (to do this backwards...) “Let’s fall in love” – we were both so eager to fall in love.

The dinner at –

Enough of that for the moment.

* * *
And across the room, having their manicures together, are a mother, her daughter, and the daughter’s friend.

“I’m getting married tomorrow,” the daughter says to her manicurist.

* * *
And I start crying for her innocence, for her youth, for her hopes.

I decide I’d better not wish her good luck when I leave; considering my history, it might have an adverse effect. So I just smile when I walk by with my lovely toes.

* * *

And I’m thinking, at the rate I’m using up this gift certificate, Plan C’s birthday present to me in March, it’s going to outlast the relationship.

* * *

Maybe I’ll be having my toes done before a date with someone else, maybe, with luck, the final man, and it will still be on Plan C’s dollar.

* * *

8:30 p.m.
Plan C calls.

We have a mostly factual conversation, 'factual' as I see it anyway, not about ‘us’ and our crisis but about what each of us did today, what each of us will do tomorrow, what clothes we’re packing for [European country], etc.

I tell Plan C that my 'legacy' from Performer is the knowledge that you can put tupperware in the microwave; my legacy from him will be regular pedicures and manicures, which – now that I’ve had a couple, now that I know how much they improve my feet and hands, now that I no longer think of them as exclusively the preserve of rich leisurely Park Avenue ladies who volunteer at museums and have long expensive lunches – I’ll probably indulge in, myself, every couple of months or so, or whenever I think I need them.

He comments only that tupperware gets slightly melted and misshaped in the microwave (not in mine, I note); and he is 'glad' and pleased about the pedicures etc. He doesn't notice the implications of the word 'legacy,' or if he does, he doesn't remark on them.

Probably he doesn’t notice. He’s distracted by his own pleasure at having introduced me to this nice, ladylike, grooming practice.

* * *

We talk for about an hour. I mention how much I hate spending time without social life, seeing people etc.. He mentions that he's happy to be alone; but the thing is, he isn't: he went to a dinner party Thursday evening, and one of his sons is spending the weekend with him (along w. son's fiancee), and the other son is coming over with his girlfriend later tonight, so that's hardly alone.

Actually, it’s sort of a boring conversation. I wonder at what point we can end it. I’m also interested to hear whether he ends it with ‘okey dokey’ (a phrase he picked up from me) or ‘I love you.’

He starts to say ‘okey dokey’ but then says, ‘Good night, love.’

I say, ‘Good night.’

* * *

saturday june 21st 7 a.m.

Waking up very early these days....a sign of disturbance, for me. Woke at not long after 5, actually.

By 7, I'm sure that the relationship with Plan C is not going to last, for all the reasons aired in the past couple of posts. But I remember RS's (my psychiatrist's) wise words to 'make haste slowly' (Festina Lente).

But how slowly? Okay, our European trip for 10 days starting Monday; that will take place. And then, I have to wear that new dress (and another one, for the night before the wedding) twice this summer, to the two weddings that Plan C is invited to, or I won't get my money's worth out of them. Really, I had no other need for them at all. But the second wedding is at the beginning of August: can our relationship last that long?

I'm not sure.

* * *

And what about sex?

Plan C has made several allusions to sex, the sex he expects us to have during this trip, and those references set me thinking about my recent sexual history.

* * *

Two years ago, 6 July 2006 to be exact, I slept with the first new person since I met my now-ex-husband in 1981. He was the first man I dated in this phase of middle-aged dating, very good-looking, large, a good kisser, smart though not witty, lacking a light conversational touch.

Having vacillated about my decision much of that evening, I decided to sleep with him only because I was going to [European country, the same one I’m going to Monday] in a couple of days, and if I were to die in a plane crash, then it would have been a long time, a vvvvvvveeeeeeerrrrrrryyyyyyy long time, since I’d last had sex.

Not that I’d be thinking about sex, probably, in however many minutes I had to realize I was about to die.

But at any rate, it was a deliberate choice for a mini-fling, not a deep investment of the emotions.

* * *

Oh yes, and I was a kid then, only 59.

* * *

Rolly, you may or may not remember, had (in the fit of pique that ended our relationship in early December '06) complained that I was 'inexperienced.' He later retracted his complaint, once it was clear we were definitively over and not going to date again.

‘Maybe it was me,’ he said.

* * *

But maybe it was me, I thought,

So what did I do?

I practiced.

On my thumb.

Well, that’s what the website said to do!

And now I have an elongated right thumb.

* * *

Only kidding.

Only kidding about the elongation, that is; I really did practice on my thumb.

I learned how-to by reading lots of websites, but primarily by reading this and this over and over.

I can’t remember which site said to practice on your own thumb, but I did that as dutifully as once I learned the principal parts of Greek verbs.

Correction: I did it more dutifully.

* * *

So I got very good. To be entirely truthful, I went far beyond what I learned on the web. And I got even better when I observed what Performer liked (that would be July through December 2006) , and much, much better with Plan C, who was quite explicit and articulate (need I say, more articulate than he was about almost anything else) about what he enjoyed the most.

* * *

In December, after Performer dumped me (saying, 'The next man who sleeps with you will be very lucky'), I thought, I only want to sleep with One More Man. I'm not horny any more. I've had enough sex these past six months to take the edge off my appetite. I'm not desperate.
I only want One More, the final one.

* * *
Plan C, as I noted a couple of posts back, thinks highly of my skills in bed. He has often praised them in hyperbolic terms. When he does, I think of what Performer said. I’ve never quoted that to Plan C, but if – when – we break up, I’m going to tell him about it so he doesn’t say the same thing himself. Not that he is likely to be that crude and that rude, but it’s possible that’s what he’ll be thinking.

* * *
Now it looks as if the 'One More' I picked out (or, more accurately, who picked me out) is not going to be the last after all.

* * *
But here’s the thing:

it’s not a skill like a tennis backhand or swing-dancing or the French r.

I have to feel – to know – that the man loves me, and that I love him back.

* * *

It’s intimately connected to the issue I’ve brought up in the previous two posts, Plan C’s insistence that I write down my daughters’ names, not his, as ‘person to contact in case of accident or serious injury.’

Person to contact in case of accident or serious injury.

How is that phrase connected to blow-jobs, you ask?

* * *
It’s connected the way that binding is connected to a book, electricity (or a strong battery) to a computer, the oven to your Thanksgiving turkey, the vocal chords to song, the heart to the flow of blood.

That’s how.

* * *

If he doesn’t love me that absolutely, or (okay, let’s be honest here) doesn’t show signs of being about to become the kind of person who wants to be the first in the emergency room with me when I’m full of tubes and needles, when my life or death is visible in little green zig-zaggy lines and audible in beeps, when my face can barely be seen under the sheets and the masks, when the nurse checks every few minutes to write things down on the clipboard – then I don’t know if I can find within myself the emotional energy to do the things to his penis that give him such exquisite pleasure.

* * *
Because that’s why I do it: for love.

* * *

And how will all this play out in Europe, 23 June through 3 July?

Will I want to sleep with him?

Will he, for the sake of sex, or for whatever reason, maybe genuinely, pretend to love me again, or say that his old love has returned, or affirm that it has? Or will he not bother to? And if he doesn’t – or even if he does – will I be interested in sex with him? And suppose – as seems a strong possibility – I’m not, will I avoid a big scene by faking? I can imagine him saying, Why didn’t you tell me this before I got on the plane??? and can imagine me saying, in return, I didn’t know it would be like this. I didn’t know I would feel this way.

(Of course that would be a lie, because I’m writing this out two days before we leave.)

* * *

By Monday, the day we leave for our ten days together in that European country where I do business, it will have been a week since his ‘turmoil’, as he called it, or his ambivalence, became clearly known to me. I’ve had a week to get used to what feels more precisely like a withdrawal of his love, and in that week I’ve come a long way. Although he has said I love you once in that time, and continues to write me as ‘Mimi, darling girl,’ and to sign his emails love, using the nickname that I invented for him, that no one else ever used, although he has phoned I think two or three times since then, and we have not discussed this ‘turmoil’ of his – I feel I’m somewhere very different. I’m a ways out of this relationship now; I think. I found my old dating-profile and made a few changes. I’ve decided to use the old, wonderful professional photo but also one Plan C took of me on the Brooklyn Bridge a few weeks ago.

8 a.m.
I’m beginning to be more and more certain that things with Plan C are going to end. I have Labor Day in mind as a mental deadline by which I’ll put my new profile up.

If I can wait that long.

***********
The tags are still attached to the dresses I bought for those weddings Plan C has been invited to this summer. I can return them if necessary.

* * *
sunday june 22nd 9 p.m.

Two very short email messages from Plan C but no phone call on Saturday. It felt just like being single again and enduring a painfully quiet weekend without a date. A short phone call just now about luggage, logistics, everything. I was cheerful, crisp, businesslike; it would take a sharp ear to detect a change in my tone.

Plan C has no idea how his crisis, which then became our crisis, and is now also my crisis, has affected me. I didn't say anything to indicate that I'd had trouble thinking of anything else the past week, and it seems never to have occurred to him.

Example: several fancy chocolate bars that formed part of my birthday present to him a month ago are still in my refrigerator, because it has been too hot for him to take them home on the train. Noticing them over the weekend, I thought, Is he ever going to get to eat those chocolate bars? Will he ever be here again? I bought them for him and I want him to have them. I'll suggest that he take them to the airport tomorrow , where we probably won't feel the heat, and on the plane.

I made that suggestion in the phone call just now, and he said he'd take one, and leave the others to eat "over time."

"over" what "time"? I thought but did not say. If you're not sure about your love for me, what makes you think this relationship is going to continue?? And anyway, with the jolt of his uncertainty, I've come to think it shouldn't continue. So eat the damn chocolate! Get it out of my refrigerator!

* * *
Okay, okay. RS's mantra: Festina lente.

monday june 23rd 11 a.m.

Walking home from doing some final chores, I had the feeling I had during our Brooklyn bridge expedition a few weeks ago, He's someone else's husband. That day, I answered myself with the quip that At our age, every man is someone else's husband.

That's true, in a way, and I guess I was trying to quiet a feeling of unease, at that time unarticulated, that Plan C and I weren't quite right for one another.

This morning, when that little voice spoke up again, I listened to it. I thought, Maybe that's right. Maybe he is. Our styles are so different: I'm (for better or worse) so artsy-lefty looking, and he's so golfing and straight-arrow-looking; I'm such a nutty free-spirit (do not mean to compliment myself; other people have used the f-s phrase of me, and I added 'nutty') and he's so conventional in many ways. I don't mean to imply that I'm superior because of those distinctions, just that we're really different.

So I was curious to see how I'd feel when I saw him this morning, the first time since our crisis a week ago this evening.

* * *
I had lost it.

I had lost the love, I think. He seemed a nice, good-looking, pleasant man, smiling and glad to see me. I couldn't quite come up with a smile of equal enthusiasm, but I remained chipper and upbeat. I made no move to kiss him, so he kissed me.

* * *
The voice of RS: FESTINA LENTE!

Okay, okay. Although I think I may be out of love with him now, I really can't tell. I'm feeling great -- happy, thin (because of course I was too unhappy to eat much this week! isn't that always the way....nature's way of making heartbroken women happy very quickly), eager to go on this trip, and curious to see what it will be like travelling in Europe with a man -- for the first time since 1976, with my first husband.

* * *

We're off to JFK in an hour. Wish us a safe flight and a happy landing. I'll post from the other side of the ocean. And thanks, all of you, for all your comments over the past week.

- Mimi

E' un lettore MP3 da 1 Gb con casse integrate che balla a ritmo di musica. Anche i movimenti sono programmabili via computer, come potete vedere. Vostro per soli 350 $.

O novo MP3 da Sony chama-se Rolly e inova pelo design. Está hoje disponível nas lojas Sony dos Estados Unidos.

A sua forma é redonda parecida com um ovo, nos seus extremos tem colunas embutidas e 1 GB de memória. Tem também Bluetooth que permite ouvir músicas em streaming através de um computador ou portátil, sem ter de se preocupar com fios. Outra das características deste MP3 é dançar ao som da música que está a tocar. A opção de shuffle pode ser feita pelo utilizador ao abanar o dispositivo.

A bateria dura cinco horas quando utilizada para ouvir as músicas existentes na memória do aparelho de som. Se estiver a ouvir música através de streaming Bluetooth a bateria dura cerca de quatro horas e meia.

Fonte

Of course we are there to be seen; why else would Plan C and I set foot out of doors? Why else does anyone ever go out? And when you’re going to an AMC multiplex an hour from Manhattan, you know the paparazzi will be there in full force.

We also know that product placement is everything, so we are dressed with careful forethought.

I’m wearing a purple INC tank top camisole (94% nylon 6% spandex) with a built-in bra, size small, too insignificant to appear on the Macy’s website; cost on sale approx $19; a blue ‘woven trip racerback dress’ from GAP, size small, $54.50; a beige jersey THEORY shrug, size small, bought two years ago from Bloomingdales so I don’t remember the price, but whatever it cost I got my money’s-worth out of it because I’ve worn it a lot. My shoes are camper sandals by Helena , cost $144.00. I'm not wearing my trademark Celeste Stein socks because I'm wearing L’eggs premium nylon Day Sheer knee highs, suntan, with reinforced toes from Duane Reade , nor am I wearing my trademark Onlyhearts shrug (I was wearing the Theory shrug, remember??). Underneath, I'm wearing black Bali microfiber briefs, size 6, and black capri Flexees, size small, so old that I don’t think they make them any more.

The total cost of my visible clothes is about $217.50. If you add in the original costs of the less visible items I suppose the total would come to about $231.

* * *
I’m carrying a Vera Bradley black quilted microfiber backpack/pocketbook. I can't get the link to appear, but it's now available in a dark brown as "Espresso Microfiber Backpack." I adore it and rarely leave the house without it.

* * *
Move over, Oscar de la Renta, Diane Von Furstenburg, Louis Vuitton.

* * *

Plan C is wearing David Leadbetter khaki golf shorts from Joseph Banks, currently on sale for $49; a striped short-sleeved polo shirt that says Sayle’s Point Golf Club (not Plan C’s golf club), which I cannot find on the web, so I’m inserting a picture of it:

Bass docksiders bought at an outlet mall chain (Bass seems to have updated its classic boat shoe, and the equivalent is not visible anywhere on the web, but this is more or less what they look like),

and full-cut knit briefs from Joseph Banks .

Total cost of Plan C’s visible clothing: probably about $125.

His and Hers, approximate total clothing cost: $356.00

* * *

The only paparazza was me.

* * *

7:35 p.m. ‘The scene in the theatre was more interesting than the movie.’

That’s what Plan C says. For a long time he is the only man in line (and also for a long time we are the only people over 20), and he is very self-conscious.

You’d think a man who had dated 84 women in a year-and-a-half wouldn’t much mind standing in line with 500 women, but he does. As you can see in this photo, he’s trying to be inconspicuous, blending into the wall:

Great excitement before the showing. I see for myself what ‘chick-flick’ means:

We sit about one-third of the way up, Plan C on an aisle. A woman who passes him says, ‘You’re a brave soul!’

7:45 p.m. 'Looking at all these women is making me thirsty.'

We have a long wait. ‘Looking at all these women is making me thirsty,’ Plan C says, and gets up to get a lemonade.

* * *
8:04 p.m. the time cometh and now is.

By the time the lights go out, about 19 other men (Plan C is counting...) have entered the theatre. The other 500 people are female.

* * *

After the last preview, when the screen announces ‘feature presentation,’ the theatre erupts in screams.

Plan C laughs.

I’m reminded of footage showing girls at the Ed Sullivan studios reacting to the arrival of the Beatles in 1964.
.

* * *

A still photo of Sarah Jessica Parker appears on the screen: more screams.

As photos of each of the Big Four in the film appear, applause breaks out, and more screams, as if this were a live performance and each woman were making a separate entrance.

* * *

About two-thirds of the way through the film, during the New Year’s Eve scene with Miranda and Carrie, a disaster happens: the film breaks.

The screen goes black.

More screams. Several people audibly wonder if a riot will break out.

* * *
The screen stays blank for several minutes. Plan C recalls that the film broke the last time he went to a movie in this theatre and wonders (this is typical of Plan C) if it is somehow his fault.

Is he jinxing the films?

* * *

The movie comes back: Carrie is walking up the steps of her brownstone.

How did she get there? How did the rendezvous end?

No one in the theatre has any idea. We’ve missed three or four minutes of the film.

I guess we’ll all have to go again and see it a second time.

* * *

The movie vs. the tv series vs. me

As I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t watch the tv series, because I had a life then – a life very much like those of the women in the film: a marriage, children, a full-time job, stuff going on.

In the past 23 months, however, my life has been more like those of the women in the tv series: serial dating in Manhattan, one wacky man after another, until the arrival on the scene of the man who is sitting next to me, nursing his lemonade and feeling out of place in the theatre.

* * *

The film represents the supposedly ‘mature’, middle-aged life the tv characters have evolved into, the very life I was happy to leave behind to enter the life they evolved out of.

If you see what I mean.

* * *

So it’s all in ass-backwards order for me.

* * *

And I know what’s coming next! I can tell them:

Divorces, and then that surprising barely-chronicled phase of life when the divorced osteoporosis-ridden greying post-cataract empty-nested toe-separator-wearing AARP-mailing-listed women date the previously-married hearing-aided balding stomached cholesterol-medicated cialis-users.

* * *

I’ve seen about eight of the tv episodes, and they seem to me 70% comedy and 30% melodrama – like my life since June 2006.

The film, however, is 70% melodrama and 30% comedy.

It isn’t all that funny.

* * *

Dating is funnier than relationship angst. And I like funny.

so was it any good?? yes, when jennifer hudson arrives.

When Jennifer Hudson arrives on screen, things perk up. She energizes every scene she appears in. I feel my posture shift, my eyes open a little wider, my attention focus more sharply.

* * *

Thank god for Jennifer Hudson.

jennifer hudson and me

I found a video on-line taken during the shooting of SATC, featuring the Astor Place subway station and the Starbucks across the street.

OMG!

I have a romantic history at that very location.

That's precisely the place where Rolly and I were standing during a very important conversation near the end of our first date, so probably around 10:30 pm on Friday 27 October 2006. Over dinner it had been established (as a result of my web research) that Rolly was not 69 but was 73, and although he had instantly said to me, when we met, 'You're pretty!' with great surprise (not having liked my profile picture), nevertheless it seemed to be assumed that the age difference (14 years) would rule out a relationship. But we talked together better than any other man and I had on a first date, almost instantly teasing one another, on the identical wave length. And I had said to myself, This must be what 'good chemistry' means.

We had finished dinner at the no-longer-extant Trattoria Dante Ristorante, had strolled along MacDougal looking at stores, and had walked up to the Astor Place station, because neither of us knew where the Bleecker Street one was. As we approached the station, I turned to him and said, 'At what point in the evening did it get established that you would be my --- [I paused a long time here] -- uncle?'

What I meant, of course, to be blunt now as I could not have been then, was when and how did it get established that we would not have a romance but just have a non-sexual relationship in which you acted as a kind of romantic mentor or older relative?

But that wasn't spelled out. The pause over 'uncle' was a long one.

And Rolly's response -- I'll never forget it. He said, 'Let's stop a moment' or some such. At any rate, on that very rainy night, he paused and stood against the glass window of Starbucks (yes, the very same Starbucks in the video with Jennifer Hudson to which I've provided the link above!), holding his umbrella over both of us. So it was the first time we were standing face to face in the relative positions in which lovers would kiss, if they were going to, but we didn't. That was when I noticed how broad his shoulders were, and how good he looked in his raincoat (a plain ordinary trench coat).

Over dinner at the restaurant I hadn't found him especially attractive. This was the moment when I did.

In fact it was the first moment of a strong mutual attraction.

I can't remember a single word of what we said then, but really, it was a conversation about our 'relationship,' such as it was.

I know he felt the same way about that moment, because this is what he wrote in an email the next day:

One of the things I liked last night is when we stopped by Starbucks and talked about the "Uncle" posture that I seemed to adopt. Probably it was a manifestation of my sheepishness (baa) about what we in the White House would call my "misspeaking" about my age; that is, taking myself out of contention for. . .oh, never mind, you know. I appreciate your trust in giving me your real e-mail address. But did I ever come out and actually say that I wasn't a serial killer? I don't remember. Anyway, I liked standing there in the rain with you.

Well, I liked standing there in the rain with him.

And it didn't end in a kiss. It ended in crossing the street together to take the #6 train uptown.

(I wrote about that evening here but didn't mention the outside-Starbucks conversation.)

11 p.m. A Marxist critique, please? The requisite attack on consumerism?

Why?

Does anyone complain about “Sleeping Beauty” or “The Princess and the Pea” – or, for that matter, Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It – by saying that ‘Most people don’t live in palaces’?

I’m tired of hearing people say that most people can’t afford those shoes blah blah blah.

* * *

A certain kind of narrative always tells about people richer or more beautiful or luckier than the members of its audience, and the audience loves that.

* * *

If I want to see bunions or clothes from GAP or Macy’s or Ann Taylor Loft, I can just look in the mirror.

* * *

I wouldn’t want to look at films about fashion all the time, but sometimes it’s fun. That’s why I watch royal weddings and even (shock) read Majesty or Royalty magazines occasionally. I love looking at the beautiful or exotic or outré clothes.

* * *

In fact, I’m disappointed when this film gets all moral on me, and the voiceover says that one of the characters is ‘dressed from head to toe in love; and that’s the one label that never goes out of style.’

* * *

Oh gosh, you mean I’m supposed to believe that labels aren’t important after all?

If so, then why do the credits show what seems like one hundred ‘name’ labels mentioned or shown in the film?

Don’t tell us labels aren’t important! Revel in the materiality! Be shameless!

Product placement revisited

But one label is undeniably important, and that’s Sex and the City.

There were SATC t-shirts and SATC popcorn bags (if you bought the large size) everywhere in the theatre.

That’s the product that’s marketed: the television series, the film, the musical, the novelization, the classic comic, the ‘concept.’

The film is about the television series, and the forthcoming musical will be about the television series and the film, and the novelization will be about.....etc.

* * *
Does that bother you?

* * *

Popular entertainment has always recycled characters, plots, little bits of stories. So long as there are consumers, why not keep it going? SATC’s producers are just recycling their own material, placing their own product, with all the mini-product-placements, out there in the marketplace (the AMC multiplex) for people to buy. If Ira Glass can go from radio to television, why can’t SATC go from television to film? And soon we’ll have the musical of This American Life.

If people buy your stuff, then keep selling it.

11:20 p.m. fresh air at last

As we leave, it is a little cooler than it was two weeks earlier or whenever we entered the theatre for this very long movie. Plan C thinks it was half an hour too long. I think it was one hour too long.

11:45 p.m. home again

We’re sitting at the kitchen table at Plan C’s house.

Plan C is drinking scotch, stroking and talking to his beloved cat, Polly.

I’m sitting opposite, taking sips of Plan C’s scotch and looking off into space thinking about Sarah Jessica Parker’s body. She’s only half an inch taller than I am, but I’m wondering how different our weights are.

MIMI: I wonder what she weighs…..

PLAN C: Thirteen pounds plus a little. We were at the vet’s last week.
* * *

Programme du jour : Foire de Printemps de Luxembourg.

Comme hier, je me réveille bien tôt, 6h45. Comme la veille, Maman vient me voir et je me rendors pour une heure.

7h45, je suis debout et de bonne humeur. Notre lave-vaisselle est tombé en panne hier soir... donc on attaque la vaisselle. Papa passe ensuite un long moment avec moi dans le jardin, et nous appelons mes Mamies (Rolly et Nadine). Je leur souhaite bonne fête de la part de mes parents.

J'ai le droit à mon heure de comptines sur YouTube, et pendant que Papa va se reposer un peu, je joue avec Maman et mes "babies", mes puzzles et mes jeux de cartes.

Le repas est une vraie partie de plaisir. Il faut dire que "pâtes au fromage et ketchup" est un de mes plats préférés.

A 13h45, Papa me met à la sieste, je me réveillerai 2h plus tard.

Dès que nous sommes prêts, nous nous rendons à la Foire de Printemps du Luxembourg. Nous commençons par le pavillon "gastronomie". Je goûte à peu près à tous les produits régionaux (sauf le vin !). Tout y passe, gâteaux, fromage, yaourts... Je suis adorable, et même Papa trouve son bonheur : un stand de fromages haut-savoyards ! Je fais aussi un tour dans le futur tram de Luxembourg.

Un peu avant la fermeture, nous faisons un arrêt devant de beaux pianos... Je tente même de jouer un peu.

Nous rentrons, un petit caprice en sortant de la voiture, mais tout se calme rapidement. Je dîne (un peu), et à 20h45 c'est Maman qui me met au lit. Rédacteur : Patrick-Robin, mon Papa.

Well, a country known for its Sailor Moon anime, outlandish Visual-kei music, poki sticks, manga, karaoke, etc. will have their little music toy known as the Sony Rolly come stateside September 29, 2008. A portable music player that lights, spins, moves according to the music being played within it. Will they slowly infiltrate our culture with their new teeny robotic gizmos and gadgets and eventually more gigantic robots?

See below whether you will be enticed by its CUTENESS!

Related links:

http://movie.diginfo.tv/2007/09/26/07-0285-d.php

http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/20/sony-rolly-finally-brings-the-party-stateside