"When your heart is an empty room."

Last night I looked hot. Seriously. Dressed as a serving wench for a Halloween party and laced tight into a corset, my ample bosom rose into a swell of cleavage that was not only awe inspiring, but should have had me flat on my back, dress pushed up around my waist. In other words, I looked fuckable. Any reasonable person would have tossed me into the bedroom and locked the door. But since I was with Holly, reason was in short supply.

There comes a point in a young woman's life when she realizes that she can't make someone love them no matter how hard she tries. It's a heartbreaking realization and my heart is breaking a little bit. I wish I could somehow explain my very complicated feelings for Holly and why I haven't been able to let go when I should have cut my losses long ago. Some of you think that I'm crazy especially since this has been going on for a while now. Why her? Why so much self inflicted consternation?

I had a brief view of how things could have been in the days after Provincetown. The connection was there loud and clear. No barriers. No interference. I finally saw what I had fought for, like the satisfying view from the top of Mount Everest, and I was the happiest I had been in a very long time. That, my friends, is why I wasn't able to let go. That sole belief that if you cleared away all the bullshit things would be amazing.

I can't keep fighting anymore. I can't make her love me. I probably have a better shot of convincing New York of my awesomeness. One day she'll realize that she had a shot at a really good thing, but I will have moved on.

So attention single lesbians of New York! Here I am. I'm not asking for much. Just to be loved and occasionally dragged into the bedroom when I'm dressed as a serving wench. I'll even make you pancakes in the morning after you have your way with me.

"How did she go from big lesbo to having a hubby?"

I'm unexpectedly weirded out to find that that my straight ex-girlfriend is getting married. That makes TWO of my exes that are either married (civil-uinioned, whatever) or on their way to getting married. Now I don't know 100% for sure that she's getting married, but I think I've interpreted the code correctly on J-Wo's blog. And it's all even more strange that I dreamed last night her and I ran into each other randomly and were chatting for a couple of minutes.

Um, so yeah, weirded out.

This brings me to the one topic that I inevitably come to -- my love life. Ten months into OFTL/OFAG and I'm single. No, the news of my ex-girlfriend getting hitched does not make me long for my own nuptials, but oh great universe, all the angels and saints, why in the name of holy fuck is my love life a general wasteland on par with an EPA Superfund site? It defies logic. Let's look at the stats:

Rouge is 27, well adjusted, not crazy, single, reasonably cute, funny, skilled, intelligent, fashionable, and can cook like no body's business.

See, I sound really good on paper! So why the singleness? Or rather why not more interest? Even my friends are surprised.

"There's nothing wrong with you."

"I can't believe you're single. You're amazing."

"If I were younger . . ."

So I'm faced with a couple of stark options:

(a) Spend the rest of my life alone
(b) Go straight
(c) Find Jesus
(d) All of the above!

Or, as Dennise miraculously scrounged out of MySpace, follow the path of one of my college classmates.

"It's not like you don't have anything to do, right?"

I'm sitting here in a darkened office watching the lights slowly come on in the apartments across the street from me, office buildings, and the Empire State Building. Currently the ESB is glowing red and yellow and you can see periodic flashes of light from the tourists taking pictures from the observation deck high up above. Work is mercifully quiet and I'm slowly finishing things up so that I might meet some friends for a quick drink at the Cubbyhole.

Things have been crazy busy so my screw around time on the internet (eg, blogging) has taken a hit. My cat Theo, after shredding my hand, finally was coerced into his cat carrier yesterday and thus got to the vet to be neutered. After the trauma of surgery and spending the day away from home wore off, he was back to his old self again, purring, and engaging in auto-fellatio despite the surgery. I guess some habits can't be unlearned.

I'm enjoying this moment of quiet even though I know that I have a crazy amount of things to do when I get home from work in addition to the crazy amount of things I have to do before the end of Friday. But since I'm all about preserving my sanity, I'm allowing myself a diversion to have drinks with friends.

My lovelife has gone on the back burner. A couple of people have asked what's going on with Holly and the answer is that I don't know -- honestly I've been too busy to really find out. I'm going to be seeing her on Saturday and her and I are going to be having a little conversation. Ah, but whatever. I'm merely enjoying the silence right now.

"Ready for rock and roll time music, okay?"

My cat has a new talent in addition to the auto fellatio -- pissing on my bed. Yes. I shall be killing him soon.

So off I went to the laundromat yesterday to wash my regular duvet. I thought that my other duvet -- the big feather one -- was spared, but unfortunately I discovered a damp spot on it this morning. I'm hoping that it's leftover from yesterday's pee fest (he also pissed in my friend Katharine's suitcase ensuring that she will never ever visit me again). I have no idea what has prompted this behavior, but as I write this I am terrified that he is currently pissing all over everything.

Maybe he knows that he's going to the vet tomorrow and again on Thursday to get fixed.

* * *

Over the last couple of weeks I've been thinking, "This lesbian thing is HARD." And while I've pondered what it would be like to be straight -- my burning lust for Daniel Craig aside -- I am frequently reminded that I really like tits. I was especially reminded of this as I watched the Suicide Girls on stage at Southpaw on Saturday. In case you don't know who the Suicide Girls are, they are the ladies of an altp*rn site who performed a burlesqe review, nipples conveniently hidden by an x of black electrical tape.

So yeah, tits are AWESOME! Yay for being a lesbian!! Too bad this lesbian thing is HARD. Not only am I single, but I am crazy cat lady who's bed smells of cat piss.

Lovely.

"Not Found."

Back in April, I did my good friend J-Wo a favor -- I kissed her. See, J-Wo has this list of howmanyever things to do before she dies and getting some hot lady lip action is one of them. What's a good friend to do? I gladly did the deed and one of friends (Mr. Bad Apologies?) took a photo, which would later get linked to J-Wo's blog.

The photo is rather tame by some standards, so I am curious as to why so many random people keep coming to my blog after clicking the photo link off Google. People all over the WORLD can't wait to get their jollies from seeing J-Wo and I kiss. And when I mean all over the world, I mean Saudi Arabia, New Hampshire, and Kuwait. For some reason my stats have had a huge increase of traffic from this link and this entry is probably only going to serve to add more traffic.

So if you're a guy looking for some hot lady on lady action, I do hope J-Wo and I satisfy. But seriously. There are much better photos on the net than two drunk girls (one of whom is straight) kissing at 2 am in the basement of a DC bar.

"Is naked shower man back?"

Every time the woman across the street from me enters the shower, I want to cry out to warn her. Lady! Don't you know that EVERYONE can see you naked?! You're old enough to be my mom! Oh and by the way, my boss tells me that she's seen your son (?) do naughty things in the shower. Put a curtain up for chrissakes!

It's like watching a car crash about to happen and being unable to do anything to prevent it.

This isn't a puritanical tirade. I don't care that the lady is naked, but I care that she probably doesn't know that everyone can see her shower and would probably be horrified to find out. So I'm wrestling with the idea of going over there and telling the front desk man to alert tenants that we can see them ALL naked and (apparently) masturbating in the shower. But I'm kind of lazy and mildly entertained by watching the maid clean the apartment.

I think I was going to deftly parallel this blog entry with my own special naked time adventures with recent sexual partners, but I got lazy. Instead here's an x-rated list of topics that have been floating around my brain recently:

- drunken sex versus sober sex
- my nose ring getting caught on certain body parts
- Tearing of delicate skin underneath the base of the tongue from vigorous cunnilingus and how to avoid this injury

Just something to think about.

"Difficult."

My apologies for not updating this blog. I've been busy and a little depressed, disillusioned, dejected, and other words that start with the letter D. While my new job is awesome, other areas of my life have been less inspiring. Generally I've decided to retreat a little and keep my options open. Thus begins Operation Wait And See (OWAS) -- kind of a laissez-fair approach.

So things took an interesting turn with Holly. I got tackled last night. Yes, tackled. And she stayed over in my mojo bed. Naked. I'm not sure how I feel this morning. Defensive? Indifferent? Pleasantly surprised? Wanting more? Tired?

I know I've kind of painted Holly as persona non grata, but I promise you all -- my faithful blog readers -- that I am keeping my options open (eg, OWAS). Despite sexy time in my bed, she has given me no clear idea of what she wants. The whore in me will take sexy time when I can get it. But I'm sticking to what I said -- I'm done being the pursuer. The mountain can come to me. And it kind of did last night.

If only it will come to me more.

"Pray for a miracle."

Dear Ms. Right,

Maybe I know you already. Maybe you're secretly disguised as Holly, waiting to pull your head out of your ass and wow me with your awesomeness. Maybe I haven't met you already and you're one of the nameless faces I pass everyday. Who knows. But it's time for me to lay down the law here.

I'm tired -- no, exhausted -- of looking for you. So here's the deal: you find me. Get it? If you want me, you're going to have to put in the effort, the hard slog, and the time to find me.

These are the new rules. They are non-negotiable.

Signed,

Rouge

"This isn't a date, is it?"

Before heading to DC, I made plans to meetup with Mysterious Blog Reader for a long over due beer. You may remember her as one of the responders to my dating manifesto posted back in July. Her and I were supposed to meet back in mid August -- incidentally the same day as my first job interview -- but plans fell through. Fastforward to October when we finally found time in our busy schedules to catch a beer.

However there was a small wrench to this plan. Having casually mentioned to Holly that I was getting a beer with a friend after work, she wanted to come along. Normally not a problem, but in this case the friend is a blog reader. Holly doesn't know I have a blog. Oy vey.

I could have concocted an elaborate lie as to why Holly couldn't come along (or I could have just kept my mouth shut), but instead I placed a semi-frantic phone call to MBR and some ground rules were placed:

1. Don't call Holly Holly! You think I use real names on this blog??
2. Don't mention the BLOG!
3. If she asks how we met, tell her that we met online. I have a habit of meeting strangers off the internet so this won't seem so strange.

So much subterfuge. And yes I feel guilty for it and the indirect lying. Thankfully MBR did a good job of sticking to rules one through three. It was great to finally meet her and maybe I can make Holly a little jealous as MBR is very cute.

"Oh hi, [Rouge]."

On Saturday I took the train down to Maryland to attend my ten year high school reunion. Although the event was mercifully open bar, all the bourbon in the world couldn't take away those awkward feelings stirred up after 10 years of repression. Even worse, a lot of people (a) didn't recognize me (b) didn't remember me and (c) didn't care that I looked a hell of a lot more fabulous than I did circa 1996. And so I left the event weirded out, drunk, and reminded that I was really just a non entity in the minds of my classmates.

Why should I care? I don't. At least I don't think I do. But this underscores why people go to reunions in the first place -- that "Hey, I may have been a dork in high school and gotten picked on by the cheerleaders, but I'm way cooler now." No, we're still dorks, just better dressed. And for some reason I was surprised that the same people that could dent my self worth in high school could still manage to do so ten years later.

So was the event a waste of time? No, because for all weirdness, I was able to reconnect with a couple of I hadn't seen in ten years or so. That's really what reunion is all about, isn't it?

"[Rouge] has been given extensive creative control."

Dear woman living in the building across the street from my office,

I can see you naked. That frosted glass the builder installed in your bathroom? Not frosted enough. Even with the steam I can see you showering and your breasts are not too dissimilar from mine and you have some minor lovehandles -- that's how much I can see. I can even see that you're wearing a shower cap or something to hold your hair up. Yeah, you might want to get a curtain. Yeah.

Don't worry, this lesbian is not titillated, merely . . . I don't know . . . fascinated? But I thought you should know. I can totally see you naked.

* * *

So apart from watching women shower from the comfort of my office, I'm loving my job. In fact I got an email yesterday that mentioned, "[Rouge] has been given extensive creative control." These are words that I live to hear.

"I like the feel of your fingernails on my back."

Dear me, that last entry was a bit vitriolic. Sorry for the vent, but I was feeling a bit woe-is-me. How about some clarification.

The situation with Holly has progressed a bit slower than hoped. In fact it's been a little over a month since the fateful Provincetown trip and I thought that her and I would have gotten our shit together by now. Or at least some hot and dirty sex. Alas it's come in drips and drabs -- a kiss or holding hands from time to time. Or last last night where we acted like stupid people in love as we played with each other's hands while sitting in a straight bar. A later drunken proposition for her to come home with me failed due to logistical problems. Sigh.

When J-Wo was visiting me on Friday, she reminded me that the whole Holly situation has a whiff of deja vu. "You realize this thing is Elizabeth redux." Elizabeth is a girlfriend from nearly four years ago and damn it if J-Wo didn't nail it on the head. So not only am I a masochist, but I'm a masochist who likes to put myself through identical grief. It doesn't help that both Holly and Elizabeth look very similar -- long red hair and pale skin. I guess this means that I have a type.

"Holly is nothing like Elizabeth," I protested even though she was right. Somewhat. "Elizabeth was crazy and liked to slip into blind rages at the drop of a hat."

"Different crazy is still crazy. You need to move on."

"I did move on! After she told me about her and her boss, I moved on. I had five first dates in January and have dated two people since. Tell me that's not moving on!"

So have I moved on? Of course not. Only the next day Holly and I were acting goofy, holding hands as we walked up Second Avenue at one in the morning and blind to lecherous looks we were getting from drunken straight boys. Damnit Holly, why can't we get our shit together?

Postscript -- Dear Melissa, bartender at Burp Castle. Thanks for totally having our backs when those drunk straight guys obnoxiously took interest in us because we were lesbians. I wanted to totally high-five you when you said to them that they were "this close to getting kicked out." And since I saw you kick out a belligerent asshole out earlier in the evening, I knew that you didn't fuck around.