Blast dignity! Give me therapy.

                                                                                                                                                       
I’ve been subjected to a casting couch cliché by a famous Hollywood director, been nearly trampled to death by an angry bull, had a loaded gun pointed at me, snuck into an ancient national treasure, been kidnapped, outran cops in a speed chase and came close to drowning as a row of guys watched. In between, I dated more than a handful of men.

Those are just the stories I was willing to put on my blog instead of greedily save for a big, life-changing publishing opportunity. You know, the opportunity we all think is waiting around the corner, ready to pounce on our one of a kind, surely-to-interest-the-planet memoir.

“Does ‘nosebag’ ring a bell to you?” I texted the Exceptionally Tall Man, who is my love. I also texted it to my ex, the Perfect Man, whom I love. I notoriously love all my exes. Non-exes hate this. But then they meet my exes who love their exes too, and we all collaborate on a music video. It’s a big hippy lovefest without the orgy.

The Exceptionally Tall Man feels his moniker on Gunmetal Geisha is lackluster, certainly in light of monikers like “Perfect Man.” I’m guessing he thinks I should come up with something to encapsulate “Love of My Life Who Continuously Floors Me.” But lest he forgets, he was consulted at the get-go and approved his current sobriquet. I’d like to think most readers don’t take the monikers at face value. I doubt too many are of the opinion that the Exceptionally Tall Man is merely tall and the Perfect Man is actually perfect.

Anyway, neither moniker-bearer remembered a thing about “nosebag” any more than I did. I had come across it in my blog notes when gathering thoughts for my Gunmetal Geisha mini comeback. But even though “nosebag” will probably elude this blog forever, sooner or later, the story behind how I named the Perfect Man will find its way in.

My stories here ended up crawling with men. I don’t mind, but I also didn’t plan it that way. I’m in a committed relationship with the Exceptionally Tall Man, but on our very first date he felt the need to ask:

“So are you gonna keep dating in order to have stories for your blog?”

“It’s not a dating blog,” I answered. “Besides, I still have twenty years’ worth of past men stories to tell.” He looked at me sideways but didn’t seem too bothered — we’d only known each for two hours. It’s ten months later and I still plan to tackle the old stories.

In addition to the story of the Perfect Man, I’ll write about the guy who cradled my body to safety across a treacherous ravine, but also ran ass naked after me in the middle of a Hollywood street, privates swinging and everything. That was because I walked out on him when he bit my finger clear to the bone, not just to gush blood, but to leave permanent teeth marks. You might think it’s insane to have read those words just now — from me of all people — but for real insanity, try living the words. In a way, you will, once I write them. Isn’t that the whole point of storytelling.

I used to agonize over publicly writing about certain incidents, as if it would a be betrayal and I somehow lacked dignity for revealing the beastly nature of unnamed individuals. A betrayal to whom, though? People who behave terribly behind closed doors and want to keep it that way?

If you don’t want to be written about, don’t date a writer who is upfront about her addiction to expression and finds her blog to be the ultimate therapy session.

Or I don’t know, maybe just…don’t be an abusive asshole?

But if you’re going to provide me with sensationalistic material with built-in conflict in the shape of your dickish dysfunction, I’d be an idiot not to take full advantage of it.

Maybe not quite.

I don’t default to vicious and I do have a soft spot for the only two assholes I ever loved. They’re just a couple of unfortunate weeds in a bouquet of outstanding men. Normally, those I loved were no less than princely — in a fairytale way and not a Prince Albert/Jack the Ripper way. So by no means am I an asshole-dater nor do I have a pattern of asshole-dating. Three is a pattern, two is a fluke. A two-fold fluke that I’m suddenly enjoying, because it means neither asshole gets the distinction of being the only one. After all, my love is generous, and yes, I’m turning me dating two assholes into an act of generosity on my part.

As generous as it may be, my love isn’t usually instant. Other than with the Exceptionally Tall Man, it always took me about three months to understand that I might be in love. Maybe age and experience sped it up for the current situation. Maybe the heavens opened up to drop the pre-knowledge of our love on our heads like benevolent bird poop, because we were certainly disoriented about it.

“When did you know?” A bunch of people asked when I couldn’t help gush over it.

We both knew on the second day. But we also knew we needed our brains to catch up to our hearts. So we waited four months before moving in together. And then —

— our world went straight to plague and pestilence.

It’s true.

But we’ve made it through. That is another story I’ll have to tell.

In the meantime, there’s a lot you haven’t read. You can click on the orange links at the top of this post or piece some of it together through this phrase mashup gathered from recent posts.
 

Cathartic Monkeyism

• Blast dignity! Give me therapy.
• Also, give me interested readers.

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