The Salchow

I started skating too old to ever be good at it, but young enough to think I might be OK and be thrilled by the ride.

For a year, I whizzed through things at a speed that dazzled me. Stroking. Cross-overs. Back crossovers. Mohawks. 3 turns. Two-foot spin. One-foot spin. Waltz jump. Shoot the duck. Patch (in the old day, we did figure 8s for 45 minutes at a time). Salchow.

I never did the salchow. The salchow wrecked ice-skating for me. I spent 6 months miserable about my inability to do a salchow; where I had once seen achievement, now I just saw failure.

In order to do a salchow, you start with a 3 turn (which is a sudden half turn--you are going one way on the ice and all of sudden your blade makes a little 3 and turns itself the other way while you are still in the same position, headed the same direction--it makes a 3 (on its side) on the ice). Normally, you'd check the rotation so that you stopped spinning, but with a salchow, you don't--you let your body start to spin in a somewhat uncontrolled fashion. Then you take you use that momentum to hurl yourself up and over the standing foot, doing a full turn onto the free leg. (Someone has a better description.)

If you ask me, I can do this jump on land. No problem. Easy. I can explain the physics of it. I know how it works. I can feel the 3-turn and I can feel the jump out of the 3-turn in my bones. What I can't do is this damn jump.

You have a fraction of a second to do this jump. You have to do the timing correctly. If you hesitate, you've lost that 3-turn and have to start over again.

You cannot talk yourself into it. Your brain will never get you there. Your muscles have to trust it. Crave it. You cannot have fear and successfully land it. The problem is, without having landed it, your muscles clench because they don't know it is safe. All day long, your muscles keep you safe. As you start to slip in the rain, they so "no--let's keep you right up." That muscle-memory makes it possible to do so much without having to think about it. Anti-skid brakes for our lives. It is an amazing system. But I can't turn it off. I can force myself to do the 3-turn a hundred times in an afternoon. I can force myself to release rotation and spin. I can let go of that much control. But I can't get that final piece. I've tried.

There are 2 ways I could actually do the salchow. I landed one once, when I was at a friend's wedding and I was drunk. The alcohol 'inhibited my inhibitions' as someone might say. But I don't want to be using alcohol like that too much (and it isn't practical--ice-skating rinks don't serve or allow alcohol, except at private parties). Or I could learn pair's skating and have a man throw me into the jump. Practically speaking, I doubt seriously that any coach would encourage a pair to do a throw salchow when the lady couldn't land it on her own. But that very much appeals to me.

I hope that this doesn't remain a metaphor for my erotic life and I can learn the pair jump that I could never do on my own.

Addicted to Dating?

There is an energy going on in my life right now that I don't like to admit. I seem to be slightly addicted to the attention I'm getting from men. I was at a vanilla party tonight and several guys flirted with me. (Cute, professional, sweet guys!) I doubt I'd go out with a vanilla guy because 'that conversation' is just way too overwhelming to me. But I am addicted to men's attention and approval, even when I'm not interested in them.

It isn't addicted in an extreme sense of the word--I'm not going to have a 'girls-gone-wild' moment. But there is a strong sense that I need that attention. I like the fact that I seem to always have at least one man who is interested in me, and I miss him (whoever "he" is at any given moment) when he isn't there. But, truth to tell, since John they've all been rather interchangeable.

Steven didn't e-mail me from 12:59 pm yesterday until 6:32 pm today. Why that is 29 hours! Intellectually, I think 'well, he has a life. Duh, and good for him.' I wouldn't want someone with no life, but, well, I missed him. I missed the validation as well as the terrific conversations we've been having. And, when I saw he'd been on the CollarMe, where we met, twice today without e-mailing me, I started to get rather nervous about the entire thing, re-read e-mails to see if I'd said something wrong, replay phone conversations in my head. Really rather neurotic.

But Steven is the current in a long line of men that have been unable to truly capture me (and, truth to be told, several of them haven't been interested enough to capture me--I'm kindof high maintenance in my own unique way--I don't like fancy meals, but I want to know the depths of a man's soul, which means he doesn't only have to visited it, he has to communicate it!), and yet their energy is necessary to how I currently live my life. I wouldn't want to not have the attention because I thrive off of it. I was even glad that the ex tried, rather clumsily, to get me in bed last week.

I'm not sure if this is really unhealthy, or if it is a little healthy. The unhealthy side seems to be a need for energy that I can't fulfill myself. I'm relying on something I'm getting from others. I need external validation.

At the same time, we all live in various stages of relatedness. We need that relatedness. Maybe it is just healthy that I'm finally admitting I want to have connectedness with others. I am vulnerable and I'm comfortable with the fact that I'm not fully self sufficient.

Meanwhile, I'm having dinner with John tomorrow--and I'm rather nervous about that. I don't know how to be with him as a friend and not wish it could be more. How to not have it cut away at my self-esteem and confidence and just quietly erode my sense of self. I want to try. I value so much about him, but if I have to pick one of the two of us, I'll have to pick me. I think, ultimately, we could maybe be a 'let's-get-together-once-ever-couple-of-months' friends--but I can't have those searing, soul connected, intimate conversations I've had in the past. The fact that he didn't want me enough to persue me rings through our encounters and undercuts the joy.

June to September

So an older man is wooing me---17 years older. I have graciously blown off dozens of men that age, but this one is different.

Most of the older men attempt to seduce me with money. I've literally had men offer to pay my mortgage, or hints of expensive meals, clothes, whatever. I'm not a call girl, and have no intention of being anyone's mistress, however graciously it is shaded. I have a 'sugar daddy' (who shares half my DNA), who paid for my undergrad tuition and helped me get grants for grad school. Having been already bought by daddy, I am so uninterested in being resold at a lower price, however good the loot is.

This man, let's call him Steven, came at me through my weakness--he actually started reading much of what I've written, responding, offering bits of himself and his own vulnerablity. The youth (what little I have left of it)-money tradeoff would never work. But youth for wisdom, for insight, for understanding, sharing, recognition and maybe some great sex thrown in down the road, that is a rather heady possiblity. Secretly, I sometimes sing "Someone to watch over me" in the shower. And "The Man I Love." "I'm a little lamb whose lost in the wood. I know I could, always be good, to one who'll watch over me."

Of course it is all internet right now. He has a ton of office parties, as do I, but I'd gladly make time to grab a drink--he wants to wait till January, which I don't like. Again, it is those searing internet conversations that dabble around hopes, vulnerabilities, fears and wishes. We haven't had the level of vulnerability that John and I shared, but John wasn't as wise, and didn't guide the process. (John will be amazing when he's Steven's age--wow! I hope I can find a way to have him in my life in a way that is healthy and not just numbing me out and making me feel rejected. Doubtful, but more likely if I meet someone else, and I'm willing to try.) I don't know how many times I can bare my soul to a stranger, have it not work, pick up the pieces and not try to armor myself more effectively for the future. And, of course, that armor is what makes me unattractive. But the process of going forth without it terrifies me.

My biggest fear about the age thing is that I would really love to find someone to grow old with. I can't imagine that any man would be interested in me when I'm in my 60s. I don't want to start over then. And yet, I know that is an unknown. I may die before then. If Steven can match me, maybe even guide me, it might be worth risking. Who knows who I might become with someone to watch over me?

Fear and Desire

Why do fear and desire so often accompany each other? Usually, a little fear just wakes me up, excites me, makes me feel a little more alive. Whether it is biking aggressively is traffic and taking corners too fast, roller-coasters or pushing myself skiing, the fear makes it all a little sharper and more vital.

But when it comes to sex, and even more extremely S&M, the fear is much greater even as the risks are less. Surely biking in rush hour traffic, dodging taxis and delivery trucks and potholes is far more dangerous. Cabs don’t stop for safewords and gravity doesn’t check your eyes to see how you are doing.

It is the fear of who I might become, or maybe who I actually am, even as I’ve done my best to play the ‘nice, sweet, innocent, and pure’ part.

A dance concert this week juxtaposed some flamenco dancers with a couple of African women. The European ladies were uptight, upright, controlled, and composed. The African women were uncontrolled, joyous, and spontaneous; it is a tradition so despised in the European world that it has been reviled, mocked and compared to animals. The European composition, control, and denial runs in my very veins. Even in my blog about sex, I’m careful to be consistent in my inclusion of the Oxford comma. Control and denial.

And what are my fears if I follow my denial? On one level, I have rational fears that it could make my job much harder, but those, just like unwanted pregnancy, are dealt with and controlled.

The visceral fears that control my behavior are much more primal—that I will surrender entirely to my desires—that I will lose my sense of self, my chance to impact the world, the respect I have in one long, shuddering orgasm. Think Agave, in The Bacchae, tearing off the head of my own son as I've lost all contact with reality, morality, logic or my individuality. The Greeks believed we needed to balance the primal with the logic. In contrast, since the fall of the Roman Empire, the Europeans have tended towards binary views: the Puritans simply banished erotic yearnings in favor of the logical. In the 20th century, Jung said basically women were ruled entirely by eros while men were ruled by logic.

I still want a little fear--enough to keep me vital, alive and aware, but I hope to find people who can lead me through it and not allow the fear to imprison me in motionless stasis.

Is Maureen Dowd Necessary?

(Apologies to someone or other, who already had that title a year ago, but a very different review follows.)

Maureen Dowd, in Are Men Necessary, and some columns like “Should Hillary Pretend to be a Flight Attendant,” proposes the theory that men avoid women who are as smart or ambitious as they are. Quoting a Slate article, Dowd seems to believe “They preferred women whom they rated as smarter — but only up to a point ... It turns out that men avoided women whom they perceived to be smarter than themselves. The same held true for measures of career ambition — a woman could be ambitious, just not more ambitious than the man considering her for a date.”

There are other reasons to believe that men avoid women who are smarter or more ambitious. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that only 5% of women with PhDs will get married after completing their doctorate.

I’m an over-educated, ambitious woman; I’m quite smart according to conventional intelligence assessments. And I’m single.

But I believe Dowd and the Slate study have it wrong. The study in the Slate article was odd. It looked only at seemingly quantifiable statistics but asked the daters to rank the opposite sex based on intelligence, looks and ambition. It had NO assessment of actual intelligence or ambition, only looks. (They had someone outside the study rank the looks of the participants. If any quantifiable intelligence testing or ambition ranking happened, the authors never mentioned it.) The participants ranked the potential partners after a 4-minute conversation. In other words, this isn't real intelligence, it is whether someone has an aura of intelligence. Same with ambition.

People of quality don’t date on quantifiable data. We date on how someone feels, their energy, their ability to engage, connect, and develop an interplay and interconnection. Men, at least men of quality, would never say “oh, her IQ is 5 points higher than mine—I’m not interested.” Please! Same with ambition. No man of quality is going to say “well, her dream job is .387% more prestigious than my dream job. Next.” But they will notice a woman who is focused primarily on that. Anyone who is able to convince someone else of 'being intelligent" in a four minute conversation, is probably focused on that. In my experience, real intelligence isn't about using big words that impress, intimidate and don't communicate (although I can deconstruct heteronormative, hegemonic paradigms with superlative if superfluous alacrity).

Maureen Dowd is in the top half a percent of most influential people in the country, and she is trying to prove she is in the top quarter of a percent. She proves herself all the time. She clutches. Her energy has tighter, narrower waves that feel constricted.

Until 2005, very few men found me attractive, and until 2005, I would have bought right into Dowd’s theory. But in 2005, I quit a power job that made me miserable. By 2006, I had as many dates, vanilla and otherwise, that a gal could wish for. I’m not stupider or less ambitious than I was in 2005; in fact, if anything, I’m a smidgen more successful because I stopped making a compromise that made me deeply unhappy. But my energy shifted.

I used to go through life saying “I can do it myself. I don’t need your help.” I clawed my way, not to the top, but to spitting distance from the top. But all I wanted was to reach the top because my life disappointed my soul and I desperately needed a change. I clung to any hope that would transform my life.

Once I quit a job I hated, which I viewed entirely as a stepping stone to a job that I would hate less, I stopped clutching as much. My energy became less tight, less closed, more welcoming and reciprocal. When I proved myself at work, all the time, I also proved myself in the rest of my life. I couldn’t turn that off.

Few of us, of any gender, are interested in lovers, friends, or even work colleagues, who spend sizeable amounts of time proving themselves. It isn’t a warm dynamic.

As I shifted my relationship to work, more men became interested in me, which made me more confident, which meant more men became interested in me. In the last year, I’ve become as picky in my private life as I am in my job. No one would look at me and say “wow—I bet she has multiple men interested in her.” I’m plump, don’t wear too much make-up and spend little energy on my appearance. I mean, my hair is clean, but sunscreen is the only facial product I use religiously.

But I am happy. My energy is good, and that strong energy has room to give and room to accept. I can listen to men and be interested in them. Granted, I won't see them again if they aren't also interested in me, but I no longer demand to be the center of attention.

Now, this does not mean I don’t support women’s achievement at whatever they desire. And there is an unfair result of sexism—it is harder for women to achieve the same level that men achieve with the same effort. That unfair playing field makes it more likely that women will clutch and fight to achieve their dreams. But women need to realize they have far more control over their destinies than the Maureen Dowds of the world give us credit for. We can very much affect how we are perceived by making a life where we are happy and content. And it does little good to blame the individual men we date for the unfair playing field.