All you've got to do is ask me.

I was writing a post about beauty and aging, and how I'm far more concerned about holding onto the vestiges of my youth than I ever thought I would be. And then I took a break to go to the CD release party for Passing Strange (If you are going to take my advice on anything, run to see Passing Strange before it closes on Sunday, buy the CD on Tuesday and get the Spike Lee DVD that will be coming out in a year or two--the best new American art in the last few years) and I just started to wonder--how did I turn into this? What made me so cynical? So focused on playing the dating game? So willing to buy into a culture that I don't believe in?

There seems to be this giant chasm of regret that I never found someone who loved me. Steven loved me, but not enough to want me. There were several men I've loved. But none loved me back. And I'm scared that there never will be anyone. And I have so much I would love to give someone. I know: a cliche from the 1950s. But true, none the less.

I'm staying with a friend who lives at the end of the line, and taking the subway home (at 1:30 in the morning, by myself--and they say I'm not a New Yorker!), I was listening to one of the songs I'd downloaded from their website:

Now you are knee deep in your head's footnotes.

Is there a better description for me and my blog? Me and my life? I care about other people's head's footnotes too--I just love head's footnotes.

I've been thinking about leaving my fingerprints on your being.

So come down now, remove your mask, see.
All you gotta do is ask me.
I'll give you all the love life allows.

Wow. So I start to tear up on the subway. And then the narrator asks:

What does this feeling mean to you:
Both to be seen and be seen through?

And I start to cry. On the subway. I know the left coast wears its emotions on its sleeves, but that's ridiculous. But I have to take out my ipod and play Klondike to distract myself until I can get to my friend's apartment (who was, blessedly, already asleep).

I'm amazed at the amount of shit I do, like video games, to just try to numb myself out to what I'm feeling sometimes.

More than anything in my life, that's what I yearn for: "Both to be seen and be seen through." Someone to care enough about me, see the real in me and want to pursue the real enough to want to see through me. I honestly have a persona that is kind of impressive. Not like "top 1/10 of 1%" impressive. But probably in the top 1%. But who cares? I'm faking it. All of it. Every single bit. I don't care about that. Well, maybe I do. I love my life, actually. But it isn't fair that this chasm never disappears and I seem to have no control over it. I would trade my job and house and car for someone to love me as much as I'd love him. I really would. No. I wouldn't. Because I couldn't love someone that would ask me to give up my job that I love. But I'd trade my home that is the envy of all my friends with real estate envy. Gladly. More gladly, though, I'd share it with him.

I guess because I never got to be pretty when I was younger, and I knew it from a very, very early age, I just knew no one would ever love me. After all, Daddy told me so. And I built a life for me alone. And it is a good life. Hell, I can got to New York for the weekend just because I wanted to see Passing Strange one more time before it closes. And the feminists say "A woman needs a man life a fish needs a bicycle." Intellectually I'd believe it, but emotionally I'd say "but I need someone to love. I need to curl up next to another being and feel his heart beat. And have him care enough to want to see the flawed, conflicted messed-up girl that lurks, like an alien in Men in Black, under the well-put-together persona. I need that. Not like a fish needs a bicycle. Like a fish needs oxygen.
There's a Sondheim lyric:

In the depths of her interior
Were fears she was inferior
And something even eerier
But no one dared to query her superior exterior.

Probably the most brilliant lyric ever written in the English language. She is scared to make this vulnerable confession, so she uses the amazing rhyme scheme in order to distract from the vulnerability. I've always thought that that, more than anything else, described me. And, crazily enough, I've shared the lyric with tons of people because it is so clever, no one realizes it is vulnerable. People just here the ear ee er and don't realize that I'm sharing something about myself. And I've often wished someone would ignore the rhyme to realize the unguarded, exposed, unprotected girl and say "you don't have to pretend with me. I'll love you no matter what." But that, I suppose, is just a naive wish from a romance novel.

In a way, though, that lyric doesn't describe me. In a way, my inferiority is very much on the surface because of my weight. And I've struggled and struggled and struggled to have someone care about me despite it. And then I lost weight, and now I'm still plump, but in the sort-of normal category. And yet, still alone. All alone. And intellectually, it's all right now. But emotionally...