Echo

I won’t mess with married men because I think I deserve better. Not to be someone’s secret at best, crutch or tool of life disruption at worst. But what if this is it? This is 12th house Venus, take it or leave it?

Imagine this scenario. I disable my rule. I can have any of these guys and they’re easy because they don’t have the freedom or time to impose on me, they don’t have the leverage over me to demand a compromise. I get to carry on in secrecy which is where I generally like my private life to be, I maintain my freedom, I keep my social options open, but I get no strings, minimal demands relationships whenever I want with whoever I want.

Damn that sounds good.

So I thought about, what’s stopping me?

Trust.

Trust that these people will keep things a secret.

Trust that things won’t get messy.

Trust that one day my private life and entanglements will not haunt me some day in the court of public opinion.

But I have a feeling, that day is coming. I can’t keep fighting the same battle because as time goes on it starts to seem arbitrary.

There’s that joke about the guy in a flood, as the water comes in an emergency truck comes by but he says, no thanks, god will save me. Then the water keeps rising and a rescue boat comes by but he says no thanks, god will save me. The water keeps rising and he’s on his roof now and a helicopter comes by, but he says no thanks, god will save me. And then he drowns. When he meets god he’s like, wtf?! And god’s like, dude. I sent you a truck, a boat, a helicopter.

What if I’m sitting here thinking there’s some dude who’s gonna show up and be my dude and be single, but this is as good as it gets?

That depresses me. But if this is the case, then I have to decide if I’m gonna start living.

Yes, I’m starting to understand, the rules I force myself to live by are the only things keeping me in check. Without them, even I may not be able to control myself.

He said that I’m very addictive.

That’s not the first time I’ve been told that.

The reason I came to New York on Sunday was to see Hilary Mason speak on Monday night. Her topic was  how to find the best cheeseburgers in NYC using algorithms. The next night, I sit next to a handsome stranger who mentions that the hotel he stays at, Le Parker Meridien, has a really good burger place. The next day (today), I’m sitting at a table at the conference and these guys ask if they can share my table. They all have burgers and I ask them where they got their burgers and they said a place in this hotel. I asked what hotel and they said, “The Parker Meridien.” It was like a theme went full circle on this trip. I just wrote to HM and asked her where she ranked the Parker Meridien burger.

Also a couple of other weird synchronicities. I was at the after party for the speaking event on Monday, when I look across the bar and see this guy I went to college with. The weird thing is that I live in the bay area, he lives in LA, we hadn’t seen each other in over 10 years, yet here we are running into each other in a bar in Manhattan. What’s weirder is the last time I’d heard from him was a few months ago, when I hadn’t previously heard from him in 10 years. He’d written to say he’d had a dream about me, that he’d dreamed he was at a party at my place and I was drinking a cup that was filled with light. It coincided with a period in my life where I felt like I was generating electricity, glowing. And here was another bizarre run-in for us.

The next thing that was weird was tonight, I went to the show’s party and this Indian guy walks right up to me and introduces himself. I ask him what company he works for and he says Lockheed Martin. I do a doubletake because I’d actually hadn’t heard his name and ask him, “Are you Ravi from Lockheed Martin.?” He says yes, looks down at my badge and realizes we’ve talked to each other. He tells me he went with a different vendor, and I’m pretty furious but I give him a playful but passionate earful and the end result was he tried to offer me a job. He said it was such a coincidence because the reason he even said hi to me was just because he thought I was a hot girl.

I leave, realize one of the guys eating a burger today had mentioned Shake Shack has better burgers and it was nearby, so I went and grabbed a burger (soooo slutty). As I was walking home, I passed a speakeasy type bar I had passed on Monday and thought would be cool to stop into, and ended up talking to a guy who worked for the FDA. As he was leaving, I asked him if he knew where I could get weed. His friend said he had it at his place if we all wanted to go back and smoke and I said hell no. For all I know the place is wired with cameras and I’m about to get double-teamed. So they leave after the FDA guy mentions he totally wanted to sleep with me but I was on to him. I leave. There’s a brutha in dreads outside with a sign that says Money 4 Weed. I tell him I’ll split with him and he uses my phone to call some number and he has me wait under a scaffolding in Time Square where his friend sells me a CD, after which he passes me a dime. Congratulations, I have now scored weed in NY.

As I’m walking back the engineer texts me. Says he’s back at his hotel. Asks me which hotel I’m at and when I tell him he says he’s google mapping it. I’m surprised, thinking he’s basically saying he wants to come over. I ask him if he smokes, and he says he’s down and coming over. I think, obviously I always planned to have someone in my hotel room, that’s why I straightened up before I left. I did ask him to promise to behave, because I try to limit the amount of time I spend with married men in hotel rooms. In my mind, I really didn’t want anything to happen because I don’t think I’m prepared for a world where I’ve seen him naked, but a part of me was also thinking, how would anyone ever find out? The shit I got was shwag, but I’d bummed a cigarette off a nice smoke shop owner, and emptied it out, then filled it in. Is it scary I know how to do this.

Knock on the door and I remind myself I got this. I’m in control of this. We smoke and I’ve got two queen beds so he’s on one and I’m on the other. It’s pretty weird to be in this situation though and know under no circumstances are we to hook up. We talked about life. He thinks it would take $10,000,000 for someone to have the freedom to really discover themselves, take things to the next level. He says in life you should try everything because you don’t know what you would really like unless you try everything.

At one point he asks me what my passion is, and I said, getting inside people. He asked me what I meant, and I said I was deep inside him right  now. He said no way, outside of somehow knowing my birthday, you don’t know anything about me. I said, I’m deep inside you because you think about me all the time even when I’m not around. And he stopped and turned red, then laughed and said, “Well, duh, of course I do.” Then it was out there and it felt like some shell had broken. He’s wondering why we met and why we hit it off right away and I said these things just happen. He asks me how someone can even get close to me, that obviously they can’t sell themselves to me. But if they proved they were a really good person, like really proved it, would I let them in? I think so, but they would probably have to jump through some hoops.

My back was hurting so he told me to lay back in my bed, but then it would have been awkward because I couldn’t see him so he came and sat next to me on mine, promising he wouldn’t do anything. We sat and talked about life some more. Then it was late and he went home. Before he left he asked if I would be willing to give him a hug. Of course, I said, and we hugged like old friends because he’s always felt like an old friend to me, even from the first time I met him. (He’d actually mentioned that when he first saw me, he thought, “Okay.” Wherever she’s going, “Okay, I’m in.”) I was surprised he would even ask, and I said I thought I always gave him a hug. No, he said. Are you sure?, I asked. Positive, he said. Then I remembered, we’d never hugged before. I always shake your hand, I said. He laughed sheepishly and said, “I know! And I think, okay business associate. I guess we’re not friends.”

That guy totally likes me. And I know whatever could have happened he would have let happen. At one point, we were both laying in my bed, less than a foot apart. If he had been more aggressive, who knows. But the point of the story is, I didn’t want anything to happen and nothing did.

Everything into their own compartment. This is as close as I can get.

This married engineer is here in NY too. He keeps texting late at night but in a way that straddles the line. He wants me, is intrigued by me, is open to a seduction, but doesn’t want to be accountable for initiating. I won’t initiate either (my feelings about getting involved with married men are well-documented) so he just circles…and circles…and circles…

Sometimes though, I do wonder what it would be like. To fall…

Last night ate at the bar at Gramercy Tavern. Had a great conversation with the man sitting next to me, eating alone. We were both in the city alone on business, we both ordered the tasting menu and were served our courses at the same time. His name was Brock from Montana, a financial analyst, married with an 8 month old son. Long, luscious eyelashes, rich brown eyes, warm and sensitive. We had great rapport, a great conversation. He offered to share a cab back because our hotels were a block away from each other. And that was it.

Life is interesting that way. Your attraction and intrigue of others doesn’t end when you find a life partner. You just start weighing things out. I knew he was attracted to me, was intrigued by me, had an affinity with me. But then there are the other things built on a foundation that mean more. They don’t preclude each other but you just have to find compartments for them to exist.

But did I think about it? Of course I did. And I bet with absolute certainty he did too.

I have a bad habit of missing opportunities.

Data is not just for monitoring. Data can change our world. If there’s a behavior we want, we can work backwards to figure out how to create that data, then data can be the product.

–a social psychologist at Ignite

Attacking others doesn’t make your position more defensible. It just makes others respect you less.

Are you wrong? No.

Are you being incredibly selfish? Yes.

Day one of the tournament over. A day of fierce battling but calm resolution because we came in intending to win and we did just that. Started the day with our big rivalry match and it was obvious right off the bat that they wanted to win and so did we. Low scoring game because we were a bit nervous and rushed things but so was the other team. We harassed the shit out of them on defense. I was in the zone, was hitting nearly all my shots in warmup, and this was everything I’d trained for in the last couple of months including 4 weeks of intense dieting to optimize my muscle to weight ratio. We blew them out. It was an incredible feeling to have so many people from the company there cheering for us, supporting us, willing us to victory. It pushed us, kept us going, kept us believing that the game was ours for the taking as long as we did not become our own worst enemies. We fought, because it was not just for us, but for all of us. It was about AMAX, the name, the people, the love and bond we share, day in and day out. It was about being something bigger than yourself because you are a part of something bigger than yourself. Today was a high.

Second game was against one of the tournament favorites, the only team to sign up with all players listed as skill level A (collegiate and above). We knew this would be a tough game and we came out nostrils flared, near insane with desire to overcome the challenge of playing against a team  that was  bigger than us and better than us. Turned out they were not better than us as we were the better team. One of our players was so hot I nicknamed him Teabag–because he basically teabagged the other team over and over and over. We are now 2-0 with a chance at the title but turns out one of the other teams, the one my uncle put together, is beating people into submission.

That was the lowpoint of the day. The whole reason for this tournament was to have a fun charity event and out of the box networking opportunity, not to invite customers and partners out then humiliate them. We’re here to get competitive but not show who has the biggest dick. It’s all about celebrating and building relationships, not about ego and shoving it in people’s faces. My uncle put together a ridiculous team and only 4 players happen to be in tech. I talked to him after his first game because one of our partners was worried about playing them because they saw them dunking. When I asked him about it, he said he has 3 players who can dunk. I told him what I told my dad’s team, to please make sure it’s fun for the other team and not beat them into submission. It’s okay to want to win but don’t go crazy. Next thing I know, I come out of our game and they are killing the other team 103-49. I was both embarrassed and furious. Now I went to Michigan when it was under Lloyd Carr and one thing he never allowed our football team to do was blow out the other team. It was a matter of honor. Sportsmanship. For this tournament, especially because we’re hosting it, it was important for us to play hard, but we didn’t want to humiliate the other team because we want them to sign up again next year rather than thinking that it’s too hard and they don’t fit in. The truth is if you like basketball and just want to run around and have fun, and you’re in the tech/IT industry, this tournament is for you. It’s not about beating people into submission and I felt like that’s what he showed up aiming to do. I did not want our customers and partners to think we invited them out just to destroy them, which was why I was so embarrassed at what my uncle did. Anyway, we had a big confrontation at the end of the tournament when I asked him to back off for the sake of PR, because if it came out that this team was affiliated with our company and the majority of the players are not from tech, it would be a PR nightmare. But he threw a selfish tantrum saying that he would not back off, and it wasn’t fair to him and I really thought he missed the big picture. It was pretty selfish. Whatever. We’ll let it play out the way it plays out and even our marketing team who worked so hard to put this whole thing together is not happy about it. We were really hoping the handmade trophies (made out of pieces of motherboards and chassis) would go to a team outside of AMAX. Let him have his stupid ego victory. But all I have to say is I don’t respect it. There’s no honor in what he did, and in my eyes it’s an empty, empty victory. All we can do is next year to hope that this first year has gotten people hooked and that next year we can get more teams and sponsors and make this bigger so we can tighten the rules. Honestly, I’ve pretty much had it with his bullshit.

We had an open bar mixer and that was great. After a day of battle we really earned it to kick back, have some beers and good food and let our hair down. I wore a dress because I figured it was more dynamic to go from beast on court to lady in the street. People keep telling me how well I clean up. My boy William always asks me why I don’t dress up more often and I see it like this–if you got to eat cake every day, every meal, you wouldn’t enjoy it. Then one day when cake is not available, you think that’s bullshit. Same thing–I know my impact when I clean up. But I don’t want to get dressed up all the time or that becomes the norm, the expectation and there’s nowhere to go from there but down. I would rather dress up for special occasions (or people), so that when I do, those moments really pop.

This guy I play pick up with on Wednesdays saw me and his eyes lit up. He must have exclaimed that I’m so beautiful about seven times throughout the night. It’s funny because when I realized we had the same birthday, he kind of blew me off. But then tonight he was talking about how us having the same birthday must be why he thought I was so cool when he first met me. He mentioned he has a girlfriend (good boy), and I joked when he was leaving that he was gonna let me know when he didn’t have a girlfriend anymore. He looked stricken, haha, but I told him I was joking. I only want what’s mine. I don’t want to be homewrecking because you never want what you get in those scenarios.

I have to say I really like this new guy we hired. He’s on the team and he works so hard, makes smart plays and never takes a play off, giving 100% every single moment he’s on the court. I can really respect that.

I also remembered how much I love soft hands.

I ended the night spending time with the guys from the A-level team we’d beaten. Shello thought they were really cute and wanted to find out if they were single for me. Turns out they were 23 which is too young for me. It’s not so much the age difference but the fact that at that age, guys have a lot more to go to get stuff out of their system, explore life, figure out who they are and live. I need to find a partner who’s been there, done that and realizes that with me, I’m not perfect but I’m a really good thing. And a rare, special find.

There was talk of coming over to my place, but I didn’t really want to smoke. Been off for 2 weeks to prepare for the tournament. I noticed that without it I don’t write as much. Don’t think as much.

2 more games tomorrow, one for our team and one to help out our partner team. Then I’m on a plane to NY.

The funny thing is I know one of the reasons we arranged this basketball tournament was that in some way, both my mom and I hoped I would meet someone. But end of the day, here I am writing, alone.

Loneliness is the price I pay for being alone.

I am the quintessential lone wolf.

But the very definition of a lone wolf is an alpha who leaves the pack in search of a female alpha to start a new pack with.  So I am a female wolfpack of one, until I meet that lone alpha who is strong enough to earn my respect, and one day, we will start a wolf pack of our own.

What I bring to a team–intensity, passion, tenacity, fierce persistence and that intangible “something” that resides somewhere between the heart and the balls.

Tonight I’ve drank almost a gallon of water and listened to the song Peanut Butter Jelly Time 7 times in a row.

I’ve hand-picked our warm up songs for our marquee matchup on Sat against our rival frienemy. Hint: One of them is Smack My Bitch Up.

One married coworker told me something another married coworker said about me today, something about how I’m like a nice car you park far away so no one dings it. I laughed and told him I’ve always felt I would end up being someone’s 2nd wife. Just waiting for that guy to finalize his papers.

Married guy from Intel came and played tonight. Black dude who kind of declared he thought I was really hot at ISS, the night after another Intel dude tried to follow me off the elevator wanting to “use my bathroom.” I was pretty disappointed in the state of married men after that trip. He left me a message earlier today asking if he just walks in the front of the gym or if there was another way he should go in. I responded, of course you can walk through the front. What are we, white people?

Married guys. Just come with the territory when you’re a single woman in her 30’s. I was thinking today what it would have been like if I’d settled down in my 20’s. I wouldn’t be me, that’s for sure. Almost in a way, because I didn’t succumb to that desire to partner up with someone, or I averted the scenarios of tying lust/sex to partnership, of the need for companionship driving me to make a choice, I passed that period and now I’m reaping the rewards of that (and the trade-offs). When you’re young, you don’t have the means or the vision to flex and take advantage of freedom, opportunities and the space to be yourself. In your 30’s you get into the right mental space and have the means, but if you got married and had kids, you have the responsibilities. I don’t answer to anyone if I don’t have to. When I do it’s because I made a choice to want to. And I don’t see a reason to get tied down because I don’t have the irrational drives of my 20’s clouding my perspective. And I like being alone.

I can’t figure out if it’s just me or just me being a woman who’s single in her 30’s but made peace with herself. But I feel lucky. Especially when I meet some of these married guys. For the most part, they love their wives, they love their children, and they don’t want to hurt them, they don’t want to disrupt the foundation of that life they’ve built. But they also love life, and life is so massive and diverse and complicated. Or it’s just as simple as wanting a different flavor of ice cream once in a while. It’s hard to reconcile the two because one is fixed and the other is infinite and multi-dimensional. If only we could live our lives in parallel and explore all the things we wanted without jeopardizing the things we’ve built in each but we can’t. Life’s all about compromise.

I stay away from married guys because I don’t like complicated situations, I don’t like hurting people and I can’t let myself do things if I’m already conscious it’s wrong. I actually get really angry when married guys come after me. I don’t like when people do things behind the backs of people who trust them. But married guys do like to circle me.

My theory is that hiding behind their marriage makes them bolder. Because they have nothing to lose and they always hide behind their behavior being harmless because they’re married (this logic makes me laugh every time I hear it but so many say it!) Single guys feel they have too much to lose to get involved with me so they don’t. A lot of the good ones settle down early-ish. They feel it’s the responsible thing to do. That’s why I think I’ll be someone’s 2nd if I ever partner up. It’ll be some guy who got married because he thought it was the right thing, the natural progression, r maybe it was easier than breaking up, but over the years, he’ll realize his life got away from him.

Earlier this week, I told Jerry I had a dream I was holding Carter. What I didn’t tell him was that in the dream, the baby was mine. And his. And that baby made my heart radiate in a way I have never felt in this world. When I woke up, I didn’t feel guilty even though I felt guilty for not feeling guilty, because that was that world, and had nothing to do with this one. In this one, I am protective of his family unit because it’s a matter of principle.

This was the first super realistic dream I’ve had in a long time, the 2nd with a baby.

The roads not taken…the decisions not made…do those lives continue as real parallel worlds? Our spirits living on in lives of their own? Is it true that in a parallel world we would have wedded last March?

In waking life I have no more consideration or interest in him outside of what we are, good friends. It ran its course and after last month’s fever over the emx guy, I burned out the last of it and it’s nice.

But every once in a while I have dreams so real the world I wake up to seems more like a dream than the world I wake from.

Hey, as long as that version of me and him in that world are happy. In this one, I’m happy with my freedom, he’s happy with his family unit, we’re happy with our friendship. It’s already a best case scenario.

Got the best compliment today. Mom said I looked like that chick from Crouching Tiger. My heart skipped. The young one or the older one? The older one she said. That made my day.

Almost 15 years ago I watched Tomorrow Never Dies and was riveted by Michelle Yeoh. Riveted isn’t even a strong enough word…obsessed with adulation. I declared I wanted to be her, but that wasn’t gonna happen. She was older, but also hot, fit, cool as an assassin, ballsy and aerodynamic. I was chubby, shy and a self-defeatist.

Hearing that comparison really made my day because even though I wanted something at the time that had seemed utterly impossible, 15 years later, I managed to get what I wanted.

The power of belief. You don’t have to be conscious it’s working, but like a journey being made up of a million steps, if you believe, in the background it’s working. You won’t know how well until you get there.

If you’re a train speeding ahead and Indians are shooting arrows at you, you can’t stop and ask them why they shot at you or fight them. You’re a train that’s gotta keeping moving.

I like working with professional companies. I need to know at the very least you won’t fuck me when I’m not looking in battle.

Used car salesmen make me want to eat them.

Get straight up. Pledge allegiance. I’m not perfect but I’m worth it.

Now it’s getting weird. This guy doesn’t talk to me, but keeps endorsing skills to me on Linked In. Is he a robot? Human spambot? As long as he’s not a killer. They freak me out.

Surprise…I stepped outside and it was raining tonight.

How many times have you tried to fuck me in your mind? Because no matter how good technology gets, people haven’t yet figured out how to firewall their minds. That’s the difference between you and I. I can get inside you without touching you. Chances are, if you’ve thought of getting inside of me, I already know how you taste.

Midnight workout. When I like it best.

Stop listening to what other people say. They talk shit when they don’t know direction and they don’t know what to do. Don’t let their self-doubt project onto you. Don’t wear it. It’s not my problem what people can or can’t get behind. I’ve got shit to do. Doubters are gonna doubt. Haters are gonna hate.

I always get erratic when I realize there’s a part of the journey I have to take alone and I’m scared to take it alone. Man up. Stop resisting. You end up doing what needs to be done anyway. You always knew it was lonely at the top. That’s why you were born a twin.