Echo

They’ll contact me when they have something to say.

I texted him last night and said, something inside me changed this week.

He asked me to let him know when I figured out what.

I think it’s a feeling of getting more at ease with things that are not black and white.

And the sudden return of the hunger.

Maybe these guys are just looking for validation. Someone to see them a certain way, a way they want to see themselves.

Does it freak a guy out when he reads how I can read into another man, know my hold with enough confidence to call him out for thinking about me?

But if you were to ask me if a man I covet thinks about me, is open to me, I would tell you, I don’t know. My desire (vulnerability?) creates a blind spot. I have no confidence in this area. I don’t believe someone I wanted has ever wanted me back because I’ve never experienced it. Maybe because I’ve been blind or maybe because it never happened, I don’t know, but the experience is the same. I have a poor read on things the more I care about them.

Today we talked about the tournament pictures and he said he doesn’t look good in any pictures. And so I sent him some I thought he looked good in. On one hand I wondered if he was fishing for a compliment but on the other it didn’t matter to me because I knew the way I see him and I want him to feel about himself the way I feel about him. Does he know how I see him? Do I matter to him? It doesn’t really matter. But because it doesn’t, that’s exactly why I’m in the situation I’m in.

I told Shello what my phone did and she asked me if that’s why Jerry was laughing at his desk. Yeah, I said. It felt good to know that even when I’m not physically there, I can still make him laugh.

Some things don’t need to be said. There’s only been one man I’ve ever considered having kids with. There could always be another. I don’t think too much about it either way.

Alright, that’s enough embarrassment for one day.

iPhone…you’re such a motherfucker.

Ballapalooza afterglow. Still hungry.

Okay, let’s be honest. If I knew it would never ever ever ever ever become public knowledge, in any given situation, I will push to see how far things go. I am capable of saying anything in the moment to get you in bed. Most times I’ll do it without even touching you. You will be the one who touches first. You will never have wanted something so badly. I’m a tiger. I have hunger. When it comes down to it, one way or another, I get fed. And when I’m done, I can disappear.

But I have a heart. Sometimes I confuse food with love. And that has caused me a certain amount of grief in my life.

I guard my privacy. The fear of exposure keeps me in check. I’m careful getting involved with people. I’m mindful of entrapment. So for the most part, I keep myself in check. But it’s those black alley “have you ever danced with the devil under the pale moonlight” moments, when my panther appears.

Now I’m thinking, Richard Branson fucks whoever he wants. Because he’s fucking Richard Branson and he has a spaceship company. It’s not my problem you’re married. You wanna hang with me you gotta give me a reason. Because I’m doing what I want when others just do what they can.

I mentioned all I’ve been thinking about today to Jerry, who once declared the Ashley Madison site created by the devil. I told him about how single guys won’t approach me bc they feel they have too much to lose. Married guys are more bold because they can hide behind their situation and have nothing to lose. That’s probably why the ones who aren’t skeezy are so honest about it. Maybe this is it in an imperfect world, and in a perfect world, i’m someone’s 2nd marriage, when they go through what they thought they were supposed to do, the natural progression of things, then realize one day, their lives got away from them.

He wrote back, makes sense. Can’t really argue any of it.

He’s condoning my involvement with married men?

Unexpected.

I’m a very good kisser. I just am. Because if I kiss you, you’ll feel everything inside me. But few people know this. And many of those who do I keep separate from the general population of my life. I like that secret.

And there are times, in those quiet moments, where a guy is looking at me, and I know he’s looking at my lips and thinking, what if…

And I smile inside, because I know the reality is probably better than he can ever imagine.

There are so many moments in life where I think, he could have had it if he’d had the courage. And then I think, he has no idea what he missed.

But when it comes down to it, I respect most a guy who respects my boundaries.

I never said I wasn’t hard to get close to. But I do know without a doubt, I’m worth it.

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.