This Is Not A Heart


Love is ‘Meaningless’ or something Poetically Empty

Being in love is like dancing in your ugliest underwear on a stage with a million people watching and feeling like a million bucks doing it. Sometimes, rarely, we meet someone who also thinks we would look like a million bucks doing this. And we can get so naked with this person that the ugliest, rawest, tenderest, truest part of ourselves becomes this bold line outlining everything we are in the most inhibitionless way possible.

…..

She wished he had never come back into her life, and now she was gripping onto him with her sharp nails, some kind of piercing predatorial hawk clinch. She thought maybe if he bled a little bit, he’d spill all his secrets. He’d tell her why he left her, never looking back, steel eyes piercing through his periphery, walking away with satisfied contentment ready to explore other women’s bodies. He was terse, succinct, bleak, unmoved by her broken pieces that he had once so tenderly manipulated into loving him. He was someone else. Someone that didn’t love her anymore. Someone that may have quietly collected all her flaws, short-comings, hang-ups, bad-habits, and vulnerable qualms to paint a portrait of Dorian Gray he didn’t want to be with. The rest of her was left naked and cold.

This was the guy that had listened to her cry about the things that hurt the most,  that listened to her bitch about the stupidest shit, the one that occupied all her unoccupied thoughts, that made things bright, shiny, new, wonderful, worth it, that made anything feel possible, attainable, achievable, defeatable. He liked all her favorite movies, poets, artists, music, hobbies, and random things. The repartee was effortless, poignant banter. Sometimes he would tear her panties off with his teeth.  Sometimes he would hog the bed. Sometimes she would hog the sheets. Sometimes they would argue about a Robert Frost poem or take a day trip to the beach, or other things that couples do that make single people feel sick.

Then he dumped her on Facebook.

She cried and felt like a duped, pathetic, miserable little shit for a little bit.

6 months later…

She felt vindicated because he was grovelling at her feet across a telephone line 3,000 miles away professing his love for her. He must have had an epiphany or an emptiness that reminded him of something she used to mean to him when they walked together hand in hand interrupted by little old ladies complimenting them on how cute they looked together. It seemed so easy for him to walk away from her when he wanted to, and to come back to her the same way, to ignore her when he didn’t want to tell her his reasons, to indulge her in his sexual fantasies, to make her laugh, scream, and cry when he wanted to. Whatever it was he wanted, it all seemed like a game, no questions asked, no explanations, just a simple, raw, minimalist declaration of his love for her, because maybe love has nothing to do with logic; it is just something poetically chaotic or whatever it is famous poems about love talk about. Maybe life could be a romantic comedy, and he would show up at her front door, sweep her off her feet, and they would live happily after. But that probably won’t happen.



How I Hooked Up With The Future Mayor of My Hometown in Hollywood

When sex is serendipitous, it is just meant to happen, and you should just thank your lucky Cupid’s arrows  there’s nothing holding you back when the circumstances present you with a cute boy far from home that can get nostalgic with you about your childhood suburban neighborhood.  After a few drinks, it was easy to think that maybe fate wanted to get me laid that nite.

Feeling restless and impulsive, I just got in my car one morning at 8 AM, texted everyone I knew in Los Angeles–’I'll be in LA in 6 hrs,’ and just hit the rode making only 1 stop for french fries, gas, and to pee.  It had been years since I’d seen Jessica. Last time we were together we were riding bikes together in Germany picking up boys, eating croissants, and drinking copious amounts of beer. Once again, we were together–full force. We got to a warehouse with dim lighting and a gated cramped porch of chain smokers.   We worked our way past the stage area where a seemingly queer-enthusiastic noise-pop-punk band was playing. It was not danceable. The place was sparsely packed. Jessica knew everyone. She introduced me to a few people.  I felt like the ‘new girl.’ I was asked where I was from, what I was doing ‘there’, how long I was staying, that sort of thing.

We worked our way back outside to the cramped porch, lit up, drank Tecate, and made small talk. One of the boys Jess had introduced me to was trying to get cheeky-friendly and stepped on my white shoe laces…
“Are you trying to get my laces dirty?”
“Yes.”
“It’s like pigtails and inkwells…”
“…what?”
“A little old lady once told me that that’s what a naughty school boy does when he likes a pretty school girl: he dips her pigtails in his inkwell.”

Next, was the part where we talked about where we grew up, what we were doing with our lives, our political preferences, important global issues, a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, mostly the same things. We grew up in the same suburban neighborhoods in the same small town. We were the same graduating class. He said he’d always wanted to hook-up with one of the mini-pleated-plaid skirted Catholic girls from my high school. I admitted I had made out with a boy or two from his co-ed catholic high school I had met at speech and debate tournaments. He asked me if I knew that our hometown has the youngest mayor in the country.
I said, “Yeah, and he’s gaysian. I’m ‘a fan’ of his on Facebook.”
“Someday I’m going to be the mayor of our hometown.”
“You know that means you have to live there?”
“Yeah, I’m okay with that.”
“That’s cool.”
We guessed that the odds might have always been there for us to meet. As one party ended and/or got boring Jessica and I hopped over to the next bopping place, and he decided every time he would come with us. We talked all nite as people entered and exited our conversation.

He took my hand at the fourth and last party we went to; I told him Jess had warned me not to kiss him; he didn’t like the sound of that; I kissed him anyway. And it was the best kind of making out–hair pulling, lip biting, back scratching, ass grabbing, nipple pinching, almost all of my all-time tactile favorites were included. We reached a mutual conclusion that I was going home with him. It was around 4:30 AM. “Sorry Jess, can you pick me up tomorrow? I’m gonna um… go home with…”
“Fine. Call me tomorrow.”

It was dawn as we walked through the hills of Echo Park. Everything was a gray shade of lavender. We talked about Obama. We were the only people on the streets. Not even a single car moved. We made out in his elevator, walked into his apartment, and tore our clothes off hastily like they do in the movies. He said things like, “you have such an amazing body,” but I think maybe all guys say this to all girls they bed. I could see his cat from the corner of my eye watching us. I felt my body sober up, but nothing got awkward. It was the kind of flesh-gripping, chest-heaving toes-curling, legs-twitching sex. The kind that pauses with short mini power naps and begins again waking up in each others’ arms and starting all over again, over and over again. The kind that you can’t stop thinking about for the next few days because it hurts to walk.

Around 10:00 AM, I texted Jess, “Can you pick me up?”
“Can we meet halfway at Starbucks?”
“Okay.”

Finding tossed pieces of clothing thrown across the room, I asked him if he wouldn’t mind driving me to a meet-up spot. I wondered how mascara-smeared raccoon eyes would look under the gleaming hot sun. We sat in traffic and he asked me what I thought about the whole thing. “It was the best one-nite stand I’ve had all year.”
Mentally patting his back, he asked, “Really?”
“Uh huh.”
“Me too. I think I’ll be good for sex for a couple weeks.”
“Yeah, you really brought your A-team.”
“Do you wanna hangout if I’m ever up north?”
“Sure.”
Digits were exchanged, one last kiss, a wave goodbye on a Sunday morning in a Starbucks parking lot somewhere in LA.



OkCupid Experiment, Summer 2k10

I just had this idea. I am a bit too timid to take it on. I’m not sure what ‘the point’ of it is. I just think it might be amusing, annoying, bloggable, disastrous, educational, entertaining, eventful, futile, gregarious, meaningful, pointless, stupid, torturous, unforgettable, and weird. Those adjectives are alphabetized as to avoid any sense of hierarchy in the purpose of the following social experiment that may or not ever happen or really work out. The seed of this idea is something that has been tossed around ‘our social scene,’ something about how internet dating isn’t taboo anymore because we are each living in this disillusioned cyber reality of isolationism (or any other way you choose to say I-spend-too-much-time-on-the-internet-and-I-only-have-one-nite-stands-and-it-seems-like-fuck-what-is-going-on-I’m-going-to-join-Okcupid). A couple years ago, ‘internet dating’ seemed taboo. Now, it seems like everyone is doing it. Now, it seems like everyone I know ‘in real life’ is on there. Last nite, I was talking to my friend (we’ll just call her A) about the flux of summertime messages in our Okcupid inboxes: seems like we get the same creeps. Also, it seems like we know some of them ‘in real life.’ Also, sometimes when you’re perusing on the site, and you see one of your friends on Okcupid, they react in one of two ways: If you message them they say, “Omg you caught me! don’t you tell anyone!” Or if they message you they say, “hahaha, loser, i caught you!” (which is retarded, because like, look who’s talking.

So A and I were talking, about how ‘hopeless our prospects are,’ because it’s kind of stupid to think about the man of your dreams just waiting for you to message him on a dating site. I know that’s what Match.com promises on their commercials, but I’m not paying for promises. Also, I don’t know anyone in real life who uses Match.com; maybe my friends are all cheap; maybe my friends are not that desperate yet; but I’m sure not going to be the ‘black sheep’ in my circle of friends when it comes to dating sites. Okay, so here is the plan, I will go on 10 dates via Okcupid, 1 each week, for 10 weeks. Every week, I will write a 1,000-word account of the entire date versus my expectations in regards to their profile. (I won’t post (screen)names or anything.) I’m not sure what I’m trying to figure out, but I think it has to do with ‘cyber identities and relationships.’  I know this might not work out for a lot of reasons:
1) Slim-pickings.
2) People don’t like to feel like they are part of an experiment; I guess it seems kind of dehumanizing. But rest assured because…
3) if for example, guy #4 from date #4 is amazing, I might not want to go on date #5 with guy #5. So, I might just call the experiment quits and go on date #2 with guy #4.
4) I might just get weirded out and decide this is too much work and retarded.
5) This could just be a whim.
6) I might get lazy.
7) Based on how this goes, I might modify/alter this experiment as I go.

Also, I invite and encourage my friends to be a part of this experiment. This is a lifetime opportunity to be a ‘guest blogger’ on ‘thisisnotaheart.’ If you’re too lazy to write your own accounts, I would like to interview you.



The $373.25 Makeout Sesh

This is the story about a guy who was just a cocky bastard all the time, and I just basically told him to shove it all the time. He probably thought I was an irritating bitch, or something. This went on for years, and then he met a nice girl, and I think he lost some of his ‘edge.’ I don’t remember why, but I think being a dick all the time is exhausting so we both just decided to be civil to each other. And then after all these years (at least four years), we finally made out. It wasn’t what I expected it to be like it. I thought it would be rough around the edges, hair pulling-biting-tension included. I thought some kind of nostalgic malicious innuendos would contextualize themselves. But he was super gentle and sweet, which is not really my style. Eventually, he said, “I’ve always thought about making out with you.” And I imagined a Venn-diagram with all the boys that have ever been mean to me on one side and all the boys that have wanted to makeout with me on the other side and all the ones in the middle that I was looking forward to meet.

So we smoked weed, madeout, snuggled and we spooned in his bed. It was nice. The next morning, I offered him a ride to work. We walked through the streets south of Mission under the early summer sun feeling loopy with our hangovers looking for my car. It wasn’t there. Instead there was a poorly positioned sign at the end of the block where my car had presumably been parked and towed from. News to me, San Francisco was experiencing another cultural celebration–Carnival. I didn’t even know there were enough Brazilians in San Francisco to make this possible. Cholas wearing bejeweled thongs were dancing through the streets while I was feeling bummed about my new expensive inconvenience.

At least I wasn’t alone. He was sweet and reassuring and made me laugh a couple time about how sucky the situation was. He suggested we get coffee because that’s what people in Italy do when they feel bummed about shit. I told him he was the most expensive makeout sesh ever, and that ‘it wasn’t worth it.’ Maybe that was kinda mean. But I think the only thing worth $373.25 is a pair of Manolo Blahnik  stilettos.  Walking from Civic Center Bart to the police station on 850 Bryant, all I could think about was ‘how unfair’ this all was. I could be charging  my credit card for a pair of Manolo Blahnik stilettos I can’t afford. Instead, I am charging my credit card for a towing fee I can’t afford. Burning money (without belonging to that exclusive circle of bourgeoisie who burn money for fun) is really not fun. I guess the moral of the story is making out can get you in trouble; also, fuck the police.



Whiskey Breath
18/05/2010, 23:49
Filed under: at the warehouse/show/party, poetry | Tags: , , ,

I was thinking about all the different types of saliva

I had collected

In my mouth

That night

And then I was giving you a little sample of everyone

I felt dirty

A little bit

Only because I didn’t really want to makeout with you

You kissed me first

I decided

It was too late to back out now

I was practicing

Being a movie star

I was imagining

You were the love interest

I figured it seemed believable

Since you asked me for my number

Since you said you wanted to see me again

On a date

To the movies

I was filming this in my head

Posing the problem with reality:

It cannot be edited

Into something meaningful and provocative.

I got your txt

I’m just gonna ignore it



Excerpt From ‘Up-and-Coming Novel’

At the bar, she ordered a PBR and walked towards the smoking room and spotted her friends sitting in the corner. After exchanging platonic hugs, squeezes, kisses, and sexual innuendos, she snagged a chair next to her friend Stephen and leaned forward towards his ear and put her arm around his shoulder, “How was your day? Recovered?” Stephen really knew how to party.

“I lay in bed, ate ice cream, and watched movies.” He raised his eyebrows and sighed heavily indicating exhaustion.

“I feel the same way. I didn’t even get home until 7 AM. Also, I worked from ten till six yesterday.” She and Stephen worked together at the same coffee shop. That’s where they met. During long-midday shifts when business was slow they would chat about everything–where they were from, what the world was like, how depressed they were, good times they had had, people they’d fucked, and what a waste their college education felt like. Ultimately, Stephen became her number-one gay bestfriend and sidekick. He had moved out to California from Utah after high school, lived in L.A. a couple years, and decided he hated driving and heroin so he moved to San Francisco for art school and sold his paintings in some coffee shops on Valencia Street. When he came home one day with two kittens he had traded his pack of cigarettes for from a crackhead in the Tenderloin, his roommates were far from thrilled. He had till the end of the month to find a new place or get rid of the kittens. So he moved into a room in a house somewhere in West Oakland he found on Craigslist, but he also had the extra key to Jane’s apartment.

He handed her his flask of whiskey. She took a swig, grimaced, and chased it with beer. “So did you take that boy home last night?” he asked.

“No, I wasn’t really into it.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Whatever, can’t a girl sleep alone in her bed on a Friday night?”

“You never complain when I spend the night.”

She slid her hand across his knee in her flirtatious playful way, “You know there’s no man that can take your place.”

“Oh honey, we both know they’ll try.” He tossed his head back giggling, and instinctively she mimicked him.

“I’m so bored with sex,” said Jane nonchalantly, raising one eyebrow and rolling her eyes.

“It’s so passé these days. I only fuck straight men.”

“Should I start fucking lesbians?”

“You don’t want to be a muff diver now, do you?”

“I’ll do it if you do it.”

“Gross, I rather fuck a tranny.” Stephen was the kind of gay man that didn’t really want to be involved with the whole ‘gay pride’ thing. He was just fine being discrete about his sexuality, which usually worked for his benefit in the sense that ‘straight’ men felt comfortable being ‘gay’ with him. He figured if he wanted an effeminate man he would just fuck a chick.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“To ‘The Biggest Little City In The World’?”

“I thought you’d never ask. I’ve always wanted a shotgun wedding.”

“I’m pregnant? So that’s what happened after you gave me those Quaaludes the other night.”

“There’s nothing I enjoy more than date-raping and impregnating women.” This type of crass dialogue was the convention between these two. It gutted Stephen from his Mormon upbringing and Jane from her ecclesiastical mother. Relishing their humor with white-trash commentary was why they both loved watching Jerry Springer.



Post-postmodern Flirting

“That face you make when your raise your eyebrows high enough that they hide behind your bangs and you blink your eyes long enough to cover up your deep sigh…” These were the kind of things he said. It was really the oddest combination of things that anyone had candidly noticed about her, insignificant points of observation about herself that had never once crossed her own mind, but somehow, she was flattered that he was trying to be T.S. Eliot for her; it didn’t matter that it just sounded like a pathetic attempt at mediocre bullshit. Had he been the same way with other girls, and should that affect her sentiments towards him? She wasn’t quite sure. It all felt so French and new-wave. From a philosophical standpoint, she presumably took the modest route and figured she wasn’t special and therefore, the power of observation has nothing to do with subject matter, just a keen ability to visually hyper-analyze everything. And perhaps there was something to say about the boys that she actually really did fall for, perhaps they were all just lonely artists sightseeing through life looking for their next muse, desperately trying to find something in someone to capture that no one else has ever done before.

They were all just looking for the next Mona Lisa smile, but their lack-luster talent was apparent enough that it all just seemed so kitschy to her. All these Andy Warhol wannabes that are so anti-Warhol. After The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond all anyone has been able to do is sit around and talk about it, hoping that if they are sincere enough, some sorta of brutal, virgin, unseen, raw honesty would subvert the audiences expectations and astonish everyone with something so transcendental nothing more can really be said about it.  This was the kind of bullshit that impressed her. Her approach was to just passively let it all wash over her. She felt like she was always just shrugging her shoulders, taking her clothes off, and putting them back on again, just a monotonous steady-stream of philosophized sexuality.



NBD DTF 19 Year Olds

Caught in the midst of my twenties, it is (almost) a thrill to ‘score’ with a 19 year old. This has not happened in the last three years, but it just happened last nite and this morning, and I can’t wait for it to happen again. I think this must be what it feels like to be a cougar. I guess you can call it a ‘new fetish’: the vibrant optimism of liberal-arts college freshmen that yearn to ‘be somebody’ and to ‘make art that means something’ is a quality that transcends into their keen sexual behavior. ‘Getting off’ isn’t faced with apathy but as the ‘grand prize’ at the end of the race.

He came with me to the liquor store from the party, but he didn’t get anything, and he carried the 12-pack I got for my friend, I asked him why he came along if he wasn’t going to get anything. He said, “So you wouldn’t have to go alone.” And then he asked me if I had a boyfriend. I said, “No, not really my thing.” Then we talked about how it’s okay for gay men to grab a girls tits just whenever they want; sometimes it’s even encouraged. But for a straight man to do that it’s weird because of all the rules. (If a straight man grabs a girls tits, and it’s consensual, they’re gonna fuck later. Otherwise, she’s gonna get pretty pissed off.) So he asked me if he could grab my my tits, and I said, “maybe later.” When we finally made out, (I made the first move) he used too much tongue. When I asked him if he wanted a key bump he said, “No, I’ve never done it before.” His friend told me he was a virgin, and that he is really inexperienced, I said, “Sweet, that’s awesome! I’ve never had one of those before.” When I told him what his friend told me hours later when we were going back to my place, he denied it in a ‘What?! No way!’ sorta way.  I was a little tiny bit bummed he wasn’t a virgin. (Why have I never had one? Everyone else has!) After all, it’s not mastering rocket science.  (Drunken casual sex) experience isn’t everything; it doesn’t make anyone a ‘Kama Sutra expert’. An eagerness to please and endurance are really the two main ingredients to over-average sex, because anything better than that is rare and I think that’s why people ‘go steady’ and ‘fall in love’ sometimes.

After we ‘finished’, I asked him if he wanted to watch a movie.
“What do you want to watch?”
“Anything, something funny.”
I read off the stack of vhs movies on my dresser…
And he said, “Anyhing but ‘Dead Poets Society.’ Too much like my high school experience.”
So I put on ‘CQ.’ (This is my go-to movie when there’s a (naked) boy in my bed. It’s visually stimulating, indie, and easy to follow. Also, most guys have never seen it.) We talked about boarding school and other bourgeoisie things. It all seemed pretty interesting at 3 am. When we woke up this morning, there didn’t seem to be anything to talk about so we had sex again. I didn’t remember his name. Then we just lay there making small talk. I asked about how it was like living in the dorms. He told me about some movies he made. Then we put on our clothes. I drove him back to the dorms, and we talked about Swedish indie rock. He asked me if I liked ‘The Knife.’ I said yeah.



Sexual Martyr 2k10

I don’t know if you know, but you probably do know, (because I probably recently fucked your friend, or maybe even you) that I’ve been rather promiscuous lately. Why? Because I’m a super fun  girl drinking too much Four Loko at a party that is ‘down’. Did I get off, ever? No. I mean, I was close, like a couple times, maybe. Did I say I got off? (Why do you even care? Why do you even ask? Do you want me to lie?) Yes, I lied. I mean, what difference does it make. You should be flattered that I’m preserving your ego. If you’re wondering if it was ‘good sex,’ (like does that affirm your manhood?) no, but it wasn’t bad, either, for the most part. Another thing I should really like to point out, please don’t say shit like ‘you are so sexy’, ‘can I take you to sushi?’, ‘next time we do this…’ because it weirds me out. The honest truth is, I’m just playing this game called ‘scoring’, and I’m trapped in the body of a 16 year old bro. Does this make me a slut? Don’t playa hate, appreciate. Like Ghandi says, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” I guess you could say I’m a sexual martyr.

So we’re making out and stuff and you’re like squeezing my boobs, and I’m like damn, this is hot. And there’s this muted decision that we’re going to your room/my room. And then I’m naked. And there’s this moment of sheer panic when we can’t find a condom. And then we find a condom. And my internal monologue is saying, ‘here we go again. I want to snuggle with my cat and watch Annie Hall. Genitalia-genitalia slapping, this is weird. Too late to back-out now. Just go with it. It’ll be over soon, probably.’ Sometimes you want to talk. And I don’t want to. Sometimes it’s necessary, because I don’t want cum on my tits. I’m sorry, titty fucking is weird. But seriously, what is the deal with titty fucking? It’s like, let me just squeeze my breasts together so you can slide your penis in between them. Sometimes I seriously feel like laughing, okay, most of the time. I’m sorry. It’s not you. It’s the mies en scène. Perhaps you read my blog and hope I (don’t) write about you. Perhaps you read my blog and dream about the day I write about you. Perhaps you’re worried that if we ‘did it’ then everyone would know via my blog. Get over it.
The Trucks – Titties



“Dudes Can Fake ‘It’ Too”

After a lot of one-nite stands, something becomes mechanical, boring, repetitive, trite, and retarded. Two drunk bodies slapping their genitalia against each other trying to achieve ‘something’ that rarely ever ‘happens.’ Sometimes it’s easy to forget how vulgar and pathetic sex really is. Sometimes it just seems like a ‘party game.’ Sometimes it’s just all about ‘scoring’ and not really about fucking at all. Once it starts, I just want to fake it: do a couple kegels, moans a little bit, arch my back a tad, and jerk my thighs or something like that, maybe leave a couple scratches, and once it’s over, sigh deeply, and that’s that. Or if I don’t even feel like acting, which is pretty fun to do, (maybe more fun than getting off sometimes), I’ll just say I’m tired. Fuck it. I see these eager 19 year old girls, ready to get some ‘dick wet.’ I remember when ‘getting laid’ was a highly desirable concept. It’s what ‘made my nite.’ It’s what made that nite better than nites I didn’t get laid. Now it just seems mechanical, boring, repetitive, trite, and retarded. Making out and showing titties is probably still okay though.

And then I found out it’s not just a ‘girl thing.’ Call it a ‘quarter-century life crisis.’ Or just maybe say asexuality is kinda hip right now. It is total apathy. It is complete boredom with sex. It’s not like anyone is in love anymore. It’s not like ‘making sweet love.’ It’s just straight up fucking. Meaninglessness. Last nite we were at this party and all these bitches were on the prowl, and me and ‘someone’ had a talk about it…

“Sometimes I fake it with girls.”
“How do you do that?”
“I just kinda moan a little bit, and she says, ‘Oh did you cum?’ and I just take the condom off real quick and tie it off and throw it away real quick and say, ‘Yeah’.”
“Damn. So you just lose your boner?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you just not into the chick?”
“No, I just rather masturbate. I can get off by myself in like 10 minutes. After 30 minutes of fucking I’m just over it.”
“Yeah, it’s kinda repetitive. I’m not that into it. You know what Woody Allen says about masturbating?”
“No, what does Woody Allen say about masturbating?”
“He says, ‘Hey, don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love.’”
“I rather just snuggle and watch a movie.”
“Yeah, that’s probably more fun and less work and more enjoyable. Man, I had no idea dudes fake it too.”