Not this shit again

I'm on the verge of depression. Actually, I'm up to maybe past my knees in depression. There are good reasons for me to be troubled and blue. Leaving New Orleans, unemployed, not doing so well studying for the bar.

Yet the thing that's dragging me down, even though I know how damn stupid it is, is a failed flirtation.

Because this scenario seems to play out endlessly--someone comes on to me enough to get my attention, I'm uncertain at first but warm up to the guy, my libido and skin-hunger emerges from hibernation. I flirt back and, as best I can, I try to respond in an appropriate way--issuing a clear invitation without chasing or coming on too strong. And then......

(the sounds of silence)

And then I'm pulled into despair to a degree that's completely unjustified by the (in)significance of the aborted affair. I can never tell whether I've been too subtle, too blatant, or if I misread the whole situation from the beginning. I could write it off as the guy's flakiness, but this scenario has repeated itself four or five times in the past few years.

In the meantime, the only sex I've had has been uninteresting, with someone I had no chemistry with, and which I ended without any personal trauma. Of course, there was the whole Mr. M affair, which kept me emotionally occupied, or at least half-occupied, during much of that time. Mr. M's presence in my life helps explain the paucity of sex and romance in my life, but it is equally true that I used him as a hiding place from the difficulties of actually dating or having a real sex life.

My friends say I'm "too much woman" for these guys. It's true that they were all younger and/or shy. But even if the "too much woman" explanation is true, it's only cold comfort. It allows me to hold on to some dignity and self-esteem, but it still rests on the proposition that there's something fundamental about me that prevents me from finding love or at least sex worth the bother.

I'm so abominably bad at relationships that I tend to think I should leave the whole business alone. Certainly I can be happy alone, and I'm much more stable and sane without it. But this is not a perfect solution because -- I have the same inborn desires as everyone else -- I want to get laid, but sex is only ever worth it in the context of a relationship with some chemistry -- I want to be seen and loved and to be close to another person in that way, even if it's not forever or in the context of a domestic relationship.

If I could turn off the brain chemistry that causes me to desire these things, would I do it? Maybe.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am now a Doctor of the Law

I am studying for the bar and getting ready to move out of New Orleans in five weeks. After all the tortured indecision, the emotions have died down and I’m ready to get on with it. I’m really sick of almost everything about New Orleans, I’m tired of the hassle and ineptitude, the filth and the crime and the weather, I’m grateful I’ll never have to go on another hurricane evacuation.

Graduation weekend I was in the French Quarter with my parents and Aunt Susie. We were gawking at St. Louis Cathedral when I heard someone call “Hey Heather!” It was Torres in a seersucker suit, smiling at me. He represents what was probably my quintessential New Orleans romantic experience: weeks of flirting; one insanely fun alcohol-fueled date on which an elderly retired gynecologist bought us drinks and asked us if we were going to get married because we made a great couple; underwhelming alcohol-impaired sex; an ambiguous goodbye with perhaps misread signals; nothing nothing nothing; a year and an hurricane goes by and I see him again and he’s all flirty but nothing comes of it; I send him an email that he doesn’t answer and I don’t know if he received; I see him again and he’s all flirty but even thinking about him seems a pointless exercise in frustration.

In the end, there’s only one thing I’m really, really going to miss about New Orleans, and I’ll miss it a lot: the music and the nightlife that goes with it. In the last month I’ve seen:

Pine Leaf Boys
New Orleans Jazz Orchestra
Happy Talk
Morning 40
Savoy Family Band
Valpairaso Men’s Chorus
Amy LaVere
The Bad Off
The Roots
CC Adcock
Tin Men
The Plowboys
Michael Hurtt and the Haunted Hearts
Johnny J

And that’s just an average month. Memphis was an above-par music town, but I never had a month like that when I lived there. And I don’t think Richmond is going to come close to even Memphis’ music scene. I kind of wish I could conduct my night life in New Orleans while I live the rest of it elsewhere. But as much as I love the music scene, for me it doesn’t quite make up for all the rest

Anyway, I know that Richmond has a weekly swing-dancing party and a couple of clubs that bring it good touring bands. I think that will be enough, and I expect the rest of my life will be much better there.

Almost nine years here and I have no one to go on a send-off spree with except Darcy, who is a newcomer to my life. I might have lunch with my old co-workers. Otherwise, the people I used to know are gone or estranged.