Robert Manners

M'aidez! M'aidez!

I don't know why I find these sorts of cross-linguistic homonyms so funny. But the international distress call and the libidinous pagan fertility holiday and the dour unionist labor holiday all bearing the same name strikes me as rather amusing. I mean, if there are any two things in my life that cause me distress, it's libido and labor!



My love life is, has always been, and appears inclined to remain for the forseeable future, a complete and utter disaster. Aside from the rapturous discovery of masturbation at the age of thirteen, this whole "sex" thing has been rather a let-down. I've only had a handful of satisfying sexual encounters with other people...and, up until about six years ago, it wasn't for lack of trying! Well, maybe I wasn't trying the right things, but I was trying! I tried just tricking (too uncomfortable when you have to continue seeing them socially), I've tried the anonymous thing (bathhouses and the parks at night are just not my style), and I've tried settling for what I could get easily (was I ever surprised to discover that most toads are really just toads, even after you kiss them). Every attempt involved some sort of humiliation for me. A lot of that was due to the vast quantities of alcohol that I usually downed during the quest for sexual communion. But my last sexual experience, after a year of sobriety, was such a disaster that I have decided to be celibate for the immediate eternity...unless, of course, I meet someone with whom I want to build a "relationship."



This has proved a very inconvenient out. Relationships are harder to get hold of than sex, as we all know...and relationships are harder for me to get hold of than roc's eggs or magic tinder-boxes. My few attempts at romantic relationships make my sexual experiences look like happy little strolls through nicely tended gardens. I mean, I really know how to pick 'em! I always set my cap either for the man who really is only interested in me as a friend, or the man who just wants to see a proud queen brought low. And then whenever I actually managed through some bizarre quirk of luck to land one of these creatures, once I got them I usually behaved quite abominably, needy and grabby yet aloof and ungiving at once (a fatal combination and, when not paired with shattering beauty, quite unforgiveable). My longest romantic relationship was four months; unless of course you count the relationships that I kept trying and trying and trying for...banging my head against the same brick wall of futility for ten years.



Little wonder, then, that this elusive and magical "relationship" hasn't happened along to end my enchanted sleep of celibacy. I'm not willing to put out until I get the ring, and then I make absolutely sure that no ring gets anywhere near my finger, and then I sit around and bitch and moan about how horny I am and how nobody ever loved me and how everybody has a lover except me! Boo-freakin'-hoo. Sometimes I make myself sick.



Mayday! M'aidez! "Self-esteem will self-destruct in seven...six...five..."



Well! That was refreshing. So libido is something that only gets me in trouble. But I am really quite interested in having sex again. Maybe with a boyfriend, maybe with a chance encounter. But I have this sneaking feeling that perhaps I really ought to clean up the place before I have visitors in...and I'm not talking about my house. Maybe I should do a few situps. Get a bikini-wax. Cut down on the carbs and sugars. Have a complete renovation of plastic surgery and psychotherapy. Buy cuter shoes. Or just continue as I have been.



And if my train-wreck of a love-life isn't bad enough, I still have to work for a living! I mean, I rather like having a job, it gives my life a bit of structure, and I do love my paycheck. But the having to work pisses me off. And I waste so much of my energy resenting having to get up and schlepp all the way down to the office and put up with all those assholes and do all those irritating or boring or unpleasant chores and sometimes I can't park in the driveway and sometimes I can't stand the sounds of all those women's voices and sometimes I want to go over to the nearest campus and start firebombing the quad...to sum up, I spend more time unwadding my panties about having to be at work than I spend actually doing any work. I mean, my job, for all it's intricacy and skill-levels, is fairly easy for me to do. I hate it just because I have to do it.



Well, I guess I don't have to. I could completely give up work, become a Labor Celibate. But somehow I don't think that would assort well with my jewelry addiction. Gotta have money to buy pretty things, and gotta work to get the money. I mean, even a life of crime is work (often very hard work), so unless you're born with a silver trust-fund shoved up your ass, you're pretty much in the same boat as the rest of us. Gotta work, gotta work!



So, Mayday, honeys! M'aidez! Disaster! Distress! Dismay! Despair! Or a perhaps another nicely alliterative phrase suits the situation better: bitch, bitch, bitch!



But if I can't bitch about life here in my blog, where can I bitch? Suzanne Somers has all my money, I can't afford a shrink. My Grandmother just gives me advice, as if I didn't already know how to make my life better (that's the worst of it: I know how to fix it but am too lazy to do anything about it). My friends have grown tired of the same old rant for the last six years. So you get it right in the face. Aren't you lucky?



But I'm not one to burden you with my troubles without trying to balance out the unpleasantness with a nice little gift. So rest your weary eyes on this paragon of pulchritude, and keep checking back to see if I've gotten that negative-bug out of my system. Love and hugs!