You had me at "NEXT!"

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Marx said that in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. And he goes on:

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.

Our personal histories aren't that different, seems like. Maybe substitute "past loves" for "all dead generations" and you'd have the beginnings of a Marxist Joy of Sex.

This morning, after a moody night together, Peej suggested maybe it was time someone "called it." I had not heard the expression in this context—is it a heads-or-tails reference, or sports, or cards?—but of course I understood his meaning. Someone needed to just go ahead and say "game over," I guess. He very graciously volunteered his services, with a little shrug of the shoulders and a consoling smile such as Paula might give a contestant being voted off American Idol (touché, Bachelor No.2).

We had talked about it a little last night. In the week and a half that passed between our first, um, schedule readjustment—to use a T metaphor—I had been struggling to calibrate my feelings for him. To pursue things at a more prudent pace. But something had shifted in me: instead of imagining all the various scenarios, near- and long-term, of a life with him, I had, against my will, started imagining all the various scenarios of a life without him again.

When embarking on an intimate relationship, three things are necessary: the desire to do it, someone you want to do it with, and someone (the same someone is the problem) who wants to do it with you, too. This trifecta seems surprisingly rare (or, again, it could just be me).

When you think you may have hit the jackpot, it is not a good idea to start jumping up and down, waving your arms in the air like you just don't care, voguing, or doing your little end-zone dance. Nor should you quit your job, give away all your stuff, or start blogging about this perfect thing you've found.

I think most of you know this. I did not get that memo.

It is, of course, a natural process to daydream—or visualize, as my friends at the Association for Research and Enlightenment used to say—about what shape a relationship might take. Even elaborate fantasies are allowed, so long as you keep them to yourself. It is, after all, only by dreaming the world we want to live in that we can hope to bring it into being—however imperfectly.

But  when courting starts to feel like coercion, it's true it's time to "call it."  The thing about relationships is, they take a lot of patience.  And you have to want something to wait for it.  

I could not argue with the ump, at any rate. So I gathered my things (Peej—you can keep the lube, and just toss that little overnight bag), took my rotten mood—the one I could not shake in time to engage in charming repartee about the merits of the new Spiderman movie—and sodded off to the train station.

I'm glad it happened early in the day. My plans for the weekend were shaping up:

10-10:45 AM — Implode/take T back to Somerville
10:45 AM-8:45 PM — Nap
9-9:30 PM — "The Vicar of Dibley" on channel 2
9:30 PM-two weeks from now — self-indulgent stupor

But nothing ever goes to plan, does it? The train ride was interminable. With long waits and then those vile "schedule readjustments."

When I finally got home (all I could think of on the way was my bed) I could not nap, because as soon as I laid down I felt like there was a baby elephant sitting on my chest.

I could not stare at the ceiling for long without feeling anxious that the light fixture, which was at a seemingly precarious angle, was going to fall on me, shattering into shards, cutting my face up and disfiguring me forever. (Would he visit me—looking all English Patient—in the hospital, I wondered, briefly, before realizing that of course he wouldn't. And anyway, I would have bled to death from my facial lacerations long before the paramedics could get to me, obviously.)

So I had no choice but to bump up the start of the self-indulgent stupor.  I had bought a book of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poetry and letters yesterday afternoon, and to kick it off I opened it up to Elizabeth's "A Dead Rose":

O Rose! who dares to name thee?
No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet;
But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubble-wheat, -
Kept seven years in a drawer-thy titles shame thee.

The breeze that used to blow thee
Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away
An odour up the lane to last all day, -
If breathing now, - unsweetened would forego thee.

The sun that used to smite thee,
And mix his glory in thy gorgeous urn,
Till beam appeared to bloom, and flower to burn, -
If shining now, - with not a hue would light thee.

The dew that used to wet thee,
And, white first, grow incarnadined, because
It lay upon thee where the crimson was, -
If dropping now, - would darken where it met thee.

The fly that lit upon thee,
To stretch the tendrils of its tiny feet,
Along thy leaf's pure edges, after heat, -
If lighting now, - would coldly overrun thee.

The bee that once did suck thee,
And build thy perfumed ambers up his hive,
And swoon in thee for joy, till scarce alive, -
If passing now, - would blindly overlook thee.

The heart doth recognise thee,
Alone, alone! The heart doth smell thee sweet,
Doth view thee fair, doth judge thee most complete, -
Though seeing now those changes that disguise thee.

Yes, and the heart doth owe thee
More love, dead rose! than to such roses bold
As Julia wears at dances, smiling cold! -
Lie still upon this heart-which breaks below thee!

Great poetry and not bad for a self-indulgent stupor, but I have to be honest: I wasn't feeling it. (I will say that on cursory inspection, I much prefer Elizabeth's poetry to her husband's, and may have more to say about this in a future post.)

What finally roused me—surprisingly only about an hour into my stupor—was this thought: picture me as the John Cusack character in Say Anything, showing up at Roxbury Crossing with my boombox, standing outside Peej's place blasting "In Your Eyes" up at his roofdeck.

How many verses into it do you think I'd get before someone popped a cap in my ass?

The sheer late-eighties cheesiness of this vision I had indulged in all seriousness bumped me right out of my stupor.

The truth is, I feel OK (the baby elephant feels more like a pregnant Old English Sheepdog now). 

"Ambivalence" had been the issue.  This morning I got the clarity I'd been seeking. And there is something in that.