I think he was Mr. Right.  Or at the very least Mr. Right Now. 

I was out and about on Boylston, celebrating our Tax-Fre Holiday here in Massachusetts with a couple of purchases for my new flat at Crate & Barrell.  I found a delightful little dining table that's gonna fit right in my nook (although C&B doesn't have any suitable chairs for it — I think I'm gonna go with a couple of stackables from West Elm).



I have so precious little room in the new place I want to keep it clean and simple, which is why I especially like the glass table top.  And the chairs seem a good match — if anyone has a better idea, I'm all ears.

Anyway, the place was hopping, and I just couldn't stop shopping.  I went down to Anthropolgie at the end of the block, and toodled around in there a bit.  It's girlier, but they have some fun home goods, and I bought a big accent pillow with a couple of cocks on it... 


It was an impulse buy — I see cocks, I get grabby, what can I say? — but it might explain why I let The One get away.  I didn't want to be greedy.

Yes, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome was cruising Anthropogie as well.  I think we were the only two men in the place.  Just the way I like it — no competition.  On my way to the counter with my big pillow he gave me a look.  It was not a hungry Saturday Night look, but a kind of brunchy Sunday Morning one.  Which means it was going to be a long, languorous session, with many trips to the buffet.  There's nothing I like better of a Sunday than a naked brunch.

He pushed all my buttons — he was impossibly tall, hairy-chested, a little scruffy, and had a mischievous twinkle in his blue eyes.  He looked confident and capable — his posture and the overall shape of him.  His features were masculine but not too coarse, had an intelligent cast but not needling.  And best of all, he looked bored and up for anything.

But instead of stopping what I was doing and saying something like, "hi, what do you think of cocks?" I was a man with a mission.  I marched right up to the counter to make my purchase as if this mass-produced piece of faux folk art was the only one of its kind and had to be snapped up that very moment, when in fact, it was that hunky young flirt who fit that description. 

As the clerk ran my card, I looked back to see my man lingering at the entrance — not desperately lingering, just not darting off as if he had some place to be when clearly he didn't.  But I was still in The Zone.  I was on my little shopping spree and nothing was going to stop me. 

By the time I was done with my purchase, he was halfway down the block, but we were going the same way.  He was walking slowly, rather aimlessly, really, but still I hung back.  In retrospect it is remarkable how patient, kind, and generous the Gods were being to me, and how ungrateful I was being in return.

Everything was right there — the feast was laid out before me; all I had to do was dig in.  We'd exchanged clearly significant glances.  He had hung back and given me time to catch up with him if I'd wanted.  I could easily have sidled up beside him on the sidewalk, even, and said something like, "not to be cocky, but could I interest  you in a coffee?" I was totally in the mood for a coffee, too. 

But instead I neurotically held back.  Watching him saunter a few paces ahead of me.  I finally crossed to the other side and was heading down Dalton Street to avoid the everlasting clusterfuck at Mass Ave., when I noticed he had turned off, too.  He was heading back to his hotel — TO HIS HOTEL! — and I still didn't stop him. 

Instead I came back to my place at two in the afternoon with my awful pillow and no other plans for the day but to hide from Eng and Cheng.  Instead of a long languorous love brunch I had a can of tuna fish with mayonnaise on a stale hot dog bun.

Of course I blame the tax holiday.  It was obviously my shopper's high dulling my flirting reflexes.  All that dopamine was making me make bad choices. 

A word to the wise:  two cocks — not always better than one.