Friday passed with no improvement. I woke up Saturday morning and it was the same. And I was meeting this guy tonight. Basically, I could stand and walk OK, but sitting was hard. That’s pretty sexy, right? Anxiety started to creep in, and I began to worry that total back spaz à la SNL would happen during my date. I could just imagine myself sprawled out on the floor of some restaurant in the East Village, waiting for an ambulance. I talked to my friends on the phone. “How about acupuncture?” one of them said. Acupuncture. I’d never tried it before.
Ordinarily, I’d be scared of the needles, but at this point I was thinking the needles couldn’t be any worse than the pain in my back. I made a few calls to acupuncturists who were recommended, but none were available on such short notice on a Saturday. I was desperate. That’s when I turned to the acupuncturist who did NOT come recommended. Here’s a tip: Acupuncture is one of those businesses for which I can now attest Get a reference. Do some research. Make sure they come recommended.
My friend Chris had gotten massages at one of those Chinese storefront massage/acupuncture places that are quite common in New York. I had even met the doctor of eastern medicine there once when I accompanied Chris. He seemed like a good guy. Chris called the place for me, and they said they could see me right away. The date was six hours away, and I needed a miracle.
I discovered upon arrival that instead of the doctor I had met before, a woman would be performing my treatment. I took one look at her and thought, “Uh-uh.” I was quite convinced, and still am, that she was primarily a masseuse whom they let do a bit of acupuncture on the side when the real acupuncturist was off on Saturdays. But in I went, ignoring my gut feeling, following her back to the table. By the way, here’s another tip for you: One thing you might not want in a medical establishment is the smell of cat pee.
“I’ve never done this before. I’m kind of nervous,” I said to her.
“DON’T BE NERVOUS!” she commanded in her thick Chinese accent.
Between the language barrier and my sneaking suspicion that this woman was not a legitimate acupuncturist, the appointment unraveled from there. I honestly don’t think she even understood why I was there in the first place. I kept trying to tell her that I was there for a specific injury and that my back had pulled out, but she just responded with “OK! YOU WANT SHOULDER TOO?”
I was on the table, facedown and trying to relax, when without warning, she stuck the first needle into the back of my knee. AGHHHHH! It felt like it was hitting a nerve that it wasn’t supposed to be hitting. A painful twinge shot up my leg. She went to work with the other needles, sticking them in quick succession into the back of my other knee and the insides of both ankles. I cried out in pain as she continued, sticking needles into my lower back. The ones that went into my lower back weren’t as bad. They actually felt the way I was expecting the whole process to feel. But she kept going back to the ones in my knees and repeatedly twisting them. It was so excruciating that at one point, I started shouting, “Not the knee! Not the knee!” There were mere curtains separating me from the other clients getting massages. I’m sure they were wondering to themselves, “What is going on behind Curtain Number 4?” I really tried to stay calm, but my mind kept going to thoughts of Josef Mengele. I actively had to steer my brain away from that: Think of the beach. Think of the beach. Mengele. Beach. Beach. Mengele. Beach. Mengele.
Finally, it was done. I felt exactly the same. Except now I had to direct my brain away from thinking of the knee needles lest I be overcome with nausea. But after all that, I wasn’t giving up. Chris, who is a doctor, came over and shot me up with what he described as “Motrin from outer space.” I went out on the date.
I met Steve at the restaurant. My back problem wasn’t apparent to the naked eye, but I was in a lot of pain. It’s hard to be fully present, let alone witty, charming, and energetic, when you are fighting through pain. We didn’t have the same sparkly rapport we had at the party, and a few little red flags went up for me, but I decided to keep them to myself and not tell my friends afterward in case I went out with him again and the red flags turned out to be nothing. But overall I thought it went OK. He told me he was leaving on a two-week business trip the following morning; and after that, I was going to LA for two months to do a play. There was, however, a little window of time we’d overlap back in New York before I left, and we agreed we’d see each other again.
Since I see no harm in it, I’ll share the first red flag with you now. An old, familiar, boring red flag: drinking. This guy could really put away the booze. When we moved from the bar (where he had had two drinks) to our table, I still had a nearly full glass of wine. He ordered us a bottle at the table, out of which he probably had four glasses. I’m thinking, “Maybe he’s nervous?” Then we continued on post-dinner to a new bar, where he had two more drinks plus one more for us to “share” since it was one of those trendy bars that makes crazy cocktails and he wanted to try absinthe or some shit like that. So his grand tally for the evening was nine drinks. He didn’t appear superdrunk, either, except for that sweaty red-faced bleary-eyed glow that can overtake someone who has had nine drinks. Since it was a long date (about six hours) and due to the aforementioned “maybe it’s nerves,” I thought I should still give it another go.
This particular red flag continued to wave in the air, however, when he sent me e-mails from his business trip.
First from London: “Trying to rest my liver today! Not likely to happen with these business parties!”
Then on to Tokyo: “Spending every evening in my friend’s whiskey bar!”
Cue downward-note slide whistle: Woooooooh. These e-mails did nothing to lower the red flag on the pole in my head. If anything, they were trading it up to a larger size.
Having dated the Three Addicts, I had a whole supply of red flags. Still, I didn’t want my potentially hair-trigger red flaggery to keep me from exploring a possibility. So when Steve returned from his business trip and asked me out for that Friday, I agreed. I spent all day in rehearsal for the play, but I still hadn’t heard from him at six that evening. I sent him a text: “Are we still on for tonight?”
I received a text, not a phone call, but a text that said, “I’m stuck at this work thing. Maybe I can see you when you are back from LA.”
Aaaand face plant. What the fahkity freakin’ FAHHHHCK? Is this what dating is? He asked me out for a second date just a few days prior, and he didn’t even bother to call me to tell me he was backing out at the very last second. And he said maybe we could meet up again two months from now? Just as our glowy, flirty, first encounter brought to mind scenes from a good romantic comedy, this too felt like something out of a movie. I was being stood up, movie-style!
I was crushed. And not because I thought he was the one—I still had those red flags. It was that this guy wasn’t a flaky, narcissistic actor. He was a business guy from the real world who spoke several languages and had a real job and asked women out on real dates for Saturday nights and, guess what? He was just as much a flaky narcissist as any actor. So—and I shake my head cartoon-style when I say this—these kinds of guys were everywhere. This guy just happened to be wearing a button-down shirt.
I guess that meant I was now free to tell my friends about the other red flag. I could unfurl it to them and now to the world. We weren’t getting married, we weren’t even making out. So here goes.
When we were sitting at the second bar, he was telling me about Tokyo. He mentioned that in Tokyo there are restaurants that serve only horsemeat.
“Euggghhh!” I said, making a face.
“No,” said he, “it’s the most delicious meat you will ever eat in your life.”
“I don’t knoooww,” said I.
“Deeee-licious,” said he, marveling in it a bit too much.
Maybe I was being culturally biased. I’m not a vegetarian, so what’s the difference between a horse and a cow? I guess. But horses are noble beasts! Are you supposed to tell a woman you adore the taste of hor
semeat on a first date? There was something a bit off about the way he was reveling in it. I could see some of the SNL dudes telling the same story, but there would be a dose of humor in the delivery. Instead, I got a creepy vibe. Besides, what if I had been one of those horsey girls as a child, with plastic statuettes and blue ribbons on my wall? Lucky for him, I wasn’t, but isn’t telling a girl you just loooooove eating horsemeat one step away from saying you haven’t lived ’til you’ve eaten puppy skewers?
Then he said, “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to taste human flesh?”
I’ll let that sit for a second.
“No,” I said.
“Really? Come on, you’ve never even wondered what it would be like? Would you try it if you were given the opportunity?”
“No!” I exclaimed. There wasn’t anything cute and funny about his tone as if he were posing the question in a humorous parlor game. Rather, it seemed like he had given this topic some thought.
“Why not?” said he.
“Because I would just be wondering who is this person and how did they end up on my plate. Would you?”
His response to this question made the phrase “Silence of the Lambs” pop into my head. He told me unequivocally that yes, he definitely was curious and would taste human flesh if given the chance. But it was almost like he was actively seeking out this opportunity. Like maybe, somewhere in his world travels, he’d be lucky enough to discover a restaurant called Cannibals! Try Our Breaded Human Fingers!
He continued, saying something about how when he would cauterize pigs in the science lab (don’t ask … I never did), the smell of bacon would fill the air and it would make him crave bacon. I think the implication was that when he did procedures or experiments on human cadavers, it made him hungry. I guess I’d have to add “Scientist (Mad)” to my list of Do Not Date professions.
I never saw or heard from Steve again. In hindsight, getting blown off via text was probably a blessing in disguise. And maybe the fact that my back went out was actually a gift. Maybe it’s not that God didn’t want me to date, but rather that God was actually sifting out the bad stuff for me through a divine intervention at Trader Joe’s. I may have narrowly avoided spending the rest of my nights with a man who drinks whole bottles of wine at a table for two, sharing the braised human abs or the triceps risotto.
Body by Shtetl
The experience with Brent—oh, sorry, Steve—definitely put a dent in my morale. He seemed like such a nice guy at the party. In reality, he was just a douche in sheep’s clothing.
The worst thing about this was now I was going to have to “get out there” again, and in terms of “getting out there” I’ve never exactly been one to strut my stuff. When I was in my twenties, I had terrible posture; I was always hunched over, trying to hide my huge jugs. All of my ancestors on both sides of the family come from the same general region, what was then the Jewish area of what is now the Ukraine. That means basically that I am of 100 percent Russian/Ukrainian Jewish peasant stock. You could drop me into any production of Fiddler on the Roof, throw a kerchief on my head, and I’d fit right in. (You hear that, Hollywood?! … What’s that, Hollywood? … Nooo, I don’t think there were any lesbians in Fiddler on the Roof. Though now that I think of it, Yente the Matchmaker may have tendencies—Oh, forget it, Hollywood!) The point is my body is 100 percent shtetl. This is especially apparent in my ankles, which are basically nonexistent, and in my huge jugs. I mention this because recently I found a picture of my great-grandmother and her six sisters posing for an Old Country Photo Shoot. I took one look at it and burst out laughing. Each sister in the photo has total shtetl bod, many with their own set of genuine, nature-made Torpedo Tits. No wonder I had these boobs; they were of my people. but I was still fighting them in my head.
The seven Pick sisters (Great-Grandma Sarah is in the top row, second from the left.)
Back in my twenties, I caught a glimpse of myself on tape at Second City, saw how horrible my posture was, and decided “That’s it! I’m going to stand up straight!” This really happened: About an HOUR after I had that conscious thought, I was walking down Belmont Street in Chicago. I think I was wearing a white T-shirt, and a guy who was dressed like a seventies pimp, complete with one of those puffy patchwork hats and skinny bell-bottom pants, said to me in a low and slow and creepy voice as he walked by: “Big Tiiiits.”
Blech.
As gross as that was, I wasn’t going to let it deter my posture mission. However, the very next day as I was entering the theater, and standing up straight, some guys yelled out of a car, “Nice tits!” Was I in some movie where a character makes a decision, and reactions happen to them this fast? I don’t mean good reactions—I mean this is why it’s better to hide what you’re packin’ unless you are Ice-T’s wife, Coco, and you want to make a living off of that attention.
The only time I know for sure that I was the object of someone’s illicit fantasies was in a dark movie theater—the Music Box in Chicago. A man entered the theater when the movie was almost over and sat down a few seats away. I had the feeling he was looking at me and then I saw that his hand was going at it. I abruptly hissed to my friend, “That man is masturbating!” and moved my seat quickly. I was pissed because this was the end of the movie, and I wanted to pay attention, and I didn’t have time for this nonsense. This is a pretty run-of-the-mill man-masturbating-in-a-movie-theater story, I know, but what I find unique about my tale is I was watching Europa Europa. I had a man whack off to me during the last ten minutes of a Holocaust movie.
No, I could hardly characterize myself as lucky in love. I’m even the only person I know who managed to get a sexually transmitted disease by having no sexual contact whatsoever. One summer when I was living in Chicago, I went to a cottage with a friend of mine named Alice. Her family had rented the cottage along Lake Michigan up in some little resort town. We spent the weekend there—myself, her dad, some of her siblings. She comes from a huge family. Partway through the day on Sunday, I began to feel some itching in my nether regions. Anyway, I got back home to Chicago and I was on the phone with a friend—not a really good friend, more an outer-circle friend. There was that itching again. While I was on the phone, I took a peek down south and I noticed that there were some little dots on my skin. Yes, I’m still on the phone while this is happening. I pick at one of the little dots and, upon closer examination, I look at it and discover that IT IS MOVING.
BLAAAACGHHH. HEAVE. HURL. I can’t tell this particular person on the phone what is happening, so I am in a gagging panic while trying to carry on a conversation, all the while realizing that somehow, without having had any sex … I got crabs. Welp, if that was going to happen to anyone, I’d vote me.
These were the days before the Internet, so I couldn’t look up what to do. I had to wait it out, through that long and crabby night, until morning, when I could call my doctor, who said, “Now, you’re sure you didn’t have sexual contact with anyone?” Yeah, I’m sure. I mean, does this ever happen to anyone? “Well, I suppose it could.” I was a damn medical miracle.
The cottage where we had spent the weekend was quite rustic and it was a rental and who knew what was lurking in those mattresses? Well, I knew. That’s actually who knew. Alice’s family was staying there the whole week, and I figured, in spite of the embarrassing nature of my news and in spite of the fact that I didn’t know Alice’s family all that well, I should tell them, nay, warn them as a sort of “Do unto others” Golden Rule of Pubic Lice. I felt obliged to let them know their whole family was in grave danger of bringing home a tribe of six-legged beasts in their genitals. So I told Alice.
In a highly unsatisfying response, rather than being thanked for my honesty and candor, I ended up being somewhat shamed. She got back to me the next day, saying something oddly vague, like, “Yeah, no one’s had any problems!” in a bright and casual voice. Nothing like, “We thoroughly washed the towels, the sheets; we doused the mattresses with buckets of boiling alcoho
l; we made a stern phone call to inform the people we were renting from…”—all of the emergency measures I expected to hear about. I could practically hear them sitting around the dinner table. “That dirty slut girl and her crabs! And she’s trying to pass them off on our salt-of-the-earth Midwest wholesome family. Ha-haaaa! Who wants another sloppy joe?!”
Alice’s implication seemed to be that I must have gotten them somewhere else, maybe while I was out ho’ing around, for all her family knew. No, I hadn’t been out ho’ing around—I just had the unique luck of managing to get an STD without any S.
Dating the Fonz
After Horsemeat, I was still determined to try, try again. I would have to redouble my efforts and turn my Dickhead Filters to their highest settings. You see, I was looking for a Nice Guy.
I had always had a problem with Nice Guys in the past. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was my problem. Well, Nice Guys, hear ye, hear ye: I paid for it dearly. I think it all started in eighth grade. It may be a common teenage girl trait to go for a real asshole. Did I watch too much Happy Days as a child? I did have socks with Fonzie on them in fourth grade that were my pride and joy. Did I learn everything about boys from a guy who snaps his fingers and several nameless girls come running to him, not minding that they aren’t the only one and will have the light of the Fonz shining on them only for mere moments? Somewhere in my brain, “nice” did not equal boyfriend material. What was sexy about nice?
Girl Walks Into a Bar . . .: Comedy Calamities, Dating Disasters, and a Midlife Miracle Page 7