Curling up in my hovel.

It's about damn time for a blog post. The last you heard from me, I was an eligible single, one of the top ten, the only queer one, which made me the MOST ELIGIBLE QUEER IN CLEVELAND. Really a true honor.

Then I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and to celebrate the thirtieth birthday of the gayest person I know, Megan. She and Amelia picked me up from the airport in matching short white fake fur coats, their faces covered in glitter. It was 10 in the morning.

I blog to sort things out usually, and in NOLA things did not feel like they needed to be sorted out at all. It was very straightforward. Wake up at 6:30, drink coffee and a bloody mary, put on your costume and get to the parade. Nothing to over think.

New Orleans is so pretty, so green, that when I walk around in that city I feel sort of lulled into a walking nap. It's a tourist's perspective. I varied between a little bit manic and intensely relaxed on this vacation.

I'm still in a little bit of a nap. There is no struggle in my heart. I feel grateful to be alive in this moment in history. Maybe I should work on writing about gratitude?

Inexplicably, this is how I feel, even though there's not some long standing friendship that has been transformed into true love. Whatevs. I guess I relate it to unexpected blessings of the non-romantic variety.

A good party can work some magic. I guess if I'm gonna create a lesson out of last week, that's my best bet. A good party can do a lot. A really good one, where you feel some kinship with strangers. Barbara Ehrenreich has a book about this I'm a gonna read.

I guess I've been thinking about deeply human experiences. And I think we are really exceptionally social monkeys, and we need a lot of group activities to not get bummed out. Isolation is the stupidest thing about modern life. All the sitting by yourself. Working by yourself, feeding yourself, just taking care of your own kids. Fending for yourself all by yourself.

I was just happy to be a part of some tribes last week.

Although it has been nice these past two days to sit in my basement apartment. So there is sometimes a case to be made for isolation. If you have a good blanket and some half and half for your coffee.

I hope as we move into March you've had some unexpected blessings pop up, of any variety.

I am an Eligible Single.

Do you want to date me? Sure you do. I have an alternative hair cut, keep a funny blog, and in three years I'll have passed state licensure exams confirming I know how relationships are supposed to work.

I am so very date-able that I even won a contest recently confirming that I was one of the Top Ten Eligible Singles in Cleveland.

You should come to the Kick Start Love party at Dragonfly tonight and meet all us eligibles.

I think over the past year I've shed a lot of fears I've had about being a lousy partner. I had this very strong idea, even before I dated anyone, that I was a difficult person to date and should be grateful for anyone who could put up with me. And now....now I know everyone's really difficult to date. That's pretty much what dating is, bringing out all the difficulties and working through them. Not at first, but that's what being a couple is about over the long haul.

It is true I can be a terrible person to date. You wouldn't believe the stories other people can tell on me. But there's also amazing parts to dating me. And they're linked with the terrible parts, the way it works with anyone worthwhile.

I'm putting this out there in the universe: I want a real girlfriend. I want real intimacy, that builds slowly, that respects both people, the slow twisting of two lives together. I know there are parts to that I'm going to suck at. I feel filled with strength and vigor to keep working on those parts. I feel up to the challenge, universe.

So....yeah. Whenever you're ready.

You look familiar.

So the queer community. Awesome thing, right? Straight people are totally jellz of it. Us queers look out for each other, and attend support groups together, and march together, and when we discover one of our own in a straight environment we are BEST FRIENDS.

Yeah, it's a great thing, this queer community.

Except you know what else we do in this community? We date. And you know what dating people entails? Bad breakups, cheating, hating each other, being obsessed with each other, dropping friends, getting dropped by friends, acting like our worst selves, etc.

You know how when you start to date a guy you might wait a couple of weeks before you meet his friends? And it's a little nerve wracking because you want them to like you?

When you date a girl, you quickly find out you already know all her friends. Because you dated them. Or they're dating your ex. Or they're best friends with your sworn enemy.

In fact, all of your sworn enemies have started a softball team/arm wrestling league/ books to prisoners program/ potluck crafting club together. They're saving the world one frown from you at a time.

Now, I still find it upsetting. I find it upsetting when new friends have bad feelings about old friends. I find it upsetting when I'm the new friend who has bad feelings about old friends.

But I like dating women. And that's the pool them apples are bobbing in. So ok queer community, fine, let's get to know one another. Let's be in each other's faces and each other's spaces and let's annoy the shit out of each other. And if we can avoid fist fights outside the bar on ladies night, I'm pretty sure the Dalai Lama gives us all cookies.