I just found a scam on Craigslist!  Looking for a place to move to in DC, I have been checking out rentals on Craigslist.  An unbelievable deal showed up and I wrote to the email address provided.  The response was perfectly normal except that the owner of the property was in the UK.  I replied with more info about myself and my partner, but didn't disclose anything important like our full names or address, and certainly not our social security #s or birthdates!  The next email I got from the property owner did not answer a single question I had asked.  Instead, it simply asked for my full name and address and a $700 security deposit. Twice.  I repeated my questions and got a "No problem" response and another request for my full name and address.  I wrote back, "I'm sorry to say that you sound like a scam artist."  Did they reply?  Nope.  I went back to Craigslist to report the scam, but the listing had already been removed.  Be careful, everyone!

Okay, I'm back.  It's amazing how precious time becomes after you've had a baby.  The time you have with the baby is precious. The time you have for yourself is precious. The time you have as a couple is precious. And it all goes so fast, too fast.  My baby is almost six months old now and she's rolling around and teething, laughing and wanting to see, hear, and taste everything she can find.  Just a few months ago, she barely even knew we had a dog--now she cracks up every time the dog comes to sniff her face! 

I just re-read my pregnant blog entry and I want to say that I made the right decision deferring on med school for a year.  I wouldn't swap these first beautiful months with my baby for anything the universe could offer. 

So, now we're in the process of prepping our minds and house for the move to the east coast.  I have lived out here in L.A. for half my life now and again I find myself a contradiction.

More later...baby just woke up!

So I have a brief moment to write--the baby's playing with her dad....  Let's see how long this lasts.  The baby's in an I-want-Mommy-all-the-time phase.... 

So, motherhood.  WOW.  What a wonderful time I'm having!!  I never imagined how rewarding, fulfilling, and FUN it could be.  Seeing my baby smile, laugh, or even sleep makes me beam with light inside and out.  And watching her learn--that is probably the most amazing part of this experience.

Uh oh.  Gotta run.  Will write more when she goes to bed!

I haven't been on here since before my baby was born, but I can't update until the Lost season premiere is over... I'm a complete 100% Lost fan.  So for now, I will just post the link to the scholarship contest I entered on brickfish.com.  If you can, please vote for my pic, Obama Baby! and help me win the scholarship for my med school tuition! Thanks!!!

http://www.brickfish.com/Pages/PhotosAlbums/PhotoView.aspx?picid=779146_43521510&pid=1776732&scid=394&

This is another short essay from my work-in-progress book on Post-Divorce Sex and Dating Adventures.  This is the one "Song of Despair" in the midst of more humourous essays... a la Pablo Neruda's Twenty Love Songs and a Song of Despair.
------------------------------------------------------

"Malibu"

For two full summers before we got married, my ex-husband and I spent every weekend on the beaches of Malibu.  El Matador, El Pescador, Leo Carillo, Zuma, Point Dume—they are all locales of some of the best memories of my life. 

We were in our early twenties and we did as that age must do.  We got tipsy off cheap wine in paper cups.  We raced each other into the Pacific Ocean fully clothed just as the sun was setting.  We drove my used convertible Terms of Endearment-style -- that is, he steered with his feet while sitting on the headrest as I used my hands to control the pedals.  We had sex on the beach, more horny than paranoid.  We ate lobster we couldn’t afford and ordered cocktails we had heard of, but hadn’t yet tried.  We didn’t fret over a mortgage or our entry-level jobs.  We had no kids, no car loans, no broken hearts.  We had nowhere to go and no need to leave.  We were perfect just as we were, right on the beaches of Malibu every weekend for as long as the summers would allow.

I often lament and mourn those days when love was naïve, pure, relentless, and overflowing.  There were no scars or bitterness.  No resentment.  No hurt.  Not yet.  We didn’t know then that it would be the last time we could own that kind of love.  First love.  First true love.  It loves fully, fearlessly, because nothing has happened to make it turn to caution.  Not yet.

So the ocean was ours, the beaches were ours, and the summers were ours for eternity.

And then I got pregnant.  We didn’t know what to do, but in the end, we decided not to keep it.  I woke up from the anesthesia, sobbing.  I didn’t want to get up.  It was a horrible feeling knowing what I had just done.  My ex-husband took me to the car and we drove and drove.  He drove us straight to Malibu.  He pulled the car over and got out without a word.  He walked to the edge of a cliff, looking out at the blue water.  My body was exhausted and I was supposed to move as little as possible, so I watched him from inside the car.  His shoulders lifted and fell as he wept. 

In my mind, I stepped out slowly and walked to another part of the cliff.  I looked out and felt the breeze remove the clothes from my body.  My hair lifted and covered my face.  Still, I could see that the ocean looked the same.  Exactly the same.  It didn’t know and didn’t care what we were feeling.  It was just doing what it always does.  Move.  Roll.  Crash.  Settle.  Wash.  Clean.  Smooth.  It was as it was supposed to be.  Nature was as it was supposed to be.  And Malibu was as it was supposed to be. 

That was the last time we went to Malibu.

That night and through the next several months, I had an awful guilt inside me.  My politics, my philosophy on life, my education, my spirituality—they all fell into confusion and question.  I cried at night that hopeless, heaving, desperate weeping, and my ex-husband would leave the bed to sleep on the sofa in the living room, which made me cry all the more.  Not once did he stay with me, much less touch me.  One hand on my hand is all it had to be.  Just so I knew he was with me in this awful thing that I had done.  But he wasn’t.  He was in the living room.

When people ask me why I left my ex-husband, I want to tell them that he left me.  He left me in Malibu.  And it’s wonderful that he left me there.  That’s where I still love him.  That’s where he and I are still together, still pure, where our love is innocent and carefree, unconcerned, unrestricted, untouched.  We are perfect in that perfect time, and nothing that we have done or said can taint the memories of my first true love.  They are as they should be, as they are supposed to be -- beautiful, young, and eternal. 

At times during this pregnancy, I end up dug deep into one decisive emotion, be it sadness, anger, annoyance, joy.  Whenever it happens, an inner me recognizes that I have absolutely no control over the feeling, and I just watch it play out as if I'm a rubbernecker at the scene of an accident.  This immediately then takes me back to my acting days.  I would be on stage doing my lines, playing my subtext, hitting my marks, but the inner me would be saying, "Oh my god!  That's John Cusack in the front row left!"  I loved those moments.  The brain, or should I say the multitude of us-es within, is remarkable.

This is yet another entry for my mostly humorous book about my Post-Divorce Sex and Dating adventures.  I hope you enjoy it!

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"PROTOTYPE"

I was my ex-husband’s wife, housekeeper, accountant, phone book, palm pilot, watch, and bartender.  Why?  Originally, it was out of love.  I was one of those unfortunate souls that gave everything and asked for nothing in return but love.  But when the love stopped coming after about a year of marriage, I did it all strictly out of need.  The need for peace at home and peace of mind.  The need for sex.  The need for a functional man in my life.  (Granted, his functionality was based upon how well I performed my duties.)  The need for on-time payments for the mortgage.  The need for gas, water, and electricity.  The need for a quick check-up on my car.  I needed all these things and to get them, I had to perform my duties well.  But after a while, these things weren’t worth the work.  So I walked out the door, no longer a wife, no longer a housekeeper, no longer an accountant or a phone book, a palm pilot, a watch, or a bartender.  I walked out the door as me.  Plain, simple, smiling me. 

In my brand new post-marriage life, I took up knitting and sexing.  I knitted or sexed savagely at night and had only one rule when it came to both—No Emotion Allowed.  No emotion meant no love, and no love meant no work, and no work meant no failed marriage.  So I knitted and sexed with zero emotion.  If I starting feeling attached to a scarf-in-progress or a booty-call, I dumped it straightaway.  It was a perfect life. 

I discovered that I didn’t need anything anymore.  No husband, no mortgage, no sex.  (Okay, maybe sex.)  And I was resolved.  If ever a man were to snag me in love again, he’d have to do EVERYTHING for me.  He would have to make the money, buy the groceries, cook the meals, clean the house, chauffeur me to my appointments, make my phone calls for me, and love me down hot and bothered in bed every night.  Being the college-educated woman that I am, I knew that a man like this did not exist ever in history and would not exist ever in the future, so I was done with love.

I was wrong.  Prototype appeared out of nowhere and swooped me out of my loveless sex, my emotionless knitting.  He was that man that didn’t exist.  He did everything for me.  He took care of me not like I was a child, but a woman to be cherished and caressed, exalted and admired.  He had a laid-back quality that made life easy and relaxing.  Or did it just feel that way, because all I did was lay back, easy and relaxed, doing absolutely nothing?  Either way, Prototype was proof that men like this DID exist--men that took care of the women they loved, that took responsibility for themselves and their loved ones and did not need their wives to be their personal assistants.  Prototype was my first love after my ex-husband, and he was perfect.

Time passed, and well, his love didn’t stop coming, but mine did.  There were several reasons why this could have happened.  1) Perhaps I wasn’t ready for another long-term commitment.  2) Perhaps I got bored being the queen on the throne.  3) Perhaps I wasn’t ready to be with the very man I wished my ex-husband to be.  4) Perhaps Prototype appeared to me to show me that a man like him wasn’t what I really wanted in a lifetime partner.  And 5) maybe, just maybe, Prototype entered my life to show me what my husband had with me and what he didn’t like having in the end…that maybe the whole time we were married, my ex and I both wanted the same thing—an equal in our spouse—but we just had different ideas of what should be equal.  All these reasons made sense, but I couldn’t say if any or all of them were the real reasons why one day, I knitted Prototype a scarf, walked out the door, and never went back.

This is an essay from my mostly humorous book-in-progress about my Post-Divorce/Post-Separation Sex and Dating adventures.  Because footnotes can't be written into the blog entry, I have used asterisks (*).  Sorry, but you'll have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the blog entry to read the footnotes.  Also, I've changed names, places, and times to protect and hide the folks involved...  I hope you enjoy it!

-------------------------------

"LEARNING HOW TO HAVE TEXT"

Thank God for Dick.  If it weren’t for him, I’d never know how to text message.  I was one of the last people in Los Angeles to own a cell phone, and after a year of having one, all I had figured out how to do was scroll through the phone book and speed dial.*   But then good old Dick entered my life and poked a little fun into my post-divorce cell-phone virginity.

So there I was, six months after my ex-husband and I had split up, hand-delivering a package to my boss Mike who was having an informal meeting in a rather large conference hall.  As I was leaving, a tall, handsome man appeared before me.  Dick.  The attraction was obvious and the flirting immediate.  We did the obligatory chit-chat as two people drawn to one another must.

“So, you’re from Mike’s office?” he asked.
“Yes, and you?”
“From LKP.  We’re going to be over here for the rest of the week, finishing the plans for Marketing.”
“That’s great!”
“It is?”
“I mean…yeah, sure.  That’s great.”

And I left.

The next day, in hopes of having to hand-deliver another package to my boss, I wore as short a skirt as was allowed by professional standards and do-me-in-my-stiletto-heels heels that would never be allowed by professional standards.  Luckily, my outfit did not go to waste.  I sauntered and swayed myself into the conference hall and Dick was there.  I came, he saw, I conquered.**

As I was leaving, Dick practically sprinted to me as eager as a schoolboy, asking if he could text me.

“Text?  I don’t know how to text.”
“Really?  It’s easy.  Just hit reply when you get my text message and write something back to me.”

So I gave him my number and left.

Not even ten seconds passed and my cell started to beep and buzz.  I pulled the phone out of my purse, and there it was, my very first text message.

< You are beautiful >

Blushing,***  I hit ‘reply’ and laboriously wrote a message back.  A complete texting newbie, I didn’t know that my phone had the intelligence to guess the word I was trying to write.

< Thanks >

Within seconds, the beep-buzz happened again.

< What are you doing after work? >

It took me five minutes to respond, not because I didn’t know what to say, but because I couldn’t figure out how to input a space between the words.  Finally, I sent him:

< Going home with you >

Now before I go on, I want to be clear.  I would never in a million years be that forward and that easy, BUT 1) I had just split up with my husband and 2) I hadn’t had sex for a few months and 3) I was trying out a new me, and well, 4) Dick was HOT.  He was Smith in “Sex and the City”, James Dean, and Denzel Washington, all in one.  He was the perfect post-divorce booty call.  I knew it and all I wanted to know from him was whether or not he would be able and willing to fulfill my need.  My text message, <Going home with you>, made that abundantly clear, and his reply made his availability clear.

< Meet me outside at 6 >

We went straight to his place and tore each other’s clothes off and had anything-goes sex in every way possible.  But we didn’t kiss.  He reserved kissing for his heart relationships, not his sex relationships.  I was absolutely not interested in getting into anything but bed with this guy, so all sexing and no kissing was perfect with me. 

He asked if I was into threesomes.  Good Lord, I thought, I just got out of seven years of monogamy.  When would I have ever even thought of a threesome, much less gotten ‘into’ threesomes?****   I told him that I’d consider a threesome with another man.  After a moment of thought, he suggested a foursome – two men and two women.  I would pick the woman and he would pick the man, and as long as we approved of each other’s picks, we were good to go.  I agreed to the plan.

He started to tell me about his parents and his sister, and that’s when I got up to leave.  If he was going to be a good little booty call, then he had to abide by the rules and tell me nothing more than his name, address, and phone number.  Bad enough, I knew where he worked.

So I left and went to Keisha’s house, where I had been living since I left my husband.*****   I told her everything.  She loved it and cheered me on for having such fearlessness and aggression in taking a lover.  Then the beep-buzz came.

< What r u doing? >

I showed Keisha the text message.  We laughed that girlhood laugh that women laugh only when we’re with our girlfriends.  I spoke aloud as I wrote my response, “Hanging out with-”

“No!” Keisha said.  “Tell him you’re getting naked!”

We laughed and I did it.

< Getting naked >

Seconds went by and then:
< R u touching urself? >

Keisha and I laughed again.  From then on, we discussed every response before I sent it.

< Yes, I’m squeezing my nipples and playing with my clit >
< Ooh, baby. tell me more! >

“Oh my God!  What do I say?”
“Tell him you’re sticking your vibrator in, pretending it's his huge, erect cock!”
“I don’t have a vibrator!”
“Just do it!”

< I’m sticking my vibrator in me, pretending it’s your huge, erect cock >
< Mmmm, my huge cock loves ur wet pussy.  I want 2 put things inside u >

“Put things inside you?  Like what?”
“I don’t know!”
“Well, ask him!”

< Like what, lover? >
< I wanna put chocolate sauce in your twat and suck it out with a straw >

Keisha and I were in hysterics.

< What else, baby? >
< I wanna put my dinger in your anus as I eat you out >

“Dinger?  What the hell is a dinger?”

< Finger, that is >

Keisha said, “Tell him you want to put things inside him too!”

< I want to put things in you too >
< Tell me what u wanna put in me >
< I wanna put a handkerchief in your anus and pull it out slowly as you cum in my mouth >
< Yes!  What else? >
< I wanna put my pearl necklace in you and then you can give me one >
< I am sooooo turned on!  What else? >

“What else?  Isn’t that enough?”
“He’s into getting things put up his butt!  Tell him you’ll put a cucumber in him!”

< I wanna stick a cucumber up your ass >
< Oh, yes, baby.  What else?  U’r going 2 make me cum! >

Keisha and I were on the floor with this one, but he wanted more, so we gave it to him.

< I wanna put my hairbrush inside your butthole and move it in and out >
< Yes, baby! >
< And then my leather cosmetics bag >
< Don’t stop!  What else?  What else? >
< My universal remote control and snowboard boots >
< Stick them in me! >
< My 1976 Malibu Barbie doll, my CD collection and my Honda Civic >
< I’m cumming!  I’m cumming!!! >


Dick and I (and Keisha) continued our text messaging, or as I called it, our sexed messaging, for another couple of months, but we never ended up having sex again.  He found a guy for the foursome, but I quickly disapproved of him when I saw that he was the size of a grizzly bear and kind of looked like one.  And well, I never even looked for a woman for the foursome.  I didn’t really want a foursome.  In fact, I didn’t want to do anything with Dick but the sexed messaging.  I had become an addict.  But then, I met Prototype, my first love after my husband, and the sexed messages got replaced with love messages, and Dick fell limply to the side.

Texting is by far my favorite mode of communication (even without the sex) and I owe it all to Dick, the man who popped my cell phone cherry, the man who taught me how to have text.  Thank God for Dick.

-----------------------------

Footnotes:

*   Now that I think of it, as soon as I bought that cell phone, my relationship with my husband started to crumble.  Perhaps it was the cell phone that ended my marriage.  Or maybe it saved me from my marriage.  Who knows?  But thank God for Dick.

**  Boys are just so easy to work sometimes.  Show enough, but not too much, and they’re all over it.

***  Mind you, this is not a literal expression here.  Asian women don’t blush, unless we’re missing the enzyme that breaks down alcohol, but even then, we only blush while drinking.

****  Hm.  Seven years of monogamy and I never thought of a threesome?  Either my ex-husband and I had life-changing, ‘I could never leave you’ sex or I am just flat-out lying here.  You decide the answer.

*****  Does this tell you the answer to Footnote #4?

A couple weeks ago, I signed the last of my divorce papers.  Now I just have to wait for the county (or is it the state?) to process the paperwork and I can give birth to a baby girl as an officially divorced woman! 

My ex and I have been split up for 6 years, but we never bothered with the paperwork.  Don't really know why.  I guess we both felt it was just a formality that neither one of us cared too much about...until I found out I was pregnant.  I'm not a very conventional person, but maybe my daughter will be.  I want to respect that possibility and NOT begin her life as a mom who is married to someone other than the baby's father.

Unfortunately, the county (or is it the state?) is backlogged and the divorce won't be final until a month before the baby's due date.  Fingers crossed, she'll pop out after the divorce goes through.

After my ex and I split up, I started to write short essays about my adventures in post-separation sex and dating.  I'm now compiling a book that I intend to publish, perhaps on my own, perhaps not, that is geared toward other women who have gone through separation and/or divorce. 

Mine is not an "Eat Pray Love."  It's more like an "Eat Drink Screw."  It's a humorous book for the most part, although there's one story thrown in that isn't humorous at all...  So maybe my compilation is a bit like Pablo Neruda's "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair" except  it'd be called "Twenty Sex Adventures and a Song of Despair."  But then that title would ignore the fact that the Twenty Sex Adventures also had moans and groans of divorcing despair within them...  Well, the title is still up in the air.  Anyone who might want to suggest a title, please do!  I'm all ears!

I have the stories posted up on my Live Journal, but I'm not active on Live Journal anymore and feel like Gaia is much more me...so I'm going to start posting them here.  So please check out my next entry!  It's my favorite post-separation story to date!  Names and places and times have all been changed to protect the wicked and not so wicked...  ;P

My last entry was on Feb 7th, the day before I found out that I was pregnant.  Since then, I've been MIA from MyGaia.  On the Richter Scale, my preggers discovery was about a 4.5--not damaging, but earth-shaking to say the least.  My boyfriend and I had already discussed having kids, but it wasn't going to be until I was in my third year of medical school, that is, 2-3 years from Feb 7th.  Although I would be 38, it was important for me to get my med school education started. 

I had spent two and a half years working full-time in the film industry (which translates into, on average, 14 hour workdays) while being a pre-med student mostly full-time at UCLA.  I was on that high-speed train to a new career, a new life, a new fulfillment for my spirit, my heart, and my mind.  I worked to pay the rent and my school bills, but I spent the rest of my energy forging ahead toward my soul's desire--to give back to the world through integrative healthcare.  I founded the Pre-Med Club for Non-Traditional Students in Los Angeles, doing my best to motivate and support other older med school hopefuls.  I volunteered for two years at Cedars-Sinai's ER, experiencing a taste of the world I was eager to learn more of.  I gained incredible inspiration by shadowing Dr. Shera Raisen, a primary care physician who blends her MD education with her homeopathic and naturopathic education.  I interviewed my acupuncturist, my doctors, my teachers, and my friends, and I found that I was switching into the field that made the most sense for my heart.  Through all of this re-education and self-discovery, I reconnected with my inner self and found myself holding hands with the person I had always hoped I would be.  Somewhere through my 20s, I lost grasp of that person and fell for the instant gratification of high-paying film jobs and self-centered behaviors.  Finding myself again in my 30s was like turning on the light to my long-forgotten childhood bedroom.  I was overcome by waves of nostalgia and complete joy, knowing the world of unending possibility lied just outside the door.

Then I found out I was pregnant.

Yes, I say that like it was some horrible discovery, some heavy metal fist that smashed up my youth, my rediscovered youth, and sent my career-switching dreams into the incinerator.  Okay, it wasn't that bad.  But it was difficult to come to terms with the fact that I couldn't properly start med school AND motherhood at the same time.  If this were my second child, then maybe I could do it, but being my first, I don't know what to expect.  Sure, there are women that do both, but I don't want to take the chance of screwing up my first mothering experience OR my first year of medical school.

So my high-speed train to my new life in healthcare came to a screeching halt, and I spent three months vomiting.  I didn't work, I didn't study--I just vomited.  At least I knew the baby was doing its thing.  The baby made the decision for me in terms of which school to attend.  I had been accepted to both Tulane and George Washington, and since I grew up in DC and my friends and parents are all still there, George Washington was the natural choice...er, the baby's choice. 

After the vomiting, I entered the Forgot-I-Was-Pregnant stage.  I literally would wake up, get out of bed, completely forgetting that I was pregnant until I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.  I'd think, Oh, yeah, I got that belly in front of me with the baby inside.  I'd be lying if I said that I didn't feel a touch of disappointment.  But then, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel extreme joy also.  I was a complete contradiction.  I was beaming with excitement--all rainbows and butterflies inside--knowing that my boyfriend and I were going to have a little baby girl join us in this journey we know as life.  And at the same time, I was bummed that all that I worked towards in the past two and a half years was put on hold.  Some days it bothered me more than others.  As the weeks went on, I became less caught up in my own career impatience and more aware of my selfishness.  Yet again, I got stuck in my selfishness.  How ugly.

What an ultimate test--to be given the blessing of pregnancy and to learn to let go of control and possession.

I still have days when nervousness strikes me.  I don't feel ready to be a mom.  I don't even know what it means to be a mom.  I didn't exactly have the best of examples, but she did her best and I will do mine.  And luckily, I've got the most involved of partners.  He does everything with me--every appt, every class, every question, every confusion, every calm, every laugh.  Life has blessed me with his love and support.  To think of all those women who go through pregnancy without partners...it makes me feel so sad.  The emotional and physical changes, of course, can be handled by the mother-to-be, but with that one involved, loving partner, they are all so much easier to navigate through. 

We started prenatal yoga classes.  I'm about to leave for another class right now.  I want as natural a birth as possible.  I just hope the baby wants that too!  She's kicking like a World Cup champion and I can't wait to meet her.

All this rambling...if you got this far in reading this blog entry, let me send you a banana bread muffin.  I just baked some fresh late last night.  Nothing like the smell of banana bread wafting through the house...