New York re-cap

So I just returned from my first gig sans children. I felt so "light" - no strollers, no babies in carriers, no diaper bag. I'm trying not to think about how great it was because it'll just make me sad! Someday I will be free of diaper bags and strollers and heavy lurching babies in carriers forever. But not yet.

The gig itself was a bit of a mixed bag - it was outdoors and it rained and thunder stormed off and on all day, causing them to hold us off from even entering the backstage area until an hour after we were supposed to start, which was a problem for me because I had much assemblage of hair/makeup/elaborate dress to do. So instead of waiting around in the rain in curlers and no makeup I walked back to the hotel and waited there. Here is a shot I snapped once I had myself put together:

My hair was not loving the intense humidity and heat.

We finally did get to play, but only for an hour, and largely to an empty floor as the staff tried to mop all the rainwater off of it so people could dance. In the end it all worked out and everyone had a good time, but it did not exactly go smoothly. 

Unfortunately there was no time to enjoy the city at all. I did get to have lunch with my sister, but didn't connect with friends and even the band just went for a quick bite after the show and then collapsed at the hotel. I was hoping to make it downtown for some late night shenanigans, but it was not to be.

Now to the important stuff. Grown Ass Man and I texted and talked on the phone much of the weekend. It was great. We started using the term "us" and then laughing about how gross it was; we quoted Smiths lyrics back and forth; we looked forward with glee to our first night together, whenever that may be.

But now I am having second thoughts about him. It may all be nothing, but...something doesn't feel right. Or rather, something feels a little too eerily familiar. It all started innocently enough when my babysitter, on the drive home from the airport, off handedly said, "well, just make sure he has a real job." 

I don't know why, but this sentence kind of made my blood run cold. I don't really know what this guy does - he said he works for a YouTube startup - because he never talks about it (and most men that's all they talk about); but more importantly, never seems to actually be working. He mentioned how his parents disapprove of him - and honestly, as a first generation Korean I can imagine the bar is pretty high; anything less than doctor or lawyer and you're a loser. So I take that with a grain of salt. But there are other things - this bizarre story of how his wife left him: according to him, in which he came home one day and his wife asked him to move out, and then her brother who had been lurking in the bedroom came out and showed him a picture of his daughter on his phone and said, "see, she's happy. Maybe in a few weeks you can write her." So basically the daughter had been removed and was being held somewhere. So...either all of these people are crazy, or something happened there. I would kill to hear the wife's side of the story, believe me. Now, I don't think there was any abuse or violence or anything like that mostly because the wife is allegedly right now trying to get GAM to pick up and move closer to her so they can now share custody 50/50 instead of the current arrangement of just every other weekend. So if she was scared of him or felt he was a danger to her child I doubt she'd be doing that. But all of this is pretty out there.

It's reminding me a little too much of my last boyfriend, the sociopath who came on all hot and heavy like this guy, who also had no discernible job, and who also had lots of bizarre stories of people doing horrible things to him that he didn't deserve. It's a little creepy.

Anyway, the sad reality is I wouldn't be saying any of this if he were being attentive. I texted him when I got back and he said he couldn't see me Friday as we planned because he's picking up his daughter. We kind of made plans to get together Monday instead...but not really, and he hasn't answered any of my texts since, which he never did before. So I think something's up. I am going to leave him alone and see what he does. If I never hear from him again then we know what's up.

How, exactly, does a person grab your ass on the street, talk to you for hours on the phone, make all kinds of plans, and then disappear? Oh, very easily. Very easily indeed.

But thanks to the miracle of Internet dating, I now have another date with someone else on Sunday and another one pending.

In your FACE.