  My pals are ranking high on the loser list. Days since Ive received emails from friends. Not just the out-of-towners, but the trend seems to have extended beyond into the most trivial of connections. Is it the holidays? Yet still I write up a storm. Not because its required of me. Far from it. I do this because I must. I can live without writing. Seriously for those of you not aware, I do this not for your sake but for mine alone. I have to. Ive been doing this for ten years now, and I have volumes to prove it  even to account for the pre-blog time period.
Black books on my bookshelf. If I dont write, I freak out. Ive sunk to writing on bar napkins in Italy to fulfill the need, even if only to throw them out the next morning. Speaking of Italy. My dear Anna. My Italian/British Anna. It may be against all rationale, but Ive assigned this mysterious hooker (http://belledejour-uk.blogspot.com/) the face of my lusted-after Anna. The London dialect spawned it. I dont know enough British folk to exchange the image for another more suited to take the place of it.
And as far as Anna is concerned, I have a silly crush on her more powerful than I have for this woman writing tales of her icky jobs. In fact, Im still head-over-heals smitten with the real Anna. Two moments between us keep me from shaking that desire as I normally would. One: New Years Eve, 2002. On the rooftop apartment of a stranger, invited there by Anna. The unknown couple, Anna and her boyfriend Eddy Anna invited me.
fortunate for me too because the family I was staying with decided to leave me to myself that night, and I had already begun to cry at the thought of spending the holiday alone in my flat watching television in a language that mocked my difference. And drinking alone once again to quell the despair of being so inconsolably alone. Me and Anna. That night, she bummed a smoke from me, and we spent the time on the rooftop deck a good ways away from the sliding doors to the said friends apartment.
We spoke of intensely personal moments (or at least I did, hammered as I was), watching the sparks of fireworks explode near a hillside beside us. I remember unconsciously leaning into her, but wanting more than anything to just sit with her, in her arms in silence. To be with her in any way I could with honour. I grew silent, smelling her hair and her skin. I wanted to sink, to drown in the sensory bliss of that fraction of a moment. It only lasted a second, but one that seemed protracted in my memory. I think I whispered a thank you for bringing me out. But it didnt come out with the underpinnings of desire that Id actually felt. It couldnt come out that way. The scenario didnt permit it. What I wanted was to kiss her madly. I remember that desire like it was yesterday. I wanted to show her something. I wanted to merge with the woman Id so grown to love.
Even a simple kiss seemed a readily, appropriate embodiment. Even though by that time I was drinking straight whiskey, and I could hardly walk from the car to the lift to my flat. On my long walk home (twenty steps) Taking off my boots, I flung myself off the toilet and into the tile wall in front of me, head first, nearly knocking me out cold but succeeding in securing a big hard lump on my head for a horribly hung over New Years Day. I tell THAT story anyone wants to compete with me when it comes to most embarrassing moment. For something that happened while all alone, a whole lot of folks seem to have heard about it.
Self-Deprecation Playhouse, starring ME! Two: The day I said goodbye to her. Shit, I still cant stand to think about this without a drink in hand. She met me outside of the corner Despar, the midway point between my flat and hers. I got there early because I so loved to see her tall, blond figure in a long coat grace the city streets to cross an intersection. Id fallen in love with her, you guys. For one, I was so alone. And two. Well I know what I love about women.
And she blew the doors off of most of that by the first night I met her. Sheesh, I hugged her like a long, lost relative by that nights end when I first met her! And by the second time I saw her, I was dumb struck with the feelings that surfaced. Shes an amazing woman, yall. I dont throw my affections around without warrant. So the last time I saw her. There she was, in her wool coat and soft blue eyes. Its her mouth that made me fall for her, but the entire rest of her each fraction of her body, her being all caused a stir in me at various moments. The time she took off her woolies to expose the tank top she had on underneath. I was on the phone with my mom at the time, but I spaced out on the conversation completely when I saw those firm, beautiful arms as she stood there in the kitchen. If shed turned around, I would have been caught gawking. Instead, I stored it away as a private image to come back to when light was low and my heart was aching of complacent consignment.
That was real. Like little else ever is. So that day Im getting to it. All the way to the corner where our paths diverted, I mourned each street crossing we came to. At one point I began to cry, embracing her for no apparent reason. I knew what was ahead, and I couldnt do it. What I longed for is that never-given invitation to come up to her apartment to say goodbye that would satisfy even me. To be with her, even if it materialized only as a few minutes holding her in the privacy of four walls.
And then we reached that intersection. I couldnt believe this was it. And come on, I knew that was the last time Id see her. Thats the closest Id ever be with her. We held each other for a few moments. Im not sure how it actually happened. All I know is I looked up into her eyes, and all I wanted was to kiss her. This one powerful, passionate kiss that would communicate all I felt for her. Not just my lust. That wouldnt be satiated by a kiss. I wanted to seal something in a passionate moment, something in as dramatic a fashion as the experience Id had with her. I wanted to love her. Just for a few seconds, I wanted to be with her in a way thats recognized as legitimate.
I wanted to give her something. And I wanted her to give it back to me. to this day, I wish Id just planted one on her. Or just held onto her hand for a moment more. I thought I sensed something similar to what I was feeling, but I couldnt risk it. To blight the moment would have crushed me, so I backed down. And I went home and cried my eyes out.
I hurt so much. Because I didnt say what I felt, not because I thought my feelings were illegitimate. I continued to send her fun things in the mail, but it never reached the target I was after. Materials even the emotions embodied by films. That wasnt it. But at least I gave the next best thing once I was gone. I love you, Anna. You loved me during a time of the most complete darkness. I havent forgotten that. I still feel Ive yet to translate my experience of you. Since I never had the honour of bringing your lips to mine, take my writing as a surrogate, however incomplete. As gifted as I may be in writing, the only thing that seems to speak true is my body. Call it inappropriate, but call it genuine.
I wanted to, but it wasnt in the cards for me to put to action. Youd have been cross with me. Or instead, it would have recast us both in a light that wouldnt have honoured us properly. It sucks. I still yearn to be that with her. I wonder what it would have meant to me during these years of pain and emotional drought to have had a more fruitful encounter with such an amazing creature. Unlike other women, she occupies a singularly unique place in my heart. Not just because she was my only loving contact in such a cruelly vacant experience. But because she so freely showed her humanity to me. My God, I miss her. And yes, I still long to see her again. 
