Outside Looking In

It's coming up on a year that I'm physically separated from my wife and in my "post-modern" bachelor digs in the Far West Village. My OK Cupid date who I brought home with me this week referred to it as "Po-Mo".

"Very cool, very PoMo," says she.

I hear it as very cool, very homo. Am I feeing defensive, curious, or just cranking GaGa up way high on the Nano?

We took the dog out and wandered by the river. Here on the edge of the island, Manhattan tides leave daily marks. Rotting wooden pilings visible ten feet above the water during my early morning run are all but completely covered by the dark, night time, ocean fed waters of the Hudson. I like my date. But she's not the domme girl of my dreams. I'm outside our easy conversation; looking in.

My kinky dance partner is so hot. We really rumba and she totally rocks. But the dance floor is as far as it goes. Earlier in the week as we said goodbye on the subway platform she hugged me. As we parted I pulled her back, arm around her shapely waist, like the dance floor leader I pretend to be and kissed her straight on her beautiful full lips. She seemed unmoved. Undettered, I swore I'd repeat it after our Friday night class and add a quick little two step tongue.

But face to face with cold reality it's just not there and I'm left ouside looking in.

She-Who-Visits calls regularly and tells me how much she misses me. We haven't seen each other since September. Starting next week I'm in Miami for ten days. She even told me she was checking air fares. But this week when I asked if she'd be coming up it was clear she would not. Nose pressed eagerly to her window, my hot breath fogs the view. She's but an illusion - and I'm outside looking in.

My wife and I have stopped fighting. She's dying what will be a slow, horrific death. We are deeply and unexpectedly connected despite our separation. In bittersweet dismay, I am tragically and gut-wrenchingly delivered home. Inside her terror looking out, I seek a connection which is, for now, just as well out of reach.