A Taxi-Cab Date?

I am in such a different mood and a different place from when I left my last post. I was a little hyper then, and feeling full of life. I feel like my feet have since hit the ground, and I'm feeling much darker and hardened. I'm having the urge to chain smoke and put on too much eyeliner and listen to depressing music, so it's kind of hard for me to identify with the girl who drafted this post yesterday. That said, I promised the story about the taxi driver, so I'll try to deliver...

Friday afternoon I was on my way back from a voice lesson, having one of those typical frantic unorganized Hyde/New York moments, trying to hail a cab, while on the phone figuring out why a check bounced and balancing too many bags in my hand. The cab arrived; I pulled open the door, but when I sat down, I found myself face to face with an enormous grasshopper! I am so squeamish around insects. (Did I ever tell you guys that?) It's not really that I'm afraid of them, but I can't deal with them or be near them. They give me the creeps and make me feel like something is crawling on me--especially when I see those twitchy little antennae. (I know-- I'm not a nature girl) . So of course, I freaked out, acted all stupid and girly and leaped across the seat, while still on the phone, alerting the driver that something was up.

"There's a grasshopper in your car!" I exclaimed.

He got out of the car and came around to the back to see what the problem was. Laughing at me good naturedly, he swished the creature onto the sidewalk and we were off. I finished my "business" call, and with the ice broken by the grasshopper incident, he struck up a conversation with me.

I don't know why, but I was in a very chatty mood. He asked if I were a student, and we talked a bit about that. Then I told him that I was coming from a voice lesson and he asked me if I were a professional singer.

"Not quite," I said. "Well, I was just talking to my teacher about this very topic."

"What's that?"

"Lifestyle choices and stuff like that. To be a professional, I'd have to live my life a certain way. Getting eight hours of sleep, staying hydrated, avoiding caffeine and acidic foods, avoiding alcohol for sure, (not to mention a certain medicine that can give quite a burn as it drips down the back of your throat), keeping myself emotionally balanced and training every day. It's a personality thing. I haven't been able to devote myself to it in that way, and for that, I'm blocking myself from really making the kind of progress that I need to make. On top of that, I teach three lecture courses which is torture on the voice."

He asked to see my hand.

"Why?"

"Your palm--your left palm."

(We were driving through Central Park at this point).

He glanced at it and asked me if I loved the water.

"Why do you ask that?"

(I was pretty amazed. I'm obsessed with the water. I told you guys--I have a mermaid tatoo and a tattoo of two fish and I always say that I was a mermaid in my prior life).

"I do," I said. "I love it! What else do you see?"

"You must be a writer," he said. "And you write a lot? You have writer's hands."

"Well, you could say that..."

"Yes, your hand tells me that you are very creative. And you have a very sharp mind. Very smart."

"What else?"

"You are extrememly emotional. But also stubborn. Very stubborn. And you can change yourself to suit the environment--flexible in that way."

(Ah ha! That's my Jekyll to Hyde to Jekyll quality).

"You also like to be your own boss."

He went on describing all of that in more detail. Then he asked me for my sign.

"Sagittarius."

"A fire sign!"

"What about your boyfriend? What sign is he?"

"Well, I don't really have a boyfriend, but..."

"What's the situation?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just an on again off again mess that I'm wrapped up in."

I told him an incredibly truncated, edited and waterd down version of my relationship with Narc.

"What's his sign?"

"Taurus."

"An earth sign. He has a huge ego, right?"

"Yes!"

"He thinks he is smarter than everyone else?"

"He does! You don't know how many times he's told me that he's a 'genius!'"

"Earth is no good for you. He won't budge. I know you want to change things, but he is a rock--the ground. He will never move. He won't move an inch. Your passions are wasted. Fire is very passionate. And fire needs air, or more fire."

"What element is Scorpio?" I asked. (B is a Scorpio).

"Water. That's also no good for you."

"Why not?"

"Water puts out fire; Fire dehydrates water. It's a bad combination. Who was your boyfriend before that?" he asked.

"Leo," I said.

"Leo! Like me. That's another fire. It's good."

(Um, I didn't think the last Leo worked out so well, but whatever...)

"How was that chemistry?"

"Well, actually, not so good," I said. I briefly described the situation.

"Well, he must have been an American man," he said. "American men expect women to come to them. They don't know how to court them--how to win them over."

(This guy was Indian.)

It made me think of a recent conversation I had with Hammer about some guy she's been dating for the past two weeks.

"Well, I don't know," I said. "But I'll be sure to keep all of this in mind before jumping into my next relationship."

"Or you could just call me," he said. "And I could tell you if it's a match."

I laughed and said I would.

Anyway, we talked for while more about a lot of things. He was really easy to talk to and I was just going on and on. As we started to near my corner, he asked if he could call me sometime.

"I guess so."

"Well, when is a good time? What time do you go to bed?"

"Too late," I told him. "Between 2:00 and 4:00 am usually... I go out too often... too much drinking and too much drama."

"Well, I'd love to take you out sometime. Would you ever have dinner with me?"

"Sure, why not?"

When we got to my corner, we exchanged numbers and he refused to take payment for the ride. I don't know why I agreed to it. Maybe it's just that it was a sunny day, or that I felt like talking. As soon as I got up to my apartment, I started to have doubts about the whole thing.

Last night I headed out to Long Island for JBC's birthday dinner (I'll blog about all that later). By the time I got there, I was sure I had made a mistake. I can't go on a date. I just can't. The longer I sat with the whole thing, the more sure I am that I don't want to go. He left me a message on my cell phone this afternoon, just following up. I can't do it though. I'm sorry, but I'm still in love with Narc. I don't want to be, but I am. I don't know what I'm afraid of. I mean, what harm can one dinner do? It's just that I hate people paying for me and I hate getting compliments from people I don't know really well and I hate trying to be charming while making appropriate chit chat. I just feel like the whole thing is phony. Am I just constructing some kind of rationale to not go because I'm scared of it? I don't want to be with Narc anymore, but at the same time, I made a decision last November to be devoted to that, and I haven't been able to pull my heart out of it since. It's like he's been branded on me or something. I just dont' want anyone else.

Blah! I don't want to think about this all right now or get into it right now. I'm only posting because I said I would finish this story. I've got to get some work done, so I'll update on the rest of the weekend later...

-h-