I’m putting this saga to bed. A whole life in just one week (October 11-20, 2018) folded up, wrapped in tissue paper and placed in a Rubbermaid container shoved under the bed. Below are some of the posts from a trip in which I flew to meet the Israeli and ended up having several unexpected experiences.

Not the full story, but just enough to exorcise the ghost.

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There’s an Elvis impersonator at the gate. And people are staring but not staring, ya know? It must be like wearing a Halloween costume all year long.

He’s LITERALLY talking as Elvis on a cellphone.

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He ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time.

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I’m sitting next to some anal retentive old Midwesterner who wants me to switch with her friend who is in the back of the plane. I asked if she was saving the seat when I got onto the plane, she said no. Now she wants me to move from the front row to the middle seat 30 rows back.

I do enough fucking good deeds already. She can suck it.

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Anyone in Chicago wanna help me find a place for the night?

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I got a room in Chicago thanks to Mike. I have a Tinder date with the mayor’s brother Ari. And I have a flight reservation for tomorrow evening. If Elvis is on my flight I will kill him with a coffee stirrer. And I bought a $15 Toblerone because #stresseating.

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I’m in a hotel in Chicago. Never been to the city before. Never been in a hotel room by myself. Maybe I’ll check out downtown tomorrow.

Shi-kah-gow.

If Elvis starts singing on the plane tomorrow I’m going to become a Cher impersonator!

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So what do you do when you’re “stuck” in a city you’ve never been to before with nothing to do? You post about it on Facebook. And then a friend whom you’ve never met in person invites you to the heart of downtown. You take an Uber. You see the lights of the city, the Field Museum, the Navy Pier. And then finally her. She’s a brilliant attorney, for sure. But she’s the badass you always hoped to be. She works on Supreme Court Cases out of a smoking lounge. She takes you to a real life speakeasy. And you spend the night pouring your hearts out over wine, the way two women who’ve seen things, I mean real things, do.

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What becomes of the desert rat dressed in a t-shirt, light overalls, Birkenstock’s and a jean jacket when she’s caught for a day in 41 degree Chicago? Does she brave the wind and cold ? Does she suffer, Starbucks in hand, huddled with the basic vowel bending Midwestern masses?

Not this little desert rat. With a flick of the wrist I found myself on Michigan Avenue, home to Chicago’s finest shopping. In an hour I went from Tucson hipster to sophisticated woman of the world. Black Calvin Klein sweater dress, black leggings, black high heeled Calvin Klein boots. And a black puffer vest to stay warm. I am not gonna lie. I look good.

So what do you do when you have two hours to relax and charge your phone before you have to rejoin the struggle? Why you go to the bar at the Ritz-Carlton, of course. Where Demetrio pours you a nice Sangiovese. And you strike up a conversation with the woman next to you…who compliments your sophisticated wardrobe and then tells you about her job…as an executive for Mikimoto. As in big time jeweler.

And you talk about your education…the International Baccalaureate degree, the talk at the UN, and on and on because her daughter went to UNIS (the UN school in New York you visited when you were 17) and she has the IB diploma too.

You could drop me in Dubai, wearing a parka and flip flops, and I would find a way to be on top in an hour. That’s not bragging. That’s not boasting. That’s fact.

How did you spend the last unexpected 30 hour layover?

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Can you take a barge from Chicago to NYC? Because I’m pretty sure it would be faster than taking Southwest.

For this I got here early?

#suchanewyorker #oy

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My Michel. The love of my life. The peanut butter to my jelly.
#wombtotomb #almostforty

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Oh God! Sometimes you catch yourself in a moment where you see your shadow and you realize that ethereal thought box of a head you have is connected to a greedy heart and a thirsty body. And then you have to acknowledge that it does feel really good to go to bed with him. But only by virtue of its absence—the cruelest of teachers.

Last night I slept with the flamingo. Nothing happened. I came over, we talked. We listened to stand up comedy. We drank beer. And then it was 2:54 in the morning and he let me sleep over. And so I did…on the bed where we’ve done a lot of things beyond sleep. But that’s not what this was about. He’s in love and so am I but not with each other.

It can be so heartachingly splendid to feel someone ripped from you by an alarm clock. And so it was. I am clean as the driven snow, but oh so satisfied with how I can be in the presence of the flamingo and not only not need to have guaranteed mind blowing sex, but to wake up in the morning after sleeping like brother and sister completely satisfied in a different way.

But do I want to know that? How splendid it can be to not wake up alone? To sense the corporal being of another lying inches away and feel good? To feel…human? To want kindness and affection? To breathe easy for a second and bask in the luxury of the utter absence of the anxiety that cripples your mind every conscious minute of every day? To say, “Oh! That’s how intimacy feels! I’d banished its memory out of fear!”

Yes. Short answer. But to know I have earthly needs and desires when I have gotten by pretending that I am too fucking zen for this shit is next level Emperor’s clothing. I am naked and exposed and now I have to decide how I handle that vulnerability.

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Still in bed at the flamingo’s, I check Tinder and the 🦄 is less than a mile away. When I checked it last night he was still in Sweden. So I walk the ten minutes from the flamingo’s to the 🦄’s, knowing that he will be zonked from his trip. I decide against coffee. Too forward. I just go into his building and up to his place. Unannounced. Knock on the door. He opens it, in a robe, and he looks rough. Like death on toast. He turns around and doesn’t close the door. He just walks back to his bedroom and says, “Let’s go to sleep.”

So I go inside (my rightful apartment, not really, but I love it) and go to my side of the bed, take off my earrings, shoes, glasses and jeans, and get into bed. He pulls the covers over me and grabs my arm to spoon him. My arm glides across his thin frame and my hand lands at home base, on his chest, feeling his heart beat. We sleep like that for a while. And then we do the intricate dance moves from one spooning position to another and finally to me on his chest with his arms around me. Without saying even a single word.

Finally he says, “I’ve got a meeting at 10. I’m gonna bolt up at 9:30.” And I know that when his alarm goes off…for the third time…that it is my cue to leave. Maybe forever. But I also know that I am a comfort to him. And as a woman, it’s incredibly appealing to know you are a comfort to the man that you love.

He’ll be in Miami this weekend, and perhaps so shall I because the people in my life migrate like blue whales and sea turtles and monarch butterflies. Always in the same place at the same time with no general guiding purpose but kismet.

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Buddha would laugh at this. I’m staying at my friend Erica’s apartment. Her roommate Sam is an amazing guy. We’ve been talking alllllllll day. I love him. He’s gorgeous and talented and practically Mexican.

I’ve been bragging about Michael all day…not by name…just as “my friend.” And I finally show a picture of Michael to Sam and he says, “He looks like Michael Cooper.”

Turns out Sam and Michel know each other through Michael’s collaborator Anton. Because it’s a tiny fucking world.