to have tangoed at all

when i was ten i saw Rent on broadway.
my favorite song in the whole show was tango maureen.
i used it to audition for tom sawyer the musical at my westchester elementary school. played both parts and everything. thinking about it now i probably caused quite a stir in the faculty meeting that week but was completely oblivious.
i just loved the song.
maureen and joanne were also the first exposure i had to a lesbian couple.
maureen is not a common name.
it is however, the name of the girl i have, for a month now, been dating.
there, i said it in plain english. i am and have always been attracted to a very specific-and not very prevalent- type of woman.
at age 23 im finally sorting out what that means and how far that extends and its been a thrilling adventure.
particularly exciting because this girl, maureen -and i do feel fine using her name here because 1. shell never read this. ever. and 2. she doesnt actually go by maureen on a daily basis- is absolutely 100% infuriatingly unpredictable.
unfortunately the personality of the infamously flakey, unfaithful, unreliable and manipulative maureen-of-rent and maureen-of-my-life are uncannily similar.
i resisted drawing too many parallels for a while, despite my musically-inclined roomies excitement at the near perfect overlay of life and art, but ive officially given up.
maureen is maureen.
and i am joanne: completely addled, defensive and deeply in denial that, to quote a wise man, i've driven into fuckville, and shes the MAYOR.
well today she finally wrote me an email that hurt enough to make me realize im being played. and to make me see how crazy it is that ive been hinging my happiness on this baited hook...
the experience she gave me was wonderful, transformative, i'll never forget it. i am grateful.
but trying to make that experience into an extended relationship was foolish and a symptom of me trying to fill the large hole left by a very worthy person who i miss very much.
at any rate, today i drove to speak to a (legitimately) wise woman i concord, MA. shes the former dean of radcliffe and an old colleague of my great cousin once removed or something. whatever the relation, shes brilliant and im blessed to have met her. she got her phD in french literature and gender studies approximately 50 years ago. speaks three languages fluently and listens to NPR 23 hours a day. she kept me on my toes for two hours on topics ranging from Pinter to TiVo to the sexuality of The adolecent boy in The Reader. At the end she bought me a book she just finished at the concord book store, The Madonnas of Leningrad, i'll let you know how it goes. this meeting was the highlight of the week.
but the point is, driving to and from the place, i rolled the windows down, turned the music up as high as it would go and let the almost-spring wind blow the cobwebs out of my car and out of my brain.
it felt great. i felt free. not sad, free.
and as a tribute to the entire experience i will give in and post the song that started it all.

later, lady.