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I have a terrible habit of starting things and then never finishing them. Like joining Weight Watchers, going to the gym, reading books, and writing in my journal. Right now I am presently reading 4 different books with three more sitting on the back burner until I’m done with the first two—one of which happens to be Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume, which I’ve been meaning to read for four years. I’m half way through finishing D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and a few chapters in to Charlaine Harris’ 11th Sookie Stackhouse Novel entitled Dead in the Family. A biography of the Borgias also remains partially read as does Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which I like to sift through while I watch television and sip on a dirty martini. So after I have an affair, slay a few vampires, and familiarize myself with one of Italy’s most salacious families, I intend to teach myself how to make the perfect French omelet in addition to one hell of a boeuf bourguignon. Sounds like a good plan…if I can actually accomplish it! It frustrates me that this predisposition to never carry anything through transgresses in to all aspects of my life. I think about going back to school to become a MFT or sexologist, but never do it. I think about writing the next great American novel—or rather romance novel, but never do it. I think about making homemade duck liver pâté and coq au vin but never do it. And I think all the time about moving to Europe, traveling historical towns, eating fine foods and writing about it. And if it weren’t for the fact that I’m afraid to be poor I’d actually do that one. But my own desire for monetary comfort dictates that that fantasy must—at least for the moment—remain just that: a fantasy.

When was the last time I followed through with something? Even this weekend I cheated myself out of finishing a list of chores. I cleaned the bathroom, pledged and windexed my whole house, vacuumed all the dog hair from under the bed…but when it came time for me to mop the hardwood floors, I decided instead to sit down on the couch, drink a beer, flip through Julia Child’s best selling cookbook, and watch the 1988 hit film, BIG, starring Tom Hanks and Elizabeth Perkins. I also DVR’d Death Becomes Her because it was my favorite movie when I was in 3rd grade. I really have no idea why my mother would let me watch such an awful, sexually charged film at such a young age, but knowing the woman I turned out to be, it makes all the more sense to me now. But I digress and that wasn’t my point (although I really should re-touch on that topic again at a later time). All I had to do was mop the floor. That’s all I had left! But I didn’t do it. I chose to be lazy, drink a six pack, and reminisce on bygone days. What shame.

I also seem to have the unfortunate habit of thinking about old lovers while driving on the freeway—a dangerous habit which has almost caused me to have a number of unnecessary accidents. I constantly go back to the same two—one of whom wasn’t even a lover in the physically carnal sense of the word. But both of them are definitely former loves, and for some inexplicable reason, the gentle hum of my car driving 85 mph down the 5 freeway seems to put me in a type of fugue state where I completely forget where I am altogether until I reach my desired destination and daily regret having to say to myself, “I have no idea how I got here.” If only I could think of them at more appropriate times: like while walking on the treadmill at the gym or while touching myself in the shower. Isn’t that what normal people do? I even know of some who choose to think romantically of their former lovers while engaging in something physical with their present lover. But not me. There’s nothing worse than calling out the wrong person’s name in bed. That happened to me once. Someone called me Michelle. I should have ended it there. Unfortunately, I went on to date that individual for a year. You know, sometimes the signs are so forcefully in front of your face that you can’t help but be blinded by them and thus look the other way. Come to think of it, I’ve made a lot of mistakes with men through the years. And in such a short time, too! But that’s what happens when you’re a serial monogamist like I am. When one relationship ends another one begins and it doesn’t leave you with much to reflect on in between.

It was not the passion that was new to her, it was the yearning adoration. She knew she had always feared it, for it left her helpless; she feared it still, lest if she adored him too much, then she would lose herself, become effaced, and she did not want to be effaced, a slave, like a savage woman. She must not become a slave. She feared her adoration, yet she would not at once fight against it.

~ D.H. Lawrence (Lady Chatterley's Lover)~