Me vs. the Tigard PD

I stumble out of Joe's apartment and circle the building blearily until I find the right Max stop. I hate trying to navigate first thing in the morning. I have to remind myself that the people around me can't see into my head to know how stupid I am.

I get off the Max and run to catch the bus. Ridiculous, at my age. I am way too old for this shit, hitching up my waistband every few steps. How do the kids these days do it? Are there suspenders hidden under those baggy shirts? Andy Fucking Rooney, that's me.

There's a Willamette Week on the bus seat-- the headline reads, "To Catch a Stoner." Shit, better read that. Evidently, Tigard cops are placing ads on Craigslist, in Casual Encounters, my home turf, to catch men willing to trade weed for sex. They claim it's a widespread form of prostitution. What. The. Fuck. I am not a prostitute. I may have sold a pair of my panties for $20, but I have never sold my body. I keep reading.

The ads the Tigard detectives placed are, mercifully, very different from anything I've ever posted. Unlike the sting's fictitious hot blondes, I will not fuck just any random guy, no matter how much weed he's got. I think about last night, and how Joe sheepishly confessed he was out of weed. I didn't storm out. I shrugged and had another beer. Surely no one will accuse me of prostituting myself for two cans of PBR.

Here’s a thing about dating—in a normal relationship, I’m all for paying my own way. But for the casual sex thing, yeah, I do expect the guy to pay. Simply because no-strings dick is a glut on the market, and no-strings pussy is rare. There are so few areas of my life where being female is an asset, that I don’t feel too badly about taking advantage of this one. Don’t get me wrong-- I’m not a gold-digger. I’m just talking about a couple of drinks, maybe a sandwich, a few hits. I’m a cheap date, and unless you’re a creep, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get in my pants. I don’t think that’s unfair.

So people keep asking how I got into this whole thing. I mean, it is a little weird. Two years ago, I was an old married lady with a kid and a mortgage and everything. And then I fell in love. Boy, was that a mistake. Of course, it didn’t last, and that is how I found myself divorced and alone for the first time at 35. Not so much what you dream about when you’re a little girl.

I knew that there was no way I should be looking for another boyfriend, on account of I was having this whole Franny Glass-style nervous breakdown, what with the divorce, and the breakup, and all this other shit that isn’t even relevant. But on the other hand, no way did I want to be celibate. You know what they say about women over 35? Yeah. Totally true.

Sometimes it’s fun, meeting a new guy. You shave your legs all the way up. You put on a little more makeup than usual, make sure you’ve got good underwear. You sit at a table in a bar with a book, trying not to look around in an obvious, uncool manner. You fidget with your drink, smoke too many cigarettes, and wonder— how will this one be? You have a number of half-assed theories about what traits signal a good lover: one cat is good, two cats is bad…

The part that’s hard sometimes is that apart from the crazy, I really think I have a lot of admirable traits as a girlfriend. I don’t mind if you check out other girls— hell, I’ll check ‘em out with you. If you’ve had a really lousy week, I’ll buy you a dub and let you give it to me up the ass. I’m not going to complain about boy’s night out, or that you don’t want to go shoe shopping with me. I mean, in a lot of ways I’m pretty cool.

The problem is, I’m not really an adult yet. I mean, yeah, I’m 35, I was married for 15 years, I have a kid, bla bla y bla. But I’ve never had to be responsible for myself before. It’s ridiculous. And it sucks. I hate not being able to whine until someone else does the stupid shit I don’t want to do. Being a grownup is hard, y’all.

I get lonely. I get really, really lonely. Sometime the guys help, sometimes they don’t. The part I hate the most is the morning after, when I’m all bleary and needing coffee and trying to figure out how to get home and not sure if I want to see him again or if they want to see me…. It’s just hella awkward. It’s easier once you’ve seen a guy a few times and you know what to expect.

One thing that always surprises me about guys is how most of them really don’t tidy their apartments, even when they know that there’s a pretty good chance of having a girl over. I’m not complaining, mind you. I’m a slob myself. But dude, dirty socks and underwear on the floor? Not a big deal, but still. I don’t think you’ll catch most girls doing that. But Joe’s place isn’t bad. Beer cans are abundant, but hell, we’ve had a heat wave.

Age differences are weird. I’ve only gone five years older, but Joe is eleven years younger. As long as I’m not actually old enough to be his mother, that’s ok, right? Plus, you know, I’m emotionally immature. It’s weird to me that such a young guy would find me attractive, but I’m not complaining.

I notice guys checking me out more now. I was used to it, when I was young and thin, but it stopped when I was visibly pregnant. It started up again recently, all kinds of guys. Recently, a drunk guy at the bus stop hugged me and offered me two grand to have his baby. Thanks, but no. I look the same as I did five years ago, and no one was checking me out then. Maybe I’m giving off “do me” vibes or something.

I’m checking them out more too, for sure. When a movie starts, before the plot really gets going, I divide all the actors into “Yes” or “No.” I rate every man around me, especially if there’s several of them. I don’t know why it’s more fun to pick your favorite of several options than to rate just one, but it totally is.

Joe’s shoulders are thin, and endearingly freckled. He talks for hours, telling stories of smuggling huge quantities of Xanax from TJ to Anaheim, working as an outdoor vendor at Disneyland, how he went into banking out of an interest in microeconomics. This is not a guy I’d ever fall in love with. This is not a guy I’d ever marry. But tonight, for each other, we are good enough for now.