Heather goes to the Guggenheim

During a whirlwind 3 days in New York City with one of my best friends, she obliged me to visit one more museum at the very end of our trip when our feet were killing us, the heat was borderline ridiculous and we'd already spent a week of hardcore touring, but given what happened when we went to the Guggenheim, I think she'd tell you it was worth it.

After wandering in the wrong direction for several blocks we jumped in a taxi. The funny thing about taxi's in New York is they're actually nothing like the movies- they don't pull over when you yell taxi and if they do, then they'll decide whether or not they want to take you and not the other way around. But I digress.

We arrive at Frank Lloyd Wright's white spiraling masterpiece and presented our city pass tickets to get in- (side note for anyone traveling ANYWHERE who likes to do touristy things I highly recommend finding out if the city or country you're visiting does these- they may seem expensive up front but when you add up all the stuff you're going to do together, you save a fortune larger than the one you spent on the pass- trust me!)

So tickets done, we start up the spiral and up to the level one gallery, on display are a few of Frank Lloyd Wright's own sketches and models including one of his most famous Over Falling Water. I resisted texting my architect friends with every fiber of my being- actually, it had more to do with not having their numbers in my phone and international texting charges.

Second floor, some impressionism and some more modern surrealist pieces- a Pollock (which I later saw the film based on his life with Ed Harris- awesome- check it out, he's like an American Van Gogh personality wise). I'm rounding the pieces while my friend sits patiently in the foyer rubbing her feet (she also hates modern art). Nearing the end, I come across this piece entitled "Ant Farm" by Roni Horn (there's no image on the Guggenheim website sorry). As I'm looking at this piece I start to think to myself this thing looks like the one page book company did a one page edition of the Kama Sutra. Seriously.

As I'm contemplating this large piece, a large security guard comes and stands beside me and says, "Excuse me ma'am, can I ask you what you see in this painting?"

Now he is asking this question when he and I both know the answer already, so I did what any good demure midwestern girl would do- I lied. I did see shapes and letters in the painting but the shapes were mainly phallic and/or other parts of male genitalia intermingled with... well let's just say intermingled.

I guess I don't pull off the sweet and innocent virginal girl act very well, because the conversation didn't end there, because he tells me that, "this other lady said she saw one big motha f-in orgy up in there!"

Great, he said it. What we were both thinking and I didn't want to hear, now it's awkward and I really can't make my escape to the next painting because conversations never end smoothly after someone brings up sex, unless that is of course that you want to sleep with the other person your conversing with.

Sure enough, if I had any doubts about that, the security guard cleared that up by saying that I was a beautiful woman and that black men appreciate a woman with curves and not any of those "skinny bitches." Now it's strange when someone calls you fat and means it as a compliment, but when they also use it as a pick up line, that's something real special.

The rest of the conversation goes something like this:

Him: So where in New York do you live?

Me: I don't, I live in Fargo (thank God- and that is honestly I think the only time I've EVER had that thought!)

Him: I got a cousin who works for the airlines, you could come back here real cheap if you wanted and stay with me.

Me: ...oh...I see.

Him: Let me give you my number.

Me: *pretending to rummage through bag- I haven't got a pen.

Him: I do, here *takes brochure from my hand* Now let me ask you, do you date black men?

Me: I haven't but I'm in the middle of getting divorced (hopefully that will work?)

Him: I'm sorry to hear that what happened?

Me: He just wasn't ready to be married

Him: Oh he played around on ya? What a damn fool, you're beautiful.

Me: Thanks, I should really be getting back to my friend who is out there waiting for me (WHY did I not think of that sooner? Oh wait I did but this is the first time he's shut up long enough to let me say it!)

I walked away, feeling his gaze the entire way to the corner and grabbed my friend while bursting at the seams with laughter. I begin to relay the story but she wants to take the elevator to the top so we get in and another museum employee is already in the elevator. I decided I really didn't care and continued with the story. Now the other museum employee is laughing with us and trying to guess whose number is on my brochure.

All in all, the Guggenheim was just another museum after a slew of other touristy things and to be honest, if I had to choose between that and the MoMA, I'd go for the later for a lot of reasons, volume of artworks for one and personal preference in art for another, but then again, maybe there's something to be said for a museum where the staff is more interesting than the art...

Heather goes to the gay bar

Written August 2009

Happened June 2008 & August 2009

There are certain rites of passage that everyone goes through and then there are the rites of passage that can only happen after turning the magical age of 21- i.e. strip clubs and gay bars.

Dublin hosted the Bingham Cup in the summer of 2008. The Bingham Cup is also known as the world cup of gay men's rugby. I had an email from my friend Matthew who I'd met in Portsmouth back in 2001 that said he was going to be in Dublin and he'd love to meet up. Of course we didn't actually get to go out until the night of the final match when everyone really let their...er... hair down (this was literal in the case of the Australian team as they all dressed up in drag for the party).

The first bar located on the north end of Temple Bar wasn't really that exciting. It looked like a post game party- with drag queens. The second bar, called the George & Dragon, filled in late just like any other club, but by midnight I began to feel like a diabetic kid in a candy store. Beautiful broad shouldered and built men everywhere and they all played for the other team.

Finding a man who did play for my team proved to be more difficult than scoring a try on the field. One poor guy who had been singled out and presented to me announced in a rather panicked voice "No, I'm gay!" when he realized that the other lads were trying to set him up with a girl.

I ended up dancing the night away, which was also a very startling experience as most of the men on the dance floor had taken their shirts off. I like to think that it wasn't the same-sex bumping and grinding that heightened my awareness of my surroundings but rather their semi-nakedness. I'm not really one for public displays of affection in clubs and often wish that people who do would just go home and get on with their bedroom olympics rather than doing it on the dance floor for all to see.

I left the club in a taxi around 4a.m. and discovered that taxi drivers get really annoyed when you don't know how to get to your destination because you don't know where you live. I had just returned to Dublin and would only be there for two months before going traveling and then back to the USA, so I let my old apartment go and rented a room in a house near my office in Dundrum. I didn't know the area very well and was consequently less than helpful explaining where I needed to go. He finally dropped me off near the Beacon Hospital (because I knew I could see that landmark from my bedroom window). Who says all bar stories that end in a trip to the hospital are bad?

E-dating disasters

Written July 2009

Happened February-March 2008

So I joined one of those website dating services in part because my friends were doing it, in part because like Drew Barrymore says in He's Just Not That Into You, "it's hard to meet people organically," and in part because well, egos suffer after break ups and need to be repaired.

Date number one: the Kiwi

He's very good-looking from his profile and after a few clever emails back and forth, we exchange numbers and decide to meet up. He's funny and quick so over some mild text flirting, I ask what I should wear to this date and that his reply should not be "come naked," to which his reply was "that just made my cock shoot straight up."

You'd think that after this, I would have canceled the date or tried to get out of it early some how, but what can I say? He was hot and interested and after a long dry spell you are a little less picky about the small details... if they're hot.

Date number two: the Northern guy

Like the Kiwi, he had a really amazing accent which is a turn on, but unlike Kiwi guy, he is NOT hot, not even luke warm.

We met at a bar in Temple Bar on a Saturday night, which for those of you who have never been is crowded and touristy and this bar was both. He did a gentlemanly thing by giving me the one bar stool but then followed it up with the worst conversation ever. He actually said the phrases "All women are fascists, just look at Hitler, women love a man in uniform, that's how he got in." (FYI my master's degree is in Women's Studies, just to add even more hilarity to that statement).

I bought the second round so I wouldn't feel obligated to this guy and then pulled out every not interested card that I could think of including the divorce card, going out and smoking when I know it annoys him and finally faked a stomach ache to get out of there. It was only mildly amusing when he had the gall to look surprised that the date was ending so early.

Date three: Irish guy 1

He looked nice, had a good sense of humor and seemed like a collected sound and professional guy. He even bought dinner when I got up to use the ladies room, which was not my intent, I like paying for myself because it tones down the weird factor for me, and if I managed to feel beholden to Hitler boy over one beer, I really felt bad when this guy bought my mini nasi goreng.

So what was the problem? He had an enormous head. I seriously sat there throughout the whole date thinking about the size of his cranium. I just sat there thinking that I could never have his children because it would actually kill me. Seriously, this is not a normal thing to think on a first date (or any date fore that matter) as procreation and dating are two things that probably should not go together. I ended up kissing him goodnight, which was awkward as all hell and then tried to think of a nice way of saying we're not going out again because you have an enormous noggin... I hope he's not still waiting for that text. Thankfully a chat with a colleague later made me feel a lot better about this because she'd had a similar situation with another big-headed man.

Date number four: the Scot

Bars seemed to be shorter and less painful meeting places than restaurants after big-head guy. He chose the place for mojitos and the conversation went well so we carried on to another bar. He had a great accent (like all of the others) and despite being 5'3 height has never been a problem for me, because it's hard to find someone shorter than I am without going into midget territory- (is that the PC term? Little people makes me think Leprechauns and although I was in the right place for it, I never dated one of those- to my knowledge).

We sat at the second bar and he was telling me all about working for Guinness and picking out the exact shade of red for one of their ales, which believe it or not was actually much cooler than it sounds as I type it. When the conversation began to run out I started trying to remember things from his profile to talk about (I'm sure the fact that I had to keep a close eye on the time didn't help with the flow of the conversation, but I was flying to Paris to see a friend the next day and needed to be responsible).

So I remembered that this guy was Buddhist and asked him how he came into that faith and his response was "because I found it was most accepting of my fluid sexuality."

Now I've been around the block a few times (at least I thought I had) and I'd never heard that one before, so I asked him to elaborate.

His response: "Oh I've had both male and female partners," and I about died. Now, I have no problem with bisexuality or homosexuality, but I don't like competition and upping the ante from 50 percent of the population to 100 doesn't seem to increase my odds now does it?

I drank my fourth drink rather hastily not knowing how to respond to that last exchange and decided it was time to head home. On the way, I decided to ask the $64,000 question, "How many?" His response was, "Men, three and women, I quit counting after I turned 23," (for the record he was 33 at the time of our date.

I didn't make my flight the next morning, I went home and celebrated my single girl status with my housemates. To my credit, I only missed the check in for my flight by five measly minutes and was actually kind of grateful for the extra time I got to sleep until the next flight left for Paris.

Date five: Irish guy 2

He picks the place; it's a blues bar on the north side of Dublin. We have a bite to eat on the way there and when we arrive, there isn't blues as such, it's blues for kids. There are kids everywhere, crawling under the tables, under our feet, shouting and slightly engaging with the musicians who are trying to keep the children's attention.

The word awkward doesn't even begin to describe it, I never got in touch with him again and neither did he.

Scrot Guy

Written January 2009

So last night Heather went out on a second date with a local businessman. He has good banter via text and a similar dry sense of humour thus necessitating a second date to determine if he was actually worth keeping around, the end result was a resounding no.

Highlights of the date:
He does not drink- had to quit at 25 because he was on the verge of becoming the next Hunter S Thompson

He has moderate ADHD to the point of distraction (which he explained during the first date). He cannot sit facing a wall, watches everyone as they pass, surveys the whole of the restaurant and more often that not looks like he doesn't care what you're saying (but he is listening- and could repeat back everything you said verbatim, trust me I tested him on this.)

He is rude to the server and makes snapping gestures when the server isn't there (albeit jokingly) anyone who was ever a server knows how annoying and not funny this is.

He is still asking me to come over to his place to give him a massage (he has done since trying to organize the first date) was kinda cute before but now at the hundred and sixtieth time it's getting a bit annoying and old.

He shows me a check for over $5,000 underneath a stack of cash he's carrying around in his wallet, don't ask me why, I don't think I give off the gold digger vibe because talking about money is one of the top five sure-fire ways to turn me off.

He tells me about how he bought a skeleton and a coffin from a woman near South Dakota and it's positioned in his store so that no one knows it's in there but would love to mechanize the hand to push the lid so "Jack" could peek out and scare people. He then explains that it was a medical-purposes body donated to science one so that it's perfectly legal to own it- apparently he's looked into this extensively.

He shows me a picture text of a scrotum pulled into a heart shape where there's a I and a U photoshopped in to read I heart U.

Then tells me a joke about having a tattoo on his member that reads Jesus- so he can ask a girl during sex what it feels like to have Jesus inside her, to which I said, "Seriously? That was the punch line? You couldn't have come up with a better one like the second coming of Christ or something?"

Now in and of themselves, each of these things could normally have occurred among friends in the pub and I probably would have given exactly the same kind of responses that I did to this guy, laugh and have another beer and be glad I'm not going home with this person.

I like to think I have a pretty good sense of humour and it takes a lot to gross me out or shock me- but when you're trying to impress someone (or at very least sleep with them) you usually leave the scrotums and such for a later date right? Fourth or fifth at very least...