To those who read my blog: Firstly, hello and sorry for not writing in so long. I write for me, for my ego, for practice, for catharsis. It is my deep honor that there are other people out there, if only one or a few who occasionally read my writing and who take something away from it. I have now moved to blogspot for reasons that are not entirely clear to even myself. I write under my name, Carolyn Neuhausen and Silver Tongued Lass. If you are still interested in reading what I have to write you can find me under those names. Thanks for everything and au revoir, a bientot, see you down the road, bonne chance, good luck, etc. etc.....

I feel somewhat like a poseur quoting this or claiming that I feel a connection to this quote, because unlike Grace, the protagonist that says it, I do not think of myself as a hard-living, free-wheeling individual. My actions aren't anyway, though I think my emotions are; I guess I am hard-living in the way that I am brutally honest about what I'm feeling which can be a lot of sadness or pain or fear or discomfort. I almost revel in my emotions, highly involved in them, using them as a guide; I feel like I lay them out to bare, spread, and I roll in them, letting them cover me like sand, much the same way a dog or horse will roll around in dirt.

"I want to bust the world wide open, the way you do when you’re filled with youth. I want to engage with people and lovers and fellow friends. I want to be physical and I also want to ask the big questions. I want to taste the tastes and fix the problems. I want to run-headlong into chaos and bad guys and darkness and pranks and fun and laugh, laugh, laugh. I want to be the best friend, the greatest aunt and the most complicated daughter. I want to be the mystery in the room. And I want to be known."

This quote is part of a promotional commercial for the show Saving Grace and it is probably, the best promo I have ever seen in my life. I was drawn to the show before the commercial, but the television spot totally drew me in. Grace is an intriguing character; she breaks the mold in terms of female power; she's not virginal or chaste. She has no qualms in being sexual and being sexual with different partners, or being sexual without any sort of commitment, which isn't to say she doesn't feel a connection with them, but it does mean that she doesn't necessarily keep one partner or have a long-term relationship with them. She drinks far too much. She smokes like a chimney and she has no problem throwing herself into the fray, literally running headlong into danger. She has no problem using questionable tactics and she is completely feral instead of cerebral, living off of pure Id and emotion. She has a sense of inner hurt and rage at the man that sexually abused her and yet she can not take his life.

I guess in fewer words, she is a real woman in terms of being well rounded and not perfect, or pure or simple. She is flawed, and has great traits and is tough and caring and emotional and cool. She's beautiful and rough around the edges.

Sometimes I feel like I play it so safe with my life that when I look back I'm going to be known as being the most boring twentysomething. But if the alternative is to get drunk and wasted, to get in a bar fight or something else, I just don't want to. And then the little roughness I've willingly put myself into I've regretted to an extent. I guess for me it's hard; it's one or the other.

I told him with my arms around his neck that he was trouble with a capital "T" and he said "yeah I am" with a sly smile on his face. I had to pause at that, thinking listen buddy that wasn't a compliment. Don't be prideful at that comment.

Maybe it is his way of making his life coherent; he rides a motorcycle, he lives by his wits, he pieces together work with no stability of a bi-weekly check and he fancies himself a bad boy Lothario, which he undoubtedly is.

What I don't understand is how anyone can be so cavalier with another person's feelings. I realize it is the cool thing to be a bad boy, the dark guy, mysterious and aloof, overtly sexual and confident and emotionally distant, or even player-like, telling a woman what she wants to hear instead of the truth. The truth being that he's more interested in laying you or getting close and walking away, or keeping you on retainer as he figures out what he wants with other women.

The idea behind the "bad boy" cool is the fact that they are daring, adventurous and interesting. I happen to think that a real bad boy is someone who is daring enough to risk his heart, man enough to stand by one woman in times of prosperity and despair and solid and creative enough to keep things interesting in a long term relationship.

The conventional bad boy is a guy who loves 'em and leaves 'em. He thinks this adds to his manliness and cool exterior. Part of the appeal of the conventional bad boy is that he is rough around the edges and hard-living; he is usually the type of guy to take the long way around or to live the hard way. But nothing is easier than fornicating with a complete or almost stranger, or a friend with benefits. That's easy. It's the easiest thing in the world to be sexual with someone and then leave because there are no commitments, no entangled emotions, no promises that need to be kept, no accountability (at least on his side). Accountability, emotions and promises are difficult and are what make relationships risky and exciting and worthwhile.

In the end, the hardest thing to do is to get into a relationship and to be vulnerable enough to let go and be real; to show your inner self, flaws, good, bad and ugly to your lover. So really, the REAL way to live hard would be to engage in meaningful, deep, honest, intimate connections with lovers, not flimsy, foolish, hurtful, easy, casual sexual liaisons with random or semi-random people. Roll that in your cigarette papers and smoke it!

I guess I define what a man really is and how he can be "cool" on different terms than he did. In fact, it's not just him; I think I define those terms differently than most men and certainly from all players.

I'm looking for something more, for a real bad boy I guess. I suppose I feel better releasing him into the world, where one day he might learn this very lesson. Or he might not. But either way, I won't have to deal with it, and my only job will be to weed out the poseurs looking to establish or build up their bad boy street cred; the ones who want to prove their manliness by adding notches to their bedposts. In the end I'm not looking for a poseur, I'm looking for the real deal.