Singled Out: The Lesbian Who Dumped the Marlboro Man

So I grabbed the bull by the horns and made a dramatic life-changing decision: I broke up with Marlboro Man.

I flushed down the toilet a quarter of a century of my life spent with the most committed and dedicated man who was there for me through thick and thin, loved me in health as in sickness and stood by me in poverty as in wealth.

Even though I am indeed approaching, at God's speed, the big 4.0, this was far from a mid-life crisis or a wake up call. After all, it was only the umpteenth time I pulled the gun on my smoking hot American cowboy. Granted, he and I have certainly endured some tumultuous times before but the relationship always survived beautifully, pulling us closer together.

I gave him the boot for good and not because I had an epiphany of some philanthropist sort; not because I suddenly became health conscious; and certainly not because every time I ran up Runyon Canyon my asphyxiated lungs were about to brutally pop out of my chest. Please, I'm not that perfect!

I broke up with my Marlboro Man out of sheer boredom, for lack of having anything else better to do. And I did it cold turkey not to mention cold-heartedly.
No notes, no warning and no formal goodbye... I just packed his shit, dumped it all on the front porch and slammed the door in his face.  

Ok, I really was in desperate need of a new hobby--something stimulating as well as challenging. So I thought I would spice things up by daring myself to committing the unthinkable. And of course, by unthinkable I was thinking along the lines of something scandalously far from resembling my role model of a personality, which would for sure send the rest of the world into utter shock... Because, evidently, the rest of the world is preoccupied with my daily whereabouts and activities.

I don't know about the hordes of my devoted planetary fans but as far as my local bootie was concerned, it sure sent me right to the electric chair.
Invariably, I went through the excruciating agony of dealing with the generic process of the withdrawal symptoms and suffered through episodes of separation anxiety accompanied by shortness of breath, "cry me a river" sessions, chronic insomnia, lack of appetite, loss of energy and overall inability to focus on anything else but the immense void the physical separation left me with. I was irreversibly thrown into uncharted territory. Somehow, my world became numbingly disrupted -- my routine, my home, my work, my relationships with my friends and family and even my identity.

Yet the pain of the grief endured through the detoxification phase was not the most insurmountable obstacle facing me.  Strangely, something bigger and stronger than the typical harrowing set of symptoms involved with the rupture of an intimate bond between a couple manifested itself.

The jolt of electrical current and shock waves resulting from the abrupt total absence of my lone ranger not only catapulted me into a wildly out of control emotional rollercoaster ride but also caused immediate unconsciousness with severe internal and mental damaging repercussions - or was it side effects?

Suddenly I was thinking straight! And by "straight" I don't mean figuratively but LITERALLY. The entire first week I spent on smoking cessation mode purging the toxins, I found myself abnormally, and yes disturbingly, sexually pulled towards the opposite sex. Everywhere I went I was overwhelmed with this powerful magnetic urge to stare at guys and consider for a minute or two a life long spent in the company of a man - preferably of the gentleman breed. A panoply of chick flicks kept playing 24/7 on the wide plasma screen perched up on the walls of my "temporarily out of order" brain. Not only did I see them all - the Pretty Woman Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally and the Love Actually kinds - but I was also living them all in my head seemingly adapting each scenario to make it mine.  

I spent an inordinate amount of time daydreaming, longing, wishing and praying that my prince charming would come sweep me off of my feet and take me to his castle - hopefully a mansion in Bel Air with an Olympic size swimming pool, a Ferrari, a private jet and private chef - where I'd live happily and filthy rich ever after.

Clearly, the devil had possessed my soul.  I mean, for God's sake, I knew I was absolutely demented when I suddenly began paying more attention to Brad Pitt than Angelina Jolie.
"Someone please rescue me from the brink of self-destruction," I kept screaming silently.

I couldn't quite yet find a way to reconcile the constant conflict caused by my desire to feel normal again and the pain inflicted by the uncontrollable memories associated with my ex - my rodeo man. Where the fuck was the "selective amnesia" button?

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(continued)

What was it about my damned cowboy that safely kept me queerly saddled up?
While half of my brain was trying to find the logical answer to the nagging question, the other half, having already downed five umbrella drinks, was now merrily participating in a Lady Gaga Karaoke performance - mind you, with slightly revised lyrics that went a little something like this: "Don't think too much, Just bust that kick, I want to take a ride on your nicotine stick."

Since I couldn't take any more of the mental torture, constantly trying to make up my mind on whether to take John Wayne back, I promptly phoned my super sexy therapist. Not that I needed to urgently see her to regurgitate all my psychological woes, I just needed to see her --period! I figured that spending an hour in her gorgeous presence would surely bring me back to my gay senses.

To stir up some serenity, peace and gay clarity within my distorted self, my super sexy therapist suggested I join her brand new revolutionary "aqua therapy" class. Surely I wasn't going to pass on the opportunity to not only be in my natural element - water - but as well, catch a prolonged glimpse of God's ambulant gift to gay women sporting a Speedo.

Luckily, the gist of the aquatic session consisted of a series of underwater exercises designed to balance our breathing patterns and to release negative anger by yelling like maniacs. It might have been interpreted as an excess of zealousness by my classmates but I solidly kept the record for being the one staying under water the longest.  I wasn't trying to prove anything but when armed with ultra super anti-fog goggles, what else could I do but stare?

However, it wasn't my super sexy therapist found myself insistently checking out but this dude in the other lane who caught my eyes with his inhumanly cut athletic body. I was devastated to see that even the aqua therapy was bringing me no solace. The more I kept practicing the underwater anger management screaming technique the more I stared at my handsome stranger and the more my anger escalated.

Clearly, I had to get my feet back on the ground and my ass back in the saddle ASAP.
So I made amends with my cowboy - Yippee aw, yippee yea, I am back to being gay!  
Oh please don't roll your eyes or give me other disapproving looks. I'm just blowing smoke!

Of course the reason I was eyeballing guys was not about the lack of nicotine to my brain - just the lack of brain. But, I'm finally blowing the smoke away.

I swear I'm quitting on Monday!

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