Message from Heaven

I try not to get too depressed on Valentine’s Day, but I got up this morning and realized that I had received just one card this year—and that was from my aunt.

Casanova can rest easy as I’m not about to usurp his title as the world’s greatest lover any time soon.

I thought I was on to something last week when I got an email reading “Message from Heaven” that had popped up in Friendster account.

I didn’t think the Lord wrote emails but then He does work in mysterious ways. However, this was no divine intervention. I clicked on the link and saw a photo of three young women in bathing suits smiling at the camera.

It was grainy and amateurish, like a vacation photo, and I wondered if I actually knew someone named Heaven. (I assumed she was the one in the middle.)

Maybe I had met her at some event, or perhaps she was the friend of a friend, or a former co-worker. Maybe I was just grasping at straws.

Whoever she was, she was attractive and interested in me, and since I don’t have anybody, I let my imagination fill in the details. So I clicked on her photo.

“View my adult profile!” a title screamed at me. “I'm looking for a woman or couple to join me and my man for some fun. We love to role play, so you get brownie points if you have acting abilities!”

And just in time for Valentine’s Day!

I clicked her profile and was immediately taken to a site called “Sex in Your City,” where a pop-up registration form appeared before me listing such categories as “Woman,” “Man,” “Transexual,” “Group,” Fetish,” or “Other.”

After those first few choices, that “Other” really makes me nervous.

I almost had a girlfriend this year—and not an Internet porn fantasy. I mean, I was so close to the whole routine: cards, candy, the big dinner.

Had this particular relationship worked out, it would have broken a staggeringly long streak of dateless V-Day’s, a run so long that I’m not sure how I would have handled the presence of a woman on this day dedicated to those in love.

I starting seeing a woman in January—better known as last month—and I thought we had potential as a couple. But it turned out to be just my imagination, running away with me.

I had met this woman online—yeah, I know, major warning sign—and we had a pleasant meet and greet, so I set up a second date at a lounge in Park Slope.

This evening also started off pleasantly. We had wine, listened to a very good band, and it all seemed okay.

After the band finished, I thought about calling it a night, but I do that too often in my life, so I asked my date what she wanted to do. She suggested a new club in the neighborhood, and off we went.

Now, my clubbing days are pretty much beyond me, but I wanted to do new things for this new year. The place was nice, with a huge bar and a dance floor downstairs. So my date and I started drinking, and drinking…and drinking some more.

And then we started kissing…and kissing…and kissing some more. The phrase “hog wild” comes to mind as we went at each other as if I were shipping out to McMurdo Station the next morning.

It was the kind of behavior that infuriates me when I have to witness it, where you want to shout “get a room!” at the offending couple. But it seemed okay when I did it.

Looking for Lust

I’m tempted to say we were behaving like a couple of teenagers, but I think horny adolescents would have shown more restraint. We, on the other hand, seemed to be conducting a tag-team body cavity search.

“You’re very frisky, aren’t you?” my date asked at one point.

I backed away to show her that I wasn’t all horn-dog all the time, but about two minutes later we were all over each other again. I'm persistent, as well as frisky.

We finally pried ourselves apart from each other and I walked her to her door—no “other” this evening.


I called her the next day to let her know what a great time I had, but she rushed me off the phone and I got the feeling that something wasn’t right.

We spoke a few days later. She was on her way to Washington, D.C. for the inauguration and after some chitchat about her trip, she informed me that we were finished because she “intuitively knew that we don’t belong together.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Intuition is pretty powerful shit and I don't like to mess with it.

Did she have a vision of us not working out? Did she meditate for hours, chew peyote and have a dream of me as a three-headed snake with radioactive fangs and a funny accent?

My shrink said I should have tried to woo her, but I didn’t see much wooing room here, frankly. We only had two dates and during one them we were too busy molesting each other to speak. If she wants to pull the plug, there ain't much I can do.

My sister suggested that my date might have been embarrassed by our behavior, and I suspect that might be closer to the truth, but who the hell knows?

I was disappointed, of course, but it felt good being out there again. I just wish her intuition could have waited until after Valentine's Day.

I did have an interesting encounter last week when I was shoveling snow in front of my house. I turned around to walk to the backyard when I locked eyes with a stray cat who was standing in my alley.

There was something wrong with this guy. His body was terribly hunched over and he looked straight at me with what I thought was a desperate, pleading look in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I asked the animal who cannot speak. “Are you okay, buddy?”

I was panicking. I didn’t want to touch him for fear of hurting him even more, but I knew I couldn't leave him. I was wondering if there is an emergency phone number for animals.

“Don’t worry,” I said. "I'll get help."

I thought maybe I could help this lonely creature and have a friend, like the lion in Aesop’s fable. Instead of drunken make-out sessions, I'd have a true companion, and together we could face whatever this cold, cruel world has to offer.

But then suddenly, the apparently ailing cat stood up straight and bolted off into the night. I realized then that he was not injured at all.

He was just taking a crap.

I looked down into the freshly fallen snow and saw a nice pile of brownie points that the cat had left behind.

“Feel free, my friend,” I shouted to the fleeing feline, “you can defecate on my house any time you want!”

When I went to get my mail this morning, I found I had gotten one more Valentine card. This one was from my niece, Victoria, in California, which came with two beautiful photographs of her.

I thought how I lucky I was to have her in my life, along with the rest of my family.

“Remember,” the handmade card read, “when there is love, there is no fear.”

Now there’s the message from Heaven I've been waiting for.