self pleasure

One of my favorite indulgences is taking myself out on dates. I've always been a bit of a loner, going to cafes, restaurants, movies and even house parties by myself. I used to treat these events like regular ol' things: a simple preference, some quality time to myself, a matter of convenience. But recently, soon after I discovered the things that pleased me most -- the tomatoes, the wine, the patent leather heels, the chunky bracelets, the pink eyeshadow, the silk and the cotton -- and developed my taste in and knowledge of those things, I decided to give them back to myself.

So, some nights, especially after a particularly harrowing work week or hectic weekend, I put on one of my favorite dresses. Pair it with terribly insensible heels, jewelry that flashes even the night time. I pluck my eyebrows, rub lemon lotion from head to toe, even top it off with a thick, sopping handful of body oil. It's on these occasions I put on lipstick, it never makes sense any other time: not when I'm kissing someone, or teaching, or trying to gulp down lunch in the 20 minutes before or in the middle of classes. Lipstick, like cool, is one of those I put on but seems to slide off me five minutes later.

But for myself, I'll entertain the notion.

I even put on my best draw's. Not for some half hope of what good I might stumble into on the way to dinner or sitting at the restaurant bar, but because I firmly believe in my own goodness. That goody-goody gumdrop feeling made possible by bright yellow dresses that catch the night wind in their hems, or towering heels that add their own beat to the concrete syncopation. That magic that comes when the flight in your step threatens to eat up every horizon God dared to paint.

I dress myself up for that feeling, from the inside out. I soak myself in that feeling, from the inside out. And when I'm done soaked up full of the food I love and the music that grooves me and the thoughts and books that send me home in the middle of this strange city, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the twinkling windows of Saigon, I just get so happy that I got the privilege of taking her home with me.