That didn't last long. It was good for a couple of days. I was happy to see him, happy to find that the man I'm dating is, well, upstanding. Reliable, very intelligent, knowledgeable about world and national politics, interesting. And then the argument.

It basically boils down to two comments that seem representative to me of what is wrong: "it's a good thing we aren't recording this conversation, because what you just said was really dumb;" and, many hours later, "we should be recording this conversation because if you heard it you would see that what you just said is completely without merit."

What bothered me was not whether or not what I had said was correct or appropriate (it was); but rather that he should put it this way. It bothered me that he could put me down, even in jest, and that he would refuse to see that what he had said was hurtful or demeaning, and therefore refuse to apologize.

When I said, "you just said that I was stupid," he equivocated. "Dumb does not mean the same thing as stupid." I was supposed to understand, in other words, that he had actually said something rather affectionate. We were talking about the beauty of Bill Evan's piano playing and the simplicity of the musical line. "It's not like he's Ashkenazy," I said. That was the dumb statement--he told me more than once that what I had said was one of the "dumbest things" that I had ever said. We argued about this for a good five to ten minutes before he understood that I was talking about the Russian conductor and composer. Apparently he had never heard of Vladimir Ashkenazy (which I found hard to believe, since he himself is such a great pianist, althogh he mainly plays jazz).

He thought I had said that Evans was not a German Jew. Why this would make any kind of sense in the context of our conversation still baffles me, but never mind. When I explained to him who Ashkenazy was, he actually tried to get me to believe that I had mispronounced his name... "I think it's actually pronounced, "Aszzz-kenazi." He's telling me how to pronounce the name of someone he's never heard of.

In short, he could not admit that he had been wrong. First, he could not admit that he had said something insulting. Second, he could not admit that I knew what I was talking about. He certainly could not apologize.

Still, I laughed about this. "Boy, would I love to have a recording of the ten minutes when you thought I was talking about Jews and I thought we were talking about classical music!"

The second statement arose much later, when we were in bed. I had been having trouble sleeping for most of the night, because he likes to snuggle in a way that leaves me very little room. I had been feeling somewhat suffocated, but had finally given up trying to stretch out, and settled down onto his shoulder. He said said, "I still love you, even though you moved." This bugged me because the moment seemed, actually, rather tender and it would have been nice if he could have acknowledged it straightforwardly. I didn't say anything but frowned in the dark. Then he asked, "Are you happy?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Well, why would you say that? Why would you put it that way? You love me even though I did something you didn't like. It seems that you can't just make a directly positive statement of love. You always say it in a back-handed sort of way." It is as though he's hedging his bets. If he's going to take the risk of expressing feelings like love, which may or may not be rejected by me, then he's going to cover himself by expressing disatisfaction with me.

Instead of considering my complaint, he deflected it. "I have told you I love you three times in the last minute."
"No, you haven't."
"Yes."
"I didn't hear anything. I don't believe you! You're deflecting again--turning the conversation away from what the hard issue. You're not taking what I have to say seriously. You're always right, I'm never right."
"Too bad we're not recording this conversation, because then you'd see that what you just said is completely without merit."

Completely without merit?
Couldn't he have said it a different way? Couldn't he have said, "you're wrong about this particular point," or, "you didn't hear me" or, "I'm sorry you didn't hear what I said earlier," or "Let me think about that. Do I have trouble expressing feelings of love in a straightforward manner?" Couldn't he have thought about what had prompted me to say that in the first place? Couldn't he have given me the dignity of having a reason for making this statement, which was made in response to a pattern I had noticed, an analysis of a series of statements? It seemed to me that he was condescending, insulting me again instead of considering the 'merit' of what I had to say. He was dismissing what I said this time not only as meaningless, ungrounded, foolish.

I don't quite remember the rest--I objected to this particular put-down, I was disgruntled. I said I was going upstairs to sleep. He complained. I said that he was taking up the entire bed. He said, "why didn't you ask me to move over." I explained that I had made this request numerous times through the evening, but that he had ignored it. He said, "I like to be close to you." I don't remember. I know I said, "You just don't get it, do you?" in response to what felt to me like another instance of deflection, of not listening to me...

He got up, put on his clothes, and left. I let him go.

It's just not working. When we kiss, I want to pull away. I am always the one to break it first--and it almost always feels as though I'm drowning, suffocating, as though I can't stand another second of his tongue in my mouth. It feels all wrong.

He's back. It's so strange. I spent the entire weekend gearing up to break it off, and then I saw him coming down the escalator and realized: I love this man.

I love his hair, his wrinkles, his funny face, his nose, his legs, his too-much-talking. He's a good person. I respect him. I spent the night in his arms feeling safe, loved, happy.

Oy.

On my father

Just now, coming up the stairs, I looked, as I always do, at my father's formal portrait. He must be younger than I am there, and everyone who sees it comments on how handsome he was. I don't see it, that beauty. I try to but can't. I see my father. This time was no different, only looking reminded me of a dream that I had last night, in which I promised myself that, the next time I was that portrait, that I would thank him

In the dream I was recounting to my father something that really happened yesterday. I asked a friend, who made a great fortune in the stock market, to help me prepare for my meeting with the bank officials and the lawyer. My father amassed a fairly substantial amount in his IRA and I had very little understanding of how to read it, so I asked him to help me decode it. He kept saying, over and over, "your father was a brilliant investor," and "you owe your father a great debt," and "he really took care of you." None of this, of course, was terribly unfamiliar to me. Indeed, the paradox of my life is that my father regularly flaunted his wealth and emphasized the debt I owed him, although he never managed, really, to make me feel as though he had "taken care of me," not in my heart or spirit, after all. He may have made a bunch of money, which I enjoyed when I was still living as part of his household, but he has not helped me, neither financially nor emotionally, since I finished graduate school.

I long ago stopped asking him for money because whatever he gave came with an enormous cost, not the least of which was his disapproval. If I couldn't make it on my own, there was something wrong with me. Of course I still believe that, and I do make it, barely.

My father was far more interested in amassing than in sharing what he made. He was both a miser and a conspicuous consumer. What his wife got from him--the diamonds, the three mercedes convertibles, the hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit---she obtained by demanding and withholding and throwing temper tantrums disguised as breakdowns. And you can be sure he punished her, passively, for every cent he spent. But she was impervious to this degredation, a whore at heart, and if the golden-hearted sort, then the cold, dead metal kind. .

He didn't do this to her. His heart was, finally, far more alive, more capable of loving than hers ever was or will be. Some people are entirely ruined because they have gone their entire lives without any comfort, and because they haven't got enough grace within them to remain inwardly and outwardly kind. My father, at least, had my mother for thirty-five years. The seed she planted in his heart, and in ours, kept him human.

As long as my father was alive, I imagined that somehow, against all evidence, we could have a relationship that was not principally premised on money, and that he would somehow see, finally, that I loved him not for his money, but rather in spite of it. I could not therefore imagine ever praising him, ever finding a way to tell him, openly, that I admired him for his fantastic ability to generate money.

I am therefore uncomfortable and slightly flumoxed, as he knew I would be, to find myself the executor of this enormous estate. I never learned how to understand money because I never had any. He knew that I would not squander the it, that I would protect it through probate and divide it fairly. It was a great compliment.

At any rate, last night I dreamed that I was telling my father about what my friend had said, and that I was thanking him, genuinely, for all he had given to me. I was praising him for his brilliance, for his miraculous financial acumen and fertility--I am, after all, writing about book about this very thing: about making relations between fathers and daughters, particularly between the Father-God and writing daughters, as relationships of debt that are paid off, with interest, when the daughter learns to generate as prodigiously as her father. She never reaches this goal, of course, so she remains in the positition of needing to pay, to thank, continuously to pay the debt with gratitude for having been given the potential to pay in the first place.

If you thank someone who has departed this life in your dreams, does it count?