Free Attempting Normal by Marc Maron Page B

doesn’t help. After my marriage ended, I set aside some time to work on a self-funded research project called “Who Is My Ex Fucking.” It took about twenty minutes. I googled her name and searched images. I found a picture of her and a guy at an event. Their names were listed beneath the picture. I searched his name and within a few minutes I found out he was a Harvard graduate, a screenwriter, rich, and that his mother is a famous artist. The only consolation I had in that moment is that his credits were eh and he wasn’t that attractive. It was a small consolation. Doing a Google search to find out things about your ex is similar to googling cancer when you think you have it. Depending on what you find, it can confirm in a moment that you are dying inside and there is nothing you can do about it.
    I had flown my cat Monkey from California out to New York to stay with me. It is a sad situation when you are leaning on a cat for emotional support, but he showed up for me. Me and Monkey in Astoria, Queens, holding down the fort. It was a return to Monkey’sroots. Out in back was the garbage can he had been eating out of when I found him. We were both at the source of a lot of past trauma and chaos. I don’t think he hung on to his past as much I did. He had been eating out of the garbage. I was thrown away.
    I had made a habit of compulsively checking the email that comes through my website. Trolling for validation, contempt, hate: the speedball of social networking in the age of accessibility.
    A cryptic email showed up in the inbox. It was from a woman who said she would be in New York for a couple of days and wanted to have coffee with me. She was familiar with my radio work. She said she made a living off her image but she was getting a little “long in the tooth” for it. I had not heard that expression up until that point so I had to learn what that was. Initially I thought it was something frightening. The whole thing was a little mysterious: “images,” long teeth, aging.
    I googled her name and found a link to a modeling site. There was a portfolio of a model with her name and from the pictures, it appeared that she was a fairly successful one. I immediately thought that someone was pranking me, that it was a setup of some kind, but I was so sad and desperate for excitement and connection that the potential danger of the situation—both emotionally and physically—didn’t stop me from setting up a meeting with this person.
    I showed up at the coffee shop we had agreed to meet at in Soho. I looked around and saw a blond woman wearing old-lady glasses and sitting by herself. It was her. The woman from the modeling spread. It’s always a little silly to see pretty women trying to unpretty themselves with glasses. Maybe that is just the way I see it. Maybe she was just wearing glasses because she hasbad eyesight, and I was objectifying her. Of course that was it. But then objectification is a model’s racket.
    We talked for a few minutes. She said she was a fan of my radio work and used to come see me with her boyfriend when we did live shows and they lived in Brooklyn. I kind of remembered her. She had that strange mutant beauty that models have. It’s the kind of beauty that no matter what they are wearing or how they try to hide themselves, a sharply defined, electric appeal comes through and zaps your desire.
    She said she was still with her boyfriend but they lived out of state now. She was in town for a few days and wanted to hang out. I said, “Do you mean hang out hang out?” She said they had an open relationship and that as long as she was honest about what she was doing it was cool. I didn’t ask for too much explanation. It felt a little weird. I wondered if he was aware of the status of their relationship but I didn’t mention that. I was in.
    I really couldn’t believe it was happening. I felt I had won some kind of prize. I had been so beaten down by myself since the split that I had no