This diet is making me miserable. It can’t even b… January 31, 2006

This diet is making me miserable.

It can’t even be considered a diet. It’s more along the lines of “how to eat like a starving child in Africa for a week.”

Let’s take today. I had a caramel macchiato, 3 tangerines and a tiny packet of oatmeal. It should come as no surprise that right now my own hand is looking pretty tempting, with a little salt of course.

It’s not worth it. It’s really not going to change how skinny my legs look when I walk down to the water on Saturday. It’s purely mental. And by mental I mean RETARDED. But I’m a girl and I really don’t think you should hold it against me because it’s in my nature to be totally irrational.

I keep fantasizing about the first thing I’m going to eat when I come back from Miami. (This should give you some indication of what a non-dieter I am. Two days of minimal eating and I’m all OH HOW I SUFFER.) Right now it’s a tie between that new quesadilla type monstrosity at Taco Bell, a burrito AND chips at Chipotle or a black and white cookie AND a black and white milkshake.

This is what I think about at work at 7pm when I still have 3 more hours to go but am feeling TOTALLY FRIED. (Mmm. Fried. Fried chicken. Fried potatoes. Fried Twinkies.)

Who’s stupid fucking idea was it to book a flight to Miami in winter when I’m 10 pounds more than I weigh in the summer?

I can be so damn impulsive sometimes.

The thing? About working on a Saturday? Is that on… January 30, 2006

The thing? About working on a Saturday? Is that once you get in the office on Monday? You feel like you NEVER FUCKING LEFT.

Friday can’t come fast enough. Though I’d love to skip the whole being hurtled in a tin can at 30,000 feet part of getting to Miami.

My ideal superpower, in case you were wondering, would be to snap my fingers and appear anywhere I desire thus cutting out the “piece of metal possibly plunging – in flames - into the ocean” middleman.

I actually just thought of how ironic it would be if I did die on the way to Miami. Surely everyone would discuss what an eerie premonition it was that I HAD JUST WRITTEN about plunging to my death in a flaming piece of metal and my comments section would BLOW UP with people saying sweet things like “rest in peace, sweet Clink.”

Then I thought about how I really don’t want my friends and family to read half of the stuff I’ve broadcast to virtual strangers because, really, grandma doesn’t need to know about the pregnancy tests so I think I’ll give Angelina and/or Max the keys to the site so to speak so they can tear this shit down if a Song Airlines flight from LGA to FLL happens to, uh, not make it.

To be honest, I completely forgot what I was originally going to write. Something about the Boy and it being our last weekend together before he peaces out for a month and how I’m going to miss him so much and is anyone a doctor who can call in a prescription for Zoloft? Eh, fill in the blanks. I’m off to go rock back and forth in a bathroom stall because holy shit, I’m totally going to die this weekend.

Physically, I’m still at work. Mentally? Well tha… January 27, 2006

Physically, I’m still at work.

Mentally? Well that’s another story.

My desk is up against huge floor to ceiling windows that look east, toward the Empire State Building. I’m getting jealous looking at all the darkened windows of other office buildings, people who have shut down the computer, turned off the fluorescent lights and are home spending time with loved ones (or are out getting fucking plastered) (or watching The OC! And The Office!) instead of…putting in face time.

But (believe it or not!) I’m not here to bitch about the job. Because the hours are the only part that suck, really. I’m not here to bitch about James Frey either. Oprah apparently took great care of that. I couldn’t even finish his book – not because he embellished a few details but because I thought it was boring. Call me crazy but it barely kept me awake on the 6 and that’s all that I ask from my reading material.

I told the Boy about the text message. Just like y’all knew I would. He took it in stride. Just like I knew he would. We had a conversation that lasted until 3am this morning about it, us, everything. And we reached the conclusion that we reach every. Single. Time: we love each other. We’re in this for the long haul. No, we really love each other. It’s starting to get a bit… Full House-ish. A nice, neat moral to wrap up the show.

But I should be happy that it always ends well. Otherwise I’d be dry heaving into a toilet because the idea of not having him in my life makes me feel cold…and nauseous.

Of course I’m always paranoid that he’s going to think things over afterwards, decide that he doesn’t want to be with a ho like me, and drop a nuclear bomb on our entire relationship the next time we see each other.

I’m also always paranoid that he’s secretly fucking the tall blonde from across the hall.

I get these waves of crazy that I have to continually rationalize my way out of. It ain’t pretty… or fun.

I shouldn’t tell you what I’m about to tell you. No, really, this is like Proof Fucking Positive that I am batshit insane, I kid you not but…

Eh. Nevermind. Sorry. Not yet. I still want you guys to like me for a little bit longer.

I feel like I’m always complaining about stuff lik… January 25, 2006

I feel like I’m always complaining about stuff like this, asking what to do when stuff like this happens. I should just get over the “honesty at all costs” bullshit and suck up the fact that in order not to hurt the people you love, you need to tell white lies sometimes.

The situation: last night around 1:30am, the Boy and I were all nestled in my new high thread count sheets, naked, sleeping, deliriously happy. We were awakened by a very loud succession of text messages. I tried to ignore them but the Boy played the whole “what if it’s important?” card. Not because he thought the texts would be important (who would text in a dire emergency? Ok, maybe I would but that’s besides the point) but because he was interested in who exactly would be texting me at 1:30am.

I checked the texts, making sure that the screen was facing away from him so he couldn’t see and at the same time trying to not to make it obvious that I was trying to obscure his view.

1:30am texts are never good. 1:30am texts mean someone is drunkity drunk and, perhaps, abit horny. And I’m usually the first one in people’s phones…my real name begins with an A you see.

Sure enough, it was College Ex-Boyfriend (5 years, still friends, used to hook up when drunk on occasion down in Philly). His typing was, in a word, retarded but I could make out something about him wanting me, loving me, wishing I was there with him. You know, 1:30am drunk and a bit horny stuff.

I immediately went into damage prevention mode: I faked a laugh and told the boy that it was a girlfriend of mine, drunk and bitching about her boyfriend. I launched into a story about said boyfriend and his ridiculousness. Soon enough, I had the Boy laughing in no time. Hook, line and sinker.

But now I feel guilty. (Come on, you knew it was coming.)

I don’t want to hurt him or make him insecure. That much is obvious. It’s also obvious that he’d think the texts are way more significant that they really are. Who wouldn’t? I just hate keeping things like that from him. I hate lying. And, really, is it that awful if he knows that I’m desirable to other men? Keep him on his toes a little?

Oh god I’m so evil. And so very female.

Wasting Away (or trying to, at least) January 23, 2006

Sometimes something in my head just snaps. This time it was the realization that in under two weeks I will be in a bathing suit, in Miami. In under two weeks my boyfriend will, unintentionally, be comparing me to bikini-clad beauties whose job it is to go to the gym and deepen their tans. He won’t be able to help it, a side-by-side contrast is inevitable. And, quite frankly, I don’t want to feel like shit about myself.

I haven’t gotten fat. Just yesterday my cousin remarked that I was looking particularly trim. Yes, even despite my daily Chipotle runs (why daily? Well, I have no self control you see. And also, a burrito with 1,000 calories tends to make the day go by faster for some reason).

So, no, not fat but definitely not bikini-ready. I’m not tan. I’m not as toned as I am during the summer. I’m NOT TAN. My stomach isn’t concave when I lay down like it is during the summer. And have I mentioned I’m not tan?

So, bring on the 400 calories (or so) a day. You don’t have to tell me it’s unhealthy, I’m not promoting it, I know it’s absurd. I’m just bitching about it. Just bitching about the fruit and cottage cheese monstrosity I’m forcing myself to eat at the moment. Just bitching about getting up at 6 am to get my ass to the gym and then working a 12 hour day. Just bitching about the money I’m going to spend on tanning.

Fear not, in two weeks I will have no problem putting the weight back on. Chipotle is only two blocks away after all.

Do you want to know how it feels? It feels as thou… January 20, 2006

Do you want to know how it feels? It feels as though there are tiny men (in overalls a la Mario and Luigi, natch) who are currently jackhammering my temples. That’s how it feels. That’s what five (six? seven? eighty-five?) glasses of wine feel like the next day.

There was good reason. And I don’t mean that in a “cel-e-brate!” sort of way. I mean that in an “omigod, my boyfriend and I almost died, my nerves are fucking SHOT I need to not feel ANYTHING for a few hours” sort of way.

We were circling the Upper East Side last night. Ten minutes…twenty minutes…god damn it a lot of people in New York have cars and god damn it they NEVER MOVE THEM.

We finally found a space we could squeeze ourselves into. Unfortunately it meant the guy loading up his truck in front of us would have very little room between our car and his. Too bad, sucker. You want all the room in the world to load that fruit into that truck, move to Utah.

He threw a fit when we pulled in but he was skinny and short and looked relatively harmless. The Boy rolled his eyes and told him, “Dude, we have every right to park here.” The Boy uses “Dude” the way most people use “asshole.”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, as if he just dropped from the sky, this…this…SuperThug approached the car. Well, he not so much approached as he, oh, POUNDED ON THE PASSENGER SIDE WINDOW. Me being, of course, the passenger.

He began a very loud, very angry, very expletive-ridden rant about how there was no chance in hell us two crackers were going to mess with his “boy” (note: Fruit Guy looked just as confused as we were, as if he had never seen SuperThug in his life).

The Boy being, well, a boy started screaming back. There was lots of screaming. And then SuperThug reached into his jacket.

That’s when I thought it was over. That’s when I half-dove into the backseat because holy shit, dude is packing heat and dude apparently does not like crackers and why the hell do I have to die over a fucking parking space? Talk about un-glamorous.

Turns out he pulled out a crobar. Or something like that. The Boy didn’t get a good look and I was having a panic attack, my face buried in into the armrest.

That’s when my brilliant boyfriend decided “oh hey, not worth getting the shit beaten out of us for a parking spot that’s not even that close to Clink’s apartment” and decided to leave, as SuperThug was standing over the car, threatening to strike at any moment.

In a perfect world we would’ve peeled out, leaving SuperThug and Confused Fruit Guy in our dust. A dramatic exit worthy of the two hero protagonists.

Yeah, not so much. The car was so wedged in that it took about a full minute and a half to get out. Longest minute and a half of my life.

Needless to say, we ended up at a bar. The Boy hasn’t had a drink in about five years but he sure as hell was eyeing my wine longingly.
And that, my friends, is why I’m experiencing possibly the first warranted hangover of my life.

Tagged January 18, 2006

Five weird things about me, eh TD? I thought you already knew that I’m downright perfect.

Actually, it was pretty hard to narrow it down to just five which has opened a whole new can of self-analysis anxiety worms:

1. I cannot sleep with socks on my feet or with my feet under the covers. You can imagine just how much the Boy loves that little quirk. My feet ALWAYS have to be sticking out from under the sheets or I flip out. If, during the night, they somehow end up covered I’ll thrash around until they’re free, not caring if I knock out innocent lovers in the process. If I was, say, some undercover secret agent who got caught behind enemy lines and they wanted me to disclose highly confidential information that could possibly result in the end of the world? Yeah, all they’d have to do is stick me in a bed with sheets all stiff and tucked in and hotel-like and make me keep my feet inside. It would take only seconds for me to tell those suckas anything they wanted to hear.

2. I only drink bottled water and only out of the bottle or a disposable cup (unless I’m at my parents’ house because my parents, they’re very clean). This goes back to when I was 13 and a friend of mine gave me a cup of water at her house. I started chugging it and, after a few big swills, I noticed that the cup was ridiculously dirty and that there were chunks of some sort of food floating around in the water. Since then it’s bottled or nothing. The Boy got me a Brita but, needless to say, it’s still in the box.

3. I have to pee immediately after sex. Five minutes post-coital, max, and I’m hittin up the loo. This is a recent quirk, brought on by a recent urinary tract infection. It’s part of my ongoing war against the bacteria that seeks to make my life a living hell. I’m winning. So far.

4. I fly with a stuffed pink dog. I will not fly without the stuffed pink dog. His name is “Pink Dog” and he is more important to me than Xanax on a flight. He keeps the plane in the air with his superpowers. No, seriously.

5. I usually sit in either the very first car of the subway or the very last. This is because a higher-up friend of my father’s who has something to do with anti-terrorism told me that terrorists are more likely to set off a bomb in the middle of the train and that most bombs aren’t powerful enough to kill everyone in every car. It could be bullshit. But it makes me feel a bit better.

So see? Proof that I’m crazy (like you needed proof).

Us Again January 17, 2006

We took a slight detour into BreakUpVille. Well, almost.

I mentioned it first, asked him if this was how it felt right before a break up. (You’d think, at 24, that I’d know by now. Alas, I’m one of the lucky ones.)

I expected him to be surprised, shocked, hurt. To open his eyes wide and kiss the top of my head and say “Baby, no. Of course not. You’re crazy.”

Instead he nodded, looked down, said “yeah, that crossed my mind too.”

And suddenly I felt, oh, three hundred and fifty thousand times worse. And three hundred and fifty thousand times more certain that we were on the verge of walking out of each other’s lives and that I would soon be wandering around my apartment in a Cherry Garcia-induced haze, wearing only a bathrobe and his Patriots tee shirt, my favorite picture of us (London, Tower Bridge, night, rain, a bit off center) in my right hand, the remote control in my left, Pretty Woman playing on a continuous loop.

(I’ve always just assumed I’d be SUCH a cliche should I ever have my heart smashed to pieces. “Smashed to pieces.” See? Couldn’t even come up with something better than that. Cliche.)

We sat in silence for a moment. Well, quite a few moments. Then he said the magic words.

“But really, I think it’s just growing pains.”

Growing pains. Grey area.

I’m a black and white kind of girl. Either something is working or it’s not. I had never considered that the disconnect between us was temporary, the aftermath of an intense vacation during which we admitted to each other that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. The result of being hurled headfirst back into “real life” after living in a fantasy world where life includes a view of the Thames and room service at 1pm and someone else picking up your dirty towels.

Real life is fucking messy. Vacations are not.

I’m thrilled to announce that just last night, just 24 hours ago, I said to him “I think we’re doing well. I feel like we’re us again.”

This time I got the kiss on the top of the head.

(And a whole lot more.)

(Yup, definitely us again.)

When one thing starts going right in your life (th… January 13, 2006

When one thing starts going right in your life (though, really, can twelve hour days INCLUDING Saturdays really be considered ‘going right?’) it’s a cardinal rule of the universe that every other fucking thing has to fall apart. Otherwise the Earth will implode. Or something.

Case(s) in point:

Remember that mouse problem I had? You know: showering in rainboots, freaking out on a daily basis, etc.? Well just the other day someone asked me about it and just the other day I proclaimed victory over the mice and just the other day, apparently, the mice got word of me running around town, proclaiming victory and held an emergency meeting to show me the fuck up.

Hence the little grey ball of fur I saw scurrying across my room last night. I started to freak out. The Boy, at first, started to laugh. Then, once he realized I was thisclose to having a nervous breakdown, he kind of got a “holy crap, what the hell have I signed up for?” look in his eyes. In retrospect it’s like, hello, you’ve been dating me for 10 months: I’m crazy sometimes, we’ve established that, you love me anyway, we’ve established that too, let’s move on.

Speaking of the man in my life, we’ve both been going through a bit of a post-London depression. Yes, I know that we’ve had almost two weeks to adjust to reality but you try going from days filled with nothing but expensive food, shopping and ridiculously hot sex to job stress, family issues and perfunctory “yeah, I came too, g’night” sex. It ain’t pretty.

Not to mention the fact that I can’t. stop. eating. And I don’t mean that in a prissy girl “omigod I ate five M&M’s” sort of way. Want proof? Ok, I’ll give you proof you demanding bastards. Today (so far) I’ve eaten: an omelet, a muffin, a fourth of a bagel, a McDonalds chicken sandwich and fries and a slice of pepperoni pizza.

You know what this means, don’t you? I mean, of course, other than the fact that my cute little size six pants are no longer going to look so cute? I must be pregnant. That’s the only explanation. And that would SO TOTALLY BE MY LUCK.

On the Sly January 10, 2006

I got in early this morning just to tell you all: hi! I’m alive! And overwhelmed by my new job! Yet excited at the same time!

This place is certainly not as blog-friendly as my last one (when everyone’s computer faces the center of the room and everyone can see what is up on everyone else’s ginormous screen…yeah, it’s pretty hard to blog).

Like I said, I’m a bit overwhelmed, mainly due to the pressure I’m putting on myself to take this place by storm. But it’s only day 2 so I’m going to withold further judgment on the job and my new (all-female, all-tight with each other, all-looking me up and down) co-workers.

Oh, and in case you were wondering? Working twelve hour days? Not as exciting as you’d think it would be. I know, I know…hard to believe, right?