I just ate 3 slices of pizza for lunch. Partly bec… April 28, 2006

I just ate 3 slices of pizza for lunch. Partly because I was, well, hungry. And partly because one of my co-workers made a snide comment about me being “stick thin with big boobs” and that being the result of the fact that I “eat like a bird.”

I felt I had to prove her wrong. Hence, 3 slices. Pepperoni.

The truth is, I haven’t been eating like a bird lately. Quite the opposite, and I can feel it. In my jeans, in my stomach, in my arms. I actually miss the gym. But you try working 12-hour days and then tell me if you feel like waking up early to get in some cardio and weight-lifting.

While everything with the Boy has been delicious lately, work and my personal life have been very stressful. I’m operating under tight deadlines and stiff competition while at the same time coaching my 20-year-old sister through a pregnancy scare and talking my best friend through some major relationship issues.

I’ve never been one of those people to not eat when I’m stressed. Not me. I’m much more “oh hello gallon of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, I’m going to binge on you now.”

I need to snap out of this rut before I don’t fit into my cute spring clothes and I’m afraid to take off my t-shirt at the beach. I weighed myself at the Boy’s this morning and in reality it’s only the difference of a pound or two, but I feel like it’s ten.

The thing is, when I start to diet or restrict myself, I have a tendency to fall into 500-calories-a-day obsessiveness. I need to find a happy, healthy medium. You know, with the lean proteins and the three meals a day and the lots of water. Something out of Shape Magazine.

Unfortunately, I’ve never been any good at moderation.

I found these recently while cleaning out my… April 26, 2006

I found these recently while cleaning out my email.

They were taken in the winter of 2004. I had never been to the island in winter before, but it was necessary. He was dying, the doctors said. There would be no surgery or chemotherapy, there would be only waiting. And we couldn’t risk waiting until summer. Nothing could be more selfish than waiting for summer.

The sun wasn’t nearly as bright in December.

The tedious sadness in the house - feeding him, covering him with blankets, making sure he took his medication - was so overwhelming that one afternoon I threw on a hoodie, picked up my digital camera and left for a few hours without telling anyone.

I was caught between wanting to hold on so tightly to every last drop of life he had and wanting to distance myself as much as possible in order to ultimately lessen the impending pain of his death.

These photos seem sad to me. It could be because I see them through the prism of that winter. I see them as I saw myself that day - cold, lonely, full of a lingering sadness. Not the kind of sadness that hits you all at once in a fit of torrential grief. The kind of sadness that lingers like a dull ache, coloring your world blue, turning even the most beautiful place into something ominous and foreboding.

I miss him. But I’m ready to make some happier memories there in July, in honor of him.

They walked in and I immediately felt inadequate. … April 25, 2006

They walked in and I immediately felt inadequate.

My hair (flat, needs a cut), my shirt (sexy in a calculated way, not nearly “too cool to care what I look like” enough), my shoes (last season, a bit scuffed at the toe), my body (size 6, as opposed to size OO)…it all seemed out of place amongst a backdrop of people so effortlessly beautiful and thin and put-together.

Oh, and famous. Very, very famous.

It all happened very quickly. One moment I was nursing a $12 glass of Sauvignon Blanc, waiting for a friend in town from LA to show up. The next I was sitting in a curtained-off VIP area with said friend and an Oscar nominee, a former child star, a rap guru and a current TV heartthrob, drinking booze there would be no tab for and eating food that other customers at the bar were told they couldn’t have (“kitchen’s closed”).

I was amongst people who I normally pay ($10 for a movie, $10 for an iTunes album download, $90 a month in cable) to see/hear do their jobs. People whose love lives I read about in US Weekly while getting a pedicure. People who make more for one job than I will make in a lifetime.

I’m no starfucker, but I have to admit I was kinda sorta basking in the glow that the young, rich and famous emit. For a moment, I felt kind of fabulous too. Fabulous by association, proximity.

I kept waiting for things to get normal. I kept waiting for the fabulous to fade so that I could proclaim to my friends “stars – they’re just like us!” But no. From the owner of the bar catering to our every whim, to the creepy stalker who was thrown out by security, to the model types hovering and flirting…if anything, it all became more and more surreal as the night progressed. 10 bottles of Cristal and confirmation of some Page Six blind items will do that, you know?

At the end of the night I said “goodbye” and “nice to meet you” and “thanks for everything” to Celebrities W,X,Y,Z and their respective posses and then went back home to my decidedly non-luxury apartment in my non-hip neighborhood and my non-celebrity boyfriend and my non-designer pajamas and you know what? They suit me, in all my non-fabulousness, just fine.

But I will admit, the Cristal? Was pretty good.

So, we went ahead and booked us some bliss. On th… April 20, 2006

So, we went ahead and booked us some bliss.

On the evening of July 4, the Boy and I will depart from JFK. 3 flights, 2 layovers and 24 hours later, we will officially arrive at my favorite place in the world.

Check it out for yourself.

Not bad, eh?

The motherland. For a week. With the Boy.

I can’t wait to:

-See my grandmother. She is cute and feisty and CUTE and also, my soul mate. (Sorry, Boy.)

-Dip my toes (and body) into the same Ionian that I’ve been dipping my toes into since I was less than a year old.

-Eat some real Greek food. What we’ve got in New York is close but, as they say, no cigar. Bring on the melt-in-your-mouth gyros and ouzo-drenched saganaki and my grandmother’s meat pie, which I’m going to learn to make this time. Really.

-Sit on the motherfucking sand and read a motherfucking novel without the ring of the motherfucking cell phone.

-Have sex in my Greek bed. First time in 24 years that I won’t be sleeping in it alone.

-Pet my Greek dog, Rudy. Who is a mutt and gorgeous and actually human, just furrier and with more legs.

-Hike with the Boy to the secluded beach that only the locals know about. Make out on the secluded beach that will most likely be empty because most of the locals are too lazy to hike there.

-Write in my journal on the veranda while the Boy works on [super-secret but v. exciting project] as the sun sets and the temperature cools just enough to wrap myself in a light blanket.

-Sit in a taverna with the Boy while the rest of the town takes a nap in the late afternoon, sipping ice cold drinks, looking out at the water and talking about how much our kids are going to love it there.

-Relax on the balcony outside of my room while my bathing suit drips dry on the rail and look out to the mountains and the sea and pinch myself because, really, how did I get so lucky to come from such an amazing place.

It was 1:11am when I finally sucked it up and sent… April 19, 2006

It was 1:11am when I finally sucked it up and sent him a text.

“You okay? Haven’t heard from you. Worried.”

He called a few minutes later. His tone made me wonder why he had bothered – curt, short, impatient.

“Is something wrong?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. I’m exhausted.”

It was all a minor miscommunication. I left work early and therefore didn’t get the email in which he told me to call him when I was done getting drinks with a friend. I thought that for sure he’d call me once he was done with work so essentially we had a stand-off until I finally caved, having had enough of envisioning him involved in a wreck on the side of the highway and no one thinking to call me. He, of course, was wondering just what his girlfriend was doing out past 1am on a school night instead of calling him.

The conversation degenerated from “hey, sorry I missed your email, I’ve actually been home for a while” to “what the fuck did you mean when you said that maybe we should just can the idea of going to Greece this year” as conversations at 1am are wont to do.

Cut to me in tears, him apologizing, me apologizing, him apologizing again.

We wouldn’t get off the phone until things felt right – or as right as they could be, considering the circumstances. I like that about us. I like that the dark of my bedroom didn’t feel quite so dark when we finally starting communicating instead of accusing.

I don’t like that he has so little trust in me that he automatically assumed I was drunk & flirting & possibly cheating just because he (mistakenly) thought I was out partying. (Note to the Boy: Hey, I’ve already got the corner on trust issues in this relationship bubba – there ain’t room for the both of us.)

All’s well that ends well, though, right? Isn’t that what they say? And, surprisingly, I was able to sleep soundly once we got off the phone, once he reassured me that he loves me, loves me, loves me.

Which is good. Because I love him, love him, love him too.

I liken it to flying. Or, rather, how we both feel… April 18, 2006

I liken it to flying. Or, rather, how we both feel about flying.

He? Is perfectly comfortable being hurtled 30,000 feet in the air in a tin can that could drop from the sky at any given moment. In fact, he’s one of those people who can FALL ASLEEP BEFORE TAKE-OFF, OMIGOD WHAT I WOULDN’T GIVE.

Turbulence doesn’t bother him in the least. He just continues to read/listen to music/watch a movie as if the plane is NOT ROCKING VIOLENTLY AND WE ARE NOT TWO SECONDS AWAY FROM PLUNGING INTO THE ATLANTIC.

He knows the odds are that we’re going to land safely and that everything is going to work out in the end.

I, on the other hand, am what one might call “afraid of flying” (that is, if one had a propensity to understate things). Every little jolt, every slight movement, every “WE’RE FALLING OUT OF THE SKY!” (“No, we are landing, Clink”) sends me spiraling further into altitude-induced insanity, convinced that we are going to crash and burn and die and, fuck, I haven’t even had the chance to procreate or wear a Collette Dinnigan dress yet.

All the little relationship “bumps in the road” don’t affect him because he knows that they’re not enough to throw us off course. He knows that we’re going to be okay, see it through, land safely.

I am not there yet. I am not at the point where I am comfortable enough to weather the storms and have full faith that the foundation is still going to be there when the dust settles.

I’m getting there. It’s mostly me, really. And my trust issues. And commitment issues. And flying without a safety net issues. I want to be at the point where I know – in no uncertain terms – that we’re going to be okay. That any emotional ups and downs are just par for the course and I should ride them out without getting overly emotional/introverted/analytical because we’re going to be fine.

We’re going to land in one solid piece. Just like every other time.

All last week at work I bemoaned the fact that it … April 17, 2006

All last week at work I bemoaned the fact that it was harder to find a Cadbury Crème Egg in the city than it was to find a hipster with freshly washed hair.

I checked everywhere – Duane Reade, CVS, K-Mart (K-Mart! For chrissake!). The best any of those places had to offer was a Hershey’s Snickers egg. I wasn’t about to fall for a cheap American imitation of the British original. I lived in London, after all, that glorious city across the Atlantic where you can get crème eggs all. year. round.

A co-worker of mine had gone home to Westchester for Passover and returned today bearing the object of my substantial cravings (leave it to a Jew to easily find an Easter staple).

He left it on my desk in the morning, alongside a Polaroid of himself on which he wrote “Happy Easter from your Secret Admirer.”

He does not secretly – or openly – admire me. He’s in a happy, healthy relationship as am I (uh, most of the time). It was just a nice, thoughtful gesture from a nice, thoughtful person (who was most likely sick of me bitching about my lack of glorious, slimy, colored sugar oozing inside a chocolate shell).

The gesture had the unfortunate side effect of making me question my relationship (because everything these days? Makes me question my relationship). (You: Craziest segue ever, Clink. Jesus, you do realize you just went from candy to your relationship, right?)

It’s just, the Boy rarely does small, thoughtful things like that. It’s not in his character. It’s very much in mine. I’m constantly surprising him with gifts or doing things that I know will make his day/week/life easier.

The question is, am I really capable of being with someone long-term who doesn’t return the gestures? Is that something that is integral to happiness in a relationship for me? Is it how I’ve come to measure love because it’s how I show love?

I’m not obsessing about it; it’s just something that crossed my mind this morning on the subway. Which, unfortunately, has tainted an otherwise somewhat groundbreaking weekend for the two of us.

We were at a bar Friday night, huddled together on a couch in Clink-n-Boy Zone. He mentioned something about “my future husband” and I responded that I hate when he says that, that it conjures up images of some faceless dude I have yet to meet, thus taking the Boy out of the equation.

He responded, “Yeah, well, when I reference your future husband, I’m assuming that it’s going to be me.”

The next day, in the park, we were discussing his newborn nephew/godson. I mentioned that the baby is going to think the Boy is the coolest uncle on the planet because the Boy gets to interact with sports superstars on a daily basis.

“Except that if you end up becoming a lawyer, he’s going to be all ‘why’d you quit Uncle Boy?’”

The Boy responded, as if to a future version of his nephew, “Because I had to keep your cousins in Pumas and Chuck Taylors.” Which is a reference to the fact that I am obsessed with miniature versions of my favorite sneakers and have often mentioned that my children will wear them until they’re old enough to dress themselves.

Later that night, while looking through my old prom photos, I mentioned that for every major event in my life (prom, friends’ weddings, formals in college, etc.) I have worn my hair half-up. I noted that it’s probably how I’ll wear my hair for my wedding, too.

He said, “I can’t wait for that.”

I know they’re just words, but they’re words I can hang on to. Words I can replay in my mind when a surprise Cadbury crème egg has sent me into a downward spiral regarding the substance between us and whether or not we’re right for each other.

Yesterday was, by all accounts, a shitty day. Not … April 13, 2006

Yesterday was, by all accounts, a shitty day. Not only did I get the “surprise, you owe shitloads of money to the government!” phone call, but I also got a message from a private number on my work phone that went something like “You’re a whore. I’m going to kill you.”

Which is always pleasant, especially on the heels of your accountant telling you that all that money you’ve been saving to go to Greece this year is about to be redirected to a government you only half-heartedly believe in.

Of course I wrote the Boy, because he’s my boyfriend and therefore officially in charge of Making It All Better.

His response was…well. It wasn’t what I had hoped for. It falls under the “it’ll do…I guess” category. He said I should call the cops regarding the phone stalker, he said he wished he could make things better. But then he threw out a lackluster “you can come over after work if you want, I’ll be working on [major project].”

The thing is, if the situation were reverse I’d be at his doorstep with cupcakes. So I guess I was just expecting or hoping for something more than a half-assed invite that wasn’t even an invite because technically he invited me but he threw in the work stipulation which was his way of saying “I’m putting it out there, but don’t take me up on it.”

So instead I went home, picked up a “love it” size waffle bowl at Coldstone and watched a full hour of My Super Sweet 16 so that I could direct some of my loathing to spoiled teenagers who get not one but TWO cars and parties more expensive than my wedding will be instead of my boyfriend and the company I used to work for and the government.

I called him when I finally found the strength to stop wallowing in self-pity long enough to dial. I tried to sound upbeat and positive and all “hi, remember me, your cute, cool as hell girlfriend? I’m still here!” He was exhausted and yawning, prompting me to ask if he wanted to get off the phone.

The “I miss you” and the “I can’t wait to see you tomorrow” at the end of the conversation did little to diminish the hurt I felt once we hung up. I really needed him to pull through; I really needed to go to bed with something sweet to balance out the sour of the day. Instead, I went to bed fighting back tears because are relationships really supposed to be this hard? He should be the one person I can run to when I want sympathy and support and advice. Yesterday he proved he’s not always up to the challenge.

Now I’m stuck with the internal debate: to bring up (and subsequently drag this out and possibly ruin tonight too) or not to bring up (and either let go of it or file it away for if and when it happens again).

I just got off the phone with my accountant. Appar… April 12, 2006

I just got off the phone with my accountant. Apparently I owe close to $3,000 in state taxes because – oops! – my old company didn’t. fucking. withhold any.

Did I mention that the $3,000 is due in five days?

Excuse me, I’m off to go figure out a way to raise that kind of money doing something that doesn’t involve “$50 hand jobs” and “underneath the 59th Street Bridge.”

This may be a bit preemptory, as the subject has c… April 11, 2006

This may be a bit preemptory, as the subject has come up but once in our relationship (Him: “I would not be averse to moving in with you at some point.” Me: (Thinking) “Would not be AVERSE? How the fuck am I supposed to take that?”)

However, the greater part of this past Sunday was spent in a fit of uncharacteristic domesticity (people, I baked cookies. From scratch, for chrissake). Neither one of us would say it, but we both knew what it was: a trial run. A preview.

Hence, Clink’s Arguments For and Against Cohabitation With Her Boyfriend Who She Loves Very Much but Who is Still a Die Hard Republican and Can She Really Live With a Republican Without Getting Cut Out of Her Father’s Will?

For:

1. This is New York City. Let’s bypass all the “it will make our relationship stronger” bullshit and get down to basics: rent. I was no math major (what up, communications degree and subsequent shitty pay scale) but even I can figure out that two people living together in ONE bedroom will result in a much nicer place for less money than two people living together in TWO bedrooms. Plus, the Boy is planning on buying a place (apparently he has a trust fund I don’t know about which, really, is fiiine with me) sometime in the near future which… I mean, hello JACKPOT.

2. It will make our relationship stronger!

3. Do you know how annoying it is to play the “gypsy game?” To those without a significant other, or with a significant other who lives within walking distance, the answer is: very annoying. I’m forever carting clothes and shoes and deodorant and electronics chargers back and forth to work and then to his place and then back to work and then back to my place and my little Marc Jacobs shopping bag is just about ready to throw in the fucking towel. Plus I always, always forget underwear. Always.

4. We spend almost every night together already. Seriously. We’re kind of sickening. We’re that couple. You know, the one that calls each other on the one night they’re sleeping apart and coos “I miss you, baby. No, I miss you more.” Also, since we rarely sleep alone in our own beds, it makes sense, finance-wise. Refer to #1.

5. He lives in Queens. For those of you paying attention (see post below) it’s not a cute part of Queens, like Astoria, which could essentially be a Manhattan neighborhood if it wasn’t for that pesky train ride. No, he lives in a part of Queens that, if I arrive by subway past 10pm, I insist that he picks me up because one of these days one of the shady men lining the sidewalks on the walk to his building is going to totally stuff me in a van and dump me in a river and, really, I don’t want to go out with my face on the cover of the Post because you just know they’re not even going to use the best picture.

6. I really fucking enjoyed playing house this past Sunday. It all felt very…natural. (*Shudder*)

Against:

1. I enjoy sleeping alone sometimes. (That’s a lie, actually. I hate sleeping alone because I convince myself that every sound is that of someone trying to break in and therefore keep myself awake by turning on all the lights and turning ESPN on full blast so as to drown out every creak of the floorboard. Because, you know, rape by surprise is just so much more fun! But if I ever get over the fact that I am a complete and utter scaredy cat (or if I ever get a pit bull) I kind of like the option of retreating to my own space.)

2. How the hell am I going to closet binge if we live together? No, I don’t have an eating disorder but sometimes, usually about two days before my period, I turn into Britney Spears, circa Federline and there’s absolutely nothing edible that I will turn down. Seriously. I once ate almost an entire jar of peanut butter on a spoon dipped in jelly, followed by an entire container of sour cream and onion Pringles dipped in salsa while in bed and then fell asleep without even brushing away the crumbs because I become a TOTAL LUNATIC two days before my period.

3. What if we break up? THEN what? (This would probably be #1 on a normal person’s list of concerns.)

In my heart, I know the cons are a bit forced. I don’t really ever crave space from him, mainly because space (due to the nature of his job) is already built into our relationship. I can always closet binge at a restaurant with girlfriends (who get my need for endless chips and a gallon of guac) two days before my period. If we break up, I will troll craigslist for an affordable studio (or even junior one with all the money I’ve saved through cohabitation!) while storing my stuff at my parent’s home in Jersey.

So, really, there’s not too much stopping me.

Except the being cut out of my father’s will thing, of course.