Yesterday morning I had to lay on my bed to zip up… September 12, 2006

Yesterday morning I had to lay on my bed to zip up my skinny jeans. As I sucked in my breath and – miraculously, after a bit of a struggle – buttoned the top button, I thought to myself “how the hell did that happen?” As if the Fat Fairy paid me a visit in the middle of the night and subsequently I just happened to wake up with five extra pounds in all the wrong places.

As if I haven’t been eating my way through 12 hour workdays for the past, oh, three months.

12 hour workdays means no gym. Personal time is scarce when you don’t have much of it and I prefer to spend mine draped across the couch, one hand in a box of Frosted Flakes, the other wrapped around a glass of wine, watching an episode of Two-a-Days that I may or may not have already seen about three times.

12 hour workdays means rewarding myself with a trip to Starbucks for a slice of (allegedly low-fat, Starbucks how you tease and also LIE) chocolate banana crumb cake if I make it to 5pm (a little over the halfway mark) with my sanity still (relatively, of course) in tact.

12 hour workdays means ordering $15 worth of company-funded dinner, regardless of the fact that $15 worth of food from places like the Skylight Diner and Better Burger inevitably add up to a SHITLOAD OF FOOD AND YES I WILL EAT ALL OF IT, BECAUSE FUCK YOU COMPANY, I JUST WANT TO GO HOME.

12 hour workdays means “skinny jeans” that no longer fit, only to be replaced by “not so skinny jeans” which are on the verge of not fitting, MY GOD.

Those fat kids? The ones that sued McDonalds for making them fat? Does anyone happen to know if they ended up winning? Because if they did that would totally set an awesome precedent for a lawsuit against my employer.

9.11.2006 September 11, 2006

There’s not much I can say. I’m not very eloquent when it comes to unimaginable devastation and its lingering after-effects. Sex, starving myself, and anxiety about my relationship, yes. Tragedy, not so much.

A few of my co-workers and I bought some cupcakes and walked them over to our local fire station. To say “thank you” and “stay safe.” It was somewhat of a self-indulgent gesture, I’m embarrassed to admit. I wanted to connect to something – anything - instead of floating aimlessly through the day. I wanted something – anything – to lessen a bit of the weight and the sadness.

I’ve avoided most of the coverage; I’ve avoided the documentaries and specials. I don’t need to re-live it. We all experienced it once. And once was more than enough because, surely, none of us will ever forget.

Nope, nothing new. Nothing even remotely new or ev… September 8, 2006

Nope, nothing new. Nothing even remotely new or even remotely interesting and really, I’m only typing right now to kill some time at work because I still have five and a half hours until the weekend officially starts and DAMN is that daunting.

It’s been a rough week for everyone, it seems, which is surprising seeing as it was a short week and was therefore supposed to be easier. But no, my girlfriends and I have decided, this week has been rough and – in the grand tradition of overworked working women everywhere – we will consume bottle upon bottle of wine combined with plate upon plate of Mexican food this evening in hopes of forgetting about it.

I haven’t seen my apartment much this week. Or my roommate. Or my friends. Or my boyfriend, for that matter. Only very late at night when I creep into my bedroom and he’s already there, spread out on the bed watching Sportscenter (or CSPAN 2, which I totally busted him watching yesterday). I inevitably flop onto the bed, bury my face in a pillow and mutter something along the lines of “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He, of course, then tries to get me to have sex.

Initially I’m all “can’t we just cuddle? Can’t you just stroke my hair and say sweet things?” A man’s worst nightmare.

Then, eventually, I give in because hey, it’s a release of some sort and also exercise, seeing as I have not seen the inside of my gym since I moved a few months ago, that burrito I ate to comfort myself at 10pm while still at the office ain’t going to work itself off.

I’m already dreading next week, which prevents me from getting too excited about this weekend, even though there is a lot to get excited about: my beloved 21 year old sister and 13 year old brother coming into the city (yes, we totally intend to sneak him into a bar, he has requested a trip to the Hooters); some retail therapy with a newly full (for now) bank account; FOOTBALL, for the love of God, FOOTBALL – specifically the Pats at 1pm Sunday (yes, I love my man that much) and the Giants at 8pm (yes, my man loves me that much). In between games I’m even going to sneak off to Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien to meet a friend who is in town, a friend who is NEVER in town.

But still. It will inevitably fly by too fast and soon enough it will be Sunday night, post-Giants win and I will be staring up at the ceiling, trying to fall asleep, dreading the upcoming week, not wanting to start it all over again.

And at that point I’ll probably just wake the Boy up for some sex.

Kill me. Kill me now. September 6, 2006

I am still at work. Please take note of the time, below.

Sometimes? I hate my life.

Yes, I DVR Supernanny. You got a problem with that? September 5, 2006

He came straight from the airport to my parents’ home in New Jersey, where they were preparing a barbecue in his honor and where I was pretending to help but, really, was just kind of poorly chopping tomatoes while anxiously awaiting his arrival.

I did the whole run - out - the - door - jump - into - his - arms - wrap - my - legs - around - his - waist - smother - him - with - kisses thing the minute he stepped out of the car, oh yes I did. In front of my parents, who rolled their eyes because Clink, it was ONLY three days, get a grip.

We snuck away to the park under the pretense of “we’re going to take a walk, we need some exercise before lunch” but really, it was only so that we could sit on the swings and covertly make out like angsty fifteen year olds whose parents just don’t understand.

We spent the rest of the afternoon eating our body weight in hamburgers, hot dogs and pasta salad and subsequently moaning and clutching our stomachs while declaring, “I’m going to puke, no seriously.” Miraculously we, along with some assorted relatives, mustered up enough energy to play a surprisingly competitive game of wiffle ball in my backyard against my 13 year old brother and his 13 year old friends who are THIRTEEN and therefore kicked our asses with their speed and agility and YOUTH.

Needless to say, we spent the rest of the evening recuperating in my bed, eating chocolate chip cookies and flipping between the Yankees and crappy reality television. It was sometime during Supernanny, in response to some offhanded comment I made about raising kids after assessing the dismal parenting skills of the featured family, that he hit pause on the DVR and said, “maybe we should talk about it.”

“It” turned out to be our timeline – for marriage, for kids. How many years we want to be married before we have children, how that figures in relation to how old we want to be when we start a family. That kind of relationship-and-future-defining stuff that hasn’t been brought up in quite a while, due to our cozy settlement into blissful complacency with “as is.”

Surprising absolutely no one, we turned out to be on the same page. There were no exact months or years thrown around, just some ballpark figures (“I don’t want to be an old mom” “What’s old?” “Past 35, for the first kid” “Oh yeah, definitely”) thrown around, resulting in all-around giddiness because of our mutual excitement to spend the rest of our lives with each other.

The pessimist in me, of course, is such a fucking downer, creating a vicious thought cycle today at work. Take the past few minutes, for example:

Optimist Clink: The Boy LOVES me! (What’s not to love, really?) We’re going to be so happy. So, so happy. I can’t wait for the rest of my life. With him! Omigod, he’s going to be the CUTEST dad and the BEST husband and all the other PTA moms are going to be all, ‘Clink got a winner.’

Pessimist Clink: Yeah, that’s all well and good but where’s the ring? Where’s the contract written in blood? NOTHING IS CERTAIN, EVER. He could decide tomorrow not to be with you. He could fall in love with another girl during law school and figure, hey, dual incomes in the law field will be so much better than me supporting Clink’s sorry ass while she fumbles her way through the entertainment industry. Ever think about that?

Optimist Clink: Dream crusher. I don’t think about that stuff because I don’t have to. The Boy isn’t like other boys. What we have is special. It’s for real. We’re going to be happy.

Pessimist Clink: Didn’t Trey think what he and Susan had was special? What about Lindsay and Nick, didn’t they think it was for real? Take Lily and Pete, for example, they thought they were going to be happy. Until, of course, it all came crashing down and they had to start over, picking up the pieces of shattered relationships and hopes and dreams - - -

Optimist Clink: ENOUGH. Shudders, thinks longingly about later on this evening, when she can get her hands on some wine and lull Pessimist Clink into a deep, alcohol-induced sleep.

Pessimist Clink: I’m just sayin’. Oh and all that wine? Is most likely going to land you in the hospital with liver failure. Might want to think about curbing that.

Sometimes? It’s not so much fun to be inside my head. I know, I know, what a surprise.

So bitter right now. September 1, 2006

For the millionth time, no I am not going anywhere this weekend.

And you can wipe the pity right off your face – I’m happy about it. No, really. I am. Shut up.

I have no plans whatsoever this weekend. Yeah, I may catch up with some friends over dinner. And yeah, I mentioned to my parents that I may bus it out to Jersey for a night. But other than that? I’m going to sit in my glorious apartment and eat all the glorious food I just spent half of my paycheck on and watch all the glorious TV (what, you don’t consider Laguna Beach glorious?) that is ready & waiting on my DVR.

It’s supposed to rain (thanks, Ernesto – and has it really gotten to the point that we’re running so low on “E” names for storms that we have to use Ernesto?), which means that the pile of laundry sitting in the corner of my otherwise pristine bedroom? The one the Boy looks at with disdain every time he enters? It may actually get done, if I can muster enough energy between Project Runway episodes to ride the elevator down to the laundry room cum sauna. Because lord knows I won’t be venturing outside.

I’m looking forward to the weekend, actually, even if it will be Boy-less until Monday (yeah I know, wah wah wah, I’m so lame because I miss my boyfriend when he leaves for three days). However, I am pretty bitter about the fact that it’s 5:3opm and I am STILL AT WORK and may be here until 8pm and seriously? SERIOUSLY? I’m refusing to do anything work-related, out of spite, but it’s proving harder than usual because my normal method of procrastination (reading blogs! Especially yours! I love yours!) is SLACKING. The internet is not REFRESHING ITS FINE ASS SELF ENOUGH TODAY AND JESUS CHRIST, WHY IS NO ONE UPDATING? Especially you, why aren’t YOU updating? You suck.

I think I’ve officially lost my mind. I also think it’s time for some Starbucks, because it will be quite obvious that I’m not doing any work if I am asleep face-down on my keyboard.