I took it. November 29, 2007

I made a very financially motivated phone call and accepted the position last night.

I’ve lost sleep over this, guys. And not in the “yeah, I thought about it a little before I went to bed” kind of way. It was more “fuck I’ve been tossing and turning and also tossing and also turning and it’s 6am and I HAVE NOT SLEPT.”

Rarely - if ever - do I make decisions motivated by money. I’m a very passionate, intuitive person so I usually let my gut and my heart lead the way.

This time, I chose with my head.

Which is fine.

Really, it’s about time my head got a chance.

There are no hard feelings with my current boss - the most wonderful human being I’ve ever worked for. I was honest with her from the very beginning and she acknowledged that as of right now, there’s no way she can pay me what they’re offering. It just isn’t possible.

However, she did say that if I take the job and experience some growth and hone my skills even further, I’ll be even more valuable when she hires me back in the future.

Hires me back being the key words there, because I seriously cannot imagine not working with this woman again. I’ve had more than my fair share of shitty bosses and it’s about time karma dealt me a good hand.

I hate that I’m giving it up, but I’m thrilled that our relationship is solid enough that it will withstand my going elsewhere.

It’s not as if the new place is going to be so shitty that I’m going to be stabbing my eyeballs with a Bic pen. It seems like a perfectly decent place to work, with perfectly decent people and, um, yeah, that perfectly decent paycheck.

It’ll be nice to have some extra money to put towards the wedding, to treat M to a vacation, to buy a new couch, to be able to save (using the fabulous tips that were suggested in a recent post).

I feel okay about this. Of course, ever the worrier, I’m a bit terrified that I made the wrong decision.

But, truthfully, if it gets so bad that not even the paycheck can lessen the pain, I know where my current boss lives and I’m not above parking myself on her doorstep and refusing to move until she takes me back.

Fuck. (Also, a meme!) November 28, 2007

Yeah, below is all I got.

I mean, not really. I just spent 45 minutes on the phone with my father asking for advice about what to do because, lo, Company that Wants to Poach Me just upped their offer to a ridiculous sum of money.

Seriously, ridiculous.

Fuck. I hate this. I am a Libra and I cannot make decisions. How many times do I have to say it? Excuse me while I go sit down in a corner and rock back and forth.

8 Things Meme (tagged by Pantalones)

8 Things I’m Passionate About:

-Love

-Politics

-College basketball

-Writing

-Being healthy (it’s, um, a recent passion)

-Books

-List-making

-Food

8 Things To Do Before I Die

-Have children

-Write that book of connected short stories that lives inside my head

-Grow old with M, hopefully

-Find a way to reward my parents for being fucking awesome

-Own my own business

-Overcome my fear of flying

-Visit Africa, and not just so I can go on a damn safari

-Be at peace with my body

8 Things I Often Say

-”Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaby, will you get me [water, a tissue, the remote, etc.]?”

-”I’m craving Mexican.”

-”I love you more than anything, Smush.”

-”SERIOUSLY?” (Usually while yelling at the TV. More specifically, The Hills.)

-“Aww, thanks, but I can’t be bribed. Sorry.” (At work.)

-”It’s way too fucking early to work out.”

-”I’ll have a tall, skim caramel macchiato, please.”

-”She/he/that’s crazytown.”

8 Books I Read Recently

-Water For Elephants (loved)

-Lolita (again; I tend to pick it up when there’s nothing else to read.)

-Team of Rivals (I am a total Abraham Lincoln whore.)

-Batman: The Dark Night Returns (Yeah, so, confession: I like graphic novels.)

-Real Simple Magazine (that counts right? Right?)

-Birds of America (Lorrie Moore is a goddess.)

-M’s book (Ok, I totally finished it forever ago, but every now and then I pick up the book just to see the dedication to me.)

-Eat, Pray, Love

8 Songs That Hold Meaning

-”Green Eyes” by Coldplay (Our first dance song.)

-”Brighter Than Sunshine” by Aqualung (The song that will forever and always make me feel warm and fuzzy while thinking of M.)

-”White America” by Eminem (The perfect work-out song.  Nothing motivates me like anger toward the government.)

-”When the Lights Go Out” by the Black Keys (Reminds me of college and my ex-boyfriend. Specifically, the strip tease - my first - I did for my ex-boyfriend to this song. It’s the perfect strip tease song. You know, if you’re in the market.)

-”Crash” by Dave Matthews (High school, summer nights, sips from flasks snuck into the Meadowlands. Bliss.)

-”Chocolate” by Snow Patrol (One of my favorite songs of all time.)

-”All I Want Is You” by U2. (Anything by U2, really.)

-”My Girl” by The Temptations (I will dance with my father at my wedding to this song, just as we used to dance to it when I was little. Really, anything from The Big Chill Soundtrack/motown/The Beatles reminds me of my youth, and perfect Sunday mornings with bagels, the paper, my family and music on the stereo.)

8 Qualities I Look For In a Friend

-Sense of humor that parallels mine. I mean, duh.

-A strong sense of loyalty.

-Ability to go to a restaurant and not fucking freak out over every calorie. (My “omigod, I can’t share guac with you, avocados are full of fat!” friend quota is filled, thankyouverymuch.)

-Open personality. I’m a very open person and I don’t do well with people who are closed off. I don’t have the time nor the inclination to break down wall after wall.

-Love of television. If you tell me that you don’t ever watch TV or (gasp) don’t even own a TV, we’re probably not going to be friends.

-Will tell me the truth. From whether or not my ass looks good in those pocket-less Theory pants to whether I need to cut M some slack instead of getting whiny and needy about feeling neglected while he studies for finals, I respect people who can tell it like it is.

-Feistiness. I don’t do well with passive or neutral people who don’t get fired up, don’t get excited, don’t get rip-roaring mad. I tend to be friends with people who live in extremes, like I do.

-Love of my baked goods. No, seriously. If you are my friend, I will bake for you a lot, mainly because I love you but also because I love to bake but I don’t want it in the house.

If you need something to write about, by all means consider yourself tagged.

Money, money, money. November 27, 2007

I don’t know where my money goes.

I mean, I know that a large chunk of it - an obscene chunk of it - goes to rent.

But other than that? I really don’t know. Sometimes it gives me panic attacks, how I still live paycheck to paycheck (despite a very generous salary because my current boss fought for me and she rocks), how I don’t have any savings, how fucked I am when it comes to finance.

It’s me, I know it is. I make about 50% more now than I did when I first started working and yet I’m still in the “I have no control over my finances” situation.

It’s enough to make a girl pack it in and move to flyover country because I’ve heard that this “cost of living” thing is lower there.

A friend of mine just bought an apartment in Manhattan. I know her well, and I know that she’s not one of those people who got the down payment money from mommy and daddy. This is someone who set a goal and brought her own lunch and resisted vacations and third rounds of drinks and now she owns real estate. In Manhattan.

Excuse me while I go buy an expensive bottle of wine and cry over the fact that I suck.

I watch Suze Orman a lot, even though she’s orange. I watch and people call and they talk about investing all this money and it just kind of depresses me a bit. I’m slightly masochistic, I guess. And also, fascinated.

I tend to just blame it on New York. “Oh, that caller lives in Tulsa, no wonder she has all that in savings!”

Most of my friends live in big cities: New York, Boston, Los Angeles, London.

When we get together, conversation inevitably turns to our rents, our paltry savings, the things we buy that we don’t need with money we really should put away, how cereal costs $5 in the city but $3 once you get out to the suburbs, the fact that we’ll probably never be able to own something in the city, something more than a dilapidated former crack den in the seedy (but “up and coming!”) part of town.

It binds us, this expensive city living. It’s also a point of pride, in a way: sure, we don’t have massive savings accounts or mortgages but we are surviving and that in and of itself deserves a pat on the back.

“I don’t know how you still do it, Clink,” said a friend who recently packed it up and moved to a cheaper part of the country. And she knows, because she lived here. Half of her paycheck every week went to rent. She, too, used to be shocked when she went elsewhere and a glass of wine only cost $5.50, instead of $12. “I like it better this way. I like having a safety net,” she admitted.

I don’t have a safety net, but I do have New York. And I will defend New York to the death. I will defend New York even when I’m living in the suburbs and my quality of life has risen by virtue of no longer inhabiting an expensive city. I will defend New York always. I will encourage my children to live here, I will force M to visit with me every chance that we get, I will always feel like a New Yorker.

I love you New York. You’re absurdly expensive but you’re so worth the price of admission.

(That said, who has money saving tips because HI, I COULD USE SOME.)

Transition. November 25, 2007

This past Wednesday was the first night before Thanksgiving that I didn’t go out and get drunk with my friends from high school since…well, since high school.

There was a part of me - stronger than I’d like to admit - that wanted to go. A part of me that wished I was single, if only for a night. Single and free to flirt with High School Ex and Guy From High School I Dated a Few Years Ago and get sloshed and walk home in a pack along familiar streets, stopping to vomit or to stumble, only to pass out on my childhood bed and usher in Thanksgiving morning with a raging hangover.

This isn’t exactly fresh material - I write a lot about the transition I’m going through and I’m willing to admit that it hasn’t been so easy to hang up my former self in the back of my closet (right next to my ponchos - who ever thought ponchos were a good idea?) and forget about her.

Don’t get me wrong - I wouldn’t give up M for anything, especially not a pre-Thanksgiving drunkfest and flirting with my ex. But there was a part of me that missed that freedom.

M and I could’ve gone, of course, to the local bar. We could’ve made small talk and discussed wedding plans and oh yes, we live in Manhattan, yeah it’s so expensive but we love it, what are you up to these days?

It wouldn’t have been the same. Obviously.

Plus, it was around Thanksgiving just a few years ago - when M and I were relatively new - that High School Ex took it upon himself to plant a kiss on me as I mixed some absinthe at a party. The full story and resulting aftermath are somewhere in the archives.

So it wouldn’t exactly have been fair to thrust M into that kind of situation, and I wouldn’t have enjoyed it either.  Instead, we had a lovely, adult Thanksgiving. We watched the parade from our window and our roof, sucking in the sixty degree weather with the knowledge that it probably won’t be back until May. We spent the day with my insane, loud, awesome family and then spent the next day with his lovely, quiet family and we saw American Gangster and I finished an entire book in a day an a half and we ate out and went grocery shopping and talked about how we’re going to raise our kids and when we should start planning our bachelor/bachelorette party.

It was lovely. It is my life now.

But as I fell asleep beside him, the night before Thanksgiving, my mind drifted back to Thanksgiving Eve a few years ago, before I ever knew that M existed.

I ran into a former crush at the local bar, found out he lived in Williamsburg and played in a band. His family lives in my section of town so we walked home together, before last call, prompting raised eyebrows and whispering amongst our separate groups of friends (mine: the jocks, the preps, the overachievers; his: the band geeks-turned-cool).

We took a detour to the local park, sat on a rock near the pond and talked. And then made out. And then had sex.

I still can’t pass that pond without snickering.

That was magic. Being young - and free of everything, including, apparently, decency - was magic.

I still hang on to those days as they slip further and further away because just like thinking about my future with M makes me feel warm and contented, so does thinking about my past.

Happy Thanksgiving. November 21, 2007

It’s 11:09pm on Tuesday. I have another hour of work ahead of me tonight, and fifteen straight days of work behind me (including working until 10pm both Saturday and Sunday).

I’m not complaining. I’m really not. Because, for the first time ever, I love my job. I love my boss. I love everything about what I do.

I was recently recruited by another company. A guy with a sexy British accent called and lured me into a meeting. He pulled out the big guns: a bigger paycheck, a staff position, a sexy title. Sensing my reluctance, he then whipped out a freelancer’s kryptonite: health insurance.

And yet, I didn’t buckle.

Granted, the offer is still on the table - at least until after Thanksgiving - but I don’t know if I’m going to take it. (That sound you hear is my parents sobbing over the fact that their daughter is refusing a job with health insurance, omigod, where did we go wrong?)

I love what I’m doing. I’m happy. I feel appreciated. I feel valuable.

This is a first (sadly).

I’m relishing it.

***

So, Thanksgiving. I haven’t even had time to be excited about it because, well, see above, but it is so my favorite holiday. I mean, I know there were Pilgrims and Indians and something about thanks but when it gets down to it, the damn holiday pretty much just celebrates food.

By around 7pm on Thursday evening, my thighs will be crying out for mercy but I will still probably have another slice of pumpkin pie because that’s just how I roll (plus: there are always Spanx to hide any extra pudge! Woo!)

For the first time ever, I am actually staying in the city to watch the parade. Usually I half-watch it from the comfort of my home but this time M and I are going to brave the elements.

Luckily, the parade literally goes right by our building so, um, if those elements get too harsh we can always just run upstairs and drink hot cocoa and watch from the window.

My aunt is a balloon handler in this year’s parade. I wish I could say that she’s my zany, blue-haired, never-married eccentric aunt who is always doing crazy things but, really, she’s my young, hot, looks-better-than-me-but-has-had-two-kids aunt who is not really prone to doing crazy things but hey. Everyone is allowed some crazy every now and then.

Afterwards, we’re heading to beloved New Jersey. I really can’t wait to see my family because seeing my family means a) awesome food and b) free reign to talk about the wedding. No, seriously, they can’t get enough. To the point that sometimes even I think it’s a bit much.

M is coming home with me and this little mini-break is so, so needed. We haven’t been fighting, but we’ve been pretty disconnected. He’s been busy and I’ve been busy and thus the affection and sex and communication has been pretty nonexistent. I hate feeling like we’re roommates. I miss being us.

I’m hoping some time away from things like jobs and school and stress will bridge the small gap that’s developed between us.

Anyway, I hope you all have an awesome holiday. My food coma and I will be back on Monday, if not sooner.

Confession. November 19, 2007

I bought Spanx. Kind of by accident.

I was in the Bloomingdale’s hosiery section, having wandered away from M, who was in the process of choosing a winter coat in the men’s section. I can’t really shop with M as we take an opposite approach to spending money: I am impulsive, I go with my gut, I am able to make a decision on the spot (despite my usual Libra indecisiveness); M is a researcher, a comparer, a “let me think this over” shopper and hi, I have no patience for that.

So, the hosiery section. I was browsing the tights as I am currently on a bit of a tights kick (note that I said tights and not stockings because stockings are evil, the end).

I noticed a girl in the Spanx section. She was not what I would consider a traditional Spanx shopper (as in, isn’t Spanx for older women and not, like, taut twentysomething blondes with perky asses?) but there she was, stocking up.

She noticed me noticing her and the Spanx, gave me a confident smile and said “I’m obsessed.”

“Oh really? I mean, I’ve heard of them. I’ve just never…”

“Omigod. Here. This.” She handed me something called Higher Power. “It whittles your waist, your ass, your thighs…I mean, I don’t know where it all goes, but hey. I can fit into pants two sizes smaller when I wear it.”

And that’s pretty much all I needed to hear because did she just say two sizes smaller? As in, I could be a size two without stapling my mouth shut and spending eight hours on the elliptical? Sign me up.

I made the purchase quickly because, let’s be honest, even if a pretty, blonde, twenty-three year old stranger admits to wearing Spanx, it’s still kind of embarrassing.

I have yet to try them on. They’re still in the packaging, hidden in the bottom of my “work out clothes” drawer. I am still not convinced, though they may be dug out for wedding dress shopping because, well, you know.

I really should just get my ass to the gym. I should stop eating chicken parm for lunch (but! But! It made me feel better about being at work on a Sunday, after having been at work on a Saturday!). I should hunt down my former healthy habits, wherever they may be hiding, and force myself to get reacquainted.

In a way, I feel like I’ve let M down a bit. I know that sounds crazy.

When he met me, I was about fifteen pounds lighter than I am now. I was a bit of a stick, I’ll admit it, but I was a hot stick. The gym was my home away from home and I had trained myself to not even crave unhealthy foods, that’s how rarely I ate them.

And then it all went downhill as it does when you’re in love and happy and eating like a guy.

I don’t look overwhelmingly different, but someone who sees me naked everyday would definitely be able to notice a difference, as opposed to someone who only sees me clothed. I’m a bit soft where I used to be muscular, a bit filled out where I used to be svelte.

I know M loves me for me. He always tells me that I’m sexy, that I’m hot, so this is definitely the insecurity talking. But he fell in love with a skinny girl and now he’s marrying a not-as-skinny girl and I wonder if he’s disappointed. Like I faked him out.

I’m overreacting (today’s special: a SHOCKER!), I know. I guess I’m just disappointed in myself that I even bought Spanx, that I am so lazy that I would rather put on a body shaper than work out my young, lithe 26-year-old body and make it look the way I want it to look.

Maybe those $34.00 Spanx should just go unworn.

Clink, get your ass to the gym. Enough with the shortcuts.

Truth. November 18, 2007

I haven’t cheated on M.

Or committed a felony (though, really, if I were to commit a felony it would probably be shoplifting because momma would love a pair of Christian Louboutins).

Or anything else you might be thinking.

I know the timing was a bit suspicious - I had just posted about seeing my ex-boyfriend (verdict: he looks better than ever, his waif of a new girlfriend shot daggers - nay, samurai swords at me all night, it was a wee bit uncomfortable for a while, sangria made it all better) and then I went all cryptic with “I don’t have the guts to publish something” and I apologize for that.

M and I are fine, even if I did find myself - for about 1/300th of a second - thinking about how the Ex has great lips and it was nice to kiss those for five years, in spite of everything.

No, it’s something else: I’ve been thinking about quitting the blog.

There. I said it. I feel better now.

Also, I’m not going to. I should put that out there right away because I don’t want this post to come off as some transparent ploy to run up the comments. That’s not what this is; I just want to be honest. (Hence, I have turned the comments off.)

So, yeah, not going to quit, but definitely thought about it. Have been thinking about it for a while, actually.

I mean, yes, about once a month I’ll get a nasty email or a “wow, you’re so materialistic/crazy/annoying” comment and the sting of the judgment will prompt a “I don’t want to do this anymore” reaction, if only for a moment.

Lately, it’s been different. Lately, it’s been a nagging feeling. Lately, my finger has hovered over the “delete this blog” button.

I’m just feeling…uninspired lately. And full of self-doubt. And worried that M feels a bit closed off from this “blog world” that I retreat to with my laptop. Also, anxious that I won’t be able to sustain posts now that my career trajectory has been clicked to overdrive.

I started to have a meltdown and then I began to convince myself that I could walk away. That I should walk away. That I could still read blogs and comment and feel part of the community without actually being part of the community.

My logic, often enough, leaves a lot to be desired.

The truth is, I would miss it so much.

I would miss you so much.

Also, I would probably have to get a therapist and therapists are expensive.

I don’t know why I’m even writing this post. I probably should’ve just started posting again, blamed my brief absence on being busy and let it be.

But - and this is what it all comes down to, really - I can’t clear my head unless I empty my thoughts. The whole time I was debating whether or not to delete the blog because I’ve outgrown it and I’m busy and maybe it’s not so necessary anymore, I kept wanting to write a post about it because I knew that writing a post - getting it out of my head and into the world - would’ve helped.

Don’t think the irony is lost on me.

It’s just overwhelming sometimes to think that there’s two plus years of my history here. That anyone, anywhere can just click on a month and year and know how I got engaged or what my apartment looks like. I’ve never been a private person but, as the landscape changes, as the blog grows, it makes me want to put up a wall and stay safe inside.

Except, I really wouldn’t be the person I am today without this blog. I would still probably suffer from unhealthy jealousy. I would still feel like the only person who feels a certain way, without the comments and emails reassuring me that others ‘get it’. I would almost certainly not be writing with any sort of consistency.

Oh god. I’m rambling. I’m even boring myself and for that I apologize. It does feel good to get it out there, though, to admit that I have my doubts about myself and my writing and what the hell I’m doing sending my innermost thoughts out into the universe to be read by almost no one I’ve met in real life.

I have my doubts, yes, and I almost let them get the best of me. But I talked myself out of being a coward and I’m still here. Hopefully for a long time.

So sweet. November 16, 2007

I know, I know. I haven’t really been around lately and that’s partially because I’m busy but also because there’s something on my mind that I don’t have the guts to publish just yet.

But this totally made my day (the last paragraph of the post).

And if you’re not reading Sideways Rain well, then, you’re dead to me I just handed you your new favorite blog.

Live and learn. November 12, 2007

I knew he meant it. I knew it wasn’t like every other time when “I just don’t think I can be in a relationship right now” actually meant a few months apart, a few other girls - usually hipsters or art scene chicks or some other opposite of me, and then a few phone calls.

“I miss you. Come down here.”

And I would. Partially because I was naive and partially because of boredom. There was no one else who gave me that surge in my tummy. I yawned my way through many a date when we weren’t together.

“You around this weekend?”

“No, I’m going to see [him] actually. Friday, after work.”

“Oh.” One small word, one large load of disdain from friends.

It’s not that they didn’t get it - one look at him, a few moments in his company and that was all you needed to understand why. But still.

We did the back and forth for a while. This will all eventually be worth it, I wrote in my journal during one of our “let’s be friends” periods.

It wasn’t, ultimately.

We were having brunch. I was wearing his sweatshirt; it was November and I hadn’t packed properly.

“This is how it should be,”I thought to myself, basking in the glow of boyfriend sweatshirt smell and boyfriend brunch.

“So, I don’t know if I’ll be coming up to the city in a few weeks, Clinkmeister.” And it was all downhill from there. It was the usual. I had heard it all before. Except, I hadn’t. Except, I knew. Except, it was over. Except, I cried all the way back to New York and the only silver lining to that was that no one wanted to sit next to me on the train.

When I reference the Crazy, when I reference some of my issues, when I act batshit insane, it pretty much all goes back to him. Our entire relationship was in such a constant state of flux and I was always on edge, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was like sitting through a nail-biting thriller. For five years straight.

The irony of it all is, we make better friends than lovers. We’re friends now. And I don’t mean that in a “I keep him around in case things don’t work out with M and I need a rebound fuck” way. We’re truly friends, born out of the fact that we have tons of friends in common but sustained through a mutual adoration for each other.

I’ll be in his city by the time you read this and I’ll probably be thinking about him. I might even be seeing him at this exact moment, in the mixed company of some of those mutual friends I mentioned. I’ll probably flirt, a bit. I’ll definitely spend some time picking out my most flattering outfit. We may be friends, but we’re still exes.

Ultimately, he revealed what I want in a boyfriend, what I want in a friend, and how to tell the difference.

Doesn’t necessarily make all the tears, vulnerability and embarrassing attempts at seduction via lingerie in hopes that he would finally realize I was the one worth it. But hey. Live and learn, right?

I don’t really know where I’m going with this, so please excuse the rambling post. Coming down here awakened something in me, to the point that I needed to get a few things out of my mind and onto the screen. I feel better now.

Also, is it bad that I kind of hope he got fat?

Back. November 10, 2007

Not pregnant.

Sorry for the unintentional cliffhanger. I took the test Friday morning, right before leaving for Logan Airport. By then, the nausea had subsided and I was thinking less about how trash-tastic a maternity wedding gown would be and more about what a dramatic bitch I am.

My assistant and I stood over the sink in the marble bathroom and waited for the line. Or lines. I applied make-up; she hopped from foot to foot, all “omigod, omigod, omigod.”

She’s 23 and has never taken a pregnancy test; it was cute.

“What IF, Clink! I mean, it will be the most adorable baby EVER but still.”

Whenever I have a pregnancy scare, my mind goes immediately to my lack of health insurance. And then to our lack of a two-bedroom apartment. And then to M’s lack of, I don’t know, a PAYCHECK.

We’re not ready.

Except, um, emotionally? I kind of am. Whenever I see a baby (especially those Spears-Federline kids because come here, Sean. Come here Jayden. Clinky will take care of you and you will really like New York City and there will unfortunately be no platinum teething rings anymore but, um, I make really good cookies!), my ovaries start doing a little dance. It’s kind of like a tribal dance, complete with steel drums. A get noticed dance. A WE’RE HERE! WE’RE OVARIES! START FUCKING PAYING ATTENTION! dance.

The result is a lot of squee-ing on my end. Like at the airport when I cooed so much over a baby seated near us at the gate that the mother actually let me hold the child and why haven’t they bottled baby head scent yet? Someone should really get on that.

Anyway. I’m back. Back again. (Clinky’s back, tell a friend…where the hell is Eminem these days? My work outs miss him.)

I’m not back for long, however. I go away again next week where it will be busybusybusy again and I will be wahwahwah again and such is my life at the moment.

Absence does make the heart grow fonder. By Friday, after a long work week spent sleeping apart from my love (and in the same bed as my assistant…she gets scared in hotel rooms by herself and asked if she could sleep with me), my heart was pretty damn fond of M.

During hideous turbulence on the flight home, I put my forehead against the seat in front of me, tears running down my cheeks, and asked the Universe to please let this not be it because I refused to die and then miss M for all of eternity. I don’t care how great this Heaven place is supposed to be - it can be full of calorie-less Chipwich ice cream sandwiches and it will still suck without him.

I mean, seriously. I arrived home to not only our new dining table (finally. FI. NA. LLY) but our new console table as well, festively adorned by M. Yes, the same M with the Patriots garbage can did THIS:

Of course, I added a few touches but still - it was mostly him. I almost died of shock. And then I had sex with him immediately because you know what? The boy deserved to get laid. (Cue another pregnancy scare in about a month! Woo!).

Also, here is our new dining table. Just because: