Happy holidays, lovelies. December 21, 2007

So, I’ll probably be posting over the next week or so because, well, I have time off between Christmas and the new year and there are only so many episodes of Gilmore Girls I can watch on DVD before I get depressed that Stars Hollow is not real.

But I want to take this opportunity to wish you all the happiest of holidays, whatever you might be celebrating.

You all have been so much more than just readers over the past year - you’ve been my therapists, my cheerleaders and my friends. My life is enhanced by both this blog and the blogging community.

And if we knew each other in real life, I’d totally make you some spiked eggnog and Greek melt-in-your-mouth cookies because you rock.

I’m really looking forward to the end of today, to the start of 12 days of freedom (like the 12 days of Christmas, only better).

I’m especially looking forward to:

-My little sister coming into the city tomorrow to celebrate her rockstar LSAT score by getting drunk with me. Because isn’t that how lawyers usually celebrate things? By drinking? Might as well start her early.

-Actually having a conversation with M. (Also, sex.)

-Just being in my parents house - the huge kitchen with dual ovens so I can bake to my little heart’s content, the gorgeous Christmas tree painstakingly decorated by my father, the holiday music piped into every room, my Yiayia (Greek for grandma) and her adorableness (also, her cooking), poring over wedding magazines with my mom and aunts, watching college basketball with my dad and brother, sleeping in my childhood bed and smiling to myself thinking of M, sleeping just two floors below.

-Christmas itself and my loud Greek family whom I wouldn’t trade for the world. Also, food. Because hi, I haven’t told you but I am currently on a diet and Christmas is my one day to indulge and WHO THE HELL STARTS A DIET DURING THE HOLIDAYS?

-Seeing my friends from high school. Getting drunk with my friends from high school.

-Sitting on my couch. A lot.

Again, happy holidays y’all. May your days be merry and bright.

I leave you with a Christmas photo from many years ago (I know, I know, anonymous blog and whatnot but whatever. It’s Christmas. I’m feeling particularly giving):

I’m the blonde. My sister refused to smile for the camera (my little brother? Not even born). My parents sent the Christmas card out like this because they thought it was hilarious.

You know what I find hilarious? The matching outfits. Seriously, parents?

The Wildfires. August 29, 2007

In many ways, Greece has always felt more like home than any of the other places I’ve lived: New Jersey, Manhattan, the suburbs of Philadelphia, London. 
 
My family is fortunate to have a house there, on a beautiful island, in a small town where everyone knows your name and then some.
 
I could kick myself for being the bratty teenager that I was, stomping my feet about the fact that we had to go to Greece again, and why didn’t we go to the Caribbean or Hawaii or Florida or the shore like the rest of my friends? Why couldn’t we be like everyone else? I’ve never even been to Disneyworld, Mom and Dad! GOD!
 
My kids will probably give me much of the same, pouting and complaining and wanting to be “normal.” They won’t realize until a little later that most people would kill to be “abnormal,” to go to Greece every summer of their lives to a house just a block from a crystal clear ocean and sand so white and fine it feels like sifted confectioner’s sugar between your toes.
 
Many of you have emailed about the fires, to inquire as to my family. That means a lot to me. The fact that you took time out of your day to shoot me a “hey, is your family okay? What’s going on with your mothership?” email just reinforces the fact that y’all are so awesome.
 
My heart is broken for the lives lost, the towns destroyed. Luckily, my family is fine.
 
Initially, I dismissed the fires as the media playing up something that is so commonplace in Greece. We have had wildfires on our island, Kefalonia, almost every summer that I can remember. And, while it is a terrifying sight to see fires raging up on the mountains, normally it looks more threatening than it really is. In fact, there’s only one summer I can remember that it threatened us directly.
 
I was going into third grade at the time, woken in the middle of the night by my mother urging me to put on my sneakers and grab a few of my belongings – things that would’ve been inconceivable to live without at the time, like Pink Dog and my journal. Also, Gameboy.
 
They rushed us down to the ocean, where many in the town had gathered. It looked like an impromptu beach party, without the laughs. Everyone was drinking wine. I remember being carried by my father down the road that led to the beach and sneaking a look back at the fires that were closer than I had ever seen before. Smoke so thick that everything beyond our orange and lemon groves was not visible, not even in the slightest. Miles and miles of road and homes and hotels leading to the mountain that looked like they had just been erased.
 
We were lucky enough to have a rich and generous uncle who ferried everyone out to his yacht, docked in the Ionian, where his staff served bread and feta and olive oil and ouzo.
 
I remember crying because my grandmother and my great uncle – hearty Greek stock that they were and are – refused to leave. They were going to resist the fire with garden hoses. They had worked hard to build the house that still stands, the place where we go every year, that gorgeous refuge, a maze of white washed bedrooms and marble baths and beautiful verandas and balconies off of each room. My mother and father pleaded and begged, to no avail.
 
To hell if they were going down without a fight.
 
My parents – of less hearty Greek American stock – weren’t taking any chances.
 
We stayed on the yacht until the early morning, until the relentless dumping of water from the planes overhead finally made some headway, until it seemed safe to return home.
 
We went back to the house, to my grandmother who was already cooking the afternoon meal, shaking her head at the “idiot shepherds.” She was cursing in Greek and in English; she rarely ever cursed in either language.
 
Apparently, the fires – on our island, at least - are usually set by shepherds so that the grass will grow fresh for their herds. Idiots, indeed.
 
I don’t know if that’s the case in the fires that are currently raging in Southern Greece. There has been a lot of speculation. I do know, maybe, why some have died: we Greeks are stubborn.
 
I read about a couple who perished because they refused to abandon their only donkey. They rejected a drive to safety in a police car because of a donkey. That’s love, that’s loyalty. That’s also part of the problem.
 
My parents’ (American?) sensibilities told them to get out and fast that summer. My grandmother and great uncle’s Greek sensibilities told them to defend, go down with the ship. Luckily it all worked out for them but that story could have had a very different, very tragic ending, as it has for so many in Greece recently.
 
I read about the graves being dug for a mother who died with her arms around her children, a teacher who died in a futile effort to shield her students, people too sick or disabled to flee in such a short period of time. I cried at work. These are my people and many of them are in peril and the government is playing a blame game. It’s oddly Katrina-esque, on a much, much smaller scale.
 
I’m not a very religious person, but bless everyone over there that has been affected.

Letters. August 23, 2007

Dear The Sun, 

Hi! It’s me! I miss you! Where have you been?  

What’s that? On the west coast?  

Ok, fine, whatever, yeah there are prettier people out there but you know what? They are sun whores. They get you all the time. All we’re asking is for a brief respite from this five-day, all cloudy, all the time, could-be-November-out-there bullshit.  

Did you by chance get us confused with London?  

Come back soon. LYLAS. 

Xo,  

Clink  

*** 

Dear Interns, 

You’re lazy. Not incompetent, but lazy. I just don’t understand the entitlement of your generation.  

Yes, we work in TV. Yes, we work for a pretty cool company. Yes, it’s fairly relaxed around here. Yes, I am not that much older than you. 

That, however, does not mean you can brush me off with a “yeah, one second” as you update your Facebook page when I ask you to help me out with something.  

And yeah, I took it to the big boss. And, yeah, I was thrilled when he called you in and told you that if I ask you to do something, you should act as if GOD HIMSELF asked you to do something. And, yeah, I’m only here for another week but I’m enjoying the fact that you no longer walk around like you are the princes and princesses of this place. 

I was an intern once too. And you know what? I worked my ass off. And I did it all with a smile. That’s why I am where I am right now. You should probably take note. 

-Clink 

*** 

Dear Family, 

Welcome back from Greece! I missed you. I am jealous of your tans. I am sorry that the sun has taken a brief hiatus from this area. I can’t wait to see you this weekend.

Love,

Clink

*** 

Dear Future Husband, 

You made last night so special: the reservations at our favorite place, the stop at Cold Stone afterwards, how you said that you are so proud of me and you get so happy when someone else (as in, my future boss) realizes how much I rock.  

I love you more than you could possibly imagine. Think of how much you think I love you and then multiply that by eleventy thousand million trillion and then you’ll be somewhere in the ballpark. 

Thinking about you still gives me butterflies. 

Yours, 

Clinky 

*** 

Dear Reality Television, 

You rock. For reals. Even when you break my heart, like you did last night, when Tre got kicked off of Top Chef and I kind of wanted to cry. Ok fine, maybe I did cry but Tre! So poised, so professional, so likable. He had one bad night and he gets sent packing but Howie, Mr. I Couldn’t Get My Frog Legs Plated In The First Episode, gets to stick around? 

But Fashionista Diaries, last night? So good. And The Hills, even if I’m starting to suspect that it is, indeed, fully scripted? So good. And Big Brother? SO GOOD.  

I’m starting to think we have a bit of a unhealthy relationship but I’m clearly not going anywhere anytime soon. Fall TV is right around the corner. 

Kisses,

Clink 

*** 

Dear Readers, 

I am so sorry for this crappy excuse for a post. I’m all out of ideas and who really wants to hear me squee about my job, or bitch about how my mom thinks my registry isn’t well-rounded enough, or complain about how I have no motivation to go to the gym? No one, that’s who.

Feel free to suggest post topics. Otherwise, there might be more of this (*nods upwards*) to come.  

Also, you look really skinny today, have you lost weight? 

Best, 

Your Clink

Role reversal. August 15, 2007

Since the rest of my family is in Greece, where they have been for a month, my dad and I check in with each other every day, just to say hi and bitch about how they’re in Greece and we’re not and that sucks. 
 
6:30pm last night, walk out of work after one of those days that makes you want to put on a hoodie, pull the covers over your head, plug in your iPod and think to yourself, “god, Fiona Apple just gets me”: Call my dad to have him cheer me up. Leave a message with his secretary as he is in a meeting.
 
8pm, eat a Smart Ones, realize that the tiny portion will not be nearly enough: Get the answering machine at home. Call my dad on his cell phone, leave a message. Try the office, leave a message.  
 

9:30pm, watch Newport Harbor, which is awful even by my very flexible TV standards: Call my dad at home and on his cell.  
 

11pm, in bed with M, tell him I’m concerned that my dad is being tied up and held for ransom as we speak: Call my dad, home and cell. Again, nothing.
 

Fall asleep. 
 

1:07am, wake up with a start, immediately wonder how the hell I’m going to pay that ransom: Call my dad. He answers. 
 
Me: “DAD! IT’S ME! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? I’VE BEEN TRYING YOU ALL NIGHT! I WAS SO WORRIED!”
 
Dad: “I was out to dinner in Astoria with some clients. I know, I meant to call but I totally forgot.”
 
Me: “You can’t do that to me! I was so worried! I was freaking out! (Gently pokes a sleeping M) M knows that I was freaking out!” 
 

Dad: (finds this all very amusing) “I’m 57 years old, Clink. I think I can take care of myself.”
 
Me: “I don’t care how old you are! I’m still your daughter and I still worry!” 
 
Dad: “Ok, ok, I’ll call next time. I promise.”
 
Me: “You’d better. God. Did I mention that I was worried? Because I was worried.” 
 
Dad: “I’m fine! Oh…and hey Clink?”
 
Me: “Yeah?”
 
Dad: “Don’t tell your mother.”

Medium. August 9, 2007

(This post is prompted by one written by Holly. You do read Holly, don’t you? She is one of my many blogcrushes.)
 
I’ve always been fascinated with death and ghosts and anything falling under the umbrella (…ella,…ella) of “paranormal.” However, I’m also a total wuss. I won’t watch scary movies or read books about ghosts and I’ll most likely stick my fingers in my ears if you start to tell me a scary story and say “la, la, la” until you stop. So, really, my fascination has always been from a distance.
 
Until the day it directly affected my family, that is.
 
My mom’s father died when she was thirteen. He was driving home on the New York Thruway when he was hit by another car and, as he was not wearing his seatbelt, was hurled through the windshield and onto the asphalt.
 
Over the course of her life, my mom clearly never thought she’d get the chance to speak with her father again. I mean, duh. He died. End of story, right?
 
Wrong.
 
One of my mom’s colleagues told her about a “medium” in the area. Someone who could communicate with the dead.
 
I know what you’re picturing and let me just smash the stereotype: the medium lives in one of the wealthiest towns in the country, dresses in J.Crew and is no different, mostly, from your typical soccer mom. She just also happens to be able to communicate with the dead.  
 
She’s impossible to get an appointment with because word has gotten around that she’s good. She’s also very, very expensive. My mom had to wait a whole year to meet with her and the entire time she was skeptical. She would laugh about it and make it clear that she wasn’t expecting much. 
 
If you knew my mom, you would know that seeing a medium is so out of character for her that I thought it was a joke the first few times she mentioned it.  
 
The only thing the medium knew about my mom when they met was her first name. As soon as she was in my mom’s presence, however, the medium immediately knew who my mom was there to see, as my grandfather was waiting to speak with her. Well, actually, the medium said that a whole bunch of our loud, opinionated, dead Greek relatives were all angling to talk to her but she had to politely ask them to quiet down.  
 
The meeting went well, to the point that, when she left, my mom had little doubt that she had actually been speaking to her father.
 
He said things like, “don’t worry, my head is ok.” (He cracked his head on the asphalt when he was flung from the car.) 
 
He told her that he’s so proud of how she has raised myself, my sister and my brother. (The medium did not know how many children – if any – my mother had.) 
 
He told her to tell my grandmother that when she’s in pain at night (she has sciatica, something that developed after he was dead) that he lays down next to her until she goes to sleep. 
 
He told her that she’s not just imagining it when she thinks she smells the scent of smoke from his pipe.  
 
He even said, “I told you I’d be here,” in response to my mother’s thought – on the drive to the medium – that he wouldn’t even show up and that the whole thing would be a sham.   
 
But the creepiest part came at the end.  
 
A bit of backstory before we continue: a few weeks before my mom went to the medium she took a watch of my grandfather’s to be restored, the one he was wearing when he died. She didn’t tell anyone about it as she was hoping to present it to my oldest cousin as a surprise.  
 
However, my grandfather knew. In fact, the last thing he communicated to my mother – through the medium – was “I’m so proud of what you’re doing with the watch. It means a lot to me.” 
 
My mom says she damn near fell off the chair. 
 
When my mom came home, she wasn’t shaken. In fact the woman who never stops moving and doing and thinking was actually wrapped in a sense of calm.  
 
Until that day, I’d never been a big believer in the afterlife, or ghosts or anything supernatural. But ever since, I’ve also felt a sense of calm when I think about my grandfather. Like, I know that he’s watching. I think about him a lot when I fly. Flying, for me, is so closely linked with death. Whenever I get on an airplane, I prepare myself to die. However – and M can attest to this – I’ve been much better ever since my mom’s meeting with the medium. Mainly because I know that something else is out there, watching out for me.
 
What about y’all? Any experience with the paranormal? A firm non-believer or someone who also feels something is “out there”? Am I the only crazy one and, yes, I realize that this post firmly puts me in the category of ‘unhinged.’

Case of the Mondays. August 6, 2007

Oh, I don’t know. This weekend was awesome and I miss it already.  
 
Especially because today is so Monday, you know? Grey, with a chance of thunderstorms. Ants crawling out of the coffee creamer (I do not like coffee to taste like coffee) just as I was about to pour some in. An extra heaping of pressure at work because one of my colleagues thinks that part of her job is to read every one of Perez Hilton’s posts instead of, you know, DOING WHAT SHE IS PAID TO DO. 
 
Sigh. Cranky Clink.  
 
Also, my morning didn’t get off to a great start. I called the family in Greece because today is my mom’s birthday and my dad still pays my cell phone bill (I think he forgot that he pays it; score) and I therefore thought nothing of spending twenty minutes of expensive long-distance minutes. 
 
My sister got on the phone, eventually, to tell me she’s “bored” (I feel compelled to remind you that she is IN GREECE) and also, to ask me how the diet and exercising is going. 
 
“Clink, have you been dieting? Have you been going to the gym? We’re going wedding dress shopping when I get back and you need to be SKINNY.” 
 
This, from the size zero. I almost burst into tears. I know when you’re that small that a size six is akin to legs the size of tree-trunks (you know, like in Hollywood, where Kate Winslet is considered “curvy”), but still.  
 
And since when do I have to answer to my little sister? 
 
I know she was doing it because she knows me and she knows that I need a kick in the ass and it actually worked, as I bypassed H&H Bagels on the way to work and am instead sipping on an iced coffee with skim milk and splenda. But still. Grr. 
 
Anyway, other than that, the weekend was great. As I mentioned. Saturday I went to the gym for the first time in a very long time and found myself not wanting to leave. Saturday evening M and I went to a party on the Lower East Side, where it felt like college and I drank like a freshman. Sunday I spent the day baking in the sun at Yankee Stadium, chatting with my dad and the rest of the season ticket regulars that he has befriended. Last night, M and I cuddled in bed and ate Italian (bad Clink, bad!) and felt better about ourselves after another episode of Rock of Love. 
 
So, yeah. Monday. And my boss has come over twice while writing this post to ask me for any updates. Twice. In the span of, oh, less than ten minutes. 
 
Which means it is probably my cue to get to work.

NJ Transit is mean and wrong. And other things. June 4, 2007

Saturday morning I woke up at 8am and, not bothering to shower, put on an all-black ensemble. In heels, in the heat and sunshine, I moved through the throngs of tourists toward Port Authority.  
 
The woman at the New Jersey Transit counter threw my change and my ticket and a few eye rolls at me as I asked, again, if she was sure about the departure gate and bus line, as I was pretty certain it was the 166. 
 
No, she assured me with an exaggerated sigh, the 162. Gate 224. Another eye roll. NEXT! 
 
Sure enough (gut instinct, I really don’t give you enough credit), she was sending me to Fairlawn not Fairview. Had I not been so short on time and so desperate to find the correct gate, I would’ve marched back to the ticket window (in the heels I was wearing, no easy feat) and shoved my finger toward the glass and told her that she almost made me miss a funeral and you know what? If I ever talked to anyone at my job the way that she spoke to me, I would be fired.  
 
Of course I really wouldn’t have done so. But I like to think that I would’ve, had there been a spare half hour. 
 
I boarded the 166 and begged the driver to take my $4.20 ticket, even though the fare was only $2.25 (Fairlawn is a great deal farther than Fairview). He shrugged and gave me the “ok, crazy lady” face and I took my place in the very first seat.   
 
My uncle died. Except, he was only my uncle by marriage and I have exactly zero memories of him as he and my aunt divorced when I was young. There’s a photo, in one of my mother’s meticulously kept photo albums, of him in a while suit (a la Travolta), on the dance floor at someone’s wedding or christening. That’s how he has always resided in my mind. Uncle White Suit, smiling. In fact, I was surprised to peek in the casket and notice him wearing black. 
 
He’s the father of two of my cousins, but he has been an elusive figure in their lives. He died suddenly - he had a swollen leg and some chest pains, so he drove himself to the emergency room, where he passed. My cousins - both men, ages 26 and 23 - were on the outs with him. No big blow out, just a general disinterest in including him in their lives. They’re bright and successful and well-rounded and attractive and they just couldn’t seem to fit their sporadic, drug-addicted father into their well-meshed lives.  
 
Now, of course, they deal with the guilt. Guilt and death are the cruelest of companions. A friend of mine, a few years ago, was rude and abrupt with her father on the phone. He called in the middle of her studying for finals and she wanted nothing more than to get off the phone. He died later that night of a heart attack. He was 52 and ran 8 miles every day. She’ll never make peace with the fact that her last words to her father were, “Dad, really, I have to go, okay? Bye.” That she didn’t end with, at the very least, “I love you.” 
 
The funeral was in Greek, which left a lot of time to reflect, as Greek words, in church at least, become background music to me. Like the classical CDs I used to put on while studying. I kept my eyes on the carpeted floor of the church, for every time I looked up I caught sight of my cousin - the younger brother - and his tears and watery cheeks had me subsequently gurgling and choking on sobs. I have never been a quiet crier.  
 
My father’s birthday is today. Last night he and my mother and my sister and my brother came into the city and, along with M, we dined at one of his favorite Italian restaurants.  
 
I didn’t want to bring it up, to hijack the conversation and take it from the Yankees and my sister’s post-graduation plans and my brother’s recent all-star baseball status to someplace dark, but I did. I said, “Dad, I know you don’t like doctors but if you die of something preventable, I will be pissed.” 
 
And he nodded. And said that, with Uncle White Suit’s passing, he had made a decision to get checked out. 
 
My father has always been healthy and spry and too busy providing for the family and caring for the community to bother himself with waiting rooms and blood pressure tests. But, frankly, I don’t want him to die. Not until he’s old and ready.  
 
This weekend was filled with some great - truly great - moments (see: All of Knocked Up and my subsequent al fresco dinner with M on Saturday night), but the funeral hung heavy in the air, along with all that humidity. I was reflective and anxious and plagued by bad dreams and a restlessness I couldn’t exorcise, not even with a spinning class.  
 
Rest in peace, Uncle White Suit. May you find in death the peace and happiness that eluded you so in life. 
 
 And, to all of you, always end your conversations with “I love you.”

Ridiculously (no, seriously) long post. May 29, 2007

I’ve been pouting all day, mourning the supersized weekend and how unceremoniously it has melted back into the routine, the yawn-inducing.  
 
There were some hiccups (M’s very first migraine among them) but mostly it was the kind of weekend that, if reduced to montage form, would look like something out of a movie instead of real life. The only thing that could’ve made it better was if M got down on one knee in the shade of Central Park, shoving our half-eaten sandwiches and bottles of Poland Spring and the zillion and one magazines I bought aside, and asked me to be his. 
 
Except then I would’ve had to kill him because he knows that I don’t want it to happen in a public place where surrounding people then politely clap and jockey for position to get a glimpse of the ring, subsequently casting judgment on us and our relationship and our financial status based on the size and design. 
 
So, really, it was perfect as it was.  
 
On Friday I got gloriously drunk after work with a few of my co-workers and a few of their friends. So drunk, in fact, that I stumbled into my apartment clutching two bags full of McDonalds fare, which I promptly abandoned on the living room floor - without even eating so much as one fry - for the comfort of passing out in my bed until M came home from work. Have you ever woken up - hungover and parched and sick to your stomach - to the stench of McDonalds emanating throughout your apartment? Tip: it does not help with the hungover and sick-to-stomach-ness. Trust.  
 
Saturday quickly became an unplanned (but welcome nonetheless) pampering day, as I spent the majority of it getting a manicure and pedicure and retreating to the air-conditioned oasis of the Time Warner Center for a little (okay, a lot) of shopping. Have you been to Esprit lately? Neither had I. And, unless you have gobs money in your pocket to burn on very cute summer clothes, I suggest you don’t.  I came home with three overflowing red bags, prompting an eyebrow raise from my roommate who said what I’m sure everyone on the street was thinking: “Esprit? Really? Like the place where my mom used to buy all my clothes when I was ten?” Once I pulled out my dazzling array of (overpriced, REALLY overpriced but oh so cute) dresses, skirts and tops, she was no longer so skeptical. 
 
Saturday evening, M and I ventured to my old neighborhood, the Upper East Side, for some pasta at one of our old haunts. We decided to walk the forty blocks back to my apartment in hopes of silencing, just a bit, our groaning, overstuffed stomachs. Somewhere along the way, we passed a Pinkberry. And I was all, “I know I’m stuffed but I’ve been dying to try” and he was all “Clink, we have just eaten enough to feed a small but intrepid army” and I was all “it’s yogurt! Whatever! Always room for yogurt!” 
 
Pinkberry exceeded my expectations. I tend to look at Los Angeles exports with a skeptical eye (see: Couture, Juicy) but one spoonful of the original with strawberries and carob chips and I was smitten.  
 
Pinkberry was a great idea until we reached the 60’s on the east side and I started to feel a rumble in my tummy. A rumble that can only mean one thing: bathroom. Immediately. (Hi, sorry, I didn’t warn you that we were about to get so intimate but, yeah, we are.) I could barely speak as we slowly made our way down Lexington, as I was too busy clutching my tummy and waving my fist at the stomach gods for saddling myself and many of my family members with evil, vengeful stomachs.  
 
M, knight in shining armor that he is, flagged a taxi and politely asked the driver to take the fastest, least congested route back to my apartment. I’m sure that, initially, the driver was all “yeah, whatever dude, don’t you know that now I get paid more to sit in slow traffic?” However, a few seconds of groaning from the lady in the halter dress in the backseat was probably enough to sense that I was in labor and needed to get back to my apartment for a home birth.  
 
That’s what it felt like - labor. In between my moans I somehow managed to announce to M that we are “SO ADOPTING, OMIGOD.”  
 
“But I want my kids to be half Greek,” he protested, smiling.
  
“THEN WE WILL ADOPT FROM GREECE FOR THE FUCKING LOVE OF GOD.”  
 
The lesson learned? Chicken parm + a heaping side of pasta + lots of baked rigatoni stolen off of M’s plate + Pinkberry = not the brightest idea. Also, Clink has an evil stomach that should not be taunted with any combination of the above. Hi, salads! All week! 
 
I was too nauseous to meet up with friends later that evening, so M and I curled up in bed and somehow found our way to a Lifetime Original Movie (somehow = I put it on and refused to let M change the channel). Have you seen The Party Never Stops: Diary of a Binge Drinker? Well I have. And it was pure Lifetime brilliance. I loved - loved! - how the ‘rock bottom’ (SPOILER ALERT) was that, while backing a car out of a driveway after drinking, the main character hit a fire hydrant. And that - that! - was enough to scare her straight. Sigh. Lifetime, you kill me. 
 
Sunday was Migraine Day. I baked some more homemade Oreos as M shut himself up in my bedroom, shades drawn, pillows over his head, and moaned. It broke my heart to see him in such pain, and as it was his Very First Migraine, neither of us really knew what to do. So I dropped him off at his apartment - armed with some medication and Gatorade - and kissed his face before venturing to my parents’ house in New Jersey for a barbeque. 
 
The absence of M meant everyone could freely ask about my thoughts on the wedding and color schemes! Guest list! Venue! I managed to skirt most questions by stuffing my face full of grilled steak, widening my eyes and shrugging. As much as I want to talk about the upcoming engagement and nuptials, I’ve decided to put a personal moratorium on all such speak until there’s a ring on my finger. The superstitious part of me (the part that won’t move an inch if my college basketball team is winning but will all but turn my clothes inside out if they need to rally) thinks it’s bad luck.  
 
My mom (confined to the couch with a broken foot; my dad has taken to calling her “Peg Leg Pete”) and I spent the evening watching Little Children. Which was lovely and creepy and made me want to draw the shades a little tighter before I retired for the night because who knows what dangers lurk in suburbia. 
 
I drove back into the city early yesterday morning so as to beat all the traffic headed this way from the Hamptons and the Shore and the airports. M was feeling much better, so the two of us decided to head to Central Park and roll around on a blanket and read the paper and generally bask in the great weather and the being in love.
 
There was one point, I was reading Sunday’s Styles section (natch) while laying on my back and M was sitting up reading Sports (again, natch) and I put the paper down and stroked his back a little and he turned and leaned down and kissed me and I looked up at him, framed by the sunlight sifting through the trees and was all sigh, love. In that moment, there was nothing but him and me and what was between us. It was awesome.
 
After we had had our fill of flicking bugs off of each other and moaning about our aching backs, we spent some time in Borders before heading home to cook some angel hair pasta with shrimp and feta, which is the easiest thing in the world to cook but shhh don’t tell M because he thinks I’m an absolute goddess every time I make it. 
 
On a whim we walked up to the movie theater to see what was playing and decided on Waitress, which, okay, just see it. But sneak a few slices of pie into the theater with you. Trust me on that one. 
 
And here I am at work, staring at the list of things to do that I made on Friday. Friday, when all I could think about was leaving work early and going for drinks with my co-workers and kicking off a 3-day weekend. Friday, when I was pretty unconcerned with how intimidating and ambitious the list would be on Tuesday, especially on the heels of a few days of non-work bliss.  
 
I think of Friday now and the edges of the day are blurred, like in a dream. Friday held so much promise and the weekend made good on that promise and now it’s the weekday, and I have nothing to look forward to but this weekend, which will feel like a gyp because it is only two days. 
 
At least it’s Tuesday. At least this is a four-day week. At least there’s that, eh?

Can’t make it up. May 23, 2007

So about a half an hour ago I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business, doing some work, tending to my f(*#$& allergies, perhaps reading a blog or two (or eleventy thousand) when I got a phone call from my boyfriend. 
 
Boyfriend: Your mom broke her foot, you should call her. She’s leaving the hospital now. 
 
Self: (Thinking: how in the hell does my boyfriend have all of this information) Um, how in the hell do you have all of that information? 
 
Boyfriend: I can’t tell you. 
 
Self: Oh yeah? Really? It’s classified information requiring level five access, Jack Bauer?  
 
Boyfriend: Exactly. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go save the planet from yet another evil minority group intent on blowing us all to smithereens as revenge for that one guy of theirs I tortured a decade ago. Bauer out. 
 
Self: (Confused) 
 
A few moments later, my father called. 
 
Father: Your mother broke her foot. She was wearing her Jessica Simpson shoes. Enough said. 
 
Self: Yeah, I heard actually. 
 
Father: Oh, you spoke with her? 
 
Self: No, I spoke to M. How did M know— 
 
Father: Ohhhkay. Well, gotta go practice some law. Call mom! Love you! Bye! 
 
Self: (Thinking: Huh. Interesting. ) 
 
I called my mother to see how she was doing.
 
Mother: Oh me? I’m fine. I’m fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.  
 
Self: Really? No pain? 
 
Mother: Nope. Not at all. 
 
Self: Mom, you fractured a bone in your foot. How can there possibly be no pain? 
 
Mother: Oh they have me on this stuff…hold on…what’s it called…oh yeah, Vicodin. They have me on Vicodin.  
 
Self: Oh, well that makes sen— 
 
Mother: Oh! OH! And CONGRATULATIONS! We’re so excited! 
 
Aaaaaand thanks to Vicodin combined with my mother’s big mouth, I now know that M knew about my mother’s foot because M called my father earlier today because M has apparently bought a diamond and wants to go with my parents to get it set at their private jeweler and he apparently asked for their blessing and they’re just so happy and excited and life is all sunshine and sausages. 
 
Mother: Wait, you’re not going to tell M that I told you, right? I don’t want him to think his future mother-in-law can’t keep a secret.  
 
Unreal. Still processing the fact that this all actually happening and I now know about something that I really didn’t want to know about. More tomorrow.

Built to last. May 21, 2007

It’s hard to discuss my relationship with my sister without giving 21 years of backstory.  
 
In sum, I know her better than anyone else. For better, or worse. 
 
We’re complete opposites, both physically and emotionally. Sometime after I went to college (and, not coincidentally I’m sure, the same time we stopped sharing a bathroom), we forged a pretty tight bond. We don’t speak every day and we certainly don’t agree on everything but we’re close. There for each other. Supportive.  
 
Which, of course, is why she can hurt me more than anyone else can. 
 
My sister has a history of hitting below the belt. She is analytical and whip-smart and knows exactly what buttons to push and how exactly to push them in order to maximize effectiveness. If she’s angry, if she’s hurt, if she’s vulnerable, she aims for the jugular. And, while she’s certainly going to be a great litigation lawyer some day, being in her line of fire can make even the strongest man or woman cower in a corner and beg for mercy. 
 
The fact that she’s model-gorgeous just adds to the effect. 
 
She was in a snippy mood all this past weekend. I understood, to a degree. Emotions, coupled with the difficult task of coordinating 20 relatives in town for the event, were running high.  
 
However, we were all having a great time at dinner on Saturday night until a few of my aunts brought up my impending engagement. They asked me when I thought it would happen and what type of ring I wanted. I answered them enthusiastically (the best way to get me to smile these days is to bring up any of the following words: “engagement,” “ring,” “wedding.”)  
 
My sister, in front of the entire table, rolled her eyes and commented that the engagement was all I could talk about (not true! I can also speak extensively about shoes and my new favorite restaurant.)Then, in her most biting tone, she said “I mean, you’re not even engaged yet. And who knows if you will be. I mean, who knows how long you and M will last?” (Apropos of nothing, mind you, as she loves M and knows that we are a strong couple.)  
 
Everyone was momentarily shocked before my father made a witty comment and all was soon forgotten by everyone but me. To be honest, it’s not the most horrible thing she’s ever said to me. However, it hurt right down to my core. This is my sister, this is my future maid of honor, this is someone who is supposed to be excited about me getting engaged just as I am excited beyond words for her to start the post-college chapter of her life. The fact that she was so venomous and dismissive had me fighting back tears.  
 
She hasn’t apologized, and she won’t. She’s stubborn and prideful and is used to everyone just forgiving her and moving on so as to keep the peace in the family. As much as I am adamant about standing my ground at the moment, I know that there will come a time when I will cave and forgive, if not forget.  
 
But right now, it’s still hurtful. My parents have assured me that it comes from a place of jealousy and that she didn’t really mean it and that she’s still young. All true, but not enough to make me shrug and say “you’re right, silly me, I shouldn’t be so upset.” At least not yet. 
 
I hate to paint a negative picture of her because in many ways, she’s so amazing. She’s smart and witty and sophisticated and gorgeous and many other positive adjectives. She just also happens to be a bitch sometimes.  
 
The truth is, I can’t wait until M and I do get engaged and then married and then pregnant and then and then and then…Because I hope that one day, when she and I are in our eighties and I’m still happily married to M, I will be lucid enough to remember and then turn to her and say, “what was that about M and I not lasting?”