Realizations. January 30, 2008

-Not everyone likes pink and brown for a wedding (see: my mother, my sister, my aunts, my mom’s best friend).

-It feels good to stand by a decision you believe in.

-Sometimes what you need is a good freaking cry on your boy’s shoulder, right after Biggest Loser and right before some kick ass sex.

-In Defense of Food is an awesome book. You all should pick it up and then we can all be plant-eating healthy people together.

-I thought about giving up the blog but realized that my father has never backed down in the face of negativity, and neither should I. And he has gone through a lot worse.

-I do not like the sound of President McCain. Sorry, M.

-You can love someone in spite of their political views.

-If you don’t like a blog, don’t read it. Simple concept, actually. I do it all the time.

-Nasty emails from strangers WILL eventually make you laugh, instead of making you shake with anger. Really. Even the “I hope your family dies, you narcissistic bitch” ones.

-My friends would totally help me hide the body.

-The Greeks live longer because they eat greens, fish and olive oil. Thanks, Anthony Bourdain.

-Tea really isn’t that bad. I think I was just scarred from working in London and having approximately 3,567 tea breaks a day.

-Posting some fiction, anonymously, on a site created by some brilliant minds is so fucking refreshing. I plan to do it often.

-Live and let live is a brilliant phrase. Try applying it today! You’ll feel so much better without all the negativity. I promise.

Come to any realizations lately?

Competition. Specifically, how I feel about it. January 21, 2008

I am not, nor have I ever been, a competitive person.

In fact, competition is one of those things that makes me kind of feel like vomiting, right up there with seeing a dead rat stuck to a glue trap on a New York City sidewalk and the thought of M cheating on me.

You see, I’ve was nominated for three Twentysomething Blogger Awards: Best Big Blog, Most Interesting and Most Encouraging.

Of course, in true Clink fashion, I had to make a big dramatic deal (mostly to Peter and Molly) about how I hate competition and I especially hate competition when it comes to blogging, which should be a safe space to be yourself without being a popularity contest.

I love blogging now, when I have a readership that never fails to amaze me and I loved it then, when I got exactly zero comments and five hits a day, mostly by accident. I would do it no matter what. While I’m thrilled that I was nominated for something I’m so passionate about, the thought of there being a “winner” and “losers” makes me break out in hives.

Truthfully, writing is subjective. I learned that in college when one of my professors thought I would be the Next Big Thing and another one didn’t understand why my short stories didn’t have a beginning, middle and satisfying conclusion. Blogging is especially subjective in that you could respect someone’s writing but not be particularly interested in the content or vice versa.

So, I chose to withdraw from the competition.

I know, I know, dramatic. But that doesn’t mean I don’t support the awards - I do, just for other people. Trust me, I’m not sitting here with a “NO AWARDS! DOWN WITH AWARDS!” poster attached to a stick, occasionally getting off my ass to do a few laps around my bedroom (that would mean, um, actually having to leave my bed on this glorious day off and yeah, no.) I just know what’s right for me and I know what’s not and I made a decision based on that.

Not that, you know, any of you were wondering but I felt the need to get it off my chest.

There. That’s better.

And now I’m going to go enjoy my day off (first time I’ve ever had this day off since I started working in 2003) and:

-seduce M, who is currently sleeping peacefully next to me

-work out

-read more coverage of the GIANTS and HOW THEY ARE GOING TO THE SUPER BOWL

-try not to think about the fact that my fiance is a Pats fan

-eat brunch and see a movie and shop with my girlfriends

-finish The Nine (highly recommended book about the Supreme Court for Supreme Dorks like me)

-do a little dance every once in a while because I still can’t get over the fact that I’m not at work today

Confessions January 8, 2008

I have a crush on Anthony Bourdain.

One of my co-workers is eating lunch at 11am and it something pasta-y and tomato-y and I just want to dive over the desks and start shoving it in my mouth and wash it down with handfuls of parmesan cheese.

M and I got into a “heated debate” last night about some social issues and sometimes I forget that we are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Forgetting is easier than acknowledging.

I’m going to a spinning class tonight with a friend of mine. I haven’t been to spinning in about two months. I’m terrified.

I had chocolate chips last night, a huge step in the right direction. I counted out exactly sixteen (because sixteen = 70 calories) and then felt terribly guilty about eating them, which means I still have a ways to go.

This weather makes me think “hmm, if I lived in California then I could have this all the time, and not just two random freak days in January.”

While exiting the subway this morning, there was a blind man in front of me. I was worried about him crossing the street, but I was hella late for work so I had to rush past him. I kept turning around to check on him, but I still felt really guilty that I didn’t stop to help.

I can be such a bitch. Example: I think most of the women I work with dress like they’re homeless but, on the plus side, it makes me feel like the cutest girl in the office.

I still haven’t tipped all of my doormen for the holidays. I can’t even look them in the eye when I walk in the building. I am such a procrastinator.

My dad and I haven’t been talking much lately, after a blow-up just before Christmas. Essentially: he spent $16,500 on a pair of earrings for my mother and I felt that a) he was buying her off for being such a workaholic and b) are you fucking kidding? That is a fucking ridiculous sum to spend on anything that is not an engagement ring and return them, IMMEDIATELY. I told him that she’d appreciate time with him more than flashy earrings. In sum: my family is not perfect.

M and I discussed living in another part of the world once he is officially a lawyer; I am all for it. I want to stock up on new experiences before we have children.

We received a Christmas card from the whore that M used to work with. The good: it was sent to his former address, meaning that she has no idea he moved because they haven’t been in contact at all. The bad: it was just addressed to him - she still pretends like I don’t exist; it stirred up a bit of the Crazy that I haven’t felt in quite a while.

I hate this job. I can’t wait to go back to my old boss in February.

Anything you want to confess?

2008. January 2, 2008

When I was younger, I used to draft new year’s resolutions in my journal. They were usually a bit overambitious, such as “be perfect” or “never say a bad word about anyone.”

I haven’t done it in a while, however. And that’s not because I’ve finally succeeded at being perfect. I guess I just know that I’m doomed to fail. I’m lazy, so I take the “this-is-how-I-am-now-and-thus-how-I-always-will-be” route, which requires zero effort on my part.

This year, however, I’ve decided to make some resolutions. Or at least call attention to the aspects of my life and personality that need…some attention.

I mean, sure, I want to lose ten pounds and wash my face every night (can you believe that I never wash my face? I mean, with anything other than water? Isn’t that crazy? I should be covered in pimples. I am not. Huh.), but there are some bigger picture issues I should deal with.

And here they are:

I need to get control of my emotions. This is not to say that I shouldn’t be emotional - I’m an emotional person, I relate well to other emotional people, it’s just who I am. But lately I’ve noticed that I can be rather, um, what’s the word? MOODY. I can swing wildly from one emotion to the other with little to no self-control, which is no picnic for myself and certainly no picnic for my fiance.

I need to stop being so careless. Perfect example: yesterday morning, I was on the phone with my mom when I noticed that the glass on the coffee table was smudgy. I got some Windex and paper towels and decided to clean the glass with one hand and hold the phone with the other. Which would’ve been all well and good if the glass hadn’t slipped out of my hand (it’s a glass inset that needs to be lifted out of the wood) and shattered. I shattered the glass inset of a $500 coffee table we inherited from my parents and, according to my mother, it would cost a fortune to replace. Hence why I spent a good portion of New Year’s Day researching - and ultimately purchasing - a replacement table. A leather ottoman replacement which I cannot ruin.

It’s just so typically me, to do something without thinking. While I was cleaning the glass, I actually thought to myself god, this would SUCK if it dropped and broke, and yet I didn’t stop and wait until I was off the phone and could have better control.

Another example? I lost the red leather gloves that M bought for me for Christmas. They were on my hands when we walked home from the Museum of Natural History but somewhere in between there, the grocery store and home, I must’ve lost them. I could kick myself. Hard.

Hard lessons to learn, both, but hopefully the something good that will come out of them is me being a more responsible, less careless person.

The spending. Oh, the spending. I have no control. I’m ridiculously impulsive. It’s gotten to the point that it’s a problem.

M is human. I need to remember that. You see, sometimes there’s an M that lives in my head and he always does everything right and he can read my mind and he says exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment. And while the real, live, breathing M lives up to perfect M 99% of the time, he’s still human. He can’t be perfect all of the time and sometimes - like on New Year’s Eve, when I want to go outside and drink with the crowds and he wants to curl up on the couch and participate in something called “romance” - our personalities are going to clash. And that’s ok. I just need to stop making it the end of the world.

Being hard on myself accomplishes nothing. Vegas is booked, for the bachelor/bachelorette party. So is Hawaii, for our honeymoon. And then, of course, there is the wedding in July. Those three things, back-to-back-to-back, give me panic attacks about getting in shape. It’s less about losing a drastic amount of weight and more about toning up. I can be so damn hard on myself about it - berating myself for every piece of chocolate and feeling crappy for not going to the gym (but clearly not crappy enough to actually go to the gym.) Enough is enough - thinking about it makes me feel like shit. Actually doing something (eating a salad, getting on a treadmill) will make me feel better. It’s as simple as that.

So, those are some things I need to “work on” this year. I’m optimistic.

What do you plan on working on, if anything, in the new year?

Dear Clink of 1999: December 13, 2007

(A joint post with Molly and Peter. We are dorks. Clearly.)

I come to you from the not-so-distant futu-

Wait, are you wearing thigh-high socks? And a plaid skirt? And chunky Mary Janes?

Clink, step away from the Clueless VHS.

I know that your nickname in high school is Cher and all but really, you don’t have to take it so damn literally.

Moving on. So hi. It’s Future You. I’m in 2007 and we have better hair now (we finally figured out how to tame the waves) (shut up, waves are in now) (maybe you should step away from your straightening iron, too) and we have a kick ass job and we have something sparkly on our fin - nevermind. I’m not going to ruin that for you.

So, you’re probably ditching school right now. A straight-A student with a rebellious streak, how tragic. You probably drove to IHOP with Kirstin in your Ford Explorer while listening to, I don’t know, the Gin Blossoms? DMB? THE BACKSTREET BOYS? And right now you’re probably stuffing your face full of pancakes and an omelette and hash browns and toast and bacon and god, you’re such a bitch.

No, really, you are. Because I’m going to have to work all of that off in 2007 when our metabolism finally slows down and HATE.

You think you’re fat though, don’t you? In the immortal words of Jennifer Love Hewitt, “a size two is not fat!” (Remember, I come from the future. JLH is no longer that kind-of annoying girl who always wears a jean jacket and lusts after Bailey on PoF. She’s now a B-list celebrity who does Hanes commercials and recently got photographed in a bikini looking like a normal human being.)

So, do me a favor? Will you frame that size 2 pair of Abercrombie jeans because, no matter how hard I try, I don’t think I’ll ever see ‘2′ on the label of a pair of jeans again and excuse me while I go weep for the perfect body you currently inhabit but don’t appreciate.

Ok, ok, I’ll get down to it. GOD we are SO impatient. Here are some things to keep in mind:

-Don’t be such a bitch to that band dork who keeps asking you out. He will ultimately go on to become a pretty hot musician living in Brooklyn and the two of you will have some of the best. sex. ever. No, really. Stop making vomit noises.

-The girl that you think is your “omg, bff FOREVER” is not who you thinks she is. She will let you down when you need her the most. She’s a jealous, negative, spiteful bitch so stop talking about how she’s going to be your co-maid of honor with your sister - she’s not.

-The cops are getting kind of sick of finding you at parties they are in the midst of breaking up and driving you home because of who your father is. It’s not cute. There’s no need for a 17 year old to be partying. Go watch Newsies for the millionth time and behave yourself.

-You’re going to cheat on High School Boyfriend. I know that is unfathomable to you right now because you are in love - or something close to it - but you will do it. And it will be a mistake. And you will break your first heart. And you will end up sobbing on the floor of your dorm room for 12 hours straight.

-The good news is, he will forgive you. And you two are still friends in 2007.

-Going to London will initially be really scary, especially after 9/11 (you will find out what that is…soon), but it will ultimately be the best experience of your life and you’ll meet some of your closest friends. You’ll also get drunk and hook up with men with accents and spend all of your money at Karen Millen and travel Europe and it will all ultimately make you who you are today.

-Take more writing classes in college. They will be your favorite and you will find a professor that believes in you.

-Don’t, um, lose touch with that professor after you graduate. You’ll really regret it.

-Give it up with College Boyfriend, Clink. I don’t mean literally (too late!) but listen to your gut. You know he’s never going to come around. The on-off-on-off is going to suck. Big time. But you two will also remain friends and one day in 2007 you’ll meet his new girlfriend and you’ll see the way he looks at you and you’ll know that he wishes he had gotten his shit together way back when. And now he’s stuck with a boring waif. Sucka.

-Your first job out of college will suck. Your boss will sexually harass you and you’ll hate the work and the hours and you’ll question everything but - bonus! - you’ll lose a lot of weight because you basically can’t afford to eat. Also, you’ll start a blog.

-Dating will be fun, for a while. And then you’ll start to lose hope and wonder if you’ll ever truly connect with anyone in this city. Baby, you will. And you’ll know it when you do. And he’ll be the best thing in the entire universe and HI I AM CRYING WHILE I TYPE THIS TO YOU. Just trust me on this one.

-Buy some stock in Google. Please.

I don’t want to give it all away, but I just want you to know that you’re going to be alright. I know you worry all the time - you worry about what you’re going to do with your life, you worry about making your parents proud, you worry about someone close to you dying, you worry about finding someone you want to spend the rest of your life with…

You’ll never stop being a worrier (especially while flying - oh crap! You’re not afraid of flying yet, are you. Um, start stocking up on Xanax) but you’ll be fine. I promise.

Life from 2007-almost-2008 is pretty damn good. (Ok, can I just tell you this one thing? YOU FOUND YOUR WEDDING DRESS AND IT IS GORGEOUS. Squee!)

Buck up, little one. It’s going to be one hell of a ride.

Ok, I’m outtie. (Isn’t that what the kids were saying in 1999?)

Love,

You, circa 2007

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.)

All along. October 29, 2007

Confession: I never thought I’d be married before thirty.

In fact, my idol when I was younger was my mother’s good friend Celia, a kick-ass forty-something litigator with an apartment overlooking Central Park and a string of men practically groveling to marry her.

I thought I wanted Celia’s life: the Big City, the Big Career, the Big Rock she bought for herself and wore on her right hand, the Big Apartment, the Big Bank Account, the Big Social Life.

When I first moved to New York, that’s what it was about. It was about moving up the ladder in the entertainment industry, about dark corners in small bars with strange men, about working my ass off and partying just as hard, about short skirts and high heels and numbers written on napkins stuffed into my clutch. Right next to the condoms.

I wasn’t a slut but I wasn’t exactly discerning either. When you’re not on the hunt for a husband, dating takes on a whole new spin. It becomes about who can give you the best time, not who will raise your children to be upstanding citizens.

M, of course, changed everything. I mean everything. It was like I was viewing the world through a kaleidoscope of hedonism and then he gently took the kaleidoscope away and suddenly everything was clear. And suddenly the hedonism? It didn’t look so pretty.

It’s hard now, sometimes, to continue to define myself as someone who is engaged, who is in a serious relationship as opposed to defining myself as the ambitious hot shot who danced on bars until 4am.

It wasn’t until my relationship with M that I became the Girl With a Stack of Hidden Wedding Magazines. Also, the Girl Who Would Rather Cuddle and Watch a Movie Than Go Out on Saturday Night. I can’t help but think that the Clink of a few years ago would roll her eyes and say, “so, you’ve become one of them. How pathetic.” Them being, of course, people in relationships.

She would, however, be very proud of how far I’ve come in my career. So suck it, Clink of a few years ago.

This past weekend I met up with a friend from the Old Days, a friend who still looks at New York as her own personal playground. A friend whose misadventures in dating had me open-mouthed and wide-eyed over brunch. A friend who still inhabits the universe that we used to inhabit together, before I departed for Relationshipville.

There is no keeping a foot in each world. I tried, for a bit. It’s damn near impossible.

Like I said, M changed everything. M made me want to be a better person. M made me want to be a wife. I look at him and I see a future quite unlike Celia’s. I see a lovely suburban home and adored children and an all-around wonderful existence that does not include dating a few men at a time and going out five nights a week, waking up hungover and unable to remember half of the night. I see happiness. Hell, I see a Mommyblog.

Sometimes I get jealous that M met me at 32, after he had gotten a whole lot of living out of his system. I met him at 23 and was a bit blindsided at how quickly my world took a turn for the domesticated. I actually think (caution: random logic at work here) that part of my jealousy issues stem from that. I was thrust from a world where I didn’t trust men as far as I could throw them (but damn, they were fun to be with) into a world where I was asked to trust someone completely, with my fucking heart. Conclusion: not easy.

I still miss my old self. I even thought of pulling out some of my old clothes and putting on red lipstick and going as 22-year-old Clink for Halloween. She was fucking fun and carefree and uninhibited and unconcerned about anything other than the moment. Right now, I tend to live in the future and go to bed at 11pm, even on weekends; planning a wedding will do that to you.

I miss her, and I’m glad I was her for a time. But, for the most part, I’m glad that time has passed.

“Who knew?” My friend said to me Sunday afternoon, as we sipped wine at noon (some old habits die hard). “Who knew that what you have now is really what you didn’t know that you wanted all along?”

Truer words have never been spoken.

Write first, think later. October 28, 2007

It’s Sunday night and I’m trying to tune out the World Series, especially because I have to go to Boston next week for business and Boston - for a Yankee fan - will be unbearable if and when the Red Sox clinch.

(Tangent: there is, however, a restaurant called Clink (!) in Boston, so, really, Boston and I, we’ll be okay.)

Thursday’s post felt good. You know, I initially wrote it a few days after it actually happened but it languished in my drafts folder for almost a month before I was ballsy enough to post it.

That sounds dramatic. It’s just a post, right?

It used to be, back when I wrote first, thought second.

I don’t know when that changed.

I went through my archives this weekend, mainly to do some cleaning up (five people used to read this blog, two of whom I eventually met in real life and thus I was much more liberal with certain details). I ended up both creating a Favorites tab and being a little bit shocked at my honesty (hi, I’m Clink and I used to have pregnancy scares slash not eat slash ONCE GOT MY PERIOD ALL OVER M’S BOXERS and wow, um, he still wants to marry me?).

I miss that. It’s not that I haven’t been honest lately - I’ve just censored myself a bit. The “bad” or the “not so pretty” has gone unwritten or unposted. I’ve made up the difference with wedding posts (another tab, created this weekend, brought to you by Spare Time and Lots of It) and “what dress should I buy?” posts, when, really, I was dying to get some things off my chest.

Things like, um, the world doesn’t rain a constant parade of sunshine and fairy dust on you when you get engaged. Life is still hard, relationships are still hard, living together is HARD, balance is perhaps hardest of all.

I’m not as insane as I used to be, I don’t think. Mainly because of this blog, because of this outlet, because of the support that has come via Such Great Heights. So why did I stop? When I’m feeling insane, why wouldn’t I write about it? It’s pretty obvious that writing about it? Helps.

I used to not care about being judged. I mean, the harsh comments and the harsh emails hurt then and they hurt now (and it kills me to type that because knowledge of that creates even more power in the hands of the anonymous) but I know I’m going to rub some people the wrong way and I have to be okay with that. The like me! Like me! Like me! aspect of my personality has never been my favorite trait and it really needs to just shut the hell up. I mean, I don’t necessarily like every person behind every blog that I read and there’s no Blog Constitution out there saying that I have to. The same goes for people who read my blog - they don’t have to like me. Hell, for all I know, the 98% of you who don’t comment might just come here to make yourselves feel better because whew, at least I’m not as crazy as her.

So more honesty, is the point of this long-winded exercise in distraction (Dear Colorado, Please score. Love, Clink). Less self-censorship. Less fearing what anyone thinks. Less diluting myself into someone whose life revolves around pretty dresses and her pretty wedding. There’s that part of me, sure, but there’s also the part of me that crawled into bed at 6pm on Friday night, pulled the covers over my head and sobbed for two hours, for no reason and every reason at all.

I’m that girl too.

A, B, C… October 24, 2007

Admiring: My ring. It’s been four months and one would think I’d have gotten use to it by now, kind of like one gets used to a new hair color or a new piercing, but one would be wrong. My ring and I are still in lust.
 

Beating myself up about: Being a hormonal, emotional lunatic last night and thus only getting a few hours of sleep and thus being all puffy-eyed today and hi, period? HATE.
 
Crying over: Absolutely nothing. See above.
 
Daydreaming about: Sunny, crisp fall weather. Which I shouldn’t actually have to daydream about in LATE OCTOBER. This is kind of pathetic. Summer weather, begone!
 
Excited because: I have a few business trips coming up.
 
Frustrated because: One of those business trips was going to be to Atlanta, and I got all excited, because I have good friends in Atlanta! Good friends who I never see! One of whom has a delicious baby! And then the Atlanta trip got cancelled.
 
Grumpy because: I bought Hershey’s Kisses yesterday afternoon, ate a couple, and then threw the bag out because I “didn’t want them around.” Except now? I kind of want them around.
 
Hate-filled and seething over: My sister’s boyfriend needs to grow up. That is all.
 
Indignant because: My assistant is going to Vietnam and Thailand for a month. She’s 22! And just graduated college! And this is her first job! And already, a vacation! For a month!
 
Just shoot me now because: This week is going to be another doozy. Ass, meet desk chair. Desk chair, meet ass. Get comfortable.
 
Kidding myself regarding: The tiny pair of jeans my sister gave me because they’re too big for her now. One of these days, size four skinny jeans. One of these days.
 
Listening to: Potential first dance songs. In the running? “Green Eyes” or “Kingdom Come,” by Coldplay. “All I Want is You” by U2. “Brighter Than Sunshine” by Aqualung. (Oh! And I heard “Such Great Heights” by The Postal Service on the way to work this morning, which made me all warm thinking about my blog.)
 
Mooning over: The rehearsal dinner dress finally arrived and it is hanging in my closet and lord, it is lovely.
 
Need: A massage. Another cup of coffee. A million dollars.
 
Obsessing over: Blake Lively. And that’s all I’ll say about that. (Not a word, Peter.)
 
Praying: That M makes it to and from Boston to pick up his World Series tickets safely.
 
Questioning: The fact that I am wearing my rain boot-wellie type things and didn’t bring another pair of shoes to change into.
 
Reading: Wedding magazines. I mean, duh.
 
Singing: “Let the raaaaaaaaaaaain fall, I don’t care, I’m yours and suddenly you’re miiiiiiiiine….and it’s brighter than sunshiiiiiiiiiiine.”
 
Trying: Not to cry, picturing M and I dancing.
 
Unnerved by: How I almost got run over on the way to work today. I gave someone the finger for, like, the third time in my life.
 
Valentiney Update: My valentine is freaking awesome.
 
Wondering: How I’m going to be on the flight with my assistant. I mean, I’m her boss, I can’t be a sobbing, freaking-out mess when we fly together.
 
X-rated action: All good there. Thanks.
 
Yawning over: Only Wednesday? Really?
 
Zoinks: Yeah. Exactly.