This is just pointing out the obvious, but I’m the irrational one in the relationship. I’m the one who, late, in bed, after Stewart and Colbert and some fooling around, will blurt out “you can’t die!” followed by some tears and some sniffles, apropos of absolutely nothing except maybe the onset of my period.
I’m emotional. M is a solid consoler. It works.
He came home last night around 1am. I woke up to his arms wrapped around me, him watching me sleep.
“Hi there,” I said, willing myself to wake up and enjoy a few minutes with my boy.
He put his hands on my face. “I love you. I just think you should know that,” he said with such seriousness that it startled me.
Of course - me being Ms. Gloom and Doom - I got suspicious. “Why? I mean, I know that you love me, of course I know that you love me (I recently found out that you bought a diamond, you fool - Ed. Note), but why, what’s wrong?”
M launched into a story about how he got to talking with a colleague of his. The conversation turned to plans for the weekend and the colleague mentioned that he has a charity tennis tournament to attend. In fact, it’s his charity’s tennis tournament.
“You started a charity tennis tournament?” M asked. “Good man.”
“Well, my wife died twelve years ago. I started a charity in her name.”
It hit M so hard, that conversation.
“Clink.” He was lying on his back; I was curled up alongside him, my face buried in his neck. “It’s just - this guy had plans, you know? Plans with his wife. Who ever thinks that the person you’re going to marry is going to die?”
Then, borrowing from me and one of my many emotional outbursts, he said, calmly, “You can’t die. OK? No dying.”
I promised that I would do my best.
It’s hard, this love thing. The fear of it all being taken away is the price paid for allowing yourself to fall. For me, for a while, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I let trust issues overwhelm and overtake and I was sure that it would all be taken away not by death but by someone else - someone thinner, prettier, more successful.
Now, not so much. Now it’s more about God, the Universe, Whatever reaching down and ruffling a smoothly laid out life, a life with concrete plans. A life that does not work if one element - the most important element - is missing.
I’m still feeling the aftereffects, I guess, of the funeral. M is certainly still feeling the aftereffects of his conversation. This will pass, I’m sure, and we’ll go on floating through life, believing that it won’t happen to us because what other way is there to live? As much as the Culture of Fear is alive and kickin’ (“these are people who want to kill your families,” to paraphrase our president), I won’t buy into it for longer than a few chunks at a time. Enough time to reflect and thank God, the Universe, Whatever for what I have. But not long enough to stop me from living.
No dying. June 6, 2007
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?
And here’s the follow-up post. May 24, 2007
Now that I know, it is - quite obviously - impossible to un-know.
Clearly no one meant any harm. Not my mom. Not M. Not my father. Not the Vicodin (ok, maybe the Vicodin).
Throughout this process, save for some ring browsing (necessary, as I did not know how to answer the question “what kind of ring do you want?”), I’ve been putting my fingers in my ears and saying “LA LA LA LA” in hopes of protecting the element of surprise that is so dear (at least, to me) in this particular situation.
I take solace in the fact that I still don’t know when, where, how. And last night, I made M promise that I wouldn’t find out until it was actually happening.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I won’t tell your mom.”
I woke up this morning in an allergy-induced fog. Sometime in the shower, after the shampoo and before the conditioner, it all hit me. Like a seven year old who wakes up on December 25th and, after blinking a few times, realizes that it’s not just any other morning. And just as that seven year old races downstairs to bask in video games and a skateboard from Santa, I raced (post-conditioner, post-soap, post-shaving of the legs as it is skirt season) into my bedroom, where my boyfriend was wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, and kissed him all over his face, basking in the glow of pre-engagement.
Because now that I know, why not enjoy it a little bit? It’s no use pouting about how now it won’t be as much of a surprise. It never really was much of a surprise as I knew it was going to happen sometime before the end of August as August is when I will forever leave Roommateland and enter into LivingWithTheOneILoveVille. Also, I had a pretty good idea it would happen before the sticky weather sets in because M knows me well enough to know that I don’t want to get engaged in sticky, hot, humid weather (mainly because my hair + hot, sticky, humid weather = DO NOT TAKE A PICTURE, I DON’T CARE IF WE JUST GOT ENGAGED AND WANT TO CAPTURE THE DAMN MOMENT).
Anyway, where was I? Oh right. Enjoying it. All throughout the day I’ve had little spasms of glee that start in the center of my torso and crawl throughout the rest of my body like dancing spiders on a mission (it’s the most accurate, if not the most romantic, description; shut up). The thing about me is, I’m great at compartmentalizing. So any disappointment that still remains has been banished to the furthest corner of my mind, locked in a windowless cell without even a tray of stale bread or a cup of brown water (take THAT, Disappointment!).
It will still probably be some time before you get the close-up shot of the ring along with some sort of ridiculous all-caps headline in which I announce that it is official. (Although, I have a theory: M thinks that I think that now that I know he’s going to wait a while for the enthusiasm to die down. Taking that into consideration, he will probably ask sooner rather than later in order to extract the most shock value out of the situation, because I certainly won’t be expecting him to do it so soon on the heels of this recent revelation.)
Anyway, between now and then, I’m just going to bask in the glow of my own little private Christmas, the sense of peace and jolt of excitement that comes with knowing that someone very special loves you and wants to make you theirs, forever and ever amen.
How we met. Also, how you met. May 15, 2007
Last night, at spinning, the girl on the bike next to me was telling the girl on the bike next to her (and, really, the entire class, as she was not exactly using her inside voice), how she met her husband. It was an intriguing story, involving cutting her hand while making salad and getting stitched up by the cute attending doctor who, along with extra gauze pads, handed her his number.
If the girl weren’t so damn color-coordinated (pink and brown, down to her socks and sneakers) and squeaky, the story may have even elicited an “aww” from yours truly. (Instead, I think I grunted and checked my watch and wondered why the teacher was five minutes late; the teacher was five minutes late because - as she announced to us, a group of perfect strangers - she broke up with her abusive fiancé and moved everything out of their shared apartment while he was at work. Ahh, spinning class.)
Moving on, I’ve always been interested in the birth of relationships. How two people can go from perfect strangers to perfect strangers who are interested in each other to perfect strangers who are dating each other to no longer perfect strangers. It fascinates me.
I’ve written about how I met M before, in this post. Here it is for those of you too lazy to click on the link:
I was at Suite 16 for my friend’s boyfriend’s birthday. He makes six figures at age 24 and thus we were surrounded by other boys who make six figures at age 24 and apparently use most of those six figures to buy striped shirts that all look the same. And hair gel. Lots of hair gel.After a few hours of free drinks and unwanted attention (“You know, I can drive you uptown later. My car’s outside. It’s the white Beamer, I don’t know if you noticed it on the way in”), I eventually hailed a cab (“Isn’t the Upper East in, like, the opposite direction of Hoboken? Thanks but…uh…I’ll be fine”).
Somewhere in the early 30’s and 8th Avenue, my phone rang. It was a friend from high school who was drinking with some of his co-workers from Major NY Newspaper and wanted to know if I wanted to drop by.
The truth was, I didn’t. But I was also wearing a very cute outfit that I didn’t want to be wasted on Mr. Banking Beamer and the like who were only interested in what was underneath.
I instructed the cab to pull over once we got to 48th. The bar was Irish and small and over-crowded and full of people who had been drinking since they got out of work. I was in my element.
I noticed the Boy the minute I walked in. It would’ve been pretty hard not to, seeing as he’s dark and handsome and completely my type. But he was surrounded by people and I was busy pounding lemon drop shots because, you know, I’m all about the class.
About fifteen minutes later, the Boy approached me.
“I don’t believe we’ve met, but are you drinking beer out of a straw?”
I replied that it was cider.
We didn’t take our eyes off of each other for the next hour, until he, shit, really had to go, 5am flight down to spring training, let’s exchange numbers, will call in two weeks when I get back, it was really nice meeting you, Clink.
Will call, my ass. I was thoroughly convinced that I’d never see him again and subsequently pouted in my cider until the bartenders kicked us out and I ended up at a diner, discussing an ex-boyfriend.
Well, y’all know the rest of the story. He did call. And ever since I’ve been thinking about what would’ve happened if I had never told the cab driver to pull over (and also if I hadn’t been drinking cider out of a straw, but something tells me he would’ve approached me anyway).
Not exactly the most romantic how-we-met (it boils down to: at a bar; I will make something else up for when our spawn are old enough to ask), but it’s ours.
Your turn. How did you meet? And, if you’re not in a relationship, tell me how you met your last boyfriend or girlfriend. Or the one before that. Or really any one. Because while I do have a lot to do here at work, I am always in the market for procrastination tools. And I can’t think of a better way to procrastinate than to read how-we-met stories (hi, I’m cheesy! Really cheesy and sappy! Be glad you aren’t dating me!).
Newsflash: Marriage Declared ‘Hard’ May 7, 2007
M called me as soon as the “fasten seatbelt” sign was turned off.
I was stuffed into the backseat of my parents’ car, driving up the New Jersey Turnpike, anxious to get home to him.
I could hear it in his voice that something was off. Not ‘angry off’ or ‘not feeling well off’ but ‘introspective off’. Like he had been doing a lot of thinking and something was on his mind.
How well I know him. As soon as I arrived home, smothered him with kisses, warmed up some pizza and settled into my bed next to him, my boyfriend–never one for long discussions about feelings as there is only room for one over-emotional crazy in this relationship and I was awarded that title long ago–opened up about how four days spent in the company of his sister, his brother-in-law and their son gave him a crash course in marriage. Specifically, What The Stress Of Having A Baby Does To Marriage 101.
M and I are similar in that we both look at our future and see a path of solid gold bricks lined with sugar-coated tulips and a bright blue sky filled with cotton-candy clouds. We think, because we have found each other in this city of millions, in this world of billions, that everything from here on out will be sunshine and sausages. Finding each other was the hard part, right?
(Of course, that’s a bit unrealistic. In fact, our La-La-La-Ain’t-Life-Grand bubble is surely to be popped once M starts law school in the fall and the books become his mistress and I’m sitting in bed alone at night, missing him and wishing we could fast forward past the hard part.)
M was a bit shell-shocked that his sister and his brother-in-law, once the epitome of in love and happy, are now practically strangers who only have one thing remaining in common: their kid. And they can’t even agree on how to raise him (her: no sugar, ever; him: that’s ridiculous). M got a peek into what happens when the bubble bursts and it terrified him.
“I don’t want that to be us,” was his point.
“It won’t be, if we don’t let it,” I told him.
At this point in my life, I can’t imagine not feeling anything but in love with and proud of and supportive of and supported by M. I know that life–marriage, career stress, kids–can change all of that. Right now, our only responsibilities are to our landlords, to our bosses and to each other. We don’t even have an animal that relies on us each day in order to survive. This is the easy part. All the rest of it is when you either grow stronger together or fall apart separately.
In some ways, M’s experience in Wisconsin (“I felt awkward most of the time, as if I was caught in this constant passive aggressive battle”) came at the perfect time. He and I are about to embark on what we hope will be a lifelong journey. Now we know, after a few hours of intense discussion last night, what route we don’t want to take. We spoke of keeping lines of communication open so as not to breed resentment. We spoke of discussing child-rearing and a game plan for it before the little buggers arrive, so there is a united front instead of two warring factions. We are going to dig out that “25 Questions Couples Should Ask Each Other Before Marriage” article in the Times and go over it at length. If we’re well-armed before heading into the trenches, perhaps we can be the rare few to make it out the other side unscathed.
I don’t like that all of a sudden I’m comparing marriage to war. I know that M and I are very different from his sister and brother-in-law. I know that many of their problems, as M has told me, were planted in the beginning of their relationship but have only now–with the arrival of a child–been fully exposed. I know that the fact that M and I can talk to each other about this kind of stuff gives us an automatic head start. He’s my best friend and, as I told him last night, there’s no one I’d rather experience anything–marriage, children, a walk through Central Park–with.
I don’t like discussing M’s family mainly because that’s his business, and not mine to expose to an audience of internet strangers (no matter how very cute you are, guys). I will say that he did not have the best example of marriage when he was growing up and I think that part of why he came back from Wisconsin a bit defeated was that he had high hopes that his sister would be able to overcome their childhood and be the mother and wife they always wished their own mother could be. He was disheartened to see her own marriage crumbling around her.
I promised him that we won’t let that happen. In fact, I pinky-swore. And we all know that pinky swears? Well, they are binding. For life. So M and I, we’re going to be a-ok.
Lucky. May 4, 2007
Tip: If you do not want your ovaries to burst into tiny puffs of unicorns, rainbows and fairy dust, do not ask your boyfriend to tell you about his day spent with his nephew slash godson in
Wisconsin.
When he called, M had been up for almost twenty hours straight. I could tell the magnitude of the tired from his voice, as he has a few: after-work tired (slightly stressed and in need of some transition time), morning-tired (goofy and adorable and prone to saying things that make no sense at all), Sunday-afternoon tired (needy, but in the most endearing way). His hasn’t-slept tired is the most heartbreaking of all. I just wanted to crawl through the phone and tuck the sheets up to his chin and fetch him a glass of ice water and run my fingers through his hair until he drifted off.
Instead, I asked him about his one year old nephew. And a few rays of enthusiasm broke through the cloud of exhaustion.
“Clink, you have no idea. I’m in love with the little guy.”
There’s nothing quite like hearing your boyfriend discuss how he held the baby’s hands to help him walk back and forth across the porch. For an hour. There’s nothing quite like hearing your boyfriend mimic the baby’s babble. There’s nothing quite like hearing your boyfriend describe how the baby hams it up for the camera, but closes his eyes right before the flash goes off because “he’s so smart, Clink, he knows the flash is coming.”
Also, there’s nothing quite like hearing your boyfriend say the following: “I can’t wait until we have one of our own.”
Ovaries, commence bursting.
I gave M my digital camera to use during the trip so, when he comes back, at least I will have some visuals to put to the M-and-baby fantasies in my mind. However, I wish I could be there in person. There aren’t many babies in my family at the moment, so I don’t truly get to see M interact with anyone younger than my 9 year old cousin. It’s not that I want to make sure M passes the “good with babies” test. It’s more that, selfishly, I want to re-experience the warmth I felt last year, when we were both in Wisconsin and I realized for the first time that M is going to be a great dad.
At lunch yesterday, a colleague of mine and I were discussing M’s change of career (he’ll be starting law school in the fall) and our plans to move in together after we get engaged.
This colleague is gorgeous and ambitious and smart and funny and yet has had the hardest time finding a man. She was shocked that M was revamping his entire career for me, and our eventual family.
“How did you convince him to do that?” she asked.
“I didn’t. It came from him.”
And truly, it did. There was no poking and prodding on my end for him to get into a career with more traditional hours and better pay. I didn’t drop any not-so-subtle hints about wanting to get engaged. Anything regarding our future has been born organically, without either one of us pushing the other one or backing the other one into a corner or spewing ultimatums. That’s what makes this so right.
I have several friends who have been dating their boyfriends for many years and have let ultimatum deadlines come and go. They sit around and whine about how they don’t yet have a ring, how the “m-word” is taboo, how their boyfriends shut down at any mention of the future. “He said he’d do it once he gets his promotion.” “He thinks we should buy a house first.” “He thinks I’m being too pushy.” “He won’t even have a conversation about it. He changes the subject.”
I take comfort in the fact that what has developed between M and me has been natural. We are on the same track and we have agreed on the speed. Only in discussions with other people have I realized how truly rare that is.
Yes, this is another post where I conclude that “I’m lucky.” Because I am. M’s not perfect, I’m not perfect. But we’re pretty darn perfect for each other.
And, speaking of M, it’s time to give him a ring and ask him to please please please upload some of the photos he has already taken. (My ovaries, demanding bitches, are BEGGING for some photos.)
Target + Clink 4 EVA May 3, 2007
Right now, my boyfriend is on a plane to Wausau, Wisconsin.
Well, first a plane to Minneapolis. And then a plane to Wausau, Wisconsin. Because there are no direct flights from New York to Wausau, Wisconsin. New York is apparently all, “look, Resident, if you really want to go to Wausau, Wisconsin–and we try to make it as hard as possible so as to deter you because really? Wisconsin?–you’re going to have to work for it.” So M is working for it. And I? Well I am doing what I always do when someone I love is hurtling through the sky in a long metal tube: I am tracking the flight on the Internet so as to be sure it does not crash.
(I already told you. Therapy is too expensive.)
The only–I repeat, ONLY–good thing about M being away for four days is that there is currently a vehicle parked outside my apartment building. A vehicle that I have sole access to until Sunday evening. In addition to getting me to and from my parents’ home in New Jersey, the primary purpose of the vehicle will be…
TARGET! (What? You thought I was going to say “driving around town, picking up the homeless and taking them to a shelter”?)
That’s right. Target. New York does not lack many things (fresh air? Pfffft. Overrated), but it does lack a Target. Let me clarify–Manhattan lacks a Target. I’ve heard rumors of there being a Target in Queens and maybe even one in Brooklyn but that’s like saying there’s a Target in Nova Scotia. Great for Nova Scotia, but a little out of my way.
Having the keys to M’s car means that I can continue my reign of Golden Child by visiting my parents (and my sister, down at college) and then stopping by the Target (the Target Greatland; a more apt description I have not found as it is, truly, a Great Land) that is conveniently located just off the highway I take to get back into the city. Which means that I can stock up (beauty products! Cheap tank tops! Home décor! A package of fifty rolls of toilet paper that clearly won’t fit anywhere in my apartment but damn it, we’ll keep it in the bathtub if we have to because it. is. so. cheap!) and then drive to my apartment, park across the street and unload the goods (with, perhaps, the help of one or ten of my doormen).
Sigh. I know. I can’t wait. (It’s the little things, when you live in a crowded city with no Target. The little things.)
As I mentioned, however, using his car to essentially hand my paycheck over to Target is the only good thing about M being away. I know it’s only four days. Four well-deserved days that he will spend catching up with his sister, bonding with his nephew/godson and seeing a matinee of Spider-Man 3 with his stay-at-home-dad brother-in-law. But still, I miss him already and it has only been a few hours.
He left at 5:30 this morning. I was sleeping and woke up to him–fully dressed and packed and ready to go–stroking my face and smiling at me, ready to say goodbye. And that’s when I threatened to bolt the door and not let him out because not seeing that smiling face for four days is like not seeing it for an eternity when you are used to seeing it everyday.
As I got showered and dressed this morning at his apartment, I felt like a puppy abandoned by her owner. I was all sniffing his tee-shirts and pouting and making whimpering noises and I may or may not have put a dab of the cologne he left on my wrist so that I could smell him throughout the day. He’s lucky I didn’t, like, pee in his shoes to show my anger at having been left behind.
So, yeah. Woe is me, I miss my boyfriend. (Cue comments of the “there are starving children” and “homeless people! Who you should pick up and drive to shelters, whore” variety and yes! I know! Plights of others…much, much worse…etc.)
At least I can drown my sorrows with a little retail therapy. I’ve got an entire trunk and an empty back seat just waiting to be filled with some white and red bags, people. Shouldn’t be too hard.
Snippets. May 1, 2007
Hi! I have nothing to write about! Nothing at all. Not even shopping (I know, right?)
But I also happen to be a wee bit bored at work, so pointless drivel wins out. Apologies in advance.
-I have been thinking a lot about eloping. Not seriously thinking, more like fantasizing. Kind of like the way I fantasize about going to Australia even though I know it will never actually happen because I don’t think I can be drunk for 24 hours on a plane and it takes 24 hours on a plane to get there. A friend of mine recently eloped. She and her fiancé-now-husband were engaged for all of seven days before they decided to go to Key West and get married at sunset on the beach. No friends, no family, no obscene price tag. “It was just the two of us,” she said, “and that’s all it needed to be.” I know, deep down, that I want the memories and the photographs and to be surrounded by friends and family as I bind myself to another human being for all of eternity. But I also know, deep down, that one day I would like to stop throwing thousands upon thousands of dollars into the abyss that is renting, and the more money saved for a down payment on an apartment or house, the better. I know this line of thinking is fleeting and that once I actually get engaged I will want to plan a wedding. Because I do want a wedding. I just want it to be free is all.
-Speaking of things that are not at all free (and also, speaking of being drunk on a plane), M and I are in the early stages of planning a jaunt to Las Vegas (never been! Not once! Suggestions?) and California (been many times! Love!). We’ve been talking about going to Vegas and LA together since forever and ever. We’re finally starting to get serious about it, to the point that we may actually buy these plane tickets we’ve been mulling over all morning. One of M’s best friends is in Vegas (a short trip for a bachelor party turned into a permanent residence). Casinos are also in Vegas and casinos happen to have slot machines and I happen to be the Queen of All Slot Machines so that bodes very well for me (though not very well for my bank account). There may not be casinos (as far as I know) in Los Angeles, but I’m just as excited to go there. As much as us New York “industry” folk like to take digs every now and then (read: all the time) at our Los Angeles counterparts, I do really love LA. What’s not to love: sun, surf, sand. The three S’s of happiness, I say. I really need a vacation and while I’m still considering Greece in August, August is very very far away. My mental health is not stable enough to make it the next three months without some sort of reprieve, even if it is only 4 days. At least it will be 4 days in 2 very wonderful places.
-The only foreseeable worry about the potential trip (other than the fact that it involves planes! Evil planes!) is that I need my body to be up to snuff by then. And by “up to snuff” I mean “bikini-ready.” While I’ve been great about working out and okay about eating right (okay, I’ve been downright shitty about eating right. Example, from last night: garlic parmesan chicken, lasagna and apple crisp with vanilla ice cream), I need to take it to the next level in order to feel confident come June. I’m going to have to kick my own ass. But maybe the trip as a dangling carrot is exactly what I need to revamp my workouts and my diet.
-My boyfriend is going to Wisconsin on Thursday, to visit his sister and her husband and their delicious child. We were supposed to go this winter, but that fell through because of (my) work. And I was supposed to be going on this trip with him but again it fell through because of (my) work. We were there at around this time last year and while you won’t see me packing up my things and slapping a “Wisconsin or bust” sticker on the back of an RV, I did really enjoy it. Wisconsin is pretty much the antithesis of New York City and is therefore quite rejuvenating. I mean, there are tons of chain restaurants (Like Butter Burger! Which is exactly that, be still my clogged arteries), and no one looks at you funny if you suggest actually eating at one. (I almost lost a few friendships after I mentioned the T.G.I.Friday’s on 34th Street as a possible dining destination to a group of my friends.) Also, there is sky. And there are stars. And it’s nice to be reminded that those two things do still exist, somewhere.
-This weekend my mom and I are driving down to my alma mater, which is soon to also be my sister’s alma mater, as she graduates later this month. She “needs help” picking out a dress for the dinner dance. That is code for: she wants my mom to pay for the dress. I’m just along for the ride and the shopping at the mall and the free meal (possibly at a chain restaurant! Cheesecake Factory, perhaps?). Also, spending some time on campus may remind me of just how skinny I was in college which may remind me of how nice it was to be so skinny which may jumpstart my motivation to be Little Miss Twiggy Arms and Legs by the time we go to Vegas and LA in June. Hey, it’s worth a shot.
Multiple Personalities. April 30, 2007
This weekend, I tapped into multiple aspects of my personality.
Friday, my (mostly dormant) inner party girl was lured out by the arrival of an old friend from LA. We met downtown, at 12:30am, and the first order of business was securing a Red Bull and vodka for me (heavy on the Red Bull) as I usually end my nights at 12:30am, as opposed to begin them. Once I had some artificial energy running through my veins, however, I was game. Game mostly for drinking, that is, until M (boyfriend slash chauffeur slash HERO) came and picked my drunk ass up (at 4am) and drove my drunk ass home and tucked my drunk ass into bed, as all the while I slurred a chorus of “I luuuuuuuuurve you.” And also maybe tried to undress myself while we drove up the West Side Highway (what! My shirt was tight!). See why party girl doesn’t get to come out too often?
Saturday and Sunday was all Domestic Goddess (and also, Indiscriminate Spender). I spent $100 at Bed Bath & Beyond (solely on kitchen gadgets like a garlic press and a lemon zester and a bundt cake pan because maybe one of these days I will get the urge to make a bundt cake so THEREFORE I MUST HAVE A BUNDT CAKE PAN! JUST IN CASE!), $100 at Whole Foods (oh, Whole Foods, what is this power you have over me that convinces me that spending $30 on three packages of berries is a good idea?) and another $50 on ingredients for lasagna (this lasagna, actually) because, unfortunately, Whole Foods does not stock Jimmy Dean’s hot breakfast sausage (it’s okay Whole Foods, nobody is perfect).
Sunday evening, I made the lasagna for M. I started the lasagna at 4pm and I served the lasagna at 7pm and in between I was a raving, sauce-covered lunatic. A lunatic who had to call her mother approximately eleventy zillion times in order to get the answers to questions such as “what does simmer mean?” and “how many ounces make up a pound?” (I’m not proud.)
The good news is that M practically proposed marriage right there in my dining room (slash living room; what’s up New York City living). A few hours later, as we were in a cab headed downtown, he shook his head and smiled and said, dreamily, “that lasagna.” I think he’s going to have it for breakfast today. And also lunch. If the lasagna were not an inanimate food product, I would surely be jealous of this new mistress of his.
The cab took us down to the Tribeca Film Festival where we attended the premiere of James Franco’s film. My inner film snob slash starfucker loved the fact that we got to walk down a red carpet and witness a flurry of press angling for Mr. Franco’s attention and see a movie in a theater filled with “industry people” and “beautiful people.” The film itself (eh, eh and eh) was not the point. The point is, we heeded Robert DeNiro’s call to support downtown in the aftermath of September 11th and, in the process, reminded ourselves that there is life outside of my apartment (really, my bed) and that sometimes that life can be pretty cool.
And now I’m at work. And it’s almost noon. And I have been silently protesting doing any work because shouldn’t the government mandate, like, 3-day weekends for the promotion of mental health and sanity? Who’s with me? My multiple personalities could use a day to rest.
All better. April 18, 2007
I arrived home last night tired (a long day at work, two hours at the gym) and grumpy (the weather, the fact that I owe $1200 in taxes this year).
And then I looked over at my nightstand:
It turns out my boyfriend is awesome. Not that I didn’t know that already, but it was yet another reminder. Pink tulips! Pink tulips placed sometime between when he woke up and when he had to leave for work, a very small window indeed.
Did you know that pink tulips have the power to make sore muscles feel better and a ridiculous sum owed to the government seem not so bad? True story.
There should, officially, be no question as to why I’m marrying this guy.
(Please ignore the birth control. If I don’t keep it right next to me, I will inevitably forget to take it and do you really want me to be all procreating at the moment? I think not.)
