Transition. November 25, 2007

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

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

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

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

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

It wouldn’t have been the same. Obviously.

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

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

It was lovely. It is my life now.

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

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

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

I still can’t pass that pond without snickering.

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

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

Fine China. August 28, 2007

I whined as we walked in. 
 
“Do we really need it? Are we ever going to use it? It’s just so expensive.” 
 
My mom, who has been hearing me whine for twenty-five years, ignored me. In true Clink’s Mom fashion, she alerted a sales assistant, had a table set with four different types of china that she thought I would like, picked out table linens to complement each setting and had already entered the vital information to jump start my Bloomingdales registry. 
 
All before I got back from the in-store café, where I went to get a lemonade.  
 
The saleswoman – older, the type who proudly announces that she polishes her silverware on a regular schedule, who refers to brides as “the girls,” as in, “all the girls are doing silver instead of gold these days” – encouraged me to sit down at each place setting. 
 
“Pretend to sip some coffee. Pretend there is lovely roast chicken on your plate. Envision how this will look in your home. This is what your guests will see when they sit down at your table.” 
 
My home? Oh, you mean my 800 square foot apartment with room for four at the dining table, and even that’s pushing it? My guests? Oh, you mean all those people who are also in their twenties who eat off of paper plates and drink wine out of paper cups because we’re all too lazy to do dishes? What do I want them to envision? And, um, I don’t even know how to make roast chicken. 
 
I sat down at each setting anyway.  
 
Like goldilocks, the first two were all wrong. One was too formal – china that would look at home in a palace, circa Henry VIII. The other – even though it was Kate Spade, even thought it was polka dotted and I love polka dots – wasn’t right. I can’t really articulate why. It felt too girly, too whimsical, too single-in-the-city and not at all “we are a couple, here are our dishes, enjoy your roast chicken.” 
 
The third one, however. Well, there was something different about it. Maybe it was the fact that it was Vera Wang and I’ve always felt that if I were a designer, much of my stuff would look like hers. Maybe it was the fact that it was modern, but not in-your-face-look-how-fashion-forward-we-are modern. Maybe it was the fact that, um, yeah, I could actually picture my guests sitting down to a table set with that china. That I could actually envision loving it for many, many years. Plus, I’m really into light pink and silver/gray and my mom – because she is my mom, because she has impeccable taste – chose very light pink placemats and napkins to accompany the silver/gray china.  
 
I felt, in that moment, that something snapped. Up until then, this whole wedding thing has felt a bit like pretend. Everything having to do with weddings feels is so surreal. Trust me. Like some sort of real-life fantasy game that M and I play to pass the time. For example: writing checks – deposit checks – that are larger than my paycheck just feels like we’re moving around Monopoly money. It’s like we’re playing The Sims: Wedding Edition. 
 
But the china. Who knew it would be the china? The china I was so adamantly against (“Seventy-five dollars! For a plate!”) turned out to be the one thing that made me feel like, oh, hey this is it. You are becoming an adult. You will have fine china that you serve to your guests with wine other than, you know, Yellowtail, during dinner parties where there will witty conversation and intellectual debate.  
 
Or, you know, an analysis of Rock of Love. Whatever. 
 
I’m actually excited about the damn china. I still think it is unbelievably expensive and I’m still a bit creeped out about this whole registry thing but, damn, it’s beautiful and damn, I can’t wait to throw a dinner party just so I can whip it out and stare longingly at how beautiful it is. 
 
I just have to learn how to make roast chicken first.

Speaking of babies… August 2, 2007

I have been collecting baby names since I was eleven and my mother was pregnant with my brother and I was obsessed with naming him. I pored over baby name books, wrote down the names I liked, said them aloud with our last name, mentally envisioned actually calling my future baby brother by the name. Much in the way I now pitch ideas and talent to my bosses, I pitched names to my parents, making a case based on sound, meaning, originality and societal context (some names immediately bring to mind a nerd, or a jock, etc.)
 
My parents ultimately chose the name I suggested, over their previously favored Evan and my then seven-year-old sister’s suggestion of Mitchroll (yes, Mitch-roll.) I’m kind of kicking myself, because now I can’t name my son Jeremy, and damn I love that name.
 
Ever since then, I have been compiling a list of my own and, luckily, M indulges me in playing the baby name game. In fact – though he’d never admit it – I think he really enjoys it.
 
We’ve fought over names before, usually names that he likes that I can’t fathom calling a son or daughter. However, we do have a running list of names that we are seriously considering, names that may actually be transferred to an actual human being that, like, comes out of me and into our lives.
 
And, since I’m bored and don’t feel like doing work and don’t really have much else to say, I will present that list here with the disclaimer that if we are ever real-life friends, you cannot steal the damn names. (Or, you can, but I’ll secretly always think “bitch stole that from me.”)

Boys:
 
Lukas/Luke: Pretty much a given, the product of his favorite movie being Cool Hand Luke and my days as a 90210 junkie. The name, in both forms, goes well with M’s last name and to me it conjures up an image of the cool guy in the class, the strong and silent one who is pretty much oblivious – as he plays lacrosse, or soccer – that the girls standing on the sideline are fawning over him. And yes, I want my son to be the hot guy in school. Shut up.
 
Evan: My mom’s favorite name, until I pitched Jeremy so well. I don’t really know why I talked her out of it, as I adore the name. Maybe I had the foresight to hoard it for myself? I was a sheisty adolescent.
 
Braden: One of my favorite names, but I have yet to convince M that it’s not some “celebrity baby bullshit name” but something we could actually call our child. Think of the possibilities! We can call him Bray. Or Brady (I actually tried to work the “just like your favorite teams’ quarterback’s last name!” angle; didn’t work.) Braden actually goes the most beautifully with M’s last name, which is an awesome last name, and omigod I wish I could tell you what it is, just to prove my point, but GRR ANONYMITY. 
 
Bennett: I like Ben, but I don’t like Benjamin. I do, however, like Bennett. I love first names that could be last names. M’s take? “It sounds like old money.” To which I replied, “…and, your point?”
 
Hudson: There is not an ice cube’s chance in hell that M will let me name our son after the damn river that separates Manhattan from New Jersey, but I think it’s cute. And symbolic. And a hot guy name.
 
Jack/Jake: I never liked Jack until a certain Bauer came around and SHUT UP HE IS REAL AND PROBABLY SAVING US ALL FROM DYING A GRISLY DEATH RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT. Jake, I’ve always liked. I don’t know which one I like better. Also, nicknames are a problem with one-syllable names and I am big on the nicknames. 
 
Marty: M’s favorite name for a boy. Not a chance in hell.
 
 Girls:
 
Ella/Elle: We will probably go with this. And, if the psychic who read my palm in 8^th grade is right, I will only have one girl and therefore only one chance to name her. Her full name will probably be Elizabeth, in honor of my mom, but she’ll go by Ella or Elle. I just love that the name(s) are so feminine and girly. And watch, she’ll be a total tomboy, because the universe likes to fuck around.
 
Annabelle/Mirabelle: I love, love, LOVE love these names, to the point that I can’t decide between them. There’s just something so girlie about them. I’m seriously considering giving my daughter one of the names, calling her Elle/Ella/Ellie/Mira and then honoring my mom with the middle name of Elizabeth.
 
Emma: I love the name Emma. M loves it too. I’ve never actually met an Emma, so the name is pretty pure for me. I think that’s part of the appeal. 
 
Olivia: Oh how I love this name. I don’t know why, but I do. 
 
Audrey/Audra: I love Ms. Hepburn and everything associated with her – specifically sophistication, beauty, and awesome-ass hats. 
 
Rory: Maybe I’ve watched too many episodes of Gilmore Girls in my life, but I think the name is absolutely adorable.
 
Samantha/Sam: I had the Samantha American Girls doll when I was younger and I always vowed that I’d name my daughter after her. (Yes, after a doll/the star of a fictional book about Victorian-era America.) I’m less enthralled with the name today, but I still like the idea of an adorable girl having a boy’s name. I’m drawn to Frankie in the same way, even if I don’t like any of the names it is derived from. 
 
Julia: M really likes this name, and it has grown on me after I worked with an utterly gorgeous and lovely Julia. It’s classic and I love the idea of calling her Jules. 
 
Lily: Unfortunately, one of my best friends has a dog named Lily so the name is now associated with an adorable Westie and not my future daughter, but it’s still a contender because it is so darn cute. (But maybe not so cute when older? I have an inner conflict about that.)  
 
I’m kind of obsessed with names and I love hearing names that other people like. So, go ahead, spill. I promise I won’t steal ‘em.

No dying. June 6, 2007

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.

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 25^th 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.

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.

Wherein I take television very seriously. May 18, 2007

This post is directed to all those who watch The Office and saw the finale last night. (To all others: seriously?! You don’t watch The Office?! I don’t know if we can be friends. No, not even Imaginary Internet friends.) 
 
For a very long time, I was pro-Pam. Because Pam and Jim were clearly meant for each other and even though Roy and a wedding and distance and an awkward kiss stood in the way, the unapologetic romantic in me still held high hopes for their reunion. 
 
Enter Karen. I didn’t like her from the start mostly because Karen is the name of M’s ex-girlfriend and no, I am not above grouping everyone who possesses a particular name into the “suck” category for that reason alone.  
 
She was exotic looking. She was funny. She wore cute clothes. How the hell was Pam - with her half-curly, half-straight hair and her dowdy wardrobe supposed to compare? I hated Karen for being a threat to all cute, fun girls everywhere.  
 
Except last night, as all things Pam-Jim-Karen-Love-Triangle came to a head, M said something that kind of tilted my universe (shut up; I get very invested in television) and made me see things from a new perspective: 
 
After (SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!) Jim drove back to the Scranton office and asked Pam on a date, M kind of shook his head (shut up; he gets very invested in television too) and said, “He’s leaving a great relationship with Karen for a maybe relationship with Pam. What sense does that make?” 
 
And in that moment, I realized I had identified with the wrong girl all along. I am Karen - the girl in a great relationship with a great guy. Karen wasn’t the threat, Pam was. Pam is the mystical “we’re just friends, no really” creature that lives in my head and stirs up The Crazy if I allow myself to obsess (which, hi, I don’t anymore. For serious).  
 
And, last night, that bitch won.  
 
The truth is, the writers made Karen very likable (despite her name; quite a feat). She and Jim did have a great relationship. They had chemistry and compatibility. I wanted to slap my forehead for being such an idiot and not rooting for them all along. 
 
Now I’m all, “Pam?! With the ill-fitting button down shirts and the grandma cardigans?! REALLY, JIM?!”  
 
(Again, a little too invested in television.) 
 
It just resonated with me, what M said and the subsequent realization that, yes, people do do that. They throw away great relationships because the “what if” is just so much more intriguing and exciting than the “lovely, but comfortable.” (I think it goes without saying that I grabbed M’s face between my hands and kissed him and very sweetly made him promise not to ever leave me for a maybe relationship. I let The Crazy have her way every so often, so long as it’s relatively harmless.) 
 
Moving on (because did I really just write an entire entry about a fictional love triangle and how it applies to my life?), there was a part in last night’s episode when Jim and Karen were doing the New York Trip Montage thing and Jim said “and then we ate at the Spotted Pig” and M and I looked at each other and burst out laughing because that’s exactly where we hung out with him (the real life version of him; just as adorable, ladies) last year. It was kind of cool. Ok, fine, maybe only to us.  Whatever. 
 
Also (unrelated! Sorry! I’m all over the place!), y’all, M is really testing the strength of my will not to cave into curiosity. Case in point: he was in the shower last night and I was at his desk, working on his computer and right there, as in, a few inches to my right was some sort of Diamond Certification SomethingOrOther. And part of me was all, “HOLY OMIGOD.” And then another (the evil, evil part) was all “if I snuck a peek…no one would know…except for me…and the Internets, of course…” Luckily I was able to tear myself away from the Sheet That May Or May Not Have Contained Important Information About What I Will Be Wearing On My Left Hand Hopefully Very Soon. I even surprised myself.  
 
And for that, I’m totally going to let myself have a burger and fries for lunch (I don’t expect you to understand my logic, just know that it makes sense in my head).

Will you still need me, will you still feed me… May 16, 2007

So yesterday, on my way home from the gym, I walked behind a very cute, very old couple. I ignored my New Yorker instinct to pass them and instead hovered slightly behind them, because I love old couples. Especially when they are so cute. (I tend to imagine myself and M as a very cute, very old couple. I’ll be the adorable, sunshine-y one and he’ll be the crotchety sarcastic one and it will be just like a sitcom, except without the laugh track and the annoying neighbor.)  
 
We passed a newsstand where the latest issue of [Cosmo, Glamour, Marie Claire, they’re all the damn same] was prominently on display. 
 
Old Couple Wife: (observing) Seven thing men want in bed? 
 
Old Couple Husband: Hmm. (Begins to list, in all seriousness) Well, a pillow, sheets, a nice comforter, a glass of water, a good book, a lamp…That’s six… 
 
His wife just kind of nodded her head in agreement and my heart almost burst from the cuteness. I smiled all the way home and, when I saw M later than night, I kissed him and said “I cannot WAIT until we’re ninety.”