Memories, Like The Corner Of My Mind

They say that elephants never forget.

I, while I don't often liken myself to an elephant, also have a spectacular memory.  So good that my family makes fun of me ("oh of course SHE remembers") and one of my guy friends actually said to me that he gets nervous when he tells me stories because most people don't really listen or recall things you've said to them in the past whereas I'm quick to look at you and say "yeah, I know, you already told me before" and make that hurry it along hand gesture.  (On second thought, maybe my memory doesn't make him nervous, maybe it's my short attention span and tendency to be overtly rude.)  This is why I was so surprised when, looking over my list of conquests (I kid, I kid) this evening, there were a few that I just really couldn't remember.

(This is roughly me and the following men at a reunion)

I feel like it should kind of be a shame that I've slept with one Indian guy and I don't remember.  What I do recall is meeting him at a bar, him calling me a few days later, and then having a lovely date with him.  He took me to a great French restaurant and we talked and had a great time.  Then we went to a very nice cocktail lounge/speak-easy and basically drank until I can no longer remember if when I think of that place, I'm recalling my time there with this guy or when EB and I went one night.  I then have snippets of us getting in a cab, making out on his couch...and then me attempting to sneak out without waking him at about (give or take) 4AM.  He woke up, obviously, and might have tried to get me to stay and then also might have offered to get me into a cab.  I believe I turned down both things, were they actually offered up, and drunkenly got my own cab home.  Now whether or not he really DID try and make sure I got home safely, I have no idea.  What I do remember is doing it on my own.  I never saw him again, despite his best efforts.  Lesson?  I want to date a gentleman.

Ah, then there's the Rebound of '07.  Upon returning from graduate school in Europe and embarking on another grad school journey back in New York, my boyfriend at the time and I broke up.  I was beyond devastated (as I usually tend to be), and to cheer me up, about six weeks later Twin 2 and her boyfriend decided to set me up with one of her boyfriend's friends.  He and I went on three or so dates before he even kissed me which was great; I needed to take it slow.  It just so happened that it was the same night I slept with him.  I don't remember any of the "during", but what I do vividly recall is pretty much immediately afterward bursting into tears.  Like sobbing, uncontrollable tears.  I just missed my ex so much it was unbearable.  I managed to stifle my crying and mumble something about having to go.  He tried to turn the lights on but I didn't want him to see my makeup pouring down my cheeks so I told him not to, threw my clothes on, and ran out.  Then, I cried so hard and so hysterically in the cab on the way back to my apartment that the taxi driver actually got off of his phone (I believe this is on record as the first time a cabbie's ever actually stopped talking on his phone for a passenger), pulled over, and asked me if I was alright or if I needed to go to the hospital.  Even in that moment, as distraught and depressed as I was, I could see the humor in the situation and attempted to get a grip.

Rebound must not have noticed my crying that night because we continued to date for another month or so-- me half-assing it, him putting in even less effort.  It was a really a miracle the two of us ever got it together enough to hang out.  Another story about him that I don't remember and Twin 2 reminds me of (though it definitely sounds like it happened) is when we Rebound and I were back at his apartment and starting to fool around one night and I told him I had my period.  He didn't care, I did.  Finally he said, "how about I change my sheets to a dark color?".  The thought of this is so bizarre and kind of gross; I know we definitely did NOT have sex that night.

The final time I remember not having sex with Rebound was the last time I saw him: the morning after we (must've) gotten it on.  I recall us kind of lying there, him talking about a book he was reading, and then turning on Talk Soup on his dvr after asking if I liked the show.  I did, but wasn't sure why we were watching it.  And it was in that moment that I realized that after dating this guy for six weeks or so, there was absolutely zero intimacy between us.  He didn't try to cuddle, didn't even put his hand on my arm.  Lesson learned: Sometimes a rebound can be just that-- no need to drag it out.

I hooked up with a guy in college whose middle name was essentially the same as his last name.  Second Verse, Same As The First and I made out on a few occasions.  I have no clue where we met (maybe Spanish class?) and why we didn't hook up more (we wound up studying abroad together).  I only remember one night fooling around in my apartment Sophomore year.  Maybe-- maaaaaaaybe-- again at his frat house?  We must've had sex at least once because he's on my list and he wouldn't be on here if we didn't "do it"...Christ, sometimes I feel like a slut.  Lesson here?  Sometimes it's just better not to remember at all.

Early winter of '08, while still really on the rebound from my fall '07 breakup, I met a guy at a party at my friend's apartment.  I remember he had striking blue eyes and we made out in her bedroom while he smoked a cigarette out of her window.  Classy.  We wound up going back to his apartment where I lost an earring.  When he came up from looking for it under the bed and placed it back in my head, it was another woman's earring.  Double classy points!  I slept with him anyway and it was good.  So good that we actually hung out again a couple of weeks later for a repeat.  I wasn't looking for anything serious which was lucky, because I certainly didn't find that with him.  He was smart, had a good family, could drink like a fish, and we had great sexual chemistry.  It was kind of like hanging out with myself.  Take-home Lesson: To quote Jerry Seinfeld, "Now I know what I've been looking for all these years...myself!  I've been waiting for me to come along and now I've swept myself off my feet!"

I wish my black-outs end there, but unfortunately that's just the tip of the iceberg.  EB used to joke that our first three dates were like the movie Groundhog Day-- he remembered everything and I didn't know his name.

Therefore to recap:

Lesson 1) Secrets secrets are no fun, secret relationships hurt someone.  (Me.)

Lesson 2) When things are over, there's no need to play nice. (It just leads people on.)

Lesson 3) Life is too short to waste on people that aren't significant to you.

Lesson 4) Save every man's number in your phone forever; only have one-night stands at your own place; there is no rule for figuring out penis size ahead of time.  

Lesson 5) Just because you have a gun to your head doesn't mean you have to pull the trigger.  (It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind half-way through everything.) 

Lesson 6) Always use a condom.  Wrap. It. Up.

Lesson 7) Maintaining my dignity is not overrated.

Lesson 8) Sometimes sex is just sex.  

Lesson 9) Walk softly and carry a big purse.

Lesson 10) Alcohol + Video Games + Women = Kryptonite for Men; nipple rings can be my weakness.

Lesson 11) I want to date a gentleman...within reason.

Lesson 12) Call a spade a spade, and a rebound a rebound.

Lesson 13) Sometimes no memory is better than a foggy memory and an inference.

Lesson 14) I love hanging out with myself.  (I'm single um, on purpose, so I uh, have lots of time to do that...)

Check.

A Dating Story

Tonight, I had my date with Jared.

We will call him Jared because of Jared, the spokesman for Subway.  Get it?  We met on the subway?? 

(I'm torn between disappointment and ecstasy that when I google "Jared", 

Jared Leto shows up and not Jared from the Subway commercials.)

Anyway, last night Jared texted me and suggested we meet at 7:30PM at a bar around the corner from our apartments.  This sounded great because a) I hate having to pay for a cab when I go on a date (I mean come on, it's not exactly an inexpensive evening for me when I'm paying close to $30 to get to you and home.) and because b) if we meet at 7:30PM I can, ideally, be home in time to catch Modern Family (and if you haven't seen it?  Missing out...big time.).  I agreed and arranged my day today around seeing Jared.

All was fine and dandy until #2 IMed me at around 11AM.  He went on a rant about Seinfeld and how it's not the same without me and how he finally saw the finale episode for the first time and why were people so upset about it?  It seemed OK to him!  My responses slowly warmed until we had an almost normal rapport.  He brought it to the level of hinting about not being able to keep his hands off of me and I responded with a joke, then he told me he had a phone call and would talk to me "in a bit".  That was 12 hours ago.  This doesn't surprise me because his complete inability to estimate and/or quantify lengths of time was a constant issue for me (mostly in secret) during the short time we dated (for a normal person "going on a run and calling you when I get back" means "I'll be in touch in about an hour" not "I'll text you in three hours after I run and play football and screw around with my friends").  Yes, I completely get that he's fucking around with me.  However, my oath to myself that I wouldn't stress about him anymore is really working.  He said he'd be "back in a bit" and I really didn't spend much time at all (maybe 10 minutes total?) thinking about him the rest of the day.  If he wants to talk to me, he'll contact me.  If he wants to see me, he'll make plans with me.  It's really all out of my control.  That is of course, until he Jedi mind-fucks me on the day I have a date.  Then it takes some effort to erase him from my recent memory.

Somehow I managed to put him out of my head though and have a perfectly shitty day at work all on my own.  By the time I walked in the door at around 6:30PM I felt terrible (I've been sick for about a week and half) and in no mood to socialize with anyone.  I sucked it up and showered and got myself together though, and met Jared at 7:30 on the dot (I'm pretty much NEVER on time).  And ya know what?  We actually had a really nice time.  It was so much fun to talk to someone who does the same thing as me at the same place and has the same insane commute and works with similar crazy personalities and gripes about the exact things that I gripe about.  I really had a lot of fun with him.

Except, of course, for the part where he looks exactly like my youngest brother.  Not in a like "oh they both have blonde hair and blue eyes" kind of way, but in a "holy shit that's the same face he makes! and they have the same jaw structure! and in this lighting I keep forgetting that it's actually NOT my brother sitting across the table from me!!" kind of way.  It realllllly spooked me.  So now I'm basically unable to ever see this guy again for fear that he'd make some sort of sexual move on me and I'd lose it.  My only saving grace is that in a week or so he's leaving on a three and a half week African adventure, so I can gracefully fade away during that time and be "seeing someone" when he gets back.

God bless the rains down in Africa.        

Animal House

"I tore through that frat house like a hurricane with a vagina." -me to my cousin, with regards to her boyfriend's fraternity

As a sorority girl, there were many fraternity houses I frequented Wednesdays through Saturdays before I was 21.  Some more than others, naturally, as when you're dating someone or your friend's dating someone, their boy's place would become a usual haunt as you were able to (normally) pretty much come and go with an ease not provided at other such coveted "tight-door" locales.  My cousin dated the same guy all four years of college (covering my Sophomore through Senior years) and through her, I wound up spending a decent bit of time at his place.  The parties were good, the guys were cute (and came with introductions from her or her boyfriend), and it didn't take much more convincing than that for me.

(If my life was an 80's movie, this song would've played every time I walked in the door there)

Spring of my Sophomore year my sorority did Spring Week with this fraternity and at one of the first parties I hit it off with this really cute guy.  We talked for a while and then he somehow said something smooth enough to get me back to his room.  As soon as we entered, he locked the door behind us.  I knew this wasn't going to be good.  All of my female intuition told me to get out as soon as possible and with as much calm as I could maintain.  He said he wanted to show me something and opened his closet door to reveal an entire greenhouse's worth of drugs being carefully cultivated.  I was in shock.  Then, he told me that I could never tell anyone-- if anyone found out he'd know it was me because he hadn't ever shared this secret.  This, naturally, scared the shit out of me because I felt like I was being threatened and I swore up and down to not say a word...then was released back to the party and told all of my friends.  Hey, if anything happened to me I wanted people to know who did it.  I don't remember if we made out somewhere in there, but I can't imagine how else he would've gotten me back to his room.

That story had nothing to do with sex, just with the frat.

A party (day?) or two later, the theme was pajamas.  I had on these cute purple leopard pants with a purple tank top.  Again, "somehow" I wound up in Mr. Silver's room (I'm sure so we could "listen to a song" or "watch a funny video he wanted to show me").  As we were hooking up I remembered that I had a stuffed bra because I wasn't exactly filling out my pajama top.  I faced a dilemma however, because his bed was lofted and we were already up at the top fooling around.  I made up some kind of "gotta check my cell phone real quick" (or something) excuse, climbed down, and then tried to shield myself while I whipped out the padding.  Only problem was that I had a really tiny evening bag with me (because what goes better with leopard pajama pants?) and couldn't fit the stuffing back inside along with my cell phone.  I'm pretty sure it got left in his room, hastily thrown behind something.

He must never have traced the padding he found to me though, because Senior year I again hooked up with Mr. Silver.  This time we were at his house (not the fraternity's), which I'm sure in reality was about five blocks from the main street in town but in college distance felt like "really far away".  My clearest memories from this encounter were that he was now mature enough to have a bed anchored safely on the floor, insisting I take out my contacts and using up all his solution to fill up two solo cups for my lenses, and leaving my earrings behind the next morning when he drove me home.  I really liked those hoops, and I never got them back.  Lesson learned?  If you think you might hook up with someone, bring a big bag and put everything into it as it comes off of you.

At another party with this frat Sophomore year, I made out with Mr. Gold.  This happened a couple of times-- in his room, in a hallway, etc.-- but never progressed to much more than that.  The summer before Junior year however, we randomly got in touch and decided to get together since he lived about five minutes from my parents' house.  He invited me to come over and have dinner, saying we could grill and have a couple of drinks.  I drove over looking forward to a little "college" fun while at home, only to find out that when he said "we" could grill, he meant he AND HIS FATHER...I could hang out with his mom in the kitchen while his two brothers wandered in and out, waiting for dinner to be ready.  I don't think I've been in many more uncomfortable situations in my life-- and that's saying a lot.  After dinner we wound up coming back to my house so I could escape the torture, and we made out in my basement while we watched a movie and he wore a stupid sideways baseball hat.  It was much more closely related to "high school" fun.  We didn't get together again that summer.

Senior year of college (yes, again...Hey, I was abroad for half of Junior year-- I had lost time to make up for), we reconnected and discovered a mutual love for Dr. Mario.  My brother had let me take his old-school Nintendo back to school with me, as a consolation prize for having to graduate, and that thing got me so laid.  In-between Sophomore and Senior year, Mr. Gold traded in his sideways cap and got his nipples pierced.  While the sex itself wasn't much to write home about, something about nice Jewish boy with nipple rings just melted my butter.  Hell, I still wouldn't mind seeing it again.  We hooked up a couple of times and then texted sporadically for the next year. Lesson to take home: There are very few things in life a guy likes more than a drunk girl asking him to come home with her and play video games on her bed; apparently I like body piercings on men.

While I'd like to think I've moved on since college, I just lost a bracelet at #2's house, and love spending wintertime Saturday afternoons with EB playing Vice City.

Therefore to recap:

Lesson 1) Secrets secrets are no fun, secret relationships hurt someone.  (Me.)

Lesson 2) When things are over, there's no need to play nice. (It just leads people on.)

Lesson 3) Life is too short to waste on people that aren't significant to you.

Lesson 4) Save every man's number in your phone forever; only have one-night stands at your own place; there is no rule for figuring out penis size ahead of time.  

Lesson 5) Just because you have a gun to your head doesn't mean you have to pull the trigger.  (It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind half-way through everything.) 

Lesson 6) Always use a condom.  Wrap. It. Up.

Lesson 7) Maintaining my dignity is not overrated.

Lesson 8) Sometimes sex is just sex.  

Lesson 9) Walk softly and carry a big purse.

Lesson 10) Alcohol + Video Games + Women = Kryptonite for Men; nipple rings can be my weakness.

Check.

Stella and Her Groove

Sun. Sand. Sex. Spirits. Doesn't get much better.

Ah yes, you guessed it!  It's time to deconstruct my vacation lovers.

(What?  How did one of my old vacation pictures get on here?? Oh my, I'm so embarrassed.)

Let's see...If I don't count trips taken with ex-boyfriends, we're left with Spring Break during my Senior year of college.  Mexico, but of course.  It was me and three girl friends at a hotel on the Pacific coast, and the only way to describe the week would be to say we were constantly one-upping each other the entire seven days.  Well, except for the night when one of my friends was almost thrown into a Mexican jail for giving a beej in a hot tub and had to stand naked with her hands behind her head while the police interrogated them before she took off running across the highway and back to our room. No one could beat that.  But, that's her story for her blog.  

I'm pretty sure my first hookup was our...first night there.  That day, we'd met a couple of cute guys on the beach-- also spring-breakers, naturally-- and ran into a bunch of college friends of one of Twin 1's boyfriend.  She and her boyfriend were not on our trip, but off together doing something much more mature than drinking beer by the bucketful and listening to Gasolina being blasted on repeat on the beach all day.  Twin 1's sister (Twin 2) however, took an immediate liking to one of the guys in the college friends group.  That night out at the club where they herded all of the white, American, 21 year-olds, they hit it off and began to dance.  Our other two friends quickly headed back to our hotel room to flirt with danger and other spring-break males as they were, pretty much upon arrival, too drunk to be there after winning a drinking contest on the beach that afternoon.  Left alone and worried about how I was going to get back to our hotel, I started drinking heavily and dancing with another one of the college friends.  I vividly remember him wearing a pink polo shirt and chewing gum.  At 21, I thought this was pretty hot.  Style and fresh breath?  Sign me up!  The next thing I can make out is being back in his hotel room (same resort as us) and having sex while his roommates drunkenly pounded on the door to be let in.  I admit, not the most romantic night of my life.

Ah, but he made up for this the next night.  Scuba Steve (don't ask...because I actually couldn't even tell you because I can't recall the origin of the nickname other than me just being funny) stuck to me like white on rice.  I think I tried to avoid him at the beach the next day as much as possible.  I could tell he was kinda liking me and I wasn't looking to be buttoned-down (yes, that was my version of "buttoned-down") at the very beginning of the trip!  At the foam party that night (want AIDS?  go to a foam party at a club in Mexico...)  I spent the majority of the time actively running away from him and hiding in the bathroom.  I couldn't make one move without him beside me-- sitting next to me, dancing with me, talking to me.  Good God man, I'd already slept with you!  What more did you want?! When none of his advances appeared to be working in his favor, he bought me a rose from one of the little wandering vendors.  This made me feel physically ill, and I'm not sure what happened next, but I somehow wound up back in his hotel room again.  This time however, I was not going to sleep with him.  I was actually trying to escape him.  The "how" and "why" of me finding myself in his room once more is still totally lost on me, but I do remember dashing around him and bursting out of the room while he CHASED ME (yes, it was like a scene out of Cops) back to my room, yelling after me the whole way.  As I darted across traffic (the resort was divided by a highway-- we were in a room on the ocean, he was in a suite across the street), I managed to lose him for a second.  Wasting no time, I ran in the sliding glass door to our room and directly into the bathroom, leaving Twin 2 to lie to Scuba's face and say "nope, she hadn't seen me" when just five seconds earlier he'd watched me enter the hotel with his own two eyes.  He kind of got the message after this and nothing further happened with him again.

Until a month or so later when Twin 2, another friend, and I went with Twin 1 to visit her boyfriend at his school.  Scuba, being a close friend of Twin 1's boyfriend, was obviously out with us that Friday night and he apologized profusely for his crazy behavior in Mexico.  He didn't know how to act, he admitted, because I was only the second person to sleep with him.  This news both shocked and appalled me, and I felt the need to incredulously announce it to everyone within earshot.  He must not have minded however, and somehow led me right back to his room again.  I'd never met someone who disinterested me so much that it was like Kryptonite.  We were in the throes of passion-- making out, starting to get serious-- when I didn't feel so hot.  I excused myself to the bathroom where I promptly recall throwing up something red allllll over his white bathroom for the better part of 30 minutes or so.  When I emerged, I insisted he walk me back to Twin 1's boyfriend's place.  Funny, he didn't make much of an effort when we went out together the next night.

Ah, but it doesn't end there!  A year or so later we were both living in New York and ran into one another out at a bar.  I think I was a few drinks (hours?) ahead of him and we must have chatted for a little while before he decided to take off.  Not having made a pass at me, I wasn't sure what Scuba was thinking.  I decided to find out by running outside after him, swinging the door of his cab open, shouting my phone number at him, and telling him to call me sometime.  He never did, and thank God we've never had another encounter.  Lesson here?  If an opportunity arises for me escape with a modicum of dignity, I need to embrace it.

My second Spring Break hookup was just a really good-looking guy from the  Midwest.  Tall, dark, and handsome, yadda yadda yadda, my usual type.  He was one of the guys we'd met on the beach that first day and he'd watched me flee from Scuba the night before.  That third night out, Twin 2 became extremely ill from sun poisoning.  I spent the majority of the beginning of the night at that evening's bar shoving girls out of the way in the bathroom line and holding back her hair while she threw up.  In the few minutes in-between those activities though, she noticed how Midwestern Man and I were clicking, and finally decided to excuse herself from barfing in a bar to go back to our room and barf there in peace.  Yes, I'm a horrible friend and let her walk home alone, a little drunk, a lot sick, late at night, in Mexico.  Thankfully, she is a wonderful friend who laughs about this still instead of completely disowning me.  Anyway, after sleeping together the next three or four nights, I could feel myself becoming attached Midwestern Man.  I could imagine college visits, keeping in touch over AIM (am I dating myself?), and all those indulgent female fantasies we allow ourselves when we like someone.  Alas, none of that was meant to be as I never heard from him again back in the US.  Lesson learned:  Sometimes sex is just sex.  

Ah, so much wisdom.  One day I'll have a daughter and never tell her any of this.  

Therefore to recap:

Lesson 1) Secrets secrets are no fun, secret relationships hurt someone.  (Me.)

Lesson 2) When things are over, there's no need to play nice. (It just leads people on.)

Lesson 3) Life is too short to waste on people that aren't significant to you.

Lesson 4) Save every man's number in your phone forever; only have one-night stands at your own place; there is no rule for figuring out penis size ahead of time.  

Lesson 5) Just because you have a gun to your head doesn't mean you have to pull the trigger.  (It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind half-way through everything.) 

Lesson 6) Always use a condom.  ('Nuff said.)

Lesson 7) Maintaining some dignity is not overrated.

Lesson 8) Sometimes sex is just sex.  

Check.

Lazy Sunday

Today I ate half a medium pizza and some potato chips.

To say I am hungover after this whirlwind weekend is an understatement.  Luckily it was a perfect, dreary Sunday in New York City so I had the luxury of showering, putting on sweatpants, and then crawling back into bed for the entire rest of the day-- something that's not always possible.  Seriously, as I look around myself right now I see that on my bed is an almost-empty bag of chips, my cell phone, my camera, a credit card for ordering Dominos, my glasses, bachelorette party "dare" cards, and a glass of water that I've been chugging non-stop since 9AM.

(Mmmmm, fast food in bed.)

I guess it all began on Friday morning.  A little after I got to work, #2 emailed me to say that he had a work event Sunday night and wouldn't be able to see me this afternoon.  He would've written me back the day before but, without getting too much into his excuse, basically didn't.  Using his favorite word, he said he'd propose another time to get together "soon."  I responded and wished him luck with the event and asked him (again) to please look for my bracelet.  Then I told him to go fuck himself and stop wasting my time already.  Alright, just kidding about that last part but I definitely considered it.  

In slightly related news, my mother was visiting one of my brothers this weekend and they got to talking about when he met 2.  "I know she was mad at me after we all went out because I didn't really say anything about him," he said to our mom, "but she's so pretty and smart and he was so unimpressive.  All I could think was that she could do so much better."  I'm fairly certain my brother stays away from this blog because of how frequently I write about or reference sex, but I just want to say that I love and appreciate him.  I need to remember his opinion on 2-- he's actually always been right about everyone I've dated.

Anyway, back to Friday.  On my way home from work, as I switched from one crowded subway to another even mooore crowded subway, I was pushed and shoved up against other pushing and shoving strangers when someone bumped me and actually-- gasp!-- apologized.  I turned to see who it was and a cute, 20-something male smiled at me and said he was sorry again.  We made eye contact for a moment and I smiled and told him not to worry about it.  When I got to my stop and switched trains, I saw that the same guy was on my platform a few feet away.  He noticed me and came over, taking out his ipod and making a joke about the rush hour traffic.  "Crap, now if he took his ipod out he's going to want to really talk to me," I thought to myself.  Then, I decided that although I live in NYC, it wouldn't ACTUALLY kill me to be friendly to someone.  We chatted for the last couple of stops and it turns out he works at the same place I do and lives practically across the street from me.  As we began to head home together, he took out his cell phone and, swearing he "never [does] this. [He's] never met a girl on the subway before", asked for my number.  I joked that I was pretty sure his MO was seeing girls he liked, pretending to work wherever they say they're employed, and then following them home and claiming to be neighbors.  He laughed, I hoped I wasn't right, and gave him contact information.  He called earlier tonight, just as friendly and easy-going as before, and we have plans to go out on Wednesday.  

Saturday was a long day of drinking.  Pretty much a 12-hour day of drinking, to be exact.  It started at 2PM at a bridal shower for a wedding I'm in this summer and ended when I crawled home at 2AM from a pre-bachelorette party.  Naturally I felt fantastic after drinking for all that time and have basically been up since 6AM, feeling like crap.  This isn't to say that it wasn't all worth it however.  Last night...we had...THE stripper to end all dirty/graphic/highly inappropriate male strippers.  He was an event worthy of a seven hour pre-game in and of himself.  He grabbed crotches; he groped inside of as many skirts as he could find; he had the bachelorette's hand inside of his g-string; he even-- oh, dare I say it??-- took off someone's shirt in front of everyone and got a little "physical".  This was all while he stopped every five seconds to strike a pose and demand that people take pictures of him.  I need to pause for a moment to applaud my fellow party-goers and their good nature about the whole affair.  Cowboy Stripper is definitely where the phrase "knows no bounds" originated.  Apparently WE were such a good time though that he called an hour after leaving and asked what we were up to later and if he could come out with us.  That's how it's done ladies.

And because it is such a painfully small world (as I'm constantly lamenting), the friend who stayed with me all weekend wound up on the same train home Sunday morning as EB.  He'd accompanied me to her beach house a few summers back and so they knew one another and chatted briefly.  He asked how her new baby was; she pretended to not have known that he and I met for lunch a couple of weeks ago.  She immediately texted me to let me know of the encounter and he followed up with me about an hour later, saying he'd seen her on the train and asking how the party was the day before.  After throwing out a few highlights of the stripper extravaganza, EB responded with "you basically pay a guy to come over and make unwanted advances.  Male stripper = amazing job for sex criminal." 

And now, in my bed, on this island I've called "home" today, I'm going to attempt to sleep off the insanity of the past 72 hours.  For once, the sound outside of my window isn't sirens and car alarms and yelling in Spanish and traffic, but simply the rain.  

Extra! Extra!

"Read all about it! Earth turns 40!" -newspaper guy at my work subway stop, pushing Earth Day 40th Anniversary papers

This quote just started my whole day off on the right foot.  I laughed the last four blocks to my office, put it on Facebook, submitted it to overheardinny.com (an excellent time-wasting site), and settled in for a long day of doing nothing but catching up on LOST and overanalyzing.

So first, let's talk about LOST.  I mean for the love of all that is holy, if Kate does not DEFINITIVELY end up with either Sawyer or Jack I will petition ABC to give me back the hours and hours of my life that I have wasted being totally confused by this show.  And what the fuck is the Man in Black?  Isn't that a Will Smith movie??  And is Desmond everywhere at once and all in the present?  Does anyone else think Sawyer is going to die?  What the hell does Widmore want with the island?? Is Michael in purgatory?  What happened to Walt??  How are they going to tie up all these story lines?!  AH!  I can't take this show anymore!!

And now, for the overanalyzing.

But actually first, two totally random thoughts: How gross does that new KFC bun-less sandwich look?  And how delicious does that new KFC bun-less sandwich look?  Two pieces of fried chicken, two pieces of cheese, and two pieces of bacon.  Nom nom nom.

(This is what I look like whilst daydreaming of the new KFC Doubledown)

This morning I finally decided to email #2 about a bracelet I'd left at his apartment two weeks ago.  Two weeks ago when I never thought that I wouldn't see or hear from him again.  It was my grandmother's bracelet and I'd already lost one of them to an ex-boyfriend, I didn't want to lose another-- I'm running out of heirlooms.  I sent a polite and semi-formal email asking him to look around his room under things and to mail it to me should it turn up.  A simple "haven't seen it but will look around, hope you're well" would have been a sufficient response.  

Instead, 10 minutes later, I had an email from him apologizing for not reaching out to me but saying he needed to take some time "for both of us" (hey, don't do me no favors), will look tonight for the bracelet, and would love if I'd let him take me to lunch "or something" this weekend but he understands if I don't want to.  I responded that unfortunately, it is obvious that should I never have contacted him he wouldn't have contacted me and to please look for the bracelet.  He replied in less than a minute-- literally I hit send and it's like his response was already waiting in my inbox-- that he WAS going to contact me and this was him asking me to hang out (so I guess take it for what it is?).  I then agonized over this for three hours.  THREE.  I also agonized my friends.  

Finally, after debating back and forth if I wanted to see him at all and the only reason I woooould see him would be to find out if he was still in the same place as a few weeks ago, one of my friends pointed out that I could just save myself the trouble and email him and ask.  So I did.  And so he responded in under five minutes that yes, he is still in the same place, essentially he's trying to be fair to both of us, doesn't want to stop seeing me, and is inexplicably having a terrible day.  I like to attribute that last part to me; it makes me smile.  So, two more hours of torturous analytical thinking about the ins and outs of the implications of seeing him ensued.  Ultimately, I went with the tried-and-true "this is what I said to you two and half weeks ago.  I'm willing to see where this goes or not and if there's still something there between us.  I'm free late Sunday afternoon.  And I'm having a fantastic day, I hope [his] improves."  

That was sent at 4PM.  He has once again fallen off the face of the planet.

The beautiful thing though, is that I kind of don't care at all.  At some point after sending that last email I made peace with myself.  I realized that I don't know what I want from someone in a relationship, so it's impossible for me to say I'm not getting it.  I realized that I don't have my life together-- I'm actively searching for a new job and a new apartment, so how can I hold someone else's not having it all together against them?  I also realized, and my mother has been saying this for years, that there is no point in stressing out about things that I don't have control over.  I can throw myself into job-hunting.  I can scour the streets of Manhattan for a new apartment all my own.  I don't really have time to commit to someone else because right now I need to take care of me.  If 2 doesn't want a serious relationship because he has his own things going on, that's perfect because that's all I can handle anyway, something casual.  If 2 pops up again, great.  I'll fit him into my life on my terms (no sex, no spending the night, and seeing me once a week when I'M free).  If he never shows his mug around these parts again?  Also fine.  I'm busy enough.  I'm taking care of me now and doing what makes me happy.

Afterall, if the Earth is only 40, I'm a spring chicken.  No sense in wasting time on someone who may or may not be significant in the long-run when I still have my whole life ahead of me to figure out in the meantime :)          

(That's right, I'm starting to live by my lessons.)

One-Hit Wonders

Now let's break from the monotony of going in order and throw in a whole bunch of guys with very little back story-- it'll be much more entertaining.

I mean half of these guys don't even have a real name...Well obviously they have a real name but maybe it's one that I don't know or didn't care to learn.  Either way, these men were (mostly) in and out of my life in a night.

(TX friend-- this will always remind me of my grandmother's shore house)

(Insert that great, quick, two-chord BOMBOM right here that opens every scene on Law&Order): Big Daddy.  Ohhhhh, Big Daddy.  Big Daddy and I met at a bar my Senior year of college.  I had on this drapey top with no bra (very JWow actually, shudder) and was checking him out and making serious eye contact from across the room when my boob fell out.  I quickly readjusted my shirt and died of shame, then moments later my friend-- who happened to be in from Philly for the night-- came up to me, as we didn't know the other would be there. His friends?  The hot guy who just saw my breast and some other guy.  Hot guy and I hit it off right away and I don't think it was more than a few minutes before I asked him if he wanted to come home with me.  Boy did I have game back then, sigh.  

After we had sex the first time, we got to talking.  He was 28 (ish?) and in town because he was the trainer (coach??) of a college men's rugby (lacrosse??? soccer????) team.  He also had a five year old son.  (Ooooohhhh, Big Daddy, I get it now.)  He left the next morning to go do whatever the hell it was he was in town doing and I lay in bed, dying from a hangover.  We kept in touch via text (that's how you know it's true love!) for a week or so, until my friend's mom died and I was heading to the funeral.  On the way there I realized that life is way too short to spend wasting  on people that you don't love and won't matter in the long run.  We never really spoke again after that. ...Funny though that I was able to grasp that lesson at 21 and seem to have all but forgotten it by 27.  

Next up is Sig Pi Guy.  He was this...guy...in the fraternity Sigma Pi.  We met at a frat party (duh) my Junior year, but apparently he'd noticed me a couple of weeks earlier at a party at his apartment I attended with some friends.  He was so cute and 100% my type, so I was excited that he noticed AND remembered me, but I jumped on it.  I'm not sure what happened, but somehow we wound up back in my dorm room...along with my roommate and HER hookup for the evening.  While she had known the guy she was about to hookup with for her entire life, I somehow wound up getting sexiled with my stranger, who, for all anyone knew, could've turned out to be a total psycho.  (This, however, didn't deter me from meeting random guys, but simply led me to tell my roommate that in the future when we're both there and one of us is with a "stray", the stray stays and the girl with the more well-known guy goes back to his place.  Ah, to be young.)  

Back at his place (which was like a gazillion miles from mine and it was like 3AM by this point), we walk in to find his dog missing.  This is, apparently, his childhood dog that he just begged his parents to let him bring up to school to live with him.  Then like the second weekend he has the thing, he loses it.  We look in all of his roommates' rooms, wake up someone, and then proceed to comb THE ENTIRE AREA calling out for the dog.  Now those of you that know me can imagine how this is my dream scenario: I come back to have sex, only to find out I'll be having no sex.  I'm rapidly sobering up and becoming more hungover.  I don't like animals and now I'm doing Search & Rescue for a dog I've never met because the man I'm with is about to become hysterical.  TURN ON!!  After what felt like an eternity and could actually be anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes, we return to his apartment empty-handed.  Now I'm so not in the mood to hook up and he's managed to do a 180 from a minute earlier and decides the dog is probably fine and at a party with a roommate or something.  I remember the sex was less than stellar and realized that not every body part is proportional to every other.  

A couple of years later, I'm back at school for a football game post-graduation.  My friend and I are walking through tailgates and who should be there?  Sig Pi Guy. Now I never would've approached him because I can't totally recall, but I'm pretty sure nothing really happened again between us after that night.  He just happened to be standing with a guy who my friend wanted to talk to, we chitchatted, and moved along.  That night, my friend and I are leaving our favorite old bar as it closed and my phone rang.  Really wanting to hook up with the ex who was calling, we headed over to his old frat house.  I called him back when we got there to try and describe my location.  He came to look for me and we just could not see the other one.  All of the sudden I realized I WASN'T (ever) talking to my ex, but to Sig Pi Guy-- whose house we weren't even at.  "Whooooo is this??" I asked into the phone, and then quickly hung up.  I found my friend dancing on a coffee table with some middle-aged woman and we high-tailed it out.  Lesson there? Never delete someone's number from your phone, not all body parts are created equal, and if you're having a one-night stand, do it at your own place.  Because nothing bad ever happens to anyone at their own place...Sig Pi Guy was a three-for-one on the lessons.

Scene: New Years Eve 2006/2007.  My friend is so drunk at the club where we're celebrating, we need to carry her out.  Except, "we" don't carry her out, this group of guys that we'd been talking to does.  They also hail us a limousine, pay for it, and come back to my friend's apartment.  I slept with a guy who was (and possibly still is) an elementary school teacher.  While we were in bed, he talked to me like I was a little kid because he was so used to operating on that level.  My friend kicked his buddy out of bed after about an hour of making out because she wasn't feeling it; my guy didn't leave until early the next afternoon, in one sock because the other was missing.  Lesson?  Just because you have gun to your head doesn't mean you have to pull the trigger.

Curtain rises, we see people enjoying Halloween at an Irish pub in Madrid.  I hadn't had sex since May or June.  A gorgeous Greek man who'd grown up in Australia starts talking to me. I don't understand a word he says so we begin to wildly make out.  Then, we wildly have sex all night (we're talking bed in the middle of the room, pictures falling off of the walls) before he leaves the next day to continue traveling the world on his year off.  Lesson learned? Always use a condom.  I had nightmares for months I was pregnant with this guy's child and had no idea who he was. 

And wow, before I go on, I think I'll leave off here so I can go take a shower and stop feeling like a dirty whore.  

Therefore to recap:

Lesson 1) Secrets secrets are no fun, secret relationships hurt someone.  (Me.)

Lesson 2) When things are over, there's no need to play nice. (It just leads people on.)

Lesson 3) Life is too short to waste on people that aren't significant to you.

Lesson 4) Save every man's number in your phone forever; only have one-night stands at your own place; there is no rule for figuring out penis size ahead of time.  

Lesson 5) Just because you have a gun to your head doesn't mean you have to pull the trigger.  (It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind half-way through everything.) 

Lesson 6) Always use a condom.  ('Nuff said.)

Check.

He'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain When He Comes...

The second person I slept with was the guy I dated on and off for the majority of my college years.  Boy was that a mistake.

OK you got me, no, not a "mistake" because I'm not on here to talk about mistakes, I'm on here to talk about what I've learned.  It's just unfortunate that you learn a lot more from things that fail miserably because I'd much rather learn things from doing them correctly, once.  But I am, sadly enough, on the Thomas Edison path to relationship enlightenment.  To roughly paraphrase him, "I haven't failed; I've just found 1,000 ways not to do it."  So everyone, if you're looking for ways to not settle down, call me Master Miyagi.  And please, learn my lessons.  

(Wouldn't it be great if that was your reality?)

I met T second semester my freshman year when my roommate invited him to stop by our dorm room to meet me.  She actually also introduced me to the first guy I slept with as well, and considering the way that went and what you're about to hear about this guy, it won't surprise you at all to find out she's completely insane and wound up locking me out of our room in the middle of the night to pack up all of her things and move out.  This was fantastic for me because growing up as an only girl, sharing things has never come totally natural to me.  (Wow, recurring theme in my relationships: Does not play well with others.)  But I digress.  Back to T.

I liked him immediately; thought he was cute instantly and the feelings were mutual.  We had a great freshman year together (for the most part), I was heartbroken when we left for the summer, he came to visit over the Fourth of July, we broke up, got back to school and got back together, then continued to follow that on-again/off-again pattern with some realllllly shitty times thrown in for good fun throughout that school year.  (And yes yes, I dated other guys in the meantime that will come up soon.)  However after returning to school Junior year, it became apparent that he wasn't the same anymore.  He was always a little crazy (hey-- keeps ya on your toes!) but he took a turn to Psychoville.  After I officially ended it he tried hooking up with my sorority sisters so it'd get back to me (succeeding with one rather unfortunate number), he IMed me constantly until I blocked him, and then he proceeded to make up new screen names and tell me he'd never be able to be blocked.  I had to eventually change my screenname and would walk home from my night class (Astronomy lab) afraid he was going to jump out of the bushes.  By the time I left for study abroad, I didn't look back.  

Senior year we managed to largely stay out of one another's way (and by "we" I mean "me")...until I got a phone call from him one random winter night asking for directions.  Because he was driving around by my parents' house.  Because he was interviewing for jobs in the area.  Because he thought I'd be moving home after graduation.  This definitely threw me.  I told him no, not to look for jobs there, it was over.  The next time I saw him out, he told me he was engaged to his high school girlfriend.  Now at this point I'd already been left for the high school girlfriend by my first guy, so that news was especially harsh.  The time after that, he admitted he lied about the time before because he was mad at me.  I was 21 and decided the appropriate response to this was to allow him to come home with me.  We didn't even kiss and I immediately regretted it the next morning as I threw him out, but not nearly as much as I'd go on to regret it later.

He started calling and emailing again, despite my resistance.  I guess I'd taught him that persistence pays off and I always cave, so it was my own damn fault.  After we graduated though, it got worse.  He phoned me with increasing frequency at all hours of the day and night.  It got to the point where my mother told me that my options were taking out a restraining order against him or having my father call him.  Both of those scared the shit out of me, so I chose door number three-- changing my phone number and email address.  Doing this within weeks of graduating college is hands-down the best way of losing touch with 95% of the people you just spent the last four years of your life with. If you're looking to fall off of the grid, I highly suggest it.

However, I'd finally learned my lesson: Sometimes things just have to be over.  Breakups are hard and both people are always going to walk away a little bruised, but it's only my job to look after myself.  Plus, when there's a will there's a way.  A few weeks ago when Facebook updated their security settings, many people's were lost, mine included.  I didn't even know they'd been changed for the day or two they were down until I got an email from him...out of the blue...almost five years after our last contact.  But, I finally got it.  I didn't respond and I blocked him.  (Insert "brushing hands off" motion here.)  

Therefore to recap:

Lesson 1) Secrets secrets are no fun; secrets secretes hurt someone.

Lesson 2) When things are over, there's no need to play nice.

Check.

Life Lessons

If you can't drink pink champagne on a Thursday night with the girls, when can you?

Lots of times.  Lots and lots of other, better times.  Lots of times that don't follow two bottles of wine, perhaps.  Maybe lots of times when you don't have to go to work the next morning.  How about even lots of times when you're also not going out afterwards?  All of those times are waaaaay better times to drink pink champagne.  With or without the girls.

(If this song didn't have a strong radio presence during the most formative time 

of your teenage years, you're too young to read this blog)

Just as this is a lesson I learned the hard way-- the following Friday morning at work--, I have learned love-life lessons in a similar fashion...by experience.  The old "trial and error" or "trial by fire" or "try, try again" if you will.  Notice how it's never called "trial and INSTANT SUCCESS!".  If it was, I'd have way fewer lovers to talk about here before my rapidly-approaching 27th birthday.  I'd also have way fewer lovers to talk about if, as a friend of mine pointed out this evening, hooking up with someone and NOT having sex had a point.  I mean, if you don't plan on having sex with someone, you're looking at at least two hours of hard time.  Two hours of kissing and "heavy petting" with no real, satisfactory end for either of you (well at least not for the woman, depending upon her generosity).  My problem is that I really value my beauty sleep.  I'm super-cranky if I don't get enough rest and having sex with you is going to end the night in a timely fashion and let me get back to faking the one thing I do better than having an orgasm while you paw at me: sleeping, in the hopes that you'll show yourself out.

Now yes this all seems harsh, but come on ladies, we all know this is the truth.  The men that are worthy of a full night (implying a "next morning" if you know what I mean) are few and far between.  Trust me, I know these things.  I've sampled a large enough group of the greater tri-state area.  And some men in Europe.  My fake sleeping has been nominated for Oscars.

So.  Hm.  Who do I feel like talking about first?  I suppose my first would be appropriate.  No, it wasn't my high school boyfriend.  That's so predictable.  It was the first guy I met in college, which is much less cliche.  (Hi, I'm Felicity.)  To be fair, he really really liked me (I think) and we waited a couple of months, because when you're 18 and 19, sex is still kind of a big deal.

Now the best thing about this guy is that apparently he was still dating his high school girlfriend much of the time we were together.  (And the best thing about this story is that now she and I are friends despite all of this craziness).  After we "did it", he asked me not to tell anyone because it wasn't any of their business and it would only add fuel to the fire of his off-again relationship with his ex.  JesusHChrist, I didn't even remember that until I just wrote it down.

Funnily enough, I was hesitant to start with him for this series because I wasn't sure what the lesson I learned from this situation was, but in this very moment I figured it out: If you have to keep your relationship a secret, it means there's something wrong.  Now he and I didn't keep our relationship a secret, not in the slightest, but the fact that something really important and pivotal happened betweeeeeen us and I wasn't supposed to tell anyone, well that's pretty much the same thing.

So yeah, I guess that any relationship in your life that appears in parentheses (I just watched "Up In The Air" last night) isn't worth it.  If there's something you're not telling other people, there's probably something other people aren't telling you.  Thankfully I never made that mistake again, so it appears that I learned this lesson well before I realized that this lesson had been learned.

Wow, this whole "dissecting my sexual history" thing is already turning out to be more helpful than I thought.  Therefore to recap:

Lesson 1) Secrets secrets are no fun; secrets secrets hurt someone.

Check.

Finales

I'm watching the series finale of Ugly Betty right now, so expect an exceptionally half-assed posting tonight.

I mean, I haven't seen this show in at least two seasons, but I feel like now that it's going off the air and I'll never have the opportunity to watch it again, I should really catch up and get back into it.  And boy-oh-boy, yes as I was writing that I was immediately recognizing how that is a metaphor for my love life.  Relationship not working out?  I'm woman enough to end it!  Then I'm woman enough to second-guess myself (that's our prerogative!) and do the opposite of everything I just said, cling to it for dear life, and hope if I work hard enough, it'll all come together.

(Brown isn't my color)

Side note: I don't know who's done Judith Light's work, but it's amazing.  In 15 years (give or take), I'm definitely going to want the name of her guy.  

Anyway, how can a show I haven't seen in two years make me cry?  Is this a testament to quality writing and a well-crafted and conclusive story line?  My affinity for precocious children giving touching advice to intelligent adults?  A good love story?  My period?  Probably the last two.  I mean, I've been rooting for Daniel and Betty to get together since like the first episode when she showed up at Mode in that godawful poncho and her braces and he was all suave and good-looking and one-dimensional like someone off the cast of The City.  I kid.  But speaking of The City, did anyone else read today that Whitney Port, after living in New York City for two years, just realized that odd and even street numbers are associated with the directions the streets run in?  The best part of that story though is that I have two Masters degrees and she probably makes at least ten times what I do in a year.  Where's my show?

But back to Betty and Daniel.  I hate that they just ended the series where we see that Daniel has realized he's in love with Betty but she's either in denial, not into it, hiding her true feelings, or playing it cool and taking it slow.  I want all stories to be love stories and all love stories to have happy endings.  I never thought of myself as a "romantic" before, but I guess I really am.  Maybe this is why it's so hard for me every time something ends-- because I'm so engrossed in the idea of a fairy tale, of Happily Ever After, that  I don't know what to do with any other kind of ending.  This is why I gravitate towards light-hearted movies (read: terrible romcoms) and want the main characters in my books to always wind up together.  (When Edward left Bella in book two, I died inside.)

Now I'm going to have to pull an Aunt Elly.  This is a move perfected by my aunts when they go to movies together and the ending is not satisfactory for Elly.  If, like the finale of Ugly Betty, the conclusion leaves something to be desired or hasn't thoroughly tied up all the loose ends or impliiiiies something but doesn't concretely show it, my other aunt will make up an ending to the story on their way home so Elly can sleep at night.  There's nothing wrong with liking things to be definitive!  With every love of my life, just as I knew when I'd met them it was going to BE something, there has also been that equally crystal clear moment where I knew it would never work out.  It could be while we're watching a movie, eating dinner, lying in bed talking-- doesn't matter-- but there will be the karmic, cosmic moment where I hear myself saying "he's not the one" in my head.  I don't know HOW I know at the moment I do, because it's always when things are still going really, really well, but I know it in every cell of my body and once it's out there I can never truly forget it.  Sure I instantly think "hush yo mouf!" and close my eyes and put my fingers in my ears and hold my breath and stomp my feet and pretend that it was never said, but I know it was and it nags me.  It nags me until the very end.  Then, it says "toldjyaso!".

I never had that moment with #2, and I think this is why I can feel it in my bones that he is going to pop back up.  I don't think it'll be this weekend or even this month, but I know that one day when I'm not expecting it there will be the email, the text, the missed call.  My breath will stop and my stomach will drop and then the ball will be in my court; I'll have regained hand.  But until that moment comes, I'm not going to stop looking for my love story.  I still want my Happily Ever After!

And anyway, we all know that it's like I always say:  The best revenge is living well...and shoving it in an ex's face when the opportunity should present itself.

Idea! I Just Met A Girl Named Idea!

Sooooo, on a scale of "1 to OMFG KILL YOURSELF" how bad is it that my knee-jerk reaction to Senor Margarita's Facebook picture was "Is that Michele Tanner"??

I'm thinking pretty bad.  Though in my defense, I've never seen someone with such white teeth and such long, dark, curly hair before that DIDN'T look feminine.  Christ.  So...that's how my date was.

(I think I looked slightly less shocked)

I mean, it wasn't BAD or anything.  On the contrary he was quite nice, had an awesome body (from what I could tell from under his, gulp, ridiculously tight t-shirt), is intelligent, and gainfully-employed.  The problem is just that tonight, of all nights, I realized that no matter how much I like or dislike a guy, I need to institute a "two-drink-rule".  This is much like the two drink rule that you find at most comedy clubs-- except that instead of a minimum, it's a maximum.  That, and my life is much less entertaining than a comedy club.  This rule is actually being put in place to ensure that I DON'T find everything a guy says to be funny and do NOT want to give him a "standing ovation" at the end of the evening.  I mean, on my first date with #2 we drank 10 margaritas each.  The fact that only my heart hurts right now is really just a testament to the awesome healing powers of nature.

The problem is that I actually kind of like drinking...and if I'm drinking with someone else who also kind of likes drinking, my pleasure is increased two-fold and I could keep going and going until one of us (rarely ever me) tires of that activity.  A boy friend of mine recently put it best:  "[Goose&Bull], you live in New York because you like to drink and party and kiss boys and stay out until all hours of the night; this is only possible in New York.  You also want to get married and settle down; this is only possible everywhere besides New York.  You can't have your cake and eat it too."  (Shout out!  Shout out!)

Undergrad Male Friend, you are totally right.  You know how I know this?  My insane/wise (insanely wise?) 82 year-old grandmother agrees with you.  For the umpteenth time she not only told me that I was never going to meet a man in New York City (upon hearing how #2 has everything in common with LE who has everything in common with EB who has everything...you get the picture), but that I'm "almost 27 and need to get it together".  Bubbie, you are correct.  You say that you're not just talking about men, and I agree.  You say that I need to figure out what I want out of a job, out of life, and you're right.  You want me to find someone who, as my darling cousin (and your other darling granddaughter) puts it "has their shit together", and you couldn't be more spot-on.

I have no fucking clue what I'm doing in any area of my life.  You caught me.

(Shrug.)

But, you have raised an interesting and thought-provoking point.  "The unexamined life is not worth living."  Someone way more intense (and most likely sober) than myself said this.  Maybe it was Thoreau in Walden's Woods, maybe it wasn't.  It's almost midnight on Tuesday so damned if I know.  Anyway, I have taken this advice to heart.  I am going to start an introspective examination of my life over the next six weeks, leading up to my 27th birthday, by talking about each man I've slept with (a number I may or may not be ashamed of revealing here so it will only be told in time-- stay tuned!) .  Obviously I anticipate days where I won't write or days where I have something more interesting to talk about than my old coital partners, but either way, I'm going to "tell all" here by the end of my 26th year.  This means taking the opportunity to dissect each of these men and what attracted me to them in the first place, our courtship (if any), why it ended, and what I learned from the situation.  I truly believe that every relationship comes with a lesson and that hopefully the lesson is always different (otherwise you didn't really learn it the first time).

Prepare to be astounded--nay--flabbergasted!  Alright, or just mildly entertained.

Your guess is as good as mine.

"You're Through Soup Nazi...Finished...NEXT!"

NEXT! indeed.

Last night was my personal deadline for hearing from #2.  I knew that if at the end of a week AND a weekend he had absolutely nothing to say to me, he wasn't thinking things over...he was not thinking about me at all.  And so I move, onward and upward to bigger and better things!

(Technically though, I already live on the East Side...)

Unfortunately, my version of "movin' on up" is not as good as other people's.  For example, yesterday EB told me an amazing story about a girl he knows who had dated a friend of his for a while.  Lady X was on vacation with her boyfriend (a couple of year's post-EB's friend) and some of their friends at a resort in Cancun.  EB said she was a cute girl, but nothing amazing, definitely not a stunner.  One afternoon, she approached the pool bar and ordered some drinks. A few stools away, GEORGE FUCKING CLOONEY looks her over and says "You know my private plane is waiting.  We can get out of here...go anywhere in the world we want."  (Can I just interrupt myself here to comment on what a fantastically pimp pickup line that is?  Sigh.  Swoon.)  And she figured she had about 1/2 a second to make the biggest decision of her life.  She said "Let's go" and ran off with GFC, texting her friends from the tarmac "I'll explain later."  They dated for three months and when you google her name, pictures of her and GFC still come up all over.

Now to me, this was an obvious move.  When I told EB "Duh, of course she went with him.  I don't care WHO you're with-- if George Clooney propositions you, you get on it!  I don't care if you're on vacation with Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, the whole goddamn cast of Ocean's Eleven, Twelve, AND Thirteen, you drop those guys and you take George's hand and you RUN," he had the nerve to look totally surprised!  "Are you serious?" he asked me.  "Of course I am!" I replied.  But when I looked up at him and saw his face, looking almost hurt about it, I backtracked and said "Well, I mean, obviously it depends on who you're with and how into him you are."  He asked if I could have ever done that to anyone and I told him it would have depended upon who I was in Cancun with.  (Seeing as no one's ever even bothered to take me to Cancun, I have clearly only dated men worthy of being left cruely and abruptly for famous movie stars.)  He pressed, I hemmed and hawed for a block.  Finally he asked if I could've done that to him when we were on vacation in the Caribbean a couple of summers back and I said "No, I couldn't have.  I was crazy about you."

Clearly, I was lying.  EB who??

Anyway, I'm moving on up on a date with a guy who works in finance (in New York? Shocking!) that I met at a bar on Thursday night.  Through my vodka haze, I seem to recall him being good-looking (though the sun was setting and I wasn't wearing my contacts), and I think we talked for about 10 minutes while I desperately clawed at my friend's dress in hopes that she'd stop her own conversation with his friend and rescue me.  When she didn't, I just gave him my number instead.  When he texted this afternoon and asked if he could take me out for margaritas tomorrow, my two biggest weaknesses-- drinking and other people paying for it-- kicked in.  I quickly agreed, and now off we go!

My chariot awaits, I'm sure.

The crazy thing is, I know myself so well, that I've already predicted everything about this.  I'll be in no mood to actually be out on a date with anyone yet, but will go because in my twisted mind, this somehow sticks it to #2 for disappearing (as I do recall a couple of weeks back when the big talk began that he said the thought of me with anyone was else was "unbearable" to him, and while he couldn't give me 100%, he couldn't risk losing me either.  Obviously, that tune has changed.).  I will drink and have a decent-enough time because he is certainly a decent-enough guy, but will most likely be a little caustic and sarcastic to attempt to turn him off from liking me and ever calling again.  Number of times this has ever been successful? 0.  Number of times it has guaranteed someone becomes my shadow and thinks I'm just so cute and funny that they wind up texting me all of the time and wanting to make plans again soon?  100%.  However, I am a crazy person, and the definition of a crazy person is someone who does the same thing over and over and expects different results.  Maybe I'm like the Mad Scientist of the Dating World-- who's to say?  But back to the trajectory of this short-lived affair.  I will aggressively blow off Senor Margaritas in my usual fashion for the next two to three weeks, seeing him perhaps on one or two more occasions during this time period.  Each time I will immediately regret having agreed to the date, spend the entire day-of hating the thought of being out with him later, and then actually having a somewhat decent time, only to repeat the blowing-off cycle once more until I finally just give up altogether and cease responding to him.  I will feel oddly both relieved and guilty about this.

Boy, then I get mad when guys treat me like shit.  Karma's a bitch.  

So, I suppose, let the games begin!

D-Day

Right now, I'm living in a New York "movie moment".

I'm sitting on my terrace, warm early-spring sun shining down on me, sipping wine, and listening to the live jazz band playing down on the street for the restaurant below.  It would be one of those scenes where the camera would either pan up to me or down to musicians, but either way upon seeing said film, I'd scoff to myself and think "yeah, like that ever happens here"; but it does, every Sunday.  Granted not every Sunday am I home or drinking wine and relaxing in the late afternoon sun, but today I am.  And today, unlike my normal life, was more this-kind-of-thing-never-happens-to-me/out-of-body-and-character-experience than usual.

(I have no idea what this movie's about, but I bet at some point 

people listen to jazz and drink wine...right?)

It's hard for me to fathom that just last Sunday at this time, everything between 2 and I was fine.  Granted I wasn't thrilled while he painted on his deck and I looked on, but I was pretty crazy about him nonetheless.  It's harder for me to fathom that just eight days ago we spent a perfect day having sex, lounging and laughing, showering, brunching, shopping, and visiting the Central Park Zoo.  I guess that was kind of a "movie moment" day too, complete with kissing on the subway and taking silly pictures of one another around town.  It's almost impossible for me to believe that three Sundays ago, 2 met a friend and I at the park and hung out, then he and I went back to his place and ate cheese and drank wine, watched a movie together, and then I laid on his bed while he played his guitar for me.  So many movie moments, so little time.

Thursday I was talking to my mother on the phone when she asked me if I wanted to come home this weekend since one of my brothers would be in town.  I said I didn't know and she stopped herself and back-tracked-- "oh, well wait, I guess you wouldn't come home if you're going to [2]'s event on Saturday" she said, referring to his black-tie fraternity alumni mixer that he'd asked me attend.  I told her that as it was Thursday and I hadn't spoken with him since I called him on Monday and he said he needed some time to think, I was assuming I wasn't going.  "But didn't you tell him you were? I thought he still wanted you to...", she said. Well, I said I'd go before we talked on Sunday, and yeah on Monday he still wanted me to come but judging by the radio silence, I'm not.  "Well you're assuming you're not going because you haven't heard from him, he could very well be assuming you ARE going because you said you would...I don't think you should assume anything, I think you should check in with him immediately since it's already Thursday."  OK, she had a point.  

When I hung up with her, I texted him exactly what she'd dictated to me: "Hi.  Wondering if you still wanted me to go with you on Saturday.  If you've made other plans that's fine, just let me know."  Forty-five minutes passed before I got the following back: "Sorry, crazy rushing for board meeting so can't write right now.  I told fraternity I'm not coming a few days ago, so prob not at this point.  I want to talk to u soon though, goal is not to have u disappear from my life etc. if u don't want to."  Now what's his definition of "soon"?  I have no idea.  It's obviously not within the next THREE DAYS.  However, to be fair, everyone has different perceptions of time.  For example, my high school biology teacher, while we were studying evolution, said that maybe the earth waaaas made in seven days, but that if God is around for eternity, who knows how long one of his days are?  And while I like to jokingly say that I was born three weeks late and am still running behind, I mean more like five minutes late than the hours and hours that 2 lags.  Actually, 2 seems to run closer to "God Time" than "human time".  One day we were supposed to get brunch and instead wound up having dinner at 8:30PM.  Maybe when he said he wanted to talk to me soon he just meant one day, before we both die in +/- 60 years.  I don't know.  What I DO know however, is that if he didn't mean it all, then he shouldn't have said it.

So, eight hours later I was quite drunk and texted him back "...OK, let me know".  And now you're up to speed.   

Anyway, before I got all side-tracked filling you in on 2, I was having a movie moment on my deck after a perfectly wonderful afternoon with EB.  That's right, today was our big day.  

We met up around 1PM for lunch at a restaurant near my apartment.  The weather was perfect, my outfit was expertly planned (you know-- appearing effortlessly put together and chic with very little thought, except it required four hours of shopping, another hour at a friend's apartment tearing through her closet, a mani/pedi, and a healthy amount of tan-from-a-bottle), and he looked older.  Score: me 1, EB 0.  He didn't look bad...just older.  I can't describe it.  Well, I guess I just did.  So I was nervous at first, but as always, our conversation was smooth and easy.  We caught up on the past year-- in more detail than our two prior conversations had allowed-- and laughed and smiled a lot.  It felt good to see him; really good.  

Lunch passed quickly and after the check was paid he looked at me seriously, like he was hurt and nervous and had something to say.  "Thank you for coming today," he said.  "Well, I know that you like to be friends with all of your ex-girlfriends," I gently teased.  He looked at me and his face said that no, that's not why he asked me to get together.  "I've felt terrible about how things ended between us," he said.  "I didn't set out to be a bad guy, but I know that's how I came off to you and I've felt horrible about all of the awful things that were said.  You're one of my favorite people.  I'm sorry."  It was said so tenderly, so sincerely, that all I could do was place my hand on his cheek and smile.  All was forgiven.  It was perfect and I couldn't have scripted it better myself.

We spent the next couple of hours walking around the city, over to Brooklyn and back, talking and cracking each other up.  It was perfect weather, perfect city views, and perfect company.  It's always special when you can reconnect with an old friend and that's what EB has become, an old friend.  All those feelings and all that passion is gone, and now there's just a nice connection between us.  After this past week, I needed this even more than I realized.  

When we parted ways, we both said it was great to see the other.  He said maybe we could talk a little more, get together again sometime when he was in town (he no longer lives here--> news to me today). I said that'd be nice.  And so, I finally have the closure I needed on that chapter of my life.  I am at peace.

One man has apologized, and I couldn't ask for more.  Well, except that hopefully others will follow suit shortly...