News Bulletin - Day 6

Daddy Shaved!!

Don't tell your father, but a new man is now sleeping in my bed. And he is very handsome.

In the beginning ... (11 Days to Baby)

I knew after my first date with Gabe that this relationship would amount to something very special. He was the first man I had ever met that was capable of dramatic gestures. He had no fear about asking me out on our first date via a photo text of a cocktail napkin.

He was so smooth on that first date, not afraid of an awkward silence as we rode the subway to the bowling alley. He wasn’t gooey or weak when he went to great lengths to walk between me and the street. He was super cool and unemotional on that first date, but he made these grand gestures that won my heart. He quietly paid for the bowling game and drinks when he got up to use the bathroom. He brought quarters so we could play Deer Hunter in the arcade before we left. He reached ahead of me to open a door. He insisted on walking me home. He wouldn’t come inside my apartment or kiss me goodnight but made me close and lock the gate before he left. He was careful not to ask me out on a second date before he departed from the first. But I knew there would be a second date.

A few days later, I got another picture message on my phone. It was a number of bar accoutrements that spelled out “Do you like Jazz?”

I didn’t – but I was smitten by his efforts to dazzle me and agreed to meet up for some dinner and jazz. We ate at a restaurant in Northern Liberties that had a wall size print of a woman’s breast. He didn’t look at it once. I asked him questions and kept him talking. He paid the waiter and walked me over to this jazz club next door. It was cold and dark and smelled of urine and beer, but Gabe and I sat at the bar for several hours talking as the musicians played in the background. I asked him question after question, careful to keep it light but dig below the surface. I remember wondering if he was ever going to ask about me – and that is when I realized he was just a little bit nervous. He walked me home, this time he stepped into my doorway and kissed me sweetly goodnight. After I closed the gate, he kissed me quickly again through the bars, listened for the lock of the door and walked home. Again, he avoided any talk of date 3.

But by date three, I knew he liked me. That is how I knew he would appreciate the gesture when I sent him a photo of a scrabble board accepting his request to make him dinner.

I skipped to the bus in the mornings and smiled all week at work in anticipation of Thursday night. I picked out a special recipe to prepare for dinner, I cleaned the house, I dusted off the scrabble board, I used soft lighting and was just putting away the vacuum when the doorbell rang.

As I stepped towards the door, the vacuum fell out of my hand and scraped a good three inches of skin from the delicate edge of my ankle. I answered the door limping, a trail of blood spots on the wood floor behind me. There he stood, holding a tin of tea in his hands. He immediately knelt down and took my foot in his hand.

“You are hurt. Do you have Neosporin?” He asked.

“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. Come in. I have food on the stove. Can I take your coat?”

“Really, let me help you with this.” He insisted.

“It’s fine.” I tried to convince him as the blood oozed onto the wood floors. “You brought tea?”

We both looked at the tin of tea in his hands.

“Well, I know you don’t drink. And you always order tea at the bar, so I brought you some tea.” He handed it to me.

“How about a band aid?” he sweetly asked.

“Okay. Fine.”

He helped me into the bathroom where I sat on the sink while he cleaned the wound. I was glad I had decided to shave my legs after all.

“No Neosporin?” He asked.

“Nope.” I answered, anxious to move past the embarrassment of my clumsiness.

He carefully washed the skin, covered the area with some tissue and tightly wrapped two bandaids over the gaping hole. His hands were so warm and just the feel of his fingers on my delicate ankle sent a rush of heat up my spine. His gentle touch had the same impact of his chivalrous insistence upon always walking between me and a moving car, it made me feel safe.

“You really should make sure you get something else on that before you go to bed.”

“I’ll be fine doctor.” I said, scooting off the edge of the bathroom sink and onto the floor.

I made an angel hair pasta with a home made sun dried tomato sauce tossed with jumbo shrimp and chopped arugula. We ate out of big pasta bowls and hovered over a scrabble board listening to Frank Sinatra on my XM radio. He impressed me with his eight letter words and elevated grasp of the English language. I relished the wrinkle of his brow as he gazed over his letters trying to find the perfect word to impress me. We laughed at each other, told funny stories and relaxed in the comfort of a warm home. He wasn’t afraid to challenge my spelling. He did the dishes before a knock came at the door.

When I answered the door, it was Gabe’s roommate passing by after work to pick him up. She had a tube of Neosporin in her hand and spoke with her thick Italian accent,

“Gabe asked me to bring this from the first aid kit at work.”

She handed me the tube and went back to sit in her car to wait for Gabe.

“Make sure you get some on that cut before you go to sleep.” He said. He kissed me goodnight in the doorway and held me in a tight embrace for what felt like many minutes. I felt my toes tingle, heat racing through my body with the increased pulse of my heart. He gently rubbed the side of his freshly shaven cheek against my forehead. He had shaved for me too.

“Goodnight,” was all he said and stepped out the front door where he waited for me to lock the gate and the door before he walked towards his roommates car.

I knew from that very first night that Gabe was going to be someone significant in my story. In just three dates, he had already done more to make me feel special than any other man I had ever dated. And I let him.

Look out Albania! Here I come!

I'm headed to Albania for a ten day contract! I leave next Tuesday and am starting to get anxious. Excited and anxious. I remember when I averaged a new stamp in my passport every month. But that was over five years ago when I was cashing in on my Masters in International Relations and taking any contract that offered the chance to live abroad. That was over five years ago when I wasn't juggling a career and a relationship.

In February of this year, I had a small window of reprieve from both career and relationships. So I dug out my old passport and realized it was officially full. Within a week of my new passport arriving I received this offer, and I renewed my relationship. Serendipitous? or just plain awesome? Let's find out!

I promise to blog daily, and post it all when I get back. Wish me safe travels!

The Stages of Healing a Broken Heart

A word cloud of my current thoughts would show the largest word on the page is still the ex. While I am no longer in guttural pain, I still wake up with his face on the edge of my thoughts. And these days, I wake up with my jaw clenched, full of anger. I’m aware that grief moves in stages - with a beginning, middle, and an end phase. A quick scan of the stages of grief would show me somewhere in the middle.

The Beginning: Denial

In the first two weeks I was most definitely in shock and denial. I still thought the key would turn in the door and he would come walking through, sweep me up in a hug and we would have a late dinner by the fireplace and talk about our day. I was still shopping for groceries and making dinner for two. I found I was still keeping my Sunday’s free, because when we were together, Sunday was our sacred day. I just felt like I was trapped in a nightmare, and at any moment I would wake-up with a sigh of relief. They say that this period of disbelief or shock is the body's natural protection against pain.

The denial was accompanied by bouts of tears, and profound sadness. Tears and Kleenex and more tears, and more Kleenex. During this initial phase, I felt lost and without a sense of purpose or direction. I had spent so much time planning our future that my life suddenly had no meaning. I entertained morbid thoughts of walking out into traffic. I now know that this is a normal initial reaction to loss.

Then, I started with the “what-if’s”. What if I had been taller or thinner or more fit? What if we hadn’t moved in together? What if I hadn’t brought up our communications issues? What if I had just let it go? What if I were less needy and more accepting? What if I hadn’t lost my job? What if we hadn’t moved? I went over the details of the break-up with friends and family, trying to find clues to what went wrong. What could I have done different to keep us together? This is the stage where I needed to figure it out, try to understand it and maybe even change it. I just couldn’t grasp the permanence of the situation; I still thought we had a chance.

So I asked him to meet with me and try to make sense of everything. We met me at a basement café and both cried into our coffee cups. I pleaded with him for the answers to my questions, but I knew he wouldn’t have any. And it didn’t matter; I had gotten what I had come for. Things were really over.

The Middle: Feelings

I’m told that this is the stage that lasts the longest. It is the stage marked with feelings of fear, anger and self-doubt. For me, it’s been mostly anger. I’m angry that he could let me go without a fight. I’m angry that he couldn’t ask for what he needed to make things work. People tell me I need to feel this anger and get it out. But the truth is that I’m very uncomfortable with anger. I fear expressing it in any form.

I don’t want to let myself be overcome with emotions that I can’t control. No good has ever come from expressing my anger in the past, so I sort of want to ignore it or transform it immediately into something I deem “more healthy”. But I know it’s important that I give myself permission to feel these feeling. I need to find a safe way to feel lonely, angry, sad and scared. I want to find a way to let these emotions wash over me, flow through me, and then let them go.

I’m guilty of being someone that thinks there is a limit on the amount of time you should be allowed to grieve. I think that after a few weeks I should be fine, right? But experts say that it can take much longer. Predominant theory is that grief tends to run a cycle of at least one year unless of course the relationship wasn't very important, was short-term, or you were grieving before you actually left him. But I like to go with the theory of one month per year of the relationship. So that would mean I have until April 11th before I’m cured. Right?

The End: Acceptance

So this is the stage where I will start to get my groove back. I usually know I’m here when I realize I haven’t thought about him in awhile. This part comes when I’m out there living the life I always wanted for myself. When I’ve started fully enjoying my life again. I know I’m in this phase because I smile more and laugh out loud. This is the point where I will know that I am finally ready to accept that the relationship is over and that something even better is out there for me.

According to my recollection of relationships past, I will want to be just as gentle with myself in this phase as the others. Knowing my patterns, this phase can have setbacks. There will be moments I’m fine and then moments I’m not. I’ll see him out with a new girl and freak out. I’ll see one of his friends in the Park and it will set me off. I plan to show myself patience during this time and remember that pain is the touchstone of all spiritual growth. I have to try not to lose faith if I still break into tears in the shower. Each time that I feel better will have an accumulative effect.

I want so badly to be at stage three already. I want so badly to rush the process and hurry up and heal. It’s like my leg is broken and I’m ready to cut the cast off on week three and get out there and run a marathon. Some days I can accept that this is a process and I’m slowly getting better. Other days, like today, I just want to be done with it. I pray for patience. My patience with myself right now, my willingness to let myself fully grieve, means I’m creating a better me. A better me attracts a better future. So I put one foot in front of the other, one day at a time. One day at a time.

Ex-Termination: Tips To Get Over Your Ex

Three weeks ago, I lost my best friend and the man I thought I would marry. A woman is entitled to a more than a few days of sorrow, wishful thinking and nostalgia. But when you are ready to put the past behind you and move forward to the next adventure – it’s time to exterminate. You know – get rid of the ex by clearing your mind, clearing your thoughts and clearing a path to the next step. Here are a few tips to get you on your way. They are slowly but effectively working for me, and perhaps they will work for you too:

1. Let go of him, but don’t let go of you. Feel sad, cry, be angry, but be careful not to fall apart to the point you can’t pick yourself up and move forward. Resist the temptation to slide down the bathroom wall and crumble into a ball of salty tears on the floor. I’ve been there, and I know it’s tempting. Slide, but not all the way to the ground. You can’t afford a pity party right now. Something even better is waiting for you. And I know everyone tells you that, but it’s true. Unfortunately, nothing new will come into your life while you are still holding on to the past.
2. Imagine. Accept that you are moving forward, not backward. Imagine a better life and a better partner. A break-up solidifies what you want and don’t want in your next relationship. Think about what the relationship taught you about yourself and use the newfound wisdom to meditate about a new and improved life. What stands between you and the life you want? Is it the right job, the right friends and the right attitude? These are things you can think into action. Positive thinking goes a long way.
3. Re-create your personal space. Do you still have photos of the two of you on vacation flashing through your screensaver? Are you still wearing the locket he gave you for Christmas? Are you still looking at his toothbrush every morning when you step into the shower? Go through your house and take every photo, every memory, every possible cry trigger , box it up and put it in the back of the closet. You don’t have to forget him forever, but you do have to forget him right now. There will be a time when you can take these things out of the closet – but not while you are trying to heal. Remove them at once!
4. Re-arrange your furniture. Move things around the way you always wanted them. Unless you are me, because I already had all my furniture arranged the way I wanted it. The point is that this is your life now and you can give yourself permission to do things your way. Sleep in the center of the bed. Buy a pink comforter cover. Put out the girly placemats. I drank dark roast coffee because he liked it. Now I buy the local beans I enjoy, grind them fresh every morning and make just one cup of coffee. There are some joys and freedoms to being single again, just in your personal space. Explore them, find them, and implement them.
5. Clean. Scrub. Polish. Wipe away his footprints from the floor. Wash the sheets of the bed you once slept in. Purify the shower where you bathed together. Eliminate every hair, every smell and every reminder that he was ever in your home. The smell of his hair gel on my pillow can trigger a fifteen minute cry and distract me from my work. In one tough afternoon, I eliminated all those triggers and gave myself a sparkling new home.
6. Create. Now is the time to start that DIY project you’ve been meaning to attack. Pillow covers to sew? Scrapbooking to do? A short story to publish? Channel your anguish into creating something meaningful to you.
7. Write. In al-anon, they teach you to process feelings by writing. It works. Carve out time in your day to write out your feelings in a journal that no one will read. Start by making yourself write at least three pages. Do this for yourself. After about a week, you will find your hand flowing over the page. Writing is a safe way to get out your fears, your hopes, your anguish, your guilt and all other sorts of feelings. And right now, you need to get it out. Too many people stuff their feelings with food, or alcohol, or work, or activities. They are not recovering – just avoiding their feelings. Real healing begins when you accept and acknowledge your feelings. So get them out!
8. Talk. Your friends and family want to help you right now, let them. They will help you process your feelings in a safe and protected way. They will keep you from going below the line of no return. Fight the urge to isolate. It feels right to stay in your apartment with the shades drawn, the remote firmly in your hand, ice cream nearby and your ringer off. But it’s only avoiding reality. You are not growing on the couch. So call people and talk through the things swimming around in your head. Let some sunshine into your brain. God speaks through others and don’t you want to start hearing the answers to those prayers you’ve been putting out there?
9. Go out. Whenever you have the chance, get out of the house. Go for a walk, meet friends for lunch, check out the new Cezanne exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, go to a First Person Arts Storyslam, check out the free talks at the Library and Ethical Society, take a class at Temple’s Center City extension school, go to dinner with a friend at a new restaurant. Now is the time to get out and explore and discover. On Tuesday’s, I pick up the City Paper and Philadelphia Weekly, spread them out over the kitchen table and start making a list of festivals, concerts, events, movies, stage shows, and restaurants I’m excited about going to see. I get out my outlook calendar and start adding appointments. Then I send out emails inviting friends to join me, filling my life with fun activities. Don’t fill your life so full you can’t feel, but don’t turn down an invitation to meet new people and have new experiences.
10. Avoid Dating. When a relationship doesn’t work out, it is natural to feel rejected and natural to seek affirmation that you are still loveable and beautiful. But it’s also extremely dangerous. It’s dangerous for you because it could just make you miss him more. Or worse, make you rush into something unhealthy just to mask your feelings. It’s also dangerous to others. Using someone else to take away your pain is hurting someone else for your own gain. Stepping on someone else to pick yourself up is never going to get you a better life. I don’t care if he is a dog and you are both using each other. You deserve better – and so does he. Don’t risk the harm to your self esteem. You need to be feeling good about yourself these days, not guilty or predatory. Give this gift to yourself, wait until you have processed before you invite someone else into your life.
11. Succeed. Do something you have always wanted to do! Take the GMAT or foreign service exam. Write a short story and send it off to be published. Join Toastmasters and prepare a speech. Ask for a raise at work. Apply for the job you always wanted. Become an actress. Apply for a reality TV show. Quit drinking and go to AA. Get a personal trainer. Start using that yoga pass. Challenge yourself and feel good about it. Now is the time to accomplish. You are free, go out and get your happiness. Success will bring you better options, better jobs and better people.
12. Be of service. This last break-up hit me hard and sent me deep into myself, tempting to steer me off course in selfish remorse. Someone else could be talking and all I could hear was the sound of my own sorrows. The best way out of this is service. I immediately volunteered to mentor kids at the library. I started making sandwiches for the homeless at Christ Church. I took on a new sponsee. I offered to chair the Saturday morning meeting. There was great relief in thinking about someone other than myself. I know it doesn’t seem to make sense, but trust me. Find somewhere in your community where you are needed. Find a friend worse off than you that could use someone to talk to. Can you help a friend move? Does someone at work need help stuffing envelopes? Can you make dinner for a sick friend? Helping someone else will boost your self esteem, help you reclaim your brain, and make the world a little bit easier for someone else.
    

Break-ups are just hard. No matter the length of the relationship, no matter the person, no matter the circumstances. If you loved deeply, you are now experiencing great loss. These tips will bring you relief, but nothing will stop the inevitable pain that accompanies the end of a relationship. Just keep walking through it. There is a big light at the end of the tunnel, don’t stop in the middle and go back. Keep moving towards the light. I’ll be there waiting for you on the other side.

The “B” Word

How could I be back here again? How could I be right back here, smarting from the same wound inflicted over a year ago?

This is how it begins, "You have a boyfriend? Have I met him?"

Gabe thinks he is funny. He is responding to the word that has slipped out of my mouth during our phone discussion about the details of our upcoming weekend.

But it’s not funny. Should I think it is? Should I just laugh and let it go? Or should I feel like an asshole for just calling Gabe my “boyfriend”, for like, the third time this week. At least this time, he stops me. But now I'm totally embarrassed.

And I shouldn’t be. This man adores me completely. He is falling for me more and more each day. What we are doing, what is happening between us, transcends all these stupid words. We are creating something really great. Right?

So, why does this particular benchmark in a relationship cause me so much duress. And why am I so pissed right now that I want to go out and fuck someone else?

Why? Because that is what I did last year when a man said the exact same thing to me. And Gabe knows this.

I hang up and go back to work.

He Texts: You can call me your boyfriend if you want. I don't mind.

Insensitive. Why does this shit piss me off so much? I read the message again and this time it makes me so angry that fucking water comes out of my eyes. I'm so angry that this water starts gushing and spilling onto my freakin’ phone and it won’t stop. And I know it's ridiculous.

I Text: That's a kind offer, but I'm not pushing anyone anywhere they aren't ready to be. I'm cool with "friends".

After I press send, I get that horrid, painful, wrenching itch. And it's in a place I haven't allowed myself to feel for a very long time. And I want toscratch it. The ball of anger, disappointment and resentment begins to churn and burn and pick up intensity as the tempest swirls within.

He texts: I only tease you about it because you make it a big deal. It's just a word and more accurate than friend, I think. But go with whatever is comfortable for you.

I have the urge to throw the phone across the room. I have the urge too implode, to sabotage, to behave immaturely.

He texts again: As for me I haven't been a boyfriend or had a girlfriend in quite awhile and it might be fun. Let me know if you know someone who's looking for a job like that.

And suddenly, it is November 27, 2005. R has met me for a late dinner at Lucky Strike in Soho. My Mother is visiting from Seattle for Thanksgiving and I left her sipping cocktails with my sister at a bar around the corner to come meet R for a late dinner. It's the only time he has to spare. He's been working on the set fourteen hours a day. He took one weekend off in the past month and has just spent it with his family in Jersey. While rested from the three days away from work, he still seems tired. Perhaps from the drive back to the city. He came back to try and get one last late dinner in with me before the torture of his job begins again. But I can't help thinking that he could have made a little more time.

We are finishing dinner when I say it. "What would your girlfriend say about all the time you have been spending with me in dimly lit Manhattan restaurants?"

He looks confused. "Girlfriend? I don't have a girlfriend."

I wink at him and tilt my head to the side.

"No girlfriend?"

His confused expression melts away as he realizes what I’m saying. "I mean, I think we are going there, but we aren't there yet."

Oh God. I'm such an ass. I realize how ridiculous I must look, my head tilted at this angle, my eyes gazing up at him with batting eyelashes, my retarded smile of assurance that I am in a committed relationship with a man that is completely crazy about me. It was an accident.

I hadn't meant to confront the question. It was just an innocent turn of the conversation.

I'm an idiot. His response surprises me. For the past month, he has sent me 15 texts daily, each starting with the words 'Honey". And lately, when we stand in my doorway, lips locked, legs intertwined, his hand gripping mine tightly, trying to pry our bodies apart so he can leave for work, I have a hard time letting him go.

And here he is, chomping French Fries off the late night menu in some trendy cafe, telling me that we aren't both thinking the same way about one another. And it hurts.

Extraordinarily.

I let go off his hand under the table. "So, I'm not your girlfriend?"

"Well, not yet."

"So, I'm single than?"

"Well, you aren't married. "

"But, I don't have a boyfriend?"

In my mind, if I don't have a boyfriend then I'm not in a committed relationship. And if I'm not in a committed relationship than I am single. And if I am single than I am dating other people. I'm not dating any other people, and I know he doesn't have time to be dating other people. So, this shit is whack and I should be dating other people. Fuck that.

R excuses himself to the bathroom. I pick up my phone and see that I have a new text.

The Text: Hope you don't mind, but your mother gave me your phone number. I was your waiter tonight and I have to see you again. Sushi on Wednesday?

The Israeli born model that waited on my table an hour ago seems to think I am single. And obviously, my mother, who has been in town for the past five days and not even seen the back of R's head, also thinks I'm single. And clearly, the man I thought was my boyfriend, he thinks I'm single too. So then, what should stop me from going out with a single, gorgeous, man that wants to buy me dinner, listen to me talk, make me feel important and wanted?

R returns to the table, we get the check and leave. On the corner of Grand and West Broadway, he turns me around and grabs my face with both his hands.

"Jane, are we okay?"

I look at the fear in his eyes. He doesn't want to lose me. But he’s willing to allow a word to take that risk.

"I feel stupid R. Like a fool. I just thought we were doing something different."

"We are. I just don't know why we need the titles and the labels."

"Yeah, it's stupid. I know."

He smiles. Because he thinks it's okay. But it isn't. After he puts me in a cab, I can't stop thinking about that simple word and what it means. I finger my cell phone in my pocket. And then I decide. I take out the phone and text the Israeli.

I Text: I could be convinced.

And he must have got more than my phone number from my mother, because the next day, two dozen orange tulips show up at my office.

We meet at Bond Street for sushi. He is charming. He talks me into a walk in Washington Square park in the dead of winter. In the park, he throws me up against a statue in front of six cops cars to stick his tongue down my throat . It feels kinda good. And he wants more. He wants me so badly that I can't resist the comfort of feeling wanted. I take him home and feel wanted all night until the sun comes up. When my apartment door shuts, I pick up the phone. Five missed calls and six text messages are registered on my cell.

His last text reads: Fine. You win. I'm your boyfriend.

But it doesn't feel much like a victory.

And now, here it is. A year since R and I ended our fling. I should have known that morning that things would never work out with R. Why did I care so much about that word? Why do I still?

I stare at the phone and think of an appropriate response to my dear, sweet Gabe.

Proposed text: It's not the word that hurts my feelings Gabe. It's the painful realization that I'm standing somewhere I was a year ago, and I'm still standing there by myself. I hoped I would be with someone that's proud of that. Actions are a better judge, but when you are rarely around each other, sometimes words are all you have.

I don't push send. It’s too f'ing long. Texts are not a place for this discussion. I reread the previous texts and the waterworks begin again. I'm so angry. I'm so done. What an ass. I should run away from any man that isn't proud and honored to call me his girlfriend. I put the phone down. Because while I’m entitled to my feelings, I am responsible for my actions. And I want to pause. I don’t want to react.

But I can’t stop the committee in my head. I can’t stop loading coal into the pity caboose of my own personal pain train headed for unnecessary sufferageville in my head.

Gabe is not the man for me. I'm bored. I miss being single. Sure the sex is mind blowing and it's nice to have the comfort of someone in my life... but let's face it, I haven't really been myself lately. I like being wanted, but do I really like this guy?

He texts: Save all replies for tomorrow. I'm not sure my lightheartedness is coming through the medium of text messaging.

He is right. It's not funny. And I'm not laughing. We are supposed to go away together this weekend to meet some of my friends and I don't want to introduce Gabe to my closest girlfriends as some guy I’m dating. I'd rather enjoy their company on my own. Plus - having him along will fuck up the flirt fest I plan on having after dinner when we all go out to the nearest lounge. I think I might be done. He's a wonderful man, but it's time for me to face the reality that he's not actually going to make the long haul. So what now? How should I break it off.

And just like that, I have taken a simple word and made it the end of me and sweet Gabe. The only man I can ever recall feeling so safe around, so adored and so comfortable with. I’m ready to trash it all, over a word.

And then I realize that while circumstances and other people may not change, I can. Instead of throwing away an entire foundation for a lovely relationship with an undetermined future, I can step back, gain perspective, breathe, and simply say "you hurt me".

"That hurt. That was not nice. That did not make me feel appreciated or valued. It made me feel like we don’t want the same things here. "

And actually, I believe we do want the same things. There is nothing about this man's actions that resemble R. He treats me like he intends to be around for a long while. I'm making this into something it is not. There are many other responses to the problems in my relationships, other than drama and tears and walking out. God, I just want to do one relationship differently.

So I do.

I don’t text back. I call a friend and let it out. She helps me visualize an appropriate response. She helps me sort the facts from the snowballing drama in my mind. Then I try and let it all go. I go back to work. I finish the day, I go to a meeting. I try to throw myself into service. I stack chairs, I volunteer for a new commitment, I go to dinner with a newcomer, I offer to take her to a meeting in the morning. I come home, brush my teeth, climb into bed, and Gabe arrives.

“Ingrid, I’m so sorry.” He says before he has even taken off his coat.

“I shouldn’t have sent those texts. I was trying to be funny”

I pause. “You hurt me.”

“I know. Considering your history, I can see why you would think my teasing insensitive. I want you to know how very proud I am to be with you. I can’t stop telling people how lucky I am to have you in my life. Ingrid, I don’t use it in front of you because I’m afraid it will scare you away. You can be weird about that stuff. ”

He kisses my head and holds onto me tightly. He thinks everything is okay. And it is.

I decide to do something different.

The Difference a Date Makes

I'm not quite sure what is happening to me, but lately, I’ve been feeling inspired. The type of inspiration that can only come from a muse.
And this time, my muse comes in the form of a very unique man.

He's different from the rest.

He shows me exactly the right balance of attention.
He helps me remember that I'm a woman.
He practices a type of old school chivalry, that makes me giggle like a twleve year old school girl.
He seems to see the parts of me I thought were long hidden under piles of baggage.

I'm willing to see myself through his eyes.
I'm willing to practice a little acceptance.
I'm willing to stop looking over my shoulder for the past to rob me of the present.

Who knows how long this muse will share his inspiration.
But I intend to enjoy every moment of it.

Scrabble Challenge

Second Date

First Date

Chlamydia

“I believe I have contracted either Chlamydia or Gonorrhea.”

I choke on the cereal that I am standing over the sink eating.

Frenchie is sitting on a stool in front of the breakfast he has just prepared that includes poached eggs, wheat toast and freshly sliced tomatoes.

“You have what?”

I can feel the milk dripping down the side of my face and I’m afraid it will stain the collar of the blouse I just picked up from the cleaners. But I can't move.

The Frenchman cuts through his wheat toast and soaks it in runny egg yolk. He holds the bite near his mouth, pauses, cocks his head to the side and addresses me as if we are discussing football stats and who he thinks will win the Superbowl this year.

“I can’t be certain. I have only accumulated research from the internet, but I have pain while urinating and a white sticky substance at the tip of my penis. This seems to be indicative of Chlamydia or Gonorrhea.”

He pops the bite in his mouth and beams with pride. It's unclear if he’s proud of the delicious fucking brunch he just made or his Encyclopedia Brown Google diagnosis.

I must look like Jessica Simpson being asked a math question, my body paralyzed, staring at him with my mouth gaping open, holding my cereal bowl, my briefcase resting against my leg. I can feel heat running down the back of my suit.

“Great.”

I put the half empty cereal bowl in the sink and pick up my briefcase.

“So I will therefore be needing a ride to the hospital.”

I try to compose myself and respond in a healthy manner. “Okay. Well I’m going into work right now.”

His mouth is still savoring his breakfast. But after he swallows he speaks.

“Just wait. I’ll be done in a moment.”

No, fuck off. You can walk your infected ass to the hospital.

“Ok. I’ll pull the car around.”

And I do. Because driving Frenchie to the hospital is the right thing. And I have no right to be angry. He's not my boyfriend. We haven't slept together. So why am I so angry?

I grumble my way out to the car, refusing to smile at my neighbor standing outside waiting for her dog to relieve himself on my sidewalk. I'm so pissed I don't even notice that it is a gorgeous sunny day with a cool Philly breeze carrying the scent of lilacs up the street from the community garden on the corner. No, I'm not feeling the schmoozy neighbor, lilac scenty thing. I'm feeling the judgemental, irritable, selfish thing.

I met the Frenchman a year ago. We spent the evening of my 32nd birthday exploring the streets of New Orleans. Half way through the night of near hand touches and the kind of conversation that feels like someone is touching every part of your personhood, he leaned over for what I thought would be our first kiss and tells me, "I have a girlfriend."

The words every woman longs to hear. I wanted to slap him immediately. But after throwing a few more rocks into the Mississippi it occurred to me that this might be the first man that didn't want to sleep with me, but rather, talk to me all night until the sun came up. How very different. How very interesting. How very peculiar.

When the sun came up, we promised to stay friends. But their was more than friendship to our connection. And over the past year, we periodically fed that connection with long and heavy phone conversations over payphones from Saigon to Nicaragua. I told myself I was building a friendship. I pretended that I wasn't just his validation that he was still wanted even when his girlfriend wasn't giving him enough attention.

When he phoned in June to say he had recently broken up with his girlfriend, wanted to travel through the states and could he spend my birthday with me, was I wrong to think something might be there?

Granted, we had met but once. So the majority of our late night phone conversations were mostly about him. Okay, so he was unhealthy, reactive, narcissistic and insecure. I was willing to ignore it all. I mean the stage was set for a dramatic love story. One where patience perseveres, friendship melts into romance, from an innocent beginning springs a balanced and loving relationship... cue music, dim lights.

Yes, in my fantasy he was confident and moral and a man of strong character. In my fantasy, he spoke five languages and wanted to partner with me in our mutual quest to end violence and bring about world peace. We were supposed to make friends with the locals in Kosovo and speak Swahili by years end. I was going to write books, take cooking classes, spend my weekends doing food drops into war zones and my nights cuddled up next to him discussing the increase of terrorist measures as a weapon of the weak against the strong. We were going to take eco-tour vacations.

Nowhere in my fairy tale was he coming out of a break up and screwing his way across Central America to punish his ex. Funny, shacking up on my pull-out sofa while he healed up from his latest STD was not in my edition.

Frenchie ducks his beautiful 6’3” frame into the passenger seat of my Hertz rental car. Where I once thought of him driving a Jaguar, I now found him outclassed by the Mazda. His lazy smile reveals that he is ignorant to the fact he’s just shattered my whimsical dream. He pulls a bottle of Evian out of his bag, takes a sip and hands it to me.

“Would you like some water?”

I glance down at the bottle and back at him.

“No.”

“You aren’t going to get Chlamydia from a water bottle.”

I try not to judge. I try not to roll my eyes. I try not to wonder if you can get Chlamydia from a passenger seat. I try not to be jealous that he wanted someone else. I try not to be angry at allowing myself to be lead on. I try to let go of the lost possibilities. I try to remember that it's not his fault that he is not the man I created in my head.

Privacy Please

“I could never do that. I could never put my picture on Friendster or give people access to information about me on MySpace."

Candy is sitting across from me at Veselka in the East Village, drinking an Ukranian beer. Her skin is bronzed from weekends in the Hamptons and her hair is perfectly flipped out in frosted bleached tips. Even though she speaks with an heir of superiority, she looks over at her boyfriend after everything she says. He is a Republican, so I’m sure she’s afraid she will say the wrong thing and be banished from the bedroom .

“I just value my privacy too much.”

Republican drops his hand into Candy’s lap and squeezes her thigh under the table with pride. With his other hand, he lifts his beer but drops it from his lips to visually rape a young girl passing by in an uber short denim mini. My friend Skippy is busy scrolling through the messages on his blackberry and completely misses the mini skirted chippy.

Candy, the Republican and Skippy are three of the only people that I have met in New York City who are not on Friendster or My Space. Lately, it seems I can’t go out in NYC without hearing a version of, “I’ll Friendster you”. Who needs cards or digits in the age of Google, MySpace, and Friendster. I discovered the merits of Friendster at a wedding party in Los Angeles three years ago. Since then, while my use has ebbed and flowed, it is as reliable as my g-mail for a quick validation. See, I have friends, people like me, people view me.

Skippy rests his texting fingers for a moment and takes a swig of his beer.

“Isn’t Friendster sort of ‘out’ now anyways?”

“Yes. All of the cool people have moved over to My Space. That’s why I like Friendster.”

Candy’s boyfriend rolls his eyes. “Whatever. It’s all ridiculous. And I agree completely with Candy about the death of privacy.”

I laugh. “Republican, what have you got to be so private about? I mean, what’s all the fear about putting your profile on line? No offense, but it is not like you are Brad Pitt and people are stalking you. How is a Friendster profile going to ruin you?”

The Republican begins talking about stalkers and potential clients and all sorts of legal mumbo jumbo and I just sit back and let him fade into a hazy Charlie Brown undecipherable adult and I think how wonderful it is to not be the slightest bit ashamed about having my public life on the internet for anyone and their mother to peruse.

“Jane has a blog.” Skippy sounds like he is telling on me to the teacher.

Candy and the guy who voted for Bush twice just stare at me.

“She was on a reality TV show too.”

Candy drops her jaw and the Christian Right registers shock and horror with raised eyebrows. But then he relaxes, and smiles.

“Candy was supposed to be The Bachelorette. Tell ‘em honey.”

“Well, they asked me if I would be on that show, The Bachelorette, and like, actually be The Bachelorette.” She straightens up her back a little. “But I just said no. I’m not going on National Television and making my life public like that.”

Now I really think Candy is full of shit and just saying this to impress her boyfriend, because women that act and look like Candy don’t turn down the chance to be The Bachelorette. Women who go to tanning booths, have French pediicures, spend an hour a day at the gym, purposely style their hair like Farrah Fawcet, go to places like Butter and wear low cut Marc Jacobs sweaters to an East Village eatery are exactly the type of women who want to be on reality TV. I can see her prancing on the Real World, making out with six guys in a hot tub after too many shots of Jagermeister.

I know, because I was once on a reality TV show. But i’m nothing like Candy.

“Do you really think your life is anymore private than mine? I can track the blogs you read at work, I can Google your name and find out your track scores from high school. You leave your receipt on the table at the restaurant and I have your credit card number. You use the same username and password for your news subscription as your bank account. I can get your job title from a PDF of attendees at your last alumni function. I mean if someone wanted this information, it’s not as if you are a secret.”

“Nice job Jane, but I don’t write my feelings on the internet. I don’t publish details of my last date for the world to see. I don’t have photos of my latest travels posted to My Space or Friendster. I didn’t spend ten weeks having my life filmed on national television and have people in the chat rooms talking about my bra size.”

“Republican, it’s not like I’m avoiding the Paparazzi at every turn. I’m nobody. No one cares about my life. And if a few people want to check out the inner workings of my brain then I‘m happy to have the company.”

“Bloggers are just narcissistic attention whores.”

I know that there is truth in what he is saying. But I can’t let the Right win tonight.

“Yeah you are probably right. Most of them are. But just like some Republicans aren’t judgmental homophobic Christian Right hypocrites, this blogger doesn’t fit that stereotype. I just like to write. I’m a writer. Blogging is a way for me to get my writing out there. Blogging is the only way to get my writing out there.”

Without diverting his eyes from his cell, Skippy throws his head up to give me a little support.

“She is a good writer.”

“Thanks Skippy. But I’m still not going to sleep with you tonight.”

“No worries hon. I’ve got three girls on deck already.’

I’m still not done with Wall Street boy. “What is more narcissistic, being afraid to put photos of yourself on the internet because you think everyone will be seeking them out to ruin you, or putting your thoughts and feelings out into a flooded forum where you are just one of a million?”

Seriously. Who are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? Am I so self-centered that I think there are people out there who will become taken by those pictures of me rolling pita on the floor in Bosnia that they will hunt me down and ask me out? Because those stories are pieces of me. I am proud of my past, my present and where I’m going in my future. So if someone else wants to read it, why should I care?

Writing is a magnificent conduit to the soul. It connects me to the friends I have met overseas, it allows me a forum to share my life with my family, it gives a woman alcoholic a voice in the blogoshpere, it is in itself cathartic and healing. It connects me to people and to a city that can be very lonely without connections. And the feedback makes me feel connected outside of myself, a piece of the world. So that even with consequences, I can’t imagine sacrificing my public life.

Ask me again when I am being dogged by Paparazzi and having to explain stories of my sketch past to a pack of journalist in the Rose Garden. But I somehow don’t think this is the path I’m on. No, I think the path I am on is leading me to a place where it is simply okay to be just your average Jane. Serene, connected, happy in my own skin.

After the bill is paid, Candy and Cheney go home together, Skippy zips off to Aer and his three ladies in waiting, and I walk off into the Village alone. But I’m not really alone. I have 167 friends on Friendster. And three of these friends are on the corner telling me to hurry up or we are going to be late for that party in Gramercy.

The Woodland Park Zoo

“Well there is an example of behavior learned in captivity.”

Betty and I are at the Woodland Park Zoo, the day before I depart for Philadelphia, watching an ostrich peck incessantly at the metal cage that divides us. We have been watching for the last twenty minutes.

“It’s as if he thinks that eventually he will break through.”

“It’s disturbing.”

My cell phone rings and I can barely look away long enough to answer the phone

“It’s Paris calling.” I instantly recognize the French accent speaking to me on the other side of my cell.

“Didier!”

Didier tells me he wants to spend my birthday with me in August. This makes me nervous. I met him a year ago for a night of flirting and unrequited crushing. We have kept in touch. But our monthly phone calls have made us both real. And over the past year I have pretty much erased my fantasy image of him.

Gone is the mystery of that first night strolling through the streets of New Orleans, trying on the idea of something romantic and exciting with this foreign stranger. The last year has changed me. Now I'm afraid of things that move too fast. They feel false. They hurt.

I have to stay focused on my belief that patience and friendship are the true foundation of lasting relationships. I try not to be excited, but I am. More than a little.

I should know better.

I hang up the phone and chase after Betty who has already moved on to watch them feed the tigers.

Google

It’s Tuesday night and I’m bored. I don’t have cable, because TV hits my system like crack cocaine and once I start watching it I can’t stop. If I had a TV I wouldn’t read. I would never return e-mails and I certainly wouldn’t spend idle hours every night surfing the net. Unfortunately, boredom and idle hours surfing the net signals certain danger.

I google an ex. Nothing interesting pops up. So, I google another.

Something new pops up. In my periodic spot check of googling and cyberstalking ex boyfriends, nothing has ever popped up for Wes before. Wes was a few years back. I called him ‘shower boy’ because of his propensity to take showers immediately after copulation. Each time using a fresh bar of Dove soap. Cleaning me off of his skin in the shower he would spend almost a half hour in the bathroom and usually I would be asleep by the time he came back to join me in the bed, a trail of shower steam bellowing out from the bathroom door behind him. But if I wasn’t asleep, I could watch him pull the covers up neatly around his chin, tuck the sheet around his body like a mummy and lay his head on the pillow, careful not to mess his hair or touch me in the process. For obvious reasons, we didn’t work out.

But like most ex boyfriends, over the past few years I had thought about him. Occasionally thinking I had been too hasty. We had so much fun together. We went out all the time. He was really hot. Maybe I judged him too harshly. And like bending back the corner of a page in a good book, I marked Wes as a spot I might want to come back to in the future.

And now here I am looking at his bio on the web page of his MBA program. I am ready to read that he had ended up in an insane asylum for the OCD impaired. Surely after the devastating loss of the only one real deep character in his life, Wes had dropped out of school and gone into the seminary to seek meaning in his life. I mean this is a feelingless ex that I imagined was never going to find true happiness or experience emotions without me. But sure enough, he is still alive. He has not committed suicide after losing me in his life. The photo doesn’t reveal a priest collar. And from what I am reading he is doing disturbingly well.

Shit, now I can’t stop thinking about Wes. I pick up the phone, find his name in my cell directory, stare for a very long time considering the consequences, and I call him.

“Is that you I saw jogging shirtless down 17th street the other day? Or was it some other hot young stud in great shape?”

“Schmo, how you been? I haven’t heard from you in forever. 17th street? Are you in DC?”

Not being one for chit chat with men, I keep my answers short. I am feeling him out for weak spots. Am I imagining it, or did his voice crack a little when he said my name.

“I finally got my apartment decorated. You should come by and check it out before I take off for the summer. I set it up exactly like you told me to. Looks good.”

“You’re leaving for the summer? Where are you going?” Here it comes. He’s been incarcerated for public drunkenness. Perhaps he was found crying in his beer over the loss of my affections. Some poor man bumped into him at the bar and Wes, who spends an uncomfortable amount of time preening in the mirror at the local gym, turned around and popped the guy in the face with a very well toned bicep.

“I’m going to Europe to study abroad.”

Who the fuck was this guy and where was my ex Wes? My Wes was xenophobic, and thought men wearing jeans that fit were gay. My Wes didn’t want to go out of his neighborhood to eat, for fear some homeless guy would scratch the Beemer. My Wes thought movies with subtitles were too much work, voted Republican and felt all waiters should learn English. What the hell was he doing going to Europe to study?

“I’ll come by tomorrow on my lunch break.”

And I do.

We sit on couches at Tryst and order lunch. I’m wearing a business suit, which is a stark contrast to when I first met Wes as a waitress at 18th Street Lounge. Wes is wearing a pair of men’s Seven Jeans and a faded tee, which is a stark contrast to the suit, tie and white pressed shirt combo I would see him in when he shook the bed to kick me out so he could lock up and go to work in the morning. He didn’t like to leave girls alone in his apartment. Apparently he was afraid I might break into his Dove bar soap collection or use some of his man products lined up next to the sink like little toy soldiers on display.

He has the Tuna. Which is also weird because tuna fish has mayonnaise and my Wes eats egg whites and one slice of wheat bread and then touches his six pack all night to feel for muscle loss.

I order salad. And after the lady walks away, I realize how awkward it will be to eat a salad whilst sitting on a couch, one nude fishnet leg tucked under my chocolate brown skirt, talking to my ex boyfriend that I haven’t seen in over a year.

We talk about family and we talk about work. And then he asks me about my love life.

“So are you seeing anyone?”

I swallow a lettuce leaf and wipe the olive oil off my right cheek.

“Are you?”

I use my CIA interrogation tactics to turn the question back on him.

“Yeah. You know me.”

Well, apparently I don’t anymore. So I feel compelled to ask.

“What does that mean?”

“Well, I dated someone seriously, after you, for like a year. She was a little debutante chick. Had all kinds of daddy’s money.”

It stings a little bit. Wes and I were plagued by his inability to commit. I tried desperately to engage him in conversations about feelings, but he was steadfast about keeping all of our interaction surface deep. Ten months of talking about the weather, politics and other people. Even in the bedroom, I couldn’t get Wes past the superficial.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I’m the Queen of superficial relationships outside of the bedroom. I can keep it light and breezy and easy. As long as I can get my attention fix through intense and passionate screwing that communicates without words, “I like you. Lots.” But Wes didn’t even give me the tongue when we kissed. In fact, we hardly kissed. He just flipped me over and did his thing. So I rarely knew what kept him calling and coming back.

Based on this, I was constantly trying to break things off with Wes. I would explain that I needed a little more from him. He would feign confusion and tell me I was blocking the TV set. I would throw up my hands. "I'm done, you are just not that into me." But then he would call the next day and ask me to dinner or a concert or a show and I would go. Because I thought this was his way of showing me what he couldn’t say. I thought that deep down he must have real emotions for me, and he just can’t say them. But those emotions never surfaced, were never spoken and well, I guess I have to accept that they may have never actually existed. And now I discover that after me he was able to commit to someone. Someone that was not me.

“So what happened?”

I didn’t really want to hear the answer. I had always told Wes that someday he would find someone special and someone that moved him.

“Well, it started well. We were having fun. Hanging out. But then she got all heavy. I think she was crazy or something. She started talking about marriage when he had only been dating a few months. It was so weird.”

Oh thank God. It is my Wes. The color is beginning to return to my cheeks.

“She started getting all jealous and bitter. She said I wasn’t serious enough for her. Can you believe that?”

And he looks at me, because he knows that I can.

“But she had a lot of money. She was going to buy a house from my Dad. Really pissed him off when we broke up and the deal fell through.”

And my Wes is back. But just to make sure, I have to ask.

“Did you love her?”

He rolls his eyes and scoffs.

“Jesus Schmo. You cut to the chase. No. But I told her I did the day before we finally broke up.”

I wince.

“Don’t look at me like that. I had to say something. My Dad was going to lose a huge commission. ”

Bingo. It’s my Wes.

“Oh Wes. I don’t think she is crazy. Sometimes girls get jealous when they aren’t sure about your feelings for them. When you don’t put out a lot of signs or tell someone how you feel, they are forced to read every little action. And often people react with a lot of anger when they are frustrated. It’s frustrating to not know how someone feels about you. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with a woman believing that if you are still with her after a few months then there is potential for something bigger. You know?”

We both know I’m talking about me.

“Yeah, well, she’s 22. She has plenty of time to find someone new to latch on to. And there are plenty more 22 years olds out there dying to get Big Daddy Wes to take them to a Zagats rated restaurant. I’ve got another 22 year old up to bat right now.”

“Yeah, Wes, well you're 35. And how long are you going to keep dating 22 year olds? At some point you are going to have to have a grown up relationship. I mean, don’t you eventually want to have something deeper?”

“You sound like my sister.”

And suddenly I remember the pain of dating this man. The pain of never feeling good enough. The feeling that if I was just prettier, younger, firmer, then maybe he would look at me and say something nice. The belief that there was something wrong with me that made him unable to show me the affection and attention I deserved. I recall how much it hurt to be with someone who didn’t make me feel sexy or beautiful or wanted. I think of that 22 year old girl and I want to save her from the bad sex, shallow conversation and constant rejection.

“What time is it? I think I might need to start heading back to work.”

I grab for my Blackberry to look at the time and he grabs for my arm.

“Well wait. You want to come up and look at my place?”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Nah. I can't. I’m running a little late. Maybe next time."

But there won’t be a next time.

I’ve read this part. I already know what happens. There is no need to go back and read it again.

Especially not when there are so many good books out there I've yet to read.

The Massage

I've had a late night at work, it's raining and I'm procrastinating going to the gym. I decide to stop off at Body Co. on Connecticut and get a massage.

“Do you take walk-ins?”

“Sure. You want man or woman?”

“Whatever you have.”

G appears in the doorway. He is young, he is cute and he is Brazilian. Knowing my weakness for foreign men and accents, I wonder if it’s too late to trade in for a woman. Would that be rude? I mean, a massage is meant to be relaxing and I don’t want to be thinking about arching my back and sucking in my gut the entire time. I resolve to sleep during the massage.

I take off all my clothes down to my white hip hugger sheer panties and I get under the crisp cotton sheet. I flip over on my belly and place my face in that horrible little hole at the end of the table. He enters. He dims the lights. He puts on soothing music.

“Are there any areas where you need extra attention?”

Yes. My ass is very sore and I could do with an entire hour of ass rubbing.

“Um. My lower back?”

“Great.”

And he begins by pressing on my back through the sheet. By the time he pulls back the sheet to expose my back, I’m already feeling a little, well, damp.

“So you’re from Brazil.”

“Yes. “

“I hear the women there are beautiful.”

“Is true.”

And he kneads into my fleshy arms.

“Is it true what they say about plastic surgery in Brazil.”

“Depend. What they say.”

“Just that a lot of women get it.”

“Yes. Many women trying to look perfect. Many men too. The new thing is butt implants. But you no need one of those.”

I blush. But he can’t see my face.

“I maybe need some.”

“G. I can’t really see your ass at this moment, but I’m sure you are perfect just the way you are.

“No, I really need work out.”

“I guess I used to feel that way about myself once as well. I’m just happy that I’m finally at an age where I don’t care anymore.”

“You can never stop caring. You stop going to gym?”

“Well. I go to the gym. But I feel like I’ve accepted my body. You know? I can only change it so much.”

“I a personal trainer and you can always change your body. You just need to work harder. Watch diet. Go to gym more.”

“Yeah. But in the end, how much can you really change your body. In it’s natural state, it only really fluctuates by a few pounds here and there.”

“Nobody happy with their body. Can always make better.”

“I’m happy with my body.”

“Just like it is?”

“Just like it is.”

“You don’t think can get better with workout and diet.”

“I don’t think I will ever look like Cindy Crawford. No matter how hard I work out or what I restrict myself from eating.”

At this point, he has moved onto the most unflattering part of my body. He pulls the sheet back to reveal the backside of my leg and upper thigh. He lowers my sheer white panties and tucks the sheet into them.

“How old you are?”

“Um. 32.”

“Oh. That old? You look good for thirties.”

“Thanks”

Now he is caressing the inside of my thigh and I decide it is time to end the discussion. There is something too oddly intimate about inner thigh massage and discussions about age and beauty. Although I am not sure which makes me more uncomfortable.

After G has rubbed me down to my toes, he covers me back up with the towel, comes to the center of the table, holds up the towel and asks me to flip. I’ve had a massage before. Usually they tell you to turn away from them to protect your modesty. Usually they are not looking while you flip. He looks.

I flop over on my back and try to breathe through my nose. Hanging upside down always makes me a bit congested. He starts rubbing my shoulders, down my arms, over my thighs, down my knees and back on my toes.

As my time wears down, he comes around to the tip of the table and starts touching my face. Very slowly.

“You have a husband?”

“No.”

“A boyfriend?

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not really interested in one.”

“How come you no want boyfriend?”

“Boyfriends are boring.”

“Well, I done with that party life. I want a girlfriend. Clubs are boring.”

“I agree. Clubs are boring. But if you don’t have a girlfriend and you don’t like clubs then wont you make yourself go out and find new things to do?”

“Like what?”

“Like bowling or book readings or theater or museums.”

“Sound boring.”

“How can you say that?’

He finishes rubbing my face and I open one eye to realize that the room has become incredibly dark. But not dark enough for me to realize that G’s face is very close to mine.

I feel his breath on my eyelashes when he speaks.

“Boring because you have no body to see all those things with.”

And I think he might kiss me. But he doesn’t. He pulls his head away and pats my nose with the tip of his index finger.

“You have a beautiful nose.”

And he leaves the room. I lay there for a moment staring at the ceiling and thinking. Then I pop up off the table, get dressed and take myself out into the lobby.

G is sitting behind the counter with a cup of tea for me.

"Feel good?"

"Yeah. I feel great. Thanks."

I'm sure I have eyeliner making deep dark circles around my eyes. And hair sticking up in strange places.

I pay. I tip. And just as I am walking out the door, he comes around the counter and hands me his card.

"Have good night."

"You too."

I get outside and take the card out of my pocket. On the back he has scrawled his cell phone number. And suddenly, I feel so naked.

Revenge of the Nerds

I met Wes after returning from two weeks in LA filming a reality TV show. When he came into the bar I worked at in Washington DC with his friends, I noticed him right away as the type of guy who rarely gave me more than an up and down glance.

Wes was the epitome of cool. He didn’t ask me stupid questions or talk incessantly about himself. He wasn’t looking around the bar in an anxious attempt to find someone to go home with.

Wes was hot. And for some unknown reason he kept grabbing my arm and trying to talk to me.

I thought he wanted a drink discount.

Two hours until 2 AM, I fell into the chair next to Wes, balanced my tray over my head and put my hand in my bar apron.

“What do you do when you’re not working the waitress at the local bar?”

He told me he worked out twice a week with a trainer and liked to find excuses to take his shirt of in public places to show off his ripped abs. I laughed. I thought he was joking.

He pulled my chair closer to him by grabbing it at the legs. “And what about you?”

“I do peacekeeping contracts for the government. Usually developing countries. You know, employment work shops, election monitoring. I once observed the Chechnya border for rebel crossings.”

His eyes glazed over. He was trying to drink three beers in the three minutes before the bar closed.

“Oh yeah, and I recently filmed a reality TV show”.

Then it was 2, the music had stopped playing, and I had legions of angry customers waiting for their tabs. Wes leaned in and took his phone out of his pocket.

"Give me your number. I'll call you. We'll go out and finish this conversation."

I stuttered out the numbers and then he and his friends left me to wash down the tables, pick up the chairs and mop the floor.

I wasn’t looking for anything serious. I had just ended an intense relationship and was busy with publicity for the reality TV show.

Wes was a chance to go back to high school. Except that in high school, I dated the newspaper geeks and exchange students. I thought Wes was going to be my ticket to the ‘in’ crowd, a fun-filled, shallow summer of barbecues, keg stands and copious amounts of meaningless sex.

On our first date, he picked me up in his brand new BMW and we went to brunch at a hip hangout along the Georgetown waterfront. Between bites of egg white omelet, Wes talked about sports, X-box and his ‘awesome’ relationship with his family.

Although he was animated about our topics of conversation, he barely looked at me. In fact, he seemed way more interested in catching his reflection in the nearby shop windows than the sight of my new Victoria Secret Push Up bra. I chalked it up as him being too cool to act overly interested.

I danced through a variety of topics trying to hold his focus. But the only one that seemed to catch his interest were the details of the Reality TV show I had just filmed. I was sworn to secrecy and had signed a five million dollar confidentiality agreement, but the experience made me sound so cool.

“Dude, no way!? So are you going to be in Maxim magazine? If you go to the Playboy mansion can I come? Can you get courtside tickets to a Lakers game?”

Shaking off the fact I had just been called ‘Dude’ for the first time since the 1989 summer release of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, I sought comfort in the fact that in 1989 he was likely playing quarterback on his high school FB team while I was playing the clarinet in the marching band.

Since I was on a low-budget, third rate reality TV show that I wasn’t even sure would make it to air, I indulged him with stories of the experience and found it quite therapeutic to discuss it in length with someone. We began to speak easily. Maybe a little too easily.

Devoid of any flirting or intimate connection, I sort of felt like I was talking to one of my girlfriends or on a very cordial job interview. I was shocked when at the end of our afternoon date he leaned over and gave me a closed mouth kiss on the lips. I was even more shocked when he called the next week to ask me out again.

Over the next few weeks we went to restaurants that had Zagat’s rated stickers on the window. We met his friends out at the hippest bars and saw blockbuster movies on opening weekends. He loved telling his friends that I had been on a reality TV show.

One day we ran into some friends at an Italian café. I ordered from the waiter in Italian and I heard him lean over and whisper to his friend, “she speaks like eight languages, you know she was on a reality TV show, right?” I mistook his pride for genuine affection.

Something was definitely missing. Things were not unfolding the way I had hoped. While I often joined the cool kids for nights of drinking, watching the game or barbecues, Wes never accepted invitations to meet my friends. He said they were all freaks, geeks and gays.

I couldn’t get Wes to have a deep conversation about anything. We talked about politics and current events, I listened to long rants about sports and we shot the shit the way I suspect 75% of most intra-male conversations flow. We had become buddies. Except that at the end of each evening I got a “Cool Dude”, followed by a pained, closed mouth kiss on the lips-the equivalent of an ass pat between soccer players.

After two months of dating, Wes still hadn’t tried to touch my double D’s. After a night of watching him get drunk in a loud nightclub, I asked him why he hadn’t made the moves on me yet.

“Dude, can’t we just hang out?”

I said it was cool if he just wanted to hang out, but that the pained kiss at the end of the night was sort of confusing and he could just stop doing that if he didn’t enjoy it.

“Schmo” he said, calling me by my last name and pulling me into a headlock, “Don’t get so heavy. Just relax, it should just be natural.”

After he saw my pained expression, he offered the incredulous, “I just don’t want to disrespect you”?

The next night, we attended a No Doubt concert about 45 minutes outside the city. Since I didn’t have a car, he picked me an hour late up and I listened to him talk on the phone with his brother for 45 minutes while we sat in horrible traffic.

At the concert, he drank too much to drive and asked me to drive his car back to his place. When we got back to his place he told me he was too tired to set up the couch and I could just sleep on the other half of his bed.

Perhaps this was my chance. I got into the bed and waited.

He started kissing me. I kissed him back.

I had been so beaten down at this point, I just wanted to feel wanted. Before I knew what had happened, Wes had skipped over the foreplay, put it in me about ten times and was finished.

Three minutes had passed and somehow we had done 'it'.

Within 30 seconds he was up and headed towards the bathroom. I was still lying there catching my breath trying to figure out what had happened when I heard him opening a fresh bar of soap and jumping into the shower.

It was one of those moments when you could either cry or laugh.

I lay there recalling quirky things I had formerly overlooked. The forty bars of unopened Dove soap under his sink, the twenty minutes it took to fix his hair before we went out, the stubble on his chest when he hadn’t had time to shave, the way he would spend an evening out engrossed in conversation with a group of men at the table next to us.

After the shower incident, things changed for me. The fantasty began to wear thin.

We had fun together, we went cool places. We both wore cool clothes and everyone turned to look at us when we entered a room. I knew that Wes was never going to be ‘the one’ – But I wasn’t ready to stop being cool.

As much as I tried to keep the fantasty alive. My dream built on threads began to unravel.

After the publicity for the show ran out, invitations to the Playboy mansion missing from my mailbox, courtside tickets to the Lakers game clearly out of scope and shout-outs from strangers on the Subway lagging, I noticed a change in Wes.

It stopped being fun.

We ran out of things to talk about and our dates began to consist of me watching him top his score on X-box. My fifteen minutes under the bleachers with the Captain of the Football team were most definitely up.

But he continued calling.

Apparently he wanted some help redecorating his new apartment.

I moved to New York. He continued writing me with web links to furniture, rugs, drapes and lighting. He would call and ask me for advice on fabrics.

I stopped returning Wes’ phone calls.

I was tired of trying to fit in his world.

Being cool just doesn't seem that important anymore. This square peg wants movies with subtitles, lingering dinners with friends in tiny no-name cafes. I want to sing karaoke and be silly, wear sweatpants and refuse to shower on Sundays. I want to spend an entire day in bed with someone that can’t get enough of my naked flesh on theirs. I want to be where I'm not trying to be like everyone else.

This square peg.

Crushed

It started with a crush. It ended in a dark and dank hotel room with full frontal male nudity, McDonalds French fries and an unrequited kiss.

I liked him for the right reasons. I thought when he talked he sounded healthy. Whenever I heard him at an Alanon meeting he seemed so ‘together’. I was patient. I didn’t stalk. It took me weeks before I even stood close to him in the hallway during the break. And I’m not shy. I could have marched right up to him the first day I heard him speak and entered his phone number into my blackberry. But I didn’t. I waited. I was patient.

Three months later, I announced at the meeting that I was moving to DC for a short while. And he bit. He finally talked to me. Not in front of me. To me. And I was hooked. Even before he opened his mouth to get my email, I was imagining what brilliant intelligent and healthy thing would come out.

“So. Um. Can I get your e-mail?

It was like poetry.

I gave it to him.

Two weeks later an e-mail arrived in my in box.

“Hi there. How are you?”

Wow. He liked me. He really liked me.

We sent a few e-mails back and forth. I ignored his propensity toward emoticons. I overlooked his over usage of monosyllabic words. I tried not to focus on his simplistic view of the world and instead I thought about how all the little hairs on my arms stood up when I saw his name in my inbox.

On a weekend visit to New York I invited him along to catch my sisters play. That was when he told me he didn’t like women who liked him. Something about issues with his mother. Something about describing all his ex girlfriends with derivatives of the word ‘hot’. As in ‘She was so hot”. Something about being 39 and never having had a serious relationship. I was disappointed. Slightly disturbed. But I ignored my feelings. He was perfect for me. I had been so patient. Surely he was the reward.

Last week he wrote to say he would be in DC for the weekend and would I like to hang out.

He joined me late Friday nigh at 18th street lounge and we spoke few words over the heads of our friends and the sound of the pumping bass. So I was pleased when I woke up the next morning to a text.

Want 2 go 2 Baltimore w.us tonight?

I should have known I was in for disaster from the start. Running late, I took a taxi from Dupont Circle to Union Station. But that is the wrong direction. I was supposed to go to Grosevnor not Glenmont. I turned back. An hour late and thirty dollars poorer, I met him and his friends on the train platform.

“We got a convertible. Is it okay with you if we drive with the top down?”

“Sure,” I said eyeing the dark sky and folding my perfectly coiffed blonde locks down the back of my shirt.

“No problem. It will be fun.”

We arrived an hour and a half later at a dank hotel in Baltimore. My hair was teased back in an uncomfortable mop behind my ears. The crush and I couldn’t talk much over the hum of the passing air and the pumping 80’s tune from the front seat. He took a lazy seat in the lobby while his friends began to assemble around him.

It was his friend Rick’s birthday and Ricks girlfriend Alice had booked the entire trip off a late night google expedition. It was clear she hadn’t done much searching before she booked the reservation. We were two blocks away from Po’ House Street. Which was one block away from Martin Luther King Parkway. Neither is a good sign that you are in the right hood.

The rooms had no windows and crisp polyester sheets. There were two rooms and twelve people. When I lay my bag over the foot of the bed I would be sharing with three strangers, I somehow knew the night was going to go terribly wrong.

The rowdy crew dropped their bags in the rooms and started drinking right away. I saw my crush on the other side of the room. He didn’t drink either, so surely we could bond over this. But I couldn’t really catch his eye. He was laid out in a chair with his right hand tucked into the top of his jeans. Funny, in all my fantasies of him, not one ever involved a vision of him with his hands down his pants.

The crew cabbed it to a ghetto crab shack where the crush's friends consumed sixteen pitchers of beer in the course of two hours. Conversation consisted of raunchy sex jokes, declarations of men’s gayness and a contest of who could say the grossest and most inappropriate comment to the waitress. Sometimes this sort of humor can be amusing, when played out amongst the witty. But in this crowd of dimwits with Britney Spears educations, it just sounded crass and tacky. “Country”, as Britney would state it. And she would surely emphasize this with air quotes.

The scene was dangerous for this recovering alcoholic. Suddenly, I was seventeen again, crowded around the keg with a red plastic cup making jokes that would make everyone look at me. How funny I thought I was, how much I would jockey for your attention by saying shocking and disgusting things. How disturbing it is to watch these buzzing idiots and realize how I must have sounded.

The posse moved onward to a piano bar called ‘Howling at the Moon’ and buckets of Long Island Iced Teas ensued. Shots, more buckets, beers to follow, and the groups buzz began to violently sway into a drunken slur. The class of the establishment was reflected by the patrons. I counted thirteen bachelorette parties, marked by women wearing white veils, 'suck for a Buck' t-shirts and sipping Coronas through penis straws.

To make the scene even more upsetting, my crush seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the scene. He looked everywhere, but at me. And this made me want to be noticed. What is it about that white trash world that makes you want to fit in, by showing off, showing a little more skin, or inflating your importance?

Crush smacked his friends when two barely 21 year old girls promoting a new liqueur approached the table in skin tight baby blue tank tops and white mini skirts that fell an inch below their asses.

“She’s so hot,” Crush said, referring to the bleach blonde.

Watching the crush salivate almost made me remind him that I was once a Budweiser girl, tied my shirt up to show off my ripped abs, wore white knee high boots, had hair that fell down to my back and sat on toothless men’s laps to take Polaroid photos.

But then I realized how ridiculous that was.

My crush’s friend Langdon took a neon straw out of his mouth long enough to respond.

“I’d like to stick my penis in her mouth.”

Langdon is so gross. But at least it was a reprieve from gay bashing.

“Dude. Talk to her.”

The girl passed and the crush looked timidly down at the floor. And I was thinking that maybe the crush was a good guy aftre all, just surrounded by very strange circumstances. I was reminded of my fantasy that he was smart and cool and perfect for me in every way.

“Is that your type?” I batted my eyelashes at the crush, ready to exchange witty banter and gain an ally in the center of all this insanity.

“She's every mans type,” he said, and looked up to stare after the girl in the hopes she would drop something, bend over to pick it up, and give the crush a flash of her perfectly round ass.

I was staring too. I was staring at myself, thirteen years ago. A young girl defined by the amount of attention she could garner, a group of friends thinking they were bonding over the selfish consumption of alcohol, offensive jokes that disrespected the intelligence and position of all those around them, and a woman desperately seeking attention from the one man in the room who wouldn’t give it to her. Yes, I was seventeen again.

“Yeah. Every man’s type, ” Langdon repeated.

No. I beg to differ. I knew first hand that this woman was not everyone’s type.

And in that moment I saw how far I had come. Since the drinking. Since the attention seeking. Since the lying and the stealing and low-cut tops. Since I had been that woman.

“You know what? I’m tired. I think I’m going to head out.”

And I left. Because now I know I have choices.

I found my way back to the hotel and I waited for what I knew would come next.

As if I needed another reminder of what an asshole I once was, three AM brought the sound of eleven drunken men and women to the outside of the hotel door. They screamed, they howled, they ran up and down the halls yelling obscenities. They were carrying six large bags of McDonalds French Fries. Langdon entered my room, took off all his clothes and left them in pile on the floor next to my bed so he could streak down the hallways being chased by hotel security.

The crush went to bed, leaving me to struggle with the drunkards on my own. Once I finally got them all to calm down, I lay my head back down on the pillow.

That’s when I heard the Langdon stir, lean over and try to kiss his best friend lying next to him.

“Dude. What the fuck are you doing?”

“Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

And I understood how he felt.

The Dole's

My mom called tonight.

"Honey, I’ve been reading your blog and I just want you to know-"

"I know, I know, the language."

"Yes, well there is that too. But actually, I was reading your Single Rant and I think you should know that your father and I don't expect you to ever get married. We have known for years that you are just not the marrying kind. And I want you to know that’s okay."

"Thanks mom. Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"You're just a different kind of woman, that’s all. I mean, parents want to see their kids marry someday so they know they are set. That they are going to be okay. But your father and I never worry about that with you. Even as an umarried woman, we know you will be okay."

"Mom. I think you might be missing the point of the blog. It was not to lament on my unmarried status. I like being single. It was meant to be a celebration of singlehood. And, and, "

"I know. I get that. You have a fabulous life dear. And it’s okay. You’re never really alone. You will always have us."

"That’s comforting."

"So Molly Jean is getting married. Who is she marrying? Is it that nice boy you were telling me about?"

"Yes mom. But you shouldn’t give up hope for me really. I mean Liddy Dole didn’t even meet Bob Dole until she was 39."

"Bob Dole? That man with the paralyzed arm in the Viagra commercials? Well yes, and there are always divorcee’s when you reach that age."

"That’s great. If I wait long enough, there will be a deep pool of divorceés, cripples and men that use Viagra. That’s encouraging."

"Just wanted to let you know."

"Thanks Mom."

"Oh yes, and Honey, you’re a great writer."

"Thanks Mom."

Cocktail Napkins

Tati, Brando and Jane held drinks wrapped in wet cocktail napkins as they leaned in close to hear one another over the buzz at Left Bank in Adams Morgan, DC.

“When my girlies and I were younger, we would spend hours in our favorite bars making lists on the back of cocktail napkins. I have a collection of them in a box under my bed in NYC.”

The management pumped the music even louder and Tati had to yell to be heard.

“Lists?”

Jane took a sip from her diet coke.

“Lists. You know. Like, 'best girls nights', 'worst dates', 'strangest place you ever fucked'. Stuff like that."

Brando’s ears perked up and he leaned in closer to Tati and Jane as they exchanged strained hollers over the bass of Jamiroquai.

“Yeah, right after the table was cleared, right before the dessert came, someone would just sort of call out, 'non-negotiables in a life partner', and we would go around the table a few times. Someone would take notes."

"On what?"

"Whatever we could write on. Paper table cloth covers from out favorite Italian restaurant. Theater programs. The back of movie tickets. Unfolded boxes of Marlboro Lights. Paper plates at a birthday party. But usually cocktail napkins."

Brando put his beer down, smoothed out his flat front Khakis and rolled up the sleeves of his button down gingham checked shirt.

“Sounds like you babes were bored a lot.”

“Brando, I love you man. And I am a babe. But for the purposes of feminist etiquette, can you please drop the ‘Babes’.

“I mean it as a term of endearment Jane.”

“I’ll remember that when you use it to introduce your mother to your co-workers.”

He rolled his eyes.

Our List

1. Must be able to make me laugh
2. I have to deem them attractive, actually, I have to think they are fucking hot
3. Has to want me
4. Must be passionate, about something
5. Posses integrity
6. Should be accepting of others, non-judgmental and open minded
7. Gotta have a firm handshake
8. Must believe in evolution
9. Must have own thriving and exciting life that exists without me
10. Has friends