Freaks and Closet Geeks.

There are some things that are sacred to women: Chocolate. A pair of heels that fit perfectly and would never pinch, even if you walked 50 blocks in them. A perfectly made cocktail. Sleeping in on the weekends. Happy hour with your closest friends. How our mother will always be one of the first people we call with news. The four-letter words S-A-L-E and L-O-V-E. And closet space.

A few weekends ago, wading knee-deep in down from a comforter that's apparently determined to molt in time for spring, the guy I'm seeing took one look at the floor in the corner of the room he normally puts his clothing in, and winced at the gathering tumbleweeds of feathers residing there. "Do you have someplace I can put my stuff where it won't get down on it?" he asked, and I froze, like I was suddenly subject to the 10 degree weather outside. There was someplace he could put his things, but I really didn't want to think about it. How could I tell him that my closet is like my personal kingdom, where I am ruler of all labels and ruling regent of all spatial reasoning, keeping the tank tops separate from the dressy shirts from the cardigans, without sounding like a total freak of nature?

In the end, I ended up pushing aside the hangers and clothes on the hanging rack so that he could have easy access to put his bag and jacket on the shelf underneath, but my clothes looked so forlorn, pushed to the side like unloved stepchildren. I'd like to blame what happened later on the fact that I was overtaken with thinking about my black mesh dress pressed up against my woolly Italian sweaters and getting pulled on by their fibers, but actually, there's no excuse for what happened next.

Sometimes, we can all go a little bit crazy. As far as it may be from us, our past is still our past, and as much as we dislike to have it tarnish the golden views of our present or future, it sometimes does. I live in eternal fear of the One Reoccurring Theme of my dating history: That I am merely a placeholder until some thing or someone else better comes along...that while logic states I, an obsessive-compulsive, nymphomaniac, time-consuming, giving, impulse buyer of gifts, needer of needy men, should be more than enough for one man, but if there's one thing my history has taught me, it's that I am remarkably replaceable, and that I tend to be the entrée-- there's always an appetizer or dessert on the side.

But while I've served as the main course, it's important to note that there's a lot of things that I've never done before that I suddenly find being a "normal" part of my life: I've never had someone else's toothbrush and towel residing in my bathroom, other than a roommate's. I've never eaten out so often together or gone out as a couple. I've never slept as many consecutive nights with someone as I have been doing recently. Only one other man was ever even allowed into my house to stay overnight, and that was one time, so I understandably am not used to someone living with me nearly a third of the time. So you better believe I've never had reason, cause, or practice to give away a drawer or a shelf for a man to use as his own. The strangest part of all is, I actually really love all of it. (I seem to have come a Very Long Way since the girl who went through men in under one month like Brawny paper towels.) None of this actually feels strange until I take a mental step back, look at my current life, and assess the Big Picture. Which I did the other day, while simultaneously having a VERY spectacularly large fret about putting all my eggs in one basket and shirts on one shelf and worrying about the possibility of other women fucking my toothbrush-and-towel present reality over. And so I did something when the opportunity arose after he left that I'm not very proud of, at all, and took my last deep breath of sanity, and momentarily dove off the deep end. I freaked.

I knew it was wrong. I knew what I was doing was like stealing, or at very least, breaking and entering, even though the metaphorical doors were already unlocked for me and I didn't touch anything; didn't open any Pandora boxes. All I had to do was use the two eyes I was born with, but even that, I knew, was too much. I surfaced when I didn't find anything that I seemed to be looking for-- there were no illicit messages, no secret trysts set up, no whiffs of another woman's perfume or lip gloss smudges. There was nothing of cause for concern. In fact, what I did find made me feel even worse than what I imagined finding something that I was looking for would make me feel: Instead, there I was, my name staring myself right in my face, not erased or replaced-- the messages a sane women had written being saved by the man who was doing her right, as she let her inner freak flag fly postal. I felt worse about myself than I have in years. I vowed at that moment to lock the super-freak in me up in the closet and never let her out like that again.

As a silent mea culpa, I cleared away my tank top shelf and consolidated some of my hanging rack for his stuff in my closet --like he had asked for the other night-- at 3 in the morning in a "retribution-for-my-wrongs" fit, all while mentally begging for forgiveness, and finally letting him, and trust, into my life...for real. I figure, in my world, giving him a part of my precious clothing space says "I'm sorry; and I'm showing it by proving I love you more than I love my tank top collection" far more than anything else I could ever say or do.

XOXO

Assumption Eats Away At You Like Consumption.

I am an idiot.

Sometimes.

And assuming really does make an ass,

But mostly out of me.

I take it back.

Not all.

But most.

XOXO

Normalcy Sucks.

Cosmopolitans. Good beer. My monthly women's magazines. Men's facial hair. Expensive leather interiors of expensive European cars. Bubble baths. Sunday football. Snakes. A few of my favorite things.

Writer's block. Or, more accurately, having absolutely nothing of interest to write about. Not one of my favorite things.

There comes a moment in your life when you've laid the past just enough to rest that you're more "more" over it than "less," and in a sort of gray-zone about where to go from there. This moment generally comes around when you've progressed to being friends with your ex; when you have decided that you are perfectly content with the way things are (for the most part); or when you've committed to keep sabotaging yourself or others for the stupid fun of it, but in a very small way. This moment is called A Love/Sex/Relationship Columnist's Nightmare.

I'm the sort of person who could never be happy in a perfectly functioning and progressing relationship. In order for me to remain happy and interested, there's always got to be some small level of drama-- something for me to tear apart over and over again in my head. Average just doesn't cut it for me. That's why I'm so notoriously picky. There aren't many guys who can keep THAT intrigue up. And when there is no drama, no intrigue, and no new news to report, it means that there is nothing for you to read.

So if you've noticed a downswing in the amount of content on this blog recently, sorry. I have no one, and nothing, to bitch about. Boo hoo. Normalcy sucks. I'll try to pick it up. Anyone know an attractive, emotionally unavailable, intelligent man with a casual style and psychological, misogynistic, and mommy issues with an charismatic and addictive personality who just happens to be misguidedly looking for the love that he will never be able to maintain? Kind of my specialty. (Not much of a specialty.) I need a project.

Or a new hobby, possibly less destructive than this.

XOXO

Being Yourself... Apologetically.

In every girl's life, there's that moment in their youth when they look back at their past, and suddenly see the huge, purple elephant standing in the middle of the room, and do a perfectly executed forehead smack/"Oh shit!"

I recently had mine in regards to my last relationship. Enough time and distance had finally passed to allow me to step back, look at it non-judgmentally, and try to sort out who did what to whom and where and when it went nose-dive-spiral wrong. It didn't take that long, because when I looked back, I saw something odd: It wasn't a relationship that had two distinct characters in it. It was a relationship that had three. And sometimes, more.

Maybe it doesn't come as a surprise, knowing that I'm the anti-dating, anti-commitment snarky love harpy that I am, but we started as TV-and-drinks night hook-up, nothing overly interesting. Yes, we clicked, yes, there was intelligent conversation and good humor and great sex, but I was not doodling hearts on my notebook the next day in class. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. What was interesting was when he texted me 5 days later around 1 in the morning, to check in because he "just hadn't heard from me" since that night. I was just trying to play it cool and keep things normal, but when we finally switched over to voice-on-voice action via the phone instead of thumb-on-thumb, it became clear that our objectives were not eye-to-eye. I told him I was leaving for Italy soon, and not looking to start something. He countered back with, "Technically, we've already had relations, so like it or not, we're already in a relationship."

"I'm fine as long as you don't actually say that to me," I told him, fighting down hyperventilation. (I think until this day he still didn't know that my body actually locked up when he said that "R" word and I could only breathe in shallow gasps for the next 5 minutes.)

"I didn't expect that to happen," he told me, and I swear to god I rolled my eyes.

"Oh, please. I knew it was going to happen. You don't think I go everywhere with an overnight bag, do you?" (Actually, that's a very smart idea, and do as I say, not as I do myself.)

"Ok, I had some idea when you came over that we would end up sleeping together, but I didn't expect anything other than that would happen. But what could go wrong in 2 months?"

"Oh, sweetheart, you don't know me."

Honestly, as in, 100% brutal, public honesty right here and now, I didn't expect anything to happen, either. Honestly, brutally, publicly, the only thinking I'd done about it, and about him, and about me previously was "You're hot. You're really, really hot, and I'm going to just keep having sex with you until you won't let me anymore, and then I'm going to point at you and say, 'Do you see that gorgeous man? Yeah, I tapped that,' and brush my shoulders off." That was my game plan. I wasn't initially serious. At all. I was just seriously horny. And was just thinking he was seriously hot. But he was also raising some good points, and I hadn't connected with anyone like that in...ummm...ever. So we decided to take things slow, until I went to Italy, or until we drove each other crazy, whichever came first. (Keep in mind, I'm a One-Month Girl, and Italy was 2 months away. I was hedging bets on it crashing and burning before then.) I was being honestly, brutally, totally myself. I wasn't playing games, and I wasn't going to sign on to something that I didn't see myself wanting to do. A lot of the time, women tweak aspects of themselves or their personalities to appeal more to men, but it was odd-- I hadn't done anything but be exactly myself with him. I had no ulterior motives. I wasn't trying to impress anyone-- in fact, I believe I tried warning him off. And strange thing-- he seemed to like that. He seemed to like me, the me that not even all my friends get to see.

So things progressed. I was spending at least a night a week at his place (he never even saw my place), meeting his friends, doing the not-dating thing. It was casual; it was comfortable; it was perfectly in my comfort-zone. One night, he called to see if I was doing anything more exciting than painting my nail and watching Sex and the City reruns. (Fact.) I wasn't, and he invited me to go with him to a friend's birthday party. I declined, saying that if it was just a party, I'd be up for it, but since it was this girl's birthday, I didn't want to show up as a stranger. It was like that, for awhile-- he'd say he was going to a show or concert, and I'd say I'd meet him after; he'd call and see if I wanted to spend the night and go to our morning class together, and I'd be already in bed and unwilling to get up and drive through the winter's chill just to get into his bed; he'd say he'd ditch bar night with the boys if I wanted to come over, and I'd decline saying that he needed boy time and I needed girl time (fact #2, and also, something very important to keep on your mind when you're under 21 dating someone over 21-- they need their bar time. And you can't go. So don't impede.)

I wasn't one of those girls who wanted to be included in everything, though I'd help break down a performance space and drive his buddies home if they needed a ride. I baked brownies to stay on his roommate's good sides, and tried to keep the late-night noise down. And then something odd happened-- I started to actually fall for him. It wasn't just about the sex anymore-- it was about his bookshelf. His vocabulary. The way if he tipped his head back and said "Oho!", you knew he was getting ready to contradict something you just said. The way he'd call, just to say hey, if he hadn't seen me that day. His eyelashes. The way we both regarded bantering as a form of foreplay. How he would personally say good-bye to my friends and check in to see what my plan was before we'd leave someplace. The fact that we functioned pretty well together and surprisingly had a lot in common. I started to actually say "yes" to those invitations. It wasn't all great-- we went through some shit that was rough and ultimately took its toll on us, but I started to think about not sabotaging it. Maybe, I don't know, but I've heard of this weird thing that normal, committed people do-- nurture it?

And then I went away. For 4 months. That's a long time. At first, we Skyped a few times a week, or, when I lost internet, we'd have trans-Atlantic calls. Some weeks, we talked constantly. Others, not so much. I was fine with it-- I was busy exploring a new place and leading a new life, and he was the first one to bite the bullet and say "I miss you," which went over really well with me, as I had tried to say it at the end of the conversation before, and literally had choked. But he got that. It was difficult, yes, but whatever it was, it was working ok for the situation, and ok for me.

After Spring Break, what had previously been a pretty steady stream of communication started to trickle down. It became harder to get a hold of him, which was hard and frustrating for me because it was also when I was having the most issues being abroad. I got public-ally felt-up and molested by a stranger. I got bronchitis, with no doctor, and no drugs. I was getting broke. I had to find someplace to live for the next year while across the ocean from America. I was planning my senior year and starting to think about grad schools. I was really homesick. And he just didn't feel "present" anymore. About this time was when I realized he was seeing other women, which explained a lot.

Italy proved to be my undoing. Not that I'd ever take the experience back for, literally, the world, but in the last few dozen days before coming back home and moving back to Burlington, I got more and more keyed up. The girl who previously wanted a very achievable, functional, next-to-nothing relationship now wanted everything. And wanted everything to go perfect. I wanted my fairytale ending-- a reward for all my hard work. I wanted to actually be able to say "relationship" without fainting. I found myself daydreaming about things like washing his dishes and grocery shopping. I started looking at music calendars for shows we both liked. I started calling back to the U.S, just to whine about how much I wanted to be gone, and be home. A lot. If I couldn't get through to him (which, by the point, was more un-often than not), I would call my closest guy friend, conveniently his best friend, and bitch. (I am so sorry.) In other words, I jumped the gun. Not just any gun. I jumped the Heckler & Koch G36. (And yes, go to that link and look at the photo so you can see just how far ahead of the horse I put the cart. That thing's a beast.)

I think I temporarily misplaced my identity with that of one of Mad Men's housewives.

I ended up becoming one of Those Girls-- one of the whiny, insecure ones who seeks constant validation from her partner because she's not secure enough in what she wants. And I ended up rendering myself wholly unattractive and pushing him away, before I even realized what I was doing. I effectively took that G36, and shot myself in the foot. Or, maybe the heart. (And this is now the part in which now that I've claimed my share, I also acknowledge that he was a particular dick for a bit, too. So it wasn't all him, but it wasn't all me, either.) I went from being someone who knew exactly what she wanted, and exactly what she was comfortable with, and exactly what was fair to ask or be expected, to someone whose thoughts on commitment and relationships flip-flopped every other day and was getting increasingly demanding while at the same time never being pleased with the results, even if they were exactly what I had asked for. I became (and I'll say it since I know you have,) a total, raging, whining, needy cunt-bitch. No, I wouldn't have wanted to be with me, either. In fact, I hated myself while I was doing that, but it was like a personal train wreck I just couldn't stop-- I'd built up enough momentum, it just had to run its course. Oh, how the mighty had fallen.

And this is what I have to say about this whole affair-- my Cliff Notes, if you will:

- Know what you want out of a relationship, always. It may change, but at no point should you be waffling around about it. If you are, it means you either don't want it enough to still be in it, or you're too confused about something in yourself to be a productive member of it.

- Do not, do not, DO NOT become someone who picks petty fights over text, or calls or texts numerous times a day for unimportant reasons. Here's an example of when it's ok to call and/or text more than a few times in one 24-hour period: Medical emergencies. If pertinent, timely plans have become subject to change. If you've just won tickets to a Philadelphia Eagles game. Here's when it's not ok: When you just want to "hear his voice." Again. 2 hours after the last call. When it's to say that you still haven't found your sunglasses, and can he please check his car again? When you know he's at work, or with his family. When you are drunk.

- When things change, you've gotta put the Big Girls pants on and talk about them. Things like emotions. Goals. Where you see yourself in a month, or 5 months. Where you see him in that. If you don't see him in that. If you'd like to see him in that. Mind-reading (still) is a lost art.

- After the break-up, wait it out. You're gonna be sore, and tender, and touchy, and bitchy for awhile. For maybe, a long while. Wait until you sort yourself out to sort anything else out. Maybe that's why I'm in such a total "no nothing" zone right now. No relationships. Nothing even casual. I just want to be me, and figure out what that means again, and not have to worry about anyone else. (Though, 2 months later, even when you're creatively slurring their name paired with rhyming insults at 3 AM, you're still going to be worrying about them. Worrying if their life's on-track. Worrying if they're remembering to feed the cat. Worrying if they're getting a chance to bitch about their work/parental/friend issues with a caring ear like they need to. Worrying if they're just eating pizza every night and haven't seen anything green or leafy in weeks. Worrying if they're happy. Not fair, and it sucks, but true.)

- In some wise dude words, "It's between you and him." Remember that. Act accordingly. At one time, you liked each other. You still might, half of the time. So be nice to his friends. Be nice to his property. Don't talk shit about him. Have some manners, and bitch about it with your roommate later. (All this personal informational is strictly for educational purposes, from my side of things. Another "do as I say..." moment.)

- Space, like silence, is sometimes golden in a relationship. You need time alone or with your friends. He needs time alone of with his friends. Doing everything together, or expecting to do everything together, is not sexy. It's suffocating. I never appreciated sleeping alone more than the nights after I spent the one before with him.

- Goddamn, it's a phone, not a texting device. That is still your cell phone. Stop with the day-long texting, and actually take 45 minutes to talk. It is so important. Honestly, that's one of the things that won me over and made me go from "just another bro" to "I'm really feeling this Joe."

- If you see yourself becoming that Crazy Bitch, please, for the love of god, try to stop or have someone step in and perform an intervention/exorcism.

That's what I have for you in hindsight. The rest, you'll have to take and make up as it comes along on your own. But believe me-- heed me. If I could go back, fix it, make it right, and take it seriously, I would. Maybe not now, but when I'm ready. Don't fuck yourself over, too. You deserve a whole hell of a lot more than that. You're all smart, pretty, fabulous girls. So start acting like it, and not someone else.

XOXO

The Liar and/or The Lover

Confession: I will read nearly every women's magazine I can get my hands on. I will even read magazines with women IN them, including but not limited to Playboy and Maxim. (Good articles.) So it should be no surprise that my mother co-signed me on for her free subscription to More, and when she and my father spent the night on our pull-out couch last night before flying out for Minnesota this morning, she left me July's O magazine. (Not, as some of you may think given some of my latest posts, "Orgasm" magazine. No, my confused flock, O as is "Oprah" magazine. Commence giggling here.)

Make fun of me all you want (insert hair-braiding, Nicholas Sparks movie-crying, Vera Bradley-loving snark here--), but when I started reading "How To Solve A Thorny Problem" by Martha Beck, I had a full-on, existential epiphany.

"'At first I thought Jack was just a rebound-dater wanting to make a conquest. But he's called every day since our first date, and he's really sweet. He remembers my favorite song, and he reads my blog-- I think we really connected.'

'Sounds like a dream come true.'

'On the other hand, he talks about his ex-girlfriend a lot, and he started hinting at sex 5 minutes after we met.'

'Bad sign. Don't let the whole "favorite song" thing fool you. He's just a player. He's thinking, Oh, yeah, I'm all that.'

'What if both things are true? Maybe he's a man-slut with a bruised ego trying to get someone in the sack, and he's a thoughtful person who really likes you?'" (All quote excerpts by Martha Beck, pg. 37, "O" magazine, July 2010.)

MIND. BLOWN.

I've been dedicating a lot of my (single) (precious) (unpaid) (non-White Collar-watching, though sometimes I space out during commercial breaks) time to doing the flower-NOT-included equivalent of "What The Hell Happened, And Did You Play Me, Or Play Me Not?" As evidenced in this post, I've been struggling with the repercussions of being with men like Jack, and having relationships in which, when they end messily, you look back and can't tell the forest from the trees, let alone the truth from the lies. So which do you choose? Was he a womanizing dick who "didn't care" what you thought, or was he the guy who would call to talk for over an hour "just because I didn't see you today"? And what happens when both actions come from the same man? As Beck says, "...Could they truly have the ideal of angels in their hearts and the morals of goats in their pants?" Is it split-personality syndrome, or just humanity? Which do you choose to believe in when actions and words cross, double-cross, and start knitting scratchy sweaters with each other?

As Beck points out, "If you scrutinize your own life, you'll find you do plenty of things that violate the dichotomies in your mind... We're considerate, selfless, and clever (except for the times we aren't). ...Are you good or bad, fragile or tough, wise or foolish? Your worst habits [are] both destructive and helpful." (Pg. 38 & 39.) We certainly can be our own worst enemies, and many a time have I either heard or said myself something along the lines of, "I wish I knew why I did this or were this way." "But," Beck points out, "things get complicated when you get... a mix IV drip of essential fluids and poison-- when a person or situation seems to provide necessary things like love and comfort but is also the source of pain and upset." Sound familiar? I'm sure we've all lived it. I know I have, over and over to no answered avail at all.

When we find ourselves in situations or with people who nearly seem to force us to choose between one extreme or the other-- love, or hate; help, or hinder; stick, or let loose-- it can be nearly impossible to reach one conclusion because one half of the equation will always be left with with an unsatisfying remainder-- he can't be all bad if he meant what he said here, and here, and here. I can't be too throughly fucked if I've gotten this positive feedback, and this, and that. It's not going to kill you if you learn this lesson, and so on, and so on. "What makes a both-and mind-set so powerful is that it takes you beyond the two choices you thought you had. It opens up new, previously unseen possibilities and opportunities."- Beck.

SO MUCH ZEN QUALITIES. SO MUCH FORGIVENESS. HOW CAN I POSSIBLY MANAGE IT? I'M ONLY HUMAN, WITH AN INCREDIBLY GOOD MEMORY FOR EVERYTHING THAT WAS SAID AND DONE. I'm not (unfortunately) a superhero. I am not the Incredible Forgiving Woman. I am not Buddha Girl. And you're saying I'm going to have to learn how to be? For my own happiness and good? And that of others? So I stop torturing myself endlessly on the mental rack?

Sound like a whole lot of talking yourself in circles so you end up with the conclusion you want, a la Greg Behrendt of "He's Just Not That Into You" get-your-head-out-of-the-sand tough-love? I was thinking this to myself cautiously when I came across this: "...One caveat to all duel-emma relationships: If you or the other person involved can't or won't admit the whole truth-- 'Yup, I have a Dr. Jekyll side, there's also a Mr. Hyde in here,'-- the relationship will become increasingly dysfunctional."

So, does this mean I didn't have a dysfunctional relationship? Does this mean I --gasp-- had a totally normal one instead? There was a lot of admitting going on. There were a lot of big, hairy, ugly truths. But I didn't fully admit to everything. I didn't fully admit to my bad behaviors, and my feelings, and my lies. Was I the dysfunctional part? Admittance is the first step, you say? When is it too late to start admitting? "It wasn't all you; some of it was me, and you should probably know about it, because I'm sorry it made me a raging, judgmental cunt, and I don't want you to spend the rest of your life thinking I got a partial personality lobotomy while abroad"? Something along those lines might suffice?

We're supposed to accept people for all that they are-- flaws and quirks non-withstanding. We do this with our friends, and our family, and our less-than-well-behaved pets, but don't seem to extend the same lax attitudes to our romantic relationships, while completely by-passing it for ourselves in the process. So instead of asking "Which is which, and what are you, really?" should I be instead saying, "This is all that makes up you, and this is all that makes up me, and this is the shit we have to address, talk about, and deal with," once I stop pointing fingers and take a long, hard look in the Morality Mirror myself?

So. The Liar and The Lover. You, or me? One in the same, or just a hopeless case? How does one decide?

XOXO

No Patience

Last night, my friend Patience played this song during her show at Parima. I'd never heard it before. And it made me tear up. To recap, I don't really cry, and I sure as hell don't cry in public. Her mom may have even seen it. Mortifying. But the lyrics and message in it are so important that I had to share it with you. So click that link.

To all of you girls reading this, I put that here for you. Because I want to remind you like Paish had to remind me to please remember: You're smarter and more unique and more special then the sum of all the people who have ever been too blind or distracted to see that and screw you over and let you go. Their words are their words and their actions are their actions, and please don't let anyone ever convince you that you are their problem. You --your time, your feelings, your mind, your words, your actions-- are gifts, and

not curses. You should

never have to answer to anyone who thinks any less than that.

That's a

lesson I'm still learning.

And I'm hurt still. Civility is a handy disguise, but I'm so awkward about it and unsure and treading lightly and some days I go to sleep missing you and some mornings I wake up so pissed at you I'm not sure I ever really want to make conversation other than "How are you?" again. And it's a two-way street. You deftly ended it with exactly the words you knew it would take to get me mad enough to go away (because burning bridges seems to be a specialty of yours), so if you decide you ever want to mend things, you're going to have to say those words, too. You worried about if I could ever cut you out of my life totally. I found I probably could. We always held that "stay friends" clause. It hasn't been upheld as of late. I never told you that things changed when I came back because I found how much you'd changed. (I, taking full responsibility for my actions here, never told you a lot of things in the entirety of our interactions.) I fell out of adoration with you. I settled somewhere around "disappointing." I don't know what happened to you, and I'm sorry if it's something I could have helped or even something I couldn't've have helped with, but I miss the guy who walked through the snow in November and respected me. I don't miss the guy who played the game like I was just a handful of cards to gamble and cash in. Because I'm better than that. I think you know it, but I just hope you know it, too.

That's all I have to say.

XOXO

Exes Undercover

Seeing people you used to be with is always really awkward. Like Miranda once said on SATC, I'd love to be one of those very forgiving and karmically correct people who can be all "We were; you enriched me; thank you," but I'm much more along the lines of her "You were in me; now you're not; you need to not exist anymore."

It's a small town, and it's bound to happen. But when you do finally bump into them, it's not like you can prepare for that sort of thing, especially if you're still smarting. I mean, you can have a general idea of how you want it to go-- no crying, no screaming, no resorting to physical violence; act with class and good manners, be a bigger person. But as for the minutia...no one ever manages to plan for the sudden shortness of breath, the shaking, or the feeling that due to the fact you are suddenly more aware of your massive heartbeats than you've ever been before, you're just going to keel over right now, into your Creme Caramel JavaKula, while an old tranny sits across the cafe in direct line-of-sight from you, meaning that he/she will be the last thing you ever see, and your headstone's epitaph will read: "Died before her time for her choice in men; but she had a glorious vagina."

No one, no one, not even decedents of Hitler or whoever invented Spam, deserves to go out that way.

So you end up reverting to some pretty (and petty) asinine behavior. Yesterday, while perfectly happy minding my New Yorker and coffee in Borders, I had one of those moments in life where something makes you look up just as someone else looks away from you. We both knew the other was there. And we both knew the other knew. But, instead of even looking up and waving through the window, I feigned massive ignorance and totally avoided doing anything altogether. It may have been a shitty move, and I realize this puts me back in the socially inept category of a 5 year old, but at the moment, I have no (civil) words, and my momma always told me if I don't have anything nice to say...

"At least," Alli pointed out, "you didn't pick up your magazine and block him with it as he walked out." Which I guess is true. It could have been worse.

But I'm glad to see I'm not alone in this. Later last night, while I was at Vermont Pub and Brewery, watching the Sox game and having dinner and a pint with Alli, she nudged me, and sotto-voice, said, "Look." I looked away from the screen, and immediately saw a wall of newspaper where the 20-something woman seated in front of us previously had been. Momentarily confused, I looked at Alli, wondering what about us the woman found so particularly offensive, then wondered if she was talking about us for some reason behind her improv screen, and then, as I was craning my head around, spotted exactly what made her go all Agent Undercover-- the waiter who was standing behind us. Despite her barricade, the waiter spotted her a few minutes later and went over, interrupting her and her new date, and through her forced, nervous, slightly-too-loud laughter and the "catch-up" chat, confirmed our suspicions. In an instant, empathetic moment, I got it. None of us-- none of us-- really know how to deal with this moment. This woman may have used the shielding technique that I maturely chose not to use in favor of the very classy "ostrich ignorance" maneuver (sarcasm is extremely heavy in that sentence, if you're not great on picking up on it), but from Burlington to Timbuktu, all of us are just freaking out alongside each other, and no one's mastered the art of acting gracefully under fire yet.

That's the problem with dating-- carnage.

So, I guess I'm sorry. Next time, I will actually acknowledge you and ask you how you are. But, if for some reason, I panic and you're met with a wall of newspaper or book cover instead, just know-- it's not just me.

XOXO

The Argument For Airline Alcohol.

Nothing screams, "AA, take note!" quite like sitting alone in the dimmed lights of an empty hotel room in Zurich with 3 beds, yet just yourself, trying, and failing, to write something of any decent mien, and instead, finding yourself Googling "What sort of vodka does Swissair serve?"

Ok, so, I know I've been a bit of a whiny bitch today. And I apologize. Really, I do. But after airport security makes you cry in a room full of people (horrifying), your flight gets delayed two hours and then lands only for you and 49 other tired, upset, homesick twenty-somethings to find out that SURPRISE, your plane left without half its passengers and you are now stuck in a neutral country 5 miles outside of the city for at least a night and the better part of the next day with no cash, no idea what language they're speaking or what exactly Switzerland is other than a place with great banks, lots of gold, and nice watches, and a feeling that the more times you instantly respond "Si," and "Grazie mille," that you are juuust at the tip of the culture shock iceberg...I defy you to step into those grody shoes and not feel just a little bit put out.

Short of begging, "Make it better, make it better, make it better," I really don't know what to do with myself. And then again, that doesn't so much involve me as it just involves someone other than me solving my problems. So, if you were one of the people who received a very whiny, bitchy, Chicken-Little-esque "The world is falling, and it's volcano ash on my head!" phone call from me today-- this is the part where I say, "I'M SORRY." Bear with me. I'm upset and alone and don't know exactly what it is I should be doing in this situation. (Mom, you're included in this, because even if you are my mother, I shouldn't make you feel worried that I'm about to take the closest boarding ticket stub and start sawing it violently across my wrists.) I'm just in an awkward place right now. I ran away from real life for three months, learned a new language that I habitually can't stop speaking, and now I'm scared to come back home, when yet, I'm just so tired of being on the road and in train stations and in taxis and waiting for planes to board and alternately being hassled by or hassling airport security that there is no place else I want to be, desperately. I'll say it again-- I'M SCARED. So although you may hate to lie, I guess right now that the best thing you could say is, "It's going to be ok." I won't fully believe you, and you won't believe yourself, but the point is-- someone has to say it, and as someone stuck right in the middle of it all who can't see up from down anymore, I can't.

That's a lot of confessions for the night, so I'm just going to go back to my little cliched tableau of writer, empty computer screen, and misplaced frustration. And the sound of the Absolut-shaped water bottle's neck clinking against the rim of the tumbler, the sound of glass on glass and the soft and reassuring glug, glug, glug that it whispers? Well, oh, temptation...now I completely understand why they serve copious amounts of alcohol on planes. Here's hoping I get mine tomorrow while reclining somewhere over mid-Atlantic.

XOXO

Of Fox And Men.

Easter Sunday was not the best holiday of my year so far. Then again, neither was New Years, or Valentine's Day, or April Fool's Day.

I was stood up, and fell off of the broken toilet seat in the little bathroom. Twice.

Yes, you are allowed to laugh about that, but I was pretty much done. Maybe this just isn't my year for the holidays. About the only ones that went somewhat according to plan were St. Paddy's Day and 4/20, if that tells you anything.

Fast forward two weeks later, and I was getting pretty much used to being stood up when I was stood up again. This time, as you may have guessed, it was by Middlebury Grad Guy, and it wasn't so much of "being stood up" as it was I decided it "wasn't worth calling" when he didn't. I didn't think much of it after the fact.

Surprise, surprise, a few days later, Middlebury Grad Guy sent me the following apology: "Hey Carissa, I wanted to sincerely apologize for not getting back to you about Boboli. I got really tied up that weekend, and after that I was too embarrassed to address it. So I'm really sorry and if we can't get together before you leave Italy; hopefully we can see each other in VT this summer."

Perfectly succinct, contrite, and polite. Nothing that would ever get your heart pounding or change your mind, however. I sent back something equally noncommittal about how it was no problem since I had a friend who unexpectedly dropped in that weekend (true,) and that if we didn't run into each other in the 20 days left in Italy, then maybe we would in Vermont (maybe not so true). In the past, I might have scoured every line to try to translate it into Girl Speak what he meant-- Did he really want to see me? Did he get "tied up"? Was he really embarrassed? Was he really sorry?-- but the amount (next to nothing) that I cared about these questions reaffirmed something that I once told myself: It's not worth wasting your time on someone that you're not completely into. Yeah, he's nice and smart and funny and not hard on the eyes at all, but he's just not the person I want to be with. So why try to make something happen if it's just not there? Done. End of story. I brushed my hands off, deleted the email after saving the copy here, and went back to the new chapter of my Single Girl life: getting used to being stood up or let down.

But what he said, or rather, how he said it, got me thinking. Apologies are funny things. I've been getting a lot of them lately, which has brought up the question: How many times can you accept an apology? How much can you put up with? Or, should you?

So, you're going to have to stick with me for this logic-jump, but I also just watched and fell in love with "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" the other night, and a scene from the movie in which Felicity Fox confronts Mr. Fox about lying to her re: stopping stealing shit explains the dynamics of an apology really well:

"I believed you. Why, why did you lie to me?"

"Because I'm a wild animal."

No, no...I'm not stopping here and just saying men are wild animals. (Though it can be true at times.)

"I'm trying to tell you the truth about myself."

"I don't care about the truth about yourself. This story is too predictable."

Someone is always going to want to explain the truth about themselves to you. Some will do it by not calling. Some will do it by sending a perfectly nice apology. Some will do it in their actions, or by their in-actions. Some will do it by not being there when they say they will be. And some will by doing exactly what they say they'll try to do for you. Your part in an apology is to decide whether to accept it or not. It's up to you to decide if you've heard too many apologies to continue to let someone slide by you, scott-free, by just saying "I'm sorry" without ever trying to change. It's up to you to decide if an apology is something that you, personally, can or cannot accept.

Just like a fox can't change his nature so easily, neither can people. It's deciding who, in the end, is still fantastic enough to keep around and have enough faith that at the last minute, they will change enough to come in and save the day.

XOXO