Pussy-Whipped: Not Just For Men.

Women, more so than any other creature on Earth, probably have the best hold on the sixth sense. Women have this knack for just knowing things-- like how your mother always knew when you were up to no good as a child, or how every woman, whether she plays deaf, dumb and blind or not, suspects when she's being cheated on. Hence, where women's intuition came from. Unfortunately for the holders of such intuition, as with any gift, sometimes you just try to deny what's right in front of you and kid yourself out of actually having to address what were formerly hunches into cold, concrete evidence. You know, the American way. Usually, this presents itself in perfectly sane and smart women going a little bit nutty when they don't want to admit to themselves that despite fighting the good fight, they have probably lost the battle. Not the whole war, mind you, but in this skirmish, their Custer fell. There will be no big calvary homecoming.

Last night, I found myself standing on the side of the curb in the dark, asking one of my closest guy friends, "How much of a fool am I?"

I like relying on men to back my hunches up because most men cannot lie in the face of a surprise question worth a shit. Now, I know you may like to think you do, but as an accomplished liar and someone who seems to seek out other liars for liaisons such as friendship, jobs, and relationships, everyone has their tell. Men's tends to be the widening eyes and flying eyebrows. The slightest slowness in answering tells you volumes. Also, rapid blinking, or lip-pursing once they have digested what you just said are are trying to give you the best and true advice possible without sending you searching for the nearest and highest bridge.

"I wouldn't say that you're a fool," my friend said, "but I think that you didn't need to do that."

About when the men in my life tell me that I've once again over-stepped the boundaries of sane human action is about when I start to admit defeat and face what I've been trying to hide from knowing inside my own head. My boys are my mirrors that I can't hide from. So I'll agree with them here: pussy-- either having one or getting it-- is enough to make you crazy. In the immortal words of the farmer in "Babe," "That'll do, pig-- that'll do."

In other news, the Hailey's Ungodly Comet of Exes (see: "Ghosts: Night of The Living Undead Relationship,") has cycled back around to Burlington and sent me an email, so something tells me that as always around this time, big changes are in the air. Every single time he has returned back to Burlington, regardless of if I decide to see him again or not, I am either settling into a relationship, or someone new is right around the corner, usually following on his tail by 2 or 3 days. And this is not any Red Sox statistics, here-- we're 4 for 4 with this sucker. Understandably, this fills me with a sense of impending doom-slash-skepticism. Nothing quite like being jet-lagged and having to say "No, thank you; go away," while keeping your wits about you. Again, past is past. On with the present and the future.

XOXO