"Well, It Seemed Like You Might Be Asking."

I had the most INTERESTING conversation with Perfect last night.

Firstly, yes, you read that right—your tired eyes are not deceiving you—a conversation (text, albeit,) was had. The first multi-text conversation since he left for college, and it lasted for 6 HOURS. (There was driving and eating somewhere in between there, so I’ll trim it to 4 hours, but still—6:30 PM through 12:30 AM.

YES.

Secondly, against all my better judgment, and all Caiti’s better judgment, Perfect may now have a slightly scandalous picture of me in his possession. Now, before you go all medieval and shit on me (yes, you, Caiti), let me start from the beginning and explain.

Yesterday, Alli, Melissa and I went to Montpelier and Worcester for an end –of-summer weekend blowout. We cleverly called it the “Girls’ MON(tpelier)-(Worce)STER Adventure.” We did all the things we normally do: blasted music, took gratuitous amounts of pictures and video, got coffee, climbed on cannons on the State House lawn and offended families with our sexually-themed poses, skipped gaily through Montpelier without a care in the world of being yelled at to get out of town by Perfect from Capitol Copy now that he’s three and a half hours away in Massachusetts, bombed down Route 12 into Worcester, took some more gratuitous pictures, stopped for gas, took two new “field trips” around Worcester to further adventure, went to the Pots, went skinny-dipping, were caught by a family, walked down the road naked, went to Dairy Crème, had to hold myself back from slamming my medium chocolate/vanilla with rainbow sprinkles twist into the face of the girl who served it to me…you know—the usual.

I should make an aside here so you don’t assume I’m a normally violent or vindictive person. Although I love the ice cream at Dairy Crème, I fucking hate their wait-staff. It seems as though every girl who has ever left a flirty or potentially loaded comment on Perfect’s Facebook wall insinuating SOMETHING works there. Really. And the one who handed me my ice cream cone yesterday was the same girl who posted lyrics to a bump-and-grind song that due to the content that followed afterward, I can only assume she and Perfect ground it out together to some night this past summer. I know, I know….assuming makes an ass out of “u” & “me,” but really—I know Perfect. I know how he loves to dance. I know how he loves to grind. I remember his caveat to me of, “I see pictures later and I’m just like, “whoa, it wasn’t like that!” You know? It’s just dancing.” Yeah, it may just be dancing, but I am a dancing fool who loves to dance just as much as he does, and you know the only people I really grind with? People who I’d let get into my pants, because they might as well be, anyway.

It wasn’t that whole fiasco so much. I’ve gotten past (most) of my issues concerning what may or may not have happened, and channel it in a productive way: I downloaded that song onto my iPod, and when I’m running at the gym, if I start to think I won’t make it another quarter-mile, I put it on. And thinking about it, imagining them fused at the pelvis, well…that burns me through the next quarter-mile with energy to spare. It works. So it wasn’t so much THAT, as the fact that as she reached out, cone in hand, our eyes locked as I realized who she was, and her eyes flashed in recognition of who I was, and then…she smiled at me. This really nice, friendly smile that said, “oh, hey! I know who you are! We have friends in common.” And I just wanted to reach over the counter, grab her by her hair, and smash her forehead repeatedly against said counter with an identical perky smile on my face that said, “Oh, I know!”

But my whole psychotic tirade is an aside to the point.

While at the Pots, Melissa took a picture of Alli and me standing in our towels in front of the swimming hole and waterfall. And yeah, ok, so we may have been obviously not wearing bathing suits because of our blatantly bare backs, but I didn’t think much of it, because I sent it to Perfect later while we were at Dairy Crème with a note attached saying, “Wish you were here! (It’s fucking cold!)” Previously, I had fired off a spur-of-the-moment and not really seemingly important text that we were running a bet, and could he finish of one of the gigantic Dairy Crème large ice cream cones? When he replied back to that verbosely and in multiple sentences and thought processes, it was obvious he was feeling chatty. Maybe that’s what us going five days without talking to each other will do for him. I decided that hey, still parked in the Dairy Crème parking lot while Little Miss Pelvic Thrust was watching us through the glass service window, it would be a good time to send him that picture. So I did.

I should realize by now that Perfect is one of those very few people in my life who always manages to shock me. If I think it’s one way, he’ll be thinking in another direction. If I say “up,” he’ll be thoroughly “down.” When I finally get exhausted from being constantly on my tip-toes and throw in the towel and least expect it is when he always seems to pounce, and it always knocks me off guard. He knows exactly how to push my buttons, in what order, and how I liked them to be touched.

“That’s nothing! I’ve seen better pics!” he said.

At first, I was shocked. Then, affronted. Then, realization dawned and I realized what I had meant to be a friendly photo of something familiar and an “I’m thinking of you” was taken to a “yeah, I’m familiar with your naked back and now I want to think of you fully nekkid” level.

“Hahaha, please,” I texted back after I had recovered. “That was just supposed to be a pic from home. Believe me, if I were going to send you pictures to get your pulse racing, I’d know to send a better one than that.”

Perfect, in full button-pushing mode, called my bluff and raised me. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ve sent some well-appreciated pictures before, but only to the very, very good, and the very, very lucky.”

“Haha. Very, very?”

“A girl’s got to be discerning,” I texted back, with the sort of Victorian haughty sniff that I hoped he caught on to. “Can’t just give them away, you know.”

And then Perfect said the thing that just literally blew my mind right out of the water. “Haha, true, but I have had sex with you!”

Excuse me. Gentlemen in the room? Please stand up. Oh, Perfect, I notice you’re NOT standing? Good boy. Right answer. Although yes, I will admit, it, ahem, got the ocean below rolling when he said this (ohhh, I’m so easy), it got both my libido and pride going in tandem.

“So what?” I asked, maybe a little forcefully; I don’t know, you tell me after you read this. “You want a picture? Do you think you’re very, very good or very, very lucky? Just because I’ve had sex with you doesn’t mean you get a complimentary picture. What’s in it for me, hmm?”

I like to pack as much sass as I can into my 5-foot-3-inches as I can. Sass is something that I feel Perfect doesn’t get enough of in his daily diet. He’s more used to things and/or women just falling over in front of him. I don’t like to fall. As evidenced by the above.

There was about twenty minutes of silence from his end in which I started to worry if I had completely called our little game of non-penetration stimulation off with my loads of…sass. Up until this point, Perfect had been texting back seconds after I sent him a text. (I love that promptness. Nothing says “I’m home in my dorm room and bored and horny” more than a very prompt response. I live for those prompt responses. They are one of my favorite things. Especially if the subject matter built around them is naughty by nature.)

I also started to worry that I may be on the receiving end of a dick-a-licious picture text. So I did what was natural: called in a girl friend’s expert advice. Between the two of us, Caiti and I reached a decision: make sure he’s alone, is sober, and promises to not show any sent pictures to anyone else. Trust is key. Also, DON’T SEND ANYTHING WITHOUT GETTING SOMETHING FIRST. Also, men’s idea of sexy tends to be, literally, balls-to-the-walls. Men have, do, and will continue to think that sending pictures of their packages is hot. They expect titty shots in return. Women, on the other hand, think there’s nothing more tasteful and teasing than a pretty, sexy, and pretty sexy lingerie shot to get things rolling. Women tend to send progressive pictures, each with less clothing than the last. Again, it’s about building both trust and suspense. Men tend to go BAM! There it all is, all at once, and all in the front.

Understandably, I was having some performance-anxiety issues with the idea of actually having to send Perfect a picture if that’s what it came down to. The whole “I’ve seen better” had started to churn around in my head. A.) Oh, really? How many girls are sending you nudey-pics, Mr. Perfect, and B.) What is he used to getting, and so C.) What does he expect? Don’t get me wrong—like I told him, I’m not new to this. And my pictures in the past have been well-appreciated. I also have a nice stash of some pictures already on my cell phone’s memory that I took when Perfect and I were officially together on my birthday, the night that he was supposed to be able to spend the night but ended up not being able to. Let’s just say, the money I dropped in Victoria’s Secret that day was not wasted that night. He had asked for pictures that night, as well, but I heeded the advice of a different Caitlin—Cait—and kept them to myself. But this was an issue of: if he were to send a picture of his artillery, what the fuck was I supposed to counter with? This snatch ain’t seeing a cell phone camera, HELL to the NO.

Instead, I got a different kind of response: a major scale-back. After I read the sassy response out-loud to Alli and watched he face go shocked and slack-jawed, I had started to draft a clarification, but Perfect beat me to it. Wounded. (I forgot he was sensitive. Oops.) A bit affronted. Hurt pride. “LOL, I don’t know. LOL. I wasn’t asking.”

“Oh, well, that last text was supposed to be teasing, not harsh. Text doesn’t translate tone well, hahaha. And I seemed like you might be, so I was trying to decide if you were good or lucky.”

“Haha, am I good or lucky?” AHA. There we go. Back where I wanted. Good save! Carissa fumbles the come on, but recovers it to score a touch-down response somewhere in her end-zone. (Excuse me for a moment. I love football and sexual football metaphors.)

“Well, from what I remember, you were good, and I’d say you’re pretty lucky, but it all depends on a few things.”

“Like what?”

“Are you asking now, for starters?”

“Well, I am if you’re offering, haha!”

Oh no. I wasn’t going to let him escape with this one, oh no. This was not my horny little doing, my friend. His sex-mind was what got us here in the first place. I was just doing a “friendly” thing, which he turned into a “hey, we fucked and I’d like to see where we can still go” thing.

“You were the one who brought it up. And you should know this isn’t a one-way thing. If I send you something, I expect something in return. Can you deal with those terms?”

“Well, I’m not in a place I can do that now with my two roommates in the room, so I guess that means tonight’s a no, haha.”

My libido cried at the same time I considered saying, “That’s what cars are for. Or bathrooms. Or vacant rooms. Or a dark bike-path devoid of passers-by.” Instead, I reigned it in, leaving him to do the thinking on his own.

“Aww, that’s a shame. Well, if you get creative, let me know. I’m down for it.”

“LOL, alright.”

I put down the phone.

An hour later, still thinking about it, I picked it back up, took advantage of Perfect’s now 24/7 coverage that was the only thing that kept me from doing naughty things like this when he lived at home in Worcester, and sent him one of the pictures I took the night of my birthday. Before you kill me, especially Caiti—let me explain. It’s tasteful. I’m covered in a pink-orange lace teddy and flouncy matching underwear. I’m wearing heels that make my legs look a deceptive mile long. The lighting is low, I’m tan and toned, and half of my face is covered by my hair. It’s very Victoria’s Secret catalog, maybe because the lingerie IS Victoria’s Secret. I figure, give him something to think about so he doesn’t go off texting those other little hussies who will apparently send him pictures no questions asked. (To this, I think, really? I can’t see One Time Girl firing off candids of her boobs, so who does that leave? Dairy Crème girls? Grrrrrrrrrr…)

“There’s a little something to start you off,” I told him. “I’m making you a tab. I expect you’ll pay it off when you can. Sweet dreams.”

“Haha, oh, that’s a little better,” Perfect responded back.

“Well, enjoy it killer, because that’s all you get fo’ free, hahaha,” I said. He remained quiet for the next twenty or so minutes, which from previous knowledge is about the time we’ve decided it takes for him to sneak off to whack off. When he texted me back, it made me hoot with raucous laughter.

“Haha, who took that? LOL.”

Now, Mr. Perfect, you can hide behind your “haha”s and your “LOL”s, but really, by now, I know that’s how you dress up, disguise and hide what you’re really trying to say when you’re a little bit unsure of how it will go over. And this “Haha, who took that? LOL,” had concern, jealousy, and just the right amount of delicious male possession all over it. I couldn’t resist baiting him a little more. So easy.

“Hahaha—one of my other lovers. No, I took it myself. I’m holding my cell, see?” And it was true. Almost front and center in the picture, shining in my hand was my cell phone, outstretched to catch my image in my mirror. (Yes, I had to Myspace it up to take the picture in the first place—I’m so, so sorry.) But it felt good knowing my nearly naked body was so captivating he didn’t even notice it until I pointed it out.

“Haha, oh, ok.” Blatant relief.

So. Excuse me, again. Here I am, thinking he’s sleeping around with all the new freshmen girls, getting ready to expect the worst, and yet, apparently, he’s still feeling possessive over my body and worrying about other people seeing it? What is not adding up here? Could Perfect be—gasp—holding on, too? I try not to lead my train of thought down that road, but really—what gives for his concern and desire to make sure I am not passing myself around like I am thinking in a worst-case scenario he is passing himself around?

As I told the lovely Miss Sarah, men are hounds. I like to keep this in mind, which may not fit with the whole "think positive" thing I was supposedly trying to, but I always, ALWAYS keep a little part of my mind that tells me, "He's off sleeping with another girl. Right now. Possibly, two. Possibly, he's sleeping his way through his college/local bar/city/gym."

I have found that if I keep this possibility in my mind, I am never quite so shocked and pissed off as I would be if I didn't consider it a possibility in the first place, or train myself to expect it.

Maybe it's teaching men a bad thing, though. Maybe it's teaching them that we expect bad behavior from men. But honestly, even while I'm intimately texting or talking to Perfect, I can't help but wonder what other girls he's also texting/talking to/looking at pictures of. Maybe I'm guarded. Maybe I am a pessimist at heart. But maybe, it's also smart.

I would cry “double standard” if it wasn’t for the fact that this new development makes me feel deliciously tingly inside. Perfect is still somehow, even just a little bit, attached. Hostage relationship, we have a win!

XOXO

The Montpelier and Worcester Diaries: Naked Tuesdays, Now With More Naked. And Bears.

[This is how Perfect makes me feel most of the time-- upside-down and deliciously light and airy.]

Sometimes, procrastination is a good thing. Sometimes, by fluke, happenstance, or fate, my procrastination genes just take over, and then things occur to which my procrastination cocks its’ little head at me and says, “See? Aren’t you glad you waited?”

This is one of those times. The scoop I had for you Tuesday night is nothing compared to the scoop I had for you today. Or, for that fact, all that is STILL nothing compared in light of what just happened an hour ago.

Procrastination: Making me a better blogger. Truth. But for this entry, we’ve got to go back in time a little bit for it to all make sense.

Monday, August 17th, 2009, night:

It has been six days, 300 miles, six hours, and two states away from each other since I have spoken to Perfect. After fleeing from Burlington home, and from home to Saugerties to help my trainer get her L judging license, and then gone back home and after dragging feet and heavy heart, made it back to Burlington, I, although not completely at peace with him, have calmed down enough to realize that I can still be angry and miss him at the same time, and maybe it’s time to start mending some bridges hastily burned. I send him the world’s most simple text to bridge that gap of silence that has lain uncomfortingly, heavily, and ominously between us:

“Hey killer.”

I go to Cait’s to help her sort through the latest miscommunication mess with her boyfriend, and while there, receive a text back from Perfect. In the heat of the heated moment with Cait, I look at the display on my phone that shows his name and throw it back into my bag with a disgusted, “You. I don’t want to talk to you now.” Cait gives me a look that merits an explanation for me, and she hears out my disgruntled raging at one of her best friends with the calm air that I had previously been reserving for dealing with her.

“He’s just like that sometimes—he clings for awhile, and then he needs his space. It’s not you; it’s him. It’s something that he does. And he was clinging to you when you were together—I’ve never seen him cling that hard to a girl he’s seeing ever before.”

Hmm. Food for thought.

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009, midday:

I am having a picnic on my bed. It’s Naked Tuesday, and I have a spread of all things good to eat and Season Four of SATC, which I swear I will run down the laser imprints on “Ghost Town” and “Baby, Talk Is Cheap” with all the watching that I’ve been doing in, oh, the past two months.
I pause the screen on Carrie’s email to Aiden, and re-read it for what must be the 50th time, feeling it hit all the same old familiar chords of, “Amen, sister!”

“Another big problem—I’m surrounded by memories of you…in my apartment, on the street, that little Moroccan restaurant we ran into when it started pouring rain on us and you kissed me over the cous cous. (Rookie tactical mistake not to have a memory-free environment. Why did we have to go so many places?) Anyhow, I’m not holding out hope that you’re going to change your mind about us. You probably have a new girlfriend now, or several new girlfriends, and I missed my window and I’ll just have to live with that. …Because I know now (too little too late, or better late than never?) that what we had was real and rare and special, and they way it felt to kiss you is the way I always want to feel.

I hope you write me back, but if you don’t, I understand. Just know that I’m thinking about you, and I miss you, and I’m still sleeping on your shoulder when I close my eyes at night.”

In the middle of this, I realize that maybe it would be a good start to text Perfect back and let him know I’ll be in town today to go swimming. His response startles me into fits of glee and hope the likes of which I haven’t seen in myself since the no-baby culmination of last summer’s pregnancy scare.

“Man you guys pick the worst days! Lol, I am seeing my friend for the last time and then hanging with my friends from Mass! Lol.”

His frustration, despite the LOL’s to lighten it, was palpable.

“Hahaha, then it really is the universe’s timing fault and I’m not being crazy and you’re actually not also being a crazy person and avoiding me?” I asked, giddy with glee.

“I am so busy!” he replied.

I called him on the fact that that wasn’t a real answer, though thanked him for refraining from commenting on the me being crazy bit, and we continued seriously talking about our lack of good timing/seeing each other for awhile, among other things. At one point, while discussing packing for his departure to college, he replied to my observation that packing is always the hardest with a, “No! I am a guy, remember?”

“Hahaha, yes,” I told him. “I think we established that fact.”

It was the first time since the dissolution of our mutual union (how many different ways can I say “break up,” I wonder?) that the fact we had in fact, seen each other naked and had sex came up. For two very flirty and sexual people, it was the equivalent of jumping on thin ice, especially since we used to be champion sexters. I wondered if he thought it was as big a step for us as I did.

I ended the conversation a little after, citing the fact that I had brownie cupcakes to go bake. “If I don’t see you today, see you soon?” I asked after we both decided that since my timing for visiting him always seemed to suck, it was on him to plan the timing from now on.

“I will try for it,” he answered, and he meant it.

It was further drilled in when I closed with an “ok killer—later,” and he did something he hadn’t done in a few weeks—sent me back a closing statement of his own, a nice little wrap-up, the bow on the top of the conversation.

“Later.”

Trying from him is all that I ask for—if you try and it still falls through, than oh well—at least I know the thought is there. I sat back at the end of our lovely three hour conversation, and I felt good. We had discussed what I wanted to with him, and had assured each other that avoidance was not the issue here—timing was. I wanted to see him. He wanted to see me in return. We were both being logical and grown-up about discussing things in a mutually beneficial way. Finally, I was doing things right.

It wasn’t until a half an hour later that I realized we had just had another very “relationshippy” talk. Too “relationshippy” for two people not in a relationship. Stumped, I sat back and surveyed the facts. We talk almost every day for hours. We still, with varying degrees of success, want and try to see each other. We still work through our problems respectfully, commitedly, and truthfully. We are, basically, still in a half of a relationship, just minus all the fun parts, like sex and sharing a bed and shower.

“Just resign yourself to the fact you’re stuck with me and everything will be so much easier,” I wanted to say. “Why are we not together?”

Really—why are we not together?

Naked Tuesday, AKA: Tuesday evening:

Last Tuesday, Naked Tuesdays came to be as a sort of inside joke between Alli and I. While we were at the Pots in varying bad moods over the weather and situation Perfect had put us in earlier by basically what was taken to be blowing us, or, well—me especially—off, we had snarkily been joking around about how if he did in fact make his way the arduous half a mile down the road to the swimming hole, he would find our clothing splayed over my Civvy’s hood and jump to the conclusion we were skinny-dipping. Which would lead to him dropping trou immediately and then crashing into the woods to find us, in fact, clothed. Which would lead to some hapless giggling from me, who has, after all, seen it all before, and if I can’t pounce on his naked form, at least give me some hysterical laughter about the absurdity of the situation of there being a ready and willing woman and no boning to be had. And Alli would merely, in her cattily sardonic way, raise a lofty eyebrow and say, “Heeeey, Perf. What is it, Naked Tuesday?”

(This, by the way, is still one of my favorite mental-picture daydreams. Because it could really happen. And this is exactly how it would go.)

We ended up instating Naked Tuesdays as a tradition of our own when we, as usual, got naked on the side of the road to change after swimming. So it was only logical that this Tuesday, the fledging tradition would carry on. And you know, since we’re on a secluded back road, why not dare to go topless? I hate those tan-lines, anyway. And if you’re topless…why not just be naked?

Skinny-dipping isn’t new to me. I’m from the land of the hippies, born from hippies, grown up in a Naked House, and befriend by skinny-dipping fanatics. An exhibitionist by nature, it doesn’t take much to convince me to get naked. The feel of water on bare skin is amazing, despite the fact I am pretty sure my tits made like balls and curled into my body once submerged in the I-can’t-even-explain-to-you-how-chilly water, because they were definitely more small and perky than I remember them ever being on warm dry land. Like every other relationship, you need to take your roommates out of the apartment too, for some quality bonding time. So it was, however, my roommate Kim’s first time skinny-dipping, and when she and Alli both realized that along with the fact it doesn’t take much to convince me to drop my garments, it also doesn’t take much to convince my naked ass to do stupid, naked things, they dared me to go streaking down the road to the car for the camera.

Let me state now that what Alli and I, in the four previous times we had swam at the Pots, had only watched a grand total of two cars pass by. Already today, in our Naked Tuesday adventure, there had been five. I considered it only a chance on time before the next passed. But hell—gas money and an ice cream were on the table for me. I really did need that gas, and I’m never fool enough to pass on ice cream. (I am a woman, you know. The Holy Trinity in life is SATC, sex, and ice cream. And if I can work all three to coincide together, all the better.) They would allow me my bottoms, just for propriety’s sake, but these were my mom’s vintage teal string bikini bottoms, and damn is the elastic on those weren’t finally giving in to Father Time and refusing to stay on or anywhere around my ass when I was doing anything other than stand still. Diving and say, running, made them flee for the safety of my ass-cheeks faster than you could say “thong,” and I’ll be damned if I was going to waltz slowly down that dirt road, which would be karmically begging for someone to drive by.

Instead, I clutched “the girls” and ran, scaring the shit out of the neighbors’ dog as I came tearing down the road, one arm thrown across my bouncing chest, the other flailing with my car keys. The poor dog crashed out of the bushes on the other side of my road from my car, took one look at me, jumped straight up in the air three feet, and then turned tail and booked it back home. I don’t blame it—wet, cold, half-naked, and with my bikini bottoms hiding somewhere the sun don’t shine, I would have ran from me, too. And of course, right as I scrambled back down the hill to the swimming hole with camera held triumphantly in hand, a car passed. Well, I hope they enjoyed that sight.

All toll, seven cars passed that evening, including one that may or may not have been John, Knight in Shining Honda Armor’s mother. So, seeing as Worcester is an exceedingly small town, I feel confident saying roughly half of the town has now seen me naked. Well, that’s certainly a way to get my name or, um, body out there for general knowledge. Take that, Worcester girls! Do you have an ass like this?

The evening was further drawn to a close and a conclusion of theme of “What The Fuck?” when, while driving away into the growing blue and blackness of the night on Minister Brook Road, as we were all singing along to Big & Rich’s “Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy,” (one of my newly re-claimed favorite songs,) a ginormous black bear loped across the road in front of me. Luckily, Alli was in the middle of filming one of our infamous travel videos, and she caught the sound, at least, on tape, as the three of us started shrieking like, you guessed it—girls. Actually, I was doing a sort of voice undulation from shriek to bellow. “BEAR! THAT was a BEAR! That was a MOTHERFUCKING BEAR!!!” About 30 seconds of girlishly flurry and exclaiming later, the car once more descended into silence, and then we all picked up at the next chorus with nary a word about the wildlife. Another example of why women adapt to change so much more quickly than men. All the men I know, especially some of the men I know, Perfect included, would be back on the side of the road where the bear ran into the woods again, tire irons in hand, making plans on how to best subdue said bear with their bare hands, debating the manliness of the situation. My roommates and I, on the other hand, had had enough “bareness” in our day to let the bear become an interesting side-note and go on with life.

Earlier, when we passed the gas station/convenience store in Worcester, I had noticed, (ok, maybe not so much “noticed” as “saw and started wailing,”) that Perfect’s 4Runner was parked in the parking lot with “For Sale” signs on both driver’s side window and windshield. Other than the fact that I am inexplicably attached to this car that has tormented me so much because, although they say that every third car in Vermont is a Subaru, let me tell you—another every third car in Vermont is a Toyota 4Runner, and roughly half of them are from around the same era or color that Perfect’s trusty, growly 4Runner is, and I see them EVERYWHERE, it also brought up the question of, well, if we had been looking for the 4Runner in Montpelier all afternoon, and it was here…what was Perfect driving? Damned questions aside, I gazed longingly at the hulking shape across the dark lot as I fueled up. Alli noticed my longing . “I don’t think I’m going to get to christen it,” I told her, a hint of desperation clinging in my voice. “He and I talked about it, but I don’t think it’s going to happen before it gets sold. It’s going out there, to someone else, undefiled!”

“Or you could see if it’s unlocked and roll around naked in it,” she said, trying to cheer me up.

Once with gas in the tank and all members of Apartment 607 and the excursion back into the car, I drove across the lot to linger by the 4Runner’s side. If you haven’t caught on by now, I’m a car girl. I’ve always been hopelessly attached to cars, starting back in my childhood when I named the family station wagon after the car in “Robocop” and clung to its back bumper sobbing when my parents traded it in. Now, I channel my interest through more productive ways, such as reading “Car and Driver” and “Road and Track” magazines and identifying all the parts under the hood of the Civvy and talking shop with my male friends and mechanics. (Though I still do name all my cars.) As I idled next to the 4Runner, Alli, once again playing devil’s advocate, looked over at me. “Do you have lipstick with you?”

“Of course,” I said, a little affronted. I may know where to find an engine belt, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a girl! “I’ve got my make-up bag in the back seat.”

“Kiss his windshield,” she urged. “He’d love it. C’mon.”

“I think I’ve already done enough reckless behavior today. I think that may be pushing it.”

“Come on. You’ve done this much. Might as well top it off. It’d be great. I dare you.”

If you can’t tell, daring me gets shit done. I slicked on MAC “Lustering” and smacked a kiss against the driver’s side window right over the white paper with the price on it. “And if he asks if it was me,” I told Alli as I jogged back to the Civvy and slid in, slamming the door, “I’ll say it was for good luck to get it sold.” Not.

I went home, and, still elated and a little punch-drunk from my afternoon of bliss and daring, left Perfect a Facebook post, of course. “Ohhh lordy, Mr. Perfect, when you miss things, you REALLY miss things. Well, roughly half of Worcester has now seen me bare-ass naked, and I scared someone’s dog to hell and back by accident when running down the road. And did you know, you live near very large black bears? Because guess what? One ran into the road in front of me. (All involved are fine. Though there was lots of screaming.) Can you beat that evening?” (Please keep this post in mind. It is very important later in this continuing story.)
It wasn’t until the next morning, standing in the shower, that I realized this Naked Tuesday had been the 18th—the two month anniversary of the Great June ’09 Downsizing of Perfect and I.

Thursday, August 20th, 2009:

While walking downtown with Emily and relaying the events of Naked Tuesday with her, the point came up that Perfect had never, in fact, responded to my Facebook post. This is nothing new, however—even when we were together, he would rarely respond. In fact, he only ever sent me a grand total of two Facebook messages. So I generally don’t sweat it, other than being minorly pissy about it to myself at odd moment, like when I’m standing in my closet, putting my jewelry on and it pops into my mind. However, Emily is affronted.

“He could at least text you in acknowledgement or something, even if he doesn’t post back!” she told me. “I mean, really—he likes to text you—can’t he at least give you a “hey, got your post—sounds like an interesting time,”?!”

I’m more blasé about this, but let me tell you something now, because this little demand of Emily’s also becomes quite important a little later on—the Universe is manifesting right now, right this second. I know you may not be into New Age-y shit like this, but I am, and I’m telling you, it’s true. So open your mouth. Tell it what you want. It’s listening right now—make your demands and prepare to be surprised.

Friday, August 21st, 2009, midday:

I am sweaty and sore from the gym, unshowered, disgusting in the midday humidity and muggy heat, and sitting on the porch of a campus dorm with Cait, listening to her tell me how everything is now great with her boyfriend. I refrain from saying “I told you so” in a fifth grade cadence. Instead, I decide that as long as we’re talking about The Boys We Were Previously Mad At, I may as well tell her Perfect and I talked and made up. As I explain to her our conversation, I start to see an odd light in her eyes, and Cait begins to wiggle like, again, a fifth grader, waiting to be excused for a potty break. I know this particular wiggle. She’s got something to share with the class.

She lets me finish my story and then quickly and almost breathlessly adds in. “Girl Who Slept On The Couch The Night You Slept With Perfect is mad at Perfect for the way he’s been treating you,” she says in a tumble of words.

“Oh?” I ask. Girl Who Slept On The Couch The Night I Slept With Perfect is now—haha, how funny life works out sometimes—now a casual friend of mine through Cait and Perfect.

“Yeah. I guess he was talking to Joellen about you and she told Jordan and Jordan got mad at him.”

Her wigglyness is putting her in danger of falling off the porch’s railing by now. My curiosity is piqued as well. “Oh, do tell,” I implore her.

“I guess he was talking to Joellen about how “oh, there’s this girl that I really like hanging out with and I really like her and being with her, but we just never see each other and I’m always busy when she’s around.” And Joellen was like, “well, you need to not be busy and you need to see her if you like her. And stop being stupid about it.” And then Jordan ripped him a new one and was like, “she still likes you, so stop being stupid and making excuses and see her again.” And I want to talk to him about it, too,” she added, spent from carrying the information so long before getting to deliver it, sighing contentedly.

Let me recap, here: Joellen is Perfect’s oldest girl friend, a partner in crime since they were both knee-high. She’s the friend I was supposed to meet the day of the “Save Our Style” clothing debacle, and the friend that Perfect always said I would get along with famously because we’re so similar. With Baby Mix back down South where he goes to school, John pretty much convinced I am great and Perfect is stupid for being stupid and letting me go, and Cait having conflicting interest, Joellen is who Perfect is left with for the whole “confiding things”.

Thankfully, Joellen is a girl, and like most girls, can’t keep something to herself when she feels strongly about it. And again, thankfully, we have mutual friends all too eager to beat the tom-toms and pass the word along. So, long story short: Perfect, after re-immerging from his “I’m a painfully practical man and I’d rather deny myself my feelings than get hurt” two month stupid-coma, managed to confide to someone who, despite never meeting her, likes me enough to beat him senseless with female logic and pass the word on to another girl who also beat him senseless for it, who then got the news to Cait who made sure to deliver it to me.

Now it was my turn to almost fall off the railing.

I vibrate home with happiness and mentally start to conduct my speech for the next time I see Perfect. It begins with a crooked smile and an “Are you done being stupid now? You wasted two perfectly good months of summer you could have been getting spectacular regular sex and having fun, you know,” and ends with something like, “why don’t we give it a try? It doesn’t have to be serious or a relationship—it can be casual. I have no disillusions that you’re not going to be meeting new people and flirting, and so am I. But I get out of classes Friday afternoon, have weekends off, and don’t have to be back until midday on Mondays. I could probably visit you twice a month, if you’d come up once a month. We can see how it goes, and then decide from there if it will work, or if no harm, no foul, it won’t. Honestly, we might as well.” In the middle, there’s a bit of “I’ve missed you; you apparently still want to see me and aren’t over me; maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be; we talk all the time; we might as well still be together for everything we do…yadda yadda yadda.” You get the drift. You’ve heard it all before. Now it’s time for him to hear it.

I'm hoping to win him over with faultless logic and sparkling charm. You know, the things he likes.

Or, if that doesn't work, a sneak-attack on his libido. Which he also likes, too. I figure it's all a win/win.

Friday, evening, Return of the Sexter:

Friday afternoon, Alli convinces me to go see “500 Days of Summer.” It was phenomenal and witty and stirring, but that’s beside the point. The point is, I ate movie theater popcorn again, and when I came home later, became disgustingly sick. I have since reached the conclusion that movie theater popcorn is not compatible with clean, body-is-a-somewhat-holyish-if-just-admiring-shrine well-eating Carissa’s digestive system that is used to things like home-cooked pasta and things without preservatives or many chemicals. Clean, gym-worshipping, well-eating Carissa, devoid of marijuana, fast food, microwavable shit, and high calorie snacks, just isn’t made to eat that anymore, and let me tell you—my body lets me know. Racked up with pain on my bed, cold-sweating profusely while burning up, trembling, and nauseous to smell, sound, and light, in boxers, a bra, and bun, blanket over me and fan directing cold air at my prone body, I texted Perfect, the person I always go to with my gym-related questions. “I don’t suppose with your cast-iron stomach there are any foods you can’t eat after going to the gym because they make you feel nauseous and break out into cold sweats and tremble?”

I passed out for 45 minutes, waking up when he texted me back after he got out of work. “Lol, nope!”

“Awww, fuck, then I’m actually ill,” I found it somewhere within myself to will my thumbs to text back. “You were supposed to say something like, “of course—eggs make me want to die” or something!” (Note the exclamation point in my text. I was obviously feverish, because since Perfect, I usually abhor them and leave them out of my punctuation and up to him.)

“Sorry, yeah, sometimes it’s not good to work out and then eat right after!” (See what I mean about leaving him the exclamations points?)

“I didn’t—I ate 3 hours later but apparently movie theater and Skittles on an empty and freshly worked-out stomach is a no-no. Imagine that.”

“Oh, wow, I don’t know, then!” And now, ladies and gentlemen, for what you’ve been remembering those two previous Important Things To Remember For: “What was that message about you being naked and seeing a bear about? Lol.”

Now,
A.) Perfect always adds a complimentary “Lol” onto the end of a statement if he thinks it will be too personal, because, and he’s right in this, it usually down-plays the real and houndish intent behind it.
B.) I sent him that message three days previously. He’d been thinking about my naked body and bears for three days now. Score.
C.) …that may have been my intent in using the words “bare-ass naked.” What can I say? I’m horny as fuck.

I explained the post, all while cackling maniacally about both the fact that Emily was going to lose her shit when she heard that he actually did exactly what she asked from him, and also about the fact that my naked body, or even the hint of it, still gets him every time. Men. They are so easy sometimes.

“Haha, well, I mean, people like naked bodies,” Perfect responded a few hours, a lapse in service when he went home, dinner, and then a foray back into basic humanity complete with cell phone coverage after I finished the story. “So I don’t think it matters too much who saw you, lol.”

“Yes, this is true. Hopefully, I’ll never meet John’s mom, or if I do, she won’t recognize me with clothing on. The same could be said for the rest of the people who went by. That road is normally not that busy. It was unfair. And it was worth it still, all considering the potential public embarrassment. Or, rather, em-bare-ass-ment, hahaha.”

And then, my friends, that’s when things started heating up, and the Return of the Sexter began.

“Lol, so you were totally naked?” Perfect asked. (See what I mean with the “LOL’s”?)

Is sexting with an ex you want to get back together with bad? I wouldn’t have even considered this change in events possible before this morning—I was still shocked when it, ahem, came up tonight. The other day I was just lamenting the lack of anything sexual between Perfect and I—again, hello, manifesting universe! If I didn’t know what I had found out this morning, I never would have let it happen. But being armed with the knowledge that Perfect is apparently on the same wavelength I am and finding his way back to the path of Us, I um…went along with it. There was only one moment where I looked across from the living room into the kitchen where Alli was cooking dinner and asked, “So, do I call him on this? I mean, it’s been five minutes since the last text—he’s definitely jerking off to this, and I’m letting him. Do I call him out and say, hey, you’re getting off on this and what am I getting, or do I just let it go and thank god it’s happening again?”

Alli wisely stayed out of this. The mention of Perfect whacking off usually does her in.

The only thing that keeps me from being inappropriate at night and sending Perfect texts like the one I wanted to send him last night—“I’d like to eat you alive,”—is the fact that he lives out of cell coverage, and even in my state of extreme hornyness I realize that it will probably be around eight hours before he would get it, which makes it the next morning and some potentially quite awkward morning texting conversation explaining why I thought it was a good idea to send that in the first place. However, I just realized—in nine days when he moves to college, he’ll be in service 24/7. I won’t have that moment of time-judgment. I will be…gulp…judgment-free.

And god knows where this is going with Perfect. All signs point to a veer back on-course, and since the universe, as I said, is listening right now, than please, listen to this: GET ME AND PERFECT BACK TOGETHER NOW THAT HE’S REALIZING HE’S BEEN AN IDIOT. Or, you know, now that he’s horny again and looking to make amends. That works, too. Anyway, give us a second chance. Please.

XOXO

Perfectly Pissed Off: The Montpelier and Worcester Diaries

I hate going to bed angry, and I am most definitely going to bed angry, worn down-and-out, and emotionally tired and drained tonight. I feel like the human equivalent of laundry—doused, cold, beaten around, and hung out to dry by my arms and legs. And, maybe in this case, heart.

Today, around 11 AM, I made the executive decision that I was going to Montpelier today. I was going on a day Perfect was working so we could drop in and I could finally, FINALLY see him, and I was going to take Alli so she could finally go into the rock shop she wanted to see, and I was going to go today when I didn’t have to worry about things like Mother Nature or timing or dragging other people along and making schedules copasetic, and I was going to the Pots because the weather was absolutely gross and hot and humid, and I was going now while I knew I still had gas and money and time to do so.

I was so done with waiting. I woke up impatient and restless, and goddammit, I was doing something about it. I was finally fed-up enough that I wasn’t scared of “invading Perfect’s territory” or feeling weird about dropping by. For almost as long as I’ve known him, we’ve had an inside joke that I always kid about while we text and he’s at work. If he complains that it’s been a slow day at the copy shop, I’ll ask him, “what? No one needs 500 copies of the complete works of Shakespeare?” Alli happens to own the complete works of Shakespeare. The plan was to lug the book into the copy shop, plop it down on the counter, say, “Hey, we need 50 copies of this…by tonight,” and then grin, lean across the counter, put my hands on his shoulders and say in a tone of wonderment, “So you do exist! How’s life?” All in all, I was only asking to take up maybe five minutes of his day. If he wanted to go swimming with us when he got out of work, it would be his call. I just wanted to see his face.

It seemed perfect. But almost nothing ever lives up to that expectation.

Alli and I tooled around (Ok, so maybe more appropriately, we skulked around, walking fast down the sidewalk opposite of the copy shop when we had to pass it. “What are you doing?” Alli asked me as I peered into a hobby shop’s window as if I had infinite interest in baseball cards and Beanie Babies. “Avoiding eye-contact with the copy shop?” I was.) stopping into shops and getting coffee before she finally smacked me over the head and told me to get on with it. “What’s he going to do?” she asked me.

“Charge out of the store and yell at us to leave Montpelier?” I offered.

She snorted in derision. “What, charge out of the store and shout, “YOU! I BANISH YOU FROM MY TOWN!”?”

We cracked up, and walked up the front steps to the copy shop. “You go first,” I told her. “I don’t want to be the first through the door.”

Stepping through the threshold, her face got a similar panicked look to what I’m sure mine looked like, and she pushed me in front of her. I scanned the store. A guy with sandy blonde hair was walking into the back. A pretty brunette manned (womanned?) the register.

‘Fuck my life,’ was my first thought. ‘He works with his type.’

“Can I help you?” Shop Girl asked us nicely.

“Yeah,” I said, feeling slightly foolish but using my own retail-friendly voice, an octave higher than my regular speaking voice, more girly and friendly and winsome. “Is Perfect working today?”

Looking like she was asked this question fairly regularly, she glanced into the back. “Sorry, but I think he just left,” she told me.

“Oh, ok. Thanks,” I told her before my silent partner and I beat a hasty retreat. On the sidewalk in front of the store, I dialed his number, waiting for the rings to count down to his answering machine with his startlingly low voice, making a face at Alli when he didn’t pick up.

“Hey, Perfect—you must have known we were coming, because Alli and I just stopped in to the copy shop with the complete works of Shakespeare for you. We’re in town because it’s gross out and North Beach was apparently a zoo, so we’re gonna go swimming at the Pots in about an hour. If you get this, call or text and maybe we can meet up, stranger.”

Two minutes later, sitting on the State House steps, my phone rang with a text from him. “Haha, I actually went to the store down the way and am back! Lol, but I gtg home to help my dad do money stuff online cuz he can’t do it himself! Lol.”

Manslation: “I’m back at work, but leaving soon to go help my dad figure out my financial aid, so don’t bother stopping back in.”

After decoding the Perfect-ese, I texted him back. “Ok, well, Alli and I are eating and drinking and kicking around town for at least another hour before we head to the Pots, but if you get your stuff done with your dad, head down and try to meet up with us, killer!”

Girlversion: “Are you fucking kidding me? You don’t have five minutes? But, ok, that’s a valid reason to go home. And at least you explained you weren’t hiding in the back of the store, cowering in a broom closet. And I appreciate the “haha’s” and “Lol’s.” But really. I want to see you.”

Perfect’s answer? “Ok.”

Manslation: “Don’t count on it.”

By now, I was defeatist and Alli was simmering mad. “Seriously. We’re 30 seconds away from his work. He really can’t stop by and say “hi” on his way out of town? I’m sure his dad wouldn’t care if he was 5 minutes later. You haven’t seen him in a month, and he is 30 SECONDS AWAY. Are you going to call him on this? You better be calling him on this. I'm done making excuses for him. I'm done being on his side. I'm done being nice to him.”

She was right. I knew she was right. So I followed-up with another text, gently insistent. “Or, you could stop on the State House lawn on your way out seeing as we’re 30 seconds away. Also, is John around?”

This is where I went wrong. This is where I should have learned from the same mistake I went through with Legs in the phone conversation after our cease-fire coffee date this past May. You never, EVER tack on another non-related note to the end of what you really want answered from a man, because, scientifically proven, they will answer the last and less important and pointed question and ignore the first. Ladies, learn from my mistakes—ONE QUESTION OR STATEMENT AT A TIME IF YOU WANT AN ANSWER OR IT TO BE ADDRESSED.

Sure enough, Perfect texted me back with a “Nope, road trip with his dad!”

Manslation: “I am ignoring your insisting and pretending that you never asked me that other thing which We Will Not Speak Of.”

Girlversion: “You’re being avoided. This is complete bullshit.”

I wear my anger well. Like designer clothing that took me a lot of time and money to get. And when I’m wearing it, I want to show it off. I have a red head’s temper in a blonde’s body, and I can carry a grudge like no body’s business. As this was the first time I’ve ever been mad at Perfect, really angry with him, I was beside myself. Yes, I have been pissed-off at him before, but now—now, I was ANGRY. Smoke-coming-out-of-nostrils, bodily-harm-inflicting MAD.

At this point, I knew better than to even text him anything back, because the Turrets-worthy deluge of derogatory swears coming out of my mouth were more than likely to come out of my finger-tips, too. Perfect was a “douchebag.” Perfect was a “fucktard.” Perfect was an “asshole.” Perfect was a “dickwad.” Perfect was, the most mild of them, a “jerk.” Alli kicked in her two cents with an “asshat.” We debated the merits of throwing drinks versus swinging heavy purses at his crotch versus throwing the complete works of Shakespeare at him versus hitting him with the Civvy. This continued all the way to the Pots. If he was driving home and we caught up to him as we were both going to basically the same place, was I allowed to tap his bumper? How quickly could we get out friend Kristen of the tire-slashing fame to get to Montpelier? If he was biking home, could we drive in front of him and then open the car door on him? As I stood on a boulder in the middle of the river at the Pots, I looked at Alli with a scarily contemplative face. “Where can I get a rifle really quickly?”

“You’re not planning on killing him, are you?” she asked, alarmed, and then finished her question with the statement that was the real cause for her alarm. “You can’t leave me stranded here to run from the law. I can’t drive standard!”

“I just want to threaten him with it. But I just remembered that he hunts and probably has more than one rifle in his house. Which could turn this into a Texas stand-off. Which isn’t quite what I’m looking for.”

All I wanted was vindication; not someone to get law-inducingly hurt.

Once the girl-crazies were over, we settled down into more lucid and logical thinking that didn’t involves de-balling or dismemberment. “Ok, so I’ve been nice up until now,” I said to Alli. “Now, I need to ask him why there would be any reason he’s avoiding me.”

“Right,” Alli said, nodding affirmatively. This month’s Cosmopolitan touted “Is there any reason why” to be the new Rosetta Stone for communicating with men. It’s a passively-aggressive phrase and addresses that there’s an issue while asking men to explain it in a way that they can’t help but give in to. If a guy just says “no,” then he looks like he is, in fact, avoiding you and avoiding talking about it with you. Which then leaves it open for you to say something like, “well, I feel like you have been, and…” If he says “yes,” then he’s also generally going to follow that up with the reason why. It’s seemingly the question that men can’t resist answering. I love it.

Alli and I decide that “Fuck You” is the theme of today’s adventure. We blast Buckcherry’s “Crazy Bitch,” because we might as well wear the song if it fits. (Fun fact: Perfect had never heard that song until I played it for him when he came over to chill for hours the day after my birthday. He got a shit-eating little-boy grin on his face at the lyrics “get the video; fuck you so good” that I could for-see a future request if we had stayed together. And then he played me Ashanti’s “Only You.” Go listen to it right now, if you never have. Seriously. This is why he frustrates me. I play him “Crazy Bitch” and he plays me a romantic song about wanting to be close to someone who you’ve never felt like this before about someone.) The pictures of the day all include middle fingers blazing. We instate Naked Tuesday on the middle of Handcock Brook Road (yes, Handcock Brook Road,) in an act of defiance. We decide to go fire-engine-red bras blazing and drive shirtless into Montpelier. We sit in the car at Dairy Crème, out of the now-steady drizzle, and stew. I go home and spend over an hour talking with Emily about what happened, what could possibly be going on, and how to fix it. Or, end it.

Still, though, I’m seething. Ok, so in my thinking, there are two possibilities to explain his behavior. One, and the one I feel as though most people, including my mother, are in agreement with, is that it’s O-V-E-R and his not seeing me is the way he’s trying to get this through and that He’s Just Not That Into Me. I do realize from a perfectly logical point of view, this could be very true. I always prepare myself for the worst. In my mind, he’s already off grinding on and fucking every pretty young brunette he can get his massive hands on and laughing with John about what a crazy bitch I am.

Option Number Two is the one that the closet, desperately hidden-away romantic in me is wondering about: that he’s still not over me and doesn’t want to exacerbate his feelings by seeing me. A month ago, this was the case. I understand the thinking, because when I see him, the undeniable attraction makes me want to dry-hump his leg at best, strip down and lie prone on the ground at worst. This would also explain the problem I have with Scenario One—when a guy wants you out of their life (and believe me as I know from Legs’s experience), they’re very good at totally alienating you. If Perfect was done, gone, moved on, over with it and didn’t want anything to do with me, he wouldn’t be texting me still. He wouldn’t be talking to me. He wouldn’t be talking with me for HOURS. He wouldn’t be flirty. He would be genuine with his “I’m sorry”s and “haha”s. He would be MIA—unreachable by phone, computer, friends, and satellite. Witness Protection might as well have swallowed him up. That’s how guys do things. None of this half-in, half-out bullshit.

So why no face-to-face? If there were to be one of us avoiding the other, by all rules of logic, it should be me. He was the one who ended it. I was the dumpee. I should be the one avoiding all contact and stiff-arming him like I do with the rest of my exes. From his side, either he’s much more deviously smart than I gave him credit for, or he honestly just has great excuses at perfectly inopportune times, but he has a perfectly good excuse for not seeing me every time t comes up—I’m not exactly going to say, “No! You can’t go to your camp with your family!” or “No! You cannot help your father with your financial aid!” So we’re at this odd sort of stand-off: he either can’t or won’t or refuses to see my for whatever reason—timing, busy-ness, latent feelings—and I’m hemming and hawing about getting down to business, buckling down, and actually talking to him like I have to. But still, in the over-all scheme of things—5 minutes today—was that really too much to ask for?

I am so mad I didn’t listen to his song, my lullaby. I am so mad I didn’t want to see his face on my computer. I am so mad I didn’t want to sleep in the bed we slept in together. I pop my iPod earbuds in, drink a Smirnoff, then another one, and chase them down with a flat beer, but at this point, I don’t care. I feel nothing. I feel nothing other than exhaustion and slight nausea and the headache starting from the noise outside, but I don’t think drunkenly screaming “Fuckkk youuuu!” out the window at the jackhammers on the rotary at 2 AM would solve anything. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and quickly turn. I look like someone who knows better wearing pain and regret and accusation plain as day in my eyes, on my face, in the way my shoulders slump and the corners of my lips curl gently down, let down but not expecting anything better. They were the smart ones. As I wash my hands at the bathroom sink, I know that my reflection in the mirror looks like someone I don’t want to be, so I look away. I fall into bed, throw my hands over my eyes, and just be in my hollow nothing-ness. Sometimes, it’s just easier to look away.

XOXO

Ruckus On State Street: The Montpelier and Worcester Diaries

Last Sunday, I put $10 worth of gas in my car, filled my tire with a slow leak up with air, and loaded Alli and Emily into the Civvy for a girl’s getaway day to Montpelier. There are some things that girl friends have to do with each other as mandatory summer friend-community service, and road trips are one of those things. We had an iPod full of summer driving songs, sunglasses, cell phones, and a need to all get out of town. It was one of those days that just feels amazing for a reason you can’t put your finger on.

By now, I’m a champ at driving 89 into Montpelier and getting around town. Because parking was the only thing that I hadn’t done before in the city, we decided to take the easiest option out, park at Shaw’s, and walk. We figured we’d be killing two objectives in one go—getting some exercise, and window-shopping. We stopped in to Splash and Spangle, which is basically Montpelier’s answer to Burlington’s Bella Donna and Queen Anne’s Lace. A rock shop (and by “rock,” I mean those things you find on the ground, but of the pretty variety) on the corner of Main Street and State Street caught Alli’s eye, but unfortunately, it was closed. That’s what you get for going city-hopping on a Sunday.

Capitol Grounds, however, was open and bustling. I ordered a Capitol Chill—their version of a Coffee Coolata—with hazelnut flavoring from a barista who looked so familiar it weirded me out until I came up with the only excuse possible—she was either one of Perfect or Cait’s Facebook friends whose profile picture, and so, face, I’d seen before. We both gave each other curious looks, so I think the feeling was mutual. That’s the one weird thing about Facebook—far-flung friends of friends aren’t strangers anymore when they’re staring you in the face on someone’s comment wall.

After getting our iced coffees and such to go, we wandered right past Perfect’s place of employment (and no, my curiosity did not get the better of me and I did not peek into the front windows like I wanted to so badly,) and to the State House’s lawn and front steps where we followed Alli’s idea to “really stir up something crazy so if Perfect or John hear about it, they’ll know it was us,” and put my native Vermonter’s tax dollars at work by turning it inside-out to be our “we’re twenty-somethings with a camera and taste for adventure” playground. There were cannons to be climbed on, statues to mock, lamp-posts to swing around, marble to be danced on, trees to be climbed…you get the drift. If there is one thing that you cannot accuse me of, it is taking myself too seriously. I still love to play like a little kid. The pictures posted here from that day are proof of it. The first thing I did upon approaching the lawn was to kick off my flip-flops and go skipping off, shoes, coffee and Ralph Lauren purse in hand.

We spent about an hour lounging literally on the Capitol, having girl-talk, sorting out the world’s problems, making lewd and salacious comments, and generally soaking in the gorgeous and finally present sun’s rays. As we started our trek back to the car, a motorcyclist checked us out so hard he almost tripped his moving bike over by overcompensating. We laughed openly at this, although I think that we all know that while we may make fun of guys for doing this now, there’s going to be a time down the road when it doesn’t happen anymore, so secretly, or not so secretly, we cherish it now.

Not so cute was the old flat-black-painted pick-up truck of three twenty-something guys. It was cute the first time they passed us heading out of town, as the half-naked and attractive guy in the passenger’s seat hung a little further out the window to grin at us as we grinned back at him, maybe a little too convincingly, because when they passed us again on route 12, passenger now hanging his upper body out of the car to get a good look at us, they pulled over, let us pass, and then pulled out behind us. And proceeded to follow us almost all the way in to Worcester. Normally, Alli, Em and I are pretty cool customers—it takes a lot to flap Alli, whose father is an ex-UFC fighter and who herself can take down an over 200 pound man singlehandedly; as for myself, having too much bravado for my own good and an ex-Marine for a father who taught me a thing or two, “fear” usually isn’t a word in my vocabulary—but after the flattery of this event wore off, it left us rather worried. Thankfully, I knew two different ways to get to where we were going to the Pots, and one way travelled right past John’s mom’s house. It was decided that if the followed us up Minister Brook Road, we would pull into John’s driveway, hoping he was there and all 6-foot-one, lanky sapling body and sweet nature of his could save us. We would go to Perfect’s house, just up the road from John’s, only in the utmost dire situation. The idea of landing unannounced on his doorstep that had never been shown to me, merely explained where it was, chilled me more to the bone than the idea of having to tell three Montpelier guys to back off at a local swimming hole. Alli, the official road trip video girl, got this entire episode on tape. Possibly the most self-telling moment of this entire situation was when after I bombed across a bridge under construction to try and put space between the Civvy and the black truck that remained close to my bumper, Alli caught my distress mantra on tape.

“John, be home, be home; oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please,” I chanted under my breath, and then after glancing back into my rear-view window, did the only thing that came naturally to me at that second: opened my mouth and wailed Perfect’s name is distress.

“PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERFEEEEEEEEEEEEECT!!!” (Um. Ok. Granted, I yelled his real name and not his nickname, but you get the idea.)

Perfect, all 6'3" and 204 muscular pounds of him with his voice that sounds like it originates around his kneecaps, could certainly give our pseudo-stalkers pause. Perfect, with all the time I spent next to him, reassured me by nothing more than proximity. Perfect, the hulking manbeast of sheer strength and belly laughs, still is categorized in my mental Rolodex under “Protector.” Perfect is still the first person I think of for help when in a crisis.

…And Perfect was at home and so, out of cell-phone range for receiving any calls either about our needing to be rescued or to meet up to swim with us.

Luckily, the pick-up truck of men pulled over when we crossed the border into Worcester, probably thinking that they’d followed us far enough with us showing no signs of stopping or pulling over. We continued to the Pots happily, if not shakily, passing John’s house—sans a John, so that plan wouldn’t have worked—and went swimming in the refreshingly glacial waters. Knowing that the plan had been to try and meet up with Perfect and/or John to inject some testosterone into our Girl’s Day, Alli and Em both kept a close eye and question on my well-being when that plan fell flat due to Verizon’s lack of cell phone towers on Worcester Mountain. What bothered me even more than the fact that neither of them were there was the fact that I had inadvertently stumbled upon the fact with the “help” of the guys in the truck that Perfect is still my go-to guy in a time of need. I still, maybe foolishly, rely on Perfect to protect me, get me through things, and be there for me, when in reality, I don’t really know if I could trust in him to do those things for me.

In the long run, however, it seemed maybe better off that the guys hadn’t met us. We all ended up getting creepy little crawly bugs from the stone waterslide in our bathing suits, and there was a lot of bare ass being shown as girly shrieks pierced the air, prompting me to come up with the term “Beasty Cave” as a synonym for “vagina.”

“You know,” I said to Emily. “That’s where I keep my pets. Sometimes, a one-eyed snake even lives in it.”

On the way home from Montpelier, after working myself into a righteous anger with Alli and Em about how Perfect was now “officially avoiding me” or so it seemed since it had been bordering on a month since we had last seen each other, I received a text from a perfectly contrite Perfect.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was out of service all day! How was it?”

I can’t go from rampantly pissed to cooingly pleased with him so quickly. It’s bad for my health. Or, at least, mental stability. I have also since decided that Perfect owes me the last four shots of my vodka that he got drunk off of and an orgasm. Then we can call it fair.

Meanwhile, my roommate Kim’s younger brother and friend have been living with us for the past week, which I’ve actually greatly enjoyed. Men you can tell to pick up their shit and not have to feel bad or sugar-coat it. In fact, sometimes, they even wash dishes, take out the trash and vacuum without being asked. Louis and Matt are both 17. I sense great promise in their futures as boyfriends and husbands. Watch out, ladies.

I’ve loved having them around for a few reasons. One, younger men are what I call “great soft-assassination flirting targets.” Basically, you can practice your game on them, let them hone their skills on you, and everyone feels good without feeling like they need to follow through on anything. These 17 year olds know I’m not going to decide to just hop into bed with them—as I said to Alli, “You have friend standards, and I have statutory rape standards.”

I may feel this way because it seems that younger men are less intimidating. A 23 or 24 year old I never would have slept with the second time I met him, but Perfect was 19—and so, safe to me. I felt no need to impress him or pretend to be more mature and less raunchy; in other words, I felt no need to be someone who I am not. In my past dating experiences, especially with older men, I have always morphed into some weird hybrid between who I really am and who I think they want me to be. It never goes well.

Secondly, I’ve realized that a lot of my straight male friend’s advice is coming from a different age group than Perfect is in. Most of my guys are 20+ with life experience behind them and a little more maturity. Living with two almost 18 year old boys has given me the sounding board of the younger set.

“Why,” I would ask them. “Would a guy be so into you, make plans to see you, keep in touch with you every day, do all the cute things he’s supposed to, and even more, and then suddenly say he needs to stop? Why would a guy go on and on about plans with you if he was only going to break up with you a few weeks later? Why would he say things like, “I’m looking for a relationship,” and “It sounds like you need a good relationship with a good guy—I’m a good guy,” and “I’ll visit from college,” or “It’s a 3 and a half hour drive, but would you visit?” or “Wait until you see how jacked I get from all the lifting I’ll be doing,” or “Maybe I’ll have to come and travel with you when you’re studying abroad in the spring”?”

“Because he wants to get in your pants,” Matt said matter-of-factly.

“I’m going to be blunt with you,” I told them. “We’d already been there and done that. He started saying these things after.”

“Oh, then that’s completely different. He really liked you, then,” Matt amended his statement. “If he was still making plans to see you and saying that to you after he got what he wanted, than he really meant it.”

Do you see what I mean? Most of my guy friends are too old and have too much tact to say things like “when he got what he wanted.” But it’s the truth, isn’t it?

“Distance scares guys,” Louis added. “Especially when things get serious. If he really likes you and you live 45 minutes away from each other now and it’s going to be more once he moves, then he’s going to get scared about it not working out and him getting hurt.”

“Is that why he jumped ship so quick?” I asked.

“If a guy really likes a girl but thinks he’s going to get hurt, yeah, he’s gonna get out of what he thinks is trouble. Believe me, I know. I’ve done it,” Louis told me. “You need to let him know you’re not scared.”

I think I see the logical equation of the younger male: feelings + distance = scared, so run away. This varies inversely with the logical equation of most females: feelings + distance= work at it and try harder to prove you care. Hmmmm. Our math does not seem to compute, here.

Speaking of Perfect, and 3 posts back, as with most of the supposed meetings with Perfect as of late, it never happened. (But thanks for all the input, though! It was so heartening and really appreciated in my time of indecision!) He and his Amazonian friend were already gone from Church Street and at the UMall by the time I got my shit together and texted him. “I feel like the end of the world is going to happen before we see each other again,” I told him. “Or, at least, you know, the beginning of school. Well, I’ve got to go home this weekend, but I’m sure we’ll be back to Montpelier sometime soon. And you owe Cait and I a girl’s visit to Burlington, sir!”

Suddenly, the atmosphere in our conversation changed completely with the register of his next text. “LOL, why’s that, haha?” he asked. Ok. So. Let me tell you something about Perfect. Picking up attitude in his texts is actually very easy. A single “ha” means displeasure, annoyance, or he’s humoring you. A stand-alone “haha” is his trademark—it’s in almost every text he sends, somewhere. (He’s just a very laughy and exclamation-pointy person.) An “LOL” is more coy. He’s genuinely pleased with something. And an “LOL” and “haha” together or a winky-face is Perfect for “flirting.”

I was flabbergasted more than anything. What am I supposed to say to that? I know the start of a flirty Perfect text when I see one. I know an opening for sexting with Perfect when I see one. And I hadn’t seen one since June. Frankly, I was more happy to know it’s still on the table than anything—I was worried it wasn’t even still in the dining room. But really? Now? Now he wants to get all flirty and hear about how miserable my life has been without him and how I want him back?

I did what any self-respecting girl would do: I weighed my deep desire to tell him yes, I really missed him, and he should visit so that we could ravage each other everywhere we were supposed to—the party shower, his 4Runner, my already broken-by-Perfect bed—with the amount of perverse pleasure he would get out (or off on) knowing the wanting he caused me. And so I sent him back this:

“Because we both miss you and SOMEONE is always busy or MIA when we go to Worcester, that’s why, hahaha!”

For the records, I only use “hahaha” when I’m trying to lighten my texts or add a flirty edge. I’m sure he knows this by now, too.

“Ok, I get it, LOL,” Perfect sent back, keeping the same tone, and it made me wonder, did he really get it? Really? Did he understand at all what I’ve been going through and meant by “we miss you” really meaning “I miss you but am too chicken-shit and wary to say it yet”? Did he really mean to open the “way we used to text” back up and dredge up Memory Lane? Does he really want to know why I want him to keep visiting and stay in my life? I hope so. I hope he really got it. And I hope I don’t have to say all of this alone.

As we wound our conversation down, he promised to come visit soon. He said he’d be around next time we came to Worcester. He even said he’d come up to go clubbing if we could work out a copasetic time. Hmmmm. It’s a start. Is it a start? And how much time do I have to get my lines ready? Maybe while I’m home nannying this week I need to start practicing saying “I miss you, and I miss us.” It’s not that hard—“I miss you, and I miss us.” “I miss…”

XOXO

Can Ya Dig It?

There seems to be this Universe phenomenon where when you’re either in a relationship, or are in the confusing place either before or after a relationship, it suddenly starts raining men. Far from a “Halleluiah!” it’s usually more of a “What the fuck—NO!” I don’t know if it’s pheromones, or maybe if once you’re off the market men start to think of you as a “hot commodity”—that whole supply and demand thing—but for some reason, un-single girls never seem to have a problem finding interested men. It’s when you’re single that you feel like you’re going through a drought and possibly one of the most uninteresting, unattractive, unlovable people ever in the history of the world.

Maybe it’s the fact that you’re happy that men pick up on. Certainly, people in a just-budding or going-well relationship have the certain je-ne-sais-quoi about them that seems to exude that all is right with the world. Who wouldn’t want to be with that? Also, Murphy’s Law might have something to do with it—when you want ‘em, you can’t find ‘em, and when you don’t need ‘em, they’re there.

During this marathon “What Are We Doing?” silent battle between Perfect and I, I’ve gotten two other advances from guys. Normally, I would be flattered. Now, I’m just frustrated and exasperated. The first was one of my Soho Boys—we briefly touched on this a few posts back. Anyway, feeling the need for some male company in my life, as I crave the presence of testosterone like pregnant women crave pickles and ice cream (“I have to have it NOW!”), I texted him last time I went to the beach solo to see if he’d like to keep me company. His response is a good example of why I equally adore and despair of my Soho Boys—“Well, I smoked so I’m feeling lazy, and we’re drinking before my roommates go to work, but after they leave I’ll let you know.” For background information, it was 2:30 in the afternoon. (Although I’m really not one to talk. I found myself in bed one morning with a 2-month-old bottle of wine and a cigarette at 10:30 AM after Perfect came down sick and had to cancel a visit to Burlington. It was not one of the proudest moments of my life, but it certainly was a special one.) My Boy didn’t end up joining me at the beach, but it became obvious that I had unleashed a younger monster when he proceeded to text me all afternoon to “check in.” Cute? Yes. I figure as long as I drop in enough “dude,” mans,” and “yo’s,” to keep it platonic, I can stave off an awkward conversation long enough to casually mention I’m “trying to work things out with a guy I was seeing” before my Soho Boy gets any real ideas.

The second guy was a little ickier than my (relatively) harmless ex-advisee. The ex-boyfriend of one of my freshmen-year dorm-mates and friends, he sent me an email at 1 AM the other morning. It started out fine, with the usual, “hey, it’s been awhile since we hung out,” which is true, and then quickly got much more awkward. “I think you should know I’m quite attracted to you,” he said. “Maybe we should talk about it. IM me sometime.”

Firstly, I don’t think I’ve seriously used Instant Messenger since high school, unless it’s to keep up with my friends far away at college. Secondly, I really wanted to nip this in the bud. I sent him back a very prompt and business-like email, basically saying that yes, it had been awhile—life has been crazy, I hope his summer’s been going well; I’m flattered, but there’s someone else and no hard feelings. Oh, and, yes, I already have his screen name. Hopefully, that’s the end of that. Men who try and date around an exes’ group of friends just make me feel nauseous. (The Flaky Artist successfully ruined another dorm-mate friendship of mine after he started dating a girl down the hall after he broke up with me because he was “still in love with a girl from home.” Yeah.)

And it’s not just me getting onboard with this “once you’re taken, you’re wanted” idea. A friend of mine in a long-term relationship has recently been getting (rather hilarious) advances from another guy, who knows, after being told, time and time again, that she already has a boyfriend, who she’s quite happy with, thanks. And Alli discovered the magic of multiple male attention on a Greyhound bus ride from Boston to Burlington. She started out with one phone number, and had collected three by the end of the trip. That’s what we call “quick work.”

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Because I also like to give hints and tips to keep other Single Girls (or Bored Girls In Relationships, too, I suppose,) busy and happy, here are a few things that have really been rocking my world lately. Hope you get some inspiration! Also, I’d really love to get some feedback from readers about things that they like or do for fun and entertainment, because I have four weeks of summer vacation left, and am rapidly running out of both ideas and funding. The cheaper or more free the idea, the better!

(I also welcome general reader feedback. For those of you who have commented, thank you so much—your kind words and interest are what keep me going when I’m feeling too tired, too bored, or too uninspired to write. For those of you who read but don’t comment, really—I’d love to hear from you! Tell me what you like, what you don’t like, what you want to see more of, etc. Frankly, I’m amazed I haven’t gotten any comments back from people telling me I’m a crazy bitch for all the drama with Perfect. Just keep in mind—downright rude or spiteful comments will be deleted—only constructive criticism, please.)

For my birthday, I got a tube of A&W lip balm. Yes, A&W as in, the root beer. And let me tell you, it’s fabulous. It tastes just like the real thing, sticks to your lips even after swimming (!) and is a nice tan color that really makes a complimentary nude-colored lip balm that accents your natural lip color. Plus, it comes in a really cute little tube shaped like a can of soda. Lotta Luv makes it—it’s one of their Lip Sips collection. Unfortunately, I have no idea where you can buy it around town. Maybe CVS or a local pharmacy?

How To Be Single—A Novel, by Liz Tuccillo. You may know Liz’s name from He's Just Not That Into You, the single-girl almost-Bible she co-wrote with fellow “Sex and the City” writer Greg Behrendt. Her first foray into fiction, Tuccillo examines the relationship between five (thirty-something) single women in (surprise) New York City, and the relationships that they go through with other men, from the two yogis getting hot and heavy in a supposedly celibate ashram to the trek around the world that the main character makes, trying to decide if anywhere in the world, women have got the hang of being single and happy. From poignant to hilarious to introspective, How To Be Single draws from experiences you can certainly relate to to make you feel as if you personally know the characters. Honestly, reading this, I felt like I was out for a girl’s night. It’s engaging, smart, and will really make you think about the single lifestyle, love, both platonic and love relationships, and what makes you truly happy. (I read books with a highlighter in hand to mark down passages I particularly like or find interesting as I feel it’s good practice as a writer to identify what works. I killed a highlighter on this one novel. That’s how well-written it was. Never once do you feel like you’re being lectured to—it’s more like listening to a friend tell you about her last night out and give you advice about the guy you’re seeing. I got a lot out of it. I’m looking forward to what Tuccillo does next.)

I am brown as a roasted little chestnut from going to the beach this summer, and I love it. Previously this spring, I was paying $6.95 per visit to the tanning salon—Body Le Bronze on Pearl Street; it’s really nice and clean and calming, plus you’ll smell like coconut oil after you leave even if you didn’t use any—but now that I can be on the beach and rolling around on my towel like I’m roasting on a spit every nice and sunny day, I’m getting my color for free. Plus, I get to go for a dip right afterward to escape the heat, and let me tell you, Lake Champlain is warmer this year than I’ve ever felt it. It’s heavenly. Get thee to the beach!

Summer is the time for road trips, and as the New York City set moves out to the Hamptons in the summer, my group of friend and I drive 45 minutes to Montpelier and Worcester on the weekends. We started out in Stowe, but it was too small and touristy for us; plus, we didn’t know the local spots. Having Cait, a ex-Worcester resident, really opened up all the backyard swimming holes to us, as well as spot-on restaurant recommendations for eating before the drive back. (Dairy Crème is a must-go for their enormous soft-serve ice cream cones—a medium cone is enough for dinner, believe me. I prefer the classic Twist with rainbow sprinkles.)

This Sunday, Emily and I, and maybe Cait if she’s not busy, are going to make a day of exploring Montpelier. As a native Vermonter, I’m ashamed to say that before this summer, I’ve only been to the state capital once, in fifth grade on a fieldtrip to watch bills get passed in legislation. This was also during my bloody-nose phase, where, at least once every day, my nose would randomly unleash a waterfall of blood at the most random moment. (It happened to my mom during puberty, too, so I guess I only have the genes to blame.) One moment, I was sitting in a plush chair, watching gray-haired men push paper at each other and wave pens around, and the next minute, I was clutching both hands to my nose to try and pinch the flow closed. Business on the State House floor stopped as aides and my homeroom teacher rushed me to the closest ladies’ room. It was mortifying. I literally stopped legislation because of the amount of blood flowing from my tiny little fifth grader’s nose. When it stopped twenty minutes later and I walked back to my seat to join my classmates, there was a single nickel-sized spot of blood from my deluge staining the carpet. Suffice it to say, I made my mark on the politicians enough to not be considered for a page.

Hopefully, this Sunday will consist of coffee at Capitol Grounds, a nice sit-down on the State House lawn, some window-shopping at the trendy clothing stores like Salaam, a dip in the Pots possibly accompanied by Perfect and John, getting naked on the side of the road as tradition insists while I change, eating ice cream at Dairy Crème, and no bleeding. Here’s crossing my fingers.

I picked up Dear G-Spot: Straight Talk About Sex and Love by Zane at Borders for $4 during their book sale this past week. I figure, as someone who writes about love and sex, I also need to read up on what other people are reading about love and sex, right? Assess the market. See what works, and what’s lacking. Carve a niche, and all that. The low sticker price was what originally caught my attention, and I figured that even if it wasn’t so great it would be worth the four Washingtons. It’s actually quite good. Zane, probably best known for her erotica, is a straight-shooter who holds nothing back from her advice. Opening every chapter with a short essay or reflection on the content, she covers letters written to her asking for advice ranging from cheating to communication problems to oral sex to orgasms to how to ride a man like a rodeo star. (My favorite chapter? “Relationship Confusion.” Of course.) At times explicit, but always truthful, honest, and well-intentioned, she had me hooked at her disclaimer: “Warning: If you are sexually oppressed, sexually repressed, or have any sexual hang-ups whatsoever, please put my book down and slowly walk away from it. It is too damn hot for your ass.” Zane is a woman after my own heart.

I absolutely adore wearing men’s clothing: wifebeaters, boxers, hoodies, t-shirts, boys sport shorts for the gym; over-size rolled-cuff button-up shirts belted with a cute belt to give it a feminine flair and some shape; boyfriend-cut jeans, preferably rolled or cuffed in the summer; girl’s boxer briefs, etc. I’m the kind of girl who’s ridiculously happy wearing a guy’s wifebeater to bed and nothing else, or a clean pair of boxers or shorts around the house while reading the latest issue of “Cosmopolitan.”

I own a few pairs of “girl boxers” bought from the Aerie line at American Eagle (also known as my Place of Longest Employment,), as well as a pair of real men’s boxers. (Don’t worry—I bought them new for myself.) I tend to finagle to keep or steal a few men’s shirts or hoodies from my guys—sometimes it’s as easy as asking male friends if they have any clothing they’re thinking of getting rid of, and sometimes it’s stealing a t-shirt from the guy you’re sleeping with. (So worth it.) I also, as previously stated, have the bad habit of buying clothing for my men, and so usually end up with a few items I can’t part with in the end-run, like the large purple hoodie I bought for Jersey Blunt and then decided to keep. (He made a good bid for it one night though, hoping I’d forget it in his room, but I remembered right before I walked out the front door. It’s like my second bathrobe and favorite thing to curl up in with nothing underneath because it’s so warm and snuggly.)

We’ve been seeing a big influx with men’s-wear inspired clothing in the fashion industry lately, which I like. Just remember—keep it feminine. If you’re going to be wearing a large button-up, belt it or wear nice jewelry. Pair your boyfriend jeans with a fitted top and painted nails. The best (and cheapest) V-neck rugby shirts I ever bought were from the men’s sale racks at Old Navy—classic, flattering in the drape and fit on a woman’s more curvy body, and CHEAP! I bought a cashmere sweater for $20, people!) Wear a strand of pearls and tight jeans, and you have the perfectly relaxed, yet put-together preppy outfit.

There is almost nothing men like to see more than a woman in their clothing, or clothing like theirs. When Perfect slept over, I furiously pawed through my underwear drawer to try and find an acceptable pair of undies to sleep in while he was in the bathroom. My time ran out, and as I heard the toilet flush, my fingers closed around my pair of girls’ boxer-briefs that I bought in London, complete with a British flag on half the ass. I yanked them on as Perfect opened the bedroom door and then stopped dead. “Yeah?” I asked. “Hot,” was all he managed to say before staggering in and pulling me back to the bed. When not entertaining, and as an added bonus, boxers are possibly the most comfortable thing to lounge around in since, well, being naked, and certainly more roommate-friendly.

Burlington used to have The Second Floor, a nightclub that while decidedly a little seedy, was also the place where under 21 clubbers could go to get their groove on. Ok, so, it wasn’t the best place, but it was the ONLY place to go clubbing without a fake ID. Unfortunately, it closed in January. Lift opened in its placed, newly revamped, redecorated, with better music and DJs, and more high-class, with stricter dress codes, and more selective about who they let in. This was good; this was nice; this was what Burlington needed. BUT. Lift is almost an exclusively 21+ establishment. Obviously, for reasons such as alcohol and predators, this is safer, but at the same time, unless it’s a special event that’s 18 and up, (which happens about once a month or so,) the 20-and-under college crowd is getting STIFFED, and stiffed HARD. I, personally, love dancing. I love getting dressed up, getting a bunch of friends, and going and shaking my thang at night. I will pay to do this, too, as will most of my like-minded friends. Right now, Lift is seriously missing out on making some serious dough as well as having a hand in further cramping the nightlife of under 21’s in a city that already doesn’t have much of a nightlife during the non-school year if you won’t have a driver’s license pre 1988. What do you say, Lift? Rise to the challenge and let me and my friends come and rip up the dance floor? You won’t regret it, I promise.

That’s it for now—I’ve got a shower to take, an outfit to pick out, and places to be and people to see.

XOXO