Make Wise Decisions

The first man who proposed to me was desperate for a family and cheating on me at the time because he knew that at my young age, kids weren't a paramount desire for me-- going to college was. I thought he was joking-- there was no ring, no bended knee, not even any short but sweet speech about how I made his life better. Just a "What would you think about getting married?" I laughed. To this day, I still laugh. Because life with him would have been laughable, and ended in divorce, tout suite.

The second man who proposed to me was drunk. Drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk. It was at my cousin's wedding, and we'd be talking for an hour, and everyone knows how weddings make people. When he proposed that I become Mrs. Joey Valentino, since I had the class, the brains, the looks, and the connections that he was looking for in a wife, I very gently told him to reconsider in the morning, when he was sober. One tells men used to hearing "yes" due to their family connections to reconsider things very gently. On one hand, I could be sitting in a manse in Red Bank right now, wearing Dior and sipping on Patron, or on the other hand, I could actually be getting on with my life in the real world. But I'm not going to lie-- right around when the time of the month comes to pay the bills, I start to really miss Joey.

The third man to use the words "I'd" "marry" and "you" together in a sentence was one of my best guy friends, after he saw that this was something I'd want my groom and his groomsmen to do in our Star Wars-themed wedding. He was obviously kidding, and it was obviously not really a marriage proposal. It was the best one that I'd gotten yet.

Make wise decisions when it comes to the rest of your life, ladies. There's a difference between being in love with someone and being in love with the idea of love. The wisest women I know have turned down their first 2 proposals. Extremely wise mothers of some of my friends turned down the first 2 proposals of their future husbands and fathers of their children, just to make sure they were serious, or because they felt that as a man, they weren't ready yet for marriage. It takes a while to find out what you're really looking for in a mate, and the best way to do that is to be faced with the idea of spending the rest of your life with someone, and realizing you don't want to for this reason, and that reason, and because they hold their fork like this. Be young; be wise; be single-- don't get married or even engaged until the third time is at least more than a charm.

XOXO

The Things Women Never Say

I don't cry in public. I'm mortified when I cry in front of my friends. In fact, I flat-out believe that I should never cry; if I have to, I cry in the shower so it's like I never did in the first place. Getting me to admit fear or the fact that I feel something or want something is harder than getting me to submit to vaccinations administered through needles or local anesthesia. And I have not had either in the past 4 years. I think it's a woman thing: We're taught that there are some things that you should never say to a man-- never expose your flaws, never explain your fears, and certainly never ask for anything more. But I think that one of my favorite things about Carrie, and the trait that I admire most about her, is her ability to speak up and speak her mind when it comes to the men in her life. Be it the fact that she'll pick up the phone and dial without thinking (while I get the shakes just texting if I think that it won't be welcome,) or that she doesn't seem to care if a guy thinks that she talks too much or is too blunt, I think this is an excellent example of the fearlessness with which she approaches her relationships that we all could stand to emulate.

"Ok, I know I've lost a little of my power here, and I'm pretty that most women's magazines would say that what I just did was a very bad idea but...it's not your fault because I never say it."

But for the record, there are some things that you should never say. Such as, "Your back hair looks really weird," or "My ex used to have those boxers, too!" or quite possibly "From the way you look when you sleep at night, I can so tell our children are going to be really cute." Those would all be classic example of what NOT to ever say. But Carrie was right. Things like, "I hate your cigars," (if you're not smoke friendly, or, alternately, feel the extreme need to smoke as well when people you're close to light up, like I do,) "I hate that you look at other women," (I think we've all wanted to say this at one point or another,) "I hate that I don't have a key to your place, and you've never spent the night at my place," (if you've been in a committed, long-term relationship and it's gotten to the point that either the doorman or his roommates all expressly know to let you in, no questions asked, and will sit and talk with you until he gets there,) and "I still want something to change, a little bit, for me," can be really important to say. If you're not happy, something's gotta give, and it shouldn't have to be your standards of contentedness. Nor should it have to be your relationship.

I've asked friends going through difficult relationship times if they ever talk to their partner about their desires and fears and what they want out of said relationship, and I've gone through that same process of being guilty of not doing it, too. We women never say these things, because we like you so much that if it doesn't go over well, we don't want to lose you or the relationship totally, because as very wise yet very desperate people once said, something is better than nothing. But how much of "something" is better than us feeling like we're taken by our partners as a "nothing"?

Swallowing your pride and fear to say things like these can be difficult, but it has to be done. Just like how you can't get mad at someone for doing something if you've never spoken to them about it, you also can't expect things to change or get better or magically rectify themselves if you never bring the issue up. Don't point fingers; don't be obtuse about it-- just say "I feel (this) about (this), and I need/would like (this) from you if possible/if you're willing/if you feel the same way." Even if the situation can't be fixed, even if he won't give up his cigars and will never stop looking at other women or doesn't think you need a key to his place because of all the wonderful bonding you do with his roommates because you don't have one, the point is that you've gotten it off you chest and said your piece. And that will hopefully give you some peace.

And also for the record, I have never punched a guy I was seeing.

XOXO

How To Love A Wild Thing

Today was one of those late-sleeping, 4-PM-beer-drinking, lazy days in which I'm still wound for sound at 2 AM, and the only thing left to do for fun and excitement is wash the dishes, pants-less, while listening to Blondie and The Raconteurs, singing along while sudsing. Though we've come a long way from the homemakers of the '50s, I'm hoping that one day, I'll find a member of the opposite sex who appreciates this method of housekeeping more than the former.

Speaking of the '50s, Alli and I started compiling a list of the old movies we have to watch: Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Glass-Bottom Boat, The Maltese Falcon, and Creature From The Black Lagoon.

"I still haven't seen it," I told her. "It's my dad's favorite classic monster movie." Before she could say anything, I cut her off. "And you can lay off the Freud."

"I wasn't going to even touch that one," she told me.

Conversation, as it is apt to, turned then to our hot neighbor, who I'd run into earlier in the afternoon. "You know, he's supposedly really, really smart," Alli told me. "He was working on some genetics thing in Jamaica when he was there. That, and goat farming."

I ask you-- isn't that some sort of excellent? It brought up the question to me-- What sort of man do you want to end up with? If Freud is right and all young women are really just looking for another father figure, I'm going to need to find a jack of all trades, and master of most with a fantastic taste in cinema. If Alli and my not-so-innocent Mr. Roger's Neighborhood crush is any indication of the sort of person who stops us in our tracks, it's going to have to be someone with beautiful eyes. Someone real intelligent. With quirks.

And what about me? Is this smart, savvy, debonair jester

going to want me, singing Blondie at 2

AM as she finally,

finally, FINALLY does the dishes? A girl who names her cat after her favorite Italian waiter and can't say no to a dress in a particular shade of pink? Who stutters "rural" and sasses police officers when drunk? Who will never NOT be able to have an opinion on anything, but hopes her charm and colloquial vocabulary makes up for it? As Holly Golightly said in Capote's novel the movie was based on, "Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell...You can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky."

This is all I can say definitively on the subject: It ain't gonna work unless he's nocturnal, too.

XOXO

P.S-- If you already haven't, pick up a copy of "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Holly is a true original.

Celibacy and the City

A friend of mine told me the other night that she made the conscious choice to be celibate for the last year after she took a long and hard look at her hook-up history and felt less than pleased.

"Hey, that's cool," I told her, to which she scoffed.

"Oh yeah, Miss Sex-Blogger?"

I can't fault anyone for thinking that I'm pro-sex-- for sure, I am-- but it's more about her deciding to do something, and less about the fact that it's about not having sex. Right now, I'm going through the process of deciding what I want this summer to be all about, and I've come up with something that is just as interesting as her choice to be celibate:

I want to wake up every morning with expanding possibilities. I want to not be afraid to play. I want to stay loose. I want to keep things casual. I want to not let the past affect my future. I want to soak up the sand and lake's water equally. I want to not have to miss you any more. I want to be civil and someone who you'd want to miss. I want to be young. I want to be allowed to do as I please. I want to come and go and not have answer to anyone. I want to sleep the best I ever have. I want to go to concerts and movies and hiking and camping and sailing and road trips and swimming and expand. I want to become more professionally-proactive than before. I want to be able to change as often as the summer breezes. I want to not be figured out. I want to be allowed to just be.

And here's what I don't want, although it's exactly what everyone seems to think I should want: I don't want to date.

And I don't want to be tied down.

Maybe that's the root of the problem-- I came back thinking that's exactly what I wanted, and was too stunned to react with any sort of aplomb when I started to having sneaking suspicions that that's exactly what I actually don't want right now.

Would Carrie think wanting to be single is acceptable? I think yes, absolutely. People are fighting and clawing to get into relationships-- I want nothing more than to NOT be in one right now, taking a break and cooling down. What about you? What do you want this summer? Are you waiting to get into the "In" door, or are you running for the "Exit"? For now, the only man getting the right side of my bed is Nicco. The kitten.

XOXO

4 Times A Woman Is NOT Trying To Be A Crazy Bitch

"And it's not your fault, but mine; and it was your heart on the line. I really fucked things up this time, didn't I, my dear?" These may be the lyrics of Mumford and Sons' "Little Lion Man," but they aptly describe the feeling that women get when we realize we've made a social mis-step of some possibly Crazy Bitch proportions. And so, I give you, so we can be clearer about this in the future, the four times women are not trying to be a Crazy Bitch.

Situation 1.) When you give us disappointing news, the silence on the phone line is not a bad thing. We are not trying to make you feel any worse (...slightly). We're just trying to juggle our disappointment with the fact that we know you already feel bad and try to temper our instant bitchy and self-centered response with something that sounds more like, "Well, that's really a shame," instead of "This is all your fault!" Because we actually know what's fair and what's not, and when you've tried versus when you're actually not trying. If you're not trying, we're bound to be a little more insistent and lay on a little bit of a guilt-trip, but if you've done what you can, we're taking time out to not be a bitch about it. We really hate being a bitch to you. Really.

Situation 2.) It's only been 24 hours, and my name has popped up on your phone not twice, but 4 times. I know how this looks. This doesn't look good. In fact, I'm pretty sure that this qualifies for what is known in the vernacular as "blowin' a G's phone up." But hear me out. If you weren't quite so hard to get a hold of, and if I wasn't calling for some really, really pertinent and time-stamped information, we wouldn't be having this problem. I am not purposely trying to be annoying. I am not trying to hunt you down over Verizon's phone lines, though, it's starting to feel like it at this point, even to me. Women are warned off their entire life so being so persistent, as we're told it often comes across as "needy." But the deal is, I don't necessarily need you--although that would be nice-- I need the answers that you hold. Please accept this as an apology, and call back ASAP so I can stop looking like I'm about to boil a bunny at any moment and you can get back to being un-harassed by me and thinking, "Wow, she's actually a really cool girl. I haven't heard from her in awhile. Maybe I should call," and not "Oh god, it's this crazy bitch again-- she can't get enough of me. I'm turning my phone off NOW. Die, bitch, diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie!"

Situation 3.) It's The Morning After, roughly somewhere between the hours of 8 and 10 AM. We are currently undressed, unwashed, just awake, and the remains of yesterday's make-up are smeared in 20 directions from center. From the instant our eyes open, we are aware of 4 things:
1.) You have other stuff to do today than entertain us.
2.) We were sleeping with our mouth open, which I'm sure was incredibly attractive and winning.

3.) You're probably wondering when we're going to leave so you can get on with said day.
4.) Saying goodbye is going to be awkward. There's always the Great Hug vs. Kiss debate.
We are also then aware of the next 4 following things:
1.) Certified, we will have no clue where either our bra or underwear have gotten to. (Always check under the bed!)
2.) We cannot stumbled onto the street looking like this. It's a small town, and there are children and possibly people who know us around.
3.) We're going to have to commandeer your bathroom for about 10 minutes to get presentable. We hope you don't mind or think we're taking a massive shit.
4.) It's rude to just fuck and run, so what's the most well-mannered way to execute this morning? Is this a "breakfast included" affair, or at least a lukewarm cup of coffee? We're not looking to stay for lunch, but a cigarette would be nice. A half an hour to an hour of waking up, lounging, fixing everything north of your neck and checking out the situation south of the border is in order, and some casual morning conversation is not completely out-of-line. We're aware. We're not staying forever. We know you would like us out at some reasonable point. And we'll be gone with nearly everything we came with in about an hour, as long as we can actually find the underwear that has been spirited away to the Twilight Zone.
(Side-note: If she know the roommates, she's gonna be in there a little bit longer. It's just rude otherwise.)

Situation 4.) When we tell you what we really want. Be man enough to ask rather than jumping to conclusions. Be man enough to listen. Be man enough to care. Because when you don't, that puts you in a situation in which you become a Massive Dick, and, in fact, totally null and voids us from being a Crazy Bitch when we call your ass on it. It's kind of like how a red-card throwing a player out of the game negates his personal foul.

There you have it. Realign that thinking.

XOXO

Love and Disgust-- A Variation on Love and War.

Awhile ago, I was sitting in my Women in 20th Century Fiction class in Florence while we discussed the disgust of Penelope's emotions for Odysseus in Louise Gluck' and Margaret Atwood's re-tellings of the Odyssey. (Links to said works are under the author's names above if you're interested.) I was minding my own business, just sitting there and listening, probably doodling in the margins of my notebook as I am apt to do to pass time, when the thought hit me like a ton of unequivocal bricks-- "I don't want to end up despising you like Penelope despised Odysseus."

Women are, by nature and design, fickle creatures. We're hormonal and moody and we expect all together too much from life (see "Committmentstein: A Monster of Our Own Making" for proof of this). But whoever said, "All's fair in love and war," was obviously not a woman.

True, love and hate are inevitably intertwined emotions, but in every relationship, there comes a time where it's more one than the other. The other day, I was talking to a friend of mine who has been in a serious, committed relationship for the past year. "It's fine," she said. "It's business as usual. But that's the problem. The romance is gone and I'm starting to get disenchanted."

Disenchanted, disgusted, despised, dismayed, disappointed--doomed-- all "D" words that cane describe the complex flow of emotions in a woman from the starting point of "You're my favorite person on Earth" to "What the fuck has happened to you?"

Coming back home was nerve-wracking. It's not a fun place to be in. I'm passive-aggressive by nature, though I hate fighting, but can't keep my mouth shut when it comes to expressing my displeasure. This may seem like a good thing, but when all that comes out lately is nagging, even I start to get sick of hearing it. What changed? Why can't you just follow through with things? As someone who has never really tried to make a solid go at things, I know this is a massive case of pot and kettle, but I can't help but wondering, when does being selfless turn into being selfish? When is it not about you and what you want anymore, and when does it become about me and what I want?

I've got some good self-destructive tendencies. Or, maybe if they're so predominant, they're not tendencies anymore, but rather, habits. But looking back through all my past trainwrecks of relationships doesn't make the fact that at 16 I could do exactly what I needed to any less poignant. What did I know then that I either don’t know now or can’t do? What we’ve been through changes us—the second time around, we tend to get more lenient about situations. It can be better, and it can be worse. I’ve been in both good and bad relationships. I’ve been in both physically and emotionally abusive relationships, and I’ve also been in relationships I couldn’t have cared less about and didn’t put any work or time into, taking the spoiled brat approach to love. But a relationship is not like a book. You can’t just put it down, walk away, and expect to be able to pick it up where you left off, no changes. As Penelope found when Odysseus returned, what can happen in the space of time between the leaving and the returning is where all the stories really were. Two people are like the covers of a book-- there can be lots of history and words between them. It can be a happy story, a sad story, or it can be an unfinished story.

What I've realized is that getting out of a relationship is not so much like parting as it is about shedding a man like layers. And as with onion, ogres, and clothing, some layers, no matter how hot and sweaty they make you, you just want to keep. Some people get so far under your skin that they become part of your make-up-- a smell that you'd know anywhere, a taste in your mouth that won't go away. So I guess I shouldn't bitch if it's my own decision. But what happens when all that is tangible is the questions? It's what I want, but I don't know if it's what I need.

XOXO

Love In The Time Of Negitivity

In addition to being a shoe addict (5 pairs in Italia and counting), I am also a hopeless Love junkie. I love a lot of things. There is no real happy-medium for me-- I either love it, or I hate it. Ambiguity is not really my thing. I try to hide it underneath the beer talk and the football game scores, but no matter how hard I try, sometimes it’s just obvious. My roommate Raquel had me pegged by the second night we spent in the Hotel Baglione in Florence. “You’re so into the idea of Love,” she said to me.

Maybe it’s because I can’t understand it. I have never said it. I have never had it said to me. I’ve felt it, but I’ve remained silent, which, in hindsight, was probably the best thing. Just like Carrie in SATC, I’m looking for crazy, outrageous, inconvenient Love. Love that leaves no room for anything else—no doubts, no fears, just firm knowledge.

I listened to one of my roommates one night as she stood in the hallway outside my door, crying. “Love is a fairytale,” she said. “It doesn’t exist.” As I listened to her, I felt my heartbeat shudder a bit. Not because of the fact that she was obviously upset, but because of the fact that she didn’t believe. It pains me, deep down, when people profess that they don’t believe in Love. What, then, do you really have to live for? ‘What does that mean for me?’ I remember thinking. ‘That’s sad and all that she doesn’t have faith for herself, in herself, but what does it mean for me that there are other people out there who don’t believe in Love like I believe?’

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, a young teenage girl traveled down to Florida with her family. While she was there, she met a dashing young yacht captain on the docks one night. They went out to dinner the very night they met, and by the time they kissed goodnight and the room spun as she saw fireworks, she was sure that she wanted to be with that man forever. Fate intervened. They both happened to be from New Jersey. He quit his job on the yacht after the last trip, moved back to New Jersey, and two years later, they were married, two days after she graduated high school. About another seventeen years later, pretty much unplanned, they had a child. 35 years later, they are still together, still very much in love. These people are my parents.

This is not to say it is always perfect. As the child of the union, I can tell you—there are fights and disagreements and disappointments. As my mother explained to me, it’s not so much of a constant state of Love—it’s more of an “I will always love you, but I don’t always have to like you.” It is not a ‘happily-ever-after’ fairytale all of the time. Sometimes, it is shoveling the snow off the deck and balancing the familial checkbook and swapping cars to get oil changed. Sometimes, it is planning your life around someone else’s and deferring to their hopes and dreams and aspirations because you love someone enough to know that they need to take a chance and that your own hopes and dreams and aspirations can be put on hold for a moment in order to support theirs. Sometimes, it is putting up with the mundane and the tedious and the frustrating. But, other times, it’s just—it. A sure feeling. Love. Bliss. As easy to love someone else as it is to breathe.

I used to think that this sort of perfect fairytale ending was not achievable for me, based merely on the fact that if my parents were so lucky, how could I ever be doubly lucky as well? Between Disney, the rigors of our societal traditional roles on young women, and growing up around two people so obviously in love, I started to feel jaded. Once, I told a guy I was dating this fear—that because my parents got this, that I never would. He looked at me from the passenger seat as I drove, horrified. “Why would you ever think that way?” he asked me. “Why don’t you think about how that’s what you’re supposed to find, instead?” Even if the relationship was caput, the advice was sound. After all, as a long-time family friend told me, “It wasn’t always a fairytale, after all. The first few years were downright nasty.” As it can be. Love isn’t just a fairytale, as my roommate was finding out. It’s fickle, and it’s difficult, and yes, it will make your cry sometimes. It’s not for the faint of heart, or for those who don’t like getting back up again, dusting themselves off, gluing the pieces of their heart back together, and trying again. It’s not for those who can’t speak their mind, or don’t know yet what they want. It’s not for those who don’t believe they want to find it.

The more I see of this world, the more sure I become that there’s some sort of equation to love. The amount of effort you put into finding it, cultivating it, and maintaining it is directly proportional to the amount you get from it. As my own mother, she of the 35 year+ relationship says, relationships aren’t two people each putting in 50%. A real relationship is two people both putting in 100% of their effort, while at the same time, not feeling like it’s an effort. As I have found, sometimes it even requires 110, or 115.5%, without even realizing it, just because that’s what you want to put into it. There is no Golden Rule to love and relationships. You just need to know that you are doing everything possible to find it, make it work, or to move it forward in order to know that you should be getting something out of it.

If you are a Disciple of Love, does it make you one of the chosen few more apt to find it? If you really believe in it, can you make it come true? If you are a true romantic, no matter how closeted, does that make you more entitled to your own Happy Ending? Are there really any promises?

I have met Romantics off all different shapes and sizes—the Single Girls who are doing their damnedest just searching high and low for Love. The guy who wants both the physical and mental connection. The military couple who doesn’t let distance, jobs, and danger get in their way of always, always thinking about a ‘tomorrow.’ And those eternal ponderers, always questioning if Love is really for them while just hoping to get an answer back from the great void that is the rest of the world’s dating population. Patience. Perseverance. A perverse sense of humor. If not today, then maybe tomorrow. The one thing that all these people have in common is the fact that just like my parents, they believed that they were supposed to find Love; that Love was something that they are entitled to, if not owed. There is no settling; there is no giving up. And when it comes down to it, that’s exactly what you have to remember—you are, in fact, Loveable. Guaranteed, there is someone out there who will find your quirks and idiosyncrasies—the way your voice register drops when you’re asking for a favor, how everything laid on a flat surface has to be diagonal, how your peas and your carrots must never touch—helplessly loveable. There will be someone who will care for you enough to forgive most every mistake you can make. There will be someone who can think of nothing better to do than just sit and breathe with you; just stand still with you. The trick is being patient, waiting, and keeping an open heart of your own. Don’t miss that knock. And once you find it, don’t let it go so easily. All good things are worth working for—and not just 50%. Give it 110%.

XOXO

Italian Escapades: My 18th Night of Mayhem in Italy, Gone Native in Carnevale, And Other Assorted Excitements

For my 18th night in Italy, I went to see The Wailers in concert, smoked Italian doobies, got caught up in a front-row mosh pit, touched 3 of The Wailers and got an autograph, ran across a 7 lane highway on the way home and was almost hit by a speeding moped, jumped some Jersey (Sicily? Do you think they would be called Sicily barriers over here? Is Sicily the Italian equivalent of New Jersey?) barriers, and coined the term "Unholy Cannoli." Just another day.

Robin and I got to Flog Auditorium (quite roughly the Italian version of Higher Ground-- same size, same atmosphere, but much more relaxed, in fact, non-acting, security,) an hour early, and stood in possibly the most miserable weather conditions I have ever waited for doors to open. And I waited outside for Busta to start in just a t-shirt last April in Vermont.) It was damp and drizzling. The trees dripped down on us. I went to go find a beer to find to improve my general disposition, and was greatly relieved when I got back to find that whelp, this being a Wailers concert, it was incredibly easy to score some weed. So score away. Also, once inside, our early arrival resulted in center-stage spots 1 person back from the stage. And this put us right inside the center of the cloud of smoke as the audience proceeded to hot-box the auditorium.

Second-hand smoke at concerts has got to be one of my favorite things. I love getting high on other people's time and money. So sue me.

If I had questioned it previously, I now know where I can find every Italian man I find attractive: At a Wailers concert. From dreadlocked, to hipster, to the young Italian Johnny Depp look-alike who was tripping on E and loved everyone and everything with a sort of infectious child-like humor that reminded me of the bastardized lovechild of Devendra Banhart and Russel Brand, who I spent the 3 hours of the concert pressed up against (3 hours well spent), it was a collectively attractive and fun crew. Until some of the drunk soccer boys and tripped-out electro-scene girls thought it would be a cute idea to start a mosh pit.

Now, there is a place and a time for a mosh pit. At an alternative or punk or metal show, yes. If you're seeing ICP or Sick Puppies or MOP. If you're under the age of 18. If you're a 185 pound man over six feet. But if you are a 125 pound woman under five-foot-four, mosh pits are not fun scenes. Losing my Gianni Depp in the melee, I locked myself to the jersey-clad back of the soccer boy in front of me, and shoved elbows back into the bodies that crushed up against me, fighting to keep standing. (First rule of mosh pits: DON'T FALL DOWN. Unless getting trampled seems like a good time to you.)

However, this mosh pit succeeded in pushing me even closer to the stage (literally back-humping this poor boy,) so that I was able to A.) touch the lead guitar, B.) Shake hands with the keyboardist, and C.) Get an autograph. So. I can't say that it wasn't a huge pain in the ass, overall.
Cabs were nonexistent from the concert, so Robin and I hiked the 2 miles back to our apartments. Thanks to the weed and the drinks, I couldn't feel my knees (long story short: years of horseback riding and jumping is not conducive to good cartilage in your knees, which is not conducive to all the walking I've been doing here, which results in massive amounts of pain and me hobbling like some of the black-clothed bubbies here), which came in handy for the sprint across the 7 lane highway in which a speeding moped nearly mowed me down, and again when we had to jump two lanes of concrete barriers to get across said highway to our street. Robin nearly drank from a dog's water fountain in the park. I had massive munchies and was trying to convince him that it was a good idea to go to the Secret Bakery to get "Unholy Cannoli" and "Debonair Eclairs." I thought it was HEE-LAR-IOUS at the time. The next morning when I woke up, very slowly and fuzzily and in lots of pain, I was really glad he put his foot down and said no.
Saturday morning found me waking up at the ass-crack of dawn at 5:15 (after going to sleep at 3:30 AM) to pack, have a quick wake n' bake session, and get on a bus at 6 AM for a weekend in Venice. I was able to buy gummybears, my favorite munchie food ever, at the rest stop, took pictures of the sunrise, and slept some more before walking up and stumbling onto a boat to Venice. It was also a good thing I slept through most of it because I have realized something: If I die while over here, it will not be from a kidnapping/rape/murder. It will be because of Italian drivers. Take a Boston driver. Make him snort copious amounts of speed. Perform a partial lobotomy. And then put him behind the wheel of a BUS. That, my friends, is terrifying. And I am living in a country full of them. Crossing streets and getting in cabs and buses and the such. I am literally playing Bussian Roulette.

This is what you need to know about Venice: It is easily one of the most beautiful, unique, and creepily romantic places in the world. It is so old and seeped in popular lore that at night, when lights reflect on the moving water in the canals, you will believe without a doubt that you are in a Poe story. Especially if it happens to be Carnevale, and all of humanity is running around in masks and costumes in Italy's mashed-up version of Halloween, April Fool's Day, and prom. I bought a mask, and my roommate Raquel, Robin and I took to the streets at night to find a restaurant featured in Bon Appetit and get in on the fun. We ran into a desk of cards, a set of bowling pins, an army of walking garbage bags, sperm that I ran away from, and some attractive young Ghostbusters that had it all over Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd. As soon as I heard the theme music coming from the boombox one of them was carrying, I was off and running toward them, camera flying behind me. They were young, charming, funny, friendly, sweet, and tolerated our photo shoot with them. In short, they are my new best friends. Almost everyone we met, excluding only the really drunk twenty-something men who only approached Raquel and I to ask if we were with Robin, as in, if he was our boyfriend, and walked away when we quickly repeated "Si" a few times (Robin was big pimpin' that night, fo' sho'-- male friends make the best joint bodyguards/decoys), was incredibly nice and friendly. More English is spoken there; less cigarettes smoked. Carnevale is basically one big, deliciously decadent and light-hearted romp. I was so glad I got to be there, and am definitely going back again at some point in my life. Actually, I would live in Venice for about a year, easily. I fell in love with it, even more than Florence.
My un-Valentine's Day was perfect. I tried to remember what I did last year-- I think a Girl's Dinner and then I went home, smoked straight to my face, and passed out early-- but it is one of those many Lost Memories. (This hints very strongly that smoking copious amounts of greenery was involved, even if dinner out was not.) This year, we were on tour boats to Murano and Burano and Venice for most of the day, and once we got to Venice, Robin, Raquel, Brian and I ran off to find calamari and a gondola ride. The gondola ride around sunset was easily one of the most un-romantic romantic things I have ever done in my life, (squeezing my gondolier's biceps included,) and as we took the tour boat back to the bus station (after almost missing it and being stranded in Venezia-- not the worst thing that could happen, in my opinion,) the sun set in rainbow hues with a blood-red, huge sun setting on the horizon. Blissful couples were unapparent. We took the bus back to Florence, and I crawled into bed with Pineapple Express, Baci chocolates, and more gummybears before passing out. In other words, unadulterated, Single Girl bliss.

Looking back, I find that I've been surprising myself numerous times. Probably one of my favorite things-- surprising myself. Usually, I am exceedingly hard to surprise. (See: Jaded. Cynical. Guarded.) Usually, I would die to be actually (positively) surprised. It just doesn't really happen for me. But there I was, finding myself surprised as I watched a hand-- my own hand-- reaching for the door of a cab last Thursday night. And like an out-of-body experience, leaning in, and asking the cabby in pidgeon English/Italian if he could take us to Flog Auditorium, and for how much. There I was, forefinger and thumb pinching a tight little jay as I inhaled while listening to "Everything's Gonna Be Alright." There I was, dancing with a room full of totally chill strangers and listening to the late, great Bob's songs in a cloud of haze. There I was, drunk on wine and life by 2:15 PM. There I was, in a gondola, looking up at the golden light on marble palazzos. There I was, flirting with a Ghostbuster holding a leafblower. There I was, eating some of the most delicious ravioli in a butternut squash sauce with sugared black truffle in a restaurant that Bon Appetit called "the best in Venice." There I was, flying by the seat of my pants, running from cars and mopeds and for trains and boats and buses, asking absolute Italian strangers for directions and tickets and ganja and photographs and phone numbers and recommendations. I'm living a charmed life, I know it, and I'm grateful for every moment of it.

I am finding that I am doing nearly everything I said I wouldn't do in Italy. And it's thrilling. The moment I stopped sweating it was the moment the world opened itself right up to me.

XOXO

Of Men, Women, And Italian Escapades, Part 4:

Italian Escapades:
Vespa Man, or Why Am I Such A Fuck-Up?

The dog is cute. It looks kind of like my best friend’s Australian shepherd, and it’s waiting patiently outside the small grocer’s down the block from my apartment for its master to return. It grins up at me, panting slightly, and, a sucker always for the canines, particularly good-looking ones, such as this one (just like with men and green-eyed people, or green-eyed men especially,) I smile back.

As I am smiling like a special type of fool at the dog, someone slides out of the door in front of me. I look up and see a youngish, stocky man in fashionable black leather-gear with sandy hair tucked under a helmet standing in front of me. “Hi,” he says, and thrown at the English with or without the accent behind it, I actually look back at him, catching his twinkling light eyes.

He reminds me, in the instant I really take him in, of the geeky Australian transfer student turned Eevil Keenival who was the hero of Grease 2. (Not such a great movie. That dreamboat and a young and always fabulous Michelle Phieffer were the only things that saved it.)

I take another pensive drag from the end of my cigarette, and he tries again. “Hello.” He’s careful to keep his body language open and friendly as I breeze by, not threatening or insinuating anything more than a greeting—maybe I’ll say something as I get closer? Maybe his magnetic attraction will just do the job and pull me right in to that black Italian-leathered muscular chest? I appreciate it—I appreciate all off it—though I don’t say anything back.

I walk another ten strides before it hits me. If Vespa man can see me like this, in a plaid men’s flannel shirt and bulky winter coat and my kicked-to-shit Uggs, desperately sucking on the end of a cigarette like it is my lifeline, hair tossed into a hot mess by the wind, and still think enough to want to say hi—what the fuck am I doing, walking away? If he is seeing me at one of my emotional lows, of which you conveniently get to miss out on the tempest that you’ve stirred up, and he wants to actually do something about it, even just greet me and chat with me on the sidewalk—why the fuck am I running away? Is that really the only mode I know how to operate on?

I look back. He’s still there, standing beside his Vespa, a vision in leather and nice hand-made shoes. I watch him swing a leg over the seat and settle in, turning the tiny engine over. He then motions to the dog, who rises from his watch by the shop’s stoop and jumps up into his master’s lap, riding in front of him. A man, his Vespa, and his dog. It’s such a picture of domestic Italian bachelordom bliss that it pulls at my ovaries somewhere in the same vicinity that really cute toddlers do. It doesn’t mean that I necessarily want one, but just for a moment, I think about what it could have been like if I actually said hi back. If we traded names. If I asked to pet his grinning dog and he told me it’s name. If I accepted an invitation for a ride on the back of the Vespa, something I want to check off the list of Thing To Do Before I Die or Before I Leave.

I think about it for a moment, watching his taillights fade. And then for another moment. And I find that somewhere in the space of these two moments, I’m less angry at you, and more angry at myself. I’m letting these moments go. These moments that I may never find again, great adventures, new acquaintances, and smiling European dogs. And for what? You’re having your moments at home, no explanations needed. I should be having mine. What I do here will mean just as little as what I didn’t do here when I get back, if not even less. Tit for tat. Vespa for Virginia.

XOXO

The Tough-Love Guide To Splitsville: What Do YOU Want?

This is pretty frank. If you're someone who gets upset easily, you may not want to read it. If you really don't want to know how women go through the after-shocks of "it's over", don't read this. If you wear perpetually rose-tinted glasses, and think true love prevails, this ain't for you.

But if you are going through a break-up, or feel lost, alone, scared, or like you need something to shake you out of it and at the same time make you feel less alone and unloved, read on, sister, or I guess to not be gender-biased-- friend. Hi. I'm not going to say "Let's hold each other while we sob," because that is so not my scene or how I do this, but I may be inclined to say, "If you need the occasional hug, I'm down for that, and in the meantime, let's curl up with a good book and chat and smoke."

So. You're now an Uno that used to be part of a Duo. Join the club. Take a seat. I'm gonna need your full attention. So stop thinking about it for a moment. I'm not going to sugar-coat any of this. I think it's about time we didn't take a "one size fits all" approach to what happens after it's over. If you really want to know how women get through this without going through boxes of Kleenex and repeatedly watching "The Notebook", this is where you want to be. I mean, that's all well and good if it's what gets you through, but not all of us operate like that. Some of us need to know what to expect if we want to get on with our lives, straight-up, no chaser.

Yes, You are Going to Lose Weight: You know how there's that very media-contrived popular image of that woman who's just had her heart broken drowning her sorrows in pint after pint of Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby? Well. I have never, ever met a woman who actually went on an eating binge and gained weight after a split. Instead, the norm I have found is that women actually lose weight. This is accomplished in one of two ways: "Do-Something" women usually throw themselves into their gym membership with renewed vigor and burn those pounds away to a leaner, more competitive self. "What-The-Fuck-Just-Happened?!" women usually get thrown right off their appetites and start to whittle away.

Let's break it down. Much to my chagrin, I recently found that when you feel comfortable with yourself and someone else, you eat. Why not, right? You know the term "comfort food"? Yeah. You're happy. You're not worried. You're probably feeling pretty secure. So you want to keep feeding that feeling, either physically or emotionally.

Well, after a split, shock sets in. It's going to happen, no matter how amicably it happens. At first, you may just forget to eat. Hey, it happens. Your mind is preoccupied elsewhere. If you're a smoker, like I am, you can easily mistake hunger for the need to smoke. Which further suppresses your appetite. Then, when you do get back around to that food thing, odd feelings may get dredged up that set you right off of eating. For me, it was disgust. Every time I sat down to eat, my mind would start wandering through what should have been closed and padlocked doors, and I would find myself so physically disgusted that I felt like I might vomit even before putting food in my mouth. I lost 6 pounds in 3 days. Not good. I don't really have 6 pounds to lose. Now, you can locate my hipbones for the first time since I hit puberty, and I'm honestly concerned that a pickpocket in Italy could just pick me up and carry me away instead of dealing with pockets.

Because I can't do this for myself, I'm going to do it for you: DO NOT THINK ABOUT IT. I don't mean the whole mess of affairs (ha), I just mean the things that happened that you couldn't have helped, one way or another. Really. Some things shouldn't be dwelt on. Don't give in to those thoughts that will never, or should never, be answered. You will never, and SHOULD never, know what it was like. You really, really don't want to know the details. So making them up isn't doing anyone any favors, least of all you, lady. And you are who matters right now.

I will say, however, that there is one up-side to losing post-disaster weight: compared to your emaciated African-child frame, your mammeries are going to look more massive than ever. It's the little wins.

Vices, Or "Why Is That Pack Empty Already?": You feel a little used and abused, so now you want to use and abuse something else, right? Alcohol. Cigarettes. Controlled substances. Give me the Stoli, and nobody gets hurt, right? Yeah. We've all been there. I'm not going to preach anything, because I am probably going to be sainted as the Patron Saint of Avoidance Through Substances. But just like the whole eating thing, one day, you're going to start to realize you're not drinking/smoking/toking/using as much as you were previously. That's when you know it is safe to start putting down the bottle/cigarette/bowl/rolled-up bill and step a little further away. And a little further away the next day. And sometime shortly, you will be able to enter civilized company again.

If you're finding this is not the case, and in fact, it's getting worse, do what any responsible user would do: have one "safe" person who knows about your problem and who you would feel comfortable having them snap you out of it, and GO TO THEM. Killing yourself is no way to get on with a better life. And plus, though you may feel hurt, there are so many other people who care about you. I bet you anything, that even if you are unlucky in love, you are incredibly blessed with amazing friends who would do nearly anything for you. I know I am. And most of the time, that unconditional love is even better than regular sex.
...Ok, so that may be a total lie, but, you know what I mean. It's more important.
......Or...ok, I just can't win this one.

Crazy-Bitch Behavior, And Why You Shouldn't Be Doing It: You may want to make a grand gesture. Usually, a pretty crazy grand gesture. But here's the problem: if you want to maintain any sense of decorum or civility with your ex S.O, you can't. No showing up on doorsteps. No beating other women up. No really pissed-off tirades or messages or letters or blog posts. Be a Big Girl. It's such a Catch-22, I know-- you really want to do something to let you blow off all that steam inside, but you'd be best off getting it out sometime when you're really not into the guy or outcome or friendship, anyway. This is what your friends are for. Swear them to secrecy, bug the fuck out, and be done with it. (Also, make them swear up, down, and sideways over your dead body or the closest bottle of their favorite beer not to send any angry letters of their own. Because having scary friends is no way to Win Friends And Influence People. Or ever have your friend and the person who recieved said Angry Letter in the same 20 foot radius ever again. Even though your friend's heart may be in exactly the right place. Make your judgement call.)

Re-Assess Your Situation-- Who Are You, and What Do You Want: Speaking of, by this point in your life, you shouldn't be with anyone who you feel like you're settling for or are apathetic about. You should be with someone who you can be totally, one-hundred-percent yourself around. You should be able to talk to them about whatever you want, and even crack horrendous jokes during foreplay without a second thought. You should not be compromising one iota for anyone else. You should not be afraid to say "this is what I like" and "this is what I don't like." You should know yourself pretty well by now, and if you don't, you should be figuring that out.

I know this sounds much easier said than done, but when you find it, you'll just know it, I promise you-- no games, no worries.

Personally, I am taking my semester abroad in Florence as a self-discovery field-trip. I can already tell you it's going to make me more independent, more confident, and more adept at expressing myself. Whatever else I learn while over there is going to be the surprise. But mostly, it's about getting away to find out who, exactly, I am. Not just who I am in the mirror, what music I listen to, what I like to eat, what I'm not a fan of doing, but what makes me come alive. What makes me scared, and how I can get over it. What I refuse to let go of. What I need to learn to admit to. And where I want to be, physically and theoretically.

What You SHOULD Be Doing: Full Disclosure: I am writing this to you in a massive Princeton hoodie, leggings, and slippers. I haven't showered yet. I haven't eaten yet. In fact, I woke up at 11 AM. Coping comes in all different guises. But what I can tell you is that right now, I am starting to get hungry for some toast. I'm planning on getting dressed to go into town and mail out some paperwork this afternoon. And I'm looking forward to a midnight Jacuzzi tonight.

It's little steps. Get out of bed. Get dressed. Go places. Keep yourself occupied. Take the time to be selfish and do what you like. Do what you want. Make no excuses. This time is about YOU. It's not about being nice or even charitable to whoever makes you feel less than stellar at the moment. The first step to surviving is to recognize what you need. Do so. Follow through. Don't rest until you get there.

A Note to Fellow Writers: I actually found this nugget in the most unlikely of places-- in one of my freshmen year textbooks from "Introduction to Professional Writing." Ariel Gore, author of "How To Become A Famous Writer Before You're Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights," devotes a section of the first chapter to heartbreak. And no, I'm not shitting you, I found this is a required course book. This is what she says:

"When bad things happen to writers, there's always the silver glimmer of a good story. Damn, we think when we're facedown on the rain-wet pavement, nose broken and bleeding, coughing betrayal. This is gonna make a great story...Every time you expose yourself to annihilation, you come that much closer to grasping all that is indestructible in a soulful human being" (Gore, 31-32).

I bolded that last segment because I think that's the part you should focus on. Yeah, you may get a great story out of it, which, I have to admit, is the crutch that most writers and poets fall back on with biting black humor, or, like I do, get some cathartic writing out of it, but more than anything, the fact is that through the writing process after a big spill, you learn more about yourself, and what you really need. Seriously. Sit down with a notebook and some paper and start some stream-of-consciousness writing about what happened. You'll be amazed at what comes out of you: things you never said, things you did say, things you barely consciously remember, things you're writing down because you never want to forget, things you didn't know you had to say. And maybe, somewhere in that lovely chaotic mess (because I am a big fan of chaos), you may find exactly what it was you were looking for all along. Maybe it's an answer. Maybe it's a cold, hard fact. Maybe it's a new revelation about yourself. Maybe, it's where your soul really lies.

...So I took all day to write all that, and then thought...

That's kinda bullshit.

I mean, what is the most important thing right now? What is really resonating with me? It's not the fact I haven't eaten a square meal in a week. I couldn't care less. It's not the fact that I'm feeling a little like a schlub. I'm home; the cats are the only ones who can judge me, and they do that silently. And yeah, I'd really like to help other people out in the same spot I am right now, but that's not why I'm writing. It's the fact that I was rocked pretty hard. And how?

I find, usually, that the best thing that I can do when I'm stumped is to find someone else's creative content, in a similar vein to that I am working through, and watch, read, or experience it, completely open to interpretation. Sometimes, something jumps out. Sometimes, I get hit with a blinding flash of the obvious. And sometimes, I have to go through it a few times before I really get it. (Hello, "Dazed and Confused". Both the movie, and what it rendered me.) I've been watching the movie "The Women" a lot recently. Adapted from the 1936 play by Clare Boothe Luce, it features an all-star women cast (Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Candice Bergin, Bette Midler,) directed by Diane English, and focuses around the relationships between friends, mothers, daughters, wives, mistresses, and how they all intermingle in life.

The first night I watched it, I was completely raw. It was not a great experience. It hit a little too close to home and basically reduced me to a lump of nerves and totally withdrawn thoughts on the couch. That was the first night I thought, "Am I allowed to be angry about this? Can I really put aside the idea that I am supposed to be A Big Person and Do The Rational And Accommodating Thing for a moment and just...feel this?" So I did. I opened myself right the fuck up and got righteously angry.

But anger doesn't get you very far. This is not to say that you shouldn't let yourself get angry. There are some things absolutely worth getting angry over. Let me be the first to say-- there is nothing quite like those first initial five minutes after you reach a realization or see something totally upsetting in which you fume and rage and stomp around and shriek like a banshee, but you get spent very, very easily. And sometime, when you're lying there, as low as the floorboards can get, you think, "Is this really worth it? Is it really worth this emotional strain? I mean, past is past. Done is done. Don't you think you should be...I don't know...doing something instead of just lying here and being vaguely pathetic?"

This is when you ask yourself the two things that reverberated with me in "The Women":

"I've spent my entire life trying to be everything to everyone, and somehow, someone is always disappointed."

"Don't give a shit about anybody. Be selfish. Because you have to ask yourself a question: What about ME? ...I mean, after all, who are you? What do you want?"

I can't answer that for myself right now. Maybe that's the problem. On one hand, I know I never want to go through a repeat of what happened, but on the other, it's giving me the questions that I'm grappling with every day to reach on consensus on: "How forgiving am I? How much does it really mean to me? Where will I bend? Where will I break? And what do I now feel? And if you can do that, I should be smart enough to let you walk away."

You have to know the answers to those questions before you throw your lot in with someone else.

You do not have to be Wonder Woman. I give you the permission to be as completely human, and therefore, as completely imperfect and flawed and selfish as you need to be in finding those answers for yourself. That's as imperfect and flawed and selfish as you need to be, not want to be.

I once heard a young woman described as "ferocious" by one of her ex-professors in regard to going after what she wanted. That's what I want to be: ferocious. I want to be someone to be reckoned with. I want to be someone that you would not even think about crossing. And I don't ever want to be in this situation of not knowing, ever again. That's what I want most: a firm stance on what I want.

XOXO

[Fabulous photo credit goes to Edahn at http://www.askedahn.com/. Check that site out for some right-on advice.]