My Gorgeous Mistake

You may not have known this, but I loved someone once.

It was a self-conscious, desperate love. Not the version that makes you better, wiser, stronger. But the love that comes from needing someone terribly, and feeling whole, partly because of their understanding. It wasn't "in" love. It was sadder than that.

He never loved me in return, and if he did, it was simply as a result of my manipulations. It took me a year to realize that. In fact, I wasn't thinking clearly about anything at all for many months following our separating.

The dust had barely settled on our split before he began using the "ex girlfriend" phrase. He seemed so anxious to say it. I imagine it was because for the duration of our nine month relationship (off and on...off again, on again, etc) I had not allowed, as I have never allowed, for him to refer to me as his girlfriend. At first, he wanted desperately to use titles. But eventually, I assume, grew tired of asking, and accepted the inevitability that I would never budge. I would have been happy, in hindsight, to be considered the girlfriend, but was too busy testing him continuously to bother realizing it. But again, after the split, it was all I heard. It became, sort of, his term of endearment for me. I was his ex girlfriend, he was my gorgeous mistake. (From hence forth to be referred to as such...or in short, MGM.)

*I wish I could take credit for the phrase, as I find it to be incredibly befitting of all KINDS of situations in my life, but the kudos go to Sinead O'Connor, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, circa 1989. A master wordsman if you ask me.)

I forget at what point it became inevitable to us that we were over. We lived states apart, and relied heavily upon the quality of our hours long conversations to sustain the intrigue between visits. They had already begun to fade terribly by this time last year, and the wheels were in motion for my move to New York, though I barely knew it at the time. I don't believe that I ever REALLY thought I would lose him. He had become an inevitability in my life. I had connected more strongly, done more things more quickly, shown more sides more shamelessly of myself that I would never have presumed to be some day living without him. I know that sounds strange to say of someone with whom you never exchanged even the "L word"--but it was the truth of us. Or then...maybe it was my truth of us.

Irregardless, it came to a crashing halt last February. I moved to New York and we didn't speak for nearly two months. In mid April, I saw him again. And my world, which was spinning quite nicely in my new city and without him, came to a standstill. We spent only twenty-four hours together, but they were for me, the most genuine of the thousands of hours we'd spent before. They rekindled all of the crazy inside of me, and worse yet, re-established the million and one reasons we would, should, never be together. He left the next morning, and he kissed me goodbye in Penn Station. He had a girlfriend, I was dating a fantastic boy...both of which irrelevant. MGM had always kissed me when he said goodbye. Nothing about that had changed. And I never wanted it to.

I remember only three of our kisses, though there were countless. I remember the first two, because they changed everything. And I remember that last kiss, because it changed nothing. He got onto his train and I never saw him again.

The inevitability, as I have said, of the end of a terrible, albeit gorgeous mistake...is what makes it all so heartbreaking. There seems, in the end, to be some things over which we simply have no control. We lose, sometimes. Despite our greatest efforts.

The inspiration behind these thoughts, is that I will have to see him again, in just two weeks. He is in love now, and I too have moved along. But much like a recovering addict, when faced with the potential presence of your vice, one must consider the dangers. My mother today, who lived as much as she could through the MGM ordeal with me last year, kindly but in no uncertain terms told me to stay away from him by whatever means possible. "He is a terrible weakness for you, Jennifer." She sighed. She is absolutely right.

The lesson, I hope, that we glean from our mistakes (no matter how much fun they were to make) is that we can choose not to make them again.

I hope that is what I choose.

Oh, Family Tree...Oh, Family Tree...

Ahh, Christmas.

A time for excessive eating and drinking, Yule Logs and spiked eggnog... a time for remembering those closest to us for what they truly are:

Total fucking lunatics.

Look...there's a reason I don't live in Pittsburgh. Actually, there are about 35. And they all come in the form of some member of my extended family. I won't list them individually, but I'd like to comment on the extended-family-phenonemon as a whole. Please stay with me. This may be a little painful.

First, there is the fact that my grandparents...G-d love em... are 86 years old. That's old. They live in a house three times the size of something they're willing to handle and needless to say have barely the capability to care for. My mother, my aunts, everyone around them is packing them up, sticking the wooden sign on the front lawn and shipping them express mail to "Friendship Village."

My vote? Leave them alone. They want to be in their enormous house for the remainder of their days...let THEM! No one had better tell me when, or to where, I'm moving, especially 60years from now. I feel as though, by then, I'll have formulated some opinions of my own. If you're looking for someone who knows what they want, inquire with the mind of a legally blind 86 year old retired plastics machinery salesman. The man is nearly a century old. He paid his dues and I think we owe him a few golden years of peace. Wouldn't you say?

On Christmas Eve, my very old Grandpa started to look a little delirious sometime after the Steeler's Game and before dinner. They rushed him to the ER when he started complaining of chest pains. 20minutes later, my grandmother returned without him. We stared @ her blankly. "They're keeping him for tests," she said nonchalantly. She doesn't like him very much. She proceded to the beef brisket, and I made a cocktail. The teens were either playing on their laptops or huddled in the garrage shotgunning beers. Everyone said this was our last Christmas in the house...as they've been saying every year of my life.

Today was different. A batch of drunken, emotionally crippled, politically driven, religious (Catholic) fanatics. A far cry from aunts pondering over their twice baked potatoes as to whether or not Grandfather was sure to perish via an unknown aerterial condition or simply dying of a "broken heart." No. Today the Dewars was flowing. And the brothers of my father who used to so graciously claim that I was a bratty nuissance, have spawned some bratty nuisances of their own. And are somewhat worse for the wear, might I add.

Those of you who know me well (@ all...) know that children are not a soft spot. Quite the contrary. I hate kids. I managed, miraculously and due in no small part to a bottle of Pinot and about five vodka tonics, to hold down some polite, albeit uncomfortable, conversation with my fathers' brothers...all of which despise me, and none of which have any interest whatsoever in my daily trials. Alas...I managed to remain observably socially engaged. But their kids-- quite another story. Their heads could have by all accounts been spinning at a 360, screaming in Latin and projectile vommiting our far too filling Chrismtas dinner, and their parents would quietly have said, "honey, please." Which essentially, is exactly what happened.

They were right in saying you can never go home. And I am old enough to understand that it's me who's changed...not home. It's just terribly sad to realize, as you must at some point, that once upon a time...I found this all to be entirely flawless.

What is it then, about childhood, that guards you from the uncomfortable nuances of reality? That shields you from the light of a strange day? That keeps you safe in the notion that, yes, this is my family. And they are magical. Rather than the freakshow of flawed, alchoholic losers with retched parenting skills that they've become. I too...will someday become an alchoholic, disappointing parent, should I choose the path of least resistance. For even the seemingly normal of my gene-pool (and yes, there are one or two) have subscribed themselves to the roles of "family" that Americana is forever threatening to bestow upon us.

Sometime, somewhere...Christmas got weird. I wish I could say it was my family, or my Christmas that changed. But sadly, I'm a little too old to believe in Santa. And also--it stands to reason-- a little too old to believe in the kind of family we all seem to have as children. No magic here. Just the good old family tree.

Screw You, TWU

So here we are. New Yorkers, five and a half hours into the first TWU strike in twenty-five years. I assume that in the very near future I'll have much more to say about this. There will probably be ENDLESS horror stories about three and four hour commutes in the sub-zero windchill. But I haven't left my apartment yet, so I still posses the luxury of optimism.

For those of you who do not live in New York, allow me to lay out for you exactly what we're facing.

The island of Manhattan is long, and narrow. It is over 200 blocks North to South, and smack in the middle lies Central Park. Crossing town, above, below, or through the park on any normal day is a total nightmare. On the west side a little below 50th St you start to hit Times Square, which is exactly the freak show it appears to be on television. The pedestrian traffic through midtown is disastrous, even when it's not Christmas week, even when 7million people are using the busses and subways instead of (or combined with) walking. So while the distance ACROSS the island is nothing compared to the distance up or down it, the challenge of a cross-town commute is nothing to underestimate. On foot, or in a car.

I live on 151st St on the West side of town. My office is on 47th St on the East side of town. Out of my apartment window is the Hudson River. Out of my office window is the East River. They are an entire city apart.

Now that the TWU has decided to walk out, and it could potentially take days for a court injunction to force them back to work, there are two ways I can attempt to get to my office (where, might I add, I am still expected to be). I could walk...or take a cab. For New Yorkers who live in the boroughs, (Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn) there are shuttles and busses running into the city from specified check points. For those of us in Manhattan-- no such luck. Apparently, no one is supposed to live above 100th St for this very reason. I didn't get the memo.

Aside from the fact that it's currently 22 degrees outside, far less when considering the wind-chill, I'm going to refer to my earlier diagramming of the city. I live A HUNDRED BLOCKS FROM WORK on the OTHER side of town. Are you kidding me? I could leave now, on foot, and I would make it there eventually. Probably in time for work tomorrow. If I don't freeze to death on the way. (Fine- I'm being dramatic. Leave me alone.)

The cab option would be good, if the city hadn't zoned off all of the streets below 96th. I could get a cab up here, but upon hitting the 96th and Broadway check-point, would be forced to either pick up three strangers to meet the HOV minimum passenger requirements, or get booted onto the sidewalk and forced to ride with a total stranger the rest of the way. At 11am, the requirements are lifted, and one passenger at a time is permitted into the southern half of the city, and across the bridges from the boroughs. Though the drivers are still not permitted to cross town at any point, so at least a half hour walk awaits me at some point in the commute. Cab fare for a hundred blocks will be approximately $20 each way, which comes out of my own pocket.

The TWU is walking the streets in complaint of $45k salaries with pensions and retirement at the age of 55. I refuse to BEGIN commenting on the reasons that this pisses me off...but right now, one important reason comes to mind. I'm paying them to NOT take me to work, to pay to drag myself there to make less money than they do.

I have to go now. I've got a three hour walk ahead of me. Screw you, TWU. Screw you.

Taking the Fall

Most of the guys that I've dated in the past, have for one reason or another, felt compelled to keep me separated entirely from their friends and other social circles. There were a number of circumstances under which this came to be the case, (boss's best friend, jealous ex-girlfriend, angry fraternity brothers, unconfronted homosexuality...) and each time, whatever the reason, it has always kind of bothered me. I have a tendency to remain on the "girlfriend" shelf until the necessary circumstances (albeit infrequently) present themselves @ which point I unwillingly play the couple-game for a minute until one of the two of us retires the whole mess due basically to a lack in functionality. Despite my irritation with the circumstances, it was a dance to which I'd grown accustom.

Then, very recently, I accidentally found myself interested in someone wonderful. He happens to be a close friend of a close friend, which precludes him from ignoring me socially, as we happen to find ourselves in similar circles. I have the sense, however, that even absent that connection, he would be more than happy to be seen with me in public. I, of course, find it all entirely perplexing.

It turns out, strangely, that in real life, when beginning to date someone new, you are forced also to begin dating their friends.

I had no idea.

On an impromptu semi-outing to a museum today, (the fourth day in a row that I've seen him, which you all know to be completely unheard of) I happened to find myself in the company of three of his girl friends and a guy who seemed attached to none of them. I smiled too much, in the way that you do when you're over compensating for not really liking girls to begin with, and received two fake smiles in return. Then the third girl. She looked up, looked me in the eye, paused, and gave me... the eyebrow.

Oh, you know it well....one raised, overly-plucked eyebrow in disgust, lips pursed in subtle irritation, while concealed behind what to most guys would be considered a polite smile. But you know as well as I do that this is no smile. This is the look of a jealous, angry girl. A girl who likes the boy introducing the two of you.

Fucking great, I think. This is what comes with dating the friends.

For about half an hour we all exchanged uncomfortable pleasantries and I knew the other two girls were well aware of the situation. Unfortunately, they're the friends. And I'm the girl I usually hate. As the minutes drug strangely along, suddenly it seemed she was on the verge of giving up and going home. She mentioned not enjoying the Moma (which is absurd) and thought she might want to do something else. Another eyebrow. I couldn't believe it! She was calling me out in code, trying to guilt me into taking the hint. "You're the outsider and the one, obviously, who should be leaving. NOT ME," the eyebrow said.

I smiled, cautiously, trying not to look too much like I cared, and told her I hoped we'd see her later. She couldn't get out the door any faster. Everyone else felt badly, and I sighed, because I knew it was somehow all my fault. I wondered if he knew how she felt. He had to, of course. Could it have been any more obvious? We talked, as much as two people can in a group of five in a museum in Manhattan, and I discovered that he not only knew about her feelings toward him, but that it had been discussed and evaluated too. I had to laugh. So he wasn't oblivious to the eyebrow after all.

After a preoccupied glance through one exhibit, the museum was about to close, and we made our way outside. I was feeling a little defeated, not by the competition, but by the practices of dating in general. Even in the first days, it all seems very complicated. Just as I was contemplating the unnecessary stresses of it all, my stupid boot caught a particularly slippery corner of floor and sent me crashing to the ground, Christmas present bags and all. The four of them looked away uncomfortably, not knowing what to say to the perfect stranger just embarrassed in their presence. We got to the street and I decided to cut my losses. I smiled some more, citing work to do at the office which was just around the corner. A lie just as transparent as eyebrow's. The boy smiled weakly, and I was on my way.

I couldn't decide which was more disturbing. The fall I took on the floor, or the one I'm taking with his friends. I've never known what was required in the dating-game where extracurricular circumstances, such as friends are concerned. But I'm not a big fan of falling into them. Eyebrows, it seems, just like slippery floors, can be dangerous when they catch you off guard.

Saturday Night... Look a-Live

When I lived in Charlotte, my best friend Missie and I would spend weekend after weekend agonizing over the fact that there is veritably NO night life in that city. In anticipation of going out, we'd spend all of our money on designer clothes and shoes, get ridiculously dressed up and then pout all the way to the same two shitty bars crowded with the same bunch of pretentious banker-douchebags who were impossible to impress anyway. We'd get drunk, go home, and complain over bloody marys the entire next morning about our lousy lives. I escaped that hell as soon as humanly possible, and needless to say New York has few of the same problems. But what's interesting, is that I, strangely, still do.

I was lying in bed just a moment ago, weighing my options for this Saturday evening. None of which seemed especially appealing, and all of which required me to actually get OUT of bed. I sighed as I hung up with my roommate who was "doing karaoke in the village," shrugged off an invite from another roommate who is going to someplace called "Flow" where "girls get in for free until 11!" and ignored a text message from my friend W who is headed downDOWNtown to someplace called Libation, which I can't even find on a map. I'm wrapped in a fleece blanket wearing my glasses on 151st St and nothing about an hour long prep and hour long commute in the cold seems intruiging to me right now. I'm such a loser. And nothing has changed.

Then Missie called.

"I'm dragging my depressed and miserable self to a bar to have drinks with people I hate," she mumbled. "Please tell me you're doing something fabulous in New York."

"Actually," I sighed, "We're living frighteningly parallel lives." I couldn't believe it. I'd abandoned that awful city in an effort to lead a more fantastic, fulfilling and glamorous life...and here I am, wrapped in a blanket watching DVDs. I started thinking about Charlotte, and if it was really the one to blame.

"Well," Missie cut into my thought. "I wish we were at least miserable in the same city. Then it could be fun-misery. Like we used to have."

I smiled. The nights we drug ourselves to the bar in our thanks-to-credit-cards outfits, even in Charlotte were bearable because we made them that way. And in hindsight, I'm not sure what I was so miserable about. Always looking for the greener grass, I guess. I hung up the phone and decided to get out of bed. No city...no matter how fabulous...can make a good time for you. You've got to do your part. If Missie can make an effort in awful little Charlotte, then I most certainly can give a Saturday night in New York a chance.

But it turns out that life is mostly the same no matter where you lead it. The life I left behind, though in very few ways resembling my life now, forced me to endure a lot of the same things. You've got to get out of bed, you've got to hang out with people you hate, you've got to make a good time where ever and when ever you can. You know why? Because it's fucking Saturday night.

Saliva and the City

Today's lovable New York story comes to you from 149th St...

Where a crazy man in pajamas spit in my face.

When I told this story to my roommate, he suggested I keep it to myself, as it is admitedly a kind of seedy occurance. Maybe he doesn't want people to know that we live in a place where such happenings are commonplace. Unfortunately we do. And I feel like you should hear about it.

I've noticed that when you're feeling your most attractive, most confident, most comfortable in your own skin, life has a way of screwing with you. I'm not sure if it's the cosmos trying to keep you in your place, but as SOON as I'm bordering on the overly confident, I trip, or slip, or say something stupid, or mess something up, just enough to remind me that I am not only human, but terribly, terribly flawed. Yesterday morning is a perfect example.

Wednesday night had been flawLESS. I organized our annual corporate sales dinner for my boss, the Director of Sales, our entire sales division and three of our top-billing television stations at Delmonico's Steakhouse in downtown Manhattan. Party-planning is my favorite. I relish in the perfecting of details and the last minute coming together of unrelated elements into one perfect evening. It was fantastic. The food was good, the drinks were good, everyone was thankful to me for having done such a marvelous job, and I even had the good fortune of being a member of the self-proclaimed "fun table" which caused unnecessary drunken rucous the entire evening. Thursday morning, very hungover and feeling dried out from all of the red wine and radiator heat, I woke up with a smile on my face. I was ready early, and out the door for the office ten minutes ahead of schedule. I stopped at a bodega on the corner for a Gatorade (mucho dehydration in effect) and managed to catch the light coming out just in time to cross the street. The world was on my side.

Once across, I realized that I regretted having switched to my smaller pocketbook, thus forefiting my sunglasses in an effort to save room. It was sunny out there. Then, in my line of vision was an old black man in pajama pants and a sweatshirt, walking toward me with a bicycle. I didn't look at his face, mostly because I don't make eye contact with anyone in this neighborhood. Overt the eyes and avoid interaction at all cost. We passed, I kept my sights on the sidewalk. Suddenly he appeared again, an inch from my face, his face directly in mine, and spit a mouthful of dirty bum saliva into my eyes. Needless to say I was shocked. He spit...in my FACE. Stranger yet, was that he just walked away. He spit on me, and walked away. Didn't even laugh, as though he were proud of himself. It seemed that he hadn't done anything at all out of the ordinary. 'Oh, there's someone I should spit on.' It was amazing. I was shocked and flustered. I took my gloves off and grabbed my antibacterial bottle from my purse. Two women walking behind me ran up to help. One older Dominican woman, one black woman who looked to be going to church. The Dominican woman was rubbing my cheek, telling me I'd be ok. "Did he spit on you?" The church woman said, pulling tissues from her purse. I just nodded, I was too shocked to say anything.

"Well you shoulda kicked the shit outta him. I'd-a kicked the shit outta him." She huffed. Then shouted down the block at him, "He knew not to spit in MY face. Let him come back here and spit in MY FACE!" I dumped nearly the entire bottle of antibacterial into my palm and slathered my face with it. A fleeting thought of a recent account I'd read flashed through my mind. A man with AIDS had been arrested recently for biting and spitting on people in an attempt to infect them with the disease. I shouldn't read so much. I shook my head and gathered my senses. The Dominican woman was speaking.

"WE coulda fight him but she can't," She gestured toward me. "Look at her. There no fight in girl. We are fighters. Not mami." I felt for a moment like I should have been insulted. But I was still too stunned. The church woman nodded in agreement. I was pulling my gloves back on and flattening my hair in an effort to look collected, but I'd been totally deflated. I thanked the women for their help and continued toward the subway. I couldn't make sense of it. Then the church woman shouted after me.

"Say your prayers, baby, and then get on with your day."

I smiled weakly, but I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say. I got onto the subway and as the doors closed behind me I dumped another gob of purell into my palm and took another face bath. People were looking at me as though I were deranged. But I didn't look back. Everything seemed a little dirty, and I just wanted to forget it happened.

Half an hour later, I plopped a bottle of eyewash onto my desk. I couldn't wait to defeat Dallas Ryan in the AM story competition. He always has great stories. I assumed everyone would be shocked and horrified by my account. Maybe they would gasp, maybe they would laugh. I opened my eye wash and began to regail my coworkers with my trials. "Gross," was mostly all I got. Jerry reminded me that he'd been puked on three days earlier on the 4 train. And Ryan's morning story was about a 300lb woman and a blind man in a Santa Hat. He won again.

I suppose I haven't been permanently damaged by the day's events. But I have to say I devoted a solid half an hour to washing my eyes that morning. And the rest of the day I didn't feel quite as confident.

After all, the more untouchable we feel, the harder it is to deal with when life spits in your face.