Take 2

I cleaned my room and put my laundry away. 

Two things I procrastinate doing and typically do on Sunday nights. I did both last night before going out with friends. My room looked spacious and opening. And my night went on and I drank and laughed with friends. Then at 1AM I somehow ended up on my friends rooftop with blankets and pillows, making out with my ex boyfriend. It felt amazing and safe and good. It felt honest and fun and warm. We kissed again and then talked about what the hell we were doing. 

We were starting again, slowly. Getting to know each other again and seeing what happens. Not defining it until we need to. We talked about being scared but both wanting this, knowing in some way, it was inevitable. Maybe the timing was right, maybe we'll realize that the timing isn't right. But we're gonna give it a try.  

I'm not who I was 2 years ago and he's not either. We're here to change and be with each other. We aren't here to let one broken heart define us. 

I'm done waiting for something to happen. This risk is something I'm doing for me. I could spend the rest of my life being a wing girl and giving relationship advice to friends. I could spend the rest of my life trying to make others happy. 

But today I choose to make me happy. And today I choose him. 

He came back to my apartment and we just slept. And this morning after he kissed me goodbye and left I went back to my spacious, clean room and sat on my bed. 

It's funny how foreign it was to share this space with someone, especially him. 

It won't be easy. 

But if we aren't here to share our space with someone then what are we doing? 

F Peep Toes

It’s 2 o’clock in the morning and I just left one friend who was delighted with a recent set up. 

He liked her and she liked him, they were ordering another round. I could leave and not worry. 

I went with another friend to a bar where her old crush was with friends. A part of me wanted to go home. A massive part of me was done drinking Jack Daniels and I remembered that nothing good every happened after 2 am. 

I followed her to the next bar downtown. Because I’m always stupid enough to think what if. I’ll get to the bar and get another drink, maybe not Jack Daniels, but probably Jack Daniels. I’ll get lost in the our conversation for a few minutes and then turn to see someone whose giving me the green light. I give him the green light in return. Old timey french orchestrated music plays and we start to dance. His chest his big and wide and welcoming, I’m safe as I lean against him. 

This is what I picture happening as I pee in the bathroom stall. I imagine me slow dancing to this old timey music with someone whose tall and broad and keeps me safe and without doubts. 

Then I realize, I’m in the bathroom stall and it’s after 2am. 

I go to the mirror and push my hair behind my ears and straighten my eyeliner. I push a smile against my face. 

The dim lighting makes me look tired and sad. 

The guy I was supposed to be flirting with enters the shared space and I flash him a reassuring smile before leaving the mirror. 

I go back to my friend to tell her and her crush that I was heading out. She wasn’t surprised. 

I find a cab quickly and don’t cry. I take my shoes off as a enter my apartment and hear that my roommate is still up, talking with a guy in her bed. 

Well, at least one of us is getting laid. 

It stopped being about sex a long time ago,

A friend recently asked me- am I in the category of having fun and a rotation of guys or am I looking to settle down with Mr Right. 

I thought about it- and then told her, I don’t know why but I feel like I’m not in the game. I’m an observer, someone on the sidelines taking notes. 

I don’t have the optimism, faith or energy to gather up a rotation and I’m not sure Mr Right exists. 

Maybe I’m just here to help others find love. 

I’m here to correct the grammar of text messages, and make my friends less afraid, to push them towards love and be the ever permanent wing girl. 

I know what you’re thinking- this is what a lonely girl says before she finds her prince charming. 

But I think, prince charming got too drunk during happy hour with his bros and cancelled the meetup a long time ago. 

So I’m left, walking home alone in bare feet, 

cause my glass slippers were too damn uncomfortable and all those damn bobby pins gave me a headache. 

I’m left alone, to rally myself up for another day of solo cheerleading. This is a pity party I know. 

But what else does a twenty something year old need to do in this fucking city to get laid and/or love? I even pulled out my Jessica Simpson pink peep toe stilettoes tonight and I’m still left ordering eggs benedict at 3am solo. 

Well, at least True Blood is on tomorrow.

How to Get Hurt

I could write a book about how to get hurt. 
It would include how to be friends with people who constantly let you down, 
details of what job gives you the least amount of respect and how to get emotionally taken advantage of by your family. I'm a master at all three.
And then there would be a chapter about being brave enough to spend time with exes as they slowly move on to your 'positive people in my life' list.
Yes, I have one of those lists every now and then. It helps make things simpler and gets rid of the negative people pretty damn fast. Try it.


Of course there'd be a chapter about keeping your guard up with your ex at all times and then how sometimes (like tonight) no guard seems high enough or thick enough. 
And it just sucks. 
It was the second time he proposed us getting together. We had been texting, being our typical bantery selves. 
And I needed a positive friend night so I said yes to seeing him. 


Both of our end of work time was up in the air but we figured by 7:30 we'll be meeting up.


At 7:30 he called me and asked if I wanted to go to a coworkers going way party. He needed to stop by for a drink.
I told him I didn't want to see old coworkers and he understood. I'd hang out at the book store. He said he'd be 30-40 mins max. We figured we'd be sitting down to eat somewhere by 8:15pm.

And now, scene:

Him 830p: Boss just bought me a drink and then I'm on my way out.
Me: K.
Me 855:  Let's just reschedule. I need to eat something.
Him 905: I'm finishing up but understand if you want to leave.
Me: I'm going to head out.  We'll reschedule.
Him: I'm do sorry  
*note: he actually typed 'do' and not 'so'- more points lost.*
Him: When are you good next?
Him: Again sorry (sent with picture of a smiling pug dog)

I then walked over forty blocks back to my apartment in heels trying to figure out what happened.



Cynical cat lady won this round. Cinderalla can stick a glass slipper up her ass.

Everything Sounds Better With An Accent

Tonight my hairdresser told me the key to true love while making me more blonde. 

He added more gloss to my dark roots and in his thick Israeli accent said the key is being able to smell the other person’s mouth. I had him repeat it a few times just so I knew nothing was getting lost in translation. 

He laughed to himself and checked my foils. 

If you can stand the smell of the mouth no matter what, you’re meant to be together. Then, if you can stand the smell of the fart, you are all set. No problem. 

He goes on and tells me how the girls in his chair ask him for advice about guys all the time. They say they don’t know what to do, they don’t know what things mean, they don’t know where things are going. Standard Cosmo crisis.

He asks them 2 questions : what do you want? what does he want?

He’s better than any bartender, bouncer and therapist I’ve heard from on this arena so that’s the main reason I’ve been going to him for the last five years. It doesn’t hurt that his haircuts are amazing...and he gives me wine.

He also wears tight pants. 

Each time I sit in his chair every four months, he whispers in my ear the same thing: how is your Jewish boyfriend? 

I remind him I’ve never had a Jewish boyfriend. And he questions me some more until he’s assured that I don’t have a boyfriend. 

He ends the session by whispering close again and saying ‘You will meet a good Jewish boy’.

He’s worse than my mother in that sense which is why sometimes I just read a magazine.

I told him I was talking to my ex boyfriend again and he asked me his 2 questions. 

I blushed and giggled, unable to answer him with a straight face. 

My mind struggled between the plot lines of the Great Gatsby and 50 Shades. 

“I know what I want, but I don’t think it’s going to happen”

I shoved away the scenes of elevator and car hookups playing in my head. I may need to read less. When is True Blood back on? 

“I don’t know what he wants.” I said, just as the ex texted me asking if we were still on for drinks tomorrow night.

My hairdresser asked if I needed to get my phone and I shook my head, taking another gulp of wine. 

He leaned in close again and whispered. 

“Well, you figure it out tomorrow. In the meantime you’ll have sexy, beautiful hair. You have beautiful hair, did I tell you that?”

Wading in Low Tide

Have you ever put something on pause and then not been able to remember how to hit play again? 

I find myself struggling with that one on the treadmill a couple times a week and in my own life. Unpausing.

I put myself on hold months ago...okay maybe a few years ago. And why is it that not until someone else holds up a mirror that I realize how not far I’ve come? How stuck I’ve been for reasons that just stopped existing. 

I guess that’s the time to see a therapist huh? When you can’t remember why you follow your own rules. When the rules stop adding to your life but take away from it.

All of a sudden I realize what a tight box I’ve put myself in. I count and restrict everything- to the number of drinks I have, to who I talk to, to the days of the week I socialize, to the amount of food I eat. 

And I’ve been setting up these rules because controlling what I eat and who I talk to are things I can control. Everything else...all the big slices of pie, I apparently can't control.

I saw my ex tonight. He initiated it after weeks of asking. 

Nothing 50 Shades happened. It shows you that I’ve been reading that book too much to think we were going to get crazy in an alley way or taxi. Or elevator. That would’ve been awesome. He was sweet and nice and paid. 

My guard was up. If someone took the Great Wall of China and flipped it vertically then that will show you how high my guard was tonight with him. Even betwen my lines of bullshit, he reminded me that I need to do things for myself and I told him it was on the to- do list. 

I consider it a bad day when I realize that I may be a tad more messed up then my ex right now. I cried when I got home.

This was the first ex-hang post cry I’ve had in years where I cried not because of him, but cause of me. 

I don’t like the job, or city I’m in and fill my empty love life slice in with family time. I have fillers and nothing concrete right now. I’m in limbo.

My mother says life happens in tides- there’s low tide and high tide. I tell her I’ve been in low tide for years. And she doesn’t disagree. She tells me to see a therapist to discuss my control issues. She tells me to blow my nose and go to bed.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard that...

Once A Wii, Always A Wii...

There are a lot of things that I’ve wondered since my ex and I broke up 2 years ago...but there’s one question that’s more...technical that maybe you can help me with. 

I used to stay at his place on the weekends and one of our favorite things to do was play his Wii. 

Wii and cooking were like our foreplay. The first time we played he made me into an avatar. Every inch of myself was transformed into a small cartoon on his big flat screen.

As we played I saw some of his friends who I’d met cheer us on and also his parents, who I never met. If there were avatar ex girlfriends in the audience then he never told me. And I never thought to ask. I'll add that to the list.

I wonder though, if I’m still there in his Wii. Am I randomly cheering him on in the audience while he plays now? Did he delete me? 

Is that how he sees me now in real life... him being in control of when the game is turned on or off and who plays and how much. Doesn't it feel like it? That he's the one still making up the rules and I'm just left playing catch up, still learning the buttons of the remote.

But I’m always there whether I like it or not for him to see whether an avatar or in real life.

Since I’ve decided to keep him away in an attempt to start my own new game is that fair to him? He’s assuming our game is still going on. We were a We for almost a year...he's not a random I can phase out- though I've been trying for months, he's still reaching out consistently into my non-replys.

Maybe we always stay as a We with the people we date no matter how long we’re together. There’s always a version out there that shows who we were then that no one can touch. A part of who we are now, just inactive.

So I wonder, as time moves on and months pass with no interaction, is the We the same? If I could go back and be a We, would I? Knowing that it won’t last forever would I still want to be a part of the We? I haven’t been a Wii since him, so I guess I know my answer. 

Clean Plate

I don’t need a therapist to tell me I’ve immersed myself in the family slice of my pie of life in order to ignore the empty slice that is my love life. 

75% of my day today was filled up with family time via text and calls and 25% was filled up with work. That’s why I thought it was an excellent idea to have 3 glasses of wine during the Fifty Shades book club tonight and text train guy as well as my ex. 

Don’t worry- after 1 text from ex, I deleted his response and wiped it from my memory. It was like it never happened. Give a girl a break. 

I knew what I wanted from him- an immediate response. And that’s what I got. Mission accomplished. I’m a master at the text small talk.

Train guy also texted me back right away. Again, I was 3 glasses of wine deep and after my very limited drinking as of late- this sadly affected me immediately. I suggested we get a drink this weekend. He’s out of town but suggested next week. The banter continued for about a half hour. 

It got to the point where my book club girls yelled at me and had 2 other members act out the texts in front of the group of fifteen. I siped water.

Again, I got what I wanted- immediate entertainment and a possible date (ahem, ignoring the fact that he has a gf)

I’m smoking cigarettes again (this week). Did I mention family life draws my in to the point of me being overwhelmed and stressed? It's a good distraction from that lack of love pie. 

Don't judge.

And while I was chain smoking outside my apartment after book club, I buzz dialed my bestie in Boston. 

I needed to hear things like I don’t need to be in therapy. 

I’m doing okay. I need a rest. 

I need a night out. I need a break. 

She knew what to say, thank god for ten year friendships. 

I hugged the phone before going back inside. 

Then I walk inside my apartment and it smells of windex and air. The cleaning lady my roommate hired had been here. 

I walk in my bedroom 

and there’s folded laundry and no dust and space and my bed is made an entirely different way. 

My pillows are set in a different order. 

For whatever reason, knowing that someone had been here wiping away the dust and clearing clutter for me while I was out dealing with my overwhelming life pie, 

gave me a sense of relief that nicotine hasn’t brought me all week.

Seeing a physical clearing when I’ve been struggling to get a mental one for months 

is something I couldn’t have asked for but has helped, at least in a little baby step, small slice of pie crust kind of way.

Here’s to tomorrow.