Isabelle's Ridiculous Life

4 years later

2011-02-17T17:02:00.002-05:00

Wow, having what amounts to an electronic diary on the internet is genuinely freaky. After not thinking about it for years, you can go back and revisit your younger self with a few keystrokes. And cringe.

Why cringe?

Couple things - first, wow did I have craptastic guys in my life. Talk about your desperate. I was loooonely, but did I have to lower the bar so low? Ugh.

Second - this "career" has been an exercise in pain and futility for quite some years now. Like 7. 7 years. Wow. Well I've been doing this since 1996 so really it's 15 years. This is a depressing thought. A failed 15 year career. Lot of sunk costs there.

And why am I revisiting the blog? Of course, you know it - yeah, you do - thiiiink - I'm unemployed again, of course! Only time I write. Yet I actually LIKE writing. And don't much like my job. Can't we return to the Renaissance, and I could find a Medici patron to pay for my gig in the arts?

On the bright side: I now have a wonderful husband. Valentine's Cake Boy turned out to be The One. Been married a year and a half. He's wonderful. It took literally years of heinous match.com dates, but the heavens (and the system) finally delivered unto me a sweetheart of a guy. And he gets me! He's funny, he makes me laugh all the time, he loves music, he's a kind, good human being, he's smart...he's just GOOD. A good man. And we all know, they're hard to find. Cute, too. Pretty eyes. Don't let me go all mushy...

So the final chapter on all those dorks I dated: RB and I are Facebook friends now and he moved to the Midwest. My one remaining feeling for him is that I'm sorry for him. His victim complex has shaped his life for the worse. JJ moved to Asia somewhere with the Army, and we're not in touch. Buh-bye. Train Boy came over once, years later, when I was just first dating Cake Boy, and watched a focus group with me online (yes I was working late) and tried to rub my back and get a li'l sumpin' sumpin' started. I removed his hand as if it were something dead (which, in fact, it was). He emailed me a while later to invite me to a huge annual group pub crawl (once a frat boy, always a frat boy - dude, we're in our forties, a pub crawl date, really?) and that was the end of that because by then Cake Boy was heating up.

As for the job - we'll ponder this in a later post.

The Joy of Cooking

2007-04-25T16:40:00.000-05:00

I made my baby a Valentine's Day cake a couple months ago. It all started out so nicely - I love him, our first V-Day together was coming up, he likes cake...you can see where this is going. And somewhere in the recesses of my brain I recall seeing an article on how to construct a cute heart-shaped cake out of two regular circular cakes. Cute! Something about cutting and geometry, I don't recall exactly. No worries.

Now, I'm no cook, and I don't have a lot of free time these days, what with the boss who hates me and wants the 16 hour work days and all. So I decide to get me a box cake. "He'll never know", think I. (Silly me, this is a man who can tell decaf just by the smell). So I hie me to yonder Food Emporium and I buy me a nice box of Duncan Hines. Chocolate, because I know he likes it. And frosting, we need frosting. Pink, for V-Day. They haven't got pink. OK, no problem, we'll buy white and add food color. Easy peasy.

Only the white-white was just "Vanilla", whereas the off-white was "French Vanilla" which sounded like it might taste better. So, we buy the off-white. And, hit by the urge to really dress it up, a tube of red icing. And 2 round cake pans, nice and new and Teflony.

This purchasing all happens on the weekend. That week, V-Day falls on a Wed. I decide, Tues. night is going to be a late one at work so let's make the cake Mon. night. Hopefully by Wed. the flavors will have melded nicely. So Monday night I bust out the boxes and tubes and cans and pans and set to work. I've got the cake baking happily in the oven when it occurs to me, "I really do NOT remember the geometric cuts I need to make this heart cake - I better Google it." So I Google it, and it comes right up. And it goes like this: pour batter into one round pan and ONE SQUARE PAN.

Square pan? Um...I'm baking now, and I'm in 2 rounds.

Oops.

So, well, not to worry, I'll simply cut the curves off one round and make it a square. A rather small square. Then put the two halves of the round on top of it to make the Mickey Mouse ears of the heart...the big ears. Really big. That don't meet up right with the Very Small Square. Never mind, we can solve this - we'll stuff the gaps with tasty bits of the cut-off curve edges! Fine, there, done. Now to the icing.

Off-white goo, decanted from the plastic tub into a bowl. Tastes like sugarcrisco. Ugh. Too late, never mind, moving on. Add red food coloring. I'm no dope, add it sloooowly, I have experience in this. Hm, needs more. Wow, needs more. Looks like flesh, not really pink. Little more - ah God, it looks like angry flesh now. It's not getting pink at all. Must be the base, that off-white color's throwing it off.

Well, flesh it is, let's spread it on. Getting late. OK, spread gently, oh God, the chocolate cake bits that are stuffing the holes have lost all structural integrity and are crumbling as I smear the spatula full of flesh on top of them. Looks like scabs caught in the flesh. Hideous. Never FEAR! I have my tube of red icing, I can camouflage the mess!

Red icing, red icing, OK need scissors to open it. Read the back - "snip tube top with scissors." Right, snipped, easy. OK, "attach...decorative...tip?" Crap. I don't have a decorative tip, I thought the damn thing was self-contained. Decorative fuckin' tip. Well, will it write as is? Hm, the line is reminiscent of a red, thick piping of Crest. Fine. Good enough. We'll pipe a Crest-line around the perimeter of the flesh to mask the scabs. Done!

My God, I created a hideous cake. And then it snowed. And snowed. And there was no way my baby and I could spend V-Day together. So the cake had to wait. And wait. Til Saturday. By which time it was stiff around the edges, and the red colored icing had dried to a dark blood in some patches, and bled onto the flesh in other patches. But my sweetie ate it anyway. And what do you suppose that man asked me?

"Is this store-bought icing?"

Aaaaargh!!!

Been a long time, been a long lonely lonely time

2007-02-10T18:54:00.000-05:00

Well, my goodness, I just about gave up writing for a while there. Too focused on other things. Mostly, work. And buying a condo (yipper! at last!) and my no-longer-so-new (9 months) man.

The snynopsis of the last year or so:

Bought a condo in my hometown last Feb., made it all pretty and fixed what was broke, then moved in in March. Been here almost a year now and still love it, though in this last cold snap I discovered the living/dining room heat is not so good - only one vent. Spaceheater!

Still working at the same company, still a senior brand manager, still on the same assignment. New boss started this past spring and is a TOTAL bitch. It's practically open warfare between us at this point, and no chance of making Director under her. Not sure what to do there. But at least I'm still making a decent living so I suppose it could be worse. And I've long ago given up any serious level of ambition to be a big shot in corporate America, so I suppose making/not-making Director is slightly moot. A few more bucks, yes - but what would I do after I was at that level for a few years? Capped out. No real desire to do the VP job. Hmmm....

And the best news - my sweetie. Paul. So wonderful, such a happy, joyful presence in my life. Makes up for all the terrible dates of the past 10 years since b-school. Met him on match.com, which I still find astonishing after all the ri-DICK-u-lous men that I met and dated that way. I fully expect that we will get married. We hit a speed bump last month, but I think we're solving it and the only obstacle now is we have to decide where to live. Which may mean I have to quit my job anyway.

It's so weird to come back to this blog after a year or more and read back on my life as a narrative. Damn, I do crack myself up though.

Silence = Death

2005-11-20T14:53:00.000-05:00

Apparently I was so utterly disgusted with myself that it put me off navel-gazing (at least in type format) for months. But we're back! Back, and ready to inspect umbilical lint again (hold applause 'til the end, plizz).

So, the Jimmy thing, just to wrap it up in the interests of narrative closure:

In the immortal words of Rollo, the Umpteenth Bad Blind Date: "Stupid, stupid, stupid." Should've never gone back to that well. Giant waste of time.

Spent 2 weekends out on the Jersey Shore with him back around Labor Day. First weekend: gross hotel, lots of sex, not much to talk about, but generally pleasant. Second weekend: had my period, apparently female blood terrifies him, so we had no sex. Cute B&B, adorable town (Manasquan/Sea Girt), nothing whatsoever to talk about, established that he had a crappy dad and I had a nice one, did I mention no sex? Strained silence on the way home. Total radio silence (mutual) for a week or more. Followed by his calling me. And dumping me. Which I should have done first. But was too lazy to. However, when he suggested it on the phone, I agreed with a level of enthusiasm which took him aback somewhat. We haven't spoken since. Which is good.

In other news - not only has my boss quit, but my co-brand manager also quit. And the ethnic marketing director is on disability. And our finance guy got promoted out of the group. And the director on the other half of the business that my VP oversees went on leave of absence (the prevailing theory being burnout/jobhunt with option to crawl back). So I've been working like a dog since the end of August and haven't really had much time to do anything else. I interviewed for my old boss's job, but my VP basically told me he wouldn't ever give that job to someone becoming a director for the 1st time, because it's a political snakepit of a position due to our interactions with the global brand team. Oh well, hopefully there will be a director job for me sometime in '06.

I've also managed to get even fatter, topping the scales now at a whopping 220 lbs, the absolute spectacular fatmost of the fattest that I have ever been. Doc says the thyroid test score is getting worse, though he feels I can still avoid the meds (they made me feel weird and insomniac). But that's only part of the problem. The big problem is that I haven't been able to motivate to eat right for longer than short bursts. But Anne and I made a vow last night to get back in the mode.

The combination of working all the time and having my gut straining to burst out of my fatpants has made me utterly uninterested in men at the moment. So, no sexy tidbits for this installation of the blog. Sorry. The best I can offer up is that I went to the Yale - Harvard game yesterday and I froze and we lost. When will this exciting, glamorous lifestyle ever let up?

Whoops, I Did It Again

2005-08-01T15:21:00.000-05:00

Damn, damn, and double-damn. This is what happens when a person gets lonely and begins to listen to the bad angel on her left shoulder. The stupid angel. The angel who says "you're bored, why don't you call Jimmy and see how his trip to Philly was."

(Again, for those following along at home, Jimmy was the ex who had the Ebay addiction, the Collyer Brothers apartment, and broke up with me because I was too fat.)

Damn.

So, yeah, well, I figured sleeping with him again wouldn't add to my count or anything, so what was the harm? I knew he'd be up for it, he was up for it already last fall. And he'd told me his girlfriend Was No More (no, not dead - just not the GF any more). And that part of our relationship had always been great. Better than great. So what was the harm? The true objective was to make me feel better and get me off thinking about J.L. - no, PINING for J.L. After two months of not hearing from him, I know he's not coming back. Stupid, gorgeous, adorable jerk.

I had no idea I'd get a missive today from Jimmy stating that he felt our relationship had now "crossed a threshold" and was "exclusive". Exsqueeze me? Are you just unilaterally deciding this and then cc'ing me on the memo? I am so not even remotely in a place where I would consider a real relationship with this man again. He INSULTED me. He proved that he's more interested in my looks than who I am. He doesn't know me. And the more I've gotten to know him, the more I've seen sides of him that I don't like. Aside from the seriously blue collar background (not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not what I am). He's a bit of a blowhard, always talking about how he showed so-and-so a thing or two. He's got that freak show of an apartment - disordered house = disordered mind. His childhood was hair-raising - we have so little in common there that it's laughable. And he's not all that bright. Honestly, I don't think I could ever rekindle my romantic feelings for this guy.

Kids, this is a lesson - there really is no such thing as Friends with Benefits. Someone's head is always in a different place.

Damn. Now what do I do?

And to top it all off, my strategy totally didn't work. I'm still pining for the one who doesn't want me. Now isn't that just human nature for you.

Istanbul was Constantinople; now it's Istanbul not Constantinople

2005-07-29T10:15:00.000-05:00

Went to Istanbul (not Constantinople) with Kris a couple of weeks ago, for Selim's wedding. A fascinating trip. Definitely a challenge to travel in a Muslim country with Kris - the locals are mostly beigey, with black hair - Kris is pale with brilliant red hair. Let's just say, she was popular. Extremely popular. As in, I could have sold her off to the highest bidder and funded my entire trip - nay, my entire undergrad education.

Seeing Muslim women in varying levels of Orthodox dress in the 95 degree heat really made me question the wisdom of all the religious strictures. Between making women wear head to toe black polyester Hefty bags in the boiling heat, and all the wacky rules about what they can and cannot do when they have their period, it seems to me the mullahs were thinking a LOT about broads. All day, in fact. Instead of thinking higher religious thoughts, apparently they were racking their brains about how a woman on the rag should be allowed to, say, mourn at a funeral. Sheesh.

The food was amazing - lots of eggplant, tomatoes, lamb kofti (meatballs), taztziki yogurt dip, stuffed grape leaves - a lot like Greek food, but even better.

The other thing we noticed was the women. Turkey appears to be a nation of butterfaces. Stunning figures - trim but busty. "But her face!" A lot of monobrows, big hooked schnozzes and generally startling features. Not so great.

As for the architecture, culture, history - wow! Roman ruins back right up against modern houses, similar to how Rome works. Our hotel was right on the old Hippodrome (racetrack) with ancient obelisks and columns outside our front door.

Here are some pix:

Muslim ladies, all covered up - and this is the "moderate" outfit!

The Blue Mosque - so beautiful.

Hagia Sofia - a museum now, but still so breathtaking, especially inside - soaring columns!

Me at breakfast - after 9 days of walking up and down the steep hills of Istanbul, I could barely walk in the mornings.

The lovely Miss Newton and her giant perfume bottle

The Sultan's harem at Topkapi Palace

Diesel Travel - is there any other way to travel? Mmmmm, dieeeeesel.... every other country except us seems to be a big fan. Thank God we weren't on a bus!

Monobrow in full effect. I rest my case.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Miss Grace Jones

2005-06-24T08:21:00.000-05:00

Went to a private concert of the Black Eyed Peas for work last night - totally fun. BUT the real story was the opening act - Miss Grace Jones! Everyone in there but me was late 20's, so when they announced her as a surprise, there was a chorus of "who??" around me, which was sort of sad. Then she comes out and she still looks GREAT - got to be, what, 55? Wearing an Issey Miyake type of Fortuny-pleated black dress shaped like a dolman-sleeved cone, with dinosaur spines down the sleeves and side seams, and a hoop skirt underneath. Accompanied by a tiara that was either black feathers or horsehair, easily 4 feet tall.

As she sang her first song "I'm Not Perfect, But I'm Perfect For You" she removed the hoop skirt. A bit klutzy to do onstage, but interesting to see how the dress still worked great without it.

Then she popped backstage and re-emerged in a black stretch sheer lace dress with a black bra over it that seemed to have little gold metal pasties sewn on it, plus a different hat/mask thing that was all swirls and twirls about 2 feet high. Nice, but not as good because the bra and dress spaghetti straps started falling down immediately as she launched into "Slave to the Rhythm".

Then it all started to go sour.

She began to perform a mini strip show, removing the bra and flipping her skirt over her head as she faced into a fan. The issues here were twofold - stretch sheer lace dress top offered no support or coverage to the 55 year old ta-tas, plus the skirt flipping revealed not just a pair of fishnet capri hose, but also UNTAMED pubes. The entire audience of mostly white, mostly very young, mostly polite little suburban kids recoiled in horror. Then she proceeded to lie face down across the steps on the stage and do a kick thing that looked like a kid having a tantrum, thus confirming that she was sporting a thong and that her ass was still in great shape.

By the time she got to "Pull up to the Bumper", she was wearing just the fishnets, thong, a corset and the mesh lace top...pubes ahoy. Plus then the hat came off and there was a sweaty dreadlock mohawk that scared the kids even more. And then she...squatted. Wide-legged. The ENTIRE CROWD backed right on up. Yowzah.

She got a little pissy because she picked up on the Fear Vibe, so she started trying to force audience participation ("is New York in the house tonight?" Yeah, well, actually it is, on account of how your show is IN NEW YORK.) People were having none of it, so she started insulting the house ("this isn't the New York I know", "wow, New York has changed", etc) It didn't go over well. She finally got a tiny little halfhearted call and response thing going, and then she ended her 3-song set and that was that.

The eighties just don't age well.

Hideous Truths and In Vino Veritas and all that

2005-06-10T08:27:00.000-05:00

After our cheesy team offsite at work the other day, we all went out for drinks and apps. Once the People With Kids did the traditional early bail, we eventually winnowed down to just 4 people - me, Mariette, Amanda and Tom. I don't remember who invented the fun little party game that followed, but it went something like this: each person tells one painful truth about themselves, then each person goes around the table and gives the other 3 an observation they've made about them and also a compliment. Can we just say, HUGE potential for pain?

I Drank Too Much, But It Was Worth It

2005-05-28T07:16:00.000-05:00

Last night I drank 4 - count 'em, 4 - Captain and (Diet) Cokes. It may not sound like much, but since my usual Migraine Limit is 2, this was a veritable drunken wallow for me. And why would I do this to myself? Because I was out with Patrick-the-incredibly-yummy-work-crush, and I wanted to keep him all to myself at that little cafe table as long as I humanly could. And if it required getting schnockered to do so, well, I was the woman for that job.

God, that man is GORGEOUS! Sexy, sexy mouth - his lower lip kind of bows up in the middle and it's just incredibly hot somehow. He's shorter than me and younger than me, and I DON'T CARE!

Alas, not sure we made much progress in terms of demonstrating the Hotness that is Isabelle. The whole thing had a friend vibe to it, despite my making every shameless excuse to touch his arm, shoulder, back, and Tickle-Me-Elmo red fleece vest. At one point I actually hid my lipgloss in his vest pocket, with the vague, incoherent idea of having it remind him of me when he got home (I was drunk, I tellya) but thankfully thought better of it and palmed the thing on out of there.

We talked waaaay too much about his live-in ex for my taste. It's possible that the Vaseline Intensive Care has not yet let the healing begin. I also found out that he smokes, which he said the ex started him on. Yeuch. It's such a gross smell, and what it does to your breath, your teeth, your skin, your upholstered anything is just narsty. But did I mention the man's lips? Yeah, I could wean him off the cancer sticks. Some loving care, that's what he needs. Nurse is here!

Oh wow, even if he were up for it, starting a little action would be such a bad idea. We work mano a mano pretty much all day every day. It's the perfect situation for a crush, but the worst for a real relationship. This way is best - I get to gaze at the eye candy in meetings (I can't hear what you're saying, I'm too busy watching your sexy mouth move) with no recriminations or awkwardness later.

He's so not into me, anyway. He was going around inviting other people from work to have drinks with us. Well, so was I, but only as a cover.

Ah, it was a nice night.

Turkey, Miami and Men

2005-05-17T06:39:00.000-05:00

I am going to Istanbul (not Constan...well, you know the rest) in July! For my Turkish friend S's wedding. A friend from b-school who has been living in New Orleans for 12 years and is more American than Turkish now. And who has dated pretty much every stripper in the greater New Orleans area (and their numbers are legion) before falling madly in love with (over the course of a single vacation) ...are you ready?...a TRADITIONAL NICE TURKISH GIRL! Could we write this script? Sheesh. But he is a great guy, dating habits aside, and it should be a blast. Always wanted to go to TurkeyLurkey. And my friend who went to the 'Bodia with me is going.

Train Boy continues to be a combined source of enjoyment (for brief periods, primarily in bed) and sheer teethgrinding annoyance (rest o' time). I dumped him a little over a week ago. The dumping went extremely well, I thought - conducted via e-mail in my charming little passive-aggressive way. Stated reason being "you must not actually like me since you spend hardly any time with me." A very fair point, I thought. I sort of had the feeling that he liked me, but more in the way that I like soup. You know, with soup, you keep a can in the cupboard because it's nice on cold days when it really hits the spot, but the rest of the time you don't much want it, and if it went away forever you wouldn't be heartbroken.

Alas, I was not expecting the counter-negotiation and thus was unprepared. He came by to return my watch (NEVER accidentally leave crap you like at some fool's apartment - SO awkward getting it back. This will go in my Rules of Bad Dating handbook). I thought he would leave it on my front steps at 3 a.m. in similar passive-aggressive manner. But no, he came up, he wanted to talk, he said he really, really, really liked me (more than soup)...but that "my life has been a mess since my mom died, I am not really coping well." (note: a year ago last March, in my opinion grief is still eminently appropriate but shambles-of-a-life seems a bit extreme).

So what did Our Heroine do? She caved. Yes, she did. Well, he has these big melty brown eyes, and floppy brown hair...ARGH! I just realized I fell victim to the Puppy Defense! Damn. So did I negotiate for more time? Well, I tried but...first of all, you can't really demand it, it has to come from the heart - he has to WANT to spend time with me. And secondly, he put it in such an awful way that I had to say no - he asked "do you want to tell me your criteria, and I'll let you know if I can do it or not?" Oh, yeah, that's a great solution. "I want to see you once a week." "Nope, my counteroffer is bimonthly." YUK!

So the upshot is, at least I know he really likes me, but I think I am dating a frat boy trapped in a man's body and my competition is his basketball buddies...and I am losing this battle. It is my best guess that the third and final dumping will take place in about 1 to 2 months. Why so long? Well, it's summer, and did I mention the sex part? Sigh...

In other news, work has been super hectic but hopefully they are sending me to Miami Beach next week for "training" (hee hee). Unless they yank me at the last second to do more work, which would not surprise me. But overall it's going fine. Family is well, spring is springy, and all's right with the world.

Been a While Since Last I Blogged

2005-05-03T20:57:00.000-05:00

Well, what have you missed?

I had a lovely long weekend in Miami at the beginning of April with A & M, met up with my college roomie M as well. Such a fun town, and gorgeous beach. My other friend G from college was there as well, so we all had a big dinner along with his coworker and 2 random girls they knew - occurred to me that it has been a looong time since I went out with a big pack of people. Those days are pretty much over.

Then April 11 I went over to Train Boy's house for dinner - a really nice evening but alas a Monday so I went home at midnight. Have spoken and e-mailed multiple times since then, but not actually seen him. Right now it's been 3 weeks since I have seen him, and I am a bit put out about it, but then what else is new.

At the end of April I went to New Orleans for Jazzfest all by myself (stayed with K, S and their adorable 2 boys who called me "Aunt Isabelle" and asked that I administer their baths - a request which was paternally denied, thank heaven). Had a great time seeing the Iguanas, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Dr. John, Rebirth, the Meters, the usual assortment of Mardi Gras Indians and the somewhat out of place G. Love & Special Sauce. Really missed the girls though - no one to go out with at night! Ended up staying home several nights as a result - bit of a wasted opportunity. Still, a great time. All my friends' houses down there are HUGE!

Ran 2 little 5K races over the last few weeks - the 2nd one went much better than the 1st, but I did have to walk a bit both times. Whoof!

Had some nice feedback from my boss Friday - she said things were going really well with me. Thank heavens! That's about it for now I guess. Oh, got an Ipod - so fun!

Amazingly, this time my pessimism was unfounded

2005-03-23T08:13:00.000-05:00

He called! Train Boy called me Monday night! I was totally surprised, since it had been more than a week since we'd had The Talk and the (Probable) BreakUp Boink, so I'd assumed that was that. Turns out he was calling from FLA, where he'd headed off for 2 weeks' vaca to celebrate getting a job offer from his current co. at literally the 11th hour, after a hellish "last" week of frantically interviewing for internal positions. He was all happy and chatty, and I was happy too because this means he won't be going off for 4 months' walkabout...and more importantly, he's still interested.

Funny thing is...after getting off the phone and being all happy for a little bit, my next thought was: eh, is he really good enough for me? He's got a big gut, he drinks too much beer and doesn't work out, his career is flatlining (he took a lateral internal job) and he's not very proactive about it, and he still wants to spend the summer partying at the Jersey shore.

Psychology is a fascinating thing.

Hoist by my own Damn Petard Again

2005-03-21T08:12:00.000-05:00

So many hoistings going on in my postings.

I got nailed good this weekend. And totally by my own doing, as usual.

So J.J. (aka "dumped me because I was too fat", also dba "the junk collector") has mentally been my backup ever since he came crawling back last fall - when I say crawling, I mean 2 phone calls and 1 personal appearance, but we'll take it as a crawl. Not that I would ever get back together with him, since he's proven that my personality alone is not sufficiently compelling for him (not the man you'd want by your side if, for example, you were on life support). But still, it's been a little mental back door, a "somebody out there wants me" thought. I didn't even fully realize that it was until yesterday. When the back door closed.

We'd been playing phone tag ever since I got back from Cambodia, since we're still in vague occasional touch. So I called his cell yesterday and got his outbound message. It was really long and listed a bunch of alternate contact numbers, including his friend's gym (odd, is he working there weekends now?) and the number of "my girlfriend Joanne." MY GIRLFRIEND? He just hit on me not 6 months ago, and he's already all comfy-cozy enough with this woman that he's using the G-word on his OUTBOUND MESSAGE?? Who knew that the man I dated was actually the one remaining non-commitment-phobic adult male on the Eastern Seaboard?

It was so weird, it really hit me like a fist in the stomach. Why such an intense reaction? Sour grapes that yet another of my ex-dates had gone on to happiness with Someone Other Than Isabelle? Shock that a confirmed bachelor, with incredibly unrealistic expectations about how hot a chick he could actually score, had managed to find someone to satisfy him? Certainly my heart goes out to the unknown Joanne - may she never gain weight! And if they move in together, good luck to her as she tries to carve out a path to the loo through the Collyer Brothers clutter.

Did I mention, of course no word from Train Boy since the fabby boink? Yeah, this time I really think that's it. And to think, it all stems from me telling him I had done a lot of Match-dot-comming. What is that, insecurity over comparison or something? Or does he think I must be a ho'? Oh, who the hell knows.

Red Flags Ahoist!

2005-03-19T08:12:00.000-05:00

This may turn out to be the shortest job ever. I am actually a little bit freaked out. My boss told me yesterday that HER boss "noticed me chatting a lot" and was concerned that I am not working hard enough. Oh-my-GOD, that is insane, but this woman is the Queen of the First Impression, so if that's her perception then I may already be sunk. I really have a horrible feeling that it's too late already. And why was I "chatting"? Well, the new Associate Manager on the team started a couple of weeks ago, and she still has a million questions...and since I am the person from whom she's taken over a bunch of projects, I am the answer lady for her right now. The problem apparently lies with the fact that our cubes are right outside the Supreme Wack Job's office, so she keeps seeing us together talking. "Chatting". Oh, yeah, in my spare leisure time I love nothing more than to chat about budgets and print repro quality.

Then my boss tells me that "someone" also complained about me chatting when we were in our old office building last month. Um, I was new? So I asked a question every 5 minutes, hello? Plus that team was all about the witty banter...of course I joined in, but it was already their existing dynamic or I would NEVER have said boo, especially since at the time I was just a temp. So how is that now my fault?

THEN she tells me that "after just a few months working together, I can already see your weak spot is focus." Tells me that I have been letting my attention get distracted by too many unimportant projects and not getting my priority projects done. OK, WAIT JUST A MINUTE. You people had a huge backlog of overdue shit from the guy who quit and zero transition plan from him, no structure to the team such as a weekly meeting to prioritize tasks, urgent brand plans due to corporate, and a major office move timed to coincide with a global conference that meant everyone but me was out of the office for a week (guess who spent a day at the old office making wild ass judgments as to what should be thrown out, then another 2 days in the new space trying to get basic shit like printers to work while the rest of the team was farting around in Miami). Not to mention ever since I started at least 1 person at any given time has been out sick or on vacation and required coverage. Oh, and someone went out on maternity a month early and also needed coverage until another temp could be hired. So I've been triaging the immediate shit and back burnering the "priority" shit because it wasn't DUE til June ANYWAY!! For fuck's sake, did you want me to just let all your art projects go unproofed as they went to press? Did you want me to tell all the new hires (for whom I spent DAYS sorting out their computers and phones since our IT services are so fucked up) to just set themselves up? "Hi, welcome to the company, you don't have a computer or a phone, sort yourself out"?? Don't we want these people to NOT quit in their first week? Since the reason we're so fucked in the first place is we keep firing admins and half the team quit? UNBELIEVABLE. Totally thankless. For this, I busted my ass, even working from home even on the day I had the flu. Honestly, I feel like just cutting to the chase and going in on Monday to say "apparently this just isn't working out." But I think I need to be there 3 months (or is it 6?) to keep my sign on bonus. Shit.

This comes on top of all the bad stuff the company has done to me just as a function of their disorganization.

The chaos around my hire date because nobody told me I had to sign and RETURN some "I-9 form" within 3 days of getting it or else my hire date would be invalid - kind of an important piece of info, dontcha think?

The fact that they told me my previous years working there would still count against my benefits and then later told me "no, that's not true and we never said that"...meaning that the $30K of pension I would have gotten vested in immediately is now 3 years off.

The fact that they told me my salary offer was indexed against peers in the company and that they couldn't go higher...without disclosing that everyone else was soon going to get a commuter allowance and tax perks when we move to NYC, but that new hires weren't eligible.

And then the T&E nightmare..."go ahead and expense your Jazzfest trip to New Orleans since we need you to go there for business anyway." So I booked it (on my PERSONAL card because the systems are so fucked up after 2 months I still don't have a corporate card, and I didn't want to wait any longer because airfares were skyrocketing) and then waited to expense it until I got set up on the computer expense system (also an IT nightmare delay). And the day before I got my expense system password, my boss told me there had been a cut-off of all non-essential expenses since the company's not doing well, and this one could not be grandfathered. And that somehow it was my fault that I had to eat it, because "we always book refundable tickets here." DID ANYBODY TELL ME THAT?? NO!!! She didn't even apologize, she was just like "well, you were already going anyway." Yeah, but I would have spent a lot longer looking for a cheaper ticket if I had thought I might have to eat it, we all know how that works. Come on, a little apology might have been nice. Jesus.

Between the job mess and the fact that (unsurprisingly to be sure) Train Boy has not called me in the week since our spectacular night, I had a good old cry last night. I just feel like I'm stuck in an endless Groundhog Day loop, where I keep having job nightmares with unreasonable bitches, and guy nightmares with guys who don't really want girlfriends (or at least ME as a girlfriend) and I AM SO SICK OF BOTH.

Wrote to RB the other day. Just a one liner, "I miss you." Because, despite 4 months of having totally cut him off, I really do still miss him. So that must mean something. I guess I need to try to be friends with him again, in the hopes that it might make me feel better than cutting him dead.

My life is too confusing, I can't even remotely make sense of it. What happened to black and white? What is the deal with all this gray?

It's Astonishing How I Can Lie to Myself

2005-03-13T11:26:00.000-05:00

After playing one round of phone tag 2 weeks ago with Train Boy, last week I was in a sassy mood and so I sent him a little e-mail that went something like this:

From: me
03/08/2005 01:55
Subject: Why yes, I am free this Saturday night
So I guess you better go ahead and ask me out, hadn't you?

To which he replied

From: Him
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 4:46
That got a big smile - would love to ask you out - any chance at this Thursday? I am going to be awy most of this weekend again - on a St. Patrick's Day Parade tour at various sites in N.J. and N.Y - by the evening I am a pretty sloppy date. Missed the celebrations last year with my Mom so I'm making up for it this year.
J.L.

So then I sez:

Glad I made you smile!
Okay Mister, you are going to have to get a LOT better at making time for me:-) Boozing with the boys versus MOI? But then again it's been a while since you have seen me, so perhaps you have forgotten my charms. We will have to work on that.
This Thursday will work, but on the late-ish side (meaning at least after 6:30) because I have a work thing from 4 to 6. Tell me where to show up and I will be there.

From: Him
Tuesday, March 08, 2005 5:25 PMT
Oh believe me - I remember your charms.
If you are going to be close to your place I'll come and pick you up or if your work thing is down my way you can come by my place. Or I could just meet you at that good pub on the Main Street up there - I forgot the name but I can find it - that way you can take your time (work things are important) and not worry about me waiting for you at your place, I can always have a drink and wait at the bar. You pick.

So we had a drink and a bite, and then I broached (me, always me) The Topic. I told him I'd assumed he wasn't interested any more since I hadn't heard from him in 4 months, so why was he sitting here tonight? What happened 4 months ago? His response was that I had freaked him out when I told him back in November that I wanted to find out if we were both on the same page. His interpretation of that, despite my slaving over every word to make it nonthreatening, was that I wanted to be in a serious, committed relationship with him immediately. How he got that from "I want to get to know you better" I can't tell you. Men really are hyper-attuned to, and hyper-afraid of, this notion of commitment. This man particularly.

He also said that he liked me, and he'd thought about me quite a bit, and that on some of the snowy days we'd been having, he had thought "wouldn't it be nice to invite Isabelle over to snuggle and be snowbound and drink Bailey's". And how happy he had been when he heard my voice on his answering machine when I got back from Asia. And how taken aback he'd then been by my sharp e-mail "just a few days later." Well HELLO, yes, the call had been a last shred of pride thrown to the winds, and he left me out in the cold naked by not returning that call IMMEDIATELY. God, how could any sane person not see that?

Anyway, he was nervous and kept taking the conversation into rambling monologues about his family and their doings over Christmas, and his job search (both of which started as him giving me excuses for why he had not been able to find a moment to call me over the last 4 months, but both of which topics he got sort of lost in and carried away with, probably because he was nervous). He also mentioned that after the not-calling had gone on for a while, he knew I would be mad, and he didn't "want to get scolded" so he let the not-calling continue. Innnnteresting. Again with the notion that I am his third-grade teacher.

I let him talk for a while, assuming he would burn himself out and we could circle back to the Real Topic. He didn't, so I had to bring him back around. Whereupon he said that he'd been back-to-back serious girlfriends for years and this was his first time being single in a long time...and he wasn't ready to jump into anything else again right now. Then he went into some weird stuff about how with his past 2 serious girlfriends he'd felt a lot of pressure FROM HIS MOTHER to get married, and now that she was dead he didn't feel that any more...kind of like, he was lovin' being let off the hook. And then he threw in the mix that he was thinking of taking 4 months to travel after his job ends next Friday, and so he wouldn't be any use to me anyway. And then after THAT, he'd rented another group summer house at the Jersey Shore, and since he wouldn't be working he was considering just living there full time all summer, so he really wouldn't be around for about 6 months. Basically, he did everything short of painting a giant sign on the tablecloth that said GO AWAY ISABELLE.

So what did I say?

Aaaah, you'll be proud of me. My capacity for self-delusion is joyously INFINITE!

I said "the important things to me are Communication and Intent. As long as you keep communicating with me and if your intent is that you like me, then who am I to say if you want to take a long vacation? I might well do the same thing in your shoes." Which is true, but in retrospect I chose only to hear and respond to the excuses (I will be on vacation for 6 months) rather than the apparent meaning behind them (I don't want to be your boyfriend now, and probably not ever).

He said he wasn't seeing anyone else now, and we agreed that we would continue to see each other but "take it slowly." Whereupon we went back to my place and had truly spectacular sex, twice.

After digesting this conversation for 3 days now, I realize I have no idea what this means in practice as opposed to theory, but I fear the worst. I think he means:

I will call you only when I feel like it, which as we've established is about once every other month (thus pretty much defeating the "getting to know each other better" plan)
I will sleep with you but I may also sleep with other people (EEEEUW - skeevy on so many levels. Hello, STD's! Goodbye, any notion of romance!) Hey, we all know what the Jersey Shore is about. Cheap hookups.
In short, I like you well enough to sleep with, but you don't sweep me off my feet enough for me to say, "even though I am in an unsettled place in my life, this woman seems pretty special and I want to give it a real try with her."

Placing an emotional cap on the possibilities of this thing (i.e. I don't want a real girlfriend for the foreseeable future) is basically like saying "I am not interested enough in you to give this a real shot." One foot is already out the door, before things have even begun.

So now, the proverbial penny having taken 3 days to drop, what do I do? Do I call him today and say, "hey, after sleeping on this I realize it won't work for me", or do I just wait for it to play out and see if his head gets into a different place once his job ends and he gets a slightly better idea of what he wants to do with himself? Is the issue one of him being at a weird, unsettled place in his life, or is the real issue simply that he isn't into me? My sane mind says "he's just not that into you, MO-FUCKING-RON" but apparently I am not yet ready to give up all hope and tell the guy "hey, lose my number, and only find it again once you decide you want a girlfriend. If I'm still single by then, maybe I'll call ya back."

Why am I not ready to do this? It's not that I know him well enough to really, really like him. Nor has he been that great to me of late. So why not punt now, after already having dragged this on about 4 months too long? Again, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? Do I LIKE getting hurt by guys? Why can I not cut and run when the big clue bird has dropped a Santa's-mailbag-sized load of clues on my roof?

Hmph. I think I really do need therapy. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" style. The electrodes, please.

2005-03-03T08:02:00.000-05:00

I got a call last night from Mr. Metro North, who I have not heard from in any meaningful way since November. His high-energy, super-compelling message said "maybe we could kinda go for like a drink sometime, if you feel like it." Keep up with that sweet talk, Prince Charming, and you're likely to sweep me off my feet! Have not called him back yet, but since I am weak I probably will.

The job is going well, unfortunately pretty long hours (8:00 p.m. most nights) so far, but the people are terrific and so friendly, which is half the battle right there. The work has been a smidge tedious, but I think that's because I have been covering a second job until we found someone, and that job included a lot of POS development. However, I think when we relocate to the city in July, I am going to have to get better about saying "I'm heading home now with my Blackberry and laptop" so that I can work til 8 like usual but not have to then get home at ungodly hours - the commute is a bear. Still, I really want to get my sticky little fingers on advertising development again, and it appears to be ringfenced up at the Director level. Poo. My boss indicated already that she definitely thinks with my experience I can get to Director within a year, but we shall see.

Had such a fun weekend this past weekend. Went down to DC to visit LH 3 weeks before she is due to have her baby. Threw her a nice low key baby shower. Got to spend time with KN too, who flew all the way from San Francisco which was really sweet. L was hugely pregnant, it was pretty wild-looking on such a slender girl. She seems very happy but probably semi delusional in terms of how difficult this is going to be as a single mom. I wish we were closer geographically so I could be of some use. Anyway, L, K, AY and I ate chocolate and cheese all weekend and yapped and went to the National Zoo to see upsetting animals (naked mole rats, zebras with phalluses that were dark purple and long enough to touch the ground, hideous pygmy hippos and whatnot) and just generally had fun. I love those girls.

Feb. Club

2005-02-24T20:16:00.000-05:00

February really is the cruellest month here in the ol' Gateway to New England. I see why someone created Feb Club at Yale...that floating party every night during this snowy, cold, grey, muddy month. Which makes me think of that William Carlos Williams poem about "on the road to the contagious hospital" which I shall now have to Google.

"Spring And All"
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines-

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches-

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind-

Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wild carrot leaf
One by one objects are defined-
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of
entrance-Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken

Isn't that beautiful? He and Ezra Pound are my 2 favorite poets - oh, and e e cummings. So lovely, and spare, and accessible to the not-so-poetic. As I re read this one I see it's about the coming of spring just as much as it is about the now of February...and that is a wonderful thought.

Been working hard this whole month, ever since I got back from Asia and went headlong into my new job. Most nights til 8:00 or 9:00. The place is utter chaos, the Poster Company for Broken Processes, but the people are nice, and most importantly FUNNY. God, I missed funny when I was at KF. In a visceral way, almost the way you miss someone you love when they die. 3.5 years of Not Funny...it almost killed my spirit. HELLO, I am back.

In non work headlines, well there hasn't been much except work this month. Went to KE and PM's lovely wedding - they looked so happy. Going to L's baby shower in DC with KN and AY this weekend, looking forward to it. Saw JM and his partner JB in from LA for the Christo Gates and had a great time with them. They brought out a mini Yale reunion with VK and V&JM as well as DJM. Cheerful caustic humor all around.

Struggling with the weight thing - it's been an eating disaster with this company, from Xmas baskets to meeting food to lunches out on the expense account. I am a fatty fat fat right now. Must buckle down and live on veggies so I won't be shameful in the summer.

No men. Not a peep. Gave up on both E Harmony and Match after just a couple of weeks back - I don't have the heart for it any more. Or the patience. None of the Usual Suspects has reached out this month. I assume I won't hear from anyone at least until the spring begins to pump testosterone into their tiny lizard brains.

K. had to script it for me

2005-01-31T21:33:00.000-05:00

Subj: (no subject)
Date: 1/30/2005 12:29:10 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: ME
To: Train Boy
I think I deserve at least a reply, don't you? (Ed.: that would be to my jetlagvoicemail) Fair enough if you're not interested any more, but the "vaporizing into thin air" act is really uncool after this many dates and after being intimate.

1/31/2005 4:31:28 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: Train Boy
To: Me
Hi,I'm not disappearing. Was very happy to hear your voice on the answering machine - thought maybe you had given up on me . (Ed.: Hah! I should have, back in early Dec.)

Was away over the weekend. (Ed.: In a magical space-time continuum where they don't have phones.)

Have been desparately (Ed.: sic. Appallingly, horribly sic.) trying hard to find a job here at XYZ Corp. as it is going to cost me a lot of $$$ if I don't have one by the 15th. Also got immersed in Christmas. (Ed.: Six weeks ago.)

Still looking forward to calling you back (Ed.: What the hell does that mean? It's your happy place? You don't want to ruin the fantasy by actually dialing?) - my apartment is somewhat discombobulated and I have some job search leads and your numbers in a group of papers that I have to go through. (Ed.: My numbers are in a GROUP OF PAPERS??)

I'm sorry if I've ticked you off (Ed.: yuppity yup) but time has been moving too quickly lately to focus on much else but me - very selfish I know. (Ed.: yuppity yup yup.)

Trying to get some more postings out today before the application dates pass -should have more time later in the week. (Ed.: I will be holding my breath.)

Hope everything else aside from your frustration with me is going well. (Ed.: actually, I went to Cambodia and got a new job, but whatever.)

1/31/2005 8:24:57 PM Eastern Standard Time
From:Me
To: Train Boy
Dear Train Boy:
Sorry to hear you've been so busy. My fingers are crossed for you in your job search, I know how stressful that is. If you get yourself sorted out, give me a call. Good luck with everything.

I know what you're thinking, it TOOK me long enough to get over this jackass. But I submit to you, after all the douchebags I have dated, that it is difficult to tell a man to shine on when he is appropriate in age, marital status, geography, education, racial/religious background, sexual orientation, height, and cuteness. It's hard to let the dream die.

Thanks to K and A for all the tough love. Talk me down off the ledge, sisters!

I'm glad I sent the nastygram above, though. Not because I expected a reply, but because I hate being ignored and I wanted him to know his behavior was bad. I needed to insist on being acknowledged.

All right, Stop! Collaborate and Listen!

2005-01-29T10:23:00.000-05:00

What an amazing vacation. K is a fabulous travel companion, much better than I am. She is great with directions, never gets grumpy, keeps up a good brisk pace and is totally intrepid (it's fiiiiiine to eat this! Go ahead, drink the tap water! You can stop those silly malaria pills now!) whereas I am the premature grandma...wait, I need my cardigan, it's chilly!

Angkor was so cool, albeit freakin' baking hot (hit 100) and dusty with the brutal red dust of Cambodia. The steps of each temple are twice the height and half the depth of a normal step, and all the temples are high up, so the whole time there was one giant quad workout, but so worth it. Bats in all the roofs, lots of chittering. Incredibly Indiana Jones-like ruins. We learned a lot about the history of the countries, as well. Poor Cambodia, hosed left right and sideways for 30 years and STILL run by baddies.

Got back and accepted a job offer - senior brand manager, luxury goods - just what I wanted! What a relief. Good salary, bonus and also a sign on...hooray!

Lame ass here also called Train Boy upon my return. Left a "Swingers" type message, including the phrase "just wondering where we stand." It was the jet lag talkin', I was weak. Needless to say, no cally backy.

Tons to catch up on, not enough time to write a proper post. More later.

Not So Much of an Auspicious Start for the New Year

2005-01-01T09:33:00.000-05:00

It's ironic that one of my New Year's resolutions for 2005 is to be more positive and dwell less on the negative aspects of my life that are frustrating me (easily bucketable into 2 big bins: men and work). It's ironic, because I spent New Year's Eve with Rollo.

Rollo, the blind date with whom I spent an agonizing evening three years ago. Rollo, the man who interrupted me midsentence at the bar as we were waiting for our table, some 30 minutes into the date, by commanding me to close my eyes and then laying a big old smacker on me. Rollo, the man who was midway into telling me how much he hated his father when he stopped himself by whapping his head with his menu three times while chanting "stupid, stupid, stupid." Yes, Rollo, the man who not only foiled my end-of-date-kiss cheek-offering-fakeout by moving with the lightning speed of a cobra, but then also shoved his tongue in my mouth. And proceeded to ask my answering machine out, and then some weeks later, break up with it. And who is named ROLLO, for the love of God!

CG, I shall never forgive you for that setup.

So last night (New Year's Eve) I went to my friend S's house for a black tie dinner that she does every year. Small, quiet, avoiding the NYC mayhem, and only a 15 minute drive from my house. Which usually makes up for the fact that it's a very married couply party. However this year, I of course showed up in my usual solo style, only to be confronted by Rollo, the dreadful ex-date. With his new GIRLFRIEND. This is the 2nd time this year that has happened to me (the 1st time the guy was at the party with his fiancee, and he wanted me to keep our 3 little utterly platonic dates a big secret. Yeesh). The pool is obviously getting very shallow indeed.

The guy recognized me immediately, while I had no clue until he said his name. He actually looks much less like Woody Allen than I remembered, which is a good thing for him, but he's just as supremely awkward as before. Apparently he made some comment to one of the other girls about our past history and added "but she won't talk to me now". Meanwhile, I had been there about 5 minutes and he was on the other side of the room. I did talk to him later, and was perfectly nice and polite. I chatted quite a bit with his girlfriend - a really sweet person. I wanted to shake her and holler "what are you thinking?!" but then again they seemed happy together. She looks much older than me, quite wrinkly in the face, and her hair looked like it had been dragged through a bush, but apparently she is a much nicer person than I am inside, or she would not be able to put up with him. A lid for every pot.

I was also surprised by P's new husband. He seems genuinely nice, smart and funny...but he's so much less attractive than P. She's a stunner, and he's a shorter, dumpy, balding dude with a little pink pursey mouth and tortoiseshell spex. Honestly, he looks like one of those fussy men who may be gay but isn't comfortable discussing it. It was a black tie evening, I grant you, but the man had on those godawful dancing slippers that I always think make a man look like his feet want to be Audrey Hepburn. And he clearly OWNED them. Yikes. Still, he seems like a good egg and she is deliriously happy (and so many of them are NOT good eggs) that I can only wish them well. It did give me pause, though. If that's what a hottie like P gets as her door prize, what does someone like me get left with? It also made me rethink some of her stories about how reluctant he was to commit. Is the man insane? Believe me, he'll never get another woman like P to even look his way. He should have sealed that deal in the first 15 minutes of their second date! He's ridiculously lucky that she hung in there for him and waited out all the episodes of cold feet.

So, enough gossip, on to my New Year's rezzies:

1) lose at least 25 lbs...how did I balloon up this year from 160 to 185? Totally unacceptable, no clothes fit, must become the Food Nazi again. And perhaps more cardio, although I am still working out about 5x/week so I really do think it's the food. All the Xmas baskets delivered to work did NOT help.
2) aforementioned positive thinking. Been dwelling waaay too much on stupid guys not working out and stupid career being in a tailspin stallout. Need to get over my boring self already, and get out there and do things that make me more interested/interesting! Take more classes again, make more of a social effort, and force my brain to jump out of its little rut every time the dwelling starts - need to replace that stuff with a positive mental image to fixate upon. The beach scene at Krabi was working fine until the tsunami, now I need to replace it with a scene that is not littered with bloated corpses.
3) buy a home. Need to solve the job thing first, but I really want to get a move on this in '05 and get my money working for me.

That's pretty much it.

Happy New Year!

I Is A Ass

2004-12-30T14:42:00.000-05:00

The law may be a ass, but I is too. I just signed up for E Harmony. Did I not swear NEVER to do internet dating again? Why yes, that is correct.

Narrowly Avoiding Death

2004-12-29T09:33:00.000-05:00

It's difficult to imagine the scope of devastation from the tsunami in SE Asia. So far they are saying almost 60,000 people have been killed. I saw a photo with about 20 bodies washed up on the beach like so much seaweed...it looks like there's been a war. One of the hardest hit areas was the beach resort of Krabi in Thailand, where K. and I were planning to spend the last few days of our vacation (starting next week). Apparently the resort we booked rooms at simply doesn't exist any more. It's a bit difficult to wrap one's head around.

My friend R. in Bangkok has been an angel and has rebooked us to fly into Koh Samui instead, but the hotel situation there is still pending so I am concerned. I would imagine many other folks are trying to do the same as we are. Apparently now the big issues are spread of malaria and cholera. Not sure if we'd be at risk being on the other coast in Samui...the isthmus is narrow, and mosquitoes can fly. Still, I'm chock full of Lariam and have buckets of DEET spray. The Lariam gave me horrible nightmares the other night...sort of a Bride of Chucky theme, with a demonic little girl pursuing me with a knife.

My other friend C. and her husband just returned from Phuket, and also are basically thanking God that they avoided this disaster by mere days.

All in all, a rather frightening and sobering start to a vacation.

Christmas was lovely. My sister redeemed herself from the Tweety Bird toe sox of yesteryear by kicking in with not only an Hermes scarf but also a Longchamps bag. Atta girl! Saw various aunts and cousins as usual. Avoided the trauma of this past Easter mass (ditched by my stepdad in his unfathomable zeal to get to the church precisely on time for a mass he neither enjoys nor believes in, and which he is always eager to leave early from) by going in my own car. It was a vow I made to myself that I kept, and it was very smart indeed. This was the first Christmas with my stepdad where I managed to avoid seeing him lose his temper (he may well have lost it at some point, but I managed to avoid it). I don't get why Christmas makes him so tetchy, I guess it must have been some past trauma. But I love the holiday, and I don't want mine ruined! Well done this year, must remember strategy for next year.

As for job/men usual unsettled situation nonsense:

Jobs - interviews pending at a coffee co., a liquor co. and also at the place where I am temping, as well as a nonprofit that I don't think is a match. Of the 4, I suppose I am most interested in the liquor place but it's in NYC which is a pain. The place I am temping is OK, but I think their offer may end up to be a lateral despite my most aggressive efforts to reshape it...and that won't do.

Men - have heard nothing from Train Boy since early Dec. when he finally called me and we had a short but pleasant chat, during which I reminded him about my little e-mail asking if we were "on the same page" re how much time we wanted to spend with each other. He said "I have to go now but I'll call you this weekend" to talk about how much time we might want to actually invest in this thing...I guess he didn't have time to talk about the time he wanted to spend with me, which was apparently None. It's been a month or so and yet I am still boggled by how rude it was to simply vaporize, and after I'd really been nothing but supremely nice to him. I was trying to break the habit of dwelling on it by forcing myself to think about the lovely image of the Krabi beach every time, but unfortunately now that image is littered with dead bodies in my mind.

Mi Optimismo Normal Se Fue Hoy

2004-12-05T10:37:00.000-05:00

I have a cold.
I have a cold and my head hurts.
I have a cold, my head hurts, and I don't want to work out but I already skipped yesterday so I really should.
I have a cold, my head hurts, I don't want to work out but I already skipped yesterday so I really should, and the real problem is that yet another man has dropped me like a hot rock.

It's really getting old, this hot-rock-dropping. Not to say I've definitively felt that any of these turkeys were keepers, but it's more that I wasn't yet done with them. My jury was still out, in the same time it took for their juries to have made a conclusion, given it to the bailiff, held a small but tasteful celebratory cocktail shindig, and then checked out of their hotel rooms using the express system. How is this possible?

Yes, of course it's Train Boy. What did you expect, the Kraut Who Laughs Like a Woman? No, it's the perfectly nice man who wasn't really any big whoop or anything, but was perfectly nice and we all know how rare that is.

I was talking to my friend K.S. about him, and she said "well, you've been making him do all the calling, maybe he thinks you aren't that into him." So I stupidly followed up my UNRETURNED "happy belated Thanksgiving" phone call with ANOTHER voicemail a week later saying "what are you doing this Sunday?" (Well, heck, I was already booked the other nights). Left him my new work phone number. Got a message on my home tape (avoidance?) a few hours later, as well as an e-mail. Here is the e-mail, reproduced in its entirety for your pleasure. The voicemail said he had gotten my messages, "December had come faster" than he thought it would, he would "try" to call me next week and to "bear with" him.

Subj: hi
Date: 12/3/2004 2:44:11 PM
I have gotten your messages - crazy week along with being sick since the day after Thanksgiving. Helping organize a charity thing for work this weekend so I won't be around. I'll get in touch next week.

So clearly we have here a case of Dropped Like a Hot Rock. Aka He's Just Not That Into You. I think this is specifically a case of Let Me Keep Her on the Back Burner While I Look For Something Better, because he's still returning calls and whatnot, just incredibly slowly/rudely. ARRRGH!! Why do I keep getting this type of behavior? Is it me? Is it that I am dating the chaff that is left behind, now that all the wheat's gone off and got married to hot little blondes? What what what?

Also, more to the point, how best to reply if/when he calls again? Here are sample lines I am toying with. My key objective is to get him to grovel back to me so that I can kick him aside and regain some shreds of self esteem. Failing that, at least an exit with dignity. I don't want to come off mad, just icily cool and having no use for him.
"I need someone who will make me a priority"
"We obviously want different things"
"This behavior is unacceptable"
Or the ever popular Star-D on the voicemail, never to call him back again (much less satisfying).

I am so cranky today I could just poison a poodle. I need to develop a hobby other than dating idiots. Stamp collecting would be more satisfying.

Rhett, Rhett, what sh'll I do? Where sh'll I go?

2004-11-21T10:55:00.000-05:00

This morning I started reading the book my friend RK just wrote, about raising a child with special needs. Her son has ADHD.

As an aside, RK is the friend with whom I am attempting to write a humor book about relationships. Which I am struggling with, not only because she wants to do it from a husband point of view (she's married, I'm not. I have absolutely no POV on husbands) but also because I'm not feeling too hardy-har about relationships these days. But that is another story.

So I'm reading this book, all about how kids with these special needs have a really hard time relating normally to people in social situations, and of course it makes me think of RB. He told me he has adult ADHD, as well as depression. The book is making me think, "is he incapable of a normal adult relationship because of his disability? Was I too mean to him?" Maybe I needed to treat him like a mentally handicapped person instead of a normal guy. Give up the notion of having him as a boyfriend (a long-dead notion, to clarify) or even a normal friend, and think of him as more of a -- well, I don't want to say charity case -- maybe think of him as someone of whom I have much lower expectations. So now I'm all confused again, hence the title of this post. I feel rotten when I interact with RB, and rotten when I cut him dead. I can't seem to find a mode of dealing with him (or stopping dealing) that makes me feel better. It's so frustrating.

Saw Train Boy Friday night. He came to my birthday party at a bar. It started at 7:00 and he got there about 10:30. He told me he had taken the day off work, and had napped all day. He mentioned that he'd been pretty down, thinking about his mom (she passed away this spring) and that the napping was more of a depression thing than a sleepy thing. Then he went all the way to NYC to play pick up basketball with his friends. Then he showered, picked up some fast food dinner, and got in the car to come see me. Called for directions from the road, got lost several times over, and made it there just as things were breaking up, so only 3 of my friends got to meet him. I had totally given up hope that he was coming, so I was surprised when he walked in. We had one drink together, then my other friends left and I was so pooped I begged to go home too. Desperate for a shower - you know that end of day feeling, like you're encased in a thin coating of crud? So we went to my place, where I let him sit and watch snowy TV (he accidentally put the VCR on - too many clickers on the coffee table) while I parboiled myself for 15 heavenly minutes. God, what would I do without hot water? It is the source of all life. Then I came out in my sexy 400-lb white terry robe and sat on his lap and things were very nice for a few hours. He's really very sweet - diligent about pleasing me, cuddly afterwards.

I discovered a huge scar all down his spine. He's got a steel rod in it. He had severe scoliosis as a child, and at age 12 they put him in traction, put a rod in his spine, and then put him in a body cast for months. Poor kid. He says he thinks it's actually helped him prioritize the important things in his life better. Hmmm. That does NOT make me happy. Basketball vs. Isabelle, I lose. What does this say about me on the priority list?

I continue to have the definite impression that he's Just Not That Into Me. It's not that he's not lovely when he sees me...it's just that he doesn't ever seem super eager to see me. Like as in, skipping basketball. Or calling more often. These 2 to 3 week breaks mean that the momentum can't build. In a way, it's good for me, as I tend to get obsessive about a guy and get too into him. But truthfully, it sucks. It makes me feel like I must be his stopgap choice 'til something better comes along. A little nooky to while away an evening, when it fits in between basketball games. Could the dead mom thing have something to do with it? Is his head just not in the present right now? I dunno, but it seems to me you'd want a happy fun activity to cheer yourself up after a parent dies. I know I really needed my boyfriend John the Irish Guy after my dad died. But maybe he is different.

I did say, in as nice a way as possible, "let's not let 3 weeks go by again, because I missed you." His response was along the lines of "oh, yeah, definitely...but that's going to be hard with the holidays coming up." Let's add that to the list of 4th grade excuses: have to go to house on Jersey Shore, have to tend to sick dad, broke my foot which somehow impeded dialing finger, have to work late, have to play basketball, and now, have to celebrate 43 weeks of Thanksgiving with my family. The cat ate my homework, Jesus. What am I, someone he has set up as an authority figure who has to be avoided and lied to? Either you want to see me or you don't. Why the excuses? If you don't want to see me, then dump my ass. If you do want to see me, then see me. I get the feeling that a romantic - sorry, it's the blog, I must be honest with myself - SEXUAL relationship is something he only wants to give about 0.001% of his attention to. Which is funny, because usually guys are up for sex. He apparently prefers basketball. It may be a sign of age.

If I say basketball one more time in this post, I will have to shoot myself.

Yes, thank you, I'd like a cup of nothing!

2004-11-18T07:41:00.000-05:00

My cup of nothing runneth over.

Train Boy continues to barely hover round the edges of the picture - these days he's chalking it up to work. Haven't seen him in at least 3 weeks, although he's supposed to make a cameo at my b-day party tomorrow night. Think I may have to lay down some Men are from Mars/Women are from Venus "clear communication" ground rules. As in, if you expect to ever get any again, you're going to need to contact me at least once every 10 days. Which, of course, makes it all seem so romantic, so head-over-heelsy, so spontaneous. I can't help feeling that if one has to have those sorts of conversations, it's Already Over Anyway.

Have spent the better part of this past week in a blinding rage (but that's no different than usual, you say?) No, really. After dumping me as a girlfriend, then dumping me as a friend (have not heard from him since his e-mail in August suggesting that we talk that weekend -- he never called), I received a birthday card from RB. A freakin' birthday card. With some pat sentiment about wishing all my dreams came true this year because I deserved it. Honestly, it's like the dog in the doorway...in or out, dog, in or out. Are you trying to be my friend again? Or is this just a one-off sop to your guilt for the shitty way you treated me?

I was so upset by having my old wounds reopened that I sent him a real nastygram, basically restating what I said in August: that he was talking the talk of being friends without actually doing anything about it. I told him he'd hurt me really badly by letting the friendship passively die, and that if he wanted to reopen discussion we'd have to resolve those issues first. But that if the card was just an isolated kindly impulse, he shouldn't contact me again. Needless to say, I have not received a reply. I doubt I will ever hear from him again. What a passive-aggressive loser.

To add to the sense of futility, I have taken a temp job back at my old company. It's so weird to be there - everything has changed. It's a horrible cube farm, for one thing. And all my friends in Marketing are long, long, long gone. The place is even more chaotic than it was immediately postmerger, as evidenced by the fact that they've hired me as a Senior Brand Manager to run one of their biggest, and fastest declining brands...on a temp basis! "Hey Jim, we've got this major brand that's in the dumper, how do we shore it up to hit our plan this year?" "Temps, Bob, temps. Wave of the future." Well, it's money for me, and a stopgap over the holidays when nobody's interviewing anyway.

Sorry for the cranky post. I swear, I think it's all this card from RB. It really has upset me all week. MUST choose to be in a good mood. Cannot let old history bring me down.

2004-11-11T06:26:00.000-05:00

Wow. Where to start. My interview with the tableware company. Wow.

Okay, the headline is - their HR guy's drunk the Kool Aid. And when he told me he "grew up at GE" I totally got where the Kool Aid consumption was coming from. It was a terrifying meeting on so many levels, that I am not quite sure where to begin. Yet at the same time, it was hilariously, uproariously funny (all the more so for being unintentional), so I want to do it justice.I guess the best way is to start at the beginning.

He suggested we meet at the Starbuck's in my town, since it's on his commute home from the NJ office to CT where he lives. We agree to meet at 6 p.m. Then that morning his assistant called to see if we could change it to the next day. I have my Pilates class (which I don't tell her, of course) so I say, gee, that doesn't work so well, how about some other times. She says, "He wanted to meet you later tonight but I thought it would be too late for you. Would 8:00 be too late?" Fine, says I, it's 5 min. from my house so 8 works. So at 7:55 p.m. I am sitting at Starbucks in my nice pantsuit and Hermes scarf, surrounded by nasty, overweight, pukka-shell-necklace-wearing, tattoo-assed teenyboppers whose parents apparently let them roam the Avenue all night, not to mention consume coffee which was SO not in the consideration set for my parents, but anyway...

Two gray men enter the Starbucks. When I say gray, I mean head to toe. Gray suits, gray faces, one had gray hair. Clearly, these are my boys. I can tell, because they do not have pukka shell necklaces, or tattoos above their ass cracks. But two? I am expecting just the HR guy.

"This is J.," says Mr. HR. "He's our new CFO. Today's his first day." Whaaaa?So these 2 men have apparently just gotten out of a full day of meetings, and since HR was J's ride home, poor J. got nailed with attending my interview. Welcome to the company, J., and how important is that work/life balance to ya?

They wisely suggest that we all depart the nasty teen Starbucks and go get some grub at the Oyster House. I am getting somewhat intimidated, as Mr. HR is like no HR guy I have ever met before. He's incredibly intense, speaks in a frantic staccato, and seems more like one of those overachiever sales guys who really wants to get promoted than anything else. We sit down, he orders us a bottle of wine with dinner (without asking me if I drink, do I want wine, what kind of wine do I like or any of the usual politesse) and he begins to basically tell me that the company is in the dumper, but that the new Harvard MBA CEO chickie who joined in Jan. is "transforming" it, and only wants people who are "jazzed" (kid you not) about working "seven twenty four" to turn it around so they can "leave a legacy." Apparently they withdrew from all the club stores and Wal Mart this year, losing $9MM in the process, in order to begin the long task of making the tableware premium again. The co. was $600MM a few years ago, and is now $400MM, so they have decided that the way to stem the hemmorhage is to act like a classical CPG company. That means doing lots of consumer insight work and anal, SKU-by-SKU quant analysis (the anal stuff would be the stuff I am trying to avoid like the plague, for those of you following along at home).

So anyway, I am already thinking that the 24/7 thing sounds miserable, and that I am in fact NOT jazzed, when the guy starts talking about politics and religion! Voting for Bush, thinks Kerry is an imbecile, thinks Democrats are foaming-at-the-mouth liberals, thinks Michael Moore is an asshole...the Catholic church is a mess, he's departed the faith because of it, etc etc...topics you would assume an HR guy would AVOID. Fascinating. Really, really weird. Nothing to do with the interview that I could tell, just wanted to get a load off his chest. Then he starts talking about Jack Welch, only I can't tell if the guy loves or hates Jack...he's just telling stories about how cruel Jack was to his minions in meetings. I'm so lost that I just smile and nod. He's not asking me any functional skill set questions or any classic situational stuff (tell me about a time when you...) Just a few questions about "how would I transform a company" and "what's my leadership style." I think he also mentioned that the job was Director level, but to be honest he was speaking so quickly that I am not sure I caught that right.Meanwhile, all this time poor J. is pretty much silent and appears to be somewhere deep in his own personal misery. The misery of a man who should have just taken the train home. At the end, the guy tells me he really enjoyed it. And that I'd be hearing from him soon.One of the stranger interviews I have had recently.

Blog, We Hardly Knew Ye

2004-10-29T12:14:00.000-05:00

Ah, blog, I must apologize for my silence this month. I am an intermittent blogger at best.

Blog, I neglected to regale you with details of my second date with Train Boy 2 weeks ago. I shall do that now, along with the latest installment from last night.

It was a lovely 2nd date - we went to a swanky restaurant-cum-culinary-school and he treated me to a most swanky dinner despite the fact that I was supposed to catch the tab this time (at end of date 1 he beat me to it, so I made him promise I could get the next). When I reminded him of our agreement, he said "ummm, but you're still looking for a job, and this place is a little expensive." Now, I say that's nice. Then he drove me to see his childhood home nearby, and then over to see his place. I like that too - it's a bit of an invitation into someone's life, and a good sign. Typical guy place, decorated willy-nilly with furniture way too large for the space, which he got for free after some photo shoot he worked on when he was in Marketing.

Thank God the man has a couch (I don't, and it's a real style-cramper vis a vis that awkward first transition from chatting to smooching). So we're chatting on the couch, and it turns to smooching, and things heat up and...fortunately for me, since my self-discipline sucks, Aunt Flo was in town from Red River. So I told him it was no place for him down there, and besides, we needed to get to know each other better. Then I gave him a "helping hand" and he drove me home and all was well.

From there, once again his pacing was too slow for my taste. It took him a week to call me again (a week! after we Shared a Moment!). I called him back and missed him, then I went to Charleston for the weekend and called him again when I got back. That was Tuesday, and it took him til Thurs. to return the call. This may sound nitpicky, but to me the little delays signify "not super excited about ya."

He really has an uncanny knack of sensing when I am about to throw his business card in my metal trash bin and set it aflame. Unfortunately he seems to ONLY call me when I have the matches already in hand. So Thursday he called and asked if I was doing anything that very night. Now, I know what you are thinking - we must train them right off the bat to ask us out with several days' notice, in order to drum home the point that We Are So Very Popular With Other Men. Otherwise how can the proper grovelling attitude be instilled? But I am no master of strategy, alas. So I said, "not doing anything!" and we made plans to hang out. Nothing was discussed re "dinner vs. not dinner" however.

He got stuck at work so didn't get to my pad til 8:30. I figured he hadn't had time to eat, and I wanted to make my famous chicken-lentil soup anyway, so I whipped up a batch while I was waiting for him (it consists of opening packages and hucking them into a large pot). While I was at it, I threw together an invention of mine slightly resembling apple cobbler. (I bought one of those paper-bag pecks of apples and when I got it home I realized a peck is an antiquated synonym for "a shitload", so I have been frantically inventing apple recipes to work the excess inventory down). So when he came in, the place smelled like a fabulous gourmet restaurant and he was suitably impressed. But he wanted pub food and beer, neither of which I had, so we went to a local pubby place. My turn to get the dinner tab since he got the first two (one of which was a whopper). Then went back to my place and smooched.

Wasn't planning to give up the goods because it's only Date 3 and he's been the Poky Little Puppy of Phoning, but...what can I say, I'm apparently easy. So, all fine fine, nice cuddling afterwards, then he turns off my bedside light and prepares to go to sleep. I assume he's staying over. Nothing said about it, but I knew he was taking off work today to go up to RI and visit a friend, so I knew he didn't need to get up early. We go to sleep. Then at 2:00 in the morning I feel him get up out of bed and I hear a flush...and he doesn't come back to bed. 5 minutes later I'm really awake, and I get up and do a lap of the apartment. He's gone. Splitsville. No kiss goodbye, no note, nada. DEMERITS ON THE BIG BOARD.

I did tell him on our second date that one of my pet peeves is being woken up, so perhaps that's why he didn't say goodbye. But I guess my feeling is, if you're there til 2:00, you might as well stay til the morning and then we can have a nice morning interlude.

So now I am annoyed. Both with him for bailing, and myself for being easy. I must ask myself - WHY do I seem incapable of calling a halt in the action and sending them home? (OK, I did that on date 2, but not this time! And Aunt Flo helped.) Is it a people-pleasing thing taken to an extreme? Do I like sex too much? Do I feel like they won't like me if I call a halt midway and I'm afraid of rejection? Do I need therapy? Because honestly, I do in my heart believe it's better to get to know a person well before boinking, and I don't think 3 dates qualifies as knowing someone well. Sex is always vastly better with someone you really care about, and clearly we're not there yet (especially if a mere day ago I was ready to flambee his number). So this is self-defeating behavior. Which I ALREADY KNOW, so WHAT IS MY FRICKIN' PROBLEM?

Oooh, instant update - just got an e-mail from him. About 2 lines. Thanking me for, of all things, a "relaxing time" (sex with Isabelle, it's like Valium without the pesky prescription!). And promising a call when he gets back from RI. Which I know is a euphemism for "in a couple of weeks." Honestly, if my bar were any lower, it would be a trench.

Dateline...later that same day...the penny just dropped that his e-mail came from his WORK account. As in, he did go to work today. Which he had said he would probably do, but I forgot. So I guess that explains the 2 a.m. bailout. But a note would have been nice. Still, I feel slightly better.

The Lazarus Act is Getting to be a Habit

2004-10-08T08:22:00.000-05:00

I was astonished to get a callback (dating/interviewing all same same) from Train Boy last night. I had literally just deleted his address from my AOL address book! I was 100% certain I would not hear from him again, not because the date sucked (it was really fun) but because it was 3 weeks ago. Not a call, not a peep in the interim. A girl likes to feel wanted, you know? Granted he was away for a week, but they have phones at the shore. And it turns out he broke a bone in his foot, but then all the more reason to ring-a-ding-ding me so I can coo with sympathy and also kill time for him in the Dr. Phil commercial breaks while he's home watching TV with his footsie up, right? I don't understand Guy Time.

Anyway, so we are going out again next Wed. (and when do I get promoted to a weekend night?!?) but I expect he will repeat the pattern of date #1 and cancel on me at least twice before the goddam date actually happens. I definitely get the sense that he is in no kind of all-fired hurry. Doesn't he realize that my biological clock is ticking (stamp), ticking (stampitty stamp), ticking?!?

There must have been a full moon last night because J.J. called me too. You remember, the one who dumped me because I was too fat? Who booty-called me for the second weekend in a row when I was out to dinner a couple of weeks ago and I haven't heard from him since? Yeah, well. He had concert tix for tonight, for Colin Hay of all things. The former lead singer from Men at Work. Thanks for the advance notice, guy. I told him I was already booked, which I am. And took great pleasure from it.

Time Travel back to the 80's

2004-10-04T15:28:00.000-05:00

My 20th high school reunion was a total trip through time. It was like seeing Richard Gere in "An Officer and a Gentleman" and then seeing him in "Chicago" back to back...his hair is brown! No! It's grey! There were people I have known since kindergarten and not seen for 20 years.

It was a trip to see T.D., who I last remember as a cute little 5th grader, all grown up but essentially looking EXACTLY the same except someone swapped his normal hair with this weird helmet of almost pompadour-styled white (not grey) hair. It was somewhat less of a trip to hear how P. V. had spiralled from "I'm not finishing college because I have a lead on a major soap opera" to "I've successfully completed rehab, I'm married to a Wiccan (this is flinty, preppy New England, remember) and I run a gambling club". My mind immediately went to "Fight Club" of course. And G. C. somehow became G. C.'s grandma, or at least a dead ringer for her...maybe gaining about eighty pounds had something to do with it.

Of course we had the obligatory groping, snit n' tears, and Naked Guy. The Naked Guy did not streak, but rather stripped completely down while standing on a table. He held a strategically placed balloon over his 'nads and did a bump-and-grind for fully 2 minutes before jumping down, getting dressed, and calmly picking up his beer. Rumors flew that he was a spouse rather than an alum (how proud his wife must have been) and that he had been bet $400 to do it.

As for the groping and the snit n' tears, they were related. The grope: C. A. groped D. W. (really just a lengthy leg-lean) in a retread of what happened at our 10th reunion. These 2 people are totally diametrically opposed in personality, politics, likes/dislikes and are also part of the same VERY SMALL group of my friends, so we all continue to be astonished at their ongoing physical attraction for each other. Plus, they are currently both in serious relationships. Kids, kids! Will you never learn! So then on the way home, J. D., a person I have never cottoned to, but who is also part of our old grouplet, chewed D.W. out for cheating on her boyfriend. D. W. then got sniffly/snitty. Lengthy dissections occurred over brunch the next day, during which it was decided that: the leg lean had been minor and did not count as cheating, and also that J.D. was very manipulative and why was I the only one who had realized this back in high school. So a satisfactory time was had by all. Given the P. V. story, as well as the cautionary tales of C. T. (nervous breakdown 5 years ago, still living at home) and S. T. (came out of the closet, unrelatedly lost his job, now living at home) I did not feel so bad telling people I was unemployed.

Huge missed opportunity on the deejay...we got Safety Dance and Abracadabra, as well as a lot of Journey. Not enough New Wave by far. No Devo! No B-52s! I should have brought my mix CDs, but oh well. It was a fun weekend.

He's Just Not that Into Me. Ever.

2004-10-02T09:50:00.000-05:00

Random thought:
Last weekend the church belltower a block from my house was dinging out "Morning Has Broken", the day after the Artist Formerly Known as Cat Stevens was hauled off to the pokey for Islamic terrorism - coinkydinky, or perverse humor of Quasimodo?

Just finished reading "He's Just Not That Into You" by some Sex & the City writers. It's the first time a self-help book (disguised as a humor book) has impacted me so powerfully. The basic concept is "if he's not pursuing you aggressively, nothing real is gonna happen, so ditch early and save the frustration and pain." You go out for a nice dinner date then he takes 3 weeks to call again? He's just not that into you, so say no to date #2 and move on. Brilliant! No more accepting excuses a la "work's been crazy." If he really liked you, he'd want YOU to be his little coffee break from that crazy work. I was on this rant Thursday night at G's office rooftop party, and drove my 2 girlfriends J.H. and K.S. mad with it - they both just wanted me to shut up, already. Which I think may in part be because they have both done match.com and put up with just as much crap from lukewarm guys as I have, hoping through sheer force of will that something good might come of it. It's depressing to think that it might all have been a total waste of time. Either that, or I was just being negative and they wanted a topic change.

Alas, virtually every man I have dealt with in the last eight years falls into this "just not into me" category. In fact, I cannot recall EVER being truly ardently pursued by a man. Well, except for Harry, the slightly crazed Albanian cabdriver that K. forbade me to go out with. Who called 5x in a day, starting at 8 a.m. Yeah, that kind of ardent pursuit is worrying. We don't quite want that. Such a fine line between "showering a woman with attention" and "stalking."

So, if we go with the concept that all these Lukewarm Lotharios should be cut off at the knees, I would not have progressed to second dates with anyone since 1996. Nor had any action. Nor wasted eight months pining after stupid R.B. or another six months pining after stupid, garbage-collecting, cheatin', fat-insulting J.J. (who booty called me for the 2nd time in 2 weekends last week - I let 'er go to voicemail). In sum, no pain but also no sex. Wow, it's a tough call. Mind you, from a time-value-of-money perspective, 30 min. of sex vs. 6 months of pain is a no-brainer. Especially when I reflect on the fact that, ever since I stopped single-handedly propping up my "friendship" with R.B. I have not heard boo from him (we're at a month and counting). Or the fact that, after what I thought was a lovely first date with Train Boy 2 weeks ago, I never heard from him again. Or even thinking back to Miami Guy, who really really wanted to stay in touch. And called me last week, catching me while I was on another call. And swore he'd call right back in 10 minutes. A week ago. Gee, that sure is a long 10 minutes.

In other News of the Bitter, the cosmetics co. wants me to come in for a FOURTH round of interviews. Apparently it's down to me and one other person. Just ding me already. I think they're Just Not That Into Me. All my other leads are lukewarm in terms of interest level (either theirs, mine or both). The result of which is that I am outwardly calm, but I am waking up regularly at 4 a.m. and spending an hour or 2 dwelling on all the negative aspects of my life before I can get back to sleep. It's funny how your entire life can look sucky at 4 a.m. No man, no job, don't even own my own home, getting too old to have kids, not enough drive or ambition (or talent) to make it as a fulltime writer, no one besides my mom will ever love me...an endless loop of self-defeat, circling around and around in my head. Relieved only by "goddamit, I wish those garbage trucks wouldn't start so early."

Speaking of self-loathing, it's my 20th high school reunion today. I was its biggest champion, recruiting old friends via e-mail for months. Yet now that the day is here, I am dreading it. I keep hearing my possible answers to the inevitable "so what are you up to these days?" Um, I'm an out-of-work marketing executive? Who's single, childless and lives in a rental on the side of town we all used to make snarky comments about? And you?

To top it all off, I've been doing some serious emotional eating the last few months, and have put on a total of 15 lbs. versus my lowest weight last summer. So a lot of cute clothes look like sausage casings, and I hate myself as I dial for a pizza (hey, it's thin crust! Topped with veggies!)

The only bright spot right now is one that is also mixed with fear - I am planning a trip to Angkor Wat and SE Asia with my friend K.N. The fear part comes because the flight alone is $1,000 and I probably shouldn't spend it...also, she can't go 'til Jan. so I am fearful that, if I do get a new job before then, they will totally think less of me for taking time off right after starting. But I really want to go. Plus I know that if I don't do it now, while I have time to plan and a friend who wants to go, there is a high likelihood that I never will.

I think I better go work out. It seems I really, really need an endorphin high right about now. Can't even chalk this bummer trip up to PMS. It's just anxiety, Jumbo Sized. Hopefully I will be cheerier in my next post.

Luaka Flop

2004-09-17T10:41:00.000-05:00

A very mixed week.

Had an all-time record for Shortest Interview, at Luaka Bop, David Byrne's record label. I sent them a resume on a whim and the President actually called me up and invited me to come in and talk. So I was sort of expecting that this meant he was at least mildly interested in what I could offer. Which turned out to be an utterly unfounded assumption. He told me everything in my portfolio was "some of the ugliest stuff I've ever seen" and that he really didn't see how my experience might apply. I tried a little fancy talkin', but he booted me out after literally less than 5 minutes. Hey, at least they let me use their ladies' room. Jesus. Don't let the door hit yo' ass on the way out.

On the guy front, J.J., the "man who dumped me because I was too fat" about 2 years ago, seems to be resurfacing. First there was that weird Jersey Shore weekend. Then he called me on a whim last Sat. night and volunteered to come over because he had a rental car (he lives about an hour away). I wasn't doing a blessed thing, so I said sure. He stayed for hours, gave me a long foot massage of all things, and then as he left he gave me a huge hug and several smooches on the lips. Which I don't typically dole out to friends. So that seemed weird. Then he called me the next 2 days. The first call I answered, and he made some mention of us needing to see a LOT more of each other. Which I played as "heh, heh, yes, I've been such an incommunicado friend, we really must take tea together more often." The second call was the very next day and I wasn't home. I decided not to call back. There is NO WAY this guy is getting a second chance after the way he behaved. Heck, I'm still not really sure I want to even be friends.

Finally had the date with Train Boy. He was a total gentleman and cuter than I remembered. Bit of a gut, but look who's talkin' here. Tall (6' 2"ish) with broad shoulders and the elusive Full Head of Hair. Nice conversation, very chatty and outgoing, but he basically confessed that despite his terrific academic pedigree (Penn and Stern MBA) he hadn't yet had anything you could really call a career. That gave me pause, not least because it hit perhaps a tad too close to home. Also, he said he views music as "background", which is Just So Wrong. Could I love a man who doesn't care about music? Eeeee, that's a toughie. But I definitely want to go out again, and he said he does too. So perhaps it will follow what has become my usual pattern - 4 to 5 dates, some so-so sex, then the phone goes dead and the game is called due to mutual apathy. Sigh. As each year passes, I expect less from the world.

No job offer from the damn cosmetics company yet. Radio silence all week. Killing me.

Only the Strong Survive

2004-09-02T08:14:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had a Very Interesting Interview. When I say "interesting", I mean "terrifying." It was a financial services company, and everyone I met had really drunk some serious corporate Kool Aid. When I asked what the company's culture was like, here's what I was told:

"only the strong survive"
"survival of the fittest"
"sink or swim"
"absolutely no work/life balance whatsoever" (big ups for honesty)
"on a scale of 1-10 in terms of work intensity, everyone always works to at least a 9"
"driven people are the only ones who do well here"
"people who are very expressive and speak in loud tones don't fit in here" (ssshhh, you might jar us awake out of our collective dysfunction)

Okay, so I grant you they may leave a little to be desired in terms of their recruiting tactics, but isn't it refreshing that they ADMIT they're a bunch of wack job workaholics? Can you imagine how many people must've quit in the first few weeks for them to be so honest in the interviews? Honestly, it's hard to believe but this company was actually worse than the cosmetics company.

I think I need to be the counter girl at a general store in Alabama. That, I could do.

"Mornin' Earl."
"Mornin' Isabelle."
"Got yer bait in, Earl. Twenny cents. I see that impetigo's cleared up real good! How's Mavis?"

Making gentle chitchat with elderly, slow moving patrons...stocking dusty shelves...ringing things up on a manual cash register (we don't need no goddam scanner doohickey in here, nosir! So the gummint cin spy on us? I ain't bin born yestirday!)

I love Kazaa

2004-09-01T10:23:00.000-05:00

It takes so little to make me happy. I finally fixed my Kazaa, and have spent the better part of the past 3 days happily downloading everything from "Jerry was a Race Car Driver" (love that wacky Les Claypool) to old Talking Heads to Muddy Waters. Little Gloria, Happy at Last. Although sadly, one of my Residents downloads appears to have a skip. How can an MP3 have a skip? I don't get it.

Comedy sketch writing class is turning out to be pretty cool. Everyone in it has definite moments of total brilliance. This is not a bunch of yobs. However up to now I've only reworked the same sketch 3x, so I am a little trepidatious about the next assignment because it has to be something new. It's intimidating to sit down at one's computer and "be funny" on command and within a prescribed structure. But then, that's why I'm taking the class. One kid brought in a George Bush skit this week which the teacher (also basically a kid, but a very connected and experienced kid) wants to put in his political comedy theater show...which is going to get seen/reviewed by the NYC press...real, actual opinionmakers. Smart dude; I shoulda written something political too! Not my thing, though.

On the job front, I had to schlep in to NYC yesterday during the convention melee for round 2 of the cosmetics co. interview. Got a call in the morning telling me that, of the 5 people on my interview schedule, only 1 was actually in the office due to the convention. But they didn't want to reschedule. So I made a 2 hour round trip for this one woman to grace me with 20 min. of her precious time. Totally canned interview - her questions were so canned that I had the canned answers all ready for her. Still have no real insight into what this position actually does all day. Nor does she have any real insight into me. I thought it went super-badly due to the canned-ness, and went home in a snit. Got a 3rd round callback (again, couldn't I just have come in and seen ALL these people next week?!?) later that afternoon. It floored me, as I thought Miss Canned would have been a lot less canned if she actually liked me. Go figger. By now, what with the Quirky Personality comment and the Canned Interview, I am very unpsyched about ever working for this co., but Mama needs a job.

Train Boy cancelled on me again last week - good excuse, as his father was ill and had to suddenly be hospitalized. But I can't help feeling this date is cursed to never take place.

No resolution with RB on the "how can we be really friends if we're just pen pals" fight/mature discussion. He's not getting why I am upset, and he's continuing to freakin' E-MAIL me to discuss. Since the crux of the issue is his only being in touch with me via e-mail, this enrages me. I am giving up. No more contact. If he e-mails me, I am going to simply not respond. If he calls...well, he'll never call, so that's not a scenario I need to flesh out. I think the guy is just incapable of a normal friendship.

Finally sent another e-mail to Miami Boy to see what the f*** was going on, since he'd made such a giant drama about wanting to stay in touch and then not responded to my breezy e-mail. This time I just said "hey, I thought you wanted to keep in touch. If not, no biggie, but if so, that would be nice." Got immediate e-mail and later voicemail as well. Says he never got my first e-mail (isn't it funny how the only e-mails that ever get "lost" are the first ones I send to some guy?). Apologized all over the place, said he was crazed at work due to hurricane obliterating their Orlando office. Some oblique reference to "personal tragedies" as well, but total lack of explanation made me think it was overdramatization. Probably some coworkers had their trailers blown away - I think it's someone ELSE'S personal tragedy, serving as a handy ambiguous excuse for why he hadn't proactively contacted me. Whatever. Anyway, not sure what I accomplished out of that, nor really what I wanted to accomplish. Maybe just bored.

Lazarus (aka Train Boy) rises from the Dead, and other stories

2004-08-23T12:53:00.000-05:00

Hmph. Stupid Train Boy called, 2 weeks after he said he would. Guy Time is worse than CPT (for the record, a somewhat racist term I nonetheless find amusing, although I do not condone nor promote any -isms of any kind on this blog because I subscribe to the church of "can't we all just get along?"). Anyway, our date is set for Wed., so stay tooned. It appears he may be joining me in the ranks of the jobless, because his division of his company just got sold off. At least we'll BOTH want to go to cheap restaurants now. Trust me to find a man who is unemployed...well, at least it's better than Druggie Guy from last summer. So far as I know, anyway.

In job search news, the cosmetics company did in fact give me a callback (still to be calendared) but when I spoke to RW, who was one of my interviewers and happens to be a really nice guy I know from a previous job, he advised me to severely dial back the humor. Apparently there was a concern about personality fit. "Quirky personality and sense of humor" is how he put it. He was as gentle as possible, and he's actually very nice to go out of his way to give me honest, hard feedback...but UGH! Once again I must admit to myself that Me + Corporate America is like one of those jigsaw puzzle pieces that you jam in because you need a blue piece with two outy sides and two inny sides, but you know it ain't the right one even as you're jamming it in with your thumb. Why do I keep jamming myself in? There's got to be a better way to pay the rent.

Whoring? No, too hard on the back.

Paper delivery? The 12 year olds'll cut me out of the game with their speed.

Lemonade stand? Bah, nobody stops any more. Plus, I look like hell in pigtails these days.

Oh crap, might as well just interview with a poker face, and let my freak flag fly once it's too late and the poor bastards have already hired me. Too much paperwork to cut me free then.

What else, what else? Biggish blow-up with RB, all done via e-mail since he hates phone, nominally about him forgetting about the birthday dinner (his, for God's sake!) but really more about "how can we be friends if all we do is e-mail?" No resolution yet, but at least some mellowing. His initial reaction was very upset ("you think I am a shitty friend"), then he came around a bit. Had to be said, though. E-mail, esp. when one is only an hour away, is not enough to sustain a friendship. Not for me, anyway.

Mourning the Obvious Death of Train Boy

2004-08-18T16:11:00.000-05:00

He must be freakin' dead. Because he sure as hell hasn't called. After cancelling our date for the Thursday before last, he promised to call last week to reschedule. And then, apparently, was hit by a bus.

I feel like Krazy Kat and Ignatz...I just want to hurl a brick at the back of his head. Of all mens' heads, for that matter.

To wit, RB: his birthday is this week so I nicely called to invite him out. Free dinner. On me. Great, sez he, let me get back to you Monday re what night works this week. It is now Wednesday and nary a peep. Fine! No free dinner for you! Bastards.

Another example: Miami guy. Not that I necessarily wanted a long drawn out thing, but it would be nice if he answered the extremely light and breezy e-mail I sent him a week and a half ago. Honestly, why do I even bother?

Add to that the fact that I just found out the dreadful news that my friend LN's 2-year relationship was pretty severely psychologically abusive, and I really am off men right now. Abusive as in, "if you ever dumped me, I would kill you." She's such a smart, together woman, but she fell for that alternating sweet/psycho thing. Thank God she's woken up and realized what's happened to her, and I hope she will get out of it now.

In other news, the job search has congealed like maple syrup - it's sooo dead out there. I did get a cryptic call from the cosmetics company I met with a week ago...just the recruiter's name and number. Is he calling me for a Personal Ding or a callback? Usually if it's a callback they tell you so on the tape. Suspense killing me.

Had first comedy writing class last night. I am the oldest person there by at least 2 presidential administrations. And these chilluns are way funnier than me. Some great stuff. The class meets in a slum, though. Not at all what I expected, but interesting. 3 hours every Tuesday night for 8 weeks...not a bad deal for $300. Must remember to thank the alum who gave me the recommendation.

Train Boy

2004-08-05T13:51:00.000-05:00

I forgot to mention about Train Boy. Met him coming back from the city on the train about 2 weeks ago, and we're set to have our first date tonight if he doesn't have to work late.

I'm afraid we met cute. It was a late night train and he sat down next to me and my giant bag. I pulled it closer to me.
Him: "Don't worry about it."
Me: "No, no, if you give me an inch I'll take a yard, let me move it."
Him: "That sounds like someone I dated...wait a minute, I haven't dated you, have I?"
Me: "I'm not sure..."
Him: "Well, maybe we could arrange that."

Which I thought was fairly funny, and well done - no time lost. Then we got to chatting about the book on anthropological linguistics that I was reading (no, really, it's interesting, I swear) and next thing you know we're exchanging numbers. He works at AmEx. Tall guy, probably about 6' 4". Brown hair, good straight nose, Irish looking which I love. A bit of a tummy, but big enough to carry it. Preppily dressed, which I also like. Owns his own place in a cute suburb about 20 min. from me and spends his summer weekends at the Jersey Shore. Which I used to think was super-tacky, but having just been to Sea Girt with J.J., it's much cuter than I thought.

Anyway, that was on a Monday night. He called on the Thursday, after I had given up on him. Usually when they want to strike, they strike fast - like a shark. We played a little phone tag, then got hold of each other and fixed the date for tonight. But yesterday he called to tell me he may have to work late, which was very considerate of him. We went through our calendars to see about another date but it put us about 2 1/2 weeks out, so we're going to try for tonight and see how it goes. He sounds really sweet on the phone; nice, friendly...possibly slightly dopey but we're willing to work with it for now.

Two dates in one week after aeons of Dry Spell. Weird.

Just Got Lucky - JoBoxers

2004-08-05T08:38:00.000-05:00

I had a date Tuesday night with the son of my mom's friend (the moms set it up). I was expecting NADA. The guy lives in FL but was here for the week visiting his folks, who also live in FL but house-sit for friends here every summer. I thought he might be gay, because he's 40 and single, and I was told by my mom that he lives in the Keys (not true, he lives in Miami), also he goes by "Anthony" and his mother books him his dates while he's visiting her...NOT good signs, right?

So I got there, and lo and behold - he was cute, redheaded (which I adore), a little shorter than me but overall very nice. Preppily dressed with A+ marks for Good Shoes. I perked up.

He turned out to be funny, nice, and an expert flirt (albeit a teller of stories that tended to wander off into the weeds, ending with "but where was I going with that?"). Maybe a little pompous, but more insecure-pompous than full-of-himself pompous. Later, he even went so far as to point out that his watch was a Rolex. But given that he was packed off to an English boarding school at the age of 7, it's a miracle he's a nice person at all, so he can be totally forgiven for being a little pompous. He seemed a little intimidated by me, too - kept referencing my education - so that may have put him off.

We had a long dinner at a tapas place that ended up with a lot of arm touching and then him actually FEEDING me sorbet, a tad over the top but who's complaining? Then we walked down the Avenue and at some point it became an arms-around-each-other walk...next thing I knew, we were making out on a bench in front of the (unfortunately rather well-lit) Senior Center. I can now officially never walk down the Ave. again without bowing my head in shame. I think at least 5 cops drove by and gawked - it's a quiet town at night.

So then, uuh, here's where I get a little embarrassed...I kinda...sorta...well, I brought him back to my place. I really didn't intend to, but all that groping got me going, and if truth be told, there was a factor of having been rejected (for the umpteenth time) by R.B., compounded by having spent a weird platonic weekend with J.J., that made me need a little external validation.

The hilarious thing is that all during dinner he was telling me how much he was enjoying "a real conversation with a woman of depth" (lovely sentiment, but an eye-roller) and talking about how he wanted kids and a family someday (WHOAH, doggie!), but then IMMEDIATELY after the, uh, festivities (a tad brief, alas), he did a graceless 180 and began talking about how he wanted to "keep in touch" but that "we had to be realistic about the long distance." All this without a word on the topic from me either way. It was as if he had a whole relationship with/without me, over the course of one evening.

There was a lot of unfortunate "sweetie"-ing and "baby"-ing, which rang hollow given our nonrelationship status. And he accidentally blurted out "I love you" while In The Moment. I attribute this to his being fairly recently out of a relationship and therefore still in the habit of saying that midstream, but it did give me pause at the time.

Afterwards, he had an unfortunate and oddly-timed attack of "sharing" ... told me that he had a terrible rosacea problem on his face that he was taking antibiotics for (looked fine to me) and that he'd had cocaine abuse problems in his 20's - apparently he actually had one experience where his heart stopped beating in the emergency room. Oh, and that he still smokes pot "because I don't drink and I need to relax." Wow, in coitus veritas - we can keep these things to ourselves at first, buddy. I was fat once, but I ain't tellin' YOU that yet!

I don't quite understand why I seem to be the only person of my generation for whom drugs hold absolutely no interest. To me, a 40 year old who smokes pot is sort of pathetic. It seems juvenile.

More funny stuff - he wanted to know what my sign was, and when I said "you don't actually believe in that stuff, do you?" he said "oh, sure I do!" And was concerned that I was a Scorpio. He also asked me very seriously and intensely if I'd ever been in love - as if he were testing me out for a longterm relationship. Weird, esp. given aforementioned long distance comments.

Still, all the proper comments about my being beautiful were made (we like those, in fact we eat those up because we are weeeeeak and appealing to our vanity always works) and the apartment was nicely complimented, so net net it was a pleasant experience. He's a good kisser and cuddler. And he was sweetly self-conscious - as he took off his shirt, he said "I know, funny body, huh?" Which it wasn't, really. It was perfectly fine, just a bit squarish and not super-toned...but then we're 40 year old desk jockeys.

He very nicely called me yesterday, which I wasn't even remotely expecting, and made all the proper noises about having had a lovely evening, etc. and let's keep in touch. To which I say "yuh-huh, riiiight." But again, a lovely sentiment.

I do it to myself, redux

2004-08-03T09:47:00.000-05:00

This weekend I was at the (rainy, grey, humid, hot, rather unpleasant) Joisey Shore with J.J.-the-guy-who-dumped-me-because-I-was-too-fat, who is now sort of an unintentional friend. I say unintentional because I got back in touch with him on a one-time basis just to say "you were an asshole about it, but thanks to you I was motivated to lose a lot of weight" and sort of clear the psychic bad air. Yet somehow he has since been very proactive about keeping in touch. And I am a sucker for a free beach weekend. But I definitely still feel some hostility on that old score, and we've never talked about it so it's kinda weird. (The actual full story is that he slept with someone else while we were together, confessed, and instead of dumping him I just made him platonic because I am stupid, then he dumped me "because his mother died of obesity complications" and he was "concerned he would be a nagging boyfriend" about my weight.)

So, net net, free beach weekend was sort of unpleasant for me both in terms of weather and also gently simmering low level hostility which I believe went unobserved by the person in question. And yet, oddly, I am still powerfully attracted to him physically. Only physically. Really, really only physically.

WHY DO I DO THESE THINGS TO MYSELF?

Ah have always depended on the kahndness of strangers

2004-08-03T09:45:00.000-05:00

My unemployment runs out pretty soon, eek! But my outplacement lady very kindly told me I could keep coming to meetings and keep access to their jobs and company research databases pretty much as long as I needed it, which is HUGE (Kraft contract for me runs out in August). And along the same lines of Blanche DuBois and always depending on the kindness of strangers...My gym buddy, Doctor Mark (elderly, retired, happily married grampa type) out of the blue offered to pay for grad school for me if I felt I needed it to make a career transition. How is that for incredibly nice? I was utterly floored, I mean, this is a nice man I chat with on the elliptical, nothing more! I have no plans to go back to school again, nor would I ever take him up on his offer, but talk about your sweet gestures! Between that and my landlord's offering to "help out if you need it" on the rent, whatever that means, I really feel like people have been so nice lately. Is it something in the water?

I'm taking a sketch comedy writing class in the city starting in August. Recommended by a guy I found through Yale connections, who is a former SNL writer (and also a super-nice guy - it IS the water!) who spent about an hour on the phone with me from Chicago, offering comedy-writing career advice. I ain't stopping looking for a day job, but I wanted to pursue this.

I do this to myself

2004-07-17T08:47:00.000-05:00

Had dinner last night with R.B. in New Haven. Was hoping that, after 6 months of being "just friends" (following 3 months of platonic, increasingly-frustrating dating) I would in fact be feeling normal. Unfortunately he looked just gorgeous, having lost 24 lbs. by weaning himself off McDonald's. He also stopped dyeing his hair (and who the heck knew he was dying his hair?? Certainly not me) and it's now a nice, normal blondy ginger with grey temples - much better. Yes, his face is still Unusually Pink, but overall, he looked good enough to make my heart flip over. This did not help. I spent the evening feeling sort of off kilter and making not-very-interesting conversation.

As I drove home it hit me that I'd felt the same sensation before. It was almost exactly the way I felt as an awkward teenager when the boy I had a crush on kissed a more popular girl. Rejected, ugly, uncomfortable in my own skin, wishing I were somebody else...yuck. All the way home I fought the urge to call him up and say "this isn't working for me. You've been so nice about it but I can't do the friend thing because that's not how I feel about you. Let's not contact each other any more." At one point I had my cell phone on my lap. But I decided to sleep on it, a good discipline for all big decisions.

This morning I still feel like crap about it, but sustainable crap. I know if I give myself time this crush will burn out. It has to - there's nothing feeding it except my tortured brain. Plus, I'm pretty sure that if I drop the ball on the daily e-mails, he'll correspond a lot less. Which is probably healthier for me right now. The duration of this feeling probably has a lot less to do with him, wonderful though he is, and a lot more to do with the fact that I have too much time on my hands right now. Plenty of time to obsess and dwell!

As I re-read the above, I thought, "why do I want to stay in touch with this guy, anyway?" But somehow I do. He's funny, smart, artistic, just weird enough to be interesting...loves music even more than I do, gets all my obscure references and stumps me on his. There's bad stuff too: he tends to be pretty self-involved and is obviously very messed up based on the self destructive patterns of his life to date. Oh, and the not being madly in love with me part. But I just can't seem to see my way clear to purging the guy. I like him. Note header of this post.

Ev'rybody say ho-tel, mo-tel, Holiday Inn

2004-07-16T13:11:00.000-05:00

Went to a free concert at South Street Seaport last night with my friend K.S. The Sugar Hill Gang was playing. It was a gorgeous night, and there's nothing quite like a free outdoor concert. However, it must be said, the Sugar Hill Gang really only has the one single. Even when they do the extended dub remix, it's still just a one-hit concert. Interestingly, they sang it without the Superman verse or the "friend's house to eat/peas taste like wood" verse. Instead they had a bunch of verses I'd never heard before that were mostly introductions of band members. Made me wonder, did they sell the copyright to somebody else (Jacko? Sir Paul?) and now can't perform the original song? In any case, it was fairly lame but entertaining on a mild level. Two cute-ish, probably-much-younger guys were checking us out (two of the only other non-African-American audience members, therefore E-Z to find each other) so K. boldly went up and made opening chitchat. Unfortunately once they opened their mouths it was a bit of a letdown. Heavy, heavy B'klyn accents, bad teeth and lunkish humor at best.

Spent dinner bemoaning lack of mentally stable, late-30's men who are interested in having an actual relationship. Compared notes and realized we were both 4-year battlescarred veterans of internet dating. There must be a better way - kiosk at Grand Central during rush hour? Sandwich board and flyers? I actually saw this approach put to good use in St. Petersburg, Russia. "American men want Russian wife now? Call xxx-xxxx." Must file this mental note away in case times get worse.

K. off to Uzbekistan in the fall - for pleasure, yet. Must admit, the word "Samarkand" gets the juices flowing, however this effect is immediately counteracted by the word "Uzbekistan." Added to which, you gotta fly the local carrier to get there. As my friend A.Y. always says, "never fly a "-lot" to a "-stan." (As in, Aeroflot to Kyrgyzstan). Words to live by. Literally.

2004-07-14T19:26:00.000-05:00

This was what I looked like at around the middle of 2003. I look about a year older now. No big whoop.

Starting things off

2004-07-14T18:28:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my virgin blog entry (eeuww, that didn't sound so good). This is so easy. I just Googled "how do I start a blog", found a handy article that led me to blogger.com, and 5 minutes later here I am. Why do I want to do this? Because my life is so unintentionally funny that I can't resist sharing. And my delusions of grandeur require me to Share Globally.

So, a little intro about me - I'm 37 as of this writing (2004), female, white, semi-upper middle class and living in the Northeastern United States. I'm single and childless, right now I'm unemployed (this explains how I have time to start a blog) and I find myself continually astonished by how utterly ridiculous my life is. For starters, how did I get to be so old? I don't FEEL like a woman pushin' forty, but here I am. I guess this means Haircut 100 isn't making a comeback, huh? Time has passed, yet I mentally remain about the same age I was when Nicky Heyward first tucked his Irish sweater into his tweed trousers. I'm also astonished at my perennial single status. Friends assure me that I am not totally awful, yet I seem to have boyfriends about as often as Halley's Comet moseys around. "Forwhy?" I cry plaintively out into the unheeding universe. Possibly my singledom is due to the fact that I say "forwhy." It's hard to know.

I have the creeping suspicion that the sort of stuff that happens to me doesn't happen to normal people.

For example, job interviews. I just had one last week. It lasted 8 grueling hours. The company flew me from the Northeast all the way to the West Coast, and yet when I got there they seemed slightly startled to see me. The CEO, who was supposed to be interviewing me, appeared to have attention deficit disorder. He kept remembering other urgent priorities that pulled him out of the interview. To fill his absence, he'd pick an employee (seemingly at random) and huck the poor slob into a conference room with me, thrusting my resume into their unwilling hands even as they begged to be let off the hook; "but I've got a conference call on hold..." It was bizarre. There was no itinerary, nor did any of my interviewers have an agenda or set questions.

This came on the heels of another interview, for which I was flown all the way to Ireland. But that story will have to wait, as my young friend K. wishes to see my blog up and I must gratify her instantly. So now, to post!