Happy Hanukkah

My Friend Frances called me Tuesday night to wish me a Happy Hanukkah and to let me know that Hanukkah is her favorite holiday (as shown in this picture). What makes it extra awesome is that Frances is five and she's Catholic. I didn't ask why Hanukkah is her favorite holiday. I didn't want to put her on the spot. And it's really hard to have a meaningful conversation with a five year old on a cell phone. But it got me thinking about Hanukkah and made me realize that while I know you light candles and get eight presents, I wasn't completely clear on what Hanukkah really is. So here is a quick explanation:

Hanukkah, from the Hebrew word for "dedication" or "consecration", marks the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its desecration by the forces of Antiochus IV and commemorates the "miracle of the container of oil." According to the Talmud, at the re-dedication following the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Empire, there was only enough consecrated olive oil to fuel the eternal flame in the Temple for one day. Miraculously, the oil burned for eight days, which was the length of time it took to press, prepare and consecrate fresh olive oil.

I Feel Fat

I know how dumb it sounds when someone who isn't really fat says that they're fat. Especially skinny girls who are just trying to get someone to say "Shut up! You are NOT fat! You are SO skinny!". I'm not really doing that. Because I'm not skinny. And lately, I actually do feel like I'm fat. I don't know if it's because I have been eating tons of crap since I started my new job. Or if it's because the only time I think about the gym is when I see my bank statement and I notice the $67 dollars they deduct from my checking account every month. But something is making me feel large and not in charge. I can't seem to stop eating and I can't seem to start exercising. I know that this is not a unique problem and that American culture is based on fat lazy people trying to become skinny lazy people without having to work at it. But I have always thought that people who are overweight just had to stop eating so many cheetos and start going for walks a few times a week. Now I realize that even smart rational people (like myself) sometimes can't seem to get their shit together and stop doing bad stuff. I get home from work and all I want to do is eat pudding and watch cable. And what I should be doing is going to the gym and then coming home and eating brown rice. But I don't want to. And I have to do so many things all day that I don't want to do but I have to do, that when I leave work, I just want to do what I want to do. And sitting down in front of the t.v. with a box of crackers and a brick of cream cheese is what I usually want to do.
But what I don't want to do is become someone who hates themself and doesn't ever want to be seen naked. And that's what's happening. I still want to have sex with P.O., but I hate having to take my clothes off to do it. Why can't he see how hot it is to have sex while I am fully clothed? Or when it's pitch black in the room. But these are just temporary fixes. I know that I need to do something. Last night I even did some push ups and some sit ups while I was watching the E! True Hollywood Story about rock star wives. And it felt good. Now I just need to stop eating so many snacks at work and try to get to the gym. Because the only thing worse to me than being fat is wasting money.

Shoulda Known Better

I think that everyone can agree that condoms suck. Nobody likes them and they are just an unfortunate fact of modern life
if you're single and slutty, or too crazy to be on the pill. I'm a little of both.
But I decided to go on the pill last January since I was having regular sex with someone who was disease free and shared my hatred of condoms. A couple of months ago, I decided to stop taking it to see if it would have any effect
on how often P.O. and I fight. The jury is still out, but I can't say that I feel any more normal or any less stabby. What I do feel is a little more scared of getting pregnant. Although that didn't seem to stop P.O. and me from screwing on a piano on Saturday without using anything. And I even had a condom in my purse. But my purse was in the other room. So like an idiot, I just let him stick it in me while I crossed my fingers. He pulled out and came on my leg, but when I went to the bathroom later, it seemed like there was some that made it in me.
I wasn't even that worried about it until last night when I checked my date book to try to figure out where I am in my cycle. And it turns out that Saturday was exactly 14 days in. Which is exactly when you should have sex when you're TRYING to get pregnant. Needless to say, I started to freak out.
I did some research on the interweb and decided that it would be a good idea for me to get the "morning after pill", otherwise known as Plan B. I like the name. I think it's cute. Anyway, I went to the Rite Aid this morning and bought the pills. I took one with my bagel and I take the other one 12 hours later. I seem to recall doing something similar a few years ago and not enjoying it very much. Though back then you just swallowed a bunch of regular birth control pills and hoped that it would fuck up your system so badly that you couldn't possibly conceive. Now they seem to have it down to a science.
Just take these two pills that have tons of hormones in them and hope you don't throw up. I am also going to hope that I get a nice bloody visitor in my pants in about two weeks.

Here We Go Again

It makes sense that when you're in pain, and you want that pain to stop, you go right to the source.
And you have sex with him.
Or at least that seems to be the way that P.O. and I deal with our pain.
Of course, this behavior leads to what I call The Merry Go Round Break-up. That's when you break up, you're miserable and it feels like you're dying and you can't stand another minute of suffering, and to ease the pain, you have sex with your ex. Then after the sex, you forget about why you were breaking up in the first place and you start hanging out again.
It's not exactly revolutionary, but it is stupid. And if there's one thing I love, it's stupid.
We haven't actually done it yet, but P.O. and I have gone from not speaking, to texting, to e-mailing, and then today he called me.
Last night he wanted me to come over wearing just a black trench coat. And if I wouldn't have already had plans and my period, I probably would have. I know that for me, nothing takes my mind off pain like a night of hot, dirty sex. And that's exactly what I could have with P.O. Because even when everything else in our relationship sucked, the sex was always top notch.
So I guess we'll see what happens tonight. I have no plans and I would love to get some ass, so that sounds to me like a recipe for disaster.

Seriously, Kill Me

I got home last night and immediately grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels that I stole from work out of my freezer.
I drank it until I started to feel drunk, and then I retreated to my bed with a book. I read about four words before
my mind started to wander. I thought about some of the good times P.O. and I had, and then I started bawling
and then passed out.
I woke up at around 2:00am and could not fall back to sleep. I just kept thinking about P.O. and trying to figure out how I could have let things get so bad and wished that I could go back in time to when we were happy. It sucks knowing that most of the reasons we broke up were because of me. And it started me wondering if anyone is ever going to love me again. Oh man, this sucks.

Kill Me

It feels like someone is standing on my chest. And it feels like they weigh 400 pounds.
P.O. and I have broken up a thousand times, but this time it feels real. Not totally real because I still think about going over to his apartment wearing just a trenchcoat and trying to get him back, but pretty real. I feel like my heart is broken. I can't concentrate at work (well, that might be because I hate my job), I just want to drink whiskey all day, and I feel like I'm going cry any second. I sent him a text yesterday morning and spent the rest of the day checking my phone to see if he'd written back. I swear I must have looked at that goddamned phone 100 times. It was pathetic. I felt like I was 16. And I am way older than 16. It's been so long since I felt like this, I think I had forgotten how horrible it is. Oh my god. I feel like I'm gonna die.

Take This Job

I don't like my new job. This isn't really that surprising since I've never actually had a job I've liked, but I thought this one might be different. It had all of the ingredients to be "the one". I have my own little office, all the snacks I could hope for, and a really nice computer with a built in camera. I've used it to take this picture of my millions of Dry Erase boards. Which is one of the things I don't like. I am literally surrounded on all sides by gigantic Dry Erase boards. It's like no one in this place would have any clue what was going on if it weren't spelled out for them with colored markers. My boss is this gay guy who has no idea he's gay. He carries a Jack Spade messenger bag. He loves when I bring him issues of Men's Health magazine that for some reason show up in my mailbox. The cover of Men's Health always has some shirtless muscular hot guy and I'm pretty sure that's why boss man gets so excited. He is super uptight and pretends to be laid back, which is worse that just being uptight. He is very into furniture and clothes and I wish he would just fuck a dude and get off my back.
But I'm really trying to be more positive.
Especially since my very recent ex-boyfriend told me that I am a very negative person. What a sweetheart.
So here goes. They pay me well, some of the people are nice, there's tons of booze around - some of which I've already taken home.
It's certainly not all bad. But I really thought that by this point in my life I would be doing something that I actually like. I guess part of the problem is that I don't know what I like. I like eating crackers with cream cheese. I like riding my bike. I like watching Scrubs. I like having sex. I don't really think that I could do any of those things for a living. Except the sex. But I don't really want that to be my job. What would I tell my parents?

Animals........They're Just Like Us

I know everyone in New York gets really excited about the big Halloween parade, but I have to say that the Tompkins Square Park Halloween Dog Parade on Sunday was 1,000 times better. I went to the people parade last night and I have to say, the dogs had better costumes. I mean, how much sexier is this first picture than the second one??
I rode into the city Sunday and hung out in the park with my friend R.B. for a little while and kicked a soccer ball around. It was a gorgeous day and I was feeling pretty proud of myself because I rode my bike over the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time. It was a little scary when I got into the city. And it was even scarier when I was riding down 1st Avenue and R.B. was riding his skateboard next to me and was holding onto my shoulder while we were going down the street. Somehow, I didn't die. It was good. When I was leaving the park to go watch the Bears lose again, I passed by the dog run where the parade was. I couldn't see much because it was really crowded, but what I did see was amazing. There's something about seeing a Basset Hound dressed as a gladiator that makes me pretty happy. I'm not sure how the dogs feel about dressing up, but everyone seemed to be a good sport about it. I saw a dog dressed as a horse with a little doll riding on him. There was a statue of liberty, an i-phone, and a fireman (my personal favorite). All in all it was a very nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Putting Out The Ritz

Last night I went out with my friend A.S. for a drink. It's always hard for us to get together, due to our
mutual inability to keep plans, but when we do, it's always fun.
We went to a neighborhood bar that is always crowded, but has a bocci ball court, so that makes up for it.
We sat and caught up and regaled each other with hilarious and touching stories and chatted with the
bartender about his new baby. We exchanged stories about getting caught shoplifting. Some stories
were old, some were very new. A.S. also told me about some sexual adventures that I hadn't heard about before.
It was all very shocking and entertaining and it caused me to drink 2 Jamesons in pretty rapid succession.
I couldn't help but notice when the guy next to us was served a delicious looking platter of Ritz crackers
and some sort of cheese spread. I guess he caught me staring like a starving orphan because he offered
us some of his snack. And it was amazing. The cheese spread was some sort of boozy creamy concoction
that left me wanting more. Turns out it's the only food item the bar offers, but next time I'm there, I'm
totally ordering it.
On my walk home I tried calling a couple of friends on the West coast who were the only people I thought
might be up at 12:00am on a Tuesday night, but no one was around. But it gave me an opportunity to observe
my neighborhood when most everone was asleep. The only people around were drunks like myself and hispanic
guys closing down the restaurants along Smith Street. It was very peaceful and I imagined a world without
baby strollers.

Happy Anniversary

Yesterday was my 4 year anniversary of moving to New York. I didn't even realize it until my friend A.B. reminded me.
He remembered because he drove out here with me from Chicago and being in the car with me for 16 hours is pretty
memorable. The trip wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be considering my propensity for picking fights and
getting squirrely on long car rides.

So when A.B. and I arrived here in New York City, we were supposed to meet up with my new "roommate" A.A.
I put roommate in quotes because we were only going to be living together every other weekend.
A.A. was living with a guy named J.P. who was separated from his wife and had two little kids. The kids would
come and stay with J.P. every other weekend, and since he didn't want to confuse them by introducing them to
his new girlfriend so soon, he got A.A. her own apartment a few blocks away from the one they shared.
And since she was only going to need it 4 days a month, she found me to share it with her.
It was great because she split the rent with me and was hardly ever there. Except the one night that my boyfriend
from Chicago decided to show up unannounced and we had to stay in a hotel because she wouldn't leave.
But aside from that, it was a pretty good deal. However, it didn't start off so good.
When A.B. and I arrived, I called A.A. just like we planned, so I could get the key from her.
It was about 1:00am and A.B. and I had just been in the car for 16 hours and were really looking forward to being more
than 4 inches away from each other.
But A.A. didn't answer her phone. In fact, it went right to voice mail. Which meant that it was either turned off
or the battery was dead. Either way, it was a bad sign. I had called her from the road several times with updates,
so it was not as if our arrival was a surprise. After about a half hour of trying to get ahold of her with no luck and
starting to think that coming to New York was a terrible idea, I called my one other friend who lived in the
neighborhood, N.S. She was housesitting for some friends and told us we could come stay there. She was a lifesaver.
But there was still the matter of all of my belongings being prominently displayed in the windows of my Honda. I
knew there was no way I could sleep if I was worrying about all of the criminals in Greenpoint making off with my stuff.
So we unloaded most of my crap from the car and finally went to sleep at around 3:00am.
The next day A.A. called and explained how she fell asleep and her phone died and she was so sorry.
I wondered to myself what she could have been thinking to let her phone die AND fall asleep knowing that I was
on my way and needed to get into the apartment.
It turned out to be the perfect foreshadowing for what our friendship would eventually become. But for those first few months after I got over being furious with her, we had a lot of fun.
That next day happened to be Halloween. And not surprisingly, after the stress of the drive and the drama when we
arrived, I got incredibly sick. In fact, I completely lost my voice for the first time in my entire life. It was perfect timing, as I was meeting a bunch of new people and really wanted to be able to talk to them.
A.B. went with my new friends to a Halloween party that night and I stayed in my new apartment alone and voice-less
and wondered what the hell I had just done.
The following morning, A.B. left to catch his flight back to Chicago. After he left, I sat on the couch and completely
freaked out. I felt alone and terrified and feared I had just made a huge mistake.
The only thing that made me feel better was that I was only planning on staying in New York for 6 months.
I can't believe I'm still here.