The Post About Posting May 9, 2008

Let’s see.
 
1, 2, 3 … That’s eight days that have so far passed in May.
 
And, hold please, this will require some concentration on my part, but 1, 2 … two blog posts that I’ve posted during the same.
 
NaBloPoMo, this is not. Unofficial or otherwise.
 
And so, I imagine, led to blogger d’s heed: “under-promise, over-deliver. cardinal rule. “

 
I read what he wrote. And it got me thinking - in Carrie Bradshaw’s voice, naturally - about the over and under balance. In gambling, we learn that the over and under is the measure of return one can expect on a placed bet. But when we’re betting on someone’s promise, what we’re really betting on is the unknown intentions of the promise we’re choosing to believe. Will it be an over-promise that results in less than we expect and our hearts, broken, again? Or will it be an under-promise that delivers the low expectations we were told to expect from the beginning? Is this just a bad bet? Should we not make promises? Or is it possible to find a promiser who can promise and deliver on that promise he promised? I couldn’t help but wonder … can a promise just be a promise?
 
(Ed. note: I think I just got Carrie-d away.)
 
In all seriousness, I did stop to think about d’s words. Hell, it inspired a whole blog post. His cardinal rule (Ed. note: I suspect subliminal Stanford University advertising here) is good advice. Great advice, really. And one we should all practice.
 
One I would practice. Except that it would involve undermining every innate decision-making instinct that tends to pop into my head.
 
I am excess…ive promises, commitments, intentions, passions, emotions, tequila shots, plates of fried chicken, and orgasms. 
  
And I invented good intentions, horrible results.
  
The girl who thought to get plastered the night before her first ever company holiday party so as to be so hungover that there would be no chance of being that girl around the party’s open bar. Although, in hindsight, it’s easy to say I’m not sure what points I won by vomitting loudly in the office restroom all day before the company holiday party in question that took place later that evening.
  
The one who found herself sitting by Lake Michigan a May evening a few years ago, a few hours before dawn, with a boy who felt positively inspired to stop at the 24-Hour White Hen on Diversey across from Duffy’s to buy some Southern Comfort (Ed. note: What a misleading name) and red wine. Which he then wanted to enjoy by the wonderful body of freshwater we Chicagoans are so lucky to be so near! And, in the midst of all his talking, while sitting with a relative stranger by a large body of water in complete darkness with no one else around and none of my friends aware of where I might be because we had all scattered at the bar earlier that night, I began to feel worried. Yes, at that moment. And I remembered the news piece I had heard earlier just that day about a recent development in the Natalee Holloway disappearance. Which inspired me to quietly creep out my phone from my purse while this boy discussed the possibility of reincarnation and life on other planets (for the third time) and send a text to as many people as my phone would allow at once. It luckily began raining soon after, and I said my goodbyes and ran away to hail a cab to rescue me home. (This boy, however, may still be sitting by the Lake, rambling about the possibility of ghosts residing in living persons’ bodies.)
 
The next morning, there were several text messages and IMs asking where the hell are you and whether I’m alive and are you depressed or something?? And don’t you know you have so many reasons to live and keep fighting? I felt confused until I saw the text message I had sent the night before, in mass, which read: “i disappearing shores of lake michigao.”
 
Under-promise, over-deliver? But how will people know just how excited I am? That I really do mean well.
 
By follow-through?
 
Hm.
 
By, er, not setting up false expectations?
 
Woof.
 
To not have let my parents believe I would be attending law school come fall after my college graduation. Until one week before my college graduation.
 
To not have told my boss and her boss and their bosses, repeatedly, during the last four months that it will be absolutely no problem to finish that assignment that really requires at least several people (not just one) and at least a few week’s time (not by tomorrow).
 
To not have promised the Rosetta Stone salesman at the Nordstrom mall on Michigan Avenue that I’ll certainly come back to check out the French kit some more when I’m already dismissing the $200+ price tag and plotting to get my boyfriend to find a way to download it illegally online.
 
To try subtlety. Modesty. Moderation.
 
But fuck moderation! That lame balance for excess.
 
I am excess…ive promises, commitments, intentions, passions, emotions, and visits to the office kitchen to vulture some more homemade chocolate-dipped macaroon cookies brought in by someone who should have known that if they wanted the whole office to have some, they should have made more than twelve.
 
And I guess I’m excessive declarations to post on my blog more frequently. Because I want to. I mean to. But flakiness blows. And I too hate bullshitters. Those of air and fluff and no substance. And I’m of good intentions. Really.

So this time? With follow-through.
  
I can’t promise no horrible results.
 
(Because I’m of horrible results, too.)
  
But I can promise to add ”less over-promises” to my mixed bag of issues-to-fix extradinaire.
 
And I can also promise to have a hella fucking good time seeing M.I.A. at the Aragon tonight. And to bop my little head to the dulcet tones of opener Holy Fuck. Because I say fuck yes to a band that would call themselves that. Either naive or narcisstic, there’s really no way they could have ever expected to become big or hop mainstream with that name. So fuck yes to Holy Fuck.
 
I can promise to take lots of ridiculous pictures and post them on this blog.
 
Of me. Of M.I.A. Of hipsters and jeans too tight, shirts too small, scarves too volumnous.
 
Because I want to. I mean to.
 
So I promise all of this. 
 
Well. That is. Kinda promise. Because that counts as an underpromise then, right?

A Recap In Your Ass, Part 1: Home Consistent Home May 7, 2008

One of the more unsettling aspects about visiting your parents aside from the fact that you are doing the complete opposite of living your peaceful existence can be that sense that, while you’ve been away, time has stood eerily still. That it hasn’t flown all that fast or changed all that much.
 
And when you live a flurry-filled life in a quick-paced city (Ed. note: Stop scoffing, New Yorkers), that lack of change can be a welcome comfort.
  
Of course, when your parents are my parents, the emphasis on that last sentence sometimes rests a little too comfortably on can.
  
I made a trip to Michigan to see my family back in March. 
 
It began well. Expecting my father at the train station - him, happy to welcome any opportunity to drill life lessons in me while I am subject to no obvious means of escape (i.e. locked doors, moving car) - it was a fucking thrill to see my mother’s Saab in the parking lot. She, as is custom when having not seen me in many moons, smothered frantic hugs and kisses. And, once I was safely packed away in the car, my younger sisters unveiled a box of Brueggers’ Cinnamon Sugar Bagels (Ed. note: YUM) and a vat of Honey Walnut cream cheese (Ed. note: HOLY FUCKING YUM) while giggling about the milk my father drank earlier that day that may have been a few days past its expiration day, him theorizing that expiration date just way for milk company make you buy more milk and make more money! His hypothesis being proven wrong the reason for his absence.
 
My father’s first sentiment upon seeing me was that it was very nice to have me home. His second? But, Daughter, how you bigger still than last time I see you! What you eat in Chicago? Only deep-dish pizza breakfast, lunch and dinner, huh!
  
I resisted the urge to grab a pen to jot down what he had said. Or, alternatively, to gouge my ears until they bled.
  
That he told me it was nice to see me before he decided to assess my hypothetical weight gain from how I looked, covered by a heavy fleece blanket, as I sat on the couch is, I think, what the shrink I used to see before I had to make a financial decision between feeding my stomach sustenance and feeding my mind sanity would classify as progress.
  
And that he told me to eat at least three plates because three is good number you find many times in science and math, nature too of the Korean delicacies my mother had cooked just for me and my arrival right after inquiring whether I routinely eat deep-dish pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Well, I’m sure that’s just his way of making sure that I always feel like my presumed bipolar disorder has a friend in his.
  
There really is no place like home, yes?
 
Home consistent home.
 
The same two-story house. In the same gated community. With the same first grade picture of me - dressed in dark denim overalls and a hot pink and navy blue plaid blouse with my hair divided into twelve different braids because my mother loves me - framed, resting on the same Steinway whose keys I covered with peanut butter before a lesson one Sunday when I was eight because I knew my piano teacher had yup, just the worst allergy to peanuts and those peanut butter cookies sure do smell wonderful but NOPE! Can’t have a lick - not one! Darn allergy to those peanut nuts - gotta avoid ’em at all costs! and I? Wanted to avoid him at all costs.
  
Sure, the behemoth Sony I remember is now a flat-screen Samsung and my parents have figured out that the Internet holds more than just the keys to driving directions and I even hear myself telling my 17-year-old sister that I remember when I had to surf the Internet with a 52K modem and does she realize how lucky she is to have all this wireless Wi-Fi (Ed. note: Is wireless Wi-Fi redundant?) at home. But - when it comes down to it - the deck door off the kitchen still creaks when you try to sneak out of it at night.
 
And something else that hasn’t changed either, I learned, is my family’s uncanny ability to drop mind-fucking-jarring news to me with the kind of casualness that most people would employ to let someone know that it’s just begun raining outside or that the bathroom has just run out of its toilet paper. Which is why, coming soon, will be:
 
A Recap In Your Ass, Part 2: And Then I Learned My Father’s Blindness In One Eye Is All My Fault

A Recap In Your Ass, Part 3: And Then I Learned My Big Boobs May In Fact Be Large Tumors
 
Yes, indeed, all this lack of change? Can be welcome.
 
To this blog anyway. That can always use more to file under Family, Dysfunctional.

April Shitstorms Bring May Blogging May 1, 2008

Peg me O.C.D., anal, nutjob or - if you’re the type that prefers the whole truth - all of the above, but it bothers me that in the grand scheme of things, there will be no archived month of April 2008 posts on this blog.
 
Perhaps, though, this gap will provide an accurate summary of the month when life decided to momentarily behave like a temperamental elephant on a rampage in Sri Lanka, I its white conversion van.
 
That summary going something like this: (Watch video).
 
Who could blog under such conditions!
 
I’ve missed blogging though. A lot. And you guys. Of course you guys. Because people like me - the ones who too often exploit the inappropriate sarcasm and play the fierce independent and wave around the snarkiness - are the people who tend to really need others the most.
 
To say the emails and comments I received during my unannounced and unplanned hiatus last month were nice wouldn’t nearly be sufficient. Fucking nice wouldn’t even cut it, really.
 
Because - catching up on my emails and comments today - I kind of frightened myself with how moved I felt. And, see, I’m the girl who once looked a black bear in the face and told it to scram; I don’t scare easily. True story: My boyfriend’s TV is very big. Sixty inches across or something. And our couch is very near this very big TV. So sometimes its moving pictures can feel like they’re right in our faces. And I tend to yell things at the very big TV. A lot. Like the time I saw a  big black bear on Bear Gyles’ Discovery Channel show and told it to scram. So see. I’m not lying. (Ed. note: I also yell when I see Nikki of this season’s Top Chef: Chicago (Chicago!), usually something like I HATE YOU - ANYONE CAN BUY SAUSAGES AND THROW ON SOME PEPPERS AND SERVE THEM AT A TAILGATE AND HOW ARE YOU STILL AROUND.)
 
In any case, all of this obscure truth telling is my way of saying thank you for not forgetting about me.
 
And as a way to turn things around, I’ve decided to dub May my unofficial NaBloPoMo month. Which, in sum, will see me trying very hard to post an entry everyday in some hope of re-establishing a pattern of behavior, and, if I do this right, you trying not that hard to avoid this blog everyday in some hope of avoiding my pattern of behavior. Kind of like the guy I dated near the end of my senior year in college who suggested we take a break once he realized that my friends and I went out 6 of 7 nights a week (Ed. note: Even God rested on the 7th day, yes?), every week, not simply as a relish of our senior year in college, but as a way of escaping life.
 
Anyway, sometimes, a funny sounding portmanteau is all the inspiration one needs to get right back into the swing of things. If one’s swing of things must include masochistic tasks and tired jokes about how hard Blo-ing can be.
 
Which apparently, mine does.
  
In all truth, the stories, the thoughts, the ideas are ample. The time, maybe not as much. However. This damsel may be in distress, but fuck it if she lets another month go by without - uh - being a damsel in digress.
 
(I was really willing that to have some ring to it.)
  
I’m proving to be a slow start. It took me a good five minutes to find the “Save” button on this new WordPress layout.
 
And fresh off the unbalanced sanity I was calling mine last month (Ed. note: All together now: Just last month?), this desperate scramble was almost enough trigger to spark a shutdown of WordPress, quit my job, steal a car, and drive to a small town in Mexico with the plan to live the rest of my life scorning cell phones, computers, and change.
 
But after a few minutes of WHAT THE FUCK WORDPRESS, the ability to observe the blatantly obvious blessed me for a moment and I found the button. The one right next to this text box in which I currently type. (See illustration below.) I don’t know how to explain why it took me five minutes to find the damn thing but I’m sure the damaging effects of second-hand smoke had something to do with it. That, or the damaging effects of having George W. Bush hold public office for so many years.
 
 

 
 
The important thing is that I found it before I was reduced to emailing WordPress Support with my question in the subject line, as per their request: “WHERE IS THE SAVE BUTTON LOCATED?”
 
So no clicking out of WordPress. No quitting of job. And I guess the small town in Mexico will have to wait a while longer for the girl who will run it dry of its tequila supplies.
 
Of course, you’ll only have to wait till tomorrow Monday WEDNESDAY (Ed. note: There’s no time! There’s never any time! There’s no time to study. No time to blog. NO TIME TO SING WITH THE HOT FUDGE SUNDAES) for me to Blo some more.

Home Dysfunctional Home March 27, 2008

Getting me to agree to visit my family in Michigan isn’t an exact science but well-proven methods are often involved.
 
Phone calls which increase in both frequency and urgency as mere weeks pass begin the whole process. Inquiries of but it been since Christmas! Why you not come home every weekend? It take birth of Christ make you come home to family that love you? 
 
And I not even remember how my oldest daughter look like! It be that long! How about butt, Daughter, it get smaller?
 
Inquires that allow me to appreciate my decision to approach all of this with a good sense of humor and fast typing fingers. Because you can damn well bet that I’m at least getting this shit down for blog fodder.
 
Like some mutated process of adaptation that never evolves completely, their phone calls incorporate a rationale that only achieves convincing a person - namely, me - to want and do the exact opposite of whatever it is that rationale is intended to convince someone to do.
 
Okay, maybe not make sense you come home every weekend. But at least once a month! Mr. Chang daughter come home once a month - you tell me Mr. Chang daughter love her father more than you?
 
Rational reasoning that’s always delivered with a healthy dose of guilt because they’re Asian immigrants and that’s the way Asian immigrants love their children. If your father from China or your mama from Vietnam never gave you or doesn’t continue to give you the kind of emotional shit that keeps you consistently trapped in a padded room of mental self-doubt, then I’m sorry to break the news to you but your parents don’t really love you.
 
When the compromises and the pleas and even the guilt fails to move me, my parents resort to bribery. But we cook you anything you want, they promise, and we not even make fun of you that you eat too much! We take you shopping - don’t you say you need new clothes for the work? How about Ipod or new laptop? We don’t give you car because remember when you have Jeep and you crash in high school parking lot? So painful memory. For you no car never! But Ipod maybe okay. 
 
Because it is, after all, my father. The same man who still likes to remind me of that time in first grade when I received a 4.5 on a scale of 5 in “School Spirit” on my end-of-the-year report card. When grades weren’t even bothered with because you were being measured on things like school spirit. Cold-call drops of painful memories are his forte.
 
I know that once my father - that no-frills immigrant! - is verbalizing purchases of playful items like an Ipod, rather than, say, Madeline Albright’s latest book or a large and obtrusive piece of exercise equipment to go along with the treadmill he bought for me my freshman year to keep in my 12×15 dorm room, then we’re only moments away from my father dumping our entire family into the car and driving to Chicago.
 
And the only thing that would be more inopportune than me making the trip to Small Town, Michigan and finding myself in an arm-length radius from my father is for him and my entire family to come to Chicago, unwarned, and barge my apartment. That houses booze. And mess. And still shows boxes left semi-unpacked from when we moved in once upon a time ago in September.
 
The last time my father arrived in Chicago with little warning was two Octobers ago. Him, and the rest of my family, around 11p.m. on a Saturday night at my apartment - that gorgeous Wicker Park 4-bedroom loft with stainless steel appliances and hardwood floors and a fire place and granite countertops with a place for bar stools. He sniffed a few times disapprovingly and made a comment about the pile of clothes in one corner of my bedroom. Reminded me that a clean room means a clean mind. Then, as my mother, two younger sisters and I giggled together and threw a bag of popcorn into the microwave as we got ready to watch Law and Order: SVU together, my father laid down on a couch and said, with a contemplative and calm smile, that he was ready to drive back to Michigan.
 
At one in the morning.
 
Rather than spend the night and drive back the next day.
 
Once I’m really ready to accept that I will be spending a string of days shaking like someone on their 14th day of a 21-day methadone rehab program, I give my parents the Yes, this weekend, I’ll come home, but you better deliver on that new laptop, knowing full well there will be no laptop. And I prepare myself to be pretty damn happy to be at home - fed, pampered, with access to a car and PARKING LOTS and MEIJER (it doesn’t take this city girl much to get excited) - all with the uneasy bated breath of someone who knows that the ball of gloom and doom that always drops will drop once more.
 
I make my trek today after work and I return on Monday. You? Can anticipate some great fucking stories. Hell, I’ll probably blog while I am at home, unable to suppress all! the! inspiration!
 
Just last night, right as my boyfriend and I were ready to fall asleep, I sat up with a start and yelled Shit! And when my boyfriend asked if everything was all right, I told him that I had just remembered that I would have to attend church on Sunday with my mother and sisters. And when he asked if that was really that bad, I shuddered. I thought of the swarms of mothers who have known me since I was little. Pinches of my cheeks between perfectly manicured fingernails and the exclamations that I get more and more beautiful whenever they see me but wait - is this some extra face fat for them to pinch on to? The shrill questions of when I plan to marry and mirthful reminders that I’m not getting any younger.
 
No. Perhaps it’s not really that bad. However, while I don’t consider myself a very materialistic person, perhaps a new laptop and Ipod aren’t bad ideas. They’ll provide something to occupy my hands once I feel the inevitable urge to gauge the eyeballs in my head with the metal chopsticks that can be found in any self-respecting Korean’s kitchen.
 
 
 
[You can find me and more of my literary abuses at Indie Blogger today. It's a site run by the fantastic, brilliant, and worthy-of-(intense)-idolatry Anastacia. If you haven't checked out IB yet, you must. And if you haven't submitted something, fucking do. Give Stacey the chance to spread your good word. In her name I demand. Amen. And look at that. Maybe I'm ready for church after all.]

This Post Is About My Chest March 19, 2008

Namely, some things I’d like to get off of it.
 
And not, say, my actual chest or the cyclist who nearly caused an accident near LaSalle and Monroe the other day when he decided to abruptly U-Turn amongst a stream of cars so to follow me as I walked the other direction — all while yodeling about my whoo-weee titty city.
 
(Ed. note: I was, for the record, wearing a winter jacket. And was not, say, topless. Which might warrant such yodels.)
 
Vermin like him - who at some point in their miserable existence have concluded that a hanging sack of testicles validate careless objectification of women - give me some idea of why Lorena did what she had to do.
 
And there. I’ve already started.
 
Getting things off my chest that is.
 
Because it’s been exactly ten days since my last post. Ten days. While one voice in my head tries to demand I take a chill pill, please, because ten days is not that long, another voice yells (by way of typing loudly) that there are things I WANT AND NEED TO WRITE DAMNIT.
 
My chest has been feeling mighty heavy lately. And it ain’t just due to the 34-D sweater cows whoo-weee my titty city.
 
So why not just shut up and put up? Write what I want to write and stop writing that I want to write?
 
Well.
 
After more than a week of having ideas buzz around my mind - of things I’d like to share and rant and coo - and not having a second to myself to write them down, the mess that already calls that space in between my ears home has quickly turned into one wild clusterfuck of ataxia.
 
Yes. It just may be more irritating to actually have things one would like to write and being completely unable to find the time to do so than having all the time in the world to write but not having a single thing to write about. (Note to the Gods: Feel free to have a laugh and declare Well, we’ll show her.)
 
The fun little tale explaining how my boyfriend’s and my one-bedroom apartment came to have our mattress on its living room floor and its bathroom door unhinged and hanging against a wall? Is sharing brain space with anecdotes about my mother and her recent barrage of phone calls that have covered every topic from whether I remembered to switch my microwave clock an hour forward to Mrs. Cho bragging for one full hour about daughter that student at U-M Dentist School who I know not smart as you but she get scholarship and Mrs. Cho not stop showing it during their last brunch.
 
And debaucherous accounts of my Leap Day activities - when I followed my own advice to practice hell on earth come February 29th because it’s a day that doesn’t technically exist 75% of Time which technically means you can do whatever you want and it doesn’t count and I’m sure if I had taken math classes in college, I’d have no trouble backing this theory with a very complicated math formula but since I did not, you’ll simply have to take my word? Those are confused with stories from a night a couple weekends ago that involved a private VIP room at Victor Hotel and me again proving that I am all time wing-woman able to amass the attention and phone numbers of hot girls everywhere.
 
Or at least those at Victor Hotel that night a couple weekends ago.
 
In my odd little way, I am a perfectionist. The girl who lets her apartment become a fucking sty but - when finally deciding to clean it up - starts by alphabetizing her books by author and organizing her magazines by chronology. The one who then makes sure all her hanging clothes face the same direction in the closet, preferably grouped by color. And scrubs every inch of the bathroom floor and tub and shower before moving on to the kitchen sink and the dishes and the oven.
 
On second thought, perhaps this has less to do with perfectionism and more to do with some kind of errant O.C.D. combined with my tendency to veer towards extremes.
 
In any case. The same (lack of) logic applies to this blog. There is that need to deconstruct from the foundations up and to do it all right in the face of so! many! thoughts! To clear the air - and my head - before starting afresh with stories of this and that. To give a home to the muddled thoughts clogging my fucked up cerebrum other than my fucked up cerebrum.
 
So one deep breath. And begin. About a friend who is causing enormous amounts of headaches, heartaches and outrages right now.
 
Of all the hundreds of faults I have, one of my very worst may be my inability to know when to no longer give someone just one more chance. It’s incredibly fucking difficult for me to walk away from someone that I’ve come to love and care about. I like to believe I know how much it hurts to feel like you can never be imperfect because the only love you know is based on conditions. My childhood drills made me run the other direction. To become far too non-judgmental. Yes, far too much. To give second, third, fourth, nth chances. To forgive and to forget. To not hold grudges. I may be all kinds of fucked up, but I have an idea of what it means to be a good person and a good friend. It doesn’t mean that I always am. But when I’m not, I own up. 
 
This friend has been less than that. Forgotten what it means to be honest and trustworthy. Or loyal. Forgotten how to place priorites. Or to take a much needed check of their actions. Not even destructive in some inspired trainwreck sort of way where the focus is on oneself rather than hurting others. Were that the case, I’d have no right to preach. I’m not so hypocritical that I’d call out one of my own. 
 
No. This friend has mainly become one big reason I’m more a damsel in distress these days.
 
And my head is a mess - has been a mess - trying to figure out what to do about this friendship.
  
This friend gets away with a lot of the shit that they pull. We all let this friend get away with a lot of the shit that they pull - either victim to a genius who’s learned how to fool everyone into thinking they’re a saint when they’re actually a very corrupt, hateful and hurtful person. Or victim to a friend who is just that fucking delusional.
 
Once I trust you, I really trust you. Me and moderation aren’t words synonymous. And me and caution? Are for hell of fucking sure not either. If I love you, I love you fiercely. If I’m excited, I jump up, down, and sideways. And if I think you’re my friend, I give you no walls.
 
Because to me, the notion of soulmates is an idea best intended for friendships.
 
I protect myself when it comes to relationships with men. I like to play strong. It takes me long to let barriers break and come forward. Guys get to know me - really know me - only after they’ve passed some subconscious test of are you worth this and can you hold my interest for more than tonight, this week, this month? My shtick is that I’ll love you - just please don’t expect me to settle. 
 
But in friendships I play that role of ‘girl trapped in abusive relationship’ all too well. I create excuses for poor behavior. I open the door over and over again at the first apology or sign that things might be all right. I don’t listen to the advice everyone else sheds. Questions of How can you still friends with that person? They’re caustic! are met with my quick rushes to their defenses. I put up with a lot of shit I’d never take from any guy.
 
Because I’ve always liked people who have a taste for debauchery. Those that are of complex personalities but more or less good hearts. People, I suppose, that I consider similar to me.
 
And with debauchery can come chaos.
 
I guess in some ways it can be easy for me to come to the conclusion that it’s time to end a friendship once I reason that if I’m fed up - in light of all the fucking chances I give, all the shit I let slide - then this must be a pretty fucking bad situation. But breakups - particularly friendship breakups - can’t be that clean. Can’t be that mature. Can’t be a common agreement to move on and leave the other party at peace. People are hard to escape. Facebook, Gchat, gossip among mutual friends all make it impossible to cut people off entirely. You can go about blocking and you can ask those mutual friends to not mention the people in question to you any longer but all that tedious work just seems that. Tedious. And petty. Even dramatic.
 
It’s unneeded. Life throws you enough fucked up historonics without having to get them from your friendships. 
  
And now I have this current friend. Who is neither debaucherous or delightful or complex but pathetic. Weak sauce. I could go into details. A macabre list of all the wrongs. And it would turn into a very, very long list. There’s a part of me that wants to do it. To be hateful. To vent. To bitch. To point fingers. To scream and yell and have the whole world see the laundry list of shit I’ve dealt with for them and because of them.
 
But I know there’s no real good that can come from that. Not right now. When the hurt is this current. Maybe someday else. When I’ve gained enough distance so that there can at least be some kind of message with the tale - at least some humor or insight - rather than raw rage.
 
For now, just writing this much has helped my chest feel like it can return to just carrying its physical weight around.
 
Whoo-weee that titty city.

In My Fridge March 7, 2008

Is a chilled bottle of champagne sharing a shelf with 24 cans of Miller Lite and some retired milk.

It came “highly recommended”. Like almost every bottle of wine always seems to.

This champagne? It’s made with the same grapes used to produce Cristal, the wine guy at Pastoral sluiced. A French producer who only releases limited batches from this particular vineyard. A must try. It accompanies everything from goat cheese to fried chicken!

The shit about Cristal? Could mean less to me. I’m sure it’ll impress most. But the bit concerning fried chicken? Is what sold me.

Because Hi. I’m Damsel, and I’m a Fried Chickenoholic.

(You: Hi, Damsel.)

We bought the bottle last week. And we remembered to pick up the KFC before we got home. But then we passed out asleep after we attacked the bucket.

So now this bottle of bubbles has been sitting in the fridge - intact - for far too long. As have its shelfmates.

(Not that I’m too concerned about the milk.)

That busy my short term life has been.

But all that changes this weekend. The instant I escape this office and arrive home.

I’m fucking ready to play.

She Ain’t Heavy, She’s My Friend (A Guest Post) March 3, 2008

For some time now, I’d secretly been hoping the Damsel’s boyfriend would sweep her away on another spur of the moment vacation, leaving her to frantically figure out how she’d get out of work and what she would pack and what she would tell her parents when they called and heard surf/fiesta music/other festive background sounds that are clearly out of place in a Chicago winter.
 
My plan was to sit around on gchat, help brainstorm plausible excuses to tell her boss and use my expensive engineering degree to figure out the maximum number of shoes she could pack in a carry-on suitcase (advice that clearly would be ignored come packing time). Then, in the middle of the excitement… I’d say wait! I just thought of something! What about your blog, Damsel? What about your readers?? I’m just going to throw this out, but I’dbewillingtowriteforyouwhatdoyouthink???
  
Luckily for me, I didn’t have to wait until their next spontaneous voyage; the Damsel has asked me to write a reoccuring guest column. And just who am I, you ask? Why, I am Bess, to the Damsel’s Nancy Drew. I am the Dr. Phil to her Oprah, the pink wig to her Britney, the “hell yeah” to her “anyone need a second rum runner?”
  
However, due to illness (maybe it’s not a good idea to run outside of the bar for a cigarette without a coat? especially when it’s only eight degrees? even when it’s your birthday and you get to do whatever you want?), I have no cohesive plan for this. Nor do I really have a cohesive plan for this post, but I digress (sorry, I couldn’t resist). I figure I’ll just breeze in each month or so, rant about something, maybe answer some non-identity revealing questions you have about the Damsel, and then sneak back out until I get bored or something.
  
So in an attempt to both get to know each other a little better and exercise my self-indulgent tendencies (this is a blog after all), here are a few fun facts about me:
  
-I hate snakes more than anything but am FASCINATED by stories about snakes eating things when hilarity does not ensue (see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23364108/).

-In high school, I received a medal for being the smartest girl in the county.

-In college, two girls and I drank an entire bottle of Everclear before going out for the night. This is my greatest/stupidest drinking achievement (I say achievement because none of us went to the hospital) and I’m pretty sure that killed whatever part of my brain made me the smartest girl in the county.

-I have an arch enemy.  He uses the same Red Line stop that I do. I’ve seen him eat an entire block of cheese in the morning for breakfast.  Sometimes the only thing that keeps me from pushing him onto the tracks is thinking about how late the subsequent train delay would make me for work.

-Sometimes I say hi and wave to dogs on the street.
  
The end!*

___________________________

*Remember in middle school and high school when teachers would force you to write a different kind of essay everyday? Because ”you’ll need to know the difference between expository and demonstrative writing when you get to college?” And your teacher would hand you back your essay with little notes in red ink saying “work on transitions?” Well, I don’t want to accuse them of lying (which, for the record, they were), but I didn’t need any of that once I got to college, and as such, I’m not so good at “conclusions” and the like.  So until I come up with a post summarizing my lab results or detailing my risk assessment, you’re probably going to have to put up with some awkward phrases.  Thanks in advance for your patience.

“Why Has The Damsel Not Been Posting?” February 28, 2008

Is the text message I just received from my boyfriend.
 
My first reaction was to laugh. I always forget that he – well, that he reads this thing. Even if I did tell him about it. Conversation between the two of us regarding this blog remains slim. Or in jest. Comments like “The damsel should post about this, no?” when we involve ourselves in something nutty. Like a weekend earlier this month when we embarked on a spontaneous calamity that included: 1 free shuttle from Chinatown to the Majestic casino in East Chicago, Indiana; 1 leaky plastic bag of Chinese leftovers from the lunch that had brought us to Chinatown in the first place; 1 combustion of a rooted bus chair; and 1 busload of questionable characters. 
 
So it needs to be said that every time - every single time - I’m reminded that he follows this thing, I laugh. And I squirm a bit, too. You should know why if you’re a regular reader of this blog. I don’t often present the prettiest, sparkliest little picture of myself, yes?
 
But it’s a good question. Because if my own boyfriend who I see almost every living minute that I’m not at this office (Ed. note: Or rather every sleeping second these days) is wondering why this blog has not been seeing many updates, then maybe some of you are wondering the same. 
 
And the short answer is that I am still feeling very sick and that the office is still one big shitstorm of Insane Deadlines and Pressure Cooker Projects and Not A Single Fucking Second To Blog At Work. Believe me. I’ve tried. And when I get home, my sick body is too drained to do anything more than turn on TNT to catch another late night rerun of Law and Order: SVU before I fall into Status, Comatose.
 
But, again, if you’re a regular reader, you will also know that I don’t give quick answers. I’m long-winded and wordy. And you’re probably getting very tired of these surface-level ”I’m too sick and so busy” whines anyway.
 
So honestly? I’m having a hard time believing it’s already the end of February. The thought, in fact, makes me ill. Maybe this is actually why I am sick right now. Let that be a lesson to all other Hyperbolizing Dramatics out there.
 
I can’t begin to tell you where the last two months have gone. I guess when your life accidentally falls into a harrying routine of Sleep, Wake Up, Office, Sleep, Wake Up, Office, your life can also accidentally get away from you. And when you add Prolonged Illness to the mix, you find yourself almost in a haze as life speeds by. You’re stuck in a crowd moving along with the pace of it all when all you want to do is peep out and stand on the sidelines for a bit.
 
But that takes energy. The peeping out. And energy is something I don’t have much of these days. Because I’m sick. And I’m tired. I want to get better. But all that Office and Waking Up is proving thorny to my plans.
 
Today I got out of bed and turned on the TV as I brushed my teeth. I almost never do this anymore after a day last year that saw me call in sick to work because I just had to see who would win the Malibu Sands Beach Club July 4th pageant to its end. Even though I’ve seen every episode of Saved By The Bell. A lot. Even though I own the package series DVD set. Yes I do.  (And it’s Kelly Kapowski, by the way, which then leads Stacy Carosi, Runner Up, to turn to Scientology for comfort and answers.) 
 
So what was on this morning? But a Top Chef Season 1 marathon. Holy hell was it difficult to continue getting ready for work and leave my apartment. Yes it was.
 
And holy hell. This is all sounding very depressing and gray and S.A.D. and pathetic, isn’t it?
 
The truth is that I’m not feeling very depressed or gray or pathetic. And S.A.D.? Well, yes, maybe, but that’s because I am addicted to sun and there hasn’t been much of that around these parts. It’s a science thing - something or another about solar power and what not. But otherwise, life is okay. It’s trucking along. Albeit in a sick haze, but trucking. Yes it is.
 
But I’m left with little time for — Well, life. Like playing. And fooding. And writing. Things have been so busy and I have been so sick that I haven’t had much time to sit in front of the computer. And just write. I never really plan ahead what I write. Instead? I just sit down and let whatever wants to spew out of me, spew out of me (Ed. note: Figuratively speaking, of course). Then I feel wonderful and light and go back to avoiding phone calls at work or watching that Law & Order: SVU repeat starring that guy from Disney’s Brink.
 
So when I feel as though I’ve written something rushed or pushed that Publish button in some hurry, a post results that I can’t leave alone. It may be a fine post, but I’ll feel uncomfortable. I’ll keep editing it. And a friend will tell me to “just stop fucking around with it, won’t you?” and I’ll tell that friend to just shut up, please.
 
Like my last post. You know, for example.
 
I wanted to write something about being sick and down for the count. And while I wrote, I remembered the story about my friend Lexi and her one woman show as The Rainbow Coalition that night many nights ago. But the post was pushed - I tried to force it admist twenty “Ready To Implode If Not Dealt With Immediately” projects at work. I missed you guys and I missed blogging. But the post only annoyed me after I wrote it. Similar to how I feel annoyed if I’m rushed through dinner or rushed getting ready to go out or rushed for anything that I’d normally like to take my time to enjoy.
 
I like to like what I post. Even if no one gets it but me. Even if no one finds it funny but me. Even if I think it’s extreme or messy or ugly. Or boring. Shit that makes some people want to rip their eyeballs out. Whatever. Because I never intend my writing to be those things. It’s an intangible switch inside of me that knows whether I feel comfortable about something I’ve put out there. Whether, you know, it feels representative of what I wanted to convey.
 
And plus. I like you guys. A lot. I don’t want to post rushed crap. Because when I read blogs where I can tell the blogger has posted rushed crap? I feel — Well, I feel a little let down. Such an entitled attitude for a reader, right? And maybe that’s just me. But for whatever reasons people blog - whether they write for themselves or their readers or a combination of the two or for something completely separate - I respect a piece of writing that feels honest. Something not contrived. Even if I don’t agree with its particular content or message. I’m going to admire someone who wrote something they wanted to write.
 
I miss being able to sit in front of my laptop and write with my mind solely on whatever it is that wants to spew out of me that moment (Ed. note: Figuratively speaking, of course). When my mind isn’t partioned with Work Thoughts and OUCH MY THROAT HURTS Thoughts and GAH! THE PHONE WON’T STOP RINGING Thoughts.
 
Color me addicted, but I’m pretty disappointed that I haven’t been able to post regularly for what seems like a couple months now. Maybe it’s time for me to go knock knock knocking on Blogoholics Anonymous’ door, but I enjoy writing daily. I like arriving at the office and opening up my WordPress right after Gmail and wwtdd(dot)com. I even almost like the insomniac nights where the glowing laptop screen plays companion.
  
And now that my bosses think I should be paid to accomplish what they actually hired me to do and I’m sick? Going to work means going to work and going home means going to bed.
 
Has Steve Jobs invented telepathic typing yet? Because I’m tired of this blog falling victim to sporadic posting. But maybe the gods will finally take sympathy on Over-Tired, Over-Worked, Over-Plagued Me and regular posting can finally resume once more. Today is relatively quiet around these parts. Could this be a blessing of things to come?
 
Tomorrow (What Da! Posting! Two days in a row?) there will be a surprise post by a friend. Tune in. With the expectation that you will like her better than me.
  
And me? Well, it’s time for me to stop posting these “I’m too sick and so busy” whines. For real.
 
Oh. And to respond to my boyfriend’s text with the good news about a whole new post inspired entirely by him.

Everyone Gets Sick But Not Everyone Is Chinese February 21, 2008

Whenever I’m really sick for an extended period of time, I begin to trumpet that I wish I were hungover instead.

I know a hangover fucking blows, I’ll start. But I know what to feed a hangover. And I know when I can expect it to end, I’ll continue, based on how much I had to drink the night before and whether I stuck with one type of booze or played happy hostess to a Mixed Bag of Cocktails Extraordinaire, you know?

Then I will catch my breath. And resume whimpering and pouting.

I’d probably notice that thoughts of hangovers sounding preferrable to mild illnesses could suggest I have a serious problem were my mind not so clouded with cold and flu that anything besides ”GULPING BOTTLE OF CODEINE COUGH SYRUP.. BAD OR NOT THAT BAD?” is too difficult for me to ponder at the moment.

I resemble something close to a toddler when ailing - if toddlers are known to cry, ask for tummy rubs and forehead kisses, demand shitty TV and gossip rags, and syruply request just a teensy splash of vodka in that orange juice, please. Which, granted, comprises most of my Normal Behavior Repertoire. But when sick, I suspect it begins to appear less like “She’s so fun and silly” and more “God, this girl is batshit nutty.”

And I’ll bet that toddlers are much more manageable. You can just cram a pacifier in their mouth to shut them up. Or barricade them in some playpen they’re unable to crawl out of.

This past Monday, I called in sick to work.

I actually was sick, but I doubt anyone at work believed that. I had coughed extensively during the middle of my message for HR. It most likely guaranteed that whoever listened to the message came to the conclusion that I was faking the sick to wrangle a three-day weekend.

I mean. That’s what I would have thought if I had heard that message from me.

I haven’t dared miss a day of work since Monday.

My office has been one chaotic shitstorm since the beginning of the new year. And in addition to this hectic schedule that a healthy person who gave a fuck would have trouble handling, there are developments and changes I am trying to see develop and change. So even Idiot Me is able to surmise that missing days of work right now would wrought a kind of hell not worth its exchange of sitting all day in bed, watching Saved by the Bell and Dawson’s Creek, surrounded by pillows and down comforters.

Being sick yet enjoying no sick days? No. Fucking. Fair.

And last night saw my sore throat and pounding headache only get worse. Which led me to regress even further backwards in age and maturity level. To demand that my boyfriend give me hugs (more!). And massage my forehead (softer!). And let me watch whatever I wanted to watch on television because I’m siiiiick and trashy TV is therapeutic, okay?

I couldn’t blame him when he suggested we watch something manly after one hour of the America’s Next Top Model followed by an hour of the Pussycat Dolls Present Girlicious.

Me: Something manly? Like.. porn?

Him: Well no. I was thinking of something more like James Bond, but–

It meant missing Project Runway’s Reunion Show. And I forgive him for that. He was the one, after all, that had remembered that America’s Next Top Model premiered last night.

Me (bellowing): I HATE THE SICK.

Him: Baby. But guess what? America’s Next Top Model premieres tonight, right?

Since his face often displays a kind of pain that could follow actual physical castration whenever he watches America’s Next Top Model, I knew it was only love that kept him from fleeing the couch after reminding me of its airing in the first place. It was easy for me to magnanimously agree that we watch whatever he liked after our two hours of CW trashtastic reality. Love is about compromises after all.

And besides. Bravo repeats the hell out of Project Runway episodes.

Sickness makes me neurotic. It turns me into a bratty hypochondriac. And, worst yet, I lose all sense of my kind of humor.

For instance, I considered starting this post by talking about a recent article I had read covering carbon monoxide poisoning and how its symptoms can often be confused with those of colds or flus. I then planned to write something off-color like: “Ha! Wouldn’t it be funny, y’all, if I have carbon monoxide poisoning?” But then I began to really think about it. And there’s no need to bog you down with the details of what followed, but lesson learned, my apartment building’s management office does not appear to enjoy frantic calls about our apartment building’s carbon monoxide detectors and repeated inquiries of how effective are they though, really? HOW EFFECTIVE? No, I can’t test mine right now. Well, I’m at work, that’s why. 

Sickness messes with my sense of Morbid Funny. It compels me to behave like a normal person who takes normal carbon monoxide precautions after reading a normal article covering the topic. Rather than just, oh, kibitz about having carbon monoxide poisoning on an anonymous blog and leaving it at that.

And being sick? Also makes me unbelievably horny.

Or maybe it’s just that I’m always horny, including when I’m busy wailing and ailing. That’s me. I swallow what feels like large shards of glass and sniffle and sneeze and rest my head against any goddamn nearby thing (stranger’s shoulder? well hello!) to avoid carrying the weight of my own head with my wee little neck alone, and yet? I still want to make the sex.

I’d probably notice that thoughts of having sex while feeling terribly ill could suggest I have a serious problem were my mind not so clouded with cold and flu that anything besides ”SPLASH OF KALUHA IN COFFEE IS.. JUST RUSSIAN MEDICINE?” is too difficult for me to ponder at the moment.

So. In sum. When sick, I become a less composed version of my regular unbalanced self.

Terrifying, yes?

And a couple years ago, in this condition, Sick Horny Demanding Me went to a local bar with my friends Lexi and Kate. It was a Wednesday night and staying in bed just seemed so boring.

The night’s half dollar drinks got us all twice as drunk, twice as fast and, naturally, made everyone twice as friendly. The men in the bar had begun to gather around us three, swarming and clamoring for our respective attentions, and while most of them knew their efforts would be ignored if earlier rebuffs proved continuous, one boy clamoring for my attention specifically returned to our booth with a beer for him and a dirty martini for me.

And out of nowhere, Lexi began to yell, “YOU BASTARD! SHE’S KOREAN!” as the boy in question cheered his drink to mine.

We both looked at her in shock.

Lexi continued her verbal streamroll. “Not everyone is CHINESE, you know, and it’s REALLY INSENSITIVE and IGNORANT to use slurs. CUZ YOU WANNA KNOW SOMETHING? IF YOU CALLED ME A BIG NOSED JAP OR SOME SHIT RIGHT NOW, I’D SLAP YOU. WHAT IF I JUST START CALLING YOU A CRACKER? POLLY WANNA?”

Everyone in the bar began to look over at the skinny, pretty, shrieking brunette, no doubt wondering to themselves, “What the fuck is that crazy fucking JAP losing her shit about?”

When the boy began to appear as though he may cry, and Lexi displayed no near end to her screaming and splashing of drink all over his jeans as she quizzed him about Korea (WHO IS THAT GUY, IN, UM, THAT MOVIE WITH THE PUPPETS? WHO’S ALWAYS RONRY AND WEARS BIG EYEGLASSES?), I dragged her away to a corner of the bar and asked her what the hell she thought she was doing.

And soon, I began to laugh. Manically. Because when this nice stranger had cheered his drink to mine and joyfully blurted “Clink!” moments earlier, Lexi had heard him call me a chink.

The next day, I dealt with a hangover that fucking blew, one that I knew exactly what to feed and exactly when to expect its end based on the amounts and types of booze I had pulled the previous night. And for the next x hours, it distracted me from the fact that I was sick and I knew that no matter how much I may lose my sense of humor when ailing, what had happened the night before had been without a doubt very, very funny.

To Pink and Red From Black and Blue February 14, 2008

Today I wear a Thomas Pink button down, pink, and a Marc Jacobs wrap sweater, deep red.

Apparently, when you’re this happy, you do stuff like this. Shit that’s unjustifiably sappy. You’re so thrilled with life that wearing red and pink to your very professional office setting on this day makes sense to you. You think it’s fun. That it’s whimsical. Maybe even ironically cute. You don’t give one damn what it is.

You’re that happy.

That in love.

And you fucking adore loud clashing colors anyway.

Love makes you do crazy things.

You first learned this when you were 17 years old.

His name was Caleb. He was tall, athletic and lean. His eyes were ice blue. He was intimidatingly smart. And refreshingly eccentric.

He was a fresh import junior year, transferring from a nearby town to play baseball - my high school one of those that perpetually kicked ass at almost every sport, reaching Districts, Regionals, and States almost every year. And he was very serious about baseball. Girls gushed about the new cute guy who’s, like, totally crushworthy! but I barely cared. My small hometown bred beautiful people. The kind that looked like they had just stepped out of an Abercrombie ad. In fact, my friends Andy and Brett, twins, were shipped down to the Caribbeans for a shoot their senior year. 

I was tired of all of it. Even when included in the clusterfuck of it. Or maybe because I was included in the clusterfuck of it. So over the beautiful people; the cookie cutter molds; the ‘I’m so perfect’ archetypes. So ready for something different. Just hungry to leave and be lost in a wave of everything new. I didn’t simply count the number of days until my high school graduation - I counted the number of seconds.

I met him finally, one day after school, a friend shouting for me to come over and meet the new kid who wasn’t so new anymore. It was the fall of senior year. We went to Palio’s for dinner. I knew he was interested. I knew he wanted something to happen between us.

And I knew it couldn’t.

At dinner I told him to please stop wanting to date me. Just a few weeks earlier, I had gulped down a handful of Tylenols after one more night of playing punching bag to my father’s verbal, mental, and emotional assault. My mother had found the empty Tylenol bottle and me vomitting in the bathroom upstairs. And cried. Slapped me and told me to never, ever, ever be so stupid again. Grabbed my face, bore her eyes into mine, and whispered only 8 more months, daughter, then you leave this house. Convincing me that night to decide that, no matter fucking what, I would make it to my high school graduation; that I wouldn’t so selfishly hurt my mother and my sisters; and that I sure as hell wouldn’t let my father rob me of a life away from him.

I uncomfortably uttered over a plate of Palio’s famous Eggplant Parmesan that my father was a very, very strict guy. Like really strict. Trust me. And Caleb laughed. Assured me that he had never met parents who didn’t immediately fall in love him, his eyes filled with joy and happiness at the prospect of us. His premature statement held weight - his good looks, engaging personality, and easy manner cooed Instant Catch. I knew that my father would be like no other parent Caleb had encountered. But in that moment, all I wanted was to believe him. To feel normal.

So we began dating and our first fight inevitably happened a month or so later - him frustrated and confused as to why he couldn’t take me on a simple date on a Friday night. Why I hadn’t introduced him to my parents yet when I had already met his multiple times. Why I acted so scared and skittish whenever I was on the phone with him. I couldn’t lie to him anymore, exhausted of my own fabrications for why I couldn’t come over on a Saturday afternoon or why he couldn’t just stop by on a Sunday morning with Zimmerman bagels for my whole family. I told him everything soon after that fight.  He cried and said he couldn’t believe how someone so beautiful and warm could spring from an environment like mine. And I cried because someone was telling me I was beautiful for the first time in my life.

The recklessness soon followed. Maybe because we were only seventeen and didn’t know fucking better. Maybe because he quickly began to see me as something he had to protect from my father. We turned into our own twisted version of Romeo and Juliet. But for a brief period of a couple months - after he had learned everything but before the guilt and the weight would eventually settle in too deep - we were something completely pure. He wrote me letters. And love songs. He snuck into my room to leave me stuffed animals and mixed CDs. So many mixed CDs. Music became the closest thing to capturing our overwhelming emotions for one another into something compact and tangible. We talked about marriage. What we’d name our children. He’d tell me how he couldn’t wait for that day, far in the future, when we’d lay out in our backyard, rolling around with our three kids as he occasionally snuck a handful of my rack or my ass, and we’d laugh. All as he ran his hands over my hair and kissed my forehead.

I became addicted to what we had. Of course I did. After only knowing fear and disillusionment during my most important formative years, love? Love was the sparkles and the glee and the warmth that I had seen far too little of until Caleb.

My father still yelled at me almost every night. He spat at me. And I clutched onto my inconspicuous safety blanket created by all the words and kisses ever planted on me by Caleb. I grasped onto the knowledge that I could call him the moment my father stopped yelling, no matter the hour, and he would tell me he loved me and that he woke up every morning with a smile because of me.

He tried to give me everything. His cell so I could call him anytime, anywhere, any hour. His nights when he should have been sleeping, driving to my house so I could sneak out and we could sit in his bright blue convertible and just be together. His words weaved into beautiful stories inspired by our love. He gave me his entire self.

I feared that whatever he saw in me that was beautiful and romantic and conflicted would eventually turn into something depressing and burdensome and exhausting. And that fear did eventually become our reality. Because I needed him too much after a while. And he needed me too. But with me came a wash of painful yarning buried in inherent sadness. And he quickly learned that he could love me, but he couldn’t really have me. And the more he couldn’t have me, the more desperate he became. He loved me too much to be able to sensibly bear the thought that any moment he wasn’t around me could mean a moment I was hurt and scared. With that kind of love came too much sadness because of something very bad beyond both our controls. 

We broke up not too long after I went away to college. And for two more years, I loved him. He played me those two years. Perhaps the result of some deep-buried resentment. Revenge. Maybe regret. He’d call and tell me that he still loved me too and that he missed the something special we had that he couldn’t find with anyone else. That he wanted to see me. And I let myself believe him every time - every single time - because I still loved him. But just as suddenly, there’d be no more phone calls from him. And my heart that had already been battered and broken too often - and dealt its biggest blow when someone I had loved so fearlessly and so unconditionally had finally told me he’d had enough - would hurt just a little more.

At least it was a reminder I still had my heart.

The relationships I fell into after Caleb weren’t pretty. I grew bored and tired of every guy who wanted me. Sometimes I even wished I was capable of loving some of them back, knowing how much they loved me. But no one could grab me like Caleb had. No one had his intensity. His was the something more that no one else could give me. Some hole in my mind made constant home to the thought of what we could have been under different circumstances. And healthy relationships with new people are not borne from a mindset such as this.

Thoughts of Caleb eventually grew more faint. I began to mentally give Tennyson a Fuck You anytime I heard someone flex his infamous maxim. Caleb had robbed me from whatever fledgling ability I had to trust other people after our love lost. Before him, I had been ignorant and cautious but optimistic. After him, I understood that no one could truly love anyone with such crippling baggage. I wisened up. Became some sick hybrid of Unintentional Maneater, the product of never completely grasping the effect I had on boys boys boys but using to my advantage the windfalls. Senior year in college became a nonstop funfest with some of the craziest motherfuckers I will ever probably know.

But all of it was running away from demons. Chasing down my next distraction of allure, my next rush of constant movement. I had long stopped comparing guys to Caleb or the menagerie of emotions he had been able to draw out of me, but the ugly fog of our trainwreck still hovered - yes, three whole fucking years later.

It was in this mentally fucked condition I met a friend of my friend whose party I was dragged to that fall after college graduation. A boy who I instantly knew was different when I met him. Because the only thing someone has ever truly needed to capture my attention is to be interesting. But interesting is a hard quality for most guys to pin down when the girl who is to fill the role of interested defines it more by a gut recognition than anything rational or tangible in words. 

He had a quiet confidence that I found immediately attractive, but that was the only thing that came immediate for us. The attraction. It took us one full year after meeting to establish a relationship. And when we did, no one really believed we’d last past a week. Neither of us had good reason to believe we’d make it either. He was known to ward off anything remotely serious. And not to be outdone, I was the girl who had given her entire heart to the first person she had believed she truly loved - the first person who she felt had ever truly loved her - and learned to throw men away, left and right, in every direction, ever afterwards.

Somehow though, we both knew we’d be okay. Because, I guess, when something kicks you in your gut as truth, you have to know. When you’ve really dealt with so much shit, you don’t scoff in the face of toilet paper. Really terrific, Grade-A quality toilet paper. Not the generic industrial public restroom variety and not the type that’s too soft and leaves undesirable leftover fibers in your ass crack. The kind that’s absolutely perfect at getting the job done. Repeatedly.

So of course I hesitated telling him about my father.  

Things are different now from what they were when I was 17 years old. But I initially scared at the thought of telling my boyfriend because I won’t ever escape who my father was and still can be sometimes. I will never escape my childhood. And once that part of me is shared, the person I date has to accept that too. 
 
I don’t think I should have to escape any of it. Because it’s a part of me, and for all the reasons I love intensely and am fiercely loyal to the people I care about, I think it has something to do with my upbringing. Why I cherish unabashed freedom and practice spontaneity to a fault. Or why I tear up when I read about abused children and am so emphatically passionate about helping battered women and their children.

I’m a lot of kinds of ugly and imperfect, but I discarded wearing my pain and feelings of entitlement on my sleeve a long time ago. Some of my closest friends from college, the people I loved most fiercely, were battered and broken people too. Fabulous, hilarious, genius people who I thought got it because they too had experienced some kind of pain growing up. But their shtick got old after a while. Our shtick got old. The bitchiness and assholery got really, really old. I tried to convince myself that they were good people when it counted because I think it’s entirely possible to be snarky, to be cynical and sarcastic, to even be mean at times; to drink too much, to be too loud, to dabble in the controversial, but at heart, to still be moral. To know what it means to be a solid person and a good friend. After some repeated twisted back-stabbing shit that all of them wanted to laugh about after the fact and pretend never happened, I realized these people weren’t that.

While my pain has influenced who I’ve become, it’s not who I am. I despise extensive pity parties over mindless trivial shit. I’ve spent too many years feeling enough pain and sadness for many lives over. I never, ever want people to feel pain just because I felt pain. I want the exact opposite. I want no one to ever, ever feel anything close to the pain I had to feel.

And that is an easy, easy task with my boyfriend.

He is one of the most good people that may exist in this world. Completely oblivious to What’s Cool or What’s Hot right this flash minute, he cracks jokes about Britney or Paris that were current a year ago and asks “What’s that?” when I mention the latest buzz thing. Yet he has a style and taste that’s all his own and - really? It’s so cool and definitely what’s hot. He’s completely uncontrived. Complex and full of contradictions. And original. Yet not one bit a mess that wallows in his own narcissistic delight. One year plus some and I still feel fucking giddy that I have found someone so smart and funny and cool. He challenges me and keeps me consistently intrigued. ADD, Non-Committal, Rushing-To-The-Next-New-Thing Me. He’s effortlessly breathtaking. And best of all? He’s just so unaware of how fucking awesome he is.

It all makes me want to pinch his fucking cheeks.

He is why I know I still have a valid shot at being a truly good person. Without even meaning to, I’ve found a kind of peace with him that I didn’t know I so badly needed. It has no ties with distracting myself from all the bad with all this good. With him, I see that love isn’t just tears and sacrifices and confessions and saga after saga after saga. I had confused all that shit with passion in the past, when it was a just cover-up for why nothing good enough existed to dominate the bad. With him, I’ve learned that passion can be loud and full of bounce. But it can be quiet, too. It can be a kind of comfortable that’s heady with excitement. A constant source of fiery blue sparks and down comforter warmth at every moment.

I don’t feel like I need to find someone that can make up my shitty childhood for me anymore. Someone who can fix me. My rare kind of passion - the type that can only come from a painful past - has lost all association with anger because of him. He makes me feel whole in the healthiest way possible. We’re bacon and scallops. Each is fucking awesome by itself. But a whole new kind of fucking brilliance is created when the two are combined together.

We support each other. We want so much good for the other. We’re each others biggest fan.

There are times when I catch myself crying. He doesn’t know this. It happens in the shower or when I’m alone in the apartment. I cry and I clutch my heart, overwhelmed. All this happiness, all this love. And the odd guilt and fear I feel. Like I owe something to someone. Or that I’m borrowing something not meant for me to own outright.

See, I’m far removed from the little girl that cherished those very brief sojourns of happiness during her childhood, those rare times when my father showed me how truly wonderful he could be. I’ve still never seen a smile or a laugh infectious like his. Those nights, I’d pray so hard to God to please let my dad just stay happy, please, God, please please I’ll never ask for anything else, hands red when released from their vice-like grip. I’d let my hopes fly. And they would eventually crash because my father never stayed that wonderful. His demons always won. I’m not that little girl anymore. I’m not even the chick I was a few years ago, who still fiercely believed anything good in her life would soon see its end. That everything happy and warm and safe knew to leave her just when she was beginning to accept it as a truth.

I can let hope flicker now and not fear that whatever it is that’s warranted my hope will disappear or disappoint.

But still I cry sometimes. Maybe because I so desperately want my father and my mother to know this kind of love. So desperately hope that my two younger sisters will eventually know something like this and they too can make peace with whatever lessons of unconditional trust and love we missed out on as little girls. That everything can be based in good, even the truly ugly moments. That fights can be constructive and not just rip and tear and destroy. And you just want to spread all this freaking love to everyone so that they too can feel this because you, Addictive-Personality You, believes that maybe it is possible to live High! On! Life! Alone! all because of this one person.

Blissful, estatic love that makes a girl like me write a turgid anthem to her boyfriend today - because fuck, he deserves unabashed love thrown in his face if for no other reason than that he’d never demand that from anyone - as she wears her pink and red with such ease no matter how unjustifiably pathetic because it emphatically trumps the black and blue that once covered her.