I Am Having A Bad Week

My boyfriend and I broke up this week. It is depressing and I am a mess. I have been subsisting off of alcohol, cigarettes, and over the counter sleeping pills for the past few days and have decided to go to Chicago this weekend with a friend because I can’t handle being in the city.

When I booked my ticket on Wednesday I did not have the right credit card with me. The person at the airline was very nice about it and said that they would put my ticket on hold for 24 hours until I could make the payment.

Well, I called yesterday to pay for it and the price had gone up $250. Apparently everyone on earth besides me knows that airlines do this. While they will hold your ticket for 24 hours, they will not hold how much it costs. Because I am a fragile mess, instead of just looking for a cheaper flight, I decided to turn into a psychopath and take out all of my misery and frustration on the woman on the phone. I stood on the sidewalk for ten minutes yelling at her and crying, at one point sobbing, “You can’t do this to people!” and “I’m sorry I’m being such a crazy person, but I just broke up with my boyfriend and I really can’t deal with this right now.”

I’m sure this woman deals with dozens of nutjobs every day because she stayed calm and collected through the whole conversation. After I had finally given in and paid the extra money she said, “I’m sorry you’re going through such a hard time right now. I know it’s tough girl, but things will be okay.” I really must be a wreck, because for ten seconds hearing this from a stranger in a call center who I’d just been screaming at was actually a little bit comforting.

I'm Too Sad To Be Cute

I'm having a depressing week, so instead of writing anything I'm just going to post a sad poem.

Sister
by Stephen Dunn

The sister I never had
enters my wife when I am
sleeping next to her.
So many times
I've watched my sister
come from her separate room,
the room that long ago
in a house of brothers
was an extra room
down the hall from where
I would dream her alive.
She climbs into bed
on my wife's side
and I touch my wife awake
for now my sister and she
are the woman I must talk to
about incompleteness and love.
Awake, she doesn't know
my sister is in her,
she doesn't know why my embrace
has so much gratefulness in it,
why my questions are all
whispered as if
a father could overhear us.
She thinks I want to
make love but I remove
her hand and hold it,
ask another question
about high school and loss,
the kind of loss
that repeats itself every day
like being born
without a leg.
I watch my sister leave
as my wife takes me
in her arms, says hush
you've been talking again,
sleep now,
and I curl into her
as if it were possible
she could be everything to me,
alone like this,
just ourselves.

Best. Story. Ever.

So for the two of you who are reading this and have not met my boyfriend, here is some backstory: He has muttonchops. They are also AWESOME.

Apparently this is quite the phenomena in Flatbush. On the way to the subway this morning he was walking by a group of fourth graders and heard one of them whisper to another, "It's Wolverine!" They both looked at him, then got bold and began chanting "Wolverine! Wolverine!" When he looked back and smiled they both shouted "Yeah!!" like it was the coolest thing in the world.

It's possible that you have to know him to appreciate this, but I thought this was pretty much the greatest story I'd ever heard. This is partially because it's adorable, and partially because it feels like some kind of redemption from the time freshman year when a bus driver in Times Square told me I looked like Kathy Bates.

Wolverine would NEVER date Kathy Bates. He would save her from a cyclops or something then go and make out with a hot girl in a shiny bodysuit who could turn people into plants by looking at them funny. (Confession: I have never actually seen, read, or had a conversation with anyone who has seen or read X-men. But I am much much happier with the thought of being compared to sexy plant girl. Even if it is in my head/by default.)

I Am Going to Look Like This

Last night I took my first burlesque class. This sounds very sexy, and when I told my boyfriend about it I'm pretty sure he was picturing a bunch of hot girls in fishnets and heels helping each other apply tassels. He would have been very disappointed. It was basically an aerobics class with lots of shimmying and an instructor who lifted up her shirt a lot and encouraged us to "grab our tits." It was also awesome.

That said, being that it was similar to an aerobics class, I was not all that good at it. I can smack my ass with the best of them, but when it comes to things like doing squats, crunches, or being coordinated, I'm a little bit challenged. Even though I ran a marathon two years ago, I have a hard time considering myself athletic. At 24, I still cannot do a cartwheel, ride a bike, or swim more than a lap. I was terrible at tap and ballet and when all my friends started rowing crew in 9th grade, I decided to take fencing lessons at a gym two towns over so I could say I was involved in some kind of sport without anyone being able to see how bad I was at it. I eventually got into running because the only skill required was not stopping.

But I'm nothing if not stubborn. The last time I went to a burlesque show was in September for my boyfriend's birthday, and it was one of the sexiest things I'd ever seen. It was just so refreshing to see a performance where having an ass and hips is considered an asset and not a liability. I might not have the strongest muscles or the most technical skills, but I like fishnets and have big boobs, and I think that's a pretty solid start.

I Have Many Skills

Because I have nothing better to do, like say, write, go running, or do my job, I have started contributing to this amazing blog started by my boyfriend and his friend. Each week they pick a different theme, then post videos for songs that go along with that theme. You would think it would take me 10 seconds to come up with a song that includes a girl's name, but the whole thing is shockingly time consuming. And obsession inducing.

Behold the awesomeness: http://emume.clintbalcom.com/

I Might Have to Settle For Lukewarm

A few weeks ago in a fit of insanity I decided to join the NYU gym. I'm not sure why I did this. It's possible all of those hours of sitting on my boyfriend's couch watching commercials for low-fat yogurt and The Cookie Diet finally got the best of me and the concept of having a bikini ready beach body actually started to resonate. Never mind that I will probably be going to the beach for a total of 3 days this summer and the only people likely to see me are my boyfriend, my family, and a handful of Jersey shore retirees. According to my television, I need to look HOT.

So far the experience has been mixed. On the positive side the NYU gym is conveniently located a few blocks from my office, and it's nice to know that I won't have to be outside running in the middle of August when it's 500 degrees. On the negative side, working out in a fluorescent lit room that has 20 TVs mounted to the walls and is filled with 100 undergrads trying to burn off the beer bong or carrot stick or whatever it is they had the night before, can be a little depressing. Not to mention seizure inducing. There's also the sad fact that I'm horribly, horribly out of shape and am convinced that everyone in the weight room is staring at me and laughing inside when I struggle to lift the lowest weight on each machine.

We'll see how long I last. It's already June though which means that in about 10 minutes it will be August which is practically fall, and who really needs to have a smoking hot bikini bod when you're just going to be covering it up with a sweater?