I'm eating a Hershey bar for dinner (same number of calories as a Luna
bar. Don't you judge me.) It has very specific instructions for
opening. "Hold," the wrapper says on one corner, and on the other,
"Lift and Pull."

Don't you wish relationships came with directions like that? To get to
the sweet stuff, when do you hold and when do you apply force?

I'm glad I'm going on vacation because it seems the endorphins have taken over my brain. My brain is the large part of what I have going for me and I need it to work. I need to analyze situations and make wise choices and dispassionate judgments. "I want to spend every waking moment with C, either in bed or out somewhere PDAing" is probably not the most dispassionate judgment, so much.

Coworker generally calls and texts so faithfully that when he doesn't, I need to be talked down from the (trees? rafters? cliff? I guess I'm not that up on my cliches.) Talked down from some frazzled headspace. My current overblown worry is that he's pissed at me for drunkenly alluding to his suspicion that two of our coworkers, exes, are back together.

 

Oh btw, drunken? Allusions? Yeah, everybody at work knows. They've BEEN knowing. Went out with a bunch of them a couple days ago (C's out of town and you best believe I'm antsy, angsty, even) and B revealed that she had guessed and E, who knows, wouldn't stop making comments about who I was texting and A told me he'd tested me a few days ago and figured it out, and then J, who we were all supposed to be keeping it from for C's amusement, found out and flipped a glorious bitch, and it was fun and hilarious and um, now what?

Dwight and Angela and Ryan and Kelly

Q recently started dating someone she works with, too. (She's dating Jake! LULZ!) We are now adorable twin sisters in all the experiences afforded by shitting where you eat, including

 

1) acting awkward when you first see the object of desire, then growing increasingly comfortable throughout the day to the point where you need to watch your behavior

2) attempting to send sub rosa messages to the object (dropping a catchphrase the two of you established together, wearing something he commented on to work)

3) a gripping inability to think of anything else than his gorgeous physique throughout the workday

 

Every time my brain shifts to Coworker, I need to squirm in my seat.

Am I Pam?

One of the things I most admire about Coworker*: he loves his job. It is inspiring, if wistful-making, to be around someone who gets paid to do something that gtives them energy, that they feel is making a difference in some way they feel the world needs to change.

(wry trombone sound)

Clearly, I'm not there yet.

I'm going through old files right now, preparing for our move next month, and coming across papers I've written for my current degree, relics from my psych studies in college, things I've written just for fun along the way, and it's hard to even remember what I found fun or interesting or compelling about most of them. Sure, I like my turns of phrase or my conclusions, but what, then, made me feel so strongly about Pope Benedict's relations with Islam (let's say) that I actually put hands to typing and produced something about it? I don't feel that way about anything now--the creative, nay, the organizational, imperative. (One reason for this virtuous paper-purge is the very real need to find my W-2 so I can get my tax refund back before it ends up at Halliburton or somewhere.)

I'm not stoked for my classes, can barely make an effort at work, and think I'm about to hit the kitchen for more food even though I already consumed a bag of spearmint leaves today (the Walgreen's brand are my favorite guilty pleasure; also, I had meat at lunch and it did NOT fill me up for the afternoon, Fuhrman is right, Atkins is wrong and dead, end of story.) I have one good friend, a male companion who may be settling, some small savings with no goal in mind and an enuretic cat to show for the last two years in Chicago. So why the heck don't I change my situation?

I'm afraid I'm trapped by Pam Beezley-itis. Everything is fine until it's not anymore, and I just fear that it'll take me five more years to reach that point. If my job would get drunk and jealous and attempt to punch out its rivel for my affections, grad school, leading grad school to become more awesome and try harder to win me, or something, that would sure help my decision-making, although maybe not my passion. I wonder if I'm just grouchy because that W-2 is nowhere in this shit heap I call a bedroom, or if that dangerous anomie of last month is coming back.



*I know I talk about him a lot and it's not like a hopes-dreams-and-plans thing, it's more like this: he's what's new in my life, and plus if I were honest with myself the purpose of this blog is a little bit to recount the boy triumphs and tragedies.

vroom, screech, crunch

This Memorial Day weekend it was exactly a year since I'd been in a car accident.

 

Today, it's two days.

 

It was just an idiotic fender bender in Oak Park, but it makes me feel fragile and stupid.

 

Last year I totaled a beautiful rental car, fortunately without harm to any living creatures including myself. I just got a call from Mama Tolerable to the effect that the rental company is sending bills to my parents' house (the address on my driver's license . . . ) still trying to get money out of me, even though I, thank God, had all the insurance on it, and did everything right. I thought I had straightened this out with them a long time ago. She asked me if I had all the paperwork for it, and of course I snottily told her so.

 

The problem? I don't. I cleaned off my desk this weekend and clearly remember throwing the rental agreement into the recycling bag. Like I said, thought I had straightened this all out . . .

 

I think I'm about to go home and dig through the Dumpster.

 

 

Found an old journal entry (scribbled on one of the little legal pads I use at work, then buried under one of the stalagmites that SOMEHOW form on my desk) pining for Alejandro, a dude I dated right before I moved here. It is not helping my cynicism (?--how 'bout, my deuced  cold and frigid heartlessness) about Coworker. I mean I had to read until I got to his name before I figured out it was about Alejandro, so little do I now associate the feelings with him--"Because we did have something, I feel. Something unfakable by calling forth that flow of hormones. I don't know why it should matter so much. How can I say it's not just his touch that I miss, but something behind it, when his touch was joy from the beginning." Etc etc etc. Now looking back, I can say with no compunction that whatever we had probably came from the joy of being two (relatively) intellectualy compatible folk willing to hook up with each other. He was more or less the first guy I'd dated who could talk at the level I like about the things I like, so no wonder it felt like something amazing. But what's the difference between finding someone you like to talk to and also happen to like to make out with, and finding someone you actually care for?

I think it's time. Q and I were talking lately about the amazing connection you had with the people you met first week of college, and how frequently these connections fizzle once your life really begins. But that doesn't mean that you didn't have fun having those conversations--only that you somehow both couldn't sustain the interest to keep doing the same things with the same people. In the case of couples, sexuality and social pressure make it much harder to dissolve such a bond than it is for friends, especially freshman week friends--but time is still a trial that you can't fake with any other measure. Coworker is making me a little nervous on these grounds. He seems to be rushing us on the terminology quite a bit, for one thing. He's been calling me his "lady friend" to colleagues for quite some time (I mean, they still don't know it's me, but they know I exist, which is more than they do for him, if that makes any sense) and the other day he told this story in which a client spoke of me as C's girlfriend. UM. Would you have caught me relaying such a story without redaction, one month-ish in? Hayl no. Oh, that's the other thing. He was out of town for work this week and called me, seriously, almost every day. This after we'd spent time together on three days of the long weekend--at his place Saturday, out at a bar Sun where he met Q (the Bouncer's bar--AWKWARDNESS--but it couldn't have been avoided and in fact, all escaped without incident) and then on Monday, when he was swamped with work stuff, I went with him on a work-related errand.

Well, why'd you do that, Elle? That doesn't sound fun.

Well, it was, though. And that's the thing. I totally enjoy him. We can talk about work, or books, or most often random crap, and it's just so much fun. He affects (?) this sort of giddiness around me that can get so obnoxious when other guys do it--you know the kind, where all you ever talk about is how cute you both thought you were when you met each other or whatever--but it just makes me more enchanted. Q says that all my talk of one-month this and that "doesn't matter if you really like someone." But I think it does. If you haven't sttod the test of time, you have no way of knowing whether your connection is real (as I conveniently avoid describing either "real" or "connection" in this entire post) or just infatuation. Viz. Alejandro.

Slips of the lips

Last week or so we had some of Q's coworkers over on a Friday night. They'd started drinking around 3 at a work party, and by the time they made it over Q was gone. She ended up crawling into one of our empty bedrooms (sadly, in addition to the demise of our one evil roommate, we have now also lost P to a family tragedy) and <strike>passing out</strike> putting herself to bed, she insists. However, her coworkers continued merrily drinking and singing karaoke until around two, when they all left except for one, Jake, whom (oops!) I made out with. Sorry, Coworker!

 

I do feel bad about this, but Coworker shouldn't worry. Awkwardly bumping tongues with Jake made me realize just how different I feel about C--normally, after only about a month in, I'd be all like, Suck it, monogamy, we haven't had the other-people conversation yet so this is my right. Instead, it was like one big chorus of angels sang "meh" and I realized, nope, I do not want other guys. As further mitigating factors, we were drunk, it was 3 am and I have a long-imbedded aversion to passing up something when I could get it--frugal perpetual single chick that I am.

 

Whatever, so Jake went home and when I told Q about it the next morning (worrying that she might have a partially-disclosed crush on him) she was fine. We were both sorta hoping Jake wouldn't be weird, since we're about to move into his building and he is good company, but whatever. Anyway, this week Q goes to work and endures much razzing from Jake and his married sidekick, JC, about her early, uh, swoonage. Apparently in the early stages of her torpor she'd announced that she'd made out with someone from work (no one known to me) at their company retreat, but that she wouldn't tell anyone who it was. Jake and JC now have one goal in life.

However, Q was quite amused to "coincidentally" overhear the following exchange, which you'll notice is not at all stilted and has a lot in common with the way people actually talk:
JC: So, Friday night . . . did you black out at all?
Jake: Yes. Yes I did. Right after you left, I don't remember anything for the rest of the night.

Hm, track-covering, much?  Apparently the Js imagine I've fallen madly in love with Jake and, believing he returns my feelings, am prepared to stalk him all around the town . . .

The next time we see the two of them, Q and I are totally stoked for me to ask her: "So, remember your work retreat? (pause) Did you black out at all?"

Geek Love*

"She realized she just married him because he would have her."

This is my beautiful, amazing, very fat friend Prisca telling me about her aunt, recently divorced after marrying someone while fat, then losing 350 pounds (holy crap!) with surgery. Prisca recently broke up with her boyfriend, who loved her but whom she didn't love. Brave and mature.

It's crossed my mind to wonder if Coworker sees me as someone who'll have him. Not that I'm not a catch. I am! But some things about me that are neutral from most perspectives are kinda negative from his. He's an atheist; I'm a pretty straightforward believer. And while believers have the luxury of pitying atheists (if not condemning them to hell), the atheist attitude towards believers tends to be more frustrated than tolerant. I have no idea if he thinks I'm deluded, or stuck in habit, or what. We haven't talked about it.

The other drawback? I'm taller than he is. Coworker is a small man. Muscled and distractingly cute, but and small. Oddly enough, it doesn't bother me. I usually wear flats around him, making us close enough in height to feel like equals, which is lovely, although I can also imagine enjoying wearing heels and striding around with him like a celebrity with her man. Atticus ( blast from the past!) was redonk tall--I mean he literally could not get his arm around my waist if we were standing next to each other. Sometimes he'd just drape it vaguely around there anyway, and sometimes he'd put it around my shoulder, which I hated--it felt patronizing, and if he changed his path of movement he'd yank me around with him like a tetherball. I remember realizing at one point that I couldn't grab his ass while kissing him. My arms wouldn't reach.

It's fascinating the way height differences affect your interactions as male and female and in public space, but actually I'll save that for a later post. I just wanted to say that Coworker is self-conscious about his height (size?) and that makes me wonder if he would be so into me if, to hash grammar, me not caring about it weren't so important. If he felt like he had more options.




*Geek Love is a horrible, depressing not in the good way novel about the romantic proclivities of circus freaks, known as geeks in old argot. I'm not linking to it because you shouldn't read it. I proudly declare myself a geek, but in this post I was thinking about the circus-freak way. I know, that's insulting.

Last night my roommate and I had a ten-minute discussion about whether "She's Always A Woman" is satire or sincere. Karaoke will do that to you.

 

My position--and it might have to do with my own croaky crooning, which gave the song a bitter, Judy-Garland-singing-"Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" flair--is that Billy Joel could be mocking the woman as she tries to make most of the statements in the song about herself. Don't they sound defensive? "I take care of myself. I can wait if I want. I'm ahead of my time. I never give in, I just change my mind." Self-justifying, much?

 

Q points to lines like "she'll carelessly cut you and laugh while you're bleeding" to support her position that this woman's a self-gratifying bitch and Joel just likes it that way. She's probably right.

When the female bartender comped my drink, I really started to freak. I've been riding this wave of what can only be caled mojo--pink, sparkly, and undeniable, and it may just have crested tonight, preparing to bury me under it.

Consider:
-Coworker, Tuesday, and today he called me back, which is great! Yay Coworker! So I've got that going for me.
-Before that, a neighborhood guy got my number as I was walking back from my car, holding the remains of a hot dish I'd taken to a potluck.
-Dean, a while ago but arguably the start of this stint.
-The green jacketed gent who kissed me on St. Patrick's Day.
-The roomies and I had all managed to make out with reveling strangers on St. Paddy's, and Q, misunderstanding the assignment, somehow made a rendezvous with hers for the following weekend. P and I tagged along for safety, but not too stoked to stand there and watch her make out with this dude (he looks like a death's-head Dave Matthews), we tucked ourselves into a much lovelier bar right across the street. The bouncer, broadshouldered, goateed, shaved head (for some reason I imagine all guys who look like this come from Boston) was watching us with amusement as we stalked Wrigleyville looking for a place to alight. P and I chatted and drank, he swung by more than was probably necessary to maintain order, he offered us shots, I asked for whiskey, he came back with Jameson (well played, both!) and when we boiled out the door, he held my hands and said, "If you come back in here, I might have to ask for your number."
"Where's your phone!" I cried. "I'll give it to you!"
"No," he said, and this could have been a line, but I thought he was genuinely having scruples. "You've had stuff to drink--Maybe if you come back in."
Well, THAT was adorable. Then the girls and I went and had food. A taco al lengua on a Friday in Lent! Ha!
Fast forward to today, about three weeks later. We were back in Wrigley because Q wanted to make out (not with the same guy, at least) and the ladies did me the favor of meeting up at his bar, just so I could see. How sad was I as I entered and the bouncer was someone totally else, ugly and humorless. I went in; Q waved at me from behind an Irish dude bending over her (awesome), P was with her tucked into some guy's orbit, and I went and third-wheeled. Then P started making excited motions and I turned, omg, Bouncer, bartending!
His face lit up and he remembered my name, and asked if I remembered his, which I did. That's actually about the whole story. He bought us drinks. I admired as he shook them for others. Something about a really big, solid male body, dressed in well fitting clothes. I wish I could've gawked more openly, but it's a fairly well lit and classy spot. We had to leave in quest of a makeout for Q (which never materialized; more fool us, should've gone to the Hangge Up.) Anyway, he's unbelievably sweet, and how cool do I feel? I know the bartender.

But to continue with the mojo, the next place we went to,  I got eyed by the sexy cocktail waitress (mm, yes please) and the bartendress, as stated, did not charge me (for those keeping track, I drank free all night.) This is what life must be like for supermodels. Do I go out normally? Yes. Do I go to work normally? Yes? Walk down the street? Yes, and why all these people are falling over themselves to notice my lusciousness is more than I can say. It's like someone took a voodoo doll of me and dipped it in chocolate.

They're the people that you meet each day

One of the first strangers I recognized in Chicago was this older lady who rides my bus. (The other was this mountain of a woman with elaborate hair who works at the post office in the Sears Tower. I went there once to mail a package and almost exclaimed "I know you!" She rides my bus too.)

 

This first lady lives right near me and works right near me, so sometimes we'll travel the whole way together and other times I'll pick her up mid-commute, if one of us took the express and the other's transferring. I noticed her at first because she's an older black lady who wears the makeup of a 60's Stepford wife--frosted pink lipstick, frosted blue eyeshadow, big ol' stripes of blush. She has a fragile, careful look about her, like a regimented eater, and her face has a slack look which makes it older than her body.

 

Today she got on the crosstown bus with me, having not been on my uptown bus--it's amazing how often that happens. I took my sunglasses off to see if she was wearing her makeup, but she wasn't. She looked tired. She got off a few stops early and went into a Starbucks, and I noticed she was almost a head shorter than everyone else on the street. A class trip of high schoolers, rounded and pink-cheeked, stopped to let her through, bouncing off one another like bubbles.

Munchausen's Singledom by Proxy

In the Times Magazine profile of Maureen Dowd that came out when her book did, the author sniffed that MoDo, "at age 50, has never lived with a boyfriend." I don't like her much in general (it's not her fault that she happens to perform ultra-femininity in a position of power few women have, but it sure does make it look like that's how she got there) but that line helped us bond. When you're chronically single--or, like Dowd and not like me, chronically hopping along a string of enviable suitors--you tend to forget that some folks regard singleness as a disease or, at the very least, a symptom of some pathology.

I bring this up because (a) I've been having a crazy run lately where I get asked out left and right, entirely unprecedentedly and (b) I am largely a happy single, which the singlehood-disease camp REALLY hates. If you have someone who says "oh, it's okay, you'll find someone someday" or encourages you to give a chance to folks you're perfectly fine living without, it's because they think allowing yourself to remain unpartnered is on a danger par with fucking bareback. The fun only multiplies when the same person expects you to hear out the weepy details of their serious relationships or the numbing details of their inconsequential ones (and I am generally pleased to do this, because I am a good friend and a happy single.) But you know you've hit the pinnacle of awesomeness when the same person looks like they're swallowing vomit if you! the single! DARE to have even a mini-romantic success of your own. I told two of my friends a brief and less gushy version of the post below about last night. P was excited and happy for me while Q looked like she'd been poisoned. She left after a few minutes without having said, I swear, another word. It was the same way when I was with Dean (story someday) not too long ago.

Yes, Q has been having romantic hard times lately because she's still in love with her ex, but I'm not asking her to genuinely be happy for me or even not to bitch behind my back. Either of those would be totally acceptable reactions I'd pursue myself. But I would also muster enough of an act of interest and support to show the friend that I cared enough to muster the act. Hell, I'd pull off the act and she'd believe me. But I'm cool like that.

He Said/She Said

Hey, can I ask you something completely ridiculous?

Me? Sure.

Do you want to do something sometime?

Yeah.

We started grinning. We both look like we're about twelve. It must have been cute.
Later:

I've been thinking about this for a long time. How did it take four beers for me to ask Elle Daley out?

I was thinking the same thing. No, actually, it wasn't. It was the opposite of that.

 

What?

 

Oh, I was thinking that it isn't necessarily bad to make mistakes.

 

He was perplexed by this but took it in good spirit. Then we talked about books.

 

When he left, I put my number in his phone, and teased him because he already had another "Elle" in there, so I had to put "Elle D." He said "Or I could just label you Cute Cute Cute." I said "Shut up!" And then he left. We both still had grins on our faces.

 

I'll let you know if anything comes of it. I hope it does, but then I think it might be a mistake. We work for the same company.