DC Damsel

After a salon appointment in Bethesda today, I stopped at Luna, one of my favorite local boutiques.

Without fail, I almost always succumb to some pretty little thing poking out of the store window.

Today it was a multi-strand turquoise necklace that screamed summer in the Hamptons. A mojito in one hand and the dick of a disgraced hedge fund broker in the other.

(I’ll wear it when I go home to Milwaukee and pretend Pabst Blue Ribbon penis is close enough)

I digress.

So I walked into the shop this afternoon knowing full well that 75% of the merchandise wouldn’t fit me and the other 25% would make me look like a well-endowed bloated circus clown.

But I pushed forward through the racks like the consummate fashion trooper I’ve bred myself to be.

I grabbed a flowy white cotton blouse that tied at a drop waist (drop waists are essential for us apple-shaped lovelies)

Then I examined a flowery, sheer top that most assuredly would leave me feeling like garden garbage the minute I pulled it over my head.

After a few more “Glamour Dont’s” I spied a navy blue cotton empire waist dress, realizing this might be exactly what a chubby girl from Wisconsin who is prone to butt sweat should be looking for as I look forward to DC in August.

And I bypassed at least 30 pieces of beautiful clothing that I, even in my wildest dreams could never wear.

The one shoulder black silk slip-on dress.

The clingy jersey Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress.

The red BCBG strapless maxi dress (I don’t even want to imagine what I would look like if I attempted to squeeze into that one. But it’s not improbable I wouldn’t become a cutter of epic razor worthy proportions in the aftermath)

I had snaked my way to the jewelry table, standing within just a few feet of the dressing room, when one of the sales girls sauntered over to me and asked if she could start a fitting room for me.

Drats! I had almost made it the whole way without the fashion foil of the 90 lb skinny girl who God knows makes more in commission on a random Wednesday than I probably make in a week of public policy think tank work.

“Um, sure,” I answered reluctantly.

I was so hoping I could duck the embarrassment of having the boutique beauty examine my choices only to mock me to her partner in crime at the register the minute I pulled the curtain shut.

“Oh, this one is so super cute, I have it in yellow and it’s so perfect for brunch and shopping.”

I muttered something under my breath along the likes of “uh, yeah, brunch, good.”

Once I was semi-safe in the dressing room, I made like the wind and changed into the first blouse like a cheetah changes its spots. Lightening fast, hoping beyond hope when I wrestled myself free from my generic J Crew skirt, the tag-team taunting twins couldn’t spot the stretch marks on my stomach or the pouch of fat that clings to each of my inner thighs.

Okay, white flowy tie-waist thingy wasn’t too bad from the front, but the minute I turned to examine my profile I turned into a smaller, cuter version of the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man. There’s a storm front approaching and it stars me the cumulonimbus cloud from Waukesha, Wisconsin.

The flowery sheer number was even worse.

And as I was standing there in my period underwear (girls you know of what I speak) and my purple Body by Victory bra pinching my back fat in all its glory, Sales Girl Number Two breezes by (she’s an even taller, thinner version of the initial catwalk culprit).

“How you doing in there?”

“Fine, thanks.”

Ugh, what’s the chance she caught a glimpse of my ass as I turned around and is now vomiting the three celery stalks she had for lunch into one of the designer handbags slung over the door?

Last but not least, I tried on the navy blue cotton dress.

Mind you, I was very strategic in saving it for last. It was the only thing in the pile that had any hope of looking decent on me. It would be just enough to scrape my self-worth off the dressing room floor if this dress looked okay.

It was … not bad.

Not great.

But not bad.

Granted had either of my handlers Anorexic Annie or Bulimic Betty tried the garment on, they’d have the most handsome of trust fund boys falling at their perfectly pedicured feet.

As for me, I simply had to settle for average (jesus, could a life-theme be developing here or what?)

“How did those work out for you?”

“Not bad, I’ll take this navy dress.”

“Oh my God, yeah, sooooo cute with a tiny denim jacket and flat sandals. And it will totally transition into Fall,” Annie exclaimed. (Annie was the type who ended all of her sentences with question marks whether they called for them or not.

“Totally,” I muttered. (My own question mark screaming silently in my head, “why does someone so fucking dumb get to be so unabashedly pretty?! Ugh!!!!)

Seriously though, why don’t these places employ more glandular-challenged sales girls? Why are they all 5′9 and 95 lbs with hair like a god-damned Pantene commercial and perfect pores?

Wouldn’t they sell more to normal girls like me who just want for five seconds to feel like the attractive half of the equation if they didn’t all resemble Heidi Klum on a thin day? Surely if I walked into a store encountered by a Jenny Craig candidate, I would slip on that maxi dress and feel less like a before than the after.

Just one time I’d like to drop 500 bucks and have the commission go to someone who grunts like I do when walking up a long flight of stairs.

I want to buy jeans from the girl who opted in on the bread basket and dessert menu at the steak house last night.

I want to pay the wage of someone who feels my pudgy pain and understands where I’m coming from when I tell her horizontal stripes may be all the rage this season but on this home girl’s heiny, they just won’t do.

Jodhpurs just won’t jive on this junk baby.

And no pair of skinny jeans, high waisted sailer pants or barely-there bikini will placate this en vogue pragmatist, no matter whose label is sewn into the back.

So a word to the wise, from me to all those chichi boutique owners out there…

Introduce those lithsome Luna ladies to a cheeseburger or two and watch the size 8s and 10s and 12s sell like sons of bitches on a sunny DC summer day.

I finally see the future and it’s full of Five Guys Fashionistas.

My luck with men has never been particularly good.

Perhaps more accurately stated, my ability to procure and maintain long-term, meaningful, romantic relationships with the male species has been what many would call unskilled, untamed, and just plain unfortunate.

If one were to sit down and psychoanalyze my romantic failings, any shrink worth his salt or his $250 an hour, would easily deduce that my trouble most certainly stems from my youth, where like many I endured much of my childhood without the presence my biological father playing any kind of significant role.

My early memories of my father are strewn with addiction, compulsion, psychosis, and on rare occasions, violence. That’s not to say I don’t have a few pleasant recollections sandwiched in between the heaps of shit. The day I caught my first catfish out of a small lake in Jackson, Tennessee is one of the better ones. And the tradition my father Jimmy and I had of driving through city alleys, making up stories and singing songs as we downed sugary jelly beans has yet to escape my adult memory.

Unfortunately, after year five or six of my life, memories of my father grow decidedly darker. Despite my mother’s most unselfish assertions that my father at one time was a “good” person, little in my mind or memories can confirm this.

He was an alcoholic, a drug addict, unfaithful to my mother, and he downright terrified me most of the time. To this day, my nightly dreams are cluttered with his most ominous faults.

The short ten years I knew him ended one snowy December Friday night when he simply failed to pick me up for our weekend visit. And that was that.

He fled, we think, or I was told, to escape mandatory child support payments. But the real reasons may never be completely understood. One thing can be sure, when the most significant man in your life leaves you when you’re still in training wheels, the men who come after will almost always be assured a rough go of it.

My mother remarried when I was eight-years-old to a kind man. But he was a man who represented nothing to me at that young age but competition for my mother’s heart. It certainly didn’t help things when I had a degenerate father whispering in my ear, “He’s not your Dad K***, he never will be, and don’t you fucking forget it.” So I’m sure, you can imagine, my childish heart strings were pulled in a plethora of uncomfortable, miserable directions. This man, D*** didn’t stand a chance in hell.

Despite consummate counseling sessions involving our new nuclear family, recommendations from all manner of child psychologists and so-called family relationship experts on how to properly assume his new role, he could do no right in my eyes.

I was unbelievably jealous and conflicted, but to this day, it seems like a weak excuse for how I treated D*** in the early years. Being a child of divorce teaches you a few things, the one I cultivated to an almost perfect science was my ability to manipulate my mother into a constant game of “who she loves more.” I knew, in the end, I’d always win out, but after you’re abandoned by one parent, testing the other for consistent loyalty becomes common practice.

I was, without mixing words, downright nasty to D***.  Door slams and snide remarks, silent treatments, tattling to my mother about every failing I could pick out in his 6′2 frame. I made his life, what I can only assume, fucking hell. Retribution for my mother’s insistence, she deserved to love again. Afterall, in a child’s naive eyes, I should have been enough for her. We were partners, living and struggling together, relying only on the certainty of each other to get through the days. Then she had the gall to want something besides a child’s love to sustain her.

I may never know exactly where my contempt for D***  stemmed from, but the hate I aimed his way may never fully be reconciled in either of our brains. And the regret I have for the way I treated him, haunts me to this day.

He tried so hard. Attention, gifts, pink platitudes. Anything I wanted I could have talked that man into. Worldwide tours of ice cream and teddy bears and he would have complied. He never missed a school play or concert or Hallmark holiday. He endured years of tantrums and torture and he never ran away. I alienated him to a degree that few could ever comprehend. He was, clearly, terrified of me. Whatever he said, whatever move he made, I found a way to criticize, sour his solicitations, dampen his dearest deeds.

After a while, as I grew older and held the standard contempt every teenager does for their parents, their keepers; the distance between us as human beings widened even more. The years he endured with my mother, of my eating disorders, substandard struggles, and mental illness, would have sunk the best of men. But somehow, for some reason, he stayed. It was something I never fully understood. If I were him, I would have gone running for the hills, never to look back at the woman he loved and her offensive offspring.

On a July day when I was seventeen, returning home from my summer tennis drills, my mother sat me down and told me she had something to tell me. I could have never anticipated what came out of her mouth next. My biological father, had been found dead from a self-inflicted gun shot wound to the head.

I cried and screamed and pushed my mother away at the sound of the news.

And for a time after that, I grew angry. I had always imagined at some point my father would reenter my life. And now that dreamy reunion I imagined countless times in my young mind, was dashed. He would miss every part of me growing up. My high school graduation, my college years, me falling in love for the first time, my wedding day. He’d never walk me down the aisle.

I prided myself in not crying at his funeral, where the majority of attendees didn’t even know I was his daughter.

I resented implicitly that I wasn’t enough to keep him from pulling that trigger. At what point, if any, did I enter his mind in those last moments and remind him he had at least one thing to live for?

Now, years later, the more mature me, understands that there are moments and depths of sadness and hurt we can’t always be pulled out of.

The last memory of Jimmy, was me placing flowers on his casket, my mother talking my hand, squeezing it tight as could be, and walking away, forever severed and changed.

It’s hard to live through some the things I did and not come out the other side worse for wear when it comes to healthy relationships with the opposite sex.

My stepfather, D*** is a shy, modest man, but in him lives, perhaps, the kindest soul I’ve encountered in my 32 years.

He loves to play golf.

Meatloaf.

And imbibes occasionally with a Brandy Old Fashioned.

He has a tendency to make up his own versions of popular songs, often replacing the protagonist’s name with that of their Airedale Terrior, and almost always to the tune of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland.”

He leaves newspaper smudged fingerprints on every door in the house.

He has a penchant for numbers and to my chagrin, conservative talk radio.

He flips his tie over his shoulder whenever soup is served.

And he has a voracious appetite for sports of any kind.

He just recently purchased a cell phone but almost never turns it on.

He drives in a succeeding pattern of gas on, gas off, gas on, gass off, that has caused me to upchuck in his car more often than I like to admit.

His jokes are, well, limited in scope, but he never fails to be the first to rumble in laughter at them.

He writes my mother an original poem every birthday, anniversary, and Valentine’s Day.

And he calls her “baby.”

He worked his ass off for the same company for over 30 years.

He tends to his mother the way all children should.

And, up until just a few years ago, when I moved to DC, he always responded “no problem” whenever I told him I loved him.

He’s endured the phenomenon that is my mother and I for countless, faithful, selfless years. No easy task, let me tell you. We are a tenacious, caustic, high-maintenance pair that few would ever choose to reckon with, albeit love.

Whenever he reads an article in a newspaper or magazine he thinks one of us will find interest in, he cuts it out in a perfect rectangle and lays it on our pillow or next to our keys, or our favorite countertop in the house.

He loves the Rolling Stones and Frank Sinatra.

He complies with every late night Dairy Queen or Good and Plenty request my mother and I have ever made.

And he has a collection of polo shirts that would elicit envy from Ralph Lauren himself.

He studied Latin.

He never had any children of his own.

He is tall and balding and handsome.

He asks me to bend the the brims of all his baseball caps.

And waits for me to come home (months at a time) to reset every clock in the house that ticks an hour ahead or tocks an hour behind because of Daylight’s Savings Time.

He’s been referred to by me by his first name for the full 25 years I’ve known him.

And despite introducing him as my “Dad” to casual acquintances and suitors alike, I’ve never once addressed him that way.

So maybe, now, decades later, and 800 miles away, it’s about time I refer to him by the title he has rightfully earned.

The father who has propped me up when I needed, and carried me when I needed even more.

The father who loved my mother without precedent or pretense.

The father who told me today he would teach me how to play golf when I head home in August.

The father who digs me out of self-imposed ditches.

And cleans up my messes without ridicule or resentment.

The father who made up for all the original one’s failures, and then some.

The father who walked me down the aisle on my wedding day.

I guess what I’m trying to say is.

Thanks Dad.

No problem.

I love you too.

“Well I’ve lost all the other bets I made…you’re my lucky day.” -Bruce Springsteen

midnight

and nothing left to say

to a world that awaits

someone else.

when ordinary

reeks of wrong

and escape

only to leave the remnants

for a lesser visionary

whimsy

and a swing set in the backyard

perhaps if life was more satisyfying

we wouldn’t fuck the first thing

that struts into view

training wheels

for everyone

a gift that keeps on giving

until it doesn’t anymore

I wonder sometimes

if that’s how my mother feels

knitting in her chair

in need of a new hip

how thankful she must be

for the girl

who keeps asking for more

in spite of herself

who summers in August

at half of 64

with little to show

but bad credit

and some notches in her belt

a disappointment

never my love

but extractible pride

may be pushing it a bit far

It’s been exactly a year since we met.

It was the weekend of my best friend’s birthday

We were introduced to each other under professional conditions.

And for some reason I recognized your name

And decided to look you up.

An impressive, yet checkered recent past.

I couldn’t help but be intrigued.

And those god damn squinty eyes staring back at me.

I still remember talking to you on the phone for the first time.

It was a Wednesday and it was raining and I was in my Passat.

Driving down Connecticut Avenue.

I’ll just ring him and be clever and see what he says, I thought.

Your voice sounded like velvet.

And I knew, from that point on, your chuckle would linger with me.

I spent a weekend at the beach with 6 other friends.

3 couples and me.

And one of the girls commented, to my chagrin, how “brave” she thought I was.

To come alone.

And I silently cursed her.

And we texted each other non-stop.

The modern equivalent to a salacious love note.

Slipped under the door of a suitor in the early dawn of the day.

And I showed them your picture.

And I pained over the dress I would wear when we first met.

And the shoes.

And what I would say.

Until you landed at my door on that Sunday evening.

Fresh and young and the way you smelled…

In your cowboy boots and long-sleeved button-down shirt.

Sweating slightly.

And confident.

Blue jeans and a well-maintained silver Mustang.

And I ordered my Goose.

And you order gnocchi.

And you fed me chocolate gelato.

And somehow I suspected you had paved this path before.

We kissed.

And rubbed against each other like teenagers.

Through our clothes.

We dragged beach chairs to the roof of my apartment building.

Drinks in hand.

Cigar smoke.

Clouding our conversation.

Of politics and age and meaning and divorce.

I went to work the next day.

Exhausted and content.

I didn’t give a shit about your politics or your religion.

I still don’t.

Three more dates.

Until you told me you had to go back to her.

And prop her up.

Fix her.

And make her whole again.

You told me you were sorry.

And I cried over my running shoes.

On a different Monday altogether

And later you brought me chocolate.

And Cary Grant.

And to this day, I have no idea if what you told me was full of an ounce of truth.

I may never know.

And it took me forever to realize.

I was but a blip on your radar screen.

A pause in your progression.

A temporary deviation from your life plan.

She was the one who fit the open congruence.

In your puzzle

And I was the one you dabbled with.

Momentarily.

For fun.

Or fuck’s sake.

And I’ll never really know.

If anything I said.

Registered with you.

Or if I simply served.

As boredom’s cure.

I suppose, at this point.

It doesn’t really matter.

I’m three years and hundreds of dates into this grand experiment.

Many men.

Have slipped through the mental cracks.

Yet you have somehow endured this last year.

Like a bad habit.

Pinched between my two fingers.

A chilled chagrin.

With a tortured twist.

I can’t imagine what I would do to you.

If you were here right now.

Would I be smug and send you packing?

Beg for your bluff?

Or go all in.

With nothing to lose?

But a pocket pair of hearts.

And the will to let it ride.

Every once in a while I do something that surprises even me. Something not particularly bright or well-thought out, acting purely on impulse and an impulse I don’t really trust as leading to smart decisions.

But life is short.

And I’m a heavy smoker.

So when a random reader of this blog extended a rather ballsy invitation to buy me a drink, I hemmed and hawed for a good 24 hours, and shot him a snide email inferring he could very well be a serial killer searching for not-so-innocent prey on dating blogs.

Then I did what every 21st century girl does now a days when asked out on a blind date, I Facebooked him.

Very cute.

Very young.

Very “in a relationship.”

“Just one drink K***, that’s all I ask. Just a night to prove to you that not all men in this city are assholes.”

And with considerable trepidation, I accepted.

I chose a place next door to my office and sat at the bar, feigning my interest in the op-ed section of the NYT, with a shit glass of pinot grigio in my hand, waiting for him to arrive.

When a good-looking young man sat down next to me, I turned, acknowledged his presence, realized instantly it was him, and went back to my paper.

It was a dead giveaway when my Blackberry began to buzz after he had typed something into his own phone.

“K***?”

“B****?”

I laughed nervously.

“Nice to meet you.”

He was simply, too handsome.

And despite a plethora of strategically placed tattoos, he had a baby face that made it hard not to acknowledge his young age.

We spoke a little about our jobs.

And talked about my blog and my experiences dating here in DC.

We talked about where we were from.

And his six-week-long relationship.

And how to properly cook a bratwurst.

I silently lamented how little effort I had put into how I looked that day.

Damn chubby arms sticking out of this half cardigan.

And why in the hell had I missed my salon appointment a day earlier?

He offered to buy me dinner.

I politely declined and ate the pickles and a few french fries off his plate.

I learned that he was in the Navy and worked 12 hour night-shifts in a hospital.

I heard that he grew up around tattoo parlors and he explained each piece of body art, one by one, leaving the masterpiece on his upper inner thigh to my imagination.

He paid the bill.

And I made the obligatory protest.

But was so secretly thankful that this young man, who most likely pulled in half my salary, understood the lost art of chivalry.

Perhaps he recognized a case of romantic roadkill when he saw it.

So I apologized for my expensive taste in vodka.

And we moved on.

“Farragut North?”

“Yup, me too.”

I don’t remember much of the 3 block walk.

But it will be hard to forget what happened next.

“Looks like we take trains in the opposite direction.”

I said, on my tiptoes, my face not even half an inch from his.

I was close enough to smell him.

And I took a deep breath.

“You really want me to kiss you, don’t you K***?”

I really did.

He told me he had promised himself that he would either go home with me that night or nothing at all would happen.

There would be no kissing on the metro platform.

I smiled.

Because it was the first moment that evening that reminded me of my age, and his age, and our places in life, and the fact that despite every effort by him not to seem the typical guy, deep down inside, men, with enough beer and testosterone flowing in their veins, want what they want.

“Sorry sport, that’s not going to happen.”

God knows it wasn’t because I didn’t want to take him home and ride him like the painted pony he was.

I was simply trying to turn over a semi-new leaf and make decisions in life that I didn’t regret the next day when the intrigue of night and Grey Goose wore off.

So he grabbed my hair, gently (convincing me he really had read my blog thoroughly) and kissed me.

He didn’t give a shit that there were at least 20 other people waiting for the train that were watching us.

So I stood on my toes again and turned his face to the side, and slid my tongue lightly against the side of his neck.

And saw the red lights on his side of the platform start to flash.

His train was coming and we had just begun.

“That’s your train sport.”

“Come home with me.”

“No no, I have to get up early for a meeting tomorrow.”

I pushed him slightly.

“Time for you to go home cutie.”

And he kissed me again.

And the train closed it’s doors as we tasted each other.

“Take me home with you.”

But I knew, as much as I wanted to, I wouldn’t.

And then I remembered what it was like to be 23, and have nothing in the world to lose more significant, than modest virtue and a good night’s sleep.

We continued to kiss.

And I continued to curse my adult decision.

Both our trains approached.

“Thanks again for the drinks.”

“You’re very welcome K***. You sure you don’t want me to accompany you home?”

“I’m sure,” I lied.

And that was it.

I got a text a bit later that evening from him.

“Good night K***.”

“Good night B****.”

He was out having another drink at another bar.

It was his night off.

And he had moved on.

And I settled in with my covers and TV remote and Blackberry and worried I was about to encounter yet another night of insomnia.

It had been at least three weeks since I had slept for a full five or six hours in a row.

But I fell asleep that night

And to my pleasant surprise, I slept through my alarm that morning.

I walked into my office that morning and reported to the girls.

“How did it go?!”

“It was really nice actually.”

“He was very cute.”

“And very sweet.”

“And he paid for my drinks.”

“And he’s a really, really good kisser.”

They asked if I was glad I went.

And I knew I was.

And the fact that he was nine years my junior rang true in my head.

But I had lately been so committed to finding my future.

I had almost forgotten what it was like to take the night off.

And let my cynicism fade away.

At least temporarily.

And relish in the unpredictable moments that life occasionally graces us with.

The platform puckers.

The pleasant portents.

And the painted ponies.

I was recently accused by a former flame of wanting to be saved by a man instead of finding my own happiness in life.

It was meant as a full-thronged assault on my fragile character.

And I thought for quite some time about his assertion.

My mom, the survivor of a broken and abusive first marriage drummed into my head early on, that self-sufficiency was the means to survival. That no man was the means to happiness.

And I took most of what she had to say to heart.

But I wholly admit, there have been times in my life when I’ve succumb to the Cinderella complex and hoped beyond hope, the next frog I kissed might just end up delivering me into a better pond.

I am but fortunate enough to be able to name just as many men throughout my time who have helped me live a better life as I could name the ones who made it more difficult to wake up in the morning.

For every shit there has been a salvager.

For every letch, there has been a lover

For every blunder, there has been a beauty.

For every pauper, there has been a prince.

For every army of assholes, there has been an infantry of friends.

Perhaps I get so wrapped up in the romantic failures, I forget to pay due diligence to the fortunes.

Give credit where credit is due.

And thank the boys who bolster my belief  each day, that a lifetime of love isn’t simply a pie in the sky fantasy, meant to be had only by the lovely and the lucky.

Some of them know who they are.

Some of them don’t.

Some of them are part of my daily existence.

And some of them, I no longer speak to.

But they all matter.

And they all play a role

In my ability to keep going.

And maybe I do want to be saved.

But is that really such a bad thing?

To want love to eventually pick up the pieces

And start over again?

If it makes me weak to want more

Then so be it.

If I’m less of a woman by wanting to be made whole by a man

Then I’ll swallow my sorry pride.

And surrendor to the salvation suitors.

Blame me if you must

For not wanting to do it all alone

For not wanting to weather the storm as a solitary soldier

For wanting to fall asleep at night

Wrapped naked in the arms of something better.

I’ll gladly unfurl the white flag.

If it means surrendering the loneliness.

And the apathy of each step I take into older age.

I’ll suffer fools gladly

If it means I can claim a second set of hands

As my own.

Maybe the naysayer is right.

Maybe rescuing is too much to ask

But I’ll be damned if I don’t spend every last gulp I have in this sorry suit

Digging my way to deliverance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrZkaj37kA0)

I’ve been really emotional lately.

Call it hormones or stress

Or the thought of summer commencing without even a potential fling waiting in the wings.

Regardless, I knew better than to watch “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” today.

I had purposely avoided it when it came out in the theaters.

Or even after it was nominated for an academy award.

Or when it landed in my On Demand menu screen.

But after several nights of binge drinking and flirting with inappropriate men, I decided to give my liver and libido a rest and stay in on a Saturday night.

So the easily predictable happened.

I watched the movie, curled in my covers, the occasional cigarette break, and genuine heartfelt sigh.

A few lamentations later about never looking like Cate Blanchett even if I lose 30 pounds and grow my hair long, and dye it red, and vertically sprout six inches, and high cheekbones, and become an A-list movie star and I’m off into what I like to refer to as the sappy cinema syndrome.

Truthfully…

I laugh when I’m supposed to laugh.

Cry when I’m supposed to cry.

Hide my eyes during the scary parts.

Gag during the gory.

Clap when Will Smith kills aliens.

Cheer when Mel Gibson slays Brits.

I even silence my cell phone.

And throw away my jumbo popcorn feedbag when the credits begin to roll.

My mother and I were the last ones in the theater when “Beaches” first came out, causing an usher to walk down the aisle to our blubbering selves and asked if we “needed assistance?”

I belly laughed so loud during “Forty Year Old Virgin: I was almost escorted from the theater.

I emailed all friends about poker on Saturday night after catching “Rounders.”

Started inserting the phrase “forget about it” into all conversations after watching “Casino.”

Had ridiculously hot sex and threw some pottery after taking in “Ghost.”

Thought about installing a speed bag in my living room after watching Rocky kick Russian ass in his 4th installment.

And opened the bible for the second and last time in my life after muddling through “The Passion of the Christ.”

I’m what some may call a movie producer’s wet dream.

So logically, what can be expected after watching two and a half hours of Brad Pitt as a cute Grandpa, muttering lines like, “nothing ever lasts?”

“Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones you miss.”

“You never know what’s coming for you.”

Let’s be honest here and admit this movie is for girls just like me.

Strong during the daylight.

The kind that struts into the office, still wearing her sunglasses and her iPod cranking Eminem songs, feeling bad ass at a think tank in the District of Columbia at 9:30 in the morning.

And weepy at the end of the day.

Snuggling her stuffed lion because no man wants to spend the night.

Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.

And buying $500 shoes to compensate for loneliness and a lack of self fulfillment.

Maybe tomorrow I will bust my chubby ass on the treadmill, seriously regretting the thirteen and a half smokes I sucked into my semi-tender, grey lungs today.

I will stow away my copy of “When Harry Met Sally.”

And I will no longer harkon back to the perfect man that was Lloyd Dobler in “Say Anything.”

Cary Grant could shout expletives laced in poop and I’d still fantasize about being Katharine Hepburn’s “Tracy.”

Rest assured I’d end up in his arms wearing a smirk and a beautiful bonnet.

Nazis Schmatzis Mr. Bogart.

Here I am looking at you too Rick Blaine.

Deborah Kerr would have been so much more convincing if she would have taken a swan dive off the Empire State Building.

I want to channel Nicholas Cage when he screams, “I love you!”

Only to hear Cher (minus some Bob Mackey monstrosity) yell back, “snap out of it!”

I guess the problem Rhett, is that I really DO give a damn.

So I’m going to give up for the night…

And watch, “You, Me and Dupree.”

Anonymous blogs are an interesting beast, especially for someone like me who tends to write angry and under the influence a good portion of the time. Just like cleaning my apartment, blogging about dating in a city like DC is usually more palatable with a cocktail in hand. And anyone who frequents my ramblings knows I tend to be very frank about my indiscretions, the good and the bad. But occasionally someone stumbles upon my blog who knows me, or worse has been one of the said indiscretions, and they respond the way the coxswain did yesterday. Pissed off or hurt, armed with venom and a decent thesaurus. The “miasma of my self-loathing?” That’s a nicely turned phrase my friend and I do intend on slipping it into as many future conversations with my shrink as I possibly can. I’m sure he’ll be thoroughly impressed with my ability to engage in my own consciousness. All of the sudden your penchant for armchair psychology came rushing back. I really should have left a few bucks on your nightstand after all those “sessions” we had together. They definitely cleared my head.

Obviously when you write about the most personal of topics - sex, emotions, regret, depression, you open yourself up for a world of hurt if someone decides to spew hatred back at you in a comment. Your first inclination is to erase it. My reaction was to publish it, cry about it, lash out at someone I genuinely care about, comment back, and pass out. In the midst of my cyber encounter last evening, I read the comment to a friend of mine. He thought it was funny that the one thing that really bothered me wasn’t the plethora of insults about my emotional state, my admitted self medicating, or even the commentary on the redundancy of my writing - the thing that pissed me off the most was being referred to as “trailer park trash.” I’m about as white bread as you get but I’ve never made mayonnaise sandwiches out of it. My parents would be wholly dismayed to discover their sprawling ranch home in the burbs was mentally reduced to a mobile home.  Can we throw a ficticious meth lab in there just for fuck’s sake too?  Regardless, I’m sure Mammy and Pappy would rule their imaginary double-wide like no one’s business. Nothing wrong with rockin’ whatcha got.

So it took a night’s worth of sleep and a brisk walk this morning to clear my head. I never have been one to stomach criticism well, especially when it comes from a scorned lover. If you would have thrown a few fat jokes in there, it may have sent me over the edge completely, but hey, there’s always tomorrow. But perhaps the thing I won’t as easily let go of after I’ve forgotten this lovely slice of life moment in time, were the comments you made about my ex-husband. You can call me as many names as you like, but I’d be wary of commenting on my relationship with someone I cherish.  I loved him, he loved me, and when it stopped working we came to the consensus that it would be better to part as friends than as enemies. So your assertion that he escaped the clutches of my cruel psyche aren’t particulary accurate, but if it makes you feel better about yourself to misconstrue the truth, have at it. Funny though, I don’t recall seeing marks on your left ring finger where a wedding band once perched , but who am I to point out the obvious? How IS that search going sport?

So, consider this my official rebuttal and be sure to friend me back on Facebook. God knows I’m dying to linger over pictures of you in your rowboat and bemoan all that might have been. Love and kisses darling, we’ll always have the summer off of Interstate 66.

“Feel the tension, soon as someone mentions me. Here’s my ten cents, my two cents is free. A nuisance, who sent? You sent for me? Now this looks like a job for me. So everybody just follow me. Cause we need a little controversy. Cause it feels so empty without me.” -Eminem

1. The Dirty Old Drunk Who Resides on the 7th Floor - Out of the kindness of my Midwestern heart and for fear that the old coot was stroking out on the sidewalk, I stopped, scraped this man up off the lawn of the apartment building next door and practically carried him home on my back with the help of another woman. Little did I know the old drunk bastard would spend the next two weeks of my life knocking on my door, following me into the laundry room, and waiting for me at his door when I walked past his apartment. You’re married dude, you’ve got a wicked bad addiction and you’re like 80 years old. Please get a clue and let up so I can stop taking the stairs just to avoid you slurring weirdness into my face on a daily basis.

2. Mike Hanson from 7th Grade - If you didn’t want to take me to the dance, why did you ask? I spent that night watching you talk to every other girl in the gymnasium but me and had to lie to my Mom when she picked us up and tell her we had a good time, only to break down in tears the minute you exited our car. What did I do that made you ignore me the whole night? Do you regret it? My mother to this day still wants to kill you. Why Mike?

3. The Twitchy Guy from Match.Com with the Abnormal Marmot Obsession: Dude, for future reference, don’t open with the ferret thing, it’s creepy and as loving a pet as they might make, they’re smelly and oily and they bite and 3 hours of constant chatter espousing their merits broken up only by your bizarre adversity to telling me what you did for a living (he turned out to be a traffic cop) ranks up there with a night spent telling my bitch former mother-in-law how great her cooking is and how much I love Jesus.

4. The Hot Red Head Who Asked Me If I Wanted to Smell the Cheese While on a Date at the Phillips Gallery: God you’re so hot and so dumb and you got me so drunk at Russia House that before I knew it I was naked and alone and clutching a lone sock you had left behind in your haste to exit my apartment. Not one of my prouder moments to be sure. I can only hope the thought of your lost navy blue dress sock haunts your dreams at night.

5. The Bartender with a Well-Concealed Hard Drug Habit: Third date, I fell asleep next to him while watching a movie, he said he was going to grab a pizza, four hours later he returned, awoke me from my slumber and proceeded to provide me with one of the scariest nights of my life. Thankfully for you, I hit back, I run fast, have a forgiving heart, and you vanished into rehab somewhere in Florida never to return.

6. The Anti-Semite Reporter: God you’re so handsome and sooooo good at your job and so smooth, so naturally it’s still difficult to comprehend that within 20 minutes of our dinner conversation you confess your disdain for “Jews that rule DC.” Damn, what a waste of such a fine piece of ass.

7. Mr Five And Fly: You know who you are, you bald little fuck. Five minutes into a conversation on our first date and you tell me you don’t think we’re a match and then like the class act you are, you insist on going dutch? Why do I have a feeling even your best performance in the sack doesn’t last five minutes. Oh but I forgot, you volunteer at an orphanage! That makes it all ok then you pompous douche bag fuck.

8. The Coxswain: We met at a complicated time in my life for certain, but the day you excused me from your house when your user ex-girlfriend showed up at your door makes me quite sure, I completely regret letting you ever row your boat ashore.

9. The Best Friend: After all the time we spent together and all we shared, you questioned my genuineness? I would have been a friend to you for life. What a shame to let your girlfriend’s petty insecurities get in the way of true friendship.

10. Mr Georgetown Condo Guy: OMG, you actually had me come to your apartment on our first date and then proceeded to tell me the DVD player in the living room was broken and we’d have to watch the video I brought on your bedroom TV. Convenient, just not very clever. No man who sells medical supplies should ever make more money than I do. Your dog was your single redeeming feature and even he would have left with me if had the choice. Hang in there Pup!

I’ve always been a bit of a bull in a china shop when it comes to love

Had some fun with the boys in high school

Had even more fun with the boys in college

Got married much younger than I had ever expected

And divorced at 30

Then I moved to DC, newly single, scared out of my wits, dying to go hog-wild and never look back

I spent a good two-plus years on a kind of carnal bender

And then I surprised myself

And began to give a shit

About the kind of man I was attracted to

I suddenly had standards

(What a buzz kill that was)

He had to want to stay through the night

Not just through the orgasm

He had to buy the dinner

Before he got to nosh on dessert

He had to make me laugh

Before he made me moan

Etcetera

Etcetera

But

To my chagrin

I realized a good many of the men who could make me laugh

And moan

And care

And cum

Were already taken

I was shit out of luck

Some other girl had been quicker to the draw

Beaten me to the proverbial punch

And I had wasted my young and single years fucking fugazees

So I was left wanting things I couldn’t have

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife

Or his brother, father, husband, or cousin-once-removed for that matter

Look

But don’t touch

Admire

From afar

Doing the fornication fandango

In my head

Browsing the candy shop

But never getting to lick the really good lollies

Awaiting the first round of divorces

And dating down the priority pecking order

Sifting through the knuckle draggers

Hoping one of the good guys

Slips through the cracks

And finds his way to me

Preferably not on all fours

But beggars can’t be choosers