Category Archives: decisions

On my Hair. A photo essay, sort of.

Posted on by
Reply

My hair has been a constant source of dismay for me.

I believe it started somewhere around birth. I was quite bald. Even as a toddler, people would say, “My, what a cute boy you have!” (Sort of like the Red Riding Hood – Big Bad Wolf exchange: “My, what big teeth you have.” “All the better to eat you with, my dear.” Except not exactly like that.) And finally, after a few years of this gender confusion, I grew hair, cementing my place as a female member of society.
Did my parents ever worry about alopecia? Maybe not, as I’m sure they don’t subscribe to my worst-case-scenario-projecting-is-the-only-way-to-look-at-life philosophy. (For the record, I don’t worry about alopecia. Not yet, at least. And by the time I start to worry, there will be science-miracle cures that I can buy on TV for easy payments of $19.99. Done! Alopecia problem solved! Thanks future hair plugs/miracle creams/sweet interchangeable wigs.)
(trade this dress for a tux, and you’ve got an adorable future George Clooney)
After hair comes bangs.
My mom knew I was going to cut my hair soon. I’d been cutting grass, the dog’s hair, paper. So one day, I came flouncing down the stairs with crooked bangs. They were completely diagonal. I’d cut them with safety scissors and then left the hair behind a chair upstairs, as though no one would ever find it. There was no fixing it, so they just had to grow out.
Any mother’s worst fear is the years and years it’s going to take to grow our a small child’s bangs. It took years. It was a source of stress. When I was in first grade, my mom told me that I wasn’t allowed to have bangs again until I was 18.
So I didn’t.When I was little, my mom would try to put my hair in a ponytail. I was never happy. There were always bump when she’d try to pull it up. I’d reach back and feel it and tell her that there was a bump and so I’d make her redo it. To this day, I still redo my hair when I’m worried that there’s a bump. She’d get exasperated. “There’s no bump!” (Just to be 100% clear, there were bumps. I am not wrong.)
A few months ago, she was walking past a mother doing her daughter’s hair. She said that she was tempted to walk up to the daughter and whisper, “There’s a bump!”

I went through my ugly duckling phase (era, actually – it was like a decade from awkward hell) with no discernible hair style. I really didn’t do anything to it – I don’t even think I had approached a hair dryer at this point. It just lived in a ponytail at the base of my neck. Every day. All day.

There was one day where we tried curlers. Like a 50s housewife, I slept in rollers. When I woke up and took them out (Mom was at work, so Dad may have had a hand in the meltdown that happened immediately after I realized I looked like young Frankenstein), I freaked.
(me, at age 8)
One of my worst memories of 6th grade is the day that I forgot to wash the conditioner out of my hair. All day, I was greasy and gross and miserable. I now triple rinse, without fail. In South Africa, long after the water had gone cold, I’d be under the shower head, rinsing. Triple checking that no traces of conditioner remained.
It gets worse.
Remember high school? (This is still part of the era of awkward.)
The only rule was that I couldn’t dye my hair black. So of course, I dyed it black the first chance I got. Mom has a sixth sense about these things (either that or I’m a terrible liar), and I hadn’t even finished drying it post-coloring when she was on the phone. “What color is your hair?!” she said, in her terrifying phone/teacher voice. (I should add that my mom isn’t really that scary – and I’m grateful that she let me do so much experimentation during those years. I may not have looked great, but I was figuring myself out. I respect her willingness to let me try that, just like when she would let me wear her high heels and my play dresses to church when I was little.)
   (Those were interesting years. I cut my bangs myself. They were always horrifying. Short, uneven. Not really bangs. Not really side bangs. For evidence of this bad bang cutting, see my sophomore year school picture – it’s still on display at Mom’s house. Compounded with my ever-changing hair color, I was not my best self. It’s a good thing that there are still people on this planet (my friends) who value inner beauty.
College. I chopped off all of my hair. I looked like a goon. (That’s not entirely true. It was actually sort of cute.) I spent the next three years in various stages of hair length, usually around my chin. Sometimes adorable, sometimes not at all.
Cut to Africa. Mama P wanted me to have fringe. So I sat on one of her kitchen chairs and her daughter took shears to my hair. Full fringe. I kept that until this spring, when I grew them back out.
So of course, December rolls around and what do I want to do again? (I haven’t gotten any tattoos or piercings in years, so I get the urge to do something drastic every six months or so.) Bangs. My super ego was telling me no, but my stubborn self was saying yes.
But I was waffling. I didn’t know. I looked back through pictures, realized I couldn’t find a single one with bangs that I liked, and then thought, let’s do it again! (That is nothing if not sound logic right there.)
(That’s a lie – I like this picture. Long Street, 2010.)
So I’m back to half-bangs. But I swear, I am growing all of it out and just having hair that’s one length. 2012 is the year of less hair cut, more learning how to style the hair I have. Curling irons? I can master them. Learning to love my curly hair? I can learn that too. I have taken baby steps – I own good hair products. I am open to re-embracing hair spray.
(Imagine if I wasn’t doing the mickey ave – I’d look adorable.)
Moral of this story? Stop messing with your hair. Learn how to style it. Stay away from the scissors. Curling irons are your friend. Your natural hair color is that way for a reason. Listen to your mother, at least when she tells you to stop trying to rock bangs. She might be right.
Other moral? Pick friends who will still love you when you look ridiculous. Or just make sure you pick ridiculous friends.

On [has] been

Posted on by
Reply

He is not my forever mate.

I think I figured that out some time between our second date and now. The first two dates were really great. But then again, drunk me likes most things.

I’m realizing that there is a lot of stuff he hates. (I don’t like hate. I think we shouldn’t hate so much. I really only hate a few things. Toe-walkers and mouth-breathers, mostly.)

Fat people, for instance. One of the things he likes about me is that I’m skinny. Great. Flash forward seven years, to the birth of our first child and subsequent divorce based on the baby-weight that I haven’t had a chance to lose.

He also hates wiggling. R once told me that me and his six-year old self would have gotten along famously because he once told his mom that “if you aren’t moving, it doesn’t count.” I wonder what kind of strange six-year old snuggler he was.  I wiggle while we’re snuggling, or before we fall asleep.I’ll be adjusting, slowly shifting myself into sleep, and he’ll say, “Just sleep!” as though I’m that obedient. The other night he said that and I kept wiggling long after I was comfortable just to annoy him.

When we’re watching tv, if I say something – anything – he’ll grab the remote, pause it, then go “shh!” at me and rewind to before I talked. If you want to hang out alone, do that. If you want to hang out with me, you’re going to have to deal with side commentary. Especially when you’ve seen the episode at least once before.

He makes his bed every morning. Not usually a red flag, but if you know me, you know that this might present problems. Although, for the last week, I’ve been trying to at least return my bed to some semblance of order and have been successful. Worse than the making of the bed is the sheet tucking. He tucks it into the bottom like you’re in a hotel. We switched spots one night for television-screen viewing purposes and I went to pull the sheets out and he screamed. Actually yelled “NO!”

But to be honest, it’s not any of those things that proved to be the deal breaker. Minus the remote aggression and the fat-people-hating, there are compromises that exist. I’m a very adaptive person. I’ll mimic your habits, tune in to your needs, find myself a niche in your life and fill it pleasantly.

It really ended for me when he moved my toothbrush.

I don’t like the way he talks to me. I find his patronizing attitude frustrating. We argued about how your credit score is calculated and I found myself backing down because I wasn’t 100% sure. I should have held my ground. I wasn’t wrong.

So when he told me that he moved my toothbrush under his cabinet because he didn’t want it to get dusty, I got mad. That’s not even a smooth lie. I hope by “dusty” he meant “noticed by the other girl I’m bringing home” because that’s how I translated it.

I woke up at his place at 5:57 that morning. I wandered around in the pre-dawn, unable to close my eyes again. I stood in the kitchen and watched the sun rise on another wonderful day. It was a moment of utter calm.

Nobody puts my toothbrush under the sink…

(…unless it’s to prevent it from being literally contaminated by strange things. I personally don’t like exposed toothbrushes, but that is beside the point.)

We went out together, rode the elevator in silence, and I kissed him goodbye.

Also, sidenote: Band of Horses is awesome. So awesome.

On Breast Cancer

Posted on by
Reply
“I wanted you to hear it from me,” she said. “I have breast cancer.”
My birth mother’s voice was steady. 
In the past two weeks, both my stepmother and my birth mother have been diagnosed with breast cancer. Neither case seems serious; both were caught early on. Treatment plans have yet to be finalized, although my stepmom’s is further along in the process. Neither will lose their breasts. Both will lose lumps and endure radiation, possibly chemotherapy. 
My hands reached up to feel my own. 
“Damn it, Mom,” I said later last night, “I worked so hard to grow these things. I can’t lose them now!” 
She laughed. I’m serious. I have stressed about them since before they showed any promise of ever becoming real boobs. I’ve been known to declare “They’re growing!” when they most certainly are not. I have obsessed since I was 13 and got made fun of on the playground for being underdeveloped. As the years progressed, I grew to love them. I’d like to think it’s mutual respect. 
I’ve always assumed that I’ll end up getting breast cancer some day. My birth mom’s mom died of it. And now she has it. I’ll be the third in a long line of cancer. I have tiny boobs – it’s not like I’ll miss a lump. On the plus side, after they have to take them, I can get a sweet new set. 
I guess I need to go get the genetic test done to see if I have the gene mutation indicative of breast and ovarian cancer. I’m scared to get it though. Not because I’m afraid to have breast or ovarian cancer, but because I’m worried that it’ll preclude me from getting insurance coverage based on “pre-existing condition” bullshit. I guess it’d be nice to know about ovarian cancer before it happens, so that maybe after I have kids, I can  be proactive about minimizing my risk. 
I was getting my hair cut yesterday and my stylist was telling me about the breast cancer walk. (I was going to walk with Dad and J, but didn’t because her daughters were going to be there – we have consciously avoided meeting and I didn’t want to make an important day weird – so I declined.) She teared up as she was telling me about her boyfriend’s mother and sister, who both died of it. And I found myself tearing up a little too. 
I have a doctor’s appointment on Friday to discuss all of this. I’ll be interested to see what they recommend, and I’m curious to see how my insurance will handle coverage for the test based on the fact that I’m adopted – will they still count my biological mother and grandmother, as well as various aunts, as close family incidences of breast cancer? I mean, they should. (Medical history-wise, being adopted sucks. I always write question marks on family history forms.)
I don’t want to lose two out of my three moms. Not to breast cancer. I don’t want to lose me, either. 
Let this all serve as a reminder to feel your boobs, people! Have someone else feel your boobs. Whatever it takes. Those monthly shower examinations could save your life.  

On Collecting Thoughts

Posted on by
Reply

…this is a post full of random thoughts. Nothing cohesive and certainly no structure. non-apologies, in advance.

Driving home last night, I saw the leaves strewn about on the road and I realized that it’s really fall. Apparently, the massive amounts of pumpkin spice lattes I’ve been consuming have done nothing to drive that home.

That said, I have no idea what I’m going to be for Halloween and I’m started to stress about it. I was Snow White for three of the past four years, which worked out really well. I missed last year, which was a relief creatively and a major bummer in all other ways.

Any thoughts?

It’s like that scene from the movie Mean Girls where she shows up at the party dressed in costume, and all the other girls are wearing lingerie and ears.

(linked here – not the best, but whatever. I’m at work, trying to shove ravioli down my throat and type at the same time.)

I want something with a lot of fake blood, or something funny, or something super clever. My friend E has some pants that are her “smarty-pants”…she painstakingly glued packages of Smarties candy all over them. That’s cute. I don’t want to do that, though.

I don’t want to be anything slutty…like a slutty cop. I’ve never understood that. Besides, furry handcuffs are lame. But then again, I could be Lieutenant Dangle from Reno! 911. That’s slutty and a cop. But not in the way you’d expect.

I was 0 for 2 at going out this weekend, so perhaps that’s why the party itch is so strong for a Monday. Friday and Saturday were both “let’s drunk dial Katie and tell her how much fun we’re having and invite her out at ridiculous hours” nights. Boo. Responsibility is so overrated.

Long bike ride with Mike on Friday evening. My Camelbak started leaking down my back nearly immediately after we left the house, and by 7th Avenue, it was dripping down my legs when I stood up. Thankfully, it was a warm night, but it made for a very uncomfortable ride. I hope the weather holds long enough that we’ll be able to do a few more of those before it gets too cold.

On the plus side, I did a ton of laundry and cleaning this weekend. My closet is actually being used as a closet. I just don’t get why people hang clothes up. But I’m doing it. We’ll see how long this lasts.

I was out having dinner on Broadway with R the other night, and he asked me if I’d ever gotten my second bookshelf put together (he built the first one for me back in February – I’d like to interject that I was in the middle of doing it myself, but he interrupted and finished it. I can dig that kind of masculine projection. It saves me some work). I looked back at him and smiled, “I’ve been meaning to call you about that.” He laughed at me. You’ll notice he didn’t build it for me, though. So that’s my goal  for tonight. Consider my handyman independence fostered.

Btw, 8tracks.com is my saving grace at work. And so is this mix: 

Love to all, and Happy Monday!

On Monday

Posted on by
Reply

Spinster, by Sylvia Plath


Now this particular girl
During a ceremonious April walk
With her latest suitor
Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck
By the birds’ irregular babel
And the leaves’ litter.
By this tumult afflicted, she
Observed her lover’s gestures unbalance the air,
His gait stray uneven
Through a rank wilderness of fern and flower.
She judged petals in disarray,
The whole season, sloven.
How she longed for winter then!–
Scrupulously austere in its order
Of white and black
Ice and rock, each sentiment within border,
And heart’s frosty discipline
Exact as a snowflake.
But here–a burgeoning
Unruly enough to pitch her five queenly wits
Into vulgar motley–
A treason not to be borne. Let idiots
Reel giddy in bedlam spring:
She withdrew neatly.
And round her house she set
Such a barricade of barb and check
Against mutinous weather
As no mere insurgent man could hope to break
With curse, fist, threat
Or love, either.












Flights to and from Chicago have been cancelled. 
The future of that adventure is no longer certain.
I finally did what I’ve known I needed to do for a long time. 
And with a heavy heart, it’s been ended.
Of course there are loose ends, the tired scraps that guilt leaves behind. 
Now there will be great stretches of silence. Of misplaced habits. Of euphoria. 
Eventually there will be memories. A city destroyed. 


But on the plus side, I have $200 in plane fares to anywhere Southwest flies. I want to get away. 

Sublimation. Or the Gray Area I Call Home.

Posted on by
Reply

When you’re younger, the answer is always easy.

Second grade math problems are just like all others: there is only one answer.
You’re either right.
Or you’re wrong.
You learn the opposites. Hot. Cold. High. Low. But you never really learn about the states in between.
Adulthood is a great languishing.
Of course, there are highs and lows and hots and colds. But mostly, there’s a lot of nothingness. It’s the kind of nothingness that stems from the fact that you thought it would be all hots or colds. Or highs or lows. It’s not always a bad nothingness, not at all. It just is. There’s certainly room for debate, for argument, for decision making (steak or chicken? reply today or tomorrow?), for progressive thought. All of these are followed by fits and starts of manic activity (sometimes solely contained within the still hopeful mind).
The melancholic side of the nothingness brings about the inevitable introspection, which leads to planning, which leads….back. And sometimes, a little change is enacted and you’ve suddenly reverted from melancholic nothingness to that blissful nothingness, where everything is calm and smooth and beautiful.
For a time.
Alas, we’ve arrived back in the gray area.
There are no answers.
There exists no right, no wrong. We’re all waging war against opinions.
After pining and creating this odd little relationship (that isn’t one, he’ll be quick to add), everything has fallen into place.
Or out of place, perfectly.
Whichever is a more apt statement.
He came this weekend.
He met Mom and Dad and Mike and G and AJ.
I met his friends.
He stayed at my house five nights (all except for Friday) – which was something I definitely did not expect and something that wildly pleased me.
He told me he wasn’t going to be with any other girls.
I smiled.
We began to think ahead (a bit), based on the thought that he may end up back in Denver as soon as January. Would I be his girlfriend then?
The cracks appeared, began to show and spread.
With my detective hat on, I began putting clues together.
It’s a minor incident, but it may very well be the deal breaker that ends it all.
It’s seriously little better than an episode of the children’s show Blue’s Clues.
Clue #1 was a chance glance, a peek. Too bad I’m an incredibly quick reader.
Intrigued but not irate, I put it aside.
Clues #2 and #3 were more tangible. A story of a meeting, an incorrect name. There it was again, my brain flagged it. And three pushed me over the edge.
What’s wrong? he asked me as I sat slumped, nauseous from the ill-advised blood donation without any food. I guess he gets points for discerning anger through nausea.
We talked. He told me she was a girl he knew in college.
I’m no moron.
Our night continued with his promise of some modern form of long-distance fidelity.
After he left, I spoke to one of my co-workers, a woman I have mad respect for, who told me, “Honey, let me tell you something. They never grow up. Trust me.” Great.
I spoke to one of my dear friends in Chicago. “You need someone who impresses you. Who gets you. Who respects every single inch of you.” I asked her why it is that I have such terrible taste in men. She laughed. “Daddy issues. You can totally blame it all on him. I certainly do.” We commiserated over the fact that there are so few intelligent, mature, responsible, fun, adventurous, adorable, assertive-yet-not-an-asshole men.
I called him on it last night. I told him that it wasn’t the other woman (but it is, and we all know that) but it was the lie (that’s a serious violation for me. I don’t lie, cheat, or steal, and I expect the people I associate with to do the same). The words “trust” “respect” and “honesty” dominated my appeal. I remained calm, collected and clear (odd, right?). I laid out the situation. I laid out why I was angry. I listened to his responses, called him on his bullshit, and told him I didn’t know how I wanted him to fix it. I told him I was too angry with him to cry. I pushed him. I’m glad I did.

Frustrated and tired, I told him I had to sleep. Of course I didn’t. I stared at the dim screen of my laptop while it played reruns of 30 Rock.
Today, I woke up numb and even more exhausted, if that’s at all possible.
Dragging through the morning, doing my very first support bit – eek! I’m going to have to start handling technical issues with our product, and as exciting as it is, it’s really scary, too! – and then it came. The buzzing of my phone. I didn’t look. Three more buzzes lead me to believe something catastrophic may have happened or that I’d just received a novella.
It was in fact that latter.
A novella of contrition. Of admission. Of (his) understanding (of the situation). A little bit of my anger melted away when he admitted that he’s been taking me for granted, and that last night made him realize how much he stands to lose if I bail. (duh, I’m Katie Barry)
I’m still hurt, still annoyed, still frustrated. But it’s salvageable, I think. We spoke again at lunch today, a soft, quiet conversation. But positive. Communication is not a bad thing. But my bullshit meter is on high alert (threat level orange).
And while I am well aware that this may be one of my more fantastic mistakes, I also think it’s a fantastic adventure. Sorry, Mom, I know you’ve tried tactfully to hide your disapproval, but it’s going to be awhile before this is over.
Welcome to life in the Gray Area (I’m imagining that it must be something like the Twilight Zone, although I’m not entirely certain).

The Chicago Trip

Posted on by
Reply

I didn’t blog about my Chicago trip last time, either.

I didn’t take any pictures this time, which I’m kind of bummed about.

I think it’s because I never know what to say. I don’t want to say too much, but I feel like saying too little would damage the experience.

It was perfect.

S picked me up at the airport like a gentleman. He was right on time, too. I misread the text directing me to a quieter pick up location, so he had to do an airport loop to fetch me.

Saturday included a grocery store run, sushi and BLTs for brunch (don’t ask – it made me very happy), a softball game – I forgot my sunglasses and nearly died in the heat, and his dad’s birthday party. I was determined not to be stressed, and so I wasn’t. (That’s worked twice this weekend, but failed miserably once. So I’m shooting 2 for 3 on mastering stress.)

It was a very lovely evening. I spent it eating chocolate cake and talking to a million people. I reminded his grandmother that we’d met previously – when she told me she wanted to trip a 4th grader at a basketball game. It was great. I really hope that the consensus was solidly in my favor at the end of the evening.

Sunday was a calm day. I made that watermelon salad and headed to a friend’s BBQ. I forgot how hard it is to park in Edgewater (just south of Rogers Park!). The BBQ had been moved inside, thank g-d, because it was miserably warm outside. I went outside to inspect the new grill, stayed outside for about five minutes, and came directly back in.

Then we headed to his mom’s for dinner. His mom is also wonderful.

After one too many White Russians, I declared that we need to leave “now!” And so he took me home. That’s when, overwhelmed by my own emotions, I began to cry. Such a noob mistake, I can’t believe I did that. At least I made it back to the safety of his house so I won’t be known in his house as “the girl who cried” for the rest of my life.

Upon missing my flight and spending the morning laying on his couch, sweating in the blistering AC-less heat and sipping a Gatorade, I realized that perhaps the night before hadn’t gone so terribly. And by “hadn’t gone so terribly,” I mean exactly the opposite.

In the end, it was nice to have some time to chat about it. Being able to talk things out before you fly a thousand miles is really helpful. I informed him that I am indeed a girl, I do cry sometimes, and that it doesn’t get any worse than what he witnessed (drunk tears are so attractive, let me tell you – nothing says “I’m a great girl, I swear” like puffy, red eyes, frizzy lion hair, and rings of mascara).

His response? “You were mad at me for things I hadn’t even done [yet]!”

Ah, welcome to life with the opposite sex, my dear.

I had forgotten how much I love that city. I love the intensity, the illusion of calm, the people, the nights. I didn’t get to the lake, to the Bean, anywhere, really, but I went everywhere I needed to go. The nights slipped away from me, standing on a rooftop overlooking the city – lights all around, never-ending noise. And the mornings broke beautiful, warm, sensational.
I felt so alive.

When I grow up….

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve just launched into a speech about how I don’t want to be proposed to, when the woman next to us leans over and asks if he’s about to propose.
He laughs. I laugh. “No, definitely not.”
Her boyfriend leans over to tell her that she’s rude to ask questions like that.
She tells him that she overheard us talking.
We explain the situation.
We dated. We don’t date anymore. We like to eat dinner together. I don’t want someone to propose to me at a hibachi restaurant, although I’m open to the ring being presented on a tuna roll. I love sushi. And theoretically, I’ll someday love the man who’s going to be asking for my hand in marriage.
I laugh. I’m getting ahead of myself.
They’re noticeably frightened, possibly wondering if we’re unstable.
They’ve been dating for six months. They look like nice people. I hope it works out for them.

Life, as beautiful as it can be, is also an increasingly frustrating place. When I was little, all I wanted to do was grow up, so I could be independent and successful. Now that I’m grown up and independent, I’d much rather revert to the days of endless hours in the backyard climbing trees to read books than face the prospect of struggling mightily for the rest of my life.
Struggling for what? Success. What is that? I don’t know. Self-sufficiency. The end of monetary worry. An increased hatred of government involvement and taxes. I don’t know yet. I’ll let you know when I get there.

It reminds me of this: When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.
They’re not wrong. But to a certain extent, money is necessary for survival. Ergo, work.

Which brings me to my big news of the day: I’d like to be a family/couples/sex therapist when I grow up. (So like, now.)
This may of course be yet another passing career path, although I think this one is quite a bit more attainable than previous ones. MBA? Sounds like a great plan in theory, but in reality, I’m really not good with math. Law school? Too many damn lawyers already, but I do look really good in a suit.
And, as Ryan so kindly pointed out at dinner, it’d be great fodder for my romance novels.  (The counseling part, not the suit, although you never know…)

How did this come about?
Well, you know I get all hot and bothered about women’s issues and the like. And then I was reading this Catholic blog last week (which you’ll hear about at some point) that entirely misquoted a study. So Madeline tracked down the original study to find the data. And I realized that I was excited. Truly excited. Gender studies fascinate me. The social implications of sexuality fascinate me. The whole thing is really exciting and wonderful.

We shall see.

Breakups, the beautiful things that crush our souls. (Kidding)

Posted on by
Reply

There are those moments in life where nothing happens as you might have expected that it would.
And then there are the moments where everything goes like you thought it would and it’s entirely underwhelming.
Beneath the small struggles that encompass our daily lives, there are something bigger and more beautiful at work.

To quote Ryan, who took me out for a wonderful dinner last night: “Maybe I have it all wrong and you are just some ruthless asshole that just roams the earth hurting 39 year olds.  But I don’t think so.  Behind that tough facade I know you are very sweet…You are a shining star amid a crowd of 40 watt light bulbs. You seriously are an amazing individual.”

I laughed when I read this, becuase he signed his email with a typical rude Katie Barry sendoff.

This weekend brought the end of the biochemist. We tried (perhaps valiantly) and failed. We both knew it was coming, but he brought it, and deserves credit for it.
I had announced the impending breakup (can you break up with someone you weren’t actually with?) to several people, and so feel quite fulfilled by my ability to feel out my hunches.

I cried like a small child, much to my embarrassment. I later told him that the unleashing of cathartic tears was 80% the result of wine consumption and 20% my wounded ego.

I’m not sure that he understands that I was not solely involved with him and therefore am not as devasted as if I’d lost my house, or had my bike stolen again, or if my cat was run over by a truck. This registers at, “Damn, I spent that $20 I was going to save.” on the emotion-scale. Upsetting, annoying, but entirely survivable.
By the way, that might be the worst analogy ever, but I am sticking with it. The more I read it, the more I’m alright it. And the more I want to check my wallet to make sure I have that extra $20.

I am slowly realizing that there are people who will not adore me. (Surprise, surprise. Something we’ve known all along but can finally catalogue for posterity.)
I realize that two people, no matter how lovely individually, can be perfectly wrong for each other.
I am realizing that perhaps the parting of the ways should happen after the 3rd bad date and not after the 20th.

I am young, free, and quite content to wander for awhile.
I know what I want. The problem is that it’s in Chicago and needs to get its shit together.
I’m kidding – that’s the most perfect non-relationship I’ve ever been it. I hope it only changes for the better and never for the worse. We’ve known each other for a year and a half, and in that time, there has been so much miscommunication and craziness, but also so many really wonderful moments.
I hope that my July visit is either as good as the April one or better.
And contrary to popular belief, I did not go to South Africa because of him.
(Just so we’re clear on that.)

Ha.

Here’s to the waning (and wonderful) days of my beautiful youth.

(I’m going to read this when I’m still single and 45 and have a lot of cats and thick thighs and quite possibly an addiction to TV dinners and not laugh at all. But for now I think it’s funny. All of it. I am a walking episode of Seinfeld and I’m alright with that.)