The week from hell

So last week sucked.

Hadn't written in awhile. BF and I came to terms on the Aruba thing. He was simply being frugal about calling from down there on Monday, and I did end up picking him up from the airport.

But last week - ugh - what a bad week.

I was hormonal. Me and the BF were fighting again, over some imaginary injustice I invented in my head due to the hormonal swings I was experiencing. (Side note - this seems to be getting worse and there are hot flashes now. So I suspect early menopause...not fun.) Telling this just to lay the groundwork.

I was, essentially, feeling very sorry for myself. I felt old, and could hear my biological clock TICK TICK TICKING so loud last week that it kept me awake at night. Well, the ticking and the hot flashes.

So I am at my daughter's school for open house. It's been a shitty sleepless night. I don't wear makeup. I'm wearing a tank top and a little sweater that ties under my rack. The tank doesn't do a good job covering up the new girls. I look like crap, basically, but don't care b/c this is just about getting my daughter comfortable with her new school.

Mistake mistake mistake.

I run into someone I haven't seen in over a year and half. PTA perfect stay at home mom. Runs every morning after walking her kids to school. She thinks I have gotten married. And she asks if I am pregnant.

WOW.

WOW.

Wow.

I guess I HAVE gained weight. Its only like 7 pounds but coupled with the new boobs I guess I look bad.

WOW.

I say no, I am not. And I proceed to say - no I never got married and no I am no longer engaged either.

I want to say I'm just a lame ass big breasted slightly chubby single mom here to meet the teacher. But I don't. I just smile and say something lame like, I'll call you.

Just writing about it now seems shocking. Someone thought I was pregnant. Wow.

I go home and smoke like 5 cigarettes and cry a lot.

And just when I thought it couldn't get worse...

My friend sends me a copy of the Forbes article on "Why you shouldn't marry a career woman". They define career woman as university educated and makes more than 30K per year. I guess I am an uber-career woman at this point.

Apparently I don't keep a clean house. I am more apt to cheat or find someone better than my mate. (This is true, but the same could be said about men!) My mate will be unhappy b/c I potentially could make more.

This is the nail in my coffin. I should just give up on the idea of marital bliss and commitment to my BF and accept singledom as it is inevitable.

I think of the line in the movie Singles. Be Happy- Stay Single!

By Friday I was thinking, ah fuck it all. Nothing I can do about this but exercise and diet and hope for the best on all fronts. If it works out with the BF, fine. If it doesn't, fine but I better get my ass back down to fighting weight and into my size 27 Paper Denim and Cloth that are just a bit too tight right now.

I began exercising in earnest after this past week. I need to lose like 15 pounds. Determined that the next time I run into this woman there is no way she will think I am pregnant. I'd rather her think I was silly and superficial enough to spend a good chunk of disposable income on new boobs than for her to think I am just fat.

Open letter to my bf

Dear BF-

I am very disappointed in you.

For someone who cares so so much about courtesy and manners, and usually is unbelievably thoughtful, you are sorely lacking in this case.

I realize that you like to be frugal, however, I find it ridiculous and utterly absurd that you can spend hundreds of dollars - perhaps thousands - going to Aruba for a long weekend and not be willing to invest just a few to call me today from your mobile with details of your flight back.

Perhaps even sending me an email with your flight details would have been nice. I realize how much effort that would have taken. A fingerprint swipe on the ThinkPad. A few keystrokes in that WIFI - enabled villa of yours. A lot of work.

But alas, you were busy. I understand. Really, I do.

If getting a random cryptic message with no details from you via a stranger's blackberry is what you feel is sufficient for me, then I will respond in kind.

As I was given no courtesy or any sort of effort on this one - and the time is significantly later tonite than the time you originally told me three days ago- I don't feel compelled to make an effort of my own to come pick you up.

I'm communicating this to you via my blog. It's about as personal and direct as you were today. I can't drive the two miles to the airport in your own car to pick you up. Really, I can't. I'm busy. Really.


Words don't just mean something...actions do as well. You've said quite a bit today.

I am still really concerned

about Britney.

Crocs,the whopper-ho-ho diet and yacht hair

So why have I not been updating?

Gleefully happy? On vacation? Bored with nothing to say? Turning into a more private person suddenly?

It's a little of all those but mostly that I am just lazy as shit.

So what have I done and seen in the past month? Here are some random thoughts:

1. What the fuck is up with these Croc shoes? They are ugly as shit. I cannot believe that people leave the house to go out in public wearing them. They look like something you should wear out while gardening, but I am seeing them everywhere. EVERYWHERE. My parents wear them. (Ugh just another sign that they too are turning into old people right before my eyes.) My daughter now has a pair and won't take them off except to occasionally bathe or sleep. My uber cool "I really only like to wear Theory or Diane von Furstenburg" sister is wearing them. Jack Nicholson, not that he's any style maven, is seen wearing them in US weekly. I saw them all over DC and Atlanta. Always on white people though. Silly white folks.
2. Washington DC is really full of geeks. I always knew this, growing up in suburban DC. But I looked around a certain bar two weekends ago in Adams Morgan and the thought lit up my brain like a bunsen burner in an 11th grade chem lab. DC in the summer is full of smart kids who come to intern who aren't particularly socially graceful or remotely attractive. (Especially the guys.) Nerds love DC! It is a town where the nerdy guy that you used to pick on in the locker room now has the upper hand, and he's eventually going to grow up and get well connected and over-educated and legislate you right into the middle class, tough guy. And although at 21 he looks terribly nerdy and most closely resembles a pre-pubescent 14 year old, he will, one day, be an attractive 35 year old lobbyist in a Brooks Brothers suit. With a hot skinny wife. And you, cool high school guy, will have a gut and be a balding Nascar fan with receding hair and a terribly under-funded 401k. And your wife is named Tammi (with an 'i') who may have been hot when she was 19 but right now her diet consists of whoppers and ho-hos.
3. Joan Didion's book, The Year of Magical Thinking, is a really really great book on CD to listen to on a long road trip. If you don't mind crying your eyes out every 10 miles or so.
4. When I met one of my BF's friends this past weekend in Atlanta, all I could think as I was making small talk with him was:

My god, he's got the best yacht hair I've ever seen...

(Yes, yes he does)

24 hour party people

Apologies for being absent. Been uber busy since the party, both at work and on weekends with traveling.

So the party. The Party. I must admit that the day or so leading up to The Party I was incredibly terribly I'm getting my period and have turned into a screaming banshee stressed. Mostly because few, and I mean like only 4 out of over 50, people invited had declined.

I made the infernal party mistake of inviting a number of people based upon the idea that at least 25% of them (or more) wouldn't be able to attend. Weekend in the summer, people on vacay, oh-its-going-to-rain and I don't leave my house people were factored in. Nobody commits these days. Damnit if everyone commited. By Friday morning I realized I was fucked, as my house cannot hold 50 people and it was indeed going to rain.

Lucky for me I had the most excellent party rental place in Raleigh. They rocked. And the accomodated some very last minute additions to my rental.

So The Day of The Party was itself a party. Rock star and gal pal arrived in the morning. The rental party people had set up everything before 11 (the tent, the bar/the tables/chairs/glasses) so we just needed to focus on the food and getting the house ready. This meant spending the day smoking cigarettes and gossipping, all the while accomplishing all our party tasks before 5.

That may have been as much fun as the party. Which reminds me of all the times in my life living with my sister or roommates or boyfriends when sometimes the getting ready/pre-party/drinking before you go uptown/downtown/to Buckhead/to the Highlands/to Five Points/to Shockhoe Slip/to Georgetown/insert your favorite part of town here is equally as good as the fun had on the town.

But I digress.

My awesome friends D/T/J showed up to prepare the bar, as they were the volunteer bartenders, around 6:00. And the party officially started.

Guests began arriving around 6:45 - even though the invite said 7 - as fashionably late wasn't going to work for a surprise party. I worried how Hottie's mom would react to the whole drink menu we had published:

Mombanger

But a quick convo with me owning up to the fact that the joke was on me being a mom and not her cleared it up. Phewwww! Awkward conversation #1 complete.

The guests arrived in droves between 7 and 7:15. The house was staggeringly full. The guest of honor arrived at 7:30 with friends and was pleasantly surprised. He knew something was up, but not something of the magnitude to which we planned. And there were several out of town guests that made considerable effort to attend which surprised the hell out him! His face, as he looked around the room at all of these people (from work, from high school, from college) was worth all of the effort.

People began drinking in earnest after his arrival. The Mombanger was a favorite, but the old fashioneds we had on the menu (Mrs. Robinsons) were a hit with the older crown who "hadn't had them served to them in years" apparently.

The tent and bar was the place to be - especially for smokers - who seemed to multiply as the night wore on.

No personal drama - except I was a little buzzed and forgot about the birthday cakes til about 9. Crisis averted thanks to Gal Pal who was drinking more than me but still somehow managed through her Mombanger haze, to get those cakes out.

There was not really any party drama to speak of. No lamp shades on the head. No dancing on the tables. No one hooking up who hadn't already schemed or planned all week to hook up. Perhaps not so curiously, Rock Star and Vegas disappeared into my spare room at 10 never to be seen again.

There was an admission by an attendee at the party that he had separated from his wife. There was another admission from an attendee that things were going well with her boyfriend. In both cases I was shocked. And here is awkward conversation #2 and #3: Two of my friends separately asked if my boobs had grown in the past few months. (Ha! How does one answer that?) I just replied with a quick smile and a, "Yeah, aren't they fabulous?!"

That's as juicy as it gets. Yawn.

Most people left by 11:30. A core group of about 10 stayed til after 2:00. Too many cigarettes. A lot of mess. Too many Mombangers. I don't want to leave the impression that it was boring or ho hum. It was a great party.

Hottie and I had super fabulous a after-party upstairs in the bedroom. I didn't sleep much.