The Velvet in Dupont Summer Vocabulary List

• Annoying - When Mr. X leaves you by yourself to go get a cup of coffee and you’re standing around with your thumb up your ass and your ex-boyfriend walks by and acts like outside the pet store a block from where you live would be the last place he’d expect to see you, and has a conversation with you.
• Predictable - When your ex-boyfriend emails you after the encounter to say that it was good to see you, that it wasn’t awkward at all, and that “the dogs look good.” (Do dogs ever look different? Do they ever have a bad hair day? I mean, really.)
• Stupid - That you respond to this email because you find it mystifying that your ex-boyfriend would even be in your neighborhood and you sort of want to know why. You also decide to mention that you are happy he ran off so quickly as you were waiting on someone, knowing that will encourage him to write back to tell you that he probably replaced you seven minutes after emailing two of your closest friends asking them if they could “talk some sense into you.”
• Newsworthy - When you mention to a friend that you bumped into said ex, a person she despises, and you casually say, “WTF was he doing over here?”
• Uncomfortable - That he replies and says he “lives around the corner,” and that he is now a “we” too, as if being a “we” is the be-all, end-all to a successful life.
• Sad - That you know his need to not be alone trumps his ability to ever recognize any genuine feelings for another.
• Shocking - That you live around the corner, and now he claims he lives around the corner, so what gives?
• Crafty - That your friend manipulates google and finds out that he bought a house with his girlfriend.
• Unbe-fucking-lievable - That the address of that house is exactly 1.5 blocks away from you.
• Irritating - That he saw fit to buy a house this close to where you live.
• Coincidental - That it doesn’t take very long for him to cross your path again, at a red light, where he rolls down the window.
• Creepy - The smile on his face from ear to ear.
• Obligation - Despite the fact that you are in the midst of an x-rated text with Mr. X, you feel like this is your chance to say something about what you know.
• Grey Poupon Commercial - Where you speak to the person next to you at the red light to ask them a question.
• “Ya-got-me” shrug - What he does when you say, “So I guess you live in my neighborhood now.”
• Rolling Up Window - What you do after you say your part.
• Sorry - What you feel for his girlfriend now.
• Consolation - What you and Mr. X have, in each other, as each of you deal with your issues with exes.
• Peace - What you have in your life now, that you didn’t have during that time.
• Trash - The place where you can finally put your anxiety meds.
• A lie - What you wrote about here, because you knew that if you didn’t write otherwise, that you would really hear the shit.
• Compromise - What you had to do to your creative outlet in order to keep peace in a relationship.
• Drama - Something you no longer know anything about.
• A revelation to longtime readers - That a couple days after you wrote the above link, the two of you broke up because he threw a pile of dirt at you. That he used his key to come into your house. That you threatened, for the only time ever in your life, to call the cops. That you drove cross-country and back to finally break the tie.
• Weak - That you actually questioned your decision half way to Phoenix.
• Confirmation - That your original decision to leave was in fact, correct.
• Obvious -That you know that he has been checking this since your pet store encounter to see if you write about him.
• Satisfaction - That you are in love, really in love, and that you were probably in love with Mr. X for most of the relationship prior, that you used to think about Mr. X when you were having sex with the prior and that the ex knows that you know what he did in moving to your neighborhood, and that it’s someone else’s problem now.

I understand that my work dramas have become a source of entertainment for you. I’ll have you know though, that I am currently shifting my mood to the darkside. Yes, I’ve decided that this place is just the right combination of hilarious and dysfunctional that it might be a place I can call…home.

Let’s review my last five days at the Vortex.

Wednesday we found out that through an acquisition our company will quintuple. But we’re only hiring a couple more people. Yay.

Thursday I got to work and saw this in the parking lot.

You didn’t need anything else from me on Thursday, did you?

Friday I received a phone call 5 minutes before I was going to leave saying that “this, this and this” need to be finished before you go. Christ.

Monday I had to return 45 phone calls being directed to me now because of some other drama, each call taking between 10 and 12 minutes and each call being the same exact conversation. In addition, I received an email that “this and this” (unrelated to Friday’s “this and this”) needed to be done by close of business Monday. The “this and this” will take approximately 4 days to complete. There were 6 hours left in the workday when I received this email. I responded: “It’s nice to have dreams.”

Tuesday a meeting was held in the conference room next to my office. I distinctly heard someone tell the person who reports to them to do something. Then I distinctly heard that person throw everything down and proclaim, “NO! I’M NOT DOING IT! IT’S NOT MY JOB!!!” Then she stormed out of the office. I’m still unclear as to her current employment status.

Yesterday I received a letter soliciting donations from one Washington Humane Society. Do you know what I did with that letter? The same thing I do with all their solicitations. I ripped it in half and threw it in the trash.

You may be scratching your chin right now and saying to yourself, “But you love animals! You have two doggies who are the loves of your life.” And you would be right. However. There’s always a however with me. I never tie this up in two short paragraphs, do I?

However. Last fall when my wonderful friend Holly from Homeward Bound came to D.C. from Atlanta with an animal caravan, there was one dog left which I kept with me to find it a home. A lady had been very interested, but was afraid to separate the dog from her brother. I kept the dog in the hopes of finding this lady, which I eventually did.

However. In the interim of finding that lady, I emailed the chick writing the Washington Humane Blog asking if she would be so kind as to post the dogs profile to help me find it a home.

She said no.

No I’m not kidding.

She fucking said no.

Why? Because she “only blogs about dogs currently in their shelter.”

Okay, so, you work for a rescue group, but you are still self-serving for your own agenda? You can find justification in telling me to go fly a kite, that my foster dog doesn’t count? What if I just dropped it off at your shelter? Then would you blog about it? Christ.

Then I clicked on their crap in the live feed and saw this. So you can’t post about a foster dog who needs a home because you “don’t handle dogs not in your shelter” but you can post about your CO-WORKER’S lost dog and yet that somehow qualifies under your rule structure?

Give me a break lady. Seriously. Take the Wash Humane name off of it and just make it a personal blog. Then you can blog on wherever the wind blows. But once you purport to be doing the mission of Washington Humane, then all your public actions must follow suit.

Hypocrite.

What do you get when I drink 4 shots of tequila and 5 beers? Me–naked on your doorstep.

That’s right kids. I was in rare form last weekend.

The Canuck and I joined Hockey Buddy and his wife and her coworkers at a local joint. Now you see, the ladies had been at the bar drinking since after work so they were already 6 shots into the evening and quite adamant that we catch up.

Not one to even let the word “tequila” enter my brain much less my blood stream, I should have seen it coming.

We caught up on shots and someone drove us home and then…

Another contributing factor to the scenario (not at least due to the booze) was the fact that it’s been very hot here in Pennsyltuckey. VERY hot. DC hot. sticky, muggy, I-Wish-I-Had-Air-Conditioning hot. So I wore this very cute, short, easy-to-remove (obviously) sundress that I love to wear when it’s that hot.

We get back to the Canuck’s apartment and while he’s getting the key in the door (which took some time) I decided to take off my dress. My shoes had been long gone and the dress came off quite easily (which is not always the case. Sometimes we have to cut/rip/wiggle things off me). Then I realized I wasn’t wearing anything under it. Oopsie.

So there I stand on his doorstep for all of Hershey to see. Now had this been in DC SOMEONE at that exact moment would have definitely been out walking their dog or stumbling home themselves. SOMEONE would have been a witness. After all the times I got caught by my fellow Dog Parkers doing the walk of shame!! But noooooooooo…I live in Nowhereville. Not even a stray cat or foraging bunny got a looksie. Hardly worth it!!!!

When the lock cooperated and the Canuck turned to let me in, he let loose a look that would have scared Wes Craven. He was horrified and shoved me inside as fast as he could fumbling to find where I flung my clothes and purse.

I, of course, don’t remember much. Definitely not anything that was said (if anything was said). But at least the whole thing was a really fast catalyst to foreplay, a blow job on the stairs and sex before we reached the landing!

The next day there was no discussion about The Incident. Let’s just say he’s gotten better at keeping one eye on me at all times and improved his skills with keys.

Velvet should I tell them the story from this week about waking up with my panties around my knees? Or do you want to fill that in here yourself?

My week shaped up a little better and ended with a nice long weekend with my favorites: Mr. X and my doggies.

It amazes me that I wrote a dating blog for so many years. Where did I find the energy? In the spirit of finding the right formula for weeding the weeds and finding the good ones, I subjected myself to all sorts of challenges: Going on as many first dates as possible but no seconds. Giving everyone a second chance. Not ruling someone out on a prescribed list of qualities I want. Ruling them out for having qualities I didn’t want. Thinking of all the approaches, all the iterations, all the advice, all the drama, it tires me. Especially when I can tell anyone who asks, that from where I sit…

All the cliches about finding love are true.

1) Be Yourself
I knew Mr. X for four years before we ever took a step in the romantic direction. Hindsight being 20/20, I often wish I could take back some of the stories I told him about my escapades with other men. But, I know that it’s the stories and their content which shaped me into who I am, and who I am is a person who he wants to be with, so did I really make a mistake in being myself?

My parents routinely tortured my brothers and I to “go to church.” There’s no way that my ideal man is at church on a Sunday morning. He’s either sleeping, or he’s working out, but I know he is not at church. And if I met him at church, you know what he would say to me once I tricked him into believing hangovers were a better way to spend Sunday mornings? “My mother wonders why don’t we go to church anymore.” Yeah. That’s a problem. Because MY mother taught me that church was a place to poach a husband. And my dad taught me that it’s a place to get free coffee. It would be a bad idea to pick someone up there, because they would always think I was religious in some way.

2) You don’t “find” love. It finds you - when you are least expecting it
Sure, there are some of you out there who put a profile up on Match or JDate and found the love of your life. You were looking and you found it. This applies to most of my friends, as a matter of fact, who are currently in love. Consider yourself really really lucky. I met my first love in a chat room. In 1997. So I’m not unconvinced it can happen, but as with everything, online life has become much more complicated. Everyone’s got their own agenda and you really have to wonder how people are successful at all in finding each other. Chalk it up to timing.

After the end of a trainwreck of a relationship, one of my best friends said, “Why don’t you take a break from dating for 6 months? I don’t want to hear anything about anyone for 6 months, can you do that?” Sure. I agreed. Hell, that was easy, I was off the hook. I was trading in my heels and lip gloss for flip flops and hoodies. That was a challenge I was more than happy to accept. I had my answer ready to anyone who asked, “I’m just not dating right now.” So easy! Why didn’t I think of that before?

One month later, I heard from an old friend who heard a rumor about me. A juicy rumor of which Mr. X and I were the subjects. I texted him to ask if he too heard this rumor. We hadn’t spoken in a while. He hadn’t heard the rumor. But the texting opened the door. It would have been easy to clarify the source of this rumor and close the door. But the door stayed open. I don’t know why, but it did. I didn’t slam it. Neither did he. And when the conversation turned from “Why do people think this” to “Maybe people think this for a reason” to “So is there something here we need to explore?” then there was a lot more that needed to be discussed.

3) Fall in love with your best friend
I already mentioned that I knew Mr. X for four years before we ever discussed “us” in any romantic context. But it isn’t just about knowing someone, it’s about knowing them. Hot Neighbor asked me how Mr. X and I were able to shift into a passionate place after being in the “friend zone” for so long. I don’t know how we could not have done this, by the time we ripped each other’s clothes off it seemed so normal.

Dating just somehow lends itself to people being either too guarded or too open. I tended toward the former in my years of dating, but I definitely heard there were plenty of the latter. {”I can’t wait to have kids” is not an acceptable statement on a first date. Or a second. Or a third. Yes, really!}

I knew things about Mr. X before he recognized them and admitted them to himself. He knows things about me that I haven’t said out loud to anyone, ever. When I point something out that he hasn’t admitted yet he says, “Get out of my head!” When he does the same to me I say, “Damn you!” We learned those things about each other long before anyone was trying to make a “good impression.”

I love when he swims around in my head and I rather love doing the backstroke inside his.

Patsy doesn’t know this but G-man told me a similar story at their rehearsal dinner. He said Patsy was the girl he just wanted to talk to about everything all the time. She was his best friend. He was hers. Now they is hitched, having babies for welfare dollars and living in Texas dagnabbit. Sorry. I went a little far with that. They are not on welfare, but they are not averse to eating at Babe’s Chicken House.

4) You “just know.”
You do. You have to be really good at listening to your instincts, but you should “just know.” (Unless you’re that person who “just knows” with everyone who trots along.)

If you wonder, then it isn’t right.

If you think, “If only he would…” it isn’t right.

If you say, “I love her, but…” then it isn’t right.

If you say, “This person makes my heart sing. They make me feel alive, better, and happier. Life without them would suck. When I see them, when they put their arms around me, when I kiss them, I feel like everything is just going to be all right,” then you know.

~~~~~

The thing is, you can listen to other people’s best advice on how to find the person you are supposed to be with. You can listen to all the tips, tricks, strategies. You can get set up on dates. You can set yourself up on dates. But you know what? All the stuff that make the cliches are founded in truth. For really good reasons.

Which cliches did I miss?