Velvet in Dupont

Attacking Life with Comedic Jaws of Sarcasm. Recovering Dating & Relationship Blogger - Made it to Step 12 When I Got Married.

Page 2 of 12

Still the Same

Attention deficit disordered post coming your way tonight.

Lily Update:
OMG OMG OMG. By some stroke of luck (or fate, since neither Lily nor I believe in “God”) she has a major lead on something that just might get her the hell out of the Vortex. I don’t want to say too much for fear of the big-jinx, in which I also believe. Yes. You read that correctly. I believe in fate and jinxes, but not in God. I also believe that one day that vintage Halston jumpsuit will be mine, though I’ve never been able to find it anywhere. Anyway, if this Lily thing works out the way we’re hoping, she could actually exact the ultimate revenge. Do not fuck with the woman who is 9 months pregnant!

The Story I Was Going to Tell About Last Weekend Before Work Sucked Me Up and Spit Me Out:
X and I went out to Delaware last Saturday. Our community was having a little soiree at the firehouse. (Don’t ask.) After my long awaited debut-diatribe on the community message boards, I garnered myself a following. I had communicated with a couple people, one of whom asked me to come to this get-together. In a rare moment very unlike him, X agreed.

When we walked in to the party we realized two things. 1) We were several decades well below the average age of attendees, (X said I should be in good company since I “like my men older,”) and 2) We did not have enough beer. Lucky for us it’s a small town and the liquor store happens to be attached to the firehouse. I didn’t bring my wallet so I had to take X’s and leave him alone with a guy and his “houseguest.” Houseguest is apparently a Delaware euphemism for gay gay gayety gay gay. Leave it to us to go all the way out there and meet the gay neighbor and his “houseguest,” who happens to live in Adams Morgan. When I got to the liquor store I got ID’d. Busted! I showed the guy some gray hair and convinced him I wasn’t 21. He said, “I don’t know, you look 24 to me.”

Then I gave him X’s Debit card and he said, “Are you his wife?” I lied. Then he said, “Well you’ll have to do debit because you would have to sign for credit. Do you know his pin?”

A little bubble appeared over my head and took me back to the day last winter where I helped X move out of his old place to where he lives now. X sent me off to the ATM to get money for the movers. At the time, there was discussion of his pin being his ex-wife’s birthday. He said he would change it to my birthday.

Back to the liquor store. The guy says, “You need to get the pin right or the sale won’t go through.” I sat there debating – did X change his pin or not? I didn’t have my cell so I couldn’t call him and I was too lazy and buzzed to walk back over to the party without the beer. I said to the liquor store dude, “Well, here goes. It’s either my birthday or his ex-wife’s.” So I picked. I heard that telltale register tape cranking away, indicating I chose the right pin.

The guy at the liquor store said, “Well? Which birthday was it?” I said, “The Ex wife’s. Can you believe that shit? How old did you say I looked? I might have to come back here later.”

Tomorrow:
I have JURY DUTY! YAY!!!! I’ve never been so excited to have jury duty! I hope they pick me and put me on a three week trial! Wish me luck!

You Were Quicker Than They Thought

This entire week has been a bit of a clusterfuck. I think I’ve spent more time on the phone with people discussing work than I’ve actually been at work. X really thinks I work at the inspiration for “The Office.”

It took a year and a half but I am fed up. And I’m on the other side now – which is fine, because the “other side” is like an old pair of college sweatpants. I remember it, yet, it’s been so long! I can only get here with the exact prescription of equal parts of busting my ass and getting screwed over. Let’s see, when was the last time this happened? Shady land developer in Maryland? Check. Drunken boss at Archstone Smith? Check. Psychotic drug addicts at Calvin Klein Buying Offices? Check check check.

Let’s see…what happened to all those people at those jobs?

Land Developer: Currently filing bankruptcy on roughly a dozen projects to avoid having to cough up judgments against him that total probably $25 million dollars. Now see that the courts are garnishing his bank accounts. I. Feel. So. Sorry. For. You. Cough.

Archstone Smith Boss: Not sure of her whereabouts. Damn google, don’t fail me now. Though I believe the second “A” in “AA” stands for Anonymous. So maybe she sobered up and I just can’t find it online.

Calvin Klein: Division I worked with eventually folded and ceased doing business. The only sweet non-jaded person there became a namesake of the very successful high end Lambertson Truex brand. Well done. Calvin Klein, on the other hand, over licensed his name so much that I think it holds as much value as this booger I just picked out of my nose.

Can someone pass me a tissue?

Anyway, people always get what is coming to them. Or they live miserable lives because they are just so despicable. Let me give a bit of history on the current spectacle going on at work:

My very dear friend at work, Lily, with whom I have bonded over many things – not the least of which is her marrying into a nutjob Greek family (uh, hello, this script was written for me) is going through a crisis of mega-proportions. Let’s see. How shall I put this? A show of hands, please. How many of you would like to be 8 & 1/2 months pregnant and married to the love of your life?

My friend has been out of the office on and off since the summer. When she finally came back after a long absence she told me the heart wrenching truth about what was going on. Now, how about if I asked you the same question as above with one postscript – How many of you would like to be 8 and 1/2 months pregnant and married to the love of your life who has been told he only has 3 months to live? I see the hands all went down.

I told X. He and I were back and forth on the phone all day saying, “What the fuck are we doing? What are we waiting for?” He would call back and say, “I can’t stop thinking about Lily.” To say that something in someone else’s life changed ours is an understatement. We put our plans together and have specific timelines for how they must unfold. But that is a story for another day.

Back to my friend. When she came back to work after the absence and finally told me the whole saga, we obviously bonded a lot more.   When Lily would come into the office I would go over to check up on her. On one particular day I was over in her office for 45 minutes. This apparently pissed several people off, including her boss, Bipolar Betty. It happened a month ago, yet, it has put into motion a whole series of events, each one stupider than the last, that it is really hard to believe that this sort of bullshit even goes on in the lives of adults.

The funniest part of all of this is that our company has the nerve to persecute Lily and I for one 45 minute conversation on a day when neither of us took a lunch anyway, and yet, people see fit to take 5 cigarette breaks a day at 10 minutes a shot, also take a lunch, leave early, and stand around most of the day talking. Yet, for us, this stupid shit of this one day that happened over a month ago, keeps coming up. The other day I was in her office for 10, maybe 12 minutes tops, and there were allegedly multiple “complaints” that people couldn’t find me for over an hour and that we were in there talking about nothing for an hour. The funniest part is that we were talking about work related things. So now Lily and I have come out swinging, fighting about all the bullshit and comments people are making.   There are so many convoluted lies in all of this that it’s just become reminiscent of middle school drama.

So today, during our monthly birthday celebration, with the whole company stuffed into the conference room, I waited for Lily to walk in and I said, “Oh, it’s YOU. DON’T TALK TO ME. I wouldn’t want anyone to say that because we talked for 1 minute that we were in the conference room making out for an hour and a half.” She got her piece of cake and when she made chatter with someone next to her I said, “That’s just about enough. You have been in here for hours. Get back to your desk. I’m going back to mine because it’s been too long now in the same room with you.”

She sent me an email telling me she loved me. I called her (because I don’t trust our email much like I don’t trust anything else or anyone else there) and said, “It’s like the jerk store now. I keep thinking of more things I’m going to say.'” She said, “Everyone heard you.” I said I didn’t think they did but she said she’s sure both my boss and hers heard.

Good. GOOD. I’m so happy about that. They have no idea what happens to people who fuck with me without provocation.

I hope that no one needs those two drawers of files I threw out yesterday or the year’s plus worth of emails I deleted today. Someone said to me this afternoon: “Your office is looking suspiciously clean.” Oh? Is it? Gee. I wonder what goodies the trash can will get tomorrow! I’m giddy with anticipation!

Do you know what the worst part of this whole thing really is? It’s not the pettiness or the 45 minutes of lost work time or the backstabbing tattletails. It’s the fact that Lily’s going through a major situation that no one else at work is going through, and probably will never go through, and they can’t seem to dig deep into their hearts and find some fucking compassion and understanding. That has to be the most unforgivable part of this.

The Trick You Said, Was Never Play the Game Too Long

Every time something noteworthy happens to me, I swear I’m going to sit down and put it into words. My life with X is so good. It is just so good. We have everything in place, all our plans lined up like neat little ducks, hovering delicately at that place of dropping the first domino. But then. But, then.

Work comes up behind me and swallows me like a drunken sailor on shore leave, rips me several new assholes, reminds me why it’s better that people don’t carry concealed weapons and laughs in my face that drugs are still, sadly, illegal. Because if I ever needed them at a time in my life, I’d say it’s right about…….now. It’s just not good. It’s sucking the life out of me. Eight hours seems like twelve. And yet, much like they seem to like to remind us, the economy is bad and where the hell is anyone getting a job these days? Yeah. I know, I know.

The problem with all this is the ducks – those plans X and I have. And those plans really don’t lend themselves to a job change at this point. I thought I could hang in for another year. But now looking down the barrel of 12 months and hoping to make it to the other end feels about as promising as Three’s Company coming back to Prime Time. I don’t know how I’m going to make it.

I   have had conversations with X. I have had conversations with friends, both inside work and out. I have had a conversation with myself. I’m not sure how much longer I can take it. It sucks the life out of me, it sucks the writing out of me.   I had a great story about X and I from the weekend and ugh. I can’t get there right now.

There comes a point in your life where putting up with unbelievable amounts of shit all week while counting the days to Friday or a day off seems stupid. The fact that I got Jury Duty and actually jumped up and down at the mailbox at the thought of possibly getting picked for a trial and not having to go to work is sad. You get old and you realize life is too short and that you have worked for too long to deal with other people’s disorganization and incompetence affecting you. You realize you could start businesses (or join businesses) with really good friends and that that just may be a better way to pass time and make money than working for the man.

I wish I could say that I have excuses.

“Oh, but I need to save more money.” (I don’t.)

“Oh, but there’s going to be a Christmas bonus.” (I doubt there will be.)

“Oh, but it’s so scary to not have a regular paycheck.” (It is. But the hostile work environment is scarier.)

I just need to take a leap. I need to not look back to make sure someone is still holding the back of the bike. It’s time. Now, to psych myself into it, set a timeline and put the plan in motion.

Do the Chairs in Your Parlor Seem Empty and Bare?

X and I took Number 1 and Number 2 out to the beach this weekend. Never ones to let teenage kids get in the way of our planned activities, X and I really redefined good-parenting when we took the kids to a bar. “Zzzlong as the youngins keep four feet from the bar, I reckon it’s fine.” At least, that’s the rule in Delaware.

After we ordered dinner, some decrepit lady, whose back looked like a U-Ring, stumbled over to tell X that he looked like her son. X and I both looked at each other with a stunned look of surprise because, you see, X was adopted. He has attempted, thus far unsuccessfully, to find his birth mother. It only took this woman a second to spit this out before she turned around and went back to her table. We both sat there with our mouths open.

Me: Oh my god it’s your birth mother!
X: Stop that.
Me: Come on! It could be her!
Number 2: Wasn’t she like 16 when she had Dad?
X: Yeah, and I was her second child!
Number 2: So, could that lady be, um….

At this point Number 2 trailed off to do the math to add X’s age and 16.   He never did get back to us with the answer. Stupid private school.

I just couldn’t let this go. I looked over at the lady and suddenly it was like looking in a mirror. X has very distinct eyebrows. Even in his baby pictures, he has the same eyebrows that he has now. It’s actually pretty funny how that arch just stayed in place all these….Number 2? Are you done with that math yet? How many years?

Anyway. Back to the Birth Mother.

She kept looking at X, and I said, “Do you think it’s possible this lady is your mom?” X said, “Yeah. I do.”

I looked back at her. I just got this feeling and I practically demanded that X go over and talk to her. We ate and he agreed to go over and try to get some more clues. He was over there for a while. I probably should have mentioned earlier that there was Karaoke in full swing by this point. By “full swing,” I mean there were three people on the rotation, including the D.J.

Some tall drink of water country bumpkin with ducks ass feathered gray hair decided to take his opportunity behind the mic to sing Elvis’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”   Right about the time X was getting into it with the U-Ring Birth Mother, there’s the Kenny Rogers, pointing in her face, screaming, “Are You Lonesome Tonight???” Ugh. Stupid Delaware. Stupid fucking useless Delaware. Don’t even get me started on the conversation I had with Boss Hogg on my property tax bill.

I wish that I could have pulled that moron aside and said, “Do you mind? He just found his birth mother, here in this shit hole bar, that we’ve taken his teenage sons to, in this shit hole neighborhood where I’ve bought a house and now feel like I’m in Harper Valley/Mayberry Hell in Hazard County. Back off, Stretch.”

As it turns out, X couldn’t get enough information from her to get anything other than the fact that her father was from North Jersey – which doesn’t match up to what we know about where his mother was from. However, based on her age, and the age of her son, I firmly believe that she could be X’s aunt – whether it’s her brother who is X’s father, or her sister who is his mother is obviously unclear, but this I’m sure of. Because I do believe in fate and I don’t believe in chance encounters.

You’ve Done Your Sowing, Now You Can Do Your Reaping, Maybe You Should Have Thought About That When You Were Cheatin’

Some poor schmuck was standing on an intersection at Tyson’s today, holding this sign:

 

“I Cheated. This is my Punishment.”

Well played to the girlfriend. Very well played.

Only when you know the pain caused by cheating will you cease to ever do it again. I broke a heart when I cheated, and so I never did it again. Even when I should have.

 

Keep Your Hands to Yourself

While I may not have newspaper clippings to show you, I did have a strange weekend. Though I would like to do it all over again and this time do less something and more nothing.

I kicked off the weekend by stopping by my favorite waxer. Cube has the best ticket in town on this by the way so you’ll have to suck up to her if you want to know who it is. Since I finally bagged on going to the lunatic Thai lady, I’ve had relatively uneventful waxing experiences. Not Friday though.

Shameless me, I’m taking off my underwear, and Sandra (the waxer) says: So, I’m being investigated.
Me:
What? Why?
Sandra:
Someone reported me. A detective came to see me.
Me:
Why? Someone got home and realized their pubic hair was missing?
Sandra, laughing:
You are so bad!
Me:
You really shouldn’t open with this line, by the way. But, this I gotta hear. What did you get reported for?
Sandra:
Inappropriate touching.
Me:
Well, I’ll turn my head and you can touch me as inappropriately as you want. I think my boyfriend will want to come next time to watch though.
Sandra:
You are making me laugh! Stop!
Me:
So what did you tell the detective.
Sandra: Well, I had to explain the process and you know how after you rip the strip off you push on the skin like this? (She then demonstrates on my pubic bone.)
Me: Oh yes Sandra!!!! Do it again!!!!

Sandra is in full hysterics now. The long story short on this is that some idiot buffoon reported her for this “inappropriate touching.” As someone who has been demanding Brazilians since 1998 when they didn’t even do them in regular salons, I have to say this: people, if you are the least bit embarrassed by having your privates touched, you should probably play volleyball instead of opting for a Brazilian.

I left, grabbed the loves of my life Sammy and Thora, and drove out to meet X at the beach. Because he got there a day before I did, he was able to scout out a new bar, with a new megatouch, very close to the house. This is very exciting. Six Bud Lights (for me) and four Rum and Cokes (for him) and our bill totaled $31.50. Are. You. Kidding. Me.   I ripped off my hoop skirt and screamed, “As God as my Witness, I will never drink in Washington D.C. again!!!!”

I’m actually not kidding about the skirt part…it seems that through an altercation with a faulty tampon, I ruined my Lucky Jeans skirt!!! I ripped off the skirt and came home in my underwear, which, not surprisingly, was in worse condition. X said, “Oh boy, we’re going to be on the message boards tomorrow…I can see it now…’girl walking around community in underwear.'”

Sometimes the old Velvet just comes out and rears her head and cannot be stopped.

Saturday I spent what was supposed to be three hours at a salon getting that Brazilian Keratin thing that’s all the rage. Seven hours and $500 later, I have straight hair. However, I’m not satisfied with the place where I got it done, mostly because they doubled the price from their original “estimate” and because it took so long. But I’m also not pleased because the lady who owns the place is one of those annoying people I’ve fortunately had to encounter so rarely in my life.

She hits you when she’s talking to you. I don’t even have friends who do this to me, but for a stranger to tell you a story and to keep smacking your forearm, it’s annoying. It’s really annoying. So I wanted to take that $100 an ounce Brazilian product and shove it in her face because I was so annoyed. X said quite aptly, “I can only imagine you sitting there for 7 hours wondering if they knew what they were doing, and hating this lady. I’m sure you’ll never go back there again.”

I think he’s right. She actually offered to do a touch-up for free because of “price-gate 2009” but I don’t even know if that’s worth it. I should have sucked it up and gone to the mega expensive palace in Georgetown that does it. Well. You get what you pay for. Now. To get rid of these bruises on my forearms…

I Read the News Today Oh Boy Part 3

X and I are running through the last weekends of our summer by going to the beach as much as possible. I do love that newspaper so much. When I wake up around 9:30, and X is returning home with bagels and the Cape Gazette, I’m giddy with excitement. Because I know, inside that cover, there will be many many things to laugh about.

There’s a new publishing firm out at the beach! Maybe I can get my life saga published by them. There are no words for this one…

There was also a sandcastle contest. Um…hopefully this isn’t your mom or your girlfriend.

And finally, a recipe for you to enjoy. Pay attention. I’d hate for you to pick up one fruit thinking it was another.

 

Fruit Recognition FAIL.

Love, Look What You’ve Done to Me

Dear Lauren:

He and I walked down T Street toward each other, and both turned the same way heading north toward U Street. He was holding a bottle of wine and had a very heavy looking backpack strapped on him. I was right behind him until he veered off toward his apartment. He was obviously in a hurry.

When he pulled his keys out of a side pocket of his backpack and jumped up the stairs to his building in one swift move, he didn’t see the piece of paper that fell out on to the ground. It fluttered back and forth like a leaf until it landed right in front of me on the brick sidewalk.

It said: Lauren. (202) XXX-XXXX.

I yelled up to him, “Hey, you dropped something. Do you need this paper?” He looked confused for a split second, until his face formed a look of relief I haven’t seen since 1999, when my then-boyfriend only saw one pink line show up in the window.

He said, “Thank you. Oh my God, thank you so much.”

I said, “No problem. I saw it had a phone number on it. Figured you might need it.”

He thanked me again.

I rounded the corner on to U Street and just before I was out of sight, I heard him yell one more time, “Thank you so much.”

He’s welcome. And he better call you.

Wishing Happy Relationships For All of Dupont Circle,
Velvet in Dupont

Two Years

Dear X:

Two years ago from tonight was when we first turned the corner. Because we knew each other for so long prior to that fateful texting “conversation,” it seems like much longer than two years. I suppose you feel the same, as evidenced by your statement this morning, “I celebrate more than two years with you. Since the day I met you.”

Two years ago I don’t think I would have believed anyone if they said that yesterday, the last day of year two would be one of the most serious in our relationship thus far, that we would be involved a serious plan on when to have a child, that we would look at a house that we both fell in love with, that we would go to dinner and talk of the future – so far into the future, that all the past seems like it’s just so long ago.

I wouldn’t trade the last two years for anything and I can’t wait to see what the next two, or thirty, bring us.

I love you,

Me

You’re the Sun Who Makes Me Shine

Earlier:

X: I forgot to tell you! I had a dream about you last night!

V: Really? Was it about how you and #2 took my car to the car wash one afternoon and I stayed home and masturbated?

X: No. It was about…wait… Did you just do that while I was out washing your car?

V: Yes.

X: We weren’t gone that long!

V: It doesn’t take long. Besides, with kids and family visits, it’s just been too long. I got tired of waiting.

X: But the mattress guys came and delivered in that time frame too?

V: I know. I sped it along   when I heard the truck driving up the street.

X: Damn. You suck!

V: No. What sucks is they forgot the bed rails. So we have to drive out to the store in Rehoboth to get them.

X: Fuck!

Later:

#2: Velvet, Dad didn’t get all the bugs off your car because he didn’t want to pay for the triple foam wash.

V: How much would that have set you back?

X: Fifty Cents.

#2: V, I really have to question your taste in men.

To self: Bet the magic wand would spend 50 cents for a triple wash.

Higher Than a Kite, I Know I’m Getting Hooked On Your Love

X and I stayed in town this weekend. I wanted to begin the much awaited consolidation of households. This will be a long, slow, painful process if I don’t start really making headway, and fast. So in town we stayed and while I didn’t pack one single box, I do feel as though I did accomplish the tying up of some loose ends. Read: Selling things on Ebay and Amazon. Check out seller velvet13 if you want to bid on my porn. No. I’m not kidding…I’m also selling my doggie cameras. I’ve had enough. I’m done spying on the little fuckers. They can do what they want to my bed. They win.

The real reason we didn’t head to the beach was because X’s mommy wanted us to come over for crabs. Crabs turned into shrimp, but whatever. So we get up there and you just have to picture X’s little Greek Mom trying to feed the hell out of us. X put some shrimp on my plate and he said, “More?” I said, “No, that’s good.” There was an audible gasp. In fact, not only was it audible, it was LOUD. X’s mom was horrified. Lady please. Don’t make me fat like my yiayia’s! That shrimp was doing the backstroke in about three sticks of butter. I saw it. X saw it. My cholesterol went up 10 points just by being in the same room with it.

After X’s mom learned that keeping the inside temperature at 94 degrees wasn’t normal and we closed all the windows and turned on the air, the people next door came out into their yard and started playing some weird game. There were sticks and posts and throwing. It was like Bocce Ball, or cricket or something. I called it Polish Bocce Ball but curiosity got the best of X and he went out to find out what the game was. His foot had barely hit the first step off the porch and the door shut when his mother started about his ex. Holy shit. I don’t know which insult hit the air first but all I could do was nod and agree, agree and nod, and shove cake in my face. Until X came back in the house and there we were, sitting in the middle of an unfinished sentence about his ex. Well I guess it was all too much for his mother to take so she just kept going. And hey, let’s be honest. I certainly wasn’t going to stop her.

What I should have stopped, however, was my complete inhalation of the devil’s food bundt cake. Let’s see. I had a slice on a napkin. Then a slice on a plate. Then I started hacking away at it with the serving knife. Lest you think I wasn’t chatting while all these calories were going in my mouth, I was participating in the full range of insults X’s mom unleashed on X’s ex. For a brief second I thought, “Damn, I hope she doesn’t ever think or say things like this about me.” But then I had a follow up thought:

I’m Greek. I have total immunity.

So X’s mom said two things that made my sugar high unleash into full on tear spilling laughter. First, she said, “Does ex have a job?”

Shit I could not stop laughing.

Then she said, “She used to call here all the time and your father would have to go ring the doorbell so that I could tell her I needed to get off the phone to go see who was at the door.”

That woman is a god damned riot.

When X and I got back to my place we weren’t ready for the weekend to end. I’m sick of weekends ending. I’m ready to play house already.

Anyway. I’m on a Survivor kick. Enjoy.

I Read the News Today Oh Boy Part 2

It’s your favorite! Time to rip apart the local yocal beach paper from Delaware. It was a little harder this time to get the images off their website. X is convinced they are on to me. But I prevailed! I used a scanner! In some pictures I even underlined the parts of the items in question that I find so comical.

X couldn’t understand why a dead baby made me cackle for 10 minutes. It’s not the dead baby, it’s the fact that she couldn’t find the baby when she woke up! Or what about that she slept in bed with the baby to begin with. X, if we have babies, we will not hire a nanny from Delaware!!!

The police and fire wrap up includes the following two articles, side by side.

The burglar broke in to eat some Barbeque? That takes balls! And did it ever occur to them that the dead guy breaking into business might be the same one doing all the other burglarizing?

Oh, X, I found a place we can send the kids to camp!!

And just a happy little picture from some festival.  Am I the only one who think the mom and bear look…related?

Let’s stop in with Miss Manners and see what she’s up to. The second question is better than the first, which was inadvertently cut off slightly.

Why Miss Manners? Have you met Miss Bitter? Miss Bitter lives with Miss Miserable and Miss Alone.

Another great headline…

Where do you put your butt? Mine goes on the toilet. Sometimes it goes in X’s face, butt that’s for another time. Get it? Butt? Ha.

Last one. My favorite this week. Read the entire article. It’s just great.

The front bumper sentence made me cry I was laughing so hard. And that picture doesn’t show any jabbering with witnesses. It just shows him playing pocket pool.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sigh. This is what X and I are surrounded with when we head to the beach. There’s another newspaper out there but I can’t find it online and it’s too painful to scan this particular article I wanted to share. It would seem that someone in our subdivision (how dare they turn on me!) got themselves the lucky break to be writing a column for the locals!   I read it to X over the phone and he had to put me on hold to stab out his eyeballs.

 

 

I Wanna Take a Ride on Your Disco Stick

X and I had a great time in New York. We managed to escape each place containing my family just prior to an implosion. Because X and my parents rise before the roosters, there were several hours on Saturday and Sunday   morning where he was alone with them. Scary. Though, he did well.

I should probably say that the highlight of last Saturday was seeing my nieces in this unprovoked-by-adults act of sweetness in Central Park…

but…the day wasn’t over. X and I ate dinner in Little Italy, and that, like the Keys, are one of the memories we have that we talk about all the time. So, um, sorry nieces. You’re highlight #2. Being #2 isn’t so bad, is it? Well, too bad. Maybe you should try harder next time. Just try to outdo that Cannoli. Try. I dare you.

X and I left New York really late. In the Holland Tunnel I had these grandiose ideas about having sex when we got back home because you know I wouldn’t let him lay a finger on me at my parent’s house. But then we didn’t get back to his place until after midnight which put me home closer to 12:45 a.m. with work in the morning. No sex. Damn it. I had vowed we would make up for lost time by hopping in bed, but that wasn’t to be. We figured we would catch up for lost loving this past weekend but then we found out his kids and my friend would all be joining us at the beach house. Damn.

Unable to wait any longer, X and I closed the door and ripped off our clothes on Friday night. But then we realized it was just a little too noisy, and this is where things go awry. We got out of bed and went into the bathroom and turned on the shower to drown out the noise. I hopped up on the counter and we finished. Relief. Finally.

I slid off the counter and caught something on my hand. It was gooey. I said, “Um, was there a wayward shot?” He said, “Weren’t you in the room too?” I said, “Well, there’s something weird all over me. Turn on the light.”

X flipped on the light and there’s neon blue toothpaste (with mintstrips!) all over the vanity and all down the side of my leg. X? Did you need to brush your teeth? Just scrape the toothbrush against my thigh. Make sure you get some mint strips. Don’t miss the glob by my ankle.

I’m Taking a Greyhound on the Hudson River Line

Back to regularly scheduled programming.

X and I are going to New York this weekend. My brother and his family are in town and we’re meeting up with them at our designated place and time on their highly selective secret schedule. Since the beginning of time, my brother has this way of putting his family dead-last. We’re all used to this and we smile, nod, play with the nieces, then we all get on with our lives. Unfortunately for me but fortunately for X (because it’s entertaining to outsiders) the Greeks are already in major warfare. My parents are wayyyyy beyond smiling and nodding. They’re more so in the mood for tire slashing. I’ll have to keep the Ginzu knives away from them.

X is rather looking forward to this. We are staying with my parents, Gloom and Doom, in Connecticut. Much to my surprise, back in January that they overturned their prior rule that no unmarrieds can share a bed in their house. I think that, gasp, they are going to let us share a bed. Unbelievable. X said he can’t wait for this momentous occasion and he plans to commemorate it by sticking his dick in my ass. I said we will not be having any sex, anal or otherwise, in my parents house in my childhood bedroom. No. Fucking. Way.

X says, “We’ll see about that.”

Groan! Stay away from my sphincter!

He’s been reduced to negotiating by text.

This morning:

X: Ok. How about this. You can “dip” your own finger and put it in my mouth?
V: No.
X: Excuse me for being attracted to you! Okay, how about this? Masturbate with your panties on and then just hand them to me for the night.
V: Again, no!
X: Well this weekend should be good at 123 Asexual Lane.

X told his mother he was going to New York with me and we were staying with my parents. She said, “Oh, will you be talking to them about something when you’re up there?”

X played dumb. He asked what she was talking about.   She said, “A wedding.”

X had to respond that I’m all liberated and stuff, and I don’t believe in weddings.   Then she said something odd.

“Well Velvet looks like she’s ready and she told me that her mother said to not let me get away.”

X said, “My mother is hallucinating.”

I said, “You can bet your ass she is because my mother would never tell me not to let you get away. She’s lives her life believing that her children can always do better. Wait until you see how she treats my sister-in-law. That is, if she even bothers to show up.”

Should be fun!

Part 20: Finale; I Won’t Go, I Won’t Sleep, I Can’t Breathe, Until You’re Resting Here With Me

It’s the end but it’s not the end. This is the last piece of the story, but the story keeps going, and yes, the blog keeps going. Shutting down hasn’t occurred to me, at least not yet.   And I don’t have a big engagement ring picture to show you. While that would be a happy end to the “story,” it’s not my end. (Caution. Big Femmie speak coming.) These last four years of blogging were about empowering ourselves as women to weed through crappy men and not settle for less than the best. Somehow, making the story end with a big rock and a wedding seems like selling out to me, to you, to everyone. I’m more introspective than that. That’s a major reason I hate Sex and the City and all that those dumb bitches stand for. They pretend to stand for empowerment of women, but really, they spent six seasons chasing unworthy men and shopping. Not exactly role models for any of us or our daughters or nieces.

Thank you for taking the journey with me, and with us. X is the great love of my life, and I feel so fortunate to have found him, to have been found, to have found each other.

I could keep going because life keeps going. I could regale you with stories about an old girlfriend who showed up in X’s life and temporarily made ours miserable. I could go through the details on when the ex Mrs. X found out about me and how she turned all her children (you know, the ones he raised and supported but didn’t contribute his sperm to) against him in a flash. I could tell you that he genuinely didn’t care, and that was the ultimate in satisfaction for me and closure for him. But all of that is just life. The details aren’t always important.

The lyrics from one of my favorite songs comes to mind here:

There are places I’ll remember all my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments with lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living in my life I’ve loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers there is no one who compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning when I think of love as something new
Though I know I’ll never lose affection for people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them.
In my life I love you more.

I can’t lie and say that there aren’t conversations about marriage and babies, well, one baby, but we’re still trying to figure out where all of that stands. You know…we’re older. I’m 36. And sometimes I’m not sure if I have it in me to have a life with a baby in it now that I’m more set in my ways. And X is older than I am, and he’s been through the kid thing already. In five years, his kids could be off at college and we could have a nice simple life together. But in five years, when his kids are going off to college, we could be scouting around for a kindergarten class worthy of our prodigal child. I just don’t know which life we’ll have.

I was never that person who desperately wanted to be a mother. I know there are women out there who are maternally hard-wired. I’m not sure I’m one of them. Though, I can say out of dead honesty: I do think if I don’t at least try, then I will always wonder what having a child would have been like. My main reason for wanting to would be what X said to me one night over dinner: “If there are any two people in the world who should have a child together, it’s us.” I believe the impact of that statement would be lost if you hadn’t just spent the last four weeks reading about our history, because everyone thinks that. But with X and I, it’s been such a long journey and such a deep love resulting from the journey, that I believe not trying to have a child with him would be an epic fail.

As far as marriage goes, I’m not sure if every prescription to happiness includes marriage and kids. I’m a pretty staunch feminist, so I have spent the better part of the last month asking why people get married and why it’s necessary. In times when women couldn’t earn the same as their male counterparts, marriage was the only way to create and build a family. But now, no one can give me a valid reason to get married besides the usual crap:

Because it will make your parents happy.

Because it’s right for the kids if you want to live together.

Because you own property together.

Because you are going to have a baby together.

Because the ex wife could sue you for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. (That one was courtesy of my father.)

Because if he dies you have no claims to anything.

Because if he dies, his half of the house and car go to his kids, and because they are under 18, the ex wife will be the one you’ll deal with.

Yikes on that last one…

I remain on the fence. X said before we get married he will tell me exactly why we should. I’m still waiting. It’s a big joke with us now. Not to say we won’t get there, but, I’ve never been that girl. Bride’s magazines and visions of a perfect wedding dress? Yeah. Not so much. That’s never been me. Don’t bother looking for that Glamourshots photo of X and I in the New York Times or WaPo or anything like that. Anything commercial surrounding the wedding really pisses me off. A Vegas drive through or somewhere in the Keys on the beach would be just fine with me.

The love lessons here are inherent. You have to fall in love with your best friend. It’s truly the only way. Sometimes the person you are supposed to be with is right in front of your face. They don’t always come in the obvious form either. Sometimes you end up realizing that the situation surrounding the person you are fated to be with is not what you thought it would be. People have baggage. We all do. No one should feel that they are above it. Relationships take work. It’s important to know when to let go. But more important to know when not to.

Cliche, but, when two people are meant to be together, everything just aligns for them to do so. X had a wife for the first three years that I knew him. For those years I never considered for a moment that we would end up where we are today despite an obvious attraction on both sides. You can’t engineer fate, so while we may decide to “take control” of our lives, most of the work is done for us I believe by putting us in the right place at the right time. The little details are what lies in our hands.

X – I love you. Thank you for making my life an Epic Win, every day.

Part 19: Oh I Am What I Am, I’ll Do What I Want, But I Can’t Hide

September 2008 – February 2009

September would be the witching hour for this divorce. The conversations between X and the hopefully soon to be ex Mrs. X were in full force. She was on the emotional roller coaster from hell and dragging everyone down with her. Seriously. Sometimes I wished she knew about me so I could call her up and tell her to have some fucking respect for herself and to stop acting like a child. Oh. And while we were on the phone I’d also tell her to stop using her uterus as a paycheck. By then she would have hung up on me.

She was wavering between bouts of being sick of the kids and wanting him to pick them up immediately to threats to take the kids and leave the country. It was exhausting. The problem for her was that X was burned out on her anger and emotional bullshit, so he was unresponsive to almost everything. Almost. Threats to take children are the trump card. And she knew that.

After a particularly grueling Labor Day weekend afternoon of texting wars between X and the soon to be ex Mrs. X, he put his arms around me and said, “I am so in love with you.” Sometimes all you have to do is be the non-crazy woman in a sea of crazy women and you come out smelling like a rose.

Later that night, we ended up with another of our firsts. These moments happen so infrequently in long term relationships that you just have to pay attention and know when they are happening so you can record every moment in your head and burn it forever into your happy place. We ended up taking a shower together. When the shower finished and we moved to the bed and shared the sweet words across the pillow that couples share, we were again at a new place. Before he left the next morning he said, “Something changed.” I agreed. It did change. I can’t explain it, it just did. I think at that point we just knew it was forever. And that we were forever.

It of course didn’t stop more on and off drama with the impending divorce. It just wasn’t moving fast enough for me. Up. Down. Up. Down. For what started out so well, September was a rough month until the fated, long awaited for day where he sent me a text that said, “I have the signed divorce agreement.” His attorney filed and they got a court date for shortly into the new year.

The fall was spent running back and forth to the beach house, doing walk throughs, making sure everything was as it was supposed to be. It was an incredible growing experience for our relationship to have something that we thought of and then built together – not necessarily literally as much, but figuratively.

There’s a huge gap of time in my precious Microsoft Word documentation of our relationship. October, November, December. Blank. Blank. Blank. Nothing. I wish I could remember what I’m missing here, but no news was good news. We were finally on track to divorce court with no further encumbrances ahead.

The holidays rolled through town and we spent New Year’s Eve this time in bed with dueling bottles of champagne. We settled on the house in January and promptly started nesting. Shortly after the settlement at the beach, X officially became divorced. Oh. My. God.

X moved from one place to another on pretty short notice and I was the helper-bee. Going from the fourth floor walk up to a townhouse, my ass and legs saw their fair share of stairs that weekend. At the end of the 24 hours of hell, he opened a bottle of Captain Morgan, took a swing and said, “You know, if this keeps going like it’s going, one of us is going to want to get married.”

Oh? Which one?

Part 18: I Don’t Want to Move a Thing, It Might Change My Memory

2008: June – September

It might seem like telling about the fighting is personal, almost too personal. But I want to tell the whole story. It’s not always roses and lollipops, even when the love is the deepest and most lasting of any love of your life. And it’s important, for me anyway, to convey that there are sometimes it’s worth it to stay and fight and sometimes it’s not worth it and you should walk away. Differentiating between the two is only something you can answer by looking in your heart. Honestly looking in your heart.

We recovered from the argument where he mailed my keys back when I drove back to his house and gave them back to him. It wouldn’t be the last of the bickering about the divorce. I tried to remind myself over and over: What if this was your last day with him? Is this how you would want to spend it?

At this point I believe I realized that I (we) were just so in love, that any of this time wasted arguing was exactly that – time wasted arguing. The subject of taking a break had come up during the arguing, but when we were calm and discussing everything we determined that it was impossible for us to really take a break because it was just so difficult to be away from each other. He said, “I’m not going to lose you over this shit.” I said, “I’m not going anywhere.” He said, “I’m not either.” During all this drama would be when he finally said out loud that he was in love with me. Fucking finally. Jesus Christ.

Spring moved into summer and one Saturday we went shopping and bought a game that was a box of questions for couples. Inevitably these games bring about conversations that people may or may not be ready to have. While we sat on the roof of my building drinking a bottle of wine and eating cupcakes from Cake Love (um, eau, not good) X and I had to answer a few questions on issues we had never discussed – like marriage and (more) kids. I believe we turned another corner and entered the “don’t want to be without each other” phase.

The summer was great. We had a lot of fun. We still talk today about the time we just woke up and bolted out to Annapolis to find a restaurant to eat crabs. We both sat facing the water, drinking a pitcher of beer and hammering away at crabs. We kept saying through the next few months how fun that was.

As X recently said to me, “Ideas just constantly swim in your head, don’t they?” It’s true. The little squirrel is always kicking things around up there. One day in August, I started looking at beach real estate again. I hated keeping the dogs cooped up all summer in the city. I wanted a place to go. I googled dog beaches and found some on the Eastern Shore that looked promising. X and I convened on the phone with dueling laptops to see what was out there. We made appointments at several new home communities and drove out that weekend. Shortly after arriving at one closest to the beach we were interested in, we were signing a contract. The house would be started shortly and finished by mid-winter. Great. Not what I had hoped in searching for an already-built (spec) home, but it would do.

The following weekend X and I went to New York City for a few days. He met my parents. I’d cheer and say “Woo Hoo” and explain to you how monumental this was considering NO ONE meets my parents (because they are judgie mcjudgiepoohs) however, at lunch my mom put her personality on display by maligning someone my family knew who had “gotten divorced.” X and I just looked at each other. Insults included at no extra cost.

We had this minor altercation in New York centering around a bartender and X and my suspicion if there was something that went on and wondering if that was why X came to New York alone on New Years Eve. The whole thing spiraled out of control because I apparently saw something that wasn’t there, and X was confused why I was acting the way I was. When we were hashing it out, he told me that he didn’t see anyone past me. I told him I loved him. He said, “I love you too. Maybe one day you will believe me.”

If we weren’t in the fast lane to closure and happiness before, we were heading there fast. During the early days of September, there was movement in the way of the divorce paperwork being signed so as to avoid court. To quote something I wrote at this time, “I have been waiting for this day for so long, I’m afraid of how my emotions will strangle me when the day finally arrives. There is so much about this relationship that I want to broadcast to the world, and yet, as X is my best friend, he is the only one I truly care to share anything with anymore. I’ve isolated myself. But that’s fine with me.”

I’ve become “that girl.” Damn it.

Part 17: I Didn’t Hear You Leave, I Wonder How Am I Still Here

2008: May

As we approached summer our relationship was moving forward by its actions, but there were some ridiculous administrative details in a holding pattern. We had two elephants in the room:

1) Despite the months of banter on the subject, X couldn’t say he loved me. This on its own isn’t bothersome because as he said during this time period, “Do I treat you like I love you?” Well, yes, but, but, but, I have become everything* for you buddy and it would be nice if you could just admit it.

2) By summer, I started (really) asking why the divorce wasn’t moving forward, as opposed to my prior comment here and there on the matter.

*pause for ” * ” clarification: by everything, I mean, I had become X’s best friend and therapist, constantly performing my armchair psychology routine on the who’s what’s and why’s of the psychosis of his “wife.” I felt like if he still didn’t know whether he was or wasn’t, then he was an idiot. And I also felt that if he did know, which he probably did, then he should just tell me, because what the hell was he holding on to? What’s the victory in holding back your love?

We had a series of fights all related to this lack of progress toward a divorce. At the time, I was keeping a “blog” in good old Microsoft Word, and I wrote, “I’m tired of nurturing a relationship that’s a freakshow on wheels.” I was still a big secret from the “wife” because we couldn’t tell her otherwise she may never divorce him, and I was a secret from the kids because of, see above: “wife.” One of our fights – and I know he forgot all about this until now – was over the stupidest thing.

I went to his place and he basically ripped off my clothes and were totally done in under 10 minutes from me walking in the door. I said, “Damn, you must have needed that.” He said, “Well, I didn’t need it.” We went back and forth over the word “need.” He couldn’t even admit that maybe just once, I satisfy something for him that he needs satisfied – whatever it is. It was part of a bigger picture. I got up, got dressed, walked out, and shut off my phone.

The next day when I turned my phone back on, I saw that he had texted over the night that he didn’t know what happened and he didn’t get it. The mere fact that he was up at 3 a.m. thinking about this should have been clue enough to him, that duh, you’re in love and this shit bothers you so much you can’t sleep, but sometimes you have to spell it out for them. I texted back. (Yes, I know. You want to know why all these important conversations occur over text. I rather prefer it that way. I can get my thoughts out uninterrupted and get a mostly instant response.) Anyway, here’s what I said:

“It is really tiring trying to be with someone who so carefully plans their words so much that they can’t give any remote clue to what they are feeling. The whole need/want thing is symbolic of a bigger problem. The fact that you emotionally have nothing left inside of you coupled with the fact that it looks like this divorce will never happen – it looks like a losing battle from my end. Too many hurdles to overcome. And all you want is for me to just be patient. That’s just insulting. I actually think you enjoy this bullshit. It feeds your ego that she still wants to be married to you. I get to hear on a daily basis how mad she supposedly makes you but you don’t do anything about it. Why do you need me as the motivation to end the marriage with her? You should want to end it on your own, because it’s over, not because I’ve come into the picture. I hate the person I’ve become. Nagging you on a daily basis to stay focused. I shouldn’t have to do that but I’m afraid if I don’t, it will be 2009 with no divorce. This is a colossal mindfuck for me – I will have spent all this time in something that stands no chance because the divorce will never happen, and you will never stop calculating your words so intently that I get nothing back at all.”

There were reasons for all of this divorce delay of course. X had to extract from the marriage without getting hosed. And we didn’t want to end up in court – me included. The truth was we had done nothing wrong. But if it went to a long ugly trial, the simplistic cliche would be painted of “boss fucking secretary” and it would have been a total disaster. The fight that ensued with the above texting happened on the same weekend where X’s father died. Damn if I didn’t just pile on to his stress. And damn if his “wife” didn’t get to go to the funeral.

Here we were – at a point where this man was sharing his heart with me, and because of a stupid miserable technicality that should be on meds and in a straitjacket, I couldn’t be with him at his father’s funeral. I really grew to despise the situation I was in. We repaired it – but we didn’t go long without another fight. Two weeks to be exact.

The “wife” had decided she was taking the kids and moving away. He was freaking out and panicking and I, with my fantabulous bedside manner, said, “This is all your fault. If you had just divorced her when you left to begin with, there would be a custody agreement and she couldn’t do this. All I see is that you have the same conversation over and over where you ask her about a divorce and she blows you off and you back down. I’m fucking sick of it.”

We didn’t talk for three days. He mailed me a goodbye letter and included my house keys. Fucker.

Part 16: So Much Love to Make Up Everywhere You Turn

2008: January – April

During December, ex-boss and I got seemingly more involved with each other by way of some really deep conversations, but at the turn of the new year, I think I shook myself awake, literally. I just realized that maybe this wasn’t going to pan out the way I had thought and I should just refocus my life on me and going back to work and getting my life together.

I actually made a deal with myself, I was going to slowly slide out of his life. I was tired of realizing I would come last in a long line containing a wife that might never have the “ex” in front of it, her kids, and their kids, and his work. I stopped responding so quickly and so enthusiastically to his texts. I swear, men can fucking smell it when they are being blown off. I wasn’t playing a game, I was just prioritizing as per my goal of the cross country trip. My priorities were to get a job, be closer to my family, and be a good mommy to Sammy and Thora who suddenly started having annoying and costly health problems. I was also well aware that I was in love. It just didn’t feel like it would ever be requited.

I was laying in bed one night (alone) and leaned over and wrote on my trusty nightstand notepad:

“How is the love for my first love, K, different from what I’m feeling now, which is obviously love? K and I were like two kids whose parents left us home alone with money and keys to the car. It was always fun. It was always a party in our house. Our love grew not because we were so compatible, but because we had this mutual admiration and respect for each other. We really liked the other person – he really wanted to be more “responsible” like I was, and I wished I could be more of the free spirit he was. When we broke up, it shattered my world.   A lot. I had a six year drug run ended in April 2007 when he reappeared in my life, fresh from his stay in rehab. One week after our first conversation would be the last time I would ever touch a drug. My pain was over. He was alive and sober and we were friends and my life could officially go on again. My current growing love now? Totally different. With K, we spent most of our time dissecting other people around us with “issues,” ignoring our own issues, which ultimately destroyed everything. With the ex-boss, we spend 99% of our time discussing and dissecting ourselves.”

It was true. The ex-boss and I spent hours on the phone in Jan/Feb analyzing each other, our thoughts, actions. It was so different than what I had been used to. With the ex-boss and I, it was all about us and how neglected our emotional needs had been. We became each other’s therapist and best friend.

Through several ridiculous events, I believe I helped him realize the manipulation operation in full force by the wife – the tricks she was using to deflect his attention on the divorce, the cries for help, the illnesses, the E.R., the drama, the temper tantrums, the demands that he fix things in what was now (or going to be) her house. During one of these groundbreaking conversations I texted to him: “You are opening up with me more than I am used to. Not that this is a bad thing. I’m just surprised because everything is usually a joke with you.”

In January, he officially became jobless. He was laid off as well, or took the imminent layoff, and then he suddenly had much more time to play with me. We would sit on the phone for hours looking at websites, clothes, sex toys. You name it, we shopped it.

It is around this time that we started speaking daily. In early February, he sent me a text that he wanted to go to Key West. He booked it for early March and we went on our first vacation together. We had a great time.   We finally spent not only a full night with each other, but a whole weekend. When we returned back home, we had turned another corner and hit the speed lane. Now we would split up who went to whose house, but he more often than not left by 5 or 6 a.m.

I saved a text exchange that was a pretty defining moment for us.

Him: Are you in love?
Me: Yes
Him: Hmm
Me: Brave of you to ask. I figured you knew.
Him: No. I didn’t really think too much about it. But I’m learning about how you drop hints. Like putting your toe in the water.
Me: Did I drop hints? I honestly think we both are. And have been for a while. And the extent to which we feel and acknowledge is different. But it’s there.
Him: I could get there but I don’t want to let myself get there. I convince myself I can control it.
Me: I’m not sure if one has a choice in this. You know how you think about me during the day? You know how you say you are closer to me than any of your exes? Its like that. Its like where I think I could hold your hand and just be happy to touch you when my past experience with men never ever brought a desire for hand holding. Kissing. Talking on the phone for hours. Most people annoy me. So thats how I know.
Him: I’m glad I do that to you. You just made me laugh. You write well – even texting.
Me: Just try not to get scared. I have no desire to be with anyone else. Not going anywhere and not getting psycho if you do.
Him: You are very non-threatening. I enjoy you in many ways. You won’t scare me. I don’t scare away easily.

We continued through the spring making progress similar to the text exchange you read above. I admitted I was in love, and he found it difficult to admit. We would joke about it back and forth because he would walk into it all the time. You know when someone is in love with you. You can tell. They say things like, “I woke up thinking about you today,” or ” “You popped into my head today and I realized how happy you make me,” and you just know.

By this time, he had taken on his commenting name on this blog. In case you haven’t figured it out – he is indeed Mr. X.

Part 15: Look Around You Now, You Must Go For What You Wanted

2007: August – December

We were still laying in bed at 3 a.m. when I rolled over and said, “That’s funny, I’m usually gone by now.” He found that particularly amusing. It was just the truth. I’m not very good about staying around. I like to use the dogs as an excuse to go back to my own bed and sleep like a starfish. Seemed like I couldn’t really do that in this case because I had probably handed him my playbook over the past four years in my stories about other men.

When I walked out the door and got to my car, I texted one of my best friends who is also my real estate agent. I said, “I just fucked your next client. You can thank me later.” I’ll always be somewhat evil. I readily admit this.

I knew I would never make the move to contact him first. Thankfully, I didn’t have to. When I was ramming my car through the throngs of club kids at the intersection of hell and chaos, 18th Street/Connecticut Ave, he called to make sure I got home okay. We texted on and off throughout the rest of the weekend. On Sunday night, we actually, gasp, talked on the phone instead of texting. We were on the phone for 4 hours. We covered a lot of ground.

The second time I went to his house he actually looked at me in the middle of having sex and said, “You still see me as your boss, don’t you?” I was clearly very transparent. Guilty as charged. He said I would have to get past it. I asked if he still saw me as the employee. He said, “Not at all.”

We fell into a habit of seeing each other about once a week. Weekdays would be filled with texting foreplay, weekends would bring the adult activities.   We had really scaled it down to quite an efficient operation. Rarely would I stay over. Never would he come to my place. At one point in time, about a month in, I stayed pretty late – for me. I woke up with major dry eyes and went looking for my eyedrops in my bag. While I was digging around for them, my phone started vibrating. It was 4 a.m. K was calling. He had been driving through town on a trip up north and wanted to see if I was home so he could come by. I told him I wasn’t. The ex-boss walked out and saw me on the phone. It was a pretty uncomfortable moment – not because I couldn’t be honest with him, I could. But because I figured he would think I was just juggling him and others and I didn’t want him to think that. He responded by saying, “Let’s go out to get breakfast.”

I think that looking back at this time period makes me depressed. I don’t know why but knowing him now and how he is, and knowing what these five months were like from the startup until the holidays – it was weird. He was evasive at times, didn’t seem as into me as I was into him, was busy with work and trying to keep the company afloat – which would prove to be an effort in vain, and he was probably still seeing someone else. This time of his seeming apathy was when I would put my job search in New York into full force. I really really wanted to leave. Truth be told, I still do.

By October there were signs that this was moving to a new level. We would sleep intertwined with each other which was all very new for me.   I’m used to relationships where I get up in the middle of the night and sleep on the couch. In fact, I can’t recall one old boyfriend where I didn’t routinely do this. We talked about this place we were getting to one night and he said, “It just feels so good when you walk in the door.”

December is probably where we turned the corner. He hadn’t even see my condo until he came to a tree trimming party in December thrown by my real estate agent bff but even then, he didn’t stay over. All the years of the friendship and now, we were totally in relationship retrograde. It was out of sequence for the way relationships typically go. We had already done the getting-to-know-you and had become friends. Then we weren’t friends. Then we reconnected to rip each other’s clothes off.

Somehow though, all of this was very unsatisfying. I don’t think at the holidays of 2007 I could look back and say that the last five months had been anything other than sex. It was getting there, slowly. Not fast enough for me to be convinced that I wouldn’t have traded the sex back for the prior friendship we had. I’d waited over four years to get to this point, and suddenly, I wanted everything and was all about instant gratification.

Even though we had made some progress in the way of having some pretty deep conversations about each other and us as an “us,” it didn’t seem like it would go far. He was still mired in a separation that didn’t seem to be making any progress toward a divorce and my heart was, is, and probably always will be in New York City. And speaking of New York City, he wanted to go up there for New Years Eve. His now estranged wife and kids were in Europe, so he had no hangups in his way. I had somehow thought we would see more of each other in that timeframe. We didn’t.

He had half assed invited me to New York but then the next thing I knew, he was driving up there alone. Very very weird. Really weird. He told me I should come up, but I refused to drop the dogs last minute on someone for his half-assed invite, and I didn’t go. I don’t chase men. I went to a friend’s house for New Years Eve and at that party, I made a resolution to move to New York in 2008.

Part 14: So Much Water Moving Underneath the Bridge, Let the Water Come and Carry Us Away

August 4, 2007

It took the ex-Boss two and a half weeks to text again. I figured he was chickening out and I started to lose hope. I wasn’t going to text first, that just isn’t my style. I prefer to sit and wait instead of hunt and kill. Besides, truth be told, I had done enough over the years. Subtle or not.

The text I received was on a Friday afternoon. He said that his kids had found a sweater hanging behind my old office door and he would like to return it. I found it funny that he had to invent some lame excuse when we both knew what we were doing. We had waited almost four years for this moment, who were we kidding?

We made plans for that evening. I promptly went into panic mode, questioning what I was doing. Wondering if the whole time it was his soon to be ex setting a trap for me. I thought about not going, for about a half a second, then got in the shower, got in the car, and blasted Alice Cooper’s Poison 10 times in a row while I drove to his house.

When he opened the door he looked, just, great. Just like I remember from three months earlier. This was perhaps the longest we had gone without seeing each other since we had first met. And that night of texting was the longest, most drawn out foreplay we could have ever enacted.

We started with the Bombay and Tonics. We talked the stupidest small talk for hours. I mean, hours. I swear, I really thought when I walked in that he was just going to rip my clothes off and we would fuck like we were in the conjugal visit trailer, but we talked so much I started to wonder if anything was going to happen at all. We caught up on what we had missed in each other’s lives. He told me the separation had been so horrible that he doubted he would ever get married again. I said I couldn’t blame him. I told him one day I would job hunt again but for now I just didn’t feel like it. He said he couldn’t blame me. Oh my god. I think we’re back to the fucking friend zone. Eek! 911, 911! Help!!! I’m drowning!

When I was getting up to pee for the third time, at this point, sufficiently drunk, he asked why I kept going to pee.   Maybe not so obviously, I was totally nervous. But I didn’t want to admit it. Now that I was here, in front of him, it seemed like we wouldn’t be able to take the long platonic history we shared, shake it up, and let a ferocious sexual encounter take place.   As I closed the bathroom door on round #3, he said, “When you come out of the bathroom I want to know why you are peeing so much.”

I sat on the toilet and I just didn’t have a good answer. “I’m nervous” seemed so lame after the night of x-rated texting. It seemed even lamer considering we had waited so long for this moment. I finished, flushed, washed, walked back out there where he was sitting on the couch. Taking a page from a recent Jordan Baker seduction story she told one night, I bit the bullet, crawled into his lap, and straddled him in that way that conveys that my horse is going to win this race.

A line had officially, forever, been totally and completely crossed.

He grabbed my face and we started to kiss. A mad, passionate kiss of two people who had wanted to kiss each other for 3 years and 10 months. His hands were in my hair, knotting my hair up in his fists, and we had our tongues so deep inside each other that we could barely let up for air. I think my nose started running and I just didn’t care. The whole place could have burned down for all I cared. I was sick of waiting.

The mad makeout continued for a while but I just wanted more. Like all of you who have been commenting as such, I was there too. More. More. More.

I backed off his lap, stood up, took his hand, and we walked into the bedroom. It was time. I didn’t want to wait any longer. I was done waiting. Fuck waiting. Waiting is for Catholics.

Part 13: So Much Time to Make Up Everywhere You Turn, Time We Have Wasted on the Way

July 17th, 2007

He answered at 10:30 p.m. Obviously I don’t recall the exact back and forth but I’ll try to recreate it as closely as it played out.

Ex Boss: Where did you hear that?
V:
M from the Baltimore office said that’s what people have been saying.
Ex Boss:
I haven’t heard that.
V:
Well I doubted people would tell you to your face.
Ex Boss:
I never heard anything like that.
V:
Okay. I figured maybe you had and just wanted to spare my feelings.
Ex Boss:
I can’t understand why people say this about us. We never gave off any indication we were interested in each other. No flirting. No goo goo eyes. Nothing.
V:
I don’t know.
V: Wait. What people?
Ex Boss: The Baltimore office, my ex.
V: Oh. I don’t know. Everyone knows I only date lunatics.
Ex Boss: Yes, and that’s not me. Besides, I would never do something like that because I was married, and then separated, but you and I worked together.
V: Worked.
Ex Boss: That’s what I said. Worked.
V: Right. Worked.
Ex Boss: Are you just repeating me?
V: Just clarifying the tense.
Ex Boss: Okay. I’ll bite. Do you think something eventually would have happened with us?
V: Yes. I do.
Ex Boss: I wouldn’t have done anything when we worked together.
V: Again, worked. Past tense.
Ex Boss: Since we’re being honest, I did used to want to ask you about your waxing.
V: What do you mean?
Ex Boss: Well, you were so open about it. You would say you were going to get waxed and I would wonder what you looked like after.
V: I probably would have shown you had I known you were curious.
Ex Boss: That would have been great. I would have loved that.
V: You would have been too shy.
Ex Boss: I don’t think so. If you just pulled up your dress and showed me in your office? I used to think about that.
V: Again, you should have asked! I worked for you – it would have been the least I could have done.
Ex Boss: It wouldn’t have been enough for a quick peek. I would need to see it all.
V: We could have figured something out.
Ex Boss: I used to want to watch you pee. Is that odd?
V: Um, no.
Ex Boss: I just like seeing everything. Total exposure is good for me.
V: You tell me all this now when I can’t do anything about it!
Ex Boss: Why not?
V: I don’t work there anymore! I can’t act out the “at work” part of the fantasy.
Ex Boss: We can make believe. Or we can meet at the office one night.
V: That would be fun!
Ex Boss: What would you want to do?
V: An open ended question. Scary.
Ex Boss: Why? I just told you what my fantasy about you was.
V: Suck your dick while you sat in your chair.
Ex Boss: Now I really regret not knowing that I could have just asked you for this when you were working there and you would have done it!
V: I don’t like to say no.
Ex Boss: I will admit that I masturbated once or twice thinking about you.
V: Why didn’t you tell me?
Ex Boss: I couldn’t tell you that!
V: Why not? I had sex dreams about you and I used to tell you. Sometimes.
Ex Boss: It wouldn’t have been right.
V: Well you can stop with that now. We’re past all that.

The conversation continued for several hours over the night. There was the usual graphic talk of what we want to do to each other, followed by the requisite sending of pictures. He sent me the most amazingly beautiful picture which I have long since deleted but it is forever etched in my mind. It would be the after-product of all this long overdue texting talk. With one perfect dribble front and center. Uh, yum!

V: Wow. We’ve really crossed the line now!
Ex Boss:
You and I have talked about all the things we want to do to and with each other. What line? I think we crossed it a long time ago.
V:
Point taken. It’s still fun.
Ex Boss:
I’m trying to figure out how this will work.
V: What do you mean?
Ex Boss: Do we just become fuck buddies?
V: I don’t know. You’re the deal maker. Why don’t you make a deal?
Ex Boss: I just don’t see how this works.
V: I find it hard to believe you have come all this way for words.
Ex Boss: At the very least we should just get together for old times sake and have a few drinks and talk, right? And see.
V: That’s a good place to start.
Ex Boss: I’ve got to juggle kids but I’ll call you soon when I can and we can figure it out.
V: Sounds good. I love anticipation.

Texting ceased at 6:00 a.m. I was exhausted but I had a hard time wiping the smile off my face for the rest of the day. You may ask why neither of us picked up the phone. It’s a debate we had often over the next year or more. Mostly because the culmination of so many years of sexual tension and a probable emotional affair and it was so tense, and yet so exhilerating. Picking up the phone was like an implicit dare that neither of us wanted to risk. Finally having the conversation – by text, by snail mail, by morse code, it didn’t matter. It just mattered that the conversation was finally being had. I didn’t want to alter one thing about it.

Part 12: She Said “I Need You to Hold Me, I’m a Little Far From the Shore and I’m Afraid of Sinking”

May – July 2007

I chronicled my cross-country trip on another blog which has since been deleted. It was the summer of getting my head on straight and deciding to be a grown up. I’m not going to lie to you. I had a pretty bad emotional breakdown. I’m not going to lie to you again. It was long overdue.   I never grieved the end of my relationship with K, and because of that, I believe I was never able to really have another successful run at a relationship.

FreckledK had to come to Phoenix and pull me out of the depths of hell. We spent several days roasting by the Hilton’s pool, eating Mexican and partying in Mesa country bars and Scottsdale biker bars where we had the grand honor of meeting a Porn Producer. After spending several weeks with her and my other good friends out in Phoenix, one of them remarked that he hadn’t seen me eat or mention being hungry for three weeks. He was right. It was bad.

Being in the wrong relationship was painful. But deciding to end somehow had a backlash that was more painful. Why?

Because ending a mediocre relationship in your mid-thirties takes a lot of work when the ball is in your court. You wonder if this is your last chance. You wonder if you’ve been too picky. You wonder if this is your last chance. You wonder if you were too hard on him. You wonder if this is your last chance. You wonder if you’ve become inflexible. You wonder if this is your last chance. You wonder if you aren’t meant to be with anyone ever in life. You wonder, god damned it, if this, for the love of all holy hell, is your last fucking chance.

Ultimately, 95% of people probably settle. They probably tell themselves: I’m getting older, and I don’t know who or what else is going to come along, so I better pack it down with this person and make the best of it. And ultimately many of those people live to regret it, and either get divorced or tough it out in misery and loneliness. But, if you’re me, you cannot settle. Because only having 90% 80% 70% of the package just isn’t good enough.

The decisions I made on the trip broke down into the following:

1) No More Partying

2) No More Wrong Men

3) Prioritize and start making decisions based on those priorities. i.e. If it doesn’t get me closer to my goal, then I’m not doing it.

On the road trip, I had another very vivid sex dream about my now ex boss. I woke up with that feeling like we had actually had sex. I was at your house. Sorry. Hope your sheets survived. I texted him – I think it was my way to throw a bone out there. He didn’t respond right away, then sort of blew it off when he did respond by asking me how I was. Damn it ex boss, I want to discuss my dream! We went back and forth for a few volleys but it died out. Sad. We used to have a good friendship. I missed that. It was awkward now. And it was also over.

I came back to DC in mid-June. I was hell bent and determined to move to NYC once and for all and blow the DC falafal stand to hell. I interviewed but the jobs were starting to dwindle in my field.

In July, I got wind through a friend that my ex-company was closing the Baltimore division. One of my friends called and said that my ex-current-ex-Boss was trying to save her job. He was going to tell them to keep her on for a few more months because he knew she was a single mom and he (we) both knew her from the prior company. She told people at work and they said: “Please! The Boss was fucking Velvet for years and he couldn’t save her job, what makes you think   he can save yours?”

Huh?

I said to her: That isn’t true.
She said: Its none of my business.
I said: Believe me. BELIEVE ME. I have a tell-all blog. You read it every day. If I was doing something as scandalous as   nailing my boss I would have SURELY mentioned it prior to now.

She didn’t believe me. She really didn’t believe me.

Thinking he probably wouldn’t answer, I texted him anyway. It had been several weeks since we spoke. It felt awkward – like all these people thought this –   did he know this? Did he discourage these rumors? I started to question him, and wonder if he was just one of those guys egging the rumors on by not denying them.

I texted around late afternoon that day: “Did you hear the hot rumor that you and I have been fucking for years? I seem to be unable to recall this mindblowing sex we had.”

He took his time, about six hours to be exact, before he responded.

Part 11: She Said, “I Feel Stranded, and I Can’t Tell Anymore If I’m Coming or I’m Going”

Jan – April 2007

Over the holidays, Sherlock and I had broken up. In mid-January, I thought he finally had his head screwed on straight (never) and gave it another go. Ultimately, I did what women do – I choose the least of the evils. Sherlock was a decent guy when he tried to be, and I thought that if we could just get past the bullshit drama, we would be fine. I had no interest in “getting back out there.”

In March I decided to buy a beach house from my company’s extra inventory. I brought Sherlock along for that metaphorical ride, with him thinking it was “us” and me knowing it was “just me.” Near the end of the whole process The Boss said a bunch of times “Don’t buy the house, it’s not a good deal.” I thought it was.   I sort of knew something was off, but he had his chances and it never materialized into anything so what the fuck. Why was he trying to stop me from doing this? I finally admitted to myself that perhaps there was a twinge of protectiveness or jealousy with respect to Sherlock and so I limited the conversations about Sherlock to almost nothing. Then for the rest of March, I barely saw the Boss.   But I had a dream which I wrote about on a secret, now dead, blog.

Well, now, I had a sex dream about my boss. This isn’t the first one, but this was the most graphic. In the past, I’ve woken up and known that it occurred in my dream, but didn’t have details. In this dream, there are details. I remember us for some reason being on a trip, or in a hotel or something, not at one of our houses. For whatever reason, we had to lay next to each other because there was only one bed. When I looked over, I pulled the sheet and realized he was rock hard. Fuck. Me.

My jaw dropped to the floor and I reached over and and tried to put my hand around it. My fingers couldn’t even close around it, it was so thick. Then he rolled over on top of me and we started making out. At this point my clothes were off, though I don’t recall them being off when I was first in the bed, and I don’t remember actually taking them off. He gets on top of me, and we had sex with him on top of me, then he rolled over and I was on top. It was getting really hot, and then just as we were about to change positions, the inevitable happened.

I woke up. Fuck.

I’ve gone through varying stages of wanting to fuck my boss. I was really attracted to him when I first started working for him 4 years ago. Then I met his wife and my attraction waned. But then he filed for divorce and I was the one he would call to bitch about his wife. Nothing has ever happened with us. I never got the indication from him that he would even want something with me. We’ve had some late night texting. There have been some late nights of emailing. But, it all seemed pretty on the up and up and I never got any indications of any interest. Except maybe once.

When I got together with the crazy Asshole, my boss said, “I hope you know what you are doing.” I said, “What? What do you mean?” He said, “He’s a mess. And he’ll inevitably screw your life up.”

We don’t cross paths a lot anymore. But he was at work yesterday. And last night, the sex dream.

I suppose it was already in my head that Sherlock was not the man for me. And you know what happens when you have a sex dream about someone? Then you want to have sex with them.

April was the big month of change. I went to a friend’s wedding in L.A. and was witness to another friend unravel on a drug-induced spiral and suddenly, I was done. I never want to be the girl at the wedding giving the maid of honor speech blabbering on about nothing that makes any sense. I never want to be the girl who everyone is whispering about. I never want to be the girl who my soon-to-be mother in law catches snorting coke on the toilet at the rehearsal dinner.

I had also suddenly started having these very vivid dreams about K. Totally out of nowhere. I had a dream we were on our cross-country trip in 2001 and we were at a gas station out west somewhere. There were these beautiful mountains in the background, and K and I were just exchanging words about nothing in particular but it was so comforting. I woke up with two thoughts. First – Sherlock is not the one. Second – where is K? Is he alive? I knew I was going to end it with Sherlock once and for all. I knew with Sherlock’s track record, the end was not going to go well. (It didn’t. He threw a bunch of leaves at me and tried to keep Thora. Wtf. Then proceeded to contact two of my friends to beg them to talk some sense into me.)

That week, the Boss told me I was being laid off. I said, “You just made it easy on me. I need to get out of here and away from this guy, so this comes at a perfect time.” I also wanted to find K and see if he was still alive. The Gift of Fear says you need six weeks to break stalker behavior, so I planned a cross-country trip for May 5 through June 15. Exactly 6 weeks, to make sure I could get Sherlock out of my life for good.

K sent me an IM that week. We have always had this relationship where we just know it’s time to check in with the other one. We had a very long and very deep conversation about us, our past, our love, our drug habits, and his recent release from 90 days in rehab. K is stubborn enough to stick to his guns, and he wants sobriety so very badly. He tried to give me some words of encouragement to break my own cycle, but that was done. I left it in L.A. and have never gone back. I didn’t need rehab. I needed to wake up. K and I briefly discussed a relationship, but somewhere in that drug-induced haze, he had conceived a child with someone. Now he had a baby.

I think somewhere around week two, I found out Sherlock had a new girlfriend. But I persevered on my trip instead of running back home. See? He was never the one.

For the first time in many years, I was free to go wherever I wanted. But the further I got from home, the more I wanted to go back. That’s the funny thing about being born and raised on the east coast. Going west always seems fascinating, like it holds promise of new and better adventures, but in my heart, I’m an east coast girl and I can’t change that.

Part 10: Part of Me Says Let it Go, Everything Must Have a Season

2006

By the end of 2005 I had burned through my supply of men to date so I had to get resourceful in locating more. I was feeding blog fodder and it was quite hilarious – at the time…you know…before people got murdered for answering ads off Craigslist. For me, 2006 goes down as the year of hellacious relationships.

In January we finally got into our office and began setting up shop. There were a couple more people working there but everyone came and went at different times and we rarely saw each other. When my boss did arrive to work on the days I was there, we would play catch-up. It didn’t matter how much time had passed, there was always a lot to discuss. We were like Regis and Kelly, only without the audience.

On February 8th and 9th, we had a conference in Dallas. Everyone from all over the company flew to some hotel, where we were lectured for two days on how to buy land by Ned Flanders. I went to my room the first night around 6 to lay down for a minute before figuring out what to do for dinner. I had / have friends in Dallas and was considering going off to find them.

The phone rang. It was the Boss. He told me to meet him at the bar. I went down there and he and I started drinking. We drank. Drank. And Drank. I really thought that if anything was going to happen, it would happen now. Another Bombay Tonic please. Then some cockblocking President of another division literally sat in between us and stayed. Somewhere around 10:00, me, Boss and Cockblocker went out to find food, ate, drank more, and really got annihilated. Something of note happened at the restaurant, but for the life of me I can’t recall. I think the other Division President did or said something about me to the Boss when I went to the bathroom. I have to consult my source on that one.

We got home Thursday night late. The Boss chose the following Tuesday, Valentines Day, to end his marriage. There was a simple conversation, followed by a door slamming, a bottle of pills, a Britney Spears style hair shaving and subsequent threats of suicide. Kidding. Sort of. Well, not really. Years of verbal abuse by the Mrs. X and he had finally had enough. It took him about 14 years longer than it would have taken me. I would have left on the wedding night after the shit she pulled. Ladies, please. The men all know that women change after marriage. Try not to have your first meltdown during the wedding though, mmmkay?

My lovelife was moving along somewhat. I was seeing the ill-fated “New Jersey” at this point. Dick. I hope that after me, someone had the good sense to teach him that a grand gesture like pushing to spend Valentine’s Day together, then ending things by email is sending mixed messages.

Late one night in March there was a long email exchange with the boss. The content was mostly innocent, but once I mentioned going to bed, and he responded by saying, “great, you had to throw the bed in there,” it was another one of those lines that was just now blurred.

By the way, nothing happened in Dallas to prompt the mention of divorce a few days later. If there was anything that would have or could have happened in Dallas, it didn’t, and we came back to DC and back to our lives as usual. I should correct that to read that nothing physical happened in Dallas. Emotional? Jury still out. He said no. I think yes.

By June of that year, the Boss moved out and into his own place. I know, it was weird to me too that he told his wife he wanted a divorce on Feb 14th and then waited 4 months to move out. But, see aforementioned pills, suicide threats, lather, rinse, repeat and he didn’t want to leave until he felt things were stable. The night he moved out was a Friday. He called me to wish me a happy weekend. I was stunned by the sound of his voice. I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “I just got the boys and I have a bottle of wine and we’re going to sleep on the floor tonight.” He sounded unbelievably happy. Different. I told him this was like I was talking to someone I never spoke to before. He asked what I meant. I couldn’t describe it then. I can’t describe it now. He sounded like a totally different person.

About a month after that, some chick showed up at our office with this freaking ear to ear joker-style grin, mom jeans that were a little too high, and went into the Boss’s office. They went downstairs to the bar to have a drink. Wow. That didn’t take long.

In July, I met Sherlock. We had the ups. We had the downs. By the fall we were somewhat stable and it’s always a good idea when you’re barely somewhat stable to discuss co-habitation, right?   One Friday in the late Fall, the Boss asked me what I was doing that weekend.

V: My boyfriend and I are looking for a place to buy together.
The Boss: I hope you know what you are doing.
V: Do I ever?
The Boss: I wouldn’t want to have to write you up.
V: What are you talking about?
The Boss: You know. He’s nutty, and that stuff will trickle into work.

I guess this was the second time a line was crossed. Or the ninth. I wasn’t keeping track, I just knew then that his comment popped out of nowhere. Later that night, I made up an excuse to not see Sherlock so I could sulk. I cannot explain the pit in my stomach, and how much that conversation hurt me. I didn’t want to have job-drama, or boss-drama. We weren’t the same we once were. We had a schtick at the old company and that seemed to have disappeared.

Around 10:30 or 11:00 I texted the Boss and said, “Do you really think that I’ll start messing up at work if I move in with him?” He texted back and said, “No, you’re still thinking about that?”   The next night I went to Sherlock’s and when he and I were having sex, guess who pops into my head. (I know, I know.)

I tried to get back to normal at work as quickly as possible. I would go weeks without seeing anyone. It was boring, lonely, and hard to stay motivated to drive almost an hour when I could just work from home. When I saw the Boss it wasn’t for long. He was in my office once just chatting about the latest meltdown from the camp of the ex-Mrs.-Boss.

V: Does she think you’re having an affair?
Boss: Yes.
V: Does she think it’s me?
Boss: Yes.
V: Oh my God! Should I call her?
Boss: Uh, no, that’s not a good idea.
V: Wait, we’re friendly. I need to tell her.
Boss: Yeah, um, I wouldn’t do that. I told her I would never have sex with you.

Then we just looked at each other. Awwwwkward.

The ex-Mrs.-Boss surfaced at the office one day. I felt this insane desire to convince her that I was not fucking her husband, nor was I the reason her marriage ended. But when she came and sat down in my office, she looked so painfully thin. I told her she looked good. She said, “Yeah, well, when someone rips your heart out of your chest, what do you expect?”

Part 9: You’re the Only One Who Knows Me, and Who Doesn’t Ignore That My Soul is Weeping

2005

January marked the last month of my Boss as my Boss at the old company. He gave his notice and left. The day he left, the sadness was palpable throughout the office. A lot of people saw him as the savior, the one who was going to rescue everything and everyone, and let me tell you, when you see the person you pin your hopes on get up and walk out the door, it sent a message loud and clear.

The Boss was going to a place where he could create his own company from the ground, up. I asked him if he would consider taking various people with him and he said that he couldn’t. I’mplicit in all of these conversations had been the obvious – that I would be the only one going. He said, “I don’t need them. But I need you.”

I quit shortly thereafter to go with him and began the process of finding, constructing and decorating what was to become a high profile office. The Boss and I went from daily interaction to talking once or twice a week by phone. I got Satan’s Death Flu and ended up in the hospital. Then I was renovating my condo, and I couldn’t get the piece of shit contractor to finish. I lived among drywall for MONTHS. I dated a string of losers, all of whom were incredulous at the lack of construction. Losers would come and losers would go and that damn drywall sat leaning against my wall for months.

That time is also a blur because more of the snow and because now instead of dating just 2 guys like in 2004, I embarked on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. It wasn’t good. It started with some guy I met the night Satan’s Death Flu struck. He hung around for several weeks until I was ejected from the hospital and he stole my vicodin. The vicodin I needed to manage the pain it took just to   SWALLOW WATER so I wouldn’t end up in the hospital again. I did get down to my preferred weight at this time though, so that was good.

Starting with him, I perfected the fine art of throwing men out of my house. I think this was the order, and yes, they are real names because who the fuck cares anymore: Derek who stole my Vicodin, Bret who asked if I would consider having sex with him despite having a fight on our first (and last) date because he thought leaving work at 3:00 in Reston for a 6:30 date was normal and showing up very early was also normal, George who lopped 10 years off his age and thought I wouldn’t notice, Mike who could have had staying power but we just drifted apart, Josh who conducted an entire “relationship” over text and whose rampant non-stop use of the word “amazing” made me want to punch him in the balls, Jeff who was such an amateur liar that it resulted in my throwing a sandwich at him and the Bartender who did nothing but encourage my partying and bad behavior.

Somewhere between Mike and Josh? Velvet in Dupont was born. June, 2005.

That summer was a hot one. I had a routine of walking my dogs late at night and I loved it. I loved being in the city, I loved walking the puppies around with no leashes and teaching them how to stay and not cross the street without my command. I loved half-ass working from home. All of it was great.

One night on one of my dog walks with my neighbor/friend, A, my phone rang. It was the former-current Boss. It was about 9:45, a little late for one of his calls.

V: Hey!
Boss: Hey, I’m sorry to bother you.
V: If you were bothering me I wouldn’t have picked up.
Boss: Well, I just took my phone, got up, walked out of the house and now I’m walking around Home Depot with nothing particular to do.

I knew exactly what he was talking about but I was still stunned in silence.   I think it was the first time that we possibly crossed a line.

He said he was sorry for calling, that he didn’t have anyone else to tell, and he got off the phone pretty quickly. My friend A said, “Don’t do it.” I said, “What?” She said, “Just don’t do it.”

A few nights later, around the same time, the Boss called again and apologized for calling the first time.   This time he was on a “walk,” and said when he took his phone to leave, his wife accused him of going to call someone. They had an argument about it and he left anyway. He wasn’t really looking for my two cents or advice, he just wanted to vent. I remember him saying the words, “Just, listen. Just, listen. I don’t have anyone else I can tell so I need you to listen.”

My response after he spit it out?

“Your perfect trifecta has shifted. They say there are three aspects to your life: work, home and relationship. For the last few years at the other company, things have been such turmoil. Now you have a job that’s wonderful and our company placed you in a brand new perfect house, so you have no more work drama and no more house drama, and you can focus on the other area – the relationship.”

He said, “No, that’s not it.”

But he called me back the next morning and said, “Can you explain the three aspects again?”

Part 8: You Know I Can’t See Through the Haze Around Me, And I Do Anything To Just Feel Better

2004: May – December

Now that I had Thora, I was officially ready to move on with my life. I was still dating the Baltimore Rockstar but it was winding down. The Rockstar and I ended things in the end of May and I moved on to the Metro.

In other 2004 relationship news, my Boss and his wife seemed pretty good. After the day of that first interview, I mostly abandoned the crush I had on him. He and his wife seemed like good friends. Sometimes she would come to work and sit in his office and read a book. It would always surprise me to find her there, but everyone liked her. She started doing some light work for the company and this meant she had her own things to do and her own people to see when she came. Sometimes she would sit at my desk and we would talk for an hour. Other times when she was looking for The Boss and not able to find him, she would call me and we would talk.

In the beginning of the year, she had said that the Boss mentioned to her I just got out of a relationship. I told her about it and also I told her I was dating the Rockstar but that I didn’t know where it was going to go. She had been married young and had several children, then divorced and married my Boss, and they had two kids together. In all, she had six. She told me once during one of our conversations, “Don’t do what I did. I was an idiot. You have plenty of time. Don’t be in a rush. You’re only 31. Get married at 35 and have a kid at like, 36, and only have one. That’s all you need.”

I thought everything between them was so perfect, though occasionally I would get glimmers that not all was right. Sometimes the Boss would have to leave work because she was home having some sort of tantrum. He started telling me that there were some anger issues that would escalate and he would have to go home to deal with it and be the buffer between her and the kids. I sort of understood that like all marriages, nothing is as it seems.

The rest of the year workwise was a clusterfuck. There went my perfect balance of work, home and relationship. The company had gone awry in so many areas, there was a brewing sexual harassment suit, a bunch of unhappy people, a major Human Resource intervention and no houses were getting built. It was a colossal disaster. The details were so unbelievably ridiculous. The Boss and I tried to just be normal in this sea of crazy but it was impossible. We had this routine of doing a Monday catch-up of what we did with our weekends, then a Friday rundown where we would watch these two stupid videos online.

And this one:

The Boss was getting calls by the end of the summer to go work for other companies and I was so depressed. I kept thinking we could just fix it if he stayed, but he didn’t think it was fixable. He wavered on some of these offers.

On a Sunday night, we had the following email exchange.

The Boss: The growth they are projecting is incredible. With our talent, and compared with the “talent” around us, it would be stupid to bail. We need to figure out how to take it over, make great progress and great money.
Me: I agree. I can’t follow you to a no name builder anyway. We need to take over here. I’ve already made my mark. No one knows it yet.
The Boss: Great. I need help.

By the end of the year, he got a call from another company that he entertained seriously. Prior to my big trip to Italy in November, 2004, he called me to say, “I hope you’re coming back because I cut a deal for both of us to go to the new company.” I wasn’t excited. Change isn’t always good. I knew the grass isn’t always greener. I came back from Italy and he and I silently prepared to leave the company after the holidays.

I found an old email that for some reason I saved. It was an exchange between us when he was with his kids at a doctor’s appointment. We were having a conversation about the kids in the waiting room where he was and he said, “Everything you do points to kids in your future.”

I responded: If I was having unprotected sex and longingly looking in the windows at Baby’s R Us, then I could see how you would make that statement. But, I continue to poison my body with Bombay and Tonics and stay out until 6 a.m. But no matter how drunk I get, I never forget to take that little pill…

That was the kind of relationship we had.

I dated the Metro for 2004’s May-December romance, with our last time seeing each other being New Years Eve, going into 2005. I believe he probably got just totally sick of my shit. I had this backlash after the breakup with K. I knew drugs were to blame for our demise, and then I started doing them often instead of just here and there for fun. When the Metro and I were at a party New Year’s Eve, someone gave me something which I threw in there on top of a bunch of other things and I turned into a pile of mush. He practically had to carry me back to his place. I believe that’s when he decided, “I’m done.”

It was upsetting. I really liked him. It didn’t stop my whirlwind tour of self-destruction though.

Work got worse before it got better. I partied more than anyone should. I started getting totally ridiculously reckless with it. It began to consume me. What a mess. Then I lost the Metro dude after New Years Eve. I consoled myself by buying a condo in D.C.

Bye Bye Maryland!!!

Part 7: Will it Make it Easier on You Now You Got Someone to Blame

2004: Jan – April

I spent the entire year finding myself. I had been with K for so long that dating again was sort of ridiculous. I had no idea what I would want in someone. I met the Baltimore Rockstar, a Dave Grohl lookalike who I had a pretty nice rebound relationship with for several months. We were opposite in many respects, but he was a lot of fun. We’re now Facebook friends, and he’s one of those people you just wish nothing but good things for. I could not have asked for a better rebound than him.

Working for the New Boss was good. The company was screwy but I appreciated stupid things like, oh, having direct deposit and not having to chase someone across town for my paycheck. I was making decent money, and I had a schedule to my life finally. No more bouncing around from school to home to meeting friends to do projects to the house of a man who didn’t appreciate me, back home to get something, back to work, etc. Home was good. Work was good. Relationship on the fence. With the trifecta almost back into some sort of balance, it was just me and Sammy, but we were happy.

K’s former roommate called and said he was in Virginia for a meeting. My friend and I went and met him at his hotel, and took him out in D.C. At this point in time, he decided to confess. K was doing meth. Doing it. Selling it. Couldn’t live without it.

I was like, “Um. WHAT?”

The stories he told me about what K’s life had become sent me into a spiral. I do believe that I lost it. Hearing about strippers and theft and car break-ins and lies so convoluted, it made my stomach turn.

People. I had no idea. None. I seriously thought all the lies, all the flaky and all the crap was because he had another girl, and/or was still trying to punish me for cheating on him. I had been so close to his family for so many years, that I just felt like someone needed to help him. That someone wasn’t me though. I did the best thing I could think of. I called his brother and sister-in-law to unload this information on them and beg them to get him into rehab.

K responded by leaving me several voicemails that he was going to kill me and ruin my life for ruining his, and that I would live to regret what I had done.   Then there were threats of sending naked pictures of me to my parents. I temporarily panicked, but then my brother said, “He can’t even remember that the time lag between your phone calls is weeks, not hours, and you think he can function enough to print the pictures, address an envelope and mail them to mom and dad?” Point taken.

It died down. Thankfully. I saved those voicemails for a long time to remind me of who he had become.

K called on a Friday in April hysterically crying. Hysterical. He said he went to L.A. and left Thora with his dad’s friend and Thora had run away. I cried. I spent days on the phone calling the entire state of Georgia. A lot of people felt she was better off wherever she was, because K had been so neglectful. I was only now finding out Thora went days without food and water. Everyone was looking for her though. Then K’s mom called crying after 24 hours with no sign of the dog. I wanted to scream at all of them: CRYING WON’T MAKE THE DOG COME HOME!!! She said she was driving around all day looking for Thora and when she went to K’s house, he was on the couch sleeping. Welcome to my fucking world for the last six years lady. Welcome. Pull up a god damned chair, get your ass some sweet tea and get comfortable, because we’re gonna be here a while.

That addiction paralyzed him so much, he couldn’t go look for his fucking dog. Fuck him. I decided he didn’t deserve to get her back. I was going to find her first.

I placed an ad in the Macon Fucking Telegraph on Monday. The ad went in on Wednesday, same day my Uncle decides to die! My luck rocks! I drove up to Pennsylvania on Thursday for the Friday funeral. When all was said and done, my brother and his wife were coming back with me to Maryland for a few days to kick off their vacation. We stopped for food on the way out of town, and when we were sitting at the table the phone rang with a 478 area code and it was not a number I recognized. I knew it before I   picked up the phone.

“Did y’all lose a dog? I reckon my neighbor’s keepin’ her.” (That’s redneck-speak.)

I called the neighbor and she emailed a picture and it was indeed my Thora. We raced back to Maryland where I left Sammy with my brother and wife and grabbed my friend and drove all night to Georgia. The map indicated that she was 1.5 miles from K’s house, but I chose to drive the 700 miles to go get her. The map also indicated she crossed a highway to get where she did.

When I pulled up in front of the house, 14 hours later, Thora came bounding around from the back yard, jumped on me, then jumped past me and got into the backseat of the car, crossed her paws and looked at me like, “Bitch, what took you so long?”

I brought her back to Maryland, and she and Sammy were reunited and it feels so good!!!

When I got to work Monday my boss said, “How was the funeral?” I said, “You’re not going to believe the weekend I had.”

Part 6: I Can’t Be Holding On to What You Got, When All You Got is Hurt

2003: September – December

My interview was at 8 a.m. on a nice fall day in September. I’m not very good in the morning. I think I was late. The receptionist had me fill out an application and then wait in the conference room.

The man I spoke with on the phone walked in and I was a little taken aback. I just didn’t expect him to be so…um…sexy. (Think unsexy thoughts, think unsexy thoughts!) The interview was barely an interview because we regaled each other with stories about the man who was my former boss. I just told the truth. And I got the job.

The new Boss wasn’t ready for me just yet, so I had a few weeks to get some things in order. I planned to go back down to Atlanta to get to the bottom of what was going on with K. Now that I had a job in Maryland, I was going to stay there. And nothing was going to stop me from trying to get K to come back with me this time.

That evening when I was laying in bed, the image of the man who was my new Boss popped into my head. I thought that it would be hard to work for someone I was attracted to. I recalled a wedding ring and discussions of a wife and some kids, so I just decided to let that little attraction die off. But not before I had a round with the former version of the Magic Wand – the Rabbit.

I got to Atlanta in mid-September and K was working on a movie. I barely saw him, but I spent a lot of time shopping with my own friends who still lived there. K would check in with me and I would see him at night and on his days off. His roommate was a childhood friend of his and one night he and I were watching TV when I said, “There’s a message on the machine.” The roommate played it and it wasn’t a message. It was a conversation between K and a girl, discussing him waiting for another girl to come over. My heart sank. I asked the roommate what was going on. He didn’t have a lot to say that I didn’t already know – K was lazy and flaky and couldn’t be relied on, even though he was allegedly making good money, he could barely remember to pay the rent. But he didn’t know anything about the girls on the machine, and he assured me of that. He said he and K didn’t talk much anymore, and asked if I noticed they were really not friends anymore. Nope. Didn’t notice. Was too busy fielding my own freeze-out to notice anyone else’s.

I called K and ripped him a new one. I told him if he was going to continue to punish me for my cheating on him over a year ago then I was going to check out, I had been trying to make this work for a year and I’ve got nothing in return. K had very little to say. We somewhat resolved things to an amicable place, but I left shortly thereafter. I left without Thora, which broke my heart. And in hindsight, I should have grabbed her and taken off when he was at work. But I didn’t. Sammy and I returned to Maryland and I started the new job and moved to Rockville.

Life was MUCH better in Rockville than my former sleepy hometowns of Columbia and Baltimore. I liked the people at work better and I liked the people in my apartment complex better. But I kept holding out for K to just come back around. It was like I didn’t even know him anymore. He accused me one night of interrogating his roommate about what he was up to, and I told him that the conversation we had wasn’t like that at all – in fact, it was initiated by his roommate entirely. Big fight ensues, K disappears off the radar for about six weeks. I had this very vivid dream about him and that he needed me, but in the real world, I couldn’t get him to return a phone call or an email. I resolved that he was gone, and began to consider a weekend run to Atlanta to steal Thora back. I had all but given up on any contact when he resurfaced in late November.

In a rare moment of clarity, he had passed the exit on some highway in Florida where my parents lived, and he decided to call when I popped into his head. Odd that he could remember what exit they lived off of when he had never been to that house.

I tried to give K one last chance. We talked on the phone on and off through the rest of the fall. One night he said his roommate was treating him badly or some other lie I believed, and that he was sick of him. My sister-in-law had asked me to just bury my feminism for a second and try to repair it, even if it meant having him move in with me and footing the bills while he got his act together. So, I told him he could come up to Maryland and live with me while I paid the bills and he figured out what he wanted to do. He said, “I know that. Oh. My pizza’s here. I gotta go. I’ll call you later.”

When he hung up I knew what I had offered was a great deal and a big deal for me to just agree to support someone, and he blew it off. He also promised to call later, which, according to his past behavior, meant I would not hear from him for weeks. I was right.

When he called several weeks later, the week of Christmas, he was unaware that we hadn’t spoken in three weeks. He thought we “just spoke the other day.” He also said he had finally forgiven me for the cheating and wanted to get back together. The truth was he had been thrown out of his house by his roommate. Suddenly his party was over and he wanted to live with me in Maryland. It was just too late. I can’t explain it, but it was too late. Three weeks prior? Sure. I would have taken him in. But now? Nope. No way was I going to be someone’s “last resort.” Something clicked in my head when he ended our conversation to eat his pizza three weeks earlier, and I had officially moved on.

Part 5:You Ask Me To Enter, Then You Make Me Crawl

2003: May – September

I had one residual MBA class on Saturdays that would finish in the end of June. I had essentially dismantled my life, and Sammy suffered dearly for it. He went from having Thora and K, to being alone for most of 16 months while I was in school and working. So, I promised that little dog a big vacation.

I googled “dog vacation” and the first place that came up was a place in the Keys – one of my favorite places on earth. I planned to get in the car and drive both Sammy and I from Baltimore to Islamorada in the Keys. I booked it for the week of the 4th of July and the week after.

Prior to leaving, I found out that the Developer screwed me in such a silly way on a money issue.   Screwing me over pennies, after everything I did for him, did not make me happy. I cleaned off my desk and went home without saying goodbye. I left the next morning on my two week trip to the Keys. I didn’t plan to go back.

I had a great time just being alone with Sammy, teaching him to swim, reading, sleeping late, and laying out. One of my coworkers called me to give me a peptalk to go back to work. I was unconvinced. The Developer knew I was pissed at him and he was apparently scared I wasn’t coming back but he wouldn’t call and talk to me. He just kept needling the coworker to call me. Instead, the coworker convinced him to raise my salary and pay my vacation time.

On the way back to Maryland I detoured through Atlanta. No change with K. He wasn’t going to move to Maryland anytime soon and was still really flaky. We spent a few days being the “old us” but then I left. I was pretty bummed out driving back and really wanted to go back to Atlanta for good to try to fix it. I really believed we were meant to be together.

When I got back to Baltimore I listed my condo on the market and began the motions to get out of the area. The Developer did offer me a regular full time job at non-slave wages, but I continued putting my resume out between New York, the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. I had spent a year and a half in grad school waiting to leave, so I was going to leave. The only caveat was how the hell was I going to interview? Finding something in town would be easy enough, but in another state? The Developer expected after my recent vacation that I wouldn’t be taking any vacations soon. How the hell I was going to get the time off I needed to solve my relationship and job woes was beyond me.

I have heard that there are three aspects to a persons life: Home, Work and Relationship. At any given time, one of those three has to be in constant turmoil because that’s how we are as humans. We get settled in our house and relationship and suddenly we want a job change. We love our job and we realize the house needs to be bigger so we move. Think about it – when have you been satisfied in all three areas? For me, it was relationship turmoil? Check. Job turmoil? Check. House on the market so turmoil there? Check. Not good.

The day of settlement arrived for my condo. I was going to make lots of money for doing basically nothing. The Developer forbade me to leave work to go settle on the condo. He insinuated to a coworker that he was going to fire me if I went. He didn’t like the idea of anyone making any money at all, especially since the money I would make was going to render his paychecks useless for a while. So, I called my dad. This is exactly how the conversation went, I shit you not.

V: Dad. He’s going to fire me if I go to the settlement.
Dad: How much will you make by going to work tomorrow?
V: I don’t know.
Dad: Is it safe to say $250?
V: Sure.
Dad: And how much would you make by going to your settlement tomorrow?
V: $50,000.
Dad: Um, lemme ask you. Did you just get an MBA?
V: Yes.
Dad: Are we done here?

Went to settlement, collected my cash, got fired. In. That. Order.

See, there was a method to the madness that was my former boss. He liked that we were all struggling. It enabled him to say things like, “Instead of going to the office tomorrow, meet my wife at the furniture store and load a five piece sectional sofa into the company truck and bring it to my house. Set them up where she wants them.” He used to send me to these properties in the ghettos of Prince George’s County to do the most insane shit. I had to go to some mail order bride’s house to try to convince her to sell her land now that her husband was in jail. In jail for killing people. I should have had my own bodyguard. The Developer used us like slaves. What a prick.

When I called my dad and said “He fired me.” My dad said, “GOOD!”

I had already begun the job hunt, weeks prior. I had answered a bunch of ads in the paper that weekend and got several calls.   Homebuilding was great back then. At this point I realized something: national homebuilders all had local offices. I didn’t know this before. I would look at the headquarters of a builder, see it was in Texas or California, and think I didn’t want to move there, so I didn’t pursue them. But then I found out they all had regional offices.

A man called me holding my resume in hand. Because my job with the developer read as “current,” and the company name was just an acronym, he asked me who the owner was.

V: The Developer
Man: Oh Jesus. Are you there right now?
V: No.
Man: I hate that guy. He learned all his tricks at this company we both worked for in the early 90’s. What’s he up to these days?
V: Um…same old stuff. Still fleecing people for pennies. He fired me last week.

“Why don’t you come in for an interview?”

Part 4: Love is a Temple, Love – a Higher Law

2003: January – May

School proved to be an ass kicker. I was really plugging along though, adding the A’s to my prized collection. Work was work. The Developer was a dipshit. But knowing that someone is a sneak and a thief is much better than not knowing. I can combat almost anything with humor. Someone at work said to me, “You have this way of insulting him and he thinks it’s funny.” It’s how I got by. I remember the Developer telling us some story about his kid’s baseball game and how there’s a snack shack which had the best fries, and how it was like “this little   slice of Americana.”

I was in the next room and I screamed out a giant, “HA! Americana? So you pulled up to this little slice of Americana in your $80,000 Mercedes with your $200 shirt and $400 shoes? Do you even HEAR yourself?” Idiot. I held a grudge because during my first few weeks working for him he had played dumb on something and basically set me up to take the fall for it. The story is too long to get into, but when I realized I had been had, I checked my loyalty at the door. Despite the fact that we had to grovel and chase him all over Maryland for our paychecks every payday, I needed the job because I wanted the career it represented.

K and I had been communicating. February was the big snow where we got 2 feet and he had driven up from Atlanta. When we saw each other, it was like old times. We were snowed in for 4 days. It was better than old times. When enough snow melted for me to go to work, I did so, leaving K at my condo. I didn’t know that he would begin a full blown all out search through my condo for evidence of what I was doing in our year apart.

The big fight blew up about my “overlap” of him with Jack, and then we repaired as best we could and he left. I was so ready to graduate school and get back down to Atlanta to just start over. “I don’t know” was all K was saying. I wasn’t really listening though. I just concentrated on finishing school. K was acting weird, and it registered somewhere in my subconscious, but it was not on my radar enough to really address it. In a nutshell, he became really unreliable and flaky. I thought it was because he was still mad at me for the whole Jack thing.

In May I graduated and since I had all A’s, and a 4.0, I was the Graduation Speaker. K came up to go with me to gra-jumm-u-ate. With my entire family in tow, I informed K that there would be none of his disappearing act on graduation day. No retreating to the bathroom for 4 hours. No going to walk dogs. No going to take a shit. He would disappear into the bathroom for hours. I was stumped. It was totally mystifying.

True to form, 10 minutes before we were going to leave for my graduation, K proclaims he needs to go to the store to buy cigarettes. I had the foresight to tell him no, and to get in the car.

My graduation speech was full of a lot of mental sweat. I spoke about how I took a chance and it paid off.   I spoke about quitting my job and taking my boyfriend and dogs and driving cross country, how mad my mom was, how dangerous and irresponsible she said it was, how we made it home alive and slightly poorer, how September 11th happened a week after we arrived back in Atlanta after six months on the road, how someone in the towers that day woke up wanting to quit their job and drive cross country and here I had just done that and yet they were the one who didn’t have their life anymore. I spoke about taking chances and taking leaps and throwing caution to the wind. I spoke about my friend Laura who also had an intense reaction to September 11th, who wanted to quit her high-travel job working as a shoe designer traveling to the depths of China every month,   how Laura wrote a resignation letter to Kenneth Cole on her last trip to China. And how they found that letter among her things when her body was shipped back to the states.

I talked about following the status quo and how that person would never be me. Ever.

Part 3: We’re One But We’re Not the Same

2002

Starting grad school and a brand new job on the same day was probably a very dumb idea in hindsight. Couple that with a budding inclination toward involuntary anxiety attacks and the demise of a relationship I thought would last forever, and well, 2002 goes down as probably the worst year of my life. I was determined to get A’s in school, I was determined to do well at my job and I was determined to keep Jack happy. He had a growing habit as the Bowie town drunk and it was difficult to manage. More difficult to manage when he started snorting. Less difficult when I joined him. That entire fucking year is one big blur.

Working for the Developer was fascinating. He put me onto all sorts of projects and let me cut my teeth on most things that would be “out of reach” for a woman. My office nickname became the Pit Bull. If there was some drama that needed managing, I got the 10 p.m. phone call with the instructions of what I would be doing the next day. Your mission should you choose to accept it would be to manage the building and leasing of an entire office complex in Stafford, unknowingly fleecing homeowners in Prince George’s County and finishing a bankrupt townhouse development in Dunn Loring.   I quickly proved myself and became the recipient of the song and dance that the Developer and his wife would eventually step out of the business and they wanted to groom someone to be in charge. That someone was me. This was all very fun. For about six months.

That’s when my love affair with working for the fine upstanding developer was replaced with reality. I was really working for a born-again Christian who behaved as though it was his God given right to screw anyone and everyone out of a nickel, myself included. I was crushed when I realized what was going on. But there wasn’t a lot I could do. I was in school full time and this was a rare job that would allow me a flexible work schedule to continue going to school at a marathon pace. The real estate boom was just beginning and I was happy to be settled into a company, albeit one run by a total cocksucker, to learn what I could.

By the end of 2002, I had been enrolled in the Spring and Fall semester, both summer sessions, and the quarters program which met on Saturdays. When we went on to Christmas break, I had finished 10 of my 16 required classes with straight A’s. I was also having serious doubts about Jack. I turned 29 that year and he was 43. While I was once the focus of his whole mid-life crisis, that was transferred to the drunks at the bar. He had days of binge partying which I could not keep up with, nor could I monitor any longer. Then he stopped going to work. I realized that the primary aspect of his attractiveness lie in his job as a Construction Manager. In those mornings we would lie in bed willing ourselves to get up, he would take about 20 phone calls and I would just sit there in awe, listening to him discuss the finer points of   punchlists and as-builts.

Friends at work took to calling Jack, “Puddy,” after David Puddy on Seinfeld.   We broke up and got back together more times than Puddy and Elaine. God. The night he went running down Route 301 calling me a bitch on a coke infused high when I had to go home and finish a Management project. Jesus. Sometimes you just look back and shake your head.

I really started to miss K and the stability, and we shared a few phone calls discussing the possibility of a reconciliation.

Part 2: Well It’s Too Late, Tonight, To Drag the Past Out Into the Light

2001

I met K when I was 24, in December, 1997. We instantly fell in love and even though he lived in Atlanta, I packed up my crap and left the city that never sleeps for Dixie.

K and I celebrated our four year anniversary by breaking up. Well, this was the first iteration of that plan, anyway. We had lived in Atlanta until April, 2001, at which point we hit the road in search of a different life. A different life meant one which included less southerners. Hitting the road meant we quit our jobs, put our things in storage, and drove cross country, with a puppy Sammy and a one year old Thora. Pause for the cuteness nestled in the back  of the Ford Explorer:

 

“I’ll roll up my own window mommy.”

When we left Aspen, I turned around to look at my puppies. Sammy was gone. I started shrieking like a lunatic. K said, “But he got in the truck.” I was screaming that he wasn’t in the car and to turn around. K looked in the rear view mirror and spotted the eyebrows. Sammy liked to sleep in the luggage compartment.

“Oh Sammy? What are you doing back there?”

We were somewhere in Wyoming in the middle of an August night, driving on a steamy stretch highway and K was sleeping in the backseat with the dogs, when I first suspected our relationship might be over. There were deer on both sides of the road and I was freaked out that one would jump in front of the car. I kept clicking the lights to bright, then back to regular if a car approached. K heard the clicking and got up to ask what I was doing. I explained to him about the deer.

K: That is going to make it worse, because deer are more likely to jump out in front of the car if they are startled by brights.
V: But I can barely see 10 feet ahead of the car without the brights!
K: That’s fine, that’s all you need.
V: Not when I’m going 70 miles an hour!
K: I can’t sleep. I’m exhausted. Please just stop doing that.

K went back to sleep and I said to no one in particular, “That’s the problem here. I’m trying to look far ahead to the future and he’s only looking at the present.”

That was probably the beginning of the end for me. September brought our trip to an end and it also brought September 11th one week later. We had decided while on the road to move to Maryland so I could go back to Grad School and once and for all, get my MBA. I was starting in January, 2002, so we wanted to settle in as soon as possible. Once the towers were hit though, I figured our economy was going to crash with it. For reasons not entirely related to going where the jobs were, I continued on (with my things, and the dogs) to Maryland while K stayed behind in Atlanta. We each had jobs; they were just jobs in different cities.

I ended up hating my job in Maryland and considered going back to the familiar. K’s mom said, “It’s not so bad if you say you had a change of heart and just decided your home was in Atlanta.” It would have been so easy. So unbelievably easy. But sometimes the easy road isn’t good.

The fall brought a change of leaves I hadn’t seen in years, due to being down in Dixie. It also cooled my feelings for my relationship. And it also brought me to make a very bad decision – I cheated on K with a man named Jack. It was less of the one-night-stand variety of cheating and more of the full-blown-relationship cheating. I’ve written about Jack here. The details are still hard because I know what pain I caused by that selfish action. I have a few regrets in life – and one is cheating on K. No one deserves that sort of pain. Somewhere in my teen years I was cheated on, and since then I adopted this attitude of making sure I cheat in almost every relationship. I felt like it was my ace in the hole. It’s a losing bet every time. And to do it to someone I loved? Horrible. Absolutely horrible.

By the end of 2001, I was headed back to Atlanta to take care of the breakup in person. K sensed this was coming. They always know, don’t they? That’s when they pull out all the stops. Four years in a relationship where the best present I got was an incredible hit of acid, and now he busts out the diamond necklace. I couldn’t accept it. I’m not a material girl. I returned the necklace, and we broke up.

In January, I would be starting graduate classes at school, in a new relationship, in a new city, and I would also be starting a new job. It was enough change to bring on a full depression.

The job would be with a Land Developer. I was probably more excited about the job than anything else. The aforementioned Jack was a Construction Manager and our brief time together taught me that I liked his job more than my own at the time. I marched into a placement office and announced: “I’m going back to grad school full time and I want to work 30 hours a week for a construction business. What do you have?”

“We have the perfect job for you, working for a great guy.”

 

Part 1: I’ve Been Sitting Here Trying to Find Myself, I Get Behind Myself, I Need to Rewind Myself

And so it begins.

I feel like the Velvet / Mr. X love story is somewhat hackneyed. Velvet was a tell-all blog for so many years, then, much like any normal person would, I became secretive and only put out bits and pieces because what was going on in my personal life was so, well, personal. It just didn’t seem that the internet was a place to rehash it all. It wasn’t up for discussion. It wasn’t up for scrutiny. It wasn’t up for criticism. It wasn’t up for envy. It wasn’t up for anything but mystery.

Truth be told: Velvet & Mr. X is perhaps the greatest love story never told. It is probably the only thing I could fashion into anything resembling a manuscript that could become a book because of how incredibly it unraveled.   Weaved throughout the story of how we met and how we fell in love are the recurring themes and lessons so simple and intuitive that I learned no amount of matchmaking or other romantic engineering (like the internet) could ever have been a success. I’m very much a believer in fate. I always have been. And the man and I are proof – When it’s meant to be, it will be.

I don’t know if I have the patience to   recreate all the encounters, all the history, all the details needed to accurately tell the story. I know that if I were to ever try to sit down and write it for real, the manuscript would probably be rejected by every publisher as cliche and predictable because they would see the ending as clearly as I saw that first day post-Lasik.   Anyone. Anyone that is, except Mr. X and I. So while everyone who knew us figured we were messing around the whole time, we were the only ones not privy to that rumor. We were both going through the motions of respective relationships with other people. And we were both failing miserably. Obviously. See: Velvet Archives for me, Divorce Court for Mr. X.

Things are moving ahead so fast right now that I feel like we’re making history faster than I can retrace it. And discussing the here and now doesn’t make as much sense because the meaning is lost on people who don’t know the history. So I have to bridge that gap.   It’s not going to be easy to recreate these years, but I do like a challenge so I’m going to try. I’ve wavered with closing down the blog once and for all and just moving into oblivion with my perfect little life. But that’s not fair. It’s not fair to me. It’s not fair to Mr. X to not tell the world (or the few readers left) just how wonderful he is. It’s not fair to the friends who have stuck with me through all these years.

And perhaps what hits home most of all, it’s not fair to the girl who came here to read about the escapades, the men – more bad than good, the bad dates, the boyfriends, the hopes, the drama, the depression. The girl who encounters Pick Up Artists in clubs and wonders when the world became so shallow. The girl who is still looking and still stumbling over all the wrongs wondering if she’ll ever find the one.

There was one overriding conclusion about me over the past years that people would convey either in comments or in emails to me. The readers were rooting for me. So I just want to tell any of those originals who may be left, and anyone I picked up along the way – I won. I won the full jackpot more times and for more than I could have ever thought.

Starting with my next post, I am hijacking my own blog and going back to the old days. I’m going to do what Mr. X and I discussed as taking two people and tracing their movements through life and showing how they bump into each other, and how timing and such can bring them to each other only when it’s right. I can drive myself nuts with this stuff though. I start thinking: I wouldn’t have met him if this hadn’t happened, and that wouldn’t have happened if this didn’t, and that wouldn’t have happened if that other thing didn’t work out.

But I have located my starting point – The time period where the foundations were made for Mr. X to enter my life and I will tell you THAT story. I’ll tell the story that was going on at the same time all the other crap I was writing was going on, except it was the story I didn’t realize was a story.   I’m not sure how long it will take, but it is overdue in my opinion. It’s a whole new venture for me – and for us. So I do hope you will join me.

And Then (We’ll) Settle Down, There’s a Quiet Little Town, And Forget About Everything

The Love of My Life and the two furry loves of my life went to the beach this weekend. (Do I have to clarify that I mean Sammy and Thora? Because I know how your minds might think that two furry loves of my life are, well, something else.) In case you missed it, this weekend was the undoing of the semi-annual season change. Winter. Summer. Winter. Summer. In the fall you may notice it as the ass-fucking weekend where you’re frolicking alone enjoying 70 degree temperatures, when BAM, all the leaves are on the ground and are subsequently covered by 4 feet of snow. This weekend was the fortunate reversal where we go from 30 degrees to July practically overnight. Joy.

X, the dogs and I piled into Speedracer. We have been looking at getting an SUV as a third car between both of us. We need something bigger than the two-seater Speedracer, and Mr. X’s vehicle doesn’t fit the kids and the dogs. (I told you Mr. X has kids, didn’t I? No? Oh. Well he does. Two. And one of them told me Friday that I was soooo cool. I’ve waited 36 years to hear those words. Soooo cool. Don’t you forget it! ) Anyway, while we’re in the car, this conversation took place at exactly 5th and Florida, still in Northwest.

X: So Mike from the car dealer at the beach called me. He said they got a new truck in this week off a lease and it’s gray.
V: OMG! How much is it?
X: I don’t know.
V: What color is the interior?
X: I don’t know.
V: How many miles are on it?
X: I don’t know.
V: Didn’t you talk to him?
X: Yes.
V, officially becoming my mother: And so did you find out anything besides there’s a car and it’s gray?
X: No.
V: (inaudible grumbles)

Occasionally I would pipe up with another question, realizing, I would be better off shutting up and waiting until we got there, since Captain Detail had found out exactly nothing about the truck. I did make sure to open the windows in Speedracer enough times to get dog heads and dog slobber at our ears as they tried to get their little muzzles out the window, just so Mr. X would realize what we’re destined to deal with if we don’t buy a school bus a bigger car.

We arrive at the dealer and I just want to inform you that spending 4 hours inside a car dealer on the first Saturday of the year when it hits 80 degrees is not the ideal place to be. It was worse for Sammy and Thora who were inside Speedracer in the parking lot. And wait, it was worse for Speeedracer, whose engine I left running and A/C on full blast so the dogs wouldn’t die. And wait, it was worse for my wallet as I burned through most of the gas in my tank. Finally I asked if I could bring the dogs inside. Permission granted. I should have asked hours earlier.

Then begin the negotiations. The truck price was $22,800. I have been doing research and that was a very on target price for what we wanted. But Mr. X decided, based on no relevant information, that he wanted to pay $18,000. So we go back and forth and then Mike has to go talk to his manager. A minute passes. Then two minutes. Mr. X says, “No takes only 2 seconds.” I was convinced they were going to eject us from the deal KITT style.

They return with all the paperwork showing all the money they spent on the car. Detailing. Oil changes. Service. Car Fax. Blah. Blah. Blah. Then the manager comes over and explains why the price is already low and they can’t do it at $18 because they would lose money but maybe just maybe we could meet in the middle somewhere? So we say okay, they say okay, everyone says okay and we discuss something around $20.5. Then the manager gets up to go back to his desk and turns around and says, “We’ll just do it at an even $20.” Um. What? Then they run our credit.

Mike: The manager said you two have such good credit you can buy three cars if you want.
X: Oh no! We only need one.
Mike: Hold tight for Elvis.

Did he say Elvis?

Oh. Yes. He. Did.

Out walks an Elvis impersonator who is perhaps the funniest highlight of the entire weekend. He is honest, funny and straightforward. I like him. He reminds me of my dad and most of the old people back home who like to “tell stories.” Well, except he has more sideburn and more pompadour.

Elvis is entertaining us with stories about how he tried to buy a house in the same subdivision where we live and how there were all these problems (no, really? Is it related to the message boards and the people on there?) Then he’s printing some papers and he says, “Let me grab those off the printer out in the hall.”

He gets up to leave to go to the printer and as he’s out in the hall, beyond earshot for the answer and beyond sight for our reaction, he says,

“So when are you two getting married? I’ll sing at your wedding.”

Women Seeking Men; Murderers Need Not Apply

I know several people who found their spouses from Craigslist. I know people who found furniture from Craigslist. I know a lady who found and bought my Harley off the ad I placed on Craigslist. I know people who found apartments, cars, bikes from Craigslist. You see where this is going, right?

It was only a matter of time. Now we know that people have been killed for using Craigslist.

Warning: Using Craigslist may be hazardous to your health.

Generally speaking, anything you find on Craigslist should be tossed back like a hot potato. There are a few exceptions, but very few. I’ve become obsessed with this story. I cannot stop reading the news on it. I’ve dragged Cube, Phil and Hammer down with me.

I love when people say, “Oh it couldn’t have been him, he is such a great guy!” That’s my favorite part of the news whenever some idiot unravels and does something really stupid – all the idiots who come to his defense. Besides, I bet there were warning signs.   Think of all the times Sideshow Bob got loose and tried to kill Bart Simpson?   About 40% of the people I know right now who could snap and murder someone. And   when they came to interview me? I’d be all like, “Yep. I knew that mofo was going to slit someone’s jugular one of these days. I’m just glad it wasn’t me!”

A simple little name search for Philip Markoff on The Wedding Channel turns up their registry.   Because Pottery Barn yanked their registry list (I really wanted to see the Ginsu Knife Registry anyway) and because they pulled down their website AND their cache, I don’t have a lot to go on. Which brings me to a digression…how are they smart enough to get their website down and yank the cache which necessitates knowing the html code, yet, the idiot was too stupid to mask his IP address when soliciting hookers?

Anyway, one would have thought his fiancee would have been slightly clued in after what she wrote on their “story.” Right now it’s not rendering well in IE, so if you have Firefox, you’ll need to use that.)

Credits go to Phil for the “Editing!”

*By the way – people kept signing their guestbook last night and then getting deleted.

The Fire in Your Eyes Keeps Me Alive

We spent a rare but much needed weekend in town. Being that we’re Greek, Mr. X and I had plans for Sunday which was our Easter. I love that the Orthodox Easter (or as I call it, “Greek Easter”) happens after regular Easter because all the candy at CVS is half price already. Win! Anyway, this was the reason we didn’t go to the beach. He asked what I wanted to do the rest of the weekend.

“It’s time to start cleaning.”

You see, my summer plans include the exodus of myself and dogs from the city to take up residence with the man in the burbs. This means we have to consolidate two households into one. This means I have to figure out what to do with all the furniture I cherish so dearly. Thankfully there’s that mostly empty house at the beach…and the garage…sigh.

I needed to address what’s in every drawer, every closet and every orifice, with enough of a break inbetween to ensure my own orifice is, well, you understand.

Friday night I did my customary evening 3 miler, then came home and began to clean. I started in the bedroom closets. I opened a paper bag in the bottom of one closet and it ripped while I was looking in it. Several things I had long forgotten I owned came spilling out all over the floor.

Five dead and no-longer-in rotation vibrators. All the usual suspects were there. The rabbit. The dolphin. The little plastic one that was my first. The broken bullet. Some of them were malformed, not from use, but from time I suppose. Maybe from neglect. Poor wittle wabbit! I looked at Mr. X and said, “What the fuck am I going to do with these?” He asked if I wanted them. I said no, because let’s be honest. Who needs anything else when you have the Magic Wand? So he said, “I’ll take them. I’ll throw them out in my dumpster.”

Well, that was enough of that. Cleaning was suspended until Saturday morning, we headed off to Larry’s Lounge to enjoy the unbelievable weather and make out with the Megatouch Machine. En route, Mr. X is holding the bag with the five broken vibrators inside a hat box.

V: What are you doing with that? Putting it in your car?
X: I’m just going to throw it out on the way.
V: You mean in a garbage on the street?
X: That’s right.
V: But the homeless people dig through the trash looking for food.
X: Well, I think all they’ll find in this bag is your DNA. Did you ever wash any of these when you were done?

Eauuuuu!

He had absolutely no problem dumping that bag in the first trash can he saw. Well. Make that the second trash can he saw. The first one was in front of my building and before he could even think about it I said, “Don’t you dare!”

Cleaning commenced Saturday morning and after several hours and some Bloody Mary’s, we were ready for dinner. I’ve been following a strict South Beach diet for 6 weeks. I completely revamped my life. Since March 2, I have been all-South-Beach, all day, all night. I’ve run close to 60 miles. My clothes are falling off of me. Mr. X says I look wonderful. Everyone who knows me has said I’m melting away. And you know how much weight I’ve lost? Five pounds. That’s right. All that work for Five. Fucking. Pounds. That’s a major frustration. So I decided that now I’ll be taking weekends off my diet. And so off for pasta we went. Yum fucking yum. We ate at our favorite restaurant and I rolled my fat ass out of there 1000 calories richer, so to speak

We went back home at which point I discovered I’m officially 84 years old and my back was in major pain from being hunched over drawers and closets all day. I had to sleep with an icy hot on it. Hot as in hot, yes. Hot as in sexy? Not so much. Nothing screams, “Buddy are you sure you know what you’re doing with this whorebag like, ‘Baby, can you take off my Icy-Hot?'”

Sunday we went up to Baltimore to spend the day with Greeks. All I’ll say about that is, “There’s one in every family.” You know the one. The asshole? This post is too long as it is, so I’ll just leave you with this: Don’t look in any Dupont Circle garbage pails until after next trash pickup, if you see Icy-Hot’s on sale anywhere in the metro area please let me know, and the Psychiatrist is the person who probably most needs to be hauled off in a straitjacket.

Christos Anesti!

I Have More Than What I Wanted, But I Wish That I Had Started Long Before I Did

I knew Mr. X a long time before we met. In my heart, I always knew that. It’s a spin on the old cliche, “When you know, you just know.”

When I was five I had my first in a series of celebrity crushes.   I cycled through all the celebrity crushes the other day and tried to determine what it was about them I liked. Then I realized, “Holy shit. All my celebrity crushes remind me of Mr. X in some way.” At least, in terms of personality, he reminds me of them based on a character they played.

Celebrity Crush #1, 1979 – 1981: Greg Evigan

You probably know him from BJ and the Bear. He’s BJ. Not the bear. Mr. X does NOT remind me of a monkey. Just need to make that clear for you in the back, okay?

 

There is a picture of Mr. X when he’s about 27 at his mom’s house. They look incredibly similar. Mr. X won’t see this. He’ll text me in five minutes to tell me he looks nothing like BJ NOR the bear. But I will beg to differ.   Okay, so we established that this is how I like my men to look. Next!

Celebrity Crush #2, 1980: James Garner

Ohhh the Rockford Files. What a good show. I learned at 7 years old that for a man to be an alpha, he doesn’t have to be a loud, authoritative assmunch who shits on everyone in his sight. He can be that alpha more effectively without all the power bullshit. Because let’s face it, when a man is really truly an alpha, he doesn’t have to go repeating it at every chance he gets.

That’s my man, fo’ sho. Mr. X isn’t aggressive, but he gets shit done. And everyone thinks he’s their god damned best friend which can be mega-annoying because everyone wants to drain his time. Anyway. Pause for hotness.

 

Damn, Mr. X even dresses like this. Blazer/no-tie. Hmm, maybe there are more similarities than I realized.

Celebrity Crush #3, 1981 – 1984: Tom Selleck

Mmm…Magnum hotness…

 

I don’t know what it is about him specifically that makes him the epitome of cool. He was still cool (and smoking hot) when he dated Monica on Friends. Mr. X is so freaking “cool” that his kid’s freaking teachers call him for advice. I swear he gets the weirdest live-and-non-facebook “friend requests.”

Are we sensing the theme by the way? Older men, dark hair, drop dead sexy?

Celebrity Crush #4, 1995-1998 Tommy Lee Jones

I know. By the mid 90’s I was too old for celebrity crushes. But yet, when I saw The Fugitive, I was hooked. TLJ is the kind of authority figure a woman needs.   The man just has got it going on. He can take control of a situation and command everyone’s attention, loyalty and respect.

 

Everyone looked to Mr. X to fix things where we worked a long time ago. The ship was sinking and Celine Dion was singing “Nearrrrr, Farrrrrr, Whereverrrrrr you arrrrre…” but damn if everyone didn’t pile in to Mr. X’s office asking for lifejackets and direction.

Celebrity Crush #5, 1991 – Present: Michael Madsen

Swoon! Move over Brad Pitt, who was that hottttttie in Thelma & Louise?   Michael Madsen, you can fly to my desert location and bring me money anyday you want. This is my Mr. X. Saves the day. Saves the year. He always has a “way out,” he can always “fix it,” whatever “it” might be. I need that in a man. It is probably one of the most important characteristics for me – the guy has to know how to trouble shoot. He cannot get us lost in the ghetto and then freak out and not know how to get out of it.

MM gets two pictures because he’s just so hot.

 

Best gunman evah! Mr. Blonde…

 

Somewhere wrapped up in all my crushes and the love of my life, Mr. X is the composite man I’ve desired for the better part of 30 years. That’s why I tend to believe that despite what I said about not having a type, I really did have one all along. I’m sorry it took me so long to find him, or for him to find me, but now that I have him, I won’t be letting go.

Because what they say is right, when you know, you just know.

I Read the News Today Oh Boy

I’m not sure whose stupid idea it was to not get cable (mine) but the beach house of one Velvet and Mr. X hurts for some quality entertainment. Wait. That implies there’s no sex. That’s not true. We don’t hurt for x-rated entertainment of the self-made variety. But once that’s done, we’re relegated to our Amish exile. Since the neighbors are crazy…yeah. Anyway.

You can only watch your man paint the kitchen Caribbean Yellow with one opposing wall in East India Spice while you do crossword puzzles and stay warm by farting under the blankie because the effing heat is broken in your brand new house and no one knows why for so long before you get positively bored. With a half dozen crabs swimming in several bottles of beer in our stomachs, we sloshed out of the Claws Crab House in Rehoboth and on to the sidewalk. Both of us saw it out of the corner of our eyes. Simultaneously reaching into our pockets for change we ran toward that beacon of hope sitting on the street corner, fighting to get there first.

The newspaper machine! It had been at least three hours without contact from the outside world, and almost four hours without television. Unless you count that singing waitress at Claws, Holly what’s-her-name in the Milton Theatre production, we had spoken to exactly no one but each other. We were desperate to know what we missed.   Or at least to know what was going on in the Cape May/Lewes/Rehoboth Corridor.

Thank GOD we picked up that paper! You know what they say. One city’s news is another city’s hamster cage bedding. Well, maybe they don’t say that. But at fifty cents, this was wayyyyy cheaper than cable. And much   much funnier. Trannie Matchmaker has nothing on this shit!

Mr. X: Did you see this?
Velvet: Who the fuck is Corey?

I read the article. I still don’t know.

Okay. Fuck you. I read it twice. I still don’t get it. Thanks for calling me out.

Velvet: My mom’s Lazy Boy in Connecticut looks like this.
Mr. X: How does she sit in it?
Velvet: It’s not pretty. She flipped it over and tried to fix it and something snapped and went through her hand. She ended up in the E.R.
Mr. X: Are you kidding?
Velvet: Sadly no.

Mr. X: Look! He always answers his phone! Let’s call him now!
Velvet: It’s after midnight…

Velvet: No! Stop getting up to show me shit in the paper!
Mr. X: But I just want you to see her profile picture! Look at her black tooth!
Velvet: And that’s probably her good side.

Mr. X: This is someone’s job? To be a Wii Therapist?

Is it me or does she look happy? And what does “the matter of the disposition (or not)” mean? Do some people leave the body behind? And their tagline is “Honored to Serve All Communities & Denominations.” Really? Even the Jews. Because excuse me, but I think offering a Jew anything resembling a cremation might be a tad insensitive.

Two pedophiles, one butch Mommy Dearest teacher, a kid front and center with a look on his face like he was the last victim of the dork in the tweed blazer, a white kid on the left whose ass still hurts from his turn as the hole, a kid on the right practicing the harmonica for his role in the school production of Deliverance, and a dog. Best Kindergarten class picture ever.

Been Around the World

Mr. X and I took a whirlwind trip through Europe this weekend! Be jealous. Well. Sort of. We did it without airplanes. We did it without leaving the confines of the beltway. Sort of.

Italy: Saturday Morning
I finally got to cross off something on my to-do list. It is a rare moment when I find something about D.C. that I love. For City Paper’s “Best of,” I had several votes of my own, but I didn’t submit them because I hate letting a great secret out. So my hairdresser? The best. But I’ll never tell. My favorite restaurant? Better than the best. But I’ll never tell. But Saturday morning, Mr. X and I trotted off in search of something I had heard of before but had never ventured out to find.

I feel like I’m channeling Cube right now with a post about a D.C. attraction.

Litteris is this little Italian Grocery Store and Deli hidden in the much grittier Northeast but in a neighborhood I can’t help but liken to the Canal Street of my childhood when my parents would drag us down to the Bowery in the wood paneled Ford LTD…

Litteri’s had excellent reviews and since I have been in search of how to make a low fat low calorie Cannoli, this was the place to start. And end. We spent a lot of time and a lot of money, but it was well worth it and we’ll soon be going back to visit the store again, probably when I run out of Cannoli shells.

Germany: Saturday Night
Craving an Indie flick, Mr. X and I decided to head to E Street and catch The Reader. That movie was so good. That movie was so good. That movie was so good. That’s all I can say about that. Only one thing would have made it better. If the guy in front of us didn’t pull out his nail clippers during the previews and start cutting, wait for it, his TOENAILS in the theatre. And it wasn’t like, “Oh, my pinky toenail is hurting me,” it was more like, “Now would be a good time and place for a pedicure.” It was beyond gross. When I was saying loudly enough to Mr. X so that hopefully the guy could hear, “THAT IS SO GROSS THE GUY IN THE NEXT OFFICE AT WORK CUTS HIS NAILS AND I AM OFFICIALLY MORE GROSSED OUT NOW THAN I AM WHEN HE DOES IT.” Mr. X said, “Well, then don’t look now.”

Who doesn’t look when someone says “Don’t Look?” Really. That’s the last thing to say when you want me to not look.

I looked.

Very bad idea.

Greece: Sunday Morning
So I met the mom. Mr. X’s Greek mother who, unshockingly, is like a clone of my own mother – not in appearance because believe me, my mom is fighting age by use of bottled color much like her daughter, but they are like in the things she says. I was amazed. I swear if you disguised their voices like they do for the witnesses on the true crime shows, you would totally think they were the same person.

“Everyone in Athens is so rude. They never want to help you they just tell you to ‘go over there.'”

“Mr. X if you had taken my advice, you would have been much better off.”

“Aren’t you going to eat something? You should eat something. Your diet won’t be hurt by this lard soaked sugar-laden cherry turnover, will it?”

The best part might have been when she asked me if I loved Greece and I was like, “Um, no, not so much.” No, wait. The best part might have been when she started telling me a story in Greek and I was like, “Huh?” I telepathically said to Mr. X, “If she’s not yelling gamisu, gamoti or skata, then I really don’t understand, because the only thing they said in the direction of my brothers and I were the swears.”

That was that. She loves me. All parents love me. I said as much to Mr. X. Actually, it was more gloating in the way of, “Ha ha, compared to your ex wife I am your mothers DREAM! I went to grad school, I have a job, I don’t have kids I’ll make you support, she loves me. She might love me more than you.”

He said, “Keep that up and I’ll tell her you beg me to fuck you in the ass.”

Touche.

 

D.C. Cops Suck Ass Part 11: I Swear Chief, It’s Not Cocaine All Over My Face!!

It’s no secret that we’re suffering a bit of a crime wave here in the city. In addition to the dramatic rise in car breakins in Dupont, we now have a Spiderman-Burglar on the loose. The criminal(s) have been getting on to rooftops and breaking in by climbing through roof access or skylights.

A couple weeks ago, I came home to find most of my neighborhood cordoned off. I heard through the neighborhood grapevine that Spidey had struck again, this time breaking through a skylight on Corcoran and New Hampshire. The cops, typically a day late and several dollars short, were giving their report to the news teams who had showed up to cover this “breaking news.”

My neighbor told me after his car was broken into that he had a witness who called the cops and they were “within 30 seconds of catching him.” Sure. I believe you. Where’s that powdered donut? Anyway, apparently the cops have been promised that anyone who gets this guy will get a full day off with pay. As if their job isn’t cushy enough. Please. I spit my bailout tax dollars all over that bullshit.

So now I’ve noticed something. Cop cars parked all over the place. At the corners of several blocks in Dupont. The cars? Unoccupied. Yes yes, can you imagine being at that planning meeting?

“Let’s increase the perceived police presence in Dupont. We’ll call this new initiative PPP. Perceived Police Presence. Got it? We’ll synchronize our watches and park all our cruisers at the corners of every block. That should do it without having to work very hard.”

“Uh…Captain? What were those letters again? Three P’s? Is that a new bar? Do they have donuts there?”

Do you morons think this criminal is stupid? He’s been evading you for months and you think a handful of unmanned cars are going to throw him off? Even me, a mostly law-abiding but sometime Stop Sign roller has it figured out. I bet Spidey could break into one of these empty cruisers, eat a dozen donuts inside and you all wouldn’t even know your car was broken into. But you would know the exact variety of donut he ate, I’m sure.

Money For Nothing and Chicks For Free

Mr. X has an ex (the ex-Mrs. X) who is, how shall I put this nicely. Um. Batshit crazy, frighteningly angry and certifiably insane. Yeah. That sums it up. When hearing stories about her, I find it funny to climb to the top of my pedestal and make fun of her. It’s so easy to do. However, I realize that this makes Mr. X feel not so special about himself because ultimately he did make the decision to be with her for a point in time in his life. He’s not a tit for tat kind of person but I know that if he considers ever going into defense mode and bringing up my sordid past he certainly has a wealth of material.

Well Mr. X, love of my life, I present to you: the latest news of the ex you and I call, simply: “crazy guy.”

In case anyone forgot, Crazy Guy is the one who bought a house a block away from me after swearing for the better part of a year that he was not, in fact, stalking me, and “I don’t know how you could accuse me of stalking just because you had 18 missed calls from me inside of an hour, I show up in bars I know you go to, follow you to concerts 60 miles away even when you tell me not to, jog by your dog park and I’m sitting outside your building in my car right now!?!?!?!?!?”

A piece of information landed in my lap this morning which will probably make Mr. X scream with glee. I am officially part of what I truly hope is a one-member club: “My ex-boyfriend is now an infomercial-guy.”

Yes yes. It’s true. I have sadly discovered that Crazy Guy is now hawking products on a horribly designed website complete with “before/after” graphics and tons and tons of !!!!!!!! exclamation points.

I have officially had, inside my body, the cock of a ShamWow, Snuggie, Dual Action Cleanse, Time Life Series, Ped Egg, Oxi Clean, Ginzu Knife, Mighty Putty, Bedazzler Kaboom Billy Mays!!!!!! I tried to send the link to FreckledK but she couldn’t even bring herself to look.

Mr. X? You may begin your fun-making but ACT NOW! IF YOU BEGIN YOUR FUN-MAKING IN THE NEXT TEN MINUTES, I’LL GIVE YOU AN EXTRA FUN-MAKING SESSION FREE! THAT’S TWO FUN-MAKING SESSIONS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE! BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! I’LL ALSO THROW IN THIS POCKET SIZE FUN-MAKER WHICH IS YOURS JUST FOR TRYING THE DELUXE PACKAGE! YOU CAN KEEP IT EVEN IF YOU CHOOSE TO RETURN THE WHOLE ORDER!!!!!

!!!!!!

!!!!!!

!!!!!!

I Was Born in a Small Town, and I Live in a Small Town, Probably Die in a Small Town

Mr. X and I have a beach house on the Eastern Shore in a new community. Since both Mr. X and I have worked for builders and developers, and since we’re no beginners when it comes to new homes, we were pretty sure we knew what we were signing up for.

Obviously, we were wrong.

The first time we saw a bunch of people outside in their yards we calculated the average age to be roughly 84. Surprisingly though, the residents of the community are tech-savvy enough to have started this message board on Yahoo. It wasn’t hard to find and register, and apparently they have not locked it down from the public. I foolishly signed up to receive every email message that posts to the message board and as any blogger knows full well, it is extremely hard to sit on one’s hands when a stupidity parade is on display.

The people who we share this community with, are, well, how shall I put this. Really. Fucking. Stupid. Mr. X has implored me to not respond. I am not to jump into the fights about the incompetence of the management company. I am not to reply that I worked for several developers. I am not to reply that I work for a management company. Nothing. He does not want me to end up on the Board out there like I am here in D.C.

So, the message board. I read probably three dozen replies to a post that started with someone stepping in dog crap and morphed to people wanting to put the dog crap on the offenders front door, to a fight about “poop stations” and I had to shut down by the time they were planning to stomp through the neighborhood en masse with white hoods and capes to lynch the offender. Oh, and I know what you’re thinking. It’s not me. I may rarely abide by the leash law, but I always pick up the poop. Always.

Suddenly this thought popped into my head: I live in fucking South Park. Except it’s Eastern Shore Park. Here’s the video interpretation of what our community message boards look like:

The other day someone posted about wanting to plan a bus trip to D.C. I politely replied saying I lived in downtown and would help them with anything they may need on this end. For me, that reply was really pre-damage control, as I’d rather make nice now so as to not get annoying notes on my front door about my dogs being off leash. I texted Mr. X that I had done this and conveyed my motives. At the same time, another thread was growing in replies debating the type of tree we should plant at the community entrance.

“I like Bradford Pear trees.”

“Oh no, I had those in my last community and the roots rip up the sidewalks.”

“Yes, my neighbor’s son’s bookie’s baby-mama had one out in Atlantic City and they didn’t like it. Wait. Maybe that was a Maple. Forget it.”

So Mr. X decided to reply to my email about helping them plan their D.C. old biddy bus trip and he pulled amateur hour 101.

Reply. All.

Even though he replied to my email it still copied to the entire message board. That shit landed in the inbox of 100 some odd retirees and busybodies with nothing better to do. Nice going Mr. X. Real nice going. If we get kicked out of Del Boca Vista Eastern Shore Park Sun City, I’ll kick your ass.

Eyes That Shine Burning Red

Oh D.C. You are so predictable. If there’s anything I can count on you kids for, it’s consistency. I can practically write your very own personal ad. “Enjoys voting for Democrats, jumping on bandwagons and getting “bailed out.” I noticed a new little habit of yours though. “Also enjoys running through Georgetown only when it’s 65 degrees, wearing Black Dog apparel.”

I happen to have two black dogs, but neither of them is a tee-shirt. Mine crap outside. I also happen to run just as often when it’s 15 degrees outside as when it’s 65. So having to share what was formerly a deserted path with you amateurs really pisses me off. And that you all look and dress the same? Criminal. I had to see way too many Black Dog tee shirts last night. Way too many.

I’m currently on the company warpath. It seems that someone, I’m not sure who, invented this great idea that when it’s your birthday, you get a corporate wide email complete with graphics. It used to be that they would send the email out to everyone and put all the names in the “to” box. But then a couple things happened. First, the graphics would take up so much space on the server that the email system would crash. Then we’d get messages from I.T. telling us to hurry and delete the birthday message. The second would be that inevitably, people would hit “reply all” to say “Enjoy your day.” Reply f*cking all? Really? Ugh. Now, for the stupid people, they put all our names into the “BCC” box.

Anyway, it came on to my radar that with my birthday coming up, I was going to receive one of these emails. So I planned to take the whole god damned day off to avoid this exercise, especially since I HATE my birthday. It’s just the day I was evicted from my first rental. I cannot stand when adults make major deals of their birthdays. I’ve heard of people renting out clubs for birthdays. I’ve been witness to people saying, “Great, you’re being mean to me during my birthday week.” it’s a week now? Oh. My. GOD. I just think it’s so, juvenile. What’s next? The Tooth Fairy? Well, if I had to choose, I’d like the tooth fairy to leave me Percoset instead of a dollar. I’d be much better off. So would you.

Anyway, I digress. I can no longer take my birthday off because someone scheduled me for a very important beating meeting that day.   I have to be at work. So, plan B. And I’m not talking about the morning after pill. I just spent the better part of yesterday (and today) ensuring that I will not be the recipient of that birthday email by accessing the corporate drive, and eliminating my birthday from any and every list I could find.

I am the company black sheep. But at least I ain’t the black dog.

I’ll let you know how it works out.

Please Tell Me Why the Car is in the Front Yard and I’m Sleeping With My Clothes On

This past weekend was the Drunken Housewives of Connecticut Reunion part two, which required a drive through Tony Soprano-land. Crossing the George Washington Bridge which currently carries a totally absurd $8 toll, I wondered if I should apply for recessionary pricing. The tolls to Connecticut are a freaking killer. I now understand why no one ever leaves Connecticut. By the time you get through the GWB and the Jersey Turnpike, you’re fucking broke.

At the risk of being labeled a stalker because of my now third consecutive love letter to my new lover, Facebook, I just have to say: Thank you.

To say I miss these women would be an understatement. They just don’t make friends like the ones who you have known for 60% of your life. Exactly 21 of us showed up, as well as a few guys and a lone ex, a cop who heard from one of his coworkers that his high school girlfriend was in town and at the local watering hole. When he came in you could see him trying to plot exactly how he was going to get to his ex, my friend who was oh so cute in high school but bloomed to Supermodel Status as an adult. Watching him maneuver the room was like   a game of Pac Man. He kept trying to get to the much coveted last dot, the Supermodel, but got detained by several other people in the bar who wanted to talk.

I turned to Supermodel and said, “This is just too good. Where’s my camera?” I managed to get several pictures of their encounter, my favorite of which is him staring at her boobs and her looking at me taking the picture. That had to feel good for her, and as she so aptly put it, “Yeah, I would guess he jerked it on his way home to his wife.” Awesome. Totally Awesome.

After we stumbled home around 2:00 a.m. (we’re too old to go to Port Chester anymore to take advantage of the 4 a.m. bar closings) I was instantly sobered up by reality:

I had smashed into a huge rock in my friend’s front yard and popped my tire. We took to task the idea of calling AAA. At 2:51 a.m. They arrived an hour later to tell me they couldn’t help me other than to tow me, but said, almost gleefully, “Nothing is open on Sunday.”

What? What kind of piss ass little town is this I grew up in? Nothing open on Sunday? We’ll see about that.

The next morning my friend texted me from her driveway to tell me to get out of bed so we could fix my car. We opened the phone book she had from 2004 and started calling all the tire places. It was true. No one was open. The one place we did find said they didn’t have the brand of tire I needed. We left on a mission. Costco, Sears, Mavis and a bunch of mom and pop shops. No tire, no workers, closed closed and closed. I then had the bright idea that would save my ass.

I called Daddy. What proceeds is the most absurd conversation I’ve had to date with them.

Me: Dad. Where do you get tires fixed?
Dad: Look in the phone book.
Me: I already did that. There aren’t that many places and they are all closed.
Dad: Did you call the place we went a couple years ago?
Me: Yes. Closed.
Dad: How about Sears?
Me: They don’t have the tire.
Dad: What about the spare?
Me: It’s flat.
Dad: Oh, well, call your brother and tell him to look in my third desk drawer and there’s a mechanic’s number there. I’ll call him and ask.
Mom, now on phone: That’s too hard! Don’t make her do that! Did you look in the phone book honey?
Me: Yes. Um. Let me call you back.
Dad: You’re supposed to bring your brother back to the city! I’ll call him and tell him to take the train.
Me: No don’t tell him anything yet. I’ll figure it out.

An hour later they called.

Mom: What are you doing?
Me: We’re looking for a tire place.
Mom: Well don’t waste all day, you need to get on the road.
Me: Mom! The tire is here in the car with me. How the fuck am I going to get on the road with only three wheels? It’s not a tricycle!
Mom: I know, but the snow is coming.
Me: Yes, this I know. I’m doing the best I can!

You see, I don’t call home for obvious advice. Calling home is what the natives refer to as a “last resort.” I will only call there when I’ve exhausted all my other options.

Finally we found a place that was open and I went in with the tire. The guy was taking my information and he asked for my address. I gave it to him and my friend K saw from the other side and said, “Your dad’s name just came up.”

Are you fucking kidding me?

I called back to my parents, sunning themselves in Florida and said, “I ended up at Firestone. They had you in the computer.”

My dad said, “Oh yea, I go there all the time.”

Jesus. Christ.

When You Come Close to Selling Out, Reconsider

I really mean to update more than once a month. And, yes, thank you, things are better than they were than when I last posted.

Last week at work, my partner-in-secret-but-plentiful-tattoos popped her head in my office to say, “Careful with Facebook. Our president is on there now.” I said, “Ohhhhh nooooooooo.” Our president is, oh, how can I explain. Classy with a side of perfect etiquette. She makes Jackie O look like an extra from a Jim Carrey movie. Just seeing her in the hall makes me stand up straighter and run to the mirror to check my lipstick. You just have to know her to understand.

Later, I saw a girl I’m linked to in the copy room and I said, “Why did you have to re-friend me? Did you get drunk this weekend and friend someone by accident and have to delete your whole profile?” She said, “No! Our president is on there! I had to make a work safe profile.” Jesus. Christ. I wondered if I should do that. It turns out all this started from my boss who accidentally sent a Facebook friend request to everyone in her personal email book. Though, my boss is cool. I wouldn’t care if she knew about this blog. Wait. Let me think about that while you keep reading.

I looked at my Facebook. Now, let me be clear on something, people. I have high school and college friends, and I have blog friends. And those two worlds rarely meet. Well, sometimes they meet, like with the Blonde, the PHD three and the Freckled one. But other than that? Yeah, if you think I’m letting pictures or personal information get out there after the whole last-name-gate of 2006, you are sorely mistaken. That’s why FreckledK, one of my dearest friends, is not my Facebook friend. Sorry FK. You are allowed to theive my newsboy hats, diet pepsi and harass my ex boyfriends to give me back my god damned lamps but you have scary bloggers on Facebook and I’m happy in my anonymity.

Magic 8 ball says, “Don’t do it! Damage Control is not in your future.”

That said, the reverse is also true. I don’t want my work-related real world on my blog or in my blog world, save a couple trustables. This is a very old story, we’ve all been around the block with this one several times over the years. However, it is still an issue. But did I put the Velvet link on my Facebook? Hell yeah. Because the people in my friend list are the people who scraped me off the floor of many a bar in the Harlem-Hudson-New Haven corridor; they are the people who helped my shellack my bangs straight up from my forehead in 1988; they are the people who called me in sick to school, from the school payphone. Cha-Ching! They are the friends of my youth, high school and college. And a few from after. But you get the point.

So now I have to worry that someone at work who I couldn’t trust with the material in this blog, will somehow see the link on my info page, the link I don’t care to remove, and then scroll through the archives.

This prompted me to tell a trusted coworker (who I have known from prior to this job) about the situation and she started reading some archives at her desk. Then she called me on the phone with two conclusions.

D: Wow. You had a crazy life. You were really bad!
Me: I used to be.
D: You are a really good writer.
Me: I used to be.

And so that is my long way of saying, I’ve had writers block for the better part of a year. I’m not good. I read back two years ago and I’m impressed at some of my own turns of phrase that I cannot comprehend where that talent went. When I lack that talent for whatever the reason, I just don’t feel like producing because it seems fake and contrived.

So, I apologize. I’m going to try harder. And I think if I get any Facebook requests from people at work who I would rather not know I was a dater of most of Northwest, I’ll just delete and block. Because that’s mature, right?

But Come the Wee Wee Hours, Maybe, Baby, The Gypsy Lied

I know. I’ve really sucked it for the last month. I promised and I left without delivering. I’ve been busy. Way busy. I have a lot of work and little concept of a recession outside the doors of my office. The blog even crashed on the server for a little while and I didn’t even flinch.

I bought a beach house. It was a mostly miserable settlement process. I had the usual fights with the family around the holidays and a fight with the man. I have refrained from living my life online because it just doesn’t seem worth it. My life was relatively boring anyway for quite some time there. The other night I found myself wanting to vent and when I thought of grabbing my cell phone and venting to someone, there just wasn’t anyone I could come up with who deserved to hear my venting because it just sucks so bad and so when some poor unsuspecting girl at work asked me in the bathroom how my weekend was, I bust out in a sea of crap that she probably didn’t see coming. Shit. And I only told her half of it.

As hard as I try, I’m never without drama. Sometimes in a good way. Sometimes in a bad way. And you know what they say, when it rains, it pours. Twenty four hours can change someone’s whole world. It did mine. I’m not sure that’s a good thing though. I’ll get through it. Sammy, Thora and I will get through it. We always do.

And How Did YOU Celebrate the Birth of Baby Jesus?

Obviously, I have become the major suckage at posting. I can’t even promise to try to be better. I don’t wanna.   While blogging in general will never jump the shark, my own blog experience has probably lamed itself out so much so that it’s like one of those feeder fish swimming along the shark that has just been jumped. So, I feel that I’m in the homestretch. I’ll try to go out strong. And by going out strong, I mean, I’ll finish up all my drafts and prepare them for public consumption.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mr. X: Baby? What was that video with the Grape Stomper we used to watch at work and laugh for hours over?

Velvet: Um, that thing they had on DC 101 that happened in Atlanta. Hold on. I’ll check Youtube.

I think that happened 11 years ago, though it just hit my radar in 2004.

We laughed for 10 minutes. Until I realized that there was a “related” video in the sidebar. So I clicked it.

HOW ON EARTH DID WE MISS THAT? Though to our credit, it did just air in November.

Best. Clip. Ever.

Stuck On a Rollercoaster, Can’t Get Off This Ride

On the flip side, you just can’t pay for entertainment this good.

At the company “holiday party:”
“Let us bow our heads and pray.” Um. what? I looked around the room to the mostly bowed heads thinking, “Am I in a cult?” I looked to either side, flanked by two Jews and a Pakistani, myself mostly an Atheist except for my belief in fate. We kept looking at each other and giggling. Did no one in that room besides us think that was just wholly inappropriate for work? This is what I get for working in Virginia.

On an Email from I.T. this morning:
“Whoever spilled sugar in the Xerox machine, please be more careful next time.”

On a mass Email from someone I don’t know to our entire company, a month after I first started:
“Blah blah blah, Betty’s daughter’s cousin’s nephew’s babysitter’s mailman has the cancer and needs bone marrow. Please reply and let me know if you can donate.”

In the Office Next to me, said to a Coworker:
“Do you think it’s wrong to clip your nails in the office? This one (points at me) says it’s wrong.” Said coworker, my friend D, replies in disgust, as do several other coworkers. I walked D down the hall and said, “So now you know why I begged you to come work here. It was my goal to surround myself with people who are not idiots. I’m not sure if I’ll make it though.” I’m going to start getting my Brazilians done at the office.

Blow Out the Candle, I Will Burn Again Tomorrow

Well, it’s official. I tried to hold out. I tried to fake it. I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. I tried to reason with people and explain that the things they do seriously impede my progress in achieving their goals. I emailed an outline for how to make minor corrections to change everything. No response. I emailed again. No response again. I plead for everyone to get software training and to stop coming to me. I beg people to write things down when I teach them how to do something mega-complicated like insert a row and hide a column on Excel. I ask why everyone comes to me and why everything gets dumped on me. I also ask why I am suddenly responsible for a software I have no training on, and I’m not in IT. I’m in fucking Finance. Crickets.

I. Hate. My. Fucking. Job.

Tomorrow I get to go listen to my boss give a speech that I wrote. A speech that talks about how far we’ve come, blah blah blah.

What a fucking joke. I wonder if it can even be read with a straight face.

What I plan to do is convert myself from one of competence to incompetence. I plan to watch several deadlines come and go and to not have the work done. I can’t wait for the clients to start complaining about wonder-child who can do no wrong, Velvet. I cannot wait. Then, perhaps, someone will listen.

If this economy was any better at all, I would be so out of there.   This will be the place where I probably walk, and not give any notice at all.

That will be fun.

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