This blogger needs a spoon.

So you know that little known and seldom quoted poem about that dude who is walking down a path and then he, like, comes to a fork in the road or whatever?

I was at such a fork this past Saturday.  On one side we had Shaggy Haired Boy, who has declared his love for me via his friends, who tell me how much of a crush he has on me.  On the other, new guy who was funny and visiting from London and – unlike Shaggy Hair Boy who mearly looked on from a distance – actually talking to me. 

I went with London.

Thinking back, I made the wrong choice. 

Damn. 

I dance alone.

I am coming to realize that a good measure of how happy I am is how frequently I close the blinds and dance around the house by myself.

Only when I’m dancing can I feel this free
At night I lock the doors, where no one else can see

Fun with chemicals.

I have been undergoing a metamorphosis of sorts during this last month. For one, I have been productive.  HIGHLY productive.  I have been working out.  Almost daily, in fact.  Cooking!  [Seriously, Who the fuck am I??]  I am even attempting to sew a party dress for my firm’s super posh holiday party.  I fully expect to fail and be frantically overpaying for a so-so dress at the last minute.  But I want my own personal Project Runway moment, dangit.

To reward myself for this newly unveiled better version of me, I decided to treat myself to a fancy facial [you, know, because um, I will be saving lots of money by sewing my dress or something].  When I went online to search out the best place to go,  I happened upon a review for an at home chemical peel.  Whereas a salon peel is upwards of $400 American cash dollars [which is now, like 75% of what remains of my 401(k).  Fucking stock market]. The at home version was a mere $20 something dollars.  

Question::  What IDIOT would buy a chemical peel [emphasis on "chemical"] on a website? 

Answer:: Diet Coke. 

It did occur to me that this could be a bad idea, but in my mind, the worst case scenario was that the peel would not work and I would be out $20 dollars.  Isn’t that what Starbucks charges for a latte these days?  Whatever.  I am a fucking MAVERICK.  I threw convention and good judgment to the wind and paypal’ed myself some chemicals to make my face peel.

What I did NOT count on, is that the peel would work.  Like, really work.  So much so that I am sitting in my office with my scarf wrapped around my head in a fruitless attempt to hide my better version of me’s newly acquired lizard face.  And in addition to looking alien, my face is so tight that blinking even hurts.  My face is actually fucking PEELING off.  Because I am an idiot and put a CHEMICAL I purchased form the Internet on it.  On purpose. 

All I know is, when all is said and done, this better have worked.

Lessons::

a)  Don’t be an idiot and do a chemical peel at home.

b)  If you MUST be an idiot [as I often find I must], take a week off so that you may hide your idiocy from the world.

Oh, after all the folderol
And hauling over coals stops
What did I learn

Death by Vanity.

I narrowly escaped death last night.

My story begins the day before yesterday [also known as Tuesday]. I was feeling a little [a lot] fat after having eaten a boat load of french fries with Gorgonzola dipping sauce [sweet Jesus, so good]. I decided, in a rare fit of clarity, that rather than continuing to try ever more absurd and counter-intuitive diets to lose ten pounds [Dr. Kerendian for lipotropics, FRS for I don't know what, Dr. Johnson for some "up day down day" crapola, etc.] I was going to try something new. Something sensible. Sensible being a concept that is definitely underutilized in my life.

I skipped out of work early and moseyed on over to a Weight Watchers meeting in the miracle mile area. And people, I loved the meeting [even though I know this makes me kind of a dork]. Hilarious talk-y middle-aged over-weight Jewish ladies and sassy gay men galore. So much fun! I laughed, I felt inspired, and I felt embarrassed for myself for laughing and feeling inspired. I even, at one point [only for a second!], turned into one of those head nodding in agreencewith the speaker people that I make fun of. At the end, I resolved that by golly, I am going to lose the weight! And I am going to do it by my birthday. In reality, not likely as my birthday is in a few week, but a gal can dream.

Yesterday, my first official Weight Watcher’s (hereinafter “WaWa”) day was brutal. I ate all of my “points” allowances by lunch and was pretty much staving the rest of the day. Turns out a burrito for lunch was a bad call. Damn you and your burrito hating ways, WaWa.

Wanting to make the rest of week less painful, I went on a shopping excursion at the crazy Pavilion’s on Vine after Project Runway. [Project Runway, btw, still blows. And Pavilion's remains crazy.] Among my many purchases were a half-dozen eggs.

The Master Egg Plan:: 1) Hard-boil egg. 2) Eat egg (sans yolk) for breakfast, breakfast being the most important meal and all. Good plan indeed!

When I got home, I got the water boiling, plopped in the egg and then headed over to the couch for some Olympics watching action. And then? I slept. And I slept. And I continued to sleep until I heard a loud bang. Convinced that someone had broken into my house, I grabbed the only weapon within range [a fork - certain to induce much fear in the heart of any breaker-inner] and started towards the noise. I will be damned if I am going down without a fight! I probed around a bit and found nothing. So I went back to my bedroom [with a knife this time]. My adrenalin was still pumping from my earlier scare, so I was unable to get back to sleep. Thank goodness, because a few minutes later, I smelled something. And not just any old smell, oh no! I smelled FIRE!

Only then did I remember the damn egg. Luckily, by the time I got to the kitchen things were still salvageable. The bottom of the pot had started to catch fire, but it was contained. The bang, it turned out, was the egg exploding in a billion little pieces all over the floors, wall and ceiling [which I have yet to address].

Point is, I almost fucking died people! All because of a hard boiled egg and my desire to be thin.

Lesson learned:: Stay fat and live.

No longer stressed, but feeling stupid.

So remember earlier today when I talked about my roommate and how I was annoyed that she was ruining my party with her moving and how she owed me money and blah bitch blah?

Well, turns out, I’m just a jerk.  A big one, maybe.

Because, why? Because I came home tonight and she::

1) was really quite sweet and apologetic;

2) had a check for me; and

3) best of all, she is trying to change her moving plans so she does not interfere with my party.

Hopefully I have learned a lesson about jumping to conclusions or talking/thinking/imagining badly about people or something.  Hopefully.

People are difficult.

A few days ago I began a conversation with my friend, Sad Desperation. As I sat down to blog about our initial conversation with the [obvious] conclusion that wanting to feel love/loved makes otherwise sane and balanced people completely bat shit crazy, I started to reflect on my own man/love driven insanity – a sad depressing thought in itself, and one that I will come back to.

Sad Desperation’s story is that she is in “love” with a guy*. Interestingly enough though, while she “loves” him, she is very hard pressed to describe anything positive about him, except that he is smart…and good in bed. Which frankly, isn’t all that special. Lots of people are smart. And enough people are good in bed that it should not be a major factor in liking someone [although, I do think it a valid reason to NOT like someone].

The latest saga of Sad Desperation is based on the age old question:: is he my boyfriend? [Note to the Ladies:: If you have to ask the question, he probably is not.]

I don’t want to delve too deeply into the ridiculosity of the story, but basically, instead of taking the reasonable approach of saying “hey, umm, guy I am sleeping with on a very regular basis, are you my boyfriend?” she decided that a better [and totally crazy] approach would be to hatch a cockamamie scheme whereby his feelings would theoretically be revealed. [Unsurprisingly, a totally stupid plan that did not work.]

In the end, the only thing that was revealed is that a) she is certifiable and b) he is an idiot [for reasons completely unrelated to Sad Desperation's latest drama]. And yet still, despite the fact that the question continues to gnaw at Sad Desperation [so much so that we had two hours of phone conversation and 10,000ish words of email exchange on the topic] she won’t bring it up. Because why? Because she does not want to “seem desperate.” Any yet, she has no qualms about acting/BEING totally desperate.

Which brings me to my ultimate question. Why are people [I include myself in this] so fucking stupid when it comes to relationships?

Sad Desperation isn’t even that into the guy at issue. But for reasons neither she nor anyone else can understand, she needs him to like her. Her whole being, her value as a person, depends on this ONE guy she doesn’t even see herself with in the long run wanting her. Clearly, this is fucked up. And trust me, I know. I too have in the past become fixated on men who I thought [actually, I didn't think it, I KNEW it] were useless.

T/S, who I dated a while back [for a refresher, see here, here and here], is a perfect example. He, by pretty much any measure [except maybe the good in bed one] was a dud [Seriously, I kid you not. Example:: He had a fucking dolphin tattoo**]. AND YET, I was totally sad sauce when he didn’t want to hang out with me. When I look back on it [which I was caused to do following my initial conversation with Sad Desperation], I thought about myself, “you moron, why Why WHY did you waste your energy on that?”

And that is what I wish I could say to Sad Desperation. Not because I am trying to be mean, but because that is what I think is the truth. But instead, I will say, “Don’t worry, I am sure he likes you. You are after all, awesome.” And while she *is* awesome, I am actually pretty sure that he does NOT like her.

Life is so needlessly convoluted.

* I don’t think she is in LOVE love…more like she loooooves him. As in, she loooooves having sex with him. But does she like him as an actual person? Not so much.

** T/S claimed the dolphin was a shark. In either case, it was stupid.

If you have to ask, You’ll never know