♥ Perfectly Imperfect ♥

Update REDUX.....

2006-12-05T13:45:00.000-05:00

So, the new website is officially done.

The address for the site is www.ilyanalanai.com

If you want the direct link for the blog it's www.ilyanalanai.com/blog

Hope you like:)

Update

2006-11-27T14:42:00.000-05:00

Hey!

I haven't abandoned you. I have just been working furiously on a new website and my book. As well as spending an entire week in bed, doing absolutely nothing, including showering, as I cleaned furiously, became a domestic goddess by actually using my oven to cook instead of as a storage unit, watching the first 3 entire seasons of Sex and the City and and reruns of CSI Miami and eating everything in sight. Fun times had by all.... all being just me, as the boyfriend looked at me and repeatedly asked, "Who are you and what have you done with my girlfriend!"

Happy Post Thanksgiving:)

Mindless Eating?

2006-11-13T15:55:00.000-05:00

Professor studies psychology- why do we eat mindlessly?”

Recently, Dr. Brian Wansink published a book called, “Mindless Eating: Why we eat more than we think.” I would like to take Dr. Wansink to task. He says that, "The more people, the more you eat, up to 90% more than you eat when you're alone." Well, as an amateur with no PhD to wave around, I tend to believe that Dr. Wansink thoroughly researched this subject, I'm just not sure he accounted for all subjects. Because see, there is a demographic of people *cough* single twentysomething chicks* cough* who I think might dissagree with his assesment. In fact, I would just like to ask Dr. Wansink if he has he ever gone out to dinner with four, single twenty-five year old woman? Particularly, but not limited to, those from L.A., New York or Miami.

I think not, because if he did, then he would know that rule # 1 is “don’t look like the food whoring pig.” In other words, when we go out we order a salad or grilled chicken. And absolutely no dessert. In fact, when the waiter comes to ask, we all look at one another hoping, praying that someone will say, “Yes, bring me that tiramisu, STAT” and then we can follow suite.But alas, this never happens, because no one wants to be the topic of conversation. “Can you believe she ate that Chocolate Mousse. And she wonders why she has a gut.” No, we choose instead to indulge in the pleasures of fattening fare in solitude. In the privacy of our living rooms as we watch “ Greys Anatomy" and "What about Brian” wondering why two of the most beautiful men ever aren’t fighting each other for the honor of marrying us. We eat alone in shame, but with profound pleasure. Dulce de Leche'Ice Cream, chips, Starbucks Vanilla Fraps…. If no one see’s it, it must not have happened. Right?

We look for the answer to our neurosis at the bottom of the brownie pan or chunky monkey bowl. But always in private, or if very close, with only 1 other. A best-friend who is sworn to secrecy. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, one petite Asian with a stomach like a hoover vacuum comes to mind, but then she bucks all tradition:)

We may eat mindlessly, but we are very conscious of those around us, what they are eating, and what we want them to witness going into our mouths. Call me Dr. Wansink, I can teach you all about it.

Shopping for Friends

2006-11-02T15:48:00.000-05:00

So, he keeps telling me I need to make new friends, new LOCAL friends. Like it's just that easy. I'm not 16, or even 20 for that matter, where I'm in high school or college, and we are forced to see each other everyday so why not become buddies. I don't have a 9-5 office job, so no fertile ground there for picking up new friends. No. The only regular place I go to everyday is Barnes and Noble, and well, most of the people here are just strange. There is a girl sitting across from me, just from listening to random conversation I've learned that she is studying to be a nurse, never lets her roots grow in, and is engaged. She's pretty, seems to study a lot( a quality I like in a friend.... she's no lazy moron) and not single, which when you aren't single, you like to befriend people who aren't desperately seeking a man, and want you to accompany them on that mission. But I don't know......, she hasn't given me any kind of opening, a smile, a hey, I'm open to making new friends, kind of look. And I don't know how much we might actually have in common... Does she listen to Kelis and John Legend, does she know about the beef between Game and 50 Cent. Does she watch the Wire??? I wouldn't bet on it.

When I was walking into the cafe today, I was alongside a girl who looked to be my age, maybe a little younger, cute, sort of shaped like me, I think she was Spanish, maybe Cuban, or maybe Italian.... she told me how she loved my dress and smiled a really warm smile. This probably happens a few times a week, a girl complimenting my clothes, or shoes... This should be my opening. "Hey, you like the way I dress... that's already something in common, LETS BE FRIENDS!!!" But instead I just politely thank them and tell them where to go shopping. I am too shy... Too afraid of rejection. Too afraid of picking up a friend I will later decide is all wrong for me. This is why I was never much of a dater. One of my best-friends now, was picked up by my one of my OTHER best-friends... because she has balls. She said, "Hey, lets get her number." And just walked up to her and started talking to her. I can't do that. I don't know how! But if this is to be my home, then I really need to start meeting girls. If anyone knows anyone in Miami, please, let me know... I can use all the help I can get.

Things unsaid

2006-10-25T14:39:00.000-04:00

She was my best-friend. She may not know she still is. But things are different now. We hurt each other in different ways, the injuries inflicted on each of us just the same. I miss her so much sometimes it hurts. It's not that we don't speak. We do. But its infrequent. No longer completely effortless. There was a time we practically lived together. Wrapping our arms around one another in protection. I wasn't there when she needed me most. I couldn't be. I wasn't even the same person, and I needed to negotiate that in my own mind.

She needed my compassion, my protection, my love and hugs and kisses. She needed me to hold her hand. But I couldn't. I was incapable. She said hurtful things to me. Things that burned deep and dark holes in my heart. But she felt justified. She felt the person she desperately needed abandoned her. And I did. But not with malice, not with intention, not with lack of love. I was paralyzed. Emotionally paralyzed. I couldn't expect anyone to understand this. Especially not someone who had always been there for me. I'm like a dog in many ways, I love unconditionally and can take many hits on the nose. But too many eventually makes me crawl away with my tail between my legs. If someone said "Fuck You" to me I was never good at yelling "Fuck You" back. And because of this, resentment builds up. Add to0 that emotional paralysis and you create a deadly cocktail. I was too vulnerable. Too naked then. I couldn't take the chance of being hurt. But in pulling away, I cheated myself. And her.

I missed her babies growing up. I missed being an Auntie. I missed hours of figuring out how many different times we could call something "pastel-ee" or turn even the most random thing into some silly sports metaphor. Going a day only saying things we had heard Walt Clyde Frazier exclaim during a Knick Game. We had our own secret language. But then, she does with everyone. She's just that kind of person. She can turn the most mundane day into something to laugh about years later. We used to give each other little presents. Everyday. Just because. We even made lists of why we were best-friends. Silly yes...... but those are the things that you recall later in life, when you've moved away and know that no one on earth will ever replace that person.

I look back with hindsight and say, "I could have done things differently." But I couldn't have. I did the only thing I knew how at the time. I have to live with my behavior, as does she. But there are no villians or heroes in this story. Just two people who shared and still do share a friendship rare and special. I should have been able to deal. But I couldn't. It shouldn't have mattered how many things I was mad at her about, or how I feared she might scar me again. We were best-friends. We love each other, the good, the bad and the ugly. I love you. This is my apology for years past, for regretful things, for not being there and wishing more than ever that I was. I miss you and miss you fiercly. In my darkest hours, my most vulnerable moments, it is you for some reason that I want to cling too. It's with you I wish I could take refuge. I wish I was there or you were here. And I wish I could turn back time.

Love and War

2006-10-23T15:39:00.000-04:00

Love is turmoil. She knows this. Her heart breaks like shards of a mirror. The distorted reflection stares back at her. Broken. She cries. And cries and cries. She yells. But all she feels is tired. Tired of the tears. Tired of the fighting. Arguments that never end, 360 degrees of insanity. Dirty words launched like nuclear missiles. When is enough enough, she asks herself. Will love conquer war? It never does. But she holds out hope. Hope is her currency. She sees the best in him. She loves him. But sometimes, his love is so painful it makes her want to crawl into a corner to die. End it all. "It's too much." She says. "I will never measure up. Never." She thinks. "I would love you better." Others tell her. But she doesn't want them. She wants him. Him only. She wants to look into his eyes and know that no one in the world will hurt her. He will protect her always. But instead he is the enforcer of her torture. He protects her from everyone but himself. He wields the knife that cuts her 100 different ways. But she believes in him. So she wraps her wounds up in gauze, wipes away her tears and holds her head high. She will live on faith. On Hope.....

Girl seeks help

2006-10-19T18:14:00.000-04:00

I want help. I think I need help. I feel completely out of control. I was told time and time again to see someone but I thought I was ok. I was in denial. But now I know. There is no hoping it will get better. I need professional help. But I am scared. Nervous. I've always been more porous than others. My skin's never been thick. Instead it's always been more like gauze, soaking up everything. I've always been sensitive. But hardly ever angry. Nearly never irritated. Almost always absurdly patient. That has changed. Now, I go from happy to angry to irritated back to apathetic, all in a matter of seconds. A loud voice can drive my nerves to a breakdown. Waiting in impossibly slow lines can make me want to yell, yell at the top of my lungs. I try my best to curb this. I try, in vain, to control this. But it's not possible. I have absolutely no buffer. No rational. Nothing. I am powerless. And that is such a scary place to be.

They say that after a stroke, or any traumatic brain injury for that matter, that you are never the same person. Many have severe, significant personality changes. For others, it manifests itself more subtly.

They say that post-stroke we tend to be cautious, hesitant, anxious and disorganized when faced with an unfamiliar problem. *Check.*

We can suffer from "emotional lability", excessive crying that often has little relationship to sadness or what is happening around them. We might not be sad when crying, happy when laughing or angry when hostile. *Check*

The stroke survivor may seem a different person, showing feelings of anger, caution or anxiety that are completely out of character. The affected individual may also feel like less of a person. *Check*

They may become very sensitive to and often fearful of changes in their environment, and will thus benefit from, and be comforted by, an effectively established routine. *Check*

Many stroke survivors are overwhelmed by too much stimulation. *Hell yeah, CHECK*

Even minor brain damage affects a memory related area of behaviour called quality control. This refers to how well individuals check and control their own behaviour. A previously fastidious person may fail to bathe or zip his fly, or a formerly polite person may become rude and profane. *Check.*

I don't want medication. I don't want to be modified by Prozac or Zoloft. I want my old brain back. I want to be able to feel like my emotions aren't constantly spinning out of control. My boyfriend says I have no concept of reality now. He says that what I perceive, what I see, hear and understand, is almost always wrong. Sometimes, I know he is just saying this to get his way. But all too often, when faced with incontrovertible evidence, I become terrified. And anxious. Confused and profoundly sad, frustrated. I can't continue to live like this. I need help. But I feel paralyzed to get it. I don't know why. Complete and total paralysis..... Pick up a phone. Make an appointment. Simple....

If only it was.

I can paint her the way I want

2006-10-16T17:37:00.000-04:00

I am a perfectionist. See that ^ - it's a picture of my room. Okay, not really. But it could be. I write and edit and re-write and I'm never happy. I'm not talking about this blog. This is where I come to express my most incoherent, disaterous self. This isn't work. This doesn't get edited. But my actual job, writing a Novel, tentatively entitled "That Dating Lives of Butterflies" is fast becoming "The Never Ending Edit." Every night I go to sleep after hours sitting in front of my little Dell laptop, thinking what I've written is brilliant, only to wake up the next day and say, "Oh god, this fucking sucks." And the process begins all over again. I read everything like a script, I attribute voices to all of the characters, Who would play them in a movie? Does this ring true? I will ask myself when reading dialogue I've written. I'm obsessed, everything has to be just right.

I've always been a drama queen. At least in my own mind. An only child, we tend to live in our own little heads, our own carved out worlds. We don't have brothers and sisters to play with, just ourselves.... My mother, not big on playing Barbie with me, would throw me a book and tell me to entertain myself. So I read, and read and read. And then made up my own stories. I never knew I wanted to be a writer. I was a professional dancer up till my twenties and in college majored in Psychology. I wanted to help people. I wanted to save the world. Go into Americorps, Doctors without Borders. For various reasons, that dream never came true. Mainly my mother forbidding me. One day I will rebel against her demands, I just might be 70 before that happens.

I have to finish soon. I have deadlines. Deadlines make me nervous. Very nervous. When I was working as a magazine writer, juggling two to three stories at a time I never met deadline. "I need an extention." I would beg.I was very bad that way. But I refused to turn something in until it was, in my opinion, good enough to bear my name under it. Of course, my editors would take what I wrote and butcher it, infuriating me. But that is par for the course in journalism. Those who can't write, Edit. ( Okay, that sounds a bit harsh, but seriously.... ask most writers.)

Now, this isn't an article. I'm not writing about 50 Cent or Mark Wahlberg or The New England Patriots anymore. This is mine, all mine. I decide what the finished product looks like, even if I have to fight hard for what I want. I have control. So I write, and edit, and write and edit... I come to Barnes and Nobles Cafe everyday, grab my table in the corner, order my Vanilla Latte, Turkey Sandwhich and Fiji Water and get to work. But I'm scared.

I'm afraid my once fabulous Butterflies are starting to look like this. Dull and lifeless. What if everyone hates them. They have to be exciting, crazy, full of life. Butterflies, my metaphor for New York Twentysomething's emerging from girl to womanhood, trying to find their way in the often crazy, senseless city that is New York, dating the wrong guys, wearing the wrong clothes,suffering in the wrong jobs, saying the wrong things. Making your way out of 25 in Manhattan uscathed is harder then hitting the Powerball jackpot.

Soon I won't have any more time to edit. Soon, I will have to let this baby go. But part of me doesn't want to. While I have her I can nurture her, guide her, paint her the way I want. I suppose that the only thing that matters is that I love them. If nobody else does, well....... fuck 'em:)

"The Dating Lives of Butterflies."
- coming soon

Not the marrying kind

2006-10-12T16:11:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was my future sister-in-laws bridal shower. The theme was Arabian Nights, although the catered food was Chinese and the music was mostly Reggae and Soca. The only thing seemingly Arabian about the night were the two belly dancers who came to perform and do an impromptu class. But neither of them were Arab, in fact one was Chinese, and kind of old, but moving on......

We were asked to bring gifts to "fill the lingerie drawer." Pink bags and boxes with silver bows dominated the table, nearly everyone buying from Victorias Secret, with a vibrator and a stripper pole thrown in for good measure. The bride looked happier than I had ever seen, at peace even. But the more time passed, the more I started to wonder if I was really the marrying kind. My mother has been married four times. She left her first husband, a Russian Basketball player because he was "Boring." She left her second husband, a prestigious Russian Plastic Surgeon,because he was "Controlling." She used her third husband to get out of the country. He died of a heart attack shortly thereafter, too quick for her to divorce him. On the telephone a few months ago, when talking about men and marriage she actually said to me, "Men aren't for marriage, they are for Transportation....." as in from one country and into another. From the day I could understand words, the first one's my mother said to me were "Do not get married. Marriage is a raw deal for a woman."

Though this was and still is my mothers mantra, I've always taken it with a grain of salt. She's been happily married to my father for over 25 years. She claims that she only agreed to marry him because she needed a good father for her children, and my brother loved him and begged her. My brother says she was dating three scumbags at the time, one was really fat and a chain smoker, and my mother couldn't pick a decent man if a gun were put to her head. My dad was the only nice looking, decent human being in the bunch. In many ways, I am my mothers daughter; in more ways than I wish to accept, actually. I have made emergency exits from relationships simply because I was bored, and I have tried to make work one's that were ticking timebombs. I have horrible taste in the opposite sex. Completely untrustworthy taste. The truth is that for much of my life, if I've really liked a guy, he must be really really bad for me.

My brother and sister have both ended up divorced, most of the marriages or committed relationships I know are filled with betrayal or unhappiness. As I age into my late twenties, and many of my friends are already in their thirties, they are marrying, or desperately wanting to get married because they think it's "time." They marry for things like security.....Convenience. They marry because they feel they have to or opportunity will pass them by. For women, carrying a baby after age 35 greatly increases the chance of miscarriage, as well as a host of other problems. The only thing that even makes me truly want to be married is having a child. I've lived with someone now for almost three years, sharing everything, for all intents and purposes, living a married life. Getting married would change little more than tax returns and health insurance benefits. I've never been the girl that fantasized about the wedding dress and cake and extravagant party. The only thing I do think about, often now... is my daddy walking me down the aisle. If I were to wait too long to get married, and my father weren't there, I would be devastated.

I am completely screwed up, lovable and unlovable in so many ways. Can I expect someone to commit to that for a lifetime? I don't know. I'm so fragile, to give someone my solemn oath to love and be faithful to them, and then be betrayed later would crush me to pieces. I suppose that is the chance we all take, but I would like to look around me and see that the odds for happiness and commitment were better. I not sure if I'm the marrying kind yet, I don't know. I suppose you'll just have to wait for the wedding invitations:)

Lucky Girl

2006-10-05T16:43:00.000-04:00

"You are a very lukcy girl. Do you know that?" He said quite sternly and seriously.
As I sat in the opthamalogist's chair, my eyes heavy and numb from the drops, I laughed.... It's always the same laugh, hearty and easy going, as they look me over and shake their heads in what always seems like disbelief. I laugh because its what I've come to do.

The doctor didn't seem to find any humor in my laughter, in my casual way of shrugging it off, my easy going smile. He wanted a sign that I understood. "Be grateful you can see what you do. Once your optic nerve was damaged it is irreversible. Final. Nothing can be done to restore your sight. "

"So basically, your saying I'm screwed." I replied, sadly.

"Yes. But you do understand, you are a very lucky girl."

It happened 3 and 1/2 years ago, what now seems like another lifetime in many ways. The day started out much like any other. My best-friend(and roommate at the time )asked me to go shopping with her, she wanted to redecorate. So off we went to 18th street and 6th avenue, an afternoon of shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond. I became increasingly exhausted as time passed, at one point looking for somewhere, anywhere to sit down. We then ventured uptown to 44th st for dinner at our local Caribbean Restaurant, Island Spice. We talked about the usual things, boys, clothes and interior decorating. It was a night like any other........

Shortly after arriving home the phone rang. A dear friend, at the time playing for the Local Professional Football team wanted to make sure we were coming to his birthday party. "Please come, he said. Come for me, it will be fun." I hung up and before I could take two steps the phone rang again. I thought it was him again, but instead it was my fathers stern voice. "Don't go to the party." He said. "You sound exhausted. Go lay down, your friend will understand." I shrugged him off, in the way I often do. "I'm NOT foolin around with you, go lay down." He admonished me. I promised I would- and hung up the phone. Instead of going to my bed I grabbed my makeup bag and hairbrush and tried to transform myself into something at least semi- presentable. Any other night I would have obeyed my fathers wishes, but on that night, something told me I was ok, something told me to show up, at least make an appearance. Besides, my roommate desperately wanted to go and I didn't want to disappoint her. It would be ok. Two minutes after entering the bathroom I went blind. I wasn't all at once, it started slowly. It was methodic, like a wave....first my peripheral went dark gray...then black, moving across to the center until there was nothing. Complete darkness.

I fell straight to the floor, between a porcelain pedestal sink and toilet, just 6 inches between the two, without so much as banging my head on either. Straight down I fell, and as I'm told, started seizing violently on the cold bathroom floor. My best-friend said she heard a big sigh and then a thud before she found me. 911 was called and I was rushed by ambulance to the local hospital. Originally thought to just be having seizures alone, I was medicated and set to be released that night. A drug overdose, the doctors insisted. I must have taken something to make me have the seizures. They interrogated my roommate, who nearly laughed in their faces. "She's never taken a drug in her life. She doesn't drink. Something is wrong with her!" She tried to explain to them. They only believed her when the toxicology report came back negative. But the seizures never stopped, and increased in time and intensity. They soon discovered that 3/4's of my brain was flooded with water, swollen, and they couldn't see anything underneath it. I was critical they said, and every Neurologist on call was called in to assess me. I needed brain surgery they all concluded. Seven different neurologists looked at my brain and said it needed to be operated on, relieve the swelling, take a biopsy. Only One disagreed. One fought for me. One, demanded they give me 24 hours to fight. I was young, he said, I deserved a chance. If nothing changes then shave her head and take out a chunk of her brain, he said. They put me into an induced coma and waited to see. The next day I awoke, nearly blind but aware of what was going on around me, albeit it all seemed like a fog. I was sick.... that's what I knew. I couldn't process much else.

Everyone who came to examine me came with a look of deep concern on their face. They told my parents things were very serious, would be touch and go, and they would be lucky if I was a vegetable. They asked if I had been out of the country recently, could I have West Nile, it could be a brain tumor they told my mom and dad, or..... a stroke. I was completely paralyzed on my right side, couldn't recall words, remember anything longer than a few minutes past. I would pass in and out of sleep for weeks. Every day my hospital room was filled with people, my parents and friends, but to this day I don't remember anything that took place during that time. Spinal taps eliminated West Nile, or any virus for that matter. I was negative for the tumor..... I must have had a stroke, but the clot, a venous thrombosis, passed through the vein to my brain, making it much harder to find then obvious clots in arteries. Why... they couldn't understand. "She's so young." Everyone said. The next few months were spent relearning everything. How to hold myself up, balance, walk, write my name, read, open food. I was transferred to Mount Sinai, put into the same unit with Spinal Cord injuries. It was the most horrible, sad and yet amazing experience of my life.

I met an artist named Mickey from Soho, paralyzed after tumbling down her stairs after tripping over a box she had just packed for her move to a new apartment. I met Jorge and Jose, both from South America, both day workers injured on the job, falling off of roofs. They had never met before their injuries and yet had grown close like brothers. They always smiled, flirted with me every day, and laughed, often. They were completely paralyzed... forever. Jose's parents came everyday, adopting his new friend like a member of the family as his real family was back in his old country. The parents were full of support, unconditional love. Next to me, in my morning physical therapy class sat The 60 yr old Professor. He never spoke. Was always very solemn. Many thought mean or angry. I sensed something else. Profound sadness. He was diagnosed with late stage Cancer, unable to use his right leg following the surgery. Every day I sat next to him, and every day I tried to make him smile. My work eventually paid off... As I suspected, he was deeply depressed, afraid of his fate, frustrated with his body. But soon he began opening up, talking to people, even laughing. Finally, there was Ray. My age, about to graduate from the school of Pharmacy at Syracuse, I believe. He had been transferred over from the hospital Christopher Reeve was in after his injury. Ray had been in a car accident. He and his friends had been driving back from college after a night of drinking. They asked the completely sober designated driver to drive- and he did. What no one calculated was that though not drunk, he would speed, and they would all end up driving off a mountain into a ravine. All suffering miraculously little more than a scratch. All but Ray, who when the paramedics arrived believed to be dead and called the coroner, only realizing at the last minute he was actually alive. Ray was brought in, in his wheelchair with a shaved head and a huge scar down the middle of his head, down his neck to his back. He didn't want to talk to anyone. He didn't even want to look up. He would look at me, occasionally... and I understood. Eventually, we became close. We clung to each other in many ways... though the circumstances were different, the anger, the frustration, the fears we felt were the same.

I felt guilty the day I left. In many ways, I didn't want to leave the friends I had made. I especially didn't want to leave Ray, who would he laugh with? Who would he rehab with? Who would he trust..... And what would the world outside hold for me. I was no longer the same. I didn't move the same or think the same. I was moving in slow motion while everyone else went 100 mph. The next 6 months were spent back and forth to a different hospital, physical and occupational therapy every other day. I visited Ray shortly after I left Sinai, I would bring him magazine's like Stuff and Maxim, anything with hot girls. I could walk now, not well, but well enough to stay upright. Ray would never walk again. He would be released soon, back home to his parents. He was afraid.... how would they take care of him, they had to build wheelchair friendly rails into the house. I was so lucky, he would tell me, without any jealousy or envy. Just a sincere sentiment, one that I knew I should cherish. I was lucky. I would never regain all my sight. I would stutter, tremor and lose the ability to balance, walk if fatigued. I wouldn't be able stand bright or flashing light. I would have intense burning nerve pain down my right side. I would have seizures. But over time, I would learn to compensate. I would learn my limits. I was NOT a vegetable. And I wasn't paralyzed.

I was lucky. I AM lucky. I know this. Maybe sometimes I start to ask for too much, forgetting how far I've come. Maybe I become greedy. But never ungrateful. And I'll never stop laughing.

Daddy likes daughters legs

2006-09-28T16:53:00.000-04:00

This article really disturbed me. On so many levels. Daddy marries daughter? Daddy knows this is his daughter because they took a DNA test. Daughter is more than half his age... its not even like Dad is young and hot. Though that would still be disgusting, but maybe in some twisted way understandable? Eh, NO. This whole thing stinks of Greed. This daughter has issues about being an adopted child, and is working them out in some really, really twisted ways. And the father... "I'm having nasty thoughts of you." That's just sooooo.... idck. And worse, her reply, "ooooo daddy, nasty thoughts are hot!" This guy is a billionaire hedgefunder in Connecticut. He's not some weird religious cultist or wacko. Maybe he's the ultimate Narcissist, he though his daughters legs were "sexy"... the female version of his own. And after wining and dining this chick, giving her hundreds of thousands of dollars over time, this chick is suing him now for money. This case explifies all of the dirty sins.

In an effort to cheer my daddy up, I sent him a care package. Included in the package was the first season of Nip/Tuck. My brother has been yelling at him to watch it. So I decided to let him test it out. I know my dad well, and thought it would be hit or miss. He called me yesterday and went on a 20 minute rant about it. He despises the wife, Julia and wants to strangle the son, Matt. He decided the only truly likable, sympathetic character on the show is Christian. Which is funny, because in real life, Dad is almost a carbon copy of Sean, the "good" doctor. I would have thought he felt an affinity for him. I happen to agree with him, they all pretty much annoy me 80% of the time, with the exception of Christian. But I do love the show. He said he can't tell how he feels about it, only that he has to watch it in doses. Which defeats my purpose of sending him something that he could watch for hours at a time, to pass the day. So anyone have any suggestions of Something to send him. He already has seen 24 and House, his two favorites. Anyway, if u think of anything, please drop the suggestion in the comment box.

My left eye keeps twitching. I can't tell if it's small seizures or something else. But it's driving me fucking nuts. Sorry, just had to vent about that.

Screech has a sex tape??? WTH? Yes, I watched the Pamela tape, I watched the Paris Hilton tape, I SURELY watched the Colin Farrell tape. But Screech??? Why on earth would he think people want to see him getting head from two chicks in a tub, and making it CLEAR to the world he MADE this tape for all too see. He's selling the thing himself. Are times THAT desperate for him?? And how bad will it be if his tape makes him nothing? Because he's no Pam or Colin. But please excuse me as I go to TMZ.com to watch it:)

Favorite Things....

2006-09-26T17:31:00.000-04:00

My new car. We decided to wait until the interest rate dropped, but our baby finally came home last night. She's a Lexus GS300 with air conditioned seats, Navigation and DVD player. And we got her for a nice discount. Only thing is all these Fast and Furious kids now wanna race us anytime they pull up next to us.

Music
Beyonce- B'DAY. How the HELL anyone can hate on this album is beyond me. "Upgrade U" makes it worth the purchase alone. So its not full of ballads. WHO CARES!!! Beyonce kills every song, and Hubby aka The Boss even plays it in the car, REPEATEDLY. And he's NOT an R&B dude.

John Mayer- Continuum. "I don't trust myself with Loving you" and "Gravity. Classic Mayer.

T.V. Shows
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Prison Break
Vanished
Hero's
The Wire
Six Degree's
House (of course)
Americas Next Top Model
The Amazing Race
Project Runway
Justice

Food
The Sundried Tomato Pretzel with stuffed Cheese in Barnes and Nobles.
Chargrilled Chicken Wrap from Chick-fil-A. Why are there no Chick Fil-A's in NY?
chocolate Mousse Cheesecake from Cheesecake factory.
La Granja's boneless chicken breast, rice and beans and plantains

Miscellaneous
Clip in Hair extentions
Neutrogena Simply Even face wash
Deep Sea cosmetics Salt Scrub, Body Butter and Mud Mask
Charmin Toilette paper
Invisalign Braces
My Pool
Fantasy football- because its the only forum I use to be my "Bad" self.
My mom and Dad and brother, my boyfriend aka The Boss, and all of my friends back home who I miss dearly. *mwah*

Waiting for the shoe to drop.....

2006-09-21T16:32:00.000-04:00

Good things don't happen to me. I don't say this as a pessimist or a cynic. It is just the reality I have come to know, and frankly accept. Expect little in the way of happiness and you won't get disappointed, this has become my mantra. I'm the girl that gets caught in a thunderstorm with no umbrella, gets splashed standing in the path of the car speeding through the puddle, whose heel breaks off during a wedding reception, whose bags will tear and explode walking home from the grocery store. I am the girl who by twenty-one had 3 operations on my uterus and by twenty-four had a stroke. I am the girl whose radar nearly always hones in on the biggest scumbag within 10 miles and believes that with me he is different, love will conquer all, even if I am the only one doing the loving.
So this is the thing, when life is ok.... or even good, I wait for the other shoe to drop. Because it inevitably will, right? And right now, with one glaring exception, my life is good. Happy even. For the first time in a long time, things are feeling comfortable. My relationship has grown through adversity and is now blossoming. We are in love, for once I feel safe, I feel real. I've stopped being what I think I should be, and have just decided to be me. The good and the bad. And someone loves me, truly, madly, deeply, all of the bad parts too. My future brother-in- law has moved here to Florida, marrying a wonderful girl he met while visiting us last year. We finally have family here and family I crave, intensely. Things are feeling stable, hopeful, peaceful. While I am still obsessively tweaking the Book, soon it should be out, and we may be able to buy our first home. I've lost the weight I put on, and with hard work maybe a little more. I feel pretty. Most of the time:) My dad, though suffering, is fighting, with all he's got. The weather outside is beautiful, not a hurricane in sight. Could I be feeling optimistic? I'm unsure. I used to see the world through rose colored glasses, but then life happened to me and the glasses cracked. I realized that what suddenly looked distorted through the lens was more real than anything before. Better adjust to it before it adjusts you. And so that optimisim became realism, pragmatism. But I miss it, the sometimes naive optimism, when I saw the best in everyone come my way, believed in basic goodness. Maybe I can get a little of that back now. Maybe, the shoe won't drop, maybe this is just how life can be. Mostly wonderful, with some awful mixed in to keep us grateful. Things will never be perfect, but maybe I don't have to live in fear anymore. Maybe the storm has almost passed. For many years I had a premonition I wouldn't live to see my twenty-fifth birthday. I nearly didn't. But I survived, and while the past few years have been spent living one day at a time, fearful of becoming greedy with this gift called life, I see something unexpected now. I see the future... and maybe, possibly, it can be fantastic.

Life in Action

2006-09-19T16:55:00.000-04:00

I don't want to cry. Well, I always want to cry. It is my nature. Emotional. Sensitive. My mother once said during a New York drought, that they could single handedly solve the drought crisis by filling the reservoir with my tears. As my dear friend Sari would say, I'm an Over-Feeler. But today I will not cry. I can not cry. I've got to hold things together. My dad will be ok. He is going to survive this barbaric torture he is forced to suffer. Chemo, surgery, blood transfusions, infections, vomit, desperate fatigue. He was rushed to the emergency room today. He's suffering and I'm powerless to make it all better. I send presents, Cozy chamois cotton pajama's, endless hours of TV disk sets to pass the time stuck in bed, Love, Hugs and Kisses. But it's not enough. I want, No .... I need to take it all away. Enough already. How many times did he take my pain, my hurt, my sick and put the weight of that world on his shoulders, to carry it for me. How do you stand by and watch you're Hero fall? The tears are lingering, but I push them away, press them back, tears will solve nothing..... This isn't a drought, it's life in action, cruel and beautiful all at once.

Guess who's Bizzack:

2006-09-18T16:59:00.000-04:00

Yes, I've been missing in action for nearly a month. Where do I begin. Do I need a doctors note? I thought I could hang with the Big GIRLS and ended up taking a few trips to the emergency room. This, and a million other things have had me M.I.A. ..

You know, or maybe you don't, that I was in desperate need of some female companionship, Estrogen, giggles and talk about all things fabulously important like M.A.C. makeup and brazilians. So my girls DaBxSuperstar and the Blackanese Princess came down to Miami and we had a blast. Fabulous dinners on Lincoln Road, hours spent trying NOT to spend a million dollars in So Good Jewelry, my new most favorite store. Miss Superstar took her little sister on a bonding mission to Miami Ink to get matching tattoos. I wanted to see Ami, the Isreali badass that owns the shop, but they were actually closing for the night when we got there.

Our first night we ventured over to Prive, better known as part of Opium Garden, where it was "Lapdance Tuesdays", and for some reason it didn't dawn on me that there would actually be strippers there, Giving Lapdances. Call me crazy, I like to believe that if I haven't actively decided to venture into a strip club, it's not going to venture to me. I forgot this is Miami, where anything goes, even in your local hotspot. So, as we settled into VIP, I was quickly greeted by a lovely girl in a floss sized G-String and little itty bitty bikini top, rubbing her ass allllllll ova my head. I was sitting on the bench and she was dancing above me. Then the guy sitting next to me asked for a "private" dance, and BAM, breastesses everwhere. Seriously, I just wanted to listen to some "I'm Bossy", without all the booty. And EVERYONE was smoking, I mean EVERYONE. The freakin BUSSBOYS were smoking. And then the G-String diva started hitting on me, WHILE smoking in my face. This would be the beginning of my demise. I mean, what civilized state even allows this anymore!!! New York... NO. Los Angeles, NO. BUT Miami, let the debauchery continue! Lets Poison everyone!!!

I'm sorry to all you smokers out there, I mean no offense, but truly, if you think your second hand smoke isn't harmful, you're just wrong. For ANYONE with a breathing issue, smoke is like Kryptonite.

So we left the strippers, Football players and other assorted Miami Butterflies and Bees to bounce for the night. After spending the following day paralyzed in my bed, I decided to once again venture down to South Beach. This night we were invited to a spot I had never heard of- SNATCH. Now all anyone needs to know about this spot is as we are walking up to the entrance, BEAU from Big Brother 6 is outside, talking to the owner. So, I'm DONE. HEAVEN. And while I really was irritated with him and his participation in the Nerd Herds activities last summer on my favorite reality show(besides the Amazing Race), He has come from the dark side and is now friends with My future "if I was a lesbian" wife, Janelle, and thus gets a cool kid club card. So once again, we settled into VIP, this night sans strippers and the first thing I see directly across from me is Mickey Rourke in all of his at least 50 if not 60 year old, Nip'd and Tuck'd glory, practically having sex with a blond younger than me. It was like watching a train wreck it was so bad, and yet I honestly couldn't tear my eyes away from that. Until of course Paris Hilton walked by to sit with the 2006 "Brat Pack." Paris, her sister, Kim Kardashian and Brandon "Greasy" Davis who infamously went on a "Firecrotch" rant insulting Lindsey Lohan, as Paris sat next to him giggling and sidekick messaging away. The dude is a slimeball...and in person, the slim was just drip, drip, dripping off of him. I could not believe this guy is worth Billions. Where is the justice??? Miss Kardashian, who is quite possibly the BADDEST chick I've seen, in well, forever, was "Canoodling", as Page Six would say, with Scott Storch. Kim, is nearly flawless. Granted, she bought her figure from the Best of Doctor 90210's, but damn.....flawless I tell you. I was shocked she was all over Scott Storch, I mean.... idck. No offense Scott.

BB6 Beau came over to me and told me "You're a Hot Bitch". I wanted to scream at him that I was a HUYGE fan, and put on the full stalker thing, but just couldn't bring myself to it. I just blushed and said, "Aww thank you!" Dumbass... It's the New Yorker in me, to good to act like a fan. Pshhhhh. BB6 Ivette came and I nearly lost it again. I HATED this girl most of last summer. She was Janelle's arch nemesis, but then at the end, when it was Ivette and Maggie in the Big Brother finals, I was pulling for Ivette. She's a hot tempered latina lesbian that was just misguided hating on my Janie. So I sat back and watched Gay Beau and Gay Ivette dance across from me, withouth ever uttering a "I know everything about you because Im a crazy Big Brother fan" word. *Sigh*.

The night at SNATCH was filled with celebs and Miami socialistas, faces many of which I knew but couldn't place, probably models and the like. If you're ever in the M.I.A. stop by. The spot itself is cozy and comfortable, the waitresses are all HOT, they don't overcrowd the place, and on any given night you can spot Mathew McConaughey and Lance Armstrong or Jay and Beyonce, and hundreds of other randomly beautiful people, all of whom just want to chill and listen to good music. If they banned smoking it would be perfect. Unfortunately they don't, which is why the following morning I woke up deathly ill with absolutely no voice. The first sign I've been poisoned by smoke is my voice goes, then my lungs. And then it's just a viscious cycle of events that inevitably lead to an emergency room Doctor looking at me with that Maternal or Paternal look of astonishment and dissapointment, saying "What were you thinking going out!"

Too be continued....have to pee:)

Break up to Make Up

2006-08-18T17:21:00.000-04:00

In an instant all that feels so right can be so wrong, and so wrong suddenly right once again. I have an evil, vile mouth. I won't deny it. I am all things sweet, pretty, kind, harmless. And yet I am salt in a wound, the bullet in a heart, the slice to your wrists if I feel feel I've been abused. I often don't like what I see when I look in the mirror. Many others see sweet, patient, loving, kind, giving, motherly, silly, pretty. Maybe what I see is the truth, maybe it is some strange distortion of reality. I am trying to negotiate the image that stares back at me, finding some semblance of hope, honesty, goodness. Who am I? Why don't I feel like I know these things.... Comfortable in my own skin. This is what I so desperately seek. And if I don't posess this, then how can I possibly be comfortable with another, love another, be whole with another. I betrayed my love by trying to end something I desperately didn't want to, by saying things I never meant and in doing so I betrayed myself. THAT is the ultimate betrayel. But in doing so I have grown. I learned something about myself this week. I'm a fuck up. And eternal fuck up. A fuck up on a massive scale who often is so emotionally incompetant that I often have no rational way of dealing with life's curve balls that I compensate with self-destruction. And sometimes, by hurting those I love the most. Cutting them off... or trying too...because I don't believe they love me enough.

But really, maybe its that I don't love myself enough, and in so, need others to feel that deep, deep chasm for me. And that's too big of a job for ANYONE to handle.

I learned this week what I want most in life, who I want most. I learned that I love another more than I can bare, but that I also love myself, alot. This was a desperate week, a week filled with tears, and vomit, and desperate angst, please forgive me's, why did I's, I'm so stupid's, and the complete inability to digest even the smallest of food. It was a death and a rebirth. I don't want anyone else in the world. I am sure of this. And I love myself. The good and the bad. And the bad sometimes can be really really bad. I know now that I need to work on this. And that's a good thing.

Like a flower, you need to water me......

2006-08-07T03:33:00.000-04:00

Dear you,
I told you today that I was no longer in love with you. I lied. It was a hateful and horrible thing to say but in the moment it felt right. I looked beautiful today, gorgeous actually. I even took an hour to curl my hair -A task I meet with great disdain, yet indulged in just because you prefer it. I put on my new red summer dress with perfect match espadrills. You barely noticed. Just six months ago you would have twirled me around and said "Damn you look good." In my head I quietly muttered "You bastard." Yes, I'm craving attention. But just yours. Yours because it feels so right. You once adored me, played with me, couldn't keep your hands off me. Now, I'm like an accessory, something you occasionally try on.

I told you I'm like a flower, a plant. I need to be given water, sunshine... if you neglect me I will wilt. I told you this in the hopes that you would listen, take heed, take proper care and never neglect me. But I've been wilting for months. I don't believe your neglect is intentional. You are just in-fucking-capable. And for that I am sad. Your love is not in question. Nor your loyalty. I don't believe you are watering another flower. My instincts aren't leading me that way. You just don't get it. You think you've "Got" me. It's been nearly three years. You think we are "past" that. Don't get it twisted. You don't "Have" anything. You should always be working. Why would you ever take me for granted when I never you? I work day after day to remind you of how I feel, to remind you of your place in my life, my heart, my lust. I stroke your ego. Do you believe mine strokes itself? Do you believe when I wake up in the morning and feel like shit, and look in the mirror and think I've aged and gained, and there's someone younger and more anorexic chic, that I don't need a reassurance from you that I am still the apple of your fucking eye.

I will never believe that "years in" means "without said." F that. Say it loud, say it often. I shouldn't feel like I get more attention from strangers at the mall than from the man that supposedly loves and adores me. I don't need $300 sunglasses or expensive cars.....hold my hand, caress my arm, slide my hair back and sneak a kiss on my neck after dinner..... don't fucking talk on your cell while we're out in the middle of dinner. Make me feel like when we're on date night we are the only two people in the world that matter to you.

Today I told you I was no longer in love with you. I lied. It was a horrible and hurtful thing to say and I look back on it with deep regret. But with each passing day as we move forward I am trying to hold on to what was and not what is, because what is, is for me a memory. A memory of a time we once had, once filled with a priority above all, that priority being us. Never let it die. Never let it fade. Maybe this is where we diverge. Your air and my fire. Your logic and my passion. Your want for Honesty, Loyalty, Trust and mine for Madly, Truly, Deeply.

Catching Up.......

2006-08-03T15:42:00.000-04:00

I've been neglecting my duties here at Perfectly Imperfect and for the 1.5 of you that actually care, I apologize. But things have been, well.... hectic.

My dad's hair is falling out and it's hurting him when he sleeps. This frustrates me. I just want to spend the next six months while he goes through this living with him. But for various reasons I can't. This frustrates me more. We can shoot people up into space and we still haven't found a cure for Cancer? To put it eloquently, this fucking sucks.

We joined the new gym. 24 Hour Fitness Shaq Sport. Which means we finally got to leave the meat market that was our old gym LA Fitness, Miami's answer to the perfect place to go to pretend to work out while secretly, (or not so secretly) your true mission is so scope out and pick up your next slutty mistress. You would walk into our gym and I swear, just touching a treadmill you could pick up chlamydia. The place was teaming with STD's. The sexual tension was palpable. So as soon as they opened the new 24 Hour Fitness we were OUT. And...... much to our liking, its open 24 hours! So I have actually been working out everyday, because since my day doesn't actually start until anywhere from 12-3pm, and usually ends at 4 or 5 am.... midnight is my perfect workout time. I'm in heaven. And the place is pristine. Reminds me MUCH more of my old New York Gym. Everyone is there for business, hardcore. No time for bullshit. No trying to look sexy, or flex muscles in the mirror, posing. Pshhhhh...So, I have 10 pounds I HAVE to lose and I am going to try to do it by working out and using the SOUTH BEACH DIET. Basically, for the first two weeks I comepletely have to cut out carbs from my diet. 100%. Even fruits. Supposedly, if I follow this strictly...eating only protein and proper fats for the first two weeks, I will immediately drop 8 pounds. This is called phase 1. Then after the two weeks I enter phase two, where I slowly reintroduce carbs back into my diet....slowly, and in small amount. Then in phase 3.. well, I haven't gotten there, but I like this diet because its not so much a diet as a new way of thinking about eating, its supposed to retrain your body to crave different foods. And since ALLLL I ever want are starchy carbs, ie: the FATTIEST of carby foods, I think this might suit me well. Anyway, wish me well on my fatass journey.

I went to see my Neurologist for my checkup and he has put me on a new Medication. Its called Lyrica. I love how they give these medicines these sing songy, nice names.... LYRICA. Like, wtf. Its a brain medicine that makes you tired, is for neuropathic nerve pain and helps control tremors and seizures. But I do not see where they decided there was anything Lyrical about it. These drug companies are getting smarter and smarter with the drugs.... I've gone from Dilantin to Tegratol to Keppra to Topomax to now LYRICA...... definitely the most inviting one out of the bunch.

I'm almost done reading my girl Stephanie Kleins new book "Straight Up and Dirty" , to alllll my girls out there, if you are looking for a great summer read go out and buy it, or order it. It's a hilarious, smart, easy read that will have you dying and crying.

You guys think you're suffering in New York. It's about 105 degree's down here EVERYDAY, and these fuckers in my complex drained the pool a week ago. The maintenance guy said, a pump broke and they haven't even called anyone to fix it yet! I called the maintenance office and this woman was like, "Ah, well, yeah, it will get fixed........ sometime." LADY, its 1000 freakin degree's out here. People need to go in a pool!!! Whatever. I'm just being bitter because I'm starting to get pasty and I need a tan and there's no way I can lay out without being able to dip in some water. I will melt.

It's Baby Season!

2006-07-26T16:50:00.000-04:00

I'm scared. But I'm also happy. Those two emotions can be non-exclusive of each other right?

It's baby season. Babies are coming and I'm overwhelmed with joy, happiness, and a secret sadness. Two sets of twins and a single so far and I'm sure there are more to come. In the last two weeks calls have been made as well as emails, "I'm going to be a mom!"... "We're having a baby!". I'm ecstatic. I know the journey they will be taking is one that will be filled with so much love and fulfillment, a precious gift so greatly deserved.

But this is my secret. I may never be able to walk that path. And that pains me. Having a baby means risking my life. I'm in love. He's such a wonderful guy. He's that guy. For the first time in my life I feel secure enough that the idea of having a family isn't a dream, but a reality to be pursued, a reality that I may never have the opportunity to achieve, because having that baby could be the end of my life. How do I feel about that? How do you love someone so much, find that one person that you finally say, Okay, I might want to do this, I want to create something with you, bring something into this world that only you and I can, knowing it could kill me. Where is the justice in that? The mere mention of having a child makes my parents angry.. Which in turn makes me cry. Because knowing that they find no happiness in the prospect of grandchildren, that they associate it with my death is horrible, stressful, painful. I feel like Im suffocating. He always tells me the one thing he knows about me is what a beautiful mother I will be. The doctors have told us what the deal is. I could die. Or I could live and be a vegetable.

I don't plan to face this head on for at least another few years. But its baby season. And the overwhelming joy I feel for everyone around me is always tempered by the reality I know I will have to one day face. It just hurts that the day I call my parents to tell them Im pregnant, it wont be joy I hear, but rather fearful tears on the other end of the phone. It's eating me up.

Its good to know he's "caring and conscientious...."

2006-07-25T18:07:00.000-04:00

Every day I wake up, peruse the web, hoping for a few little gems to brighten my day. Never one to be selfish, I share with you today's diamond in the rough...Mwah:)

$550 - Huge room available - with a twist!
Reply to: hous-186020008@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-07-25, 9:58AM EDT

"Hello potential roommates!
I come to you today with an offer you might not be able to refuse. Due to my current roommate's imminent departure, I have available a large furnished room on the first floor of a three-story walk-up in the heart of the East Village (4th Street and Second Avenue). There are two bedrooms in the place, and yours would be the largest.
I don't need to tell you that this is near all the cool spots, including restaurants, bars, cafes, theatres, concert halls, etc. However, the room itself is private, at the end of a long hallways, and very quiet. The dimensions are 15x17, and it has two windows which look onto our interior courtyard. Bed, wardrobe, desk, and air conditioning come with the room. $550 includes all utilities.
You may be wondering why the price is so low. Well, here's the twist: I am a 25 year old male with a slight social problem which, to some, makes me an undesirable roommate.
I'll get right to the point: I have a compulsion to put ice cubes down people's shirts. As my roommate, you will likely bear the brunt of this problem.
Don't ask me to explain why I do this. It's a serious psychological issue, and years of therapy haven't helped.
Let me emphasize: it will not go ANY FURTHER than the ice cubes. I am not abusive or perverted in any way, and I will never make lewd comments or touch you inappropriately. I also do not drop heavier or steaming hot objects down people's shirts. Only ice cubes.
What this means for you: when you are sitting on the couch, or at the dinner table, or basically anywhere in the apartment, I may come up to you and drop an ice cube down your shirt.
I always have ice cubes on hand. DO NOT thnk you can simply get ride of all ice trays in the apartment. Trust me, I have tried this, as have various roommates. It doesn't work, I will only buy more.
I prefer someone who does not like to have friends over, unless they understand my problem. They are prone to having ice cubes put down their shirt.
Your bedroom door has a sturdy lock, so you will always be secure while sleeping. Ditto for the bathroom. I may turn the doorknob on rare instances, but a stern word is usually enough to send me on my way.
On infrequent occasions, I have been known to follow someone onto the street to put an ice cube down their shirt. Once, I showed up at a roommate's place of business. However, this was a wake-up call, and I can assure you it's something I may not repeat.
Okay, I think that covers it. As you see, this is a great room in a terrific location, for a very, very low price. Quite simply, you won't find a deal like it anywhere in the city. However, my roommate will have to be tolerant. It takes great patience, and others have failed. It may seem like a minor problem, but eventually all the ice can become very annoying.
Otherwise, I am a caring, conscientious person. I work in finance, and enjoy mountain biking on the weekends.
So send me e-mail me if you're interested! Please address the ice cube problem and how you plan to deal with it. I need to be sufficiently impressed, because I don't want to find another roommate after one month. Ignoring the problem only makes it worse. Also include some of your favorite hobbies.
My current roommate is leaving to move in with her boyfriend, but before that, we had a successful relationship for one year. She even said the ice was something of a relief in the summer months, which can become very hot.
Females are preferred, but guys, don't let that deter you! Move-in would be anytime between now and September 1. I'm flexible.
Thanks for listening!"

Everyone should die looking Glamorous...

2006-07-24T16:50:00.000-04:00

As of October 1st, the "No Retreat" law went into effect in Florida. Now, I don't know about you, but I am a big retreater, I'm all about retreating. I'm like, "Hey buddy, lemme go over here, and retreat." But other people, not so much. They like to stand their ground. Somebody's trying to stab them, they would like to stab them back. Better yet, somebody is trying to shoot them, they might want to shoot them back. Me, I would probably just try to run.

Now, in lieu of this whole "No Retreat" business I did start thinking, what does a girl who hates guns, who has always been terrified, I mean PETRIFIED of guns, do. What if one night, I accidentally bump into a girl at a club and said girl is drunk. And what if said drunk girl is so belligerent she starts yelling at me. I would apologize, profusely of course. But what if this wasn't enough for said angry, drunk, belligerent girl. What if she called her boyfriend over who is also drunk and belligerent and said I was being rude, and what if my boyfriend then saw her boyfriend yelling at me or worse, grabbing me. And what if then my boyfriend punched angry drunk guy. Then we all get thrown out. Then we are walking to our car, and them to theirs and suddenly angry drunk guy walks up to us and has a gun in my boyfriends face. UH OH. This is where this no retreat law is all foggy for me. Is he defending himself since he was punched? Now what do we do….Oh, I HATE guns, this whole thing is making me sick!! But this is Miami. THINGS LIKE THIS HAPPEN. Which led the boyfriend and I to the following conversation.

"Guns don't kill people. People kill people."He stated.

"Oh that is so cliché." I said.

"Maybe. But it's true. You're such an idealist. This is the real world and Miami is like the Wild Wild South. I'm taking you to the Gun Range." He ordered.

"The what?"

"The Gun Range. Tomorrow. You are going to learn to shoot a gun. You've got to learn to protect yourself god forbid something happens."

Okay, who even knew they had those out here. Me, at a gun range. This would be a joke. In fact I thought it was a joke. Surely the boyfriend was just trying to make me sweat all night and then he would forget all about in the morning.

Wishful thinking.

My first concern was wardrobe, I mean, what do you wear to a Gun Range. Okay, so maybe this would not be everyone's main concern, but I was SURE that the gun would backfire and I would kill myself. If I was going to die, I at least wanted to be well dressed. Everyone should die Glamorous. I decided to dress for the occasion in my fatigue capri's, an army green wifebeater and black stiletto’s. We drove to Big Al's Gun and Pawn shop in Hallendale Beach. The Boyfriend rented a 9mm Glock, I was informed this is the gun police officers use, we purchased eyes and ears, ( I thought that sounded cute) and our targets. My hands were already shaking as I could hear the Pop, Pop, Popping going off upstairs. As we ventured up the staircase and I looked into the actual gun range it was PACKED, there were men, women, and even children. I couldn't believe it. All of these people….. shooting guns. My whole life, I've been staunchly against guns…. a liberal anti-gun activist now standing in the middle of a gun range between a 12 year old boy and an 18 year old girl as they both fire away. As the boyfriend loaded up the gun my pulse raced, I already suffer from tachycardia, or rapid heartbeat. I searched frantically for my heart medicine. I can't find it. Crap. I'm so not cut out for this. I like to lay on the beach and watch reality television. And what's making this whole thing worse is this little kid next to me is busting away and smirking at me like, "Ha, you chicken shit, I'm twelve." That's the only thing that got me going, I don't like anyone testing my womanhood. I decided at that point, politics aside, I was going to do this. I needed to conquer my fear, no pre-pubescent was going to show me up. I was going to show him I was nobody's punk. See, I was already acting like a republican…….

The boyfriend gently guided me to stand in front of him. I picked up the gun with my right hand, then used my left as a base, held it….. then I put it down. I couldn't do it. I was too scared. I stepped away and shook my arms. Mini Rambo smirked at me and I turned around and picked it back up. I was going to do this. The boyfriend put his arms on mine for added help, one, two, three……. I squeezed.

Holy Crap………….. That was loud.

But I did it again. And again and again, until it wouldn't shoot anymore.

The boyfriend loaded more bullets into the clip and made me go again.

When I was finished I looked at Mini Rambo and he was just staring. Then he kind of blew a kiss at me. Eww. A handshake would have been better. When we pulled up my shooting targets I had actually done very well. I'm not afraid to admit there was something empowering about the experience. I had at least momentarily conquered my fear, and didn't completely suck. It was nice to share in something the boyfriend grew up enjoying, even if shooting guns as a childhood pastime seemed completely insane to me, but then I grew up in the North, in the city….. not much about the south does make sense to me. Anyway, as we paid up our tab downstairs we saw an advertisement for a women's defense class.

"Would you like to sign up?" I was asked by the cashier.

"I don't know. I have to think about it."

"Miami is a dangerous place. Where ya from?"

"New York."

"Oh yeah…… things are different down here. Huh."

"Well, it seems like every other person down here has a gun…"

"Oh some people have two or three."

On the ride home I had a lot to think about. I was still very afraid of guns. But I was a little closer to understanding them. And I know that if I am to live in a state that seemingly allows anyone with a driver's license to own one then maybe it's a good thing I at least know how to use one. I don't know. I do think every woman should go to the range at least once. I mean, did you see Angelina in Mr. And Mrs. Smith……

Flowers and Fuckery....

2006-07-17T19:19:00.000-04:00

I've been a Stupid Girl. I always joke with Him that I'm going to get a t-shirt that says "I'm with stupid", but the truth is, he's the one that should be wearing it, with the arrow pointing my way. I've done so many silly, stupid things, worn the wrong clothes, said the wrong thing, picked the wrong roomate, had the wrong job, slept with the wrong guy. Definitely fallen in love with a big mistake or two.No one gave me a road map. I've gotten lost down a few winding roads, definitely ended up in some dark alleys. I'm not regretful, but I've made decisions I regret. How could you be so dumb! This is like my mantra.

When I was fifteen years old I let a boy hit me. I let him kick me too. He was the first boy I kissed, my first real boyfriend, and I thought it was love. Someone owed him twenty bucks and they wouldn't pay him back. But they were friendly with me and willing in good faith to give it to him through me. Boyfriend number 1 met me in front of my house and instead of saying thank you, went into a jealous rage and proceeded to beat me on a city sidewalk. When I finally got away from him I ran home and into my dads arms. I cried for hours. And didn't tell him what happened. I went back to the boyfriend. I went back to his obsessive, controlling, "Baby, I love you, I can't live without you's". I was a Stupid Girl.

When I came back to school in eighth grade I had breasts. C cup breasts, which eventually became D cup breasts. And I was tall. I no longer looked like a child. This was my death warrant. In the cafeteria in the morning a table of ten girls gathered to sit. Normally I would be included in this group. Normally, these were my friends. During years past we shared sleepovers, weekend trips, birthdays and holidays, shared our deepest girl secrets. These were my friends. So after gym class when I was handed the letter it was with anticipation I opened it, I was sure it would be something sweet, maybe a surprise invitation to a party, a letter they didn't want me to see from a boy. Instead it was filled with hate. A one page letter, dedicated to me, calling me slut, saying my mother was a whore who should go back to her country, attacking my father, a man so rarely around I doubt they knew his name. It was a list, This is why we hate you, reasons 1-20. I broke down into tears. I remembered back to the morning. The ten of them at the table I was uninvited too, plotting like the mafia. I remember that number, TEN, how it seemed like so many, The many against the one. I didn't fight. I didn't confront. I curled up like a cub and let the tears stream down my face for hours. I wanted to hide. To be invisible. I let others fight for me. When the 300 pound, horribly mean Principal Leiberman called me in to yell at me for crying, threatening to suspend me because my presence was too much of a disruptive force I didn't stand up to her and say, "Do you know that I AM the one being harassed and tortured. I AM the one who's name is scrawled along the bathroom walls. I am the one who wants NOTHING more than to blend in with the paint on the walls and you are telling ME I am causing the trouble!" But I instead sat quietly. Stoically. And when I knew she could no longer see me as I walked out of her office I let more tears stream from my face. I was a Stupid Girl.

When I was 22 I went to work for the Hershy Brothers. Everyone I knew and loved left or was leaving the Public Relations department of the N.B.A. and V.P. Hershy was looking for someone to come work for him over at N.B.A Entertainment, the New Jersey Office of the National Basketball Association. He built the job up to be all the things I could want, and I was sold. When I arrived I was first introduced to is slightly younger but balder brother, Director Hershy, director of a different department, which I believed meant I was not his employee. He smiled his sly smile, put his arm around me, said if there was anything I needed, just let him know. I was sure there wouldn't be. As the months wore on, Younger Brother Hershy subtly complimented me, always offering to "show me the ropes." I politely declined. I wasn't interested in anything he had to teach. He would come up with random tasks to which somehow I would be assigned, and his brother, My boss would approve them. I was stuck. But after four months I was given a raise. The younger Hershy wanted me working for him. In a department I wanted nothing to do with, doing tasks I hated. He wanted to have me around him, under him, answering to him, he wanted carte blanche to put his arms around me, touch me, force me to do what he wanted when he wanted, all under the guise of good Employer/employee relations. We should get together in the city sometime. He would say. I know a great place. Eventually he started asking me to do things like update his PDA, a ridiculous task that I was not hired for, but his brother, my boss would say I had too, and he would lock me in his office while I did it. He didn't want me anywhere else. I expressed my concern to my boss. He waived it off. Then one day Younger Hershy asked me into his office, for some inane task, once again. And once again, he locked the door. And he put his arms around me. I don't even remember what he might have said. I just remember the trapped feeling I felt, and the feeling of violation. I wanted out. And he knew it. Two weeks later I was "Let Go." As the human resources manager tried to kindly explain it. The same H.R. guy who barely a month earlier had called me up to tell me I was being given a raise and how impressed he was with me. He looked ashamed as he told me I had to pack up my stuff. Once again, I cried. I couldn't believe it. I was a stupid girl. I allowed myself to be played, manipulated.... It never occurred to me to sue. A few months later I found out that another girl had been fired by the SAME guy for the same reason. She did sue, and the NBA settled, not wanting the bad publicity. They put her through graduate school. Which is why the NBA is scummy, for keeping him around to do wield that kind of power, but I am stupider for not threatening to sue him the first time he turned the lock on his office door.

I dated this football player. He seemed different. Atypical. He was slightly older, 30...when I was in my early twenties, when we met he was wearing a suit, he looked refined, mature, handsome, smooth, much like his wide receiver play I suppose. He was persistent. We talked for months, got to know each other. He didn't come on strong like the others. He always called, sent flowers. He asked me to come to Miami for the weekend as his Team played the Dolphins. No strings attached he promised. His mother, sister, manager and best friend were all flying in for the game and he desperately wanted to introduce me to them all. He said he had been talking about me for months and everyone was eagerly waiting to meet me. After much debate, I decided it was December in New York, and I could use the trip to Miami. When I arrived he arranged for my pick up and had my hotel room paid for. I asked them to change the hotel room, charge it to my card. The reservations clerk looked at me like I was insane. I want to pay for my room. I said. Why? He said. I just shook my head and said "Please." I didn't feel I needed to explain my personal belief that no man should be paying for my hotel room. When I arrived the whole crew was there, family, friends, and I was properly introduced. My football player treated me like a queen, and the family accepted me with warmth and open arms. Sitting in the visitors section in Dolphin Stadium was terrifying but it was a nice weekend otherwise. Until I was told of a lie. A big lie. A big lie that not one member of his family divulged, let me know.During our nice Miami weekend, and our many conversations and sharing moments my football player said he was not a father, he had no children. As we can all recall from my 50 things list. But a dear friend of mine, well, more like a Big Brother, at the time playing for my hometown JETS, upon finding out about this, warned me against seeing him. And that he did in fact have a child. A child. As in uno. Shortly thereafter I received a call from a woman having what sounded like a nervous breakdown. She said she knew who I was, and wanted to tell me that she was pregnant with his child. "Okay", I said. That wasn't all. She lives in his house, and he just had a baby with another girl, and he has at least two more. She is telling me this through sobbing tears. There was no malice in her voice. I was a Stupid Girl. I learned from that day on that every woman, (or man) should GOOGLE their next date. I would have learned about the first child that way, because he was being sued for back child support. There are many things in this world people lie about, but one I cannot forgive is denying your children. To this day I don't know what purpose it served for him to lie. It could only have come from one of two motivations, fear of my judgment of him having so many children and a deep desire to want to impress me and provide a good image, or 2) he never had any intention of getting truly close to me and keeping me in his life so there was never any need to divulge those details. Only he knows, but I was a Stupid Girl for trusting him. And more so, for not doing my research, especially in a case where research could actually have yielded useful information. But sometimes flowers blind you to fuckery.

I've been a stupid girl. Many many times. I haven't stood up for myself. I haven't thought things through. I've wanted to believe. To trust. And I've cried alot. And sometimes cried too much. Tears aren't productive. Therapeutic, yes, but they get absolutely nothing done when action is needed. But life is about being stupid. So I'm not sad I've been a total and complete moron at certain times in my life, because its whats shaped me, molded me, built me. A whole lotta stupid can make you extremely smart in the end. I haven't used up my reserve, there's plenty more to come, I just hope not to repeat the same stupid twice:)

THINGS I HATE ABOUT MIAMI TODAY

2006-07-13T16:59:00.000-04:00

Please don't hold me responsible for this tomorrow. I'm bitter right now.

1. PIPER MUTHA FU**IN CONSTRUCTION. And I'll tell you why. Because these assholes left one of their construction cones in the middle.. THE MIDDLE of the I95 yesterday. Not a little orange cone. A HEAVY DUTY ASS construction cone that probably fell off of one of their trucks because they don't pay their day workers enough to make it worth their while to take the extra two minutes it would have taken to secure their shit. So there it was, sitting in the middle of a lane on the INTERSTATE HIGHWAY that WAS PACKED with cars going 75 miles an hour, and of course, the car in front of us was lucky enough to have enough room ahead of him to see it AND not have any one beside him allowing him to swerve away from it, but NO, my poor hubby, who was right behind him was the lucky lottery winner who was boxed in, with nowhere to go and the thing was so big and heavy that it TORE into the car, and nearly made it flip the fu** over. But thank goodness, Hubby is quiet possibly the best driver I've ever known, he controlled it with all his might and saved himself. The sheriff couldn't believe a construction Cone did all that damage. They had to call a TOW truck to LIFT the CAR to DISLODGE it. But what pisses me off even more is that this kind of stuff happens ALLLLLLLLLLL the time in Florida. Because a HUNDRED people probably drove past that thing, and NO one called Highway patrol to say, HEY theres a cone, you guys might want to have someone come get it, its a Hazard. In the last THREE MONTHS ALONE, we have seen about TEN DEADLY or NEAR DEADLY car accidents. One of which almost killed one of His closest friends, knocking out ALL of his front teeth. Down our street a guy on a motorcycle was practical cut in two. On our way to our car dealership, a guy was sitting, on a TWO LANE ROAD that has heavy traffic that everyone knows people go about 6o mph on, he was just sitting there in one lane, he didn't get out, put his car in neutral and push it off to the side.... and literally, car after CAR after CAR nearly hit him INCLUDING US, luckily there was no one next to us so we were able to swerve out from behind him, but guess what, the guy BEHIND US, he wasn't so lucky, there was someone right next to him, so he had NO WHERE TO GO, and slammed RIGHT INTO THE GUY. BECAUSE THIS JACCKASS wouldn't just MOVE HIS CAR OFF THE ROAD. People in Miami can't drive, or drive recklessly, stupidly, without INSURANCE. People think New Yorkers can't drive. Taxi drivers can drive their asses off. They are just CRAZY. But they can drive. They're trying to make that money. Come to Florida. Then you'll see some people who can't drive.

Which brings me to number

2. People in Miami are lazy and Mean. I am a notoriously Big Tipper. I have never tipped under 20%. Sometimes I will tip over 20%, way over. When I lived in New York, I was all about the service. And I almost always thought it was good. Attentive, polite, timely, efficient. Rarely was it not up to par. Which is why I ALWAYS scoff at the notion that New Yorkers are so "Rude, Obnoxious, etc, etc". Seriously, this is is the biggest crock of crap I have ever heard. New York is the greatest city in the world. Period. Definitely in America. And because of that the standards are high. Employers expect a lot, and employees know they can and will be fired in a second. They may bitch and moan in the back while they smoke their cigarettes, but while their out front, their gameface is on and its allllll good. But here, in South Florida, people are completely incompetent, lazy beyond anything I have seen, the quality sucks and people are just MEAN. They have attitude!!!! WAlk into a shoe store or a clothing store, ANY STORE and just tryyyy to get service. Forget it. You will hear the echo of your own voice, "HELLLLLLoooooooo O O O O Does ANy e E E E E E Body E E E E Work here here here here!!!" Then when they finally come to you they come with a glare. You're almost scared to make them work. This is NOT an exaggeration. 40 % of the time we eat out, they get our order wrong. That is a ridiculously high percentage if you think about it.Why this is, I'm still trying to figure out.... but it is. And it drives me to distraction. The reason people are willing to put UP with it, I believe, because the weather is beautiful, the cost of living incredible compared to other parts of the country, and even when you are working you can still feel like you're on a vacation.

3. Every Pedophile and Rapist comes to Florida at some point. When Chris Hanson did his whole Dateline Series on Internet predators he went from one state to another, but which state state was his golden cow, which state was the Creme de la Creme for Chris, it was ...... *Ding Ding Ding, Sunny Florida!!!! So big All the sex offenders and soon to be's can skulk around,hoping not to stand out. I once did one of those searches to see how many lived in my area, and I swear, there were about 30. This is Very Disconcerting.

4. Everyone in Florida has a gun. Like Everyone. Your dry cleaner has a gun. The cashier at your local Win Dixie has a gun. The waitress at your IHOP is packin. In Florida, you don't need a license to carry a gun. No permit. No background check, nothing. It's amazing that you DO have to be 18. But even that's funny. Because when you go to the Gun range, half of the people in there training are KIDS. I am not kidding. 11, 12 year olds.... I was like wow, they really start them young. One day I will share my gun range story. If you can't beat em, join em. And in Florida, where EVERYONE has a gun, you do NOT want to be the only person who does not at least know your way around one.

5. English is the second language in Miami. I love Spanish people. Truly. Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Guatemalan, Nicaraguen, Colombian, Argentinean, Brazilian, Peruvian, I love my Spanish People. And I am sympathetic, or should I now say empathetically, I understand that it must suck to feel like you are a foreigner, incapable of communicating with people, frustrated.... But this is the thing. I want to learn Spanish, because I want too.... not because I'm Forced too in my own country, not because no one will speak English when it's the Native language. I still live in the states. I haven't left U.S. soil, right. Because if I go south, to Central America, I promise, I will stop bitching, in fact, someone feel free to bitch slap me, I'm in your territory now, but damn.....! I have a Russian mother, I already have to translate one person, and then, its not even like there is just ONE language, there are SOOOO many different versions, Portuguese, Spanglish, Pure Spanish.... Which one do I learn.... Why can't anyone speak english? At the mall where we live, no one speaks English. Im not kidding. Except the Vietnamese. They speak great English. Now why did the Vietnamese learn English but not the Spanish people? If I go to France I'm learning French. If I go to Spain I'm Learning Spanish. I go to Greece I'm learning Greek!But If I go to Miami I have to learn Spanish too? I just think this is getting out of hand. I am alllll for learning Spanish. But when I see that My Spanish people aren't trying to speak English, then I just feel discouraged like, Come on. And this is reallllly evident in Miami.

So that wraps up my Im bitter and Im pissed at Miami right now list. WooHoo:)

I'll make a Reasons why I love Miami list tomorrow. Or maybe next year.

LYING LIARS

2006-07-10T19:16:00.000-04:00

Ok. So I have to tell you a secret. I have lied. I have told lies. I am a lying liar. I'm not proud of this fact. I'm not pathological or anything. In fact, most of my lies could be classified as white. Innocent. Small. Insignificant. Harmless. But on occasion, I'm sure, some have been hurtful. Don't look at me like that. With disdain. With judgment. You know you're one too. You know you're a liar.

We all tell lies. Some more than others. Some worse then others. Honesty is a commodity these days. Traded like gold, or maybe more like platinum. People bend it to their will. Is an exaggeration a lie? What about an omission? Who can we trust.... who can we confide in, entrust our deepest darkest secrets too? Is anyone truly honest. What exactly is honesty...What if the truth will hurt more than having never known at all....

As I grow up I am trying to be more honest. Not so much with anyone else, but with myself, which in turn I hope will translate to the rest of the world. I have a warped view of ME. I don't love ME so much. Sometimes I like ME. But I'm hard on ME. I don't want to face the real ME. I've been trying to do that more. That's part of growing. Get honest with yourself. Stop feeding yourself what you want to hear, stop lying to yourself, get REAL.

I have lied to others to protect others, I have lied by omission, and I have certainly lied for fear of judgment. But I think what I'm most fascinated by are people who lie to manipulate. I hope that I will never be that person. How would we all act if we were being watched. What if we knew that at any moment, every moment of our life could be replayed for anyone, no moment left private, only ours. Anything could come back to haunt us....

I watch my 24 hour feeds of Big Brother with fascination and addiction. Every moment, I get an inside look as people connive, plot, scheme and lie to each other at the drop of a hat, without guilt, and seamlessly. The ease with which one person can have what seems like a completely honest conversation with another person, guaranteeing their loyalty, while truly they are plotting their ousting and downfall behind their back fascinates me, because though its a magnified, intesified look, it IS a peak at human behavior, when a group of people compete for the same common goal. People WILL lie, they will cheat, they will align, and this is the ONLY venue where you are able to watch everything, every moment unedited. We all are liars. I will not be sanctimonious and say I've never lied. And i will not be naive and say I've never been lied too. I know better. But the scary thing is lying these days has almost become a skill. Can you go undetected. I know I can't tell who's lying anymore. And its absolutely Amazing how skillfully the people on Big Brother can lie. I am watching them Lie and I still believe them.

Injustice

2006-07-09T00:05:00.000-04:00

She laughs like a hyena. Its this really raucus, almost evil, bellowing laugh that will make everyone around her laugh AT. She can't sit still. Many people think they suffer from attention deficit disorder. She is the only person I know who truly qualifies.

She is my Better Midler. You know. From Beaches. Loud. Crazy. Outgoing. Funny. Without much manner.

I am her Whitney. Polite. Quiet. Shy. Too well mannered. She had to loosen me up.

We met when we were 14. She was trying to protect me before she even knew me. A boy kept pulling my hair. I was a stranger to her. She read him his rights and threatened to kick his ass if he didn't stop. She said I was pretty. I was from downtown, she was from Uptown. We both lived in highrises, only mine overlooked the beautiful chagal windows of Lincoln Center, hers the concrete hardgrounds of the Polo Grounds. Public Housing. Living with two parents with A.I.D.S. We met on the set of Tupacs movie. We shared a common schoolgirl crush. He asked me out on a date. We were excited. The date never happened. I was too scared. But the crush bonded us. Music bonded us. Life bonded us.

Eventually, my house became our house. We became sisters. The yin to my yang. Years would pass, in many ways I was mom instead of friend. This wore on us. Our relationship tore. She was always rebellious. I loved her. I just wanted to protect her, save her, take care of her. She wasn't me. She had to walk her own path. She was a free spirit. She was desperate for love. Desperation breeds danger.

She was born in NY and had never been anywhere else. Until the day her mother passed away from AIDS. Two years ago. When her mother died she wanted to leave the city. To start somewhere new. To find love, life, to be free for once in her life. She came to the only place she had family she said. She came here to me, to Florida.

This was supposed to be a new beginning. She was going to grow up. And she was. She found a wonderful job, cultivated new friendships..... but she was still desperate for love. So desperate she was willing to drive to Mississipi to meet the new guy late at night from Miami after a long work day.... and she wasn't a very good driver.

No one will ever know what happened. She was mad at me. Not talking to me. If I had known I would have never let her go. I would have paid for a plane ticket. Or demanded she wait to drive until the next morning. Anything rational. Because thats what I provided. Ration. PROTECTION.

Instead, I got a call that she was on the oncoming side of the highway, her car incinerated in north florida, unidentifiable, but for the fact that her wallet was thrown from the vehicle, unburned.

No one knows how she ended up on the other side. And no one will. But her life ended in a split second. Just when it was supposed to begin. One year ago today. The peices of my heart are still breaking. The tears that fall from my eyes still fresh. The anger I feel at those who let her go still quietly simmers, though I know it shouldn't, and the sheer angst I feel for all the moments lost sits in my gut knawing away. She was love. She was life. She was dealt the hardest deck of cards and was never given a break. Where is the Justice in that?

It's still not real. But then whatever is. Life is crazy, beautiful, sad, funny, maddening, just and injust. Again, i would rather it had just been me.

Danielle Maldonado

Sunrise______Sunset

July 1st,1978 ~~July 7th, 2005

IN.....stability

2006-07-06T15:06:00.000-04:00

I crave stability. The way some people crave heroin. Or blowjobs. I NEED it. I don't like change. Routine suits me fine. Somewhere along the line, my already fragile brain realized it couldn't handle deviation. They say this is common in brain injury. Car accident or Stroke, its all the same.

I know the origins of this began with Zha Zha( my mother) -Liable to go completely nuts at any moment, a little girl learns to appreciate prediction. My mother was unpredictable. Exciting in many ways, totally and completely unstable in others. Prozac cured this. Too bad it came so late. It wasn't her fault, she had/has PTSD...post traumatic stress disorder. For most of my childhood she believed the KGB was going following her, would find her, kidknap and torture her. This is what happens when your native country believes your a spy and actually DOES follow you, kidknap and interrogate you repeatedly for years. And it doesn't help when the American's think you might be spying for the very people you tried to get away from. No wonder she was traumatized. Maybe she IS a spy?

Either way, I never had a dull day growing up. And in many ways have always surrounded myself with people who are similarly unpredictable.... in romance and friendship just like my Zha Zha. You always go for what you know. But now I need stability. I need comfort. My brain is already completely unwired. It has to be medicated everyday so it doesn't spazz out. Sometimes it doesn't see things correctly, if even at all. It doesn't always process what it does see. It doesn't like change. It can't handle it. And I can't handle that.

It feels unfair. Everytime he starts a new job, I panic. Our routine is changing. Deal. Just deal with it I try to command myself. If he had someone else, he wouldn't have to worry about this. I feel like I almost have OCD. Everything has to be done the same way, everyday, or my brain gets nervous. Its not normal. Its not me.

I am better than I used to be. I will be better than I am. This is my mission. Life is all about choices. We choose who we want to be. It doesn't control me. I am in control. I can live IN stability. Without feeling unstable.

Either that or I'll start doing heroin or asking for blowjobs :)

IM BITTER

2006-07-05T17:50:00.000-04:00

This fucking sucks. I'm on fire right now. I'm out of commision because to add to my list of alien like ailments I am allergic to Sugar. I can't eat Sour Watermelons or Sour Patch Kids while enjoying the Devil Wears Prada like any normal human being. No, I must be punished. My butterfly is on fire right now. Sorry, I know my male readers aren't ready for those kinds of details. But imagine how I FEEL right now :( ..... I need one of those electric shock collars that Bzzzzz's me everytime I gooooo near anything with sugar packed on it, because obviously I cannot be entrusted to MYSELF. Fucking idiot.

Hopefully, I shall return tomorrow with something insightful to say. I'm sowwy.

Because I Love Kevin Smith's potty potty mouth

2006-07-03T19:13:00.000-04:00

Nose-picking and an anal sex primer
Monday 3 July 2006 @ 1:26 pm

"I get a ton of shit from the wife for how often my finger’s up my nose. Anyone else got one of these spouses/girlfriends/boyfriends?

What’s the big fucking deal? I’m a smoker, so I get boogers. Where’s the harm in digitally cleaning that shit out? It’s not like I’m mining for gold then making a salty deposit in the Oral Bank or something. I pick, and depending on where I am, I flick. If I’m near a tissue, I’ll stuff the fruits of my labor in it, sure. But if no tissue’s handy? Zooooooom! Across the room it goes, for parts unknown. Wherever it lands ain’t my problem; it’s not up my nostrils anymore, and that’s all that matters.

I get a lot of “Just use a tissue to blow your nose, you fucking skeve.” However, blowing your nose doesn’t necessarily do the trick, y’know? The hard and crusties sometimes don’t always budge during the conventional nose-blow. A finger scrub’s the best way to guarantee no danglers. And don’t gimme any of this “Well use the tissue to scrape ‘em out” shit; tissues break, and then I’ve got this toxic bullshit up my shnoz as well as the nose crud. Tissues (or toilet paper) is for your ass, I say. THAT’S when you don’t want tactile contact with something coming out of your body: when a stench accompanies it. But boogers have no odor. I don’t use a Kleenex to wipe away sleepers (or eye crud); why the fuck would I use a tissue to get unscented waste out of some other hole in my body?

Why is seeing a finger up someone’s nose considered such bad form? I see someone picking their nose, I’m like “Now THERE’S a motherfucker I can TRUST.” Kids are notorious nose-pickers, and who’s more trustworthy than a child - unless, of course, that child’s Damien? However, I don’t recall ever seeing Damien pick his nose in either the original “Omen” or the recent remake, which strengthens my point even further: Satan’s spawn DOESN’T pick his nose. Who wants to be like that kid, with the bad bowl-cut and the constant scowl (in the remake, at least), pissing off baboons (in the original) and knocking your Mother off a top floor balcony (in both)? If the Anti-Christ is all about doing the opposite of what’s righteous, maybe picking your nose has the air of divinity about it?
We can learn a lot from those “Omen” flicks. The first time the concept of ass-fucking was introduced to me was via “The Final Conflict” - the under-appreciated third entry in the original “Omen” saga, starring Sam Neill as the now-adult Damien. He hooked up with this reporter lady, and at one point, they’re getting down. Suddenly, he flips the chick over and buries it, all evil-like, in her dumper. As an eleven year old without the benefit of an internet connection (or an internet, period), I was confused, to say the least. Sure - I knew about conventional sex (I used to shoplift “Hustler” from the local magazine store), but the horror in this woman’s eyes and the physical displeasure she was indicating spoke of some unforgivable act I wasn’t schooled in. I was watching the scene and imagining this dude’s sporting some kind of forked cock (I mean, he IS the devil), that’s got a hydra-like head that’s snapping at this poor lady’s snapper - hence all the crying. I turn to my brother and ask “What the hell’s going on, ya’ think?” And my brother explains that Damien’s getting all sorts of rectal with this chick.

“He’s putting it in her butt,” Brother Don tells me.“Why?” I ask.“Because he’s the devil. That’s what the devil does, I guess.”

Now, coming from a Catholic household and six years of Catholic school at this point, you’d imagine that’d be some kind of formative moment for both of us: like, from that moment forward, me and my brother would forever associate (or ASSociate) anal sex with Armageddon, and I’d grow up to be one of these “Gays are the devil’s pawns” kinda guys. Instead, my brother grew up to be gay (married to a man, and celebrating their thirteenth anniversary today, as a matter of fact), and I became something of an ass-man myself (though with the ladies). The only Armageddon it introduced was my brother and I growing up to be like “Armageddon me some ass!”

What I did take from “Final Conflict”, however, was that anal is something to be approached delicately. For that reason, I’m far less agro than Damien when it comes to the booty; I’m smoove. I’d have sex for the first time approximately two years after seeing that flick (I lost it at age thirteen, with a chick named Norma), but it’d be two more years after that before I got into some of my first digital ass-play with my then-girlfriend, in a parked VW Beetle. Oddly, Damien and his hate-fucking antics never once sprang to mind. There was no spooky music and howls of terror; it was actually all kinds of cool, because the two of us (the then-girlfriend and I) worked ourselves up into a teenage frenzy over the tresspassing into heretofore forbidden territory… until a cop knocked on the window with his flashlight and told us to move along. But from that moment forward, the genie was out of the bottle, and the ass was in play: any time I went down on a girl, sooner or later, the pinky would aid and abet my cunnilingus.

I remember having a conversation with Mewes about eating girls out, and being shocked to learn that he only did it with the chicks he really liked or was going to spend time with beyond a one-night stand. Going down on chicks was never an option for me; it was the standard. When you grow up fat, you’re never any chick’s first choice for fooling around, and any nookie you get is predicated more on your personality than your looks. Since I didn’t have the aesthetic advantage working for me, I decided that having the oral edge might improve my chances of getting action beyond the mercy-dry hump or third base fumblings. If a girl was gonna do me the courtesy of giving me a shot at the title, so to speak, I was gonna make an impression. So at age thirteen, I bought a gynecological textbook at a physician’s book shop and read that shit cover-to-cover, absorbing all the knowledge I could about the mysteries of the dickless. By age fourteen, I was - as Sam Kinison used to say - a lick-master from the Orient. You’d be surprised how many women will look past a flabby, swingin’ gutt if they know they’re gonna get eaten out with nearly surgical precision. And when you add digital-to-anal manipulation to the mix, any thought of you as a fat-ass seems to fly out the window (at least until she cums).
I wouldn’t have honest-to-goodness anal sex for another few years after that initial parked car experimentation. Then, like now, I was never the instigator; perhaps because of the impolite example Damien provided all those years prior, I figured that first move wasn’t mine to make. If a girl wanted to plumb those depths, she was gonna have to tell me to do so. It’s common courtesy, I’ve always figured: if I was a chick, I’d want to make that choice for myself - not have some oversexed horndog who’s already being given the gift of a lifetime get all greedy and go for broke of his own volition.

Contrary to what they tell us in porn, I’m of a firm belief that most chicks aren’t very into anal, but only opt for it in the heat of the moment. Sure, there are always exceptions that prove the rule; but if a sexual itinerary were to be established upfront, before things got hot-and-heavy, I think most women would be hard-pressed to utter “And then, you can drill my brown.” It’s only during the throes of passion, when common sense gives way to pure carnality, that anal suddenly becomes a seemingly good idea. For that reason, I’ve never rushed in with my dick where angels fear to tread; I’ll start with the fingers, and if reason doesn’t settle in at that point, I’ll eventually do as I’m told - though only in a spooning fashion. I mean, look at me: I’m not the guy you want on top of you during traditional sex, let alone when something as delicate as the sphincter’s at the epicenter of it all. If a guy my size loses his balance during man-on-top anal sex, the poor woman’s looking at future of colostomy bags. I don’t Damien-it; I’m the tenth-of-an-inch at a time type, leaving plenty of room for reversal of opinion. It also helps that I’m hung like a grape.

I guess what I’m getting at is this: I feel it’s totally okay to pick your nose. And anal is something you’ve gotta let your partner call the shots on and during.

However, picking your nose DURING anal? Probably not a good idea. "

-Snatched from Kevins boring Ass Life by Kevin

Lesbian wishes and Champagne Dreams....

2006-06-29T15:52:00.000-04:00

I once thought I would dip my feet in the pool. Swish them around. See if I wanted to take a swim. But I think deep down, I've always known I'm not that kind of fish. I can't swim both upstream and down.

"I think I'm in love with you." She said. "Whhhuh?" Was all I could muster. I was eighteen, she was nineteen, one of my best-friends for years. "It's becoming to difficult for me to live here with you, to watch you, ya know.... " I had just finished taking a shower and was sitting wrapped in nothing but a towel. Suddenly, the moment took on a different mood entirely. I tightened the wrap, suddenly self-conscious, aware of my body in a way I hadn't been before. "It's not just that. I just love you." She decided to take a year off from college and fled to Australia for six months, on a trip with her then boyfriend, a married fucktard who came back to the states a week later while she stayed behind, finding herself. One day she showed up on my doorstep, an orphan, unwelcome in her mothers home. I welcomed her into mine with open arms. I missed her. She was adventurous, exotic, exciting, spontaneous.... She lured me in with her sordid tales from down under, working as a stripper, experimenting with ecstasy, spending her days on Bondi Beach, and her nights with new found friends in Aussie nightclubs. She was different when she came back. Matured, traveled, slightly jaded, harder. But around me that melted.

I smiled at her. I didn't say anything really. Plausible Denial. If I pretend I didn't really hear it, then it didn't really happen. I wasn't sure if one of the things she discovered about herself was that she was a lesbian, or was she just attracted to me? We got dressed, I in the bathroom, with the door closed this time, and headed out to a friends party. She repeated her declaration of love while we were outside. Fcuk. "I love you too." I replied. "But.... not in that way." My heart sank. I didn't want to disappoint.

She moved out shortly after. Things were never really the same. And she continued dating guys that were complete and total fucktards.
____________________

As I got a little bit older I started to wonder. Are all women naturally bi-curious? Ask most women if they would rather watch two beautiful women kiss, or a decent looking man and woman, and more often then not the answer will be the former. We love beautiful women. We have girl crushes for god's sake. Guy's don't crush on other men. Or do they. They surely don't admit to it. But we all find ourselves in love with Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek. Add a little bit of alcohol into the picture and most girls have had a lesbian encounter, sometimes two.

"I had a dream about you last night." My other girlfriend whispered as we sat down to eat with a group of friends.

"Ooooooo, what was it about!" I asked excitedly.

"Well, I was really really drunk last night off Cristal again actually, so its all kind of hazy, but we were having sex, again."

My excitement suddenly turned to awkwardness. This was was the third time she had confessed to me that she was drunk and dreaming of fornicating with me.

"Don't tell anyone." She said. "I'm not a lesbian." She assured me. But her touches at dinner were more frequent, more gentle, softer, she was playing with my hair, tickling my back. Was she trying to seduce me! I brushed it off. I was overthinking it.

Or was I.

"It was really good." She said as we sat in the back of the taxi riding up tenth avenue.

"Yeah, I luvvv their food. Yummy." I replied.

"No silly. The dream."

"Oh......" I let out an embarrassed giggle. We obviously were not on the same page. Or even reading the same book it seemed.

"So what do you think about that?" She whispered. Ok. Are you asking for like....what are you asking for, I was wondering.

"Have you ever?" She asked me. "You know..."

"No. You would know!"

"Well..... I never would. Except with you."

"With me? Why me!"

"Because."

The Butterflies just weren't there. And I'm not one to experiment for the sake of experimentation. Flattery, though highly coveted, as well as exclusivity, just wasn't doing it for me.

"Stop drinking Champagne." I offered sympathetically.

"Why?" She looked slightly confused.

"Because then you'll stop wanting to have sex with me."

____________________

A few years had passed. "That's it. I've decided I'm going to be a lesbian." I had made the declaration to one and all. Anyone who was interested, anyone who would listen. I had had it. This should have been the first sign of course, the insincerity of my motivation, lesbians across the land would be booing me if they knew what I was up too. But I didn't care. I had suffered enough heartbreak, humiliation, devastation at the hands of the opposite sex. I preferred Lesbian Pron to Straight Pron, I thought Angelina in GIA was HOT and what girl doesn't get excited at the thought of doubling her wardrobe, hello! I even recruited friends to help me find a girlfriend. I'm not really the go out and get em type. And besides, how does one go about letting the Girl World know that now you are "available." Peruse the "women seeking women" personals? There's an entire vernacular to be learned.

Femme, Butch, lipstick, Dike, baby dike, bull dike, fluff, bluff.... yeah, you get my point.

The realest test of my foray into lesbianism came from a most unexpected place. Once again, a dear friend. A friend with a boyfriend, in a long term relationship actually. She had never mentioned any dreams, didn't admire me when I was barely or completely unclothed in her presence, she was just a BFF, though lately had been clinging to me more than ever. And one night, too tired to drive home, she decided to stay the night at my place. We decided to watch a movie and climbed onto my bed. She asked if I wanted her to tickle my back. Girls do this to each other all the time. It's just a girlie thing. I said please. Only I fell asleep at some point. But not completely asleep. I was in that middle place, where you kind of have a sense of what's going on but you're body and mind are so exhausted they are helpless to move. I felt hands caressing my back, then moving down my body, far down my body.......I couldn't move. I didn't know what I was feeling. I didn't know if I wanted more or I wanted it to stop. The arms were pulling me. They wanted me to turn over. Lie on my back. I did. I felt them move up my stomach, to my breasts. They lifted my shirt. They caressed them. What was going on......somethings-

I was so tired but I understood what was going on. I was trying to process it. Do you want this?I had to ask myself. Obviously she does.... Doesn't look like you have to do any of the work. That definitely goes in the plus column. But something was nagging at me. Something just didn't feel right. It didn't feel bad, it many ways it felt nice, but it didn't feel Right. And then the deciding moment came. She brought her mouth to mine, and I knew this was the test. If I could do this, I had my answer.

I couldn't. I didn't want it. I felt so bad. Luckily I had a territorial dog who decided she had taken things too far, or maybe he thought I needed rescue. He broke the moment. I turned over and went to sleep. I acted like I had no idea what was going on.

She cried the next day. She told me it wasn't about sex. It was about feeling close. She had suffered a difficult year and she hadn't felt close to anyone like me in a long time. She was confused about what she was feeling, overwhelmed with love for me, for the friendship we shared, and she wanted to translate that in a way she didn't know how. It was sincere. It made me cry too. But what it also showed me was that I can't have sex with girls. Not in real life at least. I'm just not that kind of fish.

Some things are better left to the imagination............

I still have my girl crushes though:)

She, He, and Them....

2006-06-28T16:37:00.000-04:00

1. She has no tattoos. Her mother thinks "only whore's vair tatoo's." She disagree's but wouldn't dare disobey.
2. She, on the other hand has many. The one on her left arm in fact, says "Fcuk You."
3. He had sex with a midget.With a small arm. And liked it.
4. She lost her virginity when she was 12. To a boy named Spud. On a park bench. She didn't feel a thing. But told Spud it hurt like hell.
5. He always says excuse me before he's about to pass wind. He's a polite farter. His farts aren't so polite, however.
6. She has never seen her real hair. Not since she can remember at least.
7. She tries to talk to her dog like he can actually understand her. "No, don't pee there, it will ruin the wood."
8. He finds the crust on pizza disgusting.
9. She will eat his pizza crust after she finishes hers. She think's it's delicious!
10. She's never said a curse. Well, not really.
11. She never went a day of her life without saying her favorite word, Mutherfkcing Cocksukcer.
12. She had sex with the entire starting five of her high school basketball team.
13. Not all at once though.Not necessarily all seperately either.
14. She thought she would marry the man she lost "it" too.
15. Boy, was she wrong.
16. He secretly cries everytime he watches "The Lion King."
17. She only dates married men. Though she knows she wants more. But she's scared.
18. She would never date a married man. "Do you want Scott Peterson."
19. He loves guns and violence, but practicaly faints anytime Doctor 90210 is on and they show any kind of surgery.
20. She learned to be proficient in the use of the AK47 at the age of 14. As well as other heavy artillery. She thinks every woman should have these skills.
21. She collects frogs for good luck. Nothing but bad things have happened since.
22. He has really nice feet. She calls them "Jesus Feet." Why. She doesn't know.
23. At one time the net worth of all the men she was dating was nearly 1 billion dollars. And she was still living out of a suitcase.
24. Three of her husbands have died. They call her the "Black Widow."
25. She thinks they should call her the "Shining Miracle" because she survived the Bastards.
26. She has a habit of saying "I'm sorry." Even when someone has commited an offense on her. If they have bumped into her, or kicked her, She will say, "I'm sorry" to them.
27. Though he has more than enough money to pay for anything on the menu, he still asks the waitress, "How much will that be?" everytime he wants to add something extra to his meal.
28. Whenever you ask him a question, He will answer you, "Well...." and then you won't hear from him for another hour. But when he finally answers it will be detailed and well thought out. Too bad you forgot what the question was.
29. She has a very cute laugh. People actually wait for it to come. It's that cute.
30. She has a 4 drink limit. 5 makes her a lush. At 6 she's just a Slut.
31. He's having sex with his best-man's mother. The wedding was less than a year ago. They are "In Love."
32. She believes in true love but it's like the Hope Diamond. You know it exists but few have ever actually seen it up close.

Blaaaaaahhhhhh

2006-06-27T14:42:00.000-04:00

I have absolutely nothing to write about. This post is going to suck. But at least I gave you warning.This happens sometimes. I call it CFBS. *I can't fu*k**g breathe syndrome* Did you know Lindsey Lohan actually has BREATHE tattooed on her wrist. She said she sometimes needs to remind herself. Ummmhmmm. Poor Girl. Anyway, It's hurricane season. And while we haven't had a "REAL" hurricane yet, we did entertain Alberto, but he was more of the boy who cried wolf than anything else, we have had a steady flow of ominous storms like EVERY day that are kicking up alllllllllllll the shyt that makes my Asthma go bonkers. Thus, I can not breathe. Which makes me antsy, a cranky little biyatch. Unable to sit for long periods of time. Totally UNPRODUCTIVE. This weekend I did absolutely, completely nothing. We did make it to a screening of the new Adam Sandler movie "Click" at Muvico though, which is always a classy experience, about 1/3 of the way through all you could hear behind us was, "Bitch, you want me to kick your ass here, or you want to take this shit outside!" Suburban kids are so Gangsta!

Moving on...

I keep smelling myself. No. It's good. I've always been a very conservative deodorant kind of girl. Stick not spray. Powder not gel.Powder Fresh not any of those strange exotic fancy smells. Always Lady Speed Stick. However, yesterday while at my heaven of all havens, CVS, I discovered a new scent. Exotic, but NOT offensive. Lady Speed Stick has come out with a new scent called Fruity Melon, and it smells heavenly. Not necessarily for everyday, I still like my subtle baby powder fresh, but the fruity melon smells fresh and fruity without smelling offensive and perfumey. Yum!

But back to "CLICK!" which we saw at MuvicoSux. I will tell that story later. Adam Sandler knows how to make the perfect combo Guy/Chick flick movie. Which is why he will always win. I was crying through most of the movie. Because I am so that girl. And it was just completely relevant to my life at the moment. Sometimes people are running so hard to get what's at the end of the rainbow, and they don't realize its just a bowl of flakes. I was fortunate or unfortunate enough, depending on how some might look at it, to learn this lesson early. Now I can actually take everyday, one at at a time, enjoy it for what it is, instead of trying to fast forward it in the hopes of reaching something that may or may not exist. I understand what matters, what truly matters, is today, the here and now, this minute, this person, this moment, tomorrow is never guaranteed. Be present in the moment.

And at this moment I am doing absolutely nothing! I'm sitting around in the infamous "I love Pink" sweatsuit. Today's pick is the royal purple, hair in a pony tail, inspired to do nothing. I need to write. I need to work. But what I really want to do I sit in front of my 42 inch TV and watch Armageddon and Dirty Dancing. I already knocked out Braveheart on Saturday. I have a strange chick flick tri-fecta. I need coffee. I'm not even a coffee drinker. And yet I now want my vanilla latte every day like a crack fiend. This post sucks. And yet I don't even care. Because I am Totally. Un In Spire ED. Whatever. That doesn't even look right. I'm going to do something wasteful and read some gossip, who's hired, who's fired, who's knocked up and who's getting divorced. Then this day can be a complete and total waste.

WooHoo!!

Bye Bye Bitches!

2006-06-23T17:39:00.000-04:00

I have no vices. Like seriously. I don’t drink. My mom offered me alcohol when I was five. She’s European. That’s how they do. I’ve never smoked nor tried a drug. Not even the ganja. I don’t like anything that’s an offense to my senses, if it doesn’t taste or smell pretty, I’m not letting it near me. This is where I suppose I am a snob. But only with myself, I don’t judge others who partake. Go ahead, Indulge, have fun, I’ve even been known to fall in love with an alcoholic, a pothead or two. Pisces…. They seem to fall into this category. Not that I’m trying to stereotype or anything. But now I know to ask, “What’s your sign,” first. I do know a Pisces who’s the exception. A good friend in fact. Kwame. You’re excused.

As the summer is about to start the only thing I fear might actually be an addiction, is fast approaching. “Oh God, I’m going to lose you to the dark side again.” He says.

I’m ashamed. Could this actually be my vice? I obsess over it. I crave it. I think about it when I’m away from it. I detox from it once it’s gone. It’s where I go to escape from the stress of my real life. It’s toxic, its indulging, it makes me lose touch with real life. Oh my god…. I’m addicted to a reality television show. Not any reality television show. The only reality televison show that has 24 hour live internet feeds, for almost 3 months. Three shows a week, plus all access to everything that’s going on, at all times in between. Which is watching a live sociological experiment, lying, cheating, conniving, plotting, loving, pleading, laughing, playing, kissing, sexing, friendship….

I have casually watched it every year. But last summer, maybe because I had moved away from everyone and I was looking for something to fill the void, as most addicts do, I decided to take the plunge. I signed up for the internet feeds. And I was hooked. And it wasn’t just me, supposedly. There were hundreds of thousands of other dorks and rejects and people who shared my “VICE”. It was the highest rated season yet. They had the two best houseguests ever, in a “buxom blond” named Janelle who everyone took for a bimbo and tried to evict every week, but was secretly a fox and played her ASSSSS off, telling all the nerdy obnoxious, sanctimonious chicks plotting against her every week, it was “BYE BYE BITCHES!” and the debonaire, smart, sweet Iraqi Kaysar, the ultimate underdog who was voted out by the same NERD HERD, then voted back in by America, only to be manipulated and lied too, and kicked back out the next week by the same Nerd Herd. And this summer, they have come back with a vengeance.It’s ALL-STARS. Janelle and Kaysar will be back for sure. America’s voting. And though I’m ashamed to admit it, I will be subscribing to the live feeds once again, because I now know that I too have an addiction. And yes, It’s probably not healthy, being obsessed with other people’s lives really can’t be a very productive thing. But I’ve spent my whole life clean and sober. This is MY thing…..

So its Big Brother 7 All-Stars… my vice, my version of Crack. Yeah, I’m a dork.

DEALBREAKERS

2006-06-21T17:35:00.000-04:00

I want this ~~~~~~~~~~~>

But I am no longer a 1. I am part of a 2. So I have to "compromise". So I don't get ^That. Which is ^*$#^^it!!

"We just fixed up the apartment. You want to tear it all apart with a new dog!" He says. It won't be like that I tell him. It won't be like before. When he met me I wasn't alone. I came as a package. Included was a neurotic mutt named Nookie. You can thank Marissa for the name. And the dog.

It was a warm summmer day in August or September, we had just finished getting Naked Brazilians, and this woman outside had these teeny little puppies, a mixed bunch,all rescued from a puppy mill, all needing homes. Buried in the brew was a mutt, no one could really tell what he was, Beagle/Jack Russel/Hot Dog mix maybe... he was teeny, cute with the warmest chocolate eyes. Riss said we had to take him. We were supposed to be Co-parents, we were going to raise him together,because he was sooooo adorable. I said alright, we scooped him up, and ventured off on our new journey. A few hours later she was gone, I was a single parent, and Nookie had a deadbeat dad. It's not really Riss's fault though. She had way too much going on in her life. The timing was awful. I just wasn't ready to handle a new baby on my own. When he was barely a few months old I was offered a job in the N.J. NBA office, which meant I would be gone insane hours. You just can't do that to a puppy. I felt like a dispicable parent, neglecting her child, abusing him. I loved him so much and yet I was at a loss. Eventually I started working for myself, and was able to be at home, we became attached at the hip, but then that became problematic. He didn't know how to be alone. He was never properly trained. The vet said that his breed was hyper sensitive,emotional, fragile... I empathized with him. He was me in so many ways. He always wanted to please, but sometimes he just didn't know what to do.

When we moved here everything was new for him. He destroyed the carpet. He tore into the front door with his nails when we would leave. He would howl for hours until we came home, so loud that all the neighbors wanted him to go, and we got a notice of eviction. They wanted him to go, or us. And they weren't the only one's. He had he it. I was his only supporter. I was loyal. I understood him. You don't give up on someone. You help them. Even if he is a dog. How you treat an animal is how you treat man. That's how I was raised. But I was no longer a single, and he was becoming a dealbreaker. He was a mess, pissing and shitting everywhere. So I gave in, I found him someone who seemed patient, kind, loving. Someone with a backyard. A nurse. She was a caretaker, she would be good to him, I thought. I miss him. I think of him all the time. How he would crawl into my lap, snuggle under my arm, sometimes bullying his way in there while I was sleeping. The funny way he would sometimes tilt his head like he could understand me, almost as if he were a person. How Mandy finally trained him to sit using Gummy Bears when nothing else would work.

I did it all wrong and now I want a chance to do it right. I have the time now. The time to take TIME. To sit with the new dog, to train him..or her. Him/her. We don't even have to get a puppy, he doesn't want it chewing everything up. He won't budge. He doesn't want its hair in the house. He doesn't want any accidents. It doesn't matter that doctors have found out that having a pet can be better for your health, something that is a BIG FKCUING deal for someone like me. He doesn't think dogs belong indoors. Maybe this is our dealbreaker. I'm alone. He has friends. He leaves for work. My work is here. My friends are not. I left them. I can do this right this time. I need this. I need a companion. He doesn't understand because he's not built like me. He doesn't need anything.

There are dog people, cat people and people who don't want either. I don't know those people, those "don't want either" people. And I certainly didn't think I might end up spending my life with one. Giving affection is therapeutic to me. To man, and to man's best-friend. That's what having ^ that is about for me. Not something cute to show off. Something to lay in my lap, rub, feel its heartbeat. Sit by me when I'm at my darkest, just BE there. Forget diamonds.. a DOG is girls best-friend.

He's seen me naked

2006-06-20T17:53:00.000-04:00

“Don’t worry, I’ll hire you a personal assistant. I promise.”

I’m needy. Need-Eee. And I’m having a slight nervous breakdown. I don’t want to Need anyone. But I do. And right now it feels like the world is crashing in all around me. I wasn’t always like this, needy. I used to be IN-DEE-PEN-DENT. Then my brain went to mush. Maybe this is just an excuse. Maybe I want to be taken care of. I can’t drive. I don’t mean “I’m not good at it”. I mean I can not drive, like it’s against the law to let me get behind the wheel because of the seizures. Plus my blindness. I might kill someone. So I’m like a child. I have to be chauffeured. I left New York because it was too hard to walk everywhere on my still barely useful legs. Now I live in a state where people have to drive just to get to the corner store. I’m not sure I properly thought this out. I used to have food delivered to my apartment, sometimes at 3 am. Now, the only choices for delivery are Papa Johns and sub-par Chinese, and both quit at 11pm. What if I’m ever single again? Will I survive? Maybe this is a disaster. Maybe I’ve made all the wrong decisions. “I Love Pink.” It’s what my ass says. I have five of these sweat suits. Victoria’s Secret. I don’t get dressed anymore. I just sit around in my sweat suits, hoodie up, hiding out, tears streaming down my face spontaneously. I can’t remember things, numbers, words, people. It takes me twice as long to do things I did without thought once before.

I don’t want a Personal Assistant if he goes on tour. I can’t even believe this is a discussion. “Not a discussion” he says. “Its done. I’m not leaving you alone. Someone has to take care of you. You can’t take care of yourself.” Which means I’m Need-Eee. But I don’t want a stranger. I want him. He’s seen me naked. Not in that way. He knows all of the things that are wrong with me. The things others don’t understand, unless they have been around awhile. He deserves someone better. Someone who’s not damaged, complicated. All of my insecurities are creeping in. I’m a daddies girl. What if daddy dies. The doctors say they don’t know now. It might be the “other” cancer. The far worse one. I have to stand on my own two feet. But I have a brain that doesn’t talk to them sometimes. I want to be strong, not to be NEEDY. If not for myself, then for them. I want to feel like wearing something other than a sweatsuit that says, “I Love Pink” on my ass….

An open letter....

2006-06-19T14:12:00.000-04:00

Talk to me....

I'm alone.

Lonely....

I don't know what I'm doing. I've left everything. Everyone. Gather me up in your arms. Tell me everything will be alright. You're distant. A piece of me dies each time I see you dissapointed. I want to be enough. Enough to fulfull. Satisfy.Fill the void.

Less Than. That's how I feel. Not than another woman, than the future.

I'm alone.

Lonely.....

We used to talk. I knew you loved me because the way you would say my name was different. I knew that my name was safe in your mouth.

I could always talk to you. Now, I feel like when I open my mouth, stones fall out.

Love uses you, Changes its mind, its tempermental, humiliating, tiring.

Life isn't different. Do our lives lie along the same path? Entwined like rope, or are we diverging.... Your eyes mask your soul, while my eyes bare mine. If only they could meet, for an honest moment, like they once did, to bare the truth.

C.A.N.C.E.R. is a four letter word.

2006-06-15T15:05:00.000-04:00

She said not to cry.

I'm crying that really ugly cry where snot comes out and you huff and puff and wail and look like a wretched animal, the kind of cry you lock yourself in a bathroom to let out freely because letting anyone witness it is like letting them see you wholey, completely naked.

He has CANCER.

HODGKINS DISEASE......

You knew. You are connected to him in a way no one else can understand. You smile like him, squinting your eyes the same way. You have the same quiet manner about you, until you don't.

You knew. You prayed you were wrong.

It's not supposed to happen like this.

He just had a heart attack. HE JUST HAD A fucking HEART ATTACK.

When I was a little girl I had night terrors. And nightmares. Everynight. I stole his sleep. He didn't care. He would come in my room and watch over me, singing to me, play games with me, give me whatever small comfort he could provide to lull me back to sleep. He was DAD.

One Christmas morning when I was 8 he gave me a Globe and Encyclopedias. I looked at him like he was crazy. "You'll always be pretty, but if all you ever get are barbie's you'll always be stupid too." He said.

He taught me all about first downs, sliders, technical fouls. His face lit up everytime he talked about his beloved Celtics and Red Sox. He took me to my first baseball game at Fenway Park. I hate the Red Sox. He doesn't care. He just cares I came.

When my mom got sick he dropped everything to take care of her.

When my granpa got sick he dropped everything to take care of him.

When I got sick. Over and over again. He dropped everything to take care of me.

I want it to be me. I'm young. I'm like the teflon don. I can suffer. I bounce back from everything. But leave my dad alone you fucker. Be on your *ffing way Bitch. You're not welcome here. He's going to fight you. If I could fight you for him I would. And you don't want to mess with my mom. She's from Russia you know. She once pistol whipped a cop.

N.Y.C. to M.I. A.

2006-06-15T02:58:00.000-04:00

This came today.........

And this is coming tommorrow, hopefully. To replace the 2 yr old car we now treat like a step-child. I'm ashamed.

I remember when I lived in an apartment too small for a dining room table. A lot of nights I ate over my kitchen sink, or at the coffee table which was my dining table. I remember when I used to look at cars pull out of garages in Times Square and say, Ooooooo, that's pretty. But I didn't know anything about them, and I really couldn't afford one. And if I could, I certainly couldn't afford to park it. $300 a month for a garage...pssshhh, If I was going to be spending that on anything it would be something much more practical....like these. I have two bedrooms and two baths now, a kitchen you can walk around in without feeling like you should be bending the person over, a formal dining area which as of today if is no longer naked, and a terrace that actually sits overlooking a golf course. I can wake up every morning, walk a few feet out of my door, take a swim and bask in the sun, something I used to dream about on the sweltering rooftop of my 47 story highrise apartment in the middle of Manhattan.

I remember when I used to spend sundays in the city at my favorite shops, walking my fingers along all the things I wanted but secretly knew I couldn't have.

I lived to pay rent.

Isn't that the New York story.... We make sure the rent check doesn't bounce, gets in on time, and everything else is just a luxury. Manhattan is a city for the rich not poor. Poor being a Broad term. Manhattan's poor might be Wyomings Rich. But, of course, who the f*^~k wants to live in Wyoming.

I would have never left New York by choice. By choice meaning, if I had any idea when I got on the plane to Miami that it would be the beginning of the end of my life. My life as a "New Yorker." Because at the time the thought of ever living anywhere else was as horrifying and repulsing as adopting Damian the devils Child. 666. "I don't want that."

"It's nice for a weekend." I would always say about Miami.

"It's just not a city to me" I would say about Los Angeles. Its so spread out.....

New York is a magical, mystical place. Everything is old before it ever gets a chance to be new. Every cab ride is an experiment in foreign relations, and stepping outside of your door can mean the difference between life....and life passing you by. The city can roll over in its impersonal waves, people walk with their eyes distant, focused on some other horizon. New York is dirty, noisy, rushed. It can suck you dry and leave you exhausted, but there isn't any other place in the world like it.

I miss it.

I miss it so much sometimes it hurts.

I thought I was coming here for a weekend.

It's been a long weekend. 2 1/2 years to be exact. I no longer live to pay rent. I live to live. Not that I didn't in New York. In a million different ways I had a life there that can never be replicated. But in a million others, I don't have to be a spectator anymore. I have a certain kind of freedom now. I don't have to always feel like I'm suffocating, drowning, trying to keep my head above water.

I don't have to feel guilty for staying in. Wondering if I'm missing what's going on out there. I've found new pleasures, made new discoveries. Sometimes I can't imagine that I lived all those years without Palm Trees. I'm having a love affair with them, with Las Olas, News Cafe for Brunch, Sushi Samba on Lincoln Road when I'm feeling Nostalgic for the city......

So why did I stay....

Because as the weeks passed my desire to stay a week longer outweighed my desire to return to a New York winter that burns and bites and makes you wonder why you aren't living somewhere warmer...slower...easier. Somewhere like Florida. One week turned in two, two to three. Shortly after, I met someone. Someone turned into THE one and THE one opened my eyes to a different kind of life.

"You're such a city girl." He would say in his half endearing, half condescending way.

" Yes, yes I am." I wore it like a badge.

When we flew up to New York to break my lease he winced.

"This is what you're getting for $2600 a month."

"It has really nice views.... and granite counter tops." I tried to sell him.

"You realize in Florida we could have a four bedroom house and a 7 series for this, Right?"

You either get New York. Or you don't. I do. But I made a choice to say goodbye. For love. For money. For my health. Because I could no longer sell it to myself.

Not that Ikea and the # 2 train weren't good to me......

Okay scratch the #2 train. I really hated you. One day I'll write you a letter.

Burn baby burn

2006-06-14T02:08:00.000-04:00

My body's burning. It's this cold burn that makes me want to tear off the right half of my body, the half that burns, like a lion would tear into its prey. I swear I wouldn't care. It's fucking miserable, the cold burn from my brain, from the scarring left in there. The worst part is I can't be touched when it comes, the burn. Being touched is like suffering the most unbearable torture. I feel bad for him. He only wants to help, to caress, to make me feel better. But something as light as his breath on my skin can make me want to cry.

I live with the burn all day, but its always worse at night, when my body is overstressed and tired, when the medication has metabolized and worn off. I hate pills. With a passion. I secretly skip them sometimes. The last time I did this it happened. In the car. I don't know what it looks like when it happens. I can't imagine I look very sexy, convulsing. I would probably laugh if I was watching. I know I'm being a bad girl, skipping the pills. But the medicine just makes me so tired.

Always so tired.

Burn baby burn.

I wish I could talk to the scar in my brain. If I could I would tell her.

"I'm not your bitch.... BITCH."

Fatass

I used to be a model. I used to be in videos. Now I look at models. In videos.

Now I'm a fatass.

"You're such a fat kid." He says. He thinks its funny. He thinks its endearing....my love for sweets. How I covet them. He thinks I'm crazy. He says the scale is making me delusional. He says I'm tiny. Obviously he's delusional.

I've never been "skinny." Always "slim with curves." But I've gained ten pounds in the last three months, and I'm feeling like my curves are starting to look more like, well- blurbs. So......why the weight gain you might ask.

Because I'm a fatass. Not to be confused with a fat- Ass. I would be jumping for JOY if this weight had, in fact, GONE to my ASS. Instead, its hanging around in my stomach, vacationing along my arms, taking a siesta in my FACE.

BOOTEEDOO: When you're stomach sticks out more than your booty do.

^ I'm About to HAVE one of those. Oh, How the mighty have fallen.

AOL had a front page story yesterday on Thyroid deficiencies. I am convinced this is my problem. My thryoid is not doing its job, making me a FATASS. Because while I have the Mind of a fat kid, I do not, in fact, have the appetite of one. I don't eat like one and I gained this weight when I was exercizing the most. So, of course, this can't possibly be my fault.

Unless of course it is.

I actually contemplated being a contestant on Survivor, not for the Million dollars, but as a weight loss program. Those are the kind of extreme circumstances I would need to stop eating, because I love food. Its like sex. Some people are even whore's for food. Like Riss.

He says I look better with the weight. But in a time where the standard seems to be "anorexic chic' " a la, Nicole Richie and Lindsey Lohan, and Jessica Alba is getting so thin her head is starting to look like a bobble, its hard to feel comfortable getting thicker rather than thinner. I read an article once where Jessica Alba said that she knew she was fat, and if "Hollywood talked about Jennifer Lopez and her Ass" she could only imagine what they were going to say about her. I was watching Jessica the other night, as she hosted the MTV awards, and I almost saw one of her neckbones popping out. She was a toothpick. I went over to the mirror and I started talking.

"You have really fallen off. Fatass."

The mirror talked back too me. It said.

"Are you fucking crazy? Go sit your ass down and eat a fucking snickers or something."

50 Things you didn't know

2006-06-11T20:30:00.000-04:00

1. I briefly dated a guy who plays for the Buffalo Bills. He said he had no children. It turns out he has like EIGHT.
2. At least once a week my mother tries to talk me out of getting married. This week, her words of wisdom were, "Men are not for marriage, they are for Transportation." As in, out of one country...and into another. She's Russian.
3. I have never smoked a cigarette, tried a drug (including weed) and I do not drink. I have caught a contact high though.
4. I hate the sound of men clipping their toenails. Especially in bed. This will make me cringe. If I hear them in the bathroom I make them close the door.
5. I am horrible at math. I can ADD. That's where it begins and ends. Really.
6. I can watch the movies Braveheart, Dirty Dancing, Armegeddon and Pretty Woman over and over again, any day, at any time. I'm not saying these are American Classics. I'm just saying that I have the ability, you know...if ever called upon.
7. Tara Reid, Paris and Nicky Hilton, Christina Ricci and Sara Michelle Gellar all went to my high school.
8. So did Macauley Caulkin. I felt bad for him. The press was outside of his apartment everyday. His sister was in my class. She was very quiet but one of my only friends. She left after like a year.
9. I was a dancer until I was 18/19. I suffered chronic tendenitis which made me quit. Sometimes when I would tell people I was a dancer, they would think I meant stripper. I think it's because I have 34dd's.
10. I'm afraid of the telephone. I have telephonaphobia.
11. When I was little, my dad bought me this rare Mickey Mouse Jacket. One day I didn't come home with it from school. He asked me what happened to it. I said I gave it away. Another time, he managed to get me one of the first Cabbage Patch Kids, which were almost impossible to get. One day I came home from school without it. He said, where's the Cabbage Patch? I said, this girl at school really wanted one and her mommy couldn't find one anywhere. I wanted to share. My dad said he knew exactly what kind of kind I was gonna be from that day forward.
12. If I start out the night with clothes on, I will strip till I'm naked. I can't sleep constricted.
13. I can't sleep with socks on. Nor can I sleep with my feet exposed. The blanket has to always cover them.
14. I like the room to be really really cold so I can snuggle under the comforter. I hate when its warm. I won't fall asleep if I'm the least bit hot.
15. I grind my teeth when I sleep. I didn't know this until I lived with someone.
16. One summer, my mother made me read 50 books. They were on the schools summer reading list. You were only supposed to pick five. My mother claims she didn't know. She's lying.
17. I won a writing award at end of the sixth grade year for a paper on Marilyn Monroe. I was never prouder of an award in my life. 6th grade was a good year.
18. When I was five my parents got us a dog named Jacques. I hated the name but I loved the dog. One day he got hit by a car and lived. But had seizures and was always choking on his tongue. When I was nine I went to summer camp and my parents put him to sleep while I was gone. I've never forgiven them.
19. I hate cherry flavored candy. I will pick out all the cherry starbursts, cherry skittles, cherry jolly ranchers. But I do like actual Cherries.
20. My favorite food is pizza from the shop on 78th and Broadway.Miami pizza Sux.
21. I have to have a coke with no ice when I'm out at a restaurant but wouldn't think of drinking coke at home.
22. I am terrified of escalators. And bathtub drains.
23. I have seizures. And a tremor. But both, only sometimes.
24. I'm slightly colorblind.
25. When I'm really tired I will sometimes stutter.
26. I like the smell of gasoline, fresh laundry and neighbors cooking.
27. I'm ashamed of how much television I watch.
28. I can count the number of guys I've slept with on less than two hands, almost one. I'm not sure if this is good or bad.
29. I don't know if God exists. I believe in people. My mother believes in God. My father doesn't. And thinks anyone who does isn't using their brain.
30. I cannot date anyone under 6 feet.
31. I talk to my dad everyday. Usually twice a day. Sometimes 3 or 4 times a day. He is my best friend.
32. I had the chicken pox.... twice.
33. Who knew this was this hard.
34. I was "let go" from a job two weeks after receiving a raise because I wouldn't sleep with pervo my boss.
35. I have small hands and feet for my height.
36. When people call my house and I answer they say, "Can I please speak to your mom."
37. I like doing dishes but I can't cook for shit. This dissapoints me.
38. I don't say I have to pee. I say, "I have to tinkle."
39. I've seen every movie. I mean every movie.
40. I'm so sick of rice and beans right now I want to throw up.
41. Places I've never been but want to go: Egypt, Somalia, Athens, Rome and Paris.
42. I eat everything on my plate seperately in order beginning with what I like least, saving what I like best for last.
43. I'm very affectionate but I surround myself with people who aren't. I don't know why.
44. My grandmother used to call me "Lanichka." The last time I saw her she thought bombs were dropping on her(Parkinsons disease). She died a few months later. She was gang-raped by the Russian Army when she was nine.
45. When I was growing up I wasn't allowed to say the word "Jerk". It was considered a bad word just like shit or fuck.
46. Then one day when I was 16 I caught my dad on a business call drop about 15 F bombs and all bets were off.
47. I don't really like coffee, but when I need to work I'll drink a vanilla latte to keep me up. But then I get diarreah.
48. I walk into walls. Alot. But its not my fault.
49. Because I can't see out of the right side of both of my eyes.
50. I slept with my significant other on our first date. Yeah. I'm a whore.
51.But then we moved in together so now I'm a housewife :)

Love Letters........

2006-06-11T14:34:00.000-04:00
The All-Star

It wasn't your fault really. I was still so young. I had had a crush on you for so long, pedastalizing you, scripting you, scripting us. With you I finally understood the difference between a documentary movie and Disney. Crushes can be easily scripted, painted any color you like, but real life- adult relationships are much more complicated. You could have had anyone, and you did. But you took your time and got to know me, and I you. You were so much like me. I fell in love with that. But you were weak. You were a liar. You were a weak liar.

"I need you."

I wanted you to need me.

"I trust you."

I wanted so much to trust you.

"I miss you."

And everytime I would come back. Back to a lie. But one that I wanted to hear. I wanted to help you. But I had to read about other women in the newspaper.

"Don't believe that. You know the media. They manipulate things."

The last time I saw you should have been beautiful. Instead you were sad, pathetic. You were a drunk. All of the people you had around you, and no one cared. No one but me. I told you. "You're a drunk." You had to stop. Bottles strewn everywhere. This was where I learned lifes' lesson. Money, fame, cannot buy you happiness.

I slept with you. It was goodbye.

You went on to date the supermodel. You treated her the same. You're a a fucking idiot. But its not your fault. You never were malicious. You're just weak. I pedastalized you because that's what I used to do. I've learned. Thanks for the lesson.

The Year Long Rebound

We never should have dated. You're a Leo.

You were everything he wasn't. You were controlled. unemotional. logical. I now know I hate those things.

I'm not saying I hate you. I love you. Just not in that way.

The night we met you never left my side. You told me I was beautiful. I believed you. You were sincere. You were handsome. I knew of you. Other girls wanted you.

When you picked me up you opened the passenger door for me. You never stopped doing that. I liked it.

You took me to Kentucky Fried Chicken on our first date. It was our first date. But I'm no snob, so I thought nothing of it. Two months later we'd never been too a nice restaurant.

"You're cheap" I'd say.

"I'm frugal." You'd say.

Then you pulled up in your new lexus. "I was saving for the car."

I realized then that you would always be trying to save for that next big thing, while meanwhile the daily pleasures of life passed you, passed us by. I didn't need a Lexus. I lived in a city with arguably the best restuarants in America and I wanted to occasionally eat at them. I wanted to go to the movies or sleep on at least 300 count sheets.

You didn't know how to touch me. When you caressed me it felt like someone petting their dog.

I knew your voicemail code. You should probably not use your birthday.

I didn't want to check it. But everyone said I should. I knew I wouldn't find anything. I was dissapointed when I did.

I was naseaus when I asked you who Sophia was and you said you didn't know any Sophia. This made me want to stab you. But I am a peaceful person so I just let it go. You were the rebound guy and I was secretly still in love with him.

Soon came the Puerto Rico fiasco. You would play for them for the summer. Paradise. beaches. $2.oo breakfast feast at the cafe every morning. We were having a wonderful time. Until we weren't. You fought with me because I gave water to a dog that followed us on the street. A small, white, fluffy dog so obviously once someone's pet. You hate dogs. You yelled at me for giving him water. This was a dealbreaker. We started fighting about everything. But then you needed me.

You were betrayed. We had to leave. This was the first time I ever witnessed true vulnerability in your eyes. I was there for you. At the airport we sat. You cried. It was the first time I saw you shed a tear. Not even when your grandfather died. You were finally showing emotion. We talked. Really talked. If only this had come sooner. I never really really knew you. And maybe you never really knew me. We both had walls up. We needed each other. You loved my beauty, my kindess and generosity. I needed your control, detachment, reliability.

I have no idea how we broke up. But you're a best friend now. The only ex I can count as such. I'm still trying to figure you out......

The PUSSY
I hate you. I really really hate you.
I was a beautiful person when I met you. Now I am broken. That is your fault. I believed in the base human decency of all-mankind, however naive, until you changed everything.
I wasn't looking for you. I wasn't looking for anyone. I was finally free. Happy being alone. Learning to be comfortable in my own skin. I was growing up. I found my passion. All I wanted to do was walk to the restroom. You kidknapped me. You had my arm. It was crowded. Beyond crowded. I needed an escort. You looked harmless. If only I knew. I didn't think you were attractive. I thought you were average. The sweater you were wearing was ugly. But you were so taken with me. It was nice. And though you kidknapped me by the arm it wasn't rough. You were gentle. You wanted to know me. You asked if you could call somtime. I rarely gave my number out. I said alright. The next day I forgot about you. You were forgettable.
That night you called. I wasn't home. When I listened to the voicemail I debated returning your call. I now know I shouldn't have. But I did. We talked for hours. You were shocked that I could talk to you about sports. We were comfortable. Like we had known each other forever. We both knew. This was different for me. I hardly could remember what you looked like. This wasn't about attraction for me, no school girl crush. I didn't want you because someone else did. You made me laugh. We spoke for a week. It was the first week of lies. You had a daughter but you were afraid to tell me. By the end of the week when you did I laughed.
"I love children." I said.
You were relieved. But I should have been the scared one. It was your daughter. You shouldn't have kept her a secret, even if just by omission, even for a week. It was a week we spoke for hours every day. What else would you hide for fear of my judgment.
Before our first date you brought your daughter by my apartment. She was beautiful. I was glad you felt comfortable enough to introduce us. You dropped her off at home then picked me up. The restaurant you chose was perfect. The dish you recommended delicious. I saw the bill and went for my purse. You wouldn't have it. The way you looked at me made me nervous. I liked it. You saw me. You memerized everything about me. We kissed that night. It was like being kissed by the ocean.
It was nearly a month before we had sex. We spent nearly every minute leading up to that moment together. At my apartment, at the studio... I would work while you would mix, dinner, the movies. We were inseperable except for the few hours you went home to sleep and take care of your daughter. You tried to make me a Laker fan. I told you I was Knicks 4 life. Everywhere we went people looked at us and smiled. We were good together. They knew.
A few months went by. I was never happier in my life. We were in love.
Then you dropped the bomb.
Mandy came out from LA and I wanted you to meet her. It was important you get along. She was my best friend. You picked us up with Brian. We went to Bar 89. Mandy talked to you. Then she got drunk off of Martini's.
I wanted to believe you. I did. It was possible. We were always together. It made sense. She went to work at 6 in the morning. You only got home at 6. She came home at 5. You left at between 12 and 2pm. You took your daughter to daycare. She picked her up. How could you be seeing each other? I was with you every day, every night. You bought the house when you found out she was having the baby. You weren't together, but you weren't with anyone else. You wanted to raise your daughter. It made sense. You resented your dad for being a deadbeat. You didn't want to do that same thing to your daughter. I believed you. I understood.
But did she understand? Why was she searching through your things? Why did she email me? And why were you so afraid of me emailing her back.
I should have left you then. I tried. I told you we needed to take a break. That you needed to figure things out before we could continue. Your life had changed. You couldn't continue living two lives. You listened. You tried to pacify me. You told her all about me. She packed up and moved out. She played you.
She told you she was going to take your daughter to Pennsylvania. You panicked. You pushed me away. I told you she couldn't do that. You were supporting her. She had a bullshit part-time job. You earned six-figures. You owned the house your daughter had lived in her entire life. You could ask for primary or equal custody. You had no spine. You were the same with your mother.
I told you I was going to my parents. It was best for both of us if leave the city for a little while, to give us both space, time to reflect. We needed to figure out what was best for each of us. You told me not to. You said I was running. You told me to stay and you would fix everything. I should have said FUCK YOU. Instead I stayed.
Fixing everything turned into her moving back in after a week. You told me you discussed it. She understood everything. It was merely a custodial arrangement for your daughter. Nothing more. And she was alright with that. They would be staying in the house in the long term and soon you would be moving into an apartment on your own.
I believed you. You loved me. You wouldn't hurt me. You sought me out. When I told you it was over you shed a tear. You couldn't let me go. I couldn't let you go. When you got on the plane to Miami before going to do the Missy song you made sure to tell me you loved me. It was almost like it was going to be the last time.
Things were never the same after that.
The first few phonecalls I didn't pay much mind too. Wrong numbers maybe. But then it got stranger. And then She called. And she started yelling at me. I tried to calm her down.
She wasn't very smart. In fact, she was ghetto. And I can say that because she terrorized me. So yeah, she was fucking ghetto. She told me you were on your way to my apartment. "Why?" I said.
"Because I just told him you sent me a letter threatening our daughter."
This is where she knew you better than I did. This is where she knew your soft spot for your daughter superceded anything and everything. She knew if she could fabricate something threatening harm against your daughter any sense of rational or logic would go out the window with you. Because if you had TWO functioning brain cells you would have remembered who I was, and that I don't even step on cockroaches. I barely cursed before we met YOU FUCKING BASTARD. And she knew that before I came into your life she had everything she wanted, a beautiful house in a posh area in New Jersey, a luxury car and the man she loved. Now that was all threatened. You weren't married. She wasn't guarenteed anything.
You actually asked me if I wrote it. I told you to go to hell, and spend a while thinking about things while you were there. I told you what she was doing. That you were being manipulated. It was so sad for me to watch. I wanted you to protect me. Not accuse me.
It only got worse from there. By now Mandy had moved out from LA. We had spent the day in the Village shopping. Shortly after coming home psycho babies mama called my cell phone.
"You were at my job today!"
"Scuze me? Who is this?" I asked.
"You know who this is bitch. I know you were at my job. The security officer told me. I know what you look like." And she proceeded to describe me. "Stop coming here or I'm going to report you."
I told her to go ahead. The only way she could know exactly what I look like is if she was stalking ME. Because SHE worked for the phone company and knew all of my information. I had no idea where her office was. Nor did I have any interest. For the next few weeks a few mornings a week I would be awoken in the morning by her, pretending to be someone else, someone named Rachel. It was always something new. Some new disease she told me you had. Sometimes she started out saying you gave it to her, then contradicting herself saying she gave it to you. She was a moron. She said she, "Rachel" was another girl you were seeing. I asked where she got my number from. She didn't have an answer. I asked why she sounded so much like "T", your PBM. She didn't have an answer. I filed a police report and had the phone company trace the calls. They were able to find out where your psycho baby mama worked and that all the calls came from payphones within blocks of her office. "Rachel" didn't have an answer for this. It was wearing on me. The constant phone calls. Her threats. Lies. I felt like I had walked on to a bad movie set and everyone had a copy of the script except me. I no longer knew what reality I was living.

This was your mess. My life was simple before I met you. In fact, it was the simplest it had been in a long time. I was happy. Single, alone, but content. When i met you, I had never known anyone like you, I never felt a love like yours, and I wanted that, but at what cost. Being terrorized day and night. You were a fucking pussy. And a liar. And to this day I don't know what the truth was... is. A few weeks later I ended up in a the hospital, having suffered a stroke. Paralyzed on one side. I had been sick for a month leading up to that. I was unbelievably stressed out. You didn't protect me. I will NEVER be with someone like you again. I put all of my trust into you and that was a mistake. You didn't deserve me or my love. You shattered my heart into a million little pieces. I'm a different person now, and that's sad. Because the person you met was unique and special, and should have been cherished. She would have been cherished by the one I'm with now, she would have been handled with care. Instead, you dropped me off a 50 story building.

Girl who fears....

2006-06-10T01:01:00.000-04:00

I should be a better person than this. I shouldn't secretly want him to myself. He's a genius, a prodigy...and I'm evil, selfish, horrible. When we met I had almost died. He said, "I'll be the stregth you lost."

He's given me everything. Hope, understanding, respect, loyalty, commitment. He loves me just as I am.

He loves me Just As I Am......

But it wont always be like this. It can't be. I've seen what fame can do. I've been down this road before. But he has a gift. People make demands of him. And sacrifices will be made. I already feel it. I'm a horrible person for being scared. I should only feel joy. "I'm doing this for US." He says.

He's different than the others. Then all who've come before him. He's honest.

I love him more than I have loved anyone all the days of my life.He came into my life when I felt like I was suffocating; lifeless, breathless....drowning. He brought me joy and sunshine and happiness when my days had been filled with gray skies for so long. He was so much of what I was not and yet so much of what I was. , and I felt like every single time I looked into his eyes every fiber of my body wanted to melt into his. He was not perfect, I was not anywhere near perfect, but we were perfect for each other. And perfect for each other is all anybody can ask for in a world where nothing makes sense and everyone is just trying to carve out a little piece of happiness for themselves.

He can't be all mine forever. I have to share him. Not with another woman. He would never ask that.

I don't want to share him. I'm ashamed. But I know what can happen. I will be the sacrifice. I'm a horrible person. I've already lost so much.

But.... he loves me just as I am.

I will love him just as he is. I will love him and be here. I will love him when he goes on tour. I will love him when we've been apart for weeks or months if necessary. I will love him when 19 year old girls named Monique are whispering in his ear that they can do things I've probably never heard of. I will love him when it feels like everyone in the world is getting a peice of him but me. I will love him because it's all I know how to do.

But between you and me, I'm an awful person. And I'm scared.