Love or Something Like It April 14, 2008

Theonly guy I ever loved called me ugly the night that we broke up. Actually, the night that he broke up with me although I’m the one who told him to leave. I knew it was the right decision for us to break up. It had been brewing openly for a week and on the hemisphere of my thoughts for more than that, but when he was gone I was totally lost. Flung into despair.

That was the last time I had sex with anybody I cared about. After the only man I’d ever loved–I mean LOVED body soul and spirit–called me ugly and looked at me with eyes flush with hate, I could not bring myself to have sex with another man I cared about. It was easy. After him I never really cared about any man anyway.

Now I separate the two: love and sex. I love my friends and my family. I sex men who I barely know and realize I’ll never see again. Momentarily I find something about them that is beguiling, but when its over I don’t cry like I did for months after the ugly comment. I assume they will leave because who could stay with a girl as ugly as me? If the only man I ever loved couldn’t love me back or even be kind to me when leaving, then how could I expect anymore from anybody else?

Whenever I meet someone new and they tell me I’m pretty I see Nate’s eyes and I know they are lying.

The scary part is that I don’t know how to like someone new. I cannot wrap my mind around having a physical relationship with a person I care about because my heart has not recovered from the wreckage of last time.

I am so afraid to walk that line of hope and inevitable disappointment that comes with a new infatuation. I really want to be in love. I really want to meet somebody that I can be best friends with and know with full certainty loves me back. I need to meet somebody who will not make me feel like a second choice girl. Boyfriends of the past have gotten married while dating me, cheated on me, lied to me, had me walk in on them having sex with other girls, threw me into brick walls, and decided they’d rather get drunk, high or both with their boys instead of spending a thursday night cooking dinner with me.

If second choice girl was a syndrome I’d be terminal. In total honesty (and because this is a private blog) I don’t want to settle for my second choice either. I try to like these guys who are nice enough and show enough interest in me, but they aren’t me first choice and I know if I met someone else I’d only break their hearts.

Is it so hard to find a first-choice guy who makes me his first-choice too?

Well I am certain of this much: I cannot have another disappointment in my romantic life and live through it with 100% optimism. At this point I’m barely getting through the day at 70.

In 2008 December 26, 2007

What I want for the new year is a clean emotional break. I want to be done with the boys from my past and present, who don’t care about me more than once every fortnight. I want to resign myself to the fact that I will be a successful novelist and finally, after two years, complete this story about my sister. I want to be so busy that when I come home I’m not able to do much more than rush in a 45 minute work out and fall straight to bed at night.

I look around at my younger and older cousins, with their happy relationships and seemingly settled lives and I don’t understand it. For all intents and purposes, I’m a catch. I’m good humored, sociable, smart, loving, and many people argue, very attractive. Why is it that I am constantly single? Why is it exactly that nobody wants to call me their girlfriend?

Every year for my entire life I have begun the year alone. This year I don’t care. I may in fact stay home watching the Entourage marathon even though I swore to myself last year that I wouldn’t. I’m not that interested anymore in being in love or having someone else be in love with me. In the grand scheme of things, it’s just really not that important.

NY Dream December 15, 2007

I just had THE MOST AMAZING sex/party dream ever! It felt so real. I was in New York with my friends bar hopping. We went into some undistinct pub in Gramercy that turned out to be the public library. Apparently, the NY Public Library turns into a multi-level, disco-ball flaunting dive after hours. We raced up and down in the elevators, every floor holding another person from our pasts. For me it was The Actor. For my friends it was high school crushes and college one night stands. Everywhere we went we chugged more fruity mixed drinks and let our voices raise. In New York, you can be as loud as you want because everyone else is ten times louder.

Every song was a good reason to dance, so we took to the floor, our twirly black skirts whirring around us. X-Tina was there and so were a few other random friends that I can’t remember right now. I know that in the dream, they were the only people I ever wanted to be around.

Then at about four AM, the library closed to set up for the following day and my friends and I left. We walked up the chilly streets of Manhattan in our sweat-dampened skirts feeling that ‘life can’t get any better than this’ feeling that only a night of dancing can conjur.

No, I Don’t Chase Men May 4, 2006

Tonight I walked home in the rain. manhattan rain, the kind that hits the buildings and mists the streets. Bob Marley was playing in my ears: I don’t want to wait in vain for your love. What a perfect song for walking home alone at night, in the rain.

BB called today with some spectacular news: she’s engaged to Drew. This was following some amazing news from the night before: Adrian had her baby. To top it all off–Laura is 23 today.

Despite all this glorious news, when I walked into work today I wasn’t in a particularly loquatious or happy mood. It wasn’t that I was sad, I just didn’t feel like talking. I announced to my office that BB was engaged and Adrian had her baby. Kyle must have taken this as a sign of jealousy because he started in on me immediately after the staff meeting.

“Do you know that there are 7 single women for each single man in NYC? So unless you step up your game, and start getting aggressive in your pursuit of a man, you’re going to be single and lonely forever.”

Might I add, Bossman is not the most tactful of gentlemen.

Me: “Kyle, I don’t need to run a man down to get a date.”
Kyle: “Yea, that’s why your single and have no social life.”

I didn’t make one sale all day. Is it any wonder with that kind of office conversation? Fuck this shit, I’m going back to Jamaica and laying on the beach.

Do I Smell Like Cheese? April 28, 2006

My boss asked me the other day: what is it about you that makes clients and men you like, not call or show up for appointments? It’s a very logical question. My appointments never show. When we meet they are all happy and excited to come talk to me the next day, but when the next day rolls around, they are nowhere to be found. Same for men. Every boy I meet tells me I’m the girl they want. They say: you’re really the perfect girlfriend, how are you still single?

Then I never hear from them again. Not even Daniel, who couldn’t say goodbye to me for 30 whole minutes. What do I do to these people? Why do they fall in and out of love with me so fast?

Easy come, easy go? maybe.

Kyle, (boss-man), thinks I trust too easily. ‘Everyone is your friend, Amanda’. He thinks I’m naive. I believe what people tell me. Of course I do–when I tell people something I mean it. When I set an appointment or act interested in a guy, I’m serious. It’s not a game — I like you and I mean what I say.

Isn’t this the way people should be? There must be something I’m just not getting.

Irrational Girl April 24, 2006

It’s totally irrational, but when I meet someone new and they don’t call when they say they’ll call, my mind automatically assumes that they are dead and I freak out. I blame my mother. She constantly thinks I’m dead when I don’t speak to her for two days. During exam week freshman year she called campus police and told them to go look for my body in the woods behind my dorm because I wasn’t answering my phone. I was in the library.

Anyhow, Laura thinks I’m crazy. She says I need to re-read “He’s Just Not That Into You”. Well, it’s not really his fault if he’s dead, now is it Laura? He can’t be into me if he’s no longer living!

But seriously, do you think he’s OK? I’m worried. I sent a cute little email saying: how was Boston this weekend? and Im waiting for a reply. Here’s the glorious girl manipulation behind this unassuming sentnece: if he responds then he’s alive and I can proceed to be pissed off (bc then he’s really not that into me), and if he doesn’t respond he’s passed away.

How’s that for rational?

I really hope he’s alive though…I might even over-look being pissed, out of sheer joy that my future baby-daddy is safe and sound. I mean…I like him…and I hardly ever actually like anyone, you know? And I thought he liked me too. I sound pathetic but I’m really not. Everyday men hit on me. EVERYDAY! It’s repulsive. But with this new Daniel…we actually have a lot in common…and I like talking to him…and he makes me laugh a lot…I dunno…I feel like I’m in high school. Blah!

Potty Talk April 23, 2006

The apartment feels really big tonight. I keep wondering from room to room. Kitchen-living room-bedroom-bathroom. Why do i live in such an enormous space? Where is everyone? I’m so used to having someone else with me here on rainy nights. My roommate’s in Long Island with her family, and my grandparents, father and brother are all back in Jamaica. When I’m tripping over other people this place doesn’t seem so big. It feels like a shoe box normally, but tonight I feel like it’s obnoxious to be unemployed and have this much space to myself.

And I made pasta for dinner which now means I’m bloated. Yuck, I hate pasta. I threw a bucket of pepper into the sauce and an equal serviing on thyme, but in the end it’s just another simple carb covered in fat. I’m hoping the pepper will speed up my metabolism and make me shit. My entire life is the same: I only eat things that make me shit. Then after I shit I feel skinny, and it’s OK for me to have cookies and ice cream. What a simpleton I turned out to be.

Lately I’ve found dates are the best things to eat before bed. I don’t even need an alarm clock. At 8:30AM I wake up and go to the WC. What a lovely way to start a day — skinny and ready for the world.

Morbid Thoughts April 15, 2006

Today has gone on for years. Fleeting years. I sat in Long Island with my roommate’s family, mourning the sudden death of her grandfather. It felt like a lifetime in a room without windows. It was sad, but we didn’t know any better. That’s the best we could do, so we sat and talked about cooking and books. Women’s talk.

In the car ride on the LIE, my grandmother announced: ‘You know, I really am high maintenance’, in response to a comment my grandfather made sometime ago. She explained that until recently, she considered herself the norm. My grandfather, not missing a beat, declared: of course you’re high maintenance, you never were the norm. My grandmother, fishing for compliments, asked the obvious: what do you mean? Mickey said: you stopped being the norm when you married me. they both laughed and i didn’t know whether to feel amused or grossed out. (ew, grandparents, get a room!)

Daniel Chin Yee doesn’t go to funerals. I wonder if he’d come to mine. I’m his best friend after all, but I can hear him using the excuse: Amanda will understand, she knows I don’t go to funerals. Well Daniel I will not understand, for the record! You must come to my funeral or I will be very pissed when we meet on the other side! (I know that means nothing to him, because Daniel does not believe there is another side).

What am I doing here exactly in New York? I have friends until I leave work and then I have Lifetime television for women. And Anderson Cooper, when I’m feeling intellectual. A lady today in my aerobics class told me about an AIDS foundation I can volenteer for, and I’m going to look into it tomorrow. I joined a book club but haven’t heard anything about it yet. I also joined a social group in New York and never have time to go to the functions. My co-workers have lives: babies, girlfriends, husbands, stuff to do on the weekends. On my days-off I call the office to see if my appointments showed up. It’s bleek.

When I’m dead, what will I have to show for it? My best friend won’t even show up for my funeral, that’s not a very good indication for everyone else. One year out of college, one year in New York City, and really, nothing has changed for me. I’m still a girl who has nobody who needs her. I’m still a girl with nobody to love. And as much as I love myself, and love my privacy, I can’t show up for my funeral.

Strange Life April 12, 2006

I’m a girl without secrets. Once upon a time I had a few, but since I started blogging they’re all over the internet. Strangers know me as well as I know myself. Probably better because they are more objective. When I started writing on myspace, after that wicked blonde american boy broke my heart in October, I didn’t keep anything private anymore. It felt better just to spill into words on a screen, no matter how pathetic I seemed. When you’re crushed like I was, you don’t care enough about how it looks to the world. But now that I’m OK again, I wonder why it felt like the right thing to do at the time?

Maybe because I needed a friend, and all my best ones were too far away or too angry to hear me say his name. Everyone expected me to just ‘get over it’. Normally I do. Normally I have guys on the side. But there was no recovering from that one. I was simply heartbroken.

My blog (and hence my readers) became my friend. I’d spend the first hour of my morning responding to ‘fan mail’ — well-wishers, marriage proposals, and people who thouhgt I should just ‘get over it’. The more I blogged, the better I felt. The more I blogged, the more I thought ‘I’m over him’.

Tonight I got a lovely piece of fan mail from a Jamaican guy I’ve never met. He had such complementary things to say about my writing and I was truly grateful for the message. When I was home this Christmas, every time I went out I felt like a celebrity — people knew intimate things about my life, and felt totally at ease to discuss their opinions. Of course I felt a little uneasy, but these people made my blog a part of their daily lives, so they assumed I’d invested as much time in them, as they had in me. it was interesting and flattering and a little scary at times.

So in summation: I’m a girl without secrets, making friends with myself, while everyone else thinks they’ve found a friend in me.

And in 2 weeks I will be having dinner with the boy that started it all. Life is strange, no?

I Love… April 11, 2006

I Love my life. I love my job. I love my friends who are so far away. I love my apartment and my incredible good luck. I love being single and uncomplicated. I love organic Pirate Booty puffs and lemon-zest Luna bars. I love lattes.

I love NY.

I love my sqooshy, untanned tummy and my dark curly hair. I love how well my face takes make-up and that I can look like a 12 year old when I wake up, and a 22 year old by the time I leave for work. I love my family because they make me laugh. I love country music because it makes me cry.

I love being a girl in this century in this city.

I love to sing and dance and flirt with strangers. I love my self-control and complete lack of self-control, in varying situations. I love to write. Really love to write. I love to write more than I love most things.

I love central park in the summer. I love not-falling in love, but faking it. I love to smile, and people who make me smile. I love my cell phone and I love you reading this entire non-sensical bout of utter-joyous-foddy-cock.

(tee hee, i said cock).