on the path to creepdom

Yesterday, I fell in love with a man on a bus. I sat next to him riding back from Boston to New York by chance, sidling into one of the few spare seats apologetically and barely glancing at him. He was reading intently for the most of the ride, making marks in some kind of pop-science book with a pencil. Then he fell asleep, and I took advantage of that to look at him more closely -- and found that he was actually pretty. When he got up to go to "get some air" at the only stop, he smiled at me, and when he fell asleep again towards the end of the ride, I was mesmerized for a moment by the way the sunlight filtered through his long eyelashes.

And that's all it took. I was in love. I spent the rest of the ride inventing entire conversations in my mind: he would notice the Arcade Fire on my iPod and strike up a conversation, I would stumble upon some unbelievably coincidental common ground -- oh, you're also in Teach for America?! Oh, you're also moving to Austin in July?! Stunning! -- he would shyly ask for my number before I got on the subway.

I'm ashamed to say that while I was enveloped in this world, he leaned towards me in his sleep, his shoulder pressed against mine, and I didn't move. I imagined further possibilities from this when he awoke, and embarrassed to find that he had been leaning on me, felt obliged to say something. Instead, he just shifted in his sleep. Asshole.

At the end of the bus ride, we both stood up without so much as a cursory glance at each other, and I said a silent goodbye to a man with whom, out loud, I had shared the following conversation -- "mind if I get some air?," "thanks," and "no problem" -- but with whom, in my head, I had lived an entire relationship. And then I got off the bus without looking back.

Sweet, albeit deranged sign that my heart is slowly beginning to open to other people? Further proof that I've retreated fully into a world of my own creation? First step on the path to being a total creeper?

Unclear.

waterproof mascara

once justified by sloppy, mid-summer romps or embarrassingly sweaty yoga, it has now taken on a more important role as ive begun to cry openly in public. no sobbing or heavy heaving, just unabashed, full, round tears that will roll down my face spotting papers, wetting book leaves, snotting sleeves.

and how, you might ask, did this beauty product go from sexy necessity to just necessity? none other than the soul crushing dream of medical school. almost too much of a story to fit into one blog. the long and short of it-apply, wait, interview, wait, don't get admission offer, grieve, apply to masters programs, wait, find out you've been put on med school waitlist, wait, get into masters program and start 3 weeks later. leave friends, family, and boyfriend in austin for guest house of elderly taiwanese couple in fort worth. while hoping to get off waitlist, reapply to med school, retake MCAT, and do 12 month masters program with those that i'm generalizing as C students from A&M, SMU, TCU and the like. that last statement about the students might not be fair as orientation only begins tomorrow, but ill keep you updated. oh, and was told by med school admissions' offices that my neuroscience degree from emory was all for naught as i should have just gone to an 'easy texas school for a higher GPA and less debt'. and i hate waterproof mascara. it's hard to take off, it clumps up; it's just the worst.

Further Proof That My Life is a Joke

This weekend, I am in a bar making out with a boy my age who I'm actually sort of interested in.

How lovely and rare, I know. He's a med student, skinny, cute, intelligent, pleasingly aggressive for someone who spends a lot of time in Williamsburg. Things appear to be working as they normally should: I meet boy. I kind of like boy. I kiss boy.

Then I pull out chapstick, and this conversation happens:

Boy: Is that chapstick?

Me: What?

Boy: Did you, uh, just moisturize your lips?

Me: Uh...yes?

Boy: ... Can I have some?

Me: .... yes?

Boy takes chapstick from me and SNIFFS it.

Boy: What flavor is it?

Me: ....... pomegranate, I think?

Boy: Really? It seems like something else.

Me: .... oh.

Boy (holding chapstick up to light): Yeah, see, it's strawberry.

Me: ..... oh.

As if this wasn't about the strangest thing that could possibly happen, the boy then nonchalantly continues making out with me.

About 5 minutes later, he asks me to come home with him. When I say no, he apologizes for being so "alpha male."

Which is weirder: that this occurred in my life at all, that this boy can have that conversation and still worry that he's alpha male, that he might actually still BE an alpha male despite this, or that I would still be willing to see this person again?

On the Inevitability of Becoming a Cougar

On Friday, I went and picked up lunch with a few coworkers: two men in their late twenties and one in his forties, and another female coworker my own age. Inexplicably, we have a good time together. When we came back, we tried to eat our food in the faculty workroom, but were dissuaded by the presence of a group of hostile, overbearing, and excited women in their mid-30's.

These women, individually, are generally nice and interesting people. But inside of them there appears to be a beast, which comes to life most often when they gather in groups, particularly in areas where they might encounter men relatively close to their own age. When this happens, they are almost unrecognizable, worked into a frenzy by what appears to be anger and/or intense longing.

Luckily, we were warned off of the faculty workroom in time, and ate lunch instead in an empty classroom, discussing the inevitability of becoming cougars and why it is that as men approach middle-age they generally become likeable -- sometimes sexually predatory, and often pretty creepy, but still overall a likeable group of people -- while women seem to quietly morph into some sort of horrifying creature.

First of all, granted, most of the older men I know are not single. They're either married or in serious relationships, and this seems to rein in some of the creepier parts of themselves. Maybe if I knew more single men in their mid-30's, I'd be horrified by them, too. In fact, one of my male coworkers pointed out that part of the explanation is that I likely would have hated all of them when they were in their early 20's.

My female coworker agreed, adding that from her experience, ALL men in their mid-20's are, by nature, idiots. They are genetically programmed to be morons. "Even if they really love a girl," she pointed out, "they will inevitably treat her like an idiot." My male coworkers nodded as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.

As men get older, my coworkers believe, they become something close to decent people. The problem is that women are genetically programmed not to wait. My coworker's take on it: "Women in their mid-20's should understand that men their age are idiots. Most of them would be perfectly happy if they would just casually date. Instead, though, they fall head-over-heels in love and pursue deep, meaningful relationships and are shocked when it all ends in disaster." Too true.

But can you blame us? Because while men are comfortably aging into reasonable, warm people, women are apparently facing the spread of an inner darkness that will rapidly morph them into frightening, cackling creatures who roost in faculty lunchrooms, eyeing younger women and men of all ages with a hard, metallic glint in their beady eyes.

Obviously, this all sounds horrifically sexist. I know many women in their thirties who are lovely people, people I look up to and would like to emulate. Unfortunately, they are all married or in serious relationships. And while I never thought that I'd believe that women have to settle down or they become unlikeable ... the immediate evidence in front of my eyes suggests otherwise.

In fact, I don't believe it. But I'd like to see a model of how to age gracefully, not need a man, and not turn into a monster.

Life in the Baby-Sitters Club has never been this complicated—or this fun!

Let's set the scene.

I am 23.

I am awake at 1:30am on a Friday morning, sitting in my parents living room, watching a marathon of DVRed episodes of Jersey Shore I've recorded.

I am drinking lemon flavored vodka straight from a moose mug, because I am literally fearful that if I try to go to bed without being drunk I will stay awake all night thrashing and/or weeping in misery. I have been slowly siphoning my parents liquor every night after they go to bed. I try to vary the type I drink every night so they never notice the amount in an single bottle changes drastically. This is an exciting way to live, but soon I will have to buy my own bottle of liquor and hide it in my room so I can survive. When I do this, it will be the beginning of the end.

I would say life as a 23 year old doesn't usually involve this type of violent depression. Most often, I've found it involves a steady level of mild discontent I had previously managed with a combination of constant travel, emotional detachment, and morally questionable sex with coworkers.

Over the past week, however, a series of events has unleashed a torrent of overpowering sadness into my life. For the last two years, I have maintained a friendlationship. Like most Gen Yers, the transient nature of my life has created social situations so bizarre and so ambiguous that I am forced to invent words to justify most relationships I maintain. Today, after two years of being in love with my emotionally unresponsive male best friend, I told him to shit or get off the pot. Given, he lives INDEFINITELY IN SPAIN. so like. I mean, how long can I be in love with my gchat box?

I figured, well, I never see this dude and we communicate on a screen, so how bad could it be to eliminate him from my life?

Turns out, instead.......I JUST GOT RUN OVER BY THE EMOTIONAL PAIN BUS. I feel like there is a rock of horrendous pain in the void where my heart used to be. Or like this boy ripped out my heart, mortar and pestled it into a pate, spread it on a toasted Spanish baguette and ate it with a 9 ounce beer in a granite tapas bar.

This is shocking because, after a year of low-level misery over loving someone in Spain and fucking a bunch of dirty union men and drinking gin for dinner, I thought I was incapable of having feelings anymore. I thought I had done so many horrible things to myself in hotel rooms in Phoenix, that I lacked any ability to take my feelings seriously. Au contraire, I am devastated in an epic way I thought was no longer possible.

As I sit here in my parents living room, i realize. The cast members of Jersey Shore are more emotionally functional than anyone I went to college with. Most things they do make sense, they say what they mean, they seem to have a shared goal: act like a fool on tv to get famous. Despite a general bizarreness, their feelings never go unspoken. Uncouth, but real. Refreshing.

Can my life ever be as straightforward as life at Jersey Shore? Not if I'm pesudo-dating my gchat screen.

the binary continues

Setting: cafe. Entering meeting with coworkers a bit late due to phone conversation.

me: Sorry, one of my friends was having a crisis.

coworker 1 (25 male): about what?

me: Oh, well, she was having this ambiguous relationship with a boy in Spain for a really long time, but she offered to move to Spain to be with him and he basically said no, because --

coworker 2 (25 male, with a blank stare): -- because then it would no longer be ambiguous?

coworker 1 (with a blank stare): she offered to move to Spain?

coworker 2: Isn't the whole point of an ambiguous relationship that you don't move to Spain?

me: Well, uh, yeah, but it wasn't that kind of ambiguous relationship, I mean, it was pretty clear that they felt the same about each other, but --

coworker 1: -- well, yeah, but that doesn't mean that he wanted her to move to Spain.

I backtrack out of the conversation as quickly as possible, but still feel pretty certain that we have uncovered an essential truth.

Moments in the life of....

This actually happened:

It's 1 am and I'm in a bar in Hell's Kitchen filled with freakishly tall blonde men in suits. I assume they are either in a frat or re-living their frat days, since they are loudly chanting something about "suck dick" and chugging things. I am waiting in line for the bathroom, hoping not to be noticed. One of the frat man-boys approaches me.

Man-boy (smiling): I'm not sure who got in line here first, me or you.

Me (not smiling): I'm not sure either. Luckily, there's one bathroom for women and another for men.

Man-boy (winking): I didn't think it mattered.

I can think of no good answer to this. I exit the bar as soon as possible.