Tuesday, June 12, 2007

SWINGS

Tuesdays start with the talking cure and tears. Therapy's expensive in general, but therapy is especially expensive for me because afterwards I always reward myself with some sort of breakfast indulgence. I do this because crying is exhausting and it makes me hungry, and now that I think about it crying probably makes a lot of people hungry, which is why there is always so much food at funerals.

I don't know what it is, and this makes me feel like some sort of General Foods International Coffee-drinking stereotype, but I like a Little Something after spending forty-five minutes rehashing all my early traumas and relating them to my present difficulties! It makes me feel SO ALIVE when I go to Starbucks for my once-a-week Cinnamon Dolce Latte (skim, of course. I'm indulgent but it's not like I'm ready to take a flying leap into Sodom and Gomorrah!). I'm REALLY LIVING when I GO FOR IT and purchase a toasted whole wheat bagel with vegetable cream cheese (again, low-fat, because, let's face it: I'm a lot like Lot).

Today was an especially epiphanic emotional chimney sweep which means that A) I have cry-snot on my shirt and B) I was super-hungry afterwards. So, when my boss brought in a bag of all-natural cider donuts from Brooklyn's Greenmarket, I WENT FOR IT by indulging in FOUR of them. I had already had my bagel-with-a-lite-shmear but, these donuts: so good! And, why not? I cried earlier! But: lest you think I'm some sort of future-bulimic (bad) or future-fatty (maybe bad, depending on your feelings about fat people), the donuts were kind of small. The only problem was that I didn't have any coffee with me at the time that I ate them and I very gently asked my coworker if I could dunk my donut in her coffee. She said no. Which is just as well because it means I have something to cry about at next week's session.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

AND WHEN SHE WAS TIPSY, SHE WAS VERY VERY TIPSY

Tonight I drank Pinot Bianco from Italy, then Cabernet Sauvignon from California. Tonight I ate an entire portion of suspiciously wet and salty chicken paillard, and then half a serving of Out Of This World sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream. And after all of this tonight I ended the evening by drinking more than my fair share of suspiciously icy sangria. Don't get me wrong: it was a really good night! Until!

As I walked my friend to the subway a guy passed and tugged on my sweater. He was walking with a girl, and I turned around to give him a look. The look said: "Uh, what was THAT about?" The guy: he caught my look but continued his walking, but as he did he kept looking at me, and, this was so weird: his girl looked at me, too. I gave another look. This one politely asked: "What. The. Fuck?" It was enough of a look that the guy: he turned back around, and, with his girl, approached me. Of course I got nervous. "Do I know you?" I asked. "You look really familiar!" he said. Then he said: "But no." "Oh," I said, smelling clove cigarettes on his breath and immediately deciding I was superior to him, "so you were just fucking with me?" "Yeah," he said, revealing gray teeth and the undeniable truth that clove cigarettes are a bad idea always and forever. "I'm Sasha," he said, and extended his hand. "I'm Vagine*," I said, shaking it. I looked at him, I looked at his girl. "I'm Paige," she said. "Okay," I said, "now we know who we are. Glad we solved that mystery."

Then I walked away, both ashamed and in love with myself.



*pronounced va-jean.