Date Night

At 5:22pm tonight, I got into bed and was quite content to stay here all night.  That makes me feel somewhat ashamed of my lack of social life and yet happy to just be here and be lazy.  I'm hiding behind my excuse that I have to be up and at the gym early tomorrow, but the reality is that the people that I want to hang out with--the two couches that I'd like to be on--one is too far and the other is too soon, so I'm here.  In my bed.  With the scary, scary pit bull puppy eating pineapple and pita chips and frustrated that I have to pee every 15 minutes because I'm hydrating too much. 

At 7pm, I got a call from an old lover who is in New York for the night to attend a wedding.  He asked if I needed a roommate for the night and initially I said no, and then reneged and offered him a place.  It goes without saying that he'll be in my bed, but it doesn't go without saying that, gulp, I actually only want to have sex with one person.  The owner of the couch that it is too soon for me to relax on.  

It's been a funky week and I blame it on Jupiter Square Pluto, or Neptune or something.  Anyway, there is an astrological reason that things are shitty.  It makes perfect cosmic sense that the weather has been gray, rainy and cold, and that I found out that I don't actually have a tax credit to balance out what I'm afraid the IRS might disallow on my upcoming audit.  There is some universal sense that I've been moody, cranky and impatient.  Not to mention hard to rear into productive mode from my laying-in-bed mode that I seem to have lived in lately.  I don't understand the squaring and triangularing of planets--have no clue what it means and feel bad when my friend Sarah tries to explain it to me like it's obvious as the nose on my face, "don't you get that 2+2 equals 4?!" and I don't and she gets frustrated...all I know is that I complain to her about something and she said, "that's because blah is moving through your 7th house of blah and squaring blah."  Luckily for me, it's been predicted that April 15th will be a dreadful day, assured to deliver me news that I *don't* want to receive, so you can be sure that I'm longing for that day.

So, this week, I've learned the following: a) it's hard to put fitted gloves on wet hands, b) eating too many Pepperidge Farm cookies, good as they may be, are not really good for your figure, c) my PC is haunted and is now sending messages on its own accord, d) small sandwich bags are too small to pick up my dog's poop, e) if you want to hire someone to beat the shit out of someone else, it only costs $500 and it's important to hire someone who doesn't drink or do drugs so they won't get stoned or drunk and blab about your joint crime, f) I found an excellent new banana muffin recipe, which I'll include for you all (my nod to Nora Ephron) and, g) it only takes 20 minutes to get to New Jersey by car and pretty much everything is cheaper there.

Before I proceed...I baked these muffins for Fritz and left him some, and some biscuits for his doggy.  They were delicious and I know just how tasty they were because I had an emotional binge and consumed several of them while I was agonizing over what to write in the enclosed note and how he would receive the package (it went over fine, thank you very much).

banana muffins/bread:

loose cinnamon and sugar mixture

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

4 teaspoons lemon juice

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 large ripe bananas, mashed

loose brown sugar

Oven to 350. Grease loaf pan and lightly coat with cinnamon and sugar mixture.  Cream butter and sugar, and add egg and lemon juice.  Add flour, soda, salt to the butter mixture and blend well. Stir in bananas.  Put batter in loaf pan (muffin tins), and top with loose brown sugar.  Bake for 1 hour (less if you're making muffins) and EAT.

There you have it.  I enclosed a simple note written on red paper, written in blue crayon and I baked it carefully, with affection.  Please don't throw up reading that.  I'm dismayed and alarmed to think what is happening to me.  I am finally not interested in the one-night stand, not interested in the married, unavailable man.  The zipless fuck that I used to entertain is no longer what I crave--it's just sex, in whatever form it may take with one particular person. 

I shudder to think of what I have become.

So, dear readers, I'm sorry to tell you that I have no fun misadventures to report tonight.  I'm stuck in my bed mixed with emotions.  Partly scared to venture out and afraid what I'll find. Worried about spending money that I'm so carefully trying to hold onto and even more terrified that I'll eat and tomorrow my face will be more round and filled out. I'm staying home tonight and working on excel spreadsheets for my accountant to bring to the IRS and playing with the newly selected ringtones on my blackberry. And between all this worry, concern and neurosis, I'm sort of happy to be here and not forced to be on any sort of behavior.  I'm bathing in my peculiar mood, watching the clock tick on, and being lulled into the night listening to the hum of my computer, the deep sleep breaths of my dog and the promise of Six Feet Under reruns--not to mention the back and forth of emails to plan a rendez-vous tonight that will not materialize.

So, if you take anything away tonight, aside from the promise of a wonderful banana muffin, it's always negotiate with your hired help--you can always do better than $500 in this economy.

xo