A lot has changed since I started this blog--oh, 4 years ago. I had a whole different way that this entry was going to start, but then I unearthed this account--trying to cyber-recycle instead of start a whole new blog and just be wasteful. Ick!, so I dusted this off.
It was interested to see where I was those years ago--things that I realized:
-people were actually tuning into my blog.
-I claimed I was "trying" to be a writer. I wonder why I was only trying and not actually giving myself credit for being?!
-I hadn't yet fully discovered the beauty and majesty of Thom Yorke, so I was still billing New Order as my favorite band.
I looked at my profile from years ago with the same disgust that I check my 15-year old cousin's Facebook page; with a smug, superior look, as if to say, "You are too big for your britches."
And now, I'm 36, in not a much better cash flow position, since I work on comission and people are taking a very long time to decide whether or not they are buying. Sometimes I think of the impatience and disgust when I can't simply talk people easily into spending $900K-$1 million. As though they're buying just a loaf of bread, or organic milk versus that generic Tuscan brand from a farm where they probably treat cows completely inhumane.
I'm still single. Boy, have I spent a lot of time writing and lamenting over that status. Sometimes I wonder if it's for my parents--so I can truly be the nice Jewish girl who dutifully gets married. When I started this blog, in 2004 or 2005, I probably was still holding onto a shred of hope to have some sort of real wedding and now it's whiddled its way down to just having my family, his family and one friend to be my witness huddled around the chuppa on a Thursday afternoon and a nice dinner afterwards. We'd spend the real money on lovely announcements and do the entire thing for $7,000...hopefully less than the engagement ring. I want no real wedding to speak of, will pass on a bridal shower and shudder at the thought of a bachelorette party, but want a damn fine ring.
I finally have a job that I like. Finally. After years of being a personal assistant--first to the most difficult, nasty white-collar crime lawyer in NYC; I was his bitch, doing everything for him except fucking him and wiping his ass. I went to work as a secretary at a liquor distributor where I would mingle with the terminally low-minded secretaries who has no real ambitions beyond making appointments and kowtowing to senior management. A short, chubby colleague got me fired two years ago, thankfully, and I proceeded to seduce one of their biggest and very married clients, who would leave industry dinners, after having schmoozed with my former bosses--the ones who has no issues with me, yet let me get fired--and release him from his tuxedo, keep him up for the next few hours and then send him back to the liquor mines the next day, all while whispering details and hateful secrets about my former employer--things that were in complete violation of my separation agreement. It delighted me and as long as he got head, which he was obviously lacking from the Missus, I could have probably talked about anything, when my mouth wasn't full.
And I went on to work for a high-minded entrepreneur who was a legend in his own mind. To him, and the group that he surrounded himself with (many of whom he paid, thus they were very loyal), he was a God, a master and a svengali. He told them how to jump, and they did. He told them how to think and they asked him if they were doing it right. They told him that he was special, brilliant, and he pretended to be modest. I never told him those things--and I was frumpy and completely disinterested in fashion, hair care, photography--and I was doomed. I was fractured and broken beyond repair, which he stubtly reminded me of often. He made my life with him hard enough that I wasn't quite sure what was wrong. I spent hundreds on doctors, accupuncture, tinksures of herbs and nothing got rid of the underlying anxiety, until I quit and let him win. Then I reclaimed myself.
I became a real estate agent and then the market fell apart. I try to smile and tell people that I'm not usually an optomistic person, but *this* is going to be ok. We're almost near the end, I said, with a smile on my face and a attitude that sometimes even surprises myself. But I don't know where the fuck we are economically--all I know is that I'm pinching pennies in a way that I've never done and while I'm all for saving and being thrifty, even this is getting to be too much.
So, here is where I am today. And by today, I mean, TODAY...MARCH 25TH.
1) I learned about 2 weeks ago that I am being audited by the IRS for the tax years of 2006 and 2007. Please note that the accountant who did my taxes in 2006 is currently serving time in a prison in the State of New Jersey for soliciting oral sex from what he thought was a 13-year old girl online. It was actually a undercover detective posing as a child. I've learned that prison has become a sort of Biggest Loser ranch for him, in that, he's shed lots of weight and his wife, who was set on divorcing him, now thinks that he's looking pretty hot. That is, when he's not trying to have sex with children.
2) All my clients are moving at a snail's pace and I wake up every day having not much to do. I am one of those people who can do 40 things at one time, but cannot get 2 things that each take 5 minutes done in a whole day; I must be completely overwhelmed to be productive. This quiet work schedule means a lot more time in bed with my dog (NOT like the woman in Connecticut with the ape), catching up on past seasons of the Biggest Loser, refining my high-carb diet and then taking naps in between. When I'm lucky, I do things around the house--like put away laundry, and get to the gym. Once a week, I go into the office so my boss knows that I'm still alive. This is where the blog comes in--so I have something that I enjoy doing, and feel somewhat productive getting back to my writing roots.
3) The man that I am in mad lust for, we'll call Fritz, is MIA. I knew this when I left his house two weeks ago and he said, "I'll see you soon-ish." I knitted my brows and hoped he was lying. He wasn't. I met him 14 months ago and have spent more time than not longing for him. Crazy at it sounds--because we are the blind commitmentphobe leading the blind commitmentphobe--but I'm actually pretty sure about this one. I'm trying to utilize everything that I learned in 12-step programs and be patient, which is exceptionally hard for me, if not impossible. When I told my now-former therapist (see point 4) that I didn't feel like a thunder-bolt or any grand feeling that he was the one for me, she said that comes with just being older and more mature. I just feel like....I don't know the path this is going to take, but this guy is going to be mine. And frankly, everyone thinks I'm insane, but I'm pretty fucking sure.
4) In December, after learning that my then-therapist was going on an extended vacation, I felt like it was a good time to graciously break away from her tutelage. You see, she'd started nodding off during my sessions in late October (yes, she was looking at me face-to-face when she did this). Also, she has this terrible habit of double booking clients, so you'd break your ass to get to her office on time, and you'd be negotiating with another crazy person as to whose session time was it really. Given that I was the one with the flexible schedule, I always felt a little pressured to give it up, but really, it made me furiously pissed and she'd always blame these things on her secretary, who I am convinced, doesn't actually exist.
Anyway, I learned from another patient who had recommended her to me, that sometimes she got 'bored' with your crap and would nod off and upon learning this, I'd been trying to spice up my life for her entertainment--not necessarily because I had particular issues I wanted to discuss. Fritz and I had a terrible break up in August (which was hardly a break up, since we hadn't really been together, but more of him just not wanting to date me) and I was still hanging on. And, Ms. Noddy Shrinker yelled at me to just "leave him alone and stop talking about it!". So, being hard pressed to entertain my audience, I decided to bring in all the goings-on in my life.
It'd just so happen that in November, having not had sex since a mangled, unsatisfying night with Fritz, I was incredibly horny...so, following the advice of my then-friend Joanna, I posted a random NSA ad on Craigslist, which I knew that I would never act on. But, it was like ordering a diet coke with a burger--it made me feel like I was doing something to help my libido, though it was a faux effort at best. So, I finally wade through the hundreds (and I do mean HUNDREDS) of responses offering me the best oral sex I've ever had, or men who promised to make me 'cum' until my body was limp with exhaustion, and the get right to it ad that just asked for my address. Delete. Delete. Delete.
Let's be honest--I value my body, my safety, my sanity, my health. Who was I kidding? There is no way that I could vet a potential NSA sex partner throughly enough to just fuck for one night, which seemed like a lot of work for a little ROI, because it was a crap shoot until you could see what the man could really do. And when I'd given up, I got a response from a very familiar email address.
I have a neighbor who lives on 8, who, over the years I sparred with over things like building rules, answered my ad. He's mostly a bachelor since his wife works and lives in another city. Other than fighting with him, I'd never said a word to him and now in black and white, he was answering my sultry, er, crass, really, ad--that offered sex and nothing more--in fact, highlighting that promptly after the act was over, the man would have to leave. He was game. And, after he figured out who I was, an adventure ensued which ended at 3am, after much wine and beer, and 3 minutes of awkward sex. The most intriguing part of the night was watching him lose his important investment-banker ego and become boyish and sweet in Riverside Park at 1am while we walked my dog. The sex? Could have stayed online. I thought this story would perk up my Shrinky-Dink, but instead she told me it was dangerous and not to do it again. And as I was leaving, she reminded me to stick to my diet and not take my anxiety out on food.
I was running out of things to talk about--the fights with my mother around Thanksgiving had passed, there was no new boy news, I wasn't allowed to mourn over, what would be the temporary loss of Fritz, she wasn't much of a dog person, so I couldn't go on about the fights that I was having at the dog run with other dog owners, ("My dear," she'd say..."why not avoid the dog run, or go to another...they are so filled with germs."). And, with the recession slowly sliding more and more, I saw that this was an expense that I'd have to cut and when I tried to tell her that I had to leave for financial reasons, she brushed me off--telling me that in January she'd be gone for 6 weeks and I'd save money then. But, I knew before the holidays that I'd never be back, so I wrote her a check. A big, fat check that I knew would hurt my bank account when it was cashed, but I'd be disentangled.
And two weeks before she got back from Florida, please with myself that I was doing just fine emotionally and happy to have Fritz back in my life (thus proving her wrong), the hunting dog (as she used to call me), left ther-apy. I left her a polite message on her machine. No muss, no fuss. She asked me to come back in for a closure session, but that seemed little more than just telling her the post-script. I could do that in a fucking letter and I thought about all the things I could do with the $130 I would save from not having "closure" with her. Also, I have to say--and this harkens back to my mother, who, when given the chance to admit it, is completely anti-therapy--'closure' is a way of reeling the fish back in. I didn't want to be reeled in.
Now, to her credit, after I've told you how much she required in terms of being entertained and challenged by her clients, she did have this old-world quality about her that always made me feel like I was in a Woody Allen movie. She was older and originally Russian and retained some accent that didn't sound as much Russian as it sounded continential European, though I had a hell of a time trying to pin point from where. Her office was strewn with New Yorkers and theatre tickets and a word-of-the-day calendar. She has pictures of clients proudly displayed, though this bothered me as it seemed to smack of pissing on confidentiality and she wore these very vibrant prints and chunky beaded jewlery that never seemed to exactly match but made her look like a graying Mother Earth. She gave me hig hugs after sessions and had a way of making me feel safe and secure when she called me, "Sweetie" or "My dear" and then she'd say, "Tell me..." in this way that was intimate and close and made me forget that I was paying her to care.
So, last week I got a bill for $360 which I didn't really understand. Now that I think about it, it wasn't actually a bill even--it was just a sticky note with my name and an amount on it and that was it. I called her--after I calmed down--and told her that not only were my session costs not divisible by $360, but that I was pretty sure I paid her exactly what I owed her when I left her office that last time. She was curt and hung up on me. A few days later, I got a copy of my ledger, which was nearly impossible to follow and found $100 that I owed her for an emergency session (that lasted all of 20 minutes) the day after my cat died. When I called her again to discuss, she was curt and hung up on me.
And that, dear reader, was that.
5) Now, this one is NOT PG-13, or PG, so if you can't bring yourself to reading sexually explicit stuff, log out now--or flip to the next blog. It's fine...I won't really know. The short version is that I think I have some hemerroids or some small anal tear because there was a bit of back-door bleeding this weekend that sent me straight to Duane Reade to buy my first box of suppositories and baby wipes. Now, while they aren't painful or really that bothersome (other than worrying that I'll bleed through my pants, or have to do laundry more frequently), they do get in the way of the anal sex romp, which, I'll admit, I enjoy a bit more than once-in-a-while. Several friends suggested that this little leakage was because of anal sex, but since I hadn't seen Fritz in the 10 days prior to this so it seems unlikely. Instead, it was suggested that I strained a bit too much. (Note to self: eat more fiber.) And now, knowing that my bum requires a bit of TLC, I have to figure out how to juxtapose anal sex with a sensitive ass. Ah, the challenges of life....
6) I'm suing a contractor today, which requires getting familiar with the entire New York City Court System. As you'd expect, walking into a city courthouse makes me want to dip my entire body in a vat of Purell and shake people until everyone learns to speak English and can clarify what they mean when they ask an evasive question.
7) Due to my stress, I ate 44 Weight Watcher points yesterday. My limit should be 27 or 28. COUNT THEM...FOURTY-FOUR.
8) Last night and today I had fights with strangers on the street who gave me nasty looks or acted inappropriately when we were walking our dogs. Last night, a woman let her very small dog wander dangerously close to my large, strong, dog-aggressive pit bull's face. And she got mad at me because I yelled at her for not asking if it was ok. Now, let's rewind--would you let your 4 year old wander onto a rugby field, during a game? No. So, why would you assume that it's ok to let your little dog wander up to a strange pit bull? Then, this morning, another woman gave me a disapproving look when my dog acted out (towards me, because her dogs were in the way). Within seconds, we were on the street screaming, "you fucking bitch!" "No, you're a fucking cunt!" at each other on Riverside and 102nd Street.
Have a nice fucking day.
Now, my psychic, who is snowboarding in Switzerland (hard life, right?) seems to think that I'll walk away from these messes and that I'll be ok, but in the meantime, I have to admit that it sucks, sort of.
It's great to be back!
