Dumping the Dude Incident

It was time to break up with my first boyfriend.

I was not particularly distraught by this realization. I had no delusions of together-foreverness; he lived really far away and it's not like we'd "done it" so there was nothing to be upset about. We didn't even love each other, though he said he "really liked me a lot. Like, a lot" so I guess you could say we were kind of serious.

This realization came about by two major factors: a phone conversation earlier in the week had me gushing on and on about the two roles I had in upcoming theatre productions that were SERIOUSLY SUCH A BIG DEAL and THEATRE IS LIFE ect. After gushing about how this was my whole world, the defining aspect of my life, greatest calling in the universe for my soul for ten minutes or so, his response was, "oh god, I hate plays. I guess I'll come if I have to. For you, I mean. Only for you, and I guess I won't fall asleep."

Aw, hell no.

There are a lot of things I can forgive, unattractive traits I can overlook. The Calzone Incident, for example. But listen to me rant and rave about theatre and brushing off my life goals as a tiresome obligation? I suddenly saw a glaring incompatibility between us. And when I become a breakout star on Broadway in just a couple years, I mean, I only get so many comp tickets. The nonbeliever has GOT TO GO.

Also Halloween was next weekend, and my cool friend JD planned to host a party with dancing and candy and cute boys. Cute boys I liked, who weren't half a coastline away. I mean, hayyy.

Whilst I was ready to move on and my eyes had started wandering, I was not brazen enough to cheat, or even flirt with other guys. But I wanted to, and lest I act on those urges and then forever be branded a scarlet woman and cruel temptress, this relationship had GOT TO GO.

Love is so simple when you're seventeen.

Time came for the nightly phone call (remember, seven hours long distance). I think it was his turn to call me. He didn't have a cell phone (these were the dark ages) and mine was prepaid with a few hundred minutes because my parents were, and will always be, late-adopters/laggards to technology (AW HELL YEAH PUTTING THAT PR TERMINOLOGY TO USE) and also frugal as all hell. So we made long-distance calls from our HOUSE PHONES.

I sound so old right now.

He was talking about... guy stuff, or something, whatever, only focused at the upcoming task of how-to-dump-him-effectively-but-painlessly. I had even surveyed my friends at the lunch table throughout the week. Had I access to technology, I would have made a google spreadsheet with the advice and tried to categorize it. The suggestions ranged from the cruel (tell him you're seeing someone else) to the passive aggressive (just stop talking to him and defriend him off of Facebook).

I am not cruel nor passive aggressive, but I am tactless. And blunt.

"Are you okay? You seem really quiet and uh stuff."

Now see, I am not one of those girls who answers "I'm fine" all huffily and wants you to guess what's wrong. I am much, much worse. You ask that question, and the floodgates come down.

"I don't think we should date anymore / I just um it's like I don't know it's really hard and uh stuff / like ummm the distance! / Yeah the distance is really hard and I can't visit all the time / and we're only in high school and so like um yeah / and we just don't have a lot in common and the distance is bad and I don't think it can work because I like you and stuff and you know, like like you but it's not working out and uh so yeah."

Long pause.

"... okay."

Okay? Okay?! I dump all that out and get a one word response? I was still really naive (again: see the Calzone incident) and expected to talk about our feelings and how we would deal with this and all the changes. I tried to prod for a little more reaction.

"Well uh, how do you feel about it?" Dumbest question to ask a guy, ever.
"Um. Bad?"

Oh god, he felt bad. I made someone feel bad. Instantly I felt like the most horrible person on the planet. I didn't want to be with him, or ever see him again or talk to him, but I wanted him to still like me. (Somewhere, a feminist is clawing her hair out at this statement. I am not so gooey anymore, rest assured.)

I was concerned. And naive. I didn't know how bad was "bad." I hung out with a mix of AP students and artsy freaks, and the artsy freaks were always having existential crises to attend to. When they felt bad, that usually meant a trip to the psych ward. OH GOD. What if he feels that kind of bad and it's all my fault? I had to make sure I wasn't leaving a fragile eggshell of a person to be smashed against the rough wall of reality.

Once again, with the tact and gentleness of a steamroller, I tried to find out if he was deeply emotionally damaged.

"You're not going to kill yourself, are you?"
"WHAT?!"
"Kill yourself. I mean, you shouldn't, that's really bad. You're going to be okay."
"Why would I kill myself?"
"Oh uh..." Good question. "I heard people do that sometimes. When they get dumped."
"I'm not going to kill myself."
"Good! Because that's really bad."

We exchanged a few more pleasantries and the request to mail his sweatshirt back, which I never wore at school anyway because it smelled weird (LIKE POT), and within fifteen seconds after hanging up I changed my facebook status to "single."

I can safely say no one I've dated has died as a result of dating me. As for the frequent bumps and bruises and foot-in-mouth clumsiness, well.... that's just an occupational hazard you know going in.

Lorne Michaels if you're reading this hire me for SNL kthanksbai

The "Charm"ing Conversation Incident

So Boob week was a fail. I've been moving, on new medicine for one thing and sick with another thing. I am scattered between three cities - most of my stuff in my hometown, technically moved in at my college-cottage but spending my nights and most of my days at the boyfriend's family abode. End excuse, start story.

I have one piece of jewelry that I wear every day. I have kept up with it for over a year, which is very impressive considering my knack of misplacing and forgetting things. It is a very simple charm on a plain fake-silver chain. I wear a small metal bicycle. 

My beloved bicycle. I guess if this picture extended three
inches lower it would still qualify as "Boob Week" worthy.

It garners a lot of notice for such a plain, drab charm. From the pizza guy at my favorite local shoppe (Second favorite actually, after Bob's Pizza in SoHo - represent!) asking if I'm an avid biker, to the customers at my artsy job asking about its construction and origin, most people notice it and it intrigues them enough to ask. Tonight at dinner, the littlest princess at the house I'm currently living at asked me where I got it. A simple reply, right?

Does acquiring jewelry usually involve a decrepit warehouse, a pervy old man, and advice to enter the adult entertainment industry?

I think not. 

Also, I had no idea how to make the actual story PG appropriate for a seven-year-old girl.

Our story begins many months ago, on a hot late summer day. I had just dyed my short pixie hair a dark brown, and colored in bright red lips. With a black ensemble, I felt very audrey hepburn, old-hollywood glamour. I headed downtown with my dear friend Emme for an afternoon of antiquing and girl time. Emme dates one of my favorite guy friends, and luckily we have a lot in common and were able to develop a friendship outside of our respective (and in my case, now former) significant others.

So antiquing we shall go.

My favorite shop overflowed with thingamabobs and whatchamacallits and really hideous cast-off clothing. Pre-legs Princess Ariel would have loved it. We scavenged like hipster hyenas, but could find nothing salvageable amongst the wreckage. On to the next shop.

This place loomed two-stories tall with more individual "booth" type set ups. Lots of creepy dolls and weird lighting. It holds a set of luggage I have long lusted over but have never bought due to price and practicality. I have awesome luggage. It is hot pink and giraffe print. This set looks like a reject consolation prize from 1970s The Price Is Right. But I slather over it every time. 

Once my luggage lust had been satiated, Emme and I admitted defeat and began to leave. A glimmer on the corner of a counter caught my eye.

Thankfully it was not the moving glass eye of one of the many possessed Depression-Era dolls.

"Charms $1"Scrawled in octogenarian calligraphy on a plain sheet of paper over a small plastic bowl. Inside piled a whole plethora of tiny shapes. Something about everyday objects in delicate miniature, like  Monopoly pieces mixed with magic, captivated me. I immediately picked up a tiny bicycle. 

It seemed so simple and quirky. I rode my bike on occasion - a purple beach cruiser with wide handles. In high school it was my favorite way to relieve stress, after mothering my wild and crazy friends and keeping my emo friends from death's doorstep. At the same time, it was slightly random, a bit odd. Why a bicycle around your neck?

Well, why not?

I held it in my palm as I opened my wallet for the requisite dollar. The old man behind the counter seemed jovial and friendly enough, one of those old indie types who might have been in a psychedelic band sixty years ago. He struck up a conversation.

"That bar in yer ear, did it hurt?"

I love my industrial piercing, and was flattered by the mention.

"Oh no, sir! I've had it forever. Got my bellybutton pierced too, that hurt a little more."

"Got anything else pierced?" That's weird but of course he's not talking about my naughtybits I'm being paranoid. 

"Oh, haha, nope. Just those two."

"Got any tattoos?"

"Ha, uh, nope. Just the piercings."

And then, ladies and gentlemen, the weirdest compliment I have ever received:

"Has anyone ever told you, you look like one of them Suicide Girls? With the dark hair and the makeup.... I bet if you got a couple more tattoos and piercings you could be a Suicide Girl."

I thanked him awkwardly and hurried Emme out of the store. She asked the question that's probably on the mind of 95% of the readers right now:

"R... what's a Suicide Girl?"

Suicide Girls is a softcorn porn site of alt/goth/indie girls, very naughty burlesque / classic pinup. With you know, naughtybits exposed.

A random old guy suggested I looked like I should be in indie porn. 

I thought I'd dressed rather professional and polished that day. But no. Clearly I flashed PORN PORN PORN.

Emme was horrified at his audacity - who just SAYS that kind of thing to a stranger? I just laughed, and told her it would give me a great story to tell when people asked me where I got my charm.

Which it did, of course, but I am not explaining the porno punch line to a second-grader.

So ummm....

"I found it in a downtown castle guarded by a creepy, creepy, CREEPY old man..."

The middle school boyfriend incident

I had a crush a middle school bad boy.

Now in my middle-school, and to my unendingly naive self, the definition of a "bad boy" was someone who talked back to the teachers, pushed the classroom rules a bit, was always cracking slightly inappropriate jokes and had made out with a couple girls and maybe smoked a cigarette once. (We'll call him Walter.)

Nowadays, I know middle school bad boys smoke pot and get blowjobs, but this was still turn-of-the-millennium. We weren't corrupted to the core. I am not putting my sweet future spawn into public school lest they become baby prostitute crackheads, but that is another conversation entirely.

Not only was Walter bad and cool, but he was smart too. We sat near each other in our accelerated classes since our last names were similar, and we were in the same TAG (Talented and Gifted / Academically Gifted / pretentious acronym) program that met weekly. Walter made me laugh. He treated me like a person - I was still kind of "the new kid," only moving to town a year before, and most people still regarded me warily (who is this dork with glasses and buckteeth and why is she talking to us? type of warily).

The combination of middle school dorkiness, being a lonely new kid, preteen hormones and slight attention was a deadly combination: I was completely smitten. 

We talked a lot in between classes; sometimes we were partners for projects. One glorious moment at the end-of-semester trip to the skating rink for all the kids who met their AR reading requirements, he held my hand for a whole "couple skate" song. Oh heavens, I was just over the moon for this boy.

I really liked Walter. "Like like" not just regular like, as they say in middle school. We flirted (I think it was flirting? Middle school is like some heathen uncivilized tribe when it comes to mating rituals). I wanted to be his giiirlfriend. I didn't know what exactly being his giiirlfriend would mean, but I wanted to hold his hand in between classes and "hang out" and totally try that whole making out thing. I mean, making out sounded gross (tongues? ewww...) but I wanted to be desired. And did I mention he was cool?

One day our TAG group sat in the library computer lab researching some project. Most people weren't paying attention, chatting to each other or walking around. Dreamboat Walter stood behind me. I tried to pretend like I was focusing on my work, but I was mostly likely blushing like a beet and hanging on his every word.

"So you like me right?" He asked, a sly smile on his face.

Ohmigosh he is going to ask me to be his giiirlfriend BE COOL BE COOL

"Uh... I mean, it's like whatever. Why?" Totally calms as a cucumber he is going to ask me to be his giiirlfriend in front of the whole library ohmigosh.

"I think you should check out this website..." He leaned over to type on my computer, his arm brushing me. Swoon, swoon. He probably had the (now absolutely repugnant) smell of Axe Body Spray emanating from every pore. I had no idea what websites had to do with his certain declaration of love, but it didn't matter. I looked up at him, eyes aglow with mega-first-crush-beams and he said...

"You should go to www. GROW SOME BOOBS AND THEN I WOULD DATE YOU hahaha" he announced, loud enough to turn the heads of everyone else half paying attention to their projects. I froze.

He wasn't asking me out.

He said the word "boobs" aloud.

He just insulted me.

He just insulted me LOUDLY.

He just insulted my "private parts" loudly.

Who the hell has boobs in seventh grade? 

The proper response would be, of course, to call him a M*F*er, ask him if his balls had dropped yet, and slap him in the face. Unfortunately, I didn't know the MF word yet or anything about testicles, and I was way to shy too cause a commotion. So I sat there staring at my computer screen, the hateful fake URL typed in the address bar, face red and biting back tears while he laughed and laughed and finally moved on to his friends.

I have never felt bad about my weight, but it was the first time I was ever self-conscious about my figure. How was I supposed to just grow a pair of boobs? Other girls didn't really look like they had apples up top. Lady mum asked me a couple weeks prior if I wanted to get a training bra and I vehemently said NO, I didn't want something itchy and tight and lifty and... talking about BOOBS with my mother? Dramatic eye roll, kill me now.

(oh how the tides have turned on that last statement. I recently asked Lady Mum if she wanted anything spicy from a friend of mine who's a consultant for "Slumber Parties" and I thought she was going to explode from embarrassment.)

I still pined over Walter for a couple more weeks, but avoided his jokes and conversations. My heart was just shattered. (Though I felt slightly proud that he was at least looking in the direction of my chest. That meant something, right?) I didn't understand how juvenile and flighty boys were; I didn't understand how he could suddenly turn on me. I was devastated, and feeling the first ever twinges of self-consciousness. Suddenly, I was aware that I WAS INFERIOR. 

A year or so ago he added me on facebook - we'd gone to different high schools and fallen out of touch. He sent me a message to the effect of "hey whats up / you look really good." Amazingly enough, I had managed to somehow grow some boobs since middle school.

And you know what? I resisted the urge to call him a M*F*er.