I Can Handle This...I Think

(it's official. This is my future home.)

I am basking in the glory of the mid-Monday afternoon sun. Content with the realization that in less than five weeks I will be essentially starting a new life, I let the waves of panic and urgency subside. It's all going to be okay. I've been longing for a change for some time now, and not just a tiny change.. but more like a life-altering experience, because, to be honest, no matter how good I feel my life is right now, I've become bored with this city, with the same people I keep running into wherever I go. I need something new. I need something better.

I didn't go away to college five years ago like many of my peers did. I stayed and home and commuted which was a rather dreadful experience. I always regreted not living on campus, not participating in a campus life, and now I get a chance to live out my dream. My time has finally come and I am very excited. Who will I meet? What awaits me as I move to this new city, knowing absolutey no one, with a car packed full of my favorite outfits, an ironing board and a handful of architecture books?

A few years ago I wanted to get a tattoo of a word "BREATHE" somewhere on my upper back to remind myself to stop, take a moment and do just that - breathe - once in a while. Then, I found out that Lindsay Lohan got the same damn tattoo on her wrist. How edgy of her. So today my body is still 100% ink-free and I know now that I don't need to make a Post-It note out of myself to remind of what I need to do. Now I am taking a time-out here in my parents' quiant little backyard, taking time to reflect, calm down, and most importantly, to breathe.

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To Call or Not to Call

I turned the ringer of my phone off just before I went to bed last night. Otherwise, I would have been woken up by a phone call from a guy I met about ten days ago at one of my favorite clubs.

That night was quite a blur but I still remember quite a lot. In particular, I remember a very good-looking man flirting with me on a dance floor and inviting me to sit down in the lounge area so we could get to know each other better. He seemed like a smooth talker and a player but I was quite buzzed and the conversation between him and me flowed nicely. He ended up getting my number at the end of the night and promised to call during the following week.

Frankly, I haven't mentioned him at all so far because I did not expect him to call me. To me, it was just another night of dancing with a cute guy. A cute guy who I wasn't particularly interested in getting to know outside of the club scene. A cute guy with whom to exchange pleasantries and cocktails. Nothing more, nothing less.

So after a week of no phone calls, I had pretty much forgotten about the guy, going about my usual daily routine and not really telling anyone about my casual club encounter with him.

I am extremely surprised that he called last night. My first thought was that he was just drunk-dialing random people in his phone book, but after listening to the voicemail he left me, I decided that he sounded very sober. It was no accident. He actually MEANT to call me.

"Hey, this is Club Guy," I heard, as I was checking my voicemail on the way to work this morning, "I'm sorry for not calling you sooner. I actually misplaced my phone for a while and it's a funny story how I got it back. I wanted to ask you out for a cup of coffee or drinks, so if you are interested my number is xxx-xxx-xxxx."

A) I didn't buy the Misplaced Phone excuse, not even for one second. I wasn't born yesterday. All he was doing is waiting it out for a week and trying not to look desperate by calling the next day, or he had another girl he was trying to hook up with and that deal didn't work out, so I was a Plan B. Forgive me for being a tad cynical here – this guy just strikes me as SUCH a player.

B) I want to call him back, because I am attracted to him. I am not looking for anything serious at this point anyway, just a few casual dates, just someone to waste what little time I have left in this city. I have seven weeks left here, and then I'm packing up and moving nine hours away. No sense in sparking serious romance here.

My finger is hovering mere millimeters above the "Talk" button on my cell phone and I'm in a limbo as to what I should do. I mean, there is no harm in having one drink with a guy, right?

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Clearly, I Chose a Wrong Career Path

A few weeks ago, a couple of my friends and I were out at a lounge discussing the meaning of life, shoes and all that important stuff. DJ, Best Friend and I noticed an obviously gay man checking us out from a distance. He was leaning against the bar and blatantly starring at us, occasionally exchanging candid whispers with his friend.

When I went up to the bar to get a drink, the gay dude tapped me on my shoulder,

“Excuse me, can I ask you a question?”

I glared at him, giving him the it-better-be-good-or-I’m-leaving look.

“So this might sound weird, but can I ask you what you do for a living?” he implored.

“Aaaaand why do you want to know?” I asked with suspicion.

“Well, you see, I have this talent for guessing people’s professions just by judging them on their looks, and my friend and I wanted to know if I was right about you and your friends.”

Oh. This was going to be pure gold - I could already feel that. I needed to hear what the guy had to say.

“Okay, so what do you think we all do?”

“Well,” he began, pointing his finger in a direction of DJ, “He probably works as a graphic designer.”

I was impressed. He actually got that one right.

“Okay, okay…” I was interested in what he had to say about Best Friend, “Go on.”

“She is a secretary,” he said, referring to Best Friend who was too busy taking shots to notice that our conversation was revolving around her now.

Very close. She’s an administrative assistant. Just another technical term for secretary.

“What about me?” I was very curious now.

He eyed me up and down, as if to double check his preconceived notions and said, with much certainty in his voice, “You look like you work at Abercrombie&Fitch.”

…

“I am an architect, sweetheart,” I rolled my eyes and grabbed my drink, getting ready to get back to my friends.

“No way. Really?”

“Yeah… looks like your talent is not a talent after all,” I smirked, masking my disappointment.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with working at Abercrombie&Fitch. Hollister, PacSun or any other surf-themed shops, but you can’t deny that there are certain stereotypes of people who work in those stores. For guys, it’s blonde-haired, blue-eyed Adonises who are more concerned with spending time at the beach or working on their already chiseled abs at the gym. For girls, it’s (again) blonde-haired airheads with seashell necklaces, dark tans and perfectly manicured nails. Not exactly, an image of an intellectual elite.

But hey, it goes to show that it’s never a good idea to judge a book by its cover. For all that I know, those faithful surf shop employees could very well turn out to be the future leaders of our country. Unlikely, I know, but not impossible.

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DJ Douche and Co

Take a look at the picture above and note the guy's outfit. The story below pretty much centers around it. Aside note: The girl in a beautiful green dress is me. Now on with the story.

On Saturday the much anticipated trip to Atlantic City finally took place. It was the 1 year anniversary of club mur.mur at the Borgata casino and DJ AM was supposed to be the celebrity DJ. I have never heard any of his stuff but he’s a fairly big celebrity so I figured he couldn’t have been that bad.

After a 1.5 hour drive, we arrived up at the Borgata around 10pm, thinking that we’d have some time to gamble and then leisurely stroll into the club and perhaps even snap a few pictures of DJ AM doing his thing on the turn tables.

Well, much to our dismay and horror, the line to the club stretched for what seemed like a mile from the entrance door down past the slot machines and poker tables, wrapped around a couple of corners and was, as a very good-looking casino employee informed me, “2 hours long.”

Instead of panicking and getting discouraged, my friends and I ordered a few drinks at a nearby bar, and proceeded to the end of the line. It was only 10 pm after all and the clubs in AC never close. We still had a whole night ahead of us. Plus, the wait is always shorter when there is a good buzz going.

About an hour into our wait, we made some decent progress advancing in line and could actually see the entrance to mur.mur, when a woman who was in charge of the guest list/admission walked up to us.

“How many of you guys?” she asked as she stopped dangerously close next to me, with her silicone boobs invading my space. I had to take a step back.

“Four,” my friend Glam Girl replied, pointing to her boyfriend, me and another friend.

DJ AM’s Ho eyed Glam Girl’s boyfriend up and down suspiciously.

“Um, well, you ladies are fine but you do know that in order to get in, the gentleman needs to wear a collared shirt AND dress shoes, right?” she seemed clearly disgusted with Glam Girl’s man’s get up which consisted of a very cute (in my opinion) T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. As she said that, she waltzed away in her seven inch heels. Ugh, what a buzz kill.

“Okay, okay…” Glam Girl wanted to freak out but was doing her best to contain herself, “We’ll just go to a store and get a collared shirt.”

“But what about the dress shoes?” my friend, Ms. Hawaii chimed in.

“Shit,” Glam Girl was now in full-on panic mode,” I don’t even know if there are any stores around here that sell shoes.”

“You guys can go in without me…” Glam Girl’s boyfriend had a look of guilt and embarrassment on his face, “ I don’t want to keep you from going to the club.”

Ms. Hawaii suddenly gasped. She had an idea.

“Guys! Perfect solution! I’m going to go to Lost and Found and see if they have any shoes that anyone lost!”

The three of us looked at Ms. Hawaii with much skepticism. What are the odds of Lost and Found having a pair of shoes that are dressy enough and in Glam Girl Boyfriend’s size? Hell, what are the odds of someone losing shoes at a casino??

But we let her go do some asking around anyway. What was the worst that could happen?

The boyfriend, meanwhile, kept apologizing profusely. I felt bad for the guy. It wasn’t his fault that DJ Douche decided to impose a Nazi-esque dress code on everyone. I, personally, in all the promo pictures I’ve seen of DJ AM, have never seem him wear a shirt with a collar. What a hypocrite he was for wanting everyone else to conform to an unnecessary dress code. Even worse, I thought the boyfriend’s outfit choice was very reminiscent of the type of clothes Adrian Grier can be seen wearing on HBO's Entourage. Slightly laid back, but by no means something you would just wear around your house.

After about twenty minutes, Ms. Hawaii came back with no shoes. Big surprise there. At least she tried.

“I can’t let you not go in because of me…” Glam Girl’s boyfriend started again, but I had to interject at that moment.

“Look.... let’s just all go to Mixx. It’s right around the corner. I’ve been there before: it's a great club and they don’t have a strict dress code. DJ AM is missing out on the four hottest people in all of Atlantic City and none of us really even knows his music. Seriously, it’s HIS loss for not letting us in.”

“…Are you sure? You’re not just saying this to make me feel better?” the boyfriend still didn’t seem too convinced.

“Yeah. DJ AM can suck it. I would never leave any of my friends out in the cold, so to speak, while I’m dancing at some club to some guy’s music. Let’s go.”

So there it was. When life gave us lemons, we made lemonade. The wait in line for Mixx was only 20 minutes. The club was still packed and the music was as dance-worthy as ever. And as for DJ AM? He needs to come back down to earth and realize that just because someone isn’t wearing a shirt with a collar that he can pop, doesn’t mean that that person should not be able to get into his parties.

Your loss, AM. You missed out on some kick-ass people this weekend.

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Update:

I've been so busy this past week and I had to put in a LOT of overtime at work. But I have a bunch of good stories to tell and I will start posting again today or tomorrow.

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Blast From the Past

The first time I fell in love I was about sixteen years old and I remember the feeling being so intense and overwhelming that I would sometimes cry at night. At first, they were tears of happiness, and then tears of frustration and hopelessness, because, yes, after four months of a very close friendship and the guy confessing that he "was so in love with me", he asked someone else out, literally, two weeks after he professed his love for me. I actually still talk to the dude online once in a while. He lives in a London suburb now, and has a wife, a house and a dog.

He and I reconnected after about four years of not speaking to each other. The only reason we started talking again is because about a year and a half ago I found his email address saved in my old Yahoo! email account and I was curious to find out how the guy was doing. I sent him an email thinking that there was no way that he still used the same account, but to my surprise I received a reply back from him. He was ecstatic to hear from me after all those years. He was nice and pleasant and even sophisticated now, very unlike the seventeen year old teenager I remembered him being the last time I spoke to him.

We exchanged pictures since we were both curious what we looked like now. He was quite handsome, and I seemed to have made quite an impression on him as well. In his own words, "Well, well. You turned into a knockout, didn't ya?"

Over the period of about a year in a half we talked frequently online, mostly during work since, surprisingly enough, his work schedule in the UK and mine here in the US corresponded with each other. I was pretty happy to discover that I no longer had any romantic feelings for him (it would be quite sad if I did after all these years, right?) and I guess it was a form of closure for me. However, I was saddened and even a little disturbed by his passion-less stories of his married life. Again, in his own words, the sex life was "so-so". The whole marriage seemed to me mundane and boring.

I suppose I wish I had a scandalous story to tell in which the guy falls in love with me, leaves his wife and London behind, flies over here and we elope in Vegas or something. Then his wife plots revenge on the home-wrecker who stole her husband (aka me) and hires a Sly Stalone look-alike to chase after me through the backstreets of LA with an ultimate goal being to kill me with his bare hands. I narrowly escape death on a daily basis and my life becomes that of seclusion and temptation. I soon thereafter fall out of love with the guy who left everything and everyone for me and I spiral downwards in a whirlwind of drug-induced midnight orgies in seedy hotels. That is, until a mysterious Samuel Jackson character saves me from a drug overdose only to make me realize that I have a bigger purpose in life. That is where I become a bounty hunter and finally find happiness.

But that wouldn't be my story, though yes, it would make for a great blog entry. And with all of the above being said, the dude still holds a very special place in my heart. After all, he will always, for the rest of my life. be my first love.

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Being Single Has Its Perks

"How much is it?" I asked the bartender and pointed to the bottle of Miller Lite he just placed before me on the bar counter.

He smiled at me and his lip ring sparkled in the dim lights of the club. "It's on me," he said and walked away to continue his conversation with his co-worker who was texting someone on his Nokia. The bar area was slow last ngiht, and even the dance floor was not that crowded. I wondered if everyone went down to Jersey shore for the weekend.

I also wondered if it was just me or if the bartender was being flirtatious with me. As far as I knew he had a girlfriend who also worked at this same club in the winter as a coat check girl. Before I knew those two were going out, I actually got Coat Check Girl's number for my friend DJ, as he was too timid to ask her himself. That night I got drunk, and when I'm drunk I'm astonishingly brave so in those instances I always offer my friends to hit on the people they like. What can I say? I am a good friend.

After telling the Coat Check Girl that "my friend really likes you and was wondering if he could have her number", I was informed by her that while she thought DJ was cute, she was living with her ex-boyfriend who also a bartender at this very same club and they were trying to get back together but she really wasn't sure if she wanted him back... I stopped listening after she said she was living with the Bartender. I nodded and smiled and I still ended up getting the girl's number for DJ. They went out on one date while the girl was still living with the Bartender. One date and it was over. Hmm, I wonder why.

I stopped seeing her at the club after the weather got warmer and people didn't need to wear their jackets any more but the bartender remained, faithfully handing me Miller Lite - my usual first drink of the night - every time he saw me walking up to the bar. He would hand it to me and declare the price, either two or four dollars depending on whether or not there were any drink specials that night. Yesterday though, the drink was free. I didn't mind that price and I didn't mind the way he smiled at me just before he walked away. A cute guy, a little short and too many tattoos for my liking, but he had cute dimples and a nice body. Dimples and a six pack work for me.

I was supposed to meet DJ at the club but he was running late so I ended up sitting on my bar stool and texting my friend from Michigan for a long time. I managed to successfully avoid eye contact with a shady man sitting next to me by starring and typing away dilligently on my phone.

Around midnight the Bartender walked up to me and placed a shot glass with something clear in it. Vodka, perhaps? I smelled the liquid and was taken aback by the smell of alcohol hitting my nostrils.

"What is this?" I asked the Bartender.

"Patron," he pointed to a half-empty bottle of pricey tequila he just put back on the shelf.

"Ah, the good stuff," I said and then noticed the empty shot glass he was still holding in his hand, "Looks like you already drank your shot though. I'm not gonna do this one by myself. Come on, have another one with me."

The bartender laughed at my response and without saying another word, reached up to the shelf to grab the bottle of Patron. We both raised our shot glasses in a silent acknowledgement of each other and as the tequila hit my lips, I did my best not to grimace. Tequila was never my drink of choice but who was I to refuse a freebie.

I was about to say thank you, but I was rudely (thought I'm sure he didn't view it as a gesture of rudeness) interrupted by a short, stocky man whose name sounded like Merlot (I couldn't really hear him that well over the loud music). I didn't bother to ask him his name again, I didn't feel like he was worth investing the effort of the question in. Merlot, then, asked me if I liked the music that was playing at the club, and I replied that the music was the sole reason I came that night. We talked for a few minutes, the tequila was hitting me, and against my better judgement, I gave my screen name to Merlot upon his request. He asked for my number first but I made up some bull shit excuse about me not giving out my number easily. He insisted on getting my screen name though because he wanted me to see his "band" in NYC.

"We're gonna open up for Jedi Mind Tricks. You should come see us," he looked at me to see my reaction after he named dropped the name of a semi-famous hip-hop group. I didn't care. I didn't want to give Merlot the false hope that I was interested in going. Luckily, at that moment, I saw DJ making his way through the dance floor, looking around in search of me.

"Yeah, maybe...." I said, slowly getting up from my bar stool, "I gotta go say hi to my friend. You've got my screen name, right?"

"Sure, sure... I'll definitely IM you with more details... Come back and have a drink with me later on tonight..."

" 'Kay."

I'm sorry, Merlot. I'm sorry if I was leading you on. It wasn't me, it was the tequila talking.

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