The Not-So-Secret Diary of a Bad Luck Girl

Three days and two nights at the parents’ = way too much time

Wednesday night was fun hanging out with MB. He made dinner – tilapia with veggies and potatoes – which is great because 1) he’s a good cook, and 2) I don’t have to do anything! Since he enjoys cooking so much, he doesn’t put any pressure on me to help him, and in fact says, “Just work on your writing.” I’ve taken on the role of cleaning up and doing the dishes afterwards, which is a fair trade I think.

Afterwards we walked all around town. We checked out the movies, but anything we wanted to see was playing too late. Plus it was nice just to walk and talk before my going away for a few days.

One place we stopped in was the Forbidden Planet comic book store in Union Square, which he’d never been to. I wondered aloud, “I wonder if they have all the Buffy comics?” He asked about Buffy, which prompted a very long monologue from me describing all the highlights from the series.

That made me realize how ridiculous some of it sounds out of context. “Well, Angel was a good vampire, then he had sex with Buffy, and then he was a bad vampire. . .And then there was Spike, who was in love with Buffy. He was evil, but then he got his soul back. . .Oh yeah, and there were these evil nerd guys, who made a Buffy bot.” We were cracking up.

The next day I caught an 11:30 AM train to NJ. Had lunch, then slept for like three hours. Got up, ate dinner, Mongolian hot pot as usual. My mother offered to bake a chicken, which she doesn’t do well, and my dad and I were like, “Um, why?”

In between all the eating and sleeping, I did work on my writing, though not the work I had taken home from the office (boo! for bringing work home). In the evening, I also chatted with MB, who was on his own (his family’s spread out all over).

The next morning I wrote more. In the afternoon MB texted me – turns out he was at work – and asked me to help with this thing he was developing. Basically he wanted to take it and make it into ridiculous corp speak, which we both hate but which I’m quite fluent in.

I had fun cranking that out, and was making myself laugh with the ridiculousness of it. Like instead of container, “containing device.” Instead of Read the file, “Leverage comprehension of the document containing device.” I scare myself sometimes.

In the evening, I finally started doing the stuff from my job and got through the majority of it, interspersed with working on my writing. A very productive evening. Spoke with MB again before going to bed.

Saturday, more writing. At this point the ‘rents were annoying me. Dad: “You’re all set with your 401K, right?” Yes, Dad, it hasn’t changed from the last time you asked me. Mom: “You save a little bit every month, right?” Yes, Mom, don’t worry.

They may seem like innocent questions, but they reek of, “We’re so worried about you and your security and what will happen to you 30 years from now? We wish you’d settle down and buy a house and never do anything different or live anywhere different, and just have a kid and be done with it.”

I may have been in that stage when I was married, at least beginning down that path, but since my divorce, I basically feel like I’m starting over. I had so many years of being “settled” and worrying about saving money and buying a house that I don’t want to be in that mind set right now. I sort of feel like this is my second youth. MB is in the same place, though he has a better business head than I do. He maxes out his 401K primarily for tax purposes. Smart that boy.

Ack, and of course my mother had to ask more about him! Not in a negative way, just in a curious-about-his-background way, which she may twist negatively later but I’ll worry about that when or if the time comes. She did have good enough sense to notice that I talk about him in a different way than other guys. That I seem calm and happy about him, and not worried.

Saturday afternoon ES called, thank God. I really needed to get out of the house at that point. We walked around Princeton, then had dinner. AY was supposed to meet us at 7, but she slept through our calls and texts, and didn’t get to to the restaurant till 8:30.

I went back into the city after that, ES kind enough to drop me off at the station.

Yesterday MB and I hung out. Walking, shopping, working on our stuff. Talking, laughing. He cooked again, stir fry chicken this time. It was good but the fish was better.

Blah, work. Luckily today is not too heavy in terms of meetings.

I got done what I needed to get done today. Yay! Of course there’s some other stuff and I’ll have to do it over the weekend, but the task today was one I had been putting off for ages.

Yesterday I finally had a chance to tell my mom about my getting into grad school. The first thing she said?

“Where is it?”

Then, “How far is it?”

Then, “Are classes at night?”

Finally: “Oh.”

*Sigh.*

I got totally annoyed and called her out on not even saying congratulations. Then she said, “Oh yeah, of course that’s good news,” but I could tell her heart wasn’t in it.

Then she said, “I was hoping for better news.”

“Like what?” I asked. “A promotion?”

No. If I was dating anyone or not.

Double sigh.

I haven’t told my parents about MB as it’s been just a couple of months, and last time I made the mistake of talking too much about H. too soon, only to have it all blow up in my face, and then have to deal with my mother’s worried inquiries.

I know my dating status shouldn’t make a difference to my mother. Isn’t it enough that I’m happy and excited about going into a new career? But I also knew it would be very easy to make her less worried so I went ahead and told her a little bit about MB, just that we’ve been dating for a couple of months, his profession, and his height.

Yes, his height.

My mother can be that shallow, and yes, I totally enabled her shallowness.

That’s when she got most excited, learning of MB’s 6 foot plus stature.

I did also say, “You can never ask about him again,” of course unless I bring him up first, and she surprisingly agreed, though who knows if she’ll stick by her promise.

Last night ES was in the city so we hung out. But in the afternoon I had to go home to get the charger for my piece-of-crap phone (just got a new one, need to have it set up), and who do I see but ES on the street.

True, she’s staying with her cousin who’s practically my neighbor, but still! It was two o’clock in the afternoon, totally random. I was more surprised than she was.

Going to the ‘rents’ tomorrow morning to avoid the craziness of traveling today. Hoping to hit the gym this afternoon (first time all week!), then go home to pack. Then hanging out with MB tonight.

So I got into one of the schools I applied to – my preferred choice, yay!

That was a pretty quick turnaround. I sent my stuff in on November 1, and got the letter late last week. Also got a teeny merit scholarship that will cover like one class. But my company offers tuition reimbursement too.

Now it all feels real and I’m excited. Classes start on January 14; orientation is on January 10.

I also feel like I need to work like crazy on my book between now and then because once school starts, I imagine I’ll have a lot less time.

As for the other school, they couldn’t accept my application as it was because, get this, one my recommendations wasn’t on letterhead. Whatevs. I had my coworker reprint it and sent it again, but now I don’t even care that much.

My weekend was good. Friday night YP and I had dinner and then went to this bar where we played pool (I SUCK) and this arcade hunting game, which I found to be a disturbingly good time. Kill, kill, KILL! YP was really good at shooting down birds.

Saturday MB and I did some shopping. It’s already massively crowded everywhere. The whole thing was pretty exhausting. That night we saw Beowulf in 3D. I had no idea that it was all CGI. At first I was disappointed, but it turned out to be actually pretty good. The 3D stuff was fun, but not necessary.

Last night we saw Southland Tales, which sucked big time. There were about a million characters, three or four plotlines, and the movie couldn’t decide what it was. David Lynch rip off? Satire of action movies? Straight-out action movie? Really disappointing.

My boss is out the whole week. Whoopee! Now let’s see if I can get motivated to do actual work.

I’ve no problem with interracial dating – I mean, obviously. All the guys I’ve dated since my divorce have been white. But I do have a problem with unequal dating, and especially – call me small-minded if you must – unequal, interracial dating.

Case in point:

Last night on the train, on my way to see my, um, white boyfriend, I saw the quintessential icky couple: old old, unattractive white guy + super young Asian female.

How old and unattractive? Like almost 50, gray mullet (yes: MULLET), gray trucker moustache, really short and scrawny.

How super young and Asian? Mid to late 20s, accent, loud, slightly crazy FOBish clothes. I just wanted to grab her and say, “You could do so much better! Put up on an online ad and you’ll have many many choices! TRUST ME.”

I guess it could be love though. Or a green card.

It was a nice one.

Spent a lot of time with MB. We haven’t had the chance to do that for a few weeks, between his being away and my having friend stuff. I’ve been resisting writing too much about MB because I don’t want to get carried away, at least here, only to have to eat my words later, but I’ll just say I can’t believe it’s only been little over a month.

I know I’ve gone on about other guys, feeling like I’ve known them a long time in a short period and saying about each one, “But this one is different!” but oh well:

This one is different.

We did a bunch of stuff over the weekend. Ate out, went shopping, saw Blade Runner, the director’s cut (which wasn’t that different from the original), watched some TV show on the giant squid during which I got a hankering for the tasty sea creature and sat there chomping on dehydrated squid parts (and it wasn’t even a cooking show), and worked together, him on his computer stuff and me on my writing, which is probably what I like best.

Writing is so solitary, it’s really nice to have someone I can work side by side with. During work time we don’t have to pay solid attention to each other, but then we reach a break, we chat and eat something and take a walk or see a show. For our lines of work, I think being able to do that is really important.

With H., we tried that, but he had immense writer’s block, and I think was using my presence to get distracted and actually not work on his writing.

Plus I don’t have to be positive! I mean, we’re both positive about our own lives and what we’re trying to accomplish, but we’re both also extremely intolerant of all the idiots out there, from the slow walkers who block the sidewalk, to incompetent co-workers, to those who run the world. I thought I was queen of the rant – he has me beat hands down.

He’s also more adventurous and open than I am. For instance, last night we were just wandering around the Lower East Side after Blade Runner, and stumbled upon this building we had stumbled upon another night. It was sort of decrepit but all decked out in cool graffiti and what seem to be dead butterflies hanging in the entryway. The first time we saw it, we thought maybe there was some Silence of the Lambs shit going on inside, but last night we heard music.

Not just music – crazy, dissonant, insane asylum music.

The door was slightly open so I was like, “Can we peek inside?” So in we went. I might have just turned around and left after that, but MB actually wanted to see the performance.

Well, “performance.” It was a ragtag of random musicians. Hipsters with trumpets, an old black guy I recognized from Central Park with a sax, a dowdy girl with a violin, all playing this crazy-ass music together. So bizarre but kinda cool too.

I guess it’s some kind of art house with poetry readings and other stuff like that for the artists in the community.

I knew once I started writing about MB, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

Okay, putting a cap on that now.