Taking Control

I'm starting to forget the way things smelled.

The way we would walk into the house with the dogs running ahead of us, straight up the stairs to fight over toys as you and I were hit with a wall of sauerkraut and kielbasa, wafting from the crock pot that was always waiting for us. The way the shampoo smelled in the outdoor shower, mixed with saltwater and the aroma of the garden. The way my room smelled of suntan lotion and laundry detergent rising off of the bed sheets. The smell of the car mixed with ocean and sand and wet dog.

I hate that these memories are becoming less tangible to my senses.

The other day, I found something I had written, about you. I remember sitting in the glow of a single lamp, feeling numb with happiness. I wrote:

He has this poster hanging on the wall of his dining room in a glass frame that reflects the light coming from the kitchen. I like to sit in the far corner of his couch and watch his tall, thin silhouette moving from the fridge to the sink. There's something comforting about it.

I find it interesting the different ways that people thumb their cigarettes. He taps his so that just the right amount of small red sparks float delicately to the bottom of the ashtray. I flick. I flick and ashes go flying everywhere, no matter how hard I try to hit the tray. I flick and black specks hit his perfect white sheets while we're lying in his bed.

"Shit, I'm sorry." I say as I anxiously try to clean around me without rubbing black into the fibers of the bedding.

"It's ok, I have to wash these anyway." he says, even though I know he has just cleaned them the day before.

My favorite thing is when we're next to each other in his bed, a pillow each propped messily behind our backs, in the dark. You can't see anything until one of us takes a drag and a small tip of fire illuminates the room and, if we're lucky, a split second of our eyes.

That was one of the last times I remember feeling truly happy about us. Those first 6 months when I couldn't even believe that you had chosen me.

Jil says never to let anyone compromise the way I deal with things. While I know people understand why these past nine months have been hard for me, I don't expect anyone to fully grasp the reasoning behind the fact that it's still as agonizing today as it was on that night in November. If not more so. So I'm just going to keep feeling what I'm feeling and let this run its course, even if it takes nine more months or nine more years.

I've dated people since our ending, but their best and worst flaw are always one in the same: They're not you.

I will never be happy for you, because what you did resulted in everything I have lost. But I will be happy for me. Happy that I left that horrifying situation in order to take the time to find something real.

"What'd You Do Last Night?" "Uhhh, I, Um, Crocheted. All Night."

"I have an idea for a bar. It will be brightly lit and it will be called 'Doggy Bag', so everyone knows what they're going home with."

This is the little burst of genius that spilled out of my friend's mouth the other night. Like most things in life, it took me a second to catch on, but once I did I was totally on board. I mean, think about it: the rate of beer-goggle-induced one night stands would plummet dramatically. There would be a shockingly wonderful drop in the feeling of "Oh my god, I hate myself right now" after you wake up in the morning and roll over and see the monster you're lying next to. We would no longer have to lie about what we did last night.

Here's my question though- are beer goggles a legitimate free pass, or are they just the last shred of an excuse that we're desperately clinging to, in hopes that this can be the time that doesn't count?

If you think about it, the whole idea of being ashamed after sleeping with someone that isn't exactly attractive by social standards kind of makes us all dicks. I mean, who are we to think that we're that fuckin hot and spectacular that we're actually too good for someone that might have a little extra chub on them, or jacked up teeth, or wasn't exactly popular in high school? Here's a little secret: Everyone who was considered a "loser" in high school is now approximately 10 times hotter and more accomplished than the "cool" kids. It's called karma and it's the greatest thing in the whole wide world.

I guess this is another one of those entries that I'm torn about. On one hand, I don't want to judge someone just by their looks, but on the other hand, that's unfortunately the nature of the beast. We all want to end up in bed with a person we're attracted to. If it's just a one night thing, who cares if they're a total asshole. Although 9 times out of 10, the more attractive a guy is, the worse he is in bed because he's never had to work for it. The same goes for the size of their pogo stick. The smaller they are, the more they aim to please. Ask any girl who has experienced all sizes of the scale, I guarantee you she'll agree.

Well I've gotten so off track that I don't even know how to get back to the original concept of this entry. So let's just sum this all up: If you get wasted, you might end up going home with someone that you wouldn't have if you were totally sober. But next time this happens, when you wake up and roll over to the big, hairy man snoring in your ear and drooling on your pillow, replace your initial thought of, "Wha- oh. Ohhhh no....no no no. Shit shit shit" with, "Hmm. Maybe he rescues puppies in his spare time. That's sweet".

Cause what's cuter than a puppy?

Why Are You Freaking Out? All I Did Was Call You Pretty.

Don't call me cute. Don't call me cute, don't call me pretty, don't call me hot.

Cute is what you call a baby, a puppy. Basically anything that is under 15 pounds and can't wipe its own ass. Hot is what high school girls with self-proclaimed social superiority and closeted self-esteem problems strive to be called every time they squeeze their underaged beer gut into an eighty dollar tube top bought with daddy's credit card. And pretty can best be described in the following conversation:

Girl: "Hi! My friend Suzy thinks you're so hot! What do you think about her???"

Boy: "Uhhh...yeah. She's, um, pretty I guess."

Translation: Suzy's a fuckin wildebeest.

So what should you call a gal? Call us beautiful, call us gorgeous, call us breath-taking, stunning, perfect. And when the mood is right, call us sexy.

But fellas, please mean it when you say it. That's the difference between calling a girl "cute" and calling her "beautiful". Calling us cute means you don't really mean it. It's just something you're throwing out there the same way people tack "lol" onto the end of every text. It's basically an insult as this point. Now, if you call us beautiful, chances are you mean it. Cause even guys are smart enough to know that calling a girl beautiful is going to reel her in for the real deal. When we're called gorgeous or stunning or any of the other words I mentioned as desirable adjective for a lady, we're assuming you see us as something more than just the average girl on the street. And we like that. A lot.

I guess there's not a whole lot more to say on the subject...oh, except that we girls can also tell when you're calling us beautiful just cause you think it's what we want to hear and you can get in our pants that way. In fact, just assume we know everything :)