F’ed is for Florida

You come across intimidating people – and it takes a lot to intimidate you. When you get that feeling that you want to run five miles and read books to make yourself smarter, you’ll know this is someone worth getting to know.

- My horoscope from one day in January, 2004

I’ve said this before, I’m sure. We’re not meant to “be with” every person with whom we have a solid, sticky, hold-tight connection. At this point, apparently, I’m not meant to be with (in a serious manner) ANY person with whom I have (or had) a connection, however life and love marches onward.

Some days, it’s enough just to know you are out there. You know who you are (Brian Vargo in Boston, you don’t have to read in between the lines. Finally, I make an actual reference to YOU. And to Steve Pellegrino in NYC and every other man I love whom I’ve never “dated”) If I were my friend Donovan, I’d write a song and include all of your names and call it “Missed Connections” (or maybe something less banal) and not be embarrassed to sing it in front of a large crowd in which many of you might actually be seated.

Maybe it’s better that one or both of us never pulled the trigger.

If we HAD jumped in, we’d have totally jumped the shark of US. And you would have found out that I rarely allow actual food in my apartment. And that every night I like to watch dumb things I DVRed (see Toddlers and Tiaras or Bridezillas or basically anything on WE, A&E, TLC, or Bravo) while I crochet a 12 foot long scarf that I will wear once. And that I have an unhealthy obsession with Intervention and Hoarders and Nancy Grace and any show involving drastic plastic surgeries. And that I wear glasses and wake-up looking not just unsexy, but unsightly. And that sometimes I like to stay on the internet ALL NIGHT LONG spying on other people’s Facebook pages (read, men I once dated). And that I often go to bed after working-out without having showered. And that I have 140 horribly mean and offensive emails in my drafts that I never had the balls to send to the people I don’t like, but I still reread them all the time. And that I’d get annoyed when you left one water-drop in the bathroom or one crumb on the counter, or worse, ON MY FLOOR. And that I’m sickeningly passive aggressive. And that sometimes I turn the music way up to make my neighbors think I’m having a party. And that I’m lazy. And that I’ll hardly ever trust you and make you repeat stories so I can try to catch you in lies.

Just knowing that you’re out there, somewhere, inspires me. And hopefully you’re happy, because I’m happy thinking about you.

I like knowing I can call you (which I hardly ever will anyway) and get the best of you for twenty minutes, while I give you the best of me, and then we don’t have to worry about being perfect in front of each other for the other twenty something hours of the day. I’ll leave that job to the Relationship gals.

When we are like the way we are, neither of us have to worry about what the other person “meant” by that. We don’t have to try to figure out why the other person’s marriage(s) broke up so we can learn a lesson about our own relationship. We don’t have to worry that one of us might actually still be married. We don’t have to worry about standing together as parents and who is going to cook the dinner and whose turn is it to do the laundry. We don’t have to get along with the other’s family or pretend to like their friends.

Patti Stanger calls it The Friend Zone. And I’m actually quite smitten with it. Sure it’s unsatisfying in one rudimentary primal way, but in all of the other ways, it’s so much better than the actual relationship, because we’re never going to be horrible to each other or slam doors in anger or hang up on each other or call each other ’stupid bitch’ or send a 28 paragraph angry text message or unleash on the other person all of the worst things we feel about ourselves.

You won’t have to worry about if I’m checking your phone for “evidence”… it could be laying in front of me all day and I wouldn’t touch it except to avoid stepping on it. You could tell me all your passwords and be confident that I’d never hack into your email. You can talk on the phone to whomever you want in front of me (as long as you don’t say anything bad about me). You can come to me when you’ve been disappointed romantically and I won’t laugh or say I told you so. I’ll be sad, too. Unless it’s more funny than sad, like some of my own situations have been, and then we’ll laugh together. No, you don’t have to censor yourself ever. That’s not what we are.

Your girlfriends or wives don’t have any reason to be jealous of me. But they might be anyway. If I had a boyfriend, I’d be honest about who you are to me and maybe expect him to be jealous, too. That’s fine. A certain amount of jealousy keeps people on their toes and makes them remember to try a bit harder, to be a bit nicer, and maybe to shower a bit more frequently.

I won’t have to show you my million subtleties.

On the other hand, you’ll never see them, either.

I’ve never understood the difference between forgiving and forgetting. Like when someone says, “I’ll forgive, but I won’t forget.”

How does that work, exactly?

Because when I don’t forget something, I tend to REMEMBER it. And then I tend to be reminded of it every time a similar incident happens.

Say, for example, you find some incriminating text messages on your husband’s phone, leading to further discovery that he’d been texting and sexting at least twenty women while you’ve been married to him for the past five years.

You forgive him. You love him and you have a big heart. And you have two children. But will you ever EVER be able to see him look at his phone, or send a call to voice mail, or hear it vibrate in his pocket, without ever thinking about IT?

How will that not EAT AT the most loving, forgiving person even if her motives are to keep her family together?

I am not married and I don’t have any children. (Have I mentioned that?) My parents are still very happily married. Therefore, I don’t know what it’s like to have two very young children I’m trying to save from a divorce.

And I’m sure I have mentioned about how I feel about cheaters.

I love the idea of forgiveness… of starting fresh and making everything new. Like coming home to your own house that someone else has spent the entire day cleaning.

It’s hard for me to not forgive someone I truly love. I understand that. I WANT to forgive.

But, in cases of cheating Tiger-style, it’s crazy. He’s not sick. He’s rich and horny and has opportunities. Actually there’s a simpler term for the affliction of “sex addiction.” Know what it is? Human.

I’m sorry, Elin, but if you’re getting back together for any reason other than the fact that you’re trying to boost your bank account with a renegotiated prenup and a divorce is imminent, you are deluded.

And he’s nuts if for one moment he believes that she WON’T think about IT every time she sees him touch his phone until he dies.

(This is a very mean-spirited bit. I readily admit that.)

I just searched for stumbled upon some photos on Facebook of my ex-husband at a party at the Playboy Mansion. He’s smiling, dressed like a pimp for a 70s party, with his hot girlfriend who became his hot wife last year, and he looks very happy. Good for him! Mazel. And whatnot.

Now I’m just wondering three things…

1. Does he still have a horrible temper and get annoyed with the simplest things? You’d think with topless women around him, he might have eased up. One would hope.

2. Did he ever get over his fear of going to the dentist so he could get the braces off of his back teeth FROM WHEN HE WAS 14??!? He just turned 40. You would think that AT LEAST he’d want to get a cleaning to get rid of that mung breath.

3. Does he still look at gay porn when he’s home alone?

I live eleven floors above the “Entertainment District” or so it was stated when I signed the waiver when I moved in. My signature was required to relinquish my right to complain about the nightly din of the Church Street Complex.

There are seven bars on the street directly below me, all with competing sound systems and DJs. The good news is: I don’t have to replace the stereo I bequeathed to a neighbor three moves ago. The bad news is: I don’t have to replace the stereo, because I wouldn’t be able to hear it anyway as I’m usually subjected to whatever the DJs have spinning.

And don’t get me wrong: I’m completely on board for The Blackeyed Peas and Lady Gaga and Pink. And even Bon Jovi and Journey.

It’s the DJ talking that gets me. Usually he’s announcing in a strip-club voice, a hundred decibels louder than the music, the dollar drink specials, the cornhole contests, or, The Worst, to me anyhow…, someone’s 21st birthday.

Every time I hear the announcement that someone is at that bar right now celebrating their 21st birthday, I have an overhelming desire to get out of bed. I want to put pants on and go downstairs, find the birthday girl (or boy) and take them into a quiet room and explain their 20s to them. And their 30s. And whatever else. I want to impart my wisdom.

They will be all: Woo-hoo, I’m 21 and drunk!

And I will be all: Shut the eff up and listen to me, young person.

I’ve heard “youth is wasted on the young” my entire life. I never knew what it meant until I moved in here and found myself laying in bed alone at night listening to someone hooting and hollering and celebrating becoming an adult. If they only knew! I should tell them!

But who is going to listen to me? Clearly I don’t even have my own act together. But that’s because no one took me aside at 21 and said, “Listen, young lady. This is the way it is…”

Also, I don’t really know about these 21 year old’s lives. I do, however, know a LOT about mine. So just in case the Chinese invent time travel and also a way to read something posted on The Internet in 1991, here’s a letter to myself.

Dear Me at 21:

Stop whatever you’re doing and read this.

You are graduating with a BA in eight months. Walk with your class. Celebrate. You’re the first woman in either of your families to graduate college. Who cares that your dumb boyfriend isn’t going to walk in the graduation ceremony? You have a right to walk. You have a right to be proud of yourself. And speaking of him…

Break up with that guy Russ you are dating right now. This minute! Go ahead. I’ll wait.

If you’re dragging your feet about breaking up with him, let me give you a bit of insight:

Ever notice how he acts like a selfish brat? It’s only going to get a hundred times worse. Ever notice how he sometimes uses baby talk and makes up names for you? That will get worse, too. And I know it annoys you now. How about how “surfing” is such a big part of his life and he always has to live near the ocean? You haven’t been to the beach with him yet, but trust me, if you went, you’d see that he’s never even stood up on his board. If you don’t break up with him now, you’ll never date anyone else. At least not for the next few years.

You’ll end up marrying Russ on a unbearably hot and swampy June day in a fat (not phat) wedding dress and he will insist that his dumb Daddy Warbucks boss sing Frank Sinatra at the wedding. The only good thing about the wedding is that it will be the last time you see your grandparents together, so make sure you go and visit them every chance you get before 1994.

You’ll go on a cheap-ass honeymoon to Montego Bay, Jamaica that was advertised on a flyer in a credit union parking lot. The person in the room next to you will get stabbed in the middle of the night. Russ will buy a dumb Rastafarian hat and never take it off EVER.

You’ll go in debt with Russ and you’ll get fatter together and he’ll complain about how you trapped him inland in Orlando. Then one day you’ll get pregnant and everything will be great for a couple of months… until that horrible day when the bleeding starts and the doctor can’t hear the baby’s heartbeat. Russ will give you shit because he has to take off work to be at the hospital for the D and C.

Don’t lose touch with your real friends. You know who they are.

NEVER use credit cards.

Don’t be embarrassed or annoyed by your parents. See them as often as you can.

Apply to every MFA program other than Florida, and go where you are accepted and move there with nothing but a couple of suitcases and get a job washing dishes and write your ass off every day. Ignore everything else and write…even if it sucks, because it will. When you’re not writing, you should be reading, or out exploring something.

Save up your money so you can use every break for travelling… to Europe, South America, Asia, wherever. Pack very lightly. Who cares if you wear the same jeans every day? It will be a bit scary, but go on your own.

And while we’re on that, go to parties by yourself when you’re invited. You’re forced to meet people that way, and it’s always good to meet people. Remember this… it will be important your entire life: Don’t bring sand to the beach.

Stop getting so serious about any man who shows you a modicum of interest.

Stop being serious period.

Stop eating. I don’t care if it says Fat Free. There are still calories and you don’t want to fuel an addiction to sugar. Count everything that goes into your mouth. Start jogging in the morning and sign up for tennis lessons in the afternoons.

And lastly, and perhaps most crucially, don’t ever cut bangs in your hair, no matter how cute you think Shannon Doherty is. They don’t go with your face.

I love you and I’m the only one who matters.

Deanna