Are You a Good Sister?

I’m always amused by the ads that pop up on my gmail. Privacy advocates like to cry about how I’m surrendering my liberties and being exploited by advertising magnates, but for me, it’s really pretty entertaining–what off-the-wall ads will I be served today? They must be successful, these crazy ads that appear, but I wonder what people are thinking when they click.  Are they really looking for something, or just bored? Or curious?

I’m looking at a sponsored link right now: Are You a Good Sister? Take our quiz and find out for sure!

I can’t think that anyone legitimately believes that the almighty Mr. Internet can make that determination. I also happen to know (thanks to some days of serious boredom) that Mr. Internet won’t likely reveal his secrets in any event without a valid e-mail address that just may be later used to sell you some discount online pharmaceuticals.  Satisfy her tonight!

It’s a diversion, though; a cosmo quiz for the less risqué and desk-bound. Like the love match? Where you match your astrological sign up with your other’s sign and see how you line up? Yeah, I’ve tried that. Compulsively. I might even have it bookmarked. Not that I believe it; it’s just fun.

If my sponsored links and my own time-wasters are a fair sampling, there’s a lot of garbage on the Internet. This makes me wonder if all the recent hype about expanding the namespace is really worth it. At the Paris conference I was meant to go to last week, the gears started moving to allow new top-level domain registrations more easily; to allow dot-whatever because, the argument goes, there’s so much demand for new names and .com is running out. Whether or not people agree kept me occupied for most of the day. It’s on my brain, what can I say.

I think I’ll get a faster answer to whether or not I’m a good sister come Wednesday, when my youngest sister comes down from New York to spend an extended Fourth of July weekend being a tourist in a city that really goes all out this time of year. She’s an intern up in NYC this summer, and I intend to visit her … soon? But until then, I’m busy plotting our exploits here. I’m so so so excited to see her; it’s been since Christmas, which really is too long. It’s a strange shift to go from seeing someone every day, rain or shine, to living states and miles and highways apart. 

I haven’t yet decided whether or not I’m glad that she’s 21 now. Yes, we can go out—fun, to order a drink with my baby sister! But since she can go out, I feel like we will, all the time, just for the novelty of it. My sister can drink. Being 21 hasn’t changed anything but the venue, which sometimes worries me. I remember being an intern, and going out in the city every night; all the time, every night—it’s just what you did. Drinking till crazy hours, and still getting up for work the next morning. Summertime, fun bars, cool people. Party on!

Now, I hate to say it, but something of that shine has worn off. Going out and getting trashed every night? Not exactly my agenda. [Aside: when did I get all old and uncool? When did I start dreading youth’s knock on my door? WTF, self?]

I think we’ll draw a good balance; she really is a good kid. Just to cover the bases, though, I have now in plentiful stock here apartment-side (a) white wine; (b) vodka; (c) kahlua; (d) malibu. All of her favorites. On the nights we stay in, she can pour hers strong and sleep it off, and I can just take a taste and still be functional at work. A win-win.

Who knows, maybe I’ll put in a bid for a new website: magda.awesomesister. HA. Ahahaha.

What Happened to All of My Stuff?

Retrospectively, my move to DC a year and half ago was pretty haphazard.  My newly-married sister volunteered to adopt the entire set of my really fantastic IKEA apartment furniture, and I didn’t really have enough stuff after that to get movers or arrange for anything really professional. 

This is the story of how I got really friendly with the UPS clerk. I mailed all of what I deemed “essential” in eighteen big boxes.  Yeah. That involved many, many trips down the hill in mom’s wagon, loading and unloading, shipping and signing.  Less a few casualties of the “fragile” variety, it all made it here, unpacked and added to over time.

I got spoiled living in Seattle.  My apartment was small, and I didn’t keep more than what I needed on a day-to-day basis.  Anything obscure that I needed?  Ski clothes, say, pictures of me as a child, or nice wine I’d stored in dad’s cellar? I’d just pop across the bridge and get it.  In my head, everything that I own—alongside most things I know my parents have somewhere—is chronicled in my head as “accessible.”

I got an email from a friend today, asking me to join her and some of her work colleagues on a hike tomorrow.  I like hiking; it’s something we did as a family a lot growing up.  I used to hate it.  Long weekends up at the mountain house were the bane of my existence as a child; while everyone else was sleeping in or sleeping over, shopping or hanging out, I was up at the crack of dawn, eating oatmeal (“sticks to your ribs,” mom would say), and getting dirty scaling a mountain.  I’m not and never have been a real nature girl, but I have warmed up to it over time. 

We’ll be hiking here, at Old Rag: http://www.hikingupward.com/snp/oldrag/  It’s supposed to be beautiful.

I came home from work and went to my closet.  “Hiking clothes,” I said, as if they’d just appear.  The hiking clothes did not cooperate.  I suspect that this is because they are on the west coast, in that pile of “I don’t need this enough to ship it”; labeled with the post-it saying “will call and ask for it if I need it.”  A bit late on that now, I’m afraid.

I do have my hiking shoes (I think I moved all of my shoes, howsoever impractical they were adjudged). They are grey and pink, and very adorable.  I have a lot of workout-y clothes, but nothing really attractive, and nothing that really coordinates with the shoes.

I also don’t have a backpack.  That’s a little bit troubling.  I know I must have three at home, at least, but all I come up with here is a dinky knapsack-thing that I got at a conference awhile back.  Unfortunately, it’s bright teal.  And says DIGITAL FREEDOM straight across it.

So, here’s me: pink shoes; black shorts; red tank top; teal bag.  Awesome!

I briefly considered going out and buying a whole hiking ensemble.  This friend I’m going with is a very manicured, always-put-together type of girl.  She’s a sweet girl, but honestly, it can get intimidating.  (And annoying when we meet up after work and, unbeknownst to me, she goes home and changes first.  This has happened twice.  So she’s all fresh and perky, and I’m there in my tired work clothes looking fatigued.  Boo).

I decided against a Friday night shopping excursion, though; if I haven’t needed them all this time, there’s no need to invest now.  If I think I really want to be outside all the time, I’ll pack some things back when I’m home in August.  And really, I’m kind of over the whole trying-to-be-perfect-to-please-others thing.

I have no idea who else is going—friends of hers from work, I think.  Ah.  IRS lawyers.  I’m still hating on the IRS, so if one, or maybe five of them don’t return?  Heh.

I invested a chunk of the forthcoming stimulus on a nice new addition to my kitchen, which arrived today.

Unfortunately, it arrived like this:

 

But, being something of a furniture-making genius, I transformed it into this:

 

Needs two adults, pish pish. 

Time for a celebratory glass of wine, I think.

Sometimes.

Sometimes sympathetic coworkers and listening ears over beers after work are the best thing in the world.  Especially when said coworkers are the only contemporaries on a floor of “could be my parents”-style people.

Sometimes a last-minute email from an old friend saying “hey, meet me for dinner tonight” can be a lifesaver. 

Sometimes numbers lose meaning.  Bills involving pitchers of sangria, or tanks of gas? Those are numbers? Coming out of my bank account? Whatever, send me the receipt.

Sometimes empty trains and ipods full of emo music = bliss.

Sometimes having a boyfriend away for two entire weekends can seem impossible, but sometimes it (contradictorily) seems amazing; a chance to regain a bit of independence, and to remember how it used to be.  Weekends of empty agendas and poolside afternoons and museums with the self as the center and the stopwatch. 

Sometimes it feels amazing to outwit Bill Gates’ Word with words like “contradictorily.” (Should one draft posts in Word.  Which, um, I do.  That red underline? SO unnecessary.)

Sometimes it’s hard to have grown up in a neighboring suburb to Bill Gates’.  And to have his daughter attend your alma mater, now that she’s, you know, old enough to go to school.

Sometimes it’s hard to come from privilege, and to prove that you’re still making it on your own, and existing entirely independently of the world in which you’ve found yourself in by fortune of family circumstance.

Sometimes the happiest thing is to fall into bed, with the laptop, and type off thoughts and feelings to the world. 

Sometimes it’s just like that.  Just a moment of calm, where everything seems somehow aligned, and you know that, while it will certainly be short-lived, it’s something worth holding onto.

Tips on Beating the Office Blues, # 514.

Recently, collecting the mail has been the high point of my day. Is this sad? I feel like this is pretty sad. I normally don’t check the mail but a couple of times a week, since all I seem get is slips from people telling me I owe them money. The nerve. I’m growing impatient for those IRS fascists to surrender my check, so I’ve been a veritable mail slot vigilante of late. No check. But, I have had some nice, nice surprises:

• A card from my law school roommate, saying that she misses living with me. So. Sweet.
• A letter from my mom, complete with cutouts from the Crate & Barrel sale catalogue with little annotations: “how about this by your table?” “Wouldn’t this be cute in your bedroom?”
• A letter and an update from my sponsored child in Albania. Holy goodness, this child is so cute, it breaks my heart. He had his hair all styled and his ears totally stick out and I love him SO MUCH. He’s seven, in the second grade, and in satisfactory health. His best friend’s name is Gerald. At recess he likes to play with a ball. And when he grows up? He wants to be a doctor. Why? “Because I like it.” I’m seriously considering making that my default answer for everything.
• A box yesterday full of these:

Pink champagne! It’s possible I ordered those for myself (cough). But still! A nice surprise!

I’m on such a roll that I almost hate to check tonight, in case I break the spell. Or, you know, I could always just ship more alcohol to myself.

I almost brought one of those champagnes into work today, except for the minor inconvenience that I’d probably get fired for that. I get the distinct impression that it’s difficult, nay, near impossible to get the ol’ pink slip around here, though I suspect that acting like a floozy and drinking on site in the week I’m charged with playing supervisor would do a fine job of testing that theory to its natural limits. I’m not really that curious.

The thing of it is, I’m meant to be here:

Ah, Paris. No joke, I was slated to cover a conference, in Paris, this week. Since almost a year ago. It’s a long, long story that would showcase (I fear) some very unattractive bitterness on my part to fully explain. [But first a quick aside: my boss views conferences as paid vacations. He transposes the same on me, which is ungrounded as (a) I historically work my ass of on every assignment; and (b) I have won awards for the same (since which time, I will note, I have gone on zero out-of-office assignments). Also: I’ve been to Paris. I speak (passable) French. Not a vacation, you jackass]. Short story thus: boss pulls the plug in April, citing “budget concerns”; blames upper management, washes his hands of it, and goes to Disneyworld. Nice.

We have a Paris correspondent who allegedly will be covering “key portions” of the proceedings. Except he lives an hour outside of the city, and can’t really go to all of it, an e-mail today informs me. Thus, here I am, reading the transcripts, calling my contacts (long distance to Paris—take that, Mr. No Budget), and editing his work into the stories I would have written. Tears, bitter tears I choke back.

A good companion to stifled sadness, though? Espresso walnuts. Yum-my. And so easy!

For those coffee-inclined out there (and friends of the same), I’ll present the directions:

• spray a baking sheet with nonstick vegetable oil, and preheat oven to 325’
• combine 2/3 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons finely ground espresso (like you’d put in a machine), ½ teaspoon cinnamon, and ¼ teaspoon kosher salt in a small bowl
• in a large bowl, whisk one egg white until it’s frothy
• add 4cups of walnut halves to the egg white, tossing to coat
• pour the espresso mixture over the walnuts, again tossing to coat
• spread the walnuts over the baking sheet, and bake for five minutes. Loosen with a spatula and shake the nuts around, then bake for an additional five minutes.

Voila! Espresso walnuts, with many thanks to the Bon Appetit Christmas issue for the inspiration. They also had prettier pictures, but whatever.

They’re a fantastic pick-me-up, and aside from the sugar, they aren’t so bad. Nothing artificial, no preservatives; cinnamon is totally good for you, and nuts are healthy, right? Protein and coffee. Brilliant.

A word to the wise, though: if you make these at night, don’t just stand over the pan and eat them because oh holy goodness, they’re just that delicious when they’re all hot and toasty. Ground espresso has a funny way of inhibiting sleep. Don’t even ask me how I know.

Just Another Amusing Friday Night, Pool-Side.

There lots of reasons why I am IN LOVE, to a likely unhealthy degree, with my macbook.  It’s slick, and beautiful, and little, and perfect.  It’s true love.

I brought it out here to the pool deck to draft responses to the five billion e-mails starred in my gmail (all long overdue–of course).  Most fantastic of all discoveries: I am connected to the internet!  Specifically, to the crappy comcastic internet from my apartment! Sure, I just live upstairs, but the internet should not, in my limited wireless experience, extend this far.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the airport express.  Sheer genius!  Dear Apple, I heart you.  xx, magda.

The week ended better than expected.  It was a busy day, sure, but I feel like I’m pulling through; things are looking a little less grey. (And no, I do not credit that solely to the fruity cocktail disguised in a waterbottle here to my left.  Not solely).

My boss left this afternoon for vacation; two weeks in Disney World.  Two weeks!  I’d appreciate probably, um, a weekend.  There’s only so much Mickey Mouse a girl can take, you know?  The good news is, he’s out of my hair.  The bad news is, I’m the pro tem manager of our preposterous little publication.  It’s a lot of hard work, that, and I’m entirely unamused at how it all boiled down. 

I’m one of those sugar and spice and everything nice type of girls, though, so I’d never let him know.  I swear, sometimes I’m so sugary I could be mistaken for a giant cavity with little arms and legs. 

“Have a great trip!” I said.  What I was thinking: “I hope your train explodes after a harrowing experience being molested by Donald Duck!”

“No, managing everything will be no problem!” I said.  What I was thinking: “I plan to run a feature article on how much of a jerk you are!” (If only…)

Fun times.  The good news is, I’m feeling close to peppy again, things are looking up, and everything is starting to seem manageable once more.  Sometimes it’s easy to lost that focus, I guess. 

Moments like this bring that focus back.  Where I’m sitting here on the terrace, pretending I’m on a tropical vacation, and everything is molto bene. 

Here’s a postcard, wish you were here:

 

I tried to go all bloggy, and just do nose down or something—but they all came out sort of looking like photos of my chest, with a little smile attached at the top.  Not exactly what I was going for.  But really? Photo booth? Has seriously entertained me for about an hour now.  Ingenius! 

 

Welcome to My Head.

I’m a real believer in writing as therapy. Thus, even though writing something for the blog is really the last thing on my mind right now, and even though I’d really like nothing more than to close the computer, go sit outside in the grass, close my eyes and hope to wake up in some foreign land, I’m going to deposit a few thoughts, incoherent as they are, in this space, and hope to make sense of something.

I feel like I’m living in a cloud.  Not on a cloud—that would be nice.  Rather, in the cloud, where it’s foggy, and confusing, and hard to breathe.  I think it’ll be worth it once I get out and am on top, however.  Sometimes you just have to struggle.

I have no energy.  Thinking about work and all of the assignments on my desk makes me want to collapse with exhaustion, and just fade into the carpet.

I’m afraid that things are on the fritz with J. For so long, I wanted and wanted (and wanted some more) to be with him always. Having friends get engaged would send me into a tailspin of waiting for OUR shiny, diamond-studded moment. These days, I wonder if he’s really what I want. Do I really want to be engaged to him? Does he fit the happy ideal of the couples around me? Is this, being married to an ex-lawyer and wanna-be music insider, a life I really want to sign up for? Really? All of the sudden I feel like I need way more time to prepare. Like that test that you felt so confident about, but you get there and open the bluebook, and holy sh!t I don’t know anything; how did I study all wrong?

I’ve never felt as homesick as I do right now. I’m starting to feel really guilty about moving so far away, now that I’ve essentially proved my point: yup, I’m self sufficient, I did it, look at meee! My family is so important to me, and I’ve only got this one life, and I’m starting to realize that I’m betting my most valuable chips on the gamble of always having more time. More time later to do the things you love, and see the people you need; buy now, pay later! Put in the hours now, and cash out later! All of this, of course, presupposes the existence of a glittering “later.” I feel like the older I get, the more foolish I am to bank on that illusion. My parents are young now—51 and 50, respectively—and I sometimes look at myself and say, stupid girl, get home and hang out with them and know them while you still can. I think I’m going to come back to this in 20 years where they’re all pent up in assisted living, and wonder what the hell I thought I was doing, running around being “independent” during the best years of their lives.

I wish we all lived in Ireland, where they have close families and it’s okay and expected to live nearby, and even if you move to the whole other side of the island, you could basically drive it in a day if you wanted. Some of their assisted living homes have pubs in them, too, which is TOTALLY the way to go. Totally.

I had my one-year review today, which was totally unexpected since, oh that’s right, I was hired in October. So, over the last year and eight months … As it happened, I’d forgotten (?) that I had a little fist-fight with upper management right before Christmas about a promotion I had been promised but had, at that point, still not been awarded. We came to an agreement (read: they listed to me and the grievance panel groupies I gathered) and promoted me retroactive to June 10. Had the effect of a marvelous Christmas bonus, plus apparently reset my hire date to June 10—aka last week—which kind of makes no sense to me, but whatever.

I’m doing just fine, they said. And the greatest part is, it doesn’t matter AT ALL as our company automatically gives you a nice raise ever year, with or without your manager’s approval. Very good, since I work for the Stingiest Man Alive. Also rather makes up for the fact that I still haven’t seen my stimulus check yet. I’m going to have to call those IRS commies at their little “if you don’t receive your check in six weeks…” number. The United States hates me. Probably doesn’t help that I first typed that as the “untied” states. Huh.

Now I’m going to hand over some of the fruits of that raise to the barrista man at Starbucks, lose myself in a book for an hour, and probably come back about the same, but eh, we’ll see. It’s all about progress, even if the steps are really small (or in this case, are wildly disjointed paragraphs). You get what you get.

And Then The Rains Came.

The world was blurred out the window on the ride home from work tonight.  The greens and greys distorted; a once familiar landscape transformed into something so close to known, but so not quite.  Like seeing the outside through tears, but safe inside where it’s warm and dry and so, so quiet.  Despite the closeness of bodies and the hum of distant iPods, sometimes the metro at rush hour is eerily silent.

Everything moves more slowly in the rain.  The trains, the traffic, the escalators (broken, all of them, or shut off?).

Sometimes I just need a good rainstorm.  The cracks of thunder, the whipping sideways rains: they clear the slate, and when the sun comes out, it’s like starting fresh.  Clean.  Renewed.  Forget the heat and the hailstorms, and just remember what it’s like to live.  Breathe in.

The school year finishes tomorrow for all of the high schoolers back home, and I’ve graded the last of their essays till fall.  The students all showed great potential, I wrote in my memos; they struggled, but they pulled through.  Sometimes it was the larger meanings that swallowed them; they couldn’t take it all in, and were lost making sense of a sea of chopped waves and floating lines and words.  Others of them were seduced by perceived simplicity, trotting out a one-sided analysis that, while beautifully composed, ignored the overarching and underlying What It’s Actually All About.  Some of them just didn’t get it.  But they all tried, I wrote; they all paddled on.

If confined to the four corners of a page, my life would receive much the same commentary, I think, from someone more seasoned at life and its intricate contours. 

She tried hard, they’d say.  She was on the right path, but she sometimes got distracted, and sometimes gave credence to that which was illogical, nonsensical, not really worth it.  She acknowledged the larger meaning, but she didn’t quite grasp it.  Too much trying and wanting, and not enough doing; telling without really showing.

And then a rainstorm, and a summer vacation.  The promise of another chance. 

Reasons Why My Dad is My Hero (A Random Sampling).

·      He was the dad who would get to work insanely early so that he’d be home in time to sit down to dinner as a family.

·      He was good-naturedly on a first-name basis with the principals of our various elementary schools; I think we all innocently told our friends and our classes that our dad? He makes drugs and sells them.  He’s a pharmaceutical biologist.

·      One of his drugs was very successful, and there was a point in time when I’d see commercials for it on TV and would say, nostalgically, “that drug put me through law school.”  Except people got the wrong idea, and started thinking that I wouldn’t have made it through law school if I hadn’t have been taking that drug.  Wrong impression entirely.

·      In the summertime, he’d take time after dinner to play catch with my sisters and me, and he taught us all to ride our bikes.

·      He built each of our dolls a wooden trunk, with special compartments for dresses and shoes and other doll-sized accessories.·       

·      He let us put barrettes in his hair to play beauty salon.  And he once answered the door like that when mom wasn’t home, and didn’t get mad or anything.

·      He bookmarked the heck out of a book called “how to father a successful daughter.”  I also caught him reading “Strong fathers, strong daughters.”  Needless to say, he took his job seriously.

·      His love for our family is the closest parallel to God’s love that I can imagine.

·      He taught me how to drive—and never told my mom about the time when, in a parking lot, I confused the brake for the accelerator, and charged the van up onto the sidewalk and nearly slammed into a jewelry store.

·      When I had my heart broken in college when I told my then-boyfriend that I wasn’t ready to sleep with him, dad sent me the sweetest, most heart-felt hand-written note.  I still have it.

·      He makes the best cosmo ever.  And he e-mails me when he comes up with new twists or variations.

·      He sends me the most hilarious YouTube videos at work, and attaches the funniest commentary.  I don’t know how he finds them, but they totally make my day when they come.

·      He dotes on my mom to such a degree that I’m constantly torn between making barf noises and going off to sulk that I’ll never, ever find a love that good.

·      He never lets me forget that, no mater how far away I go or how old I get, he’s still my dad, and I’m still his little girl.  And that’s just the way I like it.

 

Just So Out of It.

I used to be that girl: the one who was first to get to the office, and last to leave; the one who would take quick lunch breaks and get back to work; the one who always walked around smiling and energetic. You know, the girl who really cared.

I think that girl is temporarily under a storm cloud. I’ve been in this funk, and nothing seems exciting. I’m not falling for any of the usual seductions: the blog holds no interest. Cheese doesn’t sound that tasty. Even the promise of Friday night seems rather lackluster. And, to top it off, I’d rather eat this sad granola bar than take a field trip to Chipotle. What! Is! Wrong here?

I went to a work conference this morning down on Embassy Row, which was pretty exciting. But I just kind of sat there. My panel of interest ended at 10.15, and walking back, I just sort of wandered: I just walked, and walked, and walked, looking at the houses and wondering what it would be like to live in them. I found myself in a park down in Georgetown (read: in the wrong direction). Rather than snapping to it and saying, hey, this isn’t where I should be! I’m at work!, I slid onto a bench, watching the world of stroller runners and mid-day dog enthusiasts from behind the shield of my sunglasses. One of these things is not like the others: gold star if you guess “girl in the business suit.”

I just stared for awhile, thinking about how nice it would be to be happy again. Such a nice thing, to have just sat there forever, to have said eh, whatever to work, and to have just, like, never resurfaced. I wonder if it would have even made a difference.

I managed to get back to the train, and to convince myself to get off at the right stop. If you get off, we’ll go get a tasty burrito, I said to myself. And a frappuccino! You love frappuccinos. Now move.

It got me off the train, sure, but I’m not rising to the bait anymore. I bet I have salmonella. That one mutant strain that crawls into your head, and just stays there. Stupid tomato farmers. Could be worse, I suppose; and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, yes?  Definitely looking forward to a weekend recovery.

My Imaginary Boyfriend.

So here I am, another day in my office with no windows, watching the clock tick, tick, tick by; looking at the picture of me and J from his Christmas party two seasons past and convincing myself that it’s real. I’m also eating thin mint cookies that miraculously presented themselves in my freezer this morning when I was looking for berries for a breakfast smoothie, so my mouth kind of tastes like Christmas, which is a nice tie-in (All right, magda, you’re cut off from caffeine effective: now).

I was talking with a friend of mine last night; she called to invite J and me to a barbeque she’ll be throwing next weekend. My calendar was free but, in typical J fashion, he had an outstanding obligation.

“You know, Magda, I’m beginning to wonder if this guy exists!” she said. Jokingly, of course, but it gave me pause: I’ve been dating the guy for a year and a half, and she’s never met him. She’s been my friend since college.

Granted, I don’t see her all that often, but every time we have managed to coordinate, J’s been absent, or has had to duck out at the last minute.

Now I’m trying to think if there are other people out there who suspect, even subconsciously somewhere in the back of their heads, that I’ve just hallucinated him: the ghost guest perpetually on magda’s arm. He wanted to come, but. He wished he could be here, but. He may drop in later, but. A distraction born of desperation, do they think? Or maybe a brain tumor?

J is one of the most over-involved people I’ve ever met, and that’s where I lay the blame. He rides on a bicycle team. He trains for and runs marathons. He plays and takes lessons for the mandolin. He plays in (I’m sorry to say) a mandolin band. He manages/provides legal advice to a “real” band. He does a lot of “on the side” legal work for musicians/entertainment people. He works on the Hill being all legislatively influential and important.

Here’s a little contrast. I go to work from 9-5. I sometimes grade essays. I read a lot of novels. And that’s all, folks.

Sometimes it’s really hard being in a couple with this kind of imbalance; it leaves me with a lot of sort of “grey area” time on my hands.

I’m constantly saying no to my single friends, the friends who tend to call spontaneously on a Friday night and want to hang out. Especially on weekends, there’s kind of a presumption that I’ll be spending the evening with J, and maybe I’m just getting old, but at the end of the week sometimes I like to just stay in. Even if we do nothing but hang out on the couch and watch dvds, it’s us time, and it makes up for all that we miss mid-week. I need more notice to disrupt that status quo, and it doesn’t take long for the phone calls to slow, slow, slow down. Ah, magda’ll be with her boyfriend, they say.

With my luck, the nights he’s out and I’m wishing said single friends would call and we could plan something, it’s my coupled friends who rise to the occasion (go figure) and they (naturally) want to go out in pairs. It’s easier to be a single girl amidst couples than one half of a whole, though neither is an enviable position; I feel like I spend all my time out with these friends missing J, and fixated on what they’re all thinking. “Oh, poor magda, couldn’t get her guy to come out,” they say in my mind. “Poor magda can’t find a boyfriend who’ll stand by her and be there.” Or, worst of all, “poor magda, this J character probably doesn’t even exist.”

He does, though! And he would come out, he’s just busy! Right? Right.

Really, though, he’s been SO busy recently that we’ve really only talked for a few minutes each night, right before I go to bed. I wake up and I start to wonder if it was all just some crazy dream. It’s only Wednesday, right, and the weekend wasn’t that long ago … but something about this week has felt so long, like it’s been AGES since we’ve seen each other, like he’s on the whole other side of the world and our only communication comes via very crackly, WWII-era transatlantic phone lines and the calls are so expensive and the background is so noisy that we can only get a few words in.

Right.  So now if you’ll excuse me, I have some cookies to eat and a boyfriend to call, just to hear his voice and prove that he’s out there, right here, in this same city. And not just in my head.