Behold: The Nabes

There are some new boys in my life. They are adorable and fun and have good taste in music and like to surf and wear costumes and tell me when I look pretty and they will even cook for me sometimes! And they have an adorable dog that’s besties with my roommate's dog. They are the Nabes! Neighbor + Babe = Nabe (It’s okay, I think they like being objectified.) One has a super cute accent and really long eyelashes and the other has an unruly mop of blonde curls and enjoys fixing lots of manly stuff. And one of their friends likes Wilco and the other one likes Dinosaur Jr. Did I mention they like to wear costumes?



Call Animal Control

And their dog is so cute! He is lazy and non-committal and hogs the bed because he is a boy, but he is a top-notch cuddler. Although he's no longer allowed in our house because he ate my roommate's 10 freshly baked pumpkin muffins from off the counter. And the day before, he ate the package of chocolates that her boyfriend had sent to her from the Bahamas. But he can’t help it if he gets the munchies. (I had some time off from work for Thanksgiving, so like any normal person, I spent it taking pics and videos of two dogs that aren’t mine. I will post the video later so that you will have something awesome to look forward to.)

What else? Ummmm. We went night surfing one time. And another day we made mudslides and drank them in the sunny front yard. And back before it got dark at 4:30, we would always take the dogs up to the little park at the end of our street so they could pee on each other. (Seriously.) Sometimes they grill and build little bonfires in our fire pit. Every now and then they let me tag along on Peter Pans’ Night Out (PPNO), so I am really learning a lot about “dating” in CA. And they offer advice on how to deal with jerkfaces like GPG. Who is coming over tonight. Who I might have hung out with two weeks ago? And maybe the week before that? Whatever! The holidays are tough and I’m going to get through them in my own way. (GPG also kind of paused and stopped talking when he saw the flowers that a nabe got me for my bday. He was very jelsorama, thanks to my nabe.)

Speaking of holidays, my bff told me to get through them by embracing the few things about them that I love. Like peppermint chocolate flavored anything. I am having lots of that. I have also applied this way of thinking to dealing with the cold out in CA. I love boots, but I could only wear them in Florida, like, maybe 15 times a year. Now I can wear them every GD day. In other acclimation news, I sucked it up and bought a warm wetsuit and a space heater. I am down to only two blankets on my bed and I try not to turn the space heater past the second level. Sometimes I wear shorts when it’s cold because I know deep down inside me, there is that little idiot who used to wear her daisy dukes and a tank top every time the temp got above 50 during Ohio winters. I am confident that I can get back to that sort of asinine behavior in another year.



View at the end of my street



As far as this past year goes, it sucked and was super stressful. But now I am settling in at my job and am even starting to enjoy it since I got a promotion. I live in the best house in the best part of town. I can walk to Swami’s and crawl home from the Saloon. I have the best nabes ever. Vegas Model Judger is right up the road. My Fun Couple who moved to Brooklyn will be back for the holidays. And of course I have Sea Pony and her upcoming wedding to plan outfits for. I just need to find a date for that. I have five months to do so…



Dramazon's Birthday Week

From CakeCentral.com

I knew the weekend had passed because I didn't hear from GPG for three days.  Even after he said he could do the Saturday night dates.  But Tuesday brings a shower of attention from Jerkface.  He kept calling and texting, even reminding me that my birthday was on Wednesday.  After his fifth call of the day, he revealed that he would like to take me out to a birthday dinner, but had a client dinner on Wednesday, so could I do it tonight (Tuesday)?  Now, I know I had promised my readers that I wouldn't accept anything less than a Friday or Saturday night dressy dinner date, but I couldn't help that 1) I like to milk my bday for all it's worth, and 2) I had a lame mid-week bday.  And in my defense, I had also emailed him that on our next date we would not be having sexy times. (Mostly because I was pissed about the past few weeks, but also because he was physically incapable of performing.  I reasoned that since there would be no sexy times, it meant he actually wanted to put forth some effort and hang out with me because he liked me and not the sexy times.)

I told him that he'd have to come up here.  He said that was fine, and would I mind going kind of early since he was still not 100% after impaling himself?  I said sure and tried to prepare myself for the inevitable letdown.  But I would not be let down without a fight.  I deliberately refrained from warning him that my dog will attack anyone who comes through our gate unescorted - partly because I wanted him to get eaten alive and partly because I wanted to see if my dog would actually like him.  I put on a hot dress and heels.  Then I noticed it was freezing and had to switch to a sweater and jeans.  The dropping temp also meant that my roommate closed the front door so my dog couldn't run out and attack GPG on sight. 

This was actually better, because the fact that my dog couldn't see the scary burglar worked her up into quite a frenzy.  GPG asked if he were about to be eaten from outside my door.  I opened the door so that my dog could attack him, but the damn traitor was instantly wooed.  I followed suit because Jerkface actually brought me flowers.  I know, right?  I mean, he is all about letting me know he will not put forth any effort.  Ever.  And it wasn't the cheapest bouquet that the grocery store had, either.  I was torn between giving positive reinforcement and not reacting so he'd know that a bouquet is a generic, empty gesture.  But it was my birthday, so I proceeded to coo effusively over the flowers.  And then I had to compete with my damn dog, who was sashaying around and showing him all of her favorite toys, like a pathetic, needy, attention whore. Shameless, really.  At least my roommate maintained her icy, awkward demeanor the entire time.

Jerkface says we can go wherever I want for my birthday dinner, so I request the chocolate chip bread pudding place.  We go and have a great time.  I'm not sure what his deal is, but when I told him how my friend had wanted to come get bread pudding but I forbade her lest he think I was trying to trap him into meeting my friends, he is just so darn hurt that I have such an unfavorable opinion of him.  Of course he would love to meet my friends!  And when talking about my fruitless job hunt, he tells me to apply for jobs at his company.  Yeah right, I snort, as if!  Again, he's taken aback by my assumption that he would think I was stalking him if I applied to work at his company.  Maybe he was on meds?

Regardless of his oddly open demeanor, it's nice to just relax and be my feisty, dorky self around someone.  And he takes entertaining me pretty seriously.   Which I love.  Like everyone, he is skeptical about the chocolate chip bread pudding, but he has to admit it's amazing.  After about three hours I am aware I have hearts shooting out of my eyes like a cartoon character. I look like Pepé le Pew.  I try to cover it up, but he sees.

There is some messed up stuff going on here!

The next day he calls to sing me happy birthday.  The day itself is pretty lame because I have to go to the doctor because my face and neck are numb a lot, and it's been a year since my last car accident.  Jerkface even calls to see how the doc visit went.  And then he texts me later to make sure I am going out for my birthday.  That's nice, right?  My girlfriends took me out for more chocolate chip bread pudding!!!  It was fun and I'm pretty thankful I have such awesome friends who help cushion the blow of eventually dying alone. 

And if you're looking for gifts that will scar your four-year-old daughter for life, why not get her a deck of Old Maid cards?  I'm sure she'll turn out just fine.

Jerkface is on a roll and texts me again on Thursday to see if I had a good time on my bday.  We text all day.  And then nothing on Friday.  So I text him.  No response.  Saturday brings lots of blog fodder, but no GPG texts.

I Should Probably Wear a Helmet

So I guess I am still two weeks behind in filling you in on my boring life that only seems interesting because you are married and are surrounded by screaming children and you wish you could go on dates with guys who are pretending to like you just to see if they can get  in your pants.  I would be more motivated to update if I actually had anything pleasant to report.  But, there are some funny parts in my story, so I'm going to try to cover the last two weeks...

Jerkface told me to dress comfortably and come over around 7 last, last Thursday night.  So I put on my lululemon pants that make my butt look big and my Wonder Woman t-shirt for extra Amazon strength (and b/c it is tight on my boobs).  I show up, and once again Jerkface is sitting on the couch and tells me that the door is open.  Then he sees that it's locked and gets up to let me in.  So I am pissed from the get-go.  Again.  I brought over a nice bottle of wine and some tomatoes from my roommate's garden b/c he loves tomatoes.  (I hate tomatoes.  Just smelling them makes me ill.  And I had to pick them and regardless of how many times I scrubbed my hands, the tomato stench just wouldn't go away.  Picking tomatoes for someone is a fairly serious commitment for me.  It's akin to giving someone a kidney.) 

He opens the bottle of wine and wants to sit at his kitchen table and get caught up and just "enjoy each other's company."  I drain my glass of wine as he talks about himself.  I am buzzed.  Glancing around, I notice there are no pots going on the stove.  I ask what we're having for dinner.  Feigning surprise, he says that he was just going to eat some tomatoes and skip dinner altogether.  You know, because, it's weird that I would want to eat dinner.  I give him a dirty look.  He offers to make something gross that I don't want.  Another dirty look.  He offers to take me out, but does so with a pained expression.  I tell him not to bother.  He fills up my glass.  I sulk and complain that I would not have come down if I'd known heirloom tomatoes were the only thing on the menu.  He says that we will have to communicate more in the future.  I want to tell him that I know he is playing dumb on purpose and it has nothing to do with communication.  I'm pretty sure he suspects I am using him for free dinners. 

We move to the couch and he is excited to show me videos he took of him riding his bike in BC.  They were fun to watch.  I guess.  He states that he had so much fun he is probably going to go on another (solo) vacation soon.  I want to scream. And then he brings the weirdness - it's really not an official GPG post until the weirdness is broughted.  Taking a deep breath, he turns to me and says: "You know, I wanted to stop seeing you when you said you hated the mountains.  Hate is a very strong word, and I don't like when people use it.  I grew up in a multicultural neighborhood and a lot of people didn't get along.  So it really disturbed me when you used such a strong word so casually."

You read that right, folks.  He wanted to stop seeing me because I used the word hate, not in a malicious or hurtful or bigoted manner, but because like everyone else, he was persecuted for one thing or another during his childhood, and was now scarred so I must now censor myself.  Guess what?  I was called Medusa by every boy in the 4th grade who would then act like they turned to stone when I looked at them.  You don't see me avoiding Greek mythology.  Or snakes.  Or geologists.  AND I knew that the mountain comment was something I had probably said the first time I met him, just so he knew I would not be going on any ski trips because I HATE THE MOUNTAINS.  I do.  That is where Skeletor and Gargamel and all
other scary people lived on Saturday morning cartoons.  Mountains are fun to hike in the summer, but in the winter, they are full of cold and ice and long lines of weekend warriors trying to ski. 

I drained my second glass of wine while I tried to rein in the snark.  I told him that since I pretty much spent most of my adult life studying words and their power, I really didn't think he needed to get upset because I had used that word to convey feelings that I knew were out of the ordinary, especially since I had lived in Colorado and most people are amused by irony and my melodrama.  Okay, I didn't say the last part because he doesn't understand big words.  If I'd said I hate Catholics, or puppies, I could have understood his moral outrage.  I wanted to point out how ludicrous his statement was, but clearly there was something strange going on and I just didn't feel like dealing with it.  I also wanted to point out that if some offhand comment I made months prior was all he could find that was wrong with me, perhaps he should be a little more appreciative of my company.  Instead, I apologize for my insensitivity (he either ignores or doesn't notice the sarcasm), and seems relieved to have gotten that off his chest. 

I only let him pour me half a glass before I go back to complaining about how hungry I am.  Again he offers to make something or take me out.  I tell him that now I'm too full on wine to eat anything.  He acts like I am being a pain.  I guess I am, but it's warranted.  Right?  He puts some music on and lets me play dj for a bit.  That makes me happy.  He talks about how he loves to go out dancing.  This is one of the things that I liked about him in the beginning, because no straight white guys make a point of mentioning that they like to go out dancing.  And here we are, three months later, without any actual dancing having transpired. 

We make out.  We move to his ridculously small bed.  Things FINALLY go the way I want them to, although I am sure his neighbors will tell him to limit my wine intake in the future.  Then I fall off the bed.  I'm lying on the floor thinking maybe he hadn't noticed.  I plan to casually crawl back in bed, but he starts laughing and made some remark that I can't remember.  I grab my pillow in a huff and head out to the couch where it's quiet.  And then I can't sleep.  I lie there until five, and then I start to realize every girl's worst fear:  this guy is only pretending to like me so that he can have sexy times and I just became his midweek booty call who doesn't even rate high enough to take out to dinner.  And I had picked him tomatoes!  Mother effer!  So I pack up my things, making sure not to straighten anything or do anything considerate like turn any lights off, and I leave at 5:30.  I feel better.  More in control.  And a little crazy because I didn't really sleep or eat anything.

At 7 a.m. GPG texts me a pic of his cool car that looks just like the convertible in "Teenage Dream" that maybe I had pictured myself riding down to Mexico in for a beach party / surf trip at some point in the near future.  He wants to know why I left.  He calls at noon  and gets sent straight to voicemail.  I call my one friend who is always 100% honest and doesn't just tell me what I want to hear (everyone needs a bff like this), and she is on Jerkface's side and tells me that her husband has never opened the door for her in his life.  I said that I'm sure he did when they first started dating.  She wasn't so sure.  She says I need to call Jerkface and level with him and at least let him know that I'm not down with the being Thursday night booty call girl. I wait for him to call over the weekend and make some sort of grand gesture.  Doesn't happen.  I compose several mean texts, which may or may not have made fun of his "hate" issues, but never send them.  I call him on Monday morning with a well-rehearsed farewell voicemail message all ready to go.  I am a little bummed that the last time that he will ever see me was after I fell off the bed.




(How I did not spend my summer vacation)


Jerkface answers the phone, foiling my farewell plans.  I don't get it.  If you don't like me, don't answer the phone.  If you just want sexy times, go a different route with someone who isn't so prone to pouting and overanalyzing.  Jerkface is all, "Where'd you go?  You disappeared from the face of the earth this weekend."  As IF we ever hung out on the weekends.  I told him I was tired and HUNGRY so I had left early.  He was like "Uh huh, what else?"  I told him there was nothing else.  He continues to ask what was really wrong.  I told him I'd had a little freakout.  "Uh huh.  I figured that.  Why?"  "Uhm, because I don't want to be anyone's midweek booty call."  (Not entirely true - call me Paul Walker!!)  "Okay."  And that was it.  No "well sorry, but that's all I'm looking for right now."  No "well that will never happen again because I really like you; I just have a hard time expressing my true feelings."  Nada.

I bitch about him not opening the door.  He tells me I'm wrong and that he did get up.  I tell him that it doesn't count because the door was locked.  Then he starts to say how much he usually likes to go out, but how he just doesn't have the energy right now and how he likes to stay home.  And he apologizes for not making better plans for dinner, but WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGING THAT HE AVOIDED MAKING CONCRETE PLANS because he wants to see how little effort he can put forth and still get away with it.  I tell him that I was pretty upfront about not being a homebody from the get-go, and that he shouldn't have pretended to enjoy going out if he really doesn't.  He maintains that he does like to go out, just not right now.  Then, for the first time ever, we have a prolonged awkward silence on the phone.  He starts to say something, but I interrupt and tell him I have to go.  I hang up.  We text a little bit (this was last Monday) throughout the day, but the texts are forced and unfun.  I figure that's that.  Go about putting the finishing touches on a website I've been working on for awhile and try not to think about what a chump I was with GPG.

I start to think about So-So Nice Guy (I think that will be the final version of his code name), but decided that only an evil person would call him after dropping him for GPG.  So-So Nice Guy calls me out of the blue on Friday and says that he misses me and thought I needed some space.  This makes me feel awful about myself.  SSNG wants to go out for dinner on Monday (yesterday).  He also wants to help with my website.  Again, this makes me feel awful.  I reason that maybe I can start to like him once he loosens up and stops being so nervous around me.  And let's face it people, I like the attention.  Especially after being dumped by someone that I was never seeing in the first place. 

The weekend comes and goes.  I underestimate my PMS and make the mistake of going to a restaurant with some friends on Saturday night.  It was fun, but it was also where GPG and I went on our first date.  Back when I was given a meal.  I remember how we were sitting at the bar and he just leaned in and stole a kiss.  And how mad I got at him for doing something so douchey.  But now, thanks to PMS and pinot, it made me miss Jerkface.  But this is the longest we'd gone without talking.  Sunday morning I decide that inviting GPG to come surf would be a nice gesture on my part.  And, he doesn't write back.  I have fun surfing until I do a faceplant on someone's board.  Then my head hurt and I think I suffered permanent hearing loss in my left ear.  I try to go to bed early after checking my phone for missed calls/texts at least 7,000 times. 

Monday morning brings the usual "I just got this text because football is an excuse for everything" text from GPG.  I decide that having expectations with GPG only makes me hostile toward him.  I force myself to not look for meaning with him, and hope that at some point I meet someone who brings the laughs and the attention.  In the meantime, I text GPG as I'm getting ready for my date with SSNG, feeling good b/c whether or not he knows it (and whether or not it's true), I feel as though I have the upper hand again with GPG.  SSNG and I have a nice date.  I give him a spark-less goodnight kiss and go to bed.  The end.