Gotta start somewhere

It's been almost a month. I'm sleeping on the floor (on my mattress, because like fuck was I leaving that) of a friend's spare room, about 10 miles from work. I'm drinking a lot, but not going out every night and drinking like I was, just drinking here, with one or both of the two people I feel like seeing on a regular basis. I'm sick a lot too, whether because of the stress, or the drinking, or because I don't get out to Del Mar to see my chiropractor, or some combination thereof. I spend a lot of time sitting in a darkened room - like right now for example, when I keep trying to tell myself to get up and go for a walk because it's a beautiful day outside, but of course the idea of being out there alone terrifies me, so I won't. And I'm doing exactly what we all might have guessed I would do. I'm an imperfect person; condemn me if you have to.

And I don't feel old anymore. Sure, on bad days I feel depressed, like a failure, like an idiot, like a whore. On most days, I just feel numb. But on good days, I actually feel alive again.

W just found out about all of this; he IMed me and asked how Lui was, and I had to tell him Lui had broken up with me. (That's what I'm calling it - I'm not old enough for the word "divorce".)

"You're not a whore!" he said, when I told him Neuf had been spreading that rumor, even going so far as to convince Martin, who called me at work one day to cuss me out and hang up on me. "At least, not a very good one."

Then he added, "And I think you're strong and wonderful and beautiful and you'll get through it."

Because Margot asked.

I am ok. I am not more than ok. I don't really want to talk about it, but here's the to-do list for today.

1. Get ready
2. Find out how to break my lease
3. Go see Jovanna about how I'm going to pay rent on her couch
4. Take the rabbit to my parents' house
5. Visit Pigeon at work, for explanations and margaritas
6. Possibly go to chiropractor and/or nail salon
7. Go to Social Security so I don't have to waste another damn day feeling like I have no last name
8. Pack
9. Go ice skating and/or to batting cages to take my mind off it and/or beat the hell out of it

Tomorrow, I work at 7 a.m.

The lowdown

This is the email I sent to my friend Jo (who works at my gym) after she'd asked me to give her the details of my marital problems. I don't know how much insight it will or won't give the ten of you, who obviously know me better and know more about the situation to begin with, but I keep promising to fill you in, and copy-pasting seems easier than writing it all out again.

So basically... And this is going to be a lot all out of order...

Thanks to governments and visas and etc, Lui & I were forced to get really serious really fast. We've lived together since we got together - never actually "dated", and we'd decided within 3 weeks of being together (after 4 months of friendship, but still) that we'd get married. We had a ring within 6 months.

Also, in college, I was in a string of bad relationships - I'd been the other woman, the rebound, the one-night stand... been date-raped a few times... etc. Before I left for France, I'd just started dating this really great guy who actually, you know, respected me (W). So I told myself I deserved better, and resolved not to go out, drink, party, hook up with random guys (took a personal vow of celibacy, actually) while I was in France. I told a part of my personality that it wasn't going to exist anymore and let the other part - the grown-up, stays home and studies, thinks it's too much effort to go out every night part - take over completely.

Then I met Lui. And like I said, we were friends. I wasn't necessarily attracted to him, I didn't get butterflies, but we got along really well and could tell each other everything, and one night he told me he liked me, and I turned him down. A few weeks later, he'd met a girl and was planning on going on a date with her, and I was just jealous enough, didn't want to lose him, so I kissed him the night before his date with her, and that was that. It was romantic at the time, I guess, but also (I realize this mistake now) the moment that I kissed him in was when he was telling me about his grandmother who'd just passed away 6 months earlier, and he was all upset and maybe even crying.

So on the one hand, our relationship was probably founded on too much emotion. I feel like he's not a man, and now, three years later, find myself wishing I had a macho guy, a typical asshole, instead of this nice, polite, little momma's boy (and he IS - when our relationship started going downhill a few months ago, he told his mom first - worst thing he could've done), who wants to come home and cuddle and emote. I feel like he can't protect me. During the fires, he was panicking and it was making me panic - and I just wanted to get away from him, because without other people making me panic, I was fine. Sometimes I really think I'm a stronger person than he is, but deep down, I still want to be the girl, you know?

So basically after two years in Europe, playing house with him and telling myself that 2.3 kids and a golden retriever really WERE what I wanted out of life, I moved back here and the part of me that I'd rubbed out started to come back. So now I want to go out and have fun and flirt and drink and make bad decisions, and he feels like I'm not the "girl he fell in love with" anymore, but for some unknown reason, still loves me and wants to get her back. And here I am, tired of nice - from me (because it wasn't really me in the first place - I mean, I'm nice, but I'm not little-wife-nice), and from him.

In the meantime, he brought a bunch of his own issues to the table, having been cheated on by like every single previous girlfriend. So he doesn't trust me, or anyone really, and tries to pull me closer when I try to get away. Bad combination.

Plus we didn't have sex before we got married - because we were STUPID - and are now finding out that we're not really sexually compatible... Something that really we did know already from doing everything else, but figured would get better once we started actually doing it. Not true. And I hate to say this, but I think if we had right away, the relationship wouldn't have lasted.

And I'm having an emotional affair with this guy from my work (Irish). Like, technically, I'm not cheating on Lui, but I am completely attached to this other guy, and we hang out too often and too late at night and hold hands and talk about how in a parallel universe we would date each other. And with him, I get butterflies and all these other things I sort of just realized I haven't felt since I was dating W, before I left for France. Maybe I equated those feelings with bad relationships. Who knows. But I think I hardly ever felt them with Lui, if at all. And I know the first step is to stop seeing that guy in those circumstances, but he's also totally filling an emotional need for me right now, as I'm sure I am for him because he's also laden with baggage (but at least is more macho about it), so it's hard to let go of it. Also, how bad is it that I'm never as turned on while having sex with my husband as I am when this guy does something as simple as putting his hand on my knee?

And here's the really shitty thing - my sister told me last night, while lecturing me about how we need to go to counseling, both individually and as a couple, that she and her husband have known for a while that Lui & I probably weren't right for each other, but didn't know what to say or how to say it, and - much like we were ourselves - were too wrapped up in wedding planning to step back and be like, "Whoa, you guys have serious issues, maybe this isn't the right thing to be doing right now." And if she could see it, probably other people could see it, and the worst part is that I could see it and didn't stop anything either. I've known for over a year now, and I just kept telling myself it would get better...

So that's all of it, pretty much. Sorry if this was more than you thought you were getting. Your turn :)

So, blogging public... Before I start counseling tomorrow... Any questions?

Happy now?

I broke up with Irish on Thursday.

First, he called me from work to make sure we were still going to the mall to see our puppy. I asked him what he'd done on Halloween, and he told me he'd gone to this girl's house (which I knew) and that something had happened that shouldn't have: they made out in a hot tub.

I hung up on him, punched the wall a few times, and sat on the floor of my bedroom, cursing myself for being upset, knowing that I had no right. He still showed up, sat down next to me, and lectured me for the bruises on my knuckles, saying now he really has to teach me how to fight. He also explained what had happened - how he'd pushed her away twice before giving up, how he'd felt bad because, somehow, he felt like he was cheating on me - like, how could he tell me how much he likes me and then turn around and kiss some other girl? I told him that was more or less why I'd punched the wall.

We went up to the mall and sat in our parallel universe for about an hour; Irish even had a whole conversation with the pet shop employee about how close we were to buying this dog, and had her totally convinced that we were a couple... Which I guess wasn't that far of a stretch.

He went to play volleyball. I went home.

We had a store meeting that night, and about eight of us went to Friday's afterward - the official end of Sober October, and for some reason, two drinks was enough for me. I'd planned on breaking up with him, and I'd planned on being drunk when I did it, but what ended up happening was, instead of sitting in his car and talking like usual, we both fell asleep in our respective seats. When we woke up, around 3:00, I wasn't nearly as eloquent as I'd been in my head all afternoon.

"I can't believe we fell asleep," I said. "There were things we were supposed to talk about tonight."

"Like running away together?"

I smiled. "No... I have to break up with you."

"I know."

"Lui and I are starting counseling, and we have to give it an honest try, and it's not an honest try if you and I are still..."

"I know. And I hope it does work out for you guys, and I think it will..."

"But if it doesn't - I mean, we're going to put a time limit on it, so we're not just waiting for things to get better for the rest of our lives. Maybe six months, maybe a year."

"I really think you will work it out with him," he said again.

That's funny... I don't.

**I know I have yet to explain to you, blogging public, everything that's wrong with my & Lui's relationship. But I guess I keep thinking I don't have to, because either I talk to you individually, or, as I'm quickly finding out, you all sort of suspected that Lui and I would have these problems all along. So did I. We start counseling on Tuesday...

Okay, Monica, you can come fix me now...

"The parallel universe does exist, and it's in a 3-foot-by-3-foot cubicle."

I can't help but think back to early 2002, when B and I used to talk about how we could date each other if we lived in a parallel universe - only this time it's me with the extenuating circumstances (or the more obvious ones) that force that big if.

Needless to say, Irish and I finally rehashed the elusive conversation while sober. And we both probably said things that crossed the line we're walking, but it does feel safer, somehow, to have it all out in the open. One reassuring thing is that he admittedly agreed with C-List (whose comment he hadn't even heard), saying that sitting in reclined car seats, especially after drinking, is always a bad idea. The rehash took place in upright seats. So at least there's that.

He tried to kiss me on Friday. Not actively tried, just - we were outside his house where we'd been washing cars. He was bumping a volleyball around with his cousin and his nephew. I'd just come outside after changing from car-washing clothes to going-to-see-Nightmare-Before-Christmas clothes. I don't remember what I said to provoke it, but I distinctly remember him laughingly running up to give me a hug - and you know when you just know someone's going to kiss you? I felt that sensation wash over me, and I froze. But he didn't kiss me. But he later admitted that he almost had, that he'd had to stop himself. Then he apologized.

Which isn't to say there haven't been similar offenses on my part. Incidentally, he found it hilarious that I equate his begging me to hit him with foreplay.

Amanda & I made last-minute plans to go to Rocky that night, and I convinced Irish to tag along. We had fun - all of us, I think. In the car on the way home, he looked at me, smiling, and said, "I've never seen you so perfectly happy," and, as a result, "I can sum it up in three words: Sarah. Jessica. Parker." (His most beautiful woman on the planet.) He promised he'd never make a move on me, although, he said, if I were to make one on him, it would be really hard to say no - but that he would have to, he would stop it, maybe after just one kiss, just to know what that would be like.

I told you things were said that crossed the line.

Yesterday afternoon, we went to the mall to look at puppies. There's this amazing pet store there that lets you sit in a little room and "exercise" (translation: fall in love with and want to buy) the puppy of your choice. We chose a female beagle, who Irish affectionately named Daisy, after she kept trying to eat the flower adornments on my flip-flops. And the pet store employees let us stay in the cubicle with her for about an hour, either because they thought we were a couple seriously looking to buy, or maybe just because they could tell we needed it.

So for about an hour, we sat too close on black leather footstools, while this awkward, wiggly little bundle of adorableness climbed all over us and ran between our feet. His head on my shoulder, my cheek on his head, his hand on my leg. When we finally left, he started in with his "the parallel universe does exist" comment, and we both cursed the mall for its resemblance to reality, and then he jokingly pushed me over the back of a couch in between mall kiosks, and suddenly we were fine again.

But later we also breached the subject of what we're going to do about it. I mean, I feel better having it out there as opposed to bottled up, but that doesn't mean we can keep talking about it whenever we're around each other - we'll drive ourselves crazy, not to mention that it wouldn't be fair to, well, any of us.

I told him he had to come up with a plan because I had nothing.

"Well... Can we go to Vegas?"

"As in, 'whatever happens in'?" I laughed. "Sure."

I was in my car, about to go home, about to go out for dinner with Lui to talk about all our problems (maybe for another entry). "So that's the plan," he said. "We'll go to Vegas."

"And that'll fix everything? One weekend." Because, seriously? I doubt it.

"Only our Vegas can be Disneyland instead." He was referring to the trip we're taking after Christmas - I already have permission from Lui to go. And with that, he shut the door on me and walked up the driveway.

Suddenly, I knew how he felt the other night in the hotel. I rolled down my window and called after him, "Not fair!"

Twenty-two hours later (but who's counting?), I still haven't heard from him.

I remembered one more

Him: Lui's so lucky to have you. I mean, if anything ever happens between you guys, I'm just gonna go up to him and ask him, "What's it feel like to know you hold the world in your hands? ...What's it feel like to drop it?" And then I'm gonna walk away.

---------------------------------

Apparently, they like each other now. They went out tonight, for two-and-a-half hours, and apparently bonded. Lui says they didn't spend the whole time talking about me - but he won't tell me what they did say about me either. Whatever, I'm sure I can get it out of Irish tomorrow...

Advice en route to Portland

C-List reported to me last night from a Shakespeare-themed hotel in Ashland (I'm jealous):

"oh, I know you know what I'd say
telling you off isn't my style anyway
just... y'know... I think you're too smart for this ;)
I mean, for many more of the hand-holding, seat-reclining, hair-brushing-away-from-face sessions
specifically after a night of drinking
So why would I need to lecture you?"

Incidentally, thanks to her, Portland is my new evacuation plan - y'know, in the event that San Diego burns down, or Lui gets too crazy, or some other insufferable disaster occurs.

Ok, now I'm walking the line

So Saturday night, a bunch of us went out to TGI Friday's after work. With Sober October in mind, Irish & I were planning on having one drink, then watching everyone else get trashed. Then while at work, I decided I didn't really want to go after all - he'd met some girl a few days before, and they'd been hanging out that morning and he'd invited her to meet him at the restaurant, and I didn't want him to feel responsible for me if he would rather be with her.

"Don't be ridiculous," he told me. "You're much more important to me than she is, and if she can't handle me giving you a ride home at the end of the night, then fuck her."

So I decided to go. And somewhere in there, we also decided to drink. A lot.

After three Car Bombs, a shot of Tuaca, and a beer (I cut myself off and gave my beer to another member of my Top 5, whose current facial hair makes him look like the Princess Bride's Westley), Irish and I decided it was far too cold to walk back to my apartment, and decided to sit in his car to sober up instead.

My world was spinning, so he recommended I focus at a stationary point in the distance, which I did. He asked if I was ok.

"Physically? Yeah, I'm fine."

"And emotionally?"

"I'm fine."

"No, what's wrong? Just say it, Elle. Say what you don't want to say."

And you'll have to bear with me now, because although I remember the gist of the conversation, I don't remember many details. What I do remember is that I claimed to have no idea what he was talking about, and somehow made him say it first. I also remember the following details:

Him: Turn around and look at me.

Me: I can't; your face is too close up and I can't focus on it.

Him: Just turn around. The back of your head isn't nearly as pretty as the front of it.

-------------------------------------

Me: So all this drama with these other girls - [coworker], [crazy non-roommate], this new girl... Is it just to see how I'll react?

Him: No.

-------------------------------------

Him: I know you're not [fiancée]. Certain things about you remind me of her, but you're a totally different person.

-------------------------------------

Me: I have brothers who are older than you!

Him: So? What's wrong with dating younger guys?

-------------------------------------

Him: I hate that I look just like my dad.

Me: Why? There are less attractive people you could've looked like.

-------------------------------------

Him: Have I thought about what it would be like to kiss you? ...Yes. Would I ever do it? No.

------------------------------------

Him: So did you hear everything you wanted to hear?

Me: I guess so... Did you hear everything you wanted to hear?

Him: Yes.

-----------------------------------

Most of this conversation took place while lying in the reclined seats of his car (after the world stopped spinning), holding hands, or him brushing the hair off my forehead, or me putting my hand on his cheek. He also kissed my cheek when we finally said goodnight (4 a.m.), which was a first, though I've kissed his a few times now, never to have it mentioned after that first night at Barbie's bachelorette party.

I'm pretty sure the bottom line was, "I like you, you like me, we're never going to act on it, let's keep being great friends." We talked a little on Sunday and vowed to have the conversation again while sober, to make sure everything was clear. Then the apocalypse came to San Diego, and survival drama became more immediate than personal drama.

Irish & I hung out last night, and our conversation only turned to Saturday's conversation so we could both claim we didn't remember any of it. He dropped me off at my hotel, took the elevator with me, then hugged me goodbye. We pulled away and sort of looked at each other.

"Go home," he said.

Without missing a beat, I answered, "You and I both know what we talked about on Saturday," then turned on my heels and started walking down the hall.

"That's not fair!" he called after me.

I heard the elevator ding. I turned back, but couldn't see him. "Yes it is," I said, not nearly loud enough for him to hear.

First things first

Irish came over the other night (while Lui was working a graveyard), panicking because some guy had been hitting on his crazy non-roommate friend while they were playing volleyball, and had gone so far as to smack her ass in a manner that caused her to look to Irish for help. Supposedly two guys had had to hold him back, and by the time he got to my apartment, he was still bouncing up and down, clenching fists, talking about going down to Mission Valley to find this guy and beat him up.

Eventually, I got him to calm down enough to sit down, and so we ended up sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor, across from each other with our knees touching, and he was begging me to hit him again.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

Because it feels like foreplay. "Because I have no reason to hit you. You don't deserve it."

"Please, Elle, just do it. Nothing will change, I promise. You'll still be a good person. Just hit me."

"I can't."

This went on for some time, and was becoming comedic, when I finally asked,

"Why? Why do you want me to hit you so much?"

"Because I didn't want to go with her. And if I had gone, I would've been driving. And I drive faster, so I would've passed the truck. I let her down. And now I've let [crazy non-roommate] down. They needed me, and I failed them. So please, Elle. Just hit me. Because she can't."

"No. I'm not gonna hit you. You don't deserve it. You didn't fail, you couldn't have known. And I'm not her."

And then he grabbed my hands in his and leaned forward so his forehead was on top of all four of our hands. And he started sobbing - not quite crying, but shaking, and apologizing: "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I asked you." And I rested my cheek on his head and just kept telling him that it wasn't his fault, that he couldn't have known, that he didn't fail anyone, and that I wasn't going to hit him.

Unfortunately, I think he has new ideas about doing everything he can to protect me, to break the curse of letting down every woman he cares about. Or something. And he's still trying to provoke me enough to hit him. But it feels more like a running joke now.

The text message that some of you got today

"Maybe not drinking during Sober October is something that has to be learned the hard way, at 3 a.m., in the TGI Friday's parking lot... Fuck."

I promise to elaborate tomorrow.

Go ahead: make my day.

I was helping my cousin Lev with some short-answer questions on an application for a teaching program.

"I would hook you up with my friend Libertine, who was also a poli sci major, and even worked in that field for a few years, and is now going to grad school for teaching... but she's totally disillusioned right now, so I don't think it'd help either of you."

"It's ok," he answered. "You're amazing as it is. I don't need anyone else."

The thing with the L-word

Irish has a thing for this girl at work.

She's a girl I really like, too, which means I hate myself even more for feeling personally rejected/jealous/confused (because shouldn't he not be over [fiancée] enough for this yet?). So he wanted to go get coffee after work yesterday, to talk about that, his inability to interact with women, and my & Lui's plan to better our relationship.

[Side note: in a previous IM conversation regarding Irish's inability to interact with women, I'd made a joke along the lines of, "And what the hell am I?" His response: "You're [fiancée]... kinda." It wasn't the first time he remarked on how much I'm like her reincarnated. I feel that this is probably not healthy.]

And because I wanted to make yesterday afternoon as spectacularly torturous as possible - first a bikini wax, then this coffee date to discuss things I'd rather ignore - I went.

It turned out not to be that bad, with him concluding that he shouldn't date people at work anyway because it could get awkward (although I did have to listen to some sappy bullshit about what a great smile this coworker has), with him more or less listening to me when I suggested he wasn't ready to date yet because if he was, the idea wouldn't freak him out quite so much, and, as mentioned in my previous post, with him telling me I'm going to be ok. So I felt like I was three for three, and as I no longer had the desire to ask him whether he's really just a pathological liar, we fell back into joking around like we usually do.

It bears mentioning that, a few weeks ago, Irish and I both came up with Top Five lists of people we work with, based on looks alone, and have given each other shit ever since about who we each find more attractive than each other. (This is friend behavior, right?) So yesterday we finally decided to revise the lists - or create new lists - to factor in personality. He went first, because there are only 22 women at our work and more than half are old enough to be his mother. And I came in an undecided first-or-second, sharing, of course, with the girl he's crushing on.

Then he had the task of naming all of the 40-plus males working in the store, so that I could narrow them down to about 10 maybes, and then refuse to make an actual list. It was a few minutes later, and we were talking about something else, when I finally rattled off, "You, Erik, Drew, Garth, Tristan." He got all excited ("I made number one?!" - I never did tell him whether or not he was even on my looks-only list, only ever joking with him that maybe on a good day, he could be number five), and then admitted that I was his number one, too, since he knows me better and spends more time with me than with the other girl. So I guess we were both stupidly pleased then. We agreed not to tell Lui that if we were going to date anyone from work, it would be each other. Later, when he hugged me goodbye, he called me "my number one".

But that's not the point of this story. The point is that as we were getting up to leave, we were making fun of each other or something, and - I wish I could remember what was going on, but - he said something along the lines of, "As much as I love you," or, "I still love you," or it may have just been "I love you", but with that casual, berating undertone that you use when you're testing that word for the first time. He probably thought nothing of it.

"I'm sorry, what?" I honestly hadn't quite heard, and was honestly taken aback. He repeated the playful dig exactly, and this time I definitely heard the L-word.

Imagine the character of Ursula (Phoebe's sister) on Friends. "...Okay."

The thing where Lui almost left

Friday night, after Barbie's rehearsal dinner, Lui wanted to make love (his words, not mine), and I wanted to go to bed. But I decided to be a good wife and give in, and we were standing there in the room kissing, and then I realized: we were standing there, and we were kissing. And Lui is a good 10 inches taller than I am, so standing up to kiss for prolonged periods really hurts my neck. And I've told him this, several times.

So we very quickly went from kissing to fighting.

And because I was tired, and really just wanted to be asleep, the fight was meaner than it should have been, and more brutally honest. I mean, I told him I'm not at all satisfied with our sex life. I told him I was waiting for him to leave because I wasn't going to be the one to do it. I told him I was unhappy, and, through my silence when he asked, let him believe that I don't love him anymore.

He was in the closet, sobbing, pulling on his jeans (we had been in pajamas already), when I caught him in a hug. I convinced him not to go just yet - he wasn't leaving, just going out for a while to clear his head, but still - and we talked for real: he's thought about leaving, even went so far as to ask his mom what if he came home (she told him he wouldn't be welcome, that he was married now and had to stick it out even in the rough times); I do still love him, but am at a place where I have a hard time seeing it right now; I feel like, since our relationship has always functioned with one care-taker and one dependent, we don't even know each other as adults. And we made some plans: we're going to employ the "Be, Do, Have" philosophy to our relationship - act the part of the happy couple, believe it, become it; the next morning while I was with Barbie getting manicures, he researched some options to fix his sexual problems (although what I haven't told him yet, but have alluded to in conversations with Irish, is that my emotional limitations may be having as much if not more of a negative effect on our sex life as his physical ones), and decided that, if all else fails, he's open to the idea of circumcision; I told him that I sleep better when he's next to me, and that he's my favorite pillow, and so convinced him to put his pajamas back on and stay. Then we made love, no standing involved.

The next day was great. Barbie's wedding was beautiful, and Lui and I had a great time dancing together and being together. My "walking buddy" kissed me on the cheek in one of the photos, then later went up to Lui and said, "How's it going, man? I kissed your wife." And Lui just laughed (he already knows & likes the guy), and was not the crazy jealous person he sometimes can be. And today we went to Disneyland and got those "Just Married" buttons from Guest Relations and wore them around the park all day - we think they even helped us get walk-in seating at the Blue Bayou.

I mean, it hasn't been a complete 180 - the problems are still problems - but the Be, Do, Have thing seems to be working pretty well. (It's very The Secret of us, don't you think?) I explained it to Irish when we went for coffee yesterday (more on this next post), and his reaction was, "The way I see it, there's two options: either everything will get pushed down and bottled up and one day you'll both realize you've been pretending all along and it'll end in an explosion... Or else it'll work." He was silent for a minute, looking at me. "I think you're going to be ok," he said.

The thing with the babies

I feel I should mention that Irish & I are giving ourselves breaks from Sober October, with the theory that if we drink nothing for 40 days, then start drinking again, we're going to binge-drink (this will probably happen anyway, but hopefully just that first night). So we're allowing ourselves one drink a week, or two drinks every two weeks, which seems to work better - unless a pitcher-with-a-straw can count as "one drink".

So last Tuesday, we went out to Friday's with a couple other coworkers after a late-night staff meeting, and each had one Irish Car Bomb and one beer. And while this may not be enough alcohol for him, it is for me, so when we were sitting in his car talking afterwards, I was at the point of alcohol consumption that breeds emoting and honesty, and for once we were talking about my life, not his.

I admitted that I'm not entirely happy being married (duh?), not entirely happy with Lui, a little bored, a little frustrated, etc. And I admitted that I won't be the one to leave if things get bad enough, that I'd wait for Lui to make that move. And I admitted that getting pregnant seems like "quite possibly the worst thing that could happen to me right now." (I'm not, by the way. But hypothetically.)

Irish pulled me to him so that my head was on his shoulder, and started smoothing my bangs off my forehead. "It wouldn't be the worst thing," he reassured me. "I'd be there for you, whatever you needed. And the kid would have uncles - three of them. Hell, I'd kick Lui out of the delivery room."

I really didn't know what to say, having been able to understand the sentiment, but not the extremity of his words. "...Thanks."

Damn you, C-List for showing me this site!

Cancer Horoscope for week of October 11, 2007

I think it will be important for you to be brave in the coming days. Probably not in the sense of rushing into a burning building to save a child, but rather in the sense of expressing yourself with forceful grace in situations where you have previously been asleep or hidden or ignorant. In order to summon that much courage, you'll be wise to heed the advice of Buddhist author Pema Chodron: "The essence of bravery is being without self-deception." Be rigorous as you uncover any lies you've been telling yourself.

It's past my bedtime

So, I can't really remember how this came up in conversation, but Irish just explained to me how we could never date because I remind him too much of [fiancée], and that wouldn't be fair. And also because I'm married, which should have been able to go without saying since we were speaking in hypotheticals anyway.

So for those of you who were worrying - don't.

I just wanna say this.

Some of you have expressed concern about my "non-relationship" with Irish, or about the feelings I may or may not have for him and vice versa. You've read about similar moments between me and W, less frequent and less intense perhaps only because he lives across the country. You know - because I flat-out say it to anyone who asks - that I'm a little dissatisfied with my marriage, a little bored, a little frustrated. And in a sense, based on what you read here, you're right to be concerned. But believe me when I say that when I reflect on the situation/my life, I surprise myself: I never would've thought I could be this faithful for this long. And here's why:

My past relationships have all been dysfunctional. Try to name one where I wasn't the other woman, or the rebound chick, or rebounding myself. I've had the gods' giving out of flings, one-night-stands, secrets, lies, and illegitimate (or even denied) feelings. Before Lui came along, I had never been in a serious relationship where I was actually treated with a decent measure of respect. I jokingly prided myself on being a homewrecker, and I certainly never thought I'd have a "home" of my own.

I left for France three years ago, telling myself I deserved better than what I'd been getting. Consequently, I swore myself to celibacy for the year; consequently, I didn't go out and drink and party as much as I'd been used to; and consequently, my relationship with Lui was founded on a pedestal of extreme respect, the ramifications of which include the fact that we did not have sex before we got married, our mutual refusal to get drunk in front of each other, and my personal refusal to do anything kinky or experimental in the bedroom - even though (or especially because) I'd done most of it before meeting Lui. It's a slippery slope of this reasoning that probably leads to the ennui I'm experiencing now, but I can honestly say I don't want to turn things around now and go there with him either. This is the eventual father of my children we're talking about, and I honestly believe we're better than that.

Unfortunately, the former version of myself, though usually dormant, does make her way to the surface every once in a while. She craves excitement, thrives on having stories to tell, and, as my brother Joey put it, "has a flair for the dramatic." Call it the Leo cusp on my Cancerian personality, but believe you me when I say I'm a woman possessed by an insatiable longing to live at a higher frequency than that of the little wife. There are days when I wake up and wonder how I ended up here and when and how I can get out. (If you ever see a postsecret postcard that says, "I love my husband... But I still fantasize about him leaving me, or dying in a freak accident, so I can get my life back," it's most likely going to be from me.) This week's Grey's Anatomy and Knocked Up both really freaked me out because George O'Malley and Paul Rudd's character (note that they're both men) both vocalized pretty much the way I feel: once you're married, you're stuck.

With all that in mind, I consider it a fucking miracle that I haven't cheated on Lui yet. And it hasn't been for lack of opportunity - two summers ago, when I came home from France, I could have snapped my fingers and been right back on that piano. But I didn't. Barbie made out with two not-her-fiancés at my wedding. And I'm not judging - she can still sit poised with her head in the toilet and tell me I "don't have to stay" if she wants to, and I won't think any less of her or call her a hypocrite. It's just that, well, I kind of figured that if one of us was going to make a mistake like that, it was going to be me.

So don't be worried about me. Be proud of me, because I do see the bigger picture here. I get it. And my non-relationship with Irish is doing a really good job of feeding that other me, keeping her happy and sated, while I'm busy facing my real life and working on my marriage. So you guys have gotta trust me on this one - if there was any real danger of a real affair, I would be stupid to talk about it ad nauseum like I do. This too shall pass, and all that jazz. And seriously - what's the worst that could happen?

I wish I knew how to quit you!

"You" in this instance being my old job.

My crazy ex-boss called me a few weeks ago and left a message about the possibility of contracting me to put together the Choir's newsletter. I called her back, asked for details, and then didn't hear from her again... until Tuesday, when she conveniently called while I was on my lunch break at work. She offered to pay me $250, which will surely work out to something like $25/hour, so I couldn't really say no. Problem is, she wants it by next Friday, and she and her staff are totally non-helpful, lazy, hard-to-track-down people.

So I'm sitting here, with the program newly installed on Lui's computer, staring at an old template, not really knowing what to do next. Because I can't insert the new articles without writing them, can't write them without the necessary information, can't get the info if people won't throw me a bone. And of course everyone I need to talk to is out of town, or in a meeting, or at a doctor's appointment. And then it'll be the weekend. And then on Monday, there will only be four days until Friday. I foresee all this going poorly.

It's good money, Elle. You need it. And it's resume-building. You need that too.

Sucks.

Welcome to Sober October, everybody!

There is now in existence a picture of me eating rainbow-colored, penis-shaped lollipops with my childhood babysitter.

All things considered, Barbie's bachelorette party was pretty tame. We got too drunk too early, and she and I spent half of dinner in the bathroom - her puking, me verging on crying because, to put it bluntly and quickly, marriage is hard. Barbie had two pieces of genius advice: "You don't have to stay," and, "It feels good in the butt."

Then we sobered up a little and made our way to an Irish pub where a live band was playing. We flirted with the drummer, noted how old the crowd in the Gaslamp seemed, and Barbie's sister (the aforementioned babysitter) and I busted out the penis pops.

Then Irish called, as he'd promised he would - a reverse-drunk-dial because, by this point, he totally owes me. And somehow I convinced him to come down and meet up with us, which he did, just as Barbie and I were working to convince these Naval officers to buy us a round of Irish Car Bombs. (I'm sorry, are all the Irish things getting confusing? Between the pub and the person and the drinks?) I was, at this point, simply maintaining a nice buzz, but probably seemed a lot drunker than I felt, because I couldn't exactly walk straight.

"I'm here to babysit," Irish explained to the officers.

We walked back to our hotel shortly after the Car Bombs (thinking about it, I may have been the only girl to successfully down mine), and Irish followed, as it was on the way to his car. "No boys allowed upstairs," Barbie's sister cautioned as we walked through the glass doors of the Westin. So Irish and I sat down on some marble steps in the lobby. I felt a little dizzy, so I put my head in my hands, and he demanded to know what was wrong, unwilling to accept that it was just, you know, the alcohol.

"Fine, I'll go first," he said. And then he told me the truth - that he'd been an unwanted child of his Irish parents, who had beaten him until he was four and got adopted by his aunt and uncle; that the women he calls his "sisters" are really girls his aunt used to nanny for; that the house he now lives in is the one he grew up in... etc, etc, etc. And that nobody outside of his family knows this version of the story, because he's afraid of how they'd react. "But since you're replacing [fiancée] - or, not replacing, but taking her place - as the one person I can tell everything to..."

The look I gave him after I'd heard the real story must've been heartbreaking, because he's still talking about it now, four days later. "Why'd you lie to me?" was all I said. And he went on again about the unknown reactions, and his image as a tough guy, and the general embarrassment the whole thing could cause. I told him I didn't think it would be that bad, but then, I am a girl who has no secrets. "So now you go," he said.

He told me the next day that I'd said Lui thinks our marriage isn't working - which isn't entirely true; it's more like he worries about it. He told me I'd almost started crying and that he'd quickly changed the subject. I don't remember, don't know how much I believe. And like Monica says - and I paraphrase - even when you're crying, you should keep telling people you don't ever cry.

More of the story was related to me the next morning as well: "You kissed me on the cheek last night," Irish said over breakfast. (Bad as that sounds, it had been prearranged that he come to pick me up downtown while Lui was at the Chargers game, and we'd stopped at a Denny's on the way home.)

"Yeah, I do that sometimes... Is that ok? Because if it wasn't, I'm sorry, and I won't do it again." He back-peddled for a while, saying of course it was no big deal, even relating an anecdote where a middle-aged customer had kissed him on the cheek once because he'd helped her pick out what she was going to have for dinner that night. (But then... why announce it to me like that?)

I'd remembered this cheek-kissing business - I'd also remembered that after he'd walked me up to my room and we were standing in the hallway, we hugged like four times. What I genuinely hadn't remembered was why.

"It was after I'd told you that everything was going to be all right - at least on your end - and that if you ever needed anything, you can call me, day or night, while I'm at work, whatever, and I'll drop everything to be there for you."

Well in that case... Of course I fucking kissed him.

[Don't worry, kids. It's officially Sober October - for me, Irish, and Monica, at least - which means we're not in danger of anything like this happening again for about another month.]

I should not be allowed to buy Oreos anymore, because I eat too many of them.

This morning, Monica and I were having perfectly normal gchat session about bikini waxing, when...

Elle: remember when we were in college and you were like, "I just want someone to hold hands with"?
Monica: yes
Elle: those were simpler times
Monica: yeah, now i realize thats just my way of having my cake and eating it too... i want to have my cake, but i don't want to have to have sex with it all the time... ew
Elle: lol... I had a friend I just held hands with once
Monica: was he gay? i hold hands with brian mahoney
Elle: no, I married him
Monica: aww... sounds so good on paper
Elle: now I hold hands with this other guy, and it's like... I can't marry him too
Monica: lol
Elle: so it was a flawed plan to begin with
Monica: well, i think we get confused cus the hostess cupcakes come in packs of two

Neuf and Steven are almost done watching Twin Peaks, which means we get to start watching something else soon, like Freaks & Geeks, or Weeds.

Irish bought The Purpose-Driven Life, and is going to read a chapter a day for 40 days, starting on Monday. During that time, he's not going to drink any more than one-with-a-meal sort of thing. "I can't believe I bought a self-help book," he said.

"I know, especially after I just offered you one for free the other night... What changed?"

"I don't know... I think it took you - or just a friend in general - offering me one to make me realize that maybe I have more of a problem than I thought."

Whatever. I'll take it.

"Pain is weakness leaving the body"

Turns out, my brother Joey is having a thing with Emma - a flying-to-London-to-meet-up-with-her-as-we-speak sort of thing. Turns out everyone in our family knew about this but me, that is until Tuesday evening. So of course I flipped - the situation, while not ideal (he's into monogamy and has only ever slept with one girl; she's a social whore who thrives on infatuation until she gets bored, with a knack for manipulating guys into doing bizarre things for her - like flying to London maybe?) isn't the end of the world, but the secrets and lies? Totally are. I found out, through various IMs and texts, while half-asleep on the couch, so that I wasn't quite sure whether I'd dreamed the whole thing until Lui called me and then admitted he'd known for a while. I hung up on him, immediately called Irish (yes, in part because I knew it would piss Lui off), woke him up, tried my best to explain what had just happened (I was still half-asleep and not-quite-sure) and asked if we could go do something. He told me to meet him outside work in ten minutes.

So he returned the favor, so to speak, of all my "babysitting". He drove us to get coffee, then to the mall where we walked a lap of all three floors and looked at puppies in the pet store. We listened to Dennis Leary and Dane Cook and Chris Rock in his car so I would laugh and forget about the whole Joey-Emma ordeal, and he played more country songs for me and raved about how great they were. He also made me sing "Whiskey Lullaby" with him and was again impressed by my voice (maybe mostly by my ability to hit high notes). When I was about to leave, I gave him a hug and thanked him.

"Oh, of course," he said. "I only owe you about a billion talks by now." So he gets it too. That's good to know. And I went home feeling so, so much better.

Last night, I went out for ice cream (in the form of a breakfast burrito at Pokez) with Squeak. To sum up our conversation in two sentences: "What's up with the affair?" "What's up with the bulimia?"

Oh, also, my body is getting its revenge. I figure since I'm only getting one period a year, it thinks it gets to be 12 times worse. Yesterday and the day before were miserable (and not just because of the drama). I stole one of Lui's Vicodin tablets and have been carrying it in my wallet in a in-case-of-emergency-break-glass sort of way. But since I'm not sure what effect it'll have on me, I haven't brought myself to take it yet. Today's been better, too.

Irish asked me to hit him last night, sitting in the car after he'd brought me back from downtown. We'd been talking about how I've never punched somebody, but "it's on my list." We'd also been talking about how it was the five-month anniversary of his fiancée's death. He hadn't realized it until then, and I was holding his hand again, and he finally admitted to himself that she was actually gone. I mean, he was really amazed when he said it out loud. "I've been in denial for five months," he said. "Denial's not supposed to last that long - I read this article, on the stages..."

"It's different for everybody," I told him. "Not everyone experiences the same stages in the same order for the same length of time..." I wish he'd have taken the Grief Recovery Handbook when I'd offered it to him, but of course he'd refused, and now, instead, he was begging me to punch him in the face, to "snap him out of it."

I told him no. Repeatedly. First of all, he didn't deserve it. Secondly, I've never done it before, and I want my first time to be special, to really mean something - I'm saving myself for Piano Man, or Emma (that brother-stealing social whore), or at least some drunk guy trying to feel me up in a bar. Third, I didn't want to hurt him. But mostly, I couldn't help but think of the time Lui had asked me to slap him (I'd offered that service to Irish, as a substitute, but he said he didn't want to be "bitch-slapped") and my immediate instinct after I'd done it was to kiss it better. And I just couldn't guarantee that the same wouldn't happen this time. Already, it was kind of all I could do not to kiss the proffered cheek. Not that I would - like I've explained to those of you who've expressed concern (some on a daily basis), I could never make a first move here, because the whole situation just doesn't lend itself well to that sort of thing. Oh, and also because I'm married. Fuck.

For the record, Squeak met Irish last night. Didn't like him. Said he seems like one of those guys who stopped growing, physically and emotionally, in fifth grade. I didn't try to defend that statement, just corrected it, because - hello?! - it was seventh grade when he started dating [fiancée]. It's kind of uncomfortable, though, knowing that you're all probably reading this wondering what I see in this guy, even in the most platonic sense, and why I keep putting up with him. You're all shaking your heads thinking, "God, Elle has such horrible taste in men." Aren't you?

Great. It's just like old times, then.

Pregnancy test!

So hypothetically... If I were having sex with my husband, and then got up to go pee after (because you know, I'm a smart girl and do my best to avoid UTIs) and discovered that my period had just started... for the first time in almost 11 months...

Chances of my just having been impregnated?

Grocery clerk by day...

Margot, C-List, & I have been shooting an email back and forth comparing lives. My succinct update: "I'm working at Trader Joe's. And now have a full-time job babysitting a grieving, alcoholic 21-year-old, apparently..."

I may have made the mistake of reverse-drunk-dialing Irish after getting an email saying he'd left my number at home. He'd already played the Century Club, then started shooting tequila, then gone back to beer, and, he told me proudly, had "already puked six times." I won't give you the details - last I heard from him was an email at 7:30 saying they were about to start another Power Hour (60 shots of beer in 60 minutes), and as far as I know, he's still drinking.

While we were on the phone, though, he asked me if Lui knew I was talking to him. "Lui's not here, he's out picking up something for dinner," I explained. And then when he expressed concern that Lui would come home and be upset, "Don't worry, I'm watching out the window for his car."

Irish laughed. "Elle, we have to stop doing this!"

"This? There is no this!"

He agreed, vowing to have a man-to-man chat with Lui, some other time, when he was sober.

But now that I'm thinking about it, I can't help but wonder: is there a this? I mean, I'm pretty invested. And like I said, it feels like a full-time gig. He's giving me explanations and excuses, apologies and promises, like I'm someone he has to answer to. And I understand he might feel like nobody else cares or worries about him, but how much can I really do here? My cousin/voice of reason, Lev, just told me I seem kinda depressed. And... maybe. It's a lot to handle. I can only imagine how he must feel. And then we're back at square one, where I just want to help him, because... poor kid.

And besides, it is sort of gratifying, to feel needed.

Maybe I need to keep more uplifting company?

I dreamed last night that my dad had died, and that my mom killed herself because she couldn't live without him. They left these medals hanging from the branches of a tree, which was covered in similar hangings - it was in lieu of a graveyard, I guess, sort of like last words from the dead, and my mom's said exactly that: "I can't live without him."

[I've been learning the female part of "Whiskey Lullaby," by Alison Krauss and Brad Paisley, because Irish was so disappointed that I couldn't sing it with him in his car the other night, and, thanks to my dad's obsession, I happen to have access to an Alison Krauss CD. So this may have something to do with that .]

Looking at the two medals (I can't remember what my dad's said), I started to cry, even though I already knew they were both gone - it'd been a while. And just as I was sobbing, loudly, "Neither of my parents lived long enough to see me do anything successful!", my alarm went off.

I wondered, briefly if it was a sign that I should start making more of an effort to do something with my life. Then I got up and went to work at the grocery store.

WTF?

Now I'm getting drunk-dials? Now this I'm sure I didn't sign up for.

"Ok, I'll make you a promise - because you seem to actually care a little, because I can actually detect a note of concern in your voice - that I will not drink anymore tonight, and go to bed right now." (It took two phone calls and a total of about 20 minutes to get to that point from the original, "I'm so drunk - where are you? - I don't think I can drive that far - I wanna go out and drink more - you should come with me.")

Lui is pissed, demanding an Irish-free night, and saying wonderful, caring things like, "I don't care what he's been through, and I know he's been through a lot, but his problems don't need to become my problems."

Oh, I can see the headline now: Elle-Même saves Irish from himself, ruins her marriage

But wait!

I swear there's a good explanation for why, when Lui called me at 3:00 this morning, panicked because he'd woken up to sirens and I wasn't in the bed next to him, I was actually sitting in a car just outside our apartment, holding hands with another man.

It was meant to be a group outing - the trip over to TGI Friday's to get a drink after work - and Lui had been invited too, except that he was concerned about his own early start time this morning, and was thinking of going out with some of his own colleagues instead. So of course, it ended up just being me and Irish, and we vowed to make an alibi of a couple of the other guys, have them say they'd come out with us too (I mean, it wasn't a total lie - they'd been invited, and they'd wanted to go, they just couldn't for whatever reasons).

"You know that's gonna make it even worse, though," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, they're gonna give me so much shit for having to cover for us. People already come up to me all the time and ask what's going on."

"Really? No one says anything to me..."

"That's because you're the girl. But I can't tell you how many times I've heard, 'So... You and the new girl?' Or like when Kali pulled me aside and warned me, 'Careful, you know she's married.' Or how Danny and Kaine keep coming up to me and saying, 'So, you hit that yet?'"

I beamed, devilishly pleased to be thought of as something to be hit. Yep, quarter-century and she's still got it. "So what do you tell them?"

"What do you think I tell them? First of all, I'm not ready to date yet, at all. And even so, I mean, you're married. I tell them that we're friends, that you're easy to talk to, and that's it. I asked Kali [also married], 'So what is it when you and I go out to dinner, just the two of us?' That shut her up."

...

Two drinks in, I had enough balls (stupidity?) to joke with him that some of his stories are too good to be true, and how do I know he isn't just fabricating his whole life?

"I wish I was," he said sadly, then added, "But if somebody were to make up a life, with everything I've been through, that's just fucking sick and twisted."

"Well - don't be offended if I ever play the 'prove it' card - like, in a worst-case scenario, 'prove your family really lives in Ireland; prove [fiancée] really existed and that she really died' - that sort of thing."

"No, I won't be. You're just being guarded. I get it."

And I was satisfied on that topic.

...

We pretty much closed the restaurant - not quite, we left around last call - and after trying to prove that his car could get up to 80 on a quarter-mile hill leading away from the store ("There are certain things about you that remind me of [fiancée], like how we can just sit for hours and talk about nothing, or how she was the only girl that liked my reckless driving - all the other girls who've been in the car with me think they're gonna die..."), we sat in his car out front of my apartment, debating whether I'd be ok walking up the stairs on my own, or whether he should brave the cold, Autumn Equinox air and walk me up.

And then somehow the conversation turned, and we were talking again about his life, his past, his world being turned upside-down. "I probably won't sleep tonight," he said. "I'm just gonna go home and stare at the ceiling - I do that a lot."

"You should paint something on the ceiling, so you'd have something to look at," I offered.

"I like it white though. Because then... it's blank... it's nothing... it's... me." It seemed a little contrived, or maybe a little too perfect. He went on. "If you don't think, you can't feel; if you can't feel, you can't feel pain."

I think that was the point when I reached out for his hand, and in an incredibly smooth move, hit the armrest between our two seats and made a loud noise, disrupting the moment just enough to make him look and make me feel stupid. I grabbed his hand anyway. He didn't hold mine back, just kept staring straight ahead, telling me how God had totally deserted him, how he didn't know what happens next. So I didn't let go. Then he gave me a couple anecdotes: the time he parked his car at Torrey Pines Beach as the marine layer was coming in, paddled out on his surfboard until he was exhausted, and then fell asleep, only to wake up on the beach about 20 miles south in Point Loma, having been pulled in instead of out as he'd planned; the time he drank a handle each of Jack & Jim before bed, but still woke up the next morning. ("Damn Irish blood," he joked.)

"See? You haven't been completely deserted," I offered.

"Yes I have!" he shot back emphatically. Then, "Or I had, up until about three weeks ago."

It took a second to register, and then I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time, that wash of cold blood inside you when you realize you're sharing a moment. I squeezed his hand a little tighter, but didn't say a word - I was at such a loss.

At some point, Irish turned his hand over and started holding mine back, and the blood was just starting to drain from my fingertips from all the active listening, when we heard the sirens go by. We started joking about how Lui had sent the cops out looking for... one or the other or both of us, really. "Mr. Même, we found your wife," I said sarcastically, and that's when the phone rang.

I fumbled one-handedly with my new flip phone before finally letting go of Irish's hand. Made my excuses to Lui - I'd just gotten back, I told him, we'd closed the bar and then talked in the parking lot for a while, I'd be right up - and then gave Irish an awkward, inside-the-car hug. "Take care of you," I said against his cheek. (I don't know why I keep using that line, but thanks to Monica, I finally know what movie I stole it from (Pretty Woman). I guess it just sounds less formal and threatening than the grammatically correct, "Take care of yourself.")

"I will," he said against mine.

Ever get the feeling you're watching someone else's life, when really it's your own?

We got our wedding photos back. To be honest, I'm a little disappointed. There are some where I feel like I don't look good, some that are in black-and-white that I think would've looked better in color (and probably vice-versa), and some that I know were taken that are flat-out missing (like the one of me & Suzy pretending to be golfers, something that may not have made sense to the photographer, but that really means something to us). Of course, I've only looked at them once, quickly, with Lui and my brother Joey, and should really look again and start focusing on the good ones, the 50 "chosen ones" that will go into the real album. But still. I expected miracles.

I had a brief moment on Tuesday, where I decided that Irish's girlfriend is not dead at all, that the girl he showed me pictures of is actually living with Irish's crazy-non-roommate, just a few blocks from here. Since then I've decided that I can't be kept up at night wondering whether myspace reflects life or life reflects myspace, and that to question the sanity of my only friend at work would be tantamount to self-sabotage (thanks, Mon). Besides, I've done this before - gone all Nancy Drew, made assumptions, made accusations, and then been proven totally wrong. And besides, if he really was fabricating his entire life (and not just to me either), he'd have to be stupid to keep hanging out with me, for fear that I'd figure it out eventually. So obviously there's just something I'm missing here.

At work yesterday, I'd mentioned to Irish that Lui was going down to the pool hall again, and that I'd be left at home to look at myspace all night (which I'm pretty sure qualifies as self-destructive behavior).

"You can come play volleyball with me," he offered.

"Yeah right, I haven't played volleyball since middle school, and I'm pretty sure I sucked."

"Well, you can come watch, if you want. I mean, it might be a little boring, but you'll get to see my really competitive side."

"Isn't that what I saw when we went bowling?"

"No, ten times worse."

So then it occurred to me that if I was going to skip the gym to go watch some guy play some sport, maybe I should tag along to Lui's pool match instead. Because as my cousin/voice of reason put it, "going to watch some guy play volleyball just screams girlfriend." I asked Lui, and he told me that actually, last night wouldn't be a very good match for me to go to, and that I could go with Irish if I wanted, and that we'd take a raincheck on the pool hall. So I did.

I can't say it was super-entertaining (basically just a pick-up game of people that knew how to play - maybe more exciting than pool), but it was nice to be out doing something different. And Irish was showing by far the most bravissimo of anyone on the court, cussing and punching the ground when he missed a shot, once even throwing his hat across the room into a trashcan, so that was kind of, well, funny.

On the way home after asking, "Do you trust me?" and then proceeding to take the S-curved on ramp at 65mph ("Usually I go like 80"), he gave me a tour of his music - mostly country - and kept admonishing the fact that I didn't know the words to the songs. "I wanna find one you'll sing along to!" he pouted, still not satisfied after I'd known the chorus to "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" (presumably because that's more shouting than singing anyway). Then he found Carrie Underwood.

"Okay, you wanna hear me sing?" I asked. "Let's go." And I sang the whole song - every word, every note, pretty much just as she does (except, as I explained to him during a musical break, I lack her breath control) - I should know it well enough, I've listened to it on repeat enough since Sunshine burned me the CD over a year ago.

"Damn, where'd you learn how to sing?!" he asked, impressed, midway through the song.

I was so fucking pleased.

Changing the world, one shot of beer at a time

Lui started work this morning, and so decided that Saturday night was his last night of freedom, and that he wanted to celebrate it by joining the Century Club. Since it was last-minute, we ended up with a small gathering: Lui, my brother Joey, Joey's friend Keri, Keri's mom (yes, she's one of those moms who got divorced and decided to reclaim her lost youth), Irish, and me. And only four of the six were playing, and it was pathetic: Keri got to 20 then gave up, Lui got to 28 then puked, Keri's mom got to 33 then gave up, and Joey got to 50 then puked. Thus we can conclude that women are smarter than men.

In the meantime, Irish and I drank our own beverages at our own pace, and sat on the floor, the barstools, the couch, talking, mostly about his ex. (Is "ex" the right term if she died? It seems so negative...) He told me how he's spent the last six months in a grief-and-alcohol-induced haze (I feel like he's got a bunch in common with Sunshine's dad in that respect), how he always has a bottle in his car, how he filled one of his punching bags with gravel and broken concrete and hits it till he bleeds, how he won't go to grief counseling because that would be to show weakness, how he'll never get over her...

"Do you usually talk to people?" I asked him.

"No, never. But for some reason, it's different with you."

So I believe very strongly that everything in life has a meaning - everyone you meet, every decision you make, is all going to play out to some greater purpose. It's why when I first met Irish, my reaction was, "So this is the guy I'm going to cheat on my husband with..." I was pretty far off with that one, but I do believe that I started working at the store, that Irish asked me to come out that first night, that I asked him out last week, all for this reason of being able to help him. That I was sent to him for that - I know how frickin' weird that sounds.

He started showing me her old myspace profile, showing me the pictures, repeating, "That's her... That's my girl... That's her..." It may have been one of the most heartbreaking moments of my life. I put my arms around him while he stared at the screen, and held on tight for a minute before offering to show him my own ridiculous myspace pictures to take his mind off it.

When everyone finally left at like 4 a.m. (I had work at 10; yesterday was pretty miserable because of it), I walked him out onto the porch. And as soon as the door was closed, we sort of fell into a hug.

"I'll try to drink less," he said into my ear. I hadn't asked.

"You know if you ever need anything, I'm here," I offered back.

"I know. Thank you."

Today at work, one of the guys asked us if we'd been friends before I started at the store. To be honest, I'm a little overwhelmed. But in a really good way, because I really think I can make a difference.

Side plot

So the promised story about Irish and his friend/roommate. Basically, he's been friends with this girl for a long time - since like high school - they coach volleyball together, and seem to spend a lot of time together. So Tuesday night, he started telling me about how she has a thing for him (as though this wasn't obvious from her flipping out that he was going out for dinner with a girl who wasn't her, in the manner of a jealous girlfriend).

After we parted ways that night, he walked over to her apartment, intending to sleep on the couch as he usually does when he can't drive home, only to find that one of her roommates' friends was already there. So he gets in the bed with his friend. She rolls over and puts her head on his shoulder. He looks down, confused. She kisses him. And because he's drunk off his ass, he lets her. Apparently it wasn't until the next morning when he got up to go back to work that he realized how awkward the whole thing was.

She, however, didn't realize how awkward it was at all. She even planned a menu of dinners for them for the week (remember, she's moving into his house and spends a lot of time there already).

The whole story sort of made me feel sick - and please let me know if this is just because, in a parallel universe, it would be possible for me to have designs on this guy myself, or if it really is that creepy. But I mean...

"If I were you," I told him, "I would never quite be able to shake the thought that maybe she was secretly happy when [fiancée] died, thinking now she could have you to herself."

"Actually, I do worry about that," he said.

He's since told her that he's not ready to have a female roommate yet - his excuse being that he spent the past three years living with a girl, and just wants to have a bachelor pad for a while - and that he's thinking about starting to date casually, but definitely won't be looking for a serious relationship for a while. (When pressed, he admitted the translation of the latter was, "I just don't want to date you.)

I had a dream that I met this girl, and that the first thing she said to me was to ask if I was planning on pursuing him. "No," I'd told her. "I'm married."

"Oh good. Because I am like totally in love with him."

Creepy creepy creepy. I hope I never meet her for a long time.

Plotline

Setting

I was so proud of myself when, while stocking wine on Tuesday, I turned to Irish and said, "Being around all this alcohol is really making me want to go out drinking - wanna go out drinking after work?"

"My shift ends way before yours..."

"So? My shift ends way before stuff closes."

"I guess I could swing back by at 6:30..."

I finished my shift, figuring I'd give him until about 6:40 before I gave up and went home. So I didn't bother telling Lui about the possibility of my getting a drink after work, because I figured it was unlikely. But about 10 minutes before the end of my shift, I saw Irish up front talking to someone at the desk. It was the first time I'd seen him in his own clothes, and God bless him, the boy cannot dress: Chargers jersey, backwards cap, baggy shorts - straight out of Clueless, which, given my last post, seems appropriate.

To stay within walking distance of my apartment, our choices were TGI Friday's and Chevy's, so we opted for Chevy's which I maintain has slightly better food and much better drinks. I texted Lui to tell him I was going out and that we'd postpone the meal I'd gotten the night before - a meal which had already been postponed because he'd gotten drafted into a pool league and stayed late to play at the last minute on Monday.

Conflict

When Lui called me right back, I knew I was in trouble. I told him I was just going out with Irish - who he knew and liked and trusted, right? - and that he could come meet us if he wanted. I also told him that I figured it would be ok since he'd kinda bailed on me the night before. He didn't want to join us. Irish relayed an anecdote wherein his friend/future roommate freaked out when she heard he was going out one-on-one with a girl - but oh, there will be more on that pretty little situation later.

We ate, we talked, we joked around, we had a good time. We drank too much, including double-shots of Tuaca that Irish insisted on buying, joking with the waiter about how he was "trying to get the girl drunk". He ended up more drunk than I was, how, I don't know, and we walked back to my place, giggling, with me physically helping him stay on the sidewalk when cars came by - because he was enough of a gentleman to walk on the outside, but I was more worried about him falling into traffic than I would've been about myself. We got back to my apartment and sat down with Lui to watch the end of a CSI episode. I got us each a glass of water. After the show ended, I walked Irish to the end of the complex, so that he could find his way to his future roommate's current apartment down the street. Then he insisted on walking me back to my door so I'd be safe. Just as we'd turned around, Lui drove up in my car and made me get in so we could go pick up his car from the lot at work (apparently he really had no idea how drunk I was).

Climax

So I drove my car home, drunk, and burst into the apartment yelling about how I'm not allowed to have any friends. Lui followed me into the bathroom while I showered, and we fought through the curtain. We continued fighting after I got out, sitting on the bed yelling at each other, despite the fact that Neuf and Steven were in the next room. Words were thrown around - mostly by me - things like "unhappy" and "used to love you more than I do now" and "only got married because we were too far in it already to get out" and "don't ever make me choose between you & Monica because I'd choose her every time." I don't even remember the context of, or need for, some of these words; I just know that I said them because he, heartbroken, repeated them to me the next morning.

Resolution*

The next morning, Lui and I exchanged hugs and apologies, and I went to BodyPump with a hangover. Stopped by work on the way back to a) get a protein shake, and b) ensure I wouldn't have enough time at home to continue the conversation before I had to leave for work. Once on shift, Irish and I talked across our facing registers: "So on a scale of 1-10, how bad was it last night?" he asked me. I thought about it for a minute. "Ten being divorce papers? Eight-point-five." Probably an exaggeration, or maybe just diluted with retrospect. A few of my customers sympathized with me - one woman, one man - reassuring me that the first year of marriage is the hardest, and that trust is key - the woman even offered that coming from a family of strong women made it all the worse for her husband trying to tie her down, and I agreed wholeheartedly. After Irish's shift ended, he came with me while I took a 10 (which turned into a 20, but nobody noticed), and we gave each other a play-by-play of the disasters our nights had become. (Again, stay tuned for his story.) He suggested that we all go bowling the next night, a supposed group outing - even if it turned out to be just the three of us - to show Lui that he is invited to things, that Irish is not a threat, that we really all can get along - a ploy to give me more leeway when Irish & I want to go out after work in the future. I told him I'd try to get through the rest of my shift, with my lack of sleep and excess of emotion, without crying too much, and he told me not to cry at all (and if he could say that, well...). And best of all, I noticed that when we're one-on-one, talking, things are a lot less flirty and a lot more adult, and that he's turning out to be a really good friend, one that I probably need, or vice versa: I believe that everything happens for a reason, and that somehow this will all play out, as obvious as the sky is blue.

I got home that night and everything was fine. Lui, still a little shaken up from the aforementioned words, didn't harp on the issue nearly as much as he's been wont to do in the past. And I apologized, and hugged him, and told him of course I love him best, and we watched Chasing Liberty with Neuf and Martin.

And the bowling plan? Totally worked.

*I know there's a fancy French term for this, but as I can't think how to spell it, pride is keeping me from using it at all.

This blog is being reduced to nothing but a sick recounting of pseudo-flirtatious interactions

I can't help but think of Tai in Clueless: "He's always finding ways to touch me, or tickle me..."

The quote may not be exact, but it took me all day to come up with that much - and the realization that I may not be as bad at flirting, that this whole thing may not be as desperate and one-sided, as I thought.

I was at a register when Irish came in, walked by, put his hand on my back as he passed. I knew it was him, because I think I'd actually seen him come in a few minutes before, so even though I was talking to my customer, I called out, "Hi!" mid-sentence without even looking away from my work.

Out on the floor later, he was finishing up a load of bread, and I held my hand up for a five. And I guess neither of us wanted to be a passive high-fiver, because what we ended up with was something The Todd would've been proud of. "Good one!" Irish said, as I cried, "Ow!", shaking my hand, which was stinging through my rubber gloves.

"Actually, that did kinda hurt," he said, and the woman working demo - a sweet-as-pie older woman who's kind of a store mom - laughed, having watched the whole interaction. And I wondered how obvious this all is to anyone but me - the worst being that I can't not smile around him.

Near the end of my shift, at a point where I was so exhausted from getting like four hours of sleep last night - thanks to this sort of bullshit over-analyzing - that I felt dizzy and ready to cry at anything, I was standing in the office counting out my drawer, when someone came up behind me and put a hand firmly on the outside of each of my shoulders. This time I didn't know it was Irish until he moved me aside so he could get into a drawer I'd been blocking.

"Aww, and here I thought you were actually being nice to me," I said. (Because the details I'm sparing you are the ones with the same stupid teasing we've been doing since the day we met.)

"I was being nice to you," he insisted. "I could've just opened the drawer and hit you in the knees with it." I thanked him for not doing that, because I'd have probably just cried on account of being exhausted.

When I finally got to leave, I bought some stuff for dinner, then stopped by Irish's register on my way out.

"You're out of here?" he asked.

"Yes. Finally." I held out my hand again, and this time I think we were both careful to be a little more gentle. (What am I, the queen of high-fives? And since when?!) "If you need a couch to crash on, you have my number." He'd been telling me earlier about how his shift ends tonight at 11, and he works again tomorrow at 6 a.m., so he was planning to show up at his friend/future roommate's nearby apartment to crash on her couch, but that she didn't know that yet...

"Yes I do." He went back to what he was doing.

"See you tomorrow," I called over my shoulder.

One of my supervisors stopped me on the way out to tell me that my drawer had checked out perfectly, down to the penny.

New wave of mid-20s crisis

W says there's no such thing as a mid-20s crisis - do (straight) men just not have them? He says he never feels old, never thinks of himself that way, and that there's no such thing as "too old to have fun". I hate him.

Work today was interesting, from the broken-bag-of-used-cat-litter I found in a cart at the beginning of my shift, to the sorry excuse for a conversation I had with Irish at the end of it.

I feel like the flirting is so childish - a sarcastic comment here, a stuck-out tongue there - and obvious - because I don't treat anyone else that way, don't smile at anyone else that way - and nearing desperate - like I want so badly to have a friend. So even though in retrospect we had a totally normal conversation while he walked me out of the store: he'd gone to a brewery with his roommate last night and spent $250 on beer for the two of them, so I told him I'd have to start going out with him if he was buying; he was talking about his hangover (duh?) and saying how he looked like shit, and I refrained from telling him I thought he looked good by saying instead that I thought he looked the same as he always looks, and that he could take that however he wanted to; he mentioned how the girl who's now his roommate was once the person whose house he'd crash at when he went drinking after work and couldn't drive home, so I reminded him that I walk to and from work every day, and that therefore I'm someone he wants to be friends with - he made some comment about how he has to suck up to me now; we compared schedules for tomorrow (not the same shift, but we'll cross paths for a few hours), and I went home.

I really wanted to invite him over, or out, or something. But I knew that by the time he got off work, I'd be wearing my glasses, and my shorty pajamas with the little pink bunnies on them, and probably a towel on my head. And also, asking him to hang out feels too much like asking him out out: I mean, what if he said no? Again, I feel so desperate.

I came home and had a back-and-forth complaining session with C-List, which made me feel a little better (read: slightly less like a total moron). Then Lui got home and kept telling me I was sweaty, so I yelled at him and went to take a shower, with the bathroom door locked so he couldn't come in and try to give me kisses through the shower curtain.

In other news...

I cannot for the life of me stop flirting with Irish.

And somehow I come out on top

I got offered the job at my dad's company.

The guy who'd interviewed me called me four times while I was at work on Wednesday, and left two messages, telling me to call back on his cell phone, even if it wasn't until later that evening. Evidently he'd also called my parents' house (still my listed "home" phone number) and told my brother he wanted to make me an offer.

I felt horrible about calling him back, knowing that I was going to turn down whatever that offer was, in favor of continuing to work at Trader Joe's. But I did call when I got home, just after 8:00.

"Hi Steve, it's Elle-Même, returning your call. How are you?"

"Oh, hi Elle. Are you still available?"

"Noooooo..." It came out as a whine, so I elaborated. "And I may be making a huge mistake, but the more I thought about it, I just don't think I'm ready to get into tech writing until I spend a little more time trying to find a way to do the sort of writing I'm really interested in..."

"That was exactly the answer I wanted to hear. Your honesty and candidness" - why does no one use the word candor? - "are exactly why we liked you so much. I wouldn't want you to take a job you're not passionate about and then come to work every day feeling like you'd made the wrong choice."

"Thank you. And if I end up feeling like I've made the wrong choice the other way, I may give you a call back in a few months to see if you've still got anything available."

"Please do - call me anytime, Elle, because I'd pick you again."

"Thanks - oh, and please don't tell me how much you were going to offer me, because it would probably only make me feel worse about all this..."

"I won't. But it wouldn't have made you feel so much worse anyway."
.
I hung up, a little shook up, but feeling altogether good about myself. And later I would tell my dad about how his company is one of the few I'd encountered that actually had integrity, and my dad would email Steve to thank him for making me proud of him and Steve would email him back to compliment my honesty and intelligence even further and convey his belief that I'll find what I'm looking for very soon... And I, of course, would be CC'ed on the whole thing.

Mortar and pestle

For a brief moment on Saturday night, I believed I had met the guy I was destined to cheat on my husband with.

I was working a fairly late shift, training in PRC (Produce/Refrigerated/Cheese), and had just dropped some boxes off at the baler (giant cardboard crushing machine - so much fun), when I turned to find myself confronted by an attractive young man with a goatee, who couldn't have been more than 5'7", which, as we know, makes him totally my type.

"How old are you?" he asked me.

I guess I thought nothing of the forwardness of his question, because I dutifully answered in turn. "Twenty-five."

"Sweet, [New Guy] owes me a dollar. We made a bet on how old you were, and he said you couldn't be more than 18 or 19, but I guessed early twenties..."

"Shouldn't it be my dollar, then?" I asked. "Since 25 is really more like mid-twenties, and therefore you were both wrong."

He laughed, refused, and walked back into the dairy box. I could tell my quick wit had totally impressed him.

(An aside: Trader Joe's is really a bit of a boys' club. Most girls who start there weed themselves out within the first couple weeks because, as one of my female trainers so eloquently put it, "they can't hack it." Physically, yes - there is a lot of heavy lifting involved and thank God for my years of Cas Anon Sex - but I'm guessing they can't quite keep up with the banter, either, girls being easily offended as we are. But honey, believe you me, I can give as good as I get.)

A few hours later, I was restocking bread when the same guy poked his head out from between rows of yogurt and asked if I wouldn't rather help him in the dairy box.

"No way - too cold," I said. Because I know this weekend was ridiculously hot, but let's face it, when it comes to climates in which milk can avoid going off, I am just a girl.

"What are you talking about? It's perfect in here!" he insisted.

Another guy walking by grinned at me and said, "Don't mind him; he's Irish."

Irish managed to spark up conversation with me a few more times during our shift, saying how he and a friend were going to TGI Friday's to get a beer after work, and since his friend was getting off half an hour earlier than he was, he was going to go save a table and order Irish his beer so it would be there when he got to the restaurant. "But he's not going to order it too early," he added, "because I'm not drinking warm beer."

"Why not? I thought you were Irish."

And so I found out that he was actually born in Ireland and moved here when he was eight; we talked about the superiority of Dublin-brewed Guinness, and he gave me a high-five when I told him that yes, I do know what an Irish Car Bomb is, and actually really like them; I mentioned that my husband was Welsh, and he said he'd have to meet him; and before I left the store, he told me that I'd better meet him and his friend at Friday's, with or without Lui in tow.

Fortunately for me, because I never would've been allowed to go out drinking with some guys I'd just met on my own, Lui was down for the adventure. So after he got home from babysitting (which gave me enough time to shower, change, and reapply just enough makeup to make it look like I hadn't), we headed over to TGI Friday's. I walked in first and took the seat next to Irish, who was a little surprised, but genuinely pleased we'd shown up. He and Lui hit it off as well, talking about Premiership Football and cars. And there were several more instances where I impressed him with my ability to back-talk, once even prompting him to dub me his "new favorite," after which he turned to the friend he'd come with and said, "No offense - you can still be second."

But then we all got to know each other a little better, and I learned that he's 21, making him ineligible in accordance with Elle's First Commandment of Dating: Thou shalt not date anyone younger than thy brother. And then, when Lui and the friend were talking about something on their side of the table, Irish turned to me and asked how long we'd been married.

"Almost two months - we don't even have the pictures back yet."

"Wow, congratulations," he said. "I was with my girlfriend for seven years, and then we were engaged for about a month when, seven months ago, she passed away in a car accident."

What do you say to that? He's handling it incredibly well - doesn't want sympathy but admitted he still has some bad days, but is generally just trying to get on with his life. And, he admitted, he's not ready to date yet. (It didn't stop him from flirting with the waitress, but then I guess, it hadn't really stopped him from flirting with me either. And I'm married, but that didn't stop me from flirting with him. So there's that.)

So with that quick drop back to reality, despite all the obvious chemistry, I had to admit I probably haven't met the guy I'm going to cheat on my husband with. But still, it's nice to have a friend at my new job. And, I have to admit, it's even nicer to have a crush. I mean, it's been so long...

Workin' for the weekend

No, literally. I'm working tomorrow and Sunday, and probably Monday too, though I don't have my trainee schedule for next week yet.

On Tuesday, I went in for an interview at my dad's company, for an entry-level position on a tech writer team. I don't know why I keep going to these interviews knowing I don't really want to get the job, but it makes my dad and Lui feel so much better to think I'm not just settling for a career in grocery. Plus, my dad had called in a favor to his friend in the staffing department, and this was the best she could find for me.

I went to the interview, employing my new job search strategy: to go as myself, answer as myself, and know that when the right position comes along, the honest answers will be the right answers, and I will be the one who gets hired, not some watered-down, nicey-nicey version of me. (It has already been brought to my attention that this is strikingly similar to C-List's dating policy.) And with that philosophy in mind, I wore low heels, city shorts, and a long black t-shirt - a nice one, but still totally classable as a tee - and I went in there and answered all their questions honestly: and the honest answer to most of their questions was no, I don't know what that particular technology term means. Actually, it was kind of humiliating.

So I felt pretty good about starting work at Trader Joe's the next day. And to extend that comparison between job-hunting and dating, isn't it unfair how you have to commit to your job after like two dates? Or just one, if there's only one interview. And you never really find out what the sex is like until after you've committed, because really those preliminary dates are only conversation - they never let you take the job for a test drive. So by the time you actually get to experience the physical side to your new relationship, it's too late. I mean, not too late, but you know, there are W-2s involved...

Fortunately, I think it's gonna work out between me and Joe. Ada, the girl that's been training me loves me, and spent most of today introducing me to people by saying, "Have you met my rookie? It's only her second day and she can already run her own register." And the First Mate (assistant manager - Joe is so dorky) came into the break room while I was eating lunch to tell me that Ada had been raving about me. As though I hadn't heard it firsthand. Quarterly raise, here I come!

I came home feeling pretty hot, only to find I'd gotten the following email from my dad's staffing friend:

"Hi Elle: Actually, the feedback i received was that it was a good interview. Am i interpreting this right, that after your discussion/interview, you are not interested in the position in that it quite isn't what you are seeking? Thanks, Phyllis"

Now, aside from an adult professional not capitalizing her "I"s, what am I supposed to make of that?

I want you to want me - anyone?

So between the job saga and the heat and the general disaffectedness, I haven't been sleeping well.

The dreams are, to say the least, bizarre. A few nights ago, I dreamed I was being chased over fences and through bushes by a murderous Catherine Zeta-Jones. I woke up panicking (I hate being chased), woke up Lui, and made him hold me. But I was too embarrassed to tell him it was CZJ who'd been chasing me, so I told him it was just some mean rich lady.

The next night was even weirder. And now that it's three days later, I can't remember the context of the dream, except - we were getting into a puddle-jumper plane, the kind with the roll-away stairwell instead of the actual terminal bridge, and I was the second-to-last one to climb up into the plane. I stepped up the first stair, then turned around and kissed Steven, who was behind me, right on the mouth. The shocked look on his face reflected how I felt at my own actions, and we had this moment - possibly spoken in a hurried whisper - of "what are we going to do now?" And the kiss? It was amazing, however momentary it may have been.

I think I've got this one mostly figured out, but knowing doesn't make it any less disturbing. See, Steven is in love with Neuf - they dated for almost a year before she decided they were better off as "BFF", and of course he doesn't agree because he thought they were better off as "BF/GF" (to go with the lame abbreviations).

I think the point of my dream was, well, how long has it been since I've had someone hopelessly in love with me? And what a great and uncomfortable feeling must it be to know that one of your closest friends wishes you were more? (Admittedly, I've been watching too much Friends lately, specifically the ones where Joey's in love with Rachel.) I had that with Lui for about three weeks before I gave in and kissed him, and now... Now we're married. So I can't help but wonder, should I have relished the flattery and awkwardness a little longer? Should I have relished it forever? If I had, I would have a completely different life now: Lui and I probably wouldn't have seen each other in over two years, and I'd be... who knows? I tend not to think that this would be an entirely negative alternative, but that's also because I'm so addicted to the idea of the unknown.

But why can't I have another friend fawning over me, even now? What is it, exactly, that makes me not desirable anymore? I just want to be the object of something forbidden, want to have someone I can flirt with and know that it's having the ideal effect, want to blur the lines a little and make some bad decisions. Is that really so much to ask?

I think I'll keep my soul, thankyouverymuch.

A few weeks ago, I saw an ad on craigslist looking for a proofreader for a publishing company. It sounded like my dream job. And I recognized the email address as a temp agency Squeak works for. So I made some calls, I made some connections, and I submitted my resume. After a few days of waiting for an interview, I called the temp agency, who told me that the company had also been doing their own recruiting, and that they were "moving forward with their own candidate." Obviously, I didn't understand this phony, convoluted temp agency speak, because I pressed the question, and got confused when she told me to go ahead with my other plans.

My other plans were Trader Joe's. So last Friday afternoon, I went in and filled out an application. On Tuesday morning, I had an interview (yes, I said interview - you think TJ's finds its helpful, friendly, always witty staff by a written app alone?), which I totally aced - I was funny, sparkling, above all candid - telling stories about my worst day at the restaurant, or why I got fired from Baskin Robbins when I was 15. At the end, they told me they typically like to do two interviews, and that they'd call me in a day or two to let me know. They called less than an hour later and we set the second interview for Thursday.

Later that day, the aforementioned temp agency called me. The person the publishing company had "decided to move forward with" had just quit unexpectedly, and now they wanted to interview me. So I set that one up for Wednesday. Dress professionally, she said, because this company was affiliated with the military after all, and call her afterwards to let her know how it went.

The next morning, I headed down to the company in my longest skirt and best pantyhose, and upon entering the interviewer's office, was told why the last guy had up and left: this wasn't a proofreading job as in editing; this was a proofreading job as in quality control, as in checking to make sure supplied ad copy matches printed ad copy, as in cross-checking indexes to make sure things are on the pages they say they're on, as in no creative control whatsoever. Then she asked if I was still interested. And I was honest: "Well... less so?" But I went on to learn more about the position, we talked for about half an hour, and in the end I told her that despite what I'd said initially, I want to get into publishing, I know a good opportunity when I see it, and I'm willing to play by the rules.

"That was what I wanted to hear," she said.

I also told her that I had a couple other balls in the air, but that this would be my first choice position since it was industry-related, and so if she didn't think she wanted to hire me, to let me know right then so I could go follow through with something else.

"No, that's not what I'm thinking at all," she said. "But I can't say until I interview this last person tomorrow afternoon." So we agreed that she'd call and let me know either way Thursday afternoon. I felt pretty good about it, that is until I got home and called the temp agency.

"Oh..." said the agent in her sugary faux-professional voice. "I don't think you should have told her you thought you were overqualified - I'm sure she appreciated your candidness, but I don't think you told her what she wanted to hear."

I woke up the next morning with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was worried I wouldn't get the job, but then I was even more worried that I would. The word of the day became "spirit-crushing", especially after I went to my second interview at Trader Joe's and came back feeling clever and enlivened. So I spent most of the afternoon stressing about the industry job verses the enjoyable job, this of course being under the assumption that I'd be offered both.

The publishing company's last interview had been at 1:00. When I didn't hear from them by 2, I started to figure I didn't get the job. By 3, I was annoyed, because I'd promised TJ's I'd call them that afternoon. Finally, at 4:30, I called the temp agency to ask. "Oh," the woman said, as though she was surprised that I was calling to follow up after she'd told me the day before that I gave the wrong answers in my interview. "Let me check... I have an email... They've decided to move forward with another candidate."

This time, I understood.

And to be honest, I was so relieved. The term "professional integrity" comes to mind. And, like C-List and I agreed later, if there's one thing we've learned in life, it's to steer clear of the military. And temp agencies. Something better will come along.

In the meantime, TJ's is starting me at $11/hour - most new hires with no grocery experience get 9, but I have six months of waitressing and (the unspoken) an amazing personality. It's something I support, something I can believe in, and I already know I like all my superiors - the second interview was more like a 90-minute conversation about n'importe quoi. Maybe it's not taking me anywhere near my ideal career path, but seriously, my GI tract and I feel so much better.