 This is me.Blue eyes, dark (sometimes red) hair, total package. You know that girl you see on the street that's just a little bit glowier than all the girls around her? The one on the train who breaks up the monotony of the commute without saying anything? The girl reading your favorite book in the coffee shop? Wearing the dress you've been dying for in the elevator? The girl that you see for only five minutes, and you can't forget her for the rest of your day? That's me. Co-worker and former bed buddy. I see him almost every day. I also slept with him, sporadically, for two months. Liked him at first, a lot even. Seemed practical and nice. Seemed to understand how lucky he was that I allowed him to talk to me, much less touch me. Then he pulled away, then he lied, then I ruined his reputation at work, then he said he loved me, then he found out about the reputation-ruining, and he then gave me a verbal beat-down in front of half the company. We were called into HR. I made out with his cousin. I tried to re-seduce him only to find out he's seeing someone. It just goes on and on. We're okay...for now. Best gal pal and partner-in-crime. Seriously, she's the grandest thing I've acquired since moving to Chicago, and I just lurve her to bits and pieces. She's even more impulsive than I am, which means it often falls to me focus our efforts in the fields of partying, shopping, beautification, etc. She knows when to encourage my bad behavior (always) and when to be the voice of reason (usually in retrospect). When she goes to visit her family in Wisconsin for any length of time, I usually get into major trouble. (Not that I mind.) Coworker couple to whose drama I am a forced witness. Bryn comes to me for advice, and Mark's been hitting on me since he was hired. We all went on the company ski trip together, and things have only been getting more complicated since then. Between the two of them. I tried to remove myself from this triangle, and then the lustbirds got engaged. And guess what? Yours truly is a bridesmaid. Well-meaning stoner pal from the South Side. The palest red-headed Irish Catholic kid you ever saw. Talks and dresses in ways I can only decipher because I watch Nelly Furtado videos. Never without a large silver chain around his neck and a knit hat pulled over his eyes. Often guilty of wearing an undershirt as though it were a real article of clothing. Always willing to trade pot for a free meal. This is my best good friend, Edward. He's a part-time playwright and full-time temp. We went to college together and moved here at the same time. He is only called 'Edward,' never 'Ed' or 'Eddie' or 'Ted.' Has seen me through breakups, confusions, conversions, self-doubt, invincibility, and many, many shopping trips. Can be counted on to keep me in check, at least when I'm within earshot. He's now dating a very nice girl. I hardly catch a glimpse of him. Honestly, this summer it took a brush with cancer to get him to come over to my house. Dated him briefly just after my breakup with Paul. We had a good time but he freaked out when it started getting serious. He popped up in my life again at the Tasting Room, looking all cute and better adjusted, and when he asked me out I had to agree to the re-date. That went on for a while, then he blew out of town to Amsterdam, to more fully engage in stoner culture. What will happen now that he's back on American soil? I'd be the last to know. Perfect little sister and conscience. I love love LOVE her and she's my bestest pal, but she has no patience for my superficiality or bad decision making. She's the voice of reason that I sorely need in my life, and I've got the kind of fun and spirited frenzy to pull her out of her shell. A friend of a friend from college. A Loser Musician squatter. Yes. This is what I need. We never so much as kissed in the entire time he lived with us, though it did get very cozy and domestic on several occasions. He moved in with some girl on the South Side and we rarely hear from him now. Smarmy work nemesis and all-around pain in my ass. The kind of guy that will smile in your supervisor's face while flipping you off behind his back. That's not a metaphor, he's actually done that to me. Twice. Playwright/Actor friend of Edward's. Manny just moved here from downstate IL, and doesn't know too many peeps yet. He's cute in a TNMT (totally-not-my-type) kind of way: short, slight, dark hair, a ridiculous little beard. But he's pretty brillz, from what I can tell, and he tells great stories. At first we had a couple of all-night sleepovers which have consisted of a lot of making out and soul-baring, but never sex. And then we got all mixed up together. We were, for two months, engaged in an exclusive psuedo-relationship which remained label-less. This made me both happy and neurotic. Until he slept with an ugly skank actress and then rubbed it in my face at a theatre party. Out of nowhere. Two days after I last slept over at his apt. Classy. You can't even salvage a friendship from such reprehensible behavior. My sensitive, 'artsy' friend from NYC. Paige is smart, funny, and by far the "deepest" person I know. She talks about the meaning of art and life and existentialism the way I talk about shoes and lattes and Perez Hilton, but somehow we manage to get along just fine. Cheating ex-boyfriend of five years. Scoundrel. Still lives in The South. Pops up mostly as a reference point. Moody mixed-media artist I met through mutual friends. Ten years my senior and, while I find him intriguing and sophisticated, his sporadic employment situation is troubling. Also, he runs a bit of a harem. I am part of no one's girl-tourage. Not even a little bit. When I found out that he leads a secret double life as a loser musician, and that my roommate is part of his harem, I threw a Stoli Vanil and coke in face and stopped taking his calls. Good pal who likes to think of himself as "Wise" and "Helpful," but is pretty much just funny as shit. We have lunch every Monday. Has also been known to contribute to the blog. For the most part I end up ignoring his advice and doing what I want anyway. Then we laugh about it. But, for better or for worse, Rupert is one of the good ones. Me: "Let me tell you all about my great new guy!" Rupert: "Oh, yes. You tell me all about him and I'll tell you all the ways this could end horribly." Works for an archival delivery company. In spite of these two completely uninspiring attributes, is incredibly good-looking and seems pretty genuine and intelligent. I'm all for a fixer-upper, but how much can one girl be expected to contribute? We're all just dating people for who they could be anyway, right? Well, I thought so. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. We became "exclusive" or something for, I dunno, a month? And then he dumped me. HE dumped ME. Fragic, I know. This is why we don't lower our standards, girls. Not a millimeter. She's my roommate, and she probably doesn't like you. In a strange and unexpected twist of fate, turned out to be dating Robin at the same time I was. Unbeknownst to either of us. We performed the simultaneous roommate beat-down on him, romantically speaking. |
