Life, In Three

1) I’m having a birthday party this weekend.

2) My boss suddenly has it in for me.

3) I’ll be in South Beach the rest of the week.

Tattler, out –

Milestones

Bateman and I were sitting on the couch watching football the other day, arms and legs all intertwined.  “Hey, you know what I was thinking?” he asked, and I could hear in his voice that I was going to like what he had to say.

“What?”

“It was around this time last year that I came to live with you.”  He was right.  Last year, at this time, Bateman moved into my apartment to do a six week long “away elective” at a hospital here known for its neurology department.  I consider it a turning point in our relationship — after a year of long distance, seeing each other every third weekend, we were suddenly sharing a shoe box for 42 straight days.

“We went food shopping that first night and made tuna and a large salad.  And you said, ‘Don’t tell anyone I ate salad for dinner.’  It wasn’t manly enough.”

After his parents unloaded his stuff — his white coat, dress shirts on hangers in my closet, a giant duffel bag at the foot of my bed — the two of us went to the supermarket.  I didn’t know what boys ate.  He kept peering into the shopping cart, shaking his head, and proclaiming that he was going to starve over the next month.  “You’ve never lived with a dude before, have you?”  No, I hadn’t.  But I suddenly felt very grown-up.

He nodded now.  “And bruschetta.”

Heh. I’d forgotten about the bruschetta.

It hit me last night as I was washing dishes before bed.  Bruschetta.  He remembered the details.  He remembered what we ate for dinner the first night we “moved in” together.  Over those next six weeks, I would learn what boys eat; he would learn that girls can like basketball AND America’s Next Top Model.   I learned he can be a Momma’s Boy sometimes; he learned that I still stomp my feet when I’m angry.  I learned how to cook; he learned to like tofu.

Those six weeks.  They weren’t all good.  But they were meaningful.  They changed us.  And here we are.

Crazy Hours

Bateman is sleeping.

It’s almost noon. I’m getting a little antsy about having to TIPTOE around an apartment roughly the size of a dorm room. I don’t know how he’s managed to sleep through the utter racket I’ve been making all morning. The boy can sleep through anything.

He’s working nights in the ER. (Tangent: It’s actually called the ED. Apparently the doctors there want everyone to know that they’re more than just a room, they’re an entire DEPARTMENT. So for the sake of being correct, they’d rather refer to themselves as erectile dysfunction doctors.)

So he’s in the thick of stitching up cuts and monitoring heart attack patients just as I’m putting on my pajamas and brushing my teeth. He has “lunch” while I’m in the middle of some crazy dream about being on the run from the law and hiding out in a Chinese restaurant (don’t ask). And he’s getting into bed while I’m frantically searching for my keys and half-watching the weather report on NY1.

Such are the joys of dating a doctor. While I’d love to spend all day in bed with him today, I know that I also need to fall asleep tonight at a Reasonable Hour in order to function at work tomorrow.

No deep thoughts here; I’m just writing to write. To pass time. Cause I’m bored. If I’m lucky, my boy will be awake before 2 p.m. And then we’ll get to spend three hours together before he has to report to the ED.

At least he only has two more weeks of this.

Birthday Angst

PEOPLE, it’s WARM today.  Miracle of miracles!  So, because it’s warm, I’m happy.  (I’m not a complicated girl.)

I’ve got a problem though, and it involves my birthday next month.  You see, I hate throwing parties for myself.  It’s a lot of stress.  I always have this fear that I’ll throw a party and no one will show up.  Or, worse than that, TWO people will show up (probably Bateman’s friends) and I’ll not only feel like a loser, but there will be WITNESSES to my loserdom.

OK, I’ll admit I’m a little neurotic about this.  I had a party last year that ended up being a big success.  Good turnout, people were having fun, there was cross-social-group hook-ups.  But already one of my best friends said she’ll be out of town BOTH weekends bookending my birthday this year, and it just seems like a bad omen.

I actually DID have a party once where no one showed up.  My senior year of high school.  Well, I don’t know if it were a true party.  I invited four of my friends to come over and shoot pool on my parents’ new pool table.  They seemed really into it, and we picked a weekend and everything.  And then, somehow, it fell apart at the last minute and none of them could make it, and for the life of me, I can’t remember why I didn’t just RESCHEDULE, instead of letting it haunt me for the rest of my days.  I don’t know.  Maybe it’s character building.  I had a party and no one showed up.  I mean, people.  This is the stuff TV dramas are made of.

God, high school birthdays.  I don’t know about you, but in my high school, it was tradition to buy your friends flowers on their birthday.  Nothing fancy, just a $5, paper-wrapped bouquet from the bodega near the subway station.  I used to get about four or five bouquets, which was OK.  Respectable.  But the popular (cough, beautiful) girls got twice as many.  It was a badge of honor to lug these things around school, from class to class, and you’d simultaneously have to feel bad and incredibly jealous of how difficult it was to balance 10 bouquets on the escalators.  (Yes, escalators – this is Manhattan, remember?  We build UP.)  I giggle now when I think of my mom trying to find enough vases for all my flowers.  But back then, it was scarring.  I mean, you could see how getting two bouquets (thereby branding yourself as a Birthday Girl) could be worse than getting NONE, right?

I guess these are the experiences that stay with you.  Even at the not-so-tender age of almost-26.

More Important Things

Enough waxing philosophical.  I have to go to a black tie work-related dinner on Friday night and I DON’T HAVE A DRESS.  So I guess I have to go shopping.  Did I mention I hate shopping?  I own, like, one dress.  And it’s for summer.

But it’ll be fun to have an excuse to buy a new dress.  Especially a fancy one.

Hello, My Name Is Cliche

It dawned on me today that maybe I’m actually getting cold feet about moving in together.  About The Future.  Right now I feel like I’m staring down a path toward Happily Ever After with someone I could see myself marrying, and I HATE it.  I’m sick of staying in New York, but it’s more than just this city.  It’s me and the fear that if I stay here, I’ll never get that adventure I’m pining for.  It’s like my mom said: Bateman is very close to his family, and he won’t want to move so far away from them.  And if we have kids, well, then I’ll want to be close to my family so they can help out.

And I’m listening to this going, NOOOOOOOO … I don’t WANT THAT.  That is precisely what I DON’T want out of life.  I want to live in San Francisco, and London, and maybe even some place crazy like Hong Kong.  And I kind of feel like I’m on a path that could split both ways.  See where my career takes me, or give it all up to support Bateman and his residency here in Hometown, USA, even if that Hometown does happen to be New York City (A+ in awesome, etc. etc. etc.)

Big Girls Don’t Cry

I tried to pick a fight with my boyfriend last night. It was over an old favorite, SKIING. It was silliest thing ever. See, we each have our favorite “dream” cities. Mine is San Francisco (no kidding!) His is Denver. Anyway, I’ve been talking up SF non-stop (no kidding!) so he sent me the weather forecast for Denver, where it’s apparently, well, warm. You know, just to be cute. People, that’s ALL he did. He sent me a link to weather.com (yes, that very one.) And I? Of sound mind, went ballistic. I accused him of rubbing in the fact that he’s spending his single, solitary, lone vacation next year on a SKI TRIP in the Rockies instead of doing anything else that includes me.

“How could you possibly think you could ever endear me to a place when you abandon me to go skiing there every winter and to hell with your girlfriend who only gets to see you a lousy 36 hours a week! I’ll NEVER like Denver, NEVER EVER!”

OK, that’s a little exaggerated. But you get the point. I was livid. I think he really regrets sending me that link. To the, uh, weather forecast. In Denver.

Lucky for me (maybe), it’s very hard to provoke my boyfriend. He does not get provoked easily. He’s always cool, calm, and collected, and only once in the past two years have I ever heard him yell at me. And it took A LOT to get him to do that. I was really asking for it. The thing is — not that I like to be yelled at — but sometimes I just want him to call me out on my bad behavior, and not try to change the subject.

So I tried to pick a fight but all he did was apologize for sending me that (cough) insensitive forecast.

Do I feel justified? I don’t know what I’ve been feeling lately, to be honest. I’ve been in a perpetual mood. One minute I’m rolling my eyes and acting all huffy because the lady next to me on the train is cracking her gum every two seconds and god its so hot in here can’t she just STOP and the next I’m crying in the corner of the subway car, not caring who sees me.

I’ve cried twice on the subway now. TWICE. For no good reason.

In fact, I have EVERY reason to be happy. Last year was different. Last year I had every reason to be miserable. I hated my job, three of my best friends had left New York and I couldn’t just, you know, replace them, my boyfriend was long distance, and my sister was going through some devastating medical issues. None of that is true anymore. Everything is good, and all I still seem to do is cry cry cry. About … ? No one knows. I don’t even know. So how can I expect Bateman to understand?

The Other Side of the Story

You didn’t know me last year when every week I was rip-roaringly MAD at Bateman about one thing or another. God, was I angry. All. the. damn. time. I remember once I was so furious at him (over sushi, of all things) that I had a temper tantrum in bed and kicked all the sheets on the floor.

And why?

To be honest, I really don’t know. (Cough, anger management issues, cough.) Uncertainty in our relationship, I think. It was a tough time. We had been dating for over a year, but the entire time long distance. There were still four months before Match Day, when fourth year medical students find out where they’ll be doing their residencies. Bateman could have been headed to Denver, or Philadelphia, or Stony Brook, and I wasn’t ready to move to any of those places. And we hardly ever talked about Feelings or The Future.

Anyway, things got better when we found out that he would be right here in Manhattan. I cried when he told me. I’m not even kidding. I was standing on the corner of 54th and 3rd during my lunch break when my cell phone rang. It was Bateman. I tried to congratulate him, but I couldn’t speak. I had to hang up almost immediately, and then I ran into Barnes & Noble and sobbed hysterically for 10 minutes in the SAT review section. I wasn’t even sure WHY I was crying. It wasn’t happiness, or sadness, or any other feeling I could identify. It was just EMOTION. I was crying tears of emotion.

He called me again later that night; he was celebratory, probably a little drunk. This time I found my voice. “I’m so excited for you,” I gushed. Sincerely.

“I’m excited for us,” he said. And suddenly I knew that us would be OK.

But now, eight months later, I’m getting angry again, and I think it’s Fear. This moving in together thing. I’m not going to pretend that the ONLY thing I’m feeling is jubilation. There’s Fear involved. Uncertainty. Emotion. Feelings that aren’t always easily identified.

Maybe that’s why I’m suddenly consumed with the idea of Moving Away From New York.

But I’m not going to let these feelings get the best of me. Or, at least, I’m going to try.

Hi, I’m Back

I’m dead-tired today. I landed yesterday at 5 am, crawled under my covers at 6:26 am, and didn’t emerge until ten hours later, which turned out to be a big, fat problem when I needed to go back to bed at a Decent Hour in order to be at work today.

OK, so no one feels bad that I have jet lag. I mean, you shouldn’t. After all, I just got back from San Francisco where the weather was 75 degrees everyday, and I got to drink outdoors on a rooftop overlooking the city, and walk on the beach in November. Plus, on my last afternoon, I even rented a car so I could drive to the Pacific Ocean and just … and just … bask in it.

So there I was, driving my little red car down Geary Boulevard, the windows open, not a care in the world, and thinking, I wish this were my life. I wish I could stay here forever.

Coming home was tough. I mean, sleeping in my own bed is great. Being in the same time zone as my boyfriend is great. No longer having to eat alone in strange restaurants is great. But getting back to the daily grind? Ehhh ….

Not so great.

I really want to go away. I know I’ve been saying this forever. I’ve always worked for international companies, which means that about once the year I get the opportunity to transfer to a new office. And while I always say I want to do it, I inevitably chicken out at the last minute because I’m afraid I’ll miss my boyfriend and not make any new friends and be pathetically lonely and homesick with no one to talk to except the local bartender. So every year I opt to stay in New York, and spend the next 11 months wallowing in regret.

Look, New York is great. I was at a bar Sunday night, chatting with a young couple that happened to be sitting next to me. (Yes, I sometimes drink alone when I travel. What of it?) “What’s the best thing about New York?” the guy asked me. He’s never been here. The question threw me. What’s … so … great … about … New York. Well, nothing, I thought at first. San Francisco is much better. Look at your weather! Your flowers! Your huge organic supermarkets! But then I recanted. C’mon. Everyone knows New York is the greatest city that ever citied. We have the best restaurants, the best bars, the best museums, the best discount airlines, the best subway system, the best shopping, the best architecture, and the best energy of any city. So finally I said, “New York is great because we have everything you could ever want, and we do it better than anyplace else.” And it’s true. New York gets an A+ in being awesome.

But sometimes? I just want average. I want a little baby blue car, a house or apartment where I don’t constantly hear my neighbors, year-round spring weather, and a beach close by. And of course my same job and my same boyfriend and my same salary (but with a better cost of living.) Is that too much to ask?

Greatest City in the WORLD

I want to cry every time I get on the subway lately.  And this is coming from someone who’s lived her entire life in the city, riding the subway almost daily, and a fairly hardened New Yorker to boot.  But lately, every time I’m pushed into an overstuffed car, shmushed under some guy’s armpit (because he insists on holding onto a pole, even if it means sticking his arm over my head), unable to concentrate on my iPod because some teenager is playing his PSP on full volume, and breathing in air that someone else just exhaled … I want to break down and sob.  It’s only happened once — crying because I was so uncomfortable — but I think about it every single day.

I’m not sure what happened to New York.  I can’t tell if it’s me — if I’m getting older and crankier and increasingly “over” the city — or if the city reached a saturation point between the economic downturn of the early 1990s (when I was a kid) and the recent boom years of late.  Perhaps it’s a combination of both.  Or perhaps it’s the single-subway-line neighborhood I now live in; I was on the V-train last Friday during rush hour and remember thinking, I’m not having a panic attack!  I can BREATHE!

I know that I once I move in with Bateman I’ll be able to walk to work.  I savor that thought, and it’s the only thing keeping me from packing my bags and fleeing to rural Kansas.  But everyday, I confront a love-hate relationship with a city I once missed so acutely that my mom would send me the glossy New York Times real estate section in college.

I’m going to San Francisco in a couple of a days; I’ll be there for almost a week.  I am head over heels in love with San Francisco.  It has New York’s energy, its attitude, its quirkiness.  And yet it also has sky and space and breathtaking marina views and bright flowers and year-round spring weather and wineries and colorful buildings and neighborhoods that run from elegant to gritty and don’t all blend together in a tide of Starbuckses, Barnes & Nobles and Banana Republics.

Plus, they still love their cars there.  Just like the rest of California.  Only, you know, they drive Priuses.  And ZipCars.

If Bateman weren’t doing his residency in New York, I’d leave in an instant.  He’s the only “factor” I couldn’t replace if I left New York.  I have friends everywhere; my company has offices across the globe.  I could meet new people, find new haunts, connect with far-flung relatives.  I could be having an Adventure, instead of being suffocated here day in and day out.

Bateman knows I want to leave; I tell him constantly.  And he knows that I’m not bluffing these days either.  I didn’t want to move — not really — when I was offered that promotion in San Francisco, but the seed was planted.  Before then, I never would have even considered relocating, and now it’s my pet obsession (that, and having a car again.)  Given the chance, I think I really would do it, just to get away, just to do something different.  Just to BREATHE again.

“But you have a boyfriend here,” he says, “who loves you.”

How can I give up someone I care about so much it hurts?  The short answer is I can’t.  And maybe that’s where the crying comes from.