Saturday Night Mayhem

A while ago, my friends and I were discussing an utterly necessary cell phone feature: drunk-dialing prevention.

We couldn't come up with one way to do this, but the general idea goes like this:
1) You breathe into your phone.
2) It acts as a breathalizer and makes an assessment of your alcohol level.
3) If you are too drunk, then it shuts down and will only allow you to make emergency calls (as a precaution), but you are no longer allowed to make outgoing calls, take incoming calls, or text message anyone.

I don't know one person who hasn't suffered from a drunk dial or text the night before; many of my friends wake up in the morning and immediately check their call logs to groan over the people they called. Not a good feeling.

I am thinking about this today because last night after a few too many drinks, I got a little cell phone happy and started calling or texting pretty much everyone I know. Needless to say, I am kind of wishing someone had confiscated my phone after about 2AM last night, which would've saved me a lot of trouble. I guess some lessons just have to be learned over and over again until they sink in!

A Little NJ Boy

As I mentioned yesterday, NJ Boy is out of town for the next two weeks, so he stopped by to make sure I was feeling ok, a very sweet gesture considering I am highly contagious and have a pretty unattractive, hacking cough right now. He said I was "worth getting sick for," but I'm kind of thinking he'll change his mind after the fever kicks in while he's on vacation.

Although I wasn't sure I was more interested in him or his roommate when I met them, the more time I spend with him, the more I like him. He's different from most of the other guys I've met. First of all, he's slightly younger than me (yikes, I know!), and on the slightly innocent side, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. He's genuinely sweet and authentic, which is pretty hard to find in Manhattan and I will attribute to the fact that he hasn't been living here that long.

I will have plenty of time to contemplate this, since I probably won't see him for a little while and will very likely have forgotten what he looks like by the time he gets back.

Sick and Blah

I've been trapped in my apartment for the past couple days with a horrible bout of bronchitis. My only contact with the outside world has been to visit my doctor (who told me there's nothing I can do but sleep and drink liquids) and to see NJ Boy (came over to see me before he goes skiing and make sure I'm ok). Aside from alternating between chills and fever, drinking lots of tea and water, and sleeping, I've been feeling pretty shitty.

A few years ago, my friend L was telling me that she was happy being single but every once in a while, when she got sick and was disgusting in bed, all she wanted was a boyfriend to come bring her soup and care for her. This has been the first time I've been single and sick in a very long time, and for the first time, I can understand what L was talking about.

Spending so much time by my lonesome has given me a lot of time for contemplation and writing (when I'm not hallucinating from the fever, of course). I had a great time with NJ Boy and Slingarm this past weekend, and perhaps this is just the illness speaking, but I think I'm ready for a guy-hiatus for a little while.

Friday Night Chaos (aka Why Doesn't J-Boy Just Disappear)

So last night I went out with my girlfriends and then E invited me to a birthday party for a friend. I tagged along but when I arrived at the bar, I suddenly realized it was the bar where I had met J-Boy and knew he frequently came. And lo and behold, we walked in, and he was standing right there at the bar. After hiding out in the back room for 20 minutes, (yes, very mature, but seriously, do you remember this convo?) E yelled at me to get it together and we ventured into the main area of the bar.

The following was pretty much a disaster. He and his friends kept walking by our table to go outside to smoke, and at some point I said hello to his roommate to a slightly chilly reception. When I walked out to smoke with one of my friends, we saw J-Boy come out with a blonde girl (not to be petty at all, but this girl was the definition of "busted" - I was slightly upset to be lumped in the same category with this kind of trash). Deciding I was going to be mature about the whole situation, we walked over and said hi, and I was nothing but friendly. I guess I shouldn't be surprised after the whole dumping him over instant messenger thing, but he was really a complete jerk. Later E bumped into him outside and said hi to be polite and came back with the same report: he was being an absolute a-hole.

Of course all my friends and everyone within earshot of the story just found it absolutely hilarious, and I was the butt of jokes for the evening. Slightly later in the night, some friends of E's came to the bar to meet us. I had met them over New Year's Eve, but hadn't really spoken to them since they were all with girlfriends. We started chatting and when I asked where the girlfriends were at, one of them (who is adorable, and this is why I have dubbed him Slingarm), informed me that he was no longer seeing the girl from New Year's Eve. Interesting...

I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say there was a great deal of flirting, hand-holding, hugging, and forehead kisses for the remainder of the night. He handed me his iPhone at one point and I just looked at it, confused, until he prompted me to enter my phone number. Oh, riiiiiiiight. After I got into a cab to go home (of course I didn't go home with him!), I immediately received a text: "Goodness you're adorable."

The great thing about meeting a guy who's friends with your friends is that you can get all the dirt on him from your pals. Plus, if they find the whole thing adorable (which they do), you know that they'll protect you from situations like the one I had with Logan Boy and do everything in their power to throw you two together. I will acknowledge that it is slightly dangerous to date someone that is in your general group of friends because should things go sour, it could get ugly. Hopefully, we are all grown up enough to make sure this will never happen.

The Art of the Booty Call

Today, on Groundhog Day 2008, I am contemplating the art of the booty call.

I, myself, am very rarely the recipient of booty calls. Therefore, the first time I was even tempted to make one (Logan Boy, last month, don't ask), I had no idea how to go about it. I asked my friend R (my source of all useful information), and he told me to just text the guy at 1:30 AM "What are you up to?" and he would get it. The problem with that is he lives in Atlanta where the bars close at 2AM whereas in Manhattan people stay out regularly until 4AM or later. Therefore, I could (and have in the past) be legitimately trying to find out where people are hanging out at 1:30AM.

So I'm aware that when guys call around 1AM and start dropping hints about coming over, that is most likely a booty call (yes, I catch on quick). What I found hilarious is that yesterday, High School Boy sent me an e-mail at 4PM (when I was still at work) asking me what I was up to that night. I told him I was going out with my girlfriends and whatnot, and he said, "Yeah I have plans too, but let's meet up late night...I'll text you."

I was somewhat confused briefly before it hit me: he was pre-booty-calling me at 4 in the afternoon! Now when he actually booty-called me later in the night, I'd be totally prepared for it. What kind of strategy was this? Even odder, the kid never even got around to texting me last night. Very strange...

Goals for 2008

I have been contemplating my goals (not resolutions) for this coming year. You may think these are coming a little late, but I've decided to run on the lunar calendar starting now, so technically, I'm early (for those of you who don't know, the lunar new year is next week, February 7th - it's the year of the rat! Ick!).

I don't believe in resolutions because they sound so hard and fast; when you break a resolution, it's as if you have done something horrible and you feel bad about it. Goals are easier for me to wrap my mind around. If you don't reach a goal, no big deal, try again tomorrow, or next month, or next lunar year!

My large, all-encompassing goal of this year (and my whole life really) is just to find happiness and be content with myself. Therefore, all my smaller goals below are part of the bigger picture:

1) Get my first novel published - this is the year I am going to finish my novel and then get a literary agent to believe in it. No big deal.

2) Quit smoking - for real this time, I mean it!

3) Travel (already partly accomplished by going to South Africa in January!) - I want to visit all the friends I've been promising to visit for years domestically, as well as see more places around the world.

4) Enrich my mind - I have sadly neglected my reading in the past couple years, but that is no more. I want to join a book club, see plays, go to museums, participate in all the things that Manhattan has to offer but I've been too lazy or hungover to do.

5) Form better relationships - this does not apply (solely) to boys, but to my friends and family as well. I really want to build a solid network of supportive people in my life, so that I feel each and every one of those people contributes something positive.

6) Find true love and get married.

(Just kidding about that one.)

My New Dating Consultant

Tonight I went out for drinks with my friend m (he insisted that I use just a lowercase "m" - it's going to be his trademark). He is one of the few people I know that will totally shoot it to me straight, and after I met Logan Boy and was reveling in what I thought was his awesome future-husbandness, m immediately told me to chill out and be careful. And lo and behold, he was utterly correct about the whole situation, to the extent that it was kind of scary.

So, tonight in his infinite wisdom, m told me that my problem is I am taking everything too seriously and I just need to chill out, stop expecting every guy I meet to be my future boyfriend, and just accept it for what it is. He's probably (ok, definitely) right, but it's way easier said than done.

To help me out with the process, m has agreed to become my new dating consultant slash educator. He will now coach me through my contact with boys and male relationships in general, which gives me great hope for the future. I consider him my spiritual teacher without any sort of spiritual connotation whatsoever.