I'm getting to effing old for effing

So.

My birthday is a-coming, which excites me great, all sad shit aside. But a few recent experiences have me a-freaking out.

I've decided to use "a-" a-lot in this post. A-see?

First, last night I had a glass of wine at dinner. One glass. And this morning, I woke up with a small hangover. Sure, it was barely perceptible, but still. A hangover. From a GLASS (and not a BOTTLE) of wine.

Second, I have legit back aches. Like, I've been sitting in the same chair for a few hours now and I had to creeeeeeeeeeeeak to my feet just to stretch out. Then I harrumphed/sighed/settled back into my chair, only to have my neck ache. I have the body of a 50 year old.

Third, the past two nights I have been wearing incredibly uncomfortable underwear for the sole benefit of doing the nasty with my boyfriend, and both nights (ok. This hasn't happened yet, but it's 10pm, I'm falling asleep on my laptop at school, I'm pretty confident in predicting THIS future) I begged off because I was too tired. In case you guys don't know:

1. I do not love flossing my ass just cause.
2. If you do the math, Grad School BF and I will be missing a week of sex this upcoming Sat-Fri because of parental interference, next Saturday I have my period, the next day he leaves for a small trip and the Tuesday following I do the same. We don't meet up again until Friday night at which point we will be sleeping at a friend's parents' shore house, which means no nookie through Mem Day, and then we have one night together before I up and leave for yet another week away in NYC and Chicago. So from May 15 until June 8, we will have approximately 2 opportunities to do it, three if you include the period day.

Wow. That's fucking depressing.

In any case, there's an argument here that this is all due to finals, graduation and associated stress. But there's also an argument to be made that I am about to be in my late 20s. Which SOUNDS young when you say it like that, but not when you look at my lazy ass which is NOT pulling off a thong which doesn't matter anyway because I'm not schtupping my boyfriend tonight because I'm as exhausted as if I had a FUCKING GLASS OF WINE.

Getting old (or having finals) sucks. That is all.

But that's my point. How am I giving up on sex when I'm about to become a nun?! And why is ONE GLASS OF WINE giving me a headache.

Postscript: Um, I didn't a-use the "a-" thing after I said I would, did I? Another sign of age? Memory loss? What was I saying?

Killer anxiety

Blllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. My college reunion is in a few weeks and I have to buy tickets. "Have to" because I haven't been back in a year, I love the school, I'm on the committee, and oh right - it's been five years.

God.

But the problem is, even BUYING the tickets is causing me a massive amount of anxiety. And not just "and where exactly is this money coming from?" anxiety. Like "holy shit if I spend $225 I don't have, I actually have to go, and that means getting on the plane and flying for a long time and then getting off and having a good weekend but then GETTING BACK ON THE PLANE!"

My legs just tensed up writing that.

This is starting to get ridiculous. I am an adult. Ish. I need to be able to control my anxiety! But things lately are not so good. Grad School BF and his parents stuff. Finishing grad school stuff. Not having a job stuff. I mean, is it entirely unforeseeable that I'd be wigging out?

I just wish I could get thru this.

Around this time last year I had a super successful trip. It was like flying back in the middle of college, when I was mostly at peace with everything except the last 30 seconds before take-off. I laughed with people on the plane, made friends with a man from Libya who was here to study water supply, and all in all, enjoyed myself immensely.

I just don't see that happening this year.

Even once I force myself on the plane, I inevitably will pee 5 times during the hour-long flight. I will freak out, calm down, freak out again. My hands will grow cold, hot, sweaty, cold. It's an intense cycle, and one that apparently is not great for my health (although I beg to differ: crazy spikes in blood pressure MUST be good for my heart. Just a workout! And if I pass out, thats 5 minutes I won't be conscious on the plane).

Sigh.

I don't even know why I'm writing this post other than that I'm so fucking wound up right now, I can't concentrate on anything else and it's either blog or eat the rest of the pita chips in my house with a melon-flavored vodka chaser.

So blogger friends - you guys anxious? What do you find helps??

Remember the (chubby) ladies!

So.

As of, well, right about now, Grad School BF and I have been officially hooking up for a year.

Aw. So sweet.

So you're probably asking why I'm blogging, and total tmfi, we already did the dinner and sex thing (it was very nice. The dinner, that is. The sex as ALWAYS was um, fanfuckingtastic. Ok, not always, there were a few times that we mostly ignore) and now GSBF is watching the Lakers and I am trying to find jobs online (ps - I need a job!). Perhaps some of the romance has been lost, but that's ok, because it's been a YEAR friends and that hasn't happen for good ole MA in quite a long time.

So I wanted to celebrate!

Which meant buying new lingerie. My crazy fucking fall semester, coupled with my crazy fucking paper writing this semester, has put me at a weight I haven't sported since the peak of my Freshman Forty days. I've been going to the gym NOT sporadically, and trying my hardest (most of the time) to eat well, so a few of the pounds have come off. But let's just say, I'm still a big ass girl.

With a big ass.

And I'm ok with it! But apparently, lingerie companies are not. I think I've written about this before (too lazy to go find the post, see above re: recent sex) but today was even worse. Today I visited:

• Loehmann's
• Filene's
• Lord and Taylor
• TJ Maxx
• Victoria's Secret
• Macy's

and had VERY limited success!

QUICK sidenote. Did anyone know Friendship Heights was the Suburbs on the Red Line!? I didn't! It is fabulous!! It's all chain restaurants and chain stores and little skinny 14 year olds thinking that their ironed hair and manicures make them adults!! It was like NJ but only a metro ride away from my house!

Anyway.

So I wasn't looking for the new bra-and-thong set I ended up settling for. I was looking for something FUN. A new corsety thing, perhaps. A nice teddy maybe. If necessary, I was willing to go for a babydoll, but those just freak me out sometimes and besides they tent around me and that is not sexy.

At all.

But there was NOTHING!! There was this slightly trashy, slightly classy brand of lingerie at Macy's ("Jezebel") which was promising, until I realized they only went up to 36Cs.

Even when I was THIN I was a 38D!!!

It was wholly disheartening. What about the portion (ever growing in more ways that one) of chubbies, fatties and curvy women?? Do you think we don't like to have sex?? We do! And not in the dark, ashamed, quickie sex. Luxurious, stripteasey, drawn out sex.

AND GOOD UNDERWEAR PLAYS INTO THAT.

I dunno. I ordered online. It sucked. I went to every department store and lingerie store on yelp (except Coup de Foudre. I am piss poor. See above re: job. Also, I had a feeling that they don't exactly cater to the big girls either). They had barely anything. Slips are great, but I have a bagillion and this was supposed to be different.

So in case any of you readers (who apparently still do exist! You guys are great! School ends Wednesday, I'll start commenting the shit out of your blogs then. GET EXCITED) work in the lingerie industry, here's a hint.

Boys like girls with DDs. Make some fun undies that fit them.

Tick Tock Tick Tock

No that is not the sound of that alligator (crocodile?) from Peter Pan. It is the sound of my own biological clock, as heard through my very young boyfriend's ears.

Let me 'splain. No there is too much. Let me sum up.

So a few months ago I was in the Jerz for a weekend (actually, I suppose it was a month ago because it was for Easter) and everyone was like "so when are you moving back to New York?" And I responded honestly - I don't know, and my lease isn't up until December.

So probably not before then.

It was weird, because I kind of thought I had decided that I'd be sticking around the District for a while (as in, up until the end of President Obama's first term) back in November 2008, because there is some Unfinished Business me and Congress have to do.

You know. Me and my buds talking immigration reform.

But apparently that wasn't clear to everyone (or even anyone). The same was also true for Grad School BF's friends - they asked him if I was moving to New York when we graduated on the same weekend.

What IS it with Easter?!

Also during his little break from me, his friends apparently discussed the marriage of two of them. GSBF watched for a bit, then said something along the lines of he didn't see himself getting married for the next ten years. Apparently there was silence, then the inevitable:

"Is MA OK with that?"

It's kind of ridiculous how quickly that silly question - not posed by ME - derailed our relationship. On Easter Monday, having been home for about 10 hours, GSBF suggested we go out for breakfast. There he told me he wasn't ready to get married, or have babies, or any of those crazy adults things.

I said, "uh huuuuuuuuh...?"

He sat there kind of staring at me, waiting for me to react more. And then it occurred to me that maybe he was saying something else, like that it was time to call it a day. So I said "wait... are you breaking up with me?"

It was at that point that I started to get teary.

He said "no no no no no no no no" and just clarified that he didn't want to get married right now. Well who fucking DOES!!

Apologies to those of you who do.

I was kind of offended that he suggested that because I am older than he is, clearly I must want to get hitched and start reproducing RIGHT NOW. AS IN FOUR MINUTES AGO. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR SAILOR?! "FERTILIZE ME!!"

Points to the winner.

Anyway, it's not like I'm saying I never want to get married. But as clearly is evidenced from the above, I barely know where I want to live in the next 2 years, much less who I'd like to live WITH me. I do not need a little mini me tagging along while I drink too much in either New York OR DC.

Or BOTH! YAY BOOZE!

In all seriousness. Is there something wrong with me that as I get older, the less I want to settle down? Is there something wrong with my boyfriend that he thinks that 27 is old? (Hint: the answer is yes.) And do any of you know what job would pay me money AND allow me to live in both DC and the city?

The In-Laws

So.

I've hinted at some boy drama. Well, here we go, and I'm saying as much as I can without fearing that one day someone related to Grad School BF will find this blog and out me and make my life harder than it already is.

Alright.

So remember how I talked about crazy parents, specifically Catholic ones, way back when I used to post all the time and you guys liked me? Well back in my innocent days, I really thought Catholics had cornered the market on psychosis when it comes to their children. But I missed a big segment of our population, and one that might just take the cake when it comes to over-parenting.

Muslims.

You see, Grad School BF's family is Muslim. GSBF - not so much, but unfortunately, that doesn't matter when you're talking about moving in together. In the sense that parents get to have a say about our lives forever and ever apparently, and so when you move in with someone, they clearly get to not only express their disapproval, but sometimes they get to upheave your and your SO's life by saying "um, fuck no."

OK they didn't say fuck. Also, upheave isn't a word and it should be.

Anyway. As you all know (maybe) GSBF and I moved in together, officially, in December of last year. It has been honestly, the best 5 or so months of my life at least, roommate-wise. I think probably my fourth year of college had some better individual months, but that is because I was in COLLEGE (hello) and had no responsibilities, whatsoever, no matter what I thought then.

Ok, whole other topic there.

The point is, I've had a blast. I cook, he cleans, we watch SVU reruns and sure, we fight, but it is just. Amazing. Is the word that I'm looking for. In addition he never EVER has:

• Not paid a bill in my name and left a big fucking stain on my credit report that my Visa card has just decided is reason enough to cancel the credit card I've had with them for 10 years even though the transaction was $100, happened over a year and a half ago, and was paid IMMEDIATELY after I found out about it. Visa fuckers;
• Had sex with so many randos that I started to worry about peeing on the same toilet as them;
• Speaking of sex, had repeated bouts of doing the nasty every single week at 4am on the one night before I had an 8:30am exam;
• Told me I was unAmerican for supporting Obama;
• Left me alone in a new city week after week, through no fault of their own, but still, a really fucking shitty living situation.

Sigh. I am a pretty angry person these days.

So anyway, GSBF's parents are coming to visit in a few short weeks and of course, that meant that he had to tell them we had moved in together. My parents already knew because they uh, co-signed for the apartment (there's really nothing so good at making yourself feel really good as a person as having to ask your parents at 26 to financially support you when you never, ever had to before this time in life), but since his parents come maybe 2X a year, there was no need to tell them until now.

And they did not react well.

Essentially, they threatened not to come to his graduation if that situation didn't end - and soon. As in, before they got there. And the problem is, we're both (along with my dad) on the lease! So we can't exactly go leasing another apartment elsewhere. Then there's the little matter of we-got-this-apartment-based-on-two-people-paying-for-it and there isn't any MONEY for another place. But what do you do? Lie? Rent a fake apartment for a week? Beg a friend to let you crash at their place and pretend you always live there? Or defiantly say, no mom, no dad, I'm an adult and you can't make my decisions for me.

That last one didn't work, btw.

So instead we're doing a combination of all the others, which is totes going to backfire on us one day which you know, means I can never marry GSBF and have his babies, which is OK because he doesn't want to do that anytime soon anyway (oh yes. See: tomorrow's post). But whatever, we've figured it out for now.

And it's not like I BLAME them.

It can't be easy to have their son, their first-born, their BABY in another country dating a girl from that country who they've met for a total of one week's time, who is older than he is and is seemingly corrupting him beyond imagination.

Not that he needed my help there.

But I really REALLY get it. For the first two weeks of the Situation (and no, I do not mean my or Mike whateverhisfacewhoisn'tevenFROMthejerz from the "Jersey Shore"'s abs) I cried a lot, and put a lot of the blame on myself. What had I done to make his parents feel this way, what was so wrong with ME that they didn't want us dating. But honestly? Even if that's a part of it, it's a teensy weensy part (and for his dad, probably not a part at all, and his mom, hello, she's a mom). This is about their son and his life choices, and they get to say and think whatever they need to, because you know, that's life.

If only they weren't showing up on my birthday.

Because now, our final arrangement has to start on the one day a year that everyone actually HAS to celebrate me (other than my general encouragement to do so at all times). This means he meets them at the airport, goes to dinner with them, and stays with them at night. So instead of my little birthday fantasy where I volunteer all morning, get a massage to self-congratulate myself then have dinner with GSBF and champagne on our roof with my closest friends in a beautiful dress that I haven't worn in forever and no one here has seen, I either get to:

• Get to have a nice little docudrama of "how to lose a guy in 1 day" - irreparably anger his parents!; or
• Watch Gigi, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Guys and Dolls and the Music Man in my sweaty volunteering clothes while swigging Cook's and chowing down on my own personal Carvel cake. And I don't mean one of those little sweetheart ones. I'm talking sheet cake baby.

Clearly, this is one of those poor little rich girl situations that I'm sure wins me lots of accolades among my friends who read this blog (if you still exist) and fans among strangers (if there are any out there).

But as JBJ says - it's my life.

I could happily not sleep in the same bed as GSBF for a week, give up all my favorite furniture just when my own parents were also showing up to see our apartment that they're financially responsible for, pretend that I'm TOTALLY ok with spending my last week of school practically not seeing the person who actually defines my experience there, and, oh right, the overwhelming sense of rejection that threatens to rear its ugly head every time one of my friends at school talks about meeting their SO's parents for dinner or for the first time in an excited way.

Happily.

But it just seems a bit much to start it a day earlier that I had planned, especially when that 24 hour period is the anniversary of my birth. But oh well. This IS my life.

I wonder if Gina had problems with Tommy's parents?

Loathing, Unadulterated Loathing

I hate my:

• Computer.
• School.
• Birthday.

Let's address these one by one, shall we?

My computer is a Lenovo Ideapad (510?) which I got 2 years ago for school. Yippee! Except last summer the power cord went on the fritz and burned out. I got a replacement cord, which burned out my battery. That's fine, I just have to keep it plugged in all the time, except, oh wait, it's fucking laptop and should probably be portable. Now, it's started to just turn off on me. I've lost the same fucking problem set three times (yes. I should have learned and saved more often) which I didn't really lose because right, autorecover, but whatever!!! SO MANY ERROR REPORTS!!

Ugh.

My school fucking sucks as well. My thesis was due a few weeks ago, and I turned it in and all, and now they turned it back and said "oopsies, your X Y and Z are a few centimeters off". Well obviously I didn't notice, did I? So I'm fine with it. Fuckers. In addition, I have a witch of a teacher who seems to think that I'm still in 8th grade and needs babying through papers. Look lady, if I want to skip class, that is my prerogative. Don't make me feel so damn guilty!!

UGH.

My birthday is the last thing on the menu. It is coming up. I'm going to be 27. I'm actually pretty excited about it. 27 seems a fun age. Except that the day itself is starting to really fucking blow. I don't want to get into the details, because they involve that dramz I talked about a month ago with Grad School BF that I'm going to blog about this week (oh yeah. I'm back, back again. Woopdefuckingdo) but let me just say, that I'm sick of sharing my birthday with other fucking shit. This has been going on since I was 14 and our middle school's trip to DC was on my birthday. You know how fun a birthday is when you sit on a bus for most of it? NOT FUN. And no offense to my siblings, but your graduations have cramped my style. Fuck it. My own graduation is SERIOUSLY cramping my style. Even when I was in Ireland, I had to fly (which I hate to do) in the middle of the day. Sure, my sister totes made up for it by giving me prosecco when we landed... in Italy. But still. Flying sucks. And so does my fucking birthday.

UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH.

I truly hope you're all well. I'm sorry if you think this blog is dead (hello anonymous!) and more importantly, I'm sorry that it kind of has been. Clearly, I have some pent up rage, so you may be subjected to some more ranting in the near future. Know that of course, none of it has anything to do with you. You rock. A lot.

XOXO,

Fucking MA