New York Saves Your Soul

The next weekend I took a last minute trip to NYC with two of my best law school buddies, Just Eric and Dan. By all accounts I shouldn't have gone - it seemed like all of my friends who live in the city were either unable to host me or out of town. But I don't always make the most logical of decsions. So the three of us took the Chinatown bus & got into NYC in time for dinner & drinks at a Cuban restaurant. The first night was one of those typical NYC nights: I was out with Just Eric, his BFF Brendan & a random coworker. We barhopped, became friends with a random Norweigian and her friends, and danced the night away until 4am.

The next evening I met an old friend, Cait, at a play that one of our undergrad friends starred in. I hadn't seen Cait in years, and she was actually the missing link between the Brit & I. The two of them had become extremely close working together in England. After the play and the cast after-party, we headed to the Upper West Side to meet up with some mutual friends from undergrad (her best friends in the city). One of these guys we were meeting I didn't know very well, but we'd always had a lot of mutual friends. We'll call him Yacht Boy.

As the evening was winding down, Yacht Boy & I were doing a bit of flirting. It went down something like this:

Elise: You've never had a Jumbo Slice? You don't understand...best pizza ever. Seriously.
YB: Really? You're trying to out-pizza New York? You can't do that, it's impossible.
Elise: As a whole, New York pizza wins out, but Jumbo Slice is still the best in my book.
YB: You're ridiculous.
Elise: Okay, I'll give you a chance to redeem New York - what do you have in New York that's better than in DC? (yes, I realize this is a ridiculous question)
YB leans in for a kiss. We both smile.
YB: Oh, sorry, that's probably not a fair answer.
YB leans in for another.

As we're leaving the bar I realize I can't find my iPhone. I suppose I should interject some vital information here about me being a destructive mess. At this point in time I had already lost my Driver's License and Credit Card the weekend of Brit & Co in DC, and I had broken my digital camera the weekend I went to visit them at their school. And now...my iPhone fell prey to my destructive tendencies. So, what was I to do? Shack up with YB seemed like the appropriate response in such a situation.

We all ended up heading back to YB's apartment for some more beers, and headed up to his roof over looking the city. Everyone did the whole, "I'm going inside, it's cold" thing in order to leave the two of us alone. YB put his arm around me and we talked about how it was nice to be more than just facebook friends. (Technology is my primary form of communication apparently) We did some more kissing on the roof before, well, we headed back inside.

The next morning, Cait and I were brunching and debriefing about the evening, and I remember telling her how silly I felt that I needed a rebound hook-up after the breakup. But there it was, making me feel all self-confident and girly again.

Thanks to this weekend, I was officially back in the saddle.

Don't Drink and Cut Hair

The weekend after I met Brit & Co, I was yearning to have another adventure. The Brazillian made up my mind for me: come to their school in middle-of-nowhere Virginia to pretend like I'm 19 again with frat parties and football games. I was game, and made the 3 hr drive on Friday afternoon.

A bit more on the Brit & I: We have one of the oddest friendships I've ever encountered. I can say this in retrospect, now that we're really close, but some weird things have happened between us. It's such a good thing that we're just friends, because we'd be a shit show were we to date. This weekend began a bad routine for us: one of us getting blackout drunk and doing something that pisses the other one off (in this case him abandoning me in a city where I didn't know anyone and couldn't get ahold of anyone), us fighting...a LOT (making a bit of a scene in a frat house once he reappeared), and then the drunk one not remembering anything in the morning. And then the worst part of the routine: the debrief the next day (it took a good 30 minutes of me listing his sins). Why I felt the need to debrief him of his transgressions I'll never know.

The weekend was a blast, regardless of the odd friendship complications between the Brit & me. The International Kids took me to a frat party....I chilled in one of their friends room (the Queen Bee as he's known) the whole night, while the party roared in the basement unbeknownst to me. Here I was, thinking the party was just people running around the rooms of the house - I didn't know there was a live band and dancing in the basement. I still get made fun of for that one...

The most tragic part of the weekend came when, after a power hour, Queen Bee & I decided to cut the Brit's hair. I don't think he'll mind if I post a pic of the results. Remember kids, don't drink and cut hair.



Sunday before I drove back, we wandered upon a kiddie carnival on the campus: bouncy castle, obstacle course, American Gladiator style jousting, inflatable twister, etc. A few hours acting like we were 5 and one pair of the Brit's split pants later...and I headed on home to the District.

Brit & Co

A month after the break up, I had a new boyfriend. His name my couch. I would dream about my couch; I would talk about my couch at school; all I did in class was count down until I could walk home and lay back down on it with remote in hand. I guess I deal with depression by forming unnatural attachments to inanimate objects, most likely furniture. Remember to not let me meet your recliner after a death in the family.



The couch and I broke up, cold turkey, the weekend of the Brit & Co. It had been a month since the ex flew home that fateful September day. But first, a bit of background on the Brit:

The summer before I had visited the ex at the end of his study abroad program in England, and in doing so I got to meet the Brit. The Brit was the program assistant for the study abroad program, and had been for 3 years, so I had heard much about him thru one of my best friends who worked with him on the program one summer. How we met: I saw him in the courtyard to his university, ran over and yelled, "HI! You're ____! I've known who you are for years and you're awesome!" He's told me since then that he honestly didn't know what was happening and that for a second or two he actually thought he had started tripping. Naturally, I scared the shit out of the poor Brit with my overly affectionate American style. Ok, so I've been told what I did is weird in America, too. Regardless...he was now in America, studying at a school close-ish to DC. He was coming in for the weekend, and I had offered to show him around since he was a District Virgin.

Friday night, my roommates, my bee eff eff at law school (known affectionately as Just Eric), and I headed to AdMo to meet Brit & Co. "& Co" included: German, Another Brit, French, and Brazillian. Creative names, I know, but their nationalities make them who they are. This weekend was a whirlwind: Dinner & drinks at La Rumba, Jello (jelly if you're a Brit) shots at Millie & Als, dancing the night away at Grand Central. The nine of us had one of those perfect nights where the social circle fit perfectly. We introduced the lovely international friends to the glory that is the Jumbo Slice, a DC institution. The best part of the evening probably came when my roommate was smoking on the porch of Grand Central and a guy walking by thought it was a good idea to put her in a headlock.

After Friday night, I showed them the mall whilst hungover on Saturday; we took phallic pictures with the Wash Monument - the usual. I had a house party that night. We dinered it up on Sunday, and then they drove off. It was a perfect weekend. New friends, new adventures. That's when I made the change. And I suppose that's when things started to become interesting.

That girl.

I moved to the District in August of 08 to embark on that grand voyage that is known as law school. Now I'll be honest, I don't have good reasons for going to law school. I graduated and wanted to get a PhD in Art History (seriously???); that plan was foiled when the 15 programs I applied to all rejected me. So I did what any sensible liberal arts major who doesn't have a plan would do: apply to law school.

So it's a year later and I'm enrolled in law school. I thankfully moved to DC with two of my best friends from undergrad who came to the city with those hopes-and-aspirations-of-making-it-in-a-big-city that young people our age have (aka they were job-searching). I was leaving a boyfriend back home at our undergrad where he was still finishing up, but we had talked it thru and decided to try the long distance thing.

I move in, start classes, begin the adjustment to month-long sex droughts. In September the boy comes up to visit me in DC for our two year anniversary. I drive him to the airport on Sunday after an idyllic 3 days recreating our two years together in a new city. I say, "Good-bye, I love you, I'll see you in 26 days for fall break!" I'm sure you can see what's coming next, but maybe not its hellacious manner: I got a text from the boy as I'm pulling in my driveway: "I left you a letter on your nightstand. Please forgive me."

Yep, I was broken up with after two years by a note on my night stand. I'm "that girl." (Though I usually tell myself that he's "that guy" to make myself feel better)

So this blog is the story of how I've put my life back together, and the ridiculous situations that have resulted from me being "back on the market," if you will.