Who will my fiance marry first: me or his best friend?

My friend Holly and I had a plan. We were going to marry and film the wedding as an art project. Plus, we loved each other way more than we loved anyone else. Our civil union possibly was derived from an abatement in bad boy dates. We spoke more than some married couples; we fought much less than them too. Soon after our “engagement,” I met Pablo and decided marriage to him would be fulfilling.

This past Sunday, Pablo returned from Baltimore wearing a Chiefs (I think) football jersey that graced his shins. The shirt was awesomely huge and transformed his thirty-five year-old self into a twelve-year-old, which was a pretty adorable site. He had purchased it for his best friend, whom (Pablo announced) he planned to marry. Jake had popped the question over the phone while Pablo drank a beer at Mars Bar.

First, I was upset because Pablo and Jake had totally stolen my idea. Then, I was pissed because Pablo had proposed to me. Was Pablo some Romeo-esque character who fell in love with every person he met? I cancelled Holly and my ceremony for Pablo. Now after a year of dating me he agreed to a civil union with his friend. Was I actually analyzing the situation? Yes. Why? He appeared very determined.

However the situation unfurls, this “kick in my face” alludes to ubiquitous relationship troubles. Alone a couple only battles silly wars, yet when others are involved real problems may be introduced. Single friends want their pre-relationship friends back. Going out with the girls morphs into a night of turning down every man at the event, and the next day one must answer a series of inquiries from his or her loved one. Married friends speak about their own difficulties. One conversation grows into a disdain for anyone who drinks out of the orange juice container, especially your boyfriend’s penchant for drinking out of the milk jar.

One person in a relationship eventually loses contact with his or her friends and takes to the other’s homeboys. I partake in less and less nights out with my single friends, as Pablo rarely leaves home without me—thankfully, or he quite-possibly could have a harem of husbands.

I haven’t figured out how to juggle friends and Pablo. Any thoughts?

Even this “innocent” joke upsets me. All that I ask from Pablo is for a ring before Jake gets one. I would rock a wedding gown much better.

We all have had issues with New York public transportation, but we are lucky to have a system that runs to our favorite stops all night long… and even more lucky to know that filling out the “problem form” actually gets us a response.

It seems filling out a form to receive $1.80 for a malfunctioning metropass would be daunting. I did it; yes, it was.

I am excited to inform you that after a three-month wait, I have received a brand new metrocard for $1.80. Unfortunately, this card is also “malfunctioning.” What’s that old saying? “You can’t have your card and use it to?”

It would seem that a gay bar in NYC wouldn’t be the best place for a straight woman to go, but it would seem that everything isn’t always what it seems. (Tongue twister alert.)

My sister visited for the weekend and her hair guru and stylist Tony came along for the ride. Tony likes boys more than girls, and so he set out to check out NYC’s men. We all stayed in bed for three days straight, but on his last night we set out to find him a boy toy. Now, I was not one to pass on an offer of a free drink, but I could not believe the amount of free love I received: door covers being covered, an unlimited supply of drinks, hugs, compliments and dances.

Every girl needs to shake her tail feather at a gay disco. Not only do you reap a bounty of benefits, but you also experience female bonding. Without the normal fight for men’s attention between women, you find yourself making friends, not enemies. I am able to let my hair down (or keep it in a messy ponytail because no one is checking me out) and leave my ego at home. Thank you, Hiro; you are my hero.

i am sick so i really have not been updating or writing very much. the photo below isn’t always how my love life looks. i also just learned of some terrible news about my grandmother. the blog may be unattended until the end of this week.

My friend asked me an honest question yesterday, “I’m in love. I would never cheat on my girlfriend, but can’t I keep texting this other hot chick for fun? What if we break up?”

A year ago, I would have responded, “Duh! We’re young. Keep your options open. You aren’t married.”

Text messages are totally innocent…

and huge, bad situations always begin innocently.

Now after a year of realizing that text messages to other guys could never compare to the boy in your heart and bed (I know, mushy), I’ve come to enjoy being a one-man girl and a one-man text messager.

Honestly, I know we are young, but if we cannot start taking responsibility for our actions now, when will we? People similar to you and me (perhaps more so “me”), we may not be faithful to waking up and going to an office everyday, but at least we have respect for humans with whom we interact.

Hedonism is dandy when you’re alone.

One morning Pablo told me that the prior night he had tried valiantly to cheat on me. He wanted to have sex with another girl to prove something. He didn’t, couldn’t.

He had expected me to be thrilled by the news. (I’m sure that you can imagine my actual initial reaction.) Why did he tell me? Pablo only knows. After serious deliberation, I was relieved that he had informed me because his abrupt honesty rendered a significant amount of trust.

We push boundaries to make sure that we exist after we have put all of ourselves into someone else.

Did he take it to the extreme?

Yes.

Have I taken it there too?

In my own neurotic way.

In the end, I see these sad people in relationships. They flirt and text and fuck everyone but are too afraid to say something to the ones they “love.” That isn’t sexy. I loose all sexual attraction to someone who would cheat on me because he is weak. Either he hasn’t the courage to approach me with a larger issue or he can’t control some “primitive seed spreading” complex.

I’m unconventionally-lucky to have such an honest beau. x.

christine bartomi @ 6

So if you haven’t seen Me and You and Everyone We Know, you probably do not understand this post’s title. It is from an instant messaging affair between two characters. “)) < > ((” = “pooping back and forth”

Honestly, I had chosen Me and You because The ‘Burbs on Netflix wasn’t working. I had two hours to kill before I had planned to force myself to go to the post office and pick up a parcel from my mom. Friends raved about the film, but I was doubtful it would be very different from all the Indie films about hopelessly-hopeful characters who partake in sad conversations set to French disco pop.

I opened my Netflix window, placed my Gmail account to the left of my screen so that I could email while watching, texted a friend in LA who had canceled her trip to New York and another friend in DC who thought that his “life suck[ed] and [was] lonely.” I listened through headphones because noises from my window infiltrated my room even though I faced the courtyard.

Talking ‘bout my generation… I sometimes get upset when I watch films produced during “my time.” I am no cinema expert, but I enjoy Fellini and a Surrealist lens on everyday life. I am not sure why I must constantly be bombarded with real stories about people just barely making it on my laptop that is held together by two different-sized folder clips.

In the end of Me and You, the youngest character finally discovers who produces the noise that has stirred him from bed before sunrise every morning. A man “just passing the time” while waiting for the bus taps a quarter on a metal pole, the young boy does the same after the man climbs onto the bus.

Is he just another intelligent code in the hard drive? We’re all human. We all love and want to love. We’re all scared. We’re all waiting for something. An acceptance letter to graduate school? A response from a gallery? A call from a potential soul mate? Death? A quarter? A blow job?

Maybe I pass on this genre of film because it is still a little too close to home.

A friend has told me that (500) Days of Summer (another film that I had waited to watch until yesterday) reflects contemporary romance. I enjoy talks with him because he studies Social Philosophy and Law at Columbia, so we speak for hours on obscure theories that play pivotal roles in our lives. He tries to heal my heart aches by telling me that we are simply humans. A touch feels the same; our psychology intensifies a touch. Love exists in our mind, not in our destiny. In 500 Days, unfortunately the adult version of that adolescent from A Third Rock from the Sun learns the devastating distinction between reality and expectation.

I suppose that I am old-fashion. I believe in a happy ending that doesn’t always involve hipsters groping each other (but it can). In my ending, Marcello finds La Dolce Vita and photographs his wife and two children rather than movie stars. My best friend in LA visits New York. My friend in DC becomes president and develops jobs for Americans.

In ten years, I live at 125 Greene Street. I host dinner parties for my friends who are artists, scholars. They are pretentious because they have earned it. Every morning, I brew coffee for me and tea for Pablo. I French press while Pablo prepares dinner because I haven’t mastered culinary cuisine yet. Then I go to the flower shop to purchase fresh orchids and roses and pick up a parcel sent from my mother on time. I sit in my apartment at my desk top and work on an article for The New Yorker. I’ve recently been asked to contribute to Harper’s, so today I compare the art market to For Whom the Bell Tolls. Lunch is usually at a café. I fill out my census form so that a poor enumerator doesn’t have to hound me. I buy two airline tickets to Provence in late October. Pablo has finished repairs on an old maison purchased with the advance on my short story collection coming out next week. Tonight Pablo, our friends and I gather around our table to celebrate his museum retrospective. We fill the champagne flutes that I have purchased at an antique store in the now thriving Schenectady. We fall asleep still looking at each other while down the street another young writer still reads literature and dreams of her own dolce vita.

In ten years, films still portray reality, but my reality seems a little surreal.