Dating Mimsy

My grandmother died today.

She was born in 1929 right before the depression hit. This was evident for the rest of her life, especially in her kitchen. She hoarded all of her food in her cabinets for months, years even. I once saw a jar of ranch dressing from 1995 in her refrigerator. I found it in 2004.  It’s perfectly fine if you cut around the mold.

When we would go out to dinner, she’d make sure to order a to go box before she even ordered her meal.  She also would make sure the waiter knew in complete detail exactly why she needed a to go box, “There’s always so much food on the plate for little ol’ Grandma.  I can have a feast tomorrow!”

She loved making dinners for her family and friends and would spend all day making the meals in her kitchen, and there was always a spread.  There were staples to every meal, which would include taco dip appetizer for Sarah and the ever present question as to why I didn’t like pork loin and “just try it again you’ll love it.”  She also made a lot of “molded salads” which normally included fruit and jello.  This one time, and she’ll probably be upset I even brought this up, she made a cucumber one, but made the mistake of telling us granddaughters what went in it: cucumbers, mayonnaise, cottage cheese and lime jello.  She’s lucky her children are good sports, but Jessie, Sarah and I just couldn’t stomach it.  “Just try a bite, it’s delicious,” she insisted.

She was my first friend I ever had. She regularly told me I was her best friend, and I believed her. She was the first person to tell me I had talent, and was eager to nurture my creativity. When I told her I was practicing yoga, she got down on the floor in her kitchen and showed me every pose she knew. She was 75 at that point, and was better at the poses than I was.

She went to the gym 3 days a week and volunteered at the hospital. She sang in the choir in her church. Each year she helped make the bullitin board art for the library in her local elementary school. She would draw with crayons and pastels onto huge rolls of paper and create scenes from various children’s books like Briar Rabbit.

She was one of the most talented artists I have ever seen. She would sit with me and draw for hours. She taught me how to draw a portrait. She helped me paint my first mural, and showed me how to create texture with a paintbrush. She had so much patience.

The last thing she said to me was that she loved me. I was so lucky to have her for 26 years.  I already miss her so much, I miss hearing her call me her “California Girl.”  I will miss her constant humming and singing. 

One thing she missed doing after she was widowed was going out dancing.  I hope that now she is enjoying a turn on the dance floor again with my grandpa, her Georgie.  I know she’s happier now than she has been in the last 20 years since he passed.

Her vigor and spunk and wackiness and compassion will live on.  I love you, Grandma Shirl.

This is a silly story she always told me when I was little.

The Story of Epaminondas

Epaminondas used to go to see his Auntie ‘most every day, and she nearly always gave him something to take home to his Mammy.

One day she gave him a big piece of cake; nice, yellow, rich gold-cake.

Epaminondas took it in his hand and held it all scrunched up tight in his fist and came along home. By the time he got home there wasn’t anything left but a fistful of crumbs. His Mammy said,—

“What you got there, Epaminondas?”

“Cake, Mammy,” said Epaminondas.

“Cake!” said his Mammy. “Epaminondas, you ain’t got the sense you was born with! That’s no way to carry cake. The way to carry cake is to wrap it all up nice in some leaves and put it in your hat, and put your hat on your head, and come along home. You hear me, Epaminondas?”

“Yes, Mammy,” said Epaminondas.

Next day Epaminondas went to see his Auntie, and she gave him a pound of butter for his Mammy; fine, fresh, sweet butter.

Epaminondas wrapped it up in leaves and put it in his hat, and put his hat on his head, and came along home. It was a very hot day. Pretty soon the butter began to melt. It melted, and melted, and as it melted it ran down Epaminondas’ forehead; then it ran over his face, and in his ears, and down his neck. When he got home, all the butter Epaminondas had was ON HIM. His Mammy looked at him, and then she said,—

“Epaminondas! What you got in your hat?”

“Butter, Mammy,” said Epaminondas; “Auntie gave it to me.”

“Butter!” said his Mammy. “Epaminondas, you ain’t got the sense you was born with! Don’t you know that’s no way to carry butter? The way to carry butter is to wrap it up in some leaves and take it down to the brook, and cool it in the water, and cool it in the water, and cool it in the water, and then take it on your hands, careful, and bring it along home.”

“Yes, Mammy,” said Epaminondas.

By and by, another day, Epaminondas went to see his Auntie again, and this time she gave him a little new puppy-dog to take home.

Epaminondas put it in some leaves and took it down to the brook; and there he cooled it in the water, and cooled it in the water, and cooled it in the water; then he took it in his hands and came along home. When he got home, the puppy-dog was shivering and near death. His Mammy looked at it, and she said,—

“Epaminondas! What you got there?”

“A puppy-dog, Mammy,” said Epaminondas.

“A PUPPY-DOG!” said his Mammy. “My gracious sakes alive, Epaminondas, you ain’t got the sense you was born with! That ain’t the way to carry a puppy-dog! The way to carry a puppy-dog is to take a long piece of string and tie one end of it round the puppy-dog’s neck and put the puppy-dog on the ground, and take hold of the other end of the string and come along home, like this.”

“All right, Mammy,” said Epaminondas.

Next day, Epaminondas went to see his Auntie again, and when he came to go home she gave him a loaf of bread to carry to his Mammy; a brown, golden loaf of sticky bread.

So Epaminondas tied a string around the end of the loaf and took hold of the end of the string and came along home. When he got home his Mammy looked at the thing on the end of the string, and she said,—

“Epaminondas! What you got on the end of that string?”

“Bread, Mammy,” said Epaminondas; “Auntie gave it to me.”

“Bread!!!” said his Mammy. “Epaminondas, Epaminondas, you ain’t got the sense you was born with; you never did have the sense you was born with; you never will have the sense you was born with! Now I ain’t gonna tell you any more ways to bring things home. And don’t you go see your Auntie, neither. I’ll go see her myself.”

The next day Mammy baked six blueberry pies. She decided to bring one of the pies over to Auntie’s house. As she headed for the door, she turned to Epaminondas and said, “Epaminondas! You see these here pies I made? They are set on the doorstep to cool. Now, you hear me, Epaminondas, be careful to watch your step on those pies!”

“Yes, Mammy,” said Epaminondas.

Then Epaminondas’ Mammy put on her bonnet and her shawl, then took a basket with one pie inside in her hand and went away to see Auntie. The other five pies sat cooling in a row on the doorstep.

Well, you can be sure: Epaminondas WAS careful and watched his step on those pies!

He watched his step, careful to place each foot right in the middle of every one.

Thanks for summing that up, Sex and the City.

I was always one to harp on my relationships after they ended.  Even with the shortest lived unions I would over-analyze the reasons as to why the guy would leave, what went wrong, what I could have done better, etc.  It’s taken me a long time to realize the common theme among every ending:  

Whether there is closure or not, I have survived every one.

If you are currently going through a breakup, you know how difficult it is to come to terms with it.  If you broke up with someone, you may be harboring guilt.  If that person broke up with you, you may be focused on plotting a way to get that person back.  Normally, those plot lines include stalking that person on Facebook or in some cases, stalking that person in real life.  (Disclaimer: neither of these options is healthy behavior.  What you need to do is read my post about Patrick, sign off of Facebook, and turn on “He’s Just Not That Into You,” you adorable crazy person, you.)

My way of dealing with a breakup was to get back with the person after about a month or more (sometimes a year or two) of separation.  With most all of my break ups I’ve attempted to get the person back.  Or they have eventually tried to get me back.  None of them were my current beau, Chuckles, thus none of those attempted “get backs,” lasted.  

Beware the Get Back; it is a double edged sword.  They can help gain closure, but they also hinder you from moving on.  

The allure of the ol’ Get Back is three fold:

1. It’s familiar and easy.  One of the scariest parts about a break up is the notion of having to start over, from scratch.  Your ex is a cake that you lovingly whipped up but then you ended up burning it in the oven.  Throw the fucking cake away.  Don’t cover a burnt cake with icing and expect it to taste like cake.  It’s just going to taste like a block of fossilized dinosaur shit with some icing on it. 

2. A lot of romantic moments in movies involve a Get Back. One romantic gesture or serendipitous turn of events, and they end up together in the end, happily ever after.  Look at “Pretty Woman,” “Ever After,” “He’s Just Not That Into You” (I really like that movie, if you can’t tell), “10 Things I Hate About You,” “When Harry Met Sally,” the list could go on and on. NEWS FLASH: life is not a movie, so sometimes you have to stop trying to force the ending you want. 

3. This relationship ain’t over ‘til you say it’s over, dammit.

Sometimes Get Backs are part of the grieving process.  There’s usually closure after a failed Get Back.  You know you at least tried to give it a second (or third) chance to make the relationship work, so in a strange way the relationship was a success.  It’s also because through the Get Back you can have answers as to why exactly it won’t work out.  It’s good to get answers.  Closure is healthy.  

Starting over is scary, but you’re about to rebuild the relationship with yourself again.  You always did want to take a cooking/acting/kickboxing class.  Maybe now you can get that cat your ex was allergic to.  Fuck, move somewhere new if you’re so inclined.  No one is there to stop you.  I’m serious: do something - anything - for yourself that you were preventing yourself from doing while you were in the relationship.  Do something that will force you to crawl out of your vacant hole of self pity.  I bet you’re already feeling better just thinking about the spontaneous trip to Vegas you’re about to take this weekend.

Here are some things I did to help heal after heartbreak:

After my break up with Trent I bleached my hair and bought myself a diamond ring.  The ring was a replacement for the one he had promised to me, but this one was more special.  This one represented my commitment to myself. No one was going to let me feel any less awesome than I knew I was.  Girl Power! Fuck you, Trent!  I still wear that ring every day.

After my break up with Grant I got a tattoo behind my ear.  A star.  It doesn’t mean anything, I saw someone with a tattoo behind their ear once, I liked that spot so I drew a doodle.  I love it.  My mom doesn’t.

After the third Get Back with Adam ended, I moved across the country.  I didn’t really know how else to move on from that one.  The break up wasn’t the only reason for the move, but it certainly didn’t hinder it.

I never regretted doing something for myself. 

One rule after a break up: don’t beat the horse after it’s dead.  A broken heart doesn’t give you permission to be pathetic.  No one wants a clingy ex.  Don’t drive by their house, don’t call and hang up, don’t check their Facebook profile every 10 minutes.  Even better— stop writing about how sad you are on Facebook or Twitter.  No one cares.  No one wants to read about your problems.  And I am confident in saying that no one will read your pathetic rant and say to themselves, “Wow, this person seems perfectly sane and normal.”

I have a friend whose ex-girlfriend started a blog after he broke up with her.  In it, she wrote every depressing, dramatic, borderline suicidal thought that came to her head for the world to see, using real names and linking the entire thing to her Twitter account.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against having an outlet for your pain.  It’s healthy to have an outlet.  The problem was everyone knew it was her blog, including her ex, and it didn’t exactly make him regret his decision to leave.  For a long time all his friends, and his new girlfriend, got a big laugh out of how outrageous it all was.  She eventually deleted it, but not before we gave her the nickname of Diapies, relating her to that psychotic astronaut that drove across country in diapers in an attempt to kidnap her ex’s new girlfriend.  Don’t be like Diapies.

If the relationship didn’t work out in your favor, there was a reason.  Both parties have to want a relationship to work in order for it to be successful.  It’s not worth your time or energy to worry about what someone else is doing.  The sooner you come to terms with this, the sooner you can move on.

I wish I had a successful Get Back story to share with you.  I don’t.  I attempted it several times until I came to the conclusion that it never worked out for me. 

I’m not saying that break ups are easy.  Go ahead, wallow in your cesspool of misery, which, I should mention, smells like bum piss.  Blast Celine Dion’s “All By Myself” on repeat until your ears fucking bleed for all I care.  You are allowed to do those things because it is part of the mourning process.

Just keep one thing in mind while you’re crying in your pool of pee: you can always make another cake, even if you worked really hard on the burnt one.  Learn from the mistakes, drop it in the trash can, and start over.

This isn’t quite a dating story but…

When I was in college I helped out on a lot on student films because I knew how to do zombie makeup and if I learned anything in college it was that film students really like to make zombie films.

While I was on set I liked to take photos to add to my portfolio. In my junior year I was brought on for one film that my former RA from my freshman year was producing.  It was being film at the house he shared with his girlfriend.  

This also happened to be the one day I forgot to bring my camera.

To go back to my apartment would have taken too long, so The RA gave me his digital camera to borrow.  He told me he’d put the pictures on a disk for me after the shoot.  

After I finished the makeup for about 15 zombies, I started to take pictures of each person’s face.  I was only 7 zombies in when the memory card said it was full. So like anyone would (right?) I started going back through the photos to see what I could delete to clear up more space.  Innocent.

Well, when The RA gave me his camera he forgot to clear the memory card.  I made the mistake of scrolling into those still saved photos.

FULL FRONTAL MALE NUDITY.  Yes, there it was in all it’s rock hard glory: The RA’s penis.  He was posing, kneeling down with his forehead resting on his fist.  Like an XXX version of The Thinker.  His penis was so big I thought it was his other arm for a second.  It was so big.  I can’t emphasize this enough; It was half of his thigh.

I had a bit of an idea that The RA was well endowed when I was a freshman.  He held a floor meeting with a couple other RA’s in the building, and he was wearing basketball shorts.  My roommate must have been staring at it for a while when she nudged me and told me to look at his crotch, and follow the outline down his leg.

So there I stood, the basketball shorts memory flooding back into my brain and I just stood there for what felt like 10 minutes, frozen, staring at the photo with my mouth agape.  There were about 40 people walking around me.  I snapped out of it and flipped back to the photos I took and quickly shut off the camera before anyone saw what I did.  

I didn’t even care about photographing the rest of the zombies, I just wanted that camera as far away from me as possible because that would mean I never saw it or some other dumb way of thinking.  So I put the camera on the desk in his room and shut the door.  Just call me “Get-that-penis-away-from-me Mimsy.”

Let me also say this: I am a terrible liar.  The worst.  

So what should I do when I just saw The RA’s giant shlong and I have to tell him the camera is in his room waiting to get the photos downloaded?  Do I ‘fess up and ask him,  ”Please don’t include the penis pictures on that CD because your girlfriend might not like that and I don’t want that juju on me.”?

Do I just walk up and give him a high five?  Shake his girlfriend’s hand, congratulate her on her on hitting the jackpot?  Ask her how her vagina is handling the new expansion?

Or do I save myself and them the embarrassment?  Save his girlfriend the knowledge that some random chick she never met just saw her boyfriend naked?

So Improv Mimsy kicks in.  I walk up, awkwardly high five him and thank him for letting me use the camera, it’s safe in his room.

Then I walk away and hope my face isn’t bright red.  I got the pictures later, but no penis for a souvenir.  This is the first time I am talking about it, well, ever.

So let this be a lesson: If you take naked pictures of yourself, someone other than the person they were meant for will probably see them.  It doesn’t matter if you’re as famous as Miley Cyrus or just a regular RA at a college.  They will be seen.  This photo should’ve been shown to the whole world, in my opinion.

The RA is now engaged to that girl.  I really should’ve shook her hand and congratulated her.

And now comes the part where I reference a classic Usher song whilst simultaneously admitting that I, too, have cheated.  Twice.

Let me preface this by saying that I take full responsibility for my actions, and it was in no way justified.  What I did was a terrible, terrible thing and it haunts me to this day as to whether I handled myself in the right way.

I met Sam through my best friend’s boyfriend.  They were roommates.  I actually met him on Halloween, when both of us were dressed in wigs and completely unrecognizable.  Later on we’d reference this as a sort of meet cute, when it reality it said a terrible amount about our relationship.

When we met we weren’t really serious.  We “dated” for the three weeks following Halloween, and he ended up sleeping with some other girl over winter break and that was the end for me.  He dated her for about a year and then something happened that I can’t quite remember, and we rekindled our attraction at the end of the year.  Mostly I would go over and listen to him play Sweet Child O’ Mine on the electric guitar.  

Just as things were starting to get serious, I cheated on him with a friend of mine during a post graduation group vacation.  Sam wasn’t on that trip, and I admitted what I had done when I got back.

I guess he really never got over that.  He contacted me after I moved to LA, expressing interest in moving out West to work.  He was living with his parents.  I advised him to save money and try to find a job before he moved.

Over the course of a few weeks of messaging back and forth on Facebook, he called me.  We talked for a while, which turned into flirting.  And bam, there was that attraction again.

I don’t know what convinced me that I had genuine feelings for him.  Our history had nothing but distrust on both sides.  But something felt like I needed to give it another chance.

We were in a long distance relationship for 3 months before he was able to move out.

Two weeks before he moved, my good friend Chuckles asked me come over his apartment to hang out, and to talk about a music video he was going to direct.  I had so much fun the first night that I went over to Chuckles’s place every night that weekend.  We talked a lot, we had been friends for a while but we never had gotten to really know each other one on one.  Through our conversations he introduced me to new music, and opened up a creative part of me that I hadn’t had in a while.

That’s when I realized that I never had this kind of connection with Sam.  Our conversations were nothing but flirting mixed with the occasional dirty talk.  At the root of it, Sam was always just an amusing distraction from being single.  Everything I had ever told him, the promises of change, they were all a lie.

I formed a very quick, strong bond with Chuckles.  We didn’t kiss, but we flirted a lot.  He made me a tragic mix tape lamenting our attraction as a sad forbidden love story.  I knew after only a few days that I wanted to be with him.  

When I talked to Sam I felt tremendous guilt.  Nothing had happened physically with Chuckles but I knew I had lost my attraction to Sam.  My roommate and best friend at the time convinced me that I should just give Sam a chance. A chance to not fuck with his emotions again. I let myself believe that I wanted him to move out, even though inside I was desperately dreading it.  I was hoping for something to spark when I saw him again.

But there was no spark.  I was emotionally involved with Chuckles on a much deeper level.  I couldn’t stop thinking about him and what I was possibly giving up by forcing myself to be in a pretend relationship.

I broke it off only a week later.  I felt terrible for lying to him and to myself.  

He only stayed in LA for 4 months after that, he wasn’t able to find a steady job. He was sharing a studio apartment with a friend.  I tell myself that his job situation wasn’t my fault, I had told him not to move for me, I told him to find a job or at least a lead before he came out.  I was working 2 jobs when he moved out, and he wasn’t really doing anything but eating my food.  It still felt like kicking an underdog while he was down.

I don’t really know what he’s doing now.  I haven’t wanted to reach out to him or cause any more pain than I already did.  There was a time I felt the need to explain myself, but there was nothing really to say that wouldn’t hurt him more. 

As much as I don’t condone cheating, I do condone listening to your gut, and not your roommate.  You should never try and trick yourself into being with the wrong person.  I still have a spark with Chuckles.

It’s funny what you can convince yourself of when you like someone.   The crush is not something that should be fooled around with.  I’ve been “in like” with many folks, a handful of which I’ve convinced myself it would turn into more.

One of them was Adam.

Adam was a bartender (this was a trend in my college years, free drinks are even sexier when you’re living off loans) at my favorite bar.  This bar, which has since been bought up by the almighty Paula Deen, was my favorite place to go mostly because of how run down it was.  The walls were covered in brick and you could see straight to the basement through the slats in the wood floor.  There was usually live music, the drinks were cheap, the people were cool and the bartender was super cute.  

I was 19 when I first met Adam, he was 27.  His age really attracted me to him.  He was a real man, not another college dude.  He had a really great sense of humor.  He wasn’t handsome in the conventional way, but he had this charm that made up for his almost-handsomeness.

The first time I caught him with another girl, I was out with a friend for dinner and the hostess sat us right next to him on his date.  He pretended like he didn’t even see me.  When I confronted him later about it he claimed she was only a friend, and that even if he was on a date I’d be crazy to consider it cheating since we weren’t officially an item.

We had been dating a month at that point, I wasn’t seeing anyone else and I really hoped he wasn’t either.  

After a few more weeks and a very embarrassing conversation about the status of our relationship, he cut things off with me.

Being a normal 19 year old, I figured the best solution was to dress as sexy as I possibly could and waltz my little whore ass down to the bar to show him what he was missing out on.

I had to do this a few times before I ended up staying until close and I got him to myself.

He knew a good place that was open late night and we went and shared a slice of pizza, talking as if nothing had happened.  He walked me home.

Over the next few months we did what any couple would do.  We went dancing.  We drank.  We probably watched a movie at some point.  When I think back about the early days it now all seems very blurry, except for 2 nights.

His birthday, where he got so belligerently drunk that he buried himself in a pile of boxes in the liquor storage room of the bar, made out with an inflatable doll, then stumbled out while his friends continued to offer him drinks, some even trying to force them down his throat.  I wrangled him out of the bar and carry-dragged him to my car and listened to him serenade me with Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back” the entire way home.  Oh, the romantic memories.

The other vivid memory I have is the last night that our bar was open.  It was a really emotional night for everyone, especially Adam.  He had worked there for over 2 years, it was his home.  It felt like everyone’s home, which was about to turn into commercial property for Paula Deen’s restaurant gift shop.  It was a really really sad night.

I was only able to stay a short time when it was at its busiest, I returned later that night to help Adam clean up.  He asked me to leave because he wanted some alone time with the people he worked with.  He showed up at my house about an hour later, carrying the tip jar from the night in his arms.  He was carrying this in a city with a very high mugging rate; it’s a miracle the money wasn’t taken from him.

I come to find out that Adam is so drunk that he stole the tip jar from the bar and left without telling anyone.  I’m now getting panicked phone calls from the bar asking if I knew where Adam was.  I did, and I brought him back in my car and waited outside while he admitted to them what an idiot he was.  There was a lot of yelling.  I’m sure to this day he’ll deny stealing the money, he always said in his stupor he thought he was “protecting” the money.  It could be true, I’ve seen the guy bury himself in boxes.

At this point you can probably tell that Adam has a problem.  He was a heavy drinker and had really bad self esteem that he fed through dating as many women as possible.  We broke up soon after that, he had to move back home on the opposite coast because his mom got sick.  I didn’t hear from him for a long time.

Fast forward a couple years, a few months before I graduate.  I had been a nanny for a couple months to two adorable girls.  One night after watching Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, he called.  He had a special ring tone in my phone (Bartender by T-Pain, if you have to know) so I knew who it was before I even looked at the caller ID.

Something made him think of me — two years later— and he was just calling to catch up.  He was still bartending, his mom had gotten well, and he was planning his next move.  I told him I was moving back home to New York after graduation, and that was that.  He decided to move to New York City to start the next phase of his life, to get a real job, and to grow up.

My stomach flip flopped.  I had no idea if this meant he was moving there because he wanted to, or if it was because I would be there too.  To this day I really don’t know, it was all out of the blue and very strange, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone moved across the country for me (that relationship, for a different post, didn’t work out either).

We talked on the phone every day, about 4 months, until his move.  When he got to NYC he moved into an apartment on the Upper East Side.  He invited me over to see the new pad and hang out for the day, “to catch up.”  For the record, he instigated everything.  We spent the day together going to some museums, walking in the parks and eating hot dogs from Grey’s Papaya.  He kissed me first, too, right in the middle of a sentence I was saying, like he had been thinking about it for the past two years and he couldn’t stand waiting until I was done speaking.  When the kiss happened, we instantly went right back to where we left off before he moved 2 years ago.  I was staying an hour outside of the city with my mother, so when I went in for interviews I’d go and stay with Adam.  He also came to my house on the weekends when he could afford to get away.  He was working at a bar until he got his foot in the door as a copywriter.

This lasted for another 4 months.

I was there with him the day he got his first copywriting job.  That was also the day that he must have decided that he was the new Don Draper.  Two weeks later he once again told me he couldn’t commit to me, and despite my protests that I could slow things down, he refused.

The truth was I was only there for comfort.  I was something he knew, someone who wouldn’t abandon him while he was adjusting to changes in his life. Once he got comfortable, he didn’t need me anymore.

I told him not to call me again after that.  A few months later I found a job in LA and moved there.  

Thanks to my trusty friend Facebook, I know he started dating someone shortly after I moved.  They dated for over a year and then he was magically single again.  She probably wanted to get married and he freaked out.  

This year (four years later) he contacted me again because he came to town on a business trip.  I turned down the invite for dinner or drinks.  I decided long ago that there was no need to ever see him again, and I’m completely at rest with that decision. We are not old friends.

He never really brought me any joy.  I was always trying to please him, and never really stood up for what was best for me when I was with him.  I never demanded respect.  I just tried to be cuter or sexier. I tried to be the perfect woman, someone other than myself, to somehow stop him from straying or losing interest.  But it was never me that he wanted, he didn’t really want anyone.  He just wanted to feel adored. It only took 2 1/2 years and 3 heartbreaks for me to realize that.  I had cried so much over this person for so long.  I compared everyone I was ever with to Adam.  He had a strange power over me.

Never again.  And I can avoid seeing him— I put a fucking continent between us.

At one point in time I would have considered Adam as the one who got away, but now I am more than sure it was the other way around.  He was a real idiot.  Normally, when it comes to break ups, that’s the thing you tell your girlfriends.  But straight up, this guy was really dumb to let me go.  I hope he thinks about me.  And I hope he has matured enough to regret how much he hurt me.

Through all this bitterness, I am thankful to him.  Because of him I had a will to better myself, to selfishly prove that he missed out when he left me.  I could survive without that dipshit.  I’d get revenge by being happy, and I didn’t have to wear a slutty outfit to prove that to him.

I am happier now than I ever was with Adam.  I am now living in a city that I love, and I am in love with a man who is self driven and doesn’t use me for his own needs.  He simply wants me to share his life with me. 

I never feel like I’m not good enough.  I don’t cry anymore. I laugh a lot.  And that’s really all anyone should want from a relationship.

You’re probably thinking, “What the hell does that mean?”  And I’ll tell you, after I tell this story.

In the August before my sophomore year of college I moved into my very first apartment with three Junior girls: Amanda, Jackie, and Mel.  Yes, four girls under one roof was a little overwhelming at times, but what roommate situation isn’t?  I have only a handful of bad memories from living there (one of them was this little incident).

Moving into that apartment was great.  We were close to the beach and I got into all the good summer parties with people who could actually buy beer legally.  I met Grant at one of those parties exactly one week after I moved into that apartment.

Grant was also a Junior, two years older than me, really attractive, funny, smart and he had a big crush on me.  From the first minute he introduced himself I knew.  And lucky for Grant I thought he was pretty cute, too.  

When he found out I was single he swooped in by inviting me and my three roommates for a beach camping trip with him and his three roommates that weekend.  Amanda and Mel were in serious relationships with his roommates Jack and Mark already, so it wasn’t a creepy invite.  It made total sense.  He had no choice but to fall in love with me out of convenience.  Plus, Jackie was kind of crazy and I was the better choice.

Grant wanted a head start to get the camp set up for us.  The camp site was on a small island located at the mouth of water where the river emptied to the ocean.  It was only a couple miles off of the main beach.  The plan was for the boys to head across the river to the island on their canoe and kayak in the morning, set up camp, then return for us at 3pm and bring us over.

Grant and the boys got to the island fairly early.  Mel, Amanda, Jackie, and I parked at 2pm.  I called Grant.  ”Bad news,” he said, “It’s about to be high tide.  If we head over there now the waves will be too strong and we could flip.  Stay close and we’ll call you once the tide goes back down a little.”  

How long would that be? “About three hours.”  Three HOURS? What the hell were we supposed to do until then?

We could have gone home, but we paid to park and so the most logical solution was to go drink.  We walked a couple blocks to the nearest bar, ordered some fries and wings and drank.  For three hours.  At 5pm Grant called again.  The tide was still too high.  Also, his phone was about to die so he gave me his roommate Jack’s number. 

We went back to the beach to enjoy the last bit of sunshine left in the day.  Amanda’s phone lost it’s battery at the bar, so we dropped it off at her car and texted the guys to call one of us instead.  Then we waited.  We tanned.  We gossiped.  We waited.

At 8pm the sun was setting.  We were losing sunlight and there was only one flashlight.  I called Jack.  ”The waves are still really rough here, we are SO SORRY,” he pleaded.  Mel and Amanda suddenly became homicidal.  ”We’re going for a walk, we’re going to find someone that will bring us across.  And then when we get over there on our own we are going to kill those boys.”

Jackie and I had no idea who they could possibly find that would be willing to haul 4 girls across a river.  They walked away without saying anything else.

I decided to stroll down to the shore.  Jackie stayed with our bags.  I kept my phone in the top of my bathing suit just in case Jack called back saying they were on their way. 

When I reached the jetty the rocks looked rather dangerous, so I decided to walk in the dunes behind them to get around.  The dune was full of sand spurs.  I pulled my right hand out of the sand and it was covered in them.  And. They. Hurt. Like. Fuck.

I ran to the water and dunked my hand into the wave. I picked out all the spurs and washed the blood off in the water.  And then the unthinkable happened.  My precious cell phone dropped out of my bikini top, and kerplunk!ed right into the salt water.  It instantly went to shit, and so did my mood.

I ran back to Jackie and told her to call Jack and tell him we were two phones down over here.  I was ready to throw in the towel but Mel and Amanda were still gone and we couldn’t just leave them there; Mel drove and we didn’t have the keys.

Jack told us that it was ok, Paul was heading over in his kayak, which fit two more people.  The kayak was less likely to tip than the canoe, he explained.  They would have to make two trips. 

Jackie called Mel.  She didn’t answer. Then we saw a group of people heading towards us on the beach.  Those two bitches somehow found a bunch of boy scouts, their Scout Leader AND a three person kayak.

The scouts happened to be camping a few miles up the beach and were planning to kayak the next day.  The girls promised to return the kayak before noon if we could borrow it.  Nothing springs a boy scout into action quicker than some damsels in distress.  Especially if those damsels are wearing bikinis.

The boys gave us a quick kayaking lesson on the beach.  Paul, exhausted, arrived on the shore a short while later and dragged the kayak out of the water.  Paul only had one waterproof bag with him, which meant we could not take all our bags across or they would be soaked.  I put a dry towel and sweatshirt into the bag along with my toothbrush.  The girls put in what they needed, the bag was sealed and placed into the middle of Paul’s kayak.

We got the Scout Leader’s phone number for kayak return and the scouts returned to their camp.  

Paul turned on his headlamp.  ”Just make sure to stay close, it’s dark on the water.” Jackie climbed into his kayak and Amanda, Mel and I pushed the other kayak into the water and climbed in.

We slowly paddled over.  Paul was very helpful, coaching our strokes so we went in unison.  The water was a bit choppy and we were getting splashed, but the five of us kept stride and eventually made it across.

We didn’t realize how dangerous that trip actually was until the guys looked genuinely relieved to see us.  Kayaking at night during a high tide is not the smartest activity to do.  One flip and it was possible we could have drowned in the tide. 

But we survived and the guys were blown away by our MacGyver-like resourcefulness.  Amanda and Mel ripped Jack and Mark some fresh buttholes for all the hell they unintentionally put us through.  If they had known when high tide was, we all could have planned to be out there earlier.  They were too consumed with putting on a show and impressing us that we ended up risking our lives to be with them.  We could have just left to go home.

My ability to kayak through raging river waters and not die seriously got me on Grant’s list of incredible women.  I was the sexiest woman on the planet that night.  A real life wonder woman.  

We got drunk, ate hot dogs, told stories, set things on fire, and stayed up until 3 am.   We slowly coupled off into the 4 tents.  We all got lucky.  Our combined fierce sexiness made those guys like puddy in our hands.

The next day we packed up camp and paddled back across the river.  I remember the wind was against us and it took twice as long to get across as it did the night before.  We returned the kayak to the boy scouts, and went home and baked those helpful boys some Funfetti® cupcakes.  

So what do I mean by “Be Prepared for High Tide”?  Just that, dummy!  Things don’t always go according to plan. Be willing to improvise.  Sometimes you have to find your own metaphorical group of boy scouts.  Had we given up and left, we all would have just resented each other and maybe Mel and Mark wouldn’t be married now.  Oh, yeah, I didn’t mention— they got married last year.

Grant broke up with me four months later.  Why it happened, I still don’t really know.  I’ll leave that up to analyze in another post.  I do know this, he was truly special to me.  He helped me move on from Trent.  He helped me to become myself, he gave me confidence.  It took me four years to get over him.  

Grant is currently living in Sacramento and is happily dating a girl who looks eerily similar to me.

Louis was a bartender at my second favorite bar in my college town.  My first favorite bar had just closed so now this shit hole was my main haunt.  Okay, it wasn’t a shit hole.  It was actually very nice and the owner brought me Scotch Eggs sometimes just because I was cute.  Okay, that’s a lie too, everyone got Scotch Eggs.

Anyway, Louis and I flirted a lot for a few months which built up a lot of sexual tension and mystery (what WAS he wearing under that kilt?).  We hung out a few times after he got off of work before he mustered up the courage to ask me out.

He was funny and really honest which I liked.  And bald with a beard.  I find the Mr. Clean look strangely attractive and have dated multiple baldies.

The first time we tried to do it, every awkward possible thing that could have happened in a situational comedy did happen.  He rolled on my hair.  I elbowed him in the face. The dog came in and licked his toes.  He started baby talking to the dog while fingering me.  Then he stopped to tell me he had to pee.  Needless to say, nothing ever got going, so we stopped and he left.

A couple weeks later I saw him again at work and stayed until close.  He walked me home and I invited him in, hopefully to make up for the failed event the last time.  We got upstairs and again awkwardly started going at it.  I managed to get his penis hard enough to get a condom on.  We were ready to go!  He got on top of me, started kissing my neck, then whispered in my ear, “Hold on… I gotta poop…”

He got up and went to the bathroom.  That wasn’t exactly the dirty talk I was hoping for.  When he came back he was disappointed to see that I had put my clothes back on.  Either this guy didn’t want to do it with me or he had serious sex related bathroom habits. 

We slept together a total of no times.  I didn’t invite him back after that, but I still drank at my second favorite bar because good Lord have you ever had a Scotch Egg?  Delicious.

Louis is still a bartender at my now eighth favorite bar.  He is engaged now.  The poop line finally worked for him.

When I was a freshman in college I was obsessed with the movie Garden State.  I watched it just about every day.  I had the soundtrack, knew every song in order.  Needless to say, things got pretty serious.  I had fantasies about it coming true.  I, of course, was Natalie Portman’s character, quirky and adorable.  Come to think of it, we both had brown hair, too, so we were practically the same person.  Although I wasn’t epileptic.

I met Chris during this tender time. (Remember Chris?) I had actually lost my virginity to his best friend, but as weird as it sounds out of context it was not a big deal that I had a crush on Chris.  The guy that popped my cherry never wanted me to go near his penis again.  I learned later from Chris that he told everyone I gave “toothy head.” Duh, I had never seen a penis before.  Makes sense.

Needless to say the green light was given when I learned that Chris was visiting.  Cherry Popper and his roommate were well into in the friend zone— we hung out every day.  They were my besties. Besties who wanted to sleep with my roommate and pretend I’m their younger brother.  Besties who farted on me, is what I’m trying to say.

They were filmmakers and forced me to watch their amateur videos from high school.  I don’t even remember what they were about, but the guy in them was really hot.  Jared Leto in My So Called Life hot.  Yeah, Chris looked like Jared fucking Leto, let that sink into your brain stem.

A group of us went out to a local bar the first night of Chris’s visit.  I made sure to buy him plenty of drinks so I could have an excuse to awkwardly hit on him and perhaps give him toothy head if the occasion arose.  Nothing arose that night.  This was the night young Mimsy learned about whiskey dick for the first time.  It was a very eye opening and coming of age time in my life.

Chris woke up hungover and got out of bed to put on his boxers.  I took this opportunity to get a good look at the situation happening downstairs.  I wanted to see this morning wood all the cool kids were talking about.

That’s when I noticed the foreskin.  That penis didn’t look the same as the first one I saw.  This one reminded me of a dog’s penis.  

My roommate was dating an English guy so I asked her what I should do with it.  ”I like to pretend I’m playing hide and seek when I’m giving him head,” was her answer.  Cute, I guess, but what do I do with it??

When I learned about smegma from my friend Connie I decided to never go near it with my face again.  And Chris always wore a condom, it was easy to pretend that it was a more attractive member.  All dicks look the same in a condom.  Like little bandits with stockings on their head.

Chris was only visiting for four days (your typical Garden State scenario). Apart from his extra penis skin, I really liked him.  Like in the schoolgirl way in which I thought I was in love.  Chris was the Zach Braff to my real life parallel of Garden State.  Next step Chris decides to stay and not get on the plane and tell me he loves me as I sob in a phone booth. I was genuinely confused when this didn’t happen.

Chris and I called each other every day after he left.  I saw him over the holidays and he came to visit me at school for spring break.  The last night of break was the night we broke up, which ironically to this day may be one of the most romantic moments I’ve ever experienced.  He got me alone, chose a song and slow danced with me.  At that point in my life all I wanted to do was slow dance.  Relationships were like movies and I also really liked The Notebook.

When the song ended he told me that being away from me was too difficult and he couldn’t afford to move.  We both admitted that it really sucks to be in a long distance relationship.  We cried.  

He transferred to my school the next year.  We never got back together, though.  One of us was always dating someone else when the other was single, so we never had a chance to give it a real go.  He remains a friend to this day— we both ended up living in the same city.  He still wants to be an actor (classic Garden State).

This is why you shouldn’t confuse movie romance with real life romance: Movie Romance Guy is still a man, and we are talking about sleeping with Natalie Portman here. One does not simply get on a plane when they are fucking Natalie Portman.  Movie Romance Guy is also rich, Jewish and circumcised.  You, my friend, are not Natalie Portman.  And even if Real Life Romance Guy looks like Jared Leto, he probably has smegma.  Like, there’s a really good chance it’s there.  

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone.

**Editor’s Note:  I feel the need to defend myself as I have been accused of rape because of this story.  Let me just make it clear that I did not rape Chris nor have I ever raped anyone.  Chris and I knew each other before his first visit to my school.  I was obviously young and naive when this relationship occured, however, going out with friends and drinking is the norm in college, especially in your first semester of your freshman year in college. If you read on to the next sentence, any action that I was expecting to come from said night never happened.  Did he sleep over? Yes.  Did we make out? Yes.  Was the making out consensual?  100% yes.  

Thank you for making me feel like a rapist, though.  It was really the best compliment to receive on Valentine’s Day.  

On that note, Chuckles and I have a hot date at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles tonight, and I’m probably going to take advantage of him after he gets drunk off grease and maple syrup. Rape? It’s not rape on Valentine’s Day.  

There is nothing worse than an ex-girlfriend.  There, I said it.  No matter how nice she may be as a person, she is the fucking worst.  And I’m sure you’ll hear all about her if you’re ever coupled up. My current squeeze, Chuckles, could probably write a novel on how much he hates his ex.  He has never said anything nice about her, and since I never met her, I picture her as Satan.

Yup, Satan.

My fear of exes came from my first real love.  I met Trent in the last semester of my freshman year of college.  He sang and played guitar.  He wrote his own music. He’d sing me to sleep with Delicate by Damien Rice.  He was so romantic that my face turned a permanent shade of red from blushing so much.  

And he was hilarious.  He was so funny he made me pee my pants once.  Seriously, I pissed myself at 18. He liked the same movies that I did (Wet Hot American Summer!) and was family oriented and a Christian boy, but not like crazy God-Hates-Fags Christian, more just of the morally good variety.

He was so good looking, too.  He wore glasses and had brown hair and was fit but not roid-ragey.  Just— strong.  He also knew his way around a vagina which never really hurt anyone.  Oh, and just to top it all off, his father founded Rubbermaid. Jackpot.

I fell fast.  Real fast.  Like, Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom fast.  We were engaged within 5 weeks of dating.

It was all very romantic.  I was 18, I was his first.  He turned to me one night while watching Arrested Development and said, “If I were to ask you to marry me tomorrow, would you?”

Duh.  But instead of tomorrow, we thought waiting until graduation would probably be more logical.

There was only one slight problem.  His ex-girlfriend, Laura.

It would have been a lot easier for me if Laura didn’t look like a supermodel.  It would have been even easier if said supermodel wasn’t BFF with Trent’s mother. Did I mention they dated for 4 years and had known each other since they pooped in diapers?

Intimidated didn’t even begin to touch on how I perceived Laura.

She cheated on Trent a few months before I met him, plus they went to different schools so things naturally fell apart.  He assured me that she was in the past and he loved me more than he ever loved her.  I believed him, of course.

When the semester ended and I packed up my things to go home for 3 months, I cried. How would I survive 3 months away from someone I had only known for that amount of time?  We planned to get together in August and drive back down to school together.  We discussed living together when we got back.  Confident on where we stood, I got on the plane back home.

A few days later he called to check in.  He was headed to his parent’s beach house for the weekend and was really excited because they were bringing his dog.  He said he’d call me when he arrived and that he loved and missed me terribly.

I never got a phone call.  I tried him the next day.  His phone was off.

What an idiot, I thought, he forgot his charger.

Three days went by and I hadn’t heard from him.  Three days felt like three months, and he wasn’t bad at communicating.  

Something was wrong.  And trust me, if you are a woman and your gut tells you something is wrong, 99.9% of the time something is wrong.

I was really worried.  And a worried woman quickly turns into a crazy woman if you aren’t careful.

I called his house and left a message on his machine.  I never met his parents but surely they had heard about me.  

The next day my mom took me shopping to get my mind off of Trent.  I was standing in the middle of DSW when my cell phone rang. Finally.

He was ok, thank god.  But my relief quickly turned to blind hatred.  He had purposely turned his phone off to avoid my calls.  Why, you may ask?  Because on this little weekend getaway with his parents, they decided to bring along both the dog and Laura.  He was completely surprised by her arrival at the family beach house and his parents insisted they work things out.

Laura was perfect!  Laura was the only girl for him!  And Trent realized how much he still loved Laura after seeing her again.   

It was the sharpest, most excruciating pain I had ever experienced.  It took a long time to heal after that.  I think I’m still healing.  I honestly would have rather been stabbed than to ever feel like that again.

Trent is still in my circle of friends, however, I haven’t seen or spoken to him in person since that day.  He and Laura broke up again a year or so later, for what reason I really could fucking care less.  And although all my friends that know him have said how terrible he feels about what he did to me, I have still not heard it directly from him.  Coward.

Trent is currently single and lives in Los Angeles.  I still do not purchase Rubbermaid products.

In my last post I mentioned an incident that made me hesitant to give out my home address.  Here’s the story:

There is a thin line between admiration and obsession.  I am always flattered when I get attention from any guy.  Normally I’m surprised if he’s really into me, because I know me and even though I think I’m awesome, I’m no Giselle Bundchen.  Not many women are, which is why when it crosses the line into obsession that the line starts to blur.

Patrick was a cute guy that I met while I lived in the dorms my first year of school.  He had shaggy brown hair and a great personality.  If he had told me he was crowned homecoming king each year of high school I wouldn’t have taken him as a liar.  I wanted him to be mine.  

When I ran into him at parties and around campus he was very funny and charming and I formed a bit of a crush.  I don’t think he picked up on it until I got drunk one night my sophomore year and laid the flirting on him real thick.  He asked for my number.

We went on a date the next day which was fine, I guess, but not very memorable as I sit here typing.  Maybe because what happened after that date turned into a huge nightmare and overshadowed the seemingly innocent date.  Later that same weekend we both went to a party that was hosted by my ex, Chris, who happened to still be a very close friend of mine.  

Now, let me just explain something: We didn’t show up to the party together, nor would I have considered us “together” as we had only had one date over coffee.  Obviously Patrick had a different idea.  Flirting over coffee to him meant I was his now and no one else could talk to me.  He followed me around the party like a fly to shit, and let me tell you — if you ever end up dating me, please don’t hover around me.  I like my freedom and if we’re together I won’t ignore you, but if I’m trying to have an intimate conversation with my girlfriend about ovaries or whatever the hell girls talk about I don’t want someone standing over my shoulder listening in.  If you don’t have a uterus, get the fuck out of my ovaries conversation.  Unless you’re a dude gynecologist. Or should I say… a GUYnecologyst.  Clever, Mimsy.

We played a nice game of cat and mouse that night.  After several attempts to shake him and do my own thing, I begged Chris to help me leave the party without Patrick noticing.  Enough was enough, this was getting creepy and I didn’t feel comfortable with a guy that couldn’t enjoy himself without latching onto me, especially one that couldn’t take a hint.

Chris’s bedroom led straight out to a private patio that led to the street.  I just had to get to the bedroom without Patrick seeing me and I’d be home free for at least the night.  I didn’t know what had gotten into him.  For a year he acted like I didn’t exist, then after one cup of coffee he became so attached that I felt smothered.  Again, I would love to know what I said during that date so that I could write some great article for Cosmo, “How to Turn Your Crush into Your Stalker.”

When Patrick went to the bathroom, this was my time to escape.  Chris followed me to his room and closed the door, then offered to walk me home because I was so shaken up.  Then, I heard pounding on the door.  ”Mimsy, what the FUCK is going on in there?” I froze and crouched down by his bed when Chris opened the door, “What’s up?”

“I saw you bring Mimsy in there, she’s with me.”

“Mimsy isn’t in here dude I was just going to change my pants because I spilt beer on them.”

“I SAW her go in there with you, dude.  Stop fucking around!”

This went on for a little bit and Chris managed to convince him that they should go look for me elsewhere.  Once they were far enough down the hall, I took the opportunity to book it out that door, down the patio stairs and run home 6 blocks to my apartment.  I was terrified, honestly.  I had never seen someone get that angry before over me.  I felt sorry that I put Chris in that situation.

I saw Patrick drive by my house a few times a day after that.  He called me and left me messages telling me that what I did at the party was bullshit but he was willing to give me another chance.  I didn’t call him back.  He called more and left me angry messages telling me I was a bitch and he hoped I would die.  I didn’t call him back.  He called me even more apologizing and asking me to give him another chance.  I didn’t call him back.

It wasn’t until I had to call the police that I realized he wasn’t going away.  My room in my apartment was located on the second floor of the building right above the front door. Attached was a private bathroom with a tiny balcony.

A few weeks after the party incident my roommates had gone out and I decided to have the night to myself.  I ordered pizza and turned on Laguna Beach.  Patrick had been driving by my place daily, he even knocked on the door a few times.  I didn’t answer, but my roommates usually did and would tell him I wasn’t home.  His threatening calls had calmed down a bit, and now he just sounded remorseful.  I felt bad, really, but if he was this upset after one date, what would he be capable of after seriously dating?

I was just biting into my first slice of mushroom when I heard a door shut upstairs.  Strange, because I thought all my roommates were out.  I paid no mind to it until I heard rustling in my bathroom.  None of my roommates used my bathroom, so something was definitely weird.  I called up from the couch, “Mel? Do you need something?”

No answer.

“Mel? Amanda? Jackie?” Nothing.

I grabbed the knife I used to cut the pizza and stupidly went upstairs.  When I got to the top I saw my bathroom light on and the door leading to the balcony wide open.  I checked in my room and the other bedrooms but didn’t see anyone.  Someone had been in my apartment that did not live there nor was invited.  A burglar!  All my jewelry and my computer was still in my room.  Nothing that I could tell was moved or anything.  Maybe the wind blew the door open.  

I walked into the bathroom to shut the door when I saw what he did.  In my lipstick he wrote on my mirror “FUCK YOU BITCH.”  I screamed and called 911.  I also called Chris.  Bless his heart, he came over and stayed with me that night.  He gave a witness statement to the police about what happened at the party a few weeks prior.

I ended up getting a restraining order against Patrick, which was really awkward but completely necessary.  Breaking and entering is not okay, especially if you leave behind threatening messages.  Little things like that don’t really turn me on.

I only ran into Patrick once after that.  He passed me on the street and screamed that I was a fucking psycho bitch to everyone around me.  I’m sure they believed him. 

When you get to a certain age when the majority of your friends are coupled up, people seem to think it is their mission, nay, a necessity to set you up with people so you can share in the same happiness they experience in a relationship.  Or maybe they do it because they secretly are interested in dating said person they set you up with, in hopes that they can live vicariously through you and ask all the dirty details after the date is over.

I have only ever been on one blind date.  I have heard stories of people who have ended up in a happily ever after situation from a blind date, unfortunately I did not fall under that category.  I fell under the “I’d rather become a crazy spinster cat lady than ever see this guy again” category.

I’m sure she meant well, the coworker that set us up.  But I’m also pretty sure she based our compatibility on how closely our names rhymed.  ”Mim and Tim! It’s perfect!” she said when she sent me the link to his MySpace page.  Yes, this was still in the era when people used MySpace.

He was cute, I gave her that. His profile picture showed him on a boat holding up a fish on a line. I went fishing once with my grandpa when I was 8 so,obviously we were soulmates.  His profile described him as liking country music and being a republican.  I am an “anything BUT country” type of gal and I lean left politically.  Not much in common yet but no worries, I’d just need to make some index cards of conversation starters just in case there were any long silences.  I didn’t want to resort to trying to fill the dead air with freestyle raps involving our rhyming names.

Tim offered to pick me up, he had reserved a table at one of the nicest restaurants in the city and seemed eager to put on a big first date romantic show.  I declined the offer as I had recently gone through an ordeal (that I will get to in another post) with an overly, uh, forward, admirer. I didn’t want some dude who I met online knowing my address on the first date, let alone being without a car if I needed to make a hasty exit.

I arrived at the restaurant 10 minutes early and took a seat at the bar.  I began to think I was being stood up when 30 minutes and 3 vodka cranberries passed and he still wasn’t there. Tim showed up almost an hour late. That first impression was not the best, but at least he showed and didn’t leave the bar bill up to me.

Once we were seated I asked him where he studied.  ”I didn’t go to college,” he replied.  Okay, well what did he do? “I work for my uncle’s extermination business.”  Still, not a subject I was familiar with.  ”That’s interesting, what’s the weirdest thing you have come across?” I asked.

“One time I found a dead guy.” Silence.  

Huh.  ”How did he die? What did you do?” Elaborate a little, please, buddy, I haven’t even ordered an appetizer yet.

“I dunno, I opened a closet and there was a dead guy in there. Then we left when the police came.”

More silence.  I guess that was the end of his story. Big let down because that easily could have been twisted into a story I would definitely have gone to bed with him over.  Come on, dude, a story like that could be turned into gold.  You don’t just brag about finding dead people on the job and then not back it up with an equally exciting explanation.  What a dick!

Needless to say, this was the high point of the date.  I ordered Mahi Mahi and it was delicious. It was also a free meal, which made it more delicious.  I forget what he ordered and it doesn’t matter anyway because I was never going on another date with him again.  

I had decided this after going through all my index card topics that I studied, only to realize I was trying to get a conversation from someone that had the same personality as the brick wall he was sitting in front of.  He didn’t even seem that interested in me; he was staring at the ceiling, the floor, basically everything around except at me during the entire meal.

After he paid he asked me to walk with him to get ice cream.  Strange that he wanted to extend the date but, hey, free ice cream.  He rigidly held my hand in a lame attempt to seem like he cared, and I filled the silence saying awkward things and cracking jokes about the tourists that passed by. He didn’t laugh once, but he did turn to me and tell me, completely monotone, that I should be a comedian.  I couldn’t tell if he was serious, so I assumed he was an asshole.

He asked if I needed a ride to my car, I politely declined and said I was parked just around the corner and needed the walk after the meal.  We parted ways, never to see each other again.

I wish it ended there. The next day at 9 am I got a text from him asking me to lunch. I had to work so I didn’t have to lie, even though I would have lied if I were available.  Then he asked me to dinner.  Gotta give a guy props for being persistent, I guess.  Then he followed up the request with “I think our second date should be in a hot tub.”

Oh, boy.  I racked my memory to recall any part of the date where he seemed genuinely interested in me.  Did he think I was a slut or something?  Did my coworker tell him I was desperate? Did he take my MySpace page seriously and think I was a swinging 45 year old “Proud Parent?” 

All I knew was that I had never had to think so hard ever in my life to make conversation with someone.  So I said no to dinner.  I stopped making up excuses after the first week of getting multiple texts a day from him asking me out and making inappropriate suggestions.  I stopped responding at all after the second week, and after the third week I changed my number.

If you aren’t getting responses, she’s just not that into you. 

I never ran into Tim after that, thank God.  I wish I knew what I had said to make him fall so passionately in love with me, perhaps I could have recreated it and have turned it into some trendy dating technique that would then be transformed into my New York Times bestseller.  Maybe the technique is just to find a guy that’s bat shit crazy from inhaling too many extermination chemicals.  

Tim is probably still working for his uncle’s extermination business where he specializes in finding dead people in closets.

My mom and her best friend, Jeanine Parks, got pregnant at the same time in 1985.  Turned out her friend was pregnant with a boy and thus they carved a decree into their uteruses that their children would inevitably fall in love from a young age and marry.

Which was perfectly reasonable, as arranged marriages always work out. 

David Parks and I became friends by default. Jeanine used to call me “Mimsy Parks,” just to prepare me for my future namesake.  She said it rolled off the tongue. We spent weekends up at his family’s cabin and picked blueberries and apples.  He loved wrestling and tried to body slam me into the couch or bed.  I would welcome a come on like this now, but when your favorite thing to do is play Barbies this wasn’t really the attention I wanted.  

Once at the cabin we were supposed to be napping. I couldn’t fall asleep, and I had been curious, so I asked him to show me his penis.  Okay, I called it a Pee Pee.  He agreed on the condition that I looked at it under the covers.  It was small and wrinkly and I giggled at how different it was from what I had.  I was fascinated with it, actually. I was already the pervert I still am today.

I never really was attracted to David.  One time when I went to his house in high school, I went into his room to smoke pot with him and saw photographs of me from the time I was about 11 hanging on the wall by his bed.  He kept every one of my school portraits and Christmas photos that my mother ever sent.  The only other photographs in his room were the women of WWE.  I could only imagine why a horny 16 year old boy would want to keep so many photos of me next to his pillow, instead of a stack of, say, a stack of Playboys.

So I did the only thing I thought reasonable.  I told my Mom that he was most likely obsessed with me and that I felt really uncomfortable around him.  I was flattered, sure. But mostly I was uncomfortable when I thought about boys whom I didn’t think about sexually having boners when they thought of me alone at night.  Also, last time I saw that thing it looked like a worm.

Had I been more desperate, I could have just settled for David and we most definitely would have fulfilled his mother’s dream of us getting married.  That kid loved me.  Alas, I still believed in true love being consensual, and neither he nor his family were rich enough for me to be tempted by money.

I haven’t seen David since that day in high school when I made that discovery.  We now have the obligatory annual check in over Facebook just to assure the other that there are no hard feelings.  And there aren’t, David is a great guy that has potential to make another girl very happy.  

His mother still refers to me as “Mimsy Parks.”

Kurt Turner was the cutest boy in preschool.  Hands down.  He had kind eyes and was quiet.  I pretended he was Prince Eric from the Little Mermaid and I was Ariel.  I would even sing to him during nap time.  Or maybe I should say I sang at him.  If I sang enough Kurt would in theory become entranced by my allure and then we’d get married.

This is how 4 year old Mimsy thought.  I was already doomed for dating letdown.  Thanks a lot, Disney.

In the first grade Kurt invited me as his guest to a Halloween party at his dad’s work.  I dressed as another Disney princess, Belle.  I made sure to bat my eyelashes a lot and sit very daintily with my legs to the side.  How could he not fall in love with this.

Somehow, as fate would have it, he never mustered up the courage to kiss me. A year later his dad was transferred to Texas and that was the last time I saw him.  I was left with a broken heart.  

He called me once shortly after they moved, he told me he was homesick.  I can’t remember what we spoke about (what do 7 year olds talk about anyway?) but I’m sure it was all very deep and meaningful.  20 years later he friended me on Facebook.  Puberty was not kind to him.  His kind eyes were still there, but he now closely resembled Mr. Peanut, without the monacle and top hat.  Ironically, Kurt is allergic to peanuts.  

As far as I know, Kurt is currently a musician, still living in Texas.