Name That Boyfriend!

About 45 minutes into our date, he pretty much had me figured out.

As he pleaded with me to have even one chicken wing, so as not to let them go to waste, he then pointed at my accidentally third rye and coke (to his half a Guinness) and mumbled something about it certainly not going to waste. And it didn't. I gave each and every one of them a good home, and still got off my bar stool in a practically-lady-like fashion (thank you jesus, I wasn't wearing a skirt).

About three hours, 2 drinks, and 1 joint later, we were lying in bed when I had my aha moment. I was being a little....handsy...when I made an unexpected discovery, prompting him into a quick confession.

Oh, by the way, he says. I only have one testicle.

He only has one testicle!

I mean, his testicles still outnumber my testicles, but by a much slimmer margin than I am accustomed to.

And mustn't it be lonely in there, swinging away all day without a twin? Does it throw him off balance? And how can I tactfully ask these questions? It's not exactly typical first-date fodder: where did you go to school? do you like your job? are your brothers hot? what happened to your other ball?

So, I'm trying to find something to say to that. Something one-testicle-positive. Something to put him at ease. Something to break the weird shroud of silence that fell immediately after the one-nut discovery. I mean, should I confess some medical mystery of my own? But somehow the scar that I acquired from a bad double-dutch-skipping accident pales in comparison to a testicle that's mia. How am I to compete with that?

Luckily, I managed to nonverbally communicate the fact that, oh! one ball! neat! doesn't bother me at all! see what we can still do! and from this angle! oh, that tickles! And by the time I got through nonverbally showing him how cool I think his one ball is, I was thinking to myself, I'd like to do that again.

Only not.

Because there's a problem.

A nontesticular problem.

He has a horrid first name.

Stop the presses! For the record, I DID know his name before all of this, thankyouverymuch. I just didn't realize it was going to be such a problem until I was saying the name out loud, over and over, kind of insistently, while being slapped in strange places by one hairy ball (what? who says you didn't need to know that?).

Why couldn't he be a Leonard, or a Wilbur, or a Harold, or a Thumbelina, if it came to that?

Why on earth did he have to be another Jason?

Because it's already getting a little messy. Anything I say, I have to qualify with New-Jason and Old-Jason, or Sane-Jason and Crazy-Jason, or The One I Don't Hate Yet (just kidding) (mostly). So I was thinking you might help me come up with a nickname for (New) Jason, one that does not contain the phrase "The One Nut Wonder", preferably.

Un-married.

As you may or may not have heard, I have recently become unmarried, which means that I have suddenly become able to do things that I promised not to do for the rest of my life. Not naming any names, but through the magic of mental illness, a certain ex of mine was unstable enough to warrant some time apart even before we officially called it off. He called it "trial separation" - I called it "practising being single again." He spent the time thinking, stealing money out of our joint bank account, and not taking his anti-depressants, and I spent the time partying with boys who don't share my last name (may not even have last names, for all I knew). Obviously, a good time was had by all.


But I've had to learn some things along the way.


Like: It doesn't matter how old he is. What matters is when his kids, who are your age, call him in the middle of the night because they want some Wendy's.


Like: When you're in bed with a teacher and he huskily whispers in your ear that he likes to be spanked, it kind of kills the mood to picture the innocent children who are doubtless being corrupted by this pervert. And it's not that spanking is so bad, just that you always thought of teachers as being rather sexless, and when you start picturing your second grade teacher while someone's feeling you up....you've pretty much lost the game.


Like: Even though he's a broad, built, handsome firefighter who picks you up in a Prada suit and opens the door to his hot little car for you on your way to tapas (your favourite, without telling him), tells you all about his volunteer work at the SPCA and asks you to dance before splitting dessert, and then leans in for the perfect kiss without getting fresh when he drops you off, it's still okay to not return his calls because his facial hair is too "wispy".


Marriage, if nothing else, is habit, and in the 8 years I've spent in this past relationship, I fear I've adopted some rather bad ones.


Like: being way too comfortable with nudity. Like forgetting myself and changing clothes in front of men I haven't known very long. Not that they're complaining, but about the time when my clothes are on the floor and I'm bent over searching the bottom drawer for an elusive t-shirt, I freeze and think, There's some sort of unspoken waiting period for this shit.


Like: not changing the sheets after every single, erm, emission. You can get away with that when it's the same emission every night, but when you're seeing different emitters, it's more polite not to have someone else's leftovers on your linen.


Like: not carrying any money with you when you go to the bar. Single girls don't need to buy their own drinks either (at least, not this one), but she should always carry cab fare. And as dresses lack pockets and she doesn't have a husband's at her disposal, she has to carry her cash and lipstick herself. Learning to dance with a purse again is bullshit.


Getting married was easy. You invite people to send you gifts, write some sappy vows, drink some champagne, and voila - married.


Getting divorced is easy. You throw your diamond ring with all your might at your ex's eye, get strange men buy you margaritas, sign your big fat maiden name beside the X, and presto - divorced.

But getting into the mindset of un-married, that weird transitional phase where you actually have to shave to have sex, is harder.

And surprisingly fun.

Facebook makes me suicidal.

If you have thus far avoided the vast, sucking hole that is Facebook, congratulations. You will never have to learn that your ex-lover got fat and bald and the guy you turned down in high school has just bought his second waterfront cottage.

You will also never know what your good friends, your creepy relatives, your casual acquaintances, people you vaguely remember fucking, and others you added because you were too embarrassed to admit you didn't recognize their names really think about you.

And by "think about you", I don't mean whether they think you're a decent person or a hard worker. I mean whether they want to make out with you, secretly or otherwise. Now, clearly this is a bit sketchy: you can't claim that only want to make out with your wife. You have to pick. And you have to pick between 2 random people on your friends list. So if Facebook asks if you would rather make out with the guy who lives across the hall from you whom everyone refers to as "Mr. B.O." or the old lady who runs your eczema support group, you have to choose.

Worse than choosing between two need-to-gargle scenarios is the fact that these very people are also making the same decisions about you. And then the results of hundreds of these decisions are published for everyone to see.

I discovered that 100% of my friends voted me "rather kiss" , "better body", "cooler", and "sexier", which is natural enough. Thankfully these were also tempered with "most entertaining", "smarter", and "funnier." All words I use in reference to myself on at least an hourly basis. What perplexed me was also scoring 100% of the votes for "rather get stuck in handcuffs with" (although, even I can admit that it IS a pretty likely scenario), "more likely to win in a fight", (okay, I do have a pretty kicky reputation), "can drink more" (jeez, you name one saint after alcohol and suddenly you're a lush) and "more likely to skip class" (let it go already!). And what worried me is that I got no votes at all for "well-mannered", "studies harder", or "better at science."

Oh, so I suck at science, do I?

Okay, so it's great that my friends know me so well. But aren't friends supposed to, you know, lie on your behalf? Pretend you're better than you are? Not give you suck-at-science complexes?

I was just about ready to saddle up my high horse and ride to my closest Facebookian's house, and pound on their door shouting obscenities until they either called the cops (how quickly those handcuffs make an appearance) or give me the votes I am due. I realize I've wasted lots of good years by not stumping for votes, not polling my friends, not having fancy dinners that raise millions of dollars in order to have me elected Most Honest.

Would it help if I got celebrity endorsements?

Now, I'm not saying that you should withdraw your votes for "rather sleep with". I still want to be your hottest friend. I just would also like to be more your most talented friend, most accomplished, smoothest legs (okay, that one doesn't exist yet, but it should) - and hell, just for shits and giggles, let's throw in most organized as well. Fuck I'm impressive. Or, I would be, if only my friends were better liars.

You know, as long as I'm here, I may as well just junk the so-called friends who dared point out the fact that I am not tech-savvy and accept applications for new friends. Facebook friends. The only qualifications you need is the ability to stretch the truth, a willingness to assume that I am the best singer and the best smelling, and above else - not be better looking than me.

Judgy.

Why do I shave my legs before a job interview?

It's not like I applied at Player's Club or the Body Shop; smoothness of skin was not top on the list of desirable qualifications. In fact, none of the people I met with fondled me at all. No one commented on the intoxicating scent of my coconut body butter, no one eye-fucked the sexy toe-cleavage I had going on, no one had any trouble making or maintaining eye contact. It was all very proper.

And disappointing.

Why bother being beautiful when people are just going to look beyond that and judge you by your "skills" and "education" instead? What kind of world are we living in?

Heroes: too sexy for their own good?

Super Girl and Wonder Woman don their sturdy, practical

uniforms for another day of fighting crime and looking fabulous. Just a couple

of hours in hair and makeup and some craftily-applied two-sided

tape and these ladies are ready to go!

First stop: a pile of possibly hostile dead leaves, where the two

heroes confirm that indeed it is quite "nipply" out today, and Super Girl's

super mittens are not so funny after all. The cape, however, provides

little warmth.

A trip to the Tree of Truth puts both heroes on dangerous footing when

Wonder Woman feels compelled to confess that she loves the feel

of stalks between her legs and Super Girl sobs that

she really wanted to be a dentist. Luckily

they pull themselves together just in

time to save us all from

similar crimes of

veracity.

The pressures of being scantily-clad super heroes

eventually gets to Super Girl and Wonder Woman, and they almost

come to blows in front of the Evil Giant CoffeeMaker of Doom.

Super Girl calls Wonder Woman out on her slut-boots and Wonder Woman

strikes back by pointing out the PVC-ness of a certain super skirt.

Exasperated, the CoffeeMaker of Doom steps in and

assures them that they're both equally skanky, which gives the girls the

confidence to combine their ho-bilities and conquer caffeine, thus

saving the world.

Eco-conscious Wonder Woman leaves her SUV at home and

rides her noble steed instead. The steed is

less than thrilled, but does it for the love of snausages.

The girls take a moment out of their hectic day to sit with Jesus in the hot tub.

They ask him important questions such as "If you're all-powerful, why

do super heroes exist?" and "Which one of us is hotter?" and "No really,

who would you rather do?"

After a long day of hero-ing, the girls

kick off their shoes at the spa and argue over who

most urgently requires the services of Manuel, waxer

extraordinaire. And I think we all know who won that fight.

Spilling Secrets

As a member of the mental health profession, I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but the truth is that therapy can cost upward of $140 an hour, but the supermarket sells cans of frosting for just $1.99. Not that I don't believe in the powers of psychotherapy, but if you really need to talk, then splurge on 2 cans of frosting and invite a friend to share.

True story.

This is not a post that I relish writing, and now that I've just used the word relish, I like it all the less, but here it is:

Jason and I have officially parted ways.

See? The world did not just implode. In fact, I have it on very good authority that it continues to turn, even in this very moment.

I have been purposely vague these past few months on two accounts. First, because it is a private struggle deserving discretion, and second because we were all the while testing the waters and coming to different conclusions almost daily.

But I think we have come to the realization that though we wish it could be different, separation seems to be what's best for both of us right now. While this is not a happy occasion, I believe that it is a good thing. I am fine, and I am working toward fabulous.

As a "widow of depression" as it were, I have certainly had some dark days recently, but I still have a heart full of love for Jason, so you needn't use the harsh words that are probably biting at the tip of your tongue. We will always have the years we shared, and always have mutual affection, but as I have said myself in the past, love is not enough.

You cannot help those who will not help themselves, so while I wish him the best, it's time to take care of Jay now. I'm moving on. Wiser souls than I have called this "healing", but I'm calling it "wearing slutty tops and making some bad decisions".

Oh relax, relax. I kid. Well, mostly. "Healing" may include the liberal application of cleavage-glitter. Time will tell.

For now, I can say that I woke up this morning feeling pretty damn good for a woman who has recently lost everything that ever mattered to her. And that's probably because I haven't actually lost everything (it just feels that way). Every day I remember something else that I have: old friends who reverse the charges when I need to vent, new friends who buy the splurge items I can't afford, family who indulge me more than I deserve, canned frosting and hot baths and kleenex with the lotion built right in to get me through the worst times, and patent leather heels to be admired in by droves of handsome men in the better days to come.