Merry Christmas!

shouldacalleditanight — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:40:56 +0000

Happy Holidays to you! Anastasia and I are visiting our families so we just wanted to wish you all a wonderful holidays. Actually we did have a story to put up but Anastasia got a little too drunk and forgot. You can blame her later for no enjoyment this Christmas Eve! ha. Here are some oldies but goodies to keep you entertained over the holidays!

Love,

Alexis and Anastasia

Wing (Wo)man

How I decided topless dancing isn’t bad

My Open Letter to Alexis, 3.22.09

A whole lot of crazy

Get ready… RUN!!

shouldacalleditanight — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:23:03 +0000

Read part one: Asshole of the year

I have done the walk of shame many-a-time… but the run of shame? Never happened before tonight.

Oh you cunning little New Zealander, you. How the hell did you convince me to stay?

I was not about to be left alone with the player New Zealander after his roommate went to bed, so I decided to go home. New Zealander had to escort me back up the dock to free me from the locked gate. We made small talk which was nice. After all, I was trying to be his “friend”.

He fidgeted with the lock, thus encouraging more conversation. By the time we got through the gate, our conversation had taken a deadly turn into personal sharing and emotional story time. It was no longer about work, weather, rainbows, and various topics acceptable to discuss with strangers in awkward social situations. He shifted the tone into loneliness, his Alaskan girlfriend, hopes and whimsical dreams. Shit. How did it get so far so fast? I was just trying to be pleasant.

Ten feet away from my car. I was ten feet away from freedom and almost released from the obligatorily numbing pleasantry exchange. But no, of course the conversation took a nose dive for the worse:
New Zealander: Yeah, this job can be lonely sometimes when you move around all the time

Me: If you are lonely, fix it. I don’t buy the whole shit theory that your job makes you lonely. If you miss your girlfriend who just went to Boston, go visit her. Okay. Well…have a good night. I’m sure everything will work out.

Attempt to exit stage left.
New Zealender cue tears.

Me (aside): Fuck me sideways. He’s crying? He’s fucking crying? I’m so fucking close to my car I could touch it and he’s CRYING? Damn this shit night will be longer than I had hoped.

He literally cried. Wept. Man, this player is fucking good because I fell for it. He cried! Everyone has a weakness and mine just happens to be tears. When I see eye ducts flowing freely with beads of saline and emotion, I want to fix it.

Tears streaming down his face, he started to explain his “situation.” He was lonely. He wasn’t sure he liked the job. He doesn’t want to work and travel all the time…sob.

I did my best to be a friend. And I thought I was doing a damn fine job. It was now 3:30 am and cold outside.

We sat outside talking at the gate until about 4am, when we decided to go sit on the warm little boat and finish our talking. By this time I was hooked. This “poor” guy was so broken. I actually, legitimately felt bad for him.

He grabbed a sweatshirt for me from the “big yacht” and then we went to go sit on the 30-footer, or small yacht. He laid out on the bed and I sat on a chair on the bed so we could finish talking. I prided myself on being JUST A FRIEND. I did not want to date or hook up with him in anyway, I still knew he was an asshole.

I kept thinking as I sat there “please don’t fall for me right now, please don’t fall for me right now.” I knew he would. I have some sort of a weird power with my eyes that when used properly I can totally seduce men with the blazing blues. (*note: New Zealander later told his roommate that my eyes were what made him do it.)

As he gazed into my eyes, he started saying shit. “You are an amazing person.” “This feels really right.” “You are very beautiful you know that.” To which I responded, “yeah I know I am thanks.”

I kept saying to him over and over “I will be a really good FRIEND to you.” It didn’t work.

Next thing I knew he was kissing me. I let it happen for a second and then pulled away thinking ‘please think this is a mistake and don’t do it again.’ I really wanted him to not kiss me. I knew I had no control over the situation. If he kissed me, I’d definitely kiss him. Why? Because kissing is my most favorite pastime and he’s hot. So I was just hoping he would have realized it was a mistake. But he didn’t.

He pulled me up to the bed where we continued making out until 6:30am!!! I totally KNEW BETTER! WTF. I totally fell for all his lines and I knew it was such a bad idea to do that. Good news is I didn’t sleep with him.

I do have to admit, it was super fun making out with the hot New Zealander. But what followed, was utter humiliation. At 6:30am I said it was time to go home so we got off the boat. Oh! Wait! Here is a fun side note: we weren’t supposed to be on that boat and his boss was awake now. Awesome. I was shuttled back onto the small boat to wait. We had to WAIT until the boss went to bed and stopped watching the cameras. New Zealander went onto the big yacht to watch his boss and communicate with me via phone as to when I could get off the boat. Talk about humiliation.

A call around 8am told me to RUN! The boss had gone to the bathroom and I had to literally run down the dock. After sitting alone on the small boat for an hour and a half. I was pissed. I knew I’d never hear from New Zealander after that. I knew it was a bad idea. I don’t regret it, because it was fun. Plus New Zealander was quite attractive with his seducing accent, a strong jaw resembling Eric Dane’s and McDreamy eyes… But still, I would like a little revenge for having to do the run of shame.

-Alexis Patron

Asshole of the year

shouldacalleditanight — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:52:08 +0000

Not too often do you get to award this reward to someone. But I found a man deserving of the title “Asshole of the year.”

The sad part is… I fell for it.

It all starts in the spring: My date with a kiwi.

He was sweet, worldly, entertaining, had a beautiful accent and liked country music. That to me = perfection! Except for the part that he worked on a yacht and only spent a few months here and there.

We went on a few dates, had a wonderful time and then he left for Alaska. He was in Alaska for two months. Of which during this time he emailed/texted me often. Naturally I thought he was interested and therefore I was excited for his return in September.

This man told me over and over how excited he was to see me and couldn’t wait to hang out… blah blah blah. I am usually smarter than that. I never fall for these types of lines. But for some reason they seemed to be true when they were spewing out of a New Zealander’s mouth. Lies. All lies.

September arrived. He visited me at work the day before his birthday. Everything seemed to be as it was two months ago. He said he had no plans for this birthday so I told him I would go out with him if he wanted. He said yes and that he would call me the next day.

No call.

I didn’t hear from New Zealander for three weeks. By that time I had gotten the picture of course that he wasn’t into me. I never called/emailed/texted him. I figured if he wanted me, he’d find me.

After three weeks went by his roommate stopped in where I bartend to visit me. Roommate and I had been good friends, so I was curious as to why I hadn’t seen him in three weeks either. He apologized and said he just didn’t want to feel uncomfortable around me “after all that happened.” What all happened??!! I went on a few dates with New Zealander and didn’t hear from him again. It’s not a big deal. It’s not rocket science. He’s just not that into me. I accepted that. What’s worse is the rest of the information I found out from Roommate. He was drunk and ended up spilling info on the New Zealander that he later regretted he told me.

Here’s what I found out:

-New Zealander=asshole

-He has a girlfriend in every port

-He wanted to make me his girlfriend in this port

-His girlfriend from Alaska just “showed up” and ruined his plan to do the preceding

-He was going to get rid of Alaska girl and then call me

I told the roommate that he could go ahead and tell the New Zealander that he never has to call me. I’m not interested in being one of his “girlfriends.”

Once we settled the fact that I’d never date an asshole like New Zealander, Roommate and I decided we should all be friends. So he calls New Zealander and tells him to come to the bar… with his Alaska girlfriend. That was fun/awkward.

So all was well. Hung out with New Zealander as a friend, with his girlfriend and all was well. That was Wednesday. Friday the girlfriend moved to Boston, all wasn’t well.

I was totally content being his friend. Until Saturday.

New Zealander and his roommate came into the bar on Saturday to salsa-it-up. They stayed the whole night. And consequently got a tid bit drunk. Roommate asked me if I wanted to hang out with them when I got off work at 2:30am. They wanted to go have a drink on their small boat (not the actual big yacht.) I said sure, you know, “since we were all friends.”

As we walk down the dock to the boat, Roommate pulls a fast one. He said he was tired and was going to bed. Smooth. I think he felt bad talking shit about his friend so he was trying to make it up by putting us together. Wow.

I said, no fucking way, and I decided to go home.

Or did I? Stay tuned…

Part two: Get ready…. RUN!!!

-Alexis Patron

Hey, bartender!

shouldacalleditanight — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:39:26 +0000

“I like the bartender (Oooo If you’re lookin’ for me) I’m at the bar with her…” Akon may have wrote that song about me.

But in all honesty, Akon is wrong… you shouldn’t go for the bartender.

I have been a bartender for the last seven years, both full-time and part-time. I know the tricks of the trade. We flirt for money. With ANYONE. It’s our livelihood. That is why it blows me away when men fall for me (or any bartender) and then get so butt-hurt when they learn that I’m not that into them.

Top 10 reasons you should never date the bartender. Here’s what I know:

1) Bartenders flirt for money. Plain and simple. With men. With women.

2) We do not love you, but we will pretend as long as you sit at the bar with a stack of twenties dancing between your finger tips.

3) We only hear ¼ of what you say (maybe even less). The rest we block out.

4) We will throw your number away as soon as you leave. Unless it’s written on a bill with a president’s face.

5) We wear low cut shirts for extra dollars, not because we want to fuck you.

6) Feigning interest in whatever you say is merely an attempt to get more money.

7) If you are hot, we may consider fucking you.

8) If we do hook up with you in any way, it should not be translated into a relationship by any means. We will probably be hooking up with someone else during our next shift. Do not expect exclusivity from a bartender. Important reminder: we flirt for money.

9) If you get jealous in anyway, do not date the bartender. We are like fully clothed strippers, with a tendency to drink while we work. If we do body shots on the bar, it is merely another attempt for money. If you get jealous of other people licking your significant other, do not date the bartender.

10) We are not innocent. We can play the innocent card if that is what will get us more money, but bartenders are not innocent. Granted, not every bartender is slutty and a closeted stripper, but we have seen a lot of dirty shit go down, which by consequence removes all innocence. If you are looking for someone to bring home to mom and dad, the bartender probably isn’t your best bet. We’ve probably had sex in more places, with more people and in more positions than you could ever know… and we’ve probably done it in public… with cameras. Not something to share with the folks.

Be advised, this may not be true in all circumstances, but if you are sitting at home with a shit-eating grin because your bartender said you were hot and she/he would call you sometime… you should know that you may never hear from them, they just wanted your money. That is a bartender’s livelihood.

-Alexis Patron

Unavailable men

shouldacalleditanight — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:15:46 +0000

My passion.

I have an obsession with unavailable men, as Anastasia so lovingly pointed out yesterday in conversation.

Let’s do a play-by-play:

Alexis: Hey, I’m coming to visit you soon.
Anastasia: Awesome.
Alexis: So have you decided if you’re actually in a relationship with that girl?
Anastasia: Fuck if I tell you. You come and visit and if I’m in a relationship with her, you’ll make out with her and ruin my life.

God, It’s so true. Apparently I have a thing for unattainable goals (and by goals, I mean humans). It’s not on purpose. I just happen to fall for people in relationships. Something tells me it has to do with commitment and my utter fear of the word. Therefore, if I subconsciously seek unavailable men, commitment will never be an issue. Healthy, very healthy.

I’m not a bitch. It’s not something I seek to do; I just crush on spoken-for men. I never act on these crushes…well, except for on my birthday a few weeks ago.

I’ve been crushing on this dancer friend of mine, par for the course since I’m sure his girlfriend is lovely. I would have never done anything under any other circumstances.

The situation: my birthday, drunk, his arm around me. Logically, after a few shorts of tequila, I attempted to kiss him? The tequila pretty much erased my memory of the evening. The world may never know if this actually happened, but I have a strongly undeniable feeling that it did. I definitely shoulda called it a night before the shots started.

I’m not proud of my action but it made me think of the past and my history of crushes in relationships. The list is much longer than I expected. I don’t want to break up the relationships of these men but knowing their relationship makes it unrealistic for them to reciprocate feelings, therefore I wouldn’t have to worry about commitment. My innocent crushes remain innocent and avoid complication.

Complication only sparks when I make dumb ass mistakes.

Ah commitment. A seemingly easy task for most people. However, I cannot seem to take that leap. I won’t even commit to a date a week in advance. Too much may happen between Monday and Friday, I may like someone else, something better may come along… You just never know. Hence why most men don’t stick around for too long. They find the “hard-to-get” game that they think I’m playing, fun and quirky in the beginning. Until they realize I’m just never “available.”

I blame my commitment issues on my father. Isn’t that what most daughters do? My dad had quite a few girlfriends when I was growing up. I learned fast and young to never get attached. They always left. When he finally met one that stuck around for awhile, I was so taken aback by the possibility of someone staying around that I tried everything I could to drive her away. Including hiding under the bed when I first met her to crying and slamming my bedroom door when I found out they got engaged.

As I grow up I realize my petty fear of commitment is completely ridiculous and is something I need to get over fast if I ever hope to get married. In attempts to get over this fear, I still have not managed to rid myself of the desire of unavailable men or completely inappropriate men. Those who I do tend to date are ones that I would never have any sort of a future with… a.k.a a drug addict, someone who lives in Texas, a traveling yacht employee… etc.

To catch up on my latest failed dating adventures:

My 1987-mile booty call

-Alexis Patron

Ambiguity

shouldacalleditanight — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:08:13 +0000

I hate that word. Answers are what I want. Yet, ambiguity is all I seem to get. Many shades of gray; never black or white. Meeting every potentially monumental life decision at a hypothetical fork in the road is frustrating. Downright tiring, even.

So, I seek facts in a vain attempt to piece the puzzle together. This is what I know:

I want to smoke more than my lungs allow.
Drinking more than my liver approves of is a nightly routine.
My feelings have changed, they have gone from lovely, wish-the-best-for-a friend to do I have romantic feelings for said friend?
I am female.
Said friend is also female-of the lesbian sort.

The fact that my only desire is to smoke and drink myself into obliteration is a blatant sign that I’m lost right now.

So here I am: confused. I hate the word “confused” as much as I hate the word “ambiguous.”

Yes, I am confused. My relationship with my friend is ambiguous. The sooner I own up to these detestable words the sooner I will sort this out, hypothetically, right?

Here’s the thing: I pride myself on being an open-minded individual. I pride myself on seeking out unique traits and characteristics in friends and adopting them as my own. I would have never discovered martinis and Thai food otherwise. Ask Alexis, I’ve always said I wouldn’t rule out the chance of dating a woman if I thought, genuinely, the relationship would provide a chance for pure happiness. And I don’t understand those who disagree with this mentality.

But it’s so easy to preach accepting words when the prospect isn’t staring you in the face, waiting for you to make a decision one way or the other. I am staring down the barrel of a loaded shotgun, afraid to move in any direction for fear of accidentally setting off the trigger. Have you any idea what this feels like? I doubt it, and if so, offer guidance…please.

More facts are in order:

I’ve never, ever, been attracted to a female the way I am now.
And even since this “discovery,” I’ve never noticed a woman walking down the street and thought to myself “Nice titties, girl. Come home with me”
This, I believe, is exclusively an attraction to the person while ignoring gender.

It’s one thing to be attracted to someone’s personality; to their sense of humor; to the way they handle adverse situations or their taste in music. It’s a completely different ballgame, for me at least, to be attracted to someone’s body; their touch; their sexuality.

I am attracted to her personality and sense of humor. We compliment each other well. While I don’t always agree with the way she handles those bigger-than-thou life situations, I enjoy listening to her and talking through them. Our conversations give me a sense of pride in her decisions while providing valuable learning opportunities. And, honestly, I couldn’t be more grateful. I understand that the last few sentences sound like an ill-thought cover letter, but they are honest.

But that word-confusion-rears it’s ugly little head here. If I’m going to be brutally honest (and I might as well; what better platform than here?) I do like her touch. Her hugs and back rubs improve lousy days and ease my troubled mind. But even in my most drunken state, I’ve never thought it would be mind blowing to sleep with her; or on the other hand, how horrid it would be. Identifying solely as a straight female up until this point has protected me. I’m wrapped tight in a blanket of indifference; of ambiguity.

How can I honestly say to myself that I wouldn’t like something if I’ve never tried it? That would limit life experiences and deny the opportunity of growing as a woman; as a human, even. I pity those who, so rigid in thoughts from either upbringing or ignorance, would begrudge opportunity for personal growth. I don’t want that, at all. I don’t want to ruin an opportunity that could open my eyes to a completely new mentality and view of life.

But, at the same time, I don’t want to involve a friend’s feelings when I’m not certain of the outcome. If my feelings; my thoughts; my emotions were the only thing at stake, I would jump, jump, jump. I would, without a moment’s thought of anyone’s opinion. It’s reckless, yes, but at the very least, this would result in part of me opening and closing quickly. Ambiguity would disappear as fast as my next drink or cigarette. At most, maybe, perhaps, possibly, I would discover a new piece of me that lay dormant for years, for whatever reason, and could adjust accordingly in future endeavors.

The last set of facts:

She likes me.
She’s interested in a romantic relationship… if I am.

We’ve had endless conversations that circle about our “situation”, resulting in both of us shaking our heads in our hands while saying with bated breath “I don’t know, I don’t know.” So, how can I honestly take that plunge knowing a friendship that’s important to me and feelings are at risk? How can I look myself in the mirror each morning knowing I’m playing with someone’s heart and emotions so carelessly and…ambiguously.

I’m not sure I can do that. The only thing I’m certain of right now is that I don’t know what to do and I don’t know how to figure it out. No matter how much I write and talk about this, I’ll walk this road alone. And I’m terrified to take a step in the wrong direction. Ambiguity: I really do hate that word.

-Anastasia Beam

Alexis gets hitched

shouldacalleditanight — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:12:30 +0000

Well sort of…

Traveling is always so much fun. Especially when it is international travel. Going abroad to a new country allows for the possibility for the traveler to “let loose.” Well in my case I tend to “let loose” on any given occasion, but apparently found my recent trip to Bali, Indonesia an occasion to REALLY let loose.

I figured since Bali in on the other side of the world the concept of “what happens in [insert vacation destination] stays in [said location,]” to be incredibly true. How would anyone find out about what I did in Bali?

Damn facebook. That’s how.

With the technology revolution, nothing is private anymore. Everyone is bound to find out everything down to the tiniest little mistake you make while on vacation in a foreign country. Nonetheless…..I have an extremely hard time keeping secrets about myself actually secret.

So, of course in light of my new “marriage” I had to tell everyone.

I had a wonderful time in Bali. I was there on a yoga retreat, which was pristine. However, once the three hours of yoga wrapped up for the day… the drinking commenced. Obviously. No better way to regain burned calories than with alcohol.

The biggest drinker of them all? My yoga instructor. Ironic. So, I, of course, happily joined the festivities and purchased a bottle of gin for $2. Anastasia (the biggest gin whore of them all) is so jealous…

Mix my eight months of abstinence (not on purpose,) with a little alcohol, the heat of the equator and a plethora of flexible men doing yoga and you, my friends, have a recipe for fucking disaster. Luckily, all the men I met were gay. Well, at least I thought they were. Until one unfortunate night when I learned of their bisexuality. Queue hormones.

I did not have sex. I wanted to have sex. But no sex happened. So naturally, instead I spiritually married a bisexual man.

It all started when the Balinese thought that my yoga instructor, lets call him Yani, and I were husband and wife. So of course we ran with it and Yani referred to me as his wife for the rest of the trip. I thought it was all fun and games until the concept of “consummating” our marriage came up. I said I wouldn’t put out. (I haven’t quite sorted my feelings on sleeping with a bisexual man yet…) So my “husband” told me he’d be forced to take a second wife who would put out.

I became first wife. It was a fun game. Until I started to realize that he thought of me as actually “spiritually” being his wife.

It wasn’t solidified until he bought me a ring. Yes, a ring. We now have matching wedding rings that have symbols of the earth carved into them. He bought me this ring to symbolize our spiritual union to each other and the earth? Hell if I know, he’s a yoga teacher, it’s all spiritual.

I do not wear the ring on my ring finger, because I would like to get laid sometime, so I wear it on my index finger.

All in all, I did not make too many bad decisions, I only kissed two men, one of which was my husband, and I didn’t fuck any inappropriate people. I only got married, so I’d chock up this trip to a success.

Weddings in Bali are so much better than in Vegas.

-Alexis Patron

Anastasia’s Dirty Deed

shouldacalleditanight — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:20:58 +0000

I woke up Saturday morning in a frigid hotel room to a bright clock that blinked 6:30 am, too early to wake the warm body next to me. His loose arms wrapped me up when I inched closer. Completely ignoring the calamity I resurrected the night before, I rolled over to his open eyes and warm smile. This was real. This time things would be different.

Rewind the clock five hours earlier. Same hotel room, Bombay Sapphire flowing freely through my veins, my head slowly processing the words ex-boyfriend cried to me: He still loved me, he missed me, he hated that I wasn’t part of his life, he wanted to be with me. He loved me. I loved him and I didn’t need to hear another word.

Are you getting a bad feeling from this story already? Because I am, all over again. I won’t blame inebriation for the impressive rap sheet of poor decisions I tallied up in a quick forty-eight hours. Despite what I told my friends, despite those monotonous conversations that circled and circled, I knew if given the opportunity I would sleep with ex-boyfriend. But who didn’t?

The story kicks off with a mundane car ride. I’ll sum it up in a quick paragraph:

We loaded the car with seemingly endless amounts of alcohol and started the two-hour journey to the hotel. I worried the ride would be awkward: two-hours, ex-boyfriend, myself and a friend, no music, no clear exits, all a potent mixture with the potential for disaster. My friend blatantly struggled to find a mutually acceptable topic of conversation. No discussing ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend, no referencing my new found alcoholic side. My mind raced as I lost interest in the conversation. Their voices droned childish jokes at the groom’s expense, but I idly focused on the bumps in the road and the weekend ahead. How on earth would I behave myself?

Pinpointing signs of trouble that should have sounded off the loudest, shrieking sirens in my head is simple. Why I ignored them all, however, is not.
The first unmistakable sign of trouble came immediately after we checked into the hotel room. Some part of me (that I want to hunt down and destroy) snapped back into domesticated-girlfriend mode when I offered to iron his shirt for him. So much for the strong-independent-woman-themed weekend. Ex-boyfriend has always been oblivious and lackadaisical, the two qualities I strangely loved and thought set him apart from others. Turns out those two qualities keep him trapped in adolescence when he was going to wear a wrinkled maroon shirt and ugly khakis to a rehearsal dinner. I still felt, for some odd and unknown reason, that he was a reflection of me. I couldn’t let him leave the hotel looking like a disgusting slob.

The bridal party headed to dinner at a run-down country club that would make Tiger Woods weep. I took to the bathroom and packed seventy beers and four bottles of liquor in a tub of ice while mentally preparing for the marathon of drinking that would soon ensue. Shortly there after another group of friends arrived and thus began the drinking. Most of the attendees viewed the wedding as a friendly reunion rather than the union of two people in love. It’s not that we didn’t support our friend’s decision to marry a woman who could be the spawn of Anne Coulter and Keanu Reeves, we just needed alcohol to get through it.

Six beers, four rounds of beer pong, five cigarettes and one pint of gin with a dash of tonic later, the drama began to unfold. The second unmistakable sign of trouble came when ex-boyfriend followed me outside for a cigarette. He took a drag and with his exhale came a plume of smoke and emotion. In the span of five minutes, he filled me in on the previous year of his life in which sparse communication had kept me safely at bay. His mouth, moving at auctioneer speeds, rattled stories of family problems and girlfriend stories. Yeah, I know. Girlfriend stories. My effort of feigning interest clearly failed when I heard myself spewing out supportive comments with genuine interest. I should have walked away right then. No, I should have ran. Telling me about possibly moving in with his girlfriend served as a huge sign I missed or ignored: either he’s enough of an asshole to tell me something like that in an effort to hurt me or prove a point, or he’s one hundred percent foolish. An elaborated version of our mini-heart-to-heart was on the way. I passed time with gin.

Writing about the specifics he said to me that night would be pointless. At the time, I believed every word. Looking back though, he didn’t mean any of the speech he effortlessly delivered. How foolish I was to believe it all. I embraced each ounce of attention he paid me. Until that moment, it felt like I hadn’t been whole, like pieces of me had been missing. But each overzealous compliment filled those holes. I felt safe, like I could finally break down the walls I spent so much time meticulously building. But the little voice in the back of my head (often taking the combined tone of my mother and best friends) reminded me of the feeling’s transience. I ignored it. That voice issued caution and warning: be cordial without being inviting; drink but not in excess; sleep in a separate hotel room; and most importantly, at all cost, remember the girlfriend waiting for him at home. So when he asked if I wanted another drink as his hand brushed across my back, I replied with a smile “Of course I do.” Each sip of gin lulled that annoying you’re-better-than-this voice. I certainly knew better, but clung to each moment of fleeting intimacy.

As if it wasn’t painfully obvious, we slept together later that night, sans condom and acted as if we hadn’t missed a beat in our relationship. We spent Saturday morning in bed, nursing hangovers while reaffirming the sincerity of our drunk words, ad nauseum. When we left the room for stale bagels and coffee, surprisingly none of our mutual friends questioned what transpired the night before. I imagine they just assumed the worst, which happened to be correct. Early in the afternoon, he tended to groomsmen tasks (most notably getting the groom drunk and telling him a gassed car waited should he choose to run) and I met up with my best friend who drove in from South Carolina to commence the disaster relief effort.

Remember how I wrote that we sexed without a condom? What a great decision! The scene of the wedding happened to be in your average small town, USA. Not only is the Morning After Pill a complete bitch to get in small, conservative America, but I spent a sweet three weeks paranoid about STDs. That, my friends, will teach you to use a condom every. single. time. Luckily, my best friend had a few hours to spare before the wedding. As we drove to the first pharmacy, I made a mental list of extra items I could purchase in order to make the transaction as nonchalant as possible. A magazine, diet coke, morning after pill, vitamin C, double-sided tape, just your average Saturday afternoon grocery list, I’d say. Truth be told, there’s really no good way to buy the morning after pill without feeling like a little bit of a whore. Lesson learned.

I dealt with so many assholes in my quest to avoid having a bastard-affair baby that I could have created a rating system. It would attempt to describe the pharmacists’ better-than-thou response on that Saturday when asked of the morning after pill. I’d imagine it would use a scale of zero (meaning the manner in which the most liberal doctor on earth, having been in a similar predicament, would empathize with and handle the situation) to ten (meaning the manner in which Jerry Falwell’s reanimated-bloated corpse would respond when asked of premarital sex).

The first pharmacist received a five out of ten. She informed me, with a slightly raised eyebrow, that I could find the pill at the nearest Wal Mart. Wal Mart, really? Skeptical but desperate, I had no better option. To Wal Mart we went. This is where Marge came into my life. Big Marge. Wal Mart employee number 65,000. Before she even opened her fat lips, I knew asking for her assistance would be like pulling fucking teeth. Marge get’s a perfect ten out of ten on my imaginary scale. In fact, I’m going to go so far as to give Marge a big fuck you for blatantly judging me. Like I didn’t feel shitty enough about the situation. No, certainly not. My hungover eyes and alcohol-dripping pores clearly begged for her to take thirty seconds to answer each question with bonus dagger eyes the whole time. It’s absolutely comical to go from New York City, where even Bloomberg seemed excited about Babeland’s vote-and-get-a free-dildo promotion, to a small, conservative town where everything sex related is an abomination. Call me naive for thinking buying Plan B would be easier than storming the beaches of Normandy.

The third and final attempt, we hit up the CVS across town (twenty minutes before the wedding, mind you) with success. The pharmacist at CVS received a gold-medal earning three out of ten. Slightly judgmental in tone but no clear facial expressions that made me believe he would remember me once I exited the store.

$50 dollars and a body full of hormones later, I sat in the church as the bride walked sternly down the aisle. The groom looked like he was about to shit his pants and barely cracked a smile, my friend wept tears of great, great sadness and ex-boyfriend’s eyes were locked on mine for the majority of the service. I thought about giving him the ol‘ we-aint-having-a-baby- thumbs up, but felt it wasn’t the most appropriate church mannerism.

The reception was to be expected: the food so-so, friends and family members danced stupid group dances, I quadruple fisted gin and tonics and mentally prepared for the rest of the night. For those of you out there who are morning after pill virgins, two pills are taken twelve hours apart. I needed to stay up til 3:30am to take the second pill. After the reception, we settled in the same frigid hotel room, the clock blinked 11:30 as our friends retired to their own suites. Four hours to kill before I could take the second dose of the morning after pill, ensuring my poor decision the night before would be nothing more than a distant memory. We killed time with tickle fights, spooning, massages, and various other nauseating activities.

I have thought about 3:35 am on June 14th hundreds of times. I’ve talked about, over analyzed and replayed that moment over and over. I can’t figure out how I didn’t see it coming. How naive was I? There is no acceptable reason why I thought he wouldn’t disappoint me, again. Ex-boyfriend is the only person on earth who constantly lets me down. He did it when we were together and continued the tradition long after we broke up. Shame on me for allowing it, for expecting more of him solely because he told me he loved me. As we laid tangled together, I asked him what he was going to do about the situation. Surprise shouldn’t have been my first reaction when he said “I’m going home to Toronto to be with the girl I love.”

One more time: I’m going home to Toronto to be with the girl I love.

A fatal blow, effortlessly delivered as he held me.

Speechless is one word to describe how I felt after hearing those words. Angry is another. Hurt is a third. But what really drove the nail in the coffin is when he yelled at me for ten minutes and told me that I “just didn’t understand” and had “no concept of how special she was.” She must be special, you know, if he was willing to cheat on her with his ex.

The endless talk about loving me and wanting to be part of my life, the crying, the cuddling, and love-of-my-life speech, all emotional warfare to get me to sleep with him? Seems that way. The sad thing that I hate admitting is he could have treated me like shit and I still would have done it.

There’s this Bob Marley song called “Waiting in Vain,” replace all the female pronouns with their masculine counterparts and you have an excellent summation of my relationship with ex-boyfriend over the last two years. It hit me that Sunday morning, hours after he lectured me for judging him and his girlfriend unfairly based on his previous night’s actions.

Picture this: I’m sitting on the curb of the hotel with my hood covering most of my face. Ash waits at the tip of a smoldering cigarette for the breeze to dispose. The iPod in my hand blares Marley’s beat from my headphones for any passerby to hear. If you had passed me at that very moment, you probably wouldn’t have noticed the tears in my eyes as they collected faster than I care to admit. Completely engulfed in Marley’s tune, I didn’t notice the blue sedan that rolled to a stop two feet in front of me. The windows slowly rolled down, but I couldn’t hear my friend’s voice as he called my name. He exited the car and sat next to me. I tried to hide the heartsick expression that graced my face.

“We’re going to go pick up the tuxedos and cuff links. You wanna come?” he said.

“No thanks” I replied.

He moved towards the car and asked if I was okay.

Clearly, I was not okay. I felt used, like a section of the newspaper you read and throw away without giving a second thought. I couldn’t tell if my stomach cramped and churned from the assault of hormones or a result of the sheer terror I felt when thinking about how many diseases I potentially exposed myself to. He said he had been safe since we broke up, but also said it as easily as when he told me he loved me and didn’t want to hurt me.

After three cigarettes, I peeled my jello legs off the curb, made myself presentable in my best friend’s suite as she coached me for a the conversation I was about to have with ex-boyfriend. I didn’t hear a word she said. Whatever I was going to say would come from pure heat-of-the-moment-anger sprinkled with overemphasis on pretentious words.

I entered our room. Ex-boyfriend has never been good at hiding his feelings. He threw clothes across the room and smashed chargers and toiletries into a bag while exhaling loudly, unmistakeably signifying his anger. Why, exactly, he was mad I have yet to figure out. Guilt has an interesting way of transforming to anger in cowardly men who refuse to own up to their mistakes.

I pass my luggage to my best friend. The adrenaline kicked in as I locked the door behind her. I don’t remember exactly what I said. But at the very least I made the following points:

We weren’t going to have a two-way discussion.
He was going to listen to everything I had to say.
He used me.
He treated me unfairly.
He had no right to yell at me like he did previously when I question how “special” his girlfriend must have been if he was so quick to cheat.

Being the big fucking punching bag that he is, he agreed with everything I said. I wanted a fight. I wanted to lunge across the room and rip the fake RayBans off his twisted little face. I wanted to call his girlfriend and tell her every detail of what happened, so he’s never be able to hide from it. Instead, he absorbed every criticism and kept his mouth shut. It was the least satisfying fight I’ve ever had with him and I still had a two-hour ride home to look forward to.

On the ride home, I kept my mouth shut with the exception of one or two sarcastic comments, all of which he over zealously laughed at. We stopped for drinks halfway home. My friend gassed the car and he followed me into the gas station like a weak puppy. He didn’t need to say anything: it was all in his eyes. He looked sad and distraught, like he was the one who had been used. He wanted to talk, but I was perfectly fine never having a conversation with him ever again.

Finally, after the longest car ride of my life, we dropped him off at his home. My friend got out of the car and hugged him. I stayed safely seated in the front of her car. He looked at me and clearly was wishing I would get out of the car for a few last words, maybe even a hug. I put my sunglasses on and turned away. It might have been the most dramatic moment of my life. Writing about it really doesn’t do much justice.

An hour later, he called me repeatedly. I ignored each call. He texted me, telling me that if I didn’t want to talk that I should just tell him and not ignore his calls. I responded with the last words I have ever said to him.

“Really not interested in hearing anything you have to say.“

Five months later, I still hope those are the last words I ever say to him.

What I did was wrong. Plain and simple. If the situation had been reversed, if he had cheated on me with her, I would have been furious. That said, I’ve always believed that people cheat for a reason.

So this is where I stand: despite this blaring summation of forty-eight hours of my life I don’t regret a single hour. I made bad choices, clearly, but regret is for those who refuse to learn from mistakes.

It’s not all bad. In the end, no matter how brutal the ride was, I finally found the closure I desperately needed. If we’re being honest, I spent the summer performing a self-inflicted emotional coup. Populated by binge drinking and bonding with friends, I overthrew that paralyzing, tired mentality I once loved. The one that kept me from erasing ex-boyfriend from my life. I broke down that mother fucking cage and set it on fire. I’ll never let another person use me again.

The best part about this whole disaster is how my friends responded. I came home to a group of people who are more or less family now. They listened to me endlessly, got me drunk when I needed it, helped me burn everything he ever gave me. I shut that box in my brain that kept every memory of my relationship with ex-boyfriend, locked it and threw away the key. Now that I’m almost finished writing this, I don’t ever need to open it again. And, luckily, I am still STD free.

Bless my friends, really. I never hit rock bottom because they wouldn’t let me. And for that, well I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to repay them.

-Anastasia

The text I just sent Alexis:

shouldacalleditanight — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:23:38 +0000

Yes, this is the text I just sent Alexis at 4:00am east coast time, mind you.

“God damn you and bali. god dammi you to hell. i need your ass right now”

Seriously. Glad I’m sober enough to blog this (truth be told, sober is in no way what I am right now but I need Alexis rul bad and I’m going to hear hell about this post when she’s back in the U S OF A!)

So, I hope everyone had a nice Friday. I think a sabbatical from drinking and smoking is in order soon, no?

Wouldn’t it have been great if the last story was real?

shouldacalleditanight — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:10:50 +0000

The last five months have been interesting. The good and bad, highs and lows, sober and…well, okay rarely sober. I did it all. But I haven’t been a good friend to those who don’t live within a mile radius of my apartment. So, to them, and to you all-because we’re all friends now- I apologize.

Ask Alexis, I rarely picked up the phone when she called. When I called her back our conversations usually began with her asking “How many boxes of wine tonight?”

What? How many boxes of wine tonight? I’m not exaggerating, it was an appropriate question.

I cut back on sleeping entirely. My solid eight-hours-of-sleep winter quickly transformed into an eight-hours-of-sleep every three days, if I was lucky. My lungs hate me because I’m now officially a smoker, a fact I make no apologies for. My liver has always hated me, but it’s still kickin’.

But why did I disappear? Well, let’s talk about the ex-boyfriend ship. So, it’s like this: I’m standing at the dock talking to the captain. He tells me if I get on the ship, it could take me to an amazing place. I’m talking tropically warm with no humidity and everything I’d ever need would be right there (because that’s what it felt like when I was wrapped up in ex-boyfriend’s arms). So, I ask of the captain what the deal is with the “could” and “might” and otherwise ambiguous phrases he’s using. But he can’t tell me until I the ship leaves port. It all sounds great until I remember my tendency for seasickness (like the time ex-boyfriend “almost” cheated on me, or when he would get angry when I offered help in any given situation, or how rehearsal was always top priority even if I was visiting him from out of the country: all felt exactly like being seasick).

“Don’t get on board,” I tell myself. There are plenty of modes of transportation to get to the warmth at your disposal.

But what if. It’s the what ifs that always get me. What if this is my one moment for greatness with another human being? What if I’m giving up if I don’t seize the moment and get on the ship. What’s a little seasickness if ultimately I get to that place I dreamed of for so long?

So, at a friend’s wedding this summer, I got on board the ex-boyfriend ship. And let me tell you that ship had sailed but I forced my way on and it sank to the bottom of the fucking ocean. No, it didn’t just sink, it combusted and burned all the way down.

What a metaphor! If only I recognized this earlier. But even armored with this knowledge, when your best friend cries to you, when he weeps in your arms, when the man you would have married tells you he loves you and wants to be part of your life- well, how do you combat that?

The last story I posted is how I hoped the wedding would go down. I wanted everything to be perfect and to avoid all awkward situations with ex-boyfriend. The more I told my friends that ex-boyfriend was a figure of the past who I had moved on from, the more I realized I was only trying to convince myself. But when my planned date couldn’t make it to the wedding, I started to worry. I knew, instantly, things would not go as planned.

Ready for the story?

-Anastasia Beam