The Follow-Up

My ex is dating a cocktail waitress. (Insert smarmy, judgmental, unsuccessfully-stifled laugh here.) O.M.G. Seriously? Seriously. Dude.

I hadn't heard anything about my ex's dating life, or lack-of, since we broke up. Naturally, I worried I would hear news of his next girlfriend or that he was seeing someone and then feel like breaking up was a huge mistake and want him back for the first time since we ended things nearly 11 months ago. So worried was I that I made sure to tell my best friend that, if she were to hear anything through the grapevine of our intertwined connections, she should please keep it away from my so-moving-on self.

Not being in this I-broke-up-with-the-guy-I-once-thought-I'd-marry position before, I figured I should safeguard my fragile little feelings by doing the following: 1) Date someone new as soon as possible. Check, 2) Avoid places he may be likely to go. Check, 3) Think about him only in negative/humiliating lights. Check, and check. And, perhaps the most important act of all ... 4) Resist inquisitions about ex's personal life. Check.

Until today when I got wind of a little gem of information. The cocktail waitress. Dumbfounded, giggly, and a feeling a little sad for my ex, I knew my so-moving-on self had indeed moved on. Yet, a question lingered: a cocktail waitress? That's my follow-up? Really? There is nothing wrong with cocktail waitresses, of course. I have a great deal of respect for these fine purveyors of delicious libations. Especially when I am at a bar and want another margarita. (The humor in all of this also lies in the fact that my ex doesn't--or at least didn't--drink. Never had, in fact. Irony? I think yes.)

Well, if anything I'm glad he's moved on. Maybe she's a cocktail-waitress-slash-actress. Or a cocktail-waitress-slash-scientist. I'm also glad that I am anything but sad. Life, with it's continuous tests...well, I passed this one. Whew.

How Will I Know?

In the 80s, Whitney Houston asked us this ponderous question: How will I know if he really loves me? (I say a prayer with ev-ery heart-beat. I fall in love whenever we meee-eeet. I'm askin you, 'cause you know about these things. Love. It.) Here's how you know, Whitney, you ask him. I know. Weird, huh? I just learned that one in the past year. It totally works.

But how do you know if you really love him? Or like him? Or maybe wanna date him? A friend of mine who has been seeing this guy for a couple weeks now is mulling over this very question: How will she know if she really likes him?

I can get all existential (or something--confession, I don't think I know what existential means), and say something like: Do we ever really know anything? But that's kinda silly. I know many things for certain, such as, I don't like eggs, Britney Spears is awesome, tequila makes me crazy, and having a pillow-top mattress has significantly improved my life.

Because I was single for a whole seven months this year, I know a thing or two about knowing. Maybe. I know that if you have to ask yourself, How will I know? or Do I really like this person?, you probably have your answer. If you've been dating a guy and you're not quite sure how you feel about him or the situation, you're probably not that into him (another great question--how do you know if he's just not that into you? Um because you had to ask.) But I digress.

For me, I know right away whether or not I like someone. Of course that doesn't mean I haven't done my fair share of bargaining, contemplating, and convincing myself to feel something for a guy when I really wanted to like him but didn't. I get annoyed with girls who complain about how they want a boyfriend, attracted more to the idea of having one without an actual live man in mind, but I understand wanting to be love--both wanting to love someone and have someone love you back. There are many things in this world that are amazing: cupcakes, iPhones, adrenaline, rainbows, and really, really good steak, to name a few. But I have yet to see poetry about steak.

Love is a whole other beast. In Whitney's song, the back-up singers have some advice for her, as she asks how she will know. They say, "Don't trust a feeling--love can be deceiving." I'm not sure I agree with that. (Unless of course that feeling is actually just an unfounded desire to have sex with someone because that never works out well.) Still, I don't think love--the real kind--is deceiving. I think love makes people crazy and happy and miserable at times, but it doesn't lie. You either love someone or you don't. The complicated part is what happens next...

AdSense Knows Me Too Well...

So I noticed that since this blog passed the 10,000 hits mark (baller!) my ads have gotten way better. Instead of weird legal services and music downloading companies I've never heard of, I finally have legit brands on here. Please feel free to click away so I can make some money. (So far I've gotten $4, which is not so baller.)

Today, I realized that AdSense, the program that puts the ads on here, must somehow be spying on me (or, more plausibly, reading this blog) because I have a Jose Cuervo tequila ad on here now. Which either means I have become a total lush or I write often about being one. Awesome.

Bender to Remember

Since turning in my thesis on July 23, 2009, I have done nothing. Okay, that's a lie. I have been drinking. A lot.

In college, I wasn't what one would call a "partier." I went out. I threw up in some guy's bed one time. I made an ass of myself continually. But any kind of that-girl behavior lasted maybe, maybe, a semester. So I decided I should make up for that by celebrating my Master-dom via alcohol.

I've been drinking on the beach, with friends, with my parents, with Julie's parents, by myself while cooking dinner, at happy hour, at baseball games, in dive bars, in Georgia, while singing karaoke, while watching the movie Ski School, from the bottle, in a glass, in a red plastic cup, just drinking, drinking, and, yes, drinking. I mean, I've been going out approximately four times a week. Which feels like always. Which makes my liver feel like giving up.

With the start of the fall semester just two days away, I find myself literally unable to wait. Which is why I am concurrently writing about this anticipation to get back to work as well as making a to-do list of all the tasks I must complete on Monday to ready myself for 15 weeks of hardcore teaching. (Photocopies! Setting up my gradebook! Editing my syllabus!) Perhaps I am super-excited partly because I am also super-hungover. And I know that, at this time next week, that will not be the case.

It's been fun guys, my new crew of Blue Moon, Amstel, various Cabernets, and that weird champagne drink at Anisette, but our time is almost up. And I am glad for it. This sense of relief may or may not have something to do with the fact that, last night, I fell on a public sidewalk and lost a shoe. And was very much that-girl. Plus I kinda have a beer belly. Which I know is super hot and everything but it kinda makes wearing my jeans difficult. Don't even get me started on actually putting them on.

My bender is scheduled to commence tomorrow at midnight, when I am likely to be even more looking forward to not feeling like I'm going to die when I wake up in the morning. But a commitment is a commitment. So, for the next 24 hours: bottoms up.

An Ode to The GasLite

So. Right after my 25th birthday two and a half short months ago, I proclaimed that I would not longer be frequenting a certain Santa Monica establishment. Said establishment coerced me into doing bad things, which included, but were not limited to: spilling drinks on myself, kissing random boys (not the one I was dating), singing karaoke without my knowledge, flirting with creepy older men so they would buy me drinks (which I certainly didn't need), dancing erratically, and hanging on people.

If you're thinking, "Wow, Natasha, good thing you can acknowledge your problem of making a complete ass of yourself. You are way past such sophomoric behavior," you are about to be disappointed.

Because, actually, since my declaration of abstinence, I have frequented that fabulous Santa Monica establishment three times. It just keeps getting better and better. Maybe this is because I have not been to many places in L.A. I have heard of amazing mystical places people enjoy--Miaygi's, Sky Bar, Social Hollywood, Hyde--but, seriously, these are way too cool for me.

Call me uncultured. Call me not really from L.A. Sorry, dudes, I prefer The GasLite.

My going-out preferences are much like my wine ones. Nothing fancy, just dark and cheap. At The GasLite, I can sing (scream) "Since You've Been Gone." On a stage. With mylar streamers behind me and real lights illuminating my super-stardom-ness. I can walk into the men's bathroom to watch a guy puke and tell him not to wave his Blackberry over the toilet, only for him to yell at me. I can buy a round of Patron shots from my friends and still afford my rent. I can tell the bartender to surprise me and she will--with something awesome. And, by God, I can make-out with random boys beneath hazy dark-reddish lighting. Eat your heart out Miyagi's. You've got nothin' on my GasLite.

Apparently, a woman having her birthday party there the other night thanked Julie for letting her group "take over" our bar. Since we were clearly GasLite regulars. I'm going to take that as a compliment, obviously.