Longing

You know those movies. The one where the spirited single girl starts off being perfectly happy with her life, her career, her ridiculously unrealistically sized apartment in a major city, and the fact that she looks polished 24/7. Obviously, I am not that girl.

My life could use some improvement. My career could use some improvement from me (as in me not being a retard). I have yet to feel perfectly comfortable in a suit, although I will note with satisfaction I have - except for the occasionaly grate - mastered heels.

I am sitting in my sassy single girl living room celebrating the fact that plunking $300 on an air purifier has finally managed to scare away the three year dog reek in my non-central air/heat apartment. Which is a nice size, but certainly not a palace. I am sitting here, among furniture from my parents and Target, listening to a "Pure Moods" CD I bought circa 1997. Which is currently playing the track from "The Exorcist." Somehow that once made sense.

I am also very ungroomed. In fact I went to dinner this evening with my father and someone asked me pointedly if it was windy out. I also had spinach stuck in my teeth, but I didn't discover that until I got home and began to floss. I am not lounging around in satin PJs. I am currently experimenting to see how long the hairs on my legs can grow.

But let's put all that aside and pretend that I am a Doris Day. At this point my Rock Hudson enters. We hate each other at first, circling like dueling sharks trying to get in the best bite, and the sexual tension is so palpable that all the much less good looking supporting characters drop their pants and start doing it right there.

Okay, I've circled a few times in the last year, and have definitely gotten my bites in. I've had my victories, and I've had my defeats, my highs and my heartbreaks, passionate nights, and some nights so awkward that part of me kept looking for the camera crew of Punk'd to leap out from behind the headboard.

But I have no happily ever after. At the time the credits roll in, I'm somewhat befuddled, replaying, marveling, trying to learn, and thinking ... well, who the hell has a happy ending anyway? I mean, it's great to have someone to love you, have sex with you regularly, and accompany you to fundraising events to assure everyone at your workplace you're not a dysfunctional spinster.

But even in happy ever after land, eventually someone has to die. Or they fall in love with someone else (usually blonde), and you have the misfortune of seeing photos of that. Or maybe they just vanish into their own minds, and you glance at them one day and realize that you never really knew them at all.

It's partly my fault. Men are a game to me, and I like racking up points, and some men are worth more than others. I definitely don't always win, but I know, being a woman, the odds of seduction are usually on my side. And of course, there's the thrill of the cockblock, even if it involves objects being hurtled at you.

It's probably sick, but it's pretty damn funny at the same time. I'd like to change it, but then I don't. So maybe the happily ever after - if it does exist - wouldn't suit me and my freewheelin' bachelorette lifestyle anyway.

Holy fuck. I'm not Doris Day. I'm Rock Hudson.

So, I guess I'm now in the market for a sassy girl wearing satin pajamas in a large Manhattan apartment.