Ding. Ding. “Twenty fifth floor. Going up.” They’ve installed this recorded voice in the elevator. It creeps me out. I hate it. “Twenty sixth floor. Going up.” At first it was extremely unsettling. I don’t think anyone actually notices it at this point. He asked me to move in with him. I had my second freak out on him. And at this point I promise to stop counting. Promise. He asked me to move in with him. We actually had a serious conversation. Which we actually do from time to time. I’ve never had a relationship in which we talk about the relationship. Isn’t that odd. For some reason we just do. I applied for a job at Wieden & Kennedy, and…
…here I am being interviewed by a place called Joint. Isn’t that funny. It’s in Portland. So as I am making travel plans to the Pacific Northwest, convincing myself not to move in with him while simultaneously picturing myself waking up in his arms every morning, he is fucking his ex-wife.
Twenty-seven, twenty-eight DING! DING! “Lemme guess, I didn’t see the Big FLASHING RED LIGHT!!! Isn’t that lovely? It’s always something though isn’t it? I wonder about the people standing around me in the elevator. Which one of them is still having unsafe sex with their ex-ideal-of marital bliss, while trying to convinve a new lover that really it’s meaningless, and if you ask divorcees, they’ll say it’s just part of that process. Everyone does it. Well I can’t say about divorcees, I’m not one and at this point I’m not fully convinced I’m going to ever be off the market let alone a blushing bride. (And why do I still feel like the slut about that by the way?)
Why am I always more willing to befriend men than women? I say that I don’t like women. I say they are catty and backstabbing, when in reality, I know disloyalty is not theirs exclusively. And I love them, and want constantly for the physical and mental companionship I used to share with women in my college days. When from my own experience they are the ones who call to check up on me, the ones I call to keep track of and to support. Yet why do I not feel close to the women in this very elevator? Why do I picture them as nothing but airheads? As women who sell themselves short by selling themselves to men? (I do the very same thing.) Why do I hinge everything in my life to my existence for a man?