Yeah, and drunk.  Okay, so I look like ass in orange.  It’s my hair.  I hate saying it, hate even more, typing it, but I’ll say it now, I look wretched in orange.  Even in the Love Me, Love My Dog shirt (sorry Kim).  But, what the hell, I’m going there now.  I look like ASS in Mario Badescu skin care drying lotion.  First off, it comes in a vile.  You dip a q-tip into the bottom of the jar and capture an orange goop, which you later dab on your face.  Let me back-track now.

In college, I had a boyfriend.  He was a football player.  He was older, and in a word, brilliant.  Ironic?  Yes, but quite true… to this day, he is one of the funniest, smartest people I know… even though he will no longer talk to me… "It’s too hard."  He was my best friend who I wanted to attack.  He was perfect for me… if only he knew about the whole… you know, decisive, I’ll be honest and true thing.  He had short arms but a very big heart and a brilliant mind.  The important part here… he showed up at my dorm one day, and the desk official made him phone up before allowing him to enter the premises.  "No, he cannot come up," I told the official.  He was pissed.  It had nothing to do with feelings and everything to do with vanity.  I had mushed an entire avocado over my face, under my mother’s advisement, and I was not about to allow him to enter my room while I looked like I’d just eaten out a salad.  He felt rejected and wanted nothing to do with me.  It was the story of my life, and I was only in college.  So if today, any man comes a knocking in the middle of the night, he needs to understand about my obsession with Mario… and he can’t take it so personally.  I swear, there’s room for everyone in here. 

This is bad to post, but here’s the thing… I so don’t care.  This isn’t about "right," it’s about what I want… which is beautiful, messy, and unedited… just like me.  What I’ll never do again… I’ll never make it about some guy, even him, the one I want more than anyone. Forget that he won’t believe it, forget that he’ll fear me, forget, for even a moment, that he’ll fear I’ll change my mind… because that’s exactly how I’ll feel. Whatever I’ll say, he’ll cough up to needy, up to vulnerable, up to timing, and he’ll question it. “This can’t be for real,” and he’ll wait for a shoe to drop. He’ll wonder when I’ll change my mind and cough it up to “something I was working through,” and it won’t matter how sure I am because at the end of the day, “sure” is just another four letter word. And actions speak louder, well you know. And that’s something I can respect, because, at the end of the day, after all the conversations and emails, it’s what happens, it how we choose to spend our time. That’s the real tell… not whether we roll our eyes or change the subject… the real tell is how we spend our time. What I’ll never do again… I’ll never make it about some guy. At the end of the day, it’s not about him. It’s about us. Not Stephanie, not him, but us. And that’s new for me. I know there’s nothing tangible to hold here, other than my conviction in respecting, and quite frankly, being proud of, a man who doesn’t always give me my way, but instead respects himself, and in turn, us. That’s a man worth holding. And, I’m willing to see where it goes even if it means opening the door and revealing a girl with a face full of avocado and Mario Badescu.  It’s putting vanity aside, vulnerability aside, and jumping.  I know it might suck if I jump, but if I don’t, it’s like having a flawless face but having no one to admire it.  What’s the point there?