Clearly, I Didn't Think This Through : The Story of One Tall Girl's Impulsive, Ill-conceived, and Borderline Irresponsible Life Decisions (9781101612255) Read online

  He took me to Kate’s Joint, a vegan restaurant tucked away on the Lower East Side. We split an order of sweet potato fries and giggled a lot. I didn’t hesitate when he asked me to go back to his place in Brooklyn. I followed his lead as we navigated our way back to his neighborhood. We stepped over two syringes, a crackhead, and a used condom on the way back to his house. It was like a greatest hits compilation of all the things Barnard’s pamphlets had warned me about.

  His apartment was nestled in the bottom of an old factory building. He had to open four separate doors to access it. It was nice, I guess, if you’re into dungeons.

  Of course the first things that caught my eye as soon as we stepped into his apartment were two of those wavy mirrors you get at IKEA hung up in his wall. God, I hate those mirrors. They’re like a shiny tribute to cooked bacon. I can’t believe these mirrors are so popular! They’re in so many guys’ living rooms. I don’t know why. I wanted to chuck them to the curb.

  “I’m actually pretty wiped out. Mind if we hit the hay?” he asked.

  “That’s fine with me.” I fell asleep wrapped up in his heavily tattooed arms. Everything seemed to be going great. It was his idea to introduce me to his friends and thought that his house party the next week was the perfect time to do it.

  “I want to show you off. Come! It’ll be so much fun.”

  “All right,” I agreed, warming up to the idea.

  But when the party rolled around, I was stressed out beyond belief. This being our third date, I knew from my extensive men’s magazine reading that this was a make-or-break evening. I had read an article in Details that basically said, and I’m paraphrasing, that most men expect a woman to put out by the third date. If she doesn’t, then she’s a frigid dud who should be immediately dumped. I’m not kidding. This seemed to be a universal expectation. I assumed that this was the night Tommy was going to make his move and seal the deal with me, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready. I volleyed it around in my brain all day. Should I put out to keep him around? Should I hold out until I was sure that I really loved him? How would I know that I loved him unless he stuck around? I was so nervous on the subway that I almost puked twice.

  The party was great. I met all of his friends, an eclectic mix of musicians and artists. Tommy got drunk and seemed to get increasingly irritated that I wouldn’t “just have a beer.”

  “You knew I didn’t drink when you met me,” I deadpanned, matching his irritation level that he wouldn’t drop the issue.

  “I thought I would’ve broken you from that habit by now. I usually do it right away. At least, that’s how it’s happened with other girls. They always start out going, ‘wah wah, I don’t drink,’ but after spending time with me, they wise up. Before you know it, they’re full-on lushes.” I got very quiet after he said that. I crossed my arms.

  “Oh, come on! You know I’m only playing around. Relax! Have a beer! Oh, wait. You don’t do that. I keep forgetting. See? This is so hard!”

  The other girls. Right. As if I weren’t self-conscious enough about my lack of experience with men, he had to go throw it in my face about how much more action he’d had than me. I was deflated. I would’ve left right then, but I was in deep Brooklyn and I wasn’t even sure how to get back to the subway from his place. Plus, it was pretty late and I really didn’t want to walk around by myself in a neighborhood with syringes lying around like roadkill. I figured the safest thing to do was to wait to leave in the morning in the daylight. I had trouble maintaining eye contact with him, though, and retreated to the living room to make small talk with Stan, a graffiti artist with paint-splattered sneakers.

  Everyone left around three A.M., and we finally went to bed. He started going at it with me, and I froze up like a Popsicle. I deflected his advances like a hockey goalie. I didn’t think I was ready to take it any further with him. So when he started fumbling with my bra, I panicked and pushed him away.

  “Anna, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m not sure if I’m ready for this.” I had buckled under the third-date rule.

  “Ready for what? What are you talking about? We’re just having fun.”

  “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m waiting until marriage.”

  “You’re what?”

  “Marriage. I’m waiting until marriage to have sex. I wasn’t sure how to tell—” As soon as the word marriage rolled off my tongue, I wanted to scoop it back in. But I couldn’t. And I’m pretty sure he heard it, because he made this face at me that looked like he was wearing the mask from Scream.

  He let out a loud groan, then rolled over. I tried to wind my arm around his waist, but he pushed it off. Here’s the thing: I wasn’t waiting until marriage to have sex. I have no idea why I said that. And I couldn’t take it back; it was already said. What I meant to say was that I wasn’t ready at that moment because I didn’t know if I was in love with him, and that comment about the other girls he’d been with made me feel unspecial, and I thought we should take it a bit slower and Details magazine said that tonight we’d have to do it so I felt pressured by the men’s magazine industry to put out, but somehow those words didn’t come out of my mouth. You want to know what bums a twenty-six-year-old guy out while he’s trying to get his swerve on? Blurt out the word marriage. It’s a total boner-killer.

  The next day when we woke up, he barely spoke to me. I wanted to cry, which isn’t a good look for the morning after spending the night with a guy. He didn’t even walk me fully to the subway; he just pointed in the general direction and said, “Take a right after two blocks. You’ll see it.” He didn’t even kiss me good-bye. We were totally over. Talk about a walk of shame, right? I was walkin’ that walk for sure.

  The forty-five-minute train ride back to my place was a nightmare. I was alone with my regret, reliving the night over and over in my head. How do you tell someone that you aren’t waiting until marriage even though you said that you were? Did I ruin things between us? Was something wrong with me? I didn’t have the skills to make the situation better. I wouldn’t even know where to start. Fuck it.

  When I got home, I canceled my subscription to Details magazine. I’m not good at being a male fantasy. I’m just Anna, a super-tall, full-coverage brief-wearing, supportive sneaker-sporting spazz who has no idea how to conduct herself around the opposite sex.

  CHAPTER 6

  Halloweenies

  I used to love Halloween when I was younger, but I think that it wasn’t so much that I loved the holiday as much as I just loved having access to free candy. Add candy to any holiday and chances are that I’d fully throw my support behind its existence. However, as much as I love free candy, I hate coming up with clever costumes, so that’s where Halloween and I don’t see eye to eye.

  I’m jealous of people who can come up with awesome costumes because it’s a skill that’s eluded me my entire life. Believe me, if I could pop a pill to suddenly knock out killer costumes, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But until the pharmaceutical companies make the development of costume-enhancing drugs a priority, I’m out of luck.

  I don’t think my aversion to Halloween costumes is genetic because my younger sister, Rachel, is a costume genius. She’s the Michael Jordan of Halloween costumes. She’s so good at it that she should really list it on her résumé in the “other skills” section. Hell, she should teach a seminar on it at the local community college learning annex: That’s how good she is.

  Every year she puts together a timely, interesting costume. Frankly, it’s annoying. One Halloween, she nailed it as Snow White, wearing the perfect Snow White dress with red puffed sleeves and her hair styled into a perfect, bouncy bob. She looked fantastic. My costume, on the other hand, was not only forgettable, but also downright stupid. I wore dark jeans and a black T-shirt and told people that I was an NYU student. Can it get much lazier than that? It’s one step above not wearing a costume at all.

  The next year, she knocked it out of the park as Wonder Woman. She even had a gold lasso a
nd gold wrist cuffs that took her costume to the next level. That year, I tossed on a flannel shirt that I found under my bed, didn’t brush my hair, and told people that I was an extra in the movie Singles. Are you getting the picture?

  The following year, she blew people’s hair back with her Luigi from Mario Bros. costume. If anyone could rock a fake mustache and make it look pretty, it’s Rachel. People were taking photos with her at every party she attended. She probably got tagged in at least five great Facebook pics that night. She plans her costume months in advance and makes sure to swing by several Halloween parties to show it off to as many people as possible. I am the exact opposite of her in this regard: I’m indifferent. I’ve never shopped for a costume. I’ve never had a good idea for one. And, every year without fail, I wait until the last possible second to think of a costume idea that requires the minimum amount of creativity required. Preferably, I’d like to already own all the required materials and not invest more than ten minutes putting the damn thing together.

  I’ll stand in front of my closet with my hands on my hips, scanning my clothes and hoping inspiration strikes. “What’s this, a black turtleneck? Fine, I’ll be a beatnik. Halloween: done.” Consequently, I was a beatnik for every Halloween four years in a row.

  It wasn’t until I moved to Philadelphia that I began to make more of an effort, costumewise. I had been living in New York for close to six years and was feeling restless, so when my parents announced that they were moving to South Jersey, I decided to move twenty-five minutes away to Philly.

  The only person I knew here was the singer of a popular punk band named Dylan. I had interviewed him for a zine a few months before and he talked Philly up, gushing about what a fantastic place it was to live. So after I moved here, I went to see his band play at a dingy bar on South Street. That’s where I met my soon-to-be best friend, Kat.

  Decked out in black pumps, a bright red polka-dot dress, and red lipstick to match, she stood out from the crowd. I was immediately drawn to her. She was totally different from any of my low-key New York friends, who would usually just wear boring jeans and plain T-shirts in neutral colors. Meeting her was like watching television in black-and-white my whole life then finally switching to high-definition color TV.

  Kat was a free spirit, ready to grab life by the horns. She was loud, smart, and funny. The first time we hung out, she took me to a sixties soul dance party and we danced so hard that our makeup ran off our faces.

  After that, we hit up dance parties all around town, staying out until they flicked on the house lights at two A.M. She introduced me to all of Philly’s movers and shakers, musicians, deejays, and scenesters. For the first time in my life, I was finally having fun.

  We moved in together into an apartment in the Art Museum Area. She was like a sister from another mister teaching me how to do the kinds of things girls mastered in middle school. She showed me how to curl my hair properly, how to paint my nails and advised me on which dresses flattered my figure best.

  And Kat was the one who introduced me to a wonderful thing called whiskey. I did my first shot with her and it quickly became a staple in our home. Thanks to Jack Daniel’s, I became a kissing bandit, making out with a buffet of short guys across the city. Her balls-to-the-wall attitude was rubbing off on me. After years of overanalyzing every minuscule interaction I’ve ever had with a guy, whiskey made me not give a fuck. For a neurotic Jew like me, it was a relief to shut my brain off for a few hours. All my worries melted away.

  My friendship with Kat made me realize how sheltered I’d been. Crippled by pamphlet-induced fear for the first half of my twenties, I’d barely lived my life. She seemed light-years ahead of me in so many areas. She had more hangovers, more cocktails, more motorcycle rides, more smashed beer bottles, more broken hearts, more everything. If this were Party University, I’d be a freshman and she was most definitely a senior. It made me want to experience as much life as possible, as quickly as possible.

  With Kat at my side for my first Philadelphia Halloween, I had to step up my costume game. She was dressed as Axl Rose, complete with a blond wig and fake tattoos she drew on with a Sharpie. I tossed on tan boots and a denim skirt, twisted a red bandanna around my neck, and pulled my hair into pigtails: Voila! I was a cowgirl. Unfortunately, everyone I talked to that night just thought I was a hipster. After two hours, I decided to just go with it and abandoned the cowgirl ruse. Fine, everyone, you win; I’ll be a hipster. See? That’s how little I care about my costume: I’ll abandon the concept in a flash. I wasn’t just lazy; I was apathetic, too.

  To be honest, I resent feeling like I have to wow everyone with a cool costume every single year. Haven’t I earned the right to not care about my Halloween costume yet? When does it end? Hey, I’m just here for the free boxes of Good & Plentys; no need to bring a wacky costume into the mix.

  The worst was Halloween 2004, when I went to a huge party in a North Philly warehouse sans costume. I arrived in my normal Friday night outfit of a short dress and black boots, and then I realized that every other person had come up with the most elaborate, clever costumes I’d ever seen. My cheeks burned red with shame. I’d never felt so inadequate before. I couldn’t make eye contact with anyone at the party, which turned out to be pretty easy because the costumes I saw were so advanced beyond anything I could ever put together, I couldn’t recognize anyone anyway.

  Looking around the room, I saw someone dressed as Osama bin Laden wearing a turban made out of spaghetti and meatballs, four girls dressed as Tetris pieces that fit together, a human disco ball, and Crocodile Dundee. I saw Marcia Brady getting down on the dance floor. I could tell it was her because she was wearing a sixties dress with long brown hair parted in the middle and had a tiny football affixed to her nose. She was dancing with Princess Leia and the Queen of England.

  Clearly, my Old Navy dress did not make the cut here. I felt like I was chaperoning the party, not elevating it to epic levels of Halloween-ness. I was in over my head! I was among the kinds of Halloween freaks who invest time and money into their costume. There are two kinds people in this world: those who coordinate trips to rural thrift stores to assemble their costumes, and people like me, who just hope that no one gives them shit for not dressing up. I was a different class of citizen, a mark of shame on an otherwise festive holiday.

  This was the first time in my life that people looked disappointed that I had attended an event. If I had harnessed the energy from all the eye rolls I received for not wearing a costume, I could’ve lit up the Vegas strip for a week. I wanted to leave immediately.

  The next year, I was determined not to make the same mistake, so for a Halloween party at Johnny Brenda’s, a loud, hip bar in Fishtown, I dressed all in black, pressed a handful of baby powder on my face, and went out as a ghoul. Honestly, the only thing ghoulish about me was the ratty black wig I bought that afternoon at a drugstore; it looked like it had crawled onto my head and died a slow, painful death.

  I tried to channel Elvira with my look, but between my patchy-looking face and my knotted wig hair, I think I looked more like a crazy cat lady who reeked of litter box turds. However, in the right light, I could probably pass for a villager burned in a volcanic lava explosion, which, I reasoned, was still better than looking like a hipster.

  Halfway through the night, I became so irritated with the scratchy wig that I pulled it off altogether, totally breaking the Halloween etiquette code. Sure, my dome felt relief, but my real hair was matted down so severely that I looked even worse, like a homeless suicidal clown. When I got home and saw my reflection in the mirror, well, that was the real fright of the evening. I hate Halloween costumes!

  Given that, out of everyone on the planet, I’m the worst candidate to take as a date to a Halloween party. But in a bout of costume optimism, I agreed to go with Max to his friend’s Halloween shindig. I had met Max a few weeks before and this was our first official hangout. He seemed like an all right guy. He worked at Mugshots, a coffee shop
near my apartment, and he had a habit of shaving off fourteen cents so my iced coffee order would come to an even two dollars. I thought that was cool. He was 5′11″, which was a bit on the taller side for me, but I wanted to be open to anything. I was working a desk job at Temple University, so my life was pretty boring. Max seemed like a breath of fresh air.

  We started talking one day because his band was playing a show the next week. He handed me a flyer and suggested I check them out. They were called Jinx Remover and they were playing the North Star Bar on a Monday night. According to Max, they sounded like a cross between Huey Lewis and the News and Joy Division. I have no idea what that would sound like and I can’t tell you because I didn’t attend, but it opened up a dialogue between us.

  He was handsome in that shaggy, effortless way that all guys who work at a café seem to master: thin thrift store T-shirts, ratty gray corduroy pants, and his curly moptop had perpetual bedhead. His tattoos were stupid and blurry. I knew I should’ve been turned off by them, but dare I say it, I thought they were cute.

  The first time I noticed one peeking out from under the sleeve of his T-shirt, I playfully asked, “What is this?” as I touched it with my finger.

  He pushed his sleeve up and said, “It’s supposed to be a family crest. I got it done when I was, like, nineteen.” He moved his attention over to his other arm. “This one over here? This is my skateboarding crew’s insignia. Yes, we had an insignia. Don’t laugh. My friends all have it, too. It’s kinda stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid!” I protested.

  “Yeah, it is. It’s totally stupid.” He pointed to his forearm. “I got that one when I was, Christ, seventeen, I think? This one over here is a T. rex eating a slice of pizza riding a surfboard. That one I got on a dare.” He chuckled, then rubbed over the skin wistfully.