episode two

I really wanted to make the title of this post a super-long extended Star Wars metaphor, something about how in this episode two you will also be sad to learn that Jar Jar Binks is still around and that he's probably going to ruin at least part of your experience completely and hey, he's sitting right across from you because HE'S YOUR DATE. Welcome to the Galactic Senate, bitches. Or something like that.

But that would've been pretty awkward, all of that written out in that big-ass heading font, so I decided to go with the more understated "Episode Two." And then, like the good joke teller that I am, explain the shit out of it for the next five minutes. You're welcome.

Mr. Barely Legal and I had lunch on Saturday and (thank ALLAH) he paid, although he did seem to have just a teeny bit of trouble figuring out where to put his card when the bill came. This stuff? I can't make it up. I chose to keep talking and stare straight ahead so that maybe, just maybe, the very awkwardness of the situation would just not be real. Sort of like how if you keep your eyes closed there won't really be monsters under your bed. Solid logic, I say.

But that lunch by itself is not, in fact, the whole of episode two. Because Saturday night was my tacky sweater Christmas party. The very party I told you about where I was half in the can by the time the guests got there and dressed in a snowman cardigan to boot. And really, it is probably best that I was a little on the sauced side because when my friends -- who are all adults with jobs and cars and apartments and perhaps unlike me, standards (uncanny!) -- met Mr. Barely Legal and put two and two together the judging eyes and snarky comments began. And when we rolled into a rousing game of Never Have I Ever, oh boy did they only get worse. And they did not cease until poor little Mr. Barely Legal and his two barely legal friends that he'd brought along (who were, incidentally, lovely) headed for the hills because, as he told me, "There are too many egos in that room."

I knew he was referring mostly to Lindsey and Kristen who were giving him hot, hot hell from the second the shindig got started (and bless his little heart, but it was pretty funny), but I'm sure I wasn't really helping anything since I'd been HORRIFICALLY embarrassed when he started in about the goddamn special effects in the Wizard of Oz in front of everyone and I was desperately and unsuccessfully trying to shut him up because in that moment I realized that I was in front of my peers -- smart, funny, good-looking, successful women -- claiming this kid.

And then I got drunk and fielded drunk dials from exes. Life in the fast lane, people. Don Henley tried to tell us -- it'll surely make you lose your mind.


cheers,
elizabeth