Tea and Marriage

I fucking have to stop drinking like seven cups of tea a day, or else I will not be sleeping at all this term. It’s just that this is so good—especially on a cold winter’s day, when my only makeshift winter coat is lost (forgot it in a bar, probably another reason to stop drinking) and I had to trudge through the cold that enabled snow in an unlined leather jacket. Luckily I still kept my wool sweater from first year of college, hoping that I would one day fit back into it. And in my better late than never habits, it only took me five years to drop the freshman thirty.

I celebrated by going shopping in NYC when I was there. Which, I will get to, eventually. As I mentioned, I have that nasty habit of no self-discipline and a ‘better late than never attitude’, hence why I write this at almost 2am, as the reading for my course on family sits unmarked on my nightstand. Oh, by the way ladies, if you ever want to feel even more cynical about love, sex, and relationships, study familial structure. I’ve resigned myself to auctioning off my domestic labor power to the highest bidder. As a woman, I’m fucked. I might as well be comfortable as I get the shaft from society.

It seems that so far 2007/ my twenty-fifth year on this earth has been fraught with situations that make me acknowledge my ‘maturation’, and get my head out of the sands of denial that the grown up bus is flying by. Weddings, a grad program that I can’t talk my way out of failure (I may be kicked out if I don’t pass stats—please say a silent prayer for me), in addition to cutting down on the excess—drinking, partying, my lack of self-discipline, and all the other shortcomings I need to overcome with the help of my therapist. Who has given up on me, by the way. “Shannon, these services aren’t for long term therapy.” And my favorite, “For someone who is so self-aware..” I interrupt her, “I keep on making the same mistakes, over and over again. Yes, I know this. Why do you think I continue to see you?”

I’ve noticed an interesting shifts in my relationships ever since I left the women’s commune. Back in school, and growing up all of my friends were females. Granted they were beer guzzling, girl-kissing, pranksters who got as much of a kick out of lighting a fart on fire (Spring Break—Vegas), as knocking on each other’s doors when we knew someone was having sex (again, Lauren I am really sorry about that). But then I noticed a change when I left the iron gates of wimmen power—women for the most part are bitches. Back stabey, drop you for their boyfriend, say that you look pretty when you look like crap, who whine. This is when I began my foray into amateur fag enabling, and building my rolodex with those in possession of y-chromosomes.

These were my platonic friends, and I was their little sister. They bought me beers, protected me from skeevy men in bars, and cheered me on when I danced on bars, and in exchange I offered them a female perspective to their gal/boy problems, and playfully flirted with them when their gfriend/bfriend was being an ass.

Symbiotic relationship.

Until they got married.

I have a very good friend of mine who wants to visit me in England. I really like this kid. He is smart, funny, and adorably lovable in that dorky ‘save me’ kind of way. To put it diplomatically because I know he reads it and think his wife may read it too, she and I have a strained relationship. She thinks I am trying to steal her husband, when all I want to do is hang out with him, without her.

Whether girls want to admit it, your boyfriend/husband is different hanging out with his friends than you. He is more liberal with the off-color jokes, has a propensity to drink a bit more than usual, and tends to be a lot more honest, especially when talking about you. Often times I’ve been subjected to seeing my friends leashed by the constraints of their girlfriends/boyfriends, toning down their behavior, keeping conversation neutral, and forgetting the people that made me want to be friends with them in the beginning.

So my point—I think I just needed to rant. Part of my frustration fuelled that I missed the relationship boat here, and everyone has coupled off and I am (literally) the only person in my flat who doesn’t have a boyfriend. Or maybe it is the prospect of spending an entire weekend with a person not because I want to, but because of the symbolism of the ring that sits on the third finger of one of my good friend’s left hand. Or maybe, I am just grasping for straws, since I am too lazy to be help accountable to my memory and recant the rest of my time in New York—complete with the $1000+ bar tab (thanks Geoff for sharing your bonus with my me and my friends!) and a promise to buy a drug dealer Freakonomic next time I saw him.

But those stories will have to wait. When I am more mentally adept, and haven’t had the productivity bored our of me. Try reading a few thousand pages about cross-national studies on fertility rates and its impact on women’s work, by the same three authors and then get back to me. Instead of being mature and tackling my work, knocking the shit out—I’ve reverted back to my escapist ways, and spent the last few hours of the evening dancing around my room in my hot pants listening to Madonna and watching bootlegged movies off of the internet. While I look at the unread journal articles whose pages still have not been turned yet.

And don’t bother writing in my comment box that you are frustrated by my immature behavior, and how I am blowing an opportunity. I know this. But, at least I’m squandering it away sober, instead of drunk like I did last term. See, therapy is helping!

Oh and if any women executives (presently or former) are reading this who have families, and you live in the NYC area, please email me. I am recruiting women for my thesis which examines women’s participation (or lack there of) in the labor market after having a family. Which reminds me, I need to get the ball rolling on that one.

Off to watch some more bootleg movies. I think it’s Men In Black II tonight.

I seriously need to lay off of the tea after 9pm, and/or find the motivation to do my work.