Home Wrecker

Here's a word of warning to all you kids out there.

If you have two guys in your phone with the same name (such as Remax and Remax2)...be sure that they are labelled VERY CAREFULLY. Or you will have an accident. Like I just did.

Remax2 and I were texting a bit this evening, and I just sent him a doozy of a message...seriously, picture the dirtiest thing you could probably send to someone, and this was even dirtier.

Except, I didn't send it to him. I sent it to the original Remax. Married with 2 kids Remax.

I am so FUCKING embarrassed I could just die.

Additionally, I really, really hope his wife doesn't see it before he does. OH GOD.

Turning Tables

Every now and again, being that I am a somewhat attractive woman when I try really hard, I walk past a construction site and get the full treatment. Cat calls, whistles, ay mamis, and the like.

Today, I was on my way to the office, and as I walked past a group of workers, one of them caught my eye. A black wife-beater filled to the brim with muscles of all sorts of shapes and sizes, leading to a small waist,and nice tight jeans that hugged all the right places. I slowed down my pace to admire this urban Adonis. And it was pretty damn obvious that I was doing so.

He caught my eye, and I smiled, and kept staring. If I was a different kind of gal (or if I wasn't dressed like a 12 yr old boy, in a hoodie, jeans and Converse) maybe I would have stopped, or catcalled, or blown him a kiss. Alas, I kept walking, with my head whipped around (in my mind it is all slo-mo and my hair is sexily blowing around in a breeze, while I seductively saunter by. I might even have a daisy tucked behind my ear)until I couldn't see him anymore.

Ay Papi!

Just another WTF in a day full of WTF's

There sure ain't nothing like coming home from a semi-shitty day wherein I chose to let my ego suffer from pretty much everything I could get my hands on....and finding an inbox full of email.

Email, all from POSTMASTER, kicking back oh, 8 or 9 messages or so that were all sent to my ex, going back to December...telling me that his inbox is unavailable.

I'm hoping that gmail is just playing some sick joke on me, because they want to see me cringe when his name pops up one, no two no three no NINE times in my inbox, saying "ha ha. here I am. but you can't have me."

yea, feelin' great right now.

Blue Hair Works on Some People, it Turns Out

Brunching with Ha Ha Sound in Brooklyn, I received a text from Date #3, who we shall refer to as Rock Star.

Rock Star and I had plans to go out last night, and we hadn't quite yet firmed them up yet. A long text session while I was riding my bike on Saturday concluded nothing, we had decided to meet at 7pm on Sunday, but still weren't sure where.

Sunday's text said this, "Meet me on the corner of Essex and Stanton,and we'll take it from there."

I read this to Ha Ha and he thought I should suggest bringing some 40's along, so we could chug them on the corner.

I mean seriously? The guy couldn't think of one place to meet up that didn't involve me standing on the street corner like a hooker? I was convinced that he wanted to do a drive-by, see if he liked what he saw, and if he didn't...keep on walking.

So I insisted that he meet me at a bar in the vicinity. To which he replied, "I'm not drinking right now."

Hmmm. So, let's see, our date is to take place on a street corner, and he is going through DT? Wonderful.

We finally ended up chatting on the phone, which was a good thing because I was starting to wonder if I should even bother going on this date after all...it turned out he was on antibiotics after being sick, and didn't want to relapse, but decided I could drink all I want and he would have juice (my friend OBX was like "juice? who the fuck drinks juice? He couldn't just say seltzer?")So we settled on a location and just as I was feeling good about it all, he says, "Oh, and by the way, I've dyed my hair blue. Ok, see you later."

Upon telling OBX about the blue hair:
"Where you guys gonna meet up, the cube at Astor Place?"

Nice.

Despite all of the above, the date ended up being pretty nice. We had a lot to talk about, and the blue hair really worked on him. I drank beer, he drank cran and seltzer, we blathered on and on about ourselves for hours, we scarfed down some Two Boots, made some balloon animals, and called it a night.

Tonight, I meet the healer....

Just Another Monday Morning

Last week I started to get some weird thing on my lip...it seemed like I might have burned it or bit it, leaving a smallish cut right in the center of my bottom lip. No big deal, I figured I'd buy some Anbesol, apply it sparingly, and in a couple days, all gone, right?

Cut to yesterday morning, the fucker is STILL there. And it's morphed into something that I can't even describe. Now I'm starting to freak out. Of course, I go immediately to the internet, which is telling me that I might possibly have some sort of cancer. Or VD. I gave myself about 10 days to live, and called my dentist.

Thankfully (because I am dying, I was sure of it), they were able to squeeze me in at 10am.

Ok, first horrifying thing about all this--my dentist, who I've been going to for 18 yrs, is a hottie. We all had crushes on him back in his heydey when he was younger and suave..one of my friends recommended him to her roommate, who even had a naughty little affair with him. God were we jealous. Either way, I was hoping that one of his associates would be in the office that day, so i wouldn't have to show him the horrendousness that was my mouth.

I got to the office and the hygienist whisked me into a chair. I immediately started gushing out my fears. At which point Dr McHottie walked in.

"Honey? What is it that you think is wrong with you?" he asked, slightly laughing on the inside, I'm sure.

"I don't want to tell you."

"Honey. Tell me what you think it is." he looked closer at my fat, nasty lip.

I explained that I was sure it was cancer or herpes. And that I wanted it gone, as fast as possible.

Then he really was laughing at me. He told me it was most definitely neither of those things (good, because if it wasn't cancer, but it turned out to be herpes, I was already formulating who was getting blamed for it in my head, and I didn't know how I was going to make THAT phone call!) That I most likely cut my lip, and it just got infected.

And that there was nothing he could do about it.

What?

No!

I have like, 400 dates this week! And I'm planning on kissing at least one of them! And I said as much to Dr McHottie.

If he was laughing at me before, believe me, the man was rolling on the floor in agony at me now. "Let it run it's course. Get some blah blah blah at Duane Reade. You'll be fine, I promise."

I want a second opinion!

Facing my Fears, One Ex at a Time

On my way to the subway to meet my family for Father's Day brunch, I looked up to see an arrogant swagger, longish hair, and a scruffy beard that seemed oddly familiar. And then I realized it was my 8 yr ex.

My 8 yr ex and his new girlfriend. His much younger, bright red haired, multi tattooed girlfriend. Or maybe even live in lover, or wife. Who knows, since we haven't spoken in two years.

They had just turned off of Flatbush Ave and rounded onto 7th Ave, so they missed me by a hair..not that it would have mattered...he would have looked me full in the face and probably just kept on walking with no sign of any kind of emotion or recognition.

I ducked into Duane Reade, my eyes blurred with tears which kept me from being able to find the pain reliever section. Because suddenly I had the biggest headache of my life, and I don't think it was a coincidence that it appeared right then and there.

I texted my friend Married, who was probably the closest to the two of us during our 8 year tenure. She called me immediately.

"Why are you so upset?" she asked. "You've seen him before. You've known he had this girlfriend."

I thought about it for a minute, because truthfully, he and I mutually broke up, we were not in love anymore at the end, and I haven't missed him in the 3 yrs that we've been apart.

I thought about it some more, and then I said, "It's because, as much of an asshole as he is, he found someone. And I have not."

The truth hurts, man.

As Good As It Gets

If you're wondering where the hell I've been this last week (and I know you are!), just know that I have been keeping myself very busy (but not getting busy, sadly...well, ok, there was that one night...).

Last week I attended my very first Media Meshing event with
Ha Ha Sound and Fiesty Red. It was fun to sit outside at Sweet and Vicious and mingle with 12 yr olds who probably make WAY more money than I will ever see in a lifetime..

Friday was Kristen's bday, and what better way to spend it than at the Boat Basin. I'd never really hung out there before, but rest assured, with summer Fridays underway, I am planning on being there as many Fridays as I can, weather permitting! It has a being-on-vacation feel, sitting on the water looking at the boats, lots of fratty boys chugging bud lites...pitchers of green, toxic and delicious Electric Lemonade. Damn I love summer!

Saturday was tri class..followed by a viewing of Capt Abu Raed at BAM. I'd been hearing about this movie for a while from a former classmate of mine who was one of the producers on it. It was made in Jordan, where I grew up, by a Jordanian director and stars only Jordanian actors. It was odd to see my hometown, Amman, featured in a film..I know Jordan has been used in movies before, but I've never seen Amman as the main focus. It made me a tad homesick, surprisingly. At any rate, this movie is not being released in the US yet, but if you get a chance to catch it somehow, it's worth a look.

After the movie, UK and I headed into Fort Greene for food. As we sauntered down one of the gorgeous brownstoned streets, lined with stoop sales, I hear "CHEESY". Who the fuck knows me in Fort Greene? My friend Tahari, that's who! I'd forgotten that she and her bf just moved there last week...she gave us the guided tour of her new place and OH MY GOD i didn't think such an apartment could be had in Brooklyn...They had an entire floor of the brownstone, windows front and back, with a giant loft bedroom. I thought I had walked into a page of Metropolitan Home. And yes I had giant apartment envy when I left there...you know when you think you've got it good til you see your friend's giant loft in Fort Greene? Yea...

Still reeling, UK and I found our way over to Chez Oskar for a late brunch, where the service was kinda sucky but my grilled veggie sandwich was pretty tasty. As well as the strawberry mimosa. MMM.

Moseyed back to Prospect Heights where I attempted to rest up for the next leg of my Saturday..The Gate with Kristen, Ha Ha Sound, my friend Bergen and my sister. I love the Gate, it's totally unassuming, has a great selection of beer and a spacious patio where people bring their dogs. We opted for indoors, however, being that the heat wave had already begun...and proceeded to drink, and drink (well, other than Ha Ha, who was power chugging water). The girls and I decided to move on to a house party deeper in the slope, where we were surrounded by extremely young people...I recall odd theological conversations and a contest as to who could find the cutest boy in the joint. I'm not exactly sure which one of us was the victor, but high school behavior was in place that night, for sure.

3am I was finally home, and 5 hours later I was awake, alert, and plotting my escape from the heat with a trip to Long Beach, LI with Kiki. Me, and everyone else in the five boroughs, thought this was a brilliant plan. It was like being in the middle of Times Square, on a beach. In addition to this maddening turnout, the ocean was filled to the brim with seaweed. I'm not talking little bits here and there...I emerged from the water at one point lookingi like a fucking TREE...I am not too keen on having to pull seaweed out of my naughty bits for days at a time, so I didn't go in the water all that much..which kind of defeated the purpose of being at the beach.

On the way back we discovered that the connecting train back to brooklyn didn't arrive in Jamaica for a good TWENTY-FIVE minutes...at that point I had grown tired of the heat and just wanted to be home. But Kiki had a brilliant plan. The Air Train depot, which is also located at the Jamaica train station, was AIR CONDITIONED. So, like two homeless vagabonds, we threw down a beach towel and loitered there til our Brooklyn train showed up. I have a feeling I'm going to be doing that a lot this summer...

We finally made it back to my beloved PH and grabbed Akat for some tasty Chevella's. Sadly, our favorite restaurant is not air conditioned, so we opted for the "outdoor cafe", which is really one table, smack dab in the middle of the sidewalk, in front of a pile of garbage. Gotta love Brooklyn!!!! I wouldn't shut up about the garbage, so they made me sit facing away from it so I wouldn't have to look at it. Thankfully, in the midst of our meal, the sanitation guys came by and took it all away. It was like dinner theatre, right there on Classon Ave!

Nobody really wanted to go home, so we decided that, since Kiki had to get on the 2 train anyway, we should have one drink at Franklin Park, as it is on the way. It was great to see the look on Kiki's face (who lives on a beautiful block in the W Village and is not quite used to our Brooklyn ways) as we walked down a pretty decrepit block, to unveil the beauty that is Franklin Park, tucked away from the street. She was pretty impressed! Until, of course, we heard what "might" have been gunshots a couple blocks away...but quite possibly was a blown tire...and then there was the giant thunderstorm that hit as we were finishing up our beers out in the garden. Nothing funnier than seeing a mass exodus of Brooklyn hipsters and nerdsters trying to shield themselves from falling water. It was great.

Monday night I made an appearance at Triviotic for the first time in a while and am happy to report that I was on a winning team, for once, "Kind of Awesome". Along with Ha Ha Sound, Brooklyn Gal, and others! My favorite part was matching up songs with lyrics, and then getting to sing along with each song afterwards. Yea, I'm a dork. So what.

So, kids, that's what your girl Cheese has been up to this last week. She is tired, and a little cranky, and trying to rest up for her next 5 day stretch of fun. Thank God work is slow!!

Disturbia

So there're a couple things on my mind, and in true Cheese fashion, I need to get them off my chest.

A couple weeks ago, I was flying Continental to Norfolk, VA, to visit my friend GB in the Outer Banks. The nightmare of the flight both coming and going is a whole other blog post, but let's discuss the issue of liquids on flights.

I haven't flown in two years, which is kind of crazy...but I hate to fly, and I refuse to fly if I don't absolutely have to. This is a relatively new development in my life, and trust me, I'm not happy about it, cuz I love to travel. I've been flying since I was born, my uncle is a pilot, I lived overseas and flew 14 hr flights several times a year in addition to smaller flights for vacations, school trips, etc. Being an adult and so deathly afraid to fly is the most debilitating and excruciating phobia I can think of.

Anyway, since I haven't flown in so long, I had forgotten about the liquid rule, and the fact that everything needed to be placed in plastic baggies in your carry on. No biggie. My friend had an extra baggie...I threw away anything over 3 oz, and threw everything else into the baggie. Voila. No chance that I was going to blow up the plane.

When I got to GBs house in the Outer Banks, I started to unpack, and little by little I found the most bizarre bottles of liquidy goodness at the bottom of my bag. A bottle of perfume. A jar of HONEY (wtf? I have no idea what that was doing there). Some face cream. These items were over 3 ozs for sure, and most definitely were not in the little plastic baggie. And they GOT THROUGH the xray machine.

This, my friends, does not make me feel any safer about flying the friendly skies. Anyone else horribly disturbed by this???

My next issue to discuss took place last Saturday after Yoga. UK and I went to our usual brunch at Comfort Diner, and as always, pulled out our debit cards to pay..we always split everything down the middle and pay with our cards. Always.
This particular time, the guy switched our cards, and we never even bothered to look...so she signed my slip, and I signed hers. In addition, she took my card, and I took hers...and continued on with our afternoon.

UK had a shit fit when Sephora told her that her PIN code wasn't working. "I've had this fucking PIN code for the last 20 years!" she shrieked. They suggested she select "credit" to pay, which she did. She signed for her stuff, using MY card...and went on to H&M, where she returned an item, and they placed the credit on MY card. Neither of us noticed the mix up until much later in the day...after we had separated, when she went to Pearl River Emporium and thankfully, the cashiers there actually looked at the signature on the card and stopped her from making the purchase...

Does it make any sense that not one person noticed that her signature did not match the one on the card? I mean, not only did it not match...it was the absolute wrong NAME. They CREDITED my card at H&M without even blinking!!!

This makes me FURIOUS, and very, very scared. And UK owes me money for whatever the fuck she bought at Sephora, dude!

The Big Reunion

The other night I had plans to get together with Long Distance Booty Call guy, who I haven't seen in over two years.

We didn't really have a set itinerary, and as I had a mad long day of yoga, brunching, brow waxing, Sex and the City, and was hungover to boot, I asked him if he minded shlepping to my place to decide what to do from there. He agreed that was a fine plan, and hopped in a cab from the LES.

I really had no idea what was expected of this evening...I mean, we hadn't seen each other in so long, and we were never ever truly "pals" that just hung out like normal people do, and obviously there was a little part of me that hoped perhaps we were still attracted to each other. I figured I would not think anymore about it and let nature take it's course.

I got a call about an hour after we spoke. Apparently, my friend had contracted some sort of food poisoning and, although he was more than halfway to my apartment, was feeling really, really sick, and did I mind if he just lay down for a little while til he felt better. WHY I didn't tell him to just turn around and go back to the LES I have no idea, but I guess I was hoping that maybe a little Tums would do the trick.

Sweating and moaning, my poor friend came barreling into my apartment and made his way straight to the loo. I tried not to notice the wretching sounds that came from behind the closed door, and I skittered off to the other end of the apartment in the hopes that I could avoid hearing anything more.

Pukefest ended, and he came wobbling out of the bathroom and hurled himself on the couch. Rubbing of his gut and moaning ensued. The sweating, heaving, groaning mess on my couch sealed the deal: the prospect of any hooking up going on that night was not very likely!

The beauty of it all was when my phone started to beep and I was pretty clearly getting a booty text of epic proportions from someone else, only to have to say "sorry, not tonight". Oh, that one hurt!

The icing on the cake was when, sick friend starts to feel better, and we're sitting on the couch talking...he starts to stroke my hair with the hand that I am guessing was covering his mouth right before the pukefest began...and says, "You're still so beautiful" while looking into my eyes.

"Thanks. You too. Going to bed now. Gnite" I kissed him on the head and scurried back to my room.

I guess the moral of the story might very well be "be careful what you wish for."