Summer, sex, city

The kids get out of school tomorrow, therefore for all practical purposes IT'S THE FIRST DAY OF SUMMER! We're going to the pool, then heading to the Mexican restaurant with a bunch of friends and staying up really late tomorrow night, just because we can. I don't want to be overly optimistic, but I do feel like I'm coming out of the shadows I've been in for a few days. Or weeks. I'm happy about summer, not worried about the past, gonna buy a new car and write my diss, I'm looking forward to the new job, only smoking one or two ciggies a day, and I just might head off to the beach by myself pretty soon if I can find some money. I guess sometimes you really have to let yourself live through bad stuff and fears and sadness and it will eventually pass. I sat and cried for about three days, and once that was over it was all gone. I think most of this was leftover crap I never dealt with from last year. Anyway, I'm back to normal. Big sigh of relief.

Okay, the Sex and the City movie comes out a week from tomorrow. I've been thinking about the show, and how much I adore it, and came up with a few of my favorite episodes:

-The episode where they go to the wedding of the character played by Nathan Lane, and Charlotte and Harry dance together and you realize that she really likes him...that whole episode is very sweet.

-The one where Smith cuts his hair all off cause Samantha shaved her head after she started losing her hair to chemo. He loves her...

-Another one - when Miranda's mother dies and the girls all show up and as she's walking out of the church she sees Steve and Aiden came too....that part always makes me cry.

-One more! The episode where Carrie meets up with her old fling, played by David Duchovny, and it turns out he lives in a mental institute.

OH and look! I found the perfect Carrie quote for me this week:

Later that night I got to thinking about the x-factor. In mathematics, we learn that x stands for the unknown, a+b=x, but what's really unknown is what plus what equals friendship with an ex. Is this an unsolvable equation? Or is it possible to transform a once passionate love into something that fits nice and easily onto the friendship shelf? I couldn’t help but wonder... can you be friends with an ex?


I wish I had their gams...any of them. OH how I love this show...counting the days till the movie! I am so excited about this I can't stand it. Discuss.

Sex and the City (of Atlanta)

Though I sincerely wish I was coming in here to write about the fabulous sex I had last night, alas, I am not. I am instead going to tell you about the fabulous dinner I had last night, which is a close second. Okay, not so close, but enjoyable nonetheless.

I had been working at the library all day, and planned to meet Domenica at Starbuck's or something afterwards, cause we needed to catch up.

Domenica:God, I love her. Anyway, I called her as I was leaving, and she said (in a much more roundabout way, as she is wont to do): "I'm leaving the Fox Theatre now and am stopping at a restaurant to get a to-go salad for lunch tomorrow. Do you want to meet at Apres Diem for dinner?" Though technically I had my evening planned out...go home, eat with kids, bathtime, Extreme Home Makeover...this sounded so much more fun and, well, slightly decadent. So I accepted.

Now, I have a theory about Atlanta which is this: poor old Atlanta has tried for so long to carve out an identity for itself that it lost any inherent natural charm it ever had in the first place. But somehow, once the push to be an 'international' city ended, once city planners stopped insisting that some slogan would give it character and personality, it acquired something resembling cosmopolitanism all on its own. And last night at Diem just brought that fact home to me once again.

It was a lovely, balmy night. I walked through the outdoor cafe and into the restaurant. The cafe was completely full of real city-dwellers - artists, families, dogs, couples - and amazingly enough, the vibe was totally European. I felt like I had arrived at a neighborhood bistro in a particularly interesting part of Paris. Fabulous.

Inside it was a bit quieter, but no less interesting. Professor-types, young women celebrating birthdays, gay couples, another family (this one speaking French)...very fun. I made my way to a corner table by the window, ordered a Cosmo and waited for Domenica. Sitting there alone, I had a distinct feeling of being in a real city, a part of some kind of buzz. It was nice, because most of my life I spend in the same old circle of kids' schools, my school, and our neighborhood, with an occasional exciting foray into the wilds of downtown Decatur. But to come to Midtown and rub elbows with the elite and the well-heeled intelligensia, now that was something new.

My girl finally arrived, cell phone in hand, wearing a leather jacket and red velvet pants, and of course, no makeup. She's 30 and beautiful, what can I say? She sat down and we gnoshed and talked well into the night, mainly about our love lives: her unexpectedly complicated one and my unexpectedly amazing new one. It felt very Sex and the City...you know how they're always eating salads and drinking alcohol and generally being fabulous as they talk about men and sex and stuff? That was me and Domenica last night.


Sometimes, life is unbelieveably good. It's kind of been that way for me for the last four weeks. Last night brought it all home.