"Read line eight for me."

Manhattan DMV. Take three.

Seeing how none of my coworkers made it into work Monday and I didn't fancy staying in the office by myself all day, I skipped out in the afternoon to try my luck again at the DMV. It had already been two weeks since I was last there avec flu, sneezing, coughing, and feeling generally miserable. Two weeks since I went there twice in the span of a morning only to be turned away empty-handed. But this day I vowed to be victorious. This day I had my crucial (and mandatory) social security card.

Forty-five minutes and forty dollars later, I had a paper driver's license. Paper?? Not to disparage my new home, but the Maryland DMV is far more technologically advanced. Not only do you walk away with an actual physical license, but everything is computerized and takes minutes. Apparently my real New York driver's license is arriving by mail, which seems a little archaic to me, but whatever.

When it arrives, does that officially make me a New Yorker?

"I don't understand why you don't want to be friends with me?"

Five reasons why I don't want to be friends with you:

5. You're weird and socially maladjusted.

4. You represent a dark point in my life. Like I need reminding.

3. It was really presumptuous and odd when you suddenly assumed that we were going to be buddy-buddy after four years of not speaking. What was this about you visiting me? I wanted to vomit.

2. It was even creepier when you emailed me six times within the span of two weeks.

1. You cheeted on me. Whatever. It was so long ago. But for christ's sake, I don't want to be fucking friends with you so stop fucking emailing me.

"Why haven't we left Trenton yet?"

Beth was wondering why I haven't posted on my blog for a couple weeks, to which I responded with one word: Flu.

For seven mucus filled days, I coughed, sneezed, wheezed, slept, and felt worse than if I had gone on a bender. And in the midst of this microbial circus, my stuff finally arrived from Washington. Normally this would have been cause for celebration, but I ended up moving furniture and unpacking boxes with a fever of 101.

Don't even get me started on the two trips I made to the Manhattan DMV.

Now that my misery has subsided, I am now confronted with another joy: Christmas. Still figuring out the last of my shopping-- only my parents are getting gifts this year . . . sorry everyone. And I didn't even get my xmas cards in the mail. When did I become such a grinch?

So I am back in Washington for some action packed family fun. I have to admit that it's Thursday and I've already started to go a little stir crazy, yearning for the freedom of my loft in New York. (Though it will be nice to see the aunts, uncles, and cousins tomorrow.)

Bring on the booze!

Speaking of alcohol, for Christmas my bosses got me 1.75 litres of Belvedere vodka and a bottle of tequila. Now before you all assume that I am some raging alcoholic, I should point out that my two other coworkers also received similar gifts. And then later that evening during the work Christmas party at the Spring Lounge, my bosses bought me multiple rounds of tequila shots.

One wonders if my liver will survive this job.

"They let just anyone in here, don't they?"

So there I was, shaking hands with one of the most powerful women in magazine publishing, and pretending that I worked for her. Little did she know that I was crashing her corporate holiday party. And I winked at Jane, my loftmate, as we made our way down the receiving line and towards the open bar and buffet tables.

Not a bad way to spend a Thursday night.

As I mentioned earlier, I am poorer than poor right now and crashing Jane's holiday party at Tavern on the Green seemed like a very good idea. Courtesy of said magazine publisher, I drank many Absolut's and tonics, ate sushi, salmon, scallops, asparagus, ravioli, and chicken. Later the dessert table provided amaretto pound cake, chocolate mousse cake, tiny eclairs, and bon bons. The highlight of the evening came when I saw this woman dance to Eminem surrounded by a gaggle of fashionistas.

Good times.

"Do we owe you for any extra days??"

$8.47. That is the grand total of my bank account till pay day.

A New York reality is quickly settling in: Poverty. Perhaps not the real variety that will keep me from shelter and food, but the kind that puts a serious damper on fun, Christmas shopping, and other necessities a young city girl needs in this sprawling metropolis. Not to mention "Art Director Shoes" as my former boss likes to call them -- something pointy, black, and preferably with a stiletto.

I had managed to allow myself one last luxury this morning before fiscal smack down begins (a medium house coffee from Cafe Angelique for all of $1.67), but it was sloshing out of the narrow hole in the top of the container, dripping onto the floor of the elevator as it sped up to the eigth floor. And as I thrust my hand away from my trousers to prevent any drips on my clothes, I noticed someone in the elevator carrying a Christopher Radko shopping bag.

This is where I get indignant.

I can't believe that there is someone out there who has made a fortune just on designing Christmas ornaments. If you asked me, a designer, where the money was, I would say not in designing Christmas ornaments. And now I ask, how can I get a piece of this action?

A girl can't live on $8.47 forever.

"We were here first."

I glimpsed a version of hell this weekend: West 34th street and Broadway in December. Every starry eyed tourist from Hoboken to Omaha packed the half mile radius around the Empire State Building and Macy's to gawk at the skyscrapers and shop at stores that they could have easily found at home. But as I went into New Yorker Mode and pushed my way through the crush of shoppers and errant taxis, I knew that I had only myself to blame.

All this for a pair of black trousers and a new handbag.

The point of this whole excursion was so that Nils, Beth, and I would have something to wear for dinner and drinks later that night. So after some modicum of success was achieved, we ventured back to Brooklyn to change and to have a quick drink. Then it was back to the L to go to Florent in the Meat Packing district and then onto drinks at someplace decorated like an igloo.

Urban coolness was obtained. Perhaps.

"She's crossed the line into crazy!"

You just have to feel sorry for some people. I mean, what sort of madness would possess someone to write his or her ex knowing full well that a response (if any) to their repeated pleas for friendship would be met with less than kind words?

On Friday I had to put the smack down.

I have to say that I was baffled by email no. 4. It arrived around 2:30 in the afternoon just as I was finally getting a good level of concentration at work, taunting me from my inbox like an unexploded bomb. Should I open it, I asked myself? Was it worth knowing what enraging comments lied within?

It took me a few hours to screw up the courage to open the email, in addition to the moral support phone call I made to Dennise. Goading me to click on the Hotmail link, I read her the email over the phone when the page finally loaded.

We've both reached a unanimous verdict: my ex-girlfriend has lost her mind.

Short of recounting the contents of this email and the ones that came previous, I will say that anyone who states that they "fantasize" about all the things that her and I could do now that we are friends again, deserves a smack. Not to mention that the fact that I didn't respond to her previous emails should have told her the opposite.

So I emailed back with a sternly worded email telling her that she's crossed a line, lost her mind, and that I don't want to be friends. And yet she still wrote me back on Monday (for the folks at home keeping track, that makes five emails in total).

I trashed that message.

"You look like you are in the business."

You've got to be fucking joking.

Do I have some sign abover my head that reads sucker? I must. Perhaps it's because I am a good person or that I scream newbie in a city full of hardened New Yorkers. But there I was, listening to some sob story in the middle of Washington Square Park and getting taken for a ride.

I must be a sucker because I gave the man $20. And I never give money to people/pan handlers. Nevermind the fact that before I got paid yesterday, I had a grand total of $34 to my name.

Karma better be working me on this one. I deserve it.

"Don't make me blow you off some more . . . "

Why doesn't Duane Reade stock tonic water?

I mean they carry all the other essentials in case of emergency: band-aids, condoms, lip stick, paper towels . . . but no tonic water. And I needed a gin and tonic.

On Monday my ex-girlfriend, whom I haven't spoken to in nearly four years and for good reason, decides to make a cameo in my fresh new New York life. Email no. 1 (oh yes, there were multiples) wished me luck with my new job in the Big Apple. Email no. 2 and 3 follow in rather quick succession where by the end of her missives, she is already chastizing me for not writing back and saying how she "fantasizes" about us being friends again.

Chirst on a bike!

Which brings me back to the tonic issue. Since Duane Reade was not about to facilitate my need for a gin and tonic, but would easily provide an avenue for protected sex (see the condoms by the pharmacy), it was all up to Brooklyn's Natural Organic Grocery to save the day.

Tonic water was bought, quantities of gin consumed, and I put off for another day the inevitable email that I will need to send telling her to stop fucking with my fresh start.

End rant.