"I hope they don't give you a domestic abuse cell phone."

Up until a few days ago, the severest bodily harm I had ever inflicted on someone was a broken front tooth due to an accidental thwap of a badminton racket during ninth grade gym class. But a funny thing happened. See I managed to dislocate Ms. K's jaw with an accidental knee to the face. Accidental! We were rough housing on the bed and she was tickling me and I was writhing like my life depended on it and, well, that's when my knee met her jaw.

Er, I promise you don't need to send Ms. K the phone number of a shelter. In case anyone cares, she was able to pop her jaw back in and I managed a million apologies.

It's all fun and games till someone gets their jaw dislocated, right? At least she didn't lose and eye . . . not that she has health care anyway.

"You should move to Hawaii!"

Sorry, where was I? I think the heat and the lazy days of the summer has impacted the frequency of my blog writing. So what's going on? I wish I could say I've been at a beach, but alas I've been confined to air conditioned apartment or at least boozing it up in Prospect Park.

My cousin, who lives in Hawaii, was unexpectedly in town last weekend. We managed to catch up over beers and roasted corn on the cob at the Pop-Up Park. It was refreshing to be open with her about my homosexuality as I've not been very out to my family in the past. She confirmed that her mother -- my mom's sister -- knows that I'm gay and it's no real big deal. Apart from that, the conversation made me feel, for the first time in my life, a real connection to my family. And it felt nice.

"My phone has been commitment phobic in the past, but I think it's ready to sign up for another year contract."

As I'm sure you all are tired of hearing, Ms. K and I celebrated our anniversary last Thursday. We met up at Von, the bar we originally met at for a drink -- a drink that lead to fourteen more and a taxi ride with her back to my place -- before capping off the memorial tour at Sala, where we migrated to after our first meeting. Then we jumped on the B train to Ditmas Park, switching gears from Spanish to French for dinner at Pomme de Terre. Again, it took very little coaxing for her to come home with me.

Monday Night

Monday night. Sunset. I was sitting at the bar that Ms. K works at watching the lights flicker on across the river.

"Oh my god! Look at that ass!"

If I were a country with abundant natural resources such as oil or precious metal, I could be described as "ass rich." Yes, I have a rather large badonkadonk along with D cup sized tits. Men feel the need to make comments, going so far as to stop me in the street.* Generally I'm not bothered since I think the comments are made out of sincere appreciation, but I do feel the need to write about them here when they are extra ridiculous.

I had a new dress on yesterday, which garnered a little more attention than usual. It was a little past midnight when Ms. K and I waited for a bus in Park Slope after watching the Spoon concert in Prospect Park. A couple of eighteen year old boys walked by, one of whom had a big grin on his face.

"Excuse me," he said, "I just wanted to tell you that you are the most beautiful woman I've seen all day."

"Thanks," I replied, embarrassed.

"I just wanted to congratulate you."

"Thanks," I said again.

His friend carried a hockey stick with him and made a swing with it like he was hitting an invisible puck. "Varsity hockey," he said randomly. "Wanna date me?"

And then the guy proclaimed loudly to an empty Seventh Avenue, "Oh my god! Look at that ass!"

Indeed. I told Ms. K that she's a lucky girl. High school boys find me hot.

* Ah yes, that asterisk again. The irony is that I never got ANY attention from guys as a teenager or in my 20s, which doesn't matter since I'm a lady loving lady. So why now? Ms. K says it's because I "grew up pretty."

"There is evidence of a hangover in the kitchen."

Yes, things are definitely starting to look up.* I'm wearing a new dress, strange men are hitting on me in droves, and I'm reconnecting with friends that I haven't seen in a while. For the first time in a very long time I feel like my old self, which probably explains why I'm hungover this morning. And Ms. K and I will be celebrating our proper anniversary on Thursday.

You might have noticed an asterisk after the first sentence in the preceding paragraph. Ah yes, that pregnant symbol that denotes a contradiction and further explanation. For starters I got my phone wet while wading through a pool of water at the Delaware Water Gap. See, I got a little too excited about a waterfall and climbed all over it whilst fully clothed, forgetting about the phone in my pocket. The downside is that I lost all my phone contacts. The upside is that I have insurance, but I have to use my old timey circa 2004 fakakte cell phone in the interim.

Secondly, my cat Theo peed all over Ms. K's stuff. Twice. Bloodshed was averted. For now.

"I love us!"

Okay, things are starting to look up. Ms. K is working full time at the pop-up bar in the Brooklyn Bridge Park (which is NOT sponsored by Ikea, btw, despite the suspicious presence of yellow and blue umbrellas). There is wind in our sails. Next Thursday is our proper anniversary. Good times.

I visited the pop-up bar last week with my roommate Libby. We drank beer while watching the boats go by on the East River. As the sun went down, the lights came on in the skyscrapers across the way. Despite the stunning views of lower Manhattan, the bar felt like I was on vacation somewhere with a pool. And even though I can't afford to go anywhere now, for the price of a beer and some fish tacos, I managed to feel like I had.

"Lucky Sevens."

Maybe there was something about the date 7/07/07. Countless couples chose the date to get married thinking that it was a particularly auspicious date. Even my friend Beth was proposed to by her boyfriend Nils on Paris's Pont Neuf at 7 pm. I, on the other hand, didn't expect much from the day. However I got my very first email from Ms. K where she told me that she had a little blog-crush on me (of the non-crazy, innocuous variety). I responded with something generic yet warm, thanking her for her praise.

The next day she responded with,

"Ever the procrastinator, I found my way back to your blog this morning, where I stumbled upon your dating manifesto. As a way to distract myself from a looming deadline, I have crafted a response. Note however, that I realize you probably aren't looking for responses, and I myself am generally apprehensive about contacting random people via the Internet, but at the very least, maybe I can provide some hope that there are in fact dateable women lurking about our fair city . . . ."

It doesn't feel like it's been a year, does it? And yes, I am a tool.

"Look. A butt."

Ah, the summer holidays. For those of us lucky enough, it also means trips to the beach. From where I live in Brooklyn, I'm only ten miles from the Atlantic ocean and Ms. K and I have been traveling frequently to Jacob Riis beach in the Rockaways. It's not very crowded and it's clean. Well, usually.

There was something about Thursday. Maybe it was the pre-holiday vibe of everyone wanting to get out of the city for the 4th of July, but it seemed like people were extra crazy. Traffic was jittery and we must have passed a half dozen ambulances along the way including an accident in Midwood involving a motorcycle and a bus. When Ms. K and I got to the beach (after own own minor accident involving an exploding bottle of sparkling wine and a cracked car windshield . . . don't ask), we set our blanket out in a sparsely populated section of the beach. There were a couple of twenty-something girls nearby who turned out to be topless. In addition there was a strange man wandering about wearing only a short towel. I quickly learned what was under that towel when he wandered into the rough surf.

"Look. A butt," I said to Ms. K. But soon the man was showing us more than his butt.

Later after Naked Towel Man had wandered off, Ms, K and I wandered down to the shore line noting that recent storms had washed a lot of trash onto the beach. I curiously poked at the detritus and saw that among the seaweed and plastic bottles was a discarded nicotine patch, a tampon applicator, and an empty drug baggy. The only thing missing was a hypodermic needle.

Oh New York, how I love you. Let me count the ways.

"It's hard to take you seriously when you're yelling at me in your underwear."

As I've mentioned previously, Ms. K isn't a cat person. I have two of them. Needless to say we've had some fights over my cats as we all learn to coexist peacefully together. However she has a very contentions relationship with my cat Theo, who is absolutely petrified of her. She just can't leave him alone, like this morning as I got ready for work.

As she began to give him hard time, I lost my temper and snapped at her. Nevermind the fact that I was half dressed.

"You know, I ask one simple thing of you! I ask sixteen thousand times a day for you to just leave Theo alone. Pretend he's invisible if you must! Is that so difficult?!"

She looked at me with a mixture of fear and amusement.

"It's hard to take you seriously when you're yelling at me in your underwear."

"Sorry. Let me go put on my yelling burqa for you!"

Cheeky girl.