Like, seriously disturbed.

Soooo my roommate comes screaming up the basement stairs waving around a Cosmo (magazine, not drink), and lo and behold it is Ex Boyfriend Numero Uno on the Steamiest Confessions page giving a "MAN'S TAKE" on some girl ripping her panties off accidentally in front of her Crush or some such nonsense. I have no idea how he got in there, but it creeps me out enormously. That and the fact that he seems to have changed his name - it's really bizarre - on Facebook, too, so you know it's official, he's going by his name + an ending that isn't his, kind of like if I made everyone start to call me Katelyn, even though it is not and will not ever be my real name.

Don't know why I'm fixating on this - maybe it's the weird name change, maybe it's the fact that no matter how sleazy he acted, I always thought he was more normal and wouldn't end up being a genuine sleaze bag talking about TURN-ONS in a trashy magazine, maybe it's the fact that he snuck up on me in 2-D form when I haven't thought about him in a good long time. Don't know what it is, but somehow I'm writing about this instead of writing my term paper.

I told my mother this, my mother who sat through mind-numbing phone calls with the patience of a saint during the incredibly pathetic saga that was my sniveling, drawn-out, Breakup then Make Up then Breakup (for-like-real-this-time), and she said, "Maybe he's bipolar. This is the age it starts to come out."

I laughed until milk came out my nose, and then paused sadly while I wondered if it was true.

I'm shipping off...to find my wooden leg.

Was in Boston for the past couple of days visiting law schools, freezing my tuchus off, attending an office holiday party that wasn't mine, and you know, generally avoiding the mountains of work and term papers that accompany this time of year. Which, come to think of it, I'm still avoiding. I got up at 9:30 this morning ready to buckle down and just do it, and it's now 10 minutes until 5 p.m., and I have yet to write a word. No matter.

This post is about the best meal I've ever had in my life. Seriously. It was at Troquet, which is a wine bar on Boston Common. I don't know if it was the snow falling outside, being in an unknown city, the three glasses of port I drank before I went to dinner, or just the Heavenly Bed™ at the Westin Copley Square, but I was feeling damn festive, and this restaurant was just icing on the cake.

The restaurant is very much about the wine, and each course has an accompanying flight of wines to compliment it. The wines can be ordered individually in 2 oz. or 4 oz. servings, or you can order the tasting flight - one of each to go with your dish. I had the duo of foie gras as an appetizer, which was served with toasted brioche, and an accompanying flight of Sauternes and Muscat. It was absolute perfection. For dinner I had veal with polenta and swiss chard and various Merlots. I try not to eat veal if I can help it, but it was so tempting and was perfectly cooked. The wines it was served with were a bit overpowered by the dish, I felt. I much preferred the Marquis-Philips Shiraz that Date let me sip. For dessert we had six different cheeses - by this time the wine had definitely kicked in and I don't remember the names of any of them. There goes my career as a restaurant critic. In any case, the wait staff was so attentive and so helpful, the food was out of this world, and the setting was spectacular. Go there.

The best way is to stuff six in your mouth at once, Britney-style.

Then run red lights. Preferably accompanied by unbuckled toddlers and a parenting coach.

A Million Dollar Idea

http://www.mymilliondollaryear.com

Awesome.

If anyone wants to give me money, I'd be okay with that too.

New Camera

Holiday

This is where I come from:

"Oh. I guess we'll be getting you some Crest white strips for Christmas." -my grandmother's first words to my brother after not seeing him for four months

"Teri Hatcher." -my father's answer when asked his favorite Disney character

"Lindsay Lohan, tattoos, dark chocolate, the color black." -my 6-year-old cousin's list of dislikes on her "All About Me" poster for her first grade class

The Soulja Boy Dance - what my 9-year-old cousin taught me this evening

"I guess my favorite thing about myself is that...I'm hot." -a direct quote from the Soulja Boy-dancing 9-year-old

Four - the number of times I was asked if I have a boyfriend in a two-hour timespan

A typical exchange:

"Do you taste the Cointreau in those cranberries?"

"The potatoes?"

"No, the cranberries."

"I don't taste any cilantro in those cranberries."

"Nooo Mom, Cointreau."

"What's Cointreau?"

"It's orange-flavored liqueur."

"Ooooh give me some more cranberries, then."

You can't make this stuff up, folks. May the wine flow freely and may your family be as entertaining as mine.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

This kid named Chase Peake in my eighth grade French class used to say that all the time, and it drove me up a wall. Now I use it sparingly. Thank you, Chase.

It's glaringly obvious, though, that I am on hiatus. I'm taking a few "me" months, and by that I mean months in which I figure out how to do my mountains of work, get into law school, fix my digital camera, eradicate my perpetual debt (in fact, just find some, ANY money), understand men, run a sorority, be twenty-two, write a senior capstone, eat things other than crap, destroy the flub that has attached itself to my body over the past few months, and maintain a level of sanity similar to that New York chick on VH1 - probably insane from a legal standpoint, but still able to function in society. That's all I'm asking.

I will be back, renewed like a bodice-ripper library book, in late December. By then, I will have handed over things like law school applications and responsibility to other people and will be free to cook and write and live a happy existence. One can only imagine.

So stay tuned, dear reader, stay tuned. If not for the food, then for the pure schadenfreude of watching someone else navigate the messes of life.

And yes, I used the word schadenfreude.