Tremor Christ, Pearl Jam, Vitalogy (2)

After the divorce, I went a little over two years feeling like I had gotten hit by a truck…every morning.   I couldn’t even imagine liking some guy.  Seriously – the thought did not enter my mind once during this period.  Which is probably why I fell for the Cyborg, a.k.a. Andrew.  I wasn’t looking, and he blindsided me just like that truck that kept hitting me every morning.

Ah, Andrew.  The first time we “met”, we had just closed Burke’s.  I was there alone, chatting with my favorite bartender of all time (Sean, but that's a WHOLE other blog), and he had been across the bar with Marion’s Gang.  That’s right - Gang.  Marion was a tough leader and you were either with her or not.  Although, even if you were with her, that didn’t save you from being her favorite topic to talk about behind your back.  Marion was/is probably still one of the most miserable people I ever met.  Full disclosure: Marion and I were “friends” for a little while and shared the same birthday (more on that in a second).  Once or twice throughout the evening, I noticed this guy looking at me from across the bar. We left at the same time (did I mention we closed the bar?) and he made some smart ass comment so I was immediately in love.

February 2007 rolls around, and Marion and I decide we are going to celebrate our birthdays together by renting a party bus to take us and all of our closest friends into the city and hilarity ensues. No, OK, there was no hilarity. Marion got pissed that Andrew was talking to me, she almost got into a fight with some other girl at the bar who had the nerve to sit near her, and Darr and I were trying to calculate how much a cab ride from the Village to Westwood would cost if we decided to leave. In true union leader fashion, Darr called the bus driver, rounded up the crazy drunk people and we were thankfully on our way back to NJ.

I tracked Andrew down a few days later in amateur stalker fashion by finding him on Marion's MySpace page and sending him a message. We were together for the next 8 months. Don't misread that as he was my boyfriend...he was my non-boyfriend boyfriend. See, Andrew was really a Cyborg, right outta Detroit. He liked me, I liked him, we spent tons of time together, and yes, this was back in the times when people had sex (see 2010-2012 blogs to come) so we did that too. But call him my boyfriend? NO. Because that would mean we were together officially, which would technically mean the fact that he was on Match.com and going out on dates to meet the future mother of his children - which was not going to be me - was cheating on me, which he couldn't possibly be doing, since he wasn't my boyfriend. Andrew's heart was sealed in the ice at the Red Wings arena.

This went on until October-ish, and then I decided that maybe we should be boyfriend/girlfriend. He said no, and we broke up. I didn't hear from him for a few weeks, until one cold evening when he texted me that he and his friend were near Paramus Park and could I recommend somewhere to go to eat. I sent him to Chick-fil-a, of course. A few weeks later, Christmas Eve, at Noonan's in Pearl River with Douglas P., and I get a text from Andrew. "Merry Christmas, blah blah blah, hope all is well, oh, and can you pick me up from the airport tomorrow night?" Of course not! You think you can text me after weeks of no contact and I will pick you up because you have no one else and take you home to your house? And spend the night? Really?

OK - I said yes. And I picked him up and took him home and stayed the night and it was fun. And then 2 weeks later he got transferred to right outside Boston.

So I never heard from him again, sort of. A couple of months later, I randomly learned that he was dating a girl in my office who sat five feet away from me. They ended up getting married, and I saw him once at one of our training sessions when she brought him to the instructor lounge for a drink. (I'd like to thank Sandy B. once again for not warning me that he was there). I guess that's the hilarious part?

The Year of Idiocy begins...