Last week Berkely told me I needed to show my body more, “cause then they’ll know you actually fucked like that.”

She was referring to my books, but still, I resented the way she used “fucked” in past tense, as if my sex life was over…maybe I should have taken PeeWee’s advice and gone down to San Diego this weekend after all. It’s not like I got any other exciting offers. None. Zero. Not one phone call, text, or email inviting me to any labour day festivities. I tweeted: I think people are scared of me. Thinking that, made me feel better. I didn’t want to think about the alternative.

And then, Friday morning, a call from Coco “We’re going to an all night Burning Man party Saturday. DJs, freaks, and simulating the burning of the man. Wanna come?”

I love Coco, her and I have the best bitch sessions about our hubbies, and how we want to have sex with Jon Hamm, but honestly, I don’t get Burning Man. It sounds like Woodstock meets Halloween. But longer, and in the desert. And the music is more electronica than Bob Dylan. Oh yeah, and you have to pay hundreds of dollars to get in. 

I decide I’m going to Malibu instead. Alone.

And then, Saturday morning, another invite. My new twitter friends: @jessicajanson and @Henleyblair invite me to go to Vegas. @jessicajanson is a stripper in Vegas, and @Henleyblair is…a lesbina.

I quickly text hubbie: Just to be clear, if my new twitter GFs invite me to Vegas, I can go?

Hubbie: Sure.

My blood starts pumping, with adrenaline. OMG! An adventure. In Vegas. With girls I’ve never met before. That is so up my alley. But then reality sets in. You have no money to go to Vegas right now. But I do have that credit card…NO! I must be responsible. Regardless, it’s good to know how hubbie feels about this. I believe it’s what set the tone for tonight’s conversation.

Hubbie calls, “What’s going on?”

“I’m wondering how long it would take, and how much it would cost, to get my massage certificate.”

He sighs, “you’re back to that again?”

“Jack is quitting framing because he made more in three days massaging, part time, than he did framing for ten days, full time. I could charge $100/hour for a basic massage, and if they wanted a rub-off at the end, my rate would jump to $500,” I say, enthusiastically. 

“Ummm…we’re not going to be married if you decide to ‘rub’ people off for a living, how would you feel if some girl started rubbing me off?”

“Ummm…if some girl is going to give YOU money to rub YOU off, then you’re a god damn superstar in a very untapped market, and I would totally start pimping you out,” I say, very seriously.

He starts laughing. But I’m not joking. Sex is sex, and love is love, and the two don’t necessarily have to get intertwined. I’ve had plenty of sex, with guys that I knew I was not going to spend the rest of my life with or even go on a week’s worth of dates with. I got swept up in a moment, I wanted to have an experience, or I just plain wanted to get my rocks off. And there is nothing wrong with that. Yes, I know, a rub and tug operation is a little different, but still…

Sex is a basic human need, and unfortunately not all humans can come by it easily. Maybe they are shy, or uncomfortable with their bodies, or tired of playing “the game”. Yet the need for a connection, or release, doesn’t magically disappear. We buy time with therapists to work through emotional issues, so why can’t we buy time to work through…physical issues?

Of course I’m hedging my bets on the famous author thing working out for me instead. Just to be clear, Universe.

p.s. The above picture was taken right after I warmed up in the sun after pee-ing in the ocean. What an un-brilliant idea that was. The water was freezing. Like the coldest I’ve ever felt the Pacific Ocean. I later found out it was 59 degrees F. I am definitely more a pool girl.

PeeWee, one of my friends on FB, thinks I should go to San Diego this weekend and seduce hubbie. He also thinks we should have a real wedding one day. And that having kids doesn’t save a marriage.

PeeWee is full of good advice today. But I tell PeeWee I’m not in the mood for any of the above right now.

God I used to be such a bitch when hubbie would leave for a production gig. Like a night without him would just burst my little world. I’d make him pay for it, by whining or being cold-hearted or indifferent when I would see him or talk to him on the phone. I’m sure he was thinking “why the eff did I marry this attention whore?” It wasn’t about that though. I just want what I want, when I want it, and I can be really impatient.

Now, I want some alone time. I don’t think that makes him happy either. I know he was kinda upset that I didn’t want to drive down with him last weekend, “but I’ll be gone for three weeks.”

I stared at the ceiling as he packed and told him I needed to get more work done on the next book, and get my corporate sponsorship proposal finished, and continue looking for work. Get my life in order. Start kicking some ass and get somewhere with my life, like I used to be able to do, before this…identity crisis.

Besides, if I was going to seduce hubbie I would definitely need a Brazilian, and I don’t have the money for that right now. Sadly. I AM the cover story of this month’s Cosmo! Eeeeek. Except I know for a fact hubbie is NOT into bush. It’s probably good we don’t see each other for a couple weeks.

I’m also enjoying my girl time with our new roommate for the month, Berkeley. Every time she looks at my proposal she says “you can do better.” And she’s right. I like people that are honest, and smart, because I sure as fuck don’t need any “yes men” around me. “Yes men” just dumb you down.

So I guess I’m not completely alone, although Berkeley’s not around a lot. She’s also doing production work, and when she’s not, she’s trying to stop lamenting over her break-up with her girlfriend. I keep telling her “trust me, you’ll meet someone else, and someone even better for you.”

She likes that I make that statement so confidently. I tell her it’s ’cause I’ve been there and I know. I tell her even if hubbie and I were to break up we would both meet other people and move on. Nobody ever pines, alone, for a lifetime, except maybe some pervy stalker, but the majority of us move on.

Life is just not as romantic as we want to believe it is. It has romantic moments. And it’s bitchin’ when we experience those moments, but it’s also very real. It’s not like the movies. You want to believe it’s like the movies when you’re single, dating, looking for love. But even when you find that love you were looking for, there’s a reality that checks in eventually. It’s not good or bad, it just makes you realize that your time together is not going to be the day you fell in love on repeat. For better or for worse, for rich or for poor, in sickness and in health, that’s the reality.

Last note. I drove around hubbie’s big, old, diesel truck today. He likes to say it freaks him out, but I know deep down inside he loves the fact that I know how to drive big ass trucks. I’m sure it makes him feel like he didn’t just marry some bitchy attention whore, but a woman that knows how to handle things.

From Sex, Life, & Hannah::Volume 2, Spring Season (CHAPTER 14: FRIENDS…WITH BENEFITS)

We’ve polished off the bottle of wine and everything on the tray, and we’ve wrapped up the frivolous chitchat and goofy horseplay. Mr. Smyth takes the wine glass out of my hand and sets it on the concrete. He wraps his arms around me.

“I have to say, Hannah,” he starts, brushing his lips against my shoulder, “I’m quite disappointed you don’t want us to be friends.”

I feel a knot of disappointment too; but I’m tipsy, so it’s easier to ignore the fact that…he hasn’t changed his mind.

His hands move down and squeeze my hips as I wrap my legs around his waist. I nuzzle up to his ear and lick his neck. I can’t imagine why Mr. Smyth would want to give any of this up.

“Why do you want to be my friend?” I whisper as I run a hand over his chest.

He puts his hands on my ass and pulls me against his hardness. “We understand each other,” he says—then lets out a groan as I grab his hair, pull myself, wet with anticipation, onto him, and kiss him, hard, so that he can contemplate our friendship. He responds, harder. “Right?”

I grip him firmly, dig my nails into his back so that he doesn’t forget what we have, sink my teeth into his neck, and clasp my thighs around him. I don’t say anything, losing myself in the pleasure of our bodies.

That night, Mr. Smyth and I fall into a grey area of friendship that includes complicated benefits.

To Be Continued…

COPYRIGHT
Sex, Life, & Hannah::Volume 2, Spring Season by Dorota Skrzypek.
Copyright 2009 by Dorota Skrzypek.
ISBN 0-9768869-0-7
All Rights Reserved.

Become a Sex, Life, & Hannah Book Club Member and read the entire book series.

From Sex, Life, & Hannah::Volume 1, Spring Season (CHAPTER 10: LOVE IN AN ELEVATOR)

I always believed in “The One”: your one true love, your soul mate, your other half who completed you. I believed we were like penguins, who mated for life and died suddenly when the other didn’t return from a hunting mission. I didn’t believe that being with The One was always perfect: birds chirping, flowers blooming, and rays of sunshine; but I believed it lasted forever.

Walking out of that elevator at nearly two in the morning, I felt this great belief of mine shattering. Maybe there wasn’t such a thing as The One…or maybe I hadn’t met him yet.

To Be Continued…

COPYRIGHT
Sex, Life, & Hannah::Volume 1, Spring Season by Dorota Skrzypek.
Copyright 2009 by Dorota Skrzypek.
ISBN 0-9768869-0-7
All Rights Reserved.

Become a Sex, Life, & Hannah Book Club Member and read the entire book series.

You know what?  I’m calling your bluff this time around, ladies.  Although I commend you for playing the I’m-stronger-than-my-gender-stereotype card and voting in favor of dumping the wishy-washy womanizer, I’m a little skeptical.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m fully confident that you’re all competent women who can flip a U-turn on a dead-end fling (parallel parking, however, is a different story).  But I’m willing to bet you’ve found yourself in the following scenario at least once:

You’ve been playing the field for quite some time, and have found yourself at a crossroad.  Nick Niceman and Paul Player are two suitors who have captured your attention.  Both are equally mind-blowing in bed, fun to talk to, and only slightly concerned by the array of phallic produce under your bed.  Only one thing differentiates the dudes: Nick desires a relationship with you, and Paul just wants a regular bed buddy.  Well, that makes things simple, right?  Uh, wrong. 

While Nick makes plans to meet your parents, travel to Europe, and go in on a pillow-top mattress together, you find yourself thinking of…Paul.  You’re quite certain your parents wouldn’t like him.  You wonder if he’s ever left Santa Monica, much less been to Europe.  You know a pillow-top wouldn’t do much to help his back problem.  And at every step of this thought process, you kick yourself, because you know the only thing Paul is thinking about is if you like it in the butt.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of, ladies.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been there.  Many times.  And surprise, surprise, so has Hannah.  Cain had the makings of a five-star boyfriend—caring, honorable, hot, and keen on commitment.   Mr. Smyth was two out of the four… on a good day.  And while her better judgment told her to jump on the Cain Train, she let it leave the station, so she could sit at Mr. Smyth’s empty track.

Fun fact: Everyone wants what they can’t have.  This isn’t a female trait, it’s a human trait.  The dash of femininity added to this recipe—and another mind-fuck we can thank Disney and romantic comedies for—is the notion that we can “tame the beast,” or make the un-committable suddenly committable.  As soon as we can liberate ourselves from this notion ladies, we can liberate ourselves from the cycle of falling for unsuitable men.  Imagine that!  A world where each girl can nab a guy who not only wants to sleep with her, but wants to wake up in the morning with her as well!

So, just how do we do this?  Beats me.  Call me when you figure it out.

Next we ponder: Should you ever settle?

So true Jenni Perez…Jenni Perez is a regular guest blogger for the Sex, Life, & Hannah Think Tank. Love ya babe!

From Sex, Life, & Hannah::Volume 1, Spring Season (CHAPTER 10: LOVE IN AN ELEVATOR)

I’m sitting on the floor of the elevator with my head tilted back against the wall, the ice pack covering my face again. The Ex is beside me, his dress shirt back on, his undershirt glued to my nose. The bleeding has stopped, but the elevator hasn’t started. According to the maintenance man The Ex got ahold of, it’s going to be a while. Apparently all the elevators are down, and a woman in labor is stuck in one too; so we’re not a priority. I close my eyes and try to imagine myself elsewhere.

I always thought The Ex was The One. When I was thirteen, we had to make a poster of what we wanted our future to look like, and he was it: tall, dark, and fashionable. Not that my whole collage was of the perfect man—I had included my fantasy wardrobe, too—but the male model I’d cut out of the October issue of Cosmopolitan was the centerpiece. And when I strolled up to the Beverly Hilton concierge that fateful Saturday morning looking for directions, I had an eerie feeling I’d just met my centerpiece.

We were in love—through the growing pains and the glory. Even when he broke up with me eighty-seven days ago and I ran after him, tears, mascara, and eye shadow streaming down my face, screaming: “Are you sure? Because this is it!” and he stopped, and I went on: “There’s no going back after this! I’m done. No need to hang on to that engagement ring! Are you sure this is what you want?” and he paused, staring at me, and finally said, “I’m sure,” his voice cracking and his head turning away quickly, and I yelled out: “You’re dead to me!”—I still believed we would be together forever.

I sigh deeply, wondering how the hell we got here: broken-up, broken, in a broken elevator.

“How’s Genie?” I ask flashbacking to our last drama that took place on an elevator. We were at Nieman Marcus, going up to the men’s shoe department, when The Ex’s annoying little micro dog decided to take a whiz all over Charlie Sheen’s shoes. I started apologizing, and The Ex started yelling at Genie, before picking her up and realizing she was getting pee remnants all over his new polo…and pushing her onto me. Then he blamed me for not taking her out for a walk earlier, and I reminded him it was his dog. And worse, just another trendy phase he was going through. He handed Charlie his business card, apologized, and said he’d comp him an all-inclusive weekend stay at the Beverly Hilton. I rolled my eyes.

“I moved into a new place that doesn’t take pets, so I gave her to one of the front desk girls at the hotel.”

Figures. I move the ice pack, and then turn my head around to face the brushed steel interior of the elevator wall. I am immediately horrified. “I look like the pet project of Dr. Frankenstein gone wrong.” I want to cry. “I’m probably scarred for life. I’ll probably need plastic surgery.”

I feel him squeeze my arm. “Hey.” He tugs me to face him. He puts his other hand under my chin. “You’re still sexy as hell.” He smiles.

My stomach curls into an anxious knot. Sitting next to The Ex, on this sterile elevator floor, stuck between floors two and three, on this first day of spring, exactly three months before our six-year anniversary, in the midst of this chaotic night, and painful memories, and awkward small talk, I realize that…I am still in love with my ex-boyfriend.

From Sex, Life, & Hannah::Volume 1, Winter Season (CHAPTER 9: ACCIDENTAL)

Still in traffic and not even two-thirds of the way home, I start looking around my car for something to keep me occupied: reading material, leftover food, a CD I haven’t listened to a hundred times, anything.
     
I notice a duffel bag behind the passenger seat.
     
I reach around and grab it, and unzip it to examine its contents. Mud-ridden sneakers…were those from the time The Ex and I went hiking in Griffith Park and it started raining? Black sweatpants cut off at the knee—I’m pretty sure I cut those off for the hike. A beat-up old grey t-shirt…the t-shirt The Ex had to change out of because it got so wet. A glass pipe lined with black pot residue, because we decided to wait out the rain in my car and needed something to do.
     
We ended up getting stoned, then horny, and then making out like two teenagers on their parents basement couch in front of a rented movie. Finally he reclined the passenger seat as I whipped out his dick and he ripped off my sweatpants so we could screw our brains out.

From Sex, Life, & Hannah::Volume 1, Winter Season (CHAPTER 8: FALLING IN LOVE)

Love happens when you least expect it to, oftentimes with someone you least expect it to happen with, and more often than not at an inopportune moment.
     
You’re trying to get over your ex, tackling being single, realizing that shagging your young inexperienced neighbor is not enough, or you’re just about to leave on a philanthropic mission to Africa for the next six months.
     
And you meet a guy, in a women’s bathroom, who’s a little odd, and a little too tall, and a little too skinny, and maybe a little too old for you. And even though you end up drunk and passed out in a bed with him half-naked, you think little of it, or him.
     
Until you talk to him intimately over the phone, and find you can share personal experiences with him over drinks.
     
And you drive up to his house, and he opens the door looking suddenly oh-so-sexy like never before in his black baseball hat, worn jeans, and white t-shirt, telling you to unwind while he cooks for you. And he takes your body in a knowing way you haven’t felt in a long time, and you lie back with this feeling you don’t want to admit to but can’t escape: the feeling of falling in love.

To Be Continued…

COPYRIGHT
Sex, Life, & Hannah::Volume 1, Winter Season by Dorota Skrzypek.
Copyright 2007 by Dorota Skrzypek.
ISBN 0-9768869-3-8
All Rights Reserved.

Become a Sex, Life, & Hannah Book Club Member and read the entire book series.

CHAPTER 8: FALLING IN LOVE.
     
My boss rounds the corner into my office and proclaims he has the perfect man for me. I look up from my latest suburban layout sketch and smile pleasantly.
     
Taking this as an invitation, my boss launches into a long soliloquy about the single, attractive young doctor he once again had the pleasure of conversing with at a picnic organized by his church. I furrow my forehead.
     
He says he told the doctor about me: how I am recently single and looking for love. I raise an eyebrow.