2002-04-22 - 11:56 p.m.

And tomorrow I am having a half work half play day, which actually consists of eight hours in malls. Can't complain too much about that, although I am on a strict spending freeze and will be unable to indulge in my customary game of shop-for-work, shop-for-me. Except for bras. I will have to grit my teeth and go bra shopping, which ranks right up there behind root canal on the list of things I love to do. The good news is, when I went to pick up my rental car, they were all out of the economy rate F0cus that they usually give me, so I have to suck it up and drive a brand spankin' new Must@ng. The gods were smiling on me today, I tell you. A rent-a-mustang, at the economy rate, with Jersey plates, even. I had the radio cranked, too, and drove through the miraculously traffic-free tunnel singing at the top of my lungs, to my new (embarrassing) favorite cheesy pop song - the one that's all : 'underneath your clothes..' I don't know the name of the song OR the artist, but damn that song sticks in my head for DAYS.

I love driving now that I don't have a car. At the rental place, the woman told me that when she first took the job, she thought it would be a piece of cake, that no one would be renting cars in the city. But "you people be renting cars EVERY WEEKEND. It's crazy." I asked her who the hell could afford to garage a car in NYC, in addition to the payment and insurance? She said, "Oh, girl.. I HEAR you" And then I told her how much fun it is to drive when you don't have a car of your own, and then she gave me the Mustang. Today, I feel like the master of my universe. Instead of a bug squashed on the sole of the Universe's boot, like I usually feel.

Had a weird little night tonight, though. Out in NJ, had my postponed dinner with my old friend F, and we talked a lot and then went back to his bar and met up with my X's old partner and an old friend of ours. I was explaining to them that I really do love my new life, which they can't seem to really understand. They have big houses and expensive cars, and talk about their friends from "the club". I don't think they can really see how I could be happy without those things.

Over dinner, I was telling F how happy I was, how those things didn't matter to me, and he said, "But you could have been happy in that life, with all of us together. If you and X stayed together. We had some really good times, those years. Didn't we?" And I don't think about it that often, I usually dwell on the bad. But we did, really. There's a special place in my heart for F, and we spent YEARS together, all of us, celebrating birthdays and carving pumpkins at Halloween, and dancing at each other's weddings. The other two were reminiscing about the parties, and about how I would cook special requests from them, and about my world famous clams. And I was laughing, and telling them yes, yes, that was fun, I remember.. and I meant it. But I don't miss it, except in an abstract, nostalgic kind of way.

And that rocks.

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