Sunlight

When people ask me almost anything these days – whether I miss London, how I like New York, how I plan to pay my bills, where and when and if I'll move – I have little patience for it. The most honest answer I can give to anything is this: I don't even know who I am any more.

I've always felt I never had a strong internal compass; a mental north that keeps me focused and on the right track. Remember that scene in Runaway Bride where Richard Gere finds out that Julia Roberts always ordered her eggs the way the man she was with did? Sometimes I feel like that's me (except obviously without the perpetual boyfriend, never mind the killer legs and megawatt smile). So think about what six months in near-total darkness – which is what this New York experiment has been, in so many ways – would do to one's sense of direction. It's suddenly hot and bright in New York, and I'm slowly emerging, disoriented and blinking furiously.

I'm not making excuses for the semi-outrageous behaviour I'm about tell you about; only saying at this point I'm not even sure I can say it's most un-Beth-like, because what the hell _is_ Beth-like anymore? Thursday afternoon, feeling (for once) like a properly dressed employee of a major media company in a killer three-year-old black dress from one of my favorite London boutiques ("that dress is hot," said my boss, a woman not given to friendly compliments) + Jimmy Choo slingbacks (from my days of sample sale-ing) + vintage Celine belt (another old London purchase), I had a huge meeting. It went so well I feel guilty that tomorrow I'm about to write "This job sux" in red lipstick on the wall (YouTube footage forthcoming).

At just after 4 pm, I walked out of the office and headed to the garden bar of the Hudson Hotel, where I proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon drinking and then snogging quite possibly the most dashing, smashing, bright, witty -- and totally unavailable -- man I have ever met in my life. I had hoped to save myself from the inevitable post-date low and binge, and so went on to have dinner and more drinks with a PR woman (something I never do). I can't exactly remember how I got home, and whether I actually walked in my heels. I know there was a binge involved. I'm missing a flip flop.

I woke up Friday feeling so wretched I couldn't get out of bed. So I didn't. I didn't even call. It was a half day at work, I sit in the corner where no one notices me, and I figured I have worked more than enough hours for them. Plus, um, what are they going to do? Fire me? I'm quitting on Tuesday morning, anyway. (OK, there is part of me that's a little scared they'll fire me. Eeek.)

I usually like to sweat out excess, but the thought of the gym was unbearable. Eventually I dragged myself out to run a few errands, do a tiny bit of work at the Starbucks, and finally to meet friends for a late showing of the rather situation-appropriate Hangover 2. (I'd have skipped the film had I not already paid for it.) I couldn't wait to go home and wake up feeling normal, whatever that is.

Saturday night I did the sort of thing that once upon a time I did so frequently it wasn't notable, which is to say I took a random person up on a spur-of-the-moment invitation. When I first moved in, I met one of my neighbors, and have only seen her about one other time since. When we bumped into each other Friday (on our front stoop, where I also nearly walked smack into Matthew Broderick), I asked if she were around this weekend. She suggested drinks. So we embarked on a tour of neighbourhood spots we'd both been wanting to try. I felt post-binge frumpy and slightly grumpy next to my tall, glamorous California blonde neighbour, and briefly wondered (uncharitably) if she were the sort of person who liked to go out with women who never drew attention away from her.

At one spot – the sort of place that serves its cocktails in Mason jars and champagne in 1920s glasses – she insisted the bartender was flirting with me.
"He's a bartender," I said. "He has to."

"That was beyond bartender flirting," she said. "I think you should go back there."

Honestly, where do people get this stuff from, and where was I when male behaviour was being explained to the rest of the class? Daydreaming, probably.

***

At one point a couple of weeks ago, our fitness director complimented me on the shape and definition of my calves. Is this the fitness equivalent of Anna Wintour complimenting me on my outfit? Discuss.

***

I told a guy I'd lost 100 pounds. He assumed I'd been anorexic. I cannot begin to figure out how I should interpret this, and I'm not sure I should try.