the bell jar

Last week, the exBoy called me to wish me a happy un-anniversary. I know it sounds heartless. Really I don't think it was intended as such, more just to recognize that on a certain day every month for the past 2 and a half years, we have talked to eachother & commemorated the occasion, and we were of course still thinking of one another even though we were no longer together. But it did have sort of a sad, slightly insensitive feel to it. He called while I was out with my girlfriends getting drinks.

I came back to the table feeling a bit down (okay, eyes noticeably watering).

"What's wrong?" they ask.

Me: "He just called.. to wish me a happy un-anniversary!"

Them, in unison: "What?!" "Are you serious?!" "Why?!" (I love my friends.)

"I need another cocktail" I whimper.

"Waitress! Get this girl another extra dirty martini with extra blue-cheese stuffed olives! It's an emergency." (S, of course.)

As the bartender is shaking the cocktail from behind the bar, my loopy hippy dippy friend D, clad entirely in leopard print (no lie) and jewelry the size of, roughly, a watermelon asks me what ExBoy's sign is.

"Leo," I say.

"WHAT?!" she cries out in horror. "But... but you're a Scorpio!"

"Yeah, so?" The cocktail has arrived. I take a salty sip. Perfect.

"Those are the two worst matched signs in the entire zodiac!" she screeches. "That's why SYLVIA PLATH KILLED HERSELF. Do you hear me? She stuck her head in the OVEN because Ted Hughes was a Leo and she was a Scorpio."

I munch on a blue-cheese stuffed olive, contemplating. "I don't know if I believe in all that, though."

"Listen. Scorpio women nurture, and Leo men want to be in the spotlight. They suck up all the Scorpio's nurturing energy and they don't appreciate her! They take her for granted!" She's picking up steam here. "Listen to the Scorpio-woman/ Leo-man couples. Arnold Schwarzennager and Maria Shriver! Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath! And... and... Bill and Hillary Clinton! It's lucky you got out when you did! Now, who you really should be dating is a Capricorn or a Cancer!"

For the rest of the night, whenever I wanted to drunkenly call him, the girls reminded me that I didn't want to end up like Sylvia Plath, now did I?