I tell people I turned off my biological clock for a few years

Or well, I just told one person.

But now that I've come upon that turn of phrase, you know I'm going to employ it on the reg in discussions of game plans and time frames and thoughts on the subject of fertility and whatnot.

My mother made the biggest faux pas of the decade at my college roommate's med school graduation party when she said to one of my other Manhattanite friends that she should be worried her eggs were going to dry up.  I mean, really, MamaNaugs, not her best truth in jest moment.  The joke was light hearted in its intention of course, but it's the kind of off color remark that really hits home with a twentysomething single gal.

Even while we're loving our lack of commitments and the freedom we have while we're not tied down, we're counting the months that go by - we know there's a limited supply of babies-to-be backed up in our ovaries.  We're not stupid.

But, it dawned on me in this conversation I just found myself in that the me who wanted to have babies by the time I was 29 was someone so different than who I am today and even who I was once I'd bounced from Boston in the Fall of 2008.

That truly was before I moved to Manhattan and turned off my biological clock for a few years.

And now of course as we round the bend from the wedding season of my life to the baby boom I'm happy to report that I do in fact still harbor some maternal instinct.  It's just that I'm keeping it in reserve - like my potentially dried up eggs, and I'll tap into it in a good five or six years (hopefully) when all's quiet on the Western front.

"Chocolat"

had been sitting in a red netflix envelope in my desk drawer since July. 

6 weddings in 6 months, many of which would be held in Massachusetts, have made for a very merry Nomadic Naugs since my single modmate's and my Summer of Fun's Unofficial Start, and tonight was the first I could spare to watch Juliette Binoche woo Johnny Depp with her cacao powder voodoo.

So good.  So classic that I've been meaning to see this movie for 12 years now.  I love the concept of the queue.... I don't even know what I'll get once I've returned the red envelope but I do know it will be another I've been meaning to see for ages now.

I also love this dialogue and how Johnny Depp's character changes the subject so abruptly after Juliette Binoche's poses the tough questions:

Vianne

Don't you ever think about belonging somewhere? 

Roux 

The price is too high.
You end up caring what people expect of you. No.

Vianne

Is that so terrible?
Having people expect something of you?

Back from hiatus

The writer in me had to do some reading, the actress in me had to do some scene study, and the nomad in me had to bounce between New York and Newton twice in the last two weeks of January for two of the four final performances of my baby sisterfriend at the infamous NNHS.  I think there's one Jubilee Singers concert and one last Pops Night in June standing between my family and our official graduation from the 12 years of high school extracurricular activities we've partaken in.  Indeed, the end of an era.

What brings me back to my soap box, you ask?  Evolution.  And specifically, the evolution of dating sites.  Two of my BC modmates sent me this link this morning:  http://mashable.com/2012/01/31/sparkology/

And one can only wonder whether the next chapter in my fairytale is to be told with the help of an elitist bunch of yentas.  The graphics are priceless, no?  My kind of straight to the point cartoons.

For anyone that's counting I've received 5 Save The Dates for 2012, and it's just the first of February.  Love actually IS all around.  In the meantime, I am 21 days away from flying to Florida with four of my favorite Nook Girls for the Walt Disney World Princess Half Marathon.  And that about brings you up to speed.

More musings to come as the month moves right along.

Pricks abroad / Prince Charmings here in NYC

Two nights ago I went to see the Ides of March with my modmate and Milan travel buddy.  Sigh, Ryan Gosling, how do I love thee?

Anyway, this modmate and I had lamented when we were touring Italy and Switzerland last Fall the fact that there are pricks abroad similar to the ones we've come across and dated periodically here in the States as if you can't meet a dreamboat in storybook Europe, where can you expect to find one?

But doing our best to orange buzz in the new year, we actually spent a good deal of time chatting post movie at the whimsically named West Village pub, Pint of No Return, about the Charmings we've had the pleasure of being cheered up by in the past week or so.

You see, she was being wisked away to Chi-town by her very own Mr. Big, who also happens to be taking her to Per se the next time he's in town (so Mr. Big of him, right?), and I was with two other BC gals last Monday, who had only JUST made the observation that there appeared to be not a single chivalrous guy in Manhattan by contrast to the South and Midwest where they're dwelling these days, when an uber kind cutie offered me his spot on the Jitney so I could get to Jersey at the same time as my girls.  He could take a later bus, he said, I should go with my friends.

So sweet right?  And then later another young chap helped me not fall on my face while riding the subway in a precarious spot out of reach of any poles to hold onto, and even when I stepped (hard) on his foot, he reached his arm out behind me to be sure I didn't topple as the train jerked into the crowded station, so I thanked him for his help on my way out making him chuckle, and chocked another one up on the scorecard of this city of singles.

Turns out there are a handful of chivalrous guys in the Big Apple it's just that their gentility's in their little gestures.   Pricks abound abroad and Stateside, but it's important to stop and point out the princes in our midst, because daily interactions with them are paving the way to our happy endings.

People of interest

In this metropolis it's amazing how often the line blurs between it being a big city/small town.

Last night I went to the Alumni Christmas Party at Forum with my only other modmate who got a ticket in time - for whatever reason, the annual function sells out without fail. It was so nice to have a night out with Hips and one of her other good friends from college. It was so interesting to note the people I was most excited to bump into...

Namely: My residents - the guys & girls I was an RA for my junior year (when I felt like the world was falling down all around me. When I was all woe is me because I got cast as a pink sheep in Candide. When I was kind of crazy to be honest). They clearly were way more important to me than I gave them credit for being at the time based on the pride I feel when I see them now as successful New Yorkers setting the world aflame, as you do when you're an Eagle.

And then all blast from the past-y: PETER. This guy I met when we RV'd to Notre Dame that same year - the Fall of my junior year.

Peter from Alaska, who at the tailgate, I was tempted to cheat on my boyfriend with for the only time ever, and might have had it not been for my now-married (and apparently infinitely wise) friend answering his phone that morning and talking me out of making a terrible mistake.

Peter, who didn't exactly remember me/Hips at first when he came up beside us at the bar, but who totally came around with his recollection of the infamous pink trucker hat I wore for the duration of the epic road trip, flirt session and football game.

Peter, who 19 year old Naugs had romantacized to such an extent that I could have sworn we may have been meant to be or at the very least destined to date had we found each other at another time or place in our lives.

Peter, who's phone number is still randomly in K Koster's cell phone I'm sure.

Peter, who was a person of interest partly because running into him and feeling so far removed from everything he was connected to in my past proved how far I've come as NY Naugs.