The Zaftig Chronicles

On Tuesday I turned 27. I am officially in my late 20s, fast approaching my early 30s. There was a local story about a woman who biked, ran, and exercised her way into her 40s. She started running a day before she was to turn 40, and by midnight, she entered her 40s with an exhaustive bang. Meh. I think I will fuck my way into my 30s, with a hopeful orgasm exactly at midnight. But that's three years away, so I can plan accordingly. Anyway, I know it's been a long time since I've updated this thing, and there is a reason: no time. Life has been quite busy. Work is more hectic than ever, and I am often working late into the evening and bringing work home. I don't even have time for a decent dinner. Dinner tonight was canned fruit cocktail in gross heavy syrup (I couldn't find it in juice) eaten straight from the can and a  Diet 7-UP. I was grateful for the time to consume even that. But how I dream of spicy veggie lo mein and shrimp in lobster sauce. At 3 a.m., ...

Some of you might not be aware of this but Chicago has morphed into the fiery pits of Hell, with atrocious sunburned feet to boot. See, this is why I hate summer, for this exact reason. Why do people insist on wearing flip flops in the sun? I can't tell you how many hundreds of sunburned feet I witnessed just last week alone. Jan managed to drag Diana and me to the beach on Sunday, where we both proceeded to bake and die immediately. Jan didn't care -- he was busy working on his "sex tan." You know, the kind where there's a dramatic tan line around the hips. The Swedes sure know how to tan, don't they? you would think with them being Nordic that they would just burn to a crisp, but no -- golden brown goodness all the time. This weekend, Diana's apartment was a cooling center. We conked out with old Glamours and iced raspberry-lemon tea. I don't know why Diana is afraid to throw away magazines. I swear there is a 1997 issue of Glamour with some supe...

Last night, Jan brought over gay porn for me to watch. I asked and he brought. Several things about gay porn I've noticed: 1) The men are incredibbly, sinfully hot. 2) The men have impeccably styled hair. Full-bodied, lustrous hair. 3) A blowjob is all about suction. 4)Trimmed pubic hair on a man looks hot. 5)Tan lines can be drastic and still hot. 6)Men like their nipples tweaked. 7)Anal sex looks fuckin' sexy. 8)Two men in a shower? Yum. 9)Having sex in your socks only? Not an issue. 10)Music is so danceable, you don't know if you should watch or dance.

Let it be known -- I hate medicines. They reek of population control. You know, swapping one illness for another, all the while thinking that multicolored Tylenol is saving every organ in your body. But your liver is like, um, yuck. I don't think it's a surprise that there literally exist a medicine and diagnosis for everything. But this recent ad I came across takes the cake. So it's a muggy and hot Monday afternoon (remember, I hate summer so I'm certainly not in my bestest of moods) and I'm driving to the North Shore to drop Diana off at the Dentist. You'd think a woman with a mouth dirtier than a New York subway and balls big enough to tell a man she'd piss on his face as a thank you for buying her a drink wouldn't need a "support buddy" to go have a tooth LOOKED at, would you? Well, she did. I was miserable. I was hot, my hair was a frizzy mess. I could feel the curls on the back of my head drawing up into a shrub. And Diana's going...

I should be sleep - I have to get up at 5 am for an important meeting. Instead, I'm awake, listening to Duran Duran, wanting to masturbate, wanting to scream, wanting to do something! Anything but sleep. I know, all the experts say don't weigh the day in your head while trying to fall asleep, but how can one not? Especially when you've had a day like mine. I was out of control with Steven today. After I refused New York and dinner on his return, he has given me the icy shoulder. Oh, on the day my hormones are beating the shit out of me. Oy, I felt the cold, steely, stinging hand of rejection today and I'm not sure if I didn't deserve. I'm sure I did. I tell you, things have been rocky since the day he sent me on the road with my croissants . We haven't had sex since then and I am about to explode! EXPLODE. I'm sure he is punishing me and letting me know that he's not a penis on call (thank Diana for that one). But I want a penis on call. Every girl...

I write a post about the sins I've commited and I turn around and indulge in them again - the sin of deception. I know I promised to update the blog regularly again, and I've been meaning to, but I just haven't found the time. Don't get me wrong, things are worth blogging about but I'm swamped with work and relationship issues from family to love. So bear with me, people and I will get this ball rolling again very soon. Thanks for the lovely e-mails. Z.

So Steven and his team are heading to New York next week and he's asked me to join his team and come along. The mischief in his eye when he asked this was enough to convince me. But as much as I heart New York, I think to go on that trip would be a disaster. Everything would be exposed for sure. Plus, I'd have to bring Jan along with me, because he knows half of New York and where to get the best falafels and find knock-off handbags. Of course Steven would want me to be on my back all through the trip and Jan would want me to be on my feet. I'd be torn between hot sex and a $25 Vuitton handbag knock-off. Oy. Weighing the pros and cons.

I confess: I am a sinner. And according to the gospel I am going to hell in six-inch stilettos (Prada, of course) in a handbasket. For I have engaged in all the deadly sins and some not so deadly. What's even more sad is that I can recall specifics of when I engaged in a deadly sin. Lust: Oh, this one has been sinned out. In fact, I think my early twenties alone is enough to assure me a place in hell. I've lusted after everything there is to lust after -- men, married men, men with money, men with no money, men who want other men, men who want women who want other men. I've lusted for kinky sex that involves expulsion of bodily fluids from both partners. I've lusted after cops because of their uniforms; have had some wicked thoughts about being brutally frigged on the hood of a police car while at least fifteen cops wait there turn. Yeah, girl has Lusted plenty. Check. Gluttony: Well, this sin is committed at least once a week. I've overindulged on expensive food ...

It's here and I'm officially happy. Sure, I love cold weather -- fall is my fav -- but spring is my absolute favorite time of the year. I believe I have been through the reasons why , so I will spare you. However, I want to inform you all that the blog will now be updated regularly again, in honor of spring. Had some rough patches and didn't feel like writing too much, but the patches have been sanded down and moisturized and I can move forward. So stay tuned. Meanwhile, head outside and let the wind fuck you. It's spring.

So Jan and I decided we needed the cool air of night to satisfy our need to feel drunk in nature. A bottle of Sauza Gold, two perfectly sliced green limes snug in a Ziplock bag, a mini salt shaker, and an mp3 player with one pair of headphones, and we were ready to go outside and get drunk. Before we left, we loaded my iPod with plenty of Nina Simone and made a pact that at midnight we'd each get an earphone and listen to "Feeling Good." And we were feeling oh-so-good. I was cold, but the heat in my chest felt erotic -- thanks to Nina's sultry raw voice in my ear and the host of fine-looking males passing us by. It was all driving me over the edge. "I need to masturbate," I screamed. Jan hushed me and snatched the chewed lime peel from my mouth. I love hanging out with a controlled drinker. No matter how much Jan drinks, he never gets fully drunk. Me? Well...I think kicking off a pair of $250 shoes and telling a cab driver to run them over seems pretty out o...

This afternoon, Diana visited me at work. It was lunch time, so she met me downstairs in the lobby and we proceeded to head to the building's dreaded cafeteria, where Diana produced a bag of "snacks" for us to munch on while she bitched about doing her taxes ("I'm writing off Starbuck's lattes."). I looked at her food offerings and seriously considered trying my luck at the cafeteria assembly line. Snacks to Diana is a tub of plain hummus, baked pita chips, and diet tea. When we spoke on the phone this morning and set up the get-together, all I said was for her to bring snacks. I guess I meant something indulgent like a slice of rich chocolate cheesecake from the bakery we love. But it's Diana . I dipped a few pita chips in the boring hummus and drank a swallow of the very chemical-tasting tea (ack!) before giving up. If I had been entrusted to bring the snacks, I'm pretty certain we would have had a largely different, artery-clogging selectio...

If there is anything to assuage for my favorite picture this year losing out on Best Picture as the (F)OSCARS, then it's a re-creation of pivotal scenes in Legos. A reader of the blog sent me this link , and I felt all warm and fuzzy inside after viewing it. Creativity like this refreshes my faith in humanity. Gracias, Purple.

One day I will sit down and spend five hours editing this blog, tying up bad grammar, lassoing dangling modifiers, deleting double words, fucked up punctuation. It's something I've been wanting to do since the blog started, but getting the entry out was more important. So, expect a HUGE re-edit sometime soon. Not that anything will change in the post, but they will be cleaner, so that when I get old, at least I can come back and read The Zaftig Chronicles and not say, "Damn, I missed all that!" Off to work (and love in some weird way).

Not much to say about that disaster last night known as The Oscars, but Jon Stewart summed it up best: " Crunchy Black and Three-Six Mafia, one Oscar ; Martin Scorsese , none." Goes to show you how much the Academy is full of shit. Crash, Best Picture? Hardly. Brokeback Mountain was robbed big time in so many categories that I'm afraid I'll cry if I have to repeat it here; so I shan't. I'm really through with awards in general. It's all politics and ass-kissing and campaigning and shitty outcomes. Besides, there are more important things in this world to care about, right? Like Nick & Jessica's divorce : Will he or wont' he get that damn jewelry. God, I'm sooo dying to know this critical information. Ack. To hell with it all.

So we'd been seated at a cozy Thai restaurant, and by the time my Nam Tok arrived, I realized sometimes I liked to be slapped. The after burn of flesh against flesh, delivered with such controlled viciousness turned me on. We'd just argued a mere ten minutes before he grabbed by my wrists and told me, "You're going to fuckin' have dinner". After all, it was what we'd gone out to do. We were doing the whole dinner and a movie cliche,a nd I was flipping out over a phone call from his ex-girlfriend. I'd hit him on the back really hard and he'd let me, but when I screamed and hit him on the back of the head, he grabbed my hands and held them, then slapped the shit out of me. I nearly came from the blow. I wanted more. Something in me must have conveyed to him that he could control me for the evening. And so he did. Later, after dinner and expensive drinks, he pulled me into an alleyway and had his way with me. I wanted him to slap me, but I couldn'...

In these times of rough, I turn to memories of home life. Today, I present you with the memory of my mother and her lack of child care whenever she hears a loud crash or thump in her house. Scene: A 12-year-old Zaftig has knocked down several large Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedias reaching for the Es so she could look up England (a place she swears is her former-life home country). Zaftig: (Scream) Mother: What the hell was that? Zaftig: (Silence) Mother: Zaftig, what did you knock down? Zaftig: (Silence as she put the books back.) Mother: Ten minutes later: Are you okay in there? Zaftig: Yes, I'm alive. Scene II: A 25-year-old Zaftig accidentally knocks over a CD tower, causing it to break and several Karen Carpenter CDs to crash to the floor. Zaftig: SHIT! Mother: What the hell was that? Zaftig: Just me dying. Mother: Well, did you break anything? Ah, memories.

We argued. It ended with me storming out of his apartment, carrying the latest issue of Marie Claire, a greasy bag of croissants and orange juice. We'd spent the night together, engaging in satisfying sex, discussing my latest obsession -- Brokeback Mountain -- and figuring out if we should stay in bed all day today. Well, this morning he happily went out to pick up my Sunday essentials, but when he came back he looked upset. "Here," he said, thrusting the bag of croissants into my hand. He then walked to his kitchen, angrily grabbed a glass from the cabinet and slammed it on the table. "What kind of person are you?" he asked. Umm.,.what the hell? I sat up (I was lounged out on his couch, bare legs outstretched, admiring my pedicure when he'd returned). "Okay, what did I miss?" "A lot. I'm tired of this." I swallowed the lump in my throat. I was feeling very frightened to the point I pulled my legs up to my chest and morphed into a p...

Okay, I just read an e-mail from a reader, and it reminded me of the baked broccoli recipe I posted. I went to check it out to verify I got the recipe correct, and realized the post is gone! I don't remember deleting it. However, I can't remember what else I wrote in the post. Does anyone remember this post? I KNOW I wrote it. Comments are on for the day, for your convenience in respodning to this post.

I could barely enjoy my VD dinner and subsequent post-dinner sex because I was getting old. I was aging before Steven'seyes. My youth tossed out with the refuse or un-eaten salmon roe. A few days ago, my last wisdom tooth (upper right side) began its process of aging me and burrowed its way through my tender gum. My lymps node swelled and a light fever came on. It went away, but yesterday as the tooth burrowed out further, those symptoms returned. So there I was, munching on Philadelphia Maki and fucking teething. "Your teeth came in late," Steven said. "It means you're officially wiser." My mother asked me at 13-years-old if I wanted to have the teeth removed, and I said NO! People, listen to your mothers. Not only are the teeth painful when they burrow out, but during this process it reminds you of how wise (old) you are getting. Fuck wisdom.

If you're into one of the most commercialized days ever, of course. Me, on the other hand, I have nothing against chocolates, champagne, and flowers. And dinner. Steven has finally convinced me to leave my house for more than work and buying orange juice. So we're going out for sushi (he hates falafels. Fucked, I know.) I left work early just to come home and get ready. I'm currently in shockwave mode. I'm sure every woman has been in this mode before a date -- it when you know you're going to have good sex, and every five seeconds a sexual shockwave surges through you. Well, I've got it bad! That's the good part about being a woman, we can be turned on and no one be wise to it. We don't have a tent in our skirts. Although many men claim to be able to smell a woman's arousal. I don't doubt it. So I'm off to my shower. And yes, the Azzura is coming out.