15 jan 02

The last time I stopped by the Creative Director's office it was to complain about this and that, so last night I decided to stop by to uncomplain, as things are considerably better now. True, I'm stressed out and work is hard, but I'm actually doing things, which is an improvement. So we're chatting, and he expressed that he liked what I was doing, and I mentioned that I signed up for an editorial design class at SVA which starts in two weeks.

"Good. Who are you taking it with?" he asked. (He teaches there as well so he knows the instructors.)

"Well, it's a Continuing Ed course," I said. "Um, Genevieve...Williams, I think?"

"Ah," he responds, "she's my ex-wife."

Oh.

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Speaking of exes, Saturday evening had a heavy ex-girlfriend theme (and none of those ex-girlfriends belong to my boyfriend, which is how I like it). There was some amusing evidence of ex-girlfriend encounter protocol. For example, the possibility of meeting your boyfriend's ex-girlfriend requires that you wear more eye makeup than usual. Later, the mention of a missing bed leg was used to segue into the recounting of an exchange with an ex-girlfriend who is having such good sex with her new boyfriend that they apparently broke the bed. Isn't that nice? Should one send a congratulatory card for the great sex or a condolence card for the broken bed? I'm not sure of the proper etiquette there. And what's the protocol for discussing your current partner with your exes, or your ex partners with your current? I can't help but wonder what motivates people sometimes.

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Last night on the subway back to brooklyn there was a guy sitting opposite me, reading a book. (I couldn't tell specifically what book.) His bookmark was a polaroid of a girl in a tanktop, from the shoulders up. She had dark reddish brown hair and her face was kind of washed out by the flash. Pretty. Did he choose that picture specifically to serve as a bookmark, or was it just the closest thing within reach the first time he had to mark his page? Is she a girlfriend? An ex-girlfriend? The guy never paused from his reading to look at the photo.