Unapologetically Mundane

That Time When My Boyfriend of Six and a Half Years Broke Up With Me: Part 3

Posted by katie ett on April 30, 2013 – 1:00 pm

I really love you all and your righteous indignation. I didn’t even know I had that many troops to rally when I wrote that last post. I have to admit, though, that I was surprised by your comments. I thought I had written this touching tribute to my glorious, near-perfect-until-he-decided-he-didn’t-,-you-know-,-want-to-be-with-me-anymore, possibly-never-to-be-matched relationship with a person who in many ways completely changed my life. My food blog exists because of him. My camera and half of my lenses exist because of him. I conquered parts of this city I didn’t even know existed because of him. I feel like I’m a better person because of our relationship, that I grew and came out ahead of where I started back in 2006.

Yes, I’ve had the melodramatic “I wasted the best years of my life with him!” talk with myself a couple of times over the past year, because it is a little scary to think that all of the other sensitive lawyers with PhDs and interesting cultures have been snatched up in the time I was hanging out with this noncommittal one. But I’ve never been one of those girls who wanted to be married at 25 so I could have all my kids by 30 and then spend the rest of my life living vicariously through them. My time with him wasn’t wasted, because I:

a) really fucking enjoyed it.
b) have all the time in the world do all of the boring crap you guys want me to with some other, lamer person.

Just kidding about that last part. But seriously, I didn’t make a mistake by staying with him after he told me he was leaving, and I’m not dumb, and I wasn’t mistreated, and anyone would be lucky to have the kind of relationship we had for those first five and a half years. And I don’t have Stockholm Syndrome, you bastards!

My friend Noel wrote me an email that said, “Well to me it’s hard to read and think about because it’s sort of like someone being terminally ill: you know they are going to die and yeah maybe it would be easier/better/smarter to just stop your relationship with them immediately, but then you’d miss all that sucking-the-marrow-out-of-life stuff.” I hadn’t likened the last year of my relationship with Kamran to the last year of my mom’s life, but they’re similar. I knew she was going to die of brain cancer, and it was hard to be with her and forget that, but it would have been so much worse to miss out on the time with her. And after agonizing over her impending death for a year, when she finally did go, I had dealt with it.

I know that Kamran chose this for us, unlike my mom, and maybe that’s why I feel like I’ve had an easier time dealing with things. I’m not crying, and I don’t feel lost at sea. I feel like I’ve had closure and can move forward with only positive feelings toward Kamran. It’s not that I’m not bothered by the fact that he wanted something new after six years, and I don’t want to give anyone permission to walk on me, but I’m too thankful for what we had to be mad. That would be the real waste of my time.

So thank you for being angry at him so I don’t have to be.

That Time When My Boyfriend of Six and a Half Years Broke Up With Me: Part 2

Posted by katie ett on April 26, 2013 – 1:00 pm

Filed under creepy boyfriend obsession

This is the story about how I got half broken up with a year ago by my boyfriend of six and a half years but chose to stay with him because I’m:

1) a sap.
2) very loyal.
3) kind of pathetic?

For me, there’s never been any question of Kamran and me moving to California. I knew from almost the beginning of our relationship back in September of 2006 that he eventually planned to take his career closer to his family in Orange County. Yes, it’d mean leaving all of these friends I feel so lucky to have made, but I’m really, really charming and knew I could make more. Yes, it’d mean leaving the job that I love, but I knew I could find another to suit me. Yes, it’d mean being even farther from my family in Ohio, but I was willing to work hard to see them as often as I do now. Yes, it’d mean leaving NYC long before I felt “finished” with it, but I could justify that, too. I would have to drive (dreadful), but I could sing at the top of my lungs in the car again. I’d have to live in a house (scary), but maybe I could have a pool. I couldn’t eat at Michelin-starred restaurants every weekend (DEATH), but I could finally cook at home in a place with more than just the stovetop and half-fridge in Kamran’s studio.

I pictured us living near Laguna Beach, where he grew up, and being close enough to walk to the water every day. I pictured loving my hair and skin every day the way I have in summers past when we’ve visited his parents and there’s been no humidity. I pictured not having to use air-conditioning and living in linen pants and finally being relaxed in a way I haven’t since moving here almost eight years ago.

But one night last spring, Kamran and I were walking to our favourite sandwich shop, and he told me that he was going to renew the lease on his apartment even though he was sure he wouldn’t be here another full year. I asked, “Oh, is it going to be that soon? And were you going to mention it to me?” He said, “Oh, did you want to move with me?” And I was like, ” . . .”

Because why wouldn’t I want to move with him? We fell in love almost accidentally–I had seen his picture before our date and didn’t think he was right for me but decided I should at least try to be friends with him and then swooned the moment we actually met, and he said at first that he wanted to keep dating other girls but changed his mind as soon as I went on a date with someone else–but I thought that if there was such a thing as fate, we would be the proof to that theorem. We just got along SO WELL. We liked the same kind of music and movies, dancing around his apartment, walking around the city for hours, and cuddling to the point that people would vomit if they knew even an inkling of how much time we spent wrapped up together in his Murphy bed. He introduced me to fine dining and made me try a world of food I either didn’t know existed or thought I didn’t like. We liked different TV (me, reality shows; him, adult cartoons), but we compromised so much that he eventually found himself loving “Survivor”, and I eventually found myself watching “South Park” even without him. We found the same things funny and remarked over and over again about how no one else would ever laugh at them. I thought–and I’m sure every really in love person thinks this, so don’t be offended–that no couple in the world was as perfectly-matched as we were. We were brainy. We were cute. We were creative. We were driven to do different but complimentary things: he was the focused one who worked hard and made all of our weekend fun possible; I was the easy-going one who made friends he got along with just as well as I did. Neither of us liked to eat the ends of pickles. Neither of us understood people who cut in line at the bus stop. Neither of us had ever known what love was until we met.

When people asked why we didn’t get married or insinuated that our relationship was somehow less important than theirs because rings weren’t involved, I didn’t have to be hurt by it, because I thought we were above all of that. I didn’t have to try to coerce him into marriage, because I wasn’t insecure. I thought ours was the purest kind of love, because it wasn’t forced. It had nothing to do with children, finances, or housing. We paid for separate apartments but spent all of our time together by choice. We basically lived in a 250-square-foot studio for six years straight and never got tired of each other.

Here are the reasons Kamran names for breaking up with me:

• He never intended when he met me to have found his final girlfriend.

• He wants to be a bronzed glamourboy and doesn’t think he can be fit and chiseled in the context of our food-dependent relationship.

• He’s not ready for the commitment that comes with moving in together, and I insisted that if I follow him across the country, we should finally officially live together.

• He thinks it’s normal for couples to break up in the midst of a relationship for no reason other than to date other people. He thinks, but is not sure that, his sister and her husband did that and then got back together and got married, and that seems normal and correct to him.

• He wants to meet new people who can introduce him to new ideas. He actually told me years ago that he expected for us to eventually get bored of each other and break up in order to be exposed to different people, and I somehow just thought he was being coy.

He says those are the only reasons. He says he doesn’t expect to find anyone better-suited to him and that he has no complaints about me. Part of me really, truly believes that he loves me and thinks that our relationship was as special as I do, which is the thing that’s keeping me from being mad at him. Not that I haven’t been mad at him. In the last year, knowing that he could pick up and leave at any time, I’ve thought about how I sat at home with him weekend after weekend for years while he studied for law school instead of going to friends’ parties and concerts and happy hours. I could’ve had those six and a half years with a boyfriend who came home from work at 6 instead of 9 and had time to take me to dinner not just on the weekends. I could’ve been with someone who liked vacations and had time to visit my family with me. I could’ve been with someone who went to Hamptons or the Jersey shore just once with my friends and me. I could’ve been with someone who put me ahead of his job just once without my asking.

I’ve also been sad about this. It’s hard thinking that I might’ve spent some of the best years of my life with someone who didn’t feel the same way for me that I did for him. I grew up in a town where none of the boys were like me and waited 25 years to finally find someone worth loving, and then I did, and it was even better than I thought it’d be, so even though some of my friends encouraged me to break up with Kamran before he could break up with me during this last year of waiting and wondering, I held on and decided to enjoy it as much as I could. It didn’t feel stupid or self-disrespecting because he made it feel too special. We had an AWESOME last year together.

Yes, it sucked when he accepted a new job in California last summer and had to keep deferring it to spend more time here. Yes, it sucked being on edge for twelve months, never knowing exactly how much or how little time we had together. It sucked not being able to blog about my feelings because it felt embarrassing to announce that we were breaking up one day and then continue to write about all of our sappy adventures as a super-in-love couple the next. It sucked feeling like I should definitely, definitely be crying all of the time but not letting myself because it felt like wasting time when time was precious. It sucked that I was so exhausted by my emotions during the whole debacle that I was almost relieved when he left just because at least I finally knew. I never wanted my first love to end not with a bang but a whimper, you know?

But we also did it all this past year. We took walks to the waterfront park on Beekman nearly every weekend, stopped caring about how small his apartment was and invited people over, rode the Roosevelt Island tram so many times, chewed each other’s arms to the nubs, tried the Doritos Locos Tacos, admired the Chrysler Building from his window, butter-basted our first steaks at home, played in the snow, ate so many Michelin stars, karaoked, introduced friends to Um Segredo and the Momofukus and Tocqueville and so many others, held hands on the subway, learned about wine and cheese and by that I mean ate a lot of it, chose the loser of every reality show within the first ten seconds of the episode, woke up at 5:45 a.m. to go to the gym, played the game where he would tuck me in at night and I would kick the covers off so he’d have to do it again, and created an Excel spreadsheet detailing our plans for every day of his last month here so we could be sure to live it to the fullest. And we did. And I’ll never forget it.

That Time When My Boyfriend of Six and a Half Years Broke Up With Me

Posted by katie ett on April 23, 2013 – 12:00 pm

Filed under creepy boyfriend obsession

R.I.P. KamKat
2006 – 2013

Kamran leaves for California tomorrow for a new job and a new life close to his family.

I’m 99% sad about this and only 1% mad, but I still find myself wanting to listen to, like, girl power songs. This is my favourite one of the moment, even though I totally don’t agree with the message and think I 100% work better with Kamran than without him. I’m basically going to spend the next two years blogging about this breakup, but for now, I just want to know your best “sisters are doin’ it for themselves” kind of anthem recommendation.

Except way, way less lame than that song.

Adventure Time with Kat and Kam: Princeton

Posted by katie ett on April 19, 2013 – 8:00 am

Filed under adventure time, creepy boyfriend obsession, just pictures, travels

When we met six and three-quarters years ago, Kamran told me that he had gone to school “in New Jersey”. Later, I found out that he had spent six years at Princeton, getting his PhD in physics before deciding to go into law. The first time he took me to visit the campus was magical, since:

1) I had only lived in a NYC for a year and had never taken NJ Transit, which was completely different from the subway in that it was expensive and comfortable, and
2) living in NYC for a year was long enough that I’d forgotten what nature looked like.

Waiting for the dinghy to take us from the Princeton campus back to the Northeast Corridor station on that first visit, Kamran asked me to “go steady” with him after a month of trying to convince himself that he didn’t want to be yoked exclusively to this lady ox. Aww.

So, all these years later, we decided to go back a couple of weekends ago to relive his golden years and the birthplace of our looooove. We were supposed to leave Penn Station on the 11:15 a.m. train, but of course we got there at 11:16, so we made a stop at the Tim Horton’s inside the station and then casually watched a guy threaten the life of his girlfriend in the midst of a fight while we munched on a bagel in the alley out back. On the 12:15 train, we tucked our tickets to Princeton Junction into the slot on the back of the seat in front of us and alternated between solving the mysteries of the universe and napping.

We took a cab straight to the graduate college (Kamran wanted to show Princeton that he’d left and conquered the world and didn’t need to wait an hour for the dinghy to campus), which was, um, gorgeous.

On our way down to the D-Bar in the basement of the grad college to see where Kamran drank tens of beers during his tenure, we went inside to the dining hall, where adorable/smelly/geeky grad students were eating bananas with their parents and stopped to stare at us, the stylish/successful/handsome people they hope to someday become.

Then we walked up the hill

to the main part of campus

to begin the real reason we’d come: to eat everything Kamran remembered from his six years there.

The first stop was Hoagie Haven, where Kamran got a cheesesteak and I got a meatball hero, and he was so sure everyone inside was going to be like, “Hey, Kamshaft! Kameroon! Kamburger! What are you doing back here after all this time? Didn’t you go off into the world and make something of yourself while we stayed here slinging hoagies?” But no one was the same, and no one was there to congratulate him on becoming The Most Excellent Physicist-Lawyer Princeton Has Ever Produced™.

Next, we walked up to the electrical engineering building to burn off our hoagies and then circled back to Zorba’s Grill for chicken gyros, where the guy in front of us was super rude to the kid behind the counter, and I said we should publicly shame him, but Kamran didn’t want to get knifed.

Next door was Thomas Sweet, where we got cake batter ice cream with Butterfinger and sprinkles, because that combination makes sense.

This is Kamran eating ice cream just like Einstein, who lived/worked/died at Princeton. Only I had handed him both of our spoons to keep my hands free to take the picture, and you can see he’s using both of them at once. And that there’s no ice cream on either of them. Also, there’s a huge glare on Einstein. This could not have failed worse.

But the ice cream was awesome. And then we were full and were mad at how old and small-stomached we are.

Continuing our walk through campus, we came this crazy fountain

and these way crazier heads of animals, which we decided were Chinese zodiac symbols. And we were right (of course). It turns out they’re Ai Weiwei’s “Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads“.

It’s hard to describe how huge and affecting these were.

Cutting down a side street on our way to the physics building, we passed by the Princeton eating clubs, which are like the frat houses at your college except classy/elegant/full of much more money. I mean, but still not immune to keg parties in the backyard. (Two weeks later, Kamran is still bringing up “the time we went to that keg party with the live band at the Princeton eating club”. I’m 99% sure he’s joking.)

We stopped to pet the tigers outside the stadium

and then walked through this huge Richard Serra sculpture called “The Hedgehog and the Fox” made of giant panels of rusted metal where one path gets wider and brighter and the other path gets narrower and darker. And where the immaturest of the Princetonians hang out, evidently.

I saw some nature

and then some more

and then still more

and then some involving Kamran,

and then it was time to go home, so we stopped at another of Kamran’s most-remembered haunts, the Wawa, for some water. (Which I would call wa-wa if I was a child or just that much lamer.)

And then we were back on NJ Transit,

and then NYC skyline was coming into view,

and then we were right in the middle of it again.

And that was that.

The Nicest Thing You Can Be Called on the Bus

Posted by katie ett on April 16, 2013 – 2:30 pm

Filed under funner times on the bus, living in new york sucks so hard

I’m always filled with a sense of dread when I round the corner on 41st Street in the morning and see people squeezed four-deep along the sidewalk, waiting for the bus. For the most part, the buses come more often than I expect and get me to work right on time even when I feel like I’m running late, but when something goes wrong along the 2nd Avenue M15-SBS route, it seems to go really, really wrong. This morning, the bus pulled up just as I collected my receipt at the pre-pay machines and was shockingly empty, so I figured something went really, really wrong uptown and the MTA sent a new bus down to try to fix things. I got a seat right up front by the window and began my long-practiced process of zoning out so the elbow jabs of the person next to me wouldn’t seem so jarring.

The bus was filling up more and more as we made our way downtown, and it was downright packed by the time we got to a stop with a lady waiting in a wheelchair. Now, no one blames anyone for being in a wheelchair, but it’s the simple truth that a wheelchair on the bus is an inconvenience. Everyone in the front has to move back to make room for the wheelchair, and three people have to give up their seats so the wheelchair can be strapped in beside the window, and the wheelchair usually sticks out into the aisle far enough that no one can hold onto the handrail above it. The bus driver always tells people to exit the bus for a moment to make room and then re-board once the wheelchair’s in place, but everyone’s been left at the side of the road once or twice when the bus was too full, and no one wants to risk giving up his spot inside. So it was understandable (but maybe not excusable) when the woman in the wheelchair tried to board and people were reticent to move for her, but she wasn’t in the mood for understanding and muttered complaints to the bus driver as he strapped her wheelchair down. He agreed with her that “people should use common sense” and that he would let the bus sit there all day if they needed to be taught a lesson. “I’m already at MY job,” he said. I was amused, and I thought that was the end of it.

Read the rest here!