Finding out that Brady and Caroline got married + going on a weeks-long partying spree with my 20-something coworkers may have seemed correlated, but they were definitely not. After my wild Friday night, I knew enough was enough and I needed to hang my high heels back up. I forced myself out of bed at 9 the next morning, even though I felt like shit and had been painfully puking my guts up a few hours before.

First I FaceTimed my baby to check in with her and then I called Brendan to make sure I still had a boyfriend after all that.

“Hey,” he answered.

“Oh hi! How’s your morning? What are you doing?” I asked cheerfully.

He told me that he’d done his morning workout, gotten a massage, ran some errands for work, and had just picked up groceries for the week. He’d probably been up for hours already.

I’m like, “Aww, that’s nice! Do you want to see me now?”

“Yes,” Brendan said. I love how decisive he is sometimes!

I told him that I needed time to get ready then I was coming over. And then I took a very long and thorough shower to scrub off all the grime and shame from the night before. I did not need Brendan telling me that I smelled like a bar (again). A full skincare routine was required since I obviously didn’t wash my face the night before. I was miraculously having a good skin day even after binge drinking for 12 hours the day prior so I didn’t bother with makeup. I put on a matching two piece from Set Active and a sweatshirt with Birkenstocks and then slicked my wet hair back with a clip. And then I headed out for the 20 minute walk to Brendan’s!

Well, it’s 20 minutes on a typical day, but I decided on a leisurely pace since I was hungover and the fresh air felt nice. Plus, there were so many cute dogs and I’ve turned into that lady who is going to ask to pet your dog. I can’t help myself! And then I stopped and got an iced matcha latte with oat milk for myself and nothing for Brendan because he has a fancy espresso machine that he never even uses anyway so he’d be fine!

By the time I got to Brendan’s apartment, it was almost 1pm and I was excited to see my man, my man, my man! I let myself in and found Brendan lying on his couch watching TV.

“Jeez, I was starting to get worried,” he greeted me.

“I know, right!” I squealed and joined him on the couch.

He hugged me and kissed me and I told him all about my walk and the various dogs I met. Brendan and I have decided that we are going to adopt a dog in a year or so, but we have no clue what kind! I want one who is quiet, sweet, doesn’t stink, doesn’t shed and doesn’t mind a chaotic 5 year old who will most likely annoy the shit out of it. So we’ll see.

“Did you go out last night?” Brendan asked. I wondered if he could smell the alcohol emanating from my pores.

“Mmhm. Well, I just kind of stayed out after work,” I answered.

“What time did you get home?” he wanted to know. The tone wasn’t accusatory, but the question kind of seemed like it was. Or maybe I was just feeling guilty about staying out late and behaving in a way I knew he would not be okay with.

“Umm, I can’t remember. It was kind of late, I think,” I lied. There was no way I was going to admit to him that I’d stayed out drinking until 2am, especially when I already felt like he was judging me.

“Okay,” Brendan said and did not press further.

I made him tell me about his night which apparently consisted of getting a drink with some friends at a bar and then going back to Kendall’s apartment to play video games. Brendan lowkey loves a video game which is adorable to me. Like, it’s so harmless. Brendan also loves to makeout (which I should’ve known by the way he accosted me in the back of a restaurant to make out at his dad’s birthday party — good times!) so that’s what we did for a while. Sometimes I think Brendan would get in my skin with me if he could, which is the correct level of obsession I’m looking for in a relationship. Physical touch is definitely his love language (mine is all of the above).

We laid there watching TikTok videos for quite literally four hours until Brendan reminded me that his sister was having people over and he wanted to start getting ready for that. He’d told me several times throughout the week about the little shindig at his sister’s apartment, but I always immediately forgot because I do not care about her. It also didn’t seem like I was necessarily invited (which is fine since Danielle is my nemesis) so I continued laying there on the couch.

“You wanna come with me?” Brendan asked.

“Okay fine,” I said and hopped up too. Brendan may be obsessed with me, but I am just as obsessed with him and now that we were together I didn’t want to leave his side. I’d even endure his annoying fucking sister for a few hours.

While Brendan got dressed, I dug through his dresser drawers until I found a pair of wide leg white jeans that I’ve been missing for months so I wouldn’t show up to the party in biker shorts (not that I really cared). I was having a good skin day, but I didn’t want to look DEAD so I put on some mascara and tinted moisturizer. And then I draped my sweatshirt over my shoulders, slid my Birks back on and I was ready to go! What can I say? I may seem high maintenance and fussy, but I can always pull myself together on the fly. Brendan grabbed a bottle of wine from his collection and then we headed over.

Danielle’s apartment is over in the West Village somewhere. It’s a nice place, but I was honestly shocked by how tiny it was. I know this is New York, but still. I thought they were all rich.

But anyway, Danielle actually gave me a hug and said, “Thanks for coming,” when we walked in. I was shocked considering: 1. she did not invite me and 2. she’s made it pretty clear that she doesn’t really enjoy my company. I don’t particularly enjoy her company either, but I can pretend and I appreciated her pretending. She looked cute in a little baby doll dress that was kind of sexy on her and was she wearing eyeliner? Maybe getting a boyfriend was changing her for the better.

The boyfriend was obviously there, who I am just going to call Jason for continuity purposes. I like him, I think. I will say that from what I can tell Brendan was much more warm and welcoming to him than Danielle was with me so I hope everyone took notice. And Jason is definitely nicer to me than Danielle has ever been, but I’m starting to wonder if she has some sort of personality disorder.

The other people who were there were: Danielle’s friend, Neesha, who I am actually obsessed with. She’s tall, thin, stunningly gorgeous and the first thing I noticed about her was the fat ass sparkling rock on her finger. I found out that she’s an attorney and I’m like, “Oh my gawd, my best friend is an attorney!” and tried to think of literally anything Kendra has told me about her job in the past to have something to talk about. Tbh, I don’t even know if Kendra works anymore — we haven’t had a meaningful conversation in years and the last I heard, she wanted to take some time off away from her career.

There was also Neesha’s fiancé or husband or whoever, Danielle’s two boring friends who are always around and some of Jason’s engineering coworkers. I guess the premise for the party was “game night” which I probably would’ve known if I’d listened to Brendan at all and I would have declined tagging along. We played card games and drank wine and I took it upon myself to connect my music to the speaker because I was absolutely not going to sit there listening to nonstop Taylor Swift.

Danielle is insufferable. Have you ever met someone who is so painfully self aware that it’s exhausting? One of the friends was telling a story about how she kept seeing the same man on her commute to work and then she matched with the same man on a dating app.

“OH MY GOD, you matched with him?! I would never do that,” Danielle exclaimed. “That’s so embarrassing!”

It’s literally not. She thinks everything is so embarrassing. Neesha (a girl’s girl, ofc) encouraged the friend to message the guy and told adorable stories about how she made the first move with her man. Danielle’s like, “Are you kidding me? That’s so embarrassing, I would never make the first move!” Of course she wouldn’t. It even goes beyond dating/relationships. I guess she’s been in her new/current apartment for a few months and she has a ton of packages piling up, but hadn’t picked them up because she’s too embarrassed to ask anyone at the front desk where the package delivery room is.

I said, “I doubt anyone at the front desk gives a fuck about you so don’t be embarrassed.”

“Heyyy!” Brendan laughed and nudged me.

I obviously didn’t mean to sound like such a bitch, but I truly could not handle her being embarrassed by everything. And don’t get me started on all of her weird food aversions that sound a lot like an ED. Grow up! So I’m guessing I won’t be invited back to game night again anytime soon. Which is FINE.

Winnie recently started kindergarten. As you can imagine, I was an inconsolable mess and had to take sick days for her first two days because I was so distraught. My little freaking baby!!! I just love her so much. By the second week of school though, I’d already gotten a phone call at work letting me know that Winnie had snipped a lock of Penelope’s hair off. Obviously Winnie shouldn’t have done that and probably deserved punishment, but why exactly was my not-even-5 year old walking around with scissors unattended? And perhaps beauty school will be her calling; we’ll have to keep an eye on that.

Before the school year started, Winnie’s school had an orientation night — the same as last year — to meet the teachers and other parents. Last year I took Brendan with me, but this year he didn’t come because we were leaving that Thursday for a birthday trip for yours truly and he really needed to stay on top of work. Obviously I would’ve liked him to be there with me and the whole “working late” thing was triggering in and of itself, but I trust my man and I’d rather he deal with work now so we could enjoy our vacation.

Only about half of Winnie’s class last year moved on to kindergarten so there were a lot of new parents to meet. Just like last year, I was greeted at the door with a glass of wine and the kids’ headshots were plastered all over the classroom. Why yes, I did have the photographer take some headshots of Winnie when she did her photoshoot over the summer so we could display them in the classroom! She wasn’t the only one with a professional headshot, but hers was obviously the best.

I wondered if Brady and Caroline were going to show up. I assumed he’d gotten the invite, but he didn’t tell me if they were coming or not. I didn’t care obviously, but I hadn’t seen Caroline since they got married. She’d posted an Instagram with the caption, “Hello husband” and a bunch of pictures of them on their month-long excursion. Because I wanted it to be very clear that I have no issue with her or their marriage, I commented: “Omg congrats!!!” And then she “liked” my comment, but didn’t comment back like she did on the hundreds of other comments she got. So I was actually kind of eager to run into her to see if she’d say anything.

Winnie’s friend, Olivia, is in her class again and her parents were there so I mostly hung out with them. I met another single mom who I love named Drew, who is a lesbian and works in finance. After speaking to her for a little bit, I’m like, “K, let’s exchange numbers because you have to meet my friends Erika and Jasmine [my adult friends].”

Eventually Brady showed up, alone. I saw him from afar at first and watched as he introduced himself to Winnie’s teacher and then they had what looked like a small conversation about the classroom. I made a beeline for the wine table and then ran to find Drew so I could look busy and popular.

“Hello,” Brady said, appearing next to me.

“Oh, hi!” I said back, kinda shocked that he was actually speaking to me. He noticeably did not have any wine and had his left hand in his pocket. “Where’s Caroline?”

“She had to work,” he answered.

“Oh.”

I was really looking forward to seeing her so I could prove how much I do not have an issue with her.

“Yep,” Brady said.

“Brendan is working too,” I told him in case he was wondering.

“Cool.”

We stood there in silence for a moment (Drew had wandered off) and then Brady said, “You look nice.”

I mean, obviously. Like, I’d actually tried. I was wearing straight leg jeans, boots by Ganni, and an oversized button up by Anine Bing. Classy. Cutesy. Dare I say demure?

“Thanks.”

“Winnie’s picture turned out well,” Brady said, gesturing to the headshot. “I figured you’d try to outdo last year’s.”

“Oh my god, you didn’t even get to see our photo shoot!” I exclaimed and whipped out my phone to show him. Between their month-long trip, his mom calling me, and starting school, I guess I just hadn’t gotten the chance to show him Winnie’s pictures.

“Is she not the cutest thing you’ve ever seen!?” I screamed and I swiped through the photos.

“Yes, she’s pretty cute,” Brady said.

“Does she look like me or you?” I asked. Winnie has Brady’s bright blue eyes, his very straight, perfect nose and baby fine hair so thin that it can barely hold itself in a ponytail, but has my mouth/big smile and face shape/overall look since she’s a girl. Right? That’s what I always tell myself.

“Umm, I don’t know,” Brady said, studying me.

“But wait! You didn’t see these,” I said and scrolled to the pictures that had me in them. Winnie and I looked a lot more alike when we were side by side and wearing the same color.

Brady laughed. “Aww. You look cute.”

“I know, right?” Of course I did. That was the point, wasn’t it? But why was I starting to blush at him calling me cute? “I’ll send you some copies once they’re printed.”

There was a lull in our conversation and I was about to excuse myself to get away from him to get more wine and Brady said, “So where are you going away on your trip? Winnie mentioned the beach?”

Oh, did she? Big mouth! We were, in fact, taking the quickest little jaunt to Spain where there probably was a beach, but we were going for the 5-star resort, fresh air, and local cuisine that hopefully wouldn’t give me food poisoning!

“I’m actually not sure! It’s a birthday surprise!” I fibbed. What? Brady had gone out of his way not to tell me where his month-long trip was to so why should I tell him about our trip? And if you thought he’d demand to know where we were taking his child, you would be wrong! He doesn’t care, I guess, which is wild to me.

Eventually I was ready to leave and told Brady that I was going to say goodbye to everyone. Everyone meaning: Winnie’s teacher, Olivia’s parents and my new friend, Drew, who I already had brunch plans with. Brady half heartedly offered me a ride home, which I guess was nice, but I was not interested in being in a vehicle with him. Plus, I was taking a car to pick up Winnie from a playdate and I didn’t want to open that can of worms.

Anyway! So Brendan and I are supposed to be moving in together “at the end of the summer.” I think to both of us that meant around my birthday/Labor Day, but Winnie and I are still in our little apartment. I guess I’m dragging my feet. I just know that *actually* living together is going to change our relationship dynamic and I’m so nervous about that! And I don’t technically have to be out of my apartment until October 15 so I have time even though Brendan has been hassling me about it. The other night he asked if I changed my mind and it’s just like, dude! We’ll get there! The summer isn’t even over yet if you think about it. So anyway, maybe I’ll get around to moving this weekend or something. Especially since I’ve decided that I do want another baby (soon) and that’s my current obsession. Bye!!