Friday night, Cosmo and I bought a car. Yeah...just up and bought a car. We rolled out to a local Honda dealership after work and had barely gotten out of the car when a salesman pounced.

Hey ladies! How are you this afternoon?

We're good, how about you?

I'm fine...just fine...so, how can I help you ladies today?

Well, we're looking to buy a car.

[At this point, his eyes lit up like George W's do when he catches wind of a situation that would allow him to deploy troops somewhere, thereby validating his manhood and feeling all powerful and important]

Well, well, well...anything in particular?

Yeah, a Honda Element. Orange. Manual.

[Maybe he was used to less direct customers, people who think they know what they want, but can probably be talked into what the salesman wants to sell]

Alrighty, follow me and we'll see if we have one in stock

The rest is boring. He showed us one that wasn't orange, I said no, I'm only interested in the orange ones. He then took us to an orange automatic. I said no, I want a stick. Finally he found what I was looking for, and proceeded to show us all the features. Cosmo and I had already worked out our strategy and I had an ace in the hole, so the game commenced.

I played the very smitten, wide-eyed girlie, more concerned with the nifty features and whether it had a vanity mirror than the price.

Cosmo played the realistic type with control of the checkbook.

We took it for a test drive, I ooh'd and aww'd over every minor feature he pointed out, she didn't say a thing. We went into the office and then we really worked him. I wanted it badly, and I loved the one he showed us, but there was the pesky fact that it was about $3k more than we wanted to pay. Sure, lojack would be a good thing to have, and I definitely wanted the car alarm, but the fact of the matter was that we had already talked to the fleet manager at a rival dealership who had one with more features, and promised to match any price we could find elsewhere.

Suddenly he saw we weren't to be led along like a puppy on a string, and he got a little less perky. He accused the rival fleet manager of being a liar and eventually, with subtle threats to leave and take the quote to the rival, he knocked off $3200 and brought our payments down to $377, out the door.

Friday night, I drove home in a brand new, 2004 Honda Element. It had 12 miles on it when I left the lot. It's shiny and new and pretty and so fun to drive.

Saturday, I was suppose to hang out with Newcastle and we were going to go out to lunch and a movie with Cosmo and one of my little sisters, FourTwenty. Unfortunately, Newcastle has taken to pouting. We had another argument you see. At the conclusion of this argument, he finally told me what I knew he was feeling all along. He wants us to be exclusive. He wants to make whatever we are official. He wants me to refer to him as my boyfriend. He basically wants everything I'm not ready to give right now. In the height of his tirade, he accused me of only holding back so I could sleep around freely.

And I told him maybe.

The truth is, I don't know why I'm not ready to be in a relationship. Maybe it's just that I'm not ready to be in a relationship with him, but it very well might be that I want to get freaky with whoever I happen to get freaky with, so "maybe" is a valid answer.

And he's been pouting ever since.

Is this the end of Newcastle and I? I don't know. I've left him a couple messages, but if he wants to deal with this fact by ignoring me, I'm not going to press the matter. Am I upset? Sure, but I'm not going to let it get to me.

So instead, Saturday morning was spent having breakfast with FourTwenty and some friends, and then we dashed home to get dressed for a martini/AbFab viewing party. It was great, Cosmo's aunts were down and there were snacks and the ingredients for about 20 different types of hybrid martinis. Then Cosmo's favorite aunt grabbed Cosmo and I and we slipped into the back bathroom. There, Cosmo's mom, Cosmo's two aunts, Cosmo, and I indulged in some illegal herbal refreshment. Cosmo's favorite aunt, who I'll call Patsy was hardcore with the peer pressure! After Cosmo's mom [who I'll rename Millie] and Cosmo's other aunt [OneCan] left, Patsy just kept going. She'd say she wanted to have another one, and if she was doing another one, we had to do another one. She singled me out for some reason, pressuring me to hold it in longer, longer dammit! She's really a trip. By the time she let us out, we were toasted, completely. 20 minutes later I'm digging into a massive slice of homemade German Chocolate Cake and chasing each bite with a bite of lumpia. I lost count of my martini intake at about 8. Cosmo's dad [Big Man] drove us home that night.

Sunday, we trudged outside around 10-ish to meet my cousins for brunch. Allow me to just state that I adore The Cheesecake Factory.

We spent most of Sunday wasting gas, running errands, finding reasons to be in the car. It really is amazing.

So today's Wednesday. You know kiddies, I haven't been this carefree since we moved back from Germany. And being this carefree reminds me of how I used to rant about minor things in this diary...how I used to go into detailed description about things the annoyed me or that I liked. I miss that...

There actually is something I've been giving a lot of thought to. It's something I encounter every day. Answering machine messages.

Not the ones you leave saying, "Hey, it's me, call me back." No, the ones you have to make up for your own machine or voicemail.

People seem to put a lot of thought in to their messages. I called a patient the other day, a college kid, and his voicemail went:

Hey, this is Joe. I'm not home right now cuz I'm hittin' the books, hittin' the hay, or hittin' it like a porn star. Yeah baby! Leave me a message and I'll get back to you when I have a sec. Late.

Hitting it like a porn star? Hmm...I really wonder how long it took him to come up with that. I really do. I don't do well with messages, mainly because I hate the sound of my voice. Regardless, I too am forced to create messages that people hear on a regular basis.

At work, my voicemail message says [in my perky work voice]:

Hi! You have reached [frozen-vodka] at [nameless department]. I am either away from my desk or on the other line, so if you could please leave a message, I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks!"

At home, my family's machine says [in my annoyed, because this is the 5th time I've had to do this for this stupid machine]:

You have reached the [frozen-vodka's family name] residence. Please leave a message after the tone.

My old voicemail message on my cell phone used to say:

This is [my name]. Do what you do.

I think I'm about to change my message on my current phone. Maybe keep it current...who knows.

The most interesting message I ever called was a misdial back in highschool. I tried to call my friend and got a machine that said:

Talk to my cat, he gets LONELY!

I called back once or twice to make sure I'd misdialed. Then it was so funny, I put it on speakerphone and called it a bunch of times with my little sister. We were laughing our asses off, just dying. We called all of our friends, giving them the number. The next day, I had a friend over and we called it a bunch of times, sometimes just hanging up, sometimes leaving messages for the cat. Eventually, a guy picked up, and roared into the phone, "What the fuck do you want?!" We hung up. Keep in mind, this was long before *69.

The messages I hate the most are the ones that try to trick you. They say, "Hello?" and then there's a long pause, after which there's usually a chuckle, the machine admits it tricked you, and then tells you to leave a message. My half-sister has a message like that. God, I hate that shit.

I think I'm going to make a message that says[in a frightened, teary voice]:

It's started. It's started and we're all going to die. It's too late for us, we're trapped...but you, you can try to escape. Fight it!! Whatever you do, just try to fight it!! And then erupt into blood-curdling screams. That would be so great.

In other news, how about 311 covering The Cure. Personally, I love it, cause I love the song and the band. Makes me all dreamy and shit.