Christina

There was a time, when I was young and beautiful, that I knew it.  I knew what I was worth.  When I left my apartment to go to work, I knew I looked good.  I was toned, I was tanned, my hair was high-lighted just right.  I looked good.  I knew that when I hit the floor, people would be looking, and it was alright.  Look away!  Keep on looking, I knew I looked good.

I was 24, 25, 26... At the peak of my game.  It was a good feeling.  I knew that I could get what I wanted, when I wanted it.  I knew that as a waitress I could work the room. I could deal with the assholes, and make money off the rest of em.  No worries. It was all fun and games.

When I met John, I was in the height of it all.  We were friends for a couple of years before we got together, but now that we were involved, it brought everything to a new level.  We worked across the street from each other.  I was a waitress at a very busy sports bar in the Sheraton, and he was a very busy bartender at the restaurant/bar directly across the street.  We were sitting in the lights of times square and living quite nicely, despite the fact that 9/11 put a financial damper on the entire city.  We moved seamlessly from the phase of where tourists were afraid to go to NYC, right into where tourists felt brave and patriotic to go to NYC and tour Ground Zero. 

And so the romance began.  He picked me up off of a bad "relationship" and took me into a new world.  He treated me the way I always wanted to be treated.  He knew all the best restaurants, and whats better, he knew the people that worked there!  We had the inside scoop on all the best places.  We drank after hours with the staff from every 4 star restaurant in NYC.  No joke. We had it all.  We literally ate dinner two tables away from Beyonce and Jayzee one night, and it was no big deal.. We had it all.  It was just so much fun, those early days.  We were both deep in the industry, and it had it's perks. 

We hooked up our friends that came to our bars/restaurants, and we were treated in kind.  It was really such a great time in my life.

The manager of the Marriot Marquis restaurant became a good friend, and made sure that we got the best of the best anytime we visited "The View"-- the rotating restaurant with 360' views of NYC.  Later, when we had our first son, J, our manager friend made sure that we were VIPs for the breakfast with Santa extravaganza.
It was just all in all, great.

So, for any of you that might be following my blog, there's a brief explanation of what got me hooked.  I didn't just decide one day to marry a dickfur.. I actually got "wooed" into it.

So we got married, and had a baby.. and John was supposed to watch the baby twice a week while I worked my 2 day shift.  But John opted not to watch the baby. He opted to drive the baby an hour upstate to his sister's house after I left for work, and/or call my girlfriends to come babysit after I'd left for work.. and so eventually..... after 2 weeks, I quit.... to take care of my baby, and keep track of his where abouts.

It happens kinda quick-- the loss of vanity.  Somewhere along the line, I stopped looking in the mirror! I'm not sure when it started, but holy moly... It took along time to snap out of it.

It wasn't until the past couple of weeks that I started blowing out and straightening my hair again to go out in public.  For real.  There was a long time in my life that I wouldn't leave the house without at least mascara on...  I've finally come back to that.

So, you're welcome, Staten Islanders.  I'm human again.  At some point this week, Judy woke up.. and I straightened my hair, and put on mascara.  Look out, I'm coming back.

"I am beautiful in every single way... no words can bring me down....." Thx Xtina