To my Sex and the City Girlfriends....I am so blessed to have you all in my life :)

The Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow but we've invented three times that many words for relationships. What really defines a relationship? What ultimately defines a relationship is another relationship. When real people fall down in life, they get right back up and keep walking. Usually when a child falls, then learn to put their hands out next time. I began to realize that being beautiful is like having a rent-controlled apartment overlooking the park: completely unfair and usually bestowed upon those who deserve it least. I take that back. Beauty is fleeting, but a rent-controlled apartment overlooking the park is forever. Everywhere I looked, people were standing in two's. It was like Noah's upper west side rent-controlled ark. I will not be the first one to speak. And if he never calls me again, I'll always think of him fondly. As an asshole. By the way, jackrabbit sex is like maturbation with a woman instead of your hand. He's a regular Jerk de Soleil. New York City is all about sex. People getting it, people trying to get it, people who can't get it. No wonder the city never sleeps. It's too busy trying to get laid. Men aren't that complicated. They're kind of like plants. Sports night: every female's fantasy. A room full of captive heterosexual men all looking to be distracted during commercial breaks. The most important thing in life is your family. There are days you love them, and others you don't, but in the end they're the people you always come home to. Sometimes it's the family you're born into and sometimes it's the one you make for yourself. An hour later I had solved the unsolvable friendship equation. It seems the answer is this: cosmopolitans plus scotch equals friendship with an ex. There are very few things a New Yorker loves as much as Sunday brunch. You can sleep until noon and still get eggs anywhere in the city, alcohol is often included with the meal, and Sunday is the one day a week you get the single woman's sports pages: the New York Times wedding section. I'm not even sure bisexuality exists. I think it's just a layover on the way to gaytown. I realized I was in the throes of an existential crisis. One that not even the sight of this season's Dolce & Gabbana strappy sandals could lift me out of. From my experience, honey, if he seems too good to be true—he probably is. Easy? You men have no idea what we're dealing with down there. Teeth placement, and jaw stress, and suction, and gag reflex, and all the while bobbing up and down, moaning and trying to breathe through our noses. Easy? Honey, they don't call it a job for nothin'! There'll be no next time. This is going to be like Bridges of Madison Avenue, a very brief affair I'll write about in sappy letters to my grandchildren. When Charles Dickens wrote "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," I believe he must have been having an affair with his married ex-boyfriend. Our affair, like our hotels, had gone from elegant with crystal to seedy with plastic cups. You've heard those stories about affairs where people realize how great their other relationship is and end it without anyone being the wiser. We're so over, we need a new word for over. If I could master a stick shift, could a successful relationship be that far behind? Hi. I'm not here but my shoes are, so leave them a message. If two people only have one thought between them, something is very wrong. I don't believe in e-mail. I'm an old-fashioned girl. I prefer calling and hanging up. I got to thinking about relationships and partial lobotomies: two seemingly different ideas that might just be perfect together—like chocolate and peanut butter. Yes, I'd like a cheeseburger, please, large fries and a cosmopolitan. Someone once said that two halves make a whole. And when two halves move in together, it makes a whole lot of stuff. I used to think those people who sat alone at Starbucks writing on their laptops were pretentious posers. Now I know: They are people who have recently moved in wtih someone. Gay boyfriends are the loophole of monogamy. Maybe our mistakes are what make our fate. Without them, what would shape our lives? Perhaps if we never veered off course, we wouldn't fall in love, or have babies, or be who we are. After all, seasons change. So do cities. People come into your life and people go. But it's comforting to know the ones you love are always in your heart. And if you're very lucky, a plane ride away. I can't even be around that man. He's dangerous and toxic. He's manthrax. Men who are good looking are never good in bed because they never had to be. People go to casinos for the same reason they go on blind dates: hoping to hit the jackpot. But mostly, you just wind up broke or alone in a bar. I like my money right where I can see it: hanging in my closet. Think about it. If you are single, after graduation there isn't one occasion where people celebrate you. ... Hallmark doesn't make a "congratulations, you didn't marry the wrong guy" card. And where's the flatware for going on vacation alone? I wanted a man who'd commit, not a man who was committed. Apparently we have to be more specific. Don't play "hard to get" with a man who's hard to get. At least it didn't happen in a room I actually use, like my closet. It would be childish of us to deny that our lives weren't changing. But for this night, none of us were going anywhere. That's the thing about really good friends and a really great Manhattan. Today I had a thought. What if I... what if I had never met you? I'm looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love. And I don't think that love is in an expensive suite in a lovely hotel in Paris. Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous.