Popepalooza

The relationship-friendship, whatever you call it, is as dead as a doornail. The ex keeps telling me to relax, chill out. If he took a step closer, he'd understand that his behavior—the sort of silent, non-communicative attitude—does the very opposite. I am getting angry with these NATO (no action, talk only) men, and am ready to take out the stinger.

I would like to resort to the extreme—a nunnery—or write a nasty book in Maureen Dowd-style, and slam all of them. Why are they all commitment-phobes? Why don't any of them want to settle down and commit? Why do they all shy away from the "C" word, as if it were leprosy?

In hopes that I might be cured of obsessiveness, I waited three hours on line to get into Yankee Stadium to see the Pope on Sunday. The beehive of people, the shrill screaming of ambulances, and the roar of the subways almost drove my ADD self into a nervous breakdown.

I wished I'd brought my earplugs to block it all out. I waited alone, realizing that in recent months, I've become addicted to the cell phone, checking messages and text messaging in the same way I check email.

"Turn off the cell," the sister has said. "Just be alone. Can you be alone and enjoy yourself?" she asks. The answer is no. I feel like I always need to be on the go. The next project, the next writing, the next date, the next man. It is either boredom or fixation.

I scored seats right behind the home plate, and tried to be a good Catholic girl and sit through a three-hour mass, but, if anything, it felt like torture. Sometime after an hour and a half, I got up to leave, but before reaching the exit, past the army of security, something stopped me. I thought to myself, "I never sit through anything, this would the exception." I returned to my seat just in time for the mass communion, Eucharistic ministers everywhere, walking around with bowls of wafers. It was mass pandemonium.

I left the stadium at dusk thinking that rather than being cured, I was more desperate than ever to be connected with someone. There, I had sat amongst 60,000 people and even the Pope—and I felt lonelier than ever. It convinced me that even if I found a true love now, nothing would ever be good enough, because I'd continue to toil with the ADD self, and feel the shame, guilt, anger and the storm within. Not even the Pope and his blessing seemed to calm the storm, I thought, slipping into the sardine-packed subway.