Someone at work was drinking a decaf coffee a couple of Fridays ago, two days after he ended it. My heart sunk.
2. Flossing. When we first starting dating and doing the nightly flirt-while-brushing-your-teeth-before-bed dance, he asked me if I flossed. "Sometimes," I lied. "Maybe a couple times a week." Calling my bluff, he bought me a floss wand, which is probably the one item he gave me or is associated with him that I don't plan on throwing out or hiding from sight.
Truthfully, my gums have stopped bleeding. But, I'm still terrible at keeping up with my oral health.
When he asked me when my last dental visit was and I answered truthfully, he was trying to withhold judgement. It's been nearly two years, regrettably, and I promised him that I would go before the year was over. I know that I still should, ever since a new friend of mine told me a horrific story about people my age who got sealants on their teeth as kids now presenting with multiple cavities. I'm tacitly cursing my mom for making me get a sealant at age ten, which at the time I told the dental assistant "tasted like the smell of the hair salon."
3. Jeff Goldblum. We mutually loved him, and the first movie we ever saw together was The Grand Budapest Hotel. I had already seen it months before, but I begged him to see it with me again. He was the first person to introduce me to the YouTube gem that is Jeff Goldblum's laugh at the end of Jurassic Park. I peed laughing watching it.
4. The four-dollar glass vase that's tucked away in my kitchen, that he asked me to buy when I moved into my apartment so he could bring me flowers more often.
5. Mate tea, yet another alternative to afternoon coffee that was his idea. It tasted gross at first, but like a fine wine, the more I sipped it, the more I liked it.
6. Washington Nationals' first baseman Adam LaRoche, who is his favorite player on the team. I never thought I would utter this of my favorite baseball team, but I'm selfishly relieved he may not play with the Nats next season.
7. Soy milk. We ate cereal for breakfast on weekday mornings, mine with almond milk and his with soy milk. I bought a gallon of soy milk to keep in my fridge for mornings at my place. Six days before he broke up with me, I dropped the cap to his soy milk in the pointless crack between my stove and the countertop; this was same crack where I once dropped a piece of cooked egg while making a Mexican scramble for us one night. Thinking that the cap was lost in that abyss before 8 am on a Thursday morning, I figured it was gone for good. He, however, spent twenty minutes using our kitchen rug in an attempt to pry it out from under the stove. I stood behind him, in my pink bathrobe, sweeping up all the crumbs, the wayward dried piece of egg, a Heineken bottle cap (presumably from some previous tenant's poor choice to drink crappy beer), countless pieces of quinoa, and a plethora of other dried food items that have accumulated in this square yard of space, possibly for years. We high-fived when it finally slid into sight, and we made out to celebrate. But now, soy milk will always taste a little sour.
