There are those rare occasions where life itself hits us with such a barrage of metaphors that we cannot escape their underlying message. Here, no dream is needed to collect our subconscious anxieties and play them out in allegorical form. And no dream consultant is needed to scratch the fabled surface to reveal what emotional tumult lay beneath.

So it was that I woke up today and exclaimed: “enough already! – I get it!”

Last Thursday I got a call from the ex.

I had ended our relationship earlier this year. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. But I believed, and still do believe, that it was the right decision.

Our relationship ended amicably, and since the breakup we have been working on easing into a friendship. Though, up to this point, we have both studiously avoided the topic of dating and new romances. In my case, that was mostly because there was nothing new to discuss. I figured that it was the same for him. That was, until Thursday.

Ex now lives in New York. He just got a promotion. And a beautiful new apartment overlooking Central Park.

I asked ex what kinds of New Yorky things he had been up to.

Ex had seen a show.

With whom?

With new girl.

Oh. new girl. I see.

A confusing wave of emotion washed over me.

I’m happy for you. And for new girl. I’m sure she is lovely.

I think I meant that. But what was this that I was feeling? I couldn’t put my finger on the emotion, but I knew it felt bad.

The nature of this mysterious feeling was slowly revealed to me, beginning with a Monday morning e-mail from ex.

It read: “36th,” and then provided a link to a website. I clicked on the link.

Ex had placed 36th in a large American marathon.

He placed in the top 40 of almost 4,000 male runners.

Top 1%.

By any measure, he was a winner.

On my bike ride home from work that night my pant leg became dangerously tangled in the chain spokes. I yanked my leg free, swerving into the curb, and ripping a hole in my pants.

In my dream both ex and I are running in that same big American marathon. I see ex cross the finish line about three miles ahead of me and run into the arms of new girl. She puts one of those foil blankets around him and hugs him protectively. As I finally stumble across the line (in the bottom half of the pack), ex and new girl turn to look back at me. I wipe my brow and give them a meek congratulatory thumbs-up.

I care deeply for ex and I do want him to be happy. So why does his happiness and success make me feel like such a big loser?

Concerned that I was actually a terrible person, I sought assurance from my father - the arbiter of all moral issues in my family.

Nah. It’s human nature, he said.

We want our exes to be happy and successful – but not happier or more successful than we are ourselves.

So there it is. Who am I to argue with human nature? And, I suppose this all makes sense from an evolutionary, selfish gene perspective. Males dance and cluck love songs in stunning displays of virility enabling females to wisely choose their partners in gene propagation. If the female later sees that the top-notch genetic material she forewent is about to be betrothed to another female, feeling like a genetic loser would be the appropriate evolutionary emotion.

Perhaps. But this theory doesn’t sit very well with my view of human women and our role in relationships and in society at large. And in any case, I would like to think that I could transcend my genes.

So I’m going to work on it.

Maybe part of my strategy is to stop viewing the success of ex vs. me as a zero-sum game. Perhaps I can justifiably view part of his happiness as my own personal success. I think we both grew to come to a better understanding of ourselves through our relationship. And surely, that understanding must have in some measure paved the way for his current and future happiness. And mine.

Well- that is more of a long-term strategy.

As a short-term coping mechanism I have taken to daydreaming about racing new girl. We’re in Central Park. Try as she might, and despite the wholehearted encouragement of ex, she just cannot catch up to me.

Why?

Grotesquely thick and heavy ankles.

NOTICE: This is a pure work of fiction. Any likeness to real people or places is coincidental.

Any situation that seems representative of something you experienced is false.

Any emotion that rings true, or feeling you recognize, is a lie.

And if you think that there has been a coincidence, and you think that you can see yourself in here, that too is just your perception. Because you have drawn your own conclusions from what I have written, and you have judged your own experiences through the filter of your mind, and you see patterns where you want to see them.

You might think that there is some thread of truth here. But recognize that this feeling of familiarity has resulted from some often-accessed neural pathway. That pathway was created a long, long time ago when you were learning about what authentic experiences were meant to be.

WARNING: If you find something in here that causes you to feel some emotion that you don’t recognize, you might feel momentarily disoriented or temporarily discomforted.

But fear not.

Because before long you will figure out a way to slot this feeling into one from your rolodex. Take the card out. Examine it. And add this experience as a bullet point under that heading. Place card back in the rolodex. Dust. Place rolodex back on the shelf.

Here, I’ll help you through a simple demonstration:

Assume I write about someone from the fictitious past, who used to be romantically involved with the fictitious central figure in this fictitious story. But he has moved on.

How can this combination of physical stomach chemistry and cardiac circus rhythms be translated into something you can name?

Luckily, thanks to television, movies, and commercials, there is a simple and effective system of nomenclature in place. Start out with subject heading:

Romance.

Scroll to the next order of specificity:

Severed Relationship.

And then:

He’s moved on.

And there you have your answer:

Jealously.

There, don’t you feel better?

And now that you can name it, it must be real and true.

But if you think that it is real and true, go back to the initial NOTICE.

DISCLAIMER: The author of this fictitious work disclaims any and all liability for any and all damage that may come, howsoever caused, should the reader decide to abandon her rolodex.

The author does not recommend this act.

Take the red pill at your own risk.

Far better, in fact, to remain cozy and warm in this fictitious milieu.

Hip Hop Havarti

After a day of intense seminars by judges, academics, practitioners, and educators, the attendees of the conference were in for a treat.

The suits piled into the small space behind the flimsy room divider in Ballroom #2. An elaborate wine and cheese spread had been arranged. We began politely sipping our wine and chatting in hush tones about the day’s themes.

Then, from the corner of the room, under the large luminous chandelier, using a patch of the ubiquitous leaf-patterned carpet as their stage, three young hip hop artists emerged. Bandannas. Baggy pants. Running Shoes.

We fell silent. A piece of gorgonzola dropped out of the gaping mouth of the elderly fellow beside me.

The artists sprung to life to the loud repetitive beats blasting from the large speaker that had been set up beside the performance space.

I looked around at my shell-shocked colleagues. Those who had begun the wine and cheese in casual conversation, now appeared to be huddled together for support. Some looked bemused, others fearful.

A few tried to ignore the music and kept chatting. Some began to clap along to the beat. One woman began doing what looked like a jig. The rest of us exchanged furtive, sidelong glances acknowledging how incongruous this scene had just become.

But as I started to catch the vibe being thrown out by this music group, I was beginning to tune into the vibe from the audience that was now coming into stark relief:

The vibe of collective uncoolness.

I have always been interested by this elusive concept of cool. I enjoy studying groups and figuring out who is the alpha in the pack. I’m fascinated by that hair-clipped poof that women in my area are wearing. But most of all, I’m interested in the way in which people’s perceptions of their own coolness shape their interactions with others.

Certainly, M & I had plenty of time to contemplate the concept during the high school prom while waiting out the slow songs in the girl’s bathroom. M was my unofficial date. S, who wore his grandfather’s kilt to prom, was my other unofficial date. When our friends lined up for a big group photograph at A’s garden pre-party, he stood (about half a foot) behind me. In the photograph, rather than the intended illusion of him being my date, S appears to be some random guy in the background who happened to stick his head in the frame and smile.

I’m not the only one who has made a study of cool. My friend Y has an elaborate theory about "Cool" with a capital "C" and "cool" with a lower case "c". Her theory is that the former is a main-stream type of high school, highlighted, lululemon Cool. The latter is a post-prom counter-culture anti-establishment cool. It is far better, she says, to be little "c". She assures me that this is what I am.

According to research, while true coolness is innate, it can be studied and copied. Author Neil Strauss has written a book, "the Game," for men who are not innately cool. The author studied cool men in their natural habitat and has wrote a guide to emulating cool. Apparently, by following a few simple rules, men can effortlessly bag women.

In reality, my interest in coolness has lost any emotional force and has become purely academic. I no longer feel sorry for the prom girl me who spent ten minutes with her hands under the dryer, while Stairway to Heaven droned relentlessly in the next room. I would like to think that if I were to attend the prom today I would wear a funkier dress, avoid that awful chicken, and, with or without a date, I would dance.

So why couldn’t I get into the hip hop today?

The heels - just couldn’t do it in the heels.