I’m having one of those days…the kind that’s about three weeks long and isn’t showing any signs of relenting. My impatience is ballooning at the same rate as my weight, and my stress level, also like my weight, has hit an all-time high.

It most definitely began with that first Jamaica trip, the one where my flights were cancelled at both ends. That second trip to Jamaica, just a week later, didn’t have any cancellations. In fact, I had a blast, AND I got paid for it. Maybe.

I was, however, deliberately ditched by my clients during that second Jamaica trip, and I’m not being the least bit paranoid here. The 28-year old advertising coordinator (CeCe) and her 26-year old puppy…er, graphic designer colleague (Matt)…ditched me. CeCe told me they were going to drop off their stuff, clean up and then go grab a bite to eat. I told them I was five minutes behind them, and that I just wanted to finish sending off an email on my laptop. (The only place to catch an Internet connection was in the reception area at the main manor house, which is where I was sitting.) It was 6:00 in the evening.

Five minutes later, I was back at the cottage CeCe and I were sharing, but she wasn’t there. Her stuff was in her bedroom, but she wasn’t. I didn’t give it much thought at first, but an hour later, I began to get annoyed. An hour after that, I was pissed. I had already taken two trips down to the manor house to look for them. I did a lap, so to speak, around the pool. I checked all the bars, grills and restaurants. There was no sign of CeCe or Matt.

As I was walking back from my third trek to the manor house, it dawned on me that the only way I could have missed them that first time – back when I was just five minutes behind them – is if they snuck through the side paths that linked the cottages and villas together. And that meant they were purposefully trying to avoid the main road – the only road – and, thus, me.

I was totally starving at this point. Under any other circumstance, I wouldn’t have had an ounce of hesitation to head down to a restaurant, plunk myself down with a good book, and eat all on my own. But you know this about me. The thing is, we were staying at a couples-only resort and I was anything but a couple.

Actually, I probably wouldn’t have had a problem sitting by myself in a restaurant at a couples-only resort if I wasn’t so darned upset. My anger over this blatant abandonment led to one of the biggest pity parties I’ve thrown for myself in years. There were streamers, confetti…even a clown who made balloon animals for me. But like most pity parties – at least the really good ones – I was all by myself. Nobody else showed up to wallow in my ever-expanding misery. It wasn’t enough that I had been ditched. Suddenly, I was completely unattractive, unlovable and doomed to be alone for the rest of my life.

By the time that CeCe showed up back at the cottage, it was 9:45. She played it all innocent, claiming that they came looking for me twice. I didn’t buy it. But, because she was the client, I couldn’t bitch slap her like I really wanted to. The next night, she even joked about ditching me. Yeah, I thought it was hysterical, too.

I got back from Jamaica on the full moon. You know how some moons have some sort of specific astrological significance? Perhaps “the liar’s moon” or “the lover’s moon.” Apparently, I got back to dry land during “the asshole’s moon.” When I kindly asked a man waiting for a wheelchair if he wouldn’t mind moving out of the aisle so that the 200 people behind him could get off the plane, he unleashed a venomous verbal assault on me. All I could do was grab my carry-on suitcase and drag it across four seats to get to the other aisle and get off the plane. That seemed to set the guy off even more.

After making it through Immigration and Customs, I got the Creole Cabbie from hell, who while talking non-stop on his cellphone – and I mean “nonstop”, since it was a very one-sided conversation – nearly killed us several times and took the wrong route to my apartment. When he finally pulled into my driveway, he not only blocked the cars coming in behind us, he didn’t turn off the meter. When I pointed this out to him, he yelled at me, telling me that he didn’t like to be criticized. Then he got into a 30-minute long fight with my building’s valet.

By the time I made it up to my apartment, I was already in a very foul mood. So when I turned on my computer and saw that I didn’t have any emails from the web developer who I had already given lots of money to develop my new destination-based website, I nearly blew a gasket…or I would have blown a gasket, if I knew what a gasket was.

This website…the website I had been planning for nearly two years…was supposed to go live in the middle of August. But I hadn’t seen anything even resembling a website since my developer emailed two mockups of the site design to me back in mid-June. He told me there would be more designs and stuff to look at by the time I got back from my trip, but that turned out to be yet another undelivered promised in a long string of undelivered promises from him. The guy has offered more excuses than a cheating husband. His designer got food poisoning. His partner was sick. His mother was sick. His computers had a virus. Did I mention the email he sent me telling me that he very nearly went under for financial reasons, and he was glad that he would still be able to deliver my website to me.

So I called his office, only to get that operator message that the phone had been disconnected. That’s when the panic set in. I immediately called his cell phone, which rang through to his voice mail. My message was as stream of consciousness as you can get, with phrases like “I’m begging you,” “This is my life’s dream” and “Don’t steal my money” thrown in for good measure.

Surprisingly, I got a call back from my developer within minutes, assuring me that he was working on my website with his team, that he disconnected his office phone to save money and that he’d have me something to look at the next day. He didn’t, of course, and here am I, totally freaking out that I’ll never see my website or my money, and dipping into the Pop Tarts from my hurricane survival kit. Seriously, the guy is playing head games with me. On the one hand, every sign points to him ripping me off. The missed deadlines. The undelivered promises. The disconnected phone. But then he replies to my messages and phone calls. He sends one of his team members to a phone conference with me and another vendor partner. His rating on Guru.com – where I found him – is still great. I don’t know what to believe.

And now I’ve run out of Pop Tarts and have had to break into the Lucky Charms in the hurricane kit. Don’t ask me why I load up with the worst possible sugary kiddy treats during hurricane season. It probably has to do with the fact that, when hunkered down in a windowless bathroom with your Yorkie while 95 mph winds are tearing up your neighborhood, you’d like to have some comfort food around afterwards. At least I draw the line at Mallomars and Nutella, and have even started incorporating healthy-ish foods into the kit, like low-fat peanut butter and whole wheat pita.

Hey, you try riding out a hurricane with veggies and wheatgrass that you can’t do anything with after the power goes out, and then you can judge me.

I hope this endless bad day ends soon…because I’m almost through the Lucky Charms.

Just when I think I’ve got myself figured out, I go and surprise myself. For instance, I truly believed that I would be the last person on the face of the planet to willingly traverse my way across the top of a rainforest canopy. But there I was, wrapped in my harness and zipping along a narrow stainless steel cable at 35 mph with only some cords, carabiners and pulleys keeping me from plummeting down to the rocky forest floor 45 feet below. Even more impressive was the fact that I wasn’t nervous doing it and, in fact, have gleefully become a zipline devotee. I’m even considering asking my building’s management to install a zipline from my terrace to the parking garage so that I can bypass the elevators and just swing down to my car.

I was also entirely convinced that I was dolphin repellent. This theory first saw its formation at SeaWorld® in San Diego, many, many years ago, when not a single mystical porpoise in the open pool swam towards me. It seemed quite obvious to me that they were, in fact, swimming away from me. I was able to validate my hypothesis over the last ten years, when every single resident of my apartment building seemed to witness the leaping performances of the dolphins that allegedly dwell in the waters of Biscayne Bay, upon which our building is perched. I say “allegedly” because I’ve never actually spotted a single dolphin. I’m the one who arrives only when the crowds gathered at water’s edge are engaged in an excited dissertation of this aquatic spectacle, waiting for a repeat performance that seems to come only when I go back inside the building.

After carefully considering the events of this past week, however, I’ve come to realize that my problem isn’t with dolphins as a species per se, but, in fact, only with American dolphins. Jamaican dolphins seem to like me just fine. I got to swim with one named Calypso, and he (or she) wasn’t repelled or repulsed by me. Calypso let me touch it. Calypso let me grab its fins before taking me for a gentle swim around the lagoon. Calypso let me kiss it. And even after my group’s time with Calypso had come to its scheduled end, Calypso swam to me – and only me – and gave me some quality one-on-one time. As the others in my group looked on enviously (hatefully?) from the shore, Calypso and I shared a few kisses, hugs and high fives before we reluctantly parted.

I’ll have to test out my newfound appeal here in Miami and see if word has gotten back to the American-bred dolphins that, hey, maybe I’m okay. Maybe it’s okay to show me some love. I’ll let you know how that goes.

…again. I’m hopeful that, this time, my flights will actually leave on the same day they’re scheduled to leave. And I’m going to remain optimistic that I’ll have Internet access, so that I can keep in touch. You know what they say, after all…as long as there’s hope, there is life.

I met my first true love, Keith, at the beginning of my junior year of high school. I put the word true in there only because I had said the words I love you before and, in all fairness, I thought I meant them.

I said I love you to David in the 6th grade, even adopting my parents’ ubiquitous acronym “ILY” as our own. David went so far as to ask me to marry him, even presenting me with a stunning, 3-carat glass diamond ring that I wore all summer long. But David disappeared from my life. One day he was there, the next he was gone. No note. No phone call. It took weeks of sleuthing to learn that he had moved to Arizona with his family, thus ending our brief engagement.

I kept the ring, of course.

I said I love you to Michael in the 7th grade, even after I cheated on him with Rick during summer camp. I don’t think Michael loved me very much after that. I didn’t love myself very much after that, to be honest. Sure, Rick had done everything he could to seduce me with his older (8th grade) charms. He wooed me. He flattered me. He bought me little gifts, flashed those dimples at me and called me his girl. But the moment I gave in and let him feel me up while we made out, the game was over. All Rick wanted was bragging rights, and I pretty much handed them to him, cheap tartlet that I was. Michael forgave me, but things were never the same after that and, given that we lived three towns apart and were years away from being able to drive, we ended up growing apart.

The next I love you didn’t come until my sophomore year of high school, when I met Jimmy #1. Jimmy #1 was the very first boyfriend I had who not only drove, but who actually owned his own car. He was a senior at a Catholic high school the next town over, so you can only imagine how delighted my semi-Jewish parents were that their 15-year old daughter was dating an 18-year old Catholic senior with a shiny new VW Schirocco.

That said, my parents grew to love Jimmy #1, but only after I started dating Jimmy #2 immediately after Jimmy #1 broke up with me. Where Jimmy #1 lived in a lovely house with his widowed mother, Jimmy #2, who was a 19-year old high school dropout, lived in a tiny motel room on the highway with his father and worked as a…well, I’m don’t even remember what he did for a living. Jimmy #2 owned a horse and a car, and that made him completely desirable to the naïve girl that I was. I’m pretty sure the fact that my parents absolutely loathed him added to the appeal. I was, after all, a teenager. I never actually said I love you to Jimmy #2, and he ended up breaking up with me after I wouldn’t “put out” for him.

I definitely “put out” for Keith, though. I went as far as you could with him, without actual penetration. More than that, with Keith, it was the first time that I loved anyone with all of my heart. It may also have been the last time.

Keith and I met at a Battle of the Bands. To be more precise, Keith spotted me that night, but we never met and, well, I never even saw him there. Keith was from the next town over, there to support his friends’ band. It so happened that my friend Julie was dating the lead singer in his friends’ band, so the next day at school, Julie told me that this really cute guy totally fell for me and wanted to meet me. Being from the next town over and a few months away from having a driver’s license, Keith walked and hitched his way to meet me after school a few days later. We were exchanging I love you’s within a week.

And I did truly, totally love this boy. He was cute and handsome at the same time, in that way that almost-17-year old boys are cute and handsome at the same time. I submersed myself in Keith, and he in me. We spent hours upon hours talking and kissing and gazing silently into each other’s eyes. We wrote love notes to each other all the time, expressing our deepest thoughts and feelings, quoting the lyrics of our favorite Journey songs when we found ourselves at a loss for adequate words.

Keith and I explored each other’s bodies all the time, marking our favorite spots. For me, it was a single bone at the bottom of his hairless chest. I played with it all the time, kissing it or just caressing it absently with my fingers while we lay in each other’s arms. We also learned how to arouse each other. Keith is the one who first introduced me to my clitoris, a part of my body that I’d read about in sex ed but never actually discovered for myself. For that matter, Keith is the one who introduced me my first orgasm, something he managed to do simply by fondling my clitoris while we watched TV on the sofa of my father’s study. When that tingling sensation began, I was completely and utterly terrified by it. I made him stop.

There wasn’t any part of myself – other than my virginity – that I didn’t give Keith in the nearly four whole months that we were together and, when he broke up with me, claiming to have a crush on my cousin (who happened to go to his school), I was shattered.

Since Keith, I’ve said I love you to four men. I said it to my college boyfriend, who I was with for two years, and to my ex-husband. I said I love you to Giovanni, the lovely Bolivian man who tried sweeping me off my feet and had our entire future mapped out for us.

The last time I said I love you was to Esteban, my beautiful Chilean lover, who tried as hard as he could for nearly a year to stay in our relationship. In the end, though, Esteban could no more proclaim his undying love for me than he could manage a committed relationship. We broke up shortly after my fortieth birthday.

So here it is, three years later…three years without a man in my life…and I think I’m finally ready for love. For true love. I think I’ve finally gotten myself to the point where I’m ready to give all of myself to the right man, in a way I haven’t done since Keith. Because I can also be honest and say that, since Keith, I’m not sure I ever really meant it when I said I love you to a man. I seemed to love my college boyfriend a whole lot more when he was putting up obstacles than I did when he wanted me to move in with him after graduation. I knew going into my marriage that I wasn’t in love with my husband, but thought he was a good man and would make a good father to children I still thought I wanted. Giovanni? He was a Latin lover. Nothing more. I loved that he loved me and that he did everything he could to place me into his future plans.

Steve I may very well have been in love with. It’s hard to say, because I was so busy holding myself back from him, trying to keep him from getting hurt, that I don’t think I can even say I was in that relationship. Steve got the “good” Elle, the nurturing Elle. But he never saw the wacky Elle, the intellectual Elle or the angry Elle. I homogenized myself, filtering out anything that might be seen as scary, intimidating or unusual. I wanted to fix Steve, to heal him, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I just ended up breaking myself for a while.

I know Steve is the last broken boy I want in my life. I’m ready to love someone for who they are, not who I want them to be. More than that, I’m ready to be loved for who I am.

By the way, Keith did end up taking my virginity. It was my freshman year of college and I just wanted my damned virginity gone. It had become an inconvenience, and I didn’t want to have it hanging over my head anymore. So I called up Keith and offered up my proverbial cherry to him. It wasn’t romantic or wonderful. There were no orgasms involved, just painful, almost clinical sex. But I got what I wanted… and so did Keith.

I work for some pretty ritzy clients. I do, and it’s a wonderful thing. I have stuff I’ve done for luxury cruise lines and five-star resorts overflowing from my portfolio. I get to tour sprawling multi-million dollar mansions and then write about them. And I’m fairly certain I’ve mentioned that my client in London travels the world on his private Gulfstream. So between the lot of them, I’m getting pretty used to living a certain vicarious lifestyle. It’s not my lifestyle, mind you. I’m just basking in the glow of luxury, not making my home in it.

A few weeks ago, Alex, one of the brokers for my real estate client, asked if I was married, this while standing in front of a five million dollar estate. I wasn’t sure where he was heading with this question. Did he have a son he wanted to fix me up with? A client? Hey, I was open to anything. So I told him I was single.

“Well, any guy that comes along for you in the future is going to have a lot to live up to,” Alex said. I still couldn’t see where this was leading.

“Why?” I asked.

“After touring all of these gorgeous mansions,” he said, “I’m sure your standards have gone up.” And to be certain he emphasized this point, he added, “Way up.”

He couldn’t have been more wrong, actually.

Even though I’ve spent the better part of the last ten years writing copy for some of the top cruise lines in the world, I really don’t like cruising. It’s just not for me, if only for the reason that I’ve never taken the tourist approach to travel. I prefer to linger and explore the places nobody else knows about. With a cruise, though, it’s all about get in, get out, say you were there. I call it “Kamikaze Touring.”  Again, not for me.

Similarly, while I love seeing the insides of these truly stunning, lavish and inconceivably appointed estates, I have no desire to live in one. Heck, I don’t have any desire to even own a condo. For me, it’s all about simplicity. The older I get, the less I want and the more mobile I want to be. Had I landed this client back in my twenties, you can bet your sweet bippy that I’d be plotting my way to getting myself one of these showplaces. Back then, I wanted it all: the mansion, the yacht and the lifestyle.

But the reality of it all is enough to make me want to just say no. No to the ridiculously extravagant property taxes and maintenance costs. No to having to hire several staff people just to keep the place clean. No to the tens of thousands of dollars in utilities, or even just to the effort of running the place. And, really, I’d have to work my ass off just to be able to afford to keep the place.

I’ll pass on the yacht, too. It’s become too much of a cliché, for starters. Nothing good can come out of owning a yacht. I’m not talking about a boat. I live in South Florida. I know lots of people with boats. But the people I’ve met who own yachts…oh, I so don’t want to be known as one of those people. As far as I can tell, these people bought themselves a nasty sense of self-entitlement when they purchased their big boats. If they’ve got their yacht, they deserve a whole lot more, at least in their minds. They rarely bother taking to the wheel themselves, usually hiring themselves a captain and crew to ferry them over to the Bahamas, or to Catalina Island for you West Coasters, for the weekend.

I’ll stick to the simple life, thank you very much. The only luxury lifestyle benefit I would never, ever turn down is a ride in someone’s private jet, particularly not after all the cancellations and mishaps of my recent commercial flights. (Take that, American Airlines.) But I don’t see that as a luxury, anymore, as much as it is a convenience. A very expensive convenience.