Divinities

Letter of Resignation

2007-01-15T09:48:00.000-05:00

I don't really know how to say this, so I'm just going to come right out with it: I quit.

I started this blog two years ago on the advice of a friend, who suggested that, because I love to write, I should get a blog, put what I have out there to be found. And, after much consideration and poking around at other people's blogs, I decided to go ahead and go for it. I didn't tell anyone I knew about it, I just kept it my little secret, a place where I could write every day, twice a day, or not at all. I was proud of myself for keeping it to myself, but when my first comment came, I couldn't contain my joy. I told my parents. And then some friends. And then my boss. And I started mentioning it in conversation. The more people who read it, the better, I reasoned.

I won't lie, a piece of me hoped to be one of those blogger-Cinderella stories, where someone would run across my page, see the genius between my lines, and offer me a multi-million dollar book deal. Obviously, the chances of that happening were slim, and as I let go of that possibility, I began to fall in love with the idea of blogging just for the sake of doing it. I met some incredible people, I enjoyed the feedback, I liked that it made me write regularly, something I'd failed to do sans blog.

But there was the bad side, too. Anonymous people who accused me of being self-centered and bitchy, judgemental and superficial. People who assaulted my character and my abilities and me. I've cried over comments, to my then-boyfriend, who didn't understand why some stupid comment made by some random person could get me so upset. Later on, I complained to Billy, too, that people could be so mean to me. "If you want to be a writer," he said matter-of-factly, "you're going to have to learn to take criticism. You're going to have to accept that not everyone is going to like you, or your writing." He had a point. And I thought "Okay, I'll toughen up."

But it's easier to steel yourself against the wrath of strangers who think they know you, than it is to prepare for the wrath of people you actually know.

Turns out, I'm too sensitive to steel myself for much of anything. I pour myself into the words here most times, and someone's misunderstanding of what I've written breaks my heart. I feel the need to explain it, to rectify the inadvertent wrong I've done. But sometimes explaining isn't enough when people feel that you've said something horrible about them. Even when you haven't.

So, some people in my real life, Billy included, stopped reading. I offended people I had no intention of offending. I cried over that, too. Because it's one thing when complete strangers hate what you write. It's another thing entirely when it's people who know you.

Having always been concious (or so I thought) of other people's feelings, I then started watching what I wrote more closely than ever. I went over each prospective post with a fine-toothed comb, trying to find ways - other than how I intended - that the post could be read. And I had to leave entire chapters of my life out of the blog because I knew I was only playing with fire to write about it. And, before I knew it, the blog just became fluff.

From time to time, after writing a really good post and hitting "Save as Draft" instead of "Publish," for fear that someone would be mad at me for talking about something that was completely benign in my book, I started to get bitter. Wait a second, isn't this supposed to be my blog? Shouldn't I be able to write about whatever I want to write about? It's about me. Shouldn't I have the option to talk about my life?

The answer, apparently, was no.

"That blog," I've said about a million times, "is more trouble than it's worth." I'd say that, and then briefly consider quitting. But I always came back to the fact that I love blogging. Love. It. It's the one thing I do for myself. The one thing that I truly enjoy. So I wouldn't quit, I'd just censor myself a little bit more. Try to move past worrying about what other people think and just write. And that would last about three days. Then I'd be right back to worrying again.

There are a handful of things I'm dying to write about, but can't. And those are the things that weigh heaviest on my mind, yet I can't write a single word about them. I'm not allowed. Not because I want to say anything nasty about anyone, but because there's bound to be one person out there who would find a way to be offended by it. So I struggle for something else, something less radical, to write about. And what am I left with? Posts about the fact that I have a cold.

That's not why I started this blog, and that's not why people read it. I started it and it was read because of posts in which I was completely honest about my neuroses, my insecurities, my fears, my life, my heart. And I stopped writing that way a long time ago. Not because of comments - I guess, in opening up your life on a blog, you're apt to get people who think they know you because they've read a handful of posts - but because of people I actually know who may, somehow, take offense to what I've written. Even though, nine times out of ten, I have no idea how that happens.

And now, almost EXACTLY two years after I began it, I'm realizing that I should've stayed anonymous. I should've refrained from telling anyone about it. I should've pretended I had no idea what a blog was. But it's too late, now. And I can't go back and change anything. Here I thought I was sharing a piece of me with everyone I told. I was wrong. No one took it that way. I guess the same way I've made every post relate to me, people who read it can just make it all about them. Even though it's not. It is about me. It was my blog, to write as I wish. But I lost that privelige.

So I quit.

I'm sick of making excuses for this blog. I'm sick of worrying that I've hurt someone's feelings by writing. I'm sick of not writing because I fear someone will find a way to be offended by it. I'm sick of writing, posting, and then removing things because all I do anymore is second-guess what I've written. I'm sick of staring at the same stupid post on the main page for days because I can't write anything else. I'm sick of not being allowed to write about parts of my life. I'm sick of all of it.

This blog was supposed to be about me. Not a tiny sliver of me, padded with safe anecdotes that didn't run the risk of offending anyone. It wasn't supposed to be about what other people thought. It wasn't supposed to foster worry and anger and embarrassment and fighting. It wasn't supposed to make me feel this way. I'm just sick and tired of making excuses for it, of explaining to every person in my real life who gets pissed at me over it, "It's not about YOU." Because it's not. It never has been. It's always been about ME. Selfish? Sure. But, if I'm not mistaken, this blog is mine. And I'm so tired of explaining that. I'm sick of writing while I'm worried about everyone else's feelings but my own. This was the one place I had in my life to not worry about that. Well, no longer. This blog is just as infested with my desire to make everyone happy as my day-to-day life is. Even now, writing this, I'm thinking about who will read this and think "She's talking about me." I'm not, okay? It's not about you. Whoever you are.

This decision wasn't spurred by a certain event. It's more a culmination of about a million things. But the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back came this morning, in which I found myself writing yet another email explaining myself. Before I even finished writing the fucking email, I just gave up. I can't bear to send out another letter, make another phone call, have another conversation in which I say "That's not how I meant it." I thought I was a clear writer, I thought the reader could surmise my point in what I'd written. Turns out that's not the case. (But, statistically, it seems that strangers get the point better than people who know me. Go figure.) And I just can't do it any more.

I've loved this so much. I've loved every person I met through this blog, every friendship I've fostered, every email conversation it initiated. But I just can't do this any more. It is more trouble than it's worth.

Thank you to everyone who has read what I've written. Thank you for being kind enough to write nice things in my comments section. Thank you for spending your time on my words. Thank you for sticking around.

It's been fun. And I will miss you terribly.

Under Pressure

2007-01-13T10:01:00.000-05:00

After a long, drawn out conversation, some tears, some fighting words, some debating and some pleading on both parts, Billy and I finally agreed to get married in fourteen years. It was a compromise between our two very different views on the subject: Me, wanting to get married STAT, and him wanting to get married never. He chose the time frame, not me. I don't know that he based it on anything specific, only that it seemed to be pretty fair middle ground between "Now" and "Never."

Since our agreement, since the day he sighed, slouched in defeat and said, "If it will make you happy, we can get married...In fourteen years," things on the marriage front have been quiet. I know it's going to happen, and I know I needn't bother myself with questions of when or how he will propose until roughly 12 and half years from now. It relaxed my tightly-wound neuroses of "he loves me, he loves me not," knowing that a man who never bends went ahead and got flexible enough to keep our relationship alive. It's all about compromise. I give up being a young bride, he gives up indefinite bachelorhood. It's fair.

It also makes discussing the future easier. I feared that, in finding yet another man who never wanted to enter a state of Holy Matrimony, I gave up the ability to wish, out loud, for my wedding. To be called a missus. To use "When we get married" in conversation. But now that it's out there, now that an agreement has been reached, I can use it whenever I want.

"Thirteen and a half years left!" I say whenever the subject of marriage comes up. He rolls his eyes and laughs, then does the math in his head.

"I believe it's thirteen years and EIGHT MONTHS," he'll say in a know-it-all-voice. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves." And then he laughs and kisses my forehead and I feel at ease. I know where we're headed, and how long it's going to take to get there. He may never have been on the freeway of love this long, but damnit if he hasn't gone ahead and put it on cruise control. Because we ain't stoppin. Whether he likes it or not.

Yet the time remaining until our nuptials is always up for debate. It's a constant source of mock-debate and mock-anger, the perfect segue into a wrasslin' match that finds us worn out after too much time trying to pin each other down while giggling profusely. And, while I'm satisfied with where we are and where we're going, I still like to bring it up. And I'll always say the time remaining is a little shorter than it is, he'll maintain it's a bit longer. It's become a little joke between us, the constant disparity between his timeline and mine.

And so, to settle any dispute, I found a countdown clock online that could be customized to whatever date, whatever event you wish. While Billy sat in the living room watching some bird documentary, I went ahead and made a little countdown clock of my own. Big bold letters on a bright pink background read "You are cordially invited to the wedding of Laurie and Billy in..." And below that title, time ticked away. Five thousand days, fourteen hours, thirty-two minutes and 10, 9, 8, 7... seconds until we were pronounced Man and Wife. I laughed diabolically as I created it, pleased with myself and how hilarious it was.

"Biiiillllyyyy," I sang through the house. "Cooomeee hheeeeerreee..."

And, oblivious to what I was doing on the computer, he lumbered into the room and sat down next to me. "Look!" I commanded, smiling from ear to ear.

He started to look a little pale as he took it in, then looked at me with are you serious knitted into his eyebrows. I kept giggling. "Isn't it wonderful?" I said, bringing my clasped hands up to the side of my titled face, my tone and demeanor hyper-romantic and dreamy, like a character from some 1950s romance movie.

"Five thousand days?" He said, shaking his head. He sucked in air through his teeth. "That's pretty close. We'd better push it back."

I stopped laughing, and gave him my pseudo-angry face. He laughed at my reaction, and I resumed laughing to myself as he meandered back into the living room to continue his television watching.

My giggles slowed to a stop as I closed out the page and, with it, the countdown to our wedding.

A few days later, getting ready for work together, we were listening to a radio show in which the DJs were discussing people who date forever and then get married, and how those marriages never work because, and I quote, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Billy shot me a knowing look, and I shot him back a "Whatever. Don't think these douchebags are going to convince me that we shouldn't get married. You have to come up with something better than that" look.

While he brushed his teeth, the DJs took a call from a man who declared that he proposed to his wife after ten years only because he felt pressured; that he wouldn't have gotten married if not for her constant pressure. So he broke down and did it. Against his will.

I looked at Billy in the mirror, under the wand I was using to apply mascara. "I don't pressure you," I said matter-of-factly. I finished my mascara application and screwed the tube closed. "You're lucky."

He spit his toothpaste into the sink and looked at me, a look of shock and disgust on his face. "Countdown clock," was all he said.

I laughed as I tossed all of my makeup into its bag. "That was a joke, not pressure. If it were pressure, I'd have made it so that it popped up every time you turned on the computer or something. But I didn't. I just made it, showed you, and deleted it. See? I'm awesome."

"Riiight," he said, eyeing me suspiciously.

"Oh trust me, babe. Make no mistake, when I start pressuring you, you'll know it. You've got about 4,000 days until I really kick it into high gear."

I think he started to argue, but he passed out. All that marriage talk was just too much for him.

But, no matter. He's got five thousand days to get used to the idea.

Damnit.

2007-01-10T08:48:00.000-05:00

I have a cold. It started yesterday with a tightness in my throat, then became an inability to clear said throat. Then it became a full-body exhaustion, which rendered me completely useless from two in the afternoon on. I cancelled plans with my little brother so that I could lay in bed and feel sorry for myself and possibly nap. I couldn't sleep, but that didn't keep me from just laying there all night.

Today, I woke up to find someone apparently replaced my esophagus with sandpaper. It feels great. I feel like that kid in the Chloraseptic commercial when I was a wee one: "It'll hurt if I swallow, it'll hurt if I swallow, it'll hurt if I...MOOOOMMMMYYYYY!!!!"

Having a cold has the following effect on my life:

I stop going to the gym, because I'm always looking for a valid excuse to not go, for some reason. Even though I pay a monthly fee and want to be tight and toned, I'm ecstatic when I think of an actual reason (besides sheer laziness) to not go. The Cold Excuse is brilliant because it works on so many levels. One, the "I can't breathe right *cough cough* and I'm severely uncomfortable working out in this state" angle. Two, the "Coughing and sniffling make me run out of breath faster, so I can't keep up with the class" angle. And the third, but most undisputable, angle: "If I'm sick, and I go to the gym, I could get everyone else sick. And I don't want to do that. I'm really not going for you, my fellow gym patron." See? I'm so altruistic. So there's that.
But while I'm not going to the gym, I'm busy eating everything in sight. It's easy to convince myself that it's okay to eat those dozen chicken wings, and that tub of Ben & Jerry's when I'm saying, "Feed a cold, starve a fever! I need calories to fight off this sickness! Calories, calories, CALORIES! Hey, are you going to finish that beef jerky? Can I have it? What about that chocolate bar? And, do you know what would be really great? SALSA!" And I can't get full. So I just keep going. And I don't feel guilty until the morning after, when I go to get in the shower and realize that my gut cannot be sucked in. Whoops. So then I vow to go to the gym. And then I realize I don't have to! I have a free pass! I have a cold!
I can't write. Nothing good, anyway. I spent the better part of yesterday trying to get this intricate web of parallels between Billy and this show we watched into a coherent post, but to no avail. Instead, I wound up with a disjointed three pages of gibberish. My words were flat and boring, my thoughts just jumped around all over the place. There was no unity to the damn thing. Unless you were actually inside of my head and knew what I was going for, there was no way you'd understand it. So I just saved it and I'll go back to it later, when I don't feel like curling up under my desk for a nap.
I cry. I cried last night because I cancelled plans with my brother. And then I cried while watching Patriot Act: A Jeffrey Ross Movie, because all of those comedians went Iraq to see the troops. And I love the troops.
I'm irritable. I was grouchy because A) Billy put his cold hand on my bloated belly, B) he wouldn't let me get up to eat and C) he layed almost directly on top of me when we got to bed. Normally, I love all of these things, but my fuse was so short, and my desire to be touched so minimal, that I just sort of panicked and got away from him as quickly as I could. It's a good thing he loves me. A lesser person would get mad at me for it.
I'm mushy. Because, even though I was irritated, it made me all soft and squishy to think about the fact that, even with puffy eyes, scratchy throat, runny nose and a generally bad attitude, Billy loves me enough to still touch me and take care of me.
I also revert to childhood. I'm whiny and needy. Luckily, Billy's the same way when he's sick. So we understand each other.
Where did this become a post about Billy?
I need to sleep.

So, anyway, yeah. I have a cold. I want to post something worth reading, but I'm just not up to it. As soon as I start writing, my brain just veers off in another direction (see above). So I can't be trusted with a keyboard and blank post page. I just can't. There's no telling what I'll write about.

I'll write something when I can think clearly and stare at a screen without zoning out and coming to five minutes later, wondering what I was doing in the first place.

Filler

2007-01-06T17:44:00.000-05:00

Because I can't write about anything else right now, how about this?! I found this meme at Temporary Madness a while ago, and was saving it for just such an occasion.

If Your Life Was A Movie:

Here’s how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Play, iPod, etc.)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool.

Opening Credits:
Nuthin' But a G Thang - Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg

Waking Up:
We Belong - Pat Benetar

First Day of School:
Blessed - Martina McBride

Falling In Love:
Cheating Man - Anthony David

Sex Scene:
Enough Cryin' - Mary J. Blige

Fight Song:
Something Happened on the Way to Heaven - Deborah Cox

Breaking Up:
Catalyst - Anna Nalick

Prom:
Gasolina - Daddy Yankee

Life:
Don't Dream it's Over - Crowded House

Mental Breakdown:
Before He Cheats - Carrie Underwood

Driving:
She Is - The Fray

Flashback:
Try a Little Tenderness - Otis Redding

Getting Back Together:
Just Friends - Musiq

Wedding:
Lucille - Anthony Hamilton

Birth of A Child:
I Give, You Take - Maria

Final Battle:
Last Call - Kanye West

Death Scene:
Platinum Blonde Life - No Doubt

I'd buy that soundtrack....Even if most of those songs have absolutely nothing to do with the scene it's attached to.

And, while we're on the topic of music, can I just say that someone really needs to get me away from iTunes? Seriously. I'm going to go broke. I don't even want to tell you how much money I've spent on songs so far. And let us not forget that I still have a three whole books, a bag and a moving box full of CDs that I need to import into iTunes. My iPod, in case you don't know, only holds 500 songs - my iTunes has, right now, at least double that currently stored. This makes for quite the precarious situation. Because I have a really hard time deciding which songs have to be cut from my bulging list. Granted, all of those songs are stored on my computer, and I can add or remove songs whenever I like, but still: What if I'm driving down the road and I have a sudden urge to hear Kelis' Milkshake (a song I removed because it continued to come up on the shuffle, and each time it began, I hit next before I get through even five seconds)? Huh? What then? I mean, I doubt it, but the chance is there. Just today, I bought eight songs and a whole album. And the only reason I stopped at that was because I had laundry to do and I got distracted. So far, I've listened to all of those songs all day long. But now I'm back at my computer, and I can't be trusted. iTunes is right there, just begging me to buy more songs.

That being said, if I ever had to actually plot out a soundtrack to my life, it would be a boxed set of, oh, about A MILLION CDs. Let's be glad I was limited to the categories as instructed by the meme.

I Want Candy

2007-01-04T15:48:00.000-05:00

“I read your blog,” said my fellow gym-member yesterday as we each wiggled into our respective gym clothes in the locker room.

My eyes went wide as I tied my new sneakers. “Oh yeah?” I said as I searched my brain for anything possibly offensive I may have written. It’s my standard reaction anytime I hear that someone I know in real life has found my piece of the internet.

“I think my favorite line,” she said, pulling her shirt over her head, “was ‘the sight of [Billy] walking into a room is followed immediately by the sound of hundreds of panties falling to the floor.’” We both laughed. “What is he, made of chocolate or something?”

“To me he is.”

She zipped up her bag and tossed it on the floor. “You are so in love, it’s disgusting.”

“I know.”

It’s true. I am. It is disgusting. But I can’t help it. In fact, I’m so in love with that man that I spent the better part of yesterday being mad because he chose to spend the previous night playing video games instead of hanging out with me. Because that’s totally justified, right? Being mad because your boyfriend – who spends approximately 98.76% of his very sparse free time with you – decided to actually spend a little bit of that free time on himself?

I thought so – because I needed him, and he chose PS2. That, to me, was reason enough to get all salty and bent out of shape. I relayed my woes to my mother via email, and was met with a response that went a little something like this: Oh, STOP it. He deserves time with himself or his friends. Stop acting like a spoiled kid.

That’s the abridged version of what she wrote, but it really gets the point across. It’s true, I was acting like a brat who didn’t get her way and, therefore, decided to throw a tantrum. And I was totally out of line. And I knew that, even while I was sticking out my lower lip and threatening to stomp my feet. But it didn’t make me any more agreeable.

My reasons, though arguable, all boil down to me loving him. Because, when he’s home, I want to be with him. It doesn’t matter that we’ve spent the last three days attached at the hip, that we spent the better part of his New Year’s Day birthday in bed. It doesn’t matter that we live together, that we talk during the day, that I’ll see him tomorrow. The only thing that matters is that the time he’s choosing to spend a floor away from me is time we could be spending together. And I want to spend it together: Why doesn’t he?

What’s hard to remember is that he works so much. And while I’m visiting my friends, driving around by myself, shopping alone, doing laundry, tooling around on the internet, going to the gym, seeing my family, he’s at work. While I’m marinating in alone time, he’s at work. While I’m fulfilling social obligations, he’s at work. And I’m getting everything I need to get done out of the way before he even thinks about getting in the car to head home. So it’s hard to remember that those things, for him, still need to be tended to: The time with friends, family, himself. The way I see it, from my selfish vantage point, those things have been taken care of already, and I’ve been saving up my day, just waiting, with baited breath and expectant eyes, for him to come home so I can see him.

And, if I had the choice, I’d spend my every second with him. I’d talk to him until his ears bled, until my vocal chords wore thin and snapped. Because I want to share all of me with him: From the start of my day to the fuzzy end. I want him to know it all. And I want him to want to know it all.

And, usually, he does. But, sometimes, he just wants to relax. He wants to spend most of his time with me, but sometimes, he needs time alone. And I know it, I do.

But it’s hard to remember that when I get giddy with the sound of his footsteps downstairs; When all I want to do is curl up in his tired, warm arms. I’m childish in my excitement to see him, so why wouldn’t I be childish in my reaction to not seeing him?

So, yeah, he must be made of chocolate.

New Year

2007-01-02T22:12:00.000-05:00

So I guess this is the post where I'm supposed to talk about all of the resolutions I'll be making for the year 2007. I'm supposed to say that I'm going to be a better friend and eat less and work out more and keep my priorities in check; Love more, worry less, be more willing to take chances, be less uptight; be more accepting of change, stop clinging to my routines. I'd love to write all of those things, but I'd love even more to write them and actually have an intention of following through. Sadly, I know I won't.

I never stick to my resolutions. Never. In fact, I don't even make them anymore. Because, by January 3rd, I can hardly even remember what I'd resolved. So I give up. No resolutions for me.

And, anyway, I don't feel like this year is a fresh start. It seems that, the older I get, one year just bleeds into the next without me noticing. I don't feel brand new, I don't feel on the verge of change. I feel like me, except that now I have to pay special attention when I write out checks to ensure I don't accidentally write "06." That's the only real change I feel.

Maybe I'm just not in the right frame of mind: Maybe I'm just too comfortable in the way things are right now. It's just the general feeling of quaint similarity that clings to me that keeps me from shouting about change. I've been desperate to escape '06 since June, when each visit I made to the doctors office just brought more bad news. And I was even more desperate to escape it when our house was robbed, when my cat died. But I pushed through December with some good stories, and a handful of heavy experience. I felt the love of the friends who were there for me when I needed them, felt the absence of the others. I found a new appreciation for my family, and for my boyfriend.

Last year was a thick mix of good and bad.

Standing on this cliff that is January, I don't see a whole lot of change or possibility ahead of me. While I see more doctor's appointments, I also see the same few friends I've always had, the same incredible family, the same amazing boyfriend. I see that I'll still care too much what people think about me, I'll want too desperately to be liked. I see that I'll continue to be burned by certain people, and continue to be soothed by others. I see that I'll never learn, that I'll be too trusting even when I know I shouldn't be. I see myself stressing out over nothing; I see myself freaking out over the smallest things. I see all of it because that's just who I am. And making some proclamation at 12:01 on January first will never change that. I'll always care. I'll always worry. I'll always want to make other people happy, comfortable. I'll always bend over backwards to do that, and I'll always wind up only turning myself into someone's whipping girl to ensure their comfort. But, too, I'll always have that family, that boyfriend, those friends. And they love me because of - or in spite of - my idiosyncrasies, my neuroses. Because I do have a good heart and always the best of intentions. Because I'm not malicious or hurtful. Because I'm genuine and overly sensitive and overly analytical. Because that's who I am. And I don't need to resolve anything to make me more me.

The better me is in the works every day, every year. I don't need January 1st to make me look at myself with a critical eye.

This year, I traded wishes for a happy new year with my mom via cell phone, and missed my family when the clock struck midnight. But I slid from 2006 into 2007 with the man I love, and with some really incredible people. I was happy as I left the party in the wee hours of the new year. Happy with my life, the people I love, me. And that's really all that matters, isn't it?

Happy New Year. May this one be as interesting as the last.

"It Costs A Lot of Money to Ride This Train."

2006-12-30T19:39:00.000-05:00

After holding one massive "I have no friends, I'm bored, I have nothing to do" pity party for myself on Wednesday and spending 100% of my day in my house, mostly in my bedroom, Billy insisted that, on Thursday, I get the eff out of my house. "Do something," he said, as he buttoned up his shirt for work.

"Like WHAT?" I whined from my spot in the bed. The same spot, incidentally, that I'd been in since the day prior. "There's nothing to do."

"We're an hour away from New York City," he insisted. "Go to the city for the day. Have lunch in some hole-in-the-wall cafe. Or walk around. But you have to get out of this house today."

I rolled my eyes and sighed. "I don't know my way around the City. I'm not going there."

And as soon as I uttered that sentence, my little brother's car pulled up in our driveway. Having the week off of school and days of nothing to do, too, he'd come to see if I'd like to go with him to get his oil changed. I told him no, but that if he gave me an hour to get ready, we'd go get lunch or something. As he drove back down our driveway, Billy looked at me with a face that had inspiration all over it.

"Take your brother," he instructed. "Go to the city with your brother; you'll get to spend time with him and you'll get out of the house and actually do something."

"He doesn't know his way around the city either," I protested.

"It's a grid pattern. You guys will figure it out."

"I don't think so," I said. "But I'll go to Middletown with him and get some lunch or something."

"Fine," he replied, tightening his tie, figuring the battle was lost.

But as soon as he left the house, I called Chase. "We're going on an adventure," said into the receiver.

"To where?"

"I'll tell you later," I said.

And two hours later, we were at Garrison Train Station, waiting for the New York City bound Metro North train.

That's Chase at Garrison's platform, captured via my camera phone; because, in all of my excitement to go on an "adventure," I forgot my camera. Brilliant. I didn't think of it until we were sitting there, listening to the sizzle of the tracks that preceded the train's arrival. So, quickly, I cleaned out all of the random shots I've captured on my phone in the past few months so that I'd have enough space to catch the city in the tiny memory my phone affords.

I was excited. And not just because Chase was tickling my chin like a little puppy. But because it did feel kind of adventurous for me. Being on a train on a random Thursday, speeding toward one of the biggest cities in the world. I mean, sure, we had no plan, no directions, no specific landmarks to visit; Sure, we were totally flying by the seat of our pants, unsure of what we would do once we came to Grand Central...But, still. That was the very definition of adventurous. Right?

It was Chase's first time on the train, and also his first time going to the City on a trip that wasn't a field trip for high school or on an outing with my mom's coworkers. I've been on the train many times before, but always going to meet someone who knew where they were going. So it was a big deal for the both of us. But, he was pretty unsure of what to do with himself and the tickets and so forth. So I bought his ticket and handed it to him, told him not to lose it, and to give it to the ticket guy when he came around. "That's it?" he said after it'd been punched and given back to him. "Well, yeah. Because that's your return ticket, too. So don't lose it."

We were talking about how they must change hole-punches every day to make sure people don't get all sneaky and try reusing their tickets. We concluded that that particular day must've been "Cock and Balls" Hole Punch Day:

See that? Right under the "O" for "Off-peak?" Totally inappropriate, if you ask us.

Before we got on the train, Chase bought some Cheez-Its. He LOVES Cheez-Its.

But they don't love him. They get stuck in his teeth. So he takes the classy route and digs all the way into his mouth to retrieve those stubborn bits. He makes me so proud.

Excitement was mounting as we got closer to the city. I took this picture through the window. Chase insisted it wouldn't come out. This proves him wrong and, thus, pleases me greatly.

An hour after boarding the train, the train whined to a stop, we stood up, minded the gap, and exited the train. We walked through Grand Central and walked outside to this view.

"We're in the city!" I said to Chase, just as geeky and overly-exuberant as that exclamation point implies.

"Uh, yeah. We are," he replied, totally not as excited as I was. He just didn't get my excitement.

Maybe because he somehow knew this was what awaited us. People on top of people on top of people, all moving in different directions, stuffed into sidewalks meant for half of the tourists currently stomping along. Oh yeah, and that pesky bit about having no idea of what we wanted to do or how we were going to get there. Let's not forget that part.

When faced with indecision, my first and best reaction is to drink. "Let's find a bar," I said.

Two glasses of wine (me), a round of soda and hiccups (Chase), and an bitchy remark made (by me, to the table of two touristy girls right next to us. Whoops.) later, I had an idea.

"What do you think about going to see the tree at Rockefeller Center?" I asked Chase.

"Sure," he said. "But how do we get there???" He was irritated by the fact that I was distracted by every makeup and shoe store on every street.

"I have no idea," I admitted. So we just walked. Down this street, up that one, over here, across there. And, there in the distance, I saw a beacon of hope:

"OH!" I cried. "LOOK! MACY'S!" So we headed in the direction of the glowing snowflakes that stretched all the way up and down the facade of the building. "We can look at the windows, too!" I said, dragging Chase in the direction of the lights, drawn to them like every girl is drawn to big, sparkly things.

On the way, I made Chase stop into Sephora with me. An experience that he claims was boring, but I think he secretly enjoyed. I mean, c'mon, what twenty-year-old guy doesn't love being in a huge room, positively packed with people, with nothing to see but makeup! Seriously.

After my purchase, we got back onto the street at continued toward the department store I kept referring to as "Macy's."

At this point, anyone who knows the city, or at least the landmark/holiday decoration part of the city knows that the building that caught my eye was not, in fact, Macy's, but Sak's Fifth Avenue. The classy, high-end store that decorates its windows every holiday season. It's famous for its window decoration, and, being directly across the street from the tree, draws thousands of people daily to look at it. And I thought it was Macy's. Because when Chase said he wanted to buy a coat, I suggested that we could "go to Macy's" to get one for him. I still thought it was Macy's as we fought through a pulsating crowd to get to the door. I thought it was Macy's even as we entered, failing to pay attention to the BIG SIGN on the door I was opening that claimed "Saks Fifth Avenue." I thought it was Macy's as we walked through the clogged store, Gucci and Prada and Fendi name brands jumping off of the walls at me. I still thought it was Macy's as my eyes glowed with excitement over the fancy name brands I love so much but cannot afford. I thought it was Macy's as I looked at $400 sunglasses. I thought it was Macy's even as we made our way past all of the shoppers carrying Saks Fifth Avenue bags. I thought it was Macy's even as we made our way to the back of the first floor to the elevators.

All of these people knew they were in Saks. I did not.

Chase knew we were in Saks, too. Even though I continued to refer to it as Macy's. See that smug look on his face? I think he was enjoying my ingnorance. He's very mean-spirited sometimes. Jerk.

Even as I took this picture for Billy, to show him that they carried one of his favorite tie-designers - ties that cost well over one hundred dollars each - it still did not occur to me that they do not carry Ike Behar ties in Macy's. I know this because I buy ties for Billy all the time in Macy's, and Ike has never been one of them. I just figured, "Hey, we're in the city. Everything's a little bit more expensive, a little bit more name brand driven here. That's all." Also, I'm pretty dense.

It was only after we were out of the building that I realized that - aha! - we were in Saks not Macy's!

"Uuuhh, yeeeeah," Chase said, drawing his words out, the emphasis on my stupidity. "What was your first clue? Maybe the sign on the door that said Saks?"

See? Mean.

So we watched the snowflakes dance around on the building, to the tune of "Carol of the Bells," and then turned around to see The Tree.

Even from across the street, it looked huge and gorgeous. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it was spectacular. I've only seen the tree once before, on a trek into the city about three years ago that found me so drunk that I don't remember half of the evening. Apparently, I embarrassed myself, my boyfriend, and his aunt and uncle, and spent the better part of the next day apologizing to my boyfriend for it. But that's another story for another time.

We wanted to get closer to the tree, but the crowd was just too much to bear. There were, oh, about nine gajillion people all clamoring for an up-close look at the tree. So we decided, in unison, "Fuck it," and just continued walking. Before we knew it, we were actually right next to the tree.
But there was no time to linger, as we were being pushed by a throbbing mass of people, all fighting to either get closer to or away from the very tree whose presence we were admiring.
Chase was adorable, constantly apologizing to each person he brushed or bumped into. He kept saying "Excuse me," and "I'm sorry," making a point to let each person know he didn't mean to hit them.

"You don't have to do that," I said as I plowed over a small child. "We're in the city. People are expected to be rude here."

"I can't do that," he said. "I'm too polite."

Indeed he is. He gives me hope for the future generations.

And after taking in Saks Fifth Avenue (Not Macy's) and the tree, eating a hot dog from a street vendor, and stopping in about a million shoe stores, we decided to head home.

That's me, walking through Grand Central, toward the track that would take us home. I was ready to go, but a little sad that our day was coming to an end.

We said goodbye to Grand Central in stereotypical geeky tourist fashion: Taking a picture. But I did it quickly in hopes no one would see the Girl from Pennsylvania doing what every other non-New Yorker does, taking that damn picture. But I'm sure someone saw it. I'm still a little embarrassed.

But I was tired, too. See it in my eye?

See how exhausted it looks?

My extreme fatigue was also due, in part, to my poor choice of footwear.

For me, for some reason, the desire to look fashionable/classy/sexy always - and I do mean always - wins out over comfort and sensibility. And intelligence, for that matter. Because, let's face it, it's not particularly smart to wear three-and-a-half inch heels to a destination that is no doubt going to entail no less than two hours of walking. But I was a trooper, if I do say so myself. Sure, I did make Chase sit in an Aerosoles store - a store that I've never ever gone into before, but whose name at that point sang to me like a chorus of a thousand angels, the foot-comfort implied in its very name - so that I could perhaps buy a pair of less painful shoes. It was a labor that yielded no fruit for either of us. They didn't have my size in the one pair of reasonably attractive shoes I could find (though, Lord, those were like walking on air!), and so I left empty handed, while Chase was just traumatized over being so bored that he actually gave in to my pleas for him to tell me what he thought of each shoe I tried on. And he even held my purse. He was that bored.

That's normally his reaction to shoe shopping.

Not only was he polite enough to apologize to the strangers whose sides he swiped, but he did NOT lose his return ticket.

As we waited for our 7:51 train to take off, we watched other passengers pile on, and listened to the conductor as he made announcements over the in-train speakers:

"Attention: This is the 7:51, Poughkeepsie-bound train, with stops at Croton-Harmon, Peekskill and Garrison. It does not stop at Yonkers. THIS IS A PEAK HOUR TRAIN. If you have an off-peak ticket, you will be required to pay the difference between peak and off-peak fares. It is more money to ride this train. All transactions are CASH ONLY. Tickets purchased on the train are a lot more expensive than tickets purchased at the station. It costs a lot of money to ride this train."

How right you are, Mr. Conductor. In the five hours from purchasing the tickets to sitting on that train, I'd spent over a hundred dollars. Between the tickets and the wine and the appetizer we ordered, and the makeup, and the snacks, and lunch, I'd racked up a pretty hefty debt. Thank God, though, I'd had enough foresight to purchase an off-peak/peak ticket. At least I'd be saving the three dollars or whatever it would've cost to upgrade.

But, hey, thanks for reminding me about all the money I did spend, Conductor Man.

And we were on our way home. We were really starting to get tired. Luckily, we had the foresight to stop by Starbuck's in Grand Central.

Chase enjoyed his drink.

But his strange way of drinking it made me think he'd never had one before.

Either that or it was so delicious he wanted each and every morsel he could get out of that damn cup.

That being our last treat for the day, we settled in to say goodbye to the city.

Clearly, I'm exhausted. You can tell by both my heavy hand (as evidenced by the lazy waving), and the quite shocking bags beneath my eyes. There just is not a flattering picture to be taken when you've been walking around New York City, for even a couple of hours.

So, yes, I was tired. And broke. And ready to go home. But I was just so happy, too. Not because I got out of Milford and into the city. And not because I'd gone on an adventure. But because I was with my little brother, who managed to make me laugh more in one afternoon than I laugh in an average week. Because he's just so polite and wonderful and so much fun to be around. Because I just love that boy so damn much that it hurts sometimes. Because, ten years ago, this sort of thing - an afternoon we voluntarily shared with just one another - would never have happened. Because we've come a long way from name-calling and physical fights. Because I had such a good time. Not because we did anything amazing - just because it was us. What we did was little more than we would've done had we gone to the shopping mall half an hour away from our house. It was different and it was nice, but the incredible feeling I had about the day had nothing to do with the location, it was all Chase.

I didn't want it to end. But, as the train pulled into Garrison, it did.

"Bye-bye, New York City," Chase said, in the weepy and childish voice he usually reserves for getting me to do something I don't want to do. And then the threw a rolled up gum wrapper at me and hit me right between the eyes. Thereby sucking all of the adorableness out of the moment. Typical.

We spent the whole ride home making each other laugh and, like two eight-year-olds, throwing things at one another in true brother-and-sister fashion.

It would be cheesy to say it was a wonderful day, so I won't say that. But I will say that I can't remember the last time I had that much fun doing nothing.

What Have I Been Doing on my Week off?

2006-12-27T15:43:00.000-05:00

Well, how nice of you to ask. Allow me to fill you in.

1) Sleeping in. Except for the fact that I do still get up with Billy to get him his coffee. Because, before Christmas, I'd told him how nice it would be this week to have him bring me my coffee this week, as opposed to the other way around which is how it is the other fifty-one weeks of the year. And he sort of sighed and laughed and suggested that, if I really love what he got me for Christmas, I could maybe find it in my heart to go ahead and still bring him his coffee in the morning. Since, up until that point, he had maintained that I was not, in fact, receiving a Christmas present - that my laptop had served as both a birthday and Christmas gift - I agreed. But then, when I unwrapped the complete surprise in the form of a gorgeous sapphire and diamond ring he gave me, I realized that I would, in fact, be getting him that coffee. Because, for a gift that good, he deserved it. But as soon as I give him that coffee, it's right back to sleep.

2) Watching TV. Lots of it. Too much, possibly. Shows that I wouldn't be able to watch if Billy were home: Shows like Bridezilla, A Wedding Story and Perfect Proposal. Also, I watched episodes one through twelve of Sex and the City OnDemand. In one day. Billy would never go for that.

3) Eating. Cookies. Chase's girlfriend sent Billy and me a box of some of the most delicious, moist, chewy, incredible homemade cookies. And they've been sitting by my bed, the supply dwindling as the days pass. I eat them for breakfast, as snacks, as dessert. I may gain a million pounds by New Year's Day, but it'll be a tasty road down to chunky.

4) Listening to music. My parents got me the iHome, a clock/radio/iPod player, granting me the ability to finally listen to music in my room without turning on my computer. It's absolutely fantastic. I'd forgotten how wonderful it is to blast my music while I clean. I'd forgotten that I love to sing along, and dance my way through my chores. It's been awesome.

5) Admiring my ring. Like, all the time. Just now, I stopped and gazed longingly at it. It's so gorgeous. And it was so unexpected. It's just so pretty. I love it so much. I just can't get over how wonderful it is. Sigh.

6) Cleaning my room. I put away all of the Christmas presents, threw away all of the scraps of paper that wrapping gifts left at the foot of my bed. I hung up clothes and dusted and hefted three bags worth of garbage out of the house. It felt great to walk in my room and see it clean. And then Billy came home last night and threw his pants on the floor. But, it's okay. He gave me this ring, so the least I can do to show my gratitude is to hang up his pants.

7) Trying to savor each second that I'm home that I should be at work. I make sure to take note of the time with each cookie I eat, each TV show I watch and smiling because I should be working right now instead of being ridiculously lazy. It's only Wednesday, but I feel like it's already going too fast. I'm sure I'll be back to work before I know it. So I try not to leave my house before five if I can help it.

8) Wondering how I got so lucky. How did I find a guy who would go against everything he ever told me ("I'm not buying you a ring." "I don't believe in diamonds. You only like them because society tells you you should; because they're expensive.") and give me something purely because it makes me happy. My dad gave my mother a Bose Wave Radio, and she cried, saying "Your father doesn't love music like I do, but he knows how important it is to me, so he got me that radio. I'm so touched. I'm so lucky to have a man like that." And then she got a little more choked up and said, "I'm so glad you have a good man like that, too."

9) Being emotional.

10) Trying to find things to write about. But, sadly, there's nothing that's making me write sprawling posts full of flowery prose. As my mom always says, apparently, I need to get sad again. Because that's the only time I'm a good writer. I don't want to be sad, but I do hope I can come up with some subject matter soon.

Celebrate

2006-12-25T20:09:00.000-05:00

It's just after eight in the evening on Christmas Day, and I'm sitting in my house with Billy, unwinding after a long, travel-packed day. It's been incredible, full of family and love and giving and receiving and warmth and laughter.

And, you know, for all of the absence of the season I've been feeling, today has turned out to be spectacular. Sometimes, the nicest holidays are the ones that sneak up on you, where expectations are forgotten before the day is reached, where there is no build up, no anticipation. It's the surprise of the day that is so gluttonous, so delicious.

Today has been one of those days. Waking up early, like a kid who can't wait for Santa's spoils, I stirred before eight this morning, making coffee before unwrapping the beautiful sapphire ring Billy gave to me, before unveiling the trip to Las Vegas I'd decided to give to him for Christmas. We went straight to my parents' house in our pyjamas, filling their living room with torn and wrinkled remnants of wrapping paper and offering just as many "Thank you"s as we received.

We split the day between his family and my own, stopping just long enough between the two houses to collect ourselves before heading out again. And now, we're here, in our home, listening to music and laughing as the day winds to a close. I'm overcome right now with splendor, overtaken by delight. I'm in love with my family, my boyfriend, his family, my life. It's been incredible in every way.

And days like this are the best ones, when we're worn out from too much merriment, too much joy. Even though the ground outside isn't covered in snow - even though our Christmas has been far from white - it's been just as merry as we could've hoped.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all.

Under Construction

2006-12-19T23:42:00.000-05:00

I'm in Beta! Or, rather, the New Blogger. Either way, I was finally allowed to switch over. An act that made the OCD girl inside of me go NUTS because everything on my beloved blog changed. I've spent the last few hours fucking around with it to get it back to how I want it. And don't even get me started on the labels. That list of "Filed under" over there on the side? I'm sure it's going to be fourteen thousand times as long as it is right now by the time I'm finished going through all of my archives and categorizing everything. Man. This is going to be one massive undertaking.

So, that being said, please pardon my appearance for the next few days (weeks?) while I go about the dirty business of playing around with two years worth of my life.

Also, I lost my list of music on the side there, and I can't figure out how to get it back - getting both the links and the just plain ol' typed out words that weren't links to show back up has proven to be far too much for my limited HTML/Blogger template capacity to handle. So, can anybody help me with that? Also, how the eff do I get my sidebar links to open in a new window?

I think I just realized I needed another category: Wannabe Computer Geek! Check it out!

Ahem. Sorry. I'm getting way too carried away with this. Let's hope I don't get all into this "Labeling every archived post" thing for a week and then give up. Because I probably will.

Work It, Bitch

2006-12-18T20:38:00.000-05:00

Every few days, I change my route home and, instead of going from my office chair directly to my bedroom or a restaurant, I somehow find the wherewithal to take the road that leads me to the gym. In the twenty or so minutes that it takes me to get from my work parking lot to the parking lot that leads me into the gym, it's quite easy to talk myself out of going. But I'm so tired, I say to myself as I drive. You know what I could do? I could go home and clean up my email inbox, organize it all nice and pretty. Or I could catch up on some of the Sex in the City reruns OnDemand. Or I could reorganize my dresser. ANYTHING but go to the gym. But, more often than not, something inside me keeps my car pointed in the direction of a step class, a kickboxing class, or the elliptical machine. And what is it that motivates me? Is it the promise of thinner thighs and flatter abs? Is it the desire to rid myself of stress via weights and cardio? Is it picturing the two vacations to warm climates I'll be taking in 2007, the bathing suits I'll be forced to wear? No. It's none of the above.

It's the ten or so minutes before my class starts, between changing into my old, worn out gym clothes and hopping my way through an hour of instructor-led torture. It's in those minutes that the true socializing occurs. The catching up with people I only see a few days a week, but who, nonetheless, get my entire life story in that short span of time. It's in that ten minutes where I'm greeted with such stunning nicknames as "Bitch" and "Whore" from the larger than life petit woman who parades around in her spandex pants and loose T-shirts like a gym mascot. It's the jokes about my smoking and drinking doled out by the tall blonde who steps and lifts and "double-times" it on the step next to me. It's the laughing and the jokes, the masochistic need I have to trade sarcastic insults with the other women who've found their way to the gym each night. That's what keeps me from giving up and going home.

It's funny, having a room full of women (and a few boys, here and there) whose company you keep so infrequently, but with whom you trade your most embarrassing or wonderful stories. A chorus of voices leaks out of the classroom even while we kick, jab and cross our way through class. Unable to contain ourselves, we hurl insults and hefty words through all of the sweat and work we're doing. We admonish "Shut up" or "Why aren't you working out, Judy?" over the teacher's instructions, cackling over orders to "kick higher" or "arabesque." I catch knocks against my character while I'm throwing punches. And it's delicious...The way it makes you forget how hard you're working, how it makes you forget the ache in your legs, the fatigue in your arms. The laughter that accompanies my gym sessions does me better than any amount of breathing through my straining, works my stomach far better than the fifty crunches we had to do.

Experts suggest that going to the gym with a "buddy" makes you more apt to continue going, is motivating enough to force you to stick to your gym commitment without even realizing it. I never agreed, choosing to view my gym experience, instead, as a solo project. I didn't join with anyone, I never went with anyone, and that's the way I liked it. From time to time I consider what it would be like to actually go with someone, to have plans to meet a friend every night. And as soon as I consider it, I let it go. Because I like my freedom, to go or not to go.

But without even realizing it, I met my motivation, my friend that I've committed to, in the form of a room full of women, who, despite age and life differences, have become my friends, and the reason I go.

Of course, I'd never talk to any of those bitches in real life.*

*Hello Judy! Hello Tisha! Hello ladies!

The Greatest Gift is Giving

2006-12-16T12:03:00.000-05:00

Usually, I prefer to make a whole experience out of Christmas shopping. I rarely go with a list, preferring instead to browse through rack after rack, shelf after shelf and display after display of possibilities and letting inspiration guide me to the checkout. I always bring with me my favorite Christmas CDs and play them on full blast during the hour it takes to get from Milford to the mall I've chosen. I try to be in the spirit of the holiday, full of smiles and goodwill, generosity and joy. I don't hurry, I don't look at prices, deciding to focus not on the clock and the cost, but the look I imagine I'll receive from the face of the recipient. It makes for a better experience all round, I've found. Credit card balances be damned.

This year, though, it just doesn't feel like Christmas. That first snowfall we got about a week ago? It wasn't enough to coat the ground, leaving instead a dusting of white over otherwise brownish vegetation. And Old Man Winter didn't stick around either. Apparently, he called in sick, and the only person available to cover for him was Early Spring. It's been in the fifties every day this week. Some people may read that and think "Fifties?! That's FREEZING!" But those people would be from warm climates. I remember, living in Vegas, anything below sixty meant dusting off your winter coat and putting on your gloves. Here? Fifties is warm and means you can get away with just wearing long sleeved shirts. It meant I could go Christmas shopping without my coat.

There's something so wrong with that, not lugging a down-filled jacked through the mall. In an area like this, that, this time of year, looks like the song "Silver Bells" come to life, you come to expect a certain feeling at Christmas time. And without that snow, with only the lights strung on bare trees and wreaths on doors not preceded by snowy walks, it feels like something's missing. Like you've stepped into some parallel universe, where Christmas comes in early April.

So, yesterday, having left work early to get my shopping done, I tried as best I could to get myself into the spirit, but as the Christmas songs I so painstakingly loaded onto my iPod began to play, I knew that my heart just wasn't in it. I listened to Justin Timberlake and Corinne Bailey Rae instead, singing my way through New Jersey neighborhoods, just killing the time until I reached the mall.

Christmas music slapped me in the face, though, when I hefted open the glass door of Macy's. "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" fell from overhead speakers and onto the million other people who mistakenly thought they'd avoid crowds by taking a half-day from work and shopping at two in the afternoon. I fought off that inevitable sense of dread that always takes over when I see lines snaking through departments and forged ahead, knowing that I was there for a reason and I could not leave until I had at least most, if not all, of my shopping done. I walked past a man screaming into his cell phone, "they don't have that here!" and then past a customer fighting with a cashier over a return that he wanted to make, and then past a family of two parents and two kids in side-by-side strollers, both children screaming bloody murder, and I thought I was doomed. I just don't think I have the strength to do this, I said to myself as I pushed through the chaos, my overly dramatic statement causing me to furrow my eyebrows and worry that I'd leave the mall empty-handed, as I'd done on two occasions prior.

But when gift after gift presented themselves to me, when it took little effort to find gifts easily labeled as "perfect," the panic and the pressure vanished. And, in store after store, I handed over my card with a smile, thanked sales girls and boys for their help, and wished a happy holiday to every person who asked me to sign my name on the dotted line. I made my own little holiday spirit, collecting smiles from cashiers who have surely been put through the wringer by stressed-out shoppers for days. I've worked in a mall at Christmas time - I know that it is similar to what I imagine hell to be. I thought my smiles might be a welcome reprieve from complaints and aggravated sighs. They were. It's amazing how nice people will be if you're only nice to them first; If you set the tone.

Ten stores worth of bags, a significantly lighter wallet, and cup of iced coffee in hand, I headed out of the same doors I'd entered only three hours earlier. I tossed the weighty bags into my back seat, checked people off of my list and headed into the direction where the real Christmas shopping would begin.

I don't want to give anything away, but there's something about Border's that just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Books are my favorite gift to give. What better way to say, "Hey, I'm really fond of you," than sharing your favorite words, your favorite writers, with someone? Whether it becomes a silly side-gift or the whole gift itself, books, to me, mean the most when I give them. Because choosing a book for someone takes hours. I consider the recipient's character, their sense of humor, their pastimes, their passions. Even people who aren't big readers can receive a book that, to me, is the perfect gift.

It's just so personal, giving a book. I'm saying, "I love this. I found a piece of myself in these pages, and I want to share it with you," when I give a book. I'm a big fan of writing a novel of my own on the inside cover, telling them why I picked the book, why I picked them to give it to.

My dad loves books. My whole life he's had some military book or another on his bedside table, or in the den, next to his chair, a wilted bookmark hanging over the thick pages. I've given him ties, and tools, and guns, but books are the gifts I've watched him fall a little bit in love with my whole life. He has the same reaction every time he opens one, a smile-ridden "Thaaank yooou" that falls from his mouth while he turns the book over in his hands, touching first the front, then back, cover. We make fun of his reaction, and also of how it's always a book, that his gifts are rarely surprises as he tells us all exactly which books he's missing from his collection. But later, when he corners me and tells me all about the book, how the main character developed, how the author gets too technical, how interesting it was, I know gift was right.

And my mom, for her last birthday, was given a book by me, Nora Eprhon's I Feel Bad About My Neck. Its title alone made her squeal with laughter, and she liked the book so much she passed it on to my grandmother. She told me about her favorite parts of the book, her face erupting in a smile so broad she tilted her head and covered her mouth, concealing the all-consuming laughter that was taking her over. Her voice jingled through the re-telling, her eyes tearing up with giggles and her hands clutched her stomach. You don't get that sort of reaction with earrings.

So I walked through Borders, my arms hanging down to my waist, loaded with book after book, making a pile that went from my cupped hands to my chin. My arms ached with the weight of so many gifts, but I felt good each one I was about to give, finally in the Christmas spirit.

Keep Those Paychecks Comin'

2006-12-13T11:13:00.000-05:00

I just had my one-year employee review. It went really well, actually. Far better than I'd anticipated that's for sure.

My boss did, however, mention that I'm on the internet a little too often. Okay, a lot too often. He's noticed that I hop on the internet instead of using my downtime productively. Touché.

But that was his one complaint in a sea of praises. Thank GOD.

And what am I doing? Getting on the internet to talk about it. I'm brilliant.

So I need to, uh, get back to work. But I wanted to share that with you. Because it's a good thing, and I'm excited about it. And, also, some people out there think I complain too much and that people are going to get sick of reading that. So, instead, LOOK AT ME! I'M AWESOME! I GOT A GOOD REVIEW! Why take time to write well-crafted and heartfelt posts, when all people really want is my Weekend in Review in list form, replete with a shoddy, abbreviated and ill-capitalized use of the English language!? Maybe if I just post a lot of inane lists and silly wishes, I'll be more popular! Who knew!

ANYWAY, this whole review/internet thing means the posting during the daytime should dwindle to next to nothing (I can't promise complete internet chastity.), and my nearly non-existent commenting will also have to be limited to after working hours.

Which is but a small price to pay for a secure job and a happy employer, right?

Come With Me

2006-12-11T22:15:00.000-05:00

I wish I knew how to play music on this site. I wish that opening this page would open a stream of music. Because, if I could, I'd play this song. And it would be loud and obnoxious, but it would tell you everything I feel about love.

I've listened to the song no less than twenty times tonight, each repeat making me more and more grateful, hitting closer and closer to home.

It's how I love. It's how I love my parents, and my brother, and Billy. Even though I might not always show it, even though they may not see it one hundred percent of the time, it's the truth. I would do anything. For any of them.

And it's they way my family has always loved me. Full-on and unashamed. Lacking selfishness. A pure desire to give all of who they are, all for little ol' me. I'm humbled by the thought of it, the amount of love my mother and father have given me through my life, the proud love my brother gives me.

And it's the way always expected to be loved by a man, but never thought I'd find. And, look at me: I've finally found it. Billy makes me feel alright, even when I'm terrified in the face of things I can't control, things that wake me in the middle of the night. He lets me know that I don't ever have to face anything alone, that he's here with me. No matter what.

Yesterday, I had a mini-breakdown in front of Billy. For some reason, I started thinking about what would happen if I go back to my doctor in March for my follow-up appointment and that pre-cancer has found its way back to my cervix. What then? I was terrified, out of nowhere, about what I would do, what it would mean. And I cried, hard and ugly, my face only inches from Billy's, worried about what comes next.

And he did the same thing my family would do: He reminded me that it would be okay. Regardless of what happens, it'll be alright. And he made me feel better, the way my family does: By letting me know he'll be there. Reminding me that they will all be there for me, always. That whatever I have to face - trials big or small - I won't ever have to face them alone.

"You think you have to do this by yourself, that you're alone in all of this," he said, making me face him, my forehead wrinkled with emotion, my hand covering my quivering mouth. "But you're not. I'm right here."

What ever did I do to deserve such love in my life? Whatever I did in my past life must've been pretty spectacular to hold this bounty now.

Fun Things That Happened This Week

2006-12-09T14:38:00.000-05:00

1) On Monday, I mailed out the last check for the credit card debt I've been carrying around on my back since I applied for my first credit card, five years ago. It's not that I had huge debt or anything, just persistent debt. Debt that would be thisclose to being paid off, only to be met with a holiday, a purse that I had to have, or an evening gown for some occasion of some sort. So, I'd etch away at that coupla thousand dollars all year, nearly get it down to nothing, and then - WHAM! - here it is again.

But, see, it's not like I've wasted years paying Discover and Chase and CitiBank and Bank of America interest. No siree. I, my friends, am a devotee of the Rolling Game. You know, the game where you get a credit card because of its "ZERO PERCENT INTEREST!!!!! for six months, maybe, unless you fuck with us, in which case you will rue the day you signed on the dotted line, bitch," proclamation. And you load that card up, paying minimum payments because - hey! - I'm not paying interest, and anyway, I need to build good credit. Thinking, of course, the whole time, that you'll totally have it paid off by the time your six month deadline rolls around. Which you don't, naturally. In fact, you're probably deeper into debt. Which is what they were counting on the whole time.

But, during that time, where you're charging like crazy and paying the minimum, your credit rating starts skyrocketing because you're A) using the card and B) paying early - and sometimes, you even throw the credit card company and extra ten bucks or so. You know, when you're feeling generous. So, suddenly, you start getting "PLATINUM!" and "TITANIUM" credit card apps in the mail, each one boasting a longer "ZERO PERCENT INTEREST" period than that next. So when your first six months are up, you transfer that shit over to the next one. And when that 0% period is up, you transfer that balance to the next one. And the next one, and the next one...Rolling your debt over and over. And the cycle of debt is sustained.

So you wisely allow this cycle to continue for five whole years. It's not horrible or overwhelming; more of a nuisance, really. That stupid bill, every stupid month. And you live that way for a while, until you leave your job with the shitty pay and actually start making enough money to support yourself, and you really buckle down, put that Platinum card away and stop using it. You start using the money you used to use to pay for your now-paid-off car to pay for your credit card....And before you know it, you send in your last hulking check to the big bad credit card companies and - Oh my God - you're debt free.

And that's where I am right now. And for that whole day, I thought, "Wow, I'm debt free. I can't believe it." I even decided to continue paying myself my credit card payment (the OCD way I handle my finances is complicated, and too much to get into here, so just bear with me), so that I'll have enough money to actually take Billy away as his Christmas gift without having to use the ol' credit card. And it made me smile, all day long.

Until, later that night, I went ahead and downloaded a song on iTunes, forgetting that I have the credit card I JUST PAID OFF set as my payment method. Which means I'm going to get a bill for $0.99 next month. That's awesome.

2) My boss emailed me (huh? He works in the next office. I don't get it.) and told me I'll have my yearly review on Tuesday. Which is awesome, except that I'm pretty sure that by "yearly review" he means, "discussion about the fact that I know you're on the internet and/or emailing and/or texting and/or talking on the phone far more than an employee should." So I'm nervous.

3) Holiday season is here! And that means PARTIES!

Unless, that is, you've committed your entire existence to your boyfriend over the past year because you just love to spend each and every second with him. Because, when December rolls around, suddenly you notice that your distinct absence in your social scene has carried over into the holiday season. Because you haven't been around all year, your name is falling off Christmas lists everywhere. You hear that? It's the sound of your popularity waning and your friends getting sick of you never going out anymore.

4) Standing in a restaurant yesterday, I heard one of my favorite Christmas songs in the world. This sparked an interest in me to RUSH home after work, take out my computer, import all of my Christmas music onto iTunes, organize it all, and make a holiday playlist.

'Tis a sad, sad day when I look back and realize that I've chosen to spend my Friday night with my laptop instead of real, live human beings. Very sad, indeed.

5) I went to pick up lunch for my boss and myself today at a local restaurant. Walking through the glass doors to go in, an old-ish woman was walking out. I'm unsure of her age, as it was masked by the distinct grimace of sheer nastiness on her face. Clearly, she was an unhappy woman; just looking at her I formed the opinion that she's a crotchety, rude, mean, nasty, horrible woman. When she started to yell at someone behind her, by just sort of turning her head to the side, it was revealed that a) I was right and b) she had no teeth. That would make me mad too. So I sort of understood her sadness.

ANYWAY, I was walking in, like I said, and she was on her way out. The doors there are set up so that you walk through one, pass through a little breeze-way of sorts, then you go through another door. She was out of the door farthest from me and on her way out of the door I was going into. Being the polite person I am, I held the door for her. She looked at me, paused for a a second, sighed an exasperated sigh for some reason, gave me a dirty look and continued walking.

Nothing irritates me more than forgetting a social pleasantry. If I hold the door open for you, all I ask in return is that you say "Thank you." That's all. And since she didn't, I did what I always do in these situations: I said a syrupy-sweet, and probably louder-than-necessary "You're welcome" and continued walking.

She stopped dead in her tracks. "I said thank you," she hissed.

"And I said 'you're welcome,'" I replied, positively saccharine in my tone.

My thing is this: If she really had said "thank you," as she felt the need to point out to me, why would she have been offended at my "you're welcome" and need to point out her use of "thank you"?

I don't think she said it. In fact, I'm certain of it. But her reaction has me confused. Maybe she said, "I didn't say 'thank you'"? And if that's the case, why would she announce it? I don't get it.

The First Snowfall

2006-12-08T10:49:00.000-05:00

Winter has been blissfully absent this year. Normally, November finds us bundled up in our hats and scarves, trudging already through snowy sidewalks and slushy streets. But this year, the Old Man let us enjoy unseasonably warm weather for weeks longer than we should have. November came and went with sporadic spring-like temperatures, allowing us the luxury of wearing our light sweaters and jackets far longer than we're used to. Men still golfed, women still wore open-toe shoes, everyone held onto their short-sleeved shirts just a little bit longer. It was scrumptious, feeling the warm sun in the middle of November, leaving our coats in the closet , untouched, when we knew that we should be wearing them.

But suddenly, this week, Old Man Winter woke up and realized he late. His alarm hadn't roused him in mid-November like it was supposed to, so he scrambled to get ready and get out there. He rushed in, in a haze of blustery winds and biting chill. He relieved spring-like weather of her duty, abruptly switching our temperatures from mid-sixties to below freezing in one overnight shift-change.

With the first gust of cold wind, we knew that the Old Man's best friend, Snow, was just around the corner. And, sure enough, the Old Man assured her comfort by turning up the cold and setting the skies gray. She flurried in late yesterday, cozy in the early nighttime provided just for her.

Snow

I drove home slowly, avoiding the inevitable piles of snow and sloppy accidents her first fall always creates. I crept past my house and down into Milford, where I picked up supplies for the first snowfall: Dinner, and Pinot Noir.

Getting home, I changed out of my work clothes and into thick socks and cotton pants, a warm sweater over a t-shirt. I ate my dinner in the silence of the kitchen, then plodded upstairs, full glass of Noir in my chilly hand. Sunk in blankets and the glow of the TV, I cozied up to my wine and let her fall outside. I didn't bother her, or complain about her arrival, just heard the quiet she makes, the softness that she instills, ready, now, to face the Old Man and all his friends. He was, after all, overdue.

Meet in the Middle

2006-12-06T10:07:00.000-05:00

"Pause it," he said to me, motioning toward the remote control next to my body. Something about his voice told me whatever he had to say was important, that he didn't want his words to compete with Beauty and the Geek. My laptop was on his lap, and he looked down at the screen, taking a deep breath.

I clamored for the remote, wondering what sort of statement he was about to make. Our evening had been so benign up to this moment: A short visit to a friend's Christmas party preceded our standard house chores - me, finishing up the last of four loads of laundry, him walking around the house, watering can in hand, feeding all of his beloved plants - and led right to bed, where we buried ourselves in the freshly washed sheets and thick blankets to watch recorded episodes of our new favorite reality show. He checked his email while I caught up on an episode he'd already seen, giving his commentary on what was happening between short bursts of hunting-and-pecking on the keyboard. Until he told me to pause it.

The Geek's face froze on screen, his mouth contorted in the middle of a word, stuck there until Billy was finished telling me what he had to tell me. "Okay," I said, turning my body to face him, bracing myself for the enormity of what he wanted to say. I always suspect the worst.

"What do you think," he said slowly, looking at the computer screen, and then at me, "about..." he took a deep breath, he took his time.

Tell me, I thought, whatever it is, just tell me. I was nervous. My gut told me it was nothing bad, but I wasn't prepared for what came out of his mouth:

"What do you think about maybe going to Nicaragua for five days with me, and then I'll continue to South Africa from there?"

My heart almost burst. The smile that spread across my face was instantaneous. The darkness of our room hid my reaction, so that he couldn't bear witness to my smile, the blush that took over my cheeks, the unadulterated thrill in my eyes.

"Really?" I asked, like a kid who's just been presented with a gift she never thought she'd be lucky enough to receive. "Seriously?"

"Yes," he said, his voice soft. But not soft like giving in to the demands of your girlfriend, but soft like yes, you can believe in it.

"But will you have enough time in South Africa, then?" My question was serious. We had been talking about his trip earlier, a lighthearted conversation in which I told him I was happy with the decision I'd made to not go, despite being told by almost everyone I know (besides my mom) that I should go, just to experience it.

"I don't want to drag you down," I told him. "I'm not sure I could handle it. I mean, there's a chance that I could - I don't know, since I've never done it...And I guess the only way to know is to try - but I don't want to go on the chance that I'd be good at it or enjoy it, and run the risk of dragging you down with ailments and whining. It's better if you just go by yourself and enjoy it. I'm scared of the bugs, the heat, the danger. You're not. If we could stay in a nice hotel, or go on a safari in a nice RV or something, with air conditioning, then I'd be in. But I just don't think I could do it the way you want to do it."

He seemed genuinely baffled by my view of the trip. "If you want to see these things from the window of an RV, then why not just watch it on TV?" he'd said.

"I'm perfectly happy with that," I replied.

"You just have no desire, do you?"

"No, babe, I don't. That's not my idea of a vacation. It just isn't. But I know it's yours. So you should go, and enjoy it."

He nodded, and I nodded, both of us content with our choices. I would love to go with him, I just can't. And I have to accept that wanting to be with him wherever he goes is not reason enough to let him take me to a place where I'm 99.9% sure I'll be miserable. I was comfortable with my decision, and happy that he'd get what he wants.

"I'm sure I'll have plenty of time in South Africa," he smiled, looking at me. He pointed to the screen in front of him. "I figure we'll spend maybe five days in Nicaragua, then maybe head to Costa Rica for a day or two. You'll love it there. It's beautiful. And I've lived there, so I know my way around. You'll be comfortable there," he said, his voice reassuring.

"Babe, I'd love to. But I don't want you to change your plans for me." My words were genuine. You always get what you want is one of Billy's most oft-repeated sentences to me. I didn't want this to be another one of those instances. As long as he wanted to do it, I'd be pleased. But if he didn't, that was another story.

"My friend just emailed me," he said, "and they're selling the bar I worked in while I lived there. And I really want you to see it. It's a huge part of my life. You have to see it."

I was overwhelmed. I was touched that, somewhere within him, he wanted me to go with him badly enough to go somewhere I'd be comfortable. And that feeling was compounded by him wanting me to see a huge part of his life before me.

I'd spent days grappling with how I felt about his trip. Deep down, I felt like he just didn't want me to go at all. That this was his time to get away from me, and this year he wanted to "get away" for the duration of his trip, to not share even a bit with me. And that's what hurt, that's what bothered me. Selfish as it was, I thought that him not choosing someplace where I could go meant he just didn't want me with him. I knew it was wrong, but feelings don't understand that. They just went ahead and let me take it as a personal affront. I listened to him say, over and over, that he wanted me to go along, I just didn't believe it. And, finally, I'd come to understand that it's not always about me. That him wanting to go had everything to do with him, who he is, and that I have to let that person live, not make him bend to my demands all the time.

And on the heels of my acceptance, he found a way to make me part of it. It's still tentative, but the fact that he asked me, the fact that he wants me to part of his present and his past, makes me melt. It's not about me getting my way, it's about him doing exactly what I would do for him, and, for that, I love him a little bit more each day.

The Prom of my Adult Life

2006-12-04T21:59:00.000-05:00

Just the Two of Us

With every party I attend, I make a solemn vow to myself that I will take lots and lots of pictures. Only, I hate digging my camera out of my purse. And asking people to pose. Or, worse, asking people to take a picture of me. I just feel like I'm bothering people when I'm forever asking people to "scoot together," or demanding that they smile.

Which is why I only have a handful of pictures from Billy's company party this past weekend. And by "handful" I mean five. And, curiously, all but one of them are of the two of us. Sure there are a bunch of the obligatory "Oh! It's late and I haven't taken any pictures, so I'll just aim my lens sort of in the direction of the dance floor and hope for the best!" And "the best" winds up being a blurry mess of dark heads and blurry arms.

So I'm left with only these few as reminders of a wonderful night. I searched for a dress for weeks. I planned my makeup and my accessories and my shoes, excited for what has become an annual event I begin to look forward to somewhere around Halloween. I donned the red dress Billy requested, and wore my hair down like he requested, too. I drank and laughed and danced my way through almost seven hours of a party. And all night long, Billy periodically put his hand on my waist and told me I looked "gorgeous" or "beautiful" or "sexy," making me feel like I was the most amazing woman in the room through his eyes.

I drank with his coworkers, mixing my standard vodka-tonic-splash-of-cranberry with a double shot of Jack Daniels. Prior to the toast, one of Billy's coworkers introduced me to another one as "Billy's bride-to-be..." And I believe that Billy had a small heart attack right then. I danced with Billy to Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean," and when he left the dance floor, tapped out after only one dance, I stayed on the parquet floor and shook what my momma gave me to song after song.

We fell into the hotel bed somewhere after two, exhausted from dancing and drinking and socializing. My feet throbbed from the silver shoes I bought just for the night. And right before I fell asleep, Billy wrapped me up in his long, sleepy arms and told me he loved me.

This holiday season is off to a perfect start.

About Blank

2006-11-30T08:44:00.000-05:00

Roughly a year ago, we had this same conversation; the one where he tells me where he's going on his annual vacation, and asks me to come along.

Only, this year, he gave me instructions to go online and find out what would be required in order to go. Requirements in the vein of shots and clothing and pills that we'd need to bring to protect ourselves from the bugs, weather and water of South Africa.

Last year, when he talked about Belize, he just told me I couldn't wear heels. And even though the only "dangerous" part of that trip would be the danger of me without heels or makeup for ten whole days, I still wound up stranded with sun poisoning on the porch of our hotel room after gorging on the sun our first day there. I was only able to venture out for trips to a bar, a restaurant, some light shopping, and one day on a ridiculously beautiful island where I slathered myself in sunblock, powered through the horrible sun rash covering my body and snorkeled my way through the most beautiful water I'd ever seen. As far as adventure went, that was pretty much it. The rest of the time we sipped Panty Rippers and watched the water from our beach-front hammock. We read books and had long conversations, we smoked too many cigarettes and got tipsy from coconut rum and pineapple juice. For me, it was the perfect vacation. Relaxing, romantic, not demanding, and not at all scary like I'd imagined it would be.

"But, babe," Billy said last night over dinner, "I can't be stuck in a hotel room for ten days this year. I just can't."

I speared a roasted red potato and nodded, feeling a sense of dread sprinkled with anger take me over. "I know."

"So, listen," he moved around, trying to catch my eyes, as they had not left my plate since the conversation began - it's one of my trademarks for Angry. "Would you look at me?" I rolled my eyes, and then my head, and looked at him out of the corner of my eye, then relented and faced him completely. "I'm saying I want you to go, but I have to make sure you can handle it. Because you're going to get sick. I'm not going to lie to you. It's going to be hot, and there are going to be a lot of bugs, and you're going to have a fever, and you'll have chronic diarrhea. But I need to know that you can suck it up and still go on a safari for four days, or go cage diving. And as long as you can do that, then I can't wait for you to come with me."

Instead of offering anything, I just stared at him. I let silence and the ambient noise of the bar fill up the space where my words should've been. I let time click by while he stared at me, waiting for me to argue with him, to defend my abilities to hang in the wilds of South Africa, to make a case for myself even when I knew there was no merit to it, because that's what I do: I argue just to be contrary, just to win. Instead, I blinked, looked down at my plate, then back at him. "I think we both know the answer to that question."

He started to ask what that answer was, but I cut him off, "No. No, I can't handle it. Which you know. But you sound an awful lot like you're trying to convince me that I don't want to go, that I shouldn't try, so you can go by yourself. If you want to go alone, just tell me."

"Babe," he said, offering his hand on my thigh as comfort, or as proof of his sentiment. His voice was tender, his eyes soft. "That's not it at all. At all. I just want you to know, honestly, what it's going to be like. Because I can't be in a hotel room the whole time I'm there - there's a lot I want to do in South Africa. I skipped South Africa last year, remember? So that we could go to Belize instead, since it would be easier for you. But this year, I really want to go to South Africa. So as long as you're okay with all of that, I want you to come."

"Well, I can't. So..."

"So?"

I took a deep breath. "So I'm not going. You'll have your trip all to yourself this year."

And I was crushed saying it out loud. But I can't. Physically, I simply cannot handle the heat. I'm terrified of the "intestinal parasites" of which he spoke. I don't want malaria, and I don't want to have diarrhea eight times a day. I just don't. That does not sound like a vacation to me. It sounds miserable. Would I love to see Africa? Of course. But do I want to feel that I'm on the cusp of death and then stick myself in a dusty Jeep and ride around in the jungle for four days? Absolutely not. It has nothing to do with the fear of fitting in in a foreign country or trepidation to travel. It has everything to do with knowing that my body just will not be able to handle it. The heat alone is too much for me, never mind disease-carrying bugs. My idea of a vacation is lazy afternoons spent doing nothing, fruity cocktails, soft white hotel sheets; bars and restaurants and dancing and laughing. Not sickness and work. And I think a part of me was considering going simply because it's his annual trip that he's never let anyone take with him before, the fact that he wanted me to be with him, and the fact that it would be embarrassing to admit to his family "Billy's not taking me with him this year." But I had to forget about all of that and just admit that I wouldn't enjoy it, and I shouldn't go.

But I was still angry. Or hurt, more appropriately. Because he kept saying I can't be stuck in a hotel room for ten days, because it made me feel like he'd hated our trip last year. Like he resented that I held him back or something. Like I'm his albatross. And I loved that trip. It was one of the best memories I've ever made. I fought tears while I chewed through my steak.

"Don't be mad," he said, abandoning his plate altogether to look at me.

"I'm not," I said, almost inaudibly, not looking up.

"But you can't even look at me."

He was right. Because if I looked at him, I'd cry. And I couldn't have that. So I kept my eyes on my dinner plate, pushing around potatoes and veggies and juices and steak, trying to give my eyes something to focus on.

But my rapid blinking and attempts to distract myself were no match for my tears. They were determined to roll down my face, and pooled in the corners of my eyes - the holding pen for my emotions. "Well, there's nothing left to talk about. I'm not going. I wouldn't want to keep you locked up in a hotel room for ten days." Sarcasm rolled out of me, my anger in its verbal form.

He inhaled like he finally understood why I was upset. "Babe," he said softly. "I know what you're thinking. But I had a great time in Belize. That's why we picked that place, remember? There wasn't much to do, it was relaxing. It was your first trip out of the country, and it was perfect the way it was; That's what that vacation was for. We just can't do that in South Africa. There's too much to do."

I nodded slowly, indicating that I understood what he was saying but that I still had no intention of looking at him. I felt bruised and left out, and I just didn't have anything to say. I accepted that my passport pages would just have to go without a stamp from Africa, but just thinking of him gone for two weeks made me hurt already, and I didn't want to compound it by letting him convince me it was the right decision.

"Baby," he continued softly, "what am I supposed to do? I really want to go to South Africa. I've wanted to for a long time. And am I supposed to give that up because you don't want to go?"

I didn't know. My feelings about it were - are - mixed. On one hand, I say no. He shouldn't have to give it up. If it means that much to him, it means that much to me. And I don't want to drag him down and make his trip miserable, because, honestly, I do not want to go. Nor do I want to make him miss out on something that important to him. I want him to do what he wants to do. I don't want to hold him back.

But on the other hand, if the situation were reversed, I'd give it up for him. Because I'd rather spend my time with him somewhere where he's comfortable than make new memories without him in them.

It's Five O'Clock Somewhere, Right?

2006-11-29T14:18:00.000-05:00

It's one of those days. You know, the days that make you feel like, at some point, you must've been hit with a brick in the forehead, you just don't remember it. The days when you feel like nothing is going your way.

Because you know you need to start Christmas shopping, like, last week, but you haven't, and every time you consider setting foot in a store to start, all you can think about is your mile-long list of family, friends, extended family, coworkers and the like, and you start to panic. And you realize that you have yet to think of even ONE sure-thing to purchase for ONE person, and you get overwhelmed at even the prospect of walking into a store and picking out something that so-and-so may or may not like. Or that's what you did on Sunday anyway, when you and your boyfriend went to Middletown with every intention of starting the Christmas shopping, only to sulk your way through store after store, pouting and slouching and dragging your feet because the energy required to actually pick up your feet and walk was just too great, as you were already burdened by a list full of recipients and not one gift idea, even surrounded by all of that stuff. So you bought yourself $10 clearance aisle BCBG shoes instead, to make yourself feel better. But you didn't feel better. You just felt like you spent ten bucks on a pair of shoes you're pretty certain you won't wear.

So you fuck around online for most of your workday, trying to come up with gift ideas for your coworkers and even for Billy, because what do you get a guy that can top the awesome iPod you gave him last year? Yeah. Exactly: NOTHING. Or, nothing short of something with a price tag of less than a grand. So you look and you look, and you go on Amazon and create a gift idea list, and poke around in their "suggestions" for each person on your list, and you know there's nothing there they'd like. And their suggestions are a little broader than you'd like (they don't even have "car enthusiast" as an option for the recipients? But they do have "birdwatcher" and "Mystery lover?" That's not fair.), but you go ahead and fill out profiles for everybody on your list. And now a HUGE list with nothing (okay, one or two things) on it stares back at you like a catalogue of your failure. And as a nagging reminder that you better get on that shit QUICK because Christmas is coming and you're going to be out of time, giving bath products and sweaters to people before you know it.

But you're doing this today, when you probably should just be sitting in a catatonic state staring at gossip websites and eating Wheat Thins and salsa. Because you're crampy and you're bitchy and you're pretty sure you could cry at any second if given the chance.

Even though you were totally fine when you woke up this morning. You were in a fine mood after a fine night's sleep. But there you were, in the shower, shampooing your hair, feeling pretty neutral about most everything in your life, when you suddenly got mad. At, like, everything. And you're not sure why, but you think it may have something to do with the morning show you were listening to while you were in the shower. The one where the guy called in because he just bought a ring, and he wants to propose to his girlfriend, he's just not sure how he should go about it, so the DJs and the callers all pitched in with suggestions. And it wasn't that you got upset because you're going through that whole "any day now, he's going to propose" delusion that you've suffered from before. Because you know exactly when Billy's going to propose: Thirteen and a half years from now. Or maybe twelve and a half years, depending on how long he wants the engagement to be. But either way, you know you don't need to start wondering and hopefully anticipating until roughly eleven years from now, so that's not what bothered you. It was that they were talking about engagements, which is something you want, naturally. And it's also something you can't have YET (though it WILL come. You've been assured of this.), and therefore, no one should be able to talk about it until it happens to you, too. Because, frankly, you feel it's just mean to be talking about it all willy-nilly on a morning show when there are people out there who really want it and it is just careless to talk about it and rub their faces in the fact that they're not going to be wearing any diamonds on their left hand ring fingers anytime soon.

And for some reason, you went ahead and started thinking about work. And how that "vacation" you're supposed to have the last week of December has addendums you weren't quite aware of. Addendums in the form of "we're all going to come in on two days over our vacation to spruce up the office." WHAT? And you think about it, while you rinse your hair. While you finish showering. While you dry off. While you apply your face lotion. And by the time you've applied body lotion to every square inch of your skin, you're furious. Because those days? The ones they're talking about making you work when you're supposed to be off, in bed, not getting up until roughly 1 in the afternoon, those are the very days that Billy has off of work. They are the two days you were looking especially forward to. Because you'd get to spend some idle weekday with your boyfriend, and you never get to do that.

So, by the time you get into your bedroom to get ready to leave, and see that your sleeping boyfriend is sort of awake, you're incensed. You're fuming over it, and he doesn't quite know what's going on because, twenty minutes ago, when you got up to get in the shower, you kissed him sweetly all over his face, and he sighed, "Baaaabbyyyy," and smiled a tired smile and wrapped you up in his long arms and kept you in bed for another five minutes just because. And now you're this raging bitch, slamming drawers and walking around in a huff and being generally malcontent. So he starts talking to you, and asking you how you slept while he's all comfy there in bed, where he gets to stay for as long as he wants because it's his day off, and you just feel yourself getting irritated. And the last thing you want to do is unload all of the work shit from your brain onto him, first thing in the morning on his day off, but you can't help yourself. It just spills out. Before you know it, your woes have been poured all over the bed, all over him, and he looks at you like you're, well, kind of crazy. "So what? Go in," he says, shrugging. "It's only two days out of a week vacation." And you get more frustrated, because, CLEARLY, he doesn't understand the catastrophic nature of this situation like you do. And you find yourself thinking "Why can't you ever just listen to me instead of advising?" when you know you're only thinking that because he's not telling you what you want to hear. You want to hear "Fuck them! Don't go in! Those are your days with ME! I've been looking forward to those two days all year, too!" Instead he's telling you that you're not the boss, and if the boss says to come in, that you should do it, and he's being all responsible and shit, and you can hardly stand it this early in the morning. "But it's my vacation," you plead. "I should be able to do what I want." And now you're whining. Great. And, hey, what's that? Tears? AWESOME! Because this is totally a good reason to want to cry. Because your boyfriend is being reasonable and you're whining like a spoiled five year old. That's great. Actually, you realize, it's pretty appropriate. Crying just completes your regression to full-blown child. This rocks.

So you go into work all mad at the world. You drive the whole way thinking "I hate everything," and, while you realize this a very healthy way to start your day, you can't help but enjoy the way this self-inflicted anger makes you feel deep. And you play Sirius Coffeehouse because they play slow, sad music, and you marinate in whatever mood you've made for yourself until you get to work.

And only then do you realize it's your coworker's birthday. And suddenly you flash back to yesterday, just before you went to Wal Mart for household items, when you said to yourself, "I have to get her a card when I go." And then you think about your time in Wal Mart, where you spent roughly half an hour in the cheap jewelry section searching for the perfect pair of $3.00 silver earrings. Then you spent ten minutes deciding which kind of coffee to buy since they were out of Starbuck's. Then you spent another fifteen minutes looking for the perfect black/silver combination eye-show pack to wear to the Christmas party, apparently forgetting that you have roughly eighty bajillion black and silver eye shadows at home. And, since they were out of your favorite hairspray, you spent about ten minutes trying to decide whether you should get Pantene or Suave before settling on Suave, only to return to that aisle and put the Suave BACK and get the Pantene instead. And what seemed like fourteen hours after you got to Wal Mart, you checked out and left without the one thing you were determined to get: The birthday card. Nice going, slick.

So you search for an E-Card online as soon as you get to your desk this morning, but the pressure to pick one before she gets in (which could be at any minute) gets to you and you settle on a cute one that will suffice, rather than taking time and finding an appropriate one.

As soon as you've sent the card, you start messing around on your blog, where you decide to read your December archives. And you almost cry. Twice. So you busy yourself with actual WORK tasks just to make the day end already, hoping that you'll be out of your mood by the time you talk to Billy. And when you do finally talk to him, when he calls you in the middle of his day off just to say hi, you use what you consider to be an even-toned and sweet voice, and he says, "Still crabby, huh?" And you try to dance your way around it and say "No, I'm fine. I am. I really am. I'm fine. I'm...Really...I'm fine." But he doesn't believe you. And understandably so because you accidentally snapped at him when he suggested you pick where you guys are going to go for dinner tonight. You apologize, but you hear the shift in his voice that says I'd rather eat my own eyeballs than talk to you for another second, Ms. Bitchy. So you apologize and make your voice as creamy as possible, and he softens too. But right before he gets off the phone, he says, "Babe, you've got to get out of this mood." And you feel instantly guilty for possibly making him dread your arrival at home.

But then you think, "Eh. It's okay. He loves me anyway," and you go back to your beloved internet and do some more "gift searching" which quickly devolves into "Wish List for Myself" making, thereby rendering your last two hours at the computer completely wasted, because even if you've been ooh-ing and aah-ing over shit for two hours, the next time someone asks you what you want for Christmas, you'll pause, look up at the sky deep in contemplation, then say, "I have no idea." Which means you'll not only be giving sweaters and bath products for Christmas, but also receiving them.

And so, now, all you can do is stare at the clock and wait for the end of the day to come, so that you can rush home, take off your pants, tuck yourself into bed and wait for the mood to pass.

Here's hoping the end of the workday comes FAST.

You Say "Weird," I Say "Eccentric"

2006-11-28T10:08:00.000-05:00

So, Dale tagged me. (Which a sentence I don't think I'll ever type again, by the way.) And I have to write ten weird things about me. But I'm a little sad that I only have to write a list of ten. Because I'm pretty sure I could fill a list of a hundred things.

1) I'm full of strange little idiosyncrasies. Things like:

I can't sleep on the open end of the pillowcase. Something about all that fabric just dangling there freaks me out.
I can't drink water out of a bottle if it's been shaken in my presence. I think it makes it taste different or something. It makes it slimy. BUT! If said bottle is shaken when I can't bear witness to it, I'd probably drink right out of that bottle and never know that it had been shaken.
I hate taking baths, and I hate hot tubs. Because I feel dirtier after taking baths (what's the point of sitting around in your own dirty water?), and also because I think the feel of my butt on that smooth bathtub is gross. And the hot tubs? It's too hot, first of all, and I feel like I'm being boiled for human stew. I think that one stems back to a Far Side comic that had a few pioneers or jungle explorers or something sitting in a huge, obviously boiling, cauldron of water and the cannibals surrounding them are slicing carrots and potatoes into the water.

2) I have a very detailed routine when it comes to eating my favorite food: Lima Beans. Firstly, they cannot touch any of the other items on my plate, which means they usually wind up in a bowl all of their own. The "not touching" doesn't have anything to do with them being contaminated by my other foods, it's just that I like to preserve the taste/butter/salt on the beans. Then, since they're already buttered, I pour a good helping of salt over them. And then I scan the pile of beans for what looks like a good bean, and it eat it. AFTER I peel the skin off. Depending on how the skin removes, whether it slides of easily or tears off, dictates whether I eat the bean or the skin first. This process is repeated for as long as it takes to eat all of the beans. I just can't eat them by the spoonful/forkful. I don't like to eat them whole. So one-by-one it is.

3) I have full-on concerts in my car. The windshield is where my audience sits, looking on in sheer awe. I imagine the whole "Getting Called to the Stage by Surprise" routine in my head before I launch into song. Certain songs call for certain imaginary settings. But, whatever the venue, the principal is the same: Me, singing heartbreakingly wonderful songs, with ease and perfection while people I know look on in amazement.

4) The alternative to the full concert, however, is the "Music Video" situation. In this, I am in the artist's music video, the theme of which has something to do with me driving. Naturally. And I am either the main actress in this video, where the artists sings over me, and I look longingly or desperately or angrily out of the window, depending on the song. Or I am the narrator of the video, in which case I sing...this is hard to admit...into the rearview mirror.

5) In this age of iPods and downloads and Limewire, I'd prefer to not find a CD before it's released or leaked online, and I still prefer to buy my music at the store. Because then I can look forward to the release date, and then I can rush to the store on that date and buy the CD. Then I get the crisp jewel case, and I get to see the album artwork, the lyrics, the look of the disc itself. I just love that. And then, later, I can look around and see the accumulation of my purchases. Which makes me proud, because I love music that much.

6) I'm far too protective of what I consider to be my personal space. Some would even go so far as to say it is unhealthy. I hate when people stand too close to me when speaking (if I can feel/smell their breath, that is too close.) and I will, with no amount of secrecy or shame, back away. This usually causes the close-talker to move in closer, but I'll continue to back away until I am either literally backed into a corner, or until they get the hint. Whichever comes first. I don't like to be touched by people I don't know well. Social kisses and hugs are one thing, but the brushing of someone's thigh against my own when sitting on something like a bench? Unacceptable. I just don't like it. I feel like it's invasive, and I don't appreciate it. I always quote Dirty Dancing in this instance: "This is your dance space, this is my dance space." Indeed.

The only exception to this rule is Billy. My family members are excepted on a case-by-case basis.

7) Additionally, I'm very much like a five year old when it comes to possessions. I live my life in very definite terms of yours and mine. The scissors at my desk? Mine. My desk drawers and the contents thereof? Mine. Candy I've purchased? Mine. I don't mind sharing as long as I'm asked, but I hate walking into a room and seeing someone with something of mine in their hands. A perfect example would be my old job: I have certain pens that I love - because they fit well in my hands, write smoothly, etcetera. And, from time to time, I'd leave the pen in the back or on another desk because I was busy and distracted. Hours later, I'd see someone else using it, and I would see red. Because that person had to know that pen wasn't hers, so why was she using it? Conversely, I think I'm very good at not taking things that clearly belong to someone else. If it is necessary that I use something that does not belong to me, I will ask first, or make mention of it later. I'm pretty sure it goes back to my younger days, when my brother and I would fight so much and so fiercely that we had to be separated. Our rooms were safe zones, and we were not allowed into one another's rooms without permission. And if my mom bought, for instance, ice cream Chase had requested, and I went to eat it, I'd hear the "Uh-uh. That's Chase's ice cream." And he would hear the same thing if something were purchased for me. It was an act instituted to keep the peace, and it has never left me. Some say it's polite, some say it's childish. I say I can't help it.

8) I'm extremely polite. Which, I know, isn't a bad thing. But I'm polite to a fault. Guilt is a big factor, as is worrying what other people think of me. I will buy things I don't even like at a store if the sales girl/guy is nice to me. I feel like it's rude if they've spent time helping me and I leave without making a purchase. I know they're paid to be there, but still. I just hate feeling like I'm wasting people's time. In social situations, if someone offends me, it's very rare that I'll speak up for myself. I'd rather be a doormat than be misconstrued as a bitch. If someone upsets me by doing or saying something that I feel is a personal affront, I'll just marinate in my anger until it passes rather than telling that person that I'm upset. Because I don't want to make waves, and I don't want to fight. I have many people in my life who, possibly inadvertently, have offended me, but I'd never say a word. Going further, when I purchase cigarettes or gas or toilet paper or anything, I always conclude my time with the cashier with a "Thank you very much." Even if they're rude. And not just Thank you, but a sincere Thank you very much or Thank you so much. I say thank you every time the waiter/waitress does anything at my table when I'm dining out. I've thanked each and every person who opens or holds a door for me. I thank each car that lets me out into traffic, and I'm usually the car who lets people out of parking lots and into the road. I stop for pedestrians. I squeeze myself into walls and table to allow people to pass me in aisles and walkways, always giving the stranger the benefit of space. And I get furious with people who don't do the same. It's common courtesy. But, also, I think has something to do with the fact that I can't stomach the thought of the person I didn't thank/let in to traffic/let pass me going through their day thinking, "God. She was so rude."

9) I can't dive. I can jump into a pool, but I cannot dive. Something about my body just will not allow me to curve my body the way you need to curve to dive. I always just end up belly flopping in.

10) I'm scared of very deep water. When I was on my cruise, if I sat and thought of just how much space was below me, how much water there was around me...How far down I'd have to sink before hitting bottom and how there was nothing around me but water for hundreds, thousands, of miles, it really freaked me out. I think it's the helplessness, the hopelessness of it that bothers me. Also, I can't swim in any body of water whose floor I can't see. It's two-fold: One, if I can't see the bottom, it's clearly VERY DEEP, and we now know how I feel about that. Secondly, I need to see what's down there so I don't get stung/pinched/bitten by anything lurking around in the sand or murk. That one goes back to my summers spent at Hilton Head Island with my grandmother who once, while walking through knee-high brownish water, had her big toe pinched by a crab. That crap ripped up the skin on the side of her toe and made me scared enough to never walk in water that didn't reveal its inhabitants.

So that's all I'm obligated to tell you. I'm not tagging anyone because I don't want to put anyone on the spot. But if you read this and want to do it to, go right ahead. It's fun making people think you're crazy!

Queen Jealousy

2006-11-22T14:53:00.000-05:00

I’ve always been that girl who says “I totally have no problem with my boyfriend talking to other girls,” or “If he wants to flirt, that’s fine. He’s a natural flirt. He comes home to me.” I’ve even upped the ante and said, out loud, “I don’t mind if my boyfriend goes to strip clubs.”

But, like almost everything I say, all of these declarations require addendums.

I don’t have a problem with my boyfriend talking to other girls, as long as I know said other girls. If they’re old friends, I need to have heard about them numerous times. If they’re new friends, I need to be introduced. I have to be familiar with the notion of this girl to whom he’ll be speaking. It helps me digest it better, curbs my natural inclination toward suspicion.

I’m fine with the flirting, with the actions of the “natural flirt” of a boyfriend that it seems I’ve found myself claiming for the last, oh, ten years of my life. But it cannot be overt flirtation. Just subtleties that are almost flirting: Coy smiles and soft voices are flirtations to me. That, I’m okay with. Outright body-leaning-in, obvious flattery and inquiring of phone numbers? Not so much.

Strip clubs? Hey, I’ve been to a strip club or fifty in my life. I don’t mind them one bit. So, no I don’t mind if my boyfriend goes. But I prefer that I’d be there with him. Because it’s one thing to look at boobs with your girlfriend, another thing entirely to look at boobs while your girlfriend is at home. If he takes me with him, I feel like it’s an experience we’re sharing. There’s nothing to hide if you’re okay with me being there, too. But, still, in most circumstances, I’m okay with a guy’s night at a strip club. But not one man alone, and not with the intent to chat up the strippers. And no lap dances. There has to be a line somewhere.

But, you know, in noticing that all of the “liberties” I “grant” require provisos, I’ve noticed something: I’m jealous. I’m jealous and competitive and not that liberal at all. Hmph. And, as with most things in my life, I was the last one to know about this. Or rather, I’ve just now admitted it to myself.

My ex used to check out girls when he was with me. I tried and tried to get him to stop, but he wouldn’t, claiming that he wasn’t doing anything wrong. “It’s not like I’m being unfaithful,” he’d say with a smile meant to distract me from the anger.

Though always weak in the face of that smile of his, I’d persist: “It’s not about fidelity. It’s about winning.” I struggled to demonstrate the complexities of the female brain, while he looked on in confusion. “Look,” I’d say, “if I’m walking through a mall, and some guy who is obviously with his girlfriend – holding her hand or whatever – checks me out, I’ve won. Because I can say, ‘Oh, man. That guy, who is with that girl, just totally checked me out. Poor girl.’ He’s supposed to be with her, into her, but I was able to distract him. I won. And I don’t want some other girl winning, while I’m there, holding your hand, stupidly unaware that other girls are winning all over the place.”

He said he understood and agreed to stop. A week later, when he thought, apparently, that he was a vampire and therefore invisible in mirrors, I caught a reflection of him totally checking out another girl.

“She just won,” I said without even looking at him. “No woman should win but me.”

I considered it my competitive nature, not my jealousy, that was making me miserable in that situation. But looking at it now, I’m sure I was just jealous that some other woman was garnering the attention of the man I called mine.

Thanksgiving Eve is a big night around these parts. Actually, it’s probably big everywhere as a night of reunions with friends who’ve moved away, but whose families still reside in your town. Everyone comes home for Thanksgiving, and they all go out to local bars and catch one another up on their careers, their love lives, their lives in general.

“Did you want to go out Thanksgiving Eve?” I asked Billy as we readied ourselves for work Tuesday morning.

“What do you want to do?” he replied as he squeezed Colgate onto his new toothbrush.

“I don’t really care. It’s not a big deal to me. I didn’t grow up here, so the thrill is kind of lost on me. But I thought maybe you’d like to. I’m happy to go if you want to.”

He began to brush his teeth, but stopped before the brush reached his mouth. “No. Nope, nope, nope. Because I just know I’ll get in trouble if we go out.”

“What do you mean?” I laughed, rubbing lotion into my legs.

“I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but I know that somehow, I’ll wind up in trouble with you by the end of the night, so we should probably just stay in.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded, playfully jabbing him in the ribs.

“Because I’m going to know people and have to talk to them, which means I won’t be able to give you my full attention. Which you’ll take as ignoring you. And some of the people I know will be female. And you’ll think I’ve either dated or slept with them, and be angry with me for even looking at them. So no. Let’s rent a movie or something.”

I started to argue, but the sharp sting of truth kept me quiet. He was right. Last year, we went out, and I spent the evening alternately pretending to be interested in the various historical recaps of his youth that he shared with friends, and pretending to not be bothered by the fact that some of the people he introduced me to didn’t bother acknowledging me at all. I spent much of the night studying my cocktail glass and smoking too many cigarettes so that I had something to with my hands. But I seldom meet his friends, and it’s rarer still that I am introduced to them, so I plastered a smile to my face and ran with it. Because he’s my boyfriend and I love him and it doesn’t always have to be about ME.

But I was irritated. I remember getting mad, sitting there, surrounded by too-loud music and no one to talk to. “I came to be with him,” I said to myself, “not to be out alone.” But the more accurate picture is probably that I was just jealous. Because other people had his attention. The attention that I don’t want just for the sake of wanting it, but because it’s his, and he has a way of making you feel like you’re the only person in the world when he’s talking to you. I was aware of the way some of the women looked at him. Because of the way he makes everyone feel special. Because everyone loves him. And I wanted to post a sign on his smooth forehead, over his sincere smile, announcing my possession of him, but I couldn’t. So, instead, I asked probing questions all the way home; questions that stopped just short of “So, did you ever sleep with [insert description of woman here]?”

“I promise you won’t be in trouble,” I said, wiping my hands on the hand towel.

“Oh, you can’t fool me. I know. I’ll be in trouble. Somehow.” He had begun brushing, and his words came out clumsy and garbled.

I sighed and gathered my belongings to leave the bathroom.

“When are you going to trust me?” He asked, his mouth now filling with frothy toothpaste.

“I do.”

He spit. “No you don’t. You think you’re liable to lose me at any second.” He paused, perhaps considering the ridiculousness of the fact that I actually do feel that way. “Just trust me.”

I started to say that old worn out line about it’s not YOU I don’t trust; it’s your friends/other women. But it occurs to me that that’s not saying much. When it comes down to it, you’re still telling him you think he’s not strong enough to overcome the temptation of other women or peer pressure. Which, is basically, saying he’s weak and – Ta-Daa! – you don’t trust him. So I stopped. “I do trust you. I do. I’m just…Jealous.”

“REALLY?” he said, in that sarcastic, Oh my god I never thought of that before! How positively enlightening! way. I slapped him on the butt and went to open the bathroom door.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me back to him, attempting to kiss my just made-up face with his Colgate-rimmed mouth. I backed away, he moved in, back away, move in. We danced like that until I howled with laughter and finally allowed a gentle kiss on my lips.

“You’re such a weirdo,” I said, licking the minty paste from my lips.

But the conversation left me wondering where the murky line between trust and jealousy lies. Can you trust and be jealous at the same time? Are they mutually exclusive? Or do lack of trust and jealousy just mean the same thing?

Because, the way I see it, it’s not that Billy’s ready to run off at the first sign of trouble, or at the first glimpse of a stripper’s boob. It’s just that I see him as the most attractive, charismatic, charming, intelligent, warm, funny, incredible man on the face of the earth. And any woman who sees that is going to do her best to get him from me. In my sick imagination, the sight of him walking into a room is followed immediately by the sound of hundreds of panties falling to the floor.

Of all of the impressions a girl can have of her boyfriend, isn’t that the best kind to have? I mean, does he really want me to see him as a loser who, when he goes out, people go out of their way to NOT talk to?

But the side effect of having this glorified opinion of him is jealousy. I know that he wouldn’t betray me. I do. I don’t believe he’d ever hurt me that way. I know he loves me and only has eyes for me. But I’m still jealous.

“I do like where your head’s at,” he said when I presented him with my quandary. “But why can’t you still think of me that way, and then think, ‘And he’s all mine.’?”

“Because it doesn’t work that way,” I told him.

Or can it?

Because this jealousy? It kills me. I know it can stem from insecurity and lack of faith, but can’t it also be attributed to just having an awesome boyfriend that you don’t want another bitch to even think about putting her paws on? Because that’s where I think mine comes from.

It's a List because I Just Don't Have TIME for a Real Post

2006-11-20T23:09:00.000-05:00

1. I cannot switch to Blogger Beta. Just can't do it. At first it was due to my standard fear of change in any form. I'm comfortable with antiquated blogger, I am. I'm able to apply the miniscule amount of HTML I know in the appropriate places. I know what it looks like, how it works. I know all my saved drafts are safe and secure. I know all that. What I don't know is how the switch to Beta will affect me. So I haven't.

Until I started looking at the blogs that have switched over, and the OCD girl inside of me got all giddy, and she started whispering in my ear that I could go through almost two years of posts and add tags to all of them, and organize all of it. And, oh, that would be so much fun. And she told me I could make columns and lists and things on the side there, and I could move it around however I want...

So me and the OCD girl agreed, and tried to switch. The first time, I stopped because, hey, what if all of my drafts don't go over? So I procrastinated. The second time, I was like, "But what about all my links?" She tapped her finger onto her chin exactly fourteen times (she always does that when she's thinking) and nodded vigorously. "Good point," she said, blinking twenty four times. "Good point. Don't do it." But she started to panic at the thought of losing all of that info. So we stopped. Then I went to do it again, and I realized that I didn't know how to make links open in new windows with the new system. I emailed a friend, and she said it just all transferred over. So I looked at the OCD girl, and she looked at me, and we nodded in unison and I clicked the link to switch me over.

We thought we were on our way to a new and improved Divinities, but, alas, no such luck. My blog is too big to switch right now. And you know what? Now, every time I log into my blog, I get that big message saying "We're ready to switch you!" And every time I see it, I fall for it. And every time I do it, I get the same stupid message. "Whoops. Sorry. Not yet." And now I want it. Badly. This is not fair.

2. I met Chase's girlfriend on Saturday. And, you know what? She's pretty freakin' great. I THINK.

Chase is really into her, and she is really into him. And it's so comforting to see that. I even witnessed little boyfriend/girlfriend things between the two of them. It was so cute. He's a good boyfriend, I think, my little brother. And if he's not? I'll kick his ass.

3. I have a formal Christmas party to attend in December so, on Saturday, my mom, Chase, his girlfriend and I all went to this fancy-pants mall about an hour and a half away from here. Mom and I went on our own and searched high and low for dresses. We went into Neiman-Marcus and Nordstrom, trying to stifle the inevitable vomiting sensation that overtook us each time we flipped over a price tag that read "$790" or "Sale! $955." Ugh. We made jokes about how the other half lives, and kept on moving through the stores.

Unwittingly, we stumbled into the "Couture" section of Nordstrom, where gigantic ball gowns with crystal embellishments hung from velveteen hangers. We knew we were out of our league, but since no one was around, we checked things out. And that's when two sales people, one man and one woman, emerged from the dressing room area. They started to go over the specifics of their department, "Every dress you see here is custom-made, available in any size or color you desire." I sort of grinned and nodded, trying to feign indifference, and trying NOT to let them know I was out of my price range. After they'd asked me what the occasion was and I answered, they started giving suggestions. "This is a lovely cocktail dress," said the short salesman, moving the dress from its hanging position and to the front of his body. "It's quite elegant."

"Yes, well," I said, struggling to keep my composure. The price tag was dangling there, profane in its exposure. $3,450. "That's not really my style," I said regrettably. "Thank you though," and we scampered out of there. "Quick," I whispered to mom, "before they realize we could never afford this stuff!"

4. Eventually, I found my way to someplace more comfortable: The sales rack at Lord & Taylor. I ended up purchasing two dresses. They're both quite lovely, and I bought the two of them because I couldn't decide between them. So I brought them home, definite favorite in mind, and showed them to Billy and asked him to pick. He did not pick my favorite. Which puts me in quite a quandary. Because the one he picked is sexy, the other is classier. And I generally like to go with Classy over Sexy. But I do want to make him proud...So I don't know which one to wear. But I have to go shopping for shoes, so that means I have to pick one and stick with it, unless I want to buy complete outfits - replete with jewels, shoes and bags - for each option and then just make the choice based on how I feel that day. And that just seems dangerous. And costly.

5. I showed the dresses to my friend, and she agreed with Billy. So Sexy Red Dress it is. But I've just spent three hours in a different mall, and I couldn't find any shoes that complimented it. Damn winter shoes. Doesn't anyone buy sexy, strappy little shoes in the winter? I mean, I know it'll be all snowy and horribly cold in a matter of hours, but, c'mon. I need the right shoes.

6. I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving. I have a shortened work week this week, and if that's not reason to give thanks, I don't know what is.

The Sister's Curse

2006-11-17T11:14:00.000-05:00

My little brother is coming home from school today for Thanksgiving break...With his girlfriend! They'll both be staying with my parents for a full week.

As the protective older sister, I feel not unlike a mother whose little baby is growing up and leaving the nest. It makes me feel ancient and antique, like I've turned around and suddenly he's a man, and I'm a grandma. Something about Chase bringing a girl HOME for a WEEK makes me want to weep a little bit. He's all grown up, I want to cry, dabbing at the tears in my eyes with the embroidered handkerchief I'm holding in my wrinkly hand. My little boy is a man now. Then I'd straighten my reading glasses and adjust the chain that holds them around my neck, take a deep and ragged breath, and go back to my knitting.

But I don't carry an embroidered handkerchief, and I don't knit; I don't have wrinkly hands, and I don't wear glasses. I'm 26, and he's 20, but something about this makes me feel old. And it makes me want to take this girl into a locked room, point a sweat lamp directly at her head and ask her all sorts of intrusive questions. What are your intentions with my brother? Are you sure you feel strongly for him? Are you leading him on? You better MEAN EVERYTHING YOU SAY TO HIM, AND STICK BY IT NO MATTER WHAT OR I WILL OWN YOU. Understand? I want to employ the tactics my dad threatened me with when I first started dating: Cleaning guns at the kitchen table when she walks in. I want to eye her suspiciously, make her nervous...

But I won't. Obviously. For a number of reasons: One, it's not my place. Two, I'm just not that kind of person. And three, Chase really cares for her. And he must care for her for a reason. If he likes her, she must be pretty incredible.

And then there's the other thing: No matter how shitty my boyfriends in the past were, Chase was always nice. He may be my "little brother" by timeline, but not physically. Physically, he's much bigger than me, and he could very easily play the role of Asshole Big Brother if need be. And he never did. Not because he didn't care, but because I cared about the guy, and that was enough for Chase. So I'm going to try to approach it that way this time.

I haven't always thought of it this way. In fact, I'm sort of notorious for being the mean older sister when it comes to girlfriends. Not because I'm mean just for the sake of being mean, but because in Chase's younger years, I was just a better judge of character than he was. Chase was sweet and unquestionably trusting, where I could sense evil immediately. And one particular girl he brought around was just that. So from the instant I met her and heard her referring to my mom and dad as "Mom" and "Dad," I'd had enough. I was short with her, I couldn't look at her, and I wanted nothing to do with her. I tried to be nice, but I insisted, to Chase and my whole family (who all loved her), that something was wrong. With her. That she wasn't as sweet as she made herself out to be. I didn't like that she was intruding on my territory. That she was trying to wedge herself into my incredible family because she got dealt a shitty one. I thought she was too full of sacchrine, her act was too syrupy to swallow. And you know what? A couple of months later, the truth was revealed. And who was right? ME. That's who. I saw through her artificial affection and her too-sweet demeanor to the slimy opportunist that was circling Chase's feet.

But, because I was "mean" to her, I've developed a slight reputation in my family of being a VERY overprotective big sister. My little brother isn't nervous about bringing girls home to meet my parents, he's nervous about bringing them to meet me. "Promise me you'll be nice," Chase said when he gently broke the news that his girlfriend would be sharing our time together this Thanksgiving.

"I am nice," I maintained. "As long as I think she's good to you."

"She is," he said. I could picture him closing his eyes and nodding, like a frustrated parent tired of explaining things to his child.

"I promise." I heard his exhale of relief through the phone. "BUT!" I amended, "If I sense something off, I'm going to tell you. And then I'll be civil, but I won't be awesome. Okay?"

I'm approaching this like Chase and his girlfriend are 14. They're both in their twenties. Technically, they're my peers. Yet I'm assuming the role of Adult to their assigned role of Child in my mind.

It's so silly. Because I know that Chase is grown. I know he's capable of judging good from bad. And I even know that this girl is really nice, and treats him really well. But I'm constantly on the lookout for people's ulterior motives when it comes to him, as though Chase The Poor College Student has anything worth stealing. It's just that he's such a good man, such a kind, giving and caring person, I'm terrified that people will take advantage of that soft, perfect part of him. I love him so much, I want to protect him. Even if he's perfectly capable of protecting himself. Even if he doesn't want me to. Even if it's silly and ridiculous and antiquated and stupid. I love him. And I'm his big sister. I always will be.

Protecting him, in whatever small way I can, is what I'll be doing for the rest of my life.

Attention World:

2006-11-13T13:55:00.000-05:00

There’s a store in the Rockaway Townsquare Mall, that rhymes with Schmictoria’s Frecret? It may have the worst. Employees. Ever.

I walked into the store hoping to buy at least one new bra. Because a girl like me finds one bra that she falls in love with and doesn’t deviate from that until the bra decides it’s had enough of her and begins to go limp in protest of being worn day in, day out. And it was time for a new one. So I strode in, a very specific idea of what I needed in my mind. My friend had told me about this certain bra that was supposedly wonderful under T-Shirts and pushed up and did everything a bra was supposed to do while being comfortable. I needed it.

So I headed toward the correct section, scanning the wall-mounted hangers for the one I wanted. In my travels to what appeared to be the correct section, I witnessed an employee getting bitched out by a customer. In her hand, the customer held the all-too-familiar “FREE PANTY!” flyer that every American gets roughly 1,845 times a year. She was clearly complaining that the one style of panty that could actually be free was no longer available in the store. “What do you mean, you don’t have any more?” she argued. The sales girl continued her task of folding panties, all but ignoring the customer, and replied, “I mean, we don’t have anymore. Sorry.” I could understand the sales girl’s apathy. So you can’t get your free panty. Big deal lady, get over it. I shook my head at how uptight, how demanding customers could be and arrived at my section.

The racks - which are normally so neat and tidy in every other Schmictoria’s Frecret I’ve been in, and even this one on prior visits - were all in disarray. The push-up bras were mixed in with the regular ones, as were the strapless and convertible versions. There was no rhyme or reason to the size, either, and so I went for the ol’ fail-safe of going into the drawers below the displays to find my size. It’s been my experience that whatever I couldn’t find up top would be down there, an organized oasis of bras, broken down into size, style and levels of padding.

But the drawers were just as bad as the racks above them. After searching for well over twenty minutes, and not once being approached by the normally helpful staff, I had to go and seek out some help of my own.

I pride myself on not being a bothersome customer. I’m the kind of person who buys something I may not like all that much if the sales person is really nice, if they’ve helped me and didn’t make me feel like a bother and made an effort to do their jobs well. On the other hand, I will not buy something, even if I LOVE it, if the sales people ignore me, or if I have to interrupt their personal conversation to get a fitting room or pay for my item. I’ve been in customer service for years, and, well, I’ve been a customer for years, and I know how it’s supposed to go: You, the employee, are nice to the customer. You treat them like you’re glad to see them, you accommodate them, you make the sale. You treat them with respect, you are kind, and you are helpful. Because you are being paid to be there. And you know what? That customer that you hate so much for just walking into the store? She’s paying you to be there. So you act like it. And, in turn, as the customer, you’re nice and courteous. You’re not mean for no reason, you aren’t an asshole; you’re nice and accommodating, too. It’s a very symbiotic relationship when both parties are decent. So I try not to demand too much. If I can find my own size, I will. If I can let myself into a room, I will. But the employees, they’re there to help me.

Which is why I was so surprised to have to track down one of the two girls working the sales floor. One in particular had passed by me no less than four times. And the fact that she would not make eye contact with me made me believe that she was actually ignoring me on purpose. This was not the same girl who was just being bitched at for not having free panties available, this girl was carrying around bras and, I guess, hanging them up in their appropriate spots. Though the racks certainly didn’t support my assumption, so I’m sure she was just carrying them around to look busy.

I tried to catch her eye twice, but failed. So, on what must have been her fifth trip past me, I had to actually say, “Excuse me.” She looked up at me with a mix of apathy, disdain and irritation.

“Yes.”

She was dressed in the customary all-black suit that most employees wear, only she had decided to dress it up with a Louis Vuitton scarf, that was bundled loosely around her neck and made her head appear to be floating on a cloud of fake silk. (I say fake because, really, if she’s working at Schmictoria’s Frecret, can she really afford a $400 scarf? Because, hey, we all know that the Prada bag I have in my closet was purchased from a street-side vendor. I mean, c’mon, I’m a secretary.) Her reddish-brown hair was piled high above her overly made-up face, and everything about her screamed “I don’t want to be here, and I’m above you anyway.” The way she looked at me suggested I’d just crawled into the store directly from the nearest garbage can, and that I was clearly not good enough to be in the store, let alone in her presence.

Quite the contrary, I was all done up and was carrying my fancy-pants real purse. I was dressed well, and I was ready to spend money. Which, really, should make no difference. I’ve learned that you can never treat anyone like they’re broke. It's the old Don't judge a book by its cover addage. Her clear superiority complex drove me mad. What happened to treating the customer well?

I hated this woman’s attitude, but I needed something and was willing to overlook it. “Can you tell me where I can find this certain bra in my size?” I asked nicely.

She extended a bony finger and pointed past me. She was pointing at a wall maybe ten paces way and gave a fake smile. “Over there.”

I followed her finger, then turned my head back to her. “Yes, I know. I was just over there. But I can’t find my size. Can you help me?”

Her smile flickered off, then back on. Her voice went from bothered to condescending. “They’re…Right…Over…There,” she said, slowly so that I could understand her.

I’ve never been refused, when asking out-right, for help. Never in my life. “Seriously?” I said, bewildered. “Wow.” I was seriously shocked. “Well then. THANK YOU SOO-OOO MUCH FOR ALL OF YOUR HELP.” My reply's pace mirrored the sloth of her words. My eyes rolled as I spoke more loudly than necessary, hoping that she’d pick up on my sarcasm.

She didn’t. She just nodded like she’d done something helpful and walked away, bras dangling from her little demon arms.

Because I was desperate, I walked back over to that section. Only this time, I was furious. My blood was boiling. My blood pressure was high. I was incensed. I just couldn’t believe it. She’s supposed to help me. And if she’s new, or doesn’t know, she’s supposed to send someone to me who CAN help. But she didn’t.

What I wanted to do was run through the store, my arm extended, wiping panty after panty from their folded positions on the tables and onto the floor. I wanted to yank the racks from the wall. I wanted to throw bras in the air and let them fall wherever they may. I wanted to knock over mannequins and punch through the signs. I wanted to wreck the store and then walk up to her, panting, out of breath and sweaty, push my hair back from my face, take a satisfied deep breath, stand up a little straighter, adjust my purse on my shoulder and smile. “I think you have a few more bras to put back,” I’d say, flicking one of the bras in her hand as I said bras, to make sure she understood what I was talking about. Then I’d smile and point back to the disaster I’d caused and say, “Right…Over…There.” And then I’d walk out, smiling serenely and standing tall, rounding the corner to get lost in the mall crowd.

But I didn’t. I’m not aggressive. I’m passive-aggressive. Instead, I went ahead and looked at every bra, sure to take it down from its rack to check the size, then leave each one on the waist-high counter instead of putting it back. I opened the drawers and checked each one of those, too. And, naturally, I pulled each one from its drawer and left all of those wrong sizes on the counter too. When I was finished, I had found one bra: Right size, wrong color and style. So I went back over to the sales “ladies,” Little Miss Louis Vuitton and the one who was previously defending the store’s lack of panties. They were facing away from me, chatting, as I walked up behind them. As luck would have it, they were chatting about ME!

“So she says, ‘Can you help me,’ and I’m like, ‘Uh, hello. They’re right over there.’ And then she, like, rolled her –”

“Excuse me,” I said sweetly. They both startled and turned around. A guilty look flashed across their faces. “I hate to interrupt your little discussion here, but I can’t find the size in the selection right over there, so I’m going to need,” and I pointed at the saleslady I hadn’t yet spoken to, “you to help me.”

Louis Vuitton walked away, and the other one was clearly miffed that now she was stuck with me, the customer bold enough to actually ask one of them to do something.

“What did you need?” she said, looking over my shoulder. Her voice was detached and obviously uninterested in bothering with me.

“Well, your coworker told me that I could find whatever I needed over there,” I pointed behind me, then looked at her again, a smile on my face, my voice syrupy-sweet. “But I can’t seem to find it there. So I need to know if you can find it for me.”

“If it’s not over there, we don’t have it,” she said, as though she was stating the obvious. As though she couldn’t believe I was dumb enough to not understand that. It was at that point that she turned to walk away.

I don't know why I persisted, but I did. I guess it was sort of my way of not giving in to their obvious desire to just get rid of me.

“You don’t have any in the back?” I said.

She stopped, sighed, and turned to face me. “Yeah, we do.”

Maybe I'm crazy, but I just don't think I should have to ask a direct question like to make her offer to check the back for me. I thought that was part of her job. “Well, do you think you’ll have any other sizes back there?”

“Mmm-hmmm.” She confirmed, but making no effort or offer to move or check.

I took a deep breath. “Well, since you’re the one paid to be here, and I’m the one looking to pay for a bra, you think you could, oh, I don’t know, go back there and check?”

“Sure,” she said. There's just no other way to describe her tone: It was mean.

She asked for my size and said she’d be back. “Oh, first,” I said, talking to her back once again, “I need a fitting room. Would it be too much trouble to let me into one?”

“Follow me,” she said, not even turning around.

So I followed her into the fitting rooms, where she begrudgingly let me into one of the mirrored rooms. And I stepped in, closed the door behind me and tossed the bra on the little seat inside. And I let out a disgusted sigh as I prepared to try on the thing…But then I stopped. Wait a second, I thought. Do I really want either of these women to earn a commission – even a SMALL one – considering how RUDE they were? And the answer was an explicit NO.

So I opened the door and walked out, hoping she was in the back room, rifling through bins of bras and that she’d come out to find me gone. But I know better. She was probably just hiding out around the corner so she could say she checked in the back, but there weren't any for me.

It may sound a little old-fogie of me but if I had to be nice to every person whose path I crossed for the last ten years of my life in the interest of keeping my job, how do these people get away with it? And how do they not think it's wrong? And, damnit, what the hell has happened to customer service?

I may have to write a letter.

The iPod Knows

2006-11-11T10:28:00.000-05:00

Thursdays aren't my usual gym days. Not because I have a prior engagement on Thursdays, but because there's not a class that night that I enjoy taking. But this past Thursday, when my plans for the evening were canceled, I decided to make up for the cheeseburger and ton of fries I had for lunch and hit the elliptical.

With my dainty little iPod in hand, I stretched and limbered up in preparation for the hour of work ahead of me. Though I have a workout playlist, I thought I'd take my chances with Shuffle. It carried me through my warm up with a little Kanye West, the drifted into too-slow Jonny Lang. I forwarded my way through until I hit the faster songs, the ones that got me moving and made me forget about the time I had left, the miles I still wanted to go.

Looking like an idiot, I silently sang along with each song, my body trying to dance despite the fact that my feet were occupied with the machine. I moved my mouth and pumped my arms and couldn't resist tapping along with the beat on the handles. It got me through my first half hour with no problems, making me forget that I had a whole half hour left.

It was when I had to reset the elliptical at the half hour mark that I noticed it: The battery indicator on my iPod, glowing red. I was running out of time. I was tired, though, and sort of grateful that my music would soon give out, as it felt like my thighs were threatening to give out, too. So I made a deal with myself: I'd keep going as long as the iPod did.

Song after song, I waited for that indicator to flash empty and for the screen to go blank, for the techno music currently playing to come to an abrupt halt. I ached for its end, pushing myself just enough to get through until the certain snap of silence came.

But it didn't. The music kept going. And going. And going.

So did I.

And, after over a full hour on the machine, I was finally able to stop; but because my time was up, not because the iPod gave out. Sweat poured down my face and torso as I slowly removed myself from the contraption, music still pumping away directly into my eardrums.

I would've quit, I would've been happy to. But I needed to keep going, and my trusty little iPod knew that.

Thank God for technology.

Maps

2006-11-09T16:18:00.000-05:00

"Can I get you guys something to drink?" the hostess asked, leaning over and into us. We turned away from the sushi bar before us to face her. I looked at Billy, unsure of what he'd like.

He spoke. "Can we get a coke," he put his long fingers on his own chest, "and a pinot grigiot?" He grabbed my hand.

"Sure. Of course."

The hostess's heels clicked over the stone floor on her way to the bar. I wrapped Billy's hand in my own. "I love that," I said, leaning in to kiss the stubble on his cheek.

"What?"

"That you knew I'd want a pinot without my asking."

Dating someone for a significant period of time allows you access to little pieces of them that not everyone gets to see. Sure, everyone I know knows that I love wine. But he knows that I love it with my sushi. And he knew, without my announcing it, that I'd like to indulge.

I know how he likes his coffee, I know that he likes the toilet paper over the roll, never under. I know that he likes to leave the window in the car open for a little while after we throw out our cigarettes. I know the face he makes in the mirror when he's assessing his shirt/tie combination. I know all of that.

Yesterday, he received two ties he'd ordered over the internet. He tore into the manila package with the anticipation of an eight year old on Christmas morning. He was giddy as he removed each silk accessory from its individual wrapping, letting the tie fall to its full length in front of me. "Look at this one," he purred, pulling the clear plastic off.

He surveyed their quality, he held them up to his long torso. "Whaddya think?" he asked, tilting his head to the side in mock coyness.

"It's beautiful," I said, laughing at him. "Is this what I'm like with a new pair of shoes?"

"Yes," he replied, setting the tie gingerly on the ottoman in front of us.

He hung up the ties in our closet, unsure of which one he'd wear today before we settled in for our DVR'd viewing of Lost.

Today, he called me on his way to work. After cooing good morning to one another, he asked me how my day was. I gave him my standard response of, "Eh. Fine. Yours?"

"Well, I watched some TV. Then I got ready, and now I'm driving to work. Aaaand, I'm wearing one of my new ties."

"Which one?" I asked, smiling and cradling the phone between my shoulder and my ear.

"Guess."

"Umm...The Ted Baker one. The one with the circles."

"Babe," he said, "how do you know me so well?"

In truth, I had a 50/50 shot to get that right. I could've just guessed and gotten lucky. But I didn't. Because of the way he tied it not once, but twice around his neck last night; a dry run for the tie. The way he surveyed it for pulls and irregularities. The way he considered the color of shirt to wear with it. He placed both new ties on the rack carefully and gingerly, but he fondled the circle tie just a hair more.

The thing is, people talk about the honeymoon phase all the time. The first few months of a relationship that find both parties blissful and enamored of one another. The period of time where they can't be torn from their lover's side, where everything that certain someone does is cute and romantic and wonderful. It's the time when butterflies tumble through your belly, each kiss is delicious and new, each spoken word of affection merely a stepping stone to love. Your stomach does somersaults while you wait for the relationship to take shape, you shave your legs every day, you buy new underwear, you wait for his call. It's hot and dizzying and wonderful...

And it lasts for about three months.

Then suddenly, you're in a relationship. And you're talking about the most mundane things over dinner. You talk about work and you share stories you've shared with one another a million times. You find yourself saying, "Did I tell you this already?" with the tone of voice that implies you know you have. You settle into a routine and you stop shaving your legs because, hey, it's winter and he loves me anyway; and you stop filling up silences with plush and giddy conversation. There is no need for filler in your lives any longer. You eat together, you wake together, you fall asleep together. You remind each other to "remember your phone" and "take your pill" and you start buying toilet paper and Tub'N'Tile cleaner and you can't remember the last time you wore a bustier.

And that honeymoon stage is great. It is. But this, this year-into-it, comfortable-with-each-other phase? It's so much better. Because along with no longer shaving every day, you no longer worry that maybe he doesn't love you like he says he does. You no longer feel like he loves you because you apply your makeup with the hand of an artist. He loves you for the skin and bones beneath it. He loves you when you wake up, your hair standing on end, with bad breath and sleep in your eyes. He loves you in your heels, but he loves you out of them, when he can wrap you in his arms and playfully call you "Shortie."

And you know one another. You aren't shy, and you aren't afraid, and you feel comfortable. And not the kind of comfortable that fosters laziness and neglect; the kind that feels like blankets and chamomile tea and a good book. He's no longer an amphetamine, he's a glass of wine and deep kiss, slow and certain.

And he is. He's my home, my favorite meal, the sweet surprise of the wine that stays on my lips after a drink. He's my safe place, my solace. I know my way around him inch-by-inch, and he's embedded with a road map of me. And I love that we still have roads to learn.

I've never been happier.

What Women Know

2006-11-07T18:31:00.000-05:00

We know we're supposed to be treated well, that he's supposed to notice that our toenails are the same color of the pinot noir we drink, that our eyes are the color of glaciers. We know we want to live in love songs, the kind they play on country stations. We know we want to be called beautiful, to feel alive in his presence, to feel desirable, to feel wanted. We know we want flowers and birthday cards with mushy notes written in black ink in his sloppy handwriting, gifts for no reason. We want hand holding and stolen kisses and sweet words whispered between soft sheets. We know we want to be appreciated, to feel smart. We want him to laugh at our jokes, and give us the kind eyes of empathy when something's gone wrong. We know we want to feel like the only woman in the world in his eyes.

We want romance. We're supposed to look, keep looking, until we find the kind of fairy tale we've seen in a million movies, on a million diamond ring commercials. We're not supposed to settle. We're not supposed to put up with anything but perfection, that a man who loves us will do anything he can to keep us by his side.

We know we're supposed to find a man who will love us like our parents do, unconditionally and without exception. We're supposed to find the man who will adore us like our fathers have, who will dote on us like our mothers. We know we want him to think we're most beautiful first thing in the morning, with messy hair and sleepy eyes. We know we want him to dedicate love songs and leave us love notes. We want him to love us for who we are beneath the breasts and the tiny waist and the curves of a woman.

We want to know he's there for us. We want to know he's someone we can turn to when in trouble. We want to be able to rely on him; for safety, security, protection, comfort.

We know we're supposed to take care of him in return. We know we should make ourselves beautiful for him; wear frilly underthings and lingerie with black stockings and high heels. We know to make him feel special, to be excited to see him. We wash his shirts and tandem with our own, marrying our loads of laundry to show him we care. We get him gifts, tell him he looks handsome, tell him we need him. We know to make him feel needed and wanted, just as much as we need to feel needed ourselves.

We know it takes work. We know we will fight and disagree and not see eye to eye. We know we'll say things we don't mean, and that he will do the same. We know we will cry - with joy and sadness. We know it will love him so much that it hurts. And we know that very love will make us more vulnerable to pain. We know that he'll know how to hurt us like no one else, but the he can make us happier than anyone else could ever dream.

Take the Good with the Bad

2006-11-06T12:30:00.000-05:00

Does it say something about how my week is going to go - or at least about how my day will go - when I come in to work to find a dead mouse under my desk? Is that some kind of omen? He didn't die of natural causes, so it's not like he came here to die or anything. But of all the mousetraps in all of my office, he had to eat out of mine.

It started when I came in this morning to see my two coworkers taking the garbage out behind my desk. They thought there must've been food in there, and that's where the slight odor was coming from. But, an hour later and the smell was still around. After three blasts of Fabreeze Air Effects, I finally moved the garbage can to see if food had somehow fallen behind the bin itself. And there it was: A mouse, curled up, post mortem, hiding behind my trash can. After yelping and calling out to my boss to "GET IT OUT OF HERE" (because he set the trap and is therefore responsible for removal of the corpse), it's gone...But it seems to be the icing on top of the really shitty cake that is today.

Because I woke up feeling ill-at-ease, due to a dream I must've had somewhere between falling asleep wrapped in the arms of my boyfriend around midnight, and waking up sweaty and panicked at 6:30. The details of the dream escape me, but I know I must've done something very, very wrong in it.

And I have a pimple the size of a small animal growing out of my face. It's one of those that is impossible to cover up without the use of a veil or bandana worn robber-style. It's just too round and robust to compete with any makeup. And, naturally, it's the first and only thing I see when I look in the mirror. I'll go to check my eye makeup, and my eyes will automatically travel down to my chin, where I see the pimple gestating. I think, last time I looked, I saw a horn or a leg forming. I can't be sure which.

So, while tilting my head just so to allow minimum visibility of said blemish, I decided to just get to work. And trying to open my email proved to be too much for my Dell to handle. I'd click the icon, and my computer would think for a minute, then shake its head vigorously from side to side and cross its little wire arms and refuse to open it. Then it decided that I couldn't have Word, either. Or Excel. OR the internet. That was my breaking point. So I shut down.

OVER AN HOUR LATER, I'm finally back up and running. That hour included, but was not limited to: Having to End Task my way out of every program running on my computer, as it would not allow me to manually close them out. Waiting for my computer to end said tasks. The Shut Down dialogue box coming up three times, only to disappear before I could click "OK." Finally clicking the box, only to have the computer go ahead and end a bunch of programs I wasn't even aware of. Going through the arduous process of letting it shut down. Then facing the even more challenging process of getting it started again. Once it was running again, I decided it best to do a virus scan. Which came back clean, but would not let me run any other programs while it was sweeping.

It was in the middle of this process that I found the mouse.

BUT. We did get the new Playboy in the office today - the one with Cindy Margolis "Nude, for the first time ever!" in it. So I guess it's all about the yin and the yang today.

I'm Very Busy on Saturdays

2006-11-04T12:04:00.000-05:00

It's noon on Saturday, and I'm sitting in my bed, my toenails wet, and watching The Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Duel. I've been watching either MTV or VH1 all morning and fixing my feet. Because something happens to a woman when the need to wear open toed shoes suddenly vanishes with the first gust of cold winter air: She forgets, almost entirely, about her feet. So the polish sort of starts to flake off and look pretty gnarly. Add to that the fact that my poor toenail has been broken down the center for, oh, about three weeks now, and I've been bandaging it up every day to avoid its jagged edges getting caught on socks and whatnot, and my feet are in a pretty sad state. Every day, I say I'm going to sit down and make a new, complete toenail out of nail glue and cotton balls to eliminate the need for the ceremonial morning toe-wrapping. But every day, I think of something I'd rather do. Like, go out to eat or have a glass of wine, or watch TV, or play on the computer or do laundry or just sit and stare at the wall. Anything, really. So, this morning, somewhere between the Making the Band 3 marathon and the VH1 Top Twenty Countdown, I decided to go for it and do my toes.

Now, a mess of nail glue, one cotton ball, one pair of ruined, gluey scissors, one ruined, gluey nail clipper, a set of THREE nail files, two types of paint, a lot of contortionism, some Q-tips and one oh-shit-I-glued-my-fingers-together incident, my toes are now polished a lovely shade of deep, deep maroon and currently drying.

The thing is, it's my Saturday off, and this is all I'm doing. I mean, I always have these big plans for the infrequent Saturday I'm not forced to spend in the office. I think, "I'll go shopping!" Or "I'll clean the house!" Or "I'm going to clean my car!" I always think I'll be getting up and at 'em early and keep going all day, because I'm not in the office. But this is what always ends up happening. I lay in bed, I think about doing other stuff, and then I watch all the reality television my brain can handle with out melting, and I don't get out of bed until about 2.

Which means, I guess, that I can stay here for two more hours.

Deal

2006-11-02T20:16:00.000-05:00

It'd been days since I've spoken to either of my parents. Not because we're fighting or because I didn't want to talk to them, just because I hadn't been thoughtful enough to call. My mom usually calls or emails every day, and since we'd gone a few days without words, I figured I'd better get to callin' before she got mad. My dad, however, is different; he's not the type to call for no reason, just to catch up. Daddy and I are a lot alike. Neither of us has much need for the telephone, and calling, for us, is limited to necessity: You need to make a plan or share news, you call. To talk about nothing? Nah. I'd rather read a book.

I was surprised when he answered because normally, when the phone rings, he looks up from his book or the TV or his dinner, and at the phone invariably placed right next to him with unmasked indifference. He smiles, and says "Phone's ringin'." Mom, Chase or I would scramble to answer before the jingling stopped, usually uttering something playful along the lines of "God forbid you answer it," or "You just know it's not for you," as we hit the talk button. He chuckles to himself, his mustache curling with the corners of his mouth.

But, on this call, he picks up. His deep voice issues a sunny hello.

"Hey Daddy," I say, my is voice tired from the gym, but happy to hear him.

"Well hello there," he replies, his words strong and southern. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," I tell him. I sit on the bed, holding the phone with one hand, scrunching my wet, fresh-from-the-shower hair with the other.

"You eating dinner?"

"I ate already. I was at the gym. I just ate a sandwich. What are you doing?"

"Well, nothing, really. We just got home."

"Where'd you go?"

"Oh, we had to go up to West Point to get your mom's ID card renewed. Then we went to Perkins for some supper. Then we got home and took Sammy outside." The way he says Sammy's name tells me that the Golden Retriever is somewhere nearby. "So we ran around for a little bit out there, and then we came inside." When Daddy takes Sam outside, he throws old, chewed up tennis balls into the trees surrounding our house so that the reddish-gold Sam can bound through the yard to pick them up. They play every day, until it gets dark or one of them gets tired. It's their little ritual.

"Well that's nice."

"Yeah," he says. I can hear his standard half-smile in his voice. "What about you?"

"Oh, same as always: I went to work. I went to the gym tonight, did some kickboxing, then I came home, showered, ate my Subway from last night, and now I'm talking to you."

I hear the TV in the background instead of him.

"Daddy?"

"Huh? Yeah. Hold on..." His voice trails off. He's distracted, watching TV. I cradle my little silver cell-phone between my shoulder and my ear, start picking on my nails, and wait for him to return. "Well, Iiii'll be," comes his southern colloquialism of surprise. He sounds more and more like my grandfather, his father, every day. "Clive Cussler has a new book out." He's watching a commercial for it on the TV. "I guess I'll have to remember that. I only have two un-read books in my little library, so I can't start them until I have a new one to read."

"Huh? Daddy, that doesn't even make sense," I joke.

"Well, you know, it's so I have another book there for when I finish one. I like to have a couple lined up. Because, you ever read a book, and you like it and the characters so much, that you're almost sad when it's over?"

I smile. I know exactly. I'm the same way. "Yeah."

"Well, that's how I am. So I need something else to go to next." I make a mental note of the book.

He goes on to tell me about the main character, and how all of the books are set in present day, so the hero's got to be "gettin' up there" in age. He tells me about the story lines, the characters. I sit on the other end of the line, just listening to him. So unusual for him to just want to talk.

He tells me about his meetings at work, his schedule, the pile of mail I have waiting for me there. "I'll come pick it up," I say begrudgingly. The standing joke is that I never take my junk mail. Only the important envelopes: The bills and the correspondence.

"Well, I think I put in a bill in there, but it's hard to tell, because your little basket is so full of mail."

I sigh dramatically. "I'll come pick it all up," I huff with a smile.

His response is a good natured, half-believing "Okay then."

"So, is my mother around?" I ask.

"Maybe. What's it worth to you?"

"Uuuhhh...A visit?" I grin, even though he can't see me. I always feel like a little girl around him.
"Hmm. A visit...And maybe a hug?" he suggests.

"Yeah, I could do that." I laugh.

"Well, that sounds like a good deal to me." His smile is audible.

Much like we don't care for the telephone, and feel sad when we finish good books, my father and I are both not much for affection. My mom jokes that she used to suffocate my dad when they first married, her desire for touch was so great. And my dad? Not so much. Typically German, he's all about less being more in terms of endearment. So his insistence that a hug be included in my deal touched me for some reason.

A few nights ago, I was at a friend's house when her sister stopped by. It was Halloween, and my friend's sister had brought her daughter along, in costume. We exchanged "hello"s and "good to see you"s while the young daughter ran around the house chasing my friend's cat. My father works with my friend's sister, so we talked a little bit about what's going on work-wise.

"Watch this," the sister said to me conspiratorially. She called to her daughter. "You know Mike, at my work?" she said to her daughter. "That's Laurie's dad." I couldn't see her daughter's reaction, but the sister turned to me with a smile on her face. "She just loves your father. Talks his ear off every time I bring her into the office."

The daughter rounded the corner hesitantly, sizing me up. I smiled at her. "You like my dad, huh?" I said sweetly. She kicked at the floor in response; shy. "Yeah, I like him, too."

People love my father. At every turn, I run into people who tell me what a good man he is. He's so tall, and can be so imposing, but he's just so sweet. With his southern drawl, his mane of salt and pepper hair, his ever-present thick gray mustache, and the wrinkles from a million smiles around his big blue eyes, he's every bit the gentleman. And he's all mine.

"Well then, it's a deal," I reply to my father, getting a little teary for some reason. It's odd how appreciating what you have escapes you so easily. I have possibly the two cutest and greatest parents on the earth.

"Well, alright, sweetie. Here's your mom. Love you."

"I love you, too, Daddy."

The War on Terror

2006-11-01T15:25:00.000-05:00

Mental Terrorism. It’s an act committed usually by one half of a relationship against the other half, sometimes it's self-inflicted. Either way, it's harsh and terrible. It is not gender specific, and at any point, terrorized may become terrorist; Soemtimes, they're one in the same. But it’s not a battle that begets blood. It’s cunning and tricky; Intellectual war games.

A terrorist knows where your buttons are, and exactly how to push them. He knows your neuroses, and capitalizes on them. If he’s very good at his hideous craft, he will hit you in ten places at once. A sort of one-man divide-and-conquer battle plan. He knows you’re expecting him to call on his way home. So he doesn’t. He’ll say it’s because he forgot, but he knows how you get when you don’t hear from people. You feel like your target has been hit twice in one fell swoop. He refuses to answer you when you’re in a fight, clamming up entirely, possibly even turning his back to you, while you are still in fits of anger over whatever stupid subject has come up between you. He knows you hate this because A) you can’t stand to be ignored, B) you always feel the need to TALK, dammit, and C) it makes you wonder if you’ve 1) pissed him off or 2) suggested something in your last line of questions/assaults/accusations/inquiries that hit a little too close to home for him, so now you’re going to relive that last tirade and wonder which of those things rang true. He’ll say he’s clamming up for you; his silence is his way of sparing you, his way of getting over it slowly. But you feel like this kind of impact is exponentially deeper than just calling you names or yelling.

Because terrorists know that name-calling and yelling are useless tools when in war. They know that well-chosen words can slice like finely-sharpened blades. Names? Yelling? That just makes you angry, makes you want to fight back. So he knows that a lot of silence mixed in with biting chill and a dash of a good vocabulary can sting and wound, and those lacerations are enough to drive you mental. Because if he’s not really “fighting” you, if his attack is sneaky and undefined, how can you fight back? EXACTLY. You can’t.

Even if you are only terrorizing yourself, as the terrorized, what do you? Not much, really. The whole battle may even be all in your head. So you can give up worrying, because you finally realized that worrying about it all the time is just the equivalent of being a kamikaze; You're just killing yourself. You won’t cry and beg and ask what’s wrong, you won’t try to figure out what you can do to make it better. Because that’s only making you miserable, and his victory that much sweeter. You’ve been a passive-aggressive terrorist before. You know what it’s like to be on the throwing end of the grenades. You also know what it’s like to be on the receiving end. And you used to catch those grenades and try to dismantle them. But now? You just duck.

In the privacy of your room, you pour your feelings into page after unpublished-page of Blogger and Vox. In the privacy of your car, you replay the same song over and over again, until you’re numb to the words; until John Mayer's “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” is just beautiful imagery and good writing, not a metaphor for your relationship right now. You buy that CD the night of the fight, you play it until the words are memorized, and you continue to play it until the words no longer bring tears to your eyes. It’s your way of battening down the hatches, mounting your offensive, steeling yourself for battle. You email your good friend from your work computer, where the day is endless in its uncertainty. You complain and make jokes about your OCD and your anxiety and your paranoia. Because the person you’re emailing with, she knows you and she knows your other half and she calms you. She knows you’re just preparing yourself for the fight. Getting it out of you when he’s not around makes you a better warrior. You know it.

And you don’t cry. Not this time. Because it’s futile. Maybe alone, if you have to, but not in his presence. It doesn’t soften him, it doesn’t make him bend to you, it doesn’t make him put down his weapons. And, anyway, as far as you’re concerned, tears are as good in battle as white flags. Who’s surrendering? Not you.

You’ll fight because you’re used to fighting. You have the shell shock to prove it. But you won’t stay mad for long. You realize that, already, shortly after the battle has begun, it becomes about winning and pride and who caved first. It’s no longer a battle over something important; now it has mutated into a battle of will. You may not even remember why the war was waged.

So you do what you must to make yourself stronger. You prepare and sharpen your blade and shine your shield, even though you know you won’t use either of those things. You slam your helmet down lazily on your head, apathy coursing through you. “Let’s get this over with.” It's just not that important to fight, or to win. It's just important that it finishes.

When you see the him, you act like things haven’t changed, like nothing is wrong. You may feel like he’s punishing you by pushing your buttons, making you worry, but you won’t bow to what you’ve perceived is his demand to cower. Nor will you stoop to the level of conniving woman. You do the things you always do, like life is normal: You bring him his coffee in the morning. You buy him dinner, even if he doesn’t eat it. You wash his clothes and hang his shirts and ball his socks. And even when he lies next to you in bed, not speaking, you’ll try to initiate conversation. Not meekly, or unsure, but like nothing is wrong. Is it an admission of defeat? No. Is it an olive branch by way of Downy and Starbucks? No. It’s going about your daily life.

Because we all know that fear is a terrorist’s greatest weapon.

Even if you are your own terrorist sometimes.

Life's Important Questions

2006-10-30T14:10:00.000-05:00

Why is it that, when I go to the mall with my debit card in hand, ready to be swiped, happily willing to drop a few bucks on a new eggplant-colored purse or a new pair of shoes or perhaps a nice new coat, the entire mall is completely void of anything I'd be willing to carry/wear/purchase?

And then, why is it that, when I can't find anything to spend my hard-earned money on, Billy can find a million things to buy for himself? Well, maybe not a million, but at least two or three things.

Why does my inability to find something I like, added to the fact that Billy bought two things equal me being mad? Does that even make sense?

Why does Billy not understand, when the movie starts at 3:10, and it is now 3:08, and our car is parked roughly eight thousand miles away, that now is not an appropriate time to "run out to the car" to drop his purchases off so that he doesn't have to sit in the theatre with them? Because he is going to miss the previews (and we love the previews). He may also miss the first minute or so of the movie. Oh, that's right! He did! While I sat in the theatre viciously defending the seat I'd saved for him. I can't tell you how many times I had to tell seat-seeking folks that I wasn't just using the seat to my left to hold my coat. It was actually for someone.

And why don't I go to the movies alone more often? My brief brush with solitude in that seat in the darkened theatre reminded me how awesome that is. I have to do it more often.

And why, even though I'm sure I've landed the most awesome seats in the house at the 3:10 showing of The Departed, do they wind up being possibly the worst?

Because why, Mr. Man Sitting Behind Me, did you have to eat those gummy bears with such ferocity? Why did you have to suck and slurp and chew and suckle so loudly that even people three rows ahead of me turned around to see where that god-awful noise was coming from? And why did you have to do that through the whole movie? That's just tacky.

And, what if those people three rows up thought that was me?

And, hey, Ms. Inappropriate Parenting Decision Maker in front of me, why did you bring your eight year old son to a movie about the mob? Because, if you're going to cover his eyes and ears in any part of a movie involving nudity, violence, guns, explicit language, etcetera, you could not have been surprised that all of the above would be taking place, at one point or another, in an R Rated movie about the MOB.

And why even bring that kid if he was only permitted to watch roughly .002% of the movie with eyes and ears uncovered?

And, damn, why was that movie so fucking good? I mean, my god, it has to be the best movie I've seen in a long while. Seriously. And why am I always so damn attracted to Leonardo DiCaprio when he's playing the conflicted-badass?

Why do I love sushi so much? And why is the sushi chef at our favorite restaurant so darn cute and nice? And why is it that I can easily understand his broken English, but Billy can't? But I can only understand him when I'm sober, which leads me to my next question:

Why did three glasses of Pinot Grigiot get me so drunk? Since when is my tolerance so low that I can no longer take the amount of alcohol that normally only gets me good and buzzed? Because, I assure you, there is nothing sexy about leaving the restaurant blissfully buzzed, but then running head-first into d-r-u-n-k the second you get into the car with your boyfriend. Nothing sexy at all, my friends.

So why did I have to drive the half hour home with my mouth and my eyes shut tight, window open, face in the wind? To avoid getting sick, that's why.

Is it because all I ate was what probably amounted to my weight in red clam sashimi?

And why, once I got home, did I have the presence of mind to remove only my pants before getting into bed? Because getting into bed and going to sleep was not an involuntary decision (i.e. "passing out"). No, it was a conscious decision, made to avoid the possibility of me getting sick and relieving myself of all the sushi I ate. And I can't have that, because if get sick and throw up all of that delicious sushi, there's a distinct possibility that that could scare me away from sushi forever. And that would be horrible. But why did I only take off my pants, and not my makeup, jewelry, sweater or socks? Oh, that's right. Because getting into bed and falling asleep before my stomach decided it'd had enough of this wine and sushi business was far more important than take off earrings.

And why, after all of that, did I wake up this morning feeling wonderful and, even more surprising, not just on time, but early? How did an evening of near illness-inducing debauchery make me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this fine Monday morning? Because that doesn't even make sense.

Oh, but you know what didn't make me feel so wonderful this morning? When Billy told me that, at one point during the evening, I allegedly rolled onto my back and started snoring so loudly that he had to turn up the volume on the TV to hear his program. He says he got up to get his phone to record my nocturnal noises to play back for me as proof, but I stopped as soon as he got up. I know. That's sexy.

Why did he have to tell me that? And how did I get lucky enough to find a boyfriend who loves me in spite of my alleged snoring? And why did I just tell all of you that little piece of info? Is it because I am the master of TMI? Yes, my friends, I believe that is the answer.

Tie One On

2006-10-28T17:00:00.000-04:00

I knew, as soon as I saw it, that it was perfect. Long and silky, its pattern was perfect and the color couldn't have been better. I knew he'd love it.

And so I carried that tie around with me as I dug through sales racks and looked over the shoe selection. I left it with the attendant at the dressing room begrudgingly, worried she'd give it away or put it back on the rack. I handed it over to her hesitantly, and asked her to please make sure it didn't get put back. She assured me that it would not.

And it didn't. It was there, waiting for me, when I emerged, my arm draped with the three sweaters I intended to buy. I was excited about the clothes I was buying for myself, but I was more excited about the tie laying on top of my clothes. I couldn't wait to give it to Billy.

But when I got home, the lights were off and Billy was asleep, his body curled into a question mark on his side of the bed. So I hung the tie from his tie rack, front and center, and undressed quietly, slipping out of my clothes in the dark. I slid into bed beside him, kissed the skin on his neck, exposed between the blanket and his curly hair, and went to sleep, anxious for the morning.

This morning, when his alarm went off, Billy slipped out of bed without me noticing. He was out of the shower before I realized he was no longer in bed with me. He kissed my forehead and pulled the blanket up over my head, and went to turn on the light. Disoriented, I dug my way out of the comforter, one eye still closed to the light.

"Good morning, baby," I whispered.

"What are you doing up?" he said, making his way to me. "Go back to sleep," he said sweetly, kissing me again.

"Did you see your tie?" I couldn't sleep, knowing I'd yet to give him his gift.

"My what?"

"I got you something last night," I teased, smiling beneath the blankets. "It's on your tie rack."

He turned and looked at it. I heard his sharp intake of breath. "Baaaabe," he whispered, his voice quiet with appreciation. "It's perrrrfect."

"Look at who made it."

He turned the tie around to see the brand. He gasped.

"It's Ted Baker," I told him, even though it was clear that he'd seen it. Ted Baker is his favorite tie designer. Ted Baker is to me what Manolo Blahnik is to you, he'd told me before.

He came over and kissed me. "I have to wear it today," he said.

I smiled with the delight of a child who has just brought home a report card filled with As. It made me so happy to see him satisfied with my gift, happier still that he wore it immediately. His love of what I'd picked for him made my day.

Improvements

2006-10-27T15:54:00.000-04:00

Some things that have kept me from slipping into yesterday's bad mood:

We got our new issue of Playboy in the mail yesterday here at work. Yes, you read that right. We have a subscription to Playboy for the whole office to enjoy. So we spent the better part of the morning going through and critiquing the ladies. And that's always fun. No seriously, it is.
Before THAT, my boss and a coworker and I spent, oh, about an hour, looking for nudie pictures of celebrities online. It was a little awkward, but that's alright.
Cookies.
I got a haircut last night. And I almost fell asleep while the young lady was washing my hair. It was incredible.
I got a bonus. For no reason. Other than being awesome.
I spent ten minutes decorating my calendar. Like, instead of just writing "Closed" on it for Thanksgiving and the Friday and Saturday thereafter, I drew a turkey dancing from Thursday to Sunday. It was pretty awesome.
For our week-long closure between Christmas and New Year, I drew a beautiful landscape with rolling hills and trees under a million stars. My boss thought that was "excessive."Oh, and wasteful of "company time." But I thought it was beautiful.
I'm going shopping tonight.
Billy brought my coffee to me in bed this morning, instead of the other way around. Which was just lovely. It made my morning wonderful.
More cookies.
It's Friday, and though I have to work tomorrow, at least I know I'm only a few hours away from freedom.

So that's it.

I'm off to shop.

It Rhymes with "Witchy"

2006-10-26T10:13:00.000-04:00

You know the kind of mood that makes you angry for no reason? The kind where the hair on your head annoys you just by being there? The kind where every syllable uttered in your direction is bound to set you off? The kind where the PHONE RINGING may just drive you insane?

That's my mood today.

I don't know why, and I don't know how long it's going to last, but I know that I am horrible right now. I want to RIP my hair out of my head. I want to go home and just lay in bed, stare at the TV and not speak or listen to anyone. I want be naked, too, because my SWEATER IS DRIVING ME CRAZY, with its seams touching my skin all over the place. Ugh.

I ate a Tums last night before bed, and now I have this horrible aftertaste/film in my mouth. So not only is there an awful taste just hanging out on my tongue, but my coffee tastes gross.

I was so ready to go to the gym tonight, but I have an appointment to get my hair cut. Which is fine, but it seems like every time I plan to go to the gym, something comes up and I can't make it. I brought my iPod and everything. And, you know, I really wouldn't mind that I can't go to the gym, but I'm paying $50 a month for a gym that I use an average of once a week. And that's a good week. That's $12.50 per visit just to fuck around on the elliptical for an hour or push myself to near-heart-attack in step class.

And, not that any of you want to know this, but my birth control pills have gone and fucked up my cycle, so now I have my period AND my PMS for TWO WEEKS instead of one. Which not only makes me angry, but it also makes Billy very, very sad. Because he has to deal with THIS mood for not just one week, but, now, for two.

And you know what else? Lost is making me mad. It's all questions. No answers. And, really, I'm getting tired of paying stalker-like attention to that damn show every Wednesday night, looking for clues, trying to remember where I saw that person before and what their significance was. This is TV, people. I'm not a detective. I love my Grey's Anatomy, where I can just watch and be sad or happy and that's it.

And, hey, that's on tonight. That's the light at the end of my tunnel.

So, anyway, that's what's going on with me. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to sign off and go scratch all the itchy places on my back that my sweater is causing.

Morning

2006-10-24T09:12:00.000-04:00

The alarm howls the same way every morning: The thick voice of a DJ blurred by intermittent static. Sometimes he's introducing a song, sometimes he's announcing the weather, sometimes he's talking about nothing. But it's always the same: His voice. That static. The desperate reach for the snooze button. It's been the same way since Christmas of last year, when we got this alarm clock.

The only thing that changes in my morning rousing is the room around me. The position of the sun, the amount of light or lack thereof coming through the white blinds. The room is either flooded with light or terribly dark when we wake, depending on the season. Right now, we're in the transition. The sun is hesitant, barely peeking into our room when we wake. Like he's not sure he wants to see us yet, either. It feels more like dusk than dawn in our bedroom these days. Bright enough to function, but cozy enough in its dim lighting to settle back into the covers and sleep longer.

It's also colder. I open my eyes to the air of our room and know that freeing myself from the cocoon of blankets I'm in will be miserable. I know it's like Antarctica on the other side of those sheets, and I don't want to expose my skin to the freezing temperatures. So I hit snooze one more time and roll into Billy, whose sleepy lips kiss my smooth forehead. He pulls me in closer to him there, in sleep, and we lay like that until the alarm screams again. I look at the blinds, survey the position of the sun, feel the air of the room with my face, then make the decision to hit snooze just this last time.

When the clock tells me I have less than 45 minutes to get ready and go, I begrudgingly heft myself from the supple mattress and high-thread count sheets and The Urchin we're surrounded in. One leg, then the other, flops over the side of the mattress and onto the floor. I search for my morning coat in the semi-darkness. I make sure the alarm is set for Billy's wake up time. I head out into the hallway, on my way downstairs to make the coffee.

I leave Billy's travel mug, full of prepared coffee, on the table on his side of the bed. I kiss his warm face before I leave the room, and I head out to take my shower. When I return, Billy is always sitting, half-propped by pillows, coffee in hand, remote pointed at the television. He smiles when I walk in, hot pink towel wrapped around my head. That smile makes my morning, every morning.

"Good morning, baby," he says sweetly, his eyes soft, his face sweet. All mine.

It always is.

Welcome Back

2006-10-23T10:57:00.000-04:00

Some things that I've done in my brief and unfulfilling absence from blogging:

1) I had my nails done on Thursday. And, in a totally asshole move, I let my phenomenal nail lady (or nail technician, or whatever she wishes to be called) go ahead and paint little candy corns all over my nails - at my request - only to decide, when she was three-quarters finished, that I didn't like them after all, and could we take them off and just leave my nails plain? I'm a jerk.

2) After my nail appointment, I blasted my awesome Jojo CD all the way from the nail salon to my parents' house, where my grandmother Zana was waiting. She hasn't been here in over a year, and I was really excited to see her.

So I got to my parents' house, walked in, dropped my purse on the couch, and Zana and I started walking toward each other to embrace hello. My mom exploded in laughter behind Zana. After our hug, we asked my mom what the hell was so funny. "You should've seen you two walking toward each other," she howled. "It was like you were both on a runway or something." She got up then and demonstrated the hip-heavy walk Zana and I both employ. One hip at a time rolling to some imaginary sexy beat that we have playing in our heads. We are a lot alike, Zana and I.

3) After dinner with my parents' and my grandmother, I went home. It was only nine, and time for my favorite show, Grey's Anatomy. BUT. I have made a promise to Billy that I won't watch it without him, so I turned on the TV, but wanted to change the channel. In order to do so, though, the DVR told me I had to stop one of my recording programs - either Grey's or CSI. So, naturally, I stopped CSI, checked to make sure Grey's was still recording, changed the channel to some background music and went about messing with my computer.

Billy got home somewhere around 11 from work, and we nestled into bed, preparing to watch one of our favorite shows. And, much to my horror, my DVR recorded Grey's "From 9:00pm - 9:00pm." I sat bolt-upright in bed, furious with my DVR. The DVR's little lights twinkled with evil as it doubled over in maniacal laughter. The DVR thought it would be funny to not record my favorite show. I didn't see the humor. So I spent the rest of the night being mad at the DVR, and the DVR spent the rest of the night pretending it didn't know why I was upset and asking me what was wrong. I gave it the cold shoulder. But, anyway, it knew I would forgive it if it recorded my Wedding Story episode scheduled for the next day. That DVR really treats me like crap, but I can't help it: I love it. I just can't leave.

4) Friday night, I purchased my first song from iTunes. It was truly a gratifying experience.

5) Why did I buy music when I could just pirate it, you ask? Because I am a law-abiding citizen, thankyouverymuch.

Actually, it's because I'm afraid to download limewire onto my laptop. And we have limewire on our desktop computer anyway, so if I NEED a free song or two, I'll just get it there. But, also, iTunes gives me the album artwork and whatnot, so that's good.

6) I kicked up my OCD a notch on Friday, too, when I went ahead and categorized all of my music into genres.

See, half of the songs I have on my iPod are songs from my many burned CDs. And when I import those songs, they just come up as "Track __," with no artist name. So I've spent many a night titling songs and artists and albums in order to make my iPod library as beautiful and user-friendly as possible. Friday, I went a step further and added their Genres. There's no telling what I'll do next.

7) I'm already up to over 400 songs, and rapidly running out of space (I only have space for 500), and I haven't even put a dent in my CD collection.

8) I had an awesome Friday night. Some girls and I went to my friend's house for some dinner and many drinks, and from there we went to the Sussex County Fair Grounds for their haunted house/haunted hayride.

There's something wildly exciting about that sort of attraction when you've had a few cosmos. You're scared more easily, you laugh more freely, you just have an all-round good time. I don't remember the last time I laughed that much.

Dressed in our winter weather gear, we rode a rickety cart of hay for fifteen minutes through open fields and empty stables, where various scary creatures jumped out at us. We were chased by a chainsaw-wielding maniac, a graveyard owner tripped over a bail of hay while trying to grab us, and some unidentified creepy guys were ON the ride with us, staring and screaming at and trying to startle us.

It was divine in its simplicity. At one point, we drove through a "graveyard" at lighting speed. And a character jumped out of the woods, TRYING to scare us, only the driver of the tractor was going too fast. So he just sort of stood there, in the middle of the road, disappointed that he didn't get to scare anyone.

"We totally just passed that guy!" My friend said from beside me.

I looked back and laughed at him there. "Oh, he's all sad. Hey guys? What about me? Hey? Guys?"

My friend laughed, added, "'Guys? It's me. Freddy? Freddy Kreuger? Hello? Guys?'"

Good times.

9) We put on a good show, but we were genuinely scared at points. Two of my friends and I went through the haunted house with arms locked, walking at lighting speed, desperate to just get out of there. We laughed our way through the hayride, but we all suffered one injury or another from jumping and scampering from one bail of hay to another in accordance with our Fight or Flight Response. Apparently, we are all Flyers.

10) Saturday, I did not have to work. So instead, I slept until 11, and played on my computer immediately upon waking.

11) I didn't even put PANTS on until 2 in the afternoon.

12) I cleaned my house, because my mom said Zana wanted to come over and see Billy's paintings live and in person. I knew that if I didn't vacuum my room and straighten up everywhere, she would either disown me, or her head would just explode, right there, in my house. And we can't have that. Either one.

13) Billy met Zana for the first time on Saturday.

Zana is not your typical grandmother. She does not wear mumus or puffy-painted sweatshirts. She doesn't smell like mothballs, and her hair is not white. In fact, she's very fashionable, always dressed well, always wearing makeup, always in heels. She loves to dance and loves to laugh, and she loves to drink. We are, as I said, a lot alike. She's also quite liberal in many ways, and when you get her drinking, she says some things that catch you quite by surprise.

A conversation over dinner about art led to a conversation about nudes, which led to a conversation about Zana's career as a photographer taking nude photographs, which led to Billy painting nudes, which, somehow, inexplicably, led to a conversation about sex. With my dad there.

After dinner, Billy and I stepped outside to smoke. He relaxed his shoulders and let out a long exhale, checking the imaginary watch on his wrist. "Let's see," he said. "Yup. Not even here a half hour and your grandmother asked me about my sex life. Yeah. That's awesome."

I laughed. "I told you."

I thought it was uncomfortable watching a nude scene with his mom. Poor Billy, being asked about his experiences. With my dad there. He, mercifully, declined to answer (a move made easier by my leaping in to change the subject). That trumped my experience.

14) I told Billy, somewhere around 11, that he was forbidden from falling asleep. "I know you're tired," I said to him while we stood on the porch, "but you cannot fall asleep. We'll leave in, like, ten minutes, okay?" He nodded as we went inside.

We sat on the couch, and my mom, dad, Zana and Billy got involved in some conversation.

15) I fell asleep. Ha!

16) Sunday, Billy and I did nothing. We watched Grey's Anatomy online, and lounged around together in our newly-cleaned bedroom.

17) We left the house at five, where we met my family for dinner at a restaurant.

18) Zana and I split a bottle of wine.

19) I realized that I'm more like her than I ever thought I was. In more ways than heels and makeup and wine.

20) I missed blogging.

More to come later.
I've had my downtime, and now I'm back.

Excuses are Lame, but I'm Making One

2006-10-18T14:48:00.000-04:00

I just want something more. I don't know what it is, why a part of me is empty somehow. It's a feeling that makes me want to run away and be by myself. Because the only way I can fantasize about what I wish I had is when I'm alone. And I'll walk through a mall or a restaurant or drive down a highway, and pretend I'm rich, pretend I'm married, pretend I'm someone else. Because it's so freeing to be walking around where no one knows you. No one in the Rockaway mall knows I date Billy. They don't know who he is. They don't know where I work. They don't know my family. They don't know me. And it feels so good, so unburdened.

What am I burdened by, you ask? I have no idea. Everything in my life is really good right now. There are a few things I'd change if I could, but nothing is horrible. Nothing is weighing me down, noting is making me miserable. Yet I still feel heavy, tired of fighting, tired of feeling like I'm never doing enough. Like I'm not enough.

I don't know why. I just know that I watch other people get what I want and it kills me. And I don't just mean book deals and oodles of money. I mean less tangible, more obtuse things.

Billy told me last night that my last post sounded like I was "complaining." And I tried to explain that I wasn't complaining, I was just writing. It was supposed to be funny. But we couldn't agree. And, at the end of the conversation, what irritated me wasn't that we couldn't agree on the tone of what I'd written, but that I was defending it again. MY writing. MY blog. Something that I'M proud of. Why am I constantly defending it? Why am I constantly ashamed to bring it up? Ashamed to admit I'm proud of it? Ashamed that it's even there?

I'm not writing very well anymore. I moved a really good post because I was afraid my ex would see it and get mad. I worry constantly that I'm going to offend someone. This site isn't even my own anymore. It belongs to everybody else. It belongs to the people whose opinions I value. It belongs to an ex that I'm still, apparently, afraid of. They're my words, but I don't own them.

You know when I was good? Back in the early days, when no one I knew knew that I had a blog. When I had three readers. When I was unafraid and still hiding behind a veil of pseudo-anonymity. And now, everything but my last name is out here. And I love it. I love that I've met incredible people through this blog. I love that I'm part of a little sub-culture that understands me. The hard part is the people I know in real life tuning in. Not because I want to bitch about them, but because it's hard to read something from any other point of view than how I intended it to be read. And the last thing - the last thing - I want to do is hurt anyone's feelings. And, as far as I know, I haven't. I'm just hyper-aware that it's always a possibility.

I'm not saying I'm quitting, I'm just saying it's going to take me a bit to get back in the swing of things. To remember that I started this for me, and I should continue it for me. To realize that if I want to write, I have to understand that not everyone is going to love it. I'll snap out of this soon. It'll just take me a few days.

In the meantime, thanks for sticking around.

I Don't Want to Talk About Anything But Laptops.

2006-10-14T11:22:00.000-04:00

**I wrote this at 11:30 last night in bed. I thought I hit publish before I closed down. Ha! I didn't! I hit save instead! Apparently, I need more sleep and less wine. Shocker.**

1) Billy came home on tonight, and we went through our nightly ritual where I sit on the bed fucking around with my laptop, finding something - anything - that will keep me on the internet as long as possible, and he changes from work clothes into pajamas.

His disrobing routine is always the same, too. Tie first (of course), then he unbottons his shirt, revealing the white t-shirt underneath. He then takes the button down shirt off, examines it (I don't know why he does that, exactly), then takes it over to the laundry hamper.

Tonight, he took said shirt to said hamper, went to throw the shirt in and stopped. The blue button-down hovered in mid-air, and he looked at me. "Uh, babe? What are we doing with all of these clothes here?"

"They're dirty," I said, refusing to look up from my hotmail inbox, which I was refreshing for the eighteenth time. "I have to wash them."

He didn't move. "What?" I said, finally looking up. "You have, like, a million more shirts right there in the closet. You have plenty of things to wear." I know how many shirts he has, because all of those shirts are taking up closet space that could be mine. So I am acutely aware of just how many shirts he has, and even MORE aware of how many of those shirts he doesn't wear.

The look he gave me suggested he was disgusted that I've waited this long (a week) to do some laundry. Not disgusted enough to do any laundry himself, but disgusted nonetheless.

2) For no less than two weeks, I have had a leaf stuck to the antenna of my car. It's a little baby leaf, who died before its prime, just wrapped around my antenna like they're in love or something. I keep expecting it to blow off, but it just never does. And every time I see it there while I'm driving, I make a mental note to pluck it from my antenna as soon as I park. But I never remember. And even though I've obviously remembered right now, I'm in bed, face washed and clothes off, so you can pretty much bet on the fact that my ass is not going anywhere.

3) My ass should, however, probably be downstairs right now. Because Billy is down there with some family and some friends. And what am I doing? That's right: Laying in bed with the lights off, a glass of wine on the nightstand, cigarettes next to me, laptop on my, uh, lap, fucking around on the computer. And I'd better not hear any shit about it. Because I TOLD him that getting me a laptop pretty much sealed the deal when it came to me never leaving the bedroom.

4) Is it wrong that I don't want to talk to anyone right now? Even Billy? I don't know why...But I DO know that speaking to anyone in a way that does not involve a keyboard is out of the question. Because speaking, actually having a conversation with someone right now, could be dangerous.

5) I don't know why, but I'm extremely bitchy right now. It could be the fact that I haven't gone to bed before one in the morning for the past three nights, yet still had to get up before seven every morning. Which, I know, to some of you young whipper-snappers out there seems like a good night's sleep, but for ME? Not so much. It's like torture. So I'm cranky and tired and dying to go to sleep, yet I'm still fucking around on my laptop. Go figure.

6) I have to go to bed.

Because I don't really have anything else to say...

2006-10-12T11:07:00.000-04:00

Does anyone else find it extremely odd that, in this whole scuttlebutt about how Madonna may or may not be adopting an African kid, the orphan's father is saying that, yes, Madonna is adopting his one year old son?

Isn't "orphan's father" a bit contradictory? I mean, doesn't the fact that the kid is an orphan mean that he doesn't have a father?

And, if the kid has a father who obiously knows him, why is he up for adoption? And no one finds this troublesome? That the kid's father is saying, yeah, I just gave up my son to an American pop singer? The whole thing is just weird, don't you think?

Motrin, a Miracle Worker

2006-10-10T18:57:00.000-04:00

I was going to take a picture of my toe and put it up here...But it was just too gross. Even for me. And it's my toe. Also, I'm not a huge fan of my feet, so having a photo shoot and posting them on the internet didn't seem all that exciting.

But, as it is, my toe is killing me. It throbs, making me aware of my jagged little toenail. I wrapped it in some surgical tape and gauze this morning, and decided that I'd go ahead and wear heels anyway...Until Billy forbade me from leaving the house with open-toed shoes on, lest I smack my big and clumsy toe into something else, which would be sure to put me in more pain than I already am.

So I smushed my wrapped toe into the flat, pink shoes I bought for Belize and headed to work. Once there, I realized that my bandage was too thick, and re-wrapped my toe no less than four times.

But, between the constant wrapping and the squishing of said toe into said shoe, my foot began to throb. I tried elevating it, I tried ice, and nothing alleviated the pain. Until, finally, it occurred to me: Motrin! The drug that relieves me of my monthly period pain! Why hadn't I thought of this sooner!

And you know what? It worked. My toe felt positively delightful. I mean, sure, my foot is still swollen and achy, and it's sort of hard to bend my toes, but at least it felt better.

I'm fairly certain it's not broken, as it's only bruised around the garish toenail, and it's possible to bend my toe with the aid of my hand. It doesn't hurt when I do it, it's just that the puffy skin won't allow me to bend it by sheer force. So I think that's a good sign.

My Motrin started to wear off about an hour ago, but I've started drinking wine, so I feel much better. I think I'll survive this after all.

The Weekend and Today in Review, List Style

2006-10-09T13:25:00.000-04:00

1. I finally cleaned out my car this weekend. One full trash bag later, and you can actually see the floorboard in my passenger side.

2. It's crazy, though, the things I'm unwilling to remove from the confines of my car, just in case. I have a bag with three notebooks in it, all empty for the most part, just in case I'm driving down the road and the urge to write strikes. I have a broken tire jack, and old lug nuts also in my car. And, for some reason, I think it's wisest to save them there in my backseat. In case I need them? That doesn't even make sense, yet I refuse to throw them out or even take them inside.

3. BUT. I did take out all of my CDs and pile them on my bed for organization purposes. It's amazing how much space there is in my four-door 4Runner with just those CDs gone.

4. Damn, I have a lot of music.

5. I downloaded iTunes and set to the task of putting some of my music onto my computer. But, um, apparently, computers are a little more overwhelming and scary when it's your computer (that you love and cherish) than they are when they're your boss's computers. Because I was terrified to do anything. Instead, I went ahead and very carefully fiddled around with the music Billy had put on there when he gave it to me. For at least an hour, I played with the stupid thing, trying to figure out how to import music into iTunes and load said music into my Nano. How many songs are on my iPod now, you ask? Three. I know, it's impressive. Don't be jealous of my computer prowess.

6. Yesterday, I went into New York City with Billy and some of his family and saw this exhibit. It was incredible. (Please, click the link.)

7. What was not incredible is that it seemed, no matter where I went in the exhibit, I was confronted by some know-it-all. One guy was either a doctor, or had just been to the exhibit about a thousand times. Because, at every turn, he was explaining to his lady friend each and every display. "This is the only pair of real eyes here," "That's the kidney," "That's the spleen. Most people don't even know what a spleen is, or that they have one, but it's such an important organ..." He never stopped. The thing was, all of that information was contained on the little placards by every item. And his announcing everything made it hard for me to read. He clearly thought he was the awesomest.

I have this thing, at any museum or exhibit, or even with plain ol' TV: I don't want to talk. And I don't want to be talked to. I hate it. I just like to look, or watch, or admire, in silence. I don't want to hear your commentary, or your insight, or even your opinion. I just want to look. I even broke away from Billy somewhere in the first twenty minutes, because I didn't want to hear anything. I just wanted to take it in. But I couldn't get away from this guy. He was everywhere.

8. Other than that, it was pretty fucking awesome. There was all of this information to take in, and all of these neat little facts to learn. (Did you know that a woman is born with all of the eggs she will ever have in her life?) The bodies were mostly male, except toward the end, where they showed a dissected fat woman (Of course, the first woman we see in the exhibit is an example of obesity. Thanks.), and then in the reproductive room. I was especially infatuated with that part of the exhibit, with the ovaries and the cervix and the uterus, in light of my recent drama with all of those parts. I couldn't believe how small the ovaries were, and I couldn't believe how big my cyst had to have been in comparison to the uterus (They actually had a huge ovarian cyst on display. It totally trumped mine.). It was really amazing. Wonderful.

9. And what not wonderful was my decision to wear my highest pair of stilettos. I was fine through the exhibit, but the balls of my feet started to ache a little just as we exited, a full three hours after we got there. That's three hours of standing, people. That's torture. So, after the exhibit, we went to lunch. And to help soothe my savage feet, I indulged in a little Sangria. Okay, a lot. "Feet? What feet?"

10. I knew we'd be walking through the museum, but since that was already behind me, I was sure I was in the clear. I did not know that we'd be walking the, oh, million blocks to Canal Street to shop for fake purses. All was well until the buzz wore off, and suddenly, my feet burned with the force of a thousand angry bees. And then I realized we'd have to walk back. I wanted to cry, but didn't.

11. Walking through Chinatown, down Mott Street toward Canal (where all the good fakes are), a tall, slim Asian man approached us. He wasn't a vendor, just a man on the street. And, in a hushed voice, he leaned into me and said, "You want bags? Gucci, Fendi, Prada? We have all of them." Relying on my savvy street smarts, I ignored him and looked worriedly at Billy, hoping that he would protect me, lest the street peddler try to snatch my (actually real) purse. Of course I wanted a fake bag, but I figured I'd just bargain with a vendor on the street.

Billy heard the man's whispered announcement and asked where these fakes were. The man got an excited look on his face, tucked the photo of purses he was extending into his pocket, and told us to follow him. And we did. Down two blocks, and into a building. Billy stopped at the door, and shook his head. "I don't know about this," he said. "C'mon," urged one of his kin. There were seven of us. Strength in numbers.

So we climbed three flights of stairs behind the guy, who led us to a door that announced another kind of business entirely. He buzzed, and when the door opened, it was like heaven.

Bags and bags and bags. Of every designer. Every color. Every design. Oh, it was marvelous. Coach, and Gucci, Prada and Fendi...They hung from the wall, begging to be bought. And then, I saw it. Chanel.

Oh, the love I have for the house of Chanel. So classic. So beautiful. So very elite. I fingered the leather of the purses, bypassing the gaudy bright blue bags, their signature interlocking Cs visible for miles. I like something a little less obnoxious, a little more subtle.

And there it was, hanging on the wall, behind a garish baby pink number with a fat CHANEL embroidered on it. It was a black, a soft leather with thick braided straps. Its insides were suede, a quiet "chanel" logo on the inside pocket. The front of the bag was demure, the signature quilting was soft, quiet, in gray stitching. The large interlocking Cs weren't loud or obnoxious. They were soft, too. It was perfect. The zipper was smooth. It smelled good. It fit over my shoulder perfectly, with enough space to fit comfortably even when wearing a coat. It was perfect.

One hundred and forty five dollars.

For a fake bag? Are they kidding? I couldn't believe it. And everywhere we went: Same thing.

"Your gilfrind," they said to Billy, "she have good taste. That new Chanel. From Japan. Good quality. One hundred forty five dolla."

Billy asked for a better deal.

"For you? One thirty."

I expected to spend $40, total.

Needless to say, I left emptyhanded.

12. This morning, not only did I get to work on time, but I managed to remember my gym bag! Which, to some, may not be so awesome, but I made a promise to myself this weekend to get to work on time and to start going to the gym regularly again.

13. HOWEVER, my gym bag is useless now, because I just ripped the toenail off of my big toe.

You know how you should be careful on stairs? Especially when you're wearing your little flip-flop type shoes, with the three-and-a-half inch heel? Especially when there's a little lip on the shoe that extends beyond your toes? A lip that is prone to get caught on things like, oh, say, stairs? Yeah, I forgot about that. So I ran up the stairs here at work to answer the phone, the lip on my shoe caught the step, and down I went. Only, I thought I'd broken a fingernail. I inspected my hand as I reached for the phone, and saw it was fine.

It was only after I'd answered that I noticed the throbbing coming from my toe.

Shock is a wonderful thing. Because I didn't feel the toenail being ripped from its bed, and I didn't even really notice the pain until I saw the blood. It was at that point that I started shaking involuntarily, my face contorting because of a pain so great that I thought I may pass out. But I held through the conversation I was having with a customer, waiting until I hung up to scream "FUUUUUUCK," rip off my shoe, and hobble over to the bathroom. My coworker got me ice as we wondered what the hell I would do to my toe. We decided that the best course of action would be to glue the nail (that ripped and uprooted down the middle, but is still inexplicably attached on both sides. I don't fuck around when I'm going to hurt myself. I do it right.) back together and just let it grow out. Which I will do later. But for now, I'm just sitting at my desk with a bag of ice on my toe, letting it go numb. As I have been doing for the last hour.

14. Thirty minutes later, my coworker caught her fingernail on a box and broke it about halfway down the bed. Awesome.

15. It's a bad day for nails of any variety here at the office.

16. My ankle hurts.

17. I think I'm going to go home, curl up with my laptop and a bottle of wine and call it a day.

Before the Fall

2006-10-07T19:01:00.000-04:00

Water Wheel

"This is my life," she says as we drive down her driveway. She points at the trees and the fallen leaves that surround the house. "I'm in the autumn of my life."

Her hair matches the color of the rusty leaves around us as she shakes her head and giggles.

"Mom, what do you mean, autumn?" I crinkle my eyebrows and cock my head, confused.

"I mean," she says, turning on her blinker and coming to a stop, "that I'm in my fifties. It's my fall. Still pretty, but we're on our way to winter."

I shake my head, rid myself of the thoughts of mortality she's inspiring. "But fifty is young, you're not on your way to winter."

"Yes I am, Laurie," she shifts into first and pulls forward, the tires sliding over the leaves that litter our road. "But I'm okay with that."

"This conversation is a bit morbid, I think," I say, reaching for the bottle of Dr. Pepper I brought along. "I don't want to talk about...you know...dying."

"I'm not saying I'm dying. I'm not saying it's coming any time soon. But, you know, when you reach a certain age, you realize that you're not getting any younger. And you realize that you pretty much know what's left. And now, I'm ready. Because I can look back at my life and say it was good. It was satisfying. I have a wonderful husband, I have two beautiful kids. I have a house, I drive my dream car. I've traveled, I've seen some amazing things. If my winter is coming, I'm ready. Because I've done all I wanted to do."

Fall takes its sweet time fading into winter. It starts long before we notice it, the slight shift in the air that makes the leaves turn rusty, the dry soil that makes them go gold. We don't notice it until we're driving down the road and see an explosion of canary, a blur of crimson. And we make promises, to drive north and appreciate it, to see the trees of Vermont, the painted hillsides that line the interstate. We marvel at the colors as they spin from green to yellow, to amber, to red.

It's the most beautiful season of the four, but we take the colors for granted, and before we know it, the veined and brittle leaves line our streets and parking lots, no longer hanging onto the trees for our viewing pleasure. Trees are naked and twisted, their skeletons exposed, bared for winter. Very rarely do we appreciate the fall. We let the autumn pass us by and realize, too late, that it's winter.

It's extraordinary that she sees it, that my mom slows down enough to look around, take in the changes and appreciate them. I hope I appreciate the beauty of my fall, too, rather than just anticipating winter.

iLove

2006-10-06T22:48:00.000-04:00

They dubbed this "The Year of Technology" for me after I opened my dad's gift. I cradled my cute little ipod Nano in my hands and laughed while I agreed with them. First the laptop, then an ipod? How would I keep up with all these fancy new things?

I gave Billy an ipod for Christmas. I perused the Apple store for the right model for him, and while I caressed the slender electronics, I wondered whether or not I should invest in one for myself.

I set the sleek black ipod back into its holder on the store's counter. Nah, I reasoned, I have satellite radio, I don't need an ipod. I mean, sure it would be nice to have all my music in one place, rather than having to dig through all of my CD cases to find my music, but I pay Sirius money every year for convenient music. And, yeah, it would be nice to have an ipod at the gym, since my old-school walkman skips with my every step on the treadmill...But, hey, the way I'm doing it now works just fine. I don't mind making my workout CDs. I kind of enjoy it, in fact.

But, after Christmas, while Billy learned about his new toy, while we downloaded every song we could ever remember enjoying to fill up his 7,000 song capacity, I'll admit: I was jealous. I loved it on car rides, and could only imagine the ease with which I could create work-out, driving and love song mixes. I envied all of it, the way it was organized, its convenience. I wanted one.

So when I opened the tiny box from my father, which I had suspected was jewelry, I was thrilled. I immediately thought of the songs I could listen to at the gym, while I was sweating my way through an hour of cardio. And I couldn't believe my dad had knew would enjoy it.

The little OCD girl that lives inside of me is having a field day with this, the thought of organizing all of my music onto my new computer, and downloading that onto my new ipod. I'm even more elated to organize those songs into little lists with names like, "Work it, Bitch" for the gym and "Breaking up is hard to do" for my much-loved breakup songs.

I may be bad at blogging for the next few days while I tinker with my new toys.

Blogging from the Bedroom

2006-10-05T20:30:00.000-04:00

"Can I open it now?" I said, cradling the box beneath my arm.

Billy stirred, looked first at the clock, and then at me. "Of course you can. It's your birthday present," he squinted again at the clock: 7:14, my standard wake-up time on workdays. "And it's your birthday. So, of course."

I positioned myself on my side of the bed, giving Billy enough room to sit up from his slumbering position. I carefully plucked at the tape on the wrapping paper, freeing the edges of the blue paper.

"Just rip it," Billy said, his voice still quiet from sleep. I obliged, happily tearing the paper from the heavy box.

What it revealed was only brown cardboard, and I looked at it, confused. "Keep going," Billy urged.

I opened the box, exposing yet another one. I looked at him, unsure. Half asleep, he nodded at me to continue. And as I pulled the smaller box from the tight clutches of the larger one, I saw it.
"You didn't," I whispered, my voice stifled with disbelief. And I tore the box open, eager to see its contents.

There it was: A laptop.

I slid the silver and black computer from its styrofoam protection and looked at Billy again. Tears came to my eyes immediately. "I can't believe it," I said. "Oh my God. Thank you so much."

I turned my head to look at him, buried in blankets, a cocoon of beige surrounding him. He smiled. "Do you like it?"

"I love it." My voice was far away and dreamy, still shocked at what I held in my hands. "Can I...Can I turn it on?"

"Yeah," he said, sitting up and reaching for his coffee. He sounded excited. Not as excited as me, but excited. "It should be charged."

And so I hit the power button, letting my new machine come to life. It sang as it woke, the all too familiar Widows anthem blaring from tiny speakers hidden somewhere within the notebook. I looked at Billy again, covering my mouth with my robe. I didn't want him to see my mouth contorting into tears, the way my lips were fighting the tears with a full smile. It couldn't have been pretty. "Thank you so much," came my muffled voice.

"Let it sit for a minute," he said, taking a sip of his coffee.

I removed my hands from the smooth keys and did as he said. "Baby, thank you so much. I can't believe it."

"You're welcome." I leaned in to kiss his sleepy mouth, sorry for waking him on his day off, but at the same time glad I had. He returned my kiss, his full lips meeting my own, accepting my gratitude.

The screen went black for the screen saver. Happy Birthday, Larry scrolled across the screen. I laughed out loud and looked into his face, my eyes brimming, my heart full.

"It's all set up for you." He nodded toward the computer. "It's got Word and everything...It even has music."

I shook my head, as though trying to wake myself from a dream. "I have to go get a router, like, today," I said, digging in the start menu for the music he'd mentioned.

He leaned over the side of his bed and produced a second wrapped box.

"Is that a router?" I asked, though I knew the answer already.

He laughed. "Open it."

And it was.

"I must be a huge geek," I laughed, revealing the router's box beneath the paper, "to get this excited over a computer."

"You are," he assured me.

But it wasn't the computer itself that had me excited, full of tears and thank yous. It was the fact that I'd never asked for a laptop. I'd wanted one, but I'd never asked him for it. I asked for shoes and purses for my birthday, for jewels and DVDs; not a laptop. But he'd been watching, all those times I flipped through electronics flyers, searching for a laptop I could afford. He'd listened when I talked about how nice it would be to write from the comfort of my bed, whenever the mood strikes. He'd paid attention to all of it.

I couldn't keep the smile from consuming my face as I rushed to him and covered his face in kisses, my arm wrapped around his warm body. "Thank you," I whispered into his neck, his chest. "Thank you so much."

And when I withdrew, looked at him to make sure he understood how grateful I was, I saw on his face a gift better than the newly unwrapped present on the bed: He was happy. He was genuinely happy, it seemed, having done something that gave me such bliss.

And I wondered, how did I get so lucky? How did I find a man that I thought only existed on TV, in the movies, in romance novels. A man who will do something for me simply because he knows I'll love it, who delights in making me happy. A man who takes the time to think of something I'll really love, really use, really appreciate.

"I may never leave the bedroom now," I said, touching the wide screen lightly.

"I thought you'd rather write here than downstairs."

That comment sank through my skin, made me stop and marvel and what I have. We may disagree, and we may see things differently sometimes, but he knows me, and what's important to me...And it's important to him to make me happy. And I couldn't ask for a better gift.

Hands Down, This is Best Day of the Year

2006-10-04T09:31:00.000-04:00

Not to take anything away from Christmas, or New Year, or Thanksgiving or anything...but

TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

I've said it before, I'll say it again: I love my birthday. I love it more than a normal person should. Like the six year old I was twenty years ago, I get excited for this day weeks in advance. I announce it to everyone, I look forward to it with the giddy anticipation of a child. On my birthday, I'm all smiles and love and cheer. I don't know what it is, I just love my birthday.

Maybe it's because, growing up, my family made a huge deal out of everyone's birthday. My mom got excited for me before I knew enough to be excited. My parents always made me my favorite foods, gave me gifts and cards and made the whole day about me. They did it for my brother, and they do it for each other. Birthdays have always been an event with my family.

I'm getting older, sure. And I've heard people say things like "Every birthday after 21 sucked." I've heard people dreading any birthday that pushes them closer to thirty. But, here I am, now a 26 year old, only four years to go till thirty, and it just feels awesome. I hope that I never lose my love of my birthday, or get to a point where I don't want to celebrate it because it's "just another day." It's not. It's my BIRTHDAY. It's a reason to celebrate. And it's a reason to celebrate just being yourself. What's better than that?

In addition to the fact that it's my birthday, which makes this day awesome enough, Billy got me a laptop. And wireless capability. Which means I may now never leave my bedroom. It also means I can blog from home, I can upload my pictures more often, I can write. This may be the perfect gift.

Add that to the fact that my boss gave me vodka, and this may be the best day ever. And it's only 9:30 in the morning.

I'll write more later, about how happy Billy makes me, about how awesome my family and friends are, about my Birthday Eve celebration last night, and probably more. But right now, I'm just so happy, I can't bring myself to write anything besides this inane post about how it's my birthday, and I'm excited.

Happy Birthday to me!

Round is a Shape

2006-10-03T14:47:00.000-04:00

For the first time in well over two months, I claimed my usual spot in the front of my Step/Sculpt class at the gym. I set up my step and chose my weights and grabbed a mat. I had my water, my towel, and even a paper towel, too. I was ready.

I stood on my step with two risers beneath the long, skid-proof surface, my heels positioned so that they hung over the edge and let my weight fall back. I stretched out my calves, my hamstrings, in preparation for the beating they were about to endure. I chatted with the ladies in my class, filling them in on my recent adventures to Mexico, to the hospital. I giggled and laughed and quipped my way through the ten minutes it took our instructor to walk into the room. Once she did, she greeted us with a cheerful hello and strode right over to the music and hit play.

Already? I thought, jumping in rhythm with the rest of the class. Where was the warm up, the stretching, the easing into this? It had been so long since I'd been there, I'd forgotten that we start, then stop to stretch, then we really go at it. No big deal, I thought, I can keep up. I've taken breaks longer than two months and had no problem getting right back into the swing of things.

Cut to thirty minutes later, where I was the one off of my step, panting and trying to catch my breath, while the rest of the class happily V-Stepped, A-Stepped and Over-and-Overed their way through class. Once I thought I had recovered sufficiently, I tried to jump back into it. No dice. My arms cried out under the four pound weights I was instructed to push up over my head. My thighs burned from the stepping up, from the squeezing, from the squatting. My lungs struggled to keep up through the jumping and the moving and hopping and rapid pace. I stepped off, and removed a set of risers from beneath my step, leaving me at Level One.

Oh, Step With Two Risers: Why do you mock me?

I've been going to the gym for three years, maybe four. I've quit classes and gone back many, many times in my entire career there. I've taken breaks that have lasted much longer than two months. I've given up altogether for periods of time so significant that the gym has deleted me from their system. But each time I went back, I pushed all the way through that same first step class, with two risers. TWO. I've never given up, I've never been the girl pacing the floor, trying to let her heart slow down. Last night, I was.

It's not so bad, I told myself. This break was the first time I ceased to do anything for the entire amount of time I was out. I had surgery, I convinced myself. I've been weakened. It's okay to have to develop stamina. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the cigarettes, the vodka, the wine, the ample amounts of chocolate I've been eating. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with the cold I still have. I couldn't have anything to do with the fact that I spent the entire class sniffling and wiping my nose to prevent any mucus-related embarrassment. I couldn't have anything to do with the cough that all that heavy breathing produced. No, that's not it. Clearly, I'm just weak now.

But I finished the class. I didn't do as many crunches as I'm used to, I didn't do the hardest modifications for every exercise like I usually do, but I finished. And I was proud of myself. The first step back to being in shape is always the hardest.

I was still congratulating myself on my success as I took my post-step-class shower. And that's when I felt it. The throbbing in my frontal lobe. The dull whomp-whomp-whomp sound that filled my ears when I bent over to shave my legs. The pinching right in between my eyes.

Ten minutes later, I was in bed, with the lights off, moving my body around to whatever position allowed me to be free of my headache for at least a minute. I popped a couple of Motrin. I buried my face in the many pillows on my bed. I wouldn't let myself cry over the pain because I knew that would only make it worse.

"Goddamn oxygen deprivation," I muttered as I flopped myself onto my stomach. "Why'd you have to try to be so tough? You could've started out easy, and moved onto the more difficult moves if you needed more, but noooo, you had to start off with the hardest and then go down to easy. Had to try to be a badass, didn't you?"

I fell asleep chastising myself.

Today, my headache is, blissfully, gone. But my calves, thighs, abs and arms are staging a protest against ever trying to be tough again.

"I Heart Flickr" and Other Declarations

2006-10-02T15:12:00.000-04:00

Zana again

This is my grandmother in a photo taken, ahem, a few years ago. My mom sent this and two other pictures to me a while ago, but I couldn't post them because blogger wouldn't let me. But now? Now, with Flickr, I can. (That sounds sort of like a line from an infomercial, doesn't it?)

I spent all day Friday on Flickr, uploading photos, writing little captions, organizing them into sets, you name it. I love this. I do. Flickr is my newest obsession. I think it could be unhealthy, the amount of time I've spent on that website, tagging and describing and looking around.

I guess this means I can actually start taking pictures again. And posting them. But I'm not about to make any promises that I can't keep.

In keeping with the general aimlessness of this post, can I just say that it's high time I cleaned out my car? I offered a friend a ride this weekend, and spent the better part of the drive apologizing for the stench of stale cigarettes and the mess of cigarette packs/fast food wrappers/magazines under her feet. I had to clean off the seat just to let her sit down. And, in doing that, threw roughly ten CD cases and three CaseLogic books into the back seat. The delicate jewel cases burst open on impact when they collided with the shit already in the back seat, and scattered thirty CDs around the rear of my 4Runner. And, in case you're wondering how 10 CD cases could possibly produce 30 loose CDs, I'll spell it out for you: I'm lazy, and hate digging for CDs in their appropriate cases (because, uh, why would James Morrison's CD actually be in the case with his name on it? That doesn't even make sense.), so I just pile each case high with as many CDs as it will hold at one time. This is really sort of a self-defeating process, as it requires I mentally back-track my CD playlist every time I want to hear something. "Where is that Ray LaMontagne CD? Hmmm. Well, I know I listened to the Fray last, which was right after Christina Aguilera, which was right after Jann Arden, which I put in after Ray LaMontagne. Which means the Ray CD should be in the Mary J. Blige case! Of course!" It's rough, I tell you. Really rough.

So I go through and clean out my car every so often. And, when I do, there is the ceremonial Putting of the CDs Back into Their Proper Jewel Cases, a process that takes me roughly four hours to complete, as things get so convoluted and messy in my car that I must empty all the cases and start from scratch. Because of this very faulty filing system of mine, I've lost a number of CDs to the abyss of my car. Jonny Lang's Wander This World is nowhere to be found, as is that one Ben Folds Five CD I bought about three years go. I keep hoping that one day, I'll glance under the floorboard carpeting that's lifting up and find all of my lost CDs sitting there, waiting anxiously to be played again.

And, let me say this: Walking into a bar and being immediately greeted by the yelps of joy and excited faces emanating from ten or so friends of yours is an experience we just don't have often enough in life. Saturday night, I went to a bar by myself. I was meeting people there, and I knew I'd be seeing people I knew there, but I wasn't prepared for the gleeful reception I encountered when I walked in. It was so nice, to walk into the hugs and kisses of people who love me for exactly who I am. That, hands down, was the best part of my weekend.

Unless I count yesterday, where Billy and I went out for our weekly sushi dinner at a restaurant about a half an hour from our house. Each week, we rotate drivers, and this week was my week to be the passenger. I got quickly and properly drunk on three glasses of Pinot, at which point I turned into a giggly, lovesick girl. It was luscious to be with him, not fighting or nit-picking; just talking and laughing, making the slow shift back into the couple we usually are: The happy couple.

Also, my birthday is on Wednesday! The countdown began about a month ago, when I started casually reminding Billy (EVERY DAY) that my birthday was thirty, twenty-seven, eighteen days away. Now, it's so close I can almost touch it. I'm so excited.

I love my birthday. Love. It. I thought that, once I passed 21, my birthday would lose some of it's appeal, but...Nope. Nope, it hasn't. It's the big 2-6 on Wednesday, and I'm just as excited as I was two days before I turned the big 1-6; and, then, I was going through the rite of passage that is The Driver's License Test. Somehow, I just never lost affection for the one day in the year dedicated to me and me alone. (And some other awesome fucking people.)

Be prepared for a lack of ability to focus on my part. Because all I'm thinking about right now is a cake with my name on it, and how I'll say "Today is my birthday!" about a million times on the 4th.

Dear Me

2006-09-29T16:15:00.000-04:00

Tell yourself it’s just your impending period. Tell yourself it’s the fact that fall is here, and change of any kind makes you introspective. Tell yourself it’s because you’re tired, because you’re frustrated, because you’re preoccupied. Tell yourself whatever you want. Blame it on the person closest to you. Make yourself a martyr, make yourself the victim.

But know, without doubt, that this worry, this nagging sense of dread, is your doing.

You can only blame your actions and reactions on your past for so long. And then that becomes played and laughable. You are in charge of who you are, how you act, what you think and how much you think about it. You are the one who overanalyzes, you are the one who makes yourself sick over nothing. You are your own worst enemy.

Because, sure, your last relationship made you doubt yourself. He made you feel like you weren’t worth the love you deserve. But you’ve chosen to go ahead and carry that into this: You’re the one who decides, when your wonderful boyfriend is just a little bit quiet, a little less affectionate, that he’s lost all desire for you. You choose to believe that any love but your own is fleeting, not solid enough to withstand even one fight. You’re the one who thinks his mind is bound to change, his attention bound to stray, his patience bound to run out. You’re the one who’s afraid to talk about the future. Because you don’t want to scare him, because you weren’t allowed to before. You’re the one who decides to leave that up to him – the talk of the future and us and anything else – then be upset because he hasn’t read your mind the way you think he should. You’re the one afraid of everything.

Because you could fling that blame at your ex for a while, but now look: Over a year later, a year of nothing but solid proof that he loves you, and you’re doing it again. You’re second guessing, over thinking, worrying. You have to start looking at you now. Perhaps a good motivator would be to imagine your ex standing over you saying “I told you so. It wasn’t me. It was you. Just like I said.” And you don’t want to prove him right. Stop looking at what was done to you, and start thinking about how you can overcome that.

Of course, you’re afraid to be hurt again. Naturally. But there’s nothing you can do to keep that from happening now. No amount of supposing or hypothesizing is going to change it. So just roll with it. Stop letting worry consume you. Why are you always thinking about the worst? You worried about leaving clothes at your boyfriend’s house because you hated the thought of one day carrying them all back out again. And he went ahead and bought you a dresser to put them in. Half of the closet. Some counter space. And then he invited you to live there. Sure, it’s possible that you’ll have to move it all out one day. That’s the case with anything. But why worry about that rather than focusing on the fact that the dresser is there, full of sweaters and underpants and sexy underthings? And he put it there, with absolutely no instruction from you. He wants you. He loves you. Try thinking about that for once.

But it's to your credit that, unlike normal women, you don't worry about cheating. You at least feel secure in that. It's just that you worry so much that he's going to leave. And break your heart. That's more frightening to you than betrayal. You just don't want to be left standing with a fractured heart again. And that's understandable. But don't you think it's time you let go of that? Just release that fear. You've come too far - with him and by yourself - to still be clinging to old ghosts like that.

Because, really, he’s not going to want to keep convincing you that he loves you. You know he does. Just remember it.

Belly-Aching

2006-09-28T15:22:00.000-04:00

If I could live my life in a constant state of worry and peril, I would probably weigh roughly 42 pounds. I eat when I’m bored, I do not eat when I’m nervous or upset. When I’m bored I’ll sometimes come to out of what must be a black-out and realize that I’ve eaten almost an entire bag of Bakes Lay’s. I’ll leave the crumbs in the bottom, though, and put them back in the cabinet for the next person to enjoy. Because I am no pig.

But when I’m upset, I’m exactly the opposite. I swear, my throat closes and my stomach winces at the threat of even a dollop of calorie or flavor ridden morsels. Water and water alone sustains me when I’m upset.

How could I eat when I’m upset? I have no time to eat when I’m busy fixating on how horrible things are. I can’t eat a buffalo chicken wrap when I’m involved in preparing myself for the worst-case-scenario.

The weirdest thing is, I can be SO hungry – STARVING in fact – and ready to tear into a hunk of the Laughing Cow cheese I bought at the IGA…But if I get, say, a phone call in which I think I may be A) in trouble for something B) on the verge of getting dumped or C) getting results from my doctor, my mouth will instantly run dry, and my stomach will curl up into the fetal position and sort of tuck itself behind my intestines, crying, begging me not to eat. (Incidentally, my intestines are another story entirely. Being upset, for some reason, makes them just spring to life.)

I didn’t eat yesterday until dinner because I was upset over a fight I’d had with my boyfriend. And, even now, a day later, my stomach is still unfolding itself from its cramped position, begrudgingly allowing me to ingest nutrients.

Because, even though things are “back to normal” between my boyfriend and myself, my mind is still caught up in all of my worrying. Overreacting or not, I have a very visceral reaction to worry, to fear, to sadness.

I just need to relax, breathe, and wait for things to get back to normal. In my mind, and in my belly.

Sandpaper

2006-09-27T13:36:00.000-04:00

I can’t focus. I can’t keep my thoughts on one item at a time. Not work, not blogs, not even this. I’ve bitten the inside of my mouth so that it’s raw, my mouth curled so that I can reach the fleshy parts of the inside of my cheek with my teeth. It’s not attractive, and not particularly comfortable either, but it’s what I do when I’m nervous.

I don’t know if it’s my cold, or my impending period, my nature, or something really deep inside of me that I haven’t quite acknowledged yet, but I keep fighting with Billy. Last weekend, this weekend, last night; for a couple who never fights, there’s been a terrifying increase in the frequency of our quarrels.

Couples fight. I know they do. All the time. People scream at each other, throw things, hurl nasty names like cannonballs. But that’s not what we do. We have “discussions” in which neither of us raises our voice. We try to out-synonym, out-think, out-smart, out-debate one another. And we’re both so stubborn that our fights – or discussions – rarely get us anywhere besides on opposite sides of the bed, back to back, and unfulfilled. I won’t bend, neither will he. And so we get locked in a stalemate that eventually settles into the backs of our minds with the aid of sleep, the fight all but forgotten in a day or so.

But I freak out. Over everything. And right now, the morning after a fight, his silence is ringing in my ears. Something feels very wrong, and I don’t like it. My body is heavy with dread, my throat thick with worry. And for no reason. I hope.

If I could reach him now, I would. If I could find him, talk to him, I’d do it. But I can’t, and it makes every second that creeps by feel like sandpaper against my skin. Before I know it, I’ll be raw, like the inside of my cheeks; chewed up and spat out by my own psyche, my own over-active imagination, my own fear, my own insecurity that one fight will be the one to push him away for good.

What I Wouldn't Give

2006-09-26T16:17:00.000-04:00

This morning on my way into work, I drove through a shower of leaves. Already golden and bronze, they danced through the air above the road, tumbling and spinning on their way to the other side of the thoroughfare. The huddled mass of them performed a serious of dainty pirouettes, blurry spirals, lazy swaying. Staring at them through my windshield, barreling toward them, I saw that it is actually fall.

And though I love autumn - the crisp coolness in the air, the warm colors it inspires, its call for red wine and desserts made with nutmeg - I'm not quite ready for it yet. I feel like it was just yesterday that I stopped wearing my jacket, and here it is already time to put them back on.

So days like this, when it's cool and not quite warm enough to go out without a sweater, I remember Belize. The hot wind, the thick air, the blaring sun. If I think hard enough, I can remember what it was like to wear my bathing suit every day, to dread the need for an actual shirt. I can remember the sand between my toes and the sun on my shoulders.

First Full Day in Belize

Days like this, I want to go back, if not just for a day, to taste the warmth and feel the breeze that I won't find here for another eight months.

Cough and Cold

2006-09-25T11:03:00.000-04:00

Remember when I was talking about that cold I had? Yeah, well, it sort of exploded into something horrible. Not "horrible" like "my lung collapsed," but "horrible" like "It's kind of hard for me to breathe without coughing up something really terrible, and I certainly can't breathe through my nose at this juncture and, ow, my back hurts and my legs hurt and my arms hurt and even my hair hurts, though I'm not quite sure how that's possible, and my nose is getting all raw from blowing it all the time, and can I take Advil with Mucinex D AND vitamins and tea, because I think I can but I also think that's the reason I'm all shaky and can't seem to focus."

Yeah, that's what I mean when I say "horrible."

Which is troublesome for a number of reasons. Let's go over them in list form, shall we!

1. I have a very busy week planned. I have dinner tonight, I have my dad's birthday tomorrow night, I have plans with Billy Wednesday night, I have plans for drinks on Thursday and I have BIG plans on Saturday. A cold, if you'll notice, was not in my Palm Pilot for this week.

2. My birthday is next week. I can't be sick for my own birthday.

3. That James Morrison CD I ordered? I got it Monday of last week, and it's been on constant repeat ever since. I love, love, love it. But now that I'm sick, I can't sing along. And that makes me sad.

4. Why can't I sing along, you ask? Because I sound not unlike a prepubescent boy when I attempt to sing along with anything. My voice cracks and splits, its various changes from low- to high-pitched completely out of my control.

5. But when I talk? I sound like a man, baby. Deep and raspy, distinctly mannish in my tone and even demeanor, I sound like a truck driver, not a 25 year old girl. It's awful.

6. My big plans on Saturday include dancing. I can't tell you how not sexy or appealing it is to dance for a few minutes, cough. Dance for a few minutes, cough.

7. And I don't cough like a dainty maiden. This is a doubled-over, whole-body-into-it kind of cough. The gross kind of cough that produces the quite unwelcome presence of mucus in my mouth. The kind where, when I'm finally done hacking, the look on my face is pained and disgusted because not only did the coughing spell hurt, but now I have to spit somewhere.

8. Being sick makes me all squishy and romantic. Despite how gross I am right now, when I'm sick like this, I just want to curl up in bed with Billy, put my warm head in that perfect niche between his arm and his chest, where I lay with my head in the soft area of his shoulder that seems like it was made just for me. He'll kiss my forehead and rub my back and I'll fall asleep and probably drool all over him. Before I do that, thought, I'll speak to him in a small voice, and I'll need him desperately all day long.

9. I won't see him until 9:00 at the earliest.

10. It's just embarrassing. Because I'm pale and sickly, because I keep blowing my nose, because I sound like a man, because of my horrible cough. I feel like I have the plague. And that, my friends, is horrible, no matter how you look at it.

Drunks say the Darndest Things

2006-09-22T14:46:00.000-04:00

After dinner last Friday, I went to a local bar with Alex and Nancy for a celebratory drink for Alex's birthday. The drunken man sitting next to me for most of the night (No, not Alex) asked me what I was drinking.

"Vodka tonic," I replied cautiously. "Why?"

His head sort of rolled to the side, where he supported it with his flimsy hand. He almost knocked over his third glass of wine as he began to evaluate me. He rubbed his hairless chin with his free hand. "Says a lot," he slurred.

"My drink? Says a lot about me?" I stirred the clear fluid and made a production of studying it.

"No. No." He shook his head, slowly. "You say a lot about you."

"But I haven't spoken to you."

"I know. I know." He nodded and laughed. I looked at Alex and Nancy and shrugged my shoulders, unsure of where he was going or what he meant by any of this.

"What do you know?" My tone was irritated, skeptical.

He pointed at me with his unsteady finger. "Bad boyfriend." He surveyed me, from my waist to the tip-top of my head, then nodded, satisfied with his diagnosis.

"Excuse me?"

"Maybe not now. But in the past." He nodded again.

"My drink told you that?"

"No. You have it written all over you." The wine had made his tongue slow and too big for his mouth. His lips moved to speak, but his tongue moved a good two seconds later. And he was judging me.

"Oh, I do?" I raised one eyebrow and took a small sip of my drink, curious and provoked. "What about me says bad boyfriend?"

"Quick. Combative. Ready to shoot me down." He concentrated on his glass as he moved it from the bar to his mouth. "I asked you what you were drinking and you got sus...susp...suspicioussss."

"Wary," I said.

"Huh?"

"Wary is the word you're looking for. Not suspicious, or combative. Wary."

"YES." He proclaimed, jabbing his finger at me, and nodding satisfactorily. "That's it. Wary."

I nodded with him, gave a sarcastic "cheers" and toasted his wine glass with my stout vodka-tonic. I am wary, always, of everyone. It's exhausting and unnecessary most times, but I am.

Last night, watching Grey's Anatomy, I saw that very wariness of which I spoke. Not in the characters of the show, but in me, reacting to the characters.

Meredith's ex-lover, the married Derek, finally comes back to her once she's found a new guy. He sees her with a handsome new love interest, and suddenly he's back. With the passion and the sex...And every man's Get Out of Jail Free card, "I love you."

And after he said it to her, told her to take her time choosing between him and the new guy, my heart sank for her. Because I didn't see it as a genuine expression of love. I saw it as him rushing to claim territory that he lost. Classic playground syndrome: A kid doesn't want his toy until another kid gets his hands on it.

I felt myself wanting to warn her: Be careful! He doesn't love you. He's just finally aware that he lost you. He's seen you with someone else and now he wants you back? Open your eyes! He took you for granted, he treated you like shit, he made you second best. And now he wants you to choose him. Watch out. Because he's only going to take you for granted again, treat you like shit again, and make you second best again. He's going to hurt you, just like he did before. I know you want him, I know you love him, but he will rip out your heart if you let him back into your chest.

"I love you" doesn't erase all of the tears, the unkind words, the bruises and the aching. "I love you" isn't necessarily permanent, it can be fleeting. "I love you" doesn't guarantee anything.

I felt for her. Because I've been there.

And I don't know if it really was the vodka-tonic that gave me away, but the drunk at the bar was right. It must be written all over me. I just worry that I'll never be able to erase what someone else wrote on my flesh.

Ugh

2006-09-21T15:35:00.000-04:00

While I type this, Blogger is glaring at me from the corner of my screen, shouting that an outage is scheduled in half an hour and I'd better get to typing.

It's disconcerting.

Anyway, as this week has dragged on, I've noticed that I am no longer the young sprite I once was. One night spent whooping it up in New York City, and suddenly the rest of my week is shot. I couldn't function on Monday and I barely pulled it together for Tuesday.

Tuesday night, though, I felt it. You know what I'm talking about: That little dry patch in the back of your throat, the one that feels like you've swallowed an tiny square of sandpaper and it somehow got stuck to your uvula. The one that feels like, if you could just drink some water to moisten it, it would go away. So you drink water, but it doesn't go away. And you just know, right then, what's coming...

So I went out yesterday and bought Airborne. I've heard about it, but never bought it before as I've always thought it was just a ploy to get my money. And their ploy worked, because $8 later I was back at work, dissolving the tablet in my glass of water and chugging it.

But I should've just spent my $8 on Kleenex and Advil Cold and Sinus instead. Because sitting at a local restaurant last night with my boyfriend, my dad and my mom - for her birthday dinner - the sniffles started. And somewhere between the tequila shot my mom did with Billy, and the Birthday song that the waiters and waitresses sang for my mom, I hit a wall. Suddenly, I couldn't keep my eyes open. I was yawning, and sniffling. And, what's worse, I didn't drink anything all night. All night, people! Me! No booze! Because I - gasp! - just didn't feel like it.

After we dropped my parents off at their house, Billy and I headed to our home. And, as soon as we got there, I crawled into that luscious bed of ours and...Passed the fuck out.

I was out cold in a matter of minutes. I was curled up on Billy's chest. Mouth open. Drooling, probably. Immobile.

"You were so cute last night," Billy said to me this morning. "Sleeping like that. It was adorable."

"Did I have my mouth open?"

"Of course you did."

"Is that why you were laughing at me?" I vaguely recalled a moment where I opened my heavy eyes, only to see him giggling, his face pointed directly at me. I shrugged and went back to sleep.

"No, I was laughing because I got up for a minute, and when I came back, you were all the way on my side of the bed. I mean, all the way. There wasn't even an inch for me. So I tried moving you gently so that I wouldn't wake you up, but you were dead weight. So, then I had to sort of pick you up, and that's when you woke up, all confused. But you just closed your eyes right after you opened them. I could've done anything to you last night."

It was nearly impossible to get up this morning, and it's been impossible to focus today. I have a big box of Puffs Plus (With lotion!) next to my computer, my Purell on hand, vitamins, juice and cold medicine. It's very, very sexy.

And I'm pretty sure this is the penance I'm paying for an evening that didn't end until the sun came up.

What Happens When Nine Girls Pile into a Limo for a Night on the Town?

2006-09-20T16:07:00.000-04:00

This. And lots of it.

My best friend and Me

Please pardon the cocky expression, as I was just proud of myself for having filled a glass half-full of vodka in a moving limousine. As it turns out, I'm heavy handed with the liquor when it comes to making drinks, which may explain why I've never been a bartender. And besides, I can't be responsible for things like velocity and flow and bumps in the road. I'm human. I can only do so much. But, hey, the way I saw it, moderation was irrelevant, as none of us had to drive, and the goal of the evening was to enjoy ourselves.

Which, I think it's safe to say, we did. We started at nine o'clock on Saturday night, and, as I may have mentioned before, didn't get home until 6:30 Sunday morning. During those ungodly hours, we went to Sol, headed to Duvet, and capped off the evening at Lotus.

And, when you're flanked by a ton of hot chicks, you don't much care that you always feel like a country bumpkin when you're in the city. Because, when there's that many of you, and you have oodles of bottles of booze waiting for you in the car, you really sort of become your own party.

The impression I give with this statement is probably that there were nine heavily inebriated women running around the streets of New York City. But that's wrong. Because, really, no one was. Drunk, that is. We were just all in the mood to have a good time. To shake our thangs and enjoy one another's company. Which is precisely what happened. We danced. We talked. We laughed. We looked. It was incredible.

The ride home, however, was another story entirely. Finally, the vodka and our shoes and the dancing and the walking and the laughing and the talking and silliness caught up with us. And we all passed out in the thick buttery seats of the limo's interior. It was like waking the dead when we finally hit home, each of us rolling out of our respective seats, walking like zombies to the promise of soft beds, warm sheets, space to stretch out in.

Which, really, when you think about it, is the way all of the good nights end.

2006-09-20T08:38:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday Mamila!

How Much Longer Until I Can Nap?

2006-09-18T13:36:00.000-04:00

So, that outing in New York City I was talking about? Yeah, we went. Nine girls in a stretch Infiniti SUV, with roughly 13 bottles of booze headed out for NYC at roughly 9:00 on Saturday night...

...And got back home somewhere in the vicinity of 6:30 on Sunday morning.

And, even though I slept until two in the afternoon yesterday, I am feeling the residual effects of sleep deprivation.

So, no real post today. Because nothing good is coming out of this brain for at least 24 hours, I can guarantee you that.

Another Saturday, Another List

2006-09-16T13:11:00.000-04:00

1. This morning, before work, I was watching Vh1, and I was hit with the trifecta of music I can't stand. Applying my makeup, I was subject first to Nikelback's Far Away, then Five for Fighting's The Riddle, then that goddamn Hinder song, Lips of an Angel. All in a row. I wanted to scream. Those three songs are haunting my life. They're everywhere. And it's driving me nuts.

But, aside from a few songs I can't seem to escape, it's a good month for music. It really is.

First of all, I got the new Justin Timberlake CD, which really rocks my world. I mean, I hate admitting that I like it, but I can't help it: I do. It makes me want to dance while I'm driving my car. And, actually, if you must know, I think it's rife with good stripper songs. Honestly. Not that I'd know anything about that.

Then, I ordered what has the potential to be my new favorite CD on Amazon.co.uk: James Morrison. After worrying that I'd only be able to hear his songs on his myspace page because he's not released in the US, I, at the advice of my lovely readers, ordered the damn thing from the British site. I was advised it would take 6 - 10 business days to get to me, but I got the email yesterday that said the album had been "dispatched" already. This gives me great hope, as the day before I got word that something else I'd ordered online (A World Cup Ghana jersey for Billy from eurosoccer.com) had been dispatched the previous day, and I got the thing yesterday. I don't mean to celebrate before there's cause for it, but this gives me reason to believe that I'll have my CD early next week.

And then, this morning, as I watched the aforementioned Vh1, their Jump Start bumper displayed the Upcoming Releases. And do you know what was on it? JONNY LANG. My favorite guy. And even though it got a sort of crappy review on Amazon, I'm buying that shit on Tuesday the 19th - The day it comes out. Why? Because I love him. And I have to support the artists I love so that they keep coming out with music.

I don't think I'll even have the sort of time it's going to take to listen to all of these goodies. Which is a really delicious predicament to be in.

2. Before recently, I had never really purchased anything online. But as my purchases have started coming in, I can see how this could be addictive. There's something terribly wonderful about expecting and getting packages in the mail! Who knew!

3. We seem to have run head first into autumn. The days around here were, not too long ago, hot and sunny, thick with humidity and stifling. But now, rainy days and temperatures that won't break 70 have catapulted us into my favorite season. The other day, driving home, I saw the first of many trees to turn red.

Back in July, I decided that my ringer should be Summertime, by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. But seeing the trees and feeling the fall, it seems that Summertime is no longer appropriate. So I went onto Sprint's website and dug around for a new ringer, and then I found it, one of my favorite songs of all time: Al Green, Here I am (Come and Take Me), which I promptly downloaded and set as my ringer.

4. I may also be addicted to downloading songs as ringers for my phone.

5. Yeah, I know I'm a geek.

6. Last night, I cooked dinner!

Well, that's what I'm telling everybody anyway. What really happened is that I went over to Alex and Nancy's for Alex's birthday. Nancy, amazing chef that she is, was cooking Alex the Cuban his favorite ethnic dish: Ropa Vieja. Alex and I sat and talked over red wine while Nancy got three pots going on the stove, and, at the same time, set to the task of shredding the cooked beef by hand. "Do you need help?" I asked, over the kitchen bar.

"No, I've got it," she said, her hands pulling apart the tender meat and dropping it onto a dish. "Unless you want to help me do this," she held up strings of beef.

"Sure," I said, dramatically setting my wine glass on the counter, and sauntering to her side of the bar, like a soldier going into battle.

She left me to the task, while I continued to chat with her and Alex. I was much slower than her at the shredding, but she didn't seem to mind.

"Look at you," Alex said. "In a kitchen? This is a day for the record books."

"Yes," I replied, my eyes on the beef. "It is indeed. I'm going to put this on my business card, 'Meat-Shredder.'"

"Put it on your resume," he offered.

"Yes, but I'll say I cooked a whole dinner on my resume."

Alex nodded in accord. "Yes. Because people lie on those things all the time anyway."

It's pathetic, the fact that everyone in my life knows that I am useless in the kitchen.

7. I'm going to New York City tonight with some lady-friends for a night full of drinks and dancing. I'm dressing up in black slacks, a sexy top, and sexier shoes.

But, have you ever feel like one of the Beverly Hillbillies? Yeah, that's how I'll be feeling tonight. Because, as I've said before, something about New York City makes me feel like a little country bumpkin. Like, no matter what I have on, I might as well be wearing overalls and a straw hat. If I wear jeans, I feel like people are saying "Oh my god, look at that girl, wearing jeans in a club. She must be from Pennsylvania." And if I wear something dressy, I feel like people are saying "Oh my god. Look at that girl, all dressed up in a club. She's trying so hard. She must be from Pennsylvania." I feel like I can't win.

But I'll be with roughly nineteen other chicks, who are all dressing up, too. So there's strength in numbers.

Or it may just mean that people will say "Oh my god, look at those girls...They must be from Pennsylvania."

8. Last night, after dinner, Nancy and Alex and I went to a bar and watched a grown man get thoroughly and completely wasted on three glasses of Chardonnay. He got up to leave and fell over. I'm so glad that I'm not the only one who can't hold my wine.

7. I'm sticking to vodka tonight.

Taking It

2006-09-15T09:43:00.000-04:00

He thinks I like to fight. He thinks I get off on it. He thinks I can't just be happy with things going smoothly, that, after a good run, I need a good fight to cap it off. He thinks I take everything wrong, that any comment he makes is bound to get turned and mangled in my mind, and wind up making me angry. He thinks I'm trying to make him into a bad guy, that I can't just be happy. And though I vehemently denied it, though I argued with a raised voice and incredulous attitude, part of me thinks he may be right.

Whatever he says to me, whatever he does, I'm looking for the seedy underbelly he doesn't want me to find. Benign statements are twisted into criticisms, meek words home to latent anger and evidence of discord.

"I would do that for you," I said to Billy Wednesday night, pointing to a commercial for Ugly Betty.

"Do what?"

"Let you take credit for an idea of mine. And I would never let anyone take credit for something I did. The list of those who would be allowed is very short. Four people." I held up four fingers, should he need a visual aide. "And three of those people are related to me by blood."

"That's sweet, babe. Thanks," he said, kissing the top of my head. "But I wouldn't make you do that. I have some pretty good ideas myself. I'm an artiste." He said the last word with an obnoxious accent, meant to be funny.

Know what I heard? I don't need to take credit for your ideas because you don't have any. I'm obviously much smarter than you, so if anyone's coming up with any ideas, it's going to be me.

I moved away from him and crossed my arms over my chest, stared hard at the TV. "That was a mean thing to say," I said, more to the TV than to him.

"Wha-? Why?"

"All you had to do was say thanks."

"I did."

"But you should've ended it there. You didn't have to make a point of saying you'd never want or have to take credit for something I did."

In relaying it now, I don't even know what the hell we were talking about. But I do know that it still irritates me, just as it did all of yesterday. So when he got home last night, I waited for the prime opportunity to reference the exchange.

I don't recall now the moment I chose, or what he said that set the stage for my comment. I do recall, however, my words: "It's okay that you think you're smarter than me."

And that's when he asked me about my need to fight. "Why do you always think I'm belittling you? You know I know you're smart. That's one of my favorite things about you. I tell you that all the time. I talk about how smart my girlfriend is. You know that. Why are you turning me into this guy who goes out of his way to make you feel like shit?"

And I didn't have an answer for him. Because what he said is right. He does tell me I'm smart; Around him, I usually feel like the smartest, most beautiful, most incredible woman in the universe. Watching Dancing with the Stars, referring to one of the dancers' amazing bodies, I said "Yeah, that's what my body usually looks like," clearly being facetious.

"Babe, your body is better than that." His tone was serious.

He never makes me feel like second best, he gives me nothing but compliments...

So why did I get so upset over a comment that I took to mean he thinks I'm intellectually inferior?

The answer is, I'm not quite sure. It could be because, a long time ago, I was told (by someone else) that I have nothing to offer because I didn't go to college, because I, at that time, worked at a bank. It could be because I'm afraid I'm not doing enough with myself. It could be because, in truth, I think he is smarter than I am, and that intimidates me. I could be because I feel like my brain is rotting away in my head because I'm just not doing anything with it - sure, I read and I write, and I watch Jeopardy. But, beyond that, I don't do anything. I balance a checkbook and pay bills for a living. Occasionally, I put together a spreadsheet or something. So maybe I feel like crap about myself and I'm taking it out on him. Maybe it's because he doesn't read my blog, and that makes me feel like he thinks I'm no good.

Or maybe I am looking for a fight. Because strife in a relationship is all I know. But it's been a year with Billy, and how much longer can I use my last relationship as an excuse?

I do know this, though. It has to stop. I can't use the rain and my surgery and my cat and bad days as excuses for it. Because if it were him doing this to me, I would go crazy.

Seek and Destroy

2006-09-14T09:32:00.000-04:00

"She does not trust him. After all this time, she still thinks he's doing something deceitful. She goes through his pockets, his phone, his car. She's always searching."

"For what?"

"For something. For proof that he's unfaithful. Or bored. I don't know."

"Of all people, you'd think she'd be secure. I mean, she's gorgeous and driven, and he's just head over heels for her. Seriously, I look at the two of them and think I hope Billy and I are like that. I had no idea she was worried."

He shook his head slowly, disbelieving, looking at the table in front of him. "No. I don't know why either. But it must drive him crazy."

"It must drive her crazy. How can you live like that? Always wondering, always suspicious, always checking up on him? I would go mad."

I said it like I've never done it before. Oh, but I have. I've made sure to not call before heading to a boyfriend's house, hoping, almost, to pull up and bear witness to a strange car in the driveway, or, worse, to catch him in the act of something. I've gone through drawers, I've surveyed rooms for slight changes that only women would notice; a hint of perfume on the sheets, earrings on a nightstand, unfamiliar undergarments. I've done it all.

But I think, as women, we all reach a point where we decide Enough. Enough searching and worrying and wondering and overthinking. We're so terrified of being made a fool, that we seek to destroy that chance before it happens. But all of that seeking and searching only ends up destroying our relationships, our sanity. If we find nothing, we think he's just good at covering his tracks. And we nit-pick and take shots and try to catch him in lies. And in the end, after behavior like that, not only have you made him miserable and crazy, but you've driven yourself to the brink of insanity.

So, eventually, we just make that choice to stop. We make a conscious effort to just trust.

Which, though it sounds easy and like something that should just be understood in a relationship, can be quite difficult. We're all prisoners of our past. Or I know I am, anyway. I don't know that I was cheated on before, but I thought I was. And I cried and dug around and convinced myself I was the victim of infidelity without any proof. It was because he didn't pay enough attention to me, wasn't interested enough in my life, didn't care enough to make time for me. Instead of just assuming he wasn't the right kind of person for me, I thought he was unfaithful. Certainly, if he's not spending his time on me, he's spending it on someone else. And I remember that feeling, that worry, creeping through my thoughts all day long, invading my conversations, permeating whatever mood I was in. He could be cheating right now, and I'd never know it. And so the investigation would begin.

I fought that urge getting into my new relationship. I had grown so accustomed to having tons of free time in my last relationship, that I was fine with the fact that sometimes Billy traveled for work. And I was okay with the fact that I had a huge chunk of time during the day when I couldn't see him. I had grown comfortable with having my own time. But it was a conscious effort to not take that free time as neglect, as it had been before.

I don't call Billy a thousand times a day. I rarely call him, reticent to bother him while he's at work. More often than not, if we speak during the day, it is my phone ringing with his phone call or text message. And that's okay with me. Entering our relationship, I decided that badgering him would only drive him away... I'd just let him be who he was, and if it worked, it worked. Well, it worked, and here we are, just over a year later.

But, still, after all of my professions to be a hands-off and trusting girlfriend, sometimes, my innate feminity gets the better of me. I disregard the fact that every second he's not at work he's with me, and I instead focus on the remote possibility that he could be doing anything while he's "at work." I second guess and self doubt, and before I know it, I'm toying with the idea of digging my way through his belongings.

Why? I don't know. Because I believe, with every bit of me, that he loves me. And I believe that if he were tired of my company, he'd tell me so. And I believe that he loves and respects me enough to not betray my trust in him. I believe all of those things, all the time. But, periodically, I forget.

And it's at that point where I stop. I realize I'm making myself sick over, literally, absolutely nothing. And it's right there were I make that choice. To trust. Because it's hard when you've been crushed, when you hear stories of other people's betrayal at every turn, or when you're feeling a bit insecure. And you forget that trusting someone is a choice to make. I can trust him, or I can not. But if I choose not to, then what am I doing here, anyway?

Maybe I do need therapy. Maybe I need a life coach. Maybe I need to remember that I have no control over the way things will pan out anyway. I didn't even know who I was anymore by the time my last relationship ended. And, this time, I have to remember that at the core of everything is belief. Belief in him, belief in us, belief in myself and making that choice to trust him. He's never given me a reason to doubt him. So why do it?

"I think she's just afraid to lose him," he said, trying to offer some reason for our mutual friend's actions.

"But why?"

"Because she loves him."

I'm afraid to lose Billy, too. But I'm more afraid of losing myself again.

Seriously (Because, Apparently, it's the Word of the Day)

2006-09-13T15:28:00.000-04:00

Oh my god. Can I just tell you how awesome you guys are? Seriously, you are fab-u-los.

I mean, really, to tell me where I can find that CD cheaper, to tell me that it's possible to buy from amazon.uk - And to actually go through the steps to find that stuff out? Honestly, Tiff, Liz, Shawn, Michele and Serra: You guys kick some serious ass.

Because, thanks to your comments, I GOT IT.

I am looking at a confirmation from Amazon.co.uk that tells me I just paid 10.73 in Euros (roughly $14) for a CD that I'll have somewhere around the 21st. I expect that you'll be able to hear my yelps of excitement from whatever corner of the earth you happen to be reading this from.

Which brings me to a bigger point: Seriously (Do I use that word too much?) you guys, the people who, for whatever reason, choose to open my little page here and read my words and give me positive feed back, who support me and listen and are just there for me when I need it...You are the best. You've no idea how grateful I am - and have been, especially in these last few months - for you all. So, though it falls dreadfully short of expressing the extent of my gratitude, thank you. Thank you all so much. For reading, for being here, for caring.

I can't tell you how much it means to me.

And now, not only do I have you all, but I'll soon have an awesome CD because of you. And that fucking rocks.

I Need This

2006-09-13T08:40:00.000-04:00

Badly.

That happens to be James Morrison's CD, Undiscovered. And I've already tried to buy it in our local record shop here in Milford...No dice. Apparently, it's still an import. And while that does make me feel very chic and la-di-da because I want an album that is not yet released here in America, it does pose a problem.

See, it seems that every time I turn on the radio, I hear one of five songs: Hinder, Lips of an Angel; Nickelback, Far Away; Sean Paul, Give it up to Me; Snow Patrol, Chasing Cars; All American Rejects, It Ends Tonight. For honorable mention, I'll stick freakin' Five for Fighting in there with The Riddle. Seriously, every time I turn on the radio, one of them starts playing, and I can't even describe the feeling of anger that courses through my body with the opening chords of each ditty. The songs were good, at first. But now, eight million four hundred forty four thousand eight hundred and sixty two plays later...Not so much. At some point, you realize that you'd rather stick a razor in your ear than listen to one more spin of each record.

It's not because they're bad songs, but because they're overplayed and they don't speak to me at all. None of them make me feel wrapped up and safe, the way I prefer my music to make me feel.

Which brings me to last week, when Billy and I watched a repeat episode of Grey's Anatomy, and this incredible voice sung us through the last part of the show. It was rich and deep and rough and smooth all at the same time. Billy and I knew instantly this was a guy we'd both love.

So I dug around on the internet to find him, and I did. Except that, when I found him on Amazon, they said his album wasn't released in the US until September 12. I trudged down to the aforementioned record store to see if they maybe they had it early, in Import form, but no luck. So, a week later, I checked back on Amazon yesterday, and it's there and released, but it will take three to six weeks to get it. And it costs $30. So, hey, why not check out Amazon.uk? I did, but I think it only ships into the UK, and I don't know what 8.99 in euros comes out to be in US dollars. Probably a thousand dollars or something. Who knows.

And this is where my self-diagnosed OCD comes into play. Because, seriously, I have to have this CD. Have to. I've listened to this guy on his website, on his myspace page, everywhere, and I just can't get enough of his voice. I just know this is a CD that would see constant repeat on my player, yet I can't get it.

I went back to the record store yesterday, and, though the CD may or may not be released in the US, they still don't have it. So I bought the new Justin Timberlake CD to hold me over. I don't much like buying kitschy pop music in that particular record store, because the owners employ a bunch of punk boys to run it, and they play really loud punk-type music in the place, and I feel so ridiculous when buying the new Christina Aguilera or Justin Timberlake CD. I feel like they're judging me for my taste in music, and I just know they're making fun of me as soon as I leave. On the other hand, I also think that - since I'm in there all the time - they say to each other "I just can't figure out her taste. One week it's Christina Aguilera, the next it's Ray LaMontagne. Then it's Keb' Mo'. Then she's looking for some British artist, now Timberlake?" Because that makes me feel cultured and mysterious and diverse.

And though the new Timberlake CD really is quite fantastic, I'm still longing for Mr. Morrison. I suppose eBay is my next move, though buying things on eBay is still sort of foreign to me. Billy keeps insisting I just order it - from somewhere - but I keep hoping against hope there will be some easier way to get it. Until then, I suppose I'll be tethered to this computer, listening to "Better Man" and "Wonderful World" on his Myspace page when I'm alone in the office, and wishing I had the CD.

Looking for the Right

2006-09-12T14:59:00.000-04:00

Let's go over a list of the things that have happened to me these past few months, shall we?

My house was robbed.
I went in for surgery, and after waiting for no less than three hours, I was told to go home and come back in a week.
I went in the following week, and actually had a surgery, in which they removed a cyst the size of a tangerine - a cyst so big that it matched my friggin' uterus in size - from my ovary.
I went in for my follow up appointment, wherein my doctor told me that my pap was abnormal, and that I would need to come back for a biopsy as soon as possible.
I went for the biopsy and learned that I would not be able to wear tampons on my vacation to Mexico.
In Mexico, I was treated to a splendid outbreak of sun-poisoning.
Once back from Mexico, I discovered that the abnormal pap was due to pre-cancerous cells growing on my cervix.
Does my boyfriend ever want to marry me? This question was posed, and answered, though not with the answer I was hoping for.
Another surgery, in which they removed the pre-cancerous cells from my cervix via an electric loop or sorts.
My boyfriend advises me we will be married. In fourteen years.
I could not use pads during the period that came a week after my second surgery.
My cat died.

I'd say I'm pretty much done with the drama. I really feel like I've gone through my fair share of shit recently. It all began to unravel with my annual exam in June, and the downward spiral has yet to come to a halt. Even a screeching one would be welcome at this point.

Even though they may be considered silly to some, going through a mess of trials makes you sort of step back and evaluate your life. You know, what have I done that was so horrible that all of this came down on me?

I'm superstitious, so I look at ways I've jinxed myself. I've talked about the ovarian cysts before flippantly, like they weren't serious, even though I've had two of them rupture inside of me already. I read an article about cervical cancer in the waiting room of my gynecologist's office. I wore wedding dresses - full-on dress and veil and shoes - for a bridal company for many years during my teens. I didn't put much stock in the sadness of a friend who'd just put her dog to sleep.

But I convince myself that it's not superstition that's brought me here. I mean, if I take a step back and look - really look - at myself, I can see myself as horrible. So horrible that of course I'd get a round of bad luck. I'll think of me, and the stupid things I've done. I'll forget about the good things I do, my good intentions and my good nature. And I think of the worst...

There have been times that I've talked about people behind their backs, that I've watched my phone ring with calls from my mother, my friends, and let it ring, choosing myself and silence over them. I don't give enough time to my family, and I don't give enough time to the friends who mean most to me. I've been selfish and ungrateful. I've been demanding and, at the same time, neglected people. I've expected a lot from the people in my life, but couldn't be bothered to give back.

Is that it? I mean, could I really be that bad? Have I done something so horrible, so shameful, that God or whomever hovers above us has decided to teach me a lesson?

And there's the other thing. Religion and I have never exactly been tight. And I've made it a point not to just start praying when things go down the shitter. But maybe that's what all this testing is? I can almost hear God above me, his or her voice booming through the clouds: "Just pray, Laurie. Just pray once, accept that you're not the one in control of everything, and I'll make it stop. Just once littler prayer, that's all I ask for." Should I be going to church? Should I be asking for help? Forgiveness? What?

And, worse, I think part of me likes it. The surgeries, the shit luck, the tragedy. Because it gives me an excuse to be sad, to be angry. To cry without reason, to be in a bad mood, to sequester myself in my bedroom, letting the phone ring, letting plans go unmade, letting in no one but my boyfriend. And not even him sometimes. All of it, the word "cancer," death of a loved one (felines count), the scars on my belly, they all give me a damn good excuse to shut down, to not call people back, to not go out. "Sorry I didn't call you back. I've got a lot on my mind..." And I can run through my litany of ailments. And who's going to argue with that?

But it's a slippery slope, because my patience starts to wear thin. If you only know me from here, you wouldn't know that I don't make it a habit to complain - unless it's to my mom. In my day to day life, I quickly glaze over my problems, then just let other people talk about theirs, since that's what they want anyway. I feel like some my friends aren't all that interested in what's going on with me. They'd rather have me around to hear their problems; I'm a good listener. Plus, droning on about my emotional maladies makes me feel weak and boring. Suddenly, I'm the person I can't stand, bitching all the time about things are are really of no substance.

But, this - The recent health problems, violations of my home, my marriage quandary, the passing of a friend of 20 years - they give me the right to talk, to complain. And when I do, I still feel like people don't care. I feel like a whiner, a worrier, someone seeking pity. And maybe that's partly true. But I notice that people disregard what I have to say, shrug off my worry and sadness with a casual "It happens all the time," and I'm supposed to be okay with that. So my patience wears thin for friends that I've listened to for years, who now have to ante up and do some listening of their own, but won't.

And I do some spiraling of my own. Into convincing myself that, but for a very select few, I'm all alone. And I forget to remember that I have an incredible mother, who is there for me no matter what. A boyfriend who actually loves me for who I am, without makeup and heels, who doesn't love me any less when I'm bandaged, sick in bed, and wearing a pad. I have a father who would do anything for me; a man who never calls out of sick for work when he's actually sick, but called out to wait at the hospital when I was having surgery. A little brother who makes me laugh like no one else in this world can, who, underneath his hard and tough exterior, is sweet and kind and always wants to do the right thing. All four of them are there for me, will take care of me if I'd actually admit I need it. I forget about those things, and focus on the negative.

And maybe that's why things have gone so out of control in my life; Me, always focusing on the wrong.

Maybe it's time for some right.

My Life is a Country-Western Song

2006-09-11T09:27:00.000-04:00

"I don't want to have to tell you this," my mom said, her voiced cracked and broken over the phone. I could hear the tears in her throat, the softness of her voice. And I knew what she had to tell me. "Smokey died this morning."

I cried instantly. Grief hit me suddenly, like a land mine, which is unusual. Give me bad news, and I'm usually fine for at least a few hours. But later, in the middle of some random task, I'll break down, finally realizing that someone is gone. This, though, was different. My throat closed and tears formed, and I couldn't talk.

"Honey?" Mom was crying, too. "Are you okay?"

Smokey, the cat I've had since third grade, had been sick for a while. And even though he'd gone deaf and skinny, even though he wasn't quite as vibrant and active as he had been before, I figured he'd just always be around. Twenty years is a long time to live for any animal, and, for some reason, the part of me that's still the kid who found him thought we'd get a good thirty out of him.

It was about six months ago when we noticed how thin he'd become. You couldn't tell by looking at him, his thick mane of gray and white fur covering any sign of weight loss. Only when I picked him up did I feel his delicate little ribs, feel the bones of his spine, sharp and defined, through his thick coat. Slowly, he went downhill. His breathing was difficult, but we figured it was because he was wearing what amounted to a fur coat in hundred degree weather. An indoor/outdoor cat, my parents just kept him inside more often than usual and hoped his breathing would return to normal.

It didn't. He sat with his mouth open many times, his little lungs expanding and contracting visibly, his fur moving in and out with each breath. We'd never noticed him breathing before. He'd zone out for a while, catching his breath, then climb onto someone's lap and sleep. Like breathing had exhausted him.

His legs betrayed him next. His back legs wouldn't cooperate with the front, dragging him down and limiting his ability to jump. Some days, he'd be fine, like nothing was wrong. But others? We thought the end was minutes away.

About a month ago, on one of his bad days, I picked him up and held him. I couldn't help but cry, amazed at how little he weighed, how hard it was for him to breathe. "Do you think we should take him into the vet?" I said to my mom through my tears.

"We've done that already. There's nothing wrong with him."

I looked at him, felt his spine beneath my fingers as I ran my hand over his little body. His big green eyes were closed in a long purr, and he lifted his tiny face for me to scratch under his chin. "He's old, I guess," I said, more to myself than my mom. "Twenty is old for a cat."

"That's all it is, honey. Age."

"I just don't want him to die," I said, my voice sounding more each minute like the six year old who found him and was begging to keep him. "I just can't take that right now, too." I was battling with my own body, worried about losing vital pieces of me. I couldn't take losing him.

"He won't," my mom said, her voice sweet with sympathy. "I asked him to hold on through your surgery."

I laughed and kissed his fragile skull. "You better," I said to his sleeping face.

I was just worried that he'd pass on when he was outside, and he'd never find him. "Where was he?" I asked my mom yesterday, tears streaming down my face. I clutched the covers in bed. I felt so weird.

"He was in our bedroom," her voice shook. "He came in last night and slept with all of us - Me and daddy and Sam." Our golden retriever always sleeps with my parents, but Smokey, independent and stubborn, usually sleeps in one of the vacant bedrooms upstairs. "And when we woke up this morning," she paused. "When we woke up this morning, he was...gone."

I just couldn't believe it. He'd been around since I was kid. He was a stray, wandering our neighborhood for days. All of the kids wanted him, because he was so damn cute, with his soft gray and white fur, his tiny little body. Everyone kept trying to take him home, but he'd never stick around. And suddenly, he chose us, taking up residence on our front porch for days. A tiny ball of gray and white with the sweetest little mew I'd ever heard. "Can we keep him?" I begged my mom.

"No. I hate cats," she'd reply. But she put a blanket out on our porch for him. And tuna and water for him. He wasn't going anywhere. She relented, we could keep him. But he was to stay outside.

A week later, he was sleeping in bed with me, crawling on our furniture. We had purchased a food bowl, but didn't know he was a he and bought him pink by mistake. Soon, he ruled our house. I was excited to get home every day and see him. My mom made him a collar that said he belonged to me. I loved him to pieces.

"Wasn't he sweet, though?" Mom said, crying out loud now. "He held on through your surgeries, just like I hoped."

I drove right over. Daddy was in the garage, making a little coffin for him. My mom was out front with Sam, and walked to my car when I pulled up. "Where is he?" I said into her shoulder through our hug.

"He's in the garage with Daddy."

I walked to him, all tiny and frail, laying on the blankets my parents put him on. I sat on the floor, my dad's saw whirring behind me as he pushed wood through. My chest heaved as I petted his little body for the last time. His eyes were open and fixed, but I swear I saw him breathe. Wishful thinking, I guess. I kissed him between his soft little ears and said goodbye.

The three of us, my mom, daddy and I, took turns digging in the rocky soil by the house. We laid him to rest in the root-ridden patch of earth he loved to roll around in. We were all so sad, putting his little box in the ground, covering it with fistfulls of dirt, kind words and tears.

We laid rocks on top of his little grave. I've never buried a pet before, and it struck me that I'd never see him again, save for pictures. Through move after move, through everything, he's been there. And now he's just gone. Except, not really; he's laying in our yard, under a mound of stones and a makeshift headstone, "Smokey" crudely scratched on it in my handwriting.

I put the headstone into the ground, stood back and looked at our little mausoleum. "My God," I said. "My life is a country song. All this tragedy and worry, capped off by the death of a pet."

My mom smiled, wrapped her arm around me. "He knew we loved him. He had a great life."

It seems silly, almost, to be so broken over the death of a pet. But it's as if something I'd always assumed was definite has now changed. A little piece of me went with him.

My hands and arms ache today from the digging. As does my head, from the crying. It hurts more - and less - than I thought it would. I'm sorry he's gone, but I'm glad he went like he did. In the house, peacefully. We didn't have to put him down, and though we watched him get older, he just slowed to a stop. He didn't get sick and become an animal we didn't know. He was ours until the end.

But I was wrong about one thing; no one writes country songs about cats. But I would. I'll miss him something terrible.

We All Make Mistakes, Right? Right?

2006-09-09T14:46:00.000-04:00

At five-thirty in the afternoon yesterday, I left my house in a mad rush and sped down the road in an attempt to beat the clock. A week ago, I had dropped off three pairs of shoes at our local cobbler’s place and it was time to pick them up. But if I missed picking them up yesterday, I’d have to wait another week to get them – Having cornered the market on shoe repair in our area, the German man who oh-so-carefully replaces the torn up soles and broken spikes of my heels and boots needs only to open three days a week. My window of reaching him his very narrow, less than an hour on Thursdays and Fridays. Additionally, he is roughly a half hour from my house. He closes at six. Hence my speeding.

I turned up my music and pressed the pedal to the floor, navigating the all too familiar curves and twists of my neighborhood’s roads with practiced ease and grace. The turns, however, are sharp and steep, as it seems that each turn occurs when going up or down a handsome hill. One hand on my gear shift, one hand on the wheel, I down-shifted my way up hills to get power, coasting and braking on the way back down.

I reached the most notorious hill in my development, one that is particularly steep, its seemingly ninety degree angle difficult to navigate as you descend. The yellow-lined road cradles a rocky cliff of sorts, the pavement complimenting the natural landscape of the Poconos. In the passenger seat going down the hill, I always watch as Northeastern Pennsylvania rocks come dangerously close to the window. But it is a turn I have mastered in all kinds of weather, both up and down; one that, upon reaching it, I instinctually downshift, whether I’m about to climb it or descend it.

But I was going faster than I normally would, and I hugged my side of the road tightly, so as to avoid the cars coming up the hill in the opposite direction. And that’s when I heard the thud, felt the jarring in my car; I gripped the wheel and steered into the shimmying my wheels were doing. “Great,” I thought. “Just great.”

I checked my side view mirror, and it was still there, but I was certain that I’d clipped the jutting rocks with my bumper. Too lazy and helpless to stop (because, what would it do besides make me sadder?), I pictured my poor car, the majestic Lady Gwenivere, her bumper all mashed and bent, perhaps the shattered plastic of my parking lights clinging to the wires that were sure to be dangling from her mutilated front.

“Just great,” I said again, to no one in particular. “This is just what I need.”

Undaunted, I continued to speed to the shoe shop, making a mental note of the things I may as well get done while Gwen’s in the shop: Oil change, brakes, tune up, maybe even the front shocks while I’m at it. I started doing the math in my head, how much of my bi-weekly paycheck I’ve been putting away, how much it totaled so far in my savings, how much I could afford to do without. That money was supposed to be waiting to be put toward a new car, but that would just have to wait, I reasoned. Gwen’s not going anywhere, and we can’t have her looking all mangled.

I pulled into the parking lot just minutes before the six o’clock deadline. I rushed in, my claim ticket already in my hand, eager to pick up my shoes. The Cobbler went over what he’d done for my precious footwear, how he’d resurrected a pair I thought was a gonner, how he saved another from almost certain death. “You’re an artist,” I gushed, handing over the remaining 20 of my forty dollar balance. “Thank you so much.”

“Now you can get back to dancing,” he said, smiling.

“You’ve got that right,” I said with a giggle. “How did you know those are my dancin’ shoes? That’s how I busted that pair! Dancing!” I pointed to my knee-high, pointy-toed pleather boots, caressing the fresh repair of its four inch stiletto heel and the sewing he’d done on the back seam. Suddenly, it occurred to me that maybe he thought I was a stripper. “You know,” I corrected quickly, “like when I’m out with my friends, just dancing with the girls…” Uh, not much better. “…and guys. And whoever else goes out. You know, just dancing with friends…”

“Vat’s your favorite dance to do?” he asked, his accent reminding of my grandfather’s, and making me feel all the more guilty for even the possibility of even mistaken for a stripper.

“Salsa.”

I’ve never truly salsa-danced in my life. I mean, I’ve tried. Don’t get me wrong. And on certain occasions, when I’m dancing with a particularly good partner or when I’ve had enough drinks, I can even convince myself that I’m a pro at it. Who needs lessons and expertise when you have vodka?

“Okay, well, thank you so much for fixing my shoes,” I said, backing out of the ancient store. “Have a great weekend.”

“You too!” I heard him call as I ran out of the store and across the parking lot.

A row of diagonally-parked cars confronted me, and I walked passed their bumpers on the way to my own, shaking my head and wondering if the shoe guy really thinks that tall brunette who comes in about once every two months with the boots and the high pointy heels and the belly-baring shirts really is a stripper. I shook my head. It doesn’t matter, I said to myself. Take it as a compliment. I’ve had people, in clubs, ask me if I’m a dancer before. And from the tone in their voice, and the way they eye-balled my cleavage, I knew they didn’t mean a ballerina. I was flattered. Clearly, I can move it. But something about the shoe guy’s hunched-over little body, his silver rimmed glasses, his sweet brown eyes, his delicate baby-duck fluff of gray hair made me wish I could just run back there and tell him “I just wanted to clarify: I’m not a stripper; I'm an office manager. Have a good weekend.”

And just as I was fantasizing about clearing up what may not even be an issue, I saw it: The scratched paint along the passenger side of the bumper; primer gray showing through champagne paint in deep wounds. Oh God, I thought, I really did bruise my baby. I hunkered down, fingering the gash, feeling the deep ridges. I moaned, my eyebrows knitted with worry.

“Excuse me,” said an older lady, trying to get by with her cart.

“Oh. Yeah. Sure. Sorry,” I muttered, standing up straight and backing up to let her pass.

Only then did I notice that nothing was hanging from the rear-view mirror inside. And I don’t have rain guards on my windows. And why aren’t there any running boards on this ca–

Oh. My. God.

It wasn’t my car. My car, two spaces away, was fine.

I actually, for the first time in my life, mistook someone else’s 4Runner for my own.

And I don’t know if that means I need a drink, or if I need to lay off the sauce for a little while.

Ruined

2006-09-08T15:44:00.000-04:00

On day six of our seven-day vacation, a whittled-down portion of Billy's family and I decided to take a trip to see some Mayan ruins about half an hour away from our hotel in Playa del Carmen. The six of us pushed our way through the heat and humidity and climbed into the very van we had driven the two hours from our place in Merida to our brand new hotel in Playa. We picked our seats, pointed air-conditioner vents directly at our heads, and were ready to go.

The drive was spent, in large part, talking about how oppressively hot it was outside. Although we never actually witnessed a thermometer or weather man saying so, we believed it to be roughly four hundred and thirty nine degrees outside, with 8,562,264% humidity. Save for one brief interlude with a small monsoon, the sun was bright and strong and the air was thick and wet for each moment of each of our seven days south of the border.

The sun and I do not get along well. Sure, I love to spend time in the sun, and I enjoy a beautiful warm day just as much as the next person, but the time that the sun and I are allowed to commingle is very limited. And, though I can go out into our watered-down Pennsylvania sun for many, many hours, it seems that the sun found in states such as Nevada and Florida, as well as the sun in Belize and Mexico, has little to no use for me. More than a few hours, and my formerly starting-to-tan skin turns a bright shade of burnt, and I know I'm fucked.

Roughly four days into our vacation, my skin began to itch. It's a bad sign of a problem I encounter with pretty much every vacation I take to sunny climates: Sun poisoning. It usually affects my just my back and my chest, though sometimes it creeps down my arms, and occasionally down my stomach and onto my legs. Only mildly uncomfortable, the sun poisoning wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't so hideous to look at. Bright red splotches erupt first on my chest, in the cozy little nook between my boobs. It starts there, the rash spreading not unlike mold, taking root in one section of my skin and working its way outward and up. Before long, what look like small continents of red bumps cover my chest and shoulders, rendering all of the cute low-cut tops I brought along with me completely useless. If I'm lucky, it stops there.

Mexico, however, had other plans for me. My rash decided to stretch out and cover my entire upper half, little islands of blotches staking their claim on my shoulder blades, my arms, and along my spine. Though it limited itself to the upper half of my torso, it was of no comfort. Now I looked like a leper coming and going.

It was probably the fifth day of my vacation that my sun-poisoning really kicked it into high gear, taking up residence on, not only my chest and back, but my tummy and my thighs as well. After each shower, I would, quick, run to the mirror, hoping against hope that some mysterious salve in Mexico's water had miraculously and suddenly cleared my rash. And each time, I gazed upon my naked body only to be greeted by new strains of my rash, the fluorescent lighting of the hotel bathroom multiplying the horror exponentially.

"It's not that bad," Billy would say, walking up behind me and wrapping his arms around me.

"Yes it is," I'd mumble, dejected and sad, fingering the brightest and reddest patch of poisoning on my collarbone. "It's so gross."

"You look beautiful," he'd say.

"Yeah, but you love me. It's different."

And, with that, I'd put on whatever outfit I thought would best cover my rash, or at the very least, whatever outfit would distract the average eye from the rash. Then, I'd go about trying to figure out how I could spend the next twelve hours either indoors, or in the shade.

This proved to be difficult, as this vacation was of the family variety. Traveling in a pack makes it difficult for one to insist that, though we are in Mexico and staying ten paces from one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, we should find the nearest air-conditioned bar and stay in it until the sun goes down. And though I was vetoed nearly every day, Billy's family was quite sympathetic to my plight, offering me seats in the shade and allowing me to bow out of any activity that involved too much sun exposure.

The sixth day, however, I just couldn't reason trading a Mayan ruin for another vodka-tonic. So I wore a t-shirt and a skirt - covering what rash I could, and deciding not to care about the still visible rash my fashion choices wouldn't cover - and climbed in the van with the rest of my party.

It was when we were about halfway to the ruins that it occurred to me that it was roughly noontime, the witching hour of Mexico. I can sweat sitting still in the shade at this hour, and we were headed somewhere where walking would be involved. "Are there any trees in Tulum? You know, trees for shade?" I asked Billy, eyeballing the jungly landscape.

"No, not really. Just ruins." My skin began to whimper prematurely, burning already just at the threat of sun. Billy looked over. "We can get you an umbrella or something," he offered.

"Listen," I said sternly, pointing a manicured finger at him, "I am not carrying around a frickin' umbrella, okay? My rash is bad enough as it is, I don't need to highlight the fact that I'm clearly unwell. I may be able to pass people undetected looking like this, but bringing an umbrella into the mix is certain to draw attention to what would appear to most as a skin disorder. No thank you."

He shrugged his shoulders and said okay, but the tone in his voice taunted me: "You'll be sorry," it cried. My skin acted tough, but it was scared.

In refusing to take the umbrella, though, I was forced to shade myself by other means. This included hopping from tree to tree, shady spot to shady spot, in an attempt to limit the amount of time I spent baking directly beneath the sun's scalding rays. Turns out, sun rash doesn't much care how many actual minutes you spend in the sun, it's going to itch and be uncomfortable either way. So I scratched and whined silently through the majestic ruins, only to discover that where the sun doesn't get me, the bugs will.

I climbed back into the van, a scant forty minutes later, with new splotches of rash and brand new mosquito bites to show for my trip. Looking at my own legs made me queasy. I rubbed Benadryl cream all over my arms and legs and tried my best to ignore it.

We pulled into our hotel and headed in the direction of our rooms. News in Billy's family spreads fast, and it turned out that a 4 wheeling expedition had been planned. Anyone who wanted to go should just turn right back around, climb in the van, and meet the rest of the family for a bumpy ride.

"Do you want to go?" Billy said, smiling at the thought of doing something crazy, involving risk and possible injury in one fell swoop.

I stared at him blankly. A few seconds passed with our eyes locked, his face hopeful and excited, mine full of confusion and disgust. "Look at me!" I demanded. I backed up and spread out my extremities to give him a better view of my body. "My skin is in ruins! I'm wearing band-aids to cover my surgical incisions! My belly button is still raw! I have a rash!" I pointed to a bug bite that had metastisized into what appeared to be a softball beneath my skin. "I don't even know what that is, but I'm sure it's nothing good." I looked at him quizzically. "Do you really think I want to try my luck with something that involves speed, wheels, dirt, bugs and sun?"

"I'll see you as soon as we're done," he said, kissing my cheek.

And I headed straight for the shade near the clear pool and nursed my wounds with the most effective medicine around: Vodka.

Things I Can't Stand Right Now

2006-09-06T15:51:00.001-04:00

1. “Have a Happy Period.” – The demand Always brand maxi pads makes every time I open one up to use it. Fuck you, Always. And the happy period you keep insisting I have.

2. The fact that, because of my last surgery, I have to use Always instead of Tampax. Thanks, doc. Nothing makes for an extra-special uncomfortable period like reverting back to junior high and wearing pads. God. I can just hear my pubescent voice in the halls of Greenspun Junior High asking a friend, "Quick, look at my butt. Can you see the outline of my pad?" Ugh.

3. My ovaries, my fallopian tubes, my uterus, my cervix, my hormones, and whatever else invisible, wicked forces that conspire to cause my period.

4. The mysterious gnome or troll or specter that continues to use the last sheet of toilet paper in the bathroom here at work, leaving only mangy little strips of Cottonelle clinging to the carcass of the roll that was.

5. The fact that someone would diligently tear the last shredded sheet of paper from the roll and not stop to think “You know, someone’s bound to come in here and need some toilet paper. Maybe I ought to replace it.”

6. The fact that it seems to happen every time I go to the bathroom.

7. The notion that, because I work with three men and one woman, I can be fairly certain it’s the men who are causing all of this undue, toilet-paper-related stress. And the fact that, because they are men, and men are known to do this, I should somehow just let it go.

8. That I can’t hang up a sign that says “Listen, cocksucker, if you use the last fucking piece of toilet paper, replace the goddamn roll.” Not because it’s gauche and unladylike to do such a thing, but because our customers sometimes use that bathroom. And that would be rude.

9. My internet connection at work. It’s up, it’s down, it’s up, it’s down. C’mon Blue Ridge Cable. WORK WITH ME HERE.

10. The fact that I did not enjoy Straight Up & Dirty as much as I thought I would. I really didn’t. And I wanted to. And I don’t know if it’s because I’m jealous that she got a book deal and I didn’t (because, God knows I’ve been blogging long enough to be discovered, right? What? Have I ever tried to get published? Have I ever even attempted to do anything that would nudge me in the direction of a career in writing? Uh, no. Why do you ask?), but I don’t think so. Because I was genuinely excited to hear that she was published. I felt like a friend, someone I knew, had just signed a book deal. And I bought it the week it came out. I was stoked to read it. But what I didn’t enjoy was the fact that it was just like the blog. It was conversational, and honest, yes. And that’s what I loved about the blog. But, well, the blog didn’t cost me $25 to read. I wanted a story. I read it. I liked it. Just not as much as I thought I would’ve.

11. That Billy is going out of town tonight with his two cousins. Not for work, for pleasure. And when he told me? He said, “By the way, we’re going to Atlantic City Wednesday night.” By the way? Like it was an afterthought? Like, by the way, I went to Wal Mart and got beef jerky? Or, by the way, I pulled the hair out of the drain for us? For the record, telling your girlfriend you're going on an elective night out of town is not a by the way kind of announcement. Not that I wanted him to ask for permission, I would've just like him to say something less casual. But, hey, what do I know. I have my period. I probably wouldn't be happy with anything.

12. Did I mention my hormones?

13. That I don’t have a computer at home.

14. Fruit flies. They’re everywhere. And they’re driving me crazy.

15. That I can’t really write about anything engaging.

16. That I just posted another list. Sorry.

Thank God for Short Holiday Weeks

2006-09-05T16:12:00.000-04:00

My mood today is not that of a well-rested woman who just enjoyed a long weekend. It's more like that of a woman who has had just about all that she can take as far as life is concerned, and is ready to explode. And, oh yeah, she has her period. Because I do. Have my period. On top of the cramps I still have from my last surgery, I have the more-painful-than-necessary cramps that come this time of the month, every month. And I can't be quite sure of which is causing me the pain - The removal of a part of my cervix and its subsequent healing, or my recently fucked-with ovaries just doing what they do every month. Who knows. It's a mystery that I probably won't ever have solved. No, I'll just get to sit here, clutching my belly, cursing the gods of fertility and trying not to cry. Not because it hurts so bad, but because that's what I do when I have my period; I cry. For no reason in particular. I just, you know, cry.

So far today I've had a few reasons (and I use that term loosely) to cry. I was caught behind two dump trucks on my way into work, I have had to fight with three companies over money, and I touched a spider. This does not a good day make.

For the record, the spider was just the nuts on top of the sundae of awesomeness that is today. I got the mail, here at work, on my way to the bank, and brought the bundle into my car. When I went to shift into first, I noticed something on my hand. I thought maybe it was a tree leaf or a torn-off piece of newspaper. But I went to brush it off, and noticed it wad decidedly unlike a leaf or piece of paper. The Daddy Long Legs straddled my two hands, his red little body hovering between the hand he was just hanging out on, and the one that went to brush him away. I'm ashamed to admit, but I squealed, checking my actual urge to scream by clenching my lips together. I shook both hands violently, sending him flying into my passenger seat, just narrowly avoiding the abyss that is my purse. He landed, instead, on my new Christina Aguilera CD. He landed, feet first, wavered a bit like he was stunned, then attempted to walk. Apparently, he was still trying to gain his bearings, as he sort of meandered in a half circle, then stopped. I opened my door, all the while sort of moaning in disgust, grabbed the CD and flicked my wrist in the direction of the outdoors to ensure both his flight from my car and the safety of my new CD. When I saw that he was on the pavement, I slammed shut my door, sure that he'd left about a million other spiders in the car with me, all hiding in the mail. My drive to the bank was uneasy at best, and I took the alone time in the comfort of my 4Runner to call my mom.

I talked her ear off, about everything that's bothering me today. Because, when it comes down to it, she's really one of the only people in my life who let me just talk without interrupting, or getting distracted in the middle of my sentence. And that's what I needed today, someone to listen to me. Because there's too much going on in my mind that I can't talk to just anyone about, and I know she's the one of the two women in my life who will just listen and commiserate. No advice, no solutions, just validating my frustration so that it's out of me.

Which is why I just don't have much to write about right now. I could write about how I cleaned the bathroom on Saturday, how Billy fixed the toilet when he got home Saturday night before we went out to a poker game/boxing match event. I could talk about our lazy Sunday, where, like a real grown-up couple, we took the garbage to our local dump, then went home and got ready for an overpriced but fantastic gourmet dinner at a local (and sort of famous) restaurant/cooking school with his mom (a belated Mother's Day gift). I could talk about how I laid in bed all morning yesterday, watching the food network until hunger forced me from the sheets and into the shower then out to my car, where I spent a blissful afternoon alone, eating my lunch with the company of only a book, followed by a shopping excursion where, for once, everything actually fit. But I just can't work up the proper gusto to detail those events. Not today anyway.

I'm just glad this is a short week.

Ready to Move On

2006-09-01T16:23:00.000-04:00

I was late.

Twenty minutes, to be exact. I walked up to the desk to check in, refusing to acknowledge my tardiness. If I didn’t say anything, maybe they wouldn’t notice.

The nurse at the desk was ready for me, my paperwork fanned out in front of her, my admission bracelet ready to be wrapped around my wrist. “I got all your things together so you don’t have to wait,” she said, fastening the bracelet that gave my patient ID, my name and birthdate around my chilly forearm. “I just need one signature from you,” she looked down and grabbed my consent form and put it on the ledge of desk between us, “and then I have instructions to take you right back to get prepped.”

I signed my name, long and lean letters in blue ink, saying that I consented to the surgery at hand, as well as any measures necessary to keep me alive. She put her hands on the white counter she sat behind and pushed herself up, smiled at me and nodded in the direction of the hallway. “C’mon.”

I gave my purse to my mom. “I’ll wait here for Billy,” she said. He had dropped us off at the doors and went to park. She gave me a quick hug and I followed the nurse.

She hit the big square button that opened the doors to the pre-op area. The section was throbbing with people, nurses and patients and patients’ families, scuttling around on the shiny floors. We stopped at the front desk, and I put my hand up to my ear, searching for my earring, the one I fiddle with when I’m nervous. The smoothness of my earlobe startled me; I’d forgotten that I’d taken out my earrings, as per my pre-op instructions. And up until that moment, I’d never even really noticed my nervous habit. It made me feel awkward, to have nothing to give my nervous fingers to play with. I dropped my arm back to my side, unsure of what to do with my hands. When no one came to us, she glanced at me and smiled. “Right this way,” she said.

Machines beeped and whirred, people chatted in hushed voices as the nurse led me to a La-Z-Boy chair. She motioned for me to sit in it, then looked around for a free nurse. “Hmph,” she said to herself, watching one uniformed nurse after another hurry past us. “Well,” she said, turning her attention to me, “I’ll let them know you’re here, and I’ll give you these,” she bent, handing me a pile of hospital papers, “so that they don’t get lost somewhere under a pile of someone else’s papers.” She laughed, warm and sweet, and patted me on the arm. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” I said, clutching the papers she gave me.

I wasn’t prepared for this – the speed with which I was actually being admitted. I thought they’d just start my IV and let me go back to the waiting room for a few hours, like they had last time. I’d left my book with my mom. I wondered if they’d tell my mom and Billy when it was time for me to go in. But I also felt strangely calm, familiar already with the nurses around me and what the hours ahead of me entailed. I looked around; I was the only person in the wide room who hadn’t yet gone into surgery.

They wheeled in a man who lay on his side on a gurney, oxygen strapped to his face, his thick arm limp and draped over his stomach. An older nurse rolled him past me, his sleeping face facing me, and backed him into a spot just across the hall. A woman waited for him there, her heels nervously tapping the floor at her feet. She smiled a worried smile at the nurse, and reached instantly for the patient’s hand. “Tom,” she said quietly. “Wake up, honey. You’re all done.” He barely stirred. “Honey, wake up.” She smoothed the gray hair that was left on his head, kissed him gently on his forehead. “It’s over.” When his only response was a weary stirring, the nurse stepped in.

“TOM. WAKE UP.” She demanded, not beckoned, that he wake up. “IT’S TIME TO GET UP.” His eyes fluttered open, then closed again. The nurse faced Tom’s other half. “I think we had this problem last time, didn’t we?”

The woman ran her fingers over Tom’s. “Yes. I think so.” Her voice was so quiet. Sweet and scared at the same time. “He can sleep if he needs to. I’m not going anywhere.” It was touching, the way she looked at him, the way she caressed him sweetly even though he wasn’t aware of her.

I tried not to stare, but there was nothing else to see. I was surrounded on either side by pink curtains that separated me from the bodies beyond them. Disembodied voices recounted what they did while the patient was in surgery. Meek, post-surgery voices eeked out questions like “how did it go?” and “when can I eat?” Questions were met with confident answers, or at the very least, hushed assurance that a nurse would be asked.

“Laurie?” The head nurse made her way to me, my records weighing down her hand. “How are you?”

“Considering I’m in surgery again? Awesome.” We laughed as she opened the blood pressure arm band she had tucked in the crook of her elbow. The velco ripped open in one loud shriek, and she wrapped it around my arm. She announced my pressure, asked me some questions, and wrote in my file. “I’ll go get you a gown and a robe, then I’ll bring your family in, and we’ll take you down to surgery.”

I was shocked at the speed with which I was being sent into the OR. I thought, for sure, I’d be waiting for hours, my stomach thundering with hunger pains, my nose tucked into a book, reading the same sentence over and over because I couldn’t concentrate. But, here, before I knew it, I was in an unflattering gown, the back open to the world, putting my arms through the soft, often-washed cotton blend of a robe that would cover my exposed rear end. I emerged from the bathroom, my clothes in a bag, to be greeted by my mom and Billy. “Oh,” I said, smiling. “I’m glad you guys are here. I just slipped into something sexy for you.”

“I don’t know if I want to be here for that,” my mom said, kissing me on the cheek. Billy held my red and blue purse, and smiled, following me to my section of the pre-op room.

“Thanks for carrying my purse, baby,” I said to him. He held it in his long hands, his arms hanging in front of his body, the purse dangling there like an unwanted appendage.

“Hey, no problem. It goes with my outfit.”

A bed had been rolled out for me, and I was instructed to lay down. “It’s time to go,” the nurse said. “You guys can come, too.” So we left, Billy, my mom, the nurse and me, rolling down the hall in a sad little parade, with me as the Grand Master.

But I wasn’t scared, or even the slightest bit nervous. All of this, the cysts and pre-cancer, it’s just made me more calm. Since July, my house has been robbed, I was turned away from one surgery, I’ve had two actual surgeries, I’ve had a biopsy, I’ve found out that whether or not my boyfriend will ever marry me is questionable. There were littler, simply annoying, things, too: I’ve had heat rash, mosquito bites that grew to the size of softballs, and, after this last surgery, our toilet decided to quit working. I’ve had a rough few months. But, all of it has made me shrug my shoulders and tilt my head, “What are you gonna do?” I say. It could be better, but it could also be worse.

Billy leaned over and kissed me, full and soft on the lips. “I love you,” he said, right into my mouth. I inhaled his words, repeated them back to him.

My mom kissed me, and pressed her soft face against mine. She whispered I love you into my hair. I said it back loudly enough to fill the room.

So dramatic.

The anesthesiologist welcomed me back. “Well,” I said, tucking a stray hair into my oh-so-lovely sterile cap, “I missed you.”

He laughed and patted my face with his big dark hand. “If you miss me, beautiful,” he said, his accent thick and comforting, “you don’t have to have surgery again. Just call.” The nurses giggled along with me.

I don’t even remember going under this time. I remember asking “Did you put the medicine in?” after I started to feel groggy and light…

Next thing I knew, I was face to face with Betsy, the same the nurse who woke me up last night. She had a sweet pink face, full cheeks, a kind smile. She just radiates sweet and caring, her body now naturally arched to the level of the beds she’s hovering over all day. She reminded me of my mom, so sweet and attentive, holding my hand. I think I cried when I woke up. Then I laughed. It’s my standard waking up routine. She patted my face and told me she remembered me. I felt safe with her.

She brought me to my family, who welcomed me back and made fun of my drugged giddiness. I was eager to prove I could go home, so I stood and walked earlier than they wanted me to. I just wanted to be home.

Which is where I was from 5:00 on Wednesday afternoon, until this morning at 7:00. Relatively pain-free and functioning, I’m back at work and just hoping this whole ordeal is behind me.

It almost feels like it is.

2006-08-29T16:24:00.000-04:00

I can't smoke today. Nor can I drink alcohol. Again. For the third time, I am on a pre-surgery diet of NO FUN. I am "banded," as the phlebotomist called it, where my blood is typed and screened and ready just in case I need a transfusion. Which I shouldn't. But, you know, just in case.

I've been to the hospital here more in the past two months than I thought I would ever visit it in my life. I'm starting to recognize, and be recognized by, people. Today, I was helped by a nurse who was there with me on my first pre-admission appointment, my second pre-admission appointment (when my first surgery didn't happen), and now today. "No offense," I smiled to her as I left, "but I hope I don't have to see you again. Here, anyway."

She smiled and rested her soft, chubby hand on my arm. "Me too, honey. Me too. Good luck tomorrow. Again."

After I left, the hospital called my cell phone to tell me to come in at noon tomorrow for the operation. "Now," said the new nurse over the phone, "that doesn't mean you'll get in for your surgery at that point. We just need you to come in, and get an IV in you. Since you can't eat after midnight." Great. So I could be waiting to get in for my half-hour (prep and cleanup INCLUDED) procedure until four in the afternoon. I was hoping that, because this particular rendez-vous with my doc will be quick and incision free, maybe they could squeeze me in first. No such luck.

And, even though the surgery part of this sucks, I'm glad I'm getting it done this way. Because, yes, I could get it done in the doctor's office, with just local anesthesia. But then I could hear, see and smell what they would be doing to my cervix. And I don't want that. I want a nice, deep, unconscious sleep and get it overwith.

So I won't be posting tomorrow. But I invite you to read below this post for a long one I put up today. I hope it sort of makes up for my absence. I'll see you all on Thursday.

A Stitch in Time

2006-08-29T11:35:00.000-04:00

In the bathroom of our swanky Merida hotel room, I peeled the clear waterproof bandaids from the incisions above each of my hips in preparation to take a shower. Though the surgery had taken place two weeks prior to my vacation, I was still a tad nervous about my little scars. Not that they were ugly – though they each measure less than an inch, I’ll be honest; I didn’t love the dark slits on my abdomen – but I worried that they would get infected. If you can’t drink the water in Mexico, surely you shouldn’t let it get into any open wounds.

So I peeled the bandaids from my body, and went about my ritual of inspecting my wounds. The incision on my right side was a little bigger, a little more raw than the other one, I fingered the scab forming and turned my attention to my left incision. Smaller and healing better, it only needed a second of inspection before I moved onto my belly button.

My belly button had been the unfortunate loser in the surgery situation. It was allergic to the tape they placed over my incisions, it was red and itchy and the most uncomfortable of all three points of entry into my abdomen. I was under instructions to slather it with Cortizone to alleviate the itching and redness. So I hunched over and took a gander at my poor little belly button, checking out the healing progress. I saw what I thought was a scab, and touched it; Sharp and clear nylon, it was no scab – it felt like fishing line, and it was coming out of my stomach.

Naked, I ran out of the bathroom and to the bed, where Billy was lying watching Spanish television. “There’s a stitch,” I said, pointing to my belly button. “I didn’t know I had a stitch! It’s coming out! Cut it off!” I shook my hands like I’d just touched something hot, squeezed my eyes closed like I’d just gotten soap in them. I was in full-on grossed-out mode.

Billy sat up in bed, and reached over to turn on the bedside lamp. “Let me see,” he said, pulling me closer to him by my hips. “Yuh, yeah. There it is. I see it.”

“Get it!”

He looked up at me, his eyes chuckling at my reaction. “’Get it’?”

“Yeah,” I replied, my word coming out as sort of a half laugh, half sigh. “I don’t want it to get caught on something or, I don’t know, fall out or anything. Just trim it down so it doesn’t get caught on something.”

He grabbed the nail clippers we’d just purchased downstairs in the lobby. “Hold still,” he said through lips pursed in concentration.

I tensed my whole body, my whole face squished closed and turned away, certain that he would miss the clear film of the stitch and clip at something vital – like, say, my skin.

“Did you feel that?” I heard him say. I felt him back away from my body, so I relaxed my face and opened my eyes.

“No,” I said, looking at him. He sat on the edge of the bed, clippers squeezed shut, holding up the silver grooming equipment triumphantly.

“I pulled it out.”

Eyes suddenly wide, I focused more intently on the clippers. Sure enough, in the light, I could make out the slight curve of the stitch, it’s clear fiber arching into a perfect, clean half circle.

“I didn’t even know I had stitches,” I said again, squatting to examine the object. “They never told me.”

“How did you think you were, you know, staying closed?” He asked, smirking.

I glared at him from the corner of my eye, then stood up straight. “I don’t know,” I said assuredly. “But that’s not the point, anyway. I just didn’t realize I had stitches.”

A week later, back at my doctor’s office, I related the story to the very doctor who had placed the stitches in my body. “Yes,” she said in her thick Romanian accent. “Dey are suppozed to dissolve, but soometime, de body pushes zem out.” She took a look at my belly button. “But I put dem in verry deep, so you can’t even see dem.”

I nodded, looked at my belly button again. “Well, it looks good now,” I said, pulling my shirt down to cover my exposed belly.

But my belly button proved to be the slowest to heal. Still, after now almost a month, it is still healing and itchy. I have some dry skin in my button, that I am for some reason inexplicably forced to play with and pick at. If I know it’s there, I must touch it.

Billy, who up until the end of July, had spent a great deal of time with his hands on my belly, finger sometimes resting in my belly button (Why? I have no idea. Maybe because it made me squirm?), has been dying for me to get back to normal so that he could once again poke at my belly button while we watch TV or talk or stand around.

Last night, while we laid in bed, he attempted to touch my belly button. “Don’t!” I squealed, sitting up. “I have a scab or something in there. And I don’t want any scars, so I want to leave it absolutely untouched.”

“Let me see it,” he said, sitting up and leaning over my midsection.

“No,” I whined, pulling my shirt taut over my belly. “It’ll hurt.”

“I’m just looking.”

Years ago, when I was getting my wisdom teeth pulled, I made the international sound for “Stop! That hurts!” when your mouth is filled with instruments, hands and to people are preparing to rip a tooth from your skull: “GRRMMPHHHMMMGGGMRRR!”

“You’re numb,” said the doctor, her masked face looking down on me disapprovingly.

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head from side to side, as much as I could. I couldn’t afford to be put completely under when they removed my impacted lower wisdoms, so they shot my mouth full of Novocain and gave me Nitrous Oxide. I mumbled something again, to confirm my pain.

She reached behind her, grabbed the needle she’d use to shoot the Novocain into my gums, and jabbed me in the lower lip with it three or four times. I didn’t move. “See,” she said. I could see the movement of her mouth through the green mask she wore. “You’re numb.” She seemed pleased with herself. She wiped away the pinpricks of blood with a square of gauze. “It’s not that it hurts you. I think you’re just anticipating the pain. You’re scared of it.”

And that was the reaction I had last night as Billy threatened to poke around in my belly button. I knew it probably didn’t really hurt, but I was afraid it would. So I clamped my hands over my belly and said no.

“Just let me look,” he said. His eyes smiled and pleaded at the same time when he said it, so I had no choice. I released my hold and let him look.

A minute or two passed. “Are you done yet?” I said, looking down at him. His longer fingers held my belly button, well, open, while he peered in.

“It’s a stitch,” he proclaimed. “Where are my nail clippers?” He seemed excited.

“No,” I said, pulling my shirt back down. “No way. This one is deep, and you are not pulling it out.”

“Oh, come on,” he said, getting up to get his clippers. He searched around the dresser. “Where are the clippers we got in Mexico? Those were awesome.” His voice was distracted, rooting around in the mess of our belongings. He shrugged. “Oh well. These’ll do.” And he came back toward me, shiny silver nail clippers in hand.

“No,” I whined. “Billy, it’s so deep in there. You can’t get it out. No.”

“What do you think will happen?” I could see that he was getting frustrated with me.

“What if my whole belly button unravels and my guts fall out? Huh? What then?” I thought I was funny. He did not. He just looked at me, angry that I wouldn’t let him go exploring.

He rolled his eyes at me, like he thought that I was serious about what I’d just said. “Would you stop being a baby, please, and just let me get it out of you?”

“It’s my body,” was my feeble attempt at a retort.

He let out a disgusted sigh. “Clearly your body is trying to get that stitch out of you. I’m just trying to help. Now stop being a baby and let me.”

“NO.”

He was furious with me. “Stop being so ridiculous. You are acting like a child. Just let me take it out.” His words were sharp, forceful.

“We are done with this conversation,” I said, now hurt by the edge of his voice. I thought we were having lighthearted banter. He was being serious. And I really was afraid of being hurt, and now upset that he didn’t respect that. I snatched the clippers from his hand, set them on the nightstand and looked at the TV.

I could feel his edge retreat. He sighed and turned to face me. “Don’t you know that I’d never hurt you?” I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “Seriously. I would never hurt you. When are you going to trust me?”

“I do trust you,” I offered, still covering my belly with my hands.

“Then just let me take it out. It needs to come out.”

“Because my body is trying to reject it, or because of some morbid need you have to yank it out?”

“Both. And because I want to be able to touch your belly button again. It’s not going to hurt, I promise.”

A few minutes later, he produced not one, but two stitches. One came out complete with the knot.

“See. Did that hurt?”

“It pinched a little,” I said.

“Did it? Or are you just saying that because admitting that it didn’t hurt would be admitting I was right?”

“No, it did pinch a little.”

“Right,” he said, smiling and examining the last of the two stitches.

Actually, it didn’t hurt at all. But I couldn’t tell him that.