Wednesday

I'm having a bad day. From my previous post, that may be obvious. I've got seasonal bloody-nose-itis, where every time I blow my nose, it starts to bleed. And it hurts. And so I blow my nose. Then my nose bleeds.

I don't like anything in my fridge. I don't want to eat anything but french fries and onion rings. And pizza. From Papa John's. With garlic butter. That I won't buy because the last time I did, it leaked all over my car and I smelled like garlic for days.

I feel fat. Objectively, I know I can't have possibly gained ten pounds overnight. However, my pants feel like I may have. And I tend to listen to the pants.

I got all dressed up today, thinking I was going to want to go out after work, that I'd be hanging out with friends, that I might play hookey from work for a bit. Now, I don't even want to talk to anyone, much less sit with them in a smokey bar drinking beer that I shouldn't be buying. Much less buying rounds. Because I'm broke.

I'm getting myself into personal messes that I should know better than to get into, situations I should avoid, textbook "I'm a stupid girl" fact patterns. Situations so stupid that, if I listened to myself as I described them, I'd slap myself.

I'm avoiding projects at work, hoping that, if I ignore them long enough, they'll just go away.

I tried to make scones last night, and once I had everything prepped, I realized I had no flour. So I threw a half a stick of butter into the garbage disposal and went to bed.

I've fallen asleep before 9 p.m. every night this week. And I'm tired all day.

I'm feeling ignored and sad and depressed.

Maybe I have black mold in my house.

Pets & Peeves

Do not, I repeat, do not say you are going to call me and then not call me. I hate it. I hate it when you do that and it makes me hate you a little.

I can see it if we're just chatting about stuff. About Anna Nicole or the underwear you saw on sale at Macy's or the guy that just got arrested for tying up his gay lover at the local cine-mini. You don't have to call back immediately after taking that call on the other line from your crazy mother who just had surgery and can you go over there and rub her feet because they hurt and she can't bend over far enough to reach them. That's okay. I get that.

However, if we have a plan? Like, to go somewhere? And do something? That day? Don't say you're going to call and then don't. I don't care about your project. I don't care about the call you got from the office. I don't care about your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your husband or your wife or your dog or your child or your minister or the fact that you just got too drunk to do anything other than sit on a barstool for the remainder of the afternoon.

Call me and tell me why you: a) cannot do the thing we planned to do; b) will be late doing the thing we planned to do; c) are an idiot and forgot about the thing we planned to do but can we please reschedule? Do not just not call.

Because if you don't call? If you fail to give me some kind of excuse within what I deem to be a reasonable period of time? I will hold it against you. Forever. I will always remember that you are untrustworthy. That you make promises that you cannot keep. That you are unreliable. And I will not make plans with you. And I will blow you off, both in order to teach you a lesson and because, really, I don't find you worth my time.

Random

I woke up this morning to find a message on my answering machine from a friend of mine from high school. We usually speak once every couple of months, when he's got a new girlfriend or is moving or one of our mutual friends has done something stupid. We haven't had a late night phone session since, well, probably since my dad died. So I got a little panicked when I saw the message was from him. Until I listened to it:

"Hey. I know it's late, but I thought...maybe...I could...maybe bounce something off you. I've been thinking about it a lot lately and, well, I really need to talk about it. I figured you could probably...really help me with this. It isn't urgent or anything, but...well, I do need to talk. I mean, it won't take too long. I can probably boil it down to four words really. Yeah, four words. So can you call me? When you get a chance? So...Strom Thurmond. Al Sharpton. Call me."

Ashley, You Twit

I spent Sunday afternoon at a friend's place, drinking red wine and watching movies in preparation for the Oscars. Of course, the big guns were on that day, Casablanca, Kramer v Kramer and my personal favorite, Gone With the Wind.

I watched GWTW in 8th grade for the first time all the way through. I was living in Atlanta at the time and was surrounded by vestiges of the Civil War. Statutes of Robert E. Lee, the Cyclorama, antebellum mansions, Stone Mountain. I knew more about the Civil War than I'd ever thought to learn about the Revolutionary War, although our school system didn't go so far as to make us learn Lee's speech to the troops, as many other Georgia schoolchildren learned throughout the years.

And my mother loved the movie. Watched it every time it was on. This was back in the days of three channels, plus some weird stuff on UHF. GWTW was always a big television event. She'd let me stay up to watch some of it. Usually I got to the point that Scarlett married that milksop Charles Hamilton, earning the unending enmity of India Wilkes in the process. Once in a great while my mom would let me fall asleep on the couch, waking me up in time to see Atlanta burn and Rhett leave Scarlett in the dusty outskirts of town while he finally took up with the Glorious Cause.

So I finally saw it in 8th grade. I was so taken with the story that I read the book and became even more entranced. I wrote a paper on Margaret Mitchell for school that year. You know she was married twice--her first husband was a bit more like Rhett, while her second was more like Ashley. No children. Interesting woman, altogether.

While watching this movie with my friend the other day, we came to the conclusion that this movie impacted me in a deep and disturbing psychological way. Namely, GWTW taught me to chase after Rhett rather than Ashley.

My mother has always thrown guys like Ashley at me. "He's such a nice boy," she'd say about some guy I went to school with. And I know she was right. He was a nice boy. And that's so boring. Who wants a nice boy? Not me. I want Rhett.

And I chase after him. The more inappropriate, arrogant, untrustworthy and generally reprehensible a man might be? The more attractive I usually find him. Obviously, there has to be some veneer of gentility, much as Rhett demonstrated to Mrs. Meade and Mrs. Merriweather in an effort to get his daughter accepted into Atlanta society. But the veneer is just for show, really...just enough so you can take them to dinner and be assured that they know how to use the utensils.

While I'll always love men like Thomas Magnum or Jack from Lost in the abstract, give me relationships like Maddie and David, or Rhett and Scarlett, or Sawyer and...well, just about anyone.

Who knew that a history class could taint the rest of your life?

Crabs

Only 8:14 a.m. and I'm already crabby.

Get up and put on my new dress. New, cute, fun, trendy dress. With the tie around the middle that ties in back? That is made out of satin. Can you tell where this is going? The tie keeps untying or sagging and it is driving me batshit crazy. I do not tolerate imperfection in clothing. I once pulled over on the New Jersey Turnpike when I spilled Diet Coke on a white t-shirt while driving from DC to Vermont. I won't make it through the day.

Ripped a stocking at home. Put a new one on.

Go to get a bagel. Sweet! No one's in line. But there's that woman lurking by the free samples, stuffing her face with peanut butter banana bagel bites. As soon as I walk in, she does a little hop-jump up to the register and proceeds to order two dozen various bagels and spreads. Pig. I wait 15 minutes for one bagel.

Get to work. Tie my tie again. As I'm bent over, I note I've got another run. Proceed to rummage through my secretary's desk for 10 minutes, looking for clear nail polish to fix this until lunch, when I can run to the mall to buy new stockings.

I go into the fridge to put my lunch in and find that someone cut the point off of the wedge of cheesecake I brought into work for everyone to share. Obviously a man's handiwork. Who cuts the friggin' point off a wedge of anything?! Cut a goddamn slice, bitch!

Thank God there were no messages on my voice mail. I might just have had to take a vacation day.

ETA: For those of you wondering about our friend from the pole, she showed up at the bar wearing black patent leather spiked-heel boots (with little buckles), no stockings, a denim micro mini and a denim jacket. Plus, a fist-sized bruise on her thigh. I don't know if I'm more offended by the boots or the fact that the denim pieces were of two different colored denims. The horror! She was much commented-upon.

Death in the Afternoon

There is a child upstairs.

I work in an office building. There are all kinds of businesses. Shrinks, shills, real estate types. Storefronts for mafia types maybe. Jack Bauer fronts. Who knows. I don't. There are lots of offices that are always empty. Some where people only come in at night.

We're on the main floor. I don't know who's upstairs from us. But once a week, it happens.

Someone brings their kid in.

How do you know this, you might ask.

Because he runs.

He runs up one hall and down the other. He pounds his feet as he runs. Just like Prefontaine. He's in training for a marathon, I think. He never stops. He's been up there now for about three hours. Back and forth. Forth and back. He'll stop for a moment and you think he's gone. No. He's just having some water. Refreshing himself.

Sometimes the stops are longer. Those are for Lunchables, presumably.

I hate this child. I hate this child with the firey passion of a thousand suns, as Willow would say. I can hear his footsteps in my dreams. Following me. Chasing me through the corridors of this building. I flee. I cannot get away.

Oh my God, I need a beer and it is only 1:49 in the afternoon.

Lesser of Two

When faced with a choice between adultery and cheating on papers in college--actually purchasing papers from someone, I recently opined that, to me, intellectual dishonesty is worse. And then, of course, I realized that that makes me a horrible person, particularly because I was having the discussion with someone who had gotten divorced when she found out her husband was having a long-term affair with her good friend. But if faced with the choice between writing a college student's twenty page paper on early English Romantic poetry and fooling around with a married man, it would be a really difficult decision for me. And not just because I don't like English Romantic poetry.

A lot of factors would obviously come into play. Factors I can't even imagine. Is it a one-night stand or a long-term relationship? What sized font would you have to use? Are there kids involved? Footnotes or an index? Is the marriage happy? How wide can you make the margins? Do you have to analyze the poetry or can it just be a historical perspective? Is love involved? Is it a make or break class that you absolutely have to have? Do I know his wife?

What are your thoughts on this?

There's No Place Like Home

Saturday night. Friend's condo. Dinner party.

"What's with your shoes? Are those whore shoes?"
"Well, kinda. But they're not my whoriest shoes."
"What could be whorier than what you have on?"
"These shoes in red patent leather with open toes."
"Really?"
"Yeah. When I click the heels together three times? I end up in somebody's bed."

It Keeps On Giving

I admit, I'm obsessed with celebrity news. I spent yesterday watching the crawl on E!, waiting for the latest on Britney's new 'do and the exact location of her new tats. I'm the go-to girl on all items of celebrity interest for my friends--at a get-together Saturday night, people were yelling questions at me from across the room about the actual marital status of Angelina and Brad (there is none). And I'm fascinating by the entire Anna Nicole saga, from the number of men claiming paternity to the crazy-ass judge who has declared that the body is his and isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

It was while listening to the coverage of Anna's plight and the discussion about where she's going to be buried that I recalled having a similar discussion with my family. Several years ago, when my father was still alive, I was over at my parent's house for dinner. My dad had been diagnosed with some rare form of leukemia and was undergoing chemo at the time. He was eventually in treatment for two years, during which time he'd cycle on and off of chemo and steroids and crushed oyster shells and chanting shamans or whatever the doctor recommended at the time. But, having been through a previous life-threatening illness, he was getting prepared.

"So, we're thinking of buying burial plots," he says, sipping his very dry martini, rocks, dirty, with extra olives.

I think this was right about the time that my great-aunt died and they hadn't ever bought plots anywhere, so the family cemetary out in Warren, Ohio, didn't have any room for her and, although not dead at the time, her husband. They were going to have to suffer the horror of getting planted in some large, corporate cemetary, far from the rest of the family and in a place unconnected with their home, their history, their heritage.

"Okay. What are you thinking?" I said. I was used to these discussions by that point. I was routinely lectured on the location of the safe deposit box keys, the location of all wills and trust documents, and the Rose Bowl watch, which was to be revered in all its proper glory after its owner's passing.

"Probably somewhere around here. We don't need to go back to Ohio."
"Okay. That's okay," I replied, imagining the funeral train that would be involved in such a transfer. Children waving and throwing flowers. All very Lincolnian.
"So, we were thinking..." he starts.

I should preface this that I recall this taking place in the fall. Around October, maybe. At a time where we had started thinking about the holidays.

"Yeah?"
"We were thinking that, for Christmas, we might get you a plot, too."
"Ummm..."

What is the proper response to that one? When someone offers to buy you a burial plot? On one hand, yeah, it is nice, I guess. It is an expensive proposition. But, dude, creepy much? I mean, really! And for Christmas? Is that gonna detract from the rest of my presents? Because I was really hoping for some gift certificates to Ann Taylor and Barnes & Noble. Does this subtract from the rest of my haul? Should I be looking this gift horse in the mouth?

And do I get to pick where we're going? Getting buried is kinda personal. I don't want it to be just anywhere on the side of the road. Actually, I'm not so certain that I even want to get buried. I'm thinking cremation instead and getting scattered. But, you know, I'm in my 30s and I don't have kids and I really don't think this is a big deal for me to think about at this point.

Oh, now I get it. This is because I'm not married yet. You're gonna go buy three plots, one of which is for your poor spinster daughter who has no hope of catching herself a man who will pay for her to be buried next to him! I see how this is! Poor, pathetic Miss Head! Who'll want to spend eternity next to her if we don't, is what you're thinking!

My parents ended up buying space for their ashes in a local mausoleum. I'm safe. For the time being.

In Vegas When You're Dead

Things to do when stuck in your car in a snowstorm in Pennsylvania for 20 hours:

Go through your glove compartment and throw out all of the old check stubs you throw in there after going to the bank and depositing your check. Throw them out the window and into the driving snow.

Realize you just threw away vital personal information contained on your check stubs and run back outside, gathering up as many of them as you can in the screaming wind and driving snow.

Get back in the car.

Turn on the seat warmer as high as it can go.

Compose mental haiku about your high school boyfriend.

Look through your purse for that Dove chocolate heart you stole from your attorney's office candy jar on Wednesday.

Decide to eat half of it, just in case.

Screw it. Eat the whole thing.

Crawl in the backseat.

Lie down and try to nap.

Realize that it is friggin' cold.

Watch the snow.

For an hour.

Start digging between the seats for Brach's restaurant mints wrapped in cellophane.

Find a pen.

Start writing farewell letters on the back of check stubs.

Spend 45 minutes deciding who should get custody of your cat and why, listing the various reasons that your brother is too selfish to think of anyone but himself and would likely kill the cat in 15 minutes.

Wonder if the cat is okay.

Check the cellphone for the one-millionth time.

Realize no one has called to see how or where you are.

Spend another hour composing a letter to all of your so-called friends who can't even be bothered to see if you're okay during this horrible snowstorm, even though they knew you were driving to New York for the weekend. Jerks.

Recompose your final will, giving your possessions to charity rather than to your rat bastard so-called friends.

Find a cold, dead fry under the front passenger seat and debate on eating it.

Screw it. Eat the fry.

Watch National Guard Humvees drive by. Are there still National Guard guys around? Who knew. Would they rather be in this snowstorm or in the desert. Consider the relative benefits of the desert versus a snowstorm. For an hour.

Watch snowplows drive by.

Watch the snow.

Start writing haiku about your favorite television shows.

List your top 5 television shows, kissers, songs of all times, episodes of Buffy, pieces of clothing you own, jobs you'd like, things you'd do with $1 million, places you'd like to go on vacation, men you should've married, men you shouldn't have had sex with, things you should've done before freezing to death in Pennsylvania.

Look at the caller id when the phone rings and ignore the call from your mother.

Yeah, That

I have not been on a date in almost a year. I suppose what I was doing this time last year constituted dating in a wierd kind of way. Between January and March of last year, the guy I was dating was also seeing someone else. After four or five years together (they start to blend after a while), turnabout became fair play. For the first few years that we were on our own Magical Mystery Tour, he was living with his girlfriend, who I, in my fakeness, frequently hung out with. I look at the person I was then and I shake my head. Would I do it differently? I don't know.

Did I love him? At first, it certainly seemed that way. We were...really good, for a while. We were best friends and I didn't want to be anywhere he wasn't. My day wasn't complete unless I talked to him, hung out with him for a while, went on a walk with him to the bank or the bookstore or whatever other destination we picked out in order to spend time with each other.

When we got together, clandestinely, it was just as good. I could sit in his basement with his friends and watch basketball and...just...hang. And when it was good, it was really good.

But he lived with his girlfriend. And he'd tell me how unhappy he was. And he'd say, as soon as he got that raise, he was going to move out. And he didn't.

I went on vacation out east, to a class reunion. A week in Maine and Vermont. Days on the beach in Ogunquit where I spoke to exactly one person, the guy at the wine store, all day long. When I left, things were great. They were going to have a talk and he was going to tell her that he wanted to break up. By the time I got back, he'd confessed to her that he'd been screwing around (thankfully leaving my name out of it) and they'd recommitted to staying together.

That really killed it for me. I can remember talking to him on a pay phone at the local restaurant/bar complex when I was visiting a bartender I knew. We were supposed to meet for drinks after work to talk about what had happened. I can remember getting one of those flashes when you know what someone is going to say before they say it. And I can remember a little piece of me curling up and dying while I looked at the refinished floors and wondered why I had to hear this on a public pay phone, of all things.

We continued for a while, until I got up the gumption to finally tell him that enough was enough and that I wasn't going to wait anymore. That was in March. By May, she had moved out and he was actively pursuing me. I held out until August, when we started dating again. Another year and a half and it was over.

It was just never really the same, after that phone call when he told me he was staying with her. I never felt the same about him. I never trusted him again. I never told him anything that really meant anything to me. I never opened up to him. I never let him in, because I knew that, if I did, he could do it again. Take it all away. So I never gave him the opportunity.

Since we broke up in March, not a date. No dinners, no movies. Drinks aplenty, but that isn't a date. That's lubrication for whatever comes afterward. Which also isn't a date.

And now I'm to the point of wondering if I ever could give those things again. Those things I gave so freely before that phone call.

See, this morose shit is why I really don't like February.

The Pole

You may recall our good friend with the Everlast half shirt from a month or two ago. She showed up at the bar again last night.

We're sitting there, minding our own business. I'm watching ten men tear into a plate of nachos like their lives depended on it. By the way, if you don't get to eat off the plate first, forget it, because they've had their nasty little paws all over the jalapenjos and olives and it just grosses me out thinking about it.

Anyway, she walks in and takes off her coat. I'm sure she's a perfectly nice woman. Well, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, anyway. But she's wearing knee-high black leather boots, a black leather skirt and a low-cut red shirt with some sort of gather thing on the front that I imagine would accentuate any cleavage she had if, of course, she had any.

Any one of those things would be okay. Even the boots and the skirt would be okay together, if she had on a nice turtleneck. But when you walk into a bar at 5:30 p.m. looking like that? And when men who make a habit of discussing my chest like I'm not attached to it are commenting about how trashy she looks? And when they're asking me why she might want to dress like that? And whether she actually went to work looking like that?

Honey, it is time to get off the pole.

Let's Get Physical

Obviously, there are a number of differences between men and women. Physical, emotional, mental, mechanical. While we're technically of the same species, there's no denying that we are, on some very basic level, two completely different animals.

Recently, my friend told me that she'd been walking on the treadmill. She was going about 20 minutes a day. Then a guy she knows told here that she should really walk at least 30. I don't think he really went into the why's and wherefores of the extra ten minutes. Maybe he mentioned that it would keep her heartrate up longer. Anyway, she told him, the next day, that she'd walked for thirty and that she'd cursed his name for the last ten minutes.

Guy: "Well, then, I guess if you want to get a heart attack and die or get all obese and get diabetes, then you should just go ahead and do it. Otherwise, curse away."

Me: "Did he say anything else?"

Her: "I tuned him out after that."

Men and women speak completely different languages when it comes to exercise, fitness, weight and diet. Had she had this conversation with a female, the woman would have said this to my friend: "Well, I heard on Oprah that it takes 20 minutes to get a heartrate up to the point that it really needs to be and, in order to get the benefit of any aerobic activity, we need to exercise more than 20 minutes. I absolutely hate working out, but I ate an entire tube of chocolate chip cookie dough last night so I kinda feel like I oughta exercise an extra few minutes. Oh, and there were those mashed potatoes. And peanut butter and bacon sandwich. Oh, and..."

You see what I mean. Women are more cooperative and empathetic. They put themselves in your place when it comes to dieting. They talk about the struggles they go through and try to teach through example. It is that whole team concept thing we've got going on.

Until there's a man involved. Then it is a pack mentality.

Men, on the other hand, take the Il Duce avenue. They want to dictate to you what you should be doing in order to get a butt like Jennifer Lopez, a body like Jessica Alba, and boobs like Pamela Anderson. You know, besides saving money for that surgery.

"If you just worked in more weights to your routine..."
"You should intersperse periods of walking with running..."
"Make sure that you run up the hill on that one stretch..."
"You aren't doing enough reps to get the benefit..."
"If you eat too much of that chocolate, your teeth will rot out."

Oh, wait, that's my Mom

And they don't see anything wrong with this. Men honestly don't understand why we get upset by this stuff. They don't understand that, even if we ask for their advice about working out, we really don't want to hear it. We don't want to know what'll give us more definition. We don't want to know what foods will add protein without weight. We don't want to know how to...well, any of it. If we want to know, we'll join Curves and ask some woman to help us out.

Granted, there are those women that go to gyms and lift and talk to guys about the sale of whatever diet supplement they have going on over at the Health Hut. Let's face it, they're either out looking for a man to latch onto (and if they're looking for the type of men that hang out in gyms, they're welcome to them) or...well, let's face it. They're lesbians.

Men, you should know this. Most women feel the same way about you telling us how to eat and work out as you feel about pulling over to ask for directions.

I'll keep my trap shut if you'll do the same with yours.

Ode to a Grecian Urn

In honor of Valentine's Day, a list of things I love:

Clean sheets, socks with no holes, the Sunday New York Times, chocolate-covered cherries, early-morning phone calls from anywhere but the office, snow days, Mini Coopers, satellite radio, apple wine, Raclette cheese, coming over the hill into town during the fall with the entire White River Valley stretched out below me in glorious color, animal tracks, hot cider, sangria, sand in my bathing suit, red velvet cake, historical mysteries, blueberry pie, driving through the country on a summer evening and watching the fireflies speed by, March Madness, Topopo salad, half-yards of beer, boat cruises on lakes at sunset with boat drinks, being okay with the phone ringing, having nothing on your desk, playing hookey, dirty jokes, knowing insider information, new stockings, finishing a crossword puzzle, Car Talk, knowing that you're both thinking the same thing at the same time, unexpected checks in the mail, Dune by Christian Dior, sitting out under the stars on a summer night and falling asleep, bonfires in the fall, that first flush of twitterpation, homemade spaghetti sauce, men who look good in turtlenecks and know it, when the cat lets me sleep in, Artisianal, really windy days in October, college football, not owning TiVo so I can watch it at my friends' house, "Boys of Summer", email marathons, other people's dogs, finding money in my pocket, high heels, dropping a size, old-fashioned cocktails, big porches with swings, doors that are rounded on top, cashew brittle, lakeside towns in the summer, St. Patrick's Day, baking something that turns out beautiful and tasty, finding a funny story to tell, and getting a completely unexpected Valentine's Day surprise.

Here's hoping you have one of your own.

The Other White Meat

I've been involved in a number of disturbing discussions in the past. I like to hang out with guys with some frequency and, as a result, have frequently been confronted with disturbing questions. Sometimes they're related to my gender. Sometimes not. Sometimes they're related to me personally. Sometimes not. But they're always entertaining, even on the most primitive level. And I've discovered that it is often a test of character to be able to answer them without incriminating myself or getting into fist fights.

There's the ever popular, "Do you shave? And, if so, how much?" This isn't a question about my legs, dearheart. Oh no. They're going right for the Promised Land. So to speak. Maybe not so much promised as hinted at. Anyway. The correct answer? "Do you?" Or better, "How about your wife?" Or, "My friend uses stencils."

Then there's, "Where's the most bizarre place you ever __________?" That'd be in the butt, Bob. Kidding. I do usually answer this honestly. In a piece of construction equipment. Then I tell people about my friend who had sex in the elevator of the parking ramp in which I used to park for work. Never leaned up against the windows again after hearing that one.

"Where do you want to retire?" I find this question disturbing because I cannot imagine working for thirty more years. Then I start to cry.

"How do you know about my wife's shaving habits?" Usually answered by the fact that we've had this same discussion seven times before and you're drunk. Every. Single. Time.

"If you died alone in your apartment, would it be more likely that your face gets eaten off by your cat or your dog, assuming you have either one." I'm firmly in the dog camp, although internet research seems to indicate that the dog might be more likely to start at the feet. I find that the answers are directly related to how the responder feels about cats and/or dogs.

"Why didn't we ever hook up?" This question has no good answer. If you tell the truth, they're going to hate you. If you tell a lie, it'd better be a good one. Like, "I never thought you liked me." Or, "I promised your ex-girlfriend I wouldn't." Or, "Because I had a rash."

"How much money would I make if I worked in your office?" Never, ever answer this question. Prevaricate. Lie. Whatever. They're really trying to find out how much you make, but are asking in a shady, sketchy way. Like when people ask what church you go to. Wait. They don't do that where you live?

"Is human flesh red meat or white meat, like pork?" Is pork really white meat? It isn't like chicken. And it isn't like steak. What is human flesh like? When cooked, I mean. Can somone answer this for me? It haunts me.

Scrubs

I took a friend to the hospital on Friday. His dad had a heart attack and he needed a ride. The reasons he needed a ride could take hours to explain; suffice to say that he currently doesn't have a license and it has nothing (or little) to do with alcohol.

After a 45 minute drive out there...45 minutes filled with uncomfortable discussion about online dating and my sex life...we get to the hospital. His dad is in the cardiac care unit and so we wander aimlessly through the building until we find that particular wing and floor. You know how hospitals are. They are all wildly different on the outside. Gothic. Utilitarian. Federal style. 70's urban. But you go inside and they're all exactly the same. They have colored lines on the floor directing you where to go. There are signs everywhere telling you to wash your hands. The doors are big and reminiscent of airlocks in 60's space movies. Everyone dresses the same. No one pays attention to you unless you're bleeding out on the floor.

Once we finally get the attention of the woman stationed directly outside my friend's father's room, she tells us he's in the basement. In the cath lab. Whatever that means. So we wander down there, in search of family members whose presence might indicate that we're in the right place at the right time. We get to the cath lab (again, I don't know) and they tell us that the family just went to the cafeteria.

I don't have to tell you about hospital cafeterias. We've all been there. A step up from school cafeterias, granted, but surrounded by desperation and grief. Not that school cafeterias aren't, for that matter. The cafeteria at the hospital my dad was at when he was sick was pretty swanky. This one, not so much.

We do manage, at that point, to find someone that my friend recognizes: his brother and sister-in-law. Introductions go around and we sit down so they can eat. It is then that the unimaginable occurs.

Someone is making announcements as we're sitting down. There's some kind of program getting ready to start, something put on by hospital adminstration for the staff there. We're sitting on the other end of the room, by the internet cafe, safely hidden from this spectacle, for the most part. As we sit, the emcee is calling everyone into the room with promises of food and drink, as, of course, would be available in a cafeteria. Duh.

The program starts. The president of the hospital gets up. It is a Black History month program. He's not very black. Neither is most of his audience. However, he's giving it the old college try. We're trying to block him out, talking about the heart attack, where it happened, how he got to the hospital.

Then the president turns the microphone over to a woman. And she starts to sing a gospel song. Now, I like gospel. I've sang gospel. I know good gospel when I hear it. Good gospel, this wasn't. This woman...I wouldn't go so far to say she was tone-deaf. However, if she was the best the hospital had to offer? They should've contracted out. She sings a verse of this song. Friend, Brother, Sister-in-law and I all look at each other. They start eating faster. I'm turned all the way around in my seat just so I can see this car wreck. Then?

She exhorts the room to start singing. It isn't just her singing now, it is a roomful of white people singing off-key gospel in the basement cafeteria of a hospital. My friend gets up, looking for the print out of the words so he can join in on the next verse.

"Don't even think about it," I hiss at him as he walks past me to look at the papers lying on the next table. He sits down, cowed.

Brother and sister-in-law finish at just about the time the song is over, just in time for the prayer to start. We hoof it out of there and I thank God in my own special way.

As we're sitting in the waiting room of the cath lab, Sister-in-law turns to me.
"Didn't I see that on an episode of 'Scrubs'?"
Amen, sister. Amen.

Polish

Can I live with someone who criticizes the fact that the nail polish on my fingernails doesn't match the polish on my toes?

More importantly, can I live without them?

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

I've never been married and my parents were never divorced. Therefore, I can only speak to the event as a mostly-disinterested bystander. Kind of like when I say, "I'd never let my child do that," to my friends that have kids? That's always a crowd pleaser.

As a child, divorce was an ever-present factor in life. My best friend's parents got divorced. The union that produced her and her younger brother was the second for both of her parents. She was probably the first person I knew to go through something like that, althought that certainly changed in later years.

Although, now that I'm sitting here, thinking about it? Not really. She was the only person I knew when she was going through it. I knew people later whose parents had gotten divorced a long time ago. And, really? I didn't even know too many of those people. Statistically speaking, fully one-half of the school's population should have come from broken homes. Was it just the people I hung out with whose parents stayed together? Did those families manage to stay together just until after the kids left? Was it where I grew up? Is suburban Ohio really a divorce-free zone? Could be, judging from recent voting records.

I'm getting to the point now where people I know and love are going to start going through this. One of my good friends got divorced a few years ago. I went to his wedding and had the best time I've ever had, considering he and his fiancee were the only two people there I had ever met. I exchanged phone numbers with all of their friends--that's how good of a time I had. I found out he was divorced when I got a Christmas card from him and his new wife.

Maybe "good friends" is stretching it a bit.

His divorce is the only one that I know of. No one from high school. No one from college. Only one from graduate school. However, when I moved to the town in which I now live, and got involved in the profession in which I now work, I met, and continue to meet, people who have already been divorced, are separated, or are in the process of going through a divorce. Or should be. And these people are young. In their early to mid 30's. Many of them hadn't even gotten around to the point of having kids.

Every story is different. Religion. Cheating. Money issues. Cheating. Other family issues. Cheating. Just generally growing apart.

Oh, and did I mention the cheating?

I suppose you can't get to a certain age before all the single people you know are divorced. Because, really? If you've gotten to 34 and haven't been married? What's wrong with you? What is the fatal flaw? Yeah, you've got that broken engagement in your back pocket to explain a couple of years, but, come on. What the hell have you been doing? And I know that, if I'm asking those questions about others, they're certainly asking them about me.

But, anyway, back to the subject.

I've sat through a divorce in court. The party petitioning has to go up and get on the stand and tell the court that the bonds of marriage have been dissolved and that there is not an icecube's chance in hell that there is any way that they'll get back together. I've watched grown men cry on the stand while they're saying these words. I've heard women say them woodenly, trying not to give anything away in their facial expressions, for fear of giving a modicum of satisfaction to their soon-to-be-ex husbands. It is a heartwrenching procedure to watch, almost unendurable in its public display of grief.

And you'd have to grieve. Because you have to get up there and, in a lot of cases, basically lie. Anyone who says that they have no hope that they can't work things out? Unless they've already got someone else on the side? Is lying just a bit, I think. Probably not later, when they've gotten used to the idea. But at that moment, when the marriage is still fresh in their mind, and they're thinking about the good things that happened--the vacations, the late nights, the days snowed in with hot chocolate and popcorn, the time they went on the wine tour, the time the tire blew and they had to spend the night in the car, the Christmases, the Halloweens, the anniversaries, the wedding? Right then? They don't necessarily want it to end.

I know this isn't true in some cases. Some people come to the realization that they shouldn't be married to the person to whom they're married. But there are a lot of other people who do want to be married to the person they married, but who agree to be divorced, for whatever reason. And then? Then they have a choice. They can choose to actually be divorced. Or they can continue to pursue their ex, either mentally or physically. And let that person dictate to them what the rest of their life is going to be like. And they can get back together. Or not. But it isn't ever going to be the same. It isn't ever going to be like it was when it was new.

I know that I wouldn't want a marriage to end. Brilliant statement there, obviously. Who does want a marriage to end? But the actual legal act of ending a marriage would just as difficult, if not more so, than whatever act precipitated the end. I would have an incredibly difficult time getting up in court and telling God and everyone that I had failed at this project. Conceivably, other than child rearing, the most important project in which I'd ever been involved, I failed at. And, further? There's no chance I'll ever fix it. For the girl who had a hard time asking questions in Algebra class because she didn't want people to think she was stupid? For her to go up there and say she did something wrong? Made a mistake? Unthinkable.

Maybe that's my fatal flaw. Because, without the chance of failure, there really isn't any chance of success. And are there really mistakes that can't be fixed in some way, shape or form?

Six Months In

When a man uses a woman's name during an intimate moment? And the relationship is, to put it mildly, casual? He has to be either really, really drunk or really, really stupid.

Because using the wrong name at that moment could be potentially devestating. In more ways than one.

Avoid name usage until you've taken her out to dinner at least twice. Otherwise, it seems a bit...insincere. I mean, come on. Who're you trying to impress?

Just a word to the wise.

A Walk of Biblical Proportions

I've been emailing back and forth with a friend of mine from college lately. We're into these long, epic missives about depopulation, popular television, insurance, modern literature, drunken antics, natural disasters and adult bookstores. And that's just been in the last two days.

Obviously, we're very well-rounded.

I asked him what was his all-time favorite stupid college story. He has a number to chose from. I just found out that he met Ms. Nude Indiana at a country western concert in Dayton before his sophomore year and ended up spending a quality evening with her and her friends. That event was actually disqualified because it didn't actually happen on our campus proper. However, there were still a number of stories to consider. Please note the following list, taken directly from his email:

Oh the list, my, my where do I start? I think the S.S. Puppy is a pretty good story, The frisbee fan is humorous, Bad beer night, Around the World, Little 5 x 4, Wall of Shame moments, streaking, 15 minute tirade at empty pizza wagon, followed by 15 minute tirade at a missing Buckland, Sausage walker, couch fire(s), bottle party, wiener copy, ass copy, Bo getting written up three times in a week, riding on the dolphin and sucking the breast of Mother IU, seeing God in a coal pile, hawker drinking, Icehouse kegs, robot Jim-bo, Hendie hang, amnesty box, I have a couple nice Disco-Briscoe stories. All primo, but the most 'Animal House' event still has to be the 'Boston Tea-Party' at Campbell house.....you must admit that was pretty good.

And, yes, the Boston Tea Party was a good one. But I have no idea what the hell the amnesty box is.

Anyway, I got to thinking about my favorite story. The most epic, ridiculous, alcohol-ridden account of stupidity that I have in my arsenal of tales. Those stories are hard to nail down. There were so many...many...stupid nights. I mean, we played "Asshole" three nights a week. I could put down a 12-pack without really thinking too much about it. With tools like that, who could fail to act like an idiot.

Then I remembered. The night I was alone. The night I drank too much Everclear. The night of the Walk of Biblical Proportions.

I'd been to a party. Somewhere off campus. We'd been drinking beer all afternoon out of a bathtub at a hotel somewhere. Rhinelander, maybe? In a green bottle. Somebody was visiting somebody from Chicago, I think. And we got invited to some off-campus house party.

Now, I never drove in town. I didn't get a car until I graduated from college. Therefore, I never paid any attention to where I was going. I'd just get in a car with someone else driving and just assumed I'd reach a destination. I was fairly certain, when we got to the house, that I was somewhere near the law school and that I'd just have to walk east to get to campus when I decided to leave.

They had electric lemonade. Made with Everclear. Why did I go to school in a state that allows the sale of Everclear? I remember my mother telling me that it made some kids at another college go blind. Well, no shit. That stuff is vile. But, mix it with enough lemonade and, in twenty minutes, you don't know that you have hands.

I drank it. I drank a lot of it. This was...freshman year. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. So I just kept drinking. And drinking. And then started getting sicker. And sicker. And really, horribly sick.

It was at that point that I decided that I needed to get home. I'm one of those kinds of people. When I want to get home, I want to be home. Right. Now. There will be no waiting for a cab. There will be no waiting for someone sober. There will be immediate leaving.

So. I left. I don't even remember if I told anyone. If I remember correctly, the guys I was with even went outside to look for me, but I was way gone by that point.

To this day, I have no idea where I went. I honestly thought I was heading back toward campus, but...apparently not. I crawled under split rail fences. I crawled over barbed-wire fences. I peed in someone's yard. I tried to climb into someone's truck. I am so lucky I didn't get shot.

Eventually, I found myself on a stretch of road with a gas station. It wasn't open, but there was a Coke machine and a pay phone. I tried to McGuyver my dollar bill into four quarters to call someone to come pick me up, but then I realized that I wouldn't even be able to tell anyone where the hell to come pick me up, even if I could make the phone call.

At about 4 a.m. a pickup truck stopped. The guy offered me a ride back to campus, which was about 25 minutes away, which gives you an indication of how far astray I'd wandered. When I told him where I needed to go, he squeeked, "Honey, you're headed the wrong way!" then proceeded to tell me some tale of Springer-esque woe involving his sister and her new boyfriend and a trailer in the next county over. Thank God for the kindness of strangers, because that man? Saved me. From arrest, if not humiliation.

The next day. We sat around and surveyed the damage. I'd ripped a hole in my jeans at the crotch, climbing over some barbed wire. I had a bruise the likes of which you've probably never seen. We took pictures of the bruise, it was so incredible. I had managed to scare myself straight.

Well, for a month or so, anyway.

I *heart* February

When I get in my car these days, it starts beeping at me before I leave my neighborhood. I used to think this was cute. When the thermostat falls below 37 degrees, the car beeps and the temperature flashes. I don't know why this is. I don't know why 37 degrees is the magic number. I do know that what I once thought was cute has now become annoying. Where I used to pat the steering wheel softly and say, "Yes, I know it is cold," in a little sing-song voice like I was speaking to a child? Now I just tell the car to STFU.

Because, well, it is February. I hate February. Loathe, actually, would be a better term. February is like a big black hole for me. The only good thing about it is that it is the month before March, which has March Madness and St. Patrick's Day. And February is short. So we've got that going for us.

February has my least favorite holiday. Of course, that's Valentine's Day. I used to wear black. Now, I can't even muster up that much energy. Instead, it is more like what Victorian women used to tell their daughters about sex. Just close your eyes and think of England. Indeed. I do that every time I go to the grocery store and walk past the greeting card section. Tea, scones, strawberries and cream. Then, instead of being depressed about a lack of prospects at Valentine's Day, I just get hungry.

I also hate cold. I spent most of my formative years in the south. Or, The South. I remember going swimming on Christmas day one year. I was probably seven. That, in my mind, is a normal thing. Flowers are supposed to be out in time for the Masters. You're supposed to be able to lay out and get some color in April. February is a bad week down there. Here, it is a black hole into which you fall and can never escape.

When I went out east to school, I discovered depths of cold and depression the likes of which I'd never known, all courtesy of February. My nostril hairs would freeze when I went outside. That's not right. Or natural. Nostril hair is there to be unobtrusive. You aren't supposed to see it or feel it or even know it is there. When nostril hair is frozen, it isn't comfortable. It is disturbing.

Not that it got too much better there when it warmed up. That just meant that all the frozen dog poo? The poo that no one picked up from in front of the house for five months because that's how long its been snowing? That poo starts to melt.

And people wonder why I don't have a dog.

So we're in February. And I feel like I shouldn't be complaining, because the winter has been so incredibly mild to this point. We've only really had cold temperatures for three weeks or so. And at least the sun is shining today.

But then my nature takes over and I remember that I was in Florida three weeks ago and why the hell did my parents move me back up here during high school for, anyway? What were they thinking?

If I can just get through to the bracket selection show, I think I'll be okay.