Manners

I just went into the building bathroom here. We've got one women's room for the entire floor, not just one for the few women in our office. We share with about six or seven other offices. Plus, we're on the main floor, so there is a lot of foot traffic. Lots of moms with children trying to get all business taken care of before leaving the building.

There's a woman in the handicapped stall. She hadn't just walked in there. No movement. No clicking of the latch. It is dead silent.

I go into my favored stall--the middle one--and proceed to take care of business. Still no motion. No movement. No sound from the other side of the partition. She has black sandles and plum-colored toenail polish.

I finish up. Wash my hands. She still hasn't made a noise.

I walk outside and seriously have to fight with myself to go back to my office when I really just wanted to stand outside the door and wait for her to come out. Look her in the eye. Smile, nod and walk away. Just to let her know that I knew she was in there. And I knew what she was doing. Or that I could imagine what she was doing.

And I have a killer imagination.

Just Like that Aerosmith Song

I once read a poem by Merritt Malloy (more on that book another time) in which she writes about what happens when she cries. About how she doesn't just cry about what she's sad about at that very moment, but that she also cries about things that have happened or might happen or could be happening right now. I completely empathize with this. When I cry, I dredge up all kinds of detritus, either to try to work it out of my system or to prolong the cathartic feeling of a really good crying jag. So, the things I cry about, in no particular order...

Losing that really cute Sportsac purse with all my Hello Kitty! stuff in it at the zoo in 4th grade in Atlanta. Just walking away and leaving it on a bench and going back later and finding it gone.

The fact that my washer is leaking out of the bottom and I'm going to have to pay money I don't have to get a new one.

The time I was really mean to my mom when we were on a class trip and I wanted to hang out with the older, cool kids and she walked around with my friends who were my age and I completely blew them off. I don't talk to the friends anymore but I still feel bad about doing that to my mother.

That my father will never be able to walk me down the aisle at my wedding.

That I might never have a wedding.

That my neighbor can probably hear me crying really loud and will know how pathetic I am.

That I really don't have anything to look forward to.

That my mother is disappointed that I haven't had a child and that I might never have one. Of course, it is telling that I'm not crying because I haven't had a child...just that I'm disappointing my mother by not having one.

That nobody loves me.

That nobody ever will.

That my cat won't even let me squeeze her really tight when I'm crying and that means she doesn't even love me.

When I was really mean to Stephanie Hattersol in elementary school and I hope she isn't emotionally scarred by anything I ever did and I hope she's happy now.

The Christmas tree that no one would buy that probably ended up in the wood chipper but that the tree guy wanted $50 bucks for because he knew I was upset and he thought he had my dad by the short hairs.

Deep Thoughts

A few random thoughts:

Just heard about Lindsay while driving in my car to lunch. Lindsay. Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay. I know you can't see me, but I'm shaking my head. What the hell do you think you are doing? This is what happens when you don't take rehab seriously. Do you think that ankle bracelet is just a piece of jewelry? And does the damn thing even work? And when are you going back to red? Because redheads? Don't get arrested as much.

* * *

On the highway between downtown and my home, one of the orange barrels lost its blinking light during a recent construction process. Now, when I drive home at night, I see one lone blinking little warning light by the side of the road. But it is still there, blinking its little heart out. And, if it is a solar powered one, it'll just keep on blinking. Until Armageddon. Or until the Indians get to the Series. It hurts my heart a little.

* * *

I don't know whether or not to buy Harry Potter. I'm going to read it. Eventually. But I can't now, because I've got a ton of library books out. And I don't know if I want to commit to actually finishing the series. I waited on the last one about a year, only because I couldn't bear to know I was closer to the end. But I'm already spoiled on some plot points, so I might as well spend some hard-earned birthday money and get it before I find out that Harry died by reading some website.

* * *

I still love Big Brother. I came late to the game, but I'm in it now. I'm not quite obsessed enough to watch the live feeds, but I read the comments on the live feeds over at TWoP. Which is just as bad, really. Although that way I get to skip the misery that is Dick and Daniele and concentrate on my love of Dustin. He's like all my gay non-boyfriends rolled into one.

* * *

When you're told that you're going to a wild game party and people show up with hot dogs and bags of Funions, it is time to beat a hasty retreat.

* * *

Just because ducks eat out of your hands does not mean you are a good person, like Snow White or something.

* * *

I'm going to start driving aimlessly around downtown Detroit in a reckless manner, hoping that I get into a car accident with Pudge Rodriguez and that, after the accident, he finds me so fetching that he asks for my number and we embark on an illicit affair, brought to light only when I'm featured on the jumbotron as he asks for my hand in marriage. Problem: I don't live in or near Detroit.

Pram

I just saw a woman pushing a chihuahua around in a baby carriage. It was a fat one, too. The dog, not the carriage. The dog needed to be walked, rather than pushed around in a stroller. He was standing up, too, while getting pushed around. I suppose that's to his credit. Rather than lolling back, taking advantage of the situation, he's up, checking things out, getting ready to make a break for it.

I was hoping he'd have a cast on his leg or something. But, no. Just a dog in a stroller.

Wannabe

I just actually ran a red light on the way to work. Full blown red. Not orange. Complete fire-engine red.

Why, you might ask?

Because I was busy wondering if Posh Beckham's friends call her "Posh" or "Victoria" or "Vicki" or some other derivative of the name when they hang out, getting their nails done together. And, out of the five of them, who'd have thought it would be Posh that ended up crazy-rick while Scary ended up having to have sex with Eddie Murphy. And whatever did happen to Sporty?

Big Brother is Watching

Well, I'm watching Big Brother 8, too, but that isn't what this is about.

A friend told me about a very frightening site the other day. Zabasearch. This is a site that compiles just about everything you've done, everywhere you've lived and every phone number you've had over the past 10 to 15 years and posts it on the internet for all you know and hate to look at. Your birthdate, your addresses, your phone numbers, etc. Plus, there's the option to buy more, if you really want to know about criminal records, neighbors, the neighbors' criminal records, etc.

I spend my life trying to live under the radar. If I could live off the grid in stilleto heels, I totally would. My phone number is unlisted, I don't answer my door if I don't know that someone is coming over, I let American Express continue to address me as "Mr." on all of my mail so I can then figure out exactly who they've sold my mailing information to when I get all those catalogs in the mail addressed, also, to "Mr."

This website strikes me with horror. And fascination. And, the two of those things combined on a Sunday afternoon make...magic.

I've spent the last hour on the site, looking for lost people. Those people you can't Google, because you don't really know what happened to them and you can't find their photos so you really don't know if the guy you went to Homecoming with in 10th grade really did just walk the Great Wall of China or if he was the one who was recently arrested for domestic violence. I mean, we can hope he's a world traveller but, honestly, there's a reason you guys didn't stick it out together.

So I found out that one of my best friends in high school? Has a dream job. No, not a NCAA Basketball Tournament Selection Committee Member. That's the all-time ultimate job, really. But almost as good. He works in product innovation for Anheuser-Busch.

Now, I can't confirm that this is him. There aren't any photos of him. But the birthdate on that horrible website matches--he's a Christmas baby so there's not much mistake there. And, honestly, it'd kind of be the perfect job for him. Frat boy turns beer-maker turns corporate flak. He's cute and good at sales and likes beer. What could be wrong there?

So I'm sitting here with this phone number on a Sunday afternoon. Debating. Should I call? I can't get to the website, since my employer thinks I'm going to be corrupted by looking at beer ads at work and has blocked the site. So I'm left with a phone number. Do I call and ask if this is the same guy who once stripped naked in my car in high school? Is it the same guy that I once had to drive to his house from a party so he could take a dump in his own toilet? Is it the same guy that I once had convinced for a year that, while he was drunk, he made a pass at me? Is it the same guy who told me I had "sleeponable boobs"?

But, honestly, is that guy ever going to be the same guy, 15 years later?

Baby, baby

My very good friends, a lovely, strange couple, just welcomed their first child into the world on Friday afternoon. And, despite the fear arising from the last ultra-sound, the boy does not look like Homer Simpson. So everything worked out okay there.

These aren't the first of my friends that have had a child. But pretty much all of my other friends who had babies? Lived in other states at the time. If it hadn't been me moving away from them, I would've started taking it personally long ago. And, no, I didn't move away at the first sign of morning sickness.

The only other time I've been around pregnant folk? About seven years ago, when three women in our very small office were all pregnant at the same time. That? Was how I learned everything I ever wanted and never wanted to know about childbirth. If I never get involved in a discussion about episiotomies again, it'll be too soon. And I know the men in that office didn't need to know about toughening up nipples for breast feeding.

I'm torn on the idea of childbirth, myself--all references to episiotomies aside. I would honestly like a little one to teach things to. To take to get ice cream on warm summer nights. To teach how to pump your legs on the swing to get higher and higher and higher. To show how to color the entire sky in a picture, not just the blue line at the top of the page.

On the other hand, there's the loss of time. The loss of identity. The idea that you'll be cutting up food for the next seven years. That you'll have nothing but chicken nuggets in your freezer forever. That there will be yet another person you have to argue over the remote with. That someone will forever be changing the radio station in your car without your permission.

And, frankly, I hate Barney.

I'm an only child and I don't share well. No, that's not a fair assessment. I can share, if I know that there are limits to how long and how far I have to share. But, at the end of the day, I'm selfish. I like things the way I like them and I don't know if I'm ready to give that up. Or if I'll ever be ready.

I keep thinking that, someday, lightning will strike. I'll wake up one day and say, "Okay, self, you're ready now. Ready for diapers and formula and spit up and all that fun stuff." But it hasn't happened yet. And I have friends who really, really want children. Who know it and have always known it and are running toward that goal with the single-minded determination of marathon runners in the final stretch.

Me? I'm just walking on the treadmill.

So, I sit and wonder, is something wrong with me? Should I be out there, sizing up men for their positive genetic factors, wondering if they'd make good on their child support payments? Should I be at Babies-R-Us, registering for the latest in Graco-designed baby carriers? Should I be picking out preschools and weighing the merits of a Montessori education?

Or do I sit on my selfish laurels, drive my tiny car and spend my money on stiletto heels because I like the way they make my legs look?

Shit, I dunno. I guess I'll start with teaching this new baby as many swear words as possible when his parents are out of the room.