Saturday, December 29, 2007

The New Guy

There's a new guy. We had our first date on December 1st. I haven't written about him yet because I haven't been sure how to put it into words. I suck at feelings talk; I either over-analyze it or completely misread things, and besides, the whole feelings thing makes me completely uncomfortable. I can write about the guys I've dated here because they've all been complete stories, with a beginning, middle, and end. This guy doesn't have an end, and I don't even think we've reached the middle yet.

The first date was very nice; we had dinner after drinks, but I pretty much already knew I was going to let him get to the dinner point based on our previous conversations. This is an intelligent, thoughtful guy who actually had a conversation with me about my thesis that lasted longer than 2 minutes. And he was funny. So when he came in to meet me, he came over and gave me a hello kiss, which was a first for me, but nice. Considering we are both professed shy first-daters, the conversation went relatively well, and after dinner he wanted to continue the date, so we decided to see a movie. We stopped at my place so I could walk Ginny and the movie we wanted to see wasn't starting for awhile, so we played Wii for a bit. That was fun.

At the movie, he never tried to hold my hand or anything, so I began to think maybe I was misreading things, and he was having a good time as a friend but wasn't attracted to me. I spent half the movie wondering whether I should just take his hand or wait for him to make a move. On the car ride home, I decided to at least let him know I was definitely interested physically, so I touched his hand and thanked him for a very nice night. I guess that was all he was waiting for, because he took my hand then, and when we got back to my place I could tell he wanted to come up but I wanted to wait, so we just made out in the car for a bit, exchanged numbers, and promised to see each other again.

That was Saturday. We saw each other 3 more times that week. On the third date, we slept together. The sex ... he knows all the right things to do at all the right times. I don't think I've ever been with someone I felt knew my body like him. Since then, needless to say, we've spent a lot of time in bed. One day he played hooky from work and spent the whole day at my place. We imbibed a bit, so I was not of my right mind. I hadn't spent more than 4 or 5 hours (awake) with a guy I was dating since the Big X. I started to freak a bit; it was the only time in the weeks I've spent with the New Guy that I had the remotest onset of panic attacks.

In my impaired state, I was worried that if he spent too much time in a row with me, he'd start to get annoyed with me, or I'd start to get bitchy or something, so I tried to overcompensate by being extra extra nice, and apologizing if I thought I sounded at all snappish, and trying to get him to say that he liked me a lot to compensate for my insecurity. The next day, he came over at lunchtime to tell me that he likes me but he thinks I'm falling for him too fast and he doesn't want to hurt me so I need to slow down. Because he has commitment issues. I, of course, knew that the day before (and actually the day before that for another reason, when I stupidly asked if he was my boyfriend) I had behaved like a bit of a jackass, and fully agreed with him.

If only he knew the reason I was perhaps coming on a bit too strong was because I was trying to cover up my panic and not scare him away or hurt his feelings, should he realize I was panicking about him. At any rate, I think I managed to assure him that I truly wasn't falling for him as fast as he feared. We continued to see each other for the next two weeks pretty much any night we weren't doing something else. He left on the 22nd for India to spend 3 weeks with his family, so we'll see where things are when he gets back.

I have more thoughts but my niece is back from her basketball game so I must entertain.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Yule Tidings 2007, Part II

I'm feeling much better now that my cough syrup with codeine has taken effect, but to give you an idea of how I was feeling earlier, here is my away message on AIM: You know those people who get so upset with their employer or some big corporation that they blame that office for ruining their lives? And they take a gun and go to that office and shoot lots of people? I totally get them right now...

My Christmas was quite nice; I was sick as a dog and at one point had 3 shirts and 2 blankets wrapped around me while I continued to shiver from the cold. One of the 2 turkeys I was cooking had raw dark meat when my dad carved it, thanks to Stacy basting it with the oven door wide open for fifteen minutes, making the oven completely lose its heat. I think she did that twice, which means the turkey lost at least an hour's cooking time. My Aunt Dianne later thanked me for a beautiful Christmas. "You know, except for that one turkey." My niece lied about still believing in Santa after she had already told my sister that she didn't anymore, just so she would get more presents. My Aunt Dianne took home most of the turkey leftovers so we had none left for ourselves, even though we paid for and prepared them.

In between all that and some other stuff, though, I got to spend time with my sisters and my dad; with my Aunt Mary and Uncle Tony; with all the members of my mom's family that I only see twice a year. I got to speak to my Uncle George in Florida. We played games and drank wine and talked about all the totally unimportant things that in the end make for really good conversation and good times with the people you love, the people who are so important to who you are. On any other day of the year, I would have wanted nothing more than to stay in bed all day long feeling as sick as I did, but on that day, in this year, I would have been no place else. And I know my mother was there with us, and I know she was nodding along as Mary, Dad, and I bitched away about Aunt Dianne.

Some other time I'll write about why it is that I want to go postal on my insurance company; for now, with codeine coursing through my blood, while I'm nice and cozy in my own bed with my puppy sleeping peacefully next to me, I'm too content to recall how just two hours ago I was so angry, achy, and frustrated I couldn't even put words to it. The insurance people are still alive to annoy me for another day. For now, I really do just wish peace on earth and good will to men. But that's just the drugs talking...

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Yule Tidings 2007

3:15 AM
Woke up to preheat turkey roaster. Wrapped Xmas stocking presents and stuffed stocking for niece; wrapped Santa gift and disguised writing on label. Ate 2 cookies, threw the rest out. Made tiny bit of cocoa in bottom of mug and left cookie crumb lip marks on rim of mug. Threw carrots for reindeer the hell out. Melted butter and basted Turkey #1. Set alarm for 5 to preheat oven for Turkey #2. Did I mention there's also a ham? 40 people expected in 7 hours.

It's now 4:17 but am not tired enough to go back to sleep despite the fact that was up til 12:45 and woke up 3 times after that before alarm went off. It's probably a combination of:
  1. Am sick with 3rd cold in a month, thanks to taking care of sick niece last week.
  2. Ginny is crying at the bedroom door to be let out so she can go eat a 22 pound raw turkey all by herself.
  3. Did I mention this is the first Christmas without my mom? And I ran out of happy pills 2 days ago? Not going to be a great day...

Sunday, December 09, 2007

The Whore Looker

Ah, the Urination Incident...

You know how people say to you after a particularly horrifying incident in your life, "One day you'll look back on this and laugh"? (They are always saying this as they laugh at you and you are most noticeably not laughing, I've noticed...) Well, as painful as it may be at the moment, I've come to realize that in fact, they are usually right. And looking back at this incident over a month later, I can say that this was exactly one of those times.

He was cute, the right age, and his job description said government contractor. I figured government contractor meant he was stable. Silly me. But I foreshadow... we had pretty good conversation IMing, which is my favorite means of getting to know someone pre-date. Turns out he was a trucker whose company sometimes contracted to the U.S. Post Office, but more often contracted to, say, a microbrewery. Still, I tried to keep an open mind.

A trucker. I might date a trucker. Truckers make decent money. They connect the commerce centers of America. A lot of them have wives and children to whom they are faithful and loving. He's a trucker so he mostly can't IM and so I tried to overcome my phone phobia for him. We talked quite a bit for 2 days straight, and had our first date at the end of that second day. We went to the Wood N Tap down the road from my place, and dinner was good. We had good conversation and there was a definite physical attraction. There was a lot of eye contact and flirting, touching each other's hands, etc.

Outside the restaurant we made out against the car. I was expecting Mike to come by later that night; he had been having trouble with his latest girlfriend and needed to talk, so I figured it would be fairly safe to let the Trucker come back to my place since there was less than an hour before Mike would arrive. Wrong...I can get into trouble in less than an hour. We totally did it. Three times. (Not that that meant a lot since the total length of the three times added up to about ten minutes.) Still, I don't mind all that much when a guy finishes kind of fast. I think it's because the Big X went on for hours every time, and while that sounds all well and good, it gets quite tiring.

He wanted to stay the night, but alas, I hate guys staying over. Goes along with the whole fear of commitment thingie; I feel smothered if they are in my bed after I'm done with them. Plus, Mike was coming over. So Mike came, and the Trucker was still there so they met and off went the Trucker.

The next two days contained a lot of us talking on the phone...until this one conversation. I'm going to have to write this all out in play-acting script, to do it justice...so we'll say T=Trucker; M=Me.

T: Do you like anal sex?

M (thinks to self: This is quite a question after just one day...)

T: So I have this friend....

M (thinks to self: This friend, huh?)

T: He likes to fuck girls in the ass and while he's at it, he likes to piss in their asses.

(I kid you not, Audience. I wish I did, but I do not kid you.)

M: (Stunned silence.)

T: I would never do that to you, of course.....

M: DAMN STRAIGHT!

T: That friend of mine and me...we went looking for a hooker once who would let us piss in their asses, but we couldn't find one.

M: I have to go....

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The end. Well, not quite...he had the nerve to ask me the next day why I stopped talking to him. Now, I mean, I've heard of water sports. I'm also not the most prudish girl you've ever met (in case you haven't figured that out just yet). But to tell me after just one date that you want to piss in my ass and you like to go look for whores? A bit much for me.

And so the legend of the Whore Looker was born, and all my friends got a giant laugh out of how crazy that Tina's dating life is, and that Tina decided to take a break from dating for a bit....

Friday, November 30, 2007

The Musician, Part III

So the third date with the Musician was on Friday (the day after the Republican date). We were going to dinner and a movie. He picked me up at my apartment and when I came down to meet him, he was wearing the hideous girl glasses again. I swallowed hard and thought, you can get over this. You can get over this! So off we went to dinner.

Over dinner it became apparent that the great conversation we had on our second date? A fluke. Thinking back, I realized that the only reason I thought we had great conversation was because I had carried the conversation myself. Having just spent a week in New Hampshire house-sitting and with no one to talk to, I had had a lot to say the other night. Now that it was up to both of us again, he was not holding things up at all. There were so many awkward pauses in which I could stare directly at his hideous girl glasses-covered face and realize that nope, still not attracted to him. Any niceness I felt in cuddling just had to do with the fact that I had A Guy's arm around me, and was not looking into his beady-eyed, sweaty little face.

Harsh, I know, but this is what I thought. I thought, I know he is very, very nice, but there is no way I will ever become attracted enough to him to sleep with him. The end. And then, to seal his fate, he opened his mouth and told me that he had brought a camera to take a picture of us as a couple so he could show the other guys on tour his girlfriend. Did he NOT remember the conversation in which I told him I am commitment phobic and we need to go slowly and not use terms like girlfriend just yet? At this point I began to hyperventilate, and of course, the waitress was ignoring the table, so despite the fact that we had been finished for well over 15 minutes, she had not come to bring the check. So I did the only thing I could think of: I excused myself to the ladies' room.

And I hid in there. Probably for ten minutes. I called my friend Mike (not my Mike; we're pretty much over. This would be Mike #2) and talked it through with him. I decided that I could use my panic time in the restroom as a good excuse, tell him I wasn't feeling well (hence the long absence), and couldn't make the movie so please bring me home. This was a time when I seriously considered walking home (the restaurant was only a few blocks away) and ditching a guy in the restaurant. I was that panicky. But I didn't. I sucked it up, went back to the table, where the check had finally arrived, and lied through my teeth.

He brought me home and thankfully did not bring up taking a picture of "us as a couple" again. I made my excuses and went into the house. Mike came over in a half hour or so and we got drunk and ranted about how much guys and girls suck.

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And next time...the Urination Incident.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

The Republican Interlude

Alas, I am not overseas with some stud right now, but here is the story of the Republican with whom I had my first date between the second and third dates with the Musician. Damn, I was hot that week...

I had been talking with the Republican for a week or so before my second Musician date, which was on a Tuesday. I had my Republican date on a Thursday. Alas, I knew it was a love that would not last because not only was he a Republican but he was a hard-core, far-right leaning Republican who is on the Republican Town Committee in our city. (Yes, in Connecticut, it's always called the Town Committee, even in the cities. Don't ask me why...) It's like the Jets and the Sharks; I knew one day we'd be hissing at each other with our respective gangs around us in the middle of Capitol Avenue.

Still, he was pretty funny and a lot older than me, something that was appealing to me at the moment after Crazy Andy's antics. I figured maybe older guys wouldn't jump off the roof because their bones are more brittle, you see, and they'd be more afraid of breaking something. He called me Carville and he was Matalin, and we had great fun prodding each other like that. So we met for dinner and had a great time. Turns out we had a lot in common, grew up in adjacent towns, etc., so there was good conversation. He walked me to my car and kissed me goodnight, and there was chemistry.

We talked online a few more times after that until the fateful night. I knew it would happen one day. It was just after Bush vetoed SChip (health care subsidies for kids) and we got into it. He insisted that everyone should just pay the doctors themselves and then prices would naturally go down by market demands, and I insisted that many Americans (particularly those who are not affluent) wouldn't be able to afford that and that as it is, they can't even afford the insurance without employer subsidies. He basically figured that if he and his parents did it, everyone else can, which gets to the crux of my problem with most Republicans, and I kept warning him that if he wanted a second date, he should just back off this talk right now and agree to disagree, but he wouldn't listen.

The crux of it is that many Republicans, including this one, feel that every man should be for himself no matter what, and that the only reason some people can't make it on their own right now is because they don't have to. Even considering all that is true (which I don't), should the children of people who don't have the money for health care suffer because of the parents they were born to? I say no, he said yes.

I never talked to him again.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

The Musician, Part II

The Musician...So when last we left off, I had decided--despite the lack of physical attraction--to give the Musician one more chance. Three weeks passed, with us talking online most days, and the talking online was going well, so I was optimistic for the second date. He was coming to my place for pizza and a movie.

He showed up with 2 bottles of wine and a bouquet. He was not wearing his hideous girl glasses, and he had cut his beard. Things were looking up. I thought back and recalled him asking me at one point if he ever cut it, how much he should cut off. Also, I must mention that over dessert on our first date, he started talking about his (six-inch long) goatee, which he said he had plans to grow even longer, so he would look like ZZ Top. Then he made a joke about how he could take it and comb it over his bald head. I believe the look of pure horror that came over my face at that moment was something I did not conceal well. So I must admit that I felt responsible (and not at all upset) when I saw his newly trimmed beard.

We had pizza and wine for dinner. It was a good time. We had fun conversation and I wasn't repulsed, and then we sat on the couch to watch a movie. That was good. Cuddling was good. We kissed a few times at the end of the night--chaste, lips-closed kisses--and made plans to see each other two days later for dinner and a movie out, since he was leaving for a few weeks on tour after that.

Stay tuned for the third date. In the meantime, let's just say all did not go so well as the second date. And for those of you interested in how urination ties into my dating life, that was two guys after the musician, but I promise to have you all caught up by Thanksgiving.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

I Leave my Mark on the Blue Ridge Parkway

I've spent the last week on a road trip to Florida to visit my uncle and leave some of my mom's ashes with him. I drove by myself and met my sisters at the airport down there, because I love me my road trippin.

Today I drove 120 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway on my way through Virginia. Partway through the drive, I really, really needed to use the bathroom but there was none for miles around. Out of desperation, I scoped out the scenic overlooks until I found one that was hidden from the main road by trees. Then I pulled into the far end so that my car would protect me from the view of anyone who happened to pull in after me.

Still, I was nervous about the trees. The leaves were fallen off many of them, and though I couldn't see the road, perhaps someone on the road could still see me. There were mad cops patrolling the Parkway and most of them were sitting in scenic overlooks. The last thing I needed was to be arrested for public urinating and defacing a national park. So I decided to open my car door so that I was protected on two sides by the car, and on the other two sides--a mountain cliff.

Trouble was, Ginny the puppy was in the car, and with the door open, she could jump out and run away, so I put her on her leash and held the leash with one hand while I dropped trow with the other and held my jeans and panties out of the line of fire. As soon as I started to pee, Ginny came running over and sniffed at my steaming, yellow business. It was perhaps the most awkward moment I've had in my life. Okay, that's an exaggeration. Definitely the most awkward moment in a national park.

Anyway, I shook my bare ass dry, yanked up my jeans, and we got in the car and drove away from the scene of the crime as casually as possible. I do believe that the experience of seeing her mommy urinate outdoors had a positive effect on her, though, as she has not had any accidents since.

And that is the mark I left on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

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P.S. And that is not the most interesting story involving urination that has happened to me in the last month either. Stay tuned for the wrap-up on my dating life of late.

Monday, October 15, 2007

A Decision Made

The other day, I had begun to brown some ground turkey in preparation for my lunch of (fake) beef stroganoff, when I heard a cat meowing. My downstairs neighbors' cat sometimes comes up the back common stairs to visit, so I opened the door to see if she was out there, when out ran Andy the Giant CatDog. I don't allow my cats outside, so I ran downstairs and luckily the outside door had not been left open (despite the fact that to my chagrin, it so often is) so he was trapped. I picked him up and went back upstairs.

To my locked apartment door. I did not have the key. I did not have my cell phone. I was not wearing shoes, makeup, or a bra. My hair wasn't brushed. I shoved Andy out onto the confined 2nd floor porch and walked around to the front of the house and rang the neighbors' doorbells. No one was home. Of course. I walked next door. No one there. Beyond that, I don't much know many of my neighbors, so I considered: To ring the doorbell of the gay couple kitty-corner to me? One of them is a realtor, but I think the other guy is home most of the day. The new people across the street, or the Jehova's Witnesses? I didn't want my first impression on the new people to be my current state of appearance, so I went with the Witnesses, despite the fact that I may have to engage in a theological discussion.

They weren't home. No one was. It was the middle of the day and I am a lazy bum without a job who better find one before January, because then I might have to move back with my dad. Anywho...I noticed a guy on a cell phone walking down the street, and weighed burning down my home (remember the cooking turkey? on the gas stove?), with making a fool of my nasty self to a stranger. I opted to be a fool.

Called my sister, waited out front for 20 minutes more until my neighbor came home before my sister got there and got let in, called her back, told her to go home, saved 1/2 the turkey (so much for leftovers), and vowed to hide a key somewhere outside, and also begin grooming myself again.

I mean really...without even a bra? If it weren't me, I'd be disgusted. Wait, I am anyway.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Mildew

When I was little, before we had a dishwasher, my mom would make my brother and I do the dishes. He would usually dry. She would yell at him for not drying the dishes completely, saying that mildew would form on them. To this day, in my own apartment, I won't put a dish away until I'm sure every drop of water is off it, and even if there is just a moist streak left on a plate, and the dish towel is too wet to do its job anymore, I will leave that plate in the drying rack for fear of opening my cabinets the next day and finding creeping mildew on all my dishes.

I realized while watching Gossip Girl today (no connection) that in all probability, my brother was carelessly swiping at each dish only once and putting dripping wet dishes away. That's the kind of kid he was. I'm pretty sure now that if I put a plate into the stack in the cabinet with one streak--or even two streaks--of moistness, that it will dry on its own and not produce mildew.

Pretty sure...but I'm also pretty sure I'll keep obsessing about whether my dishes are dry anyway. Just in case.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Bottling again

I think I'm secretly more depressed about my mom's death than I am consciously admitting. I base this on the following facts:
  • I am now living in squalor, allowing dishes to pile up and dirty laundry to spread throughout my apartment to the point where I fear I could be featured on one of my favorite BBC shows, How Clean is Your House?
  • My personal hygiene has become alarmingly poor. I no longer shower every day, or sometimes even every other day. I sometimes go a day or more without brushing my teeth, washing my face, changing my panties, or putting on deodorant. I know. I am gross. I had been blocking out how gross I had become, but be proud! Since realizing this, I have now showered two days in a row!
  • I have been coming up with excuses not to spend time with friends, preferring to stay locked in my apartment all day in a t-shirt and panties (sans bra), watching hours of mindless television, sitting in front of the fan to cool off, during this incredibly hot Fall.
  • I haven't even had the ambition to try to beat the new Zelda on my Wii, one of my few goals for this past Summer.
  • I have managed, despite having absolutely nothing important to do, to fall another month and a half behind on my thesis work. I have also been letting bills go unpaid and managed to forget to file for unemployment for a month. But I did get it reinstated on Friday. I'm trying to get better.
It's the bottling again, I guess.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

The Musician, Part I

I hear--ha ha, quite the pun, as I can't hear right now, due to my ear infection--I hear that if your eardrum ruptures, while it is briefly quite painful, it will shortly thereafter relieve the pressure in your ear from an ear infection and begin to heal. So I am, as an American with no current health insurance, left with the question: To puncture, or not to puncture? (As I hold a sewing needle between thumb and forefinger...) But alas, besides that, I have had much more fun with boys of late...sarcasm overwhelms...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Musician is a man I met about a week after I ended things with Crazy Andy. I met him online. (In case I didn't earlier mention it, I have been experimenting with online dating for the last several months.) He was older than me, which was a first since the Big X (well, okay, I lie--a first since the man I had a one-night-stand with in Seattle a few months after the Big X), a musician (clearly), and someone who seemed to share a lot of the same interests and values as me.

He had a great sense of humor, which was a big plus with me. He also readily admitted to currently talking with another girl as well as me, which was a double plus with me: 1. He was honest about things; 2. He was talking with another girl, which to me meant, NOT serious! NOT serious! And so, we talked for a few weeks and then we went on a first date.

Here are the things I first noticed: 1. He had a much longer beard than the picture indicated--like, 6 inches longer; 2. He had quite ugly glasses, which again, he wasn't wearing in the picture; 3. He is very, very shy when meeting in person.

Now, I am shier on a date than I might be in the rest of my life, but he was by far shier than me. He told me that beforehand, so I was being lenient about that much, but I was not at all prepared for a 6 inch goatee. Additionally, I feel the need to point out that the waitress complimented him on his glasses.

His glasses were round with thick, tortoise-shell rims, which are, admittedly, cool. On a tiny, little girl. Okay, not even little girl, but these were way too tiny for the size of his head. The combined effect of his beard, glasses, and shy personality were enough to throw me off. He kissed me on the lips at the end of the night-- closed lips, mind you--but his stomach got in the way. Now, this is not to say that my tummy is little. It is not. But his tummy was a buddha-shaped tummy, where mine is sort of curvy. The end result was a man whose lack of physical attraction and in-person personality could not overcome the online chemical attraction. I did what I do with all my life-altering decisions--presented it to my friends.

I did, admittedly, agree to a second date. I blame this on the fact that I am unable to deal with first dates longer than 1 hour, which is why I usually only agree to a drink. However, Richard got me to agree to dinner AND dessert, rather than a drink, because our online chemistry was so great. We were supposed to go out again the following week. While discussing with my friends, I did have one or two more conversations with him, in which he told me that after our one, single date, he had decided to not talk to the other girl anymore and pull his profile from the dating website, and also had told a friend that he "may soon have a girlfriend." All this did not play well against my commitment fears, particularly after Crazy Andy. I (read: My friends) decided that I would just cancel the second date and leave it at that. I didn't owe any big explanations, as we had only been out once. Not all agreed about this, but the majority did. Rose wanted me to give him another chance, since he was a nice guy.

So I canceled the date, stating that I needed the time to prepare for my mother's memorial that weekend (which was, incidentally, true), and I did not talk to him anymore. After four days, I received an email from him asking what he had done wrong, why I wasn't talking to him, and telling me all sorts of nice stuff about how much he liked me, and filled with compliments. It was so nice I decided to give him one more shot. I wrote back and told him all the things he had said that had scared me off, and told him that I would like to go out with him again, so long as he could take things slow on the relationship front. I was busy with Whitney's wedding and then house-sitting for her while she was on her honeymoon, so we had to wait basically 3 weeks before our next date...

Friday, September 28, 2007

The Train to Crazy Town, Part II

Okay my friends, I know it's been awhile, and here's what I learned in that time: Don't tell people you know in real life about your blog because then you can't write about them!! But more on that later. Here's the conclusion of Crazy Andy:

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So he read the blog then came in and said he didn't care. We went out to porch (which is on the 2nd floor, mind you) and started talking some more. Then he climbed over the railing onto the roof and announced that he was going to jump off the roof to prove his love to me, to which I responded that that would prove that he is crazy, not that he loves me. He showed me a long scar that ran the length of his forearm, and informed me that he had nearly killed himself cutting that scar to prove his love to his last girlfriend. I begged him to climb back and quit it, but he refused. I ran inside, telling him I wouldn't put up with this, and after a minute or so, I got a call from him that he was now on the ground and could I come help him up?

I did. We both had been drinking so I couldn't get him back to his apartment. I guess I could have called a cab, but I wasn't thinking straight, so I let him in and cleaned up a cut he had. But I was pissed. I wanted him to sleep it off, and I did not want to sleep with him, but he wouldn't leave me alone so I said I would sleep in the same bed, but JUST sleep. When we were laying there, he said he thought once he jumped, I would be so impressed that I would kiss him all over his body and everything would be okay. He tried to touch me. I got up and left the room. He promised not to touch me again so I laid down until he went to sleep then went and slept on the couch.

I didn't talk to him the next day. It was Thursday and I spent it at my mom's, talking to 2 different visiting nurses and the social worker. Then Kristy and I had to meet with the doctor to make a decision about how to handle the DNR decision. That night, my mom had her episode, and early the next morning, she died.

I told Andy, and told him I couldn't handle him right now. I needed to focus on getting through things with my mom right now. Saturday and Sunday he called me a few times. At one point, I called him and had a drunken conversation about how jumping off the roof was bad and my mom dying was really an upsetting thing and I needed time alone. I was worried, though, knowing about his past relationship, that he would do something (even more) crazy when I actually broke up with him. So I waited until I could go visit Whitney and Jake for awhile so I could be away and he couldn't find me.

I drove up Monday night. He called me at 9:30 PM, just after I arrived there. I didn't answer. I didn't want to talk to him again. He texted me a little while later. Then as soon as I turned on my computer, before I had a chance to block his screen name, he IMed me several times in a row. I signed off, and he called me from a blocked number around 11:30 PM, like I was stupid enough to answer a blocked number.

Next morning, I was working on a goodbye email that went something like, "I am having a hard time dealing with my mom's death, and I can't deal with any relationships right now, and especially one with a guy who not only hurts himself but me in the process, even when I beg him not to." He called me from someone else's phone number while I was working on this (knowing I wouldn't pick up on his number), and I did pick up, thinking it might be the funeral parlor telling me to pick up my mom's ashes. But it was him, being mad because I wouldn't talk to him, so I said I just couldn't right now, and hung up. Then I emailed him.

At which point he emailed me back, accusing me of cheating on him (because in the midst of grieving for my mother, I had been out picking up other men, clearly) and demanded his stuff back. So I told him I left it all in a bag on the porch and he could pick it up after work. So he wrote back and asked when he could pick it up, so I wrote back and AGAIN told him after work. When he got out of work, he called me and I did not pick up. Then he texted me accusing me of stealing his "Fuckin cd's" so I wrote back and responded that I had wrapped them inside his towel so as to protect them from getting scratched, to which he wrote back well he had his stuff back, if only he could have his heart back.

That was in the middle of July. Since then, he has called me from blocked numbers about once a week, usually in the middle of the night. He wrote to me once via email to make sure I didn't give him an STD, then to tell me he had gotten his license back (he had lost it for awhile) so would I take him back now? (I did my civic duty and responded to the first email that yes, I was clean, and ignored the second.) The latest thing was a message maybe a week ago left on my voicemail that went something like, "Tina, you fuckin bitch, get the fuck out my life. Fuckin bitch, leave the the fuck alone." You know, since I hadn't initiated contact with him in over 2 months.

So that is the story of Crazy Andy and why I don't give my phone number out to men anymore until I get to know them. I'm off to get my nails done for my date tonight with a new guy, but I must also write about Richard the Musician, Tracy the Republican, Scott the Mamma's Boy, and Richard the Horror Film Geek. For another night...

Monday, August 13, 2007

Keeping It Together, or Losing It

The one thing my family has always been good at was hiding our true emotions. I joke about it. "We're WASPs," I say. "We know how to keep it together."

It's true that my dad and Stacy are very sensitive. They both cried a lot in the 2 1/2 years that my mom was sick. Kristy and I, and especially Mom, we all kept it together as much as we could. When on that fateful Wednesday a month ago they told us Mom was really dying this time, my first reaction--my very first thought--was to get to the doctor and ask for some tranquilizers so I could keep it together, so I could get through this.

I don't judge. And I hope no one judges me. Those were tough times. Mom was dying but not dead. There was grief to have but someone had to hang on. Someone had to write her will when she asked for it. Someone had to write a will for Dad when she asked because she knew he never would do it himself. Someone had to sit down with Dad and tell him that in this will that I had written for him, he was stating that his son (his adopted son, but still his son) was to get nothing.

They had agreed to this, my parents, a couple of years ago, but my dad had never done it. Not because he didn't agree. God, if I am to be honest, he was probably relieved that Mom had finally decided this so he wouldn't have to. And it is the right decision. There are people who will only hurt themselves with whatever you give them. There are people who will only hurt themselves and probably those around them. There are people you protect from themselves by limiting their means.

But that is for some other day...

Someone had to decide that Mom was already too mentally incapacitated to decide if she wanted to sign the Do Not Resuscitate order. Someone had to talk to the doctor and hear the hard facts about brain damage due to lack of blood flow to the brain, about the slim to no chance of reversal of this brain damage. Someone had to read into the words of her living will and search for meaning to apply to this situation. What would she have wanted?

She didn't want to be kept alive if she had diminished mental capacity. That day, that Thursday a week after she was told she was going to die, the nurses were there. One visited from each of the two different hospices we had to use because the insurance company would cover only one thing for this hospice but only this other thing for that one. The social worker visited. Mom got frustrated and walked into her bedroom, where I had been sitting. Then when she saw me she turned around and walked into the dining room. (With my help.) She sat in a chair and was so confused. She said, "I want to be alone. I need to think." I think that is the last lucid thing she ever said. I think that was the last chance she had to realize that her brain was slipping away from her. And she was scared. And confused. She didn't know what to do or say, just that she was conscious of losing control, and that thought seemed to take all her energy.

I thought of that as I told Kristy I thought the right thing to do was sign the DNR. We also had to realize that because of Mom's brain damage, we could no longer explain our choice to her. And that because she was a nurse, a nurse who often cared for the sick and dying, she knew what that orange bracelet would mean if she saw it. The doctor suggested we put it on her ankle so she wouldn't see it. The doctor agreed with our assessment that in her current state she may not understand anymore that this is what she used to want, but that we should still do what we thought she would have wanted when she was herself.

And it wasn't just me. Equal in this task of keeping it together was Kristy. She held, after all, the official medical power of attorney. But we both knew, without ever having to say it, that all the tough decisions were to be made by the two of us, and then explained afterward to the others. We were going to explain it to Dad and Stacy that night, get their agreement before we made it official. We called Stacy and told her she needed to come back up that night because we needed to talk to her. (It was to be her first night home, her first night off, and I had had a conversation with her that it was ok to go, that Mom would not die if she left.)

Kristy went out that night with her boyfriend, and I was left with Mom alone for a bit before Dad got there. She was sleeping peacefully in the living room. Dad got home and we had some pizza. Suddenly Mom woke up. She was upset, panicking, crying. And she couldn't talk. Her muscles were all clenching up. The doctor said I would know when she was in pain, would know when to give her some morphine. I did. And I did. But she didn't want it. She clenched her teeth shut, but she was missing one tooth so I was able to squirt the morphine in there. It didn't seem to help. She wanted to get up, I thought, though I didn't know because I couldn't understand her moans. She couldn't talk but she could moan, such horrible moans.

She hadn't urinated in over 12 hours, so I thought maybe that was it. I helped her up, walked her into the bathroom with my dad's help. I had my arms around her waist and she had hers on my shoulders, resting there, not holding on, in a macabre dance. We got there and I tried to sit her on the toilet (which she always called the commode), but she would not sit. She began to panic more. I thought it was perhaps because of my dad's presence. She's always been uncomfortable to be in such a vulnerable position in front of a man, even her own husband. But I couldn't do it myself, so there was nothing for it but to bring her somewhere else, wait for Kristy to come home to help. I didn't tell this all to my dad, of course. It would have broken his heart just a little bit more to know this truth about his wife.

We brought her into the bedroom, decided she might be comfortable laying down. Dad went over to get the bed ready, and Mom swayed to the right. I nearly lost her, she nearly crashed into the desk. I was not being a good dance partner. Dad came running and we righted her, got her to the bed together. She was still just as uncomfortable, clawing at her clothing, her legs and arms curling up into a half fetal position as she made incomprehensible syllables with her mouth, and leaked tears from her wide eyes. I decided she needed more morphine. She didn't want to let me go; she started to panic worse as I moved away from the bed. She seemed to understand the words I said, though, as I promised to be back in just one second, and that Dad was staying right there with her. She clung to his hand as I ran down the hall, grabbed the medicine and my phone.

I called Kristy, told her to come home right away. I tried to give Mom the medicine, but as I was drawing up the dose and explaining to her as I did, she screamed the last audible word she would ever say: "NO!"

I didn't. I put the medicine down and went back to her and told her that it was okay, I wouldn't give her the medicine if she didn't want me to. I talked about how Kristy would be home really soon, and Stacy would be too. Dad and I sat there as she kicked and waved her arms about, trying to make us understand her senseless sounds. I called Stacy. I told her she needed to come right now, not later on tonight.

I think there was an hour or so that this went on for before Kristy got there, but it seemed that there was no time anymore, that we were just stuck in a vacuum, just the three of us. It was the most horrible thing I have ever gone through. When Kristy got there, she called hospice as I sat with Mom. They said to give her more morphine and some Adivan to make her comfortable. We dissolved the Adivan in a tiny bit of grape juice and added the liquid morphine to disguise the taste. I had explained to Kristy my theory on why Mom was so opposed to taking the morphine.

When she was still relatively mentally present but knew she was losing it, we talked once or twice with the nurse about the fact that it could be the morphine that was making her confused. This was before we knew her pulse was only 30 beats per minute, before the doctor said no, it was the brain damage. Of course by the time we had talked to the doctor, it was too late to explain that it wasn't the morphine. So we lied to my mom. We talked to her soothingly, explaining that we were giving her Adivan dissolved into liquid, that the nurse had said that it would help calm her. She complacently parted her lips and let us feed her the drug she had used her last word to protest against.

Stacy arrived. Mom seemed to want to get up. She wanted to go to the living room, we thought, the best we could understand. We moved her back to my dad's recliner, doing the strange dance back down the hallway. The nurse called back and when she heard that Mom was no better, told us to give her more Adivan, more morphine. Said that Mom was actively dying now. But she didn't come. Kristy and I, we just wanted the nurse to come. No one had prepared us for this.

After the second dose (third of morphine), Mom calmed down a bit. We decided that she should sleep in her bed so we got her up and tried to walk her down the hall once more. We only got her as far as the kitchen and she couldn't put one foot in front of the other anymore. She refused to have Kristy's boyfriend, Nick, pick her up (as he had done when we brought her home from the hospital the day before), and everyone stood around Mom unsure of what to do now. Finally, I silently signalled Nick to come up behind Mom where she couldn't see him. Then we slowly leaned her back into his arms and she acquiesced. Nick carried Mom into the bedroom and laid her down.

At some point during all this, I explained to Dad and Stacy about the decision Kristy and I had reached about the DNR, and Kristy signed the papers. I took the orange bracelet and slipped it onto her ankle as she thrashed about on the bed. Then I pulled socks over it so she wouldn't see it, telling her that her feet needed warming.

Things settled down eventually, Mom went to sleep, and we all retreated to our separate corners. Dad laid down in his (formerly their) bedroom and cried. Kristy and Nick went downstairs. Stacy insisted on being the one to stay with Mom all night. Kristy told her to call downstairs if anything happened. I made a bed on the couch and looked up what "actively dying" meant. It is the process that the terminally ill go through as their bodies begin to shut down. It usually lasts up to 48 hours. I fell asleep eventually.

Kristy woke me early in the morning. Stacy had called her because Mom was spitting liquid out of her mouth and she didn't know what to do. I went in and assessed the situation. I remembered during her deep sleep that evening that she had been drooling, and realized that she had lost the ability to swallow while unconscious. We rolled her onto her side and I cleaned up the spittle that was formed on her lips. We applied some lip balm. Stacy said she still wanted to be the one with her. I told Stacy to lay behind her to keep her propped up on her side, because she kept falling onto her back. On her side, the spittle would just drool out the side of her mouth. Once we could all see that Mom was breathing normally again, I told Stacy to call me if she needed anything else. We all went back to sleep.

Dad woke me when he left for work. He said he didn't know whether to go into work that day, but I said that based on what I had read the night before, it could be a couple of days before she passed, so he went. I went back to sleep. Then Stacy called. I don't remember exactly what she said. In fact, I don't know if I even answered, or just ran down the hall. But there I was in the room, looking at Stacy standing at the head of mom's bed, her mouth open, eyes questioning. Looking at Mom's chest and seeing that it no longer rose and fell. I went over and touched her, confirmed to Stacy, "She's gone."

I told Stacy to go down and get Kristy. I called my dad and told him the same two words I had told Stacy. I leaned over in that room, alone with my mother's body, and kissed her on the forehead to say goodbye. That was my own personal last goodbye to my mother. I knew she was no longer in the body, that even though only a minute or two had passed since she breathed out her last breath, she was no longer there. Maybe she was still in the room, maybe she saw me kiss her forehead, but I knew the gesture was really for me. And then that was it. I had more to do with her body in the coming hours as I ushered people in and out to see her, but I did not understand why they did want to see her. I knew that wasn't her anymore.

Someone called the hospice nurse and she came out. I called my Aunt Mary at work and she came right away. We made other phone calls. There was confusion as we realized we couldn't remember the name of the funeral home where we had made arrangements years before when Mom was first diagnosed. There are moments in the following days that are crystal clear to me, but most of that time was like a dream. And I think I've been in that dream ever since.

Days after my mother died, I had to deal with the fact that I was dating a crazy person. I went to New Hampshire for a week and stayed with Whitney and Jake. On the day I came back, there was my cousin's wedding, where among the people who came up to us with their condolences were the Big X's parents and his best friend. But not him. He couldn't find it in himself to face me or my family, to anger his new girlfriend by talking to us.

There was another week after that. I don't remember a lot of it. I was home and didn't go out, hid from the world. Linda and Scott moved in. On Thursday I went to Greenwich about my tooth. Jake's dad is a dentist and he would see me without charging me until the insurance company reimbursed me. It needed to be pulled so I drove to Rye, New York, to see another dentist who is a friend of Jake's. He pulled my tooth and gave me a prescription for vicodin and sent me home without charging me.

I made Kristy's birthday cake, an angel food cake with Betty Crocker fluffy white frosting and coconut flakes, just like Mom always made for birthdays. After we went out for dinner, we had the cake and Kristy opened her presents. Kristy and Stacy decided that it was time to clean the basement out. We had promised that we would do that after Mom died. They decided we needed to do it that week--last week--and we were going to spend all day and night all week doing it.

I went home that night and moved my bed, did some cleaning in my bedroom. When I moved the mattress, I put my back out. I called Kristy the next day and told her I didn't want to come, that I wanted to rest my back but that if they felt that they really needed me, I could come. They called and told me to come. I went, angry, and sort of lost it with them. I came home and cried a lot. I was upset about my back, about them not understanding, about not having time to work on my thesis, which I hadn't done a thing with since my mom was checked into the hospital over a month ago. I was getting calls from bill collectors. At some point over the last month, I had let my life fall apart, and it all came out there in front of my sisters, and then later in front of my friend Rachel.

I had been on tranquilizers when my mother died, and then there was a week or so when I was on nothing, then when my tooth was pulled, I was on vicodin, then when my back went out, I had to take my muscle relaxer. My niece came over for a couple of days from Tuesday night through Thursday. I was on nothing again then, but then on Thursday after lunch, as we were about to go back to my sister and dad's house, I fell down 16 stairs. I thought I broke my arm. I couldn't move right away, and Vicky was panicked.

I called Kristy and my neighbor came by after awhile, helped me up. Kristy brought me to the hospital when she got here, and after a few hours, we were told that I was lucky, hadn't broken my arm, just sprained it, but had broken a toe. I left the hospital with a big blue boot and a matching shoulder sling. For a few days I took vicodin for the pain.

Now it is Monday after that Thursday.

I took the sling off yesterday. I have since Saturday been only taking the vicodin at night so I could stop the pain enough to sleep. I was going to go over and help Kristy with the basement for awhile tonight. I was walking into the dining room with my Discover card bill, getting ready to write out the check, when all I wanted was to sit down with family and have a nice dinner. So I called Kristy and she and Nick are coming for dinner.

I hung up the phone and cried. I cried those big, racking sobs that sound nearly like laughter. I cried until I couldn't breathe. I cried until snot was pouring from my nose. And then I cried some more. Rose called me and Jake IMed me during this time. I told them I couldn't talk now, was having a crying jag. And I cried some more.

I didn't keep it together. It felt terrible.

Friday, August 10, 2007

The Train to Crazy Town, Part I

His name was Andy. Our first date was the night my mom was admitted to the ER. It was also two nights after I had returned from the UK. He was one of the sweetest men I had ever met. When I got the call about my mom and told him that I was going to need to leave a bit early, he could see how upset I was. He insisted on coming with me for the drive, and waited outside while I went in to see my mom.

When we got back, I was still very shaken. I think I knew we were nearing the end with her. He offered to stay at my apartment (on the couch) in case I got upset during the night. I took him up on the offer. It was so nice to have someone else to depend on for once.

Over the next week and a half, he came over nearly every night. We spent most of the time sitting on my front porch, talking late into the night. Some nights we drank. Some nights I drank too much. He stayed over each night--not on the couch. He was half Irish, half Indian, which made for an interesting (and sexy) accent. He talked about marriage and children, about love, about being there for me no matter what.

I am normally very guarded, and this was all exactly what scared me off from P., but at that exact moment in my life, as I was informed that my mother would soon be dying, as I had to break this news to more people than I can count (and be the one to comfort them in the process), as her health declined severely and rapidly, as my sisters and I were working out 24-hour shifts between us and being forced to make decisions about Do Not Resuscitate orders and deciding about the competence (or lack thereof) of my mom to make decisions for herself anymore, as all this and more was going on, it was what I found I needed.

When we first heard the news of Mom's cancer, the one thing that helped me through each day was the knowledge that the Big X (who of course wasn't the Big X yet) was there to support me, and always would be, through it all. And he wasn't. And I did it all for 2 1/2 years on my own. Now, at the very end, it was nice to think that maybe now, maybe this time, I wouldn't be doing it all on my own.

On Wednesday night of the second week, he was talking of all those things. He asked me to marry him. I said, "Not now, but maybe someday." I told him that things were going much faster than they should be, that I appreciated him so much and really, really liked him.

But.

But there is no way that in the few weeks we have known each other, he can know enough about me to say that he definitely wants to be with me forever. I have flaws. Many. He said he didn't care, that he knew enough about me to know that nothing would change his mind. I tested that. I gave him my blog to read. On the front page were entries about Ginny and about Goober's death. Also there was the story of my hook-up with Jake's brother.

I waited inside while he read all that and more on the porch.

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And now my arm is tired from typing due to the fact that I fell down 16 stairs today, breaking my toe, spraining my arm, and bruising a bunch of other body parts. To be continued tomorrow...

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

HP, Butterflies, and Mourning

The Big X was a drug dealer before I met him--nothing hardcore, just marijuana, but the fact is he used to be a drug dealer. He was also Italian and would occasionally start talking about his friend from high school whose family was in the mob, and how he could have gotten involved with them if he had wanted to.

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Last night and this morning, I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It will forever be the book I read after my mom died. It's not such a bad book to have holding that place; it touches on a lot of things I have been sort of subconsciously thinking about. No, silly, not witches and wizards, but life and death and good and evil, and some other really deep things. You know, for a children's series, it really is quite intense.

My mom died on Friday, the 20th of July. On that Saturday night, my dad and I were sitting in the dining room of my parents’ home. There was a bang, and then he said, “Oops, there’s mosquito blood on your copy of Harry Potter now.”

“So you’ll be buying me a new one,” I said, only half joking. But last night I was contemplating that mosquito blood. The truth is that it is human blood that the mosquito had taken. It was maybe thirty-six hours after my mother had died. That means that there is a chance—slim, I grant you—that the blood on my book is the blood of my mom. Macabre, I admit, but I still find comfort in this thought. I won’t get a new book.

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This is a taste of the randomness that my thoughts have been following lately. I think about the most bizarre things, flashes from my past, twisted ways of looking at the present.

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This week has been a humid one, with the weather forecasters predicting scattered thunderstorms most of the week. I love to sit on my porch and watch the flashes of lightning, feel the splashes of rain, hear the claps of thunder. So I waited all day yesterday for the storms to come. I watched the radar. It was here, all around me, but it never came.

Finally, around 2 AM, I went to bed. I was watching a few minutes of television before I would doze off, when out of my window I saw a flash of lightning. Finally, the storm was here. So I took my Harry Potter, poured myself a half a glass of wine, and brought Ginny out onto the porch.

We sat there watching the storm for a while and I let the cats out. Since I am on the second floor, they can wander around the porch and the roof of the first floor without escaping. I love the rain, but I especially love a good summer thunderstorm. Just before one occurs, the air is so humid it’s practically like going swimming to walk outside. The sky is so ominously gunmetal grey, and the summer cacophony of birds, tree frogs, and so on seems hushed, as if everyone and everything is holding its breath.

And then the skies open and the thunder shouts, the lightning slashes and illuminates all for seconds at a time. The water pours down and cleanses everything. The humidity gives up the fight and lets the rain break its back.

I sat on my porch and thought of all these things, thought of how I have always loved these summer storms, thought of how when I was a child my mother would even let me go outside barefoot and splash in the puddles, soak my hair, run a toy sailboat in the gutter water at the street edge. I suppose some people would say that was careless of her, but she understood me, understood my wonder and need to be out there among such wondrous things as they occurred.

In the middle of the storm, the cats came off the roof of the downstairs porch and sat on the porch railing watching the ceiling. I looked up and saw what was either a very large winged bug or a very small bird. It was taking refuge from the storm on my porch, pressing itself against the ceiling to keep away from the hunting cats, and in the process knocking down old paint chips. I went inside and got a flashlight, and it took me awhile to decide what it was. I was going between a hummingbird and a very large moth when it finally rested for a moment. It was, in fact, a butterfly.

The wonder of that moment made me cry: The renewal of the summer storm, the elegant butterfly seeking shelter from that storm, all of it just welled up inside me and I broke down.

And that is what it’s been like. Most of the time, I am surprisingly okay. Not happy, but okay. Getting by. And then some event that would otherwise seem small, even insignificant, becomes momentous to me, and I break down for a while. And then I am okay again.

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There is the story of the crazy boyfriend and the story of the wedding with the Big X which I must share as well, but that is for another post.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Irony

My Aunt Mary's mother-in-law sent a get well soon card to my mom since she had been in the hospital last week. Trouble is, it came in the mail yesterday afternoon. My mom died yesterday morning.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Keep on Keeping on

I hid out for a week. Rachel came over twice; Rose came up. Kristy did what I needed her to do because I just couldn't do it. Then I was back. You've got to keep on keeping on. If I had a job, I wouldn't have allowed myself to take a week, I'm sure. I was doing better.

Then the other day, Kristy brought me Goober's ashes. I don't know what to do with them. They came in a decorative tin, one in which you might otherwise place cookies. The tin was in a cello bag. There was also a wooden box shaped like a chest, with "Goober 1996-2007" emblazoned on it. It is more appropriate than the tin. I wanted to put the ashes into the box, but the tin wouldn't fit inside and when I lifted the tin, the ashes slid around and something inside clunked. No way was I opening the tin. I did NOT want to see what went clunk.

So the box is on the mantle above my fireplace for now; the tin is resting on top of the box. I think the box is meant for her collar and other mementos, but I don't know what to do with the ashes. I can't bury them in my yard; I rent, and who knows how long I will be here? I can't think where to scatter them, and all I can think as far as what Goober would want is that she'd want to be near me.

But I can't keep the stuff on my mantle for too long; people will think it's creepy.

The Big X's dad kept the ashes of his dead cats in a closet, with the understanding that when he died the ashes would be buried with him. Still, I can't help thinking that people will think that's creepy too. Every option seems either creepy or not respectful of what Goober would want. I'm probably putting much too much thought into this, but I can't help it.

. . .

And in the spirit of trying to keep on keeping on, I am leaving later today on my UK trip. Check up on me at my travel blog if you like.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

. . . There Is a Dark Cloud

Come on. You knew this was coming. If you have any sort of sense of foreboding, you knew.

On Monday, I put Goober to sleep. I put Goober down. Those are very nice, acceptable ways of saying that I killed her. Yes, I know all the reasons it was ok. I know why I decided to do it when I did.

The last time I went to the vet with her, she told me I would know when the time was right. What a frigging weight to have on your shoulders.

On Sunday morning, trying to jump up onto my bed, Goober tore something in her leg, and began to bleed profusely. I applied pressure and was able to eventually stop the bleeding. But here is the problem: She never cried. She. Never. Cried.

You know that hurt her. No animal bleeds that much without pain. Yet there was not a single yelp. And that made me realize that she has an incredibly high threshold for pain. That just because she does not cry, does not mean she is not in pain. (A lot of double negatives there; did ya follow?) And since I have had my new pup--about a week--Goober cries a lot if the puppy jumps on top of her. So I am thinking that she has been in pain for some time but (like my mom) holds it in. But with the pup jumping on her, she just couldn't keep it in anymore.

It has been up to me this whole time about when to put her down. I though I would keep her alive as long as she didn't seem to be in pain. But now. But now, if she doesn't cry when she is in pain, how do I know? She is keeping up a brave front for me. I know she is in more pain than she lets on, because of the tear in her leg, and because of the yelping from the pup. She has also been having trouble breathing of late. Which is another sign the doc said I would see near the end.

So I did what had to happen. I called everyone that loved her. I called Rose, I called my dad and mom, my sisters. On Sunday, Goober sat on the love seat in my living room and received all these visitors with the grace with which she has done everything in her life.

On Monday morning, I called the vet and made the appointment. Kristy went with me. Kristy is the other "strong" person in my family. I don't know how I would get through things without her. We got there with Goober and Ginny walking in on leashes. I told the receptionist my last name, and she instantly knew what I was there for.

I then picked up Ginny. The receptionist became quite alarmed. I could see in her face the thought process that I was here to put to sleep a little puppy. Of course, I immediately corrected her by asking if she would look after my puppy while we had our appointment with Goober.

I waited an appropriate amount of time before pointing this out to my sister. It was funny in a grotesque way, but when you live with death constantly there, you learn to laugh at the grotesque.

When they gave her the shot, Goober went down quickly. I think she was ready. The last day, she had walked to all her favorite spots and scented them. She asked for rides in the car. (She never had before.) She gave me lots of kisses on my face. (Again, she never had before.)

I went home and cried. A lot. My dad called and Whitney called. Rachel came over that night and I held it together for them. I knew they were there to comfort me, but still, my WASP instinct was to hold it together. The next day, I resumed crying. I called the doctor. She prescribed a sedative. I took it.

I've been getting through each day. I know I am overreacting partly because of my mom's sickness, and partly because the thing with dogs that people who don't own them never get is: They are family.

Goodbye, Goober. Goodbye, my pup.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

For Every Silver Lining . . .

I took an impromptu road trip to Virginia last week. It was to get a new puppy. After much research, I decided I wanted an English Cocker Spaniel. In the US, American Cockers ar much more common, and that is what Goober is, and what my previous dog, Missy, was before her. The thing is, Americans are over-bred, and therefore have more genetic defects and tend to more illnesses.

So I went with the (in the US) much more rare English Cocker. There are maybe 100 breeders in the US and you can be on a waiting list for a year or more before receiving one, so when one became available, I decided to jump on it. There are benefits to getting a new puppy when you have an older dog. The older dog can help teach the puppy mannerisms that humans just can't teach; they can help show that the human is the alpha and the puppy must respect the owner.

And so away Kristy and I went to Virginia to get her. It was supposed to be an 8-10 hour drive each way; we ended up driving for about 28 out of 32 hours that we were on the road. (We slept for 3.) Here is what happened: There were two fatal accidents while we were on I-95, which resulted in highway closings. There were, of course, numerous minor accidents and construction sites.

Regardless, after a hellish drive, I arrived home with a beautiful new pup, whose name is Ginny (I think). It might also be Pippa. Here is her picture:

Sunday, June 03, 2007

The Weekend

Three people saw me naked this weekend--one man, and two women. And all three satisfied me.

Okay, I tease. Only one satisfied me sexually. One gave me a sweet massage, and the other gave me a facial so relaxing that I nearly fell asleep.

See, I was in New Hampshire this weekend. I went up there to do a visibility event for Chris Dodd at the Presidential debate, and decided to stay at Whit's in-laws' for the weekend. They have a house on Lake Winnepesaukee, and Whit and Jake were up there for the weekend so I visited them for a bit.

We went out the first night to the local country club where Whit's future brother-in-law flirted with all the waitresses. He thinks he's like the shit or something. But it was cool--we hung out with the townies and had a drink after dinner. Then it was back to the lake house for pool (which I suck at--didn't sink a single shot) and more drinks. We watched The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Whit and Jake got tired awhile into it so they went to bed.

Jake's brother and I stayed up to the end. We cuddled a bit. Then we went upstairs. We did it. Then I grabbed my clothes and got the fuck out of there before we could cuddle or anything. I am so not in the place for a relationship that even though I know that Jed doesn't want one either (and is probably in fact seeing like 3 girls right now), I still had to make it clear by finishing and getting the fuck out of there in a minute or less.

Okay. I need therapy. I get that.

This summer, my summer of unemployment, is meant to be one of self-discovery. Perhaps I will not sleep with anyone again until I am in touch with the real me. Until I am ready to--you know--not run away as soon as coitus is complete.

Saturday we went to the spa, where I had a massage by the second person to see me naked. It was good, though I prefer a Swedish massage, where more pressure is applied. Then I had a facial--which I had never had before. The woman said to take my shirt and bra off, and my pants if I felt comfortable, since she was going to give me an upper body massage during the facial. So I did.

She came back in and said, "Oh my God, I forgot to give you a cover-up! You must think I'm a freak!"

So then I put on the cover-up and had a very nice facial.

I WILL become normal. I WILL become normal.

P. S. I did not go to the Dodd event after all. I decided I wanted to get back to CT at a decent hour so I could be rested to get my new puppy!!

Sunday, May 27, 2007

It's Like Twinkies . . .

Today I had SpaghettiO's with sliced hot dogs. I'm trying to learn how to eat poor again, as I have the goal of remaining unemployed all summer. Hot dogs and canned food figure high in this, if I remember my youth well. I was surprised at how good SpaghettiO's still taste to me as an adult. Tomorrow: Hot dogs and beans. Maybe I'll also make potato salad. Potatoes are cheap.

The other goal I have with food over the next month (besides losing weight, because hey--I'm a girl) is to eat more diverse meats. Since the seventh grade (many many years ago), I have only eaten poultry and fish. No red meat. No pork. I did it to be different at the time, I'm sure. It wasn't a stance on animal rights or anything like that.

I'll be travelling to the UK at the end of June, and I'm told they don't have nearly the food selection they have at US restaurants. In case I don't have any chicken or vegetarian options, I am trying to eat some red meat again. I can't bring myself to bite into a steak or burger just yet; rather, I am taking what I call the "Bugs in Twinkies" approach to eating meat.

The US FDA allows a certain number of bug parts, rodent hair, etc., into any processed food. I first heard about this nasty truth in regard to Twinkies, though I have since found out it's true of all processed foods. The parts are of course small enough so that you don't detect them individually, and in total we eat from one to two pounds of insect each year. They aren't harmful to us and in some cases are even healthy.

If you have ever picked your own fruit at an orchard or farm, or gotten fresh corn on the cob, you know that there is a chance you may bite into an apple and find a worm. And of course, as the old joke goes, what is worse than finding a worm in your apple? Finding half a worm in your apple...ba-dum-dum!

Still, despite these truisms, we don't want to eat insects, and if we can manage to not think about the 90 insect parts allowed in our Twinkies, we will go on eating them. But that doesn't mean we will eat a chocolate covered cockroach (which they sell at the Seattle Zoo gift shop, by the way).

So I am taking the Bugs in Twinkies approach to reintroducing meat into my diet. I had a queso sauce with ground beef mixed in it the other day; I've had potato skins with bacon bits on them. I had gumbo with sausage bits in. So long as it's all bits and pieces, I'm doing ok so far. Still don't want that pork chop, though.

Friday, May 25, 2007

A Bad Week

The dog:

You brush your hair. You check your email. You play a computer game. You pour a drink. You pet the dog. A lot. You play the same wistful song over and over and over. And you wait. When it's finally time, you make sure she poops on the way to the car so that if you have to put her to sleep, she won't suffer the indignity of defecating in her last moment. You bring your own kleenex, in case there is none there for you to use. Because you will cry. You bring her remaining prescriptions with you so that if you have to put her to sleep, you can get your money back and when you walk out of that vet's, you can know it will be the last time you ever have to see that man.

The mom:

You take your shower first. You feed the cats. You take some time to clean the dog's wound. You pack a little bag with a book to read because it is boring in the waiting room, because she sleeps a lot after surgery. You bring a sweatshirt in case the air conditioning is cold at the hospital. You check your email because you won't be able to for the rest of the day. You bring your flash drive so you can do some work if you get the chance. You empty the trash so the food you threw out the other night won't stink up the whole apartment. You stop on your way there for coffee. You stop on your way there to feed your sister's cats, walk their dogs. You pull down the blinds in their living room, so that the afternoon sun won't heat the house too much for the cats and dogs.

You took off that new bracelet in the shower. That new bracelet that you were wearing two days ago when you had to bring the dog to the doggy ER. The bracelet you took off before going there, in case it was bad luck. And the dog was ok for now in the end. So you took it off today after you got the call about your mom needing emergency heart surgery. Just in case. Maybe your mom will be ok too if you don't wear the Bad Luck Bracelet.

~~~~~

My life has had a lot of symmetry lately, not in a good way. Right now, both my mom and my dog have cancer. Goober was diagnosed in the last week of the semester, during finals week. At that point, the vet said the cancer had already spread into her chest, making it too risky to operate. He gave her 3 months, tops. Then two days ago, I called because the tumor--which the vet had deemed too far progressed to remove surgically--had begun to perforate the skin. They made me come down right away, not what I was hoping for. I was hoping they'd say to put a giant band-aid on it or something, but no such luck. End result: The vet said I "would not be wrong" to put Goober down that day, but she could give me antiseptic cleaning solution to treat the wound and pain medication to make Goober comfortable so I could have a little more time with her. How much more? That was left unsaid, but I noticed the pain medication was only for 10 days. Tonight, she is in pain, more than previously. I fear I have days left now.

My mother--when I returned from New Orleans, it was to the news that she has a tumor in her heart (on top of the ones on her humerus in each arm, the one in her pelvis, the ones on her back and her lungs, the one in her liver). Additionally, she had a persistent cough and now spent most of her time sleeping, regardless of whether she was lying down or sitting up. Today she was going in for an echocardiogram, a preliminary step to putting in a pacemaker (to monitor her irregular heartbeat). This was when they discovered a lot of fluid surrounding her heart and decided to admit her to the ER for emergency heart surgery. Kristy called me around 11 this morning to tell me that Mom was being admitted at that point.

What struck me about today was the same thing that struck me about Tuesday--the practicality of it all. The first time you are faced with a life and death crisis, you may drop everything. You may leave the cats unfed, the dogs unwalked. You might forget to tell someone why you won't be around for a bit. You might think it's so important to get there right away that you skip your shower.

The more you live through it, the more you realize that if you take the time to do the necessary things in your life, things will still be ok--or at least, still the same as they would otherwise be. Ok is a bad word choice. In fact, they will be better than if you hadn't. You also remember to take care of details that you may have forgotten in the beginning--a sweater for later, a book to read. Getting coffee.

I'm not as articulate at this moment as I may normally be, but what it boils down to is this: Living with cancer means living practically. Not very romantic but true.

Oh, and there's always a bit of superstition thrown in there too. The bracelet is still sitting on the bathroom vanity in my apartment.

Monday, May 07, 2007

Another Blog

I've started another blog so that I can chronicle my traveling. I am leaving for New Orleans in a few hours to help build houses. Later this summer, I will be going on a trip with my sister to the U.K. and Ireland. I wanted a place where my family and friends could keep up with me, but did not necessarily want to use this blog because I don't particularly want the rents reading all about my sex life. So if you are interested in keeping up with me in New Orleans, visit this site but if you want to know all the truly interesting things about my life, come back here.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Sick Day

Yesterday I left class early because I didn't feel well. This morning, I woke up intending to go to school and work on a large group project all day long. It involves advanced statistics and things that are named Bonferoni and Nagelkerke, after evil statisticians who now torture stat students everywhere. I wasn't looking forward to the day, but I was looking forward to being that much farther along on the project.

I was feeling pretty crappy during my shower, but when I knew I had to stay home was when I took the cap off my deodorant, got lost in thought for a minute, then applied the deodorant to my right cheek. (I had begun thinking about face lotion, so that's what I did. What can I say?) I have been doing work from home as much as possible today, but seeing as how I took Dramamine for my stomach (per advice from Whitney) and benadryl for my allergies, I spent the majority of time either staring blissfully into space or in a drugged sleep chased by strange dreams in which I and my entire family had moved to Florida and I was trapped in a bar after hours with the Big X and my brother and his wife (my 3 least favorite people). So in my dream I began to drink heavily. You know being in a bar and all. Then the cops raided the bar (how they got in when we could not get out, I do not know) and we were all arrested for drinking in a bar after closing time.

I was supposed to go with my classmates to Mohegan Sun, one of the local casinos, tonight. I had bought my ticket already and everything, but I really am too sick to go. I have been doing ok with drinking water and sipping on broth all day, so as a treat since I couldn't go to the casino, I decided to order a small pizza from my favorite local pizzeria, Luna. Thin crust, fresh mozz, fresh everything. However, once it arrived, just the smell of it made my stomach lurch again. What a waste.

Just now, one of my friends called me from the casino to ask for another friend at the casino's phone number. I feel so left out and dejected. Here I am, watching Dateline NBC's "To Catch a Predator" series, where they lure pedophiles online. This one guy brought rope to tie the imagined 14 year old girl up with, and it was in a bag from Target. How benign to imagine being in Target in line behind some guy buying rope. Who would imagine it was to commit a sex act on a minor? As interesting as these thoughts are, I still wish I was at Mohegan Sun instead.

*Sniff.

The other thing is when I get really sick, I cry over everything like a pregnant woman or something. I am crying because of that phone call from my friend now. I wish my benadryl would kick back in so I could float away on my fluffy little drug cloud again.

*Sniff.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Easter Eve: Karma is a boomerang

Karma is a boomerang, and sometimes it hits you faster than others. I nearly always pick up my dog's poop. Nearly always. Exceptions are if I happen to be out of poop bags. I bring Goober with me to a lot of places, so she is out a lot. She usually goes a certain amount of times a day, so sometimes she surprises me and I am unprepared.

I was unprepared yesterday. She went on my front lawn and again on the little divider of grass between the sidewalk and the road. I was on my way out and figured I would pick up after her that evening. Well, I stopped at home again to pick some stuff up a bit later and parked on the road. Ran into the house, ran out, got in the car and drove to school.

As I was driving to school, I noticed the smell. I had managed to step exactly in the spot where Goober had left her mess and I had not picked it up. Boomerang. Smack in the forehead.

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There's a new bill in the Connecticut legislature right now that proposes expanding the bottle bill. The bottle bill is the one that put 5 and 10 cent (where is the cent sign on my keyboard? I want to bring back the cent sign! I love the cent sign!) deposits on soda and beer in many states. Now they would like to amend it to include water bottles, since that is probably one of the most-consumed beverages nowadays. I know it takes up the most space in my recycle bin every week. I believe they also want to increase the deposit amount by 5 c w/a slash through it.

The grocery stores have lobbyists fighting this, saying something about following the dime from manufacturer to grocery store to consumer which I think is meant to make you feel that the grocery stores get the shaft in all this. Some people say that barely anyone bothers to bring their bottles and cans back anyway, and another 5 c w/a slash through it incentive won't matter. Others think this is a good way to encourage recycling.

I am all for the amended bottle bill because: 1. I do not care about the grocery stores, who I see as The Man and I have over time developed a deep resentment for The Man. 2. I heart the environment. 3. It means that more bottles will say 5 c w/a slash through it, which helps my campaign for bringing back the cent sign.

But most importantly, and in all seriousness, this helps the homeless. I don't think most people in Connecticut see this aspect since they live in suburbs where they hide their homeless better than here in Hartford. Or else they are just not as cool and empathetic as I. But every trash/recycle day I see the homeless descend into the West End and pick through the trash and recycle bins.

There is one guy in particular who I like a lot. They all pull out anything worth a deposit, but this guy additionally goes through and pulls out anything not worth a deposit but still recyclable that is in a trash bin and deposits into the recycle bin. He is also the early bird so he gets most of the 5 and 10 c w/a slash through it deposit-worthy stuff. The later comers only get whatever someone happened to put out after he has gone by. So here is a man that is enterprising, ambitious, and yet still cares enough about the environment to separate recyclables that he doesn't make a dime off.

This is a man I want to help support. In fact, I have stopped bringing back any recyclables with deposits and leave them all for him. Therefore I support the bottle bill amendment because I want to help the homeless. Take that, grocery stores AKA The Man! Karma is a boomerang, and it's gonna get you guys in the end if you're not nice.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Misc.

There are only two ways to be bad, as far as I'm concerned: You can do some bad things and never tell anyone, or you can be totally evil and wear it as a badge of honor like a classic comic villain. Anything in between and you get screwed over. Of course, there are those who would say that if you're bad, you deserve to get screwed over. . .

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I was talking with my friend Mike (not MY Mike--I've given up on him, I think--but another friend Mike). I'm having a game night at my apartment on Friday the 13th. Mike said we should use a Ouija board. I said that I was not crazy about the idea, seeing as how my apartment is in a very old house and perhaps there would be real ghosts. He said, "Don't worry. I know the rules. I saw Witchboard."

You know what? I miss being with people who were old enough to watch Witchboard when it came out. There's something to be said for spending time with people from your own generation, people who have shared experiences with you because you came of age in the same era. Then there are the people who I normally hang out with (and date and sleep with) who say things like, "Remember being in 6th grade listening to Nirvana?" And I say, "No. I remember being a senior in high school listening to Nirvana. I remember being in 6th grade and listening to Madonna sing Material Girl ON A RECORD PLAYER."

I'm old, man. I need to hang out with more old people. And FYI I do not still listen to Madonna.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Old Lovers

The Big X was a selfish lover. I of course didn't quite realize this at the time, having only ever been with him, but in the years since, I've come to realize what it is to be with a man who is a generous lover.

I'm thinking of old lovers right now because I've recently heard from two of them, and of course am planning on attending my cousin's wedding where the Big X will be the best man. On the wedding front, I have lost 5 pounds--not nearly enough, but a start--and have extracted a promise from a good (cute) friend to be my date should I not have met my fabulous new love by then. And he understands that being my date will require a pretense that we are madly in love and can't keep our hands off each other (at least whenever the Big X is around). So I'm feeling more at peace with that impending date with destiny.

The old lovers--first is my most recent one, actually. P. emailed me. He wanted me to know that he's met someone new, someone at work, and even though he knows that relationships in the workplace don't generally work out, this one is different. And they are saving up to purchase a condo together. So, let's sum up: P. met and began dating a girl at work approximately 4 weeks ago and now they are planning on purchasing real estate together.

Boy was I on the mark when I ran away because he was moving too fast.

The other old lover is my former Friend With Benefits (FWB), to whom I haven't spoken since last June. We didn't leave things poorly; we just left them. I got caught up in the campaign and then just never bothered to contact him again (but neither did he contact me).

He was recently dumped via text message. He admits that this is quite funny, and isn't too upset by it since he was thinking of ending things with her as well. He says he's been thinking of me a lot lately. He says I'm the best he's ever had. (This is such a line. I can't even be flattered by it, it's such a blatant line.) He hopes I don't think poorly of him (I'm assuming this is because he hasn't contacted me in so long) and wants to know if I'm interested in getting together sometime.

I don't know if I am interested in getting together sometime. We had a really good arrangement, when we had it. We were strictly in it for the physical aspect, though we were also friends of a sort, but neither of us was looking for a relationship. We were exclusive sexually during that time, but were free to date. The only two rules were that if either of us was intimate with someone else during that time, we would let the other know (for safety reasons only), and that neither of us would get emotionally involved with the other. I stressed this last rule every time we saw each other. I was dead serious about not wanting a relationship.

I'm pretty sure based on the tone of his email that he is looking to pick up the FWB situation, and I can tell that whether he was about to end things with this girl or not, he's on the rebound. Which makes things messy no matter what. Should I choose to accept the FWB situation again, I fear that because he is on the rebound, he may be looking for more from me.

On the other hand, I'm not clear on what the hell I'm even looking for at the moment. I rejected P. because he wanted a Relationship and he wanted it fast. I do clearly have commitment issues, but I think there is now a part of me that wants to try again. Otherwise, why would I have been interested in starting to date again to begin with? Not knowing my own intentions further complicates things with an FWB situation, because the only way that such an arrangement will work with no hurt feelings is that both people really mean it when they say they want only sex and they follow the rules.

Or, I suppose, it could work if both people really don't mean it when they say they want only sex, and they end up falling madly in love and get married and blah blah blah. But I think you can tell from my blahs that I don't really think this second possibility is very likely. More likely is something somewhere in between, where one person is more vested in things and ends up getting hurt.

I don't think poorly of him. I never expected anything from him, so losing contact wasn't a big deal to me. As far as I'm concerned, neither of us ever owed the other any explanations. I was clear that last time we saw each other in June that the earliest he would hear from me was August 9 (the day after the Primary election), and when we won that, I figured it was understood that I would be busy until November. I'm not sure what to read into the fact that he thinks I may be upset with him for not contacting me. Did he think he was blowing me off? If so, does that mean that all along he thought there was something more than I thought there was? I don't even know.

So if I begin things with FWB again, I must be prepared for the possibilities and know whether I'm prepared to hurt him or be hurt by him.

Or I can say to hell with it. There are no other prospects on the horizon right now and the sex was good (the best I've ever had? Don't know about that). I'm nearly certain that in the short term I won't be the one who would end up hurt. The best I can do is be honest with him, I suppose.

After all, FWB is a generous lover. And a generous lover is a good thing to have.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Making Snow Doggies: Why I Was Late Today

I was fifteen minutes late to work today, and here's why. I went out the back door to get to my car. I had allowed Goober to come for the ride today since it's in the 30's and she's perfectly comfortable anytime the temperature is above 20, due to her heavy double coat. Also, she would rather come wait in the car for a few hours than wait at home for a few hours. I think she can somehow sense that she is much closer to me in the car.

So while I was putting my bags in the car, Goober ran over to the snow in the backyard. There is now about 6 inches of fairly fluffy snow, the first time we have had so much fluffy snow all winter. The Valentine's Day storm, the only other significant storm this season, was about the same as far as accumulation, but was heavy, packed snow covered in ice.

Why is the fluffiness so important? Because Goober absolutely loves the fluffy snow. This nearly-11-year-old elderly dog, who barely gets up the energy to fetch her toys more than once or twice, will tear around in the snow for a minute before shoving her snout deep into it, then flipping onto her back and wriggling her whole body side-to-side, much in the manner of a little kid making snow angels. I call it making snow doggies.

Well, she was at it this morning, playing in the first good snowfall of the season. She'd get up from one successful snow doggie, run a few feet, snout around a bit, then roll over to make another. I just couldn't bring myself to stop her fun, and it was such fun to watch her play as well. So I let her continue playing until she had worn herself out.

And so I was late to work.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Cuticles and the Peace Corps

I wonder if I should wax my arms. Some women do. Once when I was a kid at summer camp, someone made fun of the amount of hair on my lower arms, but on the other hand, everyone I think to ask nowadays says they never noticed my arm hair, and that I'm the only one that thinks it's bad. Or maybe they just don't want to hurt my feelings.

I was getting a mani-pedi today. I go to a place where they give you massages and all that stuff too. I read once how you're not supposed to let them trim your cuticles because that's one of the most frequent ways people get infections at the nail salon. Still, I just love having my cuticles cut. I love watching them use those tiny clippers and how the dead skin keeps collecting on the clippers until the last pinkie finger, when there is a whole lotta dead skin on them, and no longer on my body! It's a sort of purging, I guess. (It's probably similar to the feeling those people who love enemas get when they're done with those. Still, I'll skip trying an enema, thank you very much.) I wouldn't give up having my cuticles trimmed for the world, though.

Right now I am having an argument with myself about whether to leave my nice, warm apartment to go to the Irish pub down the road and hear Black 47. This will also attract some fellow Lamont alumni. However, having been sick with a stomach flu for the last 3 days, going out for a mani-pedi took a lot out of me and now I may want to just stay home in my hot pink and green frogs-holding-martinis pj's and drink some wine (or, depending upon how my stomach is feeling, Gatorade) while watching my latest Netflix booty.

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I did not go to the bar to see the band. I drank lots of water and now am attempting a gin and tonic to see how it does. I've been melancholy of late. Being homebound for 3 days can do that to a person. I know that if I were motivated enough I would have made it the 3 blocks to the pub tonight, but I were not.

I spent some time on the Peace Corps website tonight. It's been a long-standing dream of mine to join the Peace Corps. The best time in my life to have done so would have been immediately after high school. That was when I first decided I wanted to, and if I had, perhaps I wouldn't have majored in the wrong thing in undergrad. I definitely wouldn't have spent so many years with the Big X. Unfortunately, the Peace Corps really doesn't want you unless you have a college degree.

I nearly applied when I was about to graduate from undergrad. I had broken up with the Big X, even. It was a period in my life when I was recognizing that he was not maturing at the rate that I was and that if I stayed with him, he was standing in the way of some of my dreams. Smaller than standing in the way of Dreams, he was holding back my everyday life. It was a very tumultuous time in my life.

Within a period of two or three months, I researched and began the application process for the Peace Corps, broke up with the Big X, got engaged to another guy, ended the engagement, took the Big X back, and decided to give up on one certain path that my life might have taken so that I could pursue a future with him.

Now would be a perfect time to join the Peace Corps, if not for my mother's illness. I may have lost the anchor that was the Big X, but my mother's cancer is an even bigger anchor. The best jobs in my chosen profession are in NYC or DC. I cannot leave the state. I know it's a bit of a self-imposition. I could if I wanted to, so perhaps a better statement is I won't leave the state while my mother is ill.

It's a Catch-22. So long as my mother is sick, I feel honor-bound to remain close to her. So long as she's sick, she's alive.

The truth is, she will probably not recover. She may have a remission that lasts 3 months or 6 months, even 9 if we are lucky. But she--and we--are all biding time until the end comes.

Maybe that's all we ever do in life, and it's just so much more apparent in this situation, but still...knowing that things are as they stand, I cannot commit to 27 months outside the country.

So right now I put that dream away. One day perhaps the circumstances will be right and I will get to immerse myself completely in another culture, give of myself to help a community so far from my own. It's something I've always known I wanted to do.

I don't, however, think it will be the next chapter of my life either unless I give up once and for all on wanting marriage and a family, because of that wonderful timer God put on that activity. Kids mean, of course, devoting the following 18 (really more) years of your life to someone other than yourself. Which all means that when--if--I pursue that Peace Corps dream of mine, I will be one of the "older" members to whom they refer on their website.

Do I wish my mother weren't ill anymore? Not if the tradeoff is that she's no longer around. But damn, I wish that just once in my whole life I got to have ALL my options open. I wish I got to choose my own path--completely my own.