Does This Burka Make My Butt Look Big?: On Not Being Shot (But Theoretically Coming Too Damned Close To It)

Where to begin…
I had such a great weekend. Went to a soiree at Holly’s on Friday, and I only stayed until nine. Got the dogs, went home, and went to bed (Just like a responsible adult )

Saturday, did something like four loads of laundry. Went to a birthday party at the hotel (partying in a hotel room, just like we don’t allow guests to do) and left after only a glass and a half of wine, a shot of champagne, much deep-fried food, and a little under two and a half hours (Just like a responsible adult)

Had a great Monday today (Perhaps not being hungover contributed)

Diane had returned from vacation. Completely wiped, and immediately overwhelmed. I loaded her up with chocolate (gift from my recently departed group) and some kind of their special herbal elixer that cracked me up because the label read, “Relaxation, in one shot.” Yeah, like this is even possible.
When I left tonight, she was wearing earphones for her Ipod and had the most vacuous stare on her face. “No vacation,” she announced, “goes unpunished.”

Casey wasn’t happy with her because she kept blowing off what happened on Friday, mainly because she hadn’t been there, so ‘it didn’t apply to her’. Wow. Case took offense to that, saying it applied to everyone, because basically, there but for the grace of God, we’re all dead.

It was Friday afternoon that the man in full military attire, carrying an assault rifle, was driven out of our hotel by a very wonderful security person (ex-street cop), and what the guy had been trying to do was to get to the roof. Obstensibly, if you consider the fact that he was more than a little bit armed and loaded for some very big bear with all the rounds he was wearing, because he wanted to check out the view, or – and it’s a very big ‘Or’ – he wanted to pick off a bit of humanity person by person. I finally got out about four-thirty. The cops had already shot him dead, right there on the bus turn around lot. I still cross myself (call me a die hard Lutheran convert, ex-wannabe serious Catholic or whatever, but it’s comforting, you know, to think you might not live to see tomorrow, but you crossed yourself so there, take me to the Which Other Side I’m Headed To) every day when I pull into the parking garage. I mean, somebody died there. Right there, by the new shrubbery we had put in last year.

Ew.

And scary as hell.

I guess I missed the bomb scare. That happened right afterward. I guess by that time, I was busy at the boutique market by my condo, picking up a couple of baquettes and some cheese dip and spinach dip for the soiree, and Holly said later, I brought the best food ever.

For some weird reason, that made me feel better.

Maybe it was just great to be one of eight women, not all of us really aquainted (but that’s the point of her monthly get togethers, you go there and you get to know new friends) and realize, wow, we didn’t get shot today. So it’s a good day.

Sanya…years back, I worked with her. She’s moved on, but that night she showed up with a couple of magnums of champagne, and although it was first expressed in Swedish (as most things are, at Holly’s house) it was later translated into English, about the time Sanya popped the cork on the first magnum, the force of the cork blowing off and richocheting off the ceiling nearly taking out a skylight, “Sanya has her own apartment!” and we all toasted her new beginning, because we’d all, in one form or another, been there. We’d all lost someone. Or given up on someone. And we’d started over. And the first and most important part of that was finding a place we could call home.


I thought about Owen, then. He was probably on the beach as I thought, toes buried in the sand. As it turned out, he called me later. He did make the beach, you know, in between rounds of golf, and had found my seashells. That’s all I ever ask that he brings me from the beach, and when I talked to him tonight he wasn’t yet satisfied with the ones he found. “They’re shells,” he said. “I want to find one with color.”

Well, OK. It gives him a mission.

I left him a huge bag of sugar and carb-laden chips, donuts, chocolate bars, and every variety of M and M’s known to man courtesy of my departed group on the dining room table, when I picked up the dogs tonight. Basil, because I always pick her up and bring her home. His dog, the pocket sized dog, the purse dog, because he’s had so much fun here, for the past weekend. Kind of like Doggy Disneyland, is how I put it. And I’ve enjoyed it, too. Having his mini-dog here, I’ve managed to put away all the laundry I did last week when I worked all week. For heaven’s sake, I couldn’t say that without him. I made no progress until he was here, his mini-Chewbacca Yorkie face staring at me from the foot of my bed, his stump of a tail wagging. So perhaps, in some entirely weird twist of fate, I owe this little dog that I can finally see the top of my dresser, and feel like I have an actual bedroom. Stranger things, I suppose, have happened. I’m just not entirely sure when.

Anyway, it’s been a great weekend, but back to this whole I’m Not Dead Yet thing.

Owen, five hundred miles away, was concerned. I was fine, I told him, but again, every the practical one, made him promise that…if the situation ever evolved (it won’t; this is once in a lifetime stuff) that I wasn’t OK, he had to promise to come and get Basil. And take her home. And love her forever, because the dog is…well, she’s everything to me. If you know me, you get that. If you don’t, just take my word on it.

“How’s this,” he said, “I’ll just come get both of you.”

That’s Owen. If it’s ever something he doesn’t want to happen, it just doesn’t.

Not an entirely bad way to go through life.

The guy…the Shooter, if you will…he was twenty eight years old, AWOL from the war, you know, and he’d actually made a reservation to stay at the hotel, but cancelled it. Well, gosh. First, I’m thinking, “why would we let him make a reservation?” and then it dawns on me, we are in the hotel business, he did have a Visa or whatever card, and that’s kind of what we do.

Then he cancels the reservation (for whatever reason for that, let me just say, “Yay!”)

He could have opened fire inside, and he waited until he was outside. So, OK. Thank you, God, and thank you to whatever was going through his mind. I mean, a shooting in your parking lot, you can recover from. A shooting INSIDE your establishment and you’re going to be looking at a very low occupancy rate for a while.

So you shrug it off. That’s what we do. That’s what we’re supposed to do. Still, it doesn’t make it feel much better. I mean, it still feels strange. Very strange. Very odd, and kind of like, “can’t we just come up with a new policy, and say, like, you’re welcome to the hotel, but if you’re wearing camouflage in public areas, we’re going to ask you to leave?”

Sure.

Effective.

And today the threat level is Orange.

(Hmm…I wonder if my purple twinset will go with that, or I ought to just throw on a go-with-everything-black-blazer)

You just don’t think about it.

A couple of guests saw him in the parking garage, at the elevator. They asked him what he was doing there and he replied, “I’m on a training mission.”

They thanked him for his service.

I would have done the same thing.

You just don’t know.

Odd and ironic twist, but today on the site visit, one of the people (contract signers) said she had two grandsons who had been in the war. “What they don’t tell you,” she said, dramatically hovering for emphasis over her chef’s salad, (note: I detest people who order a chef’s salad because it comes with no appetizer, therefore I can’t properly start on my appetizer until after her salad arrives, at which time my smoked tomato soup is beyond cold), “is that they medicate them. You know, to keep them hopped up and ready for whatever it is they do over there. Then they come home, and they’re not on these drugs, and…”

Thank God about this time we changed the subject to how fast I could come up with diagrams for their meeting space because they needed them, preferably, yesterday.

I thought about Trent.

I was just trying to figure it out, and I guess I whirled that around in my mind for maybe a minute or maybe ten, however long it took me to nod and smile and hide the grimace that wanted to come out that we could spend what was supposed to be a working lunch, you know, talking about our medicated troops…instead of looking at meeting space and figuring out the winter program, because at that moment, that’s all I really wanted to do. Because sometimes (all the time), figuring out how many people, if three per eight foot table, will fit in one third of a ballroom, is much more comforting than contemplating some AWOL twenty eight year old who came thisclose to ending my life and many others on Friday, and chose not to.

It never really made the news that he was in the hotel.

“It wasn’t germane,” Owen explained, in the calm, rational, facts-only tone reserved to those who once made their living in television news.

Yes, I knew that.

What was germane was that he shot at a cop, and the cops shot back (all twenty of them, did we mention that? I guess they hit him at least a half dozen times…) and that’s the story and the news is sticking to it.
And that’s all good at the end of the day, because I happen to work in that building, and that hotel is a huge part of my life.

I’m glad he didn’t fire off even one shot, inside.

Yet, I’m sorry for him. Because I think the same guy who died from one (or six?) gunshot wounds in the parking lot I’ll see every day when I go to work was as lost as the guy who once threw pasta at the ceiling of my rental house to see if it was done yet. Neither make sense to me, yet in an odd way, I respect them both for being where they had to be (Iraq/hell/Afghanistan/take your pick they’re all the same thing) so I could continue to do what I do: Worry about how many people, three per eight foot, I can fit into my ballroom, instead of gosh, does this Burka make my butt look big?

Both of them, if you want my humble opinion, would have been better served to have keeled over in old age, instead.

In a perfect world.

And that, as if we haven’t yet noticed, isn’t exactly what we’re living in.

Lucky People Part II: Trent Babcock, One Year Later

Today is Sunday.

It is a holiday here, and fireworks abound.

On or about a year ago Friday, or some such thing, Trent Babcock killed himself.

It hardly feels like a year ago that I wrote “Lucky People”, and yet it has been.

This year, I’m not quite so prolific. On realizing the anniversay, I texted his better half, his twin, my own ‘better half of years gone by’, and I did that not because of any anniversary but because I am, and remain, one of those silly humans who, once they have given their heart to someone may legally yank it back but who will forever keep the feelings where they were to begin with and just find some way to live with that..

I love his better half.

I always have.

I always will.

I have just since then…not last year, but the time before that, when other things fell apart, …found a way to move forward. Beause when, at the end of the day, that is all that is left to you, …that’s what you do.

I’m not so odd, you know, in that.

At the end of the day, we both miss him. I can speak for myself, anyway. I can’t speak for Brent any longer, but I’m willing to wager he misses him, too.

Trent, I’m thinking.

I’m thinking, it’s been one year and I should say something. And yet, at the end of the day, this is it. This is all I can say, and I would think it’s what he would appreciate. As he used to put it when we grocery shopped, in Broomfield, those nights when Brent was working until all hours, just say what you think. Whether it was about the brands of macaroni on aisle five of the Broomfield Safeway or my deepest thoughts about whether or not we ever really went to the moon or it was a Hollywood hoax, there he was. Trent. With his ridiculous car. Standing in the soup aisle. Dawdling over cereal.

Crack me up.

Everything comes to mind, my friend.

These things stand out.

1. My dog used to scratch under his door, about a half hour before he was due to wake up. My dog loved him, and dogs can’t tell time, I know this…but it happened, day after day after day…at always the same time.
2. I used to get far too mad at him because his bathroom was never clean. It was always a serious study in ‘black body hair left behind after a shower’.
3. When his brother was sad, he always found some way to distract him, and make him laugh. This was his gift alone; no one else could do it.
4. When his brother and I fought, he always had the good grace to pretend that he hadn’t noticed.
5. To see if spaghetti is done, toss it at the ceiling. If it sticks, it is.
6. Don’t want to eat the entrée/vegetables? Toss a matchbox car on top of the serving dish
7. Want to make someone’s day? Show up in their parking lot at the end of a work day, their dogs hanging out the windows, and greet them after work with, “the kids just wanted to know where Mommy worked.” Follow you to the grocery store after that and not only help you shop, but help you put stuff away.
8. Be late with the rent but always at the ready with a joke and a smile
9. Ask, “what’s for dinner,” as if there’s supposed to be one.
10. Bother to come over and say hello, before you ship off to Iraq, and say hey to your soon to be ex sister in law. Laugh your ridiculous laugh and be you for what…as it turns out,….is the very last time.

Rest in peace, Uncle Waddy.

So now and always so alive to those of us, four footed and two, who keep you alive still. I guess you could say we’re…

Lucky People.

Thirty-Five Things I Know For Sure: Miscellaneous Lessons in Love

1. Be aware that if your second date is an afternoon trip to the zoo, and two tortoises choose to have sex when you stop in front of their aquarium, you have received a sign from the universe that your relationship is doomed. Not to mention, you’re standing around more than a little embarrassed. This sign is irrefutable, as much an omen of bad luck as rain on a wedding is an omen of good luck. You should abandon all hope of proceeding further. Especially once you realize he’s failed to notice you’ve walked quickly away from the aquarium, so focused is he on leaning in further for a closer view;

2. Know that dating someone you met on a train is not reason enough to believe you’re ‘fated to be together’. It only means you have a slightly more interesting ‘How We Met’ story to tell at parties than that several times removed cousin of yours who met her spouse while dancing in a cage in a southern California ‘Gentlemen’s club’;

3. If you first visit to his home reveals neon signs shaped like tropical trees displayed on the mantle and more twinkle lights on his houseplants – all lit up and consecutively blazing and twinkling – than adorn the local mall every December 24th, you’re probably not compatible. Even if neon is your thing;

4. If by his own admission none of his marriages lasted as long as a car loan, this just isn’t going to work;

5. If he claims to want to 'be a big part of your life’ but interrupts you with, “you shouldn’t be telling me this, it’s too personal,” when you begin recounting your day at work, you can safely assume it’s not a love connection;

6. The man who asks you to ‘have the movers rearrange my stuff so it’s comfortable, I mean they’ll be here anyway,” as you’re moving out at his suggestion is not the one you should have married;

7. If his idea of preparing for the future is to secure a nominal life insurance policy – in lieu of an actual savings account or 401k – you’re probably not on the same page financially. Unless, of course, your savings ‘account’ is ‘deposited’ in an old sock in your t-shirt drawer;

8. A lesser known but equally serious side effect to the sleep aid Ambien is this: If after taking it you go not to bed but to the computer terminal, absolutely inappropriate matches appear to have potential;

9. A man who types with two fingers may have possibility. A man whose idea of a sincere approach is, ”Let’s chat,” does not.

10. If he views texting as, ‘talking , and getting to know each other,” he’s probably more suited to a relationship with an I-Phone than with a human being;

11. If he doesn’t like your dog, or vice versa, the odds for success are slim;

12. If his profile pictures are ten years old, their age is in direct proportion to his possibility as someone to consider;

13. If any situation in a Lifetime TV movie even remotely resembles a recent situation in your life, it’s time to make some serious changes;

14. The man who says, with all sincerity, “Look, I’ll make you a deal. If you have a dress or a skirt on, I’ll get the door for you, but otherwise, you can open it yourself,” was probably not the man to have married;

15. If he proudly shows you the high school track team uniform he ‘just found’ in his closet, he may have some issues with letting go of the past. Especially if there’s a very small amount of years between his next birthday and the one that entitles him to some serious dining discounts at Denny’s;

16. If his mood swings make your PMS look like, ‘a minor bad day’, cease all contact. Even if he’s still crying;

17. If he’s still wearing engraved jewelry from an ex-spouse, one of two things are going on: a) he has an emotional commitment to the ex-spouse, or: b) He likes the jewelry and has never been told about the existence of department stores/jewelry stores where it could be replaced. Not something you want to be involved with. You should not have to explain the concept of Macy’s to anyone;

18. It is perfectly acceptable to temporarily lose your mind and date the wrong person. It is never acceptable to lose your sense of humor about it afterward;

19. It’s OK if he wants to split the check. It’s weird if he wants to take your leftovers home;

20. When he says, “This may sound like creating drama, but…” he’s creating drama;

21. Even if he said, “It’s not you, it’s me,” when ending it, he could have meant it really was you, and not him, and just not said so. This generally turns out to be a blessing at the end of the day;

22. Never trust a man with a buzz cut who has two blow driers and a flatiron under his bathroom sink. This never bodes well;

23. Any man who lists, ‘cuddling’ as ‘something I am passionate about’ should be looked at funny;

24. Beware the man who claims, “I have no problem being alone. None!” and then reactivates his match.com profile while you’re still dating because, “Well, we were probably eventually going to break up.”

25. Anyone can buy a gift. Not everyone can give of themselves. Note the difference (even if you’re keeping the toaster oven);

26. There’s a difference between the heady exuberance of a true connection and the heady exuberance of three glasses of a fabulous Pinot Gris (note: only one costs $45);

27. It’s OK to disagree on religion. It’s weird if he thinks Jesus ‘just needs a catchy theme song, and I’m the one to find it for him,”;

28. It’s OK if he wants to get to know your friends. It’s weird if he emails them saying they should continue the friendship, ‘regardless of what happens’ with you and him. Bonus weird points when this occurs within the first month;

29. Run (like Forrest, only faster) from anyone who explains his three marriages as, “One, she was smart and I wanted smart kids, Two, She wanted to have sex all the time, and Three, I thought I was in love. Plus she was smart and wanted to have sex a lot.” Run. File entire experience under “E” for “Ew”;

30. The man who exclaimed, “Cheat on you? I would never cheat on you! But even if I did, you’d be the last one to find out!” was likely, a) cheating on you, and b) not the man you should have married;

31. It’s OK if he doesn’t have a car. It’s not OK if you live anywhere other than New York or San Francisco;

32. Any man who claims to , ‘read a lot! I just LOVE reading!’ and thinks Michener is a knock-off of a good brand of tires is just flat out lying to you;

33. Those who say, “I’ll never forget you! NEVER!” will be the first to forget you;

34. If he’s got a knack for flower arranging, there’s a reason. You’re not the first he’s done it for;

And finally…

35. If you can’t find the humor when it’s over, you shouldn’t have started it up in the first place.

In Hopes Of The Return of The Awkward Silence

Two weeks ago, I re-upped on the dating site, taking my plunge back into the dating world yet a step further by signing up for a second site, this one alluding to the vast numbers of available ‘fish’ in the sea of romance anxiously waiting to meet me. What can I say except membership was free, photos were much easier to upload, a friend had enjoyed pretty good luck with the site, and another friend was ready to give the whole thing another try herself, just didn’t want to go it alone.

I spent the two weeks reading and exchanging emails, sharing the misadventure, if you will, with the girlfriend who had also recently hurled herself and her attributes into cyberspace, hoping to meet Mr. Wonderful or, barring that, Mr. Halfway Intriguing, or even Mr. Somewhat Still Interesting by The Time The Check Comes For Coffee. Friday nights she’d arrive at my apartment bearing organic tortilla chips, preservative-free salsa, fresh made guacamole, a bottle of white wine, and her dog, clad in his flannel monkey print pajamas complete with hoody. I’d add more chips, a cheese plate, more wine, and my own dog, who was significantly more scantily clad, sporting nothing but a Vancouver bandana. She’d catch up on all her electronic messages, “winks”, and Ims. The dogs chased each other through the apartment and made repeated futile attempts to reach the cats, who were sequestered behind the closed door of the den. We’d offer each other our individual commentaries on the various possibilities (as well as on the obvious, “are you kidding me?”s) in our email boxes. The evenings wrapped up long after midnight but a good few hours, anyway, shy of the start of the morning weekend news shows. I found I was getting used to finding her on my couch on Saturday late-mornings. It was comforting, somewhat, to know I wasn’t the only person in the universe who believed it was possible to meet someone feasible through a computer screen.

Something intangible yet integral remained missing for me, though. I received innumerable text messages, “chatted” through extensive IMs, answered who knows how many emails, and accepted a date for, but due to the work schedule couldn’t make it to, an art gallery opening. As the days went on I felt more and more that I simply wasn’t, as they say, “into it,” and not just because I wasn’t finding what I’d hoped for, which was a man my age or up to five years older. No, instead I ran to the opposite extreme. I’m still getting emails and the occasional call from the man eight years younger and – strange as it feels to say it – the man (boy? Yes, boy is what I meant to say) twenty-three years younger. Otherwise, it’s the man twelve years older, fifteen years older, who wants to talk about his retirement plans. One wanted to insure me ‘lifetime visitation to his retirement villa in Costa Rica,” and here I’ve never even been to Connecticut and would frankly rather see that first. So this, I’m thinking, is middle-age dating.

“It was so much easier,” my girlfriend observed, “when I was young, and drunk.”

A friend through work decided I needed to go out with a friend of her friend, so I did. We had dinner and drinks downtown and he was truly nice, if a decade older. Someone I’d decided I’d see again. Yet when a detail came to light I nixed that idea. He’s still married, it seems, although he’s been separated for two decades. Somehow I’m not yet willing to rule out the possibility that I may marry again. I’d at least like to keep the door open to the idea. Hard to keep the door open when you’re dating someone already married.

My leap right back out of the dating pool came yesterday, the decision forming itself in my mind with one simple call to our sales office, a little banter with a fellow divorcee who’s just a few steps past forty herself (wink wink nod nod). I asked, how’s your love life? She laughed, and it was heartfelt, not disappointed. “Oh, I’m over all that,” she said. “Life is much easier without all that to deal with.”

I digested that, because it was true. Did I really want to make the time to answer emails and read profiles and pretend to be witty and interesting on a Saturday night when I’d rather be home with a great movie, my sweat pants, and my dog? Maybe at some point, but that point isn’t now.

So I pulled the plug on both sites last night, becoming magically ‘invisible’ on one and disappearing altogether on the other. I have to say, I felt immediate relief. Real conversations I can handle. What was becoming exhausting was responding to, “Tell me more about yourself.” If this was supposed to be real life, why did it feel more like a flash back to Advanced Composition?

I know it can be said that these days, if you aren’t willing to date electronically you’ll never meet anyone. I’m sure I don’t believe that. Twenty years ago, on a rain-drenched four a.m. morning in Seattle, I met Brent in a train station. I was dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt, and a ponytail. I was not trying t be witty, or charming, or articulate. Twelve months later we were married, and although it was hardly Forever After, it was absolutely a whole lot of years and a whole lot of interesting, and we’re still friends.

I’m choosing to believe in that kind of kismet, or whatever you choose to call it. Even to go so far as to say yes, I met an incredible person online this time last year. I went on to have one of the most memorable spring and summers of my life, the irony being – we’d met previously – without the Internet. So in a roundabout way that tells me I should have been a bit less preoccupied with other things during that initial encounter, and ‘meeting’ later on the Internet was just the universe’s way of giving the whole thing a second chance. Again, from that came a very good friendship, and one I appreciate.

So I told my girlfriend, the couch is always available. And my dog will be disappointed if hers quits coming to visit. Ironically, two terrier mutts wound up being the hearts who found a match out of the whole thing. For myself though, I’m going back to stepping away from the whole thing. It’s spring, summer’s coming, and if Mr. Right For Me is destined to meet me, he’ll just have to make that discovery at the dog park, or in the library, because I’m opting out of the pool. I think I’m ready to return to reality, where a ‘wink’ involves your eyelid, not the semi-colon and right parenthesis keys on a keyboard, and where a ‘chat’ involves your vocal chords, not an IM box flashing on your screen. True, eliminating the technology removes the barrier against awkward silences and pauses in conversation, but ironically, those are what I miss the most when it came to ‘meeting’ people.

A Period of Co-Opted Insanity

If the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, when I look back (as I will, I’m human) on my time with a certain person I’m going to have to call it not so much a relationship as a period of co-opted insanity. A period of time in which we mutually agreed to ignore the fact that certain integral areas of disagreement were never quite going to resolve themselves, just continue to crop up as regularly as dandelions in a lawn and serve to cause frustration. This we probably should have seen from the outset and perhaps we did but as we were, at that time, happily ensconced in our mutual delusion, we chose to see only what we wanted to see. Sometimes people do that.

Over time we became so adept at seeing only what we wanted to see that we were able to coexist in blissful acceptance of our communal near-sightedness, pairing it after a time with an almost pleasant and certainly ubiquitous Alzheimer’s-like ability to forget the obvious and have no recall of anything beyond the past five minutes or so which, for the most part, had generally been pretty nice. Perhaps it was the combination of these two impairments that drove us right back together whenever circumstances, in their infinite wisdom, threw roadblocks in our way to serve as flashing red lights in the cosmos advising us to stop immediately as we were definitely going in the wrong direction. Blindly and happily amnesiac, we might pause to separately consider the roadblock but always, without question, wound up together again, racing forward in the wrong direction. Without putting too fine a point on it, may I just say we were, in our time, the Toyota Prius of romance.

I suppose when I look back on it (and I will, I’ve already said that), I may find myself tempted to linger a bit longer than is wise on a memory, settling far too comfortably into the darkened confines of the movie theater of my mind, refusing to leave my seat after the film has run its course, content to simply wait for the second showing and perhaps, if time permits, a third or fourth. I may find myself thinking the movie wasn’t all that bad. The sets were stunning, the cinematography amazing and the acting as passionate as any I’d ever dreamed of seeing, no matter the plot fell as flat as my hair in humidity. I may, in my weakened and semi-delusional state, find myself wishing at that time that a sequel could be made, if for no other reason than that in addition to everything else, my dog’s part in the film had been darling and something I would love to see recreated. I may find myself tempted, and sorely so, to reach for one or the other of those two dangerous contraptions, the dial of a Blackberry or the keyboard of my computer, that oft-times dangerous portal to the Internet, where nothing you say can ever really be taken back. This is the time I will need to remind myself, to do so would be to personify insanity, and in the sometimes cold, oft-times warm and generally consistently pleasant light of reality, this would be a very bad idea.

We fell for each other too hard and too fast so I can’t be surprised at the ending. I’ll keep the memories but try not to wear out the film with constant viewing, and perhaps the next time I feel I’m ‘crazy about someone’ I’ll pause to consider if perhaps that particular choice of verbiage could be a possible warning to myself. Crazy was a bit much, a bit out of control and unpredictable, and more than a little disconcerting. I suppose when I look back on it (and I will, I think we all know that by now), I should remind myself to remember that.

On Pink Fog and Changes In The Seasons

I couldn’t help myself. When the email came through of ‘amazing’ photos of submarine races recently held in Canada, I had to forward them to Lainie. I had to do this because she, like me, is pretty gullible, and I didn’t want to feel like the only person in the world who would spend way too much time scrutinizing all three photos, scrolling down and believing I was going to see something other than wide, empty expanses of ocean before getting the big, “Well what did you EXPECT to see?” notation that the joke’s on me at the end of the email. She didn’t let me down. I think she might even have scrutinized for longer than I did.

“I’m such an idiot,” she emailed back. “I really expected to see something.”

Note that Lainie’s no idiot but the fact she would think she might be made me feel immensely better. I wasn’t in fact the only one feeling that way. Her email went on to say we needed to get together and ‘catch up’ soon, which is true. I haven’t seen Lainie for weeks. I haven’t seen her since she disappeared into the pink cloudy haze of sunshine and flowers that settles around you like coastal fog when you’ve met a New Man and are about two months into a new relationship, which she is. I’ve yet to meet him. Maybe that’s why the rest of her email disturbed me more than a little, raising all my inner red flags, red flags so much a part of all overly concerned (read: nosy) and caring (read: bossy) girlfriends such as myself.

“So Bill asked me to move in with him last weekend,” she wrote. “What do you think?”

What bothered me about that was, she’d asked and now I’d have to tell her. So I did. As she knew I would. Because she knows if you ask my opinion, you’re going to get it. At least three times. I wrote back and at first was vague. This was something they both had to think about. This could be a very big step to be taking so soon in such a new relationship. This seemed a little rushed, and I wondered what the urgency was.

She wrote back and explained they were together all the time, anyway. He traveled a great deal, and as she already spent so much time with his kids, this way she could spend all her time with them. It would help him with babysitting and it would help them both financially, significantly reducing not one but two rents. With that in mind, what did I think?

Well, she’d asked again so I finished out my thoughts. I was going to support her in any decision she made and I wanted the best for her and for her to be happy. There was just a lot to consider. She would also, like it or not, be going from The Girlfriend to She Who Is Here All The Time And Was Supposed To Take The Garbage Out This Time, and I advocated against making the move so fast. Sixty days is a long time in dog years but in people time, it’s rather a blip. A really, really small blip. A blip so unformed it can’t cross the street by itself, has to take a nap after lunch and is definitely not tall enough to ride even the tamest stuff at the amusement park.

I had to question what you really know about a person in sixty days, even when you’ve spent nearly every one of them together. Call me romantic and stupid (because let’s face it, when it comes to matters romantic I’m definitely not the smartest woman out there), wouldn’t you want to take your time discovering these things about someone else? Would you truly want to combine dresser drawers before the new is even faded, even a little bit, from the relationship? Call me skeptical but I think there’s something to be said for the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt, only contempt is a stronger word than I’m looking for. I’m just saying 24/7 familiarity when you’re both used to having your own space is a bit of a big load to put on a brand new pony when you expect him to carry it on a very long journey.

OK, I’ll step away from the animal analogies before some PETA person tears me up for writing such bad ones. I finally simply condensed it and asked her to really evaluate her motivations. Be very careful mixing your romances with your finances, basically. Because if finances are the primary motivator in being together, that’s some rather shaky ground. Kind of like a plywood board balanced on two sawhorses with a Great Dane chasing a cat around on it….OK, I promised. No more animal stuff.

She wants to get together one night this week so we can catch up and talk things over. I’m all for the idea. I’m all for the idea and I think I can even free up a night here in a few days. My schedule, other than making time to see Roy, is pretty wide open. Yes, I just wrote that. Seeing Roy. It must be spring time.

There I go sounding cynical again, but Casey recently told me what I needed was a man for all seasons, not just two. She had a solid point because if you think about it (and you don’t even have to think very hard), Owen was the Fall and Winter Man who disappeared in the spring and summer (I’m not sure where he goes but think it’s either a golf course, a racquetball club, a beach in southern California and generally a combination of all three) and Roy disappeared once winter hit almost as fast as the grass turned brown under the first couple of snows. He reappeared at the first signs of spring, as persistent as dandelions in the lawn and I’m not complaining. I’m just wondering if, once this season’s vegetable garden is plowed under and gone, he’ll disappear like all those zucchini squash and tomatoes.

I wonder about that, but am still willing to give us a chance. Which begs the question, if you think about it, why Lainie thinks any advice I have to give would be worth anything, as in all the time I’ve been single I’ve yet to be in any relationship like the one she’s apparently in, because the idea of giving up my home and moving in with someone else has never been anything that impelled a sense of urgency or a feeling that I needed to decide on it right away.

So I could either be skeptical, too independent, too set in my ways, overly hesitant, or gosh help me all of the above and I think it’s all of the above. Yet I’m still willing to laugh at local news stories with this German and see how many seasons we can get through this time. There’s a part of me that remains that impulsive, and romantic at heart. Which is good.

Knowing I still have that part of myself will make me feel much better when I’m letting Lainie know that brakes are put on cars for a reason, and even if you choose not to use them you should never forget they’re there. Even though I understand in a very elementary way why she’d want to be with him all the time. I think I understand what it’s like to be with someone who thinks like you do, shares your sense of humor, supports the things you’re interested in, enjoys your home décor (even all those faded antique family photos of people who are actually your real relatives)and understands your work hours. Until Roy came along, Basil was the only one who really ‘got’ all that.

Yet I still wouldn’t move in with him tomorrow and certainly didn’t consider it an option at two months into the relationship last spring. I still think we’re trying a different route, one of more friends than those overpowered by the pink fog of romance and this time, I think that’s a good thing. So whatever I tell Lainie she’ll just have to understand is coming from someone a little older, and maybe someone who still believes in the weather forecasts, just likes to let time take time and see for herself how they turn out.

Kind of like how a dog can sit for hours, just staring at the cabinet door behind which reside the Milk Bones, waiting for it to magically open….Sorry. Couldn’t resist one more bad animal analogy. If PETA calls, tell them I’ll try to be a better writer next time.

Metaphorical Dryer Sheets: Notes on Men, Women, Cyberspace, and Weirdos in the Produce Aisle

“Do you want to help me?”

This from Abby yesterday as she plopped into a chair in my office, and it was the way her eyes lit up, illuminated by the force of some mysterious Grand Plan That Just Had To Be A Lot Of Fun, and the fact that it’s my nature to reply, “Of course” whenever a friend says “Help”, that caused me to hesitate not a second but just nod my head, already thoroughly caught up in the excitement of whatever it was we were about to do.

“Will you write a profile for me for Match dot com?”

I suppose the smart decision would be to say no, of course not, that’s entirely too personal and you should write your own. My writing it would be wrong on many levels, kind of like writing a recipe with actual measurements in it when my true method of cooking is a handful of this and two shakes of that and a cooking time of somewhere around a half hour and whenever it smells done. It would be unethical and I suppose I should have said no but I didn’t because I will write anything requested by any of my friends and as a result I’ve written everything from obituaries to 50th birthday poems to speeches to ‘personalized thoughts’ in parents’ birthday cards, and that’s only been in the last couple of months. Besides, Abby’s got good reason to give Match dot com a chance, if for no other reason than the comic relief of reading some of the profiles out there but more importantly just to have affirmed that yes, she’s attractive, and she’s desirable, and there are articulate, interesting men in the universe who would like to meet her (there are, it should be noted, also a lot of geeks, freaks, and flat-out weirdos but the same can be said about the produce aisle of any supermarket in any city in the country, so it’s OK. You just arm yourself with a sense of humor and a delete key).

In short, she needs affirmation that all men are not like The Last Guy. Not all men are going to date you seriously and exclusively for over a year and then for no reason at all, simply stop calling. Stop emailing. Stop all communication and simply walk away without letting you know why they’ve come to the conclusion that this would be a good thing to do. It was the last thing she expected (it generally is, with all of us who’ve had the experience of it and perhaps the most difficult part of that is the point at which you consult your calendar and realize the weeks have flown by and you haven’t heard a thing from someone who was allegedly a pretty big part of your life. It’s at this point that you apply: a) éclairs, b) Sauvignon Blanc, c) a mad, unbridled shopping spree at Macy’s, or d) a marathon of Lifetime Television for Women movies after you’ve done all of the above, directly to the pain that has become what once was known as your heart. And is, from a physiological standpoint, still known as your heart, it just feels like an oversized, unbearable, “Ouch!” that’s taken up residence in your chest that you’re pretty sure isn’t either a heart attack or the ill effects of picking up lunch at the local taco cart). It was, in the final analysis, “Rude!” as she put it, capturing its essence with one four letter word (not, I’m sure, the only four letter word that entered her mind when ruminating on the entire situation, but one of the most repeatable in a public place). Having been dutifully dumped, it’s time for Abby to move on, to launch herself into Cyberspace where the worst thing that might happen is The Last Guy might pull up her profile in one of his own searches and have pause to reflect on what exactly it was that he let go of (note that in a perfect world he pulls up her profile at the exact moment he’s holding onto someone new who isn’t half as attractive or an iota as intelligent and who speaks with an unmistakable lisp that almost but not quite detracts your attention from the fact that she has all the curves and bulges of your basic Buddha statue, only with a chest that makes Kate Hudson look downright voluptuous and to top it all off she’s incapable of anything but a bad hair day, especially on her upper lip. Yep, it’s a worthy cause if for only that reason).

So we’ll get together on Saturday and we’ll write this profile and launch her out there. Maybe she’ll find Mr. Wonderful. Alternatively, she’ll have something to do on those rare evenings when boredom overtakes her (as it does from time to time with anyone living alone) and she’ll have plenty of emails to print out and correct the grammar on (I’m sure she’d do that. I can’t be the only one that obsessed with punctuation and vocabulary. On second thought, if I am the only one that obsessed, I’d rather not know it). She’ll step out into that strange world known as ‘being in a relationship’ and I’m quite sure, while I will be wishing her the best of everything in that pursuit, there will be some small part of me (or, who am I kidding? There will be some big part of me) standing at the sidelines thinking, “What is she thinking?”

That small/large part of me seems to be very much at the forefront of much of my thinking of late, because when it comes to relationships I’m batting about….well, about like that grade school kid with the astigmatisms and the wimpy arms who was always picked last for the softball teams. My ‘relationships’ seem to have all the longevity of your basic dryer sheet, and I’m not sure why this is (Brent is very sure why this is, and he’s espoused his theory with all the assurance of any man who was married to the same woman for fifteen years and is now happily ensconced in a friendship with that woman which makes much more sense and entails no sharing of the television remote and definitely no more angst over whether the toilet paper properly rolls from the top or from the bottom. Brent would say I am too independent. Men don’t want independent. Men want to feel needed. I am too outspoken, as well, and perhaps it doesn’t entirely help my case that I’d rather read a book than watch a movie, especially any movie where the only action seems to be buildings blowing up and maidens being ravaged). I just know that lately, (lately being looking over last year and the start of this one), the relationships I begin to trust as ‘Gosh, this is great and I’d be happy to stay in this relationship forever,’ turn out to be those relationships with men much like Abby’s own The Last Guy, who simply and confoundingly disappear like the mate to the one solo sock the dryer consistently spits out. Or there’s the relationship with someone who really seemed to get it, finally, why I stopped seeing him once before, only to suddenly remember why I stopped seeing him once before and exhibiting that same irritating behavior when I’ve finally settled in to the whole routine of seeing him again, thus leaving us at the ridiculous point that so far, the only real conclusion we’ve come to is that we now understand why we broke up in the first place.

Sally (Formerly known as The Strange Girl Downstairs, but no longer. I’m not sure what’s happened to her in the past several months since Lainie moved, but she’s started making actual eye contact in the foyer, calling out a ‘hello’, or a ‘have a great day’, and gabbing at me with little gossipy details about her life and the lives of the other residents in the building that simply make my day) has a theory, and she espoused it last night, after listening to the tail end of a conversation I was having with He Whom I Already Broke Up With Once Before and realizing it wasn’t exactly a happy moment.

“Girl,” she said, with all the flair of either a southern belle or a Vegas ‘escort’ (wink wink nod nod) I couldn’t be immediately sure, “you need to forget the whole relationship thing and get yourself a man friend with benefits.” She seemed so sure of herself I didn’t have the heart to tell her I already had a man friend with benefits. He had a chop saw, and a DeWalt drill, and an uncanny knack for completing home improvement projects. Those were the only benefits I was capable of allowing myself in order to keep from finding myself in another ‘relationship’ that was pretty much doomed from the outset, kind of like any diet I start when I have PMS.

So while obviously, I’m hardly The Poster Child For Believing In Romance Forever right now, I am sincerely rooting for Abby, and happy to assist with this profile and her debut in cyberspace. Romance simply eludes me right now, like directions for any appliance I’ve ever purchased, or the location of that blue sweater I’ve been wanting to wear for months. As for myself, I’m limiting my own venturing to the produce aisle at the market, and maybe – and it’s a slim maybe – actual eye contact with someone at the gas pumps or at the dog park. Not to say that I’m over romance forever. I prefer to think of it merely as a sabbatical of sorts, more of a manbatical, if you will. A step back until I can figure out how to extend the longevity of that metaphorical dryer sheet.