I'm not a girl, not yet a wino

The lights are on

2008-06-27T12:47:00.001-04:00

Update your link, your reader, your 80s wardrobe! I'm over here: notyetawino.com!

Quitters can't be losers

2008-06-24T13:46:00.003-04:00

On quitting smoking. Curbing smoking?

At Not a Girl, Not Yet a Wino.

We're moving, we're moving

2008-06-23T10:02:00.001-04:00

Won't you join us over here?

All the cool kids are doing it. Well, at least after I pay them to.

Crybabies

2008-06-20T11:08:00.002-04:00

NBC has a new show that smacks of an after-school special, one gloriously broadcast at night so adults are home to laugh at its idiocy. This one has an interesting premise: from what I can tell, they take teen couples who are getting it on and make them take care of babies. From the promos, these are a collection of infants who could make Olympic sports out of wailing and the projectile vomiting of green stuff. By the end of the series, I'm pretty sure these teens will be wearing full wet suits while having sex. At least I will be.

Now, when meemaw was in high school, post-industrial revolution and even the discovery of a colony of Walkmen in the forests of Montana, our school district's idea of baby education involved us carrying around 10-pound bags of sugar for a week. Which for a nerd like me was delightful, because I got to dress her up in baby clothes and display her proudly in a stroller leftover from my youth. I became so consumed by the project that I was almost in tears when, on day 7, a stream of tiny white crystals began trickling from her pink dress. She was leaking, and not only did this mean sure project failure, this was my sweet sack of sugar, people! And, shocker, the school nurse was SO not helpful! Eventually, I put her in a Ziploc bag and didn't get knocked up. But seriously? A bag of sugar in the era of the Space Shuttle?

I must say that our health teacher's stories of teens impregnated while dry humping were infinitely more effective. I certainly haven't done that since.

Girls Gone Child

2008-06-18T08:53:00.001-04:00

I've often wondered what boys talk about at sleepovers, whether it's about girls or football or embarrassing Chemistry class erections. I know what girls talk about, and can vouch for the fact that it doesn't change much from the time you're using a Strawberry Shortcake sleeping bag to the age at which you slip into teddies for bed. It certainly wasn't too different for three of us making the long drive home on Saturday from Rehoboth Beach.

Two of us had lost our dads, so that became something that was associated with the in crowd, and the other girl then had to deal with our inappropriate death humor for the rest of the day. It's the kind of stuff you can mock when it's you, like "look how fat my fat, fat ass is today," but should someone else say it, you want to make meatloaf out of her face. I'm not sure how it happened, but poor Aimee had to endure us making jokes about her living father, which over the course of the hot day dissolved into jokes about us, her dad, and dirty, sweaty sex. We're so evolved.

Early on I mentioned my passion for all things true crime, and one of the two women revealed that she has been in many a crime show re-enactment, which of course immediately gave me visions of licking her face. Was she a star? Oh yes, she said, in one of the shows she played the actual killer. I'm pretty sure it's understood that news of this nature makes you my new best friend, and that I will now attach myself to you like a leech until I suck you dry of every bloody detail. Turns out she doesn't have a copy of that performance, but says that when her big episode airs, she gets calls from friends asking, "did I just see you strangling a child on television?" And she says yes. Yes you did.

Through a fierce rainstorm and some hydroplaning in the darkness of Delaware, we divulged our greatest fears, including inadvertent bowel movements, cyborgs, mean ghosts, year-round Christmas stores, and The Creature from The Village, which looks harmless to me but may someday may leave another on the verge of adult bed wetting. One of the girls flipped off an 18-wheeler in the darkness behind us and was treated to a lecture from me, because it is a well-established fact that psycho truck drivers begin sharpening their killing weapons when angered by sorority girls on back country roads.

We spent the last hour asking each other poignant, challenging questions, the kind that reveal the depth of three bright 30-somethings on the verge of braiding each other's hair.

Would you rather sweat mayonnaise or malt vinegar?

Would you rather gain 40 pounds that you will never lose, or live in the countryside until you die?

Would you rather be locked alone in a year-round Christmas store or break down overnight on the side of this road?

Would you rather walk in on me having sex with your father or wake up to That Thing From the Village standing over you?

Awesome. Then the interrogator upped the ante by adding, "and That Thing From the Village? It's standing over you . . . WITH AN OUTSTRETCHED CLAW" - the detail of course designed to make it infinitely more menacing than just a boar's head in a cape, which of course it did. The move was so successful, actually, that when I pulled up a picture of said Creature on my blackberry and fooled the driver into taking a look, she went into a hands-off-the-wheel panic and nearly ruined the chance of any of us living to have consensual sex again. We clapped at our success. The joy of knowing the weaknesses of your friends.

The road lit by lightning, we talked about bad Ouija board experiences and the fact that a man was once shot to death on the front porch of my building. Another shared a close encounter with an apparition in a Savannah hotel hallway. We managed to scare the bejeesus out of each other for two straight hours and each vowed to sleep with lights on to ward off cyborgs and monsters and animated Santas. Let the record show that I indeed slept with the lights on that night, but only because Aimee's dad likes it better that way.

sleep study

2008-06-17T07:38:00.001-04:00

If you caught 60 Minutes Sunday night, you spent one half hour of your life learning much of what you already knew about sleep deprivation: it can impair your memory, your driving prowess, and your ability to be asked inane questions without choking Leslie Stahl. But guess what else? When a male fruit fly is denied sleep, he spends his time cleaning himself and drinking boxed wine rather than mating.

Doctors have long suspected I have a sleep disorder. I have had thyroid and blood tests and MRIs to no avail. I have yet to head in for my night of electrodes and rude awakenings, but I think I'm on to something. It's sleep deprivation--not my thinning hair, my loud tone, my high expectations, my love for cats and Celine, my awkward attempts at sports, nor my distaste for children--that accounts for my single status.

I'm telling you, people. The flies have it.

Ewe

2008-06-15T09:19:00.003-04:00

I want so badly for you to be here, to sit in your recliner and tell me to drop it, whatever it is that consumes me and brings on the drama I hate. I want you to take forever to pull up the channel listing, methodically considering each button push and its outcome, while the women of the house roll their eyes. I won't forget - ever - so many of the important things, even these little things, because I'm writing it all down. If not for public consumption, in everyday memos in my blackberry. You didn't like pictures but I have some. I'll find that favorite photo album if it kills me. The rest I'll document in bullets if I have to.

I have some of your clothes. Mom gave me your pajamas to wear when I spent the night, and the beige ones just aren't my style. I don't think they were yours, either. Bears on a man who made each different tartan his own? Exactly. I can't bring myself to do anything with them, toss them or give them to an unknown who might not appreciate who you were. I was across the country when you died, and part of me worries that I'll be discarding what you wore when you told K you were glad she'd made the trip safely, when you last fell asleep with Mom making sure you'd taken those pills. You'd think this was no big deal, put them in a bag already, but I can't do it, and I can't bring myself to ask her which pair they were. It wouldn't be fair. Some of these clothes are still in a bag in my hallway. I caught Cricket laying on them, right there in the upright suitcase, and I love that she did, because you would have gotten a kick out of it. I would have called you to tell you, 30 seconds of nothing of consequence punctuated by a giggle, and we would have said our goodbyes. Until the next silly thing happened. I think about calling you like this a lot, particularly with each and every dumb pun I know would get a laugh and a shake of your head. It still takes a few seconds to realize it just can't happen.

There's so much I wish you could tell me. How much air do I put in the tires? Do fans use less electricity than the AC? Which one is the Phillips head? Was I 8 or 9 years old when I told you I thought I was pregnant? You loved Pittsburgh but thought Detroit should win the Cup, didn't you? Does Mom like hydrangeas? Can you still see us?

I'm also pained that sometimes I lose sight, lose thoughts of you. I feel shame admitting it, that I get caught up in stupid softball turnout and boys I wish were men and those 15 measly pounds. I want to apologize for moving on. And I hate that I seem to everyone like I'm ok.

Know that I miss you so much. The way you laughed with your lips closed, talked to chipmunks when you thought no one could hear you, how you grilled filet with an umbrella in the rain, leaving mine on an extra five minutes. I know it took everything within you to treat a fine piece of meat with such disdain. I like that I'm like you, in ways we never acknowledged. I almost like it better that way. Know that I dread spending football season and my eventual wedding without you. I've thought about what I'll do, if I'll walk down the aisle alone, or do something to make everyone intentionally weepy and uncomfortable. You'd hate that I did it, and you'd hate even more the attention it brought to you. And you know I'd like it for those very same reasons. Know that I think of you with every Snickers bar and each time my I crack and actually read the instructions. I always seem to crack and read the instructions.

Life isn't the same without you. I'm not the same without you. And I wish you were here.

Wishing you all the shrimp in the world this Father's Day.
I love you, Dad.

Because both Blackberry posting and I are overrated

2008-06-10T10:56:00.000-04:00

Still no laptop, which brings to mind words for the repair geeks that include "asshats" and "les asshats." I thought about recycling a post, which would require some serious effort given that I'd have to read through my archives. I thought about recycling one of your posts, but your made-up copyright statement said that was illegal. So instead you get this crappy placeholder entry, to which you may respond with comments about this being yet another reason why I'm not married, or spam pimping your Kimmy Gibbler fan site. Either way, I'll delete the whole shebang when the IT demons give me back my laptop, and we'll both try to forget this whole thing ever happened. Much like that skinnydipping episode you only talk about whilst drunk.

don't judge me

2008-06-07T20:00:00.001-04:00

I put a bottle of merlot in the freezer today. Just to take the edge off. It's that hot.

If you would, refrain from judging the choice of merlot, too.

Happy weekend everyone.

radical acceptance

2008-06-04T08:58:00.005-04:00

I'm not a woman who simply likes palatable in dating or good food or politics. I want movement and a slice of unpredictable and some damn parsley on the side.

Obama is palatable. To me, he represents a comfortable neutral in a sitting room of wicker, ice cream without a mix-in. He's a safe choice for us, comfortable to elect. If he was as controversial a black man as Hillary is a white woman, if he was as fierce or radical a presence, do we really think either of them would be representing the party? I wish they would, but something tells me McCain would be comparing paint swatches for the walls of the Lincoln Bedroom. Sad, really, that we aren't ready to push things even further.

Yes, Obama is making history and that isn't to be minimized. But if Democrats are honest with our collective selves, I don't think it's quite the radical statement it's being made out to be. Baby steps? Maybe that's all that's palatable right now.

unplugged

2008-05-29T13:40:00.001-04:00

My laptop is broken. Broken like Shania's heart and my first corks. I gave it to the Wise Men today and silently wept as they took her and her limp black cord to the back of the store to parts unknown. I picture her in bits now, an introverted tech passing by without a thought, preoccupied by a lunch order at Quizno's and getting yet another inch taken off of those khakis. I'm lonely without her and hadn't realized just how dependent I was on electronics for entertainment. What to do with endless hours once spent screen shopping on Bluefly, reading random Wikipedia pages, feigning coy with boy scouts in whittling chat rooms? Ah. Maybe this is when the rest of the world meets real, live people.

sounds like a plan

2008-05-28T14:19:00.002-04:00

There are days when so many things seem like a good idea. Like giving yourself a pedicure without your contacts in or cutting the cat’s hair with your kitchen scissors. You think through the details, the process, if it’s doable, within reason, will it be painful, exciting, at the very least bloggable? If it makes it past this first set of criteria, it’s almost a go. But I’m a big outcome girl, too. So then I consider pretty much every possible result, good and bad and otherwise acceptable. This part of the process seems a curse of therapy, one even further ingrained given that I’ve been on both sides: “And if that happens, what would it mean? And would those thoughts help or hurt me? And is madras ever really appropriate on a man?” If the angst on this decision tree limb doesn’t kill me, I fold my thoughts nicely like I do napkins at anxious family dinners, and promptly choose to do something I wish that I hadn’t.

On those days, there should be a panic button that should fall from the ceiling, just like an airplane oxygen mask, and when it knocks me in the forehead it should summon minions to lock up my cell phone, my laptop, and my memories of my mother giving my sister the bigger bowl of ice cream when I was 7. The minions should cage me in comfortable clothing that does not make me feel fat, allow me out in five-minute increments that do not involve emotional segments of the movie Rudy, and steer me away from mirrors and whatever box of carbohydrates made it home with me after work. Phone numbers/pictures/memorabilia of dead loved ones/ex boyfriends/transients will be stowed away swiftly to avoid nostalgia and/or having a heart. Properly bedazzled muzzles will be used as appropriate. And all alcoholic beverages, including cough drops and fancy chocolates hiding that demonic nectar, will be removed from the home. At least overnight. Or until I’m only cutting my own hair with the kitchen scissors.

in a dc minute

2008-05-26T17:04:00.008-04:00

Roses. Capitol Hill.

Patriotism. Barrack's Row.

Interesting. Eastern Market Metro.

the sad, sad state of affairs

2008-05-21T08:57:00.000-04:00

I made the mistake of watching the Bachelorette on Tivo last night. If this is all that’s left in the dating pool – men who special order briefs with your name scrawled on the ass, boys who get so tanked that they rip off their shirts to expose chests that should not see the dim light of night, and dudes who kick lemons off another’s head rather than just marking their territory with good old-fashioned urine – take me out back, pour boxed wine down my gullet, and put me out of my misery.

Evasion 101

2008-05-20T09:26:00.004-04:00

If you've read more than three of my posts, you know that at some point I stocked up on fear multi-packs on special. As a child, I had a diagnosable dread of someone finding my underwear while at a sleepover. It mattered not if they were dirty or clean, I made sure I buried those suckers in the bowels of my bag, past the mouse traps and land mines to which I imagined crafty 9-year-olds were resistant. I'd fake cramps and other teen illnesses so I wouldn't have to play in my piano recitals. Because it is a well-established fact that screwing up Clair de Lune has ruined many a young life.These days, I'll pop you a good one should you make fun of my fear of roller coasters, as everyone of sound mind knows that there's no real reason to propel yourself to Mach 5 wearing little more than a purse strap. And group sports? When I know I'll have to play softball, I hope for locusts and leprosy and yes, even pregnancy – anything that will prevent me from having to get up to bat, assuming a position of failure for all to witness. My hands sweat and I silently invite a pitch to the temple, anything that will get me out of the line of sight and into a more comfortable place, like the dentist's chair. Ah, the calming hum of that drill.

I will also admit to having a pathological fear of people. Not just the cell phone, which we all know I wish would die the horrible death of any period piece starring Scarlett Johanssen, but of real, live people, the ones who breath oxygen and steal labeled food from group refrigerators. I absolutely hate how I feel
when meeting them. Any of them. I'm clammy, I feel clumsy with my words, I'm wondering until just how long I have until it's polite to use the restroom. Then while in the restroom, I'm likely drying my armpits with a toilet seat cover and wondering what I have left on Tivo and just why everyone else in the world is that much better at this than I am.

This, my friends, does not bode well for finding a life mate. I've only realized recently that I have a pathological fear of dating. I am under the assumption that, upon meeting a man, he will deem me insufficient and way too chunky and funnier in email than in person. Whoever I am won't be quite right. That all of it – the straightening of the hair and the current highlights, the carefully scheduled post-work meet up and the cab fare in the oppressive humidity so as to avoid your normal level of disheveled, the washingtonpost.com search
for a venue that's not too loud but not too quiet and has enough wine should you need to drink your weight in it – all of the blah blah blah
will amount to little more than a blog post. They'll want perfection or what they saw on a page, and I won't be able to deliver. I've already failed before I've even gotten up to bat.

I understand what this means. Avoidance virtually ensures the life I don't want, of solo attendance at Celine concerts and sad efficiency at stamping Cricket's paw onto homemade cards. But like daily leg shaving, it's just so damn hard, and truthfully, I just don't want to do it.

agreeing to disagree

2008-05-19T08:58:00.000-04:00

I tried the snake comparison with a friend the other day. It's the one I pull out when trying to convince a particularly doubting Thomas or Theresa that not wanting children is a completely rational choice, like hating brussel sprouts or Dancing With the Stars.

"Do you like reptiles?"

He's a good sport. He laughed.

"Would you like to own a snake?"

"No."

"And if your wife loved snakes, would you really want to have one?"

"Sure. I could have a few in the house if that was really important to her."

"I'm not talking about keeping them in a cage." Because seriously, if we could cage them, wouldn't everyone want their own damn Brady Bunch? "What if you had to strap a snake to your person 24 hours a day? And you were responsible for feeding it and carting it around to Safeway and stuff?" Because we all know just how devoted I am to shopping for the freshest of foods.

"But babies are so cute!"

"So are snakes! They have those sweet tiny faces! And have you seen their wee little tongues?"

I believe he remains unconvinced.

Here today

2008-05-16T22:34:00.001-04:00

He's not here. I keep waiting for something to tell me he is, and he's just not here.

Life has gone on, there are plenty of deadlines and paperwork stacks to keep us busy, appointments with people he supposedly knew would keep us afloat. None of it matters, and it still doesn't make any sense. I'm a child of film, movies in which a chill let's you know that your loved one is still watching only those moments you'd want him to witness. It isn't taking for me. He isn't there.

I drive his car to work every day, drive it to softball and the dry cleaners, and I still don't feel him. The radio stations don't play anything to remind me of him. I haven't heard his favorite song since he died, and I have no belief that I'd know he was there if I did.

I watch television shows that I know he'd enjoy, but in my mind he's still strapped to a tank and not able to enjoy them for their actual meaning. Pictures confirm my thought that he's wondering when he'll next take his inhaler, when he'll have enough breath to walk the 15 feet to the bedroom. It isn't true what they say about your memories bringing you comfort. Nothing brings you comfort. The illusions of him as a strong, living being only exist in curled photographs and are as far in the past as those of you in your skinny jeans. It's history. It's a 2D memory that fits nicely with a caption and nothing else.

This must be the reason that people keep their distance when someone gets sick, at least one of the reasons, the one that's not about their own mortality. When there are only images of illness and frenzy, it's like your brain shuts off in an attempt to save itself. I'm not sure why, because the tradeoff doesn't seem worth it. But right now I'd take him visiting in any form, him warning me about obsessing about a failed relationship, him asking again and again for the chair to be positioned just so in case he needs to move from the bed. I'd take him any way he came, but he isn't coming.

I am struggling. I cannot believe it's possible to leave this world for good, leave without having some connection to the important ones. I feel so little. I'm ashamed to admit that a friend I hadn't seen since his death asked me how I was doing and I wondered what he meant. It took more than a moment. It's just that one minute he was here and another his things were whisked away to the truck that first brought them or a dumpster that would suck them into oblivion and cleanse every memory that he was so sick. Finality.

I miss him so much and can't figure out why I don't know that he's here. He wouldn't leave for good, so he must be somewhere.

In a mood

2008-05-14T08:48:00.003-04:00

I am filled with love today. Courtesy of Benadryl, I had fantastic Peyton Manning sex dreams that also oddly involved swimming. The kind done with big, broad, tanned shoulders in water that pools only in the right places, like on big, broad, tanned shoulders. Bolstered by a new spring outfit, I am a woman who rolls down the window to tell another she loves her beautiful eyeglasses, who lets an antsy driver into traffic before she is due.

So help me Oprah, if someone snatches the last Diet Coke or takes my mom to see a dirty bird porno passing as mainstream pop culture fare - which she only later realizes she thought was Made of Honor - I will kick him in the hammy and contact his exes armed with those photos.

*straightens skirt*

Enjoy this beautiful day.

She went to a party last Saturday night

2008-05-13T11:59:00.003-04:00

I recently sent one of my infamous mix CDs to t2ed. This one was a variation on my all-time favorite summer 2007 mix, a mix made for an old friend that to this day trumps all of its kind. t2ed's is still a compilation of Music That Only the Kris Still Admits to Enjoying, but has the added bonus of some special ditties thrown in that I knew would make him cringe extra special like. Ah, the Spice Girls, Night Ranger, Air Supply, Chicago . . . and who can resist the subtlety of a voice like Lita Ford’s?

He first played it last night on his car ride home. This morning, I received this:

Dearest Kris:

There is nothing sexier than having your top down (on the car, perv), having the stereo cranked because you lurve Mr. Petty, having eye contact with the milf in the Porsche Boxster next to you and then suddenly realizing that the Spice Girls are now blaring from your stereo. Break eye contact and then continue to stare straight ahead for the remainder of the drive home.

I'll tell you what I want. What I really really want? I want you skanks to shut the hell up. If I want to get with you, I have to get with your friends? This doesn't sound like the start of a very stable long term relationship. You want to zigga zig zig a cow? I don't think I like where this is going. We can still be friends.

Seriously, was I exposed to REOSpeedJourneyStyxFuckRangerSupplyWagon? Those bands were all the same to me. And dead to me. I can't begin to calculate how many hours of slow dances/bear hugs I spent my formative years being emotionally crippled to while that music played over a shitty sound system in a school gymnasium adorned with crepe paper.

I can't wait to return the favor. I think I'm going to have to broaden things from just beyond my heinous prom experiences. Don't worry, they'll still be plenty of hair bands, big hair, pre-packaged popcrap and dancers who think they can sing and singers who think they can dance. I have a truly huge collection of CD's. I know, it's not the size of your collection, it's how you use it. Just remember that I was in high school, college and law school during the 80's. That a long span of crappy music to choose from. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Bring it.

On discovering 57 new English language terms for the penis

2008-05-11T10:42:00.002-04:00

I recommend many things in celebration of Mother’s Day, not limited to flowers, brunch, and apologizing for all the things in life you still don’t really believe you did wrong.

I don’t recommend granting your mother’s wish to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall, as there isn’t enough bleach in the world to cleanse memories of sitting in a darkened movie theater with a woman in a dress skirt and hose while viewing a penis 100 times its actual size. I prefer most days, in my good daughterly haze, to fool myself into thinking my mother has yet to see even herself naked.

Here’s to full frontal nudity at brunch.

Damned if you do?

2008-05-09T15:35:00.002-04:00

I don't think I've written about this before, but it's quite possible that I did and don't remember it, like most of my 20s. I kid. My Philly filly wrote recently about trying out ads, like one might try out male capris, to see if they are bearable and if people don't ridicule you openly in the streets. I wholeheartedly believe one should be mocked for the man-pris, but can't wrap my mind around what is offensive to folks about a blogger having ads on the sidebar.

It may not seem like it, given the occasional misspellings and completely lack of current event coverage or, let's face it, even remotely relevant content, but I put a good amount of time into writing for this site. I'm not an author, per se, but I'm a writer; no, you can't cart me around in hardcover, but I'm guessing you can't do so with much of what you're reading these days. I think about the "professional" sites I visit on a regular basis - the Washington Post, MSNBC, and ESPN to see how much the Nationals lost by this time - and it never occurs to me that the folks writing for these online publications shouldn't get paid for what they do. Does it lessen a writer's passion for petit fours or Portugal or the pitfalls of one Austin Kearns if she makes gas money off of it? Does it increase a writer's legitimacy if he refuses to play that game, instead blogging for his expectant masses pro bono?

I won't hold it against you if you disagree. Statcounter doesn't tell me exactly where you work.

Pregnant pause

2008-05-07T19:48:00.001-04:00

A friend of mine is pregnant. To me, it’s the good kind of pregnant, that involving hopeful anticipation and a committed husband and financial stability. It’s not the bad kind of pregnant – or my kind of pregnant, as I imagine it might be – that involving a sobbing mother and my sister throwing me down the Exorcist stairs.

Upon learning the news of her pregnancy and first ultrasound appointment, I followed up my immediate exclamation points and congratulations with a request for the pictures. Shocking, I know. I had no plans to use them as a dartboard or to line the litter box, I assure you. She expressed disbelief at the interest everyone had in seeing the blurry images; why was anyone other than her and her hubby so excited to see their little being?

I really don’t know. When I meet her baby for the first time, I’ll try to talk college football with it, and when someone asks me to hold it, I’ll do so for the cameras to prove to my feline descendants that I am human, and then sit it upright on the couch and return to the cheese dip and my Cabernet. But there’s something about seeing the little tadpole as a part of her, of this woman I have known for years as a friend and a fellow student and as owner of one of the most amazing bodies known to man. It’s her, and therefore, it’s special simply because it is.

It’s also because it defies explanation in its magnitude. Well, there is a very basic explanation, but images of her and her wholesome husband in a series of compromising positions will leave me catatonic, so I’d rather not go there. The very fact that she is nuturing a human no larger than my palm, one who I’ll meet when I’m in Florida and see in Christmas pictures until I’m the oldest resident at the convent, simply boggles the mind. In an instant, everything is different. She is already more than a doctor, a wife, a friend, a counselor, an athlete; suddenly, she is a mother. It’s amazing and thrilling and almost unbelievable. I just want to witness it.

And it’s also because they’re so damn cute. Kittens and puppies are an outrageous kick to the soul, what with their neediness, their incessant howling and prancing at 4 am, their inabilities to learn schedules or that humans do in fact have pain receptors in all of the places they seem to think it’s fun to poke. Raising one certainly isn't for everyone. But they are sweet when they sleep, aren’t they? I remember our Yorkies when we first brought them home, the two of them fitting in the bottom half of a shoe box. Unbelievable. It’s similar for me. You almost can’t comprehend that something so small and perfect exists, a miniature slope of the nose, a forehead the relative size of Texas, a trace of two lips that someday will part - just as their mom's do - with riotous laughter. Almost, pretty, somewhat . . . ridiculously cool.

I swear I don't want one. Back to the cheese dip and Cab.

Herding Cats

2008-05-06T18:54:00.009-04:00

I emailed my mother to see if she needed any help before the weekend. There is still post-death cleanup going on in the land of the Likeys, you see, forms and a plethora of “This page intentionally left blank”s that seem neverending. I don’t recommend the death of a loved one for many reasons, but forms rank in the top 10.

“No, I’m ok. Thanks for asking. The house was cleaned yesterday. Now if I could just get the cat to behave.”

Mom’s cat scratches the furniture and the flooring and the thousands of suit skirts she dons for trips to the opera and Safeway. Nothing she tries seems to dissuade this persistent kitty, and apparently none of the Tasers I bought her has been of any help.

I don’t get it. What is this lack of control people have over their cats? Sure, Cricket is morbidly obese and may require a crane extraction by ’09, but other than that, both she and Bug do just what I tell them. If I want them to go to another room, I simply bring out the vacuum, and after a series of hisses and hateful statements about my chin they both retreat to the farthest corner of the apartment and cover themselves with the mattress. This is truth. I can also call either or both from the other room and they'll come running to me. This, actually, is truth. They know their names, when to come up on the couch, and that lying on the bathmat whilst I shower guards me against the evils contained in tap water. That last one? That seems to be a cat truth.

The real evil? The real evil, I want to tell Mom, is the adult softball player. If you thought herding cats was bad, try herding a team of grown, human, opposably-thumbed, completely amateur softball players. Two months ago, I sent out an email asking a) what shirt size they wanted, b) what name they wanted on said shirt, and c) what number they preferred printed, also on the same – not a different! – shirt. This wasn’t a 1040 written in haiku or a MENSA exam. Admittedly, I neglected to include a flow chart or an IKEA mini wrench. This was my mistake.

I received approximately three emails containing all requested information, and the rest were for the record books.

“Where is this week’s game?” Come again?

“Do you have time to swing by my place and pick up my money?” No, I have to wash my hair and ridicule babies from my apartment window. Oh, also? You’ve seen those blue boxes on street corners, right? They don’t only take the mail to Mr. and Mrs. Claus. Lick it and put a stamp on it.

“I want number 13.” Someone already picked 13. “But 13 is what I had last year.” You’re a grown man with a grasp of whole numbers. Pick another one. [Insert dumbfounded silence here.] And what nickname do you want on your shirt? “I think a nickname should be given to you, don’t you?” After beating my head against the wall and Tasering both the cats, I chose Asshat.

“Kris, I’m having problems reaching you by phone. Can I drop the money by your place?” I asked explicitly for the check to be mailed to me. “What is your address again?” I gave it in the first email. “How ‘bout I just mail you the check?”

Pure genius, I tell you, an exercise in frustration and newfound appreciation for those tutoring tee ball teams in the English language. Even Bug knew how to ask for a three-armed jersey.

Likeableus Boyfriendus

2008-05-04T10:52:00.001-04:00

Every so often a friend picks a good one. He’s not a player. He doesn’t talk about his job ad nauseum with a puffed chest. He doesn’t hit on her friends when she’s in the bathroom. Every once in a while you like a friend’s new beau and want to pull her aside and tell her so, encourage her to hold onto him not because the single life is exhausting, what with all the giggles and hair coloring and leg shaving, but because he seems like a great guy, one of the last of his order who should be tagged and put on display to confirm the existence of his genus.

I met my friend E’s boyfriend on Friday night, as I arrived late to the Nats game, staving off a migraine with commemorative cups of soda and beer. I had the seat next to his, which would normally have me irritated, what with my hating the small talk and the human race and what not. But he was a talker. There was no pulling teeth, no wondering why this guy was ignoring her friends when he should be making even miniscule efforts to know the people important to her. He was funny, kind, and knew odd facts about players on both teams. I happen to love people who could take the series on Worthless Facts Jeopardy. Check.

But a girl knows the truth isn’t in the persona he puts on for the crowd, as evidenced by every bad apple we dumped to the disbelief of the masses. It’s not in the expensive clothes he wears or the people he makes sure you know he knows. It’s in the way he treats her. He treated her. They stole kisses when they thought the spinsters weren’t looking. They whispered to one another. He reached for her hand as they walked a few feet behind the rest of us and made sure she didn’t want for a beer or surprisingly hard soft pretzel at any time. And he introduced her to a friend, which any woman knows means they’ll be buying a king bed and Peapoding their groceries within the year. Check. Check. Check.

The cautious singleton in me wants to tell her to enjoy with limits, to savor each moment while keeping her heart tritely protected, but the romantic in me is clearly winning this thought wrestle. I’m excited to hear her stories about the possibility of an early move-in, about how she now knows what I meant years ago when talking about how the good guys treat you, about how they call when they say they will (and often before) and are proud to have you as their date at each and every wedding. She is over the moon that she found a keeper and has every right to be screaming it from the upper deck. And this spinster is simply thrilled by the confirmation that they’re not yet extinct.

These important life lessons sponsored by MS Word bullets

2008-04-30T12:00:00.003-04:00

Don't leave your apartment at 8:53 am with only a screwdriver and your new license plates.

When leaving said apartment, try to wear something other than yoga pants and a white tee shirt. Like a bra and underwear.

When you realize you've locked yourself out and have only a car key, don't berate yourself for not washing your face or brushing your teeth before exposing yourself to the daylight.

Stay calm. You have given spare keys out to 5 friends for this very purpose.

Don't panic when you realize that none of these friends is home. Or that you have no phone. Or money. Or underwear.

Try not to worry about looking homeless as you scour the streets of DC for change. It is enough that you know you have steady employment.

Don't abuse your steering wheel as it dawns on you first that pay phones no longer exist, and next that you are too gross in appearance to stop at the fire station for help, where all the brothers are lined up out front to greet the Pope.

When you do locate a pay phone 30 minutes later, don't curse technological advances as you realize you only know one phone number by heart: your mother's.

While trying to figure out how to make a collect call and conceal your nipples at the same time, ignore the haggard man playing with your tires. He's only interested because you parked half of your car on the sidewalk.

When your mother doesn't pick up two collect calls, avoid calling her names under your breath lest she pick up on the third.

While driving to another state to retrieve your spare keys, wash your face with a hand wipe and pull the screwdriver through your hair in the hope that your mother will recognize you at rendez vous point.

While waiting for mother at marina, ignore frowning woman on cell phone placing a call while watching you change "your" license plates. Yes, you look like a criminal.

60 minutes later, when your mother arrives with money, insurance card, and Diet Coke in hand, suppress every urge to jump on her back and hug her tightly. You know full well she'll feel your commando breasts and take the Diet Coke back.

Kris: the other bright meat

2008-04-28T08:28:00.000-04:00

I'm tired of living the anti-healthy lifestyle. For all intents and purposes, my picture should be on the FDA Web page devoted to How Not to Treat What God Gave Ya, the one that would pair me with some uberradiant Kris antithesis like Ashley Judd or Denise Austin. She'd be demonstrating how to make popsicles with orange juice and an ice cube tray, and I'd be drinking vodka and Crystal Light while making Velveeta nachos with a Baked Lays base. This is really no way to live long term, and I'm sick and tired of all of it. Literally.

The advice I got about the high blood pressure was infuriating - I don't think there was a thing on the checklist that I was doing right. Multivitamin? Minimal alcohol use? Sleeping well and someplace other than your couch? Eating a low sodium diet that isn't 2/3 dependent on meals that can be ordered by number? It doesn't get better. Regular exercise beyond trimming your cats' nails? Maintaining an ideal body weight? Getting a physical more than once before the cicadas hatch? Here's where I started to hear the crickets. When you're doing most everything wrong it's hard to know where to start. It's overwhelming, to say the least, a little like thinking you're getting a new chandelier hung and finding the whole house has to be rewired.

So I began in the kitchen, and with the wine rack, specifically. Like most people, drinking is my stepping stone to more harmful pursuits, in my case, seven 100 calorie packs of orange hexagons, Marlboro Lights, and innumerable wedges of Laughing Cow cheese. When I'm home most everything I eat is packaged and made by trolls in the Kingdom of Low Fat, which would be fine if I ate them in moderation or with a side of anything green or grown outside the Kraft Foods test kitchen.

I should reveal that I'm a food blog lover, if only for the pretty pictures, and dreams that someday I will put to good use all the Calphalon I've amassed. These cooks are amazing. I envy their ability to stroll through farmer's markets, picking and plucking the freshest there is. I imagine them piecing together a novel meal with each item they buy, knowing just how their full spice rack will play into the equation, thinking in exact amounts what they have to work with at home in their pantries. It must be near orgasmic to know how to craft from scratch. To recognize the difference cardamom will make in a dish. To know why racks of lamb long their entire lives to wear little hats on their deathbeds.

So I set out this weekend if not to imitate to improve. I had only two drinks in four days. And it's amazing just how much extra time you have when you aren't out drinking! You can unpack your suitcase from your November trip! And throw out canned goods than expired in 2006! And grocery shop! Armed with a large fountain soda and a commitment to avoid the frozen food aisles, I hit the Safeway. I picked up a beautiful pork tenderloin, bread and cheese, fresh pasta, a foundation well within my comfort zone. Strategically, as in I had no earthly idea what to do with them just as with infants when they cry, I saved the greenstuffs for last. I won't call it panic that I felt while approaching the produce section, as I reserve that emotion for moments when someone first sees me naked, but I was overwhelmed. So I went for the old friends first: cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce. Wow, Kris, I berated myself, you buying for the Roy Rogers Fixins Bar? In my shame, I forced myself to bag a pound of fresh green beans and some red potatoes, and then blamed my beeline to the register not on those frightening artichokes but on running out of fountain soda.

What followed is a clear indication as to just how much a woman of 34 years can miss out on in a lifetime. When I got home, I opened my catch of green beans, and rather than whirring up a joyous flurry of pans and spices and real, live butter, I simply stared at them. What the hell was I supposed to do with them now? Was I supposed to boil them, broil them, stick them in the cavity of a turkey? So I did what any self-respecting blogger would do: I Googled it. And with the help of the genius that is the Interwebs, I found videos on snapping the ends off of beans like your grammy used to on her back porch, on cooking them to perfection. And every moment of the process was joyous. With wild abandon I broke their little green necks and feet. Then I boiled them like bunnies and plucked them out before sogginess set in. I even timed them to be plated with their red potato bed mates! And they were beautiful, and perfectly done, and tasted luscious with a little bit of butter and cracked pepper. And the moment of triumph was all I imagined for those online foodies, a glorious mix of excess serotonin and a pride not felt since my last spelling bee. And not a morsel of it lessened when I realized the pork wouldn't be done for another half hour.

Waiting for Godot, Guffman & Greece

2008-04-25T09:58:00.005-04:00

I'm waiting for perfection. I have a new spring Coach that has been sitting in the bag for weeks as I'm waiting for the perfect day for its debut. Today is the perfect day, of course, with a cloudless sky and a high of 80 breezy degrees, but my outfit just won't do. I'm also waiting for the impossibility of flights to Venice to drop below a thousand dollars and for the ideal firm but noninflammatory language for a letter I want to send my mother. I'm still waiting.

I have friends who are putting off dating until they lose weight, who miss out on the joy of being thrown unattractively into the sand by a rogue wave because they refuse to put on a swimsuit. I know others who won't vacation in lands of the sun until they drop those last 20 pounds because outdoor lighting and cellulite just don't mix. I gave up that quest long ago. I just tell kids that counting the streaks will tell them my age.

My mother all but covered the parquet with feathers when I broke out a Waterford wine glass the night of my father's death. Really, what more significant night did we have coming down the pike? Oprah and Steadman coming over for a taste of that 1942 reserve? I have relatives who cover the furniture with any number of devices, from plastic slip covers to empty boxes that still don't deter the cats from shredding the cushions. Don't get me started on hallway runners. And paper plates. And pristine bathroom hand soaps. Just who is a more perfect guest than we are?

I planned to save Greece for my honeymoon, you know, the celebration of the nuptials that are anything but imminent. What could be more perfect than kissing your closest while floating in perhaps the most gorgeous waters on the planet? Eventually I got tired of waiting and realized it wasn't my dream to drive a Rascal up to the Acropolis. Like a great Britney album, perfection just isn't coming.*

* This does not, however, under any circumstances including armageddon and McCain winning the election, allow you to contact that imperfect ex you've been thinking about. Even his mom thinks so.

Use your words

2008-04-23T09:58:00.000-04:00

I'm a woman who talks a good game. I probe acquaintances for specifics of their sex lives, I request details of every gross surgery or open wound, and I'll approach complete strangers to ask them where they got their highlights. But last night at the MAC store, I simply refused to ask the saleswoman for my favorite lip gloss by name, and instead pointed at my empty tube and grunted. Because apparently saying the word "nymphette" in an open forum offends my delicate, reserved sensibilities. My mother will be most encouraged by this development.

childfree to be you and me

2008-04-21T11:58:00.002-04:00

I’m not going to BlogHer this summer. I decided this based on a variety of factors, not the least of which was the fact that I’m not speaking this year and therefore would have to pay for the conference, which would minimize the disposable income I generally reserve for Laffy Taffy and Bonne Bell Lip Smackers. I’m also of the mindset that I deserve a completely fun vacation right now, away from all things even remotely related to business and networking and permagrin. I’m thinking my September trip to Greece will do the trick. It won’t be free smiling, for sure, but there will be no pressure to attend sessions rather than lay poolside with a margarita.

I of course checked out the BlogHer agenda, and was pleased to see there’s a session on being childfree in the blogosphere. Oh, all the places this could go! I’m hoping that the speakers celebrate the presence of childfree bloggers rather than lamenting the amount of attention we seem to lack in comparison to the mommy blogger. I would hate to see it turn into a bitch session in which we show our collective dissatisfaction with not getting enough play. We already know this is how things are, but why is this the case? Is it because we don’t have the well-defined network that the parent bloggers do? Is it because the readership is there in one case and not in another? I can say with certainty that it isn’t for lack of good content; much of the best writing out there is produced by bloggers I’m quite sure have never held a baby. I’d like to see participants discuss what is out there in this "other" community of thriving bloggers, but also why it is that being a non-mommy blogger seems to be today’s radical act.

It also seems important for them to discuss why this distinction is even necessary. Most days I’m of the view that it isn’t, but that this is simply the way things have shaken out in the big, bad online world. People need a way to categorize those they read and those who read them; it helps to answer “Are you one of us?” and saves precious time that otherwise would be spent sifting through an online TJ Maxx of sites. Categorization lets people know where they are likely to find something of interest, a connection. And it colors many things, from post content to who talks to you at a blogging cocktail party to whether certain types of ads run on your site. But does it help any of us? I’m on the non-parent blogroll on some sites – does it make a difference? Truth be told, I don’t care if you are a parent or a beekeeper or both. If you write interesting posts, I’ll read you. If you have something to say that someone else hasn’t said before, or you manage to say it in a different way, I’ll read you. It matters not if you live on a farm in Oklahoma or around the corner from me. Do what you do well and the other distinctions don’t even matter. Do they?

There's no reason for hugs! There's no reason for tears!

2008-04-15T20:23:00.003-04:00

Well, there are several reasons for both, but not a one of 'em is growing off of my cat's bum! They don't think it's more c-a-n-c-e-r! Not to be said above a whisper! Until now!

Tonight's vet exam was quite thorough. There was palpating and prodding and yes, there was gooey clear lube, and quite a bit of nail biting while I thanked our lucky stars that this examination room had none of those ominous stirrups. It seems Bug's rear end has developed a thing - a growth at the amputation site that's either newly-used muscle or a little munchkin of fat. I'm going with the former, mostly because someone in this household should have a firm bottom, and also because I like to imagine Bug lifting Cricket with his rump while I'm at work.

There have been many rough moments during my time as the Angelina of sick rescued cats, but now is not one of them. I am filled with with exclamations! I am filled with Christ's love! I am filled with Pinot Grigio!

I'm going to call it his asshat.

autopilot

2008-04-14T10:07:00.000-04:00

Because when you think that you can’t take anymore, that your body might implode because this! 2008! it can’t get any crappier four months in, what with your father dying and all the other left of happy that has chosen to dump itself in your lap, you find out that it can indeed get worse. Like finding that where your cat’s leg used to be, there’s a new lump under the skin instead, something the vets warned you might again rear its ugly head. And then you realize you can take more that you thought, and that you don’t go into cardiac arrest when it happens. You simply just keep going through the fucking motions.

asking

2008-04-10T19:53:00.002-04:00

The redesign is imminent. If I could have a boner, I would, as crass as it is. But if you've been reading for a while you knew that already. I need sleek, I need simple, I long for clean, sharp lines. More white space and simplicity. It's my bias. But what would you like to see here at The Wino? Nude photos are of course off the table. Well, not off my kitchen table, just this site.

Ache, or the Post that Made You Hate the Metaphor

2008-04-09T09:58:00.006-04:00

It’s an awful parallel, but it will have to do, because I have both a headache and low verbal SATs. I have a pair of shoes, ones that fit like a dream. Unlike most every other pair I’ve owned, they don’t incessantly rub my heels, don’t make my little toes ache. They’re more versatile than favorite espadrilles or flats; I can wear them to work, I can wear them to baseball games, I can wear them to lunch with my sometimes all too observant mother. Their color makes me beam, their style fits me perfectly. When I get up in the morning I can’t wait to wear them and sometimes in a tipsy twirl I forget to kick them off before bed. They draw warranted compliments no matter the occasion.

But one day last season I felt a sharp pain. And out of nowhere I was bleeding, a cut so deep and swift I was in disbelief. How did this happen? When there’s no logic, no linear relationship no matter how obvious, I simply plug along, and this was no different. I put on a band aid and went back to business. And then it happened again, leaving little cuts and bruises, and I was left telling friends I was perfectly fine while they rolled their eyes and noted my limp. These perfect shoes, no matter their value, were biting the foot that filled them, the next time before the last nicks had healed. I wept with disbelief, and was given cause not once, not twice, not even just three times. And it really, really hurt. I’m not sure I can stress that last part enough.

The moral of this stumbling, hypothetical, not particularly applicable, frankly tortuous story? I’m forced to put them back in the closet. Because when it comes down to reality, a girl’s best shoes shouldn’t fucking bite.

I told you it was an awful analogy.

I lost a very important friendship recently, and distressed doesn’t begin to cover the feeling. I’m devastated at times, vacillating between sheer anger and confusion, then onward toward independence and defiance. I can’t believe I had to lose him. It’s more honest to admit that I let him go, feeling ultimately forced to make a decision I did not invite, because in my world view he wasn’t playing by the rules. Rules sounds too definitive, too harsh, but that’s indeed what they are. They’re my dealbreakers. Rules that seem to me to be a part of the canon of personal relationships, something as intuitive as a do unto others.

I don’t think my rules are all that hard to follow. I don’t require friends let me bed their fathers, and not just because I’m not sexually attracted to even a one. (No offense.) I’m much more old school in my absolutes: Respect those most important to you. When you make a mistake, apologize and move forward, doing your best not to make the same error in judgment again. It’s more than just lip service; it’s giving where giving is due. It’s making room for more than just you and the flatterers, thinking outside your own head. To me, it’s about avoiding avoidance, even when your history tells you it’s the natural thing to do. It’s choosing fight over flight. Over the easy way.

There was a time not so long ago when I didn’t play by my own rules. I loved people deeply, but I didn’t care all that much about how my actions impacted some of them. They were responsible for themselves, after all, and frankly, if I didn’t care for me, there wasn’t a chance in hell the ones I kept closest were going to get anything that was in my reserves. Those on the outside got all of that. Because you know what? I could push the ones close to me to amazing extremes and they'd never leave. And the ones on the periphery? They didn’t demand anything more. They were accepting of me on autopilot, indulging my occasional plunges into the depths. It was gloriously comfortable in its counter intuitiveness. It was safe and easy. And it was all things bad for me. And just because I did it and sometimes fall back there, it doesn’t make it right.

Things are different for me now. When you don’t meet even the most basic of the dealbreakers, when you don’t treat me with consistent respect, you can’t be part of my inner circle. You simply cannot.

(Notice how I have to keep telling myself this? It isn’t yet reflexive. Wash. Rinse. Repeat, Kris. Begin again.)

I love this man. Love - as in the present tense - and have sometimes foolish faith in his ability and depth, his potential for giving and friendship, his gift for telling a joke when I flub each and every one. Despite everything, he’s always represented a peach in an orchard of dusty apples. And when a friendship ends, the pain is in remembering the peachy times, in the details. I want to tell him about the latest with a friend’s sick pup, want to mock just how poorly I know his baseball team is doing, want to report back on a recent rash of DHL truck sightings. There’s a lot to share, to tease about, to tell to someone with whom I shared many, many, many hours. And so it sounds unfair in my head, and unfair as I write it, as if I’m doing something wrong, but I can’t budge. Because in recent years my values have begun to dictate more and more of my decisions, and if I do what it is that I want rather than what I need, I open myself up again. I lower the walls that are now higher than ever, that were scalable not too long ago, the ones that were leapable given the right situations. Too much risk. I avoided the easy way, chose fight over flight, and it bit me. That isn’t ok.

I just want to scream and shake him and tell him this simply can’t be. I want to bellow and bawl. Why can’t you get it fucking right? Why do I have to be a casualty of a world of which you can’t make sense? Why do I not get the best of you? It’s fourth grade again, and I’m flailing and screaming because a choice is out of my hands. Not fair! I’m screaming with almost no voice, only there’s no one to console me now, no mother to stroke my hair and tell me just to wait because things will be different down the road, you’ll see. Because as much as I’m kicking and screaming against acceptance, I’m beginning to think these things just are what they are. It’s the way the world goes as an adult, and by now I know you can’t change people, can’t heal them to be who you want them to be. Even who you know they can be. I’m a woman and a friend who deserves more than the safe and the comfortable and the all things bad for him, the ones which somehow end up being bad for me.

This loss still seems inconceivable right now. But it’s reality. And I’m not sure if I mentioned it, so let me say it again, although this time I’ll leave the awful, gratuitous, painful analogy out of the equation. No matter how far I feel I’ve come and how I know what has to be done to take care of me, right now? I just really, really hurt.

Addendum

2008-04-06T18:50:00.002-04:00

K Number 1, if we had married, I'd probably be living in Southern California. I bet we'd have had the ceremony in our hometown and you would have sung at our wedding. Like that teal suit that plagued me through many a college formal, you'd have worn a non-traditional tuxedo for which I'd secretly resent you. I'd be a nagging wife who'd pester you to get a real job. I'd be a loving wife who repeatedly removed from its sacred place in her jewelry box the first ring you gave her when you knew she was the One. I would have been on the verge of breaking up with you over the years for your strange appreciation for Hootie and the Blowfish and a penchant for using slang in love letters. But I would be in awe of your passion for life and your love for your parents and your pick of the perfect engagement ring and your all-time amazing ability to disarm a woman with a kiss. If I had married you I would be a dog mom rather than a cat fiend. If I had married you I'd have been a widow at 29.

K Number 2, if I had married you, I'd probably be living on a street bearing your last name. We'd have a top-of-the-line gas grill and you'd probably coach a little league team. We'd likely travel out of state once a year, and when we did we'd bump heads as to whether it would be to Disney or Yellowstone. We wouldn't have gotten pregnant yet, but we'd hang out with high school friends who had a few little ones of their own. We'd have an in-ground pool and an SUV. We'd go to firehouse fundraisers and church on Sundays. On sweltering summer Fridays we'd make the age-old trek to the Jersey Shore and our neighbors there would know us by first names. At family cookouts I'd close the screen door behind me to find your mom standing alone in the kitchen, and we probably still wouldn't have much to say to one another even in the silence.

Dearest J, if we had gotten hitched, it would have been quite a wedding. Only after a series of hints and possible threats would you have gotten up the persuaded courage to propose to me, and when I told and retold the animated proposal story you would blush and slowly shake your downturned head. I'm pretty sure your bachelor party would have been broadcast on the Internet, and would have involved at least three different bail bondsmen. We'd have a baby boy and we'd live in Northern California. You'd be the most responsive husband and a wonderful father, the man who would go out once at 3 a.m. to appease my cereal craving and again at 3:30 when you confused Froot Loops with Apple Jacks. I would find myself often frustrated by your quiet nature but rewarded at the tiny bubbles of goodness and wit that would make their way to the surface during an odd expressive moment. If we were married it's safe to say I'd be drinking hard liquor.

C, if we had made it this far I think we'd be living in Tallahassee, still doing the grad school thing almost a decade after we both started. We would have been married in a Catholic church in DC, and I probably would not have met half the friends you invited to the wedding. I still wouldn't really know what happened in New Mexico. A good bit of our furniture would be from Ikea, and much to my mother's chagrin, we'd have gotten at least two large tents and a thankfully smaller chocolate lab as wedding presents. I'd force myself on a regular basis to eat seafood and not to use puns to excess. We'd go to Martha's Vineyard for our yearly trip and I would find it amazingly rewarding to see my sunburned cheeks in the annual family photo. I'd remain in awe of your ability to make perfect rice and completely amazed at what a good, good man I had found to put up with me. A good bit of the time our lives would be spent in complete silence.

R, if we had gotten married we'd be living in Alexandria, likely in a small house in the back roads of Del Ray. We'd be regulars at the local coffee house, me writing on my laptop and you reading about the latest social revolution. I'd be doubling up on birth control while you did exercises you'd found on the Internet rumored to make your sperm more ambitious. I'd watch you play inline hockey on Wednesday nights and wonder why I never really fit in with any of the other wives. I'd pray for you to get your front tooth fixed. I'd bake miniature rum cakes and take them to parties at which I'd wish for once you'd mingle. Instead, you'd mostly just sit, writing or singing or whatever it is you did in your own head, while I drank Chianti to excess and contemplated forcing myself on your coworker under the mistletoe.

K, if we had gotten married we'd sooner or later nest in MD. You'd play ball for the alumni club and I'd probably only show for the Miller Lites that followed. I'd want to undress you no matter the suit and beg you to wear them more often. We'd go back to San Francisco to recapture moments of near-perfect wine and sex. I'd find excuses not to go on stateside group vacations, hoping for more than repeated college reunions. Neither of us would bring any good furniture to the union, and we'd still order in and eat on a coffee table, always in front of the television. Laughter would be our foundation. I'd pick fights about family and finances, delusional that it would prompt change, and then guilt would prompt a frantic effort at nice. Our best days would be spent by the ocean, your freckles urged out by the sun, me giggling while clumsily trying to float the waves. You would have been thankful that my father was alive to see me in my wedding white. I would always know that I could trust you, count on you to hold my hand tightly, and ask me to dance no matter the event. I'd still drink Yellow Tail. And our lives would still be about me.

Welcomed

2008-04-01T21:05:00.003-04:00

I’m intoxicated. Don’t jump to conclusions. By God, it’s the most beautiful day in DC thus far this year, and it’s so gorgeous here that I’m suppressing my every urge to write the post I was going to about tourists being kind to DC residents while invading our space to gawk at the cherry blossoms. It’s downright sublime.

This is perhaps the pinnacle of the year for my city, when suddenly the runners around the park are baring their pasty legs and they care not that they haven’t lost their requisite winter weight. The air smells of barbeque and you don’t even mind that your neighbor has forgotten that smoke rises, and rises right into your living room with a right turn into your cats’ lungs. Traffic doesn’t seem as grueling, because the monuments are set against what only this morning was an overcast, weeping sky. The girls across the street come home later than usual and their jackets have been traded for short-sleeved tees. The windows are open and you can almost hear the Pepco bill falling.

Spring in DC is about wishing you had learned how to put the rented convertible’s top down before leaving work. About turning the car heat on only your feet because the sun has found the rest of you. About switching to a white wine because you invite the initial chill. And about walking the extra few blocks to catch a cab, about drinking street side while rubbing your feet against the brick, and about leaving the lined dress pants hanging in the closet until the next cold front comes through.

It isn’t the couple’s season, which bodes even better for the single girl. It’s group spring brunches spent with sunglasses atop your head and a solo walk at lunch that doesn’t leave you longing for his hand around your waist. It’s laughing loudly at a joke because there isn’t cold silence in the streets, without a care as to who hears you. It’s knowing softball on the Mall and conversations with neighbors on the front stoop are around the corner. Everyone is looking upward, if only to let the sun touch their cheeks, and there’s no need to grab another for warmth. No one is ever alone in spring.

So yes, please, come see the cherry blossoms, and enjoy this ridiculously beautiful city as much as I do. And remember that crossing a DC street is done in the same way that it’s done in your home state, even if grandpa keeps honking at you from the Buick across the street with a Zebra cake in his mouth, and that taking a mid-intersection picture of those gorgeous, bubbly blossoms is worth a thousand words, but is also grounds for being pummeled by a rental car regardless of the warmth of the night’s breeze or this appreciative, spring-drunk local’s heart.

Opening Day (now with 66% more losing Presidents!)

2008-03-31T22:09:00.025-04:00

Opening Day at the new Nationals ball park was - how you say? - COLD. It was fabulous, actually, the thrill of a lifetime, a cold, throbbing thrill of which only a few thousand of us non-season ticket holding bourgeoisie got to be a part. An experience that will forever remain imprinted on my brain and leave me at Kim's disposal, forced to ask people embarrassing questions at bars while she points and laughs, given that she granted me the golden ticket.

It'll be worth every emotional penny.

The day started with a hangover for Kim (see exhibit A) and an overzealous and completely not hungover Kris, who of course had planned for days that she would take tissues in her purse and that her camera battery would be fully charged and which Metro lines at what times put her in strategic on-time placement for the BEST. DAY. EVER.

Hungover Kim (again refer to Exhibit A) was not pleased by Kris' excessive use of exclamations and decibels, leaving Kris in a position to drink too much prior to game time and take multiple "before" photos in the bar bathroom before being caught by a sober female
patron. The "Does this darn thing work?" doesn't hold water after a few drinks, especially when you're caught posing in the mirror with said camera.

DC, we finally have a real ball park. She's beautiful, and I was like a real woman at a baby shower. Look at the little Ws on the gate!

And the Nats colors in the women's bathroom!

The President of these United States threw out the first ball, which was met with a ridiculous number of boos. Not normal boos, like Michael Richards just made racist remarks boos, but mega throwdown boos, like Bush had just kicked a puppy being held by the Pope sitting on the lap of a disabled veteran. Hometown grad made good Denyce Graves sang the national anthem, and I would have been crying if it hadn't eaten my weight in what I will claim was low-sodium ketchup.

Seriously? Nationals Park is full of delicious goodness, like bottom of the ninth game-winning home runs I read about and all that, but the excessive use of puns? Behold the awesomeness:

and the raw gorgeousness of . . .

. . . and the - dare I say - titillating?

Moving on.

There were amazing highlights to the night, with the exception of the fact that the park is kid friendly and smoking unfriendly,

not to mention that ONE OF THE COWARDLY BRAVES CLEARLY SENT TEDDY THROUGH CENTER FIELD RATHER THAN DOWN THE BASELINE, DADGUMIT:

Highlights like the fact that our team actually looks cute in this year's mug shots! And that hypothermia doesn't reach the breasts for at least one hour and twelve minutes!

And that the only open seats in the entire park were right next to us!

And oh, the luscious scoreboard, on which my personal history of scores will be broadcast to the crowd and all my ex-boyfriends in attendance on my 80th birthday . . .

And that gorgeous field, complete with gorgeous men at least 10 years my junior wearing gorgeous lycra-infused pants . . .

And a backyard view that says, "World? We're Washington, DC. No, we can't make a decent bagel any better than we can make our votes count, but we're the center of the international universe! AND AT LEAST WE'RE NOT NEW JERSEY!"

Well, we'll always have the senator's sausage.

it's really effing cold out here, people.

2008-03-30T20:29:00.000-04:00

Let the record show that neither kim nor I booed the president when he threw out the opening pitch just now. I think we were the only ones.

dumbfounded

2008-03-28T12:00:00.006-04:00

I went with my mother to buy her a car last night. We went to a luxury car dealership in the Northern Virginia, where everything was shiny and all the people were smiley and for a few moments I was shiny and smiley too. A stubborn, stubborn woman, I am not good at negotiation, but I am good at research. I was armed with numbers and quotes and a brain.

Let the record show that I do not fare condescension well, and I am not a woman who likes to be manipulated, save in situations of mutual adult consent. Within minutes, I wanted to stab the sales guy in the eye with a white hot poker. If not a white hot poker, maybe a pair of those tweezers used in the Operation game. A pair that were whittled in the Stone Age, passed down by generations of females, used with such frequency to remove the genitalia of arrogant men that they were little more than blunt stubs.

I stated that we did not want a car with the extras the floor model had.

“There are no extras on that car. Tell me which ones are extras,” he challenged. “Show me.”

Surely he couldn’t be serious. They were printed on the dealer sticker we just reviewed. I was completely caught off guard.

“Oh, that’s the only way that model is made,” he stated.

Really? Seriously. Because the web site for your brand mothership begs to differ. And I’m pretty sure they call certain features “options” because they don’t come standard. As in THEY ARE OPTIONAL.

He told us they did make the cars we wanted in other far off lands, places like Whoville and Double Crossia, “but that’s the only way that model is made for this area. Those are the only cars the manufacturer sends us.” And we’d have to wait ‘til the new millennium to get a car built without those options, because those special vehicles are made by students at Hogwarts, and, as you well know, sometimes making cars takes a backseat to making beetle dung levitate.

Well if that’s the case, I said, then you can take off the accoutrements like those Ginsu knives and the Maxim subscription and the trunk mat and cargo net, because we don’t want them.

“Tell me why you don’t want them.”

I’m sorry? I need to tell YOU why we don’t want a fucking ferret hammock in the trunk?

He proceeded to open the trunk of the floor model to extol the virtues of the mat and cargo net. “If you spill anything it will get on the mat and not the trunk floor.” Genius, I tell you. “And the cargo net holds things,” he said, actually putting his hand in the netting to simulate it holding stuff and objects and materials. “It keeps things from rolling around in your trunk.”

Really? Like groceries and stuff our working businessman husband brings home for us to cook? That’s funny, because I always assumed they were for holding our newborns as we carpooled to Tupperware parties.

At one point during our floor model inspection he actually put his arm around me and said something about how I clearly tell my mom how to make her decisions. I wanted so badly to hurl him over my head like one of Charlie’s Angels might do, to the applause of all the shiny and smiley car saleswomen in the dealership. And I would have done it if I had any upper body strength and any clue as to how one hurls another over her head.

Finally, we tried to negotiate on price, armed with aforementioned market values and Edmunds info galore, and at one point he chuckled at me. “Tell me where you got this information,” he said as if I had just gotten my multiplication tables wrong. “There seems to be some misunderstanding about your research.” My mother placed her hand on my leg, the button that tells me she knows I want to impale him on his own knowledge erection, but that prison pinstripes do nothing for a Likey woman’s figure.

We didn’t buy the car.

Thank God Opening Day is Sunday. Maybe someone can explain to me that baseballs are hit with bats.

Analyze this, or the post that required a BP cuff and a jar of olives.

2008-03-26T11:10:00.000-04:00

Did I mention that I was diagnosed with hypertension two weeks ago? I don’t think I did. I was. I’ve lived my life as one of those people with freakishly low blood pressure and it’s something on I which I prided myself. When I was at urgent care for an unrelated ailment (read: leprosy or some other old-timey disease), the nurse took my BP twice and failed to give me the usual high five either time. She told me the reading (something like 1700 over 20) and then hurried to get the doctor, who then stood outside my closed exam room door and shouted alarming phrases like “highest ever seen!” and “silent killer!” and “smoke the evildoers out of their holes!” My HTN apparently accounts for my frequent migraines, the ones that differ from hangover headaches in that they make me want to lock my kitties in the freezer for their incessant purring. Not really, but migraines do make me want to eat bowlfuls of olives and pretzels. And what do olives and pretzels have in common, class? Olives and pretzels are covered in glorious, glorious sodium, God’s finest mineral next to the diamond. So I’m supposed to avoid salt and smoking and alcohol and sex and happiness, the doc says, and this sucking the joy out of life will result in lowered blood pressure and an increased life span without salt and smoking and alcohol and sex and happiness.

I’m also supposed to avoid stress, which is a task I consider similar to those special kids having to steer clear of sunshine. Is that realistic? I’ve done my best this week, reducing fights (although I’ve been in at least two) and drinking (didn’t imbibe for five days straight, my longest stretch since infancy), and minimizing the glorious, glorious sodium. I haven’t had a migraine in a week.

And then my Daily Buddha-mail arrived. It came after lunch yesterday, as usual, despite Stacy getting it earlier on the West Coast than I do in the East, which makes no sense given that she’s not even awake to read it. I generally love my daily Buddha bit, the gentle love in my in box reminding me all about and acceptance and not freaking out because Stacy got her email like seven hours ago already, and warm fuzzies about being present in the moment. But in this moment I was angry; for the first time in seven days, I felt a pang of pain in my temples. Because the Buddha message was all about validation and love and sunny skies, and I get that, but it was also about accepting yourself as a good person when you do bad things. And putting that bad choice in a little Tiffany box with a bow and just getting on with it, already, because self-acceptance and a love of you trumps all, sugar! Come again?

Let the record show that I am not a believer in rubbing the dog’s nose in it when you come home to a mess on the kitchen floor. I used to adhere to such a philosophy, with dogs and boys and mothers, but I’ve since learned that such behavior does nothing but make the dog and boy and mother run and hide in the closet. Which is rewarding for a short - and so very sweet - sliver of time, one only made sweeter if your captive is hiding in the closet in some form of Underoo. I am a believer, however, in self-analysis accompanying this self-acceptance everybody is toting around like a brand new Burberry. I know I’m sounding a little unsympathetic – and quite possibly a little Golden Girlish – but back in St. Olaf a dose of self-judgment was always in order, as it should be. Life isn’t a series of after school special moments of “Gee, what I did was really shitty and not even the cat will look me in the eyes,” followed by a thumbs-up, “But I’m a good person deep down in the bowels of my soul, so it’s all good. Let's go for ice cream sundaes!”

My psych friends will boo and hiss at me for encouraging labels, but at times people are bad people. It doesn’t mean they always are, but yep, for this stretch of the life highway, they are what they are. When we subscribe to the “I’m a good person who does bad things” way of living, accountability is gone. We can simply go about our business as if nothing else - and no one else - matters. Why attempt to figure out why you do certain crummy things, and more importantly how not to do them again, if you’re a good person after all? So I cheated on my husband; why think that through? It happened, it’s donezo. It was a bad decision and I’m moving on. Really? I’d hate to see the choices she's making at 60. What about something more subtle? I said something belittling/lied/joked at her expense/didn’t tell the full story. And I know it hurt her feelings. But I didn’t mean to. Ugh. Without some sort of introspection to accompany blanket self-acceptance, what will discourage him from going through life wearing interpersonal blinders? We’re left living life doing what feels good in the moment. We’re left with Petri dishes of Get out of Jail Free cards. And no one likes to play on the swings with a Petri dish. Just ask Eliot Spitzer.

No, I don’t think people should label themselves as good, bad, mediocre, fantabulous, or any other lame adjective for their entire lives; that indeed can be crippling. Your mistakes should never define you long term. But there are times when you should be thinking about your actions and their consequences, even in hindsight, before simply accepting them as part of the beloved and accepted and most cherished! YOU. I lived without doing so for many years, and lost more than one loved one before snapping out of it. So trust me on this, no matter how much you want to buck the statement: Sometimes, this you just being you? No. It isn’t all good.

Month thirty-six

2008-03-23T16:32:00.001-04:00

I spent numerous hours this weekend combing the Interwebs for site design ideas. Nothing fits. It all seems too fluffy, too bare, too cartoonish. Alternatively, it’s a great, clean layout and also clearly someone else’s brain child, and I’m not big on theft or time in the clink.

The occasion? My little wino turned three this month, and she’s getting a new look for playing quietly while mommy has one more grape juice. We celebrated her actual birth date with a party at Chuck E. Cheese, but given that in most photos I was caught groping the mascot, I thought amends to my little girl were in order. Let the record show that it’s Mr. Cheese’s own damn fault for serving the adult beverages.

In other news, I spent so much time with the television on today that a kid actor from my morning House showed up on a 4 pm Cold Case. I think I’ll get out for a while.

Happy Easter.

simply stated

2008-03-21T09:35:00.002-04:00

I’m working on a travel journal. It’s retrospective, I guess you could say, because I was either too lazy to write as things were happening or too young to know that without flash cards I’d soon forget it all. I started with the U.S. If I’ve been to your state, here’s the first thing that came to my mind about it.

Alabama – I-10.

Arizona – Sedona. I had never seen anything quite that color red before, with the exception of the odd clay tennis court in New Jersey, and I thought I would start crying on the spot.

California – The Villa Florence hotel in San Francisco. Cabernet, Aveda, lobby chatter, the creak of the white wood on the second level. I smile just thinking of that place.

Colorado – Being cut off at a bar at the Denver Airport.

Connecticut – I recall physically aching from the envy I felt at the beauty of the waterfront homes there, the ones with windows that somehow escape the sea spit and the manicured kelly green lawns. I reassure myself regularly that the whole world doesn’t live like this; it’s just everyone in Connecticut.

Delaware – Visiting the University of Delaware, thinking that quite possibly I was on a television set made to look like a college, where there’d be one nerdy guy in a sweater vest, one buxom sorority blonde, and a kid in a wheelchair all in one shot.

Florida – A Seminole, I ended up sitting in the UF section at a Florida/Florida State game while wearing a bright blue sweater.

Georgia – First witnessing one of my same-aged cousins call my mother “ma’am.” Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Jersey anymore.

Illinois – Walking riverside in Chicago in the springtime, thinking that there would be no better place to live on the planet. For three months of the year. (Although now, ever being on the river in Chicago instills fear that the Dave Matthews Band might ruin the moment. I don’t even want to link that reference.)

Indiana – Indiana makes me think of a 10th grade Presbyterian retreat at Purdue University. Back in the years before cellulite, when I still had evidence that God loved me back.

Louisiana – Taking a picture of a mammoth David Duke campaign sign to prove to the North that the rumors were true.

Maine – in all honesty, no recollection.

Maryland – Getting our asses kicked by the Terps in 2004 and enduring some serious ridicule as we schlepped to our cars.

Massachusetts – I’m pretty sure “Boston” is olde English for “my tea bags are frozen,” because a few days spent there in January were colder than, well, you know.

Michigan – I loved those stone ducks on everyone’s front lawns, which you’d think I’d hate given genetic snobbery. If I owned one, its winter outfit would include Chucks and quite possibly a pink hoodie, which I’m guessing would less than charm the ladies of the Bloomfield Hills Garden Club.

Mississippi – It will sound ridiculous and just a teensy weensy bit stereotypical, but I remember visiting quite possibly the largest Wal-Mart I have ever seen. There might have been angels singing. Angels wearing flip flops.

Missouri – I absolutely loved the few days I spent in Springfield. I also consider the Branson craze to be one of the more interesting social phenomena of our time.

Nevada – Staying at the Nugget in Reno, I walked out of an elevator at 7:30 am to see a blue hair playing nickel slots in last night’s sequined outfit, or as I now call it, my tomorrow if I don’t quit the Pall Malls.

New Hampshire – Not gonna lie, NH. No memory of it. Nada.

New Jersey – Sitting on the beach with my friend Kevin the night after my senior prom, running my fingers through the cool sand. My hands were very tan and my nails were very white, which I’m hoping was the trend at the time; it was also my only lifetime manicure prior to last week.

New York – I get two! In Manhattan, watching in horror as a street vendor picked chestnuts up off the sidewalk to return them to the open fire. Upstate, going to an Albany River Rats game with my sister. I’m not sure how we ended up there, but I do recall thinking that the entire populous of this capital city was in attendance. The ones that weren’t frozen.

North Carolina – When my grandfather was dying, my sister and I drove to Miami to surprise my mother and grandmother with some much needed support. When we arrived at my grandmother’s home, my mother saw us through the peephole and shouted, “Oh shit!” Stellar. Fayetteville, NC was our stopping point on the way to Miami. We stayed at a Days Inn there, spending Thanksgiving night in our room eating munchies we bought from a gas station down the street.

Ohio – A visit to Muskingum College, where I saw both my first 1) gazebo and b) adult virgin.

Pennsylvania – Ugh. It’s an awful thing to admit, but my immediate memory is of sneaking behind a boyfriend’s back to visit another guy at a college in Philadelphia – a guy I had so very tritely and regrettably met on Spring Break in Cancun (not so regrettably, long before the debut of the Girls Gone Wild series). They don’t make a font small enough to reveal that comfortably to the Interwebs.

Rhode Island – Providence. I remember the name, but the face . . . can’t quite place it.

South Carolina – Driving past South of the Border, screaming at my mother and father to pull over, just as Pedro the Signage Whore had been encouraging me to do since Baltimore.

Tennessee – the Memphis Airport.

Texas – Margaritas on the Riverwalk – extra, extra salt – and the brilliance that is the outdoor mister.

Utah – I don’t think I’ve ever seen landscape more sublime. It might not exist on the planet. Glorious.

Vermont – yeah, New England? I’m not gonna lie. I even called my mom on this one, and she remembers nothing remarkable. We agreed on: colorful leaves.

Virginia – My first week in DC, 1995. Arlington. Driving around my block repeatedly, squeeing each and every time I reached the top of a hill on Route 50, because from there I could see the Washington Monument.

West Virginia – the outlets in Martinsburg. Anyone ever been? You can buy Pyrex bowls and a blue suede miniskirt all before 9 am. Genius.

Wisconsin – I was there for a wedding with my ex, a man who is now long married to another woman from my graduate program. The day after the wedding, he and I drove behind the groom to his family’s home in Appleton. I remember the beautiful green countryside and rolling hills, and thinking just how unbelievably lush it all was, and how I was glad I didn’t live there, because all that quiet and open space might just kill me.

Proof positive

2008-03-20T09:49:00.001-04:00

I was at once excited and disturbed to see that I met all the “Signs You’re an Adult” criteria on the last page of this month’s Redbook.

It’s not lost on me that I was reading Redbook at the time. Or that I actually have a subscription. And have since I was 28.

Don't judge.

The bride is registered at Taco Bell

2008-03-18T21:38:00.003-04:00

I wish I could have my reception this weekend. A full wedding reception, one at which I’ll put the money others would invest in butter cream frosting into more hors d'oeuvres. There will not be a sit-down meal to waste our socializing time, impinge upon our tipsy dancing. There will be tiny stuffed mushrooms for Mom and spanakopita for me. And spring rolls with peanut sauce. A cotton candy machine that will turn our hands and fingers into sticky pink messes; fine linens and heavy silver and a fair amount of taupe in the room, and most definitely almond hand soap in the bathrooms. The lighting will be kind. And there’ll certainly be more wine than I can shake my old maid fist at. Sparkling, cabs, pinot grigio. And the infamous fountain soda machine I so desire. Those who want beer will have to get it out of a cooler in the parking lot.

I’ll be tan, sprayed on or not, and wear a white strapless dress. No tulle, no crinoline, just a cotton beach dress bordering on seersucker. My highlights will be recent and my PMS nonexistent. Aimee will be in charge of music, and when not mocking my play lists she’ll be blasting Thriller and early 90’s pop that will be sure to prompt me into embarrassing motion. I can say with some certainty that my arms will spend a fair amount of time over my head, the way they do when I’m dancing after one too many. Stacy will snap photos of said movement for blackmailing purposes, and in my tipsiness I’ll beg her to Photoshop my chin. Erika will bring me Stoli Vanil and Diet Cokes and express disbelief at the Meximelts on the buffet. Holman will insist on buying rounds of shots for the entire room despite my assurances that the bar is indeed open. You'll probably make out with the bartender, just as you did at the last wedding. Jenny will beg Aimee to play something, anything remotely resembling rap and Kim and KB will giggle and dance to it anyway. The lovely Mrs. J will pass her husband to me for a slow dance, and halfway through I’ll change out partners to dance with her. Between glasses of red, Heather B. will live blog the whole damn thing.

There won’t be a groom, obviously, just me and my mother and sister and my people. San Francisco, Seattle, Tallahassee, Toronto. New York, New Jersey, Mass, DC, a smattering of less popular states and all parts Northern Virginia. They’ll arrive with the hope of a wedding, the belief that Kris finally found someone who appreciated her sick humor and tendency toward watching Oprah during bouts of insomnia, and there I will be, alone and shoeless in a sundress getting my triumphant groove on.

And I’ll stand by my white lie. Because while people love to plan to get together, nothing makes them actually follow through like a funeral or the promise of nuptials. I’ve had enough death this year; seems like a bottomless platter of puff pastry and some Village People might do us all a little good.

Almost home

2008-03-14T19:42:00.000-04:00

The view from the train is decidedly bleak. It's not particularly surprising, but these sights are more disturbing and clear than you'd expect them to be at 70 mph. It seems that nothing that backs up to the tracks is ever in working order, save the pristine depots that were once the gateways to their respective small towns. The northeast corridor is a series of warehouses with those tiny broken windows they don't even seem to make anymore. The hills are full of garbage truck vomit, of plastic tubing and dolls with sooty faces and fully intact toilets thrown over the backyard dropoffs that frame these single family homes. There's a woman dragging a large branch down the middle of the street with three men around her. Two men meeting in headlights in a remote parking lot at dusk. The graffiti that swallows these buildings is more destructive than beautiful, like an acid wash on the model faces of these hardy brick buildings. One has to wonder what these places looked like in their heyday, when women wore heels and hats on these urban streets. Next up, a mid-city billboard that asks residents to Experience God. Which is interesting, because looking around, I'm not sure I see him anywhere.

And no, asshat, I don't know my exit

2008-03-14T08:57:00.001-04:00

I’m headed to the motherland today. I haven’t been in years, several, to be exact. I’m pretty sure Bush was president, at least one of them, but like the thought of Steve Guttenberg having sex, I try to put that out of my mind. I’m excited for taylor ham, egg and cheese sandwiches, infinite jughandles, and being in the passenger’s seat as my mother drives by the cul de sacs where I used too much tongue in parked cars. I’ve always been a classy girl.

I’d like to say that I’ll welcome running into old pals, but I’m much more of an introvert. The avoidance will start on Amtrak, when I board with strategy in mind. All who travel the northeast corridor by train know the drill: find a seat, look disgruntled, perhaps diagnosable, and don’t make eye contact. Insert iPod buds, begin reading a pamphlet on “Menstruation and You: Perfect Together”* and hope to sweet Jebus no one starts telling a life story that necessitates a trip to the café car for a bottle of white zin. I’ve done otherwise before. I’ve been forced to listen to tales about visiting a new grandkid outside of Philly, about how the guy from spring break in Richmond was SO AWESOME, about how the Man doesn’t respond to repeated letters and how he’ll get his from a shack in Montana. No one ever wants to join the foot-high club on the Acela.

The avoidance will continue on Saturday at the SuperFoodtown, where I’ll whine when my mother asks me to run in for a loaf of bread. I’ll unsuccessfully feign first cramps and then an aneurysm. She’ll force me inside with a five, stopping just short of calling me a pussy. And I’ll make a beeline for aisle 3, dodging anyone who looks remotely like the weenie who dumped me a month before the prom, or the 11th grade English teacher who denied flirtatious eye blinks made over the top of a hardcover Great Gatsby. Ah, Mr. Lamb, where art thou now?

And this Jersey girl wonders why she’s single.

* Please tell me someone else is old enough to get this Garden State reference.

overdue

2008-03-11T17:20:00.003-04:00

It’s long past due, and I’m sorry about that. I wish they made an electronic “Interwebs, thanks for your support during my father’s death, and the really, really tough months that came just before and after it” card, but I haven’t found any of those to send to you. Just so you know, if I were allowed to design one, it would surely be one of those black and white cards with children dressed as adults on it, only on this one the little boy in the top hat would be putting a single red rose on top of a casket, and the girl with the pink lips would be bawling uncontrollably next to him. And it would ruin those cards for everyone who keeps them in production and spoils my trips to Hallmark stores. Just as it should be.

I’m not sure many of you really knew what was happening up until my dad’s death. I kept it quiet, mentioning it only in a few posts. Even then sometimes I’d try to capture the part of his life that remained funny, like I did with the Oreos escapade. Because much of our lives was really, really funny. Or he and my family made it so, mostly because we had to, because the alternative of thinking about the imminent or openly moping really wasn’t even an option. We save most of that kind of drama for our friends and boyfriends, anyway.

The truth is that it was pretty awful, those last months, maybe longer, although I don’t think any of us knew it at the time. I know from pictures that my father was on oxygen for our cruise to Belize in 2005. At that point it was hard for him to make it down the hallways of the ship, and we’d stop with some frequency for him to catch what little breath he had, making it look like we were staring at the ocean or discussing the cheddar eagle atop the buffet. He was hauling around a newfangled oxygen container then, one which finally didn’t make it look like he was about to fill dozens of children’s balloons, and it was the envy of many on the ship. It’s sad even to think about that. He was on oxygen 24 hours a day, even then, more than two years before he passed away. So I guess it was pretty bad for a pretty long time. It just didn’t seem that long to us.

I was afraid for some reason to write in depth about my dad and his illness, afraid that I would be doing a disservice to his privacy and what I perceive to be his legend as a father. Always thin, something that irritated all three of his closest girls, he was still always incredibly strong, particularly in the upper body. In the summers of my childhood I can remember him being able to lift tools and wood and furniture that he probably shouldn’t have. I recall him working under cars until the late hours of summer nights and holding a three-year old me on his shoulder for hours in the airport. The hospice nurse would comment on this remaining strength the day before he died, actually.

He was also ridiculously bright. An engineer, my father almost couldn’t comprehend what it was that his two daughters didn’t adore about physics. I would sit kitchen tableside under his tutelage, crying with frustration because I didn’t understand – and frankly didn’t care – about the velocity of a bullet shot into wood. Or was it the velocity of the wood we were concerned with? I remember him demonstrating the principles of lift and drag to us with pieces of paper. I still don’t understand it, but man was it cool that he did. He loved science and math so much that he still had many of his college textbooks. I loved that. And he was funny. He laughed so hard at bad jokes and great greeting cards that he would be forced to wipe away tears. And I was in awe of him. I continued to be, even in those times when his illness would sneak a little of his lucidity. The father I knew remained intact, questioning medication amounts and laughing with hospice nurses up until his death.

And by not writing about it so much, I think I allowed things to stay that way. For the most part, I don’t feel that I need writing to remember just how awful things were, how his body was disintegrating and refusing to cooperate with his unwavering optimism. I have a surplus of those mental images, and a few concrete ones, and those should suffice for a lifetime.

You didn’t know my father, this man who convinced me I could learn Algebra at an age when it likely wasn’t legal, who wore jeans in the summertime, who cheered for every Florida State game even when many on the team were in jail or on the verge. And most of you don’t know me. But when my father died, I knew I had to come here to post that it was so, partially because I needed to put it into print, but also because part of me needed you to know. And you were completely gracious. You commented, sent flowers, sent private messages, many of them sharing with me your personal experience with losing someone who was a crucial part of your world. I checked your comments and emails during those days with somewhat alarming frequency. I wanted to hear what you had to say, to be close to this community of mostly faceless folks who have been accepting of me and my 12-13,000 neuroses. I needed that support in the face of losing that man, the mathematical wonder, the lover of puns, éclairs, and Peeps, the inexperienced father who once let me throw up in his cupped hands because he couldn’t find a garbage can fast enough. Poor thing.

I loved that man more than I can capture here, and although you didn’t know us, you knew that. Thank you all so very much.

Post Cheating

2008-03-09T20:00:00.003-04:00

Don't judge! This is a bona fide entry!

Not really. But I'm so intrigued that I couldn't help myself, much like the pull I feel to both the Titanic soundtrack and men with wayward eyes. Word on the street is that the most recent Powerball jackpot was more than two weeks' salary for any of us, save The Oprah. Like 200 million duckets. Or 200 gazillion Meximelts. Topped with fat full sour cream and a cubic zirconia.

The death of my father has made me an expert in both the workings of the IRS and polite ways to tell well wishers that I don't feel that God was doing the right thing. I'm choosing to focus on the former.

If I were to gift you $12,000, what would you do with it?

Reason #1,040

2008-03-06T10:34:00.012-05:00

The totality of my Target purchases from last night, which I’m sure were not lost on the adorable single guy in front of me in line:

No fewer than four Weight Watchers meals, of completely limited variety, which of course reveal my affinity for romantic fireside dinners.

A bright blue vat of cat food. Which of course reveals my affinity for impromptu fireside coitus. Stopped mid-motion to remove stray cat hair from his mouth.

Cheap face cream + an alphabetic combination lock = I’m old enough to 1) worry about becoming a leather bag and 2) forget simple number codes. Crying shame that “early onset dementia” is more than four letters.

A three-pack of ankle socks, which I will wear while watching the director’s cut of the Joy Luck Club. Right after I’m done with Hope Floats.

Men’s deodorant, because occasionally a woman does need something strong enough for an indentured servant.

Also note the coupon in the far right, good for $1 off a Kraft cheese product of my choosing. Because hot is a stray squirt of pressurized cheese landing on your three-legged cat.

Come get me, boys.

Yes, you.

2008-03-04T11:00:00.002-05:00

I’m talking to you. I know you don’t know me, but I know you.

I want you to leave her alone, to stop this mess you’ve lured her into. To stop dangling the carrot in front of her face knowing full well that you aren’t enough for this woman, knowing full well that you keeping her at arm’s length only draws her in closer. I want you to man up and tell her to move on, tell her you’ll never deliver, because you won’t. Sunday crosswords and hands held tightly at the market and wine over dinner with friends – it isn’t in the cards. She will never meet your parents or be your date for the wedding you’ve talked about for the year, a picture of celebration and friendship you’ve painted repeatedly, although never with her in it. She will never see the Maldives with you and your favorite couple. You will never agree to hit the favorite haunts in her hometown.

And you know it.

You’ve known it since the beginning, since well before any synonym for commitment ever entered the conversation. You’ve known it since you hesitated the first and the tenth time to introduce her to your friends, since you turned down the first of many invitations to meet up with her girls at their bar. The excuses are lazy ones and the truth even lazier. You've known it since you first saw her face flush when you gave her hope of something more.

Tell her you’re back together with an ex, that you never loved her. Tell her the truth: that you’re a ridiculous coward who doesn’t care enough about her to let her live her own life.

She deserves better than you, and I only wish she knew it. I wish I could fast forward to the day when she’ll have him, the one who won’t want to make a vacation plan without her in it, who will think to bring her to meet his friends within a matter of days. He’ll be without her and wish she was picking up her cell so he could share a silly observation. He’ll be in awe of her and on some days stare at her when she isn’t looking. He'll know that sex isn't always about the orgasm and he'll check on her when she's sick. Oh yes, they’ll fight and there will be weeks when she won’t remember what she saw in him to begin with, but he’ll love her deeply and treat her with the respect and adoration she deserves. And there will be Sunday crosswords and knowing how she takes her coffee and the occasional envy of her friends.

And you know that part too.

I'm not gonna lie; I picture my dad driving her in heaven

2008-02-28T18:45:00.004-05:00

It only makes sense that my Sentra would go out in style. None of this weepy not turning over in the driveway because it’s cold out crap that so many lesser cars pull. Instead she waited until rush hour traffic ran ragged through the streets and only then did she give up the ghost. Kaput. She offered no warning, unless in your world squeaky brakes and a hissing tire and a steady bucking motion constitute a warning. She did not pull over in defeat. Instead, she opted for more of a Norma Desmond, hand-to-head diva-like swoon, blacking out in the middle of a main DC thoroughfare, her blinking hazards the only sign of the spark once within.

I am now driving a rental car, one whose design screams "My driver is homely!" and "I once paid a women for sex!" I like that it tells me the outside temperature, but it doesn't feel quite right that all of its windows are intact.

The Un-Jane Austen Book Club

2008-02-27T10:37:00.004-05:00

I started with a new book club last night, and I left wanting to make miniature versions of each of the women to keep in a box under my bed. Our splendid meeting reminded me of two cardinal Kris rules:

1) I am utterly obsessed with bright, funny females, particularly those who allow you to express your dislike for the month's book with tipsy, shrill words and the excessive use of hand gestures. It might better us all should the gals of DC abandon men and just start dating one another.

2) Never, ever order a glass of Pinot Noir at an Irish bar.

Michael Clayton, can you get mama a glass of red while you're up? Juno you want to.

2008-02-24T20:01:00.057-05:00

Ok, so I'm watching the pre-show on ABC. Didn't it look like Clooney's girlfriend totally didn't get his joke about Cary Grant? I also suspect she might be wearing the pastel bedspread from their room at the Sleep Inn.

Javier Bardem. Sweet Jebus. Somebody cleans up real nice, mutton chops and all. I don't have any Spanish in me, but I wouldn't mind some.

I wonder sometimes who these people are who cheer on the red carpet walkers. I'm pretty sure they're the same folks who get Christmas pictures of their cats taken at PetSmart.

I want to eat Nutella out of Jennifer Garner's dimples. She looks stunning. As does Helen Mirren.

SCORE! Truthitude or falsehood? Did Daniel Day Lewis buy his wife a Bedazzler for Christmas? I'd bet another of Bug's legs on it.

Seriously, how slow is the red carpet this year if Regis is in the bowels of the Kodak talking to third string performers? Brad? Angelina? I'd even take Meg Ryan. Tom Green?

Ok, the main attraction. What is this BS? No opening montage, a skillfully-constructed three-minute orgasm of funny? Our host will eventually redeem himself with the Gaydolf Titler line. Inappropriate, but funny because he's smart and probably does the Sunday crossword in his nudeness.

I love Jon Stewart so much. I want to make out with him hard core and then lie in bed eating separate XL pizzas.

This has been 15 minutes of boring. Even Cricket has resorted to licking herself for stimulation. Ah, here comes the delicacy that is George Clooney. I would go to a Tobey Keith concert if this guy asked me to, which for me is a request just short of having children.

Did they just couple a pic of Christopher Reeve with Celine's My Heart Will Go On? Seriously? The writer's strike may be dead but apparently cheap tears are not. Cripes.

Nothing, my friends, NOTHING says comedy like a Steve Carell/Anne Hathaway pairing. GENIUS.

Normal people (read: those who are not stars or folk from the Island of Pretty) should be given five seconds each to speak when accepting their awards. They should then retire to their Normal People afterparty at Denny's.

Katherine Heigl is adorable.

Am I just sober or is this a really boring broadcast? Maybe things will pick up after the collection of "Best Hot Dog on a Craft Services Cart" awards have been handed out.

Johnny Depp just blew a kiss at an award winner and I almost dove for the television to intercept it. Don't judge.

Ah yes. First acting award - AMEN! And a shot of Christopher Walken with feathered hair! Ah, and Cuba's big moment. No, not the one that ditched Castro.

Jennifer Hudson is adorable. Off topic, sometimes I wonder if there's a Locks of Love-type program for women who have more than their share of breasts. Back to the topic at hand, Jennifer is a talented, amply-busted woman. Who could be helping at least two A-wearing women in LA achieve their dreams. Just sayin'.

Javier might be the newest man to be kept in inappropriately small Tupperware under my bed. Just so you know, his Spanish tribute to his "mother"? It was actually for me. Javi, I can't wait for us to eat Eggo waffles off of each other's chins either, baby. Come home soon. Mi casa? Well, you know.

Keri Russell is a little bit of sunshine, even if she can't break out of indies. I love me some Felicity, not like a normal WB fan might, but more like a freak that bought her ex-boyfriend the first season DVD under the guise of it actually being for HIM. Yep. I really did.

Gratuitous choral interlude. Cigarette.

Yeah Owen Wilson! Hello, mate! (I hope they remembered to pull him out of the death montage in time.)

Best live action short film followed by Seinfeld's voiceover as an animated bee. Time to bathe the cats and go for my annual exam. In Argentina.

Ok, this redhead from Michael Clayton. A number 1) thank you for bringing some spirit to these here awards. B number 2) a stop at the Clinique counter would have taken 10 MINUTES.

Did they just say stay tuned for Miley Cyrus? Seriously? Is she the only one not in rehab?

Jessica Alba! I'd pee my pants if she presented Juno with an award. Nothing says wholesome like fianceed pregnancy!

Jack Nicholson, your cool 1980s self called, and he wants his sunglasses back.

I've never understood why they sing all the nominated songs. It isn't that fun, is it? I'd much rather see them have the nominated thespians re-enact one of their scenes. Also, did construction workers just pick up Kristin Chenowith and rest her on their manly shoulders? Lucky bitch. I really should start inhaling helium again.

I'm not sure if you guys know this, but one actually can die of boredom. I knew I'd make it into Wikipedia somehow. Wait! Achievement in Sound Mixing! I'm saved!

Forrest Whitaker signals the arrival of a real award. And . . . someone I've never heard of wins it. I wish so much I'd picked up a bag of Baked Doritos to fill the void that now exists in my Oscar soul.

Colin Farrell. Mama likey when you take a shower. I bet you smell like English professor smoking a pipe. While wearing an apron and making huevos rancheros. In my kitchen.

Renee! She looks fabu, but don't you wish someone in the front row would yell out, "Hey, yeah you, Renee! Just what does it mean to divorce someone for FRAUD, anyway?"

Wardrobe malfunction spoiler! Nicole Kidman, YOUR HARRY WINSTONS ARE STUCK ON YOUR BOOB! NO REALLY! YOU HAVE A GAZILLION DOLLARS OF ICICLE DIAMONDS HANGING FOR DEAR LIFE TO YOUR RIGHT BREAST! *camera 1, reduce to head shot stat*

Bwahahahaha! Did they just introduce him as the "versatile and handsome Patrick Dempsey!" Seriously? Versatile? Like a reversible children's jacket? "And when she vomits carrots on it, just turn it inside out, and PRESTO CHANGE-O! It's an adult bib! No need to stop home before hitting the liquor store for mommy juice and takeout dignity!"

John Travolta has no eyes.

Oh no . . . here we go . . . the death montage. Cue excessive Heath Ledger applause. Does anyone else have the experience of finding out five years after you thought a star was dead and buried that he lived several years past your expectation? I've gotta be honest; I thought Bob Hope died in like '43. Apparently not.

Original Score? Wait, I thought that was Kimmay's Senior Superlative! Holla!

Um, does Tom Hanks have somewhere better to be? Like home shining his Oscars? I'm not sure he's even reading the cue cards in their entirety.

You know those commercials in which the tired adventurers with the broken legs and little love for their families tell their companions to go on without them? That they don't mind dying in the snow alone while coyotes chew at their soft tissue? That's how I feel right about now.

Kick ass for the Juno pole dancer/writer winning the screenplay award. Even better she showed up in Bam-Bam wear. Good stuff. A fantastic moment of authenticity, and it's about freaking time.

I want to take Helen Mirren home and make tea. Finally . . . Best Actor! No surprises here. Although I did think for a brief moment DDL and Clooney might miss while going for the consolation hug and full-on kiss. Which would make for a most beautiful You Tube day in the office tomorrow.

Direction . . . and it's the Coens! The new Weinbergs of the City of Angels! Clever, clever boys these two. Somewhere in America, the cute girls who turned these meh looking guys down are wondering if they can Google their phone numbers in the morning.

BEST PICTURE! It's almost time to hit the ~~7-11 for a bag of Doritos busted open with nacho cheese pumped into its innards~~ hay!

Yeah. Next year it might be best to skip the Oscars and instead watch old people put in their teeth. Am I wrong?

Das Live Blogging

2008-02-24T18:29:00.002-05:00

Alrighty - the guilty pleasure will be indulged! The live blogging of the 859th Academy Awards will begin promptly at the stroke of 8:30 pm here on the eastern seaboard. I may start at 8 if the pre-show is relatively interesting, which I am guessing it will not be. Unless someone falls or has a boob malfunction on the red carpet. In that case, I'm so there.

Oscar Wild

2008-02-23T18:56:00.003-05:00

Hmmm. My girl buns asked if I'd be live blogging the Oscars tomorrow night. Thinking about it. Anyone going to be around?

You said duty

2008-02-21T19:52:00.001-05:00

Its a funny thing, this not making the final jury cut. It's a different kind of rejection, but it smacks a little like watching Steve K. dance with another while you stand alone picking potato chip shards out of your braces.

I did my best to make both sides happy. Mr. Prosecutor, I'm 5'5", I abhor violence and simply adore tighty whities and recent law school grads. Ms. Defender, I have a clinical psych background, meaning either a) I believe we all can change given a Coke and a smile or b) I'm honestly too damn crazy to care. Love the skirt.

Neither my intent stares nor my nose-in-book indifference seemed to charm the right judges. And when-in the final five!-I was asked to leave the jury box to return to the DC commoners' pit, I wanted nothing more than to commandeer a limo to bawl my mascara off like so many Bachelor finale rejects. Did we not have something special? What was it about her, the one who wore the dazzling yellow hat despite Bull's repeated warnings, that made you want to be with her more? Justice isn't the only one who's blind, baby.

It might be time to get back together with Virginia.

Monday, Monday, so good to me

2008-02-20T08:12:00.003-05:00

Monday was a ridiculously perfect day, one of the ones that makes you suspect there might be a deity other than Oprah at work in the world. In DC, the temps reached into the 70s, launching pasty folk out into the sunshine. With their pasty kids, of course. I cared not. Monday was the kind of pseudo-spring day that makes me want to throw my panties in the air with some Mary Tyler Moore zest.

I did none of the things I promised myself I’d do – the hardwoods are missing their Murphy’s and I’m pretty sure the cats’ nails have started to curl into corkscrews – but both will wait.

The day began as it always does, with a soda of gargantuan size that makes tourists stop to take photos. I sat in a café with its doors open, writing long overdue letters. I love to write letters. There’s something about getting a handwritten communication that makes your heart rise, makes you run to the apartment a little faster with anticipation. I have great respect for folks who take a moment to make you feel good with the handwritten word.* Better yet if they can do it on unique stationery, the kind that keeps me on Etsy.com more hours than I should wishing I had either a million dollars or an ounce of design talent.

Lunch was eaten outside, and when I discovered a market with pesto pasta salads and freshly-baked breads, I carefully reattached my head to its proper place. I sat in the sunshine and ate ham and brie on a baguette with yet another Diet Coke, all the while making up stories about those around me. The two women lunching to my right who had just enough tension in their conversation to make me think there’s an academic or romantic competition between them. The man sitting by himself facing the sun with his eyes closed, cramming for an exam or trying to avoid it altogether? The girl in the sundress, immaculately coiffed, out for the day and quite possibly a perfect run-in with him.

The rest of the day was as it should have been. Checking out a new card store and finding the perfect gift for a friend’s upcoming birthday. Buying cigarettes after I tried to shrug off a man's request for coins with the “I’ve only got a credit card on me” response. Touche, persistent homeless guy. Buying ingredients to make a spicy pork tenderloin and others to whip up a curry. And drinking simply glorious amounts of fountain soda Diet Coke.

Of course the hardwoods are sporting a strange film and the cats are starting to walk on their knuckles, but there’s always the weekend for that.

* This does not count the time someone FedExed me hate mail in the pre-Internet years. Carry on.

Observance

2008-02-18T08:59:00.000-05:00

I like to think that while our forefathers were fighting for independence and alternatives to Earl Grey as a national beverage that they envisioned me Murphy’s oiling the hardwoods, returning videos to Blockbuster, and watching the View in honor of their very special date. Happy Presidents’ Day.

Do tell . . .

2008-02-15T11:04:00.001-05:00

What blogs here on the World Wide Internets are on your list of everyday must reads?

On love and lust . . .and lust.

2008-02-14T08:07:00.000-05:00

Another Valentine’s post. Just how many of these things have I written to date, anyway? I wonder sometimes when it was that I actually got caught up in the holiday to begin with, the one that Hallmark and M&M Mars use to pimp out all things screaming gluttony. It’s an excess of pink, of naked babies inappropriately armed with archery supplies, of pajama grams sold on late-night television. I care not. Whatever it is, I’m buying.

To be entirely honest, I’m not particularly saddened that I’m not gazing into the eyes of my life mate this February 14th, and I’m 66.6 percent sure that isn’t the Cab talking. Sure, I love the fantasy of a black halter dress zipped up my back, of reservations I didn’t have to prompt him to make, the smell of my perfume hanging in the hallway as we leave for the night. Of his hand on the small of my back, of coy looks that we haven’t given each other in a few weeks. Of a savory filet. Of a slow dance to jazz and conversation that doesn’t stop even when the next seating has arrived. Of my closest knowing money for roses would be much better spent on an amazing bottle of red poured into glasses with a stately stem. I won’t lie. All of that would be delicious.

I should say it will be delicious. Because I know it will happen just as surely as I know Pamela Anderson will marry again and Matthew McConaughey will turn up greasy in the tabloids. It’s in the cards. I have little doubt.

It’s that this year I have no one to be close to. To hold tight. To caress. Need I be more blunt?

Ahem.

I’m entering what my 11th grade health teacher deemed a woman’s sexual prime, and my arrival here couldn’t be more textbook. I want to be so close to someone that I lose track of our skin, to feel his kiss on the back of my neck when I’m hatching, to have him slowly and deliberately move his lips up to my ears where the feel of his warmth alone might make my head tilt gently when it in reality wants to explode. I think about tracing his mouth with my eyes as he talks at a crowded restaurant table, glancing over to me with every turn to his right. Of both suggestive and loving notes left in wool coat pockets. Of dinner left to simmer on the stove and healthy weekends spent in bed. Of the joy of choosing to engage in this way with one and only one, of adoring that his being and this moment is yours and likewise. Of leading one by the hand to a familiar spot and finding yourself still holding that hand in the morning.

It’s gorgeous decadence and I can seem to think of little else. I wouldn’t have said it two years ago, but I want the cocktail of love and desire, of ripping one another’s shirts off despite the irritation of lost buttons, of moments of this-isn’t-your-father’s experimentation and time spent together in the shower that leaves no hot water for guests. It’s about knowing you’re safe and he’s there for the long haul. You’re a force taking on the world and making mince meat of each other in your off time.

Sweet Lord, I can’t stop. I think about things I shouldn’t write about lest my mother and childhood pastor ever learn the ways of the Google. It’s like I’m 17 again, and beyond the ability to consume 4-lb. solid chocolate hearts, it’s what I’m missing most this year. Closeness. Familiarity. Confidence in yourselves and your hips and each and every last touch and whisper.

It will happen. I know this. It’s all simply in the cards.

contentment

2008-02-12T00:00:00.000-05:00

Today is a good day. And I’m knocking on wood and all things particle board to keep it that way.

My sister has agreed to go on a trip with me, one originating in Venice in the fall, and I thought my head would explode when she accepted my vacation proposal. My enthusiasm for the long term is closely followed by complete thrill for my date for Valentine’s Day, a woman with whom I will compete for the most stellar Missed Connections post in the history of Craigslist (you: blonde, chin covered in turkey leg grease and mead; me: noble knight smelling faintly of horse manure; us: fortuitous meeting by the stocks after supper?)

Cricket took her asthma medication without writing her gang sign in my skin. The writers’ strike may end today, giving me something other than PBS and sanding my foot skin to entertain me. 7-11 had extra Super Big Gulp cups hidden in the cabinet, and the clerk retrieved one for me with a smile and without a comment about caffeine addiction. My apartment is incredibly toasty despite the bitter cold. I am down three pounds. I am not Amy Winehouse.

There’s always someone to ruin a beautiful day like this one and today is no exception. This is the person we all know, the one who waits at the side of the stage stroking his handlebar moustache while plotting a puppy’s drowning. If the opportunity presents itself to me again today, which it will undoubtedly do given that I haven’t felt this positive since Noah built his ark, I will smile, threaten to pull his eyelashes out one by painful one, and remind him in a whisper that one cannot smell even the faintest traces of cyanide in Diet Coke.

It helped to pretend it was a three-legged cat.

2008-02-11T11:08:00.000-05:00

Spread 'em.

2008-02-08T11:59:00.000-05:00

So lots of stuff hasn’t been going right. Cue violins, cue Bailey Salinger-like angst, whatever floats your boat. And so it continued last night when I realized, upon arriving home late and enduring the incessant yowls of the hairy ones of whose biological care I am clearly negligent, that I missed jury duty last week. In the whirlwind of lawyer’s calls and Google searches on Social Security forms and multiple obit drafts I forgot to report to the Superior Courthouse of the District of Columbia, a duty I considered not only civic but personally engaging and ridiculously more fulfilling than my current sex life.

I, Kris Likey, forgot about jury duty. This from a woman who daydreams about where she’d plant a body to maximize shock value and who wept openly when she gave up Court TV with the rest of her highly-priced cable. It’s a dream to me to be sequestered, 12 Angry Women and all that.

Like I do about most things, I panicked and worried that the DCPD would be knocking down my door and hauling me “downtown” given my offense. It would have been kinda fun, to be honest. Especially if they were from a K9 unit. And were prone to shining an overhead light in my face during questioning and smoking Winstons just that much too close. Classic.

The DC court lady was absolutely lovely, the kind of person they should use all this cloning nonsense on and divide her multiples among the DMV and all fast food drive thrus nationwide. A clear surprise and far cry from the tough love I imagined - secretly hoped? - they’d hand down NYPD, rough stuff, no filter style.

I report for duty later this month.

apparently some people actually have them on purpose

2008-02-07T10:50:00.000-05:00

Kim’s got yet another baby in her life, and this time it isn’t one of her boyfriends. Her lovely sister gave birth to a munchkin last week, a little bundle of skin and much more hair than I, or any of my boyfriends, actually. I held said baby for several minutes on Saturday (we have photographic evidence of this momentous event that we shall never, ever share with my mother lest I be disowned).* Nice to see that even in times like this there is more than enough joy to go around. The circle of life, I guess. Sing it, Simba.

* I should also admit that I asked to be present when his diaper was changed, just to witness the sheer wonder if it. I know, odd. I watch the cats in their litter boxes too. Don’t judge.

Publisher’s Clearing House does knock on the door before calling, right?

2008-02-05T12:01:00.000-05:00

I’m a raging hypocrite at times, and it hasn’t taken me years of therapy to figure this out. It’s a no brainer. I talk over my mother while pleading with her to listen to me. I want you to allow me my neediness but I abhor it in you. I simply cannot stand avoidance in other people. Man up, I think. Make the call, support the friend, face up to what’s eating at you and let’s get this show on the road. Got an issue? Tackle the damn thing. Talk it out, sweat it out, drink through it, whatever it takes to feel it and move on to greener pastures. After an extended stay with self-pity, likely involving a large delivered pizza that I swear I’ll freeze the rest of, I like to think that I get in motion. Not cured, and as is evidenced by archives resplendent with tales of highwayside crying, but moving forward nonetheless.

Not right now.

I don’t want to talk about it. I so don’t want to face this, this situation, that it took a bottle of Cab Sauvignon for me to check the 19 new cell messages I’d been sitting on for the week after my father died. There are a dozen or so on there right now and I don’t want to listen to a single one. Truthfully, of what real importance can they be? Gone are the days of the scattered phone calls from Mom, the question marks around my travel given my father’s condition. These new calls can wait. As can the cards. I’ve opened about five, and the remaining ones are kept as far away from me as is physically possible, on the windowsill in the foyer. I can see them from my vantage point on the couch, much like the bills from Pepco and Comcast, but I see no need to open them right now. I’m just keeping things steady. Ask my closest. I tell them I’m fine – more about them is better. Maybe I can do something tonight; I’m just a little bit tired.

I don’t want to face this head on. What I want to do is fall asleep while watching delightfully bad television, while Simon berates some fool who should have known better and Paula claps her Labrador puppy-sized man hands. And when I’m awake, I want to drink wine and pore over buckets of old photographs while listening to Bridge over Troubled Water on repeat. As much as I want to remain numb right now, it’s like I want to soak in him. It’s why I frantically record memories of us in Blackberry memos before I forget them. As if immersing myself in the living part of my father will allow me to stave off the inevitable.

He isn’t here.

I know rationally that this masterful avoidance will not bring him back, that I will open those dreaded envelopes and with them the floodgates. But it sure keeps me from spilling out of the thin coating I’ve managed to wrap myself in for two weeks and counting.

Just the facts, ma'am.

2008-02-04T08:58:00.000-05:00

Dad’s obituary has run in all the proper places. Thank goodness that part is over. Rather than being a celebration of life, newspapers force you to make obituaries dry and flavorless, like a life without ketchup. It’s ridiculous that families must pay hundreds of dollars to reduce a love one’s life to so many lines full of the same old, same old. He went to school here, she married at this age, he did community service, she won an award. They’re both dead, and it doesn’t seem to be a horrible loss to the universe, because they both appeared to be pretty damn boring.

I’m not an exciting woman, what with my Tivod Dead Zone and cheap wine purchases, but I do hope that someday my obituary reads better than a 1040 tax form.

Kris Likey, researcher, blogger, defender of animals and the social contributions of the Ghost Whisperer
Kris Likey of Washington, DC passed away this morning after an extended episode of writer’s block. She was 34.

Likey was born and raised in Northern New Jersey, and thinks you should be ashamed for making a “What exit?” joke as you read this. She and her family lived overseas during her formative years; during a stay in London as a five year old, Likey first played doctor with a boy with whom she’d later graduate a New Jersey high school. During her travels, she discovered that although an unfriendly people, the French make amazing pastries and ham and cheese baguettes, while the Belgians clearly got the nice genes. Likey was a popular and well-rounded high school student for whom that all ended in 1991, when she graduated with a basket full of dreams and unachievable aspirations, including spending time at the Peach Pit with Brandon Walsh. Throughout these years Likey displayed a strange preoccupation with Duraflame logs.

Despite her love of the city, culture, and a decent slice of pizza, Likey decided to attend school in ~~rural~~ bumf*ck Virginia. She graduated in 1995 with a degree in both psychology and bitterness, the same year she moved to Arlington to begin a life of city snobbery and attendance at Weight Watchers meetings. After several years of fulfilling DC research work and equally unfulfilling sexual experiences, Likey moved south in the late 90s to begin accumulating 1 million credit hours in her pursuit of a doctorate in clinical psychology. She did not complete the degree, but does own a brick at Florida State University bearing her name, an achievement she was known to describe as “same diff.” During her tenure in Tallahassee, Likey moved six times; at her death, she was known to despise most every individual with whom she’d ever shared a group house.

Likey loathed elitism, poorly-behaved children, her cell phone, Forrest Gump, animal haters, and wintertime darkness. She loved waking up in a foreign country, the feel of an expensive wine glass in her hand, the magnificence of both Easy Cheese and smoked Gouda, Coach bags, the warmth of the Gulf, and a really good murder. Sadly, Likey was most proud of two high school writing awards, overcoming her fear of organized sports, and a tiny Web site she began in 2005 to regale others with tales of cat leg amputation and drinking wine in her tub. Friends report her greatest regret was never owning her own fountain soda machine.

Likey is survived by her mother, J, amazing bargain shopper and recent Josh Brogan convert as well as a sister, K, remarkable chili maker and writer who Likey recently forgave for being the chosen one. Likey was mother to two cats: Bug, Tallahassee native and recipient of the first feline prosthetic leg, and Cricket, well-known socialite and Lindsay Lohan party pal. Likey is predeceased by her father, D, grillmaster and lover of all things Simon and Garfunkel. Although she does not believe in an afterlife, if there is one she hopes her father's secured an amazingly large television for football watching purposes.

A private memorial service will be held, complete with disco ball, open bar, and Taco Bell burrito supremes. Kris Likey requested that in lieu of flowers, someone break into her apartment to remove her vibrator before her mother goes through all of her stuff.

losing it

2008-01-29T10:44:00.000-05:00

I am starting to forget things and I’m none too pleased. In the whirlwind that has followed my dad’s death, I’m starting to lose the details of our everyday in my own. The last things we said to each other. Why for some reason I kissed him goodbye when that was usually forbidden because we feared we’d get him sick. How we laughed so much before I left for the airport that his hospice nurse giggled along with us.

Friends joke that I need to document everything, whether it be by photograph or blog entry. It’s because I don’t remember. If it isn’t on some form of paper it mostly ceases to exist, unless in generalities.

I never want to think of my father without all the beautiful, unique details. The way he laughed with his mouth closed. That he hated all of my psych talk, that he read each and every owner’s manual cover to cover, that he would sometimes talk to the chipmunks in our New Jersey backyard. How you could bribe him effortlessly with a Snickers bar. That when he’d run you would always hear the refrain of loose change and tic tacs in his pockets. I need to take a couple of days to write these things down, before they are gone for good. I want no regrets.

running the gamut

2008-01-25T12:40:00.001-05:00

My emotions are scattered right now. Maybe not scattered, but not clear and distinct, and there’s definitely a lot of pulp. I’m in a constant state of irritability, the kind I feel when I’m trying to sleep and all I can do is toss and turn. It’s unpleasant to say the least.

Much of what I feel is anger. I’m angry that he is gone, and that now my mother must refer to us as three rather than four musketeers. I’m angry that these fools on Jerry Springer gripe and bitch about their lives while the beautiful, dignified gentleman that was my father never voiced a complaint. I’m angry that the aftermath has been nothing but forms and calls to newspapers and digging through files when all I want to do is curl up in a ball and try to remember as much of him as I can. I’m angry that his retirement was only six years long, and that for much of it he was hooked up to machines. That he never got back to Italy. That he had to drink his liquids through a goddamn straw and spend his last few days on this earth in bed. Much of it is selfish. I’m angry that my father will never see the joy of me falling in love again and the someday of me having a wedding. I’m angry that his presence at events will be replaced by discussions of fond memories and his favorite song. And I’m angry about the damn Super Bowl. That both of my father’s favored teams will be playing one another and he won’t be able to watch the splendor on the big screen television he only had for three weeks. I’m angry that I’m 34 years old and that my father is dead. And I’m furious that a life so consequential could be reduced to a legacy of left behind items in an instant.

I ache. I ache that the odd calm I see in my mother could only bless her after my father’s death, the only time in years when she hasn’t been worried about his oxygen being taped to his face during sleep and whether or not she should wake him from a nap to give him his nighttime meds. I ache that he spent the last years of his life sicker than anyone should be, and that he never griped about his situation, when I’m sure there were days he wanted to rage against us and the universe. I ache that he lies alone someplace in Virginia and won’t be cremated for several more days. And that I’m going on with life as best I can, finding laughter in half-hour shows and joy in exquisite flowers sent to the house. And I ache that I don’t feel him here, and that it makes me feel like a failure. People keep telling me that he’ll always be with me, but it doesn’t even remotely feel that way. It feels like he’s gone and that there’s a hole in our family. There is a sense of permanence to this that I didn’t think I’d feel. I don’t hear his voice, I can’t find his smell. I don’t see him unless I close my eyes, don’t sense him when reading his handwriting or cuddling under the quilt I last saw covering him. I don’t feel him here anymore. I wish so much that I could.

grieving DC family seeks sleep.

2008-01-22T21:32:00.000-05:00

I don’t recommend an 8 am appointment with the lawyer followed by a meeting with the bank bookended by detailed and sterile arrangements at the funeral home only blocks from your work. Days are much better spent eating Twix bars while wearing men’s boxers or having your eyelashes waxed. I genuinely mean both.*

The funeral home, despite the warmth of its staff and the efforts of an able interior decorator, was cold. Removed. Stilted. Like a five-star hotel with first-rate art and broken radiators. For the two hours I was forced to be there I couldn’t shake the thought that my father - or his body as people are prone to calling him these days - was somewhere in the building. Alone. Without us watching football side by side and consuming illegal numbers of Snickers bars.

I wish things hadn’t end this way, with papers to sign and the complete removal of my dad from the process. It’s an inhumane procedure, this onslaught of forms and decisions, a practice ironically designed for humans. Sign here. Date here.

This does not suit him. It’d be beautiful if a waving and healthy Dad had just faded in dramatic fashion like the victims at the end of every Cold Case episode. No forms, no awkward protocol, just his ridiculously cool self giving us a final nod and moving on into the sunset. Although I could do without the show's faux music video production. My father would undoubtedly agree.

*Although listening to Hootie and the Blowfish on 11 on repeat? Slightly more painful.

No words

2008-01-19T22:36:00.000-05:00

My father passed away this morning. I trust that there will be much for me to say after the haze lifts and the tears abate, likely more than I'll be able to capture here. When I say I loved this man more than words, I didn't really think I could mean it literally.

I wish you had been lucky enough to know him too.

misread

2008-01-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

I hate being misunderstood. Hate it. I despise it more than more than baby powder scented products, more than someone taking the last of something and leaving the empty container behind, more than the thought of Raisin Bran covered in mayo and topped with oysters. It’s the part about not being listened to. About someone not taking the time to figure out where I’m coming from. It’s about the connection between me and another human being breaking even for a second, a connection that I at times value more than my own bones. It’s an emotional fuck you that makes me five years old again, banging on my parents’ bedroom door only to be met with silence. Please open up. That’s not what I meant. Why. won’t. you. listen.

My nuclear foursome has never understood why I have a penchant for raising my voice to that end. In any argument, I’ll be the one thrashing about in an attempt to get a point across, given that neither rational thought nor courtesy prevails in their home. When I was a little Kris, they’d attribute these explosions to an excess of Red Dye #6, a wheat allergy, or the preferred and likely explanation of me just being a ginormous pain in the ass. For as many years, my family has thought my head explosions have been about me being heard, about regurgitating the words just spoken as evidence of their higher order processing. Surely being able to say what Kris just said and in the tone in which Kris said it means we’re simpatico! It never did. It still doesn’t. After all, the mimes and the chimps and even Flipper can mimic. The conversion of these recited words was never quite right, either, as if no literal translations exist in Familyspeak. Yes, Kris. I get it. You need a lot of attention. Really? That’s what you took from me asking if we could turn off the television when I visit so we can spend more time talking to each other? Cue flailing arms, fourth-grade tantrum, me shrieking like a cat in the bathtub while my undisturbed mother drinks a mint julip and pats her brow. It ends with her raised palm – stop – and some form of me begging. You are missing the point. It's me. I need you to listen.

Friends and lovers do this too, although given that most of my cronies and bedmates weren’t born in the ‘40s and therefore missed reading Ms. Passive Aggressive Manners, misinterpretations grow into much stronger fuck yous. The initial miscommunication and resulting misunderstandings are much less civil than with family, what with the EXCESSIVE USE OF CAPITALS – which really should be reserved for cat and child custody disputes, don’t you think? – and the F bombs and complete and utter absence of e-tone. All of us can throw emotional grenades safely from behind our electronic devices, including the phone, doing little to help already compromised communication. Before you know it, your in box is a Jackson Pollack full of RE:s. Neither of you stopped to ask what that turn of phrase meant, to clarify a response that made the stomach drop. The outcome changes little.

Fuck you.

I get it already.

I thought I knew you better than this.

It's both an exercise in experience and frustration. Yes, I knew better but I thought you knew me better, too. I find myself banging on the door again, although this time it’s usually by hated cell phone or email. It's trying to get someone to face me without being allowed to touch them. Please open up. That’s not what I meant. Why. won’t. you. listen.

My mind automatically interprets the underlying message. I must not mean enough if they won’t take the time to figure out what I’m trying to say. As a little one, there’s not much else to think. We know love, but we can’t make sense of people giving and pulling it away simply because of trappings and judgments. It’s never being given the benefit of the doubt simply because you are a known and loved entity. An I know her better. Kids screw up, but aren’t their intentions relatively pure until they steal your Stratus and plow it into a snowbank while snorting coke off the dash? In adulthood, the identical message simply shifts sender. Responses are still reactionary, irrational, built on neuronal firing rather than a shared history and experience. And it gets me every time, this baggage, sucking me into a whirlpool of self-doubt. You know me. And if you aren’t understanding me, you aren’t listening. If you cared, you’d take the time to figure this out. In a head that can’t make sense of the shift, the blame resides entirely with me. I'm unable to differentiate things I'd do differently from the pain of not being understood. Screw their bullshit, how their past friendships or shitty day color our interaction. I’m falling short.

WHY. WON'T. YOU. LISTEN.

And suddenly I’m a fourth grader again, one who’s more glad than ever that the Internet doesn’t allow you a glimpse of all that flailing.

an exercise

2008-01-15T15:00:00.000-05:00

When you aren't too busy doing something more fabulous than I like buying that trench from Burberry for which I'll only ever window shop, or even counting the number of Grape Nuts you can eat for 2 points, which also qualifies, please do your dear friend Kris a favor and Google the following three words:

BITTER SINGLE GIRL

You wish you were me.

Yeah, me neither.

Samantha . . . who?

2008-01-13T21:40:00.000-05:00

I intended to live blog the Golden Globes tonight, but then those writer types whah whah whah-ed all the way home and it wasn’t to be. I’m left watching the Access Hollywood talent fill time with excessively-Lubridermed legs that may or may not glow in the dark and really, really wide ties. Three hours of this and I might cry or break down and agree to have your babies.

It’s sad, but as much as I’m a whore for awards shows, there really wasn’t anyone I was excited to see this year. I need a new star. The starlets of my youth have gone the way of the Honda Odyssey: Julia Roberts seems to be jonesing to squeeze out a full litter and even Halle Berry bought herself a one-way ticket on the soccer mom train. I ache that the days of screwing bad boys like Keifer have been replaced with Costco packs of Sunny D. Nor do I want to make out with the Indie chicks, mostly because of a fear of patchouli well earned in college, so Keira Knightly and most anything British and twentysomething are out of the question. As is anything that’s touched the genitals of Tom Cruise.

The really young ones are just really irritating, as is their collective appetite for destruction. Britney is more than a train wreck, and instead is a woman approaching that Sioux City, Iowa plane crash I should never have read about in Time. If she stays on her current path, in but a few short months there will be absolutely no venti Starbucks foam for her cleaning crew to suction from the sidewalk. All that will remain are some ill-advised West Hollywood extensions and her sister’s 12 minutes of boiled peanuts fame. Hardly a legacy. Ms. Lohan? No different. Nor is the newly-delinquent Ms. Barton. Each of these girls is in a race to meet her demise a la Mama Cass, albeit at the hands of a Taco Bell chalupa rather than a ham sandwich. No sour cream, of course.

I’ve got my eyes on the even younger ones, the Raven Simones and the saccharine Hannah Montanas. One of you has got to have what it takes for engaging stardom, the stuff Madonna was made of when she wiped 80% of her bare skin on that 1984 MTV Music Awards stage. There must be a bona fide bad ass out there, a Russell Crowe or a Johnny Depp who is just greasy enough, but just expensively product'd enough that you’d think of allowing him into your bed.

And I’ve already loved the belles of the ball. Reese, we almost had something special, something lovely, before everyone else thought you had talent. You were Dido’s “Thank You” to me, a beautiful melody that was mine and only mine in the days of Marky Mark and Fear, before the mainstream found you and tainted everything by paying you what you were worth. We are so over.

But maybe just as it was with leggings, but ridiculously more successful and attractive on more than the anorectic, old will be new again. Hello, David Duchovny. Congrats on your big, shiny golden globe. How ‘bout I show you something from my X Files?

It might just be best to go to bed. Maybe until the Oscars.

Fairweather

2008-01-09T22:04:00.000-05:00

I was one of those kids who wrote all the time. I wrote when I wanted to and when I was forced to, backdating entry after entry of summer journals I had to keep for high school writing classes, going so far as to change pen color to heighten the false realism. In earlier years I filled composition books with assorted character sketches and the first 500 words to at least as many stories. I graduated to more refined notebooks as a teenager, still nothing above what I could find in the dinky school aisle at the CVS, and posed on their pages what seem now to be tiny questions reflective of a tiny world. But I was insanely proud of those collections of my thoughts, bundles of inflated SAT words and hours of thought that took up no more than a single shelf in my closet.

I used to love writing more than most anything, and not just because my teachers told me I could do it relatively well. It was my red hardcover dictionary, my beloved blue ball points that under no circumstances erased. It was the process of stringing letters and sentences together like popcorn garland. I loved the whole delicious sequence. I once ripped up a blue book, one already half filled with fiction, to take another direction for a high school writing test. Because I could. Because I wanted to. Time constraints meant nothing because they never really can in the absence of pressure. Writing was fun, a sentiment I know could not peg me more as one on the popularity fringe. That scrambling and unscrambling of words was almost effortless unlike those subjects involving Bunsen burners or scientific calculators or circular saws. Or worse, perhaps, the dreaded softball bat.

It’s almost never the same now. The ideas and the process at times seem so forced, like I’m chugging along in wet clothes, like I’ve run out of usable memory. For something that was once so easy, there are days when I want to do few things less. Sit with my thoughts for an hour? There must be something Tivod to zone out to. If not, there’s surely a cat claw to clip or a pile of whites to ignore. Occasionally I’ll refuse the exercise altogether, knowing full well if I didn’t have a site to keep me on point that I’d do the life equivalent of pulling the covers over my head. In dramatic fashion, I’d avoid the computer altogether and regard the bespectacled, wool-sweatered WiFi-ers at Starbucks with disdain. Because it should be different. Because I should still love it oodles more than just more often than not. Because for the others it probably still comes easy.

soapbox

2008-01-08T10:04:00.001-05:00

I wanted to grab my therapist last night and hug her. Not the polite kind of hug I give relatives and people who probably shouldn’t be touching me, but the kind of hug that says “You’re da bomb,” the kind that explodes into Howard Dean-like enthusiasm and may very well leave her feet inches from the floor. I wanted her to know just how much she had helped me, how much her guidance in the last two years had changed my world, how much I could not have done what I have done without her persistence and acceptance. And then I wanted to rant.

There are more than a handful of people in my life who buck the idea of therapy, each with their own unique explanation as to why. I can do it on my own. I had an awful experience. I don’t have time. Insurance doesn’t cover it. Each and every justification sounds more and more like a lacking excuse. Last I heard, save those grand accounts from the Enquirer, you can’t heal your own testicular cancer or that hair lip and these disorders are no different. I’ve had awful doctors, too, and guess what? You move on. Like a bad date, you pick yourself up, you chalk it up to his asshattery, and you put your stellar self back out on the market. And you do have time. You have time to read this blog, to knit ugly booties, to watch Designing Women on TV Land like it’s your religion. You have money to buy those awful ceramic dolls on QVC and their creepy faces aren’t nearly as rewarding as this might potentially be.

This isn’t your mama’s therapy, people. This isn’t about dream interpretation and hypnosis and talking endlessly about daddy leaving you in the manger when you were three. These are proven therapies (now with 33% more science!) Just as Advil magically cures your cramps, medication and/or therapy take the edge off, they even cure. They teach you new ways to approach your world, to impact relatives, to cope with illness and death, help to quash anxiety, to pull yourself up from the depths, to survive at a higher level than the rest of the world is surviving. Than where you may be surviving right now.

Before you leave me a “to each his own” and “shut your fat trap, kris!” comment, consider this. Unlike the boil that sprouts unattractively from your neck, these issues you choose to stifle or wait out don’t just affect you. They affect the people you love, the ones you could love, and that irritating guy you barked at in the conference room yesterday. It’s out of complete selfishness that I write this; I’m thinking of five or so of you, and I wish you’d do this, if not for you, for me. Maybe that’s something I need to talk out.

sicko

2008-01-03T23:17:00.000-05:00

I've been sick since last weekend, almost a full week of phlegm and night sweats. I'm good at many things, darning socks and making painful small talk among them, but I'm awful at being sick. I don't have cute sniffly moments on the couch as I picture Meg Ryan might, her used Kleenex irritatingly hitting the garbage can on the first try. Instead, my coffee table looks like something out of MASH, a smattering of pills and cherry liquids and tissues. It isn't pretty, and neither am I. The lack of attention to my appearance has decreased steadily since this whole episode began, beginning last weekend with caring not that my hair was a matted mess each day, to Monday denial that Sunday's mascara was still on at noon, to today, when I stomped on all of Mom's teachings and quite possibly her heart and went braless to the CVS. It wasn't the hot type of braless, either, the kind that goes with extra salt margaritas and a spaghetti-strapped tank top and a tropical climate, but the variety that comes with a jar of vapo rub and a brain that actually considers using tampons to stop a runny nose once and for all.

If this keeps up, I may lose my summer weight more quickly than planned, unless God and Oprah play a cruel joke on me by injecting Crisco into the gallons of broth I've been chugging. Today alone I've consumed three cans of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup, which as far as I'm concerned is the only tolerable chicken soup in the world wide universe, what with its limp noodles and celebrated absence of carrots and celery. Not to mention that Mr. Campbell at some point sold his soul or body for the lion's share of the world's available sodium, and I want to full on make out with him for it. I've also had four 20-ounce Diet Cokes in the five hours I've been awake, despite the fact that I can neither taste them nor enjoy their carbonation without layers of my throat peeling off. I'm not fully convinced that that new Diet Coke with Vitamins doesn't contain some form of lye and possibly an unstable element or two, but at least the singe is a distraction from Judges Judy and Joe Brown. And, unlike the prescription I unsuccessfully battled for this evening at CVS, I'm guessing insurance might actually cover a good radium burn.

quiet resolution

2008-01-02T20:17:00.000-05:00

They’re funny things, these little declarations we all make with each and every new calendar. Not funny ha ha, like Seinfeld should have been, but interesting and odd, like women who choose to wear their hair with skunk streaks. They’re almost exercises in frustration. A way to set yourself up to fail. A jaded perspective, I’m aware, but one well earned after committing to lose 10 pounds since well before the Spanish-American War.

I’ve taken enough Covey classes to know that goals should be specific and attainable. Achievable in real time, lest you abandon more lofty pursuits in favor of eating your weight in Skinny Cows while drunk texting your ex. But in all honesty, the details just aren’t there for me this year. My life seems to exist in generalities right now, the “world peace” response of pageant contestants that disappointingly doesn’t get down to the nitty gritty. I noticed it first when asked for my Christmas list. Kitchen things would be nice. New clothes and products and . . . stuff. Needs and wants fall into umbrella categories, which will irritate the Hades out of the left brains who are reading, something I’ll giggle at for this year and resolve to do less of in 2009. Maybe.

I know without a doubt that I want to be better to my friends and family. I’m hoping this will take the form of less fear of the cell phone, less reliance on the Interwebs for communication. I’ve spent a good bit of time lately around those of you more skilled at nuturing those for whom you care, and I’m left in awe of your abilities, and admittedly feeling somewhat inadequate, just as I was during every school gym class flexed armed hang. I want to be you, to return calls and emails with ease and minimal amounts of stress. To send cards by way of old school mail to commemorate each birthday, a 20th wedding anniversary, a successful job interview. To call, even for 30 seconds, to say congratulations on bringing your new breasts home and I hope they grow to be all you want them to be. But I have to work at that. Not an ounce of any of this comes naturally to me.

Be better to myself. Ideally, I’d shed a pound for every year I’ve been on the planet, become a Truth spokeswoman, and replace my wines with mango and kelp juice. It isn’t going to happen. Being better to myself has to take both little and larger forms this year, some blogworthy and some celebrated by an impromptu dance in the shower. Choosing to pay off the card rather than adding more to its balance. Going to sleep before 10 on a Friday night without worry about what the rest of the world is doing and ultimately choosing my bed over the couch. It's a fridge with more than fake butter and expired yogurt. Traveling even if only for the weekend. It's high tea with my mother and bite-sized cheesecake and coffee with real cream. Walking with the sun on my face. Live college football. Making the doctor's appointment before the reminder card comes. And doing as much as I can to be present in a body that’s constantly tugging me toward the future. It's going to be delicious, indulgent fun. Yum.

Spend less of my time in worry mode. I exhausted the first 20 minutes of my evening searching for lost prescriptions, two pieces of flimsy white paper each no larger than a hand. Given the whirl that ensued, one would have thought I’d misplaced the Declaration of Independence, or God forbid those Taco Bell coupons I’m hoping are just out of sight under my car seat. I searched through four handbags, the kitchen drawers, the countertops, the nightstand, and every crevice of the bathroom before I abandoned the effort. Around minute 15 it occurred to me that no defibrillator would be needed and that these were replaceable objects, just a phone call to the doc away, but persistent and dumb as rocks to a fault, I kept at it. Frenzied failure. Waste. Trite as it is, I won’t get those 20 minutes back, ones I could have used to enjoy watching Cricket make mince meat of yet another shiny Christmas decoration. At least I could have unpacked that suitcase from BlogHer.

Onward ho ho ho.

2007-12-27T09:52:00.001-05:00

It's over and I couldn't be happier about it. I know I shouldn't be, in much the same way that I should like to hold everyone's babies all the damn time, but I am. Thrilled. Consumed with the joy that I feel I should have had while everyone was trimming their trees with awful balls and cloth ornaments not washed since 1973. I'm happy Christmas is over.

In my house, Christmas does mean carnage. Not a one of our nuclear foursome escapes it, although I seem to be the unwilling recipient of most of everyone's anxiety dump. This isn't martyrdom; it's a clear, observed, documented, admitted family fact that I'm the black sheep of the clan, particularly at the holidays. Thanksgiving was an absolute debacle, my mother criticizing my every effort down to my reheating of the Thai takeout, all the while praising my sister's Godly steps and clearly superior highlights. I measure the success of most holidays in number of crying jaunts, and given that this year I made it through with zero, Nondenominational Holiday 2007 was a banner event in the old Likey household.

I'm convinced that this is a direct result of the no fewer than $80K I've invested in therapy this year with a woman who is helping me to set some boundaries. No, I don't want to spend my Christmas feeling like a damn 12 year old again. Yes, I'll come over; no, I won't help with the green beans, because every time I enter the effing kitchen you pull out a grenade and I really don't look all that great in red Kevlar. You see, as an adult, these are my holidays too, and I deserve some damn joy out of them. So I get it out of finding cute bows and shiny wrapping, patterned boxes and decorative gift bags. I get it by being the creative one. It's one of the things my family allows me to excel at, something they will actually comment on in the positive. Little joys.

I am convinced that bigger ones await. I want so much to have a family of my own, a husband and more cats and a dog and someplace to put up a tree, a safe place where I'm accepted and success isn't measured in a lack of tears. I pity this poor man, the eventual recipient of decades of stunted Kris joy. I can't wait to choose bold reds and place settings for those I'll welcome into my home. I can't wait to squeal upon finding the perfect holiday cards, to command a kitchen in which I'll cook the green beans any damn way I please, to pick up ornaments during our travels no matter what time of year. It won't be a taking back of the holidays, because they've always belonged to someone else. It will be starting traditions from scratch, every last one of them a success and a joy simply because they are mine.

Frankincense and Murrrrrr

2007-12-24T17:39:00.000-05:00

Kris, to mother: Sorry I didn't call this morning. I've been out shopping and running errands since 8 o'clock.

Mother, to Kris: Wow. Looks like somebody has more money than I do.

Wishing you and yours ample booze this holiday season.

ISO head

2007-12-18T09:03:00.000-05:00

Lost in the vicinity of 8th Street, SE, when owner discovered 7-11 fountain soda machine to be out of order. Last seen wearing cheap foundation of questionable winter tone and thinning blonde hair owner should probably condition with something other than mayo. Mouth likely to be spouting self-deprecating complaints about being a bad friend and blogger, a sloth that can’t lose her summer weight, and dateless for New Year’s Eve. If found, do not approach; lure to police/firemen with promise of red Coach bag and a “winter coat that effing fits my fat ass.” Serious replies only, please. 750 ml. reward.

How to make my day

2007-12-12T13:16:00.000-05:00

On a morning that I'm feeling mediocre about my general abilities as a friend, woman, daughter, and carbon life form, walk up to me without prompt and tell me that, although we haven't known each other long, you can tell I'm one of the kindest people you've ever met. I needed that.

It's been five months.

2007-12-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

Dress from Target for work holiday party: $52. Control top pantyhose to suck in muffin top: $5.25. Finding dressy black shrug in suitcase still packed from BlogHer: priceless.

Further evidence that the hairballs may have reached my brain

2007-12-05T10:00:00.000-05:00

There’s no lying on this site. You know this, right? Well, this morning I saw the divine image of Madonna on my shower door. I don’t know how it happened, but the water droplets cleared the path for a gorgeous and clear head-to-toe glass image, gentle curves and all. With dollar signs in my eyes, I entertained removing the door and selling it on eBay. As in removing it from its track while naked and shooing the cats with boobs flailing and preserving the area with God knows what I could Maguyver from the kitchen. After all, didn’t some dunce pay like $10,000 for a pancake that resembled the Virgin Mary? Only after a minute or two did I realize the going price probably wouldn’t be as high for an image of Madonna from her Material Girl years. Sad all around when you really think about it.

Wakey wakey eggs and bakey

2007-12-03T08:57:00.000-05:00

I spent the weekend sober, as in without any wine, as in up before noon. Like me holding a baby brought to the office, this seldom happens, or maybe it’s more accurately an occurrence leaning toward never. It wasn’t entirely intentional; I had geared up for what promised to be a rowdy Saturday night – one that went horribly awry given my penchant for falling asleep on the couch to episodes of the Ghost Whisperer – by abstaining on Friday. Which turned into Saturday. Which became Sunday, a day on which it just didn’t seem right to drink alone in the tub. At least not this particular Sunday.

And so it was that when awakened at the unholy hour of 7:40 am by a paw swipe to the cheek, I didn’t bark at Bug, didn’t send Cricket to fetch a cool washcloth to cover mommy’s eyes, and most certainly didn’t wonder just whose comforter I was nestled under. Instead I rose to greet the day like I imagine normal people do, those people who read the Sunday Post rather than using it for puppy potty training, those folks for whom “brunch” is a meal eaten in the morning hours. Or early afternoon. Or at least while the sun is still up.

And you know what? This land of the living wasn’t half bad.

Before lunchtime, I fed the cats, bathed and clothed myself (this is an undertaking not to be scoffed at), balanced my checkbook, worked out my December budget, cleaned the litter boxes, did two loads of laundry, watched and bawled at Georgia Rule (I said I was sober; I did not claim emotional stability), went to the mall to purchase no fewer than three Christmas gifts and my holiday cards (time to be very, very nice to the Kris), picked up my beloved Taco Bell for lunch, looked at my nails and opted not to paint them, and smiled genuinely at NOT ONE, BUT TWO of God’s screaming children in the Santa lap line. I didn’t finish my November 2007 memory quilt until well into the early afternoon, but I was, understandably, tired.

There are people out there, I should inform you, who are champions of the sport. Upon my 10:08 am Macy's arrival I was shocked to find that there were several other cars in the parking lot, and interestingly enough, people were not passed out in them from the night before. I witnessed one strange creature, already having done 8 minutes worth and three bags full of intense shopping, come out to her car to unload her mall booty before heading back in for the next round. Seriously? People actually show up before the joint opens, wearing something other than yoga pants and yesterday’s hair, and get their day on mere hours after the rest of us have eaten our weight in pizza and passed out wearing some form of lycra? The early, sober rise, I thought. This must be how the real woman does it all.

I’m guessing she doesn’t drive away from the mall with a Big Gulp on the roof of her car, but one cannot have everything.

The Grinch That's Stealing Kris-mas

2007-11-29T10:00:00.000-05:00

I’m a mean one right now, and I know why it’s so. More than any other season, save the high, hot wedding months of the summer solstice, this one is about coupling.* It’s about not being alone in the chilly months, about having someone to snuggle up next to under your grandmother’s afghan and a drunken fighting partner at your best friend’s Christmas party. Go through your calendar. The next month is fashioned entirely for those who have another in their lives. Cases in point: just how joyous can it be to decorate your Christmas tree by yourself? It isn’t. It is slightly more enjoyable with girlfriends and three liters of Pinot in tow, but hanging your ceramic memories while talking about blow jobs somehow still doesn’t cut it.

Gone to a formal holiday party alone before? I have. People love to ask you if you’ve brought a date, looking into that empty space over your shoulder as if he’ll suddenly appear, gone for mere moments when he knelt down to make out with the backs of your knees. I hate when people confirm that I’m alone at an event. They’d never ask me where my leg was if they noticed it was missing. They'd assume it was a tragic loss, just as they should the absence of a date, and then with pity they'd give me their glass of wine and spare change and ask if I wanted to do coke in the bathroom.

Let’s talk New Year’s. Now what is that time honored tradition saved for the stroke of midnight? Hmm. Do you hug your beautiful self, a product of a great year of Dr. Phil mantras and Oprah book selections? No, that’s not it. Feel up your female party host? That doesn’t sound quite right either. No, you kiss the man who’s brought you to the party, who loves how your curves look in that little black dress. You toast to the year gone by and the one about to begin, even if your morning after will be sponsored by ginger ale and Advil. If you’re single, you raise your glass uncomfortably in a far corner of the dining room, watching the others kiss, praying to the sweet baby Jebus for one of the tipsy couples to maul one another sloppily, and possibly even venture into groping, just so you’ll have something to blog about.**

* I can’t even begin to discuss baking cookies and wrapping Christmas presents, as my picturesque Thanksgiving went awfully awry, contributing to my use of the very grown-up phrase “Oh, screw you!” in my parents’ kitchen and my dread of each and every family interaction labeled Holiday. This year might be about buying Mint Milanos instead of flour and sugar and spending the 25th volunteering. Or sleeping in my tub.

** I’m closing comments so Kim will be forced to smack me in person for my melancholy. And then possibly buy me a glass of wine.

Sex in Your City

2007-11-26T08:51:00.000-05:00

It’s funny just how different sexy is for all of us. I found myself trapped yesterday by an Antonio Banderas cologne commercial, grimacing as I wondered if his scent was something akin to grilled eggplant, heavy on the olive oil. He just seems so slick, so smarmy, like he might be Fabio’s long-lost, darker-skinned cousin, the one the townsfolk say seduces the elderly nuns. Chicks seem to dig him, however, enough that one network saw fit to pimp his pheromones to females scrambling for gifts for their distinctively unslick men. I suspect that these are the same women who once upon a time watched and quite possibly fantasized about CBS’s Beauty and the Beast. I weep silently.

I spoke to a man who recently had sex with a woman, a partner with whom he does not want to have sex again. Ever. He said it was her face that did it. Not her God-given face, he clarified, which was quite pretty in the daylight and appealing enough for the two to cross lawns to get their intercourse on (she is his across-the-street neighbor, which only adds to my delight given the months if not years of uncomfortable curbside greetings that are sure to follow). It was her sex face, he said. I believe he called it “gruesome,” and I needed ask no more. Upon hearing this, I ached not for this man who will surely find a sex kitten with a more appealing mug, but for the woman who thought that whatever it was that turned him off – biting her lower lip in a Clintonesque moment or flicking her tongue against her two front teeth – was actually sexy. That it upped her bedroom quotient. That it would get him excited, a surefire bet to rile him up.

In my early days of such encounters I did not have a clue as to what I was doing. Becoming comfortable with my sexuality was much like learning to walk in four-inch heels: there was a surplus of awkward hip movements and even more unpredicted stumbling. I recall several bold statements and exaggerated motions that were made in those early days, whether it was whispering to a boy what I thought Lauren from the Young & the Restless might to Paul (a breathy “I wahhhnt to make lohhhve to you” while wearing five days worth of lip gloss) or what I considered a more advanced move, that of dramatically rolling my eyes backward towards my brain. “Euphoria!” I thought this screamed to my partner during sex. “Seizure!” was apparently one boyfriend’s translation, as he stopped abruptly when I did so to ask if I needed help. Sadly, this was the third guy with whom I had sported this move. I was mortified and could only hope that the first two hadn’t noticed, that maybe, if I was lucky, they too had been rolling their eyes into the back of their heads in their own personal crusade to bring sexy back.

Things are not vastly improved. A similar effort of mine went off course recently when I texted a man I wanted to leave weak in the knees. I racked my brain for something we hadn’t yet discussed, something racy but still below the grade reserved for those fantasies involving monkeys and soft serve ice cream and ceiling fans. “What about me in thigh highs?” I asked via a frenzy of thumb activity.

“Stop,” he wrote back. Ouch.

I immediately questioned my version of sexy. Like Ghastly Sex Face Neighbor Lady, was it something about me that put the kibosh on his interest? Maybe he was more into fishnets? Nude knee highs? Control tops? Maybe I just should have gone for the monkeys. Or at least the midgets.

Turns out he misread the missive as “men in thigh highs.”

Maybe we're all just safer sticking with the monkeys.

Custom made

2007-11-22T09:41:00.000-05:00

I love my family’s traditions. I love them now, that is, now that they are the result of years of evolution, of decades of strained development. I guess it takes all of us time to find out what works for us, whether it be a lift of the naked hips to take us over the edge or the choice of whisk over fork when making that flan. It takes time that’s made up of both mistakes and laughter, and now I think we’ve finally got it.

In the ‘70s the holidays were all about the party. I’d stand at the top of the stairs in footy pajamas, long after the Muppets had ended and the adults began smoking, yearning to be in on the fun. It seemed effortless, my mother’s baking of profiteroles and brewing of a dark roast and my father’s pairing of a syrupy port with a much less sweet joke. I loved that I could hear laughter into the single digits of the morning, the kind that I know led to tipsy flirting and fighting, the way it sometimes does for me now. My sister and I would come downstairs the next morning to an immaculate kitchen, save the thumbprint-covered wine glasses, the pride of a mother too concerned to let the good china sit soiled overnight. I’d spend that day gorging myself on foods I could not spell, on Beef Wellington and brie and pate, and wondering just when it would be time for me to wear perfume too.

In the 1980s the holidays were about reaching out to the family, the ones from neighboring states who we didn’t see at any other time of the year. These were moments of proving ourselves, of showing that we were together and loving and successful and lucky. We’d take our cousins downstairs and play pool with them in the billiard room my father built upon our return from England. We’d talk awkwardly about a cousin’s new Ford truck and our bad flight over Spain until the sting wore off. Then I’d wonder why we didn’t make time to see these people more often. Upstairs, Mom was a frenzy of arms and dishes labeled with steno pad sheets (“Sweet potatoes!” “Dinner rolls!”) and was progressively coming as close to manic as she ever would. Dad fulfilled his duty by keeping the relatives mildly engaged in bowls of fresh nuts and the promise of a custard pie. We preserved these days in a series of Polaroids, some saved for us and others sent home with the lucky attendees. In all of these, I’m the one in the lower right, the youngest of the clan, the one with braces and feathered hair the shade of brown that’s the envy of no one.

The 90s, just as were those of us coming of age at the time, were all about us. We abandoned all attempts to do what should be done, what would make extended family happy and look good in reunion slide shows, and started to do only what fit. The decision may have been a democratic one or more unspoken, an understanding reached after years of watching our exhausted mother begrudgingly turning the oven on at 3 a.m. and our introverted father flip on football rather than entertain. At Thanksgiving, this meant bundling up in the New Jersey cold and heading out for Japanese, a cuisine we reserved for that Thursday in November. Dining out made us gleeful. We’d don our best, even if many in the restaurant thought the Pilgrims wore jeans, and were thankful for the absence of strain and pounds of peeled potatoes and sibling competitiveness as to who could be most helpful with the green beans. My friends commented that we were odd. I loved that we were different.

Today we will eat Thai. We will have spring rolls and Kee Mao and absolutely nothing containing even the most remote traces of crab. We will order in so that Dad will be more comfortable and not have to lug oxygen from home to car to table. There will be no children’s table, no ringing cell phones, no drunken uncle spending too much time with his niece’s school friend, no worry about whether the turkey will shrivel if the cook chooses to jump in the shower early. We will top off our outfits with black heels and perfume and transfer all our indulgences from cartons to Mom’s finest china. I could not love this more. And we will be thankful that Dad made it through, that he’ll get the chance to root for the right team in Saturday’s game in Gainesville. Thankful that he chose my mother to wed, the woman who wakes up every other hour to ensure that his breathing is steady and that we haven’t left a mess in the family room. Thankful that my sister always chooses us, that she provides this little sister with companionship and commiseration about those parental quirks we’re trying so hard to love. And over plates of sticky rather than wild rice, we will be beautifully content with our nuclear foursome.

DC

2007-11-20T20:36:00.000-05:00

I never thought I'd write this, but for tonight, I've grown weary of my beloved city. I liked it better when, like a new relationship, I wasn't familiar with all the trappings. At one point, the sirens served as background music, as evidence of the bustle of the streets that I loved so much, of the overflowing market, the drunken intern with a fist he couldn't hold back, the overzealous group with a purpose who came here thinking their voices would be heard. But the flashing lights mean none of this. As the months fly, you realize that the white cars are fighting traffic to make it to a block too close to home, one on which a man is lying still next to unfamiliar garbage cans. You learn that it isn't safe - it never really was - to walk the perimeter of the park. Unaccompanied trips to the corner store for a pre-10 pm bottle of Noir become nonexistent. It's no wonder that the chirp of crickets and the sounds of silence and the grass growing don't seem so stifling. Maybe it's just tonight.

Never drinking again (v. 32963.8)

2007-11-18T18:50:00.000-05:00

My weekend was spent on the couch, a sofa I bought in Tallahassee in 1998 that has become something of my Archie Bunker chair, hopefully without the sizeable ass imprint. I’d have to get up to confirm this, and given that my fatigue alone allowed Cricket to claw at both arms of this furniture at least twelve times this weekend, movement isn’t likely.

Friday night began with what I remember as a relatively sober happy hour with a wonderful group of local bloggers to whom I will link when my fog clears. At our second bar, I recall ordering a round of shots with the word “slut” in the title, which clearly did as much for my head as it did for the women’s movement. My dear friend and gracious driver then took us to a favorite haunt in NE, which is the turning point at which I stop remembering slices of time and start remembering moments. Snippets. Flashes, maybe. Like that moment when I invited myself behind the bar and started to talk up customers, which we all know is endearing to bartenders the world ‘round and makes them give you that Mentos grin rather than calling the police. Or that silly time during Kim’s pool game when I assisted a striped ball into the closest pocket with my hand, which is shown to make tipsy pool players want to give you a noogie, not beat you upside the head with their bottles of Budweiser. I recall being awake at 3 am when I received a text message. I was dropped off just shy of 9 in the morning. You ache a little too just reading that. I know.

I’m not sure if I mentioned this at any other time, but I have lived my life as an ibuprofen junkie. Cramps? Advil. Strained muscle? Check. Eyebrow-plucking injury? It does the job. When the Great Hives of 2007 rolled into town with the circus, my doc banned my sacred ibuprofen given that it was high on the list of likely culprits. Which left me with Tylenol and deep-fried Twinkies to relieve any and all pain.

So when I found myself this weekend a) resting my cheek against the toilet seat, because just throwing up already would HAVE to relieve the pounding in my head, and b) simultaneous cramps that let me know that God and Oprah continued to bless me without children, and c!) a head cold with pressure that would make the heartiest hurricanes proud, I could do nothing but take Tylenol and wish I had a deep fryer. There was no Advil at this party, which is akin to being locked in a darkened closet with Clay Aiken on repeat. (You should ache a little just reading that last part.)

In two days, I have watched four episodes of House, two of Women’s Murder Club, one each of Dead Zone, Family Guy, American Dad, and the Office, and four football games. I watched one episode of 30 Rock three times, and during the last viewing began hatching my plan to abduct both Ms. Fey and Mr. Baldwin simultaneously for placement in that box under my bed. I have placed a total of two phone calls. I ate Campbell’s tomato soup for breakfast because I didn’t have any other food except cat kibble, and we all know how well that went over the last time. I didn’t brush my teeth until Sunday afternoon.

No reason to check. Yep, still single.

Here's to holly and envy hanging up, and something wet in every cup

2007-11-15T19:51:00.000-05:00

So you email him again, because last time you didn’t hear back. It’s a last ditch effort, much like buying that Paula Abdul aerobics DVD because you just know the embarrassment will force you into action. It works.

You hear back that he’s met someone, this somemale with whom you’ve had only a few flirtatious and well-crafted emails. The man you put on hold the night of your first date with a frenzy of words about a family emergency, sentences intended not to betray too much about an emerging illness.

Surprisingly, unlike the volcanic hatred you seem to have for city drivers on Razors and the sloth-like golden girls in the flu shot line, you are excited for him. Happy for him, even. There was anticipation in his email, this paragraph about someone else, and you remember that feeling. The one you don’t get in your chest, but instead in your tummy. The one that prompts you to use the cell phone you so often wish to destroy.

A long day and no Thursday invitations, you cuddle up with a warm computer, a new corner store Bonacchi and some decidedly familiar Baked Doritos. And you smile for this person you don’t even yet know. And you wonder when it will be your turn.

Peace on Earth Good Will Toward Men, Even the Ones Who Don't Call When They Say They Will

2007-11-13T10:23:00.000-05:00

It’s holiday time again. I look forward to baking dozens of sugar cookies and learning how to ice them with that thick, cool icing that women who read Martha’s magazine do. I will await the delivery of my fresh pine wreath, resplendent with its traditional satin red bow. I love that wreath so much that I often leave it up until March. And then I sweep the hallway clear of dead needles until the Christmas rolls around again. I will smother any bitterness I feel during the drudgery that is writing holiday cards, instead remembering that I am sharing the love and joy of the holiday season with those I care about most. Don’t feel badly if you don’t receive one. I just care about you medium.

I vow to smile at children and not kick them as they get loose from the mall Santa line, running into me in my three-inch heel boots as I attempt to balance a tray of Taco Bell burritos. I will sing along to Madonna’s Santa Baby, even though we all know the sound of her cutesy, boopy voice can curdle milk. I will curb the urge to fling my window scraper at the overzealous neighbor who greets me at the wrong decibel when my car door has frozen shut. I will not freak out, will not yell and tug at my spare flesh tire, when I gain 10 pounds as the result of eating a box of Triscuits and a can of easy cheese, a saucepan full of Stove Top stuffing, and whatever butter is left in the fridge. At 3 am. Just because. I will not jump out of my car and pummel the guy in front of me because he thinks one should brake every three seconds when it’s snowing. I will be immersed in love and joy. Fa la la la la.

I will get into the spirit of the freaking holidays if I have to glue mistletoe to my dry, flaking forehead. I will share my joy with my offspring, super glueing bows to their heads and making them pose for family photos to be plastered on a soon-to-be-gifted mug or calendar. I will then soothe the resulting scratches with a cinnamon and pumpkin pie paste, sure to bring the scent of the season to all in my midst. I will stifle frustration when the irritating Salvation Army ringer asks me for a donation when I already gave on the trip inside. Five minutes prior. AM I NOT AT ALL MEMORABLE? I will smile and agree to her infinite cuteness when a beaming parent tells me about her child playing Mary in the Christmas Eve service, and will ask myself if no one cares that Mary had no sex, like, for life. I will continue driving, and will not further contemplate breaking down the damn door, when I attempt to drown a family evening with Pinot Noir and my corner store has closed early due to what at least one of my friends calls “increment weather.” I will not berate the televised yule log that burns for no one in particular. I am going to enjoy these holidays, come hell, high water or those freaking door-to-door carolers that we’re all too nice to send the way of the Mormons. Oh I will be joyous. Dammit.

Old Schmold

2007-11-12T09:18:00.001-05:00

Yoga, Anyone? (Or, On the Eve of Turning 34)

2007-11-09T07:21:00.000-05:00

My birthday is tomorrow. And while I’d like to post pictures of a year of champagne tomfoolery and caviar afterparties, I am decidedly not in the mood. Thirty three was a year of growing pains – sadly, without Kirk Cameron by my side, before he went all Jesus on me – and growing up. Thirty three wasn’t about gently stretching my muscles before the anticipated varsity Olympics of a third date, but instead about pulling myself up over the precipice while yelling to my companions to leave me behind. Thirty three was much fun, yes, but was more about getting stronger by being pulled on the emotional rack. When I thought my time was up and I could enjoy another 8 dollar beer at the hockey game, a puck would fly into the stands, missing the ugly, boisterous children of Row F, instead smacking me right in my orthodontia-ed kisser.

I cannot stress to you enough just how traumatic it was to pay thousands of dollars to have a surgeon intentionally remove my kid’s leg. As long as I live, I will never forget coming home to see his swaying lower belly, the golf ball of malignancy poking through his tan tummy hair. I recall thinking I was overreacting when I canceled a Nats date with Kim that night to rush him to the vet, but a week or so later, when I lay on the couch and saw him sprawled on the kitchen floor, unable to lift his head fully from the tile, I wished I too had a Fentanyl patch. “He has a cancer with tentacles,” they said. Tentacles, like calamari, only chewier and more resilient. It was a process that lasted months and guilt that has lasted much longer. I hug them both more than ever because of it. All seven legs.

I dated a good bit this year and was kissed by an awful Match.com date, both with matching levels of what experts have termed Absolutely No Success. One boy reunited with an ex-girlfriend, one didn’t make another date, one wanted to stay friends, two fell but weren’t ready for me given a certain something or someone or whatever felt good for them to toss out at that moment, another felt like he deserved only a high five, and the others didn’t register on the radar. I was smooched a good bit. Under a streetlight on Connecticut Avenue, in a bathroom line in Chinatown, by Lincoln Park on Capitol Hill, at the Metro at Gallery Place, in a car parked on the verge of H Street. Yes, Cricket, mommy is a whore. But I loved every unsuccessful minute of each of them. Even the one who kissed like a mason jar.

I also was reminded of what it is to be on the verge of falling in love. Of reaching the edge of Niagara Falls in a barrel, only your barrel has windows, allowing you to see the beauty of the water and air as you fly over the edge accompanied only by your own joyful squeals. Nothing feels as good. Nothing feels like waking up with that someone on your mind, or next to you, a groggy warm voice in your ear wishing you a good morning. Nothing compares to not just wanting, but actually doing the things you think about – whether it’s pulling your best summer skirts from the back of the closet or gently kissing his neck in front of his friends. I shiver just thinking about his hand around my waist. It’s more glorious than being bathed in M&Ms, more freeing than releasing the clasp of your bra on the ride home from work. Nothing compares. And I still cannot wait.

Over the year, this site became like a second job to me, consuming much of my thought process and my time. She also became a little like a third child to me, one I fiercely wanted to protect. Wino used to represent to me that bespectacled bee in the Blind Melon video, looking for a home in the blogosphere and some recognition for her validity. It’s why I jumped on Stacy’s back and chewed on her hair until she allowed me to be a part of Indie Bloggers. It’s why I fought the urge to consume all available Illinois wine and forced my anxious self to speak on the panel in Chicago. I’m so fucking proud of this site, of the fact that I no longer cringe when I read most of my posts, that I no longer edit out the things that will make me look freakish and unacceptable and undesirable. What you see is what you get, party people, old woman chin hairs and all. Buy me a glass of wine; if you’re lucky, I’ll pluck ‘em tableside.

And Dad. It began much like the anti-fairy tale, not so long ago but in a land far, far away, also known as the wonderland that is Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport. I’ve only been consumed by crying once before, the kind of tears that freeze a moment and may or may not shoot horizontally from your eyes. I called my mother, frustrated that she hadn’t answered a message from hospice and that I’d have to remind her yet again to place a simple call. She didn’t pick up. An hour into my layover, a cold piece of Sbarro cheese pizza and I learned that my father was in the intensive care unit 700 miles away with two lungs full of pneumonia. Because apparently his emphysema got lonely and needed a companion.

I have never felt like more of an adult – of a daughter – than I did the first night in the ICU, sending my mother home to sleep, guarding my father so he wouldn’t try to remove the array of cords the degreed ones had inserted into his every pore. There was no doubt in my mind that he would die in a matter of days. That I’d be left to figure out whether one sends such news in an email when she doesn’t want to talk about it. A tacky text message? Maybe a series of strained phone calls via a cell she already despises. I’d never felt so purposeful, so devoted, as I did attempting sleep on the floor of his room, raising my head every 30 seconds or so into his line of sight, just so he could see that I was still there. I’m still here, Dad. And I love you so very much.

I am more than ready to close the book on 33. I’m ready to stop the Pilates in favor of a milder form of life exercise, perhaps floating with a glass of chilled Pinot Grigio within reach. Full sunblock applied long before entering the water. I’ll be 34, after all.

History

2007-11-07T12:00:00.000-05:00

What I want you to do is write back. I want you to email and say that you’ve been acting like an idiot. That you know the unreturned texts were a dick move, that the statements about doing something or other that never manifest were a bad idea on your part. That you blowing off anything even remotely serious, even on a friend level, is not really who you are, but is instead just a temporary departure from your norm. Admissions that you got lazy are welcomed. Acknowledgements that you thought you wanted this something once, but just aren’t ready for it, are also appreciated.

I shouldn’t care this much about this pebble under the mattress, but I do. When I get a text I wonder if it’s you, even just to say something small and meaningless. They aren’t from you, and they were always meaningless. When an email pops up in the lower right of my screen, I hope it’s from you, one of the one-liners that somehow has sustained me for all this time. The ones with the incomplete words and intentional misspellings. To save time. Because it takes time to type seven words correctly.

When I’m tired, this is worse. It hits me like cold water splashed on a cranky baby and there simply isn’t time or an available resource to make sense of what’s happened. The wine probably doesn’t help. In the moment it seems to, makes me feel a little giddy. The giggles make me more resilient. They make me feel marketable, too. A sad state of affairs in and of itself.

I want you to realize that I’m a good thing, a great thing, a woman worth spending the tiny energy it would take to make something of this. You’re there – I saw you – so why beat that part of you into taking that back seat? Don’t you want something this rich in your life?

It shouldn’t be this hard. And so it won’t be.

Batshit 2.0

2007-11-06T11:20:00.000-05:00

I have officially lost it. Recent stressors (Dad was in the ICU. Hi!) have pushed me over the edge. That’s not entirely accurate. Methinks I put on my best running shoes, beat the starting gun, and leapt with all my might right over the border into Batshitdom, as evidenced by a series of eruptive public scenes, including the following.

I was driving behind a car that was not just going cautiously slow, but more dead man walking slow. Apparently making a phone call interferes with the leg functioning of some drivers, particularly the extremity used to press on the gas pedal. I couldn’t move to get around her, and instead was stuck behind the car for multiple meters that seemed more like miles.

Jesus Saves! her bumper sticker read.

I leaned my head out the window. “Jesus Saves!” I yelled. “And Jesus wants you to get off your motherfucking cell phone!”

I still don’t know if I said it out loud.

Me Talk Pretty in WaPo

2007-11-05T09:00:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post was kind enough to post a few of my words in this weekend's Sunday Source. This definitely tops the time I placed third in the 7th grade spelling bee, misspelling villain, and is a close second only to being voted my high school's Class Flirt. I think it was pretty much all over then.

I hope that my snippet sounds relatively intelligent, particularly given that blogging is near and dear to my heart. I am - and you also should be - pleased that they didn't interview me for any of the following:

Build a Thriving Long-term Relationship: a How-to for Dummies

401K is Not an Area Code

Binge Drinking: the Downfall of the Young American

Yan Can Clean

Ways to Keep Your Mouth Shut When Your Mother Tells You Your “You Know What” Might Look Wide in That New Winter Coat

Keeping Your Cat Intact
The Genius That is Rod Stewart

Reasons Not to Clothesline the Woman Who Still Writes Checks at the Grocery Store

Heaving the Ho: Spending Your Nights in the Apartment You Pay For

Your Scrotum and You

Although we could have made that last one fun with pop ups.

Yet again it's official. I'm not a real woman.

2007-11-02T08:52:00.000-04:00

On the way to work, I passed a man and a woman with a bubbly baby boy. They were loading up the car as they started their sunny Friday. The giggly baby just did not stop laughing.

"How adorable!" I squealed to no one in particular.

I was talking about the mom's haircut.

Oh (my sweet Lord he’s her) Brother

2007-10-31T08:59:00.000-04:00

A viewing of “the Great Pumpkin” or “That’s one Big Ass Punkin’” or whatever it is that the kids call it these days is a little different with a glass of wine. And an appreciation for just how odd it is that I enjoyed at 7 years of age a cartoon that employed polysyllabic words that I still have to Google about kids who clearly suffer from a slew of social maladies.

Naturally, I’m struck by just how much like Lucy I really am, making Linus carry the pumpkin from the patch and then stealing it out of his plump hands. And coyly suggesting the kids “bob for apples,” when you know she meant it as dude code. And fooling that dense Charlie Brown by telling him I’ll hold the football steady when he awkwardly comes to punt it. And topping the debacle off with an SAT word no child would know, like “notarized.” The doctor is in, bitches.*

It’s also clear that Snoopy is the only one of the penciled bunch who gets it. He doesn’t feel the need to stick with these losers, instead pursuing some psychedelic combat scene involving the Red Baron while donning a red pashmina. Let the record show that the World War I Flying Ace complete with Nicole Ritchie goggles is oodles cooler than the sheets with holes cut in them. I’d give those kids rocks too if they showed up in those lame JC Penney white sale costumes.

In the most important scheme of things, it’s clear that Linus is the one you try to get a promise ring from even if he does carry that damn blanket. It might come in handy in the back of his Cabrio. If you’ll allow me, I find him to be very George O’Malley, the befuddled and slightly gay man an Americanized Hugh Grant would play in the HBO version. If Linus thinned out he also might have a little Dawson to him, starring in the Schulz High School production of Damn Yankees while still managing to get laid. Yum.

Ugh, and the others. Mr. Brown is just too middle of the road, don’t you think? As an adult, I picture him religiously coming home from his job at the video store to a Tivod Wheel of Fortune and a Klondike bar. I’m pretty sure Schroeder still smells like Water Babies SPF 45 and shops exclusively at Van Heusen outlets. Sally most definitely ends up getting spiral perms well into the ‘00s and traveling statewide to craft fairs. And Pigpen probably runs for city council and does coke off of strippers’ backs. Or maybe just off of Peppermint Pattie’s.

I apologize for that last mental image. Good grief indeed.

* In all seriousness, I just found out that Linus and Lucy are siblings and not completely viable and chirpy love interests. No Pinot Grigio in the world can erase this horror. It’s probably best that I never had a brother.

Having a moment

2007-10-29T09:13:00.000-04:00

As of late my father is more under the weather than usual. For those who know the full story, I recognize that this is the understatement of the year, perhaps second only to "Britney's having a moment." But thankfully denial isn't just a river in Egypt, and instead it often flows right past my apartment door. That is just fine with me.

Dad's recent battle with pneumonia has got the women of his life in even more of a frenzy than usual, prompting one daughter to cut short a trip to San Francisco and the other to cancel a Tallahassee weekend. He is the man in our lives, one of the only men in the family, actually, surrounded first by three sisters and then a wife and two daughters, as well as a series of Yorkshire terriers, domestic shorthairs, parakeets, hamsters, and hermit crabs that (we suspect) were females. He knows estrogen.

My father fell last week, giving him an awful backache and only increasing his confusion as to what exactly is going on with his body. I of course rushed over to their home equipped with the Bell, because it is well known that Taco Supremes counteract bone deterioration and help to assuage a child's guilt over not being there to catch him. We woke him up to eat and he obliged us. As we each unwrapped our dinner, my mother noticed something odd.

"Kris, your dad's lips are purple," she said, craning her head to examine them from different angles.

They were. His lips were a deep shade of purple, a sign to us that his constant O2 companion and his compromised lungs weren't doing their jobs. I dropped my taco, a feat that should indicate just how dearly I love this man, and walked closer to him, staring more intensely while he watched me with wide green eyes. He took shallow breaths, unable to speak.

"It's actually dried blood," I said, talking to him in measured speech so as not to induce panic. "Dad, you bit your lip when you fell. Let's see where the cuts are." My mother went into automatic motion, scurrying to the kitchen for a wet cloth. I rolled up my sleeves as I thought Meredith Grey might and examined his mouth and his nearly black lips. He looked confused. The ensuing frenzy only made it worse, part comedy, part we're into some serious shit here, a tornado of water and towels and a powerful flashlight with which to inspect our patient. He said nothing, still unable to catch his breath.

And just as I swooped in to rid his beautiful pink lips of their black invader, my father's oxygen finally caught up with his intent. "Guys," he said, raising a single finger to stop me. My mother and I halted dead in our tracks, hanging on his every weak word. I touched his arm. "Yes, Dad?"

He breathed in deeply. "I fell asleep eating Oreos."

I simply could not love that man more.

Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson

2007-10-25T22:08:00.000-04:00

I went to the Kelly Clarkson concert last night. No, it wasn’t Hannah Montana, asshat. But I did feel slightly like a chaperone. A woman decidedly past her prime, one who plays the Partridge Family Christmas Album on vinyl, swirling around on the flokati with a martini while the kids describe the mashed potatoes with words like “rad.” I’m getting old.

My suspicions were confirmed when last night’s bartender called me “ma’am” not once, but thrice, while I was ordering my first Stella. I immediately swiveled around to view myself in the Bud Light mirror; a humid and rainy night, my hair was admittedly not worthy of a glamour shot, and my outfit was more Sandra Dee than Shakira. But ma’am? I saw no apron, no burgeoning moustache or breakfast of Jimmy Dean sausage to confirm my aging status. Maybe he did.

The conversation clearly irked me, as upon arrival at the 4x6 shoebox in which Ms. Clarkson would be playing, I asked the female ushers, “Are we the oldest women here tonight?” I spit only some of my $7 Bud Light onto her vest as she dryly replied in the affirmative. She later claimed she was joking. It might have been my tears that changed her mind.

I felt old. I cared not what I wore to that show, knowing full well that I wouldn’t be talking to any boys, save those who spilled fruit punch on me or the desperate and orthodontia-ed who wanted a Mrs. Robinson to take to prom. So during the concert I decided to toss the label, among other things, including my dignity. I chair danced and clapped my hands loudly (and above my head!) and jumped up out of my chair, causing the earplug-wearing “sir” in front of me to do the same. I shook it. Only my ass was decidedly looser than the one I donned in ‘93. How I miss you Toad the Wet Sprocket. And the days before the scourge that is cellulite.

I felt like an 18 year old when I trolled Constitution Avenue for 20 soaked minutes while trying to hail a cab. When I arrived home, I made a ridiculous bag of microwave popcorn and poured myself a Pinot-sized glass of 30-year-old port, both of which I consumed in my cotton underwear. Because, while odd and uncomfortable to imagine, it was just my rebellious self, my empty apartment, and the kids. Just the Kris and her old woman rules. No mom to force me to bed, no Geometry homework left unfinished, no panic about flushed condoms, no worries about Shawn not texting me after gym class. Ma’am indeed.

Best. Video. Ever.

2007-10-24T09:26:00.001-04:00

Church was never so cool when I went.