So, I'm In Love.

What of it?

Well, since I prompted you to ask (and seem to feel certain that you all looked at your monitors and muttered to yourself "What of it indeed, Nanda?), here's what of it. That's when shit goes down.

No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.

No one ever expects their boyfriend of 2 years to ask them out to dinner, and then suddenly say they want some space. As though this talk couldn't have been had over brushing teeth in the morning, or walking each other to the train. And yet, this is what happened to someone I love very much and the person she loved very much. The last time I saw her, with him, he went onandonandonandon about love and their future and how he worried about losing her.... blahblah. The guy's smarmy, lacks a degree of class that even I'm eligible to scoff him because of, she's better off I'm sure-- but whatever. That's not the point, not to her.

The point is, she didn't expect it. Because everything was fine.

When you hear about breakups, it's never "Oh, everything was completely terrible, they didn't get along, then one day he came home, she was having sex with the neighbor on the kitchen table, and they all had a good laugh about it and said "Whew, guess we can cut this act out now, huh?" You never hear about those kinds of things because quite frankly, they don't matter. Throwing away a dress that you don't like that doesn't merit the same kind of concern, conversation, or thought at all the way that, say, your favorite jeans suddenly tearing at the knee in that one place that can't be sewn up again... that's something you tell everyone about all day and feel ugly in everything you try on for months after.

And I'm not worried about what would happen to my unhappy relationship if it wasn't around anymore... hoorah if that be the case. I'm worried about my happy relationship. It's always when people think they're happy that shit goes down.

Always.

Unrelated, besides being a mother, student, girlfriend, friend, etc... I am now a tooth fairy. There wasn't any training or certification or officialization... my daughter called out from the back seat of my ex boyfriends car on family day "Hey Mommy, my tooth came out". I took a picture of the bloody slightly scared grin with a hole in the middle, made a quiet call to my sweet perfect boyfriend (who is inevitably going to break up with me out of nowhere when I least suspect it because I feel that way) to request a gift and 3 gold dollars to be dropped off discretely after hours, and it was on. There was some crawling into the bedroom on all fours in the dark. There was some half crawling out, a surprise cameo from the roommate (because he's not here much, yes, but also because like, it was dark: Surprise!") which involved loud gasping at a loud door closing at the end of the hall.

He was like "What are you doing?!" and I was like "Ssh!! I'm the tooth fairy!". Thank God my daughter sleeps like a 52 year old drunk man for that confession of secret identity. I mean seriously-- did I need to clarify to such a degree? I guess it was only the lack of megaphone that stopped me from tagging on "I'm also Santa, that sleeping bird the other day was actually dead, and I didn't even want to have her until the 5th month of pregnancy!"

Seriously. I can't believe they gave me a baby. And, that she's lived long enough to lose teeth, and mentally healthy enough to sleep soundly knowing I'm the woman in charge while she's dreaming.

I mean fuck... it keeps me awake at night all the time.

And, that is all. Now, while awaiting a random breakup from my boyfriend because I'm deeply in love, and to find out in the morning that my daughter heard everything and KNOWS I'm the tooth fairy, a damn liar, and clearly scared of the dark (I'm really actually quite lucky the night light didn't give me away) and she never wants to speak to me again, I suppose I should do some of my homework. Because I think I failed to mention this: It's also a new semester, with new assignments, and 2 classes that I don't want, that I can't possibly enjoy, and that I haven't even started the reading for.

I may be the tooth fairy in real life, but it's only a rich fantasy world in which I'm an actual grownup.

Things I Can't Believe They Gave Me

1) A baby.

Seriously. I have answered the question "Does Daddy call you babymommy too?" I wear stilettos and mini-dresses kite flying, when she asked for pink hair when she was 4 I said "that's awesome" before the question was entirely out of her mouth. I ignore cussing if it's in the right context, in private, and in a reasonable voice level. I let her wear the next day's clothing for pajamas because we both enjoy the extra 15 minutes of sleep it affords. We fight over the last Twinkie-- and sometimes I totally win. No one is as shocked as me that I got away with it... the cosmos somehow totally screwed up and gave me a baby.

2) An Apartment.

Clearly, however, not a vacuum, dish soap, Pine Sol, a shoe tree, or any real motivation to use such things if I actually do have them. You may think 'Mold on your dirty dishes' or 'odd smells' would be some sort of 'motivation'. You may indeed... but you would be wrong.

Caring about those things would require some degree of 'Dignity'. What? I just said I wear mini-dresses to go kite flying: Don't act all surprised.

3) The Right to an Education.

I dropped out of interior design school a semester shy of having my license because I went and got myself in a family way. Somehow the universe saw fit however to let me go back to school 6 years later to get what I have always really wanted, a degree in Psychology. And it's true I have not yet gotten myself pregnant by a drunk ND English major (Oh, how I love the English majors...) in the midst of a drinking game called 2 shot Saturday. It's true I have not yet told a professor that I'm actually thinking so far outside of the box that I'm thinking outside of his box, and that's why he doesn't understand me, and that I don't care to write it out in small words right now because PMS reduces my tolerances for salary-earning ignorance.

This doesn't mean, however, that I don't bring Twizzlers to Film Class, leave my MP3 player on for one of my lecture classes on a frighteningly regular basis, start working on 7 page papers the night before they are due as a rule, or blog when I 'm supposed to be doing a 7 page paper the night before it is due.

4) A Computer.

I don't know how they gave someone so irresponsible, impulsive and scatterbrained something like a computer or the Internet. What I do know is that Sephora and Ulta are sooooo glad they did.

I know there are more, these are just the ones that at current... as I place an Ulta order while blogging instead of writing my paper, perched on my counter-top next to a 2 day old half eaten pop-tart and 3 lipstick lids but no lipstick, eating the last of my daughters Halloween candy and wondering just how I can cover my tracks before morning.

I don't know that I agreed to this.

I 100% chose to give birth to, keep and raise my child. I am aware of this. I 100% chose to go to school full time, I am aware of this. I 100% opted, declared, all on my own that I will not be dating, will not be having sex, will not be getting 'involved' (whatever the fuck that means) for as long as it takes (for whatever the fuck 'it' is). I all on my own decided that yes, I was going to be best friends with not 1 but 2 of my ex boyfriends, the two I love most for tremendously different reasons. I chose with no reservation to move into an extremely small apartment clear on the other side of my city from the area I have always lived. All of these things, totally up to me. I am aware of this all.

It's just that at the time, they sounded more like the above mentioned decisions than "I am choosing to be lonely and confused and overwhelmed, cluttered and exhausted, poor, and above all else, to have a really good reason to be the most neurotic woman I will ever know."

Nope. On their own, none of them really sounded like that... on their own, they all sounded like pretty good ideas at the time.

To whome it may concern

Yes, I realize that blogs have been better kept up by trained monkeys. In fairness, I have moved, brought the child I brought into the world to her first day (and all subsequent ones) of kindergarten. I have cut the cascading curls from my mid back, and now have a rather disgraceful mop of wakes that stop promptly before the chin-- not short enough to keep under a hat, not long enough to keep in a pony tail. I have seen an abysmal breakup, a tooth extraction, the tragic loss of my favorite pair of black heels, the ones with the round toe and ribbon cuff.

All and all, it has been a hard year.

There has been one upside, however: My pending return to the scholastic world. Yes, at 30 years of age I will be purchasing a backpack, writing papers, walking with boys to class. I want to feel enthusiastic about it, but all I can think when thinking about it for more than 20 minute chunks of time is "wow-- this is going to be sooo lame".

Which of course I realize to be what is actually lame.

One of my concerns (besides turning in papers on existentialism that have been drawn on in crayola and perhaps mommies lipstick if she feels like mixing mediums) is how I can get my own schoolwork done after said small artist has gone to bed... which is about what time my downstairs neighbor likes to let her mullet down and crank the 'Cops' or perhaps The Doors Greatest Hits on repeat. At first, I used to disturb her by pounding on the floor by midnight for some reason, but don't you worry-- she's since figured out that she can simply turn the volume up higher so as not to be distracted by my bizarre thumps and stomps and "Hey, shut the fuck up!" And that's a relief, I would hate to be a bad neighbor, but I'm thinking if I want to get papers done, I will need to cut the power supply to our home and do it by candle light at least a dozen or so times in the next few years.

And no, I don't need anyone to let me know how very lame that is.