This weekend...

I went on two dates with the same boy (we've been involved for some time, but this isn't how we roll generally) and didn't freak out about it in the slightest-- even when he kissed me in public for the first one, and pretended he didn't know me and we weren't together for the second one. I had a 6 member punk band on tour stay at my house (sorry boys-- hummus and pita and leaving behind toothpaste and imports: not very rock star), dyed a corset, dyed it again because the black wouldn't take, discussed horses having sex vs. sexual horseplay in a Starbucks, written and turned in two midterm papers that it seems are not due until next week, sat for 4 hours in front of a bonfire, smoked from a long cigarette holder, and ate an entire pumpkin pie to myself.

And my weekend felt wasted, faked and somehow misleading to anyone who saw me taking any part in it. I wasn't called 'mommy' once, and I can't help but think that I wasn't fooling anyone, especially myself... everything was effortless, everything came together perfectly, and everything was completely wrong.

I'll never quite adjust to this being old enough not to need to call me before bed thing.

3 Hours, 3 Exes

At 1:00 sharp, I have lunch with my ex boyfriend. We do not fight, we do not have to get together, we enjoy our Tuesday lunch. He was a major part of my daughters life, and when you live with someone for 7 years you get to be more than a couple. Indeed, in the end we really weren't a couple... we were still together because we are family. And so now, every Tuesday before he has a play day with my miniature self, we go to coffee. We talk about school (mine), how the family is (his), love for the aforementioned miniature (both parties inclusive). And it's good. And it's important. And honestly, it's my favorite part of the week.

As we part at 2:45, I feet compelled to offer to meet his new girlfriend. He's wanted me to for the 2 years they have been together, but I can't. It hurts that he is kind to her, never hits her, never yells at her. Never calls her stupid, never throws her things away because she shouldn't have left them laying around. Never tells her she doesn't deserve to be loved, that she's pathetic, that no one can stand her, that he hates waking up every day she's alive. "Isn't that sick" I think sometimes, "that I am angry with a woman because she doesn't go through something so terrible... Isn't that sick?". But, the last time he asked if I could meet her, I felt like he was asking me to give him permission to forgive himself. Which says more to the point that on his own, he simply can't. I escaped, I take care of me, we are friends, but he still can't forgive himself until he sees that I am OK with it if he does. He feels he has no right to on his own... and that earns my forgiveness. And getting out of the car today, I say "I'll meet her if you want". And he paused and responded very sincerely "Thank you. But you don't... just... whatever you're comfortable with". And he was a terrible boyfriend yes, but he's a wonderful person, he's essential to my life today.

And then I think to myself with 100% certainty... "I love my ex boyfriend."

**********************

Fast forward. 3:30. I call my often cuddle/sometimes kiss/totally gets me ex boyfriend. We are very good friends. We do not fight unless it is romantic in nature because we remain eternally unresolved. More accurately, we do not exactly fight. We get cold. We bicker. We get jealous with no right to. But, we do not exactly fight. Today we have coffee, we complain about school, we brush fingers for silly reasons because we are not physically affectionate in public. I look at him for a moment in that "we are not involved, but we are involved" way, where I am just noticing how much I like the color of his hair, how charming his freckles are, that I like the beard more as we get older, that his eyes shine more than most men. he always looks a little angry, and a little sad-- he always has. I have a moment where I don't think and reach out and brush my finger tips over his hair near his eyebrow, and catching myself. Because I don't like things like that in public any more than he does, I grab for his sunglasses after I do it. It blends seamlessly, no one notices, he does not notice, I barely do myself.

I have been making him a mix CD for a few days, and suddenly I think of how many women he will put these songs on mix CDs for. He's done so several times, in snoopier days I saw evidence of such things on his computer when looking through for my own mixes. They were personal songs. Tender songs. They were me telling him I was in love with him, and exactly how. It takes days, weeks, months to find enough songs to tell someone exactly how you love them, it isn't fair for them to steal your songs and pawn them off, it's like skinning one person to keep another one warm so you can keep your coat. Maybe not something that melodramatic at all, but it's wrong. And it hurts like hell regardless of what it's like... I don't know where the thought came from, but I feel tears welling up and I tell him his sunglasses are ugly and put mine back on, then stop looking at him entirely.

It's October, and in October it gets cold suddenly in the evening in the Midwest.: It suddenly gets cold this particular evening, and I decide to leave abruptly. I hug him at his car tersely, kiss him lightly-- half on his mouth and half on the cheek-- and say good bye. I barely peek back and I'm furious with myself. I hate that I feel the way I do, I know better and I don't trust him and I shouldn't trust him, but it is what it is: I'm just one of the girls he keeps on his shelf, and I hate that I love my ex boyfriend.

*******************************

45 minutes later: I am going to a group get-together. We meet every Tuesday, I am able to join in because my daughter is with our friend and his new girlfriend. I walk in to our regular table, sit down, and notice that people are looking at me cautiously. I turn around and out of the bathroom walks my ex boyfriend. My friends, previously our friends, are looking at me waiting to see how to respond. I do not have a real family, not the way most people do, my friends are my family and they know that I need them, so they love me dearly. They watch me ready to shut down or hug him happily based entirely on my response. He looks perfect, he always did and being in Columbia for almost a year has not changed that. His hair is perfect and I remember how he used to approve of my hair color but not be fond of it past a certain length. His nails shine and I recall him telling me when my nail polish chipped. His outfit is coordinated flawlessly and I can hear him telling me what I should and should not wear, what colors don't work for me, what style shoes make me walk what way, the critique on my body, my weight, my skin... it has all been laying silent for all of this time waiting for today, somewhere just behind my ears.

It's hard to come somewhere when you know that everyone probably knows who you really were after the fact. It doesn't hurt me to let this man be accepted. I don't forget, but I forgive-- I have to. Because when I lean in to decide if I should hug him I smell his skin and it's familiar, and I remind myself that he used to kiss me in his sleep so hard that my lips bled from his teeth pressing against him, that he used to hold me so tightly in that same sleeping state that I was afraid he would strangle me and I wouldn't be able to wake him. It wasn't about me, he was asleep those nights and I could have been anyone.

It was that this man, so perfect, was starving to death for love in his elitist isolation, but no one was good enough. And so I promised then that I would love him, simply because he needed it. And he is still flawless, he is still starving.

And so in the way I would a scared withdrawn child who needs to be loved, I love my ex boyfriend.

*****************

Tonight, washing it all away in the shower, scrubbing away at their fingerprints on who I am today, it all catches up and I feel without reasoning for the first time since the parade of ex boyfriends started. I cry and I cry and I cry until the water gets cold, and I cry a bit more until my my nipples ache and turn purple, goose bumps turn my skin to the flesh of a plucked bird. I slide down the shower wall and sit with the water running over me as I cry, over my flawed hair and my replaceable hips and my ears raw from listening to too much music for other people.

I'm furious and I'm sick with the smiles and well meaning and I don't feel like being such a good fucking person for another second-- I hate hate hate my ex boyfriends.

Go to Hell, Internet Social Site.

No, actually that guy randomly decided he didn't like me and took me off of his friends list and stopped calling and texting out of the clear blue sky a season and a half ago. And I really kind of liked him, and I think you should stop suggesting in your oh so mechanically insensitive way that we should be friends. It's not that his little thumbnail showing up in a corner of my computer screen every single night asking if I want to be his friend (something it has been established that 'yes, I really really do' has nothing to do with) is going to leave me in tears. It isn't. As I type, I have a very nice man bringing me a cheeseburger-- boys come and go.

It's just that my computer shouldn't go around assuming what friends are available to me and rubbing it in that some of them, no they're not. I'm just saying. Go to hell, Internet social site. Making your judgment calls and irresponsible suggestions as to who may like to socialize with... you don't even know me.

Ah. Boy am I glad I got that out there.

Now, to eat that cheeseburger. And, to block someone from my facebook that doesn't even care what I'm doing or have any interest in being my friend to begin with, in the hopes of banishing that little thumbnail in my left hand screen corner forever.

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.

Mmm, Hmm.

My 6 year old knows exactly what she thinks. Today, it's...


Likes
-------
-Charlie And Lola
-The Beastie Boys
-The green Tinkerbell shirt that fit her 2 years ago quite nicely
-The opening song for the Dianne Rehm show
-Having a 'Super Great Dance Contest'


Dislikes
-------

-The crossword puzzle being on the chair where she wants to read Charlie And Lola
-Nico ("No, Mommy-- I liked that girl before! Now turn it off and turn on that song about Egg Man!")
-Pants
-The actual Dianne Rehm show
-Any dance mommy decides to do in the 'Super Great Dance Contest'

Ah, well... tomorrow, no doubt, is a different day entirely.

Taiwanese Horror Movies

For some reason, totally not as good as Korean ones. Very emotional. Too much character development. Not nearrrrrly enough stop action ghosts with long hair and skeletal deformities.

(Unrelated side note: Giving yourself french tips, and/or blogging... not practical things when trying to watch said subtitled Taiwanese horror movie, just if you were wondering)

"When I go to Daddy's house, I just get to watch TV all day and he goes in his room... he must just think I want to be alone"

OK, I'm going to say it... this is going too far.

Mind you, I don't drink.

Sometimes, however, I do go out to bars with (sort of) ex boyfriends where I see a past romantic interest that was very very special to me (for reasons I never did and still don't understand) and get a little sad and painfully awkward because I want to talk to him-- and don't want to talk to him. I also see old friends and get a little nervous that they will want to be friends again even though there is no common ground to be found, friends I don't see enough of who recently got married that make my heart feel a million times bigger because they're just such good people, and myself in a nearby mirror kicking my (sort of) ex boyfriends ass in a game of darts.

And, it's sometimes a great way to start my summer vacation, however short of a summer vacation it is. Even if I go home at 11:00 because the sad awkward comes back in waves when I see the man at the other table, even if my soda was a little watered down, even if I didn't like what I played on the jukebox moments after I played it, it's sometimes a little nice just to know that I stepped outside of my little world for a moment to peek in on the rest of the world, the bigger one, the one I sometimes barely remember is out there anymore.

And by sometimes, I mean tonight.

And by a little nice, I mean very.

I wouldn't want to live in my old life, ever again, but I don't regret the past, and don't even particularly want to shut the door on it. A peek and a smile and an "I remember when this was my life" before walking out into the clean August air and back to what I know today, and a tiny pang of gratitude even for all of the mistakes and misgivings and sad little things that made me what I am and brought me to what I know. I'm happy today, I really am, and as such I have to be glad of what Ben Folds would call all the wrong turns and stumbles and falls that brought me here... and I really truly am.

I am glad for all of it.

Sad Things 6 Year Olds Say In The Middle Of The Night

"Is it morning yet? Am I going to Daddy's house today?"
"No, you've still got hours. Go back to sleep sweetie"

And she almost did, then suddenly sprang to her feet and threw her nightgown clad tiny frame across the bed to me, wrapping her arms around my neck with almost an adults strength.

"Oh, Mommy, I'm going to miss you so much. And you're so pretty Mommy. Daddy's kind of cooler, but you're just so pretty."

And I told her I loved her and how much I would miss her and how much fun she would have, and then I couldn't resist doing what any self proclaimed cool single mother would do... I gave her a second to get back to the hypnotic half sleep state she had been in previously, then whispered gently that I was wondering why I'm prettier and daddy is cooler.

"Daddy's kind of cool because he doesn't laugh and smile very much and we don't have lots of funny times. That's why you're pretty, because you wear lipstick and you always laugh and play fun silly things with me. And Daddy talks in a fake voice and makes pretend smiles. That's kind of cooler than you, but you're prettier than daddy because your real smile looks so nice and makes me happy, and you smile all the time".

And as suddenly as she had opened her eyes to ask if it was the morning yet a few minutes previous, she promptly closed them and was gone until morning.

And so. After 6 years of wondering just what it was like for her and this man in their brief times together once a month, wondering if maybe on his own he got parenting at all, wondering if I could be sure that I really am a better parent, wondering what he feels, if he feels, wondering if she would ever know that this is where her love comes from... I have an answer.

My daughter knows that her father pretends to enjoy her. I have always known. his parents take good care of him with open hearts and wallets because he's such a good daddy, I have always known that. If his parents had ever decided that they would rather he not raise this child, he would have been long gone, a sigh of relief, nearly immediately. He has to cash in on his parenting rights, but he can't make parenthood something he truly cares about... and now, in some level she doesn't understand yet, my daughter--his daughter--knows that.

She knows that her father pretends to smile at her.

And there is no smug satisfaction, my smart girl is onto you, you little weasel... not even for a moment. There is nothing but sadness, nothing but aching for a human being that doesn't know how beautiful it is to be unable to hide the smile, and for the little girl that one day isn't going to think it's cool anymore that her father is only going through the motions, that there is no real happiness from him for her.

I admit it...

... marriage isn't my bag, no, but I would hate more than anything to live in a world where I didn't see one of my dearest friends look as happy as she did today, where I didn't get to see her say I do and mean it more than I've probably ever meant anything except the I love you's uttered to my daughter.

And here's what trips me up about that, in a big way. The love between my child and I is indeed a force to be reckoned with. It's borderline creepy love, like the kind that might make a mother tell her child all men were evil and lock her away in an ivory tower... or at least a Lorelei/Rory worthy closeness that probably isn't criminal, but definitely counts as some sort of unhealthy enmeshment that child psychiatrist warn against. But it's a big, wonderful completely authentic natural unstoppable love, and it floors me. However, that big creepy wonderful authentic unhealthy love is to some degree authentic because it is biological-- before the real love came, a surge of chemicals rushed through me forcing me to love the kicking ball of cartilage and spine that rolled on my bladder and incubated itself inside of me, only to be born to do nothing but require my maintenance and bite my nipples for the next couple of months before there was the laughing and smiling and little her coming out bit by bit.

Before anything else, that love existed purely to keep her from giving up on screaming to have her needs met by the only person that was physically created to meet them, purely to keep me from in a fit of exhaustion and frustration simply walk away from my young when I'd had enough and heading back to the wild without a thought to how she would fend on her own.

I'm not saying this to slight the sincerity of my love, only to say that originally, I loved because of something in my genetic makeup that makes me more maternal than some ( and then, loved to the somewhat freakish degree I do because of something no one ever would have suspected in my genetic makeup that makes me way the fuck more maternal than most).

Ultimately, my daughter and I love so purely and in such a forever way because it's pure science... we were made for each other. Literally.

But Courtney wasn't made for this man. Not in the way that a mother and child are, hard-wired in such a way that it seems to me someone must be working hard against their own biological makeup to not be (as some mothers manage, which baffles me to no end). No, this love didn't HAVE to be, this love wasn't 100% embedded in her without any say so from the get-go. My friend looked a man in the eyes, thought about it...

.... and then made the decision that yes, yes, she was going to share a part of herself, the bigger part of herself, her entire life and all of her love, with this man forever.

And while I don't understand that, while I know that's something that isn't within me and am not only at peace with that but a little admirable of myself for usually, I have to admit-- I was envious today for just a moment. Somehow, for a second, it registered with me that in a way this makes my friend somewhat scientifically superior to me. This woman can love to this degree without having to... this woman can choose something so big.

This woman can do something that my brain can't piece together at all. This woman can make the adult decision to love fully and entirely in a way I can never never ever seem to grasp.

And, I feel suddenly very limited in the way my mind processes love, I feel limited in what I have the ability to want to take for myself. And I feel lucky beyond words to be friends with someone with that beautiful amazing ability.

So there's that I suppose... the love of an amazing friend for all that she is, that's something I can choose to nurture and give myself to completely. I can take pleasure in that and hold it close and really protect it and treasure it even though it isn't hardwired into me, I can commit to my friendships and take joy from their joy freely and endlessly...

And, I do.

So, while thank God it's her and not me... I can be for a moment completely delighted for a marriage of two people today. And I suppose that vicarious happiness through another, it's in its way every bit as delightful as whatever it is that I'm not looking for from anything romantic. So, dare I say it-- yay, marriage.

Awesome things my daughter has said in the past 48 hours:

* "Hey, that river is a rock star!"
(I still do not know why the river was a rock star, the point is she's calling things Rock Star)

*"Hey Mom, can you stop doing your homework so we can listen to this song together and dance around the room like we're getting married?" (* Side note... Not something awesome she said, but awesome none the less... it was totally The Velvet Underground)

* "Oh, I know... let's have Twinkies for breakfast today because it's Saturday!"... Cute 6 year old crawling into bed with a Hostess Box, 1, Mommy, 0. Those remarkably well preserved pastries never stood a chance.

* "Do you think daddy calls you baby-mommy too?"

* "Oh, do you know what's really special? I'll give you a hint, I put it in your purse!"
(Aaand, the Twinkies make their second cameo of the weekend)

* Sigh... "Mommy, you look tired. Let's have rest in the sun time!"

And, then we did. Now if you'll excuse me, that 6 year old isn't going to cuddle herself, you know.

It never fails.

Every single time you finally get it about your ex, every time you understand why it never would have worked and really are glad it didn't...

He's going to finally get it about you in an entirely different way, and you're going to be confused for almost a quarter of a second... and then he's going to remind you of exactly what you knew before you have time to blink with doubt.

Every. Single. Time.

Thank God for reliably unreliable ex boyfriends that can't keep the "I've changed" bit going for long enough to create any real confusion, ever, ever, ever.

Hey, wait a second...

I fail to understand how it is that being a 30 year old single mother starting school again after 9 years has not affected my time for dating problems, arguing with my 6 year old, steadily increasing amount of late night smoking, friend-comforting capabilities, and yet, has left me not a spare moment to post about any of it?

No one told me it was going to affect my blogging... I may need to think this over.

Do I really have to go take my student ID picture with a giant skin blemish on my chin today?

I cannot even begin to tell you how many things I am just too fucking old for in the above statement.

"You're so vain, you probably think this facebook's about you, don't you, don't you..."

Ashley asked the question randomly as a Facebook post, "Are you always this soft spoken? Are you okay right now?" I believe it is lyric or movie quote, and it was certainly not for me... but I wanted to call her and cry over the line, free minutes for true words (compliments of Verizon Cellular), exchanged between Indiana and New York... "I'm not okay right now. I'm at a loss for words, can't type, can't read, can't say what I mean. I can't even call it soft spoken, that would be spoken at all... It's been happening for weeks now, I don't know where I am. I'm so glad someone can tell. "

But the phone sits untouched, speed dial number 3 remains unpressed, "Call Ash" not voice prompted, more words I can't find. The post sits now 37 minutes of dust covering it, and I didn't say a word.

I fall to lyrics myself, The Talking Heads have been playing in my head for these weeks...

"Some things can never be spoken
Some things cannot be pronounced"

Which is small comfort, but having the words for not having any words, I'll take even that for now. It's a look across the room, a smell that reminds you of something... it's not articulate or even interesting to anyone but me, but there's a sensation, and that at least, is something.

Tonight, I plucked my eyebrows, scrubbed my face, and colored my hair. It's a painstakingly precise ritual, both punishing and satisfying in equal parts. I am killing myself to live attractively so often, the shoes that make the feet bleed come out more often in these waves of pensive quiet, the brows become wire thin, the posture creates aches where the shoulders meet the neck with it's rigid perfection. Every outward fiber of me screams when I fall so mute, but it screams the wrong way, the wrong words. "Look at me" and "Do you see" are not unalike, but are not, by any stretch, the same.

When putting the conditioner on after the dye tonight, my finger slipped along the edge of the foil packet, slicing not enough to bleed, but enough to break a smallish flap of skin from the the rest. I stared at it, felt the sting, and resented wrapping it with an utterly adorable pink band-aid with purple flowers. I do not wear hair-maintenance wounds like battle scars, and resent wearing their treatment like ornamentation. My pointer digit is all wrapped up as I type this, in a perfect pink floral sliver of irony, and for that as well, I don't have the words.

There is something, some overcast sticky-hot wave of humidity settled in just below the airy surface of me, and it's making my throat tight, distracting me... it's displeasing and it's real, and I find myself soft spoken even while trying to shout through it's muggy trappings that nothing is wrong, but no-- I am not okay right now. But the words are sucked into the steaming thickness of it all, and a thin little "I'm just in a weird place lately" barely manages to squeak through. And even that falls not from my mouth at all but fumbling off of my fingers onto a keyboard with its (with my) grammatical errors and lack of accurate analogy and poor use of language in general, as well as ice cream on the keys and difficulties of the likes that Adrienne Rich would call "Mechanical Problems".

I'd like to say it's just one of those things, but even that's not really what I want to say... I don't know what this thing is, I don't have that word either. I'm not okay, and I can't tell anyone about it simply because there isn't a way to, and that is in itself becoming a serious mechanical problem, because making peoples facebook posts about me is tacky, and being soft spoken, however much it may be my reality right now, is simply not me.

"I was thinking of an unrelated thing"

The past weekend has been a tizzied blur of completely unrelated events and thoughts, along with a broken blogger and a missing journal, leaving me to sort out now the fractured bits and pieces that still haunt...


*I want to know when, why and how I became the kind of woman who at any point thought "you know... I'm going to start altering books". I sandpaper books. I splash bleach on books. I adhere things to, remove things from, measure, dye and stamp books. And what is more... I really like it.

And I have no idea how this happens to someone. I mean, where does this kind of things start, really?

*There are maybe 3 people in all the world who can come to my house totally trashed in the middle of the night, really insult me and make it my fault that they must impose upon me in the middle of said night, then pass out in my bed after trying to get some action, and I not at all be hurt, offended and entirely changed in my feelings about them in the morning. 2 of these people would never ever ever begin to do such a thing because a) They don't drink and B) They really honestly love me and to treat me that way would seem somehow inconceivable to them.

The 3rd, well... I suppose if I'm going to be honest, after a trial run it turns out that there is no 3rd.

* I wish someone had told me 6 years ago that those terrifying nightmares that haunt new mothers and send them shooting up in bed shaking and sobbing would never ever ever stop. No one ever ever let on that "Oh, the nightmares after you have a baby" meant "The nightmares you will NEVER stop having about your child after they are born no matter how old they get or how safe they are in waking life"... and I don't know why not. It would be just as easy to say that there will be a lot of nightmares as a continual part of parenthood as it was to tell me that there would be a lot of nightmares when I first gave birth. The mask of motherhood, baby-- we women are the ones who work against each other the most in our secret lives and struggles anshared, so another mother cannot benefit either.

There are no good calls after 9:00 p.m. on a Tuesday

When i was 21, I lived in Crown Heights Brooklyn with a 30 year old republican who enjoyed fast food and King Of Queens. We lived in one of the smallest rooms in a brownstone tenement and we were not together too terribly long. That was in the winter and spring of 2001, and while we did not in fact like each other, we claimed to be very deeply in love despite everything about two people like us being all wrong (and truly, I'm fairly certain it was the only reason we were together to begin with... because it was all sooo very interesting). That man was my boyfriend, at one point even my fiance, that man was who I lived with when I one day decided to move to New York for on my 21st birthday.

That man is not who I got the call about at 9:45 on the second last night.

The man I was sleeping with, the subject of said calls didn't even live in Crown Heights, was a year younger than me... the Prat boy with the perfect gray eyes, the one who would meet me at Accidental Records with a bottle of Jameson and talk me into leaving 2 hours early, into claiming I had to work at the club short notice and wouldn't be home that night... he was a photography student-- never put his camera away even knowing I hated, then, to be photographed, even knowing I was terrified that in some fit of jealousy those pictures of me huddled on the train in his jacket, sipping coffee bare-legged in his school sweater perched on kitchen counter, would end up at my boyfriends office, in our mailbox, slid under our door in some moments jealousy or anger or resentment, territorial male claiming of one sort or another. He was the man who taught me "There's nothing you will ever be sorry you have a picture of... always take a picture", advice that to this day, no matter what, I heed.

Even when we met, it was not his eyes that met mine but his flash. 2 weeks in New york, crying outside of the Odessa on the phone to Athena "I don't want to be here... I hate this place, I hate this man, I hate temping, I want to come home!" And, there was a flash (literal), and that night I didn't go home. Nor did I go back to the Brownstone on Lincoln Place off of Kingston. It was the first morning I liked waking up in New York, it was the first time I had liked the feeling of someone taking my picture with no outfit on, no makeup, no pose... just a cup of coffee, a borrowed sweater, a hangover and a lack of obligation.

I still send him pictures of me every now and again. When I was younger, still perfect, they were more like the ones he took of me that winter and spring... in pajamas with hot beverages, gardening with dirt on my nose and my shirt unbuttoned too low, my robe too undone and sliding off of my shoulder resting on my breast as I lounged tragically with the flu. Over the years there has been every few months an exchange of this and that, he's sent pictures of his dog, a tree in his back yard he thought I would have liked the flowers on if the light had been better. And I have sent the pictures truer of our age now... the new place, the most horrible thing he won't believe I've done to my hair, pregnancy, pictures of my new born daughters foot next to a quarter for perspective... most recently of myself combing my hair surrounded by the golden glow of my flimsy bathroom lighting, this one taken by my now 5 year old daughter nearly 10 years after that night in the East Village that he first put me to film (it was real film still, then). That one was sent via email a little under a month ago, the picture as the body of the message, this text added in as formality...

Hello, monster man, thought this may amuse what with the door-frame bit-- it made me giggle anyway. God, let her stay away from Prat boys if she must go photographer on me. Hope you are well, it has been a longer month than usual here, but then I'm always complaining about the month. I plan on visiting a friend late this summer your way, I hope you will find some time. Really, I do, it would be absolutely wonderful to see you. It's been three years since I was living in Bay Ridge hasn't it... I was complaining a lot then too, yes? I'm sure we are neither of us at loss for things to tell, and I don't know if I was clear on it last month, but I was extremely sorry to hear about your breakup. If you don't mind me saying though, she sounded like she had abysmal taste in music. Feel free to write more on the subject any time you need to bounce it off someone, both because I like to hear from you, and because I know things like this just suck.

Fond flashes, Amanda.

And when someone was able to get into his email, they figured from this email that we must have had some thing when we were young, when he was in college, we may in some way be close, and that is why his sister who had never heard of me looked me up to call me at the very precise time of 9:45 PM.

To tell me that he shot himself two weeks ago.

And there's really no one I can talk to about it, our entire bond happened behind closed doors, through his shutter, and via email. It was a secret, and then it was a 'stay in touch' friendship. Last night, I didn't cry. I smoked a pack of cigarettes and remembered all of the things I wish I still had pictures of, wondered what makes a person shoot themselves after the angst of teenage years have passed. And so I'll cry, and so I'll delete the emails and get rid of the pictures. And then, I will watch Lost. Because in the grand scheme of not being able to talk to anyone about something... I'll take my smaller victories today.

I wonder how lame it is...

That I'm not going to watch the last 'LOST' simply because there's no one I can talk to about it when I do.

The Maid Of Honors Daughter, However...

... has her very own ideas about marriage.


"When Courtney gets married, she's going to look like a princess. When I get married, I think I'm going to marry a girl because girls are pretty. "

And while a couple of my conservative friends have always been concerned that My daughter has a perfectly healthy understanding of some girls having girlfriends and some having boyfriends and have always been weary of how close she is to some of my lesbian friends, my own concern suddenly lays not in the fact that we are a gay friendly household, but in the fact that of my lesbian friends... I've clearly let her get closer to some of the too shallow ones.

Really sweetie? You just want to marry someone because they're pretty? I know I raised you better than that.

Whatever you do, keep the bouquet away from the maid of honor..."

Some time ago, sitting in Courtney, one of my hands down best friends in all the world's car, I muttered (or rather, spoke too quickly and too softly-- which is the only way I ever speak) about her and her brand new boyfriend. She said something wonderful about him, I agreed, and in the way mentioned above said "You should totally marry him" or some such slightly outlandish but positive statement. And she, claiming not to hear what I had said correctly, said "Oh I know" or "Yes, I should" or some such.

As I recall (and note here that Courtney insists this isn't how it went... but she also claims not to remember the hitchhiking prostitute with the 2 legged puppy in the back seat or the taffeta ball gown I was wearing either: Are we really calling journalistic integrity on me? My blog, my recollection, babe) I yelled "You admit it! You're going to marry him and you love him and you're going to be a housewife! I can't wait to call everyone we know and tell them that you're engaged!"

And she yelped "No... that's not what I thought you said! (and what did you think I had suggested, Court? That you carry him?)! I didn't understand you!"

And I was babbling on and on about how I was going to blog it, and should I call her mother to tell her or would she like to, and can the bridesmaids dresses be green? I look great in emerald green. Just not yellow-- I look terrible in yellow. I mean, I can be a bridesmaid, right? I can't believe you're getting married! All the while, my dear friend proceeded to get pink and frustrated and of this I am sure: At one point she did utter the phrase, as so many people have in the past several years... "You better not blog that (in fairness, I think I did actually suggest that I would first this time)!"

And yes, I know it wasn't nice to freak my friend out about a simple misunderstanding, but she does this great flustered exasperated mom of an overactive toddler thing when I get absurd, and it makes me giggle, and that's why I did it. It's also why periodically I would still say "So, can I tell people you're getting married yet? Can I blog it now?" when she would get that far away "I'm in love" look in the time that followed. I think that somewhere in the back of her mind she actually did fear that I would make an unreasonable false statement about her pending nuptials just because I thought it was funny, both on the Internet and to our closest friends at some public gathering.

And, I think that's fair enough... I really might do something like that.

As it turns out, however, Courtney is very recently engaged. And what is more, despite my harassment previous, she's still by some miracle asked me to be her maid of honor. While it's true that I have already sent her a text in the 3 hours since she has asked me with an embarrassing suggestion for the toast I would like to make, I have also already cried because I'm so happy for her, and because I'm so happy to have her in my life and to be part of such a major time in hers. Her fiance thinks the world of her, she has been the happiest in the past few days that I have ever seen her, and this is something she wants: Someone she loves and trusts, who loves and trusts her, to share her life with. She should have that, and now she will have that, and I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled that one of her dreams is coming true.

And, of course, I've clarified with her that yes, yes, now I'm going to blog it.

It has made something clear to me though, and pardon my jaded nature here because the following statements are not about marriage, they are about me: I am sooooo soooo certain that I never want to get married, ever.

It's not that seeing one of my best friends in the entire worlds joy isn't beautiful to me, and it's not as if I wish or expect anything but the best and happiest for her. But, for just one second I imagined that I were engaged, just let myself run with the silly romantic notion of what it would look like, and it looked like a bloody massacre. I saw having to stop carrying my cigarette butts in my purse because it's tacky and women about to be married don't do things like that. I saw some man getting to know my daughter, getting to live with my daughter, and the nagging fear that some day, maybe, he would go away and plunge her into confusion and a sense of abandon. I saw my daughter and I not being able to hang around eating breakfast in our t-shirts and undies. I saw having to get rid of the worn Persian rug that while once very expensive and classy has since become the victim of spilled milk-shakes, a brief attempt at puppy ownership, newborn puke, hair dye drips. There are frayed tassels on the ends, it smells, and it's mine and I love it. NO man will take this from me, and no man would take me if they knew this came with me.

I tried to imagine the wedding itself: I stopped flat at my family alone-- I don't do family, not really. None of us do. We're just not those kinds of people. I found out my father had a baby because someone saw it on a billboard, and honestly, that was just fine with me. And then there is the matter of babies in general... do I want to have to answer that question over and over again at the reception?

"So, when are you guys going to start planning on a little one?"

We're not. Sorry, hypothetical husband, but it's not happening, you keep that baby-making voodoo away from me. I remember vividly the endless discussions with my long term ex that were eventually a key part in our demise: When were we going to get married? He wanted to have a baby, he was getting to old. "I already have a baby" I explained over and over again. I had gotten my own baby, it's not my job to make them for other people too. I love my child, she's more than enough for me. What do I want with another one? I am not a vending machine, and sadly what I am putting in my uterus becomes, when wed, something that is open to the opinions of another as well. And that's wonderful for people who want children, or even people who are open to the idea-- I, however, simply am not and never will be, and it's not up for debate.

And above all else, it's a little thing that gets me every time: I am not going to wear a diamond on my left ring finger. I have a large green turquoise number rocking the ring finger on my right hand that I've worn since I was teenager, and in more seriously committed relationships I have been known to wear it on my left hand simply to make clear that I was taken and liked it that way. Which in and of itself could be a simple matter, but let's be clear: I am not a simple person, and no one can possibly take the following quirk in any simple way. I would never agree to marry a man who would not get on one knee and place a diamond or some such engagement-looking stone on my ring finger. And yet, I would also not dream of actually wearing that ring save for days that it happened to look good with my outfit and I felt like it. And ultimately, that is about more than just a ring... it is about who I am. I don't know that I could ever completely be one half of a whole. I am more than a fulfilled person with enough of herself to share, I am an overflowing person with too much self to be contained within the confines of two, and I am too selfish with all that I am, the good and the bad, to ever really be able to share it with another person on any terms other than my own... and sometimes those terms may be literally impossible for another person to meet.

This isn't to say I've not been known to be a great girlfriend. It isn't even to say that I have not at one point in my life been essentially married, 7 years of domestic status with the same person. But, in the end he needed more, and I simply wasn't willing to give it. It's not about love, I'm very loving. And it's not about support, I will support the people I love endlessly, I do so on a regular basis. It's about something more abstract. In the beginning of Peter Pan, it talks about how Mr. Darling had almost all of Mrs. Darling, except for one certain kiss at the corner of her mouth that he could never quite get at. And, I've always understood that, but beyond the fantasy world of J.M. Barrie, that kiss isn't one little thing someones wife has... it's that one little thing that one gives to another that those two people should share a life. And I know I have that kiss, coursing through my veins before rushing over my lips, and I have no intentions of sharing it-- I have no interest whatsoever in ever giving it up.

It's hard to explain, but at the end of the day I think about my wonderful beautiful friend Courtney getting married, and I think that is wonderful. It makes me grin, in large part because of the joy I see in her at the very idea of it. But I think for a second about me getting married, ever, and something inside of me gets heavy, hard... I'm filled with a sensation of what I can only call impending doom. When all is said and done, I don't have it in me. I don't have that want to share my life with anyone but my cat and my daughter. And, I don't see anything wrong with that: I have found the love of my life, and it's motherhood, and I am full to the brim. There is no more room for anything else in me... I'm just not the kind of girl, if such a thing sounds even possible, who has ever, or would ever, really dream of being someone's wife.

And I'm glad I know that. I'm glad I can put my loving energy into where I authentically feel the urge to. I'm glad I can not lament my own single status when celebrating my friends pending marital bliss. I'm glad I can entirely submerse myself in time with my daughter, never wishing there was more. I'm glad my rug will always be mine, I'm glad I can wear what ring I want when I want. I'm glad I never have to have another child, I'm glad I don't have to try to figure out family holidays, I'm glad I have cigarette butts in my purse... and I'm glad to be a bridesmaid, and I'm glad someone I love dearly, who wants to be, gets to be a beautiful, happy, wonderful wife.