Has It Really Come To This?

I am writing an 8 page final paper (though clearly that is not, at least at this moment, entirely true true now is it?) that is due at 10:00 tomorrow morning, and that I started about 20 minutes ago. In and of itself, this is not so strange-- I don't know that I have ever finished a paper with more than a nights effort. What is strange is that midway through the paper, I realized 2 horrifying things:

1.) It is 10 days until Christmas, how in the fuck did that happen? And what in the fuck am I going to do with these 36 printed cards featuring one precious Morgan Athena looking over her shoulder in a red velor dress? I don't have stamps, and if I go into the post office tomorrow to buy some, they're all going to know I didn't send my cards out until just now.

And then everyone is going to be looking through their cards Christmas morning (because domestic families do that, right? I know smug newlyweds and new parents always do-- I've seen it firsthand) and think "Oh, not one from Nanda, I see (or Amanda, depending on what home the judgment is coming from). You know, her mother died and her father isn't around and she got dumped a couple of months ago and her daughter is in Colorado with that boy's family... you know, the one that (whisper) got her pregnant. No wonder the poor dear didn't send a card. She's allllll alone."

And then, they're going to call me while I'm, like, surfing pornhub and smoking in the house in a dirty wife beater having the time of my life and be all "We noticed you didn't send a card, and we'd really like you to come spend the holidays with us. Since you know... (more whispers) you're all alone."

And then, all of a sudden, I'm going to be sad that I'm all alone. And my Christmas, fine up until that point, will be ruined. And, I only have 10 days until all of this inevitably happens. If only there was something I could do to change it... oh, right. Stamps.

And, at the end of this entirely insane stream of consciousness, I without noticing it typed "Get fucking stamps" right in the middle of my paper. As I was deleting this, I was led to my next thought...

2) New Year's Eve is only a few days after Christmas, you know. So if my sprained ankle isn't healed by then, am I going to suffer through in heels for it even after it hurt so much at that party I went to last week? Or am I seriously going to go out for New Year's Eve without heels on? I can dance then, but I won't like to because I only wiggle right in real heels.

And then I have to stop again and think about my New Years Plans. They were (when I made a point to be child free on the parenting schedule ages ago) to do something, whatever it needed to be, with my best friend who after years of confusion I finally found a way to date with some success. When he left my house after movie night and disappeared a couple of months ago though (and I do mean disappeared, I didn't see him for over a month, just like that), I didn't make backup plans. I've entertained notions from utterly absurd to completely practical, but in the end the place I had just deleted the words "Get Fucking Stamps" was filled in again with the words "You're going to end up kissing your own hand for New years Eve Again". This is a true story mind you, I spent last NYE with a guy friend who was seriously looking for more and leaned in with his mouth slightly parted, so I pretended to kiss his cheek, kissed my own hand, and said "I love me!" as though it was totally adorable self absorption rather than totally sad disinterest in someone who cared about me a great deal.

And so, before anything else happened to my paper, I thought I had better, with only a few hours until bedtime, come blog for 20 minutes to purge these neurotic irrational typing turrets so I can get back to typing my paper-- yet another thing I have known all year was coming, and somehow managed to be completely shocked by when I found it actually upon me.

You know what would be really nice? If my nerves would make me accidentally interrupt my blogging to write my paper in the middle of this entry too. Alas... back to Word I go.

Because I Gots No Class

I may have outright danced into class this morning-- and what I mean by "may have danced into class" is "totally danced into class". It was They Might Be Giants, and I'm the only woman I know who can dance to a song about James K. Polk, but it is what it is and by time I realized what I had done, it was too late. I was standing in front of the classroom with my hands in my hair, hips flung to one side, and I froze for a moment, horrified.



Here I should clarify, this isn't a unique experience, I wasn't about to die of humiliation because I couldn't believe I would be so totally engrossed in my own little word that I was making a total fool of myself and disrespecting an entire classroom (mind you, I was 10 minutes late-- I'm always 10 minutes late). No, no, nothing like that. As I froze, the thought that ran through my head wasn't "Oh no, please say I didn't", but "Jesus fuck, Nanda-- you have to stop doing this!"



I have danced into stores. I have danced directly into actual people. I one time danced into the middle of the street in front of a school bus (nothing was hurt except my nerves, and they've never really been in primo condition to begin with). And still, my Zen is full of playlist titled "Dance It Off: My Breakup Brushoff Songs", "Nanda's Hoochy Dance Mix #7" and"Superhappy Dance In Public Songs (December) ". No, these aren't funny little names I made up to get my point across for this entry... the sad truth is, I was listening to the Dance In Public mix when I happened to dance into class, freeze and think "You have to stop doing this!". If only there had been some clue...



Luckily, with finals happening and this one pending for Thursday it seems that I was the only person standing in the classroom. Clearly this was something discussed in the first 9 minutes of the last class, when I was just gyrating out of my house into the snow towards school.



On a totally unrelated side note, something brand new has happened to me recently: I got a "Good luck on your finals" from someone at the end of an email. I was kind of startled, this is something I have never heard before and rather liked. I think more people should wish luck on finals. That said, I should probably dance out to smoke a cigarette, I would like to actually show up for the next of the above mentioned finals on time. I may moonwalk in, and according to the syllabus, there will in fact be people there to see it this time.

Guess What I'm Having For Second Dinner.

Go on, guess. Did you happen to guess an entire box of Star Crunchies?

Yeah, no one ever does.

Things That Are True About Today

In the course of the last 24 hours, several interesting things have happened. The best is that my nanny's fiance cleaned my kitchen. The worst is that she was here because I decided instead of doing something very important for school that I was going to go to a party. But, there is gray area in between (let me pause here to mention how annoyed I am that my spellcheck does not recognize the spelling of gray as correct when I spell it grey even though it is a perfectly acceptable alternative spelling. And now, how annoyed I am that my spellcheck does not recognize the word 'spellcheck' as valid. Moving on...), various hues and shades that are deserving of note. I can say many things about my life, but among them, 'uninteresting' will never be uttered. Because in the course of the day, the following things have been true:

-I allowed someone to cut a bit of my hair with a box cutter (and honestly, sort of encouraged my hair to be cut with said box cutter). It was a kind of rusty box cutter at that.

-I learned that if my Cosmic Internet Soul-mate (who is also my real life friend, April) and I are hanging out in person, if she drinks enough wine I seem to become drunk. The second I am not talking to her anymore, I resume a normal voice tone and fewer things seem to be the most hysterical thing I have ever seen, heard, said or done than previous. Then I, like, walk to the hall outside the bathroom and she's standing there and I suddenly trip over my own boot and cackle maniacally about it. And at some point, we both begin referring to one another's blogs both as "our blog". Then, more cackling.

I could try to figure this out, but as long as I don't have to get her hangover I think I'm just going to enjoy the ride.

-I bought a Christmas tree as a Christmas present. I wish less of my friends had trees, it would make holiday shopping so much easier and more gratifying.

-You know that Walk Of Shame kit I always wanted from Too Faced? And then it got discontinued and I was all whiny about it? I got one. Best early holiday gift ever.

-I still have 3 pots in my shower. I can explain. I mean I won't, but I totally could if I wanted to.

-No matter where I go and no matter how long he has lived in a different state, there's always going to be some drunk dude that's like "Hey, you're Amanda right? I know your brother Frank!" Um, his name is Huck, but that's totally cool drunk dude. I know him too.

-I've changed my outfit 4 times in one day. Not, like, "I tried on a few outfits today" but "I genuinely felt there were 4 different occasions that required the wearing of different outfits today".

- If I'm not getting a crush on a gay guy, I'm getting a crush on a guy that's wayyy out of my league. Tonight would be no exception. The best part? I'm like "We should do something" and he's like "Yeah, call me". This man has never given me his number. The tasteful response? "Yeah, totally!", hint taken without creating awkwardness . My response? "Oh, I don't have your number. Mine's on facebook! You can get it there!" and then walking off making the hold your hand like a phone gesture and mouthing "Call me" and wiggling my eyebrows.

OK, so I didn't really do that last part. But I may as well have. "Get my number off facebook!"... dork.

- So when I was told by more than one medical professional not to wear heels or my sprain was going to get bad all over again? True story. Who knew.

-An added bonus: My daughter came into the kitchen a few seconds ago and said "Mommy, let's cuddle and look at the tree. And at 2 in the morning, that's just what I'm going to do. She'll probably be asleep again by time we make it to the sofa 8 steps away, but I could use a couple of quiet minutes, and I appreciate that she suggested it more than I can say. Happy Thanxmas to all, and to all a good night.

(and if any creeper calls my number from off of facebook, so help me I will call you all hours of the day or night and blow a whistle into your ear. Really-- have you not seen the above? I am exactly that much of a dork.)

Of Course There's No Snow In Africa, You Idiots.

Yes, I mean you Bono. You and Boy George, and Phil Collins.

Especially Phil Collins. Idiot.

Once a year for a few weeks, I live in a blind rage. The Snow In Africa song is the reason for this. Of COURSE there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas, morons, because

a)It's Africa. It's jungles and deserts. Oh wait, unless you go to the mountains, there's snow there. Is that what you want, Band-Aid? A buch of freezing African children? It's not enough that they're starving? That's cruel, Phil Collins... cruel.

b)It's not fucking Christmas. I mean, for some people it is, sure... Christmas is a Christian holiday, and the Africans who do have Christmas are going to be fine. And there's a lot of them too-- sooo many huts built in exchange for some baptisms and bible reading... those Christians, we already made sure they know it's Christmas, because we're the ones that told them it was. Further, they're going to know it's Christmas because it's a national holiday there. Those that aren't are also going to be fine. They'll have the same famine tomorrow, because you all got together in a recording studio and made one of the worst songs of all time instead of each chipping in your coke money for the month (have you ever noticed how many people famous for coke problems specifically took part in that Band-Aid moment? White Christmas, yo). That could have fed those non-Christians through several more years of arbitrary holidays. And don't you stand there and tell me about song proceeds...

I mean, seriously. Have you heard that song?

That said, this holiday is about so much more to me... it's about the fucking Christmas lists. Christmas lists are a strange thing for me int he randomness with which I am able to come to a gift conclusion. And I have a list of completed shopping, I do.

-My best friend in New York
-My Internet cosmic soul-mate
-My ex boyfriend and his girlfriend
-My father who I haven't seen in 6 months who lives in the same town as me.
-My AA sponsor (What? It's never come up before. Relax Dad, you haven't even seen me in 6 months)

These are people who I one day woke up and said "Christmas is coming. Oh hey, you know what I should get for (insert name here)?"

But there's that other list too.

-My best friend in California
-My actual soul-mate, who I am not speaking to
-My other ex boyfriend and his boyfriend
-My daughters father, who must require something from her, right?
-My daughter herself. I was going to get her a Littlest Pet-shop and a Barbie (I'm a size 1 with a D cup, unrealistic body image issues do not apply in our house unless you want me to wear a box around her). The way things are looking lately, however, I'm torn between a flask, a my little pony switchblade, and The Bad Girls Guide To Dating.

God bless us, every one. Even those poooor lost souls in Africa.

And, We Have Issues.

I was wondering when it would start. It seemed too good to be true. A 6 year old who remains the size of a 4 year old, seldom argues, reads at a 3rd grade level easily, has empathy to put my peers to shame... there had to be a catch. Something had to go terribly wrong some time. Yesterday was that some time.

Mommy: "Why didn't you come out with your class?"
Perfect 6 year old: "Oh, I just wanted to wait."
Mommy: "OK, what's going on?"
Slightly nervous perfect 6 year old: "I don't want to tell you."
Mommy: "Well, this is me telling you that you have to tell me. Out with it."
Bursting into tears 6 year old: "I Got a red, I said a bad word today!"

The other kids at her lunch table (ohhh, how I wanted her to change lunch tables last week) were teaching each other bad words. Or, bad words in their houses, clearly. It so happens, bad words in my house, her fathers family home(I don't care what kind of money they come from, those people are traaashy when they're red-wine drunk--and they're almost always red-wine drunk), even my ex boyfriends good Polish family (who are much more like a fathers family than babydaddy's creepy brood)... those are the good words. Those are the words the other kids need to know.

Specifically, "Shit" is the word those kids need to know.

As though this were not bad enough, at some point in the conversation that followed we stumbled as I knew we would on why it's OK for me to cuss (though in my defense, the aforementioned swear is not one I use). And I had already though about this, I have been waiting for this question for years: "I am an adult, Morgan. I am old enough to make decisions about how I want to behave myself, and I'm old enough to know when it's a bad time to say certain things. You are not old enough to use those words in the right way, they're very serious words, and you don't have those kinds of serious situations to use them for yet."

To which my little angel with her tear stained cheeks took a deep shakey breath, gently touched my hand and asked with wide shiny eyes... "So when can I cuss mom? When I'm a teenager?"

Fuck.

Eventually the subject was dropped... we had to go back to school a few hours later for the first grade holiday concert (which consisted of her spinning on a riser dangerously, forgetting some words, and at one point just turning the other way completely for no clear reason), followed by some very sweet pictures of her little boy-friend (this is not a title I approved, just one I don't feel like fighting with). At the end of the photo-op she turned, grabbed his face, and kissed him in the middle of the hallway.

My daughter is cussing and kissing boys.

All of this started in the same 5 hour stretch, and I would not have been surprised in the slightest to find her smoking in the ice cream parlor bathroom after the show, or sipping gin and juice boxes in her bubble bath before bed. I don't know if it's because she lives in a single parent household, because I cuss and smoke and kiss boys (I don't drink, can this not count for something?), but somehow it's finally happened-- I ruined my child.

I can't believe they gave me a baby, and this is what I ended up letting happen to her.

Tonight, There Will Be Glitter.

I don't talk about it often, it's one of those things everyone can see and no one feels the need to go into, which I appreciate. But, today it stares me down, mocks me, allows me no peace.

I have bad skin.

Not, like, I have big pores or a weird birthmark, or even like dryness or shine... no, these would be OK with me. These can be concealed, or even accentuated and played up to my benefit. No, my problem is that I would be quite beautiful, if not for the fact that I have more acne than a teenage fry cook with PMS.

There are scars, there are blemishes, it's uncomfortable. Sometimes my makeup sticks to it in such a way that it actually looks worse, concealer paints on in such a way as to look like I have a raised white dot of paint on my face here and there instead of a raised pink dot on my face here or there. There are places where there are flat red and purple splotches where long ago there was a blemish that one way or another was disturbed and left a scar. Those ones cannot be covered, they are part of my skin tone that will always show through. Without meaning to I will self-consciously brush my fingers over them to feel how bumpy I am, how dried out and flaky the medicine has made the bumps (and as such, my makeup), succeeding only in rubbing off what little I could cover and drawing eyes to it further.

I also don't talk about it much, but I am an art model. Not just "I sit for an art class", but "I work for artists, photographers and sculptors individually in their basements and studios for fairly reasonable monetary compensation". How the skin on my face and the skin on my body can match up so poorly is beyond me, and how they manage to capture what they want through the veil of blemished distraction is well beyond my comprehension.

But, what I do know is this, a 3rd thing I don't talk about very often (specifically in my blog): My breasts are amazing. While I can't understand how the artists can get what they need from my face through the blemish, i can understand completely how my face can be gotten past in general when I've got these bad babies to... ahem... draw the eye.

And tonight, I'm going to a show in a bar located inside of Notre Dame University-- where the girls are all well under 30, clear skinned, childless and perfect. And in honor of this, in order to take a cue form may smart artists, I'm wearing an exceptionally low cut shirt to keep the eyes away from my cheeks. And what is more, I've made a special trip to Sephora for some brand new extra sparkly eyeshadow (Midnight Cowboy Rides Again by Urban Decay if you were wondering). Because even if there is some looking at my face, I want them to see my eyes... not my dots. And while I am at it, I am going to be dusting a little bot over my cleveage as well.

Tonight, I will feel pretty. Tonight I will not worry about what people see on my face because I'm going to say it frankly-- I'm discouraging people from looking at me from the neck up. Tonight there will be breasts, there will be eyeshadow... there will be glitter. And somewhere nestled between the sparkling scoops of flesh and the shimmering twinkling blinkers will be a woman who is completely comfortable in her own skin.

Because she knows no one will be looking at it.

This morning, my 6 year old daughter said "Mommy, I hope you go have fun when I'm at Daddy's house and don't be sad that you're doing homework."

And I think it is

a) Adorable that my daughter thinks I have been sad about homework and

b)A really good idea that I go out and do something tonight. Yeah, that's right. I'm going to a bar, where I will play darts and overtake a jukebox. If at all possible, with the new Kids On The Block.

Why? Because my 6 year old thinks I should.

In the past 6 hours, I have...

-Filmed a 3 minute student movie
-Cried for no less than an hour about being dumped
-Put up a Christmas tree with full 'Martha Stewart Living' worthy decoration in under 20 minutes
-Wrote a paper on white privilege
- Somehow managed not to write in said paper "Yes, yes... I'm now so very aware of white privilege, how real it is, how powerful and completely unearned it is... and it's awesome!"

What? I'm wayyyy more lazy than I am socially conscious.

And, that is what I did in the past 6 hours. In the next 6 hours, I intend to dream about nothing, and wake feeling refreshed and ready to try to take over the world-one trivial task after another- all over again tomorrow.

Did I Mention?

I totttally got the best Christmas present ever, Elvis Costello tickets. From someone secret, which is even more awesome than knowing me so well to begin with. I'm sure I'll be back to my angst in no time, but at this particular moment, I'm going to go dance around to Every Day I Write The Book in my pajamas a little more.

Not at all about men...

Some days I suddenly remember I have a Twitter and it works from my phone, and post like 47 things in .11 seconds. Then next day I feel a little shaky, my head hurts and it's all kind of a fog. I find myself making a mental note that I'm a small girl-- I really shouldn't mix medias.

Oh Gross, here it comes... Fucking Men Part III

I was fine. I was good. I didn't eat any ice cream last night or this morning, I didn't peek out the window every time I heard a car door close hoping he was coming to say it isn't over, that an impostor has been posting as him online and he really couldn't get to me because he was tied up in a basement. I have spent the past 3 days fine, happy, good.

I got a tattoo and talked about the holy trinity of female conversation (Makeup, Men and Motherhood) half of Friday. I ate fried dough and talked to a dear friend who gets me and laughed at the kinds of things normal people don't find funny. I didn't even blog for the love of fuck... I was healed.

And until half an hour ago, I was fine. Then suddenly the sick feeling started, and out it came-- gallons of snot and tears and miserable sobbing. 20 straight fucking minutes of body shuddering can't breathe face drenching blubbering.

This had better have been the fucking end of it: My blog is getting way boring.

Fucking Men: Part II

This. Fucking. Sucks.

I've used the $50 mud mask, I've thrown out all the pictures and notes and little trinkets from the past 6 months (except the Hold Steady shirt and poster: Ironically, if we hadn't been dating I would have been at that show). I've called the best friend, I've cried, I've deleted Buffy from my Instant View, I've updated my Netflix. I'm out of best friends to call, I'm out of tears, I'm out of things to symbolically destroy, and I'm out of energy.

And, I'm out of fucking ice cream.

But, I'm still in hurt--this fucking sucks.

Fucking Men.

Can you break up with someone you're not 'really' dating? And didn't he pretty much break up with you by facebook 'poking' you once over the course of the last week (with no form of chat cuddling after, mind you) as the only form of communication, even while you couldn't peek your internet social site wall because of the overflow of movie ratings and comments to shared friends that he did have time for (and once you have to block someone's posts because they're so frequent, aren't they lying to say they don't have a second?) And isn't it weird when people keep telling you how he's doing despite your not asking because you're too hurt to even care, even though he 'hasn't had a second' and has totally just shamed you for being like 'what the hell', making you feel like an asshole about the fact he hasn't realized that everyone already knows-- that he hasn't bothered... fuck men. Fuck men, fuck men, fuck men.

OK, Snuggie. OK, Ben, Jerry. OK, mascara oozing down my cheeks already... it's just us tonight, let's get down to business.

Grrr... Fucking men.

Not that I could stop anyone from reading my blog...

... not that at all. Nor am I trying to. No, ex boyfriend Tom Lopez of Granger Indiana, I don't care if you read my blog 27 times a day, I don't care if you need a box of tissue and some hand cream to read my blog, that's your own fucking business. However: Since you're already reading...

I absolutely 100 percent promise that if you ever ever ever ever ever email me again for any reason whatsoever, including but not limited to sending me Youtube videos and saying you enjoyed my last blog at 2 in the morning, I will have something totally awesome to blog about-- where we met, how we met, why we broke up, and every creepy dysfunctional insane thing you do. We could talk about the cookies. We could talk about the vacuum. We could talk about Trios. The fireplace video. The coming to my house all out of it on both this and that, and probably some that. We could talk about it all in humiliating detail. For days, weeks, probably months even! And so there's no confusion, that red link there would totally link to your facebook, whatever job sites you have, classmates.com, and multiple pictures of you to be 100% sure that anyone, everyone, can know exactly for certain who you are.

So step away from the keyboard, Tipsy McEmailson. Step away from communicating with me at all. You perhaps forgot how pissed I am, but certainly you could not have forgotten how tacky I am... I will soooo do that shit.

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.

When you keep a blog and no one really reads it too regularly, and then someone makes known that no, THEY will be reading it...

... you suddenly feel the need to add an entry to make it worthwhile.

And by 'you', I mean 'me'.

Ahhhh, that feels better. Hello, April. Welcome to my neurotic.

In Retrospect...

... when the guy I've been seeing said to me last night when I asked if it was over that "No, I just don't really know what's going on with anything, and I don't see that getting any better or me having any more time for anything in the future" and "It really doesn't have anything to do with you. I mean, it effects you, I know, but it's not ABOUT you"...

He wasn't saying "We're good, I just have a lot going on", but that dreaded sentiment I run into oh so often and never notice until after the fact: "It's not you, it's me".

And then I made out with him for at least a solid 20 minutes. My God, I'm glad I'm so hot... because I'm realllllllly fucking stupid.

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.

Everyone has that one ex boyfriend...

Child free weekends often result in ex boyfriend movie night for me. Not because I want this certain ex back, but because he gets me, I get him, he's comfortable and familiar and has seen me at my absolute worst and loves me anyway. Which isn't to say I'm not friends with a lot of my exes, I am, really. But, this certain ex has become one of my best friends by no small miracle, for the very same reasons we never worked out as a couple to begin with.

But, there are those movie nights, few and far between, when at some point when leaving there's that brush of the arm, the holding hands on the way out the door without really noticing. Muscle memory from long ago coming back to us out of nowhere. And suddenly, eerily naturally, I'll find myself in a kiss. And it's not the easy go with it kisses of dating that make me feel giddy or immediately realize that no, this guy just doesn't work. They're riskier kisses. Not because things get frisky mind you (I may never again live to see the light of a frisky day), not that at all. It's something more like when you quit smoking for a week and then find yourself taking just one hit of a camel wide light. You know what it is, you know it's not what you want and that you've finally put it aside, and that this is riskier business than a casual smokey inhalation... this is temptation.

Or at least, that's what it is for me.

And he's thinking "Oh, I'm kissing Nanda. Kissing Nanda is nice"... if he's thinking at all (I think some people, most people, normal people--probably don't think through kisses to begin with. You know, because they're busy. Kissing) while my mind is racing. He said he loved me but wasn't in love with me. He bails on plans all the time. What's the point in this, we don't work and we're finally better off as friends after years of trying to find that ex balance, does he want to throw that all away? Can I count on him? No, I can't. It would be so easy, and we've both grown up so much since when we were us... no. This is all wrong. I'm past that, I was so unhappy all the time".

And then, the kiss is over and I'm left with my head spinning, reminding myself that I'm not that girl anymore and what it was like, and what's wrong with him, and that I declared on my facebook not three days ago that I "gave the dating world a several month go and absolutely prefer Netflix". And then I'm thinking about dating in general and how when I said I didn't really want to date anymore people said "You have to get back on the horse". Not one, but several people. All I could think, can think, is that no, no I don't. I didn't get thrown from the horse, I decided I didn't like horseback riding-- why would I get back on the horse? I know I don't want dating, I don't want the stress, I'm not interested, and I definitely don't want to date my ex that I'm not really dating.

And, he's already forgotten and is scratching his armpit and trying to play back toe missed part of the movie or find his keys, or maybe laughs and says something about me still being hot and doesn't look back. Because he's not any more interested than I am, a kiss is a kiss, and we used to do so more often and it just kind of happened.

And, I've talked to girlfriends about this several times and know that everyone has one of those ex boyfriends. What I wonder though is if everyone has one of these ex girlfriends...

The one he knows is soooo going to blog it the second she gets home.

"Aging Spinster In Produce..."

Honestly, do they make an announcement at my grocery store the second I walk in the door? Should I be listening more closely when I get my cart?

Because I have taken not 2 and not 3, but 5-- yes, 5-- numbers in the past 2 weeks so men would leave me alone to finish grocery shopping.

And you know, not a one of them has offered to buy any-any-of my groceries.

Effin' laundry day

I cannot imagine how it is that I wear the same 12 outfits over and over like a cartoon strip character, and yet cannot wade through enough of my walk in to figure out what goes to the laundromat and what stays at home for a different day that I am feeling more ambitious.

Certainly something has to give. It's probably time to toss the jeans that aren't going to fit me again even if they did look so cute when I was 89 lbs. If they fit me again, it means I am in a fit of postpartum hysteria and eating every third day. I do not want those pants to fit me again, I do not want 2004 back, I do not want to be 89 lbs of fear and depression and breastfeeding. I can probably get rid of those jeans, even though when they did fit, they looked cute.

And sweaters... I have always had a problem with sweaters. I dress like a dirty trollop and that's all there is to it, but sometimes I like the option of covering up those two quivering scoops of flesh. I know there is in all honesty nothing more inherently womanly or motherly than the very breasts a child is meant to nurse at, but many a mother may beg to differ, and I admit it, I let those boobie-shunning bibs of shame sweaters have become for me live in my purse for in case I run across just such a woman. However: How many bibs of shame do I really neeeed in April? Couldn't I cut it down the way that one does a belt to, say, 1 brown, one black, one white? That should cover all ground, no? Or rather, all breast? Do I really need the brown one with the pencil stripes because it makes my hair color look cute, the one that doesn't stay up on one shoulder because it lets me alternate between tart and curt with blindingly manipulative ease, the button down green green cropped sweater with the short sleeves because in a pinch Morgan can put it on, the cut-off flash-dance one just because I love it, the gray striped one that I got from one of those adorable basement boys in high school that he still probably doesn't know I have since I quit school the next month and never have seen him again, the one I bought my ex boyfriend but took with me when getting out of his car after friend-lunch one day when I found out he let his new girlfriend have it after we broke up last year, the maternity sweater that I don't want to store because what if I'm wrong and some day I decide I really DO want another child, the 4 Morgan is waiting to grow into, the one that I know I'm going to grow into any day now, the long mesh one that will never be in style again but I don't care because it makes me feel beautiful so I wear it around the house all the time anyway...

No. All of this... all of this, I do not need.

The jeans? Yes, I do need all 12 pairs. The shorts, yes. 3 micro mini-shorts, one black, one white, one brown. The same of micro mini-skirt. Brown, black, white. Every tank top I own, every single one, gets millage also. The socks... somehow, I cannot find the socks. The bras? A knotted tangle of straps and hooks, varying from a small C to a large D, in 32, 34, and 36 from various stages of nursing, postpartum depression, weening, weight gain, push up results, etc. I am wearing one of the 2 I got on clearance at TJ maxx, and the other is in the laundry-bag. One is brown, and one is black-- in bras it seems, I do not care for a white.. Though I'm certain there are a few of those amidst the bra-ball in the closet too.

Something must be done, this is the bottom line. In the time it has taken me to list this (yes, I realize a blog and a list are to normal people different things-- but what normal person has named the bra ball in their closet, I ask you that.), it has started to rain, and I won't be doing laundry today after all.

I'm glad I'm freakishly attractive, it's easier being dumb in a world you're beautiful in I've found.

And the best question my 5 year old has asked all week isssss.....

"Mommy, how come time and temperature never just calls you for once?"

(That this was followed up with a sigh (from her) really gave it a little something, too.)

Cosmic signs from the checkout lane: It's not you it's me and the 40 times I've learned that.

"It's not you, it's me".

So, maybe that's true. Maybe. But it's also true that since the dawn of my womanhood, or at least since I got my first training bra, I have single-handily been responsible for men the world over realizing what about them (not me) it was. The thought of having to see ME again, of maybe being my boyfriend or even having to go through another Friday night with me for any reason at all... that helped them to see something... you know... about them.

In short, there's just something about me. Or rather, more specifically there's something wrong, very very wrong about me, that makes men realize something about themselves-- and their never wanting to see me again.

And, it's what it is. I've always been the girl before the girlfriend, the girl to whom you say "It's just that I respect you too much to keep just hooking up and not actually moving forward"... but doesn't respect you enough to maybe, as you'd been waiting for all those stupid fumbling nights after closing down the bar with him, for him to m maybe ask "Do you want to go to a movie? Or rent one? Or maybe even swing through a drive-through on the way back to your apartment and I'll pay?"... but maybe, maybe this certain boy respected me too much for that too-- I mean, he wouldn't have wanted me to feel like a hooker or anything, right? No, no, 'Blue-Ribbon' boy... I have never forgotten that winter. It was a cold winter, and that 'respect' has chilled me to the bone for all these years hereafter. Someone once told me it was because you were so Irish... that it was because you were so this or so that, but the truth is, it wasn't any of those things-- that was my first peek at the reality of it... that it wasn't anything about you. It was that you were (or rather weren't) with me.

And so I don't know why-- because I am 30, because my partner of 7 years has met the woman of his dreams in under a year, jsut because it's what people say I should do--I continue to try, now and again, to date. Cautiously, generally firmly set against it before even considering coffee, googling to be on the safe side and secretly hoping to find out that this time it will be you to get it out of the way before having to put on makeup even that first time.

But, I do, I keep that door just the tiniest crack open. I do not know why, it's in my nature... a romantic without any trust is a messy thing. In past years I would be very good friends with Emily Dickinson, no doubt, though I feel certain she would not care in the slightest for the fact that the only way I write is to blog.

And, it's in my nature to be a kind person. And recently, when seeing a my-god-i-cant-believe-a-man-that-hot-can-be-walking-the-face-of-this-earth lost soul of a creature wandering desperately through a grocery store looking for a place to throw out his gum, I offered him a wrapper from my purse. I even offered, though he refused, for him to put it in my purse (not because I'm creepy, relax-- I just happen to have a child nearing 6, it would probably be the least creepy thing in my purse). And he said "It would be wrong to just you know... stick it somewhere". And I agree-- there are just certain ways one ought to behave in this world. You should return your cart to the cage for it in the parking lot. You should never throw your cigarette butt on the ground. You should never leave a tip for a waitress under the plate so it gets lost or dirty. You should always ask customer service people how they are, and you should really want to know when you ask... and it's nice to see others of that nature as I do here and there. So we got to talking, and talking led to chatting, and chatting led to "I don't want to be to forward, but you're extremely attractive and seem like a kind of special girl-- are you married or engaged?"

And I'm not. And we exchanged numbers, and it was nice. And it took some of the hurt from the most recent 'it's not me, it's just me not wanting you' experience, which was still a little fresh just because it went down in an awkward fashion, and because by now, it's a familiar kind of sting, it's getting old and more wearing.

But I digress. Before side note, we were exchanging numbers. And I continued my shopping, kind of tickled, a little flattered, but as ever myself thinking "But I probably won't call him... anyway, who the hell meets someone in the grocery store? And he totally wasn't my type". But, the number, it did go in my purse. And there it stayed...

Until the checkout lane. And there, there was the last one. The most recent reminder that 'no, no, you are not for dating... you are one who doesn't work for others'. His perfect jaw, soft eyes, everything about him wonderful, just another of so many who knew that he was worlds apart from me, something I somehow failed to register. And that's something that always happens, really this was just a little cosmic sign from the checkout... "Reality check at the express lane, please".

And I waited for the cosmic reminder to leave, remembered who I am and what I'm not (datable) , and that it's not me, pretty much as a rule. And I walked out the door after all these years with the thing I've never entirely gotten finally sunken in firmly. I dropped the number behind a trash can. I knew better. Guys and me... we have a 3 weeks shelf life.

There's a poem I remember from an elementary school reader about a kid watching moths flying to their fiery deaths in a bug zapper, and the last line after a moth explains to him the exhilaration of that moment beforehand making it all worth while is something to the effect of "I wish I wanted something as badly as that moth wanted to fry itself" as he watched utterly clueless an d befuddled at the white wings pop away.

And I get that today, I do.

The boy has been in touch... we will have lunch, but for some reason I get it now. I do, I literally truly give up... I have finally come full circle from a 21 year old hopeless romantic to a 30 year old romantic who doesn't know hope. It's always going to hurt like hell, it's always going to end badly, and it's never ever been and never going to be worth it to get there. I don't want anything as badly as that moth wanted to fry itself, and baby... when it comes to who gets zapped in the end...

It's not you... it's me.

Always.

(*I really do want to note here that the most recent "ummm...not vibing you" guy is really a great guy, wonderful even. I wasn't mad that he didn't like me, it happens. He just happened to be the one in the checkout line when self doubt creeped in.)

And then there was the time I was thinking about having brunch with a a philosopher and historian of science, Dissertating at ND....

... but then I thought about it some more.

That was a good call on my part.

Homecoming

It's always overwhelming, 2 days of a different life, a different me. One who doesn't tell bedtime stories or do the dishes, one who doesn't rub glitter on knees because it is 'fairy powder' and the biggest lie in all of maternal history but for some reason I've come to terms with the fact that I will never again be young, enough, perfectly wiling to want happiness and comfort enough to understand the magic behind, it is the only think that can make a 5 year old girl, nearly 6, think a growing pain doesn't hurt anymore. I go out late. I dress like a brazen hussy. For a few weeks in there I even kissed boys without worry of the sitter (that is over now, mind you-- seems it's hard to tell a girl you're not interested anymore when your tongue is in her mouth, but luckily, this girl knows to ask. Via text.). I drink red bull, I stay busy, I watch slasher films in the middle of the day and blare Liz Phair and They Might Be Giants until the windows shake to spite the Gin-Blossom rocking mullet lady downstairs.

And then, I go to bed alone, and I cry a little bit because this isn't me anymore-- I am not a girl who hangs out in bars and makes vapid chitchat and intrigues with little substance and much charm... I am more (now), my life is bigger (now)... I am not also a mother, I am a mother first and all else on the side. But the Indiana State Visitation guidelines insist that every 21 days I not look into my own eyes on a smaller face, marvel at the little girl that has her fathers mouth but wears my smile... that I assume another identity.

And I don't mind the break. I don't mind the monthly atmosphere of freaky holiday, I even look forward to it sometimes. But there are these times, the longer stretches like Spring Break, that I fear it. I feared losing myself. Closing down bars with diet soda, sleeping until noon, kissing virtual strangers because some boy made me feel bad about myself, wearing too much makeup and showing too much breast even for the stiletto-halter-mini mother of the year that I have always been. Yesterday, I woke up and thought "Oh, there were other things I was supposed to do in my time off".

In my time off.

Something terribly strange happened to me this week, something I didn't like. I have always had great respect for motherhood as hard work, my primary career, responsibility, life's calling. But never, never, have I seen it as a job. I forgot for a moment in there something crucial, something I've never forgotten before: Being my daughters mother is not what I do... being my daughters mother is who I am. It's what I was put on this earth to be. It's all I ever wanted, and I never knew crawling in and out of so many beds that it was only because that's what it would take a commitment-phobe like myself to have her head where it's always belonged, on the pillow next to mine.

And tonight, her first night home, I tucked her in and she held me close and said in half sleep to me that "I missed you so much... I'm really glad to be back home. It smells like our house here, mommy. It's different to be somewhere that doesn't smell like you. Here, hold on to me tighter like this so we're really close again at home ". And she held on until she fell asleep with one other whisper to me, the one I needed more than I knew.

"Can you crawl in my ear when I go to sleep, like get really small? Because then you can always be in my brain since I think about you all the time anyway. You can have a house there, and it can smell like you when I'm not home, and so it can smell like me for you too when I'm gone".

They were the babbles of an exhausted kindergartner up past bedtime, I know that, but that little tired 6 year old is smarter than I will ever be. She could never forget for a moment what I did for that split second here and there when she was gone... that there's no telling who really belongs to who anymore, where one of us starts and the other one begins. So I smelled her hair and listened to her snore for a bit, and kissed her forehead for the first time in 8 days.

And she smelled like her, and she smelled like home. And I'm madly in love with that little girl, the me I wish I could be and a million times more, the very picture of perfection, brilliance and living poetry.

And in this very second it dawned on me... summer break is really going to be a fucking bitch.