Vapor

Jack is marrying Gwyneth.

It’s not a dream. It’s not some weird hallucination or some silly rumor. It’s true.

Jack is marrying Gwyneth.

Brad is the one who told me, God love him. He emailed me today while I was working and said that there was a rumor going around that I wasn’t going to want to hear, but that I would probably want to hear from him before any other way, and that he was probably going to have to tell me on the phone. I asked him if I would need vodka.

“I think you’ll probably be okay but you might plan on a glass of wine.”

Pfft. It’s like he doesn’t know me at all. ”I always plan on a glass of wine,” I replied. “That just means it’s Tuesday.”

Of all the things I couldn’t imagine it being, this was nowhere near the periphery.

Jack is marrying Gwyneth.

Brad told me the word had gotten out after Jack mentioned his “future wife” at an event the other night. Apparently then the Facebook chatter started – chatter I never saw because I’m not friends with either of them now. Apparently they’re not engaged officially, but are getting engaged officially soon. 

Apparently a lot of things.

I was in my car when Brad told me this and I had to adjust my rearview mirror to see my own face. This is not an overstatement: nothing in my life has ever shocked me as much as this. Nothing. Not even when a boyfriend got married to a woman he had barely known before me, who lived a thousand miles away, less than eight months after breaking up with me. And I literally fell over when I heard that.

Jack didn’t want to get married. Ever. To anyone. 

Jack spent years telling me I was his ideal. I thought if he would ever marry anyone, he would have to at least date me first. I thought Gwyneth was just the latest part of his pattern of almost loving someone and then walking away. I felt a little sorry for her. I thought, when he told me in September that he wasn’t capable of sustaining a substantive relationship, that he must be right.

Jack and I haven’t spoken since then, when he abandoned our friendship entirely after heartfelt and honest entreaties from me to save it for what it was – ten years of something truly extraordinary. He told me he knew he had caused me great pain and would take steps to repair it when it was no longer so painful for me. 

I knew then that I would never hear from him again. But I never, ever could have imagined this.

She’s 22 years younger than him. He’ll be 50 next January. Could that be why he’s doing this now?

What was I – his trainer?

How long had he lied to me? One morning when I woke up in his bed, in July of 2011, and saw a t-shirt lying near my feet that I hadn’t seen the night before, and asked him where it had come from… when I thought for sure she had worn it, somehow, months before I knew they had some sort of relationship, I thought it for sure, and he said it was just a shirt he sometimes wore to bed… when I smelled it to see if it smelled like a woman before he came back into the room… when I knew he never wore t-shirts to bed… had I been right, all the way back then? A year before the last time I saw him? Almost two years ago now?

How long had he been spending nights with both of us?

How could he?

Years ago… how many years ago? eight?… I remember sitting across from him at a table outside our regular hangout. We had never touched beyond a hug goodbye. I loved him already, but it was controlled. I remember thinking that if I put my hand on his chest, he would disappear. He would fade like vapor under my palm, before my eyes. 

Six years later, I knew how solid he was, how real. It seemed impossible that he could disappear for me now. Even if he changed, even if the touch went away, he could never disappear for me now.

And now it’s like he’s vanished. Like none of it was ever real at all. Like it was never more than mist, mirage, oasis. Like it was someone else’s life. Like that movie, “Midnight In Paris,” as if I’d gotten into a car at a particular time in a particular place and found myself in another dimension, not to be believed… but so very, very real, and so immensely pivotal to my life.

He has been past-tense to me for months. I don’t remember exactly when I fully accepted that I would never hear from him again, but it’s been months. I thought I might be finished crying.

I still dream of him. I feel a sting at certain times during Mass, times when I always used to give his name to God, times when I always used to think of holding his hand.

It’s terrible of me to think that this is only happening because he’s nearing 50, because she’s cute and blonde and 27 and likes to run, because her mother has cancer and his mother died of it when he was 17. It’s cruel of me to think the connection is that cheap, that it is built on something so easily found with a million other people. When what we had was so…

What? What was it? 

Was it anything?

Did I spend ten years in love with someone who wasn’t real?

It’s cruel of me to want to send him a message with three words: “Is she pregnant?” when I don’t want to know. It’s cruel of me to want to send him a message telling him nothing has ever shocked me more and no one has ever hurt me more and I have never loved anyone more, and then telling him to never reply.To want to ask him how long he lied to both of us and whether he still lies to her. To ask whether she knows about me. To ask her whether she knows about me.

None of it matters. And I know, if I were her, I might think that, after all, I‘m the one who gets him, swearing to God and all who are present, to love, to honor, to cherish. That, after all the decades of love and loss, I’m the one to whom he has promised himself.

Somehow, now, I have become the vapor under his hand.

 

What I Used To Do

Hey y’all…

I’ve password protected my latest post. Only those of you I trust now will get to read it. If you want to. You don’t have to. I won’t be offended if you don’t.

If you want to read it, though, email me at wpthesinglecell@yahoo.com and I’ll give you the password to the post. Maybe. 

 

Protected: What I Used To Do

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A Tender Spring

Today is my birthday.

It’s also the anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007. 

This week marks the anniversaries of Waco, Columbine and Oklahoma City, all of which I very clearly remember watching unfold.

And now Boston.

Since 2007 in particular, I have deliberately avoided media on my birthday. I don’t want to spend it filled with teary reminders of tragedy and horror and ways the world will never be the same. I don’t want to corrupt the light and airy joy of a newfound spring with the weight and sorrow of manmade hells. I spend every day immersed in the world’s troubles; I want one day’s rest, and I have demanded that it be April 16th since the day six years ago when 32 college students died. 

But it seems the universe refuses to comply with that demand. It seems this day is not just about me. From the moment I logged into Facebook to read well wishes from friends, I was barraged with images from Boston and Virginia Tech. I cannot avoid the world and its troubles today.

When I saw the horror begin in Boston, I desperately wanted it to have been a terrible accident. I wanted it to have been a couple of propane tanks, or a gas line… something unintended. Somehow that would have taken so much of the pain out of the injuries, so much of the heartbreak out of the deaths. But as I kept close watch over the developments, it felt more and more like what it was. And I felt less and less like someone who has any say at all in how life unfolds.

I thought of Jack. I have a ridiculous number of marathon-running friends, and I knew Jack wasn’t in Boston yesterday; he ran it in 2002 and he never runs the same marathon twice. But I knew he and my other runner friends would be wrenched by what had happened. I checked to make sure none of them were at the race; they weren’t. I thought about the two marathons I went to with Jack, the one where we spent three hours in the medical tent after he crossed the finish line because what started out as stubbornly tight calves turned into debilitating dehydration-related cramps that signaled the danger of a heart attack. I thought about what it might have been like as he lay dazed, pained, shaking and high on valium, if a sudden stream of terribly bloodied and limbless runners arrived. And kept arriving. And just kept arriving.

Though I have cut off contact with Jack, I did access the one thing I know is available in case I wonder if he’s alive: his Twitter account for work. He had posted a link to a blog post he had written on his company’s website – something he does from time to time. Jack is a beautiful writer, and before I knew it, I was reading what he had written. 

I wondered last night if I could put together a blog post on Boston, and pretty quickly dismissed it. One of the saddest things about it is that there seems to be nothing left to say. There have been too many Bostons. I have used up all my words.

There are already many images of Boston that I can instantly recall without aid of internet or television. But I’m grateful for the one that I seem to see most often in my mind. It is the image of people running into the blast zone, seconds after the explosions erupted, to help whoever was hurt. Not all of them were emergency workers. Not all of them were event staff. Some of them were just runners, runners’ friends or fans, Bostonians in the area for what the city commonly calls The Best Day.

No matter how much the darkness seeks to shroud April, human nature tends toward the sun. 

On my birthday, perhaps I am blessed to be reminded that, in the wake of too many tragedies, there have been so many glimmers of light.

The sun is coming through the clouds now. And I am going to go for a walk in the park, to see the new buds on the trees, the daffodils in bloom, the children at play.

To greet the tender spring.

 

Epicness

You guys, this day was so I don’t even know what that I can’t come up with a first sentence.

So I gave you that one.

It started with me having to run interference on Facebook posts. My sister, who often gets caught up in what she thinks is a good idea without realizing it could, um, totally hijack someone else’s day, posted on Facebook about how I was getting these governor’s awards at this luncheon. She posted my name. She posted a weblink to the Thing.

Nooo. What are you doing?!

And then one of my best friends, who is also Facebook friends with her, reposted it.

Oh, come on, no!

And then my aunt.

No no no no no!

Yelling that. Aloud in my kitchen.

So then I had to text all of them and tell them that I really appreciated their support but that I had deliberately not advertised this and could they please take down the Facebook posts? Because now literally 2,000 people know and I’m going to get questions I don’t want to answer. There are a lot of implications – strangers knowing too much, family and friends with whom I didn’t share the information asking too much, work possibly seeing it and questioning whether it was okay for me to lobby for a law while being professionally involved with my company.

Take it down, please. Now.

They did, fortunately, but I wound up crying. It was 9am and I was already on emotional overload. I was getting two governor’s awards for my victims’ advocacy work. I was giving a speech. Once it was a five-minute speech. Then I was told three minutes. Then I was told between three and five minutes, so I sort of merged the two, made it a Best Of and had Sam edit it. Which meant switching some things around a little and recalibrating. Fine. I can do those things. But the message of the speech… the impact of a stalker, the need for victim notification of prisoner release in cases of misdemeanor offense, the long-term effects of being a crime victim, the need for people who dedicate themselves to helping… it was heavy. My parents were coming. They would hear this speech and likely be set on edge and maybe even upset by it. Rick would be there. Or not, depending on his meeting.

An hour before the event began, my parents called to tell me they were stuck in bad traffic from an accident exactly nowhere near where they needed to be. I wasn’t sure they would make it in time to hear my speech, which would, of course, upset them. Then, sitting in my car in the parking lot outside the luncheon site, I drizzled a not insignificant amount of red nail polish on my blue spring coat.

So things were off to a great start.

My parents did make it in time. Somehow. So did Rick. He slipped in a little late and sat in the back, instead of at the table with us, the group of people receiving an award for the work we did. He did that work, really. But he came over after my speech, tapped me on the shoulder and said he was sitting elsewhere so he could slip out to tend to other professional obligations when he had to.

Seeing him felt sad. And good. And made me miss him. And made me hope. And felt awkward.

But I was glad he made it to get his award. And to hear my speech and see me in my really nice dress and heels with my hair up. He likes that look, and I’m a big believer in the lingering image.

I think my speech went well, but to be honest, I’ve blocked out parts of it. I wondered afterward if I had really said everything. I had written it all out, then rehearsed it so I would know it well enough not to have to read it word for word. But a whole section is missing from my memory.

The other speakers had lived through experiences so much worse than my own. I try not to qualify it that way. I try not to invalidate my experience vis-a-vis someone else’s, but when you’re speaking after a woman whose husband was killed and before a woman whose husband beat her and then murdered her two young children, you do feel like you’re unfairly spotlighted.

When the time came to give me my individual award, I looked toward the back of the room and saw Rick standing there in the doorway with the senator. He was backlit from the windows and surrounded by white marble. It was like he was glowing. I felt a pang. A few minutes later, when they announced our group award, I avoided looking at him but couldn’t help noticing the grin on his face. He deserved this, and he deserved to be proud. I was proud of him, too.

After that, he and the senator came and sat at our table, where my parents had joined us because our group was so scattered throughout the room. He wound up talking to my parents for a while. I have no idea what they talked about; several people had come up to me and I was justifiably distracted. And somewhat willfully ingoring his presence. Not because I didn’t want him there, but because I didn’t trust myself to act like there had never been anything between us.

After we left and I led my parents back to my house, I checked my phone and saw I’d missed a call. From the university. I returned it.

They offered me the job. Maximum salary allowed, title I wanted. I start May 1.

As promised, I texted Rick to let him know. His response: “Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! CONGRATS! You’ve had a very big day, if I do say so myself.”

It was a big day. A big, difficult, surreal, emotional on every level day. So much so that I don’t think it’s registered.

My mother wanted to frame my awards and hang them. In my bedroom.

No no no no no.

 

Fourth Round Upset

If any of you had me losing to the universe in the March Madness relationship tournament… congratulations. You’ve won. Allow me to play “One Shitty Moment” while you snip away the tattered remains of my love life.

Oh, it’s not really that dramatic, don’t worry. I can be around sharps. 

Yes, you finally get to hear the end of the Rick Saga, because it has reached its end. Yesterday I messaged him asking for a conversation and he called me five minutes after he read it. Much was said, but the upshot is that he thought he was ready to date, but he isn’t, and he’s so overwhelmed emotionally that he hasn’t been able to deal with his life beyond work. He’s thrown himself into the job to distract himself from everything else. Duh. And he’s so uncertain about what he wants for his personal life that he’s even wondered whether leaving The Ex was the right decision. He doesn’t know whether to move into a new place or move back in with her. 

So, yeah.

That was really the only part of the conversation that surprised me, or any of you, probably, if you’ve been playing our game at home. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I slept well or that I don’t have sort of epically puffed-up eyes from crying myself to sleep. I really hate that particular feature of crying myself to sleep, by the way. Like insult really needs to be added to injury at that point. My eyes are assholes.

It was a long and honest conversation during which we agreed that there will be no hard feelings or awkwardness if the university ever fucking calls me and offers me the goddamned job. He says he’s truly excited about me getting it (allegedly) and looks forward to having a friendly face around that he can vent to sometimes. At which point I fell silent, because after approximately seven eons of dating and two years-long, particularly cruel bouts of unrequited love, I have finally realized I can’t be “friends” with someone I’ve been interested in. But I didn’t need to say that out loud at this point. 

I’m still waiting for my Cinderella story. But I’m seriously, seriously considering quitting the game and taking up competitive eating instead.

Yeah, I Take It Back. This Is NOT What It’s Supposed To Be Like.

I am typing really hard. Just so you know. 

The university where I’m trying to get a job is in the middle of a kind of public relations clusterfuck right now. (I had censored that word a little, but then I remembered we all know I swear in this blog. Much more than I do out loud in actual life. See? You get extras!) I’m not in PR at the moment, but I do have some level of knowledge about it, so the woman who would be my immediate supervisor called me at 10:00 last night looking for some free advice.

It’s possible I didn’t really let her ask me the question she wanted to ask because we just sort of got into the conversation, but suffice it to say we talked for 30 minutes about how to staunch the bleeding. And I don’t love giving free advice (apart from “hire me”), but if it’s going to help nudge them in the correct direction vis-a-vis my employment, I’ll throw them a bone. She had told me, without prodding, that she was sorry the process was taking so long, that everyone really liked me and wanted me on the team, but that they weren’t sure which position to slot me in. Not a great sign, since if it’s not the one for which I interviewed, it would be the one below that… $2,500 below that, and a rather significant $2,500, at that. And if you’re calling me to help save your ass from the mess you’re currently in, then maybe you should hire me for something indicative of the fact that you need me to save your ass. 

I had talked with her on the phone on my way home from work. Pulling into my parking spot at 11pm, I had not yet heard from Rick. The night before, I had heard from him rather late, but the exchange had been fine. I was still pissed, though, about being blown off on Friday. But, since I had an update on the employment situation, and only because of that update, I decided to reach out. 

“Just finished a 30 minute conversation with Joanne. She called asking for help with this fiasco. Apparently I’m a consultant now.”

His response was…

…wait for it…

“Congrats! Tell me about it tomorrow. I’m out of it right now. “

Are you freaking KIDDING me. Period. Not question mark.

By “out of it,” do you mean “high?” Or “drunk beyond conversational ability?” Because, um, the possibility of my getting hired at this university is kind of a major point of interest between us, and you’ve been lobbying for it for weeks, and just yesterday you asked if I had heard from Joanne. And now you want to tell me you’re too “out of it” to move your fingers around on a keyboard?

If I hadn’t laughed out loud at his douchenuggetry I would have been furious. I might still be. I reserve that right. And I will, in fact, NOT be telling him about it today. Because I will not be speaking to him today. Not really sure when I’ll resume that, actually.

So, let’s review:

First six weeks of dating: everything is great. Everything is so different from my previous experiences that I think I might have found a truly good guy now. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

Seventh week: slight intensification followed by perfectly acceptable conversation about taking things slowly. We are in complete agreement.

Eighth week: Still pretty decent, but definitely less great. One plan to see each other cancelled.

Ninth week: Haven’t seen him in three weeks. Substantially less great vibe. Actually verging on sucky. One possibly attempted blow-off that I thwarted because it didn’t even make sense, followed 24 hours later by an actual blow-off. Four days later,a huge blow-off. 

You know what? I think we’re done here.

So here, dear readers, is where you come in. I’d like to ask for your opinion on how I handle this. I’d love to set up one of those poll thingies, but I don’t know how and I don’t feel like figuring it out right now. Instead, I’ll give you numbers by the options I’d like you to choose from, and you can just comment with the number of your choice. Plus, of course, anything else you might like to say. Mmkay?

1. Ignore him. Don’t answer any communiques from here forward. 
2. Option 1 with the caveat that he can be answered if he realizes on his own that he owes me a huge apology and actually provides it. 
3. Call him tonight and suggest that we end this attempt at dating, since it seems he is not truly interested at this point.
4. Call him tonight and tell him off. Who cares if we might wind up working together? Who cares that we have to be at a governor’s award luncheon together in three weeks? He made his bed.
5. Set fire to his car. Leave a note: “Tell me about this tomorrow. I’m out of it right now.”

Aaand… GO!

Always There

I want to post pictures of myself standing in front of my house online.

Lots of people have done that, right?

But I can’t. Because I have my mother. And a man who lives in my head and tells me he’s coming to get me.

Now, do I really want to post those pictures? Nah. They don’t even exist, actually. But there’s a very particular reason for that. When I bought my house in November, I didn’t take any pictures of myself in front of it. I thought about it, but I didn’t do it. I didn’t take any pictures of the keys held up in front of it, either. Thought about it… didn’t do it. I didn’t post any pictures of it on Facebook. Not even nondescript pictures of ONLY my house with no numbers and no street name. Because what if the stalker sees them?

Or my mother?

My thoughts and behaviors are governed by him. All the time.

And by my mother. It’s like what he doesn’t get, she does. And sometimes they overlap.

And the two of them are really pissing me off.

Every once in a while, I think about how having had a stalker has permeated my life ever since. It’s been two and a half years, but it’s like he’s there all the time. It’s not active fear, you understand. It’s just the knowing. Knowing I’ve been watched before, coming and going from my home. Knowing that when someone decides to show up and mess with you for an hour late at night, there’s really not much you can do to stop him except hope the police catch him. Knowing makes you more careful. Knowing makes you change.

Since July of 2010, on some level, he’s there every time I get into or out of my car, no matter where I am. Every time I stop at a stoplight in the dark. Every time I walk into or out of my home. Every time I walk through my house wearing less than a full suit of clothes. Every time I hear a noise I don’t recognize or one that sounds like a stone hitting a window, and every time I see a shadow or turn a corner or drive down the back alley to my parking spot behind my house.

When I was debating whether to buy a house, I worried that I wouldn’t be safe and wouldn’t be able to pick up and leave like I had before. When was looking for a house, I was always wondering in the back of my mind, “Will I be stalked if I live here?”

It’s an infuriating thing to think. Stupid and frustrating and infuriating.

When I meet someone new, I wonder. And then I remember I had never met him, so it’s useless anyway. When I think about dating someone, I wonder. When someone watches me in the grocery store or on the street or in a restaurant, I wonder. When I fill out forms that require my address, I wonder, even if they’re forms that would logically require my address, like at the post office. People delivering stuff to my house? I wonder. People installing appliances? I wonder. People who look at my license to verify I am who I say I am at the airport or when I use a credit card? I wonder. It’s always, always, always there.

Finding out that I’m being honored by the governor, and that I’m giving a speech, has given me new occasion to think about the whole ordeal all over again. And that’s okay. Along with other people, I turned the experience into something positive for others, and I’m immensely, deeply grateful for and humbled by that. It’s the only thing that made everything make sense.

But I’m also remembering it all, all over again, and it’s definitely working on me.

In spite of that, though, I managed to post a picture on Facebook the other day without thinking twice. It shows the window above my front door. It so happens that my house number is up there. But it’s a cool-looking picture – there’s a trick of light happening – I like it. So I posted it.

And I got a message from my mother.

“I know you closed your PO box (which I had so that I couldn’t be traced to a new street address), but don’t you think that putting your address online is going a little too far in case that creep thinks to look for you? When you pull up your FB page, it shows your pretty face in front of row homes, and the numbers on your window. There are ways to find out the exact location from pics online and that makes it easy to find you.”

First of all, my mother exaggerates. The street name is not on the picture, so although you can see the house number, you cannot see my address, really. Secondly, my mother believes everything she reads on the internet. Which is an issue on lots of levels, trust me, and I don’t know how we survived the presidential election. But that’s neither here nor there.

It’s not that she’s totally wrong. I do see her point. But in a sense, posting that photo was a kind of victory for me, a freedom, an unburdening. Not intentional. It wasn’t a declaration. It just happened, and it was a good sign, a sign that I wasn’t occupied by thoughts of someone finding me and doing me harm. And she took that away.

Now, I know she didn’t mean to do that. She doesn’t read it that deeply. She’s a mom, and her daughter lives alone in a different city, and she has always worried about that. And then something happened that she’d always worried would happen, and now she’s even more worried. But in her message, she reminded me of my fear and brought it back. She told me I could be found. She took away my enjoyment of something simple and small and made it about her own worries instead. She put him back in my head. In her effort to protect me and keep me safe, she made me afraid that I’m not.

I want one day. One day when I don’t think about him. One day when there’s not a single caution I take because someone once threatened my safety. One day when there is nothing in me that is afraid. I have not yet had that day. Even the day I posted that photo, I hadn’t gone without thought of him and his effect on my life.

It makes me tired and angry that he is so there. Working on initiatives to help keep other crime victims safer always means reliving that experience, but it’s the only thing I can do to make good come out of it, and it’s working. I just want the power to dictate exactly when and how and why I have to think about him and that time in my life. I want veto power over anxiety. I want to be able to block him from my head, take him out entirely, and erase all of his effects. But that would mean erasing the work I’ve done, erasing having ever met Rich, erasing having moved to a better home.

He is inextricably, undeniably woven into my life. And into my mother’s.  For her, that means reminding me to stay safe from states away.

For me, it just means wanting to forget.

Related posts:
A Stranger At the Door – Part 1
A Stranger At the Door – Part 2
A Stranger At the Door – Part 3
I’m Gonna Need My Meds For This

I’m Gonna Need My Meds For This

OMG, you guys.

So every once in a while, Rick calls me from work to update me on something connected to the crime victim legislation we worked on together. He stays in touch with a lot of the people he used to work with, and he tries to stay on top of some of the initiatives he worked on to make sure they get done.

Anyway. A while ago, before he left the senator’s office, he told me I was nominated for a victims’ advocacy award. Which is crazy. And it was an honor just to be nominated, of course, just like the Oscars, and I would have been fine if they had Ben Afflecked the whole thing. But he called me earlier this week to tell me that not only am I in fact getting said award… I’m actually getting two.

Whaaaat? I didn’t, like, do anything. I wrote a letter. And, admittedly, persistently kept in touch with him to see what was going on with the plans to do what I’d proposed. Sure, I’m doggedly determined, but still, I didn’t do any of the actual work. He did all that.

Happily, he’s getting an award, too. There’s some sort of group award that they’re giving out this year, and he’s getting it because he made this happen, even though he doesn’t work for the senator anymore. And I’m sooo glad, because he deserves it more than anyone does. So much more that, before I found out he was getting one, I actually thought about giving him mine.

But it would have my name on it, and I thought scratching it out with a nail and etching his name in there instead would be too… obvious.

So yeah, apparently two awards for just, I don’t know, being outraged, and the governor is going to be there to give them to me or something. It’s a governor’s award thing. I don’t know if the governor actually hands me the awards. But the governor will be attending. I’m told.

So then, yesterday, Rick calls me again from work. I know he’s going to have something to tell me about the victims’ advocacy efforts or about the potential job I may or may not get (second interview is Tuesday) at the university where he now works, because he’s calling from the office phone and he won’t use that for personal calls. So he tells me, “I have even more good news for you.”

Okay…

“I just talked to Ann, and not only are you getting two awards at the luncheon, but you have also been invited to be a guest speaker.”

To which I responded with all of the eloquence that has convinced these people that I deserve such things: “Holy crap!” And found myself otherwise speechless entirely. Which bodes well for this event. I mean, Rick and Ann and some state senators have heard me speak before, because I testified to a state senate committee in favor of the bill. But I also just had an argument with my cat. In Cat. So let’s not get too complimentary.

“Yeah, you’re kind of a celebrity down there. She’s sending you a letter about it, but I wanted to tell you,” Rick said. Which is the same thing he had said two days before, when he called to tell me about the awards. I think he likes to hear my reactions to these things. And it’s good that he tells me, because I just closed my PO box and started having whatever mail was still going there forwarded to my house, and I don’t think Ann has my new address. And I feel like I can’t really call her and say, “I hear you’re giving me awards and adulations. Here’s my new address so you can tell me all about it.”

So now I’m trying to figure out a few things, like what to wear, and what to do about work that day since I thought initially Rick said it was from 11am to 2pm but the website I found says it’s from 12:30pm – 3:30pm and I would definitely be really, really late to work at that point. And then I remember that if I get the job at the university, I might not even be working at work anymore. So problem solved! Except not, because then that would probably be my first week at the new job and I don’t want to miss a day in my first week at work and–

“You’re getting. Two awards. From the governor,” Rick reminded me. “It’s a state school. I think they’ll be okay with it.”

Oh. Right. Huh. Okay, then.

And also I’m trying to figure out what to say in this speech I’m giving. I’m currently obsessed about knowing my audience. I believe it’s people who work in victims’ rights for the state, some political types, and crime victims. But I don’t know the percentages, or how many people will be there, or if anybody else will be there.

My mom wanted to come.

I told her no because I’m too old for my mommy and daddy to come to a thing where I get an award.

She said, “Okay, then don’t complain when you see other people’s parents there.”

“Mom…”

“I think the president’s parents came when he–”

Oh, Jesus. Seriously?

“Mom, first of all, that is a terrible analogy in that I’m not becoming President of the United States. And secondly, the president’s parents are dead.”

“That’s true,” she conceded. Though to which part, I’m not sure.

She wonders why I don’t tell her things.

So anyway, I feel like eventually the speech is going to be the easy part. Clearly I’m a writer. The harder part will be stuff like pretending not to be dating Rick and finding something to wear and not falling down.

Oh, these people have no idea what they’ve done.

Help… Wanted

Oh, how I love a good Valentine yarn.

My post, “Wanted,” apparently generated some excitement among thousands hundreds dozens tens several of you. I confess, I had a great time writing it. Now here’s the version I wrote before I sexed it all up.

*****

I was sitting there at work, minding my own business, typing furiously with nine fingers and coming down from a brief work-related rage… and my desk phone rang. It was my old boss, David. We worked together for about six weeks back in 2001, just before I left Ohio to work in my current city of residence. I hadn’t talked to him since, and I had heard he’d gotten out of our business entirely. I remember when I left, he tried to talk me out of it. He told me it was a lateral move. He was, by the way, completely wrong.

David was cold-calling me out of nowhere to tell me that he’s heading up a unit in Central Pennsylvania and he needs a #2 man. Or woman. Someone who can be very hands-on and work with the staff of 70 people to shape and develop them professionally while churning out consistent, competitive and compelling product every day.

I happen to know he’s been looking for a while. I didn’t realize he was the #1 guy when I had seen the #2 position posted in a job search email I regularly get. That was months ago. I had briefly entertained the notion of applying. Now here it was, Valentine’s Day, and poor David was desperate for a partner.

He said a lot of very nice things about me and my work, that he had liked me, thought I was solid, wanted to keep me around. He had already sent me a LinkedIn request. And then he called. So apparently he’s really digging the idea of me being his #2.

And of course, as he’s talking to me and understanding that I can’t really say much in response, since I’m at work, I’m thinking one thing: could I really stomach this?

I’ve been trying to get out of our business for three years. But I’ve actually thought recently that, in order to get more marketable management experience on my resume’, I might summon the strength to do a year or two in a position like this. It would leapfrog me up in my professional stature by a couple of ranks (and really stick it to the douche nuggets who have smacked me down for the last few years). Problem was, I wasn’t willing to move. Turns out, the PA job is the same commute in the opposite direction. And no one there hates me yet.

Huh.

But there’s still this nearby university job on the table. My interview is the 20th. It would keep my commute short and already gets me out of the business I’ve been in for nearly 16 years and moves me on to the new career I want. I wouldn’t have to deal with the craptastic 24/7 drama that is running a program like David wants me to. Though we all know I like being bossy.

No, I have no idea what this PA job would pay. That might be a huge mitigating factor. But I’ve said it before… I learned when I took my current job that it’s not a good idea to take a job that makes you money if it means giving up what makes you happy.

The flip side, of course, being the fact that I’d be in charge. Hehe. And aside from the obvious bonuses inherent therein, there’s one that I think I could really use: the return of my Stella-like groove. Though I would very likely be completely overwhelmed by everything I would need to do and learn, I would also have a chance to overcome all the insecurities my current job and bosses have hammered into my soul for the last 4.5 years. Get out of the business owning it. With serious management cred. I am happier when I feel like I’m actually accomplishing something.

And then there’s Rick. Rick works for the university where I’m up for a job. He’s surprisingly excited about the possibility of my coming to work there as well. And I like the idea of a regular 9-5 Monday through Friday job because it frees up my social life, which the position in PA would challenge. But of course, I can’t make a decision in any way based on the hope for something that is only one month old. Plus, it was Valentine’s Day at 5pm and I hadn’t even heard from Rick. Which I was 80% sure was because he was schmoozing lawmakers (he did tell me days ago that the second half of this week would be crazy)… 10% sure was because he’s gotten freaked out… 5% sure was because he was waiting for me to make the first V-Day move, 3% sure was because he’d lost his phone and 2% sure was Other.

Cut to me looking forward to a martini and hoovering an entire restaurant-portioned platter of chicken Alfredo into my face.

And I started this day so stable…

I did hear from Rick, of course. About ten minutes after I’d finished my huge and carbolicious meal. He was working from home, still not feeling well and commanded to stay away from the office. But he asked me to be his Valentine.

What is this, this working for people who don’t want you to come to the office when you’re feeling a little under the weather? Does not compute.

Another argument in favor of the university job.