I probably wouldn’t have read this particular Dr. Seuss book, anyway.

There’s this weird place you wind up in when you give yourself permission and have a really lovely relationship with a man in his late-ish 20s, and then things other people did to him for a long time when he was a kid come back to haunt him, and he does something he shouldn’t that’s destructive to your relationship even though it isn’t really about you at all, and he asks you for some time, and in the two weeks after that, you realize he lied about what he did, that it was worse than he made it out to be, and he admits it when he finally calls to tell you he’s moving to another state in 36 hours for a job you knew he was waiting to hear about, but didn’t know he’d gotten.

When Dr. Seuss wrote “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”, I don’t think he had this place in mind. Where was THAT book of wisdom? Hmm?

Look out! Don’t crash!
Your snarfle will hurt!
You’re headed for trouble –
stay out of his yurt!

He’s all the good things
that your whole self can see,
but a trigger’s the problem,
eventually.

His whole self’s amazing –
no, really, quite great! –
but some people before you
created a weight,

And he carries it mostly,
but sometimes, you’ll note,
it will tear him to pieces
– unsettle his boat

– and the next thing you know,
his kersplinker’s kersplat,
and there are no repair shops
for fixing all that.

So he’ll do what he can
and you’ll tinker with bits,
you’ll be quite glad you’ve tried it,
it’s well worth the fits –

But here’s the kerfuffle:
kersplinker and all –
It will loosen your droozle
and throw off your haul.

You’ll wonder if your parts
are working quite right –
or if somehow you could have
unlit what won’t light.

It’s not that it’s your fault –
good heavens – it’s not!
It’s just that his whole self
is tied up in knots

and he wants to untie them –
truly, he does,
but it’s hard to know which way
to get them unfuzzed.

And for all you both do,
his kersplinker’s kersplat
– and there is no repair shop
for fixing all that.

 

Lub-a-Dub-Dub, Three Cords and a Flub

I am currently hooked up to three electrodes that aren’t transmitting anything.

Just for fun.

Not really. I have a wonky heartbeat, and I have for years —too many for me to care to admit, but almost half my life. Recently, a couple of other things happened that I thought were unrelated, and then all of a sudden it occurred to me that slightly swollen ankles and feet and calves and a few extra pounds and a seemingly undeservedly fluffier midsection might all be related to my wonky heart.

And I freaked. The fuck. Out.

I called a cardiologist and scheduled an appointment, for which I had to wait two weeks, which commenced two weeks of freakout. I stopped all alcohol intake and started paying very close attention to sodium. In 24 hours, I dropped four pounds. In ten days, I lost eight. Some of that might have been because I was never home to eat; for two straight weeks of nightly rehearsals and concerts, I sat on stage, squirming on backless wooden benches for hours at a time, singing Mendelssohn and Adams and Beethoven, and monitored my heart, my ankles, my breath control. Was that racing/thumping/tightness because of adrenaline or anxiety or impending death? Did I need to get a spot on the end of the row in case I felt suddenly morbidly unwell? What if the heat of the lights and the crowded space and the all-black concert dress got to me?

I was convinced it was heart failure or cardiomyopathy.

I’m still somewhat convinced.

The swelling has largely abated, and when I finally did see a cardiologist, he seemed to think it might have been a coincidental result of sodium overload paired with cyclical fluid retention. I’m not sold on that theory, but as long as the swelling stays at bay and the weight stays off, I might be willing to believe it. Though I will be super-annoyed at the new tendency to retain water.

I was so scared that when my friend Eliza joined me at the cardio appointment in case he said something devastating and asked how I was doing, I burst into tears.

I was so scared that I was actually thinking about how I would tell my family, what might happen to my house, how long I might still be able to climb the stairs, how long I might be able to work, and exactly how far shy of, say, 50, I might be gone. I was thinking that maybe this is why I don’t have a husband. I was thinking about how I’ve thought for a while now that I will probably die young.

No kidding, guys. That’s what I was thinking.

I even thought about whether, or when, I would blog about it. I thought about my old blog acquaintance, marjulo, who seems to have lost her brief battle with inoperable pancreatic cancer, whose final post was about her diagnosis and whose site no longer exists. I thought a lot about my friend Amanda, just starting her impossible-to-win battle with stage IV metastatic breast cancer, finally finding her fight even though the tumor in her femur still has her in pain and the thought of fighting for the sake of a bunch of months of weekly chemo and then maybe a little time in remission only to be followed by more chemo and less remission is a lot to take.

“Well, of course you think something terrible is wrong with you,” Eliza said in the hospital lobby after the cardio appointment. “Terrible things are happening to everyone around you.”

There was probably something to that.

I had to have a couple of blood tests, and I’m set for a stress echo, at which time they will first try to kill me on a treadmill and then do the echocardiogram I thought was rightfully mine at the first appointment, to find out whether I have heart failure or cardiomyopathy or some other dysfunction greater than the AV1 block and the suspected pulmonary stenosis the cardiologist mentioned at the first appointment. (An AV1 block is a first degree block of the electrical signal between the atrium and ventricle, which, doc says, means it “takes a little longer to get from the lub to the dub,” but isn’t treated; pulmonary stenosis is when the valve between the heart and the pulmonary artery doesn’t open all the way and builds up pressure in the heart chamber as it tries to force blood out to be oxygenated.) My thyroid checked out fine, but my Lyme titer was “indeterminate,” which is the medical equivalent of “Meh… maybe you had Lyme Disease… maybe you didn’t.” Which is basically irrelevant to the situation at hand, but has forced me to schedule another appointment to find out whether I did, in fact, have Lyme Disease once. All evidence to the contrary.

And now I’m hooked up to all these electrodes that are plugged into a gizmo that sends signals to a former cell phone that is now a PDA, and it is all pissing me off.

The first time I felt my heart go weird, I was 20. I was stressing out in a serious way about a married man who had professed his love for me and with whom I did not want to be involved except that I was already kind of involved, not adulterously, but in that way that you get involved with men you work with who say they are willing to put everything on the line for you because their love is just that strong, and you happen to be a total shipwreck in the self-esteem department at the time. I was lying on the couch in my college apartment, which I shared with three of my friends, and Jerry Springer was on, and it was something ridiculous and gross, and I suddenly realized that my life, at that moment, mirrored the show.

Since then, my heart has been skipping beats not with thrills or joys but with impunity. In recent years, it has seemed to frequently trip over itself in an effort to catch up after a dropped lub or dub: lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub…lub-lublublub-dub-dub-lub, lub-dub, lub-dub…

I had an echocardiogram something like 11 years ago. I don’t even remember the name of the cardiologist. In fact, I remember nothing about that appointment except for the echo, and the declaration that nothing appeared out of order. And I haven’t had it checked on since. I’m not the annual physical type, so apart from the gynecologist, there isn’t a doctor I see regularly. I’m off the grid.

For the last 36 hours, however, two small devices have been tracking my heart and sending its patterns to a place that then sends it to the cardiologist. I think. Except for the five hours last night during which I got so monumentally irritated by the incessant beeping indicating low battery or poor connection that I ripped the electrodes off my chest, yanked the battery out of the monitor and turned the PDA off entirely so it could charge and I could sleep.

The PDA, which in a previous life was a Samsung Omnia II cell phone, cannot hold a charge. It prioritizes sending data over charging, which means that even if it stays plugged in all the live-long day, it uses up all its energy and dies, which seems counterproductive to a 48-hour heart monitoring system. When it blinks out, such horrendous beeping ensues that I feel like C3PO in mixed-up pieces on Chewbacca’s back. “OMG! DID YOU DIE?! I THINK YOU DIED!!! OH WAIT, THAT”S ME,” it says.

At the moment, it is turned off and plugged in to charge so that my cardiologist can get some idea of what my heart does while I’m sleeping tonight. Since the jumping my heart experienced last night was due to the damned infernal beeping waking me up juuust as I would doze off, rather than its own screwy, jazz-infused rhythm.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, day one of my 48-hour monitoring just had to coincide with Field Day at work. The PDA and the monitor have to be no more than ten feet away from each other at all times, which meant I had to carry the monitor around in the wristlet I use as a keychain/ID/credit/debit card holder the whole time I was swinging from ropes and walking high-wires and hiking around campus, sweating my boobs off, building team spirit with my coworkers. And since I didn’t really want the coworkers to know I was on a Holter monitor, I had to try to be surreptitious about it.

My wristlet is red, b-t-dubbs.

The monitor was clipped to the waistband of my pants, so the work polo I was wearing had to stay untucked. I was relieved to see most others had left theirs untucked, as well, so at least that didn’t seem weird. And happily, the shirt was long enough to cover it even when I had to reach up to swing from ropes like a goddamned Amazon woman.

I managed to keep my monitoring hidden from the coworkers all day. I did not, however, manage to keep the heavy wristlet from smacking me in the face while I clung to ropelines.

You know what blew me in?

The World Cup.

I went home, started writing an essay for my summer class, and had the USA vs. Ghana game on TV. I don’t know much about soccer, so basically I’m all, “Goal is good,” and that’s it. At halftime, The Colombian texted me to tell me to come over. He had one of other other neighbors there, and said neighbor is a bit profanely vocal and demonstrative during sporting events. Javier didn’t think he could handle it alone.

Since I am still very wary of Javier (his relationship with Lydia, however infirm, endures), I let him sweat it out a little while before I went over, armed with my former Samsung Omnia II and its charger, because it was already showing a yellow battery life level.

After our other friend left, and somewhere between the coach’s interview and Dempsey’s interview, I started beeping.

Not the phone, which lay on the windowsill, plugged into an outlet below. The monitor that was attached to me.

Javi did a pretty good job of pretending not to notice that I was emitting electronic sounds from the area of my panties. At least, he did the first four times it went off. And he pretended not to notice when I got up, heaved a sigh, and went into the powder room to check on the monitor.

But finally, after another loooong beep, he said, “Why are you beeping? Whass going on? Why are you stress?”

I’m a terrible liar, so I had to tell him. I thought for sure that this whole I’m-attached-to-a-bunch-of-wires-that-have-been-largely- unsuccessfully-adhered-to-my-midsection-with-steri-strips-all-day-so-that-a-cardiologist-can-keep-an-eye-on-my-heartbeat thing would be a pretty substantial turn-off.

Evidently, I was wrong. Evidently, it translated to a kind of “The Fault In Our Stars With Hearts Instead of Cancer.” Javi told me he had recently spent 12 hours overnight, alone, in the local emergency room for chest pains, and when we hugged goodbye, he tenderly and briefly kissed my neck.

Hope the monitor didn’t notice.

It was so brief that I didn’t even have time to say, “Stop kissing my neck, you South American seducer!” Which is not to say that it’s not still happening in my head, 24 hours later.

Dammit.

Why am I attracted to emotionally unavailable men? It’s a question for the ages. I have been, by all accounts (mostly his and mine, and also Angie’s because she’s heard about them) very clear with him about why his attempts to kiss me (four of them in the last nine months) are absolutely not going to be met with reciprocity because he is still with Lydia. And also, what I haven’t said is that he is to Lydia what Jack was to me, and I don’t need another Jack. He doesn’t know anything about Jack, but I know enough to know I don’t need Javier to be another Jack. On this I am absolutely resolute.

But those shoulders, and the back of his neck, and the way he has to peer over his glasses to see his phone, and the way he looks in a shirt and tie…

Settle down, heart. You’re being watched.

 

 

 

It Could Have Gone Either Way

My life cracks me up.

Last night I was at a fundraising event for a local charter school. I don’t have skin in the game, except that I care about kids’ education because it keeps them out of trouble and makes them productive citizens on the off-chance I happen to live past 70 and need a workforce to put something into the economy to help support those of us who can’t work anymore, in the interest of the humane treatment of the aged. Also my friend JW is on the board of the school, and, while dining at the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall the other night with Javier and me, he roped me into going to this thing. Having exactly $21 in my checking account and no cash, I made sure I could do the ticket and any auction bids on a credit card (don’t worry – I carry no credit card debt now, so this is okay for a month) and then agreed to go.

It was a lovely evening, of course. The art was an eclectic mix (as all art is wont to be) of local artists and kids who attend the school. All the proceeds from the auction went to the school, and the open beer & wine bar’s pours were all donated by a local establishment. The hors d’oeuvres were tasty, I won three pieces of handcrafted jewelry at auction—one of which is a 50th birthday gift for my friend Ali, who is presently an hour late for dinner at my house—and I was happy to contribute to the cause. And I’m only slightly pissed that I missed out on a beautiful necklace by five dollars because I was an idiot with my bid. And several of my friends were there, including Javier and his girlfriend, Lydia.

Lydia and I have a funny acquaintance, which I credit to the fact that Javi is a flirt and has, as you know if you’ve been reading my blog for a year or so, made overtures toward me a time or two, in small but fairly obvious ways. I’ve kept him at arm’s length because of Lydia and because I don’t want to fall for another charming deceiver. (Aside from his mild implications of willingness to deceive Lydia, don’t ask me why I know this, but Javi is divorced while claiming he’s never been married.)

Staring at the artwork of sweet, city-dwelling ten-year-olds juxtaposed with the artwork of odd grown-ups, Lydia and I caught up on life since we last saw each other. I can’t remember for sure, but that might have been at my house in the wee-bitty hours of New Year’s Day.

“So what’s new?” I asked her.

“Oh, you know… went on vacation, looking for a new job,” she said, smiling and nodding.

“Wait,” I said, thinking that, with the brash emcee yelling into the microphone on the other side of the room, I might have misheard her, “did you say you went on vacation, or you’re going on vacation?”

“Went,” she said.

“Oh! Where’d you go?” I asked.

“Colombia,” she said, as if “of course” were implicitly, but silently, added. Javier, being a Colombian native whose family is still there, had gone to visit for two weeks in February.

“Oh! You did go!” I responded, with absolutely no way of hiding my surprise.

See, the funny thing is, before Javier went, I asked him, “Is Lydia going to Colombia with you?”

“Uh-uh,” he replied.

There is a Colombian accent for this, and so I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. Had that been negative or affirmative?

“Yes?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“Oh,” I said.

But… yes, apparently.

Interesting. Why would he lie to me about that? That’s dumb.

A bit later, standing next to each other in front of a photograph of a backlit, vinyl-lettered, side-of-the-road sign with a pithy artist’s thought in typeface around it, Javier nudged me with his elbow. I turned to him, blinked, opened my mouth and then—

“No. Nevermind.”

“Wha?” he wanted to know.

“No. Another time.”

At the end of the event, with my three pairs of earrings, receipts, program, ticket, and invitation from Adhira (another neighborhood friend and Javi’s best female friend) for her board’s gala fundraiser in three weeks in hand, I cabbed it a couple miles to a bar where Paul’s band was playing. Around the corner from the bar, my phone buzzed with a text message from Elaine. “Are you coming?” Paul’s band was about 15 minutes into their set when I walked in, to much welcome from Elaine. Within minutes, I found myself chatting with a young woman who’d also come to hear them play. She asked how I knew Paul and Elaine, and after I answered, she said, “I used to date”

I knew, somehow, the next words—

“Paul’s old neighbor, Liam”

 This is hilarious.

“He’s apparently all hung-over, so he’s not coming tonight”

Okay…

“It’s cool, we’re still friends and all”

I don’t… why are you…?

                                                                                                         “But maybe”

saying this?

“it’s good that he’s not coming out, you know?”

 It’s not cool at ALL, is it? No, I don’t think it is. Oh, awful. I’ve been there.

I am standing next to, and chatting with, Liam’s ex-girlfriend, who, no matter how hard she tries to sell it, is not over him, and who has no idea, nor will I tell her, that I, too, dated Liam recently. 

Oh, this is rich.

She is NOTHING like me!

Who does this happen to in life? 

Well, at least he isn’t dead. I half-wondered if he’d died in Australia during his business trip and that was why I’d heard nothing since his last message, which had said, mixed in with some other words, “I’m going to send you some pictures when I get to Sydney… Maybe we’ll be able to chat via Skype… I look forward to talking with you…”

And then vanished.

(And yes, I did breezily offer two messages in the three weeks since. Nothin’.)

Elaine turned to another friend.

“Lisa, this is Jen—”

“Oh, yeah!” Lisa reacted to Jen, “you used to date Liam!”

Ha! Holy crap, this is happening! 

At no point did I say anything to Jen about having gone out with Liam. There was absolutely no reason for it, and I’m not upset about the situation. I mean, look. We had two dates and an attempted third, some lovely conversations on the phone,  and a few contacts while he was overseas. I thought for sure we’d continue to see each other at least for a little while, based on the level of interest he showed and which I reciprocated proportionately, but there wasn’t a lot invested in this thing. But how often does it happen that you run into that guy’s ex while you’re watching the friend who set you up rip a sweet riff on an electric guitar, so soon after that guy disappeared?

Hilarious!

A little while later, with Jen on the other side of the bar, Elaine leaned toward me and asked, as though she knew the answer, “So what’s going on with Liam?”

I casually said that I hadn’t heard from him in a while, but that it was funny to find myself standing next to his ex-girlfriend tonight.

“Yeah, that was kinda weird,” Elaine said with a squished-up face, “but I didn’t know what to do.”

Well… you invited us both… 

I assured her of the truth, which was that it didn’t bother me in the slightest.

“Well, maybe that’s the problem, then,” she said, without offering an established problem for her theory. “Maybe that’s just what he does.” She gestured toward where Jen had been.

I had no idea what this meant, and I didn’t care to know.

Looking up at the televisions in the corners of the bar, I saw that Wisconsin had just lost the NCAA semi-final basketball game to Kentucky by one point. Which meant I had just lost a $360 pot in which I had made everyone nervous by being the only top ten player to pick Wisconsin to win it all. Eight of the ten had picked Florida, who’d been bounced the round before.

Saturday night. And so much that could have gone either way.

What was that thing I used to do sometimes? Blogging?

A month. A whole entire month since I posted.

That, my (remaining) friends, is the longest I have ever gone. Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of my blog, and this is my gift to those of you who have been here almost all that time. Admittedly, it’s not much of a gift, and all you had to do to open it was click on the headline, but if we’re being honest, that’s all you’ve had to do to get anything from me in that three years.

I have thought of you. Oh, I have. I have thought, “I should write a post about that!” or “It’s been forever since I posted… and I feel like I had an idea… that one day…”

Mostly, though? Life. You know. You’ve had it. Not bad. Not amazingly good. Not whisked-away-to-an-awesome-deserted-island. Just living. Trying to stay above water. Trying to write, in one weekend, despite all best efforts at head starts, two 10+ page papers for grad school when it’s been 14 years since you wrote more than a page and a half. And doing it while possibly also having had a martini.

I swear to God, I wrote five paragraphs I didn’t remember writing. And they were good. The martini was merely average, and I so completely forgot I’d written them that I actually made a note to myself to write about the stuff that, it turned out, I had already written about.

I don’t know if that’s alcohol or age.

Also? It occurs to me that the paragraph up there was eerily disrespectful of the Malaysian Airlines situation right now, with its deserted island and above water references. Except if they’re on a deserted island, it’s probably not awesome.

See? I’m still a bad person. That hasn’t changed.

Speaking of that, though, my new fun game is playing Whack-A-Conspiracy-Theorist. My father thinks the plane was stolen for ransom. I’d like to know where he thinks some asshole landed a 777 full of people without anyone noticing, and how he thinks said asshole was gonna get picked up from wherever that was and delivered to his reward.

I personally am pretty sure it was hijacked, the flight crew was overcome or forced to fly a new route, and then the plane ran out of fuel and is now in the water. Nothing that’s real becomes an ABC series that pisses everyone off in its finale. Mini-series, tops.

You’d think I would have stopped being disrespectful when I actually noted that I was being disrespectful. Huh.

In other news: Bill O’Reilly should go away. Did you see this thing with his simmering disappointment about the president going on Zack Galifiniakis’ web show and degrading the presidency? Like nobody’s ever done that before. I mean I’m pretty sure that breaking into an opposite party’s office to steal stuff during a re-election campaign or getting blown in the hallway outside the Oval or being a general moron “decider” aren’t things that do favors to the institution. You know? But here’s Bill-O, Mr. Falafel, flatly stating about the president’s appearance on the web show that “Abe Lincoln would not have done it.” 

Well, no shit. There are a lot of things Old Abe would not have done. He wouldn’t have tweeted, sent an email, flown in a plane, driven a car, ridden in a car, used a telephone, taken penicillin…

You see where I’m going with this.

…wouldn’t have read “Killing Lincoln” by Bill O’Reilly…

…and not just because he would have to be alive to read it…

I’m saying “Abe Lincoln would not have done it” is not valid unless the “it” was done by James Buchanan or Andrew Johnson. And they were both dull, so there’s a lot of wiggle room there, too.

For those who may be wondering, Liam is presently out of the country on business in Madrid. To be followed by a quick layover in Singapore en route to Sydney. By which I mean there is basically nothing that is “en route” to Sydney, but anyway, that’s the itinerary. We’ve had two dates and a third attempt, thwarted by family obligations on both sides. He’s not back for another week and a half, but he may be in touch before then.

Since I’ve been gone, Shiny New Niece turned a year old and Neph 2 informed me essentially that I suck at Super Mario Brothers. Also I beasted “Killing In the Name” on the easy setting of Guitar Hero and am now seriously thinking about joining a band. Both aforementioned papers were finished, if not good, and I await grades. I enrolled in a summer class, a political science elective about public policy. Oh! And I testified in the senate judiciary committee of my state legislature in favor of a bill my state delegate wrote at my behest, asking that offenders who have violated terms of home detention not be granted eligibility for home detention in the future. It seems like a common sense thing, but the bill isn’t going anywhere. It’s not written well. But that’s okay. We keep on.

I am well.

I hope you are, too.

If not, I hope you’re completely nuts and leave an amusing comment.

All It Has To Be

The message popped up on Facebook a week and a half ago, the day after I’d gone to Paul and Elaine’s house for game night with some other neighborhood folks.

“Paul and I just ran into one of Paul’s old friends, and we thought we’d love to introduce you. He’s a really smart, good looking, nice guy. Sorry if we’re out of line here, just tell us to back off if so here’s-his-facebook-pagecheckitout.”

Alright, so that last part with the words all running together isn’t how she wrote the message, but it was how I read it because I know her, and this was probably how she tried to just casually toss out that I could view his photo.

Well. Hello Liam. What might be wrong with you?

I know it sounds terrible, and I know it’s probably what other people think when they’re first introduced to me as an available woman in her mid-30s (I’m not quite 37 yet). But Liam is 40 (I know because his apparent sister mentioned it on his page) and single, attractive and professional, and seemingly never married. Which generally means fucked up in some hidden but very significant way.

I’m not saying that’s not the case for me as well. Seuss probably had it right when he said we’re all a little weird and if we find someone with whom our weird is compatible, we fall in mutual weirdness and call it love. Therefore, I do subscribe to the belief that some people just have a hard time finding their Compatibly Weird Person. But by and large, in my dating life, I have found that if a guy is never-married and not with someone at this point, there’s a reason, and that reason is eventually going to make me really sad or really bitchy. Possibly both.

And so I wonder what might be wrong with Liam. But hey, it doesn’t hurt to meet people and I have no real reason to avoid it. Just last week I found out that Jack sold his condo two miles and a body of water away from me, and now lives in Gwyneth’s house, one mile and a park away. This affirms that I will eventually run over them nearby.

Into. I mean into them. Damn. I always make that mistake. *shifts eyes*

The point is, the last guy I loved is dangerously close-by and, by some absolutely insane twist, married—to a child, comparatively speaking—and I know he’s Fucked Up In Some Hidden But Very Significant Way. The last time I had a date that I knew was a date was in April of 2013. Javier is still with Lydia and is presently visiting Colombia (without her), and it’s been relatively easy to dismiss his mild advances as unconvincing. I’ve learned some pretty important lessons. And I’ve been really comfortable not-dating and not-looking. I’ve enjoyed that. What harm can it do to meet someone? Especially if he’s been endorsed by friends who have known him for years? We don’t have to date.

Stll, the winds of fate seemed a little dramatic when they decided we should meet the night of an epic snowstorm and preceding Valentine’s Day by 12 hours.

Elaine had decided to have us both over for dinner. My only question was whether Liam knew this was a set-up, because how awkward would that be? But she replied yes, he’d seen my picture and heard their descriptions of my personality and wanted to meet me.

So I slopped two blocks through a snowy mess, wearing jeans and an enormous, heavily-pocketed, highly unflattering coat (hood up to defend against large drops of freezing rain) out of necessity, carrying a spare pair of shoes in a bag along with a bottle of Bordeaux, and praying my armpits wouldn’t sweat through my curve-appreciating but cleavage-covering shirt. (Hyperhydrosis of the underarms. Thanks, Dad. Cool trait.) Dramatically misjudging how long this walk would take, I got to Paul and Elaine’s a few minutes early. Liam arrived a few minutes late, having caught a cab from his house because the idea of finding parking in our neighborhoods right now is nothing short of hilarious, and a mile is too far to carry a six-pack of craft beer through slop to get to a set-up dinner.

The liberating thing about having been through the six-bladed blender of misguided love is that it makes you stop trying so hard. I looked as nice as I could under the circumstances, but refused to obsess. I was with other people I knew, so I couldn’t act like anyone other than myself. And I honest-to-God could not have cared less if this guy wasn’t into me. Beef stew, sourdough, multiple tiny cups of amazingly delicious mousse and some red wine were all perfectly lovely reasons to spend an evening with friends and their friend, and I didn’t need it to go beyond that. I quite literally have no fucks to give. So I guess thanks for that, Jack.

Result: zero awkwardness, zero discomfort, zero anxiety and only a teensy bit more wine than I maybe should have had in this circumstance. Which was Elaine’s fault, and barely had an effect on me at all, while Paul was rather suddenly overtaken by Dr. Feelgood. Always best for the hosts to get blitzed and the guests to remain comfortably in control of themselves.

Things were casual and maybe a little cautious before dinner. Dinner itself was delicious and comfortable. The after-dinner showing off of the delightfully retro basement saw us divided girl-girl and guy-guy for conversation, but without any sense that something was going wrong. Sampling the mousses Elaine brought home from an event she organized was a stand-up affair, and maybe the first sign that there was a little chemistry; Liam seemed to deliberately cross to my side of the kitchen-to-dining-room pass-through, to stand next to me while we faced Elaine, and only hesitated for a second when I offered for him to get a spoonful of the chocolate coffee mousse I was trying not to wolf down like a fiend. He recommended that I try the chocolate-chocolate-chocolate version he’d just eaten. He loves chocolate and coffee. Excellent.

After dinner, sitting in the living room, the conversation continued to flow freely and we got to talk about his travel (he’s in international sales, which means I am madly jealous of his trips) and my music (a previous topic had revealed to the room my classical training, and Paul had been trying insistently to convince me to sing with his rock-blues band). I was embarrassed by my passion as I described a moment singing Mozart’s Requiem in a Parisian church, but Liam seemed to fully appreciate it and reciprocated with other interests.

Also we talked about how the skeleton event at the Olympics is fucking insane, and then discussed which slightly less crazy things we’d want to do. He thinks it’s nuts that I’d do time in a cage while sharks swam around me. Elaine said everybody thinks they want to parasail until they see a guy get hanged by the cords and watch the crew reel in his body.

That was a kind of weird moment.

As we were re-suiting ourselves in winter paraphernalia to gird against the sleet that was now pummeling the neighborhood, Liam flat-out asked if he could call me sometime. In front of Paul and Elaine. This is the kind of stuff most guys don’t do; they try to play it a little quieter. But I guess since we both knew this was a set-up, he didn’t feel the need. I babbled about how my phone isn’t working as a phone at the moment so he wouldn’t be able to hear me if he called me, and he said, “…Okay, but I can text you, right?” and I told myself to stop talking and just say yes and give him my number.

But the best part is that I’m not waiting for the text. I had a lovely evening with friends and their friend. And that’s all it really ever had to be.

I’m not dead. I just had a tetanus shot.

So I keep forgetting to write things.

It’s not because I don’t have anything to write about. It’s just that I get all caught up in other things and forget to write a blog post.

Does this happen to you guys?

Alright, so I’m writing this with my left arm hanging semi-limply at my side because grad school made it hurt. Apparently you can work on a college campus all fine and dandy, but if you want to set foot in a classroom (for more than seven class periods), you have to go to the health center to prove that which you’ve known since 1978 (I’m immune to measles, mumps and rubella – but since my pediatrician has been dead for lo, these many years because he was 102 when I was four and I’m now 36, and since he didn’t sign my immunization record, I have to have blood drawn to make sure) and also to  get the “Adult TDaP,” which was previously known as the DPT and which I also had plenty of when I was little. T, as you might guess, stands for tetanus and also Time To Lose the Use of Your Arm Because OW.

My second tetanus shot in eight freaking months. I’d rather have actual tetanus.

At least this time I remembered I had to have it in my left arm. I can’t sleep on my left side thanks to my jacked up cervical spine, and back in February, when I tried to hack my finger off with a steak knife, I let them give me the tetanus shot in my right arm, like a dumbass. After I got it again yesterday, a lot of things got kind of hurty, like my very bottom rear right side rib, my eyeballs, my neck, my head and something in my chestal region.

Some of that might have been a hangover from a pretty epic weekend. But mostly I think it was the shot.

In case some of you are wondering: I’ve had to draw a line with The Colombian. You might recall that, a month ago, he tried to beso me and then we had a conversation about how he “technically” still had a girlfriend and that probably wasn’t a good thing for her or me. Yesterday he invited himself over for Monday Night Football again, and as he was getting ready to leave, I asked him about the situation.

“Suuuuu…” he started.

“No,” I said. “Do you have a girlfriend or not?”

“We haffen’ talked aboud it,” he said. “We jes don’t see each ahther mush now. I habben’ seen her in…” (he thinks) “…nine dayce.”

“So you still have a girlfriend. You haven’t broken up.”

“Well…”

“So why are you here?” I asked gently, with a smile.

“Because I want to be here,” he smiled a bit shamefully.

 

“Javier,” I said with a sweet smile to belie my Bullshit Meter’s reading. “You can’t ask me to hang out one-on-one if you haven’t ended it with her.”

“Okay,” he said, standing up, seeming embarrassed.

“it’s not fair,” I smiled up at him, head tilted, hair tumbling over my shoulder. “Right?”

“Okay,” he said.

“I don’t know what to do with it,” I said as he hugged me goodbye.

“Okay.”

Okay.

Trying to apply lessons learned. It sucks. But I know I’m right. I’m totally right. No me gusta, but fish or cut bait, amigo.

 

 

Guapo? Grappa? No se.

In what is apparently a twice-a-week tradition these days, there was another neighborhood association fundraiser Thursday night. My neighborhood association isn’t the type that forces you to decorate your house solely in white lights at Christmas or enforces some sort of weird lawn-watering rule—indeed, we mostly don’t have lawns—but we have these awesome events a few times a year and we have to fund them somehow, so… wine.

Javier had asked if I would be there, and since the day at work had been kind of ridiculous and I needed a drink, of course I would be there. On an empty stomach, and not planning to eat.

You see where this is going.

I walk in grumpy and rushed, 30 minutes before the designated end of the fundraiser, perturbed at having had to drive all the way to my house and then walk here instead of finding a spot nearby. I head straight back to descend the stairs to the bathroom in an urgent but understated way, sucking in whatever I can suck in to maximize the flattery of the dress I’m wearing while I debate whether I should have left the spanx on underneath or not. (Leave them on and a hand on the back reveals something that feels like granny panties… take them off and you have trunk-junk jiggle. The only opportunity to change, since I was running late, was the brief moment when I opened my back door to fling my purse and shoulder bag into the kitchen. I had left the spanx on.) I check out the room as I make my way through it, scanning the place that can seat maybe 65 people between the bar, the house floor and the loft space. No Javi. In fact, no one I recognize. I’m not often awkward if I’m alone in a bar, but when I expect to find people I know, I get a little oodgy when they’re absent. I feel conspicuously let down.

But, downstairs, the phone buzzes in my hand, and up pops a message from Javi telling me he’s doing a wine tasting. (Alright, the message says “Doing a testing,” prompting me to reply “?” before I realize it’s a misspelling. This contributes to my likely patronizing belief that his inability to write English precisely is adorable.) When I once again ascend, I catch sight of him on the loft level holding a tiny wine glass. He sees me, raises a hand in greeting and smiles.

Ay, querido. There is nothing quite like the sight of an attractive man in a suit with his jacket slung over his shoulder. I’ve always liked this about Javi, this tendency to be dressed up more often than not. I think the reason I like it is because it doesn’t come off as arrogance or extravagance. He just likes to look nice. But now I like it more, because it carries an electric anticipation.

No bueno para me. ¿Por qué espero?

I play things cool. He’s talking to another neighbor and I say hi to her first. Our casual hug hello appears an afterthought. I head for the wine tasting table at his urging and am quickly but gently accosted by the vintner’s rep, an earnest, salt-and-pepper haired, black corduroy- jacketed Italian who shows me images and descriptions of the wines on his iPad while I drink them.

I drink them quickly, but ask questions.

Javi disappears.

After ten or twelve generous mouth-feels, which sounds dirty but is not, I’m finished with my tasting and I’m buying a bottle of a velvety sangiovese from the Italian and his distribution partner, who seems to be from somewhere innocuous like Northern Virginia. Armed with this bottle of red, I turn to chat with Gil, who lives across the street from me. A few minutes later, Ward, who owns the restaurant, brusquely inquires who owns the sunglasses and phone sitting on the table because he must clear it for “paying customers.” I look down at the door. There is no line.

I claim my belongings because he’s practically throwing them at me without looking at me, while bristling a bit at the impertinence, considering how often I’m here. I know Ward is personally acquainted with a lot of his clientele. He hasn’t yet met me, but I’ve been supporting his establishment for nearly a year.

Still slightly grumpy from work, not yet buzzed enough but waiting for it, and now anxious about Javier’s disappearance, and trying to hide all of it, I exchange eyerolls with Gil over Ward’s bent back and Gil introduces me to two more folks from the neighborhood. We chat pleasantly for what I hope is an acceptable period of time. It’s during this exchange that I look down from the loft and see Javi craning his neck at me. He grins. Here I am.

“There you are!” I mouth.

I try to finish my conversation with the couple unhurriedly and take their high sign to the server as my cue to rejoin Javi. He’s got a full glass of pinot grigio, which I take from his hand and sip. I signal the bartender that I’d like what he’s having as I tell him the story about how Ward had cleared me out.

Several minutes later, Javi quietly introduces me to Ward.

“Are you a friend of Javier’s?” Ward asks me now.

“Yes, and a lot of others,” I reply with a smile. “I live in the neighborhood.”

I had forgotten until this moment that Javier is part-owner of the building. Majority part-owner. Now that Ward knows I’m connected to his landlord, he might not clear me away from a table for the “paying customers” not yet lined up to take it. I know this is the reason Javier has made the introduction. I am charmed.

“Sorry if I was grumpy when you called earlier,” I say to him when Ward leaves and he takes up a spot standing next to my high-seated chair at the bar. His brow creases a bit before he assures me I didn’t sound that way. “Okay, good. Work got kind of crazy in the afternoon and I was kind of in a bad mood.”

“Me too,” he says, holding out his stemware. “Cheers.”

“To the end of the day!” I clink his glass, take a sip, and ask what happened at the office. He rolls his eyes with a humble smile and tells me, then asks me about my day. He notices the bottle of wine I’d bought, which I’d put on the bar.

“Yeah,” I say. “I didn’t think about how weird it’s going to be, walking home with a bottle of wine in my hand.” I mimic the anticipated sight.

“I tink ih sounds nice,” he smiles at me. “A pretty woman walking down de street with a bottle of wine.”

I mentally chide myself for swooning and suddenly become aware that we’re in public and might be too focused on each other. Turning, I see that Gil is seated to my right.  He laughs when I look surprised and claims to have been sitting there for ten minutes before assuring me he’s just sat down. Javi changes sides, coming around to stand between Gil and myself as we all talk.

The wine finally kicks in, spreading warmly through my veins.

Peligro. He is too close, and I find myself “accidentally” touching him once or five times. I scratch my back with my thumb, fingers extended to brush his arm as he stands behind me. Listening to Gil, I look up at Javi and wink. Minutes later, he does the same to me. That kind of thing.

“Well, you guys,” he says at a lull in the conversation, looking a bit chagrined, “I haff to go. I am sahppose to be meeting some oddur friends.”

I debate… should I stay or go? I don’t really want to stay. I’m not going to eat or drink anything more. But leaving now, mid-conversation with Gil and an older gentleman I’ve never met but whom everyone seems to know, would be obvious. I make no move. Javi shakes hands with Gil and the other man, then leans between them to give me a hug and dry peck on the cheek. I don’t watch him leave.

Electric anticipation.

Ay yi yi

Alright. Alright, fine.

Javier could be a Thing.

Wednesday night, there was a fundraiser happy hour at a neighborhoodish bar. I couldn’t go at the prescribed fundraising time because of my previously prescribed class, but Javi had asked me if I was going to be there. As promised, I arrived 30 minutes after the end of my class, which was an hour and a half after Javi had sent me a picture of his glass of wine and urged me to ditch school early. The handful of folks still mingling was all dressed pretty officiously, having come straight from our grown-up jobs (or gone straight to class from the job). I was even wearing heels. Usually when I’m in my officle or walking across campus, I’m in flats, for the sake of my back, but I’d had a couple of major meetings that day.

Alright, fine. I swapped shoes in the car so I’d be wearing the heels for the neighborhood thing.

There are a lot of shoes in my car. The passenger side floor of my Honda is not unlike a second closet.

After an hour or so, everyone had left, but I was eating, so  Javi and I were finally able to catch up on our own. Totally innocently, but with a little more depth than is usually possible with nosy neighbors lingering nearby. At the perfectly reasonable hour of 10:30, we decided to head to another place to rejoin some neighbors. On our way out, we ran into Gaybor Steve downstairs and invited him and his date to come along.

Alright, fine. Javi kept putting his hand on the small of my back as we walked. And I kind of love that.

Now: back in May, Javi had finished up grad school at the institution where I work, but hadn’t really celebrated. A few weeks ago, he’d told me how much he loved the mug he got when he finished his B.S., with the school’s logo and his name on it. So I thought it might be nice to grab a few things from the merchandise we marketing types have heaped in closets, and fill a gift bag for him. Among the merch was a stainless steel mug with the school’s logo on it, which I’d had engraved with his name, degree and post-grad year.

Alright, fine. I went to the bookstore and paid for the travel mug. And for a couple of other things. Because I think his parents deserve to have keychains that say “This School Mom” and “This School Dad” on them. I don’t know if they have anything from the institution where their oldest and most adventurous son got his degrees.

“I have good news and bad news,” I told him as I popped the trunk of my car open with my key fob. “The bad news is: we don’t make the mug you got in 2002 anymore. But the good news is…” I reached for the bag.

“Oh my God, are you seeriahs?” Javi exclaimed, grinning and throwing his head back. “Oh my God!”

“…Congratulations on getting your master’s degree four months ago!” I finished, holding the bag up.

He riffled through it for a minute, pulling out this and that. He gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Dis is so great!” he exclaimed genuinely. “I’m so essited about dis!”

Awww. Now that’s just sweet.

By the time we each found parking spots and walked the block or two in opposing directions to meet at the second bar, the joint had shut down and all that were left were the bar-back and two neighbors, arguing with polite heat about the virtues of capitalism vs. socialism. (Yeah… these are my friends and neighbors.) They decided against the third venue Javi suggested, so he and I walked there alone.

Closed.

“Tavern?” he asked, referring to the neighborhood version of Cheers we all tend to frequent. The Tavern is a short walk from our respective houses, so we decided to each put our cars to bed first. He walked me back to my car and then got in the passenger side.

“Oh,” I laughed. “Am I giving you a ride to your car?”

Javi had to kick aside about four and a half pairs of shoes at his feet. “What is ahp with all dese shoooz?” he wanted to know.

Parked at our houses, he watched from the end of my alley as I walked from my parking spot toward him. Then we walked the three blocks to Tavern.

Closed.

Oh come ON, neighborhood business owners! I know it’s Wednesday, but it’s not even 11:30! Can we be adults?

“Okay, fine,” Javi said. “We are going to your house.”

…Oh. Well, I do always have wine…

We walked to my house.

Still in the damned heels, by the way.

“What would you like to drink?” I asked him from the kitchen, where I had headed directly after kicking off my shoes at the front door. “I have wine and vodka.”

“Well… what are you having?” Javi wanted to know while eyeing an unmatched Franco Sarto plaid heel that was lying, inexplicably, on my loveseat.

“Probably wine.”

“Okay, then I’ll have wine.”

“It’s red…” I warned. Javi tends to prefer white.

“Das fine,” he said measuredly. “I just ushally like it when iss cold.”

“Do you want an ice cube in it?” I teased him. I have to tease him, even though I know he’s referring to outdoor temperature. He has been known to violate my principles of wine drinking with an ice cube before.

“No,” he laughed. “I mean when de weather iss cold!”

With our goblets of medoc, we settled on my couch and started talking about our friends, the neighborhood zeitgeist and local politics—our usual fallbacks that are guaranteed to create conversation. But then things started skewing to topics like our families, how we grew up, what we believe in (Javi is atheist but was raised Catholic; he told me about when he told his mother he doesn’t believe in God).

It was somewhere in the middle of a sentence about God that Javier suddenly leaned forward and tried to kiss me.

I think I uttered something eloquent like, “Oh! Um…” as I held a hand up to his chest and turned my head. I half-wish there had been a camera on this. I’m a little concerned that my evasion looked like I was trying to dodge an insect. His kiss landed firmly in the center of my right cheek.

It all gets blurry here, but I know that after a few seconds of somewhat awkward smiles and sounds that didn’t really qualify as words, I gently explained that I can’t let anything happen as long as he has a girlfriend. And he leaned back to his original position with a sheepish smile and downcast eyes, and said they broke up a month ago, but have been talking recently, so he guesses he still technically does have a girlfriend.

“But…” he said quietly, “…I like you.”

Deep breath. “Well, I like you too,” I admitted, concentrating on the end of a nail where the polish had chipped. “And I’ve wondered if there was something here more than the friendly-neighbor thing. But I’ve been trying to be really careful—”

“I know you have,” he laughed, and I smiled, glancing at him. He doesn’t know all the reasons I’ve been careful. This was a test for me. Could I stick to my guns, to the lessons I’ve learned lately?

“I just…” I looked for the right way to do this. “As long as you’re seeing someone, it won’t work for me. And it’s not fair to her.”

“I know,” he said openly. “You’re right.”

He rubbed his face with his hands, eyelids drooping at the hour. “I know you don’t need to hear more than this,” he said without defensiveness, holding his open hand out to ask me to just hear this one thing. “But… something has been missing from that relationship for a long time. And I have been struggling with that for a long time.”

Hmm. They broke up for a reason, and the reason wasn’t lily pad hopping.

I don’t remember whether there were words that ended the conversation. But it wasn’t uncomfortable, really. Just… here is the situation. No now what? or demand for an action plan. Just… here it is. And I was okay with leaving it there.

He apologized for being so sleepy. We hugged goodnight and he left, pointing to the shoe on the loveseat.

“I dink I kicked de other wan in your car,” he smiled.

A short time later my phone dinged with a text message.  “I wish it was Friday or Saturday.”

Alright, fine. I’ve spent days trying not to reply.

South Americans, College and a Little Bit of Cancer

So a lot of things happened since the last time I wrote, not least of which, obviously, is that Jack got married to a woman literally young enough to be his daughter (which means, inversely, that her parents are like five minutes older than Jack, which I personally think should inspire some concern and/or make her father want to kick Jack’s ass, but what do I know except I have a father) – but that’s not the point. My only point in bringing that up right now was to let you all know I didn’t jump off a building when Jack got married. In case you were wondering.

Also, I didn’t show up and do anything psycho. I had a dinner party instead. It was great.

The next day a former co-worker (former to me; current to Jack and Gwyneth) posted some pictures of the wedding on stupid Facebook, and when I caught a sudden glimpse, I actually covered the screen with my hand until I could scroll safely past them. 

Social media suck. Moving on…

Javier is now a fair to middling threat to what’s left of my stability. I’m pretty sure that, in the immortal words of Sandra Bullock’s character in Miss Congeniality, “He liiiiikes me, he wants to daaate me, he wants to kiiiiss me…” And he’s fairly, albeit subtly, consistent. So subtle that I didn’t realize until I looked back through my text messages that I’ve gotten one from him pretty much once a week since June. More lately. Usually inviting me to meet up for a drink, but lately more pedestrian and conversational. A few days ago, while my friends Matt and Jeannie were in town visiting from Indiana, he asked me when I’m free for dinner.

Free for dinner…? Do men ask women that if it’s not a date? 

I told him I thought I might be free Tuesday. But I didn’t hear from him about it after that about it. Other things, but not that. So I figured there was no plan. Until he called me, somewhat out of breath, Tuesday night at 7:30 or so, all apologetic about just leaving work and not having had time to cook anything…

Wait. COOK? Was Javier going to COOK FOR ME?

Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa, here, buddy. That definitely sounds like a date. That sounds like a fifth date, minimum.

Oh, hey. Are we dating? No, right? We’ve just been… what?… socializing and chewing food and swallowing wine in each other’s presence. Right?

Why is this so confusing?

When I told him (in a series of answers to questions – not all at once as it appears here) that I hadn’t thought we had any plans because there had been no further discussion, and I had already eaten dinner and was halfway through a drink, and I had a lot of reading to do for my class that needed to be finished by the next day, so no, I couldn’t join him for a drink or some food at the neighborhood place… he seemed kind of dejected and embarrassed.

I might have liked that.

He said he’s busy on some day or days I don’t remember, but he would call later in the week and maybe we could make plans.

But look. There is still the matter of the girlfriend – no idea the exact nature or agreed-upon construct of that relationship –  and still the matter of my really so not wanting to get in any kind of mess again. Suuu (as he would say with his Colombian accent), if/when he follows up, there’s going to be a gentle but clear advisement: I don’t date men who are dating other women. No judgment – maybe that’s cool between them and that’s fine – but it doesn’t work for me. Not to mention I’m not really into dating anybody right now, though apparently I’ll make an exception if he ditches the other chick.

So I’m not currently convinced I stand for what I say I stand for, you know? “Oh, I’m not dating anyone for now. Except if he likes me and is available.” WTF, me.

Also, I successfully fought the urge to apologize and make sure I hadn’t embarrassed him. Because that’s my usual please-love-me way of doing things, and remember how I’m done with that? Because I am. And you have to make plans if you want to have plans. That is not an unreasonable thing to believe. I’m not mad or anything, but I’m also not hyper-available.

I will tell him all of that after the free dinner. Obviously.

Speaking of the homework I mentioned a paragraph and some sentences ago, it turns out I’m a sucky graduate student. You guys, it is so hard to remember which classroom I’m going to, let alone remembering to actually bring my books or print out the materials I need. I’m lucky I remember I have class. I do my homework – I haven’t forgotten that – but maybe because I work at the institution I’m attending, everything all runs together and suddenly I’m a complete idiot when it comes to details like room numbers. And bringing books. It’s like… when I was an undergrad, that was pretty much my whole purpose. I’m in college. This is what I do. I have a job-job, but this thing is central to my life. This is my bookbag. My books are in it. The ones I need. I pick up this bag and I walk to the class in that building, in that room. I do this for several classes per term. I always remember. 

Now, it’s more like… Wait… what time does class start? Where are my keys? And then I forget to even ask myself about anything else until I show up and it’s Dammit, I forgot to print the syllabus AGAIN. And bring my books. But I have my business cards…

There have also been new developments with Miss Ella, the neighborhood soft-in-the-head old lady, but I’m tired and need to sleep now, so I’ll save that til later. Here’s a hint: I haven’t heard or seen her in days.

Oh, and also my dad has prostate cancer. I found that out Sunday night. But only a little bit of cancer. They caught it super early because he’s been diligent since his father died – no mass, no enlargement, just one sample out of 12 with a malignancy after a long watch of PSA levels that spiked to a number indicating cancer. He’s having the surgery. He’s informed of the side effects. He and my mother are fine about it.

Life is so totally weird.

Why Did I Do That? No, Really – Why?

The internet is an asshole and my fingers are ungrateful little twerps.

And because of their cruel, cruel partnership, I now know what time Jack and Gwyneth will stand before God and some other beings to swear their lives to each other tomorrow.

Also I know what day he gave her her ring and how.

Stupid internet and its finding of things.

By the way, I just now realized how bad it was to pair up my fingers and the asshole reference in the first sentence. I trust you know that’s not what I meant. But now you’re thinking about it.

For the last few days I’ve been strangely calm about the impending occasion. It’s other-worldly – something I know exists but doesn’t have anything to do with me. I’ve been all, “Jack gets married in three days. Huh.”

“Jack gets married in two days. Huh.”

“Jack gets married tomorrow. Huh.”

Admittedly, the last two days, these thoughts were accompanied by the fleeting idea that maybe she’d said potato and he’d said potahto and they’d called the whole thing off. But really, how would that help? Other than making me feel better at the reassurance that he still doesn’t think he can hack a substantive long-term relationship, and the sick and completely misplaced schadenfreude of him jilting her (I should want her to jilt him), what difference would it have made? Wouldn’t it have just prolonged some strange sort of agony?  Yes, right? I can’t help but think that my odd disconnection to the reality of impending vows is related in some way to the sense that 

Shit. I completely forgot what that thought was going to be.

But I do kind of feel like it’s a point of no return. Like once tomorrow draws to a close, he will be married, and that will somehow delete from my being all care or concern I might have about him. Like somehow after all the anguish of the last year and particularly the last few months, and somehow after all the feelings of the decade before that, it will all cease to matter in any relevant way and will float away from my smushed soul as though it never actually weighed anything at all.

Which won’t happen. Would be nice, though.

I tried not to go looking for trouble. I haven’t trolled for information since a few days after I found out about their engagement. As soon as i knew the date of the wedding, I got busy figuring out how to stay busy that day. I’ve generally stayed busy all year because of him, since long before they got engaged. (It started with putting an offer in on my house.) I debated going away for this weekend, but wasn’t confident. I wound up inviting a dozen people to my house for dinner tomorrow instead, which means I will be busy all day cleaning and cooking. But I’d been doing relatively well and avoiding all temptation to seek out anything more than I knew. Tonight, though, it was nagging at me. Tonight I messaged Angie on Facebook:

Stop me from doing something psychologically destructive. The internet is on. Jack gets married tomorrow. I have homework. Which requires the internet. Also Jandsome Javi exists. I HAVE SERIOUS PROBLEMS AND I NEED SERIOUS PEOPLE TO SOLVE THEM.

Unless, of course, your children and/or husband require your attention. Or you’re not interested in my first world dramas of pain and the world-wide web.

That lasted 90 seconds. No, wait – 30. Then Google happened – one single search of just his name – and now I know, after the briefest, fleetingest of looks, where they’re getting married and what time. And I glimpsed really quickly the reception venue which, in the 0.5 second vision I had of it, appeared to be the most tackily opulant place I could imagine and so. not. his. thing. In much the same way that marriage is not his thing.

I think he’s been anally probed by aliens and had his entire inner self replaced. It’s kind of fascinating.

And then I had to say this to Angie:

Too slow. Now I know more stuff. And have chest pains. Oh, why, internet, why? Why, fingers of betrayal?

And now I’m fantasizing about showing up and kind of ruining it silently, but only to him – somehow standing in a doorway at the reception and catching his eye, freaking him out a little bit, raising one eyebrow, shaking my head, turning around and leaving. And making him think about it for the rest of his life.

I would never even drive by the place, actually. But if I could just strike in his heart some dissonant chord that mixed fear with something that felt like missing me…

Oh hey, I just figured out how psychosis starts!

It has also just occurred to me that I need to find something to keep me busy Sunday, because the hangover from wedding day distraction could really be a bitch. Oh, I’ve failed to adequately gird my soul-loins! I’ve been so good and so careful and now this!

Not at all coincidentally, I’m sure, I’ve seen Javier twice in the last week. Not dates, you understand; I have this interesting way of mentioning his girlfriend exactly once each time I see him. Casual-like. But we were at the neighborhood gathering place for drinks last Friday night, and then he was here last night to watch football for a little while. Not just the two of us – my neighbor had knocked on my door an hour before kickoff and invited herself over to watch the game. He invited me out for a drink after she did that, so I told him I had the neighbor here but he could join if he wanted.

Still, we’re getting to know each other more. It’s a problem. He’s smart. And humble. And considerate. That accent… and then once in a great while he gets really impassioned about something and ay yi yi. And then after we do a chaste friend-hug goodbye, he texts me to thank me for my company and sometimes gets a little nervous if I don’t answer right away. I tell myself it’s not cute or charming, that he has a girlfriend and shouldn’t do this. He doesn’t deny her when I mention her. But he never talks about her, either.

And he’s coming to dinner tomorrow. I made a point of telling him his girlfriend is welcome, too. He’s not sure whether she’s coming. I’m not sure he invited her.

I’d like to think that this is a temporary salve, that I’ve let myself slip just a liiiittle bit to help me get through the specific and anticipated hard days, and then I can pull back when I don’t have that anticipation and struggle. But in the back or sometimes middle of my mind is the accusatory question: Why do you find unmarried but unavailable men interesting?

Maybe what I think is the pain is actually the salve, and I haven’t identified the pain yet.

Gah, that is going to suck.