high school sweethearts

my parents met in tenth grade, in 1968. my mother was a do-gooder smart kid with a rebel streak; my daddy was an underachieving smart-aleck more interested in his music than being part of the mainstream. (he only participated in his high-school graduation because his grandfather asked him to.) though they had ups and downs, breakups and reunions, throughout their relationship, they were loyal to each other until her mental illnesses got to be too much for both of them.

i used to think that there was no way that you should ever settle down with someone you dated in high school. 'course, i settled down with the boy i met the first day of college, and well, you know how well that worked out. i basically made myself a hypocrite of the first order there, but i also kinda proved my rule. you don't know anywhere near enough about yourself when you're seventeen years old to have any idea what you're going to need when you're twenty-seven. god knows, i thought, i'm living proof of that.

but then something hit me today as i was playing around on facebook. i've had quite a few friends who've married and divorced since high school, just like me. some of them are on to second relationships, and a couple are on to second marriages. and a very significant number of these people have gone on to date and marry people they knew and cared about in high school. i'm one of them. i met the man in tenth grade, in 1996. i was a do-gooder smart girl; he was a slightly underachieving smart-aleck more interested in his computers and his politics than being part of the mainstream. hmm.

maybe there's a little something more to this whole initial instinct thing than i once thought. i mean, lord knows it's not a hard and fast rule. i'm learning quickly that there is absolutely no such thing as a hard and fast dating rule. anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something, and something that will do nothing good for you. but there's an immeasurable comfort in having someone near you who knows you so thoroughly, so completely, that there aren't any surprises. you don't have to work as hard, be something or someone you're not. all i have to do is love him.

so the whole high-school sweetheart thing, maybe all it needs is a little revision. go out, see the world, learn yourself... and then, at the end of the day, you just might find what you needed in the first place you thought to look. i know i did.

crush redux

lo and behold, once again, it's international crush day. today, we're supposed to sing to the heavens of a subject of a crush and appreciate that subject publicly. oh, i am so, so down with that. i mean, it's not like my crush is any great secret around these parts. and it's not like i have any shortage of things to appreciate about him. i could go all cutesy-details on you and share embarrassingly charming things that he does just to make me smile. i won't. some things stay mine (and i think he'd kill me if i did - people we both know read this). but i will share the following:

1) he claims to be bad at romance, but he's, without a doubt, the most conscientious man i've ever known when it comes to making me feel 100% loved. we're no one's romance novel, but we're very happy.

2) he is spectacularly funny without trying very hard at all. for example, remember back last fall when tennessee's football coach tried to drop some german war history on us [start at the 10-minute mark for the good stuff]? the other night, right before we fell asleep, the man rattled off easily 10 more speeches he could've made with other war references, just off the top of his head.

3) he's a world-class lay. there's no better way to say it.

so there's a small appreciation of my crush, the man. i remember this from last year, when my attitude on the subject was nowhere near as cheerful and accepting. it's remarkable how much things have been totally flipped on their heads since that point last year. i wrote that from a place of deep anguish, with everything in my life churned up, having made a stand for him once and lost. i was trapped in an existence that didn't fit.

but in a year's time, it's all different. that old unrequited crush, the one that ran through my veins like a long, black river and rattled my cage like a thunderstorm (thank you, ryan adams, for that image), turned into the great love story of my life. the danger of the crush vanished into thin air the day he told me, i think we have a future. so all that stuff i said about crushes having the potential to ruin your life? yeah. never mind. so go enjoy international crush day. praise someone to the rafters. it's not so bad after all, it seems. just be a little patient, and all will be revealed when the time is right...

different drum

generally, if culture tells me anything, when you're in a new relationship, you're supposed to go ALL OUT for romantic occasions like, say, yesterday. the man's roommate sure did for his girlfriend: there was a whole weekend, complete with gifts and all that. tons of people i know had dates, with everything that entailed.

what did i do? i went to ballet class. after class, the man drove up to the dance school in northwest DC and picked me up. we got takeout and watched TV (including the jeopardy misanthropy bowl - more on this another time), him in jeans and a t-shirt, me in a leotard, tights and cut-off sweatpants. we then went to bed and watched iron chef, arms around each other. i mean, you'd think we'd been married twenty-five years with as "special" and "romantic" as it was.

but see, that's the thing - it worked perfectly for me. the man made me feel like the most beautiful, desirable and precious woman in the world. the words i love you weren't even exchanged between us. they didn't have to be. he just, well, loved me. the feeling between us was palpable all night long, through the way he laid his hand on the back of my neck or patted me on the hip. small, sincere actions speak so much louder than flowery words and expensive gifts. we just basked in each other.

i looked at him last night and said, y'know, the more i learn about other people's relationships, the better i feel about ours. because, let's face it: i picked a man who is completely unmotivated by the "supposed to"s in this world. this is nothing i didn't already know. but the cool part is that, at the end of the day, i'm just the same. i asked him the other night why he finds me so attractive. (god, i know, such a GIRL question.) he said, because you're odd, and it works for you. and that was one of the sweetest things i've ever heard in my life. he relishes my quirks, just as i relish his. we suit each other. it just fits. i know full well that we're different. we're not like the other couples. but who cares? he makes me so damned happy. i make him happy. what the hell else is there?

that's the secret, kids, and it only took me 29 1/2 years to learn it. it's not about the way you look to the outside world. it's about how it feels, just you and him, alone together. and though the beat we follow comes from a distinctly different drum than most people's, it's the perfect beat for us.

love song

it's the number one topic on everyone's mind today, and everyone's got something very specific to say about it: love. l-o-v-e, l-u-v, etc., etc., etc. hearts and flowers, cheesy commercials, all that jazz. it's a hallmark holiday; people love it, people hate it. i'm not going to parse the ethics, the mechanics or the value of valentine's day. i hate crass commercialism, and this is certainly a screeching example of that, but it's also kind of anodyne. we grew up with parties in school with pink-iced cookies and stupid little cards. somehow, that got twisted into hundreds of dollars and all this PRESSURE. i won't go there.

what i will do is this. i take this time to reclaim the idea of a day to spread love around. so i love y'all. i love my family, my friends, all the people who are important to me. that's the kind of love that everyone can celebrate, single or attached. i care like hell about you people, because you take the time to care about me. it's a fabulous thing.

and seeing as i am fortunate enough to be attached this valentine's day, i'm going to spend a little time talking to the man. (indulge me. if you're not into romance, i won't be insulted if you move on.)

dear love: here we are, our first valentine's day as boyfriend-and-girlfriend. i had almost given up hope that we'd ever get here together. but you and i pledged ourselves to each other, heart and soul as well as body. lord knows we're far from traditional, but that's what i love about us. you've always known my heart better than anyone else. always. you give me everything you have, tending to me in every way possible. your strength as a partner is how you combine caring for me exclusively with granting me the space to be who i am. so thank you for everything. i've always loved you so much. however far away, i will always love you. forever and ever, amen.

happy valentine's day, y'all. :)

tougher than the rest

[no lyric interpretation, but here's your soundtrack anyway. sorry for the ad. god, i love this song.]

i'll tell you a secret: sometimes, i want nothing more than to be traditionally, proverbially swept off my feet, whisked away, in that really hackneyed fairy-tale way. just like peter cetera in that song from the karate kid, part II, i want him to come in like a knight in shining armor from a long time ago, just in time to save the day and take me to his castle far away.

how freaking retrograde is that? i'm supposed to be a rough-and-tumble feminist. i can take care of myself better than most people can, that's for sure. but i just get so damn tired sometimes. i spent so long being the caretaker, the capable one, in my old life. it's probably more my fault than my ex's, really; co-dependency is just as bad as dependency, in some ways. but no matter whose fault it is, that's how it was, and that's why my ex is my ex. it's beyond apparent that i can shoulder the burden all day long. but i just don't want to sometimes. i just want to be kept.

the man has always been on my side. now that we're together, he's strengthened that position in my life, becoming my biggest cheerleader. he tells me constantly how smart i am. he trusts my resolve implicitly, dismissing my doubts with a simple, hmph, whatever, you'll kick its ass. he always tells me things like, you know i'd do anything for you, and you mean the world to me. he and i fit together in ways i can't even describe.

and he does me the biggest favor anyone can do: he refuses to swoop in and "rescue" me. as i continue the amazingly whiplash-inducing experience that is post-divorce graduate school, i find myself staring down a series of challenges. the weight of my life is heavy, and i found myself desperately seeking some form of escape, some easy way out of my troubles. but he would not give it. he gives no quarter to my insecurities. and in his way, he ends up saving me from one of my biggest threats - my own self-doubt. he builds me up, he reminds me how strong i am. when i look at him as he calmly rejects my own misgivings, all i see is the belief he has in me. 

and with an ally like him, how could i doubt myself? his faith makes me tougher than the rest.

learning curve

as i've said many times before, the learning curve in my relationship rears its ugly head in strange and unexpected ways. i mean, when you're dating someone you've known half your life, you don't necessarily expect to look up at some points and think, where the hell did THAT aspect of your personality come from? why didn't i know about this? and yet, this happens a lot more than i feel like it should. i guess there's just a fundamental difference between being someone's best friend and being his girlfriend.

sometimes, though, it's not me who's caught unaware by the learning curve. every so often, he's the one left confused and unable to finesse the situation. this generally happens when i present him with the more complex, challenging pieces of my personality, the ones i try to hide from the world. he's a fairly straightforward man, one who prizes analytical thinking and problem-solving. if there's a challenge, it should be examined, an answer should be isolated if possible, and that course of action should be taken. A + B = C. it's algebra. but philosophy? not his bag. he has no patience for pie-in-the-sky discourse, even if done solely for recreation. those all-night-long conversations we liberal arts majors love so dearly, tossing around ideas and theorizing? yeah, you can forget that with the man. to call what he has for that sort of thing "contempt" is an insult to contempt.

so when given a real-life situation that can't be analyzed, and it's not possible to just say "fuck it, there's no answer," he is often left at a loss, shut down. enter my whipsawing emotions. i defy linear logic when i'm down like this, so there is no "let's do X to make you feel better and that'll be that." there's also, clearly, no giving up on this one. so he does things that he thinks will help, and he frets. as i lay there in the dark, clearly in a state of mind beyond his comprehension, he rubs my back, soothing the only way he knows how.

but as he does, i feel through his touch a stark, unrelenting fear. i look up at him sharply, intensely startled by the sensation. he smiles back at me, but the smile doesn't touch his eyes. and it's then, looking at the tension on his face, feeling the worry in his hands as they touch my skin, that it hits me like a ton of bricks. it's not a lack of understanding that shuts him down; it's the disappointment, the fear, that he can't snap his fingers and make it go away.

you think you know all you can about someone, and even now, you come away with a staggering new understanding. love is an evolving process, to be sure, and with every new fact gleaned, every new insight, the relationship is changed. the permanent mark of that fear-filled touch of his hand is seared onto my skin, locking in the lesson behind it: he will do anything to help me, and if he feels that he can't, it eats at him. the love behind that fear brings me to my knees with its strength, its intensity.

it's enough to lift my lowest spirits. see, love? you did help. more than you know.

mouthy

so as part of the auspicious start to 2011 i experienced, i spent the early morning hours of yesterday on "make sure the man doesn't die" duty. this is a new one on me; usually, i'm the one praying for death after a night of overindulgence. but as he worked through it, i dealt with the... aftermath, we'll say. it was right dark in that bathroom, too, and i had my contacts out already. i guess that's why i didn't notice that towel bar there, screwed into the door where it always has been. magnolia's head, meet exposed steel.

no damage, no blood; everything was okay, or so i thought. just a little sore. i sat up with the man anyway, so the whole concussion thing wasn't a concern. but all day yesterday, i felt a little off. my head hurt, which was in no way related to dehydration and lack of sleep (ha ha), and every so often, i'd get these weird little flashes of paranoia. i don't know what the deal was, but i was all off-kilter all day.

once the man regained consciousness, he and i spent, as i mentioned, the whole day in bed. rest does a body good, they say, but my mind was just not where it should've been. i found myself talking, not even really in a coherent way, about anything that shot through my tired, addled brain. it was a monologue of wide-ranging and epic proportions, on everything from the ridiculousness of gary oldman's accent in air force one to the state of the world.

and that's when my mild craziness turned into wildly out-there mouthiness. i decided that this was the perfect time to throw caution to the wind and ask the man a ton of questions that undoubtedly made him uncomfortable. so i did. i opened myself up wide and spoke honestly, without filters or kid gloves. i've trained to be cognizant of all angles, to make the strongest argument possible while acknowledging my cohort's position. but last night, i didn't care. it was no-holds-barred, 100% bleeding-edge "this is what i want."

funny thing, too - i think i got what i wanted out of it. i fell asleep, at LONG last, reassured and happy, comforted by the touch of a hand to my shoulder, a kiss to the sore place on the top of my head, and a whispered, of course. so here's to accidental head injuries, for giving me the courage to spill my guts. and here's to being mouthy, too. every so often, there's no better way to be.

toast

it's new year's eve, which means that it's time for the obligatory wrap-up of the beautiful dark twisted cocktail that was 2010. we took the good, we took the bad. i dare say we took them both. no facts of life here, though; just another year over.

but damn, what a year. ups, downs, strikes, gutters - i have never had a year in my life that had more upheaval. i ended a marriage; i began a career. i started a relationship; i ended a degree program. i left home; i came home. it's enough to make you dizzy.

and i can say without reservation that, despite the heart-rending pain and dizzying glee, in the cold objective light of morning, i've never grown more than i did in 2010. and i largely did that growth publicly, through this little ol' internet outpost. it's been a hell of a journey here on the blog, and it's been amazing meeting all of y'all out here in the world.

so in the words of kanye west, i think it's time for us to have a toast. let's raise our glasses to:

 - ourselves, for getting through it all, somehow;
 - those we love, both who are here and who are gone;
 - the future, for being better than the past;
 - lessons learned and things achieved.

cheers to all of y'all. have a safe and amazing night; let's meet up again in 2011...

embrace

in the devil's dance that is my psychic state, the darkness has been winning. that has made me nothing short of unbearable to be around, as i've chronicled earlier. but, as usual, the man comes through for me. there's been a little tough love wielded on me lately - he's called me on things that, frankly, i've needed to be called on.

yesterday i talked to my grandmother. i will never understand for the life of me how that woman can push so many emotional buttons in the course of one conversation, but she has always had that talent. good for her. heh. i waited until the night fell and the man and i were alone to tell him what she said, and from there, the whole sordid story of my emotional state came tumbling out. he listened, offered some encouragement, and held me close against him. the soothing took longer than usual. a lot longer, actually, and it was nowhere near complete. the issues that bother me are just too big to be settled in one night.

the edginess eased, but not entirely. something was missing. so i decided to soothe myself. i pressed in close, wrapping myself around him, and sought comfort in his body, not just his words. his hands found my curves, my lips found his neck. we've always been more than compatible in this regard, but there's always been a level of recreation to it. fun. nothing too heavy. yeah, that wasn't really the case this time. we didn't speak a word, just lost ourselves in each other. and when he held me in his arms and loved me, he made it totally obvious that love was precisely what he was giving me. his eyes met mine. his lips met mine. he gave of himself completely, unconditionally and passionately.

i've written extensively about the learning process that this relationship has triggered. i've said a lot about observing, accepting, and understanding the way he loves. i thought i got it before, but this weekend showed me how wrong i was. i learned it through missteps and bad actions, which resulted in conversations that i'd rather not have had. but finally, when it was most critical, i learned it through the silent openness of his embrace. his love is deep, bigger than words. to feel it so broadly, so completely, is all the lesson i'll need.

dark of night, light of day

good lord. this has been the kind of day that just tries your SOUL. i mean, to start with, it's dark all the time now. that's draining enough; some of us little plants need the sun to grow and bloom, and all this night isn't the best thing for us. it's not that i don't like the darkness. i mean, most of my favorite things happen at night. but i need to see the sun from time to time or i get... chippy, let's say. it's almost like excessive darkness wraps my heart in a compression bandage. the bandage tightens really easily, which makes things feel raw, rough. it really kills my natural cheer, is what i'm saying.

hey. stop laughing. i can hear you from here. :)

all levity aside, though, the dark is one thing. but man, has it been a rough, awful day for tons of people i care about. work setbacks. personal challenges. health scares. dreams deferred. loved ones lost. it's enough to make you lose your faith, if you have any faith to lose.

i've really been off a step all weekend. i can't explain it; i've just not been on top of my game. i nearly threw a temper fit because the girl at mcdonald's messed up my order. i nearly lost my composure in the middle of a really nice dinner over... christ, i can't even remember why. and this afternoon, dealing with all the horror of the day, i lost it. driving back from lunch, the man and i kinda had it out over a misunderstanding over my worldview. and that's what it took to pull me back from the brink. why the HELL are you yelling at him? he didn't DO anything. he just didn't get your point. 

thankfully, i was able to get a hold of myself. i just stopped talking, which is what i usually do when i've screwed up, i know i need to apologize or change course, but i'm either not ready or not sure how to. he picked up on it and asked me if i was OK; i did my best to explain my insanity and try to make him understand. and what's amazing is, he seemed to. he kissed me, he wrapped his arms around me, and he held me close to him.

and just like that, the darkness broke a little. to be able to redeem myself from, really, inexcusable behavior just by virtue of his understanding how my brain works (or doesn't) touches me so deeply that it's hard to even contemplate for too long without getting overwhelmed. i always tell him when we're alone, "you're so good to me." his response is a simple, "i try." and the fact that he does try, even when i don't live up to my end of the bargain, gives me so much faith in him. he's always been a constant in my life. now more than ever, that's the truth, and my god, am i grateful for that.

happy

the man was so happy last night, y'all. we crawled into bed and watched the original back to the future, as remastered for blu-ray. it's one of his all-time favorite movies, and to see him just genuinely enjoy something was nothing short of transformative for me.

i'm all the hell over the place all the time nowadays. i'm up, i'm down, i'm all around. the concept of simple happiness is one that eludes me. between stress, anguish and generally being busy, i am rarely if ever still enough to just rest and take in the moment. i've also developed this really nasty habit of flying into deep negativity at the slightest provocation. the man is always trying to encourage me to slow down, relax, stop thinking and just be for once. last night, through him, though, i was finally able to do it. i let his satisfaction, reveling in one of his favorite things, wash over me, and lo and behold, it finally hit me.

bruce springsteen sang, "i don't need that sky of blue, babe; all i know is since i found you, i'm happy." the man, i'm discovering a little more each day, is the master of this feeling. he doesn't need anything other than his confidence in how things are. he tells me i should have more faith, trust a little more, be still, believe. funny how it took curling up and watching a movie to finally have that message driven home.

i'm listening, love. i promise.

chain stitch

i have spent the entire day sitting at a sewing machine. no, it isn't 1950; i haven't discovered a brand-new suzy homemaker personality under the go-getter attorney. i, because i am far too nice for my own good, apparently, willingly volunteered to help the man's roommate with his halloween group costume magnum opus. you would not BELIEVE how difficult it is to find a red tunic big enough for a former high-school football player. so i said, "no big deal. i'll sew it for you."

ha. great idea, mags. really great. three hours of shopping for notions, during which we all nearly killed each other. two more hours of cutting and measuring. and the piece de resistance: four and a half hours of sewing the damn thing together. actual operation of sewing machine? maybe an hour. MAYBE. the rest of it was spent staring at pieces of cloth, thinking, there is no way in hell that i am this stupid, but how the hell does this piece attach to that one?!?!?!? but at long last, it's done, and not a moment too soon.

i am running on fumes these days. it's shown in my writing, but there are major stresses in my life. i won't even detail the latest blow to my life, because a) it wouldn't be prudent, given the tone things have taken, and b) i don't think there are words to describe how it makes me feel. suffice it to say that, in a few major respects, life could not get a whole lot worse.

now, i say that. but really, that doom and gloom only really covers a couple of parts of my life. it feels huge, overwhelming, but there's a lot of good to be had in my world these days. i mean, i reached my biggest goal: i'm a lawyer. i passed a bar exam. school seems to be going pretty well, though it's stressing me out. (that's the stress i'm used to, though, so i hardly count it as stress.) in a few days, i'll hold up my right hand and affirm to uphold the constitution in my new vocation.

and the biggest reason my life is not taken over completely by darkness? i'm sitting in his room writing this right now. last night was the lowest point in my troubles. i couldn't even pretend. he asked me, "are you okay?" all i could do was shake my head. but he insisted on sitting next to me, kissing my shoulder, talking me down. he would not rest until he was sure i was going to be okay, at least in the short term. i said, "thank you for listening." he said, "it's my job, and it has been for a long time." he's right about that, too.

we're stitched together, he and i, in a lot of ways. i suppose we always have been. but now more than ever, those threads are so vital to my sanity. his loyalty and his dedication to me have been among the few constants of my life. now that he's more to me than he ever has been, they've taken on a new meaning. i need him as much as i love him, i want him, i enjoy him. and he's more than willing to stay with me. the ties that bind us hold more than a relationship together. they hold the pieces of my heart together. i couldn't trust him with that job more.

watershed

at long last, the dam broke.

i've been so together, so possessed of myself. i can handle anything. i laid in the man's bed, showered and ready to go to sleep, but something was wrong. he came in, watched some bad television, then turned out the lights and wrapped his arms around me. it felt so right, and yet the heaviness overtook me. the man noticed, and he slowly teased it out of me.

we talked for a long time about the things that weighed on me. well, i talked; he listened, he comforted. and finally, as i emptied the footlockers i carry around with me, the tears came. i cried, in front of him, for only the second time in our long history together. "i am so sick of losing people," i said to him. he kissed me, held me, soothed me. "i know."

and he does know. that's the secret. he knows so much about me, what i need, what i want, what i'm like (whether i'm owning up to it or not). he embraces it. he's so good to me and so good for me. and when i cry, it's not a problem or a disaster. it's just another wave to ride. he just handles it, the way he handles everything. and though you'd think it would be natural to be so comfortable with a man who's known me for half my life, it took me seeing him in this light to open up and let the walls down. it was a moment in our relationship that changed things. again.

a new beginning, consecrated in tears, a kiss, and a whispered, "i know."

still of the night

heavens preserve us, folks: the man has a cold.

this is not going to be one of those "OMG, men are SOOOO pathetic when they're sick, hee hee!" rants. the man is a stoic, pretty much all the time (except when we're alone). he bears his various crosses with a quiet resolve that i envy on basically an hourly basis. but even that stoicism can be a pain, especially when I show up all dressed to kill to go out, take one look at him, and realize, well, this was totally not necessary. sigh.

the upshot of this situation is that i got to fall into bed with him early and rest up. so that's what we did. we both needed the rest, so i drifted off early (for us, anyway) all wrapped up with my nyquil-dosed man. but a funny thing happened at one point. i woke up for a moment after a particularly odd dream (i mean, what girl doesn't dream of spending extended periods of time with rex ryan?), stirring in the darkness. he tightened his arms around me and kissed me on the shoulder. mmm. soothing. i settled back down, and just before i fully fell back to sleep, i felt his breath against me, whispering one small sentence in my ear.

"glad you're here."

the stoic reveals his heart in the subtlest of ways, when the risk is low and the reward is high. not that the man is cold; quite the contrary. he's physically demonstrative, supportive and loyal. but he's just not a talker. well, until now. at a vulnerable moment, when all he wanted was a little comfort, he got it. and he thanked me for it the best way he could: with a three-word summation of the love between us, whispered gently in the still of the night. i couldn't ask for anything more.

sweatshirt

it's starting to get a little cold around the edges here in our nation's capital. a couple of nights this weekend saw the temperature sneaking below 50 degrees. i am a cold-blooded little blogger, apparently, because i FREEZE in weather like this. the man noticed this, and as i shivered next to him, he got up, went to his closet, and brought me back a big gray sweatshirt. i slipped it on and curled up in his arms, dozing off as he kissed my temple and stroked my hair.

this was a peaceful night. there weren't very many of those this weekend. i feel myself, as this process evolves, slowly starting to grow uneasy. scratch that; i'm scared out of my damn mind. hey, kid, you're all alone, and there's no stability left in your life, the voice in the back of my head tells me. get ready for a long haul. the man has known me since we were snotty little punk teenagers together. he knows that these sorts of swings will happen from time to time. but this feeling is a gut shot. i spent a lot of time being vaguely terrified, even as he did his best to show me how wrong the voice is.

so he held me. he talked me down. and it was an interesting kind of talking down, one that gave me pause. i'm accustomed to being showered with emotion, a constant source of... well, maybe not platitudes, but statements of unconditional positivity. the man doesn't traffic in that sort of display. i twisted his arm for some kind of verbal reassurance to silence the chattering critic in my head. instead, he calmly and rationally told me... the truth. it wasn't the blithe pablum of instant gratification i thought i wanted. but weirdly enough, it was perfect.

two things dawned on me at that moment. first, this relationship is built on something more than just a wildly careening net of emotion. the man expects me to stand on my own. he'll help me, he'll soothe me, but he won't carry me. we both have to be adults here. i said, almost to myself, "i miss being the center of someone's universe." he kissed me and said, "no. you don't. you're going to be what you want to be, and that's what matters. if i treated you like that, you'd get tired of it, just like you did before." aha. the light goes on.

but the other thing i realized is that the words the man says are secondary. the way he comforts me, the way he loves me, isn't with a string of sayings, cliches, etc. he tells me everything he needs to say with his gestures, his kiss, and most importantly, his presence. there's more love in that gray sweatshirt than there could ever be in a lifetime's worth of empty words. anyone can talk. he acts. and he silently wraps me in his love. i never knew that's what i needed, but i never, ever want to be without it.

you've gotta have friends

no fiction today, kids: this is 100% real.

it's been a long, hard couple years for me on the emotional front. even as i finished law school and all my professional ambitions came true, my relationship, the one steadfast truth i had throughout my very trying early 20s, became something that, let's face it, didn't work anymore. i was rocked to my core when i realized that. i was in denial. i said things and did things that were completely at odds with my emotions, whatever they happened to be at any given time.

long about january of this year, i decided that writing in my journal and talking to my shrink wasn't cutting the mustard anymore. i needed a more public forum to work through the psychic upheaval. i didn't want to spill the details all over the internet in uncensored form, so i settled on the format you know and love today. largely true, partially fiction. composite characters, wildly extrapolated situations, etc.

and lo and behold, i built it and y'all came. that was a really exciting thing for me: holy hell, people read my work and like it. and as i wrote, things in 100% real life became clearer. through the process of interacting with y'all, telling my story, i came to realize what had to be done. finally, after all my hemming and hawing, i pulled the trigger this week. i am moving forward with my life, trying to catch my emotions up with my professional progress and, y'know, get happy.

so i have to thank everyone here. my little band of readers and friends from far and wide has sustained me through this dark season. in all honesty, even those of y'all who are only known to me through aliases and avatars have been indispensable as i've sorted all of this out. i will always remember the kindness you've shown me as i've blown my life apart and started to rebuild it. you've all played a role in the process. so as i move forward, i plan on keeping y'all updated, spinning my little yarns and dissecting my heart and soul through the art and science of badly-capitalized internet-based essays. i hope y'all stick around. you're all pretty important to me.

thanks, y'all. couldn't have done it without you.

the city that care forgot

i have a hard time writing about katrina. i didn't experience the storm firsthand; i watched it wreak its havoc from a thousand miles away, sitting in my living room with my cadre of gulf-coast-raised friends in a kind of dull horror. i took a trip across the south about two weeks after the storm, turning north from oxford, mississippi instead of south, meeting dazed evacuees in every town. i watched the nation's people come through in whatever small way they could as the nation's government was perfectly content to let an entire region drown. the wounds ran deep enough for those of us who love the place; for those who live there, who call it home, it's an unimaginable grief.

it's five years later. i have written a couple of times about my love for the pelican state and my special relationship to new orleans. i firmly believe that new orleans is the most special, unique and soulful city in this nation. it's the shot of tabasco in our melting pot. and it kills me that still, even now, it's not okay yet. but there's one thing i know of this place. i've seen it myself. there's a toughness to new orleanians, and by extension everyone in the region, from mobile across to lake charles, that should be the model for american backbone. it takes true grit to call that place home. you either have it or you don't.

but beyond the toughness, the gulf south has a kind of well-worn sparkle about it that's hard to describe. it's not the glitz of new york or los angeles, the flash of las vegas or miami, or the sophistication of DC or chicago, but there's a louche, bluesy redolence about the area. the spirit of new orleans is hard to put into words, but it touches the whole region in varying degrees. you have to experience it for yourself to truly understand, but once you've opened yourself up to the city, it's in your blood forever and you'll never be the same.

so five years after the storm, we mourn what's lost and celebrate what's left. i hold that wondrous city, brassy, beautiful, loud and sticky, in my heart with everything i have. there's much left to do, and it's vital to keep moving forward. the soul of our nation lives in new orleans. never forget it.

monteleone (a flight of fancy)

oh, you spin me right round, baby, but not like a record. you spin me like the carousel bar, that bastion of pure NOLA weirdness in the "quiet" part of the french quarter. the captain and coke only puts a fine point on the dizzy good vibe of this cool november evening, generated largely from that slow, measured rotation, experienced for hours on end. you almost forget that you're turning, but you are. the kindly old eccentric on your right side insists on giving us his blessing for our evening's activities, another classic NOLA moment. in new orleans, your secrets are never just your own. but we sit and laugh, spinning in more ways than one.

you flatter my ego; i flatter you back. you lose that layer of cool, that polish you always carry, and give in to the absurdity. no one knows us here; we're just two more strangers. it feels like something out of a tom waits song. you expect the bartender to have a tattooed tear for every year he's away, except that this isn't ninth and hennepin. but the patrons do have that sort of weathered patois in their voices, that slightly less than above-board sensibility that every good adventure bar should have. this is the city that care forgot, after all.

maybe that's why you feel so free. well, that and your johnnie walker black. but you wear it so, so well. you get looser and looser with each rotation around the room. you laugh easier, you indulge that battered old codger and his tales of gridiron glory from far longer ago than anyone in the room would have the rudeness to admit. you take to ordering my drinks for me, your repressed southern gentleman instincts flowing forth as easily as the bourbon flows into my glass. and you touch me so openly, in ways you never would if this night weren't so singularly constructed. you lock eyes with me, stroke my cheek with the side of your hand and proclaim, "anything for you." we'll debate the truth of that line later; it's irrelevant right now. this night sparkles with the surreality of the surroundings. when you take me out of this reverie and back into the harsher, less well-crafted narrative of the outside world, you won't wait for the hotel room to show me what you're after. you'll trace the back of my neck with your finger as we wait for the elevator, and as we ride up, up, up, you'll start right there what you intend to finish behind the locked door down the hall. you've been filled with the spirit of the night, that bar, that sepia-toned conception of what every louisiana evening should be: a hazy, liquor-soaked dream, where the lines of the real world curve where they'd ordinarily be straight.

tonight, you surrender to the fantasy. and it's as close as you'll ever come to surrendering to yourself.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
this piece is based on a real bar in the hotel monteleone on royal street in new orleans. i've explained my love for NOLA a few times before. this is my stab at trying to bottle the magic, the je ne sais quoi that resonates in the air down there. ain't no doubt, cher bebe.