21st century (digital boy)

[today's soundtrack - one of my all-time favorite songs.]

i can't really describe my reaction when i read this article. i started off chuckling, built up to laughter, and by the end of the article i was rolling around on the bed in hysterics. not because it's all that funny, really; it was the laughter of oh, my god, you just wrote my entire life in the space of a two-page online article. to say that i identify with the writer is to say that the grass is a little green or that donald trump's hair is a trifle artificial-looking.

see, here's a typical meal with the man and our friends. we go to the restaurant and order. we sit down. one of the boys pulls out his phone. within SECONDS, all the others follow suit. silence descends over the table, occasionally punctuated with a snicker, or maybe some comment (inevitably tech-related) spawned by something someone read that triggers a snarky conversation filled with acronyms. sometimes, i say, well, i'm gonna pull out my phone, too, just so i don't feel left out. that kind of subtlety, however, rarely gets the point across. there have been at least three meals in the last two weeks during which i haven't uttered a single word, because the conversation is so densely, impenetrably tech-related that i can't understand it, much less contribute (when there's talking at all, that is). i live my own personal south by southwest (and i love the phrase the annual campfire of the digitally interested more than words can express) every single day, except that i didn't choose it.

i take the man to functions with my law-school friends on a fairly regular basis. inevitably, we talk shop when we're together. we can't help it. law school is immersive, and now that we're all lawyers (some practicing, some still studying like me), it's only gonna get worse from here. but i am always cognizant of his inability to participate in these talks, and i do everything i can to steer the conversation back to something he can share with us. plus, let's be honest; law is more accessible to an intelligent person than tech is. it would be nice to get the same consideration from the tech boys every once in awhile.

but no, there's a defiance at work in their circle that's at equal turns shocking and disappointing. the counterpoint to the new york times piece, cited in the article, is a strident fuck off to those who go out with our friends to be with our friends. to the other tech kids, that whole the times they are a-changing trope sounds edgy and daring, i'm sure. it's another instance of that obnoxious thread that runs through tech culture: we are the only ones who control the paradigm of the new culture, and because of that, we will say what the new world will be. the rest of you? your ways are quaint, and we will crush you. this isn't progress; it's outright hostility to the rest of us. and i, for one, won't stand for it.

this is nothing more than, as the new york times article concluded, mutually assured distraction. and it's not being a luddite to expect your friends to be present with you when you go out with them. technology is righteously amazing. but as i mentioned a few weeks ago, without people, there is no technology. when you use this stuff to both assert your superiority and affect a form of digital isolation, you subvert the original purpose of all of this: to bring people together. it ends up creating a race of twenty-first century digital boys, who don't know how to live, but they've got a lot of toys. see how far that gets you in the flesh-and-blood world. you might be surprised.


hey. did you hear me? oh, guess not. you were playing angry birds again.

sorry seems to be the hardest word

[soundtrack]

ok, kobe. we get it. you really, really, REALLY don't want anyone to think you're a bad guy. but would it have killed you to just say, you know? i screwed up. i should never have said that, no matter how angry i was, and i'm sorry. now, there are two issues in "other-F-word-gate," as i've chosen to call it. the first is the word choice, which is the stuff of about nine million books. i'd like to see this word eradicated from the planet, but for once in my life, i am not going to address this one. another rant for another time. the other issue, the one that intrigues me more, is this: why in the name of all things sacred, can't the big tough man just say sorry?

i am a highly prideful woman. i love to be right; i hate to be told i'm wrong. i don't like to back down when challenged. but when i screw up, i own it. it's just in my nature. but more and more, there's this macho streak running down the back of the culture, in which high-profile folks just don't feel the need to ever straight-up apologize. i mean, jimmy swaggart was a sleazy cretinous bastard, and he got busted big-time on the whole sex-with-hookers thing. but when he did get busted, he went on TV, wept like a two-year-old and declared, i have sinned against you, my lord! you'd never catch a politician, celebrity, etc. EVER doing that sort of thing anymore. it's sad, so sad.

straight talk is something that american society just does not seem to practice anymore. you see it everywhere, from the budget foolishness, to the debacle that is "reality" television, to the conversation i saw on the train yesterday in which one girl hugged her friend goodbye as the friend got off the train, then turned to the other girl they had been with as the doors closed and said, good god, she's the biggest skank bitch on the planet. seriously. wouldn't this planet, this country and this life be one THOUSAND times better if we all remembered the prompt our parents gave us when we were little and screwed up? what do you say? (grumbled, arms folded, petulantly) i'm sorry.

but that's just too much to ask. it's a sad, sad situation, and it's getting more and more absurd. so we'll keep down this path of people doing biblically stupid and awful things, then turning around and telling us how much they regret that their actions have been misunderstood. don't condescend to me, don't blame the listener for your idiocy. american culture is chocked to the gills with this weird sort of hubris, and at the end of the day, sorry really does seem to be the hardest word.

deeper meaning

because i am southern, every so often i will engage in chitchat with strangers when the situation arises. people from other places just don't do this. some of my fellow southerners take this too far - i have a friend who is SHOCKED, just SHOCKED, that no one wants to have a conversation with him as he commutes into the city at 8:00 in the morning. i had to explain to him that, since you're not allowed to drink coffee on the metro, no one is in the mood to be friendly on the morning commute. this was unsettling and sad to him. say what you will about the south; we are some friendly freaking people, whether you're into that sort of thing or not.

but ANYWAY, today on the way into school, the train driver stopped particularly sharply at the station where i get out. he jostled me into the pole, which bugged me, but no biggie; he nearly sent the old man standing next to me flying across the car. well, that's one way to do it, he said sarcastically. i laughed and said, seriously. he smiled at me. i like your necklace. what is it? oh, it's a fleur-de-lis. what does it represent? i wear it to represent louisiana. no deeper meaning? he replied.

i was a little surprised by that question. my initial answer was no, as we parted ways and headed off to wherever our days took us. symbols are powerful things for humans, i suppose. the cross gives comfort and assurance to christians, i'm told. we wear the logos of our favorite sports teams to the ball park to show support and bond with our fellow fans (even when unfathomably stupid sports columnists tell us that doing so justifies us getting beaten nearly to death). we use symbols in so many ways, to mean so many things. it's our nature; we, as the ex liked to say, enjoy putting things in little boxes.

and lord knows the fleur-de-lis has a lot of meaning in my life. hell, not only do i wear one around my neck almost all the time, i have one tattooed on my body. i care enough about the pelican state to carry its quintessential symbol on my skin for the rest of my time on earth. so what's deeper than that? i mean, to say that it represents louisiana for me is obviously a surface description. it's more than that: it's the saints, new orleans, LSU, the cajun two-step, crawfish boils and drive-through daiquiris, the way the sun sparkles over the pontchartrain spillway, the amazing people i love so much... the list goes on and on.

so, nice old man on the metro, i guess there is some deeper meaning in my fleur-de-lis. and on a gorgeous day here in the district, your question has made me seriously nostalgic for a land and its people eleven hundred miles away...

ice cream

your love is better than ice cream
better than anything else that i've tried...

yesterday was ben and jerry's free cone day. i was insanely hungry when i left class, so i waited in the surprisingly fast and efficient line (given that it ran half the length of union station, i didn't have the highest of hopes), got my chocolate therapy scoop in a sugar cone (y'all, chocolate ice cream, chocolate cookies and chocolate PUDDING - gaaaah, how amazing), and wandered about the plaza eating and dodging the tourists who were foolhardy enough to try to sightsee at 5:45 in the evening on a tuesday. a nice little moment.

but i was cranky and prickly yesterday. everything set my teeth on edge. the semester is winding down and i am radically overwhelmed with what i have to do. my right leg has hurt for about a week now. i am still stuffy and coughing with the dregs of flu-pocalypse 2011. you ever see those cartoons where the character's walking around with the rain cloud over his head? that was totally me, to the point where the man came upstairs as i was gathering things to go back home (read: stomping around and swearing petulantly under my breath) and said flat-out, what's wrong, babe? he never straight-up asks like that, and i'm usually better at playing nice around others.

so he took me home, and he stayed with me last night. the petulance did not wane, as i was faced with internet failures, jackhammering at 8:45 in the freaking morning, and nearly incessant annoyances. by the time we all went to lunch, i was silent and stewing. i ignored everyone, watching no reservations on mute instead of talking to people. but then, as i got my ride to the train, the man said something really small and goofy. which metro stop do you want to go to? i mean, if you want your coffee, i'll take you to [this one], but if not, i'll take you to [this other one, closer into the city]. 

i hadn't mentioned coffee. hell, i hadn't mentioned anything. but he remembered that i like to start my days at school with a grande mocha from starbucks, and was willing to tailor the plan to make me happy. talk about a mood elevator. i might be up to my eyeballs in schoolwork, meaning that i'll be watching game 1 of the caps-rangers series from the comfort (?) of the law-school library, but i really can't in good faith be cranky anymore. it's those silly little gestures, those tiny, thoughtful things he does, that go so far to make me happy. he's a simple man. he shows his love in those sweet, simple little ways.

and that's better than ice cream. even when the ice cream's free.

federal plantation

[correction, 4/13: i said "montana" below when talking about states with lower populations than DC; i meant "wyoming." fixed now. thanks, jackass anonymous guy, for rudely pointing out my mistake.]

the mayor of DC went to jail last night. it seems like this last insult to the 600,000-plus people who live inside the borders of the district was the last straw. see, everyone's happy that the federal government didn't shut down this weekend. (the tea party nutballs notwithstanding, that is, but i don't consider them serious people.) but what boils my blood is that for some reason, the republicans in the house insisted on DC being forced to spend ITS OWN MONEY not according to the will of its citizens, but according to what john boehner thinks the people of DC should do.

folks, it is 2011. in 1789, when the founders wrote the constitution, the district of columbia barely existed. when they gave DC its special legal status, no one lived there. but lo and behold, things have changed. it is now time, more than ever, for DC to have home rule. real, honest home rule. that means congressional representation, control over its own budget and freedom from ideologically-based meddling from activist republicans who view this largely african-american city as their personal playground. and yes, it's republicans who are the most guilty here. it's been going on for years. DC approved medical marijuana; tom delay held back approval of the DC budget until they promised not to do it. nowadays, republicans strong-arm the city because they don't like DC's attitude on needle exchanges, school vouchers or reproductive rights.

this is not okay. DC has more people in it than wyoming, and no offense to any wyomingians (is that what you're called?) out there, but DC is WAY more vital to the national economy. there is no excuse for congressional republicans with a stark and clearly-defined social agenda to be able to strong-arm a group of people who do not share that agenda into being their puppets. it's ideological blackmail. and it's 100% unacceptable. i thought this was the party of states' rights, self-determination, small-government? yeah, not when it comes to DC. in fact, one of their own even said so the other day. they really view the lives and rights of 600,000 people as subordinate to their ability to play banana-republic-style dictator with the district.

the district of columbia is, for all intents and purposes, a plantation. the people who live here are subject to the whims and caprice of the house of representatives, who are essentially the masters. the DC government can try to govern according to the will of its people, a right that every other person in this country takes for granted, but it's all for naught. had the government shut down, DC would have shut down too, even though the budget here was passed a year ago. there is no acceptable justification for this. it needs to change. NOW.

dodged bullet

[in which i get a little bit PSA-ish. you can mentally tack on the "the more you know" thing on the end of today's post.]

i alluded to the spectacular drunk-fest that was my friday night. i don't care that i'm almost 30 years old; i like to throw down from time to time. in the words of the man, i'm not the type of person who's gonna have a beer every night, but once in awhile, i just want to get totally hammered. nothing wrong with that, i think. so we do just that from time to time. by the time i hit the cab after the party, it was abundantly clear that the little backstop moment i have was blatantly and fully ignored. i was... yeah.

so i went upstairs, got undressed and laid down in bed with the man. that's about the last thing i remember until i woke up saturday morning praying for death. i knew going into the party how friday night was going to end. (we're all adults here. i don't have to say it.) but when i was recovered enough on saturday evening, we were talking about the show that i had become. so imagine my surprise when he said to me, yeah, there was a point last night when i wondered, "is this still okay?" but then you answered me, and i decided it was. but still, i worried. you WERE okay with that, right?

something about that struck me. it struck me two ways. first, i have an incredibly respectful and conscientious boyfriend, since even after all this time, he still considered my wishes and needs in the face of previous conversations in which he's been granted blanket consent. but second, and way more important, i realized precisely how dangerous it can be to be a party girl. my history is that of a serial monogamist. i was never a hook-up kind of person; all through undergrad, i went home drunk with the same boy. not only that, the boy in question was a staunch defender of my honor. once that relationship became a marriage, obviously that deleted certain concerns.

but when i became unmarried again, i never had that period of sowing wild oats that many of us have in our twenties. i started down that road, but it was a cursory effort at best. i didn't want to date around; i wanted to date the man. so i was never going home with someone unfamiliar to me, someone new. the man taking me to bed knows me, respects me, cares about me. there will not be a situation where things go dark. but last night in particular jangled my nerves as to how fortunate, in a backwards sort of way, my relationship history has made me. i have never, in my entire sexual life, been in danger of date rape. that's a remarkable thing to say as a woman in 2011. and having been that drunk the other night, and in the hands of a man in a sexual situation, without a single negative repercussion even in the realm of possibility? good lord, i am lucky.

so for those of you out there who operate outside the bonds of monogamy, please, please promise me you'll be careful in your dealings. and i'd once again like to say to the universe: thank you for delivering the man to me, and for making him so safe, so generous of spirit, and so thoughtful of my safety. talk about dodging the bullet...

and no one denies this!

[if you're not a reader of the hilariously vulgar football blog kissing suzy kolber, well, you should be, because it's insanely funny and VERY inappropriate. that's a combo that i love. they have a character named tommy from quinzee, and the title of this post is his catch phrase. boston sports fans who read me? sorry. it's just too funny. don't feel bad; there are some mooky weirdo yankee fans in this world too.]

the prom went down. and now that the hangover has waned, all pieces of jewelry have been located and enough gatorade to float the freaking white house has been consumed, it's time for the postmortem. first, for those who asked for pictures, the sparkly dress...

nice, eh? it was dirt-cheap, too. the man and i both clean up pretty when we want to. and the party itself was...

ok, look. i'm just gonna come right out and say this. LSU parties are superior to my new school's party, and no one denies this. for starters, they had a gala event - $50 a ticket - for ADULTS, and there was NO LIQUOR. yeah, that's right, no liquor. beer and wine only. um, sorry. this isn't a wedding, where the guests show up and drink on your tab. i paid $100 for our admission to this party, and for that much money, i should be able to have a damn cocktail or six. that's what brought the hangover on, actually; i drank eight glasses of wine in a spiteful attempt to get my money's worth.

secondly, well, it was just so... tame. nothing scandalous happened. the kids showed up and dutifully danced to the party band (the man christened them "alternate universe gaslight anthem"), but nobody really cut loose. well, except for me on drink five or so. i took off the fancy earrings, slapped the hair back into a ponytail and did what you're supposed to do at a party: danced like a fiend, damn the consequences.

sadly, as i predicted, it was just a tight-assed little soiree, not the blowout bash it's supposed to be. that's just... in a way, it's what i expected all along, but it's still kinda heartbreaking to see people who are that out of touch with themselves. achievement doesn't have to turn you into a pod person. you're still allowed to breathe, smile, and - gasp! - get radically drunk while dancing provocatively with your boyfriend. the world will not end. you'll be happier for it.

and no one denies that.

prom night!

so i'll be 30 in two months, three weeks and and three days. i am a mature and reasonable adult who pays her bills and all that business. so that's precisely why the man and i are going to prom tonight.

no, we're not chaperoning a high-school dance. (yikes, torture. could you imagine?) part of the beauty of law school is the fact that there's a big shiny formal dance every year, even for us grown-up LL.M. people. the ones at LSU were fantastic. 'course, louisianians do nothing as well as they throw parties. we put on pretty dresses and nice suits, respectively, and went to hotel ballrooms to drink, dance and cut up. then we went to after-parties to continue drinking, dancing and cutting up. it was a beautiful thing, even when they didn't have malibu at the bar and i had to drink vodka and pineapple juice.

i love sparkly dresses. it's another one of the ways in which i am thoroughly, irretrievably, irrepressibly a CHICK. but i'll tell you, i'm a little nervous about this one tonight. i mean, there will be alcohol and snacks, and i will get to gallivant around on the arm of the man, who looks sexy as all hell in a suit. but let's face it; the kids at my marble-floored bastion of top-fourteen HIGHER LEGAL LEARNING aren't all that good at cutting loose and having fun. they are very serious people, and they think of very serious things all the serious time. it's a lot to take, even for someone who's as serious as i am.

so it'll be interesting to see how the high-rollin' popular kids throw down. i'm not entirely certain they'll know how to get it done. in order to have a successful party, you need to have the ability to stop fretting and let go for once in your life. that's one of the best skills i learned at LSU. we worked hard in my JD program, don't get it twisted. law school is never easy. but we also knew that all work and no play makes law students... something, something. (go crazy? don't mind if i do!) kids here don't seem to know that. they really do seem to think that if they let up for one second, someone's gonna overtake them! oh, my god! then they'll have to work at the #4 law firm in the country instead of the #3 one!

pardon the sarcasm, but come on. that's no way to live. so even though it's prom night, we'll see how much revelry there is to be had. i mean, by the others, that is. i plan to have one HELL of a time. there's gonna be free champagne. that's good enough for me!

mushball

in case it hasn't become thoroughly obvious, i am an unmitigated mushball deep in my core. oh, i'm plenty tough around the edges, but scratch me hard enough and you will find my soft candy center. it's made up of marshmallow fluff and that weird dyed-pink coconut that encases sno-balls. (you've never had a sno-ball? oh, you poor deprived soul, possessed of way more culinary responsibility than i'll ever have. your humble blog proprietor would spend many a friday afternoon after elementary school in the 1980s gnawing happily on one of these.) this is the curse i carry through this life. i am powerless over bulldogs, boston terriers, pudgy babies, and mites (little kids who play hockey - oh my god, y'all, you should've seen the little ones on ice last night at the caps game; you'd have DIED). i own it.

but what really dissolves me into a little pile of pink-coconut-flecked marshmallow goo is when someone is unexpectedly sweet to me. i'm a hardcore sucker for the tiny gesture, especially when given by someone who's not known for that sort of thing. i think you know where i'm going with this one. where do i always go? enter the man. my attempt to make him a hockey nut was... well, it was a dismal failure. he spent the entire third period watching a gamecast of the giants-padres game on his iphone, which didn't even have images, just a scrolling list of plays. he wouldn't even chant "let's go caps!" with me when the horn guy blew his horn. he. was. BORED.

needless to say, this made me feel bad. so i said, sorry to have dragged you to something at which you were clearly miserable. i wasn't miserable. you had fun. i'm glad you were so happy. so next time i should just bring my dad to the game? no. i like seeing you enjoy something like this. awwww. that made me smile. he's so freaking good at these little things. he's definitely mentioned in the past that he likes to make me happy. i just want you to be happy, in fact, is something he said to me a lot in the beginning. and not that other guys in my past haven't shared the same sentiment. it would be a stupid and/or evil man who didn't want the main woman in his life to be happy.

maybe it's because he knows me so incredibly well, better than anyone else on the planet, but he always knows precisely what it takes to melt me. this is, besides all the other reasons why i adore this relationship, my favorite thing about him. and i know i spend a lot of time gushing over him here. it's gotta get old at some point, i'm sure. but i want it made damn clear that i appreciate him, and his extreme skill at warming my heart. honestly, he's the central piece of the happiness in my life these days. the professional and academic achievements are awesome, and i am DAMN proud of them. but honestly, they wouldn't be anywhere near as fun if i couldn't turn to him and say, look what i just did, and hear back, i knew you would. i'm so proud of you.

mushy, yes. but it's so good.

72 degrees and sunny

i have been pent up inside for hours now, trying to be a good little scholar and finish that 10-page paper i alluded to last night. (some of you know what i've really been up to - damn you, facebook/twitter/etc.!) but it's all about to be okay. see, i am going to a hockey game tonight. god, i love hockey. and to get to my local hockey arena, i will head out of this library and take a nice, leisurely stroll in the sunshine.

yeah, sunshine. after the debacle that was yesterday's weather, and let's face it, the entirety of march in the nation's capital, it decided to be beautiful today. rock on. i've been staring enviously out the window all afternoon, watching tulip trees bloom and desperately wishing to be freaking done with school so i can go outside and loll about in the grass, reading trashy books and thinking about how i will never, ever have to go to school again.

the happiness has infected my soul today in a nearly-manic fashion. it's spring fever, i think. life is taking a turn for the smile-inducing on so many levels, and i'm actually able to get out of my own way and (gasp!) enjoy that. plus, i have the weirdest form of reverse seasonal affective disorder known to man, as i told y'all last year when this started happening. so in the face of the fresh hell that will be unleashed on the district (and the rest of the country, but acutely and especially the district) with the impending budget shutdown foolishness, i am happy. in the face of a lot of other not-so-nice things in the outside world, the inside world of your humble blog proprietor is 72 degrees and sunny.

productivity? nah, not so much. but happiness? all damn day. now it's time to wrap up the regular season for my boys in red and march strong to the playoffs. LET'S GO CAPS!

list of demands

as the song says, i've got a list of demands, written on the palm of my hands. well, written on the face of my blog. but still, it stands. here ya go:

1) i want someone else to write my seminar paper for this semester. oh, i'll give total credit; i don't steal other people's work. i'll cop 100% to the fact that someone else wrote it. but i do NOT want to write a 25-page paper this month. i also want someone else to write my other paper that's due in 13 days. this one is just toddler-level temper-fit petulance, because it's a 10-page maximum. i can do that in three hours, and will most likely knock that out tonight. it's a topic i know inside and out, and can probably conjure up an A-level work in no time. but i. don't. wanna.

2) speaking of tonight, when it gets to be mealtime, i want someone to bring me baked ziti, with extra mozzarella, a nice salad and some good, crusty bread. also, some tiramisu. hmm. not seeing this happening, though. it's looking like indian food from trader joe's for dinner.

3) i want the drive and determination to get into that freaking gym and bust tail. bathing suit season is coming down the pike, and i need some toning and shaping. (hmm. the song that inspires this list is kind of a run-through-a-brick-wall song. maybe that'll help.)

4) i want to meet butler blue II. i don't care if they got destroyed last night; this dog is the cutest freaking thing ever. the man has spent hours finding videos and pictures to show me, largely because he thinks it's the height of amusing to see, and i'm quoting, my bad-ass, tough girl reduced to a pile of mush, "oh, my god, how cuuuuute!" whatever. i own my mushiness. and if you don't think that picture is the cutest thing you've ever seen... well, i don't know what to tell you.

5) i want it to be tomorrow night. the man and i have hockey tickets. i love hockey; he thinks it's stupid. my daddy was once this way, too. then i took him to watch the caps beat the hell out of the st. louis blues one christmas, and it was all over. now daddy watches don cherry on the regular and can often be found yelling "hit somebody!" i foresee something similar happening with the man. well, maybe not. but it's still going to be fun. let's go caps!

6) i want to go on vacation with the man, somewhere warm and beachy. i want there to be a convertible involved, as well as a fun dive bar. i want to indulge in all my favorite vices - eating, drinking, swimming, sunning and, well, the man - for a few days, basically on demand. sound good? i think so. just help me remember my sunscreen.

so that's my list of demands on this freezing cold and rainy day. anyone else in the mood to be petulant and demanding? i hope it's not just me...

backstop

it's no secret that there have been some scary incidents in my life, points where the edge was suddenly under my toes and threatening to pass under me, dropping me fast and far to god only knows what. it's not a fun place to be. but i have been beyond fortunate in my life. i've been surrounded by people who love me, in both happy times and scary ones. i love them back, and i appreciate the support and the love they've shown me more than i could ever articulate. it's a rare privilege to have such a fantastic coterie of nearest and dearest.

but alongside the external support, i have always managed to have a backstop, somewhere deep down inside me, that's pulled me back from the brink. sometimes it manifests itself in times of fun, when i need to make that decision to either not take that last drink or risk the hangover from hell. (now, in that circumstance, i don't always listen to the backstop, but i am always granted, somehow, a five-minute or so window in every drunken bacchanalia that lets me say "when.") other times, though... well, this is the first time i've discussed any of this as publicly as this, but here we go.

there have been two times in my life when the darkness was most dangerous. once, i was very young, and facing failure on a grand scale for the very first time. it threatened to overwhelm me. i remember this night as being at equal turns hazy and very sharp. there were perilous circumstances all around me as i sat alone in my dorm room. rational thought? forget it. but suddenly, quite out of nowhere, i thought, i should call the boy. ("the boy" here is my ex.) so i dialed him up and said something to the effect of, you need to come over right now. he did. thankfully, i did not lock my door in that dorm if i wasn't leaving, so he came right in and stopped me from making a decision that, let's face it, wouldn't have ended well. that bolt out of the blue, that phone call, saved me from some really bad consequences. backstop.

the other time was very recently. i've sketched it out briefly here. that was a long, dark night alone in my bedroom, drinking wine and considering my options. but somehow, some way, i had the thought, i should text the man. i know i didn't make sense. he kept me on the line, so to speak. are you okay? what do you need? do you want me to come over? you're scaring me. i'm coming to get you. and he did. he drove over, in a blinding thunderstorm, took me home with him and held me through the night. he didn't stop all the damage, but he certainly capped what could've gone down. i don't have a lot of recall at all about that night. there's blurriness, haze, and disorientation everywhere. but i do remember, VERY clearly, one gap in the confusion. for some reason, this song was playing (some late-night talk show, i guess), and the thought to text him came then. backstop.

this all came to me because of some stresses in the lives of friends of mine. people have thrown up their hands and admitted to needing help, and in a couple of cases, the choice to get that help was not theirs alone. help is an amazing thing, especially when you're suffering. having it foisted on you is one thing. but being able to stop yourself before the edge upon which you're balanced slips past you? priceless. absolutely priceless. i don't know where i get this power, this ability, this backstop i have. but my god, there's nothing about myself that i love and value more. my impulse to self-preserve, somewhere under all of this, has been vital. here's hoping i never, ever lose it.

embolism

y'all remember a separate peace? i read it in tenth grade, and it was one of the few compulsory novels in high school that i truly loved. i assume that it's so ubiquitous at this point that i'm not even gonna say spoiler alert, but one of the main characters dies of an embolism during surgery to set a broken leg. a piece of marrow dislodges and stops his heart. that's a really apt analogy for the new grief process of the post-detente divorce. every time i turn around, a new piece of sadness breaks off and strikes me, rendering me completely defenseless. see also: this entire weekend.

see, last night, the man and i had an argument. nothing terrifically serious on its face - we were discussing the legitimacy of the NCAA. but this argument lasted the entire length of the uconn-kentucky game. no exaggeration; we didn't wrap it up and say sorry until the horn sounded and uconn advanced. it was a fun debate at first, but i found myself getting more and more worked up. there were a couple of things that struck me as hurtful. first, the man said at one point, tell me why i don't get it. tell me why i'm stupid. i lost my mind. hey, stop. i did NOT say you were stupid. i wouldn't ever say that. secondly, he said, that was a ridiculous, if not dumb, point. um, what?

so i called him on it. dumb? what the hell? he said, what? i say dumb things all the time. YOU'RE not dumb. you're brilliant. that's why it's so surprising that you'd say it that way. i guess that makes sense. not thrilled with the word choice, but okay. now let's move on to the whole tell me why i'm stupid thing. i did NOT call you stupid. of course you didn't. i know you don't think that. i was talking about myself. i felt stupid because i didn't understand. yeah, those are loaded words. i don't use them in situations like this. and as i said that to him, i felt my eyes welling up with tears. i stopped talking. you okay? no, not really. it hit me in that moment that, when these debates would happen in the old life, when the word dumb came out, he meant it. when the word bitch came out, same thing. the enormity of the brokenness of our interactions slapped me full across the face. to look the man in the eye, to see his concern, his sincerity, and to realize how scarred i was by the patterns of the past was a tough thing to face. he opened his arms to me, and as i laid my head against his chest and felt him kiss my forehead, i once again told myself that things were different, new, better.

then, a few minutes ago, actually, another sliver of grief came free. he went out tonight on a business dinner. cool; an evening in, painting my nails and watching baseball. all i need is some provision for my own dinner, and that's totally fine. (not like he keeps food in his home. not his style.) but a two-hour meeting that was well into hour four had my dander up, to say the least about it. my temper was getting piqued. hmph. bet he forgot. he'll be here eventually; it's his house. but looks like i got brushed off. 'course, that's exactly when he calls to ask what i want for dinner, and to tell me he'll be home soon. and it hit me like a ton of bricks. i am so used to the man in my life letting me down and disappointing me. it's almost what i've come to expect. y'all have read my hosannas to the heavens about the nice things he does for me. he's heard this too, and he always responds with the same thing: i do what i can. he almost seems surprised that i'm so grateful for him. well, i'm grateful because a) i don't expect reliability and b) i'm way more used to having to yell at someone than to thank someone.

this is a process, the man said as he wiped the tears away last night. but every day, it's going to get a little bit better. he's right. as i realize where i was hurt, what was broken, i can start to fix it. the pieces that break off won't kill me. they'll hurt as they come loose, but the more that come free, the closer i'll be to putting this whole, ugly mess 100% behind me. and believe me, that cannot happen fast enough.

home run

it's ostensibly spring, and with spring comes the beginning of baseball season. i LOVE baseball. i can't quite articulate how amazing i think baseball is. so when the man, his roommate and i lit out for our local major-league park, the air was filled with promise and hope. well, except for the fact that it was a) freezing cold, b) drizzling rain and c) the local major-league team, which is very, very bad at major-league baseball. oh, y'all, it's not even funny how bad the local team is. it's like charlie brown and his baseball team up in here. but hey, at least i got to lose feeling in my extremities while listening to drunken morons scream supposedly clever nicknames at the players.

and yet, somehow, even though the hometown boys got shut out in front of a half-full stadium on opening day, i left the ballpark with a strange sense of bounciness in my soul. interesting counterpart for the numbness in my toes. seriously, though. i was really happy. and for good reason. as the seasons change, for the first time in ages, i've got things set up pretty freaking well. i'm in basically good health, the dregs of flu-pocalypse 2011 notwithstanding. i have an amazing boyfriend, outstanding friends and an outrageously excellent family. school is ending (and there's a forthcoming post about how intensely ready i am to be shut of school). the job will start right on the heels of that. i get to go to south florida at the beginning of may and show off my professional acumen. and i have not one, but two occasions in the next two months to put on a sparkly dress and swan around town.

right now, it seems that all i do is win, no matter what. and i can actually recognize it, for once. i don't even need a reality check from the man like i have seemingly ten squillion times throughout the life of this blog (and honestly, throughout the life of our friendship/relationship). i am not meteorically happy; i am not down in the doldrums. things are humming along beautifully at a state of higher-than-average. it's a beautiful thing. and really, there's no reason to think that anything other than good will keep coming down the pike. sure, there'll be bumps in the road. i can think of two or three that just can't be avoided. six months ago - hell, six DAYS ago - that would've thrown me into a pout of biblical proportions. but now? without waves, it ain't the gulf of mexico (i know, that one is usually "without waves, it ain't the ocean," but i'm a gulf-coast kid, so i don't swim in oceans).

yeah, sounds like a home run, eh? and without getting too cocky, i think i've earned some smooth sailing these days. i've put in the work. and the start of baseball season is a great metaphor for the start of this new season of my life. it's been nothing but spring training for what seems like forever. i've been playing split-squad games, spending hours in that batting cage, swing after swing after swing. but now it's time for the regular season, and we're putting up runs, baby, all day long. i bring the pain, i hit clean-up in this life of mine. watch me swagger to that plate. tap those toes, level that killer look at the pitcher. bring it; i can take whatever you've got.

crack. boom. home run, son. and as i take my trot around those bases, i smile to myself. yeah, this will keep up all season long. all i do is win. and if i keep that in the front of my mind, this life will be cake.

epistle #1: narcissus

[i'm starting a series of letters to people with whom i have unfinished business. think of this one as the first letter of magnolia to the jerkfaces, if you're inclined to use biblical analogies. and why not lead the series off with a good old-fashioned dose of all-american vitriolic rage?]

dear narcissus:
well, well, well. i have been waiting for nearly half my life to unload on you. you've always thought you were just this great upstanding person, haven't you? i mean, you lord yourself around like you do. but no matter how many times life has come to you and said, hey, big boy, don't you realize you've fucked this up?, you just laugh it off and go right along the same path. whatever, right? someone will bail you out, just like last time, and the time before that, and the time before that.

in the words of ed helms from the hangover, you're... such a bad person! like, all the way through to your core! you are a selfish, cheap, nasty person who has no regard for anyone but himself. you were so incredibly hateful to me from the time i was seventeen until i woke up and realized that, hey, i don't ever have to talk to you again as long as i live. the last time i saw you, which my god, i tried SO hard to avoid, you were, even in the few minutes i was subjected to you, nothing but awful.

and the best part? you have no idea how horrible you are. you think that because you think something is funny, no matter at whose expense the laughs come, it is just objectively funny. no one's ever allowed to be hurt, offended or anything like that. hell, it was just a joke. the way you can blithely dispense scathing cruelties would be admirable if you weren't a real person. i kinda wish i'd invented your character in my writing. you'd be one hell of a super-villain. the smallest errors - turning away from the stove with the burner on, for example - would send you into fits of i can't BELIEVE you could EVER do something like that? what's WRONG with you? at the time, i thought you were just high-strung. looking back? you're an abuser. and the worst kind: an emotional abuser.

i still don't know how you've convinced another woman to take up with you. the only reason the last one stayed around so long is that the two of you had kids. i still remember what she said to me when she finally shook you off. i saw how you refused to put up with the way he treated you. that mortified me, especially with two of her children in the room to see how i was basically being credited with the death of their parents' marriage. but if that's what it took, then i'm glad. and i never even told the full truth to either one of you about how much i hate you.

yeah, that's right, hate. you are a venal, shallow, small-hearted skinflint of a man, one who seems to take unnatural pleasure in hurting others. if someone told me you died tomorrow, i would be relieved for the few members of your family for whom i still care, because they would be shut of you and your terrible, reprehensible behavior. you are painfully immature and totally unconcerned about your lack of adult skills. you're the living embodiment of the grasshopper from that old fable, thinking that you can live off your parents' largesse forever. 'course, you've come damn close; you outlived your father, and your mother's not longed for this world. you've managed to bleed them dry for sixty-plus years now. why not keep going?

you, sir, are a bastard. plain and simple. and with that, i officially remove you from my life.

[ooh, DAMN, did that feel good! this will have to happen again.]

pizza rolls

the weekend of a thousand used kleenexes has come to an end. i am up and moving, though still somewhat fuzzy of head and runny of nose. and the best (?) part of all of the illness was that it hit me while i was at the man's house, so i proceeded to ensconce myself there to wait it out. the man, in his own inimitable way, is the sweetest guy on the planet. he really let that show this weekend, as i sniffled, coughed and dozed. he made me dinner two nights running. (that's right, people who know him in real life - he COOKED.) and through his tender ministrations to my health and well-being, which included macaroni and cheese and pizza rolls, he showed me a lot about my attitude and how things have really changed for me over the last year or so.

yesterday was a big day on two fronts. first, i recovered a fair amount, largely through spending 72 hours in bed. second, as some of y'all already know, i finally, finally landed a grown-up job for after school ends in two months. and really, it's kinda my dream gig, back with my old pre-law school firm. i am thrilled. THRILLED. and it's funny: i was unwilling to even consider the fact that i would get what i wanted in this situation. i was so afraid of jinxing myself that i didn't even tell very many people about the specifics of the interview. (i didn't even tell my parents until i got the offer.)

but the one person who was 100% convinced that i had it nailed was the man. you know you've got this. it's a given. i refused to believe him. so of course, when the call came and i had the offer in hand, he was right there to say, see? i told you that you had this. and it hit me then, when the weight came off my chest, exactly what was wrong with me all these months. it's obvious that i've changed a lot over that time, but what i didn't see is how much i had allowed the negativity that came along with the old situation to seep into every inch of me. i'd grown harder, colder, and far less hopeful. dealing with the reality of the heavy tragedy that was the end of my marriage sucked all the optimism out of me and made me a hyper-rationalist.

but enter the man. people who knew us when will be stunned over this one, but he's been the optimist, the cheerleader, through it all. his faith in good things for me has really kept me going through it all. and his faith in me was rewarded, big-time, with this news about the job. and he was right all along. trusting myself would've saved me so much angst. trusting that good things would happen would've saved me so much pain. so he gets a lot of credit from me. he's really teaching me a lot about the rebuilding process, moving forward from the old life and fully embracing the new one. i feel so much better about where i'm going. i have a plan again, something to look forward to, and it feels amazing. my work life is lined up, my school life is winding down, and my personal life?

well. a man who brings me pizza rolls and cold drugs, trusts endlessly in my capabilities, and kisses my forehead while i sleep? hmm. seems like i win. and even as sick as i've been, it's the best feeling in the world. thank you, love.

throwback: one shining moment

[the amazing jobo is running an occasional series over at her place where she revisits old posts to see how far things have come in her life since the original words were written. with her blessing, i am totally stealing her idea. so, for your amusement, one year ago this weekend. first, the post; then, below, the commentary...]

march 22, 2010: one shining moment
on my way to the airport yesterday, i heard the local traffic reporter recounting the end of the michigan state-maryland game. lucious drains the 3, and just like that, a maryland victory turns into a crushing defeat. that's the nature of sports like basketball; one quick shot and the whole thing can change.

every so often, that sort of thing happens in other arenas too. you go through a situation thinking things are a certain way, and then POW - the entire game is changed. sometimes this is bad, and it leads to disaster, like if you're greivis vasquez and the rest of the maryland terrapins. but other times, you're tom izzo and the spartans, and the sudden change is the best thing you've ever felt in your life. that's where i sit today. never saw it coming, either...

here's a lesson for you: if you're confused about something that involves another person, it's really best to just talk it out. i took the initiative to pour my heart and soul out this weekend, and the clouds were lifted. things i thought were complex and potentially painful turned out to be crystal clear and completely perfect. perhaps you're seeking details of this. eh, not this time. some things a girl keeps to herself.

but as for results? well, that's easy. the playing field has cleared considerably. "contestant #3," while still incredibly beautiful, is off the board. the ball and chain? that's resolved as of the end of this year. and the other boy? well, all i'll say about that is that i have some incredible people in my life. one shining moment? yeah, you could say that.

[the game-changer in my relationship with the man, formerly the other boy, encapsulated in an overwrought and ridiculous march madness metaphor. when i laid it on the line for him - again - and we became a couple, he referenced this weekend, this one shining moment, as the point in time when his heart started to turn. the events i reference here made him realize that, in his words, i think we have a future.

this journey was alternately exhilarating and terrifying. to get from our origin myth, to our one shining moment, to those first small steps, and finally to the truth straight from his heart... hell. it's rare to get something you want so much in such a clear and obvious way. this is the stuff of fairy tales. but it's not, really; it's the story of my life. of our life.

what a difference a year makes.]

temper fits

oh, man, what a week. crises, emotional freakouts, the whole nine yards. i have an exam in two hours. i should be studying, but i have approximately no attention span, because i am also ragingly ill with the worst cold i've had in years. when it rains, it freaking pours. i've been just a joy to be around, too. i've gotten into a series of really stupid arguments with the man, over tiny little things like he interrupted me! he must not respect the things i say! and hey, in this debate we're having over social issues, he keeps countering my arguments with blue-collar vs. white-collar examples. he thinks i have privilege bias! (the life of the mind, eh?)

boy, when i want to be, i really can be a petulant child. it's the curse of the self-aware, too, that even as i'm throwing fits, i recognize how stupid i'm being, and yet seem powerless to stop it. the other night, when i was decompressing over the missing neighbor problem, i started into another one of my world-famous worry cycles. as i unloaded, the man responded to my concerns with solutions. god, it turned into one of those stereotypical man/woman conversations: he wants to fix it! i want to vent! when i said as much, he threw his hands in the air and said, fine. talk.

when i did, he listened. he's good like that. but then he said, as he's taken to doing lately, is being upset or angry about this doing any good? what are you talking about? i'm getting it out of my system! no, you're not. you take all of this stress onto yourself, stress that really has nothing whatsoever to do with you, and let it eat you alive. then you come to me and collapse into a puddle, telling me that you're overwrought and you want it all to go away. here's the hint, darlin': YOU have to make it go away. just look these problems in the face and tell them that you can't do it right now.

good lord, he's smart. see, i've always fancied myself as managing my emotions when i go on these rants. i told him, have you ever known me in all these years to be any different? this is just what i do. i take on the problems of those i love as my own. yeah, you do. and i think it's killing you. but how do you stop? you just do. you have to, for your own self-preservation, limit your emotional exposure to other people's problems. you can't save us all, babe.

that's the big secret, i guess. i get so tied up with doing what i can to help people i love. it's like the old george steinbrenner quote: if i can help, i wanna help. my issue comes with determining where i can actually help and where my exposure is just hurting me and doing no one else any good, either. so that's the work i have to put forth in the short term: building up my little garden walls. i'll never have a fortress around my heart; it's not in my nature not to be empathetic almost to a fault. but i do need a little barrier, a little form of insulation, to keep myself - and those around me - from going insane. and hopefully, this'll keep the tantrums in check, too.

now if you'll excuse me, i need to go read about tax allocation language in operating agreements, while trying to limit the number of times i sneeze between now and the end of the test. happy saturday, eh?

it works. it really, really works.

just a quick update: she's been found. about an hour after i posted last night, emily was found, and unharmed at that. talk about a huge relief.

thank you, thank you, thank you to my DC-area blog-friends in particular. y'all came through for her so, so much, and it's a beautiful and inspiring thing. i can't say enough about it.

twitter revolution

i got so rankled during all the uprisings in the middle east over the last few months when people said, oh, all this happened because of social media! see! it IS important! i found it to be, really, the height of first-world arrogance, pretending that the things we as privileged and connected westerners were doing on the internet had anything at all to do with the complex, generations-old rebellions in these countries. there is just no way that freaking twitter had anything significant to do with it. it's not that important. hell, half the things i read on twitter in a day have to do with either charlie sheen, chad ochocinco or cats in unusual situations.

but then today happened. today, i found out that my parents' next-door neighbor emily, one of the sweetest people in the world, has disappeared. horrifying news: she's a young mother, with an 18-month-old baby, and (worse yet) a history of psychological issues. she left for work monday morning and hasn't been seen or heard from since. scary enough. so my stepmom and a few other people started a facebook group. as people started to talk to each other there, we all started spreading the word to people we knew.

enter the DC social media world. DC is a very internet-friendly town, and our social media community is peerless. i've been to a couple of twitter-centric events, especially right after i moved back here and needed some new friends. one of the people i met during all of this is the incomparable proprietress of the southified masshole, who i think might know every single person in the metro area. i reached out to her and the rest of the people i work with over at dcblogs for a little publicity help. and with that, we were off to the races. within three hours, several major DC news sources were on the story. for every question someone had, someone else had an answer. in a situation when getting emily's face all over the universe as quickly as possible was the A-1 most important thing, everyone came through in the best way possible.

now this is what twitter, and all that other social media, can really do for us. it's so incredible how well that worked out. thank you all so very, very much for getting the word out the best way you knew how. it's amazing to see that in action. as civilians, we can't really do all that much besides publicize. the DC social media world, rock stars that they all are, did an incredibly inspiring, fantastic job. it's an honor to be a part of such a great fabric of people.

and if you're local, and you've seen emily, please call 202-680-4181. thank you.