What Would You Do?

My boyfriend and I broke up over the Christmas holiday. I had this little hypothesis see, that if I quit doing everything in the relationship (texting, calling, planning get-togethers, scheduling dates) that nothing would happen, that our relationship would fizzle and die because the boyfriend never bothers to call, text, set up dates or even think about me (among several other grievances that aren't appropriate for getting into on the internet).

I was right.

I tested the hypothesis on a Thursday. On Saturday when I still hadn't heard from him, I finally texted him "good-bye" to remind him I was leaving for Christmas holiday, four states away. He'd forgotten. His response, "Damn."

And when was the next time I heard from him?

Monday morning. 12:30am. I was asleep and his text woke me up. "Did you make it home?" Um... that question's not exactly relevant anymore, but yes, I did manage to drive thirteen hours in the two and a half days since I last talked to you. And now I'm sleeping in my bed. Good-night.

It was another six days before I heard from him again. And again, it was one in the morning, and I was so sound asleep the text didn't even wake me. "Merry Christmas, Ann."

"Merry Christmas, boyfriend."

When I got home from holiday, I dropped his already-wrapped presents off (that I'd of course bought before I'd driven home for Christmas) on his parents' front porch. "Most of these I can't return anyway, so I figured I'd just give them to you," I wrote on the card. "See you around."

If he hadn't intended to end the relationship by not communicating with me, then I'd go ahead and clue him in that his inaction was unacceptable, and we were through.

No response.

The next day I texted him again. "I found some of your crap at my house... a shirt, your phone charger, dog food..." the typical post-relationship returning of goods. "Where should I drop them off?"

"Let's meet for lunch."

Huh? My ears perked up. Was he actually expressing interest in our relationship? Did he want to... don't say it... talk?! In person? Not via a once a week text message in the middle of the night?

It was awkward. And I felt sick. Because for all the casualty with which I'm writing this post, I did actually care for him and like him and have high hopes for our relationship. But I also knew I could do better. Contrary to popular belief, there are plenty of men out there who would enjoy not only communicating on a very basic level, but even wooing me, showering me with attention, romance... love. There are lots of people who wouldn't put their job, church, music, nap schedule and ex-girlfriend's

mother as priorities ranked above a meaningful relationship with me. But I digress.

This is the gist of what I heard him say over lunch (which he bought - one point for chivalry)...

• I can be (and was) really self-absorbed
• I admit that I didn't communicate with you well
• You deserve better
• I'm a mess and you're a mess, but I still thinkwe can try and be a mess together
• I value you and youmean a lot to me

Then he tried to give me a present.

"I don't want it." I told him. I knew he hadn't planned ahead enough to buy it for me before Christmas or even during Christmas, but probably only felt bad and had bought it that morning because I had given him such kick-ass gifts two days prior.

"Please, take it. Will you just accept it, please?"

"Fine. But I'm not opening it here. And not in front of you."

"But I need to explain some things."

I didn't want to have to fein excitement if the present sucked (which I was sure it would). Neither did I want to cry if the present was really romantic.

But then one of my students from the job I quit walked into the restaurant. "Fuck." I said through tear-filled eyes. Looking from the gift to the students I realized I could not fein happiness or muster any more of the Christmas cheer from the passing holiday on this day of breaking up with my boyfriend. "I have to go."

I rushed outside and the boyfriend met me at my car. In resignation, I reached in the red bag (did he think he was Santa Claus? Everything was just stuffed in this red bag!) and pulled out the following:

• A journal from his second grade nephew's money-raising school catalogue. I love to write and journals are one of my favorite gifts. He noticed that. "It was for his school, you know," he explained, "so it's a little janky, but it earned him an hour and a half of recess one day at school." The boyfriend values family. And a gift via a little nephew is super cute and awesome. Damn.
• An owl necklace that I saw in an antique store three months ago and loved. I love owls. I love antiques. I love unique jewelry. He listened and remembered. I set down the necklace and tried not to look affected.
• A box of lip gloss. At first I thought, why in the world did he get me make-up when I sell Mary Kay myself? But then when I realized that as I continued to pull box after box out of the little bag, it was all lip gloss. A shit-ton of lip gloss. "Here's some lip gloss to put on when you feel, you know, how you felt..." he trailed off, andthen began to explain what the Sephora lady had told him about each brand. I started to smile. I wear lip gloss and lipstick to help my moods, give me courage, etc. I wore my brightest most purple lipstick when I prayed before the state senate once. I needed confidence and any little thing, even purple-power-lipstick will help. In the three and a half months we'd dated, he took note. And in giving me twenty different lip glosses, he was saying twenty-times over, I'm sorry for making you feel like you weren't important to me.

I handed him his shirt, phone charger and dog food. "I'll see you later."

His bottom lip quivered and he lowered his head.

I got in my car, and he walked away.

I turned on the car. Did I make the right decision? That was a super sweet present but, I don't know...

I mean, what would you do if you were me? Would you take him back? Would you be encouraged enough to think things would change? Would two people "being messy together" be incentive enough to risk getting hurt again when you could safely get out now?

Is the lipstick bright enough to cover it?

Oh, Savannah

It was just another night at the theater. Actually, it was supposed to be a special evening. Opening night of my boyfriend's show, an after party and an opportunity to schmooze with theater folks, and hopefully spending some quality time with a man I hadn't seen since tech week started.

That night wasn't meant to be.

Assuming myself to be on top of my game, I drove up to Savannah that Friday in the afternoon so as to avoid rush hour traffic (which lasts from 4-8pm) and assure arriving at the show on time. Bags packed, jewelry chosen, shoes procured and computer bag ready, I met the boyfriend at work to grab the key to his apartment, so I could get some work done before dressing for the theater later that night. However, I discovered upon arrival that there was much drama brewing with his ex's parents who had also planned on attending the show that night (with his parents!), and now had to decide whether they could stand seeing me, the new girlfriend, at the theater.

Gag me.

So in a huff, I plopped down on the couch in his dingy bachelor pad of an apartment and opened my computer. The boyfriend came home from work and left again to get in costume at the theater. At 6:45, I turned on the shower. Water warming, I went out to my car to grab my toiletries and my dress.

Except it wasn't there.

What?!

OMG. I had borrowed that dress from a friend and was SO excited to wear it to opening night and look all cute for the boyfriend and the boyfriend's theater friends, and the boyfriend's ex's parents, but it was gone. Had I not packed it, or had it been stolen? Of course it was the former. In all my brilliant planning I'd left the dress hanging on the door to my bedroom.

To quote my good friend, Bridget Jones, "F******************ck."

I was in a sweatshirt, jeans, had worked in the yard earlier that morning, and hadn't showered in two days. How, how how, would I get clean and get something to wear before the show started at 7:30?

Fortunately, I was in Savannah.

After the fastest shampooing of hair in all my life, I put back on my clothes, grabbed my keys, threw my makeup in the car and drove to Kohl's. Almost in tears at my own stupidity coupled with the undue pressure of the ex's parents hating me, and allotting myself only $10 in mad money a week (since I'm only a part-time nanny now) and knowing I would be spending all of it (and then some) on a stupid new dress that I didn't want from Kohls, at 7:10, I entered the store a sight to be seen.

"Where's your dresses?" I asked the first cashier I saw.

"Oh, all over! Daisy Fuentes is over there, Elle is over there..."

"Never mind," I said curtly and walked toward the nearest section muttering to myself, "Like anyone goes to Kohl's for the brand names, we just want the bargains." Ann, "full of grace," was not living up to her name's sake tonight.

Ten minutes later, I had a acceptable new top on sale for $3.99 and owl earrings matching the yellow shoes I'd brought to wear with the perfect dress I'd left at home. The jeans would stay on. A good idea since there was no time to shave the legs in the one minute shower.

I paid, declined the plastic bag for my purchases and changed in the car. If Savannah was paying attention, there was a peepshow in the parking lot, but I didn't care. Neither did Savannah.

Kohl's had been 3.5 minutes from boyfriend's apartment. Theater was about 4-5 minutes away from Kohl's. Despite the bitterly cold air, in total, that gave me 6-8 minutes of "air-drying" time for my soggy, but clean hair, and with the heat on full blast I rolled down the windows and flew to the theater.

7:34, I parked, put my hair in a pony tail, applied lip gloss and ran inside the theater. Fortunately, the artist director is windy. And it being opening night, she had a lot of people to thank before the show began. 7:36, I was in my seat which I was delighted to discover was right next to some friend's of the boyfriend who I didn't know were going to be there! Yea! "You'll never believe what I've been through tonight..." I started, already jealous of her cute black dress and matching shoes. 7:40 the show began...

Fast forward three weeks.

I had arranged for a girls night in Savannah with some of my friends. We were going to walk around the square for Savannah's Christmas Festival, eat dinner at a local restaurant and then go see boyfriend's show. Unfortunately, none of the girls could make it until after the Festival was over, but having driven up earlier that day, boyfriend and I walked around looking at the jewelry and crafty ornaments and avoiding the screaming children who'd had twelve too many candy canes.

Dinner was good, the play was funny and drinks afterwards with boyfriend and girlfriends was a success. He passed their inspection. The waiter passed me another martini. It was a great night.

I woke up the next morning (still in Savannah) to a lazy Sunday. I had planned on sticking around until church was over so I could teach boyfriend the dance steps for the audition he would have later that day, a show I had auditioned for the day before. As always, I had packed my computer and planned on doing a little writing, a little FB surfing, the usual. But the computer was in the trunk of my car and my keys were... where?

Hmm.

Where were those keys? I texted boyfriend, "Have you seen my keys?" No reply. Well, he was at work, maybe he left his phone in the office. So I dressed and journaled and even applied make-up since I had the time, but still no response, so I texted boyfriend again. "Hey, I can't find my keys, so hurry over here when church is done, okay?" I was getting hungry. A man after my own heart, there was nothing in his fridge besides beer and month-old and molding leftovers. But I heard nothing. At 1pm I started to panic. He had a performance at 2 or 2:30. What if he forgot about me and when straight to the theater? He forgot about me? He forgot about me!

Doomed to ultimate spinsterhood at having been obviously abandoned by my boyfriend, I fretted about what to do. I knocked on the neighbors apartment to see if I could use their computer to look up his parent's phone number and call them to ask for help. No one answered the door. So I put on my coat and walked down the road to the gas station to ask for the yellow pages, praying I wouldn't get mugged or kidnapped (in Savannah, yeah right).

"Hello, yellow cab? Do you have service in Savannah?" Of course they did... for an additional $25 fee. I hung up and began to tear up. A nice woman was putting gas in her car, "Excuse me, would you by chance be heading toward the square?"

"Yes,"

"Well, I think my boyfriend accidentally took my car keys and I was wondering if you could drop me off..."

She shook her head and apologized, "I've got a child in the car, it's not safe."

"Oh yes, of course," I said, understanding, but feeling completely helpless. Would I have to walk 3 miles in dress shoes and across the highway to get to boyfriend's parents house to ask for help?

And then a police car turned on the street. I mustered my gumption and ran after it.

"Excuse me sir, but my boyfriend took my keys and I was just wondering if there is a local taxi service here in Savannah."

"Your boyfriend took your keys? Are you hurt?"

"Am I hurt? Oh no. NO! I think he must have accidentally picked them up. I'm not white trash or anything." Nice. "I'm not white trash or anything." Very classy, Ann.

"Well, there's no cabs here in Savannah, so get in."

And I did.

The seats in cop cars are very uncomfortable. They're plastic, and that's it. No cushion, no fabric. Just a plastic bucket. And the seat belt (which I couldn't actually get on but didn't worry about since I was already in the police car) has a place to hook the handcuffs to. Cah-razy. And I could see the computer screen telling them all about what disturbance had been called in, and by whom and if they had a record, etc. etc.

The cop continued, "Yeah, we had a cab service but it was all ethnic nationals and you couldn't understand a word they were sayin'."

"I can't understand what you're saying," I wanted to reply, but just say, "Oh yeah, I know."

He blabbered on about somebody's girlfriend being in danger and man, he really didn't trust that guy, and who calls in a 911 call about a dog in the street? it's probably a chihuahua and if you don't want it to bite your dog don't let your kid near it.

Fortunately, there was another guy with him in the front seat who also worked for "the force," and he kept up most of the conversation, since I was still kind of traumatized by the fact that I could see the computer screen and wasn't that sort of a privacy issue?

We pulled up to the theater.

"Yeah, my girlfriend says we should go see something at this theater sometime," policeman number one said.

"I worked the festival yesterday," the other replied, "and when my kid saw the poster for The Grinch, he said he wanted to go."

"It's expensive though. Have to wait til payday."

"Okay, well you can just let me off here," I said, looking out the window at boyfriend's fellow actors wide-eyed at the cop car pulled up to the alley.

"We'll have to let you out," cop one replied and laughed.

"Oh right," I said realizing that pulling on the handle to get out of the car was pointless. Cop two opened my door for me and I stepped out as gracefully as I could. "Thanks again!" I hollered and headed to the theater to find my boyfriend and my keys.

And thank you Savannah. Nothing like a little small town chivalry to get you to the theater on time.

October 12, 2010

I officiated my first funeral when I was 10 years old. It was for my dead cat, Thisbe, who belonged to my parents when they first married eighteen years earlier. He slept on the heater his last few days as we gathered around to pet him and remind him that when you're that old, it's okay to go... Twenty-one years later I officiated my second funeral for my dead uncle who drank himself to sleep alone in a car in the middle of the day in the middle of his life before he had even reached an age that could be described as old.

My two sisters, three neighbors and our other cat Jellicle attended Thisbe's service which began with a procession around the house and grounds with five children dressed in black pulling a red wagon holding a dead cat wrapped in two paper grocery bags and a small black cat lurking behind. At the grave site (an illegal hole in the ground in our back yard alongside the neighbor's fence), I presided over the liturgy to the congregation of four (plus our parents), we lowered Thisbe into the ground, and everyone threw some dirt on top of him before my father finished with the shovel.

My uncle's three teenage children attended his funeral in the hot Arizona desert, and only one of them cried. The other two sat there stone-faced and angry at their lot in life: an alcoholic father and a gene pool of mental illness. There was no procession to the grave sight, only an urn in the middle of some flowers my aunt's friends had purchased that reflected more my aunt's beauty that tried just as hard to wrap around my uncle, but the urn was unsteady and felt just as out of place as he did. A few months later the ashes processed to Missouri where we're all from, but I was back in Arkansas by then and couldn't afford another plane ticket home.

Ambien After Dark

Taking Ambien at night for the purposes of sleep may actually do more than make you sleep. Resident Doctors the world over take ambien to sleep and then later to party with their friends, talking them into taking ambien and then staying awake. Produced from this awakeness is an eerie self-awareness coupled by a distinct feeling of having drunk too much. It's being trashed without being trashed and then not remembering anything in the morning. iPhone videos are often witness to the event the next day when ambiened wakes up.

While I'm not big on using drugs outside of their normal functions, (I prefer to break the 10 mg tablet into two, take the half of it before bed and then go to sleep. Upon occasion though, I will need to change my sheets after taking the sedative. Or i'll realize I've got clothes in the washer that need to be changed over to the dryer. Stuff to do around the house... brush my teeth, feed the dog, put on pajamas that may not have been considered pre-drug-entering-mouth stage. So when this happens, instead of going straight to bed, I putter around the house getting the last things done. But this puttering usually includes bumping into things and see the world swirl around before you when you know you're movin' but not as fast as it. It makes me very self-aware. And very bold too which may be part of the self-awareness. If one used to be bold and courageous and isn't anymore, then perhaps under the ambien induced self-awareness of the need for speed or risk or boldness, then I may say things I would normally catch in the discretion collander. I may do things normally prohibitted by well, good-common sense. Good-common-sense may tell you to "put your keys in the plant outside your house so a friend can find them but common-sense does not tell you to drop the keys on the front porch where they will surely be seen by not only said friend, but anyone else who should happen to wander up to your house that you live in by yourself in the ghetto.

My point is sometimes you do stupid things. But other times, our minds become so keenly open because our bodies are slowing down and no longer distracting us, and we see life as it really is... a mess. It's a slow-moving, whooshy, mess or men and women trying to be something they're not in part because they've never been ambiened and seen what comes out as a result. They can't see that they're playing a game as they concentrate hard not to bump into the couch when they pass it, not to run into that chair's foot as we go by. It's a concentration game of getting though. And that's exactly what life really is. A Game. We're playing a game that no one will see how drugged we are and how easy it is with help. A Game, we're all just tiptoeing around pretending to know what we're doing. When we never do.

Never do.

A Memory of a People in a House

We would be drinking Lonestar. Or maybe white wine. Because it's hot in Arkansas and there was no air conditioning at Carter and Melanie's. But we gathered there anyway to play cards and drink and make fun of one another and generally experience happiness despite the discomfort of the heat, because sweating with friends reminds you of what life should be: a little bit of sweat, a little bit of sweetness (Melanie always picked out the best wine) and friendship spilling over.

Brad would slap the Essence (Gasoline) card face-out on his forehead signaling not just to me but to the whole group that he held the card I needed for my Pan d"Essence predicament rendering me immobile as five or six of us played Mille Bornes. Patrick had found it at a thrift store: an old French card game that I had played as a child in Minnesota, and elated at his find, our group began to play, long into the night, long past the heat of the day, playing, drinking, loving.

That was a long time ago. When Patrick and Summer still lived here; hell, before Patrick even found Summer. There might have even still been carpet on the floor at Carter and Melanie's. That hideous dirt-stained carpet full of Bradi hair and shoe germs and god-only-knows what else. Now there's bamboo flooring, installed by Carter himself, a year or so after we tore out the carpet and then spent a summer ripping up the tile and scraping and scraping and scraping at the black glue still clinging to the concrete below. Long after we gave up.

There's been lots of giving up over the years. I almost gave up until my friends insisted I went to a doctor and they called my mom and told on me. Erin gave up on Brad, and they divorced. And everyone gave up on the hope that Erin would ever not be a bitch. That was before Brandi gave up her life to old age, and I gave up on men.

There was lots of giving in too. Giving in to love. Love love love. Carter and Melanie married at the flooded river, and Patrick and Summer married under a hoopa, and Erin and Brad married but didn't invite me to the wedding.

We gave in to our passions too, and Patrick, Summer, Carter and Melanie all got children out of the act. I became a minister and continued to act on the stage and act like that was who I was supposed to be. Patrick and Summer moved to the Jordan, Melanie finally graduated from school, and all in all we moved on.

I moved to the Eastside, Patrick and Summer moved back from Jordon to Denton, Texas, Brad moved out of the house that Erin kept and eventually moved in with me until he could find another place. Carter and Melanie even moved, for a year, so Melanie could finish school, but they kept that house, that house that we labored in and played in and slept with one another in and loved.

And lots of people moved in and out of our lives. Erin, the bitch, finally left us for good. And Summer's sister Amber moved to Arkansas on a whim. Ginny and Seth and KC and Rob and Allison and Grant and Beatrice: most of them had been there since the beginning, oscillating in and out of that house, drinking the beer and wine, playing a game or two, if only the game of love, and promising to see us soon. More men moved in and out of my life than I could count and most of them I brought over to Carter and Melanie's, and everyone would learn the new name of the new man and pretend to like this one more than the last.

Now they're selling the house. The cost of having a kid and the cost of Carter going back to school has prompted a move to Wimberley and that house - even more central than my own home in our lives - will go on the market tomorrow to be sold at the highest price to the best bidder. And the tears and the laughter and the orgasisms and the graves and the gardens of that house will be sold to a stranger who knows not where they tread. Take off your shoes, I will tell them. Not because it's hot, because the renovated house, in addition to bamboo floors, has AC now, but take off your shoes because you're standing on holy ground, I will tell them. This is where we made memories, this is where we cultuvated the gardens of our souls and found a little bit of ourselves in the grand landscape that is life and also in each other. We found ourselves in each other. That house is holy ground.

Like the ground underneath the Lonestar we poured over my dead cat's grave in the backyard. Like the ground we skid our bikes into a screeching halt upon after biking to the Parlor and back. Like the ground we stomped our cigarettes out in. Like the ground that soaked up our tears of grief and our tears of happiness.

That house is holy ground. And I will miss it.

April 24, 2010

William could have written this about the bluebonnets or the pretty orange flowers that grow or the dainty pink ones that we have in Minnesota too...

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

Today I dropped my mother off at the airport after an eight day stay with me. Thank God she was here. Last Tuesday everything went to hell at work and I'm 10% the poorer financially and God only knows what percent emotionally. At least I still have my job. In between staff meetings and website planning sessions and performances of the play I directed and answering emails and teaching bible study and watching my boss angrily shake his head and wave me off when I started to pray in front of our Wednesday night group realizing only after I said, "Let's pray," that he had something to say to the group in response to our discussion, and I couldn't even think straight or pray properly wondering as I talked to God in front of those 60 people what I had said that had angered my boss and replaying the look he gave me in my head.

I suppose there's something wrong with me spiritually too?

I wander lonely as a cloud over the graveyard where I buried my friend, not quite my mother and not quite my grandmother, but somewhere in between. And I tell her goodbye and that I miss her and that I'm doing my best to keep her lonely husband company. And I cry in my dreams for her and wake up drenched in sweat and have to change my nightgown.

But the scattered flowers strewn across the land as I drove my mother to the airport where she would light into the air and leave me here alone and worried and poorer in so many ways, they are pretty, and natural and no one takes care of them. And I wonder who will take care of me now.

My inward eye fills with tears as it anxiously darts back and forth scanning my soul for some spark of life, some bluebird of happiness, or even a bluebonnet growing where the weed-filled grass has filled the meadow of my heart.

What is important? What can we cling to? How do we create community when we feel so lonely? If we can't take it with us, what do we do with our one wild and precious life now?

I wandered lonely as a cloud. Yes, William, you did. And now I am too...

March 16, 2010

Seriously lady, I gotta go.

I picture a girl with gum in her mouth that she's chomping hard because the gum is crackly and stiff and has been in her jacket pocket for months now. She's escaping a chatty waitress at a diner where she's just downed three cups of coffee.

"Thanks." she mumbles and smooths a couple of wadded up one dollar bills on the table and slides out of the red vinyl booth with the cracked seats.

It's time to go. The waitress just keeps talking.

Seriously though, it's time to say goodbye.

Pack up the goods, give your world a once over and say your good-byes. This world you know is soon to be a memory and it's time for a new adventure. Or at least something new.

January 14, 2010

Something's changing.

I can feel it in my body. No, I'm not pregnant, but my body senses the great change that is coming to the point that I wonder if these shivers and pains and hormones are what an expecting mother feels.

I'm expecting something too but I'm not sure what. It could be a job shift or a new job entirely or a death... I don't know what, but something is coming and it's expectation has not gone unnoticed.

It's unnerving. There's no point in dating. No point in nesting. No point in trying to make new friends now that my old ones are all moving away. Something is coming, something is changing and there's no point in stopping it and no point in making it any harder than it will be.

And it will be hard. That was the first sensation. Around the new year, I didn't feel elated or excited for this new year, but rather apprehension. I knew change was coming and I knew it would be hard. That's all I knew then. I know little more now.

So I sit in my living room at night eating ice cream and wondering what's going on. I can't even get motivated to take down the Christmas lights. Everything seems overwhelming perhaps because nothing will matter soon enough.

I don't know. Like I said. It's making me antsy, but not antsy enough to accomplish anything... except maybe getting a stomach ache.

My acupuncturist says that her patients are all feeling a whirling effect as if we're spinning quickly towards something. She mentioned 2012 and I don't know if she believes in all that or not, for she said it under her breathe as if to escape notice. Perhaps. Maybe the Mayans got it right. It seems highly unlikely, but I do feel that rushing sensation that renders me immobile.

It's pouring down rain right now. That always makes the mood feel more ominous. But, no doubt I'm intuiting something. I just don't know what.