Here’s where the story ends: Heather is one of my best friends. That she and I should remain so close so far down a long and often rocky road is testimony, above all, to her goodness, and her patience.

I was late to the blogging phenomena. Yeah, I was posting journal entries to my site, but I had no idea there was this whole thing burgeoning around me. One evening (a dateless Friday no doubt) I found my way to Fish. I remember two things distinctly:

1) She wrote with terrific voice.
2) I immediately considered applying for the bicycle job (but didn’t).

I have no sense of time, so I have no idea when this was. But shortly thereafter, I posted something about spending the night alone at some bar during one of my tours up in Cambridge, MA, and got an email. “You were so close! We could have had a drink!”

And that’s how it began.

At that point, Fish’s site was anonymous — remember that? She “came out” to me immediately, though, and we began emailing every day and IMing every night. “H!” I’d type. “B!” she’d reply. We’d talk about our days until the typos became frequent and sign off as if we were laying next to each other.

“G’nite, B.”

“G’nite, H.”

What drove the dialogue? Well, I’m a pretty good pen pal. I like the email. I like having friends in Sydney and London, Tampa and Chicago. And honestly, yes, I do have the alterior motive of creating and sustaining an audience for my music.

But with Heather, there was more. We clicked. We flowed. And we flirted …

Tomorrow: Kissing Fish

I just spent $25 on a song. Gladly.

This heartbreaking work of staggering genius, Gary Jules (cover of Tears For Fears) “Mad World” is not available for (legal) download. And so I had to Amazon it.

Do you know the song?

Say you’re en route to Morocco. Say you’ve been living in a new town — maybe it’s even the Biggest City in America — for less than a year. You took the dare. You moved in a heartbeat. You rebuilt everything from scratch. And you succeeded.

Say everything’s moving quickly. You know: traffic, relationships, work. It’s all breakneck. You don’t spend as much time as you might like with Sir Hal. You’re not reading much. You’re all high heels clickity-clackin’ down 86th Street like nobody’s business. Shit’s pretty wack.

God Bless Rocknroll. God Bless the power of one stupid little piano ballad — played on repeat, of course — to calm the nerves.

And then — SNAP! — you’re on a plane. A big one. You wouldn’t know you were moving 600 miles per hour were it not for the roar of the engines. If only you had some Xanax. Mmmmm, that and some chablis, or rose, or whatever.

It’s all so fast! You step off. You breathe. You look around. Everything looks different. Clearer, even. And you carry with you a ballad …

I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
That people turn in circles
It’s a very very mad world
It’s a very very mad world
Enlarging your world…

You step off. You exhale. You smile. You arrive …

You enlarge your world.

Ben: I GOT IT! Want me to guest edit your blog?
Fish: HA! That would be so funny!
Ben: You can leave me a list of topics. I’ll do a good job. I promise.
Fish: Wait, you really want to do it?
Ben: Yeah I’ll totally do it! You could leave me a list of assignments, or I could write boy perspective on subjects in your previous posts.
Fish: Or…stories about the Fish from an outside perspective.

And that’s what we settled on: Stories about This Fish. And Ben has plenty. He’s even promised to behave and be “sweet and fish-like.” And after the list of stories he presented me with made me “awww,” I am ridiculously curious to see the result of my week away. So, I leave you, but not without entertainment and an outside glimpse into an intriguing relationship.

You know that saying about a bird and a fish? Well, try a Musician and a Fish. That shit’s off the hook.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Benjamin Wagner.

When I first began spending evenings working on the book, Sir Hal would express his displeasure at being ignored by acting out. Toys in the water dish, laying down on my keyboard, wrapping his little furry self around my ankles and biting my bare feet. And when those didn’t divert my attention from the glowing computer screen, he’d sit in front of my monitor and stare at me.

“Get down, Hal.”
Stare.
“Down!”
Stare. (Turns out, cats don’t blink. Ever.)

It got old pretty quick.

Now, Hal is a charming guy. And not just as cats go. As creatures go. And in his infinite charm, he found a new way in which to get my attention while I’m plucking away at my keyboard at night. He learned to play fetch. It took me several times to realize it was a deliberate action, dropping the little toy mouse on my foot. Distracted, I’d pick it up and toss it into the next room. Scramble, pounce, trot, plop. There it was on my foot again.

We were playing fetch!

The best part of it was that he started this game last week and hasn’t stopped playing. I wake up with the little mouse on my pillow. It’s on the bathmat when I get out of the shower. Plop, it’s at my feet as I’m making dinner. And I laud His Excellency with praise every single time, like it’s the cleverest thing ever to have happened. Forget that dogs have been doing it since the beginning of time. I thinks it’s damn cute. And it won’t get old nearly as quickly as Sit and Stare.

Not speaking of my cat:

In twenty-four hours, I’ll be at JFK, sitting next to Jen saying, “Can you believe we’re doing this?” I know that’s what I’ll be saying, because that’s been the content of our emails for the last several weeks. I’m still feeling thoroughly unprepared. I did stop playing fetch last night long enough to find my passport. That’s a good thing, right?

I have one of those pouches to foil pickpockets. I have train schedules for Spain and Morocco, and thanks to Jen, reservations in both countries. These are all good things.

I have a notebook to journal in, too, which will have to do as a stand-in for the blog. Jen has forbidden me from blogging on our trip. You’ll feel the detox tremors all the way across the Atlantic, I assure you. Benjamin has volunteered to guest-edit (he promises not to write about his album!). We’re working out those details, but even if this page is blank for a week, promise you won’t forget me?

What happens when Stupid & Fancy™ meets foreign and scary? I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out. Jen and Heather: Morocco 2004.

I find it funny that you can spend your entire adolescence resenting someone with all your teenage powers of resentment (I don’t have to tell you how strong those were. Remember seeing your mom wearing tapered jeans? Remember how annoyed that made you?), only to find, that in your early adulthood, the object of your resentment is the coolest person you know.

My brother and I are close. Like, email twenty-something times a day close. As teenagers, though, we made torturing each other our raison d’etre, which tends to happen when siblings are too close in age. Our circles of friends overlapped as did our class schedules. We fought about everything – whose turn it was to have the car , whose friends were more obnoxious. Who was the biggest waste of human space ever.

My mother used to say that when we grew up, our siblings would be our best friends. We believed that like we believed she lived a drug-free existence in that southern California hippie commune in the 70s. Both, however, turned out to be true. My siblings are amazing. Regarding the other, I think getting stoned would do my mother a world of good, but some things are out of my hands.

So, what suddenly brought all this brotherly love stuff on?

Sometime today, I’ll get a phone call from a police chief asking me to verify that my brother is not only not a criminal, but also a fine, upstanding human being and thus, good cop material. I’ll probably be asked a handful of standard questions, but what I’m really hoping for is an essay section. You know, where I get to tell the Chief all the reasons I used to think my brother was such a bastard and why now, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have looking out for me. That I’ve never met anyone who believes more strongly in fairness than that guy. That he’s smart — phone-a-friend smart. And that I’d totally trust him with a tazer — except maybe around my dog. He never did like my dog.

I thought about making a little outline for my essay, but one of the designers just brought me some Riccola and hot hazelnut milk (he says his mother used to make it for him when he was sick). So, I’m gonna put the essay aside and pamper my sore throat. If the Captain calls in the meantime, I’m not too worried. I can probably wing it.

Sarah B: In my dream last night, one wall of your apartment was the makeup aisle from Duane Reade! You had a lot of L’Oreal lipstick, and you let me come over and try them on. It was really awesome.

Fish: That? Is an awesome dream.

Sarah B: And I don’t even LIKE L’Oreal makeup! But man, yeah. You were living the life.

Fish: I used to have dreams when I was in junior high (and SO uncool, and poor, and badly dressed) that I had this closet full of clothes. Do you KNOW how devastating it was to wake up?!

Sarah B: When I was in middle school, my mom used to tell me about dreams she had where we’d found some cute new way to do my hair, and then we’d try it in real life and it would fail miserably. Somehow even more pathetic and sadmaking.

Fish: Adolescence is a bitch.

Sarah B: COULD NOT PAY ME ENOUGH TO RELIVE IT. Unless it was for like, just one day. No orthodontist appointments that day, though.

I didn’t even have orthodontia and the thought of my early teen years still makes me cringe. Awkward is far too kind of a word for that stage of life, and it is with wonderment that I look back without becoming catatonic from the stress to my system. Hey, it could happen; I get hives when my boss yells at me. And I’d rather get yelled at by my boss nine thousand times a day than spend one second in my seventh grade gym class.

Shudder.

In my feverish delirium, I had a dream that I physically attacked Britney Spears. And it was awesome.

Maybe I’ve been reading just too much Stereogum (if there is such a thing), but my distaste for the fading pop princess finally escalated into violence. You know, right after a bit of flying. From what I remember, Mrs. Federline pulled attitude about being The Talent (I can’t even recall the setting except for white columns and red carpets) and I called her a ‘studio creation.’ Maybe my subconscious really meant Ashlee Simpson, but that would have been a bit of ESP on my part as I hadn’t yet read about her little SNL flummox. Anyway, Brit got in my face, so I clocked her. And it felt great. The end.

More importantly…

I’m going to Spain on Friday. And then Morocco on Monday (or was that Tuesday, Jen?). I haven’t packed, I’m all but broke and I haven’t really even looked for my passport yet. I used to be such a good planner… what gives? There are enough unknowns about this trip to make me more than a bit stressed (do we have reservations in Spain? No. In Morocco? Eh, maybe.) but I’m trying to ignore that. Unknown is what adventure is all about, right? That, and really cool souvenirs.

What can I bring you?*

*Don’t say, ‘a first hand account of being sold into white slavery’ cause that’s what I already promised I’d bring my dad.

I feel guilty wasting a day in bed.

My house guests were up early and out on their travels by 9:00 this morning. I woke when I heard their voices, in hushed laughter making plans to steal away with Sir Hal.

“Didn’t you wonder why I brought such a big bag?”

I stumbled out of bed, squashed those plans and rounded up breakfast. Oatmeal for Elle, yogurt for Emme, and Halls honey lemon cough drops for me. They headed for the elevator and I headed for the medicine cabinet. The digital thermometer said 100. And that was good enough for me to climb back into bed.

I missed brunch with the People Who Sleep with Men, responding to Kate’s text message with, Wish I could. Am sick. Have three mimosas for me. I missed going to a play with Ari. Her “wanna share a cab?” voicemail rocked me from one bizarre, feverish dream. Bless her heart, my good neighbor asked if she could bring me anything. But I’m all stocked up on tea and soup.

Despite my love for deadence, I really do feel guilty wasting a day in bed sucking on Haagen-Dazs sorbet pops, reading and passing in and out of sleep. A low grade fever and a sore throat — I should just swallow a couple of Advil, suck down on a Halls and hit the sidewalk. But I’m getting on a plane at the end of the week, and as bad as I feel about snoozing away a perfectly good Sunday, I’d feel much worse wrecking our Moroccan Adventure.

Alright, I’ve been out of bed long enough to shower, blog and realize I’m out of frozen things to suck on. Back to bed, or run to the grocery store? I think we all know the answer to that question.

“I just wrote the ‘C as in cat,’” I said, staring at the yellow post-it note in total bemusement.
“No you didn’t.”
“Yes. I did. You said, ‘Apartment 5C, as in cat.’ And that is what I wrote down.”

Benjamin had called me at work where I function in, Everything is Literal mode, and where very often, the difference between being right and being fired lies in the accuracy of my note-taking skills. They’re clearly very polished.

Ditz.

Later, after leaving his apartment where very little furniture got arranged (two very different people and one very big problem being decisive), I popped in to Gristedes for some sorbet. I asked for cash back, punched in my pin number, took my receipt, my sorbet and headed home. Up the elevator and inside my apartment, I straightened the kitchen, ordered Italian and… realized, I’d no cash to pay for it. Mmm hmm. I didn’t actually take any of that ‘cash back’ I’d paid for. So back across the street I went. Luckily, they believed my tale and coughed up the cash.

Ditz.

I’m not altogether sure it’s safe to get out of the apartment today. Thankfully, my Boston girlfriends are due in shortly and they can act as safety buffers to the big mean world. They’re chock full of common sense. Which is great — I seemed to have spent mine on cab fare.

J called me this morning. I was walking to work and answered the phone with a “what’s up?” that was as brisk as my pace.

“Why do I always feel like I’m bothering you when I call?”
“Aw, I’m sorry. Maybe that’s just what New York does to you — always in a rush. But no, you’re never a bother.”
“That’s right girl. And don’t you forget it!”

I had to laugh. For a guy whose need for acceptance is greater than his need for say, sleep or oxygen, he puts on a good show. It was always the Great Paradox with him. Cocky Bastard layer on the outside, you-like-my-new-shoes-right? layer on the inside. He’s a self-admitted affirmation junkie.

This morning, he was calling to firm up plans for next weekend. J and his girlfriend are taking my apartment for the first few days of my trip. A cheap vacation for them, a Sir Hal sitter for me. God, I’m brilliant. On top of that, J offered to drive in early to take me and my lovely travel companion to the airport. Even in the midst of all the drama, he was always that generous. I had a bad day at work? He’d make (did you hear me? MAKE) apple pie and drop it by my house. With ice cream. Do gooder!

Speaking of ice cream, I left a pint of vanilla bean over at Ari’s house last night. Too full of pizza and pirouettes and too busy picking on her brother, we didn’t exactly get around to it before I had to call it a night. Guess that means I’ll have to go back for a rematch. How’s 7:30?

The bed of dreams is everything she claimed, by the way, and makes me want to invest in some new, grown-up bedroom furniture. I sunk a couple grand into the living room last year and haven’t felt the nesting instinct quite as strongly since. But seeing that bed… Sigh.

I’m using this weekend to catch up with some friends, and catch up on some writing. I have sixty pages of the novel to turn in on November 15. Take away eight days in Morocco and you have… well, kiddies, just no time at all. I wrote the ending, though, which is a fan-fucking-tastic feeling. Filling in all the guts is painstaking and, well considering the topic and close-to-me nature of the characters, it’s fairly depressing. Thank god it all worked out in real life, or I’d have had to invent a happy ending to save my own sanity.

(Joyce? Stina? You kids rock my face off.)

Oh, and the anger has passed. Like it always does. And I do apologize for being so enigmatic. Yesterday, my desk phone rang,

“I have time, you know. To listen to why you’re angry.”
“Ha! I can’t talk about it here.”

(Two new execs now share what was my office and I, am out in non-privacy land where conversations about the esoteric nature of my rage are somewhat inappropriate.)

“You can’t do that!”
“Oh, yes I can.”
“First that Red Sox bullshit and now this? If all of your readers had your work number, they’d be calling you too.”

I laughed. Snorted, actually. Benjamin spent the better part of the next ten minutes egging me on. The more I laughed, the more heads turned. Man, I miss my office.

“Subtlety is an art,” I think and shake my head. “But that’s okay; you can’t be good at everything.”

We’re not friends, so I could actually say this to her if I wanted to, without severing any cherished ties. Instead, I just sigh and move on to another blog.

***

I woke up angry this morning. So angry that I feel it like something heavy sitting on my chest, and my heart, somehow condensed and hardened, is rattling around under my breastbone. And there’s nothing more uncomfortable than an ill-fitting heart.

I should have woken up feeling completely different. In my head last night, I’d composed a clever post (its title adapted from my favorite childhood book) about a small contingent of The People Who Sleep With Men descending on my apartment for dinner, dirty talk, and baseball. But then I lay down in bed, and my mind jerked awake, snagged on some prickly part of the night’s conversation, and I began stewing.

They say you shouldn’t let the sun go down on your anger. But if you let the sun go down enough times, you begin to forget about your anger, or at least convert it into some other emotion. Perhaps a less productive one like self pity. Or resentment. Tricky though, how evolution yields revolution, and there you are weeks later, come full circle, steeped in anger, screaming at your ceiling two a.m. on a Wednesday night.

***

In the event that this requires clarification: I am not angry at The People Who Sleep with Men. They are nuclear to me, like family. I cherish them in a way that is reciprocal and validating. And solid.

As Jen’s fingers worked through the knots in my stressed shoulders last night, she said loudly, “There’s not a single bit of fat on your back!”

“There’s not a single bit anywhere,” Shiv said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh yes there is,” Kate countered from my mocha-colored club chair. “It’s just all in her ass.”

We roared with wine-fueled laughter. Just like family. Nuclear. Validating. Solid.

“You have us,” someone said once. Was it Biscuit? Or Kate? It doesn’t matter. They’re right. I have them, and not in the sitcomy, NBC Friends way. One of us may have a Chandler job, a Rachel shopping habit, Monica’s OCD way with cleaning. But we don’t wrap up neatly after thirty minutes. We don’t have a coffee shop; we have a pub on a Thursday. And baseball on a Wednesday. And an emergency Stupid and Fancy lunch whenever its needed.

I love them more than breathing.

I’d been waiting all day to say this…

Go Sox!

Real post tomorrow. Pinky swear.

I have just learned that my very first freelance piece has been accepted and is going to run some time next month…

in the NEW YORK TIMES!

Details to follow.

I think I need to go lie down.

I was in bed before 9:30 last night. You’d think I’d be rested.

After her emails had sighed between lines, ‘I need a drink and some friendly company,” I’d met Kate for dinner and a drink at Cedar. It’s a dark and unremarkable bar, but over the last few months, it’s become a retreat of sorts for a handful of us. There’s a table near the front where some patrons lifted Jen into the air on one of the old, wooden chairs. There’s a table dead center of the main aisle, toward the back, where I sat nursing bleeding feet and crying into a borrowed tissue. And a bit to the left, one where Kate and I sat talking about parts and wholes and nervous stomachs.

Like I said, I was in bed before 9:30 last night. But I woke up several times before my alarm annoyed me out of bed at 7:15. I woke once at 10:30, when Sir Hal had (quite loudly) gotten himself stuck in the hall closet. Once at 12:something from frustrating dreams about work. And then again at 3:30, when the pipes began clanging signaling a working boiler. I was awake enough then to make hot chocolate, email my father and read for a bit. Then back to sleep until trip to the bathroom at 5:15 and one a little after 6:30.

This morning, I am bone-tired, shaking my fist at the sky (or fluorescent light covered ceiling), wondering, What’s a girl gotta do to get some real rest?

I totally need to invest in a sensory deprivation chamber.

Braving the chill of my apartment (no, the boiler is still not working), I crawled out of bed earlier than usual this morning. I blinked at my puffy-eyed reflection and asked Sir Hal, who sat yawning in the bathroom sink, “Why am I up this early?”

“Rowwwrrr” he yawned again.
“Oh, yes. You’re right. To get a jump on things at the office before my meeting.”

His Excellency snoozed on the bathmat as I showered, taking advantage of the only warm room in the place. There was no time for tea, so I microwaved oatmeal and made lusty bedroom eyes at my downy bed. Getting a jump on things, or jump back under the comforters?

I traded my big white robe for a red dress and heels. And seam-up-the-back pantyhose. I wrapped up in my warm stripey scarf, tossed some yogurt in my satchel and kissed my furry, yawning friend on the head. It was 7:43. Unprecedented preparedness! I was feeling proud and saucy. I scurried to work, watching glances and thinking, “Oh yes, those seams go ALL the way up.”

At 8:05, making mental notes for my 8:45 meeting, I breezed out of Grand Central Station. At the corner of Vanderbilt and 44th, I ran into my very distracted boss. He looked up from fiddling with his PDA.

“Hey, morning. CEO and I have meetings… so we won’t be around this morning.”

My eyes glossed over. Somewhere in my brain, an Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade voice droned, “You chose poorly.” My face didn’t melt off, but I did have a sudden, very intense longing for those lost fifty-five minutes of warm communion with my bed.

Oh cruel fates. It’s 8:52 now, and the only thing I’ve gotten a jump on is the nasty office coffee and “how was your weekend” gossip. Ah, well. The morning’s not been complete loss. Those seams still go all the way up.

Rowwwwrrr.

Removing pasties is like ripping off a Band-Aid. Only, lots bigger and on really sensitive spots. I am writing this post to avoid that very activity.

Any thoughts I had of returning the Dress flew from my little head the moment Biscuit took his first “oh my god,” inhale, and sadly, reentered it the moment I spilled choclate wedding cake all down the front of yards of designer red whatever-this-is material.

I’m drunk.

And just in from Krissa and Stuart’s wedding party. I cried, I drank sangria, I ate (and ate some more), drank a bit more sangria and finally tottered out the door and home to my cold pizza, warm bed and the prospect of ripping off these pasties. I can’t fucking do it. My vote is for sleeping in them and hoping the shower can steam them off.

On a strange side note: There’s a scar on my left breast from two consecutive biopsies last year. It showed in the Dress. It’s a little difficult not being embarrassed by it even after three or four glasses of sangria — it being significanty pinker now against my post-tan season skin. But you know what? Fuck that noise. It’s my badge of honor. A battle wound. At the very least, somethin’s gotta draw attention to my less-than-ample cleavage, right?

Of course, right.

I’m going to bed. Rock the fuck on.

And blah blah happy forever after blah. I love you kids!

“Alright, squeaky wheel! Turn around.”

I’d complained just enough for Bear to put down his beer and dig his thumbs into the sore spot between my right shoulder blade and my spine. Like any fine massage, it hurt like a Friday morning hangover. But y’know, the good kind of pain. I’m already carrying my shoulder bag on the opposite side, sitting in my ergonomic chair with both feet planted, and avoiding any style of shoe with the word “heel” in it. And yet, we’re on day three of a Zoolander-esque, “I can’t turn left” disability. You know you’re getting old when sleeping wrong turns you into an invalid.

But this wheel is done squeaking.

Last night, if by “I’ll stay for just one” I meant, “I’ll stay for a few glasses of wine, a coupe of cigarettes and just one enormous baked potato” then I am the model of resolve. Sweet baby jesus, I love my friends. We get a little twitchy if we go too long without seeing each other and when we finally reunite, it’s a big old pile of schmoopie.

“No, I missed YOU more.”

You get the picture. Try not to throw up in your throats.

Tomorrow night is the Krissa/Stuart We’re Getting Married Party, at which I intend to officially begin calling the groom by his real name — as opposed to Blah Blah Stuart Blah. While the moniker has a nice comedic ring, it doesn’t seem quite as appropriate to say to his face. It’s like the Russian gal in our office that people refer to as “The Big Girl.” She’s not fat, mind you. Just big. Tall. Sturdy. Formidable in four-inch heels. Anyway, I digress. I am quite excited to meet Krissa’s boyfriend-for-life.

Okay, a bit of housekeeping:

It’s that time again. I need to update my links. If you’re missing from the link list on the right, fire away. I’m totally dedicated to the proposition of getting that list up-to-date. By the way? We’ll be undergoing a slight site re-design soon – in anticipation of some exciting news. So, stay tuned my friends!

I had a horrible nightmare about being in a wheelchair at Planned Parenthood.

And I blame last night’s Presidential debates entirely. Or, at least, the ensuing conversations about the debates. Partial birth abortion, morning after pills and the state of health care for women — put four Thai-food filled girls in front of the TV and listen to the tangents fly. Bush made a joke that we only caught the very end of (“never mind”) because we were busy roaring over the DMA. Perhaps it would have been more interesting if we didn’t all agree on the issues, but probably a little more violent too. I’m all for stopping the violence.

Anyway, back to my dream.

When I finally decided that I’d had enough of the wheelchair, I began flying. That part was not scary. Ordinarily, when I fly in dreams, it’s like swimming. You know, lots of arm motion required. This time, all I had to do was point in the direction I wanted to go, and off I went, sort of floating. It was all very graceful. But the kicker of the Planned Parenthood saga was when I finally got in to see a doctor, she called all my friends into the exam room. I was a bit confused and concerned – I mean, was she at least going to draw the curtain at least before doing her, ahem, doctorly stuff? Turns out, she just wanted to talk — to tell my friends I’d had a rough six months and that I WAS DYING.

Come again? Baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Dying?! Mmm hmmm. At this point, I commanded myself to wake up. And I obeyed.

I woke up at 5 AM, did a quick diagnostic, determined that I was not, indeed, dying. Then, I went to the kitchen and ate some strawberry ice cream. Just in case I was. You know what they say about life being uncertain – eat dessert constantly.

On a dessert-related note, the other night, a well-meaning Benjamin told me I looked bony (I love that men have this way of picking the wrong words – it reminded me very much of an Everybody Loves Raymond episode). I’d just downed a hefty portion of lobster ravioli and chocolate mousse. I’m pretty sure I gave him the “What you talkin’ bout Willis” look in return. So last night, when Jen told me I looked skinny, I had to ask, “In a bad way?” “No,“ she assured me. Sometimes I actually worry that my own body image issues keep me from seeing the correct reflection. But this morning, when I wriggled into my black pants, I sighed. They were snug in the trunk, and a definitely-not-waify size 8. Everything is as it should be.

“…going to be seventy degrees. And last night, the Yankees defeated…”

Snooze!

God bless the snooze button. It’s like the control-alt-delete to my sleepy morning. I’ve already piled a second goose down comforter on my bed (the third will be added sometime in December) and it’s been serving as a nasty motivation killer. Get out of bed? Fuggedaboutit! Face the day or cuddle up in my personal serenity chamber? It took me about forty-five minutes to make the right choice this morning.

I had a quick cuddle with His Excellency, put the kettle on to boil and threw some Dashboard in the shower CD player. Ease into today. Blow dry, big sweater, warm stripey socks, multi-vitamin and extra zinc. I absolutely refuse to go gently into this season’s monster cold. Half the office is sniffling and I’m fairly certain that sleeping with all the windows open last night didn’t help my case.

Speaking of….

The oil/gas problem has been fixed – by shutting off the boiler. Half-assed and temporary until the repairman comes. When I got home yesterday, I sniffed my way up the staircase. The lobby smelled a bit like feet – pretty normal. The second floor like brownies (I have got to make friends with Little Old Lady with Fluffy White Dog). The third, garlicy dinner goodness. And my floor… well, it still smelled a bit like rotten eggs and the oily manifold of our old Chevy. So, while in the dinner process, I put a small pot of water on the stove, threw in whole cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon. From old Chevy to Christmas village, watch me go.

I’m nothing if not resourceful.

Unlike Waiting for Guffman, Waiting to Exhale or even Waiting for Godot, waiting for Con Ed is not the least bit entertaining.

I woke up briefly at 5:40 this morning fighting nausea. I woke up an hour later, reeling. It took me a good three or four minutes to realize that I’d been woken up not by a turning stomach, but by the smell that caused it. Acrid, I think is the appropriate word. Alarmed into awakeness, I tumbled out of bed, threw on sweats and started following my sniffer. Stove? Nope. I’d have to actually use it, I think, to jostle anything loose and cause a gas leak. After opening all the windows, I wandered out into the hall, then did a quick pass around the entire apartment building. By the time I’d climbed the stairs back from the lobby, other sleepy folks were coming out of their apartments.

Skinny Married Guy with Big Dog (Like I know my neighbors’ names — this isn’t Kansas) followed me back to my apartment. He took one step over the threshold and stopped, “God! I thought it was bad in our place. Are you alright?” I shrugged and suggested we wake the Super. He didn’t answer his phone. So we went across the hall and knocked. His wife did answer the door — sporting a hospital bracelet and proof of an IV in her left arm. Turns out, she’d been hospitalized the night before for severe headaches.

Uh, yeah.

The Super’s wife called the management company, I called Con Ed and then we waited. And waited. I got ready for the day with my front door thrown wide, the windows open and ceiling fans going. Sir Hal’s ears were like little Popsicles, but the alternative wasn’t at all appealing.

At one point, I lay down on the floor next to His Excellency. Those science teachers knew their shit when they talked about volume and mass and stuff rising. Funny that. While Hal played in my wet hair, I breathed chilly fresh air. It’s not weird at all that I felt significantly better just knowing my cat was toxin free, right? Whatever. Weird is the new interesting and cool.

Google told me that if it was a gas leak, I was not to play with electricity. What was off must remain off. What was on, should stay on, lest the flipping of a switch cause a spark. I don’t need to tell you that wet hair does not dry very quickly at 50 degrees. But I will anyway ‘cause I’m feeling a little bit complainy. I’m tired and wobbly. My tummy hurts and my head feels like it’s made of granite. And I’m sorta worried about Sir Hal. After waiting a few hours, I eventually had to turn over my keys to the Super’s wife and ask her to call me if His Excellency was in any danger. Then I headed to work.

If the Smell of Doom is not gone by the time I get back this evening, I’m packing Sir Hal up and finding a kitten-friendly location to crash. I can’t take the headache. In my best Arnold voice, I’ll joke that it’s “not a tumor” but if I spend much more time in toxic fumes, it just very well may be.

*** update ***

It’s the boiler. And that’s all I know.

You can tell a lot about a man by the way he moves in traffic, by how he talks about his mother and by how he takes criticism and manages success. You can tell a lot about a woman by the way she moves in a dress and heels, by how she talks about her friends and by how she takes a compliment and manages disappointment.

I believe in grace. I don’t mean the religious kind (I never did feel that God could make up his mind. Are you an angry God? Or are we doing the grace thing today?). I mean, social grace. Superficially, that includes things like using the correct fork, knowing who should exit an elevator first. Saying, “I’m well” rather than, “I’m good.” (Their meanings differing starkly.) Social grace means making other people comfortable — knowing when to leave a room, when to bite your tongue or when to offer praise. Being a good loser and a humble winner (except at Scrabble and/or Trivial Pursuit. Humility not included). Knowing how to listen.

I’m not saying I’m a paragon of virtue and grace. Let’s be real. But rules of behavior (some call it propriety) do become the default setting when all else fails. Well, not always. Sometimes emotion can run industrial strength and the result is what we call ‘a scene.’ But for the most part, even when I’m feeling awkward, out of place or entirely debased, social programming kicks in. But even then, it’s like wearing clear Band-Aids. The hurt gets covered up, but you’re not really fooling anyone who looks closely.

Incidentally, it’s when I lose my grace — when I trip and stumble over life — that I learn about my limits as a person. I’ve actually discovered I have fewer than I thought. Who knew?

If my state of mind were a weather forecast, it’d be fairly consistent. Neurotic with a chance of sane. Over one of our Stupid and Fancy™ lunches last week at Blue Water Grill, Jen and I talked about that very thing. She told me that I wear all my sane on the outside. You’d never know about the insanity clause unless you read my blog. Or got me really drunk. For that, I have to thank (blame?) all that social programming.

Even when you get me really drunk, I’ll still use the correct fork, but I will give up a bit of propriety and let you in on the hurt under the Band-Aid. I mean, you already knew it was there anyway.

I’ve got yoga pants and a wife-beater on my bod, Aretha Franklin’s “Think” on the stereo and I’m gettin’ down with a broom and dustpan.

It is day two of Get it Together Heather, and I’m closing in on clean n’ tidy.

Yesterday, I got up early, sorted and dropped off thirty-six pounds of laundry downstairs at the cleaners. Grace (the girl behind the counter) laughed at me. I shrugged. It was necessary. Towels, duvet covers, summer paraphernalia to get ready for storage.

Ready for some relaxation after moving furniture all morning, I met Kate in the afternoon for coffee (x2), shopping and some un-shopping. I finally returned an errant shoe purchase and contemplated returning the Dress to Bloomingdale’s. It remains hanging on my closet door. I just couldn’t part with it. Back home with my Target purchase (Hanes wife-beaters, which the label insists on calling A Shirts), I finally succeeded in dragging Goldner out to Shaun of the Dead. Belly full of sushi and Twizzlers, I laughed and gagged myself through one fucking hilarious zombie movie. Warning: there are plenty of un-funny parts to that flick, too. I was not totally prepared to be saddened by the killing of the undead.

Aretha’s onto Eleanor Rigby by now… I gotta scoot. I’m meeting Kate and Mike for some park time. And maybe some more un-shopping. Sigh. I’ve got to get a handle on this sporadic buying thing.

Last night I bought a Dress. Dress with a capital D. You know what I’m talking about, ladies.

The sales woman wasn’t sure it was on sale, but I asked her to scan it. The only one on the rack, it was a scarlet beacon in a sea of black and I’d tried on the Dress, had my coworker tie the halter, and stepped back into the four way mirrors. It turned out to be the kind of Dress that makes a girlfriend say, “You have to buy it.”

I didn’t exactly have the money to buy it. But I did anyway.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever have anywhere to wear it. Krissa’s Getting Married Party? It’s the kind of Dress that, were I Krissa, I’d be chanting “Something old, something new. Something borrowed, something RED and really fucking hot.” Were I Jen, I’d make Kevin take me somewhere fabulous and spin me around and show me off. Were I Shiv, I’d wear it with Don’t Fuck With Me boots and let Dom keep me home all evening (rarr). I have nowhere near the décolletage of any of those ladies, but I’m still wearing it. Somewhere. Anywhere. I’ll dress it down with my favorite grey hoodie and sneakers if I have to. But I’m wearing the Dress.

Or taking it back and spending the money on groceries. Which is not nearly as hot.

Gene the Marine has been wounded. I don’t actually know Gene – I spoke to him once when he was at Camp Pendleton awaiting redeployment to Iraq – but when I heard that he’d been hurt, it upset me. When I asked what I could do, Monica said,

“Gene wants to hear from the ladies.”

Fair enough! So ladies, wanna help me make a wounded marine’s day? Start sending the love! A quick note would be lovely. A picture? Worth a thousand words. I hear nothing heals a shrapnel wound like some good old American beauty.

Project Gene the Marine: Supporting our troops by filling their in-boxes.

The long ride back from Brooklyn is magically shortened by caring company. I close my eyes, sigh, and suppose that this is the sort of pause I had been seeking. Or is it fast-forward? It is suspension of some kind.

I have trouble with Time lately. Time spent. Time wasted and lost. Even Time as money. This reminds me.

“I have another late fee at Blockbuster,” I confess with shame.
“But it’s just across the street!”
“I know. In nine days, I can’t cross the damn street to return a DVD. I can’t even get that right.”
“Awwww…”

I sound pathetic. The train rocks and I close my eyes again. My glasses dig into the bridge of my nose — I’d take them off , but I’m supposed to wear them when my eyes feel tired. After a long Tuesday, they are tired. I won’t admit to anyone that even when I am wearing them, I don’t look through them. Over, under. Never through.

“Well, even if you can’t get your life together, at least you get to be pretty.”

At this, I laugh. One of those Bette Davis laughs that sounds icy, if not a little bit cruel.

Ice melts and puddles as my hair is petted, stroked along with tonight’s unusually fragile ego. I love touch. I read an article once in the Reader’s Digest about orphan babies, who, though fed and sheltered, when deprived of human affection, turned their faces to the wall and died. In my classic sensitivity towards such issues, I cried for hours after I’d read it — and every time after that I thought about it. Like my friend Sarah does on the subject of elephants.

When the slow train from Brooklyn finally jolts into the station, we say our good-byes. We exchange “I love you”s as we head to meet our separate train connections. I also love “I love you”. No one says it enough. We get afraid of its potential to mean too much, forgetting how much hearing it (much less saying it) matters.

An “I love you” and a kiss – it’s like getting tucked in for the night, right there on the subway’s Uptown platform. Like closing a prayer with ‘amen,’ it seems a wholly appropriate way to close a day.