Once upon a time, long before I’d discovered cleavage or cynicism, or the fickleness of love, I had a song.

I grew up in rural America where nature’s soundtrack came with lyrics. And on summer evenings, the Meadowlark sang,

Heather’s a pretty little girl!

I know this because my mother sang along.

Sharp and shrill, my song could be heard on repeat, chirping from every tree and telephone wire in Meadowlark Estates as it followed us along on our walks at dusk.

Heather’s a pretty little girl!

After dinner one evening, Summer and I sat on the concrete steps in front of my house eating popsicles and listening to our mothers plan the much-anticipated annual backpacking trip. Sticky popsicle juice ran down our wrists, the sun dipped in the sky and I heard my song come on somewhere in the alfalfa field across the street.

Summer grinned as her mother Teri looked up from the lawn and sang,

Summer’s a pretty little girl!

Nearly twenty years later, while watching one of the many musicians I’d become involved with, a girlfriend would lean over to me and whisper, “Which one of these songs is about you?” I would plant a smile on my face, square my shoulders and answer, “None,” as though it would be ridiculous to think otherwise.

But once upon a time, before pride would force me to cry a few quick tears over my disappointment in the bathroom stall of a seedy bar, and before it occurred to me envy Cecilia or Uptown Christie Brinkley, or the object of some silly drummer’s ballad, I threw a rather public fit.

I sent my Popsicle flying to the grass and was in turn sent to my room to ‘adjust my attitude.’ Staring at my Holly Hobbie wallpaper, listening to my song being sung by the meadowlark who couldn’t make up his mind, I eventually decided I could share my song with Summer.

But only because I had to if I wanted out of my room.

I never did fully accept that every pretty little girl had the same song. Though I did concede that being less special was, overall, a bit better than sulking alone in your room, staring at the walls.

“If I had known it was going to be casual….”

I’d answered the door wearing a fuchsia tank top and low-rise jeans. My mother stood there in a suit and heels, a hand pressed to the lapel of her jacket.

“No, no. I’m just not ready yet,” I lied.

So as she sat down to check her email, I scurried into the bathroom and dug out my cosmetics case. Make-up free was not going to fly tonight. The night before, I’d stayed in, communed with my couch, volume IV of Nip/Tuck and some cheap Chinese takeout. As I wound my hair into a bun and touched up my eyeliner, I started to feel a little irritated. Such fuss. For dinner. With the woman who used to wipe my snotty nose.

I wanted my pj’s and an unhealthy dose of MSG.

I quickly changed into heels and a wrap and when I emerged from the bedroom, my mother looked much less on edge. A little fuss goes a long way on the Mom Comfort Meter.

We had a nice walk, dinner in three courses on the West Side and polite conversation avoiding any touchy subjects. I sipped at my mango martini. She drained a glass of wine. We ate perfectly cooked steak and triple chocolate mousse and laughed about easier times.

I know I have a short fuse with my mother, or more accurately, a very small tolerance for our differences. I don’t wear it well; it’s pouty and unattractive. I felt badly for having been so irritated over something as simple as getting a bit dressed up for dinner.

Before she left, we sat in my living room, Sir Hal draped on my lap purring as he played with my earrings.

“He adores you,” she said, running her fingers over his tuxedo black fur.

“Sometimes I think he only loves me because I feed him.”

“Sometimes, I think the same thing of my children.”

She laughed, winked at me and gathered her things to leave. At the door, she kissed me on the nose, like she has since I was very small and said goodnight. As she headed back to her hotel, I headed into the bathroom to wash my face. Sir Hal sat beside me on the sink, purring and swatting at my hair.

I filled Hal’s food dish and headed to bed with His Excellency at my heels. I thought about what my mother had said, and was pretty sure she and I both knew it wasn’t true.

I’m being plagiarized!

Dear Plagiarist,

Two thousand people read my website every day. Two thousand people will now know you did not write, “Is that a Hickey.”

If you continue to try passing my writing off as yours, very bad things will happen. Take it down RIGHT now. I will not be nice about this.

Fuck you very much,

H

“You still laugh like a maniac.”

His voice sounds just as far away as it always has, even though now it’s coming from 30th and Lex.

“Of course I do. Did you think the East Coast had somehow… subdued me?”

“You never know. A lot can change in three years.”

I change the subject; we talk about subway rats. He has no idea just how much can change in three years.

G and I met at Stone Cold Sober University, when I was leading a Stone Cold Sober life. And now? Well, not so much. With Ex College Love being in town (and Ex College Love being as decidedly Mormon as I am decidedly ex-Mormon), I’ve had to stop myself at least a dozen from suggesting we “grab a drink and catch up.”

Grab a drink? How soon I forget. I might as well just suggest we visit an opium den or have sex in the bathroom of the New York Public library.

So while I’m racking my brain of things to do with him while he’s in town, I haven’t so much compiled a list of things to do, as a list of things I’m not to do. Commandment style.

Thou shalt not say the Fuck word.
Thou shalt not use innuendo.
Thou shalt not refer to any hilarious stories of drunken debauchery.
Thou shalt not make repeated mocking references to the baby jesus.
Thou shalt not begin any sentence with, “My gay husband…”

I’ll stop there. Only so much self-restraint a girl can manage and still feel at all entertaining. I mean, it’s not as though I am Jezebel in heels, but compared to my wholesomeness of yesteryears? First class tart!

Did I mention my mother is in town, too? Sigh. At least she’s used to me saying the Fuck word.

We looked like a J Crew ad or the backdrop for some bubblegum pop music video.

Words like felicity were invented for those kinds of moments. Sun, sand, and a bit of wind in our sails. Two girls, hair blowing around our faces, white beach clothes standing out against our sun kissed skin, dancing — a white sheet billowing up in the wind between our hands. Caught up in the moment, we twirled and spun and danced, our heads thrown back, laughing the way we do when no one’s watching.

People were watching, though.

Because you have to admit, that was pretty hot.

Dear Whomever is Responsible for the Giving of Skin Cancer,

I put sunscreen on. I did. LOADS. You can ask my friends — they saw me. They even HELPED me put it in those not so easily reached spots. I applied. I reapplied after frolicking in the water. And now, as I’m radiating enough heat to power my own little substation, I would just like to say that should you feel inclined to take this out on me later, I’m going to be

very
put
out.

Much fear and trepidation,

H

Before I left the office, the lady from accounting told me I looked pale and insisted I put lipstick on my cheeks. Fake color, she said. I rubbed some TenderHeart into the apples of my cheeks.

“Better?”
“Aye. Dios mio, hija. I hope you do not have a date tonight.”
I laughed. Miriam likes to think I am the office jezebel.

Later, Goldner met me in the elevator bank at the MTV. He told me I looked exhausted. Clearly, the lipstick had not helped. I retrieved my Discman from Ben (I’m always leaving something) and then headed back out to the street. Somewhere between Broadway and Fifth, a street vendor hollered at me from his cart.

“I hate to see a pretty girl so sad!”

Me, too, buddy.

I decided I was probably in need of some liquid refreshment and opted to stop in at the Duane Reade below my office on 44th. I swung the door open, waved at the clerk who shares my love for Lindor Truffles, grabbed a Diet Coke and headed to the cash register. The cool air from the vents hit my face and I reeled. My ears filled with cotton and everything got black.

It happened just that fast.

It lasted only a few seconds, but it caused quite a stir. You have to love New Yorkers — all hustle and bustle, too busy to be bothered, but hand them a stranger with a vertigo problem and they’re suddenly rabid do-gooders.

The man who would later hail me a cab asked me if I was okay. “Fine,” I said. “I’m fine.” I suppose that might have been more convincing if I wasn’t bawling like a six year old. Most of my friends have never seen me cry (save for movie tears) and yet, in the middle of strangers I was giving it my all. Shoulders shaking, alligator tears. If the fainting was embarrassing, the crying after was pure mortification. I was so embarrassed I couldn’t even look at the man’s face. Thus, I admired his black shoes as he helped me up and into a cab, despite protests from Duane Reade’s finest who insisted I wait for a paramedic.

That’s the story of how I fainted at the Duane Reade and how New York picked me up and sent me home safely. And except for a small cut on my forehead and a bruised wrist I’m fine. My ego will recover, too.

I just fainted at the Duane Reade on Fifth Avenue.

When I came to, a man with expensive shoes hailed me a cab. I cried all the way home. If the baby jesus and I were still on good terms, I’d be inclined to take the matter up with him. But as it stands, I think I’ll just go lie down.

And fuck what the movies say, people. You fall forward when you faint.

Last night, I saw Scary Spice, drank a red headed slut and kissed a girl. There’s photographic proof of at least one of those two of the three.

More later. I got shit to do, kids. So um, brb?

Biscuit came with the wine, Kevin, the Pirate Booty, and Jen with the blanket just big enough for four tushies. Emmylou Harris & Patty Griffin came with the rockin’ country tunes and I… came with a headache.

The weather held out nicely (despite weather.com’s promise that it was going to rain), and excepting the mosquitoes and Crazy Man with a Megaphone, Central Park, Summer Stage and thick skinned, laugh-a-minute pals were the perfect cure for what ailed me. Or mostly.

The rest of what ails me should be gone in two to six weeks.

When my new insurance kicked in, I popped in at Doctor Ruth’s (yes, it’s really her name) to renew my birth control prescription. While talking, I mentioned I’d been having trouble with headaches — persistent, nagging headaches for the last two weeks of every month.

“Hmmm,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Fatigue, too?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else out of the ordinary?”
“I don’t know if it’s related…”
“You won’t until you tell me, will you?” Doctor Ruth is an in-your-face kinda lady. I dig her.
“Dizzy spells. Anxiety attacks. Depressive moods that keep me in my apartment for entire weekends. Skin sensitivity. Oh, and I’ve had my period for the last thirteen days. But I thought that was just stress.”

It warrants mentioning that I thought it all was just stress. Or that I was falling apart. I know my body pretty well — really well, actually. My cycle functioned with well-timed, to-the-hour sort of predictability until a couple months ago. Then things sort of went haywire in that department, as well as others.

“Are you on {insert name of pill here}.”
“Yes! How did you know?”
“You’re experiencing what 70% of women who take it experience within the first six months. Bad combination of hormones. We’ll switch and you’ll be fine.”

It was that easy. Switch and I’ll be fine.

After Doctor Ruth went on to lecture me about my navel ring (they get infected!), waxing, and not taking multi-vitamins, I went home to do a little research on the birth control pill. I discovered that this pill, which my old doctor was so very anxious to put me on, has been recalled three times since 2000. Shocker. There’s a big ole class action lawsuit against its maker, too. While part of me feels like jumping on that wagon, the other part of me is just too worn out.

Maybe I’ll feel up to it in two to six weeks.

I seem to wear melancholy the way some women do a new pair of high-priced shoes.

At first, I may try waiting for you to notice the way it hangs uncomfortably on me, glancing at it from time to time, hoping my over-attention will alert you to its presence. I may. It won’t be long, though, before I drop all pretense and simply announce,

Hey, I’m sporting a bit of sadness today, and I dare you to ignore it.

And today, I’m sporting a bit of sadness. The spot in my chest that’s meant to house my heart has shrunk just enough to make things uncomfortable. Or maybe it’s grown, and things are rattling around in there. Maybe that’s what’s disconcerting.

From time to time I get what I like to call unfan mail. That’s when you know you have some influence on the big old Internet — when strangers make up names and create email addresses simply to tell you just why they hate you. I got some of that this morning.

If it was attention they were seeking, they’re getting it now — their message somehow not having been one I could ignore. Or laugh about. Or send to all my friends to mock all the ways that basic grammar has evaded the masses. The writing was succinct, grammatically correct and properly punctuated. And oozing with venom.

Poison before you’ve had a proper breakfast is always a bad idea.

Lately, in an attempt to be more… conscientious, I’ve been writing down everything I spend. I already keep a balanced checkbook (it’s called online banking), and I figured the next step would be to know not only how much I’m spending, but where. The results have been interesting. Here’s what I’ve learned:

I spend as much money on late fees at Blockbuster as I do on coffee.
I shouldn’t be allowed to carry large amounts of cash. This leads to impulse spending.
I don’t necessarily get more bang for my buck drinking in Brooklyn.
If you’re spending the afternoon with Sarah Brown, you will add margaritas to your list of expenditures. You just will. Budget for it.
I spend more money on food related items each month than I do on shoes. While, this is probably how it should be, I’d like to see what happens if I reverse that.
While Lean Cuisine is terribly middle America (you’re absolutely right, darling), it cuts lunchtime spending in half. HALF. I’m thinking, shoe money.
I need to turn either my air conditioner or my computer off. Seriously, one of the two has to go. I’m paying tuition for the children of Con Ed employees. I just know it.
Even thinking about Morocco is expensive. And so very worth it.
While itemizing expenditures, jotting down Toys in Babeland – $25 makes me giggle.

I knew that living in New York would be more expensive than Boston. But I didn’t take into account that most of that would be due to the fact that spending temptation here is simply unparalleled. Forget that everything costs just a bit more… it actually calls out to you in sultry voices, enticing you to partake as you pass by.

It’s pocketbook seduction. And I’ve never really been one resisting temptation.

Among the things that please Sir Hal:

Anything that makes an obscene amount of noise at 5 o’clock in the morning.
Q-tips.
Running water.
Licking the eyebrows of his unsuspecting victims.
A well-planned sneak attack.

Among the things that annoy Sir Hal:

Getting caught.

When I turned twenty-six last month, I was aware that a big chapter in my life was coming to a close. Twenty-five had been a monumental year. My mother said once that I have always been twenty-five. Five going on twenty-five, sixteen going on twenty-five.

It is no wonder to me, then, that in many ways I found myself at this age. I found my writing voice, a new place in a new city. I even found (and lost) love, in various forms. Andmost importantly, I found myself and what it means to be me.

In re-reading some old entries, I decided to put together a list of some of the more defining posts of my twenty-fifth year. Twenty-five of them to be exact. Here they are:

On Love, Sex & Dating
Neverland
Maybe I was thinking of Bocce
In these Borrowed Clothes
Hypothetically Speaking
A Letter to Love
Azure & Coincidence

On Moving to New York
Benchmark
You Wish You’d Thought of it Sooner
Fish in the City
If the Shoes Fit
Fresh Eyes and a Sweet Face

On Writing
I Blog
A Lady Always Knows When to Leave
The Bastard on the Couch
Why I’ll Never Be a Novelist
Evolution of a Fish

On Being Me
I
People Who Need People
Just Your Average Morning
In These Shoes
In my Imperfection
Incongruent

On Feeling
Cooking for Two
Sometimes the Night
Still Night

“I appreciate your sense of order,” he said. I had to laugh.

I’d just given Ben a haircut, and as he reached for one of the towels hanging on the rack, I had stopped him.

“Why don’t I get you a non-white towel, huh?” And I had laughed at his response because it was completely lacking in sarcasm or mockery — which is usually what follows one of my minor Monica Gellar moments.

I am particular, it’s true. Tease me about my closet and its ROYGBIV rainbow arrangement and I won’t care. I also appreciate my sense of order. I happen to like structure.

But for the last little while, circumstances being what they are, my apartment has been following the universe’s natural law of increasing disorder. And when I walked through the door yesterday evening, dropping my bag in the hall, my stomach gave an unpleasant lurch.

“We seem to be experiencing a bit of entropy here, Cat,” I said. “What’re we gonna do about it?”

I started with the junk mail, then moved to the dishes. I re-hung the clothes that were draped over a chair. I vacuumed scant traces of kitten fur off the couch, mopped the bathroom floor, refolded and rehung those decorative white towels. I went around the apartment gathering books. Brooklyn Noir at the bedside, Helen Fielding’s latest on the ottoman, Michener’s Iberia on the edge of the tub.

Nothing is ever dirty, but lately, everything just seems… out of order.

I’ve always maintained that the state of my apartment will give you an enormous insight into the general state of my life. The empty fridge will tell you that I’m broke. The forgotten snack foods in the cupboard will tell you I’m too antsy to eat anyway. Clutter, in all of its forms will tell you, in absolutely no uncertain terms, that I’m cluttered in my brain. That I’m stressed out.

So last night, I paid the bills. I made lists, bought groceries, and made decisions. I’m going to start cooking again and writing on a schedule. Planning for Morocco. And most importantly, I’m going to start giving myself a break once in a while.

I could stand to learn a lesson or two about appreciating my sense of disorder as well.

I made brownies last night. Yes, me. I baked. It happens sometimes. Did I tell you that I got a letter from Con Ed wondering if something was wrong with the meter because I hadn’t used a single bit of gas in two full months? It’s nice that they worry.

I brought the product of my Betty Crocker moment to work today, less as a gift to my favorite coworkers, and more as a strategic move to get them out of my house. I got my fix last night. And again for breakfast this morning.

My eyes are a bit puffy right now, the result of absolute exhaustion. And of all the things I could wish for at this exact moment – money, power, a twenty-four inch waistline – I want nothing more than a really good cup of coffee. Actually, make that: The Perfect Cup of Coffee. You know what I’m talking about. Rich. Warm. Sweet. The first swallow that makes you sigh deeply and roll your eyes into the back of your head in total bliss. I’m tempted to take my little fantasy one step further and think about drinking my Perfect Cup of Coffee in bed, tangled up in the sheets with the New York Times crossword puzzle. Hot, right?

What is desire? Coffee, you bitches. Not underwear from Victoria’s Secret. That I got.

Speaking of desire: I’d really like to re-caulk my tub this weekend, too. It would make me deliriously happy. As I’m somewhat capable in the arena of home repair, is this a Do-It-Myself possibility or should I leave it to the professionals?

It’s not a pride thing.

While I have no problem spilling my life’s woes to my good friend The Internet, it’s a different story when it comes to the living, breathing relationships. I’ll refrain from the melodrama of saying ‘I don’t want to be a burden,’ but to some extent, that’s true.

You see, I have a very real fear of becoming that friend. You know, the high maintenance one who always has some problem or another? Like the restored Chevy you drove in high school that broke down every time the wind blew from a certain direction. As much as you loved the old beast, there came a point where it just wasn’t worth all the efforts and cost of repairs.

Yeah, yeah, people are not cars, I know. But still.

I’d rather slip quietly out of bed to spend an entire night sick on your bathroom floor and have you none the wiser. You need your sleep. I’d rather promise I’m fine, use too many exclamation points in our late night instant messages and avoid the conversation in which I admit I’m more than a bit overwhelmed. But why? Do I really think that at some point, you’re all going to throw up your hands and say, “Man, being friends with her is a real pain in the ass. Do I know anyone who has more issues than she does?”

Yes, maybe I do.

It’s an unfounded fear. I know that. I am the luckiest girl alive when it comes to supportive friends. To date, not a single friend has run away, cut bait or abandoned ship when I selectively expose the most un-glamorous parts of me. No one’s treated me as broken or looked as though they’re afraid it’s contagious and that they might ‘catch crazy.’ And I have absolutely no reason to believe that they ever would.

But still.

“He looks good.”

My brother phones with an update on the way home from seeing Dad in the… place. The hospital? If I talk about it, I’ll call it the Looney Bin or the Nut House and I’ll probably offend someone. But that’s what Dad would call it. The Funny Farm.

“They’re keeping him until at least Friday.”

We don’t use the C-word. Maybe my brother does, but I block it out. I don’t hear it. I don’t even say it later when Ari and I are watching Everybody Loves Raymond reruns and eating Chips-A-Hoy.

“So, what happened?”

“Nobody knows. My brother just got a message when he returned from backpacking that said, ‘This is where I am. Here is the phone number.’ No explanation, really.”

“But don’t you have to… I mean, to be committed…” She says the C-word timidly. “… don’t you have to be a harm to yourself or others?”

I slide down on her leather sofa and cringe. The most danger my father ever was to others was spinning donuts in the icy parking lot in our old silver Buick, We Three hollering in the backseat, delighted and terrified. But my imagination panics with all the ways he could have been a harm to himself.

I go home and throw up again.

I came into work this morning and opened an email from my brother which very calmly announced that my father is in a psych ward in some VA hospital out west.

It was 8:00 so I gathered up my things. I took a detour at the ladies’ room, puked my guts out, got a drink of water and went to my Monday morning meeting.

To think, just yesterday I deleted all my spam email about valium. Silly me.

What happened here in apartment 4D early this afternoon was, for lack of a better word, bizarre.

I’d woken up early and plunked myself down in front of the computer to do some trip research. Jen and I are going to Morocco — it’s all but impossible to contain our excitement.

So one minute I’m fantasizing about head scarves and adventures (what happens in Morocco, stays in Morocco), and the next, I find myself bawling in the shower. It was a short burst of crying, followed by waves of anxiety that had me climbing the walls of my suddenly asphyxiating, small apartment.

I’d let myself think about going to work tomorrow. Big mistake.

Hoping for relief, I took myself down to the park on the river and stayed until I burned. I’ve never so badly in my life wanted to stop a complete stranger and say “Tell me that moving to New York wasn’t one really big, awful mistake.”

I retreated back to my apartment, crawled on the couch and willed myself to get ready and go to Brooklyn. I had plans. But I couldn’t make myself get up, conceal those nasty eye circles, put on clothes that matched. Instead, I ate comfort food. I took a nap. I talked to Elle on the phone. Someone had to bring me back to rational. Someone who understood and wouldn’t tell me to suck it up.

She didn’t tell me I hadn’t made one really big awful mistake moving to New York. But she did remind me why I came in the first place. That call, and a nap later and I’m much closer to feeling like myself again.

Many heartfelt sorries to my dearest, whose play I missed this afternoon. I hear you were wonderful.

Overheard at the office:

Employee #1: You have a gigantic hickey on your neck.
Employee #2: It’s not a hickey… It’s a bite mark.
Employee #1: Is there a difference?

Is there a difference? Shame for even asking! Yes, there’s a difference. And I’ll explain and enlighten since, you know, I’ve got nothing real to write about today.

Hickeys suck:

There are several ways to get a hickey. Anything that sucks will do the trick. A vacuum hose, even a coffee mug that you’ve sucked to your chin will leave such a mark. Though, clearly the preferred method is suction from another person’s mouth. A visible hickey is, like acne, an adolescent marker. To quote an experienced friend, it is “a concerted effort to brand one another” and is for teenagers fumbling around in back seats of their parent’s cars. Hickeys are soggy and require something of a time investment — quite a bit of sucking goes into a decently sized neck marker.

Bite me!

Precursor to a kiss, a little nip in the heat of passion may leave the same tell-tale bruising as the aforementioned hickey, but bite marks are a different beast entirely. Biting is not kids’ stuff. It’s sweaty, heady, a little pain-with-your-pleasure, I-want-to-devour-you stuff. It’s quick and surprising and very worth the investment of a good, all-purpose silk scarf if concealment becomes necessary. Besides, the same scarf may come in handy for other things. Like wrists.

And with that, I’m going to go take a nice, long walk and think pure thoughts.

It couldn’t rightly be called Girl’s Night out, what with Biscuit being on the invite list and all. And so it was that The People Who Sleep with Men took Brooklyn by storm (and stiletto) last night. We started off at Buttermilk where we got glittered and added The Kate’s number to our cell phones. Then the seven of us tottered off to catch the Smith Family show at the Royale bar.

In the red glow of Royale’s harem-like setting, we quickly shifted into Rockabilly mode. We slapped our knees, tapped our feet, yee-hawed and took pictures. Lots of pictures. And that’s when Biscuit and I got engaged. If it somehow ends up that photographing well together does not amount to a good reason to get married, we’ll call it off. But until then, we remain giddy over the prospect of seeing our announcement in the New York Times.

I suppose I would learn my lesson about staying out until 3AM on a school night if it didn’t always turn out to be so darn fun.

Adrian is going to Ibiza.
Benjamin is going to Australia.
C is going to Hilton Head.

And I? I’m just going crazy. Stir crazy.

My ‘maybe in the spring’ plans with Elle to go to Italy are not making it any easier to deal with the fact that I haven’t had a real vacation is a very, very long time. Maybe in the spring? Spring is ages away and I’m already about three stops away from Crazytown on the express train!

I become eligible for parole vacation sometime this fall. At which point, my recent windfall (currently slotted for a savings account) will be plunked down, my suitcase filled up and I’ll be off like a pair of pink flip flops on a white sand beach.

That being decided, I’m not likely to get a lot of work done today. Daydreaming tends to take up most of my brain power.

There are dozens of photographs of us from that summer — looking like giddy lovers in a rowboat in Sevilla, fighting over a drippy candle on a night tour of Salamanca, prancing like fools in a fountain at the palace in Córdoba.

We argued playfully in that spicy foreign tongue – flirtation’s flimsy guise.
“¡Que no!”
“¡Que si, mujer!”
“Cuídate, guapeton. ¡Te doy!”

He left gifts for me in my shoulder bag, wrapped in sheets of Madrid’s daily newspaper – a local artist’s CD, pressed poppies, a lizard. The lizard turned out to be a stowaway from Altamira, but I gave Sean credit. And he gave me a piggy back ride when my sandals hurt. Who climbs a mountain in heels, mujer?

In a packed bull arena one scalding night in late June, Ricky Martin stopped mid-song and called out to us from the stage. In a sea of pulsing bodies, tall, conspicuously-American Sean wouldn’t dance.

“Why aren’t you dancing? Everyone else is Dancing.”
“Me falta el ritmo.” I lack rhythm.
“I feel sorry for your compañera. But we’ll give you another chance. I’m going to try this again, and perhaps she can help you find your rhythm?”

The crowd cheered and the song (and Ricky’s gyrating hips) began again. I moved up closer, and from behind, placed one hand on his left hip, the other on his chest. “Así, cuñado.”

Cuñado. Translated literally, it means brother-in-law, but it functions as a term of endearment — a fond, yet sterile one. But to no one’s surprise that night, the electricity between my hand and his chest contradicted my language as well as our chummy kinship.

The following afternoon, we moved quietly through our weekly art seminar in the Prado, the two of us eventually ducking out of another long lecture on Velázquez to one of the cooler, less crowded exhibits on the floor below. We stood shoulder to shoulder in front of Goya’s Black Paintings making small talk.

“You’re invited to cena on Saturday.” My host mother was in love with Sean and he was a regular dinner guest.

He turned, touched my elbow and I remember electric shocks ran down my fingers.

“Mandona,” he said (mandona, the bossy one) “Me encantas.”
You enchant me.
“Igual.”
Ditto. I answered without looking at him.

He shouldered my bag as he always did, and we left through the museum’s rear entrance, disappearing into the botanical gardens. We stayed for the better part of the afternoon.

There are no pictures of what happened next.

On the way home from last night’s Tribal activities in Brooklyn, I stopped at Gristede’s for something frozen. I was melting.

While nothing screams, SINGLE like a late night Hagen Daas purchase, I don’t usually mind. I do single like Michael Jackson does crazy — with gusto. So I flounced down the aisle in my sweater set and summer skirt (having a new appreciation for my calves, which Krissa has deemed nice and curvy), snagged some cookie-dough ice cream, and headed toward the register.

That’s when I saw him.

My last thought, after he looked up and smiled at me and just before I lost all cognitive abilities was, “Holy shit, I forgot they made them like that.”

Tall, tan, sparkly blue eyes, wavy brown hair and damn if that white t-shirt didn’t fit like a dream. I undizzied myself for the forty-five seconds it took to pay for my ice cream. He’d finished paying, too. Our brief encounter at the automatic door produced nothing more than his “Have a good night” to which I responded…

Absolutely nothing.

He smelled like sunscreen and clean laundry, two scents which shall now register on my list of aphrodisiacs (right up there with regular Trident and warm vanilla). I smiled, which may have seemed coy (one can only hope), but the truth was, I was speechless – all butterflies and libido. Seconds later when we’d left the store, he went left and I froggered my way across the street — the two of us headed in separate directions supposed to happen in these kinds of encounters.

As I fumbled with my key in the gate, I thought again, “Holy shit, I forgot they made them like that.”

It was a fucking fantastic reminder that they do.