I’ve been standing in our media library, eyes glued to the enormous flat-screen tv, immersed in the Reagan memorial.

Maybe because he was the first president I was really aware of, and before I was bitter about politics, I’ve always seen him as a good guy. A gentle man and a gentleman. Jelly beans and love letters to Nancy, the Ronald Reagan years seem like sort of a fabled, happier time when the wall was going to come down and we were optimistic.

I was ten, so that’s probably got something to do with it, too.

Nonetheless, I had goosbumps watching his casket being carried into the Reagan Library. Being so very familiar with that building and with what the man meant personally to those I worked with at the Monkey Firm, I can’t help but feel like it’s my own loss. Even if it’s just a tiny one.

By the way, enormous glasses aside, Nancy looked great.

On Saturday night, a friend came in from Boston to buy me a drink. We sat in a dim, pub-like establishment talking about old times and current events. I had news. Like harboring a secret lover or concealing a hidden body piercing or interesting scar, a piece of good news only gets better when you share it with the right person.

I was glad that my visitor wasn’t surprised at my news, or how happy I seemed about life in general at present. It was just the affirmation I needed. I’d been feeling selfish about taking so much time to myself, focusing so much on me, but also feeling really in love with having my shit together.

“We have to do this again soon,” I said. “But I’m not coming to Boston.”
“No. Don’t. This place looks good on you.”

We embraced, and then I went home to compose an email to my dad I’d been avoiding, and hoped it would be received with the intent in which it was written. I wasn’t sure that if, in setting some greatly-needed boundaries, I was opening up a new can of worms, or closing up old wounds.

Being a grown-up is bittersweet.

Dear James & Julie,

You blow my mind with your coolness. Thank you.

Love,

H

Thank god for telemarketers.

Or at least, thank god for the one that called this morning at 8:30 and woke me up from the This Fish Buys a Violin dream.

It was beautiful. The violin, I mean. There was a small roomful of people waiting for me to play it for them. As I put my fingers to the strings, and tucked it under my chin, it occurred to me that I had not budgeted for such a purchase. Realizing that my rent check had not yet cleared and that I could not afford the violin, I panicked.

I didn’t play a single note on the beautiful new instrument. Instead, I looked at my brother who was seated across the room and said, “I have to take it back! I don’t have any money!” I was embarrassed and worried.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll go with you.”

I ran to the next room, fired up my computer to check my finances on-line. As I suspected, the situation was desperate. I had to fix it.

Then the phone rang. And I didn’t have to fix anything. Phew!

I did, however, have to phone in my birth control prescription.

Now, I’m actually quite strapped for cash in reality until payday, due to doctors’ bills from The Pain that Would Never End. And until July, I am still sans health insurance. So when I asked the pharmacist what the cost would be out-of-pocket, I almost lost my mind. Impossible! It was ten bucks with insurance. Ten bucks!

Multiply that by…well, let’s just say several times…and that’s what I paid.

Birth control is not an optional expense. I mean, the emotional horrors of going off and back on it alone are enough to warrant the cash. So, I paid it. Then I went to the grocery store and bargain shopped my way into next week’s food.

And now, I’m officially broke. Scary broke. Can’t-buy-coffee broke. Have-to-ration-cat-food broke. Really, really, really, incredibly broke.

It’s like being in college all over again.

“Hey.” The voice at the other end did not sound like the girl with the migraine I’d been emailing with earlier.
“Hi, how are you feeling?”
“I would love to meet you on the corner and see what flavors they have at TCBY! Thanks for asking!”

I laughed. I do have the best ideas.

Five minutes later, I met my perky, much-improved neighbor in front of the Duane Reade. I was decked out in workout clothes, and we were headed for dessert. I appreciated the irony.

“This is some sort of Jerry Springer moment,” I said. “Here I am, walking down the street with my tummy poking out, eating. Unsightly.”

“Nah. Not trailer park enough for Jerry Springer. Maybe The View? Nah, they’re old and dowdy. Who’s young and hot? Craig Kilborn? Maybe you’re having a Craig Kilborn moment.”

“Not only have you missed my point entirely, you’ve confused me. Which is excellent.”

We talked nonsense all the way to the park, where we sat on a bench facing the river and dished, until the sounds coming from a few benches down became more interesting that our conversation.

“I thought at first someone was dying,” Ari said. “But I think it’s just really bad singing.”

We decided to investigate. Sure enough, it was singing. A disheveled blonde woman, reclining with her feet on one of the benches, was butchering a Sarah McLachlan song. “I’ve fallen, I have sunk so low…” completely oblivious to gawking passers-by.

“What do you think?” I asked. “Drunk? High? Just plain crazy?”
“Crazy.”
“Mmm. I agree. Wonder what did it.”
“She’s probably dating.”

I laughed one of those deep-from-the-belly laughs. Because it was probably true.

It’s no secret that I can be what you might call… highly excitable. Prone to exaggeration. Dramatic.

An annoying breakout, and I’m suddenly suffering from leprosy and sending my girlfriends invitations to visit me at the leper colony on whichever Hawaiian island it was that served such a purpose back in the day. Molokai?

Last week, a canker sore was most certainly syphilis.

“It hurts! I am going to die in exile on Elba like Napoleon in syphillic lunacy. I just know it.”

Krissa was not so sure. “You are SO much prettier than Napoleon. And, I think, taller. I don’t think you’ll die in syphillic lunacy on Elba.”

“I hope not. Unless they have wireless internet. And then it wouldn’t be so bad.”

“I bet they do. And This Syphillic Fish does have a ring to it…”

So, my point is, it’s pretty much in character for me to make a big to-do over something not so big. But my sister? She does almost exactly the opposite. Her shtick is downplay.

Once upon a time, my sister moved to the Middle of Nowhere Arkansas, lived in a barn and became an elephant trainer to rehabilitate pachyderms that had been mistreated by their previous captors. Those animals couldn’t go back to the wild, for obvious reasons, and they were either physically sick or just genuinely pissed off. Fast forward to a couple days ago, in not so Middle of Nowhere California where she’s continuing this effort and… one of her elephants loses her shit and gores her coworker.

“I had a little bit of a bad day at work,” the email began. “Patrick got a tusk through the stomach today…”

You can read the rest on the AP Wire.

There are a few people with whom I share one of those ET/Elliot connections. The glowing finger, the drunken kiss in a classroom full of frogs. That sorta thing. My sister is one of those people. And I am pretty sure she needs more than just a little sleep. This, “Hey, I saw one of my really good friends get run through right in front of me today, so I’m gonna take a nap” is code for, “Do I have to go back to work? Ever?”

I’m betting she feels responsible. I’m betting she’s scared and just a wee bit fucked up.

I’d so much rather have leprosy or syphilis than have to deal with her version of a bad day at work.

I have a stunning inability to buy a toothbrush that will fit in the ceramic holder in my bathroom.

(Not that it has anything to do with anything. It’s just hella annoying. I also lose my keys at least twice a day. That’s annoying too, but I am quite accustomed to it. It only irritates other people now.)

I switched out Sheryl Crow this morning for disc one of Aretha’s Thirty Greatest. Somewhere between Second and Third Avenues, a big ole smile crossed my face. A bar called Siberia. The coldest night of the year. I wore a black leather jacket, belted R-E-S-P-E-C-T with Brian, and then we disco-twirled.

Later, somewhere underground between 59th Street and Grand Central Station, another song, and another feeling entirely. That Aretha… who knew she could get a girl all hot n’ bothered? Seriously, some of those songs are just anthems for a good romp in the hay.

I sobered up fairly quickly, though, just now when I got to work and read an email from my sister. You know, one of those emails you read twice, the second time with your hand over your mouth, thinking, “Oh. My. God.”

What time is it in San Francisco? 6 AM? I’m waiting to call. The email specifically said she really needed some sleep.

My tummy feels funny.

“There is just too much of you to love,” I told myself this morning, standing in front of the mirror, poking at the pudge around my middle. It was still early enough, so I re-hung my bath towel, pulled on a pair of yoga pants and grabbed my kicks from the hall closet.

“I’ll be back in a bit,” I told Sir Halitosis. “And stay out of the bath tub.” His Excellency responded with a quick pounce and then retreated to his stronghold in the living room. Fort Halitosis, otherwise known as duvet cover draped across a wooden drying rack, would be torn down as soon as I got back. The white cotton cover was dry and the sneak attacks were getting a little too aggressive.

I slipped the gate key into my sock and went for a run. Okay, a jog. Maybe more of a lope. But semantics aside, I went for some sort of heart-rate raising activity along the East River in this morning’s drizzle.

Funny how a nice run will drive home how much you really do prefer yoga.

I cut my run a bit short, and solemnly swore to pull out the yoga mat after work. I confessed that I wasn’t quite as bendy as I used to be and I hadn’t seen my triceps in a little while, so yoga it would be.

Forty minutes later, I climbed the stairs back to my apartment to find Hal asleep on my bed, his still-too-long limbs wrapped around three foil balls I’d made for him the day before. “Dude, you’re so damn cute,” I said. I smothered his little black head with kisses, ditched my damp running clothes and headed for the bathroom.

I ate breakfast in the shower. I do this a lot. Weird as it may be, it saves time. The conditioner has to sit for a good minute, and if I don’t feel like shaving my legs, it’s the perfect time to get in some yogurt. As a sort of side note: I eat a lot of yogurt. Two, sometimes three a day. I figure I’m doing my part to fight Osteoporosis. And Charlie Horses. And, well, other not-so-pleasant things that live active cultures are supposed to combat.

I brushed my teeth in the shower, too. I read somewhere that Toni Braxton admitted to doing it, so maybe that’s less weird than the yogurt bit. The teeth-brushing thing wasn’t so much about saving time today, as it was the fact that my shower keeps some damn fine water pressure and I wasn’t quite ready to separate myself.

I did eventually, though, and got ready for the day. I dragged myself to work, spending the whole subway ride thinking, “You’ve really got to come up with something to write about, you lazy girl.”

But what? Nothing exciting was going on.

It was just your average morning.

Laundry.
Morning coffee by the river.
Getting in touch with some latent cosmetology skills.
Moving the furniture*.
An afternoon catching sun in Central Park.

Phil Collins’s Easy Lover stuck in my head.

Naptime with Sir Halitosis.
Early dinner.
A late movie.
Hilarious drunken voicemails.

*Figurately speaking.

Raaawr.

I’m showered, dressed, and in a half hour or so, I’ll actually be leaving my apartment.

Finally.

Okay, so I did take two mini-trips out to the street today. Even made it all the way to Third Ave before it all became too cumbersome and I had to come back.

First the nightmare of weirdness, then the worrying.

I’m crossing my fingers that this is just some freak hormonal mishap, and that I have spent my day feeling like something, somewhere, has gone terribly wrong as a strange, strange exercise in futility. I fidgeted, I paced, I made phone calls and when that became too much of an effort, I slept. I spent the afternoon as a shut-in of sorts, mentally kicking myself for wasting such a gorgeous day (but it was windy though, right? I’d have hated the wind) and really great hair.

I even cried at the end of Stuck on You. If that doesn’t deserve a big What the Fuck, I don’t know what does.

Seriously, folks? It was torture.

I’ll be the last girl to advocate blaming spastic behavior on hormones, but maybe just this once, I’ll take one for the team. Because short of that, I really have no explanation. Unless something terrible did happen and no one’s told me?

This Fish needs a Xanax.

Bad, BAD night’s sleep.

Having been up since 6AM in cold sweats, I had to wait until a reasonable hour to call someone to figure out why a dream involving a dirt pit and alphabet soup has me terrified.

Who has ridiculous nightmares that turn out to be supressed memories from their childhood? Me.

I will most likely never eat alphabet soup again. Okay, maybe I will. But I am sure as hell staying away from pits of any kind.

Moving to New York has been a bit like reliving my adolescence. I mean this in more specific terms than just the simple fact that my adolescence was all about moving. Four schools in five years, I wasn’t in any sort of permanent situation until I was almost 15.

I feel like in the last two months that I’ve been here, I have revisited a lot of the same phenomenon that accompanied any adolescence, whether you were a modern nomad or you’d lived in the same neighborhood your entire life.

Very much like my teen years, my new situation has been all about establishing – establishing who I am, working out an identity that complements my personality and trying on different attitudes the way I’d try on different swim suits before finding one that left me confident enough not to hide behind board shorts or a sarong. It’s been about establishing my peer group (only this time around, much less about fitting in and more about simply joining in). It’s been about discovering and testing my limits, and the limits I allow other people.

It’s been about setting and pushing my own agenda. And maybe pushing too hard or in the wrong direction. There are lessons to be learned.

Perhaps because I have been so caught up in what would (in your average, already-functional social construct) be considered peripheral, my pursuits and activities seem a bit flighty or, as one of yesterday’s commenter criticized, too happy and shallow.

Happy is a bad thing?

I am going to preface my response to that with a bit of back story: When I was a teenager, and excited about something silly (like being invited to Jennifer Lammert’s house for my first real friend activity in a new city), and gushed about it at the dining room table that night, my mother would prop her elbows up on the table, lean her head to one side and say, “Et alors?” That is to say, “So what?”

My excitement was almost as intolerable as my later-developed outward apathy.

Here I am, ten years later, caught up in a whirlwind of new playmates, new experiences and, above all else, new happiness. And if, as one reader asked, I have taken anything from my past to apply to my future, it is this:

There is no fucking “et alors” to being happy or excited.

Taking life less seriously is youthful. Taking it for granted? That’s just childish.

We covered five months in fifty minutes over burritos at 42nd Street’s Metro Café.

“Work? Boys? Living in New York? Go!” And when I left lunch with Miss Sarah B to head back to my office, I wanted to give the world a giant hug. Sarah is just a laugh a minute. Oklahoma must still be weeping from their loss!

Additionally, if you happen to have Sarah’s cell phone number and have not yet heard her voicemail, do something to remedy that. It’s worth a really big grin. I was so tempted to press 2 and leave a message about dinosaurs. But I’m really no expert on the subject.

In other news, it turns out I have been living a lie.

Mmm hmm. After all these years of having stated firmly to the contrary, it turns out that… I do indeed like sushi. Not only do I like it, but I just may just fight you for the last piece.

Three years ago when Mike took me to try my first sushi, I put on a brave face, opened my mind and forged ahead. And gagged. Something about the kelp was just not cool and I figured: I tried it like a brave soldier, and don’t ever have to do it again.

That is unless your dinner partner is really fucking worn out and clearly has his heart set on sushi. In which case you say, “Know what? You order something for me, and I will eat it.”

Hey, Mikey, I liked it!

There’s clearly a difference between sushi and good sushi. And here I thought it was all just a little bit fishy.

I came home from Astoria last night feeling all but totally healed from yesterday’s minor funk.

The boys were no-shows, and I do believe a toast went round the table when we discovered this was the case — not because they aren’t totally integral parts of a Tribe gathering, but because there was something really great in discovering we’d landed ourselves in the middle of a few hours of unfettered Girl Time. Four girls, two bottles of wine, assorted cheeses and sweet sopraseta, the conversation was giddy, sweet, funny (maybe a little catty) and most importantly, ever so healing.

Something I’ve decided: I feel completely free to have any number of unsuccessful romantic relationships as long as I choose my girlfriends wisely. Oh yes, so that smacks of Sex and the City a little bit, but on some level it’s true.

Seriously, you’re rocking the jackpot when you have girls who will listen to your Too Much Information spiel, withhold any sort of comment that resembles, “oooh, you shoulda been smarter,” and then lean across the table, cigarette torches blazing, and say,

“You? Are fucking fabulous.”

I hate to sound like a cheesy MasterCard commercial, but that is priceless.

Almost as priceless as the moment the table realizes that you are the one single girl there. Or when you realize you’re also the drunkest one there, by stumbling into the kitchen stove.

Drunk on a Tuesday, talkin’ about totally taboo, inappropriate subjects. My mother would be so proud.

Would you eat the worm from the tequila, or would you give it a name, personality, and life-story?
Actually, neither. See, if the worm were alive and kicking, I may have to give it a name or even a place to sleep before giving it a ride to an alcohol treatment facility. But it’s dead, so my obligations are nonexistent. But swallowing it? That’s just crazy talk.

Boxers or briefs?
Boxer briefs. Duh.

How to defeat the passive aggressive nature of mom?
I had thought the answer to that lay somewhere in being more assertive. Funny how assertive starts with ‘ass’ which is exactly what I feel like every time I attempt it.

Would you say that you are entirely over J? And if you are, how long did that take? Is there one thing that helped you get over him?
Oh, yes. Absolutely. It took cutting him out completely for what, six months? Maybe more. And it took letting myself really hate his guts. Fuck being so understanding all the time — I really had to hate him. Time, perspective, and overall, the realization that he was human and flawed, and that my own expectations were somewhat naïve and idealistic, were key to letting go of some really bad feelings. And now, I can count on him for anything. J was bad relationship boot camp, in a way. Good training for real thick skin when it comes to those ‘Cake and Eat it Too®’ boys.

What’s with all the people you know being in law enforcement? And did they pass or finish their classes yet? And did you and your brother decide where you were going to vacation or was that last summer?
First, do I really know that many folks in law enforcement? I do believe that graduation is in two weeks and that actually RIGHT NOW he’s taking his final exam. And we aren’t going anywhere. He is going to Puerto Rico on an adventure with other folks. I am vacation day deficient.
Also: Do you listen to the radio in NYC and if so, what station? And what’s playing on your walkman these days?
I never listen to the radio, unless it’s waking up to NPR or some other talk. In my Discman, on her fifth consecutive day, is Sheryl Crow (the Best of). Something about her music is speaking to my current mood.

Favorite hot dog condiment?
Mustard. You can’t eat a hot dog without mustard. Maybe you can, but I’d advise against it.

Whatever happened to blogging your conversations with Inner Goddess? I miss her. She had some sass.
Good question. The Inner Goddess and I get along much better lately (though, today would be a very notable exception), so we have less to argue about. She disappeared roughly around the time I stopped willingly putting myself in ridiculous situations with J. Coincidence? I think not. I do apologize if you think I’ve traded a certain degree of introspection and self-regulation for shoe shopping. It is harder to write with much substance when you live among your audience, and moving to New York has complicated that to an overwhelming degree. The less anonymous I become here, the less inclined I am to air my personal dirty laundry. I’ve had some bad experience with that.

Aside from a bicycle, what does this fish want from life? I know it sounds corny, but where is this fish swimming to? Hopes? Dreams? When you close your eyes and imagine yourself at 30, what do you see? At 40? How has your past influenced what you want your future to be?
I think this has been one of my favorite/ most difficult questions so far. Because an honest girl would go ahead and fess up that for the last year or so, she’s not been too sure she’d know what to do with a bike. That for the most part, love has sort of taken on mythical status. Both as being loveable myself and being able to really love someone else.
But aside from that, I want to get off my ass and write a real book. Though I’ve been feeling like what I’m best at, has already reached market saturation. At 30, I hope I will be comfortable BEING 30 and not worry about being single (if I am) or getting old. At 40, if I’ve missed my opportunity to have a family, let’s just say that would be a real shame. The last part of the question will have to wait for another day.

I caught my reflection in the door of a subway car this morning and thought, “Oh, no… I do not make that face!” Something between a scowl and a pout, I’ve seen it on my mother’s face loads of times and always treated it as a warning sign of sorts. Flashing lights, yellow police tape. Do not enter. What was behind that face you rarely wanted to know.

What’s behind mine today is either too complicated or too embarassingly simple to get into. And my head’s sort of an omelet right now, only half cooked.

So, take this down time as a Q&A session. I can’t come up with anything clever to say, but if you got some questions or feel like giving me the what for, may as well make use of today’s rather blank space.

I spent the summer of my 19th year house-sitting for my best friend’s family. Ordinarily, Texans do not “summer” away from home, but that year, the family decided to pick up and stay with relatives in a more mild climate and leave their 4-story Victorian and extensive grounds under my care. What they were thinking, who can say.

I was thrilled.

In exchange for a six week stay in the party house of teenage dreams, I was expected to kept the yards watered, clean the pool and make sure the fully-stocked fridge was emptied of fresh produce.

It was the summer of ninety-something consecutive days without rain. It was hot. And even though I was less than enthusiastic about roaming the yards moving sprinklers, slapping fire ants off my bare ankles, I was diligent. And while most of the homes in the historic neighborhood were wilting, except for a few brown spots in the lawn, my yard was thriving.

Then Toby, with whom I’d entertained flirtations for the last couple years of high school, began to take it upon himself to keep me company on those hot, sticky nights. We spent hours on the trampoline, the sprinkler on underneath, soaking our clothes. We cleaned the pool with regularity, the dark and a high, honeysuckle-lined fence providing ample camouflage for late evening skinny-dipping. We emptied the fridge — fresh cilantro in our pico de gallo and strawberry shortcake — while reclining on white wicker furniture on the wrap-around porch.

Needless to say, he was a bit of a distraction.

And one night, very near the end of my stay, we made the rounds in the yard, checking soak hoses and sprinklers when Toby and I discovered, that I had left one running. For more than a few weeks. The Magnolia tree in the corner of the yard, for which the entire street was named, was standing in a swamp, its roots exposed and rotting. We removed the hose and crossed our fingers. Sure enough, the next few days of hundred-degree heat dried up the swamp and the homeowners were none the wiser. But by the end of the summer, the century old tree had toppled.

I made a full confession, contrite and apologetic, and was freely forgiven – they’d been wanting rid of it for ages. Even so, I still feel pretty damn guilty for my foray into accidental herbicide.

But last night as I was sitting in my muggy apartment, taking a wee trip down memory lane, I had to admit that killing the Magnolia was a small price to pay for some pretty hot summer memories.

The day started out so well. Who knew it could only get better?

And walking home 30 blocks with seven pounds of gourmet cheese strapped to my back? Not even the high point. I totally saw my very first episode of Sopranos.

Among other things.

When sleeping in was a commodity in the early days of summer vacation, my mother used to wake us up early. The garden needed attention.

She’d throw the pink swiss dot curtains wide open, and I’d whine and roll over on my white metal daybed trying to block out the sun. I didn’t get it. Why was she soooo happy to be awake when she didn’t have to be? And singing?

Her two favorites were Oh What a Beautiful Morning from Oklahoma! and Good Morning, from Singing in the Rain.

Oh what a beautiful morning
Oh what a beautiful day
I’ve got a glorious feeling
Everything’s going my way

And this morning, when the first bit of sunshine was peeking in my windows and I was done sleeping, I totally got it. I didn’t sing, because I don’t know all the words anymore. But I hummed. And then went to the park to watch morning happen on the East River.

“If you change your mind, I’ll be up for hours.”
“Mmm… Too late, I’ve already taken the sleeping pills”
“Ah, so you’re having your very own Karen Carpenter moment.”
“Truly. Okay, so I’m gonna go wash my face and lay down…”
“Damn it.”
“What?”
“Now I think I have to go listen to my Carpenter’s CD.”

After I hung up the phone with Ari, I lowered all the blinds (to preempt any morning sun), washed my face and crawled into bed. I was in dire need of a real sleep.

I woke up this morning, some 12 hours later, a little disoriented and foggy. But once the haze wore off, crazy ambition took over. The laundry is sorted and ready to go. The bathroom is clean and Sir Halitosis, rid of his razor sharp claws. He’s laying in the corner sulking, and I have the sense he’s hatching some evil kitten plot to hide the claw trimmers. My furniture, on the other hand, let out a sigh of relief.

Now it’s off to the Laundromat. And the park for some freckling. And Barnes & Noble for a new read.

And then maybe to Blockbuster to rent the Karen Carpenter Story.

My tongue is electric pink from this morning’s overdose on berry-flavored Tums. Binge-eating leftover ethnic food on a stomach full of vodka ended up not being a really super terrific great idea.

Who knew?

What was really super terrific great was the Tribe-tastic gathering for last night’s show.

Shiv was amazing, of course, and for most of her performance, I just had to sit back and grin at my deliciously talented new friend.

Bright Sweater Guy (Casey Shea) was also fairly fantastic and gave me the giggles over something I can’t even remember now. He had digits on his hand, I had a camera in mine and we laughed and laughed about….who really knows what. It’s all very foggy.

BDubs wrapped it up with some of my favorites and, as promised, sing-along-worthy covers. Singing along to Leavin’ on a Jet Plane, my head on Shiv’s knee, Krissa’s curly head on my shoulder and a scruffy-faced Biscuit within reach, I was pretty well contented. All cozy and happy and totally wishing there had been a campfire involved.

Then there was vodka.

I got my shoe stuck in a subway grate. I stole Jonathan’s celery. I learned I am a good sport and a lousy photographer. I told Jason that he looked like an artsy Eddie Munster. And I was on-the-floor shocked when a stranger friend of a friend whom I’d never met (better?) walked a gazillion blocks to see me home safely.

Really super terrific great night.

This feeling in my stomach that we shall henceforth refer to as, The Burning Like the Fires of Hell?

Not so much.

the best thing about getting home WAY too late on a school night is: the left over Pad Thai in your fridge, only after the nicest thing ever to come out of MTV purposefully missing his stop and walking you all the way home. And then fraternizing with your cat.

Dude, if you give me your mother’s phone number, I’ll totally call to thank her. That was above and beyond.

I want to be fair about this, because like most things, it’s a whole hell of a lot more complicated than a quick blog entry on a Thursday morning.

I love my mother. Make no mistake. She worked very hard to raise me well. But having not had a very good example to follow (my grandmother is a bit cold and crazy), the warm fuzzies of motherhood didn’t exactly come as second nature. I don’t know if saying the Universe had been unfair to my parents in the early part of their marriage justifies any of the things that went on in my house growing up, but suffice it to say, things did not turn out the way my mother had imagined, and she may have been resentful.

As children, we grew up with the understanding that my father was not good enough for my mother. She came from money; he did not. You get the idea. She nagged – mostly about his weight, she complained, and my father, an equally tragic character, made it his life goal to please her. In our house, we were bombarded with the notion that being an overweight person made you unworthy of love. This originated with my grandparents — a whole story in itself. It is no wonder, then, that three of the five siblings did not make it out of high school without serious eating disorders; the other two, obsessive-compulsive tendencies toward academic perfection. We all felt the same sort of pressure to be good enough. Did she mean for it to be that way? Of course not. She’s not cruel. She’s human. She made mistakes. But those mistakes do explain why I have a very difficult time relating to her.

In high school, she was constantly trying to get me to diet. She’d pinch my side and ask if I wanted to try the new {insert fad weight loss program here} diet. Looking back, I’d kill for the figure I had at 17, and I wonder, and not without undeniable anger, why that wasn’t okay with her.

My hair was too straight. Too long. Don’t you think maybe you should do something with it? We were in the car. I was 18. And I became furious. I remember shouting, taking up the small space with years of pent-up frustration. Why am I not good enough for you?! She pinched her lips together and we drove home in silence. If I remember correctly, she apologized in the driveway.

One night, I came down the stairs dressed for a dance and my father looked up from the paper. “Don’t we have the prettiest daughters?” My mother, doing leg-lifts near the fireplace, looked up briefly and countered, “At least they’re smart.”

I grew up understanding that my mother didn’t like my father. In my teen years, I became fairly convinced that she didn’t like me. Whether this is true or not, remains an open topic of conversation with my siblings.

Things changed. I went to college, grew up, became more patient and more compassionate — compassion being something I lacked nearly completely up until that point. My mother grew up, too. She let up on us kids, heaping praise where criticism had been. And in a sense, she also let up on my father. She divorced him.

These days, she tells me she admires me. My courage for taking leaps that took me from McKinney to Manhattan. My physical beauty. My talent. And my reaction is to be angry.

Why now? Why now am I good enough? I’ve been the same person all along!

And it’s all but impossible to fight the feeling that when I do see her, something won’t be good enough. I still haven’t done anything with my hair. I’ve got a love handle and big hips. Will she politely smile through dinner, all the while wondering why I’m not just having a salad?

Probably not. But that doesn’t mean I won’t feel like she is.

I haven’t seen my mother in two years.

(Whether or not this makes me a bad person is not really up for discussion at this point.)

Yesterday afternoon my mother called to tell me that she will be in NYC for business next month, and would like to spend the weekend together.

Hmmm. Let me check my calendar.

I now have exactly one month to lose 20 pounds, get a haircut, and alter my sinful lifestyle so that it appears I am not on the fast track to dying alone with my cat.

Totally doable.

Days like today aren’t as rare as they should be.

It started out just fine. Up willfully before 6:30 for some playtime with Sir Halitosis. A tangerine Popsicle for breakfast on the way to the train. Comfortable walking shoes. But by the time I hit the lobby doors, everything went… off.

Over the course of the next few hours, I tipped over the water cooler in the office kitchen, ticked off an executive vice president, and because of a forgetful mind and procrastination, missed out on tickets to a lecture I’d absolutely had my heart set on.

I know: they seem like little things. But some times the little things can be a really big deal.

It wasn’t my biorhythms; those turned out to be okay, according to Biscuit. So I did a quick diagnostic check. It wasn’t the who, the what, or the where of my day. It wasn’t anything I could pinpoint. Something was just off. So I decided I was going to do whatever it took to put it back on.

When I finally left work, I traded my sleek Ann Taylor calf skin slides for a pair of borrowed, too-big flip-flops and walked home, mostly through Central Park. I smiled at babies. I returned errant Frisbees. I sat perfectly still on a bench for twenty minutes and just breathed. And you know what happened? Not a goddamn thing.

If mother fucking nature couldn’t fix my funk, what could?

I stopped at the paint store. I sucked the hard candy shells off peanut M&Ms. And somewhere in the middle of therapeutic flirting, I excused myself and came home. I realized I was fighting the Universe for a losing cause. To quote the divine Ms. Sheryl Crow — in a completely out-of-context sort of way —

So what if right now everything’s wrong?

Get over yourself and your bad day! Go home, take a bath, put on something scandalous and take yourself to bed. Put an end to it already!

Today may have had no reset button, but there is one guarantee: I get to get up and do it all again tomorrow. You know, barring any unforseen nocturnal disasters. And I’ll try to think of that as comforting because, really… it’s all I’ve got.

The M&Ms have been gone for hours.