Tim once told me I was a “punishing woman.” You’ll have to take my word for it that, at the time (I believe I had a fistful of his hair), he meant it as a compliment. I don’t think he meant it in exactly that way later on, though..

The night before he flew from Dallas to New York to stay with me, my phone lit up with a flurry of text messages, most of which bordered on scandalous. There was even the suggestion (his, incidentally) that we do it right there in the baggage claim. You know, raise a few eyebrows. Possibly get arrested.

But as exciting as all that sounded, it was not to be.

He arrived drunk. And not just airplane liquor tipsy. Drunk. Unshowered and reeking of the previous night’s adventures in booze and cigarettes, he stood at the baggage carousel, looking miserable. I wasn’t feeling much better. It was an auspicious beginning to a weekend I’d anticipated spending scantily (if at all) clad… and not smelling like a hobo. Determined to salvage things, I sent him straight to the shower the minute we got home. We were having dinner at Grimaldi’s later, and I wasn’t taking him anywhere like that.

He emerged from the bathroom a half hour later wearing make up.

“I found your eyeliner.”

“I can see that.”

I was tempted to tell him that Jared Leto hadn’t been hot since the Jordan Catalano days, and that mimicking him now was just bad form, but before I could say a word, he disappeared back into the bathroom… to straighten his hair. Such fanciness, I thought, for walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. Still, I held onto a bit of hope that things would improve.

They didn’t. He spent the entire four-day weekend falling-down drunk, and I spent it feeling like Peg Bundy. For a fuckation, there sure wasn’t much sex going on. And what there was of that, was hardly recognizable. I mean, I’ve heard of a quickie, but the speed at which he pawed (and I do mean pawing. They’re attached, son. Might wanna be careful with those.) his way through it was ridiculous. And after we were done? Back to the booze.

I’d gone to a lot of trouble to make plans, take him to music venues that he’d like. I even wasted my Natural History Museum make-out on him.

“She’s mad at me,” he told his friends when we met them for brunch the morning he left.

“I’m glad you picked up on that,” I said, wishing the waiter would bring the damn coffee. I hate to be a pouter, but seriously, no one puts baby in a corner and no one makes me feel like Peg Bundy. I wasn’t pouting. I was pissed.

“Why? I came to see you.”

“No,” I said finally. “You came to see the bottom of a pint glass. And I hear they have those back home.”

His friends laughed and teased him about not earning his keep, but I’m not sure he heard them through his hangover.

I know I should try to have some compassion – he obviously has a serious drinking problem – but when he left, that drunk bastard packed my favorite black cashmere sweater. And after everything else? Well, I was plum out of good feelings. One day, when finally he gets to that all-important step of his 12 step program, I better get an apology and a damn gift card. I don’t care what your excuse. You don’t fuck with a girl’s best sweater.

Rick* makes a lousy first impression. This friend-of-a-friend makes a fairly terrible second impression, as well, and by the third time I ran into him, my powers of politeness were so faded that even a nod-and-smile combo put a strain on my soul. And most likely my kidneys. They’re always the first to go.

Anyway, on Saturday night, I joined my friend on the patio of a local bar and saw Rick at the end of the table, being irritating and loud, per usual. I nodded in his direction and then spent the rest of the evening paying no attention to him. Because I truly believe in the saying, If you can’t say anything nice, you’d better be good and drunk. And I wasn’t.

When a girl joined Rick later in the evening, it caused a bit of a stir. Evidently, she was his new girlfriend.

“What?” The two girls to my left looked confused. I prodded until one spoke up.

“It’s just… that’s not the way he described her to me. At all.”

“Oh?” My friend and I asked, simultaneously. Our curiosities were piqued.

“Well, he said she was… not very pretty and… chunky.”

It was the gasp heard round the world. My friend and I looked at each other, mouths hanging open. The girl sitting next to Rick was neither unpretty nor chunky. She was… normal. And she had enviable skin and a nice rack.

“Who says things like that?” I asked, appalled. Well, obviously, Rick does. About the girl he’s seeing. The girl who takes pity on him and lets him see her naked. I frowned into my beer and shook my head.

I have dated men that I knew my friends wouldn’t consider attractive. Once, I was head over heels for a five-foot-three, skinny fella… who made me laugh until my face and sides hurt. When asked, “Ooh, what’s he like?” my answer was, “He’s really funny; you’ll love him.” And they did.

If you’re dating someone — if you like them enough to be dating them — you shouldn’t even consider telling your friends they’re unattractive. Unless you’re an asshole. Unless you’re Rick.

Every woman I’ve told this story to has gotten deeply offended on behalf of Rick’s girlfriend. Me, well, I’ve been feeling a bit relieved. See, I felt sort of mean and guilty for hating someone I hardly knew. And now, I’m just proud of myself for being so intuitive.

*Name changed to protect a jerk named Sam.

Several weeks ago, a new light appeared in the night sky. Only this heavenly light wasn’t attended by wisemen and frankincense and all that. No, this new star came in the form of an amber colored security light outside my apartment. And it made my bedroom glow like a cheap roadside motel. After one sleepless night, I paid a visit to the folks in the management office and very calmly explained to Steve the Manager why, if they didn’t do something about the bright orange spotlight, I was going to hire a 12 year-old with a BB gun to do it for them.

“We’ve had some windows broken in cars, so that light is an added security measure.”

“But it doesn’t face the parking lot, Steve. It faces my bedroom. And I haven’t broken any windows. Or security lights… Yet.”

“Well, I’ll sure see what I can do about it.”

A month passed. Steve, obviously, was not in a hurry and the temptation to invite my friend Jennifer, her boyfriend John, and John’s air rifle over for dinner grew daily. Every night, I closed the blinds as tight as they’d go, drew the curtains across the window, and then tossed a heavy crimson sheet over the curtain rod. And still, the room was haloed in a fierce orange light. You have to be a very seasoned hooker to fall asleep comfortably in that kind of aura. And I’m very new at hooking, you see.

Then the rains came. Last night, I thought we were in the middle of a hurricane. The winds were shaking the windows and doors, and the water was pouring off the roof in thick, dark sheets. Hal, who is ordinarily pretty oblivious to such things, heard the weather slamming the windows and made a beeline for the bedroom. I followed. A few minutes later, as I lay on the bed explaining to Hal about God and moving furniture, there was a pop and the prostitute after-glow vanished. Just like that.

I yipped with glee, rolled over and went to sleep.

This morning, I heard footfall on the roof and looked out to see a maintenance man replacing the whore light.

“Crap!”

In nothing but a wife beater and boxers, I ran outside, down the steps and onto the lawn.

“Hey!” I waved to the man leaning over the roof.

“Yuh?”

“Do you think maybe you could turn that light? You know, so it’s facing the cars and not my window?”

He didn’t say a word, but nodded, smiled and with a flick of his wrist, reaimed the fixture. Done and done. Turns out, Steve’s guys work much more quickly without pre-teen, CO2-powered persuasion. Or um, a bra.

Thank you, ladies.

Alternatively titled: If you are my mother, you might want to stop reading now

“Blowjobs are for boyfriends.”

“You mean you don’t…” Ari made a crude but familiar gesture.

“Nope.”

Ari sat in silence for a minute. Presumably in awe. Clearly, she’d never considered it as an opt-out.

We all have our lines in the sand, and that is one of mine. Blowjobs are for boyfriends. If I remembered how to cross-stitch, I’d hang that, gilt framed, over my bed. Surely I’m not the only woman who thinks that oral sex is more intimate and more… involved than a good, old-fashioned shag. Nor can I be the only woman to say that a blowjob can be a lot of effort (um, they call it a ‘job’ for a reason). And who, I ask, wants to go to all that effort when you’re not sure he’s going to stick around to reciprocate? And by reciprocate, naturally, I mean taking out the trash and killing spiders; for the most part, his… err, efforts down there don’t do much for me.

Now I know there are plenty of people who will tell me that if I’m not sure of a man’s character or staying potential, I shouldn’t be sleeping with him in the first place. On that, we’re just gonna have to agree to disagree. I like sex. So there.

Besides, even if you don’t get all benevolent in the bedroom, sex is just plain risky. Blowjob or no, you still have a good chance of brushing up against the ever unpleasant Penis is Magic Syndrome, so why compound the issue?

What? Never heard of it? I’ll enlighten.

Penis is Magic Syndrome
If you sleep with a guy, no matter what your level of relationship interest, he will automatically assume you mean to spend the REST of your LIFE with him, have his babies and drain the virility out of him. Why? Because his penis is magic, obviously. So magic, it will make you take leave of all your senses. Just watch how squirrely he gets about communication after you’ve done the deed. Proof positive.

Most of the conversations Ari and I have on the subject of men and sex are not fit for public consumption. Which is not to say that the ladies at the nail salon don’t get a good deal of enjoyment out of them (we see you snicker behind your old copies of US Weekly, oh yes, we do). But those ladies are hardly what I consider public. Everyone knows that a nail salons are as soundproof as a confessional box; none of those ladies are running off to tell my mother what I just said about penises. I hope.

Which reminds me: I recognize that things have gotten a little… safe around here. You can’t blame a girl for trying to keep her mother from a heart attack. But now that mom’s been forewarned, and on new blood pressure meds, I’m instituting Tawdry Thursdays (I know, Tawdry Tuesdays sounds so much better, but what can you do? Come up with a better name and I’ll buy you a beer). Anyway, Thursdays are now dedicated exclusively to tales of dating, mating and that guy who was not only really bad in bed, but stole my favorite sweater.

So. Got requests? Want me to make good on stories I promised and never delivered? Remind me in the comments box.

It’s been raining for days. Every time I flip on the news, there’s something about storm watches and flood warnings.

“You haven’t washed away yet? That’s my girl!”

Obviously, someone else watches the news, too.

“Shh,” I said. “I’m very busy building an ark. Could you hand me some wood screws?”

“My pleasure. I even have two dogs to kick in.”

I laughed, and then considered the predicament we’d repopulating the planet with Ari’s dogs.

“Um, no offense, but the point of taking two of each animal is breeding. I don’t think your dogs are… equipped.”

Which is of course why I’ve made Hal the first mate on my ark. So he doesn’t get left behind for being a smoothie.

The helicopters overhead made my living room windows vibrate. It reminded me of that scene in Clueless where Cher tells her father she’s have a snack with her girlfriends.

“Where, in Kuwait?”

“Is that in the valley?”

Sir Hal slunk into the bedroom as I stepped out on to the patio to investigate the commotion. Outside was a confusion of sirens and helicopter blades — I could see three helicopters hovering over the next building in my apartment complex. I flipped on the local news. Oh boy.

“Murder/suicide,” I told my mother when she answered the phone.

“Jeez. What do you do? Attract these things?”

“I suppose so,” I said, considering that not much time had passed since my last neighbor-getting-murdered experience.

We decided that it’s a very good thing I didn’t go into real estate. I obviously have very questionable judgment — or am straight up a bad luck charm — when it comes to these sorts of things. I mean, my clients would be right as rain; it’s their neighbors who might not appreciate my handy work.

February, 2007

I know I told you he was a liar and that he unstrung me. Ruined parts of me. So it might not make a whole lot of sense right now when I ask you – when I beg you – to lie to me.

I want to hear that you get it – that I’m exceptional, that you’re fucking lucky that we met. That there isn’t anyone who thinks like me, laughs like me. That there isn’t anyone who deserves better than I do. And I want to hear endless excuses that you’ve taken time to build. Layers of lies to cover up for the times you let me down. I’d rather hear silver-polished loads of rubbish now and hate you for it later, than despise myself all along for tolerating your lazy indifference to me.

Either way, I’m the sucker. And it’s easier to call you a liar than to own up to the fact that in your eyes, I wasn’t worth the effort of deception.

“Right now,” I said, bending at the waist, arms pinned just after the shoulders by the elastic band of my sports bra. “Right now is when a live-in boyfriend would come in very handy.

I hung that way for a full minute before I could muster up the strength to rip the bra off and toss it to the floor. My shoulder muscles twitched and I think I actually heard my triceps scream, “Mother of god, why must you do this to us?”

It’s day three of my five day re-introduction to power yoga and there is not a single muscle in my body that isn’t feeling it. Strangely enough, the hour I’m twisting and bending and sweating (the room is kept at a balmy 87 degrees, I think) is the very best part of my day. The worst? Waking up and realizing I can’t exactly lift my arms off the mattress. But I assume that’s a temporary ailment.

This morning, after a couple weeks of watching what I eat, hitting the jogging trails and now, adding power yoga to my day, I decided to brave the bathroom scale. I wiggled out of my nightie, tapped the scale to on and climbed up.

“I’ve actually gained weight!” I whined to Ari.

“Oh, no!”

“Yes. And I’m suing god. For intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

“Class action? I have a few complaints of my own.”

“Why not? It’ll be something to do.”

While I’m fond of Scott Number Two’s suggestion that the added poundage is new muscle, I raised my eye brows in challenge.

“In three days?”

“You never know.”

Mmm hmm. It’s a yoga miracle, Charlie Brown.

Usually, I just like to watch.

The idea of actually participating in Karaoke has always scared the bejesus out of me. That a roomful of perfect strangers gets to judge the worth of my soul based completely on my performance of some used-to-be top forty song makes my knees wobble. And don’t tell me they won’t, that they’re too drunk to pay attention. I wasn’t too drunk to mentally crush the skull of the skank in the flowered dress who ruined Son of a Preacher Man. I mean, the nerve.

But on Saturday, I was feeling a little pissed off (that story, later) and a little drunk… and the combination of the two became a powerful force for overcoming shyness. With the Scotts kneeling down front for moral support, I grabbed the microphone with shaking hands, swallowed the bile collecting in the back of my throat and… I Karaoked.

And I was awesome. Actually, Scott Number Two said I was “f–king awesome” with about a dozen exclamation points (he’s since been forgiven for how utterly shocked he sounded when he said it). I like to think, had Ms. Loeb herself been in the bar that night, she’d have bought me a beer. Or at the very least, not crushed my skull with her mind.

What I didn’t realize before my trip to the mic, was that while you’re standing up there, shaking in your flip flops, the dj actually jabs a needle into the fleshy part of your thigh, and injects you with some highly addictive narcotic. Seriously, it’s the only explanation for what follows. The in-your-bones need to Karaoke. I’ll take the Sonny part in “I Got You Babe” – I don’t care, just get me to the mic!

It’s a relief, really. I’m only twenty-eight, and I’ve found my calling.

On Friday, I had some time to kill before picking my sister up at the (sketchiest ever) Greyhound station downtown. So after dinner, I joined some friends on the patio at Gingerman for some Belgian beer and people watching. Very focused people watching. Ordinarily, I don’t pay much attention to other folks at bars, except to play Who is your daddy and what does he do? (I’ll explain later), but that night, I was on a different sort of mission entirely. I was man watching.

A few days ago, after realizing that I wasn’t any closer to ending my aloneness by hanging out with my buddies doing home decorating projects and watching suffering disappointment over The Starter Wife, I decided that it was time to get back out there. You know, meet new people. Date. Shudder. I mean, as much as I love men, I can’t help but feel that dating is quite possibly the most tedious task ever invented. Tell me I’m not the only gal to feel that way.

Oh! Speaking of things girls can agree on (if you’ll excuse the totally disjointed tangent), I’ve started a little list:

One, how about that scruffy-faced environmentally-conscious dude in the new Subaru commercials? Boy, have I got it bad for him. Holy cow. What was that you said, Subaru Man? I’m sorry, I was picturing you naked. Rowrr.

Two, the new Tampax Look at me! I’m on the rag! packaging. Ladies who work in an office space populated predominantly by men (I’m thinking architecture or finance), I’m pretty sure Tampax made those nuclear goldenrod yellow tampons just for you. No more discreetly palming and little white package and slipping off to the ladies’ room. Oh, no. Tampax wants your male co-workers to be reassured that they didn’t really merit that tongue lashing you gave them; it’s just that time of the month.

Anyway, back to dating. Goodness knows I’m so more of a torch carrier — a suffer for love kinda gal — than a dater, but turns out, dating’s a necessary evil if I want to have someone to help carry in groceries and take up the other half of the bed. Which I do. And while I vastly prefer making out with strangers in the dark corners of seedy bars to actual courtship, we all know how far that’s gotten. So, I’m putting myself out there. I’m wearing mascara and smiling at strangers, accepting drinks from those with interesting faces (and, if experience has anything to say about it, superbly twisted Oedipal complexes and/or issues with commitment) and… dating.

Remember when I tried the date-like-you-mean-it thing last year? Yeah, well, here’s to hoping this adventure is just as blog-worthy.

I’m in a kid coma.

At 3:30, four year old Emma was not interested in nap time, but I was dying for it. We’d already hit the pool, bandaged the resulting toe wound, watched Cinderella, lunched on PB&J, read four picture books (Melisande, twice), snacked on teddy bear cookies, sidewalk chalked my patio, and were hitting play on The Wizard of Oz.

“What kind is this?” Emma asked, handing me the white VHS box.

“What kind?” I wasn’t sure I understood.

“It’s a video,” I said, finally.

“What’s a viii-dee-oh?” she asked, slowly repeating her new word.

“Uh… it’s just really old.”

“Okay! Old! Perfect!”

Oh, man, the way this dimpled little imp said “perfect!” to things like a fistful of fake Teddy Grahams or the little clip I put in her hair – I swear, it very nearly made me forget about the peanut butter she wiped on the new microfiber dining chair. I have got to be quicker with the napkins, obviously. I could have taken some cues about quickness from Sir Hal, who,for the entire day, kept just out of arm’s length. Artful dodger, that guy. And, like me, he’s been a lump on the couch for the last hour recuperating.

Actually, I think I’ve stumbled onto a new source of cheap, green energy. I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but basically, corral a buncha four-year- olds, then hook ‘em up to this thing which collects energy (yeah, that’s the technical term), and route that to your home. Then suggest maybe it’s nap time. That sticky-fingered, giggly mess of nap resistance will soon become the answer to the summer’s central air bill.

I’m brilliant. Comatose, but brilliant.

“He asked me if I needed a straight man to take out my boxes.”

“I hope you said no, but that you do need a man to put something in your box.”

“…”

“Sorry.”

“Dirty, but so true.”

Neil and his nine-year-old nephew came over for dinner last night. I’d made chicken curry for the grown-ups, pizza for the palatably unrefined, and then put on Shrek while I threw together some (homemade, of course) brownie sundaes. With strawberries and chocolate sauce. In my nine-year-old world, that would have been dinner party success. But, apparently, I was dealing with a much savvier breed of youngster.

“The place looks great,” Neil said, as they were heading out.

“Yeah, not too much hair.”

Amused, I looked over at the nephew, digging the toe of his sneakers into the carpet as he waited by the door.

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

“Most women are real hairy,” he explained. “It’s everywhere.”

I nodded, understanding. “Well, it’s a good thing I vacuumed then, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

We said our good-byes and I closed the door behind them, still laughing. I was glad to have passed inspection (if only by a hair*) but man, who knew kids were so picky? I thought pizza and too much sugar would do it, not my OCD Hoovering. Kids today? They pay attention to detail.

I have a playdate with his four-year-old sister next week. I should probably see about getting my eyebrows waxed and my nails done. Otherwise, my extensive knowledge of Dora the Explorer will have been for naught.

* Oh, come on. I had to.

On Sunday afternoon, while Scott and I were painting his bathroom, I got a little woozy from the ammonia in the primer and had to sit down outside the door. I’d finished all the borders — the cutting in, as we professional housepainters say — and Scott was doing the ladder work. Who needs 14 foot ceilings in a bathroom? Mr. Fancy Pants, that’s who.

“Dude, I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” I said, watching Scott lean the ladder, precariously, against the far wall, only two of its four feet on the ground.

“Eh, it’s fine,” he said, climbing up to the second rung. “When I was a kid, I was always doing something stupid, and I’m fine.”

Not half a minute later, I watched in horror as the ladder plummeted twelve feet to the floor, and Scott along with it. Before I could move, he pushed himself off the splintered wooden ladder and staggered toward me, a hand pressed to his chest. He was gasping for breath.

“No! No,” I said, jumping to my feet. “Lay down! Don’t move.”

He ignored me and walked into the hallway, where he finally sat down and let me have a look. His legs were bleeding, shins torn up by the splintered ladder. His head, dotted with paint where it had made a path down the freshly painted wall. It was his chest that tookthe brunt of the fall, hitting the commode on the way down.

“Do we need to go to the hospital?” I could feel my head swimming – from the fumes and the shock.

“No, just let me catch my breath.”

A few minutes later, when it was clear that Scott was not mortally wounded, I sat down next to him and started laughing. Like a crazy woman. I couldn’t help myself. Not that I found the situation at all funny. In fact, my hands were still shaking and my chest hurt from the tension. Maybe it was relief? Maybe it wasthe only way my bizarre little psyche knew how to deal with it was to laugh. And then to force Neosporin and gauze bandages on Scott. And then drag him to my apartment for ice packs, where I could watch him for symptoms of more serious damage. And make him brownies.

Even a crazy woman knows that brownies fix just about anything.

It was one of those defining moments, where you have to sit back and say, “Yep, this is who I am.”

Apparently, I am a girl who gives herself a bikini wax on the living room sofa so she can finish watching an episode of Flip This House.

Scott, Ikea, Home Depot and I spent this three-day weekend gaying up my apartment. I mean designing my apartment. My place in New York was on the shoebox side of cozy and so I decorated it in a lot of mellow tones, so as not to make my visitors feel like they were in the middle of some sort of claustrophobic acid trip. Sage, burgundy, taupe. Cool, calm, peaceful.

“I call it blah,” Scott said. The man pulls no punches.

So, in an effort to expand my horizons, I let Scott lead the decorating charge. Which turned out to involve a lot of paint. In colors that normally belong on jewelry store boxes and fat kindergarten crayons. Grass green. Tuscan yellow. Tiffany blue. It also involved a lot of me pacing in and out of the room as the paint dried asking, “Are you sure that it’s not… too much?”

“Go bold. Trust your gay! I won’t steer you wrong.”

Today I tried to get some shots that show just how right he steered me, but the very reason we spent a three-day weekend inside my house playing Trading Spaces was that the weather has been just plain gross. Rain. Clouds. More rain. But since I know the Interweb is very forgiving and has a keen imagination, I’ll show you what I got, bad lighting and all.

Here’s a little (poorly shot) before & after of my office area:

My now super duper kick-ass dining room, and the holy-shit-this-is-bright bedroom:

Oh, and I also finally threw some shit up on the walls.

I decided that I wasn’t going to decorate my apartment with art made my strangers. Instead, I chose to put up photos of the people I love, and the photos we take. My friends, their babies, the weird and wonderful things we see on vacation together. Oh yeah, and my cat. But that’s to be expected.

Not even Scott the design diva and his magical colorfan are a match for a cat lady in training.

“…go out with camel toe!”

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was Saturday night and the uptown karaoke bar was teeming with sorority girls and pop-collared frat daddies. She was among them, tall, tan, blonde, pretty, and wearing bright fuchsia formal shorts. Now, formal shorts already rank right up there with skinny jeans and Crocs on my list of Greatest Fashion D’ohs of the Decade. So when you pair them with some friction and an apparent lack of underwear and…

“Not one of her girlfriends — and I count six with her — thought to herself, Hmmm, should I maybe tell Malibu Barbie she’s got a gnarly front-crack going on?”

The Scotts followed my eyes across the room and grimaced as they sucked down their rum and pineapple cocktails. They were with me on the whole, her friends should be slapped for allowing a public viewing of their sister tri-delt’s personal bits. Who needs enemies when you have friends like that?

“You know I’d never let you out of the house like that,” Scott the First said.

“I appreciate that.” Let it be known that Scott won’t let me leave the house with wet hair, either. He’s got high standards for his homo crone.

The camel toe incident wouldn’t have been so bad, and we’d probably have forgotten all about it, except Malibu Barbie insisted on getting up every few minutes to dance around, and several times, she ran up to the stage to put on a performance. And that’s when it started. She yodeled her way to the chorus of her Shania Twain song of choice and…

Man, I feel like a camel toe!

It came out before I could stop myself. I choked a laugh into my beer and looked up to see Scott Number Two grinning. The next number, performed by a handful of our friends, was an old Ace of Base crowd pleaser.

Allllll that she waaants is another camel toe!
she’s gone tomorrow, boy…

We just couldn’t quit. Every song that came on until we tumbled from the bar in the early morning hours had some new reference to camel toe. Some references were pure genius. Others… a bit of a stretch. Garth Brooks singing about camel toe? Yes, indeedy.

Also by the end of the night, we had developed a subtle, friendly hand signal to let someone know they were sporting the ole camel toe. You know, in case you’re just too timid (*cough* lame *cough*) to say it out loud.

If I ever flash you this sign, it means you have camel toe and you’d better change your damn pants, okay?

“Whoa! What color is that?”

I crinkled my nose and looked down on the baby, fist shoved into her mouth, drool leaking out the sides. At the sight of my face – eyes wide, brows raised in mock horror – she grinned.

“Uh huh. Laugh it up, but I think we’re gonna need more baby wipes. STAT.”

I’ve always thought that the best and most efficient way to cure Baby Fever was to spend time with other people’s offspring. The idea is, you’ll see what babies are really like, realize how much you love your single, diaperless existence, kiss the baby on the head and wish the parents luck as you speed off in your carseat-fee set of wheels.

Take that hormones! You have met your match! And it wears size 0 to 3 months.

Last weekend, I drove to Austin to spend time with Stephanie, Phil and the Wonder Twins. And when the three of us weren’t out running around doing grown-up things (tennis, cocktails, shopping), I had a baby on my hip and a thin coat of drool on my right shoulder. The babies cried and fussed and puked and pooped (as they do), and I cooed and lullabied and wiped and changed. And when I left on Sunday morning, I was not cured. In fact, it was all I could do to walk out that door without committing baby larceny.

Whoa. I bow to the all-powerful hormones. Not even a diaper full of avocado-colored excrement could defeat them.

I’m certain it didn’t help things that Stephanie, a woman who did single and carefree with enviable flair, is such a natural, graceful mother that motherhood seemed equally enviable. Babies: the season’s must-have accessory. And Phil does fatherhood with such charm, up to his elbows in hamburger meat, throwing goofy smiles toward a bouncy-seated little man who has just discovered his tongue, that husbands started to seem like not such a bad thing either.

“There goes my plan to have a turkey baster baby at 35,” I told Scott last night on our way home from dinner.

“Please, woman. You’ll find someone long before then.”

“That’s not the point. It was such a nice plan. I was fine with the idea of doing it alone. I mean, men – no offense, dear — can be such pains in the ass.”

“You just haven’t met the right one yet, is all.”

“So they tell me.”

“…”

“…”

“Yeah, sorry. I guess it just seemed like the right thing to say.”

‘Heather & Abs,’ cameraphone work by SK

(pssst! Grey’s Anatomy spoilers aplenty)

Heather: Grey’s Anatomy turned out to be the biggest disappointment ever. I’d almost have preferred they resurrect Denny, then kill him off all over again. That season finale was for the birds.

Ari: I hear you – Dempsey’s “I flirted with your half-sister, and yeah you should be worried, and oh by the way… fight for me” was ABSURD! And Burke walking out on Christina was so delayed and overdue it was foolish. They just dumbed the characters down so much this season it was inane by the time it was wrapped up. And I hate that Addison is being moved. Stupid.

Heather: Who is writing this crap? It’s like Shonda Rhimes bailed six weeks ago and the writers from Days of Our Lives were thrown in there as subs.

Ari: Good call -you’re so right. And all this love for George… OK – Isiah was mean to him, but stop trying to convince me he’s the biggest Lothario since JFK. It’s just crap. They should ALL lose their eyebrows.

Heather: And give some of the ladies mustaches. Though, Meredith already has such a questionable complexion, it won’t be much of a change.

Ari: Her face looks like the surface of the moon.

The Scotts and I were on our way to the mall for appropriate Meeting the Parents outfits (I was there on a consulting basis, only; I didn’t think Scott’s mother was ready to meet his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s girlfriend. Not in the same night, anyway). My phone rang and the screen announced it was my very pregnant Torrie calling.

“Are you in labor?” I asked without bothering to say hello. I was only half serious, but all the way hopeful.

“Yes, actually, I am.”

I’ll do you all a favor and omit the part of the conversation with all the squealing and ‘oh. my. god!’s. Suffice it to say, I was just really, really excited. I was about to be a Half Mommy.

Several months ago, when I was Lamaze breathing through kidney stones, I announced to the world that if the pain was anything like the pain of childbirth, I wasn’t having anything to do with it. Ever. No siree, no babies for me. Which is really a shame, since babies and I get on very well. Babies, I think, are like dogs. Or cats. If they sense you’re a dog/cat/baby person, the dog/cat/baby automatically likes and trusts you. No hoops to jump through, no need to prove yourself capable of a one-handed diaper change, or produce a library of silly, yet soothing lullabies. Baby knows you got that covered, because Baby can smell it on you. Like a pheromone.

Anyway, being in possession of that pheromone, it was sort of a shame to give up on babymaking altogether. But, seriously, the pain!

“You can share mine,” Torrie offered. Torrie is a really good sharer.

And so I began preparing to be a Half Mommy. A silent partner in a baby timeshare. Okay, maybe not so silent. I butted in a bit, gave my opinion about the baby’s name, stocked the baby library with my favorite childhood books, supplied Torrie with Three Musketeers bars, and waited.

Nineteen hours after Torrie called, baby Willa Elizabeth was born. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was – or how anxious, with Torrie being without Interweb or phone for days after. And now that I’ve finally seen a picture of the wee bairn? Still thrilled and pretty sure that I’m going to have to get my ass on a New York bound plane before she gets too big to fit in my purse. You know, for an easy getaway.

Ladies and gents, Miss Willa Elizabeth.

“Well, would you look at that!”

“Mmmhmm,” I said, sliding into the car across from Scott. “Already noted.”

In unison, we pivoted in our seats and stared out the rear window. He came down the balcony stairs in a pair of flip flops and faded camouflage cargo shorts. But you can forget the shorts – we did – because what rose above them was a shirtless, knuckle-bitingly sculpted torso.

“Holy cow,” I said as we shamelessly followed his movements to the parking lot, where, in one swift movement, he hefted a dining room table above his head and climbed the stairs to his apartment.

“That was amazing.” I sighed and put the key in the ignition.

“That was hot, was what that was.”

“And satisfying because he was so hamming it up.”

“But the question is, was he hamming it up for you or for me?” Scott asked, with a suggestive raise of the eyebrows.

“Don’t you dare go turning him gay before I have a chance to.”

“Fair enough. So, now we have a project for the summer,” he said, grinning. “To get you some of that.”

“What if he’s impossibly dim-witted?”

“Well, of course he is. Did you see that body?”

“Mmmhmm…” I was still a little soft-headed over the experience.

“You don’t need him to say anything, silly. You just need him to lift things. You know, like, groceries. And you.”

And thus, Lifting Guy came into our lives, along with a plan to lure him into some… lusty summer activities. The gays, it turns out, are phenomenal man-trap planners.

Step One: Strategic Parking. Put into effect yesterday evening, this will increase the number of potential run-ins.

Step Two: Damsel in Distress. Get Lifting Guy to put his finely honed skills to use to help a lady.

Friends, I am off to purchase something very heavy to stow in my trunk. And something not so heavy, in a wee pink Victoria’s Secret pink bag. You know, so I have something to carry, too.

Rarrrr.

One of the (very few) downsides to working at home is the lack of socializing that goes on during the day. Sure, there’s the one-sided conversations I have with Hal (Get your claws. out. of. the. carpet!) and the quickie chats with the people I see on the jogging path every day about their dogs or the weather, but that’s about it. Oh, and the UPS guy; we’re developing quite a rapport.

Anyway, I’m kind of afraid that being a homeworker might turn out just a little bit like being a homeschooler — and, no offense to those who managed to achieve normal socialization — but if you ever met a home-schooled kid, you know what I’m talkin’ about. They can be just a little bit off.

So to avoid too much offness, I’ve been making it a point to get out every evening. Dinner with old friends, Grey’s Anatomy night at Angie’s. Who drives 30 miles to watch TV? I do. So I don’t develop a weird stammer from under-using my language skills.

During my hyper-social week, The Scotts (my gay and his same-name boyfriend) invited me to one of those super-mega-hella game centers – you know, the kind of place where you can bowl, play laser tag, eat really disgustingly greasy pizza, and then barf up that pizza on simulated roller-coasters, all for the totally reasonable price of…. your entire allowance. A minute and a half of ski ball? Five dollars! And you’ll go back for a second game, too, because you need enough tickets to get a dinosaur-shaped eraser and a jacks set with a rubber ball that smells like a cross between your brother’s gym shoes and a tuna melt.

I was totally psyched.

Here is something I had never considered before: doing all of the above (smelly rubber ball, included), only, put a cocktail in your hand. A couple Jack n Cokes and suddenly five bucks for ski ball seems very reasonable. Why, it’s a steal! And that pizza becomes downright tasty. It’s a good thing I didn’t discover the demon liquor back in the day, or there wouldn’t have been enough allowance in the world to support my habit.

The Scotts and I raced from arcade games to air hockey, taking turns when it was a pairs affair, and… was it just me, or was my performance actually enhanced by being tipsy? Oh yes, I think so. And it made all those awful pre-teens so much easier to tolerate, too (damn them and their DDR skills!). We fought fires, hunted sharks, and whacked moles. And then someone got the big idea to try the simulated monster truck ride.

“Dig your toes into your flip flops,” the attendant told Scott Number 2. “You know, in case you flip over.”

“Flip over?” I gripped the shoulder harness at the very idea.

“Yeah, it’s possible,” he said and closed us inside the ride.

Five very long minutes later, we emerged sweating, knees wobbling and heads spinning.

“I think it’s time to close out the tab,” Scott said, pressing a hand to his mouth.

I nodded in total nauseated agreement.

“Is this the part of the evening where we puke in the parking lot?” I asked, hoping it was.

And there I was, despite my best efforts, right back where I had started. Nothing says homeschooler quite like tossing your cookies from over-stimulation, and wanting to go home to your mother.

Every afternoon, I tie my house key to my sneakers and take off for a walk/jog on the trails that wind through the apartment complexes where I live. When I first read the marketing materials for this place, I was skeptical about their “beautifully landscaped grounds and miles of jogging trails,” mostly because, I’ve created marketing materials for a living. You can’t kid a kidder.

But once again, my over-developed sense of cynicism was misplaced. The grounds are beautifully landscaped, and what’s more, the lakes that they surround are full of things like fluffy baby ducks, and towers of turtles. It’s something to behold, these red-striped turtles climbing on top of each other to sun themselves, and the strange, yoga-like positions they get themselves into. There are even a couple of bad-ass geese, hauling after the over-fed squirrels that challenge their territory.

Yesterday, I put my iPod on shuffle and headed down the trails to work off the previous night’s dinner (these people, they love their melted cheese). I hadn’t gotten very far when a mother duck led her seven puff-balled offspring across my path. I’m a sucker for baby anything, so I took a seat on the grass to watch for a while. As I sat, taking in young nature, the track changed from one song to the next, and the opening strains of a Marvin Gaye tune came on. A few seconds later, I caught some activity out of the corner of my eye. As the chorus to Let’s Get it On streamed out of my headphones, I watched a determined mallard conquer a rather unhappy looking she-duck.

“Oh dear,” I said, turning down the volume on my iPod. “I didn’t think you could hear that.”

I stood up, dusted off my black yoga pants and resumed my jog, giggling over the fact that the animal kingdom gets down to the same playlist when it’s time to get busy.

On Saturday morning, the extortionists — I mean, the movers — delivered my furniture. I’d tell you all about how they jerked me around and took advantage of me (no, not in that way), if I could only figure out exactly what it was they did wrong. It seems that technically, everything they put me through was contracted, agreed to, and signed on the dotted line by yours truly. But boy howdy, I sure felt like they were taking me for a ride.

And because quasi-extortion takes a lot out of a girl, I spent the rest of the weekend lounging around, getting in some real quality time with the boob tube. People, I didn’t even know I was capable of watching six consecutive hours of television, but I rose to that great and mighty challenge. I am now intimately familiar with my friends at CSI, a handful of addicts from Intervention and an f-bomb free Tony Soprano. Frankly, Tony just isn’t Tony when you take away his swears.

But even Tony lite was better than tackling that last box of sweaters that’s currently hiding out in my dining room. The rest of the apartment unfolded quickly — dishes zipping into their cupboards, lamps, bookcases and picture frames assembled and arranged in no time. But that box of sweaters – I’ve been doing everything to ignore it for the last two days.

“Unpack already, you slothy whore!”

I laughed. Coming from Ari, that was priceless. She invented sloth, so far as I can tell.

“I know. I am a slothy whore,” I said. “But I learned it from watching you, okay? I learned it from watching you.”

80′s anti-drug campaign references. So relevant and never not funny.

“I thought you were supposed to be better than me.”

“See, that’s where you’d be wrong. Everything’s bigger in Texas, not better.”

“The penises, too?”

“…”

Hmmm. That one is going to require me getting off the sofa and doing a little research. I mean, anything to avoid that box of sweaters, right?

“I’m now accepting applications for a new fag hag.”

“Well, it just so happens, I’m wide open!” I said, twirling a straw in my mango margarita.

“You’re hired.”

And there we had it. Three days into my new living situation and I had established one of the most important relationships a girl can have. I had found my Dallas gay.

Though, I have to admit, fag hag is my least favorite term to express the connection between a girl and her gay. It feels like a swear word. For starters, the f word was always used in a derogatory way when I was growing up, so unless it’s coming out of the mouth of an actual, card-carrying gay man, it makes me shudder. And then there’s hag. I don’t want anything to do with that. I’ve got at least another ten years before I reach hag status, and even then, I’d prefer to be called crone, thank you very much. A homo crone? It has a nice ring to it.

Scott and I were spending Tuesday evening drinking fruity beer on the patio of a Dallas Bar. He caught me up on the high school gossip and I told him about my Home Depot misadventures.

“I came home with fifteen red paint swatches, and not a single one of them matches that damn couch.”

“Well, what you need to do,” he said, launching into a lesson on color, tone and shade.

“Oh my god,” I said, with reverence and awe. “I forgot! You went to Design School.”

He grinned and offered himself up for a weekend Home Depot adventure. I was one happy homo crone.