“Why don’t you lose that attitude, Mel?”
“Why don’t you lose that weight?”

Justine laughed, “Oooh, girl!” and high fives were exchanged across the desk. Melanie grinned and looked at me as if to say, Wasn’t that a good one? But I refused to meet her eyes. Mine were stinging from embarrassment. I willed myself not to cry as I walked back to my own desk, hoping my thighs didn’t brush together or that my ass didn’t look especially wide in my pants.

I made for the bathroom where I hid in a stall and cried. At twenty-six, I would not have thought my ego would be so fragile. I won’t lie. If I had been at home, I’d have gone into the bathroom and thrown up my lunch.

March 5, 2005

Friday is Maria’s last day of chemo.

We aren’t celebrating quite yet, though. While Maria’s prognosis is good (excellent, even), there are still five weeks of daily radiation treatments to undergo and side effects to wear off before we’ll all be toasting her health and her healthy rack.

“You know, you’re going to have one drink and be on your ass.” I’m leaning on my elbows, having an end of day chat. Maria won’t be coming to happy hour tonight, for obvious reasons.
“I know it,” she laughs. “Did I tell you? I tried to have a drink of champagne at my girlfriend’s birthday, and it burned. Oh my god how it burned!”

Sensitivity to heat, smells and flavors are just a few of the side effects of this second round of treatments.

“What if you stay like that forever?” My eyes widen with Maria’s at the thought. “What if you can’t drink? You’d be… You’d be Mormon!”

“Oh God!”

“Amen.”

When she was first diagnosed with breast cancer, Maria and I weren’t all that close. She was new and we were… polite. Even then, though, I liked her very much. And while I couldn’t empathize completely, I’d had my own scares and a in a small way, my own experience with her situation. And I knew about the needle.

“Oh my god, isn’t it awful?” Maria had winced when I brought it up and gingerly touched her breast, as though it were still sore at the site.

“By the second biopsy, I was willing to sell my future firstborn to the nurse, or to the devil – I didn’t care – just to avoid the needle.”

There are some relationships that require a great deal of time spent before any real intimacies are shared. And then there are some, like mine and Maria’s, that spring out of those intimacies. In a way, her disease has been a catalyst for our friendship.

Now it’s, “Hey, Ma. Can I borrow your stapler?” It’s a truckload of handmade chocolate suckers on my birthday. It’s me, first thing Monday mornings, starting off with, “You will die when I tell you this.” It’s her, making sure I have an umbrella or a jacket (if the weather requires), and always, always something to eat.

It’s also an, “Oh jeez. Can I punch her?” when I make one too many bad jokes about wiggin’ out. Hers, by the way, is phenomenal.

Maria is an exceptional person. Throughout these last months of her ordeal – the worry, the pain and post-chemo nausea – I have never caught her in a moment of self pity. But she’s not inhuman about her experience either. She’s honest about weeping through a particularly frightening procedure, about what it’s like to feel not at all yourself because of the chemicals in your system. And about being thankful to be one of the lucky ones. One of the lucky ones who worries about permanent scars.

Understand, if you don’t already, that it does not take a vain woman to worry about the scars. Or to go shopping for eyelashes on the internet because hers have all fallen out into the bathroom sink. Or to hold up a ruler and make guesses as to how much hair will grow back after the last chemo treatment.

Maria hopes to have half an inch by New Year’s Day.

I’m reminded of a phrase we have back home. A month of Sundays,. Simply, it means ‘a long time.’ I realize that October, now come and gone, was Breast Cancer Awareness month. But in our little row of dingy grey cubicles, we haven’t needed a month set aside to remember. Because we have shared Maria’s month of Sundays.

My love to Maria, who inspires me. And my heart to those who share any part of her experience.

My walk across town today had two purposes. The first was to simply get out of my apartment. Mingle with humanity. See, you spend too many weekends sleeping in (or, worse, sleeping around the clock) and people start worrying. They start recommending their therapists.

And that gets uncomfortable.

Besides, it was finally a beautiful day. I was beginning to think we’d skipped fall altogether – that we’d traded in the crunchy leaf, brisk afternoon in Central Park autumn for fifty varying shades of grey. But when I got up this morning, the sky was a color of blue it hasn’t been for a long time. I have been trying to decide if Crayola, in that big box of sixty-four, ever made a crayon that color.

I’m going to have to buy a box and see.

Secondly, I’d promised myself a matinee of Shop Girl. It was playing at Lincoln Square and since the weather was crayon perfect, I thought I’d go on foot, via the park. The movie was really well done, which was a huge relief. I haven’t seen a well-done flick in ages. First Elizabethtown (sadly underdeveloped) and then that Viggo Mortensen disaster (a ninety-minute excuse to show Maria Bello’s pubes. Twice. Or was that three times?) had given me ticket-buyer’s remorse.

On the list of things which should always be satisfying: kisses and movies that you pay over ten dollars to see.

The walk itself was also pretty satisfying. A couple of times, I felt like I was in a movie montage – you know, like a whole bunch of clips of New York and all of its excellently eccentric characters. And in forty-something blocks (round-trip) there are an infinite number of characters.

One man caught my attention as he stood in front of me, slightly off center, on a street corner in the upper 70′s. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement, so I refocused. With a deliberate sweeping motion, the man drew out a walking stick – the knobby, straight from nature kind – and tapped it on his shoe before crossing the street. Better than the walking stick was the Alpine yodeler’s hat that he wore. It seemed so odd and out of place that I looked around for cameras.

Surely I had walked into the middle of an urban revival of the Sound of Music.

Even the most mundane of the city’s qualities can be fascinating when you’re in montage mode. Like the young boy, a dozen bites into his chocolate ice cream cone, waving at me from the other side of the glass as I walked up First Avenue. I smiled about him for at least three blocks. Or the one sided cell phone conversations you overhear that raise your eyebrows and your suspicions that nobody in this city, but nobody, is actually normal.

There’s a parallel to be drawn here between people and that box of sixty-four crayons, I think. But I’m going to refrain from trying, because, nothing’s ever that tidy.

Not in real life, anyway.

A Quick Prologue:
Frankly, I don’t know how the drug-lovin’ creative types do this. One little narcotic and not only is it hard to spell, but these little black keys start to lose all meaning after a few minutes of staring at them through my Vicodin fog. Next week is going to have to be Red Ribbon Week around here. I’m going to have a hard time remembering things – like, what to do with a fork – if I keep this up.

Acknowledgements:
Thanks to everyone for their thoughtful emails, comments and phone calls. And to my surgeon for being very quick and gentle. And for having a vague idea who the other Heather Hunter is. Always a good ice breaker. And to Stephanie for being the best damn toof recovery sitter ever. Ever.

Chapter 1: The Food
I’d already stocked my fridge with things like pudding and Jell-o and stacked cans of non-chunky Campbell’s soups in preparation for what was sure to be a very food unfriendly mouth. And when Stephanie returned from picking up my prescriptions, bless her heart, she had a Gracie’s Diner survival kit. Hot soup, soft bread, mashed potatoes and… genius of all genius… stuffing. Thanksgiving stuffing.

No one ever suspects the Thanksgiving stuffing, but it is the perfect toof recovery food. Warm, mushy (but we’re not talking Gerber here), and savory. If I could have smiled with more than half a mouth, I woulda. It was heaven.

Chapter 2: The Entertainment
When picking up supplies at Duane Reade (gauze, water bottle with sport top, ice packs), I grabbed a magazine to complement the reading selections by my bed. Also, Netflix had failed to deliver, so I was left to my in-house supply. Here are the picks:

Vanity Fair: Good for pictures, which is the only reason I ever buy magazines. Especially when I’m under the weather, a good Ooooh, pretty! is all I really need.

Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls: The novel by darling Bennett Madison is a young adult mystery with spunk. Think Clueless not Nancy Drew. If you are or ever were a teenage girl or even if you can’t relate at all but enjoy a good snark and a bit of mystery, this book is a gem. Order it online at Barnes & Noble. You don’t even need to have your chompers yanked to do it!

Shrek, Steel Magnolias and Billy Madison: I laughed, I cried, I drifted in and out of sleep. Two groggy thumbs up.

Chapter 3: The Patient
Obviously, I didn’t die. But the Valium didn’t work, and in my wide-awakeness, I did freak out internally just a little bit. But only a little bit. Frozen gauze, ice packs and ibuprofen and I have very little visible swelling. Slightly rounder cheeks make me look younger, if anything. And since when do we complain about that? The drugs have been stellar, and so far, aside from an aching jaw (oh my God was my mouth open wide for the surgery. I didn’t even know it could do that!), there’s been very little pain. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have separation anxiety when I trade in my Vicodin for Ibuprofen to go to work tomorrow. But generally speaking, I survived Tuesday, Toof Day without too much trauma. I am a champ!

Bring on the natural childbirth!

An Even Quicker Epilogue:
No, no. Just kidding. I love drugs. Epidural, please.

“I don’t want to play the ‘natural childbirth’ card here but really, that’s how I know you will be just fine.”

My mother’s words of encouragement didn’t exactly make me feel any better about the situation.

Tuesday is Toof Day. And in preparation for the yanking of the wisdom teeth, I had spent Monday absorbed in the last-minute necessary arrangements. There had been worrying to do, appointments to confirm, and the horrifying discovery to be made that… my insurance does not cover IV sedation. Or even laughing gas.

“No! I can’t handle that. Being awake while they rip teeth from my jaw? I think I might just die.”

“Ask for an oral sedative.” Again, my mother with the practicality. “It will take away the thought of dying – which is the main problem because no, you won’t actually die, but worrying about it could make you very uncomfortable.”

I remained unconvinced. I hollered over the cubicle wall.

“Jus?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you come to my funeral if I die?”
“Of course I will.” Justine didn’t even bother with the ‘you won’t die’ bit. She knew better. It’s best just to play along and hope I get bored with the dramatics.
“Will you sing at my funeral?”
“Nope.”

Damn. I’d pushed my luck.

I do realize that I’m grossly overreacting. People get teeth ripped out of their jaws in total awareness every day and don’t die. But this is me. I freak out at the little things. It’s what I do. And I’ve never even had a cavity for Pete’s sake. I just know I’m going to have a heart attack the minute anything beyond a good tooth cleaning goes on in there. Especially the chiseling.

Oh my god, tell me there isn’t going to be any chiseling!

Melodrama and histrionics aside, I am actually pretty anxious about the whole thing. The horror stories alone from my Monday morning meeting were enough to turn my stomach and make me think that maybe I could live with the headaches for the rest of my life if it meant skipping out on this delightful rite of passage. That thought lasted until the next headache.

Luck and love really are on my side, though. Friends have stepped in where my mother’s pampering cannot reach. Goldner has offered pudding. Sarah, sage advice and her company at the drop of a text. I have every faith that my neighbor Ari would most certainly run over to laugh at my puffy cheeks in a heartbeat. And brave Stephanie has volunteered to come with me to the oral surgeon. Tomorrow, she will be in charge of the unbelievably glamorous task of making sure I get my drooling face into a cab and safely home. If our friendship survives that, I’m going to write her into my will. And if I don’t – survive, that is – maybe she will sing at my funeral.

I’m partial to Cracklin’ Rosie.

I don’t know when it happened that I became so comfortable being naked around strangers. So comfortable that, Friday night during a full-body scrub at Union Square’s Oasis spa, I fell asleep. Completely naked. While a complete stranger rubbed yummy smelling exfoliant all over my body.

And I do mean ALL over.

During October, spas all over New York City offer select treatments at discounted rates -massages, facials, scrubs. And for less than fifty dollars you can buy yourself some pretty serious relaxation. When Jen signed us up months ago, I had no idea how badly I’d be needing it. But come Friday afternoon, it was all I could think about – the white robes, the sauna, the dried fruit and tea.

And then the whole naked thing.

I’d already decided that the experience could only be as weird as I let it. So as I lay there in the dim, warm room exhausted and exposed, I felt totally at ease. At least, my body was relaxed. While the technician did her thing, my mind zipped here and there, dotting i’s and crossing t’s from a long work week.

Swoosh went a pair of hands over my breasts, kneading oily salts into my chest. And then a pause.

“Is everything alright?”
“Mmm hmm. Feels great.” But the hands didn’t resume, so I slowly opened one eye and then the other.
“You sure? You’re looking pretty serious. Like you’re thinking about work or something.”
“I was thinking about work!” I laughed. Wow. She was good.
“That’s not allowed in the hydro room.”
“I swear I won’t do it again.”

I settled back in, not thinking about work. The swooshing and kneading continued, then the steamy showers, and when I woke up a few minutes later, it was time to get dried off. I haven’t been dried off by another person since I was probably seven years old, but even that wasn’t weird because it felt so nice. And necessary.

I had walked into the spa with my skin screaming, Pay attention to me! Pamper me! Touch me! And left feeling calm, pampered and a glass of wine away from total sedation. Three glasses of wine later, I was sedately watching a new friend karaoke with transvestites.

But that’s a story for another time.

My new dentist and I are off to a rocky start. Five minutes after we meet, and he’s calling me a mutant?

“No, no. I didn’t say, ‘Heather you are a mutant.’”

“Good. Because that’d be bad bedside manners. Calling me a mutant.”

“I said it’s a rather uncommon mutation.”

“Now I’m feeling special.”

“It’s called supernumerary.”

“And glamorous.”

Don’t look now, but it’s entirely possible that I’m flirting with my dentist.

I won’t lie. I chose Dr. Jacobs based on his age. At the time, I was thinking young, as in steady hand, in touch with newer technologies – not young as in potentially cute and funny and, hey, wanna grab a drink sometime? But, as it turns out, he is the second kind of young and not exactly the person I want to have putting the spit sucker in my mouth. I very nearly die of humiliation when he says, “Hmm, looks like there’s a little bit of plaque back here.”

Plaque? No! I knew it. I have plaque and I’m going to die alone.

Do not tell a dentist that you’ve never had a cavity. They only see this as a challenge. You can see the scary glint in their eyes as they latch onto that silver hook thingy with a new passion. Then they dive in determined to find what no dentist has found before.

Dr. Jacobs is no different. I don’t tell him that stellar genetics and the love of a good brushing have kept me cavity free, but clearly, he sees it in my bragging eyes. Out comes the silver hook and he starts with the poking and prodding.

“Hmmm.”

“Uughmmemm.” I mean to say, ‘Don’t even,’ but the spit sucker is not so good for diction.

“Well, it’s not a cavity.” He continues poking. “But, I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Uughmm?”

“So, we’ll make an appointment for you to come back and see me and we’ll fill that right up.”

I’d be upset about this not quite cavity thing, but really, it’s so obvious he just wants to see me again. Awww, right? So I rinse, spit, wipe the drool off my cheek and we make a date for January 5th. I take it as another sign of affection when he writes out a prescription for Vicodin and throws in an extra refill. If I were a recreational drug user, that would have been as good as a marriage proposal.

The prescription, by the way, is actually a vicodin ibuprofen hybrid. And along with all your standard painkiller warnings, it comes with a “May cause dizziness” sticker. I’ve heard of “May cause drowsiness” and in the case of Wow! Brand potato chips, “May cause anal leakage. But dizziness? And now that one of the little white pills has begun to make its way into my blood stream, I can attest that, indeed, it may cause dizziness. And I gotta say, it’s not at all unpleasant.

I hope Dr. Jacobs will visit me in rehab.

I’m sitting in bed, laptop on lap, one finger shoved to the top left-hand corner of my mouth, rubbing Anbesol on to my sore (so very sore!) gums and I’m drooling. To quote my wonderful friend Sarah, I am a delight.

Tonight, the pizza guy made me laugh. I don’t remember why now, just some ha ha over me being incapable of getting my own phone number right. But when I hung up, I was laughing and I think I even said, “Ha! That guy.â€ù Out loud. I watched the Ultimate Edition Dirty Dancing and ate pizza in bed. There were crumbs. Were crumbs. I’ve already lint-brushed them away and remade the bed.

Hey, I may be in a funk, but I am still me.

Today, I walked around the office handing out baby Snickers bars. Seemed like the thing to do. As I walked down the center studio, Rosalyn waved me over to her desk.

“Want a Snickers?â€ù I held the bag out in front of me.
“No.â€ù Rosalyn leaned forward in her chair. “Butâ€_ can I give you a stamp?â€ù

Surprisingly, there was no crying or hugging, which is my usual reaction to kindness and sympathy.

Some days, I get sort of fed up with humanity. Pushy Lady in the subway who gets off at the next stop anyway and why all that pushing and meanness so early in the morning if she could have just walked those nine blocks? Carmen the Dental Receptionist and Whoever Stole My Credit Information (yeah, Visa called this morning). They, and others like them, are not so appealing. But then there are days where maybe, I am not so fed up. There are Sarahs and pizza guys and coworkers with stamps. On those days, I think I’m a little bit in love with humanity.

I guess it’s just like any other relationship. You can be damn near ready to throw up your hands and walk out, but then the other person offers you a stamp. And you remember why you got involved in the first place.

Thank you.

I can feel myself withdrawing, and I’m not sure it does any good to resist it.

I’ve been going back and forth for the last fifteen minutes or so trying to decide if I should post the story I’d planned to tell, or to spill my guts and say what’s really on my mind. I think I’m gonna go with the latter. It’s been a while since there been anything confessional here.

For the last few weeks it’s been this way. From the moment my feet swing over the edge of the bed and reluctantly hit the floor, I’m motivating myself with the thought, “All I have to do is get through work, and then I can go back to sleep.” I keep that thought all day long.

Everything takes an extraordinary amount of effort. Emails. Phone calls. Leaving the apartment. I’ve had an envelope in my purse for seventeen days now. Seventeen days. And the only reason it hasn’t left is, I can’t seem to bring myself to buy a stamp. Actually, I did try. The sun was out Saturday and I gave it my best shot. But the machine at the post office only took cash, and the customer service desk at Gristedes was fresh out.

Then it will wait another seventeen days, I thought, and went back home to bed.

I force myself to make plans, because I see the danger in my morning motivation. A party with Wes, coffee with Rachel, lunch with an old friend. What it takes not to bail at the last minute, I can’t begin to tell you.

At the diner just now, I nearly crawled out of my own skin. I had gone from taxi cab to diner counter in search of a late dinner. I was too much in my own head and feeling somewhat lost in there, I sat down on one of the pink stools, somewhere toward the middle of the counter.

“What can I get for ya, bella?” The waiter hollered from the end of the counter. I froze.

No, no. Don’t make me shout it, I thought. But he didn’t read my mind and he didn’t come any closer. Just stood there waiting.

“BLT and a chocolate milkshake, extra thick.” It was my voice but it sure didn’t sound like it. And when the waiter shouted my order over to the cook, I flinched. I wanted out. Out, out, out. I waited for my food and retreated across the street.

This has happened before. Not recently, which makes it hard to remember the why behind it, or how long it lasted. It could just be a funk. I have every hope that it is. Even in this state, I know living every waking moment lusting for your next sleeping one is hardly living. I feel ashamed of myself for even indulging this… this funk. But I have been, because sometimes I think you just have to let things happen. And sometimes, you have to not. Sometimes, you have to decide to get your ass up off the couch at midnight and go find a stamp.

Because it starts to mean something more than just avoiding a late fee.

I pushed through the diner doors and stepped into the middle of an argument.

“No, I’m telling you!”
“And I’m telling YOU. The streets are going to be flooded.”
“That is why I am saying to you, go home.”
“Nico. You go. I will be fine.”

I smiled, dropped my umbrella into the bucket and took a seat at a table by the window. Their argument went on for a bit longer, pausing only when Nico brought coffee. In the end, neither gave in and they went back to hollering takeout orders.

I ate, watched traffic, stirred coffee I never got around to drinking and kept an eye on the clock. I was taking myself to a movie later.

One of the nicest things about being single, I’ve discovered, is actually liking being single. I haven’t always. Liked it, I mean. I have my theories about loneliness which I’ll spare you — except to say that people are less often lonely than they are lonely for someone. Someone specific.

Tonight, I was pining for nothing more than a waffle and a Toni Collette. And I was happy.

There are times when singledom isn’t exactly fulfilling. Times I’ve rolled over in bed and thought it would be nice if someone took up the empty spot. But those moments are fleeting, and they certainly aren’t filled with longing like they used to be.

I haven’t pined for anyone in quite some time, come to think of it.

Every once in a while, I meet someone who I think might be worth a bit of pining. They’re cute, or smart or funny or a jackpot combination of all three. But then I remember the drama (I’m sure you do, too) and the potential for disappointment and I think, “Oooh, no you don’t!” Then I go back to making plans to die alone with my cat.

Some may call this jaded. I call it temporarily skeptical.

I just cried. In the deli. Because of yogurt.

No one noticed, thankfully, and I was able to slip quietly out into the street to continue my breakdown. I mean, how awkward to have to explain to the deli man, “No, no, it’s not you. It’s me. And my insurance company. And things like work flow and sweet baby jesus, these HEADACHES and no one really eats plain vanilla yogurt do they? DO THEY?!”

(It’s the inevitable collapsing into a snotty heap on the floor at the end that would have truly made it awkward. I’d most certainly have had to find a new deli.)

Sometime this weekend, the reason for the persistent headaches revealed itself in the form of two, pointy, ill-fitting wisdom teeth. Ta-da! Honestly, it was something of a relief. Wisdom teeth are fixable! More fixable than say, a brain tumor or an allergy to my career. Besides, I just got new dental insurance. My new card is sitting all bright and shiny on my desk, and all I have to do is pick it up and…

“Hi, I’d like to get an appointment to see the dentist.” I said, reciting my information for Carmen the Dental Receptionist.

“I’m sorry. I don’t have the roster for October’s new patients. Check back at the end of the week. Maybe it will come in the mail by then.”

“What?”

No list, no appointment. Period. And Carmen the Dental Receptionist wasn’t budging. This is why people move to Canada or the Netherlands or really small towns in Indiana where there only is one dentist and no list to speak of. Fucking red tape.

“What if the insurance company sent you proof of insurance by fax?”

“Nope. They don’t do that.”

“Don’t or can’t?”

“They don’t.”

A call to the insurance company yielded the same information.

“We don’t fax insurance rosters.”

“But what if it’s an emergency?” I told the woman about the wisdom tooth headaches. I came this close to crying. (The yogurt breakdown hadn’t happened yet, but don’t think I wouldn’t have employed some good snotty heap imagery to grease those wheels.)

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Apparently, a-faxing she went. Because when she got back on the phone, and in a voice that said, “I’m sorry Carmen is such a bitch,” she explained that all should be well and to give the dentist’s office one more call.

“I still can’t make an appointment for you.”

“What? Why?” Oh my GOD, no Christmas card for Carmen this year.

“Because a faxed copy is not proof enough. You can come in for an emergency visit, but that’s it. And we only take emergencies between regular patients.”

“Okay…”

“And only on Mondays and Thursdays between 8:00 and 1:30.”

At that point, furious over the fact that I couldn’t even have an emergency without following guidelines, I hung up the phone and went in search of breakfast. Which led me to the deli. And a case filled with nothing but six varieties of vanilla yogurt. Again I ask: Does anyone really eat that shit?

Sometimes a girl just reaches her limits. And that’s when snot happens.

When Kate called Sunday morning, I was a bit of a groggy mess. Still, bagels, orange juice and coffee sounded like very good idea, so I tried to pull it together.

“Ugh. I stayed up until 5:30 this morning.”
“Uh oh. Do you feel too hung-over to make it?”
“Um. No. I wasn’t up drinking. I was upâ€_. watching eight consecutive episodes of The Gilmore Girls, Season IV.”

Kate laughed. “Okaaayâ€_”

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. L-a-m-e. But Friday night found me drunk, telling secrets and sending ill-advised text messages (all bad things), and when a trip out to meet friends for dinner Saturday evening left my pant legs so soaked I thought I was going to lose my jeans to gravity somewhere on Second Avenue, a night in bed with Netflix sounded like heaven.

And it was. Eight solid hours of it.

Those Gilmore Girls are just so damn charming and clever; how can you not get hooked? It’s enough to make a girl want to get knocked up, move to small town Connecticut and develop abnormally close relationships with all of her neighbors. Especially Luke. Mmmmmm, Luke.

Somewhere in my fourth hour of Rory’s first year at Yale, I began to get a bit homesick for my sister. She’s cute and witty and spontaneous and the kind of person who will convince you that it is great idea to make the Cuppa Cuppa Cuppa recipe from Steel Magnolias. And after the concoction never amounts to anything more than a foul, gooey disaster (forcing you to actually throw away your favorite Pyrex dish), she’s the kind of person to loudly declare in the middle of Stop n Shop that Olympia Dukakis is ‘full of shit.’

And while the Gilmores would probably never say ‘shit’ (they are also very wholesome), they are exactly the kind of folks you wouldn’t mind ruining a perfectly good baking dish for. As long as they bought dessert after.

“Never use sex as a weapon.”

I was twenty years old then, sitting at the dining room table getting unsolicited relationship advice from a long-time family friend. Kenny had known me since I was knee high to bullfrog; his wife, Terri had been my mother’s best friend through everything – from braces and training bras to miscarriages and snotty teenagers. Their daughter, Summer, was soon to be wed and so for Kenny, it was the perfect time to pass on a few choice words of wisdom to the virgin bride and her mortified friend.

“Kenny, you’re embarrassing her.”

His wife had tried to intervene, but Kenny was on a roll. And yes, I was embarrassed. At the time, I was a few months short of graduating from Brigham Young University and my experience with men had been regulated pretty intensely by both God and the Honor Code. Curfews, dress codes and chastity lines.

I wasn’t using sex as anything, much less a weapon.

And as for the sexual climate of the household I grew up in, well, let’s just say this: there are only five documented cases of my parents having had sex. They are Jason, Heather, Nora, Audrey and Joyce. There has never been any evidence to support further nookie.

There certainly was never talk of sexual appetite or wet spots(!), for heaven’s sake.

Kenny went on to extol the virtues of a loving, understanding wife who did not banish her husband to the couch for every little infraction, and who would never ever withhold sex as means of punishment. Even in my inexperience I had to agree. Withhold sex? Isn’t that punishment for everyone involved?

That’s what I would call a no-win situation.

As I got older and developed my own relationship MO, that did not change. I never became a nagger and I never banned nookie when I was upset. I think if anything, unrest made me crave it more. But that is neither here nor there.

A couple days ago, Wes suggested that it would be great for us to be flatmates. We’d have such a happy, TV-free home. While I couldn’t think of a single thing the two of us would ever argue about, I had to decline.

“No. I refuse to have another roommate. The next time I live under the same roof as someone, I will be able to use sex as leverage.”

Leverage being totally different from punishment. I mean it more as a bargaining chip or a rewards system.

I like sex. You like sex. I also like when I don’t have to take out the garbage. In fact, it gets me really hot. Ooh, what you do with a twist tie…

You see where this is going.

Kenny’s lesson got across and it stuck. I will never use sex as a weapon. But as means to barter my way into domestic bliss? Hell yes. The only drawback may come when he’s late to work on a regular basis after playing sanitation engineer, but overall, I think that is what I would call a win-win situation.

Tit for tit, if you will.

Today at work, I got The Headache.

One second I was fine and then –bam!—there it was, a sharp pain in my left temple, and I can’t bear to look at the computer screen anymore. One of the senior designers must have noticed me wince as she passed.

“Oh, you have a headache again?â€ù

I looked up from my desk, two finger tips pressed against my flesh, ostensibly, to keep my eyeball from popping out the left side of my face.

“Yeah. I don’t think there’s any Advil left in the pantry.â€ù
“You get them all the time, I see.â€ù

Mona speaks in a child’s voice. It’s airy and sweet. Like Snow White. Usually this is annoying to the point of infuriation, but when your head is pounding so hard your eye is about to take leave, it is a blessing.

I nodded. Yes, I get The Headache all the time.

In a heartbeat, she was standing over me, redesigning my workspace. Maybe it’s the lighting. If my monitor faced the other direction, would that be better? Let’s see how I sit. No. No. And no. I was beginning to lose my patience.

“Why don’t we tryâ€_â€ù
“Nah, you know what? I think I’m just allergic to work. I’ll go find some Advil.â€ù

A snicker came over the cubicle wall, and then a couple of amens. A voice joined in from the next row.

“Just how crazy do you have to get before they make you take a forced vacation?â€ù

And then another.

“Do you ever fantasize about getting clipped by a taxi? Not seriously injured, butâ€_ you know, out for a bit?â€ù

It seemed we were experiencing a bit of an epidemic. Which also explained why we’re out of Advil in the pantry.

I was going to start off by saying, You know the type. But actually, no, you couldn’t possibly.

The first time I saw him, I knew. The body language, the physique, the face that said, I am what that movie Deliverance is all about. I’d only been a member for a few days, but one look told me I’d already identified the Gym Weirdo and that I must do everything in my power to avoid him.

While other folks were going about their normal gym routines, Weirdo was attempting to do chin-ups from the exposed ceiling beams. He’d take a bit of a running start, leap, and then hang from the rafters while scanning the room to see who was watching.

I kept my gawking undercover. I felt it was best not to let my staring be mistaken for appreciation of his unique skill or worse… romantic interest.

While hanging from the ceiling (did I mention the grunting?) may have been one of the more bizarre tricks, he also had a litany of other obnoxious Look at Me behavior. One day, he stopped in front of the treadmill I was using and started shouting at the TV monitor. Something about basketball recaps really got this guy worked up. Clearly, he wanted attention, and I was having none of it. I suddenly became utterly transfixed with an episode of Texas Justice.

God, do I love the law.

Twice he’s tried talking to me and twice I’ve simply been too engrossed with the magic sounds coming out of my iPod to hear him.

Anyway, today the Gym Weirdo was at it again. From my elliptical machine vantage point, I could see him in the free weights area spastically pretending to slam dunk a basketball. And I do mean spastically. I watched for a bit as I always do, intending to look away before he noticed, but… well, I messed up. I got lazy! And before I could turn my attention back to CNN, we’d made eye contact. Fuck!

Heather and the Gym Weirdo sittin’ in a tree…

I finished my workout and tried to forget about it, but when I came up to the street level entrance, there he was. I scrambled for my earphones, but it was too late.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

Oh god, oh god. I’ve been waiting for you? That’s what the crazy says before you get all slashed up and become the subject a Lifetime TV movie. I used to have a TV once; I know how these things go.

“What’s your name?
“Uh, Heather.”

Heather? Why can’t I learn to say Becky or Jennifer when I’m being cornered by a stranger with a disturbing lack of personal space? I should have tons of practice by now. I mean, we’ve all met the Airport Weirdo and the Amtrak Weirdo. If I can’t avoid them, I should simply develop an alternate identity and stick with it.

Hi, I’m Becky. I’m a Leo who loves cooking, Russian history and cats. I have seven communicable diseases.

“I’m Kennedy,” he said, revealing a mouth full of summer teeth.

With a flourish, he swung open the glass door on the left. I plunged my earphones into my ears and pushed through the opposite door.

“Okay. Bye.”

Rude? Maybe. Okay, not maybe. Totally. But when all signs point to Leave me alone! and still he persists, there is no room for politeness. If I had let it go any further, he could make going to the gym a completely miserable experience for me.

And we all know that’s what squats are for.

While I was in my bedroom writing Thursday night’s drunken post, the Mystery Man was in the living room making Sir Hal’s acquaintance. When I came out, the two of them were playing with an unlikely toy – a handful of bills from the visitor’s wallet. I assumed they belong to him anyway. His Excellency doesn’t have his own cash supply.

I told him that bribes weren’t necessary (Sir Hal is a complete sucker for love and becomes immediately enamored with just about anyone who comes through the door) and we cleaned up the money.

This evening after I’d returned from my adventure in The Cloisters (more on that later), I plopped down on the sofa to call my sister in California. While we gabbed, Sir Hal lay on the floor batting something against my bare feet. I ignored him for as long as I could.

“Hold on.” I told my sis, cradling the phone against my shoulder. “Hal wants to play fetch.”
“I still think that’s weird.”
“Yeah, well I… Oh, no way.”
“What?”

At my feet, instead of finding one of his many mouse-shaped, catnip filled doodads, I found a wad of cash.

“Jackpot.”

I traded Hal his windfall for a hair elastic (it’s really all the same to him) and dropped a note to the rightful owner. But he replied that no, it wasn’t his. Rumor has it, he told me, that Sir Hal has been seen at the track, betting on ponies.

I looked at my kitten, now sleeping innocently at the foot of my bed and then at the pile of cash on my desk. Hal? A gambler?

Man, you think you know someone.

There’s a man in my apartment, and in between not-so-subtle innuendo, he’s telling me, “Write, woman. Write.â€ù

So, here’s what you get when I am slightly intoxicated and on the ugly side of strung out: I’ve missed phone calls, deleted texts without actually reading them and kept a few dozen conversations to less than thirty words all in the name of just getting through today.

But here we are. Welcome to my new home on iVillage. Love it, hate it – frankly, it’s sort of irrelevant as this point. I was going to give it up entirely, and now these fine are folks are fitting the bill.

This is home now. Take off your shoes and make yourselves comfortable.

I try not to keep alcohol in the house. If I have it, chances are I will drink it and that’s where we begin to have problems.

Several months ago, I noticed that every time I came home from a long day and poured myself a glass of wine with the purpose of relaxing, without fail and within the hour I was crying. Things were all around more complicated then. Love was tricky, life was confusing and drinking alone became an invitation to a pity party.

Things are decidedly less complicated now, so when I dropped my purse on the ottoman this evening, I made a beeline for the bottle of Syrah that was decorating my kitchen counter. A birthday gift from Jen, it had been biding its time waiting for a dinner party or some other event because, well, I don’t drink at home alone. But tonight, I decided I was well and whole and so very even keel that not only was there not a thing in the world that could bring me to tears, a glass of wine might even send me to sleep a little bit early.

Boy howdy, was I wrong.

I poured some wine, took a swallow and made that “ahhh” sound you make when you kick off a pair of uncomfortable shoes or take a sip of really good coffee in the morning. Then I ran a bath. When I got out and dried off, I poured myself another glass and retired to the bedroom. I lit some candles, crawled into bed and entertained some remarkably profound thoughts like, Oooh, my toenails match my sheets.

So far, so good.

Then I switched on my computer. I read a few emails, dallied with the idea of paying a few bills and clicked over to CNN to catch up on the day’s news. Now, some people may not consider a mother cat nursing a baby squirrel to be news, but I am not some people, and had to watch the news clip immediately.

I made it nearly halfway through the clip before the waterworks started. It was not a sobfest by any means, but I did feel a tear forming in the corner of my eye. I put an immediate halt to it.

Come on! I mean, crying from cuteness is a vast improvement, but I have to admit that melancholy seemed a much more respectable reason for tears. And what’s more, I’m not in bed asleep; I’m wide awake and blogging about what a ridiculous sap I am.

I really should learn to stick to my own policies. Or at the very least, learn to like whiskey. Because tears or no, after two glasses, I’d be out cold.

I know, I know. I’m such a launch tease.

But I swear it’s not my fault. I almost don’t dare tell you the new date for the Big Change, because it’s not likely you’ll believe me after all this crying wolf. Let’s just leave it at this: It’s like, falling in love. It’ll happen when you least expect it.

There, don’t you feel better?

I’m wearing a suit today, which means that something else big is up. Please to do the crossing of fingers. Fueled by anticipation of the something else big, I spent last night in a flurry of nervous energy, tearing my apartment to little bits. It started out as simple straightening, but then, hey, what’s this in the cupboard? And before I knew it, I was in the middle of a massive reorganization.

Somewhere between rediscovering my Belgian waffle maker and adios-ing my ten year old, hardly used spice rack, I missed the movie I’d bought a ticket for. That’s when I knew I’d gone too far. Though, it still did take all my power to stop myself from taking down the curtains and washing them (probably ironing them, as well, if I am being honest about my own sickness).

I do that sometimes. I also get worked up and clean fixtures with Q-tips. So on the Neurotic Cleaning Scale, last night’s binge wasn’t so bad.

Except for the part when I actually vacuumed the cat.

The Sunday Times crossword is lying in my hallway, next to my overnight bag which, if history is any indicator, just may get unpacked before it’s time to go out of town again. I have a sunburn, a sliver in my tush, and mysteriously, a rogue grain of sand in my bellybutton.

“Let’s not go back to New York,” I told the driver of the rent-a-Kia this afternoon. I’d started seeing signs for the City and hit panic mode. Having been in charge of the music, the climate control and the Q&A, I didn’t see any reason I shouldn’t get to pick our destination.

“Where do you want to go instead?”

“Mexico.”

A car passes us and I see a souvenir in the back window — a hat with a band that reads, Puerto Vallarta. This was a sign. But still, we ended up back in the city, and I’m back in my apartment where the fridge is empty, the laundry basket is full and I have zero inclination to remedy either situation.

God, what a rebel I am.

When things have been feeling just so wrong for long enough, a touch of just so right can be a bit of a system shock. A weekend away, free of complication (the Times puzzle aside) and filled with mac n’ cheese, pink fruity cocktails and puppy piles on the sofa watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding make the idea of getting up for work in the morning a new brand of torture.

I mean, even the sliver in my butt is charming in comparison. A totally different kind of pain in the ass.

The only thing that will make this work week bearable will be the pictures that should begin circulating soon – images of dancing to Michael Jackson’s Sweet Young Thing with spoons on our noses and other proof of having spent two solid days doing absolutely nothing and having done it really, really well. You know, like it was my job.

Actually, I think I’m going to go on Monster.com now and see if someone needs me to do that full time. I’d be a pro.

(PS. The whole, butt sliver thing, you think that will just go away on its own?)

It felt sort of like being at girls’ camp. It was dark. There were candles on the tables flickering in a way that reminded me of campfire, and a girl with a guitar singing over chitchat and laughter.

But we were in a West Village bar. I’d come with Tanya to hear Josey Miller play, and when I leaned across the table to say it felt like camp, Tanya said, “Intimate. I think because it’s an intimate setting.” Maybe. But maybe it was more about something comfortable. Josey sang a few songs I knew (I particularly liked her Joni Mitchell cover) and a bunch I didn’t, and the ones I didn’t were just as appealing. My favorite songs are the ones that tell stories. I like wondering what really happened – what got ommitted and condensed to fit into a few lines that rhyme, and what my imagination does with those lines – what pictures it paints trying to fill in the holes. The bar was more chaotic than girls’ camp, but Josey was a voice to be reckoned with and I didn’t much notice the noisy patrons or the Mets game playing in the corner.

Last week, I had the pleasure of catching Jaymay’s CMJ show at the Living Room. She too was absolutely captivating, but in a completely different way. There was something so quirky and so foreign about her music, that as I listened, I couldn’t help but think, “What kind of person writes songs like this?” I have to assume that if her music is any reflection, she’s a bit of a handful. Her songs can be unsettling, evocative and sad. But simultaneously wry and funny. And very worth staying out too late on a school night.

I’m still waiting for Hillary Huffard to come out with a CD. A few months back, her cover of a Cake song surprised the hell out of me when I found myself blinking back tears. Another surprise was that she didn’t have to fight to be heard in the small, noisy Saturday night bar. When she took the stage, she looked quiet and unassuming, but the moment she started singing, some quality in her voice – one I can’t find words to name – silenced the crowd. Reverence, I suppose. More than once I had to reach for a cocktail napkin to wipe my eyes — more than a little overwhelmed. You go to church for the kind of edification I felt like I got that night. Perhaps it’s a good thing Hilarly doesn’t have a CD; if she were readily available for my consumption, I might not know when to stop. Being moved, even toward melancholy, can be addictive.

It’s no secret that I have a history of falling for musicians. There has been a drummer, a guitarist, a singer-songwriter. Actually, make that two drummers. And I think there may also be a high school band trumpet player in there somewhere. I can’t really tell you what the attraction is. But after writing the above, it’s pretty clear that I feel a very similar sort of pull toward talented female artists. Which makes me think my amor has everything to do with loving being touched and nothing to do with actual love. Not much of a revelation, I know. But it does help to remember, when I’m sitting in an audience, melting over some new dreamy wounded heart with a guitar, that it’s just a show. I can love from the audience, or through my iPod earphones, and that’s where it stops.

I have decided that the next man I fall for will love calculus or golf or dead languages. And he will have some other way of moving me.

I cannot go to school today
Said little Peggy Ann McKay

How’s that Shel Silverstein poem go again? I know if I asked Biscuit, he’d be able to recite it for me. But he’s not here and I’ve had the same couple lines (the only two I know) running through my head since I got up this morning.

My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I’m going blind in my right eye.

Only, I’ve been saying, “I have a stye in my right eye.” ‘Cause I actually thought that’s how the poem went and because, well, I do. I do have a stye. And I seriously considered that as a reason to stay home today.

That should tell you about the state of … things.

I gotta say, for such a small thing, a stye is a terrible, wicked thing. Like fire ants. Or paper cuts. Or toddlers. Okay, just kidding about the toddlers. Except the ones on airplanes — they are definitely small, terrible things.

Anyway.

A while back, remember how I taunted everyone with a ‘big change’ that clearly never happened? Well, it will. I promise. And hopefully on Monday. In the meantime, I will be running back and forth to the ladies’ room to make certain my stye has not taken over my entire eye and turned me into a taller, girlish Quasimodo (Quasimoda? Does the masculine/feminine adjective things apply?).

Sanctuary!

I had my suspicions that Saturday’s wedding would fill me with matrimonial envy. I’d be overcome by every little awww moment (I do’s, first dance, best man’s speech) and walk away from the whole event just itching to get hitched. But I left the reception convinced not that I needed to get myself a husband, but that I must have a chocolate fountain.

And if I have to get married to have one at my reception, I will.

The wedding was flawless. The ceremony was brief (no kneeling!), every detail was exquisite but not overdone and even the standard wedding cheese was made bearable by a touch of humor. Like when it came time to cut the cake, Adam Sandler’s Grow Old with You played in the ballroom.

Classic.

I had thought I’d seen everything when we made our way into the reception hall before dinner and found ourselves in front of a Mojito fountain. Brilliant. An attendant filled your glass and then added some mint leaves and sent you on your way. I had two. But that was the closest I came to taking advantage of the open bar, and aside from champagne toasts to the bride and groom, the only thing I had to drink. I was playing designated driver. As it turned out, the hotel was not exactly next door to the reception.

As impressed as I was with the mojito fountain, when toward the end of the night, J appeared with a plate full of chocolate covered strawberries and told me they’d come from a chocolate fountain, I was overcome. A chocolate fountain? Who was doing the catering — Willy Wonka? This I had to see for myself. Lo and behold, there it was in the anteroom, a four foot, three-tiered fountain of chocolate. And even though I was stuffed to the gills, I got in there with a couple speared strawberries. It was insanely good.

I managed to dribble some of that fine chocolate down my cleavage. Saving it for later, I guess.

When everyone was walking away with their centerpieces (I had no idea this was okay, not to mention tradition), I made one last pass of the anteroom to see if maybe that centerpiece was included in the deal. It wasn’t. Too bad no one got to take that home – not even the newly weds. But what a kick-ass thing to have at a wedding….and what a way to assure wedded bliss.

Because, I mean, what says Lifetime of Happiness like a tower of flowing chocolate? Exactly.

Tomorrow after work, I’m getting on a Boston-bound train. Hopefully, I’ll have clothes to pack in my bags, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

When J called yesterday to firm up plans for the weekend, I was still pretty foggy on the details. All I knew is our good friends were gettin’ hitched and I was looking forward to putting on my dancing shoes. Which is not a lot of information. So when we’d gotten the pleasantries out of the way (a good five minutes of Zoolander and Life Aquatic quotes), I went over my questions.

Attire?
Formal.

Shit! What is this, Father of the Bride? As visions of white tents and twinkle lights danced in my head, I flipped through my desk calendar. Three days. I had three days to either lose the eighteen pounds required to fit into something I already owned or high-tail it around town and buy a new one. For no dollars and fifty cents. Because that’s exactly how much money I could afford to spend. I scratched a note on my Post-it to-do list. Black formal dress.

When and where?
4:00 in one of those W towns. Like, Wooster. Or Woburn. The hotel is right next door.

4:00 is good. I’ll get to sleep in, spend time fussing and by 6:00 or so, I’ll be well on my way to getting silly on the dance floor with all my old pals. And if the hotel is right next door…

“Wait, what?”
“The hotel is next to the reception.”
“Why are we staying in a hotel? It’s only 30 minutes away.”
“Yeah, and it’s open bar. Who’s gonna be able to drive back?”

Not to suddenly morph into my mother, but… oh dear. I’m mostly not worried about sharing a hotel room with my ex-superdrama; I’ll just have to be on my best behavior. You know, angel on both shoulders kind of a thing. Besides, right now, I have more pressing concerns like…

The United Nations.

Apparently, the UN being in session affects my local wash-n-fold / dry cleaner and they may or may not have my clothes back in time for me to go tomorrow. I dropped off a load last night. This morning I was told that due to traffic, etc etc, they might not have my clothes back from their factory until late tomorrow. Hmmm. That. Is. Not good. Among the items I left were any and all jeans that currently fit and the new dress, which needed to be steamed. My fingers and toes are crossed that they are returned in time. Otherwise, I’m gonna have to get real creative with my wedding attire.

Incidentally, the new dress cost slightly more than no dollars and fifty cents. But that’s what credit is all about, right? Emergencies. And if this isn’t an emergency…

Don’t worry, I’m rolling my eyes at myself for you.

It was Christmas in September and we were making tarts.

I don’t have a kitchen counter to speak of, or a table to eat on, so when we have big cooking projects, we make do. Pecans were crushed in a plastic bag with a rolling pin by a cross-legged Biscuit on my living room floor. Bowls of melted caramel, chocolate cream and sundry ingredients dotted every available surface. And extra ingredients eventually found a home on one corner of my living room desk.

When I left for work Monday morning, everything was still there. A nearly-full bag of caramel cubes – hastily twisted shut and sat on its top end – was among the items neatly waiting a home in the cupboard. But when I came home in the evening, that was no longer the case.

It happened once with mini marshmallows.

I came home one night last winter to fluffy white wonderland and my lunatic kitten racing around the apartment, batting wildly at what had been almost an entire bag of tiny, hot chocolate sized marshmallows. I found marshmallows in my bed, in my shoes, under the couch and in the bathtub.

Same sort of situation with the caramel cubes. In Sir Hal’s food dish, behind the commode, and just now, a very Princess and the Pea moment when I settled in with my laptop and… what’s this behind my pillow? Oh yes. Caramel.

I swear, His Excellency must get on the internet while I’m at work and Google “ways to wreak havoc in small spaces.” He’s just so damn good at it. And so good at waiting until I’m nowhere near him with the squirt bottle to implement his evil plots.

I gotta say, I think I prefer the caramels. Much easier to clean up.