He knew whose clothes I was wearing, having pulled them out of the closet for me himself that morning.

He’d gotten up earlier and told me to “sleep a little longer” while he went for breakfast makings. I had smiled and mumbled “mmmm, breakfast,” but secretly, I suspected he was mostly going out to get cigarettes. For whatever reason, he thinks I mind, and apologizes when his breath tastes of Camel Lights.

I don’t mind.

I pulled on the boxers and the too-big gingham shirt, rolling the sleeves and buttoning just one button. Right in the middle.

He made breakfast. I drank coffee and read Rolling Stone. We spent the rest of the morning breakfasting, catching the end of a movie — his favorite fight scene, puttering around the computer, posting on web logs. He came back from the shower, towel slung low. We kissed like we invented kissing. This is the way it goes from friends to lovers. A kiss. One button.

Afterwards, I napped in the red gingham shirt. No buttons.

“We’re lovers,” he’d said once when a friend asked how we were connected.

“Were.” I corrected him. By then, nearly an entire month had passed without any face time, and I’d been a little surprised, if not annoyed, at his presumption. “We were lovers.”

“Misplaced the apostrophe,” he’d said.

Within ten minutes, we’d found ourselves alone, grasping in the dark, updating our status.

Affairs are typically brief and conveniently uninvolved on any level other than the romantic one. Friendships are the opposite. And we? A juxtaposition of the two. Romantic, passionate, clandestine. Frank, interdependent, practical.

Sweaty. Entangled. Unstable. Complicated.

And not.

If we had business cards for relationships, then, I guess he and I would have to come up with titles. There are witnesses to the fact that he referred to me as his ‘girlfriend’ once. He’d said it in a proprietary sort of way, as though to mark his territory. Had he intended it differently, the term may have made me nervous. Time runs out for girlfriends faster than it does for lovers. Or affairs. Or friends. Or dirty little secrets.

Whichever applies.

This affair of ours requires no mood lighting or dimmer switches to conceal any physical imperfections. Nor for the moment does it require any excess light to clarify the more glaring, metaphysical ones.

Though, curtains might be nice for the neighbors’ sakes on some warm Saturday afternoons.

It took me ten minutes just standing in the shower, staring at the tile, to shake off the dream I’d just woken up from.

Three bears in the bed and the little one said…

That song is playing over and over in my brain. Along with too many images. I haven’t entirely shaken the dream and probably won’t. I’m due at work soon, so I don’t have time to hash it out here. Maybe later. Besides it’s all sort of foggy mess of faces and feelings now.

J and I in a bed. And then I notice, perched above his shoulder, propped up on too many pillows, the blonde. The other woman. She’d been the final straw in real life (thank god), and in the dream…

Three bears in the bed …

It felt too real. Too current. I woke up feeling used and embarrassed. And worthless. “He’s an archetype,” I remind myself, in case he emails this morning and I feel the need to reopen old wounds. The girl, long gone. The only unchanging part of the dream is me.

Three bears…

I’ve been writing most of the afternoon. Though, in my ADD way, writing involves just as much wandering around, making phone calls, IMing with friends in Boston as it does actual novel-izing.

I even indulged and wrote a racy, scandalous blog entry that I put on ice. Save it for later, maybe.

Now I’m going to watch “Go,” and also in my ADD way, it wil probably involve a lot of pausing and eating of hot and sour soup.

I was warned about drinking vodka from a plastic bottle. And waking up at 7AM with a headache eating the left side of my brain (won’t miss it. hate math), I was in strong agreement. If you’re not going to drink enough to kill you, it’s really a bad idea.

The marker on my knuckles wore off sometime in the night, and all that remains of Sarah B’s tattoo work if the faded ‘FISH’ on my right hand.

It was a jam packed Friday night beginning with Sushi dinner, a documentary (with surprise Q&A session featuring the most dynamic individual imaginable) and wrapping up with Sarah and Ryan’s birthday shennanigans.

Fine time was had by all. And too much plastic-bottled vodka had by this gal. Nothing that orange gatorade, advil and a bit more sleep couldn’t cure, of course.

It’s been a long, hard week. Did I make this week harder on myself? Possibly. But a girl’s gotta lose her cool every now and again to remind the universe to be grateful for her more plentiful moments of cool composure.

Soon it was Friday and there was once again joy in the land.

All the peasants cheered.

Today was frustrating.

I tried to walk it off. That didn’t work, so I went for a run. Did laundry. Yoga. Even had some strawberry frozen yogurt.

I’m still mighty peeved.

The sun was dropping in the sky yesterday evening as we sat on a blanket on Central Park’s Great Lawn, sipping Riesling and snacking on Brie and bakery-fresh bread. We played some version of ‘catch’ with a tow-headed fifteen-month-old and exchanged book talk with his parents. Things seemed quite nearly perfect when I realized,

I’d left my apartment keys at the office!

It was past the hour when I could get in without the Super Secret Security Code (which I have avoided learning so they can’t ask me to work on weekends). What made it even more precious was that my cell phone was already beeping, telling me that it was on its last breath.

Up went the blanket and we left the park, one headed West and the other to the East, booking it like a madwoman in squeaky pink flip flops. The Super works nights and his wife, Angela told me she was headed out at any moment. I willed my cell phone not to die in the off-chance I missed her and had call Ari to cry “Sanctuary!”

Four avenues later, I met Angela on her way out. I think she may have been a bit annoyed with me until she heard Sir Halitosis mewing at the door (he hears keys and automatically goes into pitiful songs of, I’m-so-all-alone-and-hungry). The charmer that Hal is, he melted whatever part of her heart needed melting.

“Here, honey. You keep these until tomorrow,” she said, handing over the spare set.

Crisis averted. Cat fed. Yoga… yogaed. And above all, lesson learned about putting my keys in stupid places. I mean, for now anyway.

I’ll most likely be learnin’ that again next week.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being a grown-up is bittersweet.

Dear James & Julie,

You blow my mind with your coolness. Thank you.

Love,

H

Thank god for telemarketers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s like being in college all over again.

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

I laughed. I do have the best ideas.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Last week, a canker sore was most certainly syphilis.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can read the rest on the AP Wire.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My tummy feels funny.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But what? Nothing exciting was going on.

It was just your average morning.

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

Phil Collins’s Easy Lover stuck in my head.

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

*Figurately speaking.

Raaawr.

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

Finally.

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

First the nightmare of weirdness, then the worrying.

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

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

Seriously, folks? It was torture.

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

This Fish needs a Xanax.

Bad, BAD night’s sleep.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy is a bad thing?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hey, Mikey, I liked it!

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

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

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

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

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

“You? Are fucking fabulous.”

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

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

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

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

Boxers or briefs?
Boxer briefs. Duh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I was thrilled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Among other things.