I am going home to Indiana today to celebrate my thirtieth birthday,

which is Sunday. Because I'm leaving work early, I needed to work extra to hit my 40 hours. Because work dinners count as hours, I decided to leave work at the regular time yesterday and go to the dinner planned for our sales reps. Usually, I skip these.

Now, I haven't worked at a company that actually has money for a long time. I've certainly never been in a position to go out to a shmancy restaurant, eat and drink well and get paid for it. My last job was at a very poor nonprofit. My other job was nannying two little boys. My job before that was a receptionist. You get the idea.

Can I just tell you that for about 15 people, we ran up a tab that was the same amount of money that I lived on for an entire semester. It's approximately enough cash to feed all the starving children in China, AND fund research to learn to make fuel out of corn cobs. I was astounded. People ordered so many shots of Patrone that eventually, when one young woman nearly slid out of her chair like a wet noodle, the waiter cut us off. I was even more astounded when one of my co-workers, the leader of the whole young, flash, hammer-fied group, tried to kiss me in front of everyone, and when I dodged him, he accidentally licked my face.*

I don't know if this is common protocol or not. Maybe it was a particularly crazy night. If I ever, ever tell you I'm dating either a sales rep or a surgeon, you have my permission--rather, you are required--to come to my house and perform a lobotomy. Not that they're ALL bad, but I'd certainly consider it a high-risk endeavor.

Now, I have to roll out of bed and go into the office, and I really, really don't want to.

*Lucky for him, I know he's a very respectful guy who was having a rare, dipshit moment.

With salt. Extra salt.

Moi. And Voix.

I am playing hookey from work.

It is 12:30 and I am home sick. Am I sick? Well, a little. I have a cold. And lots of paid sick time. So I am home, and I just left a v-mail for the Voix and I'm going to read and take a nap and watch some movies that I swiped from Kate and Tim when I went over to water their plants. They are on their honeymoon.

I am not going to stay on the computer very long. It is not okay to play hookey from work then spend all day on the computer unless you are doing mandatory homework, and I have no homework right now. I must find mischief. I don't know what kind. One can't ditch out on something unless it's to do something Ferris-Buhler's-Day-Off-esque. At least a little bit.

Now, I'm off to eat enchiladas and drink margaritas with the Voix. Suckas.

Yes. A while.

I just called my ex in Australia and he was asleep—it’s 11 p.m. or so—-so we agreed to talk later and I said Love You because we still do that even though it is a different kind of Love You than before. He didn’t say it back. Which means either his mother is present or he’s in bed with a woman, because I know he loves me to pieces and I know him well enough to know when he’s up to mischief. I shrieked at him—OMG, you totally have a girl over. I teased the shit out of him for a minute and he laughed and said he’ll talk to me tomorrow. He wasn’t dating anyone when I talked to him less than a week ago, so she’s either really new or an ex or a one-nighter. Where once I’d have found this utterly heartbreaking, now it’s just funny and whatever and no big whoop.
That is kind of weird, that this isn’t weird. Does that make sense? I used to live with this man and bought us dishes and talked about marriage and had Christmas with his parents and washed his endless pile of rugby socks. There was a time that I couldn’t imagine a future that didn’t include us together. Then, things changed. When we were heartbroken about it, it was impossible to imagine that being apart would ever feel natural or okay. We thought it would feel wrong and foreign forever. And it doesn’t feel that way—it feels like finally, after 5 years of knowing each other, our relationship is finally exactly where it is meant to be for the long haul. He’s there and I’m here and he dates and I date and we call each other to whine about who we’re dating and we send birthday presents and have a whole new meaning for the I Love Yous between us. Sometimes we can promise to love someone forever and move heaven and earth to keep them as safe and happy as possible. Sometimes you are wrong, and can’t and don’t keep that promise, and that is scary to think about, because if you can be wrong once, you can be wrong again.
I guess… that’s where we’re lucky, Dan and me, is that that part hasn’t changed at the core, it just looks different than before. I still would jump in front of a speeding train to save the guy, and he would for me. And whenever I call him crying about something, he cries with me because even though he’s a big, burly, hairy, steak-lovin’ manly man he can’t hear me cry without getting teary. But the love does not look like I expected it to—we don’t have romantic feelings for each other anymore--and there was a time that I couldn’t trust that things would ever be okay. But they are. It took a lot of time and hurt like hell, but they are okay. And I’m really lucky for that. That even though we’ve been through a train wreck and couldn’t ever imagine how it would ever get untangled, it really is all back on track. It feels good to finally be able to say that and mean it. It’s taken a while.

Grodie.

Did you know that Dairy Queen has a flavor of Blizzard called "Cheesequake?" Excuse me, but I do not want my Blizzards to evoke the image of quaking cheese. I like cheese. I like ice cream. I approve of these dairy products. Please do not mix them.

Ich lebe mein Leben in Wachsenden Ringen

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of years
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

-Rainier Maria Rilke

Some sad notes from an old notebook I used to write in when I was half asleep:

In bed
I smooth my foot along
my dry white calf.
So soft
after you were gone
from lying here
Evening.
Night.
All morning.

***

The earrings I wore tonight
glisten on the counter top

You will never understand
the depth of my sadness.

When my last lover saw me
In the picture by the waters

He said standing there
You look like you might
dive in
and swim away.

***

The tree has borne a thousand seeds
and none will ever live.
Last night, the storm
ripped a thousand branches
to the ground.

Why didn't you tell me?

She is sick
to think of it.

***

What I remember most about you
is orange skies
in Minnesota winters.
I was amazed
that it never got
truly dark.

Sponge-Tim No-Pants

My friends Tim and Kate got married yesterday at 5:30 in the morning. They rented a giant camping space in the boonies that was private and pretty. A bunch of people camped and the grandparents and aunties and such stayed at a hotel nearby. Camping Friday night. Wedding at 5:30 Saturday morning. Brunch. Free time for swimming, golfing, canoeing, etc. Reception at 3. Camping again Saturday night.

It was approximately 1005968493 degrees yesterday, so the 5:30 a.m. nuptials outdoors turned out to be a good idea, a cool 83 degrees with a nice breeze. The bride dragged me out of my tent at 4 a.m. We woke up the bride’s sister and a friend or two. We went to the bridal tent (tall enough to stand up in) where we strapped Kate into a bra that looked much like a torture device, Lauren clipped on jewelry and I put on a headlamp, the kind you use for spelunking, to do the bride’s makeup. It was still totally dark out.

Meanwhile, back at the hotel (the groom loves his bride’s hardcore outdoorsyness, but wanted AC and, you know, a shower before his own wedding), the groom and his best friend were dressing. Tim put on his shirt, his tie, his jacket. Then he felt a cool breeze and realized something was missing: he had no pants. There were no pants on the hangar, none in the bag, none under the bed. The groom, he had no pants.

Tim made the 40 minute drive back to Minneapolis in SEVENTEEN minutes wearing a dress shirt, tie, and his boxer shorts.

At 5:30 a.m., all the friends were caked in bug spray and sweat and bed-head and had breath that could kill an elephant. There was no running water, you see, and pit toilets. But Kate—not Kate. Kate was born with mutant naturally-gorgeous genes. She rolled out of her tent with flowing hair soft as cornsilk, as fresh as a spring daisy. She was dazzling. When she walked across the field with her father to marry her groom, she was glowing, Tim was glowing, and he had on pants. It was all as it should be. We would’ve cried if we hadn’t been so dehydrated that it was impossible to produce tears. The ceremony was meaningful and the J.O.P. said relevant and touching things. Tim’s father sang a very appropriate and lovely song he wrote for the couple. His sister sang “All you need is love.”

Then we ate brunch. And instead of canoeing and golfing and swimming, per The Plan, everyone went home or to various hotel rooms to shower and shave their teeth and take a 2 or 3 hour nap. Then we went to the reception where we visited and hugged lots of people and ate barbecue food and really good cheesecake. I skipped the second night of camping and drove home and slept in my own bed for 10 whole hours. It was happy, and I am glad they are married and I am glad to be clean and in air conditioning.

Tonight I rowed on the Mississippi

...in a double with a young woman named Erika. It was a skinny double--not much wider than my hips--and very sensitive to every movement. Sleek and white on the outside, and all wood on the inside. An old boat.

Erika bowed, so she sat behind me and called out instructions every once in a while to steer, but mostly we just rowed. It was cloudy, so it wasn’t too hot, and the water was totally calm. Because she was bowing, I didn’t have to look back or think about what direction we were headed or if we’d hit anything. All I had to do was my job, a rhythmic motion, and look straight out ahead at the rippling V we sliced through the water, at the three ducks by the shore, at the one white cloud atop gray ones the shape of a crumpled quilt, at the airplane just taking off at the horizon, at the arc and pedicles of the Lake Street Bridge and the lone biker crossing from one city to the next. Arms away, slow up the slide, click, plunk, exhale and power through the drive, handle heights even around the corner at the finish and click to feather the oars for the recovery.

The first thing I bought with my first paycheck...

...was a pair of Levi 501 button fly jeans. They were boys’, so they sat lower on the hips and were relaxed. It was the early 90’s. Baggy enough to be grunge, fitting enough to still look like a girl. I loved them. I wore them to school. To make out with my boyfriend in his parent’s basement. I took them to college. They traveled across the country with me when I graduated. I hiked up volcanoes in them. I hiked in caves. I sat in them on the floor of my first one-room studio apartment, which had no furniture, cross legged, the hems at the feet all frayed, and cried to my sister twelve states away about not being able to find a job. Eventually, I wore them to my job.

First they got a hole at the knee, then the butt started to wear thin on account of my bony ass. Eventually, they were ratty as hell. I had to do something. Drastic? Yes: I cut them into jean shorts. The button holes on the fly were so worn they’d come undone of their own accord, so I sewed them smaller. I ironed patches beneath the back pockets where you could see the sun shine through. I wore them more. Then: it was time.

I retired the first pair of jeans I bought with my first paycheck when I moved to Australia. It was sad, but they were dead. Gone. Practically just a series of patches and thread. It was time.

After I got home from Australia, I flew to New York and Becky and I shopped at a discount store in New Jersey. I spotted them across the room. This is the part where we would have locked eyes (you know, if jeans had eyes) and cheesy love music would have played over the loud speaker. I made my way to the clearance rack. I snatched them up, tried them on in the dressing room, and Becky exclaimed, “Yeah, I like ‘em. They’re cool.” We’ve been together ever since. They came with me to Japan, another move to Portland. Road trips. Dates. They were aptly named “the nice-ass jeans” by my ex-boyfriend. The hems around the feet are just the right length in my favorite pair of shoes.

I regret to inform you that the Lucky nice-ass jeans are dying. They’ve got a hole on the top of the left thigh, which I can live with. But around Christmas, they started getting the same worn-thin transparency around the sit-bones that the Levis had. Damn my bony ass. I asked my mother to perform some serious surgery, patches and stitching here and there. It worked for a while. Now, it’s no use. It’s time to retire them. Before I’m entirely forced to turn them into strictly around-the-house jeans, I’m trying one more set of ass-patches. But they won’t feel the same. It won’t be long now. The patches will feel stiff and weird. I won’t wear them as often. Today, at the mall, I shopped for a new favorite pair of jeans.

I also regret to inform you that, much to my dismay, the jeans with zippers on the side at the ankle, the kind that burn your leg when you put them on straight out of the dryer, the kind we wore in the SEVENTH GRADE, are back. I tried on maybe 10 pair (not the ones with the zippers—I’m SO not going back to seventh grade). I tried on the “boyfriend cut” jeans, which do not fit like boyfriend’s jeans at all. I tried on the ones that are pre-bleached to look like they’re worn and wrinkled, which The Voix said made me look like I’d gotten fat, washed them a bunch, then lost weight. Bleachy stretch-marks. No thank you. I found a pair that I liked—they’re cute and make my legs look long—so I bought them. But they’re trendy. They’re good for a fling, but not the real thing. Now that I’m on the market for some new Most Favorite Jeans, it looks like what’s out there since last time has changed. Maybe I’ll never fall in love with a pair of jeans again, but I’ll keep trying them on, and who knows. It could happened when I least expect it.

Fun with online dating

My latest love letter from a total stranger. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried:



Hello [Cavu],
I hope you are doing ok.
Have you ever danced untill you felt that you were like an eagle flying graciously across the blue sky?
You look and sound so genuin and sweet. When I first saw your pic I had this feelings in my heart that I have been unable to shake since then. I have not felt like this in a very long time.
Me--I will start off by letting you know that I am a very honest man and expect the same from others. I am not a Denzel Washington but I have this feeling that we could be great friends. I am a down to earth and caring person and I do not play games. I felt an urge to write to you bacause I was overcome with feelings looking at your pic.
Tell me-Do you believe in "Love at first sight?"
Even though we've never met, something about your looks and profile got my equilibrium disturbed.My mind raced as waves of passion flushed over my dark skin, causing me to gaze upon visions of impossible romantic possibilities.I felt like a pathetic man who anticipates the true rhythm of love, with a woman he might never hold. My imagined discourse of thoughts left me suffering, as my lips quivered with the words I might never speak
"I have loved you more than anybody in this world."

I am looking foward to hearing from you. A pic will follow your responce.
Take care for now.
Regards,
-Rico

I am leaving for the Twins game in a few minutes

It's a work thing. We have about 30 marketing peeps in town from all over the globe. I have eaten 3 meals a day with work people for the last 3 business days. We are going to feed our guests hotdogs and they will love us.

Crap that is piled upon my coffee table

One candle. Cream. Unscented.

Currents from the Dancing River: Contemporary Latino Fiction, for lesson planning creative writing classes for immigrants.

Photo negatives, mostly from New Year’s Eve in New York.

A photograph of me, taken by me, in my bathroom because there is better light, for a trial on-line dating profile. The trial is going swimmingly well, assuming I want to date John Lovitz.

A box of 4 gourmet chocolates, the latest copy of GQ Magazine, a Sudoku book, a crumpled map of Indiana Amish country saved from the last time I saw him: All items for a care package for Josh who is a pilot in the navy, and just left for three months at sea.

A piece of particle board with a stretched piece of watercolor paper glued to it.

A surgical technique manual for a titanium intervertebral disc cage, designed for both anterior and posterior implementation.

An exam: “1. From the superior to the inferior, list the five major regions of the spine; indicate the type of curvature it has. Write the tame of each component of a typical vertebra on the spaces provided.”

Two ink pens.

A small rock.

A receipt from Nina’s Coffee Shop.

A postcard from Greece.

How many women I crammed into my attic apartment last night: 13

How long Kate and Tim have been in love: 20 months
Days till their wedding: 55
Time Kate will rise on her wedding day in order to put on her gown and hike a leg up on a tree (we’ll be camping) to strap on a garter belt in the middle of the wilderness in time for her dawn ceremony: 4:30 AM.
How many penis shaped cakes I baked yesterday: 2
How many Ben dropped on his foul kitchen floor: 2
How many penis-shaped cakes Ben baked yesterday: 2

How many women I crammed into my attic apartment last night: 13
How many jell-o shots someone brought to my house: 8 million
How many I consumed: 2
How many the bride consumed: approximately 9
How many times she yacked: 0. That I know of. [Update: Make that 2.]
How many times she drunk-dialed the groom: 2

How long my parents have been married: 35 years
How long they were engaged: 3 months
How long it’s been since my younger sister disappeared for a month and came home married to a man 25 years older than her: 5 years
How many family members have been married in the same small town church with the most gorgeous stained glass windows ever: 8
How many babies those couples had: 20

How many dance clubs we attended last night: 3
How many we rides we took in a black stretch limo: 1
How much we paid for said limo: $6
How many times I had my ass pinched: 3
How many bathrooms I peed in and, using the well-honed skills I learned at college frat parties, managed not to touch a single thing except TP: 3
How many guys bought me a drink: 1
Number of times we heard the song “Baby Got Back”: 4
Number of women in the “Baby Got Back” video who actually have a large ass: 0
Number of times I thought to myself, “Dear God, I am too old for this”: 1,000,000
How many trips to the spa my friends are getting me to thank me for hosting this madness: 1. Yay.

In my 4th grade diary, how old I said I expected to be when I got married: 30
How many times I’ve informally been proposed to: 3
Age I was when my grandmother told me she’d never live to see the day I found a husband and gave me my wedding gift early: 23
Her age on her wedding day: 29
My age now: 29
How often I use the non-wedding gift she gave me: Almost daily

How many times I’ve been asked out this year: 3
How many dates I said yes to: 3
How many of these men are gay: 1
How many of whom had a degree: The gay one.
Days since I heard “I love you” from a man: 1 day
Miles apart I am from that man: 10,629
How many internet dates I’ve been on, total: 4
How many I had a second date with: 1
How many were totally freaks: 0
How long its been since I went on an internet date: 10 months
How many men I’ve met not on the internet (since I moved here) who turned out to be freaks: 5

How many feather boas were in my bed when I woke up this morning: 2
How much random shit I found strewn about my house when I got up:
1 stray sock
1 make-up bag
1 purple bra
7 lemons
1 vibrating cock ring
1 card that said “I dare you to kiss a stranger”
2 jars of frosting
1 t-shirt
1 bag of shredded coconut
6,958 nearly empty cups of God-knows-what drinks
1 dry-erase marker.
How many gallons of warm, sugary, rummy, nauseating Mojito mix I dumped down the toilet this morning: 1
Leftovers I am most excited to chow down on: Mexican layer dip, mixed nuts, wedge of brie.
What’s left of the penis-shaped cakes: 2 cherry-chip testicles
How many bags of trash I hauled to the dumpster: 6
How many drinks I mopped off the floor: 1
What I am going to do with 7 lemons: I have no idea.

The number of years that will pass before I do another jell-o shot, make a penis cake or dance to “It’s Getting Hot in Here/So Take off All Your Clothes”: 3,593,559,293

How many friends I’ve held up the giant hoop of her wedding dress for so she could go pee at her own reception: 3
How much more important it is to have a great partner than any of the wedding stuff: 100x
How nice it is to have both, if that’s what you want: Quite nice, I'm sure.
How much better it is to be single right now than in something that isn’t right: 16 tons
How it feels right now knowing that I’m not vulnerable to or responsible for a relationship: Light as a Feather
How jazzed I’ll be if I find an excellent partner: Super, super jazzed
How urgent is it to find a partner: Not at all.

How it feels to see two wonderful friends fall deeply in love and make each other very, very happy: Amazing.
How it feels to have your friend tell you 10 times in one night that she loves you, and that this is just the kind of girl’s night she wanted: Worth every dropped and re-baked penis cake.
How sure I am that these two punks are a fantastic match: 100%
How weepy and happy will I be at their wedding: Very.

The Delights of Anger

"Something happens to people in the sunbelt. I believe the constant overdose of vitamin D has softened my skull and turned me nice, so that I've started to act like a nice person--though maybe with a little more of it I will overdose and just come into my own nastiness. For it is innate, at my core. The true flowering of my being is bored and acidic and annoyed with the incredible idiots who surround me." --Stacey Richter, "Christ Their Lord." Tin House, v21


The AC in my car is dead. My car is sitting, unrepairable, in the parking lot of the shop, to which I have no ride. I have 20 people coming to my house for a barbecue in, oh, a half hour, and my GRILL is in my TRUNK. Of said car. In said parking lot. On the other side of the TCs. [Update: I left a half-dozen friends at my house to go pick up the car, which had my grill in the trunk, but it was locked in the mechanic's lot. Ever heard of a Wok-a-que? Me neither.]

CAAAARAAAAAP.

My parents were here last weekend. When they arrived, my mother sent my father back out to the car to get the flower they’d picked for me from our back yard and hauled all the way up here in a wet paper towel from Indiana. When Dad was out the door and out of earshot—and you have to understand that my father is the calmest, sweetest, mellowest, most serene fellow alive—my mom leans over to me and says, “Honey, your father had road rage on the way here.” Road rage? I picture someone screaming explicatives while pointing a shotgun out a pick-up window at an old granny going too slowly in her Oldsmobile. “Dad?” I said.

“We were somewhere outside Madison,” so they’d been in the car for, oh, 6 out of 12 hours, “And someone merged and cut your dad off, and he said Fuck You, Goddamnfrickinffrackingblahbluhdeblah.”

That’s the thing about being pissed: he’d been on the road for hours, there was no end in sight. He’d been stuck with my mother, which can be enough to set off a string of F-bombs in itself, and was tired, hungry and had just braved the Dan Ryan on a holiday weekend during construction. We all have the capacity for so much annoying shit before one small, last thing will set it off. When the cup-o-anger is full, the smallest thing can cause it to runneth over.

That is me. Right now. My boss touching my computer screen with her grimy Cheetoes fingers one more GD time would send me through the roof. Furthermore, the fellow I’ve got a giant crush on just asked my friend out, and she told me aaaalllll about it. I feel like I’m in the sixth grade again, when My True Love, Shane, asked me to ask my friend Toni if he would dance with her, and I misunderstood him and thought he asked ME to dance, so I said yes, I’ll dance with you, and he said, No, I said Do you think TONI would dance with me. Not you. That’s how good I feel about today’s episode. However, unlike the sixth grade, I am now old enough to know he is not the love of my life, or even close to it, and I am old enough to come home and drink the white wine that is cooling in my refrigerator, instead of walking the three blocks home in tears. I mean really.

It isn't just those little things, y'all. I've had a winter that, let me tell you (without the details), has filled my cup-'o-tolorance to the brim. Anger. Growl. I find myself wrapping myself on the knuckles for the venomous, bitter dialogue of nastiness running through my mind on days like today. A chipper suburban moron in khaki pants gives me a Minnesota-fake “Howdy!” in the hall at work when I’m on my way out the door to Chili’s (I loathe Chili’s) for a business lunch, and I want to tell her (but don’t tell her) to get a GD personality and a decent pair of pants. It’s not pretty, and it is all quite illogical. However, it feels good sometimes, and frankly, nastiness holds significant value. First of all, because nastiness, on occasion, just feels damn good, especially when one does not apologize for it. There is far too little irreverence in life, and faaaarr to little in Minnesota. Once, I went to the CC Club hoping for an infusion of irreverence, but the almost-intimidating, overly-pierced greaseball who carded me gave me advice on how to keep my engine block from freezing. Minnesota. Jeesh. Portland—now there’s a town for a good whopping dose of satisfying irreverence. I love both cities for very different reasons, but I digress.

Forcing oneself to see the bright side, to make lemonade, to appreciate every single thing one has every frickin’ minute of the day, that’s crap, my friends. Reigning in the ‘tude may be good for general day-to-day attitude maintenance, but sometimes, it is best to freak the hell out for a while. Break a few plates, perhaps, or scream FuckYouYouFuckinFuck to the guy who merges wrong in Madison. For the love of God, don’t smear fake Cheeto goop all over my cubicle, and If you’d rather date a woman whose favorite song is ‘My Humps,’ then bloody well go for it. When the glittering fabric of life shines about as much as the roller towel in a Tijuana men’s bathroom, then, hey, tell off your mechanic or smash something expensive or bitch out the wench that stole your cab at 5 a.m. when you’re late for the airport (Hi, Relish!). Freaking out dusts life off, and before you know it, it’ll start to shine a little bit, and you’ll be better equipped to deal with the dirt.

So, back to my dad: He came back inside with a most gorgeous iris for me, his middle daughter, and he hugged me, and smiled really big, and he rested. I made him some tea, and we talked. Minutes after I went to bed, my dad came into my room and was scuffling around near the open door to my balcony. “What are you doing?” I said.

“I found a little lady bug,” he said, “so I’m trying to shoo her out the door.” He gently picked her up and placed her on the leaf of my petunia on the balcony, and went to bed, and slept very, very well.

dang, dang, da-da-da-da-daaaang

Atomic Dustbin

My junior year prom date was named Zach. I really didn’t know him. He used to sit behind me in CCD (that’s bible school for Catholics, peeps) and bag groceries at the grocery store. I sort of knew who he was.

He called my house and told my mother that he’d like to ask me on a date. My mother gave me the message, so I called back and he asked me to prom. For that very same night. Why not?

I was out somewhere during the day, and it must have been a pool or something because when I came home I was super sunburned. Zach was there already, sitting on the porch swing with my mother in a gray suit he’d bought at the Bargain Hut for $11 after I’d said yes to prom. While I got dressed, he and my mother made a most gorgeous corsage for me out of lilacs from the back yard, and he pinned it to my dress. We took pictures, and we’re both smiling uncontrollably and I’m red as a lobster.

We went to prom. We danced and stuff. Then we went to Fort Wayne, the nearest metropolis about an hour away, and still in our prom threads, and went to an underground punk bar named Monkey Lust. It was fabulous amounts of badass fun. He lifted me up on his shoulders so I could see the band, and I gave him a fake tattoo in the parking lot. Then we drove down Hoosier country roads, the narrow ones with the dips where the tall grass flattens as you zoom through. They had an enormous trampoline in the back yard. We jumped on the trampoline in the middle of the night in our prom clothes, then we laid down on the trampoline and ate ice cream out of the container. The sky was black and full of stars and more stars the longer you looked at it, just millions of them.

We became great friends. I went to Europe that summer and he sent me giant packages with mixed tapes (Fugazi, Nine Inch Nails, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Nirvana). Four months passed till I saw him again, and I was dating a boy named Ted. Ted and I dated and Zach and I were friends. Once, home from college for Christmas, Ted and I were having troubles. Zach and I went to a party and drank too much and kissed. And we both felt weird. So, whatever, we were drunk and it was stupid and we agreed to pretend it never happened, and I pretended I didn’t hear him say he loved me. Maybe he didn’t say it at all, but I’m pretty sure he did.

I dated Ted more. Then Ted and I broke up. I wanted to date Zach, but he was dating Anna. All summer Zach and I went swimming and ate ice cream and lounged in a hammock. He dated Anna, and Anna was beautiful and wonderful and I liked her. Once, a bunch of us were swimming at his house, and for reason we were in his bedroom (the whole big attic) and I don’t know how it happened, we hugged or something, and we could have kissed. But we didn’t.

Then I went to Europe again, to study, and he sent me letters. The old fashioned kind, remember? Hand written on notebook paper with clippings from the small town newspaper that he thought were funny. “Pig Falls from Three Story Window.”

In the first letter, he said he had broken up with Anna. I sent him jam from Herrods and pictures of books that I thought were beautiful and he sent me collages and pictures of the awards he won at art shows—he was always winning awards at art shows because his art was fabulous.

I was gone again for four months. I went to Prague the weekend before finals with my friend Erin, from Oxford. We were talking about Zach and she convinced me that this crazy him-loving-me-when-I’m-not-available and me-loving-him-when-he’s-not-available stuff had gone on long enough. What? FOUR years? She was right: When I got home, I would tell him enough was enough. I loved him. And he loved me. It’s time. Yes, I would do it.

When Erin and I got back to school, there was a letter from him waiting for me.

He was engaged. To a woman named Erica.

I did it anyway. It was hard. I didn’t tell him we should be together. I took him to a park and I remember that I was wearing something hooded, because I kept stalling and pulling the hood down over my face because I couldn’t look at him. I said something like…. I promised myself I’d tell you this before I knew about Erica, and I’m going to tell you anyway. But I want you to know that I’m not intending to upset anything, or to date you, or to harm your relationship. I’m telling you because I need to tell you. If you want to marry her, I want you to, too. I love you. And I’ve loved you since the ice cream on the trampoline.

And now he’s married and has two kids. We aren’t friends.

I wish him well. And I can’t smell lilacs or eat chunky monkey or listen to Gray Cells Green without thinking about what a really great guy he is.

The end.

Ten things I love about my mother: A very incomplete list

She names her plants.

She tells dirty jokes.

She’s brilliant, both enlightened and creative.

She gets rural Hoosiers to appreciate and create art.

The woman is a domestic magician. She got candle wax out of my favorite skirt. She can pack a huge load of stuff into a single suitcase. She can make an awesome set of curtains out of two rags and a stick pin. Her lasagna? Wow.

She’s thrifty.

She married the best man ever.

When my heart got broken, she asked me what I needed, and when I said, “Get me out of this country,” she did.

At Notre Dame football games, she’s the loudest person in the crowd.

She's the Trivial Pursuit champion of the world. And I'm so jealous.

For a different party, she made a miniskirt out of fruit rollups.

Here's one for the “That Was Suppposed to be a Joke and Now It’s on the Internet?!?!” Files

My best friend sent me an email yesterday with the subject “OH MY GOD.” Last winter she went to a costume party. I don’t know what the theme was, exactly—some sort of construction-worker-meets-Burning-Man-artist kind of thing. She made a fringy miniskirt out of containment straps (used in building) and a sort of a tank top… with much less covered up than a tank top. It was iridescent orange, revealing and, while it sounds scary, it was fun and, well, strappy and not something one would be caught dead in anywhere but a theme party among friends.

Yesterday, she hopped onto the Web site for the organization that threw the party to look up an event date or something, and there she was, in all her glory: a GIANT photo of her in the orange strappy ensemble with one high-heeled-boot hiked up on the wall, give the camera man a (fake, joking) sultry dirty-girl look. On the internet. Yes indeed.

I wish I could post a link, but she’d KILL me. Hey: If you wear a bra made out of construction-worker-strappy things, chances are high that it'll end up online. Oh, it was very, very funny.

Shout out to the St. Paul Photoblog