Do the Right Thing?

We’d reached that portion of brunch talk where we were past the formalities and right in the middle of real talk. You know, somewhere between your 3^rd and 4^th pitcher of mimosas where you’ve stopped saying the things that you should say and finally start saying the things you’ve been dying to say to someone who wouldn’t judge you.

We had done the impossible; somehow we’d managed to wrangle impossible schedules spanning multiple cities and encompassing careers and husbands and travel plans and kids and family emergencies and every big and small thing in between that could possibly go wrong and carve out a few hours to get drunk over French toast. So, we could at least be honest with each other.

After waxing philosophical on the idea of one of our friends having an open marriage (landing solidly on it can’t work for everybody but it would work for them) Bambi, a friend who’d been uncharacteristally quiet, cleared her throat tentatively.

Closer

Let’s face it; I am a person that thrives on distance.

Fade into You

I can’t even explain the way we are wrapped around each other. We are arms and legs impossibly tangled and even I, prone to claustrophobia when cuddling, think that if he were an inch closer, I wouldn’t mind that at all.

He’s talking above my head, the entire length of my body too short to match his own, and I am listening. Mostly. There is a part of me hanging back, becoming acquainted with the exact note on the scale where his voice registers, tracing absentminded circles across the skin of his bare back, dizzy and intoxicated from the mingling of his cologne and his skin and my perfume and the rain.

Reformation

Honey puts her cold nose directly on the center of my forehead, our code for “Ok, mom, I have let you sleep as long as I can manage staying still and quiet but now my bladder is about to explode so could you take me out, please?” My eyes flutter open and I smile as she sits back on her hind legs, her tail a muffled swish across the carpet.

I sit up faster than I intend to, hoping to fit the need to put on clothes, take myself to the bathroom, get Honey downstairs, in her leash and outside in the few minutes between now and when she might pee on my floor. Suddenly, I am lightheaded, the head cold I have been fighting the last few days slapping me back down into my pillow. I send my daddy a text message.

"Student Loans are Good Debt" and Other Myths

Today’s installment of If Only I Knew Then What I Know Now is brought to you by the letters J and D for Jack Daniels, a chapter in G’s book over at When Keeping it Real Goes Right and this article on a guy who paid off $26K in student loans in two short years.

Reading over it, I was struck by how many friends I have that could have written the same article. In the years since I graduated, we have gathered regularly over mimosas or margaritas and while catching up on each other’s careers, significant and not-so-significant others, mutual friends and just life in general, invariably the conversation turns to that which is the monkey on our collective backs; student loans. Here is what is utterly ridiculous about the entire racket; I don’t know a single student who doesn’t have student loans. I am not saying there are none. I am saying, that of all the students of all the universities, I have encountered in my post graduate years, I DON’T KNOW A SINGLE ONE WHO DOESN’T HAVE STUDENT LOANS.

What we Can All Learn from Whores

(But first, a disclaimer: I don't believe in "whores." I don't believe in assessing the character of a person based solely on their sexual behavior. I think all people make different sexual choices that, if they are practicing them with equally consenting, adult partners, are awesome for them. But for the purposes of this exercise, let's assume whore = the agreed upon social norm that a woman who engages in sexual behavior including but not limited to; sex with a high number of partners, multiple partners #atthesamedamntime, leveraging sex for material goods, etc. is a hoe.)

Let’s begin.

I've known a few “whores” in my day. And not in the ha-ha-ha-OMG-you-did-what-with-your-boo-when-y'all-got-too-drunk-at-the-club-girl-you-such-a-hoe kinda whore. I mean real life, true-to-the-stereotype whores. Truth be told, you know some too. You've listened to their stories, probably dated one without divulging it to your friends, hell, you're probably closely related to one, but we can just Cupid Shuffle right on past that reality. The point is, there are hoes all around us, sharing sordid tales of their latest conquests over omelets and mimosas, not calling your homeboy back even though he bought her that Vuitton, walking through the party sizing up the crowd carefully.

Altar Call

Sometimes I wish I were the type of person that stored my sentiments in pictures or presents. Things I could put away when circumstances necessitated it, tucking them away until they could be unearthed when they’d lost their emotional pull. Theoretically I could pour all that sentimental energy into these objects, these things, so they could store the whatever it was that it isn't anymore so that later, when they needed repacking or to be a visual aid for the retelling of a story, they could be bound neatly inside the confines of an old birthday/Christmas/I-saw-this-and-thought-of-you gift.
It seems like it might be easier.

If I were, perhaps I wouldn’t be so caught off guard in public when the opening chords of a song pick me up and drop me back in the middle of a motion picture of my memories before I can prepare myself. Or maybe if I were the type of writer who could write frivolously about inconsequential things, I would not have pages of written monuments in your honor. I would have no use for remembering the exact shade of your skin found mirrored in my favorite coffee or any documentation of my own obsession with loving so wholly, down to the details.

I am not that person. Instead, I am a writer. I write what I feel because I have to. Because my words aren’t just letters on a page but tattoos on my skin. They are small pieces of this life I’ve lived and how I’ve lived it and who I’ve shared it with and why I am and who I am. And they stay with me, as do the details of you, long after you are gone.

I wonder if you ever come here and read these words, bear witness to these things I've laid down on this altar, done in remembrance of you.

The Case for Christmas

Anyone who has been around here reading for any significant period of time will tell you that I am not here for Christmas. It’s not that I hate it per se, just that I wish that everything from the day after Halloween to New Year’s Eve did not exist.
That came out wrong.

There is a large part of my Christmas loathing that is personal that I won’t get into. But there is another part of Christmas that makes it my least favorite time of year; it is overwhelming.

From October until the ceasing of after Christmas sales in mid- January, it is everywhere. It is big ass trees and bright ass lights and gaudy wrapping paper and syrupy Christmas carols. It is signs and sales and wreaths and garland. It is crowds and competition and over consumption. And that’s just at the mall. Don’t even get me started on what it’s like if you’re one of millions of people like me who have to actually travel to get to your family this time of year. The airport during the holiday season is where glad tidings go to die. And really, what other time of year would you be okay with allowing your child to sit on the lap of a stranger just because he is an old white guy with a beard and ruddy cheeks who may or may not have diabetes?

Nice Girls

There was a time in my life when I was wholly preoccupied with people thinking I was “nice.” Though I proudly espoused the old adage that “nice girls rarely make history”, I was fairly consumed with co-workers, friends, lovers, strangers not finding me to be an asshole while I made history. Or you know, lived.

Crown me King

At my core, I am a tactician. I am shrewd. I can, if I choose, deftly manipulate circumstances. I make calculated plans and I execute them. My plans are flawless, and my maneuvering around and in between the places that inevitably fall apart is astounding. If I were not me, I would be invariably impressed with my ability to project and plot, with the way I play chess on a red and black board.

If I were not me, I would demand you king me.