Lost and Found

Moving.

Today was one of the hottest and most humid days of this summer. I chose today to move the majority of my large and heavy furniture to my new house in Clintonville. When the sweat drops actually fell from my face, I felt like I'd accomplished something. I was an athlete training for the Olympics. I was a roof installer. I was a waitress in a diner that feeds drunks hash browns and eggs (sunny side up) in a non-airconditioned room filled with fake plants. I was hot. And still am.

I moved while wearing flip flops.

I hit my toe, and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to lose my toenail.

Rock.

Wedding Plans.

I planned my wedding on my way to work this morning. I didn't mean to turn into that girl, I swear. I survived working the Bride's World Expo - an entire weekend of toile, balloons and lace - without thinking about my own future groom's cummerbund.

The planning started last night at the Library. Some friends of mine in a bluegrass band played to a crowd of 400 people on the lawn. Off duty, but still representing the Library, I struggled to keep myself from breaking into a jig.

"See that girl over there, bouncing around and slapping her knee? She's our Marketing Coordinator."

"Oh dear me. Is she intoxicated?

"No."

Right. So I decided that if I can't dance to the tunes of Big Red and the Wagoneers at my place of employment, then I'd have to dance at a party where I can do no wrong. That, my friends, would be my wedding.

So it started with the bluegrass band and snowballed. It will be a pig roast wedding. No. It will be a crab boil. My guests will eat with their hands. I'll carry hydrangeas. Big blue ones. But what about the vegetarians? I'll do big bowls of mashed potatoes and green beans. Fuck. That will require utensils. What about the people who don't like seafood? Extra andouille sausage in the mix?

There will be no shoes at the reception.

What if it rains?

You see how a girl's mind can wander. I walked by the seafood department and asked how much a crab boil would cost, and if it would be too much to have a pig roast (for those allergic to seafood) AND a crab boil.

"Do you have a groom?" the seafood director asked.

"No. I'll find one, though."

"What if he doesn't want bluegrass at his wedding?"

I once knew a guy who swore he wouldn't marry a woman who wouldn't let him choose the ring.

"I wouldn't want to marry a guy who would be against having a bluegrass band at his wedding," I replied.

"Don't you think that you should budge a little? Marriage is about compromise."

I repeated myself. "I wouldn't want to marry a guy who would be against having a bluegrass band at his wedding."

Some people just don't get it.

Face Eater.

Homer, my dermatologist, squeezed my right shoulder as he left the room. "You'll be fine," he said. I sat in the room wondering if his reassurance was reassuring, or creepy. The dude put his hand on my bare shoulder. I decided to even that out with the fact that we've had multiple conversations centered on my armpits. He's a tiny bit creepy. I'm a tiny bit weird.

Yesterday's appointment was one part armpits and three parts bump on my face. Mentioning it to him was an afterthought at the last appointment. "I'm glad you told me," he said, importantly. I felt proud, like I did in my twelfth year when I told the lady down the street that her kids smoked cigarettes. "I'm glad you told me," she said. And then her sons punched me in the stomach. Repeatedly.

He studied it. "It can be a clump of blah blah blah cells," he said yesterday, "or it can be blah blah blah cancer."

(Later in the evening, I took part in a discussion on post modernism. We dabbled with the theory that there are no absolute truths.

I have an absolute truth: no one likes to hear the word 'cancer' in a doctor's office.)

The word stuck out. Cancer. "I'd like to do a biopsy," he said. "Now, if it's cancer, it's not the kind that spreads. But it will eat your face." Pause. "Would you like to do the biopsy today?"

It will eat your face. "Sure," I said.

Homer took a chunk out of my face and prepared it to send to a lab, while I held a paper towel to stop the blood. I learned that I'd have to wear a bandage on my cheek for five hours, to stop the bleeding.

In two weeks, I'll find out whether my bump will be removed by a laser, or if it will be "dug out and stitched up." And in four weeks, I'll be back in Homer's office for the procedure, hoping that he won't squeeze my shoulder. Or anything else.

This Weekend I...

...ate mussels and red velvet cake at a restaurant in Chicago, accompanied only by a glass of Sancerre and *East of Eden".

...hijacked a soiled limo to ride to an afterhours bar that resembled a truck stop on the Pennyslavania turnpike.

...reveled in amazement when the drunk guy with the briefcase at said afterhours bar asked if my (size A) breasts were real.

...ran through a fire hydrant's powerful stream with six Puerto Rican children.

...announced to multiple people that I will, indeed, marry Andrew Bird should he decide to propose.

...learned that most of the music that I like is "too cute", "too dramatic" and/or performed by "pussies".

...broke a toilet seat at a gas station off of Route 40 in Eastern Indiana.

...learned that when given the option of having sex with a girlfriend or hanging out with a platonic female friend for the evening, most men will choose the former, unless they can determine a way to do both.

...discovered that men who use conditioner are "metrosexuals or gay".

Getting Old.

Last night, I pretended like I was in college again. I closed the dive bar and stayed up until 4.00 a.m. I slept on a friend’s couch and seriously considered coming straight to work today in the same clothes, sans shower, sans Advil.

And now I’m a useless piece of crap. All evening, my comrades referred to my having a “career” versus a “job”. I realized the difference between the two this morning when I knew I couldn’t skip work. I had two meetings and half a dozen phone calls I needed to make.

Going out on a “school night” just isn’t as easy as it used to be.

There isn’t enough coffee in the world.

Held Back.

It was the summer of 1997. I was writing letters to what was going to be my first long-term boyfriend. This was the man whose dating mantra was, “Get ‘em young, treat ‘em rough, tell ‘em nothing.” Literally. This was his mantra.

In between responses from him, I had other things to occupy my time. I had to find extra-long bed sheets. For it was a summer of transition. Before long, my best friends and I would be separated, and we’d all move forward as college students.

I still have pictures from that summer. A picnic at a waterfall with Lainie and Sarah. Graduation parties. Tour with a musical group I performed in. In all the pictures, I was tan, thin, smiling.

This summer is another transition. Lainie got married. Sarah’s going to become a teacher. Both may move to North Carolina. This time around, I’m no longer tan or thin.

It’s a strange occurrence when others leave you behind, when the future looks bright for most everyone. People get engaged, married. They buy new homes and get new jobs. Some are expecting children and others are finishing grad school.

In the fall, Erin’s belly will start to grow. Sarah will be teaching youngsters in New Albany or North Carolina. Lainie will be unpacking her brand new dishes and learning what it’s like to have a husband. Kristin will start a new life with her beau. In the fall, Amy will begin to settle in to her new teaching job in North Carolina. Alex will be learning what it’s like to rake leaves in her very own yard.

In the fall, I will be planning the holidays at the grocery store. Just like I did the previous fall, and the one before it.

In the summer of 1997, I had a new life to look forward to. A budding romance with a man who would finally dump me at a pig roast. Meeting a hippie roommate who would teach me the fine skills required to smoke weed in a dorm room. Psychology class.

This summer, I’m remaining stagnant. In the classroom of life, I’m being held back. Maybe I didn’t assert myself, or pay attention. Or maybe I just don’t know that I’m ready for that next move.

It’s okay, though. I’ll still have stories to tell. In a way, the two summers aren’t that different at all.

Pentonville Road.

Once upon a time, before I cared about having a 401k, before I understood the value of dental insurance, I lived 100 yards from the King’s Cross station in zone one of London. The area holds many memories for me. I once spent a miserable three hours sitting on the floor of the station waiting for an acquaintance who had mistakenly gone to the other entrance. A year previous to that, I stayed at a hostel minutes away from the train hub. And when I finally moved into my flat on Pentonville Road, just outside the station, I remember pulling my broken suitcase past the whores and drug dealers that made King’s Cross their home.

I lived in a building that had bars on the first floor windows. A diamond in the rough, The Gallery, as my flat was known, did not look like a residence. People would stare in shock as I would leave the building. No person could possibly live there. But the flat was beautiful. Bright colors. Tons of windows. A garden roof.

I would wait until the bus pulled away before I went to my front door. I didn’t want anyone to know that I lived there.

I used to take the tube to work every day. I wasn’t smart enough at that time to know that I could walk to Soho in the same amount of time that it took to ride underground. Chances are, if yesterday’s tragedies would have happened while I was still living in London, I would have missed them. I didn’t go to work until the afternoon, and my return trips were in the early morning hours. Nonetheless, I had at least half a dozen flatmates that held normal working hours.

Phil was a writer. Richard, an architect. I’m not sure what Jenny did, but she could throw just about anything across the kitchen with conviction.

I don’t know where they live now, or what they’re doing. I’m pretty sure no one still lives at The Gallery, let alone on Pentonville Road or near King’s Cross. Nonetheless, I’ll fall asleep thinking about them this evening. Hoping that they’re safe.

To Be Honest.

I received an invitation this week for a surprise bachelor party thrown by the bride and her "maids" that will actually be at a raunchy strip club.

I've had a lot of bad ideas in my twenty-six years. There was that time that I melted Kraft singles on a piece of canteloupe in the microwave. And there was the infamous evening that I took every recreational pill that someone handed me. And I'd say that pretty much every phone call to an ex boyfriend after more than three beers is not necessarily productive.

But I'm going to be bold and say that a bachelor party *at* a strip club thrown and attended by the bride-to-be isn't a very good idea. It might be worse than all of my aforementioned mistakes combined.

Which is saying something, because to this day, I still won't eat canteloupe.