Brunch with the family.

Shoot me now. It is early afternoon and I feel as if I have spent the better part of a week with my relatives. Ugh.

My sister, Jessie and her husband, Tom are in town. They come to the casino every few months. This is very upsetting to my other sister, Patrice. She worries that Jessie is becoming an addict. ("She took off WORK, Maria, and that is a very bad sign! Think of the kind of example she is setting for her children!")

We all agreed to meet for brunch before Jessie and Tom headed back to my tiny hometown in Iowa where they still live. Patrice invited my Aunt Dottie and Uncle Lenny too.

At breakfast this morning, I felt Liv's forehead. "Do you feel sick, honey? You look a little pale," I asked.

Bing looked at me over the top of her newspaper. "Anything to get out of going to brunch..." she murmured.

But, no. Liv said she was fine. I looked at Socks. "I hate foregoing our walk..." I tried.

Socks nodded mournfully. Stay home, Alpha woman. Let's go out in the back yard and play a mean game of fetch...

Bing stood up. "Suck it up, honey," she said, getting her briefcase together. "C'mon, you can tell us all about it at dinner tonight, okay?" She gave me a kiss for courage and headed out the door.

So, I took Liv to school. Came home and put some lipstick on. Sighed. No use stalling any longer.

It shouldn't be this way. I shouldn't dread this like I do. Other people probably love seeing their families. Why is this such a pain in the ass for me?

I drove to Village Inn, the only place my Aunt Dottie will go since she thinks their two egg special is um, very special.

I pulled in and saw Aunt Dottie and Uncle Len getting out of their car a few spaces over. I smiled and realized that it was genuine. I actually LIKE those two, it is my sisters and their husbands who set my teeth on edge.

Aunt Dottie gave me a hard hug. "C'mere, you little green bean! Give me a kiss and make it stick. Your lipstick is a prettier color than mine..."

Uncle Lenny smiled sweetly at me and looked at Dottie. "Who is this? Is this that neighbor with the mean cat?"

Dottie whipped around. "Len, open your peepers, Mr. Jeepers. This is MARIA. You know, Lily's girl. The LESBIAN."

Uncle Lenny looked at me with interest. "Ahh. Yeah. Now, I remember. My, she doesn't look like one of those women, does she?"

I tried hard to smile my best butch smile. Maybe I should swagger? Offer to check the oil in their car?

We walked in and found Jessie and Tom sitting with Patrice and her racist husband, Bobby at a table.

Shit. I had been hoping that he wouldn't come. I can barely stand Bobby and the feeling is mutual.

Jessie jumped up and we hugged, touched cheeks. Tom enveloped me in a big hug.

We all sat down. Exchanged pleasantries about the sudden mild weather. The waitress came over, a big boned black woman with a beautiful smile.

Dottie had to make sure that they still had the two egg special. They did. We all ordered.

Dottie set the pace. She looked at Jessie. "Did you win anything?" she asked.

Jessie smiled, shook her head. "Naw. We won't be buying breakfast this morning, so don't even ask..."

Patrice sniffed. "Well, perhaps you should find a more suitable place to spend your money," she said, looking sharply at me. Back me up here!

I didn't. I like to watch her drown in her own righteousness now and then.

Jessie looked stung and bent her head down for a moment. Then Bobby decided to play back up dancer since it was obvious that I wasn't going to.

"Your sister and I are set for life. We couldn't spend all our money if we tried," he told Jessie. "And it comes from clean living. We want to leave our money to our grandchildren. And if the Republicans manage to keep the white house maybe we can. If those free handed Democrats get in, well..." he drawled on.

"Maybe gay people will get some basic rights..." I finished for him.

Before he could go on, I looked at Aunt Dottie. "Your necklace is pretty. Where did you get it?"

Round one: Maria.

Our food came and we all began eating. Dottie looked at my oatmeal. "That looks good," she said. I offered her a bite. She smacked her lips after taking a huge bite.

Jessie and I were talking about Bing's upcoming trip to Knoxville in April. She talked about how pretty Tennessee was. Bobby chimed in, "Lots of great Confederate sites there," he said. "Ah...the war that was won by the wrong side...."

He picked a bad time to show what an asshole he is. Our dark skinned waitress had just taken his coffee cup to go refill it.

"I hope she spits in it," I told him, smiling sweetly.

Uncle Lenny, who hadn't been listening, looked up. "Why do you want someone to spit in Bobby's coffee?" he asked.

"Because he's a racist jerk," I said in my loudest-talking-to-my-almost-deaf-uncle voice. Patrice looked at me meanly, her eyes narrowing. I leaned over and whispered, "Hey, I'm just worried about the example your husband sets for his children....."

Tom looked over at me. "Remind me never to take you on," he said. "You Harrigan girls are not to be messed with. I married one, I know..."

Bobby smiled maliciously. "All Maria needs is a night with a real man and she'll stop needing to wear the pants in the family all the time."

He guffawed loudly at his own joke.

The waitress came back with his coffee and smiled hugely at me. "How's everything tastin' here?" she asked, winking at me.

I winked back and said just fine! Bobby carefully pushed his cup away from him on the table.

Uncle Lenny threw a bony arm around me. "Hey, now young sir," he said to Bobby. "I love Maria and you can just go sit out in the car if you can't act like a gentleman."

I nodded, batted my eyes and stuck my tongue out quickly because I never did learn to play nice.

Aunt Dottie, in the meantime, had cleaned my oatmeal bowl for me. "Oh, honey, that was so good!" she said. "Here," she said, shoving a forkful of scrambled eggs at me, "C'mon, help me eat my eggs, it's only fair."

I took the bite, swallowed and then held up my hand. "No more, Aunt Dottie. I'm full."

"Wha'dya mean you're full?" she said. "C'mon, have a bite of my toast. It has strawberry jam on it. You used to love jam when you were a baby. Used to sit on my lap and hog my toast when we would come to visit, didn't she Len?"

Uncle Lenny nodded. Looked at me intently and said, "So, do you still have that mean cat?"

Dottie slammed the toast back down. "LENNY. This is MARIA. She doesn't have a mean cat. You are confusing her with our neighbor, Stella. The one who teaches yoga."

Lenny smiled dreamily. "Stella is a fire cat, she is."

I looked around for something to eat and spied two pieces of canadian bacon on Jessie's plate and nabbed one. I was stuffing it into my mouth when I heard Jessie's gasp of horror.

"MARIA!! It's FRIDAY!" she wailed.

I looked at her blankly.

"I KNOW what day it is," I told her.

"IT'S LENT!!! No meat on Fridays!" she said, pointing at the canadian bacon passing into my mouth.

I chewed happily and said with my mouth half full, "Do you think Satan is clapping?"

She shook her head, rolled her eyes.

Bobby decided to take it to the next jack ass level. He looked at Patrice.

"Well, one of your sisters has a gambling problem and the other eats meat on Friday during Lent. My, my, your Mother would be spinning in her grave..."

Okay. Thems fightin' words.

Jessie and I looked at each other, pondering. In this, we could be a formidable team.

Uncle Lenny, probably still dreaming of Stella the yoga instructor, looked up to say, "It is getting time for my morning nap. Where's the check?"

Jessie spoke up. "Bobby said he would treat us, didn't he Maria?" I bobbed my head up and down. "Yes, he did and hey, where's the waitress? I forgot to get a pie to take home for dinner. Jessie? You want a pie to take home?"

Jessie said she sure did. And well, didn't Bobby just say that he and Patrice had more money than they could ever spend?

Aunt Dottie saw an opportunity and ran with it. "Oh, Bobby. Thank you! What a generous man you are. Lenny? Should we get a pie to take home? Bobby's buying?"

Lenny thought key lime sounded good on this sunny leap day.

We all got pies. Patrice was so mad that she pulled her trump card in the parking lot as we were leaving.

"Maria? Come by this weekend, okay? I saw this skirt that would be perfect for you and bought it. I want to see if it fits..."

She always buys clothes that are two sizes too big for me and then acts surprised when I tell her that they are too big.

I told her in my best sugar voice that I would be sure and stop by.

When hell freezes over.

We all kissed goodbye in the parking lot. Dottie reached into her purse and insisted on lubing up my hands with the tiny bottle of Jergens that she always keeps in there.

"You always have such dry skin. It isn't becoming, honey. Now, c'mere and give your Aunt Dottie a big ole smooch."

I leaned in to kiss her. She found my ear and pressed her wet lips against it. "And you know, even though it wasn't very ladylike, I think you and Jessie got smarty pants Bobby pretty good."

I think so too.

Range of motions

In a previous post, I wrote about pots and lids and decisions and fate. But, I am a true believer in a whole range of motion when it comes to fate.

I don't believe in soul mates. Sorry. I know that this will cause many of you to e-mail me, etc. and tell me that there is too! such a thing as fate, that you are currently living happily with your soul mate.

Sorry. I don't buy it. I believe that there are many, many paths to happiness that exist for all of us. And, on the flip side, many, many paths to unhappiness. If Bing and I weren't together, we could be happy with others. Maybe not AS happy, but happy. I believe that we don't just have one person out there who we are destined to be with. I think there are LOTS of them.

This doesn't mean that I am unhappy with Bing (although this morning she made me so mad that I could have thrown a dish at her), it just means that there are others out there for both of us, if we had chosen to go that way.

We didn't. We chose each other. And it's all good.

But, be honest...don't you ever wonder what if?

What if I had married my high school sweetheart?
What if I hadn't married so young, had waited. Would I have met someone else?
What if I hadn't broken up with so and so? Would we have made it?

What ifs aren't unhealthy, unless you obsess over them. What ifs make us think.

Take today. After I dropped Liv off at school, I went for coffee with my bff, Harriet and Jack, another parent. We talked about our partners. Actually, I think we were bitching about our partners. I was in a snit at Bing. (Long story involving a toilet that she supposedly fixed but didn't and me taking a shower and getting blasted with steaming hot water every time the toilet gurgled.) Harriet was pissy at her husband whose turn it was to drive the kids to school but snuck out of the house early to go to breakfast with his friends, leaving her to do it. Jack told us that the best thing about being divorced was that he didn't have to deal with his ex wife's bad moods in the morning.

Harriet jokingly commented that she knew she should have married Chuck, the man she dated before her husband.

"He was nuts about me," she said. "If I had told him to get on the floor and bark like a seal, he would have. Now THAT was a man who knew how to take orders. Too bad that I couldn't stand his family or the way that he seemed overly devoted to his mother, so I broke up with him."

After coffee, I decided to stop at my neighborhood library because they were having their annual book sale. Tons of good books to be had for 50 cents and a dollar!

I wandered up and down the aisles, turning my head sideways from time to time to check out titles, pulling some books out to read their jackets, etc.

I glanced up to see a very good looking Indian man standing next to me in jeans and a suede jacket. We smiled and our eyes caught, one of those looks where you sort of check each other out. Nothing naughty, nothing sullied, just...a bit of an interest.

I went back to looking at titles and I thought about how I have always been interested in certain types of men and women. In men, I find Indian men attractive. I have a friend, Nirand, who is the spitting image of Mohinder Suresh from Heroes. I like men who are what Bing calls "John Boys", men who look and act sort of poetic and writerly. John Cusack. Johnny Depp. John Malkovich. When it comes to women, I am less choosy but Laura Linney, Diane Lane and Jodie Foster do it for me nicely, nicely.

I kept looking and finally gave up and went into the library itself to pick up a book that was waiting for me on hold: Complications by Atul Gawand. And there he was again, the Indian gentleman. This time he looked at the book in my hands and smiled.

"Now, I hear that one is good," he said.

I ventured that yes, I had heard that too and checked out the books in his hands: Travels With Charley and another book that I had never heard of. I pointed at his Steinbeck.

"One of my favorites," I said.

"So, you like Steinbeck?"

"Yes. How can anyone not like Steinbeck?" I asked him.

We shared the elevator back down to the book sale and parking lot. Right before we got to the doors out, he said, "YES! I knew I had recognized you. You are a patient of Dr. House's aren't you?"

I stopped. Said yes. He then told me that he was an associate of his, that his name was Dr. Chattaranjan and he had seen me about a month ago when Dr. House had asked him to come in and show me some back exercises that had worked for a similar patient of his.

"My name is Chapal," he said, holding out his hand. "Very nice to see you again."

We shook hands. I stood there vividly remembering my last trip to the doctor, the wonderful time where I had wet my pants and his nurse had graciously given me scrubs to wear. Had he known? Had Dr. House shared with him that I had peed my pants? I felt embarrassed just thinking about it.

Chapal was good looking, I thought. More in a Sayid way, but very easy on the eyes. And that deep, luscious accent, like he would know exactly what to do with his hands in bed.

"So, how are you doing?" he asked.

I had a moment of thinking he meant my bladder before I realized that he meant my back. I told him that I was doing fine and thanked him for the exercises.

"Do you ever do them?" he asked.

I sighed. Decided to be truthful.

"Rarely," I told him. He threw his head back a little and laughed. Lovely white teeth. Did I mention that I truly adore white teeth in a person?

"Not surprised," he said.

We walked slowly to our cars and then he pointed to my ring finger.

"That is a lovely stone," he commented, smiling.

A question being asked.

"My partner gave it to me. It's an amethyst. She knows how much I like purple stones," I answered.

So, yeah. Two questions answered in one shot. His eyes acknowledged the unspoken and so did mine. We got to my car first. He wished me well and said to come say hello the next time I had to visit Dr. House. I said that I would, knowing that I probably wouldn't.

I got in my car and headed to Whole Foods to pick up some clementines for Liv's lunch tomorrow. I thought about Chapal on the drive over. I imagined that I was single and us going on a date. Maybe falling for each other. Thought about his rich black hair and those white, white teeth in my bed. Pictured him teaching Liv how to play soccer, standing by my kitchen stove making curry and telling me about his day.

Daydreaming.

I got to Whole Foods and picked up the clementines and picked up some goat's milk yogurt for me since I was suddenly starving. I nabbed a plastic spoon from the espresso counter and sat in the car eating my yogurt. It was so delicious that after my last spoonful, I actually stuck my mouth inside the container to lick the sides and rim of it. Slurped a bit.

Looked up and saw him. AGAIN.

Chapal. This time he was standing in front of my car curiously watching me snarf up my yogurt. I quickly stopped acting like a pig and rolled down my window. He stepped to the side of the car.

"Are you following me?" We both said it at the same time and then laughed.

I held up my yogurt. "I was just getting a few groceries and um...got a little hungry," I said. "What's your excuse?"

He held up a Wall Street Journal. "I was on my way in to get a chai tea and read the paper before my first patient. I thought that looked like your car..."

I said I had to be going then and he stepped back and waved with his paper.

I put the car in reverse and drove away.

Well. If he knew I had peed my pants, now he could add eats yogurt like a pig to my list of charming attributes.

On the way home, I thought about him some more. This time, I pictured him being a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am man in bed. I pictured him not liking kids and thinking that Liv was boring. Rolling his eyes at me because I couldn't learn to make a decent curry like his mother's.

It could happen. Either way. A range of motions that could come to be.

The thing about fate is that when it comes knocking, you always have a choice. And maybe it is best when things don't happen, you know?

Free will is a good thing. Being loyal and committed in a relationship is a good thing too.

When I got home, there was a message on the answering machine from Bing.

Hey...hon. I'm sorry that I was snotty to you this morning about the toilet. Yeah, I did fix it, but obviously not well if you almost got burned in the shower because it was what did you call it? Gurgling? I'll take another look at it tonight, okay? Hey, have a good day. I'll bring home chinese okay? So, don't worry about cooking. You know you hate it anyway. Anything good on TV tonight? Or maybe some stupid TV? Any excuse to snuggle under a blanket with you, darlin. Well, gotta go subdue the masses...I love you. Bye.

Sometimes you are just happy with what you have.

But, tell me...I'm curious. What or who are your what ifs?

The truth hurts

Usually, I am sort of excited to write a new post. I have an idea and am running with it. This time, I feel a bit naked and scared.

Because if I am truthful, I won't look so good. But, I feel the need to tell the story and if I come across as I fear, well...okay. I yam what I yam and all that shit.

Bing was toodling around on the piano this morning and it was such a lovely little piece that I sat down next to her and asked her what it was. She told me it was an old song, and a very sappy song by a man named Joshua Kadison.

"Wanna hear the words?" she asked.

I said sure. So, she played the piece and sang the song and when it ended, I said, "I hope he got the girl and I hope she stayed put."

"Me too," she said and paused. And then she said, "Because I think of it as my Maria song."

I half laughed but to be honest, felt uncomfortable too. It hit close to home. I think I said something to the tune of I have never in my life asked you to live in a trailer by the sea or called you from Vegas at 5 a.m.

"You're missing the point," she said. And then she didn't say anything for a long time and kept playing softly.

I started to get up and she brought me back down with an arm. So, I sat and waited. Uncomfortably, I admit. I had a feeling that she needed to get this out.

She ended up talking for a long time, but basically what she said was this:

I have been in love with you since I was eighteen and your dorm partner. You never gave me a second thought for years. We are talking YEARS. I was always the friend who quizzed you, half carried you home from parties, listened while you went on and on about how you thought so and so was so hot. I was the sidekick. I was the one you never considered kissing, but I was always watching you. I always got the feeling that somewhere inside you knew that but wouldn't go near it.

She was right. I did know it. And no, I didn't go near it.

Then I went back to New Orleans to go to grad school and you went to Creighton and then you met Cory and well, I knew that was that. You both came and visited me, remember? You couldn't keep your hands off of each other. Late one night, you told me that you were crazy in love with her. You moved in together, bought a house together. And I am the one you called at 2 in the morning seven years later to say that you didn't love her anymore and you were afraid to leave her, that she had threatened to kill herself.

Another truth. Bing is the only one I felt I could talk to about that. I trusted her completely.

And then, yeah...she tried to off herself and I am the one who moved to Omaha because you sounded half dead on the phone and I was worried. I was the one who moved in and became your roommate. I am the one who heard you come home from work and then stumble around getting drunk for hours because no matter what I said, you thought it was all your fault. And I am the one who hung tough and stayed the sidekick, the best friend, when you went through women (and a few men, I might add)like water for years. I was always the one who went to the parties with you, went to the movies with you, went grocery shopping with you, but never went to bed with you.

Let me add here that Bing also dated many other women. But, I always knew that they were time killers. She never seemed too deeply in love with any of them. I don't know what I would have done if she had gotten really serious with someone. Would that have woken me up? I will never know.

You never seriously hooked up with anyone, always kept from anything too serious. You said it was because you were a pot who hated lids. I would sit there and smile and shake my head and agree that you were definitely not inclined to commit, but never once, not ever once did you consider giving me a try.

That isn't really true. I did consider it, but figured I would only end up fucking things up, so never acted on it.

So, then you decide that it is time to be a mother and I figured that was a good time for me to move back south, but I couldn't leave you. I would decide to go and then you and I would sit up all night talking and I knew I'd never be able to leave you. That I would just be your fucking Joan Cusack sidekick forever if that was what you needed. And then...Liv. I loved her from the second I saw her. I knew that I could parent this kid with you. I think you knew it too and you also knew that being a single mom was a helluva lot tougher than you thought it would be. So, you finally let me in. Remember that night you told me? It was like a business proposal. You were about that romantic. And I leaped at it like that crumb was a banquet.

She did. She and I were "together" for not quite a year when Liv was a baby. And then I realized that I just couldn't do it anymore. I hated being part of a couple. I could see Bing was ready to sign on for life and I just didn't deserve that sort of love, not when I couldn't love back yet. So, I broke it off. She went back to Louisiana for a couple of years. The whole break up was remarkably polite. Or so I thought.

You broke my heart. I went for over a year with my hand on the phone every single night, wanting to call you. But, I never did. And then you made the first move and called me. Remember that? You called me at 7 at night and we talked until 7 in the morning. You talked me into being friends. I can't believe I settled for that, but I did.

She did. And I called her because I missed her. So much. But, I wanted to be clear that this was not a get-back-together thing. That we could only be friends. She seemed open to it, almost eager for it. I honestly had no idea then that she harbored feelings for me. She said she was dating someone casually and I thought to myself that this was good, she had gone on.

And then, well..I ended up moving back, didn't I? I came for Christmas and didn't want to leave. I knew then that this was my life, good or bad. That I wanted you and Liv no matter what and however I could get you. We bought that house and I moved in with you. Didn't sleep with you, didn't get to touch you though. I watched you get interested in other women and yeah, it was hard, but in some odd way, I was happy for you. I had reached the point where I just needed to know that you and Liv were cared for and happy. And then, you know....that night on the balcony.

The kiss. Ventura Highway playing. Her arms going around me. And me thinking that if I was going to go in this direction again, I better THE HELL not hurt her again.

And then suddenly there we were at this crossroads. Do we stay or go? I was ready for both. I didn't trust you. But something was very different this time. You had changed so much in those years apart. This time, if it wasn't all romantic and hot and something out of a dream that I had stuck in my head for years, but never thought would really happen. You asked me if we could try again and I said yes.

You screamed YES.

So, now...here we are. The happy couple. Except every now and then I see you feeling your oats and not wanting the lid and I get scared. So, yeah...this is my Maria song.

I put my arms around her. Told her that I was set in cement in our relationship. That I would never leave again. Never fuck up that badly or hurt her like that again. She has me. My heart belongs wholly and forever to her.

She said she believed me and then laughed ruefully and said, "Well....kind of."

Then Liv came in and we went to visit a sick aunt and the moment passed.

But, I have been thinking and looking inward all day. Why am I with Bing? Is it for Liv? For me? For both of us? I DO sometimes chafe at the bit. I am not good at being in a relationship, really. I can be aloof and elusive and impossible to reach. I worry sometimes about Bing, feel badly that she is stuck on me and with me.

But, the truth is that I am finally where I fit. It just took me a long time to reach this place. And it pains me that I hurt her so badly in the process. I will never hurt her again. I will stay put. Weather the storms. Batten down the hatch.

The only gift I can give her now is that my heart is finally hers. Well, as much as I am able to give it to anyone. I am very lucky that she thinks it is enough.

Thank you darling Bing. I love you. I really do. I'm just...not good at this dance. But, for you I will waltz. I promise. Every day. Not going anywhere. I promise.

This is the song that Bing was playing on the piano this morning.

It doesn't make me look all that good. But, it is truthful. And real.

Another stupid women's magazine article.

This one was from Redbook. Yes, I BOUGHT it. Uma was on the cover and I have a dirty little crush on her dating back to Pulp Fiction. So, I was in the grocery store and I bought it.

And there was this little article that asked if I wanted to spice up my love life.

Yeah, that sounds good. My love life has been dragging ass for a month now.

So, I read it. It was five ideas to bring sex back into my sexy.

Here were the five suggestions. And yes, that is me you hear guffawing and snorting.

1) VELVET RIBBONS. They suggest that you use velvet ribbons to caress erogenous zones.

What? My dry-as-a-dead-leaf fingers aren't doing it for you? It just seems kind of well....goony. I keep picturing myself with some sap head look on my face running a bright red velvet ribbon over Bing's nipples while she looks sappily back at me and I can't help it, I am chortling.

2) A BALLOON. We are supposed to take turns blowing up a balloon and slowly releasing the air over each other's bare nekkid skin.

This baffles me. I am not a windy girl. Liv used to adore balloons and I HATED blowing them up. I can just see me huffing and puffing and finally getting it to blow up and then okay...letting the air go over Bing's naked chest or something. It looks like one more way to look really, really silly in the sack.

3) ICE CUBES. Yes. You guessed it. The old blindfold and ice cube trick.

Let me just say that ice cubes in February are cruel. Plus, we will probably have the electric blanket on and this could turn into a very electrifying experience. In the summer? Well, maybe. But, I see a mess. Ice will melt. It will make a wet spot. This is not sexy to me. It is messy.

4) Chocolate. This sounds good at first because hey...anything with chocolate is a big hit with me as long as I don't have to rub it on someone and then lick it off. Sticky. Messy. No. This article wants us to "suck on a chocolate candy, then lock lips with your partner and pass the tasty treat back and forth."

This bothers me on so many levels. I mean, let's just clarify. We are talking spit. Spit covered chocolate. It will get all slippery and slimy and hey...I WANT to eat that chocolate, not swap it back and forth with Bing. I don't even like too sloppy frenching, why would I like this? Don't get me wrong. I enjoy kissing. I just don't like sucking each other up like little Hoovers and this sounds like it would end up messy and sloppy and not sexy. Call me a party pooper.

A rubber band or hair elastic. Obviously this is for you heteros out there. Yes. You are supposed to carefully slide down the rubber band on his erect penis to "leave him harder for longer." And then they warn you not to get it too tight.

Well, now. I do realize that I am not a regular penis rider, so I am excluded and there is really no lesbian equivalent. A tiny rubber band on her clitoris? No. I would have to be wearing some sort of black leather and brandishing a riding crop to pull that off. We are talking pain here. I wonder....does this turn on any of my male readers? How about you women out there with male partners? Do you think your partner would go for this? Does it work? Is it sexy? Because, frankly, it doesn't sound that way to me. I mean, first, we don't have any rubber bands in our house except the big thick ones that go around the Sunday paper. Otherwise, we are talking about Liv's elastic bands and most of them have little flowers on them or dice or ribbons. So, I am trying to picture this. You stop the kissing. You smilingly hold up a rubber band and slide it down the penis. What is the guy doing? Is he all excited or is there an element of danger here? I mean, if you mess up and snap it, boy howdy, that could end all the fun fast. And what if it is too tight? Does your guy tell you?

"Honey, I think that rubber band is just a wee bit too tight!"

"Oh, sorry! Here, let me loosen it up. OOPS. SORRY! Now, hold still. Wow. You have a lot of hair down there, don't you. It seems to be stuck on it...oh dear...."

What am I missing? Good hell, just go out and buy a cock ring, okay?

I always wonder at people who do these kind of things in bed. I mean, just how bored do I have to be sexually? I don't even like sex toys much, they make me feel either skeptical or sort of giggly. Bing brought a vibrator to bed once and it was LOUD. It was not conducive to hot sex. Now, if we wanted to bake a cake or something, maybe. It sounded like my mixer.

So, Bing...I know you don't read my blog usually, but if you stumble on this, let me tell you right now that the key to my heart is:

NEATNESS.

Yeah. Neatness. Pick up all those loathsome piles of mail of yours plopping around the house. Dust the piano. Naked is okay. Just make sure Liv is out of the house.

Maybe, empty the dishwasher. WOW. You could get really, really lucky for that....

Just sayin.....

I am from

Brazenly stolen from heart in san francisco.

I am from small town Iowa with wheat and corn fields lending their sharp summer pang to the air. Waving on a prairie wind, full of heavy dreams and stoic temperament.

I am from a father with eyes so light blue that they made Paul Newman's eyes look lackadaisical. From a mother with a brain that was made for office work and not child rearing. His dreams and her resentment and combined, their love for each other that confused them both.

I am from a small house with small rooms in a setting that Dorothy Gale would have been comfortable in. A dog named not Toto, but Polly with a red, not black coat.

I am from a large Catholic church where I wore my bridal veil to celebrate my first communion and accidentally bit into the round host and worried that I would now need to confess to biting Jesus.

I am from dark blue knee socks and a blue wool skirt and sweater with a Catholic girl's academy logo, scratchy in the winter and unbearably hot in May. In high school, I rolled up that skirt to expose my bony knees, thinking that I looked enticing, not realizing that it was my rosy cheeks and shiny hair that did the job far better than my knees.

I am from stalls full of golden scratched hay and pigpens that held troughs full of dinner scraps while the hugely fat pigs came rooting around for bits of meat and gravy.

I am from a bedroom shared with my sister, Celia, where we reached across the chasm of our twin beds to hold hands during thunderstorms.

I am from a kitchen table loaded down with salmon loaf on meat free fridays and bits of pineapple standing yellow in jello so green that it seemed something from the mind of Dr. Seuss.

I am from borrowed cars of fathers, sitting with boys who dreamed of touching my breasts while I stared listlessly out the window pining for Josie Swanson, the star volleyball player and a senior.

I am from glossy bleachers in a hot gymnasium, watching the cheerleaders root for the basketball players in the adjoining boy's academy and looking down quickly as their skirts flew up and around during cartwheels.

I am from a mortuary, walking slowly towards my father laying in a casket, rosary beads winding across his fingers. Hearing my mother hiss to give him one last kiss and feeling his stony cold cheek and swallowing down hot lumps of tears.

I am from a girl standing in a red gypsy skirt on a bridge in Madison County and looking over the railing dreaming of becoming a doctor.

I am from a bedroom smelling of Wind Song perfume, wallpaper splashed with soft pink rosebuds, sitting on my bed and lacing up my hiking boots, wanting to just fly away from this gray farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.

I am from a baby blue prom dress with hated ruffles and high heels that made my legs look as if they could dance, my hair done up in a tight bun with Marcia Brady tendrils hanging loose.

I am from an SAT score of 1500 and an IQ test of 130 but a lack of self esteem that prevented me from smiling when I heard the results. My mother's cackle of surprise and her sputtering that she guessed I wasn't as dumb as I looked.

I am from a college in a big city where my dorm mate introduced herself by saying "I'm a lesbian, do you have a problem with that?" Ducking my head and grinning with sheer relief before letting a small, true hoot of joy escape my lips.

I am from sitting dizzily on a bathroom floor in a bar after consuming five gin and tonics and wondering if my legs truly had turned to rubber.

I am from a brown bong with the sweet smell of marijuana swirling all over me and then eating the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I had ever tasted.

I am from the self named "lamentable, laudable, learned, left-wing, legendary lesbians" of Willa Cather dorm who traveled in a pack and partied like it was 1999 in 1979.

I am from my first apartment which had a hole in the kitchen floor, peeling wallpaper and no heat to speak of.

I am from the college cafeteria where I worked as a bus girl and sneaked uneaten rolls off of sorority girl's plates to eat as my breakfast.

I am from the Thanksgiving dinner table where I came out as a lesbian and my mother told me to take my deviant self and leave her home and her life forever.

I am from a white coat and a stethoscope and practicing giving shots on oranges.

I am from so many student loans that it would take me nearly seventeen years to pay them off.

I am from a day professional in glasses, chanel suit and a clip board to a night time drinker to forget about dying AIDS patients.

I am from a shiny townhouse in a pricey neighborhood and a sizable bank account but a loneliness as deep as the ocean at 3 a.m.

I am from a long term relationship ending with slit wrists in my bathtub and a note saying it was all my fault because my heart was cold and I was aloof and unable to love properly.

I am from years of believing that note and thinking myself unworthy to be anyone's partner, mother or friend.

I am from a decision on a cold day in February acknowledging that it was time to stop believing my bad press and concentrate on what was in my heart.

I am from the birth of a little girl in July, 1999 and weeping with joy, hope and salvation.

I am from falling into the arms of a good friend while listening to Ventura Highway on the radio while dancing on my deck on a scorching August night.

I am from purchasing a house that was labeled a "fixer upper" and walking through the rooms and knowing that my heart could find peace in this place.

I am from my daughter's first fumbling steps and then flying feet in this house and spilled bright yellow orange juice on a wooden floor.

I am from learning to laugh and sing and dance again from a woman who loved me all along and a child who loved me from her first breath.

I am from a theater downtown watching Spellbound with my partner and my child, scrunching down in the seat and leaning against my partner's arm while holding my child's hand, eating popcorn and sipping coffee. And after the movie, stopping at a cafe on the way home for pancakes and laughing and talking, looking at the red cheeks of the two people whom I love most in the world.

I am from finding perfect happiness at the ripe old age of 49.

This is love

Okay. Here I am sitting at the computer, checking my e-mail. Bing walks in, reminds me that we have to leave for a wake (her uncle died) in a half hour and then looks curiously at my face.

"Hold still. I'll be right back," she says.

She returns a moment later with a tweezers.

"Hold still, you have a chin hair that is really long," she tells me.

Oh, great. A chin hair?

She plucks it in one fell swoop. I ask to see it, she says no, it will upset me and tosses it into the wastebasket.

"So..um...just how long was it?" I ask her.

"I'd guess maybe a half inch," she says.

A HALF INCH???

She leans down and kisses me.

"Now, you won't scare my relatives at the wake," she says.

It occurs to me that this is love. When you trim chin hair for each other.

Boy howdy....

Seven answers

My sisters love to send me e-mails where someone is "walking" for a cure for ovarian cancer and I am supposed to send her on to everyone in my address book. They also send me prayer circles, memes, and a ton of idiotic propaganda about their candidate of choice, Huckabee. I usually send them all flying to junk mail as soon as I get them.

But, one e-mail stopped me. I was supposed to send a one word description of them back to them and then send it on to seven of my close friends and family to see what they "really" thought of me.

Well, I thought. This might be blogworthy. Not that I thought they would be honest. I mean, I didn't really think people would send me words like selfish or snotty but I thought it might be interesting to see what they came up with.

So, I answered my sister Jessie's e-mail by sending her the word strongminded and then sent the e-mail on to all of my sisters, two of my nieces, my best friend, and a good friend of mine in Chicago.

This is what they came up with to describe me:

My oldest sister, Patrice, responded first. Think of Rosie O'Donnell and you have a clear picture of what she looks like. She may look like Rosie, but she thinks like Laura Bush. She is a staunch Republican with a hatred of Democrats that borders on the way the rest of us feel about cockroaches. She thinks that George Bush is a patriot. Excuse me while I go vomit.

Okay, back....

At any rate, I was surprised when the word that Patrice sent to me was: sentimental. I have always thought that I had that trait hidden well in the back of my closet. Apparently not. When I called to ask her why she chose that word, she commented that "Well, you always try to act all hardened and sarcastic but when you look at Liv, you get all soupy and sweet."

Hmmm....and all those years I thought I was fooling everyone.

My second sister, Celia (she is the Melanie Wilkes of our family, the peacemaker, the fence sitter, the one who just wants us all to get along. She doesn't vote because she admits that she could care less about politics) sent back the word individualistic. This is a nice way of her telling me that she has noticed that I am the lone liberal in a soup of conservatives.

Jessie, my younger sister, is a dead ringer for Ann Coulter, both in the way she looks and the way she votes and thinks, said that she thought I was juliasugarbakerish. Cheater. That is not ONE word. But, when I called her, we had a good talk. It seems that she has been catching reruns of Designing Women and has decided that I fit the character of Julia Sugarbaker to a T. This is because, as she says, "You are always spouting your opinions and using all these big words that make the rest of look like hayseeds when in actuality we are right and you are wrong. You just make it look as if we are wrong."

Um..thanks. I think.

Jessie went on to say that she loves me anyway, but really, did I think she was going to vote for someone with the middle name Hussein?

Hisssssss. Sizzle hissssss. Yeah, THAT is the kind of shit I am up against, people. This is a regular family get-together at Maria's family's table. There is Maria, acting all uppity and juliasugarbakerish while the rest of her family reasons that a person's middle name is up for grabs in the voting booth.

Eyyy Yiii Yiiii..

I then heard from my two favorite nieces, Liza and Kaye. Liza is in her 30's, been married three times, has four children with four different fathers and believe it or not, is behind me in second place for black sheep in the family. I like her, though. She can be very funny when she isn't getting married and popping out a baby and then falling in love with someone else. Her current husband is a die hard Republican, so he fits right in with my family.

Liza sent back the word eccentric. This made me smile, because, in my family, yeah...I am considered almost freakishly eccentric and odd. Well, somebody has to fly the freak flag and it might as well be me.

My other niece, Kaye, is a junior in high school and her mother, Jessie, is terrified that I am Kaye's favorite aunt. She won't admit it to my face, but she has told my sisters that she prays every night that my lesbianitis doesn't rub off on Kaye.

She can breathe easy. Kaye is VERY heterosexual. In fact, she is so heterosexual that she has begged me to supply her and her boyfriend with condoms. I told her no. Not because I want her to get pregnant but because if Jessie ever found out (and she would, never underestimate a mom), she would honestly shoot me in the head. And also because I think it is important for her to abstain until she is 18.

Kaye said that I was inspiring. The bad angel on my shoulder wants me to send this e-mail to Jessie. The good angel is telling me to just feel good that Kaye thinks so highly of me. Kaye did say that she thinks I am "beyond cool." I will think about that the next time I am feeling old and decrepit. I may be elderly but, hey...a sixteen year old thinks I am inspiring and beyond cool.

My best friend, Harriet, sent me back the word dependable. WHAT THE FUCK? I called her up and just said one word when she answered the phone.

DEPENDABLE?

She laughed. "I knew you would get riled over that. I was being HONEST. I think you are the first person I turn to when I am sick, scared, happy or feeling like I need to talk. You are DEPENDABLE. There are worse things. I think dependable is an attribute."

I told her that I was hoping that she would say I was hilarious or fun or remarkable.

"I do think you are all those things...but in the end, you are dependable. Now, stop fishing," she scolded.

Lastly, I heard from my old college buddy, Vince. He is an oncologist and lives with his partner, Thuan, in Chicago. I knew he wouldn't fail me.

He said that I was Sexgoddesslike

Now THAT is more like it. I returned the favor. I sent him his word. It was he-manish.

There is a reason that we been good friends for 25 years. White lies.

So, here is my question to you: If you had to describe yourself in one word, what would it be? How about if a family member had to describe you?

Just curious.

Maria and Bing get massages for Valentine's Day

Bing and I were talking earlier this month about how we HATE going out for dinner on Valentine's Day. It is crowded, prices are jacked up. Yet, neither one of us really likes cooking on February 14th and we felt that we should do something to celebrate the day.

But, seriously...why is this? Do we really need a reminder that we love each other? Certainly not.

Bing suggested that maybe we should do something different this year. Maybe instead of going out to eat, she could take her cousin up on his invitation to come over for dinner some night and Liv and I could order pizza from that place, the one that we love and Bing hates.

"And what do you think of you and I getting massages?" she asked.

I was surprised. We aren't massage type of people. But, she pointed out that her shoulders have been so tight lately and well, with my back, a massage might just feel good.

I thought about it and decided it was a good idea. So, Bing asked around the teacher's lounge (teachers are always on a budget and know who works cheap) and came up with a name.

A husband and wife team who work out of their home as massage therapists. They were Hans and Grace. They had a website. We went online and decided that they seemed fine, were certified massage therapists and their prices were doable. They offered a variety of services including cranio-sacral therapy, hot stone massage, shiatsu, swedish massage, deep tissue "techniques" and salt glow treatments. Bing decided to go for a swedish massage and I decided to wait and see what they thought would be best for me. We'd go for Grace.

Turns out that Grace is booked up until St. Patrick's day but Hans had a couple spots for us. We decided to go at separate times. Bing went last weekend and I went last evening.

Well, now. Boy howdy.

Bing came home from her massage and said everything went "fine." On further questioning, she couldn't tell me much except that yes, you do get naked. This didn't bother her in the least. She said that he seemed like a nice guy and that she actually fell asleep halfway through so didn't remember much.

I was annoyed. How can one fall asleep when you are splayed naked on a table and big man is rubbing your bod? Well, it seems, Bing can. In hindsight, this shouldn't surprise me much. She has fallen asleep on every plane trip we have taken. She once fell asleep at my niece's baptism. She falls asleep nearly every night in the lazy boy watching television.

I asked her if he was "chatty." I didn't think I wanted some guy who was massaging me to chat me up. She shrugged.

"I think he asked me what I did for a living and that was about it," she ventured.

Well, I asked, did she feel relaxed?

Sure, she said, shrugging again.

I pictured her falling asleep and Hans pulling out a comic book and reading in the chair next to her until she woke up.

So, yesterday, it was my turn. I worked all day with a truly annoying client. A woman who was planning on making a hire and had whittled her list down to ten prospective employees. She wanted to "make a judicious decision" on this. I gave her a two hour slot of time in the afternoon which eventually turned into a four hour hankie wringing session. She could not make up her mind and I was ready to throttle her. I gave her my top three candidates based on a psychological written test and how they looked on tape. She wasn't "sure" and wanted to debate incessantly all afternoon. By the time I left, I had my glassy smile plastered firmly in place, but inside my head I was throwing darts at her.

So, yeah...I was a bit tense. I also had to navigate through rush hour traffic to get to Hans' house and didn't have time to shower first. If I was going to have to get naked, I really, really wanted to shower first.

I decided that I would just have to go as is. He did this for a living, right? I'm sure that he must have worked on some sweaty guys. I was sure I didn't stink. I just didn't feel as fresh as a daisy.

So, I was 3 minutes late and had to settle for popping a mint right before I got out of the car.

The house was nice. Nothing fancy but it seemed clean. Clean was important to me.

Hans greeted me at the door. A tall, thin man with a Jesus beard and soulful brown eyes. We shook hands. He asked if Bing had enjoyed her massage. I assured him she did. He smiled and said, "Well, Bing told me that you are her love and I am to be very gentle with you."

I told him that I wasn't made of glass and not to worry.

Famous last words. We briefly discussed my back issues and he decided that a "full body" massage was in order. I said something really stupid like, "Well, you're the boss!"

I went into a little changing room and he gave me a big roomy towel to put around me. When I came out into the massage room, soft, princing music was playing very faintly, the room was candlelit and smelled like patchouli. I stifled a smirk. I felt like I was being seduced by someone who had read too many romance novels. But, I told myself to just be grateful. I mean, did I want to have a television blaring in the background and to smell last night's dinner of liver and onions?

This was very relaxing.

Hans told me to "hop up" on the table. I could feel myself blushing and felt furious at myself. This was just business. I needed to be naked so that he could work on me with his hands. That was all.

I pulled off the towel and lay down, as he gently instructed, on my back. I immediately was conscious of my breasts sliding into my armpits. I thought about the panty hose I had been wearing. Did my feet stink? I closed my eyes and told myself to just listen to the music.

Hans started with my head. He lifted my head up gently and began typing himself a letter on my skull. It felt nice. He rubbed and prodded, working down to my neck. I felt my body beginning to relax.

"So, what happened to hurt your back?" he asked.

I frowned. Told him that nothing really had happened, that it had simply became difficult over the years. I had my glasses off, but I swear he looked skeptical, as if I were coyly hiding some sort of accident from him.

He moved down to my arms and massaged down to my fingers, popping each knuckle.

"You are a very intense person," he told me. I felt a bit chastised. Well, no. I didn't think I was intense. I thought I was tired, hungry and a little crabby, but not exactly intense. I told him this.

"You aren't letting me in very much," he said. "You are making me really work to relax you."

I felt like I had turned in a C paper or something. Okay, but certainly can do better. I scowled. Well sorry, so I wasn't putty in his hands, wasn't falling asleep on the table like Bing. No comic books for you today, Hans.

He moved to my stomach and I immediately wished that I hadn't eaten that banana at lunch. Because whenever he pushed, I wanted to fart so badly that I had to bite my lip.

He moved on to my legs and then to my feet.

Which was a mistake.

I have very sensitive feet. And he was twisting them around like a wet rag that he was trying to get all the water out of.

I groaned and snatched my foot away.

"Hey, I'm sorry...but that really hurts. I don't LIKE that," I told him.

He gave me a look. "Sometimes it has to hurt before it can feel better," he said.

I told him that I didn't think I could handle any more wringing and to please move on. I thought about my ugly hammer toe on my right foot. The foot that Bing always makes a point to kiss tenderly during lovemaking to let me know that even with a hammer toe, I am still a sexy mama.

Hans came up to my head to talk. "That foot of yours is crying for help," he said. "It is practically begging me to straighten the kinks out of it."

I told him to ignore it. That it was a big fat liar.

He sighed and asked me to turn over.

Shit. As hard as it was to be naked and on my back, being naked on my stomach was going to be hard. I imagined my bare, bulbous buttocks splaying out, the bare soles of my tender feet being at his mercy.

And I was paying for this?

I obediently turned over.

And something must have snapped in him. Maybe it was the sight of my 49 year old, cellulite ridden butt, but he went from gently stroking me to kneading me like a pizza. His fingers pushed hard into my back, my ass, my legs and then he grabbed handfuls of me and seemed to pull me by my fat towards him and then slam me back down. I was too shocked to speak at first but when I finally found my words, they weren't nice.

He stopped abruptly.

"That doesn't feel good?" he asked, incredulous that I wasn't swooning into a relaxed state.

Jesus Christ. Did Bing sleep through this part?

I told him that no, it didn't feel good. It HURT.

His shoulders sagged. But, he used a sweet voice to apologize and began gently making small circles across my shoulders and back like a lackadaisical lover after a bouncing bout of foreplay.

Whew. Better. I started relaxing again as his hands gently moved down to the small of my back, my poor scared ass and then the backs of my legs.

I began taking deep soft breaths.

And then he ruined it.

His fingers massaged and he leaned down to whisper in my ear.

"I think you are letting your God power in to heal yourself," he said quietly.

No. Just NO. I did not want him to sully this all up by talking to me about my inner child who probably was throwing a tantrum by giving me a bad back and how now under his tender guidance, of course, I was letting my God power, my higher power, whatever in to take over the reins from my pouty inner child who was surely holding some resentment over from a childhood slight in the second grade and WANTED my back to hurt to punish myself.

Just NO.

I didn't answer. I felt like I wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up, but hey...I felt vulnerable laying there all naked and open. I shut my eyes instead, frowning.

He pushed it.

"That's it," he breathed. "Just let your God power take over. Doesn't it feel GOOD to let go?"

I didn't answer. Just breathed slowly and carefully. I wondered how much more time was left, because I was ready to go. Seriously.

Either he thought I had gone into some sort of spiritual trance or fallen asleep, or something else, because he mercifully stopped speaking and just gently kneaded.

In a few moments, he gently tapped my shoulder and told me that I could get dressed and meet him in the office.

As soon as he left, I gingerly got up off the table and limped to the dressing room to get my clothes on.

I didn't feel better, to be honest. My back still ached and my foot had a leftover cramp in it.

Probably my inner child's revenge.

I walked out into his office,paid him and smiled politely when he said, "So, doesn't that feel better now?"

He did remark that someone like me would benefit from a twice weekly massage. I just smiled and walked out the door.

On the way home, I decided that maybe I am just too uptight a person to get massages. When I walked in the door, Bing's first question was to ask how I felt, did the massage help?

I told her no, not really. And hey...did Hans go on and on about her "god power" when she was there?

"He didn't say a word about it," she answered.

We agreed that neither one of us were really massage type people, but that yes, it had certainly been interesting.

So, today is Valentine's Day. We aren't going out for dinner. Bing is going to eat at her cousin's house and Liv and I will order a pizza and then we will all curl up for Survivor and Lost.

Bing got me a cadbury egg and a funny card.

Liv got me a sweet card and made me a bracelet of pipe cleaners that I am now wearing and will wear all day long.

I gave Liv a card, some mini pens, jelly bellies, and a new hair band.

I gave Bing a card and a pomegranate. She and Liv will cut into it tonight and crunch on the seeds and suck up the rich, red pulp and reveal their bright red lips to me and compare red tongues.

And this is about as relaxing as I need it to be.

I just hope I wasn't supposed to get my inner child anything......

Ode on a toilet

Things break down in a house. Especially in my house. We live in a very old house that was actually advertised as a "fixer upper" when we bought it. It is old. So old that it has the original copper plumbing and a boiler in the basement.

It also has gorgeous oak floors and woodwork, big heavy doors with porcelain knobs, a scary crawlspace in the basement, and windows with heavy lead glass that is a little distorted when you look through it. Everything has a wavy quality to it, sort of like being a little high and looking out a window. I'm always a little surprised when I go outside and see all the sharp edges. I rather like my blurry view.

We have four toilets. One in the attic, one attached to the master bedroom, a main bathroom and the last one off the laundry room in the basement. By the time we moved in, all of the toilets except the main bathroom had been replaced with energy efficient ones. Yet, at one time or another all of those toilets have had problems. One ran continuously unless you jiggled the handle just perfectly. Another leaked. The bathroom off the master bedroom is particularly persnickety. It does not like more than four squares of toilet paper to be flushed at the time or it gurgles and makes choking noises that scare women and dogs.

The oldest toilet in the house is in the main bathroom and is used the most. It is the only one that has not been replaced with a newer, more efficient model. I looked it up recently and discovered it is called a Victorian crapper. It looks like this. It actually has a little rope that you pull to flush it.

It works perfectly and uses several gallons of water each time it is flushed. I swear that you could flush a cat down there and it would not complain. It has never given us a minute of trouble while the newer models, the "efficient" ones have been troublesome right from the start.

"What do you expect?" Bing grouses. "The new ones use about a cup of water and there is just no decent flush action. The old one...now THAT one has sooooommmmme water power and pressure."

I like having something that works, that I can depend on. We have cranky appliances in general. We have a dishwasher who balks at working at any selection except light wash. This means that we have to manually wash our dishes before sending them through the cycle. I find this irritating. I mean, jaysus...all I ask is that the dishwasher do it's job. I'm not asking for any extras, mind you. I just want to not have to sanitize my plates before I load them.

Our washer only works on gentle cycle. If it is not set on gentle, soapy water comes slushing up the drain in the floor in a scary whirlpool that looks like some sort of bad genie could pop out of it. We can wash in all degrees of water, just not the normal or heavy cycle.

The dryer takes two tries. It automatically shuts off when it is done and for some reason, it thinks I like my clothes slightly damp, not dry. This means that I have to trudge down to the basement TWICE to get my clothes dried. I can hear it snickering at me.

Our boiler is a workhorse or so the heating people tell me. They swear that the house will fall down before the boiler kicks the bucket. This is fine, except that the boiler likes to make noises in the radiators to let us know that heating our home is just plain fucking hard work. It ticks and clanks as if we have little Borrowers running up and down the pipes with pails of hot water. I admit that I don't really mind the noise, though. I find it kind of cozy to wake up in the middle of the night and hear the radiators clanking a bit in a friendly workmanlike fashion. It took the dog a long time to get used to it, though. He still gets up and looks with a cocked head at the radiator as if he isn't sure whether to bark or whimper. Sometimes Socks quickly sends a paw inside the radiator, making me wonder if some little man is in there teasing him.

Living in an old home means that the floors groan at night as the house settles. It means that the wallpaper is quite old and quite lovely and can never be duplicated because they just don't make that pattern anymore of tiny rosebuds.

Once when our shower was leaking, Bing went into the crawlspace to check out the pipes and discovered a brown paper sack holding a man's underpants and an old fashioned butter knife.

This prompted some discussion. None of it too good. We finally decided it was best to just not know everything.....

Our cabinets stick and our windows rattle, but our Victorian crapper just keeps on keeping on and for that, I dedicate this blog post to him. (Toilets are always boys, it is just a rule.)

Thank you, crapper, for so many years of good service and lots of whirling twirling water. You have a thankless job and I know it, so this one is for you, buddy.

Keep up the good work.

What sort of house do you live in?

Old, new, what? I am curious. Care to share? And does anyone else have a crapper like ours?

Get ready, get set....

I came home from work the other day to find Bing and Liv sitting on the sofa together watching Hannah Montana. Neither Bing nor I like this show much, but Liv loves it, so if she gets her homework done, she is allowed to watch it.

The weird thing is that I have never seen Bing watching it with her.

But there they were and on closer inspection, Liv was curled up in Bing's lap, her head tucked under her chin, Socks, the dog, sprawled across both of them. I heard Bing sort of sniff and noticed her furtively wiping her eyes with a kleenex tucked into her hand.

I stopped in front of her.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

Bing nodded, looked away.

"Mama, Bing is just feeling a little sentimental, she'll be okay," Liv commented.

Socks looked at me sweetly, smiling his I know I am on the sofa, but hey...I was INVITED, okay?" doggy grin. He gently nudged Bing with his nose and she petted him, still not meeting my eyes.

Okay. Bing. Sentimental. Over Hannah Montana???

Totally bizarre.

But...I let it drop and didn't say anything until we were getting ready for bed. I pulled my nightie over my head and asked her what had happened over Hannah Montana.

Bing looked sheepish, embarrassed.

"Well....." she said, "I sort of broke down a little bit during a song on the show."

I gave her a long look. Billy Ray Cyrus is not on her play list in general.

"Tell me..." I coaxed.

Turns out that it was a show about Billy Ray having a hard time with his daughter's growing up. And Bing....well.....related.

"I don't know what happened exactly," she said. "I just started thinking about how one day Liv will be leaving us and how I could hardly bear to think about that and then Billy Ray started singing this hokey song and it was like...well...exactly how I feel about Liv and how I know she has to leave us someday, but I just will be so sad to let her go...and then, well...before I knew it, I got choked up and started bawling and then Liv was in my lap and patting my hand for fucksakes and hugging me and saying it was okay. And then Socks decided to play the loyal family dog and we had like this...big love huggy fest. And then you came in and there I was...this big mess over a stupid television show..."

I didn't know what to say. Bing is rarely sentimental and I was surprised.

But...also...pleased. It was sort of like a gift to me.

Because, I know that while she loves Liv, she sometimes says that she feels as if Liv and I have this special connection that she is outside of. When Liv is sick, it goes without saying that Liv sleeps in our bed with me and Bing either sleeps in the guest room or in Liv's bed. I am the main caregiver, the main decision maker, the main everything with Liv. Bing is like the second string.

Liv comes first and even though I have read dozens of books saying that my marriage should come first, it just...doesn't. Liv does. And Bing has always said that she is cool with that, no big deal. But, if the shoe were on the other foot, it would bother me.

So, hearing that she will miss Liv and got choked up at the prospect of her leaving, pleases me.

A lot.

"I love her, Maria. I've always loved her and now we are this great little family. I like us all together."

I asked Bing what the song was. She said it was this one.

So, I listened to it and then...yeah. I was choked up and crying too. Because, yes...Bing has always been such a big part of Liv's life and now that we are a family, it is like this love we have together with Liv cements us.

It feels really, really good.

A day at the zoo

First, a giant THANK YOU to Angelissima over at Bright Tomorrow for sending me her Whole Foods certificates. Much goat milk will be consumed by all with great delight. If you ever need a favor, you know where to go. And if you are ever on the prairie, there is a seat for you and yours at my dinner table.

Secondly, a just-as-big thank you to Deborah over at The Middle Girl for passing on the most delicious Thai chicken soup recipe. It was the best soup that I have ever eaten in my life. And I actually made it. Yes, you naysayers....ME. It was so easy and so good. Liv had THREE bowls of it last night to Bing and my 2. Then, she and Bing split it so that they could both have it for lunch today in their thermoses. DELISH. If you are ever in my neck of the woods, please come over and let us feed you.

And, I could drink a big cup of goat's milk now with a bowl of that soup. What a morning. I can't believe the day is only half over. Whew.

It started when I took Liv to school. On the way, she suddenly began panicking.

"Where's my permission slip?" she wailed.

I gave her a look. PERMISSION SLIP?? I didn't recall getting a permission slip.

Turns out Liv put it in my incoming box in my office exactly as she is supposed to do last week.

Guess who hasn't checked it in over a week?

Yep. That would be me, the bad mother.

Liv explained that it is due today if she wants to go with her class to the art museum on Thursday.

"I also brought home the Valentines instructions and the map that I drew of South America," she said.

Valentines instructions??

I told her that I would walk inside the school with her this morning and check with the office, see if they had any extra copies of the form that I could just sign right away.

I kissed her goodbye at her classroom and then trooped my bad mother self to the office to ask the Headmistress and/or the school secretary about the forms.

They never look all that surprised to see me. I am a repeat offender.

The secretary produced copies of the forms for me and I hurriedly glanced through the permission form and signed it. I put down that I could not chaperon. Bad mother. Bad lazy ass mother who doesn't want to pitch in and help. I am never one of those good mothers who go along and happily swing my child's hand as we walk along. I don't sing songs on the bus with the children. Because I am just not very nice and because I am lazier than sin.

Then, I took the Valentine instructions and read them in the car.

Please decorate a shoe box or bag with your child to hold their valentines. You will need to bring 29 unnamed valentines (a goody bag is optional, but if you choose to make them, please make them somewhat nutritional!) signed by your child. Please bring these valentines in a separate bag. After our field trip, we will come back to the classroom and have a fun party! Can you attend? We can use all the help we can get. Your child will bring his decorated bag or shoe box and we will line them up and then each child will drop their valentines in each bag/box. Please bring enough valentines for all so that no one will feel left out. Handmade are best!!

Shit.

I was cringing at the first sentence. I do not like to decorate anything with my child. I will just admit right now that I am NOT that mother who has your child over for a play date and greets you at pick up time at the door with a little homemade wall hanging made from a coat hanger, balsa wood, yarn and macaroni saying, "Oh, the girls had such oodles of fun making these! I just put all the craft stuff out and told them to dive in!" And then we all played Scrabble and those smart girls beat me!!"

Nope. We don't have craft stuff at my house. We have paper, yes, and colored pencils. Scissors if you can find them. Good luck. The glue bottle is generally dried up and in the drawer because someone (and let's not name names, okay?) left the cap unscrewed. I don't even like construction paper. Gives them too many big ideas.

I'm the mom who let your child have a big bowl of ice cream and now their dinner is probably spoiled.

So, I was not thrilled about decorating a shoe box.

I went to Target and walked nervously down the wall of valentines. They were pretty much picked over. The other good and observant mothers and fathers had already found the best ones. I picked one box after another up. They all only held 25 Valentines. Of course, I needed four more than that. So, would have to buy two boxes. Hmmmm. Sponge Bob? Dora? Spiderman? Shrek? Bratz? (over my fucking dead body) Barbie? Nothing shouted "Buy ME!"

And then I found a box of cards with a hound dog on the front. The message inside said, "I hooooowwwwllll for you, Valentine!" Okay. Those would work. But, I had to dig and dig to find another box. With that done, I walked towards the candy. Just one small piece of candy would be okay, wouldn't it? I suppose I could get stickers or pencils. Tattoos?

God, this was going to be pricey. If I were not such a bad mother I would have been working for the last month or two with Liv making sweet little homemade cards and then baking a batch of yummy red velvet cupcakes for her to take to school too. But, I decided that miniature snickers bars would do just fine. They are somewhat nutritious, aren't they? Shut the fuck up and humor me.

So, I picked them up. Two bags, of course, because each bag only held 25 treats.

Time to go to the check out. On the way there, I noticed a big valentine bag in the dollar aisle. Well....yes. This would work. I could buy this big bag, we could slap her name on it and voila! we would be done. I wouldn't have to spend a night trying to find the glue, scissors, and construction paper so that we could cut out little lopsided hearts to paste on my one and only shoe box in the closet (Salvatore Ferragamo varina patent flats and worth every cent) because really, who saves shoe boxes?

I picked up one bag for her incoming valentines and one for her outgoing.

Done. It had only taken an hour. And cost just under 20 smackers. God, is this robbery or what?

I schlepped home and tossed the bag on the dining room table. Liv could sign her name tonight to them all.

I took Socks for a walk and we talked it over. He agreed that this Valentine's Day thing is getting way out of hand. But, he did certainly think that he at least deserved a bone. I agreed and said that I hoped that Bing knew that I deserved some sort of pricey jewelry too. Yeah, when pigs fly, I told him. We both snickered.

Now, I had to get back to Liv's school because it was my turn to do lunch duty with the pre-schoolers. We all have to sign up for things and I had already signed up to be "laundry person" for February. This means that since her school is green and doesn't use much in the way of paper towels, someone has to launder all the linen towels used once a week. Just call me Maria the laundress. Nobody told me that some of those towels would be soaked with applesauce. Ick. That was fun plunging my hand into the laundry basket and finding that.

I drove back to Liv's school and went into the cafeteria.

And cringed.

Because she was there. Her. Sandra. The mom who is not yet 25 and has three children, 6,4, and 2 and is pregnant with her fourth. Two of her kids go to Liv's school. Sandra is so Catholic that she makes my sisters look like Britney Spears. Plus, she is a dead ringer for Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. And she acts like her too. I half expect her to break into song at any moment. I can see her in my mind spinning around the cafeteria belting out, the hills are aliiiiivvvveee with the sound of muuuuusssic....

She "loves, loves, loves, little people." She doesn't call them kids, she actually calls them little people. When she asks the children to sit down on the floor after lunch to wait for their teacher, she says, "Can my little people show me some criss-cross applesauce?" This is a cunning little phrase to tell them to cross their legs.

She nauseates me. She is just so young and so yippy skippy. And I am old enough to be her mother yet she behaves as if I am some dimwitted novice who needs her mommy tips.

I keep apple vinegar soaked q tips in my freezer for boo boos!
If you spray hair spray on your nylons, your dress won't stick to your legs!
I re-wash all my baggies. I haven't had to buy any for years!

You sort of just want to throw a banana peel down in front of her and hope she hits it hard and fast.

So, she and I were to be the "lunch ladies" this week. Boy howdy.

We waited for the kids to come in and soon there was a stream of little bodies and piping little voices. I don't mind these kids, it is their parents who I would like to slice and dice. They are supposed to only bring lunches that they can easily unwrap themselves.

So, why does Hannah always bring chef boyardee in one of those flip top cans? The ones that have to be microwaved for thirty seconds and then stirred and microwaved again? Over half of the kids bring go-gurt and can't get the tops opened by themselves. This means that I get to yank them open and get green and pink yogurt on my shirt.

But, I did get to hear some funny comments. Sasha told me that her mother is getting her "face lifted up." Oh, yeah...she is the one who has a mom who is older than me. The one who is married to the guy who looks about twenty something.

Buddy points out that my socks don't match. I start to say that he is wrong until I look down at my socks and discover that one is blue and one is black. How the hell did that happen? I have a skirt on with knee highs and loafers, which means that I have been walking around all morning with mismatched socks and no one said anything but probably thought that I was doing it on purpose because I am that eccentric lesbian mom who once came to a school concert with two red slashes across her face because she forgot to blend in her blush.

I look down and tell Buddy that some days you just have to wear two different colored socks. This seems to make perfect sense to him and he offers me a potato chip. Before I can decline, Sandra steps in and chimes, "Now, Buddster, you know that we don't share our food, don't you big guy?"

This annoys me. Does she think I am unable to speak or just dumb enough to eat the children's food?

Finally, the hour and a half is up and I sneak into Liv's classroom to tell her goodbye. She hugs me and I tell her that the afternoon bell will ring before she knows it.

God, I hope so. This day has been unending. I am ready to go home and yeah...get ready to meet a client. Because, there is no rest for the wicked.

But, I think I better change my socks first. And maybe sneak one of those miniature snickers out of the valentine bag. Or maybe two. Or seven.

What sits best with me.

Bing was flabbergasted.

She had been going on and on about how she couldn't wait for today to come: the first Nebraska caucus. She wanted us to both go and caucus for Hillary.

I told her that I was still undecided.

Blank look. Incredulous blank look.

"What do you mean "undecided"? she finally asked.

It means that I don't know if I am supporting Hillary Clinton or Barrack Obama, I told her.

This was a first for us. We have had our differences about money, about child rearing, about many, many things, even seemingly mundane things such as how to train a dog, and what exactly is junk food, which ended up to produce rather large arguments considering they were small matters on paper.

But we have always been on the same page politically. Both of us solid liberal democrats and proud of it.

And now I was rocking the boat. Bing already has the Hillary yard signs in the garage.

I told her that I wanted to take more time to look at all the issues, that I wanted to be very, very sure. That to be honest, I just liked Obama better. He spoke to me in terms that resonated clearly with me. Hillary? Well, I liked the content of her speeches, just found myself stepping back from her for some reason. I wanted to explore that reason.

So, I have spent the last two days going over issues that are important to me and seeing clearly where all (Clinton, Obama and McCain) the candidates fall on them. I want to make a good decision, not one based on personality, etc.

There are many, many issues to think about. Abortion, economy, civil rights, crime, drugs,education, energy, environment, children, foreign policy, free trade, government reform, gun control, health care, homeland security, immigration, infrastructure,jobs, principles, social security, war and poverty.

I decided to hone it down to my top five issues that I feel strongly about.

1) Abortion
2) Civil rights
3) Environment
4) Gun control
and
5) Health care.

I researched all three candidates on the above topics and came up with these answers:

Abortion.

Both Obama and Clinton voted yes to 100 million$ to reduce teen pregnancy and both support Roe vs Wade.
All candidates voted yes to expand research to more embryonic stem cell lines.
Clinton supports parental notice.
McCain wants to prosecute abortion doctors and overturn Roe vs Wade. He voted yes on banning human cloning.

I can't go with McCain on this issue (imagine my shock and surprise), am pretty much appalled at his stands in general.

Clinton edges out slightly ahead because of the supporting of parental notice. I tend to lean that way too.

Civil Rights

All candidates agree that states should decide on gay marriage.And all candidates voted no on the constitutional ban of same sex marriage. That seems reasonable to me. But McCain voted no on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes, while Clinton voted yes. That is a HUGE deal to me. McCain also voted yes on prohibiting same sex marriage. So, which is it, McCain? Can't seem to make up your mind on this one, huh? Or maybe just some fence sitting? Time to heave yourself up and off that fence, big guy. Obama says that he opposes gay marriage but supports civil unions. So, we can legally do it, but not morally? Obama and Clinton also agree that there should be health benefits for gay civil partners. Since I don't care if I can legally marry so much as I would really like to have partnership rights in Bing's health insurance, I am sort of stuck on this one. I can support either Obama or Clinton.

Environment

Clinton stands for cleaner air (as opposed to what? wanting dirty air?)and funding the EPA.
Obama wanted to see Katrina contracts go to the locals, not to Halliburton. Ok, yes.
McCain wants to use park visitor fees for park development bonds and make the EPA into a cabinet department.
All candidates voted yes on including oil and smokestacks in mercury regulations. This sort of seems like a no-brainer issue to me, though...

Hmmm...toss up, but, I am going with Obama for this one.

Gun Control
McCain gets a firm shake of the finger from me in so many directions on this issue. He opposes restrictions on assault weapons and ammunition types. Voted yes to banning lawsuits against gun manufacturers for gun violence and also on prohibiting lawsuits against gun manufacturers in general. He also voted yes on loosening license and background checks at gun shows. Like, what? We are just too hard on those guys or something and need to cut them a break? I don't think so.
Both Clinton and Obama voted no on prohibiting lawsuits against gun manufacturers.
Obama goes the extra distance on this one, though, by wanting to ban semi-automatics and impose more possession restrictions.

Obama takes this one.

Health Care
All candidates voted yes on increasing Medicaid rebate for producing generics and on requiring negotiated Rx prices for Medicare part D and on allowing reimportation of Rx drugs from Canada.
Obama says that he wants "government healthcare like the members of congress have." That sounds wishy washy to me. He also supports condom distribution to deal with the scourge of AIDS.

McCain doesn't believe in any mandated universal system for health care. Which basically means that he is okey dokey with us drowning in our current sea of insurance companies sticking it to us but good. He IS for higher taxation on cigarettes and matching funds for senior citizens prescription drugs.

I'm not impressed with either Obama or McCain on this.

Here is where Hillary really shines in my opinion. She wants universal health care coverage by the end of her second term, to insure ALL children, fund teaching hospitals federally, regulate a tobacco fine of 3000$ for every underage smoker and let states make bulk Rx purchases.

I have never understood why so many people in America get all shaky and nervous about universal health care. Have you ever had to deal with a catastrophic illness? If you did, you would understand why so many people hate insurance companies. If you just have to go in every year or so when your little Susie breaks her arm, well....consider yourself very, very lucky. And don't come bawling to me when some terrible health crisis DOES hit your family and you didn't vote for universal health care. God, can people really be so obtuse?

Want a crash course in this topic? Work in a medical environment that tends to America's poor. I did. It nearly broke my heart. You will see harsh realities that you never thought could happen in OUR country. People who are dying and being turned away because they either don't have insurance or have bad insurance. It should NOT happen on our watch. We should never ever let a child die. EVER. Or an adult for that matter. But, they do. They really do. Just open your eyes and do some serious research while you sit your fat, cozy ass in your cushy chair with your laptop. Now, stop.

Close your eyes and imagine that poor person is you or your child or your aunt or your best friend. Because if you or they get REALLY sick, it very well could be.

And think of all of the people in England, in France, in Canada. They have universal health care and hey...if it was so terrible, wouldn't they be storming America? They aren't. Universal health care works. And it is time for America to step up to it.

Hillary Clinton is the only candidate that seems to see that. So, she wins this issue.

Okay...now, it was time to look over my issues.

Abortion: Clinton
Civil Rights: Obama or Clinton
Environment:Obama
Gun Control:Obama
Health Care: Clinton

Ugh. A tie. Shit.

So, I thought about which two issues mattered most to me, whittling it down further. I came up with Civil Rights and Health Care.

And well...yeah. I guess I am going to have to go with Hillary Clinton.

The problem: I LIKE Obama's personality better. I like his speeches better. Something resonates in me when I hear him speak. But, if I am completely honest with myself, I must realize that my beliefs and Hillary Clinton's are more in sync.

Bing was getting ready to go to the caucus this morning. We hadn't been able to get a sitter, so I was planning to stay home with Liv. I caught up to her in the kitchen.

"Hey," I told her. "Have fun and tell me all about it when you get home, yes?"

She said she would and then I hugged her goodbye and whispered those seven magic words in her ear: I have decided to support Hillary Clinton.

She grinned. Two hot lesbians in love on the same page again.

"I knew you'd come around..." she said.

But, it wasn't without a lot of thought on my part. I wonder how everyone else decides on a candidate? Their party? Their gut feeling? Or...like me...the issues.

What issues are important to you? No slug festing allowed. Let's all keep it polite and respectful. Because, I will be honest, if you are going to tell me that Hillary's laugh bothers you or you don't like her hair, shoes, clothes, husband (and spare me the reference to philandering unless you truly are without sin and can cast that stone in your hand) or tone, I'm not going to listen. Because it is easy to slam dunk but it takes a brain to formulate an opinion. I will respect yours, please respect mine as well.

And you non-Americans? What do you think? Do you like any of our candidates?

Just curious....

The Answering Machine thing.

I have one. Just like you. An answering machine. In general, I am glad to have it. This morning, my sister, Jessie, called and left me a message saying that her daughter was driving her insane and then spent a good five minutes telling me what she did. I was going out to lunch with my other sister,Patrice, so left the message on the machine so that she could hear it.

We went to lunch and when we came back to my house afterwards, I went to take Socks out and told Patrice to listen to the "strange message" on my machine.

When I came back in, my sister was beet red.

"Did you listen to it?" I asked her.

She nodded once, said that she felt that it was "none of her business" and then changed the subject. I thought it was kind of odd and brought back the subject to our sister, Jessie.

"Why do you think it was none of your business?" I asked her.

"Well," she said, "I just think it's odd that you wanted me to hear it, do you enjoy making me feel uncomfortable?"

"Jessie makes you feel uncomfortable?" I asked.

"Jessie?" she said.

"Yeah, Jessie's message on the answering machine about Kaye flunking math this quarter..."

Patrice (said sister) looked at me blankly.

"I didn't hear any message from Jessie. I shut it off after Bing's message," she answered. "And hey, I have to get going. But, yeah...if you need me to babysit Liv this weekend, I can do that...Hey, I have to get going. It was a fun lunch..."

She practically ran out the door.

I hit the message button on the answering machine.

It was from Bing. I should probably prepare you dear readers, by admitting that Bing and I have not had much um...alone time lately. She is feeling it and a bit frustrated that I am not. What can I say? She is a normal sexual being and me? Well, I am sort of sexually slow witted, I guess you could say. I think having sex about once a month is just about right. Bing is more of a twice a week person. All I have to say is that if I take my socks off, she is more than ready to go. To her annoyance, I tend to have to be "coaxed" into sheet dancing. Once, I get under there, I'm good to go, but hey...I am one of those fires that takes awhile to burn. Enough said.

So, here was her message on the machine:

Bing: (her voice a half whisper) "Well, I am eating my lunch and I keep thinking about you in your little tee shirt making toast for Liv this morning. I'm so sorry that your back hurts! Maybe I can give you a back rub tonight. Maybe I can give you a front rub too. Because, I just...miss you, babe. I want to smell your neck and feel your arms go around me....and your legs."

And, I will stop there and let you fill in the rest. It wasn't pornographic or anything, just a needy spouse saying so. She ended by saying that maybe we could get Patrice to babysit this weekend so that we could have some "love in the afternoon" with "the sun streaming in the windows and you smiling up at me.."

And my sister heard it.

I know I should be mortified. But...okay...I laughed. I stood in my kitchen and first started chuckling and then sort of howled. Okay, really howled. I did a snorty laugh that seemed to profoundly upset the dog.

I will never let Bing know that Patrice heard this. She would be so fucking mad at me. I did call my sister to explain. I told her that when I had left to meet her for lunch, there was just a message from Jessie on there and that I should have checked it first, sorry.

She was a little bristly.

"I don't need an explanation. What you do in your bed is none of my business. But, hey, I said a prayer for you on the way home."

I shook my head at the phone. "Just pray that I have the strength to keep up with her, Patrice, okay?"

She didn't find me one bit funny and told me so.

You decide

Okay. Here's the deal.

I had this strange dream last night: I was with Liv in some sort of trailer. We were sitting on a bed sorting out things from boxes. In walked my old boss from about ten years ago. He asked me how I was doing. I told him not so great, that my arm, neck and back were killing me. This was not true. I was fine...NO idea why I lied. He patted me on the shoulder and said, "Well, you may want to re-think that outfit." I was wearing jeans and a pink turtleneck. The End.

I woke up around four in the morning and remembered the dream, thought it was sort of odd and went back to sleep. I got up at 6, as usual, to get Liv ready for school. We were all crabby in this house because it will fucking NOT stop snowing.

So, I made Liv scrambled eggs and headed into my bedroom to get dressed to take her to school. I had my jeans and a pink turtleneck set out. I do this the night before since I am unable to make lucid decisions in the early morning hours. I could end up in a kilt or something....

I slid on my jeans and lifted up my arms to put on the turtleneck.

I heard a sharp cracking sound, like knuckles...or my NECK bones.

I was in incredible pain, it shot down my neck, into my shoulder, across my back and then down my left arm. It hurt so badly that I actually cried out.

By the time we had to leave for school, the pain was not as sharp, but still steady and god....it just FUCKING HURT. I was stiff as a board.

I was driving Liv to school (try that with an aching back, neck, shoulder and arm and tell me how you don't scream out loud obscenities, but I did it) when I remembered that dream and especially the line:

"You may want to re-think that outfit...."

Shit. A prophetic dream? A very strange coincidence?

What do you think? And more interestingly, has anything like that ever happened to you?

I'm still sore, but after popping a a handful couple of pain pills, I am doing a bit better....

You decide....

This 'n that, part 458

Lots of shit flying around in my head today. Let's start with what I am reading.

I currently have 17 books waiting in my bookcase to read. I read all the time. Every time I have some free time, I read. I am currently reading Lottery by Patricia Wood. It is wonderful. I started it yesterday afternoon and read far into the night last night and am over three fourths of the way finished with it. Read it. It is THAT good. I love it when a book takes me completely away from my world and someone calls my name and I look up and am just...in a fog for a moment. READ this one. It is so worth it.

Yesterday, Liv had children's orchestra rehearsal and then was going to go for a play date with her seatmate for the afternoon. Bing and I had a WHOLE afternoon free. This used to mean an afternoon bouncing under the bed sheets. But, now it means we go to a movie. Actually, I think Bing did suggest a bed romp, but I vetoed it and said that I really, really wanted to see the movie Atonement. Bing gave me a long look because I think she could smell that this movie was going to be like The English Patient or Chariots of Fire. The kind of movie that I love and she hates. Remember that Seinfeld episode where Elaine goes on and on about how stupid The English Patient was? Well, that could have been Bing. She HATED that movie and I, of course, loved it. Wept ALL the way through it. We were just friends at the time and I recall being so pissed off at her for falling asleep halfway through it and then waking up when it was almost over and saying, "Jesus Christ! It isn't over YET??"

But, Bing is a good sport and thinks that Keira Knightley is hot, so she agreed to go.

It was The English Patient all over again. I, not only loved it, but I wept copiously and kept leaning over to whisper how incredible the acting, the cinematography, the everything was. I could see Bing stifling yawns.

It was the best movie I have seen this year. And all because of James McAvoy. I had only seen him once before in Narnia, and thought he was an excellent Mr. Tumnus. But, in Atonement, he is just about the most incredible actor I have ever seen work it. I wasn't watching Keira Knightley. I was sighing with deep lust for James. Actually, I suppose, it was his character, Robbie. I actually leaned over and whispered to Bing, "God, if that was a woman, I would leave you right here, right now." She snorted. She whispered back that it was "That accent, dear heart. You are a goner for English or Scottish accents and you know it..." Well, Keira had an English accent and she did like....nothing...for me.

But, it was his sort of character that just does me in: smart, funny, clever, quiet, strong, high minded.

And the whole story was riveting. GO SEE IT. Even though Bing hated it, you have to remember that she and I like very different movies. We seldom like the same ones. She likes things like I, Robot, The Terminator,Indiana Jones, Star Wars. Anything without a lot of adventure sort of leaves her cold.

Atonement was grand. Go see it and then come back and thank me. Because you will.

Today, when I got out of the shower, Bing came in and told me that "your guy is on Meet the Press..."

For a split second, I thought she meant James McAlvoy....

But, no...I thought about it. It is 48 hours away from super tuesday. This can only mean the master democratic strategist: James Carville.

Now, HE we can both agree on. We are both die-hard Carville fans. I've read all of his books, even bought his children's book for Liv, (who by the way, loved it) and I had high hopes that Mary Matalin would be on with him because that just makes for a solid political hour on television.

It was a great hour. James and Mary were on the panel, along with Bob Shrum and Mike Murphy. James made some excellent points, mainly that Hillary needs to stop with the I have experience platform and move it to the it's the economy, stupid... platform. He also thought that she would be well served to just admit that she made a mistake to vote for the war. I couldn't agree more. Best to just say that given the information she had at the time, she felt it was a good idea, but in retrospect, maybe not so much.

So, a good book, a good movie and a good hour of television. What more could I ask for?

Well, Liv does have a basketball game this afternoon and then we will settle in for The Super Bowl. Who do you want to see take it?

Bing is a Patriot's fan, I like the Giants. Liv could care less. She likes her Cornhuskers and that's about it. She will spend her time drawing on the floor while Bing and I make snide remarks about each other's team and any dumb plays they make.

And the commercials. I love the commercials. I hear that Justin Timberlake's diet pepsi commercial will be played...I love that one. I also hear that there is a James Carville one too.

So, life will be good. A cup of chai tea, a football game and sexy het dreams of James McAlvoy, this is my idea of a good time....

Have a good week, y'all...