'Til there was you

You came galloping out to the car today when I picked you up at your bff Constance's house after school.

Grinning your jack o'lantern smile. Wearing your new purple plaid shirt that we bought for you at the Gap this weekend. You were absolutely right, Liv. It is you. It is perfect on you.

You plowed into the car, all gangly long legs and smelling like you always do of lemons and grass, your hair already out of its ponytail and splayed across your shoulders in a long wheaty heap.

"Guess what?" Your first words to me.

What? I asked.

"We got measured in gym class today and I am five feet and one half inch," Liv crowed, her impish face watching mine.

Well, now. I think I said Well, now.

"Soooo," she went on devilishly. "That means that I am now TALLER than you!"

I pretended to frown. Squinched up my face in a pseudo angry mask.

"So, what?" I finally sputtered. "I still weigh more than you, toots."

She gave me an appraising look and then nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think you probably do," she agreed. "How much do you weigh?"

I pretended to lock my lips with a key. No way, ray. I think I said No way, ray.

She cackled. "It's not like you're fat, Mother."

Ugh. There she goes with calling me Mother again, I thought. I like Mama so much more. It sounds so much more.....friendly. But, she insists that Mama sounds babyish. So..Mother it is.

I look over at her. She has already let the conversation drop and is pulling out her homework list for tonight, studying it. Glee is on tonight and she knows the rules. No homework done. No television.

My throat catches and I am startled by this. Liv's hair is shining deeply in the sun coming in the window. It never fails to astonish me that my child, this baby girl of mine is so...soo....so...so....pretty.

There were bells on the hill
But I never heard them ringing
No, I never heard them at all
'Til there was you.

I put my hands at 2 and 4 on the steering wheel and resolutely turn my attention to the road.

The day she was born, she looked so majorly pissed off that I wondered if this was a bad omen. Seriously. She didn't look one bit happy to be here. She looked like she was taking names and ready to kick some major ass. I remember that everyone kept saying things to me like, "OOOHHH. What a nice head of hair!" and "She has such intelligent eyes already!" and "She looks wise, doesn't she?"

I didn't think so. I privately thought she looked like Milton Berle. With frog legs. I was too exhausted to lie to myself but I do remember being shocked at the wave of love that came splashing all over me at the mere sight of her. I had been told that this might or might not happen and not to be surprised but I WAS surprised.

I loved her so deeply already that I felt like a ninja princess ready to pounce at anyone who even looked at her askance.

My love grew somehow. She became colicky and stayed that way for four months. I spent the last days of summer pacing the house with her and wondering if she might just be possessed. She seemed to not only hate being on the planet, but to hate me especially.

She sometimes looked directly into my eyes and screamed so furiously that I felt like a lowly housemaid to her angry queen of hearts.

OFF WITH HER HEAD! she seemed to be screaming.

I loved her anyway, but it was a desperate, terrified love. Would she ever stop screaming? Was I such a rotten mother that she had to advertise already?

GET THIS WOMAN AWAY FROM ME! she seemed to be trying to say.

I told her pediatrician this and he laughed at me, told me that I KNEW better. That I was a medical professional, knew the symptoms of colic when I saw them. I should not take this personally.

But, I did.

Once, after a sleepless night when she fucking refused to sleep and kept turning her face away from me as if I had penis breath or something, I wearily put her into her crib and stood peering over at her as she screamed lustily at me.

Finally, I snapped.

"I mother fucking HATE you, LIV!" I shouted back at her. "WHY can't you be a normal baby and coo? Why do you have to act like you are stuck in hell? I am doing MY BEST! Can't you mother fucking SEE THAT, you little ingrate???"

She just screamed louder than me, showing me who was boss of her.

She was. And of me too.

There were birds in the sky
But I never saw them winging
No, I never saw them at all
'Til there was you.

Finally, a few days after Thanksgiving, she suddenly stopped screaming. It was as if she got all those horrific ya yas out and was now ready to be civilized.

I had not accepted any invitations for Thanksgiving that year, worried that people would think that I was a child abuser or something since she would not stop screaming no matter what I did. So, instead I ate a turkey TV dinner morosely by myself while her voice went from the thin whine of waking up to the shrill scream of WHAT THE FUCK AM I STILL DOING IN THIS LOUSY WORLD?

I remember putting my head on the kitchen table and looking out at the gold and red leaves cluttering the yard and thinking to myself that I was a total and complete nimrod. A fuck up. WHAT had I been thinking when I decided to bring a child into this world? What a delusional idiot I was. I somehow managed to get the Amityville baby instead of the Gerber one. Leave it to me to fill out the order form incorrectly.

But, still....I loved her.

I desperately loved her and I felt so badly that she was stuck with me.

And then, yes...she stopped screaming.

Whatever colic was, it was finally over.

I went in to see if she was still breathing one night, a practice that I still do today even though she is eleven and she was laying quietly in her bed, wide awake. I froze, sure that she would catch sight of me and start screaming.

Instead she turned her head in the moonlight and looked at me in sheer delight.

Hi MAMA! she seemed to say in her fairy voice.

I stood frozen in her power, completely besotted and smitten and just...bowled over with joy. She was smirking at me, smiling like an imp. A jack o'lantern smile, I thought as I leaned down and held out my index finger for her to grasp.

And just like that, we were joined at the hip.

We were like twins. We spoke the same language, breathed the same air and inhaled so deeply of each other that we became mirror images. At night, before I rocked her to sleep, we would go from window to window saying goodnight to the sky, she tucked in my arms in her dark blue sleeper with the tiny white half moons all over it, me in my long pale blue granny gown. Both of us barefoot, one of her feet habitually stuck in the pocket of my plaid robe, burrowing down deep.

She fell asleep each night, tucked in my arms with her fingers wound around the long braid that hung over my shoulder. I sometimes rocked for hours, so done in at the sight and smell of her that I could hardly stand the thought of seeing anyone else ever again.

She grew as babies insist on doing. She was 10 months and commando crawling everywhere, scooting around, a baby on a mission, eyes peeled for stray cheerios on the floor. Her first word was not mama as I had hoped but "light." This word said as she pointed at the kitchen light above her carrier chair as I readied her to go on an errand in the car.

After that, there was no stopping her. She gathered words around her like a starving pauper in a bakery. By the time she was a year old, she was walking and talking and giggling and discovering rapturous things like pancakes and balloons and smashed bananas on her high chair tray.

And there was music
And there were wonderful roses
they tell me
In sweet fragrant meadows of dawn and dew

Her Father came back into our lives, sick at heart at missing all of her firsts and thrilled to know that at the ripe old age of three, she was not only talking in long paragraphs but could tie her shoes and say the alphabet and count to 50.

And then she was in kindergarten, in first grade, in second and so on. Her inane shyness and reservedness began to slide off of her olive skin and she began to pull away from our joined hips and move into her own self.

She had opinions and strong likes and dislikes and she found that she loved math more than reading and science more than history and music more than art.

Always a scrawny child, she began to lengthen and move with more grace and less jangly bojangles. Soon, she was at my shoulders and then up to my ears.

I would watch her at parks playing with her friends, in the school yard at recess, running around the backyard playing statue with her friends. I looked carefully at her honey hair, her dark brown eyes, her tan always deep and dark in the summer, no trace of the peaches and cream that I brought to the gene pool.

She was long and lean, high waisted with long legs and slender minnowy feet and hands that were more pianist than flute player. I watched her walk and was so reminded of her Father that it gave me pause. She had never really looked much like me but the older she grew the more she looked so much like her Father that it made me stop breathing now and then.

She grew into a passable athlete, never the best on the team, never the worst, but always a fierce competitor and a loyal team mate.

In one conversation with her Father, he told me She reminds me so much of you that it just amazes me. She laughs like you do. She has this sardonic, sly sense of humor and man, she is just so SMART. Just like you.

I had to laugh. Told him that she was NOT like me. She was good at math for fuck sakes. She didn't like fiction, she always chose books in the library about how photosynthesis worked or what makes a heart beat. Her favorite book from babyhood was not the Goodnight Moon that I bought for her before she was born but a picture book about the bones in the human body.

But, she IS you on the inside, her Father insisted. She sees the world the way that you do. She is aloof and tender at the same time. She may look like me, but she is her Mother's daughter.

This pleased me and puzzled me at the same time. I just don't see it. She is the perfect enigma to me. I love watching all her layers slide around.

Now, she is eleven. She doesn't like baking much but she will tell you that her favorite day at school this year was when her class got to look at onion layers under the microscope and when she was able to do some beginning string theory in math.

She has a tender heart that she masks with a tendency to speak pragmatically. She rolls her eyes when a friend is squeamish about killing a spider.

But, she will find a dead bluejay in the yard and burst into tears when she spies its mate sitting forlornly on the fence.

She will come and sit next to me on the back steps and put her head on my shoulder and ask me to sing Oh Susanna with her like we used to do when she was little.

I sing it happily.

There was love all around
But I never heard it singing
No, I never heard it at all
'Til there was you....

She has no idea that when she was gone for the summer on vacation with her Father that I sat on these same steps and wept into my knees, pining for the mere sound of her voice.

I ask her what her first memory is of me and she sits thoughtfully for a moment and then she smiles brightly at the remembrance.

"I have this strange memory of laying in my crib and looking up and seeing your face looking down at me and you giving me your finger to hold," she says. "And I remember that I thought to myself that you were my Mama, my sweet baboo," she says. "I know I was probably too young to have that memory but I swear that I remember it."

Me too, honey. Me too.

And guess what?

I am secretly glad that you are taller than me. I want you to grow up tall and strong and opinionated and full of monkey business.

I never knew how beautiful the world was 'til there was you.

Sometimes you just hear a song....

.....and it is like

the words have been taken right out of your mouth.



I think Sara needs to have pancakes with us too.

Pancakes

Fuck it.

I'm taking ALL of you out for pancakes. Raven, we'll find something gluten free for you.

So, I get to order first because it was my idea. And I'm with Terroni. Let's not do IHOP. There is my favorite place for pancakes here called Joe's Cafe. Let's go there.

Ok...I want blueberry pancakes and a side of bacon. And coffee. With a little jug of cream, not those stupid little packet creams either. The real stuff. And an extra ball of butter. Because if I am going to pig out, I am going to pig out right.

What will you have?

C'mon, now. Don't keep Kathy waiting. She may look like a waitress but she does pilates regularly. She could snap you in two with her legs if you don't hurry up.

Order already, dudes!

And then come over to my house and we can watch the new Hawaii Five O. Bing and I saw it last night and I am sort of ready to inhale Alex. Take a look see...

Dream

I know. I know. It sucks to have to listen to other people's dreams.

But, hey...YOU were in my dream last night, so suck it up and keep reading because I really, really want your opinion.

I was in a church (keep reading, it gets better) and there was this fire-and-brimstone female preacher there. She looked like Anita Bryant and she was literally yelling and screaming.

HOMOSEXUALITY IS WRONG! IT VIOLATES OUR SENSE OF MORALS AND MAKES BABY JESUS WEEP!

And she said HEY ZEUS instead of JESUS, so she was at least good for comic relief.

Because it is really really funny when white bread people say Hey Zeus.

At any rate, I was sitting next to someone. Do not know if it was a male or a female, I just know that they were writing me really funny notes. Things like:

Is it just me or is church overrated?

I wonder what Anita looks like when she cums? DOES she cum? EVER? Do you think she is a whimperer or the type that grabs your ears and screams? Do you think she screams HEY ZEUS! or is that just wrong on so many levels?

I'm hungry now. Let's go to IHOP and get pancakes.

What the hell is she throwing her fist in the air for? She has armpit hair that could be braided, dude. I would have NEVER guessed that she wasn't a pit shaver. She looks SO much like a scrupulous pit shaver, don't you think?

Whoever it was had on these GREAT sneakers. Chuck Taylors.

Then, he/she handed me a new note. It said:

I'm one of your blog readers. Guess which one!

I made an attempt to see the face of my witty companion but he/she put her/his hands over my eyes. I smelled something sort of....patchouli-ish. Hmmm. Male? Female?

And then the alarm woke me up.

So...ok...which one of you is it? Because you were really, really funny and I want to go eat pancakes with you right now at IHOP.

Fess up, dude.

Still here

Ok! Ok! Lots of e-mails asking me if I am okay.

I am.

I'm just sick. I seem to have caught Liv's cold and now I am living in the land of snot and cough. Bing, who is one of the worst cold sharers on the planet, is trying gamely to avoid sharing mine. She kissed my ELBOW goodnight last night instead of my mouth. I don't blame her. I am hardly kissable these days.

I haven't missed work because 1) I was raised that you don't miss school or work unless you are vomiting profusely and 2) I am under the illusion that if I just get up and out of the bed that I will feel better and 3) I keep telling myself that today is the day when I will feel better.

So far, it hasn't been the right day. I woke up this morning shivering after waking up off and on all night to one kick ass thunderstorm after another. I changed the sheets and called Liv's soccer coach to tell him that she is still sick (she isn't really, but we want to watch the Nebraska game on TV this afternoon and I am always so good at justifying watching the Huskers) and can't make her game.

I decided to vacuum and ended up sitting on the sofa with a violent coughing fit and then being so hot that I wanted to strip naked and run outside. Because I am 52, I was kind to my neighbors and stuck my head inside of the freezer for a few moments instead.

Now, I am shivering again. I suppose I should take my temp, but do I really want to know? I think not.

It will be a day of football because we are Cornhuskers in this family and that is what we do on game day. We wear red and we watch our boys play smashmouth football, which in my opinion, is the only way to play properly. I am missing Mr. Su badly this year, but am liking Niles Paul so very much.

Guess who reads my blog? Ben from the previous post. Got a very nice e-mail from him telling me that I hit it squarely on the head except for the fact that I neglected to mention that during our first bout of sexual intercourse, I interrupted him to tease him about buying large sized condoms.

"You pretty much put me in my place that my penis was just average sized," he wrote to me. "Like you even knew, Missy Tickle Pants."

He's right. I had no idea what other dicks looked like. But, later....in college...I did have some experience and let me just say, Ben....that you chose the right size.

Smiling right at you, big guy.

Feel better, Father?

Life is getting into a good groove again. My garden is put to bed for the Autumn. My canning and freezing is done and now I have rows and rows of gleaming jars of vegetables in my basement and a full freezer of frozen vegetables too. Also...strawberry jam. Rhubarb jam. And herbs laid out all over my basement drying racks. To go into my basement is a mouth watering thing these days.

Summer clothes are put up. Autumn clothes in drawers.

A chicken to simmer in the crock pot all day.

Now all I need is some cough syrup and I am a happy camper.

So, thanks for asking, dudes.

I am just fine. And you?

Sex Galore!

Snickering. Chortling here.

I was checking my stats a few days ago and noticed that there was a huge jump in my readership (more than two thousand!) in my last blog post.

And then....DOH! It hit me. Sex sells, dudes. Sex sells. Have the word SEX anywhere in your title and you are going to get hits. So, why not do it again? And hell...why not take on more sex topics, or well....sexish ones. It's good for the spirit, much better than sitting around today remembering those planes hitting the towers.

So...let's talk about high school romance. No. Not sex. I didn't have sex until my freshman year of college. But, sweet baby jesus, we came close. And we did just about everything else that could be done without actual penetration. And I'm talkin' straight hetero sex, peoples. I didn't act on all those bisexual (ZING!! That word is good for another 200 readers right there! Of course, they all live in damp basements and play video games all day long....) feelings in high school.

We should start my freshman year of high school. Picture a young Maria. Pretty but I don't know it. Actually, I look back on those photos of myself and am a bit stunned because lawdy Miss Clawdy, I was one nubile looking girl. My hair was at its glossiest in high school, my teeth straight and white (thanks to two years of braces and farm well water), I was just about the perfect weight...not too fat, not too skinny and curvy. Very curvy in a way that I lost when I hit 35. I had perfect porcelain skin, was one of those lucky kids who didn't get pimples. A spattering of freckles across my nose. Hell, I was already well on my way to my nickname in college: the milkmaid.

There sits Maria at her first boy-girl party, put on in the basement of one of the popular girls, Judy Guzman. Maria is not one of the popular girls, she is in the smart girl group. The girls with glasses group. The Hermione Granger set. But, this is a small town in Iowa, folks. There are only 20 in the freshman class, so everyone is invited to the party.

Music is playing. A few brave girls dance together. The boys stand in a clump off to one side, horsing around with each other. A lamp will eventually break and Judy's mother will embarrass her to tears by insisting that the boy who broke it pay for it out of his lawnmowing money.

The other girls stand and sit in tittering pink groups.

Finally, one of the boys suggests that we play a game called Spin the Bottle. The group decides that this is a splendid idea and it is decreed that Judy's mother's sewing room/guest room will be the designated room. Judy tiptoes up to the top of the basement steps to carefully shut the door so that her mother won't interfere.

Maria is nervous. She has never heard of Spin the Bottle. Because she is just naive like that. She decides not to say anything and fervently hopes that perhaps this is one of those listen and learn games. She observes closely.

Everyone sits in a circle on the floor. A pepsi bottle is placed in the center. Judy gives it a spin. It lands on Ellen Eugene. Ellen is a dark haired popular girl with huge pop bottle glasses that she only wears when she absolutely has to. Without the glasses, she looks like a young Crystal Gayle. With them, she looks like a female toad. Ellen smiles calmly. She obviously is comfortable with this game.

The bottle spins and keeps landing on girls. It keeps going until it eventually lands on Tommy Wall, a serious boy who lives on a farm and has acne. Ellen sighs but smiles gamely. Tommy's face is beet red but he leaps up as if he won a prize.

Ellen and Tommy go into the sewing room and the lock clicks on the door after they shut it. Judy sets a kitchen timer to 7 minutes. Everyone hovers next to the door, ears pressed against it, listening. Some giggling is heard. A thump. A few boys guffaw. That seems to be it. Everyone goes back and sits down and there is a short discussion about the next town over and their baseball team. Are they good enough to beat us? Judy, who is a jv cheerleader, reminds the other cheerleaders to wear their new tops to practice this week.

The timer breeeennnnngs loudly.

Ellen and Tommy emerge. Both are disheveled looking. Ellen looks slightly bored. Tommy looks stunned and pleased.

We all sit down and the bottle is spun again. This happens two more times and Maria notices the same results. The couple goes into the room. Sometimes there is silence, other times theatrical moans and laughs. But the end result is always the same. The couple emerge looking messy and breathless.

Maria decides that she knows what is going on in that sewing room/guest room.

Tickle fights.

She finds this unnerving. Maria is extremely ticklish and like most ticklish people, does not enjoy being tickled. It is a painful thing for her and an almost hellish experience because you laugh when you want to cry when you are being tickled. She detests being tickled. DETESTS it. She sighs. Hopes that perhaps the game will stall out before she is picked or that there will not be enough time to get to her.

She is picked the next round.

Her partner is Ben Nathanson. Maria likes Ben. Not in a crushy way but in a friendly way. Ben is one of the popular boys and he is the only boy in a couple situation already. He and Judy are the freshman class' one and only genuine couple. They sit together whenever possible and hold hands a lot. They have spectacular fights that usually end up with Judy crying in the girl's bathroom on the shoulder of her best friend, Patsy Matthieson while Ben ends up apologizing for whatever he did several times across a lunch room table until she forgives him, her tear streaked face pink and sweetly Melanie Wilkesish.

Ben does Maria's Math homework and Maria does Ben's English homework. They trade in the mornings and have never been caught. Ben makes a few Maria-like errors in math to keep their teacher clueless and Maria returns the favor by writing out an extra English paper using her right hand (she is left handed naturally) so that the handwriting is untraceable. Plus, she puts in a few spelling and grammar errors.

This has worked for them since seventh grade and will prove to be so all through high school. The end result is that Ben will never have read Shakespeare but get a C+ in the class and Maria will always be hopelessly bad at algebra and barely pass with a C- because she does well on the homework, but tends to fail at the tests. Her Math teacher will think she just tests badly. Ben will be luckier as he has a brother in college who gets him Cliffs notes for the English tests.

So, now Ben and Maria stand up and face each other. Judy is jealous and shows it with her face screwing up into a siamese cat expression as she warns Ben to behave yourself! She doesn't bother saying anything to Maria. Maria is low on her radar. Judy doesn't hang out with the bookish girls, although she is not above asking them to help her roll up her school uniform skirt since regulations say that it must hit the girl's knees, but most girls roll their skirts at least two inches higher.

Ben holds the door open for Maria. A few boys make stupid wolfish noises as they enter. Ben closes the door and locks it.

He turns to face Maria who is sitting nervously on the twin bed. Maria, like most ticklish people, watches his hands fearfully as he moves towards her, twitching nervously at his every move. Ben notices this and frowns a bit, unsure.

Later, he will tell her that he was flummoxed by her skittishness. "I wondered what the hell was wrong, why you seemed so terrified. I really, really wanted to kiss you but was afraid you would wig out, so I decided that I should just treat you....welll....like a chicken that you must calm before you chop off her head," he will tell her and they will both laugh uproariously at this comparison.

Ben stands in front of Maria and says softly, "I'm not going to hurt you, okay?"

Maria laughs nervously and tells him that OH! No. She isn't worried about that! It's just that well, okay, he might as well know that she is seriously ticklish and doesn't much enjoy being tickled.

There is a silence as Ben wonders what the fuck that means. He finally smiles a slow, so-sexy-but-he-doesn't-know-how-recklessly-hot-he-looks-when-he-flashes-that-Edward-Cullen-smile. He holds up his hands like a traffic cop.

"No tickling, I promise," he tells her solemnly.

Maris sighs gratefully.

Ben sits down gently next to her and carefully takes her hand in his. He begins making easy small talk with her as he gently rubs the back of her hand with his thumb. This is a fun party, huh? Wasn't that pizza good? Maria agrees, her spine beginning to relax. She genuinely likes Ben. Now that he is so close to her, she notices a few freckles on his nose and decides that he has very nice lips, a little full for a boy, a little girlish, but in a very nice way.

Ben later tells her that it was a similar for him. "I looked at you and it was like I hadn't really looked at you before, you know? Like all of a sudden, I thought that you had the most beautiful hazel eyes that I had ever seen and your eyelashes were so long that I wondered if they hit your glasses. And your skin was so pink and white and creamy looking. And you smelled like patchouli and lemons. Judy always sort of smelled like Clearisil. I wanted to kiss you so bad that I could hardly stand it and I could feel those 7 minutes ticking away."

Ben's fingers begin to graze slowly up Maria's arm and then he begins gently stroking the inside of her arm ever so sweetly, making his fingers tiny ice skaters on the surface of her the smooth underside of her forearm. Maria begins to relax into an almost loopy fogginess.

It's now or never, he thinks.

Softly, gently, Ben tips up Maria's chin with his finger. It is a gesture that she has read about in books and seen in after school specials but has never before or since experienced. Maria's stomach begins to breed tiny butterflies. They are swooping all around. Ben catches Maria's eyes and holds them, making sure that they are connected and then he once again does that syrup slow smile. Maria smiles back, dazed and a little confused, but totally helpless. She knows that he is going to kiss her now and the thought of Judy does not enter her mind once. All she can feel is her stomach swirling and her lips softening, preparing.

The first kiss is soft and gentle and warm and happy. A little shy, but not particularly worrisome. It is a good kiss. They break apart briefly and smile sheepishly at each other. Then Ben carefully removes Maria's glasses and sets them nicely on the sewing table next to the bed.

And they are kissing. They both sink back to the bed, Ben is not really on top of Maria, more next to her, but his chest presses against hers and his fingers find hers and entwine. Their eyelids are shut and the kisses become deeper and more intense, more searching. No tongues. Just soft open mouths discovering each others mirror image.

Maria realizes that she is finally doing what she has never done before. She is making out. She thinks that she absolutely adores making out and could do this all night. Ben's mouth is soft but insistent and his hand moves to her waist, pulling her tightly against him.

Maria thinks that she finally knows exactly what the word swoon means because she is right next door to it.

BRRRRRRREEEEENNNNGGGGGGG.

The kitchen timer goes off. Ben and Maria share one more kiss, a small one, a generous one, a heartbreakingly regretful one.

The break apart. Ben sits up very slowly.

Later he will tell her that he was not sure that he could stand. That he wanted to kiss her like that all night long and that when he touched her hair it felt like a soft but heavy paintbrush in his fingers. He will admit that this was the point when he felt like he finally understood what the word "smitten" meant.

Ben stands up and helps Maria to her feet. He bends slightly, trying to catch her eye, but she won't let her eyes meet his. She keeps her eyes off to the side or down at the floor.

They walk to the door and unlock it and go out into the harsher lights of the party. All eyes are on them. Judy swoops to Ben's sides and laces her fingers possessively through his, her eyes search for his. He avoids her for a beat and then sighs and allows himself to smile at her, gives her an encouraging upturn of his lips in something like a real smile, but not really. Not really. She senses this and sniffs the air like he might already have pussy breath. He doesn't of course, but he does carry a small bit of Maria's scent on himself. He glances over at Maria, who is sitting quietly on a chair. Some friend has given her a seven up to drink and she sips it, not looking at anyone. She studies her shoes as if they are not hers.

The party breaks up at eleven o'clock as parents come to pick up their not ready to drive yet children.

On Monday, Maria and Ben trade homework. For the first time, she has trouble meeting his eyes. Ben feels himself blushing and furiously tries to hide it by playing a drum beat on the side of his leg.

A few weeks later, Judy is crying in the girl's bathroom again. Maria notices her as she walks by to wash her hands in the sink. Judy's blonde head rests on Patsy's shoulder as she hiccups and exclaims that Ben is "such a mean shit, he won't even give me a REASON!" Maria tries not to listen. It is just one of their many fights, she thinks. Nothing to do with her.

Two days later, Maria is getting books out of her locker, preparing to work on that science paper all weekend. She senses movement beside her and looks up. Ben is standing there.

His smile is once again slow and unwittingly sexy. He tells her that it's the team's first baseball game tonight. Is she planning on going?

No, Maria thinks. I wasn't planning on it.

She says, "I don't know. I hadn't really thought about it."

Ben pauses for a beat and then goes for it.

"Well, I play second base. Do you want to come watch me play? Afterward, the team always goes out for pizza, but I am thinking that maybe well...that maybe you and I could go out alone together. So...wanna?"

He is looking at her closely, willing her to look at him. So she does. Look at him. God, he really is just THAT good looking, isn't he?

She stammers and this embarrasses her. She says, "Um...you mean like...a date? With you?"

He rolls his eyes slightly, not enough to be rude but enough to let her know that this is uncomfortable.

He smiles again. "Well, um...hey? Why are you doing this? I mean, this is hard enough for me. I'm NERVOUS so why must you make me clarify? YES. A DATE. WITH ME."

Maria's smile is brief, flickery. "I was only asking because of well, because of Judy."

Ben tells her that he broke up with...wait....that they broke up a few days ago. Maria immediately likes him even more because he could have said that HE broke up with her, but he is gentlemanly enough to protect Judy by making it sound as if it was mutual. Maria notices things like this about people and it works its way into her opinions about them.

"Ah," she says, slowly. "So THAT was what she was crying about in the girl's room."

Ben's face looks pained and he mimes putting his fingers in his ears. "Ugh. Don't tell me this stuff. I feel bad enough...don't want to have THAT picture in my head now too."

Maria nods and then looks him directly in the eye. Says that yes, she will come to his game and yes, she would like to go out with him afterward. Where to? Her mother will ask and so she needs to know.

Ben smiles wickedly. It will be the first time that Maria gets a glimpse of this particular smile of his and she will love it each and every time.

"Well," he drawls. "I thought maybe we could go to the Highpoint Cafe for coffee and a doughnut. And then....well....I was hoping to drive you home since I just got my license and maybe, maybe....we could have a....TICKLE FIGHT!"

Maria bursts out laughing and he joins her. Their happiness is like a cloud around them, an aura that other people notice and are either slightly jealous, slightly nauseated, or slightly happy.

"Ok," she says. "Coffee and a doughnut. I'll be there."

It is the beginning and as all beginnings are, it is sweet and pure and full of promise.

Later, Judy will make a last ditch attempt to win Ben back. It will fail spectacularly and she will hate Maria for the rest of high school.

Later, Maria and Ben will have make out sessions that seem to go on forever when she is babysitting her little sister, Jessie on Saturday nights while her mother plays on her bowling league. They will ply Jessie with hershey bars and plop her down in front of the television while they sit in the parlor and frantically discover each other as much as two teenagers can without going all the way. This will be complicated by the fact that Jessie loves Ben and seems to think that he is coming to see her for a playdate instead of coming to see her big sister. Ben is kind to Jessie, plays Candyland with her and swings her on the tire swing in the front yard. Maria will watch him do this from the kitchen window and think to herself that he will make a fine father one day.

Ben won't be anyone's biological father though, although he will be a father. Later, in their first year of college, Ben will be over a thousand miles away from Maria and they will go two months without seeing each other. They will finally meet up when Ben travels to see her for the weekend, using his birthday money for the plane ticket and hotel room since Maria shares her dorm room with another woman and there is no other place to be alone.

Their first sexual encounter will be in a hotel room on rough white sheets and a bed with a cat screeching headboard. Ben will be unable to get the condom open and finally use his teeth to open it. The gel from the condom will get into his mouth and the taste will be awful but he will gamely wipe his mouth on the sheet. When he kisses Maria hard as he enters her for the first time, she will taste the gasoline taste of the gel in his mouth and it will nearly make her gag but she will hide it because she knows that this moment is special for them. But...yes...it will be a long reaching memory and she will smile fondly every time she remembers it.

Ben and Maria will grow apart in college. Maria will discover that she has some unacted on feelings for other women. Ben will take a religion class and unexpectedly, he will be drawn in and fascinated by the course. By the end of year, they will meet and try to gently pull away from each other. Maria will not mention that she has been seeing a woman in college and that she is discovering parts of herself that she can no longer ignore. Ben will not mention that he has decided to join the seminary.

They will gently tell each other goodbye and know that really...it is for the last time. But they will both be satisfied with the closure and when they meet many, many years later, Maria will have her newborn daughter in her arms and Ben will confess that Maria's sisters asked him to try to secretly baptize that child since Maria has not had the sense to have her baptized. Ben and Maria will laugh together and then Maria will say WHY THE FUCK NOT and ask Ben to baptize Liv.

Liv will be baptized in the kitchen sink of the parish basement. She will not cry, but look up curiously into her mother's eyes, wondering what that sensation is on the cradle of her head.

Ben will walk Maria to her car and help her put Liv into her car seat and then before he leaves, he will hug Maria close and whisper, "I can still feel you kiss me sometimes. It is such a nice memory, babe."

Maria will pat his back and say something like "ditto" because she is not overly romantic as a rule. But, yes...she can still feel his kiss sometimes too. It is a sweet memory and nice to lean on when the day has been too long and you need a cloud to take you off to sleep.

We all need that. Don't we?

3 Chicks talkin' about sex

Two friends were over last night. My bff, Harriet, who is nearly 12 years married and has five kids, three are hers, two belong to her sister who died, so yeah....all five are hers now. She is tired a lot. Funny as hell, but often sleepy. The other friend was an old friend from a long ago job whom I've stayed in touch with. Her name is Jeanne and she is married for just a few years now, waited until she hit 30 to marry.

Both women are diamonds.

We sat outside on my deck, drinking wine and talking. They had come over to pry me out of my mood. Bing was gone to spend the evening with her work out buddy, a woman who I can barely stand, so I had no desire to tag along with her. Liv was at a sleepover, so no worries for me about getting a hangover.

We sat in the chilly night air, the day had been warm but the nights and mornings have gone chilly now, so we all had sweaters around us even though we still wore sandals. Harriet had brought this really weird chicken enchilada dish that was extremely salty but so good that we all kept dipping into the casserole dish with our forks to ferret out forkfuls of highly spiced, odd colored chicken. As the casserole cooled and we drank more, the forks were left behind and we just dug in with our fingers.

Jeanne made sure that our glasses were filled with frozen grapes and then she poured cold sangria over them after the first bottle of wine was gone. We kept on.

We talked about favorite concerts. Me: Bruce Springsteen (I still swoon when I hear Tunnel of Love). Harriet: Kenny Chesney. Jeanne: (God help us) Al Jardine. We talked about concerts where we were too fucked up to notice how great they were. Can't recall Jeanne's but mine was a Bob Dylan concert in college and Harriet's was The Sex Pistols.

We talked about how young and stupid we had been, how fun it all was. The talk shimmied over to sex, which happens when women who know and like each other get together.

Harriet lamented that she never got any longies anymore. "Nope," she said, "We plan sex days like we are in high school or something. Will all the kids be asleep? Is anyone sick? Because it's no fun to be fucking and then interrupted by a barfing toddler, let me tell you, bitches. It's like instead of parents barging in, we now worry about children barging in."

Jeanne talked about how her husband, Eliot, was just too gentle so she told him once in a fit of bravery that she wanted to be thrown around a little. "Well," she said, "then it just turned into this really awful movie where my taciturn husband started saying things like I'm gonna fuck you so hard, baby! and I had to put my face in the pillow to keep from laughing, because seriously, he looks like Woody Allen and it just doesn't work all that well unless that guy who plays Alcide on that vampire show is saying it."

I had just seen the movie, Going the Distance and talked about the part in the movie where Drew Barrymore's character hits the nail on the head about cunnilingus.

"I agree totally with her," I commented, taking a long sip. "I HATE it when they have to keep looking up at you to see if you're having a nice time and you have to give them affirmation and encouraging groans when all I really want is for them to just LICK IT for pete sakes. It isn't brain surgery. It's a small area and there is very little involved in doing a good job."

Harriet snorted. Jeanne blushed. And then she admitted that Eliot had only gone down on her a few times, that he didn't like it much so she hated to ask....

Harriet and I pounced.

If he gets it, I GET IT. Rule.

You need to be a lesbian, Jeanne. Seriously. Oral sex is the cornerstone of lesbian sex. I always hated that about hetero sex. That feeling like it is all about cock and what it wants. I say, let the pussy lead the way, sister.

Um, that, of course, was me.

Surprise. Surprise.

Jeanne admitted that Eliot doesn't get much head either, though.

"Welll," she said, "he was raised Catholic and you know the whole idea behind sex is procreation so they don't mind if you start with well....that stuff...but we always finish with him inside me."

Harriet admitted that sometimes she likes giving head just because it is um.....CLEANER.

"The thing is, if it's in my mouth, it isn't going to be all over the sheets or dripping down my legs when I get up," she admitted. "And, really? I have enough chores already without having to change the sheets more often too. Because, seriously, the wet spot is so not fun and it always ends up on my side of the bed, not his."

Jeanne shook her head. Said that this was why you coated the bed with TOWELS before you had sex. Then...you just had to kick them on the floor and there was more snuggle time.

Harriet raised her eyebrows. Asked how much cuddle time she got exactly, because she was pretty sure that she was getting gypped.

I admitted that I was not a cuddler. When it was over, I just wanted to roll over and go to sleep. Fuck the cuddle time, my sleep is more important.

Both women glanced at me and then at each other. They agreed that this was a "lesbian thing." I sat up straighter. How so? Well, they said, you probably get lots of non sexual cuddling, don't you?

Um. Yes. I do.

Harriet shrugged. Enough said.

Then she said, "I do remember what it used to be like though." She paused and her face softened.

"I remember when we were so hot for each other that we did it on the kitchen sideboard once when the rest of the family was eating pumpkin pie in the living room and watching a football game after Thanksgiving dinner. That would never happen now...."

I smiled. Took her hand. Told her that I understood. Said I remembered one night when we both laughed because we had both had so many orgasms that we lost count. We decided to eat the cold Chinese noodles in the fridge and then ended up on the kitchen table. I believe that I actually let her eat noodles off of my stomach at one point. God, I would never do that now. The MESS.

Jeanne smiled dreamily. "I remember that we used to miss Sunday mass on a regular basis. Not anymore, though."

We all sat in silence for a while. Then, Harriet picked the topic up and set it right.

"You know," she said, "Ken is the only man in the world who has seen me triple fart and still wants to do it with me. And he once sat up all night with Molly when she had croup and he had this important meeting the next day. He brings home take out when I sound really crabby on the phone and he is the coach for Edward's soccer team. Plus, he and I laugh a lot in bed still. That is so good."

I agreed. Said that Bing brings me home cadbury eggs occasionally and rubs my bunions at night when I have stupidly worn heels to work again. She also still looks so hot when she mows the lawn and she knows exactly how turned on I am with nipple stimulation, so she includes it in most lovemaking sessions. Plus, she is the only one who understands that I can TOO have a crush on Lee DeWyze. She even went to an American Idol concert with me so that I could see him play and she detests that show like nobody's business.

Jeanne sighed. "I love Eliot, too." She tipped up her glass and finished her sangria, a stray grape falling down her shirt and staining it purple.

"And he does all the laundry and will find a way to get that sangria stain out because he knows it is my favorite shirt. Plus, he lights candles and runs a bath for me...okay...not all that often....but it happens. Okay...usually he wants sex afterwards. But, hey he makes the effort."

We all drained our glasses and stood up unsteadily. Harriet and Jeanne linked arms and prepared to walk to Jeanne's house where Eliot would give Harriet a ride home. Because he is a nice dude that way.

And we were all pretty sloshed.

After they left, I cleaned up the mess and pulled back the sheets, slid into my clean blue sheets and fell asleep, waking up when I heard the garage door open around midnight. I heard Bing walk into the bedroom and felt her lean down to kiss my forehead. She padded off to her shower and I groggily turned on the bedroom light so that I could try to stay awake to say goodnight.

There on the bedside table was a cadbury egg.

Of course there was.

Collide

What the fuck is the matter with me?

It's a pattern. I see it. I just can't seem to stop it. If I take the drugs that keep the black dogs away, it's like I lose so much else that matters to me. I can't write when I am anesthetized, I can't taste food. Can't find anything all that funny to laugh about or feel much of anything except a dull sameness. It's like...I'm neither here nor there when I take the drugs.

If I don't take the drugs, I feel my life, but then, yes...the black dogs come loping in at intervals. They stretch out and walk with me everywhere, looking up at me, not wanting to hurt me, not protecting me from anything, just...there with me. And I go into this dark place where I feel awful and can function, but just barely. Bing takes the brunt of those dogs and I know she worries, hates the whole thing. She pleads with me to take the drugs to keep them away not realizing that when I take those drugs, I lose the real me.

I long ago noticed a pattern. It all started with the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. When it is in remission, all is fine. I am alert and happy, goony birdy and sometimes silly, sometimes serious, sometimes strong, but always there. Then the RA flares and everything hurts. For days, I can barely walk without a cane. My joints swell.

It eventually recedes and I breathe a deep aching breath of relief. And then...I will be sitting happily reading a book, writing a report, or even just washing a pan in the sink and I will see them.

The black dogs. The depression.

They lope towards me, sometimes stopping and in my head, I am willing them to back off, go away. Sometimes it works and they go away, looking balefully over their shoulders at me. Other times, it doesn't work and they come closer and I can't back away really. No place to hide.

Best to just let them come in and be with me.

I see the ache in Bing's eyes. She sees them coming through me. She reaches for my hand. Tells me that yes, she is right here. It will be fine. Just relax. She has things covered. Just come back. Please come back soon.

Part of me wants someone to shake me good and hard and tell me to just snap out of it. Another part of me begs for someone to just tuck me in and then get in with me and hold me, hold me, hold me until it is over.

I can't take the drugs to keep them away so must endure their presence.

I function. I go to work. I take care of my child. I am fairly good at acting out my life. Except with Bing. She knows me well and knows that all my strength is going to parent Liv properly. There is not much left for her and she accepts this, waits it out. But her eyes watch me. She worries that one day I won't come back.

I always come back. But, it takes time. And in the meantime, I am no picnic. Sorry. So sorry.

Thank you for staying, baby.

Another break

Hello all

Rheumatoid arthritis strikes again....time to rest.

Be back when the pain goes away...