Can I just say how great a blogger my husband is?  Well, it doesn't matter, I said it anyway.

Apparently, my husband has a Doppelgänger. (via funkypancake)

Will the real Jason please stand up?

Tonight was a coming-out party.

My husband's, as a matter of fact.  We invited both sets of parents to see a piece of art he had done for the art show.  His statement explaining his inspiration cycled overhead on the PowerPoint.  That was how he chose to tell them that he was, in fact...

... alive.

Well, that wasn't the secret.  The secret was that he shouldn't be.  What everyone thought was an accident three and half years ago wasn't.  He intended to end his life and acted on that intent with complete resolve.  A miscalculation turned death into injury.

He's starting to talk about it.  He's starting to heal from the impact—not of the car, but of the truth.  And of hiding it these past years.  From everyone.  From me.

How do I feel about it?  I know whose arms were holding up the car that day, keeping it from falling.  He saved him.  He saved him for me.

He proposed.  I said yes.  We sat in the very spot where we met that night.

In between
you meeting me
and leaving me
be sweet to me

- Dean Fields

I have a boyfriend I have a boyfriend I have a boyfriend!!!  Hee hee hee!

And yes, it's him.

Today was that day.

Received via email:

My Dearest Meredith,

[Name]

When boys disappoint...  shopping therapy!

Based on personal experience.

In a unisex styling salon, a creepy 40-pushing-50-something male relationship counselor with a raunchy sense of humor can effectively hit on any woman in the room.  He has a captive audience; she may want to leave, but she can't until the blowdry.

In a unisex styling salon, women with short haircuts can be mistaken from behind.  This can precipitate ill thought out and embarrassing comments such as, "Frances, is this your son?"

In a unisex styling salon, a handsome exchange student from France may appear without notice.  Despite knowing enough French to carry on a shy and alluring conversation, one may be loath to do so when her towel-dried fauxhawk is dripping down her face, causing her makeup to streak and clump.  And so is lost an important opportunity for promoting international relations.

Ok, I have reached my dating saturation point.  I have a date with a different guy every night this week.  It's like all the planets aligning, only the planets are people and the galaxy is my calendar.  So far it's been pretty fun; I just don't know how much more I can take.

Just to give you some perspective, and to dispel any notion that this is a lifestyle for me, I have more dates lined up this week than in the past 2... 3... 4 years.  Whoa.  Rather than spread them out over time, I'm getting them over with all at once.

To what do I owe this sudden influx of interest?  Do I dare say?  Well, anyone likely to give me an earful already has.  My secret:  match.com.  Hallelujah.  I figured, at this point I could afford to invest a little in my social life.  And the payoff has been well worth it.  I have met some fabulous, attractive, educated, together guys (in public places, of course).  I knew there had to be some out there.

However, the name of the game these days is "Too Much of a Good Thing."  It can be exhausting to keep fielding correspondence from new faces, to remain ever in first impression mode.  I said I would stop when my subscription expires (which is the end of this month), but I am considering ending my run sooner.  I just don't know which I want to obtain more:  my peace or my money's worth.

The stigma of online dating:  bah!  What about the stigma of no dating?

It's never as easy as you want it to be.

There's no such thing as a clean break, a fresh start.  I thought I could extricate myself without doing any more damage, but I was wrong.

I gave up one dream for another and lost that one, too.

Softly now,
You owe it to the world
And everyone knows that you're my favorite [boy]
But there's some things in life that are not meant to be
I'm not meant for you and you're not meant for me
Here's to our problems
And here's to our fights
Here's to our achings
And here's to you having a good life
From me
Good life

Softer now,
You owe it to yourself
And don't think that you will be left on the shelf
Cause there's someone for you and there's someone for me
Like me you'll meet them eventually
Here's to [my] lover
And here's to [your] wife
Here's to your children and here's to you having a good life
From me
Good life

- Francis Dunnery

Love is blind.  Breakups are laser vision correction.

Ok, I've gotta start this thing up again.  Two years ago, I had plenty of material to write about and nobody to read it.  Now I have regular readers and nothing to write.  I keep waiting for inspiration, but it's getting to the point where I think I'm gonna hafta make my own.

Hmmm...  What inspires me?

My latest Netflix rental.  American Splendor.  That was a cool movie.  I was completely fascinated, mostly because the story had been going on under my nose for 20-odd years and I had no idea.

Camping.  Communing with nature.  And screaming babies.  And barking dogs.  And nazi park rangers.

School?  No.  In fact, I find school definitively uninspiring.  Summer classes, being condensed, last approximately 3 hours each.  My attention span for articulation disorders and cleft palate, respectively, is about 1 hour each.  That leaves two hours, 3 times a week, of me wanting to poke my eyes out.

The boy.  Yes, he is a significant source of my inspiration these days, but not the kind of inspiration that makes me want to run home and fire up the laptop.  Rather, it's the kind that makes me want to plan the rest of our lives together and then hurry up and start living it.

(Derek, don't kill me for posting this.)

xoneltrip: well when you need a laugh tonight just think of derek getting the digits of a bi porn star who is the granddaughter of the biggest political figure of the gulf war :-) and think of how funny life can be sometimes

I love old journals.  The trick is wait so long to read them that you can't remember what you wrote.  Like today when I found this 5-year-old wishlist:

4-15-00

"Things I Would Ever Want a Guy to Do for Me"

open doors - all doors
pick up the check
sit next to me with his arm draped over the back of the chair
share an umbrella
make me a milkshake
serenade me outside my window
hold me
take me camping, skiing, boating
wear a suit
take me dancing, especially swing
write a poem or a song, or draw a picture for me
fix dinner
surprise me
give me flowers
spend time with me
miss me
take care of me
ask me to marry him
ask my dad's permission first
love me

The accident happened three years ago today.

Mom didn't want me to go.  She had a bad feeling.  I dismissed it as her usual overprotective clucking.

I drove out to see him the day after Thanksgiving.  It was a peaceful drive.  Overcast.  I brought leftovers.

The weekend was long and short at the same time.  Only three days, yet when I assemble the episodes in my memory, they seem to exceed that.

We started back Sunday afternoon.  He wanted to bypass the interstate traffic by taking backroads.  I followed him.

We watched a lot of movies that weekend.  At the video store, he wanted to get Rush Hour 2; he hadn't seen it.  He forgot that we saw it together a month earlier.

He had promised some freshman a ride back to school, so we drove to the kid's house to pick him up.  It was way out in the woods somewhere.  I wondered how long before we would get back on the highway.

I met his best friend for the first time.  We went to their old hangout and they told me stories of growing up together.  I wished I was dating his friend.  I felt really guilty.

The sunset was beautiful.  It started raining, just enough to dot the windshield.  We had been on the same winding road for half an hour.  I was getting carsick.

He taught me how to drive stick.  My first lesson.  I was getting the hang of it, but it was tiring and I wanted to quit.  He could finish teaching me later.

It was a two-lane road, no turn-offs that I could see; still I was afraid to lose sight of him.  He disappeared over a hill.  I sped up to catch him.

It's hard for me to reconcile who I am now with the person I was then.  So confident.  So blind.  How is it that I was so unafraid to be close to someone?  I am none of those now.

The speed limit posted on the curve was 15mph.  I remember thinking that was a silly number as I crested the hill.  The next moment I was on a carnival ride.  Floating.  Laughing to myself as I thought, It looks like I'm going into that ditch, and not believing it until the violent triple landing jarred me out of denial.

I don't remember screaming.  Yet every time I replay the event in my mind, I hear a scream.

I had stopped.  The airbags lay flaccid on the dash and there was smoke inside the car.  Every movie image I had ever seen of automobile explosions flashed before my eyes.  I tried to get out, but my door wouldn't open; it was pinned against the bank of the ditch.  I crawled to the back seat and got out there.  Then I ran.

He knew something was wrong when he didn't see me in his rearview.  He had already turned around when I caught up with him. 

The car never exploded.  The smoke was leftover from the airbags deploying; same with the symmetrical abrasions on both my hands.  The ditch was part of someone's front yard.  They let us use their phone, since we had no cell coverage.  Their children took flashlights and directed traffic.  They were practiced.

I felt terrible for inconveniencing everyone.  The police.  The tow truck driver.  The homeowners.  Every motorist who screeched to a halt at the sight of kids with flashlights and a ditch full of car.  I felt especially bad for the guy trying to bum a ride to school.  He didn't know me at all, and now he was several hours delayed and relegated to the back seat.

We made it to campus late that night.  The next day I took a train home.  We broke up two weeks later.

And I bought a new car.

Someday I will summon the courage to go up and talk to the guy sitting alone at Starbucks with his Bible out.  But not today.

Happy birthday to Pat,
Happy birthday to Pat,
Happy birthday to Patrick,
Happy birthday to Pat!

My ex-boyfriend is now married.

I need to say that a few times until it becomes real.

My ex-boyfriend is now married.

He lives in northern Virginia.  I live in southern Virginia.  I heard it from a friend in Missouri.

My ex-boyfriend is now married.

I had to catch myself because I almost said, "No, they're just engaged.  They're not getting married until August."

My ex-boyfriend is now married.

And I wasn't expecting to have to deal with it until September.

I drove home in the past-twilight-but-not-yet-midnight dark, hovering over the smooth pavement that appeared not to have a single seam.  (One of) My favorite song(s) came on the radio--from the beginning--so I turned it up.  My head started to hurt, so I turned it down.  My head kept hurting, so I turned it off.  I needed to think.  I was surprised at how not-disappointed I was to have foregone listening to (one of) my favorite song(s) from beginning to end, as I am wont to do when the rare occasion presents itself.  It is an even rarer occasion when my thoughts manifest themselves in cranial discomfort in order to gain my attention.  Something was bothering me.  What was it?  Someone was on my mind, and he wasn't leaving.  But that was alright.  I wanted him there.  I wanted him in the car with me, and even shot a glance at the passenger's seat, just in case I was now able to wish things into being.  Not this time.  Regardless, I had a long conversation with Those present, during which I put voice to my resounding thoughts.  They felt better having been spoken, having not been ignored, having not been disavowed.  But in the end, they are just thoughts, unable to accomplish anything real except, perhaps, to give me a headache.

It's not everyday that I go to a movie and see myself on the screen.

Or maybe I just saw what I wanted to see:  the cinematic depiction of all my impossible hopes and dreams.  Truly, my own life bears very little resemblance to the story.  The startling parallels are those stemming from scenes that haven't happened, and probably never will, but have been rehearsed ad infinitum in the theater of my mind.  Why do I prize romance over reality?  Why do I want my life to be a movie?

Because the first 24 years have set the stage for a magnificent story, and when I reach the end, I want the whole of the plot to have lived up to its beginnings.

I went back to one of the places of my past.  It was ill-kept and overgrown.  No one knew where I was.  No one cared.

I picked through the dense brush, feeling my way, uncovering the path I knew was there, until at last I saw it.  It was as I remembered.  I stood in the same spot I did a year ago, and time stood still.  I wanted to hack through this jungle; I wanted to take over what had been neglected.  But I lacked the skills necessary for such a task.  My wish to remember could not override the existent desire to forget.  Someone wanted this place forgotten, and me with it.

You scare me.  And you do it on purpose.  You stick in a hook and gouge out everything sacred to me, then crap on it just to see what I'll do.  You think there is no consequence, no authority, no limit apart from yourself.  I thought at first it was an act, the guise of an insecure, frightened weakling.  But if it was pretense, there is now no verity left.  I pity you.  Your illusion of autonomy will be ultimately short-lived.

I was told by the guy taking my order today that I had an angelic voice.  After the smile comment, I have to be impressed with the high-quality pickup lines I've been rating.

I was actually the recipient of quite an adorable pick-up line today.  Three guys were standing menacingly close to the entrance of the mall where I was headed, so I steeled myself and made for my target.  Just when I thought I was home free, I heard from behind:

"You dropped your smile."

If I hadn't been so focused on giving off my single-woman-in-a-parking-garage-I-know-self-defense vibe, I would have turned and said, "Oh, are you gonna help me find it?"  ;)

Is this really my life?  Sometimes I think it's more of an extensive practical joke.  Smile, you're on candid cosmos!

Does it bother you that your brother hasn't married/won't marry/has no intention of marrying his long-time girlfriend?

If the answer is yes, then no big deal--we agree.  We can dissect the situation and lament it as one mind.

But if the answer is no...  Don't I sound holier than thou!  Who am I to impose my morals on other people?  I'm not perfect myself, as you know all too well.  Maybe I view dating indefinitely with no thought given to marriage misogynistic; that doesn't mean other people see it that way.  Who am I to judge your family?

As much I wanted to know where you stand, I couldn't bear to let it come between us.

I love you.  I will always love you.  But I have learned how to love you from a distance.  My desire to be with you is so entwined with my desire that you be changed that I can no longer separate the two.  I know it's not fair of me to want that.  I know such an attitude is a barrier to our coming back together.  And yet somehow I still wish for that as the surprise twist, the happy ending to our story.  I am a fool.  A wise fool, but a fool all the same.  A fool for you.

Did I not express my desire just a few entries ago for an electrically-charged male-repellent device?  The internet read my mind.

I need some sort of man-repellent.  No, that sounds like I have a different sort of problem (one that I may not want to solve in such a hurry!).  Rather, I need to repel one sort of man--the sort that sits down next to you in crowded places and comes up with excuses to touch you in conversation.  Elbow wars?!  Give me a break.

He is the kind of man who makes contact too often and for too long, and who apparently feels no compunction about it whatever.  It's frightening, really.  What's to stop a man like that from committing rape?  Certainly not his respect for women.

Maybe the invisible fence thing can be modified for the socially inept.  All those pathological huggers getting a shock if they cross the boundary into my personal space--I would definitely pay money for that.  Of course, I would suspend my defenses for genuine hugs (from people I trust), the kind that don't make my skin crawl.

I would like to send out a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my friend Patrick (my favorite SpongeBob fan).  He's studying law out at Stanford, a voice of reason amidst the liberal cacophony.  If anybody can set 'em straight, you can, Pat!

Ok.  Any insights into the male mind are welcome in response to this post.

I met a guy a few weeks ago.  I heard it was his birthday, so I made him a card, got his address from a friend, and sent it to him.  This he knows.

I was inspired to make the card during a bout of insomnia brought on by my inability to stop thinking about him.  The room I was working in looked like Normandy on D-Day by the time I was through, with ribbon shrapnel and glitter bomb fragments.  I called and left a message for my friend to give me his address, but when she didn't call back right away, I resorted to online stalking, trying every variation of his--and his roommate's--name I could think of, to no avail.  When my friend finally did call back with his address, it was T minus 1 day until his birthday, so I drove straight to the post office in the dark and in the rain because at least there it would get picked up at 4:30am, the earliest I could hope for.  About any of this he can only speculate.

Here is my question to you:  do you think he knows I have a crush on him?  And if so, how do you think he will react?

I feel a rant coming on...

This particular rant happens to be on behalf of any and all non-kretin men inhabiting the planet.  WHAT THE HECK IS WITH THE SO-MARKETED "MALE" VALUES ESPOUSED ON CABLE TELEVISION???  I give you:

Exhibit A:  The Man Show

Exhibit B:  The First Network for Men

If I were a man, I would resent these characterizations.  As it happens, I do resent Lifetime, WE, and Oxygen, but for some reason the "women's" channels do not seem nearly as degrading and insulting as their male counterparts.

And why is devolution appealing when couched in comedy, as if somehow it's... funny?  Granted, it might be funny if it weren't so painfully real.  If every frat party weren't an hômmage to Animal House minus the endearing characters and quotable lines.  If people didn't actually die as a result of alcohol abuse or sexually transmitted diseases.

Why is it ok to personify the phrase lowest common denominator?  Why aren't "men" concerned with the advancement of the species?  Why?  Why?

I have a secret.  I didn't intend for it to be a secret; I just can't tell anybody.  The truth is... something really grand has happened to me, but I am afraid I know how people will react if I tell them.  I can hear the concerned "Oh, Meredith"'s already.  Then I will have to say, "No, no, it's okay.  There's nothing to worry about," which just makes me sound defensive and delusional.  And then comes the skeptical "Well, okay, if you say so," which will, of course, make me question whether I really am delusional.  So, rather than being elated, I will become paranoid.

I think I'll just keep it to myself and enjoy it as long as I can, thank you.

I suppose I should conclude my little chronicle about my food vendor friend.  Nothing much ever came of our flirtations with one another; nothing but vague promises and disappointments.  I think the inevitability of my moving away put a damper on things.  Shame.  Last I heard, he was trying to leave Sutton Place for a better job elsewhere.  Best of luck to you, Steve!

I went driving around Old Town last night.  For some reason, I had never noticed before how many cool date places there are down there.  I found myself thinking, "Ooh, that would be a good place to go on a date... and that... and that..."  Naturally, this line of reflection turned to how relatively few dates I've gone on in the two years I've been here (even while I was dating someone!).  So, DC guys, this is your last call.  You have one week.  If you want to go on a date with me, speak now or forever hold your peace.

(I am somewhat discriminating, but being male and under 40 will definitely help your chances.)

Yeah, it turns out the guy I thought was the manager was actually the catering guy.  And somehow, all on his own initiative, he picked *me* out of their entire clientele to give Steve's number to, the same girl Steve had given his own number to the day before.  Pretty remarkable.

So I go in yesterday to see if Steve's there--I mean, to get some sushi--and Andrew, the catering guy, starts talking to me.  (I have to walk by his desk to get to the exit.)  He asks me if I've called Steve, etc., and then he says something like, "He's gonna be thanking me for three years when he marries you."  Ha!

He was sick towards the end of week before last, so I didn't get to see him.  Neither did he call my cell phone, which I kept meticulously charged for just such an occasion.  I didn't see him again until last Tuesday, when I added this little tidbit to my collection of facts about him:  after he was a kindergarten teacher, he played professional volleyball for a number of years.  (That's what he was doing in Miami.)  When it was time for me to go that day, he made a point of giving me his number.

Interestingly enough, when I went in the next day, Steve wasn't there, but his manager came up to me.  He said, "I have something for you, from Steve."  That was the last thing I expected him to say.  He handed me Steve's phone number, and said, "Give him a call."  (I kept my mouth shut about already having his number.)  I'm guessing Steve must have given this guy his number to give to me the week before or something.  How delightfully middle-school.  :)

Ok, technically he's "Premade Food Boy."  However, Derek read my earlier post and got a little mixed up, dubbing him "Salad Boy" ever after.

I found out yesterday that he moved here from Miami, but grew up in Cleveland.  And he used to be a kindergarten teacher.  (I hope he didn't notice my momentary drop in height when he told me that, as my knees got a little wobbly.)  It came up that I was moving in a few weeks, and he looked genuinely saddened.

That's when he asked for my number.  ;)

I made a friend at Sutton Place.  So now I check my hair before I go over there.  Yep, that kind of friend.

On Monday, he told me to come back when I had more time and we'd "play."  Today, I went over there and he gave me samples of just about everything at the premade food counter.  It was yummy.  I was almost full before I ordered anything.  I had to cut our little rendez-vous short, though.  I figured my "It was really busy!" excuse back at the office would only cover so much time, since all I was supposed to get was a little container of tuna salad.

Does he make friends with all the girls?  Probably.  Is it a clever ploy to sell more food?  Most definitely.  I give.  Uncle.

Why do I always find myself asking guys to be more mature than they are capable of being?  (Yes, I realize the answer is obvious; it's a rhetorical question.)  Let me share with you an episode from my youth, which I had forgotten about until recently...

It was the summer after my senior year of high school.  Scott and I had started dating the week before graduation, and everything was going fine.  I was going away for the month of July to work at a Christian camp in upstate New York, and there was no talk of breaking up or cooling off or anything like that.  He even told me to call him collect from camp.  So off I went thinking everything's ok.

Camp turned out to be REALLY hard work, and telephone breaks were infrequent if you could get one at all.  When I did try to call Scott, I called collect like he said, and his mom didn't remember who I was.  This is the woman who told Scott he should "hang on to this one," meaning me.  I thought it was odd that she all of a sudden wouldn't accept the charges.  I tried again later when I had 5 min before cabin time and got Scott himself on the phone.  He sounded weird, and finally he came out with a "We need to talk."  Funny how that phrase pretty much says it all.

When I got back home, I called him up to make arrangements for us to meet somewhere and "talk," for closure if nothing else.  We talked for a minute and he said he would call me back.  The next call I got was from Scott's best friend, Shawn.  He said that Scott was in a car accident on 17 (the main road through our area), and that he was in the hospital.  This didn't surprise me at all.  Scott was never that great a driver; he had been pulled over twice while I was in the car.  So I sighed exasperatedly and asked Shawn which hospital he was in.  He said he would find out and call me back.  THEN I got a call from Scott's other best friend, Amanda--a girl--asking if Shawn had just called me saying that Scott had been in an accident.  I confirmed it and she said, "I just want you to know... it's not true."  I thanked her and hung up, realizing at this point that any effort to have a grownup conversation with Scott would be futile.  He never did call back.

I said he was dead to me.  I was more right than I knew, for now he has become a ghost and he haunts me.

He appears to me in crowds, in mutual friends, and most unsettlingly in dreams, where I do not have the advantage of my waking faculties to banish the apparition.  When I do wake up, I feel that I have lost a part of myself.  A piece of my sanity is missing.

I do not communicate with him, not because I do not want to, but because I know I shouldn't.  It is the last kindness I can bestow upon him.  And bestow.  And bestow.  Sometimes I demonstrate this charity many times a day.  Every time I keep my mouth shut against my raging curiosity, the tally of my good deeds increases.

I want to know if I haunt him.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Does that mean something is beautiful only when someone else deems it so?  That it has no intrinsic beauty of its own?  I suppose it's the old tree-falling-in-the-forest question.  Still, it's so easy to feel unloved.  And searching other people's corneas for beauty only makes it more elusive.

Happy birthday, Michelangelo.

This is it, folks!  This weekend hails the rebirth of Jairus' Daughter!  New design, new layout, new everything.  Derek's gonna help me code it, so rest assured, it will be *spiffy*.

In other news...

Chad and I are definitively broken up.  I think.  We only seem to be able to get along when we've broken up.  And then we get along REALLY well.  So well, in fact, that we can't stand to not be together and we start dating again.  And driving each other schizo.  I never had any aspirations to be a soap star, but here I am, heroine of my very own daytime drama.  Well, we can't get married, that's for sure...  cuz then we'd never get along again.