I’ve been browsing recipe sites. When I need to stop thinking (or, in grad school, when I needed to procrastinate), I cook. He likes ginger and mangoes—once, he told me those are his favorite foods, so every time I see a recipe that has either one of those ingredients, I consider making it for him. I have a huge file of recipes that I will make for him (for us)—chicken, beef, pork, soups, chutney, sweet potatoes, cookies, cakes. I have several recipes for mango salsa, and we’re going to try them all. Someday soon, we’ll be together again.

Family clinic day. Lots of rugrats running to and from the little playroom. The secretaries kept saying, “Honey, you have to leave the toys in the playroom,” to kids who didn’t realize that they were being addressed. Four teens were there, each filling out a form in a plastic ringed booklet. Sports physicals, Janet assumed. One girl, daughter of the mother/driver, kept whining: she was hot and wanted to go out to the car to listen to music and turn on the AC. Janet thought she might ask if she was always this much of a brat to her mom.

I am shopping for my wedding ring alone. When we decided to get married, I thought that we would stop in to jewelry stores as we happened by them, wherever we were--Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle, LA, Portland, Toledo... Since there was no engagement ring, I’d like to have a unique wedding ring, and I thought he would be there, shopping with me. But then we experienced a border guard power trip, and we had to, kind of, start again. I went back to Ohio, and he to British Columbia. Shopping for your wedding ring isn’t supposed to be a lonely experience.

I’d be okay with a plain platinum band, but since I think we’re foregoing the engagement ring, I’d like to have a more definitive wedding band. Maybe some small stones. I’ve spent hours and hours looking at rings online. First I searched for custom wedding rings in Ohio, but you can imagine what a conglomeration that brought up (and everyone still had essentially the same rings); then I searched for custom jewelers who used platinum, and got some interesting results. I like rings with curves and a simple, whimsical design. Not many custom jewelers/designers bother with those. Not sparkly enough?

Girls names:

Plants—Daisy, Rose, Rosemary, Myrtle (as in Moaning), Pansy (also a Harry Potter character), Lavender (yet another Harry Potter girl), Lily (Harry’s mom), Petunia (Harry’s aunt), Flora, Jasmine, Violet, Iris, Fern, Poppy, Holly, Willow (for all you Buffy fans), Ivy, Heather, Ginger, Laurel, Hyacinth.

Gems—Opal, Ruby, Amber, Crystal, Garnet (my great grandma’s name), Jade, Pearl, Gemma, Jewel

Virtues—Joy, Faith, Hope,Felicity, Grace, Patience, Honour, Charity, Chastity, Constance, Mercy, Prudence. (Rumor has it that once upon a time, virtue names were popular for boys, too—different virtues, of course.)

Have you ever noticed how Shakespeare recycled names?

The neighbor had offered to watch the kids for the night (in the form of a sleepover with her kids) so that they could celebrate their nineteenth anniversary alone.

Except, when he said alone, he’d meant the two of them. Not just himself. She was supposed to be home around six—he’d made reservations at the fanciest restaurant in town for 7:30.

Now, three days later, she’s staying with some guy in a rental shack two blocks over. And she’s taken out a restraining order. Like he’d hurt her.

Christ, how does something like this sneak up on a person?

He was the only man I’d ever slept with. Against the advice of several generally trusted friends, I married him after just a year of dating. Date more, they urged; sleep with more men. They thought I would be able to make a more informed decision with more experience. But I wanted him. Now. They warned me that later on, I’d wonder what I was missing. So when I met this guy in the grocery store, and he invited me out for drinks, I found myself agreeing. I’d had two kids by then—I hadn’t felt so attractive in years.

I can’t say I was bored. I wasn’t. Not by him, anyway. Not by the boys, either. But something wasn’t right. This is, I think, one of those instances where I could honestly say, “It’s not you, it’s me.”

What’s weird is Richie is the type I never would’ve considered, before. The man’s a roamer. He’s been here three times before this, and he may or may not come back. And when he leaves, I may or may not go with him. I don’t even know if I’ll be invited to. I don’t know if I’ll want to be invited.

His hair swung into his eyes every time he turned his head. His shirt had never seen an iron. His fingers—long and slender, like the rest of him. Lisa thought he might be a musician until she heard him singing to himself. Couldn’t come close to carrying a tune, and most musicians she’d met could at least keep the beat.

It took him fifteen minutes to realize she was sitting there. Lisa decided that he was the kind to ‘forget’ to water his girlfriend’s plants when she was out of town, and she was definitely a woman with plants.

She had answered this question in plenty of surveys without hesitating. Sometimes they had a “committed relationship” option, but this one only offered:

Single (never married)
Married
Divorced
Widowed


She wanted to say she was married. Not because she was a woman who was desperate to be married, whoever the groom. But she would probably be married right now—and not stuck 4,000 miles away from her love—if it weren’t for that prat of a border guard.

They hadn’t stopped in Reno on the way home for several reasons, but now those seemed so completely insignificant.

Glorious thing, hindsight.

I love the complexity of people. We can be in perfectly unhealthy situations and convince ourselves it’s normal, just fine. My sister is listening to Leslie Gore’s biggest hits. I think there is one song on the album where the protagonist of the song sticks up for herself in a healthy way. Okay, two. In the others (which are more popular, I think): she kisses another guy to make her boyfriend jealous; she ignores that she’s being cheated on, presumably because she wants to think that he’ll change, that he really loves her; she pines.

Still, I love her songs.

Jody could smell the food from halfway across the parking lot. Her stomach gurgled in anticipation, but she just had to run in to the liquor store to buy some decent vodka for the pasta sauce she’d be making.

The boy behind the counter—barely 21—smiled courteously as she walked in, and turned back to his magazine.

The vodka had been moved. She hadn’t been here in ages, so she shouldn’t have been surprised, except that this was the liquor store she’d been coming to since… well, since before she should’ve been. The vodka had never been anywhere else.

My mom never would have let me get away with it.

They come in, get popcorn and drinks and candy, enjoy their movie, then leave the remnants of their indulgences at their seats.

There are huge trash receptacles by the door, which they have to walk by anyway to leave. At any other business, they wouldn’t leave their garbage behind.

But they know we come in afterwards. Our job used to be just to sweep up spilled popcorn and pick up forgotten/unnoticed wrappers that fell on the floor.

Lazy, inconsiderate jackasses.
And, naturally, you have kids.

What joys they’ll be…

When our bladders are full, we feel a tingling pressure which is not altogether unpleasant, except that we know that it’s really a timer—like timers that come with games, the kind that get louder or faster (or both) when your time is almost up—letting us know how long we have before something humiliating happens.

My mom had a surgery a few years ago, and afterwards she had a tube that was attached to her bladder and came out through an incision in her skin. She emailed me, “Hey, for a few days, I get to pee standing up!”

Things I want to do:

Be allowed back into Canada and marry my fiancé

Write and sell a screenplay based on a book I love

Write a novel

Find motivation to get back in shape and thus

Lose the weight I’ve gained since December

Keep up my blog

Read more (like I used to)

Learn to shoot a gun (just to know)

Fix the sound situation on my parents’ computer (the speakers won’t work)

Volunteer

Be concerned enough to work for a political campaign

Wear less teacher-y clothing

Find a lipstick I can wear with red clothes

Write more letters

I drove past my elementary school yesterday. “Field Day this Friday!” proclaimed the board out front. As though it were a day to celebrate instead of a day that the majority of students were dreading.

Of course, it’s a day outside, a day without pencils and paper and red letters at the top of papers. But I could handle those. What I couldn’t handle was consistently coming in last in every race, getting that stupid green participation ribbon at the end of every Field Day. They may as well have printed LOSER on the ribbon—we knew what they meant.

He looked her over; she watched his eyes move up, down, back up. She figured her hair must be a wreck—she’d put it in a ponytail three times since lunch, every time without a mirror. She was carrying two canvas bags full of books, and the one on top, the one he could see, was a romance novel for her roommate. But he wouldn’t know that. And, of course, she was wearing her glasses—slightly bent, five years old—today because she’d torn her contact that morning. Why didn’t God just give her freckles and make her thirteen again?

Three kids walking to the bus stop were carrying projects. Two looked like the Globe Theater. The third kid was carrying costumes that were clearly English Renaissance.

Margaret thought of her four year old someday carrying a similar project. It would be hard to not interfere; those types of projects had been her favorites. She hoped Jordan would like reading and find Shakespeare as painless as she had. But it might be better if Jordan’s best subjects were more technical—lots of career opportunities. Math, science, computer programming.

But wasn’t it easier to lose track of yourself in those fields?

I am strangely drawn to sounds. It has something to do with the way sound is connected to sensation. You know what I mean—it’s why people like popping bubble wrap, the deflation under your fingers (or feet). Or clicking fingernails against a hard surface; tightly tying shoelaces; lighting matches.

Others, I’m sure, are appreciated by a smaller group: the tchck of the fingerstick needle when your hemoglobin is being tested; the rip of having your eyebrows waxed; the ffp of relieving a particularly ripe whitehead; the almost inaudible suction created when your fountain pen taps a new ink cartridge.

She could feel the tension burn in the tops of her thighs as she urged her legs to pedal faster. They seemed eager to comply. They remember what it felt like to be healthy, toned.

He hands gripped the bars too tightly; her wrists would be sore at the end of this ride, because she also tended to lean into her hands.

Air rushed at her sleeves. They flapped against her arms. If her arms were bare, she thought the air might flap the tonelessness of her upper arms.

Her hair was brushed back against her neck, a playful caress.

Smug. Not the only word for that expression. Smirk. That look of tight-lipped pleasure, a selfish sort of glee. Schadenfreude. (Taking delight in the pain or misfortune of others.)

Think of high school and those who, under the guise of dodgeball, launched those rubber balls with all their might at whichever unfortunate soul. That’s little schadenfreude. They hurt you—god, what welts—and they enjoyed it.

Think about the last time someone you didn’t like—or maybe someone you didn’t know—asked you to do something you knew was important to them. Did you say no, just because you could?

Feet, while absolutely practical in design, were designed by someone who appreciates curves. People who are enamored of the hourglass shape should study the silhouette of a good foot. The heel… the way the heel rounds to the arch… which then curves to form the ball…

Toes, while not my favorite part of the foot, are especially noteworthy. In the frequently discussed comparisons of body parts from person to person, toes are not considered, though they provide interesting curvature variances. They hook, they bend, they slant. One toe seems straight until you notice the one next to it veering away…

The office supply store. Its smells of toner, paper, dust. The unsmiling cashiers and the managers who chase out the teenagers sitting in the cushy rolling office chairs. The unexpected merchandise by the registers—music CDs, ice scrapers/slush squeegees, a box of inflatable globes. Whole aisles of paper, folders, magnets, clips. Post Its, the dull yellow cubes hidden on the bottom shelf, in favor of displaying the bold, various sized cubes, the tabs for marking books, the die-cut notepads so popular with teachers, especially elementary.

I’ve told you about the pens before. Gel pens and Sharpies are my greatest weaknesses here.

No one ever calls my cell, so imagine my surprise at the conversation when someone actually called my cell the other night:

“Hello?”

“Hey.” He sounded angry. I didn’t recognize the voice. “I need to know if you’re eating supper with John.”

“I think you have the wrong number.”

“You’re such an asshole. Just tell me if you’re eating with him.”

“Really, you have a wrong number.”

“Mom, just tell me if you’re eating with John.”

“Will you listen? YOU HAVE THE WRONG NUMBER.”

As if a kid of mine would ever get away with talking to me like that.

He must have been the shyest kid in the class. I walked them through their tour. His eyes were wide—very intelligent, I thought—and he never whispered so much as an “Oh,” even when his mouth formed the word. He stopped to stare at a pharaoh statue, its arm and part of it foot knocked off and/or worn away, and even when the rest of his class was lined up at the door to the next room, he stood staring. A little girl with black pigtails and gold wire-rimmed glasses went back and took his hand while he kept staring.

A box waited at her front door. Her Powell’s Books order. That was fast. And good timing. She had just finished the last crossword in her puzzle book that morning on her break.

She’d had a long day at the library. A bunch of high school juniors had been in for last minute research. She knew it had been assigned a month or more ago, because the teacher had called to let the library know. The assignment was slightly atypical in its specification: research a period or event of American history and how literature or prominent writers had influenced events.

One kid had been in two weeks earlier, having scoured and found little in the school library. (Of course, funding for the high school library had been cut to something ridiculous like $1000 per year, as though that kind of money would decently supply such workings.)

He'd been researching the years of the Continental Congress. He’d wanted books and periodicals, unlike his peers.

Today, she’d been deluged with requests for everything from the Salem witch trials to the Vietnam War. There had been lines to use the internet; she always forgot how many families didn’t have internet access at home.

We found a recipe for penne with pistachios and asparagus in a Cuisine at Home complimentary edition. It’s become a favorite. Instead of half and half and heavy cream, we use 1¼ cups of fat free half and half, and use corn starch to thicken the sauce a little. We’ve used broccoli instead of asparagus, but prefer asparagus. Pistachios make the dish, though. Who knew that pistachios—which I’ve always associated with green ice cream—could make such an impact?

They’ve replaced it with something else in the new, slightly revised comp copy.

You can find this recipe at recipezaar.com.

In college, I read a story called “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid. Here’s what I remember: It’s very, very short, and it’s a mother talking to her daughter, instructing her in becoming a woman. She’s showing her things about cleaning and cooking, mostly. One sentence is telling the girl how to give herself an abortion with certain herbs, and the sentence is given no more significance than the sentences about baking bread or washing clothes, but it’s the one sentence that I always remember.

I found the book today that the story was in. How could anyone lay out the plot?

I was in Canada, nowhere near my Ohio bank, which harrumphs at being asked about foreign currency. But my fiancé, his lawyer, and I decided that a check was the most cost effective route.

I sent the check home; Mom agreed to cash it. She first asked the teller whether there was going to be anything weird/funny about cashing a Canadian check, and was assured that it would only take longer to clear.

Deductions resulting from this transaction:

$85 Debit Memo
$76 Insufficient Funds Fee
$38 Insufficient Funds Fee
$10 Service Charge (wiring fee, how we finally sent the money)

“I’m so sorry,” the store clerk apologized, scribbling out her second attempt to get Carol’s phone number in the right order. “I’ve been like this for weeks, and it’s so strange.”

“Stress?” Carol inquired, moderately concerned.

“I don’t know. I’m pregnant. It was unexpected, but we’re excited.”

“Oh, that explains it. Your brain is rewiring itself. It’s perfectly normal—apparently, all new mothers complain about their brains not functioning as usual. I read this fascinating article about it. When your brain’s done—and I think it should almost be—you’ll be better equipped to handle the multi-tasking that motherhood requires.”