The best friend I never had

Her first words to me: “God damn you smell good…”

How could I resist?

It was a summer’s eve in Alexandria, Va., in a beautiful setting completely destroyed by the oppressive heat. And my feet hurt. God, did my feet hurt.

We were gathered for a wedding, she and hers and me and mine. She, a petite firecracker of a thing, immediately reminded me of Holly Hunter, whom I can’t stand as an actor but adore as a woman.

The attraction was instant and mutual. The humor flowed. Our husbands joined in. It was as if the two couples seated together at the “what-else-do-we-do-with-these-people?" table had been destined to meet and fall in love.

I made the first move afterward. She responded in kind. We set a lunch date and followed through, at the little Asian place across from my work.

We set another lunch date, then canceled when life intervened. A new business for her. A busy time for me.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat several times.

Then one day, an email arrived. She and her husband were off to China to find their little girl. My heart warmed. Next came the baby shower invitation.

Of course we’ll come. We wouldn’t miss it.

Perhaps inspired by their journey, sperm and egg met in our Alexandria townhouse when Husband and I got home that evening.

She returned with her daughter to learn the good news about mine.

We scheduled lunch again. And followed through.

She ate like a horse. Everything on her plate. She blamed it on the stress of a child. I thought nothing of it, except I was jealous, being in the throes of pregnancy nausea and unable to do anything but push things around my plate.

She seemed defeated. Reality had struck. Children are wonderful — and they suck the juice right out of you.

Despite some valiant efforts, that was the last time I ever saw her. We emailed a couple of times resolving to get together. Finally, we just stopped.

I thought about her a lot in the ensuing months, wondering how her daughter was doing and wanting to introduce her to mine. I made one more feeble attempt. We made all the same resolutions. Etc.

Again, life intervened. This time, came news of our move to Charlotte.

“Tell me it’s NOT SO, bzh!!!” she sent in an email. “Let’s be sure to get together before you leave.”

We didn’t, of course.

Time passed. Until Facebook intervened.

Our mutual friend, of course, made the connection. So much has happened to this almost friend of mine. Her daughter is a beautiful preschooler. She’s moved, too. A serious illness. Serious treatment. A long recovery.

And still, the same wit, the same charm, the same strength, that drew me to her in the first place.

At first I was giddy. I friended. I emailed. I called. Her response was lukewarm and a long time coming. When it did arrive, it sounded awfully familiar.

“BZH!!! How the heck are ya??? SO glad to reconnect. Blah. Blah. Blah. Let’s talk soon.”

And I realized that this, like that, will be all flash and no magic.

I suspect she’s like this with all the girls — and that she doesn’t even realize it. Like the charismatic high school quarterback who raises and dashes the hopes of half the cheerleading squad, having no idea that what he considers friendly gestures they consider signs of undying love and affection. Of course, for that analogy to work, I must cop to misreading her signs, which I totally will.

And so it goes in this almost friendship. I watch from afar, through notes and random postings, wondering whether there’s anything I can do… and struggling not to do anything at all.

T-shirt of the week

This one positions you nicely...

Quote for the day

“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.”
— Robert Louis Stevenson

Virgin territory

Natalie Dylan is auctioning off her virginity.

Current high bid: $3.8 million.

Ms. Dylan, which of course is a pseudonym, is a beautiful college graduate with a degree in women’s studies. Right now, she's working on her master’s degree in marriage and family therapy. She’s also researching the value of virginity for her thesis.

What better way to do that, she says, than to put hers up for bid and measure a) society’s reaction and b) what men will pay for the chance to deflower her?

Society's reaction has largely been predictable: Outrage and disgust over her willingness to devalue something so precious.

But wait, she contends. Isn’t what she's doing exactly the opposite of devaluing it? Because no matter which way you look at it, $3.8 million is a lot of value. And it’s easy to measure.

What men are willing to pay has surprised even Ms. Dylan. She expected big numbers, because history and tradition have always put a significant value on virginity. Regardless of how it’s couched, she argues, a dowry is a direct payment for a woman’s virginity. And dowries are as old as mankind.

But payment approaching $4 million? Who knew it was worth so much money?

I’m conflicted on this issue. The thought of trading my virginity for money feels dirty, smarmy and disrespectful to me. Of course, trading any sex for money feels that way, virgin or not.

When I try to make a values judgment, though, I get stumped. Because I can’t find a way to refute Ms. Dylan’s contention that in auctioning off her virginity — she doesn’t have to take the highest bidder, by the way; she gets to pick who wins — she is eking out of it every bit of tangible value possible.

Of course, tangible value isn’t the only kind of value. I’m certain that intangibles like respect for one’s body, respect for virtue and good, reserving sex as a means of demonstrating love, and others I can’t think of right now must play into the equation. But I at a loss as to how.

So here I sit, stuck. The only side of the issue I’m able to adequately defend in this debate is the one that makes me feel dirty and smarmy. The side I want to be on is still indefensible, logically speaking, even after several days of thinking about it.

What do you think, dear reader? Can you help me out?

Quote for the day

“The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don’t agree with.”
— Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-District of Columbia

T-shirt of the week

I might have to buy this one…

Over coffee and bagels

We squeezed into a table for two, Urchin and I, for our post-haircut Girls’ Breakfast Out.

Not long after, the table-for-two next to us was snapped up by a couple having breakfast, too. She, a blueberry bagel with cream cheese. He, some kind of berry danish. Coffee for both.

Her wedding ring — I always notice the rings — is loaded with diamonds. His band is gold, with an etching I can't make out.

I try not to pay attention, but I'm just not able. Some journalists are journalists by trade. I am a journalist by nature. I can’t let the world pass by. I have to keep track. Of everything.

So I struggled not to eavesdrop on their conversation about friends and kids and travel and such. And then, this:

“I’m done planning trips for my family. She makes me plan it, then complains about what I plan. Pisses me off.”

Hmmmm. They’re not married to each other. And yet, the love in his eyes is palpable. Unmistakable. Her laugh is girlish, sweet and alluring. His smile is poor camouflage for his need to take her, right now, in front of my 3-year-old, who is staring at them because that’s what she does despite my efforts to stop her.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks after a long pause.

Like all of them, this pause is pregnant with desire. It makes me wonder why they’ve come here, where we are, where others are, for this intimate dance. Maybe they haven’t get given in to it? Maybe they’ve only just noticed how this feels? Maybe it’s so new they haven’t yet seen for themselves what Urchin and I can see clearly?

I try so hard not to pay attention. I don’t look. I beg Urchin to turn away. And yet, the magnetism that emanates is impossible to resist.

This is the beginning of something. Something terrible? Something wonderful? I don’t know.

But definitely something.

Hope 1, Rage 0

Barack Obama has already changed the world.

Just before noon, that colleague of mine stopped me in the hallway.

“Hey, after our conversation yesterday, I got to thinking,” she said. “I thought about it all day and I wanted to share with you where I ended up last night.

“I’m a person who believes things happen because God wills it. As I thought more about it, I realized that if that’s what I really believe, then I have to believe that Obama’s election was God’s will. I can’t be selective in where I apply my beliefs.”

I was speechless. She continued.

“So, I’m going to support him and be hopeful. And I want you to know that I’m not as bad as I came across yesterday.”

“I never thought you were bad,” I said.

“Well, maybe not bad. Maybe narrow-minded,” she said.

“Well, yes, I was surprised,” I said.

“Thanks for not giving up on me,” she said.

I just smiled. Because really, what else is there to say?

Belief and the bitter pill

This morning, I wandered through my office. It’s sparsely populated today, because we got a slight dusting of snow last night. In the south, a dusting of snow might as well be a blizzard. Because until we can borrow the snow plow from Arkansas, the whole place shuts down.

So the office is quiet today. Except for a low rumble of hope. And a bitter anger that just won’t die.

She’s in her late 50s, this colleague of mine. She’s so smart, irreverent, funny. I love nothing more than to talk with her. The connection I feel is strong and important, which makes it profoundly sad to me that she’s bought into the fear being spread around about what will happen to our country after our new president takes office.

To her, our new president is nothing to get excited about. He’s just another man who will lie to us. Who will betray us. Who will lead us into temptation. He’s another man who will leave us destitute and destroyed and needing to be saved, like Bill Clinton before him.

He’s not a patriot, this new president. In fact, she says, he might not even be an American. He’s not that smart, she says. The media just makes him look that way. And that’s not calm on his face. It’s a lack of vision, a lack of passion. There’s no there there.

She’s certain, of course, that he’s going to make abortion as easy to get as walking into the drugstore. That he’ll leave our borders so open that the terrorists will have free rein. That he’ll make friends with our enemies and turn over the keys to the kingdom. Hell, he’s already let the Clintons back in. For shame, she says.

What do you say to someone like that? Nothing, of course. There’s nothing to do but smile and walk away.

As I did, she asked me this question:

Why does this peaceful transfer of power, as you call it, matter more to you personally than the one four or eight or 12 years ago?

An interesting question, I thought, and framed in a way that seems to reveals her real discomfort with our new president. I counted to five before I answered.

As a democratic process, I said, this peaceful transfer of power matters no more or less to me. But for the first time in many years, I believe in the man. I believe in his courage, in his character, in his strength of conviction. I believe in his message of hope and responsibility. I believe he will lead us away from what we've become and back to where we belong.

He will let you down, she said, with a smirk.

Perhaps, I replied. And when he does, I will know why. He will tell me the truth, even when it hurts him to do so. He will acknowledge his failures. He will right his wrongs.

And in the end, he will inspire me to do all of that, too.

The taste of bitterness manifest on her face, never eased. I wanted to shake her shoulders. To tell her to let go of her rage and fear.

She won't, of course. It requires too much faith.

Even so, I pray that someday, she will see that what this man who now leads our country inspires in me he also inspires in her and all of us. He makes us better, stronger, wiser and more accountable.

Best of all, he makes it OK, once again, to believe.

We’re all in this together

Dear Reader,

What’s your pledge?

MySpace Celebrity and Katalyst present The Presidential Pledge

Dastard, no more

Even I didn't expect it would be over this quickly. Of course, he did take off on a red motorcycle. Clearly he hasn’t watched enough crime shows. Or “The Shawshank Redemption,” even.

Rule #1: You never look back.

You never call or write, even to people you think you can trust. From this point on, you trust no one.

As the years pass, you can’t even peek in. Sorry. That’s what you get in exchange for freedom you don’t deserve. You just disappear. Never to be heard from again.

Rule #2: You blend.

You walk normally. You move normally. You definitely don’t put on a black hat and run into the woods.

If you encounter people, you chat with them, because the last thing you want to do is look shifty. You chat, but you don’t say anything remotely memorable. Because the tied-for-last thing you want to do is be remembered.

If you encounter a cop and your pants are wet and he wants to know why, you smile and say “Can you believe the damn canoe tipped?” When he offers you a ride, you smile and say, “Nah. The walk’ll do me good. Thanks anyway.” Then you start walking. And you keep walking.

Rule #3: You get as far away as you can as fast as you can.

You don’t linger. Anywhere. You definitely don’t lollygag. Hell, you barely sleep. You move in the direction of where you’re headed as fast as you can without looking like you’re moving in any direction as fast as you can.

When you must stop, you make it snappy. This isn’t a vacation, for Pete’s sake. You’re on the lam. Act like it.

Rule #4: Go where they look like you.

If you’re fair-haired, Mexico isn’t the best place to blend. I’m just saying.

Rule #5: When you get where you’re going, you lay low for a long, long time.

No friends. No regular haunts. No reason for anyone to wonder why they don’t know anything about you. You’re not a mystery because no one sees you enough to care. It’s a lonely existence, but that’s what you signed on for. At least in the beginning.

You never drink too much because drunks tell tales. If you need companionship, get a dog. If you ever feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up, move on. Your gut is the only thing you have. You should listen to it, even if has a hair trigger.

Rule #6: You stay gone forever. To everyone. Period. Paragraph.

No cryptic postcards. No middle-of-the-night phone calls. No Christmas gifts from nowhere.

As hard as it is for you to keep your trap shut, it’ll be 10 times harder for the people you care about. Besides, remember what happened to Harrison Ford in “The Fugitive?” You never know who’s gonna betray you. From the moment you take off, your secret is safe with only one person. You.

Frankly, I’m disappointed in Mr. Shrenker. It hasn’t even been a week, and already he's busted. In a campground. Near where he landed.

He’s just a two-bit criminal. I’m sorry to have wasted my time.

Dastardly update #1

Turns out our plane-crashing, parachuting-to-freedom protagonist stashed a red motorcycle near where he bailed out of the plane and has ridden off into the sunset (after picking it up at a storage locker and leaving behind some damp clothes). Authorities have now charged him with securities fraud so, as we suspected, he’s actually running from something.

My question: Wouldn’t a not-red motorcycle have been a little less conspicuous?

Dastardly deed

I don’t like Nancy Grace.

I used to like her, when she was a respectable, prosecutorial-type reporter for Court TV. She was calm, well-spoken and smart. And she taught me something new about our judicial system with every report she filed.

Now she’s just shrill and sensationalistic, which is a damn shame, because I am fascinated by the shit she covers.

It’s a morbid fascination, certainly. But dastardly deeds captivate me.

OJ Simpson? I watched every flippin’ minute of that trial possible. I even left work to see the verdict read aloud on my own TV. Sad, but true.

American Justice, Cold Case Files and Investigative Reports get Tivoed in my house.

Serial killers, terrorist acts, crimes of passion, unsolved mysteries. I can pass a wreck on the highway without turning my head, but set one of these things in front of me and pity the fool who tries to pry me away.

A few days ago, a new obsession hit my news feed.

Indiana investment manager Mark Schrenker, an accomplished pilot and high roller, sent a fake may-day call before apparently ejecting from his single-engine Piper Malibu and leaving it to crash into a swamp more than 200 miles away. His plan appears to have failed the sniff test long before the plane even fell to Earth. When he stopped responding to air traffic controllers (after telling them the windshield had imploded and he was bleeding profusely), military jets were scrambled and found the door open, the cockpit dark and the plane still flying — a sure sign someone abandoned ship.

Not much later, he was seen at a motel 225 miles away. He’s apparently sent a mea culpa email to friends apologizing for his actions and looking an awful lot like a suicide note.

Authorities are looking into his financial interests and wealth management businesses, figuring he’s running from something. His wife has filed for divorce, their assets have been frozen and it looks like some poor, everyday people in Indiana will lose their shirts.

Even so, I can’t turn away. He’s a criminal and I am fascinated by him, his actions and his motives.

What made him think he'd be the one person in history to get away with this crime?

How come an accomplished pilot doesn’t know that authorities won’t just leave his plane to crash all by itself? (Hell, I’m only an accomplished passenger and even I know that.)

Did he really think investigators would overlook the fact that his businesses are failing and his lifestyle is unraveling in assuming his mysterious death was an accident?

Is he ready to live on the lam? This is a big wide world. Where will he go? What will he do? How much money did he stash? Does he have the fortitude to disappear and stay that way?

Some people get swept up in more personal crimes. Laci Peterson, Natalie Holloway, Caylee Anthony. I can’t watch those because they’re too, well, personal. Victims like these are too identifiable and vulnerable to me. Not only am I able to turn away, I must.

With crimes like Mr. Schrenker's, it’s easier for me to forget the victims and just focus on the criminal. It’s like solving a mystery. Or rather, watching someone else do it.

I doubt this mystery will go on for very long. Mr. Schrenker doesn’t seem to be cut out for this. He’s fairly emotionally charged. He can’t keep his mouth shut and just follow his plan. Already his feelings have been hurt by Internet coverage of his caper. That’s only going to get worse.

My money says he’ll make a mistake soon and some unwitting cop will get his 15 minutes of fame.

In the meantime, though, I’ll enjoy the ride.

A late start to 2009

Welcome to 2009, dear reader. I hope your holidays were splendid and this year brings you great joy and good health.

Sorry to have been missing for a bit. It’s been a hazy start to the new year for me. Sometimes endings and beginnings get me that way. Today’s the 12th, and I’m just now climbing out of the hole I’ve been in. Feels good to be back.

I’m pleased to tell you that 2008 was a success for me, at least in terms of this blog. My goal, when I started it as a New Year's resolution, was to sustain it long enough to post 100 times during the year. I beat my goal, and then some. The magic number: 156.

The best thing, though, is that it did what I was hoping it would. It gave me a place to write down the shit that clogs up my brain up, and to do it in a way that didn’t impose too awfully much on my friends. Though many of you are regular readers, you’re doing it on your own. And that feels good.

I’ve set a new goal for 2009. I won’t share it, other than to say that it has nothing to do with numbers. Keep reading and you’ll know in January 2010 whether we got there.

Peace to you and yours.

Friends forever

If you want to know where queen-bees get crowned and wanna-bes start their lonely, pointless attempts to ascend, look no farther than preschool.

Sadly, that’s where it starts.

While the boys are off rough-housing and high-fiving, the girls are immersing themselves in a complicated system of who’s gonna be whose friend today and whether so-and-so can be your friend today or my friend today.

The whole thing is further complicated by age and size. Because while high school ages are divided in years, preschool ages are divided in months — weeks, even. The older 3s are SO much older than the younger 3s, in their manner, their stature and their attitudes.

It can be hard to watch when you’re the mom of a younger 3 who wants to be friends with the older 3s who aren’t at all interested. It’s especially hard if you felt like one of those younger 3s for much of your life.

As a middle school and high school kid, I occupied a weird-ass place — cheerleader, homecoming court, smart kid, band member and drama nerd.

I was a part of all of them and completely comfortable in none.

Though I could move in the popular group, I was never really one of them. Sometimes I was on the receiving end of their largesse. Other times I was the target of their disdain. They couldn’t kick me out because they weren’t the ones who voted me in. My constituency was made up of the other groups I was a part of. I got voted in by the rest of the kids — the majority — because I was almost one of them.

But not quite.

The smart kids were wary of me, because most of the popular group was, frankly, mean to them. I wasn’t mean to them, but they still didn’t trust me. At least not very much.

Band was an insular group. And while I played trumpet, I didn’t ride the band bus to football games and rarely marched with them. I was a cheerleader. Cheerleading trumped band. Everyone knows that.

The drama group was a mixed bag. Seems like a place where even outsiders would fit in, and that’s mostly true in my experience. Here’s the thing: All of the other things I was inherently disqualified me from complete acceptance in the drama cast. A cheerleader smart girl who plays trumpet and stood with the homecoming court? Please. In the cast of "Grease," I was a cross between Sandra and Patty Simcox. Definitely not cool enough for the drama group.

If you read this blog regularly, you know that these days, to watch what happens to my little girl — who is adorable, sweet, smart and thankfully, seems perfectly content to sit by herself and read a book — stirs up some painful memories for me.

For the most part, she doesn’t seem all that concerned about whether the mean girls who've already taken over her preschool will be her friend or not today. She seems to figure that today or tomorrow, it doesn’t much matter. It’ll all work out in the end.

Oh, she talks about it some, but not with much emotion and really only when prompted.
One thing’s for sure, though. She’s decided to be everyone's friend, even if, as she says, “they’re not gonna be my friend.”

As with so many things, I both wonder whose kid she is — and marvel at how the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Oops-ski...

Just when you think your day couldn’t get any worse, this guy proves you wrong.

Oh where, oh where can she be?

Muse is gone again. She’s vanished. *Poof!* Into thin air.

In her place is a general malaise, settled in like a vat of warm glue, filling in all my nooks and crannies. It doesn’t help that it’s been rainy and dreary here for days. All of it combines into a swirling cauldron of blech.

Earlier today, though, my friend J. sent along some wisdom for a new year, courtesy of the Dalai Lama. It gave me some peace, which is no easy feat today. The bonus: If I pass it along to five more people, I get a pleasant surprise.

Since there are more than five of you here (despite all evidence to the contrary), consider it passed.

I hope it gives you some peace, too.

**********

A mantra for 2009

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

3. Follow the three R’s: Respect for self, Respect for others and Responsibility for all your actions.

4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.

7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

8. Spend some time alone every day.

9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.

10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.

12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.

14. Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.

15. Be gentle with the Earth.

16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.

17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.