kdiddy.org

The other night, I had just drifted off to sleep. Our cat was curled up against my tummy, purring away and giving me some extra warmth. I was reaching that really good point of sleep when a small, familiar voice woke me up with a phrase that always makes me panic:

“Mum. I don’t feel so good.”

It was the baby, obviously, and his stomach was upset. He’s never been very good about describing his symptoms, but from what I could gather, he’d just experienced one of those vomit-burps. I’m sure you know what I mean. It starts out as a burp and then takes a frightening detour and though you emerge with your digestive system intact for the moment, it freaks you out. Am I getting ready to spew? Or was it just a slight malfunction? I need to know how much I need to dread the next few minutes/hours and whether or not I should move my operations to the bathroom.

I felt my stomach drop, particularly when the baby squeezed out a few tears and rested his head on my chest (partially because I felt bad for the little guy and partially because if there was going to be spewing happening, I did not want his face mere inches from mine).

I interrogated him on the state of his stomach (“Do you think you need to barf? Have you pooped today? On a scale of 1 to 10, how gross does your stomach feel?”) and urged him to try going to the bathroom. I gave him a Tums, even though I wasn’t sure he was old enough to have one yet, and after a few minutes he declared that he thought he was okay.

He climbed back into bed and I asked him if he wanted a bucket, just in case. He did. I climbed back into my bed and stared at the ceiling and waited and listened.

Though I’ve gotten better at handling digestive eruptions since I’ve been a mom, I’m still prone to panic at the thought of one of us coming down with any kind of stomach bug because I can’t deal with vomit. And, of course, because I’ve turned overthinking things into a sport, I’m sure that this speaks volumes about me as an adult and a parent.

I can remember at least two occasions in which the baby has puked and I have handed the reigns over to another parental figure with shaking hands. Once was when he was about a year old and we were living with my mom. It wasn’t the first time he had been sick, but for whatever reason, I stood in the doorway of his room, wide-eyed, unable to move, and asked my mom to please clean him up for me.

Another time was about a year ago and we had made the unfortunate decision to eat at Wendy’s earlier that evening. Regurgitated chicken nuggets are, I’m pretty sure, the scent of Hell. I couldn’t deal and the husband heroically did all of the dirty work.

Because of our recent crushing blows, I’ve been really upset. Like, really upset. And I’m questioning every aspect of my life and how I’m doing. My evaluation of myself results in pretty low marks and my inability to deal with vomit or even the threat of vomit threw me.

I don’t remember my mom ever having trouble taking care of me. I can distinctly recall a particularly nasty stomach bug that I had in third grade that seemed to go on for days and had me spending my nights in my parents’ bed, next to my mom, and when I had to get sick I would KICK her. She would wake up and hold back my hair and direct me toward the bucket. Calm, sleepy, unfazed, and certainly not dry heaving behind me.

I don’t know that I could do that and it’s just the latest in a long list of things that I’m feeling…incapable of. I’m having trouble going to sleep at a reasonable hour, getting up at a reasonable hour, doing laundry, participating in any cleaning activities, exercising, dieting, getting lunches and clothes ready for the next day, figuring out what I want to do about job stuff, raising a man, being a partner to a man.

Am I just overwhelmed? Or am I just incapable?

It began to snow.

– Blankets

One night, a few weeks ago, when the snow was still above my knees, I walked to the corner store to get something to drink.

On the short walk home, I became so sad that when I got to my house, I had to stop at our front steps. Something was gnawing at me.

I walked around to our backyard and stared, marveling at how alien the landscape looked, white and soft but dead. I spooked the neighbor’s dog who was out for his constitutional in his yard and he began to bark frantically. His mistress popped open the screen door and squinted at me.

“I think I startled him. I’m sorry. I was just taking a look out here.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” she said, apparently mostly sure that I was who she thought I was. I walked back to the front of the house since I figured continuing to just stand in the back yard late at night might concern her.

It was so quiet. The only sound was the whir of a dryer vent somewhere near by, shooting Bounce-scented fumes into the night.

I turned around and looked down toward the main street and decided to lie down. The snow was high enough that I could easily sit without having to go very far. I plopped down and back and spread my arms out.

The sky was too cloudy to see the snowflakes falling from it. Instead, they appeared to materialize out of nothing a few inches above my face, narrowly dodging the steam from my nose.

I closed my eyes and listened and could hear the tinkling of the flakes crashing into one another as they landed, discharging static.

After a few minutes, I got up and went inside, back to my boys.

Perhaps I had felt it coming that night. A few days later, we got the news that the husband’s job, the one that was so perfect, the one that was going to allow us to march forward in life, had fallen through.

This little corner of mine has been quiet because I’ve been so sad. And my sadness has a way of rotting and becoming so ugly. I’ve been so nasty and doing what I can to make anyone who has the audacity to come in contact with me feel at least a little bit as bad as I do.

I know it’s not the end of the world and I know that things will get better someday. But we were right there and we were so cautious to get excited about it until we were sure that it was going to happen. And then when we were sure, or so we thought, we started making plans and getting ideas. Now we’re back where we’ve been. Static. And there’s a lot of sighing going on.

The husband and I are not big Valentine’s Day people. Sometimes we do stuff to mark the occasion, but usually we don’t. This year, we had some tentative plans, but we got some bad news a few days beforehand and were just too bummed out to care.

For whatever reason, the past few years, I’ve started to develop really strong opinions and feelings about holidays and how people view them. Around Christmas, I kept getting really irritated with Christmas haters. I know Christmas as an institution creates expectations about really heavy things like family, joy, and the like. And I know that a lot of people have shitty things happen to them in life that make the Christmas microscope on those heavy things way too much to deal with. I just…I don’t know.

Valentine’s Day also has me cranky.

The baby’s school was closed all last week and I haven’t heard of any plans that the school has to make up any Valentine’s Day celebrations. That bummed me out. I always really liked making my Valentines box and as long as no one is excluded from Valentines, it’s fun having a party with your classmates.

I think that’s telling. Perhaps Valentine’s Day, to me, is more of a kids’ holiday, even though kids aren’t (or shouldn’t be) big on the romance. The cutesyness of it makes me think of crushes and puppy love and passing notes.

Anyway, I think I’ve nailed down a list of behaviors that people exhibit around this holiday that drive me bonkers.

- Being super into Valentine’s Day. “I got roses and a four-star meal and a beautiful, heartfelt card and breakfast in bed and diamonds and wee!” No, I know. You like doing something special. Cool. I think this is more me bristling at how Valentine’s Day is another arena for public displays of affection, which make me very uncomfortable in almost whatever form that they take. One of my biggest regrets about Facebook is that I sometimes catch, via my news feed, whatever moronic baby talk people I know and (used to) respect say to each other. I’ve seen whole arguments and make-ups (though not the sex, thankfully) take place on wall-to-wall interactions and I don’t get it. Why do that? And if Facebook is your main communication tool, why not message your significant other? I’m not going to act like I’m totally private about my relationship. I write some mushy stuff here and, heck, our wedding was one big make-out fest. But for the most part, I feel like constant PDA signals some degree of insecurity in the relationship and a need for outside validation.

- Being super anti-Valentine’s Day. Granted, the previous group is hard to take, and if you are less than thrilled about your romantic status, Valentine’s Day can be just another obnoxious obstacle to getting on with life. People can be very idiotic. And if you find the super-pro-Valentine’s crowd to be indirectly antagonistic, do your best to ignore them. They’re suckers.

- Complaining about how commercial it is. Um, unless you live in a society very different from ours, everything is very commercial. For every single aspect of our life, there is something you can buy to aid or commemorate it. Find something interesting to gripe about.

- Stating that, for you and your wonderful schmoopie, everyday is Valentine’s Day and/or lecturing people that everyday should be Valentine’s Day. I don’t understand this assertion. Valentine’s Day should be more like any other day? Or every day should contain some worship of how awesome you are? Nah. Shit happens and some days you are so thoroughly OVER your significant other because life can be really trying sometimes. And, really, unless there’s something seriously wrong, don’t lecture people about how they should carry out their relationship or how it should be more like yours.

- Sending flowers to the workplace. Yawn. Also, it has this…sinister undertone to it. Because while it may be partially intended to brighten your loved one’s day, the other motivation is to make co-workers jealous and, really, why are you thinking about how others perceive your expressions of love? Grow a pair.

Last night, I told the husband, “Whoa, work is closed AGAIN tomorrow!” marveling at the effects the recent fubar weather conditions had had on the city in general. As a result, we’ve been in the house mostly non-stop since Friday.

A few hours later, he said, “So, do you have work tomorrow?”

I thought for a minute that maybe I was in Mulholland Drive.

“No, I already told you I didn’t.”

“Oh. That was today?”

I knew what he meant. What day was it? How long had we been here? Where was everyone? Perhaps the news reports were all pre-recorded to dull panic and the Snowpocalypse had actually been the Apocalypse. And everyone important was sealed in a bunker somewhere. And the real panic wouldn’t set in until we realized that there were no more french fries anywhere. French fries could be extinct right now and we wouldn’t even KNOW.

These past few (I’m not going to attempt a guess at the precise number) days have been pretty wild. I don’t remember much about the last time that we had really significant snowfall like this, which was back in 1993. I only remember that it hit on a Saturday and my mom and I drove into town anyway for my ballet class. There were about 6 other people there total, when normally there would have been a few hundred cycling in and out throughout the day. We couldn’t generate enough body heat to make the cavernous ballet studio not tortuously cold so we all went home, which my mom tells me was a harrowing drive.

This morning, I looked outside and had to laugh. It’s like we’re living in some CGI movie. And everyone seems to be acting correspondingly daffy.

For instance, a woman parked in front of our house Friday night. Saturday morning she came by and tried to dig it out but just couldn’t and I told her it was fine to leave it there until she could come get it because our car was still stuck at my mother-in-law’s house and it would be a day or so until we could park our car there.

At some point on Sunday, she came and got her car but put a chair in the space. In front of our house.

This seemingly innocuous act made our heads explode. If you’re not familiar with the Pittsburgh Parking Chair, I direct your attention to this timely article in the Post-Gazette.

Technically, she did dig out the spot and under a more liberal jurisdiction she would have claim to the space. BUT she KNEW it was not her space to have because we talked about it and we permitted her to leave her car there. If I had known she was just a space pilferer, I never would have agreed. I would never move a parking chair, because I am not a jerk, so she had essentially check-mated me into giving her our space.

This snow is turning people into lawless savages. Today it’s the parking space. Tomorrow she’ll probably try to eat my brains.

There have been other signs that people are collectively losing their shit. Yesterday a woman knocked on the door and we had the most bizarre conversation. She asked which car was mine and I pointed to ours, which was resting in our horrendously angled driveway that the husband had to shovel out because SOMEONE had taken the space in front of our house. (Getting the car to the house was a whole separate ordeal that took several hours and resulted in two flat tires and a close brush with frostbite. I don’t want to talk about it.) After we established which car was ours, the woman proceeded to pepper me with non sequiturs to the point where I was questioning the sanity of both of us.

“Did you see the woman?”

“What?”

“With plastic bags?”

“Um…no?”

“Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

Under the best of circumstances, I have a sinking feeling that life is but a slowly unfolding zombie movie. When you throw in three feet of snow, it doesn’t do much to comfort me.

It’s also been really disheartening to listen to everyone whine about the effects the storm has had on city operations. I just don’t understand the outrage. I am not the biggest supporter of Luke Ravenstahl’s administration, but I don’t see the city’s response as “dropping the ball.” These are not normal conditions. These are quite exceptional conditions and would bring even the wealthiest cities to their knees. Under normal circumstances, I think the city’s response and road clearance rates are pretty decent. But there’s an ENORMOUS amount of snow out there. Just figuring out where to put it must be a logistical nightmare.

The public transit system has a Twitter account that has been absolutely amazing keeping riders informed of route changes and delays and as far as I can tell has responded to everyone that has thrown a question at it. Not only that, the people running the Twitter account have been extremely courteous to abuse thrown their way. I understand that it sucks standing outside in the cold, waiting for a bus, and then being stuck on that bus for hours, but please. Look around. Road conditions worsen faster than they can be improved and everyone’s impatience to get back to normal doesn’t help. Is it really any wonder that navigating buses through that is a losing proposition?

The only way through this is with cooperation. If you can stay inside, do so. If you’re an employer, don’t pressure your employees to risk everyone’s safety by making their way into work. If you have to go out, assume that everyone is doing everything that they can to keep you safe and to keep life functioning as normally as possible and respond accordingly. Don’t bitch.

Although, all of that hot air might make the snow melt faster…

It’s just disheartening to see people not sucking it up. For every Good Samaritan tale of people helping each other out or forging their way to work so that we can buy milk and bread, there is a huge chorus of whining that makes it not seem worth it. I would hate to think that we would need to experience a REAL disaster to gain some perspective.

Hello, from the paralyzed tundra formerly known as Pittsburgh. I won’t bore you with yet another series of pictures of people standing waist-deep in snow, because, really, there’s no new ground to break there. It’s snow. It’s white. There’s a lot of it. I will insert a little slideshow that you can view or not at your leisure. No pressure.

So, my big emotional post the other day about how our new life was starting today? Yeah, it’s been put on hold a bit. Not from the snow, but from some…I don’t know…HR matter that pushed back the husband’s start date a week. No biggie. And because I am paranoid, I verified with the husband that this was not some passive move. And it worked out well, because my work is closed today (unheard of) and the baby is off of school at least today and tomorrow. Aside from slight cabin fever, it’s been pretty nice to stay holed up the past few days, cuddling and watching TV and whatnot.

Really, I don’t know when things are going to be normal around here, especially since there is more snow coming down the pike. I’ve never seen anything like this.

On the upside, it was kind of fun exploring everything on Saturday. A lot of people went out for walks, taking advantage of the fact that you could just march down the middle of the mostly useless streets. We saw a few ATVs, a snowmobile, and one guy on a snowboard. We stopped into the new coffee shop on Brookline Boulevard, Cannon Coffee, and I nearly died from happiness. I’ve been moaning since we moved here that we needed a good coffee shop and now we have one. With pastries and sandwiches and excellent beans and cozy places to sit and wireless internet. I see myself spending some serious time there.

Schmutzie recruited me to do her Grace in Small Things exercise about a year ago and, predictably, I abandoned it after a few weeks. Eh. It happens. But this morning I saw something that would definitely qualify.

The baby and I were walking to the bus stop and were surprised to see a big piece of cardboard tied to one of the street signs. Someone had written, “JOE LUVS MARY” on it with spray paint and surrounded the message with a big, pink heart. “Oh!” we both said, surprised and then irritated by the sign’s presence, since it forced us to step around it into the street.

Further down the sidewalk, tied to the marquee/display sign at the corner church, was another big piece of cardboard onto which Joe (presumably) had spray painted, “GIVE ME A CHANCE!”

“Aww!” I squealed and fumbled for my phone to take picture. My phone died at that moment, because I never remember to charge it.

We passed a few church workers who were outside, hemming and hawing about what to do with the signs. Had Mary seen them already? Was it safe to take them down? Could Joe have maybe left his number so that they could check in with him to see how much longer he would be needing the support of their marquee/when would he be exiting the doghouse?

After putting the baby on the bus, I headed back to the house and scooted around the signs. I heard a car coming up the hill and paused for a few seconds, waiting to see if, maybe, it was Mary, on her way to work, her eyes still swollen from crying. It would be awesome to see her face light up at the gesture.

The driver was a woman and my heart beat a little faster when her hands rose to her head. But, alas, she was smoothing her hair. Her eyes glanced at the signs as she drove past them but she didn’t stop. Perhaps Mary was still at home.

I glanced back at the signs one more time before quickening my pace toward my house. I still needed to pack my lunch. “So sweet,” I sighed.

Then, of course, my true pessimism kicked in and I started muttering, “I wonder what he did that he has to go to such lengths to apologize. What a dick. You deserve better, Mary!”

I’ve heard from various sources that you’re supposed to get your hair trimmed every six weeks. This sounds nice and all, but I’ve always fancied it to be excessive, both in terms of maintenance and cost. Granted, I tend to let things go longer than I should, but usually get my hair cut maybe twice a year.

My most recent trim was back in September and I went to another salon on the main boulevard in my neighborhood. The one that I first went to last summer, the one that the husband feared would give me poofy bangs, was fine, but they seemed slightly put out that I was messing with the age curve.

So, in September I went to another place that served a slightly younger clientele and got a haircut that I wasn’t sure about at first, but turned out to be just fine. And it got me parting my hair slightly off-center, which, when I look back on 2009, will stand out as one of life’s big events. What Master’s degree? DID YOU SEE MY PART?!?!?

So, with my ends looking mighty unhealthy, I headed down to the same place on Saturday. I wanted to keep the little side bang, take off a few inches, and get some layers.

The haircut portion of my visit was fine and I addressed the de rigeur pitching of Redken products with aplomb.

When it came time to dry my hair, the stylist said, “Now, last time, we dried your hair straight. Could we try playing up your curl this time?” Eh, sure, go for it. I always have stylists dry it straight because it always looks so smooth and pretty, but change is good, right?

Well, 5 curl-defining products, a diffuser, and a curling iron later, I found myself staring at this:

The stylist, bless her heart, was so excited about the Bon Jovi masterpiece atop my head that when she asked me, “Do you like it?” I had to reply, “Yes, of course!” I normally wouldn’t endorse lying, but like I said, the cut was fine and this style would go away just fine. In the meantime, I just tried to stifle my laughter and wondered if I could find neon spandex pants at the thrift store.

When I walked into my house, the look on the husband’s face was one of horror mixed with whatever contortion happens when you try to stifle laughter. I couldn’t contain myself and cracked up.

It’s calmed down considerably since I washed it, but if you’re in need of a groupie for your 80s revival band, I’m available.

Failure One: Mousse

I made a cake for my co-worker’s birthday. Specifically, this Chocolate Overdose Cake. I’m not really exaggerating that the cake has made me something of a legend at the office. (And, perhaps, alienated my co-worker for stealing the spotlight on her birthday. Sorry. Am jackass. But with tasty cake.)

Also, Abby (I think) reports that people will never take you seriously if you’re the person who brings in baked goods to the office. To which I say, “Fine. Don’t take me seriously. Enjoy your grocery store cake. Nyah.”

Setting out, I realized that I didn’t have any round cake pans so I convinced the husband to let me cross the threshold of Sur la Table. Oh. My. God. I actually forgot one thing and had to go back the next day. Getting into the car, I said, “I really should be commended for the restraint that I showed in there.” A whole wall of small appliances. Every kind of spatula you could imagine (Spatula City). A stack of shelves with cake pans that I could barely see the top of. It was heaven. And also why I have thus far avoided any restaurant supply stores. I would absolutely break down and chain myself to one of those big KitchenAid mixers. Pictures that I’ve seen from others’ trips to such places nearly had me in tears.

Anyway, to make the mousse layer, the recipe tells you to make the whipped cream in a chilled mixer bowl, melt the chocolate, and put the chocolate in a separate stainless steel bowl. Then, take 1/4 cup of the whipped cream and whisk it into the chocolate to temper it, then fold the rest of the whipped cream in. In an effort to avoid cluttering my tiny kitchen with more bowls, I just left the whipped cream in the mixer bowl, tempered the chocolate, and then put it into the whipped cream. I quickly found out why the new bowl was necessary.

That is not cookies and cream ice cream, but whipped cream with tiny bits of melted chocolate that were shocked into solid pellets upon their meeting the cold whipped cream. It tasted okay, but the consistency was too weird. I left the bowl of failed mousse with the husband and baby so that they could pick at it, and tried again.

MUCH better.

I don’t have any pictures of the finished cake because the “decorating,” if you can call it that, looked worthy of Cake Wrecks. And I made the ill-advised decision to write “Happy Birthday [Name of Co-Worker]!” with one of those Cake Mate “easy to write!” tubes. Here’s the honest to dog truth: any product that claims to be for home chefs and easy-to-use is full of crap. Take some extra time and learn how to use the real thing. Because “Happy Birthday [Name of Co-Worker]!” ended up looking like, “Hbbbj Bbbbby Vcccccc!” with random lines and dots scattered throughout.

Those snafus aside, it was AMAZING. So delicious. Make it. Or have someone make it for you to prove their love.

Failure Two: Our child evokes one of the characters in Idiocracy

I mentioned recently that the baby is very grumpy about school right now. We haven’t gotten to the bottom of that, but in the meantime we’re still working with him on our own to make sure that he’s learning stuff.

Last night, while sitting in horrendous traffic, the baby asked us what the capital of Pittsburgh was.

“Cities don’t have capitals, buddy. Countries and states do,” we explained.

“Oh,” he said.

“So, what’s the capital of Pennsylvania?”

“Harrisburg.”

“Right. And what’s the capital of the United States?”

“Washington, D.C.”

“Right! And what’s the capital of San Francisco?” we asked, checking to see if he was paying attention.

“Um…Philly?”

“What? No. Philadelphia is a city in Pennsylvania. San Francisco is also a city in California. And cities don’t have capitals, remember?”

“Noooo! PHILLY is in San Francisco!”

“Buddy, no, “Philly” is short for Philadelphia, and it’s in Pennsylvania.”

“Man, I HATE Biology.”

Oh, dear. So, when we finally got home and after the baby had finished his homework, the husband went over some biology geography with him. It hadn’t really been a focus of ours, but we had hoped that he was picking up some useful knowledge from this interactive map game that the husband’s grandmother gave him a while back. Of course, upon closer inspection, perhaps we shouldn’t have handed over some of our teaching responsibilities to this thing.

It has a bit of a Kerouac ring to it, yes? Packing up the jalopy and driving across the America. Wait til we be lovers in Frisco.

Failure Three: The pesky need for air

I seem to have caught some of the Man Cold that the husband and baby were fighting a few days ago. And it really hadn’t crimped my lifestyle until last night when I went to do the 30 Day Shred. I was kind of excited because it was my first attempt at Level 2. I was getting bored with Level 1 and had been eager to move on, but achey knees prevented me from doing so sooner.

Here’s the thing about strenuous exercise while congested: Don’t. Do. It. Seriously. Very bad idea. I nearly died during one of the cardio portions because I had to exercise while mouth-breathing, which caused severe mouth dryness, which caused a malfunction when I tried to swallow and catch my breath without the benefit of a functioning airway.

While Jillian screeched, “I WANT YOU TO FEEL LIKE YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!” I wheezed and coughed and tried desperately to rehydrate my mouth.

When I finally finished, the husband said, “Do you feel like you’re going to die?” I replied, “I nearly suffocated and saw birdies.” Then I sneezed on him.

I’m trying to power through this writer’s block, especially since the husband resurrected our home computer and we purchased a new router, so my technology hermitage has ended. Fucking finally. And because I am so SO tired of the FML nature of my more recent posts, I want to share with you some tidbits about the fruit of my loins abdominal incision.

He’s getting really tall and so cute…like, in the way that I just know is already making girls giggle. Relatedly, he has a girlfriend. Or had. Apparently she was a little flighty. Whatever.

One day, a few weeks ago, he wore a bow tie to school. And joined the chess club. In the same day. Despite such nerdery, he’s pretty cranky about school and doesn’t want to do homework at all ever. I’m not disturbed by this (homework does indeed suck), but would really like to not have to have the, “JUST DO IT ALREADY, GAWD!” conversation again. I am pleased to say that these conversations have become less heated since I finished school. They no longer contain tirades of, “Write your spelling words three times??!?! Do you know what I would give to have to do that right now? Have you ever attempted to redesign the instructional text of an authoritative book on coherent topical progression? Or had to schedule user testing? HUH? HAVE YOU?” Although, at least that would usually stun him into a puzzled silence. Now he remains cognizant enough to talk back to me and I hate that.

We took him with us to see The Imaginarium of Dr. ParnAssus the other night. He’s developed a taste for Monty Python stuff and when we told him that the director of Imaginarium also directed Time Bandits and was Patsy, the King’s coconut-clacker in The Holy Grail, he was all about it. He liked it. We all did. Depending on your opinion of 8-year-olds, that might make total sense or be totally bizarre.

The movie ended up having some really interesting statements about…not so much celebrity, specifically, but devoting your life to bullshit and whatnot and death. They were especially interesting in light of the fact that Heath Ledger died in the middle of making the movie. Johnny Depp and Jude Law stepped in to act as alternate versions of Ledger’s character in the Imaginarium and seeing them say insightful things about fame and ambition and death knowing that they were kind of talking about the late Ledger was pretty wild.

Speaking of movies, our friend burned Paranormal Activity and Moon for us. The only problem was that the movies were .avis. We watched them on my laptop but my laptop’s speakers aren’t very loud and our furnace makes a huge racket. Whenever it would kick on, we couldn’t hear a thing of the movie. The husband acted as the crack A/V guy and tried several things to remedy the situation. At one point, we had the laptop hooked up to his clock radio, the short power cord necessitating it to be five feet away from us and ultimately useless. We finally wrestled the computer speakers off of the desk and hooked those up, and of course that power cord was too short so we had to get the big, green extension cord off of the porch. It was a total sight. I think it could have only been klassier if we had just extended the power cord with the string of Christmas lights that are half burnt-out and only display green and orange, which appeals to my Irish heritage but looks like a St. Patrick’s Day decoration gone awry.

But, whatever, he MacGuyvered that shit to within an inch of its life and fortunately the movies both turned out to be pretty good. (If they’d sucked, we’d have been pissed.) Moon was especially good, especially after I got over the rapid comparisons that I was making to 2001, Alien, Solaris, Multiplicity (um, yeah), and Los cronocrimenes. It eventually stood on its own two feet and was rather beautiful.

When I was 16, I used to smoke cigarettes out of my bedroom window in the middle of the night.

My relatively brief stint (6 years) as a smoker started at my 16th birthday party and didn’t pick up as a true habit until I lived on my own when I was 17. In the meantime, I had one pack of cigarettes that I kept hidden and sometimes, after my parents were asleep, I would crack open the window and smoke.

There was a spot underneath my windowsill that sounded kind of hollow when you tapped on it and when I was little, I imagined that it was a secret passageway. I had heard of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad and in my naivete didn’t understand that “underground” was a socio-cultural adjective, not a location, and that the railroad was mostly a figurative noun.

I imagined that I could squeeze through what would have been an impossibly narrow passage between the exterior and interior walls of my house and climb down into a portion of the trail that African-Americans followed out of slavery.

I recognize that this is completely bonkers and back when I was 16 and practicing the perfectly cool exhale, I would tap on the hollow spot through the floral wallpaper and shake my head at my 6-year-old self. Then I would go back to thinking about how badly I wanted a boyfriend, about ballet, and about who I was going to be.

During the winter, this was an especially risky activity. The cold air would pour into my room, not only putting me at risk for frostbite, but could cause a shift in the house’s temperature that my parents might notice. I would open the window only as wide as my face and work very hard to keep the smoke going out. Mostly, it just made my nose and cheeks numb.

I spent this past weekend alone, as the husband and the baby went to Blue Knob to ski, and I had the urge to go outside Saturday night. I had had a drink and was lonely and my living room was starting to depress me. I tugged on my big, winter coat and stepped out onto the front porch. It was pretty quiet outside, which was unusual. There were no signs of the revelers celebrating the end of another week on the main street below us.

Feeling the cool air on my face made me remember the illicit beginnings of my nicotine addiction and the embarrassment that I felt at how silly I was as a little girl.

I thought for a long time about an argument that the husband and I had had before they left. It was an ugly argument, one in which some of the more hurtful things that we’ve ever said to each other sailed through the air and hung there, following our thoughts around. Is that how we really feel? Is this who I’m going to be? How big are my mistakes?

My face started to sting as the low temperature became uncomfortable. 15 years stood between me and those moments by my bedroom window. And yet somehow the air felt the same.