why saturday rocked the house
beer, cigarettes, friends, sun, and laughter.
and moments like this.
[photo: shiv and i.]

i never had my own idols.
when exactly did this TWEEN bullshit start? when i was thirteen, i sat around depressed and wailed about how no one out there understood me, like every other self-respecting teenager. then i went to the mall and stuffed my skinny little body full of high-fat, high-sugar treats and complained to my friends about how totally un-cool my parents were.
when i was twelve, thirteen, fourteen, i WASN’T a tween. i didn’t have pop stars only two years older than me whose biggest problems on their TV shows was when two cute boys both asked them out. i had claire danes and kurt cobain and SMASHING PUMPKINS for crying out loud. it’s amazing our generation is as … well … ALIVE as we are.
my point is [insert grouchy old man voice here] these teens these days, they’re just too PAMPERED and PANDERED to. excuse me, did i say teens? i meant TWEENS.

but i mean…
… you’ve only come so far when you hear a strain of this song at the deli and your throat gets tight.

a loss in five stages
first, there was Excited. he was arriving, something i’d been waiting for a long time. he was the highlight of my day from thousands of miles away. his was the face i saw at my side for baseball games, slow-cooked winter meals, studying for law school, riding on the subway. these were the things we’d discussed, the things we’d hoped for together, the affection we’d openly shared with each other. and so, for months, his was the face i saw. i told myself not to, i staved off Excitement, i told her to ‘wait and see’ but before i fell asleep, in that period where you know you can’t fool yourself and midnight brings on the greatest truths in the deepest corners, i knew Excitement had me in its grasps. Excited was looking in the mirror and feeling flawless. it felt like cooking your first thanksgiving dinner. Excited was the butterflies in your stomach at the top of rollercoasters.
then there was Insecurity. i’d forgotten, through the days and weeks he’d been gone, how vulnerable i was to his every mood swing, to his every glance. as soon as he was home it seemed he was already shying away from me. i wanted to think i was imagining it, but i knew him too well not to know when he was backing away slowly, backing away from me. Insecurity was dropping a strawberry ice cream cone on the sidewalk. Insecurity felt like falling out of bed in the middle of the night. Insecurity meant walking on sinking rocks across a long river.
then there was Realization. the realization that he wasn’t happy and it didn’t have anything to do with me but it was in my path and i was going to run headlong into his unhappiness and it was going to hurt me whether he wanted it to or not. he kept telling me i was taking his life personally and it was all i could do not to yell out, what else would you have me do, after all the things you said?! but Realization stopped me from saying all the things i wanted to say. Realization told me, he’s not going to listen to you. he’s lashing out. better to let him be. Realization was cold water running down your back. Realization felt like waking up from a nightmare about giant cats to find a giant cat in your room.
then there was Fury. Fury felt good, after all the drowning helplessness of Insecurity and Realization. Fury came blasting through the saloon doors, guns firing. Fury whispered in my ear all the tiny, nearly-invisible ways he’d hurt me since his return, and Fury made it easy for me to stop crying. Fury was what it felt like to be a woman scorn’d. Fury took each little disappointment i’d experienced, each thing that hadn’t gone as planned, and whipped me into a frenzy. Fury was the crack of a homerun baseball. Fury felt like finally ripping off a bandaid. Fury was the euphoria you feel when you’ve just run a red light and escaped death one more time.
then there was Honesty. Honesty was the hardest, honesty took the longest. Honesty required the most of me, for she’s a demanding mistress. Honesty quietly strode into the room at the eleventh hour, when I’d exhausted every other means of expression. Honesty didn’t have props or gimmicks. Honesty sat me down and said, you have too long allowed his behavior to make you a cringing wallflower or a furious neurotic. you are strong, and you have nothing more to use but this. and i did. i walked up to the final act, to that rushed and unfair goodbye, with clarity. it felt hard, being that honest, laying down that blame, and not being able to soothe him with tired and near-meaningless promises of how much i love him. it hurt to see in his eyes that he knew he’d disappointed me. it panged to hear him say he was sorry, because i so desperately wished it could have gone another way, that he wouldn’t have had to apologize, that i never would have lost any faith in this love. but i said my part in a clear, loud voice. and in exchange, Honesty gave me a salve, a soothing balm, where i don’t regret and i’m not angry. Honesty felt like a clean shower. Honesty was making eye contact with a proud horse and holding its gaze. Honesty felt just right.

i’m turning in my hipster passport. wait, you say i never had one?
down with williamsburg!

“is she walking that log, or is the log walking her?”

this picture may clarify my park activities to you. or, it may confound you further. is she chasing that log? has the evil log creature evaded our superheroine’s grasp, yet again? if so, why is she smiling? there are many questions i’m sure that still puzzle you.
but for now, suffice it to say that daisy was the first person to approximate what the bloody flying hell was going on … i was, in fact, moving a log, in a park. sharp eye, daisy. stay tuned for an email from me. you will be recieving a SUPER TOP SECRET [as yet undetermined but you know it'll be cool] NINJAMONKEY PRIZE*.
and i think we all snorted coffee through our office-drone noses this morning when we read sherlock holmes’ careful, meticulous and thoroughly outlandish deduction concerning my double-life as a babe for hire, a mysterious agency referred to as the Federal Office of Dirt Security, and an underground market in rolling loam. and some ATVs. congratulations, mr. holmes. you have also won the SUPER TOP SECRET NINJAMONKEY PRIZE*. however, since you seem to be on the lam from FODS and are thus anonymously posting such raving genius, you’re going to have to email me to recieve your prize in the mail. i promise not to turn you over to the authorities if you promise not to reveal my identity to the Feds.
congrats, daisy and “holmes”.
*prize is valid in every state except idaho. for no good reason. rules and regulations: you may not recieve the prize if you are with the authorities, trying to steal my identity, or crazy in any certifiable way. you may not recieve the prize if you’ve ever had a beer with a rhino and a penguin on a tuesday afternoon in boise. in fact, you might not even recieve the prize if you live in boise. pH doesn’t trust boise. prize is not guaranteed to be top secret, super, or in any way involving ninjamonkeys. please address all concerns and disputes over prize in writing and notarized. pH takes no responsibility if you’re not cool enough to recognize the cool factor of the afore-mentioned prize. pH generally takes no responsibility for anything you think, do, or say.

i never cease to puzzle and amaze!

the first person who answers correctly WHAT i am doing in this picture gets first prize, a naked picture of me a surprise in the mail.
and just for fun, the most creatively elaborate answer will get something too.
[jason, shiv, no fair playing, you guys were there.]

life’s little cliches, the epilogue
**dedicated to fulminous, on his 26th birthday. thanks for being a warrior.**
love hurts. sometimes we wish we didn’t love as hard as we do – we’d hurt less, wouldn’t we. sometimes we barely know when to walk away, to let go, and even when we do, we keep looking over our shoulders at the thing we love, at the thing we’re letting go. love bloody stinks. we’ll all keep coming back for more, but there’s that last moment when it just stings and pulls and tugs and drags and you yell, that’s IT! ENOUGH! i will resign myself to catladydom. you know it isn’t true. but if feels nice to say it.
things never go as planned. you can hope and believe and trust and have faith and count chickens and it won’t really matter on the battlefield. and things you’d hoped for, little pieces of feathered hope, they float slowly down until they’re unrecognizable on the ground. but like a recent amputee, you keep grasping for them – here was a road trip we’d talked about, here was a weekend we’d spend together, here was a meal i wanted to cook, here were my cutest underwear, tucked in a drawer for a special night, here was a bed, here was a towel, here were little dreams nestled all over new york. and you have to remind yourself the arm isn’t there, the plans are smudged and unreadable.
you’ll always have your friends. people who take days off work with you, to sit in the park and mull over romances and heartaches while tugging at springy green grass and watching children play. people who call you twice as often as they usually do, because they know it’s rough out there. people who buy you drinks and know when to change the subject to something ridiculously funny. people who let you cry – in public, on the phone, on their favorite shirt. people who make you ‘wallowing in misery’ mix CDs but know when to come to your apartment and wallow with you. people who let you crash on their couch because you don’t want to be alone. people who rally for you and sing your praises. people that love you when you don’t feel like loving yourself. and people who’ll offer to fight your battles, knowing full well you have the strength to fight them yourself. friends.

new york’s getting hotter by the minute.
i knew it. lifelong karmic validation. sarah b. is moving to the big apple.
you know what that means, right?
DRUNKEN MAHJONG LADIES’ NIGHTS.

wish list sonata in four notes and six swishing fabrics
i want a demure scoop-neck white dotted swiss lace dress (empire waist, a-line, knee-length) with a baby-blue satin sash. to be worn with pearl drop earrings and a simple diamond ring. for moonlit summer walks in vienna.
i want a ruby-red plunging neckline halter dress (curve-hugging knee-length) that shows off my shoulders and my legs. to be worn with black onyx chandelier earrings, hair up, flashingly smoky eye make-up. for gloriously humid evenings, dancing the tango on the cobblestoned streets of buenos aires.
i want a cherry-blossom pink organza number (knee-length, strapless and bodiced) with a flouncy crinoline underskirt and a black velvet sash . to be worn with bee-stung pink lipstick and a black flower-corsage choker. for wild spring nights carousing the streets of paris.
and i want a black-with-creme-polka dot dress (plunging v-neck, a-line) with creme tulle underneath and a cinched waist. to be worn with a simple pearl necklace and hair curled and bouncy. for swell cocktail parties and those magically cozy dinner-and-a-movie nights, strolling the shimmering sidewalks of new york, arm-in-arm.
come now, is this too much to ask?