Might feel good to you

I was once on a DC bus with a really cranky bus driver. It was raining, and there were too many people on the bus.

He kindly let a group of us on even though the bus was already packed. I think maybe he just felt sorry for us, standing like a pack of drowned rats in the deluge.

So some of the people were standing in front of that white line by the driver that you're not supposed to stand in front of. But there was nowhere else to be. Me, I was practically vaulted into his lap every time the bus turned.

He was irritated with all of us. But there wasn't anything to be done except let people off at the next stop and not let new people on. People kept pushing and shoving. And cramming people towards the front. Where the driver was.

You know how gross public transportation is when it's raining. Even if it's cold outside, you all get stuck together and you start to sweat. And so, mashed up against the hoi polloi, you just stand there, suffocating in the disgusting crush of steaming, soggy, dark winter garments.

Someone's umbrella invariably drips on your foot. Or gets shoved against some part of you. And me, I am not so tall. And so likelihood is high that I will wind up with my nose in someone's armpit.

The windows fog up. Everything is hot and humid and annoying. You can barely move and all the air you breathe has either been exhaled by someone else or is steaming off their coats.

It's like getting knitted into a wet wool forest. It's hard to squeeze your way out. It's easy to become a hater.

And so, at the next stop, before he opened the doors, the bus driver bellowed, "And all of y'all who like to get out the front doors? Why don't you try exiting through the back door for a change? Might feel good to you."

I giggled. Like the crazy lady on the bus. Might feel good to you! Hee hee!

And I think this, sometimes. When I'm suggesting something. Or silently suggesting that someone do something fairly unlikely.

It is a line I would love to use. Like, for example, on this one woman who is a perpetual and utter pill.

I'd love to say, "Why don't you try saying something positive in a meeting today? Just this once, for a change? Might feel good to you."

I knew who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then

Today I feel very Alice.

I didn't write yesterday, which is unusual for me. The fact is that at the moment I don't know what I'm doing here.

This is the first time that I've really sat down and wondered. Because it's been all, ooh, the funniest thing happened, and I want to write it down! Or I'm fret fret fretting and I want to get it out. Or I just want a place to force myself to structure and improve the writing as warm up for writing a book.

But the fact is that I'm not writing elsewhere lately, except in my job. And I'm questioning what I'm doing with all these very personal details out in cyberspace - something I've not questioned before.

Some people start blogs to keep their friends updated. But really, most of my friends who read LG didn't know about it till months and months after I began. And it's not like I'm on a round-the-world journey. Nobody actually needs to be kept abreast of any breaking news. What am I doing here? What do I want from this?

I don't know anymore.

Except for random bits here and there, LG is always intensely personal. It's like my friend Maude, who is a painter, will often paint pictures of her own body parts. Not always flattering - sometimes a view of her tummy with creases, for example. But she says she always has access to her own self. Still life can get boring. People are what interest her. And she's right there, even when nobody else is.

And I suppose that's the case with me. People are what interest me, and I know my own self best. I'm what I'm trying to sort out, and LG has been a really, really good place for it.

But right now, today, I'm not sure what I'm doing here.

I don't think guys do this

Recently I was walking down the street with a very close friend of mine and her boyfriend.

And I said, "Hey! You know who I passed on the street today?"

"Who?"

"You remember that first date I had with that one guy?"

She replied, "Yes." At the same time as her boyfriend said, "Right, that one."

Which is valid. Considering the myriad.

But she knew exactly who I was talking about. He was incredulous.

"Anyway, so you know how I was walking home and then that cute guy started talking to me on a corner standing in the rain waiting for the light to change? And we walked part of the way home together?"

"Yes."

"Him."

Seashells, sea glass, and skimming stones. How's that for alliteration?

I was recently asked the following. What had I learned from past relationships, or about myself over the years, that has made me a better person to be in a relationship with?

It's a good question, isn't it?

After briefly dipping into my bucket of lessons, much as one might gently sort through shells collected on the shore, I chose two. I hastily dusted the sand off, but as I held them in my hand, I realized they were more like those pieces of green sea glass - pounded smooth but cloudy.

It was a face-to-face conversation, and I had not much time to ponder, so these were offered in haste.

One was this: I have learned to bite my tongue. That you cannot take anything back, and you cannot undo it. That sorry doesn't erase anything. So you should choose your words very carefully in anger and in hurt.

And the other, which just finally, finally sunk in, is that not everything is about me. I don't mean this as it might sound - that the relationship should revolve around me and my needs and my wants. But rather, sometimes things that I take personally have nothing to do with me.

For example, sometimes the other person's bad mood is just a bad mood that he wants to be left alone to deal with. I didn't cause it and I can't fix it. And sometimes, if someone backs away or rejects you, it's because of the place he's in - not that I'm an inadequate person.

That's the one it's taken me so damn long to get. Sometimes it's about what's going on with him, and not what's wrong with me. And you have to just let it go.

He asked how these lessons learned have been working out for me.

And I said honestly, I don't know yet. They're brand new. I'm just trying them out.

Truthfully, though, upon further reflection, I realized that the most important thing I've learned is this. You should never, ever take love for granted. And you should not be profligate with one drop of it.

Don't play the prove you love me game. Sometimes that's tempting, either because love has become hard to trust, or because you don't feel like you're worth it. But just don't. Don't toss a heart away to see how many times it will come back. Because at some point, the ebb tide will pull it out far enough, and you won't be able to retrieve it.

Even if you can't reciprocate, for whatever reason, you should treat the offerer nicely and with respect. And if you're letting them go, you should allow them to slip gently into the waves, rather than leaving them beached or crushed or so tangled in seaweed or nets that the effort of untangling is tantamount to drowning.

This, I'd say, is the biggest thing I've learned. Be kind and be gentle with love, even if you do not want to keep it.

I've pushed and I've pulled. I've skimmed hearts like smooth grey rocks out into the distance, and I've had mine slammed with the swirly grinding sand into the bottom. I hope to avoid the latter, and I'm damn sure never going to do the former to anyone ever again.

Insight at the Saloon

I went to the Saloon recently. I've walked by it a variety of times but never been. And it's one of my new favorite places.

Laura and I sat at the bar and had delicious lentil soup. As we started nibbling, the owner came out with more fried onions to put on the top. He said that made it even better. He was right.

They have all these lovely beers there, and when I arrived Laura, who had gotten there a bit before me, was snacking on pistachios and sipping a beer called Saxo Blonde. She'd been trying to choose between that one and one called Nessie, which I wound up ordering at the recommendation of the bartender. And because it's hard to resist intriguing names.

At some point the owner asked my why I'd chosen that particular beer, because it's his beer of choice.

I said we loved the name and the bartender had recommended it. And that I liked but didn't love it. And thought I might prefer Laura's. He said he'd help me choose the next one.

And so he pulled out another bottle of beer, poured a little taste in a glass so I could see if I liked it. Which I did.

It was also compellingly named - La Sirene.

Oddly enough, nothing weird happened to us the whole night, even though I was with Laura, and typically some kind of bizareness trips over us while we're out. But we just spent the evening catching up, very low key in this really warm, comfortable bar.

Eventually we decided to split a third beer. And so I was trying to decide what else I wanted to try. I asked the owner for a suggestion.

He said, "Didn't you like this one?"

"Oh, I absolutely did. I liked it a lot."

"Then why don't you just stick with it?"

This gave me pause. Why not just have another of the same? I liked it - why not stick with it?

By the same token, there are a ton of potentially delicious, intriguing, unknown options. Why not try a different one?

All I can do is smile and shrug and say, "I think I'm just like that."