Um, apparently

Me: What if you found out I were sexting with someone? No physical contact, just sexting?

Nick: You are an oddball.

Me: OK, but what would you do?

Nick: I would express my profound disappointment.

Me: What if he lived somewhere we were never going to meet?  Like, Russia?

Nick: Do you and I really have so little to talk about?

And let me give you a foot rub when we stop at the next light

So, several years ago, my parents gave us their old Alice. She immediately guided us around rural  Maine in 11-mile increments.

And this is tangential, but Maine, beautiful Maine! Here are some pretty pictures of our time there.

Anyway, Alice. She changed our lives. Mine more than Nick's, but he loved her immediately as well.

I've always been severely directionally challenged, and with Alice leading the way I was no longer all stressed out every time I had to drive somewhere new all by myself. I could just get in the car and go! And get to my destination!

She was patient, she was kind. She did not envy, nor boast; she was not proud...I won't go so far as to say that she madeth us to lay down in green pastures, because, let's face it, she wasn't God. But she was awesome.

Rather than telling us we were idiots, she'd firmly say, "Recalculating!" when we didn't follow her directions. And then one day, her face froze. You know how when you were little and you'd grimace and your parents would warn you that your face might freeze like that?

Well, that's precisely what happened to our Alice. I got her unfrozen, but it was brief.

And while we loved her honestly and truly, we promptly set her aside and bought a new Alice. She was a little fancier, but basically the same. 

So we had a number of years of one Alice and then another. And then a couple weeks ago, I was in a friend's car. She had the same Garmin as us, but hers was Ken. Ken the Australian.

I'm not actually one for Australian accents, but Ken has a nice voice. He's soothing. And polite. 

You basically hear, "In five miles, turn left. You look beautiful in those sweatpants. Can I get you a drink?"

He took us to Virginia and back. By the time she dropped me at home, I wanted my own Ken.

I may be patient and kind as well, but let's not pretend I'm above envy. I had Ken envy.

Thus with a couple menu options, I performed international gender bending, and Alice became Ken (who, in the Garmin menu, is named Lee). A scant few days later, Ken guided us smoothly to Charlottesville and back.

I was worried that Nick might get jealous, because you know, Ken is so smooth. And foreign. He basically whispers sweet nothings in my ear in the guise of directions.


Nick, however, immediately viewed Ken as a pal, a friend for the road, and a delightful excuse to throw Australianisms around. Ken would give an instruction, Nick would execute it, and then be all, "Good on you, mate!" Or, "Throw a shrimp on the barbie!"

And then when we reached our destination, Nick trumpeted,"Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi!"

Which, actually, we wish Ken would say at the end of a trip. Right after he pours me a glass of Shiraz.

On what would've been his 76th birthday

The other day, I almost picked up the phone to call my dad.

And then I remembered.

It's weird, because it's now been almost three and a half years, and it's the first time that has happened. I dreamt about him the other night as well, which I haven't done since right after he died. I've never smelled his cologne since, and I really do believe it was him saying goodbye and taking flight.

Betty and I almost never talk about him. I don't know if this is good or bad. It just is. But every once in a while Jordan will be doing something and she'll say, "Dad would have loved this kid so much."

And he would have. And he'd love little India as well.

I know now he was a better dad to me than to my brother, who is almost four years younger. Something shifted in my dad when my brother was very little. He started getting sick all the time in Bangladesh. I don't remember how he was in Egypt, but really wasn't doing well by the time we were in the US, leading up to his first suicide attempt.

Basically, what I realize is that I got more of the fun and my brother got more of the crazy. You can have the same parents and yet have very different parenting experiences.

It's not fair -  it's just birth order and timing. Hell, none of it's fair. It's just life.

My dad was sure he'd die at 72. I don't exactly know why; perhaps because that was the age of both of his parents, who died in different years, of different types of cancer.

But in the end, he was 72. He almost made it to 73. He almost made it to meeting Jordan. He almost a lot of things, I suppose.

The aftermath of suicide is so very complicated. I was devastated. I no longer had my dad, one of the most important people in my life. I was angry. He'd left us, really left us this time. We'd been abandoned. Lied to. Betrayed.

For the longest time I felt guilty every time I said anything negative about him. Or expressed anger towards him.Even though I was sometimes chokingly angry.

But you know, the aftermath of growing up with an unstable parent is complicated as well. When you look at our family with a little distance, there is some really fucked up stuff. I mean, besides the multiple suicide attempts.

Me, I can trace the roots of nearly all my insecurities back to my dad and his behavior. I can blame him, if I choose - but that's the lazy way out. We can all blame our parents for all our problems, really.

And even if we do so, they're still our problems, until we work them out.

My cousin Lyrae was in town recently, and we were talking about my dad and about grief. She said she's realized it's not linear. You might expect that it gets better and better and better, until it is all gone. But no. It is random and unpredictable, swinging wildly up and down, punching you out of the blue during a period of fineness.


I still get so sad, and sometimes resentful, but I think I've forgiven him for abandoning us. And I've almost entirely forgiven myself for the anger. If he were still around, he'd still be complicated. He's still be crazy. So in some ways, life is calmer now.

But I'd take the ups and downs of the old crazy, any day.

I'm rambling. I don't really know what I'm saying. It's just, you know, October third. It's my dad's birthday.

The first best day of my life

Four years ago, I made my best move ever and married Nick. It was a short walk down an aisle that had been a long time coming.

 

Our wedding was glorious; I wanted it to last forever. At that point, it was the best day of my life - the first of now several. By our wedding day, I'd only known Nick for about 10 months, and we've since agreed that it could all have ended very quickly and badly.

But sometimes fortune smiles down on you, and look where we are now.

This morning, after an awakey-snuffly-baby-with-a-cold kind of dreadful night, as we were scrambling to get everyone ready for work, work, school, and daycare, India was screaming her head off in her crib (DON'T PUT ME DOOOOWN, WOMAN!) upstairs, and Jordan was throwing a fit downstairs (I WANT TO WATCH A VIDEO! I DON'T WANT TO EAT BREAKFAST!).

We looked at each other, clinked our mugs of tea, and said, "Happy anniversary!"

Somehow I got so lucky. I wouldn't change a thing. Except more sleep and less infant and toddler screaming.

*****

Profuse thanks for the video go to one of Nick's oldest and dearest friends, Matt Curran. Lucky for us, one day he had both a shiny new MacBookPro and time on his hands and decided to play with photos; this video is the delightful result!

The only way I could like this more is if it were set to a recording of him singing. Matt's a professional opera singer with this deliciously deep voice and fantastic and random sense of humor. Which explains some of the captions.

Twinkle, twinkle, little, uh...

At Target the other day, I passed a shelf of Always Radiant Maxi Pads.

Which gave me pause. Radiant. Maxi pads. Radiant.

Radiant is a word I would use for makeup. Radiant eye shadow! Radiant nail polish! Shampoo! Toothpaste! Radiance is sparkle, glow; it is light projected.

Radiant! works nicely for cosmetics in general, I think.

"You look radiant!" This is something people say to beaming brides. To their faces. Not their vaginas.

Because radiance in your pants?

I imagine radiant maxi pads being covered with glitter. Which sounds itchy. And sketchy.

I mean, you know how when you wear glitter, it gets everywhere, into weird little nooks and crannies, and never goes away? For years and years you find little glitter bits in upholstery, carpets, clothing you've washed repeatedly. Seriously, for years.

So Radiant Maxi Pads. Here's what I picture:

When wearing them, you'd walk down the hall at work, leaving a discreet trail of glitter.

Every time you sat down, you'd leave your sparkly mark.

Your butt would be very subtly shiny. Dare I say radiant?

The gynecologist, at your annual exam, would notice something odd, and then be all, "I've never actually seen glitter on someone's cervix before. I don't want to pry, but..."