Surprising that I didn't break my nose, actually

The jerking? Of the knee? It happens so fast.

It didn't used to be like this. I used to just walk around trusting people. Hi, nice to meet you! Sure I trust you! Come on in and get comfy! Want some coffee?

I've just dated so many crazy, damaged people over the last couple years. Or maybe not so many. But I got invested in a few notable ones.

You know how your friends will always say, "Oh, sweetie. It's not you. It's him." - and you want to believe them?

At some point you figure out that actually, sometimes that's true. Maybe even much of the time. But if there are enough of them, you have to sit down and examine the hims that you are choosing.

And then you figure out that even though it's true, that doesn't matter. What I mean is this. If you pick a guy who likes you, but when he gets emotionally close to people, he gets mean, well, that's his issue - it really is him and not you. But you've still gotten invested in someone who is mean to you. And you have to recover from that.

Or if you pick a person who likes you - you can see it in his eyes and how he is when he's with you - but when it comes down to it, he's had enough damage in life that he's not ever going to be open enough to be vulnerable again, well, you've gotten invested in a person who might be lovable but can't love back. And then you have that to recover from.

For example.

And so, moving forward, when you have the tiniest inkling that something might lead to you getting hurt for whatever reason, if you get invested, which you are very cautiously not doing, wow, does that knee jerk faster than you can blink.

A warm pan of I care about you

I've written about food as love before. It's not a novel idea. But every once in a while I'm reminded of it so strongly.

I've got a friend who is in a very bad place. He's facing the death of a close family friend. And he's really sad.

There isn't anything I can do but lend an ear and empathize. And bake him some brownies.

I don't cook but I am a really good baker. My mom is a fantastic baker, and so was my gramma Lillian.

Betty makes these North Dakota sticky buns that are like a little piece of sin and heaven all rolled up together. Seriously. They're very labor intensive, and she doesn't make them that often. I've never made them because making dough that has to rise is really daunting for me.

We always have them Christmas morning. It's the best first thing in the morning smell - think of the smell of freshly baked bread. And then add the smell of tons of butter and brown sugar for the caramel sauce that they bake in. And the cinnamon that they're rolled up in. It smells like magic.

You take the pan out of the oven and flip it over on a cookie sheet and any caramel that hasn't baked into the buns runs down the sides and pools around them in a buttery swirly mass of temptation. It's impossible not to stick your finger through it. When you cut off your sticky bun, you slide the knife across the sheet to scrape up as much caramel as you can get.

Me, when I bake, I tend to stick to cakes and sweet breads that you don't have to punch down, that don't have the precariousness of being left to rise. Brownies are one of my favorite things.

Amazing brownies, I think, are a little piece of magic themselves. Brownies make people happy. They just do.

Sometimes when Maude was down, she'd ask me to make brownies. Or popcorn. Or both. And it always made me feel good, you know? Because when someone is sad and you can't do anything to make it better, you feel powerless. But being asked for something, something you can actually do, it feels good. I sometimes wondered if that was why she asked.

Brownies aren't hard, and I suppose in the scheme of things they're not much to offer.

But when someone you care about is sad and you can't fix it, sometimes the best you can offer is words and hugs and a pan of warm chocolatey sugary love. I care about you. I want to make things better for you. Here's a little tiny bit of proof.

When I was in grad school I had a housemate from New Zealand. I adored her. We all did. She'd never had brownies before, and she was crazy about them. They were one of her favorite things about America, in fact.

Whenever I made them she'd cut the chocolatiest, softest, middle piece right out, while they were still warm. It was like a test of love, now that I think back on it. Taking the middle before they're cool and knowing that you can - that's proof that you can have whatever piece you want.

Thinking back, she used to make the best poached eggs. I love poached eggs, and I've never been any good at them. And so when I wanted a comfort food dinner, she'd poach eggs for me.

And so I've pulled out the butter and the sugar and the baking chocolate, which has my favorite brownie recipe right on the box. They turn out heavy and moist and dense, but not gooey and not cake-y, which is something I dislike in a brownie.

I'm going to bake them right before he comes over, so my entire place smells like baking chocolate, which hopefully will feel like a warm blanket.

Getting a fix on a Friday night

I arrived at 7:30 Friday night. Right on time. Nervous. I'd never done this before.

Because of how dark my hair had wound up on Wednesday, my skin looked pale and flat, but there was nothing I could do about that. I'd put on eye makeup and red lip gloss to try and brighten up my face.

I'd carefully crafted my outfit. You know, so I looked attractive but not like I'd put a ton of thought into it. I had on a grey sleeveless turtleneck tucked into good jeans, and black platform boots. I'd deliberately left off earrings. I grabbed my black leather jacket on my way out the door.

He was ready for me when I arrived. I was so excited to see him. He took my jacket and hung it up, and then led me over to the chair.

He sat me down and stood behind me. Our eyes met in the mirror.

He ran his hands through my hair. I was holding my breath.

And then he said, "We can definitely fix this. I'll add some more highlights and then put on a warm toner. It'll look great."

Just say yes!

A couple weeks ago I had dinner with a friend of mine at Bistrot du Coin.

We both love all things French, and in fact initially bonded over our favorite things about Paris. And sometimes we speak French. It might seem pretentious, but I don't care. It's fun.

So David and I are talking about his law firm, and about his new paralegal, who had just gotten back from a weekend in Atlanta that morning. She's young, not far out of college, and super smart. He really likes her as a person and as a colleague.

It turns out she spent a semester of college at Oxford, and while there met a guy, as one might. And then she left England and they went on with their lives and have kept in sporadic touch since. And then recently a very interesting thing happened.

She heard from him, out of the blue. He'd moved to Atlanta. And would she like to visit for the weekend?

So she did. Expecting nothing more than visiting an old flame for a weekend.

She returned to work on Monday with the following very condensed version of the story. Oxford boy is not loving Atlanta. And he's considering transferring with his company to Paris. Would she marry him? And move to Paris?

Holy cow!

"So, basically," I said, "you think he's hating being in Atlanta, wants to move to Paris, and doesn't want to move alone?"

"Exactly."

"But she said yes, right? Please tell me she said yes."

He looks at me and shakes his head. Like, had I been listening to the details of the story? "They aren't in a relationship. They'd barely kept in touch."

"She has to say yes."

"Lisa. They're so young. They don't even know each other. Odds of this going well are not high."

"So how did she leave it?"

"She told him she'd think about it."

"Think about it? No thinking! Tell her to say yes!"

"She's really smart. I love having her work for me. She'll probably work at the firm for a couple years and then go on to grad school. And then she'll do great things. She wouldn't even be able to work in Paris."

Clearly his love of Paris is not overriding his inclination to think like a high-powered lawyer. But I know for a fact that he takes vacations like bike trips through the Loire valley. He goes to Europe every chance he gets. Even though he has this impressive, demanding job, it's not his life.

In other words, he can be reasoned with.

"Honestly, David. They'll get divorced in two years. Paris would be perfect for her. She can start graduate work, or just study French, she can shop, she can hang out and have a great time. The whole relationship will be over by the time she's ready to go to grad school."

"I hadn't thought about it that way. If you look at it in that way, it absolutely makes sense."

"Christ, if someone out of the blue asked me to marry him and move to Paris tomorrow, I'd say yes. I would probably only have to be marginally attracted to him as a person."

"You know, I probably would, too."

"Promise me you'll go to work tomorrow and tell her to say yes."

And so he did. But he also gave her the context. I have no idea what she'll do. Probably the practical thing, which would be to not quit your job to move to Paris and marry someone you dated briefly several years ago.

It pains me, even thought I don't know her.

When I was in my 20s, it all seemed so important, so dire, so forever-y. But honestly. If you're 23, you've got all kinds of time to move to Paris, have a good time, learn a few things, see a lot, get a divorce, and then get on with life stuff.

Because even though my advice to people is to get married and stick it out, odds are poor when you're only 23 or 24. But on the bright side, if you're divorced and dating in your 30s, nobody will ask you what's wrong with you that you've never been married. Because you have been!

And, on the even brighter side, one can always blame the demise of the marriage on the snobbery of the Parisians. Or the fact that they don't pick up their dog poo. Or the amount of butter they use in their cooking. Or something along those lines. People will believe it.

NaBloPoMo or chicken and woe

So I'm participating in National Blog Posting Month, or NaBloPoMo.

This means a post a day, every day, for a month. One of my goals is to write every day, and to work on my storytelling, so this is helpful. I know that recently I've gotten slack on weekends.

Plus lately there are lots of days where I just don't know what to write. As one blogfriend described, I'm more of an "Ooh, ooh! Let me tell you what's going on with me!" blogger. But I'm in an odd blog writing place. In part because, and I know this will shock you, there are things going on that I just will not blog about.

Some of them are really good, or possibly leading to good things, and I don't want to share too much or jinx them before they do or don't happen. If this one particularly good thing comes about, I'll be really excited. And it's not a boy thing. I'm not suddenly going to be all, "Hey, you guys! I simply can't find any street parking anywhere! Wink wink nudge nudge!" No, it's not that.

And some of them are not so good, and big enough to take up a lot of space in my mind and heart, but are just not shareable for a variety of reasons. Some things really are too personal.

Which sometimes leaves me with the conundrum: write something not huge or not immediate, when there are huge things I'm thinking about? Or not write?

Because I never want to write "I had chicken for dinner" kinds of things. And I don't want to write a post all, oh, woe is me, I have nothing to write about! Because it's my own choice to write. Nobody is forcing me.

Anyway, on that note, we'll see how far I get into November.

You know, before I bring up the chicken and the woe.