When I walk in the dark

When I was 22, I used to walk and run at night in the dark, my awesome chunky yellow Sports Walkman in hand, headphones on.

Usually during the week I'd go to the gym after work, then walk from M Street up to our apartment in Mt. Pleasant, back when it was a marginal neighborhood. I'd do this in the winter at 8 or 9 at night, and not think anything of it. Alone, music on, pitch dark.

I walked everywhere, not thinking about time or...actually, let's just say not thinking.

Once Maude, Lyrae, and I were mincing home at 2 am on a Saturday, and a policeman pulled over and asked where we were going. And then he gave us a ride home.

So I got home around 9:30 last night.

I was working as an extra on a TV show being filmed way up in Maryland (yes, my life is glam when I'm not wiping up food or poop, and I'll totally let you know if a single ear or elbow or strand of hair of mine makes it in a single scene). I knew beforehand that we'd be parking in a big, open lot that we'd be shuttled to, and that we likely wouldn't leave before nightfall.

As it turned out, I was in a group that was let go earlier, so left just before 7 pm, in the light. Nick said 95 traffic would still be horrible, and so I used the opportunity for a little guilt-free browsing at a suburban Target.

So last night, right before Nick was going to take over circling for parking for me, I found a spot pretty close to our house. He called and I told him I'd just parked and would be home in a few minutes.

I was near a shortcut between buildings that leads into our alley. I could've gone through it, down the alley, and into our back door, which would've been a lot shorter. In the daytime I do this. But I walked around.

Our alley is dark, and my friend Becky, whose parking space used to be on the adjoining alley, was mugged there several years ago. At 8 pm, in the late summer light. He took her wallet and her phone and told her get into his car but she convinced him to let her keep her head down and walk away.

She was so smart. "Take the phone, take the money, and I will turn around and walk away right now."

And he let her, thank God.

The alley has been repaved and is less sketchy now, and we all happily note that we no longer see human feces in it, but it's still an alley. In DC.

I got home and Nick was waiting for me, and as we were chatting, he asked why I thought I wasn't chosen to stay for the second scene. I should totally have worn the shirt he'd suggested. I shrugged. And then he noticed I didn't have my wedding ring on. Huh. Why didn't I wear my rings?

And this is what I said: As a man, and a large one who is unlikely to ever be a target, he and I live very different lives.

I didn't want to stay on set. Yes, it would be cool to be in another scene, but I was glad to be let go. Because the parking lot was big, and I was relieved to get there in the light. There were a lot of us, and I didn't expect that they would take us each to our respective cars.

Yes, I could maybe ask someone to walk me to my car, but I didn't know any of the other extras beforehand, and getting walked to one's car is not a certainty.

I deliberately didn't wear my rings because I was anticipating walking through a parking lot in the dark way the hell out somewhere I do not know, and I didn't want to be wearing something sparkly. I suppose I could've worn the wedding ring, but I wear them together.

And in our neighborhood, which I feel comfortable in, even though I was carrying a bunch of heavy bags and it would've been much more expedient to take a shortcut through buildings and the alley, I walked around several blocks. If I'd been farther away, or on a darker street, I'd have stayed in the car and called him to come get me.

"You," I said, "you never have to think about these things. Never."

I was mugged once, years ago.

I was with two guy friends at pitch-dark 4:00 am, in the not-great bus station part of Quito. Our bus came in way earlier than it was supposed to, because the highway from the coast that had been closed had been cleared of a mudslide.  So we were unexpectedly hours early, in the dark. Inky, dimly-lit if lit at all, extremely poor, bad part of town dark.

We started walking to catch a local bus into town. We rounded a dark corner and headed down an even darker street, and suddenly and quietly a big group of guys surrounded us. I think only one of them had a knife, but we were so outnumbered, and had cumbersome backpacks. They threw the three of us to the ground. They grabbed our bags.

I will tell you that from the moment that we realized we were surrounded and that one of them had a knife, I started to scream. And I couldn't stop.

You know how you sometimes dream that something terrible is happening and you can't make a sound? And you never actually know if you can until you're in a situation that calls for it? Turns out I can holler. Holy hell do I have lungs.

They asked me to stop. They told me to stop. They tried to shush me.

I could not. I screamed and screamed and screamed. I was hysterical, and I was loud.They pulled up my shirt, and I screamed some more. The rapist that attacked Maude in our apartment the year prior was fresh in my mind.

They were only looking for a money belt, which I was wearing, and which they took, and then let go of me. I was so relieved.

A taxi pulled up out of nowhere and they ran towards it. My friends got up and chased them, me holding up the rear, shrieking like a banshee. The driver was going to take the guys, he later told us, and then he looked down the road, and saw one white person, a women alone, yelling her head off.

The attackers jumped out and ran. They somehow left my backpack in the back seat.

My forearms and knees wound up massively skinned, which I didn't realize for hours. They healed in weeks, although I think I might still have faint scars on a knee. For years, however, my heart would pound if I had to walk alone at dusk or later. The sound of a footstep nearby made me start.

And ever since then I am careful, oh so careful, when I walk in the dark.

The bottom line

This post is not suitable for polite company. Or my mother. Not that she's not polite company, because of course she is.

OK. You've been warned. (You, too, Betty.)

I don't know if you know what salad tossing is. In the sexual sense, not in the pouring some olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette over your greens and mixing them around sense.

Yah, so what it means is licking someone's anus. I looked it up and it is on the Internet which means it is totally true. Which is all fine and good and I genuinely believe that people should do whatever they want as long as it is consensual and they aren't hurting anyone who doesn't want to be hurt.

With that said, I'm not tossing anyone's salad. I had E. coli as a child, thankyouverymuch.

Do you know where I grew up? Do you know how many parasitic illnesses I've had? Have you ever had food poisoning? The norovirus? Yah, so these tend to be passed by fecal-oral contact. And all it takes is a teeny tiny microscopic speck of feces in the water.

It just seems prudent to me to stay far from the source.

Nick likes to joke about this and then he makes this horrible, terrible, wretched, revolting face that he will not let me take a picture of. He does this because it elicits a visceral reaction. I'm just all, stay away from my anus and I will stay away from yours and there you have it. And stop making that vomitable face!

He thinks I can stick to a topic, but lemme tell you, the man has his own.

In fact, it occurs to me that I could list my recurring topics and I could list his and you would then know the 17.5 things that we ever talk about forever and ever and ever for richer for poorer in sickness and health and so on.

So last night he suggested, as we were about to head upstairs to watch Orange Is the New Black, that perhaps I might like to toss his salad. And then he made The Terrible Face.

He likes to say things like this when I am least expecting it. And so I said that I wouldn't mind if he paid someone to do that to him.

I mean, really.

Then he asked how much I'd do it for.

Without hesitation I said, "I would do it for $1,000,000."

A million dollars is always a safe number to throw out, if you're ever in a situation like this and have to think of a price right quick.

These conversations are not new to me. Maude and I have been talking for years about things like the minimum we'd charge to let someone poop on our feet, for example. (Nobody has ever asked either of us, in case you're wondering.)

"I bet you'd do it for $900,000."

"Well, yeah."

"How about $800,000?"

"Yes."

"Half a million?"

"No."

"Liar. You'd do it for half a million. Maybe even 200,000."

"Maybe."

"Basically, Lisa, you're now saying you'd be willing to toss salad for 80% less than originally stated."

And then I was all, "Why are you trying to shame me with the price? And anyway, it would have to be to someone else."

"Someone ELSE? No! That's not the point!"

It most certainly is. He doesn't have that kind of money, and even if he did, this is not how I'd want him spending it.

So you don't confuse them with mountains

My daughter has become extremely interested in breasts of late.

Jordan didn't do this, but I had a friend who swore her daughter had this breastfeeding radar; she could locate anyone within a one-mile radius. She'd leap up out of nowhere from where they were sitting on the beach or in the park and make a beeline for a woman nursing.

She'd jump up and sprint off and her mom would be all, "Someone somewhere is lactating."

I remember as a kid being really interested in breastfeeding. But not breasts themselves. But maybe when I was two?

"These your boomps, Mommy?"

"They sure are."

Boomps are the new black in our house.

Maybe I should've told her they were called breasts. I said "boobs" when she asked, because that's what I call them.

Well, I told her she has nipples and Jordan has nipples. They were both sitting naked at the table asking. So then she was wondering about mine.

We take them to the pool, and change in locker rooms. They're naked most of the time at home, and they see other naked people. They ask about body parts, and I tell them.

When my kids swim they are super covered, as am I, but that is about SPF and not modesty. 

Recently Jordan asked if he could go swimming naked, and I said that if we were in Europe, he could certainly be naked on the beach, but here he cannot.

"Why not?"

"People get upset."

So India has, of late, gotten all interested in the boomps. Mine, specifically. I don't know if she's interested in other people's; she hasn't done anything to suggest it.

If I'm holding her or carrying her, she sometimes gives each of my breasts a quick little pat, all, hi, friends! Sometimes she'll do it with both hands at the same time. An exuberant hellooo!

Or sometimes she'll just slip a hand inside my shirt, in the way I sometimes rest mine in a front pocket. And then she'll give a tiny squeeze. Hello again! Just checkin' on ya!

I figure this interest will fade away on its own. But for now, it's the boomps.

"Mama! You got boomps?"

And then I have to look down to see if in today's outfit I do or I don't. You never know.

She pulls my bra out of the laundry pile. "This your bra, Mommy?"

"You know it is!"

"You put it on your boomps? I put it on."

"You don't need a bra now, sweetheart."

"I have boomps, Mommy?"

"You will one day, honey. When you're grown up."

"I grow up I put a bra on my boomps!"

Rock on, sweetie pie.

I hear the train a comin'. It's rolling 'round the bend...

It really annoys me to pay for parking. I mean, even if someone else is paying, so it's not my money.

The paying for of the parking bugs me.

I'd rather walk extra blocks than pay a garage or a meter. Although with Parkmobile it is much better, because that way you don't get stuck late for a doctor's appointment on K Street and only one space but it has a broken meter that you can't put quarters in but they give you a ticket anyway.

Betty is fanatical about amassing quarters for parking. She collects them in those Altoids boxes. Which, btw, are perfect for collecting quarters.

The other day we parked at a meter, and it was Sunday so it didn't matter, but she was getting out the quarters and I said, "Actually, we don't need them. I have a parking app. It takes it off my credit card."

And even though she doesn't drive and is far from using her iPhone to its potential she was all, "I NEED A PARKING APP! WHAT'S AN APP?"

So. Parking. It irritates me to pay for parking. There's something else it really annoys me to pay for, but I can't remember what. I called Nick to ask him what else I hate paying for and he said, "sex" but that's not it.

By "that's not it" I don't mean to imply that I've paid for sex or that I wouldn't mind because I haven't and I would. But that's not it.

He agrees there's something else and he's calling me back if he thinks of it.

I don't mind paying taxes, because I think social services are important. This is a whole nother topic, however.

Anyway, the other night we watched the first episode of the first season of Game of Thrones.

I'd read the first four books ages ago and I'd been lobbying Nick to watch it, but he wasn't interested. And then finally I remembered to tell him that there was a lot of nudity and sex and then he was all, "Well, maybe we could just watch one to see if we like it."

So we paid $4 for the first episode and we loved it. And then I realized that we could just order them on DVD from Netflix for free and so I was all, let us delay this gratification and not spend $4 per episode when we can get them all free next week. Let's cast about for something else.

You guys, we turn out to be in this fabulous position, because we haven't watched anything but a movie here and there since we binge-watched House of Cards early this year. We have so many great options!

So. We started watching Orange Is the New Black. By started I mean we watched six of them in two days, which, if you have small kids and also want to sleep, is not easy. But we soldiered on!

And you guys! Why did nary a one of you take me by the virtual shoulders all, you love orange and you love funny and YOU MUST WATCH THIS SHOW!?

Oh my hell, is it terrific. I went to a dinner last night and when I got home I was sure Nick would be upstairs watching but instead he was in bed doing the crossword and when I said I thought he'd be sneak-watching without me he said he would never do that. Even if I was in prison.

If you know us, which you kind of do even if you haven't met us, you know that ever since that point in time there has been a lot of Prison Talk.

I was all, "Look at this material! Look how hilarious! I should go to prison!"

Nick was all, "You've had plenty of crazy in your life. You have enough material."

We spent some time discussing which of us would do better in prison. We both agree he would. Although I am stronger than I look and I could totally pull out the crazy mean if I had to. I think. But he'd still be better at it.

Betty, who has not yet seen it because we have to figure out the Netflix on her TV is all, "Oh, prison. Sweetheart, prison would just be no fun."

So on Monday we were organizing the kitchen and he was irritating me with his organizeyness. When Nick gets in one of his whirlwinds of he cannot take this mess one minute longer or he will explode, he gets all tense and super organizy and throw-away-y.

If he doesn't like to eat it, or if he hasn't put it there, it is in his way.

Nick buys savory condiments and Betty buys sweet ones and we have a shit-ton of condiments in our fridge. Nick basically likes meat and cheese and we often do a mediocre job of eating enough vegetables even though I buy plenty with good intentions and don't clear them out often enough.

And the papers pile up in the corner of the counter. Also, Jordan deposits his Lego and what-have-you on another counter. And yes, India feels compelled to bring her 37 stuffed animals and blankies down to the kitchen every morning.

Yes, OK, yes, our lives are messy. It's a constant battle against the detritus of childhood and my inclination towards mess. But the tension! These Must! Tidy! Now! episodes make me so agitated. If I can, I hide. If I cannot, I participate, but it stresses me the fuck out.

These are never among our finer moments. I feel trapped. I take all actions and questions as accusations. I don't want to compare myself to a small furry animal but if you've ever seen one cornered, you know how they get all wild-eyed and teeth and claws?

So Nick is snorting and stomping and throwing things away at a mad pace.

"Your mother has two smoked salmons, both open. Do we really need more than one smoked salmon?"

"Just because it's not mayonnaise, Nick, doesn't mean it's an invalid food product."

"When you get sarcastic I stop hearing you."

"WHAT I'M SAYING NOT SARCASTICALLY IS WHY DO YOU FUCKING CARE IF THERE'S MORE THAN ONE SMOKED SALMON JUST BECAUSE YOU DON'T LIKE IT?"

He must've sensed my frustration, or maybe noted the subtle gleam in my eye. Perhaps I had a tone?

"You know, Lisa, if you ever do in fact stab me, you will go to Bad Prison. Not like Orange Is the New Black Prison."

The man I love.

Dispute not with her...

Last month Nick told me that he thought it was weird that I'm still so upset about my dad.

Actually, he didn't say weird. I can't remember exactly what he said. I just remember feeling like what he meant was weird. I'm weird. I should be over it.

It's been five whole years, he pointed out.

He said he knew the news about Robin Williams would really upset me. Which is true. I started crying and couldn't stop. I cried and cried and cried. And he just thought that maybe I wasn't dealing with my grief well.

His dad died last year, and he's not still grieving.

Why am I still so upset?

Hell, I don't know. I just am sometimes. I still miss him and it still hurts.

I know I'm not the norm as human beings go, but in a Venn Diagram, I believe the Lisa circle would overlap at least a decent amount with the Normal People circle. I'm pretty sure anyway. I don't even strive to be pure normal. I just...want to be able to be normal-ish. I want to not be weird.

But it is not hard to make me feel aberrant. And I tend not to appreciate it. In a very large and stabby way.

Plus, dude! If anyone's supposed to make you feel not-weird, it's your spouse, right? If they're telling you you're a freak...you have to wonder if you really are.

So I stewed on it for a bit. As this was The Summer of Our Discontent, I mentally filed it under Things I Currently Hate About Nick. It wasn't a big file. Small, in fact. Just deep and caustic.

I walked around muttering, "Weird, my ass!" Which, uh, well, make of it what you will.

And then a couple of days later, we were out for dinner with a group of Nick's colleagues, and it turns out that one colleague's new girlfriend is a therapist. And so I asked her if I could get her opinion. I set out my scenario with my dad's death, very briefly. And asked if it was weird to still be upset.

She responded with two things. One, her father died - not by suicide - in 1998, and she's still upset about it. And two, does it prevent me from functioning in daily activities?

No. Not usually. Just sometimes I still get very sad.

Her boyfriend suggested that men and women might also process grief differently. And men might get past the emotion faster.

This is certainly possible. I don't know.

But armed with this validation, I gave Nick what-for. My grief is valid. I AM NOT WEIRD!

He didn't even know I was stewing about it. He didn't recall saying I was weird. "But," he said, "you talk about missing your dad so often. You're sad about it so much."

"So often? So much? When do we talk about it?"

And then it dawned on me: so often in person? Or so often on the blog?

"On the blog. I read every post. You talk about your dad so much lately, and it's been five years."

I said, "You do realize that the blog isn't an entire picture of who I am and our whole lives, right? Like, if you only read my blog, but didn't know me as a person, would you know everything that was going on with us?"

My blog is my head, and my blog is my place to process. Sometimes it's real life action stuff, and sometimes it's my frets, and sometimes it's my pool of tears. It's my journal, just online.

But it's not a 360 view. I'm never going to be all, we had chicken for dinner and then we watched Game of Thrones and then we took our sheets out of the dryer and made the bed and went to sleep at 11:00.

Why would I write that when I can work out my gut-wrenching emotions or fret about rabies or talk about putting raisins in Nick's anus?

So then he was all, "Oh. Well, in that case, no, you don't seem excessively upset about your dad. And I don't think you're weird."

But my takeaways are thusly: You cannot fuck with someone's relationship with their parent. You especially can't do so if said parent is dead.

And grief is an odd beast. As my cousin Lyrae pointed out, grief is not linear. It loops at unexpected times. It's not like when you head north on 95 and every mile closer to Maine is a mile farther from DC. If that makes sense.

Also, even though I totally did say that in public about the raisins, I'm not weird. I swear.