Writing About Me

My brother and his girlfriend are moving into my father's garage. My mother is moving next door to my father--with her boyfriend. My grandfather has lost control of his bowels and mows through adult diapers like there's no tomorrow. My best friend's boyfriend of five years left her suddenly. My boyfriend's birthday is tomorrow. The semester is officially done. A student recently told me I need to stop assigning readings about "cancer and dead babies and stuff."

These are some things that have been going on lately.

I know I haven't been here to tell you about them. I've been wondering why I stopped writing. I've been wondering that for a long time, actually. My reluctance to blog started shortly after I started up with The Lady-Killer. Why? Because The Lady-Killer and I spent most of the summer and fall of 2010 in bed, but we did not--contrary to Christine's opinion--develop bedsores. Also, living with someone takes up a lot of time. Seriously. There are days when I get in bed at night and think, "I wanted to do, like, eighty things all day, and yet I spent a good chunk of time lying on the couch reading a magazine and watching TLK play video games." The glorious thing about these thoughts though--and this is showing some real growth here, people--is that they generally do not bother me. The fact that I got almost no shit done would have driven me crazy, pre-TLK. But my world since TLK is like a whole new world, one where a psychiatrist prescribed me a whole mess of anti-anxiety meds. That's right. TLK is like a walking, talking anti-anxiety pill. Plus, he has a lip piercing that feels really good when you kiss him.

And here's another thing. I don't want to tell you some of these things. I mean, I do. I really do. I want to tell you about a million beautiful things about TLK--how he's so funny and charming, how he sometimes makes me giggle until I think I'm going to wet my pants, how he makes really good scrambled eggs because he puts cream cheese in them, how we sleep on the same pillow at night (a fact that, when I told my friends Emily and Christine, almost made them barf)--but I also don't want to tell you those things. I feel more private now. I want to hold some things close to the vest. (I mean, see that list of cute things about TLK up there? THAT IS NOTHING. TRUST ME.) But there's just something in me now that is saying Shhh.

I think it has something to do with me protecting TLK's privacy, and mine. I also think it has something to do with growing up. I mean, back in grad school, you could not shut me the fuck up. I wanted to talk about myself all day and night. And then after grad school, I wah-wah-wahed for months about how sad I was, about how rotten and dumb my life had become now that I had graduated and been forced out of the loving cocoon of the MFA program, where everyone is batshit crazy in really lovable (okay, mostly lovable) ways. I wah-wah-wahed over the Wily Republican, who I now, for days at a time, sometimes forget even exists (oh glorious, happy day that I never thought would come!). Then I wah-wah-wahed over having to take up waitressing when my adjunct gig was over for the summer. Oh my God, how did anyone stand me?

But now, I sort of don't want to talk about myself. And that's really startling to me, because I really love to talk, and I really love to talk about myself. (This, I think, has something to do with my family. Generally, during every phone call my mother and I have, we will spend 15 minutes detailing how stupid our relatives, our neighbors, our coworkers, or other people out in the world are. Then one of us will pause and say, "Well, you know, because we're obviously perfect." Sitting in judgment of others and thus illuminating our own awesomeness is one of our favorite pastimes, right up there with badminton and pierogi-eating.)

Anyway, sometimes I miss writing about myself, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I think, holy crap! That thing TLK is doing right now is so funny (or weird! or crazy! or ill-advised!) I really should write about it! (I've said it before, but I'll say it again: TLK is a lot like my brother. He's lovable in the same way and for similar reasons that have made a lot of complete strangers who read this blog fall in love with my brother. Therefore, I think he makes a beautiful muse.)

Still, I have struggled to get it right when writing about TLK. It's easier to write about my brother than it is to write about TLK. A lot of what's funny between me and TLK has to do with the origin of our relationship, and that's one of those private things I'm not willing to share right now. I don't really care about exposing my brother's weird foibles. The kid is related to me, but it's like he's actually not. It's actually like he's some glorious, horrible space alien that took over the room in our house that had been previously reserved for my mother's typewriter. That kid--the one who took over the typewriter room, which I used to think was its own kind of heaven? That kid I'll expose all day long. TLK though? I'd rather not. That one's all mine.

So that's part of it. The other parts I'm really still trying to understand. But right now I have the inclination to be quiet, but who knows how that's going to go and how long that's going to stick around? After all, when I go home this summer, my mother will be convincing my grandfather that he can never again leave the nursing home and return to his house and that she, in fact, will be renovating the house and moving in. (Wait. Did I say "will be renovating?" I actually mean "totally already did it and has already had new furniture delivered. Surprise, Grandpa!)

In addition, my brother and his girlfriend are consolidating all the things they went to the trouble to dig up for their new apartment, which they've only been in for one year, and they will be moving those things into a small room off to the side of my father's garage. They'll be living there for God knows who long, which means they'll be there when I arrive at my father's house for my usual summer R&R. I think this year my stay at Dad's house will be less like a quiet spa vacation and more like a sitcom staring a boy who once frittered away his life savings at a Hooters.

So maybe I'll be back, but maybe I won't. Either way, I wanted you to know that everything is good--more than good--and that I'm just wrapped up in it, loving it, and being quiet about it for right now.

So's Your Face

I'm writing something new these days. It's set in a high school in small town Maine, and while I think I can do a good job supplying the characters with dialogue that is realistic for their age group, it has been an unexpected stroke of luck to be living with The Lady-Killer, a boy who's--let's face it--closer to his old high school experiences than me, the girl who, two summers ago, had her ten year reunion.

TLK has a really robust vocabulary--I've often heard him drop words that make his friends scrunch up their noses and say, "Dude, what the fuck does that mean?"--but that robust vocabulary doesn't follow him around everywhere.

He has, after all, been known to answer the question, "What do you want to eat?" with this: "Your butt."

In fact, "your butt" or "my butt" or simply "butt" is an oft-used response in this house.

"What's shakin?"

"My butt."

"What do you want to do tonight?"

"Your butt."

"What is that?"

"Butt!"

So is it any surprise that I occasionally channel him and some of the phrases I choose for my characters? After I wrote the following exchange I took a step back, looked at it, and realized that there he was, my boy, speaking back at me through my characters:

Joe Geiger, the football team's backup quarterback, leans through the mob crowded onto the large mat to narrow his eyes at Amy. "Don't even think about it," he says. "We have a strategy here. We're, you know, trying to win."

"It's a game, Geiger," Amy says. "It's stupid."

"So's your face," Joe says, then he is swallowed up again by the group of jocks around him.

~~~

It also occurs to me that this exchange would please my brother very, very much.

A Message from The Lady-Killer, 12:30 PM

We need sugar... I had to use powdered sugar in my Kool-Aid... it sucks.

Bed Sores

The Lady-Killer and I have spent all day in bed. He got home early this morning--he'd gone up to the U. for a party last night--and we got in bed and decided to stay there. We got up only for practical things, like when I couldn't take it anymore, I was starving, I needed some food, I needed some eggs, Jesus God, after a night of drinking Drambuie and scotch, a girl needs a fried egg with cheese and hot sauce.

So I got up and fixed myself an egg. Then I thought better of it and plopped another one in the pan. TLK, after all, likes a fried egg--at the end of the semester, we went through a stage where we ate a whoooole bunch of fried egg sandwiches on homemade toast--and so I made some toast and jellied it and brought the spread back to the bed. TLK had told me he wasn't hungry when I went into the kitchen, but when I arrived back with cheesy, yolky eggs, he couldn't resist. So we ate the entire plate, and then TLK said, "Want another egg? I do." And so he went into the kitchen and--for the first time in his life--made some fried eggs.

Then we stayed in bed and watched a horrible movie called The Slammin' Salmon on Comedy Central (which, consequently, had a star rating of ZERO in the guide) and, on commercials, we played Plants vs. Zombies on the iPod.

Now it's six o'clock, and we're too lazy to fix more food, so we're going out for Mexican.

This has been a good day.

It's a Whole New World

The other day, after Katy read that The Lady-Killer had procured a pile of chips from a dumpster outside a Frito-Lay warehouse in town, she called and said, "You're SO going to eat those chips. I know you are! Jess of five years ago would have never eaten those chips! It's a whole new world."

I told her I wasn't going to eat those chips. I told her there was no way in the world I was going to eat those chips. But guess what? I ate those chips. TLK opened the bag of cheddar-sour cream Ruffles, which are, like, one of my favorites, and he said, "Hey! Look! These ones aren't even expired. They just didn't have a lot of air in the bag! I bet that's why they got thrown out."

And I tasted them. I just wanted to see. I tasted the dumpster chips.

I TASTED DUMPSTER CHIPS. What the hell is wrong with me?

TLK + Dumpster Full of Chips = My Brother?

Let me be frank: I love chips. Oh my God, I love chips. Here's how sick it is: The reason I love sandwiches so much (and I love sandwiches A LOT) is because I get to eat chips with them. If you try to give me a sandwich without chips, I am going to ask you what the hell is the point. This means that this is an apartment that is always stocked with chips. Especially now, because I live with a boy who would die for French Onion Sun Chips the same way I'd die for Doritos.

Knowing this makes you understand the crisis situation we are in right now: This apartment is chip-less. Or, to be precise, it was chip-less until late last night, when the TLK arrived home from a jaunt with one of his friends. This morning I got a look at the bounty he'd piled on the stove: bags and bags of Doritos, Ruffles, and Cheetos.

"That's a lot of chips," I said.

He looked proud. "Yup," he said.

"Where did you get them?"

"Well, I bet you don't know this," he said, "because I didn't either until last night, but there is a Frito-Lay warehouse just down the road in the industrial park."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"And so... what? They were getting rid of almost-expired chips or something?"

"Right."

"So they put them on sale and you stocked up?" I asked.

TLK smiled at me, the smile you save for a simpleton. "Something like that," he said.

I looked at him. He looked at me. I looked down at the chips.

"Did they have them in a bin out front or something?" I asked.

"Not exactly."

"Oh my God!" I said.

"They're fine!" he said.

"Oh my God!" I said. "You went dumpster diving for chips?"

"I wouldn't call it DIVING," he said. "It was just a giant dumpster full of chips. It's not like we had to pick through garbage for them or anything." He picked up one of the bags and turned it toward me. "See? It's just that today's its expiration date. No big deal." Then he realized there was a dark smudge on the bag, a crust of God-knows-what. He put it back down. "Doesn't matter," he said. "I'm still eating the chips. They're on the inside."

And that was the moment I realized TLK and my brother were the same person.

A Not Unpleasant Puke

The Lady-Killer is a pro at puking. (See also: Steph's wedding.) Well, he puked again last night, and this was a fact I did not learn until this morning, when we woke at 11:53 AM, which was long after he'd slipped into bed after getting home and kissed me several thousand times.

"Gross!" I said. "You VOMITED last night and then came home and made out with me?!"

"Hey," he said, "I brushed my teeth!"

That, at least, was true. The first thing he did when he came through the door was take off his clothes. TLK prefers nudity or almost-nudity whenever he is lounging around our apartment. If it were up to him, every day would be a no-pants party.

The second thing he did was teeter into the bathroom, where he commenced brushing his teeth vigorously (TLK is very serious about dental hygiene). He even gargled with Scope. When he got back to bed, he breathed his minty breath onto me.

"So," I said as the mint washed over my body, "you spent the night drinking peppermint Schnapps and now came home to wash it away with minty toothpaste? You're minted up."

Of course what he neglected to tell me was that he'd spent part of the night vomiting up the half bottle of peppermint Schnapps he drank (straight) before being driven back to our place, where he promptly tried to smooch me up.

"You're gross," I told him this morning.

"Well, let me tell you this," he said. "That was a not-unpleasant puke experience. Seriously! Peppermint schanpps is the way to go! It came up tasting just as minty as it went down! It's nothing like what I usually puke up."

"Ew."

"Jagermeister," he said, "usually comes up really sour. And that night at Steph's wedding? That was just a mishmash of drinks, so it was really gross. But peppermint schnapps? It's the ideal puke."

This, my friends, is handy information to have.

Honey

Yesterday was the anniversary of the seven months that the The Lady-Killer and I have been together, and to celebrate this, I am going to tell embarrassing but endlessly charming stories about him.

The day before I left for my Buffalo Christmas vacation, The Lady-Killer and I attended a family Christmas party. His father's large family had crammed into a cozy kitchen and living room to eat and engage in a large-scale Yankee Swap.

Before the swapping began, I was talking to his mother in the kitchen. We both had plates full of cookies and we were watching TLK and his brother needle each other across the room.

"You know," I said, "anytime you feel like hauling out old embarrassing pictures of TLK, I would absolutely love to look at them."

She told me that was easily done--that there was embarrassing video, too... plenty of it!--but until we could get to all that, she could tell me a few stories. Both of them had to do with TLK's father's influence on him.

"My husband," she said, "has a very dirty mouth."

We both looked across the room at TLK's dad, who was at that moment hefting a giant meatball into his mouth.

"And I kept telling him he needed to watch what he said in front of TLK because he was going to start mimicking him eventually. And then one day we were all in the car, and TLK started shouting from the backseat, 'Daddy! Fuck! Fuck, Daddy! Fuck! Fuck!' I turned to TLK's father and said, 'See? See what you've done?'"

But it turns out TLK wasn't exactly talking like a sailor for the fun of it or even because he'd heard his father say that word so many times. At that moment, a truck was passing the car, and TLK was trying to tell his parents that he was really, really excited, that he was just super psyched to see a truck--a fuck! a fuck!--cruising along next to them.

"That's adorable," I said. But it wasn't the cutest thing. The cutest thing she told me about came later that afternoon, as we were standing out in the heated garage, watching the kids try to hack apart the annual homemade Christmas pinata.

TLK had one of his little cousins in his arms, and he was holding her out at an endearingly awkward angle so she could wail on the pinata she wasn't tall enough to reach. That was cute already, but then his mother leaned over and told me a story about TLK in pre-school.

One morning, all the children were sitting around for some circle time, and the teacher was asking them questions about their lives. The first question was what are your parents' names?

One by one, each child spoke up and gave his or her parents' names. When it was TLK's turn he sat up straight and said, "My daddy's name is Tony, and my mommy's name is Honey."

His mother loved that story. "He heard his father call me that so many times he just assumed it was my name!" she laughed.

We looked at him then, and the cute little cousin he was holding out made contact with the pinata and her turn was up, so he brought her back to him, snuggled her into his chest, and I loved him so much then I thought my heart was going to burst.

Mid-Semester

I have been staring at this screen for ten minutes, and I still don't know what to write. I feel like I have a lot to say; I feel like I have very little to say.

I could tell you that I am, right now, listening to Wilson Pickett sing "I'm Not Tired" or that this fall has been a big deal for Abbey because we've introduced her to the wonders of laser pointers. I could tell you I want a pair of red boots.

I could tell you that this is the busiest semester I've ever had, that I feel now more than ever the weight of a 5-5 load, that there have been times I've cried because I've realized just how much I have to do and think there's no way it's ever going to get done.

I could tell you The Lady-Killer and I went apple-picking and I've made apple crisp, apple muffins, apple-cheddar-squash soup, apple-caramel cake, and two batches of applesauce, and I still have an entire bag of apples to use.

I could tell you that I really, really love living with a boy. I could tell you how I used to think I'd be rotten at it, but I actually think I'm pretty okay.

I could tell you that these days I am watching an awful lot of "Four Weddings" on TLC--and that this a show where four brides attend each other's weddings and then rate them, the winner getting a luxurious honeymoon prize package--and that I violently love and hate the show at the same time. I could tell you I'm still shaking my fist at Don Draper for what he did in the Mad Men season finale.

I could tell you there's a part of me that's looking forward to snow, but it's not a very big part.

I could tell you that today I climbed into my shower and bleached the walls above the tub and scrubbed them until they were bright white. I could tell you I washed a blanket Abbey threw up on, one I avoided and let sit for a few weeks.

I could tell you one of my favorite things about The Lady-Killer is the way he says ow.

I could tell you I wish my mother would come over and make me dinner. I could tell you I wish my brother would come sit on the couch with me and watch reality television with me, make me laugh, make my mother laugh, make TLK laugh, make everyone in the world laugh.

I could tell you that today while I was cleaning my office I found a tiny yellow Post-It note that says nothing good can come from working with deli meat. I could tell you in my drawer I have a slim stack of blue Post-It notes, that these are the first notes TLK wrote me, and that one of them has his number and the words you know you want to on it.

It is mid-semester, and I am tired but I am happy.

Pink Lady

Last Wednesday The Lady-Killer called me up while I was at school and said, "Hey. How do you feel about going to New Hampshire?"

As a general rule, I feel pretty good about going to New Hampshire. It has no sales tax! It has liquor outlets! Its state motto is Live Free or Die! What else could possibly be needed to coax a person into a state?

So I told TLK I felt swell about going to New Hampshire. "And just what are we going to New Hampshire for?" I asked, hoping the answer was to buy liquor and shout the badass state motto at passers-by.

"To buy a car," he said.

Turns out the hours TLK spends skulking in the CARS AND TRUCKS section on Craigslist paid off. He'd found a car he was in love with. And it was a pretty serious love. When he showed me the ad, I could see hearts and rainbows and unicorns swimming in his big eyes.

"This car," he told me, "is fast."

"Yeah?"

"I mean FAST-FAST," he said.

"I don't doubt it," I said.

TLK loves fast. When his last car could no longer pass inspection because it was rotting, he and his friends tore everything "unnecessary" out, hollowing it out to be a rally car.

One day he and I went to his house, picked up his brother, and together we drove down to an old railroad bed that was now a rough gravel road that extended God knows where. TLK pointed his car toward the God knows where and asked which of us wanted the first ride.

His brother went first. And when they came back, the brother's face was flushed and excited. "I screamed!" he said. "Also, we were air-born!"

Then it was my turn. "Listen," I said as I buckled myself in, "if you kill me, my father is going to be very disappointed in you."

TLK nodded gravely and then, in the next second, he had us roaring down the road and we were transformed into nothing more than a spout of dust. And then we went air-born as TLK launched us over a bump.

I don't know what the appropriate reaction to a thing like that is, but the reaction my brain chose at that moment (and most moments since) was laughter. I squealed and I giggled and I buried my head in my heads.

When we got back to where we'd left his brother standing, TLK cracked a grin my way. "Just imagine if this was turbo," he said.

So it didn't surprise me at all last week that he decided in order to properly grieve for the loss of his beloved car (the one now turned in a hollowed-out shell of its former self), in order to properly process the loss, in order to move past the heartbreak, he needed to buy a car that would smoke his old car.

So I told him, yeah, okay, let's go to New Hampshire. Sure. Why not?

And so we did, and TLK inspected his car and then forked over the money for it and said, "I'll follow you home."

When we got home a few hours later, I parked my car and TLK pulled up behind me. I grabbed my purse and stepped out of my car. And then he gave me a gesture--a simple nod--that almost made my heart explode out of my chest. Here was a boy who was so pleased with himself, so happy, and he wanted to take me for a ride in his fast car, so he was giving me a nod, telling me, "Hey, Baby. Jump in." It was the world's most perfect nod, born of beautiful old films where the men wore leather jackets and white t-shirts and tight jeans, where they smoked cigarettes and slung a sun-tanned arm out the window of whatever smooth machine they were driving. It was American Graffiti meets a Bruce Springsteen video.

I went around, opened the passenger door. I slid into the seats--which were not normal seats but seats you'd find in a racecar--and strapped myself down.

One minute later, after TLK had driven us down the long road that circles the small airport around the corner from my apartment, we were sideways. The car was roaring, I was screaming, TLK was smiling as much as I'd ever seen him smile. We tore into a curve and the car slid through it gracefully, as if over ice.

It was then that I realized something very important about myself: I have always wanted to be this girl. I am the girl Milner gets stuck riding with in American Graffiti. I am a Pink Lady. I am, at all times, hoping to star in my own version of Grease. This would explain why I consistently disappointed my friend Greg in grad school when I chose rough-tough-working boys instead of, say, poets, which was who he thought I should be with. I said I wanted a man who could discuss literature with me, who would write poetry about the way my hair smelled or the way I looked coming out of the shower, but, really, honestly, deep down I wanted nothing to do with them and everything to do with someone who could get his hands dirty in a way most darling MFA boys will not.

If I'm completely honest with myself, I am certain this has something to do with the types of men I grew up around--my grandfather, my uncle, my brother, my father. My father, of course, isn't a rough-tough-dirty-man in the way that some of the others on that list are, but he grew up around cars. He grew up loving cars. He's the type of man who can identify the make, model, and year of any old car when it passes on the street. He's the type of man who, when I smile and ask him sweetly, will change my brakes for me.

So maybe I've always been looking for what I'm used to. And while I was in the sideways car, shrieking and giggling and saying, "Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!" I realized that, hey, look at this. I've found something I've always been secretly looking for, and in finding it, I have managed to transform myself into the girls I always wanted to be, the girls I always identified with: the ones who would run down the stairs and into the car of a boy who's wanting to take them out, show them some fun, drive them fast along the dark country roads where no one else is around and all that's there is the long squeal of a tire and a quick flash of light in the place where, just seconds ago, a car had been.

In the Closet

It was all very Sex and the City in my apartment on Saturday morning. I was cleaning out my closet, shoving things this way and that, and trying to find room that really wasn't there. There was good reason for this: I was trying to find a small corner of space for The Lady-Killer's clothes, which were belching out of a series of suitcases and backpacks on my bedroom floor.

And here's the interesting part: I wasn't annoyed by the pile of clothes. I wasn't distressed or antsy or whipped into a frenzy by some Virgo desire to seize those clothes and fold them--every last one--into a tight square of fabric. His clothes have been in a corner of my room for a few months now, and I've simply cleaned and vacuumed around them. TLK has a streak of OCD--he seriously loves seeing things arranged in crisp right angles--and he is, as a general rule, tidy. His clothes are contained and never spread about. There is never a trail of his socks and underwear, his jeans, his t-shirts, strewn about the apartment. He does not shed things as he comes through the door at night. Instead, he goes into my bedroom and removes his clothes, leaves them in a neat little pile under one of the windows.

So I wasn't moved to find closet space for him because his clothes were driving me crazy or cramping my style; instead, I was trying to find him closet space because I felt sort of bad for him, the boy who's been living out of suitcases and backpacks since May.

In the beginning, TLK was careful and unobtrusive about his things. When he came over, he usually had a single small backpack, which he would take into my office and store there, between my floor lamp and the giant box of batting Abbey likes to sleep in. I don't know if he knew he had to be gentle with me, that he had to ease me into the idea of an increased intimacy or what, but TLK did it just right. Eventually, the backpack migrated from the office into my bedroom, and now, after two weeks of his housesitting, the backpack has multiplied to several and a suitcase. For three months, TLK has been a perpetual sleepover guest. And on Saturday I felt like it was time to give him a little room of his own.

After all, I'd already suffered the shock of opening my medicine cabinet on my return to Maine and seeing the empty space I'd left filled with his things: deodorant, contacts, saline solution, packets of Vitamin D for his new tattoos.

Because the cabinet was full of those things, there was no room for my makeup bag, my brush, my lotions, my perfume. And for a second I panicked. Where would my things go? I was just one girl, and I had lived in this apartment for a year and a half, and it was already pushing capacity in a way that has me storing my vacuum in my bedroom closet, and it's such a tight fit that you can hear its handle scrape the door every time you open or shut it.

But then I took a deep breath and realized I was insane, that there was plenty of room, that I just needed to get creative. And I did, and it only took all of fifteen minutes of rearranging. So I figured I could extend the creativity to the closet, which, yes, was more difficult, but we got it done. TLK managed to line up a few piles of pants, shirts, and socks on one of my shelves.

And when we were done I felt pretty good. I felt pretty accomplished. It seemed like a big deal because, as should be pretty evident by now, I am completely insane and have unreasonable expectations about pretty much everything, including how things need to go and be in my apartment.

It's a miracle anyone even wants to spend time here.

And later, when I called Amy, I told her when I stepped back and surveyed the finished work, I had a few Sex and the City flashbacks, that I was thinking of that episode where Big gives Carrie the pink brush head to his toothbrush. Carrie, of course, thought it was a big deal. That pink toothbrush must mean something! It must be a demonstration of his feelings for her (it wasn't) or a promise of things to come (negative) or a declaration of his intent to change (forget it). It was just a tooth brush head he wasn't using.

But this felt more important than all that. It seemed like something more. That I wasn't panicking, that I wasn't spiraling into a frightened corner of my mind was a testament to something--whether it was him or me or the two of us together. Something is different in me these days--there's less insanity, less struggle for control and perfection, less need to have everything in my life be perfectly planned and considered--and it's liberating.

We don't really "live together" right now, but the arrangement is pretty close. And when I used to think about how it would be to live with a boy, I thought it would be terrifying. Frightening. Horrible. Awful. I thought I'd hate it, that I wouldn't really be capable of it, that I'd fail, that I'd drive the boy crazy. But here's what I know right now: This weekend I cleared out a section of my closet for all the right reasons--not because I was getting frustrated by his things but because I wanted him to feel like he was valued, that he was someone who didn't need to constantly run a backpack of clothes between his house and mine. And I'm not terrified, frightened, or horrified. I'm just here, and he is too.

The Cat Whisperer

"Watch this," The Lady Killer said to me the day I got home to Maine from The Everyone I Went to Grad School with Had a Baby Summer Tour of 2010.

He bent and scooped up Abbey. He held her close. He nuzzled her under his chin. He kissed her head once, twice, three times.

Abbey didn't make a single sound. She didn't growl, cry, or fuss. She simply submitted to his love. She even leaned into him.

"Holy shit," I said.

"I know!" he said.

Weeks before, their relationship was a bit more complicated: Abbey would give him a single minute's worth of affection, and then, just as he was getting into petting her, she would step back and snarl and hiss. She would bite him. She was saying, "Hey, Motherfucker. Back the fuck off."

This wasn't out of the ordinary, really. Abbey used to be a really sweet, really cuddly and kind cat--back when she was little. I have pictures of everyone holding her. My brother, my mother, the Possibly-Gay-Black-Belt, my mother's boyfriend, my father. She accepted love at every turn.

But then something happened.

It's impossible to know exactly when or why. This cat has never suffered any trauma. She simply was born, lived at my uncle's house with her mother until she was old enough to leave, and then she went with me to Maine, where she spent her kitten days doing everything a kitten loves: destroying things. My curtains. My bedspread. My office chair. A couple purses. A table cloth. My sleep schedule.

But even though I was frustrated by her kitten ways, and even though she was as bad as a newborn child, and even though whenever I turned my back she launched at the curtains and clawed her way up them until she was too high to get down--which meant she cried and cried and cried until I came back in the room and had to remove her claws one by one until she was no longer stuck to the curtains--I loved that cat more than anything. My love for her was obscene (I got excited on the drive home from school because I knew I was on my way home to her) and embarrassing (she has a Facebook fan page). When she had a bad reaction to her first round of shots, I cancelled a much-needed post-move massage and stayed in bed with her all day.

She has known nothing but love. But she knew it from me. We were, after all, mostly alone. For a long time, I didn't have many visitors to my apartment here in Maine. That's not true anymore--Abbey's got lots of people around her these days--but maybe she got a little strange, a little finicky, a little bitchy because of that. Maybe her aggression and bad attitude was her protecting me. Who knows? But I am certain of this: She hated everyone but me.

And Abbey did not make an exception to this rule for The Lady Killer. He could get down on his knees and stare soulfully into her eyes--he could roll out the glow he shines on for old waitresses and cute check-out girls--and he could say, "Abigail, all I want to do is love you!" and she would still hiss at him. And then he'd turn to me and say, "Dude, your cat is a BITCH."

And it was true. Until what I'll call The Miracle.

The Miracle started poorly, like so:

It was the day TLK and I were leaving for New York, to the Great Pink Torpedo Wedding of 2010, and the car was packed. All the suitcases and laptops and shoes and food was loaded up for the nine hour drive. All we had left to do was put Abbey in her carrier and take her down to the car.

Abbey has never really been a fan of her carrier, but I can always get her into it. When she was a kitten, it was simple. I just chucked an earplug into the carrier, and she skittered after it. Or, alternatively, I'd place a pile of treats in the back of the carrier and tell her to go at it. She wised up to that tactic pretty quick, though. Now when I try the food trick, she attempts to break into the carrier from the other end so she can steal the treats and go on her merry way without ever stepping foot into it. The last time I got her into the carrier--for the June trip to New York--I had to use a massive spoonful of Reddi-Whip to coax her inside, and she still put up quite the fuss.

But this time, she was having none of it. Reddi-Whip wouldn't do it. Treats or toys wouldn't do it. I even tried a bowl of heavy cream. She simply looked up at me with eyes that said, "Mama, do you think I'm an idiot?"

Thus began the struggle. I tried to place her in the carrier, but Abbey suddenly morphed into a flailing toddler and found a way to block the entrance to her carrier with a tangle of limbs. Nothing I could do could hold her down or fold her limbs under her so she slid inside. She cried.

I won't lie: I cried too. I imagine I was feeling a little something like what mothers feel when they have to send their babies off to daycare or school and the kids just don't want to go and they scream and cry until their voices are raw. I wanted to tell my cat I was just kidding, that we didn't have to go anywhere, and that we could spend the rest of the day in bed watching all the best episodes of The West Wing. But that wasn't true. We couldn't. We needed to get our asses in gear.

So then I had TLK hold the carrier and I tried to drop her down into it in one slick motion, but once again she turned into a wild, clawing thing. She sliced my pinkie open and TLK had to perform emergency first aid to stop the bleeding. And by that time it was clear: She was not getting in the carrier. She was crying. I was crying. TLK was trying to tell me it was okay, it would be fine, he could take care of her when he flew back to Maine after the wedding.

He'd be back in five days. The longest I'd ever left her with her extended feeders was four days, while I was in Washington. And when I came back from that trip, the cat vaulted at me and climbed up my leg and wouldn't let me go for two entire days. What would she be like after five days?

But there was no choice. We needed to get on the road, and we couldn't get the cat into the carrier, so I loaded up the feeders and we headed off to New York.

And while I was in Wisconsin and Minnesota, I got sporadic cat updates, but none of them were glowing. Abbey was mostly ignoring TLK. She was sleeping on top of the fridge and hissing whenever he came near her. If his friends came over, she was similarly unpleasant. But then, a few days before I came home, there was a shift. By the time I arrived back in Maine, Abbey was feeling more loving toward TLK, and she was following him around, letting him pet her, pick her up, kiss her. "Come here, kitten!" he'd call, and she'd come over and rub up on his leg. It was miraculous.

The good attitude has even applied to people beyond TLK and me. When TLK's best friend came over the other night, he called us into the living room and whispered, "I have been petting this cat for five minutes, and she hasn't hissed once!"

It was so clear: TLK cat-whispered Abbey into good behavior.

Then, this morning, the crowning glory: TLK came back home after an early meeting, and I was still in bed. Abbey had been under the covers with me, but she'd leapt out when she heard her boyfriend come through the door. She trotted out to meet him, and when he climbed under the covers with me, Abbey hopped up on the bed. It was the first time she'd even dared to step on the bed when he was in it with me.

We both held our breath. And then Abbey draped herself over his legs and snuggled in to sleep with us.

"Oh my God," I whispered. "My heart is full to bursting." And it wasn't an exaggeration.

One of These People Puked in the Bushes Outside a Wedding Reception (Hint: It Wasn't Me)

Hey! I'm home for the next big Pink Torpedo weekend, which took place this weekend. I brought The Lady-Killer home with me for the event, and when he wasn't busy using my father's label maker to print off such gems as BUTT MUNCH and SHIT ASS and I HEART WIENER, he got to meet my friends and family. He also got to vomit up an open bar rainbow of wine, champagne, espresso vodka, Sex-on-the-Beach, and rum-and-coke. This was after I gave my brother, who was picking us up from the wedding, a no-puke guarantee.

I never thought I'd say this, but cleaning vomit out of a car in high heels and a strapless dress at 1:00 AM is a pretty interesting way to end an evening. Especially after peeling a boy who is murmuring, "Baby, I'm so sorry! I love you! You know I love you, right? I love you! I puked in my crotch!" out of his clothes and putting him in the shower, then to bed.

But you know what? It doesn't matter. Both of us--the late-night puke-cleaner and the passed-out vomitter--looked pretty good when the night started.

The Inspiration

The Lady-Killer brought over a Netflix copy of Wayne's World tonight, and we watched it while eating far too many S'Mores brownies.

When it came time for the part in the movie where Wayne lays eyes on Cassandra for the first time--you know, when "Dream Weaver" plays--I looked over and said, "So, is that what happens whenever you look at me? Does 'Dream Weaver' start playing?"

TLK shook his head. "No," he said. "Not that song. What's in my head is--" And here he switched to singing. "--You're the meaning in my life... You're the inspiration!"

That boy was singing me this:

It was like an eighth grade dance all over again.

King of the Nuggs

World, meet The Lady-Killer, who has a bad addiction to Burger King chicken nuggets, Arizona iced tea, and Monster energy drinks.

If you couldn't tell, he also likes to pose for ridiculous (read: fantastic) pictures. See?

Just the other day, on our way to the beach--you know, the time we almost died--he was craving McDonald's, so we did the drive-thru and he promptly set about eating his two McChickens and fries. TLK does not like to mix food groups. He eats all of one thing then moves on to the next thing. He started with the fries. He'd made me ask for extra ketchup--"I don't think that's enough," I had to tell the man at the drive-thru window when he dropped a few into the bag. "This guy REALLY likes his ketchup."--and he started with the fries. Instead of creating a ketchup puddle and dunking his fries into it, he opted instead to take this approach: He ripped open a tiny packet of ketchup and squeezed a gob into his mouth before jamming some fries in there.

This is also the boy who, as I was getting ready in the bathroom the other day, trudged by murmuring, "I'm fancy. I have fancy pants!"

Why? I have no idea.

So if you're wondering if I feel pretty lucky about the summer I'm having and about all the giggling I'm doing, the answer is yes.

If You're Keeping Track, This Is Near Death Experience #2

Yesterday I got up and checked the weather. I'd been craving beach--ocean beach--since I got back to Maine, and I was bound and determined to go. The weather report for Phippsburg, Maine--home to Popham Beach, one of my favorite places in the world--was simple. It said the highs would be in the 80s and there might be some fog. The tide was high at 1:00, and the tide would be at its lowest around dinner time.

Perfect.

We got to the beach at 3:00, when the tide was still receding. It had shrank back enough to unearth the craggy island that it swallows at high tide, and lots of people were out exploring the tide pools that had been left behind. So we set up our blanket, stripped down, and headed off.

The water was freezing. The water is always freezing. But it didn't matter because the weather was warm, and I was happy to be at the ocean, and The Lady-Killer was happy to be exploring the caves and fissures between the rocks.

"I'm Maine's answer to Steve Irwin!" he said after he had words with a seagull, chased a crab, and dug through the tide pools to snatch up a translucent (and tiny) crab skeleton that had been molted away.

When we'd walked out to the island, when we'd started our exploring, the weather had been clear enough. There'd been fog and mist, sure, but it hadn't been anything alarming. But over that hour and a half we were on the island, the fog really rolled in. Before I knew it, I was turning to look back at the beach and it wasn't there. I couldn't see a quarter mile into the distance.

This was no big deal. I knew the situation with the tides. It wasn't like we needed to worry about getting off the island and back to shore before high tide washed in; it had just been high tide. There were plenty of people around--tourists with cameras, fishermen casting off the rocks, children splashing through the coves--and everything was normal.

But eventually I got hungry, I got thinking about the peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches I had in my backpack, I got to thinking about that bag of Doritos I had, and TLK had explored himself right out, so we climbed down off the island and started back.

We were leisurely about it. TLK did a few brave dives into the waves as they peeled off the sandbars, and he came out shivering every time. But it was getting hard to see him each time he went running out into the water. It was getting hard to see anything.

I've been to Popham Beach about a bajillion times in my life, and I'm familiar with its layout. It's an interesting beach because it's cut in two by run-off from a river that gives the water, when it comes in, some interesting tug and tow, which makes it good for surfers. This pattern makes it a little more tricky than a standard straight-shot coastal beach. It also makes for some interesting mini sand spits--tiny little islands, really--when the water is coming and going. On a sunny day, all of that is as plain as day, and you can make your way to and from the island without so much as getting wet.

But when TLK and I were heading back, I started to get nervous. I was sure we were on the stretch of sand that led back to the beach, but as we walked through the thick fog--and by this point we couldn't see ten feet in front of us--I could see the land shrinking, narrowing.

"I don't get it," I said. "The tide's not supposed to be coming in. It's supposed to be going out. This doesn't make any sense."

And then suddenly there was no more beach, and we were standing ankle-deep in the freezing water.

"Baby," I said. "Baby, seriously. What's going on?"

"I don't know," he said. "It's okay. It probably comes back up there. Let's just keep walking a little bit."

I nodded and took his hand, but already there were bad things kicking around my head. I had a really awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something was not right.

Soon, we were up to our knees. I could feel the hungry lick of the current under the water, and I began to panic.

"I'm scared," I said. It was the first time I'd said it aloud, but I'd been feeling that for minutes now. "I'm really, really scared."

"No," TLK said. "No, it's okay. Don't be scared. It'll be fine. I mean, there are a ton of people back behind us. We can just walk back that way."

That didn't make me feel any better. I imagined the other people back on the island still exploring, still taking their pictures as the water rolled over the sand between us. We would be stuck. We would be trapped. And there was no way anyone could see that we were trapped.

Or, if not that, then this: We would walk back to the island, yes, and we would find everyone gone--or suddenly surprised at the turn of events, at the water that was filling in and cutting us off from the mainland, which we couldn't see, couldn't even begin to imagine anymore--and we would all climb to the very top, the very tip, which was the only part of the island that didn't get swallowed by the ocean during high tide.

Or if not that, then this: We would walk back to the island and it would be just me and TLK, and we would sit there, waiting to be rescued, waiting for the Coast Guard's chopper when the lifeguards were closing up shop and found an unclaimed beach setup. There we would be--clutching each other in the dark, in the cold, in the mist from the waves that slapped around us--and our teeth would be chattering, and we would be freezing, we would be dying, and they wouldn't get to us in time, and then for years we would become the cautionary tale every Maine mother told her children when she sent them off to the beach with friends.

Or if not that, then this: We would decide that we couldn't be too far off coast and that we could swim it. I'm not a very strong swimmer--Amy once had to save me when I choked on a wave and then, predictably, started drowning on a choppy day at Long Point, and I haven't been confident in my abilities since--and so I could see TLK having to calm me down, drag me along, pull me like a lifeguard pulling a child from the deep end. I would be too scared to help, and I would panic, and I would make us drown.

I was certain of one of those outcomes. It was going to happen. We were done for. We were toast.

So we turned around, and I held the TLK's hand tighter than I've ever held it, and I thought about his mother and how much she was going to hate me for killing her son.

TLK was very quiet. I was very quiet. We walked back to where the sand started and widened, where he'd been diving into the waves. We walked and walked and walked. We couldn't see anything. We couldn't hear anything.

But then, coming through the curtain of fog, was a woman and her son.

I was near tears, and I leaned into TLK. I wondered if she and her son were doomed, just like us. "Do you think I should ask her?" I said. "Maybe there's another way back to the beach."

And then I was turning to her, excusing myself, asking her if she knew how to get back to the beach. Then, delicately--because I didn't want to alarm her, her son--I said, "We thought we were headed back there, but when we got up ahead everything's flooded in."

She smiled. Oh, that smile! It was heaven! It was salvation! She wasn't going to smile at me if she was suddenly realizing that she and her son--and the two people standing in front of her, hands linked so tight their fingers were turning white--were minutes from certain death.

"Oh yes," she said. She turned and pointed into the fog behind her. "Keep going back this way," she said. "Eventually, you'll see a ribbon of sand to your right. That'll take you back to the beach. Right now you're on a little peninsula that extends out from it."

And she was right. Maybe twenty feet away from us, there was a meandering sand path back to the beach, which we had missed when TLK was going in-out-in-out of the water and I was laughing at the way he ran into it--wide-armed, spastically. When we cleared the thick hang of fog and could finally see our stuff, we walked to it quickly, collapsed on it. I had never been happier to see my beach bag.

We stayed that way--face down, shivering--on the blanket for a long time. We didn't even move to eat our sandwiches; we simply raised our heads enough to get them into our mouths. It's just that we were so happy to feel dry earth, to know we weren't about to be swallowed up by the sea, swallowed up by the call of the lighthouse fog horn, the last lonely sound we'd hear before we let the undertow take us.

My Own Little Boom Boom Pow

Last night I almost died.

At 10:05 PM I was sitting on the shore of one of Maine's many charming ponds--The Lady-Killer and I were spending time with his cousins at his family's camp--and the boys (TLK, two cousins, and his younger brother, who, for the majority of the day, spoke in the Old Gregg voice) were setting up fireworks the cousins had smuggled in from Massachusetts.

It had been a long day. I'd ridden on top of TLK's lap in a kayak made for one. I'd been chucked off a water trampoline with such vigor that my bathing suit readjusted itself inappropriately. I'd spent the rest of the time watching the water trampoline action from the safety of two noodles I propped under my head and feet so I could float in the 80 degree water without fear of exposing myself to wholesome New England boys. I'd played a rousing game of Uno that went on for over an hour, in which the boys shouted, "I fucking hate you, you motherfucker!" whenever someone used a draw four card or skip card on them. I'd been serenaded by these same boys as they, during quiet Uno moments, rapped, in unison and a capella, songs that talked about living large, spending money, loving pretty but sexually promiscuous women, and driving fast cars. I'd giggled and giggled and giggled when the four of them chanted, "I like it when you call me Big Poppa! Throw your hands in the air if you's a true player!"

But by 10:05 PM, I was ready to go home. I was feeling a little punchy, and--I won't lie--fireworks make me nervous. Once, when I was young, my father and uncle set off fireworks behind my uncle's house on the Fourth of July, and one of the fireworks had gone off wonky, had shot off into the woods, and my father and uncle took off sprinting and the women and children stood on the porch wondering if this was it, if the boys were going to burn the whole woods down with this stunt. And if there's anything I'm a pro at, it's worrying--and I had that skill down even as a child. I went to bed that night thinking there was a possibility that the firework was still sizzling underneath a pile of dry leaves, sparking and spitting and waiting to take the woods out with one hot breath.

This old fear was not helped last night by the fact that the boys handling the fireworks are not old enough to rent a car. It was not helped by the fact that boys took any chance they could find to toss firecrackers or spinning sunflowers at each other so that they exploded at their feet--or, in one case, on someone's back. It was not helped by the fact that when this happened, the boys would scream, "OUCH, YOU FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER!" and then they would laugh and say, "THAT WAS EPIC! THAT WAS AWESOME!"

From 9:00 to 10:30, I was ten seconds away from standing up, putting on Teacher Voice, and telling those boys to PUT THOSE FIREWORKS AWAY AND SIT DOWN AND BE STILL BEFORE SOMEONE LOSES A FINGER, FOR GOD'S SWEET SAKE.

I relaxed a little bit after the first few rounds of bigger fireworks, because those couldn't be thrown at people and because the boys had towed in a small barge that floated just off shore, and that's where they shot the impressive fireworks off from. After a few fountains, I realized the boys at least knew which way the fireworks needed to be pointed and that no one had burned an appendage off yet, so I took a few pictures. I ooohed and ahhhed.

But then one of TLK's cousins picked up a spent firework and placed it in the bonfire that was built mere feet from the bench where I was sitting. My whole body froze. I looked at the boy, looked at the other boys. I waited for someone to shout at the cousin, to tell him to stop being a fucking motherfucker, that you shouldn't put fireworks--spent or not--in a fire.

In that moment, I felt a transcendentally-projected version of my father sitting next to me on the bench. He put his arm around me, sighed, shook his head. "That," he said, "is not a smart idea."

"Oh Jesus," I murmured.

"That might not be a good idea," one of the boys finally said.

"Oh, it's FINE," another said.

And then I watched the fire get loaded with the carcasses of Roman candles and cherry bombs and cakes. At first the boys were careful about at least settling the fireworks face-down in the fire, but after a while they got a little caught up in their excitement about the next one about to go off, and they'd just toss the cases and let them fall whatever way they pleased.

Which means, of course, that it was inevitable. Of course it was.

And at 10:05 PM, just as TLK's thirteen year-old cousin settled next to me on the bench, one of the bigger fireworks erupted, and a lick of fire exploded out from the middle, headed right for the bench. All I saw was green flame, and I took off. I don't think I've ever moved so fast in my life. I had no control over my body; it simply went. I could hear the explosions crackling behind me, and then, after I turned when I thought I was a safe distance away, more came belching out from the fire, so I launched behind a beached kayak.

When TLK found me, after he and his cousins put out the towel and chair that had caught fire--"DUDE!" the thirteen year-old yelled. "THAT WAS MY FUCKING TOWEL, ASSHOLES!"--I was quivering and sitting on top of the kayak. I was holding everything I'd come with.

"You okay?" TLK asked. He petted the top of my head.

I was in the throes of a nervous breakdown because those boys were laughing and starting to set up the next round of fireworks.

"No," I said.

"Are you having an anxiety attack?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I almost threw myself on you to save you," he said.

"ALMOST?"

"Well, you were out of there so fast I wouldn't have caught you," he said. He poked the bag I was cradling in my arms, the towel I had wrapped around my shoulders. "And look," he said. "You grabbed all your stuff when you ran."

I frowned.

"Want to go home?" he asked.

I didn't say anything. I just stared at him.

And that's when his cousin threw a firecracker at his feet, and it exploded inches from me.

Needless to say, we were hiking our way back to my car real quick after that. And later, while we were standing in the middle of a gas station mini-mart and trying to decide what to get to eat and drink, I felt very lucky, very grateful for the Mountain Dew, the Mike and Ikes, the Junior Mints we would buy and eat, and how much better they tasted than whatever they would've served up in the hospital, had I been transported there to recover from third degree burns. Right then and there, the melty taste of mint on my tongue was heaven.

How to Become a Girlfriend

I cannot even begin to describe the differences between last summer and this summer.

Last summer I was committed to my writing. I'd set a deadline for myself. I wanted my story manuscript to be done by the end of May. So, for that first glorious month off, I wrote and wrote and wrote. I also did a lot of yoga, walking, and eating of All Bran products.

At lunch, I stopped writing and paused for egg salad (or tuna or bologna or turkey) sandwiches and to watch a little West Wing. I'd try to write again in the afternoon, and at 4:30, I was starving and spending many minutes telling myself it was insane to get hungry at 4:30 PM, that no one but 85 year-olds get hungry for dinner at 4:30 PM, that surely getting hungry at 4:30 PM meant I was a freak--a depressed little freak--and that I needed something other than food to occupy my mind.

Occasionally, I'd meet Emily in Portland for drinks or force my office-mate to fill large water bottles with white wine so we could stand in the never-ending ocean mist of Summer 2009 and watch the tide come in.

It was a quiet summer.

This summer, however, is not quiet.

This summer I'm staying up late and sleeping in late and eating at strange hours and saying yes to everything. Do I want to drink martinis and play Dance, Dance Revolution? Yes! Do I want to drive to the top of the parking ramp downtown and take pictures? Yes! Do I want to have some drinks and then go make fun of the bad screenwriting in the new Robin Hood movie? Yes! Do I want to learn how to drive a manual transmission, even though I am confident I will suck at it? Yes! Do I want to drink more Jagermeister than I've drunk in my entire life? Yes! Do I want to go sit in a tiny room and see a tattoo being etched into someone's skin? Yes!

And this--the tattoo-watching--brings me to my point: I am now someone's girlfriend.

This may not have been the point you thought you were going to get out of the tattoo story, but, well, it is.

It started like this:

On Friday night, at 10:30 PM, I was standing in my kitchen, in front of a steaming wok, and I was making stir-fry. Normally, 10:30 would be way past my dinner time, but my entire sense of time has been skewed in the last month because there's this boy here now, and we stay up late, and we sleep in even later, and we sometimes forget to eat, and when we do remember to eat, it's usually at awkward times. I'm skipping breakfast and eating lunch at 4:30 in the afternoon.

And Friday was really no different. We'd been running around all day, and finally, after we got back to my apartment, we were starving. So I was doing my thing--I was chopping onion and mushroom and peppers--when the boy came and leaned next to me.

"So," he said, "I'm trying to figure out how to introduce you tomorrow."

Saturday was going to be a big day for him. We had to wake up early in the morning so that the boy could get his second tattoo. And I would guess that normally, in a regular ol' tattoo shop, no one would bat an eye if a guy brought a girl in the door with him. They'd just assume that the girl was the guy's woman, his old lady. But we weren't going to a tattoo shop for this tattoo. We were going to the house of a guy the boy used to work with. He did tattoos in a space off his living room, and he would probably be mildly interested in the girl who was sitting in the corner with her nose buried deep into Aryn Kyle's Boys and Girls Like You and Me. I would have to be acknowledged somehow.

"I think it's really sweet that you're thinking about this," I said.

"I want to introduce you as my girlfriend," he said. He flashed a smile at me--and that's when things started going a little crooked in my head. This boy has a smile with wattage that does some serious damage when it's aimed directly at you. This, among other things, is the reason he has quite the following of girls, a verifiable harem. Wherever he goes, women of all ages fall down around him. His aura is constructed completely of charm. And when that charm is directed at me, I'm useless. Absolutely useless.

He is, if nothing else, a lady-killer.

And The Lady-Killer had recently begun trying to convince me that I should be his girlfriend. At the beginning, I wasn't too keen on the idea, but a few weeks into things I was lying in bed and listing for him all the things that could go disastrously wrong if we really got into a relationship together, which clearly meant I was considering it. Here's how we would fail, I said. Here's what you would hate about me. Here's how I'd drive you absolutely fucking crazy.

But TLK didn't care about any of that. He just kissed me and told me he knew what he wanted.

And on Friday night, he was telling me again he really wished I was his honest-to-God girlfriend, that he could introduce me that way.

"So introduce me that way," I said.

"But it's not true," he said. "I don't want to say something that's not true." And then he smiled again, opening his eyes--also beautiful, also lethal--wide.

And looking at him--that smile, those eyes--I couldn't help myself. I heard all the lists I'd been making, the ones that had been clattering around inside my skull, suddenly go quiet. Then I heard only one thing, and that thing was telling me to stop being a pussy and just do it.

"Well, maybe it should be true," I said.

He stared at me. This wasn't exactly the response he'd been expecting.

I stirred the wok and set the spoon aside. "It could be true," I said. "I mean, you wear me down about everything else. You always get what you want."

"Oh!" he said. "I see! You don't really want to! You'd just do it to get me to shut up!"

I stood on my tiptoes and matched our foreheads together. "That's not what I mean at all," I said, "and you know it. I'm saying you're very persuasive, and this is what I want, but I've been scared. It's going to happen eventually, so why not now?"

"Really?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"No, really?" he asked.

I told him yes, really, really, really. It was true. I was his girlfriend now. And why? Because he'd needed to know how exactly to introduce me to the guy who would spend a few hours inking his skin the next morning. But it was more than that, of course. It was because I was happy, that I was delirious, that I was breathless from a month of being with him. It was because I knew I was going to give in eventually, that I wanted what he wanted, that I always had.

And the next morning I spent four hours in a chair holding his legs because the room was too small and the chair was too small for him to stay on his side without help. I held his legs and flipped through my book, through his magazine, through my magazine. I made small talk with a tattoo artist with a bald head and a kilt, and I told jokes and watched as first the outline then the blue went onto his skin. And outside, just beyond the door, summertime reruns were playing on the television and just-born puppies were yowling. I sat very, very still and thought how strange everything was, but how nice, too. I couldn't stop thinking about how, just before falling asleep the night before, he'd said, "Goodnight, Girlfriend" and I'd said, "Goodnight, Boyfriend" and that was the only thing in my head--that and nothing, nothing else. I didn't hear my lists and my reasons why we shouldn't. I didn't hear panic. I didn't hear what everyone else was going to say. I heard nothing but him, nothing but me, and that was almost as good as a miracle.