Grace.

I remembered her tonight as I drank organic blueberry-pomegranate juice. I thought that grandma should have some, and that mom should bring her some next time in a Tupperware sippy cup. Maybe mom will find a straw in the kitchen. Grandma doesn’t eat much anymore, nothing solid. Most things come back up again anyway. So if mom brings her this juice, she’ll really like it. And blueberries are good for you.

I’m not anywhere near her nursing home, and I’m not anywhere near my mom. And my grandma isn’t around anymore, not even at the nursing home, but I swore for a split second as I tasted the gritty blueberry seedlings, feeling them between my teeth, that she was still in that permanent and helpless state. How I got used to that. The decline and perpetual drowning. Completely submerged at the bottom of the pool, the weight just won’t let up to at least free the body to float to the surface. How permanent a slow decline can be, how indefinitely hopeless, permanently not alive and not dead.

I hate that when I think of her I don’t remember the good times. I just remember in flinching seconds that she was never going to get better, that she was so heavy on my mother’s ankles as they sank together. Robbery. Senility robs what I have a right to, a grandmother or at least the memory of one. Her illness stole my memories.

I remembered her tonight as the tangy juice slid down my throat, how I watched my mother’s anger flare up at her because she’d spit back the food, let it drip from her chin down her shirt onto her hands. She’d swat at my mother’s hand as she tried to dry the kasha from her face, swat, slap slap slap. How angry my mother got.

Anger. It sounds like a foreign country, or maybe Angieres. Seething Salem. Panicking Palermo. Defeated Djibouti. Ignore me, I’m just playing with my mom’s emotions or how she must have felt at times. I spent one evening with my grandma, trying to coax her to eat something and I started to feel the weeeeiiiiiiigggggggggggghhhhhht of her age and illness and she looked like Smeagol and I loved her and was angry at her at the same time.

How shame takes hold of us and bares us for all to see. I am ashamed that I just said that my grandma looked like Smeagol, but when the movie first came out, I couldn’t stop thinking of the similarity. How comforting to see that she was well, crawling around on all fours calling something precious, having a desire for something [delectably disturbing].

Goddamned anger. How do you communicate with someone who’s gone? She was gone twelve years before she really left, and when she passed I was relieved. There’s no sense to that. She’d sometimes say in Russian, “I don’t want to live.” Ten days before she died we took her downstairs to the room with parakeets in it, wrapped her in her blue blanket, and placed her by the couch. My brother read, I did too. I don’t know what mom did, but it was grandma’s last birthday.

When she was laid out on her bed, she was straight for the first time in years. I always saw her scrunched up, hunched over even when she was lying down. Bony elbows and shoulders jutting out at neomodern angles (architects would be proud).

I didn’t want to talk about this.

My blueberry-pomegranate juice evoked a memory, and I just wanted to make her well again, the same way my mom tried to feed her blintzes by mushing them up first. Or when mom packed fresh blackberries and grandma ate them one after the other grinding the seeds between her yellow teeth. I worried she’d get diarrhea and mom was glad she was eating something.

I spent the day at my parents’ house gossiping with my mom in the kitchen while watching her make holodnik, yet another beat-based, Russian soup. If an outsider were to have listened to our conversation, they wouldn’t have understood half of what we said because we spoke in Runglish. That’s the norm when no one is around. Okay, even when people are around, we still speak this hybrid language. Dad washed the car in the driveway, and later I took him for a "walk." I rode my bike, and he sped-walked to keep up with me. I’m a very lucky person to have my parents in my life this way.

I want to write about how happy I’ve been lately. I met a man who makes me happier than I’ve been in a very long time, and it’s hard not to speak in hyperboles, not to use words like "Ever"... or "I’ve never been happier." The minute you do, you start wondering if that’s true, and that’s not the point. Time changes things. Time heals all wounds, as cliche as that is. But time dulls happiness as well. So that’s a very bittersweet way to say that I guess I don’t remember how hurt I have been or how happy. All I remember is what I carry in me as a basic need–the desire to be close to someone. So close that when I think of myself, I see the other person too.

But I want to speak in hyperboles, because I remember how many people have made me laugh hysterically to the point of snorting, or losing control of my bladder. The answer? Not many. Maybe one person... until now.

When I was younger, I was a fool. I didn’t know any better, that’s all. I thought that these types of relationships aren’t that hard to find, that they come and go and come again. I learned my lesson the hard way, that when good people come into your life, you do whatever you can to keep them in your life. I have no regrets. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve just learned that life isn’t too long, and you only get so many chances at happiness.

When things are good, I don’t want to write. Just like when you’re happy, you don’t call your friends to brag about it. Why not? Because nobody wants to hear what cute thing your boyfriend did or "we this we that" every other word. I wonder why I’m writing a blog sometimes. And then, I inevitably come back to it. I write something cryptic in a secret code to myself, then close my eyes, and then open one eye a tiny bit and click "publish."

I’m going to keep writing, but hopefully more honestly. I just need to find a good balance between being honest and revealing too much personal information. I’m not sure if anyone is still reading this, but if you are, I want to re-post something I wrote a while ago. It was written about someone I hadn’t met yet. The person was just in my mind. But I’m there now... my fantasy came true.

Posted on December 13, 2006:

I love the sound of a refrigerator starting. You’ll be lying on the couch in the living room, the sun streaming in through the windows, warming you up like a cat on the windowsill, and you’ll be pulling the throw up to your chin, exposing your feet. One foot rubs the other, you turn on your other side and bend your knees. Now, your backside is hanging off the couch, your face is to the back cushions, and you’re breathing your own recycled, humid breath, taking in as much oxygen from those warm exhalations as you can, breathing through your open mouth. Then, the fridge turns off and the kitchen clock starts ticking louder, and your breathing back moves up and down with the ticking seconds.

I love watching you sleep that way. The you that I haven’t met yet, the you I would love enough to get another blanket for so that your feet won’t be cold, the you who would surprise me by wrapping your arm through the inside of my thigh, pulling me towards you and then to further melt me into vanilla sugar, the you that would make room for me on the couch beside you. And now my face is up against the back of the couch, breathing upholstered air, and your warm stomach fits just right into the small of my back, and your lips brush up against my neck.

The clock tick-tocks and the fridge turns on again.

Neither of us are perfectly comfortable, limbs are starting to go numb, parts of me are boiling, other parts are freezing, your back is cramping up and your right sock has somehow turned around so that the heal is on the ankle, and I know how much you hate that. But neither of us move. The sun has shifted and leafy dying rays flow in through the windows. You whisper into my neck, "Where would you like to go for dinner?" And I stroke your forearm with my hand and answer after a few seconds, "Why don’t we stay in tonight? I’m happy here."

I got the following email from my cousin yesterday:

"i met him on my way home from school yesterday!!!! too much, right?"

I don't know which is cuter--the actual picture or the fact that my cousin used the word "met" when referring to what looks like a Siberian Dwarf Hamster. To clarify, my cousin was not walking home from pre-school. She was walking home from grad school.

Also, I’m perplexed by what this hamster is doing outside (without the usual ball-bearing water bottle, kernels of corn in thimble-sized dish and peed-on-chewed-up toilet paper roll). I could be wrong about it being a hamster at all, so all of this worrying might be for nothing. If any of you can figure out what this creature is for sure, I’d love to know.

This cousin and I (I'll call her Betty to protect her anonymity—Betty being the least suitable name for someone with her type of non-conventional personality) have had a lifelong fascination with cute things. Of course, our opinions of what actually constitutes cute have changed over the years, and we haven't always seen eye to eye on the matter. For example, when we were in elementary school (or maybe junior high?), Betty got a pet rat named Benny. Benny had one of those hairless rat tails. I didn’t think it was particularly adorable. Alas, when Benny died from mysterious causes (the theory in our family was that he ate laundry soap because he was generally a free-range rat—that is, he was allowed to roam freely in the basement laundry room), I felt a great amount of sympathy for Betty and I understood the pain of her loss.

I wasn’t allowed to have pets bigger than a hamster. Dad didn’t want to have to deal with damaged furniture and scratched floors. Mom always said, “But we’re never home. I’d feel bad leaving a dog home alone for so long.” I settled for random small critters like Beta fish won in cake walks at school carnivals, and the injured, flee-infested squirrel I found one day in my backyard. (Yes, I brought it into the house.)

I was thrilled to baby sit my best friend’s and her little sister’s mice when they went on a family vacation for a week. I also remember that Kali-the-mouse (I can’t believe I remember the name) got really sick a few days later. Cruel fate waited to kill the mouse at the precise moment when Little Sister bounced through my front door, ran to the cage, and swooped the little puff up. Kali took a few more breathes, and then exhaled on her way to heaven, scarring my friend’s little sister for life.

I’m not sure if Kali was buried in my backyard with the rest of the random critters that happened to cross paths with my brother and me.

My brother lived in the basement during his high school days—it’s almost cliché, I know. We had a large oak tree in the backyard that was the perfect resting place for a fleet of black crows. Every morning as the sun came up, these crows would start squawking. Imagine the seagulls from Finding Nemo saying, “Mine, mine, mine,” and you’ll get the general sense of annoyance that my brother must have felt that fateful morning at 5-something AM. He was awoken by these birds, so he naturally climbed out of bed, went out to the backyard, and threw a stone at the tree to scare the birds off. “Success!” As Borat would say. The birds flew away.

Except they returned five minutes later.

Later in the morning, my brother got ready for school and stepped out the backdoor. There, under the oak tree, he found a dead crow and his rock lying side by side. This crow was buried in the backyard animal graveyard.

My brother and I did have hamsters. Siberian Dwarf Hamsters, to be exact, which is why Betty’s snapshot of the fuzzy critter brought back all of these memories. I used to love the smell of clean woodchips. I also used to like watching those little guys run around on their little wheels, and stuff ridiculous amounts of Cheerios behind their cheeks. We weren’t very creative with what we named the hamsters—they were all “Hammy.” One after another, as one died and was buried, another hamster took its place, sometimes with a “I” or “II” after the name, but they were referred to as just plain “Hammy.” It's sort of disturbing.

Throughout high school, my brother walked around with little holes in his T-shirts because he’d let these hamsters crawl on him while he sat on the couch reading, or while he sat at the computer. Generic Hammy had a tendency to burrow into the warmest spot available, and then would start chewing the nearest thing to its face, which was usually my brother’s math-related T-shirt.

These hamsters were also buried in the backyard pet cemetery.

I’ve gotten off-subject here. I was going to say why I love my cousin.

There were also random burials of road-kill animals. Our house was on a corner lot, and we lived by a busy street. As my Minnesota readers know, though, urban sprawl hasn’t yet found a solution for what to do with the suburban deer population. Or raccoons, for that matter. All sorts of animals were run over by cars, and either they would die on impact and be propelled onto our property, or they would be maimed and would crawl onto our land to die (or the nearest ditch), Dad was primarily responsible for burying these poor critters. I was usually the only “friend of the family” that would attend the funerals.

I now realize that this may seem a little bit odd, perhaps sort of Wednesday-ish from the Adam’s Family. Or maybe this story has a twinge of Harold and Maude. In any case, I was glad to know that Dad and I stepped up to the Miztvah (Hebrew for “act of loving kindness”) and gave these animals a thoughtful farewell.

Back to my cousin. Betty and I used to get drunk when her parents went out of town and would leave us home alone. We would do crazy things like play Boggle and put together jigsaw puzzles. Occasionally, we’d watch indie and foreign films, and then discuss them over liquor. Once, we really let lose and went “swimming” on the new hardwood floors throughout her family’s house. We’d lie on our backs and push off the walls with our feet, doing the backstroke with our arms.

I get to see Betty for New Year’s this year, and I can’t wait to see what we end up doing. Whatever it is, we certainly won’t be bored. Maybe we could go to a pet store... or the Humane Society.

Recently, someone from my college days has come back into my life. It’s odd because I’ve never been one to maintain ties with exes. There was a reason the break up happened in the first place, right? I’ve always found it easier to make a clean break and go “our own separate ways,” but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that people don’t fit into crisply-defined roles all the time.

For example, in the junior high dating scene, the most important element of having a boyfriend was being able to call someone a Boyfriend. With a capital B. It didn’t matter that the relationship consisted of passing notes to each other during social studies or being chauffeured to the movies by mom and dad. What mattered was being able to refer to this person by a well-defined title, perhaps as a signifier to everyone around that we were, in fact, receiving some sort of attention from the opposite sex, or that we were popular enough to be crush-objects.

I digress. This person (I’ll call him Jon) has come back into my life. Jon used to be the King of insisting on clean breaks. He couldn’t stand knowing that I was still in contact with exes, or that some of my male friends had formerly played somewhat ambiguous roles in my life. It drove him crazy to know that I had been in love before him, and wanted to live my own life while with him. It didn’t matter to him that as I had grown older (aka, grown out of the junior high mentality of clean labels for people), I could no longer force people out of my life because they didn’t fit a particular, well-defined role.

That’s not to say that I didn’t squeeze some people out of my life to appease this rather jealous boyfriend. In fact, I ditched way too many friends and acquaintances to keep his jealousy at bay. But I knew at the time that I was making a mistake in choosing to mollify the Man in my life, instead of nurturing my own sense of right and wrong.

Life just wasn’t black and white, as I saw it. In fact, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate the gray tones of life, how much more difficult it is to navigate moody, ambiguous waters, instead of pretending that the water is clear, or tormenting people with the question: Why can’t you just see things the way that I do? This question is naïve and rather tragic. Anyway, I’ve come to see how much more rewarding life can be if it is approached diplomatically, and not autocratically, as if an iron fist of absolutism guides my decisions.

***
“I’m going to go pick out a plaque for your grandma,” My mom said to me this weekend. In Jewish tradition, there is something called the unveiling ceremony, which is normally held 11-12 months after a person’s passing. It’s where the headstone is “unveiled” at a ceremony once the bereavement period is over. One of the main ideas behind this tradition is that everyone is equal in death, and that there is no place for haughtiness, displays of wealth, or any other mortal displays of life status. That’s right, no crypts, vaults, buttressed marble arches, or any other fancy things.

Most Jewish cemeteries allow headstones. Traditionally, a Jewish headstone isn’t supposed to have a picture of the deceased, although modern Judaism and laser technology have allowed for photos to be engraved in marble or granite. The cemetery where my grandma is buried only allows a small plaque to be imbedded in the ground at the site of the grave. Uber-minimalist, I know.

“And to think that that’s all that’s left of her,” My mom said. “You live a long life, and then this is all that’s left.”

***

I have often thought about what difference a title makes. In the last six months, I’ve thought a lot about why so much emphasis is placed on shaping love within a given framework, or squeezing caring into a mold.

I’ve thought about how little those things matter in the end, and how much it means to have loved at all, free of whys or hows or what-fors. My grandma cared enough to bake banana bread and make Jell-O fruit cups. She kept a candy drawer of blue Brach’s mints, and bought clip-on earrings and imitation pearl necklaces from garage sales. She grew a jungle of plants that have survived her. To have done these things while thinking of others… it comforts me to know that my grandma loved me.

Because of this comfort, I don’t feel compelled to muse in the same way that my mom does. The bold, pastel memories grandma left me are enough, and because of this, the plaque will be enough too.

***

I wonder if Jon realizes that he is now one of those who I couldn’t let go of. That he knew me at a time in my life that I will never be able to forget, or want to forget. He took me to my high school prom. He was the last boyfriend who knew my paternal grandmother while she was alive, who actually got to taste her mashed potatoes, borscht and cheese blintzes. He helped me deal with my cousin’s suicide, with the hours that my dad was unaccounted for on September 11^th, with my parents’ move across the country and the sale of my childhood home. He knew who I was before.

To think that I could have lost this personal history if he had succeeded in changing me, molding me into who he wanted me to be.

I have a title for him—ex-boyfriend. But it doesn’t describe how much I loved him at one point, or how I know that he isn’t right for me. Titles don’t capture the intangibles, and it’s the intangibles that are worth remembering.

Hi. It’s me again. I’m back. I’ve been gone for a while, off under some rock, going through the necessary motions of living. Something huge happened that knocked some sense into me, and I just wanted to say that I’m back. It’s nice to see you again.

***

Thanksgiving is coming up, and I have been thinking of taking up cooking again. I think this is neurotic, but I haven’t really cooked anything since the beginning of June. I’ve tried, but each time I picked up a pot and filled it with water, or got a spatula out of the drawer, I’d get nauseous and really depressed. It felt sort of like date rape. Like someone was trying to take something from me that I wasn’t sure I wanted to give.

Cooking is a nurturing act. Bowls of pumpkin soup and red-leafed lettuce and kiwi salads—these things need attention and care. And the people who eat these things? You have to care about them—care enough not to poison them, not to over-salt this or over-pepper that. Care enough to ask, “Well, how is it? Do you like it?”

***

I’m looking for an apartment in The District. You should’ve seen the way my mom looked at me when I told her that this morning.

It was a mixture of defeat and betrayal. Et tu, Brutus?

I plan on asking all the important questions of my potential roommates: How do you feel about guests staying overnight? Do you expect me to participate in the cooking? What if I don’t come home for days? Will you send a search party?

***

In the fall of 2002, my cousin committed suicide. It was about a week before Thanksgiving, and my parents told me to stay home and not fly to Israel with them for the funeral. I didn’t fight them on this. I was a coward and didn’t want to face the surviving parents, my beloved aunt and uncle, the very same ones who I gladly visited this October.

I knew strange things about my cousin—that she liked Armani’s Aqua Di Gio perfume, the same kind I use today. That she hated being photographed, which is why she was an excellent photographer. That she was a complicated person with a long history of depression. That before she died, she reconciled a feuding father and son, some distant relatives of ours who hadn’t spoken in three years. That she was a high ranking officer in the Israeli Army, and that her soldiers feared her. That she loved cats. That she had wanted children but couldn’t have any. And that she was a very good cook.

On Thanksgiving Day, my parents came home from their long journey. They were tired and emotionally drained. I had taken over my mom’s traditional responsibility of cooking Thanksgiving dinner for our usual guests. My grandma had offered to host Thanksgiving at her house that year, but I insisted that I was old enough and responsible enough to do it myself. Grandma stepped aside in the end, after a few grumbling words between my father and aunt.

That day, I cooked The Best Turkey Ever. Everyone agreed. It was so good that there weren’t any leftovers.

The following year, we spent Thanksgiving without my grandma. She passed away several months before the holiday, and needless to say, I felt guilty that I robbed her of such a beautiful memory—the Last Supper, especially since she wouldn’t live another full year.

***

“Mom, we’ve had this many people at our house for Thanksgiving before.”

“Marina, I know. But I just don’t know where eleven people are going to sleep.”

“It’s not a big deal. The youngest four will sleep on the floor.”

“What? No, I can’t have guests sleeping on the floor.”

“Mom, don’t worry about it.”

“Maybe we can ask the neighbors if some people can sleep at their house.”

“Seriously, don’t do that. We’ll manage just fine.”

***

I’ve been wondering what I’ll cook this year, and how I’ll feel about it. If someone dies from massive gas problems (please refer to the movie Like Water for Chocolate), it won’t be my fault. I only wish the best for my unsuspecting guests. If my karma gets mixed into the recipe, I can’t be held responsible.

Maybe yams with marshmallows, or stuffing with cranberries. Mashed potatoes with butter and chives or baked squash with cinnamon. Warm apple strudel or triple berry crisp with vanilla bean ice cream for dessert. Who knows? I might surprise myself.

Last night, my mom came into my room at about 5:30 PM and requested that I tear myself away from my computer long enough to set the table for dinner.

“Set the table? Why, Mom? It’s just the three of us, and…”

She cut me off, “How often do I ask you to do anything?”

It’s true. She doesn’t ask me to do anything that could be construed as benefiting the household, perhaps in part because I’m not technically part of the household. She doesn’t want to chase me off, I think.

I technically don’t have an official domicile. I’ve thought about what to do if I get pulled over for speeding while driving my parents’ car. I’d present my parents’ insurance card to the police officer, and when asked if my Minnesota license was current, I would say “yes,” that I was “just visiting from out of town.”

Recently, my mom asked me to move a piece of luggage that I had purchased for my upcoming trip and that I had left sitting in the hallway for two weeks. The bag remained untouched for two days, post-request, until my dad mustered the courage to ask me to “Please, vacuum the hallway and your room.” I moved the bag 10 feet by throwing it on the floor in the guest bedroom and shutting the door. (If you don’t see it, it’s not there.)

That night, my mom walked into the guest room without turning on the lights. She probably stubbed her toe pretty badly because I heard a dull thud, saw the bag fly out of the room, heard it hit the wall with a very loud bang, and then watched it land in the exact same spot it started out in in the hallway. Full circle; life is beautiful that way.

***

I changed out of my smelly pajamas last night to join my parents for a pre-Yom Kippur dinner. Mom was spreading a white tablecloth on the kitchen table as I made my entrance. “Okay,” I said to myself, “She’s got a point. I should do something to help.”

The sun was low in the sky and a warm pomegranate light filtered through the bay windows into the kitchen, soaking its juices into the hardwood floors. The smells of fall mixed with aromas of a meal I didn’t help cook wafted through the air. Dad brought in the barbecued vegetables and pulled out the homemade cherry vodka concoction in a crystal decanter. Mom took the salmon out of the stove and set a green salad on the table, next to freshly sliced pieces of wheat baguette.

I plopped my laptop down on the kitchen floor and put on the Gypsy Kings. “There,” I thought, “My contribution.”

Mom lit the candles and said a prayer over them. “This is really nice,” I said to her. “Thanks for creating this atmosphere.”

She looked at me in a very restrained way, and said, “If you don’t do this for yourself, you won’t do it for anyone else.”

As the sun set, my parents and I ate and talked about how childhood is wasted on the young, and how adulthood is wasted on the old. We talked about how people change, but how slow we are to forgive them for changing on us. How slow we are to forgive people for lifelong faults in their personalities that always seemed to bother us but never them. How slow we are to recognize ourselves in the mirror, the imperfections within us, the sins we have committed against those closest to us.

My mom raised her cherry vodka shot glass in my direction, the crystal sparkling and glowing garnet-red in the dying sunlight, and said, “May this year bring you everything that you want for yourself.”

While Dad protested the entire idea of such a toast, it wasn’t Rosh Hashana, after all, I thought about that which I most wanted in the coming year. My insides melted in a bittersweet realization that I might not spend the next high holidays with my parents, that my life may take me…elsewhere.

As the candles flattened themselves out like mushrooms, I read aloud the “100 Tiny Things” and “100 Deal Breakers” lists to my parents. The three of us laughed so hard at the ridiculous specifications and whims that I had to pause numerous times to wipe the drool off my face and tears from my eyes.

Several family friends have approached me in the past, and have, while placing a heavy palm on my shoulder, said, “My dear, how hard it will be for you to find a love like your parents have… the example before you is almost unattainable. Your father, he carries your mother in his arms. He always has.”

Our neighbor once told me, “Your parents take a walk together every night, don’t they? I see them through my window and they seem so much in love. I can see it from across the street… How do they do it?”

My insides melted when I heard that, just as they melt each time someone tells me that I should probably lower my standards because I’ll never have what they have. It’s just not the norm; it’s special.

They say that you aren’t supposed to share what you wish for before you blow out your birthday candles, because otherwise, your wish won’t come true.

I don’t know if the same rule applies to wishes made at a Yom Kippur dinner in semi-darkness by the light of perhaps out of place Shabbat candles, but at the risk of such superstitions actually being grounded in truth, I will refrain from revealing what I wished for.

Besides, you probably already know.

I have an, at times, paralyzing fear of failure. If we’re really going to get into Deconstructing Marina, we’ll have to discuss this issue.

It’s actually quite insane.

It used to be much worse. I wouldn’t raise my hand in high school, even if I was 95 percent sure I had the right answer.

In eleventh grade, I took AP European History. One day, the teacher played a sample of classical piano music and asked the class to guess which composer had written it. I knew the answer right away. The rest of the class kept throwing out random names, guessing anything that came to mind, but I couldn’t raise my hand with the right answer. I was paralyzed and scared.

It was loud in the room with everyone talking and making fun of each other’s guesses. “Yeah, you would guess that, you orchestra dork.”

“Shut up. You’re shorter than Napoleon.”

“Hey, at least I don’t have an ulcer.”

I was sitting by the teacher’s desk, close enough to lean over to her and whisper, “It’s Chopin.”

“How do you know that?” She asked me.

The rest of the class was oblivious to this conversation. I heard some kid yell, “Hey Joel, look up the answer in that book you’re always reading. What’s it called? Oh yeah, The Seven Habits of Highly Deffective People.”

“Shut up, dipshit!” Joel yelled back.

I could’ve thought of a few answers to the teacher’s question. That Chopin’s music is unmistakably his. That I listened to him every night before I went to bed. That I got the shivers (and still do) when I heard his music. I quietly answered her, “I don’t know… It’s romantic. Emotional.”

She didn’t answer me. She sort of stared at me for a few seconds and then turned her attention to the room filled with ridiculously smart kids, which brings me to my point: I always thought I was somehow the exception to that, as if I had snuck in to the class illegitimately, like I wasn’t supposed to be there.

It gets worse. I felt that if I opened my mouth and talked, that people would discover I was a fraud. And their little genius brains would turn on me, calling me out on my bullshit.

I never tried to get straight A’s. I wondered, “Why bother? It’s not that big of a deal.” I think the truth is that I was afraid of failing, of having to say, “I tried my hardest, and I still couldn’t do it.”

Here’s the kicker. I’ve changed a lot since high school, but not that much. I’m exactly the same way towards my writing. I reject it before it rejects me.

A friend of mine has been discussing with me his desire to write a novel, to create something that changes people’s lives. He asked me why I haven’t written one.

The answer, in part, is that I don’t have the attention span. Or, I’m not really a novel sort of person.

The more truthful answer is that I’m afraid of producing something so awful that it exposes me completely. That shows people I’m full of crap. That I really don’t have anything to say, after all, and I’ve been faking it all along.

Once, in eighth grade, I came home with my report card. I had seven A’s and one A-. My mom’s immediate response was, “What happened here? Why didn’t you get an A?”

On other occasions, I was even asked the question, “Why didn’t you get an A+? Didn’t the teacher give those out?”

In college, I once called my mom to tell her how stressed out I was with the work load. I was probably going on very little sleep with finals and term papers hanging over my head. Her response was, “Yes, your brother and I are really worried you’ll drop out of school. Please, don’t do it.”

I couldn’t believe the non sequitur. How could she jump from my obviously over-worked, over-stressed, standard-college-student-phone-call-home to “Mom, I’m dropping out of school”? As if struggling was a sign of automatic failure. And what the hell did my brother know about my situation, anyway?

If you haven’t already done this, type in “failure” in google and click “I’m feeling lucky.”

I thought I’d finish this post on a very unsettling note and some easy deflection without actually having gotten to the bottom of anything.

My mom is a wise woman, and I’m oftentimes stunned by what she says. The false simplicity of her wisdom surprises me most. That’s because I’ll analyze something to death and still not reach the same beautiful “aha!” moment that I get from one conversation with her.

A long time ago, I went through a phase of loving rabbits, rabidly loving them. I would go to the House Rabbit Society website and click on the pictures link, probably annoying my roommate at the time because I’d squeal each time I’d hit “show me another picture.” My mom didn’t understand this phase I was going through, considering I was in college and I was well beyond the “please please please get me a pony” age.

It was just something my boyfriend and I both loved at the time. We loved looking at cute animals and bonding over something so simple and innocent.

The little things are easy to overlook, in almost any context. I tend to complicate things by nature too, which makes it hard to get to the Real.

Last night, my mom and dad returned from a weekend mushroom-picking trip to Ithaca, NY. It’s a Russian thing. Once my parents descend onto a forest, no mushroom is safe. As a disclaimer, don’t try this at home, kids. Skillfully avoiding poisonous mushrooms is the culmination of a Russian upbringing and cultural nuances, which take decades to seep into the bloodstream until they become just as much a part of you as Sunday night football or Chinese take-out and poker nights.

My mom once got admonished by a park ranger for picking wild mushrooms at a state park. Little did the ranger know, my dad’s pockets were filled with white tops and gray stems too. They work as a unit, like Bonnie and Clyde. And they work quickly, which is key when pilfering mushrooms from public lands.

While my parents were gone, I spent the weekend the way I usually do—doing things that complicate my life and that make me feel alive.

I also went to Rosh Hashana services on Saturday and Sunday morning. It’s been a year since I went to services, and I feel like I’m in confession right now, or maybe some sort of 12-step support group.

“Hi, my name is Marina, and I haven’t gone to synagogue in a year.”

I went for the same reason that women insist on wearing a thong: even though it’s uncomfortable, it’s necessary. High Holiday services have become crucial to the wellbeing of my soul. I use the time to meditate, and I rarely follow along with the prayers. If I do, I do it absent-mindedly. I think about myself a lot more than I do about God, but somehow I don’t think God minds. I enjoy the feeling of being surrounded by other Jews in various states of belief and non-belief. Tradition creeps up on you, in much the same way that becoming an avid mushroom-picker does.

As I was getting ready to go to sleep last night, my mom sat on the edge of my bed and we talked about our weekends. Mostly, I blabbered and she listened. She listened to my drama with boys and relationships, about falling for someone who is keeping me at a distance for the same reasons I want to keep him away. I talked to her about wanting more than pedestals, about wanting to be independent, about how much I’ve changed in the last few months.

My mom didn’t say anything at this point about the gallon jar of mushrooms that were in the fridge downstairs. She let me go first with my sycophantic me-me-monologue. About how I’m not sure if he likes me or not, but I…like him a lot. And about how he intrigues me, and how he’s so much like me right now, it’s scary. And then, I quoted one of my mom’s little bits of astonishing wisdom back to her: “Don’t be afraid to love someone who doesn’t love you back. It only matters that you love something.”

My mom sat on my bed, nodding. “Exactly, that’s what I’ve been telling you all along.”

In my strange bunny-loving phase, my mom’s heavy-hearted, soviet-émigré view of the world obstructed her ability to see why I was so obsessed with something as idiotic and mindless as a pet rabbit. I’d have to say, in retrospect, that this phase coincided with the nation’s post-September 11^th depression, and with my simultaneous interest in anything to do with the Iron Chef and the Cooking Channel, in general. Avoidance. Reclusiveness. Introspection. These became the nation’s pastimes.

I could’ve pursued anything but CNN and my-then boyfriend’s real life problems, like his cousins and family home in Afghanistan, and the drunk veteran who hissed into my ear on a city bus, “You know he’s only with you to get his citizenship.” I imagined myself turning around and clobbering the man’s face with my shoes, just until I’d collapse on the floor in hysterical sobs of complete and utter defeat: “This world will never be the same.” I managed to turn around and say to the man, "You are cruel."

He replied in alcohol breathe, "This world is cruel."

What the veteran didn’t know is that my boyfriend and I had spent the afternoon at Marshall Field’s, shopping for a friend’s wedding gift. In the fine china department, I pointed to a Lennox statue of a man and woman in an embrace that was beautiful, corny and comforting. A piece that my boyfriend remembered, and which he gave me one week later for Valentine’s Day. What the veteran couldn’t have known was that my boyfriend was already a citizen and a PhD student in physics. What the veteran couldn’t have ever imagined was that I was madly in love with this dark-skinned man, and that we both loved rabbits more than people at that time in our lives.

Don’t be afraid to love something that doesn’t love you back. As long as you love something, that’s all that matters.

I eventually grew out of my obsession with rabbits in much the same way that home theater sales have leveled off and declined in the last few years. I stopped watching the Iron Chef and returned to CNN.

My parents still love being surrounded by trees and nature, smelling the clean air of an isolated forest, picking baskets full of mushrooms. And I am no longer afraid to love something that doesn’t love me back—an unmistakably bittersweet and Real emotion that makes me feel alive, an emotion that I am grateful for.

The following conversation took place between an insomniac and a wound-up person at about 1:30 AM today:

Me: Even average people have really difficult moments in life.

Mom: I know. That’s true.

Me: Like, for example, I was brushing my teeth and I stabbed my gums with my toothbrush pretty badly. Now, my whole face hurts.

Mom: Why don’t you use some vouse mawsh?

Me: Some what??

Both: Hysterical laugher.

I can’t explain why this was so funny to me, other than to say that it was very late. It was also my mom’s way of saying “mouth wash,” with a Russian accent, and accidentally switching the first letters of the words.

I saw two beautiful men this morning on my way out of the metro. They were talking to each other in sign language. One of them had a backpack slung over his shoulder as he held onto the hand of a small boy. The three of them were all talking in sign language. I’ve been wondering all day what they were saying to each other.

"You complete me?"

***

I bought tickets to go to Israel October 7-21. I might also go on a cruise to Greece halfway through the trip.

It’s a strange thing that I don’t have to explain to my family my decision to go. They get it, and they’re going too. No questions asked.

***

I’m happy being single. I’ve come to the realization that I’ve been swimming in drama because I don’t want to be responsible for anyone but myself, and yet I’ve been forcing myself into the path that I should want. I’m selfish, and if I love anything right now, I love it selfishly. The last three months have been an escapade of self-avoidance and a rather grotesque one, at that. Well, self, it’s you and me now. And I love you, luff you, lerve you, even.

***

I'll be in NYC this weekend. And Connecticut. And New Jersey. More on this later.

I have an opportunity to go to Israel in October, and I’m hesitating. I’ve never done that before.

I have family there that I haven’t seen in six years, and they’re close family. Not the third-cousin-twice-removed kind.

I have a cousin’s grave there, and I’ve never been to it.

I have an aunt who teaches me about art every time I see her. She shows me new techniques and new materials. She buys me supplies and stuffs them in my suitcases. Colored pencils that turn to watercolors when you pass a wet paintbrush over the lines. Exacto blades for creating detailed cutouts on shiny origami paper. Fimo clay packs for “just in case you feel like it.” Gel pens that I protect like they’re jewelry made of gold. Cross-stitching patterns and string. Beads, sturdy wire and clasps. Her art hangs all over my parents’ house. It used to hang in my apartment too.

I have an uncle who looks like a Scottish sailor. He swears in many languages, smokes all the time, and has red hair. He’s short, incredibly strong, and has no patience. Once, he and I got stuck in a two-hour traffic jam caused by a brushfire that had spread to both sides of the highway. He wheeled his Honda into the ditch, drove through a 30 foot stretch of engulfing flames and told me not to tell anyone because “they just wouldn’t understand.” I told my dad, and he bought a Honda the next day. I trust my uncle like I trusted the Lysol spokeswoman—the incredibly no-nonsense, protective-of-her-kids, black woman who I desperately wanted to be my mother. My uncle is really good at keeping siblings apart in cars (it’s a technique that involves lodging his elbows into both kids’ ribcages at the same time until the giggling turns to painful squealing). I haven’t seen him since his daughter died.

I have so much more there. About a dozen more people who I’ve known since I was born—extended relatives, friends that are relatives in all ways but through name, cities that are like nieces, beaches that are like brothers, food that’s like my grandma Ginda. And yet I still hesitate.

Why?

Maybe because I don’t like random death. Random rockets.

If I were to die a gruesome death, I’d prefer it to be by gunfire. Better yet, by death squad. The kind that involves a line-up of a dozen machine gun wielding men and they all aim and fire at the same time. At least I’ll know what’s coming.

And yet people live in Israel all the time. They live by random day and by random night. And my relatives refuse to leave, even for a “few month stay in the U.S.” Not even “until all of this blows over.” Because we all know that a few months would turn into a lifetime. It will never blow over. I understand them and I don’t blame them. Turning ones back on home makes it hard to keep your head up when you return.

My dad just told me about the intricacies of preserving salami. Did you know that salami actually has to breathe? Don’t put it in a plastic bag, and make sure that the pig intestine (or whatever the salami is stuffed into) is a breathable material. Otherwise, it will form a green, filmy mold.

My dad also told me about the ways of a Russian zhulik, a hooligan, that once explained to him, "If you place a salami next to a bucket of water, the salami will actually start absorbing the moisture, and it will weigh more." Why would you want the salami to weigh more, you ask? Since Russian salami is sold by weight, you can rip off customers. God, how I love America. That’s patriotism, ladies and gentlemen. I love this country more than any other on the planet because this kind of shit doesn’t happen here. Other shit happens here, but not this.

What I know about Russia comes from my parents and Minnesota’s public school system. I don’t deny that it’s a skewed perspective, but I’m sure if I picked up a Russian textbook on Soviet history, I’d get nothing but a different kind of propaganda.

My AP European History teacher once made an analogy: "While a normal country, like Canada, would have a single shoe factory making both the right and left shoe in one building, Russia would have two factories, standing side-by-side, and they’d both be making left shoes." I laughed when I heard that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if something like this is actually happening somewhere in that backwards-thinking country.

When I was in college, I had a Jewish, Chilean professor who once told me, "You are lucky. You can weave in and out of both your Russian culture and your American life. You can do it seamlessly, and you can be accepted in both worlds." But I didn’t feel like I belonged fully in either world. Maybe I purposely exiled myself from both, in fact, but I never felt like I was normal in either sphere.

I was submerged in the one-and-a-half generation, and I didn’t even know it until I started studying the Cuban exile situation during my senior year in college. Los exiliados. I had felt for years that something wasn’t quite settled within me, but I didn’t have the words to describe the Russian-Jewish refugee experience I had gone through in my own way.

It turns out I am a "halfer." The halfers, as they’re sometimes referred to, are the kids who are either born to immigrants, or were immigrants at a young age. They don’t fit into the old world fully because maybe they speak the language with an American accent, or maybe they don’t speak it fluently. They know the name of the Old City, but hesitate a bit when asked to point it out on a map and name the surrounding cities.

Being a halfer means floating away from mom and dad. It means not seeing eye-to-eye with them when it comes to life decisions. But it also means understanding cultural nuances as if it’s second nature, like knowing how to entertain Russian guests: the food that’s served, the conversation, the duration of a meal, who serves, who cleans up. It means being so close to each other, that you accept not understanding each other as a permanent result of the immigration; its presence is felt like Elijah at Passover. You might as well set the table for one more, and pull up a chair.

My Russian half is also saturated in pessimism, guilt, and a good dose of seriousness. I’m comfortable among these old friends. I once heard my Rabbi say that Judaism is meant to comfort the disturbed, and to disturb the comfortable. Growing up, I was never comfortable. Russian Jews are never really comfortable. A friend of mine once said that, "Russians always seem to be surprised that they're still alive, and yet they're somehow disappointed by that fact."

The other half of my halfer experience is my American half. In the Midwest, I was exotic once people found out where I was born, and once I’d told them my rubber-stamp-authentic Russian name. People approached my "otherness" with a respectful and mild curiosity. They’d say congratulatory phrases like, "Wow, you speak English without any accent at all! You even sound Minnesooooootan." And why not? I had grown up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, went to public schools, watched the same TV shows, vacationed at the same places as they did. I went "up" to the Boundary Waters, went "down" to Iowa, went "out" to Maryland to visit my parents. I was 100% American because my nuclear family was broken up among three different states, and I moved out of my parents’ house at 18 to live in a dorm my freshman year of college.

It was comfortable to be a little bit different than everyone else. And when I didn’t want anyone to know about my other half, I could hide behind my white skin, and turn on my Minnesota accent. I could use neutral phrases like, "happy holidays," and I could make "bars" with brownie batter and butterscotch chips for guests. No one had to know that I was a Russian Jew underneath. Even now, I am a chameleon, and I don’t even think twice about it when I change colors. It’s second nature to me.

I don’t mean to sound bitter. I hope I don’t. But I’m still confused about my identity in many ways. My life has been one of privilege and of luck, and maybe it isn’t that different than that of people who spent their entire lives in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. But I’ve also been emotionally paralyzed by the idea that I carry my identity with me like a turtle’s shell. I’m branded on the inside by my "otherness," self-imposed, or not, it’s more of a home to me than anything else. And my discomfort brings me comfort.

I spent the afternoon at Border’s Bookstore reading Stephanie Klein’s book Straight up & Dirty. I wasn’t ready to commit and actually buy the book, but I did laugh aloud a few times, which is pretty hard to get me to do. Maybe I’ll buy it online when the mood strikes me. I wouldn’t say her experiences are that unique. Women let all kinds of idiotic and awful things happen to them, myself included.

On Friday, I had another screwed up J-Date experience, offline. It involved a young gentleman who couldn’t wait to light up his joint and share his theories on creation: aliens plopped us down on this planet, and God definitely exists because, "If He didn’t, I would’ve already committed suicide." I kid you not. This actually happened. I felt uber-redneck sitting on this guy’s brother’s front porch (Oh yeah, did I mention he was house-sitting? He actually said to me at one point, "Don’t steal anything," and he meant it.). Thank God it was dark, because I would’ve felt extra-uncomfortable sitting next to a doobie-smoking loser in daylight.

I sat at Border’s, reading Ms. Klein’s book, laughing at how ridiculous her dating escapades were post-divorce. It’s funny when it happens to someone else, but it’s a bit tragic when it’s happening to you. I know, I wasn’t married. But the break-up certainly felt like a divorce.

I called my dad to pick me up from the mall (yes, insert references to being in junior high here). I can’t even begin to describe how different my life is in comparison to my parents’ lives when they were my age. Four months from now, my mom will be married. She’ll give birth to my brother one year later. The newly-weds live with my mom’s mom until several years after they immigrate to the US. That’s the first thirteen years of their marriage.

And I’m wandering around malls, single, reading a book by a blogger about being single, writing a blog about being single. If my parents were different people, I’d be very lonely. But they see me living my life, and they understand that we live in different worlds. Sometimes, we just have to remind each other of that fact, and pour Elijah another cup of wine, because he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Lasagna and Napkins

A woman who looks like she’s in her middle forties sits alone in her kitchen, eating lasagna. Her company is the air conditioner and the TV, which emits the quiet audio of a foreign film. The windows behind her are enormous: spectacles of a giant. In front of the window, an oak stands taller than the house: no light breaks through its branches. It seems as if the woman is in jail, but not against her will.

Her head is bowed low as she cuts her fork into the greasy clumps of cheese. Juices spurt out and red sauce splatters across her face. Calmly, she reaches across the counter and tries to remove a napkin from the holder. The way she reaches across so slowly makes her seem patient and far beyond my years. Someone stuffed too many napkins in at one time, probably her, and she has trouble yanking one out. The napkin rips a few times but the woman gets it out eventually, in pieces.

Something about her face is making me forget the fact that she is sitting alone, eating lasagna. She doesn’t mind the lonely feeling; she has the television to whisper soothing, Italian words to her. Her short, black hair has streaks of gray at the temples, another sign revealing her age. Her eyes are a bright blue color, that of the Mediterranean Sea, perhaps the youngest looking part of her.

I feel a sort of sadness creep across me. Perhaps it is the fear of being like her one day. I am forced to admit that this woman is my mother and the silence between us makes me want to scream. She interrupts my thoughts, "Pass the salt please." These words escape her lips lifelessly, without feeling or emotion. She speaks with a careless lack of respect for time. The air conditioner turns off automatically and I remember that it has a mind of its own. My ears throb for some kind of noise, just a bit of sound to fill the void between the woman eating lasagna, and me.

A clanging sound, like pots being slammed together, makes me jump. My mother has dropped her fork on the floor. Slowly, like a giant tortoise, she lumbers off the stool and bends over to pick up the fork. I can’t take it anymore.

"Mom, were you ever happy?" I blurt out. I say it impatiently, the exact opposite of how my mother would say it. She’s crouched down on the floor, sweeping her hands around her, looking for the fork. I tower over her, my arms crossed. I demand an answer.

"Well?" I say.

"Can you step to the right a bit? You’re blocking my light." She doesn’t look at me, and instead, she continues to look for her fork. I feel the rage boiling inside of me, the feeling that I’ve had since I was very young. Without moving an inch, I stand centered above her. I refuse to give her even a bit of satisfaction.

Several seconds go by and the air conditioner turns on again. My mother finally finds her fork. Putting her weight onto her knuckles, she gets up slower than she had sunk down. I continue to stand upright without blinking, but now my mother is towering over me. She stands perfectly still, and looks me in the eyes. For a moment, she seems as though she is about to speak. I hold my breath.

Nothing. Nothing comes from her lips, which are lined in red tomato sauce. She sits back down on the stool and reaches for another napkin, this time to wipe off her fork, I presume. She encounters the same problem as she had last time. Piece by piece, she shreds the napkin so that finally, it is gathered in a small pile of confetti.

I shift my weight to awaken myself from the trance, and I shiver at the thought of ever being like her. Perhaps at this moment, I vow to God that I have become a believer. Just let me be as opposite from her as possible. I turn on my heel and walk quickly out of the room, closing the door behind me, separating myself from my mother even further.

Fat Jack

"Jesus, Marry and Joseph. How many times do I have to tell you not to smoke in the house? And get your goddamned feet of the coffee table." Fat Jack rolled his chubby ankles off the crappy table that he bought at a garage sale years ago. Ignoring the cigarette part, he grumbled a little, grunted a bit, and went into the TV room to get away from his tractor wife, who plowed through the house every five minutes, shooing, bitching and cleaning. Smoke trailed after him through the door and into the next room.

Little Tommy sat on the floor by the couch playing with his toy trucks. The TV blared in the background. Fat Jack howled at his son, "Jesus boy, I told you to turn off the TV when you’re not watching it." Little Tommy looked up at his daddy and whined a little, but he got up, clutching his favorite truck, and turned the TV off. Scampering up the stairs, Little Tommy left Fat Jack to himself on the couch.

Jack sat on the ragged couch in peace. He breathed deeply and inhaled the nicotine and tar, which would kill him exactly fifteen years, two hundred and forty-seven days, fourteen hours, twenty-two minutes and fifty seconds later. He sat, catatonic, and reflected on his life.

He thought back to his first memories on earth. Strangely enough, they were of his father shooing him away when he had just gotten home from work. He remembered his years in high school. His first date. His first job, working as a grocer for the dirtiest little hole, which closed down only a couple years ago. He remembered the first day that he met his wife. His remembered the birth of their first child. He remembered his one-night-stand with the beautiful woman whose name he never knew... and mid-memory, his wife stomped through the living room. She brushed past Fat Jack as an elephant would brush past a tree, jerking him out of his day dreaming of the bigger and better years gone by.

"Why do I have to keep reminding you? Put that damn cigarette out," She mooed, and thudded up the stairs to sandwich little Tommy in between his sheets so that he wouldn’t be able to wriggle out of bed until morning.

Joey Met His Match

Ring…

Ring…

"Hello?" A groggy voice picks up. On the other end of the line a little girl giggles and hangs up abruptly.

The tired man looks at his nightstand alarm clock. Its neon green numbers say two twenty-two A.M. Just as the man begins to drift freely into his dream of three big-breasted women, the phone rings again. This time it only take one

Ri…

"Damnit, who is this?" He asks, annoyed.

Giggles again, only this time, the assailant reveals her name.

"I’m Sally, who are you?" She sounds as though she should be wearing pigtails and eating a Popsicle.

"I’m…" The man almost answers the caller’s question. He stops himself.

Instead, he asks, "How old are you?" Thinking that he’ll catch her off guard.

"I’m six and a quarter." No such luck. She’s quick.

"How old are you, mister?" She retaliates. Her ‘s’ sounds like a ‘th.’ Missing a front tooth.

"Too old," he answers.

"You mean you’re older than twenty?" She asks in a surprised voice.

It’s the man’s turn to giggle. He can’t pull it off. Too hoarse.

"Sally, aren’t you supposed to be in bed right now?"

"Yes," she answers shortly, and picks up again without a pause. "What games do you like to play?"

Quick. Very quick.

The man waits for a moment before answering lamely, "It’s been a while since I’ve played any games."

He glances at the clock again.

Work tomorrow.

"Do you play hopscotch?" She asks, ignoring his answer.

"Yes," he answers.

Sweet, cotton candy giggles.

Silence for a moment. Could she be hesitating?

"What’s your name?"

He answers this time, "Joey."

"I have a friend named Joey," Sally offers.

"Joey?" She sings his name. To him, it never sounded so melodious before.

"Yes, Sally?" He tries to mimic her tone, but fails.

"Do you have a girlfriend, Joey?"

He should have known.

He thinks for a minute. Not sure if he should say yes or if he should tell her about his wife too.

She’s six and a quarter, damn it.

"Aren’t you too young to ask such questions?" He fights back.

"No, I’m six and a…" she stops.

"Finally," he thinks, "stumped her."

He hears the sound of faint footsteps approaching on the other end.

Only slightly audibly, he hears a woman’s voice. "Sally, what are you doing out of bed?"

"Goodnight, Joey," Sally whispers.

He manages to echo, "goodnight," before she hangs up the...

Click.

I had an amazing time with my family at the cabin. And oddly enough, I have no moody writing in me right now. Just a quietness that probably comes from sleeping in till whenever, reading good books, and eating plenty of Twizzlers.

I went to a beautiful wedding this past weekend. I was so happy for the couple that I kept squealing during the ceremony, and I’m sure people around me thought I was infected with some disease. I swear, I’ve never seen two people more suited for each other. Completely unconventional people with a very unique wedding. Their wedding program had a quote on the cover, “I have found the one in whom my soul delights.” I sat in the very back of the synagogue and even I could see that this was true. What a wonderful thing to witness. For a long time, I’ve believed that true love is not staring into each other’s eyes, but looking out in the same direction. My friends were the embodiment of that idea.

Weddings aren’t shows. They’re celebrations. The ceremony should be the focus of the wedding, not the dinner menu or the wedding cake. In fact, you don’t need to serve dinner and have a wedding cake to make the evening memorable. And really, nobody cares. Nobody cares what kind of centerpieces are on the tables, or if the chairs have back covers, or if the bridesmaids are all wearing the same shoes. The only thing that matters is that the bride and groom enjoy themselves and that the guests help them celebrate.

It’s true. Girls plan their weddings before they even find a man to marry. But I think this is a bad habit, sort of like being selfish. I can see men being scared by this concept too. They might wonder, “How do I fit into all of this?” It’s the image of a couple at the altar, the gown looks beautiful, but the man’s face is silhouetted with a big question mark in place of the eyes and nose. I must admit, I’ve been guilty of this myself, but I see the light now.

I danced like a maniac, ripped my dress twice, and didn’t get to bed until 3:45 AM. It was the most fun I’ve had in a very long time. I took with me the desire to have a celebration just like theirs: full of family and friends, great music, and the marriage of two best friends.

I’m almost on vacation, fool. Just a few more hours left till I head to the airport. And this isn’t just one of those weekend trips with two days of travel, and no re-lax-ashion. This is the wide load. Cabin, lake, family, probably a lot of s’mores. A boat, and my pretty, new laptop. That baby and I are gonna sit by the lake, hopefully in the shade, and I’m going to write me some stories. The rest of my time will be spent looking for the perfect marshmallow roasting sticks. And if there’s any time left over after that, there will be some high contact boggle going on. By contact, I mean me poking my cousin and trying to pinch her soft, clammy self in an effort to distract her.

There may or may not also be the following:

1. Jigsaw puzzle
2. Swimming
3. Sleeping in till 10:00 AM (that’s a big deal for me)
4. Sand castle building with my cousins
5. Sitting on a dock with my feet in the water
6. Watching the sunset and then the stars
7. Getting eaten alive by mosquitoes
8. An art project of some kind involving sock puppets and grass
9. Eating and cooking outside, possibly baked potatoes from the fire pit
10. Some good boozing

I think that’s a good list to start with. Come to think of it, I couldn’t ask for anything more.