She's Writing a Novel

The first and only time I experienced a break-up, it was all my doing. And it was long, drawn-out, and messy. I wanted to rid myself of the guy, but he was convenient. He was familiar. He was the first. It was hard to let go, even knowing that was what I really wanted.

He didn't make it easy for me. The first few times I tried to have "the conversation," he skillfully redirected and sent me spinning down nostalgia lane. "But think of all the humid summer nights after a rain, when we've walked down a softly steaming pavement hand in hand." And I would get sentimental, and turn chicken-shit, and I'd stop myself from saying what I really wanted to say.

It was easier to say it, in a private email, after I moved a continent away that autumn. And I thought, what with all the hinting I'd been doing that summer, he would not be terribly surprised. Perhaps he wasn't, but he was still devastated and he decided to announce his grief to every mutual friend and acquaintence in an email of his own. I don't remember which of them forwarded it to me; I suppose whoever it was thought it perhaps unfair that there was an apparent character assasination plot underway while I was on the other side of the Atlantic. I think that mass email was titled "Paint It Black;" I remember being horrified at the melodrama of it all. I was immersed in British culture by then and had almost forgotten the morbid and self-indulgent emotional style preferred by young Americans.

We reconciled a few weeks later, however. I'm not sure why. Probably I was lonely, probably the new boy I had tried to woo had become preoccupied with his studies. It was not a happy reunion, however. In some blog I had posted a "100 things about me" list; one of those being the number of boys I had kissed (and you could've counted them on one hand.) The number was exactly 1 higher than the number the boyfriend knew himself to be, and when he saw this he went slightly ballistic.

I couldn't understand how he could be that angry that I had shared a few lip-locks with another fellow during the weeks we were broken up. But it wasn't the last time I kissed the other fellow, and it wasn't the last time I fell asleep in the other fellow's bed. I learned to keep things to myself, however; I learned that if you want to have honesty with a man, first you have to find one that isn't jealous and possessive.

I dumped him again when I got home. He tried to make it as ceremonious as possible; when I told him it simply wasn't going to work out, he brought out every momento he had saved during our relationship and deposited them at my feet. And then he turned and left without a word. I sobbed. He had achieved the desired effect of making me feel like shit for making him feel like shit. And still, I didn't realize what a shit he was for doing so. It was too long before I found my way out the door he had painted black.

I was in the kitchen at the office grabbing myself some coffee, when I overheard a couple of other employees chatting by the microwave about how expensive it is being vegetarian. Predictably, they were twenty-something females with a nerdy-chic image. Surprisingly, they weren't that fat.

I've met a lot of vegetarians, and all of them were overweight. This didn't make sense to me at first; I had always assumed that vegetarians would be frail and sickly creatures, subsisting on celery and raisins and rice. Turns out most of them just eat a lot of french fries.

What is really strange is that most vegetarians I've met actually eat fewer fresh fruits and vegetables than I do. I'm an omnivore without a dilemma. I will eat anything that can't outrun me. As an equal opportunity consumer, I'll eat it if it's raw and bleeding, and I'll eat it if it's green and leafy. I snack on fresh fruit during the day, and I eat a big veggie salad every night along with whatever dead animal flesh I'm also consuming. But all of the vegetarians I meet get most of their food out of boxes in the freezer.

Basically, they eat organic vegetarian processed food. Organic vegetarian processed food is basically soy pretending to be every other kind of food. So, vegetarians are people who eat mostly soy. Basically, they share the same diet as the cows and pigs and chickens they refuse to eat. It's an almost poetic solidarity, really. It also explains why they get so fucking fat.

It also explains why it is so expensive to be a vegetarian. The most expensive part of my diet is the meat; hence I was confused why a vegetarian would be bitching about money. But while $20 buys you a week's worth of produce, it only buys you three organic vegetarian frozen dinners. So if you are a vegetarian who doesn't eat fruits and vegetables, no wonder it's making you broke. And just think, you're spending all that money on soy!!!

When you could be spending it on bacon.

I've just completed filing my taxes for 2007. I tend to dread my taxes the way I dread getting a shot; I cringe at the mere thought of it and then I'm surprised at how quickly it's all over and I think to myself "well, that wasn't so bad." But still, I am relieved that I don't have to think about it again for another 11 months.

You'd think the government would make it as easy as possible to file your taxes and give them your money, but instead it's a sadistic cat and mouse game where they chase your money and you try to hide it behind deductions. Some mice are more clever than others. Congress spends much of their time passing obscure laws within laws to make the game more interesting for everyone and more fair for no one.

I don't qualify for many deductions. This is because I am nearly an ideal citizen; I'm young, single, childless, healthy, employed, and renting. The government looks at an individual like me and thinks "well, what does she need money for?" And then they try to take as much of it as they can so they can give it to hipsters loving the lazy life on unemployment, urban teenagers who thought the pull-out method was an effective form of birth control, broke suburban homeowners, and the elderly so they can live to catch every episode of Wheel of Fortune between now and the day they turn 99 thanks to 50 different medications and dozens of surgeries.

I wish there were deductions that actually applied to me as a reward for not being in a high-risk category to require government assistance. Like an "I'm not a fat-ass whose diabetes care and blood pressure medications will drain Medicaid for decades" deduction. Or how about a "Doesn't breed copiously" deduction. Maybe even a "Lives within reasonable means" deduction.

But why reward responsibility? Why provide additional incentive to be self-sufficient and accountable? If we did that, there would not be nearly enough to go around to prop up the deadbeats and the lost causes. So surely, it's better to drain the Barely Successful to sustain the Clearly Failing.

At some point, it stopped being acceptable to ask whether some people have it coming to them, whether some deserve what they get, whether some people have earned the right to live with the consequences. Be it wealth or poverty, we want to assume that it just happens to people through no fault or merit of their own and that therefore, these are just states of being we can move around like game pieces.

There is no grace in economics; there is only cause and effect. Grace is what we give each other: our children, our parents, our friends. And even random strangers. But trying to inject our human subjectivities into mathematical realities only leaves us all more empty handed and less generous.

I was reading an article today about the rising cost of food in the U.S. Well, duh. But I guess the fundamentals of economics are considered newsworthy to people who know nothing about them.

In any event, the article took a typically liberal turn and started lamenting about the U.S. "poor" and how the sharp increase in price for many grocery items is really taking a toll on them. People making twice the minimum wage were trying to figure how they would ever manage to save even an extra $5 a week to compensate.

If you can't figure out how to save an extra five bucks a week, regardless of your income, then congratulations. You've just discovered the reason why you are not and never will be a millionaire: You are an idiot.

Anyway, the best part of this article was to come. I had to read it twice to really comprehend that this was being stated in all seriousness.

Proposals to save that five dollars a week? The following:

"For some, that means adding an extra cup of water to their soup, watering down their milk, or giving their children soda because it's cheaper than milk."

If this sentence doesn't give you a half dozen reasons to grind your teeth in rage and disbelief at the prevailing stupidity of Americans, you are probably also still sitting there trying to figure out how to save an extra five bucks a week.

1. Milk. What is with Americans and drinking milk? Can we please just get over it already? The fact that most of the world's population is lactose intolerant should sufficiently indicate that milk is NOT essential to the human diet. Not drinking milk is not a humanitarian crisis; not being able to afford milk simply means that you stop drinking milk. Unless you are a breastfeeding infant, there are myriad alternatives. Which brings me to this:

giving their children soda because it's cheaper than milk

Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me. Are these the same people who claim to live in poverty while watching cable television on their flatscreens?

It's called WATER. You ungrateful bastards live in country that has plenty of it available, and it's both sanitary and cheap. Your kids don't like to drink it? See how much they enjoy being thirsty.

Giving kids soda because you can't afford milk is like giving them crack cocaine because you can't afford tylenol.

And last time I checked, a bottle of soda costs more money than turning on the tap at the kitchen sink. But, of course, I'm just being too analytical about all of this. These people are in this terrible milk versus soda dilemma because of institional socio-economic injustice.
How could I ever think otherwise?

Last weekend the Russian lover and I went to Washington DC. If you want to get away from politics this month, the key is to be anywhere except the keystone state, even the nation's capitol. But we had a good excuse to be there; we had been invited to a customer's fundraising gala. But even if we didn't have a good excuse, we still might have fled our own city for a few nights.

The Russian lover's mother had flown in from Moscow to stay with us. For a month. In our apartment. This had happened before, but the timing this go-round was not ideal. Russian lover was swamped with work and so in addition to being stressed out of his mind he was also not available to serve as translator. Many awkward hours ensued as his mother and I attempted to be social. Then, mid-visit, many large boxes of heavy computer equipment were delivered. It was like having ten ottomans in your livingroom; they simultaneously became things to pile stuff on and things to have to walk around and ultimately just annoying. But the stuff in the boxes is awaiting deployment in a few weeks, and until then they are boxes-in-residence. At least the boxes kept the Russian mother's many pieces of luggage company.

Which is all to say that if sometimes you feel like your home is too small and crowded, just invite your partner's mother to come live with you for a few weeks. Then when she leaves, Voila! You will feel as though you just moved into a sprawling penthouse.

Anyway, our room in DC was epic. I love the sterility of hotel rooms, and I love all the little touches which feel complimentary even though after you paid however-many-hundred dollars the least they can do is give you some fancy soap. Feeling giddy with the freedom of having so many square feet all to ourselves, the Russian lover and I immediately raided the mini-bar. (We had a four dollar Snickers bar, which, in its defense, was a king size Snickers bar and therefore only marked up about 150%.)

The matching robes in the closet, however, were the most exciting find in the room. One leopard print, the other zebra, these robes were specially designed to allow guests to express their creative "wild" side. Indeed.

After returning from dinner, and however much wine, the robes felt mandatory. How could we stay in a room with such robes and not partake? I grabbed the leopard print robe and, thus apparelled, went on the hunt with the ice bucket. After searching every inch of our floor, I informed the Russian lover that there was no ice to be found. He insisted this was a failure on my part, and wrapped himself up in sexy zebra stripes to prove me wrong and locate the ice himself. Running after him, we again scoured the floor for an ice machine before noting the sign informing us that ice was located one floor below us.

It was almost midnight, so we waited for the elevator without much worry that we would be sighted on our little safari. But when the elevator doors opened, out poured half a dozen people. We stood very still; maybe nature's camouflage would hide us even in the urban jungle. But alas, they could not help but notice the woman in a leopard robe to their left, and the man in a zebra robe to their right. Raised eyebrows and snickering ensued: "Whoa" "Well hey there" "Umm..."

Having already surrendered our dignity to the cause, there was nothing left to do but go ahead and fetch our ice.

I grew up in a family that didn't argue much. I didn't have an angry verbal confrontation with a friend until I was in my twenties. Sometimes I wonder if any of those long-lost friendships could have lasted if I'd just spoken up, if I'd been willing to take the risk of coming to blows with someone I cared about. Because if you're not fighting about a problem, you're probably trying to avoid the problem. And avoiding the problem eventually becomes avoiding the person associated with the problem, distancing yourself emotionally or even physically. At some point you won't know what happened; the relationship will just be over.

Of course, fighting all the time is just as bad as not fighting at all. I'm glad that the Russian lover and I have found a happy medium of conflict -- enough to address our occaisional problems without wallowing in them. I don't count spats as conflict - spats are just the friction that comes from sharing space. Running late, losing things, taking up too much room in the closet...two people trying to do life together are simply going to step on each other's toes from time to time. And it's not a big deal unless you make it a big deal.

But there are big deals - about who the other person is, and how they live their life, and the decisions they make. What they contribute to the relationship, what they take out of it. And if the relationship is worth fighting for, you're going to fight. I'm glad I've learned that fighting (in moderation) is not what drives people apart; the refusal to fight is.

The Russian lover and I have very different conflict styles. I simmer like a pot on the stove; he explodes like a burrito in the microwave. With me, you have to wait a long time for the water to boil; with him, you think you've got three minutes before it starts to get hot but 30 seconds later you are scraping burnt tortilla and beans off the walls.

When the Russian lover goes into Very Angry mode, I tend to go into Conflict Resolution mode. This is probably owing in part to my pacifist Mennonite heritage, and the rest to the fact that I am female. I immediately try to have a Meaningful Conversation. This does not provoke a welcoming response; I have since learned that a Very Angry man simply needs the time and space to be Very Angry. He may need to go for a walk, or shut himself up in a room with beer and a cigar. He does not want to talk about his feelings, because those should be obvious. He is Very Angry! But when he has calmed down, you can talk about what went wrong and what needs to be done differently. And then you can have sex.

When we first started dating, I did not know at all how to respond to the Russian lover. I associated anger with Complete and Total Rejection, and I would go into a panic. After our first big fight, the Russian lover went out for a walk and I grabbed a bottle of bourbon, having convinced myself he was never coming back, or that he would come back in the morning after having a meaningless fling just to upset me. My fears were not based on anything resembling reality, because I disassociated the anger from my lover. I believed that anger made people into someone other than the person they told you they were the rest of the time. Anger felt unpredictable, like all bets were off and the other person was going to wound you in any way they could.

There was a time of my life where I kept company with a man who was a walking time bomb, a self-absorbed bottle of repressed rage. But I didn't realize it wasn't that he became a jerk when he got angry; he was just a jerk who sometimes got angry. Eventually I was able to understand that he was existentially an asshole, and his anger had simply been a magnification of what was already there.

I no longer feel the need to drink myself into a stuper and sob into my cell phone at someone anytime the Russian lover and I have a time-out inducing conflict. I let him have his space, and I go into mine. And when it's time, we find our way back to each other. Good men get angry sometimes, just like good women can be little bitches sometimes. We all cast shadows.

I have always been a very serious person. My mom says that when I was a young child, I played with my dolls with such stoic intensity that she was tempted to try shake me out of it: Lighten up, you're only five years old! Playing house, reading story books, coloring pictures...it was all serious business to me. I probably came out of the womb with a furrowed brow. People told my parents I was an "old soul." I guess that's one term for children who have a suspicion that childhood isn't going to last forever; it's hard to retain innocent childish glee if you're wise enough to look down the road ahead.

Freshman year of high school, my choir director told me to try to look less pensive all the time. Apparently my brooding expression was distracting from the joyful mood of certain songs. I was not aware that I looked pensive. I even had to look up the word "pensive" in the dictionary. I then wondered if I did, in fact, always look like I was in my own little world and that this little world was a very serious place indeed.

The Russian lover keeps things simple: "Snap out of it," he says. Or, "Lighten up." And sometimes, if I'm anxiously pensive, "Would you just fucking relax?" Easier said than done for someone who has never tread lightly on this earth. Everything is a mystery to contemplate, a problem to overthink, or a disaster waiting to happen. It's hard to get out of my mind and into the world around me; introverted doesn't begin to describe it.

Slowly, I'm learning to come out of myself. I'm learning to take things as they come and not stew on them impotently. Life with the Russian lover can be a roller coaster at times; he's made a career out of "crisis management" and runs headlong into dealing with problems and emergencies. I've spent a lifetime alternately contemplating and panicking, but rarely confronting and acting. If I'm to avoid giving one of us a heart attack with my approach to life, then I've got to change my approach. The Russian lover has been patiently trying to push me out of the nest, so to speak. But it will be up to me whether I take flight or hit the ground.

See? I am even serious about my seriousness. The Russian lover thinks that my blog gets too...pensive, at times. Or as he put it, "Your writing needs more boobs." He's probably right. Life is short and difficult but there is no use dwelling too morosely on any of it.

There are boobs to be talked about.