So I’m reading this book, Mad Dash, by Patricia Gaffney. It’s one of those books that is just uncanny in its observations about marriage and relationships. It’s depressing in its truthfulness really. I can’t tear myself away from it. The characters are so real to me. With books like these, I always wonder what sort of hell the author must have went through to understand those particular emotions. It has its funny moments, too, thank goodness.
We get a lot of wrong numbers at our house. Often, I get Sage to answer the phone so I don’t have to deal with it. The other day, he answered the phone and hung up saying, “That was really weird”.
I looked up from the really important business at my computer.
“What did they say, Sage?”
“They wanted to know if I had a rock,” he said with a totally perplexed look on his face.
Damn people can be so stupid.
I hooked the fax machine up to the home phone and now they get to hear digitalized cat screams.
Until I was 33, I had always thought that “swollen lips” and “ripped bodices” were something that came out of cheesy romance novels. Not that I would ever read such a thing, of course. This misconception was shattered one night after a stunning dance performance by the man who would later become my husband and the father of my second child.
Drinking liberally, we went out to my car for some old-fashioned necking. I mean, I suppose it was old-fashioned, given the bodice ripping and all that. And that dress was the best fitting one I’ve ever owned too, a $350 number purchased at the Neiman Marcus outlet for a mere $40.
Returning to the venue, I went to the restroom to adjust my poor bodice, and discovered that my lips looked bee-stung. I had Angelina Jolie lips. Actually, more like Angelina Jolie lips that had been stung by three or four bees with plenty of venom in their stingers. They were nice and red, too, no need for lipstick.
I remember staring at myself in the mirror and wondering who I was, at 33, with these lips and a ripped dress. It was a feeling of curiosity rather than shame, and I went out and joined the dancers in their celebration. In the loose wildness of the night, my other left foot righted itself and I danced like a princess with my partner, eliciting questions from others about whether I too was a professional dancer. I, who cannot remember the most basic steps to Salsa today, cleared the floor with my partner. Heard applause. It was magic.
It might have been the wine, it might have been the King of All Crushes who was leading me, but perhaps it was the kisses?
Susan thinks of agoraphobia as a black hole of sorts, something that exists within her own house, sucking her toward it, not releasing her into the universe. The black hole is a comfort. She exists quite comfortably in its vacumn.
For months, she has been working with her phone-based counselor to get out of the house. She is making progress. Just last month she was able to walk past her driveway by herself. The therapist is pleased with the progress she is making. Each day, she makes it a point to walk her frustrated dog just a little further away from the house.
The social worker stops by every week to see if she is doing okay. Does she have enough groceries? Yes, her mother takes care of that for her, thank you, though. She works online as a writer. It pays a little bit. She lies to her doctor about how much Xanax she needs. She takes half of what he gives her, and sells the rest to a neighbor, who kindly comes over and picks it up himself. The bills are paid. She loves automatic bill pay. Drugstore.com is a godsend. She thinks that if it wasn’t for the unfathomable desire to be normal, she has it made.
Until the police came. When they clapped the bracelet around her ankle and told her not to go 50 feet beyond her house for six months, she laughed. Freedom! A welcome rest from the exhausting forays into the neighborhood.
**Strangely enough, based on real life. My son is on house arrest, which seriously limits my forays into the country in my constant fight against the beast I call agoraphobia. But yet, I am not responsible now for not working on that particular issue as often as I usually do. I have to stay home and supervise my son except on very rare occasions. Life is strange.
