I Have a Statue of You In My Closet

Pin It The manuscript I'm currently trying to beat into submission (so that I can start the long process of having it simultaneously rejected by hundreds of literary agents) starts off with the heroine dragging a friend along to help her spy on the boy she's in love with. They hide in the bushes and watch in comically stalkerish dismay as the guy picks up his thin and pretty date for the evening.

Did you know there could be comically stalkerish dismay? Because there can. The reason I know this is that back in my (oh so wild and crazy) single days, my friend Becky* and I performed The Stalking not once, not twice, but THREE times.

Becky and I were really good friends. People said we were kind of nuts, which at the time we took to mean, "Aw, they are delightfully quirky and eccentric and cute." But really, looking back on it, I think mainly they just thought we were nuts.

Becky had an enormous crush on this cute guy we knew who I'll call, oh, I don't know, Mike.

Mike was tall and friendly and hilarious. If we'd lived anywhere near an ocean, he would've been a surfer. As it was, he was a wakeboarder and a snowboarder and he was seriously cute. If Becky hadn't had a crush on him, I'm sure I would have picked up the slack.

Becky and Mike went on a few dates, but eventually Mike's interest kind of waned. We all still hung out together, but he stopped asking her out. He would flirt with her, call her late at night and generally mess with her head, but he didn't want to actually go out with her.

You see the problem, right? Sadly, Mike was just not that into her. This was before that was actually a recognized condition though, so Becky and I spent many, many, many, many nights discussing where "this thing with Mike" was going. I empathized my heart out over the situation, partly because I was in the middle of my own never ending, totally doomed crush on a boy who just wasn't that into me, either. (Jerk.)

One night Mike invited a girl he was seeing, Katie, over to his house. He was going to cook dinner for her or something like that. Becky was seriously bummed so we went out for ice cream. Because eating more food? TOTALLY THE ANSWER TO OUR PROBLEMS.

Anyway, we were driving around that night and decided it would be a good idea to drive by his house. Just once. Just to see what was going on. I was pretty sure Mike wouldn't remember my car. I mean, he'd only seen it twenty or thirty times and it was a very inconspicuous, thirty year old, bright orange tank of a Volvo. We were practically in stealth mode.

We parked down the street from Mike's house. We slouched down in our seats, giggling, and watched the front door for a while but nothing really happened and after a while we got bored.

Becky was seized by the desire to just KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON. Something was undoubtedly going on. Our lives would obviously not be complete until we knew what it was. So we did the only thing that made any sense at all.

We snuck around into the back yard of the house behind his and peeked over the cinderblock wall.

(For the record, Mike's neighborhood was brand new. A lot of the houses were still being built, or were finished but empty. The house behind Mike's was not occupied. So we were trespassing, but only technically. Are you seeing how that makes it all better and marginally less disturbing?)

Unfortunately, the blinds were partly drawn and we couldn't really see much. I could kind of sort of see the top of Katie's head, but that didn't really give us much information, and did not help to contribute to the intelligence we were trying to gather re: why Katie and Mike were sure to break up any minute now, so that he could come to his senses and propose to Becky.

We debated jumping into the yard to check things out, but that seemed a little TOO stalkerish. (It was good that we had boundaries, don't you think?)

At this point we were laughing and egging each other on and just kind of having fun and being crazy(er). We went back out front and walked across the street and down a few houses, then laid down in the grass so that he wouldn't see us if he came outside. (Since the grass was approximately two inches long, I'm sure we were very nearly invisible. We were BRILLIANT.) We laid there and talked and laughed and laughed and laughed for at least an hour until the door to Mike's house opened and we ran shrieking down the street toward my car.

Yeah. I'm sure he didn't notice THAT.

We thought we were so clever, but really, two chubby blond girls running down the street toward an ancient orange Volvo? In retrospect I'm guessing it probably wasn't that hard for him to figure out who we were.

But he never said anything, as far as I know. And it turned a really crappy night into a really fun one. Mission accomplished.

Man. You have no idea how badly I want to link to Becky's blog right now, but I think if I did that, and outed her, she would kill me dead with a knife.

But I don't think she should be embarrassed. After all, I'm sure you've all stalked someone before. Right? RIGHT?

No?

Just me then?

Alrighty.

*I realized a little late that my friend might not actually be o.k. with my posting this story for the universe to see, so I've changed their names to protect their privacy.

So As It Turns Out

Pin It The house we love and miss?
(This is the playroom.)

In the neighborhood we love and miss?
(How beautiful are the mountains? SO BEAUTIFUL.)

With the friends we love and miss?
(This was from the girl's night out one of my dear friends organized right before we moved.)

And all of the neighborhood kids we love and miss?
(These are a few of the neighbor kids with mine. Seriously, we LOVE these kids.)

We get to keep it. WE GET TO KEEP IT!

WE GET TO KEEP OUR HOUSE. Everything is signed, sealed and delivered. It's ours.

I wish I could say something terribly profound and eloquent about it, but I can't quite form my happiness and gratitude into words yet. Still, I wanted to share the news with friends, family and all those of you who have held your breath right along with us. Your support and friendship and love and thoughts and prayers have meant the world to us.

I'm so happy. We're so happy. The kids are over the moon right now. If I may be really dorky and childish and, well, myself for a second, I think the super sophisticated thing I really want to say right now is simply: YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAAAAAAAAY!

YAY!

(We'll be moving back early next month. Can you believe it? Can you? Because I can't believe it. Holy cow. I've never been so happy to start packing in my life.)

(If you aren't sure what this is all about because you're new to the blog, click on the label "House Drama" (below the comment link) and you can read all about it from the beginning.)

How I Lost One of My Best Friends and Got In Touch With My Jerky Side

Pin It One of my best friends is (was?) a gal named Terri.

We met when we were about nineteen and hung out together for the next few years - sharing an apartment, a circle of friends, and a crush on the same guy. As we got older we drifted into different social circles and circumstances and gradually drifted apart, but we would still talk on the phone now and then and keep in touch. She was a bridesmaid in my wedding and drove all the way from another state to attend my baby shower.

We were the kind of friends who didn’t have to talk every month, but when we DID get around to talking, it was as if no time had passed at all, and we would laugh and giggle and feel nineteen again.

A while back she called and left me a message. It was a bad week for me. I was in the middle of two hundred things at once so I didn't call her back. It wasn’t a big deal. Sometimes we would play phone tag for weeks before actually getting in touch with each other, and it was almost never urgent.

The next week, she called me again. I was in a non-social kind of mood that day, so I didn’t call her back, but made a mental note to call her the next day. I didn’t get around to calling though, because mental notes are pretty much useless when your brain is a sieve.

The next week, she called me again. I didn’t call her back, but thought, MAN, I really need to call her back.
The next week she called me AGAIN, sounding understandably peeved. This time I thought, MAN, I really need to call her back, with a side order of wait, before I call I have to think of a good excuse for why I didn’t call her back the first three times. So I made a note to call her RIGHT AFTER I thought of a good reason.

Pllllllbbbbt.

The next week she called me again and left a message saying, “I guess you’re never gonna call me back. I don’t understand what’s going on. Are you mad at me or something?”

Ashamed of myself, I finally called her back and apologized.

Oh, except I DIDN’T. I felt dumb, because I’d created this big dramatic thing out of thin air, simply by not calling back. I was too embarrassed to call and tell her the truth - HEY, I’m sorry, I’m a lazy and THOUGHTLESS JERK. I thought she would just be mad if I called her, and I hate drama, and because I’m a cowardly coward who cowards I thought, ah, well, we never talked all that often anyway. So basically I threw our friendship away. Swish-swish-swish, into the trash. Over NOTHING.

Because I’m a self-involved idiot with the emotional maturity of a gnat.

I ask you, who DOES that??!

When I told my sisters about this on Saturday they sat and stared at me for a minute, speechless, shaking their heads at my complete and total social idiocy and dorkitude. I know they were wondering what was missing in my SOUL that I would do that to somebody. So yes, I know. I KNOW. I KNOW!!! (Don’t tell me in the comments – I KNOW! I KNOW!!!)

Why didn’t I call her? Why did I put my own feelings of embarrassment ahead of our friendship? ACK!

I know what the answer to the question is of course. I didn’t call her because I’m a JERK.

I kept thinking, you know, if I had her email address, I could just post about it and send her the link to my blog instead of calling her to apologize (like an actual grown-up). Because heaven forbid I should have to feel awkward for two-and-a-half minutes or actually ask for forgiveness for something I did to hurt someone. But that would kind of be a jerk move. Also, I don't have her email address.

So today? TWO YEARS LATER? (I KNOW - SHUT UP.) I'm going to call her.

Wish me luck. On the phone call, and on perhaps someday achieving emotional maturity.

What I Will Miss

Pin It In the winter, on sunny days, mothers look out the window with determination, and say, "Yes, definitely, go outside," and after a solid half an hour of prep time, finding snowboots and putting on mittens and zipping up jackets, their children head out to play. They build igloos and snow forts and run to the park to sled down the high slope by the baseball diamond. They make snowmen and snow angels until they are too cold to bear it any longer and then they rush into the house with red fingers and noses, to sit by the fire until they are cozy.


In the early spring, they come out, dressed in layers and mittens and gradually casting off clothing throughout the day as they slosh through the waterlogged grass. They dig in the muddy sandbox and poke through the melting piles of slush, discovering toys long hidden under the snow, mixing up magic potions of leaves and early flower buds, and hours later, coming inside with sunburned cheeks, sad because it's starting to snow.

A month later, the flowers start to appear, tulips and crocus and daffodils, and they can’t resist picking them, the first flowers they’ve seen in the yard in months, picking them and bringing them to their mothers. “For you, mom,” they say benevolently, and they wait for a hug and a kiss from a mother who is delighted by the gift (despite her chagrin over the rapidly dwindling supply of unpicked flowers). They play all day long on Saturday, packs of children, pretending to be the Boxcar children or magical fairies, or pirates ("Mom, tell her I don't have to walk the plank!"). They help in the yard, where we plant lavender and penstemon and daisies, and they look at me skeptically as we plant vegetables, not quite sure if they should believe me when I tell them this little pebble of a seed will one day be a cornstalk.

On Saturday, there is soccer, every field and park in town full to the brim with children and their families, children who aren't quite sure if they are running toward the right goal, who lose concentration when they get the ball as they glance up to make sure their parents are watching. On Sunday after church, families are out together, on walks and bike rides around the neighborhood, parents stopping every few feet to talk to people they’ve barely seen all winter as the children urge them forward ("Come ON Dad").

In summer, mothers send their children into the backyard ("Go on, go out and play") and the kids find each other, congregating and planning the morning's mischief as mothers sneak off to check their email, to make a phone call, to read a newspaper, to do the dishes. They play all morning, running through sprinklers and wading pools, discovering neighborhood pets, building dams in the stream at the park, fading over to the shade of porch swings by noon, and disappearing into the house during the hottest part of the day.


They creep back out again in the late afternoon, riding bikes and scooters and trying out skates, knocking on doors to remind their friends that it's time to come outside again. They find a zucchini in the garden and then an onion or maybe a green bean, and vegetables have never been so exciting before. In the evening it’s beautiful out, and we turn on the flood lights, not yet ready for the kids to come in, not quite ready to go in ourselves. The adults congregate in little clumps, talking and gossiping and laughing while the kids race around, squeezing in a few more minutes, a few more minutes ("Hurry before we have to go inside"). I look around at my friends, at my family and stand there thinking, I will always remember this.

In late autumn we pick pumpkins and put the garden to bed and get things ready for winter. We savor the last few warm days before winter comes and spend more time than usual outside, soaking it up, letting them play, letting them enjoy each other’s company. Little arrangements appear on front porches, hay bales and pumpkins and autumn flowers and baskets of apples. We visit pumpkin patches and go on hay rides and run through corn mazes. We plan costumes and on Halloween night, we go around the block and down the street, collecting candy at every door, (except the scary ones with haunted houses, because my kids aren’t quite that brave, at least not quite yet). We hand out eight bags of candy and have to shut off the lights at eight-thirty, because my husband is NOT going back to the store.

The first snow falls, and we are happy, because we made it to November with no snow, and maybe it will be a mild winter, after all (high hopes, quickly dashed). Cabin fever has not yet struck, so we enjoy looking out the window at the huge snowflakes as they come falling softly down, and we drink hot chocolate and put on Christmas music, even though it’s really far too early. We drag out snow boots and mittens and snow pants and a few minutes later, the thin layer of snow in the yard has been obliterated by overly enthusiastic children, who are ready, once again, to make snow angels.

And in Las Vegas, there won't be this, not all of this, but there will be shorts in February and swimming in October and eggs to fry on a piece of tinfoil on the sidewalk in August and it will be different, but it will still be fine - it will be just fine (at least this is what I remind myself when I'm feeling maudlin). Because as it turns out, forts work just as well when you make them with cardboard boxes, popsicles taste even better when it's 114 out, and you can still make perfectly good snow angels in a sandbox.

Life will still be sweet, because there is always sweetness to be found when you look for it, but I will always remember this part of our lives, when we lived for a time in a Norman Rockwell painting.