There's a reason I've forgotten about the whole thing already...

I'm over it. For all the good reasons, not the least of which is my best friend Janet who totally got the whole thing when I called her crying and she was supportive and funny and rightfully indignant. If I could wish one thing for my kids right now, it would be to have a best friend like her. Well, but that would be a wasted wish if they were injured in a go-kart accident and then forced to be homeless because they let their insurance lapse while they were trying to afford speech therapy for their children with cleft pallets. Then they'd need more than Janet. Sorry Janet.

But I also just realized why I forgot the whole incident so easily.

This evening we had a date night planned, which was to include a little tennis and a little dinner, but it was pouring. We stood on the deck in our tennis clothes, arms akimbo, trying to convince ourselves that it was just a drizzle, but when my teeth started to chatter and rain dripped off my nose into my cleavage, we finally gave up and went straight to dinner. At 4:00. Nothing was open on Sunday afternoon except the restaurant attached to the Doubletree. It was Jim and me and a few 90-year-olds celebrating their survival of another day. Jim and I spent the better part of the hour trying to remember the name of the girlfriend of a friend's son. And then I gave the waiter a credit card that had expired last year, and we brought home three enormous boxes of food. Jim is downstairs right now watching a PBS telethon, I'm peaking through the blinds watching the neighbors argue in their backyard, tomorrow our AARP cards come and I'll start washing and reusing Ziploc bags. Time to go take my pills...

My So-Called Life

Someone told me to Fuck Off yesterday, and not the kind of Fuck Off you say when someone tells you an incredible story (as in, "And then the hot cop let me go with a WARNING!" "Fuck Off! He did NOT!! You are soo lucky!") The kind of Fuck Off wherein the person is completely pissed at me and ready to end any relationship we may have had. Or not. I mean, she might not have meant it. It might have been a joke. Isn't that so funny? Ha ha, such a funny joke. So I have to call her tonight to clarify, and how excited am I about that? So much. So excited to confront someone who told me to fuck off and to tell that person that they made me cry. And then call the three other people that were in the car with her at the time she left me a message. To clarify that when you tell someone to fuck off it's hurtful and not funny.

At least in high school you could go home and cry and daydream about Charlie Sheen and how life was going to be so much better when you were an adult (married to Charlie Sheen) and people weren't cruel.

Update:
So apparently the woman who made the comment had the impression that the group of people I was with were being clique-y. We weren't. She also had the impression we were talking about them in a derogatory way. We weren't. So her Fuck Off was in defense of others. I, in a round-about way, respect that. She had their back. She and I have made up, and I've done my best to convince her that what she and the others were seeing as slights were not. I don't know if I was successful, and I don't know how I'll ever tell.

Updated again:
I took out a bit of melodrama. See the thing is, not everyone is me. If someone makes fun of me, I laugh if it's funny, if it's not, I say "hey, that's not funny." If I tease someone, they may laugh whether it's funny or not. I have no way of knowing. Apparently I teased a friend, a woman I like very much, and she didn't think it was funny, but waited 6 months and a big Fuck Off to let me know. So now I know how it feels to be a guy. Women are mysterious and strange creatures. There should be a manual.

When the Olympics are on...

Blogging Olympics style here. I already got all chill-bumped from Tom Brokaw's (wait, must interrupt - are our world-class athletes wearing golf hats?? what the hell are those? Kobe and LeBron and Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh - they look like Jiffy Lubers). Okay, so anyway, Tom was spelling out the drama of the Olympics in China, what with the death toll from the earthquake, human rights violations, suppressed protests, and I got all chilly. First of many moments I'm sure, for the next 17 days.


Jim and I were discussing our mutual potential for Olympic stardom. See, back in the day he was a stud wrestler. Yeah, I recoiled a little too, in the beginning, what with the leotards and cauliflower ear and all, but there are few, if any, sports requiring that level of bad-assness. They starve themselves, sweat themselves dry, grapple for hours on end (when a normal individual would peter out after three minutes - no shit, three minutes is the most pretty much anyone can take), and do it all with strange illnesses and neck and back injuries. Tough. Weird, yeah, but tougher than leather gum.


That said, Jim is no Olympic wrestler, even given the perfect storm (which in our conversation means unbending desire to be the best, fully-funded by some non-creepy benefactor, and given the best coaches), it wouldn't happen. He doesn't have that level of athleticism for that sport. But I believe he could be a world-class athlete. I do. My 5'9" 185 lb, 35-year-old retail management husband could be in the Olympics. We discussed baseball, soccer, tennis. No. Maybe badminton, ping-pong or rowing? Maybe. Possibly any of those. Or something else entirely, possibly. No, Probably!


And I stood there on the front porch, still holding the bag of chips and dip I'd picked up at the corner store, watching him. He continued watering the hosta and ferns on the side of the house. A neighbor started up a lawn mower and another neighbor reached over our back fence to pet Ali. And Jim and I shared a moment, imagining him walking into the arena with Dara Torres and Serena Williams. In my mind, it had happened. Jim was an Olympian. Or I was. Or Quinn was or Madeleine was or Peggy, back there petting Ali over the fence, was. Because for me, when the Olympics are on, disbelief and doubt are suspended. When the Olympics are on, I dream every night of what I could be or even if I were average, but still in the starting blocks next to Allyson Felix. For me, when the Olympics are on the fantastic seems possible. Probable. And I smiled and nodded to myself.

Damn. What in the world is cooler than the Olympics. What?