Bugged Friday Round-Up

I asked a friend in recovery how it was to not be drinking and he responded that he never thought about it until someone asked. This gave me pause. What was I hoping to accomplish with the question? Did I want an actual answer or his affirmation that he still wasn’t drinking? Was I hoping to be educated about the recovery process or make conversation? Or pin the beetle to the display board?

My husband and I are realizing that we love our new dog, Swirl, possibly more than we love each other and certainly more than we love our children. We’re keeping this to ourselves, of course, lest the information falls into the wrong hands. It just isn’t done to place a creature above one’s own family, the optics are terrible as they say. We’re aware of this so we only talk about our outrageous disloyalty in the kitchen.

Yesterday, as my friend Karen tailgated a guy who got so irked he started braking every three seconds, she yelled, kidding/not kidding, “DON’T YOU KNOW WHO WE ARE, MOTHERFUCKER? WE HAVE IMPORTANT THINGS TO PROTEST!” Just then we spied a cop car tucked on a side street and she slowed down so we looked normal, like two old friends who’d just gone thrifting at Goodwill. And I drew from this experience this: when we lose our ability to yell “motherfucker” we are done for. Thank God we’re not there yet.

My life is a steady mix of brilliance and idiot moves. Earlier this week, after leaping up in a big crowd to deliver what I thought was astute and insightful commentary on a bad public policy decision process, I scurried off to the restroom with the sole purpose of taking a picture of myself in the mirror. It was meant to be sort of a triumph picture plus I thought I looked cute in my pink shirt but I couldn’t figure out how to do it never having done it before and as I was futzing with my phone, of course, someone walked in the bathroom and looked at me a little quizzically, causing me to say, “I’m taking a picture of myself in the mirror.” Unbelievably, I got a picture of myself taking a picture of myself in the mirror as the woman walked in looking quizzical but it was so mortifying that I sent it to the Trash. Can you believe it?

My husband asked me a few hours ago if I was going to write a Friday Round-Up which immediately made me not want to not do it. I took his question as hectoring, pressure, the laying on of unreasonable expectations, which seemed to surprise him but not much. I hate questions, I really do. One wonders why I ask so many.