Always Aroused Girl

When I worked for the sex toy retailer mentioned here, I was asked to reach out to sex bloggers and other bloggers for the purpose of soliciting reviews of the site’s many products.  When a blogger expressed interest in writing for the company, I was told to organize their information into a pre-existing Google Spreadsheet.

This document had been created by another EF employee and was shared between us and the boss.  Into it we added bloggers’ legal names, shipping addresses, their blog URLs, item numbers of products we’d shipped to them, and details about any arrangements we’d worked out with them for publication of their reviews.

As time passed and my projects at EF grew, I also created other Google Spreadsheets with blogger contact information.  These spreadsheets were shared with my boss and other EF workers.  When EF let me go, I did not change the viewing permissions on these documents.  I felt that they were my work products, and as such, they belonged to my boss.

So it was with great regret that I learned Wednesday night that somehow, access to the first spreadsheet mentioned above had been opened to other viewers.  I’m not entirely sure how this happened.  Here’s all I can surmise:  A new EF employee surfed to a blogger’s URL directly from the spreadsheet, which left a hit on her stats counter.  She clicked on the resulting link and was taken back to the spreadsheet.  Apparently the EF employee’s spreadsheet login information was embedded in the link left on the blogger’s stats counter.  I don’t fully understand this, and would in fact welcome a better explanation if you can provide one.

I do not think that this information was exposed intentionally.  Nor do I think that it was viewed by anyone with nefarious plans.  The only people who viewed it to my knowledge were other bloggers who were completely horrified to find themselves so exposed.  Once people figured out that the information was indeed viewable and editable by anyone, access to the document was closed.

Nevertheless, I personally feel awful about this.  I entered most of the private information onto that spreadsheet after it had been given to me in confidence by anonymous bloggers.  I assumed that the information was safely stored and accessible ONLY to the people who had explicit permission to view it.  Also, I assumed that my work product (ie, the various spreadsheets I worked on and created for EF) belonged to EF.  This is why I did not close permissions or destroy the documents when I left the company.

Perhaps I should have done so, but I worried about giving my boss any more reason NOT to pay me.   I have now closed access and deleted any spreadsheets I started for EF that contained private information.

I want to apologize most sincerely to everyone who trusted me to keep their legal names and addresses private.  I feel awful for having had any part in promoting this company or encouraging others to do so.

***Information about this has now been posted on EF’s forums.  Please note that more than simply blog URLs and email addresses were listed.  Included on the spreadsheet were home addresses, legal names and products sent for review.***

Not quite two-thirds of the way through the month, I’ve been afflicted with bacterial vaginosis, a cold, the flu and now another version of the cold which has rendered me so snot-filled-stupid that not even eardrum-rupturingly loud music can shake me from my torpor.

Yes, it’s really that bad.  “You’ve got a sinus infection, poor honey,” opined my partner.  “You need to get some antibiotics.”

No, I whined.  No doctor was going to give me antibiotics for a bad cold.  I’ve had sinus infections, I pointed out to him.  I know the miserable pain, and while this cold has me absolutely dejected, I’m not in sinus infection territory.  Yet.

And then I proceeded to tell him the story of my very first sinus infection, which occurred almost exactly three years ago.  “Here, I wrote about it.  Let me send you a copy,” I said, and after a few moments of digging through ancient history on my private archive blog (closed to the public for many reasons, chief among them embarrassment), I found the post and sent it off to him.

We read together, or rather he read and I tried not to cringe at the sound of my three-year-old words.  Perhaps a tiny handful of you remember the tale.  Sick and miserable one morning, I asked the husband for help in dressing children because my face threatened to peel away from my skull if I bent over even one more time.

He was angry.  My request interrupted his breakfast routine; he didn’t want to allow his oatmeal to grow cold while he wrangled children.  I sobbed, he yelled, the children worried, and some small thing shifted in my heart.  Many more months of shifting (and another child) were required before I was ready to be done, but that morning of oatmeal and sinus infection angst marked for me a new acceptance that our fundamental differences could not be overcome.

“I would have helped you,” my lover said quietly, having finished reading the piece as I drifted back from the past.  “I would have made you go lie down while I got the kids through breakfast.”

“I know you would have, honey,” I told him.  “I know.”  I know it so deeply that it’s as though the present has gone back and corrected the past, smoothing over that hopeless morning enough that nothing is left but the distant memory of a very bad dream.

We had this conversation on a Wednesday.

“This is the best chili I’ve ever made,” I told him, talking around a warm meaty mouthful of the stuff on the first cold autumn day suitable for the brewing (and devouring) of chili.

“Did you make a lot?” he inquired.

“Yes, but we’ll have it tonight and probably tomorrow night too.  I was hoping to have it for the weekend too when the kids are gone, but it’ll be gone by then.”

“Oh,” he responded.  “That’s good.”

“Good?” I said.  “No it’s not good!  This stuff is awesome.  I planned on eating it all weekend.”

He made no comment.  It took me a moment to catch on.  “Oh.  You’re thinking about Saturday, aren’t you?  You’re thinking about my ass!”

He just laughed into the phone.

“Well,” I said after a moment.  “I guess it’s nice to have someone concerned about me in that way.”

I love it that he worries about me like this.  I love it because I’ve been with someone who couldn’t have cared any less about whether or not my body was ready for sex on any given day, and I find this current arrangement so much more fun.

Because I’m utterly determined not to become embroiled in any conversations more involved than “Can I get you something to drink ma’am,” while I’m underway to my little vacation down south, I have invested in a wee mp3 player.

Yes, I realize that planning for the complete avoidance of all other people on an airplane is terribly rude.  I also realize that I must be the last person over the age of seven to acquire an mp3 player.  Shoot me.

I explained my needs to a young man in the big-box store.  “Simple,” I emphasized.  “I don’t need to make 10,000 playlists.  I don’t need to store my entire music library on it.”  I guess I wasn’t the first old-timer with such a request, because he lead me right away to a small green box.

“2 gigabytes of memory, and it’s under $50,” he announced.  “This is the one for you.”

I bought it.  And it has changed my life.  Oh yes, yes it has.

For the rest of the night (and the next day, and the next night), I transferred my music collection to the computer and then to the device.  Herein I made several momentous discoveries, to wit:  I stopped buying music at the same time I started buying diapers; I own entirely too much Enya and Clannad (those weren’t ripped); Someone should have taken away my Alice in Chains when I was deeply depressed; Storing cds out of their jewel boxes and in an old WalMart bag is probably not the best idea (in this condition they arrived back from the ex).

And then I realized that my collection bore holes that ached to be filled.  I stumbled upon Amazon.com’s “one-click” method of music purchase.  I used it.  A lot.

I found a pair of headphones that sit down so snugly into my ear canals that I cannot hear any outside noises.  Not the dishwasher.  Not the dryer.  Nothing.  Ninjas (er, uncharacteristically noisy ninjas) could be creeping up behind me even as I write this and I’d never even know because Soundgarden is shaking loose the moorings of my brain.

Which is actually rather pleasant at the moment, as I’m under the weather with a ridiculous cold.  Very loud music piped directly into the ear canals not only disguises the sound of open-mouth breathing but also sonically loosens snot.  Seriously, it does.  This is science, folks.

I’ve discovered that I am constitutionally unable to listen to music which seems as though it originated directly in the sound center of my brain without breaking  into both song and dance.  I did this many times over the weekend.  The cats were not enthused.  I cannot imagine my fellow air passengers will be either.

Nevertheless, I am enjoying this tiny contraption far more than I ever thought I would.  And I’ve still got more than half the storage space left.  I’ve not yet begun to download the Metallica.  Or the John Coltrane. Or the … well, am I missing anything sing-alongable and rock-outable?

Advise in the comments.

Me:  I’m planning a vacation next month, and it’s really important that I have wireless access in my room.  Your hotel has that?

Bubbly-sounding woman with southern accent:  Oh yes ma’am.  We have access in every room.

Me:  It’s reliable?  I’m coming for vacation but I’ll still have to work.

Bubbly woman:  Oh yes.  We don’t have any problems with it.

Me:  What if I do have a problem with it?  I have to be able to work while I’m there.

Bubbly woman, no less bubbly than before:  Well then ma’am, if you have a problem with it, we’ll come to your room and fix the internet!

And this is why I’ve finally stopped dithering and made the decision to go on vacation.  I’m going to a place where they can actually fix the internet.

It’s gonna be great.

See, a cooler person would be doing something more fabulous on a Friday night beside cleaning out her sex toy box.  Alas, I am not a cooler person.

But my lack of coolness is your gain.  I’ve gathered together a veritable cornucopia of wee treasures for your enjoyment, including:

• Several safer sex tins from Ready two Go
• A cute MiVibe necklace from BMS
• A Just in Case condom carrying case
• A tiny cockring/whip from WhipSmart
• Sarah the Playing Mantis silicone dildo

All of these are new.  They have not touched any of my intimate flesh, although I’m not sure if this serves as encouragement or discouragement for you to play along.

If you’re interested in having me send one of them along to you, leave a comment below detailing in one hundred or fewer words why you’d like that particular product.  Planning on giving it as a gift?  Keeping it for yourself?  Using it as a garden ornament / buttplug?  Let me know!

I’ll choose my favorite comments after the contest ends on Monday, November 17th at 12:01 am Eastern time.  If you comment, please be willing to provide me with your shipping address if you’re chosen.

Mini-vibes, cockrings and praying mantises not your thing?  Then check out the newest site from Kink.com.  Can you guess what the subject matter is?  Have a peek at some free photos and videos here, then see what we thought about it on Jane’s Guide.  Come on, you know you want to.

Not your thing?  Maybe these pretty pretty pictures would work better for you?

Enjoy!

Not long ago we celebrated a child’s birthday at my house.  We’ve yet to do a party at some outside location, such as Chuck E. Cheese or the local pony farm.  Maybe someday, but for now I have a surfeit of children and a dearth of nerve.

On that day we enjoyed a houseful of guests.  My mother, who is a quite accomplished cake decorator, supplied the pastry.  Nevertheless, as a small group of my friends gathered around to admire her handiwork she apologized profusely for her ineptitude.

“What are you talking about?” said one of my friends.  “It’s perfect!  There’s nothing at all wrong with this cake!”

My mother answered as you’d probably expect:  She began pointing out the cake’s many flaws.  “No one would notice these,” said another friend.  “Especially not little children.”

“She’d notice.”  My mother looked toward me.  “She’s such a perfectionist.”

“XXXXXX?  A perfectionist?” responded one of my closest friends.  “She’s just about the last person I’d call a perfectionist.”  My other friends chimed in their agreement and added a few well-chosen examples of my actions which fell far short of perfection.  Their examples were so very spot-on, in fact, that a casual observer would have been more likely to call me a slob than a perfectionist.

My mother listened but I knew that their stories were unlikely to change her mind.  Over forty years she’s developed an idea of who I am, an idea that so often bears little resemblance to reality.  It’s frustrating, but I have to wonder how common this is.  Do all mothers do this?  Will I do this to my daughters and son?

Please advise.

What I want seems dead simple.

I drop off the children and waltz directly to gate.  I’m burdened by only a small carry-on bag — no childish books, or toys, or diapers.  I check nothing.  I speak to no one, or as few people as possible.  Once seated, I don headphones, crack open a book and lose myself.

I refuse the bag of pretzels.

Once on the ground, I manage to find my way to the hotel room with no fuss at all and within the space of about a half-hour.  I grab a bucket of ice.  Unpack two pairs of shorts, two t-shirts, and various assorted undies.  Plug in the laptop and ensure the connection holds.  Change out of cold-weather clothes into warm-weather clothes.  Then I step out to the balcony and take my first look at the ocean, because honestly, the ocean is the motivating factor behind this entire fantasy and the only part that isn’t available in my own chilly ocean-deprived state.

The particular ocean doesn’t matter, just so long as it is warm enough to sit near and walk along.  Swimming?  Out of the question.  Not even necessary if it were June instead of December.  It’s the rhythm, the sound, the smell, the feel of hot (or even warm) sand on my feet that brings me back to this wish again and again and again.

For three days or maybe four I would speak as little as possible.  I’d say, “Take a potty break,” or “Sit down at the table,” or “Stop doing that to the cat!” not at all.  I’d answer the phone for my children and my lover but no one else.

I’d eat when I chose but cook none of it.  I’d wash not a single dish.  Nor would I do laundry, make my own bed, scoop cat poop, vacuum up crumbs or change never-ending tiny clothes and rolls of toilet paper.

Instead I’d read and write and walk on the beach.  I’d sleep.  I’d sit and stare out at the water so that my mind could do its thing without interruption from anything but boats and the occasional other person enjoying the exact same thing as myself.  It would be, in a word, heavenly.

I could make this happen.  There are a few days over the holidays when the children will be with their father and I could possibly sneak from my state to another state more beach-like and balmy than my own.  I could feel the sun on my arms.  I could pick up seashells.

But I can’t.  My savings account maintains too tight a lock on its contents.  I should save that cash for…something.  Something surely will pop up.  Holiday travel frustrates me terribly.  Connections, delays, taxis, trolleys all make me shudder.  I’d feel so selfish going away without my children.  My mother would be horrified at the thought of me going on vacation alone in another state.  It is so far outside he experience, her desires, that she could not imagine the benefits and would only think how very strange a girl she bore who would even consider such a bizarre proposal.

But my mind keeps coming back to the ocean and three or maybe four days of quiet.  For the past week I’ve thought of little but this, of the waves and sand and the peace and the time.  Could it be as simple as just…doing it?

Near the end of hours together he shoved me onto my back and wedged his fingers between my pressed-together legs.  He is a master of this particular sexual technique, so much so that I could hardly bear the stimulation.

“No more orgasms,” I begged him in play.  He didn’t stop.  “No Daddy, no more,” I breathed.

He wouldn’t stop, and soon my legs opened as I continued to murmur “No more, no more,” against his lips.  But as one orgasm receded and before another could take its place the ridiculousness of the situation hit me.

I wiggled against his fingers.  “When a pretty girl tells you ‘no’ but at the same time spreads her legs wide open, which do you listen to?”

He rubbed even more intensely as he answered.  “With you I listen to the legs.  Always the legs.”

“You start stories and you never finish them,” I hear you saying.  “Whatever happened about that thing, or that other thing, or especially that funky vagina thing?”  You ask me these questions through email, IM, phone and via anonymous and overwhelming psychic energy directed at me from every corner of the globe WHICH NEVER EVER STOPS AND WHICH GIVES ME A TERRIBLE HEADACHE PLEASE STOP THINKING ABOUT ME RIGHT NOW.

While I’d love to tell my little tales in exactly the manner I choose with no outside influence, I will agree from time to time to divulge additional details as you ask for them.  Solely as a means to avoid donning the dreaded aluminum hat, you understand.

*The flu that flattened me last week has passed.  While I was only officially ill for a day, it sapped my strength for at least three days.  All offers of warm blankies, air kisses, cool hands placed upon my forehead and virtual chicken soup were much appreciated.

*Nothing is resolved with this situation.  They attempted to “negotiate” with me a few weeks ago, but unfortunately we were unable to reach a means of payment that I felt was fair.  I was told that I’d be paid if I completely dropped the small-claims case (er, no); that I’d get paid if I accepted their ad on my site for three months (um, NO); that I’d get paid eventually, on a schedule, if I agreed never to speak of the situation again publicly or privately (NO).  A summons is in the hands of their local sheriff’s office and should be delivered soon.  We go before a judge next month.  I still hold out some hope that they can see fit to pay me for the work I did before we go to court.  But I’m not very hopeful.

*I purchased some super-heavy-duty conditioner and a silk pillow case to remedy my hair issues. Both work wonderfully.  My hair has never felt so smooooth.  Unfortunately, one of my cats seems to have developed an unnatural attraction to the pillow cases, necessitating their frequent trips through the washing machine.  Ratty hair?  Solved.  Kitty fetish?  Created.  Sigh.

*Recently I’ve been doing more work for Jane’s Guide.  You can find my write-ups in the “New Reviews” section, where there’s been lots of reason for snark lately.  Check it out.

*My fishy pussy is now just fine, thank you very much for asking.  Flagyl may taste unspeakably bad, but it did the trick.  I can now get nekkid without giving folks the impression that I’ve got this baking in my pants.

There.  Did I cover it all?  Feel free to remind me in the comments if I’ve missed something. ‘Tho I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that.

Finding a post about oneself on another person’s blog is most decidedly an unsettling experience.  I’ve been there.  I’ve seen the links show up in my WordPress.org control panel, popped off to investigate, and then felt my blood run cold while reading what someone else wrote about me.

Most recently I felt that dismay after reading this post.  I wanted to leave a defensive comment on the original author’s blog.  “Autumn?” I wanted to shriek.  “It’s not autumn!  I’ve not yet begun to write!  You don’t understand!  You’re wrong!  So very very wrong!”  But that would have been immature, not to mention disrespectful of his right to express himself as he will in a perfectly legal manner in his own space.

Instead, I wrote about it here, using the exercise to organize my thoughts and to encourage myself to do better in the future.  I considered that perhaps the author had a point.  I weighed the evidence.  I stepped outside of myself for a tiny fraction of a second (so nearly impossible to do, I know!) and pondered how others might see things.

This, my friends, is what mature people do.  They take criticism as an opportunity to reflect on their own behavior and then make improvements.  They know that others see things differently, and that others are allowed — even encouraged! — to think and write freely about their opinions.  Mature people know that if someone levels incorrect criticism at them, it rolls off the back while causing nothing but momentary discomfort, at worst.  Or even just a chuckle.

The above suggestions are just a few possible reasonable responses someone might choose after finding out he’s been written about on someone else’s blog.  There are other options.  That person might, for example, choose to leave a comment written with a mix of anger and crocodile hurt which only reinforced every perception the blog’s readers (and I) had already formed about his actions in departing from the marital abode.  That person might send nasty email to his ex in the same tone.  He might rant on the telephone to her.  He might threaten to expose my full name and address in the comments in retaliation.

That person might defend his actions yet again to his ex, even though the ex had nothing to do with the creation of the post.  He might hope to make the case that the blog entry both failed to state “the truth” about his situation while also giving out too much information about him — ignoring the fact that I altered, obfuscated and otherwise left out details for the very reason that they could have been identifying.

He might demand that I remove the post, which he did.  And I did close access to the post in question.  I did this for the sake of my friend and not because of any feeling of wrongdoing on my part, or out of fear of his impotent threats.

The fact of the matter is that I’m allowed to observe situations and write about my reactions to those situations.  I’m allowed to fictionalize details that I feel might identify myself, him or any other players.  I’m allowed to maintain the reasonable hope that when a relationship ends, the person who ended the relationship will stop reading the blog of his ex-spouse’s friend.  If he cannot help himself, he should at least be very quiet about it, so as not to give the appearance that he’s checking up on his former spouse’s activities.

Our whole lives through we enjoy thinking of ourselves as the heroes in our own small dramas.  We need to feel ultimate justification for how we act.  Did we do something that we wouldn’t want others to do unto us?  Perhaps…but we tell ourselves that we had very good reasons for doing so.  This is how we keep getting out of bed every morning, is it not?

But sometimes even the very best of heroes screws up.  He makes decisions for reasons of his own — reasons which I don’t judge — but then carries out those decisions in ways visible to others.   This leaves the actions open to comment, to criticism, to notice from other people.  And sometimes their comments are hard to hear.

They say that the truth hurts, but the opposite is equally apt.  Read something about yourself on someone else’s blog that hurts?

Then it’s probably the truth.

High fever; I rest.

Rest, drink, ache, and rest some more.

Will be back next week.

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I write this on Tuesday morning, only moments after returning home from the polls, where I cast a vote that made me happier than any vote I’ve cast in years.  Or maybe forever.

There was no question that I’d vote.  I’d made arrangements days ago for a friend to watch my little ones; with the prospect of record-setting lines, I worried that they’d be disruptive (or worse) as we waited.  But something happened last night that made me even more grimly determined as I made my way to the polls this morning.

My child’s school held a mock-election yesterday, the culmination of several weeks’ worth of discussion of the candidates and the voting process.  After school, her siblings and I played outdoors in the warm late-afternoon sunshine, raking up leaves and jumping repeatedly into the piles.

Soon we were joined by our young neighbor, a boy one year older than my daughter.  As they raked and jumped, they discussed the results of the mock-election, which Obama had won by a landslide.  Our neighbor’s candidate was not the winner, and he ran down the reasons why he was disappointed in the election results.

I listened with interest for a few minutes, but as often happens in the midst of conversations, one of my younger children needed a new diaper, the other one needed to use the potty and the stove timer went off all at once.  We retired inside with instructions for my eldest to join us in ten minutes.

When she came inside, we’d dealt with our toileting crises and had dinner on the table.  “Mom,” she asked, with her small brown brown furrowed in concentration, “Is it true that Obama wants to kill all the babies?”

“Why would you think that?” I asked, aghast.

As it turns out, this was one of her friend’s main reasons for voting against Obama.  He’d come to the conclusion (on his own, or with the help of his parents, or church) that a vote for Obama meant a vote for killing infants.  All of them.

So I spent the evening having a long, unplanned conversation with my child about the mechanics of and many possible reasons for abortion.  “So…sometimes people have sex and forget that they’re could have a baby?” she asked in confusion at one point.

“Well, kind of, honey,” I answered.  “Sometimes people have sex and don’t think about a possible baby.”

“Then why do they do it, if it’s not to have a baby?”

I laughed.  “Because it feels good, honey.”  Apparently I wasn’t clear enough about this aspect of sexuality in our past discussions.

She thought for a moment.  “I’m only going to have sex when I want to make a baby.”

Briefly I considered asking her to sign a paper acknowledging that fact.  “You might change your mind about that when you get older, baby.  You can do things to be careful, so you don’t make a baby that you’re not ready for.  Then there will be less of a chance that you’ll need to worry about abortions.”

I cast my vote with these thoughts in mind, and with a hope that maybe someday we can discuss the termination of a pregnancy without the kind of rhetoric that accuses one candidate of wanting to kill all the babies.

——

Update…11ish pm 11-4-2008  I hope, I hope, I hope…

The thing that kept me an extra day from the doctor’s office was the not lack of health care.  I do have proper insurance now, and the issues I experienced with my old provider are ever so slowly being resolved.

No, I delayed an extra day in seeking medical help because I didn’t know how to answer one question on the intake form.  ‘Twould have been no problem at all if I could have written “Sore throat,” or “Back pain,” or even “Having trouble breathing,” but I was at a loss as to how best to answer the question “What brings you here today?”

I toyed with the idea of going the direct route, because I was almost entirely certain that I knew what was causing the problem.  But I’ve been told that it’s presumptuous and annoying for a patient to attempt self-diagnosis, no matter how well-intentioned.  And the last thing I needed was an irritated doctor messing around south of the equator.

The subtle approach might work, I thought, though in general “subtle” is not an apt descriptor of my any part of my attitude.  Should I write “Having female problems”?  Or go a bit more descriptive with “Leaking daintily“?  Or would the classic “Vaginal discharge” work?

You can see my dilemma.

Humor might work, I thought, because really, how could anyone not see the humor in the situation?  But then the question became wording.  As every fourth-grader knows, there’s funny-ha-ha and then there’s funny-strange, and I definitely didn’t want to be the funny-strange woman with the leaky vagina.

I brainstormed some possibilities on the drive over:

• Tuna coochie
• Piscine pussy.
• The scent of fish wafts from my nether-regions.
• Can you smell me now?  How ’bout now?
• My vagina’s astrological sign is Pisces, if you know what I mean.

By the time I reached check-in, my humor had waned.  I recalled the other times in the past I’d stood at the same counter due to troubles between my legs.  The wisest thing, I thought, might be to request that the doctor remove the offending organs.

“You think you have bacterial vaginosis, hm?” she asked.  I nodded.  “Have you had these symptoms before?”  I shook my head no, prompting an eyebrow-raised look from her.  “Then why do you think that’s what it is?”

I smiled grimly.  “If you Google ‘vagina smells like tuna,’ you get some pretty … er … instructive results.”

Within ten minutes she stuck a prescription slip under my nose with the word “Flagyl” written on it.  “Here’s the cure for fishy vagina.”

As simple as that.

And I wondered why I worried.  Why would I delay treatment for something that’s almost a guaranteed part of womanhood?  That’s not remotely sexually transmitted?  That couldn’t be passed from or to my partner?

Even if it had been sexually transmitted, why would that give me pause?  Must I feel shame for every single thing that has to do with my vagina?

The fact that I do is fishy indeed.

—

Like so many (myself included) my baby boy is adverse to being told “No.”  He’s never enjoyed limits on his freedom, but the closer the child gets to three years old, the more extreme grows the inverse relationship between his enjoyment of saying and hearing “No.”

This is not surprising, I’m sure.

It was no surprise at all that recently when his birth mother firmly told him “No” as he attempted to sip her coffee, he burst into noisy tears and ran to me.  He buried his head in my chest and wailed, hoping I suppose that I’d allow him to do what his other mother wouldn’t.

A woman seated at the next table over noticed the commotion.  “You must be the grandma,” she said cheerily to me.

“She’s not the grandma,” said his birth mother indignantly.

“Oh, I thought she was.  Kids always run to grandma when mommy won’t give them something…”  Her voice trailed off in embarrassment.

But their mother wasn’t done.  “We’re both the mothers.”  The woman at the next table raised her eyebrows.  “We’ll, I’m the real mother.  She’s just the adoptive mother,” she finished, nodding toward me.

I opened my mouth then closed it without speaking.  What would have been the point?  I’m perfectly clear on what kind of mother I am.  I don’t need her or anyone else’s definitions.

But I’d certainly prefer not to be thought the grandmother again any time soon.

The first clue, I suppose, should have been the man polishing his car in the street at 9:30 on a weekday morning.  We’d had our first hard freeze the night before, and at that hour the temperature was barely over 40F.

Yet even in that chilly weather he polished a quarter panel that already seemed perfectly shiny to me, watching absently in my rear view mirror.  As the moments passed, I noticed that he moved around his car in a decidedly random way.  In my youth I was my father’s lil’ car-waxin’ helper, and he’d never have tolerated the skittish way this man lackadaisically waved his rag around first the hood, then the side mirror, then the roof.  Something seemed off.

Within seconds the next clue arrived.  A car pulled up next to our polishing hero, who instantly stopped his rag and peered inside the vehicle.  A few words were exchanged, then almost too quick to see, something was passed between hands.  Off went the car, and then the stationary car once again went under the cloth.

Hm, thought I, glancing back to my little ones reading in the backseat.  Whatever is taking their mother so long?

But my thoughts were disturbed.  A young woman wearing a puffy jacket approached the parked car.  Once again I watched as the two shared a few words before their hands rapidly crossed.  The girl tucked something into the depths of her coat, the man placed his hand into his pants pocket, and without another word they parted.

I need to leave, I thought, looking up at my little ones’ mother’s window.  If she’s not down here in two minutes–

And then the door to her house opened.  Finally, I thought, mentally preparing the angry sentences I wanted to deliver to this young woman, this child, on the topic of requesting pick-up for a visit with small children next door to such a scene, but the person coming out the door was not their mother.

Instead, it was one of her past paramours, a young man whose face could fit in nicely here.  The routine was repeated:  quick words, meeting hands, pocket dip; then as quickly as he poked out he disappeared back inside the house.

Disgusted, I put the mini in gear, but at that moment their mother finally made an appearance.  A different woman would have yelled, I’m guessing, or scolded, or made demands.  My brain (at least not my brain on citalopram) won’t let me do this.

I told her what I’d witnessed later as we ate lunch.  “I’m not surprised,” she said coolly.  I told her we’d need in the future to come up with an alternative way to meet, as I was unwilling to expose the children or myself again to a situation like that.  She agreed with me, at least then, to my face, without the pressure of having to make some other arrangement immediately.

The well-polished car had gone by the time I dropped her back at home.  She hugged the children, then I stepped from the mini to embrace her.  “Please take care of yourself,” I said into her hair.  “Please be safe.”

“I’m always safe,” she said, clinging to me tighter (and longer) than I expected.  “Nothing bad ever happens to me.”

—

Btw, did you hear about this:

My younger children will wear anything, including too-small clothes, hand-me-downs, outfits meant for the opposite gender, discarded Halloween costumes, underwear as outerwear and lettuce leaves leftover from dinner.  They are not, as it were, particular.

My oldest child is a whole ‘nother story.  Left to her own devices she dresses herself in the same clothes she’s been wearing for the past four years.  Literally.  Clothes that are threadbare at the hems and cuffs, which are out of season, and which are worn almost to the point of allowing her bid’ness to show through.

She still wears a “Big Sister” shirt she received on the occasion of the birth of her sibling–the sibling who now uses the potty, writes most of her letters and plans her own meals.  Granted her desired meals consist of ramen noodles, canned tuna and sweetened condensed milk, but the point is that she’s trying.  No, actually.  The point is that it’s been too damn long time since my firstborn became a big sister for her to continue to wear that shirt.  Don’t you think?

Upon occasion I will purchase for this child new outfits at the store.  I will bring them home, and like a sad slave place them at her feet.  Then I’ll back slowly away.

More often than not she’ll poke at the clothes with finger or toe, then outright reject the offerings.  “It’s too blue,” she’s said in the past.  “There are words on it,” another time.  Or “I don’t like designs on my butt,” though in that particular case I can’t say as I blame her.

And back to the store those clothes will go.  “Just tell me what you want,” I beg.  “Do you want something like this?” I gesture toward her current outfit, a size too small and worn through at the knee.

“Yes, like this is good,” she vaguely says, and yet when I return with an ensemble that could pass for its twin sister she turns up her wee nose, sighs dramatically and appears the next morning with knees and a thin moon of belly on display.

All of this is very good on my pocketbook, but now the child is down to but a trio of clothes she’ll deign to wear.  I do laundry every bleeding day, but even I cannot insure that she’ll have a clean outfit, especially given her propensity for leaving dirty things in a ball next to the tub.

In desperation I recently hauled her to the store in the hope that she’d pick for herself something acceptable.  She turned up her nose at the spaghetti-strapped frippery, the Hannah Montana themed jerseys and the sparkly spangled jeans.  To everything I pointed she shook her head.  Hard enough, in some cases, to concuss herself.  I wished.

“Do you want to look at the boys’ clothes?” I asked in desperation, thinking of the book open on my pillow.

The head-shaking escalated to the point I could hear the joints in her neck grinding, and that was when I lost my shit.  “Just.  Pick.  Something.  Now,” I hissed.  “Pick two new outfits this instant.”  She saw The Look of the Angry Mother, turned off the attitude and with breathtaking speed a pair of tops and their matching bottoms flew into our cart.  “Are you happy?” I asked, and remarkably, work done, the tension drained from her small body.

“I can’t wait to wear them, Mommy,” she said with a modicum of pleasure.

A modicum of pleasure from this girl is like fountains of glee from someone else, so I ventured a suggestion which twenty minutes earlier no doubt would have caused her to crumple into a screaming ball of mushed up personhood.  “Soon honey, you’ll need one of these.”  I guided our cart down the little girls’ bra aisle and watched her eyes widen at the itty-bitty colorful triangles.  “What do you think?”

“Not yet Mommy,” she almost whispered.

“No honey,” I answered gently.  “Not quite yet.”

Not long ago I had some household items to give away, so I started a thread on my favorite local group, which is part of a very large internet dating site.  I posted my disguised but still understandable email and IM names in case anyone wanted to contact me with questions.

Before even a day passed the items found a new home; I posted a final message on the thread to let people know.  Our board is extremely active, so within a few hours, that post dropped from the main page into archived obscurity.

Are we clear so far?

A week after the post archived itself, I received an IM from someone called “Joe” with a string of numbers following his name.  Usually I don’t respond to IMs from people I don’t know, but this time I did.  My unknown correspondent mentioned my beauty, offering up details of a (quite modest, really) picture I have posted on AFF of my torso clad in a spaghetti-strap cami.  “Do I know you from AFF?” I asked, not entirely immune to compliments on my astounding gorgeousness, however random or undeserved.

“You don’t exactly know me,” he typed.

“Have we met?”  This wasn’t, believe it or not, a euphemism for “fucked.”  I keep careful records of these men.  Really.  In a spreadsheet.

“Not yet,” he responded, and he followed it up with the emoticon which looks like a laughing devil.  He mentioned again the “hotttness” of my picture.

I inquired as to how he came into possession of my IM name.  He danced around the issue for several replies while continuing to comment on my physical perfection.  This tested my patience more than a little.  But I was procrastinating with work, so I pressed on.  He didn’t want to admit it, but it finally cam out that he’d come across it while combing through our groups’ archive.  “Oh, are you a member of the group?” I asked him.

No, he answered.  He was just looking around. And he came across my picture.  My very hottt picture.

So let’s summarize.  Man who is not a member of our happy little group begins perusal of archived posts, eventually finding a post with my far-more-hot-than-I’d-realized picture.  And my IM.  Which he used not to inquire about my household items, but instead to compliment me on my hotttness. Ohhhhhkay.

By the time my brain had gathered this information, my new correspondent was typing again.  “I’d love to meet you,” he said.  “I’d like to see if you’re as sexy as your picture.”

“I’m not,” I considered writing, but I tried another tack.  “Joe,” I asked.  “Did you happen to read my profile?”

“Yeah, it was hot, we have alot in common,” he wrote, and I am indeed quoting him exactly.

“Did you read the part where I wrote that I was happy with the relationships I’m in?  And not currently looking for any new ones?”

There was a long pause.  I surmised that he was reading my profile again, with more care this time.  “Oh, I see that now.”  I’ll note that the phrases in question are printed at the top of my profile.  In large letters.  In bold.  Surrounded by stars.

“It’s not a problem,” I told him, and then began to extol the many virtues of participating in the local groups as a means to meeting awesome women.

But apparently he’d heard the only words he was interested in.  “Hey, gotta go,” he typed, and as quickly as he’d arrived in my life he was gone.

I suppose after participating in that particular dating site for such a long time now, I shouldn’t be surprised by the actions of some of its members.  But even after all this time, I can’t help but be slightly annoyed, annoyed and irritated and irked that someone would go to such lengths to get into contact with another human being and then act like such a fool.

If you’d crept up the stairs on a recent chill October afternoon then peeked into the door at the top of the stairs, you would have observed the following:

One bedroom, extremely messy; an Esse forgotten on the floor; a bottle of lube tipped on its side; and clothes strung along both sides of a bed.  In the bed you would have detected a fluffy chocolate down comforter pulled up over a pair of lovers lying still in the dim autumn sunlight.

You might have thought the lack of movement odd.  A year ago I’d also have thought it strange, but now indulging in a brief nap between rounds of fervent fucking seems the most lovely thing possible, especially on a cold afternoon turning dark too soon due to impending rain.

We’d both had long weeks by the time we came together at midday: family obligations, travel and the first colds of the season left us wrung out.  “I need a nap,” M murmured after coming for the third or fourth time, so we found the pillows I’d earlier flung out of my way and snuggled into a spot not too dampened by gushing.  He used my breast as a pillow, I rested my cheek against the top of his head, and within moments we were off to sleep.

Except that I didn’t fall fully to sleep.  I dozed only lightly and only for a moment before a cat wedged himself between our bodies.  M’s breathing was soft and regular, and I alternated between stroking his arm and the cat’s head for twenty minutes of undisturbed, perfect rest.

Finally the cat stirred and stretched, waking my lover.  After a moment of silence:  “This wasn’t exactly what you had in mind, was it?”

“No,” I answered, “but it’s perfect.”

This wasn’t what he had in mind either when he met me eons ago, wielding a red dildo and offering to fuck his ass even before exchanging names.  It’s not what either of us expected, but it works.

I love how it works.