The World According to EDW

Last night I went to the bedside of a dying man.

I was called there to pray by his wife, a friend I hadn't seen in two years. This may sound dramatic, and it may sound like I'm a holy roller. It's neither of those. I am the farthest thing from holy, and I'm not an evangelist. I'm also not into drama unless it's on TNT.

But still I went, because I was asked. It's amazing what you will do when asked, isn't it?

I went, and I was worried. I barely know Martin, her husband. I don't know her kids or family or many of her other friends. There was a group of us she asked, to come and pray, and that group I know very well.

We prepared something, a prayer service of sorts. We are not ministers. We are not trained to do this. We are professionals who share a church community, a basic faith in God, and many many bottles of wine. We drink wine together, that's our thing. Sometimes we go out for dinner, but mostly it's wine and snacks. We are not your A-Team of prayer. We are not hospice workers.

Hospice was what was happening. Nancy had brought her husband home to die. She needed her friends there and so we came. We arrived in a gang, nervous about walking in alone. We didn't want to trouble anyone. We didn't want to talk too loud, or be too cheerful, or too sad. I asked her daughter about school, as if she could talk about college life while her dad was dying.

This is what I was thinking about, how I knew Nancy.

When Nancy and I first met, she wasn't sure she'd like me. But she knew who I was, because my wedding announcement had just been in the paper. I was the girl that just got married. She hoped she'd like me, because she liked her group just as it was, and she wasn't sure about adding another person.

Nancy was the first woman who told me what it felt like to be a stay at home mom at cocktail parties. She would go to these work parties, and mingle like the good spouse, and when asked what she did, she would reply honestly. "I'm a mom" she'd say, and they would turn and walk away. What she wanted to say was, Hey! Stop! I'm interesting, I do things, try talking to me! But she didn't and they never did.

Nancy lived with her kids in Saudi Arabia in the 1980's, and it was one of her happiest times. She moved them from place to place, and country to country, because that's what Martin's job required. That was the oil business. They were living in St. Croix for two years until this August, when he felt a pain and collapsed playing tennis. They were worried. They thought it was his heart.

Her kids are pretty much grown now, a college junior at American, and a son living in Hoboken, working at his first real job. But for years, she was the only one home, the one who had to do everything, the one who had to keep their life running. It was hard. It was like being a single parent sometimes. It was lonely a lot of times.

But everything was different when Martin was home. They really loved being a family, and being together. After years of this, they were finally living together, spending lots of time together, planning on travel and retirement and enjoying life without separation or hardships.

In the end, it was a wonderful night. I felt privileged to be there. If we are lucky, we will have time to go back again. If Martin lives long enough, I mean. Today Nancy asked for song suggestions for the funeral. It won't be long now, she wrote. Thank you for being part of it, she said.

It's a very funny thing, life. People drift in and out of yours, and mine, and we never have time for all the people we meet. Sometimes we don't even have time for our family. But no matter what we read or what we hear or what our experience is, we keep on going like we have all the time in the world. Like it will never end.

What's the moral of this story? Well, the title, I guess. And this. When we started our prayer service, Nancy said that she was grateful "for the life of Martin, and for being able to share his life". The entire time we were there, she never left his side or let go of his hand. It's a horrible way to die, cancer, but what I saw last night was a great way to die. It was a great way to go. It was a great love and a great faith and a great life together. It was the end, but it was still their end.

I went shopping last night for a young looking bathing suit.

Those words alone should clue you into my state. There is no way on God's green earth that anyone looking for a "young looking" suit is actually going to end up buying one. You're walking outta there with some navy and white mom number if you're lucky. If you are in fact wearing youthful suits, you call them "hot looking" or "decent", meaning small and with strings. I know this, because I've gone shopping with my sister in law, who has the best body I've seen on someone over the age of 30 and not in Hollywood. She wears suits made for 16 year olds and looks smokin' in them. I, on the other hand, have a closet full of navy and white mom suits.

But the other night, after my best friend and I had gone through all our clothes and picked the ones perfect for our Vegas trip, I pulled out the suits. I've always loved bathing suits. I find them very freeing. They look like what they look like. There's no pretending you don't have fat thighs. There's no hiding your butt in tight jeans, which, hello, you're not hiding anyway. We can still see it. There's no pretensions, and we all feel insecure and stupid in them, even the skinny 15 year olds. Bathing suits are the great equalizer.

My suits, though, looked like someone else's. What had I been thinking? Could they get any more boring? And what's with all this navy?

So after a very long day of work, I headed over to the local Sears because I had a coupon, and I can't turn down 15% off. (Another warning sign - going to Sears for a new look - very unhip.) It was 8:20pm when I arrived and promptly launched into my patented "charm the staff" routine. I swear, I don't know how my sainted best friend shops with me. I have a compulsive habit of talking to every single clerk I see in every single store. I've worked retail. I should know better. But, no, I decide I have to make friends with everyone I see whether they want to or not.

I talked to a minimum of 5 people as I made my way from the door to the swimsuits, and then over to the Lands End section. (Third warning sign - going to Lands End for a "young looking" suit.) I stared grabbing. First, I stuck to navy. Then I said, to hell with it! I grabbed hot pink suits (I love the color pink). I grabbed bright green suits. I even grabbed turquoise. Then came my biggest challenge - charm the fitting room staff. I wasn't backing down and only taking 6 in! No, siree! I was taking in everything I grabbed off the racks in my polite, but mad, rush to buy a suit before the store closed at 9pm.

Luckily, there was no fitting room attendant, so I didn't have to bring out the big guns. I sailed in and took up residence next to a pair of teenaged sisters who were bickering. "No offense, but why are you copying me?" Oh, honey, you never ever start a sentence with "no offense". It can only get worse from there. I moved away slightly from the shared wall in case a fight broke out.

I tried on dozens of suits. One after another. I discarded the nice fitting navy ones. I went for the bright greens and hot pinks. I seriously considered a dark blue and black one. In the end, I bought a turquoise tankini with diagonal strips running from shoulder to bum. It's not the best made suit in the world. I bet it barely lasts through this summer. But who cares? It fits. I feel slightly more cool in it. Best of all, I can wear turquoise. I can wear pink. Actually, I look awesome in the hot pinks. Now that I'm halfway through my 62 lbs weight loss goal (a moment here for me to cheer and do a victory dance) I plan on buying a new, very hot pink suit before summer is over.

Bye, bye, navy. You were nice, you were safe, but I'm on the back of the motorcycle now, and the wind feels too good in my hair to get off.

I didn't hate high school. Actually, I kind of liked it. Still, I refused to go to my ten-year reunion. What had I done? Graduated college, big deal. Gotten a job, albeit kind of a cool one, but still. Got married. Big deal to me, but not radically life changing enough to propel my image forward in the minds of my former classmates. And I wasn't ready to pretend to be interested in the turns their lives had taken since 1992.

However, in the last few days, I've found myself uncharacteristically thinking of high school. First, my cousin unexpectedly turned up for a visit (he hasn't been to my house since I got married 6 1/2 years ago, but he does live in another state) and my dad drove him by my high school. Which is not unlikely, as I live in the town I went to high school in, and all the good restaurants are within walking distance of my alma mater.

Still, it got me thinking. I can pass it every day and not reminisce- it's just another brick and stone building in the town where I live. When you are living in the places of your past, you don't necessarily live in the past. You don't ever have to go home, because you are home in more ways than one. But it's a new home, with new memories, and something has to happen to drag you into nostalgiaville, with its pangs of remembrances.

Yesterday I got a notice about my college reunion, which I'm not only planning on going to, but excited about. It made me wonder who would be there, and who I'd like to see. And why I didn't feel the same way about high school. I'm more likely to duck my classmates than catch up, if I happen to see them at the mall or the local bars.

Then today at work we started talking about our mean girl pasts. Who we made fun of, could we even remember their names? Who made fun of us, could we admit it? And what were all those popular girls doing with themselves now, anyway?

Isn't that an eternal question? What really happens to the popular girls after high school? Movies and moms want us to believe they become fat, unhappy housewives who relieve their glory days through their daughters. Or better yet, are sitting in trailer parks drinking Wild Turkey out of the bottle.

And those girls we mocked- did they become unbelievable beauties? Are they rich and famous? Or are they their same dorky selves, maybe due to our self-esteem attacks?

I decided to google a popular girl and one I made fun of. I found the popular girl - you tell me what you think. Click on the title for the link. As for the dorky girl, no luck yet.

It doesn't make me want to gather in a room with all of my former classmates and shoot the shit. But it is interesting. I'd like to see how we all end up turning out. But without having to actually see them, of course.

St. Patrick's Day and I have had a long, fractious relationship. Much like a brother, St. Patrick's Day used to annoy the living shit out of me. In fact, I hated him and dreaded his coming. He got to pick the menu for dinner, he got to go out and have a good time, and he got to be the most popular at school. Ah, school. He elevated his torture to a new level at school. There he found his true calling.

I remember the first time it happened. I was a mere colleen of six or seven. A well meaning teacher foisted a green, round pin on me. "Kiss Me, I'm Irish!" it proclaimed. But I'm not Irish, I said, as she sailed past and affixed another pin to another poor, unsuspecting child of dubious European descent.

For years the corridors of my Irish-Italian Catholic school turned into a sea of green and white on St. Patrick's Day. Everyone was Irish. Everyone without very dark hair and a vowel in their last name. Sadly, with my auburn hair and fair skin and screamingly Anglo-Saxon last name, I was a dead ringer for an Irish lassie.

My high school was - ready for this - the home of the Caseys! Green and Gold! Modeled after Notre Dame! I wore green plaid for four years and spent four years having fake Irishness forced down my throat, four years of dyed green flower-grams in the hallways on March 17th.

Nothing changed in college. Even in London, my friends who proclaimed me "very American looking" told me I looked Irish. It might have been my first enjoyable St Patrick's Day, though, hanging out in a shitty flat in Clapham, watching The Commitments and eating real Irish soda bread with boys who had brogues.

Besides being mistaken as Irish, it always bothered me that Irish-Americans called themselves Irish and claimed to be Irish. Not of Irish descent, but Irish, like they just escaped the potato "famine". They said it like that, quotes around it, a la Sinead O'Connor. They listened to the Pogues and got angry, they sent money to the IRA - the fucking IRA, people! They took secret IRA tours of Northern Ireland where the highlight was staying in Catholic ghettos and visiting "freedom fighters" in prison. They pasted Irish flags onto their hats, and they wore tons of Celtic crap.

It just seemed very fake to me. They were no more Irish than I was German or Polish. We were Americans. They couldn't possibly understand life growing up in Ireland. They were just reacting to a fantasy of the old country, the one their grandparents never wanted to go back to. Time and time again, I'd hear how they could get an Irish passport since they were only third generation. One memorable incident concerned a wedding, when an American woman of Irish descent, who had no living family there and didn't visit the country until she was 50, claimed she was IRISH in front of someone who had actually grown up there, holds a passport, and is, in fact, an Irish national. All because she wanted to defend her choice in dirge-like music.

And you know what? That Irish national let her do it. She didn't care. She knew where she was from, and what it meant to be Irish. And she knew that for some reason, her country held a special place in American hearts. She knew that the "motherland" meant something real to people who had never been there. And she knew that there was more to being Irish than wearing a Claddaugh ring and drinking on St Patrick's Day.

After this lesson in understanding, my life continued to be surrounded by "Irish". My boss was a Brit whose mother was Irish. Guess what nationality he thought I was? He used to take us out to lunch at Irish pubs in Midtown where all the staff had accents. I began to think little enclaves of Irishness were charming. Black 47 had their home bar just outside our office door. Us "kids" would meet for drinks there after work, and on March 17th, we'd avoid the drunk crowds that teemed into the city and our neighborhood.

One year, my friend suggested we fight back. My favorite bar at home was, of course, Irish. So we went to settle in for the night. We left work early to avoid the crowds. We stayed late to avoid the crowds. And I finally learned to be Irish.

All night, I kept getting asked if I was Irish, and saying no, and getting increasingly drunk Irishmen fresh of the boat insisting I must be. So I started lying. And every year I came up with a better and more convicing lie. I'd call my mother in law up and ask her again where her family was from. Inevitably, as they turned to me, drunk and slurry, but willing to pay for a round, they would ask if I was Irish. You're Irish right? Oh, we have a nice Irish lass here, boys! Sure I am, I learned to say. My family is from County Cork. Wait, where are you from? Oh, we're from Mayo then.

This year my lie is even better. I've been to Ireland. I have a county and a town and a list of things that go on there. And I know, for the first time, why everyone wants to be Irish. There is something captivating about the country, its beauty, its history, and its people, who are truly welcoming. In the spirit of honestly, I admit to now owning my own stash of Celtic crap.

So today I raise a glass to that beautiful country, and its friendly people. It turns out, we all can be Irish, if just for a day. Even me.

Slainte!

When my dad got laid off, he found himself at loose ends. Very, very loose. So loose, in fact, that he immediately started looking into businesses to own. One of them was a liquor store. He said it was his lifelong dream to own a liquor store. Lifelong dream. Liquor Store.

Being the supportive daughter that I am, I told him this was the most white trash lifelong dream I had ever heard of. Lifelong dreams are getting a book published. Climbing Mount Everest. Running the NYC marathon. Going back to the homeland to see the town your grandparents are from. Not owning a place that sells beef jerky at the checkout counters.

But what's funny about this is that I can see my dad owning a liquor store. This may sound twisted, but some of my best memories of my dad involve us wandering around the liquor store on a Saturday afternoon. We would take off in our 1978 Chevy van and run errands. We'd go to the library, where I would receive my weekly quiz on the Dewey Decimal system and Dad would pick out some science fiction. Then we'd head to the hardware store and I'd walk amongst the wood stacked up to the ceiling and pretend I was in the forest. We would end at the liquor store, where Daddy would look at wines for the upcoming dinner party or get the gin my mom loved in her martinis. The liquor store was magical, full of many-colored bottles, each with an unique label and mysterious contents. There was a cold section, with chilled bottles like the grocery store's dairy aisle. There was the promotional section, with coolers and glasses and chairs. I always hoped we'd buy one of those bottles and walk out with a beach towel. And there was beefy jerky on the counter. Sometimes my dad would buy a piece and let me have some.

In the end my dad decided not to buy the liquor store. I don't know what it was that swayed his decision. But I kind of wish I hadn't been my cynical grown-up self when he mentioned it. I wish I had been the kid wide-eyed with wonder, and filled with admiration for her Daddy. I wish I had been the kid who thought a place that sold beef jerky had to be cool.

Now my dad is a ranger at a golf course during the season. He's says he's always wanted to do that. So I keep my mouth shut and my heart open when I ask him about his work. After all, who am I to judge his dreams?

It's not that I'm bitter. Really, I'm not. I just get fed up. You know the feeling? You're not sick of it, you're not tired of it, you're just DONE with it. Here's what I'm done with this week. It's only Tuesday, so it's a short list.

Singletons who think married life is perfect.

Singletons who refer to my state as "smug married" and thus are referred to as "singletons". Bridget Jones was a fun book, but it's not a lifestyle choice. Get over it, already.

Women who imply that I don't do anything all day, or that my life is somehow easier than theirs. You know, because I have a kid and "only" work two days a week, thus I must be watching soap operas the rest of the time.

Anyone who thinks it's appropriate to ask "what do you do all day?"

Anyone who thinks it's ok to compare who has a harder life or works more. God, how bored are you? Can't TV fill some of that looming gap in your life?

Women who refer to their spouses as "DH" for "dear husband". Holy Shit, what the fuck is that? Why???

Moms who get into fights over food allergies and playgroups. GET A LIFE. Remember it? The thing you used to have? It misses you.

My "dear husband" reminding me what time it is and what time I said I wanted to go to bed six hours ago before I found out Fox Reality was rerunning Paradise Hotel.



That's it for now. Apparently it's way past the time I once said I wanted to go to bed at. ;-)