I Know This Crush Ain’t Going Away-ay-ay

…It’s just a little crush
Not like I faint every time we touch
It’s just some little thing
Not like everything I do depends on you…
~Jennifer Paige

I had what can best be described as an opposite-gender-sheltered youth. With a father and two brothers as the true men in my life, I was conditioned to trust them and only them. Boys outside those bonds were objects of Daddy’s scorn, and boy-girl interaction was, if not prohibited, frowned upon. This moratorium on males continued well into high school, and left me inept and self-conscious in the presence of boys.  I’ve never felt truly confident in my dealings with them, and sometimes still don’t. But I’ve always loved the male species anyway, even when I was too young—or too naive—to understand the laws of attraction.

In first grade, boys were mere playmates, and I ran, jumped, and tore kneeholes in my jeans with them. I liked all of them, except the one who threw up oatmeal while the teacher led us through Dick and Jane. See Scott puke.

I couldn’t have cared less about the then-fuzzy concept of boyfriends and girlfriends.  But I soon realized Kirk was king of the boys, and to be one of “Kirk’s girls,” was a very big deal indeed.  Only problem was, Kirk hated me.  I was boisterous and unbridled, while Kirk’s girls were quiet and as decorous as a grade-schooler can be—a distinction foreshadowing the future of all my romantic encounters. After a day or two of mousy pretense, I convinced him to relent, and joined his harem.  I was excommunicated by recess, though, and as he leapt off the seesaw without warning, I slammed into the hard-packed, red dirt, busting my chin two stitches worth.

Second grade found me enamored with Ryan O’Ryan after he shared his crayons with me one day. I’d broken one of mine in some tragic waxident, and Ryan was nice enough to let me use his red-orange. I couldn’t imagine why his parents hated him enough to saddle him with such a name, but I soon found out. Upon learning of my admiration, he cornered me at recess, shouted, “I don’t like you!” and shoved me to the ground.

Having learned a lesson of sorts, by third grade I was studying the male animal with a playground’s width between us. My target for the next three years was the sandy-haired Russ, a soybean farmer’s son. My poker face non-existent, he knew. Everyone knew. And he accepted it, though he didn’t return my affection, and avoided me at all costs.

By middle school, I knew more of what male-female relations should be, though I was still more or less afraid of the y-chromosomers. I was especially fearful of Buddy, a volatile little bundle of sixth grade testosterone who’d get furious with himself if he couldn’t solve a math problem at first glance.  And he’d dispute a point with a brick wall, even if the wall had solid proof of its argument.  He was scary, but, gosh, he was cute.  Really cute.  Popped collar polo and tennis shorts way-out-of-my-league cute. We sat next to each other in English, and he told me crude jokes I didn’t understand.

“Hey, what’s worse than Olivia Newton John in Grease ?”

“I don’t know, what?”

“Come on Eileen. Get it?”

“Ha ha, that’s great.”  Yeah, no clue.

The unfortunate victim the rest of junior high was a dapper young lad with eyes sparkling like the pennies in his loafers, and eyelashes women would forever covet. I spent many mornings outside our homeroom in the company of the sweet and lovable Kermit, discussing our mutual obsession with the Garfield comic strip and related merchandise.

When I snuck the fat, orange replica I’d gotten for my birthday to school, he was delighted. And when one of the other boys grabbed the toy and threw it down the hall, scratching Garfield’s left eye in the process, Kermit retrieved it, and helped me camouflage the scuffed plastic with Liquid Paper.  He was a bit shorter than other classmates, myself included, but this did nothing to assuage my affection.  If anything, it made him more appealing—like a fun-sized candy bar.  I pursued him with no less determination than Miss Piggy, and, like his Muppet namesake, he bore my affections well, albeit begrudgingly.

The next few years saw a myriad of misdirected swoonings.  Having led such a willy-free childhood, I was quick to misconstrue any attention as “like with a capital L,” and formed a number of random, fleeting interests.

In tenth grade, standing in the lunch line, I met Brady.  He was wearing a shirt embroidered with a duck in flight, the sleeves rolled just past his wrists.  Khaki slacks, leather belt, and penny loafers completed his ensemble. (I like penny loafers, what can I say?) We struck up a conversation and became instant friends.  As time passed, my feelings grew beyond friendship, and I spent the next few years in the flux of hope and despair common to every teenager with an unrequited love.  I watched our never-to-be romance play out in every adolescent film, and did the usual bonehead teenage things, e.g. riding by his house five thousand times a day and saving the straw from his drink at Hardee’s.  In some misguided John Hughes-fueled gesture, I passed him an  I love you but I can’t wait forever note written in dramatic scrawl on rumbled college-ruled paper.  Eventually, the friend I had in Brady became more important than the boyfriend I did not, and we settled into a comfortable routine of two-hour phone calls and impromptu piano duets. (Yes, he was gay. Shut. Up. I already admitted my naiveté; I didn’t even know what ‘gay’ was.)

As Brady moved to the back burner, Jess got thrown in the frying pan.  He had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen, was good-looking in that unassuming way that makes men all the more handsome, and he was funny and smart.  And it was because of Jess my fascination with intelligence and wit began to cement.  From then on, my dalliances were founded more on brains than brawn. Again, I watched our never-to-be romance play out in films of the era, and did the same stupid things, e.g. riding by his house six or seven thousand times a day and saving the wrapper from a stick of gum he chewed. (Stop laughing.)

At the insistence of his best friend, Jess asked me on a double date to an out-of-town football game.  That afternoon, as I was planning what to wear, I realized my jean jacket—my only jacket—was doused with Brady’s cologne.  (Add to my bonehead list of teenage things spritzing my jacket with Halston Z-14 every time I went to the mall.) I presented the problem to my mother, for whom everything is solved with solvents.  She ran it through the wash with a capful of Pine-Sol.  Voila!  No more smelling of another man.  Unless he were a logger.  After the Carolina pine forest incident, I more or less gave up on any sort of romantic interlude with Jess.

By my sophomore year in college I’d had an actual boyfriend, but the next few years were not without folly. There was James, wry and lanky, who lived on a dead-end street, thereby complicating my usual stalking routine.  Then came Shane who, Super-glued to high-school sweetheart Dana, was a prime example of wanting what one cannot have.  Next was Tom, who also had a girlfriend (A minor complication, whee!) and then Rodd, South Georgia cowboy who both stole and broke my heart.  We had a failed date of our own, sans household cleaner.  For a moment, though, as we swayed to Patsy Cline in a backwoods barroom in Jenkins County, cheek to cheek, life was…perfect.  Shortly thereafter, he started seeing Campus-Slut Barbie Doll.

By now I’d earned a Master’s degree in biology, but was still a freshman in matters of the heart, though I’d had two serious relationships during that time.  My move to Athens for pharmacy school ended what was left of the last one, and I was free to again behave like a man-crazed idiot. I promptly did so with Jack, the tall, blue-eyed boy-next-door from Metter.  I was serious; He was not.  After several attempts to ingratiate myself into his life, and summer spent physically ill from his lack of reciprocation, I resigned to move on.  And it was then I met, pursued, and snagged my husband, finally beating love at its evil game.

And so ended my fatuous infatuations.

NOT.

I still love men in all of their inherent deliciousness. Though individually they are not without fault, collectively they’re divine, from the glint of a wedding band against a tanned finger, to a scruffy five-o-clock shadow, to hair that is graying at the temple.  And though I’m married now, and very much in love with my husband, I still entertain the occasional crush. It might be a celebrity (see also: Chris Meloni, Michael C. Hall, and Becks), an associate, a friend, or a co-worker.  It might be my doctor, my contractor, my lawn guy, or a Facebook pal.

Who knows? It might even be you.

He Blinded Me with Science and Failed Me in Biology

…Half a mile down to Morgan creek
I’m only living for the end of the week
Hercules and a hog-nosed snake…
~James Taylor

“All right now, I want you all to find a place along the trail to sit down.”

Sit down?  Out here?  Is he serious?

Yes, he’s serious.  It’s 8 am on a Saturday morning in Dr. Fred German’s field biology class.  And we are, much to my dismay, in said field.  Or trail.  Whatever.  At any rate, we’re outside waaaaay too early, it’s damp, it’s cold, and now he wants us to sit down in the woods.

“Now close your eyes,” he says. “Slow your breathing and concentrate on your surroundings.”

“Now, I want you to focus on the sounds of the pine forest.”

I can’t believe we are spending a weekend in North Georgia with this crazy man for this ridiculous class. And yet, here we are, at Hard Labor Creek State Park in Morgan County.

Our class is small, and contains the usual university suspects. Me (the smartass without a verbal filter); Gus (the stoner); Becki (the cynic who watches way too much Seinfeld); Gretchen (the sorority chick with the high, high ponytail and whiny voice to match); and the requisite couple—high school sweethearts no less—Dana and Shane.  Plus a handful of other inconsequentials.

The reason for this wretched excursion is to allow opportunity to gather specimens for our two main projects: samples of wild mammal spoor and bugs for our insect collection. When the class began, Fred said we had to have five examples of mammal spoor by the end of the term and a bug collection with 50 specimens.

Fred gave us a list of acceptable examples of spoor that included such gems as:

pinecones or nutshells chewed by squirrels
rabbit or other rodent dung
casts of animal tracks (deer, coyote, etc.)
animal hair or bones (non-domesticated)

And he gave us a roster of insects, listing examples of each order, plus arachnids.

We’d all grabbed 5 chewed up pinecones out of our yards and had most of our bugs and felt we were set. Last week, exactly seven days before the end of the quarter, he amended the requirement to at least fifty insects and at least five different examples for a “C.”  In response, Dana started referring to him as Dr.Terdman.

Now Terdman is keeping us from doing what we came here to do with his existential evergreen exercise.

I rode up yesterday afternoon with Dana and Shane, in Becki’s car. Shane drove so Becki and I could sit in back and violate Georgia’s open container law. And since we all spent most of last night violating Georgia’s Alcoholic beverages are prohibited in State Parks statute, none of us is particularly well for Terdman’s touchy-feely nature hike.

We had breakfast together at an unseemly hour in the main dining hall—American flag on the left, Georgian on the right—huddled around oblong tables, forks scooping eggs from melamine trays. Wear-worn folding chairs scraped the concrete floor as we pushed from the table, leaning back to sip bad coffee from chipped mugs.

Now, sitting here in a pile of wet pine straw, I hear a sound from about six feet behind me and I’m reasonably sure it’s not indigenous to the pine forest. Not unless slash pines routinely release egg farts.  Shane completes his symphony with an exaggerated “Ahhhhhhh…,” and Dana starts to giggle. I try to ignore them, but then another sound emanates from further ahead on the trail. This time it’s Gus on percussion and Gretchen shouts, “Gross!”  I picture her pink polka-dotted ribbon wilting in a cloud of green vapor and, “Bwahahahaha,” escapes my mouth and echoes through the grounds.

Terdman is not pleased with our antics, and, giving over to his evil streak, decides to make our projects due by the end of the day, on site, instead of Monday in class. Shane’s end of the forest utters a few more sounds, most of which rhyme with trucker. Terdman then dismisses us to go about our collecting, his lips curled in a smug smile as he walks toward the main hall.

We had, thankfully, brought our collections with us—insects pinned to Styrofoam blocks wedged inside pizza boxes and pinecones secured inside Ziploc bags—because Terdman had insisted we bring them.  Now we knew why.

“Ass probably planned this all along,” Dana said, hissing the “s,” as we walked up the hill to get our collection gear. Shane just trudged up the hill, silent.

“I didn’t bring any ethyl acetate,” said Becki, “I don’t think I even have any kill jars.”

“I’ve got jars,” I said. “And I can get some of Gretchen’s fingernail polish remover. I saw her with it last night, because, Lord knows, when you’re on a camping trip, a fresh manicure is top priority.”

“We don’t need kill jars or acetate,” Shane said.

I wouldn’t put it past Shane to catch bugs with his bare hands, but I wasn’t sure how he planned to terminate them without chemical assistance. I’d caught a giant grasshopper the week before—a big pink one with brown spots—shoved it in a jar with an acetate soaked cotton ball until it died, pinned it, and left it in a foam block on my dresser. When I came home from work, big ole pink grasshopper was lying on the floor of my room, impaled and still wiggling. I’d seen what not enough acetate looked like, and I couldn’t imagine not using any.

Once we reached the boys cabin, everything became clear. Shane reached up to the lantern-style light fixture on the front porch and removed the cover, gently shaking bug carcasses into his other hand, three or four of which were still intact—all six legs, wings back, full abdomen. Perfect. We went to every cabin, Shane carefully removing and emptying the fixtures. We divided the 25 or so viable specimens among us.

As we were sitting on the porch of the girl’s cabin, pinning and labeling our be-winged booty, Gretchen walked up.

“Are y’all done?” she asked.

“Yep,” said Shane.

“But how did you—” Then she saw the light fixture cover sitting on the rail.

“Hey! That’s cheating,” she said.

“How so?” I asked.  “Show me in the syllabus where it says the insects must be alive prior to capture.”

“Well…it’s not…that’s not…” She was still skittish from Gus’s announcement at breakfast that one of the Friday the 13th films was made here, and had trouble finishing her thought.

“Fair?” Dana said, mimicking Gretchen’s high-pitched whine.

“Well, yeah. It’s not fair,” said Gretchen. “And besides, the bugs from that light belong to me too.”

“How’d you figure?” said Shane.

“Well, I—”

“Was it your idea to use them?”

“No.”

“Did you get them down?”

“No.”

“Then go away.”

Gretchen huffed off, ponytail swinging.

“Do you think she’ll tell?” Becki asked.

“Let her,” Shane said. “Her word against mine.” He carefully scraped up the bits and pieces of bug litter we were unable to use and returned them to the bottom of the fixture, placing it back on the wall, just as he’d done with the others.  Even if Gretchen tried to show Dr. German what we’d done, there were enough bug parts left in the fixtures to quell suspicion.  And once the samples were pinned and labeled, they looked just like all the other Pizza Hut squatters.

“Bugs done,” said Shane. “Now mammals.”

“Let’s be clear,” said Dana. “I’m not picking up rabbit shit.”

“And I’m not trying to get any more hair after what happened,” Becki said.

One afternoon, she and I were riding down the road and happened to see a dead opossum in the ditch. About twenty yards beyond, Becki slammed on the brakes, put the car in park, and tore out of the driver’s side door with the scissors from her dissecting kit. I ran to catch up to her, and I knew we were both thinking Hair sample! Hair sample! We happily trotted to within four or five feet of the animal before the stench of rancid road kill chased us right back to the car without so much as a follicle.

“Hell no,” I agreed.

“Well, then it’s tracks,” Shane said.  “And those are going to be tough to find because of all the humans around here.  And Terdbox knows it too.” He directed an obscene gesture toward the main hall.

“I don’t even know what a deer track looks like,” I said.

“It sorta looks like this,” Shane said, kneeling in the soft dirt, and making impressions with the knuckles of his first two fingers.  The eight-point buck mounted in his apartment back home was testament to his expertise.

“It looks exactly like that,” Dana said.

Shane looked up at Dana, then at me, his mouth forming a slow, sly smile.

An hour later, we sat in the rocking chairs on the boy’s porch, feet propped on the railing, Bud Light cans hidden in koozies.  We watched the others scurry about laden with nets and backpacks as the casts of four perfect deer tracks dried in the setting North Georgia sun.

A Gospel Kind of Feelin’

…It’s a gospel kind of feelin’
A touch of Georgia slide
A song of pure revival
And a style that’s sanctified…
~Carole King and Dave Palmer
(as performed by Carole King)

Growing up a preacher’s kid, there was a certain expectation you’d be at the church every time the doors opened, no arguments.  This meant family night supper, prayer meeting, choir practice (you had to do that too), and regular services—two most Sundays.  A typical week could find you in God’s house more often than your own.   At least three weeknights were spent in the fellowship hall, sanctuary, or the Sunday school room named after some dearly departed matriarch with circle tacked on the end—quite confusing if meetings were held at a member’s home.

The Bertha Mae Matthews Circle will meet on Wednesday morning for coffee at Willa Bell Henry’s house on Martha West Circle.

(Big white purse optional.)

Three times a week, fifty-two weeks a year.  That’s a lot of churchin’.  You’d think it would have molded my character in some great and wonderful way.  Instead, it just allowed me to hone my counting skills—108 individual panes in all the stained glass windows, 27 light fixtures, nine crosses if you don’t count the ones on the hymnals, and 32 quilted buttons on the altar cushion.

Three times a week, fifty-two weeks a year.  Unless it was…revival.   Revival was a week-long event.  Most of the time, a preacher from outside the area was invited to speak, but there were a few times my daddy preached his own.

It was customary for the visiting preacher to stay with the regular pastor’s family at the parsonage.  This usually resulted in my spending a week on the hide-a-bed sofa in the living room.  More like hide-a-torture device. After seven nights of pokey springs and a bar in your back, you ‘d be ready to come to Jesus.

One perk of revival was getting to sing out of The Cokesbury Hymnal.  The songs were familiar gospel hymns and many of them were livelier than the usual Sunday morning fare.

The visiting pastor had some say as to what was sung, and often, would direct the congregation to do random glee club exercises with the hymn in question.

On verse five, just the men…verse six, just the ladies!  Everybody on the chorus!

Some preachers would have at least one service where the congregation was allowed to shout out page numbers as suggestions for singing.  This was my favorite service by far; I loved the singing more than the preaching.  I could always count on the elderly folk to holler out good old camp meeting songs and if I crossed my fingers and concentrated really hard, no one would pick Amazing Grace, which I hated.

Page 65!  I Love to Tell the Story!
Page 84!  Since Jesus Came Into My Heart!
Page 233!  Love Lifted Me!

Nooooo!!!  Not that!!!

Love Lifted Me was a great song, yes, but some preachers took it way beyond the extreme, making up extra verses for the chorus.

Love lifted me!
Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help–
Love lifted me…

“Sing: Jesus Paid it All!”

Jesus paid it alllll!
Jesus paid it alllll!
When nothing else could help-
Jesus paid it alllll…

“Now: God Answers Prayer!”

Goddd answers prayer!
Goddd answers prayer!
When nothing else could help-
Goddd answers prayer…

“John 3:16!”

Johhhn three six-teen
Johhhn three six-teen…

By the fifth or sixth round, I was making up my own chorus.

Please end this sonnnng
Please end this sonnnng
There’s nothing else to sing-
Please end this sonnnng…

Of course, I didn’t sing it aloud.  In fact, I’d be so tired of the whole thing I wouldn’t be singing at all, merely mouthing pea-nut but-ter and jel-ly (works for any song) so it appeared to Daddy as though I were participating.  Because I did not want Daddy to stop the pianist, point at me, and tell me to sing.  (He had before.)  But the worst was if he stopped during the actual sermon, pointed at me, and called me by name.

Lynne, get up now and go sit with your mother.

This embarrassing directive was usually the result of passing notes with friends or too much whispering.  And it was also a firm indicator of the whipping I was gonna get after church.  All in all, it was safer to just sit with Mama to begin with.

Plus, she always had gum.  It was that nasty Doublemint kind, and I would only chew it for maybe ten seconds before spitting it out into an offering envelope.  But the gum wrapper was the real prize.  Mama would take it, wrap it around her index finger and twist the end to form a tiny silver goblet.  It started when I was very little, but I begged her to do it until I was at least ten.  After that, I began to make my own, but they never looked as perfect as hers.

By the end of the service, four or five weeping souls made the guilt-ridden trek to the altar, and by the end of the week, most everyone had gotten a taste of redemption.  Not that the emotions weren’t real, they were very genuine—even tangible.  But there was a definite pattern, and most churches followed it, whether by God’s hand or some unseen Revival Handbook.

The tender hearted—the youth pastor and his very pregnant wife, some wayward teens, that one off-key tenor in the choir who was always volunteering to sing solos—always went first, but most folks held out until at least the second night. The sweet old ladies married to the mean squinty-eyed old men went on night four or five, with the old coots themselves finally giving in on the last night.  I usually caved somewhere around night three, or whenever we happened to sing Are Ye Able? Said the Master—my Christian kryptonite.

Some nights, no one would venture to the front, so the preacher would extend seat-salvation.

Now with every head bowed, every eye closed
I’m going to ask you, from your seat
To just lift up a hand if you feel Jesus calling
Right where you are-—every head bowed, every eye closed
Just lift it up…that’s right
Good, there I see that hand…another…one back there…

Over the years, I’d perfected the bowed-head open-eye and could catch side glimpses of hands going up on either side of me.  It was for this reason I never raised my own.  Every eye closed my foot.

The week would come and go, and good Christians went about their lives with a renewed sense of purpose.  Some would last a week or more before falling back into their old ways.

Our lives returned to normal as well.  No more nightly services, no more bar jammed against my back, and no more listening to preacher gossip at dinnertime.  Instead, it’d be just the three of us—Mama, Daddy, and me—at the table, quiet except for the clinking of forks against plates and rattling of ice in our tea.  And me, humming softly, crafting lyrics to a tune that would be stuck in my head for weeks to come.

Please pass the rice!
Please pass the rice…

Mock Yeah! Ing Yeah! Bird Yeah! Yeah Yeah! Mock-Ing-Bird!

…Everybody have you heard
He’s gonna buy me a mockingbird
And if that mockingbird don’t sing
He’s gonna buy me a diamond ring…
~Inez & Charlie Foxx  (as sung by Carly Simon and James Taylor)

Hidden in my dresser drawer, way in the back, wrapped in an old silk pillowcase, is my most prized possession.  It was a Christmas gift from my sister, the year that our parents’ divorce became final.  That year was hard for both of us, and we compensated for our emotional loss by having a “big” Christmas.  We gave each other more extravagant gifts than we ever had.  I commissioned an oil portrait of her cat and she gave me a copy of the book.   I call it the book because of its significance to my life.   Its story is my favorite story in the world.  Its characters are my most beloved characters. Its words are the most golden in all of fiction.  I have loved this book since I first discovered it at fourteen.  I have read it many times since, always finding another reason to adore it.  But the most important reason, I suppose, is that it brought me my husband…

I kept looking at my watch.  My shift ended at nine, and I had somewhere very important to be.  I’d already done everything on the technician checklist: front the stock, take out the trash, sweep, straighten the waiting area and Lysol the counters and phone—okay, that wasn’t on the list but I did it anyway. The pharmacy counter was a cesspool.  The infectious masses visited all day long, coughing, sneezing, and exhibiting various plagues and malady-ridden body parts. Disgusting.

The store manager cut the lights and gave his nightly pleasantries over the loudspeaker.  Thank you for shopping with us…blah blah…please make your final selections…blah blah…

It’s nine o’clock.  Just get out already.

Removing the cash drawer from the register, I counted it down to fifty dollars—the amount Jack Eckerd could stomach losing in the event of a robbery—dropped the register keys in with the pennies, and turned my till into the manager.  I still couldn’t leave, though, since we were made to assemble by the door and exit as a group.  And the one-hour photo tech, like the customers, had no concept of time.

I found it curious people would wait an hour for pictures of sleeping dogs and kids covered in spaghetti, but a fifteen-minute wait for a prescription sent them into orbit.

I was anxious to leave.  I’d been invited to a party starting two hours ago.  And the only thing I hate more than going places I’ve never been before alone is making an entrance. I don’t enjoy scrutiny.

Tick-tock picture boy.

Finally, I was released.  It was hot for October.  I started the car, flipped the AC to high and held my face right in front of the vent.

Well, what am I waiting for?

I was waiting for my heart to stop racing, and the lump in the back of my throat to go down.  And stay down.

Months of adolescent scheming and behind-the-scenes wrangling had led to this—an invitation to a housewarming.  The house belonged to my former medicinal chemistry professor.  He had recently moved out of his cluttered studio, littered with thesis drafts and other academic detritus into a small cottage near a lake.

It all began that spring, I suppose.  I was in the practice of eyeballing my male instructors for sport.  I’d always had a thing for teachers —except that rotten coach who separated me from my best friend in eighth grade—and pharmacy school was no different.  First, there was Dr. Berry, who was cute if you sat far enough back and squinted, and didn’t mind his being quite short and dressing like Billy Joel.  But he turned out to be married to one of those perfect women who can wear white pants without getting them dirty. Bitch.

The pharmaceutics teacher, Dr. Campania, was an Italian divorce’ who looked a little too much like Chief Brody from Jaws.   I kept waiting for him to say, “You’re gonna need a bigger calculator.”

Dr. Conner taught therapeutics, but he was married to Maureen O’Hara’s stunt double, and his bright green suit coat made it seem as if he’d just won the Masters.  Plus he had the unappetizing habit of describing skin conditions with words that made them sound like cereal. Honey-colored stuck-on crusts…Granulated gooey clusters…Bumpy flakes…

And then there was Dr. Beach.  Unmarried, late thirties, and irresistibly smart.  His wardrobe could’ve used a little work, but overall, he was not a bad specimen.   After hearing a couple of his witty observations in class, I was intrigued.  I made up questions to ask, dropping by his office or lab a couple of times a week.  Faculty and staff in the department began to notice my presence, but assumed I was interested in Dr. Beach’s graduate student, Kevin—the perfect ruse.

Little by little, my queries began to stray from chemistry, and our conversations turned toward music, film, and books.  One afternoon we discussed To Kill a Mockingbird, trading quotes from the film.

…That boy is your company. And if he wants to eat up that tablecloth, you let him, you hear…?

…I’m Charles Baker Harris. I can read. I can read anything you’ve got. Folks call me ‘Dill‘…

…There goes the meanest man that ever took a breath of life…

But, in the end, he admitted to never having read the story—a situation I was determined to remedy.

I reached over and grabbed the book off my passenger seat, opened it and read the inscription I’d written hours earlier, borrowing a passage from another work that accurately described my feelings on Mockingbird.

…What really knocks me out is a book that,
when you’re all done reading it,
you wish the author was a terrific friend of yours
and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.
That doesn’t happen much, though…
~Holden Caulfield
The Catcher in the Rye

The novel was a housewarming gift.  I had selected it with extreme care, hoping it would be received as more than just a book.

I closed the book and made my way to his neighborhood.  I drove along the dimly lit street, my stomach in huge knots.  The night fog coated my windshield, worsening my already poor night vision.  I flipped on the wipers, but the glass clouded over again as soon as it was cleared. Who can see out here?

I found the house and, out of sheer terror, drove right by it without slowing.   I circled the block and eased back through the quiet subdivision.  Once again, I approached the house and was seized with fear and doubt.  What am I doing?

I kept driving, and turned back for a third pass.  Ok, this is ridiculous.  Either stop this time, or go home.

I stopped.  I can do this.  I have to do this.

I rang the bell and waited for him to answer.  I could hear Steve Perry wailing Don’t Stop Believin‘ on the stereo inside. Huh. Apropos.

Someone finally answered the door.  It was a woman.  A beautiful woman with long, shiny, shampoo-commercial hair.  A million words were flying through my head and at least one of them started with an f.

“Hi, I’m Michelle,” she said.

“Um, hi, ” I said, never having felt so foolish in my entire life.  I dropped the hand holding the book down by my side and kind of tucked it behind my thigh. “I’m Lynne.  I’m a…I’m here…I’m a…a friend of Kevin’s.”

“Please come in,” she said.

Crap.  Now what?  I should’ve have just gone on home.

“Kevin’s outside on the deck, grilling,” Michelle said.

“Okay, thanks,” I said and bee-lined straight out to him.

“Heyyyyy!” Kevin said.  “You made it!”

“Barely,” I mumbled.

“How ’bout a beer?”  He reached down into a cooler and lifted out a longneck, twisting off the top with his shirt hem.

“By all means.”  I shoved the book under my arm, grabbed the beer and gulped down half.

“I see you met Michelle,” he said.

“Mm hmm,” I answered, mouth full of Bud Light, and looked down at my feet.  Cute shoes.  Too bad I wore them for nothing.

He studied me for a minute, seeming to enjoy my anguish, and said, “That’s Hank’s wife.”

Hank’s wife?  Who the he—Oh!  The other grad student who taught lab.

“Ohhhh.”

“You’re hilarious,” Kevin said, “You’ve got nothing to worry about.  Trust me.”

I managed a smile and relaxed a little.  The patio door opened and Dr. Beach stepped outside.

“Hey, you made it,” he said as he walked toward me.

“Yeah, um, this is for you,” I said, shoving the book directly into his stomach. Klutz.

“To start your library.  Happy housewarming.”

“Thanks,” he said, immediately grasping the thought behind the gift.

“This is…wow…this is great.”  He looked at me and smiled, and I thought I’d never seen eyes that particular shade of brown.  And, like molasses, they flowed slowly over my fear, puddled around my insecurity, and drowned my doubt.

So began the romance that will turn thirteen this December.  I see that same warmth and sweetness in my daughter’s eyes, and I think about the book that started it all.   I run my hand over the crisp jacket of the Christmas gift— a thirty-fifth anniversary edition.  Cracking the cover, I read another inscription.  The petite scrawl belies the power—the absolute magic—of the story.  It says simply…

Harper Lee.

Reelin’ in the Years

Talk to ya later
Don’t want to hear it again tonight
I’ll just see you around
~The Tubes

photo by itripped42 via flickr

“Five…ten…fifteen….” Evan mumbled into the phone as he counted tablets.  A pharmacist for five years and he still counts out loud.  I mentioned it to him once.

“Then don’t call me at work,” he said.

“That works in theory, but since you don’t call me, and you’re never home when you’re off…”

“Twenty…twenty-five…Look, I’m busy, I gotta go.” Click.

It wasn’t always that bad.  We had a lot of fun in the beginning.  But if familiarity breeds contempt, Evan was sire to an entire nation of hatred.  Never one to resist making himself at home, he’d walk right into the house, screen door slamming. Once, as I was attempting to eat Chinese takeout while watching Law & Order, he propped his feet on my lap.

“Please! I am trying to eat,” I said.

“That’s ok. Just don’t get any duck sauce on my feet,” he said, wiggling his toes.

From my first day at the drugstore where we both worked, I was fascinated with him.  Unlike my Rockwell-esque mental image of a gray-haired pharmacist peering over the tops of his glasses, Evan was young, cute, and a shameless flirt.  I’d often sneak peaks at him while I straightened the candy aisle.  Oh, look, a bar of soap.  Gee, I wonder how this got here.

The store manager, Sally, thought it clever to hide random things in the M&Ms to see how well we fronted stock.  I may have believed she were clever too, had I not seen the desk calendar entry for the house hunting she planned to do on her day off.  Go look at relistate.

One evening, at a local hangout, Evan showed up with a group of his pals.  I was there with the full biology grad student body and an empty a bottle of Two Fingers.  After a witty interchange at the bar and a kiss stolen in the parking lot, our romance began.  Shortly thereafter, I left the store, partly to minimize workplace awkwardness, and in part to avoid eye-hemorrhage while reading Sally’s to-do lists:

Clean the toylets
Shelf the overstop
Reset the ibobuffren display

I moved just across the street to work for a physician who, along with Evan, pushed me toward pharmacy.  And so, three years into our relationship, I set out for Athens.

Long distance dating is hard enough when both parties are committed.  When one should be committed, it’s even worse.  Not that he was truly insane, but I often wondered about his thought processes. The weekend at the college didn’t turn out like you planned; The things that pass for knowledge, I can’t understand…

For one weekend visit, we planned a day trip to the Columbia zoo.  He picked me up around 10 am, and we drove toward South Carolina.  Arriving in Statesboro after midnight, and not rising until eight, I hadn’t had time to eat breakfast.  I mentioned this to Evan, and he said, “We’ll eat an early lunch.”

Silly me, I assumed this meant he understood I was hungry and planned to remedy that in a timely manner.  When we stopped for gas, and he returned to the car clutching a box of Wheat Thins, I wasn’t so sure.

“Want some?” he asked, ripping into the bright yellow box.

“No. I think I’ll wait until we eat,” I said.

“Okay,” he said, shoveling a handful of toasted crackers into his mouth.  Again, I assumed his consent meant he had intentions of eating lunch.  Soon.

Handful by handful, he consumed the entire box before we crossed the state line.  As we reached Columbia’s city limits, I asked where he though we might eat lunch.

“Lunch?” he said. “I’m not really hungry.” Of course not, Sandy Duncan, you’ve got a gullet full of “Great Taste…Big Crunch.”

Later in the year, my pharmacy society had a winter formal.  I called and asked him to escort me.  He refused, saying, “I’m working.”  Liar. You work every other weekend and that is not your weekend.

“And besides I’ve already done the college thing.” Ass.

But, when I got home from class on Friday, he was parked outside my apartment.  In a broad, romantic gesture, he stood by his car, fully tuxedoed, holding a dozen roses.

NOT.

He was, like always, in jeans and a Land’s End pullover, bearing nothing but a crumpled bag from Wendy’s.  He did not mention the dance or explain his sudden change in work schedule.  He simply told me to pack a bag, saying we would spend the weekend with a college friend in Atlanta.  I suppressed the overwhelming desire to ask, ” What happened to ‘I’ve already done the college thing’…?”

Somehow, I believed he had made prior arrangements with said friend.  But a very surprised young man answered the door in a t-shirt and boxers.

“Dude!” Evan said, shoving the door open on his friend Jason. “What are we doing tonight, buddy?” he continued, plopping down on the couch and grabbing a cordless phone off the coffee table.

Jason looked at me, offered a weak smile, and motioned me in.  He closed the door without a word and went into the bedroom.  He returned—wearing jeans and a red flannel shirt over a Pearl Jam concert tee—to find Evan on the phone alerting other pals in the area to his limited engagement.  I had to introduce myself to Jason, since Evan couldn’t be bothered.  I made sure he knew I’d been led to believe the trip was pre-planned.

He said, “Don’t worry. I’m used to it,” which made me sad and a bit angry.

Soon, the apartment was filled with lager-swilling frat brothers reliving the old days. As the only girl, with no real interest in drinking and no past ties to the group, I was beyond bored.  I grew hopeful when Jason’s female neighbor came by, but any hopes I had were promptly dashed when she was introduced—novel concept—as “Kimmi with an ‘i’.”  Her first sentence contained the words, “my cat,” and I longed for a tall glass of hemlock.

Another of Evan’s college buddies, Kenny, indulged his obsession with The Tubes, putting one of their CDs on repeat and delivering the album prologue again and again.

And again.

“As I mentioned near the close of the last record, this record you are now playing is another example of the completion backward principal. If you can possibly manage the time, please play both sides at one meeting!”  Kenny said to no one in particular.

“As I mentioned near the close of the last record, this record you are now playing is another example of the completion backward principal. If you can possibly manage the time, please play both sides at one meeting!”  He said, tipping the pizza delivery guy.

“As I mentioned near the close of the last record, this record you are now playing is another example of the completion backward principal. If you can possibly manage the time, please play both sides at one meeting!” He shouted from the bathroom.

If you can possibly manage to shut the hell up…

The rest of the evening went straight to hell, sans hand-basket, as did our relationship over the next few months.  Evan was horrible at keeping in touch, which resorted to my calling him at work, making conversation in multiples of five.

We never officially broke it off, but I just stopped trying.  After about six weeks, he called, asking if I’d like for him to come visit.

“I don’t think so,” I said.  Are you on CRACK?

“I can be there by 10,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because I haven’t heard from you in over a month.  You obviously don’t care about me.”  You wouldn’t even know a diamond if you held it in your hand, the things you think are precious I can’t understand…

“I said I would come up,” he snapped.

“Don’t bother.”

“Are you mad?”  Are you retarded?

“No, I’m not mad, I’m just done with this.”

“Well, that’s just great. What am I supposed to do this weekend?”

How about grocery shopping?  I hear Winn Dixie has Nabisco buy-one-get-one.

The Only One Who Could Ever Reach Me Was the Son of a Preacher Man

Growing up a preacher’s daughter was not always pleasant.  I was a good kid, and—except for the requisite adults-are-stupid-I-know-everything caustic tongue—a decent teen.  But most people immediately assumed I was a rebellious whore like Lori Singer in Footloose!.

Being a preacher’s kid in the South GA Methodist conference did have one perk, though.  “PK” weekend.  One weekend each summer, Georgia’s finest ministerial offspring would gather, following a week of “Senior” camp at Epworth-by-the-Sea on St. Simons Island, Georgia.  The retreat was named after John Wesley’s (founder of Methodism) home in England, and came complete with South GA dirt-sand, mosquitoes, gnats, and stucco cabins nestled beneath pines and water oaks and flanked by palmettos and Spanish bayonet.

photo courtesy of epworthbythesea.org

photo courtesy of epworthbythesea.org

I always looked forward to that weekend more than actual camp.  It was a small, exclusive group, and we pretty much had the run of the facility, from the dining hall to the auditorium and everything in between.  It was also not extremely well advertised, making participation have an elitist feel to it—an attractive prospect to a 15-year-old ego.

The first year, my dad and I found out about it when he picked me up from camp.  He would have let me stay, but I had launched this giant campaign to get my boy-crazy friend Debra to go to camp with me and won, so we had to take her home.  I was disappointed and sullen on the two-hour trip back.  We dropped Debra at her house and went to our own.  Daddy reached into the truck bed and handed me my bag.

“How long will it take you to repack?” he asked with his trademark I-know-something-you-don’t grin.

“Not long!” I said, giving him a giant hug, and flying into the house and up the stairs.

Within fifteen minutes we were back on the road to SSI, and I made it back just in time to claim the coveted lower bunk by the air conditioner.

The weekend was more or less an extension of the week, with early morning worship, some free time, afternoon worship and Bible study, and more free time.  But it was what we did with our free time that made it so spectacular.
There were always at least a few of us with some level of musical ability:  I played piano, Brad (a.k.a. “Be-Rad”) was on bass, Jonathan sang harmony and played lead guitar and Alan was on lead vocals and drums.  At every available opportunity, we were in the auditorium staging impromptu concerts.  Brad was heavily into Stryper, so you could count on at least one too-loud, wobbly rendition of Honestly. Alan and Jonathan liked to sing a cappella doo-wop oldies, and I played Piano Man until we were all sick of it.

Saturday night, we’d go to the pier in town.  It was always amazingly cool for summer, and I’d shiver as wind whipped off the water and salty mist stung my bare arms.

photo courtesy of www.explorestsimonsisland.com

Brad would take the long-sleeved Rap is Dead t-shirt tied around his waist and offer it to me, or Paul would lend me his GSU sweatshirt.  Knowing it could be cool from living in the area a few years prior, I could have easily packed a jacket myself.  I enjoyed the chivalry far too much to be that practical, though.  I wasn’t the only girl, but there were fewer of us, so we all received our share of attention.

Dangling our legs over the railing, we’d perch atop the pier rails for what seemed like hours.  We’d share our angst-ridden teenage thoughts on how hard it was to be a Christian, how hard it was to be a preacher’s kid, how hard it was to be a teen, how hard it was to just be.  We’d talk and laugh, stopping every so often for the occasional Earth Angel or Duke of Earl interlude from Alan and Jonathan, until the chaperones—observing from a polite distance—rounded us up to go.

We had those ridiculous inside jokes, too.  Things only funny to an adolescent, that, as an adult, you hear or see and think, “I never did anything stupid like that.”

Someone shouted “Surf’s Up!” and we’d hop on our chairs and pretend to be riding a wave.  Paul was the master of the catchphrase, spawning our over-use of  “Get off me,” and the adoption of “vita-fresh”—the brand of orange juice in the cafeteria—to describe anything cool.

“Dude, that guitar riff was vita-fresh.”

“Look at that Corvette!  That is vi-ta-freshhh!”

Then Sunday would come, and we’d share our last worship service before returning to our outside lives, leaving the comfort of a place where we were accepted, loved, and, for once, “vita-fresh.” Then we’d be heading back to the all-knowing nod people gave when they found out your dad was a pastor.  That world of people who categorized us all as sluts and rebels or nerds and prudes.

As our dads loaded trunks or stood around discussing who’d just moved where, we’d exchange addresses and promise to write.  Sometimes we would, but more often than not, we didn’t.

…Half an hour later
We packed up our things
We said we’d send letters
And all of those little things
And they knew we were lyin’
But they smiled just the same
It seemed they’d already
Forgotten we came…
~Toad the Wet Sprocket

But for a small 72-hour window, we were a church, a band, a support group, and a family.

And we walked on the ocean.

She Don’t Use Jelly

I don’t think that I can take it
‘Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again
~Jimmy Webb (as sung by Donna Summer)

I have a terrible, appalling secret.  I presume to call myself a Georgian, a true child of the South, and I cannot make homemade biscuits.  Southern Living revoked my subscription, and I got kicked out of the UDC.  At church socials, I am self-conscious; staying far away from the bread table, lest someone ask which contribution is mine.

It’s frustrating and downright embarrassing that I cannot create this fluffy partner to fried chicken, sizzling country ham, fresh sliced tomatoes, and cane syrup so strong it burns your throat.  Crusty and golden outside, pillow-y soft inside, it’s a buttermilk-kissed Holy Grail.

It doesn’t help that biscuits grip my heart like a two-year-old tight-fisting a cookie.   When I was a child, Mama would always make one biscuit smaller than the rest.  She called it the “baby biscuit.” She said, “No matter how many big ones there are, there’s only one baby.”  As the youngest of four, I laid claim to that biscuit.  It was mine and no one else could touch it.

“Don’t even look at it,” I told my brothers.

As an adult, I’ve tried to make biscuits on several occasions, most notably when my husband and I were first dating.  Borrowing his kitchen, I followed the recipe with precision.  Rolling each biscuit by hand, I placed the uniform pats of dough on the baking sheet.  The oven hot, the timer set, I waited, mouth a-water, for my warm, flaky reward.  I stared at the timer with knife in hand, poised for the attack.  Finally, they were done.  And they were perfect.  Beautifully browned, ever-so-slightly crisp around the edge…glory.  Then I sliced one open.

Well, I tried to, but the inside was the consistency of North Georgia clay.  I was furious.  I had done everything by the letter and still couldn’t produce an edible product.  In anger, I threw the thing on the floor and kicked it.

“My toe! My toooooooe!”  I grabbed my foot, lost my balance, and fell down.  My flailing arms brought the whole pan of biscuits with me.  And there I sat, wincing, amid a circle of flour, crumbs, and, well, hockey pucks.

Warren bounded into the kitchen. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“No, I’m not,” I snapped, and began to cry. “I tried to make biscuits, and I…they…it…”

“Darling, it’s okay,” he said. “We’ll make some more.  I’ll help.”

“No!” I said, sick of the whole business. “I’m done.”

While he set about cleaning up the mess I had made, I draped myself on the couch, arm flung dramatically across my forehead.  Lulled by the whir of the ceiling fan, I fell asleep.  When I woke up, I smelled bread.  I breathed deep, pulling the scent of warm flour deep into my lungs.

Curious, I made my way back into the kitchen.  On top of the stove sat a sheet of bright, golden biscuits.

“Show off,” I said, giving Warren the slit-eye.  But I as got closer to the pan, I noticed one of the biscuits was much smaller than the others.

“A baby biscuit!”  I cried.  “How did you know to make me a baby biscuit?”

He smiled and suppressed the urge to tell me it was just leftover dough.  Good thing too, because that’s the exact moment I decided he was THE ONE.

Twelve years later and I still can’t make a biscuit.  I don’t worry about it too much, though.  It’s enough to be able to hover around the bread table and say, “My husband made those.”

I See the Sun Up Ahead at the County Line Bridge

I’m back down south for a couple of days. Though I’m in the middle of my pharmacy school externship, my preceptor at the vet school felt it would be all right if I missed a lecture or two on tick paralysis, so he granted me a little freedom.  It’s a beautiful day, and I’ve got the radio on a local pop station, loud enough to drown out the road noise and my own singing.

Jakob Dylan duets with me, his voice as graveled as the back road I’m winding. Both the singer and the song remind me of a former student of mine, a sweet, funny guy with black curly hair and big blue eyes.

So long ago I don’t remember when…

I first met Jack when I was a graduate teaching assistant in the biology department at Georgia Southern.  Among the ambitious pre-meds and apathetic Greeks, Jack stood apart, both in personality and performance.  He maintained an “A” average, and he was both personable and polite—very much the suspender clad farm boy offering to wash the blackboard and bang the erasers after class.

Leaving with a perfect 100, he returned to the chemistry building to finish his major coursework. Busy with new lab sections and my thesis, I never thought much more about him.

After finishing my graduate work, I headed north to pharmacy school.  With the help of my daddy and sister, I found an aged but clean studio apartment and moved my things to Athens.

A few days before classes began, I went to an open house for incoming students held at the college.  One hundred seven of us crowded the building lobby, forming sloppy lines at folding tables, waiting to sign-in for our orientation groups.

When I reached the front of my line, I grabbed the pen and printed my name on the clipboard.

“Hey there, teacher girl!” I looked up into those familiar blue eyes and smiled.  Jack stepped from behind the table and hugged me.

“What are you doing here?”  I asked. “I thought you were a chemistry major.”

“Chemistry major for pre-pharmacy,” he said.

“Oh…So, you’re our group leader?”

“Looks like.”

“Well, now you get to teach me, huh?”

“How ’bout that?” he said, grinning.

Jack ushered our group through the building, touring classrooms, assigning lockers, and describing the expectations and decorum of a proper pharmacy student.  Wearing a navy blazer and khaki pants-the standard uniform for the Kappa Psi pharmacy fraternity members-he also told us about the various extra-curricular activities available.

This place is always such a mess
Sometimes I think I’d like to watch it burn…

Two years later, over the summer, we began dating, and from the onset, I was sunk.  Jack was so sweet and thoughtful.  My entire life, I’d often heard the saying, “He’s willing to give you the shirt off his back.”  And Jack really would.  He could fix anything, and was always on the lookout for something in disrepair.  In my apartment from the early 70s, there was no shortage of fix-it projects.  Once, in the middle of watching a movie, he flipped over my coffee table and tightened the legs with his pocketknife.

They say she died easy of a broken heart disease…

He often picked wildflowers from the roadside and brought them to my door in the middle of the afternoon for no reason at all.  I fell headlong for him, never considering his feelings on the matter, which turned out to be quite different.

I spent the better part of the summer moping and making myself ill, trying to coax him into a more serious relationship, but he wouldn’t budge.  And before long, he was gone, having moved to Augusta to finish his third year.

I can’t break away from this parade…

I can see my roommate Amy, and her new husband, Mitch, on the road behind me.   There are a couple more cars from Athens trailing them. In the mirror, I watch Amy mouthing the same lyrics I’m listening to.

Hey, come on try a little, Nothing is forever…

I realize how true it is that nothing lasts.  Not joy, not pain.  Good is forgotten, and bad is dulled to the point of being bearable.  But not today.

I seen the sun comin’ up at the funeral at dawn…

Today I remember all the wonderful things about Jack, and the pain is caustic. We cross the Candler county line into Metter, and wedge into the sea of cars parked in front of a small, brick building.

Inside, hundreds of pharmacy students crowd a different lobby, in tight groups of three or four. Girls sob, burying their faces in the navy fabric of their boyfriend’s suit-coats.  Hands reach into khaki pockets and offer handkerchiefs.  There is a soft murmur as stories are told and memories exchanged…”Guess God had something up there needed fixin’,” one of the fraternity brothers says, eliciting quiet laughter from his circle.

I listen through the cemetery trees…

Somehow, we manage to shuffle through the day, many of us in disbelief even as our Sunday heels sink in the cemetery sod.  Afterward, we converge on one another, sharing, consoling, remembering…denying.

There are a few girls milling about, forlorn and lost, clasping single red roses.  Others dab their eyes with saturated tissues.  Grief floods the crowd in waves.  Just as everyone seems to regain composure, sorrow washes back in, and desperate embraces and sobbing resume.

“This is ridiculous. They’ll stand out here hugging and crying all day,” Amy says, appearing at my side.  “Let’s get Mitch and go.”

I move to argue, but realize she is right about this, just as she was right about not attending the viewing.

“I don’t want that vision to be in my memory, and neither do you,” she’d said last night, grabbing my hand to keep me in the lobby.

Our goodbyes said, we climb back into our cars to return to Athens.  A dear friend is gone, and nothing seems whole, but we’ll carry on, and-

We can drive it home with one headlight.

photo by billyshakes via photobucket

Loser

…Got a couple of couches,
sleep on the love seat…
~Beck

Prologue:

Sometimes even relatively smart people do witless things.  Things that are impossible to recount without looking like a complete schmuck.

His name was Benjamin Simmons, and we met shortly after I’d ended a two-year debacle with Evan, a former co-worker.

Evan wasn’t a bad match, but he was thirty-five going on fourteen.  He was the guy that made armpit fart noises in high school and laughed about it for 30 seconds longer than anyone else.  He wasn’t serious—about anything—and a girl can only tolerate so many puerile hijinks and so much Jethro Tull.

Ben was a news anchor, and appeared to be more of a grown up.  I would like to be able to pin my ridiculous actions on having been star-struck, but it was shaky-camera local news, so, no.

We were introduced by a friend of a friend, and the details of that are commonplace: we met for lunch, had coffee, planned our wedding…

Yeah.  Hindsight has a corneal transplant.

One afternoon he dropped by and we sat in the glossy black chairs on my front porch, talking and rocking.  We sipped coffee and did that second-date-get-to-know-you thing.

It was during this discourse that he felt the need to fill me in on his romantic past. He described in excruciating detail his painful breakup with his girlfriend of five years, likening it to a divorce. Then he proceeded to recount his numerous alcohol adventures. We rocked back and he confessed of his past cocaine use, and shared stories from rehab. We rocked forward and he said he didn’t really believe in God.

There were more flags than the Macy’s parade, but all I could see was his perfect channel-three smile.

Until he did the unthinkable.

On date three, he offered to cook dinner for me.  And somewhere between the stir-fried chicken and chocolate pie, he said we should get married. (You might be thinking this was the soap-opera slap that brought me to reality.  And you might be wrong.)

[Insert the part where I do unprecedented bonehead things like sending him a dozen roses at work.]

Date four found me back at his house to watch a movie.  This time the roommate was also home.  I noticed—yes for the first time, shut up—that the apartment only had one bedroom.  Well, that was too bizarre for even six-o’clock teeth to outshine.  So I asked Ben about it.

“I didn’t know you had a roommate,” I said.

“Yeah. That’s John.  He’s cool.”  He said.

“And that’s his room?” I gestured toward the door John had just closed.

“Mm hm.”

“Sooo…um, where do you sleep?”

“Right here,” he patted the love seat cushion as if it were the most natural thing in the world for a grown, gainfully employed man not to own a bed.  (You might be thinking that this put an end to my foolishness.  You might be wrong again.)

Somewhere in the middle of date five, for no relevant reason, Ben tells me that he loves to sing.  I love to sing, too.  But loving a thing and having a talent for it are two very distinct entities.

“I can sing for you if you like,” he said.

“Now?” I said.

“Yeah.”  He reached over and muted the TV.

“Okay?”  It was a question.

“Um, you need to turn around, though.  I can’t do it if you are looking at me.”

“Okeee,” I said and turned my back to him.

He started humming—an intro of some sort, I imagine—and then began to sing.  I was thankful he’d made me turn away.  He wouldn’t be able to see me wince.

But it was actually not bad.

…It’s late in the evening,
She’s wondering what clothes to wear…

He was really quite good.  Nice tone, even pitch, proper phrasing… He continued in a soft tenor:

…She puts on her make-up
And brushes her long blonde hair
And then she asks me
“Do I look all right?”
And I say, “Yes, you look wonderful tonight…”

He got points for not trying to personalize the song by changing “long” hair to “short.”  I hate that kind of thing.

…I feel wonderful because I see
The love fly in your eyes…

Waaaaaait a minute. Did he just say “love fly”? He couldn’t have said “fly.”  It’s ‘love light.’  I’m sure he said ‘light.’

He changed key and repeated the bridge.  Ok, really listen this time…

…I feel wonderful because I see
The love fly in your eyes…

Glad that I still had my back to him, I waited for Ben to stop singing.  He ended on a note that was a little flat.  But his singing ability was no longer in question.  He appeared to have flubbed a ridiculously easy lyric. If it had been something difficult to hear, I might understand, but it was simple.  And worse yet, it was Clapton.  Who flubs Clapton?

“Did you like that?” he asked.

“Um, yeah,” I said, turning back around. “It was nice.”

“I love that song,” he said.  “The bridge is the best part.”

“Mm hmm,” I agreed, fishing under the couch for my shoes.

“I mean, the part about her eyes—it’s brilliant.”  He flashed the newsboy grin. Yeah, that’s not gonna work for you anymore, fly boy.

“Mm hmm.”  Did I take off my earrings?

“Yeah.  The ‘love fly’ in her eyes…that’s just such a cool concept, you know, to have a lyric about love flying.  Like it’s this majestic bird soaring through her heart, and she loves him so much, he can see it when he looks her in the eye.”

"Gull in Flight" by Alan Chicken via Flickr

Ok, no.  No, no, no, no, and no. Where’s my purse?

“Where are you going,” he asked. Going?  I’m going back to reality, where people with imperfect teeth know the lyrics to classic rock.  That’s where I’m going.

“It’s late, I should get home.”

“I could sing something else,” he offered.  “Do you like Springsteen?”

Yeah, do you know “Blinded by the Fly”?

“No, that’s okay,” I said, moving to the door.

“Ok, I’ll call you tomorrow.”  Call away Mr. Majestic bird, I’ve got caller ID.

I climbed into my car, backed out of the drive, and switched on the local classic rock station.

… If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues—cocaine.
When your day is done and you wanna run—cocaine.
She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie—cocaine…

The irony was rich, and I laughed all the way home.

No Sugar Tonight

…No sugar tonight in my coffee
No sugar tonight in my tea…

~The Guess Who

I have what they used to call “juvenile” diabetes, because it was often diagnosed in children.  They’ve long since stopped using that label, but I kind of like it.  It’s an apt description of my disease history, though I was 26 when first diagnosed.

I knew before anyone else did, but no one would believe me.  A lesson in crying wolf, I suppose—as a child I’d always complained of this or that ailment.  But having compared my symptoms to the list printed on the prescription bags at the store where I was an intern, I had some proof that things were amiss.

“I think I might be diabetic,” I told my roommate, Amy, one night while preparing for a pharmacology exam.  Well, she was preparing.  I was drawing an ad for a chemotherapy- Garfield plush toy (Now with emesis basin and wig!)

“It’s just stress,” she said. “You know how you get close to finals.”

How I get is math-happy. I turn over figure after figure as I predict how my performance on the exam will affect my grade in the course.  A week before, I’m motivated, so it’s If I make a 96, I’ll get an A.  A couple of days prior, I’d rather be at the Macy’s One Day Sale, so I decide I can make an 86 and still get a B.  The night before the exam, I’ve lost interest altogether. I only have to make a 43 to pass this class.

“I guess,” I say, shading in a bit of my drawing with an orange highlighter.

Later that night, I called my husband, in Athens.  The third year of pharmacy school required my presence in Augusta, so we spent the first few months of our marriage on the phone.

“I think I might be diabetic,” I said, coiling the phone cord around my finger.

“It’s just stress,” he said, and we exchanged our goodbyes.

Well, that settled it.  It was something I’d imagined, brought on by the pressure of a recent wedding, my parent’s pending divorce, and a looming immunology final.

The next morning in therapeutics, I watched Dr. Tanner display the past three months of my life on screen.  Recurrent infections?  Check.  Blurred vision?  Check.  Frequent urination and extreme thirst?  Check and double check.

Holy crap.  The Eckerd-bag diagnosis might not stand on its own, but coupled with a PowerPoint slide, it was undeniable.  So, after class, I walked over to the student clinic and asked them to check my glucose.  I was escorted to the vital signs chair.  The nurse opened a drawer and extracted a plastic case the size of a lunchbox.  There was some fussing around with alcohol and cotton balls, then she jabbed my index finger with a lancet and milked it for the perfect drop.  She fed the test strip into the machine and we waited.  I read the posters on the wall about Chlamydia (It’s not a flower!) and asthma.  We waited some more.  I eyed the lung paperweight on the desk.  We waited still more.  Finally, the lunchbox spoke. The nurse and I both turned to look at the display. 380.  Yikes.

“Yikes,” the nurse said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Um, did you eat anything this morning?”  Like what? Two dozen donuts?

“No.”

“Well then, um…could you have lotion or something on your hands?” Ohhh, so, that’s it.  Curse you, Victoria’s Secret cucumber melon.

“No.  I just washed them.”

“Hmm.  Well…hmmm.  It seems your blood sugar is a little high.”  She wouldn’t say the “d” word, and I was sort of glad.  I didn’t want to have diabetes.  Diabetics were fat and had crappy feet.  They ruined perfectly good social gatherings by slapping orange juice out of well-meaning hands, and always wanted to eat supper at 4 p.m.

“And um, we…hmm…you…um…I’m going to let you meet with the doctor,” she said.

“Okay.”

“Wait here.”

The nurse came back with a lab-coated young woman.  I was hopeful she might have an idea toward a course of action.

“Yikes,” the doctor said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Um, did you eat anything this morning?”

“No.”

“Hmm. Could you have—

“My hands are clean, too.”

“Hmm…well…hmm.”  Oh for Pete’s sake.  Just admit you don’t know what the hell to do with anything beyond strep throat or a birth control refill.  This is ridiculous.

“Well, this number is a little off,” she said, tiptoeing around the giant “d” in the corner.

“I know,” I said.

“Do you feel bad?  I mean, what made you come in?” she asked.  I recited the bullet points of Dr. Tanner’s presentation.

“Okay,” the doctor said, and clapped her hands together as if she were about to launch into a cheer.  Gimme a D…gimme an I…gimme an A, B, E…

“Here’s what we’re going to try,” she said, writing out a prescription for a glucose reducing medication.  “Take one of these every morning, and come see me in a week.”

She never once said, “You’re diabetic.”  She just mumbled something about keeping my potassium up but gave me no other instruction on what to do, eat, or not eat.  And I left the office with a slip of paper and a number three times what it should be, on a mission for bananas.

Bananas secured in a bag on my front seat, I walked across the Publix parking lot to the pharmacy where Amy just happened to intern.

I showed her my prescription.  She raised her brow as if to say, “What have you gone and done now?”  Having been my roommate since our second year, Amy was familiar with my penchant for medical drama.

“My sugar was yikes,” I said.

“How high?” she asked.

“380.”

“Yikes.”

“See?”

“Well, what did they say?”

“She said to take this.”

“That’s it?”

“Pretty much.”

She took the prescription and went to fill it, the pharmacist checking behind her.  Then she brought it to me and, like we’d done countless times in skills lab, we assumed the roles of pharmacist and patient.  Only this time, the patient was me, and the medicine was real.

Amy carefully went over the side effects the drug, and suggested I also purchase a glucometer.  She helped me select a simple model, and showed me how to use it.  I would have known myself, had I not spent that particular lecture drawing amoebic dysentery Snoopy.  Thank goodness one of us was a decent student.

Over the next week, I doubled, tripled, and quadrupled* the dose until I reached the daily maximum.  Still, my blood sugar never read below 250.  I returned to the clinic and confessed my unsupervised dosage increase.  The doctor admitted defeat and began making phone calls.  She made me an instant appointment with an endocrinologist at the Medical College of Georgia, and sent me on my way.  Within ten minutes, I’d moved from a three-room clinic behind the library into a six-story office complex connected to a hospital.

I was clueless as to what I was doing or where I was going, but somehow, I registered as a patient, had blood work done, and made it into the doctor’s office.

“Sooo, you’ve got diabetes,” the physician said as she entered the exam room.   She had no problem saying it.

“So it would seem,” I said.

Then she went through my chart line by line, pointing out significant lab values, and explaining the processes of the disease.  Some of my tests had shown that I had no inner production of insulin and would need to take it by injection.  Dr. Lewis walked me through that as well with explanations that were detailed, but clear.  She answered all my questions, and assured me that the condition was controllable and livable.  She was comfortable using the “d” word, very positive, and encouraging.

I had diabetes, but there was no stigma as I had imagined.  Family and friends were supportive.  No one made me feel leprous, or pointed toward my pancreas and said, “Ha!”  The world continued to spin.

Within a few weeks, I mastered the glucose checking and injection techniques, and studied every fact I could find on insulin.  I knew I’d I better start giving more attention to my schoolwork, too, just in case I ended up with something horrible like colon-cancer.   I definitely didn’t want Amy to have to explain the finer points of a colostomy bag.

One day, as I sat in class, sketching out the inner workings of a kidney and taking notes on renal disease, I felt something at my elbow.  I glanced down to see Amy’s hand offering me a folded piece of notebook paper.  Figuring it for a list of places she’d approved for lunch, I took it, laid it on the desk, and opened it.   I read the bubble letters circling the big blue smiley face and grinned.

For a Limited Time Only!  While Supplies Last!  Complete with mini-syringe and foot ulcer!  It’s Diabetes Smurf!

*do not try this at home. I was a quasi-trained professional.