Who Does That?

I was 21 years old, and it was time to graduate from college and decide what was happening next. I thought I should move to New York.

Somewhere, I'd heard it said that all writers must move to New York for a season. It seemed to make perfect sense to me. I mean, there were some obstacles: I had a huge amount of student loan debt. I knew no one in New York. I had no money. I had no prospects for a job. The housing was outrageously expensive. I'd only been to New York City one time, for a few hours.

What could go wrong, though? I was smart and pretty. I needed to get away from my cocaine habit and my lover, who just couldn't seem to be on the same page as me. As long as I was in the same town as him, I couldn't get him out of my blood. I could feel his skin all over my body. I was going to have to run away.

I applied to every graduate program in creative writing in New York City, and I got in. I moved in August of 2001, right before September of 2001, when the clouds obscured the sun, and never quite cleared.

I keep listening to that Augustana song, "Boston," where the girl is young and going to run away:

She said I think I'll go to Boston
Think I'll start a new life
I think I'll start it over
Where no one knows my name
I'll get out of California
I'm tired of the weather
Think I'll get a lover
And fly him out to Spain
I think I'll go to Boston
I think that I'm just tired
I think I need a new town
To leave this all behind
I think I need a sunrise
I'm tired of Sunset
I hear it's nice in the summer
Some snow would be nice
Oh yeah

Conversation with an Old Friend.

me: i missed you the other day!

Tia: hi
how are you?

me: i am ok! how are you?

Tia: good, well tired right now
I just got back from brooklyn, a two hour train ride

me: yuck.

Tia: what's going on with you? what are you doing?

me: i just got a new job. i am married to a recovering heroin addict who is the handsomest man in the whole world. i want to have a baby. what are you doing? where are you living?

Tia: I'm getting an MA in Philosophy
i'm single. it's ok. the thing i'm more excited about right now is that i've been working on a novel over the summer

me: academia is hard.
i'm almost glad these days that i could never quite get comfortable there.

Tia: yea and annoying
i think that's probably a good thing

me: a novel is exciting!

Tia: what's your new job?

me: it is a very exciting, grown-up job
it’s at a corporate headquarters
it's the first time ever that i will be making really good money
i mean, it's the first time ever that i'll be making even decent money
it's kind of strange

Tia: why's it strange

me: i'm jumping from broke to fairly well paid.

Tia: congratulations by the way

me: like not rich, but really, really comfortable.

Tia: what are you going to buy
what treats?

me: well, first, i have to clean up some financial messes.
so first, i'm going to buy away my debts.

Tia: freedom, that's a good purchase

me: then, i'm going to help my husband get his business going.
and i need some grown-up clothes
and my house needs some work.
next, i'll buy a helicopter
and i'll fly it to visit you all.
and buy shoes.

Tia: yay
we have good shoes

me: yes.
how is your whole family?

Tia: good

me: i feel like i miss your mother even though i never met her
because i always heard stories about her.

Tia: that's amazing
I'm sure in a way she misses you too
my brother just moved to LA
my sister is going to start work in october
my little brother's still in college

me: college!
he was a baby when i was there. i guess it's been a million years

Tia: oh, no i think it has
it feels like a long time ago
on a different note, i just finished dubliners tonight
it was so so so good
I just wanted to say that outloud
or in writing

me: yes. dubliners was good.
i should read it again.
i think i haven't read it since high school or college
and i probably didn't understand it right.

Tia: i'm sure i didn't understand all the stories, or at least i wasn't blown away by all of them
but i read the last one in one sitting, on the ride home
and it's incredible

me: i like the love parts
like the sailor
isn't there a sailor?

Tia: maybe, i read it over a really long period so i don't remember all of it
so, tell me more about your life
do you like the job itself?

me: i don't know yet. it starts soon.
i think i like it, though.
it is writing, and i like that

Tia: what are you doing until your work starts?

me: i am also teaching
and enjoying not working a bajillion hours
i was working a bajillion hours for a long time

Tia: what are you teaching?

me: writing

Tia: that sounds like fun

me: it is. i like teaching.
my students are getting so young, though.

Tia: really, as they progress?
like a benjamin button thing?

me: no. i get older, and get further and further away from 20
like when i was with you guys, you seemed younger than me, but just by a hair
now they seem like they shouldn't be out in the world yet
like infants
driving cars and having sex and thinking about adult stuff.
they shouldn't be doing those things.
they are children.

Tia: i know what you mean
my little brother is older than we were then but i can't believe that
but on the flip side, when i think of my mother having three kids by the time she was my age
i feel like she was much younger than i realized as a kid

me: yes. that is crazy.
three kids at your age is nuts.
oh, i also got all religious. that was interesting.

Tia: that is interesting
christian?

me: yes. i found jesus, like they say.

Tia: very interesting

me: i had no idea.

Tia: are you a specific kind of christian?

me: i was so upset with myself when it happened.

Tia: i can imagine

me: i went looking for god, and i was pretty sure i'd accept anybody BUT jesus.
and there, at the top of the god mountain
jesus.

Tia: how does that work

me: well, my husband was doing all this heroin

Tia: how is jesus different than god in general

me: and life got really, really hard

and so i started going to 12 step meetings and trying to find answers and stuff
and so i decided that i'd let god exist
just a little
just in case
and i tried all kinds of different gods.
i was meditating with a hindu guru for a while
i had buddha books
i was doing yoga
everything
except
jesus
damnit
but my husband started making gestures at getting clean
and he wanted to go to church
so i was willing to go with him
because i wanted something or somebody to fix him
and we went to this wonderful little church
and i just kind of fell in love with the people
and the pastor
and eventually, jesus
well, that's part of the story
the other part of the story is about how i got my car broken into
so i had this GPS thingy
and somebody broke my car window to steal it
and see, during the addiction time
my husband pawned all my electronics
like everything
computers full of poetry
cameras
everything
so getting my electronics stolen is this sore point
so i got my gps stolen, and i was crying
and i was kind of praying about it
and kind of thinking about karma
because that was where i'd landed on the spiritual map
eastern religion
and i was thinking about how i'd done lots of bad things
and so lots of bad things were going to keep happening to me
and i was feeling really hopeless about being stuck in that cycle
and here's where jesus comes in
or where jesus is different from god
i swear
and i'm not lying
i heard, in a voice that was not my own, "Ask me to forgive you, and I will."

Tia: i'm still here

me: and it freaked me out
but i couldn't deny it
so that is when i became a jesus freak.

Tia: what kind of voice was it?

me: calm, still, quiet, clear

Tia: a man's?

me: i'm not sure.

Tia: so you still go to church every sunday?

me: i totally do.

Tia: what else do you do?

me: i'm going in the morning.
and i pray all the time
it's a pentecostal church
and people put their hands in the air

Tia: wow
that sounds like fun
is your husband still as in to it as you?

me: he goes back and forth
at first, it was totally his thing
i was just hanging out with him
and then, he relapsed
and he had an affair with an awful woman
and so he kind of dropped off the map
and i got WAY MORE BIG into it
and then, he was done with that
and came back home and was sorry
so he was WAY BIG into it

Tia: how do you keep forgiving him

me: and now, we're both kind of steady, but he's still in early recovery and kind of crazy, so he sometimes is back and forth
i don't know.
i think i've been given a measure of grace to allow him to get through this first few years of recovery.
that or i'm insane.
or both.
or neither and it's something else.
he's very handsome.
maybe that's it.

Tia: you've mentioned that
i have a jesus question

me: i might be able to answer it!

Tia: when you say you believe in jesus what does that mean
like do you believe in the whole story of the virgin birth and the cruxifiction and the resurrection

me: i believe in god the father, creator of heaven and earth
and in jesus christ, his only son, our lord
who was conceived of the holy spirit
born of the virgin mary
suffered under pontius pilate
was crucified, died, and was buried
he descended into hell
on the third day, he arose again
etc.
the whole thing.

Tia: so... what about the part about the jews killing jesus
are you mad at us?

me: if nobody had killed jesus, then the whole jesus story couldn't have happened.
it had to happen just like it did.
and, if you're buying the jesus narrative, (which i am)
you are buying that whole jewish story, too
you are just seeing it through a different lens

Tia: ha, you probably believe in more of the bible than i do

me: maybe so, right now. it's all new and shiny to me.
i learned a lot about god from you ladies.
i've been learning a lot about god from everybody except christians for a long time.

Tia: were you raised christian?

me: being around you all taught me that there can be a lot of freedom in restriction.
i was raised in church
but kind of haphazardly
sometimes in, sometimes not
and it was like cultural, i guess
not spiritual
and everything i learned about god from my parents' church made me run.
tell me about you and boys and god.

Tia: sadly not very much right now
i was dating one guy for my last two years of college
and then we broke up but it was still kind of...
there were still a lot of emotions there and i dated a couple other people but i was still thinking about him
but now i feel really ready for someone new
i just don't like anyone
or they don't like me

me: i hate that way someone can get all in your blood.

Tia: or we don't know each other
oh, it's awful
i'm glad i had it though
it was fun to be in love

me: yes.
and it gives you things to write about.

Tia: i'm just worried that part of me is shutting down

me: no way.

Tia: i also don't really know where to look for guys

i'm in a weird place religiously, like right on the left fringe of the orthodox world
so i want someone who's interested in religion, or at least in the questions religion presents

me: that makes things so complicated for you guys.

Tia: but i don't want someone who's in the community

me: i'm glad i was already married before i had to figure out god.

Tia: yea, i could see that

me: i didn't have to try not to have sex or find somebody on the same page or anything.

Tia: but you're lucky he's open to it

me: yes.
he opened me to it.

Tia: right
so it could be something that brings you together where otherwise it could have brought you apart

me: yes.
we have these friends in their twenties

Tia: ohhh


me: i love them dearly
they just got engaged
and they aren't having sex
and i find them to be fascinating
with their not-sex-having

Tia: they're christians?

me: yes
but they don't have sex.
it's like living with unicorns.

Tia: unicorns?

me: well, i just never knew anybody who was doing that
i knew you guys, but you guys were like unicorns, too
like mythical creatures from another world.

Tia: oh

me: i've never ever tried not to have sex with anyone in my whole life.
i just did it if i wanted to.

Tia: i read about this thing called sex fasting
which is totally secular
it's just to re-invigorate a relationship the people don't have sex for a while
then jump on each other

me: when i got married the first time, we didn't have sex the two weeks before we got married
so i guess i did try not to have sex
just to make it funner on the wedding night

Tia: yea, that's the one benefit i see to it, that first night has crazy passion

me: yes.

Tia: or crazy awkwardness because you don't know what you're doing
did it work?

me: or both.

Tia: was the wedding night better?

me: i don't really remember.
we were so tired.
and i was thinking a lot about death and life and the other man who i was in love with
and family and children and past and present and future and all that.
it wasn't a very sexy occasion

Tia: it sounds poignant though

me: one thing that made me appreciate marital purity stuff is that affair my husband had.
i wish he'd never seen another woman naked except me.
and i wish i'd never been with anybody but him.
i want that area to be sacred between us
and i never saw that before he broke our marriage vows

Tia: have you been able to make it sacred despite the affair? do you think it's fixable?

me: we are working on it.
it is getting better.
but there's still some brokenness.
mostly, it's me.
it's like there are layers of grief that i haven't tapped yet
and then, i'll find one
and have to mourn it for a few days
and then, i'll be fine again

Tia: his he supportive through the process?

me: as much as he can be.
so yes and no
sometimes, really really supportive

Tia: so he has a lot to work through also
were they together for a while?

me: it was a month
he kind of ran away from home
i think it was fun for him to be around somebody who didn't understand all the addiction
he could paint himself to be somebody who hadn't done all that bad stuff

Tia: yea, an escape

me: all the stealing and lying and all the disappointment. he said that every time he looked in my eyes,
he could see everything he’d ever done wrong.

Tia: did you think during that time about being with anyone else?

me: never.
i don't want anybody else.

Tia: it's incredible how much you love him

me: maybe.
it's not like it's something i'm doing, though.
i wish i could make it stop.
i mean, not today
today it's good
but when it's been bad, i've wished i could just cut him loose

Tia: yea, well, i don't know if i mean incredible in a moral sense, as good or bad, but just in a life sense
it's not lukewarm

me: no. it's not.
it's for sure married, too.
there is nobody else on my radar, ever.
i don't even see handsome men
i might notice a handsome man if he kind of looks like my husband.
like i'll appreciate his handsomeness as a reflection of my husband’s

Tia: i have to see a picture of this guy
so how do you decide what you take literally in the bible and what's figurative
because i think it says tattoos aren't allowed, but obviously that's not someting christians take literally

me: i have a relationship with god, and i feel a check in my spirit when something isn't right for me.
for me, it's all about the relationship
it's not about the rules.

Tia: but what then do the rules mean to you
why are they there?

me: the old rules were there to show us how very far we were from perfection

Tia: oh, interesting

me: and that no amount of rule following would make you right
so there's paul in the jesus part of the bible
and he was a super-jew right after jesus
like killing christians as heretics
and he has this dramatic conversion
and part of his thing was about how following the law to the letter had turned him into kind of a monster
he says that he was blameless as far as following the law was concerned
but that he'd been killing people
and that was fucked up.
that is my translation of one of the pauline epistles.


Tia: i've read a little paul, but not much
and none of the rest of the new testement

me: jesus has this thing in the sermon on the mount where you are supposed to gouge out your eyes and chop off your hands and all that.

Tia: although i did just buy one
that sounds bloody

me: and he didn't mean for-real-go-do-it
or at least that's how i understand it
i read that passage as teaching me to read the bible literarily
not literally

Tia: but some of it is literal, like the not killing people
not stealing?
me: yeah.
but even that gets fuzzy
like jesus and the disciples take some grain on the sabbath because they are hungry

Tia: so, it seems like christians don't really hav ea good argument to be anti-gay

me: and so to me, the only hard and fast rule is that i have to have a relationship
i have to fast and pray and study to seek answers
and i have to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling
yes. the anti-gay thing is wack.
the church is a dirty rotten beautiful whore
it's like a whore who is really beautiful if she washes off her perfume and makeup

Tia: i really like the way you write

me: why thank you.
i mean, maybe god doesn't want people to be gay.
i don't know, really.
what i do know is that god wants me to love people well
i know i'm not gay.
i'm glad i don't have inclinations in that way. it would be really confusing.

Tia: yea, me too
it does make things easier
and i like men
so i like liking them

me: but if anybody ever asked me about it, like what god thought about being gay, i'd tell them to go work out their salvation with fear and trembling.

Tia: yea, i like that answer

me: i'd also tell them that i think a lot of what paul is talking about in the new testament is ritualized homosexual child rape in worship of baal
and i can totally get behind that being messed up.

Tia: me too
i think we agree on that

me: ritualized male-on-male child rape is totally wrong.
i agree that it should be banned.

Tia: i'm actually against all child rape

me: i'd vote with the republicans on that one.
yes. i will extend the ban to all child rape, in worship of pagan gods or not.

Tia: ritualized, homosexual or hetrosexual

me: actually, i'm against all rape.

Tia: you know, once we're getting fanatical i'm going to say
me too
that's what i was going to say
rape is bad

me: rape is totally immoral.
god hates rape.
i am sure of that.
i consulted the bible and the holy spirit
and i got a clear answer.

Tia: what about rapists?

me: god hates rape.
damn it.

Tia: do you think god hates rapists?

me: no.
god loves rapists.
that is terrible.
that is why i don't get to be god.

What it Was Like.

I didn't like him the first time I saw him. He was far too handsome to be safe, and he thought he knew everything. My first husband thought he was great. They became fast friends.

I thought someone should be sleeping with him. He was far too handsome to be wasted on his girlfriend only. I didn't want to sign up for the job, but I'd recommend him to my girlfriends. "He's hot. He thinks he knows everything, but he's hot."

When my ex-husband said he was thinking of living with him during our senior year of college, I said I thought it was a bad idea. There was something about him that was just maddening, and I thought it would be a distraction. My ex was partying too much, and I thought it might be wiser to live with other students. He didn't take my advice, and they moved into a 3 bedroom apartment together.

My ex had to be out of town one weekend to visit his father, and there was going to be a big party in the building where he lived. My girlfriend and I were going to attend the party, and we'd gotten some X to enhance the celebration.

I was wearing a pair of camel brown boots and a short skirt. He and my ex had found a credit card at the bar where they worked, and they went on a shopping spree. The boots came from the shopping spree. It was the first time I'd worn them, and I felt really sexy. In fact, I felt far too sexy to be all out in the building where the party was happening. I hid out with my girlfriend in my ex's room. He'd left earlier that day, so I helped myself to his liquor. We laid on the bed and felt the waves of adrenaline wash over us. The X was excellent.

He came to find me. I don't know what he had on his mind. I don't know what I had on my mind. He took one of my feet and removed the boot. He held my foot in his hand and rubbed it, up and down, with his fingers. He had a steak knife, inexplicably, and he stroked the bottom of my foot with its tip. He lifted my foot to his mouth, held my toes right in front of his lips, and laughed. I could feel his hot breath on my feet.

I realized I was wearing white granny panties, and giggled. I'd not expected to be showing them to anyone, as my ex was out of town. I realized he'd been able to look up my skirt all night. He took off my other boot.

My friend said she wanted to go home, and I had to drive her to her car. I told him I'd be right back.

As we walked out the door, she said, "You're going to sleep with him!"

I said, "I know!"

It seemed funny. It seemed fun. It seemed like something to do, nothing bigger than the pills or the liquor - just kicks. Just bullshit. Just whatever. I had no idea that I was signing on for life.

I came back after I dropped off my friend, and nobody was home. We sat on the couch. He got very, very close to me, and I laughed. I don't remember how we started kissing, but we did. We kissed and kissed, and somehow, we were talking while we were kissing. I couldn't figure it out - like maybe we were thinking the words. Our clothes dropped off like petals, as if it we'd always been naked together. The crook of my back fit the fold of his stomach. My lips fit his eye socket. Our mouths were intersections, and everything was possible.

He wanted to make love in my boyfriend's bed. I told him to come to my house instead.

We made love, and we slept folded into each other. I woke up to his mouth on the back of my knee, his eyelashes fluttering my thigh, working his way up. I didn't know it was all orchestrated. I didn't know I was falling into something I couldn't climb back out of. I fell asleep, and when I woke up, he was inside of me.

We stayed in bed for several days. We didn't answer our phones. Nobody could find us. We were off the map. I thought I was having a good time, until it was time for him to go back to his girlfriend, time for my boyfriend to come back home. I found I didn't want him to leave.

When he told me he loved me for the first time, he said he's been thinking about it all day, rehearsing the words and how he'd say it. I don't think I'd thought about it yet, but as soon as I saw the words in his mouth, I knew they were written on my insides. I knew I loved him from the inside out. I knew I hadn't known what it meant to love a man before, that I'd been playing at it all along.

I married him right then. I mean, I didn't marry him. In fact, I married another guy in the meantime. We both worked through the ins and outs of our early twenties. I got clean, and he got addicted. I got married and divorced. He slept with scores of women. Always, though, he was with me. Always, he was the core, and always, always, always, we returned to one another, filled our mouths with each other and talked, talked, talked. Always, I loved him, and waited for him to tell me he was ready.

Zombie Honeymoon.

It's the best movie of all time. They get married, and he gets zombie bitten on their honeymoon. She goes into denial and tries really hard to "make it work." It ends with Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man."

Watch it right now: Zombie Honeymoon

No Matter.

It doesn't matter how I rearrange the furniture, it still happened. It doesn't matter how much I don't talk about it, it still happened. It doesn't matter how much I pray, how much I forgive, or how much i try to push it far, far back in the furthest corner, it still happened, and right now, the violation is as fresh as on the first day.

2.

No. Please. Don't. Stop.

Oh. You're a shitty guy.

Sometimes, I'll have this feeling in my gut. Someone will say something that seems not quite right. I won't be able to put my finger on it, but there will be some certainty, deep inside of me, that things aren't as they seem. That the situation isn't quite right.

I'll dismiss the feeling. I'll excuse and explain it. I'll tell myself I'm being unfair, judgmental, unkind, cruel. I'll tell myself that I'm not a very nice person to think that someone, who appears to be in all sincerity telling the truth or treating me fairly or representing reality as it truly is, might be deceiving me. And I'll shove that little thought way, way down into the file where I store such things. I'll flag it, file, it, and do my best to forget about it.

But inevitably, that little flag will wave around, furiously, demanding my attention. I'll look away - but out of the corner of my eye, there it is. And invariably, as I pull at the situation a little, it quickly, clearly comes all unraveled.

I realize that the sense I had of being deceived is, in fact, appropriate - as I am being deceived. I'll realize that the niggling suspicion I had that this person does not value me or my contributions is, in fact, true. I'll find that my seemingly unfair assessment of a person as being a shitty guy is, in fact, accurate.

This tendency to deny what my guts are telling me to be true helped my husband keep using for a really, really long time. I had to face that I'd contributed, through my denial and enabling, to allowing him to hurt me financially and to paint himself into a corner in his addiction. My refusal to see that his sickness was spiraling out of control just contributed to the growing sickness in our home. We seem to be on the upswing from that most difficult place, but I can't shake this tendency to believe that things and people who seem too good to be true are, in fact, too good to be true.