Wife goes on

While pinning my students’ New School Year Resolutions to the bulletin board, a twinge of anxiety shot through my body. I had the feeling that I should have a yellow card with my New School Year Resolution stapled to the board as well. But how could I write, “My resolution is to calm the fuck down,” without either getting fired or scaring the children?

As if I wasn’t already aware that I needed to do something about my personal lack of stasis (and do it stat), Rosh Hashanah rolled around. “La Shana Tova!” I began saying to all my fellow Jews. I love me a Jewish holiday. Oh, save for Yom Kipper of course. I never lose the ten pounds I think I will after fasting for twenty-four hours and it’s getting to the point of needing to be quarantined for fear of attacking my husband for saying something as innocuous as, “A day without food isn’t so bad, Jo. Just think of the bagel you’ll have tonight!” It’s after a comment like that I’ll usually fly off the handle, scream back something like, “Oh, sorry I’m starving and you don’t care!”

“Then eat!” he’ll say.

“I can’t! Argh! You don’t understand!” I’ll then respond, practically frothing at the mouth. But he does understand and he also fears for his life when I have gone without food for longer than three hours.

Anyway, the Jewish New Year is another organic time of self-reflection, as is the start of the school year. (Note: I do not include birthdays as proper places for self-reflection, however. If I had to think of how to be a better person while acknowledging that I am aging, I literally might implode. That’s another trigger for me—sagging under-eye skin, actual or imagined.) I love the dinner, the wine, the apples with honey, and the shmoozing at Temple that are all synonymous with Rosh Hashanah. It’s the “how to be a better person” thing that ruffles my feathers and sends that familiar shock of adrenaline through my system. It's that latter part I don’t look forward to.

And here’s why. I know what I need to do, what I really need to do, to be a better person. I need to calm the fuck down. I need to learn to be happy when I’m not under a constant state of duress. I need to practice meditation, exercise more, switch from coffee to tea (or—gasp!—water). I need to learn to say, “No.” and I need to learn to mean it. I need to learn how to say, “Hold on, I have another call,” without experiencing severe worry what the person I’m having “hold” is feeling put off.

I’m pretty good at giving back to the world and those in need. I teach—which at the rate I get in the New York City system might as well be a volunteer job. That stuff I’m good with. It’s the “me” stuff that I’m quite negligent about. And to myself I now say, “Je suis desolet!” But now what?

I’ve signed up for yoga but I get anxious as the class runs late because we’re trying to hold the lotus position for another freaking minute. I could just leave when I have to, you say, but I’ve tried that too and I felt guilty that maybe the instructor though I didn’t like her class. As my fellow chosen people say—Oy.

“Hello. My name is Jo and I’m an addict.” I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m an addict suffering from an addiction to anxiety. I’m addicted to the surge of adrenaline that gets my heart pumping and my mind racing every time I freak out then proceed to obsess over minutia. Then I get anxious over the fact I’m causing my heart to beat faster, worrying some more about what the anxiety will do to my skin, metabolism, and longevity. And maybe I wouldn’t even have admitted that I need to calm the fuck down if when my mom said, “Jo! You don’t have to be anxious to have fun!” I felt like I needed to put the phrase on a T-shirt.

“You don’t have to be anxious to have fun. Hmm… Interesting,” I responded, biting my nails to the quick.

“Get your fingers out of your mouth!” she said, over the phone. Damn! She’s good, that mom of mine.

This new idea of not needing to be anxious to have fun was akin to what addicts must feel when they wander into a church and “find Jesus”—so crazy that it just might work. So, I promptly walked into the first manicure place I could find, picked out a fierce shade of red, and gave my gnawed hands over to the horrified nail technician. “Bad! You bite! Bad! No nail!” Yes, I know, bad! Very bad! But hey, I’m going to at least try. And who knows; no more nervous nail biting could lead to elevated self-confidence and to the ability to say no without any regrets, which could in turn lead to a lowered supply of anxiety pumping through my veins.

“Good color,” my talented nail techie said, interrupting my delusions of instant self-transformation.

“Oh. Thank you,” I said.

“Wife goes on,” she said, showing me the name of the hue on the bottom of the bottle.

You got it sista!

Brave New World

It is definitely a good thing that we cannot remember our own births. What a traumatic experience for a human to go through! After spending nine months in a warm, cozy, quiet little space, you are forced out, without warning, into a cold, loud, hectic world, and receive a spank. I don't blame the little babies for crying their eyes out.

As I watched one little newborn get pulled out of her mother's womb, literally kicking and screaming on the way out, I thought, “Yeah, girl, I can relate.” I recently finished a very cushy family medicine rotation, and have now started a very hectic, and somewhat abusive (although sans spanking) obstetric rotation. It is not the hours that bother me (7am-5pm, or 11pm if you are unlucky), it is the working conditions that really wear me down. One of the attending doctors, nicknamed “Dr. Sunshine” by the nurses, prefers to teach by Socratic method. Well, that is a nice way of putting it. In reality, the grouch assaults us with questions about obstetric topics we never learned about, and then does his best to make you feel as pathetic as possible when you answer incorrectly. We medical students have it easy, though. Aida, one of the scrub nurses, told me that when she first started out and had not yet learned the names of all the surgical instruments, Sunshine would through the instruments across the room if she passed him the wrong one. I have had some experience with flying folders and shoes during orchestra rehearsals in high school, but thankfully I have never had to duck a flying forcep or suture scissor!

Yesterday, I was struck between the eyes with a rubber band that Sunshine had ricocheted off the white board. “Oh, sorry about that, that was an accident,” he smirked. “You know it was accidental because I would not have apologized if it was intentional.” As I looked into his ugly, watery eyes, I felt the strongest urge to hit Sunshine, hard, across his puffy face. I clenched my fist around the tube of lip gloss in my pocket and bit my tongue.

The only good to come out of the constant state of anxiety I am in during the days with Sunshine, is that I have completely lost my appetite. I usually feel ill the first couple weeks of any new job, so I was quite looking forward to the prospect of losing three pounds (albeit temporarily). What I did not anticipate was the real nasty consequence of hypoglycemia…

Let me describe the climate of the operating room to set the scene. In general, the temperature is kept very cool, primarily to discourage germ growth, but also to keep the surgeons and nurses comfortable in all their layers of clothing. Any person that will be near the patient in the operating room must “scrub in.” Scrubbing is a very methodical way of washing your hands, which entails taking a sterile little sponge-brush and scrubbing every surface of your fingers, hands and arms. The whole procedure should take no less than five minutes. Five minutes for each surgery! After scrubbing the skin off your poor arms, the scrub nurse dresses you in a sterile gown and places sterile gloves on your hands, while you stand there like a basket case, not touching a single thing. The final outfit has up-to-the-knee booties, sterile gown, two layers of gloves, mask, goggles, and hairnet. Usually, I can rely on my cuteness when I’m in a pinch, but unfortunately there is nothing cute about this uniform.

One fateful day, I scrubbed into a cesarean section. This surgery is quite routine, and usually takes less than an hour to perform. This particular case was a bit more complicated, however, because the patient had fibroids in her uterus, which tend to bleed very easily. The surgery was going fine; the baby was “sectioned” without incident. My job was to “retract,” which entails using a smooth, metal, paddle-like hook to hold open the abdomen while the surgeons stitch together all the layers underneath. So there I stood, retracting. Retracting. Retracting. Retracting….This was taking a long time. I looked at the clock. One hour. The doctors still had not stopped the bleeding. There was no hemorrhage, thank God, but just a lot of nagging, bleeding vessels that needed to be stitched. I switched hands. I looked at the patient’s belly. “Please stop bleeding,” I willed it. I was starting to feel weak. One hour and a half now. I began to feel very warm. “Stop bleeding, stop bleeding, stop bleeding….” Suddenly I felt sick. Panic came over me. I was going to throw up all over this patient!! But within seconds I realized I was dealing with another beast. “I…I need to go,” I whispered to the scrub nurse, who was quickly disappearing from sight. “I’m going to faint.” Blackness blotted up my vision until I could no longer see. “SOMEBODY GRAB HER!” I heard some commotion around me, and someone by my side as I crumpled to the ground.

I came to microseconds later, sitting on the OR floor in a puddle of amniotic fluid mixed with blood, with my head between my knees. The anesthesiologist picked me up and dragged me over to a chair. (Truthfully I didn’t really mind this part because I felt tres dramatic, in manner of Jane Austin.) People were peeling off all those layers—the cap, gown, gloves, mask…dignity… Well that was mortifying! All the doctors and nurses were so kind to me, though, and I am so grateful to them for that. They all reassured me that fainting happens to everyone, it is a physiological response to standing in one place for hours. One doctor told me that she even used to fake fainting to get out of surgeries.

Not a bad idea, I thought. I will have to remember that in the future…

Bebe moviendo?

For as long as I can remember, I have always been a bit preoccupied with boys. In kindergarten, I spent recess the way most five-year-olds do—chasing boys around the playground. In junior high I daydreamed about making out all day with Leonardo DiCaprio. I’m sure my grades would have been better in college had I not been obsessing over the hottie of the week. So you can imagine how strange it was to find myself standing in a room with two gloved fingers inside a forty year old woman’s vagina.

“So, now I want you to appreciate the cervix. It will feel like a rubbery cork. Is she fingertip?”

“Excuse me?” I sputtered.

“Is she dilated? Can you fit a fingertip inside the cervical canal.”

“Oh, um…I’m not sure…no.” I was beginning to feel very warm and lightheaded. My attending then began a monologue about some obstetric topic while my two fingers were still in the patient. Why did I have to stand here like this while he waxed on? Mercifully, he stopped talking and I finished the exam. And so began my experience as a student physician of obstetrics and gynecology.

After the initial shock, the women’s exams have not been so bad. Two or three speculum exams, and it’s just another part of the body, no big D. In fact, most of my clinic days are spent performing check-ups on the antepartum, or pregnant, patients. I ask them how they’re feeling—“ready for this baby to come out”, if they have any pain—“yes, on my sides and back”, or swelling—“yes”, and if the baby is moving—“Bebe moviendo?” After asking these questions, I explain to the poor ladies that “these are normal feelings in pregnancy due to the physiological changes, and unfortunately there is nothing we can do to help!” I feel pretty inadequate explaining this to a woman who clearly knows more about pregnancy than I do, but do my best to seem sympathetic. I then measure the fundal height, which is a measurement of the belly, and I listen to the fetal heart rate with a type of ultrasound machine. "SWISHHH, SWISHHH, SWISHHH, SWISHHH, SWISHHH," one hundred and fifty swishes a minute; the most warm, reassuring sound. Suddenly, I forget about getting admonished by my attending, I'm no longer stressed out, or tired from working a thirty-two hour shift. For a brief moment, a blanket of calm settles in the room and the new mother and I smile at each other and just listen to that rhythmic swishing, the beating heart of a new life.

That's enough now, Sally

As soon as my boss, we'll call her Lady Tremaine (aka Cinderella's stepmother), sharply said, "Close the door," I knew I was about to get a beating. "You're acting like a nine year old! You're so passive! You're acting like a victim!" She had unloaded on me like this before, but calling me a nine year old was certainly over the top. At that point what could I possibly say? If I apologized, I would be passive. If I cried, I would be acting like a nine year old. That left me with only one option: Sit there, slack jawed. If anyone was acting like a nine year old, it was Lady Tremaine, for sure. Not me. Her mockery and abuse reminded me of a child who, after inhaling two pieces of birthday cake and pouring a few Pixy Stix down her throat, starts hyperactively running in circles at her birthday party and screaming at all the other frightened children. That child inevitably wears herself out, gets sick from the heightened physical activity, and throws up a sugary mess down her party dress. That child, totally unaware that she has embarrassed herself and that she has just come crashing down from her high, then feels completely better and is all smiles for the rest of the party. However, all the other children in attendance no longer want to play with that spoiled, fussy girl and only concede to a game of tag because they’re afraid that she’ll start screaming like a banshee again. “OK, we’ll play with you, Sally—you crazy fuck.”

Lady Tremaine is a powerful lady. She is the CEO of her own empire and is highly respected (respected by people who don’t work with her as intimately as I do). Much like the Devil who wears Prada, Lady Tremaine is a leader in her field with a huge following, a woman who is also feared and greatly bothered by those who work to keep her on the lofty pedestal on which she resides. Luckily, my work with her is fairly short-term and our project will be at press in a few months. I’ll then be able to say my adieus and focus on my first love: teaching. I teach elementary school in a public school in Manhattan. I love it. I get to play God all day, dictating when my little community members get to eat, pee, talk, sit, play. Yes, I get orchestrate a bustling micro-polis all day long and I do so with a huge helping of blood, sweat, and tears.

So when Lady Tremaine asked me to shut the door to usher in my own beat-down, you can imagine how ironic that was. A nine year old, huh? I was acting like a nine year old? She was the one acting like a spoiled little brat. In my book, acting like a nine year old is super cool—unless you’re that kid at the party. I love nine year olds so much that I’ve chosen to spend everyday with them. Lady T obviously meant this to be an insult, but I’ve decided to take it as a compliment. Save the nine year old who gets high on sugar at birthday parties, most nine year olds I know are quite cool. And we have a lot in common with each other, those kiddies and I. We like listening to stories: they during our daily read aloud and I during Story Slams at the Moth. We love our respective snack times: they munching on pretzels and I, sipping red wine (after work, of course). We also both adore Compliment Circle: all of us passing compliments to the people sitting next to us in the circle, where I'm the only one tearing up. Every. Friday. Can’t help myself. Those kids and I, we have loads in common and I love that. And if that makes me a nine year old, so be it. But I’ll tell you what I certainly am not. I am not passive, just ask the Amish boys on bikes. And I am not a victim, even though Lady T certainly victimized me that day. I am always able to gather my bearings, soldier on, and tell a damn good story about it the next day over dirty martinis.

Get on your bicycle!

As we turned the corner and drove along the pitch-black street, I saw some Amish boys riding their bicycles along the shoulder of the road. I rolled down the window, leaned out, and yelled at the top of my lungs, “GET ON YOUR BICYCLE!” But weren’t they already on their bicycles you ask? Yes, yes they were. And weren’t they minding their own business, straining to see their way along the completely unlit road, untouched by street lights and commercial light pollution? Yes. Then why would I want to heckle unsuspecting, young kids—Amish kids at that—who were already on their bikes? The only explanation I have is a psychological term known as ‘displacement.’ According to Wikipedia, displacement is “an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind redirects effects from an object felt to be dangerous or unacceptable to an object felt to be safe or acceptable.” Since there’s nothing safer than Amish boys, what, pray tell, was the “object felt to be dangerous or unacceptable” that caused me to lash out at straw hat and bloomer wearing boys? Well, let’s start from the beginning.

A friend of mine put into words his feelings about Pennsylvania and the diddy is sung to the tune of Rice-A-Roni. It goes: “Pen-syl-van-ia, the shit hole of the world.” Knowing this phrase and feeling similarly about the Keystone State, I couldn’t help but sing it to myself as my husband, best friend, and I packed up our car for the five hour drive to Mary’s wedding. None of us were quite sure how to feel about this trip. We hadn’t seen Mary and her fiancé, Jim, in a year, since they decided, on a detour through State College, that they were meant to live in a teeny, tiny town near Penn State, and up and moved there within two weeks of stumbling upon the town. My best friend and current road tripper, Cece, and I were disappointed and confused, frankly, to hear about Mary and Jim’s plan to go west, since they hadn’t found jobs or an apartment before embarking on their move. They did have, however, a nauseating amount of effervescent “we’re wild and we know it” excitement. And they did have love, or, what appeared to be love, at least. What could go wrong? Oh, I don’t know—just about everything.

After several broken plans and last minute cancellations to get together over the past year, Cece and I had come to terms with Mary’s decisions. We had many talks about her seemingly (seemingly to us fiercely independent women at least) deranged devotion to Jim and realized that her disappearance off the face of the earth was nothing radically new and that actually she had been extremely co-dependent on all of her boyfriends. If a fair-weather friend is a friend who is only available to play during good times, then Mary is a bad-weather friend, since she is only available to play (and cry, and drink to excess, and dog you to go out until you cave in and say you’ll pick her up in an hour) when she is single and therefore depressed. We were sad about this loss to our trio, a trio since high school, since long-time friends are hard to come by. I say “long-time friend” because what bonds us at this point our lives is that we’ve just known each other long enough to know each other “way back when”—when we were wild high school girls, getting into trouble, and facing a crossroads as college loomed ahead. So, long-time friends are important in my book. They know who you were and who you now are. They know your old boyfriends and your darkest secrets. And, you hope, long-time friends will do their part to stay an even longer-time friend as the years go by.

While in the car, on endless empty, straight roads through the shit hold of the world, my husband, Curtis, Cece, and I spent a good amount of time figuring out what exactly we were driving into. We spent a good part of our five-hour trip trying to anticipate the answers to these pressing questions: Would their backyard wedding party have alcohol? Would we need to speedily shotgun the Bud Lights in the cooler in the trunk if the party was dry? Would we be able to find a taxi that could take us the thirty miles from the Super 8 to Mary and Jim’s newly purchased house if we did drink all the beers in the trunk? Would Mary actually have food and would she have actually managed to hire and organize catering? Was a baby the real reason for their recent mass text message informing her family and friends about their hasty nuptials? Really, could there be enough alcohol to make up for the fact that we were driving all this way, to go to their backyard, and celebrate someone who, at this point, we barely knew, someone who had all but discarded us this year? These were questions we hoped to answer.

By the time we finally arrived at the not-so-super Super 8, we had all of ten minutes to throw our clothes on, slap on some make-up, and cram back into the car in order to get to Mary and Jim’s house by the time the ceremony started at four o’clock. While Cece and I were in this messy process of speed-changing, Cece paused and stared at me in the very flattering light in our mildewed motel room, and said something only your best friend can say unabashedly and only you can understand and not think them superficial for but actually smile and unabashedly say thank-you for. She said, “You know, you really are my most beautiful friend. Really. You’re so pretty.” And even though I always love when we start complimenting each other on how attractive, thin, and pore-less the other person is, this time it had the same effect on me that one glass of wine has on me at this point—it just wasn’t strong enough. I turned to her and replied, “You know, Cece, that comment may have lost some of it’s meaning.” Our trio was down to a duo, any more losses and I was going through life as a soloist—save my adoring and very patient husband, who at this point was changed and drinking his first Bud Light in the parking lot. Dresses on, make-up somewhat shellacked, we thought we were as ready as we would ever be for this mysterious wedding. Backyard wedding. Backyard wedding picnic party. Whatever the hell she was calling it.

The GPS was reducing our estimated time of arrival and we were relieved to now be arriving at 4:01 instead of 4:09. This obviously wasn’t going to be a long ceremony and we weren’t going to come all this way and miss the ten-minute “I dos.” Cece and I were each gulping down a beer, hunching over every time we took a sip because we are, and will always be, completely afraid of breaking laws. Curtis, however, is not made that way, and he was encouraging us to not only drink up but drink more. And he made a good point, “You haven’t seen her in a year. You know their parents were informed about this spontaneous wedding the same time you were and were just as involved and informed. Mary is probably going to pull off a beautiful backyard celebration, but in case it goes horribly wrong, I’d suggest having one more.” Truthfully, my Bud Light was the most delicious thing I’d ever imbibed. It might as well have been nectar. Whenever we can, Cece and I kick-start our nights out with a glass of Prosecco with pomegranate juice, but this beer was, miraculously, doing the trick. I was nervous to see Mary and I just wanted her to be happy—contrary to how this whole lead-up sounds. I wanted her to be happy, to be truly happy with Jim and with her decisions, however rash, and I wanted her to have everything she could ever want. I also wanted her to have left gift bags at the motel, have maybe considered having a shuttle bus drive the guests, all of whom were from out of town (since, again, they had no reason to move to Pennsylvania, including moving near family, friends, or whatnot), and possibly thank everyone for coming all this way when she had been holed up with Jim and hidden from the world for the past year. On that note, I chugged the rest of my beer. As far as I was concerned, it was better than Dom Perignon.

By the time Jane, our British GPS voice, informed us we were only mere meters from their street, the three of us were making peace with Mary, less anxious about seeing her, and more accepting of her choices. Yes, we were buzzed. And as we neared their quaint, unpaved, country road, I admitted, “Maybe we’re all underestimating her and this is going to be gorgeous and then we’re all going to feel like assholes.” But then we turned onto her street, Cemetery Road, and I muttered a little, “Oy,” under my breath.

I will say that I was taken by the amount of cylindrical bales of hay dotting their six acre property. It was quite impressive to see how much open land surrounded their new home. For a moment, a pang of jealousy punctuated my heartbeat. However, that feeling was quickly replaced by confusion when I spotted Jim, the husband-to-be, running around the yard without a shirt, lunging up the lawn from the tent to the house. Apparently, we had not missed anything. The three of us were, at this point, standing, dumbstruck, in front of our car. No one moved. We just stared, taking it all in. A white tent on their front lawn housed four round white tables and a long white buffet table. Up the slanted lawn by the house, a rotund DJ was fumbling while he unloaded his bulky equipment from his truck, which seemed to have previously functioned as an ice cream truck. There were about fifteen or so people drifting among the tent, drink station on the buffet table, and the driveway. We all realized at the same time we had literally been standing in the driveway staring at everyone and everything around us and we needed to get a move on. I also realized we had not yet wrapped her gifts. Since Mary decided to forgo all things “wedding” she did not have a bridal shower. Usually I find myself wanting to poke my own eye out with the bridal bingo boards at showers, so I wasn’t crestfallen, to say the least, when Mary decided not to partake in the ritual. Instead, Cece and I bought her margarita glasses and a serving dish off her registry and at this point in the evening were trying to shove the cumbersome boxes into a silver gift bag. “Oh fuck! This looks like a crinkled, hot mess!” I said, realizing that these two boxes were never going to fit into the one bag and that we were going to have to end up leaving one of the boxes, the margarita glasses, unwrapped, in the Macy’s bag they came in. “Well, it won’t be the tackiest thing at the wedding,” Curtis interjected. “True,” was Cece’s response. “The tackiest thing was her mass text message invite. This is not nearly as shoddy. We’re fine.”

Walking from the car to the tent, we spotted Mary’s amazing step-dad, Greg. His face lit up when he saw Cece and me awkwardly walking along the gravel driveway, both of us in heels that were not well suited to the current terrain. Curtis had made a beeline to the drink station and had already cracked open a Yuengling beer. “Girls! Thank you for coming all this way! That’s so amazing of you!” We hugged Greg, who was obviously aware that coming all this way for Mary was no small deed. “Can you believe they live here?” All I wanted to say was, “No, I fucking can’t, Greg. What about this isolated set-up, with Amish families as neighbors, cut off from all your family and friends is appealing about this?” But instead I just nodded and said, “Of course we’re here!”

Greg took the gifts from us and walked us down to the tent to have some cocktails, at which point he launched into Mary’s recent decisions. “You know, my family all lives in upstate New York and we always had to drag Mary up here,” Greg said. “She would always say, ‘I hate the country. I’m not a country person.’ And now they live here. So…” Cece and I exchanged a quick oh-we’re-having-this-conversation-are-we look. “And they didn’t tell us anything about this wedding. We just heard the news about the house and the wedding and it was so much all at once. So…” I took another swig of punch. “And I really wanted to bring a tray of sushi up here, because you know that was our thing. Mary and I would go to sushi once a week and just talk. It was our time. But I thought I should check first before bringing it because, you know, she doesn’t eat it anymore.”

“I’m sorry, what?” was all I could say in between gulps of punch that was certainly taking the edge off of this buggy, muggy experience. “Why wouldn’t she eat sushi? It’s her favorite food.”

“Fish have mothers you know…” Greg said, looking at us and shrugging.

“I’m sorry, what? Mothers?” Cece said while we both cocked our heads to the side and squinted.

“She doesn’t eat meat anymore.”

“What? No meat? Since when?” I asked.

“No meat, no milk, no cheese. She’s a vegan. So is Jim. It’s one more new thing about her that I just learned myself,” Greg said, shaking his head with raised eyebrows.

“She’s a vegan? The girl who has said that she is sick of people who won’t eat a burger?” I asked, realizing that may have been pushing it.

“Yup,” Greg said, “no more meat, living in the country, getting married. So…”

All of a sudden, Mary’s mom, Holly, came down the hill to the tent and gave us huge hugs. “Girls! Thank you so much for coming! It’s so nice of you!” I was starting to feel like maybe if Cece and I had said we were unable to attend it wouldn’t have been such a rude thing. It was starting to feel like maybe it was more outrageous that we had shown up. Great.

Holly ushered Greg up to the house and with that the preacher got everyone’s attention and had the guests line up and form an aisle. The preacher, or should I say, crazy man, was standing at the head of the aisle, smiling and laughing to himself—and I hoped he was rehearsing his sermon, otherwise he was starting to scare me. A country song started booming from the massive DJ speakers and Jim, clothed, took his place next to the crazy man and we all turned our attention to Mary walking down from the house, flanked by Holly and Greg, led by Michelle, her seven year old sister who was strewing petals along the lawn. This scene was out of a romance movie: Mary’s strapless dress draping off her slender physique, her veil gently blowing in the wind, and her golden curls framing her happy face. “I’m an asshole,” I thought to myself. “All that bad talk, and look how lovely this is. I’m an asshole.”

By the time Mary reached the preacher, she and Jim held hands and the song came to an end. “We are gathered here to celebrate the love that this young couple has found in each other…” And so the ceremony went. It all sounded lovely and fine until the crazy man began to earn his title. “You two had to come to Penn State to meet and fall in love and you’re so lucky for that.”

“Quinnipiac,” Jim corrected him, since they had actually met two years ago while in college. In good spirits, everyone chuckled and chalked up crazy man’s misspeaking to an honest mistake.

“Quinni-what? I have no idea what you just said,” crazy man continued. “You two had to come all the way to State College, Pennsylvania to meet. And everyone here is so happy you did.” Ok, so crazy man had his own story to tell about Mary and Jim and the truth wasn’t playing a huge part in it.

After a few more tangents and odd remarks, crazy man said that the two could kiss if they wanted and that they were now man and wife. He then looked at Jim and seemed to be searching for his next words, and then spouted, “I now pronounce you, Mr. and Mrs..” pause, pause, pause, “Jim Murphy!”

“Miller!” the audience shouted back. But before anyone had a chance to consider whether or not the two love birds were actually married—since the person marrying them had rewritten their history and confused their last name—Jim scooped Mary up in his arms and ran. He ran down the aisle and got all of ten feet before it happened, the beginning of the end. He literally dove with Mary into the ground and seemed to skid along the sloped lawn, dragging Mary with him. Everyone gasped, no one moved, and yet I’m pretty sure everyone was wondering the same thing. “Why in hell would he run with her along the most divotted and uneven yard I’ve ever walked on?” Then, the troops rushed in. Everyone ran over to see if the hot mess of a couple was alright. Mary was seething and gathered herself, pulled up her dress (since it had been pulled down in the fall) and began storming up the hill toward the house. Jim and her mom followed behind, and then everyone else headed to get a drink.

It was about a half an hour since the crash of ’09 when Cece and I decided to get Mary, and drag her out to her own wedding if we needed to. Yes, the fall was humiliating, but so was the fact I was wasting one of my last summer afternoons in Amish country at a wedding without the bride and groom. Cece and I stumbled up the lawn and kept saying to each other, “He dropped her! He actually dropped her!” and would start laughing all over again. Trying to gain composure and feeling like Mary needed to come outside and face the music and the masses, we knocked on her bedroom door and I, ever so eloquent, said, “Mary, we’re coming in and I don’t care if you punch me in the face, we’re taking you to your wedding!” And with that I flung open the door and saw the two newlyweds changed and sitting on the bed.

“Jim popped his shoulder out. I’m taking him to the hospital. But don’t tell anyone!”

“Oh I see,” I suddenly realized. “This is going to be a repeat of every other time Mary has thrown a fit and refused to do what is being asked of her at which point I, and her other friends, swoop in and take over. This is her sister’s fifth birthday party all over again when Mary was grumpy and refused to help out with the twenty manic five-year olds and I, the idiot that I am, jumped in instead and helped Holly hold down the fort. Just fucking great.”

Cece and I, totally unsure what to do with this crap load of information, left the house only to be swarmed by their family and friends. “Oh, they’ll be out soon. Everything’s fine.” I couldn’t tell if I was able to lie through my teeth, but I had the feeling that whatever I was saying was not being believed. And to add a great amount of credibility to my narrative of what was happening inside the house, we all turned and looked up at the house when we heard the sound of a car engine turning on, and Greg backing their Jeep up to the door.

“What’s going on? Where are Mary and Jim?” the guests continued to say out loud. When all of a sudden, everyone realized that Mary was driving away, with Jim in tow, and that they had just left their own wedding.

“Where the fuck are they going?” Mary’s friend asked, a friend who had flown in from San Diego that day and was flying out on a red-eye the next morning.

“Umm,” Cece and I said, “not sure. Probably to the hospital?” Fuck me.

The festivities continued with Juila and me dancing to Miley Cyrus songs with Michelle, downing cups of punch, and covering our ears every time Jim’s brother started singing karaoke to the classics of Bon Jovi and White Snake. Ah yes, it was actually getting worse. Mary’s mother was filming the event with her camcorder and decided to have me, Cece, and Michelle share our feelings toward being at this wedding by yelling in sync into the video camera, “This is the best wedding EVER!” I instantly felt sick. And it wasn’t the punch. It was the fact I was lying through my teeth and that I wanted to kick Mary in the shins for being such a selfish person.

Five hours later, a few more off-key ballads, awkward dance numbers, and yes, Budweiser commercials (thank you, Mr. DJ), Mary and Jim pulled up the driveway and we all gathered near the car for their homecoming. Everyone, except me, Cece, and Curtis, that is. Jim, arm in sling, Mary, huge smile on her tear-stained face, the newlyweds were finally attending their own wedding, and as they rolled out of the car, everyone applauded. Whoop-tee-doo. I may have been drinking the alcoholic punch, but everyone seemed to be drinking the euphemistic “punch.” Like the Jonestown punch. Did no one else find it absurd that Mary ditched everyone and disappeared for five hours without saying goodbye?

The happy couple changed back into their wedding wear and got to have their first dance while everyone circled around them, making this scene somewhat resemble an actual wedding. Then, out of nowhere, I literally burst into tears. I was sobbing, my chest heaving! I was just as confused by this overflow of emotion as Cece and Curtis, who both shot me a “What the fuck are you doing?” look. They glared at me. Curtis hugged me, not knowing what else to do to his wreck of a wife (who was also starting to scare him) and I said, in between dramatic sobs, “I… just… got … sad!... They… missed… their… own… wedding!... It’s…so…sad!” Cece just shook her head at me, gulped down the rest of her wine, and said, “I want to go. Now.” Gotcha. We’re out of here.

Once we were back in the car, finally about to leave, I tried my best to explain—or, justify—my outpouring of tears. I tried to explain that what we just experienced was pathetic and worthy of tears. Curtis said I was drunk. Cece said I was crazy. Truthfully, they were both right. While explaining to them how I felt bad that Mary will be watching her wedding video the next day, a video in which she and Jim will be noticeably absent, out of the corner of my eye I saw two young boys riding their bikes along the side of the road. And, well, you know how that ends…

Upon reflection of these whole bizarre wedding festivities, or lack thereof, I still find myself spontaneously shaking my head and squinting my eyes, unsure what exactly I had been a party to. But I do have a few final thoughts, a la Jerry Springer. And these are them: It is never really where you are that makes the difference, but it’s the company you keep. It’s the people you’re with. It wasn’t actually Pennsylvania that was so horrid, as much as it was Mary and Jim’s utter lack of hospitality and generosity. The tent was picturesque, the sunset was all shades pink and peach, and the drinks were delish. I had Curtis on one side and Cece on the other. It wasn’t Pennsylvania itself that was the problem, or the Amish boys on their bikes, for that matter. It was the realization that my friendship with Mary had died, right there on Cemetery Road. I had displaced that gutting feeling of losing a long-time friend onto innocent bystanders: the Mennonites, the poor waitress at the diner we went to later that night, and the state of Pennsylvania. In a situation like that, all you can do is wish the couple well, hope your hangover is not too severe the next day, and keep your car windows locked, lest you have the urge to heckle safe and acceptable objects.

Humans are animals

“Why do people have affairs, Cece? Why do happy people have affairs?” This was a question my resident posed to me about five minutes into what I thought was going to be a casual after-work drink between two colleagues. We were sitting at bar in an uncomfortably upscale restaurant, made even more awkward because it was only just 5:00, and I was there with an older, and married, man.
“Um….”
“Because humans are animals. And they need diversity. I want you to think about this. You have to keep your life interesting, you know?”
“Oh, my life is pretty interesting,” I say.
“I’m going to hold you to that, Cece…”

What is going on here? Last time I checked, we were going out for a drink because we got out of work early. Granted, this person had given me my own personal nickname, taken me to lunch, and threatened me with a spankings if I messed up prescriptions, but I never fully realized that I was being hit on; I just thought it was normal work dynamics. Damn! Always a beat behind!

Naturally, this was not the first time I have been preyed upon by an older male boss, so I had some experience navigating the waters without getting totally freaked. I made it through this sexual harassment session, carefully balancing charm, disapproval and amusement. As any woman in this situation knows, you have to let him know you’re not into it, but not bruise his pathetically delicate ego.

One hour (and one delicious mojito) later, my resident blatantly suggested that I become his mistress, whom he could take out to fancy restaurants and the opera. He also told me his life story, and the synopsis of the opera Eugene Onegin, which itself is apparently all about cheating, Russian men. So, actually, between my buzz, and his, I’m not sure which exactly was his life, Eugene’s life, or my life at the current moment. Thankfully, the evening ended rather benignly; I got away unscathed, save for a quick and painless grab/pat of my thigh as I was getting out of his Mercedes.

My roommates were entirely disgusted by the whole situation. “He’s MARRIED, and he was hitting on you???” Why was this so shocking? Clearly, they had never been hit on by a married man. When I told them that I had given him my number (I was tricked!), they looked at me like I had betrayed married women around the world, especially them, since they were soon to be married. I found myself a bit irritated by this. I had a sudden urge to educate them that most men like to flirt with women, and that unfortunately, not all married men were as head-over-heels, only-have-eyes-for-you as their future husbands.

Jo took a different approach to the event, and it saved me. “You go in there tomorrow, and throw it right back. Wear something hot, and be as charming as ever.” The French have a great word for this-- coquettish.
“Maybe Dr. G is acting like this because he is European. You know how all French people are always having affairs?” I suggested.
“Yes, but he’s forgetting that he is not French, he’s Russian.”

Ah there’s the rub. We are not two French people, so bored with our working lives that we succumb to an affair (although I admit that would be quite interesting and tres passionate). We are a Russian resident, with a baby on the way, and an American medical student, with a very important life ahead of her.

After some thinking about this night, I have come to be rather amused by it. Why not? There was no harm done; I perhaps have an even better relationship with my resident, since I showed (admittedly unfairly) that I was cool and can joke around with him. Things have been great at work; my evaluations are shining, and I am now, proudly, the department’s “favorite.” A little charm can go a long way…as long as you know when to rein it in. One mojito limit!

un petite foreword...

I cannot remember exactly when or where one of us stumbled upon the words un petite mort, but the phrase has made a lasting impression on us.

Some people may find it strange that two young women find the French term for ‘orgasm’ so relevant to their lives. But we insist that it is not as bizarre or perverted as it seems. Think of how many moments in a week are orgasmic in a completely non-sexual way. Like uncovering a pair of Chloe heels under a hideous shoe pile at Loehmann’s, that happen to be in your size, and in mint condition. Or inhaling a gooey slice of pizza after a night of drinking to excess on a daily calorie restricted diet.

The literal translation of the phrase is “a small death”, which we find particularly fantastic because we had already been using a version of that description for years! If we were laughing at something riotously funny, we were DYING!! If something happened that was just insane, like your friend getting engaged to an inmate of a maximum security prison (20 years her senior), we would say, “Could you DIE, right now?!!” Or if we just found out something amazing, “I just died a little bit right now.”

Above all, however, the most appealing thing about un petit mort is that it is, by nature, French, which is a state of being Jo and I strive for the way other people strive for religious awakenings, or nirvana.