The Sheila Variations

Anecdotal film review: "Fearless"

Okay, so I am trying my hand at Jonathan's anecdotal film review idea ... the idea is to review a film by telling a story - and not ever mentioning the film itself in the story. If you've seen the film, hopefully you can make the connections ... or maybe it will puzzle you, or make you think, or bring up stories of your own ...

My review of Fearless:

I couldn't sleep. My skin was still buzzing from his touch. I felt marked, and my mouth hurt from the kissing. I would have bruises all over me the next day. But then, I've always bruised easily. I had a single bed, and there were no curtains on my windows. It was dawn, so there was only a greyish light in the air, and the windows of the building across the alley stared down at us blindly. He was fast asleep, breathing heavily through his mouth. There was a rattle in his chest. Probably from the fact that he smoked Marlboro Reds, lighting one off the other. He had a thick crazy mop of black hair that stuck straight up like a troll doll's in his sleep. His arm was thrown lazily over me, and he was out. I was not used to company, to having anyone be there, so I couldn't slow my brain down, I couldn't relax. I wasn't tense so much as alert. Everything came at me in acute almost painful detail. The feel of his arm across me, his big rough hands with the fingertips stained by nicotine, his head thrown to one side, revealing his throat to me nakedly.

I want to be clear. I didn't feel tenderness towards him. I didn't feel a soft womanly closeness, or a cozy comfy sense of intimacy and all's right with the world. Nothing like that at all. The air shimmered with shards of glass. It almost felt good, to be flayed like that, but it was why I couldn't sleep. How could I sleep when all the world's dark magic was lying in bed with me? How could I slip off into unconsciousness when the greatest mystery of all - another human being - was flopped there beside me? He was so vulnerable in his sleep, and yet so firm about it! He was vehemently asleep. There was no doubt at all about his state, and it left me free to be in awe of him. The light was so dim I couldn't see him clearly, he was half in shadow, dark hair, pale ghostly skin, his pose in sleep unfettered, unmoored, free.

We had spent the night at a pool hall, and I had watched him consume ferocious amounts of alcohol, which didn't seem to affect him at all. He had had an odd gentlemanly manner about me drinking, he wanted to protect me from excess, and wouldn't let me do a shot with him. "No. No. Don't be like me." We had met his friends, we had played pool, he was the loudest most insane person there, occasionally bursting forth with loud monologues on the state of the world, and the state of his own life. "I am with HER," he shouted to the indifferent bar full of rackety winos - pointing at me - "and life is GOOD!" He was a raging goof. Life ran high in this man. Like a fever. He would give me quick appraising looks, taking me in, and then nod to himself. I wasn't sure what those nods were about, I didn't know his cues yet, although there would come a time when we pretty much were able to communicate via ESP and body language. We would have full conversations with no words. But we weren't there yet, and so he would look at me, take me in, and nod to himself, going back to his pool game. Was he approving? Did he like me? Was he suspicious of me, and then with one look realized I could be trusted? I wasn't sure, but I liked those looks he gave me. He was not a verbal person, or not one to pontificate on his feelings ... He was more about playing pool, smoking cigarettes, and occasionally attacking me, pouncing on me from behind, as his goofball friends grinned at me. He was a mystery to me. I had no idea about his inner life. I knew he had one, of course. And his face, when awake, blazed with expressions, momentary, here and then gone, impressions, unsaid thoughts ... a constant newsreel flickering across his features. He kept himself to himself, and yet he also was the loudest guy in the room. When he kissed me, I liquified. Instantly. See that puddle over there? That's Sheila. I was in thrall. Yet he didn't seem to mind. He seemed okay with it. For the time being, anyway. It was easier to be in thrall when he slept, so I wouldn't be bothering him with it, and I had never seen him sleep before.

I stared at him, in the fuzz-brained dawn. His life was right there. I could feel it in the room with me, a tangible presence. I almost had the desire to gently rip his face off - gently! so as not to wake him! - so I could maybe get at the source of his life behind the skin. Where was it. Where was his life. Could I hold it in my hands? His chest rattled. We were young, our bodies had not yet begun the steady deterioration that gets us all. But he was reckless, I perceived that even then, he was excessive, possibly addicted, the word "No" didn't exist in his body. At all. I had never seen someone drink so much and still be standing. He didn't even sway or stumble. What was he doing? Why? Was there a hurt there he was trying to forget? (There was. I learned it later.) It's not that I hovered over him worryingly in the dawn. It wasn't that I worried. It was that I lay there, staring at him, acknowledging the truth of what I was seeing. I was not fooling myself, I was not justifying him to myself, I was not protective. I saw things in him. I saw stuff going on. And I saw how he handled it. I had no decisions to make, it was way too soon, I had no bet placed in this fight. Not yet. Let others tell him how to live his life. Let others cluck over him about his smoking and drinking. That would never be my role. I look back on that first night with him, and now I realize that I was making some decisions about him. Yes. Even that soon. Crucial decisions. It was a clear-eyed moment, in that dawn, my skin still humming from his hands, his heavy breathing filling the room with life. It wasn't love. It was alert-ness. I had been in a fog for years. I had narcotized myself in my own way, with depression. I was awake now, and without putting too fine a point on it, he woke me up. Now there is some responsibility in that, of course, and many people are not up to something like that. They do not want to be responsible for waking somebody else up. Or they are not even aware that there IS a responsibility. He was not a talker, even that early on I could sense it. I'm not really a talker either. And my experience of him that dawn is nothing I ever shared with him. In fact, I haven't shared it with anyone but David. It sounds too weird, and too on-the-verge-of-psychosis to trust with just anyone, but true to form, here I am putting it on the Internet.

As I stared at him, the sensation of being in the presence of his life - not the events and memories and things that make up his life story - but his actual life - the physical workings of it, the blood pumping, the brain firing synapses, the lungs filling ... became overwhelming, and I was frozen with it. Life came across at me as an actual emanation, something I could almost touch, or see. He was there, a man, lying naked and asleep in my bed - so I could see that of course, but there was something else being expressed to me, some other message coming at me ... in every breath, every slow raising of his chest, the warmth of his skin. Astonishing. An astonishing awareness of life itself, its intricacies and simplicities, the miracle of it, and yet the boring everyday-ness of it. I put my head against his chest, and rested it there. My head rose and fell with his breathing. And I could feel, like an insistent thrum in my head, my ear, vibrating ... his blood pumping. I could hear it, a slow ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum ... but it wasn't so much the hearing of it that struck me; I felt like it actually entered me, like I somehow "synched up" with it, and, by association, with him. There it was. Whatever "it" was. Life. Not mine. But his. Its essence. Its actuality. There it was.

And I knew that it had something to do with me.

I know that part sounds crazy, and yes, it is crazy. I felt crazy. But that pulse, that insistent relentless pulse, drumming its way through his body, struggling through the alcohol and nicotine ... I could feel it working. I could feel it needing to continue, I could feel its sluggishness even, as though it knew its "host" was poisoning himself, but it needed to keep trying to do the work it had to do. At some point, I found myself actually pressing my ear down on his chest, like an anvil, trying to get in there, closer to that ba dum ba dum ba dum ... He didn't wake. And suddenly, out of nowhere it seemed to me, it felt like my last shred of armor dissolved into nothing - and I found myself in tears. Not sobbing, no, just quietly crying. I can't even say why. I won't ruin it by trying to say why. I kissed his chest. I hugged him, with abandon, pressing my ear down into his skin. And the pulse was suddenly no longer inside his chest behind a barrier of ribs and muscles.

I will try to explain.

I was suddenly in there. I was in there, with it, with the essence of his life, standing on the sidelines, as though watching the Boston Marathon, only it was his pulse I was watching. I didn't see the blood or anything like that, just a rushing sense of movement, neverending, quicksilver, thrumming, thumping, moving, here and now gone ... and I felt myself cheering it on. My spirit, my soul, screamed as loud as it could: "GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!!!! YOU CAN DO IT! GO! GO! GO! GO! WHOO-HOO! GO, PULSE, GO!" That was what it was like for me, lying with my head on his chest, in the dim grey dawn. It felt urgent, fierce, and there was a sense of protectorship, and ownership. I was invested in that pulse. Like I said, I did not look at him with a soft tenderness, or with love dawning in my heart. I did not cuddle up beside him, enjoying the physical closeness in the aftermath of all hell breaking loose. No. I cheered his pulse on. I cheered as loud as I could. He didn't wake up, which surprised me. I was sure he would have heard my spirit screaming from inside his circulatory system.

I didn't even know his last name.

and the beat goes on

Him: "You know, it's so weird - but you just popped into my head earlier tonight. I was 6 blocks away, and I suddenly thought of you and that thing you wrote ... the however-many-facts and one lie ..."

Me: "74 Facts and One Lie." (Ahem)

Him: "Yes! Seriously - it's so strange to see you tonight - since I was just down the street from here, thinking about that."

Me: (joke) "So you enjoy reveling in the misery you have created is what you're saying."

Him: (laughing) No! No!

Sometimes you gotta get a dig in. All in good fun. Besides, he walked into it by bringing it up. So there.

the ex-boyfriends

I've got a few. And just the other day I was saying to my friend Jackie, "Honest to God ... sometimes I get an email from _____ and I feel like - why can't you leave me alone??" It's been 20 years since we dated. Why are you hanging on?? Why do you email me and sign off with such things as: "Nobody knows me as well as you do. Thanks for being there ..." After 2 freakin' decades of being separated. But the funny thing is ... I DON'T really want them to "leave me alone". If they suddenly stopped emailing me, I would feel bereft. Not that these are romantic emails. Of course not. It's just shit they don't feel comfortable telling anyone else. Even after 20 years. When I'm feeling lonely, sometimes the emails from these dudes is salt in Ye Olde wounds ... even if I am happy (HAPPY) that we are not together. Like: damn, can't someone say that crap to me and ALSO share my bed at night? For God's SAKE. HOWEVER. I do not feel comfortable totally trashing this gift from God (and that is how I see it. I would probably never say that to the men in particular - they might get freaked - but yes. I feel that God has blessed me in this regard - with these guys, who feel the need to reach out to me, on occasion.) It's like they go along without me, for sometimes years, and then need to touch base, get my opinion, bitch about things, talk, whatever. I don't know - there's something about being known and also remembered ... it's very grounding. And so in a weird way, I do feel lucky. (As well as cursed). But lucky that there are one or two guys out there (well, probably more - but only two are in regular contact with me) remember me. That I am specific to them. I am not generalized into "ex-girlfriend" vagueness. I am still Sheila to them. The girl who gives them this, who listens to them in this particular way ... It's not a burden. It really isn't. And I bitch about it, at times, because I need to vent. Everyone needs to vent. I wonder what it is about me that is so essential to these ex-boyfriends. They do not torment me, or stalk me. They just never shut that door. We do not exchange nicey-nice Christmas cards. We do not chat on the phone. There is still something intense there ... and so the emails pile up. Monday I moaned to Jackie in a "for God's SAKE, just leave me alone" tone. Then yesterday, out of the blue, email from Michael. Which totally pierced through what was happening ... he was thanking me for something ... and he went right to the heart of the matter. There was a "nobody understands me but you" thing going on ... and even though just the day before I had felt even vaguely harassed by the intense communications I get from time to time ... in that moment yesterday, my eyes filled with tears - he emailed me out of the blue ... in response to an email I had sent him maybe a month ago ... but it came yesterday. And yes. I took a moment to thank God for Michael. To thank God for the ex-boyfriends who keep in touch, who remember me specifically, and who help me remember who I really am.

The spitball Valentine

[This is a repost. I post it every year. ] UPDATE: Go read this awesome funny post by Johnny Virgil. It is related.:

I am the type of girl who gives a photograph of her eyeball to her date on Valentine's Day. I'm just sayin'. Anyone who would do that and think it was appropriate, is not really a gushy romantic type.

But the other night I was looking through an old box of letters - stuff I have kept for, my God, over 20 years. At the bottom of this box was a tiny grungy crumpled up piece of construction paper. When I say tiny, I mean tiny. It could have been a spitball that I had saved for unknown reasons ... I didn't know what it was, so I opened it up.

And when I saw the message - written to me by an 11-year-old boy - years and years and years ago - when I was 11 too - Jimmy Carter was president when this note was written ... I felt a rush of "time" - like having a perception, in reality, of the true CURVED nature of space. Looking at his penciled words to me, I suddenly felt not like this was a "memory" or anything that took place primarily in my brain - but I felt literally propelled back in time. I was not here. I was back there.

I cannot believe I kept this tiny spitball, but I did. It was a "Valentine". Written to me in the 6th grade.

Of course, in grade school, you go out and you buy Valentine's Day cards in bulk (2 good 2 be 4 forgotten...) - and maybe you sign a personal note to your friends, but all the cards were store-bought.

I was absolutely PASSIONATELY in love with a boy named Andrew Wright. I say both his names proudly. I have no idea where he is now. [UPDATE: Because of this post, actually, he "found" me and we are back in communication. I saw him at my high school reunion in 2005. So awesome. All because of that age-old spitball and all because I put his name out on the Wild Wild Web!!] If he ever runs across himself, on this post, then now I can come clean:

I was 11 years old and I used to lie awake at night, in bed, ACHING with love for Andrew Wright. My love began to blossom for him in the 5th grade, even though I had known him since we were 5 years old. It was like I suddenly saw him anew. In 5th grade, as my love for him grew, there were times when he would get up to go put on his coat or whatever, and my friend Betsy and I would run over and kiss the seat of his chair.

But that was from when I was in 5th grade, and still only a CHILD.

The love that exploded upon my head in 6th grade was REAL love - it was torturous, deep, and ultimately perfect. It hurt. I didn't just love him because he was a cute kid, who had a nice way about him, and was really funny, and thought I was a good person to have on his baseball team. I loved him because he was the epitome of all that was GOOD and RIGHT in the world. I looked at him, 11 year old Andrew Wright, and saw the essence of goodness.

We grew up in the same neighborhood, and had been hanging around since we were little kids. We were on the same schoolbus, we would all play tag in the summer twilights, we would sneak into that one lady's backyard and pick raspberries, running away when she would peek out her window. In 6th grade, he and I would go skating on the little hidden pond in the middle of the woods, and he would steal my hat, and I would chase him, and from such simple moments, true love was born.

Of course, it was all very unrequited. We were 11. Half of the fun was just being in love with someone. Nothing ever had to be DONE about it.

So anyway - there was this big Valentine's Day ceremony in our class. Kids called up - cards passed out - everyone hovering over their mounds of cards - reading the messages - a-flutter with excitement and 6th grade romantic feelings and teeny hormone surges. I had a pile of cards in front of me, and of course - immediately - I started searching for Andrew's. Trying to play it cool, of course. I had on my "game face". Just flipping through all the cards, whatever, no big deal, but my eyes were alert for his handwriting. For the card I knew would come from him. This was winter, remember - and he and I were spending all of our time after school, and on weekends, skating on the frozen pond in the woods near our houses. It was this private thing we did - and we wouldn't even acknowledge it when we were in school. We weren't all buddy-buddy, I wouldn't reference our skating moments, it was our secret. We never said, "Let's keep this a secret" - I guess when you're a kid you really understand these things. We had become very close, in an unspoken way, in an outdoor way. Our true milieu was on the ice, wintry woods around us, chasing each other, pretending to fight, having races, laughing, bantering, bare grey trees towering above.

I looked for his card, my heart pounding in my throat. By the time I got to the bottom of the pile, that heart had turned to lead. Dropped like a stone. And I felt cold, in my veins. He hadn't given me a card. There was no card from Andrew Wright in my pile. How could that be? How could he ... how could he ... how could he have not written me a card? After all that we had shared? After the frozen pond?

I thought I might have to get up and leave the classroom, which was abuzz with conversation and laughter and gossip, everybody comparing notes, wandeirng from desk to desk. I had a pile of cards in front of me, but not one from the boy I loved. A huge-ness rose up in me - a wave towering - my eyes smarting ... You know that feeling? Something big coming? A burst of tears approaching, and it was going to be huge. I needed to get away and just be REALLY REALLY sad for a minute, away from my classmates. Grief. That was what I was feeling. In its purest state. And nobody must see that grief. Andrew must never ever know how much I had hoped for a Valentine from him.

And then - suddenly - Andrew Wright, on his way somewhere else, walked by my desk and, without stopping, or saying a word, dropped what looked like a tiny spitball in front of me. He kept going, didn't look back. Nobody would have perceived the moment, if they had been looking on. It was a sly move, meant to appear invisible, a camouflage. Disbelieving - I opened up the spitball. It was not a store-bought card. It was not a rubber-stamp Hallmark that he had just signed his name to. It was not generic.

It was a tiny piece of white construction paper, which he had clearly ripped off the corner of a larger sheet, and he had written his own message on it - in #2 pencil:

Sheila - You're a good kid. And a good storywriter. Andrew.

Isn't it so silly that I copied that message down just now, and felt tears come to my eyes? After so many years?

That Valentine's Day message from him meant more to me than any store-bought card or little teddy bear or piece of candy ever would. My heart cracked in a million pieces. I cherished it. Obviously, I cherished it enough that I still have it.

And - even though I was 11 - and just a little kid - I knew, with my dawning women's intuition what it all meant:

-- He couldn't have just given me a little Hallmark Valentine. It wouldn't have been right. In his 11 year old heart, he knew we were closer than that.

-- He needed to express how he felt about me ... and yet in a private way. He sensed that it would not be appropriate to have his Valentine handed out to me in the public class ceremony.

-- A generic note would not have been right, he knew that, so he made the bold move to go personal. He addressed me. Personally.

It is the most romantic Valentine's Day gift I have ever received. 11 year old boy.

And one last thing: the "and a good storywriter" kills me to this day.

In honor (and contempt) of Valentine's Day, I present to you:

A post I wrote years ago. It is called:

AN EYEBALL AND A DOZEN ROSES

I was living in Chicago, having a grand old time. There were a couple of men buzzing around me. One of them, who was so sweet, so nice, a guy I had seen perform numerous times, approached me at a party and, after chatting me up for a while in a very humorous and effortless way, asked me out to dinner.

I said Sure, I would go out to dinner with him. I already knew he was very talented and very funny (having seen him on stage. Henry Kissinger was wrong. Power is not the ultimate aphrodisiac. Talent is. Or - I would say, more specifically, Comedy is the ultimate aphrodisiac.)

As I have said before, I'm not a real date-r, I haven't been on too many "let me pick you up and we'll go have dinner" kind of dates. But this guy was very traditional, and so - like a true gentleman - he set up this entire date (picked the spot, picked the after-dinner spot, etc.)

It turned out being one of the best dates I have ever been on before IN MY LIFE. Not because there were amazing sparks between us (there weren't, at least not romantic ones) - but because of where he took me to dinner, and the people we met there, and what we ended up doing. To give you a small image, it involved a bunch of 70 year old Greek women, caked with makeup, dancing around in a circle, holding hands, gesturing majesterially out to us to join their dance, as their 70 year old Greek husbands, or lovers, stood on the outskirts, throwing money up into the air. 78 year old Greek women picked up 20 dollar bills and plastered them onto their sweaty necks and sweaty 78 year old cleavage. Everyone was laughing, and dancing, and whooping it up, and everyone except for us was over 70 years of age. It was 3 a.m., and he and I joined the geriatric Greek dance, as money swirled through the air. We scuffed through the bills on the floor.

But that's a tangent, and not the story I want to tell which is the story of the Eyeball and the Dozen Roses.

During the great date at the late-night Greek place - for some UNFATHOMABLE reason - I told him that my eye doctor had taken a picture of the back of my eyeball. (Great date banter, Sheila. Way to go.)

He: "Your grey eyes look so lovely. I could drown in their sparkley depths."

Me: "Oh yeah? I should show you a picture of the BACK of my eyeball, pal."

I have no idea how the subject came up - but anyway, he (bless him) seemed completely fascinated by the idea of having a picture taken of the back of his eyeball. (Or maybe he was just being polite. Politeness was in this man's veins. He did gentlemanly things instinctually. Holding out the chair, holding out my coat, holding open the door ...) The photo was very weird and I was kind of obsessed with it - a big red ball, basically - a circle of red. It looked like a close-up photo of the red storm circling Jupiter in the cold depths of space. That was my eyeball, apparently.

During the date at the Greek place - he already set up the next date. "Okay, so Valentine's Day is next week. And I know we don't know each other at all or anything, but I think it would be fun to have a date on Valentine's Day. Whaddya say?"

I said, as I Zorba-the-Greek'ed my way through the carpet of money, plastering 20 dollar bills on my sweaty arms, "That sounds like fun!!"

So.

A date on Valentine's Day. I'm not big on Valentine's Day - not being a romantic type (as this story will OBVIOUSLY prove) - and also: it just seems like a hell of a lot of pressure. But he and I had such an unbelievably fabulous time on that first date, I thought: It's cool. It's cool. We'll have a good time again.

And then I came up with what I considered to be an inspired idea.

Instead of getting him a nice Hallmark-y little Valentine's Day card, I PUT THE PHOTO OF THE BACK OF MY EYEBALL into a little red envelope, with his name on it. On the margins of the photo I wrote, "Happy Valentine's Day."

I know it is insane.

I cannot defend it.

I am just reporting the facts of the case, which are: I put a photograph of the back of my eyeball into an envelope to give to a guy on Valentine's Day.

So I went over to his apartment. We were going out to dinner or something like that. He greeted me at the door, so nice, so sweet. He let me into the apartment - he got me a drink. We didn't really know each other at all, but we had had (hands down) the best date EVER. One for the books. We were kind of proud of ourselves for that.

He went into the kitchen, and came back out, holding a dozen red roses for me. For Valentine's Day.

He got me a dozen red roses.

I gave him a picture of my eyeball.

Let me say it again, just so we all are clear:

He got me a dozen red roses.

I gave him a picture of my eyeball.

The second I saw the roses (and I don't know why I didn't anticipate that he would do such a thing! He was such an old-fashioned gentlemanly kind of guy - I should have expected it - but I have never received a dozen red roses in my life - I never expect that kind of behavior) - Anyway, the second I saw the red roses coming at me, I remembered the little red envelope in my purse, and I could feel my face getting all hot with mortification.

Oh my God. I am such an asshole. I have given him a photograph of the back of my eyeball. What the hell was going through my mind at the time that made me think that was appropriate??? My head was literally burning with embarrassment and shame about my eyeball.

I could no longer bear the agony.

I said, "Okay, so this is completely embarrassing, seeing as you gave me a beautiful bouquet of roses ... but here's what I got you."

He opened it up - looked at the Polaroid - and then he BURST into laughter. (Thank God.)

Throughout the night he kept making jokes, pretending he was describing his Valentine's date to friends who didn't know me:

"Hey, man, did you go out on Valentine's Day?"
"Oh yeah, dude, I went out with this sweet girl I just met."
"Really? What does she look like?"
Long long pause.
"Oh .... she looks like a circle."

Or - when someone would ask him, "What did your date look like?", he would take out the photograph of the back of my eyeball and, smiling proudly, give it to them.

He ended up being very kind about the whole thing, turning it into a huge joke - which I appreciated.

But that is the mortifying story of a man who gave me a dozen roses, while I only gave him my eyeball.

A Coda:

He and I ended up going on something like 4 dates, stretched out over an 8 week period. Obviously there wasn't a sense of urgency to it all - Occasionally we would go to a movie, or out to dinner, whatever - but nothing ever really happened beyond that. There were no games, no weirdness, nothing like that. It just was what it was. I would forget for weeks at a time that he even existed, and then he would call and invite me to do something. I was dating other people, I'm sure he was too. Whatever. No biggie.

So the whole thing ended when I called him up, after another 3 week "break", and asked him to go to a movie, or something like that.

He sounded very hesitant. I could tell immediately something was up.

I said, "What's up?"

He said, "Well ... I guess I'm thinking that we should slow down."

I sat there, on the other end, filled with utter blankness. I thought nothing, I felt nothing - I was completely blank. There was nothing to say, but obviously I was required to respond. In some way. But I had lost my verbal capacity for a moment.

4 dates in 8 weeks? Slow down?

And what finally came out of my mouth, was: "I literally do not know how much slower I can go."

This was greeted by a deafening pause.

And then what came out of my mouth was: "If I go any slower, I think I will stop."

An even louder pause from the other end.

Needless to say, we stopped.

And to this day, amongst my group of friends, "If I go any slower, I think I'll stop" is a favorite phrase. It really works well in a multitude of situations.

I ran into him a couple of years ago at a party in Chicago, and we had a hilarious conversation about our dating. I said, "To this day, that date at the Greek place is the best date I've ever gone on." He said the same was true for him as well.

But I didn't ask him if he had kept the picture of my eyeball. That would have been too embarrassing.

"Go Ask Sheila"

Illegal activities will be described in the following post (from many many years ago - relax!). Don't read on if you have a problem with that.

The day started with a letter from my ex-boyfriend.

We had been broken up for over a year. But it had been one hell of a breakup, leaving us both chastened, battered and vaguely mentally ill.

I had moved to Chicago, where I proceeded immediately to raise all kinds of hell. Callously breaking hearts, crap like that. I still had bouts of heartache, he had been my first boyfriend, my first relationship, and it had been intense. He stayed in San Francisco, where he was working in a law firm, and almost immediately began dating the woman who now is his wife.

Our paths could not have diverged more. He was significantly older than I was (or, the age difference wouldn't be great at all NOW, but then - it was huge. I was 24 years old, he was in his 30s. Huge difference. HUGE.) And what happened in the aftermath of the breakup showed, in the way that it never could when I was with him, how much growing up I had to do, how much hell I had to raise.

I had never been a date-r, or promiscuous, or anything like that - and I wasn't when I moved to Chicago. But let's not soft-pedal this. I went insane. I stayed out all night. I made out with guys I never saw again. I gyrated at dance clubs, sandwiched in between two lunatic Lebanese cousins who were vying for my attention. I stayed up all night with M., fighting, fucking, playing pool, eating breakfast at 4 a.m., laughing hysterically, wrestling so roughly that we knocked over furniture - enraging his poor roommate who had an early audition the next day, having conversations like this one or like #2 in this list, and then it ended with me frantically cleaning his disgusting kitchen when he wasn't looking (because he got mad when I would tidy up his apocalyptic messiness). I remained sternly un-attached. For the time being. This situation was only months away ... but before then, I was VEHEMENTLY single. I terrified the men I was with. Except for M. He got a kick out of me, and just let me be a pacing tiger, never tried to pin me down (except when we were wrestling, of course). There was one infamous day when I had three dates in one day. And on the last date (with M., of course - I always ended my days with him) we ran into one of the guys I had gone on a date with earlier in the day. We were all like, "Hey! How are you! Wow ... okay ... so this is awkward!"

All of this hormone-insanity was interrupted by bouts of lying in bed, howling, because I missed my old boyfriend. But never once did I think: Maybe we should have stayed together. I don't think my old boyfriend (to this day) could say the same thing. In many ways, things were worse for him. We stayed in touch, and this was pre-email - so it was snail-mail and phone conversations, long agonized (and sometimes awesome) phone conversations. We missed each other so much. It was great to know how much I was missed. Meanwhile, though, I never once wished myself back into that relationship, into that stifling monogamy, into the world where I was supposed to care about buying Brie, and picking out futon covers. Oh, hell no. And as a matter of fact, I have never entered that world again. I am still a monogamous girl, sad to say, I'd probably be much happier if I was an unapologetic whore, and if I have a relationship again, I will no doubt mean business - but I'll never accept a relationship where I have to fake interest in things that bore me to tears. There are many different ways to be in a relationship. If HE stresses about futon covers, then that's fine, as long as he keeps me out of it, and doesn't treat me like there's something WRONG with me because I don't lose sleep over when to un-freeze the pesto in the fridge.

Okay. I'll stop. I'm being mean.

He needed something else at that time in his life. He was ready to settle down. Trying to get me to settle down at 24 was a square-peg-in-round-hole situation. Misery for both of us. Unfortunately, I did not have enough of a sense of self to say, "I'm too young for that - I just got out of college - I don't feel ready to pick out silverware." Instead, I internalized his displeasure with me, and let myself be overwhelmed by how wrong I was. To be totally truthful, I still grapple with the demons that that relationship left me with. I am always in the wrong. Something is wrong with me, and that is why it never works out for me. I am so convinced in my own wrong-ness now that I don't even give the guy a chance to explain himself, or apologize. Poof, I am gone. In a puff of smoke. It was that bad, back then.

And that whole "wrong-ness" thing actually does have to do with the story I am going to tell today. I guess you could say I have a complex. And whatever, I'm old, so it seems like it's just my PERSONALITY now, as opposed to a quirk I can work on. Every time I do anything - I do it wrong FIRST. This is true of big things: relationships, sex, etc. - and also little things. For example, when I go to make my bed with fresh sheets, I ALWAYS put them on upside down first - with the tag up. And I'm ADD like that, the tag cannot be on the wrong side. And I guess I could check first before I spread the sheets out (hahahaha, you think?) - but it's habitual. When I start to do something, I just START - heedlessly - and then have to correct my mistakes as I go. This has been disastrous, in terms of my personal life - but it seems to be just the way I roll. I could fill a book with examples. The first time I drove on the highway, the first time I do ANYTHING - disaster strikes. And so yeah, I have a complex. I always feel like the universe is slapping my hand, saying, "no no no, not YOU. YOU don't get to do this. Other people, but not you. What were you thinking?" I can look back on some of my mishaps now and laugh, but many of them still are not funny to me.

The time I did ecstasy though is one of those funny memories. Leave it to me to do ecstasy and have a reaction unlike anybody else's. Why am I surprised.

I was living with Mitchell in Chicago. We had made a bunch of new friends, awesome people who are still our friends today. We did karaoke, we went to music clubs, we stayed out all night. We loved these people. And they had "x" parties, where everyone gathered at someone's apartment, and did ecstasy. We had heard the stories, the hilarity, how great it was, how fun ... and this was not like, you know, Go Ask Alice. We weren't hanging around with loser weirdos with armpit hair. We were curious. So we, along with Jackie, decided to join them at one of their "x" parties. Why not? We gave the dealer (you know, our good friend) the money for a couple tabs of ecstasy for the following week.

Now a word about drugs. I have never been a "why not?" person about drugs. I've never done all the major drugs - I guess I was always afraid of losing control. Also, there is the Go Ask Alice factor. I read that book when I was 11 and it scared the shit out of me. One hit of pot, and the next thing you know I'd be being gang-banged by a bunch of filthy hippies. And NOT FEELING BAD ABOUT IT!! No, thanks. I like to drink, but even then I have to be careful (right, David?) If I stick to beer and wine, I'm fine. But once I start drinking whiskey, I'll be weeping and talking about events from 15 years ago before you can say "Loony Tunes". And forget about tequila. My only bar fight occurred when I did shots of tequila. So, I learned my lesson. That's another thing with me: I learn my lesson. Once is enough. If I have a bad experience with one "genre" of alcohol (say, peppermint schnappes - I still can't think about it without feeling my stomach heave up in protest) - then I stay away for good. I smoked pot in college, everyone did - but I never really liked it. Again, with the neverending theme, it didn't seem to do for me what it did for others. It didn't mellow me out. It made me feel like I was a hollow shallow nonentity whom everybody secretly hated. I would shout out something into a crowded room, and it would land like a BOMB, and I would end up hating myself for the rest of the party. The paranoia was awful. I know it mellowed other people out. I know people who love it. It just didn't work that way for me. It made me insane. Jittery and self-conscious. In retrospect, it's probably a good thing that I never tried cocaine, because I feel like that is MY drug. It calls to me. We would make an awesome match. It is the answer to all of my problems. So. Obviously, that road not taken is best not taken. Heroin never appealed. Too scary. Needles? No. And I never did any of the hallucinogenics either - although most of my friends in college had done them - mushrooms, LSD, all that, and had great times. But I am convinced (to this day) that I would be one of those morons who would, while on mushrooms, leap through a plate glass window 80 stories up, because "the sky looked so pretty" ... or try to kill my best friend, because I suddenly saw Beelzebub gleaming out of her eyes. Whatever. I don't think it's my constitution that is delicate. I'm actually very strong. But mentally? I feel a bit more unstable in that realm. I already feel like the damn walls talk to me on occasion. What would it be like to have that feeling intensified? Too scary. Once college ended, I never smoked pot anymore - and just stuck to alcohol. But I felt safe with these people, and Mitchell and Jackie would be there ... so everything would be okay. It would be an adventure!

One other thing that I think might have been a factor in my reaction to ecstasy was that I was kind of flirting with anorexia at that point. I was a size 2. And don't let anyone tell you that being that thin is not addictive. It is. (At least for someone like me. I had never been "thin" before, but I was thin then.) It's funny, it's like the time when someone asked Cher, "So how is it being 50?" And she replied, "40 is better." I was not healthy. I was running 5 to 10 miles a day, and living on a diet of sunflower seeds and Snapple. Literally. I remember Ann Marie saying to me once, "Are you going to become an anorexic? Because I really don't think I can deal with that." We still laugh about that. Could you please get that eating disorder under control because I, personally, cannot deal with it. Eventually, I got back to normal - but there was about a year there when I was the pushing-food-around-plate girl, and yes, I watched the fat dissolve off of me. It was awesome. I loved my eating disorder! So I'm thinking maybe the ecstasy - hitting my empty stomach and 115 pound frame - was altogether too much for me.

But then there was that letter from my ex-boyfriend. It arrived on the morning of the day of the party. He solemnly informed me that he was moving in with his new girlfriend. And that our conversations would have to stop, and I probably would have to stop sending stuff to him, books, and stuff like that. He was moving on. He was not callous, it was the right thing to do - to give me a heads up - and it killed him. Because he never thought we should have broken up - he thought we could have fought it out, and come out on the other side. But he had done what he needed to do, found someone else ... and wanted to let me know that everything was going to change.

I guess I had known it was coming. I knew he was dating her. And I think a part of me even thought: He's going to marry that girl. I just knew that that was where he was at in his life. He wasn't going to date a ton of girls, he was READY. Let's GO. If I had received that letter 5 or 6 months before, I would have been apoplectic. Even though I didn't want to get back together with him - the breakup itself was wrenching and I swear that there were times when I had to teach myself to breathe again. We had been that much a part of each other's lives. Sleeping alone? Walking down the street alone? Being able to plan my own weekend? Unheard of. But by the time this letter arrived, I had moved on significantly. I was cavorting with M., having adventures many of which are not printable. I was in shows. I had new friends. My life had a structure - I hadn't slipped off the rails without him. I had actually flourished! So the letter came, and I remember reading it in our kitchen, Mitchell standing nearby, and I had a moment when I put the letter down, saying to Mitchell, "Wow. It's really over." And strange: I felt nothing. Not one tiny thing. No sadness came up, none of the familiar grief ... I was calm and cool and quiet. And I actually felt grateful that he had written me such a letter, and also amazed that I had come so far. When I was in the maelstrom of the breakup, it had seemed like it would never end. I would always be the sad-eyed tragic girl. Always. But of course, time moved on ... and I healed. I got better. I really did. And that moment with the letter was a true marking-point. Look at me. Reading such a letter and being okay! (I am laughing now, remembering what ended up happening when I did that ecstacy ... but still: in the moment I was fine!) Amazing.

Jackie, Mitchell and I set out for the party. It was a hot summer night. Chicago swelter. We waited for the crosstown bus. I remember what I was wearing (why on earth do these details remain?) I was wearing cutoff jean shorts, and a white halter-top - that was basically like a big man's shirt in its construction. Kind of a cute Daisy-Duke look. I had no idea what I was walking into. I had no idea what was ahead of me. I was actually excited about the upcoming adventure, and I felt kind of shimmery and light. And I remember so clearly saying to my 2 dear friends, "You know what? I am FINE about that letter from T.! I am FINE!" I was not angry or defensive. I was more in awe. In awe at my own healing capabilities. "I cannot believe how FINE I feel about that letter! Isn't that amazing??"

Oh, Sheila.

Just wait.

We got to the party. Now one thing about people doing ecstasy - if you have ever had the experience of just hanging out with people who are high on that particular drug - you know how friendly it is. It's not sexual, per se. It's just forgiving and friendly and compassionate. You love everyone. You don't want to fuck everyone - you just see the goodness in everyone and you love them. So, frankly, if you want to have some psychotic break, you might as well do it at an ecstasy party. If you have a mental crackup at a party where everyone's on coke, you might have a helluva tough time getting anyone to SLOW DOWN ENOUGH to take care of you. Ecstasy is a very nurturing drug. Yes, it also puts holes in your memory, increases depression, and can bring on cardiovascular failure - but that is a SMALL price to pay for being more compassionate!

What I am trying to say is: walking into a party of people you don't know is always anxiety-producing (at least it is for me). But if they're all doing ecstasy, then you have NO need to worry. Because they will welcome you and love you. And it's not a "love bomb" type thing, where everyone's "out of it", and floating around in some hippie ether (ready to become the Manson family at any moment). You don't become "sloppy" on ecstasy. You're still social. So Jackie, Mitchell and I walk in - and Jellyfish is playing (I still have that CD - and every time I hear it I think of the one night I did x) and our friends greet us rapturously, so excited that we are there. It's a typical Chicago apartment, with a wooden back porch. Most people have congregated out there. There's booze in the kitchen, but not too many people are drinking. They were listening to music, dancing, and watching I Love Lucy, reciting the lines in unison. Nothing scary here. Never saw a scene like THIS in Go Ask Alice, did you?? No, I didn't think so. Not a hippie gang-bang in sight.

Mitchell, Jackie and I - laughing at how immature and "bad" we are being - down our pills in the kitchen. We each get one apiece. And then we wait. To see what will happen. We mingle. We talk. Nothing really happens at first. I have a beer. Maybe I feel buzzed, but nothing out of the ordinary. I probably feel buzzed because one beer does not mix well with 10 sunflower seeds and 2 Snapples, which is all I have consumed for the last 24 hours. Eventually we end up out on the back porch. It's a cool summer night. The music is soft, people are chatting, it's a lovely party. I sit on the steps with my friends, and we talk. Not about anything in particular, just having fun. And I suddenly start to feel very weird. There's a sense of vertigo, first of all - so bad that I have to hang on to the railings of the porch steps. And once I hang onto them, the porch literally begins to fly around in a circle, and I am holding on for dear life. I close my eyes, trying to breathe through it - but the porch is whirling too fast, I can't keep up. Obviously, the fact that I am clutching a stationary porch railing, huddled down against the hurtling wind - calls attention to itself - because, uhm, the porch isn't actually moving. So Jackie says, "Sheila?" And that is when I lean over the side, and vomit up my 10 sunflower seeds. There's nothing to vomit, so the scene is not pretty. I immediately get very very sick. If I had had any food in my damn anorexic stomach, the whole thing might have passed quicker. A lot of people vomit at first when they do x (or mushrooms) - and then it passes. But I had nothing to come up. I was sick as a dog.

Now I don't know anyone who LOVES to vomit. But I have an almost pathological embarrassment about it, and is one of the main reasons why drinking to that excess is such a rare occurrence in my life. It's probably happened - 10 times? Maybe 15? And the majority of the vomiting occurred with my first experiments with alcohol, in the first 2 or 3 years. Like I said: I learn quickly. I don't drink to get drunk, anyway - I like a buzz, oh you bet I do, but being drunk is terrible (for me). I hate hate hate losing control, especially in public. It's like I go right back into high school, where I'm made fun of by the bitches in the cafeteria, and when I trip - they laugh hysterically. That's what it feels like when I get drunk enough to vomit. I don't feel like I will be forgiven. It's that whole "wrongness" thing coming over me. Everyone has vomited before. It is not a singular experience. But when I'm in it, and I'm in pubic - it feels like I have invented the entire thing, and everyone looks askance at me, like, "God. Is she like this all the time?"

So even though I was with my dear dear friends, I was HORRIFIED.

They, high on ecstasy, were full of love and non-judgment for me and my vomiting. They huddled over me, rubbing my back, getting me water. And I didn't vomit just once. I got sick as a dog. It was a freakin' scene. And dammit, why did that porch keep flying around like that? Couldn't it stay still? Give a girl a break!

I started crying at some point. And my friends helped me up the steps and took me into the bathroom. Mitchell, naturally, joined. So yes. I was "that girl". "That girl" that you see at parties: too drunk, and weeping in public. It was so funny, I was agonizing about it to my friend afterwards - because she was a relatively new friend, I was so afraid that she would be turned off by it - and she said, "Oh my God, how many times have I been 'that girl'!! Last night it was just your turn, that's all!" We stayed in the bathroom for probably an hour. I was OUT. OF. CONTROL. The vomiting had stopped, but the crying had started, and once it started - I could not stop.

People, I cried for 4 hours. STRAIGHT.

So much for being 'FINE' about that letter, huh?

I was hysterical. I remember my new friend sitting on the closed toilet seat, and Mitchell and Jackie perched on the edge of the tub, as I paced around in my Daisy Dukes, sobbing about T., and how much I loved him, and how sad I was, and how my life was over, and how I would never love again, and how angry I was at him, and how tragic it was that I would have my great love at such a young age (little did I know ... sheesh ... careful what you wish for, Sheila) ... It was a monologue of truly Sophoclean proportions. I went through two rolls of toilet paper, mopping the tears off my face. Occasionally other people would join us in the bathroom, to be supportive, to listen, to say what was needed (again, if everyone had been doing coke at this party, and not ecstacy, it would have been a different story). I was "that girl". The "high-maintenance" girl I normally hate and judge! That was me! And usually I can keep myself under SOME semblance of control ... but that night? Not possible. It was a tsunami. I loved how everyone bustled around, being mother hens - slipping out of the rubber room that the bathroom had become to get me water, or a cloth to cool my hot face off, or whatever I needed.

It was only 9 pm. I had HOURS to go before I would come down off the damn drug. Someone made me eat a piece of pizza. I nibbled at it, my stomach revolting. Pizza? Disgusting. I will immediately become obese if I eat this. But they made me.

Now let me talk about the nature of my tears, because it was so interesting, and I haven't really cried like that before or since. At first, yes, I was sobbing - but eventually, the tears became like any other bodily function: sweat, a sneeze ... they happened whether I did anything about it or not, they could not be stopped. Once the first hour of hysterics passed, I was better - and actually could carry on conversations about things other than my lost love moving in with his girlfriend ... I could talk about I Love Lucy, music, life - but the tears kept falling. They fell and fell and fell. I was like Alice in Wonderland, filling up the hallway with a pool of tears. They were unconnected to me, somehow. I didn't feel the convulsive heaving sadness that comes along with grief - not after a while, anyway. I felt 100% normal inside again, but the tears would not stop. It was a natural phenomenon. And thankfully, since everyone was high on x, no one thought it was weird or judged. I would announce to the group, "Pay no attention to the tears. I cannot stop them. Keep talking" and they would! I was OPENLY a lunatic. Normally I'm just a lunatic in private. But on the ecstasy night, I took all that crap public. Good times!

Eventually, though, the tears became overwhelming. It was like when you know a flu is coming on, and it's too late to take flu meds - and you can feel the virus taking over your system. Your throat gets rawer with every second, your nose drips down to your toes, you can't breathe ... it's like one second you were fine, and 10 minutes later you have to go lie down for two weeks. The tears got the better of me. I want to make clear, again, that I was not standing around sobbing like a hyena. I was holding up my end up the conversation, it's just that tears were streaming down my face. So, yeah. That's a legal definition of insanity if ever I've heard one.

I finally felt the need to remove myself from the action. Not that I felt that others were embarrassed by me - because they weren't - an entire cottage industry of Sheila-Nurturing had cropped up over the course of the party. It was just that I needed to go lie down.

I went into the front room, which was a living room, couches, a coffee table. No one was hanging out in there. There were windows on three sides, long curtains over the windows. I could have some privacy, but I also could hear the party going on down the hall. I wouldn't be completely isolated. I piled couch pillows up on the floor, lay on my back in the darkness, and let the tears flow. For an hour. My shirt was literally wet from the flowing tears. I had to wring out the collar, and drops actually fell onto the floor. Not kidding. I didn't sob loudly, I didn't howl, I just lay there, as drop by drop, the tears fell. No stopping that tidal wave. I had to surrender. I could not fight it. I had tried. I had tried to get them under control, but they did not obey. The tears WOULD come. I cried YEARS of tears in that living room. And while I may have consciously been "fine" about my ex-boyfriend moving in with his girlfriend, obviously on some level I was not. And I needed to cry. I needed to cry more than I EVER would have allowed myself to if I had been in my right mind. So for that reason, I am grateful to the x. Because I got it all out - in one night - rather than stretching it out over a 4 month period.

In a funny way - it was an awesome party for me. I did not experience sadness. Or grief. It was not that kind of heart-wrenching thing that happens where it feels like it takes years off of your life. It was a catharsis, in the truest sense of the word. I didn't lie in that dark living room, writhing with psychic pain. No. I lay quietly, never moving, staring up at the dark ceiling, hearing Jellyfish blasting from down the hall, and let the tears fall. It was Zen, man, totally Zen.

Occasionally large groups of loving (read: HIGH) people would come visit me. They sat around me, carrying on their ecstasy-fueled conversations from the kitchen - letting me feel included. Nobody ever talked to me like I should "pull myself out of it" - or "snap out of it". It was all a PART of the night. It was not a jarring note - like I had been afraid it was. That's what happens when you do drugs. Sometimes someone freaks out. So you take care of that person. It's all part of it. The conversation flowed above my head, soft, giving, everyone occurring to me as a loving entity, 100% benign ... I was not expected to participate. It was considered completely normal that they would all be sitting around chatting about Die Hard or something, as a girl lay on pillows in their midst, tears rolling down her face like a runaway freight train. Nothing weird about that. I felt buoyed up. Everything was comforting. Every voice came across to me as a down pillow, a fleece blanket, a velvet comforter. All responsibility was lifted off of me. I did not have to "pull myself together" and contribute. I could barely speak. All I had to do was lie on the floor, in their midst, and cry as I listened to them talk about movies.

It is completely bizarre. But such a beautiful memory for me. If only everyone who was wounded could find themselves surrounded by such a crowd.

Two hours passed. I had now been crying, non-stop, for 3 hours. And there was no sign of let-up. It was a flu of tears.

People came and went. They hung around, standing over me, then meandered back to the kitchen, drifting in and out. No pressure was on me. It was just accepted that there was a quietly weeping girl in the dark front room, and we could talk over her, sit next to her, pass drinks over her prone body ... and then we can move on ... no worries.

And then the guy whose party it was - he was the dealer - and also the boyfriend of my good new friend - came into the front room. Nobody else was there (well, except for me, of course). The FUNNIEST thing about this is that he has gone on, years later, to marry another REALLY good friend of mine - and he's totally successful, and I see him all the time now (well, not so much now - because he's on strike. He's a writer). But how weird and wonderful that our paths would cross again. We see each other at elevator banks, on sidewalks, on the subway ... we've never spoken about this moment at the party. Perhaps it's too weird, I don't know. All I know is: I have never EVER forgotten him for what happened next.

I didn't even know him all that well. He sat down cross-legged behind my head, and gently picked my head up and put it in his lap. I was completely passive. A limp rag of tears. My head settled into his lap. We didn't speak. No words passed between us. He was dating my good friend. This was not a sexual thing, he wasn't making a pass. He was taking care of me. So I lay there with my head in his lap, eyes closed, and as the tears fell - and they came slowly (but insistently) - one by one - he would brush them away. A tear fell. Gentle hand brushing it away. Another tear fell. Gentle brushing it away.

And this went on for an HOUR.

I lay there, my head in his lap, not sobbing (again, I need to make that clear) - but with a steady trickle of tears down my cheeks - and he sat there, hovering above me, ready to take care of each tear ... as it came. One more fell. His hand on my cheek, brushing it away. Another tear. Brushing it away.

We never spoke. He never asked me, "What's wrong?" or "Why are you crying?" He never asked me to explain myself. To verbalize what was happening. It was just accepted that I was on drugs, and sometimes when you're on drugs, shit like this goes down. And you need to take care of a person like that. His hands, soft like wings, on my cheek - brushing my tears away. For an hour.

I will never forget him for that.

And it's weird. I see him all the time now, and I love it. It's always slightly bizarre when I run into him, because our lives are so different now, and a decade (even more so) has passed since I saw him. And no, we never mention it. We talk about the strike, and about our lives, and our work, and stuff like that. But for me, that moment in the dark living room is always there between us.

THAT is in him. It's not in everyone, make no mistake. Not EVERYONE would be able to sit quietly like some Buddha, and wipe away the tears off the face of a girl you don't even know. For an hour.

I remember a crowd of anxious hovering loving people came in to see how I was doing. "Sheila ... how are you???"

I pulled my head up, and I must have looked like Momma from the Momma cartoon (go find an image of that cartoon, and check out her eyes to know what I'm talking about) - and I said, softly, "I am having such. a good time."

And everyone HOWLED with laughter.

But the best thing about it was: I meant it.

The tears were not (as I have said repeatedly) sadness. They were a release. Like an orgasm, which can sometimes bring tears, or something which may look or seem like agony ... it was really just a release. A letting go. I had never experienced anything so, well, ecstatic.

Finally, it was time to go. Jackie and Mitchell helped me, hovering around me as I walked, lovingly, protectively. They were high high high. Ecstasy makes you MORE loving, so they LOVED being all about Sheila. I hugged my new friend at the door, and everyone was laughing, and then - there's a jumpcut. And it's the next morning. I have no memory of getting home. Of going to sleep. Nothing. I was at the party - and then suddenly - it was the next morning. Thank God I had Jackie and Mitchell with me. Because we did, indeed, get home. Jackie slept over. And we all woke up the next morning, still high as shit. We had hours to go before we would come down. The tears had stopped. I slept like a diving bell at the bottom of the ocean. I was OUT. And woke up, fresh and sparkley and new, in the new day. The four-hour crying jag was something I had experienced, but in that moment it felt like it hadn't left a trace. I didn't wake up groggy, or bludgeoned.

In fact, I woke up RAVENOUS. Mitchell was still crashed, and Jackie and I were bumping around the apartment together, nuts with hunger. We decided to walk down to the diner down the street and get some breakfast. I was going to break my sunflower-seeds-only rule and have some freakin' eggs and bacon and homefries. My mouth watered. I had NEVER been so hungry. As we walked to the diner, I remember Jackie saying to me, "I feel so skinny right now." That's one of the side effects of ecstasy - you feel lithe and skinny, you flow through space, you have no weight. I said, "Me too." Jackie said, "I feel like a prancing gazelle." I felt like my jeans were clown-pants - clinging to my hipbones. I was SWIMMING in them. We were gazelles leaping across the savannah. Oh, who am I kidding. We were two very high girls, staggering along the morning sidewalk, who FELT like gazelles.

Jackie and I still laugh about the next moment. We sat down at the table, ravenous. In this, we were NOT gazelles, but lions or tigers. We ordered everything on the menu. Bring us eggs, bacon, homefries, bagels, lox, fruit cup, coffee, OJ, Frosted Flakes, bring it all! I am convinced that my mouth literally watered at the thought of food. Which was quite interesting for a closet-anorexic! And then - came the stacks of food to our table. Ohhh, we were so excited. Ohmygodgiveusthatfood NOW. And once the food was THERE, Jackie and I could not eat a thing. We literally nibbled on the corner of one piece of toast, choking on the crumbs, pushing our eggs around, eating miniscule tidbits, and then washing it down with coffee. We FELT hungry, but we could not eat. Realizing that we were behaving like complete cliches (like: Gee, do you think those girls at that table are high??) - we asked for the check, having eaten one corner of one piece of toast a piece. We slunk away, mortified gazelles.

It took us the rest of the day to get back to normal.

We started talking about my "bad" response to the drug. Why had everyone else been so happy and loving, while I had a crying jag of world-ending proportions? What had happened? Was it my anorexia? Was it the letter I had received? Was it something in me that is different (read: WRONG) than others? That's what I thought. I can be self-pitying, sure I can. I feel outside the human family. I don't "get" to have the experiences other people do. I have to be CAREFUL. Other people don't have to be so careful!! (Not saying this is a true observation, just saying that that's how it feels sometimes.) Jackie and Mitchell had both had a by-the-book Ecstasy experience: an overwhelming feeling of warmth and love towards everyone they saw. But me? I had cried for 4 hours in a dark room. Honest to GOD. Can't ANYthing be normal for me?

Mitchell said to me (and I love this man, in case you haven't guessed) - "I don't think 'ecstasy' the word actually means ' happy'. It's more than that - it's not just about being 'happy', 'ecstasy' has a deeper meaning than that. Your experience wasn't WRONG - it was just YOUR version of 'ecstasy'."

Well, naturally I then had to drag out my dictionary.

What is the actual definition of 'ecstasy'? And yes, I have the same dictionary now that I did then.

Here is the definition, according to the American Heritage Dictionary:

1. A state of exalted delight in which normal understanding is felt to be surpassed: allay thy ecstasy: In measure rein thy joy" (Shakespeare)
2. A state of any emotion so intense that rational thought and self-control are obliterated: an ecstasy of anger
3. The trance, frenzy, or rapture associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation (Mid-English extasie, from Old French, from Late Latin exstasis, ecstasis, from Greek ekstasis, from existanai, to displace, drive out of one's senses

Okay, okay. So I can work with that. The first definition is what I was expecting, and that is the most common definition of "ecstasy". Joy. But #2 and #3 are almost word-for-word what I experienced that night, #2 especially with its "any emotion so intense that rational thought and self-control are obliterated" (and it's interesting - because the book excerpt I posted today has the phrase "ecstasy of unhappiness" in it - a similar difficult thought).

So what I experienced that night was not "off" or "wrong". It was a form of ecstasy. Ecstasy does not necessarily mean "happy". It means "intensity". It means "obliteration". It means "loss of control". However it manifests will change, from person to person, depending on the circumstances. Not that joy is wrong either. But let's just say that I was the only one crying for 4 hours at that party. But the surrounding love and warmth, and the feather-brushing off of my tears from that kind stranger, helped me to feel that whatever I was going through was part of THEIR experience as well. I was not an anomaly. I was not wrong.

I never did ecstasy again. Small wonder.

And if anyone is ever curious about me, if anyone ever wonders what makes me tick, or wonders who I really am - all I need to do is say: I did ecstasy once, and afterwards I looked the word up in the dictionary in order to verify the etymological roots of my experience.

A tour of my bulletin board

Note from Michael. He actually pinned it up there himself, the last time he visited - but I just haven't taken it down. It's nice to have the words "Love you" looking at you every time you walk in the kitchen.

A tour of my bulletin board

The "swann's are beautiful and mean" note from Wade.

A tour of my bulletin board

The Pat Pass. I can't even begin to explain what this is.

Jackass McGee comes to my party. Hilarity ensues. *

A number of years ago I went on a bunch of dates with a guy. I will refer to him as Jackass McGee.

We traveled in the same circles, and he had approached me a couple of times after events (plays I was in, or plays where we both showed up in the audience) - and he had a strange shyness that bordered on pathological (my friend Kate said he reminded her of Laura from Glass Menagerie) - but could also be interpreted as deep interest in me. Whatever. I was never quite sure if he was "into" me - I knew he was into me as an actress, and had got me involved in a couple of really cool projects (he's very successful) - but romantically? I never could really tell.

We went out a bunch of times. I don't know (in retrospect) what I really saw in him - although he could be nice, and stuff -he was very weird, socially. Awkward to the point of being pre-verbal. You wanted to soothe him through social moments (See? Kate was right!).

What I remember about our dates (and none of this is linear - it's just the fragments that remain from a particularly blurry time in my life) is as follows:

-- the first time we went out he invited me to an art opening at a gallery. The day of the date I had raging diarrhea and almost considered canceling. I put in an emergency call to my friend Jen - like: "what should I do????" She gave me a bullet-point list of things I needed to eat, and pronto ... that would stop the ... nightmare I was in, basically. Anyway, that's the FIRST thing that comes to mind when I think of Jackass McGee: That I went through that first date not eating a thing (not being coy - like most women - but because I didn't know what the hell that piece of sushi or that tiny bacon-roll hors d'oevres would do to my stomach!) , sipping nervously on club soda ... fearful that all hell would break out at any moment. But Jen's list of Binding Things to Eat worked! Yay! But still. Kind of an anxious date.

-- I remember he used to drive me home - he lived in Manhattan, so he'd drive me back to Jersey - and he had a tiny car, and he drove like an absolute fucking maniac. 95 miles an hour thru the Lincoln Tunnel at 2 in the morning. I am not exaggerating. 95 miles an hour. It was so transparent ... but I was a kinder woman back then, and cut him some slack. It was also exhilarating, let me not lie. I loved going that fast. It was awesome! Also it meant we didn't have to sit around having awkward silences, which was what was going on on the rest of our dates.

-- We went to go see my brother in a play - and Jackass McGee was wearing bamboo sandals or something like that, I honestly can't remember the details. I was talking with my brother later about Jackass McGee, and I said something along the lines of, "I am a bit concerned about his passivity on our dates." And Bren replied, "I am more concerned about those sandals."

-- Jen noticed that his fly, more often than not, was always down. She said she thought it was a very bad sign. "Anyone who is that oblivious on such a consistent degree to zipping up his fly is probably a bad lover." Which I think is kind of brilliant logic. I never stuck around long enough with Jackass McGee to find out if what she said was true or not ... but I still remember that comment, as clear as day.

-- We went out for pizza with a bunch of other people and a waiter, walking behind my chair, accidentally bonked me on the back of my head with a huge pizza tray. It hurt so much that I felt like crying - and had a huge egg the next day ... but it was also MORTIFYING - the resounding sound my head made against that damn pan ... it was like it echoed and reverberated through the streets of New York. I felt awkward, clumsy, ashamed, and as though I was somehow to blame.

-- Kate and I went to go see him in a play (which was absolutely atrocious) and started laughing so hard at the beginning of the (supposedly deadly serious) second act that we both thought we would have to get up and leave the theatre. I can't even remember what we were laughing about, but we were literally shaking and crying. Small theatre, too. We still talk about how bad that play was.

-- I went to Ireland in the middle of all of this, and through my separation ... suddenly became obsessed with Jackass. I don't know. I'm not a good "dater", I know this about myself, and there I was in Ireland, using my international phone card in the middle of a brown rocky field in County Mayo, calling my voice mail to see if he had left a message. I also added his name to the grafitti in a smoky pub outside of Galway. I'm honestly not sure why, so please don't ask me to explain.

-- That's pretty much all I remember about dating him. We probably went out, all told, 7 times. And I DO remember that he started blowing me off. Not calling me back for days, not calling me when he said he would, blowing me off last minute, etc. etc. - all that kind of crazy-making behavior. I suffered in silence. I'm not a stalker kind of girl, but I certainly was really hurt, and just WILTED about it all. I can't remember the timing of all of this - my dates with him were in the autumn, I know that because of the final nail in the coffin - which was the Christmas party that I threw that year.

In retrospect, the story is so funny and still provides hilarity for my group of friends.

"Do you remember when Jackass McGee showed up at that party???"

Many of the important details are lost. I must have invited him. But I am sure that I would have invited him in "happier" times, ie: before he started blowing me off. I was living with Jen at the time - and we invited all our dear friends, for a night of hilarity, food, wine, and celebration. It was at our small rickety apartment - so it was vaguely informal, but you certainly had to be invited. It was not a come-one come-all thing. It was dear friends, and dudes we were dating. But I can't remember how the invite happened. But SUFFICE IT TO SAY: the thing between us was definitely still "up in the air" when the Christmas party happened. Not that we needed to have a big talk about commitment or anything like that, it certainly was not that serious between us ... but ... were we dating? Or not? It was the uncertainty of it - not to mention the being blown-off - that bugged me. It wasn't like it was MONTHS had gone by, and we were no longer "dating" and I was like, whatevs, sure, come to my party. No. I know at least THAT much.

SO.

The party is going on. I am having a blast with my friends. Our apartment looks beautiful. We have a little Christmas tree up, and a menorah as well - we have hung up stars, put candles in the windows - and have MOUNDS of food and wine in the kitchen. Homemade stuff, store-bought stuff. Lights low, surrounded by dear friends ... it was totally awesome. A great mix, too - we had grad school friends mixing with work friends ... people who didn't know each other ... It was just a magical party.

Jackass McGee did not enter my mind at all. I don't think I even thought he would come. I can only surmise this from my stunned response when he showed up. I had invited him before he started blowing me off (at least I think so) ... but anyway. He wasn't expected.

Two or maybe three hours into the party - the doorbell rings.

Wow! A latecomer! Who could it be??

Tipsy on red wine, I click-clacked in my heels down the ghetto-ass staircase of the hovel we were living in ... and opened the door. Jackass McGee stood there, beaming at me. And ... he had brought a date.

I honestly don't think he was a cruel or malicious person. But the CLUELESSNESS of such behavior makes me stunned, to this day. What were you THINKING, Jackass??

Poor thing. She had no idea what was going on, and was actually quite sweet and oblivious. She was also probably 22 years old, with big platinum ringlets, and a boobalicious dress. So. Okay. Got it. She didn't know that I had been kinda sorta dating that guy up to about 2 weeks ago. He had invited her, and she was probably thrilled to be on a date with him ... it must have been a very confusing night for her, poor girl.

I did my best with the introductions ... "Hi! Oh! You're his date? Ohhhh ... wow! uhm ... yeah! Nice to meet you!"

Jackass McGee stood to the side, beaming with happiness at the introduction.

Then I led the two of them upstairs, and I literally could not WAIT to bring them in to my circle of dear friends (all of whom, of course, were totally up to date on the Jackass situation, and knew everything about him). I wasn't devastated or anything like that - just kind of stunned at the balls of his action ... and also thrilled, in a ghoulish spectator-at-the-Coliseum way, to watch my friends' faces when I introduced Jackass McGee AND HIS FREAKIN' DATE.

I am laughing out loud now remembering the responses. Nobody was overtly mean, nothing like that. But they all kept shooting me alarmed enraged glances ... or pulled me aside saying, "He brought her as his date? What the FUCK is his problem??" My friend Elena, who was just so awesome and so funny, shook hands with the two of them, perfectly friendly, but I could see the steam coming out of her nostrils. Steam of rage.

So the party then took on a very surreal atmosphere. Jackass McGee and his date stood in the kitchen ... and tried to talk to people, and be social ... and people were kind of playing along, being polite certainly - but in general - his arrival had totally thrown ALL of us into a stunned state, as though we all were suffering from mild head injuries. We weren't angry - and I wasn't either -at least not at first ...

Like I said. Poor girl with the platinum curls. She was perfectly nice, not too bright, sweet, and we all did our best to include her. But make no mistake. Jackass McGee was subtly shunned.

They left a couple hours later. "Bye! Bye! Thanks for coming! Bye!"

Once they were thankfully gone - the few remaining friends, who all were going to sleep over, our core group - went NUTS. We sat in the kitchen, and went totally insane. It was all we could talk about. We could not stop talking about it. We dissected it like lunatics. We hashed it out, laughed so hard we WEPT, then got angry, then went back into dissection mode ... We whipped ourselves into a frenzy. It was more hilarity than rage - it was just that we had all been holding so much back for the couple of hours that those two were at our party ... so when they left, we all went nuts.

And my favorite moment was Elena - sitting on the kitchen floor in her pajamas, glass of wine nearby - candlelight flickering on the red walls behind her ... Elena is gorgeous, she looks like Juliana Marguiles - and she was just OUTRAGED by the whole thing (I am laughing out loud) - and she finally said, in a tone of almost despair, "You know what the worst thing about all of this is? He is not even AWARE of how angry I am at him!"

And we all just lost it. Rolling around laughing. Like to Elena, the "worst" part was that he didn't know that "she" (whom he didn't even really know) was angry with him. It was so self-involved and so beautiful I wanted to hug her. It was important to her that Jackass McGee realize how angry SHE was at him. Never mind what Sheila's feelings are - ELENA was mad!!

Needless to say, Jackass McGee and I never went out again. The Christmas party debacle broke the spell completely. It was such a relief! We still are occasionally involved in projects together, and I've seen him since, and it's all quite friendly. I seriously can't even remember that we dated at all. I just thought of this story this morning and knew I had to write it down.

And I laugh sometimes, almost embarrassed, thinking Oh my Gosh, somewhere on the west of Ireland his name is emblazoned on a bathroom wall ... joining all the Seans and Liams and Michaels ...

You must always THINK before you deface property. Will this blow over in a month? Will he bring a curly-cued wide-eyed blonde to your party in a couple of weeks? Will he be clueless to a degree that even now seems unprecedented - and should probably be studied, on the local and federal level?

So: THINK before you declare that you love him 4 EVA on the walls of some random bar outside of Galway.

Mkay?

* with a nod to Tucker Max

Literary conceit

Much of this won't make sense without the names ... but whatever. I've long stopped caring about posts like these making sense. It won't be articulate either (well, it will be to those who know me), but I'm too tired to work it out. Just want to write this down.

David has been saying for years that my "life is a literary conceit".

I'm not going to go that far - after all, you can't say about YOURSELF that your life is a literary conceit - even if you feel that way. Best to let other people express such sentiments.

But here's exhibit A. None of these represent fresh wounds, by the way. This is all years in the past.

A bazillion years ago:

I was in love with him. The great love of my life. To put it mildly, it didn't work out. But he was still in my life - for various and sundry reasons. He's a performer. Our lives were intertwined.

But then, alongside of HIM, there was him. Let's call the first guy "P" - and I always refer to the second guy on the blog as "M". Just to keep things clear.

M was a constant. He was not "my great love" - but whatever passed between us was profound, wordless, never expressed - or almost never. We were together for years. We'll always be connected. What we shared could never be replicated.

There was a strange moment, in the moment of the whirlwind, when I introduced P and M. I have never felt more powerful, and more insane. M was oblivious (or mostly) to the undercurrents in the moment. He was with me. He was fine. He was unaware that he was strolling into a landmine of busted-up hopes and weirdness. Later he said to me, "God. That sucked. I realized as I was talking to him that he was just looking at me like, 'You are Sheila's Idiot Freind'. And that is all you are." I said to him comfortingly, "You just need to realize that you inadvertently became a mating elk at Yellowstone ... you didn't ASK to be a mating elk ... but that was what was going on ... you guys were clashing antlers, and all that." "That SUCKS." shouted M. It was exquisitely awkward. P was jealous, he could barely be polite. He couldn't have me ... but to see me with someone else was ... just WRONG. And he couldn't get himself together. He behaved totally weirdly. It was delicious.

I stood between the two of them, and said, "P, this is M. M, meet P."

They shook hands. P couldn't even look at M directly - he shook his hand, looking down, and said, almost to himself, "M. I like that name."

"M", by the way, was not a name like Michael or John - it was a bit more rare than that, a bit more singular.

I was in the vortex of the event, grinning from P to M and back, reveling in the awkwardness. I would never behave this way now, life has done a number on me, boy ... but at the time, I was the ONLY one in that crowd who DIDN'T feel awkward. M had thought he was just being introduced to a friend of mine, someone M himself admired ... but P's weirdness in the introduction told M everything he had to know. M was like, "uhm ... what the hell is this guy's problem ... why won't he look at me? ... he can't even LOOK at me ... Oh. I GET IT. I'M JUST THE IDIOT FRIEND." M was no dummy.

P pulled me aside later that night and gave me his un-asked-for opinion about M. "I don't like that guy. He's not nice."

Which is so ridiculous. And so obvious. M was not, by the way, "nice". I would never EVER describe M as "nice". But was he right for me? YES and YES.

Besides that: dude. P. You're the love of my life. You don't get to tell me that a guy who is actually WITH ME NOW isn't "nice". No. No.

It was a vicious cycle. He was obviously so invested, still ... eaten up with jealousy ... and yet not choosing to be with me himself. It was awkward all around.

Cut almost 15 years later.

I am in NYC. M is out in LA, living his life, doing his thing. P is still doing his thing - only now he is married. He had one kid - he, the man who had told me he would NEVER have children ... which had always given me pause, even as a young young woman. I had thought ... do I want to be with a guy who won't have children? I'm not ready NOW but I will be someday ... It was an odd thing. Well, anyway, P - the man who would never have children - is now married and has a son. It was weird to me to think ... and bittersweet ... but it's not like I'm living in the past or anything. Ha. No, I swear! Anyway, P occasionally sends me long letters. Snail mail letters. Long chatty letters. Sometimes he includes a picture of his baby son. I grin and bear it. Whatever.

Then I hear that P now has a second son.

And what did he name him?

M.

P named his son M.

The not-common name ... the name from many years ago ... when P shook hands with M - in the most awkward moment ever ... not looking at M in the eye once, and muttering, "M. I like that name."

The saddest thing is that I know P probably doesn't remember that moment.

M was my main flame. For YEARS. He was ALWAYS there. P called him "that guy", which was so contemptuous. He couldn't even validate M's existence enough to call him by his name. I defended M to P. But not rigorously. After all, I didn't ask for his approval, I didn't feel I needed it. I liked M. And I was in LOVE with P. So why should he begrudge me my relationship? I said to him, "You have no call to say anything bad about that guy. He's THERE for me ... he's INTO me." P said to me bitterly once, "The only thing I like about that guy is his name!"

So when I got an email that P had a second son and that he had named him M ... I have to admit. I had a moment.

And they're all gone now. I remain. I remember. Do they?

Entire relationships encapsulated in a paragraph

1. He cooked me some kind of goulash involving beets. He took my feet in his lap and we listened to NPR. Calm cave-like silence broken only by the wash of cold rain on the window.

2. "God, that's so weird. I just mentioned that song to you - and now it's playing on the radio! Isn't that so weird??" "Not weird at all. Sheer coincidence." "Thanks for the sunshine, pal." "Who loves ya, baby."

3. On our first date, we went to Ear Inn, drank beer, and played hangman on the white-paper tablecloths. He also drew me a cartoon about the Masons - their journey across the sea, their trajectory. I can still see the little figures on the tablecloth. Irish musicians were playing jigs. He didn't kiss me that night. But it was something to look forward to.

4. He got annoyed when I would be clumsy, or roll his eyes when I tripped. Our kitchen had dizzying black-and-white tile. I got dressed up for Easter and this confused him.

5. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I was inconsolable. My sobs heaved through the tiny house. He drew me a bath, letting hot water fill up the old-fashioned claw-footed tub. I was pacing like a caged animal, sobbing. He didn't say anything, but gently put me in the bath. I became passive, quiet, calm. My face was puffy. He put the top of the toilet seat down, sat beside me and read out loud to me from Peter Manso's biography of Marlon Brando.

6. He used to be a Chippendale dancer. On our first date, he took me to the Music Box Theatre on Southport. We saw a documentary about AIDS.

7. He took a nap during his brother's wedding reception, abandoning me with all of the strangers, I knew no one. I went up to visit him. He lay on a couch in an upper room, in his tux, so asleep I thought he might have died. He was black-haired, gorgeous and Italian. I sat by him as he slept, the party raging downstairs, the Macarena emanating through the floorboards, and put my hand on his forehead. It was burning hot.

8. The cast-iron gates of Ranelagh gleamed black in the rain. He walked me back to my house from the ridiculous disco we had just been ensconced in, shouting at each other over the music, about politics and Sweden and police states and journalism and the EU. I was leaving Ireland in 2 days, so this was it. It was over. We turned onto my block, and he said, "Aw, aren't these gates lovely?" I said, "They remind me of 'The Dead'." He stopped in his tracks, gave me a look - a look I had already come to know so well - and said, openly, "You. You understand me. You understand us."

9. His cheeks glowed in the cold, as we walked through the snowy bird sanctuary, and occasionally he would gently take my hand to lead me across an icy patch, or to guide me towards something he wanted me to see. The next day, in school, he ignored me, acted as though none of it had even happened.

The Window

He got off work at sometimes 3 in the morning. He was never the type of person to just go home and go to sleep like a normal upstanding citizen. He was like a baby, struggling to stay awake, just in case he missed something. When others said, "Okay, I've had enough. Time for bed" he would look at them as though they spoke Swahili. He did not understand EVER being able to say "I've had enough." I'm a big fan of "Okay, that's enough", so it is odd that he and I would have lasted so long. But we did. I was always saying, at 2 in the morning, while we were at some random pool hall, or hanging out at the improv club, "All right, that's it. I'm going home", and he would look at me as though I were speaking in a little-known dialect of the African Bushmen. Home? "That's it"? I'm sorry. I don't speak that language.

We had our own rules. Very few people got our dynamic. For example, I stalked him once, via Haiku. Story here.)

He's the one I was all weepy and panicky with when I had a fever of 103 and the heat wave in Chicago was going on, and I was moving to New York in a month.

"I will be ROBBED of saying good-bye to you!" I stated on the phone, in tears. "ROBBED!"
He would murmur something comforting, "You just need to get well - Don't worry - we'll see each oth--"
"ROBBED. I will be ROBBED."

We had our own rules.

Which brings me back to the window. The title of this post.

He was manic when he got off work. He couldn't slow his brain down. He was a completely nocturnal animal, and he always wanted to see me but I was always asleep in bed. Sometimes, with a bit of pleading (ahem - badgering, and harassing) he would get me to meet up with him after work (uhm - DAWN) - but that was rare. Our relationship occurred on his nights off. Like I said: we had our own rules. Judge us not. We loved each other.

We lived a couple of blocks away from each other off of Southport, in Chicago. My apartment was on Wayne Street, and we lived on the first floor. The living room windows faced the street, and my bedroom window (as well as Mitchell's bedroom window) faced a narrow alley that led to our backyard.

So one night, he got off work. It was 3 a.m. He was so manic, and needed to let off some SERIOUS steam before he could face going home. Obviously, he needed me for that. He and I, on his nights off, would drive up and down Lake Shore Drive in his car, like maniacs, careening towards the curve with the Drake Hotel ... just driving. Not going anywhere, not even talking to each other, just driving. Then we would go out to breakfast at 5 a.m. at some greasy spoon. But on this particular evening, I was sound asleep in my bed. And he just COULD NOT DEAL with this fact. He needed to see me. He needed to kiss me and roll around with me. Regardless of the hour, and regardless of the fact that I was FAST ASLEEP. It was imperative.

This is pre cell phones, by the way. He knew where I lived, obviously. So he got it into his bright head that he would sneak into the alley and knock on my window. This way he hoped that he wouldn't wake up the entire house (I lived with 3 people) ... and he would only scare ME half out of my mind. He would never ever have rung on the doorbell at 3 a.m. Not his style. But skulking around beneath my window like a criminal? That seemed fine to him.

So he drives to my house, and parks. The street is silent, empty. He can't wait to see me. He tiptoes through the alley until he is beneath what he believes to be my window. He knocks on the window. No response. He waits. He is skulking in an alley. He doesn't find this odd. He knocks again on my window, this time a little louder. Still no response. He is bummed.

He must accept that I am fast asleep, and so he gives up. Dejected. He skulks out of the alley, and as he hits the front yard - the porch light comes on. His heart leaps (I'm describing his emotions in such detail, because he eventaully described them to me - in a blow-by-blow 25 minute monologue) and he stands on the front lawn, grinning up at the front door like an idiot. Expecting to see me come out at any moment, bleary-eyed, in pjs, and pissed. Please remember - it is 3 o'clock in the morning. He stands there, eagerly, waiting to see my irritated face - Instead he sees a nervous hand pull back the curtain, and a small face peek out. A small terrified face. It is not my face. It is also not the face of Ken or the face of Mitchell, my 2 roommates. It is another face.

Then - the horrified realization dawns on him: He went to the wrong house. He went to the house next door to mine. And he just knocked on a stranger's window at 3 o'clock in the morning, scaring them half out of their mind.

He is absolutely horrified at his own behavior. Of course, by the next day, he realized the humor of it - and when he told me the story we both laughed until we cried.

Then came his next attempt to knock on my window. It was, again, 3 o'clock in the morning, and he just felt that he couldn't go straight home. Even if all I did was say to him, "Dude, I am asleep, and you are in so much trouble with me right now for waking me up at this hour of the night ..." that would be better than nothing for him. (This story is occurring to me as even funnier than it normally does. If this guy sounds like some neurotic stalker - that is completely not correct. He was a big beefy goofball, loud, brash, funny, crazy - He and I just clicked on this very deep chemical level. I don't relax with many people, and I relaxed with him. He trusts NOBODY. And he trusted me.) So he decides to try again, only this time he doesn't choose the wrong house. He has learned his lesson, after terrifying my next door neighbor.

He pulls up on my street, and parks. He chooses the correct alley, and skulks through it like a criminal, making his way to my window. (Oh, just to add to the joke, because it will be relevant later: He always wore this jacket that he loved which he called a "banana picker's jacket" and I never knew what that meant, except that obviously banana pickers wore the thing, but was there some other folk-tradition behind it? No idea. He wore that thing until it was in rags. He LOVED it. It had all these different colors on it - it was very crazy and unconventional - and the 4th time he started telling me about how cool his "banana picker's jacket' was - I finally had to say, "Dude. I got it. You love the jacket. Please stop talking about it. You're driving me crazy." Anyway - the banana jacket - with its many different colors on it - will be important later in the story.)

He skulks beneath a window. This time, though, he decides that the knocking thing is actually not good - because it's too potentially scary. He decides what would be LESS scary to the person inside would be for him to open the screen window and hoist himself uninvited into the house. Yes. He thought that that would be a LESS scary option. Also: he felt that it would have more comedic potential. He was alllll about comedic potential. And boy, was he right about that one - because Mitchell and I STILL laugh about what occurred in the next 10 minutes.

He reaches up on his tiptoes, and quietly opens the screen. He knows he could be arrested at any moment, but he can't stop himself ... he also can't WAIT to see my reaction to him crawling through my window ... he thinks it will be hilarious. He hoists himself up onto the sill, and starts to struggle through the window.

Only to find that he has broken into MITCHELL'S room and not mine. He got the wrong window.

Mitchell wakes up, it is darkness, and he hears the sounds of someone CLIMBING INTO HIS ROOM FROM OUTSIDE - so he turns on the light - ready to scream - only to see who it is. My goofball half in his window, half out - looking up at him with this really apologetic look on his face.

Mitchell bitched him guy out, in a hissing whisper (although Mitchell, being Mitchell, could already feel the comedic potential of the entire event ...), "You are the biggest asshole I have ever met! You just scared the SHIT out of me!"

"I am so sorry ... I was looking for Sheila ..."

Again: he's HANGING half in and half out of the window ... saying ... "I was looking for Sheila ..."

I can't stop laughing. Like: and how is that at all socially acceptable?

Mitchell hissed at him, FURIOUS, "She's in the next room!!" Then Mitchell caught a glimpse of that dad-blasted multicolored banana picker's jacket, that we both got so sick of, and Mitchell couldn't stop himself. He said, emphatically, "Go, go, go, Joseph ... to the other window."

"Joseph" then embarrassedly disappeared into the night. How do you apologize for crawling into the wrong window at 3 a.m.?

The thought of him saying, dangling his torso into Mitchell's room, "I was looking for Sheila" still makes me laugh.

Okay. Now we'll cut to my room. I sleep soundly through this whole drama. And wake up to see A DARK FIGURE STRUGGLING THROUGH MY WINDOW.

I almost pissed my pjs. It was primal fear. Sudden, swift. I opened my mouth to shout - and he hissed into the void, still struggling at the window: "IT'S ME! IT'S ME!"

Believe it or not - although it took me a good half-hour to come down from the terror - I already knew what a funny story this was going to be. But I needed to bitch-slap him within an inch of his life before that. So I did. I got out of bed, and pulled him into my room, and yelled at him (in a whisper, of course.) "Do you have any idea what it feels like... to wake up and see a dark figure ... are you OUT. OF. YOUR. MIND???"

"I know. I didn't want to wake anyone up. I just wanted to see you."

"Uhm ... doorbells?"

"Then I would wake up your whole house."

"You're a lunatic."

But then he told me the entire saga - of going to the wrong window TWICE - and ... I couldn't stand it. It was like Waiting for Godot. He just wanted to see me. But he kept going to the wrong window.

A couple other times that summer, he would come to knock on my window. It became something I expected. We never planned it, though. We never said, "See ya at my window!" I just knew the nights he worked, and I knew he would probably want to stop by, on his way home. We lived so close to each other. It was a 5 minute walk or something like that. I would fall asleep at 11 p.m., thinking, "I bet he'll 'stop by' tonight." And lo and behold - at 3 am, I'd hear a little tap-tap-tap that would call me out of slumber. I even got used to waking up and seeing a dark figure climbing into my room. Which is rather frightening if you think about it. "Hi, there, you - how was work? I was expecting you!" "Huh? Lady, I'm here to rob your house." "Wha ... AHHHHHHHH!"

I'd be asleep, I'd hear a commotion, I'd wake up to see a crazy-haired figure in a banana picker's jacket hoisting his way over my sill. Just to say Hi.

One horrifying time, his clambering through the window didn't wake me up, and what DID wake me up was him crawling into bed with me. I hauled myself up from oblivion - only to find a dark figure beside me IN MY BED taking me into his arms. Again: I opened my mouth to scream, and - ohmigod - the dark figure put his hand over my mouth!!! Of course, he immediately hissed into my face, "It's me! It's me!" - his hand over my mouth. Then, naturally, I had to beat him about the head and neck for making me think he was a rapist. A gentle rapist, to be sure - gently taking me into his arms - but a rapist nonetheless! He took the beating, laughing hysterically - saying, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

One night, after I heard the tell-tale tap-tap, I got out of bed to tell him I had an audition early the next morning, and "now was not a good time." As in: "Hi there. Now is not a good time to break into my room, thanks."

I don't know why I remember this early early morning meeting between him and I so vividly but I do. It was summer. It was probably 5 o'clock in the morning. No light in the sky yet, but the air trembled with greyness, and a softness ... which let you know that dawn was coming. I could see his face. It wasn't darkness. I was in my pajamas, and I went to open up the screen window to say hi to him. He stood in my alley, his hair black and crazy, smiling up at me. The air was so soft. There was something piercingly sweet about the hour of the day. It was summer, but because the sun hadn't risen yet, everything was dewy, and cool, and grey.

I whispered, sadly, "I really have to keep on sleeping. I have to get up early."

He said, good-natured, "Oh. Okay. You know me. I just wanted to say hi."

I was above him, he was below me. The position had undeniable Romeo and Juliet connotations, even though I don't think Romeo wore a multi-colored banana picker's jacket, and I don't think Juliet wore glasses and I'm pretty sure she didn't have bed-head. But it was a mini balcony scene. There was something poignant and beautiful about it.

I said, completely in love with him at that moment, his smiling face, I even loved the banana picker's jacket: "How was work?" I couldn't resist. I always had to talk to him.

He told me some stories from work, standing in my alley, in the dark that wasn't quite dark anymore. He made me laugh. Niceness exhaled off of him. It felt like we were the only two people awake in Chicago.

I said, "I would love to talk more. But I have to go to sleep."

He stood on tiptoe - I leaned out of my window - down to meet him - we kissed. It had a weird archetypal feeling to it. Like I had seen such an image on a tapestry somewhere (only it involved a castle, or a moat - not an alley and a first-floor window.)

That was always what it was like with him. From day one. Our own rules, we could not describe it to others, and I wonder if people reading this - who don't know me from Adam, and only know this guy from what I tell about him - are thinking: "God. What the hell was going on THERE and why would she put up with that?" I can't describe it any better than this: He crawled through my window at three o'clock in the morning (after going to the wrong window twice) because he needed me. Just to see me. Or kiss me. Or talk to me. Whatever it was. He needed me.

Grapefruit Dance

She always had red-carpet accessories, despite the fact that she was a starving artist. Her bags were blue alligator leather that creaked when she opened them, there were waiting lines of a year or more to get her shoes, and she had one-of-a-kind prescription sunglasses sent to her from a small elite company in Florence. I asked her once, we were at some street fair, having smoky shish kebab, and browsing through the hippie tye-dye merchandise, "How the hell do you afford the crap you own?"

I'm not into "things", not really, but her 'things' called attention to themselves. I didn't know her that well. She was a theatre director, although she hadn't risen above fringe festival shows where prime time was past 11 p.m. She was ambitious, a bit manic, she talked a great game, and I was curious about her. I knew she was a big "dater", unlike myself. She was always having these crazy dates with random people, dates that involved going to weight lifting classes together (as a first date), or having some dusty dude take her up in his biplane on a windy afternoon. I wondered if maybe there was a sugar daddy in the picture who kept her in $1200 sunglasses. Maybe someone who backed one of her many pot-boiling theatre projects. But she laughed when I asked my relatively rude question. I'm a proletariat. I've had very little contact with the very rich, but when I have been in their company, I realize that the one topic nobody ever talks about in that circle ... is money. In my class bracket, it's pretty much all we discuss. And in New York, asking someone you barely know, "How much do you pay in rent?" isn't considered rude at all. Her life was like mine: chaotic, bohemian, put-together-with-string, project to project. She wasn't a yacht club wife, I could ask her about money.

She barked out a laugh, and said, "Oh my GOD. Now THAT is a story."

"So tell it to me. Do you have a trust fund or something?"

She laughed even harder at that. I knew she came from nothing. I had heard a couple of the stories about the house she grew up in, the dirty yard filled with rusting cars and car parts. Pieces of engines, the detritus of motion through the years. She lost her virginity in one of those vacant cars to a terrible boy, her boyfriend, who chewed tobacco (at age 15) and punched her in the face at the Homecoming Dance. She scooped up her packages, tossed the rest of her shish kebob in the steaming trash can to her right, and said, "I'll buy you a drink and tell you the story."

It wasn't even 1 p.m. yet, but we sat in a little Russian vodka room in the east Village, white sunight pouring through the dusty windows, and drank. Odd, to drink. In the middle of the day. The smoke from the street fair still hovered around us, and she told me the story. It was fantastic. Too good to be true, really. I asked her a million questions, and she answered in as much detail as one would want. She knew it was crazy, she accepted how crazy it was, so my agog-faced questions were the spark to the flame. She wasn't "over it", or blase. She told the story in a "can you fucking believe this shit???" tone that was completely gratifying and hysterical to me. I did not hear nervousness or depression. It was a drama, a high-drama. She lived her life like it was a performance art piece, and she was the burlesque star, waving her peacock fans at the men in the darkness, smoking their cigars and watching her. I enjoyed her. As long as I was a captive audience, I enjoyed her. It soon (very soon) became too much, and I learned her vicious side, her manic Fatal Attraction side ... but that day, in the white sunlight, with the red leather booths, and the sulky Eastern European waitress with the bad haircut bringing cocktails to us, I loved her. I loved how she could tell a story.

My questions were like:

"Oh my God, what?"

"Were you scared?"

"And THEN what?"

"And THEN what?"

"And that's it? That's it??"

That's it. That's it.

Maybe it was the alcohol, which turned my head, maybe it was the disorientation of drinking hard liquor in the afternoon, maybe those things combined added a recklessness to the air, and yet also a feeling of safety. There is something very comforting about danger. One knows what to do when one is threatened. It is perhaps the safest time of all, because there are no choices.

And in a flash, 2 or 3 seconds, it was arranged.

Like I said, "things" don't matter that much to me. I don't care about money. Or, I care about it - I want to make sure I have a roof over my head, and am able to take care of myself. It is hard to describe the difference. I know people who care, and care deeply, about "things". This is fine. But I did not envy her her sunglasses, her designer digs, her accoutrements. It wasn't about tha