I’ve known this guy off and on since third grade and have off and on liked him since about the fourth grade. When he gave me the surprise kiss and even more surprising tongue, I thought, Hey for the first time someone I could like likes me back! Winning!

This last excursion began with  Mexican food, and I have a big  steak.  We both have a touch of Habanero sauce, a green pepper sauce that is hot as hell. We have blue margaritas, another new experience that are tasty for alcohol. The drink goes to my head and before long I’m exclaiming, “Oh shit!” – at what, I don’t  quite recollect, but I have enough of my wits to feel a hint of embarrassment. Neither am I so buzzed that the running commentary in my head doesn’t play. Why is he interested in me?, I keep asking myself. I’m so shy, my conversation isn’t funny or fascinating, and I am less than average in looks. Could he have liked me all this time and waited for a proper time to act on it?

We are home and  I know he will try to kiss me again when we get to the door. I try to suppress my giddiness on the way. “Come here,” he says, just as he did before, like he’s going to give me a hug. This time I know his modis and am preparing myself. I’m going to kiss him back this time or die trying.

Now we’re going to count down all the first times in this one…

I manage to tuck my tongue under his in his mouth and leave it there for a couple of seconds, all necessary and proper.  When I retreat to  my tongue’s natural station, I say “Heh, well at least this time I got my tongue in too.”

I find myself relieved when his tongue returns to my mouth in a way which needs no reciprocation from me. It is a kind dispensation of heaven for a socially anxious woman to have a kiss with a guy whose tongue would be the envy of the Geico Gecko. And herein comes another first, he’s copping a feel of my breasts. Cupping them  and pressing me against him, and then, he caresses my bottom – another first. I want to discern whether his pole is raised to attention, but short of grabbing him or applying continuous pressure with my pelvis, which I don’t have the balls to do in either case, I decide I must not look either. It’s as though he’s trying to lift me. “Um, I’m rather heavy and we’re practically making babies in the hall.”

His solution is to pull me under the stairway conveniently next to the fire extinguisher lest we get too hot. More kissing with his tongue. Oh look here, he’s nibbling on my ear. A first! And there he is kissing my neck, another first!  I dare to look into his eyes once or twice and he indeed looks as though he actually wants to have me, devour me even.

Then he asks that question every gal dreams of hearing: “Do you have a ‘fuck buddy,’ Lisa?”

“Um no…I’m still a virgin.”

“I have a couple of them.”

“Who are they?” I ask, thinking GERMS!

“Nevermind about that,” he says. “Do you want to be my ‘fuck buddy?’”

I am not aroused because I’m too shy to be aroused being pressed against the wall.   So that’s why he’s interested. Oh.

I actually think about it.  I’m 34 years-old and my flower is wilted and gathering dust.  I say that I might let him have dessert one day as long as he has protection to keep from having a  Junior running around. I am giddy and want to hurry off lest Wilt Chamberlain  here tries to gain entry  when a neighbor might walk by.

I’m excited and happy that I am desired, the margarita still numbing my senses. I tell Soul Bro and we are giggly. It’s after I wake in the night that the tears come. I thought he  had feelings for me. Nah, he just needed another fuck buddy to go with his harem. Waaaah!

The next day I talk to Soul Bro, crying even though we are having a bowl. I want to divest myself of my virtue, but by someone who doesn’t love me? I don’t want to die a virgin. I don’t want to die alone. I mail him with a “when and where,” but several hours later seeing that he hasn’t responded, I write,  “Nevermind, I’m chicken.” I hope he will write back, but he doesn’t. Feeling my impending old age and ultimate death, plus the fact that I want Wilt in my life whatever way, I make another bid on Facebook, declaring “Fuck it. I’m tired of being a virgin.” That gets an answer and he agrees to Friday night.

Taking my best girlfriend’s advice, as well as my therapist’s, and casting it to the wind, I am ready for my virtue to die. My girlfriend tried to convince me I’m not worthless and that  I will meet someone someday. Noted, but life is such a damn transient thing, and unless I start hanging out with mutes, I will be at a disadvantage in the dating world. My therapist also had similar objections, plus the whole ‘fuck buddy’ thing being crass. Yeah. But I am resolved.

Then Team OCD decides to ruin any chance of me ever getting any. Ugh. 

My Soul Brother has made me up nicely – eyeliner, sparkly eyeshadow, and everything…when I get the call. Wilt’s tire blew out on the way to buy condoms and he will have to cancel. “I’ll get it fixed first thing in the morning,” he says.  

I decide to  ask him then the questions I felt must be asked before I let anyone into where no man’s ever gone before.

Perhaps if I had left it at “Do you have any STD’s?” this story would have a  happy ending. But no. I ask him if he has a medical encyclopedia’s worth of diseases, even if he has sores near his  genitals. 

Oops. Apparently, that’s not a turn on. But it  get’s worse.

“I know we’re not in a relationship or anything, but you won’t just drop me one day, right, or try to break my heart?”

AND, help us all…

“Maybe my mom is telling us we shouldn’t be doing this.”

Needless to say, he cancels the next day and says he’ll call in a couple of weeks. Let’s hope he calls before the world ends on December 21st.

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My Soul Brother has two Chinese pugs. One is an ‘unaltered’ black male pug. He likes me A LOT. I’ll call him Stan to protect his dog anonymity. My first encounter with Stan after my mother’s death resulted in him trying to make love to me via my arm. His good lady wife, I’ll call her Maude, was in heat and it gave Stan an affection for her and every living thing around her. It was actually a good bit of comic relief from my terror and grief (it was a week after my mom went to the Great Beyond). Thankfully, once Maude ‘cooled’ he stopped. But he always wanted to be with me. At the time I thought it was my award-winning personality.

Later, when I moved in, I was sure I was going to be put back out when Soul Bro told me I shouldn’t be letting his dog sleep with me in case he started marking. But I wasn’t put out.

The other day, Soul Bro approached me again and told me to push Stan away for a couple of weeks and finally admitted why the dog liked me so much.

“It’s your feminine odor, but it’s the same with any female.”

Ugh. Great. So I resolved to rebuff Stan getting near me for exactly two weeks. But that didn’t last too long, because later that day I got upset by something The Partner did. The Partner is Soul Bro’s partner, a man who dislikes me, but the feeling is mutual. Soul Bro, being the dear soul he is, relaxed the rules so I could cry on Stan’s wrinkled shoulder so to speak.

The next day I asked if I should start pushing Stan away. “Nah, he’s OK. He’s a smart dog.”

But Stan’s behavior continued. and the night before last, Stan started to whimper when I wouldn’t  pay him mind. I should have known pushing Stan away was back when Soul Bro took him back to his bedroom and shut himself up with the dog. I should have known, but I’m so ignorant.

So yesterday, sigh, Stan was beside me again and Soul Bro called him to go lay down with him (Soul Bro wasn’t feeling well). I quickly pushed  the dog down when Stan refused to go with his master. Right back up there, Stan jumped, so I pushed him right back down. But it was too late. Soul Bro was angry at me. “See? This was what I was trying to tell you if you EVER let him sit beside you!”  And he slammed his bedroom door.

I was afraid. Soul Bro has told me before that short of me killing him, there was nothing I could do to make him not want to be my friend. But I’m so scared. He’s my only family now and if he stays mad, what will I do? I love him so much, so I always try to please him, but I honestly didn’t mean to do anything.  I hate myself. I even hate my vagina. This has made me Chaz Bono!

So like I used to, I went to  bed and slept to get away from my problems. I dreamed about my mom giving me a beautiful Christmas Barbie doll. Then my mom died, I went to the Appalachians and was rejected by relatives. But then I look for dolls in a flea market, find out that Dolly Parton is my real mom, and she has the same Barbie that my mom gave me except in a different colored dress. Then I dream I’m peeing blood. The end.

At one point, I heard Soul Bro and The Partner up at midnight. I went and got a hello from both when I spoke, but as soon as the show was over, Soul Bro left without a word. I’m terrified he’s still mad and will want me to move when the lease is up.  I don’t want to even imagine life without my Soul Brother.

2. Decide self-hosting ain’t worth the trouble after my mom gives up the ghost (look out for posts coming here that were written there. You may not have seen ‘em.

3. Watch my mother go from having a simple cold to being cold dead in the morgue in three weeks. I don’t recommend it.

4. Come to the fabulous conclusion that I am an orphan in every way, as my family  tells me in a nice way to F off. Thanks Mom  for alienating us, but whatever. I don’t recommend not having blood relations though, I really don’t.

5. Find that my “soul brother,” the kindred spirit  that I always yearned for lived just down the hall.

6. Having my life possibly saved by being invited to live in his apartment with my three cats. If I had to give up my mom AND my cats that would have been the knot in my noose. My mother loved those cats so much that I got my reason to live in caring for them. ( Talk about needing to get a life.)

7. I got to go to Washington, DC!

8. I got buzzed on a glass of semi-sangria.

9. I tried pot, tried pot, tried, tried…I try it every time I can. It numbs the sense of being in limbo that is my constant companion… My mom wouldn’t approve, but pretty sure my dad would.

10. I had a date, a genuine adult date for the first time in my life. 

11. I didn’t know it was a date until the guy walked me to my door, reached out for a hug but planted his lips on mine. Then,  what do you know, but I felt his tongue trying to get in. I gave it a thought, thought “Ah, what the hell” and opened my mouth. I let my tongue stay where the good Lord put it, because I was shy and stunned. Still counts as my first experience in the French tongue, non? A lady never tells, but I’m a blogger, so…

I’m sorry to everyone I haven’t responded to. Life has been hectic. It’s been bad, good, and definitely different. Stay tuned!

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I keep thinking about every mistake I’ve made, every word that I’ve been misunderstood saying. I keep looping everything over and over and over. I can’t bear my imperfection. My mother knew how intense I got and loved me anyway. A mother is contractually obligated to love her child. I keep thinking of the rejection by my distant relatives, who else is going to reject me?

I think everyone I see is thinking bad stuff about me. I imagine anyone speaking low to someone is  talking about how I’ve done something wrong. it’s probably my imagination 90% of the time. Social anxiety and paranoia much? My OCD is telling  that everyone is mad at me and blaming me for anything that happens.

Once again you tire of waiting. You are careful not to act impatient as you ask for an update, explain you don’t mean to seem impatient, and apologize.  At last you are both brought back to your mother. The ventilator is in place, your mother is unconscious from the sedation. Does she hear? You and your friend say hello to her. You’ve seen two other people on ventilators before haven’t you? What happened to them, Lisa? Your grandfather, later your grandmother. You were 15 when you watched your grandfather die in the ICU, 23 when your grandmother died in the Respiratory Care Unit when they pulled the plug. Yet you still hope. It seems important to you to let your friend know this isn’t her fault.  She’s crying. You tell her, “It will be OK. If it’s her time to go, she would have caught that cold anywhere. God makes no mistakes and she could have caught it somewhere else.” You find it almost funny that it’s your mother dying, but you’re trying to comfort someone else. A switch has turned on in your head. You are nice, but steeled. The mental midget you, anxious and alert for trouble at all times, has walked away, until you need her again.  You need to thank her, for it was Mental Midget You that always thought something awful was about to happen to your mother. She was the one who told you your mother is dying if she was late picking you up, was a victim of crime, had a heart attack. Or that you would die while you were away from your mother. Mental Midget You’s scenarios are always worse than fighting for life in a hospital. It is an advantage of having fear as your constant companion that anything bad that happens has already been imagined in far more extreme circumstances, so that you are anesthetized to reality.

You are allowed to see your mother before they cart her away to ICU. They tell you to wait an hour before trying to see her in her intensive care room, because “setting her up” takes a long time and the doctors will want to see her.

OK. You go to the café, the alternative to the bland cafeteria. You can’t eat a sandwich, so you stick to Reese’s Peanut Butter  Cups. This still isn’t real. You feel hyped. The world is different. Then you go to the ICU. Outside the door is a red phone that only connects to the Medical ICU when you pick up the receiver. You are told to come back later, the doctors are still working on her. Oh.

You and the bestie go to the elaborate waiting room for this ICU. It is two floors big, plenty room to spread out, even little nooks for families to huddle together. All fine, but you need to update Elsie and Bob, and your phone can’t get reception, so you go outside. Someone is outside stealing a smoke, stealing because the Smoke Nazis won’t even let a soul smoke in the parking lot. Funny. Your mother is dying, no doubt in part due to her smoking since she was 17, weakening her lungs to infection – yet you find it ridiculous that you can’t light up in the open air. Later, when your mother is no more than ashes in a plastic box, you will still think this.

You call Elsie. You tell her that there is a good chance of your mom dying and Elsie still can’t believe it. You can’t either, but that other you is there, and she will face it while Mental Midget You takes a vacation. But now you are alone. Steeled You’s armor is let down a bit when you are alone. You feel a tear, but you need to get back inside. Your friend will worry, so you gather your armor again for the battle inside.

Another hour passes and you return to the red phone. Doctors are still in with your mother. You thank the nurse, you are just so polite aren’t you? They will not know you are getting impatient. They have free Wi-fi for the people waiting for family members to give up the ghost. Among the advantages of being obsessive-compulsive is you bring virtually everything you own with you if you might be waiting awhile. You and your bestie play Pac-Mania on your netbook, but you are fine turning the computer over to your friend. Someone’s family is here, including a young girl on her netbook. They seem upbeat. You doubt their family member will die, or maybe it’s because it’s a big family supporting each other.

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Love,

Lisa

I return to the visitor’s desk and my mother still hasn’t been registered in the computer, so the woman is kind enough to go find where they’ve taken her. When she returns, I go to my mother on my own since it’s hospital policy to only allow two people at a time and it wouldn’t have been right to drag Elsie back there to see what’s happening or exhaust her. I’m led far into the emergency room away from the run of the mill  curtained off beds and into another section, which must be the area for people in respiratory distress. There was my mother in a hospital gown. She is wearing an oxygen tube in her nose like the one my grandmother used at home the last 13 years of her life. This is what I remember of our last conversation, which happened between doctors and nurses coming in and out of the little room:

“Hi,” I say cheerfully, as though punctuating the shitty day with a grin.

“Hi.”

“Oh well, at least it will be something to blog about!”

“Great, I’m going to be blogged,” says Mom with fake (maybe) annoyance.

“Are you nervous?” And the award for the dumbest question of the year goes to me.

“Uh yeah.”

My mother is uncomfortable. She needs another pillow. I foolishly ask a doctor if she could have one. So no, she didn’t get an extra pillow. My mother’s throat is so dry from coughing and not eating, so that she talks like her dentures are out of her mouth for a couple of days now. They give her ice to suck on, because they won’t allow her to drink. I think she might have snuck a little down her throat anyway.

The full oxygen mask is now being used because the one for her nostrils doesn’t seem to help her and she said so herself.  At some point, Mama says to me, “I’m sorry to put you through this.”

I tell her I was just glad she was finally getting help. The three weeks leading up to the hospital had been hellish for me as I watched my mom’s decline. She had suffered.  The fits of coughing were long and frequent. I’m not coughing up anything yellow. I will be all right. Nearly falling a few times, one time even needing a neighbor to help her through the hall. If I faint I’ll just wake right up the moment I hit the ground. It’s OK.

I think my mom’s last words was a garbled attempt to ask me to sneak her some water, but I couldn’t tell for sure. She said something like ” Doctor… nevermind,” when the doctor appeared.

The doctor, a kind man with a European accent, takes me outside the curtained room to talk to me. I doubt my mom heard us in the commotion of treatments and the general sounds of a busy ER. I hope she didn’t. “I’m going to level with you. Your mother is a very sick woman. The infection has spread to her blood. We’ll keep pumping her with antibiotics and do what we can, but there’s a chance she will die.”

I ask him what are her chances of living.

“50/50.”

I don’t cry. I am polite. I thank him for telling me the truth and that I appreciated all he was doing for my mother, that I was sure he would do his best. My mother’s dying, but Emily Post would approve.

Through the course of all of this, I went out to my friends, who said they were my family, for fear  no one would deliver the message to come out to the waiting room. They had left and returned to check on me. I tell them all I know, plus that Mom’s heart is in afibrillation and that I overheard a doctor say, “kidney failure.” I tell them that I’ll call them if I need a ride and to update them.

They are going to put my mom on a respirator and stick a huge IV to give antibiotics near her neck. It looks more like something one would plug into a wall outlet and I know it hurt my mother. Though I was too chicken shit to watch, I heard her groan. Mom, I should have been in there and held your hand through everything – you would have done it for me. I’m sorry. Luckily the sedation probably kicked in by the time they put the respirator down her throat. By then they sent my pacing ass back to the waiting room to do this and prepare her for the Medical ICU.

This isn’t really happening. She was supposed to go to the hospital, get some antibiotics, maybe stay the night to be re-hydrated. 50% chance of living. Those odds aren’t bad. She’ll live, antibiotics will save her, they’re just telling me she might die just in case. She’s always been healthy before now. It takes her a long time to get over colds because she’s been smoking since 17. She’s only 68, her mom was 85 when she died, her grandmothers were 91 and 80-something. Not happening.

A little girl, about 3 years-old, comes up to me and says hello in the waiting room. I say hello back, but when she leaves I feel my tears.

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It’s been 3 weeks since my mother’s death as of today, Tuesday October 4,  2011. I don’t believe I’m a contender for the ‘Daughter of the Year’’ award. My mother until today remained in the hospital morgue, no doubt decomposing. Only today was I financially able to send my mother to the crematorium and the funeral director came to see me at my friend’s apartment down the hall. My home is in a state of disarray and only getting worse day by day. I tend to my cats and the few remaining plants that are in my mom’s room, the rest of it can go to hell. We had a yard sale in the courtyard of my apartment building, took in $90.00, but it doesn’t even scratch the surface of all the things accumulated in 8 years of living in that apartment.

I wasn’t able to tell about my mother and me for a while, but now I’m strong and numb enough to tell our story. It may take a few entries because a lot has gone down in 3 weeks.

I didn’t know my mother was dying and it’s a blessing that she didn’t either. It was a cold. Just a common cold caught maybe in an emergency room, maybe at the local grocery store. My mother was healthy too, she had no compromised immune system, was full of life. The first week passed and I got the cold too, but I slowly got better. My mother didn’t. Two weeks went by and I began a campaign to get her to go to the doctor.

No.

I’m getting better.

No.

I think I’m getting better.

I’ll go next week if I don’t get better.

I once even threw my phone and nearly hit Dondee, the cat (not my intention). I remember mumbling terrible words, hopefully she didn’t hear. A word that started with a ‘B’, maybe even a ‘C’ word. But she forgave me like always. I don’t think I deserve forgiveness, but if she hadn’t forgave me, told me “I know you’re just worried and you’re hungry,” I would have that on my conscience for life. 

All our arguments seem petty now. My mother was the one who could throw me into rages of my own making, my perfectionism and frustration. So stupid of me, so bitchy. I’m so thankful for her, “I know you’re just worried about me,” so thankful.

I should have known she was dying when she stopped watering her plants, when she wanted me to drive everywhere, when she’d leave food and drink containers out when she was done with them. I watered the plants a couple of times, but I was still weak and sick, coughing hard at exertion. Mama, I’m sorry. I tried so hard to get you to go to the doctor, but you were afraid of the cost and you were a former RN afraid of medical help. I’m really sorry.

Then Monday September 12, 2011 came.

“I need to go to the doctor. You were right. I’m not getting any better.” I always like to be right, but not this time. We debate on a walk-in clinic or the hospital. I call the walk-in clinic. $168.00 for a visit, up to $200.00 if a patient needs an x-ray. My mother had Medicare, a $100.00 deductible, though she never used it before. We decided the ER is the best bet, you can be billed. My mother realized she couldn’t walk enough to get to the car anyway. We came up with a plan, so that we wouldn’t be separated at the hospital. I’d call our friends, Elsie and Bob, they’d come to take me to the hospital, and we wouldn’t call the ambulance until they came. It wasn’t a matter of life or death anyway, right?

I called my best friend to let her know what was happening and she said she would try to come out after work. Waiting for my friends I tweeted on my phone:

trying not to act afraid. dissolved ativan under tongue, mom needs hospital

why is it everything bad happens in sept, autumns revenge?

i wish my friends would get here. still have urge to vomit

While waiting for our friends, I avoided my mother sitting in her chair in the kitchen, being with her made me more anxious. I’m sorry, Mama.

When my friends got there, I called 911. I told the dispatcher we thought she had pneumonia and that she was so weak, she had trouble walking. The woman told me to not let her drink anything anymore in case it affects what the rescue squad does to her. My mom thought this was silly, but complied. Though my mother could barely walk, she insisted on changing the garbage bag and I took out the trash. I helped my mother get to her ragged recliner and then went to meet the ambulance. The rescue workers took one look at the cluttered apartment and couldn’t figure how to get the stretcher inside, so I said, “It’s mainly mine. I kinda hoard stuff to resell.” More fodder for the’Daughter of the Year‘ award.                                                                                                                                                                                        The rescue worker listened to my mother’s lungs and said they didn’t sound too bad, but they decided to take her in her weakened state. When they got my mom in the ambulance they waited a long time stabilizing her inside as is customary now. I rushed through the apartment finding whatever I could. My mom’s toiletries, drinks and food in case I got weak, and a few amusements for me in case we had to stay a long time. I checked my cats’ food and water, then we were off.

 Rush Limbaugh played in the background of Elsie and Bob’s truck as we made the 5 minute trip to the hospital. My mother and I often listened to him in the car while eating lunch, hearing the ‘other side’ of things and tsk tsking.  It was sunny.                                                                    

To be continued…

Maybe someone is seeing for the first time through my mother’s eyes. Maybe she or he retains my mother’s essence, her goodness and knowledge absorbed in subtle ways into this person’s psyche. Maybe this justifies my mother’s quick death at only 68. 

I think my mother is with me. I hope she sees and hears, whispering to me what to do.