I Have Been Kissed Between The Ears

Reasons I Wish I Could Find A Little Blue (or Green. or Brown) Tee That Says I Heart Brazil (Or Better: I Heart Brasil):

--The skyline goes on for days. 17 million people live here. But there's no 'big city' claim, no tourist attractions, no American tourists in sandals, on buses.

--Hidden between bad '70's architecture and millions of tiny cafes, the shopping is chic and way cooler than any neighborhood ever featured in InStyle Magazine

--The Portugese language is cool. It's the efficiency of Spanish rolled up with the lazy confidence and attitude of French. It's hot.

--The women are tough. They're confident. By right of their gender, they're considered sexy.

--The young men all look like they belong on a soccer field.

--The service isn't like the timid-bowing-begging-abused-ducking in Asia or the passive-aggressive-bordering-on-hostile-and-usually-with-mistakes in India. It's smooth.

--It's the place where I best pass for a local. I don't know why but it's thrilling to be addressed in Portugese. And it's best when i can get by without needing complete sentences. Nods, big smiles, 'obrigada' and 'tout a bon'

--Diet Coke is Coca-Cola Light. It comes in glass bottles and is served over ice and crushed limes. Automatically. Oh. And the ice is the oval kind with a hole through the center for your tongue. (If anyone appreciates those cubes as i do, we could be soulmates.)

--The flight from Chicago is just right for one viewing of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, two glasses of wine, a full six hours of sleep and cleaning out the inbox

--I've visited in February, April, August, September and November. I've never seen it rain and never worn a jacket.

If You Talk Too Much My Head Will Explode

Perhaps this is the grand finale. A serious flurry of emails and text messages. Some duds. Some outrageous. Like most finales, it’s come so late in the show that I’ve lost interest, I’m ready to leave, I thought it should have ended hours ago.

He’s maybe imagining responses, because he just keeps coming in the same casually familiar tone. like he’s completely pardoned himself for shattering me a few months after I’d made him my emergency contact at the doctor.

Hi. I know you don’t have much time between trips (information provided by my email out of office reply) but I’d really like to take you out for your birthday. Please? If Keefers is too weird, we could go somewhere else. How about Biasettis?

Keefers is the restaurant I chose every year for my birthday dinner b/c of their thick blue bubble glasses, giant chilled martinis with blue cheese olives, fresh tomato appetizers and the perfect chopped salad.

Too weird? Yeah.

The next morning, a follow up: Is 8 tonight ok? Biasettis?

And later that afternoon: I take it tonight isn’t going to work out. That makes me sad b/c I really don’t have much to look forward to on the weekends.

That would be one of the outrageous ones. I married a man with the gall to follow his lack of remorse with the admission that he’d like to see me because he’s bored on the weekends. You know, when she is with her family.

The next day, a text message: You’ll appreciate this. I just cashed in our change bowl. $34! wanted 2 buy u a cute skirt with it. Or should I get bulk candy?

You should get a clue. You should get a girlfriend who isn’t married. You should get better at trying to be clever.

And later that same day: Not to bum you out but I’m really going to miss being with you on Thanksgiving. I like when the Moyer’s sit down for dinner and we all go around and say what we’re thankful for. I know what I’d be thankful for.

Yep. So do I


Things Aren’t As Pretty On The Inside

Seatmates on long flights are often anonymous, silent, strangers. Sometimes there is no contact other than a wordless negotiation of the armrest, retrieval of a dropped blanket. Other times there is immediate openness; at the end of the flight I’ve learned a piece of someone’s story, and I carry it with me for a few days. On last night’s ride, a fatherly professor from Purdue sat next to me. His first trip to Brazil, to deliver a talk that he held up with awe: “It’s all right here on this little memory stick thing.” Maybe his first trip in business class: he asked with some pink shame for help releasing his tv screen from its stow sleeve, plugging in the headset, launching his footrest.

He heard me on the phone with my dad, just before takeoff, discussing Thanksgiving and it made him smile. His daughter traveled a lot when she was my age, in her early 20’s. A great opportunity when you’re young and still single.

He asked me questions about my job, if I mind being on the road so much. No, I really like it. He said it again: you’re lucky to do it now, before you’re married, before you have a family. I didn’t tell him I was waitressing in my early 20’s. I’m 30 now and I’ve already been through the start and end of a marriage.

I’m Becoming Less Defined As The Days Go By

I’ve spent the last few months waiting to feel something about turning 30 next week. There isn’t going to be any rite of passage, I still won’t feel like an adult. When I was 13, 30 meant stable, smart, suits, a fancy kitchen. It didn’t mean mistaking a man featured on the pages of Glamour Magazine for one of “THE WORST” statements about women in 2005 (December issue. See for yourselves) for the one I’d spend the rest of my life with. It didn’t mean living in an apartment where I can’t control the heat or driving a car that only runs some of the time.

I couldn’t have known it would mean love to eat alone in a restaurant. Youngest (and most comfortably-dressed) in business class. Single for the first time since college and growing up all over again.