I'm a big girl now!

I watched Juno the other night, finally. Really liked it. But there was a scene that got me thinkin, which doesn't usually produce good outcomes. The scene was where Juno tells her stepmom that she hung out with the guy who made up half of the couple who were going to adopt Juno's baby, and that he was really cool, played guitar, etc. The stepmom then says that it's not right to hang out with a married man and that there are rules.

What are these rules? Where can I get a copy?

Other than a glib thought that, in 2008, a woman should be able to be friends with anyone she wants, including married folks regardless of gender, I've never really thought about the propriety or impropriety of friendships with those in marriages or serious relationships. When I was a preteen, I remember my mom saying that proximity breeds desire. I thought that was just old-woman-crazytalk back then, but now I think there's something to that. Think about interoffice romances, the boss doing his secretary, Jim and Pam, Dwight and Angela. Think about Jaime Gumm: We covet what we see every day.

Now that I'm in the most mature relationship of my life (mature as in we are both trying to act unchildish, not mature as in we are both approaching middle age, for Christ's sake), I no longer act like the cool girlfriend (Mental Note: blog about that later). I see that it's necessary to be vulnerable, to express emotion, to let the other person know I appreciate him and think about him. And I found all this out when I met pretty much my equal in this relationship. He can be as hard-to-read and aloof and fiercely independant as I am. A good friend of mine characterized our early relationship as 2 icebergs colliding. Yikes. But now we both talk about our hopes for this relationship and about each other. It feels like a new & different place for me, but it's warm & comforting too.

Mrs.

So, a couple weeks ago, I thought it would be a good idea to volunteer for my 5th grader's field trip to Marshy Point for a "hands-on experience with nature, get ready to get wet!" (that's what the permission slip said) Now, in my 20's, that description would be supremely exciting, but now, not so much. Anyway, I did get chosen from among the throngs of excited parent volunteers. Oh boy! No, it'll be fun and I'll have done my penance for all those evenings I've been spending working on cases, instead of playing Uno.

In anticipation of the field trip, my 5th grader brought home a sheet of paper today listing the parent and his/her assigned handful of children to watch over while at Marshy Point. The paper referred to the parents by a Mr or Mrs and then their last name. So, I am Mrs. Hugh. I married myself, apparently. What happened to Ms., goddamnit? Women don't need to be married to have a child, jackasses. Hello, the 1950's called and they want their rigid, backward notion of a traditional family back, before Mrs. Cleaver has changed into a dress, chilled the gin, and put the pot roast on the table.

Happy

What is happiness? It has to be a static state of being. Watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy and eating a bag of salt & vinegar chips while drunk may be happiness for, oh I don't know who, but it may be pure nerdy misery for others. And when you try to define happiness in a relationship - holy hell, everything (and nothing) goes.

More to come... there's a scheduled outage now.

Do this right now

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions if you want to.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Here's mine: "The documents listed are intended to be illustrative and not all inclusive." (Mitchie's Annotated Code of Maryland, Commercial Law 1-202, comment 2)