Straight No Chaser

Zoe

two of my godsisters graduated from the same university today, and their mothers, who themselves were college friends (with each other and my mother and other mothers, so many godmothers, soooo cute) threw them a joint graduation party. which was a little bit like walking back through time. as in, it was catered by the woman who catered my damn christening, mine as well as those of both graduates, and my brother's, and all the other siblings, godsiblings, and aunt pam (very involved in my life since always, several miscarriages but a lot to offer to me, to chad, to all of us) cried and spoke about how she doesn't have any "earthly children," but we're all her children and special, mean so much to her, et cetera.

increasingly i feel like the fifty or so people at that party are supposed to be the defining cornerstones of my life. they are what made me what i am and what i'm expected to become; they remember my earliest hairdos and my most embarrassing moments (aunt pam found a sex toy under my bed, seven or eight years back) and my birthday when no one else does, and people like krystle and sean and od feel like new additions, and temporary, by comparison.

not marcus. marcus belongs. he can stay.

zoe i didn't know, before today. zoe was sitting on the carpet of the room with all the jackets, watching tv. thin and bespectacled, with wild frizzy cornrows needing redone, she reminded me of someone i knew, once, and i smiled to myself even before she turned around and announced, rather benevolently, that i could sit behind her if i wanted to. nineish. aggressively precocious and eager to make sure i knew she was the one with all the answers, snuffing out all my questions before i'd even spoken them. yes, it was her copy of the chronicles of narnia playing in the dvd drive. no, she didn't know whose house this was but there was an asparagus casserole baking in the oven on the third floor. yes, her sweatpants came from kohl's. things like that.

a little obnoxious, yes, but harmless; pretty socially retarded, and smaaaaart. i met her stride for stride, because that was me, at nineish, only i wasn't quite as talkative.

to my mother, yesterday, as we were driving home from the garden where we went to shoot my brother's prom pictures, i asked, "what if chad [popular, well-rounded, attractive] marries a girl like nina [sweet, happy, beautiful], and i [gangly, moody, nerdy] marry a guy like marcus [frenetic, bohemian, hyper], and we each have kids, and his kids are pretty and perfect while ours are eclectic and bizarre?" thinking, of course, of a little girl like zoe, hours before i ever even met zoe.

"i don't know what you mean," said my mom, stalling.

"i mean," i said, "what if my kids are these strange, interesting people, and chad's are more likable, and you naturally like them better? what if chad's kids are your favorite grandkids?"

she sort of rolled her eyes then. "well gosh, if that happened, i'd have sense enough not to let you know it."

great, mom. perfect. the answer i was looking for, of course.

in other news, my little breakette is over: work starts at eight o'clock monday morning. which means, and you already know this if you were around for last summer on the shannon show, that starting on monday i will be online from eight to ten hours a day, relentlessly stalking/commenting on all your blogs, updating my journal every twelve minutes, iming with the frenzy of a woman bored to tears, and just generally squeezing every last drop of entertainment out of this site, juicer-style.

so then, i apologize for being absent all week (and i'm looking in every direction but aaron's, because it's his turn to call me and he knows it), but i'll be back. give me thirty-six hours or so.

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