Choo. Choo. Choo. CHUP CHUP CHUP CHUP.

Choo. Choo. Choo. Choo. CHUP CHUP CHUP CHUP.

Choo. Choo. Choo. CHUP CHUP CHUP CHUP CHUP CHUP.

I lean against the doorframe, looking out into the backyard, watching the dogs snuffle the perimeter. Overhead, in the spindly pine tops, unseen birds call out, in their respective languages.

I listen for a change, instead of my usual rummaging for the half-and-half, tearing open bills, tick-tock, time is money, or so I’ve heard.

Choo. Choo. Choo. CHUP CHUP CHUP. What could that mean? This bird is a poet, diligently testing her Morse code of meter and rhythm above the modest millworkers’ houses that line the neighborhood’s steep streets.

A. A. A. B. B. B. No, no good. Better with four chups. A. A. A. B. B. B. B.

I realize I don’t speak bird. I am fluent in dog, passable now in cat, but I have no idea what this bird is saying. Is she telling us to scram, get out of her yard? Is she even a she?

Choo. Choo. Choo. CHUP CHUP CHUP CHUP CHUP CHUP CHUP: a particularly daring sequence, heavy on the Bs. Perhaps she has not noticed us. How arrogant of me, I think suddenly, to wonder if I might factor into her day at all. There have been birds in these treetops for a couple hundred years, all with little reason to pay heed to the odd two-legged creatures far below. The squirrels are the sworn enemies of the two-legged and four-legged creatures. The birds are above this sort of ongoing fuss—literally and figuratively. They have far more pressing matters with which to occupy themselves: owls, too-clean window panes, securing nests of blind babies in treetops that whip and groan in New England gusts.

Choo. Choo. Choo. CHUP. CHUP. CHUP. She won’t go less than three choos. She is steadfast. She knows that two choos do not a sturdy poem make.

I admire her diligence and her discipline. I would like to know more about her. But without seeing her, I don’t know how to find out more. Can I Google a bird call? Do others hear it as I do, as a sequence of choos and chups? Years ago, I was certain my breastpump was crooning SACAJAWEA, over and over, but others heard COPPER PENNY and IN THE MIRROR.

Choo. Choo. Choo. CHUP CHUP CHUP CHUP. She is leaning toward this version, 3 As, 4 Bs. She keeps coming back to it. I like it, too. Three long choos, four terse chups. It’s pleasing in its insistence.

One, two, three, PAY-ATTENTION-STAND-UP-STRAIGHT.

One, two, three, HUSH-AND-HEAR-ME.

One, two, three, I-SEE-YOU-YOU-CAN’T-SEE-ME.

Excerpt from the new post at Single Mom at Work:

“I don’t understand how massive numbers of human beings manage to find partners, how people make the decision simply and powerfully to choose, to stay. To choose to stay. How does this work? In this no-longer-new dreamworld, I can’t fathom it.

It’s not a question of not being hopeful enough, of living in the past by choice. I resent that narrative the most. For me, this is simply a question of what the heart knows to be true—or to be truer, perhaps, when it comes to authentic connection. We don’t have to call it love. Call it what you want, but there is no undoing this sort of knowing. In my case, this is a knot that was broken, torn, not untied. That’s what this heart says, and there’s no one left to argue the case. Why wouldn’t my heart assume it had gotten the last word?”

They’re not here. They’re wherever it is they are and will ever be, with whomever—the whomever who happens to not be me, or you, for that matter.

There’s no reason to give a damn, anyway. There’s no benefit in giving a f*ck, giving a damn. Hindsight is 20-20, as they say. The photos don’t lie. I sift through, noting the faces that make me cringe now (we did what? he said what? why did he?).

Some cared, understood what it meant to care. It’s tougher than it sounds, these days. No, some, they were the real deal. Those photos, I keep close. I don’t mind revisiting. I smile still. The intention was there, even if the relationship failed. There was love, period. No one had to wonder. Friendship had shifted, jumped the tracks, landed safe, sound and hopeful. You could track it, chart the trajectory.

Sometimes, after the love moved on and the hurt faded, the friendship returned, to stay. No harm, no foul.

That happens, you know, sometimes, when the planets align just so, and you clean the cat litter on the right day of the week.

The others—quite possibly, they meant no harm, either. Best to operate under this assumption. So let it lie, wish them well enough. No words will do, not quite. Not quite a loss, if there was nothing to lose. An unintentional sham. To be someone’s I should will never quite satisfy. Best never discussed, not now, nothing to be done, ah, well. I can wash my hands and my sheets of it and hope the learning curve grows shorter still. A decent, respectable hope to have, as a lady of a certain age.

What were they thinking they’d find here? I can’t answer that. This is a funny lost-and-found. No matter how I try to empty the bin—match the mittens, give away the hat and the thermos—there’s always something left behind.

H: [reading from the sentences she's written for homework] “I love the smell of panties.”

Me: [gulp] What?

H: [louder] “I LOVE THE SMELL OF PANTIES.”

Me: WHAT?!? [checking homework, which reads "I LOVE THE SMELL OF PEONIES"] Oh. Of course. Peonies.

H: It’s like you’re deaf.

“I wanted to be a dancer. But you crushed that dream,” says Sophie.

We are nestled in her loft, having one of our bedtime chats. Dream-crushing, however, is a new topic.

“I crushed a dream? When did I crush a dream? How could I not notice, that I crushed a dream?”

“I was five.”

“What the heck did I say? What did I do?” I am baffled.

She sighs. “I really wanted to be a dancer. You said, ‘Well, that’s going to take a lot of work. A lot of classes.’”

“That’s crushing a dream?”

“Yes.”

“I’m just practical. You can be a dancer if you want! Of course you can!”

She sighs again. “No. It’s too late.”

I sit up, nearly bumping my head on the ceiling. I wave an invisible wand.

She looks skeptical, as she usually does, with me. “What are you doing?”

“I’m waving my magical Mama wand. I hereby UNCRUSH YOUR DREAM, with gravest apologies,” I say, tapping my invisible wand on her chest. “Your dream of dancing is officially uncrushed and reassembled. Dance, my child. Dance.”

“It’s too late.”

“You’re 10. It’s not too late for anything.”

“I don’t want to be a dancer anymore.”

“Well, that’s not exactly my fault. If you changed your mind, it’s not dream-crushing. Give me a break, here.”

“You crush any dreams about careers,” she says.

I gulp. This is bad news, very bad news indeed. I remain calm and ask for clarification. “ANY career? I do?”

She nods, smiling slightly, realizing I’ve just granted permission for her to say pretty much anything. “If I say, ‘I want to be a singer,’ you say, ‘Well, that’s a tough road, you’d better learn an instrument too.’”

“That’s very good advice,” I protest, weakly.

“If I say, ‘I want to be a doctor,’ you say, ‘Well, you’d better do really well at math and science, because that’s a lot of school, and you’re going to need to get scholarships.’”

“I do not,” I say.

“You do,” she says.

“Oh. Crap. Do I?”

“Yup.”

“Oh my God. I’m THAT mother?”

“Yup.”

I do what any dream-crushing mother would do in this moment: I leap on top of her and smother her in hugs and kisses. She laughs. I beg for her forgiveness.

“Please. Please forgive me. PLEASE FORGIVE THE DREAM-CRUSHER.”

“I’ll think about it,” she says, smirking.

Hattie enters and climbs up into the loft with us. “What are you guys TALKING about?”

“Sophie was telling me that I crush her dreams, like, regularly. Because I worry too much.”

Hattie nods sagely. “Oh, that. Like I really want to ride horses.”

I feel a panic attack coming on. My fist clenches and unclenches an invisible inhaler.

“Um, horses. Well…”

“SEEEEE?” says Sophie.

“No…well…it’s just…I mean, do you want to be a jockey? Like, in horse races?”

“No,” says Hattie, blithely. “I just want to ride them.”

Sophie watches me struggle. Holy crap. The kid is right. Everything, everything, is tied up in dollars and cents and bodily and psychic harm in my mind. Will she be able to earn money from it? Will lessons be worth it? Could we even afford lessons? How likely is death to occur from this particular activity? How likely is the possibility of emotional scarring to child, if fame and fortune does not arise from said activity?

“Ah…okay. Let me…look into it. HORSES. I will look into…you know. Horses! Yay, horses! Yay, dreams of horses! LET US CELEBRATE THE DREAM OF HORSES, AS VAGUE AND UNFORMED AND DELIGHTFULLY UNPRACTICAL AS IT MAY BE!”

Sophie shakes her head as Hattie laughs. I try to defend myself, without being defensive, which, if you haven’t attempted it recently, is a tricky feat.

“The thing is, my loveys, I think career is my karmic battle,” I say.

“Your what?” says H, screwing up her nose.

“Job things. Money things. It’s…like…my life’s challenge. Some people have problems with relationships, with their parents, with their kids, with their friends, whatever. I’ve had a really hard time with trying to make a living doing something I love. And I see both of you, so amazingly artistic, and so good at math and science too, and I’m torn. Because I don’t want you to have to worry about money the way we do now. And I feel like I’d be lying to you if I said you could do whatever you wanted, as many things as you wanted, and the money would follow. It DOESN’T, not always. I feel like it’s my job to be practical here. But it sounds like that’s not what you need, right?”

“Right,” says Sophie.

“It’s just a little tricky. Because you guys go to school with people who are in that top 1% of wealth in this country. The kids have lessons every day of the week, trips all over the world. I worry that that is starting to seem, well…normal to you. It’s not. And Daddy and I, we can’t match that. We have to help you choose carefully what you want to do, because there’s limited resources for things like lessons. Get it?”

“C has lessons every day,” says H, nodding. “It’s a LOT.”

“And some girls live in mansions. Like, actual MANSIONS,” says Sophie. “And there’s money for the really good boarding schools.”

“Yes. And the thing is? That’s actually NOT what’s normal or average, not in this country. Not at all. We’re much closer to how most of America lives. But you’re not seeing that, not here. So it’s hard for me to know how to talk about these things, about why other kids can do things that you can’t. I want to provide as much as I can for you, but I also want you to appreciate it and take it seriously, you know?”

“I want to be a singer and an actor and a guitarist and a vet,” says Sophie. “And a writer.”

“I want to be a photographer and an actress. And ride horses,” says Hattie.

“That’s all excellent stuff. I think both of you have the ability to do whatever it is you want to do, but I can’t pretend it’s not going to take work, and sacrifice. Something’s always got to give.”

“Great pep talk, Mom,” quips Soph.

“No, but seriously,” I say. “I could have continued pursuing acting in New York, but my bigger dream was to have you two. I couldn’t do it all, because we didn’t have the resources, your dad and I. But I made the best choice for me. You two…you’re the best choice I’ll ever make. I’m still trying to figure out how to help you guys find your way to YOUR best choices. It’s HARD. I promise to try to be more supportive, and way less boring and practical and worried. Now tell me you forgive me. Or I will sit on you.”

“I forgive you,” says HB, snuggling against me.

“I’m still thinking about it,” says Sophie, reclining. I smush her with all of my wretched dream-crushing self until she laughs.

“What’s Jaws about?” she asks, out of nowhere.

“Shark.”

“Gee, that’s detailed,” she says.

“Some answers are simple. What can I say?” I tell her. “It’s about a shark. A big life-crushing shark. He’s way worse than your dream-crushing mother. Way bloodier. Way more gross.”

“Can I watch it?”

“Maybe. But you won’t want to go in the ocean for a while.”

“Or maybe I will anyway.”

I pause. “Maybe you will.”

First, write a how-to series on your blog. Be esoteric. Amuse yourself. Cry while you type, then snort-laugh, then cry again. You are a necessary fool. Now it’s time to be a proper one. You saw that coming, I know. Best accept your fate. Necessary, proper. Without you, the protagonists would have no one to keep their stories going. Protagonists need you to distract the audience, while they change costumes in the wings.

If you don’t have a blog, start one, eight years too late. No one reads blogs anymore. They’re too long, like books and marriages and recipes and your hair. Start a blog anyway. The key to being a proper fool is to begin everything too late, and to continue the endeavor long after everyone else has moved on. This applies to everything you do: technology, careers, running, love. Make a note of it.

Write only about what moves you. Write only about what you care about. Forget self-marketing. That’s for other people, the ones who are slick and smart and ambitious and of this era. You are not of this era. You don’t belong here, though the well-adjusted people you know will tell you that this is not true, that this is not possible. You’re here, aren’t you? You’re obviously supposed to be here, if you are here.

Their logic, you think, is lacking, but you’d be hard pressed to explain why. You are here, thus you are supposed to be here? No. They are missing the point, or you are. It’s quite possible that you are. You didn’t understand mathematical proofs, either. This, then blah blah blah, then that. See?

You did not see, not even when your father, a brilliant mathematician, patiently tried to explain proofs to you. You tried and tried and tried to understand (you understood, sort of, when he explained that the word calculus means little pebbles, for instance). But the gate in your mind that led to proof comprehension would not budge, would not give way. Everyone in your class understood proofs, even the girls who did not care. All around you, teenaged brains sloshing in one high, rough sea of bone and human hair and Aqua Net were proving proofs. Pencils scratched and stabbed at lily-white papers. Meanwhile, you stared at your blank page and felt miserable, knowing it would look like you hadn’t tried. Prove the proof. What could that mean? To this day, you still feel sick to your stomach, hearing the word proof. So many fiery hoops in this lifetime. Jump. Right through. Go. Prove it.

Congratulations, belatedly, by the way. The failure. That was the mark of a proper fool, then, already. You were ahead of your time. A proper fool labors to understand what she thinks she should understand, but fails, inevitably.

But you, now. Write your way. A necessary fool, a proper fool. Fly your fool flag. Write, write! Prove the proof that you existed, once, for someone who might care, might notice, when you no longer exist. There is no promising, of course, that there will be someone like that, in your future, besides your kids. A fool knows this, but writes anyway.

Your parents would care, but they will likely be gone by the time you are gone, as it should be. They should not have to notice when you depart the earth. That’s too much, for any parent. Anyway, you’ve already let them down, not understanding proofs, still needing grocery money, still having nightmares, and never being on Oprah, not even once, even though you had all those years to find your way to Oprah’s couch. Oprah was waiting for you. She would have retired years ago, if she’d realized you weren’t coming. No, don’t let your parents down by dying before they do. Get something right, for once.

Write only about what can be misconstrued and misunderstood. They will never think you are trying, that you have tried to win/to stop/to drop it/to love intelligently/to love yourself/to move forward/to learn from the past/to be in the present. A proper fool must never get her point across properly, to her own satisfaction, or anyone else’s. A proper fool must belabor every thought, dragging her feet and her pen through the mire of her own mind. A proper fool must weary her desired audience as she wearies herself: What, is she still going on about that? Jesus.

You know that you are tenacious because you have been cursed by the beauty you’ve seen, the beauty that you’ve touched. It’s poison, that stuff. One taste, and you’re a dead man. You know bliss—or rather, you did. Of course you’re going to keep tapping at the lever, frantic for pellets. Animals, yes, some of us. The fools, especially.

You’ve read the books; you know the approximate lifespan of a human being (which, for all intensive purposes, you are). This is a long, long life, made too long by an early taste of happiness, a too-soon stretch of contentment, a true but doomed connection to another homo sapiens. You say cave, they grunt and say cave. You point to the fire, they hand you another piece of bark and smile a broken grin that might as well be yours.

Write of this. Write of what you know. Let them, for once, be the ones who feel certain they are missing something, some crucial piece of information. Let them attempt to solve your proof, to find the blah blah blah that leads to you, straight to the heart you’d be delighted to share. They won’t, of course, the others. But be briefly optimistic. That’s the job of a proper fool: spurts of optimism, thinking that it matters, that someone, somewhere, is actually trying to figure you out, that someone might actually want to jump through those hoops you know so well. A proper fool sits in the empty circus tent, drawing equations in the sawdust, waiting for someone to come—to play with the hoops, to play with the fire.

First, brush your younger daughter’s hair while you watch Man Vs. Food together on the couch. Attempt a French braid, like gentle-eyed mothers in poignant dramas do. Admire your lopsided attempt. Then realize the French braid is one of many, many things that you will do for your daughter that she will never see for herself—not without the help of mirrors or photographs. This is motherhood, you think: a French braid.

Your older daughter is having a sci-fi sleepover at your mother’s house, three blocks away, where the two of them will discuss Seekers and Blood Rage in earnest. Tonight you and your younger daughter get to watch whatever you want. She has chosen Man Vs. Food, because she likes watching it with her dad. She thinks you will like it too, because Daddy likes it and you and Daddy like the same stuff.

The thing is, she is right. This kid, she calls it like she sees it. Admire her for this, for saying what is true: you and Daddy do like the same stuff.

Feel the perennial, private ouch—the bit of the wound that never heals, no matter what you do. For whatever reason—and you are pissed off at God or Gaia or the Force or the big black random Nothing or whatever possesses people to buy yoga mats, certainly, about this turn of events—you are that person.

You wish you had known that you were that person and would be that person for keeps, back when everyone was telling you that you would eventually be like everyone else—that is to say, over it. You wish that you had had a water gun, back then. You wish that you had simply squirted every well-intentioned individual between the eyes when they suggested, Get out, go, life will be so much better, you’ll see, it’s your only option, back when you were, quite frankly, losing your f*cking mind, and all the words ran together like paint, turning to gray, to brown.

Think, Just watch the nice man and his nice sausage. Behave. Tell your heart and your mind you will let them run riot later, if they will just let you have a half-hour of ridiculous reality TV with your favorite pixie creature.

Your heart and mind consult each other. Thirty minutes? Okay. You are granted a momentary pardon.

It is surprisingly satisfying to watch a man gobble a three-foot sausage while people cheer. Think, If the ladies can do it, you can too, gentlemen. Think better of saying this aloud. Instead, say, That’s a pretty big sausage. I think it’s as tall as you. Do you think he can do it?

Oh, yes, she says, nodding. I think he’s pretty capable.

Capable. She surprises you, endlessly. Note her long lashes, her jagged mismatched teeth, her faerie magic. Tonight, as your boobs nuzzle your knees, and you feel the sadness clawing at the back of your throat, it seems impossible that this creature could have come from you. But she did, you are sure of it, despite the fact that she resembles no one in the family. Sometimes, you wonder idly if she could have been fathered by a friendly, procreative stranger who perhaps climbed through a window when your then-husband was away on business. 2003. No, that was before the sleep meds that keep you, for the most part, asleep when you are supposed to be.

Well. One less thing to worry about.

Continue to focus on Man Vs. Food, like a normal human being who can watch TV without inner monologues hijacking the experience. You have been to the same restaurant in Minneapolis, the one where the Man is battling the Sausage of Sausages. Say to your younger daughter, I lived there, before you were born. It’s a great place to live. You wish you could wave a wand and show her you, then. Would she recognize you?

She gives you the benefit of the doubt, nearly all the time. She would recognize you, easily. She would tell you that your hair was pretty, you think. She would say, Show me your room. Is that Ferf? I wish I could remember him more.

I’d like to go there, she says right now. Can you believe you walked right there, Mommy, right where he is? I’d like to go to Pittsburgh too, to have dessert for breakfast. At that place. With the Belgian waffles.

Say, I’d like that too. Say, Your great-great-great-grandmother Fanny is buried there. I’d like to visit her grave someday.

We have a lot of Fannys in this family, says your younger daughter.

I suppose we do, you say. Two Fannys does seem extraordinary, for one family.

After the man defeats the sausage (although the side of potato croquettes nearly did him in), shut off the TV. Head upstairs with the pixie. Talk to each other in tobacco-plantation faux-Southern accents while you brush your teeth.

Suggest to her that you make a short film together. She likes this idea, with a few caveats. First, she must be a character who is four years old. Second, her character must wear princess clothing all the time and drag a toy duck on a string behind her.

Say, I can write that. Can you cry on cue?

She thinks about this. She shakes her head. I don’t know how to do that, she says.

That’s okay, you say.

After brushing teeth, tuck your younger daughter into bed beside you. Remind yourself that she will not always want to sleep with you, especially when you get older and reek of pee and despair. These are the good times, now. Ha! Ha ha! You still smell okay, most of the time, unless people are just being polite, which you suppose is possible. Realize that there are a few people willing to sleep with you, in the S-E-X way. No. You must actually smell all right. Feel momentarily relieved.

Read three chapters of Junie B. Jones: Shipwrecked, out loud, in your best stuffed-up-nose grumpy-tomboy voice, the one that enthralls and delights your younger daughter. You are good at reading Junie B. Jones aloud. If you could find a way to include that skill on your CV, you would.

Crack her up. Crack yourself up. Think, That MFA in Acting comes in handy, at least five minutes a day. She will surely remember this when I smell like pee, and subsequently take pity on me. Maybe she will even give me a room behind the kitchen, or on top of the garage.

Stop after two chapters. She bribes you, like she always does, with an offer to pet your hair or rub your back, if you will read one more chapter. Motherhood is dirty like that, full of more negotiations than the back room of a drug cartel.

You agree to the bribe. You love having your hair played with more than just about anything. You will be Junie B. Jones for another chapter if it means your scalp will get some TLC.

Third chapter down. Put away Junie B. Jones in the shelf of the headboard that is not actually attached to your bed (and probably never will be, at this point). Kiss your younger daughter and pull the sheets up to her chin. Miraculously, she falls asleep almost right away, her time clock still wonky from her recent trip to California with her dad.

You have already taken your sleep meds. You forget the deal you made earlier this evening with your heart and mind. Drift off to sleep beside your flesh-and-blood (wait, no, yes, of course she is, of course).

Your heart and mind are displeased with you. They wreak havoc as you sleep, what seems like hours of cruel mazes and violent situations and the usual dream-humiliations (no bra, not enough clothing, no bathing suit, must use a stranger’s, no money to take a bus or a taxi, where did the eyelash curler go?). As usual, you are completely alone in the dream. You can find no one to trust, no one to help, and you are in terrible danger, with uncurled lashes. In the dream, you run and run and run, straining to find something familiar, a landmark, an intersection, a face.

Wake up, blessedly, finally, in tears. You are disappointed that all that running does not count toward your weekly training, but it is better, you suppose, to be awake. The nightmare will not quit. It follows you downstairs. It questions your taste in coffee. It tells you that you are lucky, very lucky, that the creamer is still good. It tells you that next time, you may not be so lucky, that you may not get off so easy. Just wait, says the nightmare, you haven’t seen anything yet.

Bite your tongue. It’s no use, talking back to the nightmares. Let the tears come. Sip your coffee. Wipe your nose on your sleeve. Upstairs, there is a little girl still sleeping, a little girl who sees all that is good and right and true in you, and in the world. This will not save you, not at all, but you can still let her sleep. She will wake up in her mother’s bed, knowing she is welcome, knowing she is home. She will wake up thinking that the house smells good, like her father’s coffee, like her mother’s coffee.

First, hear the stealth taps. Tap. Tap. Two taps, on the red metal screen door.

Bolt to the door, then, from the dining room. Witness your Passive-Aggressive Postal Ninja Lady scurrying down your stairs.

Fling open the door. Say, Hey. Hi. I’m home. That’s why the front door is open behind the screen door. And the car is out front. Because, you know, I’m HOME.

She glares at you. Oh. I didn’t hear THE DOGS, she says. She hates your dogs. She reported you to the main post office a year ago, because your mellow, friendly dogs put her “at risk of bodily harm.” Her supervisor told you that she insisted that your dogs were highly likely to break through your glass windows—like Tom Cruise stunt doubles on meth—for the sole purpose of removing her carotid artery.

Because of this report, you had to hang another mailbox at the base of your steps. When it is raining, she leaves the lid open, because that will show you.

She dislikes Mail That Must Be Signed For. So she likes to pretend not to notice when you are home. Instead, if at all possible, she leaves a peach-colored Bring This to the Post Office to Claim Your Mail slip in your soggy mailbox.

You do not wish to belabor the point—that you are home, that you have been home for ten years, waiting for your mail. This point is a pointless point, because Passive-Aggressive Postal Ninja Lady hates your dogs, and you. She likes to leave clumps of your mail on your concrete steps in the rain, where the mail forms into little papier-mache sculptures that your children admire. She regularly delivers any expensive-looking packages to a neighbor two streets over, whom she likes.

It is a game you play, the two of you.

Clear your throat. Well, say, I am home.

Yes, she says grimly. You are.

Smile patiently, as is your way. Think, This is so not worth crow’s feet.

She shoves the peachy slip directly into your abdomen—a punch that does not quite connect. Sign this, she says. You take her pen. You remember your friend Sarah, who once explained to you that it is possible to kill another human with a ballpoint pen, if your aim is true.

Sign the slip. Hand it back.

Passive-Aggressive Postal Ninja Lady fishes around in her satchel and pulls out a certified letter. She hands it to you, with some reluctance. Foiled, you think.

But the joke, as usual, is on you. The letter is from the doctor’s office. Your eyes widen. Blurt out, Certified mail from my doctor? This can’t be good.

Noooooooo, croons Passive-Aggressive Postal Ninja Lady, smiling suddenly. Definitely not. She bark-laughs in your face, then leaves, humming.

Fortunately, your friend Karli is visiting. She has witnessed this exchange.

Ask, That just happened, right?

She reassures you that, yes, that did just happen, and your Passive-Aggressive Postal Ninja Lady is, in fact, insane.

It is good to have friends.

Open the certified mail from your doctor’s office. Your jaw drops and bounces around a bit on the shelf of your bosom. The letter reads, in all caps:

YOU DO NOT HAVE CERVICAL CANCER NOW!

But I will, right? That’s what they are trying to say? you ask your friend.

She nods with great sympathy. Yes, probably by next week. I’m sorry.

This is a very odd letter, you say.

Yes, yes, it is, says your friend. You both burst out laughing. It is very good to have friends who agree with your stance: that the world, in fact, is more peculiar than you are.

1. That? Yeah. That’s not happening. That’s not going to happen.

2. I do appreciate your not saying I told you so. I really, really appreciate it. Your self-restraint is commendable. It’s one of the many reasons that I love you, you know.

3. Oh, a little 301.81, a little with the clouds in the coffee.

4. Our big dog? He fell in love. His health and weight improved. Two hikes a day. His soulmate (a black Lab mix) taught him to swim in a river. We miss him. But the girls and I decided: he deserved a Happily Ever After. We let him stay with his love. Good boy, Eli. His new life made a new life possible for Sir James. So.

5. Ten more years. Maybe a little less.

6. Then: Nova Scotia cottage? Pacific Northwest cabin?

7. I was waiting for you to ask that. Yes. Still. Not sure if that’s romantic or grotesque. Both, possibly.

8. I disagree. Time does not heal all wounds. It promotes healthy scar tissue, maybe.

9. Yes. I do regret that. But not the other thing.

10. Vitamin D deficiency, of all things. Who knew?

I stare at the massive heap of bills, knowing already which ones will have to wait. The nausea intensifies. Three digits in the bank account, and the mortgage is due on the 12th. The real estate tax bill also arrived, a charmer at $518. I haven’t paid for the last oil delivery, either—another doozy at $490. Still waiting to hear on fuel assistance. I want my spinning, twirling Hannah to have the dance lessons she loves, her only extracurricular. But I am behind on those payments, too. Food. Heat. Food. Heat. Christmas. Even with no snow, the winter landscape strikes me as bleak, uncompromising.

It’s time for law school or prostitution, clearly, but I can’t decide which would be more lucrative, in the long run. I have said this before. It’s because I’m not quite kidding, not quite.

Prostitution requires a gym membership, maybe a pole installed in the upstairs hallway, for practice. Gym membership and exotic dancer pole would cost less than law school. Food for thought.

I strain my synapses. This is the year I bid farewell to writing-for-hire, I have decided. I need a plan, a big steady solid predictable PLAN. And I need to stay here, in fairly rural western Massachusetts, because of the shared custody arrangement. Eight? Ten more years? We need out of this hole, somehow, the girls and I. Back to school at some point for me, for a practical degree? Maybe, with scholarships. But what scholarships? What am I qualified to do?

I’ll be teaching an online writing class soon, hopefully, at a distance-learning university. I’ll keep you posted. That’s something concrete, something good, something to build on, in time.

I’m glad to see 2012. We’re pretty healthy, pretty happy. I try to remind myself of this when I sit at the dining room table, sorting bills into MUST, CAN’T, THROW THEM SOMETHING, PAY WITH CREDIT. I know the credit trap all too well, but sadly, it’s a necessary evil. I want to know how other single-parent households are getting by, especially in more rural areas, like ours. Some mornings, I wake up in a panic, and can’t find my breath—before I’ve even found my feet. I dream of bills, of money scattering in the wind, of never, ever having enough. The house needs work, will need to be sold, but I can’t pay for the work that would get it sold. I drive past houses where work is being done—roofs repaired, gutters replaced, steps re-cemented. I am mystified. Who are these people? How did my life get so off-track, that I cannot begin to understand how simple house repairs can be budgeted for? How do others get by, those who live outside urban areas?

We continue to live hand-to-mouth. Food and heat and warm clothes for the girls—this is as far as I can stretch my imagination, right now. I love to write. It’s the only career that I know, so far. But I need to let it go, find something to replace it. I won’t stop writing, because it’s too much a part of who I am. But I will move on, let this dream be. I can’t—won’t—expect it to provide for us, anymore. I need a new path, a road more often taken.