I'd choose the fall

Yoga – massage for your mind. If you don’t focus you fall over. This is what Trisha told me about yoga. I think it’s a pretty snappy tagline. As I lay on the floor in my first yoga class my mind was reeling. I’d just started using my gmail account again and deleted Havi out of it that day – before I could finish it said “In Peru.” So if he was in Peru who was in his apartment next to the yoga studio which had its windows open? Maybe his girlfriend, maybe his wife by now. Actually I’m guessing he probably doesn’t live there anymore. Last we spoke, at least a couple of years ago, he was restless and looking to buy something downtown. Maybe he doesn’t even live in St. Louis anymore. Maybe. This is what I think about as I’m supposed to be focusing on my breathing. I finally settle into the class and let my mind melt away. It’s seriously like a massage for your brain. All you do is breath. Focus. Breath. Move. Hold. Breath. Close your eyes. Focus....on nothingness.

If you don’t focus, you fall over. But some days I just prefer to fall. Focusing is too hard. Decisions are too difficult. Change and decisiveness are heart-stoppingly frightening.

This weekend Di was in town. It was so fun! One of those weekends that makes you forget that Wednesday you got a call your mom was in the hospital and you rushed home. My oldest sister called and said – moms in the hospital, I’m supposed to tell you not to come home....and whatever you do don’t call Trisha. So I leave the office immediately, throw some clothes in a bag, grab my bear and head home. I don’t have time to buy my mom a bear so I take her my favorite that’s in my bed. This would be a lot stranger part of the story if I didn’t work where I do. I’m alone and I’m scared. My “run to in an emergency and cry” people are very far away. I put my bear in the seatbelt and hold his little hand most of the drive. This makes me feel better. Just hold my hand. When I hit Washington I call Trisha. (I know I know, I can’t follow directions.) As my mother shakes her head when I walk in the room I say – I didn’t come home for you – I came home to watch that big screen tv and take care of dad. She laughs and is very glad to have the company. I needed to see her with my two eyes. She was safe. She had good color. No danger.

I run to Walgreens to get her toothbrush etc...and when I get back in my car the key won’t turn. Not the engine....the KEY. Stuck. Nothing. I of course being a claustrophobic freak throw open the door as I start to break into a sweat. Ironically enough my sister in law sent me an article earlier that day about a woman who had to call the police because she was locked in her own car. With the note...”hey at least you didn’t make the news.” So here I am again – who CAN’T get the key to turn? My acura roadside assistance sticker catches my eye in the window. I read it backwards and call the number. She doesn’t even laugh at me. She tells me to shimmy the steering wheel, slam on the brakes and turn the key at the same time. It works. Seriously, I’m a dork.

I head back to the hospital until my mom is ready for bed. She needs to get up once and tells me I have to unplug her IV. I look at the wall and I’m not even kidding there are at least a dozen things plugged in. I have no idea what’s wrong with the woman in the bed next to her, but I’m convinced I’m going to unplug some sort of life support. I’m guessing my mom is wishing one of the other kids was here at this point after I just recounted my car experience. I make her turn on the over-head light and I finally get the right one unplugged. Get her tucked back and go home.

Damn. That TV is big. And what is my dad watching? Some western from the 60s. Horses are really big. Amazing picture. I do not, repeat do not need a 47 inch TV, but WOW, it’s fabulous. I don’t hear him shouting out in his sleep or snoring really loudly through the night – this keeps me up, because I think he’s up. Slept like a baby he reported in the morning. At least one of us did. He’d had a long day. He’d been out playing golf all day and when he got home he went straight to the emergency room with her. She waited for him to finish his game....however she did comment if he had a cell phone she would have called him. That’s a big statement.

She’s home now. Talked to her this afternoon. Out of the hospital 24 hours and she’d just gotten back from the grocery store. Moms – they’re like robots, but cuddlier.

So Di was expected in on the Amtrak late Friday night. She said the STL station is located at the corner of hell and 16th street and she’s not far off as I witnessed when I dropped her off today. It doesn’t really have the razzle of “meet me in STL” that I’d be looking for as a tourist. It would be more like...stay out! we don’t like no strangers!

A lot of people met in the CWE for drinks and an art show of a friend of ours. It was also the taste of the CWE. As the rain stopped for a while you would have thought it would have cooled off some (no) I walked through the festival for a bit. My recently showered and sassy self is now a gross and sweaty mess and I’m sure look stellar. I’m standing with a group of people trying to say goodbye so I could get the hell out of that oven they called a festival and an X walked by. Not just an X, but one on what was clearly on a double date with some tiny blond. Seriously, I’m not a large person, but it seems to me the people I date end up with women that are child size. Child size. I’m not exaggerating. I can’t compete with someone who shops at Limited Too! When I would tell a story and say...when I was little...Havi would always say “you are little”....well if I’m little than that last girl I saw him with was microscopic. So the good news is, this X kind of looked freaked and frazzled, maybe he started drinking again. (bam! That was lighting striking me down for being such a bitch) I didn’t mean it, truly truly, that was the best thing he ever did. Obviously he looked like the rest of us who had been sweltering away on Euclid. She of course looked fresh as a fucking daisy. Along with my theory about the X having to pay for any retail therapy that occurs because of the breakup, I also think the one who leaves the relationship has to leave....town.

I head downtown to a bar to hear a band of a former co-worker. It’s his birthday. Short of this story is....he should replace the fro-mullet wearing lead singer, however they would lose a lot of their comic effect – because not only does he have the hair going for him, he has this trampy, stripper type groupie and her daughter - no you read right – daughter that put on a nasty floor show. One of those things you wish you could swab out of your brain. They do a sort of West Side Story dance off move onto the floor. Apparently Amy almost got in a fight with one of them at a past show...easy to see how.

Fresh from the X spotting on Friday night we head to the SATC movie at the Chase Saturday afternoon. (after I bought a fabulous white strapless dress at this wonderful store called Mary Janes across from Koppermans (hmmmm matzo and eggs) ...you must go there. They carry that jewelry designer whose pieces I fell in love with in Toronto – foxy – must less getto then it sounds – really cute) So, here I am with some of my favoritest girlfriends. I believe we were all together when I had the big series finale martini party a few years ago. Strangely enough previously mentioned X was at that party...ugh. It was fun to go to the bar in the theatre and order an “Absolute Hunk” from the SATC drink menu. As if it were this easy, I say to the bartender and wonder how many times he’s heard that this week.

Now I won’t spoil it, but at end of the movie I was a little dazed and just kept repeating....I need a drink....a lot of them. And then went straight to the patio at Café Euo and did just that. It’s not the whole love will conquer all bull shit it’s more like....marriage – it’s is a fucking epidemic of happiness. Not only do I get all the love thrown at me from the big screen, I get to be reminded of how my best friends are now scattered around the globe. You don’t focus, you fall...these are times I’d choose the fall.