So have I ever told you about my high school summer job? No? Yeah, there's a reason for that. However, Kristine's SPF last week (I'm behind - shut up) was partly about secrets and then jessica_deva tagged me with Four Things which is partly about jobs, and so I'm addressing both in one post: the summer job I keep secret because it's hella lame.

You need to know that in addition to this job I'm about to reveal, I also held the noble position of summer school teaching assistant. I was, after all, a motivated young woman determined to have some experience in her chosen field before college. The problem was that summer school was only half-days for 5 weeks. And so I needed another summer job that was flexible and that would fill the rest of my summer.

And so, under these conditions, I accepted employment as a Textbook Protection Technician. Okay fine, I made that title up just now. I was a book wrapper, okay? I put paper covers on textbooks. You remember back in elementary school when on the first day of school you were given your textbooks and also some paper covers (probably brown, most likely advertising whatever local business had donated them) and your teacher then instructed everyone to carefully wrap your textbooks in the paper covers so the books would last longer? You remember, right? And in the first month or so, you filled that paper cover with all sorts of pencil doodles? And then during the second month of school (or maybe the third, if you had been especially careful) the paper cover fell off due to the wear and tear that comes from shoving the book into your backpack (not to mention the holes you poked and tears you tore to encourage the dang thing to fall off because, really, how lame are textbook covers?!)? Yes, well that very textbook wrapping activity - the one you did in about 30 seconds as a first grader - is what I got paid minimum wage to do for three of my high school summers.

EXCEPT that the process I was part of was MUCH improved from the primitive book-wrapping technique you employed. I was part of a book wrapping team of eight, y'all. We had a four-step assembly line. Four people sat on one side of a table, and each book was passed down, first to the Folder, then the Cutter, then the Gluer, and then the Labeler. And this assembly line was mirrored on the other side of the table for a total of two (count 'em - TWO!) assembly lines.

The coolest position to have was Cutter. This person cut off the corner flaps in order to provide a clean fold for the Gluer. Cutting required both accuracy and speed. The flaps needed to be cut at just the right angle or glue would seep out and the book cover would be stuck to the last page of the book. And a fast cutter was highly valued because she could cut (literally - heh) several seconds off the process, meaning minutes saved on a stack of books (and thus more time to goof off during lunch). A truly talented cutter could actually cut for both assembly lines and still keep up. Cutting was also the most exhilarating because there was actual risk involved - scissors moving at that speed are dangerous.

Cutting was my forte; I was fucking fast, y'all. To this day hearing the snip-snip of scissors gets my adrenaline going. I also served as Folder and Gluer from time to time, but I was discouraged from being a Labeler because that task required neat handwriting. (Unfortunately, no one stopped to ask potential Labelers how well they could spell, and so as a result we left one high school with stacks of "Scocial Studies 9" textbooks.)

We wrapped every motherfucking textbook, elementary through high school, in the school division. Every Last One. It took us all fucking summer. But oh, the PRIDE I felt when those carefully wrapped textbooks were handed out the first day of school. The way my fellow students clearly admired the covers' clean lines, sharp corners, and tight fit (right before they dug a fingernail down the front and tore if off - sons of bitches), made it all worthwhile. Truly.

Okay, not really. I mean, come on, I wasn't a total loser. Truth is, the job kicked ass because I had a couple friends who also did it and so we spent all summer gossiping and spending on-the-clock time hanging out at the ice cream shop. Oh, and WE GOT TO DRIVE CAPRICE CLASSICS ALL OVER THE COUNTY. Kick ass. You haven't lived until you have raced a Caprice Classic over twisty, hilly country roads, getting so much air that not only does your ass leave the seat but your head actually hits the roof.

Those were the days.

WHAT THE FUCK, BEEOTCH?! Did you not do the ring check? Surely you did. Because checking for the ring? That is what we, as women, do. We check for the ring. Always. Even when we aren't interested, even when it is none of our business, we still check for the ring. We are ring-checker-for-ers.

But okay. I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Because I can understand how you might have taken one look at that husband of mine and the desire to jump his bones might have pushed out every rational thought in your head. And I can understand how you might have then inched slowly towards him, under the guise of browsing for books, until you were standing very near to him (or, to use his words, "uncomfortably close"). But what I'm having trouble understanding is how in such close proximity you still didn't notice the ring. It's right there! On his hand! And so I'm thinking that either you are a wannabe homewrecker bitch or you are just really fucking stupid.

And I have to tell you that as my husband was relaying this story to me, I was going with the wannabe homewrecker bitch theory. Until he got to the part when you said, all the while giggling to your girlfriend, "This one's about Windows XP...I think that's what I have at home." And that's when I realized that, in fact, you're just really fucking stupid. Not because you're so clueless about computers that you don't even know what operating system you're running, but because you just admitted that you're that clueless about computers WHILE TRYING TO PICK UP A GUY IN THE TECHNOLOGY SECTION OF A BOOKSTORE. Not just admitted it, but actually used it as your line. Here's the thing - smart boys don't think stupid girls are cute. They think you're stupid. And moreover, geek geniuses fucking hate Windows. You might as well have announced that you have gonorrhea. Really, I think that would have gone over better.

Maybe you sensed that my husband thought you were a fucking idiot and perhaps as a result you lost a little courage. That is the only reason I can think of for why you walked away, still giggling with your girlfriend, just to then send A GUY over to get my husband's number on your behalf. A DUDE! When your buddy approached with his "Hey man, excuse me" routine, my poor husband thought he was about to be recruited for fucking Amway. And honestly, he would have written down his number for that way hella sooner than he would have for you. Which is not to say he is at all interested in Amway; it's just to say he is NOT AT ALL INTERESTED IN YOU. Because he's married. Because you're really fucking stupid. And because he doesn't even like blondes. Especially ones who use Windows.

Rob gets (nerd alert!) Games magazine, and we were doing one of the games together this morning over coffee. There were 15 illustrations and each one represented the name of a dance. Sorta - the catch was that whatever the drawing depicted was one letter off from the name of the dance. So, for example, there was an illustration of a pig with a shamrock. So we figured out that this was an Irish pig and then knew that the answer was Irish jig. And there was a picture of a rooster dressed as a punk rocker and we figured out he was a punky chicken and then knew the dance they wanted us to guess was the funky chicken. You with me?

Okay, so I was trying to figure out one that was a fax machine with horse legs that were running.

"Fax horse? Fax trot?"

"Yeah, that's it!" Rob said. "Faxtrot!"

"Faxtrot? What the hell dance is that supposed to be?"

Rob looked at me like the answer was completely obvious and that surely I was joking.

"Seriously, faxtrot? I don't get it."

"Faxtrot," he said in his think about it tone.

I looked at him blankly.

"It's FOXTROT!" he exclaimed, exasperated. "FOXTROT!!"

"Ohhhh, foxtrot!"

"Yeah, you know - the dance that has been the focus of our concentration for the past two weeks?!"

Well sure, when you put it like that, it seems totally obvious.

• Check it. John Stamos is now internationally recognized for his hotness. Well okay, maybe not internationally. But still. I mean, think of all the men on tv who are utterly bacon-frying HOT. Yeah, John Stamos is officially hotter than all of them. Well, except Josh Holloway, apparently. Which, not to say he isn't hot, but come ON - we all know that is a crock of shit. (Thanks, William, for sending me the link, even if your email did perhaps mock, a wee bit, the fact that Stud Stamos is not #1. Even though he totally is, unofficially.)




• MAJOR DEVELOPMENT in the yoga instructor crush! On Tuesday I wore the assless chaps...er, green pants, to yoga class. And the instructor...she fucking told me that I'm beautiful. This is HUGE, people. Granted, she was referring to the fact that I was rocking a particular pose, but still. She totally wants me.




• I had a third thing but I forget what it was.

It was this time of year, two years ago, that my mom started spiraling into a depression. We talked on the phone almost every day (still do) and I could hear it happening, in her voice. What she was saying was that she was okay, that she was fighting it, that she was still able to sleep some and she was sure she'd be fine. But her voice got weaker and sadder each day. I should have taken the signs more seriously, but I guess I really wanted to believe what she was saying, to believe that she would be fine.

This went on for a month. She fought it for a month. Then she stopped being able to sleep altogether, and she told me the last week of February that if she didn't start sleeping at night, she was going to have to stop working. Take sick days until she could sleep again. She just wasn't functioning well, she said. And I remember encouraging her to keep going, to at least make it through the rest of the week and maybe she would be able to regain sleep during the weekend. It was a selfish thing to say, and even as I said it I knew that it was. But I was so afraid of what taking off work meant. My mom never misses work, and for her to even consider taking some time off felt to me like she was giving up. And I couldn't stand the thought of her giving up.

She struggled through the week. I called each evening to check on her. Friday evening she told me that she'd left work that day at noon. That she just couldn't do it anymore. That she'd told her supervisor she didn't know when she'd be back. I'd never heard her voice so flat, so empty, so tiny, although in the months to come it only became more so.

When she finally let go of work, she gave up entirely. Which is what I had feared would happen, although I knew it wasn't her fault, that this wasn't the sort of thing I should expect her to fight on her own. When I called the next day, Dad was the one who answered the phone. Dad never answers the phone. His voice sounded a lot like mine - straining to be upbeat with the kind of hopefulness that comes from denial, like maybe if we talk an octave higher than usual and say really positive things with a phony smile on our faces then maybe this will just GO AWAY. I asked to talk to Mom and the hollowness of her hello told me that this was not going to just go away.

It didn't. Nothing seemed to help. Her doctor appointments weren't helping, the meds weren't helping, our pep talks weren't helping. Dad and I started taking shifts during the day to stay with her. We never discussed why we were doing this, but it was because we shared an unspoken concern of what might happen if we left her alone. She wasn't getting out of bed at this point and she only ate if we made her. Dad's technique was to be firm with her, to tell her she HAD to eat, as if she were a child. I couldn't handle the role reversal, couldn't handle mothering my own mother. So I played the daughter card and told her it would make me so happy if she would please eat this sandwich I'd made - I basically guilted her into eating. The fact that she went along with it assured me that deep down she still loved me more than anything.

There was a moment one day that I have tried to forget but I can't. She was lying in bed with her eyes closed; I was sitting next to the bed. I knew she wasn't sleeping because she was utterly unable to sleep. But she was lying so still. I watched her, waiting for her to shift slightly or for her eyelids to flutter or for her hand to move. Anything. But she remained absolutely still except for the almost imperceptible movement of her chest as she breathed. Her face was placid and held no sign of the suffering or the personality that I knew were behind her eyes. It was like she wasn't in there. And before I could stop it, I caught myself thinking, "This is how she will look at her funeral." My eyes welled up but I continued to stare at her through the blur. I wish I had been able to look away because that image is now burned in my mind and I hate it.

We took her to the hospital the next day. She had been admitted for depression once before, years ago, and after she had recovered she told us that the hospital had been hell for her. She hated it. And so this time Dad and I had been avoiding it, dreading the thought of putting her there against her will, hoping we could save her from having to go through that again. She had somehow convinced her doctor to let her keep trying at home. But finally, on this afternoon, she looked at me and said, "If [her doctor] saw me like this, he would admit me." She was giving me guidance, despite her condition. And she was giving me permission. To this day I am grateful to her for that. I called Dad at work and told him to come home so we could take her to the hospital. He sounded relieved, and hearing that in his voice immediately eased the guilt I was feeling over the fact that this was now the best day I'd had in weeks.

After we got her settled into her hospital room, we were asked to leave while she had a psych consultation. We wandered down to the patient lounge. Dad walked over to the window and I followed him and put my hand on his shoulder. When he turned to look at me his face was contorted into an expression of pain and then, suddenly, he was sobbing.

I only cried in private. To cry in front of Mom would have been to add to the guilt she was already feeling about the situation. And when I was with Dad, we were busy scheduling appointments with doctors and planning dinner and visiting Mom in the hospital and fielding phone calls from relatives and trying to maintain a sense of normalcy for my brother. I grieved a lot in the beginning, although soon I became so preoccupied with the details that I was mostly numb to the larger picture. But I remember coming home after visiting her in the hospital one evening - she had been in there for weeks with no improvement. As I pulled into the garage, it occurred to me for the first time that maybe she wouldn't ever get better. No one at the hospital was hopeful about her anymore; the entire staff seemed resigned. And I sat in the car and sobbed. I don't know how long I cried before I realized that Rob was standing outside the passenger door, trying to get in. I fumbled with the unlock button and in one swift movement he was in the seat next to me, crushing me against him.

Of course she got better. Maybe I shouldn't say of course - I shouldn't assume that depression always has a recovery. I definitely don't take my mom's recovery for granted. There are even things she does that have always annoyed me but that I now find myself glad for because they are so her and it is so good to have her back, completely. This month we've been working out together, and I find myself watching her. I soak in her exuberance and I can't help but compare the woman I see in front of me to the woman who was lying deathly still in bed. And then the whole process, this whole post plus some, replays in my mind - vignettes flash by and their associated emotions no sooner overcome me than they're replaced with the next set. I relive the entire experience within a matter of seconds. And then I catch her eye and smile. I am so grateful.

I think I have a crush on my yoga instructor.

I went to the first class, two weeks ago, with every intention of disliking her since she had opened a yoga studio in the very location that I had seriously (okay, not seriously, but still) considered opening a yoga studio. She had stolen my brilliant idea and crushed my entrepreneurial dream and if that isn't reason to hate someone then what is? But when I walked into class that first evening, she was all bubbly and benign and beautiful. And I immediately liked her, which is not at all typical of me. Especially when there is bubbly involved. I don't do bubbly.

There are certain telltale signs of a crush, and it seems I am behaving in ways that apply to all of them. Let's examine:

1. Thinking idiosyncrasies are cute. She is a dancer, and when she is sitting in a chair she has a habit of putting her feet on pointe. And for some reason I find this absolutely adorable.




2. Stalker tendencies. The ribbon-cutting ceremony for her studio was last Tuesday at 11am. This is not an event I would ever consider attending, especially during the work day. But last Tuesday at 10:55 I found myself walking the few blocks from my office to the yoga studio. In the pouring rain. To attend the ceremony. (I told myself I was going because I am a responsible citizen and a supporter of downtown revitalization and a proponent of women-owned businesses.) I got to meet her husband (who is not nearly attractive enough to match her) and her kids and her parents and her brother and did I mention that she was wearing THE cutest red skirt? And that she totally thanked me for coming?!




3. Dressing to be noticed. I bought a pair of snugly-fitting lime green velvet yoga pants at Target for the sole reason that they will show off my ass much better than the pants I've been wearing to class.




4. Determined to impress. Last week we were working on balance and she asked if anyone could demonstrate Tree pose for the group. And my arm shot up into the air and I might have maybe said, "Oooh! Me! Me! I can do Tree!" (I am the fastest arm-raiser around, a skill I developed in high school when I was a smarty-pants front row sitter whose hand was in the air more than it wasn't. Well, in English class, anyway.) And so she nodded and smiled (!) and I went into Tree, except I rushed it because I was so eager to please and so I didn't quite have my balance right before I lifted my leg up. I wobbled but I would have been able to regain my balance except that my heart was thudding so hard in my chest because SHE was watching ME! With her full attention!! And the pounding threw me completely off balance and so my Tree totally timbered. I was understandably devastated. However, as the rest of the class went into Tree, I quickly got back into the pose and then added on all the advanced moves in an attempt to win her affections. I'm not sure she noticed.




5. Unabashed gaped-mouth gawking. She has the most defined calf muscles I have ever seen! And she moves so gracefully into poses - yoga has never been more lovely. And her downward dog makes me want to hump her. There, I said it.

I don't think I had really put any of this together until last evening when Rob and I were getting ready for bed and I said, "Oh! I almost forgot to change my toenail polish!" And he looked at me as if to say, So? and I explained, "I need to paint my toes so that they match the shirt I'm wearing to yoga tomorrow." And he responded, "Why? You trying to impress someone or something?"

Not to worry - she's way out of my league.