We’d started out thinking Disneyworld. But when, after a quick internet search, it became clear that Walt’s wonderland was just a teensy bit out of our budgets, we settled on something a little closer, but every bit as exciting.

This weekend, Sarah and I are paying a visit to our nation’s capital.

Both Washington DC virgins, we’ve been talking about this trip for weeks now. In the middle of a sea of crapass workdays and personal drama, Washington DC has been our life raft. A girl has to have something to look forward to! And in looking forward, we’ve exchanged literally hundreds of emails making plans, train and hotel reservations, and drafting itineraries of the most alluring of the city’s attractions: The Spy Museum (!), Capitol Hill, and of course, the Lincoln Memorial.

“I am seriously so excited about this trip. It's all that's keeping me going.”

“It’s going to be so great. Even if it rains. It'll be like, a wet t-shirt contest with Lincoln as the judge.”

“Well, and then there was that... the best sentence ever invented.”

Nobody loves Honest Abe more than Sarah does. Nobody. And I decided early on that if I have to get arrested so that she can have a memorable moment with him, well, then so be it.

“If want to curl up and take a nap in the Lincoln Memorial's lap, will you distract the guards?”

“And here I thought you'd try to molest him. But either way, yes, I got your back.”

“I knew I could count on you. Oh, and I just looked; we have perfect weather all weekend!”

“Great! I mean, Abe is going to be a little disappointed, but he'll get over it. I mean, he's been shot for god's sake. Missing a wet t-shirt contest won't kill him.”

Mamas, lock up your assassinated ex-presidents!

Er, um, something like that. And if you don’t hear from us on Monday? Send legal assistance.

In the last year, his beard has lost all of its color and become shock white against his pale skin. His face is broader, cheeks hang flattened and deeply creased. His hands shake noticeably – a fact he seems to try to showcase, rather than conceal. I watch as he plays it up and then scans the table for a reaction.

I look quickly back at my own plate. I do not want to play this game. With this man I hardly recognize.

When he accuses his children of selling him out – amid rants about the government, his ex wife and the gun he keeps beneath his pillow – he grows stranger and stranger. From his mouth pours paranoia and self-pity and from his eyes, nothing. At times, the color grays out of them, leaving them pale and cloudy, like those of newborns and the dying.

I sit, pressing the tips of my fingernails into the flesh of my palm, trying not to feel the sickness that is ripping through my gut. Who are you… I think, searching for the familiar. And where did my father go?

Had we never met, I wouldn’t have found him alarming. Only unbalanced and odd, a statistic of an earlier war. But now he’s frightening and foreign.

One moment, he is calm and sentimental and the next, irrational and angry. His children – who were a sentence before, his heartbeat – are now cruel traitors in a plot to undermine and hurt him. I do not know whether to be furious or distraught. I do not make up my mind. Instead, I hiccup for the next several hours, my body unable to suppress the upset.

A year has made him a stranger. There are very few remnants of the man I knew in this man with the wiry mane and distant stare. In this profound absence, I feel as though there’s been a death. With so much loss to contend with, each new encounter becomes a small funeral. I find myself wearing sackcloth and ashes, and my emotions so close to the surface I’m sweating grief. And lacking a corpse, I’m forced instead to bury my expectations and my need for the way things were.

I am nothing if not glamorous.

It is true. And in light of our fab-obsessed culture, I have decided to illustrate for you just how the glam-mer half lives – by making a list of the super-fabulous things I did before noon today alone that qualify me for my own reality TV program, narrated by Robin Leach (or some other classy sounding British dude).

My Glamorous Morning

7:12 a.m. Stepped in cat vomit.
7:14 a.m. Cleaned up cat vomit. While bending over cleaning, got cat vomit in my glamorously long hair. Swish! Gasp! Puke!
8:16 a.m. Retrieved favorite black sweater from laundry basket (having been way too glamorous to do laundry this weekend). Shook it out. Wore it. For like, the ninth time. Glam alert!
9:31 a.m. Sniffed milk, decided it was questionable. Poured it into coffee.
10:50 a.m. Found an unwrapped piece of gum in the bottom of my purse. And ate it.

I should really stop there. I don’t want you all thinking I’m unapproachable, or that my lifestyle is unattainable to the common man. It’s not! Even I had years of training – and from the most unlikely of sources. My own baby sister used to eat dried worms off the sidewalk.

"No way."

"What?"

"I'd say, 'don’t be obvious’,' but she deserves it. Look to your left."

And one by one, my brother, his girlfriend, my sisters and my father turned to have a look for themselves. As the waiter served her dessert, a well-dressed, middle aged woman at the next table had yanked out a yard of string and sat flossing her teeth. We stared in horror as she sucked at her front teeth and flossed away as though there nothing more appropriate for her to be doing in a nice restaurant than going about her dental hygiene routine.

When I say nice, I mean, it wasn’t swanky, but there were linen napkins and a fairly large bill – things which usually keep public flossers and nosepickers at home. It was the kind of place where you wear nice clothes, bring your tables manners... and leave your floss behind. Or at least in your purse until you’re in the privacy of the bathroom.

I was bewildered. Even more bewildered that no one else in the restaurant seemed to notice or care.

“Isn’t there something you can do about this?”

My brother laughed, and shook his head indicating that no, he couldn’t arrest her for having atrocious manners. I stared at the woman some more and frowned. This was criminal! Fat lot of good having a cop in the family was doing me, though. I could only hope her car registration had expired. Boy, then she’d be sorry.

As we drove home from the restaurant, a nervous flutter leapt into my stomach as we made a right at a red light without so much as a pause. Another reminder that I was far, far from New York. I got yet another reminder later that week as my sister and I walked through the campus bookstore. We browed and talked and laughed and more than once, I found myself the object of a turned head and a sideways glance.

In Utah, you can make a right on red. You can floss your teeth in public and not turn a single head. But you had better bite your tongue. And under no circumstances, when surrounded by the righteous, can you ever suggest that the Almighty’s middle name is the f-word.

They really hate that shit.

I know. I didn't even tell you I was leaving. But last Friday, I hopped a plane bound for exotic Utah to spend spring break with my brother and sisters. We ate, laughed, Scrabbled. I slept all bundled up in an attic bed, took cold showers and for the first time in… well, ever, I was not anxious to get back to New York.

I didn’t even miss my computer.

I did write a nice long post on the flight home, but since the red eye always seems to be a much better idea than it actually is, that post is going to have to wait til I get some real sleep.

I’m such a blog tease.

“Are you waiting for me?”

“Excuse me?” I dug the earbud out of one ear.

“Are you waiting for me?”

I glanced to either side of me. No one else on the busy Union Square sidewalk seemed to be paying any attention to the stocky, bareheaded man in front of me. Inwardly, I grimaced. I knew I should have waited inside, but the weather had lured me out – out where the weird, confrontational stranger was waiting.

“Am I waiting for you? No.”

“I wish,” he said. And then his eyes made like an elevator. Up, down.

Eeew.

I smiled that polite half-smile that says, ‘I humor you so you won’t kill me’ and tucked the earpiece back where it belonged. Ah, beautiful iPod, ender of awkward conversations. I watched as the stranger had taken a step forward, but I turned my right shoulder to him (clue one), cranked up the volume on my Carpenters Love Songs (clue two) and began answering a text on my cell phone (the final clue in this round of Who Wants to Avoid a Weirdo?). Officially, this conversation was over.

“So. You don’t like talking to strangers?”

Or not.

To Guillermo (who is an artist and sometimes just gets so caught up in his work that a whole day goes by, and let’s go over to Cosi so he can buy me a coffee or hot chocolate or glass of wine, my friend will probably not show up anyway), our chit-chat was just getting going. After he’d ignored all of my obvious signals, the smart/rude thing would have been to continue ignoring him. But feeling neither smart nor rude, I just shook my head. No, I do not like talking to strangers.

“Because, you know, we are not strangers. We are just friends in the process of meeting.”

Where do they come up with this shit? The Children’s Television Workshop? Later, when he thrusts me a ‘business’ card that he’s pulled out of a Sesame Street card holder, I think, Ah, yes, it all makes sense.

“What is your name?”

“Heather.” And… it’s the gym weirdo situation all over again. I never learn anything.

“You have beautiful eyes. Did anyone ever tell you that?”

Now, there is a difference between friendly and creepy. And within seconds, Guillermo left friendly far, far behind. After I politely declined his repeated invitation ("I'm waiting for a friend."), he grabbed my elbow and tried to physically propel me around the corner toward coffee and/or certain death.

“No, no. Your friend is probably not coming.”

But then she did come. At that exact moment. When Sarah appeared, I hugged her tightly. Turn and go, Sarah. Turn and go.

I’m often surprised at other people’s limits… or more appropriately, their lack of them. No matter how many I encounter, the Tims and Guillermos of the world shock the shit right out of me. Who acts like that? Are they serial killers or just socially inept? People don’t come with warning labels or handling instructions, so how am I supposed to know? I’m not. So after yesterday, I have decided: no more suffering awkwardness, even for the sake of politeness. I am done.

My mother always told me not to talk to strangers, anyway. And I’m in the habit of listening to my mother. You know, when it’s convenient.

Heather: I had a really horrible dream the other night. I woke up in bed with a guy I didn't want to sleep with (I have a foggy notion that it was Mark). I was panicked. We must have been drunk, because I couldn’t remember any of it happening and I didn't know if we'd used a condom. It was terrifying.

Sarah: Oh no! I hate realistic bad dreams. They throw off your mood all day long.

Heather: Right? I woke up and sincerely thought I had to go find a morning after pill!

Sarah: Shudder. Imaginary bullet dodged.

Heather: I know. God. Can you imagine? Mark's love child? Is there anything i want less?

Sarah: Hmmm…

Heather: Herpes maybe. Or huaraches.

Sarah: I would vote for huaraches.

Heather: The Rosemary's Baby of footwear.

The anticipation is making me antsy.

Is that the buzzer? No? Damn. I'm finding little chores for myself around the apartment, just to keep from running to the peep hole every time I hear a sound in the hallway. Is it here? It feels like Christmas Eve, waiting up for Santa Claus. I mean, you know, if Santa Claus were made of food.

My very first Fresh Direct delivery should be here any minute!

With a grocery store being no more than a stone’s throw out my front door, you might think that ordering my groceries online is the epitome of lazy. And you’d be wrong. Mostly wrong anyway. Sure, being spared the often less-than-delightful experience of Gross-tedes was a plus factor when I finally took the Fresh Direct leap, but it wasn’t the selling point. Yogurt was.

Ever since my doctor laid down the law about calcium, I’ve developed a pretty serious, two yogurt a day habit. I know. I’m a maniac. And at the grocery store across the street, that habit was costing upwards of fifteen dollars a week. Now, fast-forward to the moment I clicked Fresh Direct’s dairy link and discovered the same yogurt for…

“Sixty-three cents? You gotta be fucking kidding me!”

“I know, right? Who knew it’d be cheaper to be lazy?”

Ari and I, being about as big of weirdoes as you can possibly be, were online grocery shopping together. Over the phone. On a Friday night. We’d talked produce, ready-to-cook meals (you know, the kind that make you look like a Martha Stewart when you’re really more of a Roseanne), and pet food and…

“You can order cases of Diet Coke.”

“I saw that.”

“I can’t believe it. This is a quality of life issue! We’ve been half-dead and we didn’t even know it.”

So, now, I bide my time in my two hour window; I’m kicked back, blogging, waiting for the (deeply discounted) yogurt to come to me. Ahh, yeah. Knowledge is power, my friends.

It’s like that time I discovered my baby sister would do just about anything for two shiny pennies.

When I came to, there were tears streaming down my cheeks.

"Heather?"

I stared at the face saying my name. She had to be a nurse, but I hadn't seen her before. I blinked hard at her and other faces swam into view. The doctor. Goldner's mom. I'd been dreaming something. But what?

“How long have I been out?”

“Seconds, only. Are you alright, sweetie?”

“I’m so hot...” and before the word hot was out of my mouth, there was a cup of cold water in my right hand. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying.”

“Honey, don’t apologize.”

I wiped away tears with the back of my hand. As I set the water down, I could feel the heat rise up into my face, perspiration forming on my temple. Sweat ran down my back.

Everything went black again.

Later, both the doctor and Mrs. G would tell me they’d never seen anything like it. Fainting dead away, eyes open, arms pinned to my body, seized up tight. Twice.

I’d gone in to the doctor’s office early that afternoon. Nothing serious – just a sore throat and a mild fever – but the way things go at work, I can’t afford to let it get much worse.
I emailed G after lunch and within ten minutes, Mrs. Goldner, who so conveniently works in an internist’s office in my neighborhood, had worked a little magic and squeezed me in.

No one could have predicted the fainting.

No one can really explain it, either. I’d eaten a good lunch. My fever was down. None of the subsequent blood tests revealed anything off. Though, oddly, minutes before I passed out, the doctor asked me my age and I didn’t know. Twenty-eight? No, wait… twenty-seven? Inwardly, I was upset at being so confused. But we made a few jokes about early signs of senility and went on. One minute I’m sitting, talking to the nurse and the next, I’m waking up bawling.

I couldn’t see, I could hear properly, and I was scared. And after that wore off… really, really embarrassed.

When I came around the second time, it was even harder to push back the blackness. I was fighting to stay conscious. I can’t see. Nurses fanned at me with folders and stroked my arm. Shhh. You’re okay. I blinked several more times and as the faces became more clear, I asked to lie down.

“Ah, look. Your color’s coming back. For a while, you were the same shade as your pretty white teeth.”

Water, tea, a cookie and a forty minute rest later, I was feeling a little more like myself. Confused and shaken, but otherwise fine. And now, a few hours after the whole ordeal, I’m still not really sure what happened.

Whatever that was, it sure makes a girl think twice about cracking off-handed fainting couch jokes, I tell you.

Where've I been?

Well, I've been here, mostly. Camped out on my sofa, nursing a bit of a sore throat (if I'm lucky, it's the mumps) and making some April vacation plans.

This weekend, though, I did get out a bit. On Sunday, I took full advantage of the sunshine. And then later, of a few bucks from my tax return to go shopping with Sarah. But even shopping, I wasn’t, shall we say, bringing my A-game. *Shudder*. I started out in fine shape, eyeing a pair of sex-in-red-leather Calvin Klein sandals, but ended bringing home a new bathrobe, a dvd and the third installment of the Traveling Pants series.

What? I’m fine.

It just seems that when I get the blues, I get the director’s cut. Way too long and drawn out. I’m sure I’ll be feeling red leather again in no time. But right now? I’m pale pink terrycloth.

Incidentally, while I was having a quickie with those shoes, Sarah made a horrifying discovery: They still make huarache sandals. If they’re still making them, that means people (other than my mother) are still wearing them. On purpose.

I know. I’m as upset as you are.

Before I go seek solace with my book, I want to say thanks to Alyce from New Mexico for the most excellent surprise. I don’t even remember adding it to my wish list, but it’s the most perfect pick-me-up gift. And so well-timed in it Jane Austen-y-ness. Thank you.