SFO brings him back like nowhere else.

Of the seven years I dated my ex-boyfriend, five and a half were long distance. We were an hour and a half apart for some of it, four hours away for some of it, an ocean apart for some of it*. At some point though, it doesn’t matter what the distance is. If you cannot choose to have dinner together to resuscitate a bad day, it is too far. I hated being in a long distance relationship. It is only half-living, with your heart and thoughts never whole and always aching. For a long time I thought that the only thing worse than dating him so far away would be not dating him.

In one sense, having a long distance relationship is like having this blog. I would watch throughout the day, try to notice funny things and save them up to tell him. I know when I have a crush on someone because I start talking to him in my head, trying to find the phrases that are clever enough that he’ll want to keep talking to me, or a story that makes me look like the kind of person he would want to be with. If I get to talk to him for real, I have to keep reminding myself that just because I want to tell him things doesn’t make him want to hear them. Almost certainly not in so much detail.

But you do! I know absolutely that every one of you is sharp and funny and devastatingly attractive, and that you choose to read the stories I save up. I can have a crush on you; I can tell you these things! Sometimes you write to tell me that I am so cute and witty, and that’s enough to keep the relationship going. It takes the pressure off until I find a real person who wants to pay that kind of attention to me. Thank you.





*My first year of law school I got tired of explaining that yes, I did have a boyfriend in another country and no, I didn’t want to be a lawyer. I switched to telling people that he was in prison and I was going to get him out one day.

I would totally send plagues and locusts.

I’m the most mellow, easygoing person you know. I don’t take things personal; I start with the most generous interpretation of other people’s motives I can find and I top that off with the benefit of doubt. I walk away from people doing annoying things with a grin and a head shake, on the grounds that life is too short for drama. In my entire life, I may have been in one or two arguments with raised voices, but I haven’t been in four or five. I would remember.

It takes extraordinary provocation to get me mad, but when I am finally angry, it is forever. When my ex and ex-best friend told me, they were instantly expelled from my life. A week later I called Sean, bewildered and hurt. “Sean,” I said, “I don’t understand. There are people who think I should forgive them.” He laughed and said, “Oh no, Meggie. You’ll never do that. You’re Old Testament.” He’s right. I am.

The only other person I’m angry at is Laura, from sixth grade. Margie, Tracy and I can all tell exactly the same story. Each of our best friends from childhood through fifth grade decided to be popular in sixth grade and started climbing by turning on us. I had no idea it was coming; by the time she was done I was untouchable. After a couple months I gave up hope that anyone in my class would look at me or talk to me. I just read all the time. I didn’t know this then, but Mom told me later that my beautiful, popular sister used to cry after school because kids were so mean to me.

I went to nerd schools after that. Junior high gradually got better; nerd high school was great. But Laura cost me two miserable years and she did it as part of a deliberate plan. Tracy got an email this weekend from the girl who was mean to her; she thought hard and then responded graciously. Not me. I wouldn’t. I maybe think of Laura once a year. When I do, though, I hope that bitch is having a fucking awful life.

OH my.

We threw a freakin’ rager here last night. I haven’t thrown a party that good since the first fall league party three years ago, and I was sick then too. That fall league party came a week after I found out about my ex-boyfriend and ex-best friend. I was sick with the shock and hurt, exhausted from playing four games in the fall league tourney, and coming down with something that turned into two weeks of pneumonia. I would never have gone to the party if it weren’t at my house, but it turned out great. Knowing I was sick took away my usual feeling of hostess obligation, and the fatigue and Vitamin I made me giddy and spacey. The prettiest boy at the party had been through something similar and decided to keep me company the whole party, which cemented a solid friendship. (He slept over too, but the fucker slept on the couch, which cemented that friends is all we would be.) Anyway, the house was packed, fruity drinks were drunk, people looked great in small clothing, and the dancing started right back up after the cops left.

I’ve wanted to throw another party like it, so I was thrilled when Roxie and Ali committed to co-hosting. The theme was OH!, as in ooohhhh yeaahhh, OH! face, Off the Hook, and OH!rgy (and not Ohio, like some people thought. Why would we throw a party about Ohio?). My throat hurt and I had a fever all yesterday, but once again, the party was at my house. It started off right, with a guest I didn’t know well being helpful and funny and spontaneously making fun of someone I don’t like. Everyone got half of one of these rOHmance novel covers, and had to find the person with the other half. We enforced food orgy rules -no utensils and you can’t feed yourself. The dancing started early and went ‘til 2:30, thanks to DJ Parkour. But maybe the best part was that lovely Ali brought some erotica over and people did fabulous readings. The music set-up included a microphone and Nehal would introduce a reader every hour or so. There were hook-ups.

The whole party was awesome. I’m tired and sick today, but my house is restored. The people who have come by for their leave-behinds all say they had a great time. I know I had a great time. I hope it doesn’t take another three years for it to happen again. I hope you’re at the next party. I hope I didn’t make too many people sick, what with all the feeding and dancing and maybe some making out.

Kaimana I - Nice Hooterz

Ultimate team names are usually puns, often raunchy. The Sacramento co-ed team is called Hot in the Sac; the Sacramento women’s team is Sacxy. Hot Valley of Love is a great local tournament in August. Sacxy sent six women to Kaimana, which is not enough. We combined with another group of women that couldn’t field an entire team. I winced when I saw they were calling themselves NadaLada Hooterz. It was inevitable that the combined team name would be Sacxy Hooterz, and why we gotta bring that up?

I’ve been stacked since sixth grade, and I am well aware that it is most of what people see when they meet me. When I have to tell people what I look like, I start with “ 5’7”, brunette”, and pause before I finish with “…oval face”. “Huge rack” would clue people in much faster. I have twice inadvertently walked up behind men who were describing me with emphatic hand gestures at chest level. The ex-boyfriend dated me for two months before his roommate told him that I have blue eyes, but I can’t believe there was a minute of our acquaintance that he couldn’t have guessed my bra size*. Men stare on the street and creepy men can’t hold eye contact. A girlfriend didn’t believe that I choose all of my shirts to minimize my breasts, but when I showed her the alternative, she choked and her eyes got big.

As we meet our teammates, they all have the usual build for Ultimate. 5’8”, thin, ripped, nice ass from running hard, no breasts to speak of. And these girls were good! Freakin’ fast, gorgeous throws, able to catch anything anyone put up. I’m a fine local player, but I am not in their league at all. They kept winning our games, so our match-ups got harder and harder. As I became more of a relative liability on the field, I tried to focus on not making errors and staying out of their way. They were nothing but gracious, but on at least a couple occasions I remember thinking: well, at least the team name plays to my strengths.


*It never bothered me that he was a breast man. Really, he might as well be. Of course the right attitude is: “I love whatever you’ve got, baby. Big or little, yours are perfect.” Still, if the guy I’m with doesn’t prefer large breasts, that’s just utility lost to the world.

Who spells it CaCee, anyway?

Oh Jess, I was so sorry to hear about Nick and CaCee. I never wanted to have anything in common with you, and I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. It will hurt worse than you can imagine for longer than I want to tell you. You are going to have to re-build your life, and you are going to have to do it without the parts of your soul you gave to the two people you loved most.

People are going to react in one of two ways. There will be people who suggest that they didn’t mean to hurt you, and if they were in love they couldn’t help it, and that maybe, down the road, when everything has settled down, you guys can be friends again. These people have nothing to offer you in this situation, but it is good that they have revealed themselves. They are moral relativists; they cannot be trusted. They are gentle and well-meaning, so there is no reason to tell them how fucked up that is. And one day, you may do something transgressive and it will be good to have them running around making excuses for you.

There will also be people who gasp when they hear and immediately tell you how much they want to slap that bitch. Now you know these people are either loyal or they understand right and wrong (or both); either of those are a step up from your best friend of twelve years and ex-boyfriend of seven years. These are the people who will offer you peace and solace in the bad months to come.

My last advice is: don’t take revenge. I know how much you want to. I know about the dreams. But life is long and revenge will only feel satisfying for a while. Self-righteousness, on the other hand, can last for years. Of course, if you were an adulterous skank who slept with co-stars left and right, the high road may be a bit of a stretch for you. Still, do not take revenge. In the long run, being them will be punishment enough.

Good luck, honey. It will get better, I promise.

P.S. Oh and Jess, since I apparently have no shame this week, could you please tell Ashlee that her new song is totally catchy? She’s flat, but we can all agree that was intentional. I don’t want to like it, but it makes me dance every time. L O, L O, L O, L O V E

Really, it was nothing.

Sometime in the mid-90’s, my then-boyfriend and I met up with a bunch of his high school friends at Gordon Biersch in San Francisco. The dot-com boom was treating them well and they were talking happily about their jobs. I tried to listen, because my mother told me about good manners and god knows my natural tact is not going to get me through this life. But the woman across from me was going on and on, something about her huge salary and office, and how they like her so much that when this other company tried to hire her away, they just had to give her a raise and a car. She probably told me what kind of car it was, but that’s the kind of detail that loses me every time. I hope I looked attentive, but inside I went back to counting Rachel haircuts.

As we drove home, my then-boyfriend said the only thing that could have made her interesting to me. “You know she was lying, right?” I was shocked. It hadn’t even occurred to me. He said that she had been a compulsive liar even in high school, and all that stuff about raises and bonuses was more of the same. I hadn’t doubted a word. I know so many people whose accomplishments just blow me away. Why wouldn’t she be another one?

But more than that, I can’t imagine lying about stuff like your salary. I mean, if I were a compulsive liar, I would be all “For a split second, I didn’t know which to do. Catch the baby falling from the burning building, or dive through the open window of the runaway fire truck to steer it away from the crowd of helpless bystanders? Then I realized how I could do BOTH.” Lie about a corner office? Jesus, why?

I haven’t seen her in years. For her sake, I hope she's realized that she doesn't have to impress her friends with lies about her salary. The world is such a big place, and there are so many better things to lie about.

…The firefighters were so grateful for my help. They had taken off their shirts in the roaring heat, and the light from the dying flames flickered across their sooty, sweaty chests. One fireman came over to ask if he could thank me more personally…