The first night Adam and I kissed

The Kerry House bar where he bought and finished my drinks, then a bench outside a gift shop. The shop was called Surprise! and sure enough it was. He paced back and forth before it happened. "I can't help it," he said. "The energy."

I told him to come sit next to me. He kissed me so hard my lips ached.

If you told me we'd wind up married with a child and two crazy dogs, I'd say yes. God, yes.

Tilden Merry-Go-Round

So much of what matters in the same room

Stinging

My Washington Post article is up to 531 comments. While I have spared myself the wrath of the great majority, one glance at them tells me that I am:

- Ugly
- Ungrateful
- The worst type of product of my generation
- Headed for divorce
- A feminazi
- Typical Berkeley (yes, that's it for sure)
- A lesbian (like that's an insult?)

I've bounced back and forth as to how to handle this. I've been angry. I've been meditative. I've wanted to crawl under the covers and shake. But more than anything, I just feel brutalized.

I can take criticism. Sort of. But this ... this is something entirely different. Someone tweeted that they feel sorry for my son for having me as a mother. That is entirely too fucking far.

I've got some words for you, trolls: crawl out of your mother's basement and show your own fucking face. Write your own shit and get it published in a major outlet. Then have the nerve to come to me and tell me who I am.

Hello?

Crickets?

That's what I thought.

Conversation

ME: I feel like I can't get (inebriated) enough.
ADAM: As you're eating Malt-O-Meal with oyster crackers?

As posted on Facebook

I was just telling Adam that the way I'm dealing with this crazy comments thing is to think of it in a very Buddhist way (cue eye rolls, but bear with me). My worst cruelties have come from my own pain. I have to assume the same of the people who are commenting. Kindness is the way.

Mixed bag

I have an essay in the Washington Post today. Some people liked it. Many others didn't. The only thing I can say, think or feel is that I got people talking, and that I reached people. That's pretty much what I take away from this.