Another Day After

Today the weather was even nicer than it was yesterday. But I didn't ride my bike to work. I had a very early class. That wouldn't have been a problem: In fact, it would have been nice to ride even earlier in the morning than I rode yesterday. However, I woke up too late for that. I didn't set my alarm clock because I fell asleep while reading a student's paper. The funny thing is that I didn't feel tired immediately after getting home. I guess it caught up with me. Plus, dilating and taking my requisite hot bath afterward was probably not the best preparation for reading papers, or doing any other kind of work!

Well...at least I've ridden to work once this week. Maybe next week I'll make cycle to work a couple of times. The following week will be Spring Break. Hopefully, I'll get to ride some more then.

Maybe, once I lose some weight, I should move to Provence or Tuscany--or, perhaps, to some European city. Once I get my Miss Mercian, I'll be the most stylish cyclist anyone will ever see!

Actually, Provence and Tuscany are appealing after the kind of weather we've had this winter. I don't mind the cold or snow so much; some city blocks are rather charming in a Currier and Ives Christmas card sort of way when they're blanketed in white. But other parts of this city, like the campus and its surroundings, are rather grim in the winter.

And the college itself, save for the students, feels grimmer by the day. I'm starting to wonder whether--actually, doubt that--it will lift with the weather. The administration is trying to make the college a better place, at least academically, and I think that, at least to some degree, they're succeeding. But they're also running the place as if everyone is guilty until proven innocent. They accuse us of things we haven't done and, in turn, supervisors are treating their charges in the same way.

Plus, I feel more and more that I'm in junior high school without the friends--few though they were--I had during my first pubescence. Even the "cool" kids, whom people like me hated because we weren't among them, are absent. Instead, what we have, at least in some of the people there, are the kinds of people who bully because they got bullied when they were at that age. Sometimes I wonder whether education (or, at least, education administration) generally attracts those sorts of people.

Maybe I'll feel better about the place after Spring Break. At least, I still hope for that.

Still More To Come?

So...after a weekend in which current and former love figured, it was back to reality. And I'm not talking about the TV shows that, in spite of what they're called, are "reality" in the same way that Twinkies are food.

So, after that weekend, today shouldn't have come as a surprise: The classes were great and the department meeting was long and boring--though, to be fair, not as long or boring as the previous couple of meetings were.

I still can't believe how tired I felt last night. The ride I did yesterday, while nice, is the sort of ride I used to sneak in between commitments. Yesterday it was a fairly big deal. These days, just being on the bike is a big deal for me. At least I didn't feel sore in or around my new organs. However, the ride showed me that I do need to lose weight.

Speaking of bikes, I've ordered another. It will be made by Mercian, as two of my three bikes are. However, unlike my other Mercians, which are "diamond" frames (often referred to as "men's " bikes), this one will be a "step-through" or "ladies'' frame, in which the top bar is dropped rather than horizontal as it is on the "men's" bikes. This means, among other things, that it will be easier to ride in a skirt or a long coat or sweater. Plus, this new bike will be equipped with fenders, a chain guard and "porteur" style handlebars.

From what Hal at Bicycle Habitat (from whom I ordered the bike) says, I'll probably have the bike in late July. If it arrives then, it will make a nice, if somewhat late, birthday present to myself. Of course, I'll be celebrating two birthdays this year: the Fourth, which is my natal birthdate, and the Seventh, the date on which I had my operation.

Now I'm feeling tired again, mainly because I've had a long day. And I'll have another tomorrow. I won't complain, though: I have a feeling that there's even more--of what, I'm not quite sure--to come.

A Bike Ride Into Change

I just had to get out of the house and on my bike, even if only for a little bit. And even if I still had a heavy cold.

Today I pedaled somewhere I haven't been in quite a while: the Williamsburg waterfront. It's not far from where I live, but it seems like an accomplishment, given how little bicycling I've done over the past few months.


Plus, I had a feeling that my lungs and sinuses wouldn't clear themselves much more if I stayed in the house. So I took my trusty Mercian fixed gear bike, which made me feel as if I'd ridden only yesterday.


It's only been about six or seven months since I've been there, but in some ways I could scarcely recognize it. Oh, the amazing views of the Manhattan skyline haven't changed. Nor has the metallic yet briny smell of the mist from the East River about half a mile from the Williamsburg Bridge.


One odor that's gone is that of a freshly-opened box of Domino's brown sugar. That smell filled the air near the factory that made the stuff, next to the river and practically at arm's length from the Bridge, even after it closed a few years ago. Now that the aroma and the jobs that made it possible are gone, I wonder what will happen to that building. If a structure can be beautiful in a Dickensian way, that factory building is. Will some developer turn it into a condominiums?


If it were to be converted, it certainly wouldn't be like the condo buildings that stand along the waterfront now. Construction on those condo buildings started about two years ago; they have been completed for several months now. They are much like others that have been built in the last ten years or so along the city's waterfront: rectangles of steel, mortar and glass that are meant to be stopovers for the night for young professionals who work, and young trust-funders who do whatever they do, in and among the famous buildings they can see from their apartment windows. Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but I have a hard time imagining them as places of rest, much less living.


Even more noticeable was the new bike lane along Kent Avenue--and the absence of trucks. I have long enjoyed cycling there after business hours and on weekends, when the formerly industrial landscape became strangely serene. When I rode there on weekdays, I was never worried, not even when the trucks came and went: Most of those drivers were considerate and curious. All you had to do was make yourself visible and not do anything stupid, and all was well.


It was even quieter there on Saturdays than on Sundays because most of the small factories and warehouses that lined that stretch of the river were owned by Hasidic Jews. Although I have seen them only from a distance (As I understand, their religion frowns upon communication with outsiders unless it's absolutely necessary.), they were part of the landscape, if you will. It was odd, to say the least, not to see any along Kent Avenue today.


In a way, it's surprising that these changes didn't happen sooner. The part of Williamsburg along and near Bedford Avenue has long been a hipster haven, and many of the lofts near it were artists' and musicians' studios. As happened neighborhoods like the Village, Soho and Park Slope in past decades, what follows young creative people and wannabes is young money, whether of the yuppie or the preppie variety.


Now, I don't mean for this to be a sociological analysis. Instead, I just want to describe a change I've noticed. Even though I hardly ever had contact with the Hasidic Jews, I somehow felt a kind of kinship with them. As best as I can tell, it has to do with the fact that they're survivors, and I can say that I've had to be one. So, even in my lycra-clad racer-wannabe days, I felt completely at home when I rode through the Hasidic Industrial Zone, if you will.


Plus, they were, I now realize, among the last holdovers of an old way of living and thinking in New York. They worked at the waterfront. They weren't there for the views or the prestige of a waterfront address, mainly because, when they were there, a waterfront address had no prestige. Maybe it's because New York has so much shoreline that residents of the city didn't value--and, it seemed at times, denigrated--the water's edge. The most prestigious addresses in Manhattan (along upper Fifth, Madison and Park Avenues) are the ones furthest from the water. And in Park Slope, the further up the slope--and the further from the water--you go, the more elegant and pricey the brownstones become.


Meanwhile, the waterfront was for laborers, like my uncle who worked at Bush Terminal in Brooklyn. This seeming disdain for its shores was perhaps best seen in this city during the 1950's and 1960's, when the NIMBY projects, like public housing and waste disposal plants, were built along the oceanfront in Far Rockaway and Arverne and along the Hudson and East Rivers in Harlem.


So...I grew up among people who made their living--and, in some cases, lived--by the water. I still feel drawn to it, and to the kinds of people I've talked about, today. Perhaps that is the reason I've connected more easily with my students than with my colleagues.


But today, the few people I saw were at the water's edge, not to work, and not even to play, but for the relative proximity to the skyscrapers they can view from their windows. For some of them, it could just as well be part of the decor, as the remaining piers may as well be.


Don't get me wrong: I met a few people who were friendly enough when I stopped at the pier and went into the Duane Reade store at the base of one of the buildings. Admiring a baby's big blue eyes got me talking with his young parents; a young woman struck up a conversation over my bike when I propped it up by the pier. They all seemed nice enough and if I spent more time with them I might've found common ground. But I have seen the place in which they're living in a way they never could, and they could not even know that the eyes that allow for that way of seeing are fading; no new ones are being born to replace them. Of course that is inevitable: The world has changed, and so has this city and the neighborhood in which those younger people are living.


Jobs like the one my uncle worked no longer exist; the places that employed people like my uncle for those kinds of jobs--some of them located, only a few years ago, where those condo buildings now stand--are also gone. Gone, too, are the expectation that people like my uncle would work in such jobs (or that they would work in a factory, as my father did when I was a kid) and that their wives would stay home with the children they bore, as my mother did until my youngest brother went to school.


Part of me says, "Good riddance." After all, most people wouldn't want to work those jobs if they had other choices. And women, save for ones like the Hasidim, don't have to have children as soon as they're old enough to bear them or marry men so as not to compete with them for their jobs. Plus, if a woman is going to work, she doesn't have to be a nurse, secretary or elementary school teacher, as honorable and necessary as those jobs are.



In some way, I've come to realize that those changes have made my changes possible. I am not bound by those expectations that people once had for males like the one I portrayed or for the woman that I am and have become. So I had the option--though I had to wait many years for the opportunity--of leaving the constraints of my male body without dying. And I did not have to become the sort of woman Christine Jorgensen, bless her soul, became.


That is because the world in which I lived not so long ago no longer exists. Of course, that is a good thing in many ways. But sometimes it's still jarring to see so much change, and that it seems to have happened so quickly, even if I had to wait a long time for it. But here it is. I'm still finding my way around it and getting to know some of the people in it--and myself.

My Bikes And My Cats, As I'm Healing On The Coldest Day Of The Year

You've heard the old joke: "It's so cold the politicians have their hands in their own pockets." Perhaps we could update it by substituting "hedge fund managers" for "politicians." Anyway, that's how cold it felt today. As the weather forecasters promised, it was indeed about 25 degrees colder (on the Farenheit scale) and the wind blew about 25 MPH harder than what we experienced yesterday.

Sometimes I think cats know when it's cold outside even if the houses in which they're living are warm. It's as if felines have internal almanacs and thermometers. At least, all of the cats I've had seem to have been that way: They've curled up with me more at times like this than during more temperate days. It's no surprise, then, that Charlie is curled up on my left side and Max is on my right.

I went out briefly today. When I came back, I caught a glance of myself in the mirror. My face was even redder than it would have been if I'd spent the day out in the sun! Fortunately, I didn't have to deal with the pain and other after-effects of a sunburn.

Oddly enough, I started to think about bike riding. I haven't done any since Thanksgiving. I didn't want to ride today, but I was thinking that I'd like to get on my bike again soon. That big, ugly bruise and the swelling are all but gone now, and so is the pain from that mishap I had the day before Thanksgiving. On each of the rides I took last month, I adjusted the saddle position a little bit. I suspect that I'll have to ride some more before I find the "right" position for me. Before the surgery, that's what I had to do any time I got a new bike. (Well, OK, my "new" bikes weren't always new. Nor is the old Raleigh three-speed I bought last month.) Now I have a new body--or part of my body is new, sort of, anyway.

Filigree has suggested that I would want to ride in a more upright position. Actually, the three-speed is designed to be ridden in a more upright position than either of my Mercians. But I don't intend to ride it for long distances, which I can't imagine doing in a completely upright position. I doubt that I'll swap my road bike handlebars for cruisers, but I may experiment with the position of them. The nice thing about road bars is that they offer a variety of hand positions, so you can go "aero" for speed or when you're pedaling into the wind and slide upward a bit more when the going is a little easier, or when you want to go easier.

I don't think I'll be riding to work when I start teaching my winter session class next week. But I hope that some time early in the spring semester, I'll be able to do that. I was getting tired of having to ride the trains and buses. I haven't had to do any of that in a week. But next week, I'll be on the subway once again. Actually, I will take the train tomorrow, when I meet Bruce for lunch.

At least I don't feel bad about that, in a way: The day will start off cold and end with rain and/or snow, according to the forecasts. Time was when I would have biked in such conditions. But the times, they are a-chaingin', as Bob Dylan sang. And I'm sure they will by the next time I get on a bike.

Riding With "The Girls"

The temperature rose to nearly 70 F today. And it was one of those days that ended with the autumn sun burnishing the horizon with an orange glow like a hearth smoldering over the bay.

So I'll give you three guesses as to what I did.

I did a slightly longer ride, this time on Arielle, my geared Mercian road bike. Now she has bragging rights: Tosca, my fixed-gear Mercian, got my first ride yesterday, but Arielle got the longer ride.

Plus, Arielle got to spend the ride with Barbara and Sue, who've been my sometime riding companions for the past few years. Arielle likes it when people admire her. I don't fault her for that: After all, it's a trait she inherited from her mistress.

Today's ride negotiated the curves of Vernon Boulevard toward the RFK (nee Triboro) Bridge and along the Greek restaurants, food stores and bakeries of Ditmars Boulevard to the road that leads to the bridge to Riker's Island. No, we didn't go there! (You can only cross that bridge on a bus or if you have a permit for your car.) Then, we made a couple of sharp turns and soon found ourselves next to LaGuardia Airport. From there, there's a nice promenade that rims the shoreline of Flushing Bay. Moored boats bobbed listlessly in the wakes of the few other boats that sluiced solar reflections flickering in the ripples in the waters beyond the marina.

At the end of the promenade, on the other side of the Grand Central Parkway from Citi Field, we stopped. A young couple was getting into a boat that didn't look like much more than a jet-ski with a bubble-top. A jet took off from La Guardia and seemed headed straight for us, for a moment anyway. And a black and white cat I've seen before slinked around the tires of our bikes. The cat's been there for at least ten years: I've ridden that promenade for about a dozen or so years, and can remember the cat from about that far back. He's surprisingly friendly--with me, anyway--and has a smoother, shinier coat than one would expect from a cat who seems to have spent his whole life outdoors.

After a few minutes, as the sun began to set, we started back to my place. By the time we parted ways, we'd ridden about a dozen miles. And I was feeling really good, save for a bit of soreness in my lower vaginal area. I tipped my seat ever-so-slightly downward just after I left my place. I guess I'll have to fiddle with the seat some more, at least for a while. But at least I felt energetic and the ride went almost effortlessly. Thank you, Barbara, Sue --and Arielle!

My First Bike Ride

Today I took my first bike ride.

My first bike ride since my surgery, that is. Four months to the day after my surgery, to be precise.

Because I woke up late and had a few errands to run--and made a trip to the farmer's market--I didn't get on my Mercian fixed-gear bike until it had already gotten dark.

Now, some of you may be questioning my sanity: A fixed-gear for my first post-op ride? My other Mercian, a geared road bike, couldn't have been too happy about that. Arielle--that's her name--sometimes thinks she's prettier than Tosca, my fixie, whom she accuses of "flaunting her sexuality." Which goes to show you that quarrels happen between those who have the most in common.

So I got on Tosca and reassured Arielle that her day was coming soon. Even though I had no particular route in mind, I figured--correctly--that I would take a flat ride. And I didn't expect to ride for more than half an hour.

So choosing to ride Tosca was probably no less insane than going out as a Saturday night began. But that, in turn, was no less insane than any number of other things I've done. Hey, what's a little traffic and some revelers after you've been through what I've been through?

I opened the gate in front of my place and slung my right leg over the top tube. You never forget how to ride a bike, of course, but after you've been off it for a while, you don't quite know what to expect--especially if you've been off because your body, not to mention your life, has undergone a dramatic change.

Anyway, I'd rolled only a couple of doors down the block when Millie called me from her door. A couple of weeks ago, she told me that even if the doctor gave me the OK to ride, I should stay off my bike until next spring. "More time to heal," she said. "Besides, why would you want to get back on your bike when it's cold?" I could read those same questions on her face even before she yelled, "Goin' for a ride?"

I nodded. She grimaced. "Don't worry. I won't stay out long."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

I turned right on to 34th Avenue, then, a block later, made another right to Vernon Boulevard, which follows the river. A couple of blocks after that, I made yet another right turn on to Broadway, in front of Socrates Sculpture Block. A couple of blocks later, I made my first left, to 12th Street, where a bunch of Serbian men were leaving a mosque. On the next block, I made a right turn to 30th Avenue, which one can follow about five miles to Astoria Boulevard, near LaGuardia Airport.

I had expected to feel fat, awkward and clumsy after such a long layoff. However, I marvelled at how light the bike felt under me. It was like a better version of my own legs. And the wheels made it feel as if I were riding on proverbial rails, albeit much more comfortable rails. Plus, that fixed gear was easier to pedal than I would have expected.

A few blocks into 30th Avenue, I stopped to adjust my saddle. I have always liked my saddles level, or tilted ever-so-slightly tilted upward. But I was starting to feel some pressure in my newly-made lower organs. Moving the nose of the saddle slightly downward helped a bit. But I have a feeling I'm going to be fiddling with it--or, perhaps, getting a new saddle. I hope I don't need to.

After making that adjustment, I pedalled alongside cars driven by guys whose girlfriends were in the front passenger seats. I was expecting the worse but was pleasantly surprised at how courteous most of them were.

Before I knew it, I pedalled at least three miles between the traffic lane and cars parked by the curbs. Along the way, I passed small stores, some of which were closing, bars and dance clubs that were opening and rows of small houses where the cathode and neon shadows of TV shows and movies flashed in some of the windows. Young men in flashy jackets and young women in slinky dresses emerged from some of the houses; into others, couples with young children--some who looked like they'd just come from church--were entering.

Without thinking, I continued to pedal. My body felt surprisingly light, and every movement felt like a current of energy that powered my eyes and ears. Not only could I smell the burgers, pizza, gyros, curries and pollo asado cooking in the delis, coffee shops and restaurants; I could taste them. I was as alert as a cat to cars turning and people crossing streets, but it seemed that in spite of all of the Saturday night drivers and some people who were already intoxicated with one substance or another, I felt somehow that, with my senses that seemed to grow more acute by the moment, people were sensing me as much as I was sensing them. So, none of the possibly-inebriated drivers made turns they didn't signal or were careless in any other way, and I didn't have inattentive pedestrians charging mere steps in front of me in the middle of a block. It almost seemed that all those people knew that this middle-aged woman who's had an exasperating week was taking her first bike ride in four months.

After reaching the Grand Central Parkway entrance near Citi Field, I started back home. My feet made smooth, if slow, turns on my pedals. Along 34th Avenue, from about 110th to Junction Boulevard, I saw rows of churches and houses where some of the finest musician/composers to come from this country--Louis Armstrong among them--played and lived during the later years of their lives. That seemed to be a trajectory for jazz artists of that era: they started in Harlem, spent time in Europe and "retired" in the East Elmhurst neighborhood through which I was spinning in slow but steady time.

Then, after crossing Junction Boulevard, those old houses gave way to blocks full of garden apartments--the first of their kind in this country, and possibly the world--in the center of Jackson Heights. Those buildings--some very elegant, others showy in an Art Deco kind of way--cast the sort of light that glistens with silence even when there's no drizzle or light rain filling the air. In other words, no matter who lives in them-- in their history, those buildings have exuded the prosperity of business people, housed working-class immigrants and become dorms for young professionals and havens for single and coupled gay men-- the light that fills those streets in the evening is incorrigibly urban and bourgeois.

After a dozen or so blocks of those buildings and that light, the blocks alternate between the bright neon signs of stores and clubs and the oddly mute shadows of industrial buildings closed for the weekend. Then, after crossing under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway overpass and Northern Boulevard, I was riding down Broadway, past very familiar stores, cafes and shops. I managed to stop at Parisi's, one of my favorite bakeries, before they closed, for a loaf of bread and a sfogliatelle--my favorite pastry. And I got the hearty and delicious "Freddy's Platter" from the King of Falafel down the block.

By the time I got home to eat my Freddy's Platter and chase it with the sfogliatelle, I'd done about ten miles. Not a big ride for me: I used to do more than that before breakfast. And I wasn't pedalling along scenic seashores or among majestic mountains or fall foliage in Vermont or the Vosges. And while my legs felt fine and I didn't feel winded, I could feel some of the pressure in one of those sensitive areas. (I'll definitely be fiddling with the saddle some more!) But no ride could have been more beautiful, at least to me. The way it felt was almost the exact opposite of the climb up le Col du Galibier, which I didn't think about even for a moment. When I finished that climb, which seems like more than a lifetime ago, something--it seemed to come from within and without me at the same time--said, "You'll never have to do this again." I pedalled up that mountain because I thought I needed to, because I thought I'd let down all those people--including Tammy--who seemed to expect such things from me and because I feared "losing face" with all of those guys with whom I rode and to whom I used to boast about exploits like that one. On the other hand, something in my mind seemed to say, "You can do this again--whenever you want to."

Of course, I don't expect every ride to be like the one I did tonight. But it was absolutely fine for this lady's first ride.

Another Countdown

Today I saw the doctor. Next week I see my gynecologist again. My fingers are still crossed: I hope to get the "all clear" signal. To do what, you ask? Well, to ride my bike and have sex. And, possibly, to do some heavier lifting, though I'm in no hurry to do that.

If I do any or all of those things, my lack of physical activity for the past three months will be evident. I thought about that today as I was walking around in Chelsea and the Village after seeing my doctor and before I went to the college.

I feel so flabby. But people--including my doctor as well as a waiter (whom I'd never before met) in the Turkish restaurant where I had lunch--told me I looked "really nice." Actually, I'm noticing the flab just now. But I actually was feeling pretty good about the way I looked. I wore a boat-necked purple blouse under a long navy cardigan and an A-line skirt in a houndstooth pattern of blue and gray. Hal, the dreadlocked mechanic at Bicycle Habitat, half-jokingly said that my outfit matched my Mercian perfectly.

It was the first time I'd seen him since a few weeks before my surgery. He says he's just bought a house in the neighborhood where he grew up. But nobody he knew in those days is there now, he says.

I know that neighborhood. It's right next to the one where I grew up--and Prospect Park, where I rode almost every day for years.

How many more days until I can ride it again? Eight, if all goes well. But I wonder how far I'll go. Well, I guess no one has to worry that I'll run away from home on my bike. As if I were going to do that at this point in my life, anyway!

Who Knew It Would Come To This?

OK, so what did I do on a wonderfully gorgeous Sunday that wasn't too hot?

You guessed it: I went for a bike ride: To Nyack and back, again.

One good sign is that I actually felt better, physically as well as emotionally, at the end of the ride than at the beginning. My legs actually ached early in the ride, as I was pedalling through the Upper East Side, Yorkville and Harlem to the bridge than when I was coming back, some fifty miles later. By then, I felt something I haven't felt in a long time: my bike disappearing under me. That happens when you're in good shape and you have a bike that's well-fitted and well-suited to you. At this point, I'd still have to give much more credit to my Mercian than to my training, or lack thereof. Kudos to the folks at Mercian Cycles in England who built the bike and to Hal of Bicycle Habitat who measured me and really listened when I described what I wanted in the bike!

Plus, as tired as I was at the beginning of my ride, I was in good spirits. The crepes I made for myself turned out well. Charlie and Max were being even friendlier than ususal. And Mom and Dad were very encouraging when I talked to them. Yes, even Dad, even after I nagged him. And Mom, being Mom. I described some of the anxiety I'm feeling about the job I'm about to start. "You'll be fine," she insisted. "You've come to this point. It'll all work out."

Now, my mother never, ever says things like that unless she means them--and knows what she's talking about. She knew I would stay sober. She knew, at various times in my life, that I'd find my way, whatever that means.

One good sign, according to her: My conversations with Dad are getting longer. It used to be that I'd spend half an hour on the phone with her and half a minute, if that, with him. This time he picked up the phone and I talked to him for twenty minutes--a record!--before spending the rest of an hour with her. That ended only because they were going out.

Mom and I had a good laugh, though. I mentioned that I'd asked Dad what he's been doing and how much he's been getting out of the house--and exhorting him to do even more, even when he's bored. Anything can get boring, I reminded him. But sometimes boredom is just a sign that you're dealing with something else. That's better--certainly for him--than wallowing in his Lazy Boy recliner and thumbing buttons on the remote control.

"He didn't know he would end up with a nagging daughter, did he?"

"To go with his nagging wife and everyone else who nags him!" she deadpanned. Both of us broke out into titters, which turned to laughs when my hormones kicked in.

Ah, yes. All those times we don't know what we're getting or what we're getting into. Like Mom learning that her daughter is named Justine (the name she would have given me if the "F" were checked off on my birth certificate). Or Dad taking me shopping. They survived and, I suspect, know that they still don't always know what they're getting themselves into. Even after fifty years of marriage. And their "son" coming out as their daughter. There may be no more secrets--or at least not very many more--but there are still surprises and mysteries.

Speaking of secrets: As we were talking about my new job and what it could mean, I confessed that when I was younger, I wasn't planning my future--not even when I was in college. Sometimes I'd say that I was thinking about law school or teaching or getting a job with a magazine, but those were half-baked notions, at best. The only constant was that I wanted to write; teaching or graduate school weren't even on my radar.

The truth was, I said, was that I simply didn't want to think about the future. I didn't think I'd make it there and, if I did, I knew that I didn't want the things anyone else wanted for me, whether it had to do with jobs, marriage or anything else. I didn't want the responsibility, I admitted, but I also felt I wouldn't be any good at being a professional and white collar worker with a wife and kids in a house in the suburbs.

The funny thing is that now I can sort of see myself as a professional of a sort, and that I can integrate writing into that life. And I may very well become a wife. I'd like that, really. Dominick says I'm a nurturing person and I actually like the role. Will I end up in that house in the suburbs? Who knows...especially with the so-called mortgage crisis.

Who knew that it would come to this? Not that I'm complaining. I knew I didn't want to be a husband or father, even as I was making some attempt to be the former. But I never knew that I'd actually get to live this life, the one I always wanted.

Who knew?