In Which My Husband Throws Me out of the Car

So many things, so little with the writing of them down! I will now write down a few of those things in terse, jerky sentences, like I am being debriefed. Just because right now I am wearing a hat, and I feel all secret angent-y and mysterious.

-Turtle on the airplane. Five minutes into the flight, I was wearing the dinner that I had just fed him, in decorative swirls. Of course, I had brought changes of clothing for everyone but me. Trapped on a 12-hour flight,I smelled. For a long, long, time.

-My sister's wedding. It was beautiful. My sister. She was beautiful. And when my mother walked her down with my brother instead of my father, I cried. The ugly cry, not pretty delicate wedding tears. And my Ugly Tears Face may or may not have been in every. single. picture.

-My kiddies playing with their cousins. It makes me so happy and so sad, how well they play together. Why don't we live here? I want to live here. Then they cousins all pull out their ipads. Oh yeah. That's part of why we don't live here.

-Me playing with my siblings. We missed each other. We be loud. We be jokey. We be us; tall and loud and at times shrieky with laughter. The family that my sister married into watches us. They are small and quiet and smile politely. They watch us. We are used to this sort of arrangement.

-I met my editor! She is sweet and so pretty and gracious. I was nervous to meet her in person for no real reason, but there you have it. Outdoorsman waited in the car with the three screaming, jet-lagged progeny. I told him I would be a minute. I wasn't.

I got back in the car. "Sorry!" I said.

"No problem," he said. He smiled at me. "How was it?"

"Good! She is nice, and I met a bunch of people. I think they like me. They said it was so nice to meet me." I was quiet for a minute. The car moved around three inches through the traffic. "What do you think they meant by that?"

"By what?"

"By saying it was nice to meet me."

"That...it's nice to meet you?"

"No, really. Maybe they hated me."

Outdoorsman laughed. I didn't. So he stopped and blinked for a while. The car moved along another three inches. "Why would they hate you?"

"I was nervous! So I was awkward! And she asked me all these friendly questions and I didn't ask her any questions and maybe that was rude? And maybe my scarf was ugly? And everyone wore shaitels. And my skirt made me look like I had a big stomach. And they asked me to edit and I said yes."

Outdoorsman grabbed onto the one sentence that floated out of my mouth in a sea of hysteria that made sense to him. "You don't like editing."

"I do! I edit stuff for people all the time."

"That is critiquing, not copy-editing. It's different."

"Oh, gosh! You see? I got all nervous, and now I said I'd do it-"

"So tell them you can't that it's not your thing. Stick with writing. Plus sheva brachos are tonight, and cleaning, and we told Ima we'd go shopping and start cooking for Shabbas. You won't have time. Tell them."

"Yeah. Okay. They totally hate me anyway." I brooded. "That's probably what they meant by saying that they liked my writing."

Which is when Outdoorsman didn't push me out of the car, but probably should have.

They say that when you come back home, you revert to the age you were growing up there. If so, I totally got in touch with my teenage self with that last scenario. And with my 30th birthday peeking at me behind my fingers covering my eyes, it actually makes me glad to be one year further from 16.

Other than that--it is so so nice to get together with my family for good, happy reasons. I am so glad I am here. And my editor is really nice. It's not her fault that I am coo-coo for coco-puffs.

Now I have to go write an e-mail and explain that I won't edit, at least not now.

Me saying no to someone?

Piece of cake!

Yeah!

Mhm.

Wish me lucks?