were no blackouts, no puking, no sinister men, and no dastardly behavior. Not once, not once did I dance on a tabletop. I’d always wanted to, but doing so would mean I’d had to be the best tabletop dancer ever, and I wasn’t willing to throw my hat in the ring on that one. I regret that. If there was one thing I wish I had tackled back in my drinking days, it would have been a good bit of shimmying on a tabletop somewhere. I imagine I would have slipped and ended up doing the splits, a great finale but a difficult dismount. So it is a small miracle, I guess, that I never had enough booze in me to attempt it.
The other miracle here is that if I’d started drinking excessively in my twenties, I would probably be dead.
Rather strangely, my own addictive personality was exactly what kept me from binge drinking in the first place. There was simply no way I was going to be a drunk because that would mean failure, and that was not possible. I would sit at the Blue Moose with my boyfriend who one day, I was sure, would be my fiancée. (He did not quite see it that way.) I would tilt my head toward the people who were slurring, laughing too loudly, or leaning over too far. “Lush,” I would whisper as I delicately sipped my martini. I never drank so much that if I was wearing heels I’d wobble. In my life, I didn’t wobble.
Yet, always there, alcohol would patiently sit with me and say, “It’s okay. I can wait.”
TOP TEN WAYS TO DANCE ON TABLES WITHOUT HUMILIATION
1. Travel to Europe by yourself. Don’t think too much about it when you book the tickets. Try not to go into too much debt to take this trip. Just take it.
2. Run a race. Maybe even a long one that seems impossible at first. Don’t think too much about it when you register for it. Just do it.
3. Have a four o’clock, Pandora 80s singathon in your living room every day. Don’t think too much about how your children and animals scatter whenever this starts. Just hit that vibrato.
4. Sign up for a poetry reading. The kind where you are actually reading. Aloud. Don’t think about it too much as you write your name on the sheet. Just go.
5. Start telling really bad jokes all the time to whoever will listen. This is amazingly effective at making you look like a fool but in a highly approachable way. Don’t think about it too much when no one laughs. Just laugh a lot anyway.
6. Take a cooking class. Learn how to make croissants. Or chocolate mousse. Don’t think too much about posting well-lit pictures of these on Pinterest. Just eat.
7. Stand up; just put one foot on the chair and then one on the table.
8. Look around you. Get your bearings.
9. Take a deep breath. Step up onto the table.
10. And then, dance.
I Fall in Love, so All My Problems Are Solved I Fall in Love, so All My Problems Are Solved
I saw him from across a crowded room. I really did see him standing there. Something was a small flutter in my stomach, and a voice in my head said, See him? That’s the man you’re going to marry. Now get over there. You should at least go and say “hi.”
I did say hi. I even gave him a hug. He told me later he thought I was cute in my pigtails and baseball hat. He was wearing a T-shirt from NASA, and I inquired, of course, if he worked there. He just smiled and said it was from the gift shop. I was not deterred. Much later, after we’d been married quite some time, I told him that upon meeting him that night I put him down for a late afternoon wedding, a small, simple affair. His eyes got a little wide, as if to say, “I am married to a scary woman. But evidently, I had no choice.”
Previously, dating had been a nightmare. I would wait grimly for whatever victim would be showing up at my doorstep, always a chilled glass of something strong in my hand. The fact that I could not go on a date sober was one of those red flags that waved at me from time to time. But the ritual remained: the date would start around 7:00 p.m. At around five o’clock, I would start pouring ice into a large tumbler, adding lime and then sloshing in a generous glug of Tanqueray. I would add a bit of tonic, stir, and then wait for that first drink. Condensation would form, and when my anxiety level seemed to be tipping me into a different stratosphere, I’d take a dainty sip. Waiting for a good twenty minutes, after I made the drink, to start slurping it, made it okay. Making sure it was a mixed drink, with separate parts and steps, made it okay. Buying only expensive gins and vodkas, never anything in a plastic bottle, or, God forbid, more than one bottle at a time, made it all okay. But the negotiation with drinking had begun.
And, in some ways, I guess it could have been all right. Many people can have a lovely cocktail or two before a suitor arrives. This makes total sense. There is nothing wrong with “taking the edge off.”
Except, I was all edges. All the time. And I was anticipating the drink more than any other part of the night. With my track record, it might have been understandable. I’d become a Christian in my late twenties. This meant, I was sure, I would now find a hot, manly, completely normal Christian boy, and we would settle down and live the Christian dream of normalcy. Instead, during the eight years after I’d found Jesus, I found absolutely no one else. At times I had some pretty heated conversations with God about it. I felt a little shortchanged. As always, God listened, and then, in His absolute wisdom, set me up with the following guys:
1. Tom, who said he had Jesus but then also wanted to know if I would sleep with him after we got engaged. This was on the second date. And I met him at a bible study. A bible study.
2. Rick, who was so wimpy he asked me to step on a spider when we were on a picnic. I took the side of the spider.
3. Another Rick, who couldn’t go out with me unless we prayed and fasted for forty days first.
4. Owen. Owen was actually great, but he had absolutely no desire to be dating me.
5. John, who wanted to find our song on the first date and then pounded the dashboard in rage when I informed him that this sort of thing happens on its own. “My ex told me not to do this!” he shouted. I was not sure if he meant the song thing or the date in general. I walked home from that one.
6. Jimmy, who was from Alabama and had an adorable accent. Jimmy was also a preacher and did tell me that if we married I would be expected to play the piano at his church. He was a great guy. I have no clue, to this day, how to play the piano. Good for Jimmy we broke up.
7. Speaking of accents, one guy broke into a British accent occasionally while we were on our date at Barnes and Noble. I had to ask, “Um, you seem to be speaking in a British accent?” His reply, “Oh yes, I like to do that.” There was no further explanation. Also, there were no further dates.
My dating years, of which there were many, were full of men, but not a one was right. In fact, so many of them were so colossally wrong I wondered if I should start a business turning men into dateable material, and, for a small deposit and twenty monthly installments, enroll them. I’d call it “I’ve Got Issues!” I thought it would make a great profit.
Or, perhaps, it’s just a teensy bit possible many of these guys were totally fine. In hindsight, the “It’s not you, it’s me” line make a lot more sense—except the first guy on the list. He was an asshole.
When I finally met Brian, I felt like I could breathe. He had no clue we were going to get married and live happily ever after,