Pretty Girl
You know, just when you think you've got it all together, you get busted with a doll baby in your front seat. Indeed, I thought I was doing so well. After last week's inner tornicane, I felt like I was really making progress towards being a strong, independent, happy girl. Jeb Lee (the new love of my life and current stand-in for all What if? scenarios) seems to really like me. I mean, we do things regularly. He calls in the afternoons to see what my 'plans' are for that night. And he seems very accepting about my obsessions (currently monogrammed blankets, don't ask), daily rationalizations (candy bought out of bins and paid for by weight doesn't count), and life habits (I cry at the end of good books even when they're not sad). And I - as a mature person - am allowing him to see these quirky traits. All in all, I've been on the little-relationship-that-could train working my way to a-boyfriend-during-the-holiday-season. I thought life was looking pretty good. But then the tot turned one. Quelle nightmare. It went like this:

You've heard about all my friends being pregnant. And you've heard about me as Chi Chi Aunt She She to the precious little tots. Well, lately baby Sally has been going through a stage of screaming in massive hysterics whenever I get near. For the record, I typically like people to cry when I leave, not when I arrive. It's all part of my Shakespeare in Love /City of Angels / Moulin Rouge /any-movie-with-a-romance daydream - where a man cries when I'm shipped away or die or whatever. And while baby Sally is not a man, it still hurts. Seriously, it's been a real issue and was starting to affect my confidence equilibrium (a tenuous balance as it is what with the constant body, hair and outfit anxieties.) So as an ardent student of paranoia-induced over-analyzation, I contemplated all the factors, elements and criteria that make baby Sally cry. And it came to this:

• She doesn't cry when my other friends approach. I am her only terror.
• When my other friends approach, they have their own tot on their hip or in their stroller. (Excuse me, but when do I get to be pushed around in one of those things? I mean, what bliss?!)
• Therefore, she must be afraid of my singleness. (Does society's stereotype for "normal" have no bounds? She's not even one and she's judging my no hubby/no baby-ness.)
• In summary, she thinks I'm a baby-sitter coming to take her from her mommy. (Which I can understand. It's like when your nail girl isn't there and you have to deal with a sub who doesn't know that you always get Breakfast in Bed, that you cut your cuticles only every 6 weeks and that you like an extra long wrist massage. It's very scary.)

Well, the remedy was clear. I had to get a baby. Even in the grand maturity of my twirties, popularity reigns queen. (Aside from my dress size, not much has changed since Jr. High.) I thought of borrowing a real one, but I was afraid they'd all scream as I approached, and I knew my confidence could not survive that. So, I bought one. No, not a real one. A doll. I named her Pretty Girl, and I keep her in the car so I'm always prepared to visit with any young mother and child.

Anyhoo, yesterday was baby Sally's birthday, and I was driving over to give her a gift and have a glass of wine with her mom. I had Pretty Girl in the front seat dressed in a party hat and Cross (the dog) in the back wearing a bib. I thought it would be cute if they wore all the gifts. I'm at a stop sign, in a daydream about J. Lo's outfit to the VH1/Vogue Fashion awards and wondering where I can get a hat like that, when I hear someone banging at my window.

Immediately thinking it's a terrorist, I start screaming bloody murder. (Thank goodness, Pretty Girl is so well-behaved. She and Cross were calm as two cucumbers.) And of course, it wasn't the Sniper - he was napping on the highway waiting for his money to be wired to a stolen credit card (hello?!). Au contraire, it was Jeb. He was jogging. And of course, he looked so very very yummy in his boyish sweatiness that I slipped into another micro-moment what if? fantasy of our wedding day - at a mountain lodge in the fall with the bridesmaids in tartan - before I realized that he was looking at me in pigtails with a baby doll beside me and a dog in the back wearing a bib. And despite the fact that I did have the preppy chic thing going on with my small-ish cashmere cable crew and retro sneakers -- the overall effect was not good.

To be continued...