A WORD on "Friend-Abuse": Your Friends Are Not There to "Use and Abuse"

So by now many of you know that I have a "substance abuse" problem, only my issue is not pot or crack. It's hard to admit, but I'm dreadfully addicted to 'Sex and the City.'

A particular episode that has always stuck in my mind was near the end of the second season. Carrie sends Big packing for the second time (he tells her not to move to France just for him, and in response she throws McDonald's all over his kitchen...). The episode that follows is Carrie in the wake of her second "'Big' Fallout." All over town she goes, yammering to Miranda, or Charlotte, or Samantha about what a "commitment phobe" Big was, and how he will die alone and she will naturally go on to Greater Fabulousness.

It's important to pause here and note that I love Carrie Bradshaw. No viewer could be prouder of her little Carrie-la. That said, I'll be the first to admit that Miss B was not her finest in this episode...and that is precisely the point. Carrie's friends let her go on until she runs out of air, and then stage an intervention-like encounter in which they tell her they are "cutting her off" and will she please find a therapist that she can tell all of this stuff to, for godsake?!?!

That episode has always stuck with me because it was so clear that Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha had all reached their limit. Throughout the years that followed, they always gave Carrie a hard time whenever she brought up Big. I'll even give you an example...in the very last season Carrie mentions that Big's in town for a "little heart thing" and Miranda replies "what? is he on the wait-list to get one?." Yee-ouch.

In my own life, as I powered-off the DVD player and stepped out into the world to actually live one, I have noted similar themes to the one depicted in this episode. Friendship is one of the most important things that can be bestowed upon us. It's more important than how much money we make, or the job we have. But even so, friends have their breaking points, and respecting that is one of the wisest things you can do.

This fact is especially true when it comes to navigating the world of love and relationships...a world that is so utterly confusing (and even dangerous) that you should damn-well want some people you trust trudging through along with you. We are like explorers as we grow older and wiser. Marco Polo discovered how to get to the Pacific by going West, not East....we discover that finding love is as much about learning to love ourselves as it is another person. But the point is that, as we travel along together, we are supposed to learn. Our friends will watch us touch fire, get horribly burnt, and help us heal. But after the burns have healed if we keep going after the fire...friends have the right to become a little peeved.

I think that the mark of becoming a real thinking and feeling person is to have survived an encounter with a person who is absolutely not good for them. Come on, we all have one (I think I have five, ha ha) person that at one point consumed our thoughts, but in the end was just plain bad for us (think: human arsenic). However, it's how we get out of these situations that defines what kind of person we ultimately become. It's Relationship Darwinism...only the strong survive. Our friends serve as vital barometers to let us know when the breaking point has been reached and the pipe has officially burst. The fact is that if you are telling your friends relationship horror stories, they are going to reach a point, one by one, where they "blacklist" your Romeo, no matter how much you whine that it's "not like that...." After awhile your beloved friends are your gatekeepers because they remember why you are supposed to keep away from specific people. You insure your heart through your friends. You entrust vital and bitter memories to them, and they repeat them back to you just when you're about to throw yourself back on the coals. Once a guy has been blacklisted he'll have to go to INSANE lengths to win back the approval of your friends...use all his savings to find the cure for cancer, spend a year doing Outward Bound in Nicaragua, or (in the world of HBO) hightail it to Paris to rescue our dear girl from the grips of a neglectful Russian man.

This revered relationship is not one to be toyed with. Friend abuse, as seen in SATC, is a real thing. Friends are allowed to get frustrated when you clearly have not learned from past mistakes and they are even allowed to show you tough love by cutting you off. I've been on the Gatekeeper side as well, and let me tell you, there are a lot of fantastic ladies out there who are not being done right by. While this is lamentable, it's also highly frustrating when a friend refuses to see that her time is better spent elsewhere. But I have no intention of turning this entry into a bash-the-men-a-thon. I will only say that treating these matters with patience is perhaps the kindest thing we can do for each other. In the episode I began this entry by describing, Carrie follows her friends' advice, goes for therapy, gets involved with another patient and the affair ends with phenomenal awkwardness. Her friends restore their support, recognizing that she is trying to get on with her life, and has gotten dealt a lousy hand once again.

To conclude I will also allow that many times you know what is best for yourself. However, if you are going to go toddling after someone whose photo your friends have pinned on a dart board (based on historical reasons), you better be prepared to keep your mouth shut about it. And really, what fun is that? Don't cheat on your friends because it usually means that you are also cheating yourself.

A WORD on Why I Hang Out With Kids A Lot.

Last month I celebrated an anniversary. September of 2004 marked five years since I've been volunteering with children, and when I realized this I knew it was time to reflect.

Growing up as an only children your two "mostly companions" are automatically Mom and Dad. Thus, as a child growing up in 1980s New York City, the most exposure I had to other children was limited to the occasional fleeting friend made after an hour spent in the sandbox at Washington Square Park. I was a five year old with an abnormally extensive vocabulary and an innate sense that all that was good and decent in the world began and ended with The New York Times.

So now you get it. Mary's need to work with children stems from a need to reclaim her childhood, which was completely devoid of people who were less than five feet tall.

Nope. Although that excuse would probably hold up in court. And I certainly want to try to have more than one child in my own fairy-dusted vision of the family I someday hope to create.

But before delving deeper, I'll bring this entry up to speed. In September of 1999, as a freshman at Fairfield U, I was attracted to Campus Ministry by a group called The Sunshine Kids. Sunshine Kids was (well, is) a play therapy group that meets in Bridgeport, CT every Thursday afternoon. The kids there all share two essential common bonds: They all live in Bridgeport, which is perhaps the most poverty-striken city in Connecticut. And they all have a parent or grandparent suffering from the HIV virus. The fact that their family members were sick was never the focus of the group, however. Due to confidentiality issues, we never even spoke about it with them. The purpose of the group was fellowship, and also to get the kids off the street between 3 and 6 at least one day a week (the most fatal hours for young children, I would later learn). Looking back on all those Thursday afternoons, I wouldn't trade a single one, but oh...that first year.

Kids are loud. Really really loud. And their hands are sticky. Also, they often do precisely what they are told not to do. As a nineteen year old college freshman who was fresh out of an all girls college prep highschool where you were fined for chewing gum, I was completely out of my element. I hadn't the foggiest notion of what to do with these children, and to be honest, they weren't entirely aware of what to do with me. There were little moments of triumph amidst all the chaos, though. I found I was really useful at the crafts table, and volunteered to try and coordinate some projects. Still, I didn't feel like I was making one bit of difference other than doling out scotch tape and tacky-glue.

I had already decided that I had given it a fair enough shot and wouldn't be returning for sophomore year when I was asked not only to return, but to take on a role as one of the leaders of the volunteers. Were they nuts?! I guess my usefulness at the crafts table had gotten me into this mess, and I didn't have the heart to tell them no. So suddenly not only was I a Sunshine Kids volunteer, I had an obligation and a contract.

I walked up to that door on the first day of volunteering sophomore year with a knot in my stomach. "What the hell was I doing back here?!" That's when I learned something I'd never known about children: they value consistency. The kids approached us, excited, but particularly excited to see some faces they recognized. I can still hear one of the girls exclaiming "Hey! You were here LAST year!!" as she threw herself into my arms. Here were older people who had gone away for a long summer with their experience and hadn't gotten distracted enough to forget about them. I ended up spending four years with these kids. During this time some of them grew into teenagers, some grew from babies into little people. Many crafts projects were done, basketballs dribbled, spills wiped, and piggyback rides given. They helped me let go of my 'bad' pride ("oh my lord, your hand is covered in frosting and you just gave me a high-five....") and replaced it with a deeper sense of dignity that comes from realizing that it hardly ever is all about me. Moreover I realized that the more time you invest on a person, the greater the rewards you reap. Four years. At the time that I left, I had been present in those childrens' lives for a staggering percentage of their total lives.

Leaving Connecticut and college life to return home to the City and to a job in an office didn't mean that working with children was something I had to leave behind me. I just started my second year as a Big Sister for Big Brothers Big Sisters today. My new Little is Ahlaysha. She is an only-child Virgo like me, and boy is she quiet, but getting her to open up is all the more rewarding. My reflections on BB/BS have yet to fully mature. But, as in my Sunshine days, I've learned that persistency is the key to making my experience worthwhile.

This finally gets me to my original point: What on earth has kept me doing this for so long? I guess the best way to put it is to say that I'm continuing a legacy. It is entirely fitting for me to have had my first day of Big Brothers Big Sisters today because it is also my Aunt Barbara's birthday. My aunt was a nun who spent her career in education as the principal of a series of inner city schools. She had a shot at positions in suburban schools plenty of times, but she always refused them because the inner city was where she wanted to be. Last Wednesday marked six years since she passed away at age 55 of cancer. What it comes down to is that she was taken much too early from us, and though it's been six years since I last had a conversation with her, I'm closer to her now because I do work that she loved and I understand why she loved it. So Aunt Barb, before my readers, this is my memorial to you. And I can't thank you enough for the motivation.

A WORD on "Forks" and Not the Kind You Eat With...

In an excerpt from perhaps his most famous poem, Robert Frost writes: "Two roads diverged in the woods, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

Alright, never fear people. I just stepped down from my intellectual-high-horse. I will share with you, however, that I have always loved that quote because it speaks to the decisions we make, some trivial...and some enormous, and the resounding effect that these choices can have on our lives. I also thought about two of my favorite movies, "Sliding Doors" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," which both explore the idea that a lot of what happens to us in our lives inevitable, no matter how much we try to prevent it.

Are our lives defined by the "forks" we encounter in the road? Sometimes it certainly seems that way. I think we can all describe times in our lives when there was a major CHOICE bearing down on us. My first real experience with a "fork" was at the end of my freshman year of college. In my search for a summer job, I received two offers which were as different as night and day. The first job was an internship in the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities, the other was as a Customer Service Rep at Tiffany and Co. I still remember sitting in the student lounge of my dorm with my friend, Marisa, while she helped me mull over the decision I was facing. I chose Tiffany, and went on to learn a great deal there...but a part of me feels that my life would have taken a much different turn if I'd set up camp at Mayor Giuliani's. Is there any point in wondering what might have been? Probably not. But at my present point in life, if I were living in the world of the movies where characters can be catapulted back in time to find out what would have happened if they'd made the other choice...I would definitely choose to see what would have happened if I hadn't chosen Tiffany. In some ways, I can't imagine it at all, and I think that's why it puts my imagination into overdrive.

Though my time tying Tiffany bows has ended, the choice to work there effects my life to this day...My senior year of college, when I was looking for a "career," I happened to submit my resume to a famous NYC company I had heard of in passing. The thing is that the person who ended up contacting me from that company is someone I had heard of in more than just passing. The person who had hired me as a college freshman for my job at Tiffany was now the HR representative in charge of recruiting for this company....the company for which I now happily work. The "fork" that led me to Tiffany diverged again, and my life is (thankfully) as it is now.

But job-schmob, let's talk about the fun stuff! What about the forks we encounter in love? Sorry to disappoint you, but I have never been caught in the crossfire between two men who were willing to rip each other to shreds for my heart. At least not to my knowledge (har har). What I think the movies explores is the concept that, sometimes, no matter how much two people try to fight it, fate throws them together. Take Gwenyth Paltrow in "Sliding Doors," the movie follows her through two different scenarios. In one, she catches her train, comes home and finds her lousy boyfriend cheating on her, makes him grovel, starts her own company and meets a wonderful guy named James. In the other scenario, she misses her train, gets mugged, never catches lousy boyfriend (who continues to cheat!) and ends up miserable. The only problem is that in the first scenario (with James), she dies, and that sucks. But ahhh, in the scenario in which she's seemingly miserable, she ends up meeting James anyway after dumping Lousy Boyfriend after a much longer tenure than he deserved.

Then there's the movie I love more than life itself. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," which I could literally sit and talk about for hours because there are so many ways to read it. I guess the message that it sends is that it's a good thing we can't erase people from our minds because even the pain that they put us through is invaluable. I also find it amazing that even though the mind erasing worked, Joel and Clem found each other again... Sometimes the diverging roads in our lives bring us to the same destination, no matter which fork we take.

Forks are simply a synonym for the free will that we have in our lives. They are a way in which we take control over our own destinies. As the movies have proven to us, however, sometimes destiny overrides the decisions we oh-so-carefully make. So I guess the "moral" of this posting is not to sweat too badly over the "forks" because sometimes whatever will be, will be, and it's not worth all the antacid. As my friend Gabrielle said when I told her what I was writing about: "I hate forks. I like spoons. They're smoother."

Where Mary's Been: Jacques-Imo's

Where: 77th and Columbus

What You'll Find: For those of us lucky enough to have ever been to New Orleans, Jacques-Imo's is a little outpost of NOLA right on the Upper West Side. And "outpost" is not a misnomer, the original restaurant actually exists in New Orleans (I'm assuming in the French Quarter). Anyway, here you will dine on authentic cuisine surrounded by the paraphernalia that is quintessentially associated with the birthplace of Jazz...voo doo dolls, Mardi Gras beads, and for some reason each table had a "Santa Clara" prayer candle on it. I'm sure I'll find out, by the by, that Santa Clara is the patron saint of New Orleans, or something.

Wore: Dark jeans, black turtleneck, tweed bag. What? You were expecting hoop skirts with a matching parasol?

Need to Visit an ATM on a scale from One to Ten: Seven, apparently, since I still owe some money for this delightful meal.

You Should Have: The alligator cheesecake, which is an appetizer, not a dessert. Tastes kind of like chicken. In all seriousness, it is probably the most interesting thing I've eaten in awhile.

Rambling: This was the perfect place to unwind after a week of three hours of training per day at work, losing a co-worker to an abrupt termination (that's my nice term for being "fired"), all the while continuing to pound the pavement on the apartment search. The fun atmosphere, much like NOLA itself, ensured that belly-laughs would be had by all. It was the perfect place for a gal I like to call "Drunk-Bitchy Mary" to come out. I like her a lot, she's fun. Jacques-Imo's made me happy...and that's all there is to it.