Twas Brillig

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After that first date with Blake, I went back home to Cedar City, but I didn’t stay there for long. I was in the middle of an absurd relationship (remember Ben?) and had already been tossed out of SUU (apparently I was really good at getting thrown out of school…) and when I broke the “yet-another-school-just-threw-me-out” news to my parents (you can only imagine how… um… proud they were…) I also announced that I was cutting myself off: Daddy was no longer allowed to pay for my living expenses or schooling (assuming I’d ever go back to school). I knew that if I did it on my own, I’d finally take things a little more seriously. Plus, I wouldn’t feel so completely guilty every time I screwed up if I was now only reporting to myself. Plus, I wanted to cut myself off before Daddy cut me off. Surely he was about to. Ahhhh, I felt like such a grown-up. A very poor, very aimless grown-up.

So I got a job.

It was while I was at work one morning in Cedar City at my important $6/hour telemarketing job (SO glamorous) that my head began to throb. This wasn’t just a headache, this was a “holy-crap-I- think-I-might- be-dying-because-my-head- hurts-so- frickin’-brackin’-bad- and-I-have-to-go-lie- down-right-this-second” headache.

So I went back to my apartment and lay down. As suddenly as the headache came on, it went away. And in a moment of absolute clarity, I knew what I had to do.

I had to move back to Provo.

Provo was only about three hours away from Cedar City, but it seemed like a whole different universe. I packed up all of my stuff and told my roommates that I was moving out. They were really broken up about it… because the TV was mine, the stereo was mine, the microwave was mine, and all the cute clothes were mine (and, um, all the cute boys were mine too…). They were going to miss me so much.

My parents were in Chile at this point (and would be for a couple of years) and had rented out their home here to my brother J and a few of his friends… including Blake. That meant, among other things, that there was no where for me to stay as a free-loader. (Which was fine, because I was a grown-up, remember?)

Now I needed a place to live— and it needed to be cheap. And I needed a job— ANY job— in order to pay for said cheap place.

As unbelievable as it sounds, within a day of arriving in Provo I had a place to live (which was an absolute HOLE, and could be the subject of its own soap opera saga. But hey, it was home), I had a job which was way better than I deserved (thanks to my sister who had climbed the corporate ladder and heard of an immediate opening and got me right in— I totally didn’t deserve that job and within two hours of my working there EVERYONE knew it. But it was too late. I was there and I was earning money, and slowly but surely I was learning the ropes)…

AND… I had reestablished a connection with Blake, who had, of course, been in the back of my mind throughout this whole move, though I would have sworn up and down that I didn’t move to Provo for him. I was NOT that kind of girl— the kind who picked up her whole life just to see how things would work out with some boy I’d only been on one date with. Still, he was on my mind. A lot.

Blake and I were still… well… a bit too different. And while that made for a lot of lively conversation, it also made any kind of long-term relationship seem impossible.

But I just couldn’t seem to stay away from him.

(…to be continued…)

(Big thanks to Shellie of Little But Loud who is graciously hosting Soap Opera Sunday this weekend. She will have a list at her blog of all the other participants this week. For more Soap Opera Sunday information, read this.)

I have to start out this particular bit of soapiness by explaining that I was 21. I was attending Southern Utah University (well, I was enrolled at SUU. To say I was attending would be an overstatement, since I only showed up for class about 4% of the time…) and I was going through boyfriends like they were kleenexes. Oh, and like most 21 year olds, I knew everything.

One of my Provo-based friends was getting married, so I grabbed my friend Liz and drove my shiny teal Ford with its 6-CD changer (I had never even heard of a 6-CD changer until Daddy gave me this car for Christmas just the month before) up to Provo to attend the wedding reception and to hang out with my family for the weekend and show Liz the big city I hailed from (hey, compared to Cedar City, any town with a mall is a thriving metropolis).

After the wedding reception, my brother J called me to say that while I was in town he wanted to set me up with his friend, who we will call “Blake.” Truth is, I was dying for J to set me up with Blake. I’d only met Blake once, but he’d made a huge impression and I had been kinda holding my breath ever since I’d first seen him for a chance to go out with him.

But, I had Liz with me, and I couldn’t just leave her stranded in my parents’ basement while I went out with some guy I barely knew. I explained that to J, and he said that he’d figure something out and call me back.

Which he did. In record time, Blake had arranged a massive group date. J would be set up with a girl named Lindsay, Liz would be set up with a guy named Jesse, and two other couples would be joining us too. That’s ten people, all out on first dates, most of which were blind dates.

Blake had gone to an awful lot of trouble just to spend some time with me…

I was so excited.

When we met up with everyone, I just about had a heart attack over how darling Blake was. He had this perfect, almost angelic face. His green eyes were squinty, as if he were permanently smiling. And his hair? Short, perfectly groomed, and fuschia. That’s right. Fuschia. I confess that I was highly intrigued by this boy who gave off the essence of absolute innocence and purity, but with just a little shock of rebellion in the form of fuschia hair dye on his head.

We were divided up into cars– J, Lindsay, Jesse, and Liz all went in one car, the other two couples went in another car, and that left me and Blake to go by ourselves in his… um… vehicle.

It was a truck, I guess, but not like any truck I’d ever seen. It was like a truck had gotten stuck in a shrinking machine and was miniaturized. It had peeling black paint and a cracked windshield and the heater didn’t work very efficiently (I remember that last part acutely because it was January. In Utah. And, like any sensible girl on a first date with a gorgeous guy, I was dressed to be cute, not warm).

As he started the… um… truck, his radio blared “music.” Bluegrass “music.” He then told me— perhaps in response to the “trying-to-be-polite-but-really-hating-this-music” expression on my face— that he could never really be interested in someone who didn’t share his passion for bluegrass music.

Two possible responses came to my mind. The first one was something like, “well, then you’d better let me out here, because I’m clearly not the girl for you.” The second possible response was, “Boy, looking the way you do, I’d gladly poke holes in my eardrums and let you listen to whatever you want, as long as I can stare at you all day long.”

Deciding that neither response was quite appropriate, I settled for something eloquent like, “hmmmmmmm… .”

“It could be worse,” I thought to myself. “I could be on a date with an ultra-conservative Republican or something.” It was about at that moment that I noticed the “Vote for Alan Keyes” paraphernalia in his… um… truck.

Oh. Mygosh. I was on a date with a crazy ultra-conservative Republican.

Shoot.

Me.

Now.

And yet, he was so so so cute. And kind. And enthralling. And cute.

His cell phone rang— it was J, telling us that the restaurant that they’d planned on had a super long waiting list. As they discussed possible alternates, I heard Blake say, “no, not Italian. I don’t like pasta.”

Oh. Mygosh. I was on a date with an ultra-conservative, “truck”-driving, bluegrass-obsessed friend of my brother’s who didn’t like pasta. It was as though the heavens had created my exact opposite, and expected me to adore him.

And I did. I adored him.

The ten of us ended up going to an Indian restaurant, which was insanely delicious, and after much witty banter (seriously, Blake and I were both on a roll that night), we all went back to J’s house to watch a movie. J wanted to watch something that was Rated R and almost everyone was fine with that. But two of the girls had made personal decisions not to watch Rated R movies and they were really uncomfortable. They asked nicely if we could please change the plan and watch something else. The response from almost everyone was one of jeering and ridicule and “hey, if 8 of us want to watch this movie, then we outnumber you and you’ll just have to deal with it.”

It was then that Blake piped up, and said, “we’re NOT going to force anyone to watch something that they’re not comfortable with! We’ll find something else!”

And I think it’s just possible that that’s the moment I fell in love with him… though I hadn’t realized it yet.

His statement was so decisive and authoritative that all mockery ceased and they simply found a different movie to watch that everyone would be okay with.

Sometime during the movie, Blake reached for my hand, and we spent the next two hours holding hands, painfully aware that while there was definitely something going on here, our differences were far too gigantic to be overcome.

…to be continued, of course…

Hey, y’all… Anonymous Soapiness is hosting Soap Opera Sunday this week.  Head on over there to see the list of the rest of the participants.  Find out more about Soap Opera Sunday here.

Today we finish up the Adam saga. Click for part one, part two, or part three.

Well, my title here pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?

That’s right. We all fell asleep (how I possibly fell asleep with Adam snuggled against me I’ll never know) and I woke up somewhere around 5:00 and I don’t actually remember how it happened. But suddenly he was kissing me. And I was kissing him back.

And it was the most disgusting thing ever.

Morning breath, chapped lips… it just makes for a really unpleasant experience, as I’m sure you can imagine. I’m not even sure if there would have been any chemistry anyway. It was just… ewwww.

I was terribly disappointed. Just as I’m not sure how it started, I’m not sure how the kissing ended either—which one of us finally broke away and stopped pretending like there was magic in this utterly unmagical situation. I remember that I had early play practice, and so I ran out the door, leaving most of my possessions—and Adam—behind.

Which meant that I had to go back.

I realized as I was heading back to Tara and Adam’s that I was going to be interrogated by the girls, who were all going to wonder what was up with me and Adam. He hadn’t exactly been sneaky, as you recall. I contemplated what to tell them— perhaps that nothing happened, perhaps that we’d accidentally kissed and it would never happen again, perhaps… well… certainly NOT the truth.

Plus, I wasn’t quite sure what Adam was thinking in all of this. Would he be calling me? Did he have as awful of a kissing experience as I? Did he think that this meant that we were an item? Yikes…

When I got back to Tara’s, Adam wasn’t there, but all the girls were. “So, we heard you made out with Adam!” Aha. They had already been informed. There was much squealing and giggling, though none from me. I hadn’t expected him to tell them all, and since I wasn’t sure what to make of it (besides the obvious unpleasantness) I fumbled a bit, and acknowledged that yes, there had been some kissing.

Then Monica blurts out, “he said it was AWFUL.” She announced it as though it were the best news ever, and I died laughing and acknowledged that yes, it was AWFUL. Hahaha. It was a bit embarrassing that he’d felt the same way, I confess. I’d rather hoped that he could spend a few years pining for me, the way I’d pined for him all those years. Oh well. It had been a fun run, and now it was over, which was, truly, just fine with me.

The next time I saw Adam was when my brother J was in town, several months later. J and Adam had been best friends once upon a time, so it was natural that they’d be hanging out. I knew I’d run into him at some point, and I wasn’t sure how either of us would react. But one night we all ended up at the same barbecue in the canyons that I attended with J. I saw him as soon as I got out of the car. He came towards us, with a smile on his face that made me smile and he reached to give me a hug. I hugged him back and without speaking we both started laughing—washing all the anxiety, awkwardness, flirtatiousness, past weirdness away. He kept his arm around me, and I swung my arm around him and my other arm around J on the other side of me and the three of us joined the party.

And we’ve been friends ever since.

My dearest co-founder, Kate of Walking Kateastrophe, is hosting Soap Opera Sunday this week. Be sure to head on over there for the list of other SOS participants!

(More Adam—Part one, part two.)
Tara and I began hanging out on a regular basis, and I therefore ran into her brother often. Every time I saw him, it was as though electricity was surging through me.

Neither Adam nor I were what you’d call “shy.” We were both flirtatious, overly-confident, and well-versed in the art of playing. Neither one of us was looking for a relationship. In fact, if memory serves, I was already in a relationship with someone else… (Y’all remember Chad, right? Epic proportions of unhealthiness…)

I became infatuated with the idea of conquest. I HAD to make this boy, who I had adored so obsessively once upon a time, adore me.

And I found, from the way he kept manipulating situations to be near me, that I was in the drivers seat. He did seem to adore me. I was winning. It was such a thrill!

I never talked about this Adam-game I was playing with any of the other girls. I wasn’t quite sure how to talk about it with Tara, after all. And Ginny and Monica were clearly pining for him. So it had to be my little secret, I decided.

One night, Tara invited me, along with Monica and Ginny (who were now living with her and Adam in their parents’ house) and Sara to watch the MTV Movie Awards at their place and then just spend the night. Perfect.

Adam would be away that evening, but somehow I knew he’d find a way to make an appearance… This crazy magnetic pull was affecting both of us and I knew he’d be there.

We girls filled their family room with blankets and pillows and snacks and settled in for the long haul, just like a slumber party right out of Jr. High School, except that we were all in college…

A few hours into our slumber party, Adam appeared. Hahaha. Shocker. I knew he would come home. He boldly marched towards me, lifted the side of the blanket that I was snuggled under, and made room for himself there. I’m sure the other girls were arching their eyebrows about this, but I wasn’t paying any attention to them. I was completely focused on this gorgeous grinning boy… whose legs were resting against mine, whose heart was pounding as frantically as mine, and whose lips were close enough to…

(to be continued…)

I’m hosting SOS today because, um, I kinda forgot to secure a guest host this week. haha. Oops! So, you’re stuck with me again! The Mr. Linky is at the end of the post.

About a million years ago, I started a Soap Opera Sunday saga about a guy we called “Adam.” Remember? Seriously, it was so long ago that if you’d like to go catch up, it’s here (and it’s very short). I’ll wait.

Back already? Great. Moving on.

So six years went by…

I’d heard that Adam and his family moved to Ireland and then he went to serve a mission for his (our) church and then he went to college… somewhere.

I’d been great friends with Tara, Adam’s sister, while we’d all been in Jerusalem. But once they’d left, we all lost touch.

A few years later, while in high school, I met a girl named Sara who had also spent a lot of time in Jerusalem and, though we’d never actually known each other there (she left before I arrived), there was a certain bond by having shared similar experiences— both the magnificent and the horrifying. Sara and Tara had been great friends in Jerusalem.

Over those six years, I… well, I grew up. I was no longer the insecure 12-year-old child that Adam had known. I was 18, confident, flirtatious, and comfortable.

I was a freshman at BYU, majoring in looking good and making out with virtual strangers, when Sara called me to say that Tara was in Utah and they wanted to come and hang out with me. Sounded great! So we all went to lunch, along with a couple of Tara’s girlfriends from Ireland who were also at BYU. It was great to catch up, to see how we’d all “turned out” etc.

We had such a good time that we all began hanging out regularly.

One day, we were all having lunch together when the conversation turned towards their plans for that night, which was to stand in line all night for tickets to some big movie that opened the next day (I’m thinking it was the new Star Wars Episode One or something equally nauseating that I couldn’t have been LESS interested in…). Did I want to join them? No, thank you. Who all is coming? Sara, these Irish girls (whose names were Ginny and Monica), Tara, Tara’s brother and his roommates…

Now I had, of course, already moved on from my obsession with Adam. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t become suddenly VERY interested in the various details of their conversation. It didn’t mean that my heart didn’t speed up. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t instantly contemplating ways that I would run into him and dazzle him with my grown-up-ness.

“So, Adam’s here? Is he a student at BYU?” I tried to sound as casual as possible, but I watched Ginny and Monica glance at each other, and I suddenly realized that of course these girls were also interested in Adam. As I thought about Adam’s excrutiatingly handsome face and his dark wavy hair, I understood that every girl within a ten mile radius of him would bask in his perfection. I almost wondered if that’s why Monica and Ginny were such devoted friends to Tara…

And yes, Adam was here, and he was a student. He was living in an apartment, but only for a few more weeks until Tara and Adam’s parents finalized the purchase of a house here, where Tara, Adam, Monica, Ginny, and one of Adam’s friends would all live together in the basement. I smiled at Ginny and Monica’s transparent delight over this arrangement.

I was thrilled that Tara would be living here on a more permanent basis. I’d enjoyed catching up with her and I knew that we could all have a lot of fun with her nearby.

After I left that lunch, I confess that I considered joining them for their sleeping-in-line-for-tickets-to-see-a-dumb-movie fun. But that was just so not me. Still, I couldn’t get the idea of seeing Adam again, SOON, out of my head.

So, I did what any other good friend would do… I enlisted Matt’s aid (Matt was an invaluable accessory in any social situation… and he had a car… plus, he and Sara had always been friends, as she was one of the few people who didn’t run for the hills when he’d come out of the closet a few months before) and we took hot chocolate and cookies to our friends out in the cold.

I was a bit disappointed as I approached the line of crazy people waiting in the cold—Adam’s face wasn’t in the group. Sigh. So much for that. Still, I greeted the girls joyfully and distributed my goodies to the eager recipients.

As Sara was introducing Matt to the group, there were some guys right next to them, playing cards as they waited in line, who were clearly checking me out. Ever boy-crazy, I flashed them a flirtatious smile and one asked me if there were any more cookies for them. I laughed and brought some to them. There were four of them and they were funny and flirtatious and easy to talk to. But after a minute, Matt was bored and I was cold (and Adam wasn’t there…), so we decided to move on.

Just as we were walking away, I heard the guys I’d just been talking to yell, “Adam! You made it!” I turned and saw Adam sitting down with them— realizing that this wasn’t two groups after all, but the same group, and that my flirtatious new friends were Adam’s roommates.

My heart was racing. I found myself moving back towards the group. Tara said, “Brillig, you remember my brother Adam.” Adam instantly jumped back to his feet. I couldn’t believe that the real Adam did, in fact, live up to my memory.

“Hey,” I said, smiling, but doing my best to appear poised and confident.

“Hi,” he said, grinning like an idiot.

to be continued, natch…
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I find myself in the middle of so many sagas. One will be dropped, because I am suddenly in a position where I either need to lie, or I need to tell the truth, and I realize that I’m not actually comfortable with either option. So, it’s being back-burnered for now. Clearly there’s a lot of drama, both way-in-the-past and super-recent, and I’m just not ready to talk about it here right now. Nor is it all that great of a story anyway…

The other saga is about opera, but not SOAP opera, so it too will take a break for the weekend. Because on the weekends, you’re here looking for soapiness. And so, soapiness you shall have…

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I first met “Adam” when I was twelve. The first time I saw him was in Jerusalem. He had it all—athletic build, chocolate brown eyes, dark wavy hair, great sense of humor, and a smile to die for. He was 16…

He was SO out of my league.

And yes, at 12 years old, I was already every bit as boy-crazy as I was at 19 years old—which, just so we’re clear, is very VERY boy-crazy.

Adam and J (my then 15-year-old brother) were best friends and his little sister “Tara” was my best friend. There was genuine friendship there, I suppose, but mostly we were friends because, well, everyone else had fled the country by then. (They, too, would flee soon.)

I tried to be very quiet about my adoration for Adam. I knew that Adam couldn’t possibly be expected to see me as anything but a little girl, and I would have died of humiliation had he ever found out how I felt about him. So, I didn’t tell Tara or J or ANYONE.

One day, J reported that Adam had told him that I had a beautiful face (I could always count on J to tell me everything his friends ever said about me, good or bad) and that he thought my eyes were “intoxicating.” INTOXICATING, people!!!! That’s what he said! (Can you imagine my 12-year-old self squealing over that? Squealing silently, of course. We couldn’t let on to J or anyone else how much such a statement meant to me!) J, of course, thought it was trivial. Adam clearly didn’t like me, he just thought I had intoxicating eyes…

About halfway through the war, Adam and Tara and their parents fled to Cyprus.

I didn’t see either of them again until one fateful day… six years later.

And, hmmmmm. It looks like this is turning into a saga…

Yes, Folks! Soap Opera Sunday will be here today, at its birthblog. Awwwwww. Find out more about Soap Opera Sunday here. My post won’t actually go up until tomorrow (yeah, sorry. Just the way things are around here today) but here’s a Mr. Linky to get you started!

Welcome to Soap Opera Sunday, Gentle Readers. This week, the lovely, talented, and GORGEOUS crew who run the Anonymous Soapiness site are our Guest Hosts, so if you’re playing along, or looking for more SOSes, head on over there.

(Yes, Kate and I run the Anonymous Soapiness site…)

When I was 15, my parents moved me into a new house. I SO didn’t want to live there, in that obnoxiously snooty neighborhood on Snob Hill. As far as I could tell, everyone up here was a cheerleader or a drug addict or both, and I didn’t like them, and I didn’t want to like them. I avoided them all for a whole year.

One day, there was a church activity for the youth–specifically the Young Women (the girls age 12-18). Now, every ward in the Church has youth activities. Where I came from, we were happy with getting together in the field near the church and playing kick-the-can or whatever. But on Snob Hill, things were different, even church activities— the activity here was that everyone was bringing their boats to Lake Powell for a huge 5-day camp out.

Um, yeah. First, I didn’t like these people and I didn’t want to spend more than two seconds with them. Secondly, I didn’t think I could stomach everyone standing around in their slutty swimsuits and superiority complexes while we pretended to be having a Church activity.

But, dearest Mommy and Daddy were concerned about my total disdain for our new neighbors and thought it would be good for me to go and have some bonding time with them. I remember thinking that I’d rather yank off my toenails with tweezers, but somehow I suddenly found myself in someone’s BMW riding the four hour drive to Lake Powell.

Slowly but surely, I did begin to make friends with some of the girls. One girl adored me right off the bat, because my older brother Chris had been her drug counselor a few years before and had apparently made a huge difference in helping her break her addiction. Another girl liked me because she had read one of my mom’s books. And, finally, a girl who we will call Minki liked me because she, too, was a bit of a fish out of water just like me. Don’t get me wrong— her daddy had his boat there, her swimsuit was probably the sluttiest of them all, and she knew everyone and had been around forever. But strangely enough, we clicked and soon we became practically inseparable.

And that, dear ones, will suffice for this week. Stay tuned for next week, when Minki and I acquire the third member of our clan and officially becoming the Conceitrio.

Our guest host for Soap Opera Sunday is Thalia’s Child. Be sure you link your SOS back to her so everyone can find the other posts. And be sure to enter your link into her list! And, from now on, the host of the week will be announced in my sidebar where you can all see it easily if you remember to look! Also, if you are interested in being the Guest Host one of these weeks, and you have not yet indicated thus, let me know!

This SOS is inspired by a question from Penny Lane (who does not leave her URL, so I can’t link back to her!) about whether or not I’ve ever had to call 911.

The answer is yes, I’ve called 911 once in my entire life! The story goes like this:

When I was in college, my roommate had a BFF, Kristi, who practically lived in our apartment, and I considered her both a roommate and friend. She was a bit of a follower and she got involved with a guy (who we’ll call Creepy Boyfriend) who took advantage of her and her easy-to-push-around-ness. She announced one day that they were in love and she was going to marry him, and in the meantime she was going to move in with him.

This was a rather alarming announcement, first of all because she was extremely religious and had always firmly believed that premarital sex was a sin. This sudden change from absolute chastity to moving in with her boyfriend was shocking.

But the other thing that concerned us was this weird, creepy, and completely intangible something about CB. We, Kristi’s friends, were all completely uneasy around him, but none of us could put our finger on why.

So, Kristi moved in with him. Months went by. She became withdrawn and when one actually managed to track her down, she would be bruised and full of detail-less stories of falling down. It didn’t take us very long to figure out what was going on. We sat her down and tried to make her feel as safe as possible so that she would talk about the obvious abuse. Once we cracked through the wall she put up, she poured out her misery and terror. We were there to hold her and cry with her, and then encourage her to get out.

She did decide to move out. She arranged her grand move for a time when CB would be out for a few hours. And so a couple of us girls asked a couple of our guy friends (including Ben—you remember Ben, right?) to come with us and help her get her stuff out—not only to have them help us carry stuff, but also because we figured they would be insurance should CB decide to come home unannounced.

Which he did.

He walked in and saw immediately what was going on. By then we were almost done with moving her stuff. CB sweetly grabbed Kristi’s hand and kissed it and begged to be able to talk with her alone for a minute. Ben and I said, “NO. No way.” But Kristi decided to anyway, and she and CB went into the bedroom together. Ben went to listen at the door, while the rest of us finished carrying out the last of her stuff. After I loaded the last pile into the van, I turned to go back in, but noticed that the curtain to the bedroom was slightly parted, so I stopped to peak in.

I watched him slam her angrily into the wall, knocking her head really hard against a door frame. Then I saw him push his hands up her skirt, and force her legs apart. She was crying hysterically and begging him to stop.

I instantly threw myself at the window, pounding and screaming like a mad woman, startling them both. I ran inside and found Ben with his hands all bloodied from trying to break down the bedroom door. Just as he had almost managed to get in, CB opened the door and flung Kristi out at us, as though she were a rag doll. One of the other girls held Kristi and helped her to the car, but I was in a psychotic rage. I literally wanted to kill him. As I ran after him, screaming who knows what, Ben grabbed me around the waist, lifting me off the ground while my limbs were all still trying to chase and attack. Ben calmly said, “let’s go home. Let’s go home.”

He was right, of course. What could I have possibly accomplished by attacking him?

So, we went home. And then we proceeded to push Kristi around. Looking back it’s funny because Kristi never actually made her own choices. CB pushed her into the relationship of abuse, and then we pushed her into getting out of it. I’m not sure she ever really learned anything, or if she even cared. She was just shoved from one way of thinking to another.

I still think we did the right thing, but I felt like I was being as big of a bully as CB had been. I’m not sure if there was a better way or if getting her out of the situation immediately was more important than doing it the right way or what.

So Kristi moved in with us, unofficially of course, and she filed a restraining order against CB. One day, I noticed his car in our parking lot—he was sitting inside his car, watching our apartment. This was a violation of his restraining order! So, for the first time (and last time, so far) I picked up the phone and dialed 911. The police showed up and chatted with him and they left—I’m not sure what happened after that.

I moved away from Cedar City soon after all of this, so I never heard the end of the story. I know that Kristi had been planning to file charges. I signed all sorts of testimony against CB about what I’d seen through the bedroom window that day, but I was never called or talked to again. I can only assume she dropped the charges. I don’t really know.

I would love to say that she is happy now, or that she’s strong, or that she’s figured out what she wants, rather than what everyone else told her that she wanted. But, again, I have no idea if any of that’s true. Here’s hoping.

I’ve been given a few ideas about Soap Opera Sunday this week that I’m excited to talk about.

1. Because sometimes Kate or I are out of town or unable to post or whatever, it was suggested that we consider “guest hosts.” As I thought about this idea, I thought it was really great. Rather than have Kate and I host SOS every week, we would love for others to guest host from time to time—put up the rules and the links at their site and everyone links back to that host for that week (I would let you all know well in advance who the guest host would be for the week). If you are interested in guest hosting, let me know—leave me a comment or email me! It would be fun if we had a different host every week!

2. Many, MANY of our readers have told us that they would love to play Soap Opera Sunday, but they have friends or family or others who read their blog that they’re not comfortable sharing their stories with. This week, it was suggested to me that we start an “anonymous SOS” blog that people can post on— this would give people the chance to write something where their mom can’t find it and people would be allowed to either sign it and link back to their normal blog OR remain completely anonymous! It also gives people who DON’T have a blog the opportunity to share their soapiness too. Several people would be able to use this blog each week if they wanted to, and each post would be entered separately into the Mr. Linky. So! Because I’m SO on the ball, here’s the site! Anonymous Soapiness. If you want to submit a post there, you can email your story to me or to Kate and we will enter it for you. If you don’t want even me or Kate to know who you are, consider creating a bogus email account to send it from. We won’t do any detective work—we’ll respect your privacy. Please, PLEASE remember, though, that there are rules to what kinds of stories we will accept! (I will also be listing this new blog at my Cre8buzz profile—it would be super if you could go here to rate it so that we can get the word out and increase our SOS-ing, and thus increase everyone’s traffic!)

My own soapy story for today is brief. Last week I met with Fluffy’s kindergarten teacher for parent/teacher conferences. Her teacher told me that all the little boys in her class have a crush on Fluffy and try very hard to impress her. Fluffy, as it turns out, demands good classroom behavior. Her teacher laughed and told me that Fluffy makes her job so much easier! I died laughing. That’s my girl— a Soap Queen in the making!

And that’s all, folks! Are you playing Soap Opera Sunday too? Enter your link here. Do you WANT to play too? You’ll find the rules here.