I’m so excited about today’s guest post, for a couple of reasons. A) I’m excited I remembered to post it. B) It’s from the always fabulous Miss Melisa Mae.

Mel  V. G-O-D

If you had a car, you had a bedroom.  The backseat was ample enough room to become acquainted with the object of one’s desire.  Darkly lit streets, vacant parking lots and local parks harbored youth from the prying eyes of adult disapproval and punishment.

I was young, I was limber and I could maneuver around the bucket seats of a two door Nissan with the grace of a synchronized swimmer.  Nothing short of the Pittsburg Steelers offensive line could keep this 16 year olds raging hormones under wraps.  If you were cute and had wheels I was bound and determined to insure a play date of heavy petting and hickies.

Trying to reconcile my desire to dryhump everything with a penis with the chastity imposed by my youth group’s pastor was cruel and unusual punishment.  The urge to suck face with one of my God fearing, innocent youth group peers was never far from the surface.  I was in a competition with God.  He was trying to keep their clothes on and I was trying to get them off.  Game, set, match.  Even the threat of eternal damnation was not enough to keep me from exploring the boundaries of my sexuality.

This is how I met Stephen.  The tall, slightly goofy, devoted Man of God.  He was a senior in high school with dreams of becoming a pastor himself.  Even knowing my reputation as the man-eating, temptress didn’t keep him from wanting a taste.  Like a puppy dog, he followed me around in hopes of defiling then saving my soul.

We would have long discussions about sin and forgiveness, temptation and redemption, monogamy and salvation.  He would preach to me about premarital sex in the eyes of the Lord and made confessions to me about how he had strayed before.  Luckily for him, God had sacrificed his only Son so that Stephen would be forgiven of his horrendous misdeed.

I didn’t particularly have any desire to fool around with Stephen.  I wasn’t all that attracted to him and I was afraid of what his dirty talk would consist of should I get him excited.  The only thing I had ever seen him get passionate about was The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit.  Should he see my tits in any capacity other than under the sanctity of marriage, he, no doubt, was the type to whip himself with a leather strap in the privacy of his own room while chanting in Latin.

Going out for coffee one evening, we again commenced our usual conversation and banter.  This usually consisted of him warning me of my sinful ways and almost certain road to hell.  Considering that I was, in actuality, still just a virgin, him prophesying my eternal resting place was a tad overly dramatic.  Assuring him that my healthy appetite for making out did not condemn me to a place with no air conditioning for the rest of my life after death I got the feeling as though I was not so much one of his projects for salvation but more his dessert for the evening.

Sitting in his truck, Stephen placed his hand on my thigh.  His other hand went behind my neck and with an unfounded confidence, pulled me to him and tried to stick his big, fat, inexperienced (except for that one time) tongue down my throat.  Trying to push him away, he continued on as though my refusal was merely a distraction from him trying to insure my speedy travels into hell by taking my cherry premaritally.

It didn’t take much to remove the hypocrite’s paws from my body and I was never in any real danger of being deflowered by the ginormous bible thumper.  I was more offended that he had spent so much time spewing his religious bullshit highlighting the error of my ways and need for salvation when his intention all along was to take from me that which he so considered to be most important in the eyes of God.

Oh.  And his kissing.  That offended me, too.  When will some folks learn that simply sticking your tongue in a mouth and leaving it there to take up space is not considered kissing?  It’s considered storage.

I got a call from a friend asking me if I could take the afternoon off, one day later in the week. She needed someone to go with her to the doctor. I said, yes, of course. But I was wondering, as I said it, why she was asking me. Why her husband wouldn’t be going with her.

And then she explained that she’d be having an abortion. And that she wasn’t telling her husband.

They already had 2 beautiful, healthy children. Both under the age of 5. And both she and her husband had full-time, stressful jobs. They were struggling.

The challenges of being a wife and mother were hard for her, and she’d been in therapy for the past year.  And they’d also been in and out of marriage counseling. She couldn’t cope with another child.

So I took that afternoon off and met her at the doctor’s office. A very pleasant place on the Upper East Side. And afterward we went for coffee, killing time until she had to pick up her kids from day care.  I never interrogated her. Never asked why I was there instead of her husband. Never asked her if she was planning to tell him.

I was her friend. She asked for my help and my support. Not my judgment.

So, why am I telling this story now?  Warning, I’m about to get preachy and political. Well, contrary to what most people think of when they think of abortion, my friend’s story is probably pretty typical. Almost 1 out of 3 women in the US have an abortion before the age of 45.  The majority of them are already mothers. Women who understand, fully, what they are doing. For more facts, watch..

I’ve tweeted and facebooked about this in the past day, but woke up thinking that I needed to do more. To try harder to get people to pay attention. Even if it meant standing in the center of a shitstorm. For those of you who haven’t heard, the House passed HR3, a bill they disingenuously call the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.”

There is no taxpayer funding for abortion in this country and hasn’t been since the Hyde Amendment in the 70s. What this bill will do, effectively, is pull all PRIVATE insurance coverage of abortion, as any plan that covers abortion will lose their tax credits.  In other words, they’re just making it even harder for women who need and want abortions to have them.  Not to mention also making it legal to deny life-saving care to pregnant women if it would require terminating the fetus.

So, I scrapped my planned post for today so that I could write about this here, too. Because I’m so utterly disgusted. I know this has little chance of passing in the Senate. But I’m disgusted nonetheless.

So, I’ve become a little obsessed with the Royal Wedding. OK, let me rephrase/reframe that. I’ve become obsessed with other’s people’s obsession with the wedding and with everything wedding-related and princess-y.

Like so many pop culture phenomena, I don’t quite get it. Although I’ve been reading some very interesting analysis of why people (especially women) are interested in princesses, the British Royal family and the lingering memory of Diana.

I think that, for all intents and purposes, I had a fairly normal childhood. My parents read me fairytales and took me to see disney movies. But, I never dreamed of my own wedding. Never dreamed of my Prince Charming.

I have no idea why.

Which has me wondering… Are the little girls who play pretend princess and fantasize about big, fluffy wedding dresses more marriage-minded as adults? Do they put husband hunting before career and self-development?

And do the little girls who, like me, skip those games, NOT prioritize getting married?  Could the random fact that I never played pretend bride as a child have something to do with my ambivalence about marriage. Or am I thinking too much again?

Here’s one thing I do know, I’m never going to have kids but I could have stepkids one day. And if I had a stepdaughter who suddenly became obsessed with princesses, I’d  probably do everything I could to get her interested in a sport or a musical instrument. Something else.

A few days ago I mentioned a research study involving divorced women. According to an article detailing the study,

“30 percent of now-divorced women say they knew in their gut they were making a mistake as they walked down the aisle — and kept walking anyway.”

It’s easy to guess why this might be so. And, in fact, many of us came up with theories as to why.  But I have another theory, one that’s been on my mind lately, in a round about way.

Stories change.

For example, man meets woman. Man dates woman. He shares, with friends and family, concerns about whether or not this is a good match for him. There seems to be a lot of drama.  But they continue to date.  And after a year+ and a couple of rough patches they decide to live together.  Subsequently, he tells friends and family that they are madly in love and he’s always known they are meant to be together forever.

Did he always know they were meant to be together forever, or is he changing the story? And yes, these are real people.

I suspect that his memory is changing. That he is selectively remembering things differently. Subtly. I’m sure there are all kinds of research studies that might explain this. Or not. But I’m not in research mode (and this is just my silly personal blog).

I’ve come to believe, though, that we all change our stories, unintentionally. That we misremember details and/or shift to make things fit with the conclusion we  select for ourselves.  So, in the case of the man meets woman story, the man has selected a happy ending.  Therefore, he is eliminating all of the doubt he used to have from the final narrative.  Now, when  he tells the story of his relationship, he says that he’s always known that they were meant to be.

Makes sense? A little bit?

I’m guessing that a fair share of people have doubts on their wedding day. Our society is changing rapidly and ideas about family and marriage are wrapped up with all kinds of political, religious and cultural tension. Marriage doesn’t mean what it used to mean (for many people).

So are those now divorced women any different from the general population of married women/people? In other words, were they really experiencing more doubt than anyone else? Or did they decide, in retrospect, that their stories went that way?  That their marriages were doomed from the start?

Just something I’ve been thinking about, in general. The way we interpret our experiences, tell our stories, compare our truths. Not that I know shit about marriage or divorce. I just thought it was interesting to look at that specific study through this lens.

It was a couple of weeks ago. I was sitting at the computer one morning, polishing up the post for the day. And emails were coming in every couple of minutes. And the phone kept ringing. And all of sudden, I realized that I had to stop.

Something had to give.

I’d just been to the doctor, a new doctor. And she told me, in no uncertain terms, that many of my health issues were being caused and/or complicated by anxiety, stress and exhaustion. And that I had to find a way to work less and take better care of myself.  So basically I was back to where I was before I quit my old job.

I’m a workaholic, at heart. I guess.

At that moment, I decided that something had to give and instead of rereading my post and hitting publish, I posted a gone fishing sign on the blog. I figured the blog was a non-mandatory part of my life, and until I could get my stress/anxiety/exhaustion under control I would just let it rest. Note how I said I would “get my stress/anxiety/exhaustion under control”? Yeah, that’s a part of the problem.

Later that day, my good friend (the brilliant writer) Jack from Brooklyn asked about the gone fishing sign. He was concerned. And when he heard what was going on, he offered to take things over while I got my head together and got some extra rest for a few days. He said he’d reach out to some of our friends in the blogging community to see if any of them would be up to submitting guest posts…

Anyway, I never properly thanked him or any of them, here on the blog.

So, thank you with all of my heart to Jack. And a big virtual hug to the other amazing bloggers who contributed posts while I was on my mini-hiatus – Alex, from The Urban Dater; Jeffrey Platts and Elizabeth Rose of Metanother Frog. You’re all amazing.

Now, as long as I’m babbling, a couple of other things… First off (already mentioned this on facebook but for some weird reason, you’re not ALL facebook fans) – I know some people who are working on a very cool new website that’s now in private beta. It’s a site for couples, and is specifically designed to help couples create more rewarding relationships. If you’re part of a couple and would like to test it out, send me an email and I’ll send you a link with a private invitation.

Lastly, I read this this morning and just thought I’d share:

Marry Wrong

Kimberly Goad wonders about it:

According to recent research conducted by Jennifer Gauvain, a therapist in Denver, 30 percent of now-divorced women say they knew in their gut they were making a mistake as they walked down the aisle — and kept walking anyway. Only a handful backed out. The obvious question: If you know you’re marrying the wrong guy, why do it?

Amanda Marcotte, unsurprisingly, blames sexism.

My thought = Why must we “blame” anything?