Let me start with an aside. I’m listening to old Joan Armatrading, specifically, this very moment, the song “Heaven”: “I want to be the sunshine when you’re down… I want to be the one you run to… Came into my life, made me think that I was really something…” Yadda Yadda. I’m melting. I’m crying. I really can’t listen to anything except maybe Sousa marches right now without feeling like a big old romantic abscess. Hold me. Touch me. Love me. Jesus, I might as well just start listening to Lionel Ritchie 24/7, with a little Bread thrown in when I really want to cry. (Bread – remember them?)

But what I’m sitting here thinking about –the part of my brain that is consumed by something other than the fantasy of a tall man showing up on my doorstep–is Bea’s Halloween costume. She wants to be Pippi Longstocking. I think this is a swell idea. Talk about a maverick! Pippi is the real deal. The strongest girl in the world, no less. It’s just the kind of moxie Bea needs right now.

I’ve been trying to find dress ideas online. And Bea has some pretty specific ideas, too–a red-striped dress being primary to her ideal ensemble. I was going to ask a friend who sews to help out a little with some sort of smock that can go over a stripey shirt and socks I’ve bought during weak moments at various H&M’s around the country. Then tonight Alex, out of nowhere, asks if Bea is still planning to be Pippi.

I nod yes.

“Well, you know Gloria? She could, uh, make it. I think, I mean I’ve heard that she really likes Pippi. And, you know, she sews.”

Gloria is the woman who Alex is not “seeing” but is “dating.” “Seeing,” he explained, “means commitment. I don’t want commitment right now.”

I don’t know what to think about the fact that Alex is dating and we’re hardly a month away from having shared the same house. I’m not dying from jealousy by any means, but I’m not exalting in the news either. Partly, because I’ve figured out that who ever Alex sees, the kids see. This epiphany occurred when we were walking past where Gloria works and Thomas shouted out, “Remember when we picked flowers and brought them here for Daddy’s friend?”

Oh good lord, I’m fantasizing about the mammogram technician and my children are helping their father deliver flowers! But he’s not “seeing” her mind you…

I wish he could have gone to Africa and had his first date with a Norwegian aid worker. That’s the way I’d envisioned it. Instead, he’s here, still waiting for his visa and spending time with a woman who I know, and who knows some of my friends. She’s a nice person – industrious, kind, just the kind of alt-chick that appeals to Alex. But do I really want her making my daughter’s Halloween costume?

No, I don’t. That’s my clear gut reaction. Nope.

But why not? Why not?? If anyone out there has a good answer to that, please get back to me, because I’m just feeling like a nasty old school curmudgeon. And a sappy one at that. “Girl I’m leaving, I must be on my way…”