Motherhood in NYC —

Let me ask you this: If I were in a throes of a nervous breakdown, would you want to know?

If you’re a normal person, your instinct is probably to lie with a “of course! If you’re having a nervous breakdown, I care deeply and want to help!”

But really?

REALLY?

Like, what kind of a comment would you leave?

“Erm..it worked for Sylvia Plath, but maybe stay out of the kitchen!”?

Really.

And yet, I can’t lie to you.

And not just because I lack the creativity.

Unfortunately I am having a nervous breakdown. About a month ago, I started playing Candy Crush.

Oh, what’s that? You’re a well-adjusted, normal person and don’t know from Candy Crush?

It’s a ridiculous game that you play on your phone, your iPad, your computer, your instrument of Satan. The goal, and I’m using the word loosely, is to match the candy by color (I think that’s how segregation works, too) and then eliminate it. If you’re successful, you have a a Sugar Crush! and all the candy plummets to the bottom as a celebratory gesture and you advance to the next level and if you’re a failure, it doesn’t, and you have to repeat that level as your own personal myth of Sisyphus. By the way, don’t you think it would be a lot more fun if it were called the Myth of Syphilis? That way when the doctor tells you “you have syphilis” you can just say “that’s a myth!” and everyone would win. Except the syphilis drug manufacturers, but maybe those drugs can be taken recreationally? I’m not sure. There’s definitely a need for more research.

So, anyway, I’m playing Candy Crush and making fantastic progress. And then I run out of lives. And I’m all what the fuck? And it turns out that you have a limited number of lives, and after you run out you either have to ask your Facebook friends for more, or wait half an hour for a life to regenerate or pay cash money to buy more. So I send a couple of dozen requests to my Facebook friends, and then my lives are refilled and happiness is restored.

Until I get to a satanic level that I can’t clear. And that’s when I buy 5 extra moves for 99 cents. Because 99 cents is like nothing and I’ve been stuck on this level of Dante’s Circle of Hell for three days and at some point I have to get on with my life and say hello to the kids or something. So 99 cents for 5 extra moves that will allow me to move off this level is the bargain of the century. Really, I don’t know why they don’t charge $10. Come on – ten bucks to be happy? Who’s not in?

Except 99 cents and 5 moves later, I’m still stuck.

So I make another 99 cent purchase, and well, to make a long story slightly shorter, let’s just say that for less than a price of Starbucks latte (Venti, of course, with a couple of extra shots and maybe a raspberry scone and an-Every-Kiss-Begins-With-Kay-Open-Heart-That-Looks-Like-An-Ass-Jane-Seymour-Necklace), I progressed seamlessly to the next level.

My humiliation was complete.

Because not only was I playing a ridiculous computer game, with no purpose whatsoever, but now I was also paying for it.

And then things another turn.

I was chatting with Annie, who was several kazillion levels of Candy Crush ahead of me. Obviously I was hoping to use our friendship to a Candy Crush advantage, but Annie is very crafty because even though she’s a Candy Crush expert, every time I ask her a strategic question, she sort of kicks the dirt and does this whole “oh, shucks, I’m not sure” routine. Some people are so cut-throat.

I didn’t realize how cut-throat until she emailed me.

Can you play Farm Heroes Saga for me? She asked.

Fuck no, I answered.

Please? She asked. And then added: I have cancer.

Seriously, what kind of a person can say no to that?

So I started playing Farm Heroes Saga. Because I hate cancer.

And now instead of lining up candies, I am lining up “cropsies.” Which I think is what they call “crops” in the insane asylum. But it’s nice to have a break from Candy Crush because I was starting to develop low grade diabetes and now I’m in the fresh farm air.

Except I also ran out of lives in Farm Heroes Saga.

But the good news is that you can buy gold bars for only $1.

Honestly, I don’t know where else you can get a sweet deal like that.

Also, if you hear that any asylums have vacancies, let me know, will you? I’ll be waiting and packing my gold bars.

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When you get to be my age, it’s hard to make new friends.

I used to blame myself.

Maybe it was my personality. Either that or my general dislike of other people. I know it’s hard to believe, but some are really turned off by that. I don’t get it either. Assholes.

But I now have proof that my difficulty in friendship formation is totally not my fault.

I will explain everything and you will agree with me.

A few months ago, I met a new woman in my mah jongg group.

“Hello,” I said. “It is very nice to meet you!”

She returned my friendly and appropriate greeting and we had some small talk. Some mah jongg banter- how she hoped one day to have my prowess as a player and how she felt lucky to be sitting at the same table as me. Words to that effect, I don’t have the exact transcript.

I’d see her occasionally and it was always nice and pleasant and I started to think of her as a Friend of the Future, someone I could maybe have a cup of coffee with or borrow money from.

This is how friendship formation works, right? You get together around a common interest, exchange pleasantries and then change your relationship status to Friends on Facebook.

Well, apparently this Friend of the Future did not study the Friendship Rulebook.
Because Chapter One of the Friendship Rulebook is Tell Your Friend of the Future Important Information.

I knew that her husband was a writer, but it wasn’t until she mentioned that he’d written a memoir that my ears perked up. As you may remember, I’ve been writing a memoir for the past couple of years, and I figured if he’d already written one, maybe I can just change a few things around in his manuscript and save myself a lot of time and headaches. I’d recently started playing Candy Crush on my iPhone and it’s crazy what a commitment that is.

I went home and looked up his book.

And then I knew instantly why this Friendship of the Future was doomed.

Because friends don’t marry their potential future friend’s high school pretend husbands.

I explained all this to my husband.

“What are you talking about?” he asked. He may have also asked why I was talking while he was trying to sleep, but I’m trying to stay on point.

“She’s married to Blane McDonnagh,” I lamented.

“I don’t know who that is,” he yawned.

If there’s one thing that gets on my nerves, it’s people who take their time waking up in the middle of the night.

“That’s a character from Pretty in Pink,” I explained. Why does everything have to be spelled out? I’m like Annie Sullivan.

“Is that one of those ridiculous Real Housewives shows?” Poor thing. He was trying.

“It’s a John Hughes movie from the 80s.” I was close to giving up.

“And your friend married a character from the movie?”

“Have you not heard one word I screeched?” I asked him. “First of all, she’s a pre-friend, and no, she didn’t marry a movie character, she married the actor who portrayed him, in case you forgot how movies work, and by the way, I wanted to marry him when I was in high school.”

“I certainly hope you can forgive her this transgression,” he said.

And I tried.

I thought about it for hours and finally decided to air it out.

“I got the book,” I emailed her in what I hoped was a terse tone, “and you are now on friendship probation.”

She responded with some confusion about why she was on friendship probation. And then when I went out of my way I explained it to her, she still refused to take responsibility for ruining my life.

I honestly don’t understand how I’m supposed to make new friends under these hostile circumstances.

Or how I can remain married to someone who’d never heard of Pretty in Pink.

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