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Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

From household saint to social pariah
In Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Martha Stewart let it slip that the real reason she's leaving Westport, Conn., is because she's lonely.
By Kate Moses
[04/11/00]

Image-conscious
We want your photos -- just the best ones, please -- for our new feature.

[04/10/00]

Are we not divas?
Guys -- at least straight guys -- can't be divas. They don't have the right shoes.
By Jori Finkel
[04/10/00]

Mothers who don't think
About anything but their kids.
By Leslie Lafayette
[04/06/00]

Nonparent trap?
Elinor Burkett argues that family-friendly policies are racist, regressive and, worst of all, anti-woman.
By Rachel Elson
[04/06/00]

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Cut to several months later: Josh and I were now engaged. I brought in the 1,325th cardboard box to arrive at our front door. It was filled with Styrofoam peanuts, which cushioned a white cardboard box wrapped in silver and white paper. Inside this box were even more Styrofoam peanuts and an object that was securely cocooned in layers of plastic bubble wrap and tape. I pulled and ripped at it savagely. I bit into the tape to get it open. "Don't you want the scissors?" asked my sweetie, his eyebrows forming a triangle of worry. "No," I said, panting a little. "Almost ... got it ... mrshfsph ..."

I unearthed the artifact and turned to him, red-faced and clutching it to my chest.

It was another crystal bowl.

I let loose an unearthly howl and attempted to crush the would-be heirloom with my bare hands. Being a high-quality item, it didn't give. "Hey, why don't you let me take that?" said Josh. I shook my head no. I hunched over like an earth-smeared Homo habilis and edged toward the door. I was going to take that thing out into the alley and smash it into a million pieces, and then stomp on the pieces until there was nothing left but a fine shimmery dust.

"Don't destroy it," said Josh. "We could sell it!" He had to restrain me.

This is the point where Josh and I had to have a little talk about my gift rage. "Remember how you felt when I had road rage?" he asked.

I did.

But I was still furious.

Cut to today: Although I got married almost 15 months ago, I still haven't written all of my thank-you notes. There's a box in my office that doesn't even get the courtesy of being placed in my bamboo hutch. It doesn't dwell on top of my filing cabinet among the office supplies. It sits on the orange shag carpet, in the corner, just barely within my sight as I toil at my desk. I feel its judgment, born of tree pulp and ink, daily.

This box contains virgin stationery and envelopes, which should have been transformed into handwritten thank-you notes long ago:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Crookshank:

Thank you so very much for the lovely crystal candy dish. I just know it will be so useful and decorative in the years to come. Thanks so much for all your kind thoughts.

Yours most sincerely,

Mary.

I know that I am a horrible person. I'm telling you this right now to save you the trouble of telling me. If that's all you want to know about me, you can stop reading right here.

Let me say, in my own defense, that I never intended to get married at all. Frankly, I've never had a high opinion of the institution. And before I met Josh, I couldn't even begin to imagine that any man would sign on for such a hazardous tour of duty.

My best friend, Ingrid, recently confessed that she had also reckoned that marriage just wasn't going to happen for her old friend Mary K.

"I figured that the chances were pretty limited for me," said Ingrid, a lithe, fiercely intelligent Eastern European blond with almond-shaped green eyes. "But for you, I thought one, at most two, men in the entire world could possibly be up to the job."

Life will surprise you: I met one of them.

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