The answer is blowin' in the wind.

In order for you to fully understand the ramifications of this story, I need to tell you about Barry.

Barry is our down-the-street neighbor. But more than that, he's a local fixture -- as integral to the character of the neighborhood as the bodega-cum-underground-gambling-den on the corner, the smell of baking bread that wafts down the street in the early morning, the constant undercurrent whoosh of traffic from the nearby BQE, or the group of Polish-speaking alcoholics in our local park (who, in addition to character, also provide the neighborhood with an endless supply of empty Smirnoff bottles and the rare but inimitable pleasure of seeing a middle-aged man lying in the bushes with no pants on.)

Barry has lived in Greenpoint for approximately 300 years. He has spindly legs, a pendulous gut, and a sparse, unruly beard that he shaves once per year. (For two to three weeks after this annual event, we inevitably walk past him on the street without recognizing him at least once.) His profession is a mystery; together, Brad and I have worked out that he's some sort of super for a building on our block, but he spends most of his time hanging out in the park with his two dogs -- a musclebound pair of chow-chow mixes named Zeus and Mysterio, who love Barry more than life itself and follow him wherever he goes. But the two things you most need to know about Barry are as follows:

1. Barry is old school. He calls me "young lady", apologizes for cursing in front of me, and tells raunchy, obscenely detailed, hilarious stories about catching people having sex on the sidewalk outside our building... but only to Brad, and always with the explanation that he "didn't want to say anything in front of your wife."

2. Barry is everywhere. I see him almost every day, sometimes multiple times per day. Basically, Barry is an unavoidable part of life in my neighborhood.

Not that I wanted to avoid him.
Before.

And so, on a hot, breezy afternoon last week, I took Hurley out for a walk... and ran into Barry on the way to the park.

At first, it was a typical exchange. We said our hellos and chatted briefly about the weather (humid) and the stray cat situation in the alley behind our respective buildings (catty), and then Barry stepped off the sidewalk and into the space between two cars -- holding Mysterio, who doesn't like other dogs -- so that we could pass by. I thanked him, and continued down the sidewalk...

... until, several seconds and about five yards later, a sudden stray gust of wind came rushing down the street, richocheted off a recessed doorway, and blew my skirt clear up to my ribcage.

It happened so quickly that I had no recourse -- no time to plunge my hands onto my crotch, Marilyn Monroe-style; no time to even flail hysterically in the direction of my hemline before it rose up even with my eyeballs -- and then it was over. And I was alone, clutching the dog's leash in one hand and my now-deflated skirt in the other. Alone, and reeling from the unforgettable sensation of having just had my entire ass -- both cheeks in totality, my brain helpfully reminded me, because I was wearing a thong -- waving about in the open air.

Alone... except that, of course, I wasn't alone. Because behind me, right where I'd left him only moments before, was Barry.

Just keep walking, my brain advised. He was probably still between those cars, he probably had his back turned, he was probably distracted by his dog, it's okay!

Still clutching my skirt, I took a few tentative steps toward the park.

That's good, said my brain, as I quickened my pace and the pounding rush of humiliation stopped beating quite so insistently at my temples. That's good. You're good. Barry did not just see your ass.

I kept walking.

And even if he did, my brain continued, he would never say anything. He's old school, remember? He'd just pretend like it never happened! So just keep on walking, and don't worry, because Barry will never, ever, ever mention this agai--

"Young lady!" came a voice from behind me. "I saw that!"

I turned around.
Down the street, right where I'd left him, stood Barry -- lips stretched into a lunatic grin under his beard, finger extended and ecstatically pointing.

Pointing at my ass.

My brain, temporarily muted by the shock of what had just happened, suddenly sprang back to life and began screaming, NOOOOOOOOO!

I turned and ran into the park. My brain continued to scream. Ten minutes later, Barry and his dogs entered the park and walked in the opposite direction. I pretended not to see them.

That was three days ago.

It's not that I'm looking for a solution, here. There is nothing I can do about this. Despite desperately wanting to avoid him, Barry remains an unavoidable part of our neighborhood, and we can't afford to move.

It's just this: Barry is old-school. And if Barry's censored and restrained reaction to seeing my entire ass is to let me know, in no uncertain terms, that he saw my entire ass, I'm left wondering what the unrestrained, not-in-the-presence-of-a-lady version of this story will involve.

More likely than not, he's probably in the park right now, telling everyone that we had sex.

Saved by the skin of my teeth

This morning, Brad and I headed up to Columbus Circle for back-to-back husband-and-wife appointments with the dentist.

Yeah, I know. Waaaaaay too much togetherness, right? I have no idea if other couples go and get their teeth cleaned together -- I'm guessing most don't, if only because schedules don't allow for it -- but I have to admit that it's the sort of thing which, if someone had mentioned it to me a few years ago, I would have probably responded to by laughing derisively and then pretending to vomit in my purse.

So, consider this my mea culpa: as it turns out, it's actually kind of nice to do this thing -- since we would have to do it anyway -- with each other. And our dentist, an incredibly charming and avuncular guy who won my heart at our first visit when he told me that it's totally okay not to floss, seems to get a kick out of us showing up together.

Today's visit was no big deal -- no cavities for either of us, a basic cleaning for me, and for Brad, just a few minor cosmetic adjustments to his front teeth (the goal being to upgrade his status from that of "a very handsome man" to "The Most Handsome Man in New York Unless James McAvoy Happens to Be Visiting".) I went first, then sat in the waiting room and skimmed through a World Cup preview article while Brad took his turn.

About ten minutes had passed, when I heard Dr. S. take a break from what had been an uninterrupted stream-of-consciousness monologue about golfing (because when your customers spend most of their visit with a spit-sucking tube and various scraping implements in their mouths, singlehandedly keeping up the conversation is a very important skill) and say, "Is Kat still here?"

I called back, "Yes?"
"Come here, let's see what you think!"

In the exam room, Brad turned in his chair and grinned at me.
"So," said the dentist, "as you can see, I've just done some temporary bonding here and here, to see how you guys like it."
"Okay," I said.
"And by 'you guys'," he continued, "I mean Kat, because I know it's the wife who makes the decisions about this sort of thing."
Everyone laughed.
"Sounds good," said Brad.

The dentist nodded.
"So, I'll do this for today, and then you can go home and decide whether it looks good. And if you change your mind, or you want something else. we can adjust it. Like, if after a week you feel like it's not long enough..."

Brad snorted.

"...or if you're saying, 'You know, I think it could be a little bigger', we can..."

I snorted, then started giggling. Brad laughed harder and mouthed the words long enough at me behind the dentist's back. I began to wheeze.
Dr. S. stopped talking and stared at us.

"I'm sorry," gasped Brad.
"It's just," I giggled.
The dentist held up his hands. "No, no! It's fine. Whatever you have going on in your personal lives, I don't need to know about it."


Which is probably a good thing, because what I had been about to say -- and what, given the context, would have resulted in a horrific misunderstanding that would put an immediate, embarrassing end to our marital-bonding-via-dentist-visit -- was:

"It's just that we're like a couple of twelve year-old boys."

Because even after the hurried explanation that oh no, I just meant that we have shared sense of humor, I wouldn't have blamed the dentist if he never wanted to have anything to do with either of our mouths ever again.

On a scale of one to CRAZY...

Longtime readers might remember the day, now a few years back, when I bought a bathroom scale from KMart that soon became my new favorite toy. Why, you ask, would a KMart bathroom scale be such a source of entertainment?

Because I'm a weirdo who weighs herself multiple times per day, that's why.

I aint ashamed!

And the fact that I now spend every single day home alone in my apartment has not exactly dampered my enthusiasm for scale-based experiments such as "How much does this cat weigh?" and "How many pounds is my leg?" and "How long does it take after eating asparagus for pee to start smelling funny?"

Okay, that last one doesn't actually require the scale. But you get the idea. And anyway, that's not the point.

The point is, I don't have a scale anymore.
I have two scales.

See, sometime last year -- probably around the same time that my dissatisfaction with my job became so extreme that I began to drink beer at lunch, by default, just to get through the day -- I became convinced that I was gaining weight. Why? Hey, shut up! I don't need to explain myself to you! Which is to say, I can't explain it at all except to say that depression makes you feel both fat AND crazy. So, while I (of course) still continued to weigh myself everyday like the neurotic chub-fearing loon that I am, I was also (of course) simultaneously sure that I was getting bigger, at which point I concluded (of course!) that the problem was not an obvious unchecked psychosis on my part, but rather that the scale must be broken.

"I'm going to buy a new scale," I told Brad.
"This one seems fine to me," he said.
"Noooo, it's broken."
"How do you figure?"
"I just know. It's obviously weighing things a few pounds lighter than they really are."
"Does that even matter?"
"Of course it matters! If I don't know what I actually weigh, it's like... cheating."
Brad eyed me.
"Well, I haven't noticed it," he said.
"Oh yeah?" I retorted, and then, possessed by what I was sure was unassailable and inarguable logic, "MAYBE YOU'RE GETTING FAT, TOO."

By now, I'm sure, you can probably guess where I'm going with this. Because I did buy a new scale, and I set it up right beside the original scale, and then I weighed myself on both of them in order to prove once and for all that I was, in fact, fatter, and not just buckling under the immense weight of hating my job with the white-hot fury of a thousand suns.

And lo and behold, there was a discrepancy. Because according to the new scale, I was...

...one pound...

...lighter.

What the hell.

"So you'll throw away the old scale now?" said Brad.

Of course, I can't do that.
Because that would be cheating.

But instead of continuing in this vein -- not least because I'm sure that my parents have long since stopped reading this post and are now having an argument over which of their respective DNA codes is responsible for their daughter having turned out to be completely batshit insane -- I'm just handing it over to you, readers. Which scale would you keep? I will bow to your wisdom.

Just don't try to suggest anything crazy like getting rid of both of them. I've still got experiments to do.