“Surprise!” is what I used to say, years ago, early on in our twenty-eight year relationship. Back when we hadn’t really yet learned each other’s tastes (or better, tolerances). Fifteen years ago I’d stand there, his gift balanced by my sweaty hands, my nerves knotted and twisted like the Strangler Fig tree, praying for his hullabaloo upon opening the gift, followed by a tight embrace, further followed by his quick kisses like a woodpecker atop some pine. A decade ago I’d pluck the gift from beneath the tree with little ceremony, hand it to him, then sit back and watch as he tested-then-tore layer by layer of packaging, similar to a child tasting her way through a box of chocolates. The past few years like a couple of archaeologists, the dig was more fun than the discovery! At last he found the gift and I 
waited for the inconclusive and rudimentary sentiment followed by a brief embrace and a kiss as light as a hummingbird. Three years ago I’d started to hear “How’d you know I wanted this?” his amazement falling to the side of curiosity rather than tickling admiration, and my answer, diluted through the years like cheap gin, “I thought you could use this,” at which he cocked his head like our dog’s misunderstanding, and then I presented the real gift, “There’s a gift receipt taped to the lid should you choose to exchange it for a color more to your liking than orange.” I’ve learned over the course of twenty-eight years that we buy lovers/partners/spouses clothing we’d like to see them wear, and definitely not the clothing they like to wear. So after two decades of my repeated attempts to upgrade his personal style year after year by giving him exquisite gifts (which he surreptitiously found ghastly) I learned that a gift receipt, like the “get out of jail card,” nullifies my responsibility for his disinterest in modern style, and ensures that he can exchange the atrocious article for an object of his liking.
But this Christmas his gift to me was different than the previous twenty-seven. Very, very different. Absent was the gift receipt. He handed me the gift without fanfare, explanation, or apology. He simply said, “Merry Christmas.”
Hidden beneath wrapping paper we’ve had for twenty years was a book. But not some book he’d like to read. No, this was a book I’d already read and reread; I had a greater degree of familiarity with the final pages, but the earlier pages popped once more like bubble gum. The book he gave me was “Becoming not Became: The First 100 Posts,” by T.M. Mulligan.
I was dumbfounded then speechless then crying. I was flabbergasted to hold Mr. Mulligan’s first 100 posts printed on heavy, magazine-grade paper and hardbound. It’s rare indeed, to hold yourself up to yourself, to be reflected, to permit yourself to be tickled, concerned, angry, interested, and entertained. I suppose narcissism might come to mind; but if you’re beautiful or handsome why not enjoy a modicum of self-appreciation. Or, like me, those 100 posts represented dear friends, young and old, whom I haven’t visited, but whom all came together under the same roof for me. I shall take my time reading these posts and thoroughly enjoy each one’s company greater than before.
Thank you so much, Nick.
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unfamiliar with the layout of their home, I was quiet as a 
ce the age of three when I recall my father dragging me through the front door of Dr. Olson’s Dentistry Office and it’s tagline etched into the front window: “You’ll be happy to talk after just one visit!” Every adult within a thousand feet knew that I didn’t want to be there; my father had to lift me, then hold me while Dr. Olson wrapped nylon-webbed belts around my shoulders and stomach. Once I was trussed and couldn’t squirm, Dr. Olson slowly approached with that tiny mirror and that double-ended pick with which he digs cavities to fill. “Open wide” the doctor ordered. Nope. Then came the first of three slaps to the back of my he
escriptions designed to mask the symptoms yet never correcting the reason for my discomfort; I’ve become dependent on prescriptions for that simple reason: They manipulate your reasoning of treatment asserting that the absence of symptoms infers successful intervention, when it’s really sleight of hand and our assumption that doctors cure our ailments. Disappear and cure are 
punch connecting to your exposed soft-spot: that irritated and aching bridge between your blindsided disbelief and your simmering pity turned rolling boil of anger and self-declared vengeance at A) Being dumped; B) Being dumped by him; and C) Being dumped by him in your family’s dining room next to his empty chair via text message while he is using your family’s first floor powder room!
without uttering a single word proceeded to produce a handsaw and cut the tree in half. He lifted the top half from the bottom and dragged it through the Great Room, and the den/office, parlor, foyer, leaving a trail of shattered ornaments, strings of icicles, and the thirty-seven years old Trumpeting Angel Gabriel tree-topper (an extravagant purchase, yet heralding their first Christmas together) lay dismembered, his trumpet reduced to an unrecognizable piece of gilded tin, as though 
Bugs Bunny, of course!
