The Barmaid Blog™: Life for a 20-something Manhattan Barmaid

Barmaid Blog reader "J" wrote to me last week, saying:

I'm...writing because I wondered how you deflect unwanted attention and harassment, not just when you're behind the counter but also when you're on the street. I'm moving to a large city in the summer for the first time with my boyfriend and my sister and I've been offered a couple jobs as a bartender and a barista. I'm more inclined to take the latter position, even though bartending would allow me to save up more for college, not just because I have more experience but because I know the customer base is more, shall we say, sober by nature. I'm an Asian-American woman, in my early twenties, and have a petite frame - even in the college town where I work and live now, I can't really go a single day without a man asking where I live, or if I want a ride, or other unsettling questions that look tame in writing but feel invasive and unwelcome. And if it's this pervasive in ultra-PC Professorville, I imagine I'll have to brace myself for worse when we move. I've spent enough time in the city that I already know it's worse.

The intelligent, assertive, feminist response to street harassment is to confront the harasser, ask him about his motivation and try to make him understand how discomfiting his comments are. A commendable sentiment, but utterly impractical when I'm rushing to class, or - as is usually the case - I'm simply too scared that any kind of retaliation, rational or no, will escalate the situation. And the fact that I'm Asian only serves to exacerbate things (judging from the nature of a lot of comments, it seems like colonial perceptions of submissive, exotic oriental women are still alive and well today). The one time I lost my temper and volleyed back at a guy he followed me for seven blocks, muttering racial slurs and threats under his breath, until I turned a corner and raced to the bar where I was meeting my friend as fast as I could. Sometimes, especially after a really vulgar comment, I wonder what would happen if I just faced the man and started sobbing at him.

I'm worried because my sister is a few years younger than me, and right now I'm her only real guardian. She's beautiful and bright, and looks even younger than she is, and I'm worried that by making this decision to move to a more hostile city I'm exposing her to the same treatment. I want to shield her, but short of barricading her in our apartment I don't know what to do.

This sort of attention doesn't seem rare in your workplace, but in your posts it's rare that you seem to lose your humor or grace. Do you have any advice for me?

First of all, I'm flattered that you think I usually don't lose my humor or grace, and maybe that's true a majority of the time. I certainly don't think there was much humor in my reaction to being groped by a customer, and there definitely wasn't any grace to how I behaved when my ex Peter last showed up at the Bar.

But let's assume I'm willing to grant the premise that I handle that kind of attention well a majority of the time. I have a theory about that - well, two theories, I suppose, acting in concert.

The first theory, unfortunately, is that after nearly five years of slinging drinks I may just be desensitized to it. For whatever reason (and I really do think there's a lot of grant money in this if anybody ever wanted to study it), people will behave in a bar in ways they would never consider behaving at home, at work, or in most other public places. It definitely has something to do with the alcohol, but that can't be the only reason, because some people switch into asshole mode in the ten seconds it takes them to get from the front door to their stool. So it happens all around me every night, and therefore I'm used to it. That doesn't mean that what they do is right, it just means that what may have bothered me my first month on the job might not bother me now.

And remember, although I started this blog with the intention of telling old stories as well as new, there's been no shortage of new stuff to talk about, so it's been 99% new, all since the end of my third year as a barmaid. So you haven't heard about the keg delivery guy who nearly lost a few fingers when I stepped on his hand for trying to look up my skirt in 2004, or about the half-dozen or so times I actually succumbed to the temptation to throw a drink in someone's face before I thought better of it in general.

The second theory is that if I don't handle the attention well, I might lose my job, and even if I don't I'll definitely make less money. For better or for worse, if I can manage to ignore the lesser offenders, I'll still get their tips, and the Bar will keep their custom. And let's face it, I think the vast majority of them are lesser offenders, and the money is good enough that I don't have any problem tolerating it. It's the ones who cross the line I have problems with, but I also have enough autonomy in my job that I'm allowed to address the problem head-on, and at every moment of every shift, I have at least one other barmaid, a barback, and often a manager and a door bouncer to back me up.

Of course, I can't tell you where the line is, I just usually know it when it's been crossed. When I'm not sure, I have to admit, I usually err on the side of "lesser offender" - if only because I remind myself frequently that the Bar, like most New York City drinking establishments, hires us barmaids because we're friendly and attractive, and the way I dress on the job certainly isn't calculated to turn men off. That doesn't make the behavior okay, any more than a rape is justified by revealing clothing, but I really do think I draw the line differently because of it. When I decide the line has been crossed, believe me, I do something about it.

What's difficult for me about answering your question is that I don't think this helps you or your sister very much. You don't work in a bar, and you don't have back-up. Nobody should be subjected to unwanted attention just because she's walking down the street. I'll admit, I think my experience at the Bar has desensitized me to that, too, but I still recognize it when it happens. I mostly just manage to ignore it, or if I'm wearing my iPod, never hear it in the first place.

Maybe "Sex and the City" had it right years ago - maybe you really should just turn around and respond. I don't know if asking the construction guy to examine the paternalistic roots of his behavior or explaining the emotional and sociopolitical impact of his behavior to him is necessarily the way to go even when you do have time, but maybe just having the courage to turn around and do or say something is enough. What you do at that point is entirely up to you. Maybe you return his innuendo twice as forcefully, shock him into shutting up, then say, "I thought so," and turn and walk away. Maybe turning and sobbing, as you suggested, might work - I don't think most men actually mean to hurt your feelings, so maybe seeing how badly it hurts you might give someone genuine pause.

Hell, I don't know, maybe you take a deep breath, give a wink, shake your ass, and keep right on walking. As boorish and unpleasant as the method is, I think most men intend this crass behavior as a compliment, and just don't have the wherewithal to express it better. So sometimes maybe you just need to take it that way, and you'll both be able to go on with your lives knowing someone paid you a little more attention that day. Some might say it's not the classically feminist way of handling things, but I don't believe that every man who whistles at me on the street is ready for a scathing lecture about Simone de Beauvoir, either.

As for your sister, I have often found that the people I worry about the most are the ones best prepared to handle the world around them. I know you love her and want to protect her, but sometimes it's more important to trust her, first. I think you should talk to her frankly about what your experiences have been, and ask her about hers, then warn her that you believe it's going to get worse in your new city. Tell her you'll always be there for her if she wants to ask questions or if she needs help.

And then prove it.

Thursday evening I'm working with Cindy, and we're doing a decently brisk business, but nothing unusual. At one point Cindy comes down to where I'm cutting limes.

"Didn't you say that single malt Scotch is better than blended?"

"If I did, I wasn't explaining it well - why do you ask?"

She gestures discreetly toward the other end of the bar. "Those guys in the suits have been drinking Johnnie Walker Blue for the last couple of hours, and acting like it's a big deal."

"It is, kind of. Have you seen what we charge for it?"

"Yeah, tonight for the first time, though. That's why I'm asking."

"Okay, let me try again. Single malt isn't necessarily better, it's just more individualized. Every year's batch comes out differently, and a single malt is only made from that one year's batch, so it has a distinctive taste, kind of like a vintage wine from one year will be a little different from the same wine the next year." Cindy nods, and furrows her brow as if she's taking mental notes. "A blend is the distiller's attempt to make a Scotch that tastes exactly the same every year, by mixing a bunch of different batches together."

"Okay, then - is Johnnie Walker Blue so expensive because they somehow manage to mix a bunch of different batches together that tastes fantastic and exactly the same every year?"

I shrug. "Honestly, I have no idea. I don't like it, but then I don't like blends in general. Maybe if you're nice enough, they'll buy you one."

"Nah, I don't drink."

That stops me in my tracks. "Seriously?"

Cindy smiles. "Seriously. Nobody ever asked me at the interview, so I figured it was okay." She turns and goes back to the other end, where the suits seem about ready for another round. Not that I would've been looking for it, but now that I think about it, I can't remember noticing her with an alcoholic drink in her hand. How about that, I think to myself.

In the interim, Jack has come in, the first time I've seen him in a few weeks. I walk over with a smile and hand him his usual Stella Artois, and the first thing he says to me is, "Hey, Debra, are you okay?"

"Yeah, Jack, I'm doing fine, why?"

"Well, your Facebook status last weekend said you were bawling like a little baby or something. I was a little worried."

I smile. "You didn't come all the way down here just to ask me that, did you? You could've e-mailed me."

"Oh, no," he laughs. "I was actually hoping to get some advice from Mario, and maybe you, too."

"Mario's not around tonight, at least not yet. What's the problem?"

"I asked you first," he grins.

I shrug. "No, it was no big deal... I was watching 'Band of Brothers' with Jenny all last week, and that night we got to the episode where Easy Company stumbles on a concentration camp they didn't even know was there, and there were all these hundreds of emaciated Jews, and thousands more dead. It just upset me more than I expected, I was a wreck the rest of the night."

"Oh, sorry. How did Jenny take it?"

I don't take my Judaism all that seriously; I mean, I work almost every Friday night, and I refuse to believe in any God who wants to take my bacon cheeseburgers away from me. But I guess I take it seriously enough that all things considered, if I ever manage to convince myself that having kids is a good idea, I'd like to have Jewish ones. And that has sometimes colored my dating habits with men, but I didn't stop to wonder whether it mattered with women before I made that leap.

I remember wanting to see "Schindler's List" when it first came out, but my parents wouldn't take me because they felt I was too young to handle it. When I finally rented it in college, I watched it at my sorority house. I was inconsolable at the end, but the few sisters who'd watched with me seemed kind of put off by my reaction, as if I was deliberately overdoing it. When I spoke with my father about it later, he asked if the other girls were Jewish. "No," I said, "but human suffering is human suffering, isn't it?"

I heard him sigh over the phone. "Debra, I think you know I'm the last guy who would ever encourage you to think of yourself as different or better in any way than anybody who's not Jewish. But the Holocaust is one thing that some people just don't get, and in my experience, it's been people who aren't Jewish."

I was genuinely shocked that he would say such a thing, and I dismissed it, thinking that maybe his feelings on the matter were shaped by growing up in a different time. And then I watched "Band of Brothers" with Jenny.

She asked me if I had lost any family members in the Holocaust. Not that I know of, I said between sobs, and it was true. As far as I know, both sets of my grandparents were here in the United States long before World War II. Maybe some distant cousins were still in Europe, but nobody's ever told me about them. To her credit, Jenny's only further reaction was to look at me a little funny; then I suppose she gave up wondering, and focused on just holding me instead.

So as I notice a large, co-ed crowd of softball players coming into the Bar, I shrug at Jack. "She spent the rest of the night comforting me." We made love well into the night, too, though I don't say it out loud to Jack - probably the best sex we've ever had, not that I could begin to explain why. Me and my white-bread, Episcopalian sweetheart getting each other off a half dozen times so that maybe we don't have to talk about how she doesn't get why I'm so upset and how I don't get why she isn't.

"That's certainly something."

"Hey, stick around, okay?" I say to Jack as I move off to help Cindy with the thirsty athletes. "What is it you need advice about, anyway?"

"A woman," he says, "but take your time."

Things don't quiet down for a pretty solid two hours after that, and by the time I have a chance to catch my breath, Jack's gone home.

Jenny's getting out of a taxi in front of my building as I walk up, and she smiles when she sees me. "Hey, baby," she says, "I hope you don't mind, we got done with that EBT earlier than expected." She's carrying her briefcase, her purse, and a bottle of wine. The plan was for me to cook dinner for us both tonight, but I wasn't expecting her for about another hour and a half.

"Of course not!" We give each other a hug before we go in. It occurs to me that I have no idea what an EBT is, but I don't ask.

"Mmmm, you smell like the beach," she says as we break the hug and go inside. "Where were you?"

"Bryant Park, soaking up the sun and the wi-fi. That's just sunscreen you smell."

"I love it."

Howard the doorman hands me the mail, then tells me he has a package for me, so we wait for a moment.

"I was going to take a shower and change before I cooked dinner."

She grabs my ass, and leans into my neck for another whiff. "Don't." I don't have time to respond before Howard returns and hands me a box from Amazon. I thank him, and we head for the elevators.

"What did you order?" Jenny asks.

"Nothing," I reply, and point to the address label where, instead of my full name, it reads Debra the Barmaid. "One of my blog readers must have sent me something from my wish list." I open it up, and sure enough, a reader named Christopher has sent me the DVD box of the "Band of Brothers" miniseries. (Thanks so much!!)

We're halfway into our first glasses of riesling, I've started to get dinner together, and Jenny has told me a couple of funny stories about the confusion over Passover at her law firm, before she comes back to it. "You don't think that's weird, people you don't know sending you gifts?"

I shrug as I chop an onion and pray for my contact lenses to prevent me from tearing up. "I don't know, I guess I think it's really sweet. I was surprised the first couple of times anybody sent me anything at all, but nobody's forcing them. In fact I've never even asked, I just put the link to my wish list on the blog for shits and giggles."

"So why do you think they do it?"

"I don't know, to be nice? In appreciation for the blog, or something. Like I said, I think it's sweet."

"I wonder. You don't think they're trying to get in your pants, or get you to reveal something about yourself? Maybe someone thinks they can find you by tracking a package?" She pours us each some more wine.

"Well, if that's why they're doing it, they're wasting their money. You can't track a package you send to someone else using their wish list, that would totally defeat the purpose of letting you hide your address." And since when are you so cynical and suspicious? I want to ask her but don't.

"And the, uh... pants thing?" She edges closer, puts her wine glass down on the counter, and places a hand on my hip as I sautee.

"Well, you know," I grin at her, "the packing slip does include the address of the sender. So even if he can't find me, I could go find Christopher at his home address," - I walk back into the living room, where the box still sits open on the Comfy Couch - "which is," - and I read the address out loud to her as she watches me with eyebrows raised. "Yeah, so, to thank him for spending a little money on sending me a television show, which I'm pretty sure he sent me in the first place to thank me for writing something I don't get paid for but which he got some enjoyment out of, I could fly to his hometown, show up at his doorstep, and fuck his brains out." I casually stroll back into the kitchen and resume sauteeing.

"Am I being a jealous bitch?" Jenny asks me.

"They just read about me, honey. You get me."

"I know, at least I think I know, but there are thousands of them, and only one of me. And I can only give you so many gifts."

"Do you want me to take the wish list down?"

"No, no, you're right, it's sweet. I would never ask you to turn away a nice gesture from a fan."

"Will you watch 'Band of Brothers' with me?" I add a bunch of shelled shrimp and spices to the sauteed onions, and the sizzling gets louder.

"Of course. Will you come live with me?"

"I - what?"

"Your lease is up for renewal in July, you told me so yourself. Jill and Cassie can find someone else to take your room, can't they? I have so much space, and Puppy loves having you around, and we could be together every single night, no spare shit in a drawer, no cabs or subways home first thing in the morning only to go back to sleep."

"I don't know, Jenny, God, I only met you a few months ago. We've never talked about it, I've never thought about it, I love it here with my friends - I mean I love you, you know that, right?" She nods. "But it's awfully soon!"

"Yeah, I know. I'm such a cliché, right? The lesbian and the moving van..." I laugh. "I just don't want to have to wait until next July."

I take a deep breath. "I didn't know you think about this stuff."

She puts a hand on my cheek. "Every single first thing in the morning."

I take her in my arms and kiss her until the shrimp starts burning.

It's a couple of Thursdays ago, and while most of the people in the Bar are watching the Yankees walk all over the Kansas City Royals, I've got one television tuned to college hockey. It's not even really for me, though I'm watching when I have the chance; it's for Will. It's the first time he's been back here since Samantha died, and we're all naturally worried about him. But for the moment, he's sitting at the bar talking to Mario, and Maya - Samantha's friend, and the reason she started coming here and met Will in the first place - is mostly just standing there and listening to him. Simone and I are taking up the slack willingly.

Notre Dame is playing Michigan in the national men's hockey semifinals, and they've jumped out to a 3-0 lead. Will has said in the past that he doesn't really care that much about Michigan's hockey team, even though he played on their football team, but it's the reason he's supposedly here, and he keeps shaking his head as things look bleaker and bleaker. During the second intermission, after Michigan has finally made a game of it by scoring two in a row, Will asks me a question I'd sort of been hoping wouldn't come up. But I suppose if it was to come up at all, it's best coming from him, because the main reason I wasn't going to talk about it was not to rub it in his face. "How's things with you and Jenny?"

"They're good, thanks. We've been spending a lot of nights together." Maya slips off to serve some customers so that I can stick around and talk for a while.

"Is it love?" he asks, the second reason I was going to avoid the subject.

"I have no idea, Will." And that's the honest truth. "But whatever it is, it feels very good."

"Okay, I'm - listen, I'm only going to say this once, but I'm sorry, there's just no way I can let it go without saying it at all, it's just who I am... can I, uh... please come over and watch it feeling good sometime?" Will finishes by smiling the most innocent smile. If it were anybody else but him, I might actually be a little angry, but with Will I have to laugh - and I have to be relieved that he's in a good mood.

"I'll make you a deal - as soon as New Hampshire wins the Frozen Four, you can videotape Jenny and me having sex."

Mario laughs, but Will just sticks his hand out for a shake. "You've got a deal, Debra. And you've made a brand-new New Hampshire fan." I wonder, for a moment, what I've gotten myself into... and then I wonder for a few more moments whether Jenny and I will still be together when next year's Frozen Four arrives, much less whenever my alma mater finally wins one. We've never really talked long-term.

Will sips from his Anchor Steam. "So how did you and Jenny meet, anyway?"

"Oh, it was a blind date. It's all her fault," I say, pointing to Simone, who's a few yards away trying to convince a customer that she doesn't really want to order a tall glass of Goldschläger on the rocks. "We road-tripped up to New Hampshire for a few days in mid-December. I met her family, we hung out at their brewpub in Portsmouth, then she came with me to see UNH play hockey against Maine... we got totally socked in by a snowstorm that weekend, and ended up raiding her Dad's wine cellar. She was bitching about the pressure she was feeling to get a boob job, I was bitching about the online dating thing, and suddenly she said, 'Hey, you and this lawyer I know would totally hit it off.' So she gave Jenny my e-mail and here we are."

"Wait," says Mario, "how did Simone know Jenny in the first place?"

"Oh, I think Simone used to be a Starbucks barista across from the courthouse in Brooklyn Heights, and Jenny used to come in a lot, or something."

"Nice," nods Will. "You really never know how you're going to..." He can't seem to finish the sentence, and looks away as he drinks more of his beer. Mario puts his arm around Will's shoulders. I really don't know what to do except reach for his hand on the bar, and give it a squeeze before I go back to serving drinks. When Michigan finally loses to Notre Dame in overtime, 5-4, Will has long since left for home.

"I thought Bike Week was only in Florida," Maya shouts to Cindy and me as she passes with four pints of beer precariously balanced in her hands. I'm quickly trying to show Cindy how to layer drinks, and Maya's briefly picking up the slack until we're done. It's not an unusually busy Friday night, but Friday night is busy enough, so we're working as quickly as we can.

I shout back, "I think it's earlier in March, too," and after she sets down the pints, Maya shrugs and moves on.

"Is this Bike Week?" Cindy asks, and gestures to the back end of the Bar, where about a dozen men and three women have taken up residence in all their leather-jacketed, tattooed, rowdy glory. Their motorcycles made a horrific noise when they pulled up in front of the Bar about an hour ago, and since I've never seen these people before, I wonder if they chose their bar for the night based entirely on where they lucked into a couple of empty parking spots. Either way, they're running a credit card tab, so we know they're good for their drinks.

"I have no idea what this is," I tell her. "Bike Week is in Daytona Beach, and it's supposed to be one of the biggest gatherings of bikers in the world. Maybe they're on their way back from it or something."

"They're a little scary, don't you think?" She looks genuinely nervous, and I glance at them again.

"Think of them like you would any other large group of customers. I doubt they'll give you any trouble, but if they do, we've got your back - and you know Bill and Diego do, too." The layering lesson ended, we go back to slinging drinks, much to Maya's relief.

An hour or so later, I'm serving a third round of Cabernet Sauvignons to a very cute gay couple, when one of them points to the other and says, "Tony has something he wants to ask you."

"Carl, I do not!" Tony protests. "At least let me get another glass of wine in me."

"Fine, then I'll ask her."

Tony closes his eyes, covers his ears with his hands, and says, "I can't hear you!"

"Whatever it is, fellas, ask me soon, there's a lot of people I have to get drunk."

Tony sighs, and Carl puts a hand on top of mine. "Okay, Reader's Digest condensed version: Tony's never been with a woman, he's still curious about it, all his girlfriends have crushes on him and he doesn't want to screw them up, you're beautiful, blah, blah, blah. So?"

I smile. "Okay, my first reaction is, when you want a woman to sleep with you, you need a better compliment than 'You're beautiful, blah, blah, blah.'"

"You are, though," says Tony. "Your smile and your cute little ass are the best things about this place." I feel myself blushing, and for a moment I actually consider saying yes. He really is adorable.

"That's incredibly sweet, Tony, but I'm seeing someone right now."

Tony sighs again, and Carl pats his thigh. "That's one very lucky man."

"Woman," I correct him, winking.

"Look at you!" he marvels, and I head off to take more drink orders.

It's not much later that Diego taps me on the shoulder and directs my attention to Cindy, who's at the other end of the bar trying to take a drink order from one of the larger, leather-faced biker dudes, who has three other biker dudes behind him as spectators. She looks a little bit like a deer in the headlights, so I starting heading in their direction and tell Diego to give Bill a heads-up.

"...loosen up a little," is what I hear as I approach, "I just want to know what kind of woman you are, whether you've ever had a man like me." It's not really that far out of bounds from what we tend to put up with all night around here, so I let it slide and keep listening.

"So that's another round of beers, then?" she offers, trying to steer the conversation elsewhere. Nice, I think, but I stick around just in case.

"I mean, have you ever had so much beer you woke up the next morning with a brand-new tattoo and a guy you didn't recognize, and you didn't remember screwing him the night before so you screwed him again just to make sure?" All three members of his current entourage laugh.

"I don't have any tattoos."

"I'm not sure I believe you, I might have to check you for tattoos myself. Slowly."

I step in. "Sir, can I help you with anything?"

Leatherface ignores me completely. "Have you ever sold your house, bought a new wardrobe made entirely of leather, chains, and denim, and gone on the road with a man because you just knew you couldn't live without his vibrating engine between your legs every day and his dick between your legs every night?"

"That's... I, you don't..." Cindy's not happy.

I try one more time. "Hey, that's really not cool, okay? Why don't you back off for a minute, and we'll get you something to drink." His friends laugh again. And then it suddenly occurs to me that I might have been just a little bit hasty with my earlier advice. All told, there are an awful lot of them, and not very many of Diego and Bill. I think about my options, and slowly start reaching into my pocket for my phone, wondering if I could dial 911 without looking. That's when he leans forward, rests a hand on the bar, and gets right in Cindy's face, but doesn't lower his voice at all to ask his next question.

"Honey, have you ever been fucked on a Harley?" He leans back again and smiles, one of his compadres patting him on the back.

I almost have my hand in the air to signal Bill when Cindy leans forward and asks with great force and conviction, "What model and year?"

And that's when the hooting starts. Leatherface laughs right along with it for a minute, then says, "You're all right, sweetheart. Get us another round, willya? And this is for you." He throws down a twenty, and turns around to chat with his buddies while Cindy draws their pints.

"You all right?" I ask.

"Holy shit, Debra, where the hell did that come from?" she says, laughing and shaking a little.

I shrug and move on.

I'm twenty-seven.

It's Saturday, March 15, and I'm out to dinner with Jenny, who I guess at this point is my girlfriend, though I've used the term so many hundreds of times in the past to describe a friend who happened to be a girl that I would really like to find another more appropriate semantic designation. We're out in the West Village at Jane, a restaurant I've walked past a hundred times but never tried, and it's wonderful. I gather she must eat there pretty regularly, as they keep bringing us nice little treats compliments of the house, and I don't think she's told them it's my birthday.

She's trying to explain to me a chain of title problem she's working on for a film production company her firm represents, without being able to name the company, the film, or any of the people involved in it, and I'm confused, because I'm still not sure I understand what chain of title is in the first place. I hope it won't sound arrogant if I say that it's refreshing for a change to be across the table from someone who is so clearly smarter than I am, but it makes me wonder a little bit what she's doing with me.

I know she appreciates my writing, she's said as much when she's read my stuff. She's a poet, so we share some creative interest. We make each other laugh. Like I've suggested, being with her is easy. And the chemistry is undeniable, but without the overwhelming compulsion there was with Bonnie. But she's a lawyer, and I'm a barmaid. I live with two roommates in the twenty-something, subway-challenged Irishpubniverse of the Upper East Side, and she owns an apartment of her own in Brooklyn Heights. And she's only a couple of years older than I am.

I like to think that I have a pretty solid amount of self-esteem and self-respect, especially compared to many of the other women I know in New York. I don't often wonder why someone is dating me. "You're the prize," my father told me when I was upset over Bobby Taormina asking someone else to the junior prom instead of me, "not them. Remember that." It's easy enough to believe when every single time I work a shift at the Bar, I get flirted with, hit on, complimented, asked for my phone number, propositioned, and even occasionally proposed to. God knows that's one of the perks of the job, the constant affirmation that I'm desirable.

But I wonder, have I been conditioned all these years to think I should only be the prize for men? I've been attracted to women for years, but I have comparatively infinitesimal experience understanding what would make me attractive to them. I don't know what Jenny is looking for, and while I would never ask a boyfriend that, I wonder if it's the kind of thing a woman can ask her girlfriend. I'm not familiar with the rules, and there's no "Lesbian Dating for Dummies" in the Sociology section of the Strand.

So as I sip my complimentary dessert wine, I resolve to continue trying to go with the flow and not worry so much, but it's not easy. I look at myself through this woman's eyes and all I see is a girl who doesn't know where she's going yet, and no idea how to get there. Jenny, well, she's already on her way, if she's not there already.

Why, I wonder, didn't I ever wonder whether I measured up to the men I've dated - even when they did their best to make me wonder?

We wrap things up at Jane and take a cab back to her place on the other side of the East River, where she's promised me a birthday surprise awaits. First, though, we take her rather energetic puppy for a walk around the neighborhood. We hold hands, and it feels comfortable, domestic, and natural. When we return, she hands me a wrapped box, and when I open it, I shiver. It's black, made out of sheer silk, and gorgeous.

No man has ever given me lingerie. I rarely even indulge in it myself. It never occurred to me that a woman would give lingerie to another woman as a gift. And Jenny has never asked me any questions about what kind I like, much less seen me in what little I already own. But if you'd asked me to pick out the sexiest, most elegant, retro nightgown that someone could give me to make me feel sexy, beautiful, and desired, my imagination couldn't hold a candle to this one. It's spectacular, and before Jenny can stop me, I've run off into the bathroom to put it on.

When I come back out, Jenny is scooping food into Puppy's bowl. She looks up and sees me in the gown, and a bunch of kibble lands on the floor. Puppy bounces around and yips excitedly, scattering the kibble all over the room, and before I can finish laughing, Jenny has crossed the room and pushed me up against a wall.

"I've never seen anyone so beautiful," she whisper-growls in my ear, and then kisses my neck. She pauses, runs a hand down my cheek, and looks in my eyes. "Sometimes I'm amazed you even want to be seen in public with me." I'm struck dumb by that alone, but what I see in her eyes is so true it takes my breath away. I reach out and draw her to me, and when we kiss she presses me nearly through the wall. Her hands feel warm through the silk, and we slowly free ourselves from the wall and kiss our way to her bedroom.

"No, I'm keeping it on," I say as she tries to start undressing me, and I swear she whimpers.

I'm the prize.

When I finally tell her on Sunday, she's braiding my hair, an act at once childish and intimate. She doesn't pause or slow down, and I think maybe she doesn't get it. But when she's done she asks me what we'll do when her job brings her back to the Bar every few weeks, and I know she understands. I tell her we'll act like adults, and I hope like friends.

"I don't know if I could handle being just your friend again," she says. "It's not enough."

No, it's absolutely not enough. "I know it's not your fault, Bonnie, but it breaks my heart to be with you."

"Did you make up your mind before you came over here tonight?"

I made up my mind before I came over here the first night. "I'd been thinking about it."

"But you wanted to fuck me again."

Okay. I take a deep breath and reach for my jeans on the floor. I've got one leg nearly through when she reaches an arm around my chest and yanks me backwards onto the bed, my yelp meek like a puppy's. "Maybe I get to fuck you again, too," she says, and pins my arms. I don't even have time to think about the incongruity of the desire and the threat before she gets up again and walks to her window. I lie there equal parts sad, excited, and afraid. "You don't have to go now," she says, her back to me. "It's not a place to be walking around in the middle of the night."

I just stare at her body in the dim wash of the streetlight at the end of the block, and wonder how I'm going to watch her flirt with my customers without wanting to tear them apart. "Please don't leave yet," she says more quietly, and then she comes back to bed. We sleep, a little, here and there, but mostly we just grab at each other, unsure of how to let go. When I leave in the morning I'm leaving a gap in a part of me where, not so long ago, I never even knew I had a part of me.

Tuesday afternoon I'm at the Bar with my laptop, Jocelyn over my shoulder, taking advantage of the nearly complete lack of customers at this hour. I've logged into the one dating website on which I've ever had a profile, and I'm reactivating it and editing it ever so slightly. "I can't find the damn setting," I bitch at her.

"There," she points. "Wow, that could be a little less intuitive."

I switch from "Straight" to "Bisexual," and just like that, I've come out. I did it here many months ago... but this is a different kind of anonymity. On the dating website I'm just another 26 year old woman with a few witty sayings... it doesn't even say what I do for a living. But right there at the top is my photo. This, the profile now says, is a photograph of a girl who likes both boys and girls. Step right up and take a gander, you might see her on the street. My head spins.

"So what are you looking for in a girlfriend?" Jocelyn asks.

"Huge tits."

She laughs, "I'm taken!"

We craft a search for women around my age in or near the city who are also interested in women, and we start browsing. "Hey, she's cute," Jocelyn points, and I smile, thinking how far we've come since our first conversation after she found out I was bi. She is cute, though, and I scroll to read more about her. I barely get past "poetry," though, because the laptop goes "ping" and a new little instant message window opens up in the corner.

"ur hot," the IM says. The tiny little photo is of a mostly bald guy with a big, toothy smile.

"Thanks," I type in response.

"my gf & i love 3somes, u?"

"Wow," Jocelyn says. "That didn't take long."

"I might have to make a few more edits to my profile," I reply, and close the IM window just as a group of businessmen enters the Bar.

Mario leafs wordlessly through several pages of the magazine, then hands it back to Jocelyn and looks down at his beer.

"What do you think?" asks Simone.

"I'll tell you when I figure out how to look at you again, okay?"

Jocelyn laughs. "I think that means your photos turned him on." It's been several months since Simone did her first shoot with John, a porn photographer who left his card here, and some of the photos finally ended up in a magazine. Jocelyn and I are working the relatively docile Wednesday shift; Simone just came in to show us the mag, hot off the presses.

"Debra?" Simone holds it out to me. I've been avoiding this since I knew the photos existed, but now I feel like I'm being a bad friend, so I shrug and I take it. The title makes me want to roll my eyes; then I flip to the page marked with a Post-It, and the first thing I see...

"Holy shit, Simone," I say. "They couldn't ease me into it a little more than that?" She smiles, and shrugs. I flip through her layout, and wince a little at the story accompanying the photos. But I have to admit two things - she looks great, at least in the shots where they're not too close for my comfort; and this guy knows what the hell he's doing. "You did a fantastic job, honey. You look just great."

"Thank you, Debra! That means a lot to me."

Jocelyn grabs it again to take another look. "Are you going to do more?" I grin as Mario gets up from the bar and goes over to the jukebox to stare at the selection, something I'm pretty sure I've never seen him do before.

"Well, I'd like to! John said he's already gotten some calls asking for me specifically, but he said a few of them were... well, conditional."

"On what?" asks Vince, cleaning the taps. "You already told him you wouldn't have sex on camera."

"No, nothing like that - and that's still true. No, he said he thought he could sell a lot more layouts if I had my boobs done. They want my face and most of my body, but her tits," she says, gesturing at Jocelyn.

"Oh, no, don't do that!" Jocelyn shakes her head. "You have no idea how lucky you are not to have these! Please tell me you won't make yours bigger just to make some money?" I decide to stay out of this one, given that I happen to think there's only one good reason that Jocelyn's tips are usually better than mine.

"I don't think I'm going to, but I haven't decided for sure."

A debate on the issue continues for a while, and I try to stick to serving drinks, though at one point I'm a little surprised to overhear Mario talking about how difficult it sometimes is for him and Jocelyn to find a comfortable position. I mostly take orders down at the other end of the bar.

"Could I have a dry martini, please?"

He's easily six feet tall, but his face makes him look about sixteen years old. Bill's not working the door tonight, so I ask him for some ID. As he pulls out his wallet, I notice he's wearing latex gloves on his hands. He hands me his license, and I check it over. Twenty-four, and it looks legit, so I hand it back and mix his drink. He leaves enough cash on the bar to cover the drink and a decent tip, and wanders off to join a friend on the other side of the room, holding his glass with a gloved hand. I wonder what his story is, but it's not really the kind of thing you can ask about politely, so I just go on with my night.

Simone taps me on the shoulder. "Hey, before I leave, Debra, are you still thinking about going up to New Hampshire for a weekend?"

"Yeah, but I haven't really decided when. Why?"

"Well, I was hoping to get back to Portsmouth sometime to see some friends from high school, I thought maybe we could roadtrip together - maybe rent a car, share the driving, make it more economical?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Okay, I'll call you and we'll figure out when, okay?" She waves, and leaves The Bar.

Not a minute later, she comes back in, and marches right over to me. "Hey, uh, you know I'm not making a pass at you, right? I'm not into that, I just, I mean, I know I've said I think you've got a great body, that was professional, John wanted you to -- well, I'm saying it was an objective -- not objectifying, that's not what I meant to -- look, I know what you're into, but just because I take off my clothes..."

I can't help laughing out loud at this point. "What?!" she says.

I clear my throat and do my best to get rid of the smile. "Thanks for letting me down easy." She blushes, and I laugh again.

Todd Rundgren plays on The Bar's jukebox, a sappy, needy ballad that seems out of place on a semi-rowdy Saturday night. Cleveland and Boston are playing baseball on our televisions, and they've been battling it out for what seems like ten or twelve hours already, with the game now in extra innings. For reasons I've never quite understood (other than the obvious financial bottom line), as much as this is a Yankees bar, other teams' fans are strongly encouraged to drink here anytime their season extends past the Yankees' - which is more often than usual these last few years, I suppose. So the place is packed, with a ratio of about three Indians fans to every Red Sox fan.

Jocelyn pokes me in the side as she passes on her way to the wines, and yells over the din, "Wake up, Debra!" I'm having kind of a hard time maintaining an appropriate level of interest in what my customers want and how frequently their glasses are empty. It could be the Yankees' seventh-in-a-row early departure from the playoffs several days ago distracting me, but I doubt it. When I have a spare moment I turn to the top shelf and glance at the usual suspects. I finally choose the Macallan 12, and pour myself a finger.

Here's to you knowing me better than I know myself, I toast internally, and drink my Scotch.

The crowd erupts in cheers, and I see that Cleveland has scored on a Trot Nixon RBI single to go ahead in the eleventh inning. It's the wee hours of the morning already, far past the usual time for even night baseball, but I've got nothing against people staying longer and drinking more. Indeed, I'm almost hoping the Sox tie it up in the bottom of the eleventh so that I can sell more beer, and get more tips.

Here's to independence, I toast, and drink some more Scotch.

But that tie becomes far less likely after Cabrera scores on a wild pitch, and then a short while later, Martinez comes home on Garko's own single. So now it's 9-6, and the atmosphere is festive. I can barely keep up with the orders, but I find time to pour myself some more Scotch as I go.

Here's to the law of unintended consequences, I think, and then I drink.

The score has somehow become 10-6 without my even noticing, and Vince is even having trouble keeping the cooler filled with beer. My cell phone vibrates for the first time in days, and my heart leaps with a bizarre mix of hope and cynical certainty. Ignoring my usual habit of waiting to look, I take an immediate glance at it. It's a text message from my friend Henry, comprising exactly three words: "What the hell?!" It's like a punch in the gut spreading guilt to the rest of my body. I take a deep breath, delete the message without responding, and pour myself another finger of Macallan.

Here's to the power of public humiliation - his and hers, a matching set. And down it goes.

Gutierrez puts the final nail in the coffin with a three-run homer, and everybody goes berserk. Jocelyn and I are in the weeds, just barely keeping up. When Boston is back up at the plate, and clearly not about to have a similar seven-run rally, the place gets so loud I can barely hear the orders. A big girl in a Cleveland cap orders a couple of cosmos, and I reach behind me for a shaker and two glasses, without even looking.

"Debra!!" Jocelyn runs over, grabs my shaker hand, and nearly knocks me over - the glasses in my other hand slam into the bar, and shatter. Somehow, I escape without a scratch.

"What the hell?!" I scream, and the indignance of the phrase resonates in my throat with irony.

She holds up my shaker hand, and it's not holding a metal shaker, I'm holding a metal bottle. "You almost mixed some drinks in Eddie," Jocelyn says.

"Well, what the hell was he doing next to the shakers," I rationalize. It's not my fault, these things just happen. The intervention of another human being in a well-laid plan. Mistakes were made. Nothing to see here... move along.

I overmix for the two cosmos, so that after I fill both glasses, I have a good, long slug left for myself. Soon the game is over, and although a decent part of the crowd sticks around to celebrate, it's very late. Soon enough it's down to a few regulars, die-hards, and disbelieving Red Sox fans, and before long even they have to leave. It's after four in the morning, and I'm not numb enough yet for my feet not to hurt.

After cleanup and another couple of fingers of Macallan, I manage to get a taxi with ease. "Brooklyn," I tell the cabbie when I get in, and then I tell him which intersection.

He hesitates when he hears the street names. "At four-thirty in the morning?" he says. "Are you sure?"

I don't have the time or the patience for this. "Are you turning down a twenty-dollar fare?" He shakes his head, and activates the meter. I send a text message reading "On my way," and then I close my eyes, waiting for the dread to go away.

I catnap for part of the ride, in my warm, fuzzy, Scotch-induced blanket. At this hour the traffic is light, so it's not even five when he pulls up in front of the building. He makes good on his promise and waits until he sees the door's been buzzed open for me before he drives off. I take my time climbing the three flights of stairs, not in the mood to be out of breath or to stumble, and when I arrive on the landing, the door is already open.

Bonnie stands there in a white kimono and slippers, looking down into my eyes, looking for - what? I avoid her gaze by staring at the curves in the silk where it meets her body, trying to remember how to breathe, trying to understand the red patterns in the design despite the poor hallway lighting and the Scotch in my eyes. The quiet fills the landing, and all I can think about is how badly I want to know what her skin smells like. My stomach is still on its way up the stairs, I feel like I want to start crying, and she holds out her hand.

I let Bonnie lead me into her apartment and close the door, and then I let her lead me into her room and close that door. And then I let her lead me, and lead me, and lead me, and that closes another door, probably forever. Her skin smells of freedom, and choices, and collateral damage, and burnt bridges. Friction drowns out the emptiness. Sweat silences the pain. Rhythm suffocates the guilt. And as the sun slowly starts to rise over Bushwick, our cries justify everything. Everything.

Very Early Morning, Five Days Ago (Wednesday, September 12)

I can't see the look on his face. It's too dark. All I know is that he seems to have stopped breathing.

Finally he draws a deep breath. "I'm supposed to meet your father tomorrow night... no, tonight. We're supposed to have dinner with your father and stay over at his house, and then go to synagogue with him in the morning. And somehow I'm supposed to be pleased to meet him, welcome in a sweet and happy new year, and act like everything's a box of budgies."

"I know, I know... I thought about waiting until tomorrow night, but I just didn't want to keep it from you any longer."

"Debra, why did you wait this long to tell me in the first place? You just said you were worried I would find out from someone else, how could you let it go almost two bloody weeks?!"

I was hoping to get through this without crying, but it's already too late. "I don't know. I didn't want you to break up with me!" It sounds pathetic the moment it comes out of my mouth.

He sits up in bed. "Well, for damn sure I might've if I'd heard it from anybody else. As it is, I'm just pissed off."

"You have every right --"

"Dammit, Debra, don't tell me what I've a right to feel! You knew how I felt about this very thing!"

"Gary, I didn't mean for it to happen, she just took me by surprise."

"Yeah, the first few seconds, maybe. But you said it went on for a couple of minutes. You completely forgot about me for a couple of minutes!"

"I was just... caught up in it. Enjoying the moment." Oh, shit, that was the wrong thing to say.

"Enjoying the moment?! How would it make you feel if one of my prettier lady friends flogged a kiss from me and I took a couple of minutes to enjoy the moment?"

I search my heart. "If it ended there?"

"Yeah, if it ended there."

"I think I'd want to punch her lights out, and then I'd want to fuck your brains out."

"Be serious."

"I am serious. Why the hell should I care where you get your appetite as long as you come home for dinner?"

"I'm not even sure what that means."

I sigh. "Neither am I. I just read it somewhere, and I thought it sounded good."

"How do you feel about Bonnie?" I remain quiet. "Be completely honest, Debra, how do you feel about Bonnie?"

"She's a good friend, and she turns me on."

He lets that sink in. "How do you feel about me?"

"I'm in love with you."

"Then I think you need to work out for yourself what acting like you're in love with me looks like. And then we need to see if it looks anything like I thought it would, because if there's a big difference, we're going to have problems."

"I know," I say, barely audible.

"And I think you need to tell your readers what happened."

"What?"

"Come on, Debra, I saw what you said about me when we first dealt with this. Later on I thought you were downright patronizing about it. Do you think you're still entitled to feel that way?"

"I guess not."

"You choose how those people see you. Whether you think so or not, everything you write in that blog is biased because it went through your head before it ended up on the computer screen. I think I've been pretty understanding about the thought of three thousand people knowing what goes on in our relationship and our bed. Well, now there's another side to it, and I think you owe it to me and to them to be honest about it, and maybe you owe it to yourself as well."

"That's... not going to be easy."

"Yes, I know. And that's why I think you need to do it."

Two Weeks Ago (Friday, August 31)

It's a warm, busy Friday evening. The Devil Rays are gradually having their way with the Yankees, bending them over just a little bit more each inning. Maya and Kira and I are holding our own; another couple of dozen customers and we'd be in the weeds, but it's the beginning of Labor Day weekend, so a lot of people have left town.

There's no mistaking it anymore; anybody who looks at Kira knows she's pregnant, and to her pleasant surprise she seems to have found the one thing that guarantees good tips even more than huge breasts. It's a little counterintuitive, maybe, since being pregnant means she's even less likely to go home with any customers than usual, but it's certainly nice to see people treating her well. That's especially true since she's determined to keep working until she decides she can no longer stay on her feet for an entire shift.

Bonnie and Susan, the Coors promo girls, are in the Bar tonight getting guys to play their music trivia game, giving out swag, and drinking bottles of Coors like they're going out of style. When they take a break, Bonnie seems uncharacteristically silent, but Susan comes behind the bar, coos at Kira's tummy, and even gets permission to lay her hands on it for a minute. Nothing's moving around in there much yet, but Susan still gets... well, a kick out of it.

There's time for a quick break right around when the baseball game ends, and I take myself to the ladies room for a bio break and to splash water on my face. When I come out, Bonnie is waiting in the short hallway, taking a pull from her bottle of Coors with one arm, and with the other holding out a full bottle for me. "Take five, Debra," she says, after swallowing. She's a little flushed from what must be six or seven beers by now. I smile and take the beer, and we lean up against the wall next to each other while people come and go.

She asks me what's going to happen when Kira takes her maternity leave, and the truth is that I don't know. I imagine Lanie and Victor, the owners, will hire someone temporary, or maybe they'll beg us all to work more shifts, but it'll all work out somehow.

"Debra, when did you do... that with your hair?"

"Oh, I did that while I was on vacation out in California a few weeks ago. What do you think, do you like it?"

Bonnie smiles, and doesn't say anything, but keeps looking right at me.

"What?" I say, getting self-conscious. She rolls off the wall, puts a hand in my hair, and kisses me.

It's such a soft, easy, unexpected kiss that it's the most natural thing in the world for me to kiss back. It's a friendly kiss, a "what if" kiss, a "your new blonde hair turns me on a little and I just want to innocently show you" kiss, a "we've become close enough friends that I can kiss you like this" kiss. And after a while, it's lasted long enough that it's no longer any of those things, it's an "oh, my God" kiss, a "why haven't we ever done this before?" kiss, a "this is really fucking hot" kiss, and an eternity later, as her free arm goes around my waist and pulls me in toward her, and I feel myself start to get wet, it becomes a "shit, what am I doing, what the fuck am I doing?!" kiss, and I push her away.

We're breathing heavily, and not saying anything, just looking at each other, when a random guy standing in the men's room doorway says, "Could you do that again?" Reality comes crashing back in, and without saying a word I turn down the hallway to get back to work. Everything he was worried about, I think to myself, everything I've managed to convince him he's just simply paranoid about, I just became that. And he's going to find out whether I tell him or not. And he's going to learn what kind of person I really am and he's going to leave, and I don't want him to leave, I love him. I love him and I just did the one thing he's been most afraid of since we started dating, and how could I do that when I love him?

The rest of the night I manage to stay behind the bar mixing drinks and earning tips without allowing my eyes to meet Bonnie's. She and Susan leave a little after one in the morning, and I go to the back room and cry.

It's a few minutes before I'm really sure I'm awake... my senses cross wires for a moment, and I'm sure I feel coffee on my neck. No, I smell nibbling. When I finally open my eyes, I see the top of Gary's head, and I understand that he's nibbling on my neck, and the coffee must be brewing in the kitchen. As marvelous as the nibbling feels, I'm already stifling a yawn. Even a relatively uneventful Saturday night shift at the Bar is an exhausting one, and we didn't get to my place until almost five in the morning. I turn my head just enough to squint at the clock, and as I notice it's not even 10:30 yet, Gary says, "Good morning, beautiful."

I roll over and bury my face in the pillow, groaning. My evil boyfriend lifts up the covers and starts nibbling the small of my back instead. I lift my face. "If I don't sleep past noon every Sunday, then the terrorists have won."

"Yankees and Devil Rays," he replies, and starts moving lower on my body. Nibble. "Third base line." Nibble. "Twenty-seven degrees and sunny." Nibble. "One o'clock." And at the next nibble, I shiver.

I roll onto my back again. "You're killing me, Kiwi. As long as I'm awake, stop teasing and put that mouth where it'll do some good." He grins, and just to aggravate me further, spends a minute nibbling on my inner thighs before he focuses properly.

A good half hour and half a dozen screams later, someone bangs on my door. "Get out of bed, you slut," my roommate Cassie yells, "I'm not missing warmups!"

Gary comes up for air. "C'mon, then, let's get a quick shower."

"What about you?" I point. "You're - I mean, seriously, you're --"

"Yeah," he laughs. "Well, it'll give us something to think about during the game, won't it?"

I nevertheless take him in my mouth just for a few seconds as a show of good faith, then we grab our towels and wrap ourselves in them. "Where the hell did I find you?" I ask. "And why did you make me promise I wouldn't talk about this stuff on my blog?"

He kisses me, and we head for the bathroom. "Y'know what? Give it a shot. Lay it all out there for once, do your worst, and we'll see how I feel about it. You've got my permission for this one time as an experiment, and then we'll talk about our deal later." I make a mental note not to go overboard anyway, to go a little easy on the details, and we get oursevles clean.

At a quarter to one, we exit the 4 train in the Bronx - Gary, Cassie, my other roommate Jill, and me - and head into the stadium. By one o'clock we're already sitting in our loge level seats on the third-base line and eating hot dogs, and thankfully there's nobody sitting nearby this time to comment on our technique. But remembering that incident plants a thought in my head. I reach over casually and place my hand on Gary's jeans exactly where I know I will find more than his leg, and I lean over to whisper in his ear.

"As a thank-you for this morning - and for letting me blog about this morning - when we get home, I'm going to get you off with my mouth once for every run the Yankees score today."

Gary squirms under my hand. "What? Debra, are you sure? Didn't they light these guys up for seventeen runs last night?"

"Yeah, but that's just it. Even against the Devil Rays, they're not going to do that twice in a row. Besides, Shields has a pretty good ERA. I'm not too worried."

"All right, but remember guys aren't like girls - you get off faster each time if you keep going, we get slower. You might be working pretty hard for the last couple if the Yanks score four or five."

"You should be so lucky, Gary," I grin, and I wash down the last of my frank with some beer.

By the bottom of the fourth inning, the Yankees have scored three runs already, and Gary is having a little fun with it. We've told Cassie and Jill about my little plan, and although Jill seems a little embarrassed by the whole thing, Cassie is enjoying the hell out of it. "What about unearned runs?" she asks. "Does he get a handjob for each of those instead of a blowjob?" Jill blushes a little and fills out her scorecard.

Then the gates burst wide open. The Yankees spend a half hour and fourteen batters scoring ten runs in the fourth inning, and suddenly I owe Gary thirteen orgasms. Cassie is beside herself laughing, and Gary just sits there with a smug look on his face, and says with a shrug, "Hey, it wasn't my idea."

After the bottom of the sixth inning, when the Yankees make it eighteen, Cassie has to excuse herself to the ladies room with tears streaming down her face, and Gary even stops gloating. We're on the subway heading home - after the Yankees end up defeating the Devil Rays by the absolutely humiliating score of twenty-one to four - before anybody mentions it again.

"So," Gary starts, "should I, um... call in sick tomorrow?" Cassie snorts, and even Jill laughs a little.

"I think this is going to hurt you more than it hurts me, mister," is all I can manage.

"It's a chance I'm willing to take. All I know is, you've kept your promises to me up until now, and I've no reason to suspect you're about to stop." I rest my head on his shoulder. "And I'll tell you something else, Debra," he says, a little more quietly. "There's no rule that says I can't do anything more for you until you've settled this account."

"I love you," I hear myself say to him for the first time over the roar of the 4 train, and then I realize what I've done. He reaches his arm around me and pulls me closer, and kisses the top of my head.

A while ago, Barmaid Blog reader "Stephie Bee" - herself the talented writer of the blog "Spread Eagle in NYC" - wrote to me:

I read your blog about every other week or so (you're a great writer and I love your stuff!), and I was wondering if maybe you can help me.

I'm not new to blogging, but I'm definitely new to reactions I'm getting. People I don't know are calling me a whore, calling me an egotistical bitch, calling me heartless. People I've never given my phone number to are calling me to ream me out and threaten me.

I'm really shaken (I've posted the link about my feelings below), but I don't think I'm in the wrong. The things I write are sarcastic, funny, maybe a bit vulgar, but they're the truth. The things I've said about other people (places I've been to, conversations I had, etc) all happened in public where other people could see or hear. It's not like I'm reporting dark secret events.

My question is this: how do you handle the critics? Do you delete posts when they make people mad? Is it wrong to discuss public events and use names without specific permission?

How do you protect yourself, your family and your friends?

If you have any advice for me, I'd really appreciate it.

I want to keep on blogging and being myself, but I need to know how to handle the rage.

Also, if you respond, with your permission, I'd like to be able to publish your advice. A lot of young bloggers out there would love to get some words of wisdom, so maybe you can help us.

Thanks so much.

Steph B.

Here's What I Need to Know

Just a couple of days earlier, reader Mark had written to me on an unfortunately similar topic:

Saw this and immediately worried about you. Hope this sort of thing doesn't kill your blog. If it starts to get bad, let your readers know - I bet there's some technical experts out there that would happily volunteer assistance.

Sexual Threats Stifle Some Female Bloggers

In addition to Stephie having some trouble with her GMail account, I held off on writing about this topic for a while because it put me in a quandary. I mean, let's face the irony here; in addition to the risks of blogging, there are risks of blogging about the risks of blogging. Just a couple of weeks ago, I blogged about how upset it made me when someone chose an entry about me getting mugged to pick on my writing style, and a bunch of the comments on the entry about how upset I was were as rude as or ruder than the comment that led me to complain in the first place.

So how can I talk about the risks of harassment, of crank phone calls, of losing people important to me, of genuine threats to my safety and well-being... without risking that someone will decide to make my life miserable just because I wrote here that I was worried someone might make my life miserable?

I guess I can't. And so I'm taking a deep breath, grabbing Stephie's hand and raising it above her head, and declaring that she's my new hero.

Blogging has become a contact sport. For every intelligent reader out there who thoughtfully takes the time to remind us that there are consequences to our writing, there's another who doesn't get the concept that there are human beings behind our words, that posting hurtful comments on a human being's website is not the same as shouting them into the wind.

A few people called me a whore, too, when I finally worked up the courage to blog about sleeping with Jessica before she moved out to California. With seemingly no comprehension of the irony, some even called me a whore when I blogged in response that I wouldn't tolerate name-calling. But I think I was prepared for that, or at least not completely surprised. I seriously doubt Stephie was prepared to receive threatening phone calls, or to have someone meddle in her relationship and help end it.

Both Stephie and I blog about our lives, and about the people we work with, live with, and live our lives with. But Stephie also posts photos of herself, and of some of the people she's blogging about, which you could say is crazy, risky, or, yes - even "asking for it." Wait, when did blaming the victim become okay again?

As she said, she tells the truth. Is it a sometimes ugly truth, inconvenient to those about whom she tells it? I suppose it would have to be; life is like that. If you can't handle the truth about the way you live your life, perhaps you should find a different way to live it. When I got caught stealing a can of tennis balls from a sporting goods store a few months after my Mom left, my Dad sat me down and said this to me: "How would you feel if what you did this afternoon ended up on the front page of the newspaper? How do you think I would feel about that?"

He may not have meant for it to stick with me for the rest of my life (though for all I know, he did). But it did. So while it may shock you that I drink, or do drugs, or dress a certain way to encourage higher tips at the Bar, or like girls, or have sex with people outside of wedlock (including people who are themselves engaged to be married), my father knows about all of those things, and I don't think it would be a serious problem for him if those things did end up on the front page of the newspaper. I keep my identity secret not because I'm embarrassed about anything I blog about, but for my safety and the safety of those around me... which is one of the reasons I'm in awe of Stephie.

But what about you? When you post a comment on a blog, calling the writer a whore, would it be okay if your parents knew you did it? When you call someone on the phone and make anonymous threats, is it okay for that to be in the newspaper with your name attached? Do you think the creep who sent Kathy Sierra photos of her with a noose around her neck is proud enough of it that he would be willing to have that written about him on the front page?

There's been some mention in the discussion of blogger harassment about the potential for "proactive positivity" to prevent such things by setting the right tone. Surely there's something to be said for being respectful toward people who have not proven themselves unworthy of respect, and I think both Stephie and I try to do that when we write about the people in our lives (though I suppose others could disagree honestly about at what point someone stops deserving that respect). I've been lucky; I've only been harassed via the comments section of my blog. And since fairly early on, I've been perfectly willing to wield the reactive tool at my disposal, the "delete comment" button, but only when absolutely necessary. And I haven't deleted any posts, even though it's been suggested to me a few times that I should.

What about Stephie? There's no "delete comment" button on her telephone or on her break-up. Yet there she is, keeping right on going. That's the freakin' bravest thing I've heard lately. So that's my answer to you, Stephie, though others have already said it in your comments section. Keep doing what you're doing. Stand tall. There are consequences to your actions, but you're not "asking for it." A few people will try to make you feel like less than you are, but the truth is that they're cowards. Let them write a signed letter to the editor of the New York Times saying what they have, instead, whispered to you over the phone, or sent to you by anonymous e-mail, or spread around behind your back. What they do isn't brave, or honest, or controversial, or even worth your time.

It's nothing. Treat it like nothing, and walk away even taller.

I'm coming out of a supermarket near my apartment building with two bags full of groceries when a car pulls over and a guy sticks his head out. "Excuse me, miss?"

It's already early afternoon, and I still need to whip up a couple of dishes-to-pass to bring to my cousin Rebecca's place downtown for her annual Fourth of July party, so I'm feeling a little rushed, but I walk to the curb and take off my sunglasses. "Yes?"

"Is there any place around here to get some decent ribs?"

I laugh. "Ribs?" I squat a little to peer past the driver, and I see a pregnant woman sitting next to him.

"Ribs!" she nods, smiling.

"Yes, absolutely! You're not far from Brother Jimmy's... their dry rub is great, plus they have wet ribs if that's what you're into, and they even do a proper 'sweet tea.'"

"Oh, God, what I wouldn't give for an ice cold glass of sweet tea right now," says the expectant passenger. I give them some basic directions - I can never remember if Brother Jimmy's is near 76th, or 77th, or 78th, I just always keep walking along 2nd Avenue until I stumble across it - and they drive away, thanking me, while I shake my head at what has to be the oddest request for directions I've ever had.

When I get home a few minutes later, Gary is coming out of the bathroom with wet hair and only a towel wrapped around his waist. I unceremoniously shove both bags of groceries directly into the refrigerator, and follow him into my room before he can get dressed.

Forty-five minutes later, he finally pulls on his jeans as I lie in bed letting the air conditioning slowly dry my sweat. "Are you sure you have to go to work? I really want you to meet Rebecca and her husband and baby boy."

"Yeah, baby, I have to go... it may be a holiday for you lot, but it's still Wednesday, and I've got a newscast to get on the air.