This may be one of those posts that is so long I?m forced to break it into installments, but I can?t know in this moment because my thoughts are running in sixteen different directions and, who knows, I may end up with a haiku.

There?s a woman at work, I?ll call her Mary (cause really, does anyone name their daughters Mary anymore?). My first impression of Mary when I met her lo these many years ago was to be intimidated. Not only was she inordinately beautiful (when you looked at her the word that would pop into you mind would be ?lovely?), she dressed for work. DRESSED FOR WORK. There were belts that coordinated and much activity with the make-up and the hair styling and clean, clean hyper-ironed clothes that never repeated. The outfit came, never to be seen again.

*sigh*

For the record, if I roll out of bed and my hair is sporting that ?just rolled out of bed look,? I go with it. Most days I am wearing white, rather shabby chinos with a black v-neck sweater. Sometimes I mix it up and wear a buttondown shirt with tan chinos. But the overall effect is that (except for those with a discerning eye) I look like I am wearing the same clothes everyday. The reason for this sartorial cry for help is two-fold.

First, I work almost exclusively with men all day long. More often than not, I am in a meeting with anywhere from 8 to 15 men where I am sitting at the head of the table explaining to them why they will be eating their balls for breakfast. Since I have a ridiculously high aptitude for reading minds and the minds of the men I work with tend to gravitate toward sex?the having, the fantasizing, the re-living, etc--- it would be extremely difficult for me to wear clothing that increased their thoughts of having sex with me more than say, the tree they passed on the way into work, or the babysitter they dropped off the night before.

Hence, I try to dress like them as much as possible. Trousers. No cleavage. (I draw the line at wearing aftershave, pinky swear).

Second, I am French. And Lazy. LAZY! Having a uniform to put on each day allows my three active brain cells to think about that patissierie on rue Vavin with the most incredible macaroons ever, or that Marc Jacobs jacket that fit me perfectly that I loved but didn?t buy (because hello, way too expensive plus where would I wear it? to the woodshed? to the pot-luck supper? to the office? Ha.), or think about every decision I ever made in my life and how wrong it was.

Oh my. What happened to Mary? I lost her. I was simply trying to explain that she had it all going on and I didn?t and how that intimidated me. Plus, if I asked her about her weekend she would talk about things like WASHING THE WALLS of her house or cleaning her linen closet. This level of industriousness rendered me mute, as if I were visiting another country and didn?t speak the language so my only means of communication was to smile and nod although I understood nothing.

When I joined the company, Mary had a torrid affair going on with the manufacturing manager, I?ll call him Aloysius (cause really, does anyone name their sons Aloysius anymore?). Mary left her husband and set-up a very (from all appearances) amicable shared custody of their son. Mary and Al worked in the same department, but it was a small company in a small town and it really wasn?t a big deal.

Flash forward. Al convinces Mary (and her son) to move in with him. She does. Al adores the little boy and they become very close. Mary starts up an affair with a new guy in logistics. (May I just say, this was when I started to question the position I had given Mary on her pedestal because logistics boy? HOAGELY. Yellowed, buck teeth. Bald. Stocky. Skin that hadn?t seen sun since the advent of reality television.) Mary moves out of Al?s house. Al is visibly wrecked and loses 35 pounds. Logistics boy gets fired for incompetence.

This past November, Mary begins to visit me in my office for chats. She tells me she has stopped drinking and joined AA. She tells me she loves Al and wants him back. That she only acted out the affair with ugly logistics boy because he gave her more attention and she needs lots of constant attention because of all the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother?s boyfriends and because her dad left when she was seven and she has never gotten over the feeling of abandonment.

Whew. Guess old Mary wasn't getting dressed each morning by the birds and bunnies after all, but let me just say, I have never seen Mary when she wasn't dressed to the nines with hair and make-up elaborate and perfect.

In the last few months, things got worse. Mary became obsessive of Al. Fixated. She called him ten or fifteen times a day. She would page him over the company loud speaker if she thought he was in another woman?s office. She would ask him everyday if he still loved her and could they get back together. Needless to say, her behavior only drove him farther away (Think: rabbit. boiling. Glenn Close). But the catch was, the little boy. Al loved the little boy and had a very active relationship with him. And Mary exploited that to the nth degree.

Meanwhile, Mary is on all different kinds of meds to counter depression, anxiety, pre-menopausal stuff?a cocktail that would send any woman?s hormones into full tilt. And, no surprise here, Mary went full tilt.

She was hospitalized a month ago. And then two weeks later was back at work. We talked every day. In fact we were together until 6:30 p.m. the Friday night before she went into the second "big" event?and she had me convinced she was going to stop the crazy stalking of Al. That she understood. Blah blah blah. After I left her office, she called Al five times in 10 minutes. She tracked Al down at the gym and jumped up onto the treadmill next to him (in her street clothes) to tell him where she was going to be tonight in case he was worried about her. And on and on. She was hospitalized the next day for the second time. She was released last week and is staying at her ex-husband's place. She is still fixated on Al. Nothing has changed.

So. Why all this back story on Mary and her Al? Because there is an analogy here for my own life, but that will have to come tomorrow.

Hey. No whining. I warned you this might be episodic.

got 2 cents?