In which guest blogger Shel pops the question....

"Shel, what's wrong?" Maddy said. She was sitting on the bed next to me, getting annoyed at some idiot Anderson Cooper was trying to interview on CNN. She switched over to the Mets game instead.

"I was just thinking," I said.

"About what?" Always multitasking, she was talking to me, watching the TV with the sound off, listening to Big Country on her laptop and Googling directions to the place she has an interview at Thursday afternoon.

"About before," I said. Seven months ago tonight I was in the NYC Doll Hospital with a broken arm, betrayed by my abusive ex and abandoned by my person....

"Shel..." She abandoned everything else she was doing to hug me. "Why do you do this to yourself?" Her voice was gentle.

I shrugged. I don't know why I torture myself thinking of all the worst-case scenarios that could have been, how I might not have even been alive, how I might still be out in the woods, slowly succumbing to exposure, unwanted...

"Shel, has it occurred to you that maybe you were meant to be with us?" she said. "I just wish the fates had found a gentler way to bring you here."

I liked that thought. It made me feel like maybe someone was looking out for me after all....

~*~

"So, are you going to do it?" Caroline said.

"Do what?"

"You know. The big question, dummy. Are you going to ask him are not?"

"I don't know..." I had wanted to take him outside to the tree where he found me, but then I thought that might be kind of - I don't know, macabre or something? Maybe just weird. But then today turned out to be really chilly and damp anyway, so that was out...

"Shel, I know you. If you keep trying to figure out the right time to ask him, you're never going to do it."

She does know me. But oh my God, what if he says no? What will I do then?

And what if he says yes....?

~*~

To heck with it. I didn't get any sleep last night thinking about how I was going to do this. I have to - well, just do it, like Maddy said the shoe commercials (which shoes, I don't know) used to go.

I found John-John, the love of my life, looking at the directions for the mini-tower fan Maddy got us for this summer. He's so thorough about things like that, and I'm not.






 "Hey, handsome," he said, looking up at me. "What's up?"

Oh Gods, I was so scared.... "John-John...? Do you have a moment? I - I want to  -- ask you something."

He looked apprehensive. "Shel? Is everything okay? You look freaked out."

"I..." You can do this, Shel... I decided down on one knee would be best. "John-John ---- w-would you marry me?"

"Would I---" He put a hand over his mouth, then scrambled off the box and hugged me "I - ohmigod, Shel, yes, of course I will!"

"I love you, baby, And you didn't even look at the ring..." Yeah, that last part was dumb, but my brain, such as it is, wasn't working any more right then.

John-John kissed me. "I love you, Shel." He finally did look at the ring. "Ohmigod--" He hugged me again. "I love you so much. I'm the luckiest doll on Earth..."



Funny, I kind of thought that was me....

~*~

Maddy's note: to Jason Collins - you are now officially our favorite basketball player. We all wish you a story as happy as this one...