ORNATELY PLAIN

ringless

2012-01-06T19:28:00.000-06:00

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Nothing like spending happy hour with four miserably married men to make you grateful you aren't married.

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Luckily it was a good hair day.

2011-12-30T21:28:00.000-06:00

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A few weeks ago I ran into a guy I went on a couple of dates with exactly five years ago. He was with his wife.

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dried up

2011-12-27T19:03:00.000-06:00

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It's been an achingly long time since I've sat down and written anything. I'd like to say that from here on out I'm going to be more diligent in exercising my creative juices, but I can't say that. Creative juices are non existent at the beginning, I know this. Creative juices don't begin to flow until somewhere around the middle of the plot. If I wait to write until I feel inspired, I might sit here for another two months, another six, or worse yet twelve and find I have penned nothing. I need to begin writing again. Or perhaps I need to stop being afraid of starting a new plot.

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Said with a totally straight face. *

2011-11-04T21:01:00.002-05:00

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Eleven Ways in which New Job is like a Relationship:
1. I put in ten hours a day and still make no progress.
2. I hear a lot of bullshit in the course of a day.
3. It's fairly one-sided.
4. I do a lot of work for someone else to get the credit.
5. There's always negotiating to do.
6. I usually have no idea what's going on.
7. Efficiency is key.
8. When I'm there, I want to be somewhere else.
9. When I'm somewhere else, I feel guilty.
10. Everything must be discussed and analyzed down to a fine, invisible grain of sand.
11. One completed task births five new ones needing immediate attention.

One Way in which New Job is NOT like a Relationship:
1. I get monetary compensation for this shit.

* My best friend said this week "Men really do waste a lot of time in my life." When I pondered it in my own life, I found she is right.

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false dawn

2011-10-21T17:32:00.000-05:00

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I understand you more now than I ever did, ever could. I know now that what you longed to give me, no matter how much you desired it, was no longer there to be given, and what you had left was only the absence of the thing that came before it. I understand this now, because I have found that your absence is all I have to give, which is a thing that cannot be given, and even if could, it is nothing that is wanted by another.

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wipers

2011-09-18T17:33:00.007-05:00

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When you think about rain, all it is is tiny drops of water at the mercy of gravity. I feel that way today--at the mercy of gravity. I am identifiable when lying in a puddle, shimmering in the headlights of your car as your drive towards me, then through me, and then past me without little more thought than an imperceptible acknowledgement of thanks to the CarMakers of the World for windshield wipers as my fine residual mist coats the window and then is gone in an instant. Already I feel gone, which both liberates me as a rain drop is freed when released into the atmosphere, and sentences me to death as I plunge towards the asphalt in the unforgivable force of gravity.
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a dark wish

2011-09-07T09:35:00.002-05:00

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I find a list of literary quotes about breakups, and I want to post every fucking one of them online for the world and for you, to read, to see, to remember. For myself too if I am honest. Because sometimes it feels as if you and I never were, and I don't think much about it one way or the other. But once in a while something comes back in a whisper or in a faraway sound, in the passing of one odd second into an unremarkable one, and I feel something else, something akin to the sensation one has when you expect one more stair and find, uncoordinatingly, that there is not. In those rare, floundering moments for footing, I lie the blame at your door, I count your weaknesses on fingers and then take my shoes off and move onto my toes, I remember your actions, or rather lackthereof, in any direction, and after I am exhausted by rage, I feel a fool. At having tried. At having failed. At having wasted so much time ignoring what was, in retrospect, a glaring obviousness at your lack of sincerity towards me, towards tomorrow, towards intimacy and love. Then, there after catching myself from the false expectancy of another stair, I wish with all of the leftover feeling I can muster that you and I never were.

“The old line ‘You deserve someone better than me’ in this case was not just an old line. She deserved someone who would love her and take care of her and he knew he never would.”
Cheap Diamonds, by Norris Church Mailer

“Every minute we were together, I felt like I was wandering in the dark through a strange house, groping for a light switch. And then, whenever I found one and turned it on, the bulb was dead.”
The Leftovers, by Tom Perrotta

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oldie

2011-08-02T19:57:00.001-05:00

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In an old notebook I found this written:

I do not like weak men.

I'm not sure why I wrote this down. As if I would forget.

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old man

2011-07-11T21:00:00.003-05:00

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I was purging my desk drawers of old papers and other junk, including spiral notebooks with five or so clean pages left in them. I found this writing, and I know that it was written several years ago about a specific, long-ago, then beau and how we would be as old people. I can't help but think that this could easily be the picture of old age with most all of the men I've dated since college. I should change my brand of men.

You will sit in that chair by the window with your strange books ignoring me for what I have to say is no longer of interest to you. You used to listen. Back when we were young and I could still come to you with my hopes and fears, my disappointments and dreams. You would listen not unkindly as you do now, though you were bemused even then. Now when I open my mouth you give me that "hmm" without looking up. You told my once that's your escape--reading those big books with big words that I have to look up in the dictionary and then give up by page ten.
What do you escape from these days, old man? I cannot figure it out. It is just you and me in this old house with creaky stairs and leaky pipes. You mutter to the cat, who could not possibly be more disinterested in your words. How does that feel, old man, to talk and have the cat ignore you?
When I pictured us growing old I didn't picture this chasm of silence between us. I pictured Florida and shuffle board, grandkids and reading the same book in the hour of the pearl. Hour of pearl. I got that from Steinbeck, you know. I've started reading him again. He has become the friend and lover to me that you once were long ago. He speaks to me, understands me, comforts me late at night when nightmares wake me and refuse to let go even with the lights on.
Today you prefer the cat over me, and warm milk to calm your gassy stomach. And silence. Always silence with you now. I know you see me as nothing more than a chattering nuisance, no longer your wife, no longer your best friend and lover. I still have those desires you know, even though yours have long dried up. But it's not about that. Your hand in mine would be enough. When was the last time we walked together side by side? Instead you rush, steps ahead of me always, knowing how my knees catch like they do. What if I fell? Hardly you'd notice until you got where you were going, and then you'd only have the faint hint that you had forgotten something, perhaps your glasses or your coat. But your speed, your rushing, this is not new. For even when we were young you were always paces ahead of me, simply expecting me to follow, to keep up, never bothering to cross the street with me or take my arm over patches of ice. This I can live with, but the silence?
I don't understand what happened between us, old man, besides old age. Do you know? Will you tell me this one last thing?

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Change

2011-07-10T23:02:00.002-05:00

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Even as good as it is right now,
it will change.
It has to.
Everything changes eventually.
So I can decide.
To make a hard change for the thing I want.
Or avoid the change but eventually lose the thing I want to keep,
and also lose the thing I want.
It is an easy choice,
not an easy change.

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flirtations

2011-07-08T14:37:00.001-05:00

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Single after being in a relationship for two and a half years, it turns out I need to relearn how to navigate in "the scene" again. The other night I found myself in the company of a guy who was laying on the flirtations awfully thick, and while he wasn't being inappropriate or crossing any lines, I wasn't entirely sure what to do with myself or how to respond. Later I was explaining the awkwardness of it to my best friend, and she asked if I didn't find it somewhat entertaining, to which I said no. Instead of finding it entertaining or flattering, I felt put upon, like I was participating in something I never agreed to. I wasn't sure if I should address the situation outright, go along with it, redirect the attention, play dumb, or act like a bitch so he'd leave me alone. In the end I did a combination of trying to redirect the attention and playing dumb. Which worked out pretty well in my favor. The thing is my patience is waaaaaay too short to regularly play dumb in that kind of situation, so I need to figure out another way to navigate the scene. A can of mace should do the trick or may be a taser, but I'm open to suggestions.

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Skittles

2011-06-02T23:11:00.008-05:00

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Adam shaves his head two weeks before our wedding. He walks into my mother's kitchen where we're putting Skittles into little boxes as wedding favors. My mother sees him first. "Oh good gawd," she whispers.

I turn and blink, and blink again. He rubs his head, feeling short bristles where thick dark locks were just hours prior. "I got hot," he says by way of explanation.

I blink again, "You got hot?"

"Yeah," he shrugs, "I got hot. So I shaved it. It's not a big deal, it'll grow back."

I stare him, hard. "Not a big deal? Our wedding is exactly fourteen days away and you just shaved your head. You're practically a melon!"

Adam turns and looks at my mother as if she can explain it to me for him, but she looks like a deer in headlights herself. "Who are you? Pedro?" I ask.

"No! Wait, what? Who's Pedro?"

"Pedro, that Mexican kid from Napoleon Dynamite!" I sputter. "That's exactly what he said when he shaved his head--he got hot. And then he had to wear a wig for the rest of the movie!"

He rolls his eyes. "It's just hair. Besides your dad likes it," he says as if that will settle the matter.

"When did you see my dad?"

"Just now," Adam points behind him, "in the garage. When I got out of the car he said 'New 'do, looks good.'"

"I'm not sure you should be taking compliments on your hair from my father. He's bald too! Of course he likes your 'new 'do'."

He shakes his head at me. "Listen babe, you can stand there and be mad at me, or you can get over it and I'll help you with the Skittles." Then Adam smiles at me. The smile that made me fall in love with him, the smile he gave me when he proposed last fall, his trump card.

"As long as you wear a wig for the pictures." I sit back down at the table trying not to smile.

"Anything you want," he says still grinning.

"I'm still pissed at you."

"I know, but you'll get over it," he says.

"Stop smiling."

"Okay."

"I mean it, stop smiling."

"I said okay!"

My mother interrupts us, "Oh good lord, I feel like I'm getting a glimpse of the next sixty years for you two."

"Yeah," Adam says with that damn grin still on his face, "and it's gonna be great."

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b.s.

2011-06-02T10:09:00.000-05:00

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I read once something about how sadness can make mundane things seem really profound and beautiful. Something like a warm breeze coming through an open window.

That's a load of bullshit. Mostly I just want to slam the window shut and then toss a brick through it.

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brokenhearted

2011-05-28T13:14:00.000-05:00

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heart broken
shattered into a million pieces
rattling around in my chest
piercing my lungs
my stomach
up to my throat even
lodged
wedged
piercing with each breath
each step
and slowing dying

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touched

2011-05-25T15:41:00.000-05:00

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At lunch today I noticed two men speaking in sign language to one another. One, who waited for his friend to arrive, was in a wheelchair and hearing impaired. The other, who seemed to be on his lunch break, was able bodied and could hear. What circumstances brought them together in friendship I could only speculate.

From the length of their conversation, the sounds of happiness coming from the hearing impaired man, and the kind expression on the other man's face, I was so moved by the lack of boundaries to their friendship that eventually I got up to leave before I started crying.

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drinkers

2011-05-18T10:15:00.002-05:00

I remember once going to a drinking party in high school, the only one I went to in fact, and after imbibing, rode home with some friends who hadn’t. One of them was rather vicious about my drinking, even though I was fairly in control of myself and not even a little bit rowdy or messy. I had what you would call “a good buzz.” Eventually I pointed out to this said not-so-nice friend that though I had had some to drink I was neither deaf nor dumb. I understood his jabs perfectly well, which made what he was saying that much more inappropriate and unnecessary. Still I sensed the general disapproval in the car by my non-drinking high school friends and I felt badly.

Today I click through these same non-drinking high school friends’ photos on Facebook, and much of their activities seem to center around drinking and being at the bar. Even the not-so-nice friend. Especially the not-so-nice friend. The photos have captions and comments suggesting that these same once non-drinkers now barely remember that photo being taken or shortly thereafter so-and-so puked. These things are written in humor, meaning to be funny. There’s nothing judgmental or vicious about their banter.

I can’t help think to myself “what a bunch of fuckers.”

Why This is the Only Post in April

2011-04-28T14:47:00.000-05:00

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I put in a nine hour day with no breaks. I spent five hours of that work day conducting a software training. I finally got around to eating lunch at 4pm, which was a half a piece of cake. I went to the grocery store after the nine hour work day. While there, I decided a bottle of wine sounded nice. The next thing I realized the cashier was scanning three bottles of wine that had apparently made their way into my cart. When I got home to put the pizza away, I found a half eaten bag of tortilla chips in the freezer.

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Did he really just say that?

2011-03-31T16:05:00.000-05:00

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Men can count calories but they should never admit it out loud.

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history

2011-03-16T11:40:00.000-05:00

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When I called you, I didn't think it would go like that.
Like how?
I dunno. All weird and shit.
Why was it weird?
Cuz you're like...all different now.
I'm different?
Yeah, and you were asking me all these questions about what was new in my life.
Sorry that I care.
Well, you made me feel bad.
I hadn't heard from you in like two years and you just called me up one day out of the blue. I thought maybe something happened, like you got engaged or something.
Nope. I was just calling to talk to ya.
I don't understand though how I made you feel bad.
Cuz I ain't done nothing and every time I told you that I could hear, like, disappointment in your voice.
No, not disappointment. Surprise.
Whatever.
Well gawd, you live in the same place since the last time we talked and you have the same job you had when I first met you. That was ten years ago. I assumed at some point you had had some excitement in your life.
Well I haven't.
I gathered that.
You judge me.
Well, yeah, a little.
Fuck you.
Right back at you.
No really, fuck you. Don't judge me.
What about you? Asking me about The New Man.
What's wrong with that?
I don't have a new man. I've had the same man for years.
Well I didn't know.
And that question didn't imply something else?
Nope.
Bull.
It didn't!
I don't believe you.
Fine.
Listen, I don't need this.
Neither do I.
In that case I'm going to hang up.
Fine by me.
Nice talking to you.
Yeah, same to you.
Fuck you.
Fuck you too.
G'bye.
Bye.

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The Nursing Home

2011-03-10T16:11:00.006-06:00

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We encountered the first one just outside the dining room. Her laugh was more like a cackle and I wasn't sure how she could even see us through the barely visible slits that were her eyes. The boy stood there, still and unflinching, while she gestured with an energy not witnessed from the woman in decades. There was no fear in him, only curiosity and even that was thin. She began a slow reach and a shuffle forward, inch by inch, towards him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw this wrinkled old bag of bones and sour milk wasn't the only one making a move. Down the hall there was yet another making her painfully slow but steady way, her path clear, her goal--the boy. It was only a matter of minutes before she closed the thirty foot gap.

The boy sensed none of the impending danger, but being all too familiar with this type of situation myself, I scooped up the boy in my arms, clutched him to my chest, and in a bravado that matched my terror inside, I loudly declared us off to find the birdies. The boy accepted this change of scenery without protest and we left the old woman outside the dining room.

Upon finding the birdies, we also found a lone creature on the other side of the room. The boy remained unconcerned, enraptured instead with his new tiny feathered friends. My goal was to stay where we were while somehow keeping the creature where he was. The creature didn't share my goal however, and within a matter of precious minutes, with uncanny speed and agility, he had rolled his massive hulk of a body only a few feet from us. "Stay calm," I told myself, "don't let the boy sense you are afraid."

So we stood there; the boy in my arms oblivious to the danger, the bug-eyed old man in his chair staring and breathing heavily, the birdies flitting, eating, and shitting in their glass cage. Suddenly: "There was a guy who had his legs cut off to here!" The man made a startling and violent slash against his thighs with a gnarled hand. The boy and I stood blinking, unsure at the outburst. Then the creature man snarled, "He died last week." "Dear God, this creature killed him! Probably for his pudding!" I could feel the tremor of fear birthed in my chest begin to move outwardly to my limbs, making me think for an instant I might lose my clutch on the boy and drop him, thereby making him fair game for the encircling hunter who smelled of dirty bedsheets. Then I noticed that another like him had entered the room and he too was moving in a slow yet steady line for us. "They can smell him! They can smell the boy!" It was clear we were in danger. Past experience told me the longer I tried to maintain a level of decorum the stronger the threat would grow.

"I think it's snack time, huh Howie?" I said too loudly to make sure the life suckers heard me. "Should we go find a snack?" This wasn't really a question for the boy. It was an escape, and with that I fled back down the hallway with the boy in my arms moving without heed against the obstacle course of indistinguishable forms reaching out with barnacled claws.

Finally we reached the safety of the room and I promptly found a snack. The boy managed to both greedily shove it into his mouth and simultaneously smear it across his face as I caught my breath. "That was a close one," I said congratulating myself on my quick thinking and heroic instincts. Yet the boy, pure and unsullied, remained unaware of how close he had come to perilous grasp of the withered beings, and as one of them sniffing for innocence and youth rolled up to the doorway cooing his death call, the boy moved with lightening speed out of my reach and towards the door...

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Chocolate milk, son.

2011-02-23T15:37:00.000-06:00

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So for a week I was dreading giving a training to a particular someone because, well honestly, she scared me. It was one of those nagging things in the back of my mind, like having a hole in your sock--no one can see it but you know it's there. Only it went really well. The training, not the holey sock. I had a professor in college I avoided taking classes from because I heard really nuts-oh stories about her but then my senior year I couldn't put off this one class that I needed to graduate and she was the only one teaching it. I took it and I loved it. And her. And I was kicking myself that I hadn't taken any other classes from her, which my mom turned into some kind of metaphor for life or something when I mentioned it to her. I dunno, sometimes I don't like when my mom is right, even though 99% of the time she is and 98% of the time I'm glad about that. There's still that 2% that gets to me. So that White Russian I was going to console myself with after work is now going to be my celebratory White Russian because I'm trying a new thing this week where I drink White Russians at home. I never get White Russians when I go out because it's never the right time. So I was told. White Russians are apparently an after dinner drink but guess how many times in a year I order after dinner drinks. Yeah that number hovers somewhere around four. In a good year. So I'm drinking White Russians and I figure I'll gauge the success of my new endeavor on how much money I save not buying a case of beer every week and making into work every Monday through Friday. On time and without a headache. As soon as my White Russian sipping turns into White Russian chugging I plan to stop. If I can. But do you know how tasty White Russians are? Chocolate milk, son. All that to say, I'm still scared of the trainee lady. But at least now I don't feel like I have to cower in fear when I pass her in the hallway.

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The shrink made it sound so easy.

2011-02-04T11:32:00.000-06:00

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Here's the thing about creating new patterns and habits in your life: IT SUCKS. The whole time you're trying something new you're second guessing yourself because you've never done it this way before and what if it doesn't work!? And you feel panicky and shitty because what you're doing is unfamiliar and not fun and goes against your instinct. All you can do is cross your fingers, put your head down and go for it. And hope that when the dust settles, you're still standing.

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addicts of a different kind

2011-01-22T22:03:00.002-06:00

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we are recovering addicts too. we live with it every day. and every day like you, we have to make that choice. the choice to not go down that path. to avoid old friends, old hangouts, to skip that aisle at the store, and most importantly, to not give into that thinking. when you have a headache, you have to choose not to think about that bottle. when the day isn't going your way, you have to choose not to think about that teener that's just a short walk down to the corner to get. when we have a headache, we have to choose not to think about how easy an overdose would be. when the day isn't going our way, we have to choose not to think about that razor and running it against the soft skin on our wrists. we are recovered and it lies in our past. but still we daily make the choice to keep it in our past. we choose new habits today, plan for tomorrow, and we learn how to cope in the moment. but the truth is, it is still a choice. every day. every day we all are recovering.

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could have been worse.

2011-01-07T14:56:00.002-06:00

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My cousin gave me her Facebook password so I could go in Facebook stalk this girl she was telling me about who has the most amazingly horrendous Fb statuses of all time. I spent the morning scrolling through the most unbelivable and entertaining status updates you can imagine! Heck you can't imagine them so don't even try. Anyway, after killing a few minutes (or may be an hour or two or three), I was ready to get a glass of wine and be done for the day. But not before I played a little joke on my cousin. Posing as her, I pasted this thing in the Facebook status and wrote "i don't know why this is on the website. i think it's really cool and wish i had one for my very own."

If you knew my cousin, this would be infinitely more funny to you. Trust me.

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bonk

2011-01-05T16:27:00.001-06:00

I have a relative who also lives in this city that I’m going to talk about here because there’s a 99% chance he’ll never read this, and for the 1% chance he does read this—yes, I am talking about you because you matter to me, even though you enjoy insulting me and hurting my feelings occasionally. Okay a little more than occasionally.

Mkay back to said relative. He’s an interesting character if ever there was such a character. He could be one of those droogs from A Clockwork Orange if he had less of a soul, but fortunately for all of mankind, he has got a soul. And a heart. Even though he’ll deny it until he’s blue in the face. I’ve seen it once or twice.

He is the only family I have in this giant city, but as I said, he’s an interesting character who makes his own rules, his own schedule, and he doesn’t like to be bothered. That last one is very important to him. Not being bothered. Particular that way, he is. So for the past few years while him and I have been cohabiting in the same city, our getting together has been sporadic at best. It was more frequent when I was willing to go to the bar at nine at night and stay there until one in the morning, but I’m pushing thirty. I like my bed time somewhere around nine and by one I’ve already been up once to pee.

So we see each other sporadically. Mostly on his schedule because he’s particular this guy, and while he might agree to a dinner or an early drink (by his standards), if he’s not in the mood for you he can be… difficult. Okay more like downright difficult. So I’ve learned it’s best to let him come to me. But the problem is that with this relative it’s right now or not all, which means that if I can’t do dinner tonight then it’s sayonara for the next two weeks, or four months, depending on how his mood goes.

At this time in my life it’s gotten harder for me to be available at a moment’s notice. I have a significant other, I have weekly commitments, and I work at 8am. I don’t do well with “let’s go out tonight, a Monday night, to a show that starts at 10:30pm.” But you can’t say no to him too often. And you can’t not try to make plans with him even though you don’t know what kind of mood he might be in. (It’s like Russian Roulette but more lethal.) Or else he might go so far as to delete you from Facebook. Which happened to me.

I suppose initially I was hurt. I mean deleting people from Facebook is an act reserved only for those whom you never talk to anyway—or those you never plan on talking to ever again. So yeah I was hurt. But now that I think about it, it’s kind of nice not being regularly insulted and called a dirty hippie on a public social forum that my other relatives, friends, and people I want to impress can see. Quite nice in fact.

Maybe someday he’ll text me “right now” on a Saturday afternoon when I have nothing to do, but until then I think I might just revel in this period of silence.

And I definitely won’t miss him showing me naked pictures of this week’s girlfriend on his phone* either.

* Etiquette dictates you’re supposed to warn someone when you’re about to show them something like that, right!?

I watch too much "Cops."

2011-01-05T11:32:00.000-06:00

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I had a dream last night that my buddy Stin was smoking a doobie and offered me a puff. Good naturedly I took a hit for old time sake and then suddenly there was a police officer writing me a ticket for possesion of a doob, and I was hauled to a group home for deliquents until my court date. Then my parents busted me out and I had to go into hiding. All because of a doobie that wasn't mine.

What does it mean Dr. Freud?

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2011-01-03T09:51:00.000-06:00

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So it's January 3rd and everyone's talking about resolutions for the new year. I don't really go in for New Year's resolutions but if I did I might pick one of these:

- Eat less cheese.
- Limit myself to checking Facebook at work only half a dozen times per day.
- Pay more attention to my cuticles, particularly during winter.
- Stop fake texting in elevators to avoid conversation with strangers.
- Cook more meals at home without using microwave.
- Dress for work like I actually give a damn.
- Floss.

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something we can all agree on

2010-12-18T22:26:00.000-06:00

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I was at a Christmas party. Someone I wasn't even formally introduced to thought he'd make a comment about my wine consumption. The whole two glasses I had.

Yeah. I thought he was a schmuck too.

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bad move. for everyone.

2010-12-15T15:34:00.000-06:00

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One of the grossest things I've seen on Facebook: the picture you posted of your sister sitting drunkenly on a toilet with her pants around her ankles.

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fun will continue

2010-12-10T11:48:00.000-06:00

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Tonight's my work's "staff recognition party." I guess you can't even say "holiday party" anymore because it offends people who hate merriment.

The party is going to be just like it is every other year. Same mediocre dinner menu, same ancient awards, same lackluster speeches, same deejay in an oversized Cutler jersey drinking Heinken. I'm tempted to skip it, get into my pjs, grab a beer, and watch Comedy Central all night.

A few years ago I had a boss, one no longer with the company, tell me that while he couldn't force us to go to after-hour staff events, he would "notice if you're there or not." That's sort of like telling a twelve-year-old that God is always watching you, even in the shower.

I'd like to stay home tonight, but my guilty conscience would nag me all night. If I'm going to be miserable, I might as well be miserable with my coworkers. It will be just like being at work.

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therapy

2010-12-08T15:28:00.005-06:00

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"Sometimes," she said clenching her jaw, "don't you just want to scream at the world?"

He looked over the top of his glasses at her with the pen still scratching across the notepad on his lap. "What would you scream?"

She shrugged. "Nothing specific. Fuck you maybe."

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Finding my life's calling

2010-12-01T11:30:00.003-06:00

Here are three reasons I should be a librarian.

1. There's no talking at a library, only whispering.
2. There are books at a library, lots and lots of them.
3. Librarians are required to be unhelpful and condescending. Those are two things I'm really, really good at.

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on the tracks

2010-11-30T12:02:00.002-06:00

The sounds he makes when he drinks coffee are enough to make anyone queasy. Or at least initiate a serious dislike in a person towards him. I don’t care if you’re Mother Theresa. That slurp followed by a wet smack. You’d have to be totally deaf not to hate him for it. Up there with people who bite their forks. What do you think God gave you lips for? Not just foreplay. Foreplay. I realize that’s a foreign word for some. Those asexual types. Or rather nonsexual types. Like someone’s little brother. You’re already thinking of that friend or cousin or coworker you know. The suggestion of him or her being intimate is like trying to picture yourself old. You just can’t do it. It’s wrong. So is replying to an email without really replying. I just got one of those. An email reply that didn’t answer a single question posed. Kind of makes me want to hit my head on my desk a few times. Because I don’t have anything better to do than hold your hand and do your thinking. I’m taking great satisfaction now in having run all those personal color copies. Consider it partial payment for mental and emotional aggravation. Much like how I assume planning a wedding is. Lists of guests. Who to invite. And how not to invite that cousin you don’t really like. That weird uncle who always drinks too much. Wedding planning. Sounds so stressful. And I’m jealous. It’s like hearing your phone ring, only you get there two seconds after the caller hangs up and no one’s on the line anymore. She talks a lot about her ring. The one she’s going to get. The one she knows she’s going to get. Probably after Christmas. Or may be Christmas morning. Does talking about Christmas make you want eggnog too? I don’t even like eggnog. But every year I think this is going to be the year. So I try it. And then I remember that I hate eggnog. Yep, it’s definitely Tuesday.

Leave no trace.

2010-11-22T10:24:00.000-06:00

.
If you're going to help yourself to my stapler and my tape dispenser when I'm away from my desk, do it in such a way that you leave no trace and put them back where you found them. When I come in I don't want to notice that my tape dispenser is askance and my stapler is six inches from where it usually is. Is that why the amount of Chex Mix in my desk drawer seems suspiciously low too?

I'm onto you.
.

My coworkers are at it again.

2010-11-15T09:05:00.000-06:00

.
"She like Dolly Parton on the black side."

- J

.

My 8:15am convo with coworkers.

2010-11-12T08:40:00.002-06:00

.
me: So if you write on someone's Facebook wall and they comment back but spell your name wrong...
P: May be they hit the wrong key.
me: Nope, they spelled my name wrong. With a "y."
J: Like you wrote on their wall and they wrote back to what you wrote?
Me: Yep...it's depressing.
J: They gotta see your name there to reply! It's retarded is what it is. Or they been drinkin.

.

Hey kid, isn't it time for your daily dose of Dimetapp?

2010-10-27T16:25:00.003-05:00

I was thinking about how when my cousins and I were little, we had to go downstairs to the basement if we wanted to run around, be loud, or heck even talk in a group of more than two. Apparently my now grown-with-their-own-kids cousins don’t look back on that as fondly as I do, because they seem to think it's really fun for everyone else to let their snotty nosed kids run around the couches, up over tables, and underneath chairs while screaming at the tops of their magnificient little lungs.

Ahh, Thanksgiving.

.

tolerant of just what you agree with

2010-10-21T16:09:00.000-05:00

This week I'm stinging from someone's personal insult directed at me after I made a sensitive comment to a derogatory facebook status about Christians. I'm still baffled as to how my personal belief scould so aggravate someone that he would go out of his way to purposefully hurl an insult at a complete stranger. Disagree with me all you want, but let's be intelligent about it. If you want me to see "the error" of my ways of thinking, you'd do better to make a case for why you believe what you believe than to insult me. Ever heard the saying you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?

I suspect that if the original comment had been written about any other religious group, the commentor would have received angry retorts about his hate speech, perhaps even from the aggressor to my comment. Why is that every other religion is tolerated to every extreme but it's acceptable and widely encouraged to direct hate speech at Christianity?

The loudest opposers of Christianity often claim that it is an intolerant religion. Aren't these folks behaving in exactly the same way that they claim Christianity does if they will spew hurtful words of hate and anger at those they insist should be more tolerant?

examination

2010-10-05T16:22:00.000-05:00

“Are you happy? Be honest.”

I’ve asked friends this question with some variation of the caveat. When you ask someone if they are happy, the question is essentially a rhetorical one. You already know the answer should be “no,” or else why would you even bother with such a question. This inquiry exists merely for the benefit of the person you’re questioning, as if by asking them this simple question all the complexities involved in getting to the answer will unravel and there your friend will find in a nutshell that “no” indeed he or she is not happy and was only now able to realize it thanks to your smooth investigation. Of course if your friend responds with “yes” then you automatically rule him or her as being in denial to their true and latent unhappy feelings. You never ask someone if he or she is happy without already knowing the answer.

previews

2010-10-03T08:41:00.000-05:00

I stare at my hand for a while and sift through my invisible burdens. I think of the amazing tree house with its stairs and leaves and the evil clinging to the branches and how casting a spell makes the trees grow and the leaves thicken and there is light, lots of light and it is safe. I think of the darkened house with its strange crannies and nooks and how at the end the girl loses it all in the basement while we look on in wonder. I think of my sister and her family on the boat, learning to para sail, my nephew stands there patiently as I adjust his life jacket and then the nose of the boat rises up because of the speed and all our weight, so I go to the front of the boat with Al to even us out. I think about the apartment that isn't really mine and the guy who sort of looks like Howie from the Backstreet Boys and wears a cranberry sweater because he says it's his best one, and there is a guy who may have been on some reality show in another life but I can't be sure. I think about the parallel universes where my life makes a lot more fucking sense. There is movement and motion and I wonder if my subconscious is trying to brace us for a life without you. I'd really like to own that speed boat.

Don't ask why it smells that way.

2010-09-30T15:36:00.000-05:00

I hugged a lady at work this afternoon and the split second afterwards I remembered that my shirt smells weird today. I wanted to run away from her right then but I forced myself to stand there and finish the conversation. I never hug people at work and the ONE time I do of course it's the day when my shirt smells like wallpaper glue...

True story too.

2010-09-28T16:13:00.000-05:00

Here's something I wrote in an email today:

[That] reminds me of the crackhead and her mom I saw at the train stop the other week. The crackhead tried to pet a police dog and then she told me I had pretty hair.

not in the haha sort of way

2010-09-17T10:13:00.000-05:00

Relationships are funny. Some days you look at your mate and ask, "Wow, how did I get so lucky?" Other days you look at your mate and ask, "Who are you?"

football player

2010-09-13T12:35:00.000-05:00

When we used to talk about him, it was always with a touch of excitement in our voices. The kid had potential to play pro ball, I mean real potential. Not in the way you naively believe some kid with a little bit of talent has potential with just the right concoction of coaching, conditioning, and protein shakes. This kid, he was the real deal; wide as a house, strong as an ox, and quick on his feet despite his size. The best thing was, he was young. He had a few years to really perfect himself, hone his skills, stretch his talents you know, so when the time came he’d be ready for the recruiters. Heck, we had already started fantasizing about it. How we’d all get one of his college sweatshirts to wear around, confirm that our bragging was legit. We were already proud and the kid was only a sophomore. All he had to do was stay the course, stay focused.

When we talk about him now, it is always with a touch of disappointment in our voices. The kid had potential to play pro ball, I mean real potential. Not in the way you hope some kid with a little bit of talent has potential with just the right concoction of coaching, conditioning, and protein shakes. This kid...wide as a house, strong as an ox, and quick on his feet despite his size...young though, and, like all youth, he had no idea that his screws up early on had long-term consequences...I guess after a while the hole got too deep to crawl out of and even he stopped fantasizing. For every dozen kids who dream about having it, he had it and threw it away...We try not to talk about how he broke our hearts, how it was so real we could practically taste it, how all he had to do was stay the course.

workplace confrontation

2010-09-10T12:44:00.000-05:00

Already one of those days and not even noon yet. I get this email and I snap. I'm done. You got a problem with me? I'm gonna make you say it to my face. So I go, knowing I look like a hot mess because my blood pressure I'm sure is hovering somewhere up around "fatal." I see you and I blurt it out. Is there some sort of problem? I get the half second silent stare, followed by the back pedal dance and a song about how it was unintentional. So there's no personal problem here? No, good. Oh but. There's always a but with you, isn't there? You build it up but it isn't holding much water. I make my point and you're done. Still you cling, you shoot from the hip, and I can tell by the tone of your voice that you've just hidden what your real problem is behind something else. Hey great, we both know it. You're grasping at straws and still trying to make me your bitch. But let's call it good today, eh? This passive aggressiveness from you is making me sick. You lie to my face and I want to puke in yours. Finally, I'm gone, at my desk blinking away the tears, knowing I did the right thing by confronting you and yet feeling like shit because I know it didn't do anything but get my heartrate up. You're going to pick up where you left off on Monday.

Words that don't sound to me like what they actually mean.

2010-09-03T10:18:00.003-05:00

Commence: Sounds like something is ending or coming to a close, but what it really means is
to begin, or start.

Condone: Sounds like you disapprove or oppose something, but what it really means is
to overlook, forgive.

Words are weird.

I'm hung up on the word "commence" today, so I brought it up with another lingustic friend of mine over gchat:

me: so to commence something is to begin something. what is it to end something?
friend: to finish? come to a close?
me: so what is the opposite of a commencement?
friend: an after party

Non-tattooed Etiquette

2010-08-29T20:45:00.000-05:00

I'm a bit of a tattoo fanatic. There, I admit it. I love tattoos and everything about them. I love getting tattoos and I love planning my next tattoo. I love reading tattoo blogs and looking at pictures. I love talking to fellow tattoo lovers about tattoos. I love tattoos, love 'em.

What I am not a fan of is having non-tattooed acquaintances and strangers try to talk to me about my tattoos. In particular guys seem to think tattoos are fair game for getting a phone number. I can't speak for every other tattooed woman, but for me this is about the last possible way a guy can get my phone number. There's always a line non-tattooed guys cross before they realize there is a line, and trust me, there is a line. Yes, I have a tattoo or two that are visible--and yes I have others he can't see; asking me where they are is borderline pervy. I assume the guy is imagining me naked as he asks this question, and that's usually about the time I'm looking for someone else to talk to.

In other cases, it's just someone who's being noisy, who wants to know "what that says" or "what that means." I liken being asked "what does that mean" up there with "what's your social security number." Who are you and why do you need to know?

I do recognize that for acquaintances or potential acquaintances it seems like a good topic, a good way to get to know someone. It could be. It could also be really offensive to the person you're asking. If you're a non-tattooed person, you find yourself being introduced to a tattooed person, and you want to start a conversation about tattoos, here are some do's and don'ts:

Start out by complimenting the tattoo. It lowers defenses; remember we're a group that gets Leviticus 19:28 quoted to us.
Ask where they had the tattoo done (meaning shop location). This kind of question expresses your interest and allows your new friend to give as much or as little detail as they want, quite possibly the what and why--which is what you really want to know, isn't it?
If you're not sure what it is, ask what it is. Don't suggest what you think it is. You could be wrong, very, very wrong.
On the other hand, if you're not sure what it says, ask what language it is in. Don't ask what it says because it may not be in English for a reason.
Let the person tell you about their tattoo. If you're only getting short answers, pick up the cues and find a new topic.
Don't ask about a tattoo and then launch into a long winded schpiel about how you want to get a tattoo but you don't know what you want yet. We've already heard this story from everyone else we know.

I'm not saying any of this to be mean. I'm saying this to help you get the phone number, or to make a new friend, or to not walk away from a strained conversation wondering what that was all about. I'm not saying never ask about a tattoo or to stay away from the topic entirely. I'm simply asking you to be respectful. Tattoos are like any other topic: personal; so be aware and don't get offended if someone isn't comfortable giving you all the dish about the tribute tattoo on his upper arm.

I'd like those minutes back, please.

2010-08-23T14:49:00.003-05:00

Two Things that don't make sense to me from a long list of things that don't make sense to me...

#1567. Spending five minutes telling me about an email you're going to send me.

#1568. Leaving a voice message telling me you're going to call me back a little later.

Social pleasantries aka Mind-numbing chitchit

2010-08-20T12:03:00.000-05:00

A fellow introvert and I had a weeklong discussion via email about what it's like to be an introvert in an extroverted world. (Exhausting and terrifying are my two words to describe it.) We sympathized with each other and agreed that being an introvert isn't just about the need for copious amounts of alone time, but as my friend pointed out it's also "that introverts have a tough time abiding the social pleasantries that extroverts do." Amen brotha. So this post is for all of you extroverts out there. The next time you meet someone at a party and they speak to you in short sentences and then suddenly makes a hurried exit out the backdoor, it doesn't mean he or she doesn't like you or that the person is an asshole/bitch (so please stop calling us that), it just means that your newly found friend was feeilng a bit overwhelmed and was quite possibly on the verge of tears. Your friend simply went outside to stand quietly with and appropriately distanced from fellow introverts. Don't worry, they'll all come back inside when they start to get cold.

The Retreat.

2010-08-18T10:29:00.004-05:00

What is more dreadful than a work retreat? I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing, absolutely nothing is more dreadful, except may be being stripped naked in Times Square and having someone burn you with lit cigarettes while Richard Simmons stands behind you telling jokes. Let’s call the work retreat what it really is: an opportunity for your bosses to force you to share things about yourself you don’t really care to share with coworkers you don’t really like. They want you to share things like what your favorite quote is. My favorite quote? Straight from Half-Baked.“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you’re cool, fuck you. I’m out.” Do you think the bosses really want to know that’s my favorite quote? Probably not. So I’ll have to pick something else, something less “offensive.” Which means I’m lying because whatever I pick it’s not really going to be my favorite quote, now is it? Or how about next question in line: a person you would most like to meet/have dinner with. Moi? I’d pick Hitler. Before you get pissed at my answer, let me explain. I don’t look up to Hitler. I’ve never read Mein Kampf and I don’t ever intend to. I don’t have a swastika tattoo, and in fact some days I really wish I was Jewish, because let’s be honest: the Jews are God’s chosen people, whatever the Gentiles say. No, I would want to have a candle lit dinner with Adolf so I could ask him a few questions myself. Such as “how do you like it in hell?” and “is it a humid heat or a dry heat?”

My favorite question, back to this work retreat and the get-to-know-your-neighbor questionnaire, is what is my biggest work pet peeve. You mean I have to pick one? Only one? Oh man, this test is hard. I bet the bar exam isn’t as hard as this. Do I say my biggest pet peeve is being forced to answer personal questions about myself and then having them shared in front of a group of coworkers? Or is my biggest pet peeve the whiny coworker who whines to my boss that I don’t say hi to him in the hallways at work? Is it the adjacent coworker who sluuuuuurps his coffee every single time he takes a sip so we all know just how good it is? Or is it when the third bathroom stall gets used and its occupant forgets that the toilet has to be flushed twice to even get the toilet paper wad down, so I end up walking in there and BAM! there's a leftover burrito swimming in the toilet bowl because someone forgot to flush thrice? Should I tell them how much it annoys me when people walk up to my desk and expect me to stop what I’m doing to assist them in yet again the same process we went over last week, and the week before, and the week before that? I guess may be you just like the way I smell. Oh, or how about this one—being volunteered to do stuff I expressed no interest in whatsoever, like sitting through 1099 training. I’m lucky to get my checkbook balanced every month; I don’t think you really want me near any 1099 forms. Now take all this new personal information you’ve learned about me and stick it. I’m not a people-person and I’m not here to win the Miss Congeniality award. In fact I hate beauty pageants; write that down as another “personal tidbit” about me. So if the bosses want to talk shop, I’m game. They pay me to work and I’m here to do just that. However I don’t believe my job description stated I had to tell you an “unforgettable college memory.” Because you know what, the most memorable thing about college was the puking. Oh boy, did I do a lot of that.

We like you. We just like you better in small doses.

2010-08-17T14:54:00.002-05:00

The thing about extroverts is that they want to make introverts just like them, whereas introverts are fine with extroverts so long as we don't have to be around them too long. In my opinion it's much harder to be the introvert simply due to extrovert's inability to give the introvert the very thing we desire most--to be left alone--because it's counter to the very thing that makes an extrovert an extrovert. In fact where introverts are concerned, extroverts can be quite rude. They don't believe us when we say we want to be left alone, like they know better and can't wait to show us how wrong we are by smothering us with social activity after social activity and aren't we having fun yet?! They also don't believe that we actually like going to movies by ourselves because who then is going to sit there and eat all your popcorn and slurp their slushie loudly in your ear?! And they assume that an introvert's idea of a joke is to remark on how lovely the quiet can be when don't we all know quiet is terrifying?! Yes, it's much harder to be an introvert because we have to fight for our alone time, our personal space, while being called things like "antisocial," "hermit," and "a party pooper" all while arguing our case with someone who will never really understand our preferences and will secretly suspect that they're not very well liked since we prefer our own company to theirs.

Beggar

2010-07-29T11:30:00.000-05:00

Dear Beggar on the Street,

Yes I see you there and I hear you there shaking your cup full of pennies at me. I also see your clothes look pretty new, and you're not one of the true homeless that calls this part of the loop home. The homeless don't actually beg to people passing by on their way to work. Beggars do that. The homeless don't holler at young girls as they walk by. Beggars do that.

The fact that you shook your cup at me first, then noticed me second, and thirdly and finally began calling me names meant to encourage my attention are all signs that indicate you're not really homeless. People don't trust the homeless because of beggars like you. You give them a bad reputation.

I know it's not p.c. for me to say any of this about you; someone reading this letter is going to take offense and tell me it's not your fault you can't find a job. But I don't believe that. Given the vocabulary this morning, you're rather smart, aren't you? But hey, times are tough for you right, not your fault? May be, may be not. It is your fault if you used to talk to your boss the way you talked to me this morning though, isn't it? And it is your fault if instead of visiting that 7-11 around the corner with "Hiring" sign in the window, you choose instead to sit on that empty milk crate with your cup full of coins and leer at young women on their way to work. It is your fault. I'm not buying your p.c. bullshit.

On further thing before I close this letter, contrary to your opinion you do not actually have the right say whatever you want to me. Oh I know you think you do. You made that perfectly clear after I told you not to talk to me in the way that you did. But it is true that the person in the right was me. Along with me, every other woman also has the right to walk down the sidewalk without being threatened or harrassed, and that true right overrides your self-appointed right to threaten and harrass.

So yes, I see you there, Beggar on the Street, and I hear you shake that cup at me, and you know what, I may not be able to do anything beyond write this letter, but I write it with the sincere hope that the next woman you talk to the way you did to me this morning kicks you in the dick as hard as she possibly can with pointed toed shoes on.

Sincerely,

Me

Leave your crackberry at home.

2010-07-27T13:15:00.003-05:00

I am one of those people who goes on vacation to leave behind the daily grind and the usual routine, and I'm baffled by those who go on a trip and provide every bored schmuck a minute-by-minute play of their every move on Facebook. Why don't you try putting down the crackberry and jump into the deep end of what's going on around you? This way you'll have something interesting to talk about when you get back, and I will only have to hear once about how cute the baby seals are at SeaWorld.

wallow: swallow

2010-07-23T09:59:00.000-05:00

We had traversed into a pile of shit, literally. It was thick and smelly, and our eyes watered heavily when the sun beat down on us at its highest. You were heartbroken and struggled feebly against the toxic muck, staring down at shit-covered feet you could not see. A head of us a ways off lay a great and fragrant meadow, full of beautiful wild flowers and lucious green trees to give shade. When the wind blew just right I could smell the liliacs through the shit, and seeing the meadow I was encouraged. But you couldn't see the meadow because you wouldn't stop looking at the rising shit at your feet. I tried to get you to look up. I tried to speak gentle words of love and encouragement. I even tried shouting. But you wouldn't look up and you wouldn't move. You couldn't manage to put one foot in front of the other for more than a few steps before you pleaded for me to leave you where you were. But I was so sure you'd look up, you'd see the beautiful expanse ahead. Surely you would want to leave the stench and the filth! After a while, we were both wasting away, and I feared that if I didn't leave soon all my energy would be exhausted on getting you to look up and I would have nothing left for my own journey out of it. The shit had begun to burn our flesh and was creeping up our legs, surely making the journey ahead more difficult. I could feel the skin on the soles of my feet disappearing where I stood. Yours had to be too, and I hoped with the last bit of hope that perhaps the pain itself would be enough to move your forward, to the beauty that lay before us. But it did not. Instead you began to weep even more helplessly, telling me all attempts would be futile and that we would most certainly die in the shit. In the eleventh hour, I chose to save myself rather than to die with you in the shit. It was a hard journey, especially by myself, but I am here now and the scent of lilacs is even more lovely that I dreamed. If it weren't for the scars I still bare on the soles of my feet, it would be hard to believe anything else but this delicious place existed. I do sometimes think of you and of how happy you would be here. If only you had looked up...

labeled

2010-07-15T15:06:00.007-05:00

My roommate from college, the one whose hip I was joined to all of freshman year, is getting married this weekend. I know this not because I got an personalized invite addressed to yours truly, but because I've been reading conversations on Facebook that don't involve me like some sort of creeper. Now this week the guests have begun arriving and I'm reading posts like Auntie Shan and Auntie Tasha arrive today, Uncle Colin comes tomorrow. All these declarations end in exclamation marks. Of course they would end in exclamation points. She's excited. Weddings are exciting. Having friends fly into town from all over the country is exciting. Exclamation mark away, I say...

Truthfully, it's weird reading about a party you didn't get invited to with a guest list of people you know, people you once used to call your dear friends. I shouldn't be hurt that I've been overlooked. I know there's no way my invitation simply got lost in the mail. I stopped being included a long time ago. I remember distinctly the moment I realized it, though if I am honest with myself I suspect I had been on the outside long before, only failing to recognize it, not wanting to let go. I must have read somewhere that the friends you make in college are your friends for life.

I was following Auntie Shan up a flight of stairs one afternoon, in retrospect it was one of the last times we intentionally hung out together. I commented on the scent of pot hanging in the air, how familiar it was, how much I loved it, and missed it. Auntie Shan turned and looked down on me, a few steps behind her, and said with a sad look in her eye, "Yeah, but you can't do that anymore. You're a Jesus Freak now." I must have looked taken a back, because she quickly said "Well you are, aren't you." She said this, but not as a question, more as if to clarify she had indeed stated a fact. I shrugged and agreed. She stood there turned towards me for a moment longer. I got the inkling that she was waiting for an apology--for disappointing her.

My roommate held onto the friendship a little longer, but not much longer and she didn't try very hard. I was still the same me, I thought anyway, but I had been labeled and in the end the label meant more than the friendship. It's been half a decade since I've seen any of them, Auntie Shan, Uncle Colin, my roommate. I shouldn't feel hurt that a personalized invitation didn't arrive in the mail for me. But I am. I guess deep down I want to believe we're all still friends, even if I am a Jesus Freak.

case of the mondays you could say.

2010-06-28T08:46:00.002-05:00

Four days til vacation. Predicting they'll be four untolerably long days for various work reasons. Although once this morning gets knocked out of the park, or afoul, I should be able to manage the next three and a half days with much less dread than presently experiencing. Because there's this meeting and I know she's gonna get all into her finger pointing again. She's going to speak for me like she always does. Will probably even introduce me like she's wont to do even though I know my name thank you very much. The real feat will be not snapping at her in the way I've been fanticizing about doing since I got home from out of town last night and began gearing up for this exact hurrah. Because man oh man. Would it feel goooood. To say, thanks I got this one. No really, I've got this one so sit down and shut the hell up. Such angst. Damn right such angst. It's Monday morning. I'm only one cup of coffee in and I'm four days out from vacation.

knocks me

2010-06-23T14:42:00.002-05:00

I'm tired. Tired in such a way that I want to crawl underneath my desk and take a nap. But I can't because stuff like that can get a person fired. I was out too late last night, and it was worth it. Overall. Like in thirty years I'll remember the great dinner and the great conversation because it was one of those nights where we talked about all the stuff that defines your late twenties. So overall worthwhile. Definitely. But right now I'm crabby as fuck because I'm tired and I don't do well when I don't get nine hours of zzz's and on top of that I'm sitting in a gray cube listening to the clickety clacks of computer keys that do to me what Bob Ross' voice used to do to me after Mr. Rogers ended--knocks me out. Something about his breathy voice and the whispers of the brush on the canvas. Yeah, a nap. A nap would be so good right now. Or even some mindless game of Tetris for the next thirty minutes. Which I would have given into last week without pause but not this week since my boss recently noticed I'm doing what "appears to be playing games on the computer" when he walks by. Politely phrased don't you think. So I'm back. Here. Tired and thinking it's a shame that I'd give my pinky finger to be at home asleep in my bed but no one's in the market for that kind of trade around here.

black girls

2010-02-01T19:56:00.004-06:00

It's three black girls on the train and a bunch of white people headed north during rush hour. I notice the black girls because it's a train full of white people and three black girls and hiphop music rattling out of some cheap cell phone at full volume. It sounds like someone's banging on a rusty tin can, bearing little resemblance to a bassline which is irritating me to the point to where I want to throw something at them, because dammit it's intentional, loud, and meant to piss off us crackers. I suppose it could be charming, if one finds youthful insolence charming but I know if it were three white girls by now someone would have taken the fourth seat and told them, not asked them, to turn that shit down. The ringleader of the three black girls knows this, the skinny one with a pierced lip and giant ass gold hoops that no doubt hurt her earlobes, so she's taking up two seats. May be she thinks it's cool, or funny, or it's just a damn-all-the-whities gesture, which is not so subtle thanks to the whispering and giggling and glances around at all the suits and briefcases standing awkwardly, coveting the seat she doesn't need or even want except for the demand of it. The thing is, she knows no one is going to say a word to her because she's young and black and no one wants to call out the black girl because what if that makes them that awful awful word: racist. It's our p.c. sensitivity biting us right in the ass through this black and reckless and brazen teenage girl. Some white kid makes the mistake of turning around one too many times in his seat to passive-aggressively express his displeasure at the will-they-ever-end?! tin cans and of course she calls him out and Axed him what the fuck he looking at? like this kid can look anywhere he wants but at her gaudy fake earrings and her Aunt Jemima headwrap. So for the whole ride I just sit there, trying half-assed to shoot a scowl at her but the aggression is palpable and I'm a typical scaredy-cat white girl but I've got eyes and I see angry confidence tugging at the corners of her mouth. She's hoping someone calls out her stinky shit because she's just itching for a scene and that wussy white boy didn't do a damn thing except blush in a train car full of white people and three blacks girls. But fuck if I'm gonna let some black girl call me a racist, because I'm not. Right?

outlets

2010-01-21T20:54:00.003-06:00

"Write it down," I tell her. She stares at me unblinking. "Write it down," I say again, "just try it. If it doesn't help then we try something else, but it can't hurt, right?" She finally blinks. I don't. So she shrugs, "Whatever you say, doc."

She comes in the following week. "So I've been trying it like you said, but so far not a damn thing. Pen to paper isn't nearly as gratifying as razor to skin."

Quotas

2010-01-19T14:09:00.002-06:00

I stand here taking it, biting my lip to keep from saying a thing that would surely get me fired. Because people get fired for telling off their bosses, happens all the time, and as much as I fantasize about telling my boss to shove that stapler there on his desk straight up his fat ass, I don’t because I need this job. Need—a sick thing to say because does anyone really need to come to a place every day to basically be humiliated? I prefer to think not, but here I am and I need to be here. Pride doesn’t feed my kids and make sure the electric bill gets paid so I’m at his desk again today, hearing now about how I’m too slow and ain’t making the new hourly quota they put out last month that said I should be processing so many an hour. They upped it again. I’d like to figure out who they are and invite them to come on down here for one day and see how quick they can make these hourly quotas they made up, sitting in the big fancy offices they got. They. They can go to hell and take boss man here with them. Sitting here telling me I ain’t working fast enough and how if I don’t start producing the right volume they going to have no choice but to can me. That’s his word too, can. Then he smiles like an idiot, real proud of himself for being ironic but I don’t smile or nothing at him, and he sort of frowns like he’s disappointed he don’t have a better audience. Then I ask him if there’s anything else and he looks right at my boobs, which I’ve taken to trying to hide with two sport bras and an extra t-shirt but doesn’t really make much of a difference. He asks about my kids, still looking at my boobs, and I don’t say nothing because he already knows how it is, how their daddy left and how the littlest one’s got health problems and needs a special machine twice a day to help him breathe right. I get what boss man ain’t saying out loud, which is he knows and I know I need this job and I don’t have the luxury of telling him where to stick that stapler.

The new game plan.

2010-01-19T14:05:00.003-06:00

Oh for crying out loud if I could just make up my mind about this dang blog already! I think I've come to a final decision which is this: all other crap is being removed and going forward everything's going to fall into the "writings" category. Yep, you'll be reading my nonsensical prose. Lucky you, eh?

To the literary theorists: don't try to analyze. Rarely, if ever, will anything translate intelligibly.

hello 2010, good bye blog.

2010-01-08T09:40:00.002-06:00

Okay, so I've decided that this blog, along with many others out there, is ridiculous and pointless and a trend I don't want to be a part of anymore. In a week, I'm shuttin' 'er down. May be not forever, but for now anyway.

Adios.

imposter

2009-11-06T10:24:00.003-06:00

I read James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room and it reminds me a little bit of The Portrait of Dorian Gray and The Line of Beauty, but I like this much better than either of those two novels. I feel lousy because I can’t write like James Baldwin. Pretty much everything I read makes me feel like a shady wanna-be who’ll never span the chasm between mediocre fluff and literature that people still read decades later because it's timeless and wise and teaches us something about ourselves and the world we live in; except for when I read The Onion and then I just laugh. Then when I stop laughing I hear the kitchen faucet drip drip drip in hollow silence and I remember I can’t write like James Baldwin and suddenly I can’t remember what was so funny just moments ago.

mobbed

2009-10-06T08:11:00.003-05:00

A sea of sweaty and drunk bodies, of people shoving and pushing up, into, against each other. She was leading just a few steps ahead of me, close enough that I could see the back of her but just beyond the reach of my fingertips. Just once she turned back to see if I was still there, following behind her. I will always remember the glimpse of fear in her eyes as the crowd hungrily pulsated around us, the heave of its rhythm propelling us forward.

one small sticker

2009-09-29T08:39:00.003-05:00

It was cold and my eyes watered from the wind. I thought about how much lovelier it would be to be at home snuggled down in the covers of my bed. But no. Work beckoned and I was too responsible to call in sick. I shivered at the edge of the crosswalk and looked to my right, hoping for a break in the one-way traffic. Instead my eye caught the silver sticker posted at eye-level on the traffic light. "You are beautiful" it said. I blinked, caught off guard by the surprising, anonymous compliment. I'll take this, I thought as I stepped warmly into the crosswalk at the prompt of the light.

what i left behind

2009-09-15T14:38:00.004-05:00

I didn't know that by getting on the bus that morning it would be the last time I'd see him. I would have accepted his offer of a ride with relief had I known. I would have made it to work that day, and I probably would have made it home to see him again because I don't believe catastrophy makes two attempts on someone in a day. As it happened for me, catastrophe needed only to strike once that day, sealing the end as I insisted he enjoy the morning with coffee and the paper. It was his day off after all. Turns out he'd take the next eleven days off to plan my funeral and then to take a solo vacation to Mexico where he tried to drown me in stiff tropical drinks. I regret I wasn't there to nurse his hangover. I regret getting on the bus that morning. I miss him.

It will be fine.

2009-09-08T14:55:00.003-05:00

I read her words and my heart sinks. The sadness and worry is immense, even on a computer screen miles and miles away. I know exactly how she feels. I can practically taste the bitterness of her pleading, which comes across an expanse searching for its way into the right ears to make sense of the mess. I've been on her side of the chasm. I know the anxiousness that stains every moment of the day. When she laughs, she doesn't mean it. The heaviness of futile waiting for this to pass weighs on her, and she is tired but can't sleep. She is easily distracted and prone burst into tears at the most inappropriate times, like in line at the grocery store or on the phone with the cable company. I want to tell her everything will be fine, but I've been where it hasn't been fine and it doesn't turn out fine, even though I'd have done anything to make it fine--anything--and I can't bring myself to lie to her.

It's late. Or really frickin' early, depending on who you ask

2009-08-21T04:01:00.001-05:00

I awake to the drunks coming home at bar close. Or may be I am already awake and they simply rouse me to the knowledge that the outside world is still awake and breathing too. I want to sleep, but the more I want this the more it eludes me until eventually I am forced by every regrettable thing I've ever done to get up and distract myself, although I have a sneaking suspicion that the things that keep me awake will still be there in the morning.

childless

2009-08-04T21:03:00.002-05:00

They gave you a son and you loved him instantly. You held him against your chest and breathed in his sweet scent. You loved him more than you thought possible. You stared into his face, taking in his delicate eye lashes as they lay gently on his pink round cheeks, and you began to picture his life. You pictured him learning to scoot across the living room floor. You imagined how it would feel when he called you mama. You saw yourself hanging streamers for his first birthday and every year after. Your life was suddenly fuller and richer than you ever knew it could be, and you were content. You were a mother.

They have taken him back and still you love him. You can still feel the heft of his body in your arms and that sweet baby smell lingers so near. You envision every freckle, every lash, every fold of skin, and you weep over this life that you will never be a part of. You won't be there when he takes his first step. You won't be the one to kiss away his tears. You will celebrate each of his milestones in absence. Your life feels emptier than you ever thought possible, and you can only weep. You have no son to call you mama.

what to make of it

2009-07-30T09:08:00.001-05:00

There’s a winning lottery ticket there in your pocket. You don’t cash it in. You carry it around, wearing down its edges, softening the creases you gave it. It knows; and it knows how you once boasted another lesser ticket, how you cashed it in and still publicly declare its value. But this one, the one worth something, you hide deep in your jeans, ready to run through the wash.

writers block

2009-07-27T21:39:00.000-05:00

It was supposed to be profound or something, but every time the digits hovered over the keys all that came to mind was the last funeral or the last asshole in the elevator or the last time I ate something that wasn't a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So I tried to listen but all I heard was the baseball game in the background drowning out the sound of half-decomposed thoughts.

traveling in business class

2009-07-22T09:33:00.003-05:00

It doesn’t go quite the way you thought and the next thing you know you’re agreeing to dinner after work, but just dinner because you get lonely and hotel food loses its novelty. Then you’re agreeing to discuss business in the room, which in your gut you know isn’t all there is to it, but you get the guilt under control in the elevator. Once it’s business in the room it goes other places you’re convinced you never meant for it to go, and tomorrow you’ll explain everything, about how it is when you travel and get lonely. And hey may be it never even gets to the room, but you’re out seeing a city you’ve never seen before through a local perspective and it feels an awful lot like a date but it’s not because it’s all business, right, and if you can write off the dinner for two and the cab ride and the dry cleaner's bill for the lipstick on the collar then you can call it something else, anything but what it was.

Q & A

2009-07-14T10:27:00.004-05:00

"What do you worry about?"

"That I won't get the bonus this year. I really need that bonus."

"Hmm, interesting. And what do you worry about?"

"My son's girlfriend is pregnant. She's...colored. I worry I won't be able to love my grandson."

"Okay, how about you?"

"I always check the switch on the coffee pot twice before I leave my house. When I was a kid my next door neighbor's house burned down because she forgot to turn off her coffee pot."

"I see. And you?"

"I worry that no one's really listening when I talk."

taking back what's mine

2009-07-09T20:44:00.002-05:00

You can't hide behind your lies when I speak out loud. They will know what you said and how you said it. Then it's all out in the open and it can't hurt or haunt anymore. Sometimes it doesn't seem real, you and your words, your actions and oath breaking. So I go back and I read what I wrote and I know it was real. You stole from me and then lied about it. I didn't make that up. I've got witnesses, I've got bodyguards, I've dried tears on a stained pillow. You are caught now in your poor judgment, your arrogance, your aged and unwanted body. It's my turn to speak out loud and me and my words will split your lies apart like the poke of a stick in the swollen belly of a dead deer on the side of the road in a July summer heat.

not needed either

2009-06-10T09:03:00.001-05:00

My wife is a mystery to me. Even after all these years she’s still a stranger in so many ways. She tells everyone I’m a heavy sleeper and could sleep through Armageddon if it ever came in the middle of the night. May be I could have in my twenties and thirties, but my sleep isn’t the sleep of the dead anymore. My body's too achy to stay comfortable all night, and my bladder seems to have shrunk.

So I hear her slip out of bed. I hear her trying to avoid that spot in the hallway where the floor creaks. I hear her gently pull at the screen door and step down the old wooden stairs at the back of the house. I am awake as she moves through our house like a ghost. She doesn’t know that I know about her smoking sessions out back which used to only happen a couple of times a month; now they’re up to a several times a week.

It is true some of our children are grown and the ones still in the house are almost grown, and none of them have much need for my wife and I anymore. Sure I miss those days of bouncing them on my knees and carrying them all clean-smelling and sleepy-eyed from the tub to the bedroom for pj’s and story-time, but I confess that I look forward to the quiet too. I’ll have time to do more of the things that I want, like finally finishing that apartment over the garage. I figure I only need a solid week’s worth of work up there without interruption to get it livable; then may be we can rent it out to some nice, young married couple and get a little extra money coming in.

But my wife isn’t interested in this next chapter of our lives. She’d rather spend sleepless nights smoking in the backyard and brooding over the inevitable. She kind of pisses me off the way she does this, acting like her life isn’t worth anything unless she’s got kids hanging off her and needing her constantly. What about me? Aren’t I enough? Am I so useless that my own wife can’t even stand to lie next to me in bed anymore?

I had hoped for laughter and comfort as our bodies aged and fell apart. I had hoped for companionship and sitting together on the back porch enjoying the summer sunsets while listening to the crickets. I had hoped for a time of being with my wife just the two of us again. This quiet indifference between us isn’t how I envisioned growing old.

The truth is I miss my wife.

not needed

2009-06-09T11:08:00.004-05:00

I wander down to the edge of the lawn where the grass isn’t cut and grows up tall into the woods behind the house. It is long after the ten o’clock news has ended and the kids are home in bed. My husband, the heavy sleeper, does not hear me move against the sheets, down the hall, out the sliding screen door, descend the cracked wooden stairs at the back of the house.

I pull a half-empty pack of stale cigarettes from one pocket of my cotton bathrobe, a lighter from the other. I only smoke on nights like this, which are becoming more frequent as of late. The strong scent of mentholated tobacco suddenly clings to the damp summer night. My drags are long and slow, as if I can slow down time with each lengthy draw, keeping my kids being kids for a little while longer, keeping the wrinkles that have already begun to show around my eyes and mouth from setting in, keeping my husband interested in more than just his daily fiber intake and how many points were lost in the market today.

It isn’t that I am unhappy, not necessarily. It is that I can feel myself starting to disappear. No one needs me to make sandwiches with the crusts cut off or kiss their knees when they fall off their bikes. No one needs me to drive them to soccer practice or ballet class or drive them anywhere now that they've got their own licenses. No one needs to discuss whether or not to move aging parents into an assisted living facility or into the semi-converted apartment over the garage where he likes to tinker with things I'm not allowed to touch. I am no longer needed; I am waiting now to disappear completely.

I stare up into the vast darkness of the sky, my bare feet growing cold. I shiver and pocket two butts from tonight in my hand. May be it won’t be so bad; disappearing I mean. May be it won’t be as scary as I think.

take out

2009-06-03T10:34:00.002-05:00

I could eat Chinese food every day but I couldn’t stand listening to the way the fork scrapes against the edge of the plate, making sure every last grain of rice is got. Sometimes I think about living a bolder life, but I like having hot water for my shower and how would I refrigerate leftovers if I didn’t have a fridge? I also wonder what people would do if I started saying out loud everything I’m thinking. I’d start by asking the guy with rancid breath next to me on the bus if he got up so late that he had to forego brushing or if he simply doesn’t believe in gum. Which reminds me: when you walk into my office space do me a favor and don’t pretend like you’re trying to be quiet when the very thing you want is for me to turn around and acknowledge your presence no matter how hard you have to work for it. You don’t need to whistle or hum. We already know you’re here based on the stench of sweet perfume choking out the air. I would also give up google calendars if I could; amend that, I’d give up all calendars. Google calendars just happen to be more offensive to me than regular calendars, and so is being asked for my schedule, asked to commit to something. For what? So I can decide the day before that I don’t really want to do that, but I’m committed now and I have to go. Even thought we’d all have a better time if I were at home with Chinese leftovers and Seinfeld reruns. Just do me a favor and next time don’t tell me I should care when I don’t and I don’t want to. I scream like a three year old inside every time you tell me what you think I should do, think, say, act, feel. It’s insulting, like I haven’t been able to manage this far in life on my own in my own way. Sometimes I wish I could disappear into the space behind me so that I wouldn’t have to think or feel or be frustrated or anxious, but then I think about my parents and my best friend and how much I know they love me and if I love them like I say I do then I can’t just melt into sheetrock. So instead I wonder if the tightness in my chest is a manifestation of the stress I’m feeling, the thoughts I’m thinking, or may be there really is something medically wrong with me and one day I’ll just drop dead. Wouldn’t that be spooky? Or may be I’ll wake up when I’m eighty and look back on my life and wish I had worked more. Wouldn’t that totally mess with your priorities to know that? I’d probably start eating organic, but that one time I found a spider web in that cluster of purple grapes and all I could think about every time I ate one was of that spider spinning its web on the things I’m now chewing in my mouth. It was so not worth it; even if I can say one time I bought organic grapes. Does that impress you? I’m impressed by people who say they don’t care what people think and they actually mean it. A lot of people pay lip service to that, but it’s not true. I routinely make it a point to do stuff that isn’t generally “desirable” in some circles, like yours, because fuck it. I see the way you glance at me sideways when you think I’m not looking, and never mind you’ve never said more than five words to me directly but like to get in my space. If I could draw a line in the sand and put you on that side, I would. I’d do a lot of things if I could draw that line. Like tell that nut on the train to shut the hell up because I didn’t endure a day of gray cubicle walls and stomach pains for that leftover Chinese food in my fridge so that I could listen to your fucking nonsense on the ride home. I’ve got my own fucking nonsense to listen to.

bitter impulse

2009-05-19T11:32:00.001-05:00

I had about three minutes of consciousness last night before I fell into the arms of slumber and in that time I wrote a short, short story in my head. Of course like any story I conjure up right before I fall asleep, I was too tired to actually get a pen and write anything down. Today when I awoke all I had were strands of a few final sentences that I shaped into something decipherable but decided don’t need a story. I think the ending hints enough at the beginning.

There dead at the base of the tree was the bird, seeing for the first time its plumage was made of colors he had never before witnessed in nature. The magnitude of what he had done sunk in as the creature, stunning even in death, laid there silently at his feet. The man began to weep knowing tomorrow there would be no song from its beak.

Let's have a moment of silence for the dead bird.

sincerity

2009-05-11T07:59:00.003-05:00

She reached nonchalantly for her mug and asked him from across the table, "Why do you love me?" He sighed deeply, bored with the question, "Don't be ridiculous, Ellen." He didn't even bother to drop the edge of his newspaper to meet her gaze. She quietly sipped her coffee and wondered what was so ridiculous.

the haunting of cruelty

2009-05-08T10:28:00.001-05:00

I had just finished the fourth grade and had gone with an aunt and my grandma to a beauty school for cheap manicures and haircuts. I loved it. The guy who did my hair was from California, and he styled it in the way, he said, that all the girls in California wore their hair. That was exactly what my nine-year-old ears wanted to hear; although looking back on it, the hairstyle was simple, nothing cutting edge or fashion forward, just flipped out the ends with feathered bangs. Still, to my nine-year-old eyes I was sure I looked five years older when I walked out of the salon. I couldn’t wait to go back to my aunt's and show my new 'do to my older girl cousin, who had spent her day at high school.

She came home after school with a group of girlfriends. My aunt, perhaps sensing my childish excitement, pointed out to my cousin and her friends that I had gotten my hair done. My cousin, with a big gaping grin on her face in front of all her friends, burst out laughing and cried “Your hair looks dumb!” I overheard my aunt scold her as I escaped upstairs red-faced to cry over my shame in the privacy of the bathroom.

I don’t remember my cousin ever mentioning what happened, and certainly I never brought it up. In fact I tried not to ever think of it again, so I'm not quite sure why it came to mind this morning as I was fixing my hair in the bathroom or why the thought of it made me want to cry right then and there just like I did sixteen years ago.

thoughts without words with meanings that are all wrong.

2009-05-04T10:35:00.000-05:00

there are thoughts but no words or may be too many words and its hard to pick the ones that mean the right thing and sound the right way when there are so many thoughts without words to give them meaning or the meanings of the words are all wrong and that's not really what's being thought but without words for those thoughts you can't know what i'm thinking or what i'm trying to say about what i'm thinking so now i'm stuck between thinking my thoughts and thinking of words to say about those thoughts and thinking about the meaning of those words for those thoughts like some sort of living breathing useless thesaurus.

at the store.

2009-04-20T12:16:00.004-05:00

“Lover.”

Said as a declaration. One so familiar it still caught me funny in that spot in my groin. For a split second I was about to respond until someone beat me to it. “Yes, sweetie?” I heard him say.

curtains

2009-03-31T18:37:00.002-05:00

I wake in the middle of the night. For a heart-pounding second I sit up and take survey. Has a window shattered? Has something, miraculously, fallen off a shelf by itself? Is there someone else moving in here? There is nothing to see and the sound has died. I lie back down, wondering if this is warfare. Have I been awoken by the emeny? Why always the enemy? May be in slumbering hours I am supposed to listen for a calling. Yet I move quickly and helplessly toward sleep when I should be listening. I listen in silence to silence, and then I listen to my breath as it slows and deepens. Then I am not listening, and not thinking, and not aware of whatever it was I was awoken to be aware of. If this is warfare, I have failed my mission. I wake later to gray skies and bare windows. The curtains have fallen during the middle of the night.

tall alarms

2009-03-22T20:07:00.003-05:00

your voice sounds funny in this dark house that watches out the window at the guy on his terrace smoking his third cigarette of the night while some one's car alarm alarm alarm goes off down the street unheard by the driver due to the shouting match he's having with his girlfriend about a drunken text the night before so he doesn't know how sick of his shit she is so sick so sick she's close to bouncing down the hall with her laundry basket under her arm that's bruised from the weekend before when the weather was so nice but everyone was in green and being stupid which is why i hate crowds because nobody ever realizes they're in a crowd so they stop on a street corner like no one else is trying to get around them standing there shouting stupidly in the way looking up at the tall tall buildings that aren't cornfields or mini malls where you got that knock off jacket you're sporting like somebody special but yesterday's headline tells me your old news that you've said the wrong thing a time or two and wished you could take it back the instant the words flew out of your mouth like the time we got back together at least i got a dinner out of it even though the remorse set in shortly after dessert and the second cigarette out on the terrace that almost didn't light because of that damn wind coming off the lake stealing your breath every time you step outside and your eyes start watering but it's so cold the tears freeze on your face and then you're numb which is sort of a relief after everything else that you felt but don't now and still the alarm alarm alarm goes off somewhere down the street near those tall tall buildings the tourists all stare up at forlornly hoping to catch a glimpse of the better life they've heard lives up there at that altitude in those dark windows looking out onto smoking terraces

vampire baby

2009-03-16T07:59:00.004-05:00

i brought you into me to suckle at my thin breast, though i was barren and you were weak. you grew swollen and strong from the marrow of my bones, and i could not wean you. you learned to bite and favored the taste of my flesh. you wanted more than my body could give, and now it is only a matter of time before the small trickle from my busted wrist dries up.

insatiable

2009-03-04T10:17:00.002-06:00

He told her she was like a fifteen-year-old boy: sexually speaking. It was their second time having sex that day, the third time in twenty-four hours. He watched her as she pulled her shirt over her head, as she looked back at him unabashedly. Never ceasing to be surprised at the frequency with which she desired him, he looked away, afraid she'd be able to read his face and see his apprehension. He wondered without speaking at her constant need to be satisfied in this way, curious to know if he had gotten it right the time before would she be tugging at his belt buckle again so soon. He wasn't complaining about her appetite necessarily, but he half-anticipated the day she wouldn't come to him. As he zipped his pants, he thought about the someone else who would get it right the first time, and why the thought of her being with someone else didn't bother him all that much.

petting zoo

2009-02-17T14:25:00.001-06:00

I thought about the time we took my niece to the petting zoo, how we walked around pretending like she was ours, accepting with secret glee compliments from strangers on adorable our daughter. We had the video camera out, taping her as she fed the deer and the goats, squealing with delight the whole time. For all anyone knew we were a young, happy family and a lady even asked to take our picture by the pony corral. I pictured us coming again in a few years as real parents with our own children—until she didn’t want to walk anymore on her short, chubby legs because by then she was exhausted from all the excitement and uncomfortably hot in the Midwest summer afternoon humidity. She started whining and something about the pitch of a two year old when she’s tired was more than he could handle. Suddenly there I was on a gravely path to the duck pond with a fussing-and-then-instantly-screaming two year old and a fussing-and-then-instantly-screaming grown man. Right then I knew I could never wake up next to him again because I would always remember the way he jerked her soft little arm when she stopped on the path to rub her tired eyes.

banned

2009-02-10T10:34:00.001-06:00

I wrote a short story the other day. It was barely over two pages but it's a great story. Well, it’s more like a monologue really. The narrator is this white lady who’s talking about the baby she and her husband/boyfriend gave up for adoption. At first you feel sort of bad for her, the way she’s talking about how she can’t talk about the baby at all because it really pisses off the guy, and you think the dude is this heinous prick who controls every aspect of her life and may be even beats her. But as she keeps talking, she gets on the subject of the first baby she had, which turns out she smothered in its sleep, and you’re hearing her tell her version of it and you’re just like “whoa, what the fuck lady?!” Suddenly whatever you were thinking about her shitty husband/boyfriend gets flipped on its head. Turns out he knows she’s a wacko baby killer, but he doesn’t leave her—obligation, twisted love, pity? He basically gives up his kid for her, even after she killed his first kid. So he’s not such a jerk after all may be, and it ends up that she’s completely nuts because she doesn’t think she did anything wrong to the first baby she killed and all she really wants is to play mother to the second baby she gave up. It’s a little bit of a twisted story, a bit creepy sure, but it’s good for that reason, has faint hints of Ray Bradbury in it only there aren’t any knife-wielding babies. And so yeah, I wrote this story and I told you about it, but I don’t think you should actually read it because I know how you are and you’ll get all worked up about it, walk around for weeks thinking I’m the kind of person who thinks about smothering babies. Art doesn’t really imitate life, but it would be in the back of your head all the time and we’d probably break up eventually because you wouldn’t let go of the fact that I once wrote a story about a lady who smothered her baby.

you never know who's writing to you

2009-01-24T10:55:00.000-06:00

i see with many lenses
in those shoes
around that corner
yesterday and tomorrow
into the deep recesses
those places you're scared to go.

justification

2009-01-21T09:30:00.000-06:00

Why shouldn't I donate this here ten bucks to a worthy cause? Because two years ago I was at a club with friends and some girl loses her purse and starts going through our pile of coats to find it, although clearly we don't have it because this girl was a drunk mess who probably left it on the back of a toilet in the men's room where she just sucked a dick for some coke, but hey she thinks we have her purse even though we don't so instead she tries to take Meg's purse, only I see her trying to steal any ol' purse which is really Meg's purse so I confront her and she claims it's hers but it's not it's Meg's so Meg comes over and rips her purse out of Drunk Fattie's hands and then I'm thinking it's gonna come to blows because Drunk Fattie does not look happy at all and Meg is sort of one of those angry black lesbians, but she's really nice when she's sober which wouldn't be a problem except that we've all been drinking for like the last four hours so who knows what's gonna happen, but right then Drunk Fattie's boyfriend comes and takes Drunk Fattie away because he can see what's about to happen too and he knows his girlfriend might get one or two hits in but she's so drunk no way she's making it to the second round when Meg's got her wide stance and death stare on, so then nothing happens at all and it was like some great crisis was averted which could have been the case, or not at all the case because at three in the morning in some basement-turned-club the house music thumps all the way to the center of your brain so may be everything just gets jumbled around and you can't be sure what just happened but I do know when I got home it turned out Drunk Fattie went through our coat pockets and took stuff out of them which explains why Shawn couldn't find anything and why I was missing a pair of gloves and some semi-expensive chapstick, which sort of serves me right for spending eleven bucks on a tube of chapstick that would later be stolen by the Drunk Fattie that Meg may or may not have almost punched in the face, so I'm keeping this here ten bucks and not going to donate it because you know what, it's my last ten bucks until payday and I might need it tomorrow for bus fare.

And it always makes sense in my head like that.

Writing what she knows.

2009-01-11T20:30:00.000-06:00

They got done listening to the reading of the story.

"I want to be able to write like that," she declared.
"I want to be able to love like that," he whispered.

She pulled him into her neck and thought, "Aren't they the same thing?"

that song

2009-01-05T09:55:00.004-06:00

Every time I hear that one song by The National I think of you. I see you alone somewhere; like in the kitchen in the dark. You are standing in a faint moonlit ray rubbing your burning eyes from lack of sleep and all your tears. The bed hasn’t been slept in in days, may be weeks; you don’t know how long it’s been anymore. The time, the hours, the minutes, they evade you though they stand still. It hurts to take a breath, and may be death itself resides in the spaces between your ribs. Here in the heavy hour on your naked shoulders is the weight of it all slipping away. Before that moment, pain like this didn’t exist in your world, but here, now, you know it as intimately as you once knew the small of her back, the bend of her knee, the freckle behind her ear. I think of you like this, alone in cold moonlight trying to forget, or trying to remember, every time I hear that one song by The National.

notions

2008-12-12T10:55:00.005-06:00

Sometimes I think want to be a nicer person and then I get on the bus with other supposedly civilized people carrying their oversized bags of junk and jumbo sized lattes and copies of the Red Eye and they are all pushing and racing for That Seat that really should go to the old guy who can barely stand and I decide that may be the a-bomb is not the worst thing that was ever invented.

When she opens her mouth.

2008-12-10T09:45:00.001-06:00

You are a cheap plastic bag caught on the dry bony branches a top a leafless tree on a cold winter morning. Frigid air puffs you up, billows you out, twists and contorts you in a frustrating dance that goes nowhere. You are stuck, and will manage to go somewhere only after the wind tires of you, having wrung you out so hard that your leftover tattered shreds will then fall uselessly to the ground to await the street sweeper.

what i read

2008-12-04T09:05:00.001-06:00

I wish you would write every day because I love the sound of your words in my head. I imagine your voice is rich and tangy like a ripe grapefruit picked straight from the tree, peeled, and hand fed to me by a gorgeous Israeli who only speaks Hebrew. Sometimes I don't understand what you are saying, but I know you're talking about somewhere deep inside my soul that I didn't know was there with all those feelings and those hurts and those things that keep me up late at night, like a new crush or late rent. Your words are melodious and you make me think in ways I haven't thought since I took World Lit. with Reynolds. It wasn't his best class, but we read Coetzee and I like Coetzee even though I feel like most of what he's saying is always just little bit beyond my reach. I blame that second X chromosome since it's a man's world. Except when you write it makes me feel bigger than myself and not in the overwhelming, wholly-shit kind of way. Just peaceful, and understood.

A deer in headlights blushes.

2008-12-03T14:00:00.002-06:00

It was like the time at Big Top Liquors with J when I ran into the classmate who's name I couldn't remember. He was Venezuelan so he hugged me and kissed both my cheeks, and I couldn't stop myself from turning crimson because I was with J and I could feel his eyeballs drilling holes into the guy's skull and when I should have turned and introduced him I couldn't come up with his name, which later I remembered but I forgot again, and so I didn't say anything at all. In the car J got mad that I didn't introduce him, but when I said I couldn't remember the guy's name he didn't believe me because the guy had kissed my cheeks and it didn't matter that he was Venezuelan, someone who's name I can't remember should not be kissing my cheeks. But who knows, may be I subconsciously forgot so I could avoid having to introduce J because it wasn't very cool to have an uneducated boyfriend who didn't even know that Venezuelans kiss cheeks like Europeans. Americans are so crass.

His name was Alejandro. I think.

Making Pies (A Story of Metaphor)

2008-11-22T13:20:00.001-06:00

The woman had been selling little apple pies in the market square for years when he happened to pass by one morning. To the eye, they were the most scrumptious, buttery looking little pies, the perfect size to hold in your hand and eat as you walked. The man saw her selling them and, despite that he was in a hurry, stopped and bought one.

The man took his first bite, groaning with delight. The little apple pie was still warm, the crust delicate and perfectly flakey, the gooey apple center a flawlessly sweet concoction that awakened his taste buds. He was disappointed when in four big bites the little apple pie was gone.

The next day he awoke thinking of the woman’s little apple pies, anxious to try again the savory pastry. Though the market square was not on his way that day, he made a slight detour and with childish excitement handed over his money for the little pastry.

When he came again the third day, the woman cautioned him, “Sir, I see that you enjoy my little apple pies and I am very glad they delight you so much, but perhaps it would be wise if you did not have one every day. These are special apples, sir, and I would hate to see the magic of them grow dim on your tongue.”

The man waved his hand in her face. “Nonsense! This is the most glorious little pie I have ever had. I shall eat one every day for the rest of my life!” he declared.

The woman smiled politely and put her head down. She had seen this before and knew she could not persuade the man otherwise.

So every day for a year the man came and bought a little apple pie, and every day the woman could see the magic of the pies diminish bit by bit until one day he arrived with no hop in his step or glint in his eye whatsoever. He stood in front of her out of mere routine, handed over his money, and accepted his little apple pie with a sad resignation.

He took his first bite, and unable to contain himself any longer he spit it out at his feet. He turned on the woman. “You hag, why do you keep selling these little apple pies! Can’t you see how sick of them I am? Every day you only offer me apple, but what’s wrong with banana cream, or pumpkin, or blueberry? Why don’t you offer me blueberry; that is really what I want! Not this apple,” he said in disgust.

She bowed her head and began, “Sir, I do not have a blueberry patch or a pumpkin patch. There is no banana tree in my backyard. If I had these things, then yes perhaps I could offer you what you seek, but I do not. I only have an apple tree that grows the most delicious apples, and from those apples I make these little apple pies. I cannot turn my apples into blueberries, sir.”

The man hung his head and walked away without another word. He would never come back to her stand for the delicate dessert that once so delighted him, though occasionally she would see the man in the market square and always he would look at her stand with such longing. He was never able to admit even to himself that what he really wanted was another little apple pie.

Phone conversations

2008-11-13T09:40:00.003-06:00

We talked last night. It wasn’t like when you and I used to talk, when things between us felt seamless, when I would already know the kind of mood you were in just by the way you said hello. It wasn't full of logistical plans for the weekend or details for our next trip. It was nerve-wracking; it was anxious; it was a little awkward truth be told. I have apparently forgotten how to do this dating thing.

We talked last night. It wasn’t like when you and I used to talk, when you would give me your insufferably long silences and the heavy noise of your breathing, when my voiced frustrations only sent you further away. It wasn’t full of demands, your needs versus my needs, ending with us both invalidated and unheard. It was light hearted; it was fun; it made me remember that I am interesting. I will figure this dating thing out in spite of you.

The musings of an ex-smoker.

2008-11-11T19:05:00.000-06:00

I came across some notes jotted down from a few weeks ago, the start of this:

This morning I walk out of my apartment and almost as quickly as that cold-as-a-witch’s-tit October air greets me I have a craving for a cigarette, though I haven’t seriously smoked in years. There is something about this morning, I guess. May be I shouldn’t have had that third glass of wine last night, or worn this shirt today. Something hangs precariously just out of my reach, and a smooth, mentholated cancer stick to suck on would be the perfect punctuation to this dawdling walk to the coffee shop where I will meet a financial representative from some Big Business. He was referred to me by a friend, but what can he possibly tell me that I don’t already know. I spend too much, I save too little, and I could probably stand to cut back on my caffeine intake. I better not mention my jonesing for a cigarette as well. Did I mention we go to the same church? How’s that for irony? I’m on my way to meet a fellow church-goer and all I want is nicotine and caffeine, in that order. Hey and while I’m at it, I’d like a good fuck too, but the chances of getting that are nil. Besides people can catch crazy diseases nowadays so yeah, I should just go get a dildo or something after this. I go to church though too, so I’m not supposed to be thinking about doing nasty things with someone, or to myself. But I haven’t stopped thinking about that damn cigarette either.

The laundry room is not the place to meet someone.

2008-10-20T20:27:00.004-05:00

Because I couldn’t stand there in my flannel pants, braless, while holding the laundry basket with my balled up undies and my white t-shirts with the yellow armpits. It didn't matter that they were clean.