An open letter to Glad, maker of 13 gallon tall draw-string kitchen trash bags

Dear Glad,

I am writing to express my enjoyment of this product.

Lately my partner has been into making his own falafel, and thus we have been going through an increased amount of cooking oil. I confess that am I rather ignorant of what to do with this oil once we are finished, and I feel certain there is probably something more ecologically responsible I should be doing other than dumping it into the trash once it has cooled. I was just trying to avoid pouring it down the sink and clogging up the works.

After this week's falafel endeavors, I sighed with dread when I imagined the mess that would quite possibly be awaiting me when I pulled the oil-filled trash bag out of the plastic can. I was thrilled to be wrong. I was even more pleased after the trash bag was drug across the living room floor and thoroughly stepped on by my step-son and there was still not a leak in sight.

Not too many things are going right at present, but it is nice to know I can count on my trash bags during these trying times. I have been purchasing this brand for years; I will continue to do so in the future with pleasure.

Sincerely,

Amie
A satisfied customer in San Francisco

I take requests.

I'm kind of excited.

My blog has been getting HUNDREDS of hits per day--more than ever--and I'd like to celebrate. I want to write something for you.

Let me know what you'd like. It can be a writing on a topic of your choice, something written for your eyes only, or anything else that your pretty little head can dream up. Let me know what you want in a comment or in a personal email (amieashcraft@hotmail.com) and I'll make it happen.

You. All of you.

Thanks for reading.

Once there was a girl

This has been a long time coming. I just didn't have the courage to tell the story before.

*********************

Once there was a girl who didn’t think she was worth very much.

She was a shy, introspective, and melancholy girl by nature, and probably destined to have self-esteem problems even without the things that happened to her. She had a very young, single mom. Her mom was lost and lonely and didn’t think she was worth very much, either. So she did things to make herself feel worth something—all the things that made her feel worth something involved men and drugs. The girl’s mom loved her very much, but when she was on drugs she didn’t care what her daughter witnessed. Even when it involved men. And more drugs.

When our girl was five, her mom got married. This is when the girl’s problems began in earnest.

Her shiny new stepfather tarnished very quickly. (If you ever want a nice case study of brainwashing and pure, unadulterated physical and psychological torture, you should study this man. He still remains the cruelest human being the girl has ever personally known.)

The girl and her mom were stuck. They were broke. They were powerless against him. Other people knew he was not a nice man. No one ever knew the things they went through. He was very creative and sly.

The girl wanted to ask for help, but she didn’t know the right words. She didn’t know how to say:

“My stepfather makes me feed myself cat shit while he watches and laughs.”

Or what about, “He grabs me by the hair and beats my head against the wall if I don’t pick everything up off the floor. And even when I pick everything up off the floor, he pretends it’s still there laying in front of me and beats my head against the wall because I say I don’t see anything there. So I pretend to see what he sees, and gather up imaginary pieces of what he sees in my arms while looking at him, hoping I have pleased him.”

How was she to explain that he made it a game to see how hard of a hit she could take without falling down? She was only a little girl, and it was impossible to withstand the full force of a grown man. So she was destined to be knocked down. And to get back up. Over and over again.

When you are little, it’s not easy to tell people your stepfather held a gun to your head while the police surrounded the house and your mother screamed. He wanted to be sure she wouldn’t leave, you see. Sometimes he even hurt their pets in front of them. (This was especially hard for the girl. She loved all creatures. Except locusts. Their sounds and shells terrorized her.)

The girl and her mother were required to recite specific sentences regularly in order to ensure their powerlessness: “I am a bitch. I am a whore. I am ugly. I am stupid. I am fat. No one loves me. No one will help me. I am a bitch. I am a whore….” When the girl started off saying these things, she knew in her heart that they weren’t true and that she was just saying them to appease him. But after saying them regularly, over and over, these words started floating through her head even when she was not being forced to say them.

The girl did the only things she could think of to cope. In kindergarten, she went to school with bruises under her clothes and locked herself in the bathroom and screamed hysterically when it was time to go home. She escaped to her grandparents’ houses whenever she could. She played outside from morning to night with the neighborhood kids as often as she could. When the neighborhood kids weren’t around, she found places to hide and explore with imaginary friends created for that very occasion. She took long rides on her bicycle and ate green apples from other people's yards. She gave names and personalities to everything around her—the trees, the flowers, the animals, the broom—to make her feel surrounded by familiar faces and friends.

Unfortunately, her stepfather was not the only one who made the girl think she wasn’t worth very much. There was more than one man, in her family and otherwise, who were more than willing to let her know she was only good for one thing.

One of them was an uncle who had his own cross to bear. He did things that no little girl should ever have to experience. She was five. She wore Care-Bear pajamas. While it happened, sometimes she would stare at a picture of the devil whose iridescent paint gleamed at her in the moonlight; other times she stared out the window and directly at the moon itself. The girl felt so dirty and was so ashamed that she wanted to curl up and die.

But she did not.

She got really good at picking up the pieces of love and acceptance she could find and curling herself around them like a cat.

Years later, when the girl and her mom (and now two brand new baby brothers) finally got away from the stepfather by going into hiding for awhile, the girl’s mother fell apart. And rightfully so. But then the girl’s one constant ally through those times, her mother, felt more than ever like she wasn’t worth very much. And she tried to make the girl and her brothers feel as bad as she felt because she didn’t have anything else left to give them.

…Fast forward…

Our girl is 15. Her physical situation is much more stable now, but she is confused, hurting, and lonely inside. She is mortally self-conscious and shy and terrified of every move she makes—what if she makes someone mad? She gets better at hiding these things and at doing the things a normal girl should. She is positive, however, that if anyone really knew all of the things that made her up they would be horrified and disgusted and not want to be around her. They would discover for themselves what she’d always felt inside—that she wasn’t worth very much.

At that young age the girl fell in love with a shy, introspective, and melancholy boy. He didn’t have the deep, dark secrets that she had, but he listened to her secrets and didn’t make her feel ashamed. This boy gave her the courage to try for things she never thought she could do. She left home when she was 16 and set about trying to make those things happen.

She actually did some cool things.

She went to college and she was very, very serious. Others around her had the liberty to fuck around, but the girl knew she had one shot and she had to make it happen. She didn’t fuck around at all—not even one little bit.

She started to explore the world. Every chance she got to do so, she took it.

She didn’t know what she wanted to do when she got out of school, so she went to school some more. She wanted to know things and to feel she had some power and control over her life. She used to laugh when she thought of herself with any kind of high-falutin' graduate degree. It seemed terrifying and unattainable and ridiculous to her. So she decided to shoot for it. She eventually pulled it off.

The boy was there through it all--even when she tried to test him by pushing him away. (She was still very afraid, you see, of everything and everyone.) She warned the boy, “If you ever lay a hand on me, I will set you on fire.” She was pretty sure he wouldn’t hurt her, but she also knew a thing or two about self-preservation.

When the girl was 24, she started to honestly look around at her life for the first time. She started to look deep inside herself, too. She started to realize that she needed more—that what she had was not enough. She even started to admit to herself that the boy was not enough. This was terrifying to her. He had loved her and given her strength and courage when she needed it most.

She realized she had been in survival mode for a very long time.

Upon these realizations, she felt lost and lonely inside. She knew what her instincts told her but she hadn’t yet really learned to trust them. She was uncertain of who she was, what she needed, and how to go about finding out either of those things. (It was a tough time.)

Once again, she didn’t know the right words. She was now an adult and had a much wider vocabulary at her disposal, but she didn’t know how to tell the boy, “Thank you for loving me even when I couldn’t love myself. Now I need to move beyond these fences we’ve built; they are pinning me in and I am dying inside. You loved me as a child, and now, should I be lucky enough to love and be loved back again, it needs to be as the woman I am.”

When she was 28, the girl did another thing she never imagined she could do and that was very terrifying to her. She left everything and everyone she loved behind and moved far, far away to try to make a completely different kind of life for herself. It was very painful. It actually took her a couple of years to make it all come together, but she made it happen. At the last minute, the boy decided he wanted to come, too. The girl thought it wasn’t the right thing, but she felt like it was worth one last try. (She was still afraid, you see.)

It was a disaster from the start. The girl knew that living with anyone would never be easy, but this move proved to her once and for all that she loved him, but her relationship with him was not enough. She was honest with him from a very early point that it wasn’t working for her. He kept trying. It broke her heart, but it wasn’t enough. The girl finally told the boy she was moving out, that it might take some time to put the pieces in place, but that it was going to happen and he needed to make plans for himself. It was terrible, of course, and still continues to be very, very difficult. Her friends, both near and far, have helped her find the courage to move forward.

It took a very long time and seemed like a simple lesson to learn, but she finally started to realize that she is worth something. She also realized that she deserves something more. (The girl’s mother has not yet put these pieces together for herself. The girl has no idea how to help her.)

There are days, of course, when the doubts creep in and when “moving forward” seems to be at a glacial pace, but there it is.

This was that girl, a long time ago:



And this was the first postcard secret she sent out in the world to try to be set free:



(She still has work to do, but she has been fighting for years now with everything she has. She will make it.)

THE END

More 6 word memoirs

She usually took the scenic route.

I apologize for what I said.

6 word memoir

The past won't let me go.

Writing, among other things

A lot of people in and around my life have been dying recently. Yet another person passed this passed week; in addition, someone close to me was in a bad car accident that totaled her car. Hence, I am feeling my mortality distinctly.

Last night N. and I decided we wanted to write up for each other our final wishes and also the names of people who should be contacted if something happened to one of us. It feels depressing and morbid to talk about, but when you live alone far from home I think it is something important to consider. I want to take mine even one step further--I want to give a copy to N. as well as to my mother and father just to insure there is no misunderstanding.

This will freak my mother the fuck out.

In other news, I continue to work on NaNoWriMo, and I've gotten some decent writing done. My book is really starting to take shape, and it's exciting to see. I still can't think of a title. When N. asked me what I was thinking about in the way of a title, I said, "At this point, I have absolutely nothing." She suggested that for at least a working title.

For the remainder of the month, there are a few things I want to do for NaNoWriMo to stretch myself a bit:

1. I want to incorporate some piece of fiction (a conversation, a scenario, whatever) into a memoir piece. So far, I've been unable to do anything but tell things that happened to the best of my ability.

2. I want to write a straight fiction short story. My perception of myself is that I am hideous with fiction. Maybe I should practice.

3. I want to write about events that took place more recently. I have things I want to tell, most notably those involving C., and for some reason I just have not been able to.

I am also thinking I want to work on another postcard secret, but that is really another story all together.

In other news, I will be working for the next 12 days in a row. I am not very happy about it.

Horny butt

I've always had a special affection for old men. I think it came largely from having wonderful grandpas--the loved me and cuddled me and played with me and tickled me. For an attention-hungry little girl, this was addictive. I craved their affections: there was nothing like climbing up onto their laps and feeling that I was completely safe.

This preference for old men did not always serve me well.

Growing up in a small town, specifically on Lawman Avenue, you got to know your neighbors. I made it my business to get to know them--or at least to make a nuisance of myself. I picked their flowers, stole the apples off the trees in their yards, ate their candy, played spotlight with their children and grandchildren, and rode my Big Wheel in their driveways. One of these neighbors was Mr. Horner directly across the street from our little white house.

Mr. Horner was the grandfather of my friend Ronnie, who visited frequently and played with me whenever he was in town. Mr. Horner liked to sit out in a lawn chair early in the morning in his carport. Since I was frequently lonely and up early watching Pinwheel on Nickelodeon in the summers before anyone in my house was awake, I would occasionally sneak out of my house and run across the street to visit with him. I liked to think that I provided him with much-desired entertainment. He sat very quietly and didn't say much, so I sang, did cartwheels, and performed Pop Warner cheers in an effort to win him over and make him crack just one smile.

Early one morning, I elected to show him the Pepsi-Cola cheer:

Pepsi-Cola! Pepsi-Cola! Royal Crown!
You gotta hypnotize 'em
Boomerize 'em
Knock 'em down!
Hey!

He seemed to be impressed, and invited me to come over and sit on his lap. I eagerly ran over and climbed up, and he put an arm around my back. Suddenly I felt strange and began to chatter nervously as he listened. When I paused for a breath he said, "Give me a kiss." I hesitated, but in the end decided a kiss was harmless. As I moved toward his cheek to deliver a peck, he suddenly turned his head and thrust his wet, slimy tongue in my mouth. Horrified, I jumped off his lap and ran home as fast as I could.

I hurled myself through the front door, locked it securely, and closed the living room curtains. My heart thumped in my chest, and I was terrified that if I looked out the window, I would find him up on the porch, trying to get in. After several minutes passed, I moved the heavy gold curtain a few millimeters to the right, and peeked out. He was still sitting in his carport with his legs crossed and his hands folded in his lap.

I didn't know what to do. I felt dirty and embarrassed. For some reason it never occured to me to tell my mother or stepfather; instead, I told my friends Christel and Traci. "EWWWW!" they screamed. "He french-kissed you!" I gagged at the thought of his slobbery tongue. Traci squealed, "Mr. Horner is gross! What a horny butt!"

For years afterward, we stood in my front yard and screamed at his house, "Horny butt! Horny butt!" Our mothers were puzzled as to our hatred for him, and gave an amused smile despite themselves whenever we referred to him as "horny butt."

"Do you know what 'horny' means?" my mom asked me.

"Yes," I answered matter-of-factly, "it means he has horns coming out of his butt."

She laughed as said, "You guys should stop bothering him." But we never did. We made prank phone calls to his house, rode our bikes through his yard, and knocked on his doors and windows and quickly ran away.

As an adult looking back, I realize this was my first introduction to grandpas who weren't as wonderful as mine, and this was a bitter realization. Even so, I thought that Mr. Horner was an exception to the kindly grandfather rule, and for the most part maintained my naive belief that men--especially old men--naturally cared about and wanted to protect little girls. I would go on to learn that he was not the only one, that sometimes men wanted to hurt little girls.

In memory of smells

AKA: A work in progress

In memory of smells

I was a nervous child.

Early on in life I was of the opinion that I had a certain quota of worrying to reach every day, and if I did not meet it bad things would happen to my family and me. Eventually my anxiety became so overwhelming that I had to develop special rituals to calm me. Many of them involved smelling my fingers.

At first, I would touch things and sniff my fingers out of curiosity: dogs, tree sap, bubblegum stuck in crevices and under tables, pizza rolls, Elmer’s glue. There was so much to smell! I would trail behind my mother at the grocery store, happily touching and smelling everything in sight. I was wide-eyed and shy, and had a rather interesting habit of peering out from behind my mom while gazing at strangers and sniffing my fingers. Soon it wasn’t enough to sniff my fingers, and I began burying my nose into everything I could.

I should clarify that I knew this was weird, and—with the exception of my immediate family—I took great pains to hide my habits from others. This resulted in a great deal of covert smelling and in careful restraint of sniffing during the school day that gave way to an uncontrollable onslaught in the evenings. Once my mother walked in on me crawling around the living room with my nose to the carpet, taking in the virtual smorgasbord of scents. “What in the hell are you doing?” she asked in bewilderment.

“Smelling,” I mumbled, continuing on with my business.

Being fixated on everything that was within a 50 foot radius of my nose, I soon became enamored with what came out of it. I designated a corner of my bedroom as “booger corner,” and used it to carefully catalogue the various fascinating shape and sizes that I produced. I meticulously lined them up in straight rows; each row consisted of an even number of boogers. The symmetry and order appealed to me, and I would rock myself back and forth while admiring the thought and care put into the corner. Not surprisingly, my mother found this habit particularly disgusting, and periodically took a scraper and scrub brush to the walls, conveniently providing me with a fresh canvas on which to recreate my masterpieces.

Soon it became important not only WHAT I smelled, but how many times I smelled it. Even numbers—preferably 2, 4, and 8—were very important. The cat food was not appropriately taken in if I only partook in 7 sniffs. Upon my mom’s entry into the kitchen I gave a quick 8th sniff to the cat’s bowl and sat back on my haunches, pretending to innocently contemplate the butter yellow kitchen wall.

After that, my growing fascination with even numbers (except 6) generalized and then things really got out of control. I would walk from place to place an even number of steps. I tapped things an even number of times. I chanted words and sang songs and bit my fingernails and petted the ferret in multiples of four. On my fingers I counted out the number of letters in various words before I would say them. I liked to imagine that this gave me the appearance of a thoughtful, scholarly girl who chose her words carefully.

(To be continued...)

Loving Daniel Webster

After my broken engagement to Jamie Gizzi in kindergarten, I wandered the streets as a single woman for several months, wondering if I would ever love and be loved again. Until the first day of school in first grade, I was convinced I was going to be a spinster for the rest of my days. Then came Daniel Webster.

I’d like to say that it was his charm or personality that first won me over, but truthfully it was his denim jacket. I found the way that he wore it to be incredibly sexy, and I got quivers in the pit of my stomach when he casually slung it on as we got ready for the school bus to come.

One thing I came to appreciate about Daniel was how genuinely nice he was. Most first grade boys were fickle and would turn on you in a moment. Daniel, however, was not like the other boys. He was a good-natured and friendly boy who was nice to everyone. He had wide blue eyes and glasses and a ready smile. At the tender age of 6 I felt like a woman when I looked at him—I wanted things from him that I only partially understood. I wanted to melt.

I would like to say that Daniel and I fell in love. I would like to say that he was as enamored by me as I was of him. We never even held hands. I did, however, chase him around the playground and steal kisses from him whenever possible. I can distinctly remember throwing my arms around him and the feel of my lips on his rosy, all-American boy cheek as he squirmed away from me and tried to run. I wanted his attention intensely, and I was determined to take it by force if he didn’t hand it over willingly.

Daniel was not in my first grade class; he was in the class across the hall. I lived for the moments when I could be near him on the playground, and I pined for him as I sat in Mrs. Nease’s class completing my math worksheets and taking my spelling tests. As my class marched down the hall in gender-segregated lines to the bathroom, I tried to steal glances in Mrs. Scott’s class to get a glimpse of him. My classmates ran into the back of my skinny, dawdling frame and grumbled in irritation.

“Amie, pay attention,” Mrs. Nease would admonish. “There’s nothing for you in that classroom.”

Oh, but there was! The father of my future children was in there! The person with whom I would sit in a rocking chair on the front porch drinking iced sweet tea as our grandchildren played in the yard was IN THAT ROOM! Laying eyes on him was a touchstone in my day.

When Valentine’s Day came around, Daniel gave me a special card. This was not a run of the mill childhood Valentine with Snoopy or Garfield or cartoon hearts on it—this was a real grown-up card purchased at a card store with his name carefully printed in childhood script at the bottom. Inside the card was a sheet of cloth heart stickers. Stickers! Oh! That boy knew the way to my heart.

That afternoon on the way to the school bus, Daniel offered to let me wear his coveted denim jacket. I will never forget the walk up the hill from the school cafeteria (the “bus room”) to the school bus. I relished the warmth of the jacket from his body, and I was the happiest girl in the world. I reluctantly gave it back to him on the bus, hoping that we would be sitting together and could finally start making plans for our life together. Disappointingly, he proceeded to the back of the bus to sit with his friends and I was left to wonder who would be the one to punish our kids when they were bad. Would he be the disciplinarian? Or would I? Did he like spaghetti? Peanut butter toast? I vowed that Daniel Webster would never eat Hamburger Helper as long as he was my husband.

Unfotunately, Valentine’s Day was the climax of our romance and the rest of first grade proceeded uneventfully. I can vividly remember the last day of school and my anguish at having to spend a summer where I wouldn’t see Daniel at all. I watched mournfully as he got off at his stop and gleefully trotted off to begin three months free of school. Slowly the tears started to slide down my cheeks, and by the time I got off the bus I was full-on sobbing. Christel Andy tumbled off the bus after me, and asked me in a concerned, motherly tone why I was crying. I blubbered out my anguish to her; she didn't laugh as I was afraid she might. She patted my arm and assured me that I wouldn’t always feel this way and that we would still have a fun summer.

I trudged home miserably. For weeks I plotted how I could reach him. I looked up his phone number in the telephone book, and twice I worked up the courage to call him. I can still remember his childhood phone number.

One day when I could take it no more, I sat down to write him a letter. I poured all my love into it, certain that after he read it he would rush to my house and whisk me away to live with him and his parents. I carefully wrote his address on the envelope and ran to the big blue mailbox on the corner to drop the letter in before I changed my mind. Oh god, I felt alive! I was aglow with my courage and ran to Christel to tell her what I had just done. I recounted each step up to the mailing of the letter, and when I finished she asked, “Did you put a stamp on it?” My face fell. No. No, I hadn’t. My letter would never reach him.

I got my first real six-string.

Today and throughout the month of November I am participating in National Novel Writing Month ("NaNoWriMo"). In order to get 50,000 words in 30 days, I figure I need to average around 1650 words per day.

I'm using NaNoWriMo to generate memoir material on as of yet unexplored topics. On occasion I may post bits and pieces here.

It is difficult already, because part of the challenge is not to self-edit--something at which I excel. I'm trying really hard just to let the words flow and not come out like a completed product as I normally would strive for. I am tempted to sit here and explain in detail that parts of my writing that I want to work on, but to be honest, I'm emotionally exhausted. Even just THINKING ABOUT the material on which I'm writing today makes me cry like a baby, and it has worn me out.

Here is a little bit of free-writing that I did as part of my first NaNoWriMo writing. It's unplanned and unstructured. It's more of a collection of memories and impressions than an actual story. But here it is.

* * * * *

Occasionally people will ask questions like, “Where would you go if you could go anywhere?” My head always jumps to the years of approximately 1982-1985. All of my grandparents were there, there were still a lot of bad things I hadn't yet seen, I still believed in Santa Claus, and I still thought I was meant for great things.

On second thought…let’s stick to 1982. Kindergarten in Miss Wilking’s class was a good time for me.

I didn’t know it at the time, because I didn’t know any different, but there was something special about going to my paternal grandparents’ house and being surrounded by my entire family: grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Everybody ate and talked and argued and smoked and laughed all at once. They were a noisy, rowdy, and occasionally raunchy bunch. My grandpa and uncles told dirty jokes that I didn’t understand and didn’t find funny. My grandmother encouraged us kids to eat more tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers and less chips and cookies. And my cousins and I ran through the house, up the back steps, and across the steep backyard and back again, constantly on the move in case we were missing something. There was a feel of excitement in the air.

Negotiations of who would get to spend the night with whom began early, and we planned and coordinated our strategy like seasoned army generals. Crouching on the front porch, away from the earshot of adults, we organized our attack and planned for the fun that would follow our sleepover victory.

“Let me ask pappy and grandmother first. They’ll say yes. Once they say yes, your dad won’t be able to say no.”

“When we play school, I get to be the teacher.”

“You always get to be the teacher!”

“That’s because I’m the oldest and I know how to write in cursive like a teacher.”

“No you don’t! You don’t write real letters—you just pretend to cross t’s and dot i’s!”

I can remember the smell and the feel of the lush blackberry bushes up on the hill in the back yard like it was just yesterday. I can feel the bars of the swingset on the backs of my knees like I am still hanging upside down from them. I can see the rust patches on the swingset, and feel it jump when I swing too high. I can remember the chalky residue the paint left on my sweaty hands. I can hear my cousins’ shouts, and I can see my family down the hill grilling burgers and drinking beer.

The air is hot and sticky—the humid remnants of a summer day in the mountains of West Virginia—and the fireflies begin to come out at dusk. I can still feel their ticklish legs walking around inside my cupped hands, trying to strike the balance between keeping them securely cloistered away and being careful not to crush them. (Once my stepdad thought he would be clever and he squished the butt of a firefly to get the glow-in-the-dark light out. He put in on my finger like a diamond ring as I stared in horror at what he had done and started to cry.) I can hear the rise of the cricket chirps in the grass as the air begins to cool and the night approaches. I am once again filled with the desire to fill a jar with fireflies and take care of them—my own personal night-light forever and always.

The Mailman

At the age of 6 I became obsessed with our mailman.

He was a tall, gray-haired man with kind eyes and—looking back—was likely on the verge of retirement. I decided I liked him immensely because he reminded me of my grandpa. I wanted desperately for him to be my friend and possibly my new grandparent, but he wanted very little to do with me.

I began by waiting for him on the front porch every day. Around 11am he trekked through our yard littered with my Big Wheel and naked Barbies in various positions of fornication. I felt slight embarrassment over the Barbies in the 69 position on the second step, and self-consciously kicked them into the bushes as he approached. He handed me our stack of mail and I beamed and gave him the most polite “Thank you” I could muster. “You’re welcome,” he said simply, and headed toward the next house. Soon this daily ritual became unsatisfying.

I noted that he started his route each morning by getting the mail out of the big blue post office mailbox on the corner, so the next time he arrived I was waiting on top with my legs sprawled on either side of the little door. “Good morning,” he said, as he bent down to unlock the front and retrieve the letters and cards inside.

“Good morning,” I chirped in a sing-song voice, packing all the love and affection into my greeting that I could.

Now we were finally getting somewhere. Soon I would be perched on his lap as he told me stories of his childhood. His wife would be inside baking cookies, and I would be invited to stay in the spare bedroom they had set up just in case a nice little girl came to live with them.

He placed the mail in his truck and hoisted his bag onto his shoulder. I hopped down off the mailbox and began to follow him, sure that my companionship would soften him up. I lagged about 10 feet behind, and waited politely in the yard as he went from stoop to stoop placing letters in the box. Occasionally I would run up behind him and sniff his blue shirt, curious as to whether he smelled of Juicy Fruit gum as my grandpa did. When he paused to sort through the letters in his bag I would surreptitiously pick my nose as I waited patiently and watched him. He eyed me warily and continued along his route. I wasn’t allowed to wander more than a few houses away, so at the Westfall’s place I would wave and holler after him, “Goodbye! I’ll see you tomorrow!” He never answered and never turned back.

One day I was later than usual coming outside, and—to my joy—discovered that he was eating lunch inside of his mail truck down the street. I trotted over to the window and knocked on it. He glanced up at me and then went back to the bologna sandwich and the newspaper he was reading. To entertain him I did cartwheels, jumping jacks, and Pop Warner cheers on the sidewalk next to his truck. I never saw him look up once.

I couldn’t understand it. I was trying as hard as I could and he wasn’t interested in taking me home with him. Why couldn’t he see that I could fill the empty space in his life? In anger and frustration, I wiped a booger on his window and stomped off dramatically. I would have to think carefully about my next step.

On a night when my stepfather was on a particularly cruel rampage, I curled in the corner of my bedroom and tried to think of a way out. I needed someone to take me where no one could find me. Suddenly I knew that the mailman could help me; I just had to make him understand the urgency of my situation.

The next morning I climbed out of bed and tore a page out of my Wonder Woman coloring book. With red crayon, I carefully printed the words, “Mailman, Help me get out. Please. Love, Amie.” I tip-toed out of the house and anxiously waited on the front porch for his arrival. He just had to help me, and I began to cry as I imagined the relief I would feel once I arrived safely at his house.

Like clockwork he arrived with his mailbag, and I thrust my letter into his hand. He looked down at it and frowned. I sniffed and wiped my nose on the back of my shirt, looking at him expectantly. I imagined being whisked away in his mail truck amidst the Publisher’s Clearinghouse winner notifications and the Hills department store sales flyers. He cleared his throat and handed my note back along with a small stack of junk mail. As he turned his back and walked down the steps, I sat down where I was standing and started to cry.

Dear Future Me

Awhile back I wrote about accidentally sending myself a message of love and comfort. Well, today at work my lovely friend S.C. told me about a wonderful website called http://www.futureme.org/ on which you can send letters to yourself to be delivered in the future.

I love this.

I have been inundated today with thoughts about what to tell my future self and when to tell it. Do I remind myself of my secrets wishes, desires, and plans? Do I warn myself against certain possible future actions? Do I reassure myself that--no matter what is happening at that point in the future--I am going to be okay? The possibilities are endless.

Once upon a time

They stood in the dark on their last night together, running their hands over each others' bodies in silence. "You must know I'm falling in love with you," she said softly, her voice cracking with emotion.

"That's a little impractical, don't you think?" he asked quietly.

She covered her face in her hands with hurt and embarrassment and curled into a protective ball.

Round 2

After the first round of rejections, I'm submitting more of my writing for publication. My friend suggested an online journal called "Bent Pin," and from there I found a link to litmags.org--a site that lists literary magazines, the types of submissions they take, submission guidelines, etc. What a gem! As a result of this I submitted work to both "Memoir (and)" and "River Teeth." Plus, I found other possible destinations for my work if these fall through, including: "New England Review," "Cherry Bleeds," and "Apple Valley Review."

I'm excited.

In regard to "Ode to Medication #3: The Missing Piece"

It is proving more challenging to write than I would like. The final product should capture my hopes for it as well as my fears of it. It should be full of the detailed images of pleasure and comfort and contentedness that I wish to recapture. It should be fairly vague and elusive yet clear, vibrant, and concise. It should make my eyes sting with tears of self-recognition. All of the pre-requisites ensure that it will never meet my expectations and will slip through my fingers like fine, soft sand.

November 2001

We sat on the edge of the bathtub waiting in silence. I imagined that this could be the moment when everything changed, the point at which we departed from the path we were on and went down another for the rest of our lives. We might look back at this day in the bathroom affectionately, saying, “We freaked when we found out. Remember that?”

After another moment he looked at his watch and said, “Okay.” I bit my lip and got up and went to the sink to have a look.

“It’s negative,” I said quietly.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yeah, negative,” I responded, looking at the test again, just in case it had changed all of a sudden.

He let out a deep breath. “I’m kind of disappointed,” he said softly. I looked up in surprise.

“What?” I asked incredulously.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong—I’m relieved. We can’t handle a kid right now. But I’m kind of disappointed, too.”

'Scratch that,' I thought. 'Maybe THIS is the moment when everything changed.'

An offer

He absentmindedly rubbed my five year old back as he watched a baseball game. My attempts to get him to talk to me were met with distracted one-word answers, and I wanted more of his attention. I only knew one thing that might work—it was what men liked.

I took a deep breath. “You can if you want,” I told him.

“Hmmm?” he asked, not taking his eyes from the television.

“You can if you want,” I said a little louder this time.

This took his eyes from the screen and he looked into mine. “I can what?” I flushed a little, not wanting to spell it out for him.

“You know,” I said simply.

“Hon, I don’t know,” he said. He hugged me and went back to watching the game.

"For a year we caught his tears in a cup."

Año (part two of two)

spring enclosed grief i can't go with you please stop asking me empty space please ask me just one more time detaching waiting drying up closing up summer regroup trying again hope eager mistaken premonitions comparison tentative as usual it became important new adult freedom fears mornings have a whole new meaning why haven't I heard from you please ask me one more time I will say yes fall trying to keep it together sleeping in the car trying and trying because it only takes one I wrote a letter confession falling behind more erratic fleeting winter I'm drowning obsession 98 feet deep this time last year you predicted it the nights are so long sleepless I just need a break losing control I'm going down chanting and rocking and screaming clinging to the shower wall Nannette's tears a voice of reason answers questions an orphan grieving spring trying

Poised on the brink of something important...a tidbit

I watched him unabashedly, wanting him to notice. He was absorbed in putting drum equipment away and didn’t seem to pay attention to anything going on around him. In true high school girl fashion, I leaned toward Chaunette and said, “He’s so cute.”

Her eyes followed my gaze. “Oh, Eli?” she asked, using his nickname. “I’ve had a crush on him forever.”

“Really?” I asked, with mild interest. I felt no competition here. “Is he nice?”

“Oh, yes. He’s really nice! But he doesn’t say much,” she laughed.

I continued to stare at him, wondering if I could work up the courage to talk to him and—somewhere in the back of my head—filing away the details of this conversation so that I could tell him about it one day and we could laugh together.

Another tidbit

I sat huddled outside the door to the room all the girls were in. I was the only one my age in the shelter—all the other kids were babies or teenagers—and I was achingly lonely. I listened to them laugh and sing along to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” I hated Michael Jackson, and my shyness would probably prevent me from opening my mouth, but I still wanted to be in the room with those girls. Suddenly the door opened a crack, and a suspicious eye was cast on me. I turned toward it hopefully. “How old are you?” came a muffled voice.

I hesitated. Should I lie? “Eight,” I answered honestly.

“Will you tell anyone what we talk about in here?” the voice asked.

“No, I swear,” I answered with as much vehemence as I could muster.

One final question from the voice: “Do you like Michael Jackson?”

“I love him,” I lied while mentally vowing to apologize to God a hundred times later that night.

“Okay, you can come in,” the voice relented. And the door swung open.