I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies.

Today, between lunch and a 2:00 meeting, I went to a baby shower for a friend at work.

I always have such mixed emotions about these. On the one hand, I've never been to a baby shower for someone I didn't like or feel some sort of attachment to, so I am genuinely happy for the expecting mother and want to share in a little celebration in anticipation of her big day.

But there's a lot of things working against it, too.

One is a general dislike I have about opening and/or giving presents in public. I absolutely adore giving and receiving presents--don't get me wrong. But I like to do it individually. A private moment between two people where, no matter what the nature of the relationship, one can say, "I picked this just for YOU because I thought it would make you happy." There's something I can't stand about handing someone a present in front of a group of people waiting expectantly for this thing I have chosen and then evaluating against other opened and unopened presents. I feel...exposed. There is no special moment. No matter how much the recipient likes the present, there are other presents to be opened and that one is deposited in a pile along with all the others.

Even more strong is my dislike of receiving presents in a group setting when all attention is focused on me opening the presents and catching a glimpse of my facial expression that captures exactly how I feel about said presents at the moment I open them. I find it nearly impossible to mask my emotions as they flicker across my face and I spend the entire time in terrible anxiety of offending someone. Plus I'm just shy and hate having all the attention focused on me.

But I'm wandering away from the topic.

The second thing that bothers me about baby showers is that it always seems that a huge proportion of women who attend them are mothers already. I feel like there's some special cult of womanhood into which I have not been inducted and have no way to relate. Today, for example, the women attending this shower exchanged stories about their birthing experiences--most notably the length of delivery. One woman had been in labor for 24 hours. She announced this dramatically and murmurs of "Oh, my," and "I don't know how you did it," fell over the shower attendees munching on fresh fruit and cakes. Then there was a small contingent who'd had impressively speedy deliveries. One woman described her first birth and declared with pride, "I was 2 cm at 8am and by 10:45am he was born." She closed her eyes and sat back with satisfaction as we all "ooohed" and "ahhhhed" and took a moment of silence to contemplate the wonder of her uterus and vagina.

This is all well and good, but what the hell can I say to this?

(I won't even get started on all the CRAP people buy for infants. My distaste at the idea of receiving 50 outfits with little variations of puppies on them and a little baby bomber jacket is extreme.)

Similar scenarios have unfolded numerous times at work even outside of the more formal baby shower setting. On multiple occasions I was part of a group about to start a meeting and we took the first 20 minutes to discuss the logistics of breastfeeding and breast-pumping. I listened politely, but found myself exchanging meaningful looks and silent plans with the gay man and lesbian of the group. [Via telepathy and slight facial twitches and glimpses at watches: 'Drinks after work?' 'Yeah, 5:00?']

Just recently, this lesbian friend has joined the contingent of current and future motherhood. I have to say that I've been fascinated to hear of she and her partner's experiences. They get asked the usual questions of heterosexual mothers, plus a whole host of other ones. (e.g., "Was it, like, a turkey baster?")

I like hearing this new twist on familiar stories.

Alexis (pregnant) and Ilsa (not pregnant) joked about Alexis' moods and irrationality and hypersensitivity to smells. Apparently for a few weeks she couldn't stand to have Ilsa within two feet of her because Ilsa's natural smell repulsed her and turned her stomach. (My God!) They laughed about it and looked into each other's eyes with love and then continued to share their trials and tribulations. This part was wonderful.

I would also like to note that my stance on childbirth is not the most popular here in the Bay Area. I would want to give birth in a hospital, and I want all the drugs available to me as soon as they can possibly be given. So many women here are horrified by this. Maybe it sounds closed-minded or "Westernized," but I don't want any fooling around. Stories I've heard of special music and scented oils and candles and massages...screw all that. Get it OUT.

I feel I should add a couple of things here. I'm not trying to say that I dislike mothers and expectant mothers and want nothing to do with them. That's not the case at all. I just have a difficult time relating to them. I've changed a lot of diapers, made a lot of bottles, and stayed up a lot of late nights with other people's children (usually those of my mother). I'm not completely ignorant on the topic but obviously my experiences in no way compare to having children of one's own.

I also feel the need to add that I like kids. I find them interesting and amusing and amazing, and I don't mean any of this to sound like some staunch advocate of not having children sitting around and complaining about "breeders." I just felt the need to express the mixed emotions of today.

A sad update.

There is a homeless man who sits with his dog next to the 38-Geary bus stop at Market and 1st Streets downtown. I see him whenever I go to my Beale Street office. He's generally the first person I see when I get off the bus, and this has been true as long as I've lived in San Francisco.

He always has a sign that says, "Turk and I are hungry," or "Turk and I are down on our luck." Turk is a mottled black and brown pitbull, and he's often curled up asleep against the man. He actually appears to be more well-fed than his owner. I regularly see people squatting to pet Turk, talking to the man, and putting money in his cup.

This morning the man was alone and the sign was different. It read: "Turk is in Animal Control. Please help."

It made me sad. I tried to provide what help I could.

5:38

I woke up disoriented and slightly afraid.

I dreamed I had written. I dreamed I had been written to. But when I looked, neither was true.

It had started to rain.

Laced with quiet (and not so quiet)...

It was pointed out to me tonight that this blog is like the innermost workings of my brain without context. Perhaps.

Okay, yes.

But at this moment I need to pretend no one ever reads this and just...write. And, uh, listen to music under a fog-covered sky. And drink this Sierra Nevada. And wonder what the fuck that weird noise is. (Seriously. Scratching?)

"You ring your bell and smile at me; I drink from your well and fall down."

I find that I keep thinking about the girls who are in shampoo commercials. Girls who are secure and smiling and carefree. Their long tresses glisten as they toss their hair, knowing fantastic things are in store for them because their hair looks so good that night. There's not a trace of shyness, doubt, melancholy, hesitation, fear, or insecurity in them. And you are led to believe that good things DO happen to them.

I need to get some of that fucking shampoo.

I've mentioned this countless times, but here I go again...

I'm trying to collect myself and figure out where to go and what to do next. I know exactly what I'm doing until June 30, 2008, and beyond that it's...blank. Occasionally I am thrilled with that openness. Other times I am overwhelmed by that emptiness.

(It all depends on how I spin it. Kind of like "freedom fighters" vs. "terrorists.")

"Take it with the love that's given, take it with a pinch of salt..."

A friend told me a story of his parents recently that touched my heart deeply. His mom confided to him that on the weekends, she and his father lay in bed in the mornings and hold each other for hours because they know they won't always be able to do that. Grabbing it while they can, I guess.

"Your mom would stick a fork right into daddy's shoulder......and dad would dream of all the different ways to die...each one a little more than he would dare to trrrryyyyy...."

(Incidentally, my mom DID drink until she was no longer speaking and my (step)dad DID throw the garbage all across the floor.)

"Like an animal in your care...but give it time, you will outlive me..."

There's a blog I read frequently by a guy whom I just stumbled upon. I think I was doing a search for a song and he mentioned it in his blog and I found it that way. It's called "Everything is wrong with me" and he's says something like he's "28, bipolar, and hungry." In it he recounts his attempts to find a serious girlfriend, massive amounts of masturbation in an attempt to "inseminate his apartment," weird mental hang-ups, etc. It's mostly pretty amusing.

But I wonder: Is this what I'll be? Blogging about my thoughts and experiences and ridiculousness forever? I fantasize about a day when I will have no use for the blog, because my life is full enough. I imagine myself in that hypothetical future position thinking, "Remember those days when I used to blog all the time? Yeah, I think I wrote about a bunch of shit I was thinking and stuff. That was fun. But this is better."

"We drift in and out...sing into my mouth..."

"The images stuck in your head
People you've been before that you don't want around anymore
That push and shove and won't bend to your will..."

Will _____ for sleep.

I realize that my near constant insomnia of late is responsible for my wildly fluctuating emotions, but I just can't seem to fix the problem! I'm all over the map, especially in the last few days: heart-stoppingly high, alarmingly low, always exhausted.

Last night and today I felt absolutely desperate. There's a lot of stuff I'd be willing to do for some sleep at this point.

It makes me worry about my health, because I'm going to make myself sick. It just feels like nothing can quiet my mind. I long to slip into the quiet dimness of my bedroom, slip in between the soft sheets as the lanterns sway overhead, and surrender for the next 24 hours. Ahhhh....it sounds blissful...

Until then, thank God I have friends to monitor my actions--keeping an eye on me to make sure I don't do anything irrational. I make a decision, start to stumble forward with it, and someone cries out, "Wait! No!" I stop, nod dumbly, and try to close my eyes again. Most of the time I would resent this, but right now I need it.

I am just so tired.

I'm not ready for tomorrow.

(Any of it.)

Aren't you...?

I guess not.

"Calmly crashing, I pace and I figure it out again."

Ugh. I can feel myself getting blocked up this very minute, like a tide coming in.

You know, I've long wished I could receive a daily reading of my neurotransmitter balances every morning. That way, I would have a better idea of what to brace myself against.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Daily Readings for A. M. Ashcraft

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2007

Serotonin - check
Dopamine - check
Epinephrine - check
Norepinephine - ++

[Sweet. I should be feeling pretty mellow today. That sounds good.]

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2007:

Serotonin - **LOW READING**
Dopamine--**UNDETECTABLE**

*WARNING*
*WARNING*
*WARNING*

[Uh oh. Better stay home. I'll batten down the hatches, get out the lanterns, wrap myself in blankets and wait it out.]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It would be so much easier to make attributions about the way I am feeling.

My God.

I'm ready to move out of this fucking neighborhood.

Please. Oh, please.

Just stop.

Año

winter stifled shivering on the curb phone in hand panic resolution hesitation it all fell together this is not my home yet I saw her red coat out the bus window and it was one of the most comforting sights of my life long long phone conversations a dead end that I kept turning down a false alarm spring green pants to match the green walls new people a loss of a dear one documenting writing angry Polish people why does he write summer better and better disbelief the ability to be surprised alarm an act of resistance a moment of being shattered goodbyes all around no one to walk with I hate when it becomes important it’s the little things that are getting under my skin it feels too ridiculous to talk about this is when the humming feeling began in the base of my throat wild ideas fucking do it relief terror happiness terror disbelief because it’s for other people this? this? whatever this is that I am real pleasure fall dreams dreams dreams more questions than answers all this relief mental preparation and crushing disappointment you would not believe the acceptance at that moment I could barely express my gratitude oh jesus fuck support and checking in waiting okay near miss fairer than expected not an issue joy amazing water never before sleek and soft almost like a shampoo commercial to memorize for the long days I lost a bit of my dignity and it seemed the only way to recover quiet catharsis I love the way repeatedly pessimism optimism it is unfortunate that I can’t control the movie projector in my mind boring meetings and suddenly it goes back there again lingering hands lips tongue the best one ever your voice changes when you talk about it

(It's not so hard now.)

That

was terrible.

Highly liberated

Somewhere between last Sunday evening and Monday morning I made a decision. This has been weighing on my mind for awhile now, and I was feeling completely oppressed by it.

Since early in my graduate school career I've been groomed for a job as a college professor. It's what I know best, it's what I have the most experience doing, and it's the kind of job for which I know how to look.

Don't get me wrong. I love teaching and I love interacting with my students. And there's a fair number of appealing things about this profession.

But a tenure-track faculty position is a pretty major committment. It normally takes about seven years (with enough publications, conference presentations, and favorable student evaluations) to be awarded tenure. I was invited to apply for the position in Human Sexuality Studies at SFSU for Fall 2008, and I was incredibly flattered by their request that I apply and offer from professors within the department to write me letters of support. But even if I got this job...do I want it right now?

No.

I'm not saying I won't apply for a position like this eventually; I likely will. But at this moment I am unable to answer questions about where I'll be and how long I'll be there, and this is not the kind of job you just take for a couple of years and then give up. Not if you want another one, at least.

It was only a small mental event to make this decision, but it felt like a rather large seismic one for me personally. I am so relieved. And so...unencumbered. It's still rather scary, though. And it just adds to the general free-wheeling, 'what the hell?' approach to life I have been taking as of late.

Weeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

I don't know what in the hell a 'writing meme' is, but I've been tagged...

The wicked flower girl thinks out loud tagged me for a writing meme. Of course I will answer the call. I'm supposed to write about my greatest strengths in writing. Damn, these greatest strengths/weakness questions are always so hard! But I will do my best.

(Incidentally, Beth, I must confess how extremely flattered I am that you tagged me as a fellow "writer." And if, for some reason, I have misunderstood this, please don't tell me any differently.)

I've long been frustrated by my writing because it seemed like the only things I could remotely make come alive were things that actually happened to me. Yes, I was pleased with my ability to recall and describe the minutiae of conversations and interactions from long ago, but "big fucking deal" was always how I looked at it. I didn't want to be so bound by those chains of reality. To break free from them, I tried to write poetry (for YEARS!), fictional short stories, song lyrics, and on and on. With the exception of one four line poem I wrote in the middle of a fitful night when I was about 14 years old (ahh...sometimes it is so boring to be so dark, compulsive, and overly expressive, but it was there from a very early age...), I've hated them all.

Interestingly, although I feel like I'm pretty good at describing actual events, I feel my greatest strength in writing does not count because it is not a personal strength at all: I'm good at using other people's writing--bits and pieces from various authors and musicians mingled together to form a different kind of whole--at expressing myself. (See my last blog entry for an example from just today.)

What the fuck kind of thing is this to be good at?

It's just that I'm hooked on words. words Words WORDS. In every form. They move me to the utmost emotion; they have the power to shape exactly what I'm feeling, thinking, and experiencing AT THAT MOMENT. Sometimes it's almost embarrassing. And occasionally a little inconvenient.

I've often bought books and cds based solely on one line that I read or heard. Sometimes I was disappointed, and sometimes I was not.

Even when I'm reading for pleasure, I have a neon-colored highlighter in my mouth to mark the words that move me or make me laugh or make me think. Like a big old dork. I would like to be the kind of person who reads without a highlighter. Who can enjoy a book for what it has to offer at that moment, and then put it down and never look back. But I am not.

I'm a collector of blank books. Many of my books have writing in them, and some do not. They all have an empty first page because there was nothing I had to say worthy of being put in such an important spot.

From the time I learned to read and write, I can remember days when my head was racing beyond my control and the best way I knew how to soothe it was to write down other people's words. Any notebook that I've ever had, including the one I'm using every day right now, shows evidence of this. In between the to-do lists and the notes from meetings are words and lyrics scrawled across pages and in margins that served the smaller purpose of amusing me for a few moments and the larger purpose of working the bugs out of me.

Not even an hour ago I wrote a long letter to a friend in which I did this. I was trying to describe something, and in the end I had to revert to providing her with a list of quotations that touched on the range of emotions I was feeling. The people who seem to understand me best are, more often than not, people who do this themselves, at least to some extent.

Sherman Alexie. Now here is someone who understands words:

"Junior dreamed of the western that starred Lynn as Lynn and Junior as himself. During the love scenes, the camera would fade out just as they fell into each other's arms. But in real life, Junior and Lynn fell onto the bed, drew circles on each other's naked bodies, and counted moles.

Junior ran through his vocabulary in his mind: make love, sex, do it, fuck. He wanted to climb out of bed and find a thesaurus. He wanted Lynn to whisper synonyms in his ear."

I'm never really sure how other people take it when I do this. I think at times it works out to be fairly cryptic--sometimes I like it that way and sometimes I just can't find a more direct way to say what I mean and this is the result.

So...yeah. Plagiarism is my biggest strength. How attractive.

Cuidate.

People said, --Now that you're a senorita, cuidate. Take care of yourself. But how was Soledad to know what they meant? Cuidate. Take care of yourself....But no one told you how to...well, how exactly.

Really, there was no way once it began for her to find where or how to stop, because it was a story without beginning or end. And why was it her responsibility for her to say enough, when in her heart of hearts she never wanted it to end, and how sad she felt when it was over and he pulled himself away and she was just herself again, and there was nothing left of that happiness but something like the juice of the maguey, like cold spittle on her thighs, and each person went back to being just themselves.

For a little, for a moment as fine as una espina de nopalito, she felt as if she could never be lonely, she felt she was not herself, she was not Soledad nor was he Narciso, nor rock nor purple flower, but all rocks and purple flowers and sky and cloud and shell and pebble. It was a secret too beautiful, to tell the truth. Why had everyone kept such a marvel from her? She had not felt this well loved except perhaps when she was still inside her mother's belly, or had sat on her father's lap, the sun on the top of her head, her father's words like sunlight, --Mi reina. She felt when this man, this boy, this body, this Narciso put himself inside her, she was no longer a body separate from his. In that kiss, they swallowed one another, swallowed the room, the sky, darkness, fear, and it was beautiful to feel so much a part of everything and bigger than everything. Soledad was no longer Soledad Reyes, Soledad on this earth with her two dresses, her one pair of shoes, her unfinished caramelo rebozo, she was not a girl anymore with sad eyes, not herself, just herself, only herself. But all things little and large, great and small, important and unassuming. A puddle of rain and the feather that fell shattering the sky inside it, the lit votive candles flickering through blue cobalt glass at the cathedral, the opening notes of that waltz without a name, a clay bowl of rice in bean broth, a steaming clod of horse dung. Everything, oh, my God, everything. A great flood, an overwhelming joy, and it was good and joyous and blessed.

--Sandra Cisneros, Caramelo

The part that was left behind.

I had an unexpected good-bye.

Well, it wasn't entirely unexpected. I figured it was bound to happen eventually. I just never knew exactly when or how.

As it turned out, it was on Friday evening on the sidewalk of Geary Blvd. as I was illuminated by the fluorescent lights of a convenience store. I looked up and briefly froze mid-stride--possibly looked like a deer caught in headlights as my brain took in the information--and then I looked away and kept walking, kept walking.

"Okay. I'll stop running. I give up."

These lines came from a dream I had last night and it’s spawned a million little whirlwinds of thought. One of them is the following:

I feel like I’ve spent most of my life running. It was almost always running away from something. Running toward something has always seemed like a luxury. Running from the past; running from fears; running to avoid the feeling of being trapped; running away from the realization of mediocrity; running because a moving target is harder to hit.

I’ve struggled with depression since I was a child, although it was a long time before I was able to recognize it for what it was. For a long time I just thought I was an extremely sad person. It wasn’t until sometime in my early 20s that I caught glimpses of another way of being. I am self-reflective, ruminative, sentimental, and overly-sensitive and these characteristics can bring on frequent bouts of sadness, but I have gradually discovered that the true me is rather…joyful. For lack of a better word.

I was still very much learning this about myself when, around the age of 24, I could feel an overwhelming blackness trying to overtake me. I felt like inside of my own brain I was running, running, ducking, dodging—trying to get out of it’s way. Trying to hide inside my own head, in a sense. I felt completely powerless over my life. I worried that there wasn’t enough love in the world to fill me up, that I would always be this big, black well: the bottom of which no eyes would ever see into. The vast expanse of emptiness was overwhelming.

I finally admitted to myself that I should probably talk to someone about these things. And when I did, I likened the running to trying to run out from under a tidal wave: the shadow is looming over you and it’s growing larger and larger behind your back and all you can do is try to get away. He said, “What would happen if you stopped running? Maybe it won’t be as bad as you think.”

I did. It was. And no one that loved me knew how to help me. I didn't know how to help myself.

I smiled all the time because I didn’t know what else to do.

One day I was leaving the psychology department where I went to school, and I passed my advisor, Faye, on the way out the front door. On that bleak winter day I was feeling more like an empty shell than ever. I smiled and said hello to her, and she said, “Amie, you have the prettiest smile. You’re always smiling about something.” Without thinking, I blurted out, “It’s completely fake,” and kept walking out the door marveling at what I’d just admitted and, yet, still feeling nothing, nothing.

I’ve come a long, long way since then. Much of it came by allowing myself to admit that I needed to make some changes in my life. That I needed to feel some sense of control over where I was going and what I was doing, over who got pieces of me and who didn’t.

I’ve never quite been able to shake the sense of running, though. It feels like as long as I keep running I can always chalk not having what I want up to the search, and not admit that it’s actually me that could be the problem.

My dream last night where I said, “Okay. I’ll stop running. I give up” is particularly poignant to me because I’ve never actually been able to utter those words until that moment in that dream.

I guess I feel ready to be found.

"And from above you I would sink into your soul..."

("Don't let me get carried away, don't let me be carried away.")

Some prisons

"Get in the house!" she shouted at Nemo as she pushed him up the steps.

"I've gotta go!" Nemo called to me, trying desperately to keep his dignity. "I'm thorry!"

The screen door slammed behind them. The inner door closed, too, with a thunk of finality.

The birds were singing, stupid in their happiness. I stood on the green grass, my shadow like a long scorch mark. I saw the blind on the front windows close. There was nothing more to be said, nothing more to be done. I turned around, got on Rocket, and started pedaling for home.

On that ride to my house, as summer-scented air hit me in the face and gnats spun in the whirlwinds of my passage, I realized all prisons were not buildings of gray rock bordered by guard towers and barbed wire. Some prisons were houses whose closed blinds let no sunlight enter. Some prisons were cages of fragile bones, and some prisons had bars of red polka dots. In fact, you could never tell what might be a prison until you'd had a glimpse of what was seized and bound inside.

Robert R. McGammon, Boys Life

(written in my journal in 1996)

Forgotten knowledge

I was taking a walk the other day when I ran across some flowers I hardly ever see and of which I would really like to know the name. My grandmother used to have these flowers hanging in a pot on her porch, and she liked them because they reminded her of tiny ballet dancers.



I can remember one later summer evening, in particular, in what must have been 1983 or 1984 when we talked about them. A couple of my cousins and I were sitting with her on her front porch watching the sun go down and eating peanut butter and celery. She was telling us how much she loved these flowers, and called them by a specific name that I can no longer recall. She said, "That's not really their name, but that's what we always called them when I was a little girl."

When I saw these flowers in front of someone's house the other evening, I had a brief moment when I thought, "I need to call her and ask her what she called those." And then I remembered, of course, that I could no longer do that.

I came home and tried to find them on the internet to at least find out their proper name, but to no avail. No one in my family seems to know what I'm talking about. But this evening I went for a walk to find them again, and took a picture so I could at least remember what they looked like.

I wish I could ask her about them.

Favors for friends

My good friend's mother is coming into town tomorrow to stay until January 22. (Christ!) Awhile back she asked me if I would be willing to keep her vibrator at my house until her mother is gone.

She's got a decent-size place, and I asked her why she couldn't just hide it somewhere at her house (top of a closet? bottom of a dresser drawer?). She said that while she was at work her mother would most likely entertain herself by reorganizing her shelves, closets, cabinets, and drawers. (Double Christ!)

I said, "What's the big deal if she finds it? It's not like you have porn with animals or small children."

She said, "As far as my mother knows I've never even had sex, and I don't want her to know about this, either!"

So I said, "Sure. I'll hide it for you. Just, uh, wrap it up in a plastic bag or something."

I hadn't thought about that conversation in awhile, and just a short time ago she called to see if I wanted to meet her for dinner. After we made plans for when and where to meet, she suddenly started talking in a more rapid, high-pitched voice and said, "I'll bring my thing for you to take, too."

"Your what?" I asked.

"My THING!" she repeated with emphasis.

"What THING are you talking about?" (I was clueless at this moment.)

She groaned in embarrassment, and said, "You know! The thing I asked you to keep for me!" She was silently begging me to understand.

Suddenly I did understand. "Oh! Yeah, right. Okay bring it. And wrap it up!" So the vibrator transaction will take place in a few hours. It's probably one of the stranger favors I've ever done for a friend.

A list of 30 things.

Jesus! They were startlingly easy to come up with! I guess that's good. No, I know that's good. In no particular order of importance.

*sigh*

I'm having a 'fuck everything' kind of day. Fuck days like this.

"My love is..."

This morning I was on the bus going to work, and I was only about 3 stops from my destination. An older, shabbily dressed man got on the bus and took the seat directly in front of me. At first glance I thought he was homeless and (I'm a little ashamed to admit) I immediately braced myself to hold my breath. But he smelled just fine. He sat down and turning diagonally in his seat and opened up a large sketch pad. There were words beautifully scrawled all over every page.

I was immediately intrigued. Of course I had to take a peek.

He was just aimlessly leafing through his pages, and it was hard for me to read more than a word or two. Some pages appeared to be lists, others seemed to be essays, and still other looked like poems. On the first three pages, the title "My Love is..." was written at the top, and many, many sentences were written below it. I was dying to read that. Was he describing the love he has to give? Or was he describing the characteristics of a person he considered to be his love?

As he continued to flip through the pages I caught several titles: "Dreamer," "Nature Walk," "Maiden," and "Lamp Light." On one page I caught one lone sentence that struck me: "The happiest moments in my life were spent quietly against your breast."

At that moment I loved that man. Loved that he was bursting with things to express and needed to get them down on paper. Loved that he read back through it. Loved that (did I imagine this?) he was holding it in such a way that others could look at it, too.

The beginning and end of my engagement

When I was in kindergarten I got engaged. Sort of.

His name was Jamie Gizzi, and I loved him from the very first day of school. It's unclear why my affections were pinned so firmly to him since, even at the tender age of five, he was a man of few words. He often wore striped shirts of red, blue, and black, along with jeans or corduroy pants rolled up at the cuffs. He had silky fine brown hair in a little bowl haircut. I found this irresistible.

In addition to looks, Jamie had two other things going for him that I believe ignited my passions: 1) He was a fast runner, and 2) He was good at feeling wooden letters and guessing what they were. It seems that I liked speed and intelligence—apparently somewhere in the mammalian parts of my brain I sensed the evolutionary advantages of his skills.

I also rivaled him in both of those things.

We regularly organized our own races on the playground. Sometimes I beat him. I couldn't understand why this seemed to annoy him.

The "feeling letters" game was something we did in Miss Wilking's class to help us become more familiar with the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they made. She had a small black felt bag, and would slip the solid, weighty letters into it one at a time. The entire class would sit in a circle and pass the bag around, taking turns at guessing what letter she'd just put in. Once we got better at it, we started having races. Jamie was always really good at this game. He would make his way around the circle, racing and beating each kid one by one. When he got to me, I put my game face on. I wanted to win. I got the capital Q before he did. Jamie was pissed and his face reddened with embarrassment.

I was puzzled as to why my attempts to beat him at everything weren't getting my message across, so I decided to try a more direct tactic. I went up to him during morning playtime one day and said, "After naptime's over, meet me in the boys' coat room."

He looked at me suspiciously, "Why?"

"Because I want to give you something."

"What?" he asked.

"Just something," I replied mysteriously.

So after naptime, he obediently followed me into the boys' coat room and looked at me expectantly. This is where my memory annoyingly fuzzes out. I know that I kissed him, but I can't remember where. My mind hints that there may have been dry, childish chapped lips briefly pressed against mine, but knowing how nervous I was and how short he was, I think it is more realistic that I planted one on his forehead. Regardless, he ran out immediately afterward. 'How disappointing,' I thought. But for a brief period of time after that, Jamie and I were in love.

We laid on our towels in the dark at naptime, holding hands and watching "Sesame Street" together. I remember at one point, Ross Friebel slithered closer to us on his stomach and said, "Are you guys gonna get married?" Simultaneously we said, "Yes." Ross said, "Where will you guys live?" Jamie and I looked at each other with puzzlement. We hadn't thought of that. Jamie said, "We'll probably just live with my parents until we can afford our own place." I nodded my affirmation. That was good enough for me; I wasn't marrying him for his money, after all.

Since we didn't have a ring, Jamie gave me a sticker to wear on the back of my hand. I wore it the rest of the day, and on the bus ride home I tried to think of how to tell my mom I would be moving in with Jamie's family. Again, I decided to be direct.

My mom's friend Tammy was visiting, and they were sitting on the couch drinking canned Budweisers when I got home.

"Mom, I'm getting married," I announced. She and her friend looked at each other and laughed.

"Oh yeah?" she said.

"Yes," I insisted and, sensing she wasn't taking me seriously, thrust the back of my left hand toward her to demonstrate the gravity of the situation.

"Oh, a gold star," she said mildly.

I hesitated. I hadn't considered the fact that she might not believe me. Getting down to practical business seemed to be the best route of persuasion. "We need to get a dress," I persisted. "My party dress is too little now."

"Oh, okay, okay," she agreed. "Are you buying a house, too?"

This was more of the reaction I was looking for. "Some day," I answered. "I'll just live with him and his mom and dad first. So we need to pack my stuff so I can move out." I lost her attention around this point, and she went back to laughing with her friend.

My mother's lack of participation in her only child's (at that point) wedding didn't get me down. Jamie and I continued our blissful romance for the next couple of months until it all came crashing down one day near Christmas.

Every year at school we were allowed to shop for gifts for our families. I think it was called "Santa's Workshop." Our parents provided a nominal amount of money, and class by class we were led to tables in the back of the cafeteria where small gifts were displayed for us to buy: little things like key-chains, potholders, and miniature screwdrivers.

I was most excited about buying a present for my mom, and I immediately spotted the rhinestone rings near the end of the table. 'She'll think I'm getting her a real diamond ring!' I thought excitedly. There were only three left, and Jamie had already picked up two of them for his mom and sister. I quickly grabbed the third one for my mom.

"Hey! I wanted that for my aunt!" he protested.

"But you have two," I argued, "and I need one for my mom."

We argued for awhile, and the volunteer who was working at our end of the table looked baffled at how to resolve our dispute. I held my ground and bought the ring for my mom. That was the last time we spoke. Just like that our relationship was over.

After kindergarten, Jamie went to another school and I didn't see him again until my junior year of high school. In Mr. Vincent's 6^th period psychology class he re-entered my life. I tried to make eye contact with him to see if he had any memory of our intense love affair, but he would never meet my eyes. I'm guessing that he did.

Brainstorming clusters of details

- 1 -

“disappearing” from school
shiny black car with tinted windows at far end of the mall parking lot
Fairmont/Marion County
Vanessa
feeling important
Jelly bracelets
“Billy Jean” and lying that I like Michael Jackson
disappointment at what older girls talked about
a longing for tacos
hierarchy among women
cement lot
flat sound of attempting to bounce a basketball without enough air
kids’ diapers that weren’t changed often enough
the same stars are over my grandparents’ house
pictures of bruises
he’s gone
waiting on edge for him to show up again
letters to a confidante

- 2 -

whiskey and sprite
the smell of cigarettes and hair oil
fingernails black and blue from being hit with a hammer
Westerns
“What was it like when the world was blue and grey?”
the removal of watermelon seeds
watching me eat strawberries
knees creaking on the stairs
“Pay attention to me.”
“I’ll squeeze you to pieces you mices.”
Baby and cat-bird
“You’re going to eat me out of house and home.”
Combing his hair
coffee in Bonanza cups
“My heart cries for you” / the world’s smallest violin
talking to my barbies on the phone
giving me a “guy’s perspective” when I was 12 / “weenie”
Italian wedding soup
a quiet strength
the look in his eyes when he lost
I regret that I was afraid

- 3 -

Sneaking out
Sneaking in
Sitting down for a meal
“I give up” / "I will never be in love"
an 8 hour phone conversation
first vicarious impressions of California
“river style” vs “ocean style”
“Forever your girl”
the glow of the red digital numbers on the alarm clock radio
October 3-4, 1992
Neck up / below the waist
Praying for him to look away from me
disappointing
The day after
Feeling different, emptier somehow
“you don’t seem very happy about it”

Introspective retrospective

I was just looking over a MySpace comment I left for a friend a year ago on his birthday. I was remembering what was going on in my life at that time, and what I was dealing with.

I also talked to an old friend last night who was a great help to me during that time (thanks, Brian). It was interesting to describe to him my feelings and experiences over the last few months in comparison to now, and to have him describe his own.

How quickly things change! And from directions you never saw coming. How wonderful to discover you still have the capacity to be surprised.

Estaba pensando sobre viviendo con mi sister en New Jersey.

AKA: The good thing about a gay friend.

When I bought the ticket it seemed like ages away, but this weekend I finally got to go visit my friend Tony in L.A. It was a great weekend.

There are certain wonderful things about having a close gay friend that don't happen (or might be very confusing if they did) in straight male/female friendships. Of course, it also helps when your friend is an extremely considerate host.

Tony likes to eat fruit with his cereal, and both mornings he cut up a bowl for me, too. I came into the kitchen to find him getting things ready with my bowl of fruit, a bowl and spoon waiting for my cereal choice, and a pot of coffee brewing (he doesn't drink it in the morning). I'm not used to this and it was blissful.

I like to drink my coffee outside in the morning and he sat on the back porch with me and we talked while I sipped my coffee.

When he took his multi-vitamin and Vitamin C he set some out for me, too.

Saturday morning when he woke up I was still lying in bed, so he climbed in too and we laid and talked until he couldn't stand my fans blowing on him anymore.

In the late afternoon, we were tired from the heat of the day and he wanted a short nap before we went out. So we laid on our sides and talked until he fell asleep.

At night, I asked him if he needed the bathroom before I went in to wash up. He said, "Are you just washing your face and brushing your teeth?" When I said yes, he said, "Great. I'll join you." So we took turns washing our faces and then he sat on the side of the bathtub and I perched on the top of the toilet and we brushed our teeth.

Anyway, I tried to be a considerate guest by washing up dishes, folding up bed linens, and cleaning the bathtub. It wasn't much, but I wanted to thank him in some way for his hospitality and kindness. And I hope I made him feel half as loved as I felt.

I believe I'm ready.

Am I ready? Yes, definitely.

(That's good 'cause it's probably too late.)

What a little bitch...

...that Indecision is. And add to it her friends: Fence-sitting, Chicken-shit, Wishy Washy, and Hesitation.

Bitches.

My goodness.

I didn't think it was possible to embarrass myself quite so thoroughly, but apparently I've managed to do it. Great. Yay me.

Today I was

poised like an animal about to take flight.

I was also so stuck on this song that I just listened to for the first time:

Well I hope that I don't fall in love with you
'cause falling in love just makes me blue,
Well the music plays and you display
Your heart for me to see,
I had a beer and now I hear you
Calling out for me
And I hope that I don't fall in love with you.

Well the room is crowded, people everywhere
And I wonder, should I offer you a chair?
Well if you sit down with this old clown,
Take that frown and break it,
Before the evening's gone away,
I think that we could make it,
And I hope that I don't fall in love with you.

Well the night does funny things inside a man
These old tom-cat feelings you don't understand,
Well I turn around to look at you,
You light a cigarette,
I wish I had the guts to bum one,
But we've never met,
And I hope that I don't fall in love with you.

I can see that you are lonesome just like me,
And it being late, you'd like some some company,
Well I turn around to look at you,
And you look back at me,
The guy you're with has up and split,
The chair next to you's free,
And I hope that you don't fall in love with me.

Now it's closing time, the music's fading out
Last call for drinks, I'll have another stout.
Well I turn around to look at you,
You're nowhere to be found,
I search the place for your lost face,
Guess I'll have another round
And I think that I just fell in love with you.

--Tom Waits

A wild itch.

Every once in awhile I get in these moods where I feel this pent-up energy and these wild urges to do something completely ridiculous and/or insane.

Fuck. It's late at night. Everyone I know has to work tomorrow and would not be up and interested in acting ridiculous. Most of the things I can think of need to have someone else present to be fully enjoyed and appreciated.

I'm not in the mood to water the lawn in the middle of the night. Or cook. I'm not feeling a drinking alone night tonight.

All I can do is clench my teeth and imagine taking wild actions. These actions are only vague and murky in my mind, but they are wild nonetheless.

"If you close the door, the night could last forever."

"If I am out of my mind, it's alright with me..."

"He had fallen under a spell and was writing letters to everyone under the sun. He was so stirred by these letters that from the end of June he moved from place to place with a valise full of papers....Hidden in the country, he wrote endlessly, fanatically, to the newspapers, to people in public life, to friends and relatives, and at last to the dead, his own obscure dead, and finally to the famous dead....

[He] had been overcome by the need to explain, to have it out, to justify, to put in perspective, to clarify, to make amends....The table creaking, he wrote on scraps of paper with a great pressure of eagerness in his hand; he was absorbed, his eyes darkly circled. His white face showed everything--everything. He was reasoning, arguing, he was suffering, he had thought of a brilliant alternative--he was wide-open, he was narrow; his eyes, his mouth made everything silently clear--longing, bigotry, bitter anger. One could see it all....

Considering his entire life, he realized that he had mismanaged everything--everything."

--Saul Bellow, Herzog

Shoes

with your feet grounded
your thoughts turn toward the sky
and you start to float
you see your shoes are tied

and you close your eyes
imagine that your shoes
had those velco straps
so you could be set loose

so you hold real still
believe that it is true
and your shoes move forward
leaving without you

and you laugh so hard
it hurts your sides in pain
as you approached the sun
it rains on everyone

you float away
you float away
and find yourself, laughing
into thin air

Moderate comments

The cycles of hurt, sad, pissed off, and indifferent used to take months to play themselves out. Today it only took about 6 hours to achieve the full spectrum.

Is this a sign of progress? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe soon there will be no cycles at all anymore.

1:5

Alarming! So much nothingness!

The reminder that it can be different.

"I have always found the times when another person recognizes you to be strangely sad; I suspect the pathos of these moments is their rareness, the way they contrast with most daily encounters. That reminder that it can be different, that you need not go through your life unknown but that you probably still will--that is the part that's almost unbearable."

--Curtis Sittenfeld

Slapped across the face by the errors in my own perceptions

Crap. I don't know where to begin.

First, I posted these words quite sometime ago:

I have noticed that if it appears that someone likes me, I am immediately suspicious of them. This is because I assume that:

1) They obviously don't really know me.
2) They are really screwed up themselves.
3) They have very low standards.
4) All of the above.

It just occurred to me that a perfect example of this--this thing I'm trying to be more aware of about my own mind--happened to me last night. The majority of this realization came through a conversation with a friend after I explained what happened at a bar last night as I was out with my friend Scott. I recounted:

I think I must have been releasing some special pheromone that only weirdos could detect [this statement also referred to a bizarre bus encounter from earlier in the day]. Scott and I were sitting at the back table next to the pool tables talking. There was a table of people behind him, and most of them went home and one of the guys was left sitting there drinking a beer by himself. It was about 1:30, and I had been telling Scott some story that ended with me saying, "God, I sound so California-ized when I say that."

The guy behind Scott stood up and stepped over to our table and said, "I couldn't help but overhear..." I said, "What, the "California-ized" thing? Do you have something you want to say about that?" He said, "Yes, I do actually." He stuck out his hand and said, "Hi, I'm ____ (Dan? Stan? The man with the plan? I forget.)" I introduced myself and then Scott did, too. I briefly filled him in on the context of whatever I was talking about (it's hard to tell what it was, I don't even remember).

He said, "I want to talk about this more. Can I see you again?" I looked at Scott who started to laugh. I said, "Well, we'll probably be back here next Wednesday, so we might see you in here again." He put his hands up in mock defeat and said, "Ok, ok. So I guess we'll leave it at that then. You guys have a good night, and maybe I'll see you next week."

After he left I said to Scott, "Jesus Christ! What the hell was that? And for all he knew we are TOGETHER." Scott said, "Well, it's not like we were acting intimately or anything." I said, "I know, but who does that? Just walks up to a table where a woman is sitting alone with a man and hits on her?"

So I explained this to a friend and he said, "That's not so odd. Maybe it was more obvious than you think that you weren't together." I was very surprised that he didn't think this was as bizarre as I did. And when I started to think about it more I realized: I just assumed he was insane because he asked to see me again--because in my head it wasn't even conceivable that someone would or could ask me such a thing after only talking a few minutes.

I wasn't interested in seeing him again for many reasons, but that's not the point.

I assumed there was something wrong with him!

And then the ramifications of such conclusions and assumptions on my part over the course of my entire life began to quickly multiply in my brain. Suddenly, this explained my lifelong tendency to assume that people wouldn't recognize or remember me, and my persistent surprise if and when they did.

It explained my confusion in grad school as I was first getting to know my friend Linda. She'd asked me if I wanted to have dinner one night, and I agreed. We ate Thai, and had a nice conversation. It never occurred to me that she might want to do it again sometime. A couple weeks later she said, "Amie, I keep wondering if you're going to ask me if I want to get dinner again sometime." I was like, "Oh...you want to go again?" She said, "Yes!"

It explained my surprise when a certain lovely someone I'd written to a couple of times on MySpace seemed to want to continue writing to me. I'd send a message, assume that was the last time we'd probably talk, and then go on about my business. When I'd get another message later on, I'd think, "He still wants to talk?"

How can I possibly be a social psychologist and be so fascinated by observing other people's interactions within their social world and be so completely fucking clueless about my own? It boggles the mind.

There's really nothing to be said about this, I suppose. I'm mostly just processing what felt like a very earth-shattering event in my mind. I'm not completely sure what to do with this new knowledge but, according to G.I. Joe, knowing is half the battle.

Up late. Again. Meandering. And "Santa" wants to be my friend. I guess it's no weirder than "Meatballs." This is a long title.

I don't know what it is about late nights that make you feel like you're the only person on the planet. I seem to be getting into a worse and worse sleeping cycle lately and I'm not quite sure how to break it. If I could pick my ideal sleep schedule, it would be 2am-10am, but I can't even seem to get that down right now.

All I know is that being inside my own head can get really fucking old. Damn. Sometimes I get lost in it's cavernous innards and have a hard time getting back out. I'm always finding new shit I didn't know about in there: stalactites (as my earth science professor used to say, "The ones that 'hold tight' to the ceiling."), stalagmites ("The ones that 'might' someday reach the ceiling."), bats, pools of water, fish without eyes...

Where the fuck was I going with all this?

I had an interaction yesterday that I can't stop thinking about. I was on my way to a meeting at work, and I ran into a senior researcher that I really like. She's very well-established in her area, and is extremely intelligent, articulate, and clear-headed. I always feel a little guilty when I see her now, because months ago she reviewed a manuscript for me that I'm supposed to be publishing and I haven't yet finished and submitted it. (I only have moderately good reasons for this. Mostly I just can't seem to care.) I was glad to see her, though, and told her I heard she was retiring soon.

Her candor surprised me.

"Well, I'm getting divorced."

"Oh. I'm so sorry to hear that," I said, not knowing what else to say.

"And I'm getting married. I fell in love!" she beamed, proudly holding out her left hand to show me her ring.

"Oh!" I gasped, "Congratulations!"

"So I'm retiring. He's recently retired, and we want to travel. How are you, Amie? I haven't seen you in awhile and I've wondered about you."

This is where I hesitated. Part of me wanted to cry out triumphantly, "You're completely irrational sometimes, too!" Part of me wanted to tell her every little thought that has run through my brain over the last several months. Part of me wanted to tell her that I'm freaked out because I'm supposed to be starting to look for a real job now and, as recently as today, I've considered everything from going to pastry school to going to bartending school to disappearing somewhere in Spain to pursuing another doctorate to taking up Chinese brush painting. Part of me just wanted to go home after considering all these options.

Instead, I said that I'd love to talk to her more about what was going on in her life and tell her what was going on in mine. I always liked talking to her because, even though I've only interacted with her in a work environment, I've always felt very comfortable and natural talking to her about all aspects of my life. So now I'm supposed to contact her to set up a coffee or a lunch to sit and talk. And at the moment I feel frozen, because I don't know which Amie will be showing up for that appointment. The professional one who talks the talk? The happy and crazy one that feels like "What the hell?" is the right answer to everything right now? The uncertain one who feels she is about to be overwhelmed by life at any given moment? "

An Amie that was well-rested would be a nice start, I guess.

“Where in the hell do you know that has camel races?”

When I was a kid, my grandma Ruth bowled on Monday nights at Compton Lanes Bowling Alley. My grandpa and I would drop her off, and then we’d head over to his mother’s house (my “Mimi”) to spend the evening with her. Mostly, my grandpa slept on the couch while I spent the evening with my Mimi.

I can remember my Mimi and her house with such clarity. She had snow white hair and wore thick glasses from which her sharp, clear blue eyes peered out. For years she told me she was 102. She had little round tables with lacy covers over them that reached all the way to the floor. She had trashy novels piled next to her old orange rocking recliner. She loved owls and displayed figurines of them all over. There was always Dial soap in the bathroom, and her house smelled of cigarettes and the green outdoor astro-turf-like carpeting that she had indoors.

We had a routine. First we began with a snack of cheese and ketchup. (Don’t knock it; it’s good.) Then we’d watch The Muppet Show. After the show was over, she’d read Mercer Mayer’s “Little Monster” books to me and we’d talk. One frequent topic of our conversation was her finger.

One of my Mimi’s middle fingers—I can no longer recall on which hand—was permanently bent in half. This was fascinating to me, and I loved to look at it and touch it. I would always ask her if I could try to bend it back for her, and she would always say, “No!” Several times I asked her, “Mimi, how did your finger get this way?” And she always told the same story.

“A long time ago, when I was much younger than 102, I was at a camel race. We were sitting on metal bleachers. They were slippery because it had rained the night before. When the camels were rounding the track close to me, I stood up to take a good picture. I slipped on the wet bleachers and banged my finger and broke it. I didn’t go to the doctor right away, and by the time I did he told me he’d have to re-break it to make it straight again. So I just left it like this.”

This was a satisfactory explanation.

When I was 14 or 15, I was telling my mom this story and was amazed that she’d never known how Mimi hurt her finger. When I finished explaining, she said, “Where in the hell do you know that has camel races?”

An excellent question, as it turned out, and one that I’d wondered myself many times. It never occurred to me to doubt the story, though. Why would my Mimi lie to me?

“Egypt?” I ventured.

“She’s never been to Egypt,” my mom said knowingly.

Mimi and I hadn’t talked about her finger in a long time, so I decided to ask her again and she if she told a different story this time now that I was older. She told the exact same one.

My Mimi died in 1997 when I was 20. I was lucky enough to spend some time with her just a couple weeks before in the hospital. She was remarkably alert and engaged with what was going on around her. She told me of two items, in particular, that she wanted me to have. One was a diamond ring that had belonged to her sister, and the other was a stuffed clown (the second one has never really made sense to me, as I hate clowns).

“That ring is the ugliest ring I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Don’t feel like you have to keep it if you don’t want to. If you need some extra cash you can hock it and don’t you even feel a little bit guilty about it.”

(I loved this about her. Incidentally, I have the ring now and just in the last year I've started wearing it on my right hand. It has a silver band and is actually a beautiful antique setting and unlike any of the ugly diamond rings I see these days. The clown is packed away somewhere, but for several months afterward I could open up and inhale deeply from the plastic bag it was in and still smell her house.)

After her funeral, I was sitting in my grandpa’s living room talking about Mimi. We were reminiscing about things she used to say and do and what we would miss about her. I mentioned the finger that she’d hurt at the camel races and my grandpa rolled his eyes.

“It was a WART,” he said.

“What?” I asked, clinging tenuously to the camel race story.

“She had a wart on her finger. Her mom was dying and she was taking care of her and couldn’t leave to go to the doctor. After her mom died she got to go, and they burned the wart off her finger. By that time it had drawn her finger up so bad that they’d have to break it to straighten it out so she just decided to leave it alone.”

I was speechless. She had lied? She had lied about it all these years. And the camel race story was much more interesting. Then I started to laugh. I love that she lied without batting an eyelash for so long.

For those of you keeping track this is my second lying grandma.

But an interesting thing happened a couple years later. I heard a radio advertisement for the Taylor County Fair and they mentioned that they would be having a camel race. It was a type of novelty attraction. I had to tell my mom, “See? There ARE camel races around here.”

Unsarcastically fucking positive optimism

I am ridiculously happy today.

About what? I don't know--lots of things, everything, nothing.

I've been making a lot of changes in my life in the past few months and I have more that I want to make. It actually seems to be working, and for the first time the things I want actually seem attainable. Things that always seemed to be closed to me just might not be.

I just wish I could capture these feelings in a jar and keep them close like fireflies to illuminate the nights when they get dark.

Stained Glass

It was thirty days til Easter when the elm tree hit the church
Thank God it fell on Friday cause at least no one was hurt
But there was fear it might delay the second coming of the lord
Cause the stained glass crucifixion was in stains upon the floor

They spent a day of cleaning and a day to board the hole
Where the stained glass once had cast a godly light upon the fold
But come the Sunday service all the faces now were gray
And they commenced to take donations as the faithful knelt to pray

But on Monday they discovered that the man who’d built the glass
Was the only man in town who could and sadly he had passed
But his father who was ninety said the tools were in the shed
And he’d kindly try and resurrect the window from the dead

The congregation argued, but the wise ones all rejoiced
In the one hand was solution, in the other was no choice
And they gave the man their blessings and they gave his hand a shake
And they gave him all the coins they had collected on their plate

It was seven days til Easter and they’d seen a hide nor hair
So they came and knocked at suppertime in hopes the man was there
But a banging from the basement was ‘bout all that they could hear
And curses that might make the devil blush and wash his ears

Come first thing easter morning and to everyone’s good grace
The man was up on ladders with the window nailed in place
It was covered in black velvet like a hood or like a veil
He pulled the sheet and there it hung apocryphal and frail

The seams had melted jagged, they were crooked like a spine
The glass was rough like hands of man against the hands of time
And there was bloodstains in the red and there were teardrops in the blue
He said: It may not be the best but it’s the best that I can do

The chapel fell to silence, it was more than just surprise
As the monstrosity of color slid its tongue across their eyes
And they shivered from exposure like babies born again
Cause in every pane of glass was all the joy and pain of man . . .

There was every fearful smile, there was every joyful tear
There was each and every choice that leads from every there to here
There was every cozy stranger and every awkward friend
And there was every perfect night that’s left initials in the sand
There was every day that filled so full the weeks would float away
And there was all those days spent wondering what to do with all those days
There was every lie that ever saved the truth from being shamed
And every secret you could ever trust a friend to hide away
There was the fortune of discovering a new face you might adore
And the thrill of coming home to find her clothes upon the floor
And the prideful immortality of children in the home
That the storm can’t grind the mountain down, it can only shift the stones
And there was everything your mouth says that your lips don’t understand
And every shape inside your head you can’t carve with your hands
And every slice of glass revealed another slice of life
Emblazened imperfections in a perfect stream of light
It all flooded through the window like rapids made of fire
And then God rode through on sunshine and sat down cause he was tired
He was tired.

As the thunder and the hardwood settled back into its place
God removed his veil and there were scars across his face
And some folks prayed in reverence and some folks prayed in fear
As all the shades and chaos in the glass became a mirror

Ack!

I hate when it becomes important! Everything changes. Fuck.

We are nowhere, it is now (patchwork)

We must rip out all the epilogues in the books that we have read

We must stare, we must stare, we must stare
We must sing, we must sing, we must sing
We must run, we must run, we must run
We must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge

I haven’t been gone very long
But it feels like a lifetime

I’ve been sleeping so strange at night
Side effects they don’t advertise
I’ve been sleeping so strange
With a head full of pesticide

How could you forget your yellow bird?

I’m wide-awake, it’s morning

No one's sure how all of this got started,
but we're gonna make 'em goddamn certain how it's gonna end.

I didn't know this, but I love it.

Lady Bird Johnson, the widow of Lyndon Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, died Wednesday at her home in Austin, Texas. She was 94.

She was born Claudia Alta Taylor on December 22, 1912, in Karnack, Texas. When she was two years old, a servant in this well-to-do household described her as being "as pretty as a lady bird," and that nickname stuck. Her father was a successful local merchant, a strong personality whom she later likened in many ways to the man who became her husband, Lyndon Baines Johnson. She attended public schools in Texas and was graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in journalism in 1934. Shortly after graduation, she met Lyndon Johnson, and in a manner which she said took her breath away, he wooed her.

"We had a breakfast date, but we wound up by spending the whole day together, riding and talking," said Lady Bird Johnson. "Well, he really let me know before the day was over that he wanted to marry me. And I thought that, this - impossible. But on the other hand, there's one thing I knew I just couldn't bear to have happen, and that was to say, goodbye, goodbye, period."

They were married within two months. She went with him back to Washington where he worked for a member of the United States Congress. Her public life, which was to span thirty-eight years, commenced.

Despite chronic shyness, Lady Bird Johnson participated in all her husband's electoral campaigns. When he was a Senator she took a public speaking course in Washington, and that helped, but she never enjoyed that part of the life. This did not diminish her contribution to her husband's career, however. She once described their relationship by saying, "I think we were a whole lot better together than we were separate. He made me try harder and do more. I think perhaps sometimes I made him persevere or take a gentler attitude toward people or events or be less impatient. And," she added, "we both helped each other laugh."

"You can see his office from here," she said. "The lights may be on until eight o'clock, maybe nine or ten o'clock. But sooner or later the lights will go out and in a few moments I'll hear an eager voice call down the hall, 'Where's Bird?' Then I know he's home. Really home."

I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind.

Don’t call me
Don’t email me
Please just leave me alone
I just want to move on, to keep walking
To make a different life for myself
There’s nothing you can say or do
I meant it when I said you don’t want to hear
Any of the things I have to say to you
Because, believe me, I have plenty
They fight their way to the front of my mouth
Wanting to be the first to come out
I don’t want the last words I say to be full of fury and hate
Let’s not hurt each other any more
Just fucking drop it
And move on
I spent nearly half of my life with you
I want to walk away with the shards of good memories I have
And crunch the rest under my feet as I walk away

I speak in tongues.

You are a waterfall
Waiting inside a well.
You are a wrecking ball
Before the building fell.

Laying Down With the Goddess of Breakfast

It was probably a bad idea to pour blueberry syrup on the table. Rude, in fact. But there was no better way to get her to my table. It worked like a charm really, a quick sweeping motion of my left forearm clumsily tipped the dispenser on its side. I fumbled for a moment while the blue goo followed the slant of the warped tabletop.

She was over in an instant because she is that kind of waitress, attentive and courteous. She couldn’t bear to stand by drying the heads of bent forks while a customer sat one moment in filth. I like to think that she only felt that way about me, but she doesn’t know me. She’s seen me before and affords me the kind of casual, friendly smile and slight nod of recognition one gets from being familiar. I’m the billboard she passes on the way to work.

I don’t need to be eating pancakes four days a week that’s for sure. But I don’t come for the food or the coffee that goes cold just out of the pot. I come for Sarah. I come for the blond streaked brunette hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. I come for the dark eyes and strong nose and the bottom lip that dangles in a constant pout. I come to count the freckles on her chest that speckle her neck when she gets sun on the weekend. I come for the strong thin arms weighed down with bracelets and pitchers of water with lemon.

I live for days like last Tuesday when she reached up high for a box of straws and dusted herself with the powdered sugar they save for the fancy Belgian waffles. She huffed and giggled a bit and dabbed herself clean with a wet cloth except for some white on the back of her calf. I meant to show her what she missed but I figured it might look suspicious paying too close attention to the areas off limits to the casual spectator. I hoped it would stay there and get moist from the glisten of sweat on the back of her knee. It would be a sweet surprise for me once we were alone in the grass.

We belong in the grass. Anywhere away from here where a steady breeze can lift the smell of grease and bacon fat from her apron and take it faraway to someplace else. I want us to get lost on that knoll by the riverfront. The one with the wildflowers like they plant in the median of interstates. I want us to smile in slow motion like some romantic version of a detergent commercial where everything is clean and breezy and natural.

I’m worried that the smell of pigs in a blanket is turning me on. I don’t want to get hard strolling past an International House of Pancakes. I don’t want to associate eggs and cheese with carnal delight. I don’t want sex to mean breakfast.

Sarah doesn’t belong here. She doesn’t belong in these clothes. These starched god awful uniforms with the puffy sleeves and the stiff flared skirt. I’m sorry for her and I’m sorry that someone like her is hidden by such unfortunate commercial wardrobe. It’s like wrapping a dozen roses with the New York Post. She needs draped linens, tailored suits or at the very least a willing man who will hold and cup and cover her parts so the wind is free to blow her hair and the tourists who walk by can appreciate the beauty of a naked goddess by the 24th Street grassy knoll. She could also use my quilt.

I’d prefer her to use the quilt. I’m sure Sarah would prefer the velvet feel of the patchwork of hundred-year-old fabric scraps to the scratch blend of orange plaid. We’d burn her clothes in a bonfire by the rocks. I’d even burn my own shoes if they weren’t brand new.

I just want time with her on my quilt, the two of us flattening a patch of three foot high grass. A room in the middle of outside with no roof warmed by the afternoon sun. We could exist in that quiet, tracing paths on each other’s bare skin. I’d give her slow open mouth kisses up and down her back like I was eating strawberries from the vine. She would close her eyes and I’d know things were just fine.

It would be nice for her to know my name. It would be nice to hear it tumble over that bottom lip. It would be nice but not necessary. We would keep silent on our picnic. No talking on our quilt. In our Eden. Our bodies would do all the talking. Awkward introductions at first, but then fitting each other like long fingers into an old glove.

The damp rag is bright blue and sticky. I’ve been leaning back curved with the arc of the booth holding my newspaper and coffee in mid-air while Sarah mops up my mess. I tricked her just so that she would be stuck here for a minute and half. Ninety seconds that I could use to watch her neck tighten, her tiny bicep flex and the gentle sway of her breasts trapped beneath stiff polyester. It’s hot today and I want to lick away the beads of sweat racing down the back of her neck. I want to peel her out of her clothes and clean her with my tongue so that there is no trace of breakfast, lunch or dinner left on her skin. I want her clean like a peach pit sucked too long.

Then I want her splayed out on my quilt with her arms over her head sucking spring air and laughing and not fumbling for one of the pens jammed in her hair. I want to drink from her belly button and draw slow circles radiating from her nipples. I want to be on her and in her and breathing so close that she’s breathing my breath and when she closes her eyes and smiles I’ll know my work is done.

In the meantime I get fat on butter and biscuits and tip more than I can afford. She knows my face and I see hers every time I close my eyes at night. I’ll make messes and ask dumb questions as long as it brings her close.

--Frank Grooms, Punchline, July 12, 2001

You know, I used to have a plan.

I'm a list-maker, a planner, an organizer. I have lists of things to learn about, lists of places to go, lists of dreams I had that made a lasting impact on me, lists of things to do to celebrate the month of October, lists of favorite smells, lists of memories, lists of letters to write, lists of books to read, and on and on and on.

Somewhere along the way things got fucked up.

Of course, it's entirely possible that they were actually always fucked up, but I was too busy sticking to the path I had picked out that I didn't realize. When the next several years of your life is planned out, you don't have to think very hard.

I used to think of myself like a donut: sugary sweet on the outside, and completely empty inside. I was positive that if someone looked at me closely enough they would realize that there was absolutely nothing inside of me. Just nothing fucking there. That I was actually just faking everything and going through the motions, looking like I had a clue what the fuck was going on. (I never did.)

Now my problem is almost the opposite: after peeks at that infinite darkness I might just want to pull that donut back out. It was safer. Prettier. Easier to deal with.

Today one of my students stayed to talk to me after class. He asked me what kind of job I wanted. I said I didn't really know. He asked me where I wanted to live. I said I didn't know that, either. All I could say was that I didn't want to be hot all the time. Or cold all the time.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I got.

All those "plans" are shot to hell.

I've been feeling for about a year now that there's something I'm supposed to be paying attention to. To be open to. It kind of irritates me to say it that way because it sounds so New Agey and mystical, but it's really the way I feel. What the hell to do with that? Maybe if I could stop to breathe for a moment I could pay attention to something besides running, running, running, going, going, going.

I have not had any sleep.

Ahhh...fuck it.

(Forget it.)

Poncho's Lament

Well the stairs sound so lonely without you
And I ain't made my bed in a week
Coffee stains on the paper I'm writing
And I'm too choked up inside to speak
And yes, I know our differences pulled us apart
Never spoke a word heart to heart

And I'm glad that you're gone
But I wish to the lord that you'd come home
And I'm glad that you're gone
Got the feeling so strong
And I'm glad that you're gone
But I wish to the lord that you'd come home

Well my guitar still plays your favorite song
though the strings have been outta tune for some time
Every time I strum a cord, I pray out to the lord
That you'll quit your honkey-tonkin' sing my song

And I'm glad that you're gone
Got the feeling so strong
And I'm glad that you're gone
But I wish to the lord that you'd come home

So I'll throw another log onto the fire
And I'll admit I'm a lousy liar
As the coals die down and flicker
I hear that guitar picker
Play the song we used to sing so long ago

I'm glad that you're gone
Got the feeling so strong
And I'm glad that you're gone
But I wish to the lord that you'd come home
And I'm glad, damn glad you're gone
Got the feeling so strong
And I'm glad that you're gone
But I wish to the lord that you'd come home

Alright, already.

Even if things get heavy
(We'll all float on)

I didn't think you could hurt me anymore.

I was wrong.

A song about a super hero named 'Tony'

At this minute I am sad.

My very good friend is moving away and I greatly underestimated just how hard it would be. (He's never seen this blog in his life so I can freely gush without embarrassing him.) I'm happy he got the job he wanted, and that he'll be in the vicinity of L.A., his hometown, but...but...

He told me I need to stop thinking of it as losing a friend; instead, I was gaining a city.

Tony told me he knew we could be friends the first time I told him to "Suck it." I actually can't remember the particular context of that incident, but I know that I've told him the same thing many, many times since then. He's one of the most cantankerous people I've ever met! Two prime examples that just occurred this past Friday:

[Background: San Francisco is just finishing up Gay Pride Week/Weekend. Don't get me wrong, I love it. But by the end of it I feel like, 'If I have to see one more goddamned rainbow or pink triangle..."]

1. Friday was a glorious day, and we elected to take a longer lunch in order to walk to the Ferry Building to sit by the water while we ate. (Plus, I can get mango gelato. It's so good it makes me want to do terrible things.) Tony was complaining about how sick he was of everyone saying to him (and he imitated them in a whiny voice), "'Oh! What are you doing for Pride Week? Are you going to this? Are you going to that? What are you doing to celebrate?' I just want to tell them to go fuck themselves." I couldn't help it; I threw my head back and laughed and laughed at this.

2. We returned from our lovely lunch and went back to our respective cubes. Tony's cube is located on the other side of the wall from mine. Being in such close proximity, you can't help but overhear absolutely everything. There was a Pride Awards Ceremony getting ready to start where awards were being given out to people we work with. I heard someone come to Tony's cube and say, "Tony, you're coming to the Pride Awards Ceremony, aren't you?" He responded in a resigned and flat, deadpan voice, "Yeah, give me a minute to get my gay on." I cracked up over in my cube.

Okay, so perhaps I haven't really given a description to do him justice. But let me say that I've grown very attached to him in the last couple of years, and have particularly valued his friendship, sarcasm, and humor in the last several months--particularly from November through February, which I've come to think of as my "Blue Period." We've had lunches and dinners and desserts and drinks and karaoke; we've taken walks in the rain and in the sun; we've given professional and personal advice; we've seen movies and concerts; we saw the "Spook-a-Motive"; we've sat through endless meetings and exchanged looks of boredom, disbelief, and frustration; we've made tentative travel plans; we've worked side-by-side in coffee shops on our laptops; he's pulled up in front of my house hundreds of times to pick me up; he gave me a 45 minute lesson on driving a standard (I failed to learn in that amount of time. Big shocker.); we took a nap in his car in a parking garage with our feet on the dashboard because we were too tired to do anything else.

This evening I packed up his kitchen. I came home with one of his shirts, a book on Japan, a blanket, and all the food in his freezer that didn't involve chicken. I gave him a CD spanning all the music that represented our adventures together. I wanted to smack him over the head with something to knock him unconscious and make him stay. Instead, I think I'll just tell him I'll miss him. And I'll be down to L.A. in a few weeks.

Revised to-do list

Awhile back I was sifting through some old letters I'd written to my friend Cindy while she was in the Peace Corps during 2000 and 2001. During that time those letters were really the only type of journal I kept. I started out sending hand-written letters that were 18-20 pages long. I'd carry them around with me throughout my day and pull them out periodically to add to them: during a boring class, while killing time between meetings, or while dinner was cooking. Then I got lazy and started typing them on the computer and printing them up. She never complained, but I imagine something was lost in this process.

Sometimes I would be upset or lonely in the middle of the night--those nights when it feels like you're the only one in the world awake--and in a flurry of keystrokes I'd pound out a type of journal entry of my most private thoughts bury it in some password-protected file deep in my computer. Then it would occur to me that I wanted to tell her these things anyway, so I'd just cut and paste it into her letter. (This is how the line between the letters and my journal became so blurred.)

Anyway, in one letter I found I had been composing a sort of life to-do list. It wasn't necessarily a complete list of things I ever wanted to do, but it definitely hit some highlights. Since I feel a bit like I'm in suspended animation at the moment--waiting to find out what my next move will be--I find myself thinking about and reorganizing that list a lot lately.

I've decided to update it. Some things are old; some are new. Some are random; some are life-long wishes. I'll probably keep thinking of more and adding on.

1. Go hang-gliding. Actually, I'm working on this one. I found the company I want to go with, and a tandem flight is going to cost about $300. The flight is from Mt. Tam to Stinson Beach, which sounds absolutely beautiful. The only problem is this: it's something that you should SHARE. It just doesn't sound like as much fun going alone. (Granted, I'd rather go alone than not at all, but still.) I had my friend Tony talked into it, but ultimately the expense ended up being too much for him since he is moving in two weeks AND won't get another paycheck until September. *sigh* So I've put this temporarily on hold.

2. Swim in the Blue Grotto. I'm not sure if this is realistic--at least not without ending up in an Italian jail. But it would be worth it. I wanted to jump out of the little boat so bad. I will jump out of the boat. I want to know what it's like to swim in light.

3. Learn to ice skate. Nothing fancy; just basics.

4. Go somewhere naked under a trench coat. I think I've wanted to do this since I was 13 or 14.

5. Take piano lessons. I at least want to get far enough where I can play a complete song with both hands. "Heart and Soul"--with alternations between the top portion and the bottom portion--doesn't count.

6. Grow blackberries, peonies, lilacs, and heirloom tomatoes. Peaches, too, if possible. I love these things passionately.

7. See a fjord--specifically in Norway.

8. Pick one week and take the cheapest last-minute flight I can find to somewhere. Anywhere.

9. Learn to drive a stick shift. (Preferably from a patient teacher. Who doesn't mind me periodically freaking out or taking breaks to laugh my ass off for awhile.)

10. See parrots in the wild. It doesn't really matter what kind of parrots or what kind of 'wild' (Australia, Africa, South America...I'd take any). I just want to see them.

11. Take a Chinese brush-painting class. I never get tired of looking at these paintings. And I want my own little stamper.

12. Attend a national or international gymnastics competition. There's gonna be one in San Jose in August. It's crazy expensive. I want to go.

13. Become fluent in Spanish. I used to be not so bad at it. I mean, I still had a LONG way to go and I've probably forgotten a great deal of what I did know, but I really enjoyed it. I would like to be able to dream in Spanish and understand everything that was said.

14. Buy a punching bag on which to take out my aggressions.

Us ones in between.

You are a waterfall
Waiting inside a well
You are a wrecking ball
Before the building fell
And every lightning rod
Has got to watch the storm cloud come.

And I’ve heard of pious men
And I’ve heard of dirty fiends
But you don’t often hear
Of us ones in between
And I’ve heard of creatures
Who eat their babies;
And I wonder if they stop
To think about the taste.

I saw the sun go down
Outside of Arkansas;
And I saw the sun come up
Somewhere in Illinois.
And in the darkness
I taught myself to hate.
But where were you, oh where were you?
And where the fuck did the sun go?

And I am a creature.
And I am survivin’.
And I want to be alone
But I want your body.
So when you eat me,
Mother and baby,
Oh baby, mother me,
Before you eat me.

And you should always pass
When you get the inside lane.
Don’t pull your hair out;
I won’t pull my hair out.
For I have never seen the sun
That did not bury his fears in the side of the world.
And the day is done.

You are a waterfall
Waiting inside a well
You are a wrecking ball
Before the building fell
And I will mutter like a lover
Who speaks in tongues, oh he speaks in tongues.
Oh I speak in tongues.

Idon'tthinkIcan

Ican'tIcan'tIcan'tIthoughtIwasstrongenoughbutI'mnnot.

If only.

If only it were enough.