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.

All the lives I'm not living

Alternative title: Stay/go, yes/no (I don't know)

Sometimes I am so tired of thinking about all the lives I'm NOT living, all the things I'm not doing. I want to feel like absolutely anything is a possibility.

I used to price apartments in other cities--Paris, Vienna, Barcelona--and try to imagine myself there. (How would I feel waking up with a view of the Eiffel Tower? Would it change the way I buy groceries? Would showering feel any different?) Once someone said to me, "Why do you do that? You're never going to live in those places." It crushed me. Maybe I really won't live in those places. It's not like I speak the language or have any job prospects there. But I want to feel like it's a possibility.

This contrasts with my strong urges to have roots and security--to have people who depend on me and whose day is not complete unless I am in it. There are no people like that and it's a very lonely realization.

My family would be happy if I moved back to WV and married a man who goes deer hunting and drives a big truck and has dirty fingernails and who can talk about things like carburetors and horsepower. We could have children who wear grubby, stained t-shirts and a house that needs a new roof if we could only stop living paycheck to paycheck. My husband would change the oil in our old minivan himself.

Oh my God.

To liberally borrow from a Tom Waits' song I heard for the first time recently, I packed up all my expectations and moved out to California. It turned out that I was better at starting over than I thought I would be. I've never known what I would be doing after June 30, 2008 when my fellowship ends. At first I was so homesick I was sure I would go back to the east coast afterward, but now I'm not so sure. I like San Francisco. But will I ever have anything here? I don't know. Would Portland or Seattle or Philadelphia be any different? I don't know that either.

I guess I've just always wanted to feel like I was somewhere I belonged. I had it for a brief time in Richmond, and I'm not sure how to find it again. ("I know I'm at my house, but I wish that I were at home...")

I do know that I need to get out of the mindset of waiting for my life to begin. It's here. It's now. It's underway.

An undercurrent of air horn.

Two separate things tonight, both stemming from conversations with friends and I felt like processing them further here.

First, a memory.

A few years back I read The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. I liked it pretty well, but there were a few areas where he described a person or a situation by which I was quite taken. One of these was a male character who kept a mental list of things that had been said to him to which he would periodically return as a "source of strength and sustenance." These statements were things like, "You're nothing like your father;" "Let's buy both!" or "I love the taste of your cum."

I was always struck by this idea because I, too, had such a mental list even though I had never thought of all the statements together at once. I tried formulating them in a coherent way so that I could describe them to someone else. So far I've come up with eleven items.

Believe it or not, there really is a point to this.

One of these items that I mentally cherished, although I had not thought about it in quite some time, consisted of two sentences my first grade teacher wrote on my report card. Mrs. Nease said, “Amie is very talented in art. Maybe you could check into an art class for her.”

I was terribly proud, because I really did love to draw and create things. I was even more excited when my mom enrolled me in an art class at the local YMCA. My eagerness diminished quickly as I walked in the class and saw that everyone was much, much older than me and they all had fancy sketchbooks and pencils that we couldn't afford. I still tried to do a good job, but I got frustrated quickly because it seemed like all we did in the first two classes was draw and shade pears. I was used to drawing much more exciting things, such as Luke Skywalker swinging on a rope with Princess Leia snugly in one arm, or sketches for roller coasters I wanted to design someday complete with people riding them, their faces locked in sheer terror with pens, wallets, and glasses falling out of their pockets.

Unfortunately, my art never progressed beyond the first grade level. Looking back, I think my teacher mistook my obsessive attention to detail and accuracy for talent.

For example, I used to create elaborate Indian villages out of Play-Doh. I tried to be as detailed as possible, down to rolling little individual logs for the fire between my thumb and forefinger and then blunting the ends so they would look freshly chopped. I insisted on making footprints in the “mud” all over the village because the Indians would have walked there. There were elaborate footprint paths between all the tipis, out to the canoe and back, to the fire pit, and around in circles where they had been dancing.

I also used to love to draw Santa Claus complete with reindeer and sleigh, except that I always got hung up by the one big bag of toys in the back of the sleigh that most portrayals of him showed. Tales of how he was "magic" and that they bag of toys was "bottomless" didn't satisfy me. In order to explain it to myself, I piled the back of the sleigh with multiple bags. And then, not convinced that this was indeed enough to provide toys to all of the children in the world, I would attach bags on ropes hanging from the rungs of the sleigh and slumped over the reindeer's backs.

I realized the sled would weigh too much for them to fly. The only way I knew how to resolve this problem was by adding extra reindeer reinforcements. By that time, I had already drawn Rudolph in the front guiding the way, so I felt I had no choice but to add extra reindeer and reigns off to the sides of the sleigh to provide additional flight support.

It was nearly a complete army in the sky by the time I got done. Or a chaotic mess. Depending on how you choose to think about it.

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

Second, an annoying thought pattern. (Completely unrelated to the above story.)

I cannot even tell you how much it goads me to admit this, but it is a persistent problem and I'm hoping that slipping it in here quietly in between entries will be another step toward addressing it. This also stems from a conversation with a friend, incidentally.

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.

God, how annoying. Boo hoo hoo. But anyway, there it is. Let's move on.

I am nervous about my dining options.

I leave for Poland on Thursday. I'm a little nervous about what I will eat.

Today I bought Lonely Planet: Poland, and one of the first things I looked up was "Food & Drink." I'm not a sausage- or saurekraut-eater and I wanted to have an idea of what I would be up against.

The opponent sounds rather formidable.

Here are a few options:
1) nozki w galarecie - jellied pigs' knuckles
2) golonka - boiled pigs' knuckles served with horseradish and sauerkraut
3) flaki - seasoned tripe cooked in bouillon with vegetables
4) carp w galarecie - jellied carp
5) czernina - duck-blood soup

At least they know how to prepare pigs' knuckles in multiple ways. And what's the deal with jellied food?

After reading these things, I wasn't very encouraged. So I looked up some vegetarian options:

1) zapiekanki - a "Polish pizza" consisting of a baguette split in two and topped with melted cheese, chopped mushrooms, and ketchup
2) pierogi - Polish dumplings (I'll probably go for the potato-filled.)
3) placki ziemniaczane - potato fritters (Sounds remarkably safe.)
4) barszcz - red beetroot soup (I wonder if this will provide me with an indefinite lifespan?)
5) kopytka - Polish gnocci (I can definitely do this.)
6) leniwe pierogi - dumpling stuffed with cottage cheese (Ugh.)

Maybe I sound close-minded, but I'm just a little nervous. I think I may have to pack some Power Bars just in case.

I did not mean you to be hurt at all.

How silly and how dear, how very dear
To send a dehydrated porcupine
By letter post, with love. It did appear
That is was such --- a gift, but more a sign
Of love, from her I love, that girl of mine.

I did not think it too exceptional
(Acceptance being one part of being in love)
And yet I thought it strange, for you could call
It strange to send a dried-up porcupine
With love. My dear, I thought. O darling mine.

And stroked with love its quills so soft and fine
At which I saw is was not animal
But vegetable. Yes, it was a vegetable --
The prickly part of some old hoary pine
She had detached and sent me, plus a line

There scribbled in her dear and silly scrawl:
"I hope it did not prick you, dearest mine,
I did not mean you to be hurt at all."

--Ian Hamiliton Finlay

Making so much noise you don't know when to listen.

"I made my shoes shine with my coal
But my polish didn't shine the hole.
If you stand in a circle
Then you'll all have a back to bite back."

(I am only able to think through music at this moment.)

The View

"As life gets longer, awful feels softer
Well it feels pretty soft to me.
And if it takes shit to make bliss
Well I feel pretty blissfully."

de ce

I just stumbled across this. It was written by the friend of a friend. Loved it.

de ce

it was the black glasses,

perched on her nose,

reflecting fluorescent light

in an office hallway

8 floors up, in a forgotten

wonderful past

they made her look like,

a soft professor,

a determined gentle wit

for the disinclined,

they made me throw away, succinctly

an empty future

i'm afraid nothing in my resolve

could compete

with

the black glasses,

perched on her nose.

Curl

It is a rainy day today. I have been struggling to amuse myself until my friend picks me up at 5:00. The doorbell just rang and, though I expected another false alarm as has been happening a lot the last few days, I unenthusiastically went and opened it. There was a small package sitting there in the rain addressed to me. I happily took it inside to find that my aunt had sent me a present. But the best part was folded up within the present. There was an old, yellowed envelope with the words, "Amie Marie, 12-2-78, Curl" carefully written across the front in my grandmother's precise, left-handed script. Inside was a lock of my hair that she had apparently snipped off just short of my first birthday. The thought that she kept it stored safely away all these years prompted a spreading warmth through my chest.

How?

I was sitting next to an elderly Asian man on the bus today, and I noticed that he was reading from a list on a small, folded piece of white paper. The words were in tiny and precise writing. The title at top was "How?" Underneath was a long list of bulleted points. Being quite the list-maker myself, I was incredibly curious. The first three read:

How do you open a bottle?
How do you make orange juice?
How do I dream in English?

I immediately whipped out a little book in which to jot them down so I wouldn't forget. I was totally intrigued but having trouble making out anything beyond the first three items. When a single seat opened up he got up and moved--perhaps he sensed me reading and taking notes over his shoulder?--and I felt desperate to see the rest of that list.

I found myself plotting how I could get another look. I fantasized about snatching it out of his hand and running with it. (Is that completely wrong?) I figured I could just get up and go stand beside him at his new seat, although that would be pretty obvious. As I was determining that I did not actually care if it was obvious, he got off at Judah.

And now I will never know.

Dirty Barbies

(Attempt #1, Draft #1, with not much of an ending, but here it is...)

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

Dirty Barbies

I think, like many girls, that my ever-changing understanding of the human anatomy, sexuality, and the complexities of relationships as a child was reflected in my Barbies.

For quite some time, I didn’t have a Ken doll. I was forced to create imaginary male figures—boyfriends, husbands, fathers, and brothers—or else to play at a friend’s house so as to take advantage of her Ken-doll-possessing good fortune. I often ended up at my friend Katie’s.

There were pros and cons to playing at Katie’s house. On one hand, she had fancier Barbie accessories than I, such as the dream house and the pink corvette. But much to my dismay she wanted her Barbies to do devious things.

“Let’s play like my Ken sleeps with another Barbie and you divorce him,” she would always suggest. I hated this.

“Can’t we just play like they love each other and take a vacation together?” I would counter.

“Nah, that’s boring.”

So we usually did it her way. I found I got into it very quickly.

We’d dress up one Barbie all slutty-like: in a short skirt, tight sweater, and high heels. She would saunter casually up to Ken, place an ever-rigid, outstretched arm on his, and say, “Hey baby, wanna come over to my place? My parents aren’t home.” Ken, of course, was always game.

We only had a vague understanding of what Ken and Slutty were supposed to do together, but we knew it was wonderfully bad and involved being naked with a lot of moaning. And we had very little concept of the seduction process. “Let’s pretend the air conditioner is broken and it’s really hot, so they can’t stand to wear their clothes,” I would suggest. So Ken and Slutty would lounge together naked in the dream house on a little plastic couch with their legs sticking straight out.

“Can I lay on top of you?” Ken would ask hopefully.

“Sure!” Slutty replied.

Sometimes that’s as far as we ever got; other times there were some little plastic “clack-clack” noises as naked, plastic body parts rubbed together. Once Slutty’s legs even ended up straight up in the air. But no matter what happened, Slutty always ended up pissed off and throwing Ken and his clothes out the door. “And stay out!” she would huff, angry and naked.

Meanwhile, Wife Barbie would be stuck at home blowing wisps of frazzled hair out of her face with three filthy, screaming kids, an old wood-paneled station wagon, a dog with chronic diarrhea, a burning dinner on the stove, and a husband missing in action.

One Christmas, I was thrilled to get my very own Ken doll. I was dismayed, however, that he wasn’t a “normal” one with a painted-on helmet of yellow hair. Instead, he had a sort of white man’s frizzy Afro of synthetic hair that framed his chiseled features like a puffy cloud.

While I was now able to enact my own Dirty Barbie scenarios, I was also increasingly disappointed with naked Ken’s flesh-colored, painted on underwear over his vague hump for a crotch. But I came up with a brilliant plan. I cut off his hair close to his head and glued it onto his crotch. I sat back to admire my work. I realized that Ken’s new pubic hair only told part of the story of what was down there, but I was still satisfied with the results. I pulled on his pants not really realizing how ridiculous he now looked with the hairy, bushy bulge that now made them too tight.

I rushed into the kitchen to show my grandma what I had just done, apparently feeling she would praise me for my ingenuity. She was talking to my great-grandmother on the phone, and waved me away while silently mouthing the words “I’m on the phone.” I tapped my foot impatiently for a moment, and then decided I couldn’t wait any longer. I thrust Ken into her face, and flashed her by pulling down the front of his pants so that his fluffy black and still glue-damp pubic hair dramatically burst forth.

“Oh, my God!” she cried. “Mom, you won’t believe what this child has done!” Some stray tufts of damp hair fell into clumps on her lap. I quickly realized the magnitude of my error, and ran with Ken back into the bedroom to hide.

Soon afterward, the glorious hair disappeared and I was left with an awkward-looking Ken with a bad haircut and a scaly crotch.

Horoscope for April

On a freeway, somewhere in Northern England, the central reservation suddenly widens. In the middle of this unexpected expanse stands a farmhouse. When they were building the road, the authorities tried to bulldoze it. First they offered the owner money to move. Then they used legal threats. Nothing worked. In the end, they just laid the tarmac around the house. Once, it stood in a rural idyll. Now six lanes of traffic hurtle past day and night. It is no place to live. There are times when we all should stand our ground and times when we are wiser to go with the flow. Don't end up with a hollow victory this month. Be reasonable.

I am so hung up on it

(I would like to move away from it.)

Did you know I lost two full nights of sleep after that statement? So much power in one sentence. But what can I say? How should I begin, and how should I presume?

Last night I dreamed I was showing you my temple

"Last night I dreamed I was showing you my temple," said Miss Lissie. "I don't know where it was, but it was a simple square one-room structure, very adobe or Southwestern-looking, with poles jutting out at the ceiling line and the windows set in deep. It was painted a rich dust coral and there were lots of designs--many, turquoise and deep blue, like Native American symbols for rain and storm--painted around the top. It was beautiful, though small, and I remembered going there for the ceremonies dressed in a long white cotton robe. I was tall then, and stately, with thick black hair that I wore in a bun. The other thing my temple made me think of was the pyramids in Mexico, though I'm satisfied it wasn't made of stone but of painted mud.

"Anyway, my familiar--what you might these days, unfortunately, call a 'pet'--was a small incredibly beautiful creature that was part bird, for it was feathered, part fish, for it could swim and had a somewhat fish/bird shape, and part reptile, for it scooted about like geckoes do, and it was all over the place while I talked to you. Its movements were graceful and clever, its expression mischevious and full of humor. It was alive! You, by the way, Suwelo were a white man, apparently, in that life, very polite, very well-to-do, and seemingly very interested in our ways.

"My little familiar, no bigger than my hand, slithered and skidded here and there in the place outside the temple where we sat. Its predominant color was blue, but there was red and green, and flecks of gold and cerise. And purple. Yes. Its head was that of a bird. Did I say that already?

"Skittering about the way that it did was so distracting while we talked that I took it up into my hands and carried it some distance from us and placed it on the ground with a clear-glass bowl over it. As soon as I'd come back and sat down, however, I heard a noise like a muffled shot. I went over to the bowl, and, sure enough, the familiar had broken through. There was a small hole in the top. I looked about and found another bowl, a heavy white one, very click and with very thick sides. My familiar was lying looking up at me curiously, resting up from its labor. It did not try to run as I put this while bowl on top of it. Almost before I sat down I heard another noise. When I went back, my familiar was rushing furiously about in the snow. Everything was suddenly now very cold. It was as beautiful as ever though, my familiar. How or even why I would do what I next did is beyond me, but I think it was a stupid reflex of human pride. For I understood quite well by now that all of this activity on the familiar's part was about freedom, and that by my actions I was destroying our relationship. In any event, not to be outdone--and suddenly there were dozens of your people, white people, standing about watching this contest--I next imprisoned my beautiful little familiar under a metal washtub. I paid little attention to the coldness or the snow and did not even think how cruel and torturous for it this would be. Surely it would not now be able to escape. I went back to where we were seated, you and I, and attempted to carry on with our conversation, which was about temples, and about my temple in particular. The sun was just setting, and it bathed the small, shiny coral structure in gold. It was a splendid sight. I felt such happiness that it was mine and I thought of the peace that came over me, deep, like sleep, when I entered its doors.

"Next we heard a rumbling, as if from a volcano, under our seats. As if power was being sucked along in streams from everywhere and converging at one spot under the snow. All of us, you, me, the white people dressed so strangely in high heels and fur coats, were drawn to the quaking washtub, which seemed now to be on the bottom steps of an enormous white stone building in a different city and a different century. We could not believe that a small creature, no larger than a hand, could break through the metal with its fragile birdlike head. We gazed in amazement as, with a mighty whoosh, and as if from the very depths of the sea, the little familiar broke through the bottom of the tub and out into the open air. It looked at me with pity as it passed. Then, using wings it had never used before, it flew away. And I was left with only you and the rest of your people on the steps of a cold stone building, the color of a cheap false teeth, in a different world from my own, in a century that I would never undersand. Except by remembering the beautiful little familiar, who was so cheerful and loyal to me, and whom I so thoughtlessly, out of pride and distraction, betrayed."

--Alice Walker, The Temple of My Familiar

Long, longer, longest longing

That's pretty much what's on my mind.

I know what you're doing, and it's wonderful.

A conversation with Anthony tonight stimulated this diatribe...

I was talking to a friend earlier this evening (the aforementioned Anthony). We chatted awhile, and he said, "What's going on?" I asked him what he meant. He said, "You're not yourself. You sound different. What is it?" At first I was kind of surprised, because I felt okay and was in no way deliberately trying to mask anything I was feeling.

He said, "Come on. I've known you long enough to know how you sound and you sound different. If you can't say it to me who can you say it to? You can't tell me anything I haven't heard or done before. Just say it, I don't care how crazy it sounds."

He ended up being right, and it started me thinking.

I would just like to say to various friends near and far, and whether you read this or not, that your efforts have not gone unnoticed. I know that you're looking out for me and I love you for it--for the phone calls, emails, IMs, extra invitations to go out or come over for dinner, for listening to me blow my nose while you're talking to me on the phone, for letting me curl up on your couch with a glass of wine or a cup of tea, for walking me home from the bus stop with your arm around me and making me tea and offering me chocolate. I know that I get myself worked into knots and am not always able put on a face to meet anyone, but thanks for not giving up. I love you guys!

[Now cue the Cindy Lauper music: "If you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting..."]

The Under Toad

He stood ankle-deep in the foam from the surf and peered into the waves, without taking a step, for the longest time. The family went down to the water's edge to have a word with him.

"What are you doing, Walt?" Helen asked.

"What are you doing, dummy?" Duncan asked him.

"I'm trying to see the Under Toad," Walt said.

"The what?" said Garp.

"The Under Toad," Walt said. "I'm trying to see it. How big is it?"

And Garp and Helen and Duncan held their breath; they realized that all these years Walt had been dreading a giant toad, lurking offshore, waiting to suck him under and drag him out to sea. The terrible Under Toad.

Garp tried to imagine it with him. Would it ever surface? Did it ever float? Or was it always down under, slimy and bloated and ever-watchful for ankles its coated tongue could snare? The vile Under Toad.

Between Helen and Garp, the Under Toad became their code phrase for anxiety. Long after the monster was clarified for Walt ("Undertow, dummy, not Under Toad!" Duncan had howled), Garp and Helen evoked the beast as a way of referring to their own sense of danger. When the traffic was heavy, when the road was icy--when depression had moved in overnight--they said to each other, "The Under Toad is strong today."

"Remember," Duncan asked on the plane, "how Walt asked if it was green or brown?"

Both Garp and Duncan laughed. But it was neither green nor brown, Garp thought. It was me. It was Helen. It was the color of bad weather. It was the size of an automobile.

The lost cause of words walks away with my nerves

('cause I'm gay as a choir boy for you.)

I feel like sharing a poem today. My friend Scott shared this with me awhile back (for which I am eternally grateful) and it immediately became one of my favorites.

Her Lips Are Copper Wire
by Jean Toomer

whisper of yellow globes
gleaming on lamp-posts that sway
like bootleg licker drinkers in the fog

and let your breath be moist against me
like bright beads on yellow globes

telephone the power-house
that the main wires are insulate

(her words play softly up and down
dewy corridors of billboards)

then with your tongue remove the tape
and press your lips to mine
till they are incandescent

Henry Winkler is not my cousin.

(Title to be sung to the tune of "Billy Jean" for maximum impact.)

I grew up watching "Happy Days." It wasn't that I particularly liked the show, it just always seemed to be on when I got home from school. When I was 7 or 8, my grandmother (whose maiden name was Winkler) told me that Henry Winkler was a distant cousin of ours. This was fascinating news.

"Really?!" I cried. "How do you know?"

She explained that his father was a second cousin (or something like that) of her father back in Germany.

I was totally excited, and for years this was the most interesting thing I had going for me. (Well, aside from eating boogers and obsessively counting things. Henry Winkler totally won the prize.)

As I got older, occasionally converstions would come up about encounters with famous people; other times there would be little ice breaker activities at various functions where you had to tell two true things and one lie about yourself so that other people could guess what you were lying about. Of course, I worked The Fonze in at every opportunity.

The first time I went to Hollywood (I was 24), I took a picture of Henry Winkler's star on the Walk of Fame and sent it to my grandmother. I couldn't understand why she wasn't more excited.

Chris always doubted my story. "Henry Winkler's Jewish," he said. "You're family's not Jewish." For me this wasn't a deal-breaker.

"So what? Maybe there's some Jewish branch of our family that never came over from Germany," I defended.

One day I saw him being interviewed on TV, so I decided to look up some information about him and his family on the internet. His dad was the president of some big company and his family had money. Certainly no one in my family had any money. I started to have my doubts, and expressed them to my aunt.

"She made it up," my aunt confided. "But don't tell her I told you!" So, of course, I confronted my grandmother.

"I'm starting to think that Henry Winkler is not our cousin," I told her pointedly. (And keep in mind this is my grandmother for whom cussing consists of "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!")

"Oh, Jesus Christ!" she snapped. "I just said that to entertain you kids! None of the others ever cared! You were the only one who remembered and you just kept on and on and on about it!"

I pretended to be really wounded. "How could you lie about something so important?"

"I didn't think it would go one for 20 years! You just wouldn't let it go!"

So. My grandma's a liar. I love that about her.

My antacid supply is running low.

But, damn, those cherry Rolaids aren't too bad!

Love and all it's harrowing travails

When I was in my early 20s, I asked my Grandmother what it was like to be with someone longer than you'd been without them. My grandfather had passed away several years earlier, and we were reflecting on their 40+ year marriage.

She responded that sometimes it had been really hard. "There were whole decades of our marriage when we barely saw each other, barely spoke. We were both working hard to raise six children. There was no time to just sit around and talk and learn about each other. We didn't get to do that until all the kids were gone and we were both retired. He didn't even know I liked baseball until then."

I found that pretty depressing.

Then she went on to say, "But you know, even after all that time, I still got excited to see him. When I'd hear the garage door open and his footsteps coming up the stairs, my heart still beat faster. Even after all those years."

I loved that part.

Over the years since that conversation, I've often thought about those two ends of the spectrum of their relationship to try to figure out if it seemed worth it overall. The younger I was, the more it seemed that it was absolutely worth it. Now I find myself thinking that its not. I don't feel like I have the strength or the stamina.

That really bothers me. I hope I don't always feel this way. I don't want to end up completely bitter and jaded and cynical about love.

Today its pretty easy to feel that way, though.

The cure for loneliness

Dan Savage recently suggested a cure for loneliness: "Masturbate. Hang out with friends. Repeat."

Hmmmm.

Big, clumsy feet

It turns out that I need to be careful when wandering around my backyard in the dark when its raining. I end up unknowingly stepping on squishy, delicate creatures that are left for me to discover and mourn in the harsh morning sun.

Some days, like today

I feel completely and unbearably crushed. It's all I can do to keep bitter and hateful little comments from overflowing out of me.

I hope Natalie Portman DOES taste like heaven.

(Oops. That one slipped out.)

You were right--no one's running this whole thing.

Alternative titles for this blog:
A Few Things I've Learned Since January 22, 1977
Shit King of Fuck Mountain

I’ve learned to tread cautiously around words such as “never,” “forever,” and “always.”

Losing toenails doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as I imagined; bloody nipples do.

I don’t believe in God and, although I’ve spent about a decade coming to terms with this, I still find it terrifying.

Girth trumps length any day of the week.

Patience really is a virtue and something with which I have a difficult time. Even though I don’t want it to be my m.o., sometimes there is a great deal of power in waiting and holding back.

Formal education is mostly overrated.

When I was little, I truly believed that I could fly if I just tried hard enough. What I would give for five minutes of that belief again.

Most of the passionate black and white thinking of my youth has faded into varying shades of grey. This is a good thing.

There’s nothing in the world quite as nice as a bird’s belly feathers.

Depression teaches valuable lessons if you pay attention.

Hot baths, red wine, or candles can make almost anything more bearable. All three at once are unstoppable.

S’mores also have great healing powers.

I need massive amounts of affection. I think most people need more than they may even realize.

Ohio should be avoided whenever possible.

I don’t believe I’ll be able to forgive my mother, but I think I can find ways to love her in between those wounds.

I feel that people’s treatment of animals is a more powerful indication of their character than is their treatment of other people.

Although I’ve taken care of myself for a very long time, I’m only starting to get an inkling of what it means to truly love myself. How sad that it took so long! How wonderful it’s happening now!

Holes

I wish that you would move to the sun
'Cause you're like diggin' holes in thin air and we know that can't be done
I wish that you would cheat with someone
'Cause you're like diggin' holes in water and we know that can't be done
Bravery and stupidity go hand-in-hand
and I guess that makes me the bravest man
'Cause I was quick to learn but slow to understand
Well, what can you do?

The barbecue sauce that refused to be taken

My favorite barbecue sauce is K.C. Masterpiece Hickory Brown Sugar. I like to eat it with Morningstar Farms veggie chicken nuggets. Safeway had a special 2 for 1 deal on my favorite sauce, so I bought two.

For some reason, when it came time to open the second bottle it refused to be budged. I mean, seriously, this lid would not move. I have wimpy little hands so I wasn't that surprised when I couldn't open it. But other people couldn't open it either. My nuggets just weren't the same. And what the hell to do with a bottle of barbecue sauce you can't open?

As a last resort, I took it to work. My friend Tony is one of the stronger people I know and I was hoping he could help. Plus, I could surprise him by leaving it sitting in the middle of his desk while he was away just to amuse myself. (It worked. At least the part about amusing myself. He knew exactly who left it there so there was very little surprise involved.)

Finally, finally. He got it open. Now I can take it back home and pop it into my fridge to enjoy later.

(This might seem like a stupid thing to write about, but it's my goddamn blog and I can write about whatever's on my mind. Right now it's barbecue sauce. And it's a Friday afternoon.)

Undeniably dear to me

My grandmother is very ill and will likely not be here much longer. She has been a very important part of my life, more so than most grandparents ever are, and I love her tremendously. I went home for a few days to spend some time with her while I was still able to do so.

When I first arrived she was in the hospital. I brought her a boquet of yellow roses and swept in--determined to do my best to keep her spirits up. Instead she lifted mine.

I had flown all night and was tired and dirty and hungry.

While I sat by her bed her dinner tray arrived. She was having turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, apricot jello, and pumpkin pie. (Two desserts?)

She offered to give me her dinner since I hadn't eaten. I said, "Are you crazy? I can grab something anytime. You need all the strength and energy you can get. You need to eat as much as you can."

"Yes," she admitted, "but I haven't pooped in five days and there's not much room left in here." I laughed. I knew I was lucky that she didn't provide more detail.

We ended up sitting together and splitting her dinner. I cut up her turkey into small, bite-size pieces since she had trouble pressing hard enough with her knife and fork. I offered to butter her roll for her, and she said, "No. There's no way I can eat that. Well, maybe just half."

We talked about which nurses she liked and which ones she reported to their bosses. We observed through her hospital room window the grey winter clouds moving swiftly across the sky. She told me, for the millionth time, why she prefers to drink decaf coffee in the evenings. We watched Jeopardy, one of her favorite shows.

It was one of the dearest times of my life.

The first time I was not afraid

Last Wednesday night I flew from San Francisco to WV. It had been a particularly rough couple of weeks and I was feeling very, very sorry for myself as big, hot teardrops ran down my cheeks and off my chin. It felt like there were deep dark pools of misery waiting for me on either coast and I was glad to be somewhere over the middle of the country for a change. I gazed out the plane window into the night sky and saw more stars than I'd ever seen at one time. Then our plane hit some particularly bad turbulence as we flew over a storm system in the midwest at about 4am.

This usually terrifies me.

Instead I threw myself back across my empty row of seats and told myself, "If this is it, I don't care. I'm ready. I hope this metal tube goes screaming toward the earth." All I needed to do was huff dramatically and place the back of my hand across my forehead.

I am awaiting the call about my Oscar nomination in the category of melodrama.

Change is fucking painful.

(Not that these are any particularly wise words.)

Has it really only been two weeks since that last posting? Wow. Shed a river of tears since then I have. I'm trying to collect them in buckets and find something more creative to do with them.

A wellspring of optimism

I am feeling better about my life than I have in a long time. It's funny, because everything is completely ambiguous and uncertain--I normally have a very difficult time with such things--but right now it's great. I am trying to embrace change. I have no idea where I'm going or where I'll end up. I have a general idea of the ends I seek, but the means are completely unclear.

Cannot, do not, will not, should not. (Why not?)

Talk about the elephant in the room.

The Tire Store of Truth

When I ride the 31 Balboa bus home in the evenings--which I do most weekday evenings--we pass a tire store in the Tenderloin (a not-so-great neighborhood) that I've come to think of as the "tire store of truth." It's not much to look at, even for a tire store, but they have a large sign in the corner of the parking lot. Every couple of months the letters of this sign are changed to make a new quote. Most of them strike me as bizarre quotes to find in such a dismal location, but it cheers me up every time I see one.

Three of the most recent quotes:

"Show me a sane man and I'll cure him." (Carl Jung)

"Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability." (George Bernard Shaw)

"If we saw ourselves in others there could not be war." (Unknown)

I always wait with anticipation to find out what the next quote will be. Someday I want to jump off the bus and go inside to find the person who takes this initiative. I want to know how he/she chooses the quotes, and whether they are open to suggestions for others. I think it could be taken to a whole new level.

Pejorative Jinx

I was inverted
I mean converted
I mean I don't understand

Mememememememe!

I went to www.thesurrealist.co.uk/slogan.cgi to find my slogan. I typed my name in the box and hit "sloganize" repeatedly to see what came up. Here are some candidates. Let me know what you think:

Lipsmackin' Thirstquenchin' Acetastin' Motivatin' Goodbuzzin' Cooltalkin' Highwalkin' Fastlivin' Evergivin' Coolfizzin' Amie.

Amie: The Other White Meat

I'd like to buy the world a Amie. (I wish they'd make some adjustments for when a/an is appropriate. It kind of bugs me.)

3-in-1 Protection for Your Amie

I liked the Amie so much, I bought the company.

We don't make Amie. We make Amie better.

Yo quiero Amie. (Awww....)

Leaves your Amie Minty not Mediciney. (Ewwww....)

Would you give someone your last Amie?

Hands that do dishes can be soft as your Amie.

(It seems like the first one was the best one. Acetastin'?)

The Green Beans That I Need

I have been eating very, very well for awhile now. I have been planning all of my meals carefully, doing lots of cooking ahead of time, and eating plenty of beans, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and turkey. I have been bringing my lunch every day except Tuesdays. On that day I need a treat to help me get through my long afternoon meeting, so that treat has been going to Portico's salad bar. I realize that a salad bar doesn't sound like much of a treat, but that's because you've never had the green beans they serve.

They are lovely: lightly sauteed in a little olive oil with garlic, parmesean cheese, and black pepper. Usually half of my take-out container is made up of green beans. I have come to look forward to these beans every week.

But, alas....today there were none. There were only boxes of raw beans that had just been unloaded from the truck--ostensibly from some green field in the central valley.

I felt confused. I planned on BEANS. What else do I eat? I made another lap around the salad bar and ended up sadly compensating with an extra dolma (not such a hardship--lemony lusciousness) and more kiwi and strawberries. While I was paying the lady who takes my money every week with a smile and an "Enjoy your lunch!," we mourned the lack of beans together.

I shouldn't complain too much. My lunch was still very good. But there better be some beans next week.

If only all my troubles were so simple...

Fun Piled on a Bun

(Don't feed me no bologna.)

It will be a great day when I have my own washer and dryer. At present, it is far off in the unforseeable future. I don't like it one bit.

I've had it with laundromats all these years. What with the constant quest for laundry quarters, the not finding out a washer isn't working until it's too late and you have to transfer your sticky, detergent-dripping clothes to another machine while lamenting the loss of the aforementioned precious quarters; the suspicious inspection of the machines for crayons, tissues, and leaky, inky pens that have been washed; the kids running through the joint screaming and crashing the metal carts into everything and everyone; the change machines that only like dollar bills that are at a medium stage of wear and tear; and, my personal favorite, not finding out your dryer didn't work until the cycle ends....it's enough to drive you to drink.

Tonight I decided it would be fun to spend my Saturday night at the laundromat. I managed to have some strange muscle spasm in my arm while carefully pouring bleach (why or why did I stop buying the "no splash" kind?) and poured it all over the machine and myself. (I am completely disinfected, now.)

True enough, I've had very colorful experiences in laundromats. There was the dingy little laundromat in the Bolton Hill neighborhood of Baltimore where the elderly Black ladies gathered around giggling and whispering as the male stripper hung up his delicates. There was the time in Richmond that I was so aggravated with the Jehovah's Witnesses that would come in and harass me with their little magazines while I sat on the table reading; the only way I could get them to stop trying to talk to me about God was to tell them I worshipped the devil. (I like to think my soul was prayed for that night.) Ahh...good times...

Gotta head back over--the dryers should be done in two minutes, Allah willing.

Swimming Etiquette

I like to swim.

I swim laps at my YMCA a couple times a week. It's one of the most enjoyable and relaxing things I do all week. I like the soothing, repetitive motions and the gurgling noises of my own bubbles in my ears.

I'm not a fast swimmer by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not a complete slouch, either.

My pool is divided into 5 lanes: 2 for "slow" swimmers, 2 for "medium" swimmers, and 1 center lane for "fast" swimmers. I know my place. I usually swim in the slow lanes, but once in awhile if I feel spunky enough I might move over to the medium lanes.

I try to time my swims when the fewest number of people tend to be using the pool, but it doesn't always work out. It's not that big a deal if it's crowded, though, because when you follow the "swimming etiquette" rules posted on the bulletin board, everybody can pretty much fit. These rules are very simple: if there are two people in the lane, you split the lane in half. If there are three or more, you "circle swim." (This is just what it sounds like--everyone swims in a circular direction around the lane so that you can always be swimming.)

Yesterday afternoon I was swimming along--minding my own business--and splitting the lane with a very nice, older Australian woman. A young girl comes along and joins us in our lane. Now normally you're supposed to talk to the other swimmers in the lane to ask if you can all circle, but no matter--the Australian lady and I just automatically switched to circle swimming to accomodate her.

This new girl bugged me a little off the bat because of her frilly little white eyelet bathing suit with little tassely flourishes all over it. (This is business, baby--we don't come here to pose on the side of the pool and tie our tassles. Leave the virginal farm-girl country bumpkin suit at home.) Once she started swimming she really began to piss me off.

I hate to be fucked with while I'm working out. I'm on a mission here and my time is valuable.

She was a much faster swimmer than the Australian lady and I, and she seemed intent on demonstrating this to us. While circle swimming she would quickly swim up directly behind us (the equivalent of tail-gating), huff dramatically at our slow speed, and then swim back to the wall to kill time while us lumbering sea turtles finished our lap. When she got bored with that game, she started passing us by swimming underneath of us as we were doing our laps.

Go to the faster fucking lanes, princess.

The last straw came when Laura Ashley decided she wanted to play chicken with me. I saw her swimming directly toward me in my half of the lane in the wrong direction. Unimpressed, I kept swimming forward waiting for her to pull one of her flashy little switchbacks. She kept swimming toward me.

I was thoroughly pissed off by now--not just at her, but that someone would ruin my peaceful Zen-like trance that I go into while swimming. I stopped swimming and stood up in the lane with my legs planted firmly and my hands on my hips.

(Oh! I must have been a mighty display of power in all my silicon-capped, goggled glory! Plus, I looked particularly bad-ass because I had some nasty track-mark-looking bruised areas all over the inside of my arms from getting some bloodwork done earlier in the week. All I needed was some fierce-looking biker tattoo and my image would have been complete.)

She ran directly into me, with her head smacking into my stomach and her arm smacking me on the shoulder. She looked up, pretending to be surprised and tugging on her tassels.

"Sorry, I didn't know you were there," she sputtered breathlessly.

(Yeah, right.)

"Do you know what 'circle swimming' means?" I asked, and then dramatically sashayed around her to finish my lap. (Okay, maybe it wasn't so dramatic. Everything is kind of in slow-motion in the water anyway.)

She left soon after, and the Australian lady and I swam companionably together for the next 40 minutes or so.

Humph.

(Don't even get me started on the "Russian Gliders" that swarm around you like piranahs at 11am.)

Wood legs and bow legs and no legs at all...

Struggling with eternal questions:

Why am I here? Why are any of us here, really? And where are we going? How will we get there? And what if we don't like it once we get to wherever that is? Can we come back? Will there be anything to come back to?

Why am I typing this?