"If you must put me in a box make sure it's a big box...."

When I tell you that I love you
Don't test my love
Accept my love
Don't test my love
'Cause maybe I don't love you all that much.

-Dan Bern, "Jerusalem"

"I've been looking so long at these pictures of you..."

I noticed something interesting in the picture below. If you click on it and enlarge it, you can see some of the kids' crafts along the top of the chalkboard. I *think* that the last owl on the right (just before the tear in the picture) says "AMIE" at the bottom of it. How cool is that!? I think I remember making both the owls and the black cats now that I see them.

Pictures of you

My friend Susan posted this picture of our preschool class last night on Facebook. My god, it was so strange seeing this particular group of faces again. The mists of memory are hazy. I am in the 3rd row, the 3rd from the end, in a pale pink dress with pigtails. (You can click on it to make it giant.) I remember feeling incredibly beautiful in that dress, and I wore it every chance I got. I still feel a sense of annoyance when I see the kid who hogged the best tricycle every day (back row, middle, red hair and shirt: Jeremy L.).

I remember the day Matt R. got his head stuck between two posts.

I remember the little green cots on which we took our naps.

I remember making crafts about Jesus, because it was held at a church.

I remember learning to climb to the top of the monkey bars on the playground outside.

I remember going to school in a dress without underwear, and my mom yelling at me because they had called her at work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another tidbit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tidbit

I hurled myself against the door in an effort to block anyone from coming into the bathroom, screaming, “No! Don’t make me go home!” The door knob jutted into my ribs as my body collided with the door, and I grunted with pain. I could hear my classmates calling for Miss Wilking. I knew from experience that someone would take pictures of my bruises, and briefly I wondered if I should tell them that I caused this one.

You do, you have, you are.

You take trips in your mind.

You get crushes on cities the way others do on people.

You've saved that card for years, hoping for someone to give it to.

You will never say those particular words to another living soul.

You write all over your walls. And body.

Your hands still remember. And they refuse to forget.

You're trying to walk a fine line.

You do it to comfort yourself.

You long to do something more constructive with tears.

You're looking for a way out.

You don't actually need to know.

You look up to her.

You're closer than you've ever been.

My nose isn't that big. (It looks nothing like me.)

There are days...

...like today when my sanity is fleeting and external forces don't make it any easier to hold onto.

I could use some serious huggage. There are none in sight; the horizon is expansive and empty.

A change in tone

For awhile, my mom had a habit of texting me with, "What r u doing?" This irritated the hell out of me.

I made a little game out of thinking up things to say to her in response to that--stuff like, "Chewing off my arm to try to escape from this bear trap," or "Belching the alphabet," or "Trying to find out who my baby daddy is." She never acknowledged my efforts.

Lately, her texts have changed. I think that since my grandpa died she must be feeling her mortality. Now she texts things like, "I love u so very much. Never doubt that," and "I miss u every single day."

If we were close, this would be one thing. We are not. And I am speechless when she sends these texts. I am without witty comebacks.

Self-imposed constraints

I'm trying to work up to writing memoir pieces about people who have been in my life since I was less than 10 years of age. This feels trickier to me because: 1) those earliest paths are so well-worn in my mind that they're easy to write about--they almost write themselves, and 2) I have no qualms writing about my parents and grandparents and my very earliest friends. It feels stickier, however, to write about people more recently in my life--especially given that I am submitting these pieces for publication and working up to a book. I'd love to talk to other memoir writers about how their subjects deal with showing up in their pieces.

I have one very emotional piece that I wrote about 2 1/2 years ago that I haven't had the courage to make public. Parts of it are so dark--and all of it is so personal--that I'm not sure I can bear it. I keep thinking I should just do it quick and get it over with. Like pulling off a band-aid. But then I remember that it's not just me that it has the power to hurt, and I stop.

Shades of panic

I think I may be the only person who can make a panic attack even more dramatic than it already is. About half the time I have them, like the one today, a contributor to my racing heart and shortness of breath and feeling of impending doom are my thoughts: There is no God! We're all alone! *I'm* all alone forever! We're all going to die absolutely alone! There is nothing else! What is the point?

Christ. I'm a bundle of good cheer and optimism.

Text message from my mother

Ok your mom is officially a biker's bitch. Lol

I am delicious.

Today I generously dipped into the special occasion, peony-scented body wash. I smell amazing!

A conversation with my mother long ago

I am 13 years old, and it is the summer before my 8th grade year. I'm sitting on the couching reading a book when my mom comes into the room.

Mom: Go outside and play.

Me: I'm too old to go outside and "play."

Mom: Then just go outside and do something.

Me: I'm reading.

Mom: Boys don't like girls that are too smart, you know.

Me: Then I don't like boys.

Mom: What are you, some kind of lesbian?

First lines

I did a fun little writing exercise where I came up with the first lines of stories. They may or may not develop into actual stories, but I really enjoyed doing this.

Being my mother’s daughter has resulted in acquired sleuthing skills over the years. There was always a need to figure out what really happened, as her take on the most mundane of events changed dramatically on a dime.

For much of my life I’ve felt the need to have a back-up plan.

My mother saved her happiness for other things.

I was a sorry girl the day my grandpa decided to talk to me about sex.

I picked up the crumbs of advice my uncles dropped like a hungry baby bird.

When I was little I took great pleasure in counting and ordering things. This included everything from books to records to boogers.

For Jennifer

I write stuff about all kinds of people in this here blog. I write about people who irritate me, make my day, help me, and make me think. I write about my mother. I write about evil stepfathers. I write about friends as well as past and future significant others. I write about loved ones who are leaving or whom have already left my life. I don’t think I write nearly enough about those who’ve made a long-lasting impact.

Jennifer is my sister. If you want to be technical about it, she’s my former stepsister, but I don’t think of her that way. She’s my sister.

My mom and her dad got married, and Jen and I first met when I was about 11 and she was about 8. We were nervous to meet. My mother filled my head with terrible things about her mother, and I imagine hers may have done the same. I expected her to be bratty and spoiled and snobby, but nothing could have been further from the truth. We hit it off immediately. Probably because we were both kind of odd girls—I like to think in a good way.

For the next several years Jen and I anxiously awaited each and every time she and her brother got to come and stay with my family, and when she arrived we were inseparable. We told each other all of our secrets and speculated about boobs and sex and periods. I taught her everything I knew which, in hindsight, wasn’t all that much. (Sorry, Jen.) We slept in the same bed and made up ridiculous songs and giggled about everything.

We spent our time in the most ridiculous and wonderful ways. We loved to lay on the floor of my bedroom and throw balled up socks and my ceiling fan and laugh uproariously as it batted them around the room. We ate ice cream cones in a bathtub full of hot water in our bathing suits. We made up songs about my family’s hamsters, Ralph and Julie (all three generations of Ralph and Julie). We jumped out of my bedroom window and snuck down to Maple Lake to go swimming. We made up homemade madlibs that were unfailing dirty for such inexperienced girls. She was around when I lost my virginity (terrible) and when I fell in love (wonderful). It is by no means a stretch to say that some of the happiest times in my young life were spent with Jennifer. She had unfettered access to my journal—an honor given to no one else before or since. She was the first REAL best friend I ever had.

We both hungered for fathers, and we both remember a night when we’d been drug to Interstate Speedway to watch races in which we had no interest. While standing in line to use the porta-potties, I bent forward to tie my shoe and got a whiff of the man standing in line in front of us. He smelled like clean laundry and soap. Nice. Strong. Safe. Like a dad. “Jen! Smell him! Smell his back!” I whispered urgently, nearly frantic for her to experience his smell before it was his turn to use the bathroom. Without thinking I was strange and without asking why, she immediately leaned forward and sniffed the back of his shirt with me. “Mmmm…he smells so good…” she whispered back. “Doesn’t he smell like a dad?” I asked. She heartily agreed, and for the next couple of moments we stood in line smelling this man. It was because she understood things like that that I loved her.

When our parents got divorced, Jen and I lost touch and it was very painful for us. We made a handful of phone calls and wrote a handful of emails to each other over the years, but otherwise had very little communication. One day in May of 2006, I was house-sitting in Berkeley when I got an email from her asking if she could come to San Francisco to visit. I was nearly beside myself and answered, “Yes, YES!” Two weeks later, she arrived.

I think we were both a little nervous. We didn’t really know to what extent the other had changed. We didn’t know if we’d still really like each other, let alone adore each other the way we once had. We spent the weekend holed up, talking and drinking and talking some more. One night at Trad’r Sam’s we got staggeringly drunk and laid in the middle of the sidewalk in front of my house, smoking cigarettes and laughing. It was like we’d always been. Except with alcohol and cigarettes.

I don’t get to see Jennifer anywhere near as often as I like to. She lives in DC now. She is beautiful and wonderful and intelligent and interesting and kind and accomplished and ridiculously funny. I am so proud she's my sister. I think of her more than she knows and love her dearly.

That’s really all I wanted to say.

"I have not had any sleep, so I ate Minithins to stay awake..."

"You crash your car right into me, there's two days that I didn't sleep... "

TCB

Can I just say how excited I am?

Here is a blown-up, blurry version of my business card with Jill's logo. Because she is a good friend (and cuh-razy) Jill only charged me the price of staying at my house and tour guide services when she comes to visit (which better be soon!). Jill owns Flyeye Design--check out her cool website here: www.flyeyedesign.com. Be sure to read about how she came up with her company's name when we were on a trip to Germany, Switzerland, and Austria in college in 1999.

My friend Lynn is also helping me out. She owns The Cat's Pajamas, a pajama company in Berkeley, CA. Lynn is kindly offering advice to this fledgling business girl on everything from making contacts with potential customers and contacts to getting a sellers' license to terminology.

Nannette also bought me the book Craft, Inc.: Turn Your Creative Hobby into a Business which is packed with helpful ideas and information. I devoured it immediately.

It's nice to have such amazing chicas around me!

The day I kept driving

For as long as I can remember, I have felt the need to have an escape plan from my life.

Recently, I was driving to work and I was immersed in my thoughts and music and I just kept going and going. Eventually there was a break in my reverie and I looked around and thought, Where am I? Where am I going? (Excellent questions, in general, as it turns out.) Nothing was familiar. I had bypassed my exit on the interstate and was heading south for parts unknown.

For a brief moment, I was free.

My mind swelled with the possibilities of where I would go and what I would call myself. Should I have a colorful past or keep it vague and mysterious? Should I make an attempt to let my family know I was alive or just fade into their memories? Where are the best beaches in Central and South America? Would I get the infamous Brazilian wax? Could I support myself by giving diving lessons? Could I learn to scuba dive in the first place? Would I eventually blend in with the locals? How far could I get?

I mentally calculated the amount of money in my bank account and, upon realizing I could only get about as far as San Jose, I sighed. And turned around.

(This was revised from an earlier piece.)

I wish that I was...

When I was about 5 years old, I was in love (as in love as it is possible for a 5 year old to be...especially since it was pretty one-sided) with Rick Springfield. The song "Jesse's Girl" was very popular at that time, and I would rock furiously on my rocking horse while listening to it on my little blue and white record player, only stopping long enough to place the needle back at the beginning of the 45' that I so cherished.

I would imagine what it was like to be Jesse's girl. In my head, she would be one of the girls with white teeth and shiny, billowing hair like the ones in the shampoo commercials. Her laugh came easily, and the sunlight glinted off of her natural highlights. I would rock on my horse and toss my hair casually the way I imagined Jesse's girl might, knowing that she was coveted and revered and envied.

I need some of that shampoo. I also seem to have had a strange fascination with girls in shampoo commercials most of my life. See here and here.