Missing

Let me begin by saying that if I owe you an email, phone call, visit, book, or anything else, please forgive me. I have been rather under the weather and everything has suffered.

On a related note: I have a lot of shit to do. The list is long and many of the tasks are daunting. But I am working on them.

First and foremost on the list is my mental health. I don't really know what or how much to say at this point. I will say that I have been considering and making phone calls to investigate a variety of options along the continuum, everything from a different psychiatrist to partial hospitalization to *gulp* possible full hospitalization for a period.

It is scary.

It is often overwhelming.

There is so much red tape and bureaucracy to get through, and it is so easy to feel frustrated and discouraged and hopeless.

Since I--for better or worse--am fairly open through this venue, in particular, many issues you may already be aware of: struggles with bipolar disorder (although there is some recent disagreement on this particular label), depression, anxiety, a job loss, a miscarriage, and some significant relationship challenges. There have been other events of which I've never spoken until the last couple of days. Not even to best friends or therapists or physicians.

I know now how fucking stupid my silence has been. And it has cost me a great deal.

I don't know at what point I crossed over from being the girl who took on things that scared her just to prove that she could do it to being this little, fearful person who is terrified of everything and everyone.

But I hate her.

I miss the little girl who was a scrapper. I miss the little girl who had holes in the knees of her jeans that she patched with scotch tape and wore them to school anyway. I miss the little girl who preferred to pee in the snow rather than going inside to use the bathroom so as not to miss a minute of sled-riding. I miss the little girl who chewed on the plastic handle fringes of her Big Wheel as she skidded around corners, dangerously close to traffic, and would race anyone who cared to challenger her.

I am trying to find her again.

By popular request: An update on bow-tie bank boy

A few folks have commented or written to ask for the follow-up story on the sweet man from the bank I mentioned in my last post. It had been nearly a month since my strange interaction with him, and I was pessimistic that he would still be a Wells Fargo employee.

As I took my place in line, I was surprised and pleased to see that he WAS, in fact, working that day. I noticed immediately that he was not sporting a bow-tie, but instead a regular tie. I was lucky enough to have him as a teller.

He never smiled once. He didn't ask me how I was doing. He was lethargic, and quietly took care of my transaction--none of the spunk or charm that had made me notice him before.

I wanted to tell him I understood. I wanted to whisper words of encouragement: "Don't let the man get you down!" But a person who appeared to be his supervisor was only a couple feet away, and I worried that I would cause him further trouble.

Admittedly, I was also afraid he would think I was hitting on him.

I walked away feeling a little sad. They've broken him!

Getting worse all the time

Recently, I was at the Wells Fargo at 19th Ave. and Geary Blvd. I stood in line trying to be patient and also to avoid looking at the little television that shows you what you look like standing in line at the goddamned bank. I hate those things.

When it was my turn, the teller who was helping me was a young guy who's been working there for awhile. He has always been friendly and has a penchant for smart little bow ties. On this day, he looked tired and his smile wasn't as big as usual. "How's your day going today?" he asked as he took care of my deposit.

"It's going okay," I responded, "how about yours?"

"Yeah, that's about it. Okay. But getting worse all the time." He smiled ruefully.

This caught me off guard and I wasn't quite sure how to respond. I kind of liked it, though. I have a special fondness for people who don't always give the run-of-the-mill "fine, thank you" answer. I commented on it to Ivan when I returned home.

A couple days later, a voicemail was left on my phone. It was a representative from Wells Fargo wanting to talk to me about my interaction with that particular teller on my visit to the bank.

Poor guy. When I go to the bank today, I have a feeling he won't be there.

Made out of loss

...Memory is what people are made out of. After skin and bone, I mean. And if memory is what people are made out of, then people are made out of loss. No wonder we value our possessions so much. And no wonder we crave firm answers, formulae, facts, and figures. All are attempts (feeble in the end) to preserve what's gone.

Bill Roorbach

I prefer the kind with traction.

I am so out of sorts, in fact, that the only worthwhile thing I have managed to accomplish today is the creation of this toilet paper tower behind my bathroom door. 20 rolls!

(I hate running out.)

The Big One may come tomorrow. The sewage system may be destroyed. But if I can somehow crawl out of the rubble to my bathroom, so help me god I WILL BE ABLE TO WIPE MY BUM IN COMFORT.

Out of sorts

**Warning: If you are one of those people who finds others' dreams boring, you might want to skip this entry.**

I feel incredibly bizarre today. I didn't sleep much last night and--while that is nothing terribly unique--today I felt like I just couldn't recover. My head is in a fog and I am moving in slow motion. I had all these things to accomplish today but by noon I was so exhausted that I knew nothing would ever get done if I didn't lay down and take a nap.

I dreamed I had invited Nannette, Amber, and Suzie over for dinner. I was making a beef stew, even though 2/3 of that crowd is vegetarian. Bob G. texted me and asked why he wasn't invited, and I texted back, "Come on over!"

As I started to chop vegetables, I was suddenly transported to my mother's kitchen. I looked around in confusion. The clock said they were supposed to arrive in an hour and I was already way behind schedule. I figured I'd just better get going and not worry about why I'd suddenly arrived at my mother's.

I quickly realized I didn't have half the ingredients I needed. Plus, I had no wine and nothing for dessert. What kind of hostess was I? I begged my mother to let me borrow her car to run to the store. She was doubtful. "I'm 34 years old!" I cried. "I can be trusted with the car to go to the grocery store!" She reluctantly handed over my keys and said that I could go if I took my brother Keith with me.

We ran to the car. I gave Keith--in childhood form--my grocery list. We hauled ass to the store, but the car would not park. "You have to leave it somewhere flat," my brother informed me, "or else it will roll away."

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" I snapped. "Why does she have this damn car?" But it was urgent. My friends were coming and I had nothing done. We dashed into the store and raced back home. When I arrived, I realized I'd only bought a potato and nothing else. I moaned in desperation. Everything felt so urgent. And nothing was going right.

Meanwhile my mom, who is not the most tech-oriented person in the world, was marveling at my smart phone and playing around with it. As I looked in the refrigerator for more ingredients, an Atlanta number called my phone. My mother handed it to me. A woman's voice said, "Amie? This is Jack-in-the-Box from Atlanta, Georgia. YOU HAVE JUST WON A $5,000 TRIP FOR TWO TO BAJA, MEXICO!"

I started laughing with glee! Holy hell, I could USE a fucking vacation! Then I realized that I don't even go to Jack-in-the-Box. And I hadn't been to Atlanta for years. I don't even think they have the damn things in Atlanta. Christ on a crutch! I thought. This is a dream! I haven't won anything.

With annoyance I slammed the phone shut and then realized: Everyone is coming to my house for dinner in SAN FRANCISCO. I am in WEST VIRGINIA. This will never work!

I tried to text them all that dinner was cancelled as the pot in which I was cooking my stew broke and everything started running down the stove. But my phone would not work right. My mom had messed it up. Every button I pushed led to the wrong function. I looked at that clock, and it was past time for them to arrive. I knew that Suzie and Amber were always late, but Nannette was probably there, waiting outside my door, wondering where I was. I had forgotten about Bob. (Sorry, Bob.)

I stood forlornly watching the sauce drip to the floor in long streaks down the oven, feeling like a failure and an unreliable friend. A text message from my mom woke me up: "What r u doing?" she asked.

Hell's bells.

The meditative cherry crisp: A photo essay

Baking helps me think more clearly. Something about the way the chemistry has to be precise--everything patiently measured, leveled off, rolled, kneaded--calms my brain and forces it to slow down.

Lately I have been seeing beautiful, sweet red cherries popping up at produce markets so I bought an assload* of them (*actual unit of measurement). I settled in to bake a cherry crisp with approximately half the assload I had purchased.

The cherries were ripe and lovely and stained my fingers with crimson juice. But I needed a glass of wine after pitting all the goddamned things.



I hadn't had the occasion to use my pastry blender for awhile. I happily pulled it out of the difficult silverware drawer and started to use it to cut the butter into the flour, oats, and brown sugar--all the while admiring that I *owned* a pastry blender--when the damn thing bit the dust and snapped in half.

Notice a significant portion of the wine had been drunk at this point.



Apparently, I have to add 'pastry blender' to the existing list of ladle and whisk as kitchen utensils to be purchased.

Due to the setback/technical failure, I found it easiest to get my hands in there and mix it together the old fashioned way. I didn't take a picture of that because I had poured another glass of wine and was temporarily over the picture-taking thing at that point.

But it did come out very nicely.



And it made me feel cozy.



In hindsight, I shouldn't have used the chipped bowl in the picture. But I love these delicately-shaded purple bowls and, well, fuck it.

Maybe only appreciated by gamers (thus, 0.0001% of my readers)

Ivan plays an online, fantasy, player-versus-player game (a MMORPG, to be more precise) called Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC). Admittedly and embarrasingly (because of my stereotypes about gamers) I've gotten into playing it in recent months, too.

Last night in the shower I was so furious with him for what he has done as I washed my still sore places that I was screaming at him in my mind. When I got out and dried off, I needed to do something.

I logged into his main character in DAoC, a known, templated, high realm-rank healer, Atreri, and went to the frontiers where other characters (or "toons") were getting ready to go off into the battlegrounds. I started going up to other people's toons and using the game's emoticons to make rude gestures at them, wave away their stench, and roll on the floor laghing at them. People started making rude gestures back and lots of them asked, "Dude, who the hell are you?" and "What the fuck is your problem?"

I finally announced in region chat that I was pissed off at my boyfriend and this was his toon so I was doing weird things with him. People found that amusing and one dude asked, "Hey, can I have his gear?" After that, all the toons around me started hugging me.

It was a weirdly touching moment.

On bruises that go away

I knew why he was a little less than crying. I knew very well, and I wanted to go to him and tell him that I had a little less than cried too, just like him....And look at me, Little Igor, the bruises go away, and so does how you hate, and so does the feeling that everything your receive in life is something you have earned.

Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer

It's amazing...

...the things that go through your mind when someone has their hands around your neck and is squeezing. For me, it was, "I do not want this television to be the last thing I see."

How socks have to be like

This morning when he emerged from getting dressed, I giggled at how Darius was wearing his socks rolled up in this fine fashion:




He glanced down and explained: "I saw this movie once. When I was little. Um, and a kid, um, had his socks like that. Rolled up. And, um, and that's how socks have to be like."

On Mothers' Day

And so it is Mothers' Day.

A couple of sweet and thoughtful friends have written in the last couple of days to check on me and to pre-emptively say they knew this day would be really hard for me. Strangely, it is no worse than any other. Maybe it's because I have never really gotten too excited about this "holiday." Maybe it's because I was still so new to the idea of thinking of myself as a mother. I don't know.

Today I will wake up with Ivan and Darius.

We will wipe away the crust from our eyes and brush our teeth.

We will drink coffee and milk, respectively, and I will make sure Darius ingests some sort of fruit along with his breakfast cereal.

Today we will admire yesterday's sidewalk chalk drawings (A volcano! That is erupting! Onto the playground! Next to the rainbow!) and re-visit the lopsided hopscotch board I created for surprisingly endless hours of entertainment on the part of Darius.

We will toast bread and eat the egg salad I prepared last night, and I will attempt to convince Darius that eggs are neither yucky nor smelly (even though I kind of think they are myself).

We will paint pictures and pick flowers, and we will send him home with gifts for his own mother for Mothers' Day.

Today I will open my bedroom drawer and check on my child's ashes in the terrible little white plastic box the funeral home returned her in.

And I will go on.

My house. Where difficult silverware goes to die.

When I was growing up, one of my main household duties was the nightly task of washing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen after dinner. God, I hated it.

My mother's silverware drawer was a constant annoyance to me. On one side, our spoons, forks, and knives sat neatly in their little trays. The rest of the drawer was a chaotic mess of other, less frequently used cooking- and eating-related utensils: vegetable peelers, spatulas, corn on the cob holders, and so on. I quickly termed this the "difficult silverware" because these items were hard to organize, often oversized, and seemed to require endless rooting through the drawer to find.

In my adulthood, I have tried to alleviate this problem by having a large ceramic container sitting on the counter that holds and provides easy access to all the larger items. I, too, have a mass of garlic presses, measuring spoons, fondue forks, and shish kebab sticks messily taking up space in the other half of my silverware drawer. But at least I have made some progress on the organization front. My mama didn't raise no dummy.

I have noticed that Ivan has very little interest in my personal system of silverware organization. (The same could be said for his position regarding my systems for washing dishes, arranging the medicine cabinet, cleaning the bathroom sink, and putting away groceries, but I suppose at the moment that is neither here nor there.) We share the task of washing dishes, but in recent weeks and months when I have not felt well he has cheerfully born the brunt of it (unless we played cards and placed bets on who had to wash the dishes and I lost--also neither here nor there).

Ivan's kryptonite is putting the clean dishes away. He hates it. He is brought to his knees. He will beg and plead and cajole me that he will wash the dishes if only I will put the clean dishes away. Some days this sounds like a reasonable request. Other days it does not. If left to his own devices, he will put away simple items like plates and bowls and cups. The rest he stacks randomly around the kitchen or else takes a wild guess as to where it might belong and stashes it there. On some level I find this amusing, but when I am in the middle of cooking and politely looking for an item ("Where in the hell is the mixing bowl?") it makes me crazy.

This is how the ladle and the whisk have disappeared.

Really, it could be so easy! They could be proudly sitting in the container on the counter, ready to be called to duty again. Instead, I root through drawers and cabinets complaining, "How far could the goddamned whisk have gotten?"

To which he replies, "Which one is the whisk again?"

They have both been missing for weeks, and to his annoyance I never miss an educational opportunity to remind him of their usefulness and to bemoan their unknown whereabouts whenever I can.

I think about them sometimes even when I am not cooking. I like to imagine they are now free from servitude and pursuing other, non-functional interests and talents they might have. I suppose they will turn up eventually. Maybe when I move out of this apartment. Or, sure as shit, as soon as I decide to replace them and buy new ones.




I call this one "Sans Ladle and Whisk."

Future tense

A: "Voy a preparar su ensalada en diez minutos."

(P.S. My Spanish RAWKS!)

(P.P.S. Is that right, Cindy?)

Spread

**A warning to my father--and everyone else, for that matter--that I discuss my hoo-hoo (and more) below**

Money is pretty tight these days, so it is a rare and wonderful treat to go in for waxing. Gone are the days when I went to the little Vietnamese salon down the street to see the lovely and always surprising Penny (read about examples of that here and here).

No, no. Once I got serious about the waxing of the vagina I started investing in a nice salon--one with bright lights and numbing spray and fancy purple wax. Stephanie is now my go-to girl for my hair removal needs.

I love Stephanie. She is also a lawyer who volunteers her time in the public defender's office. She is interesting to talk to, has an amazing memory for the random things I've told her, and makes the scary and potentially humiliating experience of a Brazilian bikini wax almost...enjoyable. This time, as with last time, I decided to really go for it--have her take it all off. No landing strips; there are no airplanes here. Get this shit OFF.

So yesterday Stephanie finished up the entire front area and was ready to work on the "back door" as she calls it. I took a sip from my glass of wine for strength and sustenance.

"Can you lay on your stomach and reach both hands back and spread your butt cheeks for me?"

I laughed nervously while getting into the requested position and said, "I am pretty sure no one has ever asked me to do this before."

"Well, at least now you know you can," she answered as she worked. "This way, if we're ever taken over by aliens and this is your only way to eat, you know you can do it."

What?

Without beginning or end

Sometimes it hits me unexpectedly. Like the other night when we were watching "The Office." We were laughing and I glanced over at Ivan's profile and thought, "We made a baby. We were going to have a baby." And then I crumple.

I really have to psych myself up to be around groups of people; sometimes I fail. I live in mortal fear of someone asking me about the miscarriage when I am not expecting it--when I am talking or smiling. It happened this weekend and, though I felt like I handled it okay, my anxiety returned full-force and I was on guard the rest of the afternoon.

I also have a great deal of trouble when friends write to ask how I am. I appreciate their concern. I have every intention of responding. I sit for long periods of time and try to think of how to answer. All I can come up with is, "Well, my baby's still dead and somewhere in my head I am constantly screaming. How are you?" I just don't know what else to say. I really don't.

A couple of folks have used this opportunity to deliver a little speech about what should be happening in my life when and if we decide to try to conceive again. Please spare me your lectures. I will try again when I am good and ready regardless of whether you think it is the right time for me.

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

Dear Glad,

I am writing to express my enjoyment of this product.

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

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

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

Sincerely,

Amie
A satisfied customer in San Francisco

I'm wide awake; it's morning

This morning while having my coffee and flipping through the TV channels, I became intrigued by the speaking style of female television minister Joyce Meyer. She has sort of a gruff, dykey, folksy, no-nosense kind of style--it's fascinating. Having just done my taxes last night, I was willing to listen. I was sort of rooting for her to convince me until she said this:

"You can't dwell every day on the sins you committed in the past. Jesus took them. You say, 'Oh, Lord, but when I was young I had that abortion.' Well, one day you'll meet that little baby in heaven and have good times together."

The peas for a second

I: Can we talk about the peas for a second? The ones we're having for dinner? With the chicken and mashies? The frozen peas? Let's actually cook that shit. Not microwave shit. Like, I'm talking BOILING. I'll be in charge of that.

For Beth R-C

I had just read your message on my phone while sitting outside. I sat back to think about how I would respond to you when I heard a flute being practiced from a nearby open window. This was an extreme beginner--his or her embouchure has a long way to go. I could hear the breathy shrills forced out of the instrument as the player strove for those upper register notes. I wondered wistfully what happened to my flute and thought vaguely about looking for a second-hand one to play around with. Then I had a random memory that I thought you would appreciate.

It was summer 1991--my freshman year of band camp. I was excited to be there, eager to please, and immensely terrified around everyone older than me. (And so titillated by the drumline! Mark A., Eli, Jeff P., Jeff B....) Mr. Christian assigned everyone to have "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" memorized by a specific date, and asked the section leaders to make sure this happened.

The afternoon before the memorization was supposed to occur, Jodie R. (with you as her assistant, I believe!) let us slide by having us flutes and piccolos play it together as a group rather than to go through the mortifying experience of playing it solo, one-by-one. I was so relieved, but somehow not moved to go home and practice.

The next afternoon while practicing our half-time show, Mr. Christian decided to test out the new, allegedly memorized "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." We stood in formation at the end of "El Tigre" and Christelle start counted us off. Andy W.'s trumpet solo was excellent and the drummers played well; most everyone else in the band faked the song and snuck covert looks at one another. I felt so guilty for not learning it, and prayed no one would notice ME above everyone else. Above the noise of the drumline directly behind me at the 50 yard line, the captain Stephen H. screamed at the other drummers, "CAN ANYBODY HEAR THE GODDAMNED BAND!?"

I froze in terror, my fingers still arched in position to play a random b-flat. They knew I didn't know the song! The entire drumline, 75% of whom I had a crush on, KNEW I WAS FAKING "BOOGIE WOOGIE BUGLE BOY"! FROM COMPANY C!

That night, I took home my sheet music and piccolo and learned the entire song. By bedtime I was playing it with gusto and relishing the trills. Mr. Christian cast the song aside in frustration, but I knew the song! Sometimes when I am anxious, I still flex through the fingerings in my mind.

I swear I could still play it if I picked up a flute.