3Liters Per Day

“Personal” by the musical group Stars Story by Valerie Robin

2010-09-13T18:42:00.000-07:00

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Susan,” she said, leaning back in her chair. It wasn’t a plush office chair or even a shabby office chair. The chair Caroline sat in when she was using her computer was just a rolling dining chair with arms. At least, it used to be a dining chair. She had axed the horrible rickety table the chair belonged to long ago. But she had kept this one chair, for just in case. Now she was leaning back in it, facing her desk built into the wall of her studio apartment.

“It’s time, Caroline. Don’t you think?” Susan got up from the tiny round table Caroline had wedged in the corner of her apartment. “Let me see the ad.”

“I don’t know if this is such a good idea.” Caroline’s face looked creased and worn. She tried to block the screen of her computer with her body. “Isn’t it only losers and weirdoes that meet people on the internet anyway?”

“Caroline…” Susan sounded impatient. “We’ve talked about this for weeks. You’ve got to get yourself out there. You’ve got to try and meet people.” She set herself down on one of the skinny wooden arms of Caroline’s chair. “Besides. You’re not meeting people on the internet. You’re just reading ads and replying to them. You’ll meet some nice guy for coffee or something. At a coffee shop.”

Caroline sighed. “Then what do I tell my friends? I met him at a coffee shop?”

“Why not? Now let me see.” Susan nudged Caroline over and peered into the screen Caroline had opened up.

Wanted Single F Under 33 - Must enjoy the sun - Must enjoy the sea Sought by Single M: Mrs. Destiny Send photo to address. Is it you and me?

“He sounds romantic,” Susan said, sliding off the arm of the chair and moving behind Caroline. “Are you going to reply?”

Caroline didn’t answer right away. She was still leaning back in her chair, but she was staring straight ahead. Blowing a few stray hairs out of her face with a puff of breath out of the corner of her mouth she finally answered: “I guess I don’t have anything to lose, right?”

“That’s right,” Susan answered, clapping her hands together once. “If he doesn’t like you, he’s probably a jerk anyway.”

Caroline didn’t respond, but leaned over her keyboard and started to slowly type.

Reply to Single M:
My name is Caroline - Cell phone number here: XXX-XXX-XXXX Call if you have the time  28 and bored. Grieving over loss. Sorry to be heavy, but heavy is the cost.

When she finished typing, she leaned back in her chair again so Susan could see what she had done.

“I like it,” Susan said. “It’s subtle. Clean.”

“Thank you.”

“Look, I have to get,” Susan said, walking back to the tiny round table and scooping up her rain coat. I’m meeting Brian for our date night and I don’t want to be late again. It’s probably still raining like crazy out there, which means the buses are probably running totally off schedule. I’ll probably end up having to take the Max all the way to the bar if the rain gets any worse…” Susan kept talking as she slipped on her coat. Caroline sat still, watching Susan slip one arm into her jacket sleeve, and then the other. She wished that she could still slip both of her hands into a jacket like that and began absently rubbing the stump at her elbow.

“Okay, Caroline,” Susan said, once she had pushed her feet into her sleek black pumps. “Let me know as soon as he responds, okay? Text me. I’ll call you from the bathroom if it’s tonight.”

Caroline nodded. He probably wouldn’t respond, but she didn’t say anything as she watched Susan open the door to let herself out. “Bye, Susan,” Caroline said as Susan waved and shut the door behind herself, escaping Caroline’s dismal studio and going out into the fresh, clean-smelling rain.

A day went by without a reply from Single M, but Caroline wasn’t surprised. She checked her personal email twice at the equipment rental office where she worked. Personal emails were forbidden, but the other two girls that worked in her part of the office used theirs constantly, so Caroline didn’t see the harm in checking hers twice.

On the second day, after Caroline had got home and settled in, she checked again and an email from the match service sat in her inbox.

You have one message in your lovebox, it simply said. To log on, please follow the link below.

Caroline clicked the link, her heart speeding up a little. She heard the water she had put on the stove begin to boil and thought that the boiling sounded a lot like how she felt. She ignored the water and opened the email.

Reply to Caroline:
Thanks so much for response. These things can be scary, not always what you want. How about a drink? The Saint Jude Club at noon. I’ll phone you first I guess - I hope I’ll see you soon.

Without stopping to brood on what she would say, Caroline hit the reply button and began to write. But the words that she was typing sounded much too eager and she quickly deleted them all. The whole thing seemed too easy. This guy didn’t even know what she looked like. He hadn’t seen the scars on her neck from the traction. He didn’t know that she was missing her left arm from below the elbow. He didn’t know that she screamed at night, waking herself up after dreaming of the accident.
Letting the mouse hover over the button to delete their entire interaction, Caroline thought about what her next move should be. It seemed like everything in the last two years was taking so much longer to recover from than when she was more… intact.
She decided to call Susan.

“Hey, Caroline!” Susan always sounded happy, even when she was upset.

“I got a reply,” Caroline said, managing to sound morose no matter what.

“Yeah? What did he say?”

Caroline read Susan the message and told her about her near mistake of an instant reply.

“Good move,” Susan said. She sounded out of breath and Caroline wondered what she could be doing to sound like that at almost seven o’clock at night on a weekday.

“Did you send him a photo?”

“I didn’t. Should I?”

“Of course you should. He asks for one in his ad, doesn’t he?”

“But which one should I send? I was thinking doing one before the accident. What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” Susan must have stopped whatever it was she was doing because her voice sounded more even. “Maybe you should be as honest as possible. What about those photos we took when we went on that Vegas trip last year? They’re fairly recent and we look like we’re having a lot of fun…” her voice trailed off and her breathing quickened again.

“You’re probably right.” Caroline knew which photo she would chose. It hid the fact that she had a short arm and you could barely see the scars on her neck. “Susan?” she asked as a follow up.

“Yeah?” Susan was definitely out of breath.

“What are you doing over there?"

“I’m kneading bread. Is it obvious?”

“Kind of,” Caroline smirked and imagined herself trying to knead something. “It just sounds like you’re having sex, or something.”

Thursday afternoon, Caroline came home a little early. Her arm had been bothering her from the constant rain, and she had made up some excuse about not feeling good. Her boss hadn’t made a fuss, and when she opened the door, she saw her cell phone on the table where she had forgotten it, the message light blinking.

Dropping her purse on the floor where she usually kicked off her shoes, Caroline dashed for her phone. Her coat was dripping all over the rug, but she didn’t care. No one left her voice messages. Everyone she knew these days texted her – especially when they knew she would be at work.

“You have one message,” the automated female voice told her.

“Hi… Caroline. I’m calling to follow up on our Saint Jude meeting. I got your photo attachment, but I couldn’t open it. Thanks for letting me know you couldn’t get out of work for a long lunch on a Tuesday. Your boss must be a real stickler.” The voice laughed a little. It was a low rumble that Caroline found buttery and attractive. “Anyway, I think Friday could definitely work. I’ll see you tomorrow.” The voice paused. “And could you send another photograph. So I know who I’m looking for?” The message stopped and the automated voice picked up again.

Caroline let the voice go, not sure she wanted to push seven to delete the message. The voice had sounded so masculine and confident. She decided to reply right away, before she even set water to boil for her evening coffee. He wanted to meet the next day. It was safe for her to reply hastily without seeming too eager; she was sure of it.

All but crashing down into her computer chair, Caroline logged onto her email and sent a reply:

I never got your name. I assume your 33. Your voice it sounded kind - I hope that you like me. When you see my face, I hope that you don’t laugh - I’m not a film star beauty - I sent a photograph - I hope that you don’t laugh.

She attached the photo again, this time in two formats, and hit send.

Fridays were usually pretty relaxed at work. Caroline had worked at the equipment rental company for five years, and they had helped her through her accident, giving her as much time off as she needed. Still, she was thankful that the girls were allowed to wear jeans on Fridays, and even take a two hour lunch, if they were willing to take the hour dock in pay.

Making sure to lock up her computer station, Caroline grabbed her coat and rushed out the front door at a quarter ‘til noon. She almost missed the bus heading downtown and landed in her seat tired and out of breath.

She took a table at the Saint Jude Club without thinking much about the location of the it in the bar, but decided to sit facing the door, so she could spot Single M, if he showed up. He had never sent her his picture, but he had seen hers, she was sure of it. They would figure it out eventually. Anyway, she was the only person in the room sitting alone. She was the only person in the room looking eager.

After about fifteen minutes of waiting, Caroline wondered if she looked too eager.
The waiter had come by three times already asking if she would prefer something above water.

“I’m meeting someone here,” Caroline had informed him, trying to hide her arm when the waiter glanced down at it.

The waiter came around a fourth time, and Caroline understood that he believed her stood up.

“I’ll gave a gin gimlet,” she said finally, hoping that the waiter would think her worldly and sophisticated. In truth, Caroline liked lime much better than gin. A gimlet was a good way to mask that musky tree flavor of the juniper berry.

The waiter came back with the drink, and Caroline sipped it, still looking around the room. Her stomach grumbled a little, but she ignored it. When her date arrived, they would order, and her stomach would quiet.

Once her cocktail was half gone, Caroline too began to believe she had been stood up. But then a man came in the door. He was dressed in a black vest and tie over a blue shirt, with neat black slacks that hung nicely just above the floor. His hair was cut short above his ears, but the top had been left long and styled in a careless manner that Caroline could only assume had been done on purpose. The man was looking around the room for someone. Caroline looked to one side and then the other, afraid to seem too obvious by looking behind herself.

She looked down at her own outfit. She had picked it out especially for this date. Foregoing the usual Friday jeans, she had chosen a skirt that stopped just above the knee and a blouse with ruffles to accentuate her breasts. She had decided to not wear a long sleeve shirt because she wanted to be outright with her arm.

The man in the vest looked directly at Caroline and she was sure it was him. She gave him a wide smile and looked down at her lap in what she hoped was a coy manner. But when she looked up, the man had turned away from her and was talking with the bartender. The two men exchanged a few words that Caroline couldn’t hear, and the man in the vest exited the bar, leaving Caroline alone with her drink.

She watched the rain splatter on the window of the bar for a while before finishing her gimlet in one large gulp and throwing down a ten dollar bill. She had no idea what the drink cost, but she was sure a ten would cover it. If not, she didn’t much care. The waiter had shamelessly stared at her arm anyway. And she had been stood up. The whole place could screw off, for all she cared.

Instead of going back to work, Caroline phoned her boss and told him that she was still not feeling good. “That cold is really hanging on,” she told him. “I don’t know how to kick the tail end of it.” Her boss responded kindly saying that there wasn’t much work anyway, and that she could finish it up on Monday.

When she got home, late because the rain was falling increasingly harder, Caroline opened her email. There were no messages from the matchmaking service. Nothing to say that Single M would be late, or unable to make it.

Caroline stared at her inbox, empty save for the latest flight deals to towns she had recently searched. Without even thinking of consulting Susan, she decided to write Single M a message – something that would make her feel like the whole thing was over. It would sound final. It would not sound desperate. Susan was right. He was probably a jerk anyway. After a few tries, Caroline finally typed out a message and hit send.

Note to Single M:
Why did you not show up? I waited for an hour - I finally gave up. I thought once that I saw you - I thought that you saw me. I guess we’ll never meet now. It wasn’t meant to be. I was sure you saw me. But it wasn’t meant to be.

Reading over the message that she couldn’t unsend, Caroline realized that she had, in fact, sounded a little desperate. She decided to call Susan and tell her what had happened.

Susan didn’t hesitate, but came over as soon as she could find someone to meet with her next client.

“I’m so sorry sweetie,” Susan said, her voice bleeding genuine remorse. “I didn’t know he would stand you up.”

“I don’t think he did stand me up. That’s just it, Sue.” Caroline had begun to cry as soon as Susan said she would head over. She hadn’t stopped except to blow her nose and put water on for the coffee. Now Susan was back in her tiny apartment, one of the two cups of coffee safe and warm in her hand.

“I told you he’s probably a jerk, didn’t I?”

“That’s not exactly what you said,” Caroline said through stuffed up sniffles. She was starting to feel like the weather outside had moved into her face and set up shop.

“I know, I know. But there are plenty of other men out there, you’ll see.” Susan put her hand on Caroline’s head and moved her fingers down through Caroline’s soft hair. “You just have to find the right one. One that’s not a jerk.”

“They’re probably all jerks,” Caroline said into a tissue.

“I bet they’re not. Let’s look and see who else is out there.” Susan went over to the computer and clicked the mouse a few times, her body blocking the screen.

It didn’t matter though. Caroline wasn’t about to look. She sat with her back firmly pressed up against her computer chair and let Susan look around in her matchmaker account.

Susan didn’t say anything for nearly a minute. She was busy trying to open folders that would contain the most recent posts for their area. Once the folder was successfully open, Susan clicked on the most recent post, dated only two hours before.

Wanted Single F Under 33 - Must enjoy the sun - Must enjoy the sea Sought by Single M: Nothing too heavy - Send photo to address. Is it you or me?

Gasping, Susan quickly closed the ad, and then she closed the whole window.

“You know what, Caroline?” she said, spinning around.

Caroline looked from her lap where she had been staring and up at Susan.

“You know what we need?” Susan tried to look enthusiastic and like she had nothing to hide.

“What?”

“Martinis, Caroline. Let’s go out and get martinis. Strong ones.”

Finding a Home

2010-08-23T16:29:00.000-07:00

In the interest of posting something completely out of character - I am posting a poem. It's from an exercise a new graduate student did in orientation today and I had so much fun with it, that I'm posting it all here for you to read!

Finding a Home

I am from an entire cabinet of spices.

From finding a home and paintings that look like something. I am from a full bookshelf, homemade taco shells, and Dan Simpson.

I have always heard, "Why wouldn't you do that?" and "The sun is trying to kill me."

I am from open beer cans, book pages, and fresh brewed coffee.

I am from the smell of sauteed onions and garlic and the smell of the first day it snows.

I recall the taste of Aloo Gobi, Guiness Beef Stew, an arsenal of cleaning supplies, and not getting so angry.

When I cook food, I smile and I sometimes need a tall person.

I will spend an entire day confident, happy and abrasive.

Erin Wahl inspires me to read, but sometimes I go walking!

To be a teacher means to lay on the couch in front of an open window and stare at the sky and that's finding a home.

Today I am Love Ridden, Tuscany, veggies as a side for everything and Halloween.

I predict that "Literature is an ax for the sea within us."

I am from renegade pens, two Master's Degrees and doing other people's dishes.

I am from an unused easel.

I am still finding a home.

An Entire Relationship in a Cup of Coffee

2010-08-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone! I've been writing a novel, so I haven't had much time to write anything new for this blog - sorry. I have been working on fun fiction prompts to clear my head from novel jumble though. So to give you something new to read, I'm posting one of them. The prompt I gave myself was "An Entire Relationship in a Cup of Coffee". And no, the main character is not me. Get over it.

Cheers!

An Entire Relationship in a Cup of Coffee

Ti didn’t mean to plunk down her coffee cup so hard it would cause the contents of the white porcelain to spill onto the saucer. She was often clumsy in this way, especially when there were a lot of people around. Instead of sitting down and ignoring with the mess like most people would have, Ti stood still and scanned the room for napkins.

Spotting the tell-tale silver box across the room, Ti rushed toward it head down. She knew that no one had noticed, and if they had, no one cared, but she hated when she made people look at her.

Last week, seven days ago exactly, Ti had tripped on a loose piece of carpet in the University library and fallen face-first into her armload of books. Fortunately, they had all landed flat beneath her and Ti had sustained no damage save two squished breasts and a bruised ego.

By the time she had returned to her booth, the only free spot in the entire brightly lit coffee shop, Ti realized that she had chosen the wrong side of it. At the booth next to hers, obscuring the gaudy red, white and blue upholstery, sat a beautiful young man. He was 1/3 through an impressively thick textbook, reading it like a novel. He sat facing her, his back to the drink case behind him. If they looked up at the same time, they would lock eyes and probably share several awkward moments.

Ti also noticed that the man had the same cup of coffee she did, though his liquid sat unadulterated. Hers was the same color as his skin: a creamy brown, almost pale in terms of shade, but still darker than her pinkish white.

Ti slid into the booth, adjusting the book bag she had tossed onto the solid blue bench just before her coffee mishap. Meticulously, Ti took out each book and arranged them on the table in the order she planned to consult them. She knew she would constantly need the atlas showing various maps of India, so she placed that book to her left, away from the others. The rest she stacked to her right: Pakistan 1947, Women of the Partition, India at War and The History of Daca. She would consult these before beginning her internet search – opposite from the way her classmates would be researching. But this way, she was sure to get the books she needed.

Reaching back, Ti patted her bun, making sure all her long red hairs were in place. She considered her hair to be red. Many people thought it brown, or blonde. But since no one she knew could agree, Ti decided her hair must be a strange kind of human calico. At any rate, all calicos are female, so Ti thought it rather fitting and continued to tell people it was red.

Once her books were arranged, her composition book open to a fresh page, two pens, a pencil and a highlighter laid out, Ti reached for her coffee. She brought it up to her face, reaching her lips out to sip, and froze. He was looking at her over the rim of his own white cup.

The Partition of 1947 disappeared from Ti’s mind so quickly, there was no way she could grab it out of the air and shove it back into her head where it belonged. Instead, her mind began to travel over maps she had just recently finished learning. He looked like he might have come from some vague Middle Eastern region. Jordan, maybe? Syria? No. He must be Lebonese, Ti decided. He was Lebonese, he knew how to cook all of her favorite breakfast foods, and his name was Ibrahim, a fact he would divulge as he approached her. Ibrahim had traveled to America when he was only four years old. His father had been an important man who had made some even more important men angry. As a result, Ibrahim, his three younger sisters, his mother and his aunt had all fled to America. And now there he was, sharing a cup of coffee with Ti, attending her university.

“You’re very beautiful,” he told Ti, sliding into the bench opposite her. Ibrahim rested his coffee and then his well-manicured hands, palms down, on the tabletop. He didn’t seem to care that Ti was staring at the hairs on the backs of his knuckles. He seemed so relaxed, so unafraid of the dangers of meeting other people. Not like Ti, who was afraid sometimes even to talk to the people she already knew.

“What is your name?” he asked, sliding his hands forward, closer to her clenched, nervous hands.

“Ti,” Ti said, feeling stupid. She hated her single syllable name and wished for a more feminine name like Lily, or Iris.

“Like the drink?”

“Kind of.” She could feel her face flush. She knew that her skin looked a lot like the inside of a strawberry when she blushed, but she couldn’t keep it from happening. She looked down at the two cups of coffee, unable to look Ibrahim in his handsome, slim face. She was afraid she would stare at his protruding cheek bones, his flat nose. She was afraid he would notice her eyes were golden – not a normal color for eyes.

Their two cups of coffee stared back at Ti like one black eye and one hazel. She wondered if they could tell how nervous she was. Ti decided to sip at hers to keep it from staring at her so intently.

After the first awkward moments went by, Ibrahim began to tell Ti about his life. He was studying Biology and Latin and volunteered at the Library. He loved coffee but was worried that he may be growing addicted to it. He loved his three sisters, who lived in a different state, and missed them very much, so he kept intently focused on his studies.

Ti wondered if there could be anything wrong with such a beautiful man. And then she got her answer: “I really want to specialize in entomology in grad school,” she heard Ibrahim say before the next awkward pause in their conversation.

“Entomology?” she said, the words falling to the table like spilled coffee. “Like bugs?” Ti hoped Ibrahim couldn’t detect the hint of disgust in her voice. She shivered involuntarily. That probably gave her away.

“Insects, yes.” His smile was dazzling. He thought this was funny. “I think maybe arachnids though. They’re so fascinating, don’t you think?”

Ti gulped audibly. She was terrified by spiders. So terrified that it bordered on paranoia. She refused to camp, in case of spiders, or other flying creatures that could crawl into her bodily orifices at night and lay eggs in her sinuses. Picnics were also out of the question. When her brother had caught a wolf spider in the 6th grade and kept it in a glass aquarium, Ti refused to go anywhere near his room until he got rid of it.

“You don’t like spiders.” It wasn’t a question. Ti’s face had been obvious. “It’s okay.” Ibrahim shrugged.

‘It could be worse,’ Ti thought. ‘He could be into… could it be worse?’

As she considered how best to respond to this horrible turn of events, Ibrahim slid his hands off the table. He shuffled briefly around in his jeans pocket and brought out a soft pack of cigarettes.

“You smoke?” he asked, offering up the pack to her.

“No.” Ti did not smoke. Her grandfather had died of emphysema and she was not about to follow him to the grave. “I don’t.” And she certainly could not go out with anyone who did. Not even someone as good looking and confident as Ibrahim.

Ibrahim shrugged again. “Suit yourself,” he said, sliding out of her booth, taking himself and his dark coffee out of her life.

“Excuse me, miss?” The sound of his actual voice broke through Ti’s imagination like an electric shock.

“Sorry?” Ti still had the porcelain cup up to her face, its contents down to nothing but a few drops.

“Are you using that last napkin?” he asked, pointing to Ti’s table. His voice was higher than she imagined it to be, the accent Spanish, not Arabic. “I had a little accident.”

Ti’s eyes cleared out of a space and time that had never existed and she realized that the man in the booth across from her was actually addressing her – in this reality. “Oh…” she said, surprised. “Of course.” Wondering how many times he had called out to her, how long she had been staring at him like an idiot, Ti slid out of her booth and passed him her single, unused napkin. She had been saving it against other coffee spills, but this wouldn’t matter anymore since her cup was empty.

“Thank you,” he said, looking at his lap, rather than her face.

“No problem,” Ti said, standing briefly still at his table for an empty moment, before ultimately returning to her own. The travel back to 1947 India was smooth and quick, the civil war in Daca went uninterrupted.

The next time Ti looked solidly up, the only thing looking back at her was a blonde pony tail on top of lightly freckled shoulders. The coffee cup in front of them was enormous and topped with a mound of whipped cream.

Magic Eraser

2010-07-01T14:38:00.000-07:00

St. Patrick’s Day happens exactly two weeks after my birthday, every year. Oddly, neither my birthday, nor St. Patrick’s day ever seem to move dates.

One thing that does move is… well… pretty much everything else.

Cast of Characters
Me – the ghost of Phoenix past
Anda – my best-friend and party hostess
Russell – the most Irish guy I know
The nameless girl with a Sharpie

The year I turned 30, my friends Anda and Russell decided to throw a St. Patrick’s Day party at their house. Russell owns a keg of home brew, can cook a mean Guinness Beef Stew, and is arguably the most Irish person I know, without actually being from Ireland. My favorite part about spending St. Patty’s Day with Anda and Russell is the absence of pinching. Though someone undoubtedly gets hurt when Anda, alcohol and I are concerned.

That year, I had given in to nostalgia and invited some old friends from when I lived in Phoenix. Anda and Russell still live in the Phoenix area, and for some reason that I no longer remember, I happened to be there that weekend too. I’m pretty sure that nostalgia is broken though, because our old boys – most of my old friends are male – had all brought girls we didn’t know. No longer were our friends dating each other. Now, friends had become strangers, and their girlfriends were foreign to us entirely.

One of the girls they brought urinated in the backyard that night. Anda yelled for like 10 straight minutes. It was like these girls were from another planet.

About three-quarters of the way through the party, one of these girls sat with me on Russell’s staircase, drawing. I have no idea whether or not she fancied herself an artist. All the things she told me that night, including her name, disappeared into my red plastic beer cup. So did my phone, unfortunately, but that isn’t at all important to this story. The girl sat drawing nonetheless – and not on paper.

“Your tattoo is so pretty,” I clearly remember her saying. The girl had a Sharpie in her hand – one of those Sharpies with the fat side and the fine side on opposite ends of the pen.

“Thank you,” I said, sitting very still so she could add to it. The size of my tattoo really depends on your definition of the word ‘big’. If we’re talking amount of space covered, the tattoo I bought myself for my 30th is my biggest. And it was getting bigger by the moment. Oddly enough – though not really at all – permanent markers aren’t very permanent. Neither are permanents you get in your hair, or permanent positions career-wise, since a person is likely to quit at any time. Neither are relationships with people you once thought you’d know forever. And I found out just how not-permanent a Sharpie really is when I leaned up against one of Russell’s nice white walls after the girl with no memorable name finished her work on me. It seems that skin oil is something of a Sharpie’s mortal enemy in the permanent department.

“Um… Russell?” I approached my friend sheepishly. He was sitting in his dining room, enjoying a beer and chatting with Anda. Somehow, I am always getting in trouble at Russell’s house. Like the time I invited a guy who stole a bottle of vodka from Russell’s liquor shelf. That was a lousy night. Or the time I made out with Anda’s brother in the bathroom and the only reason she didn’t kill me is because she didn’t want to go to jail.

“Yes, dear…” Russell knew I had done something. I was wondering if he and Anda had put down bets on how long it would take me to break, spill or put something bad in my mouth.

“I uh… I got permanent marker on your wall…” I showed him all my guilty teeth. Kind of the opposite of baring your teeth for the purpose of intimidating someone.

“You what?”

“I got this!” Anda said, jumping up off her seat at the round table in Russell’s quaint little dining room. “I just happen to have a Magic Eraser©!” Though she didn’t say the copy-write part.

“A what?” I followed her to the foot of the stairs, where she was inspecting the nameless girl’s work in reverse. Anda ran one of her fingers over my mess and assured me she could take care of it. She was very excited to have something to clean with her eraser. So excited that she decided that it could also clean my skin.

We found out quickly that this was a bad idea.

“Is it supposed to burn like that?” This is a question no one wants to hear under any circumstances – ever.

“Oh… um…” As my most confident friend, Anda sounding uncertain, scares me more than when something burns. “I think I erased your mole.”

“Is it bleeding?” The burning was getting worse now that she had stopped erasing.

“Russell! Get a Band-Aid! Okay, maybe more than one!”

I heard Russell say something you can’t repeat on television in the other room.

“I guess you’re not supposed to use the Magic Eraser© on skin.” I could hear Anda using her guilty teeth now. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

“It’s cool. Now we know.” Despite the burning, I realized this would be a great excuse to drink more beer. To dull the pain of being erased.

Anda apologized more as Russell searched for Band-Aids. She had grabbed a paper towel to sop up the blood and we sat on the stairs, waiting. “It’s fitting, you know?” she said, looking around the room at the people we used to know. Some of them were on the couch playing Guitar Hero, others were in the dining room doing shots, and a few were outside smoking.

“What’s fitting?” I asked, following Anda’s eyes.

“Getting erased.” She took a handful of Band-Aids from Russell and I assured him I would be fine. “Because…” she continued, “because we don’t even know these people anymore. And their weird girlfriends that pee in backyards. I mean there’s a toilet like 20 feet away.”

“I know, right?” I looked at the wall where it had been magically erased. Anda had done a good job. “I feel like a ghost when I come back here.”

“Like you’ve been erased?”

“Yeah. Kind of.”

“I know what you mean, and I haven’t even moved away.” Anda secured my skin with a few Band-Aids and apologized again for erasing me.

I returned to the party, bandaged and laughing. It was a good time. I had a few more beers, sucked royally at Guitar Hero, and made out with a stranger because he had a binary watch. By morning, all the people I don’t know, including the people I don’t even remember, were gone and I haven’t seen any of them since.

Except Anda and Russell. Because let’s face it – I need hook-ups if I ever need something magically erased.

New Jersey Turnpike

2010-06-10T12:03:00.000-07:00

Gordon’s job was to shuck and clean the clams for the 4th of July family barbeque at his parents’ house in Londonderry, New Hampshire. Unsure of what I was supposed to do with my body, I stood by the sink and listened to him tell me the importance of getting all the sand out of each clam. It didn’t seem to matter though. Wherever I stood, in the kitchen, in the dining room, on the patio, I was in the way.

Cast of Characters:
Me – my body mostly
Gordon – this guy I almost married once
His family – pretty cool people, considering

“I’d like to go with you,” I told Gordon on the phone. “I mean, if you want me too.” I was reaching. I wanted to spend more time with him. We had just started dating at the beginning of the semester and he was already leaving me by the end of it.

We weren’t breaking up – not exactly.

Gordon had just completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater. He’s not an actor – I could never date an actor. Gordon was a craftsman. He designed and built sets. I think he still does. I always thought of it as glorified carpentry, but I never told him that.

“I wouldn’t mind you coming,” he responded slowly. I could tell he was trying to make an important decision. When Gordon thinks, you can hear it.

I waited. He needed to think a lot longer than I did. I didn’t want to interrupt the gears turning. He wasn’t nearly as into spontaneity as I am. I used to think that was part of what made us a good couple.

“I’m just afraid you’d have to pee every ten seconds.” The sentence almost came out as a gasp. Like he’d been thinking about letting me tag along, but like my bladder was holding him back. “You pee so much – I’m not sure you could make it without me wanting to kill you.”

“Gordon…” I wound up for the ‘I’m not your crazy ex-girlfriend’ talk: “I’m not your crazy ex-girlfriend.”

“I know, I know,” he interrupted. “But you do pee a lot.” He emphasized the last two words.

He was right. I pee a lot. But I live in the driest place on Earth. I have to drink a lot of water. One thing leads to another and… “I know I pee a lot. But you’ve never traveled with me. I bet you I pee less than you on a road trip.”

“I doubt that,” he said laughing.

“I just…” I wasn’t sure how I wanted this to continue. I’m not an expert in vulnerability. “I just… I’m not ready to lose you.”

“Really?” His voice softened. I could hear him playing with something in the background. He gets fidgety when he’s nervous.

“Really.”

“This is pretty serious.”

“It is?” I’ve never really known what that means. I’ve only been in one or two ‘serious’ relationships. And I can’t even really tell you what that means.

“If you can make it all the way from Flag to New Hampshire and not piss me off completely,” he paused for what seemed a semester, “I’ll probably want to marry you.” – He had to say ‘piss’. I had to not comment on that.

“What?” I said instead. It was that short kind of ‘what’ that means the same as, ‘don’t be absurd’.

“I’m serious.” I could tell he was. And then he added, “If my mom likes you, of course.”

No pressure or anything, I thought.

“Oh and…” I heard his front door shut. He must have been walking to his car. “I’d need to be able to fit your luggage in the car. Do you think you could bring only a backpack?”

**

“How many miles?” Gordon asked, his voice sounding groggy. He had been sleeping for the last two hours of flat, Oklahoma wasteland.

“312,” I replied, looking at our odometer.

“How much gas do we have left?”

“Like a quarter tank.”

“Are you serious?” He sat up straight in his chair and almost knocked me clear out of the car window trying to get a good look at the reading. “You get better gas mileage than I do!”

“Ouch, dude, that’s my ear.” I rubbed the ear he had just shouted in. “I told you I know how to drive.” I made an exasperated sound at him. So many people assume I can’t drive because I chose not to own a car. So many people exist in a state of assumption. So many people are terrifyingly annoying.

“I know… But I didn’t think you could actually drive.” He emphasized ‘actually’. “Just because you can work the pedals doesn’t mean you can drive well.”

“I keep trying to tell you…”

“I think I’d marry you just for this,” he said, interrupting me and giving me the friend punch on the shoulder. “Even if my mother doesn’t like you.” He reached over and brushed a stray hair behind the ear he had shouted in only moments before.

“Thanks,” I said, squinting my eyes at him. “I think.”

“Can we stop at the biggest McDonald’s in the world, please?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Sure,” I said. “What’s it look like?”

“Like the biggest McDonald’s in the world.”

**

Two months later, I found myself standing in Gordon’s family’s swanky suburban home, watching Gordon shuck clams. I have never before seen a clam shucked, nor did I know the verb that accompanied such an activity. This 4th of July, I was about to learn two very important lessons: Clam shucking is serious business and too much butter can be very uncomfortable when it’s sitting inside your stomach, not going any place.

“Lemme see that ring again,” Gordon’s aunt said, grabbing my hand from the side of the enormous kitchen sink.

Everything in that house was enormous. The front door was a huge two door monstrosity. The kitchen was bigger than the whole bottom floor of my condo. The sink had not two, but three compartments. The backyard was over an acre, with a huge pool and a shed that I mistook for a guesthouse. It all made me feel like I had grown up in a trailer – which isn’t completely untrue.

Gordon’s aunt took my tiny circus-freak hand in her giant olive-picking hand. Gordon is Greek. Not Greek school, every word can be related back to Greek, all my kids are named Nick kind of Greek, but all the women in my family have enormous hands and noses kind of Greek.

“Oh Gordon,” his aunt said, shoving my hand over the sink at him. “It’s just adorable.” She put my ring back up to her face. “Adorable.”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about jewelry – at least jewelry with a market value – it’s that ‘adorable’ means ‘tiny’. ‘Adorable’ is not the kind of thing you want to hear from an aunt, or anyone you’re related to, for that matter. Especially not when it’s followed up by, “You know we could have helped you pay for something bigger…” The aunt was gripping my hand in hers. I felt like I was getting lost in there, but I kept a huge grin on my face, unsure what else to do.

“I know, Aunt Margie,” he said. “But I wanted to do it myself. And…” he gave me a knowing look. I’m still not sure what the ‘knowledge’ I was supposed to have was – but I made my best guess based on what he told his aunt: “This is just our starter ring.” Inner confusion set in on my part.

“That’s sweet, dear,” she replied, dragging me by the arm over to Gordon’s mom.

Starter ring? I thought. Is this like the time Gordon told me that getting a ‘B’ average looks better on a resume because it looks like you tried hard without sucking up? I filed ‘starter ring’ away in my ‘mystery logic’ file.

“Susan, did you see this adorable ring your son got his lovely new fiancé?” The aunt was dragging me over to the dining table, whether I liked it or not. At least in here, I wouldn’t get run over by the uncle in a walker. I’d have a place to put my body. Like in a chair.

“Are you mad that my family yanked on you all day?” Gordon asked me later.

“I’m mad that I ate all this butter without knowing it would hurt this much,” I admitted. We were in one of the enormous family rooms watching an old Vincent Price movie. I would mark this moment in my life as the exact date when I fell in love with Vincent Price.

“I’m sorry, honey,” he said, rubbing my swollen belly. If there’s one thing I can’t hide well, it’s my stomach. Generally, it’s a normal size – flatter than average – I have a two pack when I’m in shape. But when I have to pee, when I’m over full, or when I don’t feel good, it juts out like I’m the most pregnant human ever to have existed. One of my favorite games is to overeat and then go out for drinks. Stiff drinks. I get all sorts of horrifying stares as old ladies shake their silver heads at the pregnant girl downing a martini.

“Your sister warned me,” I said, moaning in buttered exasperation. “I should have listened to her. I’ve never eaten seafood like that before.” My memories flashed back to the image of Gordon’s round father pulling the first of the lobsters out of their backyard steamer. I was the color of a sun-bleached fire truck. One of those old-style ones you go to a museum to see. I had never seen a backyard steamer before and I wondered if the lobsters held claws in there as they met their bubbly demise. I had been very excited about the tub of melted butter in front of me. Now I look back on that butter with distrust and hurt feelings.

“I forgot you didn’t grow up with it, like we did.” He was smiling down at me, his black stubble glistening in the light of the Tiffany lamp. Vincent Price screamed something eloquent on the television.

“Your family is lovely,” I said, reaching up and pumicing my hand on his face. “So much nicer than my white trash family.”

“I know,” he said. “And they love you.”

“Even my tattoos?”

“Even those – though I don’t think anyone noticed.”

We sat and watched the movie for a while longer, Gordon getting up a few times to refill my water glass. It was the only thing I could battle the butter with. We tried the Alka-Seltzer to no effect. I felt like Violet Beauregarde, but with butter gum, instead of blueberry pie gum.

“Are you mad your ring is so small?” he asked, picking my hand up in his. I could tell he was proud of his decision. And it wasn’t bad. It was a small (without being tiny) solitaire on a white gold band. Classic, yet stylish. At least, that’s what they say in the commercials. And he didn’t have a job yet. I wasn’t about to complain.

“No, baby. Of course not.” Truth is, I was a little disappointed. Some of my girlfriends were also getting married, but their were rings were much larger. Granted, they were all marrying firefighters and real estate agents. And they weren’t moving across the country with a degree in German – a degree you can’t even pretend to get a full time job in. And they were, most of them, Scottsdale girls, much prettier than I am, with much higher aspirations in mates and much larger, albeit fake, breasts. Years after this story takes place, all those girls would also be divorced.

“I bought it because the clarity is really nice. I think that’s more important than size.”

“It’s a good size,” I said, trying not to laugh.

“Shut up,” he gave my head a light shove. “I’m sorry I proposed to you on the New Jersey Turnpike.”

I sat up so I could look at him. My stomach protested but I ignored it. “Go on…”

“I meant to wait until we got here, but I got so excited.” I could see guilt/excitement spreading across his retinas. It was the same kind of look I imagine you get after hurting someone you really hate, only different. “I was going to take you on a walk in the woods behind our house and propose to you out there…”

I can’t say I didn’t feel disappointed. I did.

This was the second time I had come to Londonderry to visit – the second time I had met his immediate family. The second time he had talked to me about marriage.

I had flown into the Newark airport a day before the 4th of July, which it’s safe to assume is usually the 3rd of July. I had bought the ticket to Newark because Gordon had explained to me, as many times as I could handle, that Boston was too difficult to drive through. Gordon refused to take me to Boston. I never figured out why. I still haven’t been there.

I hadn’t seen him since I had flown home from his family’s house back in May, and I was shaking with excitement. Skype didn’t exist back then, so I hadn’t seen his stubbly face and Red Sox baseball cap in over a month.

At some point, as we were driving up the New Jersey Turnpike, Gordon decided to pull into a rest stop. I thought this was odd, since he never hit a rest stop without asking – not even these Super Rest Stops they have on the East Coast. These things are amazing. They are practically mini-malls, equipped with fast food and little shops, and huge bathrooms. Despite the way everything is crammed together in New England, I am continually flabbergasted at the enormity of everything there.

Gordon jumped out of the car, locking me in with the auto locks. Then he did something he’s never done before: he ran to my side and opened the door for me.

I watched him like he was moving in slow motion.

When he had the door propped all the way open, he kneeled beside my seat. I was still wearing my seatbelt.

“What are you doing?” I asked, fear in my voice. I wasn’t sure what I should do. Should I unstrap my seatbelt? Should I stand up? I would have to shove him out of the way to stand up. Should I stop the ring box coming out of his pocket so I didn’t have to tell everyone that he proposed to me at a rest stop on the New Jersey turnpike while I was still sitting in the car?

But the ring was out. Tomorrow, Gordon’s aunt Margie would be right. The ring was adorable.

“Will you marry me?” Gordon asked, the box open, the solitaire glinting in the sun.

I looked at him, blinking. How do you answer the worst proposal ever? This was not how my marriage proposal was supposed to go down.

Every little girl knows that there are supposed to be hats involved in a marriage proposal. And confetti. And probably a trumpet. Heck, even a frog with a ring around its neck. A cake. A candle SOMETHING that does not now, and will never, involve a seat belt. Unless that seatbelt happens to be in an airplane and we are jumping out of it over the coast of Hawaii, or Fiji, or Eloy, Arizona. Anything – anything but the New Jersey Turnpike Rest Stop number who cares.

“Fine.” It was a curt ‘fine’, but a ‘fine’, nonetheless.

“Fine?” he asked. Now he was the one who looked scared.

I’m not sure if it was the nature of my answer, or if it was my arms crossed firmly over my seatbelt. My expression must have been somewhat sour. I wasn’t looking directly at him.

“So you’ll marry me?”

“Yes.” My eyes rolled. My voice betraying mild exasperation.

“Good! I have to pee.” He stood up and waited for me to unstrap myself from the car.

Grinning like the idiot I clearly thought he was, he slid the ring on my finger. It fit.

“I know it’s kind of small, but the clarity is amazing,” he said.

I softened. I was going to have to tell people about this for the rest of my life. I might as well make the best of it. “Thank you,” I said, kissing him.

“She’s going to marry me!” he yelled to the older couple walking past our car.

“Congratulations!” the man yelled back. I waved.

**

Looking back – I can safely say it was all wrong.

I didn’t love Gordon.

I know because I wouldn’t have cared how he asked me to marry him. I know because I would have been happy with no ring at all. I know because he hid in our closet in Allentown, Pennsylvania, for three straight days when I told him I wasn’t sure we were doing the right thing.

I know because a year after we called it all off, I made a list of all the things I did not want in a man. Most of those things are still on that list:

No Passive-Agressivity
When he gets upset, he WILL NOT hide in a closet
He will not make up ridiculous excuses to sugar-coat his own faults
When I ask to see the Atlan\tic Ocean, he will not drive by it at 45 miles per hour and point out the window saying, “there it is”
He will not be intimidated by the fact that I might be smarter than him
He will not take my comic book recommendations and tell our friends he’s been reading those titles for years
He will never, never, never, never say the following phrases: “Of course she’ll change her mind. Every woman wants kids. She’s just immature,” and “Not everyone can be perfect like you…”
He will not mistake my unhappiness with the novel I’m reading with him needing to ‘fix’ me in some way
He will not insist on fixing me of all unhappiness
He will not feel the need to ‘save’ me because I had a crazy childhood
If he assumes that I’ll ‘settle down and quit drinking so much,’ he’s got another thing coming
No compartmentalization – this means that he will not get angry when I start making friends with his co-workers because, “those are MY friends”

But don’t get me wrong – Gordon was not the only one in the wrong that summer holiday season. I learned a few new things too:

I will not pressure some silly man into something he’s not ready for.
I will make sure the next guy who wants to attempt to tame me is aware that I’m VERY serious about the two following statements: “I do not want kids now, or ever,” and “If you ever want a divorce, your only way out is going to involve a space where you can hide my body.”
I will never listen to my mother on any accounts involving marriage or wedding planning.
I will not give a shit about how long we’ve been dating, what size the ring is, or how he proposed. Nor will I give a shit about the nature of the wedding we’re supposed to be planning, or how expensive, or inexpensive it is, or isn’t. If it’s time – it’s time.
I will listen to my friends when they say, “That guy? Are you sure? He looks kinda like he needs a few hundred sandwiches.”

I was looking at old photos the other day. One of Gordon came up. I never noticed it before, but it looks like the butter may have got to him – asphyxiated him in some way. I mean, I remember the boy being skinny, but this was ridiculous.

I have a photo of him playing with our new vacuum cleaner that we got as an engagement gift. He’s holding the nozzle up in the air and pretend wrestling with it, like it’s a snake or something. I used to think he was so good looking: classically New England with his baseball cap, wool sweaters, penchant for scarves, his Pumas and pressed jeans. But in this picture, he looked sallow, drawn, and kind of blue. Like he had been suffocated somehow.

I don’t know if was the butter, the closet – or me. In the end, I don’t care. I’m just glad it never went off, ‘cause I don’t know any good places in Allentown where you can hide a body with an adorable buttered ring in its mouth.

White Trash New Year

2010-06-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

It’s been over two years since I beat up Sarah. I still remember the fear in her eyes at the ease with which I lay her on her back and pushed my thumb into her windpipe. She turned a brilliant purple – the color of irises near the end of spring. And I remember, though hazily, that it began over some vague relationship to kissing, on her part, and a decided lack of kissing on mine.

Cast of Characters
Sarah – let’s not say more than a name
Dan – my infamous brother
The Craziest Ex-Boyfriend in the Collection – it’s better not to name this one
Me

It was February Somethingth when Sarah jumped on my back from behind. I knew she was coming at me because I could hear her heavy footsteps in the snow. I was running because I was engaged in escape attempt number one. I had, seconds before, been trapped in the carriage house where my crazy ex-boyfriend lived (still lives). There was still snow on the ground, and we had been drinking – heavily. I know that my memory of it isn’t anywhere near accurate, but I had convinced myself by the time that I heard Sarah running at me from behind, that I had been trapped in this dank, dark, nearly windowless carriage house against my will. Sarah had just been dumped by yet another man, and was attempting to get me to cheat on my current boyfriend with the craziest of all my ex-boyfriends.

The only part I vividly remember before this moment in the snowy alleyway, is what led up to my escape attempt. My head had begun to clear a little when Sarah started yelling at me. I can’t remember what the yelling was about, but I know that we had been walking from the Monte Vista Lounge to the alleyway house behind the Cherry street church. And I know that I wanted to be anywhere but in the alleyway, where the carriage house was located. I had been carried, against my will, through the door of the tiny residence. And when it came to strangling my way out, my crazy ex-boyfriend watched with a mix of delight and fear on his large face. I remain uncertain whether he was afraid for me, or for Sarah’s windpipe. Probably both. When I tore my way out of the carriage house and ran staggeringly down the alleyway, the wrong way now that I think about it, I heard someone running at me from behind. Instead of looking, like a normal, person might have, I waited for her body collide into mine. Sarah is quite possibly the singularly most ungraceful person I have yet to meet. When I felt her weight on my back, I bent slightly over, reached behind my right shoulder, and helped her over it and onto her back, yet again, in front of my person, in the snow. I’m not sure why I was so angry at this point. I assume it was the feeling of being trapped. Perhaps it was the idea that I may not get the opportunity to lay hands on Sarah again. I had wanted to strike Sarah for over a year. I didn’t respect her. I didn’t want her around anymore. This was my best excuse. If this relationship was going to go out, it wasn’t going to go out without a fight.

As her body landed in the snow, face up, I dropped to my knees above it. And even though I don’t think of myself as an animal, I have an odd animalistic tendency to show all my teeth when I feel threatened. It’s sort of like a smile – but not at all.

I showed my teeth, and began to hit her. But it wasn’t the kind of hitting you might expect. Later, when we rehashed the night on the phone, deciding to part ways, she told me I was out of control and she had feared for her life. In reality – and I remember this clearly because there’s nothing to sober a person up better than a wicked shot of adrenaline – I had been uncannily afraid that I would injure her. She’s so small and delicate. The rubbery skin of her face shows terror so clearly. I had already gently lay her on the floor of the carriage house and given her a good scare. She hadn’t even fought back, poor thing. I’m certain she had no idea how to.

So when I landed on my knees in the snow, with her under me – I decided not to hit her full on. Instead, I used the tips of my index and middle fingers to snap her skin. I knew it would sting like a punch, but I knew it would bruise much less. And I knew it wouldn’t hurt her – not in the end.

I stung her under the eye, and on the tips of her cheek bones. I probably got about three or four good stings in, and one good cup slap for good measure, before the craziest ex-boyfriend in the world pulled me off of her. Apparently, he also thought I had gone over the top. Yet more proof that no one ever pays attention to what I’m really up to.

In the end, none of this really matters – not two years and some months after the fact. What really matters – is why: Why did it get this far? Why did I let myself get far enough in a relationship with another woman that I would sting her this way? Every American knows that men in heterosexual relationships can fight and still be friends – but women certainly cannot. You cannot whip-snap your girlfriend in the eye and not expect her to act like a complete bitch to you afterward. Even if she disserved every second of it.

I hit Sarah, not only because she trapped me in the carriage house, but also because she kissed my brother on New Year’s. And then she lied about it.

Dan had come to visit Arizona for the first time since he left in his early twenties. I didn’t expect him to ever come back. Dan hates Arizona - hates it.

The only person I know who can hate more passionately than I can, is Dan.

I don’t know what got into him that year, but he decided to take a train from Portland, Oregon, where he lives, to Flagstaff, where I live. It was Christmas and he wanted to see some people, so it kind of makes sense, but I’m still unsure about why he decided to come. Maybe he just wanted to get away. He had been fighting with his girlfriend – maybe that was it.

At any rate, he was staying at my house. And despite some altitude-drinking issues, was having a relatively good time. He and my friend Sarah were getting along well – light flirting, nothing serious.

“Don’t make out with my brother,” I found myself saying to her, when I realized that my brother may, at some point, take advantage of her. Sarah was never very bright, and boys didn’t like her the same way they like me. I didn’t want my brother to do to Sarah what I do to boys. We tend to operate similarly on all fronts, so I thought a warning was necessary.

“I won’t,” she assured me. “It’s kind of creepy how similar you are,” she added. This is a phrase I have heard several times from relatively unrelated sources.

I nodded, showing I understood.

“I’d kind of feel like I was making out with you, I think,” she finished up, smiling awkwardly at me.

I had heard this before too. A former friend of mine had fallen for my brother a few years back and informed me that, where things to go south with the two of them, she wouldn’t be able to remain friends with me.

“You’re just too similar,” she had confided.

And it’s true. We’ve been telling people we’re twins for a long time. We gesture the same. We even cuss the same.

“Good,” I told Sarah. “Because if you make out with my brother,” I paused for what I assumed to be threatening emphasis, “I’ll kick your ass.”

I had no idea, at that moment, that I was serious – would be serious – in a couple of months.

When I lost Dan and Sarah at the New Year’s party in downtown Flagstaff, I thought something night be amiss. The enormous glowing New Year’s pinecone had dropped, my flask was empty, and I couldn’t find my brother. Normally, I wouldn’t worry, but he had passed out almost every consecutive night due to a mix of altitude and heavy drinking, and I wanted to make sure he hadn’t been stepped on by some brainless Phoenician.

In the end, everyone turned up accounted for, and we sent my brother off on the train back to Portland a few days later. Sitting in the train station between my Dan and Sarah, I realized that something was going on that I was not a party to.

I waited for him to go to the bathroom before I said anything.

“Did you kiss my brother on New Year’s?” I asked Sarah, trying to sound innocent. I didn’t want her to think I would really kick her ass. At that point, don’t think I would have.

“What?” Her voice sounded high-pitched – a good sign that she was lying. I let her continue: “Of course not. I wouldn’t do that when you told me not to.”

“Cool,” was all I said. I could see my brother returning, Sarah’s slack mouth still hanging open. I always hated her for having, what I call, rubber face. Her face always looked like someone had stretched it in a taffy-puller, and then put it back on her head.

I didn’t ask again and we sent Dan off on his train and returned to normal life.

A week later, Dan called to let me know he had arrived home safely.

“Hey,” I started, segueing into my question. “Did you make out with Sarah while you were here?”

“Yeah,” he told me, having no knowledge of my threats to slack-face. “She’s pretty cute. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because she’s really stupid,” I answered matter of factly. “You should really screen people before you put your mouth on them.”

“But she’s your friend…” He sounded confused.

“I know, but I’ve never figured out why,” I admitted. I doubt it was the first time I had admitted this. I talked a lot of shit in those days. “I kind of hate her.”

“Then you should probably kick that shit,” he said. “Anyway, I’m never going to see her again. Plus, I was mad cause my girlfriend slept with her ex-boyfriend while she was home for Christmas.”

“Snap,” I said, for lack of anything better to say. It should have made feel better, my brother kissing Sarah for something like vengeance – but it didn’t. And when I was slamming her head into the wall of the carriage house later that February night, it felt good. Like setting down a heavy bag.

I’ve learned a few things since then:

Never make friends with someone out of pity.
Never befriend someone because no one else will.
Never befriend someone you wouldn’t be proud to let your brother smooch.
Never get so drunk in public that you want to smack a bitch.
Never let that bitch drag you ANYWHERE in the vicinity of your crazy ex-boyfriend.
Never ever ever hang out with your crazy ex-boyfriend, drunk or otherwise.
Never flip someone smaller over your shoulder so you can continue hitting her, when your best plan is to outrun her and get the heck out of there.

A week after the incident, I called Dan and told him what I had done. “Are you disappointed in me?” I asked.

“Nah,” I could almost hear him shrugging. “She probably deserved it. She was kind of stupid.”

I knew he’d understand. He always does.

Sugar-Free

2010-05-21T14:14:00.000-07:00

I don’t remember Halloween being an issue before I turned 8. I thought of it in much the same way as I thought of door-to-door salesmen, or Jehovah’s Witnesses: an annoying event that involved strangers knocking on our door.

When a member of the Watchtower was fortunate enough to approach our little green door on Huntington Street, my father would shut off all the lights in the house, including any porch light that might have been on right over the intruder's head – and we would hide in the living room. I was a pretty small kid back then and could easily flatten myself down, underneath our black hardwood coffee table. This was often also my hiding place during games of hide-n-seek, or when an undesirable came knocking at the door.

“Get Down!” my father would yell, like Arnold Schwarzenegger in, probably every movie he has ever starred in. And dad would motion us down to the floor with his hands. It was a game for us – one that didn’t seem at all strange at the time. I often wanted to peek out the window to watch the people outside shift from foot to foot. And to see what they were wearing, but I was never allowed. That was against the rules. Now that I look back though, I realize that we never played this game when my mother was home.

Except on Halloween.

On Halloween, the entire family played the hiding game, starting when the sun went down, and ending once my father had cased the neighborhood for any renegade ghosts, or pirates.

It seems illogical that we didn’t just close up the house and go out, or hang out in the backyard, away from the front of the house. There was plenty to do in our backyard. But it was the only time in my life I remember being able to lay completely still, in the dark, for hours. Except when I was asleep. I’m pretty sure though, that I lay much more still and quiet on Halloween than I ever did in my own bed.

Cast of Characters
Me
My Mother – after the divorce
My Brother, Dan
The Harvest Festival at the Church
One large jar of candy

I asked my mother once why we didn’t celebrate Halloween. It was around the time in my life where I was beginning to realize that I didn’t have what other kids had. My brother and I certainly weren’t allowed the same freedoms as other kids. I was 26 years old when I had my first Twinkie, for example.

Among our missing freedoms were –
Any show on cable
Earrings
Horror films
Books about witchcraft or wizardry
Films with sex or nudity
Two piece swimsuits
Sugar or unnatural sweeteners
Make-up (this was not a problem for Dan)
Halloween

“Why don’t we celebrate Halloween, Mom?” I remember sitting on the closed toilet after a bath, getting my hair combed out. It was a process because I have always had very long hair.

“Because All Hallows Eve is the day the Devil comes out and walks the Earth.” She said this as if it were a fact the same way that ‘eating glue will not increase your intelligence or social aptitude’ was a fact we learned in school.

And I couldn’t argue with that. I had see the movie ‘Legend’. I knew that Tim Curry, or at least someone very like him was definitely going to be out having as much fun on Halloween as possible. And I didn’t exactly picture Mr. Curry as the toilet papering type. I had also peeled dried glue from my palms like skin and gotten verbal abuse from other kids at school for it.

“What does he do?” I asked, trying to keep my head steady as Mom yanked at my strands.

“He gets into the minds and hearts of young children and women and makes them do unspeakable acts.”

This didn’t sound like a particularly unreasonable argument to me. I knew what ‘trick or treat’ really meant. I spent Sundays and Wednesdays at church and was working my way through Bible study and attending a seminar on the evils of Rock n’ Roll. I had seen Ozzy Osbourne bite the head off of a bat – and I was sure the Devil was probably out there biting heads off much larger animals – like cats, or babies.

While my mother was working away at the rats in my hair, I was picturing Ozzy on a Big Wheel with Tim Curry as the Devil being pulled behind it in a little red wagon, animal parts dangling bloody from ropes from the sides, a naked woman with huge flapping breasts in his lap. This was the kind of unspeakable vision my head was producing. I wasn’t about to discuss it with my mom. I wasn’t a stupid kid – I knew that soap didn’t taste good.

“Can I dress up as Pippy Longstockings for Harvest Festival this year?” I asked, tolerating the hard part of the hair yanking – when my lower hair is brushed out and my mom is tackling my scalp. I was trying to make my voice sound like I hadn’t just imagined the Devil with a naked lady.

“Of course,” my mom launced quickly into the planning for Harvest Festival and how much pipe cleaner we would need to keep my braids up. “…and I think your brother wants to be Samson.”

I knew Dan didn’t want to be Samson. Dan wanted to be a ninja or a wrestler. But we weren’t allowed to dress up in regular Halloween costumes for Harvest. Our outfits had to either be Bible characters, or toys. My mom missed that in letting me dress as Pippy, but no one else at church would notice, so I wasn’t about to say anything. Anyway, Dan had been a soldier the year before, so it was my turn to break some rules.

“Harvest Festival is going to be great this year,” Mom told me. “Have you heard that we’re trying to get the band DC Talk?”

I had heard. All the kids in youth group were extremely excited. But I hated church music – especially music that sounded secular, even though the lyrics were really about Jesus, or being wholesome. It was like sugar-free candy, which subsequently, was the only candy Dan and I were regularly allowed. Except when we got regular candy at Harvest Festival.

Except for the ‘real’ candy part, Harvest Festival was about as sugar-free as you could get. It was a huge event, put on every year by the church, on Halloween. It was held in the Spanish sanctuary and the parking lots, which were closed off by rented chain link fence so the little kids couldn’t wander off. And so the patrons had to pay a small entrance fee and donate a can of food to the homeless. The fee went to pay for the festival itself – a fact I learned because my mother worked at the church and helped organize much of the event.

In truth, Harvest Festival was pretty fun. It was designed so that us church kids wouldn’t feel left out of regular Halloween. There were game booths where you could win candy, a couple of rented carnival rides, a costume contest, and a stage where 'sugar-free' music was pumped out of the sound system all night. We would dress up and go from booth to booth with pillow cases, collecting our candy loot from each game. It was real candy, and we didn’t have to check it for razor blades or throw out torn wrappers.

My brother was best at games that involved throwing an object into an oddly shaped hole, and I was good at anything involving guessing. By the end of the night, our pillow cases would be half-filled with tootsie rolls, jolly-ranchers, mini-candy bars, and my favorites: smarties. I loved the way they melted on my tongue, leaving the sides tingling. We had a lot of fun playing the games – seeing our church friends in their various costumes – winning candy. It was especially fun being in possession of all that candy for an entire evening. Mom would make us have a nice big dinner so we wouldn’t get all cracked out because we were allowed to eat whatever candy we could in one evening. Mom wasn’t stupid – she knew she couldn’t stop us. And she wasn’t mean – so she let us eat the candy we collected while it was still in our pillow cases.

At the end of the night, we would empty our sacks onto my mom’s desk in her office at the back of the church. We would choose ten pieces of candy each from our piles, and the rest would be donated to some strange place where kids are allowed to eat candy. I imagined it to be some old dark orphanage where American kids are raised to speak in British accents and the house marms only wear black and brown. Those kids probably ate less candy than we did – so I was more than happy to let mine go.

To my mother’s horror however, the second year we attended Harvest Festival, I hit the candy jackpot.

“Can I guess mom?” I asked, pulling on my mom’s Raggedy Anne costume sleeve. We were in the main sanctuary, standing in front of a table with an enormous jar of candy on it and a pile of scraps of paper. There was a printed sign on the jar that read, ‘Guess the number of pieces & win the whole jar.’ There was a large old woman behind the table wearing a virgin Mary costume. She smelled like cheese, but I remember clearly her eyes. I wouldn’t be afraid to catch a ride in her car, even if she picked me up alone, in a dark alley, during the apocalypse.

“Yeah, sure you can,” my mom said, letting go of my hand and watching as I walked gingerly toward the clear glass jar with a light blue screw on lid.

“Wanna take a guess?” the woman asked, giving me the ‘aren’t you a cute little girl?’ tone of voice. I wasn’t that little, even though I still held my mother’s hand. But my bashfulness seemed to suck sympathy out of people’s voices.

I nodded at her and leaned in to peer at the colorful candy shoved tightly into the innards of the jar.

I screwed up my face in thought, leaned in close, stood back up, and said, “Can I pick it up?”

“Of course you can, honey,” the woman said, sliding the jar closer to me. Her Mary costume slid along the top of the table and I wondered if her thick robes were hot.

I picked the jar up in my hands and hugged it like a kitten trying to escape. It was heavier than I had expected, but I had never held this much candy at one time, so who was I to judge? I squeezed it to my chest, trying to ignore my mother’s hovering hands, in case I were to drop it.

Extending my arms straight out, elbows locked, I gently set the jar back on the grey table and pushed it away with my thumbs. With my fingertips, I turned the jar clockwise and eyeballed the colorful pieces of candy.

“Hmmmm…” I felt adult, contemplating numbers, considering what I felt to be an important decision. “527… no…” I squint when I think and I could feel my face scrunch. “637.”

“Just write it on the sheet there, with your name, Honey,” Mary told me, handing me a golf pencil and pointing to the white paper scraps.

I did as instructed, handing her my slip when I was finished. The slip disappeared somewhere behind the table, and Mom and I moved on.

I don’t remember, even remotely, how it was announced that I was the winner of the jar. But I do remember the sound my mother’s mouth made: it was very similar to the sound she makes when she’s trying to squeeze into her jeans fresh from the dryer. It’s sort of a gasp and a grunt at the same time – only this one was mixed with an odd sense of pride.

When I found out, I looked at her for approval – unsure whether or not I had gotten myself into trouble for winning all this candy. It felt odd when someone handed it all to me. My face felt hot, and I kept looking up at my mother. I imagined her grabbing the jar from me and screaming, “no candy for you!” and handing it to the child with the second best guess.

But she didn’t. And I wasn’t irreparably humiliated. That would come later, when it was time to buy my first bra. In fact, I don’t remember anyone else being there, except Mom and me and the jar – I know this can’t be the case.

I held that jar tightly on the way home from the Harvest Festival. Dan was in the backseat, shifting around, high from all the sugar. He requested to ‘see’ the jar over and over.

“Can I just hold it? Just for a second?” he asked, his voice sped up and higher pitched. "Just let me see it."

“No. It’s mine,” I said.

“But I just want to see it, just for a second.”

“I’ll let you hold it later.” This went on and on until Mom got tired of it.

“The jar belongs to both of you, okay? You understand, Pumpkin?” That was her name for me, because, back then, I had orange hair and a chubby face. She lay her stick-shift hand on my knee for comfort.

I nodded.

“If you don’t want to share, I’m going to throw the whole thing away.”

I nodded again.

Dan was bouncing around the backseat in excitement. I imagine that someone who has just snorted a fat rail of meth probably behaves much the same way. We were both behaving much younger than our allotted years. I have absolutely no questions or resentments about my mother withholding sugar from our young bodies.

“And…” Mom continued, “you each only get one piece of candy a night.”

We looked at her, frightened.

“That way, it’ll last most of the year.”

It sounded reasonable to me. I looked at Dan. He always knew when we were being cheated or lied to. He shrugged, giving me the ‘why not?’ look.

I also gathered from that look that he’d be skimming off the top and I knew I would be ultimately benefiting from that minor indiscretion. I just had to keep my mouth shut. That was going to be the hard part.

When we got home, the jar went on top of the refrigerator, where all parties could see it.

Mom gave us each one more piece of candy for the night. I think she figured it didn’t matter since we were completely cracked out anyway. Then she made us brush our teeth and sent us to bed. We still shared a room then and we stayed up talking about my win until we passed out from sugar shock.

I found out, a lot of years later, that my mom was throwing out a third piece of candy for every two she handed out a night. One for me, one for Dan, one for the trash.

When I learned this, I laughed.

“Brings a new meaning to ‘sugar-free’,” I said to her, when she admitted her slight.

“I guess it does,” she responded and returned my laugh. She sounded relieved, like she had been withholding some big secret from me since birth.

I couldn’t hold it against her in the end – especially since I repeated my candy win for three consecutive years. And, it turned out, Dan knew the entire time what she was up to.

Now that I’m an adult, I tell people I have a super-power. I just wish it were a little more useful – a little less sugar-free.

Fluent Martian

2010-05-15T00:25:00.000-07:00

I am not a conventional person. This is a fact I’ve grown quite comfortable with over the years. I found out a couple of weeks ago that I was a breach baby – I apparently didn’t want to come out like a normal baby. But I made it. It’s been pretty much since then that I’ve been unconventional.

Even Kindergarten was hard on me because I refused to cooperate and act like a normal five-year-old. The harsh reality of the nature of coloring books was my first trial. I refused to color in the lines. When Mrs. Perry asked me why I wasn’t following instructions, I stopped mid-scribble, looked up into her old pruney face and said, “how do you expect me to produce abstract art if I am forced to follow your stupid rules?” She called my father. This actually happened.

Then there was the time that Mrs. Perry wouldn’t let us play with the black baby dolls because all of us were white, or Mexican. In protest, I convinced all the girls to hide the white baby dolls in the play-kitchen cabinets so the only dolls left were the black babies. I named mine Jem – she was going to grow up to play in a rock ‘n’ roll band.

Another endeavor I have never been conventional about is love.

Cast of Characters:
Me
A slew of old boyfriends – Erik, Charlie, Gordon
Blaine – burgeoning heartbreaker
Natasha – a childhood friend

“…and then we’re going to go see Bed of Roses,” Natasha said, gushing over the phone about her upcoming Valentine’s date.

It was 1996 and we were chest deep in our first ‘real’ relationships. Natasha had been seeing Peter since band camp, and I was going steady with Peter’s friend Erik. Erik and I had been set up by our friends. We were a match due to our mutual love for the band Primus and our inability to say anything normal in a social situation. Erik was the first, and the last, time a blind set-up would work for me.

“What are you and Erik going to do?” Natasha asked expectantly. She was very proud of herself for making a successful match. Especially since I could easily have qualified for Miss Teen Disagreeable USA. Puberty and I were not getting along, and the period I went through where I refused to shower, or shave anything growing on my body, was not an easy issue to skirt.

Natasha was however, somehow capable of convincing me that having a boyfriend was the pinnacle of everything a girl could want in high school – it was right up there with good hygiene, a princess prom dress and a passing grade in Algebra. Or so I’m told. Once Natasha got me to pluck my eyebrows and shave my legs more than once a month, I figured it out. And I was in calculus, so the other two were my highest hurdles.

“We’re going night hiking in Papago after we see Muppet Treasure Island,” I told her, trying to contain the preemptive giggle I was storing in response to the reaction she hadn’t yet given.

“You’re serious?” she asked, the tone of her voice accusing me of… I don’t know… witchcraft, or at least enjoying watching other people play chess. “You’re… watching the Muppets?”

“Yup.”

“On Valentine’s Day?”

“Yup.”

“You are so… weird.”

“We’re going to the 10 o’clock show,” I told her, as though this admission would make some difference. “That way, there won’t be any screaming children destroying our romantic evening.”

“You are not human,” Natasha said – but I could hear her smiling. She was the one most responsible for setting Erik and I up together. She knew.

***
Often, I get dumped on Valentine’s Day. Most of the time, I am simply left alone to croon my cat, Frank Sinatra style, by myself with a full bowl of buttered popcorn and a pair of chopsticks, which keeps my chopstick dexterity on par with a popcorn ninja. When this is not occurring, I indulge myself, and whatever boyfriend is ‘lucky’ enough to be subjected to my personality, in similar, unconventional Valentine festivities.

This past Valentine’s Day, which oddly enough occurred on the 14th of February 2010, I was dating a rather handsome fellow by the name of Charlie.

“What do you want to do for Valentine’s Day do you want to do anything for Valentine’s Day?” Charlie said this in one continuous sentence as we drove who-cares-where in his blue Isuzu Trooper.

“Eh – I don’t really care,” I told him. I’ve always kind of hated the stupid holiday. I don’t understand why we need one day to tell each other how we feel. I have the unfortunate condition of being an overly communicative person and there is no doubt, for any party involved, ever, how I feel at any given moment.

I was pretty into Charlie at the time. He knew. But he also knew that our relationship had an expiration date. We had found ourselves wrapped up in a rather strange arrangement. It was a direct result of my own stupidity with men – and one that would cause me a lot of tears, tissues, and acrylic paint in the future. But that’s not part of this story.

“I have an idea,” Charlie said looking at me, his teeth jutting out under his smile.

“Sure.” I let him know I was listening with my voice.

“Let’s go to Sedona. Have you been to Oak Creek Brewing Company?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, screwing up my whole face, like I always do when trying to decide where I have, or have not, been. I’ve seen nearly everything in Arizona, but I don’t know where in AZ most of these places are located, and I don’t know what most of them are called. I’m never the one driving, or planning. “I might have, but it’s hard to say.”

“Well, it’s kind of a local Sedona spot – so it’s kind of unlikely. But they have peanuts and popcorn. I think you’d like it.”

“Popcorn?” Charlie had convinced me at peanuts, but driven it home with popcorn. “I’m in.” I didn’t even let him continue. “But I have a lot of grading to do.”

“Perfect,” Charlie said without hesitation. We were pulling up to my apartment complex and he stopped talking to concentrate on securing a narrow parking spot. “I have a lot of Modern Physics. Let’s have a few local brews and do as much work as we can.”

“That doesn’t bother you?” I looked at him, not ready to get out of the vehicle.

“What?”

“You’re not going to be upset that we don’t do something… lame… for Valentine’s Day?”

“No way.” He paused. “Why would I be?”

“Because…”

… the first year I was with Gordon, a man I almost made the horrible mistake of marrying, I made a ridiculous Valentine’s Day blunder.

“I know it may seem strange,” I remember telling him, “but if we’re going to be together, you might as well be aware of all my oddities.”

“I know you’re a weird-o,” Gordon said, adjusting his Red Sox cap. Gordon was in the beginning stages of bald and wouldn’t leave the house without his cap. I’m pretty sure that if we ever went anywhere requiring a suit and tie, or a tux, he’d wear it then too. At the time I thought it was kind of cute.

“I think Valentine’s Day is stupid,” I told him.

“Okay.” It was more like he was listening – not so much like participating. I would learn later that “okay”, from a woman meant that the woman was following what you were saying. Gordon was only half woman, so I could never be sure if he was following, or agreeing, which is what men do when they say ‘okay’, in this way.

“I’d much rather celebrate Single’s Awareness Day. Especially since most of my friends are single.” Single’s Awareness Day was a coined term that year that was being thrown around like confetti at a gay pride parade. Never mind that we had been using it for at least two years previous. But that year I had even heard it on National Public Radio – it was a cultural break-through, or some bullshit my mother was now aware of, which is a good sign that it had broken completely into the mainstream.

“What does that mean?”

I don’t think Gordon expected what came next: “I don’t give a shit about spending Valentine’s Day with you,” I told him, my arms crossed in front of my chest. “I care about spending time with my friends.”

He stared at me like a robot.

“I’ve got a limited amount of time with these people, and we planned on having a big party. And then I met you, and now you want me to change that.” I could feel my eyelashes slapping together. “I’m not going to change that.”

“Okay,” he said again. And I believed him.

I shouldn’t have believed him. I found out later – as I was downing tequila shots over my table, doing my best to keep the stinging liquid in the gate of my lips – that he had made reservations at some swanky restaurant downtown and had even bought me a corsage. I shook it off, knowing that if he had any balls, he would have told me before I invited over ten people and five bags of potatoe chips. The chips had started out as the life of the party, but now, someone had put me in short shorts and handed me a mostly empty bottle of tequila. I think my mouth had put the bottle in that condition, and I may have changed myself, but that part is decidedly up for debate. The point is that I did not have the time, or the energy, to go upstairs and figure out why my whiney boyfriend was sulking and not standing on the table, knocking back a seventh shot of Cuervo with me.

This should have been an early indication that Gordon was not going to be the quality, tie one on (and by one I mean six) kind of stand up socialite that I would eventually be needing.

I know that I hurt him that Valentine’s Day. This wasn’t the first time that some silly man would think I was going to change my mind – succumb to some sappy Valentine’s crap. Want to have babies – a house in the suburbs – early onset alcoholism.

And this wouldn’t be the first time that a boy would expect me to know what he was talking about without being direct.

Let this be a note for the rest of you.

I do not speak woman.

You will never hear me say the following phrases: “Nothing – nothing is wrong” (when something is clearly wrong), “If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you”, or “Do I look fat in these jeans?”. My friend Ross says I was born on Venus but speak fluent Martian. I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate, but I do know that one of the reasons my relationships never work out is because some ridiculous man expects me to speak ‘female’, and I don’t. He is then taken completely by surprise and can’t understand me when I say something straight out. Direct.

Not that I’m complaining. My track record is pretty bad. But I do know that some nerdy guys – the really geeky ones that don’t know how to conduct a regular relationship, whatever that means, aren’t comfortable with a conventional relationship anyway.

I’ve been seeing this man – Blaine – he’s pretty rad. I went ahead and told him, straight out of the gate, everything that’s wrong with me. Everything that’s unconventional. He hasn’t run away screaming. Not yet. I’m actually deciding right now… that next Valentine’s Day, we’re going to dog sit for some conventional couple – and while they’re gone – me and B are going to shave the dogs into spirals. We’ll start with the heads, shaving around and around until those dogs have spiral fur. Then, if he’s into it – we’ll dye the tips – ass and head – red as the blood moon.

I haven’t told him my plan yet – but if he’s the kind of guy I think he is – he’ll be at the Walgreen’s buying supplies by the time he gets to this punctuation mark right here .

From White to Purple

2010-05-08T14:28:00.000-07:00

As long as I can remember, in the California I know, there has been a tiny café at the end of the Huntington Beach pier. It was fittingly called the End Café, and in 1983, it had a giant pink plastic single scoop ice cream cone on the top of it that spun in a clockwise direction. I used to go out there with my mother and brother and buy cones of mint chocolate ice cream for twenty-five cents. More often than not, I would drop that cone as a direct result of trying to run faster than my mom. I would be in my twenties before I could beat her.

That winter, Huntington Beach suffered an incredible downpour that cracked that ice cream cone off the top of the café, sending the plastic sculpture floating off into the ocean. Except it didn’t float away – not exactly. It bobbed around for a day or so on the horizon, impeding surfing and boat travel in its wake.

My father took my brother and me down to the beach to watch the pink blob bob along in the tide. A lot of people sat gathered in groups, as though the cone were a single float in its very own parade, marching its sad march along the horizon line. I don’t remember what happened to it. I can only assume it was dredged out, but for all I know, it went all the way around the Pacific, making its sail-less maiden voyage along the currents. I do remember how funny it seemed to me. I wonder if, maybe, that’s the day that I realized that everything in life has a funny side to it. It was a special day for two reasons: we got to watch the cone float away, and we were granted the simple pleasure of being allowed to rub snot on our sweatshirts because our dad forgot the handy-pack of tissues that day.

“Davey Jones is having dessert tonight,” my father told my us, his chest rumbling with laughter.

Afraid to admit that I had no idea what he was talking about, I asked my brother, Dan, who Davey Jones was.

“He’s a guy that lives in a locker on the bottom of the ocean,” Dan told me, his six year old voice sounding wise and confident.

“How does he breath down there?” I asked.

“He keeps the locker locked,” Dan said, wiping his snot onto the shoulder of his hoody. I snuggled down into mine against the winter wind and pictured a guy that looked like Popeye living in a locker. At the time, it made perfect sense.

Cast of Characters:
Me
My father the invisible man
My mother
Brother Dan
Our childhood neighbors, John and Glenn

I hadn’t seen the real ocean in years and as I sat in the sand, watching the waves, waiting for the fireworks to begin, I missed it.

My mother sat behind me with her new boyfriend and warned me not to go in the water. “The waves will pull you under when they shoot the fireworks over them,” she said.
I didn’t believe her. Every kid had heard the story about the wave pools pulling people under the water, leaving their gnarled bodies broken and bloody in the drains. I’d been to the wave pools enough times to know that you could get hurt, but not slaughtered by the machines.

It didn’t matter anyway – I wouldn’t go in the water when I knew that the aerial salutes and Roman candles could still ignite me in there. Flaming debris, as I knew then, could get a person even if they were huddled underneath 100 layers of flame retardant fabric.

I was ten years old, and I was clearly still terrified of fireworks.

My mother had forced me to come to the water park for the 4th of July. As with everything else in my life at that time, it was completely against my will. We were going with the church group for single adults, which for some reason, always included several car loads of semi-retarded children my own age. Whenever I tried to talk to one of these other kids about a book I was reading, they would look at me like I had just shit my pants and was offering them a smell. Also, I despise lengthy exposure to sunshine. Somehow, my brother had gotten out of this all day torture and was having fun at a friend’s house. As a result, I was left to brave my fear completely alone.

I had always been afraid of fireworks. I think it stems from a general fear of lightning, or anything that comes shooting down out of the sky. Like dragon’s flame, for example.

When I was about 5 or 6, my parents took us to a party at a really rich person’s house. At least, they seemed really rich to me. The party was in a house on a canal that emptied into the ocean. I knew that the owners of the house were rich because they had more than one story and a boat. We had a yard and a red wagon.

We went to the party with our neighbors, the Dewey’s, which was nice because their two kids, John and Glen, were our best friends.

As our parents hung around inside, looking wholly foreign to us, dressed in clothes we didn’t recognize, drinking bubbly drinks with limes in them and laughing at jokes with people we had never seen, the four of us sat on the balcony, waiting for the promised 4th of July parade. It was a water parade – the floats all built into boats. We had heard that some of the people that were supposed to be at the party would be on these floats, and we wondered if we knew any of them.

The parade was wonderful – almost as bright and flashy as the Disney parade of lights, but on water. I felt like I was in a dream, and I chattered about nothing the entire time.

And then the fireworks started.

John was a year younger than me, but we were the same size. Our older brothers watched the fireworks with wide, interested eyes, dazzled by the spectacle. It always seemed like they weren’t afraid of anything. Or maybe there’s some older brother training class us younger kids don’t know about, where brothers learn to be really tough and also to grind your face in gravel. I cried first. John, seeing my tears, must have decided that this was acceptable behavior, and the two of us sat huddled in a child embrace. We were sure that the flames would land in our hair and we would spend our upper single digits bald and burnt.

I wish I could say our tears were silent – that we cried like stoic children and no one noticed. We didn’t and we weren’t. We cried near-death tears and our mothers saved us both in one big four-person hug.

Sitting on the edge of the wave pool, five years later, it was too late for me to expect that kind of sympathy. My mother was too wrapped up in her new boyfriend. She had moved us to Arizona after the divorce and I would never see John again. When the explosions began, I hugged myself tightly and tried to reason with irrationality.

“The flames will only singe you,” I said, just loud enough for myself to hear. I didn’t want my mother’s boyfriend to think I was a baby - to leave my mother because of her ridiculous children.

I don’t remember when, during that light show, that I stopped being afraid. There was nothing I could do, and no one I could turn to, and a whole body of chemically treated water I could fling myself into in the event that a renegade flame should float down and burn my waist length ponytail. Anyway, I was kind of an ugly kid, so what did it matter if my face got a little charred? I thought about how interesting I would suddenly become to the other children at school if I suffered severe 4th of July burns.

The fireworks reached their climax and I realized, if I didn’t squeeze my eyes shut so tight, that some of the explosions had been changing colors. I especially liked the ones that turned from white to purple – and when I found that I was enjoying myself – that the tears had stopped, I looked back at my mother with a grin on my face. She smiled back at me, completely unaware that I had been silently weeping – floating on a sea of tears like a giant ice cream cone.

Strawberry Blood

2010-05-02T18:10:00.000-07:00

Occasionally, when I can't think of what I really, truly want to do with the next part of my life – where there are so many possibilities stretched out ahead of me – I think about killing strawberries.

About a month ago, my brother suggested we find a tiny house on the coast of Southern Oregon and start a strawberry farm. We'd learn to live sustainably in a state where you can’t pump your own gas, but it doesn’t matter because we’re not going to be driving anywhere – we’ll farm all morning – surf all afternoon – brew beer all night. It sounds like heaven with a thatched roof. But there's something that I know, that I haven't yet shared with him:

Strawberries bleed pink blood.

Cast of Characters:

Me – as always
4 Trains
Some Bushes
A House with a Fence
A Schoolhouse
An Ocean

I've been picturing my immediate future as a long stretch of train tracks – mostly because I'm strongly considering taking a train trip around the country, but also because a train is on a set track. Though... the more I think about it, the less accurate that seems. Maybe my life is a set of four tracks, all going the same way at the moment. But there's a divergence up ahead. Just close enough so that I can see it. Just far enough so that I'm unsure whether or not I'm seeing correctly.

One of the tracks runs off to the left at a tragic angle. I'm imagining it to end at the edge of a cliff where the bridge has long ago fallen into a wasteland. Traces of blood drip from the rent edges where the fluids from bad choices lay forever dripping. The dry brush surrounding the torn metal dance a mocking dance that seems to say, “you couldn’t have made a worse set of choices.” They sway in a dry desert wind, their tendrils biting any moisture that happens to float along with the particles of dust and death. They suck the moisture from the redness at the ends of the broken bits of tracks – the moisture of bad choice and worse consequence.

The next set of tracks goes much farther ahead, but stops at a fence. The fence is short, neat, and made of a dark cherry wood. A green and blue house sits quaintly inside of the fence, directly on top of the tracks, blocking any train that might attempt to pass its way. It’s a big square house with a yard and some trees leaning lazily up against the right side. There’s a trampoline in that yard – loose papers are swirling in the wind. The papers are trapped inside the fence, not going anywhere. It’s as if an invisible force field is holding everything inside the property gates.

What I wonder, when I see the tracks end here – would the house stop the train? Or would the train run through it, ripping and tearing its wood planks and beams to shreds, on its way somewhere else? I wonder if the gutted house would remain to form a tunnel over the tracks, or if the structure would crack under the pressure?

The third track also runs straight for a time. But I know somehow that it eventually hits a railroad switch. The switch forces the train to another track running to the right where the train can chug forever cyclically – going around and around and around – forever.

Inside the circle is a tiny schoolhouse. It’s painted a dull red, like any old schoolhouse from a book, but it’s roof looks heavy. It’s sagging under the weight of the sky. But I know it will never fall. And the train will continue to go around and around and around – like a park-ride filled with screaming children.

The last train turns left, almost at a right angle. If a train could do that, this one would, and it does. The difference between this train and the last three is that this train doesn’t go nearly as far as the others.

It stops at the ocean – except it doesn’t.

The tracks stretch far out across the water, suspended on nothing – floating. I know that if I were to closely inspect the structure, these tracks would have no foundation, no steel rods plunging down into the green depths of the sea. These tracks defy the laws of physics. The most interesting thing about these tracks –

They’re covered in strawberry blood.

University Blues

2010-04-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of school for me. It’s not the actual last day of school. I don’t give a final – so I don’t hold classes on finals week. Plus, I need at least an extra week to grade the 280 pages of work that my students just turned in. Nevertheless, I feel sad.

Cast of Characters:

Me – the teacher

My students – no names will be divulged

On the fist day of school, a bunch of strangers file into my classrooms. I usually have three different rooms. I’ll never be lucky enough to snag the same room back-to-back. I figure though, it’s not all bad. I can practice my penmanship on the chalk/white board. And for someone that writes like a second grade boy, I’d say I’m doing pretty well.

I always set my alarm to go off, so I know when class is actually starting – I have a tendency to start flapping my gums before it’s time. I get really excited. The first day is the worst because there are a bunch of strangers staring at me.
Sometimes a couple of them will know each other, but most of the time, they’re simultaneously terrified and trying to check each other out without being obvious.

When I come in and sit on the desk, I occasionally get comments like, “Is that our teacher? She doesn’t look old enough,” or, “I fucking hate this class. I’d rather chop my own head off than be here,” or my favorite, “Dude, this is my third fucking time taking this fucking class. I can’t believe I’m here. At least the teacher’s kind of hot.” That actually happened.

On the first day, I like to stare back at them. I sometimes fantasize about releasing a bunch of crickets into the room so they can chirp during the inevitable silent moments. I think it’s kind of funny that they’re all nervous. I remember taking beginning classes. I was always excited to go just to see if there would be any hot guys in my class. Oh yes… I remember. There weren’t usually any hot guys… but sometimes. Of course… it never mattered because I was never one of those hot girls – ahhhh college.

The first three days suck. It’s all orientation and getting used to the routine. I usually say something that sounds like an empty promise:

“You’ll all know each other relatively well by the end of the semester,” I tell them with confidence. “Except all you people on this side,” I gesture to the left side of the room, “You’ll get out of here without ever even seeing the people on this side,” gesture right. “Except I’m going to make you work in groups with some of them, so maybe.” They all give out nervous laughter and start looking around at each other.

And the rest of the year happens. It happens quickly. We write so many papers and cover so many topics – it’s like a tornado of thesis and topic sentence and a bunch of stuff that would make any normal person scratch at their eye sockets. But in the end, they do get to know each other.

I try to keep it interesting. And by the end, when I walk in – the crickets I released in my fantasies at the beginning wouldn’t get a chirp in edgewise.

Someone that works at the Gateway Guidance Center once told me that I am the only teacher that has ever had multiple converts to English in a single semester. And apparently, people say crazy things like, “She’s my favorite teacher”, pretty often.

I’m not going to lie – it feels super good. Really though, I’m just trying to keep them from sleeping in the back.

Inevitably though, I find myself holding the last day of class once every semester. I can’t stop it from happening. While I have several super-hero qualities, like hardly ever getting sick, or almost always winning an organization raffle – I cannot stop time.

It’s a hard last day filled with plenty of mixed feelings. We’re all glad it’s over. I’m glad I don’t have to grade very many more papers. I’m glad that I will finally have time to work on my own writing and catch up on that reading list that’s been developing all semester. They’re glad that they don’t have to write anymore horrid academic papers for me. They’re glad that they get some time off to make those trips to the beach, or go home to see their families. We’re all glad for the free-time coming.

But I’m also sad. I’m sad that I know their names, their interests, their majors, their small triumphs and for some of them, their huge struggles. I get attached to them. Even the ones that don’t talk. Even the ones that are kind of a pain in the ass.

And sometimes I want to cry because I know that I won’t see most of them ever again.

We’re a funny species: people.

I wonder if crickets get attached like this.

Scissi_w

2010-03-27T19:34:00.000-07:00

My tattoos make me nervous. Even though I know they’re quite easy to hide, they’re right there – where anyone could lift up my sleeve and see them. They’re lurking right under the surface of my teacher clothes – my superhero outfits – and when they accidentally fall out, I usually find myself glancing around the room, to see if anyone has noticed, or if anyone cares. Kind of like my personality.

Cast of Characters:
Me
My Tattoos
Some Randoms at the Monte Vista
My Students – past, present, and future
Extras

“I’m sorry, but I can’t concentrate on what we’re doing here if you keep staring at me like that,” I said to a student – bright and fresh-faced from what I had hoped was concentration on our writing workshop, but what turned out to be flush-face from staring at my skin.

“Sorry,” my student said.

“So…” I continued on with my original statement, “make sure that you explain which society you’re talking about, when you say the statement, ‘in today's… seriously,” I stopped mid-sentence because I was still unable to concentrate. “Did you want to ask me a question? Will that help you get over it?”

“Um…” my student looked utterly surprised that I had asked, “Are those new?” He gestured to my forearm bands, which no one in class had ever seen because I almost religiously wear long sleeve shirts to teach.

“No.” I answered simply and without thinking and then continued, “I was born with them. They’re just really insane birthmarks.”

“Oh,” was all he could say to my obvious lie.

As far as I can tell, there are three basic reactions to my skin – whether it’s the first time I’m meeting a person, or more commonly, when they’ve ‘known’ me a while without the knowledge that I have been moderately tattooed. The first is a general look of surprise followed by quick acceptance. These people are generally on the more observant side of things. These are the people who say inside their heads, ‘this makes perfect sense,’ while the second group gives a look of surprise that is somewhat more physically moving – they lurch a little in their surprise. This is directly followed by a relatively intense line of staring. The staring is a lot like questioning – I can see the thoughts forming behind their cranium protectors. With the starer, I often feel like I have betrayed their trust in some way by not being exactly what they expected me to be. Like in the scenario of my student. Although I’m pretty sure my student is the third type: the grabber. The grabber starts in a physical surprise, like the starer, but the physical surprise does not stop at the lurch forward. The grabber thinks little about personal boundaries. The grabber lurches forward and grabs your appendage, and though I’ve never seen a grabber lift another person’s leg, I’m sure it does happen. The grabber is so intensely surprised that the tattoo exists simultaneously in and on the skin of the person he or she had prejudged, that the grabber must at that moment reach out and physically move the tattoo closer to the eye. I assume my student is the grabber because of his continued staring, impeded only by the fact that he cannot reach out and touch the teacher: me.

In fact, in class a few days ago, we were watching a film for our argument papers. This same student came into class late, found one of the seats next to me, and faced me, instead of the film. It was odd. It continued to be odd when I realized that he was staring at my arms – smiling. I’m sure, given the opportunity, this student would grab me, running his fingers along my tattoos. I’m developing a theory that grabbers are like atheists: they need to touch, in order to establish that the thing they are seeing is, in fact, real. Is that like an atheist? Perhaps it’s a bad analogy, but you get the idea.

Here’s what happens when a grabber isn’t one of my students and has full opportunity to touch me without thinking, and without any academic repercussions:
“You want another?” I say to my friend, as I lift myself up from my seat in the dingy local bar the locals in Flagstaff call simply, The V.

I love the V. It’s a historic hotel bar that smells historic, but looks like a dive bar, slightly sunken underground, with red carpets and fake wood coffers on the ceilings. If you stand too close to where the bartender pours the drinks, you can smell years of spilled mixers, so sticky in their solidifying sugar, no amount of cleaning will ever quite get the stick out of the floor mats.

I maneuver through the sparse crowd to the lower bar. Ricky Bill hasn’t opened the top bar because it’s still early and the bar doesn’t get busy enough to have both bars open for another hour or two, at least.

I position myself at the corner, where there are no stools – the best place to order from if you intend to go back to a table. The V has no barmaids. That’s part of its charm.
I lean up against the painted pole that holds up part of the ceiling and wait for the bartender to notice me. Breathing a sigh, I relax into the wood and wait. It doesn’t take long before I feel a very light touch on my left shoulder.
My first response to this type of touching is to remain calm and hope it’s someone I know. About 50% of the time, it turns out to be a friend, or some guy I know that thinks that sneakily touching me from behind is funny. This is becoming something of a joke because a lot of people have seen strangers touch me. It’s kind of a game: who can sneak up.
This time it’s not someone I know. I turn my head and look when I hear a relatively high-pitched voice for a man say, “Wow… these tattoos are beautiful.”

“Thanks,” I reply giving the, ‘I’d rather not be touched’ eyebrow raise. I like to think that my facial gesture means ‘go away,’ but I’m finding that the grabber has no social cues, so it doesn’t really matter what I do with my face. They’re never going to get it.

“Where did you get them?” the guy says. This is usually where I’d describe the grabber, but I usually don’t look at them (almost always ‘him’) close enough to decide what he actually looks like. At least, not at first.

Instead I contemplate saying something smart like, “I got them on my shoulder. You probably can’t see because you’ve got your hand on them.” But usually I just name the shop. I don’t want to encourage further conversation with most grabbers. Grabbers tend to be creepy.

“Oh,” the grabber says, and then retracts his hand. He looks guilty.
This particular grabber seems to have a bit more social grace than most grabbers. He’s getting the clue. I decide to look directly at him – to view him.

He’s kind of pretty: native American of some variety, but I'm drunk so I don't think much about it. He's not much taller than me, long, rather stringy hair, glasses with thick black rims, white v-neck t-shirt, long fingers, long eyelashes. I’m never sure if I find this type of guy attractive. This could be the fact that I’m never sure at first whether or not they’re gay. One can never tell when there's a v-neck involved. Anyway, people shouldn’t be this pretty.

“I’m sorry,” he says, after we look at each other for longer than the usual 5-seconds you get in a bar before your look becomes an advance - look. “I didn’t mean to be in your space.” This is not a normal grabber response.

“It’s cool,” I say, meaning it. Were this boy the typical grabber, he would have grabbed my forearms too and started inspecting them, like I’m for sale, or a stock animal. At that point, I would begin to chastise him verbally, which often leads to the grabber hitting on me verbally. I hate this process and am glad when this particular grabber is able to read the situation.

“Maybe I’ll come talk to you later,” he says, backing away to join is two friends at the high table in front of the curtained sound booth.

I shrug and say, “Sure.”

I can’t remember his name now, Alex, or Andrew, or some ‘A’ name, but the first thing he did when he saw me again, was grab my wrists. I probably would have let him if he had been intending to dance with me or something. I might have even made out with him, cause that’s how I roll. But when he approached me again, he didn’t say much, only grabbed, inspected, demanded more information: ‘What do they mean?’, ‘Why did you get them?’, ‘What’s the meaning of your life?’ – the usual. I was disappointed.

But that’s part of what I’ve done to myself and I can’t complain about the ground I now trod upon.

I know that when my student is no longer my student and I run into him somewhere downtown, the first thing he will do is grab me and demand to know my life story.
I’ve come up with a response to, ‘what do your tattoos mean?’

The real answer is – ‘not that much, really.’ Apparently this is not an acceptable answer, however. Instead, I make up elaborate lies that people seem to find satisfying. There are currently sets of people around town that believe I am wearing gauntlets, another who believe that I am wearing tattooed scuba gear, and another that believe that I have religious tattoos from my Celtic earth religion. I don’t really care what people think that I believe, or have decided to mark myself with. Though my favorite answer remains, “I’ll tell you when we sleep together.” I usually only use that one when I want to have a good laugh at the grabber’s expense.
No matter the line of questioning, or staring though, I’ve found that after the viewer gets used to the idea of my tattoos, they stop asking. My skin is not an enigma, it’s a part of me. It doesn’t necessarily define me – though I’m sure it does in some capacity. It is me.

Though I have to admit that when the issue comes up again in bed – I don’t mind. And I don’t lie. Not usually.

Upturned Mouth Syndrome

2009-12-28T23:56:00.000-08:00

It’s not the morphine that’s making me feel euphoric. It’s the sickness. Or the lack of sickness…

Cast of Characters
Me
My Brother – Dan
Germs
Everyone Else
Brandon - a man and a dog

I’ve heard all my life that we find our gladness, our reason to live, in suffering. But despite all I’ve written, all I’ve said on the matter that makes all of you out there feel like your lives have been… well, easier than you once thought – I don’t think I’ve ever really, truly, actually suffered.

Sure, terrible things have happened to me. I’ve been as abandoned as a girl could possibly be – I’ve been neglected – I’ve been hurt by people – we all have – but I’ve never met Death – he hasn’t taken many people close to me. He hasn’t yet taken anyone over which I am so attached that I give out one of those cries that could tear the earth in two. Someday he will. Someday he will come for all of us. But so far – Death has been kind to me. And so has life.

“Are you going to be okay?” Dan asked, standing over the couch, looking down at me with his usual general lack of facial expression. He’s a strange one, that brother of mine. Sometimes, when we’re out with people, when he thinks something is funny, he cracks a wide smile and his face turns brilliant shades of pink. But often, when he’s concerned, or sad – his face gets solid, like drying clay, and he doesn’t give an expression at all. It’s like he’s afraid to betray himself. Most of the time we’re mirrors of each other, but at other times, we’re like different continents.

“I’ll be okay. I’m just so tired,” I replied. I know my face looked strained. I’m terribly frustrated by sickness.

“Well,” he reached down and patted my head. “Stay in bed. Just rest.”

“I’ve never stayed in bed for a whole day.”

“Well, you’re not today either,” he cracked a smile at the joke he was about to give. “You’re on the couch. So it doesn’t count.” He laughed out loud at himself.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling back. I have to admit that even the stupid shit is funny.

He went to work and I called my mother.

“I don’t understand why I feel so down,” I confided. For some reason, even though I don’t get on well with my mother, I call her when I’m confused about something. I have to admit that we communicate similarly, even if the subjects we are communicating about are 100,000 leagues separated from one another.

“It’s not your fault. You can’t help being sick,” she answered. She is genuinely interested in my life. She just doesn’t understand most of what I say – and she has a hard time keeping up with the rate of my life – the rate of my words spilling out.

It’s like when I talk, I’m afraid the world will end in the next few minutes. If I were listening to me, I would wonder if the crazy lady speaking thought she was the only person in the universe with the most important information to convey – it’s like I have to say everything I think all at once – or someone might get left out of the loop. I’m not even sure if I’m making sense. I’m trying to learn to calm down.

Being sick gave me a little perspective on slowing down. Being sick, and getting attacked from all sides about my status as a single, hard to communicate with, picky, noxious 30 year old woman with too much energy and not enough time to do everything on her daily list.

“Is this what it’s like being low energy?” I asked my mother, after some conversation about an argument I had had with my ex-boyfriend. “Everything is so difficult.”

“It’s very incapacitating, I know,” she answered. “That’s why I’ve always been jealous of you.”

That bit of information was hard to deal with at first, but I’m used to it now.

“And it’s why so many people want to be around you,” she continued.

“Am I being succubus-ed?” I asked. I was running out of breath – walking to get groceries for my Peruvian soup and I was already out of breath.

“I’m not sure what you mean, but probably.”

“I just… I feel like everything is always happening so fast, what if I miss something?”

“That’s probably why it was so hard to get you to go to sleep as a child,” my mother answered. I know I exhaust her too, and I could hear it in her voice. But she tries so hard.

It’s like that scene in that old movie “Beaches” where Bette Midler’s character goes to visit her mother in Florida and her mother tells her, “I love you very much. But I just... I just can't pay any more attention to you. You know what I mean? I want to... but I just can't do it. And if I were you, I wouldn't leave anybody for not paying attention to me. Because sooner or later you're gonna have to leave everybody” (Marshall 1988).

I’m in no way as in need of attention as Bette Midler’s character in “Beaches”, but I am in serious need of constant attention, nonetheless. I don’t know why this is – and I’ve never seen my brother do it – I don’t know where it came from – being the second in line – being told that I’m not good enough because I’m a girl – not being noticed because I was very plain growing up – it doesn’t really matter anymore, really.

The only thing I really have going for me all the time is my face. I don’t mean what I look like, I mean the expression that is permanently stamped on my countenance – the one I even sleep with. I know, because I wake up this way:

Smiling

I am always smiling.

I walk down the street and people smile at me. I sit in the airport, waiting for a flight to who-cares-where, and people are smiling at me. I’m walking down the pathways on campus and students smile at me. I order coffee and the barista smiles at me. Boys, girls, children, old people – everyone is always smiling at me. But that’s not accurate. They’re not smiling at me – not really…

They’re smiling back at me.

I had a student once, about a year ago, and I thought, on the first day of class, “what is wrong with that girl? She looks so terribly angry.” It was like someone had just run over her kitten. But later, when she was giving a presentation, I realized that she wasn’t always frowning – she just looked like that.

I think maybe I just always look like this too. When I’m an old lady, I’m going to have the widest, deepest, wrinkliest smile lines. If the drug companies invented a disease for me so that they could sell me a fake drug, they would call it, “Upturned Mouth Syndrome,” and they would probably make me smoke weed all day and take tiny morphine pills that make me hork up soup. Except that doesn’t happen to me – just my brother.

But really – Even though being exhausted with some mysterious cold that doesn’t cause coughing or sneezing doesn’t necessarily constitute suffering, it sure does wipe that perma-smile off my face for a day or two.

And I began to wonder what was wrong with me. I began to question my motivations. I began to feel… normal. Or at least what I think normal looks like on the faces around me that aren’t always smiling.

“What’s wrong with you?” My brother’s friend, Brandon asked as I skidded into the Weitz’s kitchen in stocking feet earlier this evening. I had taken a running start and flung myself down the wood-floored hallway.

“What do you mean?” I asked, smiling – as I always do.

“You’re like a kid all of a sudden,” he said, looking at me with his head slightly cocked.

“Oh…” I laughed – it was really more of a giggle. “This is how I am when I’m not sick. Which is most of the time.” I used the wall to propel myself back the other way with my fresh beer. It never really occurs to me that I might stumble or crash, so I didn’t cover my beer as I glided away.

Brandon shrugged. I could see him in the mirror.

I can’t say I smiled, because I hadn’t stopped smiling.

Funny thing is…

I’ve been smiling the entire time I’ve been writing this.

It's good to be back. It's good to be... uniquely me. I don't think I've been so excited to not be sick.

Maybe tomorrow morning - I'll wake up laughing. I love that.

Protestants Don't Have Holy Water

2009-12-14T21:45:00.000-08:00

My brother bought a Christmas tree today. He sent me a photo on my phone. It has pink lights. At least that what it looks like from the photo. From one grainy phone to another, who can really say?

Cast of Characters:
My brother, Dan
Me
The Ghosts of Christmases Past

“I’m going to buy a Christmas tree for us this year,” my brother said to me on the phone. I’m going to visit him in Portland, Oregon again for the holidays. “I kind of want a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, what do you think?”

“I’m good with that,” I answered. In reality, I don’t really care whether or not we have a tree. Christmas has been overrated since we became adults and it was yet another way for our parents to remind us that we weren’t fun anymore. “We could always make our own,” I added at the end. “My friend Nicole was thinking about making a paper mâché tree. That could be fun… and messy.”

“I don’t want to make a tree.” I heard him sigh. “Remember when we used to make our trees as kids because we couldn’t afford one?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed. I did remember. It was mostly because of an old photograph we had of Dan and I standing in front a tree we had made out of construction paper. He was in his blue footie pajamas and I had a huge grin on my face.

It’s interesting the details we remember from our childhoods. Perhaps this is why I’m terrified of having my own small people. I remember the year that we couldn’t have Christmas because we were too poor. I know now that it was because my dad smoked weed and did cocaine, but then I thought it was a kind of a game. My father would say, “We’re all going to be bag people, so eat your food because you might not get any more,” and my mother would growl words at him in disapproval and Dan and I would hold our noses while eating something my mother had gotten cheaply at the market – foods like tongue and salted spinach.

I would imagine our family as bag-people. I knew then that bag-people pushed shopping carts down busy streets and looked dirty, because my father would point them out when we went downtown to visit my uncle. “We’re going to end up like those people if your mother doesn’t eventually get a job.” At least that’s what I remember him saying, but I also know that he didn’t approve of my mother having a job because she was a stay-at-home mom. These are things I would never understand. And it doesn’t matter anymore.

I imagined us as bag people with paper bags on our heads and plastic bags for gloves, pushing our carts full of bags that we would ask people to put leftover food inside. I pictured my brother making balls out of bags that we could play baseball with, or soccer. I pictured my mother tying my hair up in bag-ribbons. I imagined the life as a bag-person to be interesting and filled with plastic invention.

But none of this happened. We were never homeless. And the year we couldn’t afford Christmas, the church bought us a Christmas tree and Christmas presents. That was the year I got a red-headed Cabbage Patch Kid I named Tiffany. I loved her until one of the other church girls told me that Xavier Roberts was a devil worshiper and all the signatures on the dolls’ butts were cursed. I put Tiffany up in a very high spot in the room I shared with my brother and never really took her down again, unless it was to try to exorcise her. But we were protestants and didn’t have any holy water, or priests. So much for that.

This was the same year that all the presents were labeled ‘From Jesus’ because my father had told us that Santa was a demon that parents lied to their children about. He said that all the other parents were liars and our classmates would be scarred when they found out. As a result, I took the liberty of informing all the kids in Kindergarten that Santa was made-up and that their parents were all deceitful. There were a lot of tears – both from the children, and from me, when I found out that Santa being a lie was supposed to stay a secret. It was all so confusing back then.

When my hilarious uncle Curtis handed me a package that was obviously Play-Dough, he informed me, “This one’s from Santa-Clause.”

“You asshole,” I replied. “Santa-Clause is a lie.” I stuck my tongue out at him. It was the last time I would repeat something I had heard my father say to his brothers. A bar of soap does not fit pleasantly into a five-year-old mouth.

So this year, when Dan said, “Remember when we used to make trees as kids because we couldn’t afford one?” I nodded before I spoke into the phone: “Oh yeah. Let’s not do that.”

Perhaps I should ask my mother for the old ornaments she hangs on the back of the tree so they don’t muck up her ‘themed’ tree. But maybe not, because we’re going to make our own ornaments. And they’re all going to get hung on the front of the tree. All of them. And our presents are going to say, “From Brother” and “From Sister”. And we’re going to tell all the kids in the neighborhood that we never believed in Santa, and weren’t we lucky that our parents never traumatized us with lies. And we’ll listen to the stories from other children who are not, in fact, scarred at all. And we will nod our heads, shoving cookies in our mouths and laugh about it all over beer as thick as blood on my brother’s landing. And he will pat me on the back and tell me that it’s all okay now – because it’s past the time where we could ever turn into our parents. And I will smile because I will know that he’s right. And it’s all going to turn out to be better than we could have hoped.

Happy Solstice, Everyone.

Think in Terms of Anton

2009-12-09T00:16:00.000-08:00

There are a few things in this life that I love without question:

Sandwiches
Brand New Socks
The English Language
Espresso
Paper

“You can’t do that!” I screamed at Anton, my kitten-sized boyfriend. “You can’t just let your friends come in here and start throwing shit around. You have roommates to think about! You can’t be yelling and… Sanji just threw all the milk out the window! Who even does that?” I jerked my hand toward the bedroom window, noticing that Sanji had also thrown a few other items out there too.

Anton’s big eyes were set in concentration. I realized I was talking really quickly, but we spoke English together so often, I took for granted how much he actually understood me.

I kept yelling anyway: “Your friends are over here at all times of the night, which isn’t usually a problem, but sometimes I’m sleeping and they just walk right in the room – and you KNOW that I sleep with my butt sticking out of the covers…” I stopped yelling rather abruptly. I realized that Anton looked terrified and since he hadn’t actually wronged me in any way… perhaps my yelling had become somewhat overzealous. Without really taking a breath, I lowered my voice and asked, “How much are you understanding right now?”

“50-50,” he answered, waving his scruffy head from side to side. He smiled sheepishly and reached out his hands.

“What?” I asked, letting my voice go soft, unsure of how to maneuver an argument with someone who only understood half of my yelling.

He waved his fingers at me, indicating I should come toward him.

I took the two steps across the room and he pulled me against the window. I let my body relax into his and I sighed. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“Too much talking,” he said into my short, pink hair. I could feel his breath on my scalp. One of the most comforting feelings in my life is when a man with good pheromones breathes into my hair. It’s so much more intimate than hand holding, or hugging.

“Okay.” I whispered it so low, I doubt he heard me.

“I will tell you something right now.” I moved so that his words were closer to my ear. I pressed my forehead on the cool glass of his window. “You are with me, yes?”

“Yes.”

Anton paused. I’m pretty sure that if I listened close enough, I could hear his Russian brain moving the English words around inside of it. I’m pretty sure the Russian and English words were wrestling each other inside Anton before one of them won out and came toppling out of his mouth. “When you are with me, and I am wrong, you don’t have to tell everyone around.”

I pulled back from the window and looked into his face. “I don’t understand.”

He held me back about arms length and said, “If we are together, we don’t yell to other people. Everyone in the house, they hear you yell to me. When you have anger with me, you tell me, but no yelling. This is our business. Not everyone inside the house, you understand? They are already mad at me. You help me until they stop. Then you can have anger with me too. But after.”

I found myself blinking a lot.

Somehow, this man, in his goofy pajama bottoms and no shirt, had just told me more about relationships than any parent I had ever had.

He pulled me to him again. Again, his breath warmed my scalp. It gave me the chills. Or perhaps it was what he had said.

- Anton and I never broke up. I left the country. This is the only relationship that has never really ended. I sent him a postcard when I got to Northern Arizona University. I never saw him, or heard from him again.

I realized today that my expectations with Anton were lower because I knew we could never have academically mature discourse in English. We would never have long discussions about films or books in English. And that was okay because we just hung out and didn’t expect anything from each other. Only his fingertips brushing the hair on my arms – only my wriggle when we cuddled in his tiny bed.

If I love a person like I love new socks, or a steaming cup of espresso – if I only expect them to do their job – whether it’s breathing in my hair when I’m emotionally confused, or hanging out and having a martini and two mojitos when I need to verbalize my crazy, crazy ideas – people have specific jobs in our lives – and I’m okay with that.

Maybe thinking about life in terms of Anton is something new I’ll try. I’ll keep you informed about how it works out.

You Look Like a Sean

2009-12-02T20:30:00.000-08:00

Cast of Characters:
Me
The girls: Lydia, Nicole, Renee, Lindsay, and Audrey
The Australian guys
The Beaver Street Bartenders
The rest of the Bar Patrons

"This girl right here needs a Washington Apple," Nicole told our cocktail waiter and barman. "And also... what do you want?" She looked at me expectantly.

"Um... vodka?" I answered, shrugging.

"And a vodka."

The waiter brought the shots, and they turned out to both be for me. So I took them like a good little girl who has recently become heartbroken.

By the time I should have called it quits and run stumbling home, Nicole and Audrey and I were belly-up to the bar and the bartenders were pouring lines of shots. It was apparent the boys behind the bar were having a good time because they were pouring from chest height into shakers and swirling things around like they were extras in the movie ""Cocktail".

"Take em' bitches!" Nicole yelled as we held up our first line of shots and knocked them back like the Zombies were headed straight for us and we had little left to live for.

"Should we give those Australian guys this last shot?" I asked, spinning around to offer the three guys I had just befriended our third line of shots. Oddly, they were gone. I looked around and we ladies had a bit of a discussion about whether or not these men had actually existed. We were drunk enough at that point that had they not existed, we wouldn't have been surprised.

"I win!" Nicole yelled, slamming her third shot glass onto the bar.

"I beat Audrey!" I yelled soon after, laughing as Audrey gave me the finger.

We were laughing quite hard when the Australians reentered the scene. "Do any of you girls want to be our fourth in a pool game?"

"I'll do it!" I yelled. I talk a lot louder when I'm drunk because I have this firm belief that since I have to concentrate to understand other people, they may very well have a difficult time hearing me. This works under the same logic as the belief that one needs to speak louder to foreigners because, obviously, talking louder will make them understand your vocabulary choices better. "I'm really bad, though!" I yelled.

"We don't need you to be good. We just need you to play," one of the Australians informed me. Had I been sober, I would have been keen to their motivations. But as I've heard about my alter-ego "Adorable Drunk Girl", it is my solid, God-given, gift, to get into everyone's space in the general vicinity of the guilty bottle of vodka. If I could get bottles of vodka arrested for taking advantage of me, there would be tons of them in the drunk tank.

I found myself bent over the pool table, one eye-ing the balls, taking aim, and completely failing. Instead of swearing, or doing some other appropriate billiard-related activity, I stared that ball down, moving my body upright slowly, and then I'm pretty sure I fell over. Several times. And the rest of the night would be defined by me falling all over the place. I would know this later because Audrey sent me some cleverly worded texts the next morning to let me know.

Example: 'how you feeln this morning? you were traaaashed! twas awesome do you remember falling every 10 seconds? thats fuckn rockstar"

The night started getting really cloudy about the time that Nicole carried me on her back to the jukebox where one of the two bartenders was loading music which I would also not remember.

"Hey what's your name?" Nicole demanded. I remember this conversation, but I do not remember how I got across the room. For some reason, when the 'Valerie and Nicole Show' is in full swing, the two of us find it crucial to know the name of every person in the room. Especially the person pouring the drinks.

"Kevin," he replied. He was laughing for some reason. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with me being on top of Nicole, but it's really hard to say.

"Really? Because you look like a Sean," I informed him, nodding my head like I knew something. "You should just change your name."

"I'll think about that." He was humoring me. At least I think he was. But I really can't say, because I'm pretty sure that was about the moment where I became very distracted by a butterfly and had to go and chase it.

The next thing I remember is imparting my wisdom about 'the man' and 'becoming the man' to the hippie guy who turned out not to be from Australia, but was simply with the Australians. I was saying ridiculous things like, "...but we ARE ALL the man!" and "you can't know what you're talking about until you work the system so hard that you are the system." He must have thought I was saying something bright, because I heard later that he had his hand on my leg. Little did he know that I rehearse these conversations in my head when I'm sober so I can sound like I know what I'm talking about when I'm shit-house. But not really.

Another little bit of logic that belongs to me and only me when my alter ego, "Adorable Drunk Girl" knocks me over and takes my personality and my clothes, is the idea that if I'm about to do something stupid - like the time I was eye-ing a guy and deciding whether or not I could get away with picking his pocket, inserting a note into his wallet saying 'ha ha sucker' and putting the wallet back without his knowing - I have to remove myself from the danger of 'stupid' before anything happens and I end up with the bottles of vodka.

I must have known that the guy from Washington was into me because I apparently departed Brews and Cues with some haste. I heard later that I called my ex-boyfriend to tell him that I was walking backward down the street and was really proud that I hadn't yet fallen over.

I also heard the next day that Nicole tackled me into the grass. That was probably hilarious. I can only imagine. Someone should pitch the idea of a reality show called 'Two Drunk Girls' to MTV. Me and Nicole would be hi-larious! At least we think so when we're drunk. We probably just look like a couple of crazy bitches that just got off a boat.

At some point I found myself being held up by the guy from Washington, waiting for Nicole to get the keys to her new house. I came up with the brilliant idea that if I left right at that moment, I could probably convince my ex-boyfriend that he NEEDED to be with me right at that very moment and that if I convinced him heartily enough, he would come running over to my house and we would cuddle under my down comforter. Sounds reasonable to "Adorable Drunk Girl", I'm sure.

I have no recollection of calling 'him' fifty times. Neither do I recall actually talking to him. But apparently the only thing I convinced him of is the fact that I am a mean, mean person when I'm intoxicated and that he should probably put his phone on silent when he knows I've been out with the ladies. But I did get some interesting texts from him the next morning.

Example: "I had a dream that john stamos peed all over my bathroom."

I apologized heartily for my indiscretions. John Stamos? Really?

When I woke up this morning, I remembered that I had been bleeding the night before and found out that it was because I had cut my finger. I also discovered my earmuffs had somehow become unattached and that unbelievably, despite all of this, I was able to mechanically hang up my jacket, put my belongings back where they go, and strip all of my clothes off before jumping into bed where I contemplated whether I should take advil, or throw up, or both. I have little idea where the blood from my finger ended up going, but it's not on anything I own, so I must have been wiping it on someone else. It's a good thing I don't have The Hiv.

In the event that I actually get possessed by something more powerful than "Adorable Drunk Girl", like say, the devil himself, the only reason I will know is because I will have changed more than just my underwear before getting into bed. This is always a shocker the next morning.

But the most confusing part is trying to figure out why. Why would "Adorable Drunk Girl" change my underwear before throwing me into bed?

At least I know she's clean. And she can run real fast. That will come in handy when the Zombies actually do come to get us.

"Adorable Drunk Girl" can have the apocalypse. And I'm sure she won't think twice about pardoning those poor bottles of vodka.

Creases

2009-11-29T22:41:00.000-08:00

I stole this title from Lydia.

I really think I should write something about Thanksgiving.

Cast of Characters:
Me - of course
Him
His family
My Anger
My Mother

I have a lot of anger. It's weird because I'm always happy. I tell people I'm always happy and when they find me angry, they say stupid shit like, "I thought you were always happy..." Which is almost as stupid as the one where someone tells you you're contradicting yourself - isn't that the purpose of speaking out loud? Really?

I am angry that my family represents a huge pile of steaming crap this year. There's a divorce going on, a crazy person, a separation - and everyone gets together on Thanksgiving, to eat turkey and sweep it under the rug. And I'm 30 and I still sit at the kid's table. Let me repeat myself for those of you who may have not been paying attention:

I AM 30 AND IT STILL SIT AT THE KID'S TABLE

The reason for this atrocity is because I've never been married and I don't have any children, and I haven't managed to get a job that makes me a whole lot of money. For this, I am a useless sack of flesh. I haven't ever thrown an event at my house because I've never had a house. And my mother and her estranged husband say I'm not independent because I don't have a car. I can't even fathom what that could possibly mean. In fact, I think my conscious decision to NOT have a car, makes me more independent then the two of them will ever be. Raise your hand if you've lost your car in a parking lot in the last year. Not me.

But the worst part is that, I know, that if my mother decides to divorce her husband, who has never served as a father figure to either my brother, or me, I will never see or speak to any of my 'family' ever again. When I go to my 'sister's' for Thanksgiving, I sit in a corner and work. I have no idea who these people are. I've never known who these people are. And I never will know who these people are. They're like watching television, without the box to limit where you can look. And you also can't change the channel. It's like hell... without the entertainment of fleshless screaming humans writhing in chains and masks and shit.

Because of this, I decided to do something different for Thanksgiving. Instead, I went to Anthem to 'his' house. 'He' is my ex-boyfriend... or something.

Normally, when someone tells me their relationship is 'complicated', it usually means that the person in question is too much of a scared douche-bag to do anything about a shitty relationship they're stuck in. My relationship is not one of these, and gets to remain in the mysterious realms of 'legitimately complicated'. I don't feel much like clarifying much further than that.

I need more Brandy. Excuse me for a moment......

Insert cracking knuckles - Let's see how far we get, shall we?

"You need to not ever have anymore girlfriends," his eight year old brother said at the dinner table - a meal which we had not got through completely without hearing about either poop or vomit.

"What do you mean, buddy?" he asked his brother, tousling the little guy's blonde hair. His voice always takes on a child-like quality when he talks to his brother, or gets worried.

"Because... you've had like, 1, 2, 3... 4 girlfriends," The little guy counted on his fingers. "That's too many."

Everyone laughed at the table. "It may seem like a lot," the mother said. She's nice. She looks years younger than my own mother, despite only being 5 years younger. "But when you're older, four girlfriends isn't a lot at all."

The little guy screwed up his face. "I don't like it. Don't bring home any more girlfriends, okay? This one's good."

I breathed. I smiled like I should. That moment was not the moment where I could break it to his family that me being there was a charade. A fake thing. A staged play for their benefit and mine.

And as I looked at that little guy with his Spider-man shoes and tarantula shirt, I thought how nice it would be to tell him that I would be back. That I'd be his cool teacher aunt some day. But I can't. One lie is enough. At least from me. In a world full of lies, one lie is enough from me to that little guy.

I'm home now. There's snow on the ground. There's snow in my heart. My mother was kind enough to come to Anthem and visit because I wasn't kind enough to go to Mesa and see her.

"You have to tell me what you want for Christmas," she told me as we were shopping at the outlet centers in Anthem.

"A sweater - solid colors" - I sent that in a text today. The part I didn't add was the part that says, "...to keep my heart warm, because it's really cold in here right now."

The sickest part = I'm not dwelling on the jagged broken pieces floating around in my tired heart... I've decided that 'he' has already cleared a spot where I don't abuse the next guy. Where I'm less and less of a spazz, until the lies stop and I come across a boy who says he never wants to leave - and then actually never does.

I'm sure that same boy will die in a horrible accident.

We do what we can.

If Bella Swan Were a Real Person, I Wouldn't Hang Out With Her

2009-11-22T21:47:00.001-08:00

Cast of Characters: Eric- My... research partner
Me

"Take a look at these faces," I said to Eric, earlier tonight. We were waiting in line to see New Moon. We had set out to see Men Who Stare At Goats, but for some reason made this insane last minute switch.

I think it had something to do with time, and me wanting to play 'Galaga' real bad. The movie theatre has the only arcade machine in town.

"What about them? Is it because we're the only white people here?" Eric asked, loudly making every person near us stare.

"No, you idiot. We're just the oldest people here," I said, looking around, trying to judge the ages of the couple next to us. "That means a bunch of shitty teenagers are going to be talking and checking their text messages in the dark. And there's going to be a crying baby in here somewhere, given the time." The movie was to start at 7:35PM.

"How can you tell which is which?"

A few middle school age girls ducked under the ropes to flounce onto the piece of pavement next to the one Eric and I were firmly holding down. "They look like that," I said pointing. The girls looked at us. Here's the part in my narrative when I would usually describe them to you, except all these Twighlight fans look the same. You've seen them on television-you know. "And there's a baby," I add, nodding my head in the baby's direction. "Don't these children have bedtimes?"

"My little brother, Noah, stays up until midnight, sometimes," Eric told me. He looked down at me and his glasses caught the reflection.

I shaded my eyes. "It's the downfall of this nation, you know? Kids not having bedtimes. Can I tell your mom at Thanksgiving that she's doing a shitty job?"

"Sure. That would be funny." Eric laughed in his unique Eric way. It's sort of a giggle and a guffaw at the same time. It's the kind of laugh that you can't help laughing with, or at. I'm never sure which is going on. Probably both, simultaneously. "She did let me watch Nightmare On Elm Street when I was five."

"I'm still sure that explains a lot." By this time, we were being shuffled into the theatre in a strangely inefficient manner. "And this 'epic series' is going to completely fuck up that baby I pointed out that will probably start screaming within the half hour."

When we took our seats, and I continued to make loud comments about the behaviors of the other patrons. "One day you're going to be a crotchety old lady," Eric informed me, as if this is something I didn't already know.

"Well, I wouldn't be crotchety if people like this guy right here in front of me didn't plan on texting in the theatre the ENTIRE FILM." I leaned forward and eyeballed the teen and added, "... because I couldn't IMAGINE what could be SO TERRIBLY IMPORTANT that you can't wait until the movie is over. And if it is, perhaps you shouldn't be watching a film." Sometimes, when I know I'm being a crazy bitch, I want to add a 'HM!' like Miss Piggy does when she's made her point, but I never do.

At some interval in Bradford Howe's intensely fake onscreen infomercial smile, the lights dimmed and we watched Bella Swan be a pathetic excuse for someone an immortal and a shapeshifter would fight over. It's almost Victorian in nature. No wonder Bella's always reading Wuthering Heights in the actual book.

The best part of the film experience: My high score on Galaga - 75,920 - on one quarter.

And now you have a taste for who I let you think I am.

Thank you, and goodnight.

First Blog Ever

2009-11-21T21:59:00.001-08:00

I've decided to create this blog because my friend Paul told me to. See hardtravelinghero
I'm no blogger and I don't have a lot to talk about, really. So I figure, I'll just post whenever something interesting happens.

Interesting things happen to me a lot.

Here's a little about me:

I'm a female. I'm pretty good at it.

I'm a teacher. I teach Freshmen Composition at a State University in Arizona. I love teaching.

I travel a lot. At least, I try to. Really soon, I'm going to Portland, Oregon to visit my brother. I suspect I'll be writing about that at some point.

I read and research and don't really do a lot that isn't somewhat work related. You'll see a lot of that, I'm sure. After Portland, I'm traveling to Albuquerque, hopefully by train, to present a paper at the Pop-Culture Conference.

I always have issues with boys. Always. I'll probably write about that a lot too.

I'm feeling like I'm at some weird job interview that no one's ever going to read. This one's for you, Paul!

That's me in a pistachio shell. There's a lot more, but I'm sure I'll expose myself as I post, if I post. I haven't decided whether I'll attach photos, since I'm a teacher and this is kind of public. Maybe I'll give myself an alias or something. Who can say... I guess we'll just see how it goes.

In the end - I decided to name my blog "3Liter Per Day" because there isn't really anything else in my life that makes me feel good all the time. I drink 3 Liters of Water Per Day and if I don't, I dont' feel as well, my energy is low, and my tongue swells. Weird I know... but it's true. And there's nothing in life more important than drinking water. Try it. You'll see.