swallowed whole

When I was living alone, I was desperately lonely. Now that I have roommates I am desperate to be alone. It's not just that though, it's a seemingly unending demand on my time, a whirl of Things To Do starting with work and ending with sleep. I am experiencing a toxic overload and I am suffocating under the weight of it all.

It began innocently enough when my days off began to dwindle. I was experiencing two days off a week, a first in my working career, a novelty. I spent one of the days off doing the things you do on your day off, laundry, grocery shopping, maybe some tedious personal grooming. The other day off I spent in a totally frivolous manner, perhaps an afternoon reading a book, or wandering around the park or spending time with a friend. Life was good. I smiled for no good reason.

When my jobs demanded I work another day, I relented with good cheer, certain that having at least one day off was enough, since I had been enjoying myself so much.

Then I got a cold, which happened sometime around Labor Day, and typical of me, I ignored the thing until it knocked me into submission and I missed nearly two weeks of work. Since then, playing the game of getting back to normal, both physically, mentally and work wise has just about ground me down to numbness.

Now I can't remember the last day I had off, I haven't been doing my writing or any of the things that bring me joy, reading, knitting, making things, even having fun with my friends...it's like the only thing I do day in and day out is work and then I go home and sometimes I have the most fun I've ever had in my life with my roommate and now good friend, the sort of friend who I will always be able to resume where we left off, no matter how much time has passed between us. The thing is, I need some time to recharge, to unfurl the stress of the day and I don't get to do that if I'm doing disco lights in the stairwell, giggling over music or enjoying being playful with someone just for the sake of fun.

This weekend and the next will be full of good times; a grown up pizza party at Siena, Gary's studio walk; halloween, Jessica's going away party. I don't have to work as much next week and I'm planning on taking a couple days off to catch up and climb out of the quicksand. There are letters to write, a dinner to make, the book to read, phone calls to make, a haircut to have, a knitting project to finish and at the end of it all, my sanity to reclaim.

Oh the joy! MIKA in concert.

Flower

the statue

He scampered into the open doors with a wide grin. His clothes were all spray painted silver. He is one of those people that stand on busy streets pretending to be a statue and then moves when people give him money. Up close his clothes looked shabby even under the silver sheen. His pants were too large for him and had many rumples from extra fabric. His layers were all silver and he wore them like a hanger, flat and loose. He was a small slight man, malnourished and sad looking.

He spends all day downtown pretending to be an inanimate object so it seemed like no surprise to me that when he was finished and on his way home, he would spend the entire ride speaking to any passenger on the train who would interact with him. His face was painted silver but a long day and the creases of his wrinkles from smiling had worn away some of the paint. Most notably, he was missing six of his front teeth, which made him look older than he probably is, it made him look like a relic, an ancient man in silver, a strange enigma.

The way he spoke was unsophisticated, like a man from some backwoods somewhere, but it was lively and enthusiastic and I imagined he had a million stories to tell and had experienced an array of adventures. I could picture him traveling through the country by hopping trains with nothing more than the clothes on his back. I wondered if he enjoyed being a living statue more than other things he'd done to get by in life.

He spoke to the woman closest to him and she politely exchanged banter with him, and the train car stiffly tolerated his presence. When she got off the train he waved at her and she insincerely waved back, already wording the story in her mind of this encounter with the strange silver man.

The lake today.

Surprise, I'm a writer:

At work today, my boss was showing me a website of an artist she knows and navigating the artwork until she got distracted by a phone call. With her attentions otherwise absorbed, I began clicking on some of the site, focusing on "press" and then finding myself intrigued by the first listed link titled, "Fall Gallery Walk 06." As I began to read the piece, it felt vaguely familiar, as if I had read it before. And then I realized it was familiar because I was the one who'd written the piece.

It's odd because I have been thinking about that thing I used to do, where I would go to events in the "art" world and write about them for a blog. No one really ever read it (except my delightful father, I suspect was our only avid fan/reader), and it was the sort of thing I did just for fun and because my friend Natalia liked to go to art galleries and wanted to do a blog about them and wanted a writing partner.

It surprised me the way it might surprise someone to casually bump into a family member you haven't seen in a while. Enough time has passed so that they seem slightly different, maybe they have grown a beard or put on weight, but with a good scrutinizing glance, you recognize the face from long ago. In other words, my writing, my babies, my work is out there in the world being put to good use and it was heartwarming to see it fulfilling some function. At the time I wrote that piece, I didn't know the artist and had no idea that my boss knew the artist. I simply loved her work from seeing it at a gallery.

It also made me aware that I used to lend a lot more of my time to intellectual and cultural pursuits, opting to skip a night in front of the tv on the couch getting high with Eric and his roommates. Of course, I was still in school and bone crushingly busy so was just part of the rigor I subscribed to without thinking very hard about it and sometimes when you are busy you are more productive than when you have all the time in the world to do anything.

The other thing that surprised me about the piece is before I knew it was mine, I was impressed by the writing. Generally I scoff at most online reviews, finding them dull and meandering or too full of excitable language (written by a marketing major, most likely). Of course, looking at it now, with three years distance, I can see obvious mistakes and edits I'd make. Yet, it just reminded me that writing isn't about thinking about it, wanting to do it, conceptualizing, it is about doing it and having something to show for myself. And though I have quite a lot of words behind me, there are a lot things I don't give credence to, for whatever reasons (those screenplays, that piece on oprah.com, the stuff I do here--hehe--because largely they are not exactly what make me thrilled as a writer) but they are still a part of me.

Bean

Now I understand why van gogh painted sunflowers.

the burn

It happened the way those things always do, I meant well, time blinked, and all of sudden, I had burned the tenderest skin on my thumb, the part at the bottom of your finger nail, where your nail grows, with that little ridge of cuticle to protect skin from nail. The water might have been at boiling or higher and I gasped out loud (which I normally don't do anymore, having burned myself so often but because it was such a tender spot, I gasped). I set about the elaborate process of tending to my burn, a mix of running cold then warm water over the skin, maybe a half inch wide and a centimeter high. It had the pinkness of pain within minutes, and it seemed to be a deep down burn, the kind that would not stop throbbing. I then moved on to a piece of ice, which I held in place with my fingers until it melted, and another and another and another.

It is at moments like these, where I wonder what am I still doing there? I try to pretend I am good at that place. And sometimes, things just make sense there, it's true. I move like a drop of oil through water, slick, fast, and smooth. I make people do whatever I want them to, I can deal with just about anyone, and it doesn't seem like a good thing sometimes.

The other day, it was busy. It was the kind of busy that is reserved for two people, but even with two people racing behind the counter like rats in a maze, it would still appear busy. I did it all, managing not to piss off everyone in line and maintain a conversation with the cardboard cutout (an unlikely new fan of mine, a strange jelly has been formed between us, one that seems to require his visitation of me despite the fact that I would rather he disappear into a brine of my own disappointment and never be seen again).

[The cardboard cutout--or as you know him, the fire--has been rather baffling of late. He has been arranging times for us to meet up and in my presence he is merely a smiling anime character, to which I can relate, but he is unable to say more than a few sentences. He has a girlfriend now so his insistence that we have some sort of friendship seems odd, especially given that I know for a fact his girlfriend is the jealous type--he has suddenly removed photos of his ex from his facebook profile, for instance, and when we happen to have a facebook interaction, she'll quickly chime in with her undying love. I say no problem and thank goodness I did not land the beautiful, lovely cardboard cutout. I did however find him somewhat intriguing and told him as much, so maybe that is why he puts in the effort with me, because I had put in the effort with him, before he became girlfriended. My friends wonder why I still consider him someone worth wasting time on and all I can say is that he didn't do anything wrong, per se, he just didn't really do it right. He is a good guy and very sweet and there is nothing wrong with having more of those people around, I say.]

The burn on my thumb was so bad that it looked like my skin was glue. It began to collect lint on its surface, just in that small area, black cotton lint from wiping my hand on my apron and it wouldn't wash off. The next day I forgot all about it. The burn, the gasp, the glue.

Sometimes when people come in who haven't come in for a long time, they express their amazement at still seeing me there with a sort of cheerful pity. I feel the effects of their remarks, which range from, "Oh you're still here!" to "How long has it been?" to "You must really like working here...obviously."

A week or so later, the burn turned into a brown mark. My skin had died so deep down that it was finally ready to scab up and get crusty. It was the tenderest of skin. The brown mark registered in my peripheral as a surprise for a while, always accompanied with the worry, What's that on my thumb? until I would remember with annoyance, especially after the dozenth time that it was just the burn working itself out.

Last night, a customer who I have had some good interactions with was walking down the street right in front of my house. I was so surprised to see him that I blurted out his name even though he was on the phone and probably didn't recognize me in the darkness. He seem startled to see me and in his demeanor was a bit of dismay at realizing it was me and especially moreso when I pointed out that I lived right there. He just moved into a place around the corner, he mentioned in response, and with that, he continued his cell phone conversation and I tried to figure out why it bothered me so much.

Was it just the fact that everywhere I go there is some customer whose face I recognize that I am a stranger to because I don't have my apron and am not behind the counter of Siena? Was it his lack of enthusiasm at having me as a neighbor? Or the fact that I felt like saying, hey, I promise I'm not stalking you, I really do live right there, because he seemed so weirded out by seeing me.

When the welt grew new skin under the burned skin, it began to peel off around the edges at first. After a couple days it was gone, picked away by my nervous movements. The edges still had a some dead skin which I rubbed away with the pad of my forefinger. The skin is so tender there it can just be exfoliated by light pressure. Today was the first day I realized the burn is gone, there is no trace of its happening at all, except my memory of it and one day even that will be gone, rubbed away by alcohol or need for remembering something else, and maybe that is a good thing, to not remember everything.

As for them, and that place, the sting of what was, what could have been, what is, that is what keeps me from submitting myself further and that is what makes me want to run and cower. I won't as easily forget that time my new neighbor and I talked about my writing, or the time when the cardboard cutout made his giant laughing impression on me.

More pears!

Week five

the land and its lies

It has been way too long.

Here goes nothing:

I am fine. Nothing is wrong here. It is the strangest sense of clarity I have ever purported to have. Sometimes it even sits with me for days and days. The urgency I once had; gone. The guilt over not doing everything I ought to be doing; gone. The sadness I felt for time passed and lost; also gone. It is strange. I have reached some sort of mega zenith in which I know that exactly where I am is exactly where I'm supposed to be. I know that all the things I have surrounding me are things I want nearby. I know that everything my thoughts turn to is good.

I miss a lot of things. I miss my father tremendously. I haven't spoken to him in some time and I find there is no better reason than I simply lack the time I would like to give him. I cannot seem to muster it up in some chunk enough to supply him my absolute attention (which is want I want to give him) and so I keep saying, tomorrow, next week, next month; and I think of him in the way that someone tries to see stars, that seeing them seems to rest on so many things coinciding on one perfect point, by following the routines, and I have lost that routine.

I never expected my routines to be so disrupted by my moving in with people. I've lived with people before and treated those people as if they revolved around me, as if they were mere entities in my way, obstacles, mosquitos. I would like to pretend it has nothing to do with moving, but it is apparent, if you look back, that my life has not been quite the same since I obliged myself to moving in with them.

And oddly, I love it. I love them. I love the feeling she gives me. She as a friend is like having a twin sister, someone who knows you and your movements and their meanings so completely and finds them so enjoyable because they are the same. And then there is him, who I've inherited, who I cannot imagine never having known, the absolute best person I have yet to meet, for all of his giddy statements bring me joy, all of our interactions make me smile. I love the appreciation they give me. I have never had people in my life I so fully enjoyed who so fully enjoyed me that it is almost tiring, the being with them, because I don't want to stop, I get exhausted. And generally, this involves nothing more than their presence. I languish in their words, in their laughs, in their company like a contented cat, fattened with cream and tuna. For the first time in my life, I understand a love given entirely from friendship. They make my heart happy.

I miss my writing. Around the time I moved, my writing partner disappeared into other projects on a temporary basis that has turned nearly permanent. I remember our meetings in past tense and it troubles me briefly until I am whisked away into the throes of pleasure (the summer, the activities, the food, the conversations, the smiles). I remember how for almost three months, we met three times a week (or attempted to), that in one of those months I completed a short story, a solid, well written piece of my novel and I remember how alive I felt. Even though Iowa had turned me down, I would not stop writing. I existed like a well run machine for those three months, churning day after day, each day of the week already known to me through the handshake of routine.

I went to the bar more then. It was part of my routine, part of my emotional rut, that I had nothing better to do and nowhere better to go than there. And maybe I needed to go there, to fuel myself, or find myself, or something. And he was there, the magnetic disk and I kept going there trying to find the answer and once I found it, I found I could not keep going there because I hadn't realized it before but I was embarrassing myself. I saw it the last time I was there when I approached him and everyone else's eyes met and lowered in embarrassment for me. There was a moment of tension, they quieted to hear what I had to say and resumed talking when it was obvious I wasn't professing my love for him. I can't deny their concern, but I still shudder over that moment.

And yet, we had so many good times; argued over a point in the sky (venus? no, jupiter), I gave him my favorite book with all the earnestness and delight of a child and he accepted it with the same pleasure, we ran into each other one especially warm day when I was wearing my cute summer dress and he was wearing a hangover and the displeasure of being punished for being late, when his eyes lifted at the sound of my voice, the excitement on his face was undeniable, he reached over to me and kissed my cheek and hugged me, bringing me close to him, feeling my back, and I know it was just a habit, but it was one that righted his demeanor instantly. Or the time he realized I'd been smoking again, his face mocking and skewed with fake shock as he pointed it out. Or that he still remembered all the things he told me that night, but carefully avoided the most important thing (that he still wanted to be my friend). It is all nothing and will never be anything more than a confusing series of circumstances; a mystery never solved.

I miss men. I didn't realize it until I recently hugged my friend, a well made man (who only loves men). He has a bulkiness and heavy strength I forgot. I generally feel so big and huge, but next to him, I am soft, frail and malleable. Having moved, I have a bed now, whereas before I slept on the floor; now--and again--I sleep with pillows next to me, to simulate the body that I'm so used to being next to. Before it was him (the love of my lifetime) that I missed, now I recognize that it is just the form and the warmth and the support of a body next to me that I long for. I don't know why I haven't had any men in my life in the last year. I think I am just beginning to get over the shock of what happened with him, but I still think I carry a sign around that may as well be visible and shouting out loudly GET AWAY FROM ME. Based on my results I can only guess that's what the sign says.

The random texter turned out to be the singer. I knew it was all along, but there was some part of me that doubted just for doubting's sake. He wanted to continue in the manner in which he'd been going, where he'd invite me to be a part of his life every three weeks or a month or so and leave the lapses in between us empty of explanations. He wanted me to be someone he could dump and pick up whenever he felt like it, but I didn't want that. So we have sorted that out, shared the necessary pieces of the puzzles that we mixed up and I have moved on. I am not interested in wasting any more time, at least not wasteful wastes of time. If we spent two weeks together only to have him depart, that would be one thing, but I won't sit for three weeks waiting.

the drunken ambusher returned to my scope for a brief moment in which I was able to fervently recapture the depth of my joy and passion for him, but it was still not enough for him and once again we are strangers. It is good to see that we still have something, that there is something between us that always been there and I think will always be there.

It is also good to see that I no longer prattle on and on about what could be when I very well know there is nothing. I spent a week wearing that old behavior (having a crush on someone, anyone, having someone to gush about, having a permanent grin on my face because all I need is a man to make me happy). And then I got rid of it. Let it go. I haven't thought about him in two weeks and today I was at work and it was the first time he crossed my mind and I was so proud of myself. I really am learning what aspects of my behavior are useful and harmful and unnecessary. My brain has a lot of idle power and it gets wasted on these ridiculous prospects (who might be better prospects if only one key, but unchangeable, element was in place).

I long to be in love again, to have that joy, that pleasure, but I understand now that it was sometimes contrived before and this time I don't want to settle for anyone less than worthy of my company. So if that means I will be single for five more years before I meet someone who is capable of meeting me eye to eye physically, emotionally and intellectually, I will savor those five years or however long it may be.

I miss my family. It is strange, but the summer months mean that I don't see them as much, for the family get-togethers are thanksgiving, christmas and easter. I generally don't see my mother very often, or my brothers, or his children. I sometimes have contact with them, but not often. I got to see my brother's family at the birthday party for his daughters and it was a delight as always, but it feels so far away now, that Sunday just six weeks ago, with the pool in the backyard, the kids running around, the presents, the pinatas, the drawings with chalk on the cement.

I've started thinking about if that will ever be my life, having kids, making parties for them, kissing their heads when they fall, and wondering if I've used up my time taking care of other people's children, if I've missed my chance, if it's too late for me. I suppose there's no way of knowing that until it is certain that I cannot have children, but some part of me doesn't seem too concerned about the absence of children from my life. I have seen so many children take their first step, say their first word, and even had one child give me the tenderest most absolute love I have ever received from a child.

Mostly, I think I am sitting at a point in my life where I don't know what's next. I have always known, or had an idea, or wanted something, and now, I have this vastness ahead of me and opportunities worth accepting, but I don't know what's next for me. I think this is what's given me the sense of peace and lack of struggle, because if you want to get away from something you have to have somewhere in mind that you're headed. It's not enough to want freedom, it must exist somewhere.

I know that I have an immense freedom in a lot of ways, because I am single and childless and without debt. I am still at the mercy of my routines and my cost of living and until there is a release in that, I will not feel free.

p.s. I know they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but given that all I've offered here for the last month is a couple entries and a bunch of pictures, I hope they were at least worth a hundred words. When I don't write or can't write here, I try, for the very smallest effort, to communicate through pictures and let you know that I am okay, if quiet.

In quotes

Inside

Hailed The Crotch and it certainly smelled like one last night.