Fuck him, man. All I needed was for him to tell me...

Fuck him.

Every girl needs to hear the words to "Problem Girl", the eighth track on Rob Thomas's solo album (a christmas gift from my mother.) over and over again.

Every girl needs warmth. Every girl needs room for all sides of her personality to come out, and be equally embraced and appreciated. Fuck the kinds of people who bask in you while you're smart and funny and saying all the right things, then can't be there for you when you're falling apart (when you've fallen for them, when you care so much you can't hold it together anymore.)

Every girl needs love. Love, and not some cheap imitation.

He told me he didn't use the word anymore. Told me it was too loaded-- that he was sorry he had ever told me he loved me, but it would no longer be a part of his personal vocabulary. Vernacular updated. Sorry, this offer has expired. This coupon is no longer redeemable.

And don't waste your breath on him. It'd be a good idea for you to quit, too.

But, he said, that didn't mean he didn't have a "great, ineffable fondness" for me. And, for a moment, that actually made me feel better. At least my question was answered.



On with it.

If my original weigh-in of 180 pounds was accurate (which it may or may not have been, as I did not have, in my possession, an accurate scale until today) then I have lost six pounds since I started trying to lose weight three weeks ago.

Six pounds is not an easy thing to conceptualize. So I shall try to help you.


This dog, apparently named "Doodle Poodle", weighs approximately six pounds.

This penguin from the Mystic Aquariaum is six pounds, also. It would be unfortunate if he lost six pounds, because then he would cease to exist, and I think I may want him to be my new mascot. Perhaps he and Doodle Poodle can share responsibilities. His name is Red Green.

This strange man brought Red Green a six-pound fish to eat. What he doesn't understand is that Red Green would choke to death if he tried to eat a fish as big as he is. I'll have to cut it up for him...ewww.

So, six pounds lighter, it has been a Merry Christmas for me. How has it been for you?

On with it.

More tired than usual, I get dressed for my work out early by my standards-- about three AM. I don't want to do it tonight, but I'm hellbent on going at least three weeks straight before having a break. Nissa says she read somewhere that's how long you need to do something every day before it becomes a "habit". Just under a week to go.

I'm dressed and about to get into it when the dog distracts me-- not unwelcomely. I pet him for a few minutes before he walks away to stand in front of the door and make puppy eyes at me, shifting his gaze between me and the door in an unmistakable way. I'm tempted to tell him that no, we will not go for a walk tonight, but eventually give in-- it's the 23rd of December and I've neglected his outdoor time all winter long, so I'm an easy target for dog-guilt. It's not that cold outside, either, and it's a few extra calories I could use to lose.

I get him into his harness (always a fight), grab the key to the mailbox and out we go. My trailer park is the largest in Maine and the mostly badly plowed-- the entire circuitous route to the mailbox we take could is one big ice skating rink, but I've lived in Maine all my life and know how to keep my footing in these conditions. As we walk, I am taking in the late winter night's quiet-- it's incredibly still outside, no wind, not a sound. In the silence, lights have a strange quality about them-- a string of white christmas lights looped around the railings to a porch and the warm-looking lights eminating through the curtained windows of the homes of a few scattered night owls have an unreal feeling about them-- like a painting, something out of an parallel universe of Thomas Kincade, where everyone's househould income falls below 35,000 a year. I guess it's a sight more real-feeling than anything he's ever painted, but it doesn't feel as though I'm really there.

In the quiet, I am thinking about how the walking and the atmosphere reminds me of being in Mariposa-- it was my first taste of indepence from my parents, and, if you think of it, probably the most independent I'll ever be. During lunch breaks or at night I would walk the empty streets, sit alone at The Grizzly for lunch or go up to the twenty-four hour gym I bought a month-long membership to. Sometimes I miss the people I met there, but I think I miss the alone time, and the feeling as though I could handle being alone, more than anything else.

I wanted to write about how, walking home, looking at the houses with the windows and the homey warmth, all the humble trailers with two cars in the driveway, I got to thinking about why I've been getting so upset lately, and I think I may have nailed it: I traded in my independence and my big dreams for a dime-a-dozen feeling of domesticity: working all day, then coming home to spend what precious little time I could with my Zack, eating meals we fixed together and sitting on the couch, watching TV until we both felt tired enough to go to bed. It wasn't much, but it was normal, and it felt like home: now, with me working late nights and him working overnights, and only having one full day of the week together, we take time together how we can get it. We go to sleep at different times, we wake up at different times. We eat maybe four meals a week together, and we're lucky if we had the time to make two of them. The days we do have off together, we normally sleep through, because we're on different schedules, and we're both always exhausted.

It's not about having less time together, it's about not having a routine. It's about leaving him sleeping in bed at 3 in the afternoon, piecing myself together without his help, and going to work for eight hours, knowing that when I get home, he won't be there, not until I've already gone to bed.

Money's certainly better now, and schedules work out better with school, but there's something missing: when I think back to how it used to be, both working all day and coming home to sit down to a meal together and watch whatever was on, I picture it, and in that image, there's a glow. That's the light I recognized in the lights of the houses I walked by. Maybe it was the same because those houses are homes, the way we used to be.

Or maybe it just seemed the same because it was so distant.

On with it.

Emily's latest post on her livejournal (friend's only, so I won't link) is something of a stream of consciousness set of notes from her latest therapy session-- I hope it's okay that I mention she's in therapy-- and it makes me think about what I've decided I don't really like about therapy: so much stuff, so many memories and scattered feelings, shreds of things that happened to make us who we are, but we can never really tell how the affected us, and, in therapy, you spend your time resolving them, and it's infinite. My time with Mr. Ladd was helpful at the time, I believe, but at this point in my life I don't know if I could afford to be in therapy, taking bits and pieces of my life that have been smashed to oblivion, then trying to make some sort of awkward photomosaic existence out of them.

Take that whole paragraph with a grain of salt. I'm making my own attempt to write...that way. Can't think of the word I want.

I've been feeling badly a lot lately and most of the time I haven't been able to figure out why. I think a lot of it might have to do with hormones-- very soon in life, I will go on a birth control pill that will allow me to only have one period every three months. Hopefully this will help to control these tsunami-sized waves of PMS that I feel both before and after my period. Unless that's not what it is. Maybe it's not.

I am talking online to Tony, whom I talk to largely in order to exert influence over in the pertinent areas of his life, for instance how he treats my sister and how he deals with his anger issues. Here's someone who could use therapy, by the way-- I have no problem with the idea of smashing the mirror of his psyche to pieces for the purposes of closer examination, or even just for fun. More often than not, though, however convincing I can be in getting him to temporarily believe the gospel of my word, his short attention span makes all my effort for naught; therefore, it's notable that the other reason I talk to him is that it's easy enough. He types slowly, and doesn't tend to get offended if I don't respond. And it seems to make him happy-- I was as much a part as anyone in seperating him from his "family", so I may as well give a few minutes a week to chat. We are talking, today about bad eating habits, and I am commenting to him about how easy it is to absent-mindedly develop bad, if not horrible, eating habits that become a deeply ingrained part of your behavior. I am telling him that I believe myself to have a binge eating disorder, which is a fairly recent development for me. Whether it's true or not, it's an interesting idea to keep in mind, because the acknowledgement of it allows me to keep my eating habits in perspective. Maybe not do as much about them as I should, but realize when I'm doing something unhealthy. I've been trying to change that part of my weight problem, but slowly.


I'm doing it all slowly, really, so that I won't neglect to not to it at all. I want to get in shape for a variety of reasons: Lara, the sex/couples therapist Zack and I saw for a time about Vaginismus, suggested that it may be in an important step in overcoming some of the negative feelings I associate with my body (In grand Emily style, I will mention that her mentioning that losing weight may be an important step in my road to recovery from vaginismus came out, on my end, as A) comfirmation that I am now, in fact, officially fat and B) a kind of slap-in-the-face statement that not only am I as fat as I feared, but that it's my fault I have vaginismus, because I've let myself get fat. It's amazing the way a woman can have so many different conversations going on in her head while she's being spoken to: one part that's just taking in information, on a purely intellectual level, and then all the different emotional intepretations screaming out, complete with the different responses she has to each of these, and what finally comes out in reply, with the help of a self-conscious just before the lips who's terrified of sounding petty or defensive or stupid or needy.) Obviously, another set of reasons are the simple, straightforward desire to look good, be in shape, have more energy, be envied, etc., but there's a bigger one at stake: This is something I've wanted to change for years, aspired to for nearly a third of my life now, agonized over, looked for every shortcut and quick fix there is. This is something that I want, and only recently did I really listen to the annoying chirping in my head that was telling me over and over again: If you're going to get there, you have to Just do it. Try harder. Because you're worth it. Tastes so good, cats ask for it by name.

Then I turned off the TV and decided it was time to get to work.

So back to the real reason I'm doing this: There are people out there that I want to show that a person can change their life for the better, even if they've failed before, even if people don't believe you'll do it. There are people I care about that have felt badly about themselves for most of their lives, and are surrounded by circumstances they find insurmountable. There are people I care about who have allowed themselves to be conquered by the things that have happened to them, that have stopped trying to make a difference, who honeslty don't know whether to believe that a person can change for the better. I want to show these people that if you take responsbility for your own life, own up the to fact that your problems no matter who may have contributed to them, belong to you, and no one is going to come along and make them all better for you, least of all without your decision to help yourself, if you do all that and decide to make a difference, you genuinely can. And if you don't make that decision, and just keep bitching, then you're being obnoxious, at the very least, and at the most, wasting your whole life.

The number one person I want to teach that lesson to is myself. But I hope to lead by example.

Cheer me on.


On with it.

The floor in the living room is littered with paper scraps cut out of the faux snowflakes I've been carefully crafting, partly to be creative and nostalgic, and partially to busy my hands while I watch TV to avoid eating. I'm going for the big one this time in my pursuit of weight loss, and when I have in my possession an accurate scale with which to measure my progress, I shall log it online for you. This time, I will not let myself take no for an answer. I will ignore my immature excuses and just do it, mindful of but choosing not to acknowledge the neo-Nike (c) implications.

I am not the victim of advertising. I am a strong, independent achiever and it happens to be a very useful and concise phrase.

Every night for 15 days I have stood in the center of my living room and Danced off the Inches with Lydia Haskell, a cute, short woman looking rather like a mix of Carrie from King of Queens and Rosie Perez, whose perkiness I regarded as cute and uplifting. Having located her personal website, however, LydiaHaskell.com, I am realizing that she's not quite the chirpy cheerleader type I had her pinned as...then again, no one seems quite the same after a google image search.

More later (I hope, but I will post this in the meantime so it doesn't get lost in cyberspace, like so many before it.) I'm off to see Zack on his fifteen-minute break.

On with it.

I IM him for the first time in weeks to tell I need for him not to visit my blog anymore. I tell him there are things I need to write, things I need to get out of my system, and I'll never do it, knowing that he might be reading them. I tell him that I can't deal anymore with the feeling that he's judging me. For being myself. For having emotions.

Seems like that's all I'll ever have.

He says "ok." Unceremoniously, the way he says everything. I fight the urge to extend the conversation any way I possibly can without losing what little credibility I might still have. It's pride, and not strength, that draws the final words out of me. "Thank you. Goodnight."

The conversation is ten messages long, but I save it anyway. I don't know if it's a wish or a fear that it will be the last.

The truth was, only part of my reasoning for IMing him was to request that he never come here again. The other part was to give him a chance to redeem himself, to say something irresistible and overcome my waning resolution to purge him from my life. He might have tried, if I hadn't been so terse-- when I first asked him not to come, his original response was "What's so important that I don't see?". And I told him, in such a way that I knew he would either have to fight for me or let go. Whatever I might have wanted to believe, I knew which it would be. And it was.

So now I'm free. To lose the euphemisms and shed the inhibitions. To say what he really is, to call him by his name.

Casey. Casey Casey Casey Casey Casey.


There's so much I've not been able to explain in the past about him, about me in relation to him, about what was once "us". There was a small part of me that hesitated because I fear that certain people who read this would not understand the line between how I feel about him and how I feel about Zack, and how very seperate they are-- this fear, I suppose, was heightened by the fact that foremost among that group was me, so I never would have been able to aptly explain it to the others who might question my intentions or integrity. I will say that while I have lacked faith in myself, Zack never has, and whether or not he understands any better than I do, he has never been more than passingly threatened by the cold, fucked facts: I love Casey. I love him so much.

I've talked with little hesitation on here about how I felt, before, about Chad, and I've referred to him as "The one that got away". I've wondered where my life would have been if he had, for a moment, felt something for me that was on the same plane as what I felt about him. But I'm starting to wonder, now that all of that is in the open with him, if that is in the past-- or if it isn't. I don't know. So it certainly seems suspect that I could claim to love both Casey and Chad to such a dangerously similar extent to the way I love Zack, but I'm sick of wondering why that is, and what it means. Perhaps there is only one person meant for everyone in the world, and perhaps there is not. Perhaps I am an anomaly and perhaps I am just like everyone else. Perhaps I love Zack more, perhaps I only love him differently, in a way that makes us compatible where others are not. All I'm sure of anymore is this: if this weren't love, it wouldn't hurt so much.

So while there's years of written history that have been subtly altered to meet his approval that now I could, given the time and inclination, now shed light on in a way that might prove fascinating or therapeutic, right now what I want to talk about is the end. Or what will serve as the end, until I meet that bear once more.


We were talking, casually, one day, having only been reconciled from our last period of not talking (the last time I tried to quit him, the addiction that he is) for a few months. The previous time had taken place over the summer months, when he was home from school in Mass, and because of that timing, I hadn't had an oppurtunity to see him in a long time, almost a year. I hadn't want to bring up the prospect of seeing him again, because I didn't want to rock the boat-- things were going well between us, and I wondered if I could deal with the rejection if, for some reason, he didn't want to see me. That night, though, I suppose I was feeling bold.

I should point out that, over past vacations or before he left altogether, whenever we'd see each other, I felt the need to live up to these enormous expectations that I created of how I could entertain him, blow him away, make him feel like I was the one who made his life exciting. That probably all started in the awkwardness that developed after the anticlimatic end of the slightly romantic portion of our relationship (which, mind you, was never anything more than an attraction, a highly discussed hypothetical relationship, and ultimately a giant sword of Damocles the thread of which, I can now safely say, gave into the weight.) This pressure, of course, only added to the awkwardness and insecurity, making for potentialy intolerable nights that were only reprieved-- when they were-- by the natural chemistry between us.

That night, the night we ended, I had come up with an idea of something for us to do together: the next time I saw him, we would rent "The Aristocrats" to watch together. A documentary-style film wherein a myriad of comics tell the dirtiest joke of all time over and over again, it wasn't exactly a flashy plan, but I'd wanted to see the movie for some time and thought that Casey, unlike Zack (who had no interest in seeing it with me) would be just the kind of person to enjoy it. Mind you, the conversation where I proposed this happened online, and I assume he was busy with other things, so there were long pauses in between things that were being said. I asked him when the next time he was coming home for a while, and I told him to keep a night open for me, I had an idea. He insisted on knowing what it was, and I told him about the movie, describing it in vague terms-- as I did, and this is the important part, my enthusiasm for the evening was growing. It'd been such a long time since I'd seen him, and I began to reminisce about other nights we'd spent together, just sitting on my bed and laughing about the world, and how it couldn't understand what a complete farce it was. It was then that my mind's eye zeroed in on an image, a sound:

Casey laughing.

I am not a particularly imaginative person, and often times I have trouble picturing even things I've just seen. But it was perfectly clear to me then, the smile, his face, the sound of him laughing, how good it always made me feel when I could make him laugh. I was picturing him, with me, laughing to this movie, and suddenly, I was so happy I couldn't contain myself. I felt more elation just imagining him, just anticipating the moment with him that I can even begin to explain: such a simple, perfect moment with someone I loved so, so much. I didn't mention it to him, because he would have thought that I was a complete idiot, but..looking forward to that moment with him, watching that movie with someone I knew would get it, I was overjoyed. I felt, for only a moment, that our relationship was right and real, and everything was how it was supposed to be. No objections. No complications. Just happiness.

Of course, he couldn't have known how I was feeling on the other end of our connection, 300 miles away. He didn't know how I would have sounded if I'd been speaking the words and he couldn't see my face. There was no way he could have known what he did to me when he said "I don't really want to see that movie."

He couldn't have known.

I tried to keep going, and did for a while. I simply said "Okay", not letting on that I was...crushed, destroyed, hurt beyond his imagination without him even realizing it or having any idea why, and we continued the conversation, for a while. But our next catty little fight, and, consequently, his next condescending, hurtful comment, was too soon in coming.

And I told him to take me off of his buddy list. And signed off.



I wonder if any of you won't think I'm crazy after reading that-- I wonder if anyone out there could understand what it's like to get so caught up in an imaginary moment, and then to have it snatched away from you, so suddenly. Like a cartoon character standing on a cloud, who doesn't realize there is no support for height they're hovering at until the cloud clears away, and look down, and there is a moment of realization before they fall.


My name is Linda, and I've fallen.

On with it.

I tend to get pretty frustrated when baby boomers and their associates complain about the "dismal state of customer service this day in age", etc. But slap an adult diaper on me and call me aunt Sally, I think McAfee might have just single-handedly cured me of that particular facet of generational loyalty.

I got a virus a few weeks ago that's been a fucking *pleasure*, and, having finally managed to delete, well, most of it in a struggle that took many a night, we decided to invest in some updated virus protection.



(A quick aside: am I the only one who's convinced that, more likely than not, the big-named virus companies have entire departments devoted to creating new viruses that, it follows, only they will know how to get rid of, giving them the edge over the competition? It's not entirely unrealistic to suppose that, on top of not being any help at all in preventing against viruses, or getting rid of the one I currently have, McAfee may actually be to blame for infecting me. Those bastards.)

I bought virus scan (in a three-pack along with personal firewall and Quickclean) at wal*mart about a week ago, and since then have not been able to install it-- I can get as far as the End User License Agreement, but after that, it shuts itself off. I quickly learned that this problem extended to all setup.exe-based McAfee processes, which means I also could not use add/remove programs to delete an antiquated version of security center that came with my computer. (Now that I've told you that once, you'll probably remember it, right? Or, at least, it will sound familiar if I bring it up again later in the post? Good! Then you're officially overqualifed to work at McAfee Tech support.)

I'd have enough of trying to fix the problem myself, and was more than willing to go out and by something from a competitor, except that I can't return opened software to Wal*

McAfeehelp.com. The first thing they do is screen you with a basic troubleshooter, which is practical, if totally useless. No, the problem is not that I put the CD in upside down, can we move on? The hoop they make you jump through is a forced screening from their "virtual agent", which is a glorified way of saying that they make you download some software which scans your computer third party virus software, unrelated problems, and probably any sensitive information they can blackmail you with should you decide to take action once you've gotten totally pissed off with their tech supporters, which will, not may, happen. After this, you get to the live support-- using the term "live" loosely. If you want the benefit of inflection, you can pay 2.95 a minute to have them confuse you on the phone (one hopes this comes with a happy ending, at that price) or you can continue on to Free Live Chat, which I did. Four times.


Now, working with the public every day, as I do, I like to think of myself as the kind of person who is patient with others while they're forced to deal with me. Congenial. Polite. And when I chatted with the first person, Stef W., I was fairly convinced that I was, in fact, very nice. Ditto through Andy K., even though he kept instructing me to re-download the program, even though the program was on a CD. Ditto through Cindy law, who sent me a novella-length list of instructions for removing any trace of McAfee from my registry, and instructed me, over and over again, to use add/remove programs, which I had already explained to her (and to andy, before her) was not working. (You remember though, don't you? Good. You get a raise.) It wasn't till the first two and a half hours worth of instructions and different instructions, and then the same instructions again didn't work, and I kept having to re-log on to the service (each and every time having to go through the troubleshooting and the virtual agent), give them my reference number from the last chat session, and wait "on hold" as they updated themselves with my rapidly growing case history, it wasn't until after all this did I begin to feel just a twinge of impatience. I got Andy a second time, who, after spending ten minutes reading my case history a second time, promptly transferred me to his supervisor, Anil. "Finally," I thought. "Someone with experience and authority. Now we're getting somewhere."

Oh, naive girl.

I won't drag this post on much longer-- I didn't enjoy doing it, you probably won't enjoy reading about it. I'd just like to finish this off with the end of my conversation with Anil, a piece I called "Linda's out of Motherfucking Patience, Motherfucking Anil."

Anil R.: Use the FreeScan utility.
Anil R.: Then uninstall SecurityCenter from the Add/Remove programs.
Anil R.: I am going to send you instructions to run free scan that will open in a new window on your screen.
Linda: I'm already in the free scan
Linda: but *I can't uninstall security center* through add/remove programs
Linda: it won't work
Anil R.: Delete the files I mentioned first and then uninstall it.
Linda: I did that.
Linda: and I still can't use the add/remove program thing to uninstall security center
Anil R.: Linda, stay online while you get an e-mail message.
Linda: okay.
Linda: pretty ironic that freescan is trying to get me to buy virus scan.
Anil R.: Check your e-mail account inbox and let me know if you have received any e-mail message?
Linda: I got it. The first thing it tells me to do is use add/remove programs, though. And we've already established that that's not gonna work.
Anil R.: Linda, follow the other steps listed in the e-mail message.
Anil R.: Then you can install VirusScan protection.
Linda: well, color me convinced.
Anil R.: The e-mail message contains steps to remove all the McAfee entries. However, you should not follow the steps mentioned for Add/Remove programs.
Anil R.: Do you have any additional questions or concerns I may assist you with today?
Linda: do I get another rootin', tootin' reference number? I'd hate to not have anything to remember the past three hours of my life by.
Anil R.: Your reference number for this chat session is 16206333.
Anil R.: I would like to ensure you’re satisfied with the support I offered. Is there anything else I may assist you with today?
Linda: not even if *you* paid *me*, Anil.


On second thought, it's entirely possible that it wasn't worth writing an entire post just to showcase an instance where I was rude to a tech support worker. Eh, c'est la vie.

On with it.

I've been working for hours on a little project for the upcoming election (No on 1, Mainers) when I'm interrupted by the MP3 I select to listen to nearly at random, without realizing, until it starts, the undeniable energy that it's going it's going to release into my bloodstream, the undeniable distraction it will pose. Bright Eyes' "Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To love and To be Loved)." What a great fucking song.

It pulls me from my focus in an overtired craze-- it's 5AM, but the clocks were just reset, so it's like it was already six-- and as I begin to rock to the beat and bang my head with sheer agreement to every word, somewhere in the part of my mind that's always quiet and thoughtful, I am thinking the words What do I want most in life?

The answer comes quickly to me, because of the song it's meaning and the moment and the energy and the sheer sparking undeniability of the truth:

What I want most out of life is to be as I am right now-- dressed in sweats and wrapped in a blanket, wearing slippers with the smell of of my feet and the dog crap they stepped in, lips chapped, hair a mess, and me, in a near-epileptic fit over the driving drum beat of some song, screaming out-of-key to every lyric-- and to be loved all the more for it.


In the car, when I'm doing singing both Ariel's and Ursula's parts in "Poor, Unfortunate Souls", and in the shower, pretending to be the lead singer of The Living End performing "Dirty Man" on stage (complete with air guitar). Doing a Bridget Jones' Impression (A la Jamie O'Neal's version of "All By Myself"). These are the moments in which I want nothing more to be exposed, and have the love that I so fear hinges on a narrow, careful view of me shine through. I want to be accepted for the facets that are ridiculous and loud. Appreciated for the moments that are personal and embarrassing. Loved for the things that I am, when there is no one there to love me for them.

This is why I trust in the love of certain people more than others: Jeff and I practicing a duet of "Baby It's Cold Outside" in his car, shouting "Indiana!" out of the windows of his car and practicing a play about how we met on a stage in an empty park in auburn, all only because they are our things to do. Jeremey and I typing lyrics back and forth and how seldomly I can't get the next line of whatever he's started, my asking him to call my cell while I'm out to dinner with someone else so I will appear to be more popular than I already am and him obliging me (twice), how ridiculous I felt the first time I had to ask him if he loved me, what a consummation it was when he said "yes" (and how we tell each other now, and it's wonderful.) All the history I share with Emily, good and bad-- South Street at Night and leaving things for her outside her window, the longing I have for her when something is happening to me that I know a guy just won't understand.

Singing "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" to Zack while we're in the shower together. And he likes it-- my Marilyn voice, the sidelong gaze over my shoulder, my body, naked and vulnerable and completely without excuse for itself. He likes it all; he loves me.

How did I get so lucky?


It's a weighted word, "Love", and believe you-me, it can cause some fucking problems. I've had to reassess, lately, whether or not it's really how I feel towards certain people, and whether or not I should be using it so freely. There are people who have made me regret using it, and people I know I won't be able to truthfully use it with, again. There are, at long last, people I used to love whom I now very nearly hate, and I can feel, in some instances, a seedling of acceptance of that fact beginning to push it's way to the surface. There are people who've changed their vernaculars and redefined feelings because they've given up the word, and still more people who have told me they never meant it when they told me.

But when I'm hanging up with Jeremey and he finds some cute way to work it in, when I'm standing near Jeff's car and we can both feel the silence before one of us says it, when I type it to Emily and hang in a tiny little moment of suspense before it appears reciprocated on my screen. When Zack came home, just now, and stood in the doorway with that look in his eyes that always makes me feel the words...


As Connor Says, "How grateful I am to be part of the mystery: To love, and to be loved." That's enough.


Let's not shit ourselves.

On with it.

I've been storing up thoughts here and there to string together in my latest edition of Non-Sequitur Thoughts and Musings (Or whatever I've called it in the past.) Not a lot to write about lately, or possibly there is much to write about, but little desire to do the writing. Anyway, here goes:

Non-Sequitur Thoughts and Musings (Or Whatever I've called it in the Past):


Tonight, I was at Wal*Mart, and happened upon Ashlee Simpson's new CD, I Am Me. Apparently, her first CD was called Autobiography. Sources tell me that her next release will be called Self-Interested, and that she may or may not be putting out an unplugged re-release of songs called simply Ashlee Simpson, or perhaps Ashlee Simspon's Ashlee Simpson: The Best of Ashlee Simspson (Unplugged).

People are always commenting that she's obnoxious and talentless compared to her sister. I've never had much love for Jessica Simpson, but it doesn't take much to beat out a self-obsessed diva with a severe case of sibling rivalry and an identity crisis. Then again, Jessica Simpson's CD titles are apparently Irresistible, Sweet Kisses, and In This Skin, so apparently this a genetic thing, like their family need to make up unique spellings of names and words (Jessica Simpson's Christmas Album is Re-Joyce, because apparently the memo that the word "Rejoice" already is related to the word "Joy" was in the same envelope as the one about the actual contents of Chicken of the Sea.)

I just hope there aren't any more Simpsons siblings on the way.



There's this commercial that's often showed on the Turner Networks (IE, Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network, and TBS, which has somehow managed to obtain the rights of every show I love.) about the Gerber Grow Up Plan, which is Life Insurance for babies. In the commercial, the mom/spokesperson is talking in a heart-to-heart sort of way about how the Gerber Grow Up Plan will protect your baby. At least four times in this commercial (I will get the actual count) the phrase "Protect your baby" is used. So, uh, excuse me for pointing this out, but, uh...

The goddamn plan doesn't do *anything at all* unless YOUR BABY DIES. Then it gives YOU money!

Protect your baby by buying into a varitable lottery that pays off in the event of it's untimely childhood death. SIDS has never seemed so fun!

Assholes.



Last but not least, fucking Paul Newman. Fucking Paul Newman.

Paul Newman has a line of Salad Dressing's called Newman's Own, which, incidentally, is the only kind carried at McDonald's. Newman's Own is a Non-profit Salad Dressing Company, and on the back of every container (or in my case, little, difficult-to-open packet) the following line of text is proudly displayed: Since 1982, Paul Newman has given more than 175 Million to Charity. Of course, one's initial, thoughtless reaction to this is something along the lines of "What a charitable, upstanding fellow." But I got to thinking about this.

Now I'm not saying this is exactly how it happened, but if I were one of Paul's personal accountants trying to protect Paul's already sizeable assets and movie star earnings from the wicked IRS, and if I were a very bright young accoutnant, indeed, I might come up with the idea that Paul should start up some sort of organization, say, a food company that was named after him, that, after a minimal initial investment (Quickly paid back), would end up being self-sustaining (Make no mistake: Paul's not personally signing the checks or paying the bills, the money earned from the salad dressing, etc., does that, and then whatever's left goes to charity.). That way, millions of dollars that *technically* belong to Paul are going to charity every year, which creates a nice little tax shelter for Paul, who now gets to casually keep the income from those little *film* things he does, and he gets free advertising for the fact that, unlike most of his contemporaries, he's not dead yet, and he's got millions of people (and studio executives) thinking "What a charitable, upstanding fellow." And all he has to do for it is occasionally pose of a drawing of him in a funny period costume, and, let's face it, they probably got one picture of him on file years ago and he stopped coming around after that. And, who knows, he may even get tax-protected royalties on the use of his likeness, or even his name.

I'm probably going to get a bill.

Now, obviously, this arrangement benefits everyone: the charities, the accountants, the many factory workers that toil over his salt-saturated sauces, and Paul. It would be bad for public policy to be overly critical of set-ups like this, and certainly not in anyone's best interest to suggest, for instance, that he is less a hero of the people than, say, a Dirty Tax-Evading Piece of Hollywood Trash. For example. I just feel it's my duty to point out that maybe, just maybe, the next time you're looking at a tally of how much money Paul Newman has given to charity, you won't have that obligatory twinge of a middle-class guilt, nor the accompanying defensive feeling of a half-assed admiration. And for god's sake, don't feel the need to buy the awful dressing: buy whatever brand you like that doesn't taste like Little Miss Morton's Vomit and shove the (probably sizeable) price difference into the Jimmy Fund jar in the check out lane, or, better yet, the cup of the blind guy pan-handling outside. That 50-75 cents just tripled or quadrupled the amount of your Newman's Own purchase that would eventually have gotten to charity, after the bulk of the money got deposited safely into the accountant's 401k. Tax free.




On with it.

I was taking a survey stolen off of Emily's Livejournal (friends only, so I won't link) when I ran into the following question, and it stopped me:

(what is) Your most missed memory?

Oh man. No way I can fit that into a tiny little answer field.


My most missed memory? If I take even a second to reflect on what the number one might possibly be, I am pelted with them, in no particular order.


Jill's house after school. Band with Mr. Judd. Mr. Ladd's little corner office at the high school. Joe Boss sitting behind me. Bus trips to isleborro and truth or dare.


(I pause before this all becomes about that particular set of people-- early high school, bandy people. I re-open my eyes, and close them again.)


Falling in love with Jeff-- How I'd never felt about anyone the way I felt about him, genuinely, unstoppably wanting to be with him. EL proms: Chad and I dancing and him telling me that there wasn't anyone in the world he enjoyed spending time with than me. Casey and I in line for photos (it took forever) and I turned towards him and he wrapped his arms around my waist and there was no reason for any onlooker to know that that one night was our only one night in that context, that it would be the only night of our lives we ever allowed ourselves to pretend we could care that way about each other, and the way it felt that he still felt the same way about me that I'll spend the rest of my life feeling about him, except I have to pretend it isn't true, because I've made my choices, and I've grown up, and I'm a big girl now and I know what's realistic.

(Close. Open.)

Zack.

The hours preceding our first kiss, the way it felt to lie next to him, the exact position we were in (it's a missed memory because it's a gone memory, all except the memory of knowing the next day how perfect that one moment felt.) How we were before the vaginismus-- before the drama. If we'd stayed that way forever, I would have escaped myself and the way I cling to anyone even vaguely worth clinging to. (an earlier question in the survey was your weakness? To which I replied "falling in love with people." I do it too much, and undo very rarely, though I've recently learned, finally, that I do, in fact, do it.)

The first time he made me cry out of joy. The day I text messaged Jenn that I thought I might want to marry him. The night I (He?) proposed. The night I confessed to him every transgression I'd been storing up to confess...and found out he still loved me, really loved me, and, oh, god, how much he must love me.


(Close. Open.)

Mr. Leighton in the library. Various lunch tables. Drama! Crying in front of Max in the school library.

Duchess.

Tying Brent's hair in knots. My family, when it was the basic four. Campground convenience stores and the way they always smelled, the things they always carried. Playing badmitton with my sister in one of the Carolina's. Kissing a seal.

California. The first words Rachel said to me, whispering seductively into my ear: Wanna be Reiki'd? Midnight talks with Sherry in the hotel room. L.A. with Heather, and the weird devil-costumed street performer who gave us "dream stones". That guy on the plane who recognized Zack's Beal's Lobster Pier shirt, so we had pizza together during the short Chicago layover (because we were both scared out of our minds to be away from home for the first time.) Roxane, happily wearing the red prayer blanket I bought her like a cape-- the smile on her face.


Standing in the Balisque de Notre Dame in Montreal. Laying in the grass with Greg in Vermont.


Playing the Bee Puppet game with Jeremey. Bringing Mrs. Deraspe a Birthday card every year. Driving to Land's End with Emily. Her mix tapes.

Sex and whatever facilitates sex.

All the music that was special to Jenn and I-- singing out loud to the Newsies or Robbie Williams in her car and feeling like her and I really belonged together. Being associated as part of a pair with her-- Jenn and Linda. Linda and Jenn.



The sad part is that I know there's more I'm missing, and it's bound to be that this was my last chance to remember some of it.

This is why I write.


On with it.

All too often, I regress to portraying mine and Zack's life together as being melodramatic; hurried and half-chance. I guess that's because, all too often, it feels that way, but it doesn't tonight. Emily and I had a long conversation tonight about money and relationships, people and home, and afterwards I should have gone to bed, but I wasn't tired, so I decided to organize and clean up a little, partly because it needed to be done, and partly because doing something like that makes me feel less guilty than staying up arguing with some jerk of a poli-sci major, or some other fruitless, destructive activity.

I decided to find a few folders and a box to act as a makeshift filing cabinet, something we've been needing badly around here, and as I started sorting through our life, in crumpled paper form, I started to get a sense of the bigger picture of us. How simple and pleasant our life might appear to a distant onlooker. How wholesome and all-American we just might be.

We got married young, and now work full-time to put ourselves through college. It's a daunting task that we surmount gracelessly, but at the end of the day we get it all done. More times than not.

There's a jar on the counter that I've decoupaged with pictures from a travel magazine, and we put all our spare change in it, and even bills, when we can part with them. I got the idea the first month after we moved in, when I was feeling particularly depressed about the less-than-glamorous route my life was taking: I was afraid I'd never do all the things I wanted to, see all the places I wanted to see, and after a little outburst, I calmed down and we went out and bought the jar and the magazine. We have strict rules about not taking any money out of it, and we only cheat some of the time. It's not full yet, but it's so heavy now that it's hard to lift, and every time a put change in it, I feel a little bit better.

Our living room rug is the battle field for a never-ending odor war with our dog, whom we haven't trained as well as we should (or at all), but who I'm confident is happier with us, and does not remember anymore being abandoned in the past.

The laundry rarely gets folded or put away, but does get cleaned a little more often than it use to. We stack our dirty dishes precariously on the edge of the sink, and there are cans scattered throughout the house; we put on Zack's Marcy Playground CD when we clean.

Our creditors have the high ground in our constant battle with money, but I still believe that one day, we will pay off our debt.

We get stressed out more often than I'd like, and it feels, all too often, like we are about to fall from the delicate balance that we so narrowly have over it all. But whenever I stop to look around, we haven't fallen yet.

Our song is "Moon River." I don't remember how it first became our song, but I remember dancing to it on our wedding day. I'm listening to it now.


One day, Zack and I will be organized, and more financially secure, and our problems with making love will work themselves out-- rather, we will have fought them out, together, with love, and unity, and patience that carried on in one of us, usually him, when it ran out in the other, usually me. In just under two weeks, it will be our two-year anniversary. By now, we've probably outlived any bets in the pool. If you all pay up, we can probably afford a nice hotel.

Or at least bring me some change for my jar, next time you come around.

On with it.

(P.S. I haven't quite figured out how to use the blog picture service, so until I do, just assume the below pictures are all part of this post.)

We took Max a long for a hike up Bradbury Mountain in Pownal this summer. It was a nice day. This was taken at the summit. 

This was the only picture where Zack and I both had a good expression on our face. It's a little fuzzy, but still nice. 

Happy Max. 

Max loves Zack. 

He walks out the door and starts off to work, upset. He is, and I am, and it's everything. All the little frustrations that build up, lately, mostly scheduling and time, but not without the influence of money and sex. Some little complication earlier had let us to be cast aside from each other, laying on the bed, stewing in the terrible irreconcilability of our problems, until my mind had sped in frustrated circles too long, and I got up and walked from the room, saying "I can't do this anymore" and not looking back.

I think, maybe, the trick of marriage lies not in the solving of the problems, but the willingness to overcome by sheer gumption, and attitude, and changed pespective. And a myriad of other things that I do not have.

It doesn't help much when we formulate a feeble plan, largely because we know that the formulation of it was just a distraction in the first place. Something so that we feel more resolved. There is a break in the tension, and then something sets it all off again, and by the time he has to go, we've both grown up to the extent that we must face once more that ever-present principle of "you can't always get what you want." But not much further than that.


In terms of what I want out of myself, what I'd like to get along the way, I think, from my mother, dependability and, from my father, his sense of responsibility-- or one that's vaguely like it, but not as unfaultering. The older I get, the more I realize that it was his feelings of duty and obligation to his family that probably did the most damage to his life, taking him away from the dream of music as a full-time career. Then again, maybe it did him good. Who knows where he'd be as a musician right now? And perhaps I have inherited some what he has in that department. I am, after all, working my way towards securing a career that I can count on, while writing waits patiently on the back burner. My father has acted as an excellent role model when it comes to embracing one's passions without being starved by them-- all these years, he would work his obligatory forty hours, and come home to his guitar with whatever energy he had left. Now, though, he is paying for failing to really impart those kinds of lessons on both of his daughters, and because of this he has continued to support both of us, to some degree, into our adulthood. This is unfortunate, because what he wants, now, is to spend the rest of his years doing what he loves, however many he has left. As far as I'm concerned, it's his time.

That's why I built him the site, and that is why I'm working towards what I am. If I take my turn to be a starving artist right now, he'll never get his. I hope my sister eventually catches on to this same theme; the rumor is that she is, now that she as well has enrolled at Andover. All I can say is that she better be, because I won't have the patience for another mistake. My parents still grudgingly have the market on that.


On with it.

Driving home from school this afternoon, I stop at my parent's house because my dad needs some help maintaining the website I built him for his birthday, IDoTunes.com. Driving up to my house, I see him in full-on early fall ritual, playing music on our front porch like it's his own personal Carnegie Hall. South Street's own Stephen H. He does it all throughout the summer but moreso, I think, when his oppurtunities are about to run out. Occasionally, a few passerby's will gather on the front lawn to watch him, or the creepy kid from up the street will come to play harmonica in accompaniment.

As I walk from the car to the house I'm overcome by the exhaustion of working late nights and schooling early mornings, so instead of walking up the steps I crawl, and stop halfway, settling their in the sun laying across three steps. My father is singing Lionel Richie's Hello, except I don't know the name of it, and it is warm outside and the leaves are just starting to tint, and I'm not sure whether the performer has even noticed his audience, but I lay there and listen, and in the moment I am writing this in my head, which is a feeling of tremendous relief.

I've had writer's block for the past month and a half, and it has been an empty feeling.

I might be able to write more than this now, but I don't want to chance that I will get frustrated and abandon the whole thing, aside from which there are things to do. Somewhere amongst the clutter, there is a card I received in the mail. On the front, it is decorated with a collage of all things perfectly autumn, with the exception of my father on the porch. Inside, there is a statement from my credit card company saying that they want me to enjoy my fall without the stress of adding further damage to my credit report. As far as I'm concerned, I haven't done as badly at they're making it out, a few late payments, maybe one or two missed. Still, they've kicked my interest rates into the freaking-impossible-to-ever-pay back numbers, so it's time I overcame my pride and called, to see what they can work out for me. Because this is adulthood, this is responsibility; this is what people in the fall of their lives do.

Just figures that when I finally sit down to get it out of they, I can't find the damn thing. I guess, like today, there's some summer in me yet.

On with it.

Okay, that motherfucking commenting thing is a little more difficutl than I, at first, suspected. In the meantime, I wanted to post a little something to distract you: for those of you who haven't read the first draft, I wrote a short story with the working title "Doublewides" quite a few months ago, and now that I've had some time to let it air, I'm thinking I'll go back and work with it, give it some more depth, maybe turn it into a novella (because I haven't acted really pretentious in a while.) Anyways, I was looking it over and I realized that if I edit it that much, the following excerpt will probably change, and I think that would be too bad, because it's a kick-ass excerpt. So read.

---

They were both quiet for a few minutes before he spoke again. "Trish?"

"Yeah?"

"We need to talk about last night."

"Yeah." She nodded. "What about, exactly?"

"Well, you know. Shit went down."

"I know." And it was silent again.

"I think we're both worried about me going back to college." He was hoping for her to interject
at this point, but she did not. "Like, what it's going to do to our friendship."

"Eh." She shrugged.

"And...we....uhm...."

"We kissed, Tracy."

"Good. I wasn't sure you'd remember."

"I was really gunning to forget. Guess I'll need a little more Vodka next time."

"Please, no." He examined the water-stained institution-style plaster of her ceiling. "But I think why it happened was...you know."

"We were trying to fit a round peg in a square hole."

"Yeah, exac--huh?" He turned his head towards her.

"Trying to...make sense of what we are. What we're supposed to mean to each other."

"Right." He agreed. "I mean, to an onlooker-"

"It'd seem like we were supposed to be like that." She said. "Romantic."

"Exactly. Because--"

"Because that's what soceity is trying to make all the good stories into. Love-fuckin'-stories."

"Romantic Comedies." He added.

" Best Sellers. Because no one understands a deep connection if it doesn't fit into a stereotype. "

" Because a hero is not a hero unless he's getting some."

"Yeah." She said, and it fell silent for a moment.

"But...that's not us, is it?" He asked.

"I fucking hope not. You're a bad kisser."

"And you're a slutty drunk."

"I'll drink to that." She turned her head to look at him, now.

"So...that's out of the way. But what about...the other stuff? When I go back to college. What's going to happen to us?"

"God, Tracy, let's not have this discussion. I mean, Christ, the last thing I need is another cling-on."

"What do you mean?"

"All these people, from my past. From the different waves of friendship-- a new leading man or woman for every stage of my life. Some last a month, some last a year, but they all come and go, except none of them ever really go. It's just that the relationship fades out, becomes dimmer and worthless, and sometimes I cling to them, but mostly they cling to me. In hopes of, god, I don't know what. In hopes that if they say 'I love you, I miss you, things have changed' often enough, than things will magically be the same. As if you can ever really go home again. You can't."

"So what happens?"

"They cling on. And we talk online every now in then in short conversations, and they complain I never have time for them anymore." She sighed, heavily, and looked back up at the ceiling. "Then I have to explain to them that I have long days at work, and things to I have to do at home, and when all is said and done after devoted 90% of my life to things that have to be done, then I have to divide what's left between all the different people I'm struggling to keep in touch with. Except..."

"Except what?"

She sighed again. "Except what I don't tell them is that all of the people I'm really trying to keep in touch with are just different versions of myself." She was talking slower now. "One by one, I lost them-- the ones with ideals, the ones with strengths, the ones with ambitions. Ants go marching."

He mock-shuddered. "Dave-fucking-Matthews."

"Oh, god, I did, didn't I?"

"You did."

"Shit. There goes the version of myself that didn't make references to songs by overrated pop singers." She looked at him again. "So I think we've officially reached the worse version of myself."

"She ain't so bad."

"Not to you, maybe."

"So get the old versions back."

"Can't be done, I've tried. I've tried more than you know, Tracy."

"Are you telling me you really don't believe that people can change?" He asked, hopefully.

"No, are you kidding me? I believe one hundred percent that people can change." She smiled, casually. "Just not for the better."

He let that sink in a moment, and tried to get things straight in his mind, tried to compute what it meant if she really thought she was just a shell of herself, but in the rush of it all, it came out as hollow words jumping around his head. He knew there was some inevitable conclusion to be had, but he just couldn't put his finger on what.

"So what about all the people who still care about you? And what about us, Trish?"

"I'm glad you asked, because I have a theory I've been waiting to unleash on this one." She flipped on her side, and propped her head up with her arm as he waited in careful attention. "In all non..family oriented...what's the word? Of or relating to family?"

"Familial."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

She shrugged. "Okay, then. In all non-familial relationships, there is a basic formula: Stage one, discovering your similarities. Stage two, getting over your differences."

He nodded, in schooled agreement. "What's stage three?"

"Heh," She chuckled, flipping onto her back again. "If I ever get that far, babe, you'll be the first to know."

----

Incidently, the story was originally not supposed to have a romantic element to it at all, but it evolved (not unlike the story of my life, in that regard). I had e-mailed the beginning of the story to a certain ex-librarian of mine, who automatically interpreted the relationship between the two main characters, Trish and Tracy (Tracy's the guy), as being romantic, or pre-romantic anyway. At first I was offended by the notion, that a male and female character automatically had to be involved in that way. The more I got to thinking about it, though, the more I realized that it was unrealistic not to at least approach the subject: the average reader would always be wondering, and hell, it's not like any character based on me wouldn't be. So, I took the oppurtunity to clear the air and add a little of my own commentary to the situation. Trish, unlike her non-fictional counterpart, has the benefit of not falling in love with every guy who shows her the least bit of attention (the wording there was a clear sop to anyone who reads this who knows the reference, I know there are at least two out there.)

I love writing dialogue like that because it gives you a chance to give a voice to your theories, or theories, in some cases, that you don't even really believe, but you just want to give them representation. You can experience with different ideas through characters, have arguments that help the real life you decide who you are-- are you a cynic? An optimist? A romantic? Why go through years of personal evolution when you could take all of these outlooks for a test-drive? Micheal Crichton, for instance, wrote Jurassic Park as a showcase for discussion of the Chaos Theory via Ian Malcolm, who many speculate was a character largely based on Crichton himself.

Tracy's real-life counterpart doesn't believe so much in writing for the sake of theories and dialogue; he relies more heavily on action and plot. At least, he did a while ago. But things change.

On with it.

This is a livejournal-esque thing, but a promise is a promise. I've turned comments on temporarily for the exercise.

1. Reply with your name and I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I'll pick a flavor of jello to wrestle with you in. Emily is right. That's too lame even for me.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I'll tell you my first memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal/blog.


On with it.

Addendum--

Okay, I promise I will eventually get comments up and running on this, but I'm having issues. Anyway, for the time being, I'm having some serious hunger issues.

There's something very right in this album right now-- the "Unsent" Album. I'd never loved it the way I loved Jagged Little Pill, and I kind of gave up on Alanis after that.

She's all about the repetition, but "Are You Still Mad" has it's virtues. The way guilt can turn into accusation. The way wrong can turn into self-righteousness. The mess we all let ourselves get into when we entangle our lives with the lives of others, how foolish it is to sit inside a moment with someone else and be totally confident in the idea that their feelings exactly mirror yours.

Then, resignation. Reality kicks in.

Are you still mad?
Of course you are.


God, they're all good tracks, aren't they? I was Hoping, Sympathetic Character, One.

Still, the ultimate truth seems to come through in the song which lyrics used to hang on my bedroom wall.


----

That I Would Be Good

That I would be good even if i did nothing
That I would be good even if i got the thumbs down
That I would be good if I got and stayed sick
That I would be good even if I gained ten pounds

That I would be fine even even if I went bankrupt
That I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth
That I would be great if I was no longer queen
That I would be grand if i was not all knowing

That I would be loved even when i numb myself
That I would be good even when i am overwhelmed
That I would be loved even when i was fuming
That I would be good even if i was clingy

That I would be good even if i lost sanity
That I would be good
whether with or without you


----

I think, for the moment, that nothing drives us more than the way we feel about ourselves. Not religion, not morality, not anything more than self-esteem. There's that old saying that you can't ever truly love somebody until you first love yourself, and I've steadfastly ignored it, my whole life.

But...without it, you can't really love them the way they need to be loved, can you?



At least I know people still read this thing.

On with it.

I'm really very proud of that last post, in a written-in-one-sitting, couldn't-sleep, couldn't-think-straight-until-it-was-done sort of way, and, thusly, I don't want to detract from it by replacing it's "most current" spot with some meaningless sentimentality about things that reminds me a of people and people that remind me of things (and things and people that remind me of feelings, and feelings that remind me of songs, and songs that remind me of ootsy-cutsie butterflies, what have you), but I'm casually reading this book (meaning I've read a few pages into it and probably never will again) about writing life stories, and the author says, very plainly, that writers write.

What he means by this is the age-old advice that any writer with any credit to their name will tell you: A serious writer should devote one solid hour a day to writing, and be disciplined about it. The problem I have with this is that I highly suspect that my favorite writers would be those with no credit to their name at all, except of course that the problem continuing from that logic is that I've never heard of any of them, and that sort of wipes out my argument. I have more problems with this, many more, about how discipline and creativity are often mutually exclusive, and the staunchy quality that timed writing brings, and all that kind of rot, but it all boils down to creative and glorified ways of saying the following: I have no self-discipline.

None. Not a drop of it. My parents probably devoted considerable time in my youth to disciplining me, and hoping I would learn to take it on myself, but being, as I was, a bright child, I quickly learned that rather than the slow and tedious path of learning discipline, nature had provided me with the eternal shortcut: fussing, lying, and justifying my way out of any responsibility whatsoever.

There is a certain problem with being too smart when you're young. I'm not saying I'm a genius or anything, but it was clear that I was always at the top of my class, along with a few others. The lot of them are fairing pretty well today, come to think of it, which must prove that I was smarter than them all along, if you follow. I was never challenged by anything in school, so I learned how to half-ass things rather than how to apply myself, I never had to give anything my full attention, so I never learned how to keep my mind from wandering, and I never needed to be given directions before assignments, so, today, I just dare you to tell me how to get somewhere without google mapping it for me. You'll be one exasperated search party, let me tell you.

Of course, there you have, again, a list of excuses. Clearly, this is at the soul of my writing, and my self, to be truthful. If I were to be psychoanalyzed, searched through and through, and all my excuses, my lies, my justifications sifted through, I suspect at the end of it all what would be left would amount to an handwritten note, reading "I owe you: one fundamental truth about my being, ASAP. ~Linda :-)"

That is, if I bothered showing up for the appointment at all.

I could go on for a while, were it not 3 AM, about where specifically I think people went wrong in teaching me, where I went wrong in learning. I could talk about methods we could use, as a country, to create a different learning environment for children who learn at seperate speeds, much more so than we do today, and I could talk about the plausible benefits for this. I could talk about regrets and consequences, and I could even spell out a thorough, bulleted, step-by-step plan for change: a redemption that would take place just in time, saving me from the massive lethargy that is me.


But I bet you know where this is(n't) going!

On with it.

Zack and I had a fight sometime last night, and I couldn't get it out of my system. He fell asleep after like it was nothing, always can. Not me. When I get restless like that, there's only one thing I can do to work through it.


----

The Benefactor

She asks, and I tell her I’m only in town for a few days, on a job.

"Where are your manners today, Cowboy?" She says as I watch her sitting on the side of the bed, reaching back to zip up her dress. Her large hanging breasts disappear into the brilliant red fabric. "Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m in town on business or pleasure?"

"I thought your business was pleasure." I say. Nothing from her, not a glance, not a smile. I’d thought it at least worth a chuckle, but then, laughter isn’t cheap from a girl like this. In truth, I had been wondering what she was doing there tonight; it wasn’t the bar or even the town we normally met in, when we met. A chance encounter, tonight, but it was lucky for me. Something had been missing the past few days, itching at me, and when I saw her sitting at the bar, looking just the way I’d first seen her years ago, I knew what it was.

She looks up, interrupting my train of thought; sees what I’m thinking instantly and gives me that half-smile that’s all you ever get out of her. "I’m glad you found me tonight, Cowboy. You were just what I needed."

I suppose that’s what makes a good hooker, knowing what he wants to hear.

"That mean your not going to take my money, then?" I say, reaching for my wallet behind me on the dresser that I’m leaning on, across from her so I can watch her every careful move.

"No, sweetie, I’ll take it. I always do." She gets up and saunters over to me, and I fan her payment out in front of her like a bad poker hand. She takes it from me quickly, in a darting motion, and stuffs it in her purse, indelicately. It’s sad, now that I can afford to, I always pay her too much for her to push it slowly into her cleavage like she used to. I wish to hell they’d invent some bigger bills. "But I’ll say this...I’m gonna spend this here money on something I want, not something I need. Something for me."

"You make sure of that." I tell her. "That’s what kind of money it is, that’s what I spent it on." I’m trying so goddamn hard to be funny or charming or something, but it’s lost on her, or it would look that way if I didn’t know her face so well. She’s a woman of subtlety, a woman who knows enough not to get all hysterical about things. You should only really laugh if the joke is funny. You should only really cry if the love is true.

Probably, I’ll never see her laugh again, but I’ve had dreams about it, the way I saw it that first night. I didn’t even know at first who she was then, what she was, we were just sharing a drink, and I was drinking her in. She smiled then, pouted then, was a girl to the woman now before me, but still beautiful, always beautiful. She’s leaning over the vanity now, applying her lipstick just so. Probably, she was the kind of girl who never believed she was pretty at all, but smart enough to know that she could get her way if she learned how to fake it. If I could make her realize how she looks to me now, I just might see her cry.

But I’ll never see her cry.

She’s mussing the curly locks of her hair, studying the lines on her face in the mirror’s dirty glass. She’s counting the years and managing the minutes, making deals with herself about the future, the things she’ll have, the way she’ll have them. She was lying about the money, I think, because I can see her doing the math of how far it will get her. She’s deciding when to quit.

I hope she never does.

"Don’t look so worried, Cowboy. I’m not heading west or anything. Just in town visiting friends." She walks back over to me and searches my eyes, all systematic, all fake, but I fall for it; I always do.

"Then I’ll see you back home, some time?"

To this, a chuckle, except this time, I wasn’t trying to be funny. "You have a home, Cowboy?"

"Do you?" I counter, feeling slighted.

She cranes her head and looks off in the distance, in thought. "I’ve got a place to stay tonight, and a liquor store on the way there. And I’ve got money to buy the finest drink they’ve got to offer, thanks to you, and the time to sip it slowly, and think about my benefactor. " She’s smiling just a hair more than usual, perhaps, but I’m telling myself it’s all just an act, must be an act, otherwise I’d break down and give her everything I had. Her eyes look straight at me then, and
she finishes: "Yeah, I guess I have a home, tonight."

It’s crazy the way she makes me feel. A romantic would swear by it, but I’m not a romantic. We see each other every couple of months, her and I. She’s the only one I’ve ever seen more than once, and I'm finally getting to think it's more than a coincidence. It’s not like the way it sounds, but she’s the only woman I’ve ever loved.

"I thought you were lying about the money." I tell her to her back, just before she reaches for the door. "About spending it on something for you."

"No, sweetheart. I wouldn’t lie to you. I never lie to anyone who knew me before I started turning tricks."

I’m instantly confused: I didn’t know her before. That first night I saw her, she was sitting at a bar, nursing a drink. She’d looked over at me and smiled a little, that was all it took. A soft sell, that’s what it was. I took her over to a private table and we talked. She didn’t say anything about what she did or was, but it didn’t take long to figure it out. She laughed at my jokes and listened to me babble, and I wanted her so badly, knew it was too good to be true. I started to suspect, but I didn’t mind: me being what I was, I couldn’t have hoped for anything better. When she took my hand and began to lead me out of the place, I knew for certain. Didn’t matter. It’d been wonderful, more than I could have hoped for. A surge of synergy, a connection so real, it had to be fake. No woman could ever make love to a man like me that way, not without a price. She was just a brilliant and beautiful actress, and when the curtains closed I threw my rose like everyone before me. I remember getting up and going to my wallet, getting the two C-notes I had on me and handing them to her without a word. I would have given more if I’d had it, she hadn’t asked for any special amount. She hadn’t asked for any of it: a real professional, she’d been.

I remembered the way she took it, and looked at me. She gave me one of her subtle looks that I hadn’t yet grown to understand. My confusion must have shown because she finally smiled to relax me...no, it was different. She gave me that half-smile, for the very first time. I remember how slowly she folded the bills and pushed them down between her breasts, how young she was then. What wasn’t I remembering?

She must be thinking about someone else. I’m about to mention her mistake, but she gives me a look that quiets me.

Damn.

"You didn’t answer me cowboy: do you have a home?"

For a moment, I can’t answer. I pick up my wallet again, and tap it against my free hand, pointedly. "I’ve got a job." She shakes her head, and I ask. "What’s wrong with that?"

"Ain’t nothing wrong with it, darlin’. You know how I feel about a man with a job."

Her hand is on the door knob and she’s about to make her exit line, that’s maybe what I love the most about her. It’s always something that gets to me. She pushes open the door and is a smoky silhouette against the fake, flickering city light as she says it:

"Hard work and hard time will get you a lot of places, Cowboy. You just better make damn well sure first that they're where you want to go."

The door closes.


Cowboy. She calls me Cowboy.

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On with it.