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.