100 words a day

Amid a chorus of voices deriding the last decade and 2009 in particular, it seems I’m the only one who feels otherwise.

When the year began, I had only one promise to live up to, that this year would be better than the last.

And although the world saw it’s share of strife, my life improved.  I found the girl of my dreams, enriched relationships with friends and family, and came to terms with who I am, and who I will strive to be.

So, 2009 - we hardly knew ye.  But thank you for all gifts great and small.

What exactly are you looking at?

I know you’re not looking at the hottie on my arm with any sexual desire, because it’s just not that sort of look.

Your look is much worse than that.

Is it the insane height difference?  Or perhaps it’s the age difference that bothers you?  Oh, wait – is it because she’s Vietnamese and I’m Caucasian?

This is 2009, man!  It’s New York City.  If you want something strange to look at, you can definitely beat us.

Besides – I love her, and she loves me.

And you are going to lose that argument every time.

Every two weeks,I walk into his apartment, smiling and waiting for the bear hug.

“How are you?” I always ask.

“Better now,” He always replies.

The routine that follows is soothing and unique and so unmistakably “Us”.  A bottle of whiskey is cracked.  Some delta blues is cranked.  A laundry list of projects materializes and before you know it power tools are screaming.

It wasn’t always this way.  We stumbled and fumbled and made mistakes and misinterpreted and overthought. But now, it’s friendship…pure and simple.  And it only took 15 years to figure it out.

Better late than never.

At least once a day, I have to stop myself from chucking my phone at the pavement as hard as I can.

I lusted after it for over a year.  Then I paid $200 for it, and almost another $100/mo just to be one of “them”.

And while I do admit it’s fantastically useful and addicting and pretty and impressive – it’s no where near what they’re advertising it as.

The battery sucks.  You have to reboot it often.  AT&T’s service is deplorable.

Best phone in the world?  Sure.

As long as you don’t actually want to use it or anything.

It doesn’t make any sense.

But come to think of it, it never has.

I watch her, impossibly tiny and gorgeous, wearing nothing but Gilly Hicks lingerie. She’s leaning over the bathroom sink, applying makeup she doesn’t need.  A former model, she literally makes heads turn wherever she goes.  I’ve gotten high-fives in the street from complete strangers.

“Are you sure you’re my girlfriend?” I ask, afraid that she’ll evaporate when I say the words.

I see her smile in the mirror before she turns her head and gives me a quick up-and-down.

“You’re damned right I am,” she says.

Two brothers, a long hiatus long forgotten, bare chested and reeking of fish.  The ‘keepers’ flap angrily in a bucket behind them as they clutch the center console, making a speed run back to port.

The wave forms in front of us, a perfectly molded ramp that would be disastrous at our current speed.  My brother is way ahead of me.

We slow.  We go up.  We come down.  We get drenched.

And look at each other, bursting out in surprisingly uproarious laughter.

It’s one of those perfect moments, in a life that apparently will never run out of them.

“Was there anything else?” the doctor asks, after concluding his second cholesterol-related lecture in six months.

I hesitate, and my thought process RPMs go through the roof.

Now?  Should I ask about it now?  Are you sure you really need it?  You don’t need it.  You’ve been doing fine without it.  Fantastic, even.  But sometimes a little help would be nice.  A little backup.  Backup is always good.  But I don’t NEED it.  Not yet.  Soon, maybe.  But not today.

“Nope, I’m good,” I say, walking past him.

I’ll ask for the little blue pill next time, I tell myself.

The refrigerator is a working collage.

My longest running art project, it displays the detritus of a well-lived life.

Currently on exhibition is a variety of matchbooks from bars and restaurants.  A grocery list that reminds me to buy Milk, Bread, Whores, and Bitches.  An inch-thick stack of red and white LIRR receipts, fanned out like a badge of honor.  A receipt from an adult novelty item.  A post card from the Black Acid Co-op Exhibit.  A sprinkling of LOLCat magnets.  Semi-naughty polaroids.  A smiling, bleeding, Gloomy Bear.

It’s just a bunch of junk.

But it’s pure Art to me.

Penn Station, the third circle of hell.

8am on a Monday morning, I lean against a greasy metal pillar and sip horrible coffee.  I watch the blurry mass of people shuffle by, all intent on individual destinations.

Every ten minutes, several thousand people walk past me as my head is swiveling and searching, eyes fixed at the five foot high mark.

Suddenly, I see her in the crowd.  She surges forward and leaps into my arms.  I keep walking, holding her eighteen inches off the ground and moving against an irritated throng.

The best part of my week, hands down.

In the past couple of months, I’ve been moving around a lot.

Cars, Trains, Helicopters, Kayaks, Motorboats and Taxicabs.

Traffic.  Bridges.  Tunnels.  Train Stations.  Airports.

The terrain decides the transport.  The destination decides the route.

Sometimes I’m in charge.  Mostly I’m not.

After every single trip, no matter how short or long, no matter if I’m coming or going, I find that I’m never happier than when I’m moving myself from A to B.  The simple act of transporting my body gives me focus and purpose, quieting an overactive mind.

And it gets me closer to where I’m ultimately going.

The email arrived a month ago, inviting me back for a single day of 10 posts.

I haven’t written a damn thing in six months.  SIX MONTHS?!!  And I call myself a writer?  Why do they want me back?  Why?  Such a failure am I.  All this BS about ‘not wanting my life out there on the web’ and I’ve missed it every day since I left.

So here’s a chance.  Start writing again.  Feed the ever cursed monkey and maybe it will re-awaken.

And the first thing I discover is how much I missed hitting Tools -> Word Count.

Catherine:  I hope you find an interesting way to demolish that clover one day.

Cesika:  I’ve been wondering if I know anyone braver than you…and I don’t think I do.  Please be safe.

Juliet:  My mind insists on reading your posts with a British accent.  Post more!

Rose:  Rotten-Roommate + Writing Skills + Sense of Humor = RomCom Screenplay.  Go for it.

Sharkboy:  You and I, in a boat, plus beer, and sooner or later someone will be calling the cops.

M.R.Renz:  Two words.  “Dear March”

Stacy:   In another life, we have children.  They’re sassy, but they write very well.

It’s what they say.

Every time.

And it pisses me off.

Every time.

It makes me think of the short stories and the poems and haikus, the creative writing classes and the writing groups and my status amongst friends and coworkers as the designated proofreader and go-to scribe for hire.

I am a writer, nitwit.

What do I have to do to prove it?  Sell a million copies, go on Oprah and talk about my “process”?

Screw that noise.  I’m just going to keep typing away.

Because when it comes to talent, absence of proof is not proof of absence.

I know it’s your first day, so I thought I’d give you a refresher course.

So far we’ve been giving them 3 inches of ice and sleet every 6.2 days.  It’s just enough to make sure that the media goes crazy with each storm that approaches.  Epic pronouncements and hand waving and pot-stirring.  People stack up to buy bread and milk without really knowing why.  Then there’s that letdown, the sighing of school children, the slipping on ice for days.

What’s that?  Of course this is psychological torture.  Cruel? What do you care?  You’re not even working a full shift.

It’s been on my desktop for six months.

The perpetual monkey on my back, taking the form of a hundred pages of furiously yet sharply written dialog and description.  I recall how it used to consume me, and now it’s just a guilt-laden reminder of how I should be spending my off-time instead of another run-through of The West Wing.

I open it, the first time in forever, and slowly start pecking away.  The voice in my head that keeps asking “Now What?” is temporarily silenced.

Outside, the roads are sand-blasted and salt-whitened.

And they all lead to one place.

“You gave me a cold!” I whine at her, over the phone, a lazy Monday spent high on Dayquil and laughing at the tissue box.

Two days ago, she arrived looking for cracked software of the type I’ve occasionally been known to dispense.  Despite being very familiar with my apartment, she seemed to have forgotten my most powerful computer is at the head of my bed.

Geek leads to talk.  Talk leads to cuddle.

Yadda Yadda Yadda.

“You seduced me,” she says.  “It’s your own damn fault.”

“You get turned on by software piracy,” I point out.  “That’s just disgusting.”

Since I started writing for 100wordsaday, I walk around perpetually composing my latest entry in my head.  Ideas are ruminated upon, approved, abandoned, drafted, crumpled.

Reading back over a year in my life, I mark the highs and lows of an incredible journey.  I recall the mind state I was in for each post, and remember the even juicier bits that I edited out.

I realize I’ve been writing for almost a solid year.  And that’s about as much of my life as I’m comfortable having on the Internet, for all to see.

My last post will be February 6^th.

I was an early supporter.

I attended political rallies, and gave money, and made phone calls.  I wasted hours of vociferous arguments with die hard right wingers.  I pulled a lever and felt my knees buckle.

And today, screaming at the audacity of hubris that defines Dick Cheney, I realized something.

It’s time for me to become the other guy.  The hyper-critical naysayer and cynic that every real Patriot should be.  It’s time to leave the Reds alone and start picking on the Blues.

Obama looked arrogant for the first time.  And I thought the speech was a little disappointing. 

I’ve been working in the aviation field for ten years.

Yesterday, napping in my comfy bed, I hear my cell phone in the other room start beeping and booping every three minutes.  I conclude something interesting must have happened in the world, and a quick check online confirms it.

I run to my phone, only to see the following texts:

“I wonder what US Airways charges for a flight from LaGuardia to Manhattan?”

“Anyone got a good recipe for shredded goose?”

“I hear the airplane was kept afloat by the pilot’s ego.”

“One more reason to leave out of Kennedy.”

With the smell of fresh baked bread gently lingering, he walks back into my life with a bear hug and a slightly embarrassed smile.

It takes a huge person to make me feel small, but he does it easily.  My ‘little’ brother, twenty years old, arriving for a quiet dinner that should have been taking place every week for five years, but yet hasn’t happened at all.

We eat.  We drink.  We complain about our parents and fill each other in on our lives.  He makes confessions, I make apologies.

Somewhere around the second course, the slate is wiped clean.

I reluctantly conclude that the party is over, and start setting my house in order.

Errands are run, laundry is addressed, and the toilet gets a scrubbing.  I lay out work clothes and set up the coffeepot for its return to the 5am shift.  I ponder the Christmas tree and think Tick Tock, Tick Tock.

“The Holiday Season” is over.  No more women, no more feasts, and much less wine.  No more late nights, no more spending, and I’ll have to start wearing pants more often.

Of the past seventeen days, I only worked one. 

Tomorrow is going to hurt.

You can take it however you want to take it.

As a message, as a warning, as a threat.  It’s up to you.  I’d bet on all three.

The hesitant man is but a memory, and I enter you like a crazed gunslinger walking into a bar, guns cocked and locked.  No longer will I accept the status quo.  When I walk in, from here on out, you better have my favorite stool reserved and your hand on my choice brand of whiskey.

Because you never know what I might do if you don’t.

Look out, 2009.

Walden is coming.

The year began in ruins.

Bereft and alone, I made a list of fourteen things I had to do.  Items like “Learn how to drive a yacht,” and “Have sex with a really hot chick” intermingled with “Make up with G” and “Tell S you’re sorry.”

I followed the roadmap, crossing them off one by one, and watched astounded as my life became that of a skyrocketing phoenix.

Today I crossed off the last one.

And as amazing as this year has been, I have only one thing on my list for next year:

It has to be even better.

Awakening, I wonder if it was all a dream.

Fumbling with my glasses and the desk lamp, I flick the light on and see that slim shape laying next to me.  To say that I’ve lusted after it with countless impure thoughts would be an understatement.

But now it’s really there.  Where it was meant to be all along, ready and willing to do my bidding.

I take it out into the world with me, and the moment I was waiting for comes while standing on line at the deli.

“Excuse me, is that an iPhone?”

“Yes.  Yes it is.”

The one thing I hate is being insecure.

Behind the constant self-deprecation is an extremely confident man.  Someone who knows who he is, and what he can and cannot do.  That’s all I ever wanted to be.

But starting a relationship around the holidays is brutal.  Everyone is screaming tidings and good cheer and I’m trying to tell myself I’m not falling in love, not again, not so soon.

But when she’s laying on my back, naked as a jaybird and at her own request, I start feeling like she’s a person worth breaking all my rules for.

I’m terrified.

The weather saw me coming.

Sloop-shouldered and gloomy, nine hours of sleep in forty-eight, I finally hit the wall after a two hour ride home through snowy roads.  The landscape is littered with ice and overturned SUVs, and I arrive thankful I’m not underneath one of them.

I bolt the door and strip off the clothes.  I send a conciliatory email to the current flame.  I get in bed and nap like my life depends on it.

Waking, hours later, craving food and drink, I stand in my kitchen and gaze at the falling white.

Winter never felt so groovy.

“Leave him alone,” J’s father says.  “I’ve already decided he’s cool.”

You owe this guy a beer.

“I’m not bothering him,” J’s mother says.  “I’m just asking.”

This chick is going to be a pain in the balls.

“This is why we always go to his place!” J tells them both.

That’s not the only reason.

“What religion are you?” the mother asks.

Now is not a good time to bring up the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

“Can I get you anything?” the father asks

A bottle of single malt scotch and an AK-47 assault rifle with extended clip, for starters.

The winter sets in, and I continue to live better than most criminals.

Tonight’s adventure was a procession of New Yorkers, a thousand strong, most of which were holding stereos blasting a different version of Silent Night at once.

Enveloped by the masses, sneaking hits off a flask, I give in to the yuletide spirit and feel at peace.

The cacophony of sound and holiday fellowship proceeds from Washington Square to Tompkins Square, where one by one the radios blink out, and the crowd goes wild.

This is the only present I need for Christmas.

Gift wrap would be overkill.

Trudging through a snowy field, the hitmen find their victim.

They assess him from all angles, and cast intimidating stares.  They slap him around a little, and then start in with a saw.

Next up is a terrifying drag through the snow, while the victim bleeds clear and sticky.  Then he’s strapped down to a car roof and driven 30 miles in gale-force winds.

Then he gets several limbs amputated and an extreme haircut.  For the final torture, we run a current through him and dress him up like a little girl.

The carcass looks great in the window, though.

Awakening slowly, trying not to think about all the things I have to do today, I notice something different.

The room is a lot brighter than normal.

I stumble out of bed and move towards the windows, my crusty yet wondrous eyes taking in the inch of snow that has fallen and the impossibly gentle snowflakes that continue to fall.  I see my landlord, cheerfully brushing off his car.

It occurs to me that I hadn’t seen my neighborhood covered in snow yet.

And the first organized thought of the day is:  There’s too many things I haven’t seen yet.

Entering Walmart on a lunch break, Walden is smiling.

He’s decided today is the day.

He heads straight for the racks of jeans, whistling “You Make Me Feel So Young” under his breath, and performs a brief search.  He selects two likely prospects, and saunters towards the dressing room.

He gets the same stall he’s been in, three times in the past four months, and pulls on his first size 38 pair of pants in several years.

They fit perfectly.

And later at home, they look ridiculous next to the size 46 pair he was horrified to have to buy.

It’s the worst possible time for my astounding ignorance to show up.

The room defines stereotypical; candlelit, with music playing and a bottle of wine sweating.  I trot around the next base, swift and intent with visions of glory dancing in my head.

Suddenly I encounter something my mind insists doesn’t belong there.  The brain pulses a quick “Be Cool” warning that is viciously and immediately bulldozed.

“What…um…what’s that?” I ask.

“Oops.  Let me fix it,” she says, and proceeds to do so.

Hours later, alone and Googling, it all becomes crystal clear.

And it makes me feel really old.

It’s not that I hate you.

It’s not that I love you either.

You’ve got the cold air that I dig, and the snow that I despise.  You have the joy of the holiday season, overshadowed with horrible music and a bunch of people missing the point.  You have the friendly human atmosphere, mixed in with debilitating lines everywhere.

Oh, and somehow the amount we spend this year is tied in with our economic patriotism.

But I’ll forgive you anyway.  I always do.  It’s the carolers, and the lights, and the egg nog.

They do it to me every time.

“What a difference a year makes,” I think, yet again, taking my post-dinner walk around the block in the delightful chill.  Sober as a judge, but rosy-cheeked nonetheless.

Thanksgiving 2007 was spent alone, mindlessly live-blogging a bacon wrapped turkey, hoping someone out there would care, and might talk to me.  By this time, I was probably dead drunk and asleep.

This year I cooked the whole nine yards for people who would kill for me.  This year I took a step towards removing yet another beautiful woman from her clothes.  This year I had to recharge my cell phone.

Twice.

Driving to work, it comes back again.

That feeling.

The one that started showing up again a few weeks back.  The radar-like ping in my head, hitting on objects lurking in the ether.

The stage is set and the lights are low.  The players know their roles and the scenery is perfect.  People are streaming in, finding seats, and nipping on hidden flasks.  The band is warming up, and the tune sounds entirely too familiar.

The only thing I’m missing is my copy of the script.

Then again, that never stopped me from taking the stage before.

Probably never will.

You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?

Just this week, I was thinking about calling it even between you and I.  And out of nowhere you draw down and hit me with the double-tap.

Shot 1:  11:00pm, second date, post romantic Italian, I go for the first kiss and run into a PDA wall.

Shot 2:  1:30am, train station, finding my car with a dead battery and the wind chill going Antarctic.

So here’s a promise, from me to you:

There will come a day. 

You will cautiously grab your ankles.

And I will make you say my name.

It’s become my spot.

Leaning against a plate glass window, sneaking in one more cigarette before a tortuous train ride, while the City teems with life around me.

I zipper up my jacket, five out of the six past Sundays, smelling the rum on my breath and feeling like a million dollars.  I watch the crowds and occasionally get asked for directions that I’m usually able to dispense despite being a tourist myself.

The appointed time comes and I duck into the reeking chasm of Penn Station, one more shuffling story in a City that never runs out of them.

It starts with this shifty-tingle behind your eyeballs.  Then, a certain kind of vertigo.

Next thing you know, there’s a tiny pinhead of vision that’s suddenly gone.  It grows, shimmering and angry, until your vision in both eyes is effectively worthless.

When you get your sight back, you have about twenty minutes until the pain hits.  The sensitivity to light.  The stomach-sick feeling that is only comparable to getting kicked in the nuts.  The almost-prayer that you’re able to find a dark bed and the ability to sleep ASAP.

Mine typically last 4 hours.

Some people have them for days.

I spread the news of my return to being single, and I imagine women everywhere removing black arm bands and stopping extended mourning.

My friends, however, have this to say:

The Best Male Friend:  “What did she cure, being blind or being crazy?”

The Best Female Friend:  “We can’t both be single before the holidays– it’s a recipe for disaster.”

The CoWorker:  “This doesn’t mean you have to take her picture down.  Think of my enjoyment first.”

The Ex Herself:  “I just used garlic in a jar - it saved so much time! Your reign of terror is officially over.”

Drinking my morning coffee, staring at an empty barstool, the thoughts running through my head are scattered.

It was the easiest breakup ever, complete with lingering kiss and a promise of lifetime friendship.  My friends seemed much more devastated than we were.

And it’s not till now, three days after the fact, that I feel a sense of loss.  Staring at the spot she’d usually be at, laptop open, calling out the local events of the day while I made pancakes.

Then I think about the upcoming holidays, and my entire mood goes to hell.

I decide to skip breakfast.

After the victory speech, I wipe the tears out of my eyes and slug back the last of the champagne.  I head outside and light a smoke, feeling pleasantly tipsy and grinning ear to ear.

Staring at the night sky, I wonder if Barry is out there somewhere, indulging in the Marlboro Lights he favors, and giving himself a well-deserved pat on the back.

Enjoy it while you can, Mr. President-Elect.  Tomorrow I head down to D.C. to encase you in Lucite and wrap you in Kevlar.

What’s that – you don’t like the feeding tube?

You’ll get used to it.

America, I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.

Two years of baited breath, thousands of blog posts considered, and a horrible nervous feeling in my solar plexus.

This isn’t so much an election as it is a brave line in the sand.  And while it’s a terrible shame we’ve come to this polarized place (Jesus-freaks vs. Bleeding Hearts), I’d still rather be on this side of the line, now and forever.

Today is the day, America, when you answer the call and let freedom ring - resoundingly and without shame.

Kind of like the way it used to be.

The thing that surprises me most is the hospitality.

Here is a guy who should probably punch me in the face.  And then buy me a drink and an ice pack afterwards.

I deserve the punch.
I also deserve the drink.

We relive a decade of loss, over too many substances best left un-enumerated.  We talk about a few of the things that need to be talked about, and don’t mention the things we’re better off leaving out.  We always were smart that way.

We say goodbye and hug.

I mentally cross number three off a list written long ago.

Lately, whenever I go outside, I find myself tilting my head back a little.

I open my mouth slightly and stare vacantly at a sky that’s dark much more often than not.  I breathe in the air that’s becoming frosty, tinged with the smells of Canada and snowflakes and someone’s fireplace.

The dessicated leaves scratch their way around my ankles, and I picture the real cold that will arrive any day now.

Here’s a Winter Ale.  Let me take your coat.

As long as I keep the fridge and the bar stocked, I think we’ll get along just fine.

The first time I see her cry, I get a little pissed off.

It’s not my fault, but I want to find the guy whose fault it is.  I want to tie a rusty chain around his ankle, and use my car to drag him down the Long Island Expressway, doing a buck ten, slowly letting the road grind away at him until there’s nothing left but the chain and loooooooong red streak.

Instead I crack jokes and offer to make the world’s best chicken soup while she drinks heavily.

It’s not as satisfying, but it does the trick anyway.

“I can’t believe you’ve never done this before,” she says, straddling me on the toilet with her face four inches from mine.

“That’s probably because it really hurts,” I tell her, wincing as she moves again.

In her hand is the tweezer, which she uses on my eyebrows like some sort of assassin.  She searches and plucks and pulls with glee, as I moan and groan and consider crying.

Finally she’s done, and I look into the mirror cautiously.  A few dozen eyebrow hairs, and my face looks five years younger.

“You look much less creepy now,” she tells me.

My evenings alone have become rare.

Walking around the apartment, I swig beer and keep an eye out for the new additions.  They’re mostly confined to the bathroom.

A pink razor.  A bottle of conditioner.  A cheap hair dryer.  A single sock.  A bottle of diet soda.  A pair of sweatpants.  A sport-bra.  A tube of lip balm.

Their presence pleases me and annoys me in equal amounts.  They warm my heart and conflict with my voracious appetite for independence.

What’s worse, she’s started to hint that we should exchange keys.

I think that’s going to be our first fight.

While she cries, I number my recent sins.

In the past month, I helped a friend commit grand theft auto against an ex-girlfriend.  I got ten bucks in change I didn’t deserve and stayed silent.  I repeatedly committed sexual assaults against someone too small to fight back.  And now, I’ve hacked the email account of someone’s husband, to prove suspicions are justified.

I lay out the evidence and name the mistress out loud.  She reacts to the name with closed eyes and tears.

They say it’s better to know than not know.

But I’ve not found that to be true.

“I think we should check into a hotel this weekend,” the voice on the phone says.

Normally, if a beautiful woman was to propose such a thing, my chest would swell with pride and you’d see a mischievous grin on my face.

This time, my shoulders slump and I exhale audibly.  My mind kicks into overdrive.  I had this whole plan worked out, and now she’s thrown me for a loop.  If I don’t say anything, she’ll think it was her idea.

“I…already booked a room,” I tell her.

There’s silence for a moment.

“You’re such a pervert,” she says.

If he didn’t have a few friends who had made mistakes in their past.
If the public had a black female role model other than Condoleeza.
If he had served in the armed forces.
If Palin wasn’t a MILF.
If church and state really were totally separate.
If Josh Lyman, Sam Seaborne, and Toby Ziegler worked for him.
If he just walked over to McCain and decked him.
If FOX “News” was outlawed.
If more people read Huffington Post, Slate, and The Anonymous Liberal.
If I were his campaign manager.
If his name was John Smith.
If he was white.