100 words a day

My foe of one hundred words is defeating me.   It isn’t the challenge of distilling complex moments and thoughts to a manageable piece that’s causing my quiet.  One hundred words aren’t too few, they’re too many.  Even ten seem daunting.

I seem to have lost my words.

And what of art?   Is it the physical manifestation of trying to make order out of chaos?  Peace out of pain?

What if one finds themselves bereft of these states?  Must one be miserable to create?  If I had to choose misery with art, or happiness without, would this have been my choice?

At first I was giddy.  I loved the idea that I could ‘run away’ from my problems.   All of those little messes I couldn’t quite resolve? Those would soon become somebody else’s sleepless nights.

At least that’s how it seemed.

Truthfully, it wasn’t joy I felt first.  It was hurt.  And disappointment.  And betrayal. I’d been traded.  Another team requested me and my team let me go. What did those negotiations look like?  Was there a midnight stalemate ending in my manager’s tears of exhaustion, “Fine! Take the best we’ve got!” Or were the “t”s crossed before it ever began?

I don’t want to make a resolution this year.   There’s only one I have left to make and I’ve been putting it off for years.   It’s nearly impossible, but it’s the only thing I want.

In one word: reprioritization.

It means bypassing the carrot that’s in front of me and going after the one I truly want.   It means stepping back at work, taking myself out of the fast lane: a career in upper management wasn’t my dream.  Futures we stumble upon ought not to be binding.

It means writing more.  It means dating more.  It means leaving at 5.

I know something is wrong before she says hello.  A daughter can read her mother’s facial expression, even over the phone.   Then she uses the word diagnosed in the same breath as grandmother.  My legs go numb.  Time slows and it feels like I’ve lived two lifetimes by the time she finishes the sentence.   When she does I feel the blood return to my legs.  Parkinson’s.  I know little of it other than Michael J Fox has it and is trying to fundraise his way to a cure.

I feel guilty I’m relieved; I thought the news would be worse.

I look up to see the top but all I see are the Canyon walls.  My brain taunts me, “You can’t get there from here” and I assert right back, “Well then how did I get down here?”  My breathing is labored and audibly concerning, but I don’t let my feet stop.  My legs are pumping with a ferocity I didn’t know they had.   My clothes are drenched with sweat, yet I’m shivering.  I wonder if dehydration is lethal.

When I finally reach the top my shirt is obscenely transparent, my hips are on fire, and I can’t stop smiling.

I work with two hideous people.  And though I never wish anyone warm, I hope Someone is watching.  Some karmic accountant who ensures what goes around will also come.

But then I realize Someone may have already settled up.  One has had breast cancer, repeatedly.  The other bore a son who has been plagued by health problems since birth.

This makes me curious.  Have their past problems toughened them and made them hard or were those problems a result of past mistreatment of others who wished the same things I do now?

Which came first: the chicken or the bitch?

We got my mother an iPod for her birthday. It’s a blue Nano that brother loaded up for her with all the music he had she would like.  I offered to take care of it myself but after considering our respective musical tastes (him: late sixties - early seventies classic rock, me: late nineties angry girls with guitars), we decided his would be better suited.

She called me saying it ran out of juice.  “Do you understand what I’m saying if I say the letters ‘U’ ‘S’ ‘B’?” I ask.  She’s never heard of them.  We might be a while.

I started a story about a man who is speaking to his sister on his way to his mother’s deathbed. She reminds him of a bicycle accident from their childhood when he fell off his bike and their father swerved to avoid hitting him and ending up crashing into a tree instead.

A version of this happened to me.  Minus the tree. I embellished because I’m creative.   My brother blamed me for breaking Dad and I cried for hours.

Recently I brought this up to my father, he remembered perfectly.  Apparently I didn’t.  Turns out there really was a tree.

I wrote a story for my writing class of an estranged brother and sister who are reuniting after ten years.  When they finally see each other they don’t know what to say, so they end up ruminating about the weather.  And that’s how the story ends.  With small talk about a storm.    It’s a terrifically unsatisfying ending, the kind I hate to read but love to write.

A debate raged about it in my class (a debate I don’t dare enter).  My teacher liked it but recommended I “punch up” the last lines.  If only I knew what she meant.

I thought there was no way she’d be married before me.  Especially since it’s illegal in over 40 states for her to do so.  But it’s not in Canada, where she signed the dotted line.

She really wanted me there; to meet the family she’s formed out in Seattle.  The family she formed when she left.  I did consider it, but mostly I considered how I would say no.

I am happy for her. And her wonderful fiancée.

But a cross-country flight and a weekend in Seattle make for an expensive (and unnecessary) way to witness an ex moving on.

Yesterday I got a new boss.  That’s the third one I’ve had this year.  I’m trying not to take it personally.  But I have been paying attention.

This new one is a tad terrifying.   She can be cold, intimidating, and tough.  It seems like everything is black or white, right or wrong, late or on time.  She’s not much for explanations and doesn’t suffer fools.   And she’s made people cry.  More than once.

I’ve asked around and have been reassured that everything will be fine.  Beneath her rough exterior, she’s actually got a gooey center.

She reminds me of me.

I found myself held hostage at the Toyota dealership this morning.  How does a simple oil change turn into a 50,000 mile service turn into an additional alignment?

It took three hours, two of which I mercifully wasn’t there for.  The last hour I sat in the waiting room absorbing some twenty-four news outlet covering some of the many health care town hall meetings.

On one hand it’s wonderful people are talking about it.  On the other, it’s not great that people are making up things to talk about. Death panels? Terminating old people?

Sometimes I worry about this country.

Confession: when I was a little girl, I loved to dance around my room, performing for an invisible audience.  I can’t sing, but my lip-synching skills are superb.

This continued in college.  My boyfriend would ask me what I did during the day and I’d occasionally answer that I locked my door and spent a couple of hours singing and dancing.  He’d laugh and look at me adoringly.  He assumed I was joking.

Here I am at 32 and it hasn’t stopped. It’s one of the perks of living alone.

I’m pretty sure I’ll still do it when I’m 52.

He surprised me when he asked me to a concert.  I instantly went into “does-he-think-it’s-a-date” mode.  A mode women only enter when they’re not interested.  Otherwise, it’s a date.

I insisted on paying, my way of saying, “this isn’t a Date.”

He spent the night regaling me of tales of fights he’d started, public urination, and the oral sex he receives in exchange for petty favors.  And, of course, every story is sprinkled handsomely with unimaginative profanity.

I tell him he’s the only guy I know who wouldn’t hesitate punching a girl in the face.  He thought I was kidding.

So far this year two people in my department have left the company.  Without other jobs to go to.  In this economy.

It’s a sad commentary on the state of how things are going at work. Sad, but accurate.

And I’m tempted to be the third.

I know leaving a job without having another one lined up is categorically a Bad Idea.  But it’s already begun: spending time creating wonderful “I quit” fantasies, the bouts of Sunday Night Insomnia, and the Pavlovian pit of dread in my stomach that develops when I hear my email chime.

It’s time to go.

Within minutes of entering her home, apropos of nothing, my mother tears up.  I look at her quizzically, and then say (not-so-sympathetically), “Again?”  She shakes away the droplets and steers the conversation in another direction.

These tears have been coming more frequently as of late.   Not full blown sobs, just little tiny ponds pooling beneath her irises.  If you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t notice.

But I do.  And I know where they come from.

They come from a maternal mixture of pride, joy, and overwhelming concern.   She thinks I have it all together, and worries, why isn’t she married?

She tells me about her new intolerable boss. Partway through her description I begin to hear the rattles of rationalization.  And it makes me slowly lose my mind.  Doesn’t she know how great she is? How valuable?

Unable to listen quietly any longer, I cut her off and launch into a tirade about how yes, she’ll make the best of it because she always makes lemonade, but that she can find another job.  This may be bearable, but it’s not her Only Option.

She listens patiently, smiles and says she knows.

And we both know I wasn’t talking to her.

He described me as a flight risk.  He’s absolutely correct.  I walk into the office every day, always leaving one foot outside.   I didn’t realize it was written all over my face, sprinkled in the words I choose.  I wonder if he knows that I’ve given myself a six-month timeline to figure out my next move.

They’re worried.

The Executive VP volunteered to speak to me.  God knows what he’s going to say.  I’ll be fine unless he’s nice.   I can deal with aggression and anger; those emotions are easy for me to echo.   For me it’s kindness that kills.

He leans in close, his lips inches from my ear and tells me what he wants to do to me.  He apologizes for being crass which I find funny because propositions like these are not often accompanied by an apology.  I’ve had a couple (maybe more) and find it disarming.  

It doesn’t matter that I just met him and will never see him again.
It doesn’t matter that I’m in a foreign country.
It doesn’t matter that I’m sharing a hotel room with two other people.   

Alas, cooler heads prevail: my friends step in and respond with a resolute No.

It’s my week to submit a piece to my writing group.

Only two days before its due I sit down to write.

I write two paragraphs and decide I must call my mother.

I write three more and remember I have to request a vegetarian meal for my next flight.  I review the meal options on the website: Asian Vegetarian, Bland, Kosher, Muslim, Seafood, or Vegetarian (non-dairy). These options make me laugh.

I write two more paragraphs then call a friend to describe said meal options.

By Saturday night I’ve written only a couple of pages.  And I’m damned proud.

After looking at countless photos of smiling children I’ve never met, I interrupt the show and ask if I can see a picture of the photographer’s brother.  It’s been well over a decade since I’ve last seen him and I don’t know if I’d recognize the guy.

Without a thought he says sure, clicks a couple buttons, and there he appears on the screen.

I’m not often speechless.

He notices the silence and waits.  I try to gather my wits and the only thing I can articulate is the only thing I’m thinking.

“Your brother looks just like my brother.”

Somewhere along the way I found my perfect sleeping position: flat on my stomach, one arm stretched out above my head but below the pillow, putting my head squarely on my shoulder.

But then I did something terrifically terrible to my right shoulder.  It could have been the push ups.  Or the dish I left to soak for weeks that required Wonder Woman strength elbow grease.

I thought the pain would go away, like most other ailments I’ve ignored that eventually tired of me and left.

But it’s still here.   And now I can only sleep on my left side.

I’ve always dreamed about temporarily living in Iowa.   Any writer (fledgling or established) knows its home to this country’s version of Mecca: the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

So I’ve always known there was more to Iowa than corn and cows.

Last week it became the third state to legalize gay marriage.  Or the fourth? With two occurring in a single week, it’s hard to keep track.

The New York Times reported the Mayor of Des Moines called the Mayor of San Francisco to tell him the news.

The call occurred on April 1st.  The California politician thought it was joke.

I wrote a short story about a girl who’s considering marrying for money.  It begins with a proposal and ends with an answer.  The story explores her shifting mental landscape in the time it takes her to respond.

I tried not to make her heartless, or mercenary, or any pejorative adjective my writing group used.

At one point she fantasizes about a world of and and not or.

I’m starting to think the world of and is not good.  It makes us soft.

I live a life fairly free of compromise.  And I think I’m the worse off for it.

“It’s just a job.  It’s just a job.”

He repeats this over and over again.  Under his breath.  Aloud to everyone in the room.

He says it to himself.  He says it to me.  As if it’s a comforting refrain.  As if it helps.

“At the end of the day, we get to go home to our loved ones.”

It’s true.  At the end of the day (whenever that is) we get to go home.  No one dies.

I understand the words, but not the sentiment.

And while I don’t consider this a career, it’s definitely not just a job.

I can’t place him at first.  I know exactly who he is, but it takes me a moment to position him in the proper context of my history.

Why am I dreaming about him now? My curiosity grows and I go to the one place that sates most curiosities: google. I scan through the results, sifting through the snippets, discarding the red herrings.   The options range from random to ridiculous: a cop, a plaintiff, an arm-wrestling champion.

But google can’t tell me what these men were doing 15 years ago.  Which one is the painter? Which one made me laugh?

Confusion overtakes me as my alarm goes off.  I scold myself for setting it for a Sunday. Then I realize its Monday, curse, and drag myself out of bed.

As I begin my daily ritual vague recollections of last night’s conversations about a snowstorm come into focus. I remember telling everyone it wasn’t going to happen. I humor their memory and peer out my window.

The street is painted white, with nary a track of a tire. I turn on the television and it confirms what I already know: everything is closed.

I smile sleepily and crawl back in bed.

This is how I’d normally write this:

If you watch me closely at the gym you’ll see something rather extraordinary while I’m on the treadmill.  It usually happens after I’ve been on a while and have hit my stride.  My face twitches almost unnoticeably, then my gait changes.  I continue to run, but if you’re observant, you’ll see that I’m actually limping.  While running.  I should stop, and eventually do, but not until I finish the minute, the mile, or whatever goal I’ve given myself at the moment.

But these days I don’t joke about being watched at the gym.

Start with your feet hips width apart.

Lower yourself into a squat and put your hands on the floor in front of you.

Shoot your legs backward and land in a plank.

Lower your body until your belly reaches the floor and then push back up.

Now jump your feet forward so you’re back in the squat.

Then, instead of simply standing up to return to starting position, jump up and clap your hands above your head.

It’s called a burpee.

I did one on January 1st, two on January 2nd, and so on.  Today I have to do 44.

He says the word, “balance” and my right eyebrow arches in wait for I hope is not coming

He continues, “You work from the minute you get here until you leave.  And you bring work home on the weekends.”  Yes, and?

“I’m afraid you’re going to burn out.”

I squint through his words to see what’s behind them.  My problem is… I work too hard?

It takes a while for the bile from my liver to crawl up my throat.  I contain it, but only barely.

I can’t help but think he wouldn’t have this conversation with an ambitious man.

“Oh shoot,” she says, standing in my cube, staring at her blackberry.

“He’s canceling again.”  This was the second day in a row.  Today his daughter got in a car accident (she’s fine) and he had to go get her.

She sits down exasperatedly, “It’s just easier to be alone.”

She’s looks at me expectantly. As if anything I say can help.  I want to tell her I completely understand.  And I actually agree.   But I see my future self when I look her and I don’t want that future self to give up.  I’m rooting for her.  And myself.

It takes a jerk, an oblivious ignoramus to ask for a raise in this economy.

I should be thankful I still have a job, that my mortgage payments are manageable, and that I can easily put food on the table.  And I am.  But it’s not enough.

I’ve recently discovered a disparity in my department.  My brother wants me to shout gender discrimination and threaten to fight.  I’m not willing to don that armor.  Yet.

But I’m also not willing to accept inequality due to a flailing economy.

I might not win, but I have to fight.   Here we go!

Sitting just a few feet a way from his girlfriend (who is standing uncomfortably close to another man), he leans toward me and asks if I have a boyfriend.

I say no and he asks  why not.

It’s a simple question.  The answer, however, is not.

To come to the correct and precise conclusion, one must use an intricate combination of postulates and theorems, differential equations, and graph paper showing three axes.

Since I’ve clearly paused, he continues with a classy follow-up, “Are you a bitch?”

Without hesitating I respond, “Nope.  But I’m a total pain in the a$$.”

I’m driving to work, around a strangely deserted beltway, listening to The Moth.  This week’s story is of a white southerner involved in the civil rights movement.

I blink back tears while trying to steer, the relevance not lost on me.

Later I’m watching it online.  My headphones are lying on my desk, the volume all the way up so my neighbors can hear it too.

When his hand reaches for the largest bible I’ve ever seen, tears spring again.

Cameras pan the Mall and the millions filling it, and I’m proud all over again to call this place home.

Within minutes of getting back into the car I turn to my mom and break the heavy silence, “There will be absolutely no religious references at my funeral.”

She says, “I won’t be there and neither will you.  So there.”

I tell her I’m going to leave strict instructions.  Plus a eulogy, I’d like to write my own.  And it will be hilarious.

And I want there to be music.  And poetry.  And food, maybe a Vegas – style buffet of decadent pastries to greet the mourners

I want everything I enjoy in my life to be revered in my death.

Before I left my house I made sure I recorded the show after the game as well.  I don’t usually care, but it’s the play-offs and my heart is where my home was.

After spending the afternoon at a friend’s place I leave, looking forward to an exciting afternoon of couch-sitting.

I settle in at home, enjoying the game on a three-hour time delay.

At half-time a friend calls.  She reserves most of her television watching for the Soap network so I consider her safe and pick up.

Amid small talk she asks if I’m upset that the Giants lost.

Everyone’s talking about it.  The air is one part oxygen, two parts anxiety.  Terror is in the ether, you know, that thing the outgoing guy was supposed to eradicate.

• They are closing all the bridges into the city.
• Important Metro stops will be closed. And highways.
• 10,000 tour buses will descend upon the city, toting millions of tourists.
• They say if you’re planning on driving, prepare to be stranded.  For up to forty-eight hours.

And I thought this city couldn’t handle a couple of snowflakes.  It looks like the inauguration will be worse.

I think I’ll be calling in sick.

2008 ended and I feel like I’ve woken up on the other side of the looking glass.  All around me surreal situations are popping up, blowing my mind in a million unexpected ways.  I’m tumbling and stumbling, plagued by an uninvited visit from vertigo.

Real life mysteries abound, surprise announcements are being made, nuptials are in various stages of planning, or not all.

I couldn’t take it anymore.  I left work to seek solace in the unremarkable regions of my living room.

And there it was when I checked my mail: a Save-the-Date card from an ex.

Happy New Year!

I reach into the backseat where I left the edits my mother made on my short story.  It’s been a month, I know.  With no deadline in sight, I am no match for Procrastination.

The pages are crinkled and out of order.   The last page is on top and I notice she scratched out the last line and penciled her own in.  I had ended the sentence with a preposition, a petty misdemeanor in my eyes, a serious felony in hers.

I read her suggestion and catch my breath.  It’s powerful.  And poignant.  And much better than what I wrote.

After mustering up the courage to have this uncomfortable conversation in person he tells me that we’re not dating.  These haven’t been dates.  We’ve just been hanging out.

Oh really?

I must have mistaken your secret admirer letter and your insistence on wanting to see me as something more. Wait.  No I didn’t.

You don’t know me.  You don’t know that anger is the first emotion I reach for.  It comes as a surprise to no one that I’m more than a little peeved by this bit of revisionist history.

You must be mistaking me for someone who possesses self-doubt.

I find myself asking the same question over and over again: What exactly am I looking for? I don’t even know where to begin to find the answer.

It’s not recognition.  Any more than I’ve got would be decadent.

I don’t think its money; I’m comfortable where I am.

It should be love, but even I can see I’m not completely open to it.

It might be adoration, although I’d rather not admit that in writing.

Maybe I’m just looking for a challenge - a riddle to solve.  Something to keep my mind occupied while everything else figures itself out.

After stammering about a “lack of chemistry” and blathering about “not wanting to lead you on,” I blurt out the truth:  “I’m not the girl who gets picked up at the gym.”

That’s not me.  That’s not my narrative.   I’m not okay with being picked out of a line-up I didn’t realize I was standing in.

The best way to approach me at the gym? Is not to.  If anything, let me come to you.  I will if I want to.

The guy I end up will be the man I choose, not the one who chooses me

I wake up in pain.  My head is pounding. I roll over hoping it will help.  It doesn’t.  The clock barely ticks as I weigh the pro and con of throwing up.  Pro: I will probably feel better when I’m done.  Con: It involves throwing up.

I make my decision and concentrate on not throwing up.  I lie still and try not to think of food.  Or drink.

Then I ask for help, making the same promise every person makes in this situation, “Dear God, if you just let me feel better, I swear I’ll never drink this much again.”

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. came to speak at my school.  I passed because I was studying for a final.  I couldn’t tell you which one it was for.

Freshman year.  I was leaving his frat house and he asked if I’d come back.   When he assured me he’d still be there I promised I would. But I didn’t because I never do.

Three weeks ago I saw you at a party. I finally got the nerve to approach you and we chatted and laughed for a while.  I left with a friend before I was ready.  Now I can’t find you.

I think I hate dating.

Maybe it’s because it feels like an extended job interview where my mind is constantly running for right answers and witty rejoinders

Or maybe it’s because my favorite part of a relationship isn’t the beginning.  I like it when it’s boring, when my pulse doesn’t race, it rolls over and yawns.

The truth is 95% of the time I’m in an obnoxiously good mood.  But 5% of the time I’m not.  That woman is dark. And ugly. And a little mean. That’s the woman I see in the mirror.

I don’t like introducing her to strangers.

I tell her what’s going on.   I’m not excited.  I’m not smiling.  I tell her the story of a new prospect with a straight face, with no hint of holding anything back.

When I’m done I sigh and say “I still believe that dating strangers is absurd.”

She looks at me blankly, “Well, what else are you going to do?”  Thanks Mom.

Without a beat I tell her, “Date friends and colleagues.”   I’m honest.  And not proud of it.

“But you don’t have any friends.”  She continues, “That are dateable.”

“And all of my colleagues are married.” I add glumly.

D.C.: We’re a city of transplants, with many residents and fewer locals.

This eases small talk at parties. Where are you from?  Why did you move here? The answer to the latter is always the same: the job.  No matter what the job is, it was Here and not There.  DC folks are practical; we tend to color inside the lines.

But that’s not what he said.  He told me, “I needed a change in scenery.” In nine years I’ve never heard the foliage line. I don’t believe it.

Five minutes into our relationship and he’s already lying to me.

He asks if I have some time to discuss how things are going.

He tells me he really thinks he’s improved over the past couple of months.

I tell him I disagree.

He tells me he has the skills and the ability to do his job.

I tell him that I don’t think he does.

He asks me what he can do at this point.

The answer is “nothing” but instead I say I’m not sure.

Silence.  There is nothing more to say.

I leave the room and wipe the tears out of my eyes before he can see me.

I don’t think about him anymore.  Any time I meander down memory lane he’s referred to solely as “the boy ex.”  As opposed to the girl one.   But he’s been on my mind all day.  I heard on the news that his hometown is one of the cities currently engulfed in flames.

I can’t remember the last time we communicated.  I think it was two jobs ago and three, maybe four apartments.  I wanted to reach out to make sure everyone was okay.

I began to google.  And then I googled some more.  And then I found his wedding registry.

It’s Saturday afternoon, like every Saturday afternoon in the fall.  My carefully timed gym arrival coincides with the second half of any college football game.

I step on the treadmill, oblivious to everything outside the twister of my own thoughts.

And then, unlike every other Saturday, someone taps me on the shoulder.   I look up and there’s a man I’ve seen here once, maybe twice.

Without much ado he hands me a sealed envelope.  I looked at him quizzically, asking if I am indeed the rightful recipient.   I am certain I am not.

He smiles, “Yeah, it’s definitely for you.”