100 words a day

He drops me at the bottom of the hill. We kiss, then I get out of the car. He stops at the lights a little further on. I run and catch up with him. I jump up and down, grinning and waving madly. He shakes his head and hides his face behind his hands in mock embarrassment. I stay rooted to the pavement. The lights take for ever to change.  

And I think, if this is the last time he sees me, this is how he will remember me. Waving and jumping like a crazing woman, doubled up with laughter.  

Two days ago, I hopped into my car with a mind full of checklists. My flat tire ripped them into pieces.

“Frick.”

I hobbled my car to Les Schwab to get it patched. Three hours later, as I finally pulled away – with my checklists taped carefully back together – my rear brakes gave out while exiting the parking lot.

*whimper*

“Here’s your quote, sir. $315.00 including labor.”

*groan*

I was now faced with a choice: See that I was forced to pay money I didn’t possess OR see that this flat tire saved me from a fiery accident on the freeway.

Today is Halloween and the anniversary of the day my life changed.  I suffered a horrible accident at work a few years back.  I was Humpty Dumpty and I did indeed have a great fall.  No one had a way to fix me.

An angel came along named Jim Chappuis and he spent more than twelve hours in surgery on my spine.  Part surgeon, part carpenter, mostly miracle maker, Dr. Jim healed me.

It wasn’t so much his skill at doctoring, it was his friendship.

This man is always in my thoughts.

I’ll never-ever be able to thank him enough.

I should just warn people that I am a fire sign.  I’m passionate, emotional, easily excited and full of energy.  There is no subtlety in my world. I’m either blistering hot or freezing cold.  I absolutely love you or violently hate you.  There is no middle ground.   Sometimes I scream and sometimes I sing.  But I promise you that you can always tell what I’m feeling.

Except that I’m not a fire sign, I’m a water sign.  We’re supposedly more reserved and less gregarious (though equally passionate, she’s careful to include).

I may have been born at the wrong time.

On Monday, I got a new Arabic teacher. Her teaching style is different than my previous teacher’s, and I can tell she’s going to make me cry.

She’s not mean. She’s just eager to be a good teacher, and her eagerness scares me since I’ll be with her for five hours a day. She seems like she’ll force me to do something outside of my comfort zone on a day when I’m really tired, frustrated, and saturated with learning. And the dam will break.

It’s a badge of honor, really. Many of my friends and colleagues have cried in class.

My heart sinks as I unlock my bike. The way the wheel sinks instead of bouncing off the ground is a total giveaway: I have a puncture, and 10 minutes to get to the station. The wheel grates uncomfortably on the ground.

Somehow, I make it to the station – only to find my train has been cancelled. The next one arrives just in time for me to miss the connection to my home town by literally seconds.

What was the hold up?

Dead body,” whispers a man, uncomfortably close in my ear. “Found in bits and pieces on the line.”

I enjoy substitute teaching.  I thought I would prefer the lower grades, but actually high school is a little easier.  Middle school can be tough because the kids are just getting the hormone rush.  They can’t decide if they are kids or adults yet so you get a mixture of both.  The nice thing about high school and middle school is that they have periods so if one class is difficult you know that they will be moving on in fifty minutes.  In elementary school the only break you get is lunch - if you’re lucky and don’t have yard duty.

I have only one childhood memory of Halloween.  My mom dressed me in a silk Chinese qipao so I could participate in the costume parade at my overseas American school.  When I asked her what I was supposed to tell people that I was, she said, “A Chinese girl, of course!”  Didn’t realize I needed a costume for that. 

I got into the Halloween spirit this year.  We went to a pumpkin patch.  My first jack-o-lantern, my husband gave him an adorable toothy grin.  We toasted the seeds and made a pie.  Can’t wait for the trick-or-treaters to spook me.

I went out with someone a few months ago who will just not go away.

By “not going away”, I mean that every Sunday afternoon, he runs the same stupid personal ad on Craigslist. 

Well, really he’s “not going away” because on most Sunday evenings, I search Craigslist specifically for this stupid personal ad. 

I don’t do this because I still like him, I do this because I like to be right. 

So far I’ve been right every Sunday. 

Starting with the Sunday when he left my apartment and two hours later I found the ad for the first time.     

My emotions are always mixed when he calls me.  Matt, the best friend from my past, who I know will always be my friend no matter where life takes either of us.

Our friendship began with us both heartily following after God’s will for our lives.  He, spurning his impatience for “The One” to come along; and I, spurning my homosexuality so that “The One” will come along, were incredibly close.

Now he’s married to “The One” and has an adorable baby.  Now I’m living a gay lifestyle

“It’s been way too long,” he says.  “What’s going on with you?” 

We’ve all heard of generation gaps and have experienced differences when we’re with our grandparents, parents, or children. These are inter-generation gaps. I’m feeling an intra-generation one.

I remember clearly when it started. I was a junior in college, and the freshmen arrived on campus in low-slung jeans and tops bearing their midriffs. Soon, fun words like “muffin-top” and “whale tail” became part of our lexicon.

Last week I had three conversations in which friends mentioned their f-buddies. Some of them don’t even like their f-buddies as people.

I’m freaked out by my generation. Could another one please adopt me?

The party started this past Friday afternoon and will continue in high gear through All Hallow’s Eve.  For our eight year old (and to a lesser degree our teenager) this week is like Mardi gras and New Year’s Eve combined.

Fueled by Hershey’s and the frenzy of collecting more swag, they are in another world; one of ghouls and creatures and the endless possibility of being scared to death.

So far, we’ve been to school’s Fall Festival and the County’s Trick of Treat Village.  Next up, the Haunted Trail and Halloween itself.  Our vampire and witch know how to party.

My mom only calls me now when she’s in her car. And five minutes away from her destination.

It has to be intentional. I wonder if she thinks I am not noticing.

My standard greeting has become, “Hi Mom. Where are you going?” She should know by now that I’m a caller ID hawk and know the difference between her home and her cell phone numbers.

The conversations are all the same. She describes her granddaughter’s latest activities, updates me about my brother, asks about my work, then let’s me know she just parked her car and has to go.

I know I was right.

Although I am sure it didn’t exactly help that I had had a tough weekend. And that I was, as I figured out days later, a tad hormonal. But no, I stand by what I said. I was right.

Have we been fooling ourselves? When we ended we were already bi-coastal. Maybe distance is the glue that has held us together. It’s the closeness that kills. Our beautifully revised history cannot compete against the truth that proximity reveals.

Maybe the one who apologizes first is ultimately the right one. Nope, I still can’t do it.

I rode the bus with a girlfriend.  At a stop, a woman tried getting off from the back door, which remained locked.  “Back door, please!”  She called.  Bus driver ignored her.  Again, she called.  I sat with a bus full of people watching.  My girlfriend yelled rudely, “Driver, back door!  Back door!”  The door opened.

I felt shame in that moment.  Shame that my friend drew attention to herself.  More shame that I didn’t and wouldn’t think to do the same. 

If it’s not too late, I’d like to learn to be louder, ruder, taking the spotlight when I should.    

There’s nothing like a traumatic event taking place in the lives of OTHERS to really put your life in perspective. 

Lately, I’ve been griping.  Complaining.  Bored.  Complacent. 

Over a million people have evacuated their homes in Southern California.  My grandparents and aunt are included.  Fires are consuming homes, irreplaceable possessions, photos, memories, comfort. 

I’m unsettled that I have nothing to do today.

I have many things to be celebrating.  I have my health, a car that’s paid off, friends who would take a bullet for me, cheap rent in an ideal living setting, comfort… 

…I’ve been put in my place.

Today, the storm, which had been brewing at work for weeks, finally broke.

The boss, L, who is spitting fury over a minor lunchtime transgression, demands to see M in a private room, and I go with them. If there’s music to be faced, we’ll face it together.

The whole thing escalates, 0-60 mph in three seconds. M storms out, L, fuming, goes down to see Personnel. Later, M receives some sort of official caution for her behaviour.

After M and L have flounced out, I remain in the room, my head in my hands. Where will it all end?

As a parent I have to attend many school meetings.  As I look around the room I always feel different from the majority of the parents around me.  I hear them talking, observe the way they dress, the way they act and they remind me of my parents.  Everyone seems so much older than I am, so adult.  In my mind I am still in my 20’s and I don’t feel “grown-up”.  Sure, I have kids, a house, responsibilities – but I’m not “old”, not like the parents around me.  And then I wonder – maybe everyone here feels that way too. 

My complicated life has given me joys beyond fantasies and serious lows I could not wish upon anyone.

I have three rules I would like myself and my family to live by – or at least work on and think about.

My children refer to them as “Dad’s rules,” or “Dad’s mantra.”

Rule One –BE NICE.

Rule Two – TELL THE TRUTH.

Rule Three – FLUSH.

They are simple and all-encompassing.

I’m great at 1 and 3 and try hard at 2, but c’mon how hard is it to follow three simple rules?

It’s really hard. I’m telling you the cold hard truth.

Yesterday I ran two loads of laundry.  My husband folded while I put my feet up watching TV.  We were in the living room.

Today I am sitting on the couch entertaining a friend.  I notice something weird.  Stuffed inside the open air waste basket next to the TV is a red checkered piece of clothing.  I am confused.  That wicker basket never contains anything other than dry paper trash. 

It dawns on me – it is a pair of my husband’s boxers. 

He probably had good reasons for tossing them.  But what was his reasoning for where he tossed them?

Three weeks ago I wrote about a chef with a nice smile and pondered whether to call him. I never told you that I did.

The day after I posted, I dialed the restaurant and asked for him – though not by name since I didn’t know it. I described him to the hostess, and she transferred me.

He remembered me. We chatted, and I asked him out. Alas, he has a fiancée. I was proud of myself for trying.

Last week, some friends went to the restaurant and got the chefs’ names. The hostess transferred me to the wrong one.

None of my friends could make it, but that was fine with me. I often worked out by myself.

I entered the vacant cycling class wondering if I had the wrong time. I chose my bike and began stretching. The door wheezed open revealing Arsenio – the instructor for the evening.

“Huh, looks like it’s just you and me tonight.”  His white teeth flashed.

A group class had transformed into a personal session – with Arsenio. Arsenio with the broad back and tapered waist; Arsenio with the thick arms and engaging demeanor.

I left the class an hour later sweating and smiling.

Ever since my children could clumsily touch their little chubby fingers to their belly buttons, I would tell them “That’s your ‘connection.’”

They would look and giggle.

That beautiful spot forever connects them to their mom.  Not for the nine month’s “in-house” service, but for a lifetime of love.  I’ve always called it their “connection,” because that’s what my grandmother told me my giggle spot was.

My kids don’t recall this and certainly wouldn’t cop to anything remotely called a “connection” unless it had to do with an iPod.

I tickle their “connection” to remind them – every chance I get

It’s 10pm on Saturday, and my Alleged Boyfriend has spent half the evening saying he will ‘probably’ come over to see me.  

I wait and I wait, wondering, keeping half an eye on the rugby. England are losing, badly. There doesn’t seem much point going out now anyway.  

He sends me a message on my computer:  

Would you be mad if I didn’t come over this evening?  

Mad? At having spent Saturday night alone watching a sport I don’t care about?

At waking up alone tomorrow, for the second weekend morning in a row?  

Does he really need to ask?

I started a new job this week as an online columnist.  I am so thankful for this momentum.  Finally, “lawyer” is officially out and “writer” is one step closer.  First day, I get an email from the boss with an attachment.  Opening it, I get a bad feeling.  It’s an Author Agreement I need to sign, containing the all too familiar legalese.  Not to mention typos, undefined terms, and binding provisions I can’t agree to knowing their ramifications.  So instead of signing it, I mark it up as I would in my former life.  Maybe the past isn’t over yet.

Treat me like a stranger.

Like you’d never met me before. Like you’d never even seen me.

You know the honesty that you only share with those closest to you? The honesty that’s sharper than a blade, blunter than a bat? Keep it to yourself. I don’t want to hear it. I require more respect. And more manners.

How else can we forget these horrible patterns we’ve developed? These deadly whirlpools that we keep sliding into. No matter how hard we try to stop or move on, we only repeat.

If we can’t move on, I’d rather not be known.

It’s 80-something and sunny as I head from my car to the gym.  I bound up the steps and then find an elliptical by the window.  The window overlooks a plaza that provides more entertainment than a television.  My eyes scan all the people, restaurants, and shops.  Usually, I watch the little kids playing tag or catch, and they give me a good chuckle.  Today, I’m fixated on the newly installed outdoor ice rink.  Minus the ice.

They install the ice rink annually, but it never goes up in the summer.  Then I realize it’s almost the end of October. 

I have a fantasy.  Sometimes it takes over my day and I will spend hours searching the internet dreaming.  Rarely does a day go by that I don’t check my favorite website to see what is new and if anything has changed that might make my fantasy come true.  Is it a hot stud I fantasize about?  Brad Pitt maybe?  Nope.  It’s a house.  One with enough bedrooms for each child, a kitchen which doesn’t isolate me from the rest of the house, a garage so I don’t have to scrape ice off my windshield and land for many animals.

The subject of death and missing someone came up while watching the tube last evening.  The questions “who do you wish you could have one last conversation with?” or “if you could see anyone from your past…” are always interesting topics.

My answers are simple – no one.  Everyone important in my live whose dead, I shared with what I needed to.  No regrets.  I’d love to have had more time, but not any more content.

The problems are here and now.  I have the time; I think I have the right content.  Now I just have to let it out.

I booked my Thanksgiving plane tickets two months ago. I got a great fare. My flight is out of the best airport in DC (National!), and I leave on Wednesday evening and return Sunday evening. Knowing that these are popular times, it crossed my mind that I might even have the opportunity to volunteer my seat and get a nice, big voucher.

Today while I was catching up on some errands, I reviewed my itinerary and double checked the date of Thanksgiving. It’s a week earlier than I thought, and the same flight is now almost four times the price.

There is one thing that is consuming my thoughts as of late:  flying.

I’m due to fly out to L.A. Thursday morning, but the gnawing panic and restless sleep began a couple days ago.  I know that I possess every tool to master this, to place it where it belongs.  Yet I am frequently assaulted with images of dangling gas masks, unconscious pilot and co-pilot, missing wings and passengers being sucked into open air. 

I know.  Statistically, it’s safer than driving.  But if my car stalls on the freeway, I won’t plummet 30,000 feet out of the sky, will I?

The man blinked, adrift on the classroom’s sea of papers and pens.  There were twelve of us, faces eager to learn how to teach those for whom words danced on the page.

He’d seen the newspaper advert as well, the one about helping with Building Skills, and thought he could pass on his know-how with bricks and cement.

For writers are bricklayers, too.  Each brick, each word has its place, keeping the others propped up.  Sometimes, you smash the whole thing down and start over.  Sometimes, the whole thing collapses.

But, the second week, only 11 of us showed up.

Hello San Francisco!  At seven, you send us off, we 23,000 strong.  In your predawn streets, people in motion, such a strange vibration.  We take in your crab and sourdough breath along Fisherman’s Wharf and salute you at the foot of those flamed arches, you a World On Fire.  Beautiful Day, sunshine over Golden Gate Park.  You revitalize us with the expanse of Pacific Ocean, and in the presence of such greatness, we run harder, better, faster, stronger.  All 13.1 miles I share you with beautiful women (and a few men), to the rhythm of my own Tower Of Song.

“People who live alone are weird.”  

My ears come to a sudden halt.   I interrupt her conversation and ask her to elaborate.  Like a clumsy clown struggling to balance on her unicycle, she begins backpedaling like mad. 

She tells me people who live alone get used to having everything their way all of the time.  She explains that it becomes difficult for them to re-acclimate to a more communal living experience. 

I think she’s crazy.  And more than slightly right.  

Right now my time is completely my own and I fear that I’ll never be able to share it again.

So it’s the weekend, and I am pushing my bike up the road in the middle of town on Saturday afternoon, heading for the cycle shop.  

A pretty blond girl is sitting opposite her boyfriend at a wooden bench on the pavement outside a pub, two pints of beer on the table between them.  

“Hi,” she says, smiling.  

“Hi,” I reply, a little uneasy, slowing my pace to stop by them. “Nice to see you.”  

“Nice to see you,” she murmurs back politely.  

I head off, waves of panic washing over me.  I have no idea who these people are.

Nervous…who, me?

This time tomorrow I’ll be halfway through my first day of my new job, the first full time position I’ve had in sixteen months.

This time two weeks from today, I’ll be halfway through the NYC Marathon, almost out of Brooklyn and really starting to feel those miles.

Rather than focusing on those events, I’m watching a movie I’ve seen a dozen times, flipping through the paper, and totally procrastinating.  I still need to get my outfit ready, go running, organize myself for the week. 

Sweating the small stuff, however, is proving to be a lot easier today.

Autumn brings a lot of special benefits for our family.  The relief from a scorching summer allows fresh air to fill our home, the kids a chance to discover outdoors again and their Mom a chance for some quiet office time (at least during school hours). 

For me, the night sky comes alive with Orion, Draco and Cassiopeia.

Despite the severe drought, we are already having a splendid, colorful fall.  Everyone is happy, except our daughter.  She loves autumn – it’s just the fall she doesn’t like.

Our thespian took a tumble off her school stage and is sporting new crutches.

My husband is a Trekkie, of The First Generation.  Since the Enterprise never made it as far as my childhood countries, I didn’t understand.  Determined to complete my American education, he got the DVD’s.  I am learning about the robot who wants to be real, warp speed, and the Prime Directive (something our Commanding Officer could learn from, but I digress).  I don’t follow the sci-fi mumbo jumbo, but I enjoy the character development and the new conversations we now have.  Like when he explains Klingons are alien warriors known for strength and stamina, and I ask, “Only in war?”

I was unshaken when I woke up to discover that it was raining.  I had checked the weather last night.  

I was put off when I got to Wal-Mart and did all my shopping only to discover at the check stand that I had left my debit card at home. 

I was annoyed when a friend had called to cancel plans we had made days before because he wasn’t “up to it”.

I was irate when my best friend argued with me about shutting the air conditioning vent in my car. 

Moving back to California has never looked so good.

We started talking last week and she suggested going to lunch.  I nearly clicked my heels.  A friend at work! About time!

I wondered what we’d talk about.  Would we bob in uncomfortable water the entire time or swim into familiar territories?

She volunteered to drive.  Within seconds regret descended.  I hadn’t expected the road rage.  In the office parking lot. I cringed with each honk, bristled every time she called fellow drivers (and colleagues) “retards.”

Then her ulterior motive appeared: “I heard you have an opening on your team.  What are you looking for?” Right now, a hidden camera.

It’s been one of those weeks.  Last week was too.   I’ve been reading more than ten poorly constructed resumes a day in between hours and hours of non-productive meetings.  I barely do the minimum of what I plan to do each morning and each night I leave exhausted and shell-shocked.

Today I was scanning my planner and saw my weekend plans: Friday, dinner with H.  And just like that, this ever-spinning world I inhabit as of late stopped.   I could breathe.  She’s more than a friend.  She’s the nonjudgmental, non-complicated family member we idolize more than our parents would like.  

My past keeps catching up with me.

On the station platform this evening, there she was, R, who was at university and school with me, one of those people who, thankfully, seems to follow me through life.  Though the gaps sometimes last years.

An email plops into my Inbox from a former house-mate, forwarded from someone else after he Googled me.  A notice from Friends United saying an old school friend, now living in Portugal, would like to get in touch.

I hear a former colleague is doing the same university course as me.  I email her.  She doesn’t reply.

Rain is finally coming to the South.  Actually, it’s floating, not even worthy of being called mist.

Still, it’s a big deal. 
Georgia has a water crisis, to the point of neighbors turning one another in for violating a mandatory water ban. 
Atlanta will be “out of water in 28 days,” according to experts.

We take this exquisite substance for granted.  After all, the world’s 70% water, right? How can a problem exist?

Complacency, arrogance, ignorance come to mind.

I drink, cleanse, swim, boat, ski, dive, renew, and celebrate it every moment.

After all, we are all born in water.

1. I just took a shower to get ready for the day and it’s well past noon. 
2. I woke up this morning with my lower back more uncomfortable than a whore in church.
3. A friend was supposed to call me early this morning so I could help him run errands.  He did not.
4. The third member in my three-member writer’s group isn’t attending again, causing the group to postpone meeting…again.
5. The only thing I now have to do today is deposit a check that isn’t enough and empty the trash. 

Reasons I think I’m depressed today.

Shop on Sutter was the sort one expected to be called Timeless Treasures: trinkets in glass cases, colorful letters hanging on ribbons, and antique vanity tables.  I went in seeking something for jotting ideas in. 

A black rug of a poodle greeted me, wagging his slim body.  Chester had shiny eyes, pointed nose and a cone collar.  He also just got neutered, with complications.  Undescended testicle made them go into his abdomen. 

Later on the bus, my new journal got its first entry: Socially acceptable discussing loved one’s vasectomy details with strangers, as long as subject under discussion is four-legged. 

I start a challenging new job on Monday, Senior Designer with that aforementioned firm. Things took a good turn with the interview process and I am really excited!

My professional experiences in this industry have always been pretty torturous. Aspects of the movie 9-5, Working Girl, and added bonuses like a boss who clipped his toenails in the office, another who wanted me to smell a rug to determine if a cat peed on it, and getting hit by a car in the name of delivering fabric samples.

And yet…I have a really good feeling this time will be different.

He lives in Town A, a brief, pleasant stroll through the park from where he works. I live in Town B, two miserable, rain-sodden bike rides and 20 minutes on a delay-prone train from my office. If I were to move to Town A, this journey would be even more unbearable. If he moved to Town B, he would face the prospect of having to travel to work, something he doesn’t really want to contemplate.

Which is why our conversations about moving in together, although we are both sick of living out of overnight bags at weekends, never get anywhere.

The last time my life was like this, I found yoga.  I had the Tasmanian Devil ricocheting off the walls in my brain and I needed help slowing down.  I craved an inner peace that I had never known.  Years later I find myself back into that frenetic place: preoccupied, distracted, forgetful, and of course, completely cranky.   I need to rediscover the garden of stillness I once cultivated.

I decided to start by resuming my meditation practice.  Yesterday I woke up, lit some incense, and meditated for a while.  When I was done, I climbed back in bed and overslept.  

We worked at the same consultancy before I started my new job and he left for Abu Dhabi.  We’re from similar backgrounds, share the same sense of humor, and love the international life.  Last night when we watched a movie at his place, we wore identical outfits from our blue sweaters down to our artsy spectacles and bare feet.

Before I got to know him, a mutual friend offered to set us up, but I wasn’t interested.  I’m still not, but when he asked me if I knew of any single Jewish girls, I was upset I wasn’t being considered.

Weekday mornings, I am downstairs before my husband.  I make a fruit plate, sliced bananas and something else in season.  Melons and apples these days.   From upstairs, his electric toothbrush buzzes, then his razor.  I wait for the toast and brew the tea.  I give Miso fresh water and replenish her kibbles.  As I set the table – cereal, milk, butter dish, bowls and spoons – he comes bounding downstairs.  “Hi babe, how are you?”  He says, kissing me.  “Good,” I say.  

We sit down and break the day together, savoring the intimacy in the mundane, the calm before the inevitable complications.