100 words a day

14 - The number of miles I live from my parents, whom I haven’t spoken to in four years.
30 - The number that taunts me mercilessly.  Three months to go…
53 - The number of hours since my last cigarette.  Not bad…
165 - The first grocery store trip in the new place.  Better than the 200 I budgeted.
195 - Not the greatest cholesterol, but much less than I expected.  Time to cut back on the bacon.
777 - The airplane that is waiting to put me through hell.  I don’t enjoy flying.  I know too many pilots.

I’ve got a new Arabic teacher who is new to the department.  He has no idea what we know so we’re repeating really basic stuff.  It’s boring waste of time. 

Today he finally gave us some new grammar, and I had a question.  He didn’t understand it so he skipped it and moved back to what he had already covered. 

I drew my classmates in for help.  Sometimes it’s easier for students to be the teachers.  Since we’re in the same boat, we see the problems similarly.  I just wish the teachers would let us solve things on our own.

I’m on the train home, chatting to someone in the buffet car, trying to buy a packet of biscuits. Nothing fancy, just two shortbread fingers.

I’m holding out a banknote, and not really hearing or understanding what the server is saying. In fact, I’m getting quite annoyed. Money. Biscuits. Some change, too, please. What part of all of that is this guy struggling with?

My fellow traveller steps in. ‘He says you can have them for free’ he explains.

Shame creeps over me. This simple gesture of human kindness was the one thing that had simply not occurred to me.

This is not my story.  It found its way onto my answering machine and thus I feel entitled to embezzle it.

Short version: Girl and Guy have been friends for a long time.  She’s not in love with him anymore.  She can’t be blamed; we’ve all been in love with him at some point.  He’s our sun: so warm and energizing, when he’s gone it’s dark and cold – you simply don’t exist anymore, until the next time.

He made plans to have dinner with her yesterday.  Then stood her up. She left me a message that she’s kinda pissed. 

Kinda?

Today I drove a mail truck.  It was as equally fun as it was terrifying.  I got to sit on the right side of the vehicle!  But, I also got to keep veering toward the center line and into oncoming traffic. 

Six hours of practice weaving in and out of cones, backing into cone-framed spaces, driving up to fake mailboxes and delivering fake mail…then a one-hour road test.

There was a heavy construction zone, a rogue pit bull out of nowhere, a lunatic in a parking lot and lots of white knuckles. 

I have a new-found appreciation for postal carriers.

I’m starting to feel like a grown-up, like a parent without children.  I have stories with consequences to rival my mother’s, and now there’s a lot more thinking before making little decisions like crossing the street or sitting on a bench.

If I hadn’t heard it straight from my friend and seen his tears, I would’ve believed it was an urban legend.  Two weeks ago, he sat down on a bench – and on a needle.  He took the needle and syringe to the hospital, and it tested HIV+.  Now he’s on painful HIV meds for a month, expecting to recover. 

Today I bumped into a former coworker, someone I haven’t seen in years, who just lavished praise on me for my “total body makeover” (haven’t seen him since losing 70 pounds) and my recent professional achievements (getting the job that was so difficult to get).

Then we get to the part of what had been a lovely conversation where I start complaining about my piece-of-crap love life.

And he says, “Oh, that is terrible.  Well, you know, my luck has been awful, too, you know my partner passed away about two years ago.”

Uhm…okay.  Thank you for the fresh perspective.

I am at a swimming pool, sitting by the edge, dangling my feet in the water.  

A woman knocks me in as she plunges in herself with a small child.  

Then, suddenly, I am being held under, for no reason. I kick and struggle, start to panic wildly. Somehow, even though I am underwater, she makes me understand that she can’t let go because she absolutely has to hold on to the child. (No, it doesn’t make any sense to me, either.)  

Adrenaline is coursing through my veins.  

I wake up, seconds later, heart thumping, the sheets damp with sweat.  

6:25am, sitting in my car in a parking lot overlooking the Long Island Sound, with a cup of coffee in one hand, and my laptop and blanket in the backseat, I went to turn on the radio.

Juggling my coffee, my burning nicotine free cigarette, and a wayward FM transmitter guaranteed I didn’t get the talk radio station I wanted.  Instead, the dial ended up tuned to a low-wattage reggae station.

I had just left the old place for the last time – and now Mr. Marley is telling me “Everything is gonna be all right.”

Move #15 in 14 years…complete.

I just returned from celebrating my 10^th vegiversary with two friends, one of whom originally encouraged me to choose this lifestyle.  We feasted on Thai food, and she congratulated me on making it this long.  I thanked her but didn’t have the heart to tell her:  I’ve cheated.

Sometimes eating meat has been accidental, like when I was at a Middle Eastern restaurant and thought kibbeh was falafel.  But last Thanksgiving  it was wholly intentional.  I did it twice.  When the tryptophan kicked in for everyone else, I offered to put the food away and ate two pieces of turkey.

Yoga helps me, among other things, to focus, breathe, find balance and relax. 

A girlfriend and I try out a new early morning class.  In between the vinyasas and warriors, the thirty-something teacher has us swirling our wrists, swaying on hands and knees, pulsing the chatarangas, and undulating in bridge.  He demonstrates all this with his dancer’s body.   

“Feel the energy,” he says, “be alive in the celebration of your body.”  He intimates in his foreign accent. 

After class, it takes a few cups of tea before my friend and I are able to focus, breathe, find balance and relax.

I finish my nighttime routine: take my eyeballs out, half-heartedly floss, turn on the TV. I crawl into bed, enjoy a couple of minutes of a Scrubs episode I’ve seen no less than ten times before.  I reach for the remote and just as I’m about to turn it off and grab my book it hits me. Holy cow! His name IS Jerry (I think). I met him last summer when I was volunteering for a kitchen that provided meals for sick people.  He was the head chef and was always there during my shift.

Now I can sleep.

I can’t stop thinking about him. I’ve seen him at the gym twice. When I saw him on Friday I did a double take, recovered decently, then forgot about him almost as immediately. Today he stayed with me. I know him, but how? I can see him perfectly in my mind’s eye; I can even hear him. I just can’t make out the background.

I don’t know many random people. I don’t talk to strangers so my social circle grows slowly and deliberately. There is one person who could help. But this would be a bad reason to call her.

The last time I saw him, he met up with some friends of mine.  Laughing, eating, joking.  He fit right in.  I decided to ride with him to The Coffee Bar.  Something was different.  Something had changed between us.  I didn’t sneak any kisses at red lights.  I felt the pressure to but wanted to prevent leading him on.

There was no more umph.  The sizzle had fizzled.  We’ve only been dating a couple months.  How could this wilt so quickly?

Now I’ve gotta have “The Talk”, but I don’t want to lose his rare friendship.  Is this anybody’s fault?

While we’re all putting it out there…
I want someone who doesn’t wear man jewelry or have sideburns or facial hair.  Not sedentary yet not a workoutaholic.  Eats healthy and drinks in moderation.  Totally available, totally interested in me.  Someone to walk me home from the marathon finish line.  Not any better or worse than me.  Whose eyes pop out of his head when I’m dressed up.  Not planning to leave NYC. Who would never, ever cheat.  Who wants the same things out of life, even though I’m not always sure what I want.

Not as easy as it sounds!

Tough. Loyal. Brave. Confident.
Adaptable. Thorough. Perceptive. Ethical.
Intrepid. Independent. Hilarious. Sardonic.
Easy to teach. Hard to confuse.
Lazy. Self-deprecating.

Pierced.

Can modulate her voice.
Can use silence as a tool.
Can truss a roast chicken.
Can beat me in Tetris.
Can read me like a book.

Detail Oriented. Attracted to Hackers. Laced with Obscenities. Objective to a fault. Low-Maintenance. Forward Thinking. A Master Planner.
Sharp as a tack. Photographic memory.

An expert pistol shot.

Hates mushrooms, sports, and George Bush.
Has a nose with character.
Believes in Karma, Manners, and Domino’s Pizza.

Knows stuff about beer.

Currently accepting applications!

We often do this, the alleged boyfriend and I, on a Friday night.

The cares of the week are over, and, boy, it feels good to relax, finally, and to catch up with each other. We chat away, soothing music playing in the background, and we keep our wine glasses nicely topped up.

Some weeks, we tackle the more fiendish crossword clues together.

Just sometimes, though, it makes me sad that we’re in separate towns, communicating over the Internet, and that the week has left us drained, too exhausted to summon up the energy to travel to see each other.

Recently I had a first date where we agreed to meet for “a drink.”

Literally…one $5 drink each.

I offered to split the bill, never expecting to be taken up on it. 

When I was, he went one even better by asking me how much to leave if the total was $12.48.  “Would you leave $15 or $16?”

Seriously.  He’s opened a dialogue over $1.

On the walk home, I saw a $5 on the sidewalk and grabbed it, only to find that it was soaking wet, with who knows what. 

Yet another first date that was a last date.

Nice, interesting, boring, stable, predictable, dull, suitable, immature, monochromatic, monosyllabic, misogynistic, misanthropic, married to his work, married to someone else, homophobic, insecure, greedy, amoral, unethical, Republican, cruel, intolerant, anal-retentive, bland, insincere, unkind, vindictive, manipulative, humorless, timid, unforgiving, resigned, wanted in four states, crass, cynical, vulgar, unwilling to break a few rules, close-minded, unimaginative, too young, too old, related to me by blood (or otherwise), possessive, spiteful, dishonest, corrupt, content with the status quo, powerless, uber-religious, too forceful, too acquiescent, callous, tactless, inconsiderate, shallow, addicted to porn, unkempt, unclean, taken, puritanical, an angerholic, pessimistic, sarcastic, or ordinary.

Are you out there?

• 12 people touch your letter before it arrives in your mailbox.
• If a Postal Worker opens up a letter, they can be charged $2,000 and/or go to prison for 5 years.
• Postal Carriers are not allowed to hand mail to children.
• In the 150 plus years of bomb detection in The Postal Service, only 2 bombs have ever gone off.
• Postal Inspectors have been around longer than the C.I.A.
• There is a national average of 3,310 dog attacks on Postal Carriers every year.
• Postal Carriers should never backup their vehicles unless absolutely necessary.

R, my best friend, is telling me about her weekend in Belgium, and, in truth, my mind is elsewhere. On my course, work, the elusive Alleged Boyfriend – the million and three things I have to do. Maybe, I think, I am too busy to have made this call. . .

I ask about her ex, N, who was planning on joining R and her young daughter in Brussels for a couple of friendly, non-romantic days.

‘So was he with you?’ I ask.

Stunned silence.

‘Yes,’ she replies.

‘I’ve just been telling you all about it for the last five minutes.’

I’ve never been much into online networking sites.  Email sucks enough of my time from actual face time.  I ignore invitations from Linked In, Myspace, Friendster.  Then I caved and set up a Facebook account.  It was an easy medium for sharing photos with overseas family without crashing my computer or theirs. 

Yesterday, I get a Facebook “poke” from a long lost childhood friend.  We were thrilled to find each other.  She reminded me about things that only she could.  I started remembering who I was and who I could be.  Maybe something real can come from being social online.

In the end, it’s not as bad as I feared.  

My boss gives me a slapped wrist for the piece of work I littered with unforgivably embarrassing errors. I am to be packed off to London to a proof-reading course as well. In truth, all this is no less than I deserve. So why no feeling of overwhelming relief? Why does it still feel as if the entire world is pressing down on my shoulders?

Why do I still dread going in each day?

Because nothing has changed. She’s still a dreadful boss. I still want out.  

That’s why.

The new place has cold beer in the fridge. Brand new sheets and pillowcases are waiting to be slept upon.  The new curtains turn harsh sunlight into warm and soothing tones.  The floor doesn’t creak.  The kitchen is spotless.  A bottle of Veuve Clicquot waits to help me banish the past from my mind once and for all.

The old place is a bare ruined choir where no birds sing.  Garbage bags and cardboard boxes and empty places on the walls.  Memories in every corner.  Detritus underfoot. 

But it has one thing the new place doesn’t:  Internet access. 

No contest.

I feel a bit like a frayed wire.  The last few days, my daily schedule has drastically changed.  I went from leisurely rolling out of bed at 11:00 am, watching three hours of TV and running a few menial errands to scrambling out of bed at 5:00 am, fighting congested freeways, eating lunch at 10:45 am, filling my head with 8 hours worth of postal information and pounding the pillow well before midnight.

And the best thing about it is that it ain’t gettin’ me down, baby.  And what is it that keeps me keepin’ on? 

That shiny, new paycheck!

“So what do you do?” they ask.  As if that’s the most approachable thing about me, and we’re going to discuss it for hours.
I say the three letters.  They ask, as they always do: “Whats that?”
I enunciate the acronym fully.  They still don’t understand.  One of the words sounds familiar-maybe, but it came too fast and they’re distracted by the bureaucratic double speak at either end.
This is the part I enjoy.  This is my guilty pleasure - not helping them, acting like everyone should be abreast of the affairs of my tiny sliver of civil servitude.
Suckers.

It’s Friday afternoon when C spots the problem. The piece of work which I have already sent off, which I had believed to be perfect, is peppered with mistakes. Silly mistakes, which it is too late to put right. Oh, God.  L, my boss, signed the thing off, even bought me wine to thank me, but it will be me who gets the blame when the brown stuff hits the fan.  The weekend is full of fun things, trips to restaurants and the cinema. But I can’t enjoy any of it. I am too rigid with fear, dreading Monday morning.  

Yesterday, I had a vivid dream.  I dreamt that there were people all over my house, people I’d never met, and I was one of them.  We came bearing gifts.  One brought a white cat with black spots.  I woke up thinking about this cat.  I’d never seen such a cat in real life. 

Today, my sister thanks me for the birthday party I threw for her this weekend at my house.  She said that it made her happy that so many of her friends came.  She enjoyed playing charades, especially when someone pantomimed 101 Dalmatians, and she guessed it.  

I’m sitting at a bar with friends and I’m chatting with the bartender. He’s making small talk to pass the time. He’s older and has been working in the city since I was wearing braces. He asks me what I do for a living. I give my customary non-answer: “I work up in Maryland.” His eyes narrow, “Up on Route 32?” I’m surprised by his specificity. “Actually, no. I work off Route 28. You were close though.”

He smiles at my naiveté. He leans in and says quietly, “Route 32 is the NSA.”

Oh.  He thought I was a spy.

With no effort, I have them eating out of my hands.

What does it take?

-Vulnerable smile.
-Furrowed brow. 
-A shuffle step back and forth in the aisle. 
-An exasperated sigh every 40 seconds. 
-A wrinkled piece of paper displaying arcane window dimensions. 

The first offer of help leads to the second.  Before long, I have three ladies of varying ages and loveliness treating my curtain problem as if it’s the most important thing in the world.  They quiz me on carpet and paint color.  They argue amongst themselves about sheerness. 

Not a bad way to spend a lunch break…

I sit at the desk.  It’s not as cluttered as usual.  The shades are drawn, the skylight dark.  The tooth throbs within its cave, pestering me of the attention it deserves.  

Iggy is nestled in her bed near the couch, opening and closing her eyes contentedly.  It is scarcely past 10:00 pm and I am about to bunker up for sleep, well before my body usually tells me to.  No Family Feud online tonight.  No late night leftover Valentine’s candy raid.  

It’s Day 206 of unemployment.  7:00 am tomorrow marks Day 1 of Employment.

I am willing. I am ready.

In the main street, some people are having an impromptu party, shouting and singing loudly while someone strums a guitar. We decide to walk home, despite the biting cold.

At first, I protest. But then I decide I like this, the town sleeping and empty apart from a few fast-food wrappers lapping at our feet. It feels as though we are the only people awake in the whole world. On the bridge, high above the inky river, even the swans are slumbering, their heads buried deep in their scrawny necks.

It is 1am, and the town is all ours, all ours.

Early on, it became clear that this wasn’t like last time.  The pounds aren’t going to fly off.    Still, it has taken all my faith to continue going to the gym five or six times a week.  Like rent, the first of the month is weigh day, but my efforts haven’t paid off.  Not one pound, and I’ve been hard core since October. 

I made a doctor’s appointment to test my thyroid, but this past week, when I’ve looked in the mirror, I’ve noticed my shape has changed.  My clothes are fitting better, too.  I’m glad I didn’t give up.

School isn’t restricted to the weekdays.  Yesterday I learned a lesson, free of charge.  A group of friends met at Marrakesh to enjoy an evening of Middle Eastern cuisine and belly-dancing.  We didn’t make it past the host’s stand.

The friend who made the reservation was upset that the host didn’t want to seat her in the crowded restaurant even though she was 20 minutes late and only 2 of the 12 people in the party were present.  She said something that insulted him, and he told us to leave the premises.

Important lesson:  you catch more flies with honey.

I’m writing a story about a fishmonger.  It’s so bad, I stop.

Instead, I read a book.  It says:

You can dismiss miracles as coincidence or you can begin to label coincidence as miracle….expect to be supported and you will be.  Support can come from any quarter at any time….Sometimes it’s a timely hint…Sometimes it’s the “break” that gives us encouragement when we need it.   

Today, my sister says to me, “I got salmon, and the fish guy at the store was cute.”

“You mean fishmonger.”

“Is that what they’re called?”

I sit down and work on the story again.

I live on a busy corner, so I long ago grew used to the constant noise.  Speeders, squealers, muffler problems, fan belts and fire trucks.  The steady hiss has always been equal parts annoying and comforting.

The hiss awakens me Sunday morning, and today it’s comforting.  I stare at the few thousand bucks worth of computer equipment in front of me, and realize I have no way to record the sound.  Where’s all this progress I’m hearing about?

How many index fingers do I think I have?

Almost a decade ago, I cut off part of the left one with an exacto knife. 

Yesterday, I began moving a fan before turning it off.  The front of the fan flew off, the blades kept going, and now my index fingers are almost a match again. 

Every time I open the bandages to clean it, it’s a tossup between fainting, crying, and getting sick.  I’m lucky, it could have been a lot worse…at least there still IS a finger, but it was still pretty traumatic.

Note to self:  unplug fan. 

Mukelshoot Casino.  Friday night.  Bingo, baby.  I got my bestie and her sister, it’s 11:00 p.m. and we’re gearin’ up for 3 solid hours of multi-colored dobbin’. 

A group of young Asians is sitting to our right, giggling whenever O-69 is called.  Oh, youth.  A tasty morsel of man beef is sitting right in my line of sight…along with his girlfriend type companion.  Whatever, I think to myself. What kind of guy can you meet in a casino, anyway?

Crazy Kite.  Hardway.  Postage Stamp. Indian Star.  The bingo pages are thrown away without any wins.  

We leave poor and laughing.

I come back to my desk after a mini-meeting with a friend and he’s waiting for me.  He leads me back to his office for a chat.  We talk for a while and he explains that we’ll be working together closely for the next five months.  In his perfectly beautiful British accent.  We digress slightly, I make him laugh.  I’m able to control the blushing but not the excessive heat that billowing up through my body.  

When we part I casually mention my holiday weekend plans.  In turn he mentions his.  His girlfriend is coming in for the weekend.  Damn. 

It’s taking all of my strength to hold me back at work.  A boxing match of teams has broken out, complete with upper cuts, right hooks and ear biting. I want in! 

Except, I don’t.  

I made a pact to avoid the politics.  I wanted to rise above it.  I wanted to be oblivious.  After almost a year, I can say I am. Completely oblivious.  But I can feel things percolating.  My natural instinct is to jump into the ring and throw some elbows.  I’ve never been one to watch, but I think I need to sit this one out.

I woke up this morning and thought of all the happy couples who would be celebrating Valentine’s Day together.  Some of those happy couples include my friends.  I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of being all smug married my friends thought of their single friends today?”

As if reading my thoughts, my bestest friend in the whole wide world called this afternoon and left a message.  It was very simple. “I love you.  Happy Valentine’s Day.”  She’s thousands of miles away with a husband and newborn daughter, and she called me.

Man, that made my day. 

Considering how much of my life has been spent as a single person, I’m still a big fan of Valentine’s Day.  I’m obsessed with the color red, maybe that’s part of it. 

Then there’s my Fall ‘07 New Approach to Dating:  Quality, not Quantity.  No boyfriend yet, but it still feels like a good call.

Then there’s the thing that had me LOL’ing uncontrollably in the middle of Third Avenue on this Valentine’s Day 2008. 

The bike messenger who smiled at me and said, “Hi, Tasty!”

Not a line I’m used to hearing, but it was still pretty freaking funny.

Picking a Valentine is either the easiest or the hardest thing imaginable.  For our son it’s a slam dunk; he gives and gets a whole bunch more.

For our teenage daughter it is harder.  She has suitors, people of interest and a whole lot of fun.  Trust me.  She has held a chick’s only cookie bake the last six years when girls bake un-valentine cookies, spend the night, mess the kitchen and realize they are all in the place they should be.

Not where Hallmark puts them.

Rugged, individual women, are way cool.

Still need some help cleaning up, though.

My father is a smart man.  Getting old and having kids of my own made me realize his gifts.  The other night, both our kids had award programs.  I accompanied our eight year old son to his school and our daughter and her Mom went to hers.

Our son won three awards from the national PTA for writing, art and photography.  Our daughter was named president of a big-time academic organization.

I called my Dad to share the great news.  I explained my kids’ “smarts” came from me.

He agreed genetics were at work.

“Smarts” skip a generation,” he said.

My nonexistent willpower surprises me greatly at 5:15am today, when I visit no less than 4 establishments seeking what I need to continue my quit-smoking quest.

I had the choice of searching out the progressively decreasing nicotine brand that I’ve been on for a few days, or accepting “one last pack” of the much tastier and head rush inducing popular brand.

Amoco, Valero, and 7-11 got together at some point, and over hot steaming cups of oil they decided to thwart my efforts.

Apparently Hess has a more vested interest in my health.  So I filled up the tank too.

My twenty-something sister just started seeing this nice guy.  They’re getting to know each other and holding hands. 

Mom calls midday, panic in her voice, for a favor:  “Will you do something for me, honey?  Can you talk to your sister about condoms?” 

My assurances that said topic is unnecessary and premature for this relationship fall on deaf ears.  She tumbles her way down an avalanche of what if’s and urges me to make this my number one priority. 

Finally, I say, “Alright, I’ll talk to her if you think that won’t up the ante.”  She quickly changes her mind.   

“Would you want this blazer?”  My mom asks, offering a hand-me-down I totally wouldn’t want. 

I’m about to say, “Your clothes would never fit me.” when she says, “It’s a size ten”.

I didn’t want it anyway, but she then said, “I got it ages ago.  Wow, I must have been really fat back then!”

“Are you kidding me with that?”  trying to convey that she basically just called me (and all size ten women) fat.

“Well, you know what I mean.  Fat for me!”

Yes, I know what you mean.  You mean that sometimes, you say really asinine things. 

“I was sick yesterday and I’m still sick.  We’re going to have to cancel The Writer’s Block tonight (my writer’s group).  I really thought I was gonna die yesterday. I’m on my deathbed.  I have a cold and a fever of 102.” 

I slam my phone shut, rolling over in bed.  Maybe the answer to the enigma that is my friend is on the ceiling.

A simple, “Hey, I’m not feeling well today. Can we postpone the group tonight?” would have been sufficient.  None of this Look-At-Me-I-Need-To-Play-Up-Everything-And-Make-It-A-Huge-Dramatic-Event nonsense. 

Why can’t I go one week without drama in this friggin’ group! 

Undergoing a major life change is stressful, but lately I’m feeling that it’s been ridiculously easy for the most part.

There have been so many fortuitous events and situations that I even started imagining I can feel the gentle hand of fate guiding me down a preordained path.

I become convinced of this when I walk into the store and as soon as I pick up a hand-basket the overhead speakers start pumping out a favorite song…an obscure song…a song I just added to my iPod the day before.

“Enjoy your shopping,” Fate says.  “I’ll take care of the rest.”