100 words a day

He’s recounting his latest on-again-off-again-now-on-again: “She told me that she likes me but that she doesn’t want to hurt me.” My stomach clenches. “What does that even mean?” he asks. I shake my head, “I don’t know.” But I do. We all do.

“I don’t want to hurt you” means, “I am going to hurt you.”

It means I can tell that you are much more invested in this than I am.
It means you like me more than I like you.
It means I may not hurt you today, but I will tomorrow.
It means run, don’t walk, away.

I’m at work and on the phone to this guy, who’s 73 and retiring tomorrow after nearly 30 years with the company. We chat about how he feels about this, and then I blurt out:

“So, you’re having your presentation tomorrow, then?”

Silence, as he tells me he knows nothing about that, and I realise I have totally ruined the surprise.

“Well,” I say. “At least, I assume you’ll have a presentation …”

Too late. The damage has been done, and L, who has heard every word, is already cackling away. I won’t live this one down for a while.

Two of our family members have four legs and are the best “kids” we have – sometimes.  We have two West Highland White Terriers; the dogs in the Caesar dog food and Target commercials.  The two of them, a male and female are pure white, button eyes, obedient and loving.

Flashback two and a half hours ago.  I wake at 4am and see something on the living room floor - a dead baby opossum.  I quickly get it in a bag, turn on the lights and feel a need to call Gil Grissom. 

What the hell did those button eyes do? 

It may be surprising for you to learn that I talk to myself.  More so while working, considering my vocation is that of a solitary courier.  I’m alone with my thoughts all day, and well, some slip out.

• “Wow, your lawn is disgusting.  Stay off the grass, my ass.”
• “Aaaaaaa!  &@#% you, bee!”
• “Crap, that cloud looks menacing.  Bring it on!”
• “IS this house abandoned?  Nope, just incredibly white trash.”
• “You wanna play that game?  Park in front of your box again and I keep your rebate check.”
• “Aaaaaaa!  Oh, it’s just a fly.”

I’m on the train to work, sitting opposite the two middle-aged men who join me on my daily journeying in companionable silence.

An older guy next to me has fallen asleep. He is swaying towards me, threatening to crash down on top of me. I’m in hysterics, and can’t remember when I last trembled with laughter like this, tears trickling down my cheeks.

The other two are laughing as well, and we pull mock faces of alarm at each other, until it becomes too much and I can barely look them in the eye.

Every day should start this funny.

The wedding had an open bar. 

As I left, I knew in my heart that I shouldn’t drive.  I also knew I was going to get caught.  With utter certainty.

Five miles later, that’s exactly what happened.

I got booked.  Mug shotted.  Night in jail.  $500 to the court.  $1000 to the lawyer.  $750 to the DMV.  $110 to the Red Cross.  No license for six months.  Community Service.  A mild case of the shakes for a year, whenever I saw a squad car.

Total humiliation.  Especially when I had to tell my boss.

I wouldn’t change a single thing.

I had one of the worst days in my entire life on Tuesday and I don’t want to share it with anyone.  I don’t want to, but I have to.

I love kids.  The two that share my genes are my heart.  I’m a PTA, school council and classroom volunteer.  I’ve taught swimming, little league, skiing, camping and reading.

I also got caught drinking and driving a few years ago and paid severely.

A summer job driving a boat teaching kids to water-ski collapsed with a background check.

They told me “DUI’s on my record make me unsafe with children.”

We went to the grocery store last night and eventually made our way to the seeds and nuts counter.  It turned out we both wanted the same thing, pumpkin seeds.  He ordered half a kilo.  Then I ordered a quarter kilo.  The man behind the counter looked at my friend, then me, then my friend again.

“He’s probably wondering why you’re not going to share your pumpkin seeds with me,” I said.

“You know why he thinks that, right?” he replied.

“Yeah, he thinks we’re married since women here have to be escorted everywhere by a husband or male relative.”

So we’re in Ireland on a jaunt, and the car hire guy at Dublin Airport notices the hiking poles protruding from my backpack.

‘Did you bring your skis as well?’ he asks, in his gentle, oh-so-sexy Irish lilt.

At least, I assume that’s how he spoke. I do not respond. I have not heard him. It is only when he reports my apparent lack of friendliness to my friend, and she relays it to me, that I realise he has said anything at all.

C told the guy that I am hard of hearing, but the remorse and embarrassment linger.

Part of being a geek is also being a space nut.

I follow all the missions religiously, and I can give a lengthy discourse on the peculiarities of space-time.  I know what the axial tilt of the planet is, and I know that a light year is a measure of time, not distance. 

And all those little factoids are the first things to fall out of my head when I see a picture, taken from a satellite in orbit around another planet, of a probe gently parachuting to the surface after a 9 month journey, ready to start digging.

Awesome.

“Mom, I know. I’m not going to meet anyone sitting on my couch.”

Twenty-four hours later I’m on my couch (again) when there’s a knock on my door. It’s my neighbor asking if I want to go for a ride and grab some ice cream.

I’m not sure why men think women love convertibles. Do they think we’re all the same? And bald?

He invites me back to his place to look at wedding pictures of a couple he thinks I know. Then he mentions his background in massage therapy.

I lean back and roll my eyes into the night.

Tonight, I felt like a debutante.  We were dropped off at the Ethiopian Embassy and proceeded up the red carpet.  At the top was the ambassador.  As he shook my hand, a photographer captured the moment on film.  Later in the evening, another paparazzo snapped me talking to an Ethiopian family.

The evening went well but had its share of awkward moments.  I dressed a little nicer than necessary and wore a sleeveless number.  Maybe 15% of the crowd was women so I felt some eyes on me.  One gentleman was bold enough to ask my age and marital status.

At 4:30am, I lay awake in my bed, waiting.

The power clicks and my alarm clock dims for a second.  From the kitchen comes the sound of a crazed giant sucking on a huge straw.  After a few minutes, the sound changes to what it would sound like if you tried to make popcorn inside a nuclear reactor.  Then five high pitched beeps squeal, and children miles away begin to weep as their eardrums burst. 

This is my new coffee machine. 

The first few mornings it annoyed me.  Now I find it hilarious.  I’m waiting for the neighbors to complain.

My best friend passed a big test last night.

In discussing her new boyfriend’s teenage daughter’s troublemaker boyfriend, my friend explained that her guy recently ponied up $6,000 to get the daughter’s boyfriend released from the clink in the middle of the night.

Shocked at his ability to get his mitts on this kind of bail payment post-midnight, we discussed the risk involved in his paying $6,000 for a guy he hardly knows.

She said, “Well, if it was you in jail, I’d get the money and get you out.”

Does that not speak volumes about our 28 year friendship?!   

Our home now consists of our kids’ Mom, our teenage daughter, her friend from
Arizona, a female Westie, our eight-year-old meterosexual son and a male Westie and me.  According to my math, the score is 4 ½ to 2 ½ - not fair.  Adding to the lopsidedness is the fact there are two teenagers who “know” everything, a son who defends females and a Mom (who actually does know everything), becoming a teenager again.

My odds of living through this week unscathed are fairly slim.  The ‘House of Women” has rules I simply will never know.

I am content, though.

Looking at the Big picture, our Earth is spinning about the same as always. There are births and deaths, feast and famine, as well as peace and war. Because the world got smaller with huge media hoards, however, things just seem more desperate and chaotic and worse.
I’m going to remind myself this Memorial Day not only about soldiers, but everyone affected by soldiers’ usually good and sometimes horrible deeds.
I think of a Bob Dylan song from 44 years ago.
“and for every hung up person in the whole wide universe, we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.”

Neon-lit alleyway entrance to the sparse club.  Only two or three guys in drag.

Then one shot of Jack and one AMF.  Revelers begin to trickle in.  Someone graciously hands us condoms and lube.  

A guy makes out with me while his boyfriend smiles in approval.  More shots.  The music gets better.  The dance floor packs out.  Flashes of colored light, a hypnotic beat, bodies press in and grope. 

Suddenly I’m grinding with a handsome Latino who has one hand on my crotch and the other hand everywhere else. 

It ends with vomit down the left side of my car.

I don’t know how to spell my favorite dish.  My best attempt is magedrah but I’ve seen as many variations as Middle Eastern restaurants.   It’s a simple concoction of onions, lentils, and rice and it’s my comfort food. 

It’s known as a dish of the poor; a cup of rice and a cup of lentils cost less than two dollars and lasts a week.  My grandmother is always aghast when we suggest serving it to strangers.

Making it is part muscle memory and part family ritual.  My mother howls when I claim I’m Egyptian, but I’ve definitely inherited the pallet.

Tonight, our daughter’s best friend is flying in to visit for a week.  Our son and I are staying home with our buddies at Nickelodeon while the girls pick up our guest.  Our daughter deserves times like these; she’s a model student and a reasonably good person.  Her friend is that way too.

They have girl-type things planned as well as some family-type things.  Tomorrow our son, daughter, their Mom and our guest are spending the day at the South’s coolest thrill-ride theme park.  They are all so excited to go.

No one asked me.  I just wish they would’ve.

Memorial Day had a humble beginning during the Civil War with a number of towns claiming “ownership” of honoring soldiers.  Humility has been replaced with a red, white and blue fest of bar-b-ques,  retail sales, auto-racing and baseball games.

In my life I’ve met old soldiers, now dead who were proud of their service.  I’ve got friends who went to Southeast Asia who don’t feel the same way.  A great new friend was glad to have been in the Gulf in 1993 but really has doubts about our being back.

Politics aside, those who serve, deserve more than a parade.

Moving to a new place is never easy, and it’s the little things that are the most frustrating. While I finally have a TV, no channels come in without a satellite dish. It took days to get the DVD player to work. I only found the internet jack after searching the house twice, moving all the furniture away from the walls. I don’t know which light switches match which lights. For the life of me, I can’t change my thermostat so I’ve been freezing for the past week. I’ve been wearing my abaya as a robe to keep me warm.

Too crazy to be real, but I swear it really happened:

On my way to lunch earlier, I noticed a guy who was shaving his face, dry, on the corner of 60^th Street and Third Avenue, using the reflection in the window of Dylan’s Candy Bar as a mirror.  He had a blue disposable razor and kept tapping it on the glass after each strip, to shake out the stubble.

Like it was the most normal thing in the world.

I mean, this is a busy corner, diagonally across from Bloomingdales, in a very expensive zip code.  Too freaking weird.

I thought about it for maybe four seconds.  It’s clear she spent more time.  When she brings it up, we’re on a rowboat with no escape route.

Yes, this is my first interracial relationship.  No, I try to go through life without caring what others think.  No, I don’t think our ethnicities define us.

She goes further, bringing up a hypothetical public confrontation.  I explain my personal foreign policy, even though I’m sure it will never come up.

She challenges my faith in humanity with stories from her past.  I talk about bridges better crossed when we get to them.

It was a busy day, and I didn’t get away for lunch until 3 p.m.  A male colleague and I headed out for a sandwich since the cafeteria had closed an hour earlier.  We were the only customers there.  My blood sugar was low, and I insisted we sit down and have a few bites before we walked back.

Minutes later, another customer came in.  “What?  A man and a woman eating together in public?  Tsk, tsk,” he said.  My stomach dropped.  I had forgotten that’s illegal.  Luckily, the man had studied in the States and was only making fun.

I’ve been undecided on how to spend my 29^th birthday.  I don’t just want the bland restaurant meal with the free dessert and motley staff singing their karaoke version of the birthday song. 

I want something out of the ordinary for me.

That’s why I chose a gay club.  Jean (my bestie) warns me, “Exclude everyone from the church because they won’t come.” 

Yeah, I know.  Maybe that’s what I want.  Not to exclude, but to weigh those who will hold my hand through all the events of my life; not just pick and choose those they wish to celebrate.

I enter a crowded conference room and take a seat on the perimeter of the room, waiting my turn.  Ten minutes and one round of musical chairs later I claim a chair at the big table.  I wait patiently against the atonal score of rustling papers as agendas are distributed and thumbed through.   I start to sweat.  My heartbeat accelerates and I plead with my pulse to slow.  I run through relaxation techniques frenetically in my mind, “counttotencalmdownexhalemeditate!” Then it’s my turn. 

I begin and it’s going well.  Then I hear my voice quake.  Damn.  Maybe no one heard that.

My friend K is a terrific, thoughtful Asian guy.  He’s seeing this new gal, and things are going well.  She admitted recently that she was reluctant to date him at first because of the stereotype that she and all her other Caucasian girlfriends have.  Asian American males have three characteristics: (1) can’t drive, (2) cheap, and (3) has a little you-know-what.
  
“Well, did you prove her wrong?”  I ask. 
 
“Yeah, she said she was happy to discover that I am not (1), (2) or (3).”
 
So that’s at least two I know who don’t fit the stereotype.  Spreading the word.

I ramble on often but never actually write it down.  When I write, it’s usually well thought out.  Today is just different.

Our kids are in the last week of school.  Both honored with academic awards, but the only education they’re getting is at home and on their own.  Education is a farce and we will all pay the piper someday.

I have new names for our daughter and her Mom; Minerva and Minerva junior.  Minerva is the goddess of both wisdom and war.

My life would be better, happier and balanced if I could just get aboard my boat.

I spent the weekend in the burbs, babysitting my 2 year old niece and 3 year old nephew.

It was a lot of work, I ain’t gonna sugar coat it. On par with running a marathon…the entire time they’re awake.  But these kids are FUN! I can’t believe how many times I laughed…even during temper tantrums, or pushing a heavy double jog stroller up a steep hill. 

Saturday afternoon, at Baskin Robbins, a group of rowdy thug teenagers came storming in. 
My niece turned her messy chocolate covered face around, smiled like they were old friends and shouted, “Hi, boys!”

I went swimming today after work!  We have a pool on the grounds.  The call to prayer sounded as I was doing laps. 

The heat is dry and lessens as the sun sets, but it’s still pretty warm.  OK, I just checked the temperature, and, an hour after my swim, its 99F.  I guess I’m getting used to it.

I was surprised to realize that sunset is around 6:30.  I had assumed that since its summer and Saudi is hotter than DC, the sun would set later, perhaps around 9.  No, that’s not how living closer to the equator works.

I walk into the grocery store with one thing and one thing only on my mind.  It’s 80+ degrees outside and I’m still a few hours away from the end of my work day, but my ass could really care less about that.

After a dizzying search through their immense medicinal aisles, I walk up to the desolate pharmacy.

“Excuse me. Where’s your medicated powder?”

A dead-behind the eyes, assistant-type gal responds, “For your feet?’

“Um, no.”

“What is it for?”

Long awkward pause.

“You know,” I lower my voice.  “Down there.”  Now get this.  Are you ready?

“Down where?”

At  7, my running buddy and I ride the crowded #1 bus downtown to join some 60,000 for the 12 kilometer annual SF race.  By 9:15 I had seen: about 10 Elvises, half a dozen Vikings, numerous pink tutus half of which worn by hairy men, flight attendants with rolling luggage packed with beer cans, the Olympic torch and its body guards, Adam and Eve, Juno,  15 men in their birthday suits (one of which unfortunately ran against the current) and one woman in hers.   The only things that bugged me were the countless tortillas that were tossed and wasted. 

Today is not the first time I got home from the gym and googled, “knee pain running,” scouring sites for good news.  Today is not the first time I didn’t find any. 

I have a love/hate relationship with my right knee:  I love it and it hates me.   Apparently, running through the pain is not what the doctor ordered.  Except.  The doctor hasn’t ordered anything because I’m too afraid to go.  

The worst case scenario involves permanent damage and possible surgery.  The best case is that it’s nothing, which would mean I’m crazy.  I’m not sure which scenario I’d prefer.

I donned my abaya for my first trip outside the compound - to the grocery store.  I didn’t wear a hijab, or headscarf, though.  There were stares but no harassment.  My biggest shock was the cost of Morningstar products.  $7.50 for a pack of 4 burgers, twice the U.S. price.  When I was done shopping, the driver picked me up and took me home.

Home now is a 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom townhouse with living, family, and dining rooms.  It’s more space than I need.  It’s quiet, and without phone access or local or cable TV, lonely.  Luckily, I found the internet jack.

The maiden voyage of a friend’s boat this year is on a perfect spring day.

All the old sensations come back, and it’s startling that they ever left.  The feel of a sun-dried rope in your hands.  The relentless sway that affects your walk even in port.  The tightening of skin as it cooks under steady rays.  Too many months of winter stress suddenly melt away.

As I leave the marina, a bonfire is lit and a small crowd throws their socks into the blaze.  Tradition is served.

The winter curse is over, and we’re barefoot from here on out.

Today the Great Northwest felt the blaze of that immense orb above.  News reports buzzed with alarming claims of record heat.  The pasty inhabitants of the Puget Sound hung up their trench coats, turned on their sprinklers and danced on their lawns.   

Zero in on Mailman Mike dutifully marching up and down streets delivering the day’s post.  He dodges repeated kamikaze hornets, gulps down numerous bottles of water, sweats the hair gel right out of his hair and sweats right through his pants.

A local bank’s reader board flashes 80 degrees. 

He wonders how he ever lived in Los Angeles.

Chats with the guy who sells sandwiches in our office provide a welcome break from the tedious grind of work.

We discuss the death penalty, on which we agree to differ with our widely varying views. We chat about his boyfriend, with whom he has a civil partnership. I mention mine.

The other day, D said his partner was going through a sex change. Operation and everything. I link to think I’m fairly broad-minded. But that, even to me, seemed like too much information.

Suddenly, the sausage sandwich I was going to have for breakfast doesn’t seem quite so appealing.

Dear friends of mine closed on a house yesterday.  In these lousy economic times, buying a house isn’t easy; but they have and it reflects the type of good people they are.  They’ve been together forever, but they’d probably say not that long.

Houses are wonderful things to own.  The lawn, driveway cracks, furnaces, water heaters, neighbors and roofs are the bad parts of the package.

Once you close however, the house you bought becomes home and suddenly all the bad parts don’t matter.

I’ll need to send a welcome gift.  Guard dog or white picket fence?

Home Depot certificate.

Somewhere inside of me, the Artist is weeping.

I’ve tried writing, photography, charcoal sketching, watercolors, Photoshop, comic strips, cooking, and even hacking.

I see Art everywhere I go and I’ve developed a good eye.  I try to judge my own work and can never get past ‘mediocre’.  Occasional glimpses of talent peek out from the shadows, but it’s not enough to make me feel fulfilled and confident.

There isn’t much left to try.  Woodcarving?  Stand Up Comedy? Oragami? Cave Painting? 

Sculptures? 

I imagine how I’d ask my landlord if I can install a thousand degree kiln in my living room.

Our teenager’s high school yearbook came out yesterday.  The book is huge, colorful and judging by its cover, impressive.  Problem is you should never ever judge any book by its cover.

In addition to the couple page spread on the type of “rides” our future leaders “roll” with to school (this HAS to be a Southern thang); there are quotes throughout from students.

My favorite is from a junior female.

She said “I just like color coordinate everything to catch my attention, look over that.  Whenever it gets tough, I just copy off others.” Maybe she’ll go into politics someday.

After a hellish week, I’m here on the Gower peninsula in Wales, where problems dissolve into the sea air. Friday night. My brother calls. Will I do a reading at his wedding? Will I choose something to read? I am filled with honour and delight, and my mind races with what to select.

Later, the others and I eat fish and chips on the beach, looking across the bay to the far shore as the light fades. Water slops over the mud flats as the tide comes in.

For the first time in weeks, I feel truly happy. Truly blessed.

It was a real treat this year:  I sat behind a drunk hillbilly, obsessively picking lint off of his filthy clothes, making exaggerated gestures during the conversations he had with himself, continuously leering at the little girl sitting across the aisle, while slamming back cans of Bud.

Then he turned to face me and stayed like that for awhile, smiling.  Proving that he actually did know how to read. 

Cause the title of the book I was holding up as a barrier between us, and had been enjoying, prior to his appearance, was “Are You There, Vodka?  It’s Me, Chelsea.”

They’re in the restaurant on Saturday night, all jeans, brightly coloured tops and hair extensions. All young women at a birthday party.

One gets up on her chair and starts dancing curtains of hair swaying in front of her face. A DJ is belting out old hits – YMCA, La Bamba, Grease, Dancing Queen. The ones that still have the power to get people on their feet.

The girls are urging us to join them in their dancing, and we do.

I feel almost sorry for the middle-aged couple who have come in for a quiet drink. They have no chance.

It started one day a month back:  a trifling nuisance that blurred my vision.  It was a twitch on the lower lid of my left eye.

I thought rubbing my eyes had spawned its existence that fateful day, but then it reappeared the next day after a shower.  It then submerged back into the depths of my head only to make itself known again as I drove the mail truck, as I wrapped a present, as I blogged, as I bit into my burger on a date… 

Mineral deficiency?  Symptom of needing better glasses?  Small alien living in my eye?

It takes a grueling month of backstory until the real work begins.  After that, it takes only 6 days for a breakthrough.

It’s epic.  It changes everything.  It makes me feel like the largest moron to ever breathe oxygen.  It was in front of me, blazing with truth, the whole time. I didn’t even get a sense that it was there, let alone understand it.  It makes every decision, every relationship, and every word I ever said in anger appear in a new light.

It may be driving me to bankruptcy, but it would be cheap at twice the cost.

Although I don’t keep a checkbook or receipts I can tell you (within a couple of dollars) the contents of my accounts. I know what I have and that’s what I can spend. It’s not complicated economics, it’s simple accounting.  It’s what’s currently killing me about Iraq.

Don’t fool yourself, we’re no longer paying for this war. We don’t have the money. We ran out a long time ago. This war has been put on credit cards belonging to foreign investors and our children. We need to leave and we need to leave now. We simply can’t afford to stay.

I think of it as a courtesy.

I haven’t exchanged a civil word with my mother for years.  Because of that, I don’t call for mother’s day or birthdays because when you’re at war you don’t stop occasionally to exchange flowers.  It would be rude and hippocritical.

Were she capable of higher thought, she would reach the same conclusion and not call me on my approaching 30th.  She would realize that in her zeal to wish me a happy birthday she would in fact be ruining one.

Luckily I’ll be off the grid.  Can you delete voice mail in advance?

Our kids’ Mom drives everywhere with a zip-loc bag of reasonably expensive watches tucked carefully in that “reminder” spot everyone has in their vehicle.  They need batteries to bring them life again and remind us of where we need to be.  When she has time and remembers, she’ll take these timepieces in somewhere and give them new life.

She never has time. 

She’s a Mom and an executive, advocate, nurse, counselor, cook, maid, critic, girlfriend, shopper, daughter, friend, sister, bill-keeper, bill-payer, fashion guru, hugger, story-teller, educator and trip-planner.

Her batteries are low, too.

She’s entitled to a lot more time.

I give out pretty solid advice whether I’m asked for it or not.  Following that solid advice is another matter for another time however.  Anyway, my words of wisdom today can possibly save your life and soul or certainly make them easier.   

Mother’s Day.  Do not forget under any circumstance.  There is no excuse – Ever.  Out-of-town, out-of money or out-of-your-mind is not an excuse because there are no excuses.

Tomorrow, even if by a cruel twist of fate you were suddenly rendered unconscious and in a coma, the card should already have been mailed.

Tell Mom she’s all that matters.

My birthday is in three weeks.  What have I done every single birthday since I moved out of Los Angeles and left my poor mother crying in her kitchen?  I’ve somehow made it down – despite economic and financial hurdles – to spend it with my family. 

It’s not all about me, though.  I have sisters who are twins and were also born on my birthday so it becomes one crazy, gigantic hoopla when I come to visit.

Having said that, I don’t think I’m going to make it down this year.  But Mom doesn’t know that yet. 

Maybe Christmas, as well.