100 words a day

I’m about to settle in for the night when the IM comes through.  The same offer of aimless driving and chat, just like the previous dates that I spent trying to break her outer shell and failing.  She swings by and collects me.

Ninety minutes later we’re driving through Brooklyn, and I’m passing out dollar bills to passer-by if they’ll make sheep noises for us.

Forty five minutes later we’re parked under an overpass, making out.

Sixty minutes later I’m back home, rubbing a bruise on my left thigh and telling myself I’m too old to make out in cars.

Call me naive, or delusionally optimistic: I think it’s a lock.  With 84,000 pairs of in-person eyes, 38 million more at home, how can anyone question it?

But I live in a very liberal town and grew up in an even more liberal hometown, so I get that I don’t get it.  I went out last night with someone from Wyoming.  She’s worried.  She thinks I’m crazy.  Maybe I am.

This year Virginia can go from red to blue and I think I need to do more than sit around and expect victory.  I think it’s time to stand up.

Sometimes the contrast of who I am now with who I was 5 years ago really just pummels me in the face.  

5 years ago: 

• Went to church twice a week
• Lived with roommates
• Lived in fear of people discovering “my secret”
• Attended Bible school
• Was 35-40 lbs heavier
• Saw the future as a brightly-lit landscape

Now: 

• Attends church once a month
• Rents his own place
• Openly dates men
• Is a freakin’ mail man
• Drinks soymilk
• Sees the future as a brightly-lit landscape, with maybe a few blemishes.

Tonight is my great-aunt’s wake, which I’m attending alone since my parents can’t make it.

I’m fine with the part about not knowing anyone else, and plan to get in and out in under thirty seconds, ideally without anyone realizing it was only thirty seconds. 

Then my special task, on behalf of my dad.

He ordered flowers from our family and a cousin’s.  I am to root around in the floral arrangements, identify the ones he ordered, and report back with descriptions of how big they are and what they look like.

Sealing my family’s fate as the “normal” ones.

My new dermatologist was telling me how great my skin is, (not true), how young I look (true), how to fix the problems.  Very helpful.

At the end of her list of suggestions, “And then I’m gonna Botox you!”

I told her the “eleven” on my forehead is at the bottom of my priorities.  No Botox.

That was last month.  Today, shiny-forehead was pushing it again and I said I didn’t want to lose all expression in that area (…like she had) .

“You’re beautiful and have a great personality!  Why do you need to show expression on your forehead?”

Back in my cubicle, it’s like it never happened.

The weekend is a broken jumble of images and emotion, remembered dimly and fleetingly, like the dream that fades more the harder you try to hang on to it.

I’m richer in experience, poorer in money, and proudly baring a network of scratches on my forearms.  The curious pain in my abdomen comes from too much laughter, if there even is such a thing.

Even better is the knowledge, confirmed at long last, that I can indeed spin threads of gold from the piles of lead that life insistently hands me.

I’m obsessed with talking to my niece.  Everything she says is funny. 

When I asked “What did you do today?”, she said:  “I danced!”, in a purposeful tone you’d use if saying “I saved a man’s life today”

Last week on the phone, she kept repeating, “Kyle got a new monster truck from Costco.”   (Kyle’s her 3 year old older brother).

After about the tenth time, I asked if she had anything besides that to discuss.

“Yes.  Kyle got a new monster truck from Costco, and if Kyle’s a bad boy, Kyle’s monster truck is going RIGHT back to Costco.”

My mother has been an angel for more than three years and the longer I’m a parent, the more poignant some of her thoughts and advice have become.  Way before I ever had the twinkle of children in my eye, she would tell me that “parents can only influence their kids’ opinions up till the age of ten – after that you can’t and won’t change them.”

What an obvious 2 x 4 to the back of my head.

I’m trying to steer two rugged individual souls whose unique personalities I love more than anything.  Let them be, let them go.

McDonalds. 8^th and Tacoma Ave. 1:47 pm.

He sits down next to me reeking of sleaze. His short graying ponytail attempts sophistication, but matched with his pock-marks, Hawaiian shirt and cheap shoes it falls short.

“There’s a homeless guy taking a shower in the bathroom sink,” he tells me, stretching his arms on the back of the long bench we’re both sitting on.

“I saw that,” I say through my apple. He forces conversation about the Postal Service, his 9 kids and the “young thing” he’s banging who’s 21 years younger than him.

Am I in a Quentin Tarantino movie?

It’s a late Friday afternoon smoke break at work, and I’m sitting on the designated bench.

In front of me is the yellowjacket.  He’s clearly injured, an inch long with his wings sticking out at odd angles.  He’s limping back and forth across a concrete square, and I surmise he’s not in the greatest mood.

I consider putting him out of his misery, but decide that would be interfering in the essential order of things.

Suddenly a coworker arrives, spies the bug, and crushes him without a thought.

“What are you doing this weekend?” he asks, like nothing has happened.

Today has become a day of observation for me. Is it odd to note the birth of something that no longer exists? We observe the births of presidents long gone; we get holidays and deals on cars.  Why not celebrate my parents’ marriage even though it is as concrete as a cloud?  

This day means more to me now than when their relationship was a living (and suffering and dying) organism.  Then it was a Hallmark occasion. Now I stand in silent reverie for something that was, that maybe should never have been, but that I am eternally grateful for.

As I awoke to the forgotten sounds of wind and rain, I glanced around my grey-lit bedroom.  Work was in the forefront of my mind, but aggressively pushing through was my sore throat.  It was an easy decision.

When I hung up, I texted my bestie and informed her.  “You wanna go to the Aquarium?” she replied. 

I was driving on the slick 18 freeway an hour later.  My body, however, cared nothing of my plans.  My lymph nodes swelled with the tide pools.  The aches began in the underwater dome.  The fever burned with the exhaust from rush hour.

One hard and fast mantra I chant to our children is “Question Authority.”  I know this will serve them well, make them better world-citizens and hopefully good partners and parents down the road – but my own advice is killing me.

I’ve taught them to aim, fire and I’ve provided the ammo; they are questioning my authority with focus and pin-point accuracy and I’m taking heavy losses.  The “patients” are now running our “asylum” and I need to restore some sense of order.

What could possibly counteract “Question Authority?”  Hmmm, I know – “I’m the parent and I said so, that’s why.”

When I announce that I’m finished on time and under budget, the client’s smile is reserved yet grateful.  Ten workstations and a server are now under his command, and all indications are that he’s smart enough not to screw them up.

He hands me the check, a pale yellow flimsy thing with black text and a blue signature.  It’s the most I’ve ever made in my life.

As we shake hands and bid farewell, he thoroughly mangles my last name.

But for once I don’t care.

You buy me a trip to Tokyo, you can call me whatever you want.

School started for our kids this week.  Both were excited despite the ridiculously early date and the “official” end of summer.  I too was full of anticipation.  I was looking forward to brushing up on economics and revisiting all those fun and meaningful projects from physics.

Finally, I was going to learn how to correctly make a capital “Q” in cursive writing and show off my skill at long division.  I’d get reacquainted with old friends Twain, Orwell and J.D. Salinger and maybe learn a new musical.

That’s not going to happen though.  Both need their father less and less.

I stared in disbelief at the shoes I pulled out of my gym bag.  There were two brown shoes that looked similar enough, but were not the same.  They were, however, for the same foot.

The first time it happened I wore sneakers all day. I’ve never been more comfortable at work. 

The second time I actually drove home to get the right shoes.

Today I opted for a pair of heels so painful I had banished them from my home.  I needed to get rid of them but was too lazy to remove them from my car. Until today.

So I haven’t seen him in nearly seven weeks, and I’m pacing up and down the platform of a little country station, waiting for his train to pull in. My nerves are shredded – what will it be like after all this time? Is this the end? 

The train is delayed a few minutes – they seem an eternity. There’s no-one around to see my restless wondering. I play stupid tunes on my mobile phone to pass the time.  

Suddenly, his train is there, rounding the bend. He steps off it, blinking in the late summer evening light, sees me and smiles.

“What are you planning on using it for?” he asks. 

I’m standing in his basement.  He’s a complete stranger.  He lives three houses away.

In front of us is the topic of conversation, a stainless steel hand-cranked meat grinder plus an assortment of blades.  If the gentleman knew me at all, he’d know it would be a very dangerous thing to ask me what I’m using a meat grinder for.

My mind pulses with sarcasm and an errant joke about dead hooker disposal reaches my tongue and dies.

“Meatloaf,” I say with a smile, as I hand over the money.

I’ve been off-kilter this week: not getting enough sleep, not getting up for workouts, drinking too much coffee, eating too much crap.   Would it be wrong to blame it on Michael Phelps? Maybe, but it is his fault.   To be fair, the gymnastics teams didn’t help either.

I can’t stop watching.   It’s rare to be aware of greatness as its happening, to recognize the moment in the minute.  

I stood during his final race.  I began to shake in the final leg, terrified it might be lost.

I cried when they won. I cried again when they showed his mom.

Our brainiac and up-to-the-second cool teenage daughter last evening lost all “father-cred” when she uttered the two most ridiculous words ever put together in one phrase –“my bad.”

I was all at once horrified, stupefied and angry.  “My bad” may be OK trash-talking while playing hoops (where supposedly the phrase began), but from the mouth of my kid who wouldn’t know the difference between a pull-up jumper and a post-up, let alone know how to trash-talk?

Much to my bewilderment, “My bad” is being uttered by everyone from blue and white collar to young and old.  Everyone but by me.

There was a spider web in my car this morning, but no spider.  There was a spider web in the mail truck this morning, as well.  This one had a spider. 

I walked through twelve spider webs while on my route today.  Twelve!  This doesn’t include the ones I saw and karate chopped.  

This has got to be an omen, I’m thinking. 

Hours ago, upon leaving my co-worker’s house after a sobering talk, I’ve realized that I’ve unwittingly ensnared him though I’ve strived to avoid leading him on. 

On my way home, a spider drops from the visor above me.

Fridays are so gloriously uncomplicated. It doesn’t matter if there’s nothing in the diary: Fridays are complete in themselves, undemanding of anything else. Fridays with their glorious promise of two days of freedom ahead. Fridays without the need to go to bed early – or at all. The knowledge that you will wake without a sense of dread in the pit of your stomach.

Saturday nights, I hate staying in. Friday evenings, I love staying in as much as I love going out to play.

And no feeling competes with walking out the door for the last time of the week.

Every summer I set a ridiculously fast marathon time goal, then do little to improve my speed.   

Then around mile 15 of the marathon, reminded of this error, revise the goal. 

Recently, my friend suggested her running club’s weekly speed workout. 

 I know I need to, but I’m intimidated.  I email the coach, looking for reassurance I won’t be last.  No guarantees, but he says to come anyway.

Last night, half mile in, totally sucking wind, I consider running into the woods to hide.   

Dead last.  Not by far but definitely last.

And inspired to try it again next week.

Standing in the aisle at the drug store, the choice is clear.

Am I an optimist, or a pessimist?

Well, buying any at all definitely speaks volumes about my level of optimism in the first place.  But grappling with the three-pack versus the twelve-pack is a litmus test.  How do I feel about the next upcoming month or so?

All of a sudden the three-pack seems like a depressing and resigned decision.  And worse for the environment.  And it makes no sense at all, economically.

So I head home with a dozen new friends and a pair of crossed fingers.

“We forget what we want to remember and end up remembering what we want to forget.”  I’ve said and used these words a thousand times and can’t for the love of research find a source, so in sharkboyworld, they’re mine – kind of.

They’re mine unfortunately because I’ve forced the few people in my life to both think and act that way.  It’s a more eloquent version of “One ‘oh crap’ undoes ten ‘attaboys.’”

My account is overdrawn on the attaboys and it hasn’t smelled so good for quite awhile.  I can’t change people’s thinking, but I can provide better memories.

“Score,” I thought as he sat down next to me.  His shoulders were as broad as his smile.  His facial hair unkempt.  He unzipped his jacket and I put away my book. 

“Looks like we lucked out, huh?” I said, gesturing to the empty seat between us.  His name is Tim.  He’s a drummer and a pianist.  He interns at Warner Bros but works at an Apple Store for money while he goes to school. 

We spoke of Anime, Radiohead, fears and callings, Apple gadgets, desires and politics.  Whatever kept those grass-green eyes on me. 

135 minutes felt like 15.

In 2002, I volunteered with a writing and mentoring organization.  I met several great new friends, and really enjoyed working with the high school sophomore who I mentored for two years.

We subsequently lost touch, and I hadn’t heard from Lisa in several years.  Back then, I’d given her a book that I loved and had autographed for her by the author.   

A few weeks ago, she surprised me by emailing, totally out of the blue.  The timing was especially ironic, as the book I’d given her was written by the author I just went to work with in Guatemala. 

So Beijing has offered up some surprises from a little child lip sinking someone else’s voice to computer generated fireworks which looked “better” on world-wide television.  So what; doesn’t everyone want things “more better?”

Certainly those of us, who cut our hair, go for nips and tucks, get all excited seeing air-brushed models and computer-enhanced celebrities do.  Add resume cheaters, single bars, MySpace and Major League Baseball to the list.

There’s perfect and then there’s “more perfect.”  That’s what we all are in various degrees, wanting ourselves or at least the things we see to be just a bit better.

The hardest part has been convincing myself that it’s working.

It wasn’t all the skipped meals, or the tedious three mile walks each day.  It wasn’t the approving comments by my coworkers or the belt loop holes that kept having to be set tighter and tighter.

For me, I believe it when I’m standing at the stove, stirring a can of soup.  As I pour it from the pot into a bowl, my boxer shorts fall off my waist and pool around my ankles.

It makes me feel slightly ridiculous, standing bare-assed in my kitchen.

But also kind of proud.

Oh, you want an F buddy?  A bed warmer? A friend with benefits? To keep things casual until the next one comes along? 

I’m amazed at the reactions I’m getting when I talk about my burgeoning purely platonic relationship with a man.   The incredulity of their responses is making me smirk.  It doesn’t make sense to them.  They look at me as if I’m trying to teach calculus in Pig Latin. 

I tempted to remind them of ‘When Harry met Sally’ but I know how the movie ends. 

I can smell a losing argument when I’m about to make one.

So, in a rush of excitement, I email the guy who is to be best man at my brother’s wedding. I promise him ‘stacks’ of dirt on S, for the best man’s speech.  

But when I have hit ‘Send’, I realise that I have no dirt to dish. Zilch. Zero. Nada. Whatever my brother got up to in the past, he has kept it to himself. Oh, God.  

Then I remember I still have the letters he wrote to me when we boarded in different schools more than 20 years ago, and a broad grin creeps across my face.

I’m voluntarily getting onto a plane tomorrow.  Not only am I choosing to do this insane act, but I paid lots and lots of money for it because I booked a non-stop round trip flight.  Non-stop.  That means taking off and landing ONCE per trip.  Totally worth it.

In addition, my Ipod broke.  That means I have no music to distract me.  Flashback to two trips to L.A. ago; I had not only my Ipod, but a book, snacks AND Mad Libs.  All of those exciting items did not stave off the panic attack. 

This time, I’m getting drunk pre-flight.

People always focus on your boyish looks, but that’s not why I was smitten. I was into your brains. Sure, you didn’t stand a chance this year, not with the historic competition, but I was still rooting for you.

Truthfully I’m more into your wife. She said the things you couldn’t, because, as a candidate, you live in perpetual fear of actually being candid.

Then the cancer came back and you stayed in the race. My crush died a little that day.

Today you confessed to cheating.  On your goddess of a wife.

I thought you were better than that.

Driving home, I peg the feeling.  It’s disappointment.  And that’s bothersome.

Fifteen minutes before, I was walking to my car across a dark parking lot.  Coming toward me were two thuglets.  I have a laptop, over a hundred bucks in cash, and a flash drive around my neck that I’d kill for rather than lose.

They saw me.  And there was an evaluation that took place.  A clear moment of decision, twenty feet away.  While I decided which one’s head I was going to throw the laptop at.

I was calm.  I had a plan.

But they just kept walking.

I started to get looks.  And then questions.  Which I gracefully dodged.  Finally, he questioned me.  “I don’t think it’s an issue…unless you’re trying to keep your options open.”

Advice columnists say that’s the thing to do.  And it’s difficult for this independent woman to be shackled to a ball and chain.  Plus, I don’t want everyone in this fishbowl to know my business. 

I also think he’s special.  And has real potential.  And I wanted to keep that to myself.  Even with friends, I didn’t want to discuss him, to overanalyze the situation.  I just wanted to enjoy it.

I’ve been told I have great self-control. I don’t quite know what that means, but I’ll admit to ruling my emotions with an iron fist. My subconscious is a different story. My dreams are the Wild West and I’m the hapless sheriff who lost her gun in a drinking game. Anything can and does happen and I am only an unsuspecting spectator.

I dreamt about a colleague last night. In my waking state I think he’s fabulous. He’s compassionate, intelligent, funny, and married. I enjoy working with him and look forward to our meetings.

In my dream he was naked.

“Oh to be single, those are the days.  When you can get up at noon and drink all day.”  

Seriously, I recently received a bachelorette party invitation and those were the first two lines. 

“Those are the days”.  My Saturday means I’ll be running ten miles.  Not sleeping till noon or drinking all day.

Maybe then I’ll replace the roach traps in my apartment, or watch “Death of a Cheerleader” on Lifetime.  In Spanish.

All of which sounds better than giving up a Saturday to attend a binge drink-fest  hosted by someone who thought their little evite poem was amusing.

I’m quite regular.  I “unload the groceries” twice before I even leave for work.  Needless to say, I relieve myself in myriad locations while delivering mail. 

1)      Fast food restaurants

2)      Libraries

3)      Doctors’ offices

4)     Elementary, Middle and High Schools

5)      Grocery stores

6)      Churches

7)      Mental hospitals (yep, that’s plural)

8)      Dirty park restrooms

9)      Dirtier gas station restrooms

10)    Countless Port-a-Potties

11)    Boy Scouts of America Headquarters

12)   A National Armory

13)   Police and Fire Departments

14)   Behind a thorn bush in an alley

15)   Poised over a Dasani bottle in the back of the mail truck

A pendulum is a half circle of energy and speed and captured momentum.

With every half revolution, the event horizon is approached.  One moment you’re swinging towards - the next moment you’re swinging away.

The day I start to swing away, it’s like any other day.  With me thinking too much and too quietly.  With me asking myself the wrong question, and coming back with the right answer.

Peering past the eyes, the age, the body, and all the other things that are fantastic for my ego, I finally see flaws.

And they’re just too big.

Back to square one.

I can’t remember when we started planning it.  The secrecy was easier than I thought it would be.  She was trained by my grandmother to notice nothing, a trait we took advantage of when planning her surprise sixtieth. 

But we got clumsy and began dropping breadcrumbs behind us.   She didn’t pick up every one, but she started to notice a trail.

She coyly confronted me on the phone, “You’re good,” she said. “Your brother and grandmother are terrible, but you – you’re very natural.”   I didn’t know what to say.  Who knew I was a good actress?  And a better liar.

So I haven’t seen him in a month, and his absence sits heavily in my heart, like an overly heavy meal. I am starting to seriously worry about what is really going on here.  

Then this morning comes the text message, asking if I want to go camping with him and some others who are planning a trip next month. I am filled with joy. Suddenly, the rubbish job and everything else seem worth it, just to feel this happy.  

Then I re-read the message, and am overcome with fear and dread. He asks if I have my own tent.  

I don’t know many people happy to see you.

Sure, it’s not like you can do any worse than the last guy, with the swampy days and the torrential storms.  I think it’s more that you signal the start of a transition.  We’re no longer heading towards good weather, now we’re heading away from it.

I know you had a few cocktails and you’re wearing your bermuda shorts and all, but you may want to prepare for a somewhat lukewarm reception.  Something along the lines of a shrug and a ‘whatever’, if that.

We want the sun.  Not the heat.

Their code is simple.  It’s shown while slamming flatware around when forced to wash the dishes.  Instead of a honk or rude gesture, the driver who is cut off will tailgate for miles. 

They are The Passive-Aggressive.  I consider myself one of them, but not today. 

Upon approaching the mailbox on the fence, I see two things:  an open gate and a charging Labrador.  I deftly shut the gate with my foot, but it doesn’t latch and the Labrador knows that.  I then see a teenager half-heartedly calling her off. 

“Clearly, she’s not listening. Maybe you should physically remove her!”