100 words a day

Anticipation always trumps the event for me.  Practice is always more rewarding than the performance.  My mind darting in and out of time in directions I can’t navigate brings infinitely more pleasure than actually experiencing “The” moment (if it comes at all).

Today was no different.  Alone all day with my teenage daughter to hear her dreams, relive mine, solve some global issues and save the world with our minds.

She stayed busy upstairs and I down in my woodshop.

The best part about anticipation is it belongs to me.  I control my feelings and I am never-ever disappointed… until.

I knew I should’ve done something the day previous when I noticed that my headlights were dimmer and my power windows were sluggish.  Alas, I pulled a “Mike” and put it off.

My car died at one of the busiest intersections in South Tacoma.  Cars sighed and parted around me like water around rock .  Almost immediately two unrelated people were knocking on my window, ready to push me curbside.  Dale directed traffic.  Octavio propelled me forward with his van.

I gushed at these Good Samaritans, shaking their hands.  Octavio left, but Dale remained to discuss my walk with Christ.

The year began in ruins.

Bereft and alone, I made a list of fourteen things I had to do.  Items like “Learn how to drive a yacht,” and “Have sex with a really hot chick” intermingled with “Make up with G” and “Tell S you’re sorry.”

I followed the roadmap, crossing them off one by one, and watched astounded as my life became that of a skyrocketing phoenix.

Today I crossed off the last one.

And as amazing as this year has been, I have only one thing on my list for next year:

It has to be even better.

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

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

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

Awakening, I wonder if it was all a dream.

Fumbling with my glasses and the desk lamp, I flick the light on and see that slim shape laying next to me.  To say that I’ve lusted after it with countless impure thoughts would be an understatement.

But now it’s really there.  Where it was meant to be all along, ready and willing to do my bidding.

I take it out into the world with me, and the moment I was waiting for comes while standing on line at the deli.

“Excuse me, is that an iPhone?”

“Yes.  Yes it is.”

This weekend I visited two of his stores.  This doesn’t sound eventful, but it was.  It means we were out in public together for the first time (granted it was with a chaperone), I got to see some of the places where he works, and I secretly asked one of his employees what he thinks of his manager.  Turns out he’s a dream to work for and makes his employees feel like family.  I couldn’t hear enough nice things about him. 

I’ve always said it’s easy to be nice to your girlfriend, but a real mensch is nice to everyone.

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

Oh really?

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

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

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

 We try hard to keep rules simple in our very complicated home life.  The simplest rule applies during Christmastime and especially on Christmas Eve.  If you don’t believe, you don’t receive…Period.  Nothing fancy about it.  The rule is straight-forward and self-explanatory.

The few questions our kids have had over the years have been quickly and decidedly referred to if you don’t believe, you don’t receive.  Occasionally I might catch some winking or a clever comment and I throw down my most serious face and recite “if you don’t believe, you don’t receive.”

Christmas morning should be joyous.  That I believe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I awake in the same manner as usual:  an abrasive P!nk anthem.  I loll out of bed and start my routine.  Shower.  Shave.  I don’t wax my hair up today.  There’s no point really.

I shrug into my postal uniform.  I blend up my protein shake.  Ugh, I’m out of banana.  It’s a day like any other.  Work beckons; the sky threatens.  My feet ache and my heart’s close behind.

There are no plums dancing, no reindeer prancing.  No carols singing, no bells ringing.  Just a family far away and another wage to gain.

Just a day like any other.

The one thing I hate is being insecure.

Behind the constant self-deprecation is an extremely confident man.  Someone who knows who he is, and what he can and cannot do.  That’s all I ever wanted to be.

But starting a relationship around the holidays is brutal.  Everyone is screaming tidings and good cheer and I’m trying to tell myself I’m not falling in love, not again, not so soon.

But when she’s laying on my back, naked as a jaybird and at her own request, I start feeling like she’s a person worth breaking all my rules for.

I’m terrified.

I love Christmas.  Our house this season (again) reeks of its excess.  We are “trying-hard poor,” yet have seven trees, too much yuletide stuff and talk about how to save the world.

Right now, there is a fire blazing, our daughter came home from a nice meeting with a nice guy, our son is happy being himself, their Mome is content with a fire, our son and two dogs on her chair.  The gang of three baked cookies all afternoon and I cleaned up.

I started this excess way before I met all three of them.

I could be miserable about 2008 if I wanted to:  this vile roommate who won’t leave, an off the charts romantic disappointment, or the current potential almost everyone faces, regarding job loss or financial doom.

As an artist, I see its aesthetics.  But as a postal carrier I see it only as a big pain in my ass.

Witness my day:

It was 32 degrees and overcast.  There were 8-12 inches of snow on the ground and I got a mostly-walking route.  I slipped countless times but actually fell thrice, soaked through four pairs of socks, got the mail truck stuck in snow/ice five times, helplessly witnessed the chains on one of my tires fly off while going up a hill and was hit in the face by a snowball thrown by a reveling teenager.

 We have two great kids who genuinely get along.  Add to their mix Christmas break, too much sugar, lousy weather, crowded malls, late nights, zero sleep, short tempers and suddenly ugly turns to fugly all too quickly.

Fortunately we discovered a perfect cure for the bad behavior and enjoyed the bonus of why we became parents in the first place – home videos.

Our teenage daughter is annoyed by her nine-year-old brother?  No problem.  Put on the videos of her at nine and suddenly there is peace and laughter.  Our son sees his attitude is like he was two again.  Perfect.

My four-leaf clover lost a leaf.
Seriously. Last Christmas, I received a four-leaf clover pressed between two panes of glass as a gift. Right around the time that everything in my life started to head South, I realized that my goddamn clover had lost a leaf. You can see it, that lone leaf, hanging out at the bottom of the frame.

Engagement? Broken. Purse? Stolen. Diet? Failed. Job? Lost.

2008 hasn’t been such a stellar year for me. Maybe 2009 will be my year. Maybe it won’t. But I sure as hell am throwing that fucking clover out.

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

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

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

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

I’ve been up earlier than usual this morning to enjoy the “darkest day of the year.”  Winter solstice is a unique occurrence in the night sky.  The three stars in Orion’s belt line up perfectly with Sirius, the brightest star in the Eastern sky, pointing to exactly when the Sun will rise Sunday morning.

Outside my window right now a crescent moon is barely hung and the morning is extremely quiet and black at this early hour.

Normally this all makes me feel good.  But I’m thinking instead of just another dark day in a very dark year for me.

The weather saw me coming.

Sloop-shouldered and gloomy, nine hours of sleep in forty-eight, I finally hit the wall after a two hour ride home through snowy roads.  The landscape is littered with ice and overturned SUVs, and I arrive thankful I’m not underneath one of them.

I bolt the door and strip off the clothes.  I send a conciliatory email to the current flame.  I get in bed and nap like my life depends on it.

Waking, hours later, craving food and drink, I stand in my kitchen and gaze at the falling white.

Winter never felt so groovy.

Worse than having a scary, vindictive roommate is having a scary, vindictive roommate who refuses to leave.

One attorney tells me to change the locks.  Which I then hear is illegal.  Now I have to hire an attorney and to go the precinct and then continue to live with someone who won’t leave voluntarily, until this is resolved.

My “Stress Induced Anorexia” nets me a 4-day weight loss of over six pounds.

But then, “George Bailey Mode”.  Emails from friends offering help.  Advice from their friends.  Calls from friends I haven’t heard from in years, to see how I’m doing.

I’m both parts passionate and practical.  When the two duke it out, I always let my head win.  It’ll keep me out of trouble.  The only time passion gets to celebrate a victory is if my intuition sides with it, the little voice inside guiding my reason. 

The last guy was a very practical choice.  We had so much in common, and I liked him.  The new one doesn’t make sense on so many levels, but it does on others.  Plus, there are more intense feelings, ones I haven’t felt in years.  And I think I hear the little voice.

The postman looks me up and down with a look of thinly disguised contempt as I sign for a package.

A neighbour, getting into her car, can see me through the window of my front room, and looks at me in the same way.

All because, at high noon, on a Wednesday, I am still in my pyjamas. The look is completed with big woollen socks, hair pushed back in a band, and black shawl thrust over my shoulders.

OK, so maybe I don’t look that hot. But I’m working from home – working! – and they should just get over it.

The ‘computer doctor’ my Polish neighbour has recommended pronounces my laptop dead. The guy can sell me another one, and come over to my place and set it up. It’s a reasonable deal. Wow, I think. He’s just a really sweet guy who genuinely wants to help me. No ulterior motive whatsoever.

I have to leave my mobile number since they don’t take credit cards, and I’ll have to go back and pay by cash. It takes a week for the text to come through.

Are you single? If so, would you like to go for a drink some time?

My nine year old son and I snuck off to Chicago this past weekend for two reasons – being gift-giving elves for our out-of-town family and being toboggan fools.

Both were accomplished.

The gift giving was easy. The tobogganing was awesome.  Without his Mome and sister around, our son turned into total “boy.”

He had no computer, no cable, no Mome, no sister.

Instead, he told stories, listened to more, made incredible clay creations, played cards, went to a hockey game, saw old friends and genuinely just played.

He also rubbed snow in my face on the way down the hill…twice.

“Leave him alone,” J’s father says.  “I’ve already decided he’s cool.”

You owe this guy a beer.

“I’m not bothering him,” J’s mother says.  “I’m just asking.”

This chick is going to be a pain in the balls.

“This is why we always go to his place!” J tells them both.

That’s not the only reason.

“What religion are you?” the mother asks.

Now is not a good time to bring up the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

“Can I get you anything?” the father asks

A bottle of single malt scotch and an AK-47 assault rifle with extended clip, for starters.

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

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

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

It’s three in the morning, and I wake up feeling uncomfortable. The dampness is spreading my way. Oh, no. Why has this happened again? Why do I always end up sleeping in the wet patch? What is the matter with the thing I share my bed with?

I can’t face changing the bed clothes now, so decide I’ll sleep in the dry part.

‘This is a nightmare,’ I mutter under my breath. ‘Why are you leaking again?’

I stomp into the bathroom and sling my hot water bottle it in the bath tub. It can stay there for the night.

The winter sets in, and I continue to live better than most criminals.

Tonight’s adventure was a procession of New Yorkers, a thousand strong, most of which were holding stereos blasting a different version of Silent Night at once.

Enveloped by the masses, sneaking hits off a flask, I give in to the yuletide spirit and feel at peace.

The cacophony of sound and holiday fellowship proceeds from Washington Square to Tompkins Square, where one by one the radios blink out, and the crowd goes wild.

This is the only present I need for Christmas.

Gift wrap would be overkill.

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

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

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

I’m off to London for a Very Important Job Interview indeed, and waiting impatiently at the bus stop, already running late.

By the time it sails into view, I am weak with relief. I jump up and down, wave for the wretched thing to stop. Then stare in disbelief as it glides on by.

By the time it has eventually stopped, some yards down the hill, I am seconds away from cardiac arrest.

‘What happened?’ I shriek.

‘Stop the bus like this,’ the driver says, raising his arm in a single movement. ‘I thought you were waving, just being friendly.’

My Holiday Gift List, disregarding the bounds of time and money:

For my mom: Monthly facials at my spa, including roundtrip airfare, and a magical device to stop my dad’s freakishly loud snoring.

For my dad: Round-table discussion with the Dalai Lama, the Beatles, and Jesus.

Brother: The instantaneous knowledge that he will look back 5 years from now and remember this time in his life fondly.

My boyfriend: A new dream.

Childhood best friend: Guarantee of a long and happy marriage with her new husband.

College best friend: Her first three years of corporate law/slavery, fast-forwarded.

About 18 months ago, I had a horrific evening where I agreed to go on a “running date” with someone who turned out to be pretty vile overall.  Best of all, he sprinted off in the last half mile, leaving me to wonder if he’d even be there when I got there.

He was so bad that I wrote a story about the experience.  As recently as Sunday, friends of friends of friends are still asking about it.  He was that bad.

I don’t know where he even got my last name but he just requested my friendship on facebook.

Trudging through a snowy field, the hitmen find their victim.

They assess him from all angles, and cast intimidating stares.  They slap him around a little, and then start in with a saw.

Next up is a terrifying drag through the snow, while the victim bleeds clear and sticky.  Then he’s strapped down to a car roof and driven 30 miles in gale-force winds.

Then he gets several limbs amputated and an extreme haircut.  For the final torture, we run a current through him and dress him up like a little girl.

The carcass looks great in the window, though.

Drunk driving, weapons, mob ties, immigration problems, drug abuse, alcoholism, rehab, tax problems, arrests, jail time, infidelity, divorce, spousal abuse, automobile crashes, international incidents, mug shots, infamous quotes and bad behavior pretty much describe (at least partially) the list of Kennedy Center Honorees since the award began in 1978.

This year’s honorees – Morgan Freeman, George Jones, Twyla Tharp, Barbara Streisand, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey bring along some baggage too.

The awards “recognize lifelong accomplishments and extraordinary talents of our nation’s most-prestigious artists.”

Talent, personality and good deeds forgive most sins.  I need me some talent, personality and good deeds.

Awakening slowly, trying not to think about all the things I have to do today, I notice something different.

The room is a lot brighter than normal.

I stumble out of bed and move towards the windows, my crusty yet wondrous eyes taking in the inch of snow that has fallen and the impossibly gentle snowflakes that continue to fall.  I see my landlord, cheerfully brushing off his car.

It occurs to me that I hadn’t seen my neighborhood covered in snow yet.

And the first organized thought of the day is:  There’s too many things I haven’t seen yet.

My mother and your mother where hanging clothes; my mother punched your mother in the nose. What color was the blood?”

“Engine, engine number nine, rolling down Chicago line – if the train falls off the track, do you want your money back?”

“Apple, peaches, pears and plums – tell me when your birthday comes?”

“Bubble-gum, bubble-gum in a dish; how many pieces do you wish?”

Tonight while waiting for our orders of cheeseburgers and fries, our son learned exactly how sides are and should be chosen.  He laughed and loved it.

The little genius already knew “…and you are not it.”

We pulled into the bar’s parking lot; the eye of the frozen, deserted corporate complex. C sat in my passenger seat like lanky relic, same smile. We were ten years wiser and not holding hands.

The basement featured loud music, plastic cups and hundreds of ghosts of high school past. The girls had diamond rings and photos of toddlers. The boys were now “men,” chubby and balding.

E definitely won. You can buy her humanitarian fashion statement at the checkout of any Whole Foods. We used to have a joint birthday parties together. I felt a little like a loser.

I’ve had lots of roommates.  Many remain good friends, one recently asked me to be her bridesmaid, some are just insane and currently, I’ve got one from that category.

She’s freaking me out and I think I need a security detail.  At my request to discuss matters yesterday, she replied with an email saying she’s moving out.

Followed that up with a facebook rage campaign, writing evil things about me on her freaking facebook profile.  I’m being bullied in cyberspace by a 28 year old raving lunatic who’ll be sleeping in the next room for the remainder of 2008.  Super.

Entering Walmart on a lunch break, Walden is smiling.

He’s decided today is the day.

He heads straight for the racks of jeans, whistling “You Make Me Feel So Young” under his breath, and performs a brief search.  He selects two likely prospects, and saunters towards the dressing room.

He gets the same stall he’s been in, three times in the past four months, and pulls on his first size 38 pair of pants in several years.

They fit perfectly.

And later at home, they look ridiculous next to the size 46 pair he was horrified to have to buy.

I’ve always been proud of my library card.  In the dark-age pre-internet, the library not only taught me most everything I wanted to know, it took me to places I dreamed about.

The internet for me now is just a bigger library on steroids.

So, with all this knowledge at my command, I’ve been wondering why I know nothing about – being a fourth-grade boy, a teenage girl, music, high school, any social skills, being a mother of a boy and a teenage girl, fashion, dating, relationships, current events, drama, movies and TV?

I don’t know, but that’s what I’m told.

Dating here is not easy.  First, there’s the fact that it’s illegal to date.  Unrelated men and women are not allowed to socialize together.  Then there’s lack of places to go.  Restaurants, yes, but no clubs, theaters, cinemas, etc.  Add to that the restrictions on driving, and of course, no drinking. 

This means our dates are restricted to our homes or our friends’ parties.  I – the woman who never wears a hijab in public – offered to wear a nekab (face covering with eye slits) so we could go to a restaurant together.  Unfortunately, he’s too afraid of the religious police.

It’s weird not to have run more than a mile in more than a month, after marathon training had me running some 38 mile weeks.

After weighing almost 230 pounds for years, I never thought I’d actually miss running.

Then, at physical therapy, almost every song blaring out of the stereo was one I had on my ipod for long runs.

Then, at the sporting goods store to buy weights for my physical therapy “homework”, I saw my favorite winter running shirt now comes in my favorite color.

The dam broke.  I guess I miss it more than I thought!

She only meows when I unwrap a Subway tuna sandwich.  And you can hardly call it a meow.  It’s more like the noise made when a needle scratches a record.

She gets into these crazy fits sometimes, like she’s finding pure joy in going 0 – 60 in 2 seconds flat.  She flicks her tail as if to say, “I’m old, but I’m fast.”

Because her face is actually concave, her whiskers jut out in all directions, a mess of frayed wires.  And her head is only fur and eyes with a small mention of ears.

I love that damn cat.

I think I hate dating.

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

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

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

I don’t like introducing her to strangers.

It’s the worst possible time for my astounding ignorance to show up.

The room defines stereotypical; candlelit, with music playing and a bottle of wine sweating.  I trot around the next base, swift and intent with visions of glory dancing in my head.

Suddenly I encounter something my mind insists doesn’t belong there.  The brain pulses a quick “Be Cool” warning that is viciously and immediately bulldozed.

“What…um…what’s that?” I ask.

“Oops.  Let me fix it,” she says, and proceeds to do so.

Hours later, alone and Googling, it all becomes crystal clear.

And it makes me feel really old.

The time I first remember seeing him was at the supervisor’s desk at work.  He was unabashedly yelling at one of the supervisors.

I’ve recently had too many encounters with him.  The first was on the street.  He was bringing me an extra 30 minutes of mail.  He lectured me for five minutes when I didn’t run to his truck to grab it from him.

He lectured me again a few days later on not delivering 30 minutes of junk mail at the end of his route.  And again the next day.

I’ve got the union president on speed dial.

After three years of saving and luring our dad to Florida, we finally let him in on the surprise:  the best vacation of his life.  Overall it was stress-free, but our Caribbean cruise had some bumps.  The weather was overcast every day except for one.  My parasailing trip was cancelled, I saw a shark while diving, and a sea urchin stung me.  Now I’m back in Riyadh, seven pounds heavier.  I wonder if the anticipation of the planning was almost as exciting as the vacation itself.  It’s like the day after a wedding – no more planning and no more money.

It’s not that I hate you.

It’s not that I love you either.

You’ve got the cold air that I dig, and the snow that I despise.  You have the joy of the holiday season, overshadowed with horrible music and a bunch of people missing the point.  You have the friendly human atmosphere, mixed in with debilitating lines everywhere.

Oh, and somehow the amount we spend this year is tied in with our economic patriotism.

But I’ll forgive you anyway.  I always do.  It’s the carolers, and the lights, and the egg nog.

They do it to me every time.

After Thanksgiving, I was staying in Eastern Long Island for my nephew’s birthday party Saturday.  Next weekend, staying in NYC for my friend Donna’s visit from Chicago.  Her voicemail had said “the first weekend in December”. 

I planned to spend this week making reservations, cleaning my apartment, planning a brunch for Donna meeting my NYC friends next Sunday. 

Except, due not confirming “the first weekend in December” in a live conversation, I was 2+ hours away at my sister’s Saturday when my voicemail says, “Hey, it’s Donna. I’m about to board at O’Hare, I’ll see you at LaGuardia at 1.”

While most of the country is recovering from PEBO (post-election bullshit overload), the people of Georgia just can’t seem to get enough of it.  Tomorrow we go to the polls to decide one of the nation’s last two senate races.  The candidates have jammed television and radio with ads which are not only nasty, but make no sense at all. 

Making the whole runoff insane are the politicians visiting to stump for our two choices (both of them pretty lousy).  Clinton, Romney, McCain, Giuliani and of course Sarah Palin.

We need Sarah Palin here like a moose needs an iPod.