When I was about 16, my Mom informed me that my grandparents had requested we bring them an urn from Thailand. For what purpose, I wondered. Well, they were thinking about dying, and wanted a final resting place for their ashes.
I was devastated, and immediately sent them what was probably an inappropriate email in which I asked, "So you're dying? How do you feel about that?"
Ten years later, I still have both my grandparents, alive and well as can be expected. My grandfather mentions every so often that they've just lost another friend from the Senior Center and well, her husband used to ride to work with him or they played pool together for a long time.
My grandfather is almost 90, survived World War II when so many friends did not, worked hard all his life, and smoked like a chimney for decades. He is on oxygen 24-7, and perhaps is transitioning into the end of all things. It's a curious position to be in, I think. It's one I want to understand through his eyes. How does it feel to know that someday soon that conscious being you've lived with for 90 years is going to up and leave? And that it means you simply will not exist? How does a conscious being comprehend non-existence? I can't. Zero is the closest thing we have and it's still a number.
It occurred to me that I don't even know how my Grandfather views death. Maybe he believes in heaven. It seems a relevant piece of information to learn about someone peering into what could be the rest of eternity, or the beginning of nothing. This single belief probably colors every day of the rest of his life.
I chanced breeching a sore topic, and asked, "so...what do you think happens when we die?"
He says, gruffly, "Blank. Nothing."
I pause. Can I ask a follow-up question? "How do you feel about that?"
"Well, I suppose if it were any other way, it would just get too crowded wherever we were going."
I try to imagine my grandfather as a non-entity. The shell we would witness from here would be like a recently vacated cocoon: empty and, having served its purpose, meaningless. Then I imagine the view from his side: it's dark, his eyes are open, and he's thinking about how dark it is. I erase the image, no, he can't be thinking, he's blank. There's no awareness at all, so you don't need to worry about him, and whether he's comfortable, or alone, or scared. You don't need to worry at all. He's blank. D.N.E. Does Not Exist. Those wrinkles, like trenches down his cheeks, they won't be there anymore. He won't need his glasses. That reverence he has for the Earth is going to end, even as he becomes a part of it.
I'd like to ask more questions, though I'm not sure what they are. Often I am sitting across from him remembering that we probably don't have that much time left together; how we spend it should matter. It doesn't. There is love in this room even when we are silent.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
Central Park
I hate to break it to you, but:
The ducks don't care who is staying at the Ritz-Carlton.
It's true. They don't. I'm sorry.
The ducks don't care who is staying at the Ritz-Carlton.
It's true. They don't. I'm sorry.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Bikram Yoga Kicked My Ass
I didn't know Bikram Yoga was the hot one -- the wring-your-body-like-a-wet-rag, sweaty, brutal kind of yoga. I was expecting some light breathing exercises. I walked into the 90-degree studio and thought I was going to die. Half-way into the session I really did think yoga was going to kill me, and when in the end I found I still had a pulse, I felt alive in the way only near scrapes with death can generate.
The studio smelled like a dirty jockstrap. This is my one complaint.
Otherwise I saw a lot of naked women. It's something I ruminate on from time to time, because I am often in gym locker rooms, and its maybe the one place where us ladies can feel completely ok with public nudity (some more than others). Today, I was, as usual, impressed by the variety of form -- not one of us is the same. Buttocks can be flabby, rounded, down-turned, explosive (?!), flat, fleshy. Bellies can curve inwards or outwards, can have seams, horizontally or vertically, be bony or love-handled, and no two buttons are the same. Skin can be porcelain or pock-marked, dark, light, spotted, hoary or scarred. This body has breasts like hanging gourds; this one, tiny mosquito bites; this one, pink nipples against creamy skin; this one is olive and smooth, Italian maybe, and has the most perfect pair I have ever seen. In such frequency and close proximity, we all seem like motherly cows milling, udders displayed prosaically from our chests, all for the same purpose and of similar design.
Nude, sweaty women. I find no sex appeal in it: udders are not sexy. We, women, bodies, serve a purpose. We are but bags of skin; the tupperware of our souls fading and sagging with time. I imagine the male perception of us -- how we are coveted so -- and feel at once exhiliarated and heavy. How many men coveted that one's body, knowing she would one day be so wrinkled, so similar to a topographical map of Earth from space? Where did those scars come from and how many babies have swelled inside of her, stretching, kicking, gaping? What violence has that soft shell had to bend against?
Only clothed are we uniform. Fashionistas, we become like male peacocks -- flashy but increasingly similar. Yet, if we were all always featherless, how much coveting would there be? We would be nude cows, prosaic and milling, concentration camp-like.
Yet so much of our energy is spent strutting, I think we forget that within our soft shells hides a quiet strength that calmly waits for hardship. This heavily padded, squarish-looking woman next to me is a battleship, yes, armed with melons, warts and cellulite -- a lioness. That the female form can be broken down into a formula for beauty is baffling. We are all beautiful -- each a unique collection of flesh hanging demurely on bone, at the ravenous mercy of gravity, age and experience.
The studio smelled like a dirty jockstrap. This is my one complaint.
Otherwise I saw a lot of naked women. It's something I ruminate on from time to time, because I am often in gym locker rooms, and its maybe the one place where us ladies can feel completely ok with public nudity (some more than others). Today, I was, as usual, impressed by the variety of form -- not one of us is the same. Buttocks can be flabby, rounded, down-turned, explosive (?!), flat, fleshy. Bellies can curve inwards or outwards, can have seams, horizontally or vertically, be bony or love-handled, and no two buttons are the same. Skin can be porcelain or pock-marked, dark, light, spotted, hoary or scarred. This body has breasts like hanging gourds; this one, tiny mosquito bites; this one, pink nipples against creamy skin; this one is olive and smooth, Italian maybe, and has the most perfect pair I have ever seen. In such frequency and close proximity, we all seem like motherly cows milling, udders displayed prosaically from our chests, all for the same purpose and of similar design.
Nude, sweaty women. I find no sex appeal in it: udders are not sexy. We, women, bodies, serve a purpose. We are but bags of skin; the tupperware of our souls fading and sagging with time. I imagine the male perception of us -- how we are coveted so -- and feel at once exhiliarated and heavy. How many men coveted that one's body, knowing she would one day be so wrinkled, so similar to a topographical map of Earth from space? Where did those scars come from and how many babies have swelled inside of her, stretching, kicking, gaping? What violence has that soft shell had to bend against?
Only clothed are we uniform. Fashionistas, we become like male peacocks -- flashy but increasingly similar. Yet, if we were all always featherless, how much coveting would there be? We would be nude cows, prosaic and milling, concentration camp-like.
Yet so much of our energy is spent strutting, I think we forget that within our soft shells hides a quiet strength that calmly waits for hardship. This heavily padded, squarish-looking woman next to me is a battleship, yes, armed with melons, warts and cellulite -- a lioness. That the female form can be broken down into a formula for beauty is baffling. We are all beautiful -- each a unique collection of flesh hanging demurely on bone, at the ravenous mercy of gravity, age and experience.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Messenger Bag
I was happy to find that we are still friends. We're both skinnier than we were back then; learning self-control or learning to let go of it has been good for both of us. Has it really been five years? I stretch my hand halfway across the table and the gulf between us seems smaller than it has in a long time. Its an uncomfortable regret that I hold for you: such a good man. I am guilty of not understanding.
What solace though, to see that our little world could rise from its own ashes. I remember writing it off as scorched, fatally, maybe even on purpose because I could think of no creative solution. But I started to see last night that relationships don't need to be finite - that we could evolve, grow together while apart, and return every so often to nurture the spring tendrils of the adults we are becoming. So I stretch my hand across the table to say, I finally see you; I'm sorry it took me so long - it was not until this moment that I had enough light in me to see your reflection.
What solace though, to see that our little world could rise from its own ashes. I remember writing it off as scorched, fatally, maybe even on purpose because I could think of no creative solution. But I started to see last night that relationships don't need to be finite - that we could evolve, grow together while apart, and return every so often to nurture the spring tendrils of the adults we are becoming. So I stretch my hand across the table to say, I finally see you; I'm sorry it took me so long - it was not until this moment that I had enough light in me to see your reflection.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Weekend with the Grams
I walk into the yellow house this morning to the 86-year-old man in the Smith & Wesson cap, leaning out through an open window and peering intently at something undetectable. When he realizes I am in the room his face changes from somber to sunny, and he gives a shout, blue eyes dancing.
He walks over to me with his characteristic, bowlegged step, and for a moment I think he is crying at the sight of me, but I throw my arms around him and the image passes. He gives good hugs, my Grandpa does.
My Grandmother is trying to make the bed. She is hunched over, shrunken and hobbit-like. She seems smaller than she was the last time I saw her. I wrap my awkward arms around her, and my wrists register every vertebra of her curved spine jutting out through her shirt like a museum dinosaur. I worry whether she will bruise from the embrace -- that I could be the cause of such a blemish means that I underestimated the strength of my own youth, and that it was my youth that trumped one of her fragile vessels to leave a purple, tented mark on her papery skin. Sometimes I think that if I could just hug her enough, it would straighten out her back and she could stand upright again but that would be a cruel and ill-conceived experiment.
We lay clean sheets on the bed. I toss them in the air a few times just so I can discretely inhale of their smell -- it reminds me so of being five years old and running through the clothesline in summer. We sit side by side on the chest at the foot of the bed, which is of a dark and smooth wood. We talk about life in the way we do -- witty, light conversation about being 84, having leg pains and the new walker she uses, aptly named 'The Crusader,' which has a nifty hand brake. She turns to me, and the moment our eyes meet I am overwhelmed by that deepest and most incomprehensible of emotions: a silent elation that reaches from my vocal chords clear down to my intestines, and is matched in intensity only by the sheer terror of losing her, which now grips me and in an instant is gone, thankfully, for it might have killed me.
I remember reading once in a beginner's psychology book that humans seek the eyes of others for reassurance of our own existence. Also that the pain of separateness is one we constantly fight to overcome, but never can because we are all always just alone. But then I wonder if she could see it in my eyes just now that I love her to pieces; that I have absolutely no words to describe it, can make no sense of it, have no protection against it; that she is as much a part of me as a rib in my chest and as close to my heart.
He walks over to me with his characteristic, bowlegged step, and for a moment I think he is crying at the sight of me, but I throw my arms around him and the image passes. He gives good hugs, my Grandpa does.
My Grandmother is trying to make the bed. She is hunched over, shrunken and hobbit-like. She seems smaller than she was the last time I saw her. I wrap my awkward arms around her, and my wrists register every vertebra of her curved spine jutting out through her shirt like a museum dinosaur. I worry whether she will bruise from the embrace -- that I could be the cause of such a blemish means that I underestimated the strength of my own youth, and that it was my youth that trumped one of her fragile vessels to leave a purple, tented mark on her papery skin. Sometimes I think that if I could just hug her enough, it would straighten out her back and she could stand upright again but that would be a cruel and ill-conceived experiment.
We lay clean sheets on the bed. I toss them in the air a few times just so I can discretely inhale of their smell -- it reminds me so of being five years old and running through the clothesline in summer. We sit side by side on the chest at the foot of the bed, which is of a dark and smooth wood. We talk about life in the way we do -- witty, light conversation about being 84, having leg pains and the new walker she uses, aptly named 'The Crusader,' which has a nifty hand brake. She turns to me, and the moment our eyes meet I am overwhelmed by that deepest and most incomprehensible of emotions: a silent elation that reaches from my vocal chords clear down to my intestines, and is matched in intensity only by the sheer terror of losing her, which now grips me and in an instant is gone, thankfully, for it might have killed me.
I remember reading once in a beginner's psychology book that humans seek the eyes of others for reassurance of our own existence. Also that the pain of separateness is one we constantly fight to overcome, but never can because we are all always just alone. But then I wonder if she could see it in my eyes just now that I love her to pieces; that I have absolutely no words to describe it, can make no sense of it, have no protection against it; that she is as much a part of me as a rib in my chest and as close to my heart.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Fiction
I come home this evening, in my white collared shirt with pretty sleeves, to my two ladies, Cass and Jenny. Cass takes her usual seat at the table while I heat my ration of this-week’s-concoction and steam broccoli rabe over a pot of boiling water until it turns a rainforest green. I plop it into a bowl with two forks and some butter for me and my Cass to munch on over some conversation.
“I’m done with the blues,” Cass exclaims, “I’ve had enough.”
I nod in agreement. We crunch more broccoli, I eat my stew, Cass grabs one of the dinner rolls I made last night, and pats it with butter. She says, “I got a gown,” with her eyes carefully focused on the roll, even though I know she’s curious to see the look on my face as she reveals this information.
Cass has been thinking about going back to stripping so she can make enough money for this EMT course she really wants to do. It seems absurd, but New York city strip clubs require girls to wear a “gown” to wear for the audition, so Cass went shopping.
When Cass talks about her stripping days, I am silently elated. I’m mezmerized by the stories, and the strength that seems to flow from her –- this stoic determination of womanhood that I can never seem to muster. Her comment about stripping is: “I know the true value of female beauty and I know how to make guys pay for it.” Then she declares, “at heart, part of me is just a hustler.” She says it in the same voice and the same Cass face that says she loves nature, and rock-climbing, and dreams of someday being a doctor. And I’m sure she can. She has more integrity than most people I’ve met and I suppose I often put her on a pedestal for being so brave.
Jenny has since joined our gathering and asks where Cass has looked so far for clubs to dance in. She lists a few that she’s interested in, mentions one that’s full nudity and I exclaim, “You can do that?!”
“Sure... I’ve done it before. I just don’t know if I can do it three days a week, you know what I mean?”
No. No, I definitely don’t, I say.
“I mean...it's tiring. It’s a very hard position to take –- you have to constantly redefine your boundaries. You want the guys to always believe they are just about to have sex, even though they never will, and maintain a certain unwavering attitude to the whole thing.”
I’m amazed, I’m intrigued, and I’m envious of her spirit. She has more than I, no doubt about it. “I think if I ever did that I would be immediately jaded forever – just one time and I’d be ruined. Seems so traumatizing.”
Cass throws a sideways glance at me and grins, “You think I’m not jaded?” But I've never thought this of her -- quite the contrary -- of the two of us, I am the non-believer.
“So you got a gown,” Jenny reminds us, “Can we see it?”
Cass dashes into her room and closes the door behind her. Jenny and I discuss our fascination with Cass’s courage, while underneath we are both dying a little bit because we know we wish we could be that voracious towards life, and somehow can’t. Our eyes join for an uncomfortable second; we have an understanding that neither one of us could do as Cass can and does, and our deep, dark corners hate this about ourselves.
The door to Cass’s room swings outwards, and out steps 'Ace,' clad in a red mini-skirted jumpsuit made of some kind of taut, glittering vinyl and chains. The skirt ends just shy of the top curve of her thighs, clings tightly to her buttocks, and ends at the small of her back. The front looks like a series of hoops, joined in the middle with gold links and revealing a muscular torso topped with small, round breasts, that are pressed so tightly into the jumpsuit that they appear solid and cold – like she’s a plastic statue, and she’s not actually real anymore. Black leather straps run up her calves which are harnessed into black and silver stiletto heels – 4 inches tall and thin as needles.
I can’t imagine walking in them, much less pole-dancing in them. Cass mutters, "eehh, you get used to it,” and struts through the living room with none of the self-consciousness that I would most certainly feel, in that outfit, in front of an open window at night-time with the streets of Brooklyn spread out before us, not to mention the two gaping ladies at the table with their heterosexual tongues practically lapping the floorboards. Even at the height of female sexuality, Cass still looks like she could hike the Appalachian trail at the drop of a hat – she’s lost none of her masculinity. I’d almost mistake her for a gritty construction worker in really hot drag, if her face wasn't so pretty.
She’s quickly becoming an excellent friend.
After Cass's fashion show, Jack arrives to borrow my camera. He’s a designer, with upcoming magazine appearances. He’s recently broken up with his boyfriend, and tonight is the first I’ve heard of it. They are both six feet tall, with the kind of hair that you always think is blond but isn’t really. They made a good pair.
Jack comes in with the cold and says abruptly, "I’ve got some pot if you want any," and lifts a white stub from his pocket, “My hands are freezing.” His cheeks are pink under the several-day-old beard that’s new, and sexy on him. He’s grown into a very fine looking man, I think to myself, remembering him as a still awkward teenager in highschool.
Jack is my ex-boyfriend, and has always reminded me of the Statue of David. Needless to say, our romantic endeavors were doomed from the beginning, but I admire him often; he, too, is of the ilk that is fearless, and seemingly invincible. In the last few years he’s become darker -- in mind and in body. It gives him an i-don’t-give-a-fuck edge, and I’m fascinated by it in an utterly scientific way. I’d like to study these people –- these fearless people.
Jack has a strut, too. His shoulders are broader than they used to be. He seems to fill the room with a vibrant and dominating male energy though he is androgynously sensual. He towers over us, and is boisterous, so we laugh and are happy he stopped by.
We don’t get a lot of visitors -- although Rob has been staying with us since he got evicted. Rob is a 30-year-old skaterboy and recovering alcoholic who has relationship issues with his sponsor and his ex-girlfriend whom he calls, “Suffering.” He’s also Jenny’s ex-boyfriend. Apparently, he went home to his apartment one night to find all his earthly possessions sitting in trash bags on the sidewalk at midnight; he’s been squatting with us ever since. He drank half a bottle of my New Years' Captain Morgan in one sitting, probably in one morning, and the next day told me to hide the bottle, “I won’t go searching for it, but if I see it I can’t help myself.” I put it on the top shelf of my closet, and everytime I open the door now I feel like an alcoholic, too. Isn't this what they do? Stash alcohol in unlikely places?
He’s a nice guy. I feel sad for him. I understand his predicament, yet am capable of no sympathy. Although being honest with oneself is a difficult and frightening thing, I sort of despise those who shy from it.
Jack tells us a bit about his break up, “I’ve been sleeping twelve hours a day and smoking for the last week,” and makes a dull face like it’s making him extremely unhappy. “Why did you break up?" I ask, "You two seemed so good together."
He makes me feel very small. I don’t like it much. Around him I distrust my own intuition and I’ve never been able to figure out why.
“Just got to a point where I thought, you know what? This isn’t it. So it’s over -- it's gotta be.” He complements this finality with a cutting motion through the air and a tongue-whistle. He has very intense eyes. “So I broke up with my boyfriend and shaved my head this week. I went crazy.”
Cass groans, “this really is Heartbreak Hotel here,” and retires to her room, eyes puffy. Last night Cass had stinging, bubbly tears streaming down her face, and the kind of sobs that only come from years and years of loving the one person who doesn’t love you back. I hugged her, and she was hard to the touch -- her body was so tense. In addition to Cass’s and my own troubles, Rob continues to be totally devastated by Suffering, who insists they hang out daily and skate together. She’s not even that cute – he showed me her picture. I think she’s probably evil, to be stringing him along like this. Still, he has no excuse. He could always just say no.
But he sort of enjoys addiction, doesn’t he. I guess we all do.
I tell Jack my latest woes. His response is strong and definite – kind of like him. I regret it isn’t me though, and remember that I hate advice.
Jack takes one last gulp of water and wraps his wooly sweater around him, pulling up the hood of his green sweatshirt so it’s tight around his head. “I’m out,” he declares, and stands up to kiss each of my cheeks. I hug him, and he bends almost halfway over so I can pull my arms around his neck. I wonder if I smell bad, I think, remembering that I forgot to put on deodorant after the gym tonight. But my sleeves are so pretty… it doesn’t really matter.
“Let me know how your story unfolds,” he says, though we seldom talk, and we both know I won’t. But as he’s swinging out the door, Jack’s deep blue, earnest eyes flash at me one last time, and with purpose. “Nothing is by accident,” he whispers, and then dashes out the door, brown wool flurries in his wake.
“I’m done with the blues,” Cass exclaims, “I’ve had enough.”
I nod in agreement. We crunch more broccoli, I eat my stew, Cass grabs one of the dinner rolls I made last night, and pats it with butter. She says, “I got a gown,” with her eyes carefully focused on the roll, even though I know she’s curious to see the look on my face as she reveals this information.
Cass has been thinking about going back to stripping so she can make enough money for this EMT course she really wants to do. It seems absurd, but New York city strip clubs require girls to wear a “gown” to wear for the audition, so Cass went shopping.
When Cass talks about her stripping days, I am silently elated. I’m mezmerized by the stories, and the strength that seems to flow from her –- this stoic determination of womanhood that I can never seem to muster. Her comment about stripping is: “I know the true value of female beauty and I know how to make guys pay for it.” Then she declares, “at heart, part of me is just a hustler.” She says it in the same voice and the same Cass face that says she loves nature, and rock-climbing, and dreams of someday being a doctor. And I’m sure she can. She has more integrity than most people I’ve met and I suppose I often put her on a pedestal for being so brave.
Jenny has since joined our gathering and asks where Cass has looked so far for clubs to dance in. She lists a few that she’s interested in, mentions one that’s full nudity and I exclaim, “You can do that?!”
“Sure... I’ve done it before. I just don’t know if I can do it three days a week, you know what I mean?”
No. No, I definitely don’t, I say.
“I mean...it's tiring. It’s a very hard position to take –- you have to constantly redefine your boundaries. You want the guys to always believe they are just about to have sex, even though they never will, and maintain a certain unwavering attitude to the whole thing.”
I’m amazed, I’m intrigued, and I’m envious of her spirit. She has more than I, no doubt about it. “I think if I ever did that I would be immediately jaded forever – just one time and I’d be ruined. Seems so traumatizing.”
Cass throws a sideways glance at me and grins, “You think I’m not jaded?” But I've never thought this of her -- quite the contrary -- of the two of us, I am the non-believer.
“So you got a gown,” Jenny reminds us, “Can we see it?”
Cass dashes into her room and closes the door behind her. Jenny and I discuss our fascination with Cass’s courage, while underneath we are both dying a little bit because we know we wish we could be that voracious towards life, and somehow can’t. Our eyes join for an uncomfortable second; we have an understanding that neither one of us could do as Cass can and does, and our deep, dark corners hate this about ourselves.
The door to Cass’s room swings outwards, and out steps 'Ace,' clad in a red mini-skirted jumpsuit made of some kind of taut, glittering vinyl and chains. The skirt ends just shy of the top curve of her thighs, clings tightly to her buttocks, and ends at the small of her back. The front looks like a series of hoops, joined in the middle with gold links and revealing a muscular torso topped with small, round breasts, that are pressed so tightly into the jumpsuit that they appear solid and cold – like she’s a plastic statue, and she’s not actually real anymore. Black leather straps run up her calves which are harnessed into black and silver stiletto heels – 4 inches tall and thin as needles.
I can’t imagine walking in them, much less pole-dancing in them. Cass mutters, "eehh, you get used to it,” and struts through the living room with none of the self-consciousness that I would most certainly feel, in that outfit, in front of an open window at night-time with the streets of Brooklyn spread out before us, not to mention the two gaping ladies at the table with their heterosexual tongues practically lapping the floorboards. Even at the height of female sexuality, Cass still looks like she could hike the Appalachian trail at the drop of a hat – she’s lost none of her masculinity. I’d almost mistake her for a gritty construction worker in really hot drag, if her face wasn't so pretty.
She’s quickly becoming an excellent friend.
After Cass's fashion show, Jack arrives to borrow my camera. He’s a designer, with upcoming magazine appearances. He’s recently broken up with his boyfriend, and tonight is the first I’ve heard of it. They are both six feet tall, with the kind of hair that you always think is blond but isn’t really. They made a good pair.
Jack comes in with the cold and says abruptly, "I’ve got some pot if you want any," and lifts a white stub from his pocket, “My hands are freezing.” His cheeks are pink under the several-day-old beard that’s new, and sexy on him. He’s grown into a very fine looking man, I think to myself, remembering him as a still awkward teenager in highschool.
Jack is my ex-boyfriend, and has always reminded me of the Statue of David. Needless to say, our romantic endeavors were doomed from the beginning, but I admire him often; he, too, is of the ilk that is fearless, and seemingly invincible. In the last few years he’s become darker -- in mind and in body. It gives him an i-don’t-give-a-fuck edge, and I’m fascinated by it in an utterly scientific way. I’d like to study these people –- these fearless people.
Jack has a strut, too. His shoulders are broader than they used to be. He seems to fill the room with a vibrant and dominating male energy though he is androgynously sensual. He towers over us, and is boisterous, so we laugh and are happy he stopped by.
We don’t get a lot of visitors -- although Rob has been staying with us since he got evicted. Rob is a 30-year-old skaterboy and recovering alcoholic who has relationship issues with his sponsor and his ex-girlfriend whom he calls, “Suffering.” He’s also Jenny’s ex-boyfriend. Apparently, he went home to his apartment one night to find all his earthly possessions sitting in trash bags on the sidewalk at midnight; he’s been squatting with us ever since. He drank half a bottle of my New Years' Captain Morgan in one sitting, probably in one morning, and the next day told me to hide the bottle, “I won’t go searching for it, but if I see it I can’t help myself.” I put it on the top shelf of my closet, and everytime I open the door now I feel like an alcoholic, too. Isn't this what they do? Stash alcohol in unlikely places?
He’s a nice guy. I feel sad for him. I understand his predicament, yet am capable of no sympathy. Although being honest with oneself is a difficult and frightening thing, I sort of despise those who shy from it.
Jack tells us a bit about his break up, “I’ve been sleeping twelve hours a day and smoking for the last week,” and makes a dull face like it’s making him extremely unhappy. “Why did you break up?" I ask, "You two seemed so good together."
He makes me feel very small. I don’t like it much. Around him I distrust my own intuition and I’ve never been able to figure out why.
“Just got to a point where I thought, you know what? This isn’t it. So it’s over -- it's gotta be.” He complements this finality with a cutting motion through the air and a tongue-whistle. He has very intense eyes. “So I broke up with my boyfriend and shaved my head this week. I went crazy.”
Cass groans, “this really is Heartbreak Hotel here,” and retires to her room, eyes puffy. Last night Cass had stinging, bubbly tears streaming down her face, and the kind of sobs that only come from years and years of loving the one person who doesn’t love you back. I hugged her, and she was hard to the touch -- her body was so tense. In addition to Cass’s and my own troubles, Rob continues to be totally devastated by Suffering, who insists they hang out daily and skate together. She’s not even that cute – he showed me her picture. I think she’s probably evil, to be stringing him along like this. Still, he has no excuse. He could always just say no.
But he sort of enjoys addiction, doesn’t he. I guess we all do.
I tell Jack my latest woes. His response is strong and definite – kind of like him. I regret it isn’t me though, and remember that I hate advice.
Jack takes one last gulp of water and wraps his wooly sweater around him, pulling up the hood of his green sweatshirt so it’s tight around his head. “I’m out,” he declares, and stands up to kiss each of my cheeks. I hug him, and he bends almost halfway over so I can pull my arms around his neck. I wonder if I smell bad, I think, remembering that I forgot to put on deodorant after the gym tonight. But my sleeves are so pretty… it doesn’t really matter.
“Let me know how your story unfolds,” he says, though we seldom talk, and we both know I won’t. But as he’s swinging out the door, Jack’s deep blue, earnest eyes flash at me one last time, and with purpose. “Nothing is by accident,” he whispers, and then dashes out the door, brown wool flurries in his wake.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Snap
I cut my hands
so many times on the knife
this morning as i
sliced and squeezed a lemon
that the pain from its juice
in my wounds
practically snapped my
fingers in two and
shot hard angry zaps
of lemon zest
up my trembling arms.
Refreshing.
Dull thoughts feel like
death sometimes.
I'd rather stab
promptly dispose
of thoughts like these
than allow a steady decomposition.
Easier said than done.
And my hands are still bloody.
so many times on the knife
this morning as i
sliced and squeezed a lemon
that the pain from its juice
in my wounds
practically snapped my
fingers in two and
shot hard angry zaps
of lemon zest
up my trembling arms.
Refreshing.
Dull thoughts feel like
death sometimes.
I'd rather stab
promptly dispose
of thoughts like these
than allow a steady decomposition.
Easier said than done.
And my hands are still bloody.
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