the crux

"The person who loves you has picked you out of the great mass of uncreated clay which is humanity to make something out of, and the poor lumpish clay which is you wants to find out what it has been made into.

"But at the same time, you, in the act of loving somebody, become real, cease to be part of the continuum of the uncreated clay and get the breath of life in you and rise up.

"So you create yourself by creating another person, who, however, has also created you, picked up the you-chunk of clay out of the mass. So there are two you's, the one you yourself create by loving and the one the beloved creates by loving you.

"The farther those two you's are apart the more the world grinds and grudges on its axis. But if you loved and were loved perfectly then there wouldn't be any difference between the two you's or any distance between them.

"They would coincide perfectly, there would be a perfect focus, as when a stereoscope gets the twin images on the card into perfect alignment."

All The King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

the eulogy you want more than anything

[It's been a week. I've let the words fall beside me, let them land on me, I've stepped out of the way for some. You're here, ish. Is this what you're looking for? Is this what you're here for?]

The other day, I was in a place that played that song. The one that so captured the feeling it was for me to know you. The one with a metaphor for a title. The one that eventually all the words came true, and then suddenly none of it mattered.

I keep hearing you wonder (not that I heard you, but your voice is as solid in text as in the air): I hope you never hate me.

I never thought I could. I trotted out a simple phrase to assure you through all your doubts and predictions of the way it would be between us, and I believed in that phrase; that generous phrase.

[I wish I could've assured myself]

I never imagined the machinery of my mind could turn in the opposite direction. I could not foresee any instances of grief between us, given that nothing but discreet intellectual discourse and polite admiration had passed between us. I suppose I thought we were better than this.

"just like an angel off the page, you have appeared to my life..."

Your entrance was mythic, like manna raining down from the skies, your words were full and heavy with promise, fascinating, glittery;

Yet it was you, your grandiose ideas, your opinions, your feelings on the matters of so many things that enraptured me. I've known a lot of people, been known by a lot of people, but you were incomparable.

Mostly, for me, it was knowing someone else who straddled the grayness of the world, being neither a lover, nor a fighter, but elements of both and essentially all things, and basing it on speculative logic all the while.

"I wonder why it is, I won't let my guard down for anyone but you"

If there is any hate in my heart for you, which I try to muster up in bursts of exclamations that no one believes or wants to hear anyway, it is that you got inside my walls, the ones that have been in place for longer than I'm aware. I still haven't figured it out, except that perhaps you traveled back in time, told yourself to be the most wonderful, serendipitous peripheral acquaintance, which would grant you unequivocal access to me some years later if only you could deduce the secret password.

I wake up every morning with phantom memories of you entwined in my thoughts, that I weed until they are no more, but like weeding, it is an endless task, just when the garden has been picked over, it seems the rest of the weeds underground have surfaced while the eye was distracted, and so I spend my nights picking out more things and trying to push your influences and opinions back into my periphery.

I was starved and your words were the sustenance that brought me out of the delirium of hunger. You spread glorious words at my feet, showered me with linguistic feats, and smothered me in the joy of language. I couldn't resist you and you couldn't resist giving me yourself.

"I wonder why it is, I don't argue like this with anyone but you..."

You gave me what I was hungry for, and then you took it away. You had your reasons. You had your logic. But it seemed turned against me. It seemed opposite what I was then clamoring for. I keep trying to trace its twists and turns in my mind, but it is complicated, my memory is bad, and I can't. I try to tell the story of us and every time I am interrupted, told to stop, that it is too much.

You say the most garish things. It is hard for me not to argue them. The analogies? For you. If you look back through the entries before your entrance, it is an occasional device, but nothing more, not relied upon. Those analogies were my way of writing just for you, my gifts from the skies,

And it is easy to say that you must have known, you should have known that every beautiful word was for you. I can reconcile that you didn't always understand my intentions, in fact have misinterpreted them, just as I did with you. I understand that we are only human and cannot read minds. do you understand?

For me, there are definitely points you've made that cannot be denied. I was a wheel of contradictions with you, and I spun in no predictable fashion. Yet, from the beginning, and throughout, and at the end, I have produced disclaimer after disclaimer that who I am at this time in my life was someone who was not well and not at my best. And all I wanted was for you to know me at my best.

It is funny to me that you said emphatically to let it go, there's nothing to prove, but here you are, there you go, your presence haunts me. Why don't you let it go? What do you have to prove? Why don't you leave me alone?

Do you feel as cheated by our recklessness, our hastiness, our clashes?

In the end, I know I will never really hate you. Hating you would be easier, actually, I could blithely place the blame squarely on you, and spend each day loathing you. It is much harder to ache for you, to want to speak to you, to want to be with you and not be able to. It is much harder to be misunderstood and ostracized from your circle. Your misanthropic ego did validate me.

It just didn't have any compassion for me.

[Goodbye. I'm gone.]

why I get paid the big bucks around here...

for the brilliant solution to place a huge painting on the windowsill.

A little thrill of joy races through me when I look over at it, nestled between the curtains; it looks like it's always been there.

it's kind of perfect because the painting is of a wintry pasture with two trees at dawn.

it's this kind of stuff that makes working for Marilyn seem like a likely story.

habits of highly successful older people...

Apparently, all it took to make me feel older, older than the vague twenty-something, is regularly wearing a set of matching pajamas and brushing and flossing my teeth every night.

The pajamas were bought in a TJ Maxx in Florida, during the vacation that revolved around the bathroom and the amazing amount of Doritos everywhere. They are supposed to feel like silk, but they are just polyester. Cheap. But, on the other hand, polyester washes well. And they are great pajamas for only twenty bucks.

The brushing and flossing was always hit or miss with me, for various reasons. About three weeks ago, my friend Laura had oral surgery. She had a build-up of plaque and bits under her teeth from not flossing, and these were rotting her teeth from underneath her gums. So they cut a line along the inside of her gum line, from the right back molar to the left back molar (with no anethesia, I might add), peeled back her gums and scraped out the pockets of plaque and then stitched it all back up. That was just the bottom...she's still got the top to do. After detailing this horrific event and showing me her purplish gums, the black stitches, the swollen jaw, she intoned, "Save yourself some trouble and floss."

I must operate well with scare tactics, because I've only missed one or two days at the most since.

Maybe also, it's that I've got less than six months til I turn thirty....

student-only contemplations...

I just got home from babysitting. Have to wake up for work in five hours. Haven't finished a bit of homework for class tomorrow. Wondering: should I stay up all night and do the homework?

Figure, I can stand it for about two hours and then I'll probably get totally tired and fall asleep, but worry that my alarm will go off and I'll think I'm hitting snooze but actually just turn it off and then wake up at seven and scream and panic and nothing will be right with the world.

If this is the only way to gain some extra time that I desperately need, should I take it?

Problem is, I won't get much sleep tomorrow either. Funny how you can already know that. I don't have to work in the morning on Friday, but I'll be woken up early, earlier than I'll want to be.

Grrr. I cannot wait for school to be over. Just seven more weeks...

It's only five hours, right?

Then I wonder, what if I skipped class and spent the time in the lab doing my homework and turned it in when class was over. Or what if I do stay up just these short five hours, do the homework, email it to the teacher, go to work and get hopped up on caffiene and then come home and take a nap after work?

I hate homework. it's so stupid.

an enumeration of the days past:

Pages of writing accomplished: none.

pages of journal writing: 3.25

midterms taken: two.

midterms passed: so far, one.

Novels completed: none.

(currently reading Sula and All the King's Men for class, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, for fun, and staring at The Complete Saki and The Te of Piglet)

Novels close to completion: one. (Sula)

record breaking sleep: fourteen hours.

followed next day by: five hours and some snoozing.

most meals eaten in a long time: Saturday, three.

worst meal eaten in a long time: yesterday, McDonald's.

best meal today: pineapple fried rice, thai spoon

sent back: once.

reason?: no pineapples in first time.

Text messages received today: five.

Text messages sent today: three.

hours spent gazing at computer without doing homework: nine.

movie attempted: Scent of a Woman (I had no idea Al Pacino was playing a blind guy in that movie!)

movie watched, finally, to Netflix's great relief: Howard's Zinn You Can't be Neutral On a Moving Train

movies in my queue: 105

Movies rated: 91

movie in hand: Me, You and Everyone We Know

emails sent today: not sure. catching up on old ones. a lot.

emails welcomed today: all of them.

hours worked yesterday: six and a half.

hours worked today: none.

time spent today out of doors: less than an hour.

times I wish time had passed: every ten minutes or so.

my favorite comic book: 100% by Paul Pope

recently encountered as a guest artist in: 100 Bullets

Trade Paperback Collection of 100 Bullets I'm on: five & six.

will receive them via John: tomorrow.

days until Gil Mantera's Party Dream: nine.

gifts purchased for old roommate's who got married: two books.

stamps needed: eight.

number of items still on today's to-do list: seven

times I used public transportation yesterday: seven or eight.

Accidents viewed after the fact: one.

sense made of accident (was she pregnant or not): none.

will to carry on at this pace: waning.

will to work: nil.

a shock:

"You have a pot-bellied pig?"

As I said these words and gazed upon the man who nodded his assent, I knew then that Man of the Year was all too common a phrase to lend him. (Plus, I think I saw a preview for the movie of the same phrase, you know, with Robin Williams, and that might be why I called him that in the first place.)

Today's visit began with a trip outside to see my favorite dog, Cozy, who is a leaner and a licker, and one of the best dogs I've met. As I cooed at her and petted her, I noticed someone walking up, and it was he, this man of utter surprises, and immediately, the dog and its owner ceased to exist as the man winked at me. I could hardly open the door and walk inside. I was topsy-turvy, but finally for good reason.

As I gushed about my love for Cozy, he bragged that his dog was the best dog ever. But that his dog was no match for his pot-bellied pig.

I asked, in the only moment of impressive and functional brain power that I managed to emit in his presence, "Are there any other animals in your menagerie?"

He admitted to the inclusion of cats and tropical fish. I asked questions about how the pets got along and whether or not it was legal to own a pot-bellied pig in the city (Beth? Lehn? surely one of you must know...) to which he answered very pleasantly. He said the reason no one had turned him in was because, "They're probably all waiting for me to cook him." Which I thought was a very vaild thing to say with a smile. He's obviously an easy-going guy, just by considering that statement alone.

I realized later that talking to him lately is thrilling. I feel thrilled afterwards. I feel like I could run five blocks straight (normally, I pant after a jog half a block to catch a bus).

And I'm taking suggestions on what to call a man who works manual labor all day outside, but went to an arts school and has a menagerie. And likes to read. And has a funny laugh. And has managed to capture my interest (despite the many other things obscuring the view).

stripped of analogies (in content, but not context)

Those of you who haven't actually been in my presence this summer will not know that I took up smoking again. It was a brief, but hard and fast bout of smoking, in which a half a pack to whole pack was consumed in one day. I was able to give up the dirty habit (for what must have been the eighth time), some three months later, when I realized it wasn't making me feel any better to smoke.

That was two, two and a half months ago. In that time, I've been out to bars, with friends who chain smoke, and at bus stops with smokers. I even smoked a total of three cigarettes during a combination of the first two instances. Previously, these three activities are what brought me back to being a smoker.

During the last week or so, I have wanted to smoke very badly. It is a pervasive thought. It is fueled by watching other people smoke. It is even triggered by the smell of cigarette smoke in the air.

Usually, in the post-smoking resolve, my mind scoffs at all my attempts to justify having just one cigarette; it is especially stronger when I'm not drinking. Lately, my thoughts seem very convincing. My favorite one is that I will buy some clove cigarettes (which are much too harsh to smoke in the same manner as a regular pack of cigarettes) and satisfy my craving that way.

This morning, when a friend stopped by to bemoan his relationship and was fingering a Parliament Light (my preferred brand) in his hand, I felt my resolve slide. I could hardly listen to him. All I could focus on was that cigarette, and deciphering the multitude of thoughts that hurtled into my mind.

Somehow, I remained steady and did not ask him for one, did not join him, did not buy a pack on the way home. And I begin to realize what people mean when they say that wanting to smoke will always occur throughout the rest of my life.

Sometimes, I wish I had never started smoking. But also, I know that it is just part of who I am and how I've grown up. It is neither good nor bad, just something I learned from.

kellog's corn flakes are still my favorite cereal

The interesting thing about feeling restored to my life, feeling like I'm putting the puzzle pieces of the last three months together in an effort to figure out what I was doing, almost as if I was on auto-pilot, or without a conscience, or lacking my own previously determined boundaries, is this: I am getting thinner.

Physically, it happened because of the fast I did in May (look through the archives for fun posts about not eating solid food for twelve days). I didn't gain back any of the twenty pounds I lost, and have since lost an additional five or so. I didn't notice it so much lately, but my jeans are looser than they have been. Pants that I wore and couldn't zip up before are too big now. Lately, I have begun to get the random comments and praise (it is quite the feat to lose twenty-five pounds).

Mentally, my capacity for anger is gone. I don't know if that's just a numbness I feel, or if it is really gone. No matter what someone says to me it's like I've got the ability to stand in their shoes and feel their heart and I don't get angry. That's not to say I don't feel hurt and pained by their actions, but the immediate and instinctive anger is gone.

I have cut myself loose from him yet again. And though it seems odd, but not permanent and not the end of the world, it does feel right somehow. As well, I have let the door close on the quintessential boy next door, whose intentions for me would have never matched my own for him. These two bold moves are simply a way of clearing and opening my clogged arteries so that blood can pump into my heart again.

Getting my apartment in order has really begun to shape this sense of clarity, as I remind myself of projects waiting for my return, reconnect with my most treasured items, and remember who I am. I thought for sure I had too many things, that my life was bloated by the inability to throw anything away. Instead, I am surprised to learn that I was just cramped into my previous space, that my legs were buckled, my shoulders grazed the ceilings, and my limbs were strapped to my torso. I hardly have enough things, I am a svelte creative being just beginning to explore the possibilities.

All in all, I find that my capacity for things is feckless and brief, that I can only tolerate what I most enjoy and what most enjoys me. And for a while, I feel that is fine. I think that is a very safe way to recover myself.

a deeper onion layer than most

you know it's bad when your good friend, the kind of person who knows you so well because they know themselves so well, the kind of person who has grown up in conditions achingly similar to yours, the kind of person who knows what's going on with you the instant they look into your eyes, which are welling up with the secret and invisible tears of shame and grief--

yeah, it's bad: when that person can ask you the question you most don't want to answer.

and you lie.

that is, I lied.

Everyone else has heard my reasons, my excuses, my thoughts and opinions for letting him back into my mental landscape.

and they all disapproved.

and I suppose I knew what would come out of my good friend's mouth, so rather than face his grousing, I lied.

if I couldn't tell him, this good friend who knows my heart, my thoughts, my life better than I do, because it's his too; then he's really not someone I should be involving myself in, is he?

the thing is, I knew it all along.

I was just lying to myself.

grad school declarations

So, today, while idly chatting with a curious party, I managed to somehow pack my writing career into one perfect metaphor.

As I was describing how I'd managed to discover my strengths lie in the non-fiction arena halfway through my career as a fiction writing student, through heralded journal entries and a class in Creative Non-Fiction, I told him, "It's like you love basketball and play it for years and years because there's nothing more you'd rather do, you watch basketball because it thrills you to see other people doing it, and then you find out that you're not that great at it. Your heart is in it, but you just don't got what it takes to play in the professional arena. At best, you know enough about the game to know when someone else has gotten it wrong, but that's all."

And sometimes, that's how I truly feel about my abilities as a fiction writer. I'm good, but I'm just not that good. And the truth is, I may not even be that much better at creative non-fiction, but I do think that's a good basket to take hold of right now. I have had small successes in my career at Columbia College, but nothing extraordinary. Nothing that makes me feel any more certain about my abilities as a writer.

I will likely attend graduate school next fall, attempting a master's in creative nonfiction. I figure half the year off will be enough of a break from school and homework. And I know myself. I won't write unless I have to. I can barely get out of bed unless I have to. School will be the perfect kickstart for me and my career as a writer. And if I had known my skills veered more toward the creative nonfiction genre, I would have started there first. Ah, but isn't that what college is meant for all along, to give you the time to explore the options to choose from? And it has been well spent, well explored time.

I have started searching out different colleges, and so far, the ones I like best are "tele-commuting" degrees where I send my work via the internet and someone reads it and gets back to me. I love the idea of not departing from my somewhat solid life here. Though, the allure of picking up and leaving is strong. I was born here, grew up here, and sometimes I wonder if I'll die here. It feels like this is the perfect reason to get up and go.

Perfect reasons glint in the sun.