Pineapple Cake in the Oven

I have a job interview tomorrow from 10-12.

You know how when you're looking for an apartment or, lets say you're trying online dating, sometimes it's not what you hope. (Digression: What's up with my second person thing these days? Brian, have I driven you insane yet?) You see the ad, talk about it and kinda get exited and hope that it's all as good as it appears to be. Then you go and check it out in person. Sometimes it's exactly as awesome as it sounds, like my old job at the winery, my current attic apartment, Jon the baseball player whose online photo does his rock-solid abs no justice. Most of the time it blows chunks, like my evil-lawyer job, infomercial products (Avoid the leg-waxers, ladies. And gentlemen.) and the blind date I went on where the guy had a mustache and wore a t-shirt that said "Co-ed naked firefighting: Find 'em hot and leave 'em wet."

I really hope this job is as good as it sounds. And that they love me as much as they should, of course.

Say a prayer for me, some love, cross your fingers, consult Buddha or send me vibes or chi or whatever version of holy goodness is that you dig.

I do not want to do homework today.

Twilight Zone

I'd like to inform you that the Mall of America is a vortex of evil. It takes non-materialistic souls like myself, sucks you in and before you know it you're in some dressing room with a massive pile of cool stuff you can’t afford. You go in for one thing—a nice, affordable outfit for a job interview. You go on a Monday because you hate throngs of stupid people. You aren’t overly fond of shopping in the first place.

MOA may pump sanity-altering chemicals through the vents. Your eyes glaze over like those folks hunched over the slot machines all night in Vegas. Before you know it, you’re stumbling around with 50 pounds of shopping bags muttering "I can't carry anything else... but there's H&M... and that cool place I've never heard of... and the sale at Bloomies. I thought Anne Taylor was just around this corner, but it’s a whole wing of more, more more stuff…" Since when do you wear Anne Taylor? Since when do you use words like "Bloomies?" Never. Now you’re plopped down in front of the giant roller coaster made out of Legos or whatever sipping an Orange Julius to refuel.

Rather like the Bermuda triangle, you go in prepared to get what you need and get out quick, but all your money somehow disappears and you're lucky if you get out alive. Beware, that’s all I’m saying.

A Love Letter to Saddam Hussein

A hunger strike? Are you KIDDING me? Why are they feeding you in the first place? The world is full of starving homeless people and you’re on a hunger strike? You're getting food and clothing and shelter? OH MY GOD this is one messed up planet we live on. Saddam, clawing for the last bit of power… There is nothing left, Saddam. Nothing left. You will never last. I’d like just 5 minutes alone with you to scream in your face. Okay, maybe not alone. Maybe we could get a guard in there or something, or maybe I could be okay screaming, SCREAMING at you through some metal prison bars. Oh, I would so let you have it. Starving yourself. Go for it. Go for it. You are not worthy of an ounce of pitty or aid this world has to offer.

Eye of a Hurricane, Listen to Yourself Churn

I lived with Emily and Patrick in a grubby apartment complex next to an alligator infested pond in South Carolina. It was during hurricane Felix. The rain came in sideways and just about drilled holes through your shirt. The alligator floated on its belly all day long, its stubby arms and legs spread out. We saw it travel from end to end all day from our living room window.

Emily was sick. Patrick called me at the restaurant and told me to come home. She couldn’t keep down applesauce. She couldn’t keep down anything.

I stunk like French fries and ranch dressing. The wind threw the door open and I kicked off my shoes and my keys slid across the counter and crashed against the kitchen wall. “Emmy, Em are you okay?” She was awake with a fever and a trash can of vomited up water.

She was in the hospital for 5 days a week ago. They thought it was food poisoning. They couldn’t find anything else wrong. This wasn’t food poisoning. I was 18. I had driven the two hours to the hospital after work and then back to work in the morning for the 5 days she was admitted. They sent her home because she was fine. Now, a week later, she is not fine again. I called the man who had been her doctor before. It was 4 a.m.

“Bring her in at 8 AM. Leave home with her at 6.” The phone rang at 4:15. It was the doctor again. “I changed my mind. Bring her in now.”

She was curled on the back seat. The traffic lights swung precariously from their threads above. Stop signs quivered and the rain and wind were smashing. What do you do? She didn’t move. I had a tape of REM’s “It’s the end of the world as we know it.” I played the first 5 seconds and rewound it until I memorized it:

That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane -Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn -world serves its own needs, don't misserve your own needs.

Then played the next 5 seconds until I memorized it, then the next until I got to the hospital. It was all hurry and fury and take the corners slow so it doesn’t hurt her and the wipers going at high speed, keep that glass clean! and then it was into the hospital where they whisked her away from me then it was me sitting alone in a plastic covered chair with a Styrofoam cup and silence and more silence and the buzz of fluorescent lights and I am alone. Alone. Alone for a long time. Then the lady tells me to come in here and sit down at this desk and fill out this stuff and I filled it out. Is the pregnant? No. Is she allergic to anything? Does she smoke? How much does she drink? And I had some questions, like Where did you take her? Why didn’t you figure this out the first fucking time? Where are our parents? What are you doing to her? Are you going to save her life or not? What is wrong with her? How will I ever survive if she dies? Why didn’t I do something sooner?

The doctor came in and told me they didn’t know. They didn’t know what was wrong but there is a mass in her abdomen. For a second I thought Mass? The Pope and candles and Glory Glory Hallelujah and smoke? I hadn’t slept all night. I still had on my orange-tinted panty hose and waitress apron. What do you mean mass? I uncrossed and recrossed my legs, and the change in the apron jingled.

I mean, there’s something in there and we can’t figure out what it is, so we’re going to do surgery. We don’t know what we’re going to do in there. We have to look inside to see what’s wrong, then we’ll fix it. If we can. And we’ll know more then.

I’m calling our parents. They can be here in 18 hours.

We’re taking her to surgery now. Are you a legal adult? You’ll have to sign here.

I paused and thought, “I’m signing a piece of paper so this doctor can slice my sister open and do something, we don’t know what, to an unidentifiable mass in her abdomen.” The doctor said, “If we’d have had any idea how bad this was, we wouldn’t have had you drive her. We’d have sent a helicopter to pick her up.

I signed it.

Teaching Poetry to Refugees

We go slowly. We get good at waiting and listening.

We repeat.

Last night we talked about metaphor. We read a poem where a man compares himself to a tiger. The tiger lives in the woods and stalks animals, kills them and drags them to its young. The man, because of the war, escaped to the woods, stalked animals, killed them and dragged them to his children. I am you, tiger. I am animal.

Can't we just write stories? Why didn't he just say "The war is bad. I hunt rats."

Lets think of a metaphor for winter. Homelessness, they said, winter is the inside of a dark cave. They wrote a poem about what they like and don't like. They wrote I Hate Metaphor.

We had a talk about why poetry is art, and why it is more powerful to use a comparison to express a feeling. The poem isn't just about acting like a tiger, hunting for rodents in the woods. It is about being reduced to a primal level, being treated like an animal, watching your babies starve. It's about oppression. War. Desperation. Writers use poems and comparison to tell stories that aren't just about a man in the woods in Laos. There is more there. Do you see now that there is more?

A man from Sudan said Yes, I know how this man feels. I have felt that. It is same. All over the world war feels same. Learners nod at each other--they're from 8 countries and 4 continents all together--then look back up to me with a respectful You don't know. They're right--I don't.

In the end, they put on coats and gloves and walk to catch busses and go to work at the stop sign factory and day care center and tall office buildings where they dump trash and sweep coffee grounds in the middle of the night. They go off to do their homework, to underline words for me to define next week for them: What is distance? What is glow? What is this: has made all the difference?

Did anyone understand? I get in my car and drive home with a stack of I Hate Metaphor poems and think next week, I will try something else. When I return to the stack, there is this:

A Poem by Wang Chue Xiong, Hmong freedom fighter living in Saint Paul, Minnesota:

Catch a dove
to lock in the cage
It lonesome (lonely)
endure suffering, It
live in the cage is a
silver cage, gold cage.
but a dove doesn't forget
the wood (tree).

same as me. moved to live
in the propress country.
I'm lonesome (lonely) and
endure suffering. live in a
big house, big apartment many
floor, but I don't forget my
homecountry, don't forget my
native language, don't forget
ricefield, fence and garden,
don't forget my cousins, my
friends, my Hmong people that
risk in fighting to protect
themself, from killing and
destroy by communist vietnam
and lao communist military
power, and they still fighting
untilnow.

We may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again.

Snowhills are good for fort building, tunnel digging, and hiding behind fortresses and nailing your sister in the mouth with a butt load of snow from close range. They are good for saucer sledding. They are not good for shoving matches. They are not good for coming over from another neighborhood, acting like you own the place, especially if your name is Megan and no one likes you anyway.

Bossing people around on their snow hill and announcing to me that Santa Clause doesn’t exist will result in a verbal assault by my older sister, Emily. If you insist that Santa is a big fat lie, you will be shoved by Emily and told repeatedly to Shut Up. It is not recommended that you shove her back and cause her to tumble down said hill and split her lip open on the Telephone Company’s parking lot asphalt.

It is hard to run 5 blocks to your father’s hardware store in Moon Boots. Nineteen-year-old, probably high, bicycle mechanics named Tim do not like being the only adult around on such occasions, and they do not like calling the neighbor girl to baby-sit you while he takes your older sister, who is bleeding down her chin and throat and onto her shiny yellow snowsuit, to the emergency room. Tim does not like that the reason your father was not at the store is because he was in the house right next to the scene of the incident, but happened to be untangling Christmas lights in the attic and not hear the commotion.

Tim will hold her hand through three stitches, and your dad will leave you with the neighbor, walk to the hospital and carry her home. Later, he will feed you hotdog pizza, toss you both into the bathtub and play the Entertainer on the piano while you splash around because it’s Emily’s favorite and she’s had a rough day.

When you’re choosing pajamas (you father’s t-shirts, that come down to your knees), you will let Emily wear the Eagles one from the 1978 concert Dad went to at Comisky Park in Chicago, because that is the most coveted nightgown of all.

Your sister doesn’t need to know that you already knew there wasn’t a Santa Clause, but she does need to know that when she needs a warm, comfy Thank You, you will provide it in the form of your favorite shirt that lists “Witchy Woman” as song number 10 on the play list, right under a picture of a giant Eagle, wings spread wide.

What to toss. What to keep.

I was driving down Hennepin at the ungodly hour of 7 a.m. praying that the needle on my—what do you call that?—thermostat on my car would go down. It creeped up slowly from Franklin to Lagoon, paused right before the red, then started coming back down.

There was a guy on the radio who may have been some evangelical preacher of some kind giving advice to people. Not so much a preacher as some kind of psychic who could apparently heal through the airwaves.

“Janice, Janice, Janice!” he said. “You have a block like a river dam. You’re attracting creeps into your life because you’re still in love with someone else! You’ll never move on until you let go, Janice. This man you love? It’s never going to happen. I’m here to help you.”

“Really?” Janice said. “Oh, how did you know!”

There was a pause.

“There. Feel that? Did you feel that Janice? A tingling sensation throughout your body?”

“Yes!” Janice said, “Not really a tingling, though, more like my hands got hot.”

“That’s it,” he said. “Just like that I tore down that block and you have let go. You’re free to move on. I see you starting a romance with someone within the next month. Someone who is in your life right now who you haven’t ever noticed before. You two will be happy together.”

The guy went on like this—proclaiming the truth of people’s problems and tearing down blocks and predicting all the good things that would happen to them now that their internal alleys are free and clear. The DJ occasionally interrupted to tell us how jammed the phone lines were.

So last night I was driving to a gathering in another town. It happens to be very close to the house of someone I dated. He’s probably the only guy I’d actually throw a drink in the face of, or perhaps punch in the eye, if I saw him today. Every other time I’d driven this route was full of happiness and comfort because I drove it to see him. Driving it now, my anxiety level now increased in some sort of Pavlovian way.

Oh, it all came back—the automatic way I turned here and there. Then, the mental movie reel of The Scene of Disaster wheeled out from its corner and started to play in my mind. I stopped it—the playback—because now I have the ability to intercept the thoughts. I wished some nice evangelical psychic nutjob would come and blow the movie reel downstream with a power washer and make my head tingle and tell me that now that the dam has been broken up and swept away. All will be clear and the future will only be good. That sounds nice. But it doesn’t work that way.

Frankly, I want to hang onto some of the Bad Experience river dam. I've already hacked through most of it, and unless you practically drop me in front of his house, I'm in a great place. We've all go them. Parent stuff, relationship stuff, friend stuff, our own stuff. Yes, Old Stuff hurts, but it also does us some good: If a caveman goes into a cave and gets munched on by a tiger, chances are he’ll learn something about what caves not to go into ever again. So: Do we need the bad things to entirely go away? Is remembering and reliving and “working through” them all the best way to do that?

It leaves a lot of questions about what stays on our minds—what to let go and what to hang on to. And how, how, how, unless we enlist the help of Evangelical Guy, do we let go of what needs releasing ourselves? Is it deliberate? A choice? Something that happens naturally over time? Can we help it happen faster? That’s what I’d like to know.

Two Chickens and a Boom in the Night

There are bicycle tire tracks on the frozen lake near my house. The lake doesn't look that frozen. It's covered in a little snow, but there are large spots on the lake that are slushy and transparent looking. It can't be trusted.

Last February Patrick flew here from NYC. We drove to the family cabin in Wisconsin, counting all the Old Style signs along the journey (24). The cabin's on a hill above the lake. We hauled in firewood and made martinis and played rummy. The whole east wall of the cabin is a 2-story window. We saw little creeky shacks out in the middle of the lake. There were pickup trucks. A recliner. Smoke coming from a small chimney stack.

At dusk, a thread of colored lights glowed between fishing shacks. Smoke wafted up from chimneys. From our balcony, you could hear the faint sound of polka music and laughter and see figures of friends milling about in their parkas and flannel vests and John Deere hats. From afar, it looked like a village--where friends no doubt roasted marshmallows and shared chocolatey drinks and dirty jokes.

Patrick and I wanted a hut. We wanted to be invited in for stories about crappies and bait. We wanted to peek in the fishing hole and tell the one about the Rabbi the Priest and the Antelope. We wanted to go make friends. We wanted to see what was going on out there.

Just before dark, we started to walk to the middle of the lake. The ice was surely many feet deep, but we didn't have ice like this at home where we grew up. At home, lakes that appear to be frozen actually shatter like glass and swallow up curious little children.

We wouldn't fall in--that's absurd. There's a pick-up truck out there! A recliner with an old fat man in it! We felt confident, running and skidding on the ice. We were almost there! Then, there was the sound--the sonic boom-like explosion that reverberates against the hillsides. It's the sound of the lake cracking and splintering from some great point of icy pressure out to the edges. We ran. We decided we liked our cabin on the hill better than a fishing shack with merry neighbors and hot drinks and flopping sticky bluegill.

The End.

I think I'm dying of Bird Flu

I'm freaking sick AGAIN. I'm the annoying borderline-ill, where if I drug up enough, I can still function, albeit miserably. I taught this morning, and I've e-mailed in sick for class tonight. I'm very sad because one of my Somali students is cooking up a storm for us in class tonight. We're writing stories about food. Everyone has stories about food.

This morning, a student kept talking about washing her chicken. She needs to mop her chicken. Lightbulb: Kitchen! Not chicken. Kitchen.

I go sheep now. I mean sleep. Sleep!

Pajama Love

First, there are the cotton ones—a t-shirt and bottoms—covered in pink flamingoes. Only the flamingoes have on winter hats and gloves and galoshes and it’s snowing on them. They’re soft and stretchy and have a draw string (elastic sucks) and frankly, I can relate to that bird. I lived in the tropics once and I must say—it’s easy to get used to. Now I am in Minnesota where it’s bloody freezing and snowy, but like my flamingo friend, I like it here enough to just rug up in leg warmers (some of the flamingoes on the pants have on leg warmers) and get snowed upon.

I also have a pair of very oversize red, black and white flannels that are mens’ pjs—saggy bottom and all—that I adore. They’re very old and slightly raggedy, as they are from the Curt Cobain era of chicks-who-wear-extra-big-flannel-stuff. I love them. However, I can’t wear them right now because they are at Lola’s house from the time we had a slumber party and she borrowed them and loved them so much she wore them to breakfast at French Meadow and took them home. She also still has my prom dress, but that’s another story.

Then we have summer wear: light blue shorts and tank to with sparkly sheep on them and an awesome ribbed tank with grommets that I wear with boy-shorts. Then we have a few kinds of pajamas that I won’t get into, but let me just say that American lingerie sucks. French is the way to go. There’s a fabulous French skivvies shop in Portland (6th and… oh, near the square downtown, right next to the Starbucks. Ha ha.) that has the silkiest, most beautiful accentuate-the-goods slips and lots of other lovely awesome wearables. I love my purchase from there so much I could marry it.

Tonight, however, I wear the Magic Love Shirt. The Magic Love Shirt is a raggedy old top that I bought for approximately $1 at Ross in P-town. It promptly shrunk to the Barbie size and is way too bridge-and-tunnel to wear in actual public. It is black and has the word “LOVE” across the front in (not glitter, not sequins) silver and red rhinestones. I wear it with my favorite yoga pants (hooray draw string).

Why is it magic? I only wear it when I need or want to welcome or give or be grateful for all the kinds of love around. I wore it when Melanie died. I wore it right before I met someone I dated for a long time. I wore it when I was homesick for Australia. I bought an identical one for my best friend who lives in NY and am so happy to see when I see her and so sad when we are apart for too long. I wear it when I need to project and open up to love and want loving things to happen, and I swear it works. Quantum physics backs me up on this, people. Seriously. Although there isn’t any kind of catastrophe at present, tonight I wear the magic Love shirt because I want to send all that out there—openness and gratitude, and perhaps a request for a new chance to give and receive it—and we shall see what it brings me.

A quote from Jean Sramek

from www.mnartists.org, “Math Class is Tough: That Rare Artist”

http://www.mnartists.org/article.do?rid=84009

".... This newcomer, we read, is that rare artist who also has a head for business. This description is repeated several times by both the reporter and the artist’s devotees, repeated so that we understand: sure, there are plenty of creative people in the world, but most of them are not very good with numbers. It implies many things, each one more infuriating than the last. But I know what the reporter means. She means it in a positive way, when she says that this artist can also make money. Really. We all know what she means and so let’s stop taking it the wrong way.

"Okay, scratch that. We all know what she means, and let’s take it the way we want to take it, which is with a grain of salt, preferably attached to several other grains of salt, which are in turn attached to the rim of the glass of the world’s largest margarita, which we all drink as we sit around reading the newspaper’s arts section out loud, guffawing until tears come to our eyes. That rare artist who also has a head for business. Ya hear that? I’m rare. You? Well, no. Not rare exactly. More like medium rare, haw haw, God that pisses me off. How come it’s never the other way around, like if they interviewed the president of the Chase Manhattan fucking bank they wouldn’t be all surprised if he played the violin, they’d just say he played the fucking violin, not that he was a rare businessman who had a head for music, and we laugh louder and then have another drink and dull the pain of the world thinking that we’re too stupid to make a living because we are Creative Artists. That’s what the reporter means, and it sucks that most people think she’s right."

Starfish and Coffee

It’s Sunday, the day of Getting Things Done. I will do laundry, clean and go for a long walk. It’s a balmy freakin’ 40 degrees out here in Minneapolis. Still: winter air in Minnesota is dry and makes my hair frizzle up and crack off. So first, I slather high-powered conditioner on my hair. I will cover it with a plastic shower cap and a super-warm REI skiing hat, as the conditioner is heat-activated. I will wear this and dance around my apartment to Prince songs. I will put on fluffy wool socks and, with a running start at the back of my bedroom, glide across the hardwood floors from the bedroom through the bitchin (bedroom/kitchen) and across the living room singing along to "Lets go Crazy."


"Starfish and Coffee":
All of us where ordinary compared to cynthia rose
She always stood at the back of the line
A smile beneath her noseHer favorite number was 20 and every single day
If u asked her what she had 4 breakfast
This is what she’d say
Starfish and coffee
Maple syrup and jam
Butterscotch clouds, a tangerine
And a side order of ham
If u set your mind free, baby
Maybe you’d understand
Starfish and coffee
Maple syrup and jam
-Prince

What the F. And by "F" I mean Frequency.

Behold! I have found the secret key to staying happy, occupied and sane while working hour upon hour inside the cubicle labyrinth! Muzak.

According to Mike and the Muzak corporation.

You see, it goes something like this: Musak isn’t just Rod Stewart songs remixed by Zamfir and his magic pan flute. It is a combination of art and science. It is sophisticated, engineered to saturate business space with dilute, inoffensive Background Product. It employs “Stimulus Progression” (dull tempos, rhythms, and instrumentation followed by brighter tempos, rhythms and instrumentation) to create psychological effects for which the human psychology is apparently programmed. For example: happiness. “When you employ the science of Muzak in an office, workers tend to get more done, more efficiently and feel happier. In general, people feel better about where they are, whether it’s during work or leisure time.” No shit?

Why can’t we just listen to real music? Muzak’s effectiveness is dependent on you tuning it out to do other things, which isn’t possible with regular music you might, say, listen to consciously and, you know, enjoy. That would be too distracting for the cubicle environment.

Muzak is not to be confused with anti-noise, another environmental background tool whereupon two varieties of sound wave are produced to block one another out and result in perceived silence. Okay.

So why aren’t I happier and more productive in my Muzak-saturated business environment (L-shaped desk, uncomfortable chair, wilting poinsettia from the holidays, 5 kinds of machines within a 2 foot radius, gray walls, cheap coffee)? Because Muzak apparently does not work on yours truly. It only has the desired result when it is tuned out, goes unnoticed and the listeners go happily about their conversations and other business without paying it any conscious attention. Muzak’s “Causing people stop to ponder the nature of emotion is seen as a positive failure by its manufacturers and users.”

Alas, my key to cubicle bliss is thwarted. Muzak fails me. Those of you who find happiness, contentment and productivity in the pan flute are blessed, indeed.

The Tiger and the Frog

So, I woke up in a panic in the middle of the night. I had a dream that my house was being attacked and I had to run for my life and catch a boat to the other side of the world. Perhaps I should not read my student's work before bed.

My students are refugees. I love them very much. Sometimes they write about things like their lovely, pristine, happy villages getting attacked in the night and having to run for it only to find relative safety in a camp where soldiers come in the night and do horrible things. Other times they write about feasts they make for various religious holidays (deep fried bat, anyone?) and we look up pictures on the internet. Other times they write made up stories about, say, a tiger and a frog where the tiger tries to eat the frog, and the frog tells the tiger that if the tiger can beat him in a race, he can eat him. Then they race, and at the last minute the frog jumps on the tiger's tail and when the tail flips up the frog is thrown over the finish line. Other times they write about computer programming, the meringue, political uprisings, and their PhD in engineering. Some of them write about America, and how they threw up the first time they saw moving traffic, and how they thought some of our machines were dragons. Quite a variety, I must say.

I'm very thankful that I live in a pretty safe place. I'm also thankful that my students all made it to a pretty safe place.

So, I got up for a while just to double check that the doors were locked and then tried to read a mediocre story to get the dream out of my head, and to get the obnoxious Billy Joel song I heard at Lund's out of my head, too. And when I fell back asleep, I dreamt I was on the boat getting ready to leave home forever, and all the girls I used to waitress with in high school were on the boat with me. And Jamie M. still had on the cropped shirt she used to wear in high school that made all the boys nickname her "Schwing," but it was nice to at least see someone I knew, because I was rather freaked out about the whole boat-with-unidentified-destination thing.

Thought, Discontinuity

Frozen frame:
Chin dips
into sheet of stone
not stone
but river.

Two handfuls of stones
In apron pockets.
Two seconds from saying
No.
Should I turn back?
Two steps not taken.
To steps not taken.

[R2. Response to Auguste Rodin's "Thought," Marble, 1886-'89]

God Plays Mean Trick on Local Single Girl

Being underemployed as I am, I was still in bed when my phone rang at 8:15 this morning. That is when I discovered that my recent cold has left me with no voice. "Hello?" is what I tried to say, but what came out was more of a breathy, voiceless Haaaah sound that vaguely resembled heavy breathing. It was my ex-boyfriend. Awesome. He just wanted to say thanks for the Christmas present I sent. "Oh, good," I whispered. Yeah. Can I call you later?" Sure, he said, mildly confused.

Although I sound like I've smoked 4 packs of cigarettes--made of fiberglass--every day for my whole life, I feel fine. So I sent to French Meadow for coffee and, forcing air out of my lungs with all my might, I said to the barista, "Coffee?" which came out like a satanic growl. The barista's expression changed to some combination of both pity and fear. While I admit I'm not my perky self before my morning coffee, and I consider myself a mild coffee addict, I do not actually turn into the devil without it. The barista’s service was rather swift today, I must say.

I made a decision to make the most of it. I settled in with my coffee and paper for a day of reading and writing and peace and quiet.

My phone rang again. It was Mr. Dashing. A handsome fellow I’ve had a crush on since summer. We hung out a couple times and had a ton of fun, but then there was a bit of a miscommunication and I reluctantly wrote him off. I haven’t heard from him since October. My phone beeped—a voicemail. “Hey,” he'd said, “Listen, I know I must seem flakey to you, but I really wanted to explain.” [Insert totally reasonable explanation here.] “So, I’m sorry, and now that I'm in a better place to give you the attention you deserve, I’d love to take you out. So if you’re still interested, please give me a call back sometime today and let me know if you’re free for drinks on Thursday.”

“Nooooo!” I shouted, only nothing came out.

Two Clay Poker Chips

Umbra has black hair swept across her forehead and large black sunglasses like a bumble bee. She’s wearing a red shirt and white pencil-legged pants that stop mid-shin. Black slip-on shoes. She selected this outfit carefully, but forgot about it once she put it on.

She brought these things in her oversized black handbag—two magazines, a small tin of watercolor paints, a journal for journaling, a journal for making lists, a journal for documenting dreams, a tin of breath mints, two tampons, a stack of tickets (baseball, train, an opera she hated) bound by a rubber band. A black wallet long and thin as a checkbook. Two bobby pins. Her credit card statement. Two clay poker chips that she rubs together when she’s waiting for the train, standing in line, sitting alone in a movie theater.

It is a Tuesday afternoon. She’s in France or Germany. Probably France. She hopes someone will stop by and talk to her. When her server asks if he may take her extra chair (she presumes he asked this; all she understood was “chair”) she shakes her head “No,” meaning, I don't understand, which he took to mean "Go away." He goes away. She is lonely.

There are irregular cobble stones under her feet that make a very aesthetically pleasing noise at the clicking of shoes and shuffling of chairs. The café has a dozen or so tables set up outside here on the pedestrian mall. There are lovely old shops and buildings all around, close together but not so close that the sun is blocked by the buildings. She gets a slice of ripe camembert, a crusty roll and a bunch of grapes. She orders a glass of Pinot Noir and goes with the cheese, bread and fruit. She sips it and looks around to asses the prospects for friendship at the tables around her.

She takes out a notebook, the dream journal. “I dreamt that I was in Dupont riding a ferry down the river,” she writes. “Grandmother was there with Bobby, and they were wearing their church clothes. I think we were going to a funeral, but I don’t know whose. I saw rowers in pairs around us, and I recognized the running trail as the one next to the Thames at Oxford, the one Janey and I used to jog during summer school at Christ Church.” She put the pen down and sipped her wine. She tore off an edge of bread and smeared a hunk of the cheese on the broken part without using a knife. The waiter rolled his eyes. She ate it. The bite was too big and she had to chew and chew. It wasn’t very lady-like, but funny. She hid a smile behind her hand.

She stares into space internally debating this: is it better to let people come to you? Or for you to pursue them? To strike up a conversation? People have been nothing to her lately, nothing but disappointing when she tries to cultivate friendships. And men, they are always a disappointment. If she wasn’t thinking of a specific one, she was thinking about not thinking about one. What energy she could save if she forgot about them! If she could channel the energy she spent on worrying and turn it into fuel for good things, she’s sure she could save all the starving people in China. Now, she just wanted a friend. Really, it shouldn’t be that hard. She spotted a fellow with red hair and a trimmed beard. She walked over and asked to borrow the book review section of his newspaper.

the matter wave

Einstein knows it.
Bohr knows too.
All their lives
they sweat it

discontinuity
continuity
guitar strings
waving
or leaping.

The fear of determinism
as fuel.

There is no God, it says,
only mechanics. Cause. Effect.

The Atom
is both machine and art--
emits both color and music.

The smudged lens
they left behind is
little clearer than when they found it.

We can look with all our tools and
just the same
we won't really see
to the other side
until we cross it.

Why I'm Evil

You know those people who come to work sick and cough all over everything? I bitch about them. And today, I join their filthy ranks. I'm not at work right now because I'm dedicated or motivated or want the boss to see that nothing gets in the way of my career. I'm here because I'm broke. And because I'm a big evil germ-spreader. And because all I do at work is surf the net, talk on the phone and read anyway and if I stayed home I'd be doing the exact same thing only in my pajamas and with intermittent naps.

I may have caught the bug in New York City hopping around from party to party on NYE until, that's right, 8:30 a.m. It was a spontaneous trip largely, but not entirely, funded by taxpayers of the small Indiana town in which I was raised (my best friend's Trust, from her Gramp's job as mayor). Here were a few goals of my NYC goals:

1. Big Night Out on NYE: I generally hate NYE. It's overrated, never that fun, and crowded and expensive and all of that crap. But When in Rome... one may as well go all out. Six parties and thirteen hours later: mission accomplished.

2. To smooch a handsome fella at midnight: At 2 seconds to twelve, I grabbed the closest hottie I could find and laid one on him. He's a physics grad from Princeton named Asher or Alden or Alistair or something, who now does some medical job I can't remember. He kind of stuck around after that, so we talked and danced and then he asked me if I had any coke. My friend and left for the next party shortly thereafter, sans Astor McCokerson.

3. To have NY Pizza and Coke (as in soda): Done. Twice.

4. To see some touristy stuff: Done, sort of. Went to Times Square and Rockefeller Center (yep, it's a big tree alright) January 1. Every time there was a gust of wind, confetti rained down from rooftops.

5. To drink a fancy, overpriced martini in Manhattan Somewhere Swanky: Key Lime Pie martini in a hipped-out jazz club: mission accomplished.

6. To spend some Q.T. lounging around with my best friend: We spent a very high percentage of time in her teensy East Village apartment in our pajamas watching movies and eating milkshakes.

7. To see someone famous: I'm pretty sure I saw the guy who used to play the dad on Happy Days. More notably, I met a famous pup--a rescue dog named Theodore who who found firemen in 911 rubble.

8. To do something moderately literary: Had a drink at Chumley's, where Dorothy Parker and many others used to come hang out with writer types during prohibition, ""A New York City institution, this former Greenwich Village speakeasy, opened in 1922, has its original booths, fireplace, and no-name entrance still intact, so remember the address or you'll never find it. The hodgepodge interior includes framed book covers - F. Scott Fitzgerald allegedly wrote parts of 'The Great Gatsby' here - lifeboat memorabilia, sawdust on the floor, and a resident black lab."

As much fun as it was, I'm so glad to be home. And that the holidays are over. And that in 2006, I will kiss my 20's goodbye. Now I need to just make it another 5 hours at the desk until I can go home and crash in my nice, quiet, comparatively enormous apartment.