Friday, November 18, 2011

Insecurity Speech

for Grayson, who I will someday force to hop on a coffee table.

EXCUSE me everybody. Everybody, I'd like to say something. To all of you, fine, fine people. First of all I want to thank you so much for having me, to this party, event, thing. And um Happy Birthday to Francesca, I don't know you but you seem real awesome. And I know we only talked really briefly when I walked in and said 'I'm a friend of Brian's, Happy Birthday' but i felt something. I did.
I would just like to say from the bottom of my heart that i think you are really cool, like super cool, like cooler than cool. shit i already said cool.. And um I just uhhm i really don't think i belong here, because i am um not you know um cool. And I know cool people don't acknowledge the existence of cool, but I'm not. And that's ok, thats ok um but i just wanted to um thank you for giving me something to aspire to that i will never reach because you guys are just so fucking cool it makes me nauseous. So cool that I've been sitting in a corner pretending to check my phone watching how cool you are. And there isn't an app for that. Which is really really cool, like worse than ice cold. And um yeah. Because I look at you and it's like fuck man, your shit is more attractive and intelligent than me, not that I've seen or carried a conversation with your shit but... I should go. I'm going to go. Also Xander if you could tell me where you got that shirt man, I'd appreciate it

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

After the Fall


It's difficult for me to write about my mother. She has eyes like soul saucers and strangers tell her secrets. At 5ft 3 she has more conviction, and cool than I ever will. She also has MS. Two small letters we ignore. I can't express her experience, only attempt at mine. Below is that attempt.

It was always Fall. Always in Fall when it happened. When it started. We were trick or treating and I got half a house, just half a house ahead, because my costume broke. I was the earth, and I wanted to get a safety pin at home; down the street, because it broke. The 'earth' broke, and she slipped, she fell. And there it was, the Fall. The first fall. Here I was at seven holding the (cardboard) weight of the earth in my hands as my mother tripped on a step. She tripped not because she couldn't see it, but because she couldn't feel it. I ran back, saw my mother on the ground for the first time, saw her get up. She fell, she got up, and suddenly I didn't want my candy anymore, and the broken earth didn't matter, she did. Over twenty ears later that's what we kept doing; falling, getting up, and hoping no one would notice.

My mother was 33, newly divorced, had just started a company. She was told it was stress and not just two little letters. MS. Ironically my mom was always a Ms. before, not a Mrs, it was the 80's, but these letters weren't as liberating. M.S. : Multiple Sclerosis; this weird slowly blinding, slowly crippling thing that we couldn't see, that came as the seasons changed, that hit in Fall. Every Fall it would creep in, we'd forget, and there it would be. As we got older she got better at covering.  We weren't going to suffer because of two letters. We'd forget, we'd abuse her like all children abuse their parents. 'Oh mom's acting like a bitch... Oh, maybe it's because she can't see?  Oh yeah that'... And every Fall she'd pretend, pretend she could see, pretend she could walk, pretend she could feel as everything numbed, until she couldn't pretend anymore. On those days we'd get dirty looks at the grocery store because we used the handicap spot, because you can't see two little letters.

Before the first fall I was obsessed with make believe, obsessed with Halloween. My father would sit on the floor with me handcrafting costumes meticulously. He turned our house into a castle with tin foil, we'd craft every torret. I loved the idea of being someone else, being somewhere else, pretending. I delighted in the idea of having their thoughts, their feelings, their hopes. As I grew older, I stopped caring for Halloween, for pretending. We had enough of that. Pretending was for safe spaces, puppet theaters, sets and stages. Now I'm a professional pretender, but even then I didn't need more.

Every Fall I get a little restless. I want to move, or change, or in the very least get a new lunch box or trapper keeper. I want a distraction, a project. I go out too much, or hibernate.  I leave the house without an umbrella on purpose. I gain weight, or lose it, I come up with excuses to ignore parties involving masks. I feel it, the shift. My freshman year I found out my grandmother passed away on Halloween, minutes before I had to play a dead body in a play, and my relationship with the day just got more complicated. These scary things just seemed stupid. I lived in NYC for eight years and never attended the West Village parade. Unless I do it all the way, unless I can disappear completely, I don't dress up for Halloween. I don't care to court fear or dress up as a slutty janitor. I guess I don't like seeing people pretend when they don't have to, unless they choose to fully go there. I assume this is hypocritical because I make believe for a living. I become and create people who don't exist, while my mother created someone who did. This Halloween she's 'Mom who can see' she's wearing her 'Mom who can walk mask'. She's pretending that the MS is the pretend thing, and life is the real one. She told us a story and we bought it. We lived, pretending, and sometimes the fall was a little more rough than others, but it would be over eventually. She made us believe, made her self believe so she could keep going, and we did.

Friends from home who I haven't seen in a while always ask me how my mother is. Sometimes I forget, I forget about the two little letters. Sometimes even if it's not true I just answer "She's great". It's amazing the masks we wear.

(For more info on MS and donating please visit the MS Society)

Saturday, October 15, 2011

the dobler effect


It has been mentioned to me consistently, that I have really bad taste in men. And they aren't bad men. They're not, so perhaps I have really bad taste in timing. I'll never know if I tend to connect to people when they are in the midst of change, or challenge, or if they are always in that place, or I gravitate to that. And I take full responsibility in this; my patterns, my part. For the most part, not all, they are restless, artistic, funny, intense, intellectual people who have difficulty multi-tasking. Across the board, they have nice eyes, like words, David Lynch, have/do chainsmoke, or are completely against chainsmoking. Emotionally aware, but not emotionally available who usually just 'can't deal with a relationship right now'.

And there's something in me that says that if you like someone enough it won't matter where you are, or what your 'processing' or if you have your shit together. Lloyd Dobler did it! Lloyd Dobler believed, and held on. And I realize most of my issues can be traced to Cameron Crowe's 'Say Anything'. Dobler. John Cusack, there are few women who are not attracted to John Cusack (and Ryan Gosling). The problem with Dobler, he was sensitive, self assured, and geeky; he was attainable.

And I think about these boys. These are boys who would have heldup the boombox when they were eighteen, but they're not eighteen, and boomboxes are heavy. They've made the decision to not ' to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought' and are looking around their late twenties/early thirties freaking out, making up for lost time, making up for lost art, lost money, and holding onto convictions. So the new consuming conviction is work,not the girl, they've tried that before, it's all or nothing. And we accept this because at one point they were the guy that held up a boombox, for some other girl when they were eighteen, and this boombox hurt them.

Lloyd Dobler and Diane Court would break up. He pushed for her, she'd push him to be better, get a career, try to change him and he'd try, but bolt. He'd continue hanging out with smart girls comparing them to her, but never really let them in, once he decided what he was doing. Or trying to do. They'd be stupid try to pry, try to get their own dobler moment. She'd consistently date guys who had Lloyd like qualities, but they'd never really love her the same way or own ' new soul classics'.

Lloyd is cynical and yet open; he is morose and yet curiously happy -- he believes.

This may be our problem, we see the internal Dobler and we want that, but that can't be sustained, that belief. With that boombox moment there's a guy whose going to be pissed off he got a pen, for the rest of his life. There's a guy who 'just wanted to be with a girl for the rest of his life' but probably woke up eventually and swung the opposite direction. And it's not entirely his fault Diane Court took him for granted.

I think most of us have had him, that guy when you were 18 who loved you so ridiculously it made you feel like they knew something no one else did. At that time his future and finances, and career didn't matter to him, because you mattered. We hold onto that guy, that feeling as we get older, because eventually that other stuff has to matter. So instead we look for that, and inherit other peoples doblers. And in turn we become the Lloyd, the believer. We wait, we make orations to people who give us pens, that we know aren't right. We say 'One question: do you need... someone, or do you need me?... Forget it, I don't really care'.
Diane Court went to London, and never got the baggage.

Monday, August 22, 2011

the super

My garbage disposal was broken, which is not necessarily a necessary thing, but we called for weeks about it. Then I called for weeks about it. People existed without disposals. So I did. Finally the landlord called me back. Barb. Barb was a massively obese woman who would never actually come in the building but would sit in her car. A 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee that looked like my mothers. Barb would drop off her 'boyfriend' Carl, who would then do the repairs, and sit in the car and wait. Not set foot in the apartments she owned. I had lots of questions about Barb, and why she sat in the car, could she leave the car and why a woman that large would wear a rainbow colored dress? I did not know how i felt about Barb, but I admired her commitment to fashion. Carl came in with a flashlight, it was 3pm. A flashlight and a large stick. He apologized for being 3 hours late, I must have work to do. Garbage disposals are very important, but he was in the hospital you see. He fished around in the disposal, oh wait there was that light in the bathroom they were supposed to get done could he take a look at that? Sure. 'Wait wait kid turn off the light don't want me or you getting shocked, don't need that. Least I don't'. Carl assured me before becoming 'Barb's boyfriend he was an actual electrician, for actual people'. I wondered if I were an actual person. The dog barked at him and he assured me he spoke dog, he apoke dog to the dogs they had at the house you see 'eeeweee oooee lapa lapa' the dog just continued barking.
So I took him out. Around the block, said hello to Barb in the jeep who was wearing a silk rainbow blouse, perhaps a pantsuit but I was unsure if she had a lower body hidden in the jeep grand cherokee. We were gone for about a half hour. Upon our return Carl was on a ladder, checking all the sockets, all the screens that were broken, all the broken things I had asked that be fixed in the last four years. 'I was in the hospital you know'. I was sorry to hear that. 'My liver gave out. Not processing things. Been sober 10 years, just wanted a drink. So no more of that' He came down off the ladder. 'I asked about the disposal. 'You see the fridge probably blew your socket cause these old buildings aren't cut out for all these appliances. That's the one thing I can do, that gives me joy, keeps me from drinking, fixing a problem'. He smelled like beer. 'So let's get back to that disposal' He ran it, it clinked, the dog barked. It never clinked like that before, just whirred. He reached inside it with the stick, he flashlight, reached his hand in and bulled out a Stella Artois bottle cap. The empty beer sat on the counter. 'Well problem solved kid, I'll be back tomorrow to fix the tub' and he left.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Stairwells


written on my iphone while with teenagers, teenagers who were ever so much cooler than me.

Dear God,
if ever I have a daughter please give her the common sense to wear shorts that cover her ass and not sit in stairwells late at night with Argentinian film/writer/actor boys. Even if they do quote Salinger. Or any film/writer/actor boys who are emotionally aware but not emotionally available, ok, no film/writer/actor boys, ever, fine, in stairwells at least. No stairwells. Even if they claim to be Southern or Midwestern or Southwestern.. Or Jewish or from unassuming central Pennsylvania. Please let her understand that New York and Paris are places for more than shopping. Please don't have her wear liquid eyeliner she's too fair for it, it disguises her eyes, she'll have time to do that. Please let her have convictions in the music she loves, that she not swallow all notes placed in her ears. Please allow her to take compliments and give them freely, genuinely. Please let her not need to always raise her hand and be ok with just knowing for herself, please let her speak when moved to clearly. Please let her know how to use a plunger and a vaccuum and reset our VCR clock or DVD clock or whatever space media clock we'll have then if we use one. Please let her not wear heels that look like transvestite shoes while at summer camp.
Please let her never utter the phrases 'lame' 'total' 'omg' or 'kewl' unless ironically. Please let her not confuse sensitivity with weakness or intelligence with uncoolness. And let her know that her mother was once one of those eager girls who raised her hand and was late to heartbreak from writer/actor/ film boys on stairwells but quickly moved to stoops, and rooftops, rivers and reservoirs. And hoped one day she'd be lucky enough to have a daughter even a fictitious one.
And if you can't do all these things God, can you at least let her be tall?

Friday, July 8, 2011

Are you there God? It's me, Mo Mo.


Lately I have been spitting these things out with reckless abandon. Reckless, seriously a few pedestrians got hurt. Some entries are just sitting waiting to be published cause they...are so reckless. (F you grammmar!) But it's a weird feeling to vomit words onto a page, and view counter goes up, but there's no dialogue. So talk to me. I like to talk. Let's do it, 'I mean I think it's that time in our relationship, you know where we really talk. Where do you see this going? Because I like you I really like you'.

Monday, July 4, 2011

dear internet

I fear I secretly hate you. Before you, the things I shouldn't know I didn't. You have made me care about things i don't, and made me want to see people i don't care about, doing things and going places I never knew I wanted to see. You have made me instantly connected yet sitting on my hands; saying too much, too little. You have made me want to be heard, heard, heard, seen, seen, seen, here, here, here, but not be. You have helped me build narratives around past loves and likes, and future maybes and their future and past maybes. You have made me google instead of question, answer instead of sit in the not knowing. You have led me to type this. To self indulgently type this, to feel like I'm speaking, to feel like there is someone, something on the other end, proof. that I am heard, heard, heard, seen, seen. seen, here, here, here but alone. You have shortened my attention span, and given me friends I never speak to, invites to places I never go to, and letters i can't hold in my hand. You have given the anonymity to be callous, use poor grammar, to love, disregard capitalization, and feel so hard all over someone's inbox or wall. You have made me tweet, ping, and chirp and make noises no one listens to, without regard to music or song. You have assisted me in ultimatums, orations, appointments, and disappointments, apologies, and offers. You have made me brave, and weak, and sensitive, and overloaded.
You have in confidence given me a blank space, a true canvas, and this, this is how I fill it, not always because I have something to say, but because I can.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

New Zealand



KELSIE
My daddy used to climb through windows, I just used to assume that's how all daddies got into the house. Their shadows fought and I assumed that's how adults talked. We weren't allowed remotes, barbies or cable, and we went to qauker summer camps where they made us watch 'the red balloon'in french every friday, so these were things that were assumed would not happen. Things like this did not happen when your parents had masters and used the pool at Cornell. He threatened to move to New Zealand and I assumed that's where daddies went. A land full of divorced dads eating kiwi and citrus on an island. He went away, then came back again, then went away. And this seemed a natural dance. She cried, then seemed happy, then cried again, then cried more when i caught her crying. That's what mommies did, pretended to be happy.

He didn't move to New Zealand, he stopped climbing through windows, and got a place with his very own door in Rodchester. Which might have as well been New Zealand. He got a job there as an adjunct, teaching future engineers poetry. Slowly mom let us use the remote, and listen to Whitney Houston. She slept more, and snuck cigarettes in the basement. Daddy picked us up on weekends, in a taurus with leather seats. Seats that would burn you in Summertime. And he was forbidden to climb through windows, or set foot on sidewalks, and look her in the eye, so he stopped doing so. And it didn't matter that they had masters degrees and Phd's cause they couldn't talk.
And Daddy got a girlfriend named Carol, who was a social worker and wanted to talk to us about our feelings, once a month, at the Ground Round, and I just wanted to eat popcorn. And Jenny wondered how much Carol would have to pay if they weighed her for a meal. Carol gave us a barbie, which we took the head off, and buried in the basement under the stairs, next to the cigarettes. We named her Zelda, and visited her grave often. and Daddy got tired, tired of us, tired of fighting for us and with us. And Wednesdays and weekends turned to every other weekends, turned to once a month, turned to birthdays. And slowly Rodchester got farther and farther, and the taurus with the leather seats came less,and less and I developed an allergy to kiwis.

The One

ALEX,27
Monogamy is a myth. It's a nice concept, it's a comforting concept.A protective construct. And maybe it works for people, or they think it works, pretend it works. But if you're a certain person your innately denying part of yourself. No one is completely monogamous, no one gets everything from one person. You can't expect to get everything from one person, you can't expect one person to be everything. If you do you're just setting yourself up to get fucked, and not in a fun way. And you. you're a romantic, and maybe yeah, maybe there's some judgment or filter in your head that makes you sexually monogamous. That makes you feel dirty or impure or less than for having impulses and attractions to more than one person. Because the truth is people are attractive and we each act on that attraction in different ways. You, you act with words and emotions. So you sexually commit to one person, cause that's comfortable for you. And I get that, you know cause you aren't necessarily a physical person. But don't fucking lie to me and tell me that you're emotionally monogamous, that you're intellectually monogamous. That you're incapable of loving more than one person, of sharing with more than one person. So how's that different than sex? How is that less or more intimate than sex? How is that any worse or better of a connection than sex? How is it any less or more hurtful? IT's not, it's what you attach to it. In that moment there is one person. And in that moment there's only you with that person. And as for sustaining that, I don't know that it's possible. Maybe it works for you, but don't tell me after you commit to someone you turn off your heart, you turn off your mind. It's just a different form of connection.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

It's better

For Sam. An old old one, but a good one. From the archives
ALLIE, 27
(Nolita playground smoking a cigarette)

I’d go crazy. I would go absolutely insane. No smoking, or alcohol, or anything. Can you imagine David with a baby. I mean he’d totally be smoking pot around the kid. Not cigarettes but pot. He’d be a good Dad. I mean my kid would be reading Proust at bedtime.. But I would go insane. You know how I crave things now. I’d be like ‘Babe, get me icecream and salami’. I’d feed my little jewish baby icecream and salami. And David would be all about my pregnant belly, and want to fuck me all the time. Like hold on to it. And that’s just weird. He’ll probably be turned on by it, he’s turned on by everything. No really…he’s turned on by my B.O.
And I’d like to think I’d be a cute pregnant woman. You know with the little belly. But really I saw my mom with Alex, I’m going to be gargantuan. I am going to be a fat assed, bloated wide faced, messy pregnant woman. I’m really going to just look like a fat person. That’s the whole point of being pregnant, you have an excuse to be fat, and people congratulate you on it. I mean people shouldn’t have other people.
Maybe that’s irresponsible, but .They aren’t even people. I mean kids. They don’t know anything. You have to teach them everything. They’re like little naked aliens running around. What’s this? Why does this happen? And I don’t know. I don’t know why anything does or doesn’t happen. I don’t know why this happened. I don’t even know what I want for dinner. Are you hungry? I just… I don’t know. And I guess my parents didn’t know either but things were different then. You remember those paper fortune tellers you used to make. Like you’d fold the paper and fill the inside with yes or no, or like numbers on the outside. And I used to always ask the fortune teller what age I’d be when I’d have a baby, and I’d get so excited when I got 28. For whatever weird reason that just seemed right to me, seemed like adult age to me. Like this magic age, My mom was 25 when she had me. And maybe she wasn’t ready, maybe she just had to be. I mean thank god you know, because it just wouldn’t be right…right now. I know I’ll probably get knocked up and he’ll have to marry me (she laughs) but right now it’s good.,better it didn’t happen.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

CASTING

THEM:Tonight the role of Melissa Jane Osborne will be played by....
ME: Wait wait, I'm here. I can do it.
THEM: We know we've just decided to go in a different direction. With you. We just want someone a little more... you. Not like you now, but you of the past, a you of the future, a more hopeful, shinier you.
ME: You want a more you-me?
THEM: A more you-you.
ME: That sounds like a softdrink.
THEM: See like that. More fun and flirty and light, less introspective, more possible!
ME: So you're asking me to pretend?
THEM: No no genuine, genuinely be less...
ME: Knowing?
THEM: Damaged.
ME: Ha! Damaged? I'm not-
THEM: Okay I wouldn't say 'damaged', I'd say less- less..shadow-y. But still edgy. But egdy in a bright way. But not bright like smart, not too smart. But not stupid just...
ME: Just what?
THEM: See, like you with the questions! The questions are good, if they're curious. We just want to go younger with it.
ME: But I am me. I mean I'm the age I'm supposed to be.
THEM: Chronologically. But energetically...
ME: More?
THEM: Open.
ME: So you want me to forget?
THEM: Sure, just less layers.
ME: But I gained them.
THEM: Right, but there's microdermabrasion.
ME: Life microdermabrasion?
THEM: Sure. Oh, and we'll have to get your boobs done.
ME: Bigger.
THEM: More proportional, whatever ideal you would have. The nose is fine we can leave the nose it's a very you nose.
ME: Because it's my nose.
THEM: Right. Totally right for your nose.
ME: So you want me to...
THEM: Not over think it. Just be light.
ME: Be light?
THEM: Not like 'lite' but 'light'.
ME: Now I feel pressure to be light.
THEM:Be easy.
ME: Like promiscuous?
THEM: No not necessarily, not physically.
ME: So intellectually?
THEM: Sure.
ME: Emotionally?
THEM: YES!
ME: You want me to be an emotional whore?
THEM: Yes, sure, feel things for people. Make them feel things. Preferably good things. Give them a release. Ask them things, make them think you care.
ME: Care?
THEM: But don't, I mean you can but it's not necessary. Oh and we'll need to lighten your hair.
ME: So I can be lighter.
THEM: Right. And do that laugh thing where you open your mouth, do that a lot. Oh oh and pet puppies.
ME: Puppies, there weren't ever puppies.
THEM: Well there are now. We added them. Think of them like puppies in the inside.
ME: Internal puppies?
THEM: Yes like little golden retrievers jumping through your soul. We need you to be more of a golden retriever, and less of a...
ME: Black lab?
THEM: I was going to say mangled street dog with cataracts, but sure. Yeah, just be you.
ME: Just be me.
THEM: But don't over think it. Don't hold on to it too hard.
ME: So let go.
THEM: Right. I really think this is going to be great really. Just uhm take the note and give it another pass .. okay?

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

the bubble

So how did I get it? 'We don't know'. And how does it go away 'It just does'. And is it painful 'It can be'. So can you just take it out? ' that would be worse'. So I just have to live with it. 'If it's not to painful' Sit with it? 'If its not too painful'. And it'll make my breasts and stomach huge, like I'm pregnant. 'Sort of'. Make me nauseous. That's the leaking'. The leaking? 'You have to wait for it to leak out.' And what is it leaking out? 'Matter. Nothing'. If it's nothing then why is it so painful. 'Because it's a foreign substance'. A foreign substance leaking. So it's like I'm pregnant with nothing? 'full of it, yes'. And when will the pain go away? ' we don't know, you wait. Some days will be worse than others'. So it's like a memory, it just leaks out slowly? And there are moments of pain, and then a shell a reminder? And you just wait for the pain to leak out, just wait as it gets less and less the pain? So it's like a memory? '95% of them go away. Statistically 95% of them, given time, go away'.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

boxes.

Soon there won't be any reminders of him in her inbox. In a day or so, if she doesn't delete the automated ones from the president. She couldn't decide whether or not to delete his voicemails, or listen, for that moment...the moment where it, went. the moment she was too preoccupied to hear. She deleted the texts, the photo of the moon, the one telling her he'd call later, that he was running late, the one back that she was mad he was running late. Where were they going anyway, was there parking? There was never any parking in this godforsaken place! People were always going places just to drive around, fighting to find a place to settle, for a moment. And I guess that's kinda what this was. Fighting for a spot, thinking you're going to stay longer than you actually do.

he reminded her of her college boyfriend, same height, different coloring. her college boyfriend,before she knew what hurt was, before she hurt someone. They were similar, except for the shoebox of letters sent when boys sent letters. similar except for the duration,determination. 'men do get sidetracked less easily'.is he deleting e-mails? she thought. 'think of all the words wasted' perhaps he would have grown up to have been like him. To have stopped writing letters. perhaps the words in both boxes were the same, or the younger were better, or the same but read better? She also printed the e-mails from her university account, placed them in the box. Because he asked her to. For a day where they no longer knew their passwords but wanted to read together. assuming that came. And she assumed. And now for the first time, she assumed again. And perhaps, perhaps it did make an ass out of you and me. 'no no just me'.

Their names started with the same letter, but most names do. They looked at her the same way, before they smiled, before they turned away. And she looked just as desperate as she inched closer. As she lobbed words back, wanting to play...nothing hit back.

She hadn't kept any of his books, his hair was no longer on the pillow. The toothbrush was left then taken. Yet there he was floating, in words and spaces, and somehow that was worse.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

the tree

For Sean D, and Mallory, and Me, and anyone trying to commit to (new) home. I've never written a short story before, here goes..


Mike pulled into the driveway. Plastic shovels littered the small front yard. Claire must have taken them to some activity. Mike didn't know when specific activities were, or what they were, but he knew there were activities. Before there were kids there were never activities. There was trivia night at the bar, but that was usually an accident. He stepped out of the car, grabbed his bag, shut the door, and tripped. Tripped over the root in the concrete. It belonged to the tree. When they first moved in they discussed removing the tree. It would keep growing destroying the driveway more. Its leaves were dead anyway. It would fall eventually, land on the garage or worse Katie’s room. If they took the place the tree would go, the bathroom would be painted, but then life happened. Mike looked at the blood on his hands, on the concrete. A small scratch on his palm, his nose bleeding. As a child his nose bled a lot, bled all over the H,B, and U keys in typing class in 7th grade. They just happened; nosebleeds, but he grew out of them.
Claire’s Dad offered to help them buy a place last year, closer to her folks' house, but somehow that conversation faded, and Mike didn’t mind. So they stayed in the little house with the tree.

The little house was a good location from Boeing, from their parents, okay schools, they hadn’t really researched, but how hard is it to f up kindergarten? They rented, in a neighborhood a little nicer than they could afford to buy in. Mike would like to say that was strategic, but it wasn’t. It was mentioned that eventually the old woman who owned it, and lived in Florida, would die and they would buy it, maybe.
Mike walked towards the garage, his nose dripping. Half of the things in the garage they inherited, Mrs. Silverman left them there, and that was okay. It always had been okay. Tennis raquets they never used hung on the wall, beach chairs, large mirror frames without mirrors; things Mike didn’t feel right touching. On the wall very high was an axe. He assumed it was Mr, Silverman’s axe, but didn’t know as Mr. Silverman was dead. What kind of man owned an axe? Perhaps every man did. Before. When you owned things you didn’t throw away. Now it’s harder to commit to things. You have to committ to an axe.

Was he committed?
Sure. He made a commitment to Claire at the Cape May court house, and later in front of their friends and family at the reception. He made a commitment to Colin 6 months later, and Katie. They were born weren't they? This all happened and he let it. They grew, they grew into the house, they grew into the rent payments, the repairs. They fell, fell into the SUV payments. He had lived here or fifteen minutes from here his entire life. And it was fine. It was a nice place, a place where people are smart enough and nice enough and liberal enough, and mind their own business. Pennsylvanians are funny that way, they have absolutely no state loyalty or consistent qualities other than being fairly nice, fairly sane people who are pretty much content to be so, and not have to tell you about it. And enough was enough. He never chose enough. He fell into enough. He fell into the house, eventually falling into the tree.
Mike slowly took the axe off the wall, carefully where the head met the stem, balancing on the ladder. As he approached the tree staring back at the little house it seemed to smile back. The little house with the vinyl siding and the plastic toys in the front yard. And as he flailed his body against the tree, he called to the little house ‘I choose you.’ The bark tore at his face as enraged he swung the worn axe. The axe itself ripping at his hands. ‘I commit to you’. His nose bled heavily, down his torn shirt, swinging and swinging and shouting, all the while smiling covered in blood. Smiling at the little home. Out of breath, hands grated, he finally hit the trunk, And as it fell the CRV pulled into the driveway, and the children started screaming

Friday, May 6, 2011

Shadowboxing


I love solo conversations, and the structures and games we implement just to attempt to communicate. What if?

LIBBY, 31

So there's this thing, I think it's called shadow sharing or something. It's Jungian I think. I googled it a little. I heard about it from this guy at a party in Laguna and it really helped him, seemed to have really helped him he was different.From it, you know what it sounds like, he wasn't all woo-woo and spiritual and stuff, at least it seemed like he wasn't.

And it's this thing where off the bat before we get into too deep, before we become a we, if we ever are to become a we, which I'm not assuming we will. We express what we're afraid of. That way we know we will project these fears, and these fears actually have nothing to do with the other person, since WE hardly know each other. Obviously this would have been better done earlier but I'm just learning it now so I think WE should do it. I mean what the hell, right? what do we have to lose?

Ok uhm I'm afraid... I'm afraid of even doing this. Not this but this shadowthing. I'm afraid that you will judge me for it, are you judging me for it? I'm afraid that you'll find me boring. Unattractive. That you'll leave, that before you do I'll lose myself in you, or that I'll only want you when you're gone, which will make me seem completely unattractive and boring. I'm afraid that you'll realize that I recycle jokes, and stories, that eventually I'll run out of them, and I'll start telling you things you were actually there for. I'm afraid you'll pretend you weren't there. I'm afraid that we'll be sexually incompatible that our torsos won't line up right, that you'll judge my cellulite. And eventually you'll stop leaving your hand on my waist. I'm afraid that if we do have children, which I'm not saying we will, I'm on the pill, but if we do I'll do everything, and maybe you'll vaccuum once a week and empty the dishwasher. But you won't run the dishwasher efficiently, so I'll rerun it, which you'll think is passive aggressive. I'm afraid I'm not cut out to have children. I'm afraid that by just saying that I sound like a clock ticking cliche, and you'll get scared. I'm afraid that by saying any of this I'm talking to much, and expecting too much and immediately I've stopped being fun. And it's too early to not be fun, I'm afraid I'm not fun. And I'm afraid that I don't really want to hear about your fears or even hear that you're afraid, because that's not attractive. Or fun. Don't want to hear what you think I will and will not do to you. Because what if you expect I'll do nothing, what if you have no expectations beyond this dinner. This spring roll. That you've never thought of me beyond Friday night beyond this Spring roll. And maybe you didn't even plan for this Spring Roll, and this evening. Or maybe I'm afraid that you have.
I don't know perhaps this wasn't such a good idea. What do you think? What are you afraid of? Is that low sodium soy sauce?

Monday, April 18, 2011

CLINICAL

The thing is, the thing about this thing is, it doesn't care. It doesn't care if it's sunny or if you're in love or in like or in a place where all roads lead to happy, it creeps. It creeps in and you're crying on the 101 listening to a song about being in somewhere in London. And you don't know why, and you cry because you don't. And you cry because it's coming back, and you cry because you are so mad at yourself for crying. Scared. And yes there's the pills and the therapist but that makes it official. That's opening the doors inviting it in, saying sit on my chest and my heart and just creep on in. And it doesn't care that you've been fine you are fine, that this timing is off. Is it ever on? And you phone a friend and pretend, and you ask about the weather because it's all too hard to explain. And in these moments you think happiness is not a choice, cause I'm choosing so hard, I want for everything I have to choose so hard. That if only I could make up my mind, but it doesn't care, if you could and should be happy. it just creeps.