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.

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?

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'.

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.

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.

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.