can too

Okay, kids, today I'm here to discuss the worst, the most disgusting and patently offensive, horrible and down-right foul four letter word in the English language: can't. There is no other word that will leave you with such a dead-end-on-a-dark-and-moonless-night sense of emptiness. Because where do you go from can't? Can't takes you nowhere. Can't leaves you nowhere. Can't doesn't provide even so much as match, a map or a potted cactus to chew on to take you through the Desert of Nowhere. Can't is dead. And with can't in your vocabulary, if you aren't dead, than your dreams surely are.

Here's the thing. You can. I can. We can. Anything you want you CAN get, do or achieve. Sounds schmaltzy? Fine. It's schmaltzy. Sue me. Stop reading. Piss off. Go back the Wastelands of Can't. I'll mourn for you, but not for long, because it's a choice. Can't is a choice. Are we clear?

Perhaps I sound a tad peeved. I am. Though, conversely, I'm also amused, saddened, let down, inspired and challenged. The can'ts have been blowing past rapid-fire lately. And as I duck and weave to dodge them I find myself more and more interested in proving the can'tsers wrong.

Can'tsers. Cancers. Huh. Sorry, I can't leave that alone. It's too perfect. Because once in your system, the can'ts grow and multiply and lay siege on the best parts of you, quashing joy, tainting love, clipping inspiration off at the knees. You let one can't sashay in and there are a whole host of them just waiting for their chance at the all-you-can-eat buffet of YOU. By the end of the feast, there are a bunch of fat, bloated, sweaty can'ts belching and sleepy hanging out in your living room and you're what's left of the roast chicken.

I want you to be a kickin' chicken. A kick ass chicken. A bare-knuckle, prize fighting chicken. And I want to be one, too.

So.

No more can'ts. They're counterproductive to everything good, holy and fun on this planet.

Cans (Cansers!) grow just as fast as can'ts. You just gotta choose the CAN, man! When you do, I'll be behind you 100%. You CAN go back to school. You CAN start your own business. You CAN climb Mt. Everest. You CAN find the love of your life. You CAN make amends with your mother. You CAN figure out what you want to be when you grow up. You CAN join the circus, if you so choose. You just have to decide you CAN. Baby, steps, baby. Make that one little phone call. Swing by and just pick up the application. Pop by the bookstore and buy The Artist's Way. Go online and simply peruse some Web sites. The next step won't be much harder than that. The step after that will simply be the step after, no more no less. And you'll take it, too and it won't be as hard as you think. I promise.

Look, I'm no expert. I think some are born the can-do way and others are born the do what? way. I was born do what? and I battle my can'ts daily. But it's cold in that there Cave of Can't waiting for the big brown bear that never comes, or the storm that never strikes or the imagined posse of murdering highwaymen with mayhem on their minds. And boring. God, it's boring.

Live it up, Chicken Little. Do the can-can instead! Can't never done you no favors, so kick it with your kickin' chicken feet to the refuse-clogged street. Where it belongs.

sunday, stinky sunday

I've been stinky-smelly girl all weekend. I feel no guilt about this as, for the most part, I've kept my own company and Fred doesn't seem to mind. Sometimes it's just nice to let oneself go with such complete abandon and it's one of the small luxuries of living alone.

I did venture out on a couple of occasions. Took Fred to the park where we encountered some jogging Rastafarian-looking people. The lead guy had dreads down his back and was running barefoot, one blindingly white sneaker held gently in each of his hands. I guess he didn't want to get them dirty. The rest of the group followed a good minute behind him. I was thinking that maybe their shoes were hindering them, until I realized that for a mid-morning run through the park, they wore way more clothes than seemed appropriate -- slacks on some, a caftan-thing on another and one was even wearing a turban. The lead guy wanted to know if Fred bit. I said, "No." Then he wanted to know if I bit. But he was gone before I could answer, naked feet padding silently along the concrete trail.

Cori thinks that I should perhaps stop going to the park. And I might agree, except that it's just so ridiculously entertaining.

My second outing was to Home Depot. And frankly, I don't think it's any safer than the park, even with all those close-to-hand blunt objects and sturdy-looking people in orange aprons to protect you. I'd ventured forth because I needed to have a key made for my front door, as I'm sort of bored with entering and exiting my house via the side window or walking all the way around the house to go in the back door. The key disappeared along with my latest ex-not-boyfriend. It was a fair exchange though. He left behind a plethora of his cat's fur and a jug of carb powder the size of my car. I've been giving it to Fred as he's expressed concern about being inadequately "built" compared to a certain lady-friend pit bull named Mimi he's been pursuing lately.

But Home Depot. Me in cargo pants, birks that just beautifully display the lovely remains of a four month old pedicure, tank top from 1988, lank hair pulled into a messy ponytail, no make-up, eyebrows ungroomed and wild and this guy tries to pick me up. Grey goatee. Hip glasses. Chipped front tooth. Seemed sweet enough, though my judgement of late, admittedly, could be faulted. His apparent disregard for my stinkified state does lead one to ponder. Anyway, as I approach the line to get my key made he sees me and says, "Your eyes speak volumes, you know that right? More than you could ever actually speak."

My first thought: I know no such thing!

I do know this, however. I was less creeped out by the overtly cheesy comment, than I was by the idea that my eyeballs were acting independently of me. Who do they think they are?! I don't know what they were saying, but they hadn't discussed it with me in advance and I was fairly sure they weren't in accord with the rest of my being. It's outrageous. I can't have my body parts all going off and making decisions on their own! I'm going to have to start holding those group meetings again. You know, just so all of me is on the same page.

a present conundrum

It's not that I don't like giving presents; it's just that I have a very difficult time doing something because someone tells me I'm supposed to do it. Even if that someone is not so much a someone as she is a millennia-old hag of cultural tradition. I do like giving presents, but when it suits me to express my love, admiration, respect or congratulations. And not so much when the numerals on the calendar tap their little watches at me as if to say, "I've been standing here on September 12th (or December 25th or March 8th or whenever. . .) all year long. You've had plenty of time. You knew I was coming. What has been so very important to you that you couldn't run to the mall and pick me up a pair of nice warm socks?!

And therein lies the rub. I mean, I LOVE a new pair of socks. But does everyone else? "Weirdo," they might say, "who do you think you are -- my mother?!" And then knowing that their mother buys their socks for them, I wonder what else their mother buys for them -- their underwear? Their groceries? Their sex toys? And then I'm completely obsessed with the idea that they are in an unhealthily co-dependent relationship with their mother and I'm freaked out and I can't be friends with them anymore and I disappear without a trace from the shortlist of their caller ID and they never know why.

Of course... I kid. Everyone loves socks. So that will never happen.

Regardless, I do have small panic attacks around what to buy people when under the gun to buy something. I think my problem is that I think a gift should be more than a gift, it should be a thing that says in one gorgeously bow wrapped package how much you as a person respect, love, admire and KNOW the other person. And I don't know if that's possible when you must seek it out and find it. It's better when you come across it by happy coincidence. Because you're out and about and thinking about someone and you're walking by a store or down an aisle and this little objet d'perfection catches your eye with what appears to be an unearthly glow and whispers, Hey, don't you think Anna would just adore me?! And you agree and you buy it, even though her birthday isn't for another seven months.

And that would work, but I have a hard time holding onto something for seven months. And why should I? It's perfect now. So, why wait? It would, in fact, be selfish of me to wait, when she can use and enjoy it now! Besides, if I do wait I'll forget I have it and will find it four years later when cleaning out that closet where I stashed it for safe-keeping and think this would have been the perfect gift for Anna, except that I'd forgotten about it, given her socks instead, got freaked out by her co-dependence with her mother and no longer speak with her.

My friend Esther has it down to a science. She's got a standard gift appropriate for every given event. For example, on a birthday, you get clothes, usually a blouse -- exactly like the one she's also bought for herself. And more specifically, exactly like the one she's wearing when she hands you the box. She's modeling it as if to say, "Now eesn't thees the most best geeft ever? Luke at how great eet lukes?!" Actually, there's no 'as if.' She'll actually say the words. And no lie. It is the most best gift ever! And it does look great. And because she's a fabulously hip, stylish Latin hottie, you feel a little like you're channeling her fabulosity every time you wear it out. (Though, of course, never when you know you'll be around her.) Or for wedding showers, you get an olive boat. I'm really jealous of the olive boat. I don't know why, maybe because I just like saying 'olive boat' and would love getting lots of little thank you cards that say, "We absolutely LOVE the olive boat. Our gravy boat is a little jealous, but we're working through it as a family." Or maybe because every time someone says 'olive boat,' I picture the olives rowing like tiny ivy-league oarsmen on a glassy lake reflecting the autumnal sky, pimentos popping from exertion.

Olive boat.

I can't compete with the olive boat! Because it's not just an olive boat -- it's a whole thing. It's so indicative of Esther and what she brings to any group. . . comfort and luxury and grace and whimsy. Even in their standard natures her blouses and olive boats so disgustingly capture her desire to share that comfort and luxury and grace and whimsy with you. It's so perfect, it makes me want to throw up olives. Into olive boats.

Now. You may be saying that I'm making this too hard. Why not just go out and buy the lovely gift certificate? Right. And then the onus is on the giftee to buy the perfect present for themselves! Well, that's just mean, if you ask me. I feel a HUGE DEGREE OF PRESSURE when trying to spend a gift certificate. It should be something special. Something I keep and treasure and fawn over and pet unconsciously while on the phone or reading a book. It can't ever be something plebian and necessary like I would typically buy. So I generally don't. I've got a veritable collage of them tacked with little magnets to my refrigerator, which occasionally I'll rifle through to buy a gift for someone else. And then I feel a little guilty -- it's like regifting by proxy or something. So no. No gift certificates from me.

Needless to say, around gift-giving time, I get stuck. And then I get resentful. And I procrastinate so that the gift is really super lame or alternately I spend way too much money on something SUPER amazing as if the money spent can hide the fact that I resent the hell out of this obligatory purchase. The obligation to buy gifts on certain dates sounds to me like a sweating drill sergeant shouting, "SHOW ME THE LOVE, MAGGOT!!" at the back of my head. Only it's in my head. And I HATE the drill sergeant almost as much as I LOVE the person for whom I'm supposed to be buying a gift. It's a conundrum.

And it's a conundrum that seems to be coming up more and more often. Everything requires a gift: birthdays, holidays, dinner parties, wedding showers, bar-b-ques, baby showers, thank-God-I'm-divorced parties, house warmings, promotions, bachelorette soirees. I even once went to a pet funeral. I don't kid.

The truth is I'd rather express my affection through the nice dinner for two or by writing the heartfelt letter/card or by being the one who you know you can call when your car breaks down. That is friendship to me. And there's nothing I can give you or you can give me that comes taped in a box or wrapped in a bow that matches it.

So, do me a favor. Call me the next time your ass gets thrown in jail at 3 in the morning. I'll be there with a hot cup of coffee, bail money and a hug. But then on the fourth anniversary of your dog's vasectomy, please don't hate me for showing up empty handed.

kimmy

I think I should tell you about my friend, Kimmy. Though before I do, let me preface it with this: there's one thing I feel pride about, one thing I like to brag about. I always, always meet the best people. Wherever I go, it seems to me that I find the cream of the crop -- the brightest, the funniest, the nicest people there are to know. By the grace of God and all the angels, I find them. Or maybe they find me. Or we find each other. Whatever the case, I'm the one who comes out the winner. Every time. For sure.

Having said that, let me say that Kimmy is not by any stretch of the imagination, the least of these. The first time I met Kimmy, at an audition for an improv troupe, we clicked. The second time, after the first meeting for said troupe, she grabbed me in the tightest, most bone-crushing hug I've ever had in my life and said in my ear, "I know you don't like this, but you're going to have to get used to it, because this is how I feel about my friends." And she's never let go.

She was right. I didn't like it. Inhibited and closed off and self-conscious and insecure about a universe of things, at 23-years-of-age, I didn't like people touching me, let alone holding on to me as if I were the sole post standing in a hurricane. But no, that's backwards. It was as if the sole post in the hurricane had sprouted arms and snatched me from the mouth of the storm itself to hold me safe and keep me on my feet. And did I mention, she's never let go?

Kimmy is, in one word, amazing. You should know her. Frankly, I'm sorry for you that you don't. I've actually introduced Kimmy as a friend to people who were, at the very best, indifferent to me on my own merit, but by the virtue of her friendship with me, I've fallen into favor. She's got that aura, you know? It's a warmth that's transcendent of all our baser, meaner tendencies. She is sunlight and laughter and joy in a body that dances like Janet Jackson and sings like Aretha Franklin. She brings out the best in people, people from whom you'd never even expect to see an ounce of good, let alone a pound of best. But she does it. Meanwhile, I can only stand aside and shake my head in wonder.

And, God, is this girl funny. Her stories could wring a chuckle from a corpse. Believe me. I've seen it.

But then again, I don't feel so sorry for you, because it's just a matter of time before you do know her. She's not the sort who was put on this earth for only a blessed few. No, she's got too much light. We'd all crisp from the glow if we were the sole recipients of her Kimmy-ness. And one day in not the too far future you will see her on stage or on the screen or read the words she so perfectly composes and you will laugh until you cry, you will revel in how right she is, in how precisely she gets you and your condition on this earth.

My friend Kimmy (I take more pride in that statement than you can imagine) is my hero on so many levels. She's got presence and chutzpah and faith and integrity to fill the Grand Canyon. I ache with the knowledge of her greatness and can't help but smile like a fool when I think of the heights she will one day -- very soon -- achieve.

So do me a favor. If you're reading this, picture the most kick ass girl in the world and send her all the love and good energy and if you believe in them, prayers, you can send her. I promise you; it's a moment well-spent, an investment in your own joy. So please, send those good vibes and then content yourself with only the briefest of waits. Because she's coming. In force. And once there, if I know her at all, she'll never let any of us go.

stay clean

It's always when I'm with Fred. I guess he makes me more approachable. Though, really, I think he just puts me out with the people more. Out with the crazy people, that is. That and I'm always with Fred. I've always been approachable, however, and I have in fact been certifiably certified as a 'very approachable' person by people who spend years of their lives studying such things.

But I digress.

So we're walking by the post office this afternoon and this fairly benign looking man walks past and I hear him gurgle something under his breath.

Oh God. Keep walking, Freddie, I think. Because Fred's a telepath and that's how we communicate.

And then the man says something more clearly, like, "Hey."

Keep on keepin' on, I tell myself. But my feet inexplicably stop and my body turns as if under the power of an outside force and my face breaks into an inquisitive smile of its own volition. What are you doing, asks myself of myself. I don't know, myself responds. I really gotta pee, Fred interjects. And he does.

"Um, yeah, hi," stutters the man distracted by the peeing dog. "Are you, um, a, um, student at Georgia State?"

I smile more broadly. Flattered. "Nope." Next question, please. He seems a little lost and we stand there awkwardly. Fred pulls at the leash.

And then the stranger has a stroke of genius. "Well," he says brightly, "I am!"

"Great!" I say, just as brightly, always a fan of someone else pursuing higher education, as long as I don't have to. (Sorry, mom.)

"I'm getting my masters in counseling," he says.

Ah. 'K, and? ? Oh. It's my turn. Right. Frantic search for the proper response.

"Sooooo. . . do I look like a person who needs counseling," I blurt and hearing the echo of my friend from the park in my retort, I continue smiling but try for 'smiling with warmth' and not smiling with 'Yes, indeed, I'm a nutjob. Thank goodness someone's finally noticed! Please! Lead the way to the nearest padded cell!'

He looks slightly crestfallen and drops his eyes, "No. I just couldn't think of anything else to say." And then, in what I can only call a hopeful manner, he holds up a small brown paper bag. "I was just in Sevenanda. I needed soap."

Huh, I think, smile wavering slightly.

"Huh," I say. "Well. Um. . .stay clean!" And then I high tail it out of there.

"Jeez," Fred says in disgust.

Yeah. Stay clean? Man, do I suck at the witty banter thing. Makes me really bad at flirting. I'm always stuck for the clever side-winding comeback that makes them want to come back for more. Not that I wanted this small soap-buying, pick-up-a-girl-and-her-dog-on-the-street kind of person to come back for more of anything. But still.

Stay clean?

*sigh*

notes from orlando

My Chihuahua Fred is without a doubt, an authentic canine rock star. My cousin Corinne, however, has a cat named Baloo who is the feline equivalent of a Jet Li-like ninja. So the Malone household celebrity animal death match was pretty much a wash before it even started. The whole thing took all of about four seconds.

According to the police reports Baloo entered stealthily from the dining room, while we all stood in the foyer kissing our hellos. One moment Fred is standing on hind legs, offering his patented two-legged cha-cha of a greeting and the next he's bowled over and yelping a scream that seemed to hold all the pain of every Chihuahua ever born. (He can be a bit dramatic at times.) Cat and dog were quickly separated by their respective owners and though the hierarchy of the food chain had been turned on its head, and except for the fact that Baloo continued to stalk and terrorize Fred to the point of stopping his bowels for the entire four days we were there, no harm was done.

I tell this story to explain how accomplished a hunter Baloo is and to illustrate that while his attempts to hunt and kill my dog were misguided, that he was just doing his part to protect the family from anything that should enter the house below knee level. It's his job and he knows it. Corinne has unusually high expectations for her pets, and Baloo -- cruel and sadistic tyrant that he is -- fits the bill. Her previous cat Bailey, was so amazingly stellar she named her youngest son after him. And at six-years-old, the Boy Bailey, still struggles daily to live up to the accomplishments of his feline predecessor. Seriously.

So you can imagine her disappointment in Sushi the fish who has never done much more than swim around his bowl in lazy entitlement, frivolously taking up Corinne's precious counter space. As you can also well imagine, when she found Sushi lying movelessly on the bottom of his bowl a few weeks ago, she was less than saddened. In fact, she was absolutely thrilled! Had him ladled out, the bowl dumped, cleaned and stored away practically before the last bubble of his fish-breath broke the surface. Then she put on a brave, stoic face and called her children, Cody 11, Kendall 10 and Bailey into the kitchen to break the news.

Apparently, however, the kids were less taken with Sushi than she'd thought, because the first question out of Cody's mouth was, "Can we flush him?"

(Corinne assures me that they aren't hard-hearted kids, that they were in fact, most upset when her own grandfather died last year and they'd never even met him.)

So, the commodal funeral ensued. They all traipsed into the newly renovated bathroom, Cody carrying the ladle, Kendall carrying her little New Testament Bible (because as she pointed out, there should always be a Bible at funerals, even if the funeral is for a fish) and Bailey and Corinne brought up the rear.

They stood around the toilet and Cody very solemnly poured out the ladle.

Bailey wanted to do the flushing honors. And Corinne let him. Though if she had known what she was soon to find out, she might have stepped in to prevent the catastrophe that was about to take place on her son's psyche.

Because when Bailey flushed the toilet -- the slow flush toilet -- the slow swirling action acted as a gentle heart massage for the poor fishy and he WOKE UP -- can we get a Thank you, Jesus! -- an aquatic Lazarus swimming strongly about the bowl. According to Corinne, all they had time for was a quick, "OH! Oops!" and then a very small, "Bye, Sushi," and he was gone. . . pulled into the dark abyss of the septic system.

A certain stunned silence followed the episode as my cousin and her children stared open-mouthed at the slowly re-filling toilet. And then Kendall looked at Bailey and quite seriously said, "You flushed him alive."

"I did not!" Bailey protested, looking to his mother for comfort.

"Well, you didn't do it on purpose," Corinne said, failing to comfort him.

"But look," she said, taking him back into the kitchen, "just look, at all this GORGEOUS counter space!"

a stranger five minutes

Speaking of strangers, I do enjoy them in brief encounters. And by brief I mean five minutes of time spent or less. (No touching, please.) You can get a lifetime of info or entertainment out of a person in that short a span of time. After five minutes, however, they become tedious. Emails or phone numbers might get thrown into the mix and seven months later I can't remember if "Jose" is someone I actually know or some random guy I met in the grocery store parking lot over an accidental discussion about pedestrian's rights and the generally tragic disrespect for crosswalks and crosswalk signals. ("How 'bout I take your number, Jose?") Email is easy. I've got a filter. You'll get trashed through no fault of mine and have no one to blame but the spammers.

Anyway. Latest strange stranger encounter. I'm in the park with Fred. A guy walking toward us stops when he sees Fred and bends over to talk to him. Fred jumps back and starts barking at the guy. Not viciously, just in that way that seems to say, "Hey! Hey! Stop! Standing! There! Looking! At! Me! Yeah! YOU! Hey!"

As a general rule, Fred only does this to men with beards and crazy people. Provide a little liverwurst, however, and regardless of affliction or hirsuteness, he's yours forever. This guy had no beard, seemed normal. So I say to the guy: "You need food." He looks at me quizzically.

HIM: I need food?
ME: Well, you don't need food.
HIM: Do you need food?

See, here I thought he was just being dorky-funny-flirty. I usually play along. It's why I have so many forgotten names listed in my cell phone.

ME: No. (laughing) I don't need food. I just mean. . .
HIM: Why would you walk up to a perfect stranger and tell them they need food?
ME: Um. . . that's my dog you were talking to, and. . .
HIM: (Looking at Fred, as if noticing him for the first time.) Does he need food?
ME: Nooooo. . . it's just that he likes food and if you had food he'd like you.
HIM: So he needs food to like people?

And the conversation went along like this for about five minutes before I realized he wasn't being dorky-funny-flirty. No, he was just crazy.

The conversation concluded, thusly:

HIM: (Angry, pissy by now.) Well, all I have to say is that I work with some charities downtown that will GIVE you FOOD for your DOG if you can't FEED your dog yourSELF, so he won't BARK at people in the park.

No, he didn't have a beard. No he didn't look crazy. But the sports goggles instead of glasses really should have given him away. That and the four foot golf umbrella he was carrying on a cloudless and sunny morning. All that and Fred's barking, of course. Mia culpa, Freddie.

Anyway, I saw him again this morning and said "Hi" as we passed. He said "Hi," as well, but he did so with chin tilted superiorly as if to say, "I know you. You're that girl who doesn't feed her dog. You're that nut who tries to force your food philosophies on strangers in the park. Oh, I know you. Hi."

And there's a part of me that buys it, that is bugged by the fact that there's a guy out there -- even if he is crazy -- that thinks I'm a legitimately insane person myself. Or only slightly better, irresponsible when it comes to the care of my dog.

so much for anonymity

I got my first comment today. From someone named Andy. (Hello, Andy. You seem nice.) Anyway, I'm not really sure how he found me. Well, I guess I think I know how -- blogger profile, maybe? -- but mine is underdeveloped and rather dull, sooooo. . . what up? Can people search for other people on blogger by age, gender, favorite indigenous people, etc.? That would make some sense, but I can't quite figure out how and don't in the moment feel like investing the energy. This whole blog thing is new and frankly, I can't even find myself via garden-variety searches, so how a complete stranger manages to stumble across me, I don't know. But then again, complete strangers find me (and I them) everyday.

why?

One year ago, at approximately this moment, I woke up thirsty from a too-salty dinner in a room full of strangers. Six of them to be exact. Two boys from Cornwall. A girl from Germany. A couple from someplace Slavic. And one lone Japanese man. The Japanese man, also awake, was sitting straight up in bed, meditating. The boys from Cornwall were snoring. My head throbbing from the thirst, I crept down across the room and down the hall to the bathroom, every step causing the creaky old boards of the alburgue, the pilgrim's hostal, to scream. Under the greenish lights of the antiquated toilette, water dripping from my chin, I looked at my reflection and wondered why in heaven's holy name I was there. It was 4:30 a.m. on August 11, 2003.

It's a question I asked myself often over the next 450 miles and 30 days during which I walked across Spain, over the Pyrhennees, through the Basque country, across the Navarra and Rioha regions, into the meseta and over yet more mountains into Galicia. I still don't know why, why the country and particularly why El Camino de Santiago called to me with such fervor, but it did and I went.

I can construct whys in hindsight, I suppose. Because I needed to do something that I considered daring and romantic. Because I didn't want to leave my 20's without having traveled on my own. Because the Spanish language scared me. Because I needed a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual challenge. Because it would be a good story. Because it would make me feel like a badass. Because I had the vacation time. Because it was there.

And all that is true. But it doesn't satisfy the bigger why.

The what is easier. The what was walking, a lot of walking. Walking and talking and long silences and the ever-present block of rich, dark chocolate, and coffee with fresh cream and two sugars and buttery croissants. The what was countless blisters to be lanced and threaded, and yellow directional arrows, and mass in musty chapels or in secluded gardens or at kitchen tables, and sore knees, and sunburn and vistas that would make (and probably have made) artists cry. The what was wine, and cheese, and garlic, and pasta, and mountains, and desert, and streams, and inexplicable piles of stacked rocks, and singing, bike-riding Italians and trekking, atheistic Germans, and lots of praying for everything from feet to family. The what was great wracking sobs of lonlieness and the fullness of friendship bred in adversity, and jags of confidence tempered with chasms of fear. The what included hard-won afternoon sleeps and fitful nights, and shooting calf pain, and cold showers, and thank-God-for-a-pillow, and the rustling of plastic bags in the pre-light mornings, and the chorus of snores in the dark, and fresh fruit picked from trees. The what involved hearty Australians and generous Spaniards and long distance phone calls and coin-operated email machines, and chickens in churches, and rain, and hand-washed-stiff-from-the-line laundry. The what was mud. The what was cow sh*t, lots of cow sh*t, and cows(!), and cows without fences. The what was speaking Spanish at all, and then speaking Spanish better and better. The what was Mars trailing the Moon, and that first glimpse of ocean and that ridiculously wide sky, and those pristine white clouds and always going up hill. The what was big-ass slugs that reminded me of me in the moment, and selos stamped on a passport, and free lodging, and fresh village-donated vegetables, and digestives with tea, and cooking for twenty people on twenty euros, and crackpot pilgrims, and empathetic hospitaleros, and ice cream so rich it was named after the devil, and. . .and. . . and. . . arriving in a disappointingly commercial Santiago, and yet weeping in the Pilgrim's mass for having come so far and still not knowing why and knowing that knowing no longer mattered.

I think that too often we ask ourselves why and if we don't come up with a satisfactory answer, we don't actually do. And it's the doing that's important. The why just soothes mothers and spouses and bosses and selves with what is perhaps unecessary justification. Maybe the better question is, "why not?"

sunday night scrabble club

The Sunday Night Scrabble Club met only once in the fall of 2003 for an evening of cut-throat scrabble, cold beer, big laughs and a some "stand on that bucket and read" spoken-word, performance art. Too perfect an event to ever recreate.

The Teams

The Iron Chefs: 234
Matt (of mattLandia fame), Elizabeth, Eva, Jill (alternate)

The Red-Headed Sluts: 304
Sadie, Alexis, Brian, Paulie (stunt Scrabbler)

The Words

ART, FART, QUEEN, GAY, FA, ZIT, MINKS, REVERT, SMITE, SPAY, GOD, BUS, JUNGLE, GAG, EQUINE, DATE, MILT, OX, POX, ES, SAW, PAY, HIT, FIT, BOLT, PEAK, GLOW, CONDORS, PINE, MAW, DIVER, DRY, VOID, SHE, THRIVE, *MOONWINK, *LUCKY U, *YOU RED-HEADED SLUT

*denotes words used by request, not by use in game


The Poem

THE RED-HEADED SLUT KNOWS BEST
by jill

in the VOID SHE THRIVES,
DRY dock DIVER,
staring into the dark MAW.
she knows the CODE of the CONDORS
that soar the PEAK tops,
FIT to fight and PAY the price,
if need be, suffer the POX.
a knowing not known by
simple fish that meet
DATE-precise, to MILT
and make and GAG and die
by the BUSload
or even so many MINKS
sacrificing skin, life and limb
for QUEEN high-fashion
and ART-y, FART-y, ZIT-free, GAY FA la la.
"REVERT," she cries,
"SPAY your GOD of worry!
SMITE your fear and follow-the-leader-lethargy!
PINE not!
the JUNGLE is what you make it,
not what the slavish EQUINE
and yoked OX-ES
claim they SAW as truth."
she knows life will HIT fast as a BOLT,
GLOW hot as hell
and sooth smooth
as a MOONWINK on a cool fall night,
so temporal darkness be damned.
but the masses can only moan in pitiful defeat,
"LUCKY U, YOU RED-HEADED SLUT!"

hysterical for oprah

I've got to stop watching Oprah.

Even as I type those words my breath catches in my throat. Not watch Oprah? Is that even legal? I mean, as far as I know, women watching Oprah is akin to men registering for the select service.

The four o'clock hour rolls around and the diva of daytime tells me what to do when my marriage is on the rocks, my children are on drugs or my boss is sexually harassing me. (None of which has happened yet, but at least I'm prepared.) She tells us what books to read and movies to see and shoes to buy. She reels in political and social leaders, fashionistas and superstars. She even once made a girl who could immitate a rooster into a multi-millionairess and God-love-her, she launched Dr. Phil. Plus, everything she does is packaged into a format amber-hued and easily swallowed, with the appropriately peppy or somber interstitial muzac to accompany it. So what I propose is, I think, some sort of sacrilidge. But I've got to do it, because I think I'm losing my mind.

See, in the past few of years, in addition to dissecting the everyday vissitudes of the American existence, she's started focusing on the vissistudes the third world existence. In doing so she has rocked me from my comfortable middle-class American mindset and while I know that's the point thankyouverymuch, I don't think it's her intent to send me over the edge. Because, you know, then what good would I be? She'd have to start a foundation to save me. But regardless, she is, in fact, walking a fine line with my sanity and I just don't think I can take anymore.

Everytime she does one of these exposes, delineating the horrific conditions in which the people (and primarily the women) of Africa or India or Afghanistan live, I find myself madly scrounging for my passport, stamped, to my shame, with the frivolous selos of luxury locations like the Bahamas, Madrid, Paris, London, etc. I start cataloguing all my worldy possessions to sell on ebay and practice breaking the news to my mother that I must go help the people of [fill in your favorite third world destination] and oh-by-the-way I'm probably never coming back. But then it hits me -- help do what? I knew I should have gone to medical school. Everyone needs a good doctor, but who really needs a hack-writer with a penchant for pop-culture? Really. What do I have to offer? My ever-requested recipe for spinach-artichoke dip? My insanely intimate knowledge of the goings-on in the life of Britney Spears? I think not. But suppose I do find a niche for my mediocre skills. What do I do with my dog, Fred? He's got a nervous condition and doesn't enjoy travel. Would it be fair of me to uproot him from the comfort of my feather duvet? And then there are the vaccinations. Aren't injecting toxins into our systems generally considered a bad thing? Did you know that some of them preclude you from ever giving blood again? And, you know, I'm not married, though one day I imagine I'd like to be and even if Atlanta's nothing compared to say, Alaska for meeting eligible men, I'm fairly certain that my chances are better here than they are in a mud hut in the middle of nowhere. I mean, even if I did meet an eligible bachelor by some godforsaken well or hovering around a primative, hand-dug latrine, I don't speak the language. And what language do they speak exactly in these little out-of-the-way, no-one's-ever-heard-of-them-except-stupid-Oprah countries anyway?

So far, I've already been to Afghanistan to rescue battered women from stone-throwing mobs, travelled to Africa to help educate young girls orphaned in the AIDS crisis, moved to Argentina to work with street kids and trekked to India to perform life-saving surgeries on damaged young mothers (after going back to medical school, that is). I've been to Bosnia, back to Africa, adopted a baby girl from China, taught Haitian boat people how to swim and just know in my heart of hearts there's something more I should be doing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Truly, I'm exhausted just thinking about all the good my imaginary self does in the world. And in the meantime, back in reality, I've got to write a report for work proposing that the posting of paper flyers in company breakrooms is an ineffective tool for the purposes of internal communications in an online-driven business. Since the Starbucks phenomenon no one spends time in breakrooms anymore. And please, don't even talk to me about that horror?everytime I buy my grande-no-fat-no-whip-organic-mocha-mocha I'm overwhelmed with guilt for the damage I'm probably doing to the rainforest (no matter what the in-store literature says about shade-grown coffee), thinking that perhaps my time and money would be better spent purchasing a hefty length of chain with which I should tie myself to a tree.

I know that my fantasies are irrational. After fifteen minutes or so I usually manage to pull myself back up and over the precipice of my imagination, but I'm left with a longing to do something -- anything -- to help. And it's all Oprah's fault!

And then recently, mid meltdown my eye fell on this plasticine plaque my father gave me for Christmas one year. "Do small things with great love," it says, quoting Mother Theresa. It stopped me in my tracks. So simple. So eloquent. So much crap. Do small things with great love? What's the point in that? I do small things everyday, with I might add, a good deal of good-will and I've got to say, it just doesn't pack the punch one might expect.

Because no one notices.

People only speak up when they're pissed off or inoconvenienced. Consider even the simple nicities: the spirit-lifting thank you (antiquated), the gentle please, (as passe as tuna-noodle casserole).

No, in my mind, my acts of good should be grand, sweeping, dramatic gestures of selflessness and altruism. (Scene:Young woman parachuting out of a plane, sorely-needed medical supplies clutched in her teeth.) The kind of goodness, no -- greatness -- that inspire associations with not only the aforementioned Mother Theresa, but also Jane Goodall and perhaps Ghandi. The kind of acts that warrant at least one little biographical film about me in which Jennifer Anniston stars and wins her first Oscar playing me.

The kind of work that gets me on Oprah!

But the truth is, that sort of unmitigated self-sacrifice takes a bravery, a boldness which I have thus far been unable (or unwilling) to tap into within myself. Either that or a lack of alternatives (Have you noticed how many of these all-out do-gooders are rather long-in-the-snaggled-tooth Singletons?) And so I'm left with a cheap plastic chochke and two choices.

1) I can muddle through, uttering an occasionally revolutionary though probably unacknowledged, "Have a nice day," while making a concienscious effort to volunteer an hour or so a week at some non-descript non-profit. Not exactly a star turn, but the nagging pit of self-loathing that's replaced my stomach might take a leave of absence. Or,
2) I can bide my time, wait until I get really, really, filthy, stinking rich doing something that makes people want to pay me a lot of money and then donate loads of it to worthy causes.

Damn it.

See that's the danger of Oprah. She's insidious, plugging into my western hard-wired desire for fame and glory and connecting it to the very real troubles that plague our world. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other and her manipulation of my psyche is unspeakably unfair. But it doesn't matter because now I know and now I'm accountable and now I can't sleep.

Fine.

She wins. I surrender. Mia culpa. Uncle and all that hoo-ha. There's a blood drive this week at work. Luckily, I've not been recently vaccinated for Ebola. And if I go early enough, God-help-me, I can be back in time for Oprah.

applicant information

Having turned 30 this year, I've decided I will no longer date men who:

• Think nothing of sleeping on a futon, especially if they do so sans sheets.
• See no reason to shave more than once a week and get that trapped look in their eye when I explain the discomfort of beard burn. (I don't want to marry you, I simply don't enjoy going to work with that just-contracted-leprosy look.)
• Own a cat.
• Own a one-man tent. (Yes, I know, two people can fit. But that's not the point.)
• Drive a Jeep or an equivalent car thereof.

*sigh*

This list may be modified without notice. All other applicants accepted.

best supporting

A couple months ago, I posted a profile on Friendster. Under the "About me" section I posted something like this: "I'm the girl in the movie. Not the main girl, but the best friend. The one who enters to kick ass, clean up the mess or (inadvertantly, mind you) provide comic relief. I'm the one who, as the credits roll, ends up going home with the cute bartender, storylines unresolved, but happy nonetheless."

I do see myself as the girl in the movie. It happens occasionally. The sitcom/movie life.

The year or so post college I spent living with four HUGE (read: 6' plus to my 5' barely) guys in a place that from the outside, looked like a respectable stone cottage, while the inside resembled nothing so much as a fraternity house: pool table in the dining room, basketball net hung over the arched door in the living room, a fridge full of cheap beer and a never-ending string of girls that would stumble out the front door on Saturday mornings, bleary-eyed, smelling of stale bar and wincing from the blaring, thumping Xydeco that one roommate inexplicably favored as part of his anti-hangover regimen.

The three years I spent living literally hand-to-mouth waiting tables (Episode: The day the bartender chipped my front tooth the night before my cousin's wedding), working at the theatre (Episode: The day I forgot how to speak German), freelance writing when I could get a gig (Episode: The day the Indian professor played hard-to-get on payday) and working for an upscale Atlanta interior designer when I couldn't (Episode: The day I had to kill the designer's cat). Sleeping little, partying lots. I remember being filled with angst and yet looking back, I had not a care in the world. Formulaic sitcom stuff.

Even the post party-party years, adjusting uncomfortably to a job in the corporate world, learning that things like micro-t's, cargo pants and Birkenstocks aren't acceptible corporate wear. Teaching on the side and learning why "Because I said so!" sounds so much more legit an explanation than it used to. Discovering art. Discovering how to repair a broken heart. Discovering that life doesn't have to be all that complicated, but that it's hard to remember sometimes.

Plots. Themes. Episodes. Story Arcs. Morals and points. Protagonist -- me. Antagonist -- the world.

Not so much lately.

No, lately, since posting that toungue-in-cheek profile, I am, in fact, the secondary character in my own life. You know, just hanging out in the green room, flipping through outdated magazines and waiting for my cue to say my line and then exit quietly stage left so that the high drama, featuring the real stars, can continue on set. Thank you for your time. The check will be in the mail.

And I suppose, for the moment, it's okay. I'd rather deal with other people's drama than create my own. But soon, I would like a little fun adventure in which I get to star again. Something light and funny, but with heart. The kind of story that leaves you smiling as you leave the theatre and makes it high on your list at Netflix.

In the meantime, I think I'm going to grab some Twizzler's from the craft service table and maybe, you know, rework my profile on Friendster.

fear & choices

Let me say, for the record, that I'm not convinced I want to be here, doing this, writing this blog. It just seems that I've given lip-service to the idea of writing and voiced lackadaisically that I'd love to be published for so many years that it's on the verge of embarrassing. And now, technology has caught up with me. Ergo, I no longer have an excuse to not write, to not publish. So sad when the basis for a great excuse resolves itself.

Also, you know, I was jealous. Jealous of the people in the blogger world, out there making a satement. Saying something. Contributing to the larger conversation. And I do so hate being left out.

In the weeks leading up to this decision, it all boiled down to fear and choices. And though I've found that I enjoy trying things that scare me, I don't do so nearly often enough. I need something to be scared about or my day turns a dangerous shade of taupe. This scares me. There you have it. To the other, as my Auntie Mame says, not making a choice is making a choice. So rather than choose to wait and hope a world-renowned publisher dons a black ski mask and breaks into my home with the sole intent of hacking into my computer and downloading my journals in his or her latest bid to discover the next great thing, I choose this.

I feel like I'm at a very crowded party talking to myself. Crazy girl mumbling nonsense in the corner. No cell phone in sight so I can fake sane. So be it. I'm here.