egg in spoon

why?

2004-08-11T22:37:00.001-05:00

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?"

guitar hero

2007-12-27T13:51:00.000-05:00

Me: I want to get the kids Guitar Hero for Christmas.

Corinne: No, no… I don't want you doing that. It's too expensive.

Me: It isn't! I found it online for like $89. Of course, we'll see what we get. This version of Guitar Hero will only come with half a guitar or something.

Corinne: Yeah, not so much Guitar Hero. More like Guitar Not-A-Bad-Guy.

do you have cheeken?

2007-11-28T15:23:00.000-05:00

Hola Peeple of the World!

Eet is I! Fred! (Or as you say in your country, Fred!) My girl (her's name ees Jeel) ees no good for the writing thees days so I am here on the blogger to tell you about my advaintures. For I have them many and they will to interest you very much I theenk.

So anyway. Do you know about thees thing called the bath? Eet is horrible. Eet no make my tail to wag. Eet is unpredictable like the cheeken, but in the no bueno way.

Eet is so bad I am having the difficulty to write about it.* Entiendo? But I must purge. Like the Romans. Eet is the only way and the reason I eat the grass. (I like the grass very much. Do you like the grass? Tell me.)

So anyway, one day I am asleeping on the beeg bed, dreaming of my luffer Dante and how him and me chase our balls. How we run and run and run to the bedroom and then to the leaving room and then to the bedroom and then to the leaving room and how him bites at me's balls and me bites at him's balls and how we bark and then we sleep. I am dreaming thees wonderful dream and then I am waked up! I am taked to the place weeth the water! Oh, how I hate the water and eets wetness! And my girl she puts the water on me and makes eet to go all over my body! And eet is mas terrible! (Eet ees terrible for anyway, but more because I theenk she love me and yet...thees. Am I fool?, I theenk.)

And then for worse, she rubs my body with the wetness! There ees much rubbing of all my places. And I no like. For normal, I like the rubbing. But the wetness makes me to forget. The wetness makes me to forget everything! I forget my luffer! I forget hims balls! I forget the cheeken, even! ...

...

...

Noooo! I tells you joke! You are fooled! I can never to forget the cheeken! Seely blogger person.

Anyway.

...

Oh, but me's dignity! Me's pride! Ees forgot. I am shames to tells you, but I shake. With muy fuerte, I shake. Like the time I come face to face with my nemesis, the fearsome Baloo. Him ees cat. But him ees not normal cat. Him ees ninja cat. (I save that story for another day.) But like that, I shake.

Then there ees a beeg rubbing weeth the towel. This ees not so bad. And then in a sudden... I am free! I am free! And I run!

And I rub my belly on the carpet!

And I run!

And I rub my back on the couch!

And I hear "NO FRED!" But I am no care!

I run!

And I make the beeg leap onto the beeg bed and I rub!

I am an ecstasy of the rubbing!

And I hear "FRED, NO!!"

But I am steel no care! For I am free! And the wetness, eet is destroyed!

So anyway. That ees all.

Hasta luego!

* Also because I have only the paws and no thumbs. You no appreciate your thumbs enough. Try to blogger weethout them. Just to try.

p.s. You send cheeken now?

a discourse most dramatic

2005-11-27T16:58:00.000-05:00

It's most difficult to feel sorry for oneself when one continues to receive missives from India about the legions of one-armed beggars who inhabit villages built of nothing but reclaimed tin and recycled tires. But, then again, I'm nothing if not persistent. -- me, November, 23 2005.

* * *
[Lights up on Jill in full formal dress circa turn of the century (not this one, the last one) complete with white gloves and hair piled on top of head and falling around her face in ringlets, backstage at a hole-in-the-wall theatre. Jill sits at a vanity. . . being vain. Lipstick applied in bright strokes, cheeks rouged in harsh circles on pale skin -- addressing the audience through the mirror.]

I could recount for you all the disappointments of my life, tick off each little prick of sadness and loss, but even I know they wouldn't fill a teaspoon. [Grand sigh.] Yet there are days that those lead droplets are the very air I breath. Fetid. Suffocating. And rotting my flesh, starting in the very marrow of my bones and working outward to my skin. And I must say that I'm thoroughly exhausted by the environment. Simply, tired. So tired of carrying these heavy molecules and letting them define my being. Of allowing them to direct the nature of my path, to command the tread of my foot on the way.

[Turning in chair to face out.]

Yes, everyone has a story. And mine, my story, if it had a title, would be called. . .

[Standing.]

"Days of Disappointment, a Disenchanted Memoir!"

[Single spot on Jill as she falls into a deep and ever-so-tragic curtsy.]

[Fade to black.]

[A moment later, lights up, Jill paces the room.]

I can blame genetics, of course. J for Joy not necessarily a letter common in the familial DNA. [All anachronisms intentional thankyouverymuch.]

Also, if I wish, I may claim only-child-dissatisfaction.

[Wrist to furrowed brow, full front to audience.]

I was once the only one, the one and only! The sun never did rise, but at my whim! Nor did it set, but for my permission!

[Dropping posture.]

But that would be a lie. [stage whisper aside] Though my cousins, normally delightful people that they are, might disagree.

Ah, I can always blame Texas. Which as many of you know, is my wont, because living in Lubbock, Texas was a tragedy from which I may well never recover.

[Carefully plucked eyebrow arched expertly.]

Truly.

Though, I suppose, in my most honest moments, even I must admit, without Texas there would not have been a Mrs. Garrett (only the greatest English teacher ever to wield chalk in defense of the Bard) and . . .

[Holding up a sheaf of papers.]

. . . without Mrs. Garrett, there would not have been these words on these pages from which I speak!

And for this, this outlet. . .

[Dramatic pause to wring white-gloved hands.]

. . . I am ever so grateful, even if I, if I am the only one!

[Head bowed dramatically. Quick look to see if anyone's noticed. No one has.]

Please, please. . . no protestations!

[Nervous, self-conscious smile hidden behind an artfully unfurled fan.]

No! I write because I must and though I am nothing if not eternally grateful for the adoration, I write not for the cheer of my most beloved admirers, but only because I am compelled to do so unto death. I will write until the Reaper takes me in his gentle grasp and gives me to the worms that they may eat my flesh, hungry substitutes for the disappointment which nibbles my most tender parts in life.

[Deep bow, once again. Lights to black.]

* * *
Okay, this exercise has become almost as exhausting as the alluded to disappointment. Have we got the point yet?

When I was little, in my more monstrous moments my grandfather would call me Sarah Bernhardt. At the time, I had no idea who this woman was, but I didn't like the name or the lack of sympathy it bespoke. But, as I mentioned, I'm nothing if not persistent. I'm still a dramatic baby, just not quite so vocally as before. My theatrics, these days, are mostly for an audience of one, and even Fred tires of them quickly.

Therefore, I'm determined that 2006 -- for my purposes, beginning right . . . now -- will be different. My disappointments, what there are, have been allowed to grow in my imagination in extreme disproportion to reality. And on those vast fields, I've planted seeds that will die before they even see the light of da. . . .

Oops. Sorry. Having a hard time changing stylistic gears.

Here it is. Lately, my tendency has been to imagine myself a grand flop, who by life's end has managed to achieve nothing. No career success. No relationship success. No financial success. No social success. Forget success. The phrase I'm looking for is utter catastrophe. I am old, childless, dogless -- abjectly alone in a nursing home that I can't pay for and so they toss me out to live under a bridge, but the bridge is occupied and so I take to the gutter where even the rats dislike me. My nails are dirty. My hair is dank. My teeth have all fallen out. And I tell fresh-faced social workers my tale of woe. . . I could have been great, but I went to the wrong college. . . had my heart broken. . . lost my dental plan. . . missed my calling . . . .

It's the calling part that always gets me. All this talk of purpose and goals and drive. You know what? I don't have it. That indecipherable It. And is that so bad? I've hung everything on the hook of that ephemeral noun and watched It fail me time and time again. Some things we're born with and this Thing is something with which I simply wasn't.

And then today I woke up and had a thought. What if none of It matters? What if I don't have to have a purpose? What if I don't need a specific reason for being? What if I don't need a five-, ten-, fifteen-year-plan to be at peace with the world? What if what and who I am at this very moment is enough? And if it is, then why in heaven's name am I not having more fun? What if, maybe, just maybe, instead of purpose leading satisfaction, it's satisfaction that leads purpose?

As my Aunt Patricia tends to say, I liiiike it.

So 2006 is about having a good time and letting the future take care of itself. Planned and spontaneous vacations. At least one philanthropic trip. Exploring something new just for the sake of trying something new. And doing things I know I enjoy already -- writing, painting, yoga and (God help me) acting even -- because I enjoy them, not because I should be doing them. Not because I think that they'll read well as blips on some imagined resume that will lead to some ring of gold (the book deal, the Oscar, the husband) that I have only ever been able to see in my peripheral vision anyway. The ring of gold that disappears the minute I turn my head. The ring of gold that will be worthless as lead if I don't enjoy the ride in the first place.

Jill and Disappointment exeunt in opposite directions.

watermelons and lingerie

2007-02-20T14:44:00.000-05:00

"It's cold here," I tell my aunt, living in Albany, NY, who's been racing the snow to the ground, armed with nothing more than a shovel and an indefatigable determination, for about a week now.

"Is it eight degrees?" she asks.

"No, not quite," I laugh.

"Then it's not cold," she says.

But it is cold here, for here. And I'm sitting now in the chilly showroom of Discount Tires, the same showroom I've dallied in on three separate occasions over the past month and a half. A nail here, a curb there, another curb.

And as if that isn't enough to get my attention, last week, I thought for a few days that all my possessions -- everything but some pictures, my clothes and bedroom furniture -- abandoned to storage for the past several months had been auctioned. Defaulted payment they said. A glitch in the system it turns out, and not my (de)fault, but regardless. . . stuff gone. And then, to make a long story short, it wasn't. Thankfully. But still. Something is off.

As I wait for the change, acrid smell of new rubber wrinkling my nose, I'm reading E.B. White's "Here is New York." My boss gave it to me for Christmas with a card that read, "To my writer friend." And when I thanked him, he said, "That book will turn you into a writer."

I like the book. I love the card. I love the sentiment and faith behind it. The feeling of being welcomed into the fold. My boss is a writer and one I admire greatly, but if I told him how much his gift means to me, his nose would wrinkle as if stung with sour smells. But still, one day, I might.

The book is one Mr. White wrote one sweltering summer in New York after he'd relinquished his residency and returned for a season as a "transient," a "vagabond," staying at The Lafayette Hotel. His account so specific. Attentive. Rich. ("In the candid light from unshaded bulbs gleam watermelons and lingerie.") Reading it reminded me that being aware is key. And I haven't been.

When I thought my books and tables and glassware were all gone, I kept saying (and for the record, truly believing), "It's only stuff." And then, "Well, I guess now I'm free."

But it didn't feel free. It felt cold. And irresponsible. I don't want to lose what I've spent a decade and more gathering close. And even with all intact -- no love, no life, no stuff lost -- how much richer would I be today, if I'd been attending more carefully to the details?

please don't call the a.s.p.c.a

2007-02-01T17:35:00.000-05:00

I walk out of the coffee shop and over to the bench where I've tethered Fred -- for no more than five minutes and with enough slack on the leash so he can't pretend to hang himself in protest at being left outside and within plain site through floor to ceiling windows so I can see if he tries anyway -- and find him huddled in the lap of a woman I don't know. This complete stranger is shivering in the cold, arms goose-bumped and blue as it seems she's wearing only a short-sleeved shirt despite the forty degree cold. And then I see she does, in fact, have a leather jacket. Only, she's taken it off. And wrapped it around Fred.

leap of logic

2007-02-01T09:02:00.000-05:00

She said, Freud said there are no such things as accidents. Or something like that. But that we'd save that discussion for another day. (We only ever have 45 minutes at a time, and so we must stay on task.)

Regardless, I didn't know we didn't think Freud was a kook. But then I'm always sort of walking into walls in these conversations. Tripping along happily when I'm stopped up short.

I say, "Uhhh. . . " a lot.

And, "I guess?"

And, defensive, defeated, "I don't know." The frustrating part of which is that I think she does know and just isn't telling.

Usually, though, I'm down with that. Not the not telling, but rather the idea of an intentional universe. I can point to specific examples in friendships, in relationships, in jobs, in travel and in blogging even, that feel so wonderfully, specifically un-accidental. Moments and stretches that feel guided, orchestrated in a perfect symphony of synchronicity. Even if Freud agrees.

But what about when I want off the hook? It's only spilled milk, right? No latent anger there. No hidden sadness. No frustration made manifest. Just milk on the ground.

Can't we leave it at that?

And then this.

Lately, my most concrete acts of good-citizenry are met with bizarro karma.

I help a stranger at the bookstore jump her car.

A few days later, I get a flat tire.

I help a friend jump his car.

A few days later, I get another flat tire.

Yesterday, another friend calls, stranded with a dead battery and could I swing by to help. Of course I oblige, because what am I going to say? The universe says I'm not allowed?

Tires fat with air, I worry them and the meaning of this circle. Am I creating something? Do I mitigate healthy pride with misery? Or can it just be spilled milk?

You know, I just don't know.

once again, into the breach

2007-01-30T16:38:00.000-05:00

Don't ask me why I've been gone, because I don't really know. But I am, I'll say, trying to figure it out. Paying good money (you'd gasp if I told you the sum), to discover why it is I haven't been:

Writing or sleeping or journaling or playing.

Yoga-ing or reading or traveling or praying.

Competing or painting or dating or styling.

Crying or loving or falling or flying.

Or. . . or . . . or . . . or . . .

The ings that aren't are infinite.

But what's money for, if not to invest? And so I consider it a down payment on life. Independent study. A graduate degree in me that -- who knows? -- might lead to the kind that's made of ink and sheep. And better goodness done in the world. And even more bank to bank when I finally learn to ask for what I'm supposedly worth and not settle for the tuppence I think I am today.

You follow?

I barely do, but I've never been so happily confused in my life. Having been miserably confused, I know the difference.

It's called hope.

I've started praying again. And that's a step. There's been a fair share of crying. Which I hate and love and love and hate and hate and love and love and hate . . . . And now, defacto, here I write.

So I suppose there's some progress already. It's not money flushed.

And then today the good doctor said, "If I were you, I'd be writing every day."

And I thought, if you were me, you very obviously wouldn't, because that's not what me does.

So I can only guess that what she really meant is that if I were her being me I'd be writing every day.

In other words, I should be writing every day.

It was more of a quiet dare than I concrete assignment. Or maybe it wasn't even that. I do tend to read unnecessarily vast volumes between other people's lines.

But still. . . I'm going to give it a whirl and we'll just see who wins.

fred out of the box

2006-12-04T07:50:00.000-05:00

Cheeken?

¿Qué? What mean you, "No cheeken?"

I spell eet out for you, "I WANT THE CHEEKEN!!!!"

My lawyer say, "No cheeken, no peectures."

Aind right now? I deeslike being made to wear thees sweater. Eentensly.

in absentia

2006-10-10T17:41:00.000-05:00

The writing assignments call for moths, limbs and blood and I think I should join the fray, but, today, I have no story. Neither today nor in recent memory. In fact, I'm vaguely surprised by the words deeper in and down below, curious about the person who wrote them, because it certainly isn't the me of the here and the now. I can barely fathom an interest in creating language and am formulating a grand plan wherein I co-opt someone else's words for mine very own.

You see, I've got carpal tunnel and in the meantime find my feet itch to tread boards and hit marks again. To let trip words not of my making and better. To surf tsunamis of emotion under lights, minus the post-mood-pangs and apologies that come with kitchen table rages.

So I'm imagining it into being -- you feel me?

A reformed realist, my glass overflows.

But, alas, not so much my blog.

Still, Amazon just sent me a camera and there will be pictures of mostly Fred (I'm sure) to amuse you soon.

So hang in until after Monday. I'm off to Colorado tomorrow and will be back refreshed and hopefully with stories.

Much love chickidees. . .

branch management

2006-09-20T06:43:00.000-05:00

My cousin Corinne and her husband have worked for the same company for some time now, she as a designer and he as a branch manager. Due to a recent promotion, however, (yay!!) Corinne is now a branch manager, too.

"Does that mean you're on the same level now?"

"Well, yes and no. He manages a big showroom with several designers and a whole warehouse full of burly guys and I'll be managing a small boutique store that his branch helps stock. So while we both oversee our own branches, it's like I have one little leaf he has. . . a tire swing."

no effing wonder

2006-06-25T11:07:00.000-05:00

A friend tells me she's reading a book that after weeks and weeks and months and months she still can't quite finish and she can't quite figure out why.

"Really? What's it called?"

"Oh, it's this book called Boredom."

"Hm. And that's not a page-turner? Shocker."

do i dare to eat a peach?

2006-07-03T20:17:00.000-05:00

In the months after the tape popped from the seams of her already poorly patched and clumsily reassembled heart, she lost ten pounds from sorrow.

"You're so thin," she heard like a mantra. Manna she couldn't quite choke down.

"Yeah, well, you know what they say about fat and happy, right?" A smirk-smile. "I'm not."

She could never work out why no one laughed. But then, she always liked the sound of nails on a chalkboard, too.

And when she'd call home to cry of Man's Great Imperfections, her mother would only sigh, "Oh, honey, we all have feet of clay."

She mm-hmmed in agreement, yet feared her own were, more likely, made of lead. And though every night she'd fall asleep with prayers for the gift of alchemy on her lips, each morning upon turning back the covers, she'd still find the same heavy grey lumps sinking resolutely into the mattress.

It made her cranky.

What man wants a lead-footed girl, she'd wonder. What job for a woman with immovable feet? How could God curse her with the desire for flight and at the same time such clearly effective anchors? All her hot air was ever for naught.

Her sleep marred by dreams of sharks and sandbags, sometimes she'd lie awake on her bed, cumbersome feet flopped outward, painfully twisting the tendons attached to her knees, and watch the ceiling fan spin, her eye never able to catch up with the whirl for more than a second.

And months begot years and she grew thinner and thinner.

. . . an egg under a heat lamp, albumen in clear relief . . .

. . . a tobacco leaf drying in the sun . . .

. . . a tooth or a white plastic spork . . .

. . . a jellyfish . . .

. . . Depression Glass in amber . . .

. . . a toenail . . .

. . . a smear of Vaseline . . .

And then one day all that was left were the feet, planted where she left them in the corner of my room. They make excellent doorstops.

I don't know her name and Fred, who knew her, can't remember it. But he says her epitaph read something like: She was remarkably well-grounded.

* * *

With Amy Hempel and Kate Atkinson in the back of my mind.
Title from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot.

don't need jack

2005-11-03T08:30:00.000-05:00

The t-shirt reads: DON'T NEED JACK. A joke. A gift. A joke-gift, thwarted by my over-critical thinking skillz, yo.

I mean, I get it. (My name is Jill.) And it's a cool shirt, cap sleeved and my favorite shade of green. But it seems a tad off-putting, don't you think? Who's-that-angry-girl-in-the-green-t-shirt antagonistic, you know?

Is that what my friends think of me? I need a new outlook. I should smile more and learn to snowboard. Get laid and donate those old shoes to the homeless.

And a lie.

I do want a jack eventually. Eventually, inevitably drawing closer by the day. One hopes. Or rather, one hopes without hoping, because as we all know, hope is like roach spray to the men we meet.

Man spray.

Man Ray.

Life surreal.

And I most certainly want more jack-in-the-bank so I can buy a new television that doesn't go bzzipfft and switch itself off in the middle of a compelling meltdown on Trading Spouses. (I only watched it that once, I swear.)

Plus, I've had a jack or two in my life, some more important than others. And while I don't know that I need(ed) them -- I'm still here, aren't I? At least whole of body. -- some of them I wouldn't mind having back.

Want. Want. Want.

Want the subtext that no one would read. But I would and that. . . well that just seems desperate. Unless, of course, I wear it ironically.

How do you accessorize for irony?

And now I'm not sure if I should or shouldn't wear the shirt. Thing is, it's really cute. And it is funny. But tell me, do you think the universe would get the joke?

netflix are the devil

2006-09-02T18:23:00.001-05:00

The man who makes my eggs in the morning came from around the counter yesterday, snuck up behind me and whispered in my ear that I wasn't the only one concerned about the high price of bacon. It wasn't the inappropriate act of intimacy that shocked me, so much as the realization in the moment that it had been so very long since a man had whispered anything to me at all.

I Must.

Absolutely.

Get out.

More often.

smile

2006-08-29T06:52:00.000-05:00

A father and his eight-year-old daughter -- both bespectacled and be-helmeted, with kneepads and elbow pads and backpacks -- out for a Sunday afternoon ride, wait at the corner for the light to change as they balance effortlessly on their unicycles.

the whore moans, y'all

2006-08-25T06:33:00.000-05:00

Monday. A delicious paraffin wax hand dip with parking karma you wouldn't believe.

Tuesday. The nap you can't have.

Wednesday. The hot, sick and headache of the nap too long indulged.

Thursday. A violent scribble in black ballpoint, the paper DESTROYED!

Thursday Night. The purple sore jaw and swagger of Fight Club.

Right now. Just the bruise.

* * *

I'll be the one this weekend buried to my neck in down and eating ice cream for breakfast.

Pray for rain.

And that the Netflix arrive -- please God -- on time.

Hola, Peeple of the World!

2006-08-10T06:21:00.000-05:00

Jeel, she ees taking nop now and so I write you on the blogger. She no let me write when she awake and I want to tell you 'bout an advainture I have weeth my luffer Pichu-Pichu. Pichu, he ees of the Jock Russell type, so he ees. . . how you say? Craysees? He ees very loco. Especialmente weeth the balls. He luffs him balls. He want to visit Machu-Piccu cause him name ees close to same, but I no like hammocks with the back and the forth and the back and the forth. Theenk about it.

So, now I tell you. I was weeth my Pichu and we were nopping on the beeg bed, and there was, how you say? A beeg noise! Muy alto! The thunder! I think maybe. Or maybe the front door, Eet opens! Or maybe the garbage man, He there! Or maybe the gun, Eet shoots! Or maybe the vacuum cleaner, Eet attacks! Oh, how we hate the beeg noises, my luffer Pichu and me! Whatever they are! I tell you, eet no matters us. We bark.

We bark so to destroy the beeg noise!

And we bark! And we bark! And we bark! And we bark! And we bark! And we bark! (No human peeple to say us, "NO!" and "STOP!") And so we bark! And we bark! And we bark! And then I lose my luffer Pichu! In my barking, I run to attack the beeg noise from under the beeg bed and my Pichu, I no know where he goes! And the beeg noise, it goes away and Pichu ees nowhere I can see from under the bed. And so I sleep, because you know barking at the beeg noises makes a chi-chi to sleep much. And then I wake and Pichu, he ees there! On top of the bed! He is very brave, my luffer Pichu. And I am happy he is live and so I dance!

So anyway, that ees all.

Eet has been nice talking you.

Besos de lingua,
Fred

P.S. Do you have cheecken? Send me, (but no tell Jeel):

Fred
Under Beeg Bed
Atlanta

Photo of me and my luffer Pichu taken by Audra.

on the wax

2006-06-11T19:15:00.000-05:00

It's a play in an outdoor amphitheatre, reminiscent of Shakespeare, but older. Twelfth century tragedy. Cuckolded and eventually murdered husband. Star-crossed lover/killers tortured by their crime. Comic fools who posture, growl and arrrrgh like pirates. Minimalist set: two chairs, shared props, red scarves to indicate blood, some Christmas lights and the dinner plate moon for illumination. Community theatre, a little loose around the edges, but endearingly entertaining. Fred doesn't suffer fools and so snaps at their ankles as they pass through the aisles. One arrrrghs at him and he barks in protest. The audience laughs. The troupe passes a basket during intermission, like church, and the small crowd pulls crumpled bills from pockets and purses in solidarity with the players. This night we play Medicis to their thespian gypsies. Their art is ours.

After, we go to a local bar and sit down with a friend and two strangers, girls our friend met by happenstance. Sometimes beer just tastes better in company. Shots less sad when shared.

One of the stranger-girls has a knee brace and announces her name is Shannon, or Tristan or Trouble or Crazy or Crazy Trouble. Crazy Trouble would leave her exes in peace if she could, but they keep taking her to court. She was humiliated on the Judge Joe Brown show, she says. He ruled against her, but gave her three hundred dollars to appear, put her up in a swank L.A. hotel and even paid the penalty to the ex who won the "suit." But she was still humiliated and drank a half bottle of Jäger (from a pump bottle no less) to dull the sting. Passed out on the rooftop of that swank hotel. You can still see her episode in syndication if you want. The most popular episode of the last half-year. But she doesn't want to brag.

The knee brace she says, is just for security. She doesn't really need it for drinking. Usually, she's got on thigh-high boots so you can't see it. I think of the comic-fool-pirates from an hour ago. She would make a good addition to the cast just playing herself. She enumerates the series of accidents that make the brace a must and then says she wraps herself around a pole. I wonder at the present tense, imagining her having crashed a motorcycle or maybe even a hot air balloon. But then she adds, two times a week. She's the Pride of the South Side, she says. A dancer at the Crazy Horse. Trouble, indeed. But I bet you can hear her laugh all the way from Texas.

It's tough for the stranger-girls to leave. There's confusion about the bill. We don't mind, we say. We'll happily cover you if you're short. You were good company, at least worth a drink or two. Go enjoy your night. No worries. But Rhianna (stranger-girl two) is distraught and can't let go. Trouble, outside the fence by now, balances on the lower beam of the railing and leans in toward us smiling and rolling her eyes at her friend's distress. Her keys, tied to a shoestring, swing from her neck -- a latchkey stripper. Pippi Longstocking grown up and gone awry. After many, many minutes they go. They're walking home and I think I hadn't given them enough credit.

The friend is really a friend of a friend and he's glad to see us. He's soaring on life, only weighed down by the anchor of a broken heart. Life is rarely perfect. Often a disappointment. But he has dreams of bigger things and smaller things and ultimately richer things, so even in this very real and present sadness, his confidence is palpable, even if he's selling it to sell it to himself. Still, one doesn't need tarot cards or tea leaves to scry his future success. He's just one of those guys who will be. Whose will, will be.

By now, my eyes scratchy with pollen, are too itchy for me to sit longer or go anywhere else but home. But I'm going home to my new bower bedroom, saturated with bigmoonlight, airy and clean and high above the street. A perfect vantage for Fred to bark at passing fools. A place where I can rest easy. So I don't mind going home tonight. A day full behind me and life, in this wee hour of tomorrow, waxing bright. I don't mind at all.

* * *
Hat tip to Chuck Palahniuk for style.

friendly neighbor

2006-06-28T20:33:00.000-05:00

Some inappropriate-for-work entertainment for you via YouTube courtesy of your Friendly Neighbor and mine. But don't let that stop you. Just close your door. Turn down your speakers. And prepare to experience the wonder that is Chris Cox. And HAY the laughter. And oh yes, the horror, the wonderful horror that is the Redneck Vampire. They are who they are. And I love these people more than I can express in words. Truth.

The write-up: Award winning Atlanta based filmmakers exploit mankind for the sake of a hearty laugh on FNTV.

The love: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=FriendlyNeighbor

This score of films past will keep you busy for a bit. I've been told new ones will arrive shortly.

Enjoy!

notes on the next life

2005-07-01T12:48:00.000-05:00

This week, in my next life, I want to be the girl at the coffee shop with the boy's name. In this life -- because I'm working on attainable goals -- I'd at least like her verve.

The part of me that's always been an old woman thinks that she may one day regret the cave drawing tattoo that runs the length of her left arm, though perhaps not the more delicate star on her upper right. The star that sits a few inches under a scab on her shoulder, the one she acquired after flying heels over handlebars a couple weeks ago, the one that matches the oval on her chin from the same flight. Or rather, the same crash landing. My inner poorly-permed and chubby thirteen-year-old thinks she's the most fearsome thing she's ever seen and yet can't stop looking. The now-me admires the bear hug she has on the moment, and then immediately regrets the use of the term "bear hug" because it's so grotesquely not the right image.

Last year, her hair was dreaded and blonde. Last week, it was as if a band of meth-crazed fairies had attacked it with pinking shears. Today, it's tucked away under a hat my grandmother would have worn, but she's now acquired a silver grill across the front of her lower teeth and when she smiles a pirate's tooth winks from one of her upper bicuspids.

Something old, something new. And just for the hell of it.

It seems to be all about balance.

Regularly, she takes to the park with a troupe of acrobatic poets who protest the war in Iraq by stacking themselves precariously on the fingertips, shoulders and kneecaps of their compatriots while reciting verse. I've never had the heart to tell them that their tights distract from their message. Color me callow.

She's been to West Africa to help the sick and shares the story without even the faintest breath of a whiff of self-congratulation.

She confesses to a dairy allergy and yet states, "But, you know, I don't have a need to be lactose intolerant."

She's given away the dress she wore to meet the Dali Lama and and admits regret, but sees it as a lesson in detachment.

She tells me that she thinks a group of us once met up at a show, but I don't remember the music she says we saw and I feel plainer for the experience I never banked. (Then again, maybe she's mistaken. And that would be unfortunate, too.)

Conversations with her, over the counter at the coffee shop, feel like really fabulous, but itchy clothes and sometimes, I can't quite hear her and I wonder if she's just a slice off from this physical dimension. A dimension in which I, too, have a nose piercing.

So I'll take her verve. And her seeming fearlessness. Her need to be no one but herself.

But, really, in my next life, I'd also like to be Latin.

flowers of apology & dogged lies

2006-04-01T16:08:00.000-05:00

Thank you all for your concern. It's nice to know that in a pinch I could email any of you to call 911.

Which is a good thing to know, because the saga continues. . . .

The next night Robin and JD knocked on my door bearing flowers, apologies and excuses: Robin is on medication and really shouldn't have been drinking, but it was his birthday and so, you know. . . .

Yes, I do. And Fred does. And so do the police, the neighborhood and now, the blogosphere. We all know.

The flowers are pretty, but as predicted, they have outlived the peace, because the very next Monday there was a repeat of the yellingbangingslammingscreaming, though this time at 2 a.m. and thankfully, not on my door, which is the only reason I didn't repeat my call the police.

When I saw JD the next night, I asked if Robin had celebrated another birthday.

What?

The yellingbangingslammingscreaming?

Huh? Oh! No, that was me and my friends.

Mm-hmm. (Me, purse-lipped and eyebrow raised.) As it turned out -- Can you believe it? -- dogs chased JD and his friends down the street as they were coming home from the bar. Dogs! Big, mean, dogs, with snarly mouths and wicked teeth and generally unpleasant dispositions. Robin wasn't even with them.

A few hours later, I saw Robin, beaten and scabbed up like he'd run into a brick wall with his face, which is precisely what he said he'd done (highly possible, possibly doubtful), and he apologized again -- not for the ruckus after the run from the dogs (because, of course, the dogs don't exist anywhere but in JD's convoluted fabric of lies which he thinks I actually believe, not that Robin was there anyway), but for the demons that haunt him and cause him to drink and then subsequently stumble face-first into walls thereafter to be followed by the yellingbangingslamingscreaming -- a feeble exercise in exorcism. He just can't help it. But this last bout was a sign from God, he said. He can't drink, he said. He knows that now.

Apparently, everyday is a birthday for Robin.

And apparently, God's being free and easy with the signs, but as with all things God, the meaning is left wide open to interpretation.

I see the signs, too. And my signs say to meet with a real estate agent. This week.

\Ope\, v. t & i.

To open.

Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know What rainbows teach and sunsets show? [Poetic] -- Emerson.

Jill! Jill! Ope! Ope the door! [Inebriated] -- Robin.

(dictionary.com)

a knock, knock, knocking on my chamber door

2006-03-21T05:17:00.000-05:00

The house is a wreck and I've just called the cops.

crapcrapcrap.

I knew I should have cleaned this weekend, but there were those two parties and all that napping to get done and now I have less than three minutes to sweep through the entire house, kick my clothes into the closet and stuff them into drawers, shove the mail and assorted stacks of papers blown by some unknown wind to the four corners of my house into some semblance of a stack, toss dishes (neatly) into the sink and move the bathroom cabinet back into the bathroom where it belongs instead of where it's been (in the hallway) since the last time I mopped the bathroom floor.

Fred's duck, a huge stuffed toy the size of a three year old child, is lying face down on the living room floor, bits of fluff strewn around him like a bizarro CSI shooting victim and it just somehow seems wrong. So I throw him (the duck) over the couch feeling criminal in the process (evidence tampering) and as I do, catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and realize that my bangs are doing a better than fair impression of Cameron Diaz's coiffeur from There's Something About Mary. Crap. Is it an inappropriate reaction to reach for hair gel in a crisis? Do I have time for a quick blow dry?

The cop is ridiculously attractive. Of course. The gel didn't take. Of course. And Fred is barking his head off. Of course. My feet are freezing in flip flops and I've got that nervous dry mouth thing from trying to keep my facts straight, clear and simple while unsuccessfully navigating the zipper on my sweater (silently cursing myself for not sleeping in a bra. . .think ahead Jill!) and managing a maniacal Chihuahua mix who really doesn't like people in hats - even nice, good-looking police officers in hats. He doesn't like hats like he doesn't like doors that bang in the night (or at any hour, really) and so Fred's having a bad go of it, because it was the repeated and very loud banging of a door that woke us. Which is just what I was telling Officer Adorable.

He just kept saying, "Jill, Jill! We need to ope. Ope!"

And I said, "I'm not opening the door, Robin! (Robin, in a nutshell, is my new duplex mate -- who may or may not have once been a woman -- who lives with this big burly dude named J.D. who owns his own carpet cleaning company. Maybe. Upon meeting me, J.D., in practically the same breath, a) asked if I knew anyone with a truck to help him move his bed from his old place and b) generously offered me a gig cleaning carpets over the weekends if I ever needed extra cash. To which, because I'm a nice person, I didn't suggest that he clean an extra carpet or two himself so he could afford to rent his own truck, and instead declined with a thank you on both counts.)

And he kept saying,"Jill, ope!"

So I said, "Do I need to call someone?"

And he said. . . I think he said yes. And I said, "Do I need to call the cops?" and I . . . I'm not sure what he said, but I said, "I'm calling the cops." And all the while I'm talking, my sweater still won't zip and I think there's a coffee stain on the shirt underneath and Fred is barking barking barking at the very cute cop and I'm thinking, please don't come into my house.

He doesn't.

But then I feel cheated. I mean, I did all that cleaning. Also, it seems somehow not very thorough. Aren't they supposed to take a look around? Bear witness to the thinness of my walls and the sturdiness of my doors and write it up in a report that gets filed and ultimately ignored? Are my feelings of no importance here?

Anyway, as it turns out, Robin was just very drunk and just very badly needed my attention at four in the morning and thought the best way to get it was to slam my screen door over and over and over again until I woke up to come have a chat. That's the story I'm telling myself, anyway. Either that or he was having a stroke. (We aren't, at this time fielding any contradictory scenarios for this early morning incident that might suggest a lover's spat or some real psychological difficulties on the part of my new neighbors, thank you for your concern. I have to live here and denial is my friend.)

In the end, Officer Adorable banged on Robin's door to tell him to stop banging on my door. Robin stuttered, mumbled and slurred that hadn't done anything. Officer Adorable told him that he should stop doing nothing then and then he left. Cute, but not so helpful. And that is that.

Anyway, if only for the sake of Fred's nerves, it really may be time to move.

But then that would mean I'd really have to clean. So I'm weighing my options.

hamster head - 1998

2005-07-28T22:45:00.000-05:00

She dreamed last night of riding elephants through an ocean Crayola Blue and this morning she wonders what it means. If it even means anything. She's sure there must be some significance. Or at least she hopes. Because the hamster in her head, away for a while is back and running his wheel incessantly. She wants him to stop and sleep and dream hamster dreams and leave her some silence for productive production. As it is, she runs with him, counting her steps. She truly hates the running, the tedious jogging. Cages, too.

The same song flusters, dissonant through her, through her day. All day. And the next. And for countless following weeks. She's fearful of the years it could play, that the hamster will run Everready steady. (Is this how people go insane?) She'd prefer apathy and has attempted aromatherapy most recently to assuage the rodent. To sooth him. But it doesn't seem to work.

She likes the word, "sooth" rolling smooth through the mouth, aloe gel on sun-scorched skin. Remembers her mother's small hands sliding slick across her back to cool the burn after a day at the beach. She'd fogotten the SPF. Left it back on land next to the lemonade. Even after being reminded. Her own folly, but waves waved and she was scared she'd miss the big one. She's always been a bit single-minded.

The constant screech and click tip her off that something's amiss and so she searches, swimming through wax-drawn seas and in big bowls of alphabet soup, makes love to vice-presidents and has tea with her dead grandmothers. Sometimes she can't remember with whom she did exactly what and then she worries, because she's sure there's a point. Or at least she hopes.

limbo

2006-04-22T00:13:00.000-05:00

For those of you who don't know, I'm writing from limbo. I'm homeless -- the situation with the door-banging neighbors (I'm sorry, referenced posts removed) having become untenable -- but certainly not friendless. Not friendless by far. In fact, I've got a surfeit of friends who without discussion have offered the same line over and over, "I have a spare room. Come stay with me. As long as you like." It's overwhelming and wonderful, all this love directed at me. So much so, I whistled today on my way into work, much I might add, to the amusement of my boss.

"What's wrong with you?" he wanted to know.

"I don't know," I said. "I'm happy?"

And all day long. "Did you hear Jill whistling this morning? I think there's something wrong with her."

What he doesn't know, what I didn't know, is that I may have been lonely. Not sad lonely, but isolated in my own thing a bit lonely, leaving cabinets perennially open, shoes in the middle of the hall and the bed always unmade. Because who cares, right? A dinner of cereal from the box is a fine meal. Or so I thought.

But right now I'm living with two good friends who have dinner ready when I get home, space for Fred on their couch, post work conversation to spare and room in their Sunday wash for a few of my whites. My life has improved drastically in limbo and I'm having a hard time finding the motivation to leave.

But here's what I know: I'm open. In this uncertain space, I feel the freedom to wait. The right situation will present itself. The most-best decision will be an easy one. And I will land on my feet in a better place than I could have ever fathomed for myself. It's all in God's hands and that has ever been the most comfortable spot of all.

In the meantime, Rikki is making her grandmother's soup for dinner. Audra and Satchel have a bed to spare. Esther's promised a weekend of wine and laughter. Molly and Cara and Monica can't say enough about their extra rooms while Betsy ups the ante with a pool and Pamela keeps stressing that her fish needs a sitter.

If you haven't ever been to limbo, I highly recommend it. No passport required. Traveling companions, a must. Itinerary? Pleasantly undetermined.

Night, y'all!