they say i'm great at first, but then the magic fades into an awful hue of dismal views and pessimistic attitudes...

it doesn't seem fair. now, i hope i'm not "betraying the sisterhood" or setting back the feminist movement's efforts or anything (david...remember what i said about tainting. DON'T), but there is at least one arena in which women receive preferential treatment. ready...?

...in the world of the "romantic" (as usual, the quotes are not accidental. my, my, my, SOMEONE is feeling cynical again today!) more specifically, heartbreak.

you see, when a woman gets her heart broken...wait...when a woman's heart breaks (let us not assume to know who or what is responsible here. stay calm), she gets to wade and slog her way through a whole spectrum of emotional gack.

a woman gets to indulge in sadness. she gets to cry, and not just cry, but WAIL and sob and HUC-HUC-HUC as her breath hitches in her chest because she just cannot get enough oxygen in. she is suffocating from the amount of sadness compressing her lungs. nobody judges her for this, in fact, people gather around her and hold her gently and support her suddenly infant-heavy head and ease her back and forth and tell her, "shhhhh...shhhhh...it's going to be okay" until it IS okay.

a woman has at her disposal myriad responses, all appropriate, all which will illicit sympathy, and all carry the potential of a ring of sisters, female friends, and "female friends" (and by that i mean gay, male sistahs), each waiting to nod and scowl and purse lips and say, "mmm'hmm. i KNEW he was not good enough for you, gurrrrrl." there is solidarity in their schadenfreude, and even as they click their tongues in disapproval, she lets go of her grip on the poison swirling in her chest and the sadness becomes anger. of COURSE he's not good enough for her.

a woman gets to enjoy the movie montage of self-reinvention. the soundtrack will probably be chaka khan or gloria gaynor sheryl-fucking-crow or something equally grotesque. she gets to "rediscover" how amazing she is by launching into an exercise regimen or creating some kind of new physical appearance via clothes or makeup or a drastic haircut. this is part faux "phoenix rising from the ashes" crap and part "just LOOK what he lost!! tsk! tsk!" again, nobody judges her for this. in fact, they gather around her and congratulate her on "how brave" she is being and "how strong" she is. they even tell her how beautiful she looks, and how "he'll regret it someday." the whole world applauds her efforts to move and on and cheers when she finds someone new...all of which she deserves. i am certainly not begrudging the emotionally destroyed this plastic surgery for the soul.

however...

what about a man? a man does not get a forest of arms to hold him up or caress his aching head lovingly. he does not get to bleed the sadness out of his lungs, and heaven forbid he have the need to cry. there are not enough high-fives in the world to redeem the "dude points" he would lose. a man does not get an army of ferocious support to turn the sadness to rage. the best he gets is a friend slapping him on the back and saying, "that chick was SUCH a bitch, dude!" a man does not get to go out and conjure up a new image that will "make her jussssssst DIE with jealousy" when she sees him. raised eyebrows ensue. in fact, most men don't even allow themselves to feel the heartbreak. if they do, they wouldn't DARE let anyone know.

and don't even get me STARTED on the way the world perceives the man who moves on and finds someone else.

today's word of the day is dacryagogue

and now the only piece of advice that continues to help is anyone that's making anything new only breaks something else...

domestic bliss is a misnomer. the two words in conjunction almost NECESSARILY cancel each other out. when one is domestic, one can never be truly blissful. when one is blissful, it seems that domesticity (and domestication) fly out the window (poor idiomatic expression/pun intended). in order to "get shit done", i need to be undomesticated. i spent all day yesterday and part of today cleaning apartment, classroom, car, then self. okay, the "self" got cleaned more than once, seeing as the act of cleaning causes oneself to become ironically dirty...like a never-ending mobeus strip of housework. sigh. the mind reels. i was far from domesticated, arms and scrub brushes flailing scarecrow-like (anyone else hearing "the wizard of oz? "if i only had a ma-a-a-a-a-a-aid!"). my off-key singing always sounds like a screeching, feral yowling that terrifies my pets and neighbors, but it helps me feign the enthusiasm i need to keep my cleaning inertia. did i mention "sigh"?
sigh.
add to that the latest plumbing catastrophe (still drying out the ceiling), the task of replacing batteries in every, single smoke detector (which screamed for attention at 4 a.m. today), AND
the herculean job (LOVELOVELOVE the word "herculean". roll it around your vocal chords for a while...her-KYOO-lee-un) of reorganizing my classroom after two months of blissful neglect, and you have a very tired puppy, indeed.
but, as life is wont to do, negative capability has stepped in and revived me. we got our test scores back...remember the "high stakes" standardized tests that (cough) leave no child behind? (snicker...snickersnicker...snicker) there were the obligatory shuffles, some kids improved, some declined. much of the shifting can be directly attributed to "how the kids were feeling that day".
...honestly.
picture this: he is a gang-banger. he is all bravado as substantial as spun sugar. his swagger enters the room before he does and kicks each desk on the way by. each step is a challenge, scuff, scuff, scuff; he is daring me NOT to be afraid of him. i'm not. he tips his head back, aims his chin downward, and evaluates me down the bridge of his nose. then it comes, "i ain't gon' learn nuffin'. you can't make me", followed by the mother of all preemptive strikes, "besides, i'm dumb anyway."

THERE it is.

i'll spare you all the dangerous minds/lean on me/freedom writers/"IF I CAN JUST REACH THIS ONE KID"-type of psuedo-inspirational film montages. fast forward to the day of the test. same pose--head back, chin down, staring at me over the bridge of his nose as i hand out the tests...he smiles. the upshot? this kid, this self-proclaimed "dummy", this behemoth of enormous self-doubt and tiny rage jumped 40 points in his test scores to land in a new bandwidth. in case you're wondering what this means, the state labels the kids using categories ranging from "far below basic skills" to "proficient" to "exemplary". this kid who has existed in a world "far below basic" has jumped and landed with both gigantic feet in the world of "proficient". sometimes, being told you are "good enough" feels like being told you are unstoppable. i hope he believes me NOW. way to go, kid.

today's word of the day is actually a phrase... coup de maitre.

cold face, carved in stone, amongst friends but all alone. why do you hide?

it's amazing to me that a day can start off in a certain way and end up metaphorically GALAXIES away. yesterday, i was considering magnets...yes, the pieces of iron or other alloys that contain atoms that are ordered to attract like components (you're welcome, michael.) THOSE magnets. in particular, i was thinking about the nature of attraction. take two magnets, one in each hand, and hold them gently between the thumb and the forefinger. notice the pull...that pull when they get close to each other. that pull is what makes them so very remarkable. they have something innate...something intrinsic that pulls them together (holy personification, batman! [holy allusory interjection, english teacher!]). perhaps this is why people like to use the expressions "magnetic personality" and "animal magnetism"--because there is something unexplainable tuggingtuggingtugging from the core. here is where the analogy (hopefully) falls apart, however. if you take those two magnets and move them e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ever so slightly past the point of "attraction", the pull disappears. it's like, if the two parts are not close enough, the attraction doesn't register. this is the way i ALWAYS feel when i leave. every nerve is mousetrap-tense, dreading the longing to return. sigh. a swift turn of the head from rearview mirror to windshield and the feeling goes away little by little. wishing only hurts if you let it. frankly, wishing can kiss my ass.
so...
seven hours of caged, complaining cat (poor moo), halitosis and neck crick-inducing airplane sleep, and a tree-blurring car ride home, and i was SO READY for a shower (the shower in my mother's house feels like a cross between a clogged watering can and a group of evil children spitting on you in unison. hardly satisfying.) imagine my surprise/horror/terror/anguish when, upon hearing the screee-eee-eee of the rusty faucet the line leading the water from drain to shower head EXPLODES, sending the scalding water
directly
into
my
face.
i screeched and made that pblblbththttllppbpbblltthth!!! aack! aack! noise and hand-flapping gestures (because, you know, you can slap water into submission) one makes when confronted a faceful. tres graceful. seriously, you would have thought i was on an episode of "i love lucy". it was too funny to make me terribly angry, though my laughing fit almost drowned me again (IDIOT!)
sigh.
and that, my friends, is how one can go from being in a charles baudelaire poem to being in a charlie chaplin skit in two seconds.

today's word of the day is...clodpate

...you’ve got no time to lose. you are young men, you must be living...go now, you are forgiven...

that was it.

the hard part is finished.

the reasons i worried about being in the car for four days were prioritized badly, and it turned out i didn't need to worry in the first place. boredom, anxiety, navigational woes, not having enough music to properly distract me from the void left behind by the hugs i wasn't able to collect before i left, and fear of pulling up to a tollbooth and being out of money were quickly supplanted by the quick drag of air i took every time some new sight stole my attention from the last one.

i loaded the very last thing that could fit in my car (okay, technically the last thing i fit into the car was myself) and gave the trunk a resounding slam. i hoped this would convey a world more certainty than i suddenly felt about this decision...is second guessing the self a feminine birthright? though i tried, very romantically, to maneuver my departure so i could choose whose was the last face i would see diminishing in my rearview mirror, the last face, arms, scent i wanted to cram into my skull before departure were already at work...i didn't get to do the leaving.

...it didn't work, of course, and the ceremony of the goodbye fell to my family. the tears finally staunched themselves in indiana when the crying and the need to pee pointed the needle towards 'dehydration'. though i am too tired right now, i'm going to record the things i saw that amused me soon. for now, i take comfort in the inhale and exhale of different coastal air, the sense of time-travel gleaned from setting my watch back three hours, and the misguided, yet ABSOLUTE belief that when i breathe in, i can taste the ocean.

finallyfinallyFINALLY.

...i made it.

let's call me a baptist, call this a drowning of the past; she is there on shoreline throwing stones at my back...

jack-o-lantern grinning in front of my computer, i must paint a funny picture right now. i am poised, arms raised and hands curled a la daffy duck as the phantom of the opera, and preparing to allow those hands to descend furiously on the keyboard.
this weekend involved a visit to chicago for lollapalooza, and there was plenty to see, do, and enjoy. i got to see people i haven't seen in years...16, to be exact. i got to visit with some of my favorite people, and spend extensive amounts of time gazing surreptitiously at some of my favorite faces (TOTALLY undetected, of course, because i am a SNEAKY girl).

...but this is not about that.

i feel a visceral joy in music. i drape its layers about my shoulders, dangle each note from my earlobes, and pretend that i am a queen just like i did when i was five. i savor every lyric as it tickles its way into my brain, through my skull, down my throat, and into my belly. when the music is live, both sight and touch are added to the sensory delight. i get to imprint each image onto the inside of my eyelids so that when my eyes roll back into my head, i still get to see them. the muscle of the speakers pummels the sounds through the ground and my sneakers, rattling my bones and teeth. see? visceral.

this show was no exception. many, many, MANY bands played, and each brought something new and delicious. but, oh, frightened rabbit...hhhhheeerrrrrrrmmmmmmmffffff.

consider pain, not a sharp pain, mind you, a dull pain that registers violet like a bruise. now, consider what it feels like when that pain suddenly, and for whatever reason, dissipates. it's more than just the lack of pain that makes you want to smile, it's the relief of all the other things that go along with hurting--tiredness, sadness, and the meanness you sometimes can't help. listening to frightened rabbit reminded me of the first moment when you realize that it doesn't hurt...that everything is going to be okay.

wait...i'm not explaining that well.

listening to their words (and you KNOW that the words are my food, my rest, my armor), feeling the waves of each song through the ground, actually SEEING the faces of the people responsible for creating it AS they are creating it...? how can i explain it? it's like finding an unknown room in your house, but saying to yourself, "of COURSE it has always been here!" but it's better than that. it's like opening the door to that room and finding every blown dandelion, every expired birthday candle, every boxcar, every shooting star, every eye-squinted, fist-clenched, oh-please-oh-please-oh-please wish that was made silently and secretly (and probably sheepishly)...and finding every one of them granted.

THAT is what it is like to watch them play, and i'm glad for the face that was there to see it with me.

today's word of the day is troglodytic.

i miss your broken-china voice. how i wish you were still here with me...

ACCHH...i am an idiot! at least, i have been ACTING like an idiot. i once described the sensation of joy as magnets in my belly, hummingbirds in my head, and bees in my mouth. this fizzyfuzzy buzz induced tizzy always puts greyhounds in my blood too, and OH do i enjoy listening to my pulse at that point. eventually, all the buzzing melds into one low hum all over me. i have ignored that feeling lately. boo.

i have been moping and sulking and spreading out my unhappiest things on the floor so i can see them all at once. the only thing this accomplishes is that it makes the floor dusty. (whine!) i miss my dad! (wheedle!) i broke up with my boyfriend and will spend my life alone! (whimper!) job complaintsjobcomplaintsjobcomplaints!!! (mewl!) i wish i were prettierfunniertallermoregracefulany-any-ANY-one but me.

sigh.

i am an idiot. yes, i miss my dad, but i also have good REASON to miss him. someone very kind recently made me realize that perhaps it is better to have lost a dad who is miss-worthy, than to have access to one who isn't. it DOES make my memories of him sweeter. thank you.

i am in idiot. yes, my relationship has ended. i may very well spend the rest of my life with just me, but (despite the obvious idiocy) i am not such bad company. i mean, we have a ton in common. we like all the same books, movies, and music. we never argue over who pays the check. i never interrupt me. i never have to tell me when i'm upset...i just know. i never steal the covers from me. i always give my jokes a courtesy laugh...even when i don't mean it. loneliness, though it is intimidating is not a country i am unable to explore.

i am an idiot. yes, summer is almost over, and my job is not without its...peccadilloes. there will always be disrespect from people who are CONVINCED that they can do it better, but will never actually DO it. as an added bonus, i have met some of the best poets, artists, actors, huggers, and listeners...and these are just the students. if i need reminding of why i love my job, i need only remember the relief on their faces when they told me that one of the poems that we...VIVISECTED in class actually ended up on their terror-striking, creativity-sapping, no child friggin' left behind-fueled, state mandated, high stakes test. sometimes "want to learn" and "need to learn" have the teensiest, most delicious overlap.

i am an idiot. i took another walk to shut up the pack of hounds baying loudly in my brain, and laughed at myself. i am paranoid that people will think i am walking for exercise, and assume that i am walking because i'm not strong enough to RUN...at least that's what I think when i see OTHER PEOPLE walking for exercise. i know, i know. i'm a bad person. to guarantee that nobody makes this mistake, i always walk with a backpack, and always have an errand to run--post office, video store, etc. now, it isn't exercise if there is a DESTINATION. see? pa-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-aranoid!!! after the sunset, i stumbled into a mass of sticky filaments, probably evicting about a hundred spiders in the process. rather than doing the "1000 volts of electricity" dance to brush all the webs off, i walked calmly, allowing each strand to tickle my nerves and map out the parameters of my arms, legs, face, neck...i cannot explain the sensation of that tickle being the roadmap around me. i guess my body is not such a bad place to be, either.

and all i needed was a walk and some music. the lyrics for each song line up the tumblers in the lock and swing the door open. wordswordswords constantly drifting around my head, waiting to be plucked from the air and popped into my mouth. the contents drip from my tongue because i cannot devour the words fast enough to satisfy my starving brain. the best part? all the words swirling around the ether are in infinite supply. not only will they never run out, but more words will constantly be created. the only thing i'll need to send my heart spinning like imponderable birds from the trees is the words words words, either FOR me or FROM me.

why don't YOU choose YOUR OWN word of the day. mine is SONANT

kiss me when you go to bed; i'm leaving when you go to sleep. be glad i did it now before you hold on tight. i'll make you hate yourself...

i haven't had my birdcage rattled like this in such a long time. this song...this songwriter, cracked open my skull and ice cream-scooped its contents in an embarrassing, exposed heap (and if there is ANY kind of poetic synchronicity in the world, the lyrics are scribbled on the back of a napkin or diner menu ringed with water glass stains). now, i KNOW that i said that interpreting song lyrics is like pinning the butterfly to the board. i still believe that. therefore, i'm posting the lyrics here, and everyone may simply enjoy the words themselves with no interference from me; however, these words rumble so familiarly around my skull and chest cavity lately so...

What'll I do if you never want to come back,
Sitting in a city that is always on the attack?
What'll I do if you never want me back?
Come with me come back we'll live again.

And what if I'm only satisfied when I'm at home,
Sitting in a city that'll never let me go?
What if I'm only satisfied when I'm at home?

What'll I do if you never find me again,
Sitting in a Province a million miles from my friends?
What'll I do if you never want me again?
Come with me come back we'll live again.

Late at night
Sync your hearbeat to mine
I will never try
To forget your northern lights.

so there's this guy, right? and he's got this flower, but he doesn't know if he should keep her. if he lets her go, she may set roots somewhere else. the gypsy runs through her blood, you see. there is always that risk when you pull the petals off the daisy, that number may be even..she loves you not. if he asks her to stay, she may get roots with him, but may turn into a dandelion--yes, the roots are stuck fast, but the seeds disappear at the first sign of a breeze, so she's not really there, is she? if he tries to go with her, he loses his own roots. what if he isn't able to grow any new ones? the same breeze that carried the two of them together will lift him and toss him into the road, only to be crushed by the traffic.

and the girl? she walks on a tightrope, stomach-churningly high above. on one side of the rope, she trembles over still water. on the other, she dangles over a pane of glass. from that elevation, the two look exactly the same--dark and clear. either way, she's going to fall eventually. if she chooses correctly, her reward is exhilaration and a soft landing. if not...

the first signs of fall (hmmm...i wonder if that is an important detail?) have begun sneaking up on me. my cat chased a fly today, fattened by summer and made sluggish by summer's waning. i am terribly aware that my time here is waning, too. the steps across the highwire begin to EASE slowly, if only to postpone the need to pick a side and jump.

today's word of the day is PERFERVIDITY

i might never catch a mouse and present it in my mouth to make you feel you're with someone who deserves to be with you...

dear big milk crate full of books,
we need to have a talk. now, i know what you're going to say. please don't. just...just...don't. it's not you, it's me. it's nothing you did. in fact, you were everything i could have dreamed of and more.

yes, you relocated my center of gravity every time you told a really good story. yes, you provided me with the armor and the weapons to defend myself every time someone called me "ugly". to this day, i never get to be the PRETTIEST girl in the room, but i quite often get to be the SMARTEST.

you also provided the ballast to stabilize my trembling car (it was probably as scared as i was) when i amelia earhart-ed my way from ohio to california. you steadied my bed when the faux-wood claw foot broke off the bottom. i sleepwalk anyway, and didn't need a downward slope to help the process. you elevated my photographs and flattened out my wrinkled papers. sometimes, you acted as tables, footrests, and even chairs. for each of these things, i love you.

...but it's so much more than that. you pressed the moisture out of every flower of any significance so that i could keep it forever. you allowed me to scribble and annotate on your pages so that i could help define MYSELF through the words of others, and never once complained about the disrespect. you provided a safe distance from which to confess my deepest affections to others in the form of books i gave as gifts. for that, i owe you.

i KNOW you have put up with a lot from me. you have absorbed too much smoke from sitting in countless bus stations, bars, and coffee shops because i wanted to be out, but didn't want to have to TALK to anyone. sometimes you acted as the world's best wing man when i actually wanted to talk to others, because the right book title held at jusssssssst the right angle does wonders for a girl's intellectual complexion. for that, you are irreplaceable.

this is why i'm breaking up with you (no, no, don't cry. it's going to be okay.) i'm not some hugh hefner-esque reader, trading you in for younger, prettier, newer books. in fact, it is BECAUSE you are so pretty that we need to split up. you deserve to be loved more than i can love you. you deserve to have your pages dog-eared, then reread and revisited time and again. you deserve to have your cover turned so often that the glue binding your pages together starts to disintegrate. you deserve to inhale the ghosts of flashlight hours under bedcovers because the stories are too good to acknowledge "bedtime". i've heard the cliche that "if you love something, set it free." instead i believe that because i love something, i shall find someone to make it happier than i do.

i promise that when i see you in the hands of another reader, i'll smile to myself. remember that i'll always love you.

...now, go enchant someone new.

love,
patricia

p.s. just for you, today's word of the day is palimpsest.

the reason my molars are so broken is i spend too much time ghosting with the likes of you and yours...

i said it's like magic, but better than magic. it's like taking the magician's hat and upending it on the table, spilling wand, deck of cards, even the BUNNY onto the table. it's like seeing everything that goes into magic. hmmm...of course, figuring out how the magic tricks work takes, well, the MAGIC out of them. i guess it's not like that at all.

wait.

i'm explaining this wrong. my forehead is making that little "w"-shaped wrinkle that it does every time i scrunch my eyebrows together because i'm saying it wrong. let me try again.

i talked about the perfect combination of senses--sight, sound, smell, even touch and taste--accompanied by the right company and the inexplicable joy...these things all go into the best concert experiences. when it is JUSSSSSSSSSSSST right, it provides the same wonder you get when you still get to believe that magic tricks are REAL.

so i went to see freelance whales on saturday. they opened for some other band (name, unimportant...fully satisfied, i left after freelance whales played.) that combination of the senses seemed to take all gravity out of the room. delicious.

the stage rose a mere half a foot the floor, putting the band just high enough that you can differentiate them from the crowd, yet keep them close enough to give them...concreteness? tangibility? either way, i could see them without having to strain my neck upwards. the physical act of LOOKING, like the abstract act of ENJOYING became effortless. what else did i see? i have written about the problem of live music, tied closely to the narcissistic dilemma we call "the lead singer", when the mewling, grasping need for attention drives the performance, and each band member takes turns being the baby grabbing and clinging. none of that here. they switched instruments, the changed places on stage, they searched each others' faces for the non-verbal cues that led them into, through, and out of each song in tandem. it felt like walking through the halls in your own house at night, not needing to turn on the lights because you know and love the path so well. what struck me the most visually, (and i DO mean struck...my chest caved in at the sight) was the look of absolute devotion to the process of playing the music. there was no detachment of cool between audience and performer. each face radiated the joy that can only come when one is completely spent by the act of creation. THAT kind of bliss...THAT happens with musicians rather than performers. i hope it was mirrored back to them on the faces of the audience. i know it was certainly on my face.

but the visual was not the only delighted sense in my arsenal...ohhhhhhh no. the music climbed and snaked and spiraled out of each instrument, seemingly reproducing exponentially to the point that, were i to shut my eyes, i would SWEAR that a whole orchestra had invaded the stage. layers upon layers upon layers of sound swarmed richly and warmly around the whole audience. add to that the fact that i was standing in front of...ummm...amp? speaker? jeff said it was called a woofer, and who am i to argue? i placed one hand on the front of it and one hand on the top, and was delighted to find my fingernails resonating its sounds hours later...i've never felt a tactile echo before. yum.

now, i always internally mock people who listen to "the work" either on the way to, or the way from "the work", but laughed to myself when the cd changer in the car read my thoughts and played their album, "weathervanes"...not because the show had made the songs come alive for me, but, rather, because the album allowed me to relive the show even as we sped away from it.

...and don't even get me STARTED on the lyrics. to analyze them here is to pin the butterfly to the board for inspection--yes, you can see it better, but it dies in the process. go and see it for yourself...live.

for my students, the word of the day is euphonious...

only god says "jump" so i'll set the time, 'cause if he ever saw it was through these eyes of mine. if he ever suffered it was me who did his crying

i'm tired. it's late, and the day is over. i made it through, but i'm tired. walking up the stairs from the basement, i let slip the armor i have been wearing all day, strong and rigid, like i'm braced and waiting for a slap. as each metaphorical piece fell, it made in imaginary clang, until i had exposed the fragile, fleshy parts it had been protecting. the armor came complete with smile-to-the-eyes (more believable that way), and a convincing laugh. the armor carried the smell of an old medical bag, the feeling of a sweater five sizes too big, and sound of an old rolling stones song.

not surprisingly, he is still gone. not surprisingly, only two people remembered and gave me warm verbal arms to add to the chainmail i was wearing. it helped. i shall collect the hugs in person, once i get the chance.

16 years, to the day. here are some snapshots:

...sitting in dad's lap at age 4 watching a track meet on television. he grabbed my feet and turned me into the world's giggliest marionette as he moved my feet in time with the miniaturized runners on the t.v. sound effects were, of course, in abundance.

...flipping furiously through his monthly surgical journals in a competition to see who could find the grossest picture.

...at his 25th college reunion, i twisted and churned at the IMPOSSIBLE age of 14, while some random kid "was , like, just taaaaaaallllllllking to me!!! (WHIIIIINNNNNNE)". dad leaned drunkenly against a stop sign (almost missing it completely) and failing MISERABLY at sound menacing, asked if, "this young man {was} bothering {me}."

...dad striding quickly through the mall to return a christmas gift i was too old for, but too embarrassed to return for myself as i melted behind him, PRAYING that nobody would see me.

...dad handing me an ice cream cone, and since i am the least graceful girl in the world, both of us grasping to keep it from dropping...crushing the cone in the process. because he always fixed everything, he simply got another empty cone, and dropped the bruised one in. you know what? it tasted just as good.

...dad driving his beautiful, brand new sports car to pick me up from a failed cheerleader tryout. he KNEW i hadn't made it AGAIN, but also knew that practice at failure doesn't make it hurt any less, and he wanted me to "feel cool".

...dad clipping and mailing me an article about the band nirvana, because before i hit puberty, our musical tastes had been identical...and he wanted to hold on to that just a little longer.

...watching old episodes of "the monkees" and catching dad catching a glimpse of ME enjoying something from HIS past. he realized that "the effort to relate" was not going to have to be one-sided, and i think he was relieved.

...his deft and expert hands as he pulled the broken ends of my clavicle into position so they could start repairing immediately. what stopped my wailing was not the ending of the pain but, rather, the confident and matter-of-fact voice in which he told me "everything is going to be okay". it remains my most favorite phrase to hear.

so these are the things i STILL carry in the faded leather satchel i call my memory. these things can never be replaced, and they will never be forgotten because they are what made him mine and ONLY mine.

the last thing to put into the bag before i jump on it, and close it for another year:

...looking into the mirror every day just to be sure that the nose i inherited from him (which i used to curse) hasn't changed an inch. i hope to see the same features on my own children's faces someday.

for obvious reasons, today's word of the day is epiphora.

i miss you. i miss you. i miss you.

i'll stow away my grays in a padlocked case and in a padlocked room, only to be released when i see you walking around with someone new...

i have a confession to make. ...i walk in my sleep. sometimes i walk AND talk in my sleep. my somnambulism is epic, evidently. friends, roommates, even boyfriends have seen me shuffle past them into a room looking tired, but awake, then complete everyday tasks. i have made my lunch, attempted to clean dishes, and even put clothes away (i guess i am less lazy when i sleep. ironic?) more often than not, however, i think i am reacting to an internal gypsy, and my legs, driven by my subconscious, are trying to fleefleeflee. unfortunately, my apartment is laid out along a straight line, so often, i'll simply stumble from the bedroom, through the living room, and straight out the door. mercifully, i have never been caught sans pajamas. yikes. i've been thinking about the nature of romance lately...usually in a cynical and porcupine-y way. the most romantic thing that's ever been done for me? that's easy. (ahem) there are two days i absolutely CAN NOT handle--anniversaries of the day my father entered the world and the day he left it. on january 21st, 1999 i went to my boyfriend's apartment. stopping me at the door, he led me through the hallway to the stairs that carried us to the roof and into a velvet sky wearing a diamond tiara...breathtaking, really. in a gene kelly-arm sweep, he whisked me to the middle of the roof (right in the center of san francisco). the music was already playing (tom waits-- "little trip to heaven"), and he danced me from one end of the roof to the other, dizzying me with the blurs of white lights he had strung around the chimneys and gutters. once i caught my breath, i asked him why he had done this. gently moving the hairs around my neck, he whispered, "because i knew that today was going to be hard for you...because i knew you would never TELL ME that it was...and because i know you wanted your father to dance with you to this song on your wedding day." swoon. i think that someone may be able to top this...i believe someone WILL be able to transpose my heart and brain better than this. i hope SOMEONE will be able to do the one simple thing that will make the idea of romance more than just an idea i'm able to see with my peripheral vision only, because if i turn my head to look it in the face, it disappears. to make romance solid, tangible, CONCRETE, one need only quiet the whispering in my limbs and the gypsy in my brain that makes me walk in my sleep.

and you must be a masochist to love a modern leper on his last leg...

there it is.
listen carefully.
you may want to put an ear to my chest like you would put your ear to a seashell. shh! shh! listen again...

it is the sound of my heart, dessicated and tinytinytiny. it rattles around my birdcage of ribs when i kick it, which i do often. sometimes it gets treated to a glimpse of the outside world and it flails and squawks with the need to get out. occasionally it DOES escape. A few worthy people have turned around to find it making the most horrific squishing noises as it bounces its way behind them in desperate pursuit. all have been kind enough to return it, though not all have returned it kindly or in good shape. (sidenote: to the person who has it now, please be careful with it, eh? i bare my teensy fangs when i feel threatened.)

sigh.

my most favorite movie (except, of course, for spencer parsons' movie "i'll come running" run, don't walk) is so because it features a realistic ending. the protagonist realizes "the girl" loves him TOO when she comes to stop him from blowing up a building with a grenade. as he is being carted off to jail, he watches her diminish and grow infinitely smaller, until she is no more visible than good judgment was mere minutes ago. as a last romantic gesture, she puts on the eyeglasses he loved her in (ummm...also, undoubtedly because she NEEDS them to see him. ah, l'amour.) but the rub? the rub is, his ass is still being hauled away. he will STILL end up fighting off nightly advances from some guy with four teeth and a homemade tattoo featuring several misspelled words.

now...

this movie affords me two luxuries:
1.) i can maintain my fine perfume of cynicism (we call it "aloof", by calvin klein). i mean, it's ANTI-romantic, right? it's NOT a happy ending. i can use it as a shield, wielding it to block out the radiation of provided by EVERY meg ryan movie ever made. pffft!!

...and yet

2.) i can also glance nervously about to make sure nobody is looking, let the air out of my chest cavity, and then dissolve into the world's longest sssswwwwwooooooooonnnnnnnn; it's a feeling i LOVE, in which gravity goes all wonky and my blood runs backwards. le sigh.

i'm a sucker for good words. they are more delicious than food, softer than the longest nap, and one of the quickest ways to jolt the birdcage and clink-clank my peanut-sized heart awake. so i ask...if you are reading this, what is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for you? if you can think of nothing, what is the most romantic thing you have ever done for SOMEONE ELSE? if you still come up empty, come sit down next to me and complain. i'll fix it. if your story is age-appropriate (for i have lots of babies who read), post it here. you may be able to help someone else swoon and not even realize it. if it is NOT age-appropriate, feel free to e-mail it to me. either way, it's time to clatter some birdcages.

today's word of the day is subtilize.

...guilty as charged.

i've got no illusions about you. guess what? i never did. when i said "i'll take it", i meant as is...

lights dim and the camera on the actor's face goes slightly out of focus. key posing of the eyebrows and well-timed music indicate that the character is going on an existential journey, and the unwitting viewer has the choice of either tagging along for the introspection or heading to the snack bar for a different type of self-indulgence (the introspection, however, will never induce a diabetic reaction).
the point, if i were to have one, is that birthdays have a tendency to make people like these celluloid phantoms--existential and ridiculous. i simply cannot do it today. i am too...fizzy, too buoyant, too...too. it is ridiculous and spineless to contemplate with anything but the carbonated heart that i carry with me daily. to attempt to divine some sort of depth by using pretentious melancholy as the rod is a slap in the face to all the grace and charm and...love that the world has seemingly firehosed into my life.

who can argue with the fact that the very first face i got to see today was one of my favorites of all time? that kind of start to any day suggests either a day held aloft by happenstance, or else doomed by the potential for falling. i chose to grab the hands of optimism as it spun me one-two-three-two-two-three-three-two-three-waltzing into the rest of the day.

...i was duly rewarded.

i waltzed into a delicious lunch, spun dizzily back to my mother, and chiseled open my skull and poured the contents into my sketchbook (shaking off rust from fingers and pencils as i did so). exhausted, i gathered my skirts and flounced down in front of my computer...a digital tide of warmth and love buoyed and battered me around in the form of words (my favorite dish) from my past, my present, and my future. i always joke that i can't have children because i already have 165 of them. in each message i could hear their voices, like memories trapped in jars to e-e-e-e-e-e-ase open when i need reminding why i teach.

i spent some time considering my future; after deliberation and agonizing i signed the contract to pull me back west, fueled by tendrils of words timidly sent by my students. at the same time, some of the same timid sort of vines snaked their way around an ankle to pull my roots into the ground and make me stay here, and i have realized that complaining about the "dilemma" (as usual, the quotes are purely facetious) is stupid, stupid, stupid. honestly, bitching about having to choose between two situations i would love is like moaning that there isn't enough room in my wallet for my miiiiiilllllllliiiooooooonnnnsss of dollars. pfffft.

the day has also been tinged with a little sadness--my twin brother is not here. he has always provided a buffer so that the itchy, twitch-inducing spotlight doesn't focus only on me. more than that, he has grown into the kind of human being i always tell my friends i wish i could surround myself with. though he didn't make it home, i got to end my day talking to him (and some other of my favorite faces).

so now...the sky is cotton-candy pinking; the late-night spiders, full and fat, have evacuated their webs for the night; my cat is sleeping in the hollowed-out space behind my ankle; another birthday is over. it's bedtime. sleep is tugging on my eyelid-windowshades. i have wrapped myself in the following words:

"my reaction(s) to what happens I cannot predict. I am adrift, and I don't know if I'm close to home or not"

these words have tucked me in and started the lullaby. goodnight, my lovelies...

for anthony, the word of the day is palladian.

if i hadn't come down to the coast to disappear, i'd have died in a landslide of rocks and hopes and fears...

so anyone who knows me will tell you that i react to things viscerally. sounds, sights, events, tend to resonate within my chest cavity, clanging loudly off of each adam-borrowed rib until practically detonating my torso.

watch me.

sometimes, these sensations get to be too much, the echoes are too loud, and you see me clasp both hands over my chest to prevent my lungs and heart from escaping. ever see the movie "alien"? the scene in which john hurt flails and thrashes and births an alien out of his chest feels fairly well on the money right now. egad.

as it stands, i need to get this information out so that my heart doesn't erupt out of my chest and go skittering across the table, leaving splattery footprints of blood, terrifying the audience with its contents.

...my father passed away in 1994. since then, my mother joan-of-arc-ed herself some faux chainmail and put on a "brave face", which means her children never had to be afraid each time both handwritings weren't on the birthday cards, and, well, persisted. she took care of a man who was not her father, even though her own father would have enjoyed her company. in doing so, she became seemingly invisible to the vitriol flung at her constantly by my uncle.
ugh.
she maintained a home that still serves as the landing lights for every plane that brings one of her kids home, and doubles as the light that still draws in the moths from our youth, circling, seeking the comfort of her face and voice. she has a way of making, "can i get you something cold to drink?" sound like, "everythingeverythingeverything is going to be okay. you are safe here."
and now? now that she has outlasted all the obligations that clung to the hem of her skirt (including her kids)? she has only one obstacle between her and getting back to her home, and that is the very house she has worked to hard to maintain. it's weird to see pictures of my childhood home in clinical, calculated photos, compartmentalized from chapters in my childhood into "features". everyday, mom gets up, she cleans, tidies, straightens, finesses for a different end this time.
it is not very often that we get to see our parents as autonomous individuals. rather, they are like characters on a movie screen...surely they have no life other than that which they provide for us!
today is mom's birthday, and i am seeing her as a beautiful, brave woman who made her life about giving to other people and taking care of her husband and family, and continued to do so, even after the husband faded to ashes in a box and the family melted into new families.

...today, i am going to make her breakfast. i figure i owe her a couple. for my students, today's word of the day is vestigial. go on...look it up.

there's a storm outside, and the gap between crack and thunder is closing in...

now i've done it. i have crowbar-ed sky and ground apart as each fades into its own, separate color, and run right between them. i don't know if i have a need to feel like the only person surviving a michael bay apocalyptic film, or if i am simply terrified that while i run i look like a shambling, shuffling fool...and people will be able to see. either way, i ran later today that i usually do.
my runner friends will understand this. i am still a boiling-over pot of sensation--tactile, olfactory, auditory, visual. today, i turned a corner (actually, i turned several...duh! my runs are rarely in a straight line) in my progress, and the tactile joy was the most immediate sense tugging on my sleeve for attention. any runner can tell you the difference between that feeling where feet are pushed into the ground and legs ache from the lift, and the sense that one's inertia is moving the body along, and the steps are there only to insure that the runner stays tethered to the ground. it's the difference between jogging and running, and when one flips the switch between them, oh, but does it feel good. that sensation is only surpassed by the roll of heel-ball-toes-flight of each step.

remarkable.

the visuals stepped in to knock tactile sensation out of place. i watched a mother cat and two kittens dissolve down the street, looking for a place to spend the night safely. i was treated to the sight of those way-way up concentric circles of spiderwebs between phone lines that one just doesn't get to see when sun-blind. i smiled to myself as i watched my shadow catch, pace, pass me, then grow longer in front of me as i pounded past each streetlight.
not to be outdone by the pretenders to the throne, my closest friends will tell you that my favorite of the five senses is smell (right, nate?) i believe that scents are time machines that can only take you very short distances in the past, and only to places you've actually been. because it is 4th of july weekend, the smell of lighter fluid and charcoal were the ghosts of barbecues recently dead as i ran through memories of cookouts and backyard parties.
it was only sound that kept me focused enough to actually finish (and, evidently, split my infinitives) the run. i use the i-pod james gave me to drown out the sound of my breathing. now that i'm home, i remember the argument romeo and juliet had about the birdcalls they heard as they woke. she, wanting him to stay, pleaded that it was the nightingale, and that there was time left for sleep. he, fearing her family, warned that it was the lark to signal the start of day. right now, i'm siding with juliet and using these bird sounds as a sleep aid. time for bed.

...if you're interested, here is the playlist i use to block out my mini-heart attacks. don't judge me.
1. heartbeats--jose gonzales (a cover of a song by the knife)
2. now this is fun--depeche mode (its own version of a time machine, catapulting me back to senior year track meets)
3. music for a found harmonium--patrick street (if you are not familiar, it is the tune played towards the end of napolean dynamite)
4. young lions--constantines (a rare few of you will know how important this song is to me)
5. breathe in--frou frou
6. fake empire--the national (lyrics, man. it's always the lyrics that get me)
7. space age love song--flock of seagulls (remember what i said about not judging?)
8. in the morning--junior boys (good beat...'nuff said)
9. haiti--arcade fire (anyone for whom i have made a mix in the last five years has heard this song)
10. heartbeats--the knife (see track 1)
11. timebomb--old 97's (used in the movie clay pigeons. best. opening. scene. ever.)
12. down by the water--pj harvey (the music actually undulates in the ear!)
13. fine-james
14. having an average weekend--shadowy men on a shadowy planet (kids in the hall? anyone? anyone?)
15. nemesis--shriekback (only because at this point, i need to siphon fake energy from somewhere).

let me take a deep breath, babe. if you need me, me and me'll be hanging out with the dream king...

(this is a long one. you have been warned, but in the end, it's about the journey, not the destination.)

i have often talked about the thumb. there is a giant thumb that presses down on my lungs during moments of emotional import. the sensation that no matter how much i breathe, my lungs will never be completely full-while not totally unpleasant-never fails to remind me that, as a human being, i have boundaries biological and emotional.

i am in love.

i am in love with my life...despite all the narcissistic connotations that this carries.

my friends, those close enough to hug, those who are voices and faces carried by technology, and even those who are merely tingle-foot-inducing thoughts as i drive home in the dark with the windows open, all of them wrap me in so many layers of love and warmth that you could onion-peel me for years and never reach a nerve-ending to hurt.

my job is frustrating...but in the way that when i overcome an obstacle the satisfaction makes me yearn for the next one. the contract affords me the luxury of contemplating my place in the pedagogical universe while resting comfortably in the knowledge that "i can, like, continue to mold and shape the future". i also take comfort in knowing that i have plenty of options should this ever stop being fun.
...it won't.
my students...each one is interesting or amazing or breathtaking or ridiculous or, or, or (breath). the point is, each one has something, SOMETHING that renders him or her permanent in some part of my brain and my heart. even three thousand miles away, they somehow wriggle their way into my consciousness daily. i'm lucky.

my brain got tickled by the overly-simplistic synchronicity that always seems to happen when i go for a walk (not a philosophy-laden-henry david thoreau walk, mind you, simply a trip to the post office on a day so nice that it rendered automotive transport absurd). i was listening to music, the soundtrack was vampire weekend (stupid name, excellent band) with just a sprinkling of tom waits for the moments when v.w.'s buoyancy became unbearable. the funny thing is, it was late afternoon, and all the bird mommies and daddies seemed to be heading home from work, and their traffic patterns aren't any better than ours. each caw and tweedle (for they don't have horns to honk) magically seemed to correspond rhythmically to low sound-moments or pauses in the songs. people must have thought me insane as i laughed to myself, but, honestly, who couldn't laugh at,
"i hear a mansard roof through the trees {screech!}
i see a salty message written in the eaves {squawk!}
the ground beneath my feet {deedle-eedle-eedle-eep!}
the hot garbage and concrete {meep!}
the tops of buildings, i can see them, too {ca-caw! ca-caw!}"
...too funny.

(yes, i'm getting there) i got home with insides carbonated by just how random and funny life can be. while doing an archeological dig and excavating through layers of my youth, i found the box full of letters-- every letter i have ever been written alphabetized by author, organized chronologically. i mean EVERY letter is in there, man. never let it be said that ocd doesn't come in handy sometimes. it took about 2 seconds to find the ones written by my father, banded together with the ribbon from the roses he gave me for my 18th birthday. i started with the first one he wrote me right after he got back from dropping me off at college for the first time. he wrote exactly the way he spoke, so it was like he was suddenly alive again, correcting my grammar, making me laugh, telling me stories, giving me advice. each letter contained stamps from all over the world, though i don't remember that i had collected them. suddenly, with these stamps all over the place and his voice hovering just outside of each ear (even though i can only actually hear out of the right one) it was like he was everywhere at once.

...i cannot remember the last time i felt this happy.

tiny claws poke through kid gloves...

"why is the measure of love loss?"--jeanette winterson

it is his birthday today, and i am waiting for this sharp pain to spread out from the edges and dull like a bruise. i have tried all the saccharine-laced aphorisms like "god works in mysterious ways", "you never get more of a burden than you can handle", and my personal favorite, "it's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all".

horseshit.

the truth is, i don't care how mysterious the ways are, i am left dumbly blinking and wondering how it could possibly be fair that the most important person in my world was ripped from it with no explanation.

the truth is, i have been burdened more than i have ever been able to handle.

the truth is, why are the choices loving and losing, or not loving at all? why couldn't there have been loving and keeping for a little longer? it isn't fair.

the truth is, cancer devoured him from the inside out until he was just a shadow in a hospital bed, and it hurts me everyday.

the truth is that i find it a strange coincidence that on the day he died, i was at a crappy job that i hated, and didn't get to say goodbye because i "needed the money", and twelve years later, i picked up an extra shift at a crappier job that i hate even more because i wanted to do anything to distract me. it is not a coincidence that both things make me really, really angry.

i sat on the floor and cried today...a horrible, guttural, animal noise and effort that gave me a headache and made my cats worry.

it has been fifteen...fifteen years and his absence is felt just as palpably as his hugs were before he died, and i would give anything, anything, anything to trade one feeling for the other.

i miss you, i miss you, i miss you...there are not words...

a memory:

a fifteen hour drive from ohio to new hampshire started so early in the morning that, despite the fact that it was june, the grass still vibrated with chilly morning condensation. i was armed with a stack of cd's (dad was too), books that motion sickness would render unreadable, and the crabby-early-morning disposition that still graces my lovely face to this day
...every day.
we took turns with the stereo, dad pretending to understand the perpetually-menstrual-pseudo-angry-girl rock i misguidedly worshipped at age 17, and i pretended to loathe the dulcet tones of his selections. a little over half of the way there we stopped in new york to lunch and gulp down oxygen and rid ourselves of hours' worth of car cramps. we noticed in the corner of the window, a fly who had unwittingly stowed away for the trip. dad imagined what the fly would feel like being taken so far away from his "little fly family". he even did an imitation of the fly's forlorn and pleading search for its family...complete with a squeaky fly voice. i think he realized that moments when i was young enough to giggle at his jokes were running out quickly, and he wanted to punctuate this moment...to tell me that i had done quite enough growing up for THAT day.

my dad...i tell you...

it has been fifteen years.

and i would still give anythinganythingANYTHING to hear his voice again.

the song "hey, tonight" by creedence clearwater revival bathes me in the optimism i felt that day with the sun shining not altogether unpleasantly in our eyes, the serpentine road winding before and behind us, and the hum of radial tires that carried us both.
...no word of the day today.