Expectations

Today a coworker of mine had a brief breakdown at school. Hers had to do with husband-trouble, which stemmed, in part, from the lack of time they have together now that she is taking, not three, but FOUR graduate classes, while teaching a class or two at the college, and teaching at a community college as well. She was quiet all through class, while we discussed the three articles we'd read for homework. Usually my friend always talks, says something, smiles brightly. But today she did not say a word. I kept looking over at her, thinking does she hate these articles we read? When class ended, my other friends, Zoey & Bonny came over and they said to her, "Lou, what are you thinking?"

Her face turned pink and we saw her eyes go wet behind her glasses. She kept asking: "When are we allowed to break down? When do we get time for that?

It is week three of our second semester of graduate school. All of us are in a nonfiction program. And we struggle daily. I think it easier for me, sometimes, because I am alone. I think it is harder for me, sometimes, because I am alone.

Graduate School seems synonymous with expectations. You apply, hoping, but not really believing, that maybe you will be accepted. And when you are, cross your fingers for that teaching assistantship that will pay your way through, because gods know YOU are not going to pay for it. And when it comes through, and you're in, then you realize it is time to grow up, to develop yourself, to become a Professional. Suddenly you are afraid to go out dancing, lest a coworker or future student sees you; you are afraid to climb trees because what if someone sees and thinks you are not a serious student? You are afraid of failure. You need to study hard, read everything, write everything. That is what you are here to do, after all: to read and write and learn. But you are also here to teach. And network.

If you read the Right books, meet the Right people, get the Right grades, then you will move on and get the Right life. You will have found the key to happiness.

But is it worth the stomach aches? The heartburn? The night terrors? Is it worth the lack of sleep? Or awful teaching moments that creep into your dreams? 

Maybe, by the time we've graduated, we will look back on grad school and say, those were the days, but I think that some of us will settle into ordinary jobs (that maybe don't even require a degree, or have anything to do with what we majored in) and we will be satisfied. With an ordinary job, your life is centered on job performance, and maybe the next job. But in grad school, if you want to move up the ladder, then it's all got to be perfect. There is no room for error. It is not a journey, but a destination. Is living grad school with such expectations even living at all?

In that same class, while we were analyzing an essay that appeared to discuss feminism and so on, Zoey said, We're so caught up in critically analyzing everything that we can't enjoy anything anymore. I can't even watch the shows I used to like, because I keep thinking about them.

Our instructor responded with, Isn't that fun though?

Ruinous

Fixed Idea:
Sexual relations compulsively indiscriminant
abandoned display of emotions--assertive, bold, enterprising--
with different partners.

(A feeling) of intense emotional attachment
Unwanted feeling--insistent, repetitious--
agitation caused by imminent danger.

Addict promiscuous obsessed (identification)
initiating hostilities due to intense desire and
attraction, dangerous to oneself,
Ruinous.

Looking in the Club

               The Milk Bar on goth night; Halloween. Viking couple with leather vests and great headcoverings--the woman in a busty brazier, the man very very tall (7 feet?) strong abdominals revealed. Tall faery in a blue flower-petal skirt and top; glittery face. She dances with the wall in the basement; this is how some goths dance when the floor is overflowing with humans in dark masks long cloaks and fake weapons.

               Wire tie-boy. Headband with wire ties attached; wire ties around his wrists and feet; he is not goth. He is short, skinny, "Trying to get a job as a host." Ick, more restaurant business. Gemini. Moving on.

               "I'm going upstairs,"
               "I'll come with you."

               Shrug.

               He follows. Dances in place; doesn't really dance.

               "You're vanilla, aren't you?"

               "I'm what?"

               "That means you are."

               My friend asks me later, at the cafe, "Would you prefer that they say 'what?' or 'yes, I am.'"

               I think about it. "I think I'd prefer 'what?' because at least that means they don't know yet. If they know they're vanilla and are happy with it, then it isn't worth the effort."

               Guy in a beaked-mask (Black Plague? V for Vendetta?) is dancing. I thought he had a staff earlier...I want something to spin, since nothing will spin me. But he does not have one. He suggests we exchange information later. I smile and walk away.

               But later we are looking for food. We walk the streets on the hunt for pizza; pizza at 2 a.m. We find none. His friend is drunk; asks me how I make my writing unbiased if I am a Journalist trying to prove the Truth. "Everything is biased," I respond. "I am biased. I can see this building here and write about it, but you might notice first the ground. There is never unbias."

               I have become philosophical. Grad school has affected my head and everything I thought I knew. I am out at night with strangers. Keep testing myself. Naivity has always been my way. It's something I understand. Or do I? Philosophy again.

               We find no food, and like a hungry cat I growl. But boy in mask--and reniassance garb (billowy white shirt, shorts, sandals?) notices club. Nightclub; after 2 a.m. club. In Denver? We check it out. It is loud. We get in free. The woman doesn't bother checking IDs. I put my trenchcoat down; tuck license and key into my sock. We dance to dubstep. Ren-boy offers me drink; I say no. He offers me water; I drink greedily. I dance alone. He tries dancing with me; offers his arse for my whip's tongue. He runs from me and I chase; he's fast, ducking under table and sliding through. How does he not trip in such baggy clothing?

               We find a fence blocking big gym. Hop over it. Fake spider webs and holloweeny things adorn the rafters, the staircases, the balconies; it is beautiful. The room is empty; emptiness is more beautiful. I cartwheel. I handstand. I retrieve my whip from the dirty floor. We explore. On the second story he mumbles something, takes my hand. I stand solid; unyielding. I have no lead, I am the one with the whip.

               "What?" I say.

               "Let's explore," he explains, and I feel light-headed, like finally someone curious, someone...dangerous.

               We explore.

               Back in the dubstep room we dance; side-side shoulders-shoulders, step back, spin, forward; we swing a little. (swing dance!) He is a theatre boy; moves and talks like a theatre boy. Cute like I imagine they should be. I am stereotyping; he is sweet. He seems sweet. I don't actually know him.

               My trench coat is gone forever. Stolen. Luckily I was smart--key and license still on me.

               We say goodnight and part ways. I wonder how many lies I've been fed and slurped up; I wonder if really he is in the food business, another dead end. I wonder if he's selling mushrooms rather than growing biological ones that eat oil; I wonder if he sleeps with every girl and how often he smokes pot. I like his hands on my face, but refuse kisses. It isn't the challenge now, but the smoke--he smokes. He thinks I am moving slow. Let him think that. Probably I will never see him again.

               And I wonder what the point is. I am no longer dancing to dance. I am searching, calling, hoping. What is it for? Why do I do it? Drive an hour to dance to songs I can hardly dance to. But at least no one will grind. But do I maybe want to grind, and deny it? Confusion deflates my ego. I can't keep going out. Need sleep. Need responsibility. But I have always been responsible; always been afraid of trouble. This is the beginning of the breaking out, the individuality, the fucking-up, if you will. I am looking outside to find what's inside. I know that isn't how to do it. But it's like addiction--once you start. You. Can't. Stop.

Dark Roofs

Snow pads softly across the ground. 

Cars hide beneath a transparent sheet.

Powdered sugar sprinkled on trees.

White drops fall silently through streetlamp's light.

Quiet-as-death.

Distant siren colors the quiet; disturbing sound in this place of

 

cold; of white; 

place which feels as though it should Rest in Peace(s of sky)

on dark roofs.

Talk about Respect

The night was warm and relentless. It felt like it would never end. The young men and women were sitting around the fire, passing a flask around—whiskey anyone?—and a bottle of black liquid that no one seemed able to name. I had brought a friend. Not a boyfriend exactly, but a special friend…the kind you bring to sleepovers but not home? Like that. At that moment, sitting around the fire with all the boys laughing and joking, he felt like my guardian.

The friend who had invited me—Hannah—had since abandoned my friendship and was currently rolling around in the lap of the oldest man—he was in his forties, and married with some kids. None of them were around though, and he was sneaking quick grabs under her shirt and down her pants as I squirmed on my side of the fire. I was afraid to leave her alone with them, but not very interested in staying either. If my boy-toy hadn’t been there, who knows what would have happened. I ignored Hannah, focusing instead on my toy. He was laughing and listening to the boys’ stories.

Hannah needed to pee. She insisted on this in a very loud voice, while trying to untangle her legs from around Bob’s—the old man—thighs. When she fell the first time, everyone just stared and didn’t bother doing anything. It was hard to look at her as anything other than a tramp. I hadn’t seen my friend in almost seven years. This was the first I’d seen in all that time, and I was not proud of it. I was not happy that she treated herself so disrespectfully.

The second time she fell, Bob got off his stump and helped her up. He led her out into the woods, and we sat around the fire. It felt cold to me, and I got shivers up and down my arms. All I could think was of whatever he was doing to her out there. Was he being buddy-buddy and letting her know she was a good kid and deserved the best and he was a friend? Was he saying all that while shoving his dick up her ass? It made me want to gag.

Ted, one of the cuter boys, was leaning his shoulders and neck against a tree, with the rest of his body along the ground. He had drank an entire pint of some kind of hard whiskey, and was speaking in mumbles and accentuating his fs. If I had left my boy at home, Ted was the one I’d be after right then. Alex, Hannah’s ex, was sitting opposite Ted, with his own assortment of drinks and the chicken legs he hadn’t finished sloughing down. When I saw Hannah again, she told me all about how good it was when Alex gave her anal. I had had to literally change the subject in the middle of her thought when she brought it up. It could not be handled by I.

Alex was gangly and he had a crew cut. His teeth looked rotten in his mouth, with sticky excess climbing the once-white teeth like thick roots. He laughed like a hick. His whole manner gave me the creeps. The only reason I had agreed to come out was for the campfire and a game of paintball in the morning. I hadn’t thought of all the uncomfortable sensations I’d need to get through first.

When Bob came back dragging Hannah with him, I jumped up to help. I wanted her to sit near me and away from all the boys. They weren’t safe. But he said we needed to lay her down on her stomach so she wouldn’t choke, so we did, downhill, so it would slide that way. Bob threw some water in her face and she spit at it and mumbled. He threw more until she opened her eyes and hurled. I stepped back, not interested in participating any further in this. Alex threw a plastic bottle at her head, still as it was on the ground. Bob held her hair back as she hurled.

After that she fell asleep and I took my toy to bed. We got into my tent, fooled around a little, and went to sleep. Well, he fell asleep. I laid awake for what felt like hours, wondering how my friend had gotten to be so submissive and easily used. I wondered who had started her on this trend, and if there was anything I could do to save her from herself.

I was being shaken. I opened my eyes but couldn’t see anything except the shadows of branches above my tent. The wind was wild and the tent felt like it might come loose from the hooks we’d plunged into the ground. I looked at my toy, but he was still asleep. When I shook him, his breath didn’t skip a beat. I lay back down and thought about sleep, but the shaking continued and I realized I had to pee. I got on my hands and knees and climbed out of the tent.

The moon made everything bright and very easy to see. Hannah was no longer lying on the hill. I couldn’t see her anywhere. Bob was sleeping on a chair by where she’d been hours ago. I turned around and her face was right in front of me. I jumped back, tripped on something and fell. She didn’t try helping me up. She didn’t move at all. The wind kept whipping the trees and branches, and her long red hair was tying knots on itself. She stared straight ahead, not looking at me. I got up and looked back at her. It was like she wasn’t really there.

“I’m pregnant,” she said unnaturally. I should have been more surprised, or shocked, but I wasn’t. And her tone didn’t imply a need for concern.

“Shouldn’t you do something about that?” I said, wiping the dirt that I’d fallen in from my butt.

“I’m pregnant by him,” she said, looking past me at Bob.

“What? When? God, Hannah…” I didn’t know how to respond. What if he heard us?

She looked at me for the first time. “I don’t want the baby to know that THAT was his father.”

“His?”

She was staring at him again, with real hatred in her eyes. “I just wanted to make Alex jealous. But he doesn’t care.”

“You deserve better than these assholes,” I said, reaching for her hand, but it looked like my hand went right through hers.

“He made me pregnant back there,” she said, motioning behind her. “I just wanted you to know… I wanted you to be here to see that I did something good. I can do something right.” She walked past me and I saw a bottle in her hand. She raised it to Bob’s lips and poured it into his mouth.

“What are you doing?” I asked, not moving.

But she continued to pour. I heard some gurgling and a slight sigh, then she smiled and dropped the bottle in my lap. “Now he’ll never know.”

I woke up with my toy snoring in my ear. It was quiet outside. I unzipped the tent and stood up, only in a t-shirt and a pair of boxers. Hannah was lying on the hill next to Bob’s chair. He was still sitting there. I saw her move. She sat up and looked over the water. Her hair was gnarled and greasy from the night before—from the alcohol and people touching it, and twigs breaking off in it, and from vomiting on it. She turned and looked at me. She smiled.

When Ted came out of the tent he yipped and started shaking the other tents. I heard my toy cry out in alarm. Ted pushed Bob out of his chair and the man just lay there, unmoving.

“Hey you shit, I thought I was the alarm!” someone said, coming over, but I don’t know who. It wasn’t important. Bob was still, too still.

I looked back at Hannah, and she was still smiling. I could see that look of triumph in her eye and even in her posture. I knew she wouldn’t be bending over for another person unless she called the shots. And I was proud of her.

My Life

So it's a little weird knowing that my exes look at this blog on occasion. But it's also enlightening--at least there's a reason to keep it alive. I didn't think anyone was looking at it anymore. So here's a deal: if someone makes a comment by Christmas, then I promise to keep my blog updated weekly. But then I need to receive a comment at least every month. Grad school is no simple road, and I don't have time for this, but I'm trying to make time. Blog instead of watching "Jericho" sigh. I love Jericho.

My life:

Lesson plan for two CO 150 classes. Teach those classes. Grade assignments. Grade forums. Talk to students.

Graduate classes. Read 300+ pages a week (this is far less than what many others have to read--especially the literature majors). Write papers. Politics. Ugh. I hate politics.

Writing: Write every day. Fine, every other day, or sometimes, every two days. But write. Keep writing. Don't give up. Write nonfiction. Write about S & M. Write fiction. Submit to Circlet. Get published. Woot!

Reading. Read about teaching styles. Read about graduate school. Read for grad school. Read about literary journalism. Read erotica for that anthology I HAVE TO PUBLISH. Read what I want. Ha! Like there's time.

Real World. Pay bills. Write out checks to every utility: rent, electric, gas, water, internet. Writing checks makes it real. I feel like an adult. Food. Make big meals and eat the same thing all week. Too much money. Gas. Too much money. Friends...well, no time.

Colorado. Get mad about the lack of woods. Get mad about taxes. Mad about parking fees for every state park. Mad about the sun. Mad about the lack of weather. Mad that the bus system is a joke. Mad that I am mad about everything no matter where I live. Fulfillment.

Thinking. All of this requires thinking. Write some before bed. Turn the thinking off like a lamp. Kill it, destroy it, bury it underground so that it never sees the light of day.

Someone New

There once was a girl who fell in love with everyone, all the time. She loved to love people, and things, and learning was always her favorite activity. But she learned to hide these feelings from those who would take advantage. For a long time she searched and searched, but there was no one she really loved anymore; everyone seemed to her to be the same. It was like looking for a quarter in the Atlantic Ocean.

Then one day she found him. He was beautiful and sexy and kind and fun, everything she had always dreamed of. She didn't just fall for him, she collapsed over him, in a state that some might call faint or "swooning." He liked her too, she thought, but he wouldn't tell her so, or he would say it in a cryptic way, like, "I like you a lot," whenever she wanted him to say, "I love you."

They spent many months together, but distantly, because they lived so far apart. They saw each other every now and then, but it became too much. And his work became overpowering. They made plans to meet again, to go camping and dance the nights away, but he got too busy and cancelled. When he didn't call for over a week, her feelings began to boil in a fury, and she wanted to know what was going on, and why he'd called her a good person when she needed to know that he liked her.

"Well, we're not dating," he said. And just like that, like the snap of someone's fingers, she knew that he had found someone else. She talked to him for a little while, damming back tears that could fill Lake Powell.

She didn't want to end up like her parents--miserable and alone, or miserable and obsessive. She didn't want to be the girl who jumped like a spider from boy to boy until she was so destroyed that she'd give up all hope. She cried for a long time. But then she remembered that he was a useless boy, and she didn't need him anyhow. She erased his number from her phone, deleted him from her Facebook Friends list, and tried to move on. But always in the back of her mind she was wondering, maybe someday...

And she went on her road trip to meet Someone New. Happily every after?

Missing Apple

The halls were overflowing with your scent: sharp apple tinged with pear. Yet no matter where I looked, you could not be found. I had every room searched: among the tankards, the office, amidst the barrels of wine and hardening cider, but nothing came up. There was no note, no evidence of where you had gone to, or why.

“That smell is just the workshop,” my wife hissed late at night, when I told her you had gone. “It isn’t her at all. If I’d never met the lady myself, I wouldn’t believe you she existed.”

Oh, she is a harsh, unattractive woman; but she has been kind to me, and understanding of the relationship you and I had together; as I have always been of hers with the kitchen boy. But now I am worried. She and I have not kissed or touched in years, and I have no other whims; you are the wine glass among the beer mugs, my dainty martini every night at midnight, and I care not for any red or white wines or burgundys. I worry about the last time I saw you, the lines on your face, the swelling in your stomach that was like a fruit ripening on the vine. Did you fall from the tree? Did you roll away from the embarassment, thinking that I would toss you away, my rotten apple?

I spend my nights in the apple orchards, among your favorite granny smiths, and prepare a bed on which to sleep, with a canopy above, and I wait. Especially here, I can smell you; sharp apple and a sprinkle of pear, everywhere except in my arms.

Dark Solitude

The rock is cold under my back and hands; for awhile the cold is nice, because outside the heat is extreme. I can feel Josh next to me, his warmth radiating. Our breathing echoes against the walls, which feel close enough to suffocate us here, in this crevice far beneath old lava flows. I know that if the dark weren’t so pitch, I would see my breath in the air. It’s not a dry cold which we experience so much in Idaho, but a wet one—my very lips are moist in this place. The ground is scattered with unforgiving sharp rocks. I fell on my way in and can feel the scrape across my knee and another on my palm. We have flashlights, but we refuse to use them; the dark is too embracing, too real to interrupt.

This is a place of solitude and meditation, a place where a person could really go crazy if they were down here for too long. I wave my hand in front of my face, and after a while, I believe I can really see it. Josh can’t see anything, he says, he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. Maybe I’d be the first to lose my sanity.

Younger than they appear

True story:

The other day, my cousin Brady asked my aunt how old she is.

“Women don’t like it when you ask that,” she or Geoffrey told him.

“Why?” He asked.

“Because women like to think they look younger than they are,” Geoffrey explained.

“Mom,” Brady said, looking at my aunt, “You look like you’re eleven.”

“Not that young!” Geoffrey corrected.

“Fine, fourteen then.”

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: Why I like it

Recently I had an interview with the Reading Institute for a job teaching with them this summer. One of the primary questions I was asked was what I liked about a book that pulled me in. I stuttered over fragmented reasons, using words like "metaphor" and "description," completely forgetting that the institute is not interested in analysis; it is interested in the simple truths that draw a person into a book.

Sadly, I was not accepted into the program. But I learned something: how to stop overanalyzing.

I became absorbed in a classic from the 1940s; A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, transported me to a 1920s Brooklyn in the mind of a young girl: Francie Nolan. I got to follow her to the junk shop where she and her brother sold junk for change, and then to the candy store where they spent precious pennies on sweets. I felt her shame when the doctor discussed her filth to the nurse in front of her, and the shame of being poor and lying to get what she wanted: some pie or a doll that everyone else was too proud to admit they wanted. Her family was quirky and loveable, and she loved all of them unconditionally, unaware of their faults until she got a little older.

I read her thoughts like they were my own as she worked things out; why did her mother like her brother more than she? And why did daddy get so dunk all the time? Her mother had worked hard to make Francie into a thinker--and it paid off. Francie worked hard and found good jobs. She found herself a possible husband. She's known hunger and fear, and joy and love and heartbreak. She's learned the histories of her family. I've always wanted to know my family's histories.

She visited the candy store where she and her brother always went as children, and asked to buy every bag of candy on the wall, determined to find the prize that the owner had always claimed was there; but he argued with her, and she made him put a doll in one of them, so that some kid someday would win a prize. She even paid for it, just to give some other child hope.

Although I have compassion for the days she went hungry and lived in shame about her family's money problems, I am jealous of Francie for getting to know her home and her family so well, while I'm lucky to see my family a few times a year, and feel that I have no place to call home. While I suffered with Francie in her story, I suffer in my life for not having one quite the same.

Green Tea

I used to snack on

mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Any brand, any texture, from any store.

It was all the same: fairly dull, sometimes sweet,

and always made me feel a little sick later.

Then I found green tea.

It took a while before I was given permission

to drink;

But once I did I was hooked

Like a soda-addict, or a chipaholic;

I no longer wanted mint chocolate chip

I have green tea.

If you don't love it, try to like it

I don't love my job, but then, who does? It seems that every time I get a job, I hate it, and as soon as it ends, it was the best job in the world. For instance: I worked at a ranch in Idaho this past summer. It was an amazing experience with a lot of firsts: first time in the real west, first time dancing in public, first dating without going steady.

My job was simple. I brought people their food and refilled their waters; the most work we had to do was mop the wooden floor in the mornings and rearrange tables. All of the things I hated the most revolved around those I was stick working with. The chef was highly stressed, especially with my indecipherable handwriting, and two of the servers and I just didn't understand each other. One was from the country, and he called me "city girl," whereas I'd made a mistake with the other--a comedian--I hooked up with him.

Immediately after I decided to end our relationship, if it was that, he began to hate me. On numerous occasions I asked him a question to which he always laughed and set me on edge. On the last day, I asked him one more time. "Do you hate me?"

"I don't hate you as a person," he said carefully, as though weighing his words, "I just don't like working with you." The joy this sent me I now find embarassing. I was so happy to know that he didn't hate me, that I was practically wagging my tail like a puppy; like a puppy that was just beaten, and is now petted.

During troubled times, former jobs, like every former situation, look wonderful.

For me, life is full of amazing, spontaneous things, and my summer job was amazing because I was always doing something, and even if it was miserable at times, it was hardly boring. My favorite memories from there are those of dancing and dumpster diving, meeting strange Irish guys, and climbing rocks with people I didn't know.

I currently serve (waitress) at a corporate Italian restaurant. I'm sure you've been to one; they are across the country. I don't love my job, but I don't think I hate it, either. The worst parts are pretty standard: strict rules, short-staffed, asshole customers and managers; but the best part is the people I work with. There are over 70 of us. Because of our great numbers, learning names has been challenging, but I'm finally doing it.

Jim is Irish. He's usually pretty quiet. He likes to say my name whenever he sees me. Maybe he likes saying it. "Artemis," he says, "what are you doing, Artemis?" He's one of the only servers to tell me when I'm doing a good job, so I like him. Sometimes he says "Be quiet," to spice things up, I guess. I ignore it.

We have a slew of college kids, and an older generation as well: people in their 30s or 40s. While we're supposed to have only three table at a time, Maria, who is of the latter category, sometimes takes on six tables. For a while she was my role model. I admired her dry humor and get-out-of-my-way attitude. I thought to myself, just be like her and don't make mistakes; don't freak out. Then one day she had a breakdown. I felt betrayed at first, because if Maria could panic, then so could the rest of us, and it meant there was no way to be perfect.

It's usually in times of great distress and fear that we realize we might not be able to do this and--oh, god--why go on? But somehow, we tend to push through it. Money can help. A few weeks ago I worked two nights in a row and I felt a strong, strong desire to quit (although I have no experience with such things, the desire to rid myself of the job might have been akin to that of a laboring mother who desires to push out the child within). Even after counting my tips, which were of a substantial amount, I felt cheated, angry, and desperate to leave.

A few days later, the intensity lightened and all but went away. Focusing on the aspects enjoyed is the best treatment for a disliked job. That was when I began memorizing faces and names and getting to know the people I work with. Like a bi-polar person finding the right prescription, all felt right with the world. For the moment, at least.

Nonfiction Character Sketches

She wears her thin hair in a bun. She has homemade granola wrapped in sandwich bags and these inside tin boxes (from the dollar store) to give as gifts on Christmas. Her favorite subjects include: fundamentalist Christians, the Kabalah, my father, and the evils of Wal Mart. When she talks about something that she feels strongly about, her intensity can spread like infection, but it can also be so intense that it's terrifying, much like an out-of-control fire. If someone has an idea that she doesn't agree with, they'd better have a defense prepared.

He's cute when his brother isn't around. When he smiles, his dimples turn into quotes around his mouth. He paces around the house, looking down at his feet as though he's deep in thought. He wants to have fun and to be funny. "You're not the boss of me" and "That's stupid" are two of his favorite sayings. He is excellent at entertaining himself: legos, puzzles, and books keeping him occupied for hours. He talks to himself while in the bathroom. Every morning he plops the advent calendar marker into the pocket marking the next day: December 22. Three days until Christmas.

He's tall and skinny, but his stomach is as flat and hard as a board. He's always smiling and moves his hands when he talks. He talks about everything; God, his parents, tomatoes, "My Side of the Mountain" and other books, and trees. He hikes whenever possible, although finding time to do so is like finding water in the desert--it can happen, but probability is highly unlikely. He visits Idaho whenever he can, and the Kasino Club is his favorite bar; he swing-dances with strangers. He can also waltz, dance goth, and dance dirty. Like his range of subjects, he wants to live in a range of places.

Stealing because it's the right thing to do

This is a true story told to me by someone connected with my family.

So I’m standing in Yelena's kitchen, and she’s sitting on this white, royal-looking chair next to the back door. We’re both eating some of this stuff she made; it’s like a cookie made of almonds and marshmellows drowned in chocolate and then frozen. It’s crunchy and sweet and the marshmellows make it squishy. Abby, the golden dingo, keeps sitting in front of me raising her paw begging for a handout.

“So I noticed that Isabel has all this new stuff, and I asked if she’s been stealing it from Walmart,” she said. “At first she said no, but then she said yes. She said, ‘Oh but mom, I only steal stuff when I see a manager being mean to an employee because I don’t think they should be treated that way.’”

“So did you tell her it was wrong to steal?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. I told her that stealing shit from them just hurts the people making the stuff in other countries. They notice how much money they’re losing on the stuff that’s being stolen, so they lower the price and pay the workers less money, so they can get away with it.”

“Wow, a normal parent would have just said that stealing is wrong and they could go to jail for doing it.”

“Yeah, well, a normal kid would have said , ‘well I’m just doing it because you won’t give me money.’”

Falling in

Yellow leaves swamping the driveway
quick hikes in the setting sun
and cool nights reading about the west
boil a feeling that makes me want to
rip out my hair and
leave marks in the wall
grab on and hold tight
until it lies still as a rotten stump


But I see wheat hair
lake-clear eyes
legs strong living branches
voice an energetic wind
words staggered as an outcropping


I fall into the feeling


your hands on my face


fingers like twigs pulling at my hair

and sink into you like quicksand

More afraid of letting go than falling

in

Vines

Vines. I am like a vine. I do not grow straight up. I learn to lean on others to reach my place in life; I try not to destroy these objects which I lean on. I just wrap around them and climb. I don't necessarily know what I want right away, so much of my time is spent winding my way through ideas until I choose a tall live one for climbing.

Sometimes I sprout many leaves of thought, and other times it's only a beautiful flower or two, without much in terms of body. I am very talented at writing flowery metaphors and scenes, but sometimes this skill is a hindrance, as it can make it difficult to get my thoughts across.

Fire Love

Love: Terrifying and alluring.

If it was a sure thing, there would be no allure.

If it was caught in a net like a dying butterfly, it would be buried and forgotten. It needs to fight like a hornet, struggling to find a way out, unsure of whether or not it should use that painful stinger.

It is a dance where he is pulled into my space and I push him out of it. We switch places.

It's when sometimes we join, and sometimes we go our separate ways.

Always he is on my mind and I can't shut it off like a mere lightswitch.

It is a dazzling dangerous fire that has crept beyond the fireplace and is creeping across the floor, intent on destroying everything.

Without those flames, the cold would creep in and under the sheets.

I'd rather it threaten to burn the house down than go out and leave only darkness in its wake. Just another writer writing, trying to keep the cold away.

My couchsurf/trip to Idaho blog!

Click here to see my cross-country blog: http://couchsurfingusa.blogspot.com/

White Cat by Holly Black

BOOK ONE

WHITE CAT

From the back page:

Cassel comes from a family of curse workers — people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn't got the magic touch, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail — he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.

Holly Black has created a gripping tale of mobsters and dark magic where a single touch can bring love — or death — and your dreams might be more real than your memories.

My review:

Whenever someone tries to tell me I won't figure out what it is they're lying about or hiding, I have to try to think about all the things they could possibly be talking about. So when I read the above description of Holly Black's new book "White Cat," (book 1 in what may turn into a series) I had to try guessing what would happen. She tricked me a few times--but I figured out one deceit a few chapters before I think she'd have liked. This is a book for mystery fanatics and Young Adults alike--it's got plenty of action, with calm points, as well as some healthy suspense.

The characters are fun and untrustworthy and you won't know whether or not you should like Cassel--I wasn't sure either when I began the book. Give it a chance and read this excellent new book by Holly Black. I don't want to say too much or I might give something away. It's also difficult for me to write a long review of a book I have few problems with.

Holly Black has written children's books ("The Spiderwick Chronicles"), graphic novels ("The Good Neighbors"), and Young Adult books (three book about faeries: "Tithe," "Valient," and "Ironside"). The sequel to White Cat is out and a third is on the way. If you haven't read anything by Black, now is your chance--she has a number of short stories published in anthologies as well. Find one!