floor

Six dollars will buy you happiness.

God bless jumbo margarita night.

slippery slopes

the hour before his arrival, I jokingly wondered where he was and when he was going to come to siena. that he actually arrived was both pleasing and surprising. his second appearance to the shop was marked by his enormous appetite (three lunch items and a smoothie) and a few references to his last visit. then, the first song he played was a song that I loved previously, and I wondered if he played it for me. and yet, he has been girlfriended for some three years now to a sullen frigid thing who is wonderful in lots of other ways, but doesn't make him happy.

\

his visits to the coffeeshop are a disruption. I stop being myself and switch to something else. I shift gears in front of him and he knows it. he knows why. he wants to think it is the one thing, but really, he knows that it can only be that other thing, that thing that is so always a part of our communication, so stifling and restrictive, so painful and swollen that there is no ignoring that they have explored each other and what we had was nothing but a flat surface. so awful is it to see him that I find ways to avoid serving him if I can, which means the person who makes the worst lattes becomes his barista, and today was no different except he didn't want a latte, he wanted to drop off a dvd I loaned him and then give me the first season of Lost to consume. and yet, what we had was nothing. when I saw them together, I felt nothing, an absence of emotion, but I could not muster enthusiasm, so I ignored them.

\

two hours to kill. two drinks in two hours. two jobs already worked and one still remained. and yet, I was going to be around children later. but I wanted nothing more than to be at raven's, one more night.

\

his sunken eyes search mine and I look for a spark of recognition or desire, but instead I see nothing but eyes. he seems out of it, drunk, crazy even, and there's something about him that makes me want to try and wrap my arms around his mess. today was the first day I admitted some attraction, and yet, I already know that he's not worth the trouble or mental exhaustion. I resisted the urge to smile at him, to ask about him, to introduce myself to him, but just barely.

\

another night of little to no sleep, and what will tomorrow bring, what horror will I inflict on some well meaning soul, what will the lack of sleep do to infect my actions [a spilled cup of coffee, perhaps] and now there is a blackout--people are opening their doors and windows to confirm that the electricity is indeed out, as though the blink of everything on to off wasn't enough of an indicator--and my eyes are burning from the tired, but I know myself, there is nothing I can do when this happens other than honor that momentum. but I know what's best and five hours is cutting it close. and yet, what does sleep give me other than vacant time and lack of dreams?

\

rent is due soon. and yet, no amount of working seems to be enough.

newly accquired pet peeves

the phrase "large vanilla skim latte" [I think I may have reached the one millionth served mark.]

psychological pat-downs by unqualified persons. [who do you think you are anyway?]

said persons. [they know who they are.]

parents who insist their child doesn't want the thing they are asking for because they don't want to follow through with the request. [can't you just say no?]

people who speak slowly. [seriously, I can't help it, but I will finish your sentences. And I won't be that sorry. Unless you were born this way.]

the term "my myspace." [I say it to be cheeky. When you say it it's redundant, unless you smile with the knowledge that you sound absurd.]

text messages that simply say, "ok." [why even bother?]

feel free to add your own...

almost every girl is sweetie.

but in his hands I melted,

my hair pushed away by his fingers,

and I could feel his hesitation when he reached my earlobes,

the sacred space that is so very intimate

he compensated by travelling down my back

while I pushed myself against the bar

when his hands left me there was no more pain or tightness

just the imprints of his fingertips

and an appreciation for a man I had never wondered about previously.

[oh David!]

funny how one thing can turn you,

and funnier what that one thing wil be.

[a backrub?]

I lingered there in hopes of enticing him to me once more

and I got what I wanted, which made me glad.

the end.

: you think too much, Christine.

: [absence of words]

: How could you?

: shut up! stop it...

: I gotta go to the note man.

: if you're looking for a boyfriend, I'm not the guy for you.

: you have my cell phone, right?

: are you scared or something?

: it's either that, or you're covering up a lot of pain.

: why don't you just take your turn as the sexy alpha girl?

solution/cause

reporter's log:

frozen, cold, bitter, she remains, a cold, a wall, a boiled down version of what the fakery and lies have always hid, you can plainly see she is just an igloo.

the man of the year has emerged with a proposition that was largely ignored. perhaps it is for the best that the bitterness soaked through the sponge to the cracks in her and froze there, so that his message seemed unnecessary and a waste of time. game over man of the year, you can't come back now, not now, not ever. who do you think you are? what sort of tomfoolery of the mind are you up to? and when will she ever be able to hold you comfortably? we know the answer is never, but does he know that? you want to make her dinner and play scrabble, who are you and where were you half a year ago?!

pete has lost his job, which was swallowing him whole, so it was no coincidence that he was present and accounted for at the season finale of 24. what was a surprise was his relentless effort in having her in attendance. there were others, but he wanted her there. and when there is want, there is the desire to have that, even if it is friendly, even if it doesn't mean anything, so she cancelled her plans to sit elbow to elbow with the man that she has always admired, one of her oldest friends, a man she has done anything for, a man she will continue to do anything for.

the sad realization that they have explored each other, spots, moles and marks inventoried, limbs and trunks aligned on his futon, why does it hurt her, the truth is logically, it all makes sense and it is for the best, she was never convinced, but there was a part of her that loved him, that brain of his, that talk of his, that feeling he stoked in her was addictive and she wanted it all the time, all to herself. his recent odd appearances have held that same sheen of joy, but it is tinged now with their mutual exploration, and it is over, it is hard to get it that it is over and it was never gonna happen anyway, no matter how much fun it was to know him and be known. the half hour in which he interloped at the bar was filled with her calamaties and a clumsiness that she'd assumed grew out of her long limbs, but it returned in full force with a jolt from beer and hormones. it's over and it never was.

there is a mutual dislike from the lover she didn't have to love, and it has been boiling for sometime, the realization that you have shared yourself with someone less than worthy and the frustration of being shuffled aside despite how great you are. so he ignored her. and she ignored him. and the bitterness sighed a deep shuffling wheeze and wished that she would just say that she is done with him, but the truth is he shows his worthiness now and again, except he oscillates expertly between jerk and goofball and if only he could rest on the latter for good, but he is on a tear to have something filled that can never be filled...it's true.

and "are you the love of my lifetime?" is still absent from her life. that this new anger is fueled by some old unresolved drama is baffling, but precludes him from being the love of her lifetime and gives him the tagline, "because there's been times I've had my doubts" to know him to is doubt him, for there is nothing he can provide that is stability, at least not for her. his missing presence should be enough to keep him out of mind, but there are too many things that evoke memories of them, him, and sometimes she even wonders if this is it, if this is over, and if it is, then why doesn't it feel like a good thing. why does it hurt so much?

despite all the reasons to resume the stress managing habit that brought her a quick relief, a small joy, a momentary lapse in judgment, she prevailed. two weeks have passed. soon it will be two months. two years. daily there is some new trauma to dissect and dispose of properly (instead of shoving it into a tight space where the bones of long ago pains reside) and the worst of these have been the small infractions of their friendship, between her and her, the supposed bestest of best friends, which was discussed more than felt, because time steeps these things, not words, but words left welts on them, and it is possible there is no going back from this high climb into hysteria. if only she could understand the drunk girl she sees is not her friend and if only her friend could cut her a little slack for being a newly converted nonsmoker with no way to manage the small stresses of life.

the time was spent trying to make sense of all this and more, and in the end she is no better for it, just full of experiences and moments, more than would have been felt from home, more than she has experienced in a while, but it is intense and overwhelming to the senses.

you'll be missed. [eff that]

the most exciting thing that happened to me this weekend is I went to the parker garage sale and found toujour provence by peter mayle, which is the sequel to a year in provence, which I finally read after many years of it collecting dust on my shelves.

I finished the first one a few weeks ago, when I was zealously reading books again. I imagined I would search out its sequel at some point in time, whether at Powell's or John's or even a thrift store. little did I know I would randomly purchase a hardcover for a couple bucks.

I also bought dubliners by james joyce, i know why the caged bird sings by maya angelou, and a short story collection by philip roth.

hog on ice

in trying to figure where or why the phrase "three sheets to the wind" came about, I consulted the book hog on ice as a reference.

though it may be in there somewhere, google proved to be much faster, though I trust the information less.

when will the two worlds meet?

worst case scenarios imminent.

[sometimes I get these intense attacks of presentiment where I am convinced something is going to happen that usually doesn't and in my imaging these events, I tend to map them out in an effort to see where I can diffuse the hysteria and convince myself that I will be unmovable in my determination not to cry--which is what usually happens.]

lately I have been feeling like the sky is falling.

damn chicken little, shut the fuck up.

I'm always on this side of the fence.

\

fancy that

today in the semi-circle of the sky, after a brief downpour, the rain clouds lifted and the sun crept back and out of the corner of my eye I noticed movements which caused me to look up and see hundreds of birds swooping in the air, sailing in all directions, recklessly, heedlessly, black shadows against murky blue sky striped with puffy white clouds.

immediately I was transported back to a moment in time when I was standing in front of a building in Rome, whose name I can no longer remember, where hundreds of birds soared in this same frenetic fashion,

apparently, it was a common scene at dusk, the birds looking for a place to rest til dawn.

I have never seen it happen here,

was it the disturbance of the rain that unsettled them?

or just that I have never noticed it in my own city before?

boredom is an ugly burden

I assault them with the only thing that currently brings me joy, special lines of king, queen, knave: select, sleek, compact sentences that have captured my attention and yet, upon the next reading may thrill me no more than some other line of perfection that appeals to that future me, enlivened by the turn of phrase that seems so succint.

it occurs to me that this will be my world for a while, a series of indulgences that live as attempts at fending off my mind's rampant need to be satisfied and excited about someone. For now, there is no someone, a complete lack of horses on the racetrack, I sit in empty stands with the tickets of thrilled gamblers at my feet and wonder why it is that I'm still around when so many other pressing errands of life are waiting to fill my time.

the truth is I have been gambling so long and hard and with such long shots that I find I must retrain my body and brain to behave differently. I have stumbled upon this sad truth before, but now that so much time has passed, I see that it is only going to keep passing and I will keep sitting here making up imaginary races to lend some semblance of familarity to my days, when in fact, this jarring emptiness is what I should respect.

trying to figure out where it went wrong, replaying the race in my mind, fending off hindsight: these keep me awake at night.

queer

the best parts of my day were all fragments, tiny slivers of time that don't mean anything on their own to anyone but me:

drew saying he bet I didn't think he'd call.

kevin's hudsucker proxy quote.

michael calling me sexy.

annie's eyebrows communicating so much.

walter's eyes shrinking.

pretty much everything about dustin, but specifically, dustin's turquoise polo with dark blue sweater vest.

putnam's anonymous yelling of my name; our random encounter.

that I didn't smoke again.

my gracious texts.

the surprise of natalia's words.

val's realization that I was joking.

the return of my "normal."

you lived the last week without me

sigh.

no smoking: day five.

A week ago and a day ago I learned the truth about the city. A week and a day ago I incurred the wrath of the old home. A week tomorrow is when I exhaled the fresh air from my lungs.

slept eighteen hours and spent eighteen hours awake,

read another book

reconnected with an ex, disconnected with an ex

want to smoke so bad it hurts

my lungs are still damaged from monday

saw old friends and felt joy, saw new friends and felt oppressed

if ever there was a yin and a yang, it was this week, this life.

duh:

he wouldn't even read my writing

gastronomical distress

[this might be why I don't trust myself to buy groceries and/or eat at home]:

peeled baby carrots and the best ranch dressing ever [naturally yours lite, which I found today at treasure island after a year of searching other grocery stores fruitlessly!]

a ripe avocado

the good corn chips, the ones in the bag with the green stripes across it

black bean dip

double cream cheese [like brie, but not quite brie]

a demi-baguette

a pbr

two handfuls of walnuts

all combined have left me with one very upset stomach.

day two:

grrrr

grrrroogy.

feel like crrap.

my fucking r button is shit.

everrything has annoyed me today.

unsurrrprrisingly.

death to debauchery

I'm not sure how I'm gonna swing it, but I gotta take a huge step back from these innocent nights of drinking that turn into ridiculous marathon drink fests that leave me ruined for the next day. as fun as they are--and they are fun--they are costly, damaging, and altogether too frequent for my tastes.

Thing is, it's not like I've been overdoing it for very long...it's been about five months of serious and consistent drinking, but I do know you could compile all the other times I've gotten drunk before this period and it would hardly be a list worth bothering over. I was never much of a drinker; then I met Eric. He stoked some appreciation for alcohol in me, and truth be told, it wasn't hard for me to say yes. Addictive personality always reigns. Yet, I was in school full time for the duration of our relationship and I made my fair share of passes on life's social outlets. I tried to honor the ever important birthdays and other such would-be offenses had I skipped out, but I felt like I was saying no a lot more than I was saying yes.

There's no reason to pass on a good time other than the getting up early for work reason, so I've been going along with a lot of drinking nights. Sometimes two or three a week. Usually at least six hours a night. Drinking as much as we can. Smoking as much as we can. Trying to forget. Trying to pass the time. The other day Barb told me to enjoy myself and not make myself feel bad about it. Easier said than done. She also managed to point out: that my life is pretty responsibility free right now and this is the perfect time for this kind of stuff. I'm single, childless, largely debtless (except of course, for the student loans), and I have a dumb job I can sleepwalk through.

The cloves signified to me that I've reached some kind of calamitous summit that has breached the idea that this whole venture was ever considered "fun." Whenever the urge to smoke cloves hits me, I know I am in some serious self-infliction pattern and I am reaching my capacity. Usually what happens is I take the hint and pick up the pieces.

I haven't smoked all day today. And my resolve to quit cigarettes seems as strong as it ought to be to try it cold turkey again. The other part will be a lot harder. I love my friends, my new boozy friends, but I just can't go out the night before I have to work in the morning.

I was a mess today. I literally--not exaggerating--could barely function. I could hardly form words. I didn't drink that much, but I only slept about three hours. And when the alarm went off I groaned--that felt like no time at all. I then proceeded to trudge through a six hour shift at the coffeeshop and seven hours with the world's cutest but hyper conversational two year old. And it wasn't til I got home and took a shower that some semblance of normality returned to me.

But the worst thing these last five months is facing the knowing glances and comments from some of the fucking customers at the coffeeshop who mean well but send their judgmental bullshit in my direction. It makes me want to drink more, seeing their tsking-know-it-all stares, because it always seems so futile to fend off other people's opinions.

the lightness of truth

there's so many people who heard my truths today that it almost hurt, but I do feel lighter and more heady than I have in weeks and weeks, because there's no one I feel obligated to and nothing I feel bad about being.

in the end, nothing worked out the way I wanted it to, but the lesson of being an adult is that I've learned to appreciate that things won't always go the way I like and it's okay. Things ending and being clarified means that there's room for something else to happen...

after all, nothing really matters and everything is significant.

the clove.

a nap time dream

[I hardly ever dream. I suppose it might have something to do with how active my imagination is; I must use up all my good material during my waking hours. Or, it might have something to do with my strange sleeping habits: four to five hours most days, followed by a day of twelve hours to catch up. While taking a nap this afternoon, I had a very interesting dream that I was actually unaware was a dream while I was in it, whereas most of my dreams seem to feel like I am watching myself as a character from overhead and actively aware of the dream as it happens.]

I am in a house that is mine, I live there, it is different than anywhere I have lived previously. It is a well lived in arrrangement, a sense of dinginess prevails, a feeling of being lived-in is evident, the walls are full of murals. I am searching the house for something, but when I come across a man sitting on a low plush object--a beanbag, maybe?--he jumps up to greet me. He has on glasses that are extremely reflective and for a while it is hard to see his eyes. He is tall, handsome and strong. He picks me up. I know him. He is mine. I am his.

He carries me from room to room and I wrap my legs around his hips and we are very happy. He has light brown hair that might have been blond when he was a child. He is wearing a t-shirt. He greets other people in rooms, they know him. He is ecstatic to see me. He is not only smiling, he is laughing and giggling. I stare into his eyes--past the lenses of his glasses--which are milky with blindness. I wonder if he has been blind since birth or because of an accident. He hears something in a faraway room and tells me so, and I resist the urge to compliment him on his excellent sense of hearing, because I think it's just a reminder of his eyes being gone, and it seems obvious his hearing would be vastly better than mine. He nuzzles my neck as he carries me, and I shriek with joy. I am amazed that he can carry me around so easily.

Finally I land on something, a table of some sort, and he begins exploring me with his hands. His hands are gentle and kind, and I am watching his face, which is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. His lips are full and soft and they tremble. I know he is going to kiss me and I imagine what it will feel like when he does. I am expectant, waiting, ready.

[I wake up.]

it looks like your dog died.

the impact of knowing, really knowing and understanding the things we only suspect, when you hear yourself speaking the truth as you knew it and knowing you didn't even believe it then but now you know it's true, but being unable to stop the collision course you're on because the tracks are bound to your feet and the car is closed and the doors don't open til it's the next stop and when they open you collapse on the platform and just want to breathe some fresh air, but the fresh air falls in love with your lungs even though you're polluted, ruined, fucked.

the city you see when you climb the stairs welcomes you with its concreteness, its curves, its lines, its noises, its smells, its grandiosity, but it's impartial, it's indifferent, it treats you the way it treats everyone and you are no more special to it than anyone else who crosses its streets and wonders at how remarkable it is, except it does every once in a while shine its eyes at someone special and that someone is not you.

so you go to the building where you used to live hoping to find something comforting there, inside the darkness that you know so well, but it's slowly been emptied out until there's nothing but old letters stuffed in the mailbox with your name on them, letters you don't even care to open because they don't matter anymore, and your keys no longer turn the locks and your neighbors won't even return your greetings and you realize that's because you don't live there anymore and you can't go back there ever again even though you spent a lot of time there trying to make it a beautiful place to live.

finally, you go to the only place you have, this hotel room where you sleep at night and it's got your stuff there, things that remind you who you are and you hide inside it, waiting for the next day to bring you someone worth knowing, really knowing, someone worth loving, really loving, someone you can be proud of and excited about, and hope that they don't turn out to be the things you've already known will never be the way you wish they could be.

vespa

the wind whipping my hair into strings, separate strands of darkness flowing in a straight line behind me and how is it that I can be at once so very completely comfortable, yet so very very uncomfortable? my pink coat draws stares, it is buttoned up above my chin and it is bright, of course, because it is mine, and it even stands out in the reflections of the well shined glass on sheridan drive and though we've done this before during the day, it is night and the two of us on this thing, this scooter that is a beautiful and amazing thing, it makes me glad and I don't question why, I just resist the urge to yell yee haw when we drive so fast that the wind pulls my hair off my back and my eyes water and my nose gets runny and my hands and exposed skin gets cold and the world is twisting out and away faster and differently than it does when you're in a car, because when you're in a car, there is a barrier between you and the rest of the world and it is a door and often a pane of glass in that door, but on the bike, it is just you and the elements and your interaction with them is so much harder to ignore.

part of being on this kind of bike is that the people like you, the ones on their bikes, want to acknowledge you somehow, like there's a secret handshake, or a special emblem, or a certain pact between us that has us beep, wave or nod to our fellow riders on their scooters, motorbikes, mopeds and even the ubiquitous motorcycles are included in this brotherhood.

it is not very often that something can both thrill me and make me forget the undulating chorus of admonishments in my mind while the smile of my face sutures itself behind my teeth. and yet, beyond the scooting there is a relationship that I haven't been able to accept, but perhaps in time, I can.

steeplechase

getting back on the horse always feels so exhilarating and joyous.

too bad falling off is so fucking painful and annoying, and the daze that follows leaves me wondering for days how I could possibly even approach the idea of getting back on.

it starts with the little things, reading again, what pushed me out of this fog was Dress Your Family in Cordoroy and Denim. A week has passed and I've read two books and working on a third.

the thing that made me glad was finding my internet connection and being able to post a blog from home, from my bed, my studio by the lake, the only place where I am truly alone.

listen negative nancy, here's the siphon hose, take a hit

the work it takes to be someone's friend can sometimes be exhausting. I spent most of my day trudging through the deep mass of my own malaise to pull someone out of their quicksandy muck, because sometimes it hurts to know someone and know that they're drowning in their own thoughts for no good reason at all.

and yet, it was a beautiful day.

there's something to be said for selfless acts and the joy of knowing another person.

everything I notice is appreciated and everything I do gets noticed. it's a weird exchange we have, an odd intimacy that begs for more, yet the idea of actually being intimate [naked and dirty] seems so absurd and unlikely and awkward.

for now, there is the unfolding of his origami shapes and I love to languish in his words.

we travelled to chinatown and I got to be a psuedo tour guide. [it made me miss natalia terribly.] there we were, sitting among a place that was foreign and new and seemed to hold its own set of rules and have its own sense of time and space, where people weren't in a hurry to arrive somewhere and no one was talking on their cell phones and it was perfect. there was nothing we had to do and nowhere to be. I think we both needed that.

a father chased his child on the sidewalk and peals of laughter rose from their lips, a well dressed couple sought out their dinner companions, sculptures presided over a square that seemed built for tai chi practice, and dried food items of the most amazing variety--from sea horses to gnarled ginger roots, to thin ivory dics of abalone to gargantuan mushrooms--all gave off a musty, smoky, heady odor. it was exactly what I prescribed: a change of scenery and an overwhelment of the senses.

he is teaching me a new brand of patience and exploration, the sort I have never been able to grasp.

where there was one, now are two