This is a Test

You, my friend, are a dream...

2009-11-19T12:53:00.001-08:00

as dreams go, some is true, most is wild fantasy...

In college I had a professor named Bill McKibben; he's some environmental guru and looks just like one. Stringy, tall, looking older than he actually is. I remember thinking he had to be my parents' age when in fact he was 10 to 15 years younger. It was the farmer in him, the endless days in the sun, the work, the worry perhaps. There were too small girls, kind, pale and psychologically damaged, but by what I don't know. You could tell by the shared room though that they were different, special, artists without a clear outlet. The walls were covered in photographs they had taken with small Polaroids - one pink, the other purple. It documented their sheltered lives. I had spent a lot of time with them when they were young, taking copious notes as though I wanted to write a story about them or with similar characters. I adored them, their combination of inner strength and vulnerability was alluring. They had a magnetism that was inescapable and you couldn't help but want to protect them from whatever the future held. No one ever spoke of it, but somehow I knew there had been a third blonde child; there was residue of her beauty in every corner of the room.
I hadn't seen - or regrettably thought of - the girls in years, for I had known them my third year of school. I had a different although not altogether happy life across the country. But I had kept my notes from that time, all stacked on my shelf in a neat row of red journals. They were reminders of a potential I had never fulfilled, and for that reason I refused to discard them. I had fallen in and out of love with a series of unavailable men. George - physically, Julian - emotionally, Devin - mentally. But then you came along, and I knew it was me. The problem was me; you were married with two children, how more unavailable does one get? I kept my fascination in check; if you had disappeared, I would have been curious but not much touched. Cruel? Perhaps, but I was confident it was mutual.
You, however, were not well at the time. Stress you wouldn't talk about was making you increasingly manic. There was nothing I could do and you resented any attempt to help. You couldn't see how hard it was to not be able to help someone I cared about. We had planned to go to the museum on a Thursday. It was cold, a fact you repeatedly mentioned with an increasingly grating tone of indignation. We never made it to the museum, for alternating with weather-related complaints you were bursting with a undirected enthusiasm. You could hardly sit still and the sheer size of your presence was frightening. At some point you ran off, arms splayed like a young child, only to appear a few minutes later - as I had started walking off - driving a beat-up white van. Bone colored really, burnt by the sun and travel. Despite credible claims of ownership, you drove the vehicle as though you were utterly and blindly inebriated.
Five minutes into a potentially epic adventure, a petite, beautiful blonde - a Grace Kelly look-alike - with two small children in tow came running out of a department store, followed doggedly by a young man, smartly dressed. A picture of familial perfection...save for the fact they weren't a family. Jane waved you down, and you pulled the van over nearly running your wife and her companion over in the process. Shrieks of delight bounced off the walls of the cavernous van as Jane and the kids spilled into the back and the young man apologetically squeezed into the front with you and me.
Your driving, which had been worrisome from the getgo, was now erratic and completely terrifying. Finn, thrown against the wall of the van, began to cry and Jane began to yell. In the hopes of saving lives and sanity, I physically had to remove you from the driver's seat, installing myself in your place. Free of the shackles of vehicular responsibility, you began to spill your enthusiasm.
1.5 million dollars. An incredible sum, worthy of your excitement. You had the check in your pocket. You had sold a script, or done some work, or hired yourself out, or perhaps you just deserved it. But 1.5 million dollars, and you had bought yourself a Caravan.
Jane just looked at you. Clear blue eyes that registered none of the enthusiasm that flushed your whole face. A caravan? As in the mini-van? or as in an actual caravan? The young man, forgotten in the bustle, laughed. You shot him a glare that made everyone sink a bit lower in their seat.
Jane did not think 1.5 million to be an incredible sum, nor was it worthy of your excitement. And you'd bought a van? You'd already spent 2-3 percent of it on a van? Without talking with her? When you already had a perfectly functioning, bone-colored, cavernous vehicle?
At that last point, I had to protest. My discomfort with the whole situation had quieted me, but this final point drew me out and put a target on my back. Your driving, which had been generally attributed to your inability to stay sober past ten in the morning, I now recognized was not your fault. The fact we hadn't yet all died was actual testament to your incredible skill at handling this creature of a van. Now that I was behind the wheel, it took every ounce of concentration and muscle dexterity to keep the car on the road. Nothing seemed to work. The steering was alternately overly sensitive and utterly unresponsive. The brakes failed to work and the pedal simply spun as though it belonged on a bicycle. I began to feel like I was in a Flintstone's cartoon. The only way to stop was the emergency brake and the smell and sound of screeching rubber drew gasps and stares from pedestrians. If there was anything you needed to buy with your 1.5 million dollars, it was a new van. Any suggestion otherwise was laughable, and I said as much.
Up to that point, I had been Jane's ally, dragging you out of the driver's seat, shooting appropriately condescending looks, and she was taken aback at my bald-faced betrayal. And you just looked at me like you had only just remembered my presence. Stop the car. Pull over and stop the car. I, gingerly as possible, maneuvered the vehicle into a Safeway parking lot, screeching and smoking along the way. Jane, her companion and your children were perfunctorily escorted out of the van and absentmindedly instructed to go shopping. She looked at you, eyes wide in shock, hurt and confusion. The young man picked up the children, but your wife just stared, looking like a porcelain doll about to shatter.
You slammed the door and told me to drive. Just drive. You kept saying you had to tell me something. Something. But not there, not then. Drive. The van was only barely manageable. I was frustrated at being dragged into whatever I had been dragged into. I just wanted you to say what you needed to say and be done with it. But you said you couldn't. More later. More later. But I couldn't take the van, the tears, the van. The van wouldn't stop, I could find the emergency brake. I wanted to hit you, to scream because I was scared. The van stopped suddenly, in a cacophonous cloud of noise and dust.
We stepped out into a small room, the walls of which were covered in photographs taken by two pale, young girls. Polaroids full of strength and vulnerability. The room was stale, lacking the life it once had. But the pain remained.
You looked at the van and sighed. Now she'd have to let you get the Caravan.

Context: Am reading The Virgin Suicides, watching Mad Men, and McKibben was recently on the radio. I love my brain.

Shakespearean Context

2009-11-11T13:54:00.001-08:00

Shakespeare is an acknowledge genius. Very few doubt or argue his place among the pantheon of greatness - although those who do, do so quite vehemently. But if we start with the premise of genius, we can enjoy Bill Bryson's exploration of how and why in his book Shakespeare. Or what exploration can be done of one of the greatest writers of the English language in 190 some-odd pages. Bryson, like other biographers of icons, taps into our natural curiosity about those we know only peripherally. Without such proclivities, the whole biography genre wouldn't exist. With the mantra "nothing exists in a vacuum," we dig around for potentially illuminating details, sordid or scandalous, personal or social, genuine or otherwise, that might help "contextualize" an artist and his creations.
Whether we want to or not, we now, with the internet as an invaluable tool, have overflowing opportunities to learn even the most mundane and quotidian events of an individual's life. Context. And perhaps it has more value than cursory curiosity, but it is not the basis on which we judge a piece of art. Bryson presents just enough solid information to deepen the colors of Shakespeare's life, but not so much as to draw readers into the fruitless and highly suspect game of over-analysis. This may have less to do with Bryson's restraint than a true lack of concrete information, but he should be given credit for steering clear of the just-making-shit-up pitfalls other scholars fall into.

Dinner Conversation

2009-10-09T21:40:00.001-07:00

M: It's supposed to rain Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
A: Is that good?
M: Well, I'm looking forward to it; I can't wait for rain.
A: Really?
M: Yeah, really. I love the rain, I'm not going to be here, which sucks, but I'm still excited.
D: You should leave a haiku on the door.
W: I think that was just it.
M: The rain can't read.
D: Didn't Mother Nature go to school?
A: That color looks pretty on you.
W: The green?
A: No, the black.
D: I was thinking that you were wearing all sorts of greens and browns, very nature boyish.
A: Me?
M: Well then you should know, can the rain read?
A: No, but hail can. At that stage of development...
M: No, hail can only read braille.
A: Just because it rhymes doesn't mean that's what nature intended.
D: What about the new silver dollar.
M: It's in braille.
W: Yeah, you told us.
A: You can shoot a bullet through it.
M: It'll be enough rain to get us out of fire season.
W: Well that'll be good.
D: Why would you shoot a hole in a silver dollar?
W: It wouldn't cry.
A: No, it's a man.
M: That new silver dollar, it takes it like a man.

The New Hampshire House

2009-10-06T15:15:00.000-07:00

The house was large and old with strategic renovations to allow in more light. The interior was white, blindingly and obsessively so, the owner trying desperately to stave off the penetrating darkness of the New England winters. The layout was awkward, a central living space with rooms added as needed in whichever style was current at the time. Off the back kitchen (there were two, the original having been deemed too inefficient by the Reynolds family who moved in March of 1960 and moved out 33 years later) was a bedroom, small and narrow with the bureau affixed to the wall above the bed. It was an innovative idea, in tune with Mrs. Reynolds’s near-worship of efficiency, but highly inconvenient for any particular resident. Off this bedroom was a guest suite added on by the Statham family for Mr. Statham’s widowed and aging mother. The older Mrs. Statham died in 1999, three years after moving into her new suite and two years before the family moved back to Arizona. The younger Mrs. Statham had added skylights to every room, but she never did get used to the greyness of winters and the bone-chilling cold.

When the Tomonatos moved from Boston, Mrs. Tomonato’s primary concern was her children. She wanted enough space for her brood, currently totaling four but soon to be five, to have the space to run, not just romp, but flat out run. She had grown up building bridges across streams to visit neighbors, having picnics with friends in hillside cemeteries and conducting mock warfare from a network of tree houses she and her father had constructed over a year’s worth of Saturdays. She looked at this house and could picture her children growing up through the idyllic childhood she had dreamed of for them.

Mr. Tomonato’s primary concern was hiding the family’s Bostonian roots. Southern New Hampshire never got over being treated like a Boston suburb and was notoriously hostile towards “city folk.”

Mr. Tomonato left after three years. The commute to and from Boston got old and soon there was a pied a terre, excuses to stay in town and a pretty secretary who became a willing mistress and eventually the next Mrs. Tomonato.

The original Mrs. Tomonato held onto the house as long as she could. It was large and drafty and expensive. It was a tomb of shattered dreams that she was still clinging to. It was suffocating but she wasn’t sure leaving wouldn’t kill her. After years of negotiations, Mr. Franks, the bank manager, showed up one morning. This was not a part of the job he relished; he could think of nothing more gut-wrenching than evicting a family from its home.

Mr. Franks knocked on the door. When there was no answer, he opened the screen and tried to knob. The door swung freely, and the house was cold, quiet, empty. Mrs. Tomonato and her children had been gone for a week; it would take Mr. Franks six months to catch up with her and formally serve her the foreclosure papers. By then she was in Vermont’s North East Kingdom, renting an old farm house and fixing up its sugar shack before tapping season began.

The New Hampshire house was empty for a year before a new family moved in. The Finches. Mrs. Finch was personally offended by the layout of the home and would, for months, wander the rooms tsking in a stage whisper meant for the neighbors. Mr. Finch loved every inch of the old building, every creaky floorboard, every crooked doorframe and every awkward angle. He insisted on using the original kitchen and its ancient wood burning stove and gas fixtures, much to his wife’s chagrin. Secretly though, despite the tsking and semi-permanent looks of disapproval, Mrs. Finch adored the house. It was a project; it was a place that could be hers, that would be hers. She took the bed out of the narrow, efficient bedroom and converted it to a studio. The kids were only allowed in the room to travel to the back bedroom. Mr. Finch wasn’t allowed in at all.

In the summers Mr. Finch’s niece and nephew came to stay and look after the two Finch kids. They turned the grounds into makeshift neighborhood summer camp, taking the kids and their friends on canoe rides, hilltop picnics, leading them into tree house battles. Unbeknownst to them, they were living out Mrs. Tomonato’s dream, a fact which may or may not have provided comfort.

Ms. Fromtz and her brother were the children of Mr. Finch’s eldest sister. Ms. Fromtz was 26, her brother 18; their parents lived in upstate New York, but neither of the kids had lived there for years, each escaping the unstable family dynamics as soon as feasible.

Two months into one summer, Ms. Fromtz and the children were heading out the back door to find trouble to get into when Mrs. Finch came barreling – as far as a petite blonde in heels can barrel across a creaky, uneven floor – through the studio. She had forgotten, plumb forgotten, that Mrs. Clancy was coming with her children “and the young Mr. Clancy,” she cooed. She was frazzled, feeling putout by the seeming spontaneity of a visit that had been planned for months.

The elder Mr. Clancy had been a banker in Boston and had given much of his fortune to museums. He felt perfectly comfortable as a patron of the arts. Less so about his eldest son from his first marriage actually becoming an artist. His young and beautiful second wife said the boy had been overly indulged during the divorce. “You gave him everything he asked for,” she’d say. “He has no work ethic.” Her attitude drove her stepson mad, the hypocrisy of her argument when she demanded every whim of her own young children be duly catered to, her inability to recognize dedication, passion and talent when it wasn’t in the pursuit of money.

It was a rare event for the young Mr. Clancy to spend time with his stepmother, but he adored his young siblings and had tagged along under the pretext of getting out of the city to see some scenery.

Ms. Fromtz wanted to run; the last thing she was prepared for was a meeting with the young Mr. Clancy. They had met once, briefly, so briefly Ms. Fromtz had convinced herself she didn’t remember what he looked like, but she knew him. She’d barely met the man, but she knew him, as reams of letters and emails could testify.

So, the kids sat, occupied by Pullman books in the parlor, which had been the back kitchen until recently. Ms. Fromtz grabbed an apple and backed through the studio and suite, handing the kids over to her brother who, at 10:30, was just waking up and turned to face a tall, gaunt man with disheveled, red hair. The doorbell rang on the other side of the house and Mrs. Finch verbalized the thoughts of a frozen Ms. Fromtz. “The Clancys are here.”

The kids shrieked, the women embraced and Ms. Fromtz and Mr. Clancy just stared. They were yanked out of their stupor by eight little hands grabbing at them, begging them to “come out and play.” The children pulled their corresponding adults into the field, but the glee of children cannot be contained and soon they ran off into the trees on their own, leaving Ms. Fromtz and Mr. Clancy meandering through the garden, consciously staying out of earshot of the two women who had been college roommates once upon a time and were gossiping like school girls.

Behind an overly manicured bush, he grabbed her hand and pulled her close. Ms. Fromtz couldn’t breathe; there was no air between them. This wasn’t supposed to happen, they had mused on it, but it wasn’t actually supposed to happen. She was nervous, but he skewered her choice of shoes on the damp summer day and she mocked his apparent poverty – how long had it been since he had been able to afford a haircut? – and it was as though they had known each other for ages. They were off, smiling secret smiles, laughing at inside jokes, maintaining contact with a desperate and covert passion. This was not supposed to happen.

But it was happening, it had been happening, and Mrs. Clancy was watching it. She couldn’t really believe it. Mrs. Finch didn’t believe it. Her husband’s niece was only 26, she was a teacher and writer, she spent the summers in New Hampshire playing and organizing the neighborhood kids. How could he have not known that? What had the young Mr. Clancy been thinking?

Oh, he wasn’t, laughed Mrs. Clancy. He never does. She called out to Ms. Fromtz. Quietly and in simple words, she explained that a romance with her stepson would be fruitless. He would not be marrying a girl from a background such as hers: “a family from upstate.” No, Ms. Fromtz was duly informed her companionship would be an embarrassment, that the young Mr. Clancy was a cad and was only toying with her emotions.

It was as though Ms. Fromtz had stepped into a Jane Austen novel. She looked around, she was still wearing torn jeans that had belonged to her brother and worn flip flops. Mrs. Clancy was still wearing a dated and inappropriate knit suit. She leaned in, there had been a misunderstanding, she said. She had no intention of marrying Mr. Clancy and that it would take a trifle more than an afternoon of flirting to toy with her emotions.

And while both of those comments were, on the face of it, completely true, there had been more than an afternoon of flirting and the line between intention and aspiration was thin and tenuous.

finding space for light in darkness

2009-09-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

and making room for pure joy

shall we just pack up and leave

2009-09-27T23:24:00.000-07:00

I'll navigate if you pay gas

dreaming while awake

2009-09-27T23:19:00.000-07:00

in the manner of a fatally marred 78", "I could really do without the heat"

during a recent somnolent moment there was a half-dream...akin to marrying the poor justice correspondent's brother but not so perilous or permanent... and much more like a "real" dream in the sense that I was, in fact, asleep and not meandering Los Altos Hills on two very narrow tires and an secured blue frame of some carbon, cro-molly blend. the sum total i am able to recall (my ability to remember in fixed detail my dreams is not as steady as one might hope such a relied-upon companion to be) consists of a small table in an dining establishment...or more like an eatery, but whatever...there were places set for five. i sat and took notice of those around me. starting at the head of the table (which was rather large for only seating five) and working clockwise...mother, me, an unknown gentleman (perhaps the ill-fated sibling of yet another npr voice), you...at which point i think i ducked under the table (closely resembling that which might belong in some manor-home's feasting room) and crawled to a safe distance with a mixture of shock and ... i'm not sure. it happened in an instant, the time it takes to blink. it dissolved in a fit of laughter and the cackle of the squirrel.

Trophy Kissers

2009-09-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

Why oh why? These guys don't know that thing has been. It's just kinda gross.

SF Sunsets

2009-09-11T15:26:00.001-07:00

There's just something about that city...

Flights of fancy

2009-09-09T16:48:00.001-07:00

There is nothing here to comment on, no colors, no smells, no faces or sounds. It’s a poorly white-washed bubble, washed out and grey, lacking the softness of cotton candy or the freshness of a cloud. It’s just there, oppressive in its thereness, its static, un-relinquishing presence.

One eye slowly opened, letting in just enough light to add a sickly yellow hue before it snapped shut again.

A walk was in order; it was that time. The eye rolled up and the man rolled over.

Falling Asleep

2009-08-31T20:16:00.000-07:00

The blanket weighed a ton. It was suffocating her; the pain, crushing every breath.
I can't breath, she began to panic. It was silent and still, the panic of nightmares.
The waves of pain were infrequent but continued to startle Rachel. That daemons continued to dog her regardless of language or locale was frustrating.
It wasn't as though Jack's ghost could speak French or German. That would be terrifying, she thought with an imperceptible smile. No, it was that even in the cacophony of polyglotism and novelty, his force still shook her. She given up telling people about him, how Jack had been a genius, an artist, a wit, an athlete. She told herself she was keeping her memories safe, protecting them from people who wouldn't understand.
She was protecting herself though, hoping he'd leave her alone, that if she stopped talking about him he might vacate the permanent residence he seemed to have taken up in her sub-conscious. Rachel was desperately weary of being haunted. She had loved Jack, had given him her soul when he was alive. But he was dead, she was young and the prospect of life ahead plagued by this soul-shattering pain was more than should be asked of anyone.
If you loved me, you'd let me live, she'd catch herself crying.
Silent sobs shook her as they escaped, violating any sense of control she might have held on to. And then the floodgates opened, and when they closed she slept.
She slept, her exhausted body pressing heavily into the small mattress, the weight of the blanket still pressing down.

Paris

2009-08-27T22:10:00.000-07:00

Louise stood looking at her feet. She found it amazing how far away they seemed. She extended her hand towards them. It would never reach, even with outstretched fingers. She stood, staring, reaching, focusing and refocusing her eyes from her hand to her feet to her hand. If someone had been watching they would have classified her as “slow” or “special.” She knew no one was watching. No one was ever watching.

It was half past one; Louise should have been at school, but she couldn’t get her feet to take her there. She just stood.

The power of her brain and eyes baffled her. Feet, hand, feet, hand. She could focus on one thing, and the rest would fade away into a fuzz of nebulous colors, like an impressionist painting up close. Feet, hand, feet, hand.

She would teach the kids about lenses this year in science, she thought. They’ll love this.

Minutes passed of her standing there; her mind wandered from lenses to art to artists to Paris to…it never got passed Paris.

tbc...

Missing Cocoa

2009-08-24T16:01:00.000-07:00

The nurse left work at five o'clock. Joel looked at his watch and decided he had time to grab coffee before meeting her.

He never understood why hospitals were so cold all the time.

“These people are sick and you’re giving them pneumonia,” he had told her last week. She had shrugged, giving him a half-smile that showed her mouth to be sparsely populated with yellowing teeth.

“Don’t worry about it, Hon.”

She cooed when she spoke, like she was plastering up a boo-boo on Joel’s knee after a bicycle spill.

He hated her. Thinking about her now made him shiver. Maybe it was just the cold.

He counted the tiles to the cafeteria. Three hundred and seventy-six. Then from the coffee machine to the cash register. Eighteen. And from the cafeteria back to the ward where he’d wait for her. Two hundred and thirty-seven. Plus an elevator ride. Two floors but no tiles.

Joel knew how many tiles there were between almost any two points in the hospital. Two hundred and eighteen from oncology to maternity. Fifty-two from records to accounting. Three hundred and twenty-two from admitting to psychiatric. Ten from the toilet to the sink. But he always counted them anyway. It calmed his heart and his heart was racing.

It is so cold, he thought. So cold. Why do they keep it so cold? There are sick people and she makes it so cold.

At the two hundred and thirty-seventh tile, Joel turned and sat on a battered, wooden-framed couch. He ran his fingers over the familiar teeth marks and other graffiti on the armrest, tsk-ing to himself.

They chew on furniture. Like animals.

He hated the nurse and he hated this ward. He didn’t understand why the patients always smelled and drooled, why they talked to ghosts and acted like crazy people. He didn’t do that; it disgusted him.

He checked his watch. It was 5:07. She hadn’t come out yet. Joel could always tell. She would change before leaving and put on perfume. The reek of her perfume would linger for nine to eleven minutes.

It depends on the humidity, he thought, but he was sure she was still changing.

He waited, holding the cup of coffee, but not drinking it. He hated coffee too. But the nurse had told him that grown-ups don’t drink cocoa.

“Only babies drink cocoa, Joel,” she had laughed at their first meeting. Joel couldn’t understand what was funny. He had always drunk cocoa. It reminded him of his mother and the smell of her kitchen. He liked cocoa.

So he just held the coffee, absorbing its warmth through his gloved hands.

It’s so cold here, why does she let it get so cold?

The door to the nurses’ lounge down the hall opened. Joel watched her black heels, stockings, a red skirt and light blue blouse. Her blonde hair fell in tight curls over her shoulders. He couldn’t help notice they ended just at her breasts. He thought she looked like a prostitute. He hated her more.

Twenty-seven tiles between us, he thought. Twenty-six, twenty-five, twenty-four, three, two.

Joel’s hand jerked and the coffee spilled, but it was cold now and just left a brown stain down the length of his robe. He stood up to speak, to complain – sputtering about the cold, her clothes, the sick people. All these sick people.

She listened, she nodded, but in the end she just took his hand and walked him back to his room.

“Take your meds, Joel. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

encore, ancora, di nuovo, otra vez...

2009-08-23T16:09:00.000-07:00

I keep meaning to force myself to sit and write...to write something I want to write, to let my brain go. But what would I want to write about? All I do is run, bike, cook, work...none of which is terribly interesting. But I like habit and ritual, structure and focus...so, we'll try again and see if we can shift the plasticity of my brain.
This is a test. Life is a test, feel free to fail.

Therapy

2009-08-23T14:48:00.000-07:00

The house always smelled like chocolate chip cookies. Baking was an impulse activity, so Perth had mastered the quick softening of frozen butter.

10 seconds in the microwave, rotate, 10 seconds, rotate...it took four to five iterations.

It was a control issue. When the world was falling down around her, should could step out of it for 30 minutes, follow simple directions and be reminded that somethings in life would just work.

She unwrapped the stick of butter and dumped it into the large ceramic bowl. She loved the terminology of "beating" and "creaming" the butter. It was violent for such a domestic activity.

She always fell in love with the wrong people. As a group they could be a thesaurus's entry for unavailable. Emotional (Derek). Physical (Sid). Actual (Joe). Actual, as in married.

Piss.

Half a cup of granulated sugar and three-quarters of brown sugar, and now it was spraying all over the counter as she dropped the mixer, distracted.

Vanilla, salt and an egg and the sputtering and spattering stopped.

How'd this happen? How do you fall in love with a married man you've never met?

It was actually easier than she had thought. And he had fallen in love with her, which made her feel a little bit sick. He was married, had kids. He was supposed to be the adult.

One and three-quarters cups of flour, half a teaspoon of baking soda and powder. One and half cups of dark chocolate chips.

Fuck.

The mixer whirred and the flour went everywhere. She had decided to be done with it; someone had to make that decision and it might as well be her.

Perth could always see the end long before it came, but she had a habit was waiting, watching things self-destruct. It was painful and unnecessary and produced too many batches of cookies to get rid of without arousing suspicion.

Her neighbors could always tell when she was going through a break-up.

Two tablespoons balled up and sprinkled with salt. That was the key...like the salt of tears, it rounded the flavor and played with the tongue. Eating should be a game and chefs should play with their food, she had always said.

These cookies had won her many friends, she'd bring them to the offices where she temped, she send them to college friends or hand them to the homeless downtown. She had sent them to Joe's office many times, even though she knew he never ate them. She had daydreams of him taking them home to his kids who would devour them, getting chocolate everywhere. But she knew that never happened either.

Eight minutes at 375. Logic dictated that this time be spent cleaning up, but she never did. Perth sat, leaning against the oven, shook her head and began to cry.

She was angry, sad, frustrated. He'd been absent and she resented it, but the man had a life: a wife, two kids, a busy job and who was she to make demands. Most of all, she knew she would miss him.

When the cookies cooled, she boxed them up with a single-word note and addressed it to Joe's office.

"Goodbye" she whispered and dropped them in the post.

Perth

2009-08-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

Perth woke slowly; lying on her back, she blinked once. Twice to bring the view into focus. There was a time when she would have woken on her stomach, face pressed heavily into the pillow. She'd lie motionless to soak in the remnant of his smell. If it was early enough Sid would still be getting dressed; she'd roll slowly and smile and he'd laugh at the tattoos of sleep exploding across the left side of her face. He had insisted that she was never more beautiful than in the morning, and she had believed him. But that was years ago. Now she woke on her back, the low, winter sun creeping over the windowsill and turning her dreamworld a radiant orange.

She didn't roll over, there was no lingering smell and she couldn't remember when the switch was. This sleeping on her back habit, arms crossed, stiff as a board, when did this happen? Sleep was fickle these days, eluding and avoiding Perth, and she couldn't remember how she'd fallen asleep; perhaps she had simply woken up on her back, or did she sleep the whole night as if in a coffin? It bothered her.

It would be a nice day, she thought, a warm January day that made you forget it was winter, that they desperately needed rain. Perth swung out of bed into the shaft of early morning light, watching it reflect and refract on the glass and metal surfaces in the room. It was harsh, cold, 'modern' the woman had said. Unlived-in was more like it; even the light was cold. A chill rippled through Perth's body, and she rose to dress.

Her closet, at least, looked lived in. She scrounged through her sock drawer, looking for a matching pair, and she raked through the series of sweaters hung neatly on hangers before picking her mother's old, blue cable-knit from the floor. It was dirty, dingy, with huge holes in awkward places, but she loved it. She loved imagining her mother wearing it; she'd been so beautiful. Perth's dad always said she looked like her mother; Perth didn't know, couldn't remember, but the compliment made her proud. Sid had loved this sweater too, had said the holes in the sleeves made for convenient handles. "All the better to hold onto you with." She stuck her thumbs through the holes as she pulled the sweater over her head and swept her hair into a ponytail.

While coffee brewed, she sat with the paper, slipping on her sneakers while riffling through the sections, unable to focus.

She read the sections backwards, starting with page D8, meandering lazily through the large grey pages, pausing idly over captions of eye-catching images. It was a habit of Perth's; it's more about the feel of the pages than the character of their content. She was a snob; when they all lamented that newspapers were dying, she would smuggly boast of her mornings spent alone bent over the counter in a corner of the cramped kitchen.

It slowed the start of her morning, and it was tedious. There were wars to keep track of, dictators and foreign elections. There were politicians and celebrities, celebrity politicians and political celebrities. Caring was exhausting, but not caring was akin to death, a slow social isolation, a retreat into a world of utter and complete self-absorption - a fine, if not trite and clichéd, end for the person who loves herself, but a hellish fate for Perth.

She had had enough time to learn about herself, to explore the intricacies of her soul. She had bored down to the center of her innate being and had taken a look around. What was innate was immutable, what was not could change, and she was working on that part. It was slow. She was impatient.

Perth laced her sneakers, dumped the coffee dregs in the sink, left the pot to clean upon return, and set out to run. The first mile determined the soundtack of the day. The Kinks, Jets to Brazil, Saves the Day, Bouncing Souls; her mind was raucous even if her mood wasn't. The second mile found her rhythm, and the last six were for good measure. She had slept on her back, stiff as a board in a cold, lifeless apartment. The metaphor bored her, but wouldn't leave her be. She hated her life and punished herself with every joint-jarring heel-strike.

She was tired of waiting. She had been happy and walked away from it, thinking "Now, this is when life starts."

She no longer even knew what that meant: "This is when life starts."

She relived walking away, especially while running. She had imaginary conversations, playing both parts, with altered and reworked endings. But she always walked away; she couldn’t escape it.

Perth finished the run feeling tired but slightly better about the trajectory of life. Exertion had cleared some of the cobwebs from her head, early morning sun had warmed her skin and she'd been able to mute the voices in the last three miles.

At the building door she hesitated; a walk around the block would cool her down but draw stares. The people here were nice, although it had taken months before her presence elicited any nod of recognition. They kept to themselves and yet their inability to stare covertly was disarming, and they acted as though Perth's long legs stretching from her running shorts were wholly exotic and mystifying. She sighed and wondered how the States, with outrageous obesity rates, could possibly be the only place where running was completely normal.

She wrenched open the weighted door, pushed the button for the lift and proceeds up the stairs - she found the presence of a lift in a four story building mildly offensive, pushing the button was a form of protest - stopping occasionally to stretch or scrape the mud off her calves.

Once in inside, she showered, taking small delight in the muddy water streaming from her legs and speeding through the perfunctory routine of actually getting clean. Perth hated showers; she hated their warm, wet stillness; she hated standing there naked, vulnerable; she hated the shock of the cold, real world.

As a child, her parents had wrapped her up in a warm towel after bathing. It was a short-lived but comforting cocoon that Sid had been able to replicate with eerie precision, but was impossible to do alone.

No one understood her distaste for showers; she acknowledged it was different but was always a bit startled and embarrassed by the shock some displayed. How does one tactfully react to exclamations of disgust? Perth could just smile weakly, laugh and scan the room for a viable exit.

What started as a college parlor trick - quick, if the entrance was blocked, what would be the quickest way out of here? - had turned into a compulsion. She was never comfortable in a situation unless she knew she could leave. Only recently, and only slowly, had she begun to realize how thoroughly it had permeated her life and psyche.

She remembered how, in all of their arguments, she had staked her position in a doorway, how, after a promotion, she had forced three people to move so she could have a cubicle by the stairwell. Something had beaten the fight out of her while the flight flourished.

How else could she explain living in a foreign country while all she loved was thousands of miles away? The line between bravery and cowardice is thin and tenuous.

Perth stepped out of the shower onto the cool concrete slab floor; she never remembered to put the mat down. The water dripping from her body would pool and discolor the floor. She sighed and silently scolded herself. Grabbing a towel and avoiding all mirrors, she dashed down the hall to the bedroom where she closed the door, seeking privacy in an empty apartment.

It was a rare Saturday that she took off, but the mountains were beckoning and she hadn’t made any progress for weeks. A day off was great in theory, but Perth often found by three she was bored, antsy and lonely and that she longed for the tedium and distraction of moving words around, editing, proofing, reediting.

She was in a rut and she knew it, she thought, pulling on jeans and a jersey sweatshirt. She hoped a day out in the open might help, and who knows, maybe she'd be right. She laced up her shoes feeling cautiously optimistic; she stuffed an extra layer, a Luna bar, a bottle of water and her iPod into her backpack and grabbed her keyes. Hat in hand, she was out the door just as the phone rang. She wrestled with the decision, not so secretly hoping the person would hang up. By the fifth ring, she was back in the kitchen, cursing the delay in her plans.

"Hello?"

"Perth kiddo, it's Dad."

She took it somewhat personally that her dad still felt it necessary to identify himself after 28 years. They had discussed it; she knew it was just rote for him, nothing personal, but it still rankled her and it cooled her reception perceptibly.

"Dad, I'm headed out. You need something?"

"Uh, yeah, well no, just checking in. We still on for tomorrow?"

They had a standing date to talk on the phone at noon on Sunday in Connecticut, where her dad was living. She never missed a call unless something was wrong; it was odd for him to be doubting her.

"Yup, sure, totally. I'll call at six."

"Right, good, well..."

"Dad, I'd love to talk, but I was just leaving. We'll chat tomorrow."

"No, yeah, right, sure sure..."

"Dad!"

Perth was getting anxious. In the course of this one minute conversation she had torn off three of her fingernails; they were now jagged and distracting. She was using the grout between the counter tiles as a makeshift emery board.

"Perth, I got a call from Sid, and..."

"What? Really, why?"

Immediately her mind focused and she began desperately searching for a chair within reach of the phone cord.

She hung up and stood in the middle of the kitchen, exhausted. Physically, mentally, emotionally exhausted. Her pack was still lying by the door, waiting expectantly, but there would be no trek today, no expanding vistas, no fighting wind just to stand erect atop the narrow ridge that runs the crest of the mountain. She just stood there.

This was the reason she moved here, she thought. To get away, to be anonymous. She loved the freedom it gave her. She loved not being forced to eavesdrop on the banalities of strangers' lives. It forced her to look inward, to focus; there were fewer distractions.

But Sid always had a way of crashing in on her quiet. It had been years since they had said goodbye. She had looked small in the driver's seat of a loaded moving van, he was standing in front of their apartment building, resting his arms on the open door. She couldn't look at him, his confused pleading eyes. He didn't understand why she had to leave, and she couldn't explain. All she could do was smile sadly, pull the door shut and stare at the floor. She sat there, willing the words that were lumping in her throat to come out, to make some sense, to do anything, say anything, but all she could muster was a series of sighs.

"You can't stay, but you can't seem to leave either," Sid has said. His voice had been sad, bitter, betrayed. He turned and walked back inside.

It had been a harsh thing to say; it cut to the quick. It was also true.

Now she stood alone in the cold chrome kitchen of a foreign apartment fully furnished by Ikea, but in her head it was the same. She had to decide: she could go or she could stay. But she couldn't seem to move.

Sid had had to call her dad; out of a feeling of self-preservation, she hadn't told him where she was going before she left. She'd been here for nine months, but she had bounced around for a couple of years between leaving Sid and finding refuge in this epitome of Old Europe classicism. She had been beginning to feel at home, she had made a few friends, found some quiet running trails and had sold a couple of stories. But she had never quite been able to shake the feeling of loss, the hole, the emptiness.

She had precariously tread the thin line between bravery and cowardice; the longer she stood there, the more she began to waiver, the more likely she was to fall.

Signs

2008-11-24T19:25:00.000-08:00

Around the Corner

2008-11-24T18:09:00.000-08:00

There's this truck around the corner (one, two, three corners, actually) that makes my heart flutter. Seriously, it's enough to make even the staunchest environmentalist pause. It's cherry red with richly shellacked wooden panels. It sits in a cobblestone driveway next to, and almost dwarfed by, a barbecue.
The owner drives a big blue Ford with oversized tires and an undersized bed; it fits a toolbox and a keg...and that's about it. He drags the barbecue behind the Ford or the little red truck the half mile or so from the house to the Goose and sets it up in the parking lot.
Nothing brings a smile like an old-school flatbed pulling a coffin-sized grill, wafting the smells of summer through the neighborhood. The man's a modern day pied piper.

Half a block to the east, a small white Toyota rivals its older companion for character. It's a piece of modern, abstract art...if Jackson Pollack painted in mud on Tundras. Parked next to this specimen is a Ferrari so low to the ground it might be able to drive under the jacked up truck. It's a sight that brings joy and a crooked smile.

Hall of Mirrors, 78008

2008-11-22T22:19:00.000-08:00

1. He Lays in the Reins - Iron and Wine w/ Calexico
...she's like grace from the earth...
2. Passage into Midnight - Omar
... ...
3. Falling Slowly - Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
...you've suffered enough and warred with yourself, it's time you won...
4. These Photographs - Joshua Radin
...You're Sylvia Plath as you drift from the bath...
5. When You Come Back Down - Nickel Creek
...My greatest fear will be that you will crash and burn
And I won't feel your fire ...
6. Grapevine Fires - Death Cab for Cutie
...couldn't think of anywhere I would've rather been to watch it all burn away...
7. See the World - Gomez
...the things that are given not won are the things you want...
8. Something in You - The Orange Peels
...tell me you see some hope in me...
9. You Wouldn't Like Me - Tegan and Sara
...I feel like I wouldn't like me if I met me...
10. Conjunction Junction - School House Rocks
...what's your function...
11. OK Alone - Gabriel Mann
...well, I will be OK alone...
12. The Wrong Girl - Missy Higgins
...I'm feeling no relief in my head, just doubt...
13. Paper Tigers - Spoon
... I will be there when you turn out the light...
14. Sweepstakes Prize - Mirah
...I'd tell you why, but I don't know...
15. Kathleen - Josh Ritter
...I know you area waiting, and I know that it is not for me...
16. Failure - Laura Marling
...I gave up something, and I gave it up for nothing...

Psychic Compensation

2008-11-15T23:00:00.000-08:00

It's late, but there's a story being told from one owl to the next in hoots and whoos that echo through the forest. With a freedom that is silent and unquestioned, they own these woods; we are mere guests, taking leave of the city, taking leave of our lives, in their kingdom.

This is the place I most feel at home... where I know every nook and cranny, every leaf and twig and find them all awe-inspiring. This is a place where the sun is warmer, the rain is fresher, the sky is bluer, a place of utter and indefatigable truth.

My life is series of failures, of sidesteps...of getting half-way, freaking out and changing paths. I look around and see everyone, eyes down, following their path. And I, like some retro video game, am jumping from one path to the next, always taking the leap just before someone bumps into me, before someone makes contact.

Here I have a path. Here I have a purpose...but it never reaches past these hills. With each mile, as the dots on the map get bigger, I lose a little of it until I wake up Monday morning having to decide if today is the day I make that next leap.

Spectrums of Pain

2008-11-09T21:32:00.000-08:00

My heart hurts, my soul hurts, the pit in my stomach grows with each word these men speak...newly shorn heads and inked arms in grotesque pinstripes...we cannot know the mind of god. Is that how we deal with what is beyond comprehension? Do we hide behind the cloak of religion to absolve us from responsibility?
But what is the point of reason in a world governed by chaos? And when neither religion nor reason can explain...
What do we do with that which we cannot explain?

God sacrifices innocent children and his people let him...he is not a just god, a good god; he is strong god, yes, a bold god, but not a good god. And his people, they seem to be made in his image. Thousands of lives lost in his name...to what end? Have problems been solved, have lives been bettered, has progress been made?

Powering off...

2008-11-01T23:26:00.000-07:00

I'd said I'd walk away...

There was no discussion, no inclusion; I didn't figure into the equation. There was you and there was me, but never any us. I gave 110% to make up for the effort you couldn't muster, but even I can't fill this gap. It's 3000 miles and a world away - and you found a yoga class you like...in a city where you don't want me.

It wasn't that you didn't know where I fit into your life, it was that you didn't seem to want me to...You didn't want to be responsible for my happiness.

Do you really think I depend on you for my happiness? That I'd give you that much power? That I was so lacking in independence, in confidence...so lacking in a life that I derived all my happiness from you?

Did you honestly think that little of me?
Or did you simply want zero responsibility for anything?

We're young enough to be selfish but not so young to be thoughtless.

So I'll walk away; I'll flip the switch, cease to care. I'd be ashamed to admit how easy it can be, but you're even better at it than I am.

60% Chance of Rain

2008-10-29T21:36:00.000-07:00

In grade school, I was asked by a math teacher how to determine the chance of precipitation. It struck me as an utterly unfair question to ask a 6th grader with little or no meteorological training...until my mother, in her subtly brilliant way, devised an answer. Rain...it's a binary state, either it's raining or not. One option out of two: 50%. Brilliant until two days later when I realized it wasn't.

But this weekend, the chances are set at more like 60 to 70 %. Technically it's the second rain of the season, but I was amongst Maples and Cherries and German Shepards for the first, so let's play make believe.

The first rain brings with it a smell, a pervasive sense of freshness that whispers in your ear "go...run and jump, you have this moment...take it." You can't help but fill your lungs and smile.

There is a power to water...as it falls from the sky, rushes over rocks or rolls into beaches. It has a a way of reminding us of home, of life and beauty; the sound comforts and mesmerizes and we drift inward and explore our souls.

Water gives us freedom; it erases our past and carries us towards our future.

Worth the climb

2008-10-27T19:11:00.000-07:00

There's a new road, complete with that new-road smell. You can stand on this amazingly smooth and level new grade and almost hear the grinding of the excavator and the crunch of the stone underneath. The smell that fills the air is that of machine oil, fresh dirt and dust and that citrusy smell of newly felled firs.

It's a beautiful road, rendering the old skid trail up the hill unnecessary; the poorly used trail will now go unused all together. The old road is steep and slippery with deep dust and loose rock. I'm not sure I've ever made it up that road without stumbling and falling back down a bit. And now, I can walk around it, bypass the hill completely, protect my knees from scrapes and scratches; I can stay on the level, sturdy, immaculately manicured new road.

But think of what I'd miss. The struggle of the climb, the calculations of each step, the physical feeling of making progress, and that view, that incredible view. From the top of the hill, at the end of an arduous climb, you can see forever, you can make up fairy tales of the mystical lands beyond the third ridge. You can feel the overwhelming power of nature; it makes you feel incredibly small and fills your heart to its bursting point at the same time. It's a bit like being in love.

The new road is beautiful; the smell of the new road is amazing. The view: not that spectacular. To a point, a tree is a tree is a tree, and one spindly little fir is the same as the next. I will continue to climb the old skid trail to get to the top of the hill. I will continue to revel in the view that never gets old. There is always a reward at the end of a climb.

The Weather Report

2008-09-30T07:51:00.000-07:00

The weather report in the local rag today mentioned rain. I think it actually said "chance of rain" for the next four days, which is far out as it is comfortable predicting. The first rain of the season is magical; it clears the air and opens the world to the smells of Fall.

I, unfortunately, will miss this "chance of rain." I shall be battling - and gleefully giving in to - thunder storms on the east coast. It has been far too long since I've been in a storm; I remember them wistfully...the slow build-up of tension in the air and that first crazy, violent crack that breaks it, releasing the energy in the warm caress of bursting rain drops.

The storms in Paris are equally as powerful and sensual, but they often end in piercing hail, not the caress of warm rain. My first Paris storm was one of my most memorable nights in my time there.

There is a bar (Le Vrai Paris - The true Paris) in Montmatre, on the edge of the hill and only a few blocks away from a little church covered in beautiful mosaics. It's a sweet neighborhood, a more comfortable mix of tourist and Parisian than other sight-seeing Meccas.

At the top of the hill sits Sacre Coeur, a bone-white, domed church with Mondrian-esque stained glass. Emma and I would sit on the lawn by the church in the warm summer evenings, drinking wine and eves-dropping on the typical Parisian teenager's conversation, played to the soundtrack of competing acoustic guitars.

Le Vrai Paris is more of a restaurant than a bar really. With dim lighting, harsh wooden tables and plush booths, it reminded me of a hipster emo kid...but that could have just been the waiter, a gorgeous French-American young man who entertained me by making funny faces and doing funny walks behind my exclusively french-speaking dinner-mates. (He also clarified a question that had been nagging me for years...why some people grow a pinky nail to the lenght of almost an inch???)

We were at the bar to see the photography work of Kendrick, a friend of my landlady, Nicole, and soon to be a friend of mine. The bar doubled as somewhat of an art gallery, rotating pieces on a certain set schedule. Kendrick's work is phenomenal, and we wandered the bar, oohing and ahhing like doting parents.

After the gallery tour, we moved onto the sidewalk, watching and imposing stories upon the people walking by. Sidewalk dining is an experience in and of itself in Paris. It was one of those sunny warm days with huge, blacker than black clouds occassionally rolling by. Just as darkness was descending, one of these clouds rolled by and came to an abrupt halt directly above us, opening its bowels and bombarding us with hail the size of gumballs.

I had never seen hail that large, and much to the amusement of everyone around me, I gleefully subjected myself to their wrath. My irrepressible smile and laughter endeared me to other diners, and far more drinks than I could ever handle started arriving at our table.

I haven't seen hail that large since, but I still find joy in storms, I still laugh uncontrollably when the rain begins to pour or when the wind begins to rage. The passion and power of weather is awe-inspiring, and the beauty and freshness of the first rain is a wonder to behold indeed.

Things seen on a run...

2008-09-29T12:14:00.000-07:00

This morning, finishing mile 11 of an 11 mile run, my feet were dragging and my brain was bored. And there they were, the perfect sight, an only in Atherton or Florence sort of sight.

Two slightly older than middle-aged women were walking...not just walking but out walking, which in and of itself wouldn't be terribly interesting. You can't walk a quarter of a mile in the mornings without tripping over small clusters of women taking their constitutionals.

But these women, these two specific women were different.

The one of the left was wear immaculate white pants and sneakers. I mean white beyond white with little pink socks peeking over the tops of the shoes. So far, so normal. It was the sweater set that caught my eye...the perfectly matching, conveniently wicking sweater set, the same hue as the socks. I wouldn't be surprised if it were a lacoste sweater set, this being Atherton after all. Topping it off (so to speak) was a pink English cabbie cap, worn ascance at jaunty angle.

On her right was woman number two, wearing a matching, royal blue, volour track suit and smart black pumps.

Each was listening to their individual tunes on color-coordinated iPod as they briskly navigated the twists and turns of West Atherton's winding streets just after dawn.

I, having just rolled out of bed and looking the part, had my own iPod explaining the personal finance ramifications of the bailout (or, now, the lack thereof). I was unable to hear their conversation if there was one, but I can only imagine what it might have been...or what music they might have been listening to.

They reminded me of the one and only time I went to a gym while living in Florence. No one could understand why I was running; men would always ask "Perche tanta fretta?" as though they had never seen a runner along the banks of the arno. So, one day, I bravely ventured into a gym, if for no other reason, to see how the italians "exercised."

Exercise can either be a means to an end or an end in and of itself. In Italy, in Florence, in this particular gym, it was certainly a means...the end was showing off, primping and preening and giggling in front of the men who, themselves, were primping and preening and grunting infront of the women.

The women were all dolled up in matching - and overly fashionable - Nike or Addidas outfits, carefully avoiding sweating so as not smear mascara...it must have been rough, and the stress of it all could have burned as many calories as my 45 minutes on the treadmill.

After one visit, I returned to running the hills off the southeast corner of the city and never looked back. I needed to run in my torn t-shirts, stained shorts and mud-brown shoes in peace. Eventually, I accrued a small cheering team of aging, local olive growers who would woot as I passed while they were harvesting their bounty. It was the best way to fall in love with a foreign landscape and far less frightening than any venture to a gym.

It was a sight this morning, highlighting that thin line between fashion in upper-class American suburbia and Italian Euro-trash.

Anxiety

2008-09-29T07:11:00.000-07:00

48 hours and I'll be on an eastbound plane...flying into the unknown...which is odd; it shouldn't be unknown. If I'm going all the way out there, shouldn't I know what I'm heading towards? No, I suppose not, but at some point I thought I knew...and now there are all these plans, none of which include me, and I think to myself, "he's not coming back, he is so not coming back."

I have always thought he wouldn't return, so why am I going out there? Am I a glutton for punishment, or am I so dedicated to that 1940s love story that plays inside my head (the one where Irene Dunne or Rosalind Russell finds someone who sweeps her off her feet while realizing she doesn't need to be saved or tamed...or the one where the man - preferably Cary Grant - sees her strength and obstinacy as something to be lauded and falls in love with her that much more) that I naively think my mere presence, my disheveled hair and wry smile, my stubbornness and independence will win him over and change his mind.

How do you change someone's mind when you don't really know what is in it? I am getting way ahead of myself, as usual, thinking too much and making assumptions, but I'm not going to wait around for a year or six months or even three. If he's not coming back, I will walk away; the cut will be clean. And, up do the day I bought plane tickets, it could have been painless.

Addendum (Oct. 30): I was right; I shouldn't have gone. He called to say he's not coming back.

Today's Beginning

2008-09-28T09:15:00.000-07:00

There are mornings when the beauty is breath-taking, when I want nothing more than to soak in the warmth of the new sun and sit mesmerized by flicker of the long shadows that dance on my feet. I could sit, happily, for hours, inspecting some inner wrinkle in my brain. At every other moment, stillness tortures me, but in this moment I can feel my breath all the way in my toes. And so I sit and marvel at the majesty nature has wrought.

There is a soundtrack to this landscape. It changes, yes, person to person, day to day, moment to moment, but there is music undeniably in the curve of the hills, the flicker of the leaves, the waves of the grass. It bristles and almost screams with silent life.

These days "Your Rocky Spine" by the Great Lake Swimmers is my own soundtrack, which I unceremoniously overlay onto the world around me. I see and hear it everywhere, in every phrase, every glance, every wind that rages through my hair.

The sun has crested fully, and I turn away from the east, unable to bear the light and warmth that permeates every nook, leaving me nowhere to hide. The day has begun, and some of the beauty has faded in the glare of the sun creeping higher into the sky.

Feeling the Distance

2008-09-27T21:34:00.000-07:00

i've walked away, and i'll do it again
because i don't seem to hold you...and yet i can't seem to shake you

so, i wake once more to your shallow breath beside me
you've been up for hours watching me dream, silently and motionlessly crafting goodbyes

i'm unsure of that softness i see in your eyes
it unnerves me, and i can't tell if you see me or see through me?

i covet your lightness, your eyes, your touch
withdrawn now, the power of their absence unjustly holds me captive

if you don't return; if i walk away
will there be fallout? will there be pain?

so, not knowing what else to do, i play a smile and try to hold you here
but it makes no sense that if one of us stays it'll be alright

The Season of Descent

2007-10-18T18:27:00.000-07:00

The rains have come...the endless days of heavy mist that darken the world around you; the monochromatic and soul-crushing drizzle; the dampness that seeps into your bones and shrouds you with an unshakable chill...they have come, and in this small instant I don't miss Paris.

I look outside and instead of grey I see the small green of struggling blades of grass, little slivers pushing aside the yellow stalkiness of a previous year's growth. The thousand shades of green are broken by an unexpected oak that screams in orange and red with an intensity to make up for 12 months of going unnoticed.

Soon these lobed interuptions of color will fall, for the season's directive shall not go unheeded. Newly cleared branches welcome the transient among us, the most spectacular of which come in hoards with banded tails, announcing their arrival with a percusive demonstration of synchronized flight.

This is the season of Gorecki, embers and yellow roses.

A whim in technicolor

2007-04-26T15:07:00.000-07:00

Megan: it'll be great...like a party from outerspace
Megan: hmm...sleepy...like small pies of dried pork
Mark: right
Megan: good then...i'll get that right to you...i think they're paging you??
Mark: just put it in the inbox and get me my martini. that's a good girl.
Megan: right-o mr. rawlins...anything else you may need...some copies of something?
Megan: perhaps i can get some toilet paper
Mark: no. you can take the rest of the day off. and for pete's sake, do something about your hair.
Megan: what? you don't like my hair? I just had it done...the rest of my day is ruined...(exit stage right, running with a slight panicked air)
Mark: now sitting alone, sipping a martini, he kicks off his shoes to reveal a hole in his left sock. a metaphor for his conflicted life
Megan: he only remembers the dried pork pies when the drink is finished...he looks around and curses the fickle girl
Mark: popping the olive in his mouth, he shifts to pick up the newspaper, but instead of reading it, he starts tearing it into formless paper dolls.
Megan: holding two dolls as puppets, he pantomimes a dance, swivels his chair around, breaks into song, springs from his seat and soft shoes out of the cubicle
Mark: the camera angle widens to reveal dozens of employees staring open-mouthed, looking at each other in disbelief until off in a corner, a staff worker takes her newspaper, shreds it into dolls and proceeds stage left. the office eventually falls into mayhem as they follow suit.
Megan: music fades...the office floor is left empty save for the paper dolls littered everywhere...a maid comes in, delicately sweeping them up into a pink plastic bag labeled with an image of a skirted stick figure. She opens a closet door to reveal a small room full of these bags. gently tossing the bag in and closing the door, the maid slowly turns and pushes her cart out of the office building door, where you can read the name of the firm backwards through the glass.
Megan: Arthur Anderson (or some other name...not feeling it)
Mark: There is a rustle, a movement, a bump, a sound. it comes from the closet door. with the office closed, the door slowly eases open to reveal the anticipation of the paper dolls seeing if the coast is clear. there's a beat, then the door flies open and out rush the dolls to find excitement and pleasure in the few hours they have before their life ends when the garbage truck comes to take them away
Megan: a group of dolls find the way into the kitchen and into the liquor cabinet...standing on each others shoulders, they are able to reach the top shelf and one pushes off the bottle of vodka, with some effort. the others struggle to catch it, but the bottle breaks, tearing the skirt of one of the dolls and drenching the whole group.
Mark: there is no choice. either the doll dissolves into pulp or they all have to pile on and absorb some of the vodka. with some giddiness, they start stacking themselves, on upon the other until virtually everyone is 3 sheets to the wind (so to speak).
Megan: ha...
Megan: fade to black

You can just see it, can't you?

Home Sweet Home

2007-04-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

Today I began the postcard writing adventure…five for now, which means I have a long long way to go. It was stressful enough, however, choosing five from the rack for they are all horrid collages that are the epitome of tack. It would have to be under severe duress that I buy one of those. So, the process will be slow, a catch as catch can sort of thing.

I’m in the 5eme arrondissment, wedged somewhere between ancient roman baths and Montaigne, whose stately likeness resides over the entrance to the Sorbonne. The poor man’s foot is almost worn away from being rubbed by students either for good luck or to see how many licks it takes to get to the center (kids are weird).

The apartment is small to medium-sized apartment, but might be considered large if it weren’t so cluttered…extremely high ceilings make the rooms seem all the narrower, and with so much emptiness, it strikes me as an inefficient use of space. To counteract this effect, mirrors of varying sizes have been placed on all walls; there is not a room into which one can escape one’s own image. It breeds a self-consciousness that I find awkward. Tables have been created from stacks of magazines, presumably to hold additional magazines. News magazines are all in English, fashion ones in French. I’m guessing each culture should stick to what they do best…English being…well, English as opposed to American.

My room and the bath room (not to be confused with the bathroom) are fitted with the palm tree theme. It feels oddly American, or almost Bed, Bath and Beyond-esque to be more specific. And yet, it somehow matches the Ikea armoire positioned at the foot of my bed. So far I have unpacked everything and found a space for it all…all but my socks and underwear…they remain in a pile in a corner of my bed. As to the bed, I have no idea how it got in this room. It is, at most, one foot narrower than the room itself. It creates an interesting effect that I kind of like. The canopy frame of the bed is serving nicely as a place to hang my running clothes to dry, and the room already has that sweaty athletic gear stench to it that makes it feel like home.

The rest of the apartment is furnished in the traditional eccentric French style. Nicole’s bedroom is filled by a large tent in which she sleeps. She alternates between calling it her casbah and a yurt, although it doesn’t much resemble either. It makes the room feel cramped and small but frees the surrounding area for clothes. Another room has been converted into a large closet of sorts with additional clothes covering every surface in multiple layers. I know this room has a piano, but everything else is completely obscured by sweater-sets and peasant skirts. The room leads to the bath room and makes the prospect of showering rather daunting; it becomes something of a steeplechase with cleanliness as its only reward.

The kitchen has every American amenity, but has no room for any of them. So things are stored in the microwave, the oven, the washing machine, etc. Finding things is painful but putting them away is often worse. And where do you put all the linen and flatware when you want to wash your clothes and the oven is already full?? The apartment is comfortable but mildly dangerous, so I stick to my room and my postcards, which, at this rate, I’ll be able to hand deliver upon my return.

Saying Goodbye

2007-04-19T15:56:00.000-07:00

We write words that remain silent
Meaningless sounds strung together
And with these we try to share ourselves
From here, mine feel empty
Like an echo lost across the depths of a cavern
To face the fear of the fall
I cut the kites’ strings and watch them fly away
Brilliant colors against the grey of the cold
A reminder of the warmth you gave me

Forced to Continue Blindly

I am Lost in This Labyrinth

This Happiness of my Own Making

I Wish for its End

As a Way to Control it

That Which I Fear the Most

I dream I awaken
Within your startling loneliness
Speaking in truncated images
What words that fail to raise you
To rise above the din of my echoing heart

You bequeath me your ultimate sacrifice
Distracting and deafening
This silence oppressive
You’re skin I shall never shed

A role I neither chose nor desired
In a play only you understand
This face I can never wash away
As your death precludes any intermission

My make-up runs but again
The play becomes a scene
A moment destined to repeat
Endlessly within this dream of mine

Smoking Kills

2007-04-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

In the United States, we have warnings on all packs of cigarettes. They are generally as follows: "SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Cigarette Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide." The Europeans are slightly more blunt, graphic, and well...honest...

Examples include, in French, "Smoking Kills," Smoking is highly addictive, don't start" and, also in French, "Smoking causes a slow painful death."

A Trip to the Store

2007-04-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

Paris is a large city…real estate is extremely valuable, and the stores here are unbelievably tiny and cramped…who knew you could have a whole grocery store in less square footage than an American store’s produce section. And yet not only do they exist, but there are two to four such stores per block…and you think, ah-ha. It is feasible because the stores wouldn’t ever be crowded with people, a conscientious dispersion of clientele. And this model works beautifully until Sunday evening, when only one of the stores is open and the entire neighborhood decides they simply must have an additional tomato or container of milk. At these times there is simply no way to enforce the occupancy capacity of the space, explaining the firemen standing on call by the door.

Given this, the Parisians refuse to give up the large store feel, and a simple compromise allows them to have their way. There are a series of stores that have, at the very least, five locations in a two block area. But each store is different. Gibert-Joseph, for example, a large bookstore, has upward of ten iterations in the four blocks between my apartment and the Seine. Each contains one or two of the different sections we might find in a “conventional bookstore.” Another example is Au Vieux Camper, a sporting goods store. One is for diving, another for kayaking, another for camping, one for running, one for skiing etc… Again, there are at least ten in two square blocks.

Parisians also seem to have a fascination with comics, cartoons, and video games that runs to the extreme. There are scores, quite literally, of stores containing solely action figures of various “heroes” from various genres. Window after window of Mario Brothers figurines, or Warner Brothers characters, or who knows what…think of the Sanio store in San Francisco, if you have ever seen it. An entire store dedicated to Hello Kitty (what a genius idea!). So, these are like that but to an extreme. And they are not only always full, but also surrounded by young (read under 30) Parisians sometimes 3 deep fogging up the windows. It is as though it were some organized after-school activity.

So just when I think I have the whole cramped store, “pardon pardon o pardon,” pattern figured out, I stumble upon Le Bon Marche, and my world is turned upside down. It is your run of the mill department store, 5 floors of clothing, bedding, kitchen necessities, cosmetics, and what have you. But there is also an amazing bookstore and an art gallery…and best of all, there is space. One can move freely without employees running interference between customers. That, combined with the free flowing heat, made it a small piece of heaven on cold night. And when you thought it couldn’t get any better…next door is the largest grocery store I have ever seen. …Aisles of food, English food, Asian food, German, Spanish, Italian, organic, and on and on as far as the eye can see…not to mention the boulanger, patisserie, boucher, formagerie, charcuterie areas. The whole thing was eye-popping. Chocolate Chips were 7 dollars a bag…I almost laughed out loud. The “American Aisle” stocked mainly different brands of Maple Syrup, Potato chips, and peanuts. They have a very odd view of what we must eat in the United States, but I finally have everything I need to make cookies, another thing they have no concept of. Ah, the funny French.

Changing Seasons in Paris

2007-04-15T12:31:00.000-07:00

It is summer now in Paris, as it is in most of the northern hemisphere this time of year. But I come from a place where there aren’t really seasons, and, in spite of four years of college in New England, the changing of seasons still catches me a bit unawares at times. It has been a startling change, for it feels like all of a sudden it is summer. Or perhaps it has been one of those incredibly slow subtle transitions that you don’t notice until it is complete…perhaps. Looking back, I suppose I can remember some of the indications of transition.

I arrived to a grey city blanketed by a new dusting of wet snow. It was cold, freezing to be more precise; all the fountains had morphed into somewhat abstract, although still recognizable, ice sculptures. It isn’t as though I awoke one morning to green and this unbearable heat. There were stages…but you, well I, didn’t take much notice of them, I guess.

I mean, I remember some of the universal signs of new life. The young leaf buds on the large chestnut trees lining the quai, I remember those, but now the trees are thick with foliage, and I missed the in-between stage.

I remember the never-ending months of flower blossoms; pink, red, white, purple, dogwood, cherry, apple, lilac, rhododendron, azaleas. They were shocks of color against the grey buildings and sky, against the monochromatic couture of les Parisiens. They taunted the bees that weren’t quite ready to come out of hibernation into the cold dampness of “spring.”

I remember the street cleaners battling the slush with their funny hoses attached to their funny miniature water trucks. (They are less street cleaners than they are sidewalk flooders.) They wore bright green carhart-esque outfits…insulated and, I am assuming, waterproof overalls and parkas. I can’t remember the day of the change, but one day they had traded their parkas for raincoats. I am not sure it was an organized transition, or a series of personal decisions, but the heavy coats and overalls were forgotten in the back of the closet. They began to battle the daily onslaught of dreary, monotonous rain, for it never intensified into a storm but never let up either. I imagine they are nagged by the sheer redundancy of their role this time of year. Today, they were out in amazingly green shorts and tee-shirts with shocking reflective vests. Again, I missed the actual date, if there was one, of this transition.

I remember the portly and dignified old men playing the French version of bocce in the courts in the parks. They wore suits or blazers, at the least, and yet, they were obviously bundled up. Layers of sweaters and scarves peaked out from upturned jacket collars. They wore fingerless gloves, or soft-looking leather gloves that they removed prior to taking a turn. They were out in the park everyday regardless of weather, as dedicated, if not more so, than the few regular runners I have come to recognize. The only time I saw the court deserted was during the brief period of construction following an unfortunate break in the sewer line running under the park. They are still out there, in their suits, although there are now racks upon which they hang their jackets or blazers neatly on hangers. Their portliness has mysteriously disappeared along with their sweaters and scarves, and while their dignity remains, it is supplemented and/or softened by a genial laughter that is audible from my running path.

But now it is summer; it has come upon us, although I may feel it came without warning. Things are different in the summer. Yes, it is hot, humid, still, sticky, grimy, a drastic change from the previous months. But there are other, subtler differences…in the way people feel, the way they act and react. Laughter comes more easily, eye-contact, while not searched out, isn’t avoided. There are lines circling the block around the glacier; there is an ostentatious ferris wheel in le Jardin des Tuileries from which I am sure one can see Deauville. And I notice the occasional impish smile, the sly, stolen kiss, the coy holding of hands that had been stuffed in pockets during the winter months.

There was a good-looking couple in le jardin this afternoon, for people in love are always good-looking and couples are always in le jardin. Mid-20s. The young man was desperately conflicted, inextricably torn between a rational desire that the young girl leave him to his studies and an equally strong desire to drop the book and drown in the girl’s adoring gaze. They epitomize how everyone feels, caught between duty and the magnetic pull of summer.