It’s been a while since I wrote one of these, eh folks? I hope it’s because I’ve been too busy actually trying to live a life instead of analyzing one….

1. My mom does something that really bugs my sister and me; she has us wrap our own Christmas presents. Every year, she plonks down a shopping bag and has us (well, last couple of years, my sister has been the one to do the actual wrapping) box ‘em up, cover them in garish paper, and even write our own gift tags. This year, I said to her,
“You know what I really need?….”
“Date clothes,” my sister quips. Mom holds up a sweater.
“No, seriously…. I have no going out clothes…. I have like, one blouse and a pair of pants!” I exclaim.
“Oh! Show her the red one!” Mom instructs my sister, who dutifully pulls out a red blouse from the shopping bag. “What do you think?”
“It’s….. nice,” but not really something I would wear….
My sister wraps folds it into a shirt box and wraps it up, printing my name across the upper right hand corner so as not to mix up the small tower of white boxes sitting next to her. I turn to her and say how imperative it is that we go shopping for clothes for me at the -gasp!- mall; something I haven’t done in maybe a year.
“You have to go with me so you can tell me if what I pick out is completely stupid,” I beg.
We laugh about the current condition of my “Dating Wardrobe” or lack thereof. Has it really been that long since I’ve been single?
My mom holds the sweater up again.

2.
“I think …. I’m destined to be alone forever,” I sigh melodramatically as I slip into the chair at the breakfast table.
“Yup. But at least you’ll have your house of cats,” my loving sister responds.
“How can you say that? You’re supposed to be supportive and….. make me feel better about myself and…. I don’t even have any cats right now!”
She guffaws at what must be an incredulous and hurt look on my face.
I take a couple bites of stew and brood whilst I masticate.
“Is it normal for guys not to call you after a date?” I ask.
“Yeah, there’s a whole stereotype about that.”
“Huh…. go figure….. It’s been a while since I talked to him…. and by ‘a while’ I mean a day. …. Is that normal?”
“Yeah. It’s the way it usually happens.”
“And people are just ok with that?!?! Are you sure it’s not… there’s not something wrong with me?”
“I know! How can anyone not like you? You like yourself plenty!” she hyperbolizes.
“Exactly! And I enjoy spending as much time as I can with myself!” I reply, and we both giggle hysterically.
“I think you’re going about this whole ‘dating’ thing wrong,” she finally states.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, people usually go into a date – especially a first date – expecting it to fail and that nothing will come of it. That way, they’re not really disappointed when he doesn’t call after. So if you go on a date with low or no expectations, then when it does succeed and he does call you for another, it’s a happy surprise.”
“Oh……”

3.
“How was your date?” she asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I replied, turning away to avoid her compassionate face.
“That bad?”
“No…… that good.”
She blocks my escape route, demanding an explanation.
“It started with his eyes,” I finally confess “and the way he looks when he’s concentrating on something. I was so nervous – I know, me nervous! – that I could barely string more than two words together. He must have thought I was completely moronic. And when he’s talking I watch the way the sides of his mouth twitch and when he got closer, I could smell him and god! he smelled heavenly, and his hands looked so strong and capable, fascinating really, and the way he’s so passionate about his career and what he wants to do with his life, and everything…. just…. everything really…..”
“So, what was the problem?”
“Sadly, I think the attraction was utterly, undeniably, one-sided.” 

I’m achy, I’ve non-romantically induced chills, and I feel like I’ve been running around for the last 72 hours – which I have. I’ve finally come down with a cold.

Yeah…… life could be better.

You asked me why I don’t talk a lot when, after reading all these entries, I seem to overflow with words that could burst the strongest dam.

Well, here’s why.

If you know me, then you can tell what I’m thinking already.  It’s annoying to myself. I walk into a room and people ask if I’m ok, or what I’m angry about, or what’s so funny, or more likely, they don’t have to ask because they can tell the date didn’t go so well, or he said something that pissed me off, or I found something somewhere I’d never thought to look. My silence means I trust you to know what I’m thinking, feeling – the exquisite bliss of the first blush of love, the poignant breathlessness of unexpected grief, the wordless struggle of frustrated rage. And being thus overwhelmed, the mental capacity to form sentences briefly leaves me, and letting you see me so defenseless is my homage to our friendship.

If you don’t know me so well, it’s a similar situation. I can be so courageously candid with strangers if there’s no risk. But when my thoughts are fogged by attraction I get so easily distracted and stymied by advice from well-meaning friends and siblings. I feel like a foreigner trying to understand a new culture and a strange tongue, hesitant to speak in case I mispronounce a sentiment, nervously terrified of stumbling over my own intention. And then my overanalytical brain, forced to screen every utterance from my tongue, picks over each syllable like it’s the final draft of the magna carta. And by the time the thought is fit to be said to someone who electrifies my skin every time he turns his head a certain way, the moment is gone, and I feel like a fool.

---

More often, I find myself wishing you lived a whole lot closer.

Close enough that I could run out of my house, jump in my car, drive to your street, knock on your door, crawl into your lap, and just let the scent of your neck comfort me. At least, for a little while until I get my feet back under me and I can hold my chin up again.

I don’t know how long I can handle this – handle the continued expenses of covering Ex-Beau’s self-medication. I’m realizing that it’s because I feel guilty for leaving him – even though I shouldn’t, god knows I shouldn’t, but the softness in my heart continues to yield. I think it’s also because a huge part of my psyche craves contact with anyone who could see me as more than friend or family. Sadly, darkly, I come to terms with the fact that if I were to cut him off completely, then I would be completely alone….

And still another part of me is scared of what he might do if he truly is painted into a corner. I know he won’t lash out. I’ve never seen him survive the crucible a better man. No, the opposite in fact; each obstacle that should burn away his impurities and emotional diseases seems to reveal more of the flaws and imperfections of a malformed spirit. I’m afraid that, left with no options, he’ll just up and kill himself.

No, I can’t be that cruel.

Beau has a new girlfriend already. I don’t know how to feel about that.

All I know is that it kinda hurts. Kinda hurts in the whole “Huh….. there’s a pain in my chest like someone shoved a balloon down my throat and it imploded” kind of feeling.

I found this out this morning when I made my weekly visit to the apartment to look in on the cats. He wasn’t there when I got in, but he arrived just as I was loading a box with old aquarium equipment for a friend. We exchanged the usual pleasantries – you know, the ones that get easier to say every time you see your ex-significant other in the old apartment you used to share.

He was quiet for a mo, then asked me if it would be ok – if I would be ok if he met someone new and started dating again.
“Of course!” I answered, “I want you to be happy, you know that.”
“Well…..”
“You met someone?…….”
“D’you want to see her picture?” he exclaims in a breath.
She’s rather pretty, in my opinion. More like the girls he used to go out with – blond hair, light eyes. Nothing like me at all. She looks older too.
“How old is she?” I ask.
“35…..”
“Oh…… Well, she’s very pretty. Is she kind? She looks kind. Have you gone out already? Did you  take her to your usual bar? Is that where you met?” I’m babbling at this point – anything to keep from being quiet and introspective. I keep up the one-sided conversation while he fiddles with his new phone. I can’t get out of the apartment fast enough now.
As I lug a suitcase of forgotten clothes down the stairs, I pause and chastise him for not taking out the trash, and I remind him gently that he should take better care of himself. And for next week’s visit, he should at least endeavor to have the kitchen clean if he needs me to do some of his laundry. And he stops me gently with “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. I just don’t like seeing you this way.”
“Yeah, but you don’t have to be so nice to me. Not after …… you just don’t have to be so damn nice.”
I chuckle. How can I be anything else? It’s not like I could hate him for being human.
“This is me. It’s what I do, you know that,” I chide him.
And we end the visit as we always do, with him saying “I miss you….. I love you….. I’ll see you next week.”
To which I reply, as always “Ok.”

Ever since I moved out, I haven’t been smoking as much. Which is why these posts are so….. ragged. I smoke when I write. It’s a talent, I know, holding a cigarette between your fingers while typing. I abandoned that keyboard at the old apartment seeing as how some of the keys stopped working.

I wonder what’s going on in your life. Your posts are so…. introspective and  terse, bitingly cold with an impassioned distance. I imagine you writing with the windows open, the breeze carrying the smell of the sun around you in a white pureness that makes me want to close my eyes and rest my head on your shoulder. Sometimes I think you wait until the dark of night when the only people awake are you and I on opposite sides of the country separated by miles of water cutting like wounds across the skin of the land. I fantasize that you write for me, pouring out your thoughts like a determined warrior in a language only we speak. Sometimes, the words sound like you’re in pain so profound and secret, carrying an isolation so impenetrable that I want to impale myself on the spires of your fortress and let my hot blood melt that loneliness away. And sometimes, I think that my thoughts are too macabre to share with you, and instead I imagine the simple act of kissing life into you, a simple and swift exhalation of breath into your mouth until your lungs fill with borrowed life and your eyes are suddenly awake and aware and oh so alive!

Odd, I know.

Are you writing for me, then? Were you ever? If not, then don’t tell me, and I can keep pretending….. But I’ll not hide the secret that I write for you, or at least, I keep you with me in the room and you’re looking over my shoulder as I type. I just…. wanted you to know that even though it seems like I’ve disappeared in the cosmos and you’re met with radio silence or static, I’m still out here following a meandering orbit that brings me back to your stratosphere- you with your ever pulling gravity and seriousness….

And even if you don’t hear it on a daily basis, when your thoughts turn maudlin and unsafe, can you at least remember that someone somewhere searches for your beacon to bring her home?

---

“So you mean to tell me that if you’re ever going to get married, you’ll eject some relative so you can have your dog in the wedding ceremony like carrying the rings or something sappy like that?” she asked as she fiddles with the air conditioning controls or the ipod or something on her side of the car.
“No, I’m just saying that I’d like to have my dog – and I’m sure I’ll have a dog by then if I ever get married – to be at the wedding. Wearing a little tuxedo with a bow tie…..” I reply.
“You know mammy’s gonna want to run the thing right?”
*Sigh* “Yeah…. I’m going barefoot though…. I want to have it outside and I want to feel my feet on the grass.”
“Then you’ll have to get a dress long enough to hide your feet. Mammy’s not gonna let you get married without shoes.”
“She doesn’t have to know until I show up.”
“Well, you should also wear a long dress because your feet are kind of ……”
And the sister perpetuates the complex she’s given me about how ugly my feet can be.

To her credit, she’s not the first person to tell me my feet are far from the cute hooves of celebrities or models. No, that honor belongs to the boyfriend of a good friend in high school.

Twilight looks different in Belgium, I noted, as the dove gray dusk seeped into the open windows and covered my tipsy brain with wooly fog. We sat on the bright red sofa, our bare feet propped on the glass surface of the coffee table in front of us, and Chucky yelling “Val doot, klotzak!” on the tv. Without preamble, he turns to me and softly exclaims “What happened to your feet?!”
I look at his, almost twice the size of mine, sun baked and foreign with a sprinkling of rough dark hair that crawls upward to cover his muscular calf. Then I look at mine which lack the pedicure I’m sure he’s used to seeing on his girlfriend. I examine them critically, taking in the slightly longer second toe which I’m sure means something superstitious, the dry skin and callouses from dancing barefoot, the strange curvature of the bones leftover from a childhood of ballet lessons, and honestly can’t find anything to disparage. What’s wrong with them?
“Why, what’s wrong with them?”
“They’re ugly!” and even though I know he’s just as relaxed and tipsy as I am, I can’t help but have my feelings broken a little.
“They’re not! At least they’re not hairy hobbit feet!” and I push at his with mine and he looks at his own, as if remembering that those were indeed his. He’s quiet and I know he’s going through the same self-evaluation, probably thanking whatever deity he believes in at the moment that he’s got such big feet with all the lewd connotations that go along with them, that his feet are large enough to carry his over six-foot frame across the football field, that his feet are large enough to take him on the path he wants to follow – filling the large footsteps of his father, and through the wilderness of his own uncharted life.
He’s quiet for so long I think he’s fallen asleep, but as I turn my head to check, he pounces on me and engages me in a tickle war until we’re red-faced and crying with tears.

So, sometimes I forget why my feet are ugly. But I’m thankful when someone reminds me, however bittersweet the moment may be.

I know not everyone is given to self-analysis. It is an uncomfortable process, seeking out what motivates you to do something, especially if the consequences are terrible. It can be a shattering revelation. In a normal day, your body is on auto-pilot. It responds to stimulus with reflex borne of years of training; if something will feel good, you seek out and complete the steps without event thinking about it. The desire for affirmation – for the warmth and glow of a compliment – the desire to be wanted. Such fundamental things really.
This morning, I tried to think of things that I believe I want. I didn’t think of why I wanted them – that’s more than I could cope with after only one cup of coffee. But the things I wanted…. they seemed like possibilities at the moment I wanted them but something had distracted me, something had derailed my mental train from pulling into the station. I had wanted to be a journalist at some point. I had wanted to be a doctor. I had wanted to be a photographer. But I let myself be persuaded to follow another path. I realized that I didn’t fight hard enough for those things.
Did I ever want something bad enough to fight for it to that extent?
That was startling.
That thought that I didn’t give it my all, that I wasn’t impassioned enough to strive for it; and I thought myself a passionate person!
Could it be that I really am that empty and uncaring, as vacuous as the sluggish boats of people that float through life which I criticize and disdain?
Because seriously, I don’t see myself trying to be anything except Happy.

But maybe that’s what I fight for. Maybe….. my life isn’t an epic of continuously momentous and decisive battles, but one long and quiet war. Maybe some part of me can tell what is worth fighting for and I’m conserving my resources.

I once told someone that he didn’t get what he wanted because he didn’t want it hard enough, badly enough to roll up his sleeves and fight for it. Should I be disappointed that I don’t want enough things to fight for?

I think I should be happy with the new understanding that when it comes, when something comes that I want that much, I’ll be ready.

“Is it too early to call myself a Spinster?”
My mom pauses in putting her seatbelt on, somewhat chagrinned by my question.
“Early in the day or early in your life?” she finally asks as I pull the car out from the curb and ease the nearly frozen motor to a decent purr.
“I’m just saying…. It seems like my life is out of synch with everyone else’s. I mean, I’m now single again and …. seriously putting in an effort into this whole ‘dating’ thing, but guys that were single when I wasn’t are now unavailable …. well, I’m kinda sorta interested in someone but…..” and I let the sentence die out, even though I really, really hate it when people do that.
“Is he white?” she asks not unkindly.
“Yeah. Haven’t you noticed I only date white guys. Or, more specifically, only white guys want to date me?”
Mom snorts and snickers.
“What’s so funny?” I ask indignantly.
“No one else will put up with you.”
I chuff, grumble, and pout at the red stoplight.
“I’m never gonna find anyone, am I. I should just resign myself to dying alone and unloved.”
“Probably,” she answers. I glare at her and she snickers again. “You won’t be happy with anyone who isn’t as smart or smarter than you are. I told you when you were younger that you have to find someone with a higher IQ, otherwise you’ll be miserable.”
“Wha…. come on! I can compromise!”
“Yes, but you need someone who understands what the word ‘compromise’ means.”
I’m silent as we drive in the increasing light of dawn. She continues, her voice serious in the chamber of the car. “You’ll be so…. frustrated with anyone else. When something interests you, you talk so fast that only Christina can understand, and even then, your mind makes lots of …. jumps and …. and sometimes its very difficult not to let you make myself fell dumb. And you can be so….. blunt about everything. You have no filter. Most people can’t take that. You need to have more tact.”
“But if it’s the – “
“And don’t tell me you’re ‘only saying what’s true’ because that’s not an excuse to hurt someone else’s feelings.”
I grumble some more, chastised, but respond from the heart when I say “I’d rather that I hurt them with the truth than to have them get it from a stranger or someone not as close.”
She’s quiet for an entire song. Then “It’s not so bad being alone for a while. You just need to get used to it.”
I defiantly want to tell her that no! I won’t get used to it, it’s not a lovely feeling at all being lonely! and I can love anyone like a…. a mechanic or a …. construction worker or ….. or anybody who doesn’t need to Be Somebody….. yeah…. I can be happy with someone like that. But she’s right, and she’s wrong, because I do have a filter but I think God installed it backwards because for the life of me, lies die in my mouth and it’s bitter, so bitter to have to swallow denial.

I’ll be the first to confess I am completely ignorant of politics and current events. It is a weakness I have fostered, and any insight I have stems from the study of classical literature and literary criticism. So the following are my thoughts that need to be written down before the desire for obscurity washes them away.

I forget that I’ve recently come into possession of American Citizenship. There’s supposed to be a presidential election next year, and it will be my first attempt at voting. So…. how to go about this voting business. I guess it’s not too difficult to find some information on likely candidates; we have a newspaper that magically appears on the doorstep every morning, after all.
Interesting to see how the focus for today is on the “swing” vote of the “women voters bloc.” I fit that criteria. And look, a handy little table of the hopeful candidates’ positions on women’s issues.

Key words seem to pop up repeatedly:
Health Care
Homeland Security
Abortion
Internet Security

And seeing these words, my thoughts fill in the blanks of things left unsaid:
Equality
Potential
Process

To make sense of what I’m thinking, I reread the article and the table. Everyone – according to the reporter – believes that at the forefront of women voters is the issue of Abortion. Such a prickly subject that piques emotional spikes, and yet it wouldn’t logically affect society as a whole. I mean, it shouldn’t. For a nation that, historically speaking mind you, prides itself on independent thought and fiercely advertises the virtue of uniqueness, why should such a personal decision be overexamined and overexhausted by busybodies wielding the bludgeon of religion or morality? That is something difficult for me to understand, and I suppose it has a lot to do with the environment and community I live in; do what is right for yourself without hurting others, and the social organism as whole will benefit from the continued health of its independent parts.
So, as I understand from the article, a person in power can take away the right to choose for oneself. It wouldn’t be…. denying the act, or ….. making it impossible to procure an abortion. Should a person in power make it illegal to obtain an abortion from a medically trained professional, then there would be laws in place to punish those who take part in the act. There would be …. repercussions, legal consequences…… which would mean that those who need it would be coerced into participating in a crime…. those who perform the procedure would be penalized……. those who could get away with it could be as careless as they could be… or as mercenary…….
Wouldn’t it be more prudent to approach the subject of parenthood prior to the necessity of addressing a pregnancy? Wouldn’t it be more…… logical to find the root of the problem and fix that, rather than attempting to hack at the overgrown tangles of chaotic and emotionally charged decisions? Wouldn’t it be more….. human….. to consciously embrace the idea of parenthood rather than trying to find ways to destroy it?
What is it that goes wrong between childhood and seniority that makes us deal with the aftermath of our decisions rather than develop our foresight? We are, in my opinion, a reactive society stunted by a narrowminded and myopic focus.
What if the issue was broader and far-reaching? I imagine that sex-education could be a very powerful subject in shaping an individual’s mind. When we had the class ages ago, it was a short and cold subject, treated with a distant and impersonal tone. I believe it shouldn’t be. It is a subject that needs continuous attention with young adults – heck, with adults and seniors as well; after all, the body is continuously changing. Why should the lessons learned from one specific moment in time – if they are learned at all – be the pennant under which a person’s soul must forever march. And human sexuality touches on so many things! Why does it need to be confined within the boundaries of medical terminology? It could start with the introduction of relationships. Friendship, for example, is a marginalized idea. The concepts of loyalty, fidelity, trust – these terms now mean more in commercial enterprizes, having been absconded from their rightful locations in the heart. How can one speak honestly to a sexual partner if there is no shared language, no common ground? How does one bridge the unbelievable chasm between one’s Self and the Other in order to communicate the need for a lasting bond and family, or the simple desire for mutual physical benefit and nothing else. But it seems so much more efficient to me to approach a relationship with tools ready to build rather than to be in the midst of one duct taping a crumbling infrastructure.
It would mean an individual with an understanding of their own health and actions. Being able to understand the consequences of decisions could prevent unhealthy dependance on intoxication as a way of dealing with aftermath. The shared language, the trust that could be expected with each encounter would relieve psychological angst.

My head clears as my thoughts empty to the page. “The issue of Abortion” seems to me to be a symptom and the candidates are ignoring the disease. And it is revealing how I choose to portray it in such a negative connotation – saying it in such proximity with the word “disease.” Truly, it is not the act that I find despicable, but rather the fact that the candidates would use it in such an inflammatory way. I fell for it, but it did make me think.

I wanted to say to the candidates:
I want a president who will make decisions With me, and not For me. Make this nation a place that encourages potential and inner strength. Teach us to rely on ourselves and then we can trust each other. Because, how valuable can another life be, if we don’t value our own?