Dear Mickey,

I miss you, you know. The strangest things will remind me of you. The word Cessna. An old, mismatched pair of socks. That stretch of road between the airport and Downtown San Jose. Sometimes, I get a strong urge to call you and ask how you are. That’s when I imagine what your life is like now. If we ever talk again, remind me to tell you some of the scenarios you’ve featured in. They’re quite amusing – at least, most of them are – and sometimes they feature clowns and softball-water-dunking carnival games. Other times, we share cotton candy. But my favorite involves beagles.

Anyway, I haven’t seen you pop up on my xanga tracker in a long time so I’ll go ahead and say it. I miss your friendship. I miss hanging out with you. I miss how you could make me laugh until I wanted to punch you in the face. I even miss how stupid you could make me feel.

I wonder if you’ll even pick up if I call. Or if you’ve changed your phone number yet…. I wonder if you have mine and if you ever get the urge to call me. I doubt it. I’m prolly relegated to some classification like “friend of old ex-friend.”

Most likely, you don’t have my number anymore, and the world keeps turning.

Always,
Sarah

“Life doesn’t give you limitless opportunities.

Friday night.
As I swung the car into the spot, I nearly ran him over. He stepped back abruptly, a scowl on his face until he recognized who it was. We walked to the restaurant, amiably trading pleasantries about the past work week, and it was awkward for about fifteen minutes as we waited for Tonks to show up. He kept exclaiming how weird – in a good way! – it was to be hanging out with me, an ex-employee who he’s never seen outside of the store. I smirked, chagrinned and wondering what he thought of my after-hours outfit. Then Tonks showed up and I watched them eat beautiful arrangements of raw fish and crinkly greens.
Molly’s was already pretty swinging by the time we arrived after dinner. I found Mr. Big and gulped down half a long island iced tea while he regaled me with his lovely caricatures of tonight’s featured dancers and pointed out some worthwhile dramas that were sure to unfold. I was tickled to see The Nipple Toucher already smarming on the dance floor, and as the sake and tea had already formed a pleasant blanket of haze over what little inhibition I have, I shrugged out of my jacket and sashayed over to where he was doing his utmost of self-Nipple Touching.
You see, he’s quite a regular there, but we’ve never seen anyone dance with him, and I was feeling bad that his bravery (of dancing by himself) was being unrewarded. I’d vowed that if I got drunk enough, I’d dance with him, and that’s how I ended up having my breasts goggled at while he swung his hips in what would probably be a most alluring manner had I been ten years older.
The rest of the night, he thought he owned me, and kept backing me into a corner with his striped chest and easy smile. At least he kept his hands to himself.
As an escape, and because I felt bad for them too, I made it a point to dance with each guy in a group of interns who had just flown in from South America to work for a local internet company. That they were adorable nerds made the job not unpleasant.
But that guy was there – you know, that cute tall guy with brown hair and sharkskin eyes who smelled like candy and made that joke about werewolf sex. That guy I once gave my number to and who had texted a couple of times. That guy who thinks I’m cute and my glasses are cute, and could we please get together at some point this weekend?
“I’m free Saturday night.”
He wasn’t. But he said he’d call me the next day and we’ll hammer out a definite time.
He called twice when I was crawling between my covers and since it was 2:30 in the morning and I had to get up in three hours, I wasn’t about to answer it. Kinda wish I had, since it turns out something must have shorted out in my phone overnight while it was charging, and the next morning, none of the buttons would work.

Saturday.
“Oh good lord……. try another text.”
Nothing.
“Ok, another one.”
Still Nothing.
We’d been standing over my phone for ten minutes, trying to resuscitate it, but it remained unresponsive. I’m freaking out at this point. My lunch break comes around and I race to the phone store. I run in and slam my phone on the counter.
“My phone…. I think…. I think it’s dead,” I manage to gasp out.
The guy behind the counter – Eric, his tag proclaims – flips it open and tries to work some magic.
“Yeah, I think it’s not something we can fix since the on-off switch still works, but none of the others do,” he finally tells me. “What did you do to it?”
“I took it clubbing last night and it was working fine!”
“You must have spilled a cocktail on it then,” he jokes.
“No, it was in my back pocket the entire time.”
“Maybe…. you sat on it?”
I’m thinking in my head that sitting on a phone shouldn’t cause it to malfunction this way, but he’s supposed to know what he’s talking about, and maybe he’s joking anyway, so I say “Yeah, maybe…..Is there anything you can do?”
“……………..”
“You don’t understand how cute this guy is!” I exclaim, slamming my palm on the counter in emphasis. The customers all turn to glance at me.
“Well, it says here your next phone upgrade is in March….”
“Wha……? My sister usually takes care of this stuff……….. I don’t care about ‘upgrades’ or anything like that. I’m just……… he’s going to call me or text me after noon………… he’s so cute and he smells so good……”
The phone store employees and the customers around me chuckle.
“Then, did you want to get a new phone?” Eric asks.
“Yes, a new phone. Any phone. The exact same phone.” And that’s how I ended up paying about $150 for a replacement phone – well, the new version of the phone I used to have.
“And…. and you can switch over the contacts no problem?” I ask, my voice wavering with hope.
He disappears into the back room and comes out about 7 minutes later. I scroll through the numbers and cute guy’s phone number isn’t in there. I scream.
“Do something! Fix it! You don’t understand how cute this guy is!” I exclaim for the hundredth time.
He disappears into the back room again and he’s gone twice as long, but he comes back out with a completely restored memory. I proclaim him my Hero for the Day and run out the door, leaving a store full of laughing people.

The cute guy calls to tell me he’s fallen ill, but he would love to see me Monday.

“I don’t understand this…..Is this a rejection?” I ask, mostly to myself, but my friend hears and answers anyway.
“No, it’s called ‘Getting Sick’.”

Sunday.
I saw my first ever drive in movie.

Monday Night.
I should have known something was off when he insisted that I come over to his place to hang out rather than the usual date thing. After all, we met at a bar and it’s not like we know each other to merit a cozy “hanging out” session. But maybe he’s just shy, I tell myself.
So as a precaution, I write his name and address down on a piece of paper for my sister in case I turn up missing. And I give Tonks the guy’s info also, just in case. And I told Mr. Big to give me a call at 11 that night to make sure I hadn’t been drugged and tied up or anything.
I drive over to Milpitas, and yes, he’s already eaten dinner so I swing by McDonald’s and pick up a #9. I’m thinking that even if he’s saving up to buy a house, or he’s just really cheap, he could have just told me and I wouldn’t be annoyed half as much.
He doesn’t even leave the overhang of his apartment building to hold an umbrella for me as I walk across the parking lot to the entrance. Hmmm…..
His apartment is Spartan – it looks like a dorm room complete with models of Star Wars ships – which would be really endearing if he didn’t dismiss them as insignificant in hopes of currying a higher opinion of himself.
He’s awkward and insincere, reasonably intelligent but overcompensating for something in his past. He’s defensive and somewhat arrogant with no reason to be. And try as I might to put him at ease, I think the fact that I’m so open and accepting makes him suspicious. Go figure.
To top it off, I’m analyzing him and can glean that he has a low opinion of women and of relationships as a whole.
Whereas I’ve many friends who have been hurt in the past or who have come from less than ideal backgrounds and have been made stronger from their crucibles, this man was bitter, cynical, and sadly, unreceptive to any redemption I could offer.

So this weekend was full of revelations for me, more than what I’ve been able to write here since I’m still feeling sick, but at least I got a new phone out of it.

“So I’m dating someone….” I say as I light my cigarette. Mom pauses and turns the hose away so she can hear me. “He’s not…. he’s not the type of guy I usually date.”
She moves to the next plant on the patio and answers, “My friend told me I’m not supposed to over-water these orchids. She said they should dry out between waterings.”
“Yeah, you should prolly listen to her.” because I’ve told you the same thing a couple of times now, I finish in my head.
“I don’t think so.” And because I’m her daughter and I think because I even expected this answer from her, I know she’s talking about the man I’m dating and not the advice about the orchids.
“He’s not book smart, I know….. He didn’t …… he didn’t grow up here – didn’t have the same opportunities.” And even to myself my voice sounds quivery and the argument is weak.
She has that look on her face now. That tightly controlled exasperation, the slight anger, the barest hint of disappointment.
“Then he’s not enough for you.”
“He has a Good Heart. He’s a counselor – a rehab counselor.”
She turns the hose off and kneels beside a hydrangea bush which I’ve told her before needs to be moved to a shadier location, its delicate leaves burning to a rich blood red and yet it still stubbornly blooms with a profusion of hot pink flowers.
“It doesn’t matter if he has a Good Heart,” she mutters, but the clipped consonants sting me. She tries to avoid my gaze, but I can tell she’s watching me when I turn away and I can’t help but feel small and green and young as I whither under her scrutiny. It doesn’t help that I’m wearing my froggy pajamas under the peacoat with a scarf wrapped all the way to my lips.
I don’t know how to answer and I’m reminded of Austen’s Persuasion and how if I think about it, that story had a happy ending…. didn’t it?
“It doesn’t matter if he has a good heart,” she repeats, “Or that he didn’t have the same opportunities because you did. You’ve invested so much in your life……. ” We’ve invested so much in your life “and now you’re too busy looking for something you think you need, when what you need is to aim higher.”
I’m quietly smoking, the cigarette ashes falling into the crown of a succulent between my feet as she continues to say and not say the reasons there’s always a tension between us.
“You need a partner that can support you – “
“You’re saying I can’t support myself?!” I ask with indignation that’s only half-mocking. Of course she doesn’t think I can support myself – her Dreamy Child, her Helpless Warrior, her Boundless Soul.
“I’m saying …..” and here I can see she’s choosing her words carefully, “I’m saying what if you get laid off, what if you get injured?” what if you can’t continue pretending to be normal and the rug gets pulled out from under you by people who don’t understand, can’t understand, won’t understand?
“Not everything is about money,” I whisper.
She puts down the hose and turns to face me. “I want you to look for a better job.”
I gawk at her. Of course I knew she would get around to this eventually.
“I like my job,” I protest, and I’m ashamed of the weak mewling of my voice. Really, I don’t want to cry in front of her.
“Take advantage of the time you have now and look for a better job with a better salary,” and I remember that I’m supposed to be making at least twice as much as what I’m earning now, since I’ve got a degree and everything but still….
She must see some defiance in the way I set my mouth, because her tone softens when she offers “Or go back to school. If what you have is not enough….”
I mentally calculate expenses and tuition before realizing that she’s talking about taking on a different degree or pursuing my doctorate rather than money. And I have to agree with her. What I have – if I’m indeed expected to support myself in the way she wants me to – is not enough. Not nearly enough. But how can I tell her that the problem is me, within me, and most likely something that further education could not augment.
Because I excel at languages but lack the attention to detail that would make a successful programmer. I have the talent but not the strength of will to make a formidable writer. And I have the desire but not the mathematical intuition that would lead to a career in the sciences.
I am lost.
So I did what I always do when I find myself facing the obstacle of a purgatorial oblivion. I said:
“I shall try.”

Me: “I don’t prefer to use chopsticks because I’m not Asian!”
Tonks: “Yeah, but you have some Chinese in you.”
Me: “……. It’s been a while since I’ve had some Chinese in me……….”

---

It was a conversation at the dinner table that made me realize how shamefully superficial I can be about the people I associate with. For all the talk about how I don’t care what people look like or how much money they have, it seems that I can’t prevent my own heavy-handed judgement regarding something else that could possibly be beyond one’s control. At what point in time did I reserve special feelings and worth for only the Smartest and most Intelligent people? When did I value ruthless ambition and cunning? Why do I now equate a good salary with a person’s worthiness as a human being? Why is it ok for someone who is ignorant or poor to be beneath my notice or my mercy?

The realization saddened me. And even though I make excuses such as “I’m sure he’s smart in other areas like…. he could be ‘street smart’ or….. he could know a lot about cars,” why do I even have to justify it with statements like that?

It has something to do with the people whose company I currently enjoy. My family and friends – they like to roll up their sleeves and get into messy discussions about politics, current events in science and technology, breakthrough research, Milton, Derrida, Foucault. Unbidden, a thought of what a current beau would have said into the lull of a conversation had me red-faced in embarrassment. Me! Embarrassed about what someone could say to reveal how ignorant he is of this world of college-graduates and pseudo-philosophers. What the fuck is wrong with that? While we were compartmentalizing and programming our brains with thinking and rethinking scientific methods, he was struggling with his own demons on a much more physical and spiritual journey. While we were writing out term papers on the parsed hardships of 19th century social inequalities, he’s had to face 21st century ravages of injustice on the lowest level. While we kept our hands clean in our ivory towers, he’s been in the thick of turmoil that keeps the world turning – learning and understanding the problems of the common man, speaking his language with the sincerity that I could never duplicate.

I was sitting on the porch this morning, finishing a cigarette, when the newspaper arrived. It wasn’t delivered by the stereotypical boy on his bike throwing them haphazardly into flowerbeds. It was a middle-aged Mexican woman who drove up in a red pickup truck. She got out of the driver’s seat and walked it up to me. I met her half-way down the steps. I’d been waiting for the newspaper to try and glean more information about the upcoming elections, but as she placed it in my hand, I thought about what the “issues” were and how they would affect her – this woman who I imagined had to take a second job as a newspaper delivery person in order to “make ends meet” in an area of the country that boasts one of the highest “cost of living” status. How does she cope with rent? utilities? educational costs for her children? healthcare? What does she think of the war? Who does she support? Does she even bother reading the newspaper she delivers? Does she even have the time to?

I guess it’s something I have to work at: be less judgemental about People. Because no matter how many times I hear it or say it myself, it’s not always about “The Choices We Make.” There are so many things that happen beyond our control that to force that expectation on others is cruel and hypocritical.

So this doesn’t exclude myself. I judge my own worth too many times and too harshly to be at peace for long. I need to remember: we do the best we can with what happens to us and what we have. Why find fault with myself and cause unnecessary unhappiness with wishing that the people I care about were somehow different or “better”? Why make it Wrong to write for free and call myself a Writer? Why be ashamed to help people one person at a time instead of trying to enact rapid and global changes? And what do I gain by de-valuing that quality of quiet contentment in others? Who am I to judge why they shouldn’t be happy with their current abode, their level of education, their choice of career? If I bring to them that which I love: Knowledge, why sully the gift with ridicule and contempt? And if they’re not the sharpest crayon in the box, then so what? Maybe it just means that somewhere, some time, they were someone’s favorite color.

(clever by-line goes here)
So I’ve been blogging here for a while now, as well as other places. Yeah, yeah, I know, cheating on my blog. I’ll tell you truly though that this is the most complete set of my perverse and self-analyzing word vomit so no need to get your knickers in a twist looking elsewhere.
I want to blame so many external forces for the sporadic and glib posts lately, and the fear at its root is that I’ve somehow managed to lose whatever talent for verbalizing the turmoil of my emotions I once thought I had. Maybe…. maybe I’m supposed to suffer some insidious angst in order to think beyond the mundane and physical to achieve *that* metaphysical existence where I can just let my hands loose on the keyboard and pour out whatever it is that threatens to overwhelm my overtaxed neurons.

1. I’ve heard that one never truly gets over one’s high school sweetheart. I swear to god that it eats me up inside if I give it too much thought. Cliches about “The One That Got Away” whisper in my ears late at night when i turn down the covers and lay down in a bed as cold and lonely as a grave. And I wonder what it is that I miss – the simple warmth of a body? the shared history? the mutual discovery of sexual experience? Or is it deeper – and therefore more disturbing – than that? Do I miss the things we used to discuss; for he had a depth and breadth of intellect I’ve yet to encounter. Do I miss the way we could find each other in a crowded house – that I could lift my gaze from whatever I was doing and just know what direction to face and my feet would carry me there.
So, maybe twice a year, my thoughts dwell on dangerous memories and just as quickly as the maudlin thoughts come, they dissipate like candle smoke. Maybe…. maybe it’s not that we were high school sweethearts after all. Maybe it’s just because we were together for so long. I don’t think I can easily forget someone who was my constant companion for almost a quarter of my life. Plus, the sex was great …..

2. [I've said it a few times now, but I guess I should write it down for posterity.]
I walked him out of the bar, trailing him behind me like a cold balloon. He’d had too much to drink – he said it himself, and I tried valiantly to hide my disappointment.
He really wants to kiss me, he says.
“I wish …. I wish you didn’t wait,” I reply.
He looks abashed, and even though he sways a little as he stands, his eyes are endearing. He really wants to kiss me, he repeats.
I don’t remember who made the first move, but I remember my hands stroking the stubble on his chin. I pull him close and look into his eyes, trying to find something there other than alcohol and half-remembered ideas. With a grace and confidence I’ve never had when it comes to First Kisses, I gently place my lips on his and
              god it was electrifying…….
I move my body towards him, his breath ghosting warm and humid across the frigid winter night to touch my frozen cheeks with the slightest of unearthly caresses. More, I ask him, with every press of my lips against his, give me more than this last minute gesture of benediction and farewell before you leave tomorrow and I might not see you ever again because truly, this kiss is branding your presence on my lips and you can’t just break into my temple and leave nothing but your footprints and now that you’ve finally woken me up, you’ll be gone by the time I can stand again – gone where I won’t be able to follow.
I break away at the thought and the rush back into my body is a little disorienting and yet so clinically clear, and the crowded street is back in focus, and the stream of people leaving the club is surreal, and the button hanging off a frayed thread on my coat is suddenly more significant than anything I can bear. But still I gather up my wits to look him in the eye and say
“I really wish you weren’t drunk right now” because you’ll probably forget any of this happened in a few minutes and you’ll forget what color my eyes are by tomorrow, and you’ll forget what my arms feel like around you by the time you get on the plane, and you’ll forget I exist here in this lovely little town in a few months time.
You grab me and kiss me one last time, but it feels too much like an overeager goodbye, a protestation against everything I left unsaid, so I break away gently, nod to your friends, and walk to my car.

3. Even though I think you’re the cat’s pajamas, I will not have wild monkey sex with you.

Nor wild werewolf sex.

So if that’s all you’re after, I feel sorry for you.

And no! No pity sex either! Good grief!

4. I think I’m getting the hang of this whole “dating” thing. The lack of commitment. The obvious absence of responsibility other than to be present and ready to be picked up. It’s nice and refreshing, being cared for. I like that the goal of a few hours is just to have a “Good Time.” You don’t have to apologize for schedules that are fundamentally different, and part of the fun and feeling each other out is working around those schedules to see each other. I like that you don’t have to give a reason if you’re unavailable for a certain night. There are no explanations necessary for stumbling through the door at 3 in the morning, still half-drunk and smelling like a dozen different colognes. Everything is new and different, from the touch of a hand to the way each one kisses. You don’t have to watch the clock  because someone’s waiting impatiently for you to get home. Yeah, I like it.

5. At midnight on New Year’s Eve, I was weightless and flying on a swingset at the park next to the bar. I heard the boom boom of fireworks in the distance, the clack-clack-clack and high whistles of noisemakers, the joyous yell of hundreds of people coming from all the houses around us exclaiming in exultant abandon. As my swing swung downward I met his gaze and said softly, “Happy New Year, by the way.”