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?

I got a surprising call a midnight ago. I didn’t recognize the number,
ergo I didn’t pick it up. The vm was from my therapist. At first, I
couldn’t tell who it was and it didn’t help she was talking in
Psych-code  – you know, that language they use when leaving messages so
no one can tell it’s a psychiatrist or psychologist leaving a message.
Really sly…. uh-huh….
“Hey Sarah, this is Jaz, just wanted to
see how everything’s going…. haven’t seen you in a while…. but if
um, you want to come in… um, just to talk….. just call and we can
work something out…. and if you don’t want to come in for a while,
and decide you do want to come in… then …
wecanreopenyourchart…..ok….. here’s the number….”
She’s
concerned (?) but I don’t really know why. I mean, she hasn’t seen me
in almost a year, but I *did* go to the psychiatrist to get meds until
just shortly ago. Seroiusly, she was the one who dumped me after I told
her about killing those chicks when I was like 3. Ok, maybe not dumped,
but I did notice that she never noticed how I never made an appointment
with her after that. And it’s not like I did it on purpose or anything;
I thought I was feeding them for fuck’s sake!

This morning, I
considered going back and getting back on meds. It would be so easy to
disappear in that fog. But it would be the definite death of a part of
me. Could I really give that up? That part of me that’s too aware, too
emotive, too empathic; that part that doesn’t float through life but
rides white waters like a dark-eyed shark, gnashing teeth in
frustration and locking jaws around the poignant flashes of mortality.

Death is easy.
Living is hard.

---

Saw Beau yesterday when i was picking some books up. Cats have gotten fatter.
Otherwise, everything was the same.
I guess I’ve changed.

There’s always a drought in California. That’s what the newspaper and newscasters are always telling me – at least, back when I used to have contact with the outside world. There was a sign on the side of the bus, the words “Sing shorter songs” scrawled across shower tiles. This didn’t please me, and I continued to sing my normal repertoire of shower songs, and I think if you’ve ever heard anyone singing in the shower when they thought no one was listening, you can learn a whole lot more about the person in a few wet and steamy moments than in pseudo-deep conversations. For example, I usually warm up with
Daydream Believer by the Monkees: I believe in daydreams – *my* daydreams – every single gut-wrenching, panty-wetting, leg-cramping, heart-breaking, soul-lifting, breath-taking daydream that eases the pain of not being allowed to just Be.
Amazing Grace: I love the melody, the dips and turns of a gliding kite of hope. Shape of My Heart: When I was in HS, we had to dissect a cow heart in AP Bio. Rusty, one of my classmates, turned green and passed out when the teacher pushed her finger through one of the arteries. So when I hear songs about hearts, I can’t help but momentarily think “This song isn’t very romantic when one considers the actual shape of a heart, its proclivity towards failure when struck with a well-aimed hand formed and flicking like a snake, or its weakness in the presence of a powerful and unwanted truth.”
Chasing Cars: I sing to the one I fantasize about ” If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?” And he replies “Show me a garden that’s just bursting into life.”
And sometimes, just to mix it up, I end with the Star Spangled Banner.

There’s only been one person who has ever heard me sing in the shower. He was walking under the bathroom window at the time, backpack slung low on his shoulders as he trudged towards campus. I had both showerheads running at the time (the house I was living in used to belong to a fraternity that lost its charter for undoubtedly infamous reasons lost to UCSB history) and I was singing at the top of my lungs when I glanced out the window and saw him pick his way through the garden I’d grown, sweet peas clinging like needy hands to the jeans he’d worn the day before. His sleep-tousled hair fell in his eyes, glinted gold and brown in the morning sun, and flicked around his ears as he turned back and caught my eyes with his gray-blue ones. We shared a look of understanding, he smiled, I smiled at the chance the universe had given me – to reveal this one secret to one person who would accept it for the unwilling gift it was – then I pulled back away from that bright and blinding window and shut the showers off, at peace with life and death for a breath before wrapping a towel around me and continuing with the day.

There’s always going to be a drought in California; but *don’t* sing shorter songs……

…….. share longer showers.

My High School Reunion is on November 23. That’s roughly a month away. A month in which to anxiously bemoan my status as the One Who Still Lives With Their Parents And Shows Up Single. For Fuck’s sake, I think I saw one of my old classmates the other day, a pair of blond sproglets flanking her ankles. I did what any sane young woman would do – I hid in the back office until they left.
Alas, I can’t be so lucky every time. Ever since I started wearing glasses again, and El Jefe insists on us wearing our real names on our badges, it’s been easier for the High School Ghosts to come to my store and torment me of my failure (which is prolly most likely in my head – the failure part, not the visits from ex-classmates). So stuttering and blushing profusely, I talk to them about what they’re currently doing, who’s married to who, who’s had kids/ a sex-change operation/ an epiphany. More often than not, the answers surprise me, and that surprise leads to conversations about the current state of economics in the tech industry of Silicon Valley – except for the one time the conversation turned into a mini lecture from me about the ethics of keeping a turtle in a tupperware container.
Regardless, and despite the fact that I can be rather socially awkward at times, I always manage to steer the dialogues away from the parrot shitting on my shoulder and my hands smelling like snake shit to anything but.
So I’m really, really not looking forward to this reunion. It would be easier, I think, to bring a date – because I’m sure my ex-ex-boyfriend is going to be there with his new perfect blonde girlfriend, and it’ll be painful. I’m 97% sure it’s going to be painful. Which brings me to the point of this soliloquy: Find a date in 30 days.

The options I’ve come up with so far, and suggestions from well-meaning friends and family have been:
1. Hire an escort. – my idea, which I’m going to keep as an option because of its secret novelty and the fact that it tickles my brain.
2. Go with that guy who delivers the rolls of Deli-Fresh. – despite the fact that he’s much older, he’s still quite fetching. A bonus would be his awesome refrigerated truck. Kinky, I know. But I think I’ll pass on this suggestion from well meaning workmates.
3. Take my brother. – Jules, I can see how that would be fun and all – I mean, he’d put me on his bar tab and everything – but we went to the same high school! How much weirder can that get?
4. Go with an old HS friend. – which might be ok, sis, if he’d want to, that is.
5. Take two of my hot friends as my lesbian lovers. – while this idea appeals to me on many hilarious levels, I think the emptiness of it would ruin what’s supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
6. Suck it up and go alone. – and get drunk. and refrain from crying. or meaningless one-night stands.

Ok, so a little more than a month to tape my life together into something presentable…..

It was inevitable, she supposed, that they would include her in their revelry plans, considering her status as a newly emancipated single young woman. And so she straightened her shoulders, donned the mask made of fractured paper smiles, and turned to her lovely friend Claire before responding “I’m still a bit…. hungover. My stomach is queasy and I don’t think I’ll be much fun tonight.”
But what she really screamed in her head at the rather pitying expression on her friend’s face was “Why on earth would I want to come with you to watch you flirt with a guy I’d taken a fancy to!?”

Claire sighed a pretty little sigh, quirking her lips up and for a second and Joni wondered if she’d spoken the last out loud.

“It won’t be as fun without you,” she stated simply. Which Joni took to mean “We might need a buffer if everyone shows up because not everyone can get along if you’re not there to diffuse any potential conflicts or eruptive situations.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m just not up to it today and I don’t know if I’ll be ok by tonight. Besides, I think I’ve had enough alcohol to last me for a couple of weeks.” And by enough alcohol, Joni thought with a smirk, she meant the glass of wine and shot of sake which had easily left her staggering like a new Navy recruit on his first boat ride.

“How about if you just came by for an hour, make an appearance, you know?” pressed Claire.

“I have bags under my eyes, my skin feels like it’s pulled over a wax skeleton, and my hair – I should just chop it off at this point! What kind of appearance would that be?”

Claire turned slightly to observe her small friend, surprised by the revealing and uncharacteristic exclamation of low self-esteem. This was Joni, for fuck’s sake! Joni who never really cared whether her hair flopped in her eyes or the bright blue tank top clashed horrendously with her maroon corduroy pants, who held a tube of lip balm as her sole defense against judging eyes, brandished that silly tube of lip balm with confidence that the eager, assertive, passionate fire in her eyes would draw attention away from any imagined flaws, willing people to see her for her thoughts and actions rather than relying on a miasma of cosmetics and beauty products to speak for her.

Joni watched her lithe friend through the fringe of her bangs, acknowledging that yes, she was jealous that Claire was tall and lissom, girly in a desirable way, flirty and obviously knew how to put mascara on. Damn. I should learn that at some point if I ever want to be seen whenever she’s around, Joni thought to herself, feeling rather like a sad caricature of humanity.

So do I do this then, she mused, do I observe and mimic and then maybe I’ll feel more like a woman? What irony, she confessed, chuckling softly to herself about the absurdity of losing yourself in order to become Someone.

“Have fun tonight. And tell me all about it tomorrow,” and with that, the conversation ended  and a companionable silence – not unpleasant despite the tense and unspoken conversation still going on between them – permeated the room, punctuated by glass cages sliding open and shut, and soothed by the murmur of running water.

They sat in the room with the door locked, speaking in hushed tones that couldn’t be carried through the air vents or the other minuscule holes that have betrayed too many secrets of clandestine, illicit affairs.

“You must think I’m pathetic,” she whispered to the girl quietly munching a slice of bacon.
“Hmmm….. ” and the blonde paused to look at her normally gregarious friend, reduced to a brittle-shelled column of quivering emotions. “Not pathetic, just…… lonely.”
The brunette guffawed loudly at the absurd aptness of the description. “You can say that again,” she whispered under her breath.
“No, I mean…. you had fun last night, yeah?”
“Yes, I did, but I don’t ever want to go through it again.”
“Go through what again?” asked the blonde.
“The whole…. thing!” She threw her right hand away as if encompassing and dismissing the subject that she wanted to broach and quell in a heartbeat.
“Honey, you’re gonna have to be a little more specific.”
The brunette sighed and brought her hands to her forehead, slipping her glasses off for a second to pinch the bridge of her nose in a posture of frustrated defeat.
“I can’t do the things you do – the dating for dating’s sake – I can’t take the possibility of rejection as easily as you can.”
“Wait a minute. Back up a sec. What on earth…….. what are you talking about? Rejection?” and the blonde rolled her hands forward, gesturing for her friend to rewind and continue. “Have you never….. haven’t you ever dated before with no expectations, no worries – “
“No hope? No desire? No mutual attraction? No, Beth, I haven’t.” The brunette shook her head, soft strands of dark hair pulling loose from her bun and brushing the side of her neck. She shook her head vehemently again, as if to rid her mind of something forbidden. “Every time I’ve ever had a Date, it was always because I was already attracted to them, and it’s like…. it’s like holding your breath when you plunge head first into the water, because the next breath you take is so much sweeter for lack of oxygen.”
Beth sat back a little to ponder this new information from her usually modest, almost prudish friend. Then carefully, slowly as if approaching a cornered animal, she plied her words to soothe the suffering little creature before her. “I don’t think you have to worry about the feelings being returned. He really seemed to be just as nervous as you were last night.”
“Nervous, huh? God, you must think I’m a pathetic loser right now,” her friend repeated dejectedly. “Complaining that the first date I’ve been on in years didn’t end the way I wanted it to.”
“I think it ended the right way. I thought he was gonna kiss you for a second when he hugged you goodnight.”
“Wha-what?” she looked up, horrified at the thought that perhaps she’d read him wrong after all.
“He hugged you for a moment longer than he hugged me, I think.” Beth picked up another bacon slice to nibble as she thought about the situation.
“No………. No…………..No. Don’t you See? I can’t go through that again. It hurts too much to not say what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling. And I know that’s what you’re not supposed to disclose on the dates you’re talking about, but listen to me, Beth. This is me – I’m completely flummoxed by the social niceties everyone else seems to know. I can’t….. I can’t just leave it like that. If I like someone and want to spend more time with them, then I say so. And to leave me hanging like this…. No, I don’t want to date the way you do. We’re just gonna have to agree to disagree about this.” The brunette turned to her fair-haired friend who nodded. “This is the difference between us. This is what makes you Beth, and what makes me Joni.”

It was like watching a train wreck. A really, really emotionally embarrassing train wreck.

Having had a few drinks, and by few read: two shots of hard liquor and half a Long Island, all within the space of 5 or so hours, she engaged in a battle of wills with gravity – one which hovered over a stalemate until her friends forced her to sit between them on a stool and eat a baby bag of chex mix.
Her sweating drink they surreptitiously replaced with a bottle of water.
And as the hours moved towards Last Call, she found herself leaning heavily against his warm and unyielding side.

Meanwhile, I can only guess what was going through his mind as he kept up the flow of light conversation with an aged bartender wearing a Viagra cap, not a pause in breath or sentences to reveal how much he’d had to drink that night, his hand straying to the left every now and then to push her Long Island further away from a searching and inebriated hand while sweeping stray chex pieces to their doom.

Hold on – did he just run a finger over her arm – ?

The movement was so fast, but there was no mistaking its intent to soothe, to calm, to inquire if she was all right – all in a stroke of skin on cloth.

Or perhaps she imagined it, a wistful wish thought that pierced through the fog of alcohol muddying the normal clarity of her brain.

They played pool for a bit, and it helped the alcohol work through her system to render her somewhat more coherent in an effort by her friends to make sure she could drive home. And as the game ended, he told her how much fun the night had been.

“I had thought  you weren’t going to come tonight,” she stated with half a smile.
“I wouldn’t have missed it. This whole visit home has been great so far.”
“What are you doing tomorrow?”
“I’m seeing some of the guys from my old high school,” he replied, and proceeded to reveal his itinerary, yet she couldn’t help but feel disappointed when he didn’t take the opening she gave him to inquire about maybemaybemaybe a Date of some kind.
At that point she did something she rarely ever does and reigned in runaway words and questions which threatened to reveal far too much about what she was feeling towards the dark-haired boy.

Not hearing anything that could indicate a returned interest, she let herself fall into the dissipating mist of
inebriation and tried not to be too disappointed when he neglected to ask for her phone number or second date.

The hug was the most excruciating event – the squeal of rusty brakes on sharp tracks, the collision of metal limbs, the sparks flying and dying in arcs like hope failing to breathe in reality – the hug goodnight was a train wreck for all who knew the loneliness that plagued her heart.

Tomorrow – or I guess later on today since it’s past midnight now, I will be attempting to remove myself from this hell that He chains me in.
When I got home earlier, he started yelling at me, reeking of alcohol and stinking of indignant rage. I don’t know how many times in how many ways I can say “I’m leaving you.” but it’s gotten so I sound like a broken record. I know what he’s trying to do, too – talk me out of it, promises me that he’ll change, but I don’t think that in the drunken haze he understands that each sentence he literally spits in my face feeds the disgust that has overtaken what love and affection I once had for him.

Now add to that the fear that he’ll hurt me or do something incredibly stupid and it makes me recant the tentative assurance Id given him that I would help him for the next couple of months.

How significant is it when I tell you, then, that
He will not let me leave.