ohsnooooooes!

it snowed. like, a whole whole lot. truly, the last time i saw this much snow was when i was in college--class was canceled and we took trashcan lids and sled down icy stairs late into the night and woke up to eat breakfast early in the caf, then went back to our rooms to sleep until noon.

no powdered eggs, but the fun and relaxation is still there this side of college. i went out and played in it when it was an unbroken white blanket begging to be jumped in. two layers of everything (three layers of some things) and a self-knitted hat and mikey and i ventured out for a nice long icy walk. we came back to build an igloo with our neighbors the spencers but it was so fluffy and powdery that it refused to be shaped. so i just romped instead--fell backwards to make snow-angels, climbed up in the back of the truck that's stuck in our backyard to cozy down into the fluff (comfy but cold) and made face impressions, licking the snow off my face after pulling away to gaze down at my handiwork. the other adults just stood around and chatted while i acted a fool. i was a little sad to be alone in my kid-at-heart state.

ive been thinking a lot this snowed-in weekend about growing up in western Pennsylvania. one winter, we could hardly open the front door because of how high the snow was. you know how much bigger things look when you are little? well, i was a small kid at the time, im sure, because when we went outside, i recall sinking down until the snow was almost over my head. we followed each other out in a line--big kids first to blaze the trail. in PA, it was always such good snow for being imaginative! we advanced well beyond simple snowmen. of course we built whole snow families, and forts and--my favorite--elaborate tunnels that twisted and turned like a huge white snake through our yard. we had a hill right outside our house and every winter, we cleared a sled-run from the top, across our driveway and into the adjacent field, coming to a nice stop as the ground leveled out. we had a long green toboggan (yes, that's what we call some types of SLEDS up north) with yellow lining that folded out and held three or four people. the front was curved upwards and the thing really picked up speed when you got it going. amazing how doing the same thing over and over again can still be as enjoyable as the very first time.

playing with my siblings in the snow was so much fun. i never remember being miserably cold or being annoyed at having to put on and peel off layer after layer each time you wanted to go in and out. i just remember how wondrous the yard became--covered so quietly by that sparkling, magical blanket. i remember laying on my back, staring up at the packed roof of our snow tunnel, talking to my brother or sisters. i remember climbing up the slippery ladder of our tree house and surveying the white ocean beneath us. i loved snowball fights and snow angels, and i still do. but playing in the snow alone just cant compare to having epic wintery lord of the rings reenactments with your siblings (its hard to fight orcs back into their icy caves by yourself). this winter, i will continue to enjoy the snow, if mostly from in front of my window with a cup of coffee and a book, and some memories from childhood winters long passed.

(yes, i am aware that lord of the rings came out when i was in college.)

memories from a song #2

"summertime, summertime
brought me back to thinking you were mine
all those times
we laid it down and left it all behind, we were blind
oh, the summertime.

we could ride, we could ride.
take my hand and watch the world go by.
laugh or cry, well we need to try,
get off the line, time to fly
oh, the summertime.

go on ahead
and let it fade away
no looking back
you know the past will stay.
it's you and me, we could get out of here
jump in and go and we could drive for years
where we could feel alive...

here we are, here we are,
windows down we see a falling star
stop the car
waiting for nothing but our beating hearts,
going far
oh, the summertime.

so feel the air, feel the air,
take the map and point to anywhere
i don't care
fingers through your hair,
the sky i've seen is blue and green
oh, the summertime.

driving away, leaving it all behind.
just driving away, away, away...
driving away, leaving it all behind.
just driving away, away, away....


its the perfect temperature because the windows are down and we are driving fast and there's a breeze and i'm not even cold, even though im always cold. my hand is hanging out the window and i'm moving it through the wind with fascination, feeling it rush over and under and shape me even as i am shaping it. you are next to me but we are in bucket seats so i dont feel the warmth of your body. we aren't touching because we're not at that place yet, although in a few years, unbeknown to us both, our hands will be joined by a minister and our ring fingers will permanently display a promise. for now, in this moment in time, you are driving me through the neighborhoods of greensboro with the windows down (the sunroof would be open, too, if it werent broken) and you are teaching me that this city is a grid. you ask me to choose and we take a turn here and there, just to see where it will take us. no matter where we turn, you know where we are and i settle deeply down into this bucket seat and feel safe. we share a love for nighttime driving, for driving as leisure. we share the same sense of freedom as we feel the summer air wash over us, saturated with its scent of sun and heat and earth. i feel totally unfettered, letting all the sounds and sights and senses become a part of me and move me to breathe deeply, sing out loud, drum in patterns on my bare knees. summer had melted into my skin, caressed me golden, and my mind a window thrown open, its curtains billowing out beyond the sill. were you already captured then?

(song lyrics "Summertime" by Mae)

the Blueberry

i pull into the parking lot, a bronze B&W before me, a yellow mustang with black racing stripes behind me. my '02 blue mazda protege 5 is sheepish between these two money-stacks and i wince when it squeals against the cold and hurls me against the roof when we go over the speed bump as if it had no shocks at all. we each settle into a space between white lines and i wait for a few minutes, fiddling with my keys and slowly taking the last few sips of coffee while i watch my students rise from their vehicles like titans from chariots. i sit quietly and reflect. i pat my dusty dashboard and alight cheerfully onto the curb.

invited in

"One of the signatures that has developed out of our marriage that I love most is the fact that when our door is unlocked, people don't even knock--they know they are going to only hear the call "come in!" and no one is going to get the door for them anyway. I love this because it says to me, 'I know I am welcome.' " (www.fisselsonamission.blogspot.com)

i wrote this as i was updating our fissel blog about our married life. when i wrote that last line, i was overwhelmed with this sense that THAT is something i want to be able to say when i come into the presence of God. i want to feel like i am being invited in, not that i'm barging in. i want to walk into the moment with Him as if i were walking into my own house, comfortable, familiar, at ease. i want to know he is waiting at the top of the stairs, relaxed with a cup of coffee in his hand and another on the table waiting for me, just the way i like it. and in this embracing atmosphere, i want to settle in and talk and talk and talk. talk until i am absolutely blue in the face and have no breath left, and not suddenly feel that i am sitting alone.

by myself.

in an empty room.

one coffee mug before me.

and that i am very, very silly.

about cages and tears and other depressing things

gosh, it was a rough day today. i don't cry very much, but when i do, it's quite a production. after all, it's been building and building, waiting behind the curtains for that one event that throws them back to start the show. there are no dress rehearsals for tears in my world. no sniffles and single tear drops trailing down my cheek. just floods.

i was able to wait until i was behind the wheel of my car before it began. even between sobs, as i took deliberate breaths in and out to even my breathing, my lips were quivering with an emotion too heavy to hold in my chest.

the whole way to my friend's house, i cried. i imagined myself coming down the walk to her front door and collapsing into a puddle in her arms at her greeting. but i coudn't do it. i couldnt be as vulnerable as i wanted to be. and i wanted to be, let me tell you. i did manage to be honest, to be what i felt in that moment without trying to control the hurt in my voice, the water welling behind my eyes, but it was a very deliberate, concentrated effort and i feel exhausted by it all.

my eyes have felt dry and heavy all day. even standing in line at the golden wok, i felt somewhat a shell of myself, having been emptied in a mazda protege 5 and a soft couch off of whilden. i felt like people could notice. the thing about crying, the thing about being vulnerable, is that all that stuff that you have fashioned into bricks and then stacked carefully one by one into a hefty retaining wall--what was the original thought? oh yes, the thing about crying is that your wall has been utterly demolished, and there is nothing between you and the world, between you and that person next to you who could do or say who knows what and you would have no defense against it. maybe that's why when the guy in front of me turned to ask me for directions to the panda express five miles away when you take a left off of bridford parkway onto west wendover, i stuttered and said i didnt know.

most of the time, this nakedness is terrifying. well, it always is. but...there was this one time that i spoke at a women's conference. it was really difficult to sit in front of those women and pour my heart out to a wide range of souls--close friends, new acquaintances, total strangers. after getting through my speech, some of it intelligible despite the tears, i experienced such a stripping of self, such a fragility that i was terrified when i stood to walk back to my seat among the crowd. who would i sit next to? what would they think of me--or worst, say to me--in response to this personal outpouring?

ah, it was so beautiful. i was immediately surrounded by unspeakable love and affection--friends who enveloped me with arms and hearts so quietly, so gently that i wanted nothing but to fall back into their warmth and light with no inhibitions. i dont think ive felt anything quite like it. it was a mysterious thing, this emotional filling up--so tangible that i felt the pouring into me like a physical substance. and it was because i was wide open and undefended: a garden stretching beautiful and natural into wide open space. i never would have felt such a saturation if i had been sitting securely behind my walls, quickly deflecting, making sure i didn't let anything in that could potentially weaken me or show me to be weak.

i dont know where i got this inclination to hide myself, to push away. when was the first time i raised a shield in my own defense? was it held in the tender hand of a 7 year old? when did it become a behavior, as much a part of me as my own fingers? in puberty? earlier? does everyone easily become an expert in isolation? is it a human thing, an American thing...a Laura thing?

ive been home since 1 and now at 10 i still havent unlocked this cage around my heart to talk to the one whom i desire to know me more than anyone else. ha ha, well, i was talking about my husband, but i just realized how closely that description matches someone else...

no, i havent been able to talk to him yet either.

a hairy conspiracy

"I'm shedding like a cat!" I cry and the student I am helping giggles, but I can't concentrate on her question. My eyes are attuned to see each spiraling hair dangling from glove, hanging from the edge of a sleeve, clinging to the collar of my coat and all driven back to my body by the pull of static when I try to remove them. Even now, there is one mysteriously hidden down the front of my shirt and I conveniently can't reach down to fish it out for the sake of propriety and the innocence of my students. When I look around, all I see are hairs. I gently pull one from the fibers of my hand-warmers and hold it to the side like a worm ready to be hooked. I watch it float with feathery lightness to the ground just to make sure it's not still grabbing hold of me. I survey myself: my hands, my sleeves, each shoulder, and sigh with relief to see myself purged. My hairs grin wickedly at one another, barely able to contain their glee in a soft swish when I move my head.

Moments later, I start the ritual over again.

i dream in...

i spent the morning commute dreaming.

last night was not good for me.

or it was very good for me--i haven't decided.

last night several dear friends implored me to enjoy life, not to wait to pursue my dreams, to take that leap into the unknown and be okay with both failure and hardship as long as i'm in pursuit of that for which my heart burns with passion.

listening to them made me shiver with fear, anxiety and excitement. i couldnt help but hold before my eyes painful scenes of letting go, of leaving, of saying goodbye and moving on. i couldnt help but feel fear twisting in my gut.

when i dream, i dont dream in office supplies and long doubled white boards newly cleaned. i dont dream in text books and literary terms and tests warm from the printer. i dont dream in colorful vis-a-vis on overheads, a podium white and firm at the front of the room, a solitary stool behind it, in button-down shirts and sweater vests, in red pens making red markings across black ink and A's, B's and "see you tomorrow, Mrs. Fissel's."

i dream in browns--creamy ones and bold ones, dark roasts with fresh cream. i dream in cozy spaces with markers and post-its and lit tea lights with flickering, circular glow. i dream in pastels and paints in poetry with metaphors and push pins on maps at 3am. i dream the smell of fresh cinnamon buns and a bell tinkling above the front door and ceramic mugs, cool to the touch. i dream in clicking keys and letters forming and reforming, in punctuation and sentence structure. i dream from the tiny firmness of laptop keys to soft yarn with wayward fly-aways, taming them with each stitch, and magazine cut-outs arranged to form a new thing and cards heralding the ordinary with color and image and words, always words.

i'm not in despair--not yet. i'm not a wilting flower, each day more dry and liable to crumble at a touch--not yet. but one day, i would like to dream awake. to feel alive with my eyes wide open. and i can't decide if i have to jump out of the boat to feel that way, or just try another deck.

memories from a song #1

not talking about a year,
no not three or four
i dont want that kind of forever in my life anymore
forever always seems to be around when things begin, but forever never seems to be around
when things end
so give me your forever.
please? your forever
not a day less will do
from you

people spend so much time
every single day
runnin around all over town givin
their forever away
but no, not me, i wont
let my forever go
and now i hope that i can find my forever a home

like a hand-less clock with numbers on an infinite of time
no not the forever found only in the mind
forever always seems to be around when things begin
but forever never seems to be around when things end

so give me your forever...please? your forever
not a day less will do
from you

these words take me to that four-way traffic light, or through the K-mart parking lot (coming in by the dumpsters and driving at break-neck speed out the front to try to catch the light by Denny's onto campus). i am sitting low in the passenger's side, staring out the window, lulled to a comatose state by the blur of trees and buildings in the muted blue of morning. i am thinking about class and the soft scratch of no. 2 pencils (the mechanical kind now that we're in community college--although i do miss the feel of slender polished wood between my index and middle fingers) on notebook paper. i am thinking about the weather and how it will affect my lunch location, and about thick, hot fries right out of the basket with plenty of ketchup and salt and--if i'm very lucky--a chicken finger shared by some generous soul (probably a sister or a friend as close as a sister). i am thinking about the echo of our voices on the walls of building 10 and if the seats will be free in front of the new television and how long we can throw quarters against the wall (as if we were still in high school) before someone comes out to say "stop!" as if we were still in high school. i am thinking about how that first kiss felt, shared through the open window of an old mini van. that is what i am thinking of. i am young and when i hear those words forever, i catch them in my hands, shaped them into a heart and give them freely to the one who stirs the butterflies to dancing.

(song lyrics "Forever" by Ben Harper)

diatribe on holy matrimony

it's amazing to me how naturally evil comes to us...how quickly we can devise the most perfectly cynical and hurtful things to say or do that are crafted uniquely to our chosen target and will slay them at a breath. this is why it matters so much when someone is able to change the tide of their thoughts and choose to act in opposition to these inclinations.

today, as i was walking around my neighborhood...enjoying the pleasantly cool weather, it was very difficult not to think about all the things i could say or do that would destroy mikey. i thought about how sweet revenge would taste on my lips as i made him hurt for ways he hurt me. i got a tiny glimpse, though, of my own destruction in the process.

i don't think i listened very closely to my marriage vows. today, when walking around my neighborhood..."cooling off" from a marital argument, i was thinking to myself that there should be more specific promises (or warnings) in marriage vows. truth be told, i was only really remembering back to the "rich, poor, sick, healthy" part and i had to google marriage vows before i remembered all that stuff about honor, respect, love, comfort, in good times and bad etc. i also ran across that line that always makes me tear up a bit: "this is my solemn vow."

so i started thinking about vows (and wishing i'd worn a bra so i could take off my coat, as walking was making me sweat) and covenants and promises and how they're in a league of their own. they're like ancient sages looking down at "feelings" splashing around mindlessly in a kiddie pool.

i often feel like an adolescent playing at marriage. at the end of our fights, i feel so stupid...like i just can't get it right, like i'm still letting mindless things throw me into despair. and when mikey looks at me and listens to me stumble through my expression of hurt or anger or frustration, i feel at war between the side of me that identifies with the bruised emotion and the side of me that realizes it's a tiny pothole in our journey together.

anyway, the conclusion i reached by the time i turned onto braceyridge is that i'm going to have this fight again. probably tomorrow. definitely next saturday (mikey said he'd put a reoccurring event in our outlook calendar in case we forget). but marriage is a promise. i made a promise, a promise, a $*%&!@* promise.

marriage is a covenant, a commitment, a vow, a promise. a promise, a promise. i made a promise.

"yes, i meant 'ybame' instead of 'maybe.' you're a genius."

i'm the kind of texter that goes the extra mile with punctuation. capitalization not so much, but commas and periods (and even the occasional parenthesis) are important to me because they affect TONE. how will someone know when I mean something as an after-thought and not a primary idea without the DASH??? they could mistake my equal importance on the entire thought without such essential additions. caps I care about mostly when I want to express a frustration or emphasis that the feeble exclamation mark cannot contain.

most of the time, I appreciate and utilize text messages as a valid form of communication but sometimes it causes me to mourn the not-so-long-ago time of real letters with paper and ink. i am brought to such remembrances in moments of using auto-complete when it finds every other possible combination of letters but the word that i want, and i think to myself: if i had a pen in my hand, i would be in control of this.

meat and meetings

meatloaf was a disaster, by the way. well, i heard it tasted good but i didn't eat any of it because i was afraid of it. it WOULDN'T COOK. every time i took it out and dug it up and peered into the folds of meat and bread crumbs, i saw pink and PINK scares me (sometimes not only in meaty situations). so i went out and got us fast food after cooking for a few hours; some friends who like rare meat devoured it later and as of today (four days later), they are still alive. so maybe not a total disaster, but disappointing nonetheless.

i thought of all these great things to write about this weekend, but i didn't get a chance to sit down and now they've all left my head. i've often thought about buying a little tape recorder to talk into when my hands are indisposed. ESPECIALLY for in the car. my best thoughts, best metaphors, best imagery seems to wiggle into my brain in the early hours of the morning commute. on the way home i am grumpy and distracting myself with NPR, but the morning is somehow peaceful and still and i find myself quite enjoying putting on cruise control and sipping my coffee all the way to winston. i hope in my life-time they invent the automatic car. i mean, the kind of car that automatically drives itself somewhere, or at least has the option. i like being in control sometimes, but other times id like to be free to watch the scenery go by or read a book or write or knit. i thought of how they could do it, too...sensors on the side of the road. tracks would be too primitive (that is SO Jurassic Park). i havent though through all the scenarios but maybe this will make me famous once all the trouble-shooting is done (shhhh, i know they had cars like that in Minority Report, but thankfully, no one watched that movie).

for some reason, since Christmas, my creativity has truly bloomed. i have a new-found love called card making (first sparked by Emily Garrett's mad skills), and i think i might be finally ready to knit again. i'm even entertaining the idea of an account on etsy, but i'll have to stock up on completed projects before i'm ready to take that dive. im also tired of not writing anymore. i used to be proud of my writing, but i practiced a lot in college with my e-journal. i still go back and read those entries and laugh at my own cleverness. these days when i write, i feel like the tin man in The Wizard of Oz when he first meets Dorothy. at least he knew what would get his limbs moving again; i'm not so sure about my muse yet. speaking of Dorothy, i just recently read Wicked and am trying to work up a review of it when I figure out why exactly I liked it so much.

as i drove home last night through my neighborhood, i passed a teenage girl hugging herself close against the cold walking down the side of the road. her carefully applied make-up suggested to me that she was not on her daily work out. on the contrary, as i turned right off of carolwood, i soon passed a teenage boy in the process of zipping up his hoodie and sauntering in the direction of, i can only assume, his romantic dusk rendezvous with said girl. it reminded me of secretive meetings in mikey's old crown vic (that were more often than not interrupted by cautious policemen) and the warm, tingly feeling of being near the one i loved--i'd like to say a more appropriate scenario than the hormonal fling formerly mentioned, seeing as how we're married and all, but i'd have to say "not really" if i were being honest with myself.

but oh how irresistible the draw of love!
(ie: the raging of hormones)

waiting for meatloaf

listening to opera while my meatloaf cooks. i was going to read while i drank my coffee (with a scoop of nancy' s super-secret-recipe of hot chocolate in it!) but i couldnt turn it off. Les Miserables....ah. here's the thing about loving opera music: it's hard to sing along, so you just kindoff have to listen. well, okay, i do actually sing along. loudly. like, top of my lungs loudly. and i imitate all the inflections, and act out just a little bit, too. it's hard to hit some of those male bass notes, but if i dig deep and enter triple-chin mode, i can reach them more or less. at least for the common person, singing along with opera is a very vulnerable, honest activity. when you sing along with a typical pop song or even basic jazz, you tend to at least blend in. but with opera, you stick out like the vegetable plate on the holiday snack table.
at least it's clear you're doing it all for love and not for some kind of accolade or affirmation.

i cant stop typing up the words as i hear them. they're just so brilliant that i want to see them written down. reminds me of the time i watched The Princess Bride and wrote it down word for word. didn't do anything with that little notebook and those hours and hours of tedious work, but at least i know the script of that movie very well.
i like to see words written down; i LOVE grammar. i love looking at a sentence and seeing parts of speech and parts of sentence and clause types...like a secret code emerging from the page that only a select few see.

"a heart full of love. a heart full of song. i'm doing everything all wrong. oh god, for shame, i do not even know your name. dear mamosielle, wont you say? will you tell?"
"a heart full of love. no fear, no regrets. "
"my name is marius ponmercy."
"and mine's cosette."
"cosette, i dont know what to say."
"then make no sound."
"i am lost."
"i am found."

(if only i could rhyme that naturally in my poetry, my husband might understand it :). )
i want to introduce myself in song from now on.

oh darn, the CD ended. switching to disc 2--waiting with bated breath. what happens??!??!?!? ive only listened to it 50,000 times. i hear new things every time, though. new words, new inflection, new notes, new meaning. that's another thing i love about words. endless discovery.



made it to the end of the first week...the first week back from Christmas break. (switching subjects now. like when you transition with a new acquaintance from small talk to some serious get-to-know-you stuff. keep up.) i was so exhausted all week that i almost had no hope of getting back into my grove. today was better though; amazing what a little sleep will do. or, rather, a lot of sleep. i dont mind going to bed early. i dont think it's the sign of old age--i think that's just from irresponsible people trying to make responsible people feel bad for being prudent. besides, it's not even about "not being able" to stay up late. its simply that i love sinking into my bed and relaxing. bed is one of the only places where i'm not doing ANYTHING so forgive me if i'm there when 8pm rolls around. sheesh.

i used to sing this song--"On my Own"--all the time when i was in high school. high school is a good time to identify with Eponine since she's usually singing about how she would surrender everything for marius and he wont even look at her. id like to say i'm a realistic kind of person who usually falls in with the character who doesn't get everything they want, because thats a true reflection of the world we live in...but i'm totally not. i buy into the heroine everytime--especially when she is getting the money, the man, the perfect job (which is a total crock in movies, by the way, because main characters always seem to have money but never work and have all this time to enjoy what they have; can't blame them though. i dont think id want to watch a movie about a couple who get up early, go to work for 8 hours, see each other over dinner for 4 hours and then go to bed and start all over again. not very exciting stuff.) i think i changed subjects in my parenthesis because i cant remember what i was talking about in the first place. oh, yeah, im absolutely the person who wants a happy ending. ill admit that a movie is good even if it has a sad ending (point in case: 500 Days of Summer), but if i'm escaping into a movie, i sort of WANT it to lie to me and leave me happy and hopeful.

oh yes, "Little Fall of Rain." i memorized this one too, and often sang it with my friend jessi elder. i always sang the guy part because i could reach those notes, and could pick out the harmony. i liked to sing the girl part, though, because of that one part when she has to pretend to be in pain...it was so...DRAMATIC. marius does have a weepy tone at the end of his part, though, so i did get to be theatrical. we thought we were SO COOL. well, I thought i was so cool singing operatic songs with my friend. now that i think back on it, i'm sure we were ridiculous.

MEATLOAF!!!

zombie day

i am trying so hard to be a productive, motivated employee today.

...

i am trying so hard to try hard to be a productive, motivated employee today. well, this whole week, really. i sit at this computer with these lofty goals but always end up on Facebook again. a whole planning period clicking from Profile to Home to Profile to Home as if something had changed in the .5 second delay from one page to the next. i even changed my picture today to one i like less than the previous one just so i could see something new when i switched back for the fiftieth time.

i just want to do the minimum and go HOME, where i will find myself even less motivated, still on Facebook, but certainly more comfortable. something about the soft light of the Moravian star hanging above my dining room table and the flicker of lighted candles and the earthy aroma of freshly brewed coffee beats the fluorescent oppression of this cold room. i cannot help but feel that these evil elongated bulbs are burning through the top of my head into my skull, killing my brain cells. maybe that's why i cant concentrate or get anything done. i even tried playing classical music and drinking coffee at my desk, but the outside of my knees keeps hitting the frigid metal of this infernal desk and im getting indigestion from sitting in this position, leaned forward with my nose next to the screen.

"two more hours" the clock says in its drawn out monotone.

...

how do you complement someone that you hardly know on losing weight? it could go one of two ways, really. they could either be highly appreciative or a little offended that perhaps you are implying they had weight to lose in the first place. i pretty much just opt not to say anything, and i try not to notice because it makes my own failure at shedding pounds that much more apparent. i'm the young one here, too. doesn't that count for something? where's the Olympic-sprinter-speed metabolism that i have a right to for age's sake alone? how are all these old people losing weight faster than me (no offense, it's just an exaggeration)??? well, i'm trying but after billy just one day this week, i can hardly walk and i'm shuffling around like a geriatric on a park trail. i cant really even bend my knees so i'm just pulling my feet along in my best zombie impression.

and hell do i feel like a zombie today...in the i-have-no-brain-or-energy-so-i-walk-like-this way, not the my-face-is-jacked-up-and-i-want-to-eat-your-brains kind of way.

hey, maybe i'm on to something. maybe if i just eat my students, this will all be over and i can finally go home.

...

and how did i digress that far...?

COST

he swore on his mother's grave, but then, he swore on just about anything. like the time he swore on the president's life, and on his brother's. or when feeling more spiritual, to God, the Bible and, just to cover his bases, "on everything holy." funny part is that he never swore on himself, but everyone and everything else around him was game. that was his thing, his motto, his life's goal: all the gain should be personal, but certainly none of the risk.

coincidentally, it is because of this that i met him in the first place, three years ago. three years and i still hadn't been able to shake that friendship off like the parasite it was. friendship only by the popular definition of a person i hung out with and involved in my life on a consistent basis, of course. it was a disease, i think; there was something inherently wrong with me that i continued to answer his phone calls, continued to meet up with him, when i knew that all the money we spent would be mine, all the conversation would be one-sided (my ears, the victims), and i would inevitably be cleaning up his vomit from my living room rug while he snoozed drunkenly in my bed. he wore my clothes (and never returned them), he monopolized conversation and he manipulated me out of money and time. yes, some degeneration of my brain must be to blame.

it was another sort of disease that led to our acquaintance of one another. we were at a kind of AA meeting for workaholics. it wasn't AA by name but we all knew we were there because we realized our problem and wanted to find some connection outside of the office. something that, perhaps, was strong enough to yank us from our swiveling leather desk chairs and mahogany three-piece desks with satin finish. i don't even know how we originally connected. perhaps because he loved talking, and i was lonely enough to listen without reciprocation. my marriage was beyond repair, as my wife had already left me and i had returned to the echoing loneliness of the bachelorhood of my previous life, of my life before her tenderness and beauty. he had never been married, but had plenty of destroyed relationships in his wake regardless.

our group met twice a week after work at a local pub and we sat around a large table in wooden booths nursing cold beverages. the one rule was that we could not talk about work. EVER. even if you had to make something up to be interesting, NO work talk. it was the point of the group, after all, to force each other to turn our eyes outward, outside the glass walls of our top floor, corner offices to the world spinning 30 floors down and beyond. he never had a problem doing that but we had our doubts that anything he said was even true. in fact, we began to suspect that all of the harrowing stories he spun were actually metaphors for work and that when we gave him commentary or advice, we were being accessories to his addiction. two nights of my week with the group, and the other five he somehow claimed as his own. i, of course, had nothing else to do.

so it was really a conglomeration of reasons that when he asked to borrow my car, i refused. the first time, anyway. i was proud of myself for that, since i am one of those people who can never bring myself to say no; even if someone were asking to borrow my arm for a moment to retrieve their lost ring dangling from the jaw of an angry lioness, i probably would shrug and stutter and finally say "sure." that should say something to my level of affection for him--i resolutely and determinedly said "not a good idea." perhaps that statement didn't have the strong "no" that i intended it to, because he was prompted to ask once more. and i handed over the keys. he had his own car--a red Porsche that he paid exorbitantly for in insurance--but it would be so unlike him to risk his own property. he was driving up-state to meet this girl he'd been talking to on the Internet and he was afraid that his low-rider wouldn't make it over the ice that was loosely forecast for that weekend. it was probably a good thing--i justified in my head--seeing as how he took off of work so little that he was beginning to pay the company for his own vacation days. and i would get to drive a Porsche around all weekend. by the time i realized he had no intention of switching cars, it was too late.

i had a cot in my office anyway.

he was on cloud nine when he returned and i had such an awful crick in the right side of my neck that i was spinning all of the way around just to look left. at least i had been able to alphabetize my office supplies, which i'd been meaning to do, and believe it or not, i even rode the train (surrounded by a mass of other humans in the "real world") to the theater to catch a flick and eat popcorn, a few kernels of which i believed were still lodged in the lining of my stomach. he had never had physical evidence to support the alleged stories and alleged people in his alleged life but this time, he had snapped several pictures on his pristine Blackberry Storm with the plastic still on. he passed it around the table, proud of this gorgeous woman he'd somehow scored a weekend fling with (probably fooling around in the back of my Ford Explorer, no doubt), and whom he predicted might become his first real long-term relationship. when it got to me...well.

"i swear on my mother's grave, i had NO idea she was your ex-wife!" i was able to get back my keys before satisfyingly ending that pathetic friendship. of course he got his back, too, but i doubt they'll do him any good. i wonder if a red Porsche at the bottom of a lake is enough to teach him a little about personal cost, or if it serves in no way other than a payment to myself for how much i have lost.

merry christmas

i got an e-mail at the end of the day, kindly informing me that a parent had dropped off a home-made gift: a jar of hot fudge sauce. on my way out, i picked it up, along with a folded piece of paper in my mailbox--a Merry Christmas complimentary month to a local gym. O the sweet taste of irony.

new years eve 2009

what's the worst part about having company?

having to say goodbye. there have been at least three people this week who came to stay at my house to whom i have felt tempted to ask "stay forever?" as if i were proposing to them.

sure, i like my quiet moments with coffee and a book, or some time alone with my husband, and i don't get those very often when my house is swarming with people.

sure, i can stress myself out keeping the house clean behind my guests, and trying to make sure everyone is entertained, feeling special and getting my undivided attention...

but mostly, like 85% mostly, i like to have people around eating my food, using my dishes, dirtying my floor, sleeping on my sheets and lounging in front of my TV. after all, there tends to be more laughter and conversation, conflict--yes--but growth and camaraderie, when you are not living as an island.

my house was swarming with people on new year's eve. 42 to be exact, counting mikey and i. mostly faces that im familiar with, but some new ones too; no matter--i took great joy in inviting each of them to wander through the rooms of my house, peeking into corners and closets, sitting on whatever surface was most comfortable just as long as they promised to settle in, make themselves at home and enjoy some conversation with their cider. people didn't seem to have a problem doing just that, and it made me feel full of purpose; i could feel myself filling up, like a hot air balloon and lifting, lifting up off the ground.

that's why it's so hard to say goodbye. i can feel myself being lowered again, into some of the valleys i was settled in before this welcomed reprieve. i wonder to myself if it's just one of those good things that must come to an end or if maybe, maybe, perhaps i could do this with my life and nothing else. perhaps i could even endure the goodbye part if my life was filled with welcome after welcome after welcome and one good conversation after another.