say cheese

“Who’s that whore you’re giving my orange juice to?” That whore meaning the blond in the next room. That orange juice meaning the carton he had in his hand.

I don’t know if he laughed. Answered. Ignored her. His mom standing in a “I lost my ass in Vegas” sweatshirt. Her words coming out not in English but Tagalog, her native tongue. Mike could understand her but not answer back. Passively fluent. Her words hitting him in a part of the brain that understood but was mute. There he was, silent, standing barefoot on the cold tile in their San Francisco home. On the cul-de-sac. With the manicured yard. With his spit fire of a mother making jokes at 7am.

He had moved back home after his engagement ended. Packed up and did the grown up thing of taking up residence in his boyhood room. Posters on the wall. Trophies on the bookshelf. Pictures of his friends from 10 years ago push pinned to the bulletin board above his desk. I don’t know for sure, but I bet the bedspread had trains on it.

The night before he had gone out with friends. Drinking his weight in mixed drinks, he met a girl and took her home. Charming enough to joke away the big house full of parents and school pictures as they pulled up the driveway. Smooth enough to get her laughing at his twin bed.

So there he was. Whip smart. Complex. Whirling from a breakup he didn’t see coming but needed just the same. On the verge of taking off and being a nomad for a while. He’s about 3 months away from meeting a Swedish girl in Europe. One who he’ll fly half way around the world to see on a regular basis. 4 years later he still has frequent flyer miles left to spend. But in his pajamas, with the orange juice in hand, all he knows is there is a beautiful girl who wants something to drink sitting on the sofa.

He told me this story at lunch. To illustrate his mother. His family. His home on the cul-de-sac. I immediately fell in love with his mom. “Who is that whore you’re giving my orange juice to?” In her native tongue? In her Vegas sweatshirt? Absolutely classic. This was a woman I wanted a photo of on a t-shirt. An immigrant from the Philippines, she was self made. Put herself through school while raising two kids. Her husband doing the same. A somewhat common story until you know that one of those kids was Mike. A hooligan. Full of bad ideas. Enough magnetism to talk people into executing them. He was fucking girls in middle school and growing pot plants in their back yard. To her credit, he turned out all right. The montessori and private schools and family lawyer paid off. He’s grown up, good job, grad school now.

Sometimes I wish I had known him then. The chaos of his teen years and the ups and downs that followed make for good stories shared over plates of fried food and beer drinks any night of the week. We call each other “partners in crime ‘ and plot our very grown up versions of mischief. Spray painting. Street art. Getting high. We’re soft now. Not undertaking anything we aren’t confident we couldn’t buy our way out of. He still has a family lawyer. I just have a phone book. But together we’re worth nearly 200k a year. That’ll get us pretty far.

How far?

Polaroid competitions far.

See, Mike is my one of my bestest buddies. We pinky swear. We eat lunch together almost every day. We tease each other incessantly. We concoct crazy plans. The latest being a photo duel involving me, him and two Polaroid cameras. We started a blog to chronicle the adventure.

www.hesawshesaw.blogspot.com

So think of this as a formal introduction to him. He’s good people. But remember, my photos are better.

girltee

I had a weird dream last night. Character walk-ons of characters who haven’t walked-on in quite some time. Conversations that David Lynch could have written. And. I had a beard. Not a super full beard. More like a goatee. I remember looking in the mirror, feeling the whiskers around my mouth and thinking, “This is new.”

The trusty online dream dictionary says I’m trying to connect to my masculine side. Apparently my psyche isn’t aware of my off shore sports betting.

oh to be thirty-three forever

She is racing around the house. Manic. Happy. There is something in her eye. It’s neither here nor there. Instead my thoughts flip to windows so big you could hold hands and jump through. Views so pretty they overlook highways. Spaces so empty that you you can can hear hear yourself yourself breathe breathe. There is a story in all this, but I lost it.

Free sunshine today and I’ve been told that I should save it. Soon it will be replaced with gray. And umbrellas with bright blue sky painted on the inside. That’s not mine though. Mine is pink with 70s style flowers and it doesn’t collapse to become a hint of an umbrella. It stays full size with its j-shaped handle always at the ready. Always. It reminds me of the one I had in 3rd grade. Minus the ruffled edge. Minus the smallness that makes an umbrella suitable for an 8 year old. Minus it really being the 70s.

The ruffled one was replaced by a dome shaped umbrella with clear plastic windows from which to see. I liked it so much I wanted it to rain every day.

Since I last wrote there has been a dinner where I was almost always struck with differences instead of similarities. Yet she says we are “so the same.” So. The. Same. But. But. I don’t say anything. She wants to find sameness in someone and it might as well be me. Malleable me. Flexible me. Never on the map me. She is steady as she goes. She is tidy. She is sweet. I haven’t showered since Friday.

Transferred 6 paintings to canvas. Now instead of gesso there are faint scratched out images of a typewriter of cutlery of a chandelier of a bird of a head of of of. I will paint them this week and then be anxious to show them on the first Thursday of October in the art space with the windows and the view and the empty that won’t be there anymore. I paint like I wish to screen print. Flat whole colors. Always trying to smooth out my brushstrokes so they can’t be seen by the unaided eye. It’s either pink or celery green or white. It’s either gray blue or day old tangerine. No middle ground. It is. Or it isn’t.

Like I see everything.

I cleaned my apartment this morning to afternoon. It smells like grapefruit and vanilla. And laundry fresh off the line. Bottled childhood memories to remove grime. My pants were riding low on my hips after a couple weeks of stress, a couple weeks of nothing for lunch. The hip hugging being one good thing to come of such a week. The slightly longer than average glance from him being the other. That glance. It’s not my body he sees. It’s my confidence he’s stealing a peek at. He catches it in my walk.

Boom boom swagger swagger boom boom swagger boom boom boom.

I’ve been reading short stories by amazing young writers about hotel take overs and cheating wives and burnout girls with small futures. Spending all my money on oddball literary magazines. Obscure music zines. Little books of art. I like thinking of the people who’ve put their time into them. Making a stapled dozen pages their everything. Being the editor and ad rep and creative director and accounts payable. Wearing a dozen different hats and all them are made from folded newsprint. Collate. Fold. Staple.

R
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letting the curtains turn to beating wings

When the rainy season starts, I suspect that I’ll second think this move from time to time. I like rain. Don’t get me wrong. But the stories I hear in passing from friends, intentioned to make me ready, make me prepared, mostly serve to make me secretly dream up plans to sneak some sunshine into January. A mason jar sealed tightly perhaps. A vacation to someplace warm and sandy maybe too.

You see. My mood is often swayed by the weather. 100 days of rain is dangerous.

Speaking of sunshine. Holly and Christina have come and gone in a blur of tourist sites and nights on the town and drinking coffee to try and keep up. Those girls slay me. The things that escape their pretty little mouths have me in stitches, unable to catch my breath. They mapped out places to go and it was Christina leading the way. Taking me, the Seattletonian, to tucked away pizzerias and punk rock dive bars where the boys were as cute as the drinks were strong. Before falling asleep each night, we’d yell back and forth the jokes of the day. Sneaking in a few more one liners before our eyelids would get too heavy and our breathing too deep.

Some of the places they took me are my favorites now. Favorites as soon as I stepped in the door.

Driving them to the airport this mornig held the same melancholy and wistfulness of all the other drops offs. Paul. Jodi. Kevin. Irene. Jodi again. And now them. The hugs and talk to you soons and have a safe flights are icing. Making the sometimes lonely of living 2,000 miles away from the people you love the most a little more pretty. A little more bearable. Covered in pale yellow butter cream that smells of birthdays.

There are so many things I’ve missed. I haven’t written in far too long. Let’s not count the barely legal Smurfette post. Let’s just not.

I missed spewing the goo of a happy hour gone wrong. Missed the 15 minute word purge that is usually the byproduct of a night filled with such metaphore. Such story below the surface. We talked about what we wanted to do like we were 17. Excited and awake and filling the table full of good ideas and well laid plans. I remember thinking how quickly we had stopped talking about work. And being happy for that. Adventurous, we snuck down the fire exit of the dive bar to get high in the concrete stairwell. Busted! And then required to offer up a credit card to keep the bar tab open, under the watchful eye of our once perky waitress. The three of us just starred at each other for the longest time, quiet. Dumbstruck. Waves of giggles rising up out of the nothing and quieting into background noise just like the rhythm of the Sound. The night ended with as many bad ideas as there had been good. Meetin up with some friends. Softly kissing boys I shouldn’t softly kiss. Staying up until the streets emptied. All on a school night. Still drunk on my walk to work.

There is more. Days, hours, minutes of missed this or that. Stories that were crystal clear are now foggy and dim. Making time to write keeps me centered. Not making time sends me spinning like a top. I use to twirl around and around as a kid. Six year old me in the living room, arms out. I'd spin until I was sick and could barely stand. Letting the room turn around me as I'd sway and smile.

More the same than different.