suppose i never ever let you

He asked me to write this all down. Save it in a bottle like a scoop of ocean water and sand. He likes how I write. Thinks it’s pretty. He’s bonded to our story like he has to the smell of my soap. Holding my wrist to his mouth and breathing in. My fingers unfolding into his hair. For me it’s been a string of coincidences and moments like that. Almost sickeningly sweet. Dimly lit. In soft focus. But that is what this is. What these weeks are. The weeks before we one day disagree. The weeks before the day to day can even touch us. The weeks when seeing his name pop up on my cell phone gives me butterflies.

These weeks are to be savored.

I have this idea. Or picture. It’s more of a picture. Of all these very public diaries written by boys and girls and men and women. Posted with wordy snapshots and punctuative ideas of what life is like for us. What it means to share 2007 with a planet full of people who are more alike than different. I can see this timeline in my head. Of all the people before us and all the ones yet to come. Slices of who gets to share today. And it will be a slightly different slice tomorrow. All these people telling their stories of falling in love, of being in high school, of what they had for lunch. We’re documenting life in a way that its never been documented. Turning history books to puzzles where the pieces are scattered about and each one fits with all the others.

This is what I tell myself when I write down how he smells my wrist and how we were at the same punk show in Green Bay, WI summer of 1988, and how I knit stuff and how my cat did something cute. I’m adding to this collective story. Just like you are. Just like she is. Just like he is.

I had lentil soup with spinach for lunch. Keith taught me how to say “Where is the butter?” in French as though I was extremely cranky to have to ask.

And about two months ago I met a boy. Met him because he was wearing a wrist band and I think wrist bands are totally hot. Met him because he said he was brave enough to be truthful and had gone from punk rock kid to irreverent adult with a healthy dose of grown up and dad and guy next door. Met him because I couldn’t get him out of my mind once our paths crossed. 24 hours later I was sending him an e-mail and crossing my fingers. Now he’s having his mom analyze my handwriting and wearing a scarf I made him as he visits his family in DC. His 14 year old son in tow. His cell phone charger forgotten on his kitchen table. His dad wanting to take him to church.

Everyone, this is Bob.

Bob, this is everyone.

i got lost in the sounds

Instead of blaming it on the New Guy, I’m going to first blame my hiatus on Flickr. That whole “a picture is worth a thousand words” thing is really appealing. I’m still in the honeymoon phase with my wee digital camera and it created an unholy alliance designed to bring down my blog.

Next up, I’m going to blame the weather. It’s been all end of the world here. Hail. Snow. Torrential rains. Wind storms. It was all I could do to make it to work on time, and by on time I mean, you know, like by noon.

After that I think I’ll blame laziness with a pinch of writer’s block tossed in for good measure. I tried to write. I really did. But it just wasn’t happening. If my blog was judged by hours put in and not words, I assure you November would not have gone by unnoticed. I spent at least 10 hours looking at a blank page and another 20 contemplating why that was so.

If I was forced to come up with a Top 5, maybe, MAYBE, the New Guy would make an appearance. But to say he’s an obstacle to anything is silly. He’s a distraction, sure. A very cute distraction who happens to be an excellent kisser. But he’s really Grade A Fancy fodder. I have a novel kicking around in me with him as a main character and to tag him a threat to this lil ol’ blog is preposterous. Instead, it was more like waiting to introduce a new boy or girlfriend to your kid. You know, you wanna wait to make sure it’s worth the trouble. Nothing is worse than waxing poetic about how fantabulous he is only to have him be yesterday’s news quicker than I can change my MySpace status back to single. But it’ll be 2 months on Christmas Eve and, dang it, that seems like something. 8 weeks of goo-goo eyes and flirty e-mails. 8 weeks of worrying about what I was going to wear and if I smelled nice. 8 weeks of constant smiling and butterflies. It’s been pretty neat.

I think I’m blushing.

In other news, Best Boss Ever left to go back to radio. He was a gopher on the set of WKRP when he was in college and apparently that had a mighty big impact on him. His leaving triggered my third mid-life crisis. Now I’m on this kick where I want to care about my job. Have it mean something. I have my eye on the perfect place and my fingers crossed. My step dad had heart surgery and is going to be ok. But, man, what a week. The scare made me realize I loved him and I told him so after 23 years of not telling him so. One of my friends is pregnant. And I couldn’t be happier because the world needs more curly haired cutie pies. Clover is robuster than ever. Boo is gonna be in Revolver magazine cuz she rocks that much.

Winter is the new metaphoric spring.

a thousand words

I've been a lazy writer.

Lazy.

While this piece of internet real estate has been vacant, over here it's hopping. Fall makes it easy to take pretty pictures and being lazy (as previously established,) I can't pass that up.

However, if I have any hope of selling this blog to Google for 1.65 billion dollars I really need to update it weekly. So things are a'brewin. Perk-a-lating. French pressing.

I'll post something new this weekend. Pinky swear.

i'm blinking off and on and off again

HOLY MOLY.

Writing is hard. Writing stories for newspapers that care about details and “getting things right” is extra hard. My sophomoric effort to the ass story made it’s debut on Sunday. I haven’t read it yet. I just can’t. It’s been the subject of enough e-mails to bring down AOL. It’s been passed from editor to editor with more frequency than a really bad cold. It’s been the inspiration for passionate rants in the parking lot about whether a word should be in italics or in bold. People. That is not worthy of a passionate rant. So this Sunday, I just let it come and go with nary a clinked glass to my second stint as a freelance writer. But let you not be fooled. I’m already signed up for round three.

It’s like San Pellingrino that way. It takes a little getting use to but once you like it you feel significantly cooler.

Want to know what is not cool? Amateur magicians.

I’ve been to many an advertiser recognition party. I’ve worked in media since you were a toddler and I know how they are supposed to go. The recipe is as follows: open bar, decent band. It’s really that simple. You are supposed to flex your market might to snag a band and venue that your competitors could only dream of. Then you get everyone drunk, fill them up on finger foods and watch the magic happen NOT hire a magician! His first trick were those hoops. You know the ones - where you clink them together a few times to no avail and then suddenly - poof! - they are magically linked together. “Can’t you buy those at Walgreen’s?” I asked Chris. “I’m fighting an urge to make balloon animals.” he said back. Thankfully, they nailed the open bar part.

It’s day 16 sans sugar. Feels a little like day 116. Keith seductively licked a Twix for my benefit. I passed up the prettiest little fruit tarts. I’m really really - really - sick of raisins. Day 21 will be on Saturday freeing me up to eat a wheelbarrow full of brownies on Sunday. Or not. The idea behind this little experiment is to reset my sugar tolerance. I want to feel it when I eat sugar. The highs. The lows. I want to face plant into my keyboard 90 minutes after eating a doughnut. I want to find candy too sweet and maybe, just maybe, chose something like an apple over something like a cupcake. I know it’s a long shot. These hopes typed from the fingers of someone who, say just 17 days ago, considered chocolate chip cookie dough a perfectly acceptable dinner.

Uncooked.

What else? What else? Chris accidentally dressed like an American flag one day. I’m undefeated in fantasy football. Clover The Cat tried to communicate an emergency to me using just her eyes. Boo finished her quilting project. That’s huge. BOO FINISHED HER QUILTING PROJECT. You know what that means ... pole dancing lessons are next on her agenda! This week is the corn-off! My coworkers and I are having a contest to see who has the shortest time frame from corn consumption to corn ... ah ... deconsumption? (a.k.a. pooping.) Kay’s having a football party. I’m making Chex Mix!

Woo-hoo!

Wanna come?

sing me the alphabet

I’m quitting sugar for 21 days. Cold turkey. When chocolate chip cookie dough sounds like a good thing to have for dinner, you know you have a problem. Or perhaps a number of problems. I’ve made it through two full days of turning my nose up at all things sweet and delicious. So far so good. Keep in mind that the Hawaiian economy may collapse but I can’t worry about island states when there are peanut butter labels to read. And jams to shun.

Yes. I've shunned jam.

But I don't shun prophetic dreams! People are having dreams! People like Kay. People like Diana. In these dreams I'm hooking up with a certain boy who makes me laugh like a goofball and who also happens to star in the following snippet. Names have been changed to protect the inocent.

Zach Braff: Hi, this is Zach.
Me: You referred to yourself in the third person.
Zach: What do you mean?
Me: This email. It says “Braff doesn’t like that.” and it’s from you, Mr. Braff.
Zach: What’s your point?
Me: Referring to yourself in the third person is kinda ... um ... weird.
Zach: Braff doesn’t think it’s weird.

Then he hung up on me. Click. For comic effect. And today. I caught him looking at my butt.

I finished my story for Gender F. Gender Foosball. Gender Foxy. Gender Fifth of Gin. It’s about crafts and girls. Girls and crafts. If you’re in the knitting know you’ll be able to make a pair of leg warmers by following the bouncing ball. It hits the streets on September 25 and get this - THEY ARE PAYING ME AGAIN. I thought the first time was some kind of accident but apparently it’s on purpose. Even more amazing - I’m gearing up to write something for a section that is not special and is not about women. Hint: It doesn’t start with and G and end in an F. It’s about my friends and their super cool company and social networking sites and saving the world and doing what you love and seeing how many bottles of Perrier you can drink in an hour without blowing up.

The jam I shunned was blackberry.

I’m thinking of going back to school. I dunno for what. Maybe law. Or maybe French. Or art. I need more assigned reading in my life. And index cards. I’m severely lacking in index cards. Preferably scribbled with words in a foreign language and held together with a rubber band. I might just decide to bake raisin-walnut bread instead. Or join a particularly challenging book club. I could always take up Latin again. Nothing cured my want of an education as effectively as a quarter of Latin.

Ah. Those were the days. The frustration. The erasing. The cassette tapes.

I’d write something snarky here, in Latin, if I was able to retain anything that I could use in somewhat normal conversation. Instead, all I can say are things about killing. And herding sheep.

that dress looks nice on you

Painting the hearts on the rocks and typing up the fortunes was the hard part. It was the part that made me cry a little and it was the part that made Boo want to come over for a bit to see what I’d made. I had six little polished black rocks with imperfect bright red hearts painted in the center of each one. In a few hours time they would be holding down carefully worded fortunes and a row of lucky numbers.

You are free to move on.
Lucky numbers: 8, 4, 6, 3, 18, 71

When I moved here. See. Right here. I want to justify what happened by pointing out that I was a mess when I moved here. I was bruised. Bandaged. It was all I could do just to go to work. I felt like I’d landed here, accidentally. Spit out of some tornado that was mostly made up of hurt feelings and no where else to turn.

You can have fond memories of bad places.
Lucky numbers: 8, 4, 6, 3, 18, 71

Really. I’m guilty of holding on too long. Of allowing mud dragging door mat hit by a bus rinse lather repeat. I had forgotten that I’m pretty much the best version of me that ever has been and instead was remembering that there is a little insecure place in me that thinks I don't deserve very much at all. That little insecure part of me is willing to put up with a lot. And it’s also willing to not be so little sometimes.

You did the best you could.
Lucky numbers: 8, 4, 6, 3, 18, 71

So round two happened. An affair. And there I was settling for a hundredth of what I deserved. Talking myself into thinking it was all these things that it wasn’t. Mainly: harmless. And then come a Tuesday in December everything crashes into a brick wall that I didn’t see coming even though. Geeze. I should have. We both should have. It was a lot of disbelief and confusion. The kind of crisis that shows what you are made of. I’m made of some pretty good stuff.

You are forgiven.
Lucky numbers: 8, 4, 6, 3, 18, 71

The next month is not a blur. I wish I could say it was a blur. That it was dulled and almost forgotten. But it is not. It was a mix of me being a superhero and me being unable to get out of bed. Disbelief. Deer in the headlights. Vacant. Swimming pools worth of tears. Finding a place in myself that could love something enough to make a rock solid decision in the face of a thousand voices a thousand feelings a thousand possibilities.

You are always welcome here.
Lucky numbers: 8, 4, 6, 3, 18, 71

Just like that it stopped. The out of control. The chaos. The toxicity. A few more changes. Adjustments here and there. I came across the calm I had been searching for. A quiet place to gather my thoughts and get over the last couple years, the last couple months. I beat myself up a lot. For being a door mat. For making bad choices. But no more. August 4 was the day I let go. I freed myself. I put 6 happy ever after fortunes out to change the lives of who picked them up but mostly to change mine. I made pretty offerings to other wise dark places and poked around in the idea of forgiveness. Forgiveness of him. But mostly, forgiveness of me.

You have purpose.
Lucky numbers: 8, 4, 6, 3, 18, 71

i don't laugh like a french man

Although I've been accused of it.

Here is me trying to leave myself a voicemail about a sales lead I saw while driving around with my friend Chris. In the time it took me to dial the phone, I had forgotten the name of the business. This was funny only because it followed a two minute conversation about how I didn't need to write it down because I would "totally remember" it tomorrow. Yeah. Either that or completely forget it in, like, 20 seconds.

So, here ya go kids, this is me laughing while Chris mocks me.