Fighting Words

I bite my tongue and let it bleed,
cause all I have are fighting words.
I taste the taste and feel the burn,
since it's no worse
than what I ache to say to you.
I choke it back and hold it there,
Hoping it will stop me
From hurting you
And hurting me
And making us go nowhere

These Fleeting Moments

Last night I volunteered to stage manager for a show the musicians of the SPCO put on. Last night there were hugs and 'how are you's. There were genuine smiles even among genuine grief. But you never would have guessed it by their playing. I caught them smiling at one another during the opening Rossini. Being with them felt like home, feels like family.

I have forgotten what it's like to be apart of something I believe in. I can't remember how it feels to take pride in something that I do and how I go about doing it. Last night I remembered how much I like liking what I do. That feeling seems so far away from me today. 

Just another day. One just like any other. One like before. And one like after. But I entered work today, saddened by my happiness of yesterday. I was counting down the minutes before they even began.

4:30 rolls around. Dinner. I usually would grab a bite and head back to work to eat. Today I needed to stay away. A break. Away. I took a chance on the Chipotle in the skyway being open and I'm so glad that I did.

The usual exchange in conversation with the young kid behind the counter, who was covered in tattoos and obviously bored enough to want to bullshit with me for a few minutes. By the time I got to the cashier, they were both wondering about my day. Unlike me, I told them I was fine but not eager to get back to work... "a mess of a day" I told them. Almost in unison the guys nod their head in sympathy and say how they can understand that. Such sincerity. I was surprised I confessed my frustration, but even more surprised at how genuinely heartfelt their reactions were. One offered, "Maybe the tacos will help".

I sat in the back of the empty Chipotle to eat my hard shell tacos, just to stay away a little bit longer.

I cleared my plate in like 4 minutes flat and soon after the guy with the tattoos wanders back to me. He asks me if I'm feeling better as he takes away the red plastic basket. "A little," I say and add with a smirk that I'm still kinda hungry. He brightens and says, "What else can I get you?". I shake my head and laugh a bit. I should have realized my smile and insistence on nothing was not going to convince this guy. He smiled back and starts guessing which salsa I want with the chips that he's bringing over. "On me", he insists. He decides that I'm a guacamole girl. He saw right through me.

He comes around the corner again and I'm shaking my head at this point. So unnecessary. He tells me, "If not for now, then for later." He sets the bag in front of me, turns his back and walks away.

"What's your name?" I call out after him. 

Beau, a great name. Beau and I shake hands as I tell him how nice that was. Beau chalks it up to nothing and is glad it got a smile out of me. He looks me in the eyes and tells me he knows what it's like to have a hard day. "My baby sister passed away on Friday" We hold each other's gaze and I tell him how sorry I am to hear it. He breaks away from me for an emotional second and returns, recouped with "that's the way life goes sometimes". According to Beau, we're both having the same hard day. What Beau didn't realize though, was that he just spent his hard day getting a smile out of a stranger, and all I did with my hard day was appreciate his gesture.

He returned to work and I opened my guacamole. My eyes welled up a bit. There was something incredible beautiful and incredibly sad in the exchange I just had with this person. Where, just as it shed so much light on the good in people, it also reminded me of the pain we all carry with us. So there I was, sitting in an empty Chipotle, eating my guacamole trying not to outright cry, like ugly face, all out cry. I sat there, chip in hand, incredibly touched and not exactly sure why I was having such an emotional reaction. Maybe it was because I was touched by his honesty. Or surprised by his sincerity. Or even impressed by his generosity. Maybe I was just sad from his story. Or sad from my own. Still, in this fleeting moment, it seemed like I saw all of humanity. The good and bad. The love and lose. The happiness and sadness. And all from a perfect stranger.

Afterlife

"...afterlife... like you're going up there and will see all your family and friends? Is everyone in heaven? like Napoleon and Hitler...?"

"You think Hitler made it to heaven?"

"I don't know, I don't really like the idea of heaven and hell, I'd rather think that Hitler went up there and God gave him some therapy or something"

I love my mother.

Hold On

Something new,
and the old sets in.
Maybe it's because,
the start is always so familiar.
The same excitement.
The same hope.
Or maybe it's because,
the end is so familiar too.
The same pain.
The same loss.
So here I am,
holding onto hope,
and wishing it was easy.

Project Table

I think, maybe, that I can do anything.

My Boyfriend Rain

I love the rain,
And he likes me
Lulls me to bed so patiently
He fills my senses
With sweet scents and
Calming sounds so pleasingly
He tells me how to wash away
A day, today or everyday
Let go, he says
Then shows me how
To let it roll
Roll and roll and roll away
He waits for me
To give up for him
To close my eyes
And give into him
With breath like that I can't resist
Not as his soothing sounds persists
To sleep, he says and I obey
Its time to roll away this day

mismatch me

It's funny how long we wait on the simplest thing. Things that take little time, little money, and little thought. It's also funny what ideas we get stuck in our head and how long they'll stay there. Years and years ago I heard Martha Stuart give this idea, and I've always remembered it. I was going to do that. Years later and I still never had. A decade after having had my first $20 college set of flatware with the band of color on the edge (we all had them, didn't we?). They gave me a good run, but I grew tired and maybe a little bit embarrassed serving dinner parties without 'grown-up-ware'. The idea was this: flatware that only match in color, not pieces. That's an idea that I can get behind. I'm not matchy matchy. And I don't have enough style to coordinate Design A bowls with Design B plates. But what I can do, is buy one of every variety and make them all white. So here's my $8 goodwill start to a new collection of flatware.

PS How awesome is it to not worry about breaking one dish in a set!!! And I'm giving all the oddball, outcasts a good home :)

might smite the smitten

I'm not sure how I got here. Stumbling along the etymology of love. Maybe because I want to be smitten, and in wanting to be smitten I wondered if I could smite. It turns out I can smite. You can smite too. And apparently we all smite quite violently in fact.

You see in the past participle of smite, lies the adjective of smitten... hefty with three definitions:
1 - struck, as with a hard blow
2 - grievously or disastrously stricken or afflicted
3 - very much in love

One of these things seems not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong.

It struck me, excuse me, it smite me as funny how our language of love originates so violently. That from the same words as "He smitten thousands of men with his sword", we can suddenly be struck with love just as violently. Disastrously stricken with love. Slain by love. How romantic.

Moving backwards from smitten to 'smite' I realize that the verb, the action itself has no mention of love in it's definition:

1 - to strike or hit hard, with or as with the hand, stick, or other weapon
2 - to deliver or deal a blow, hit, etc by striking hard
3 - to strike down, injure, or slay
4 - to afflict or attack with deadly or disastrous effect
5 - to affect mentally or morally with a sudden pang

Who knew? That from this violent verb, after we are struck, slain, attacked with disastrous and sudden blows... we end up in love. Love is somehow the aftermath. Huh.

It seems that in language, just as in life, pain seems symbiotic to love. Dependent and maybe even defining it.

What I realized today, that for thousands and thousands of years as humans and hearts and language evolve... we've always known that we're fucked when it comes to love.

look lightly

The sun is shining
Shining too brightly
It drops my eyes
Cast down and front
looking lightly

I'm walking again
But the sun is shining
Shining so brightly it makes me miss
the blades of green
the buds of pink
my eyes dropped
cast down and front
looking lightly

I watch my path
the step before my step
and miss the spring
as it blooms around me

I see the pavement
roll beneath me
same as it always does
warm or cold
rain or snow
looking lightly
with the sun shining
oh so brightly

To my next boyfriend

Come on, give in and try with me.
Take a breath and try for me.
Forget where you've been and all you've done and be right here, right now with me.
Ask too many questions so I can give too many answers.
Want to know me and show me how much.
Give me all the attention you want to give to me, I'll give it right back to you.
Hear me and hear the words I do not say.
Tell me and tell me all of it.
See me and see right through me.
Let go with me. Right now, let go with me.
Try with me, whole-heartedly try with me.
Try for us.
For what we could be
Can be.
Are being right now.
But let's be here longer.

Only People

Well, it turns out people are only people. I shouldn't have thought any more or any less of them. People generally aren't serial killers nor are they heroic fathers. People just fall through on their word, string you along and fail to produce. After how many conversations, Tim never showed, even after all his enthusiasm. So I moved onto second on the list Mike. Same enthusiasm... same outcome. No show. I finally got rid of my dresser to the 3rd on the list Jessie, who showed... well, sorta... sent her dad to come pick it up.

There you have it, people are just people after all - 2/3 unreliable, 1/3 who will make someone else do it for them.

I am loved and I love.... and that is what's most important.

The Greater Good

Why is it so hard to believe in the greater good of people? Stranger Danger. It's so ingrained in our upbringing that anyone unfamiliar becomes suspect. Like today, here I am trying to beg, borrow, steal trucks and muscle from my friends to bring this ugly & used bedroom furniture to Goodwill. I don't have the heart to break it up for trash, because even if it's ugly... there might be someone that needs it. Someone who doesn't always get to choose how pretty their dresser gets to be. And then I realized... why? Why ask my friends for their time, their trucks and their muscle for a bunch of ugly furniture? Is this really what I want to use up my favors for (I really do believe we are allotted favors, not to take advantage of)....?

Craigslist!

Duh! Put it up for free and the next person that needs it can do the work of getting it out of my place. Seems like a fair trade, a little effort for a life of good use. But it isn't long before the Stranger Danger sits in. Maybe it's because I'm a petite female in an apartment all alone... or maybe it's because my mother says "They'll come to your HOUSE?!" Either way, there's no way around the fact that in the back of my head I am thinking about all the things that could go wrong giving my address out and inviting someone into my home, even for the briefest of moments.

But I want to believe in the greater good of people. I call the people that inquired first, Tim or Holli they say to ask for. I call, it's Tim. Tim's got a bit of a slur to his speech, not a drunk slur, more of a drawl. How do I say this... Tim seems like a bit of a mess. He tells me to call him back in a couple of hours. I do. Tim's at the mechanic now because he got a flat tire and won't be able to pick up the dresser until tonight. Tim seems like the kind of guy that can't catch a break.  Maybe even the type of guy that bad luck surrounds. The more I talk to Tim, the harder it is to hold onto the greater good. Finally he tells me, it's for his kid who has never had a dresser before, all his clothes in boxes on the floor. I want to believe that. I want to believe. I hope that it is a lucky find for his family and it helps them some. But, I have to admit that deep down inside of me, Tim makes me nervous. So we left our conversation with the fact that I may or may not be around tonight and will leave the dresser on the landing outside of my place for him to pick up.

I hope I'm wrong about Tim. I want to be embarrassed by even thinking these thoughts. I hope that our exchange is nothing more than me trying to offer a small amount of help to someone...and, them, them getting that ugly furniture out of my life forever....

REDO ODER

I wonder how much of my sudden burst of productivity has to do with the freed up time of no facebook? Or maybe it's just that I've had so much time on and off work these last few months, that I'm suddenly wanting to do something big and consuming with it. Either way, my free time lately has been put to good use. Well, maybe selective good use. I can't pretend I don't have dirty dishes in the sink or that my christmas decorations are put away. Cause both certainly exist. Instead, my art supplies continuously rotate through use and one dry paint brush launched me into an entire bedroom makeover.

My bedroom never really felt like me and hey, I got time. So a random Tuesday night I said... Let's do this. By 'let's' I mean me, myself and I. I will admit to going about this pretty impulsively. But I tend to work better that way or else I'll stew.

First stop was MOA looking for new curtains. I had my same red drapes since I moved here. I've always had good luck with clearance drapes at Urban Outfitters, if you can believe it. I head there. The MOA store lacks luster in the home department and I end up finding one clearance orange/cream drape. Why I would think it was a good idea to buy one, doesn't even make sense to me, but I bought it in faith for some reason. That I knew it would fit. Or that I would make it fit just because I liked the one drape. I stop at Marshall's to find cheap sets of drapes, sets meaning two, and wavered in debate about a tan pair and a white pair. I would always go with tan. But I went with white for some reason. No reason really. I'll just buy and return if this doesn't work out somehow. No direction. No vision. No anticipated outcome. Just grabbing and trusting.

I stop at Home Depot on the way back, walk up to the wall of paint. Pick up one sample card and hand it the mixologist. Yep, that's what he is. Ok, I guess I'm painting my room pale orange, idea coming from the single Urban Outfitter drape. What I realize on the rest of my drive home is that I was sitting next to a can of paint that was going to make my room look like a creamsicle. The irony is, I really don't like creamsicles. Actually, I hate creamsicles.

I paint it creamsicle anyway and stay up to 3am to finish one night. What else can I do to this popsicle stand??? I've never had a dresser that I've liked and have never had a real bed. Ok, those. And I'll put an arbitrary budget of $500 just to stop myself from too much damage.

I find a cheap bed that I wholeheartedly know is cheap but I think I'll like it anyway. Anything has got to better than a bed on wheels that moves itself in my sleep. Cheap, but still a huge chunk (I originally typed junk here, Freudian slip!) of my budget and I'm left with about $100 to find a new dresser if that's still my goal. I check a few consignment shops and end up finding a beautifully shaped gem at an antique store not far from my house. $80 and it'll need a new coat of paint. I got time.... what I didn't have was truck or muscle to bring the thing home. I found a truck, but no muscle and decided I was scrappy enough to bring this beast of a dresser home myself. I was sort of wrong. Got it off the truck and into the street. Then I stood in the street, wondering how in the world I was going to get it upstairs. I made it up with the kindness of a stranger, I asked and he said he was about to offer anyway because of the look on my face. He helped me upstairs and into my apartment without even killing me. What a nice guy. He did his deed for the day. And then it was time for paint....

I thought I would have gone for a browner tone, but back at Home Depot the samples just kept pulling me redder and redder. I bought the color unsure of myself yet again, but willing to give it a shot. I think it turned out smashingly.

Anyway... blah blah blah and I I I. Here's my finished in $500 & two weeks new bedroom.

Well, finished until I decide to spend even more money on it....

Nike's all washed up

Never thought you'd hear that, huh? Nike's all washed up? Well, in this case... it's true.

I spent a few days in the Mayan Riviera, yep the Yucatan Peninsula. You got it. Mexico. Hola. And while sunning myself, this teeny, tiny Nike washed up on the beach. I can only imagine the journey it has been through. And where the pair remains.

Needless to say, I saw a photo op. Like all vacations, mind you, I had to force myself to actually carry around my camera, but it's moments like these that I'm glad that I did. Even IF the people on the beach looked at me crazy for laying there photographing this thing. I might even like it enough for it to earn it's place on the wall of vacation photos... we'll see...

347 friends

How easily we forget. I've forgotten what it's like to make an effort. To make an effort for myself, my friends and my relationships. It's not just me, though. As we get closer & closer, more attached & more attached virtually we seem to forget the real work of anything worth while.... of people. The people that matter most to us and make life LIFE. Yet somehow the most powerful tool that brings people together, facebook, can seem utterly alienating sometimes. 

Remember when you used to wonder how a person was doing and you'd call to ask them? You even knew their phone number by heart because you dialed it regularly? Today... well today.... I wonder how a person is doing and I check their facebook page. I do this so frequently that I feel caught up on people's lives that I haven't seen in years. But what am I caught up on? Just the blips and blurbs that they feel comfortable sharing with any person equally. It's not personal. They aren't telling me, Mary, anything. Just as I am not telling YOU anything about how I am really feeling right now. But somehow we all take comfort in this false sense of connection, simply because we like having 347 friends or maybe because we like talking about ourselves best of all.

I understand the attraction. It's relationships made easy. Interactions simplified to 'likes' and 'comments'. Moods boiled down to 'status's and 'wall post's. You can access dozen of friends in no time at all. But I'm starting to wonder if the easiness is just making the real stuff harder. Where suddenly a text takes too much time, a call seems out right inconvenient and a personal visit absolutely impossible.

Time and effort has been left out of the facebook equation. Zuckerberg's algorithms fall short there. And, lately, I find myself desperately craving both. I want to remember what it's like to work for the people I love. I want to feel my relations in real time. Real world. To feel my loneliness in full effect. Maybe that will force the effort out of me. 

So I think it might be time to disconnect. Unplug, delete and log out.

ps - stay tuned for facebook withdrawal post....