The Surprise

There are always surprises. And, there is routine like what I'm going to wear tomorrow (something amazing and not too stained). The surprise is when isolation creeps in and finds me in the strangest circumstances. How did I end up here, doing this? Even more surprising is that I suddenly care that I am friends, even just on facebook, with exactly one person that I have known since my early years.

Most people I grew up with seem to have this overflowing fondness for our hometown and have this sort of comrade-in-arms kinship that I don't understand. I can't stand the place. I am starting to question my lack of shared joy. Was there something I missed, did my memory somehow fail me, did I suffer some unknown accident which has left me paralyzed to Ashland's merits?

I am starting to wonder.

I am also going back for Thanksgiving. It will be my first time there in almost three years and at this point it is starting to seem like I have been avoiding the place. So if you find yourself in Southern Oregon over the shopping holiday and would like to get a drink, you know where to find me.

Breakfast for Breakfast

Overrun by my need to follow the nonsense that is the US political system, I have to admit that I am really nervous. More nervous than I was on prom night, but that was a bust. (He was 23, tall, dark, and hansom; when I dropped him off after the dance and he asked if I wanted to come in, I said, Why?)

I woke up at a hair past five this morning, what an ungodly hour. I couldn't fall back to sleep. I came downstairs to see if there was any news on the election front. There was not. There was relatively little news about anything else though either. I have begun to suspect that this whole 22 months of endless campaigning has got me so focused on a single event, that I have neglected my world view. With fairly narrowed vision, I proceed to take the goggles off. What! there is more to the world than our election! the dollar has made gains against the euro (I wish I was in Spain), Evo Morales has ousted US diplomats from Bolivia, Really?

It's good to be back in the world.

Control Quality

My hands are really dry. The nail beds are chapped and small shreds of skin are peeling down toward my knuckles (that word is more than a little tricky to spell). There is little moisture left in them. I woke up yesterday and felt a familiar tightness in the joints of my fingers: It must be raining, I thought.

There are people who take really good care of themselves. They come into my work and I can smell their Shea butter body lotion and creme rinse conditioner above the smell of coffee and frying eggs. They glow and smile and drink plenty of water.I chew ice and sleep on my stomach, leading to terrible aches and pains through out the day. I know it's bad, but habits are formative and hard to kick.

There are other people who sit at booths and reek of unwashed clothes and bodies. I breath before I take their tofu to them, setting down their plates as quickly as possible.

I like to think that I am somewhere in the middle, not a fanatical moisturizer but also a regular bather. I brush my teeth and use fancy face cream twice daily. I don't carry a tube of compressed vitamin lotion in my purse, nor do I always carry a purse. Since I am at home and my hands are so dry, I think I am going to go upstairs and take care of my digits and maybe, change my socks while I'm at it.

Beating the System

It is so hard to create a second identity; that should be easy. In this world of bits and pieces, ones and zeros, why should I be limited by my own name, age, gender? I should not be; I can have as many email accounts as I can remember names for, that goes for online networking too. But, I sing victoriously of my recently added persona. I have long held the belief that all good work ought to be done by someone other than me.

So far so good.

Fundamental Choice

Look out, see. To really look and see the basic structure is the first challenge. The form is irrelevant; we could be talking architecture or biology, the framework for understanding remains identical enough in physique that the principals are constant. But, to understand motive is guesswork at best.

I love car naps. I may have written in the past about sleeping in my car, though I have a hard time remembering if I made clear just how much: sleeping in the car pours warmth into my limbs. The first real car naps began as my father was dying. I spent time in Ashland and Seattle, driving up and down the I-5 corridor countless times past nameless towns: Tacoma, Olympia, Centralia, Portland, Salem, Eugene, Rice Hill, Roseberg, Grants Pass, Central Point, Medford, and finally Ashland. I know the traffic patterns and I can usually make the trip in a little less than seven hours.

Time can crawl, especially with a hangover.

I get a deep heavy pit in my stomach, a pit that sinks and demands that I sleep. I stopped behind the Circle K in Centralia. There was a park on one side and a parking lot on the other. I pulled over, set my seat back, and was out in a flash. I leave the radio on and the voice reading DeLillos "White Noise" drones over the progressing apocalypse. When the cassette tape flips, I awaken, somewhat befuddled, but refreshed.

Car naps became a regular thing on long drives. I would pull over, sleep, feel the heat of the sun through the windshield. Then I started to go to school; then school and work; when there wasn't time to rest. When I really dreaded the hours in the afternoon when there wasn't enough time to go home and relax before work, I would take my car to Forrest Park and sleep. If it happened to be raining, all the better, I didn't need the radio.

Car Napping at home almost takes the cake. When you pull up to your house there is that special sound in the air. It's a slight ring in the atmosphere, and internally you just know you are home, you made it. Anxiety falls away and "The World" is on NPR. The seat goes back and the day unwinds as I sleep.

Losing Faith

I used to have friend; she was the one those amazing women who can really do anything, a real type A. I was young and probably didn't recognize that in her. She was the good one and I was the bad one. It was important to live up to the standards we had built around one another. She was loyal; I was independent, though reliant on her approval. When she moved east for college and I thought we could remain close, at least in spirit, believing that the years of shared eating disorders and secret ambition would turn into a lifetime of friendship.

I let the relationship slip away, one unanswered letter at a time. Then one year my letters started going unanswered and sometimes even returned because I had lost her recent address. I blamed myself for the loss: probably the smoking and sleeping around as a late teenager; the lying; the lack of direction my life seemed to have; the overall lack of consideration for the person on the other end of the letters.

I still dream about her, though not with the same frequency. I used to be haunted by guilt. Until I realized that the door is always open to her; what I feel for her is unconditional. Friendship as an adult is built on a mutual respect and understanding, and though I do not know her now, I would take the time to do so. I am sad that she is gone from my life, but to have known her and had friendship is good. The very closeness of our former relationship limits our ability to build a current relationship. It would be hard to know how to be together after so long apart, especially after the early years of bonding. That's why good people grow apart and lose touch.

Sad bunnies.

Technology and The Devil

Four or five nights ago, I tried to post to my blog. Comcast was servicing the internet and I was unable to publish. Then last night I tried to republish the piece and again was denied. From that I decided that the update from my brain was unnecessary for the world. The devil, it seems, was in my computer, stopping me from putting that piece into the hands of the general public. Conversely, perhaps it was god. Is there really a difference?

I have found that time is one of those commodities of which there is never enough. It is always in demand, supply is limited, and there are an infinite number of ways in which to spend what little time I do have. This last week I worked at my full time job, made peach jam, rode my horse five times, walked my dogs five times, had dinner with my s/o every night but last, did the laundry, cleaned the house, and read every Op-Ed article in the New York Times. What I did not do was change my bank from the institution formerly known as Washington Mutual to a less known local credit union, write anything more than an email, call my mother, buy new winter boots.

How is it that no matter what is done, the stack of incomplete projects remains. It must have to do with technology and sleep. If I didn't sleep eight hours a night (I know its excessive but I really have a hard time functioning on anything less.), I could undoubtably finally get that novel past the outline stage. But technology is competing for my attention.

Instead of spending my few alloted minutes of "free" time doing healthy creative projects which activate the right hemisphere of my brain, I check my facebook account or watch CSI. At the end of it all, the working and the talking to people, my brian relapses it seems that the best I can do is wait until ten o'clock so that I can fall asleep in order to do it all again.

This is not living.

Jet Lag and Thunder Storms

I just got home from four days in Stamford, New York. Population 1,241. Delaware County is the poorest county of New York. There are more homes vacant than occupied. It is no wonder as the homes are often huge rambling affairs that were hard to heat even in the best of times. I cannot imagine trying to keep a four-story twelve room home warm on wood stoves and candle sticks. I was told the obituaries would be full this winter.

It is beautiful there in a way that makes the West seem garish. The open spaces are many; breakfast is cheap and cooked in butter. I did not want to come home. I never want to come home after a stint in a different part of the country. Especially when the land is practically a dime an acre. But I do come home and the the dreams start. The dreams of a life away from the call of the alarm clock and toward the natural rhythm of rising with the sun. The rural roads and green acres which were the symbols of oppression in my youth have become a beacon in my adult years. There, my heart beats, Is where life really begins.

Almost as if we had traded climates, the humidity in Oregon was thicker than that in upstate. This morning, after sleeping a sound eight hours, I awoke to the boom of localized thunder and flashing lightening. Typically a rarity. But in these shifting times climates and hearts change alliances.

Number the Hours

Today started last night. With the best intentions, and spun out on coffee haagen-dazs, I sat listing out what today would look like. Then I put my clothes away, organized my desk, filed my bills, and finished a book. It is summer and I toss and turn in the heat. I slip under and on top of the sheets. I listen to the neighbor's air-conditioner and hate how noisy and wasteful it is. I take a sip of water because my throat feels dusty. I have another to wash the dust down. I put the cat in the basement. I contemplate getting up and changing my facebook heading to: coffee ice cream contains caffeine. But, I don't.

I overslept, I couldn't get myself out of bed at quarter of seven for my run. I almost miss my eight o'clock phone date. The library books went unreturned. I fill my car up with gasoline on my way to the barn. I skipped doing the laundry at noon to have a coffee date that turned into an entire afternoon. My kitchen is still in need of a scrubbing and the vacuuming has remained undone.

I did manage to call home in time to find out that we were four blocks away from one another and had an impromptu dinner date.

Today was not a day for my endless listing and organizing and micro-scheduling. After all, I always have tomorrow for that.

Switchblade Sunday

I have been the proud owner of an Italian made switchblade for four, no five, years. It is sleek and black and has a four-inch blade. It is illegal and I keep the mechanism well oiled. I use it to open my mail. Not bills or information regarding a new offer of a life of borrowing and debt; but, mail, real mail written by the hand of someone I know.

It was late winter in 2004, one of those days when you know that spring is close but you wear a jacket over your sweater. I had already worked that morning, I was a Barista at Bau Haus (those were the days, weren't they? full of action and caffeine, friends, late nights, and forgotten mondays). I pulled my motorcycle up outside of the Madison Market and a dude on a whole lot of drugs ran up to me: I have what you need. He exclaimed. What ever it was, I seriously doubted that I wanted much less needed it. He reaches into his backpack and pulls out this amazing little knife. See, he said, and pushed the small round ball on the handle. The blade sprang to life. As any normal person, I recoiled as the stranger on speed flashed the switchblade in the afternoon sun. He pushed the release at the top of the hilt and the blade disappeared.

It had a solid weight in my hand. The blade was steel and strong, unlike the cheap blades we would buy in Encinada as teenagers. I had to admit that despite the odds, the man had had what I needed. (And, even more, secretly wanted.) I carried the steel in my back left pocket for months. It felt good in there. Not that I needed protection, but that I had my own back. I liked that no one else could flick it open with as much natural ease as I; I liked that the boys were jealous.

I have stopped carrying the blade as it was more about status than anything else. But, I love the reminder it holds: of that one perfect summer before I left Seattle and everything changed; that sometimes strangers do have just what I've been looking for; that being a little bit macho is down right sexy in a girl.