1.0

My high school health teacher was a dead ringer for Big Bird. She was over six feet tall with hips and a waddle and had a nose that looked like a beak. I don't remember her name but I do remember that she took a page from the Jocelyn Elders book and proselytized that the safest sex we could have was masturbation. I believed her, but I didn't masturbate. I didn't know how. (It would be years before I used my grandma's birthday money to treat my pearly whites and my sexual disposition to a Sonicare.) The first time I fucked my high school boyfriend, on a red and green plaid couch with embroidered natural horns--seriously, we fucked on top of Christmas while his parents were at the symphony--he was on top of me, thrusting like any and every kid who doesn't know what the hell he's doing and he was doing a little more damage than usual because he was both unknowing and well endowed so he was ramming himself into my cervix with a velocity that made me want to throw him onto the floor and scream: What the fuck is your problem? This is AWFUL! But instead I clenched all my muscles so I didn't pee on both him and Christmas. I held my hand to the burner; I refused to pull it away. He stopped, thank God. Respite is lovely when the task at hand is truly miserable. He asked,

"Are you close?"

"Close to what?"

"Orgasm."

"Oh... yea... I'm close."

Which was the truth if, by close, I meant about 25 years away.

To be fair to the story, the word boyfriend is a bit of a stretch. We attended one concert and one movie. I didn't have the courage to ask him to the Sadie Hawkins dance and he had a girlfriend. Think Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club. Just like the health teacher I don't remember her name, but I'll never forget that he was willing to acknowledge her, with her odd habits and eccentricities, in public. This girl ate the the peel of the pomegranate, but not the seeds. She was worthy and I was not.

This is all relevant because it fucked me up. We accept the love that we think we deserve and after the Christmas couch and pomegranate peel salad, I didn't think I deserved very much.

Truth is Stranger

I don't imagine a soul faithfully reads these words, so this post, a post to make an announcement, is a little silly because anyone who chances upon this place won't know the history, and I'm not entirely sure but I'm pretty sure that if we don't know history... well... that makes history irrelevant.

Today marks the day I switch to fiction. It's not going to be good. This is baby, baby, first fledgling attempts at fiction. The kind of stuff middle schoolers write. The stuff that embarrasses because it revels the underdeveloped and unknowing parts of the grey mush upstairs.

I am most connected to myself when I write, but am afraid to write about myself. I've never taken a class in fiction or poetry. Seriously, this stuff is going to suck. But that's the point of a pacifier, isn't it? It gives you something to suck.

Girl Crush

All of my friends--the ones that I give a shit about as they relate to me and themselves and life--have one thing in common. Each of them has the ability to peak my curiosity. They say things I haven't heard or thought of before. They have wit (and with wit comes charm). They make me laugh from the deepest most buried part of my guts and I never want to let them down. They make my life richer.

One of those friends lives in Alaska and he shares my bed.

A second also lives in the 49th state but he has a life and a wife and a major construction project that needs a roof before winter and winter comes early here so we are destined to be the casualist of friends but the closest of work kindreds.

That's not to say I only have one or two friends here. I have several. I get invites. To parties. Parties where cool people with hip glasses and haircuts and high end jeans hang out. But I never want to go and I almost always cancel and I'm afraid that makes me a raging thankless cunt.

(Spellcheck flags cunt and twat and puntang but doesn't flag dick or cock or johnson--there's a thesis in there somewhere that connects genetalial slang to gender and entomology.)

The whole point of this post was supposed to be that I have one female friend in Alaska and she is unflappably nice and kind and giving and lovely but she bores me so I let her down and feel like shit because of it. There's not one thing wrong with her except that both she and her conversation are boring.

I get by. I don't think she'll dump me. I loan her clothes and gear and we hike and run together. She makes me smile. But she never makes me think. So I cancel plans because hours with her means hours away from myself.

I'm a total cunt.

Why is it so hard to find wickedly smart women? And if it's not--where the hell do I find them?

Comfort

I'm alone and it's time for a little company. I'd like to talk to someone besides my dog about anything that's mildly interesting. I'd like a friend who is smarter, funnier, and prettier than me.

In the Navy you're always part of a group. You can't escape it. Your clothes and the way you wear your hair remind you. Even when you're away you remember. On vacation, shopping at a mall, you realize that you're carrying your bags, purse, and soda with your left arm while the right is fee--you do it so you can salute officers that aren't there. At restaurants you're appalled when someone places a hat on a table. You wrinkle your nose when the buttons on a man's shirt don't align perfectly with his belt buckle and his fly. You do all of those things because you were taught by the Navy. And it's the nose wrinkle, the shudder when you spot a headless hat on the table, and your aching left forearm that all make you feel like part of a group even when you're alone.

Out of the Navy I don't have those visceral reactions and am rarely reminded of something bigger than myself. Without forced discipline to put me in my place, I'm left unchecked.

Living among throngs of people is protection. Anonymity is armor. Art is comfort.

That Bitch Has a Great Haircut.

Hiking up Mt. Significant: Summer Solstice, 2009.

Dog Clip by Jessica

Running Low on Raisins

I have a mouse.

My mouse is one in a series, which I'm pretty sure means I have mice, but I will wait to officially draw that conclusion until it is so obvious that even my denial and delusion won't protect me. For now I'm ignoring them (him). The mice will soon grow bored with my routine so to differentiate their days they will throw a party and crank the tunes; they might bake a cake, and even order a stripper. Some time will pass--just enough so they develop an edge and get sassy. With a swagger they'll distill gin, host a poetry slam, and cultivate psychedelic mushrooms. Only then will I admit they're a problem.

Mark handles the mouse trap: baits with raisins, checks, and empties the $1 contraption on a regular basis. And as this happens he insists the rodent situation is not a problem; a problem is seven mice in one night. We catch only one mouse every few days (about a dozen and a half short of a problem). I believe Mark's assessment because physics dictates it: It is the path of least resistance. Now Mark is gone for what he calls two weeks, but what the calender clearly insists is three, and the least of my worries is fixing the toilet water valve before my mom shows up for the 4th of July. Now I have to figure out how to muster the courage to check the mouse trap and then throw away the carcass. Death is a little gross--even unwanted mouse death.

Actually, I think death is probably exciting. It's decay that's gross.

This makes me think of myself and then of teaching.

The Gambler

A friend was telling me about a relative of hers who had worked himself into an uncomfortable situation and was now seeking treatment for a gambling addiction. She told me that through his rehabilitation she had learned that gamblers aren't addicted to winning. What they're addicted to is the feeling of almost loosing it all and then somehow squeaking by. The thrill they seek doesn't come from success, but from managing against all probable odds not to fail.

As she was telling me this story I immediately recognized myself. That same gasp of heart-rate altering fear is what makes me procrastinate. And in the two years since making the connection between myself and an addictive personality I've become much better at time management, although still put things off from time to time (for instance... tonight) just for the excitement of it.

I have a friend who suffers from the same malady of supreme procrastination. I told him the first paragraph of this story and he immediately recognized himself and even made the connection that it's a dysfunctional way to work--that it compromises the project and that the guys who work for him don't get anything out of it other than stress and frustration.

Barnes & Noble carries books about procrastination. I first noticed them about a decade ago but have always put off reading them. However, had I read one or two ten years back I might be that much further ahead of the game. My friend at work is a reader. It's possible he's walked by them on the shelf, too.

It's a subcategory of books that could use some clever marketing.

BC

BC accepted my friend request.

Mentor, I hope you're ready for me--I might be a bit of a challenge.

Mr. Cellophane

Glee is Heathers for thirty-somethings and is my new favorite confection.

Fox got it right with their new musical satire and after watching the pilot twice on Hulu, I'm thinking that September is much too long for Fair and Balanced to expect me to wait to see episode two. It's a tease and teasing isn't fair. We all know that. And it would only be balanced if I teased Fox first; and even if I did, I'm pretty sure Fox didn't hear me so it can't possibly count.

It's Memorial Day and I'm home with the dog. Saturday morning there was a cow moose and two spring calves in the yard. Yesterday on a hike, Dasha and a black bear shared a small stream; they were both thirsty. Today I finished sewing a pair of cammi pants into a tote.

Like the Marc Jacobs wearing kid who auditions with Mr. Cellophane on Glee, I'm feeling a little invisible. Alaska makes me feel invisible.

Chicago was a competition. The Navy was a competition. Either by conforming and striving, or by eschewing the standard set of rules, competitions make it easy to stand out.

In Alaska most women are content to dress like, and maintain the same physique as, men. Coworkers don't seem to care how much I achieve. And while it's not a marker of geography but of age, I'm old enough that my mother has stopped waiting for me to turn into something.

It's suddenly, and for the first time, OK to be average.

That's not OK with me. I want to live a Jane Austin novel where choosing the unexpected has fantastic potential. And the sticking point is that I don't have anyone here to talk to about it. I don't have a Flaco to encourage chasing the well-suited-to-me arcane. And I don't have a Master Chief to encourage the well-suited-to-me obvious and frequently traveled path.

Time is the indulgence of the thirty-something and childless and with my indulgence I'm stewing. Probably not the best choice. (But for what it's worth, today I've also started a lawn of clover, planted ferns, rearrange the rock gardens, washed the winter down jackets, and stitched a tote out of old pants.) If I was all aflutter with three kids I wouldn't write this, wouldn't have the time to write this, and wouldn't have the time to think it.

So where does that leave me? With the need to find a motivator. I've always been good with external motivators, but in their absence, now is the time to harvest from within.

Before

After