Drama Queen

contentment

2006-03-29T22:06:00.000-08:00

the things you treasure are the incongruencies, the unexpected ways that characteristics fit into the grooves of other seemingly incongruent characteristics to create the person who sits, cradling a guitar, crooning. the way his voice sounds thin and slightly offkey revealing sweet vulnerabilities that I cherish and mull over while i look at him. i am there in my underwear curled like a snail on his couch in the dark, the shank of my hip gleaming pearly in the dimness. his boyish fingers with their short awkward nail beds picking out tunes, singing to me “when i’m looking down on you, i feel like i know what my life is for.”

soothe me

2006-03-16T13:47:00.000-08:00

maybe one day my mind will quieten down more. maybe. it's like a hyperactive hamster running and running on the wheel. incessantly. it plagues me, even though i know that i developed this capacity as a coping mechanism when i was a child. flashes of raised eyebrows, adult mouths contorted in fury, hands raised, the sting and embarrassment of the slap on my face. the house being auctioned off. being told to choose sides. i quiver like a knife. my mind only stops every once in a while. like last night when he ran his man-palm up and down my arm from the wrist to my shoulder and back down while i lay drooling half asleep on his chest. it was like he was smoothing his calm and his love into me. the tension leached out of me. he absorbed it with his certainty, his level head, the mass of his body against mine took it all in, dissipating, defusing. his hand was heavy and strong, and the sound of it up and down my skin felt like ocean waves, washing my fear and my mind's incessant activity away. i focused on the sound and the feel of it. i thought about how babies die if they are not touched. i love this big beefy human. he has the sweetest light behind his eyes. why do i ever feel scared of falling into a rut? of stopping my trajectory of moving forward in life, of learning, shifting, changing? i felt utterly calm this morning when i woke up.

Passover

2006-03-14T09:55:00.000-08:00

I stood beside you in the darkened Memphis parking lot. The spring air carried notes of moss, earth, budding trees on its soft current. It was almost Easter. The trunk of your car sprang open to reveal a carton of pears, nestled like eggs into cardboard depressions, cushioned by brown paper. Their glossy skins shone under the high cumulous glow of the street lamp. They were like fragrant expectations, patient lovers.

You chose a pear, lifted it to your mouth. Your teeth broke the rosy skin - a departure from your Passover fasting. I could smell its perfume as you arched your body away from it, the juice spilling onto the pavement between our feet. Maybe I wore sandals. I don't remember now. Inside glowed a fervent hope that one day, you would choose me.

Our connection followed the rhythm of university holidays - home for Christmas and Hanukkah, then away again. Estrangement, reunion, adoration, rejection. I would drive past your mother's house, imagine you in your room, wonder if you loved me, compare you to boys at college. You were taller than all of them and had a lisp. I watched you eat three pears in that parking lot, and somewhere within, I knew you would never pick me. My Easter dress fluttered in the car window as I drove away. How I loved the idea of you, the challenge you posed, the faith you demanded.

Random

2005-09-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

i just finished the most delicious lunch - let me describe. a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole grain bread and a can of jones' cream soda. i have loved peanut butter all my life - especially when i was allergic to it and forbidden to eat it. and have you ever had a jones' cream soda? for the love of God it's like drinking a slice of vanilla cake. it is, in a word, delicious.

as i look out my window, i notice that the sunlight has a new feel to it. it's autumnal. it's not the same clear light as summer's sun. summer sunlight has hard quality to it - like a sheet of glass. but autumn sunshine is mellow. it's not tightly bound - it's more disparate, grainy. it reminds me of a pumpkin, or a buttery squash. its color is not as sharp. it's the shade of transition - in between the oppressive determined heat of summer and the certainty of winter light. winter light is sharp and almost colorless. it outlines the starkness of a bare tree, the absence of color on the barren ground. it needles its way through the cables of a sweater and seems to conduct cold. i love to look out and see the way this liminal sunlight hits the trees - it almost hangs on the leaves like a golden mantle, spilling onto the ground in lovely pools of yellow.

i love fall. it represents transition - a move from one distinct place into another. vegetation is putting forth its final efforts, rounding out the curves of gourds, flaring into the earth tones of mums. indian corn kernels plump up inside their silk jackets, and the trees dress their tresses into brilliant swaths of color. i love to think of preparing for the winter - how my great grandmother canned tomotoes, okra, sweet pickles and stacked them one on top of the other inside her deep freeze in the old cookhouse. the way sweaters feel skimming the lines of the body, feminine jackets nipping in at the waist, corduroy pants with wide cuffs, the drape of a scarf, the luxury of a furry hat. i think i like transitions more than destinations or pasts. transitions are less definite but therein lies their value - they are composed of the old and the new, the past and the future in a bittersweet present that is so compelling to me.

i also love fall because in my mind, my birthday marks its onset. october 1st. what a good day to be born. it's right at the cusp of real autumn. i think of crisp frost, brisk winds, warm afternoons, color. but i am not really a birthday person -- and last night, i explained why to my friends jenny and lori. pretty much - birthdays embarrass me and are anticlimactic at the same time. you feel too much pressure. "what are you doing for your birthday?!" people ask. it's like prom or new year's. you build it up in your mind -- you are supposed to have fun. have fun! you tell yourself. how can you manufacture fun? plan a party for yourself - invite people to dinner - meet at a bar?? then you worry that no one will be able to come, or like 2 people can make it - and then there you are, on your birthday, with 2 friends when you invited 19. people will feel sorry for you, and you will feel mortified - like your dorkiness or the revelation that in fact you don't have any friends is laid bare in front of everyone. i hate evites for this reason too - people can look and say, oh bless her heart - look how many people aren't coming. boo to all of that. it reminds me of prom, when you dress up in something that you think is cute, and everyone knows that you are wearing something that you think you look cute in so you have therefore exposed a) your own taste and b) your own vanity. it's terrible. i hate smiling for pictures in front of people for the same reason. i worry that they look at me and think - look at her smiling. she thinks that's a good smile, posing for the camera, but really - it emphasizes her jay leno chin and what, is that spinach in her teeth?

Sleeping with the Enemy

2005-09-22T11:24:00.000-07:00

this is from an email i sent a year ago to friends, regarding strange bedmates.

ok. let's just take a quick tally of the CREATURES that have now been found in or in close proximity to my sanctuary, my place of rest, namely - my bed.

until this wkend, this tally had been limited to my personal fav, the illustrious camel cricket. see this link for a harrowing image: http://entweb.clemson.edu/cuentres/cesheets/hhold/ce190.jpg.

as you might recall, a hulking speckled one was hanging over my bed last fall, which caused me to evacuate my home for 3 days. need i revisit their most delightful qualities - including long, elegant antennae and "meaty" legs, and the tendency to jump their bodies off said legs when trapped on sticky paper? how about how they hulk and crouch and jump AT you when approached? or, how about how they do not die when attacked with a 3 lb phone book? nice.

the saga continues. this saturday a.m. - i awoke w. a start to a tickling on my neck. i brushed it and off came a roly poly. you know - the ones that "roll" up into a ball. you used to play w. them when you were little. admit it. ok, so it was ON me, and immediately went into a ball and slid down the mountains and valleys of my sheets. i flicked it against the wall, and got up. but was not THAT freaked out bec i had friendly memories of them as a kid. although i do fear it was crawling toward the inviting cavern of my ear. now i want to plug all my orifices b/f i sleep. maybe i should keep seeing "the baby." har har. but wait. it's not over. (see images below. one is a strange image that came up when i typed in "roly poly" into google images. one is an actual roly poly - henceforth known as RP for short.)

THIS a.m., i feel something tickling my side. i jump up, and find a 3 inch MILLIPEDE-LOOKING THING crawling on me!! WTF???? are you kidding? i think it is called a silver fish. why you ask? i have no clue since it is neither silver, nor a fish. who named these things? anyway - can i reiterate that it was ON ME? why??? a distinctive feature: they flatten out and make it hard to pick them up or kill them. don't worry. it's dead now. mwah ah aaaah.

so i did some research on the web. apparently these creatures like damp humid areas. alth i myself am usually damp and humid, my BEDROOM is NOT!! i keep it like a freezer. i don't sleep w. the windows open. i don't get it. apparently they like to eat wall paper glue and glue from book bindings. this could be my prob, since i have 10000 books in my house and by my bed. still, this does not make sense to me. why are these things in my bed, and why are they crawling on me. i am not a sloth. i am not a dirty imbecile. i clean and vacuum and change my sheets. i mean - why don't i just go ahead and sleep outside? why do i even pay rent?

help.

Tales of a Lactard

2005-09-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

when i was a wee petite, being lactose-intolerant was not yet in vogue. i was just told i was allergic to milk and all its products, along with nuts, grass, trees, corn, and mammals. from then on, no strawberry milk from the quik tin with the rabbit on the side. i had cereal with oj, or even water, instead of milk. how dismal. peanut butter? nixed. it was as if all the joy had been sucked from my life, and i was only 5.

but i fought back. i used stealth and cunning to take in forbidden ingredients at every turn. at birthday parties, i finnagled extra helpings of cake and ice cream. "oh, yes, my mama says it's fine for me to eat ice cream," i would say. a total liar. she would pick up a red, itchy, hyped-up me from birthday parties, and then i would lie again, telling her that i did not eat one bite of cake, no ma'am.

at school, i would get other little children to buy me cartons of sweet, creamy chocolate milk. we got them in a separate room from the main cafeteria, one where rows of coolers purred against the walls. i remember there were a lot of windows in the room, and a lady in white with sensible shoes would slide open the cooler doors and lift out the paper carton of milk for me. like manna from heaven. i did not wait to open it. i did it right in front of her. when my mother could not understand my stomaches, my red splotchy skin, i feigned ignorance. but i knew it was wrong. could this same mentality explain why today, instead of lunch, i ate 2 donuts (a chocolate glaze, and a chocolate cake with chocolate glaze, plus a bite of center of bavarian cream), plus a slice of white birthday cake slathered with fluffy white icing and piped pink roses?

what does it mean that this time no one was telling me i could not eat these things, except for myself?

Le Chapeau

2005-09-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

i just bought a fabulous hat. it's black straw with an impossibly wide brim that sweeps around my head in a wide radius of perfect. my neck is slender, defined, against its stark backdrop. my features seems dramatic - pools for eyes, the full punch of a mouth. i feel like audrey hepburn. i imagine myself at garden parties back home in the south, sampling finger sandwiches of cucumber and dill. its circumference obscures my view, making full sight of my face a precious commodity, erecting a shield against prying eyes. i practice looking up from beneath its circumference, thinking of men in seersucker pausing in midsentence. this hat is not shy, and i am no shrinking violet. it is confident, withholding - an exquisitely constructed tease.

when i wear it, i think of my maternal grandmother, who is known to most as "the bird." she was not quelled by the strictures of a small southern town. her spirit soared out in daring accessories and fantastic outfits. she carries a handkerchief wherever she goes, and wraps brilliant scarves around her head, secured beneath her ever-present chignon. she still wears dangerously high heels. one of her hats stands out in my memory. it was constructed of red pearls and wire - about the size of a man's fist. there was no brim. it had to be pinned to the head, close to the face. its curvy lines arched down onto the forehead, the pearls's soft sheen flinging light along the spangles that sprung out from its base and trembled with every breath. it was a like the seductive jiggle of a breast.

it set her apart - showed her ferocity, and her willingness to take risks, to see the beautiful in something extraordinary. to hold her head high, to embrace extravagance, to be certain of her splendor. this hat makes me feel that same way. i want to wear it while i sit here at my desk.

A Pin Prick to My Heart

2005-09-15T13:28:00.000-07:00

There are those moments in life that are set apart, not just in the blazing clarity of hindsight but even as they happen, as something pivotal. As the time is washing over and around you, something wells up in the pit of your stomach, and you feel the weight of that moment differently from all the nondescript or easily forgotten seconds before and after.

The sharp point of a needle can pierce tranquility like a pin prick. It emerges, a shiny quill, between the two of you, and only one of you will acknowledge it - its quivering length a symbol of what's to come. It will thread itself throughout the fabric of your relationship, dragging a skein of panic, contention, and disappointment until you are both submerged in the blood that it released. You wake up one day and realize that you are on an island in the middle of a raging flood. And the pin prick that it began with is a full-blown bleed out, and if you want to survive you have to staunch it. Like in the Indigo Girls song "Ghost" - and i guess that's how you started, like a pinprick to my heart, but at this point you rush right through me and i start to drown.

Isn't it so like that with love? It can start with a tiny inroad into the core of you, and build momentum like a sprinter. But this isn't about love. It's about the ending of it.

We were sitting in a swank restaurant in New York City. I had not lived there yet and could not keep my bearings. I was overwhelmed with the restaurant's brassy metal - the doors were plated in something that gleamed and they were hard to heave open. There were exotic, prehistoric-looking plants in pots all around the tables, and the food was studded with plaintains. He had just left me to move there. He had given me 2 weeks notice, packed up a rental car, and driven away. I was stunned, like I had walked into a wall of sheer glass. It was my initial visit to the Big Crapple. We were talking about his parents, the way his dad's drinking had been constant throughout his life, the times his father called his mother a whore, how she paid for everything while he sat home and hid bottles under the couch, in the basement, behind the porch steps. How he and his sisters cowered from their fighting in the attic bedroom. I said something like "I want to have a better marriage than both our parents had." He said, "What's wrong with my parents' marriage?" He was totally serious.

I remember swallowing panic, trying not to fly off the handle or be irrational. I remember thinking - this is something we can move through, slowly we can uncover this, chip away at it like archaeologists in search of the real bones of each other. I told myself not to worry, that he loved me, that I loved him, that even though he was in total denial, maybe we could weather it. I was infused with hope, and I wanted to believe that this issue would not push its fingers into every last part of us. But in my belly was the realization - revealed in that one statement. We broke up 2 years later. I pulled the thread tight, knotted it close to the fabric of what had been us, and finished the seam.

Mr. Las Vegas

2005-09-15T06:57:00.000-07:00

i need to say this. i just met wayne newton parading around the hall w/ a strangely attractive wife. their main problem seems to be their mutual affinity for fake hair. his hair is an pompous pompadour and exceedingly, unnaturally black. it can't be real. it makes him 3 inches taller than he actually is. and his wife has a blond hairpiece around her bun so the tendrils flare out in spangles around her head. sort of like a hair halo, and just as tacky as you might imagine that would be. she does have very nice calves though. did i mention she was wearing a boucle chanel suit and chanel slides? a colleague coveted them, and i told her that to get them, she'd have to sleep w. wayne newton. she did not protest. yikes.

so wayne was introduced to me, and i had to keep a straight face. despite all that hair. when you look at it, it looms above like a formidable precipice. frankly, it's intimidating, almost menacing. also - he is literally cloaked in cologne. it trails behind him like a cape that calls up images of all you can eat buffet nightclubs and bad tuxedos. he shook my hand and now it smells like him. who puts cologne on their palms??

Wake Up Call

2005-09-01T19:32:00.000-07:00

it was sumptuous summer and he sat across from me on a pristine white couch in his lavish house off rock creek park - the older man. he had equine bone structure - haughty nose, narrow face with deepening lines, the shock of silvering hair, long lean limbs like a greyhound. pepperoni was shaved in perfect circles, stacked against a buttery brie wheel. he poured me a glass of champagne, handed me the flute. it sang with resonance when my ring flicked its flank. every motion seemed precise. a guy my age would never have done that. the one from the week before had tried to get me to spend the night on someone else's couch and sent me amateur emails about nebulous "hanging out" excursions. the older man talked to me about families, academics, life goals, religion. he had not touched me except at hello and goodbye. i felt beautiful and grown-up, like i was a fabulous package wrapped in glossy paper and ribbon. maybe dating an older man could be interesting, fulfilling. maybe it would entail fabulous gowns for tony benefits, perfect diction, and a catapult into a froufy social realm that was appealing when i considered my recent dates. they included a 5 ft. 4 dentist who had me open my mouth at dinner to examine my teeth.

the terrace was swimming in lush foliage. trees were everywhere - a sea of leaves in motion. in the rock garden, he told me he had always found me attractive. i did not know where to look. i had imagined a meticulous mini-seduction, sophisticated inuendos topped off with a practiced kiss, the mature confidence of tapered lawyer's fingers in the small of my back. i had imagined wrong.

by the pool, he said horrifying things like "smash me, baby," when i was sitting on his knee. he was a deplorable kisser. i cannot believe he got through the better half of a century with that technique. his tongue did not leave a centimeter of my face dry. each nostril was probed. it went UP my nose like an inquisitive proboscis. it flattened itself into a fat mollusk over my eyelids, slopped over my jawline with zero finesse. it left a slug's wet trail down my collar bone, invaded my ears. i was taking mental notes for my friends. smash me, baby?? suddenly he knelt before me and tried to hike up my skirt. everything was awful.

somehow, i did not leave. i kept thinking it would improve, that he could not possibly have been allowed to copulate with a woman (and he had - he had 3 sons close to my age) if this was his modus operandus. didn't he think i was intelligent and remarkable like he said? turns out - no. he left angry claw marks on my legs; he yanked at my clothes; he ignored everything i said. his gaze was blank and animal. it stopped registering me. panic started to billow in my throat. instantly, i knew that going to his house for a drink was a very bad idea. he was no longer aware that i was a sentient being. i felt unhuman, and fear had washed out the bridge between my thoughts and my tongue. i could not loosen it to tell him i had to leave, or to express anger at being mauled. he was treating me like i was a literal rag doll. he laid on me and covered my face with his hands so that i could hardly breathe and still i said nothing. i could see the ceiling between his knuckles. i was just trying to stay inside my clothes. his fingers pried at every seam and button. i felt paralyzed and powerless. when he placed "it" on my bare leg, and proceeded to jerk away, i finally was able to say "you are making me really uncomfortable." paltry words compared to reality. i did not look down.

somehow, this snapped him out of it. he put himself (ugh) away and tucked in his shirt. i could not believe that this man billed over $600 an hour as a lawyer. i knew that if he had raped me, i would never have been able to prove anything in court. i had accepted an invitation to his house, i was young and starting out, he was older, handsome, and richer than God. he said "you got me too excited," at the door. i walked to my car, shaking. so naive. and i thought i was so wordly at 25. really, i was just very lucky.

maybe my mistake was putting my worth in his hands - letting someone confer upon me the feeling of being fantastic, instead of knowing it in my gut, regardless of what he said or did. is this why so many women seem to lose their voices in sexual situations? it is as if, in the context of desire, we assume the cloak of the object and over-empathize with the one who wants us.

tell a story like this one to a group of women and prepare for a flood. teeth coming through a bottom lip because of forced oral sex. the girl who was raped by her "friend" in college. "but he really was a good guy," she says. no, he wasn't. we make excuses for violence, for insistence if the face of reluctance. we say "i'm sure he thought i was ok w. it" or "he's a guy." i actually apologized to the older man as he raked his nails into my shirt. we think a man is exceptional if he does not push us, wonder if he's not interested when he isn't really aggressive during a make-out session. we are bright, hilarious. accomplished. we get multiple degrees, we run marathons, we go toe to toe with men in the workplace, in the classroom, but in the proverbial bedroom somehow, sometimes, our voices can be silenced as if we were inept little girls.

why is it hard to connect to the part of yourself that knows what you want? why is it hard to pit your own will against his if necessary? why do we numb ourselves to our own intuition and desire, and feel guilty when we want to say no, or slow down, or i don't want you at all? is it because we don't carry the certainty of our value inside, because we depend on exterior beings to define it for us? why do we stop identifying with ourselves and feel mute, immobile? maybe it's because we don't see that we are brilliant or funny or gorgeous. maybe we need to carry that knowledge inside ourselves and sound it like a bullhorn when someone tries to override our bodies or ignore our minds. maybe we need to remember that we are exquisitely wrapped packages, neat parcels of beautiful contradictions, intellect, memories, goals, and that it should be up to us how and when our ribbons are untied, our innermost contents revealed.

Mine, Mine, Mine

2005-09-01T13:00:00.000-07:00

there are 2 items that i don't like to share or borrow. they are: books and perfume. here's why.

books are intensely personal to me. they have been my solace and my escape through so much - literal portals out of my own chaos. words constructed a scaffolding up, up, away from the din of my mom's 2nd divorce, the anxiety that relentlessly pursued me, what it felt like to live alone for the 1st time, the loneliness i felt in nyc. every sentence was a rung, and i would steel myself against the world around me and resolutely climb them until i was lifted out of my life, deeper into a story, alone with my thoughts. books became companions. they were my therapists, my travel agents, and my saviors. when i borrow a book, i cannot abandon myself to it. i can't commit to it. it's like borrowing a boyfriend. you might start to feel something, but you still have to give it back. when people borrow my books, i feel like i am being invaded. like someone is reading my diary. each page carries me in it - the mornings on a crowded bus, sleepless nights and ungodly hours, sitting beside lucas in a rocking chair at a haunted hotel.

and now for the perfume. perfume is personal. smells can jettison you right back into a time and place like nothing else. desitin reminds me of when my baby brother was born. drakkar noir (God help us) still reminds me of my boyfriend charles herrin from 9th grade. he danced with me to "friends in low places" by garth brooks on a night i had become absolutely certain that no one would ever love me. i lived in memphis. give me a break.

i can trace the trajectory of my perfume throught the years - tea rose in highschool, CK one - oh so edgy - freshman year of college. i don't want anyone to smell like me, or at least anyone i know. olivia used to torture me by threatening to buy my fragrance just to get my goat. i'll never forgive calder for buying my michael kors back in 2001. i discovered her betrayal when we were in the hotel in san diego, before the marathon. there it was, the handsome squared off bottle of amber, lying on her perfect folded clothes. i threw mine away. and this was after i had gone into sephora every day for 2 weeks spraying myself with it to be sure it was the one. now, i won't tell what i wear. but it does come from fresh.com. that's all i'll divulge.

Ladies Glow

2005-08-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

silky strappy drapey tops. their sheen lures me. the way the light lilts over the satin as it undulates over breasts, skims waists, flattens a wide strap over the buckle of collar bone into shoulder. they are in every store. their rich hues beckon to me, and i want to buy them en masse, hang them in my closet, and have them at the ready. i want to pair them with jeans and heels. i want a brilliant ruby neckline to jazz up my work suits, to make people wonder about the underneath. i want a silvery one to draw out the gray in my eyes, to make me think of my favorite french word, which is "crepuscule." it means twilight.

why can't i wear these delectable tops? because i am a goat woman with an overheating problem that belongs in menopause, not in the year of 27. i have hot flashes. "is it happening now?" friends ask as beads of moisture form in my upper lip, stud my forehead like tiny diamonds. not only do i get "goat pit" (coined by my friend Calder), which is synonomous for what some call "pitting out" - i.e. sweating through the material in your armpit, but in addition - my belly sweats, my back sweats. the place where butt attaches the thigh and in me, cups over - yeah, sweat has been known to pool there, and then run down the hamstrings, into the knee pits, and into a boot. on the subway in the dead of winter.

this problem is not always linked to extreme physical exertion. i take a brisk walk down the hall, and my body turns on the waterworks like i am going for a 10 mile run. i do a turn on the dance floor at a wedding reception and i have sweat blooms on the fabric of my silky bridesmaid dress. it's highly attractive. i mean, who wants to date me? if ever i said i was sweaty, my grandmother would admonish me with "horses sweat, men perspire, ladies glow." obviously she never sat through an interview knowing that upon standing, the creases of her pants would be wet with sweat. the only time i glow is when i put a flashlight in my mouth. or - better yet, flashmouth. hence, the satin shirts i cannot buy. alas.

How To Be Alone

2005-08-30T10:53:00.000-07:00

I have a book of essays called How to Be Alone. I bought it because I love essays - but a college kid on my flight thought it was a literal instruction manual for a late 20s spinster, and talked to me pityingly about the love of God. Did I know that I was never truly alone, he asked.

Being alone is a skill. You have to practice. I'm not talking about going into the other room so you can read in peace. I'm not even talking about spending a day where you order a black cherry italian soda and sit outside by the C & O canal while condensation gathers on the plastic cup, thumbing through your thoughts. This is a different aloneness. A sense of uniform separation. A discrete package of self.

I first lived alone when I was 20. I had a little studio for $630 a month right off Embassy Row, just west of Dupont Circle. Everything was a struggle. The cash I earned wearing an obscene Hawaiian shirt and an apron was funneled mostly, frantically, to tuition. I ate a lot of oatmeal. Sundried tomatoes in my pasta was a splurge. Most of my stuff came from an old barn in Tennessee that my uncle let me pillage - a rickety armoir, a wooden screen with worn calico fabric, a card table that had been Mama Haynes'. I remember how it felt to finally close the door on other people and realize I was alone. The room felt empty, but it was filled up with me.

One of my best friends told me that "wherever you go, there you'll be." Facing yourself - flaws and all - can give you an irreplaceable peace, but man, is it difficult. In that little room on Mass Ave, I could not escape myself.

All my life, I had lived on the surge and retreat of continual crisis. Anxiety was a staple in my mental diet - I constantly scanned the horizon for the next blow. Were the lights going to be turned out in our house? What new family secret would shatter yet another pillar of security? Would I find out that something terrible had happened to one of my brothers? Would I have to pick my mother up from a heap on the floor? Would my father be reticent and unmoveable? This anxiety was useful when my life was inextricably bound to my family, when I was pulled out to sea and yanked back again according to their decisions. It kept me on my toes. I would never be surprised by a misfortune or tragedy - I had probably already thought of it.

In my little apartment, I was plagued with demons. They loomed around me, almost smothering, leering. An undulating panic ate into my sleep. A sinking dread awaited me every morning. If nothing was explicitly wrong, I would be terrified that the uneasiness was attached to a valid, but indecipherable fear. I leaned against the shower wall and pleaded with God to help me. I constantly tried to find a reason for the wellspring of terror in my gut. It was hard to see then, but this sustained panic was a response to a family that was defined by alcohol and brutality. Anxiety was a shield against the worst feeling of all - utter shock.

Wrestling with myself in my journal, in my therapist's office, and in the recesses of my mind slowly quelled most of this floating anxiety. It eked out of my system, like water leaching from a rock, and eventually, being alone became a solace, a delight. How wonderful to spend a solitary Saturday afternoon. I would listen to NPR and clean my bathroom with verve. I wrote in my diary for hours. I cut out pictures from magazines that spoke to me and pasted New Yorker poems into a spiral notebook. The panic returned periodically, but it was usually linked to something I had cause to worry about. I learned to tell intuition from destructive patterns, and my independence became a mantle I wore proudly.

Now, years later, I am in love. And being alone feels different. After stints both in and out of relationships, here is a new challenge. When he is gone, I wake up disappointed. I go into a weird form of mourning, where I pore over his absence as if he has left me forever. I try on the idea that he has been deployed, or worse, died. I berate myself for being needy and dependent. This is unlike you - I say. I run after work instead of during lunch so that my evenings are filled. I watch strangely satisfying crap TV like elimidate, blind date, and 5th wheel. barf. but true. The loneliness gnaws at my core, strips my defenses, leaves me as alone as I will be on the day I die. Or so I think. When he holds me, I feel like a woman and a little girl all at once. When I am with him, I am bathed in a contented, level joy. I am afraid that this gift will be taken from me, that I have no right to feel safe, to revel in us. When he is gone, I try on the idea of a permanent abandonment, trying to prep myself for the inevitable betrayal like I used to do years ago. I know that this is a reaction rooted in my history, but it is disconcerting to feel it again. I know that I will conquer this, but sometimes I am not sure how.

2005-08-25T13:42:00.000-07:00

once my mother stopped me before going out with friends, leaned in close to my face while we stood there in the doorframe on the old back porch, and said, "look at mother! look at mother! self control." she was earnest. she meant it. she knew i was a loon.

i am not trying to pull a tom cruise, i promise. but, i want to talk about drugs. sort of. i should have been on ritalin, but for better or worse, i was born a little too early. my baby brother was able to catch the pharmaceutical wave to better concentration and zen (or so the psychiatrist convinced my mother), but i, born in the late 70s, missed it. i was left to brave the waters of hyperactivity and sporadic attention span on my own. and boy, did i.

memories to validate this assertion:
1) i am 5. my middle brother, whom i'll call donkey, (for real - it's one of his nicknames), is about 2.5. the baby, william, is in his baby bed. it is probably close to bedtime for both me and donkey. our parents are out, and an older lady whose name i forgot is sitting with us. she had gray hair teased into soft, sprayed furls on her head. she smelled like vinegar i remember, like she needed to be aired out. her crevices should have been scrubbed avec a toothbrush. anyway - i convince donkey, who literally does everything i say, to run screaming and flailing his arms with me all over the house. then we settle into a pattern of wide circles that arc through the kitchen, into the parlor, and back into the den, where the poor old creature sat on the couch. i think we were singsonging some obnoxious refrain. she hated this, which is of course why i did it. i knew we unnerved her. i was a little emotional bully. i was the mastermind of destruction. i got myself all sweaty and crazed, and immediately turned splotchy. then, i snuck into the baby's room and picked him up out of the bassinet. this was definitely wrong, and i almost dropped him.

2) when i was going into 8th grade, i made this promise to myself to change my persona at school. we were all girls, we were all smart, we were all kind of obnoxious. case in point - i still wore bows, the coolest girl in school, clare, mused out loud about wanting to weigh 80 lbs, and there were cliques galore. galore, i tell you. the reason i wanted to change my "persona" ( i mean, what? i was 12! hilarious.) was because i had spent the previous year, and this is no joke, clucking like a chicken and pinching everyone's butts. i was determined to created a new carrie sue, one who did not make people think of barnyard fowl. i remember feeling so concerned about this, and even telling my friends that i was no longer hyper. which was a lie.

3) sometimes, now, in my late 20s, i break into an impromptu jig. it's surprising how much you can make it look like you are a 1st class clogger from the hills of appalachia, just by improvising. which is perfect, because i was born in knoxville, and my grandparents have moonshine in a mason jar in their lavish home. one prob - i can only really clog with my right foot. it's the same with roller skating. picture me in the rink, age 9, at a skating bday party. the skinny redneck guys in tight taper jeans and frazzled mulletude cruise around effortlessly. but alas - my left foot will never leave the ground. nay, i will trowel only with my right one. like a bull. an angry snorter. taurus malus.

4) when i went over to my friend lindsey's in 7th grade, i caused mutiny. lindsey knew how to behave, but somehow i unleashed a riot of insanity in her. we did the following on a regular basis: stuck glue sticks up our noses so they hung out like opaque tusks, put goobers (chocolate covered peanuts) up there until the chocolate melted and it looked like poo was coming from our nostrils, used her brothers' jock straps as helmets and slingshots until her mom told us what they were for. and that's just the stuff i remember.