the worst limitations on earth

that I will never get to be Russian. Or Jewish. I will never get to live on a small vineyard, and smell the rusty cellar. That I can't go back to being 5 years old, and how magical Barbie commercials were back then.
That I will never get to be a man and marry that cute asian girl that works at Matt's Starbucks. That I won't get to spend a day with Jenny Lewis and make jokes with her. That I won't ever be in the 1800's England, wear those long dresses and meet Mr. Darcy at a ball. (well I met him in a ballroom, but I can't go back there either, it's too long and too late) I won't ever speak French in Morocco or even chop down Amazon overgrowth with a machete.

But I somehow think that heaven will make up for this. That the experience of being with God forever is going to bypass the simple things I will never click out in this life. And I also guess that is why we read.
And then the other thing, is that no girl will ever live exactly in my mind. She won't wake up with 2 hours of sleep and argue with Darrell every morning. She won't shake her hands out cuz they hurt playing my bass. She won't listen to everything on my iPod, I don't think. Sometimes I meet her, close to me, and she is something close to what being in love is, to me.
But she disappears to St. George, or to the arms of a lover.
She disappears to fight global warming.
She smirks, and we are the same but live differently.


What it is, is this: its okay to keep meeting different people who are really the same, and really you, and really lovely.

I worked 11 days in a row without a break, and now, I am sitting here with nothing interesting to say.

I'm starting to think I have carpal tunnel syndrome. I wake up in the night, but my arms are still sleeping.

I am drinking possibly 2 or 3 Passion Tea Lemonades a day.

Celisse and I have exhausted the Redbox, and my arms are tan.

We met often, but never in anything but midnight. And by midnight I mean, it was in the dark.
"Barbara," he says to me. "I do not think you would ever love me if you could see my haircut in the light of day."
But I said, "Kiss me," and I ran my hands through the supposedly uneven hair on top of his head. We would spend the nights doing anything. Once, we sawed open the watermelons in my neighbor's yard. We scarfed them.
One night, we sat on my back porch and smoked 4 packs of cigarettes between us, for a new record. To be honest, I didn't smoke even all of that, but still I loved him.
And even another, we took the dogs for a run, 2 miles in the dark until we lay down in a field of mulch. When I tried to pick up a cactus, he didn't even say anything, and I had serious pain for a day or two.
But that was when I ran into him at the grocery store. I didn't know it was him, but he says to me, "Baby!"
And I looked at him curiously, and he comes up to me close and says low, "Honey, I mean I knew what you looked like. I saw pictures one time."
And here is what I said, I said, "Sid? That is you?" Because, for one, I recognized his voice, although the man in front of me looked like he had seen less better days than a meat grinder and his hair cut. Really. It was as atrocious as he had made it out to be.
So I took a moment to wonder. Does true love come that often? Fanatic love? The kind that makes you run wild in the night and cut down all the tulips in front of city hall when even though there is the Police Station right there? And I said to myself, hell no it does not come that often.
But it was too late because my face had scrunched up into wrinkles that the Botox can't undo, and he sees it with his eyes. Nope, this is not going to work even what with the running wild in the night.
"Sid, what you said. About the haircut," I shrug, clutching my grocery cart even closer as an ocean of bright commercialism in between us.
"I always told you, Barb. And you shoulda called it off months ago," meat-grinder-face walks away slowly from me.
"But Sid," I say to him. "I will always remember the tulips," I giggle. "And breaking into the prosthetics warehouse."
A little smile breaks out into that huge red face of his, and he sighs. But you just don't know til you know.

This is your appropriate and courteous reminder that we're bringing a truckload of something (undiscloseable in this letter) and we need you to fill out the appropriate forms and don't even think about wearing the brown shoes or showing up without the appropriate compensation. You can expect us June 5th, at approximately 4pm, give or take what the traffic lights are doing for us at that time of day. Something unnecessary, but duly appreciated by our truckers is a six pack of literally anything. But that's maybe just if you want to put a smile on their faces. We do not expect to be tipped.

Respectfully yours,

CRSJ INC.

Rachel has a gym membership
Part II
with special guest Celisse Hamburglar

Redbox rentals, cut to commercial break
sleeping in, and recording studio and house church
and basically - commercial break - having a night that makes me remember that everyday is the best day of my life.
Glamor. Semi-charmed kinda life.
But it's the same as it was two weeks ago. I just got happy.

I sat down in the chair, and my neck broke. But I didn't know it was broken until several hours later. If I was ever a kid, I did it in secret.
But this is for the girl that showed up alone to the party.
And this is for that old Native American living alone across America in the oldest bus stations. I see you both hold up your ends of the bargain. Got your distant-photograph-face.
And it tastes like a treadmill.
Continuing walking through weed clouds. Of holding--shoulder jerk and broken arms--the front door open to say goodnight in rainier neighborhoods of I bet you didn't think about lifelessness.
Paint darker pigment into Margaret.

An amazing thing is just feeling good everyday. Or most days.
Not being sick.
Not having a headache.
It was a thing I couldn't remember, and now it is back.

2 days left of school.
Everything is beautiful.

Centrifuge Braking...

I feel like I am just barely getting over a very long weekend (Oh Tuesday I never loved you more) and considering what I have learned after such a huge quantity of Family Time, going to Southern Utah for a day, commercialized Holy Days, and sleeping in forts for more than 3 or 4 nights.

A) In the part of America that I live in, french fries are within walking distance almost always.

B) It is very creepy that Macintosh computers tell you what time it is without warning, and without you asking them. Almost always when you are completely alone, that seemingly innocent Macbook over there (it looks like it's asleep) will suddenly whisper "It's 11 o'clock." And then you scream.

C) I love Jesus, but I hate "Holidays." I'm tired of hype, and really just jealous of everyone else who gets the days off when I have to work.

D) That when I always think I want to move away and start all over, this is completely ridiculous. As homesick as I already am, it would get even worse moving away. I am so grumpy without my friends.

I'm tired from learning. I think I'm going to bed at 7.

You could be thinking "I have my doubts about you," and he could be thinking, "I wonder what's for lunch," but at the end of the day it's still a successful performative when you say "I do."

-My Critical Theory teacher, on successful performatives, and whether or not it matters if you mean what you say (when you're getting married)

"Hey. I was raised by men.



And my mom."

-Audrey

Cute spoon from the Pho restaurant we always go to. It makes me hungry just looking at the picture.

"From time to time I show up in myself just long enough for people to know they are not in the room alone. Usually, these are people who expect something from me--a near future, a not-too-distant future. What I tell them is limited to the people I have already had myself married against. Everything I say is to the best of my knowledge and next to nothing. It comes nowhere close."

-Gary Lutz, Stories in the Worst Way

How Tracy Jordan is affecting my life.

Gertrude. Norma. Maude. Beatrice. Bernice. Judy.

I'm bored from six days of drive through so I just go through names. Only one guy called me on it.
"Welcome to Starbucks, my name is--Maude. What can I get for you?"
"Your name's not Maude."
"Why not?"
"That's too old. And you laughed."
"Yep."
"You should do stripper names next."

So I did that for a little while too. Next time I think I'll go through all the characters on Lost.
This is what I have amounted to.

thought I was layin' in my garden with my fists deep in soil, but I was stranded on an island, shooting flares at your boat

Sometimes I am driving home, and I think, "Oh I should get coffee in the morning on my way to work."

And then I realize that I work at Starbucks.

"Those trailers depreciate so quickly though, like cars."
"Well you know what Tony, they would still appreciate you."
-Bryan

"Maybe when my hair grows long, I will buy a motorcycle."
"Maybe when your hair is longer you'll realize that we have a son together and stop denying him."
"If I ever stop denying him, I'll become an alcoholic."
"Well if you keep pursuing your dream of being on vh1's Divas Live then of course you'll end up an alcoholic. Stop kidding yourself and grow up already."

-a typical text message conversation with Celisse

I am still dreaming about that Saturday somewhere in the future that I get to sleep in. I am exhausted. I am guilty about stuff, but my hands are clean.

Cords and cables. Pumping cold blood back into my arm.

There are doors.


"Ma'am how was your day? Keep your eyes on my face. I want to help you, if you let me."
cold war kids

On the second thought.

Probably like, two months ago I told all my coworkers that I was going to marry a big fat man who didn't care if I was fat. And then I pursued eating every donut and cinnamon roll in our store that I could get my hands on. I filled cups full of signature hot chocolate and whip cream and let it go up my nose until I felt completely happy.

Two days later when it went straight to my love handles, I called upon Mia St. John and the Skinny Bitches. They helped me get straightened out, and I felt so much better.

And now I am in a place of confusion whether I want to eat an entire chocolate cake by myself, or if I want to run for 3 hours a day until I am high off the seratonin and ibuprofen.

These decisions end up making me take a nap.

Best day ever.

Well not really. But its a really wonderful day and I feel obnoxiously happy and thankful.
I missed the first train this morning, but then it was fine. I got on the next one and played Lego Star Wars for half an hour. I made it to my first class on time, miraculously. Somehow I got all the copies of my story (by the way I wrote a story, and it actually has a happy ending!) made in time to just sit and eat with Kristyn. I even got my school i.d. from the lost and found, so I don't have to pay $20 for a new one. I turned in everything on time, and my teacher ended class talking about Lost.
I got a cup of coffee at my store, and workshopped some papers.

I think you could beat me with a stick, and I would just laugh. I'm deliriously happy for no other reason than that Jesus is good.

what I want
Is to sleep in on a Saturday,
eat steaming hot waffles with so much butter that I could hear my arteries clog themselves up, drink Ethiopian Sun dried Sidamo black at the perfect temperature, read my Bible, and then go back to bed.

I believe in this vision. I just believe its a few more months away.

I was really ready to remember a better you that spoke French, even if I take the bus. Even when I fall asleep with my arm on the thermostat, even when I was crying about the older sentences we'd found so amusing, I mean not crying actually. laughing.

They'd take my arms off first and give them to a girl who wanted to hold her child.
They'd take my legs off next and make some girl walk more miles than before she'd been attacked by a shark.
And then I'd feel really sorry. I'd write them letters and say, I'm sorry you'll get bruises now; never figured that one out. One'd write back and say, "I found the burn on your right arm, where you dropped a pan of hot water. The other'd write back and say, "You have flat feet, but some good shape otherwise."
But that would be the end of it, a farewell to limbs.

And then I'd wake up in a Tim Burton movie, or else South Dakota and make a lot more spelling errors than I use to. Better sentences, more amusing.
I'd put Z's where S's go, like I was British.
I wouldn't eavesdrop or drink lattes.
You wouldn't either.
I'd put a note on my calendar when you're coming back, but forget because I'd drop my phone in a boiling river by accident.
It's okay, for a Wednesday though.

tracing the lines in my face for something more beautiful than is there

I like second-hand smoking best. I was standing behind this kid, in front of the door as he was smoking it down to the end, and it smelled rich. Not like the smoke left in your clothes or car. It was smoking and still smelling. Hopefully second-hand smoking won't give me blood clots...
Anyways.
It's Spring today, and I'm thinking about the farm. Dying for the farm. But I'm enjoying life. I'm enjoying sunshine.
Not upset about losing my Train pass, or about guys asking me out, or about my teacher going long, or about all the things that are coming apart at the seams.

Because things are lovely. (I think it's been the 10 hour nights I've been sleeping, and reading the Bible before the sun comes out.)

"Hail to whatever you found in the sunlight that surrounds you. Pretend all the good things are for you. Pretend all the good things are for me too. The weather changes not halfway between your house and mine."
-Rilo Kiley

things you can tell just by looking at her

That she'll easily break my heart.
That the hair in her face is hiding a child I've known all my life, but just met a few months ago.
That she could run my fingers over the scars on her arm until I didn't know who I was or she was.
That she is beautiful and needs to be held tightly til she's not crazy anymore.

And the part that hurts the most is that I can't express to her how Jesus wants her, and wants to make right with God for her. How the nights have hope when to live is Christ.
I'm scared about the explosion.

Ma'am how was your day? Keep your eyes on my face.

Sometimes, it ends up that the sugar in your bloodstream makes that guy look a little familiar.
You think you should explain, "I'm sorry, you look so much like someone I know."
And he is staring at you, thinking, "You are a crazy wacko: hand me my drinks and let me go."
And you think, "No, I brushed my hair today. And if I lean out the window, will you take me in your arms and love me better than he did? Since you look like him, can you just love me a little bit better?"
But you hand him his drinks and don't say anything.
You stop drinking so much coffee, and grow a little older.

"I mean if you smell your hands, they smell like 'hands'...at best."
-Matt Kilpatrick

it's a little like chasing Charles. Only now, a year and a half later, I'm hitting all the red lights--you don't call, you don't write-- and I can hear him singing next to me and I smile because, you are letting your guard down aren't you? Its my arm out the window.
We'd stare and stare, Charlie, and I'm going to come looking for you in Arizona or whatever. If you're going to be there, or Colorado. That's fine too. Grow up cynical on East side or West side, Charlie. Free burritos.
Erase all unread.
Erase meeting men too suddenly.
Erase first dates if he doesn't believe in God.
But keep your iPod close and look at me across parking lot libraries.

It could have been good, Charles.

Uh, I am suddenly in love with tennis. Its all I can think about. I'm finally back into working out outside. I am done with Mia St. John, and the Skinny Bitches (yes, they are really out there, and they are a great workout). And my fingers turn purple and I can visualize my lungs filling up with ice. But it's very spring for February.
God is so good.
So good.

The summer I graduated, Danny came back from the war. I remember driving around Peoria with him and Jackie, singing "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier" and feeling the immediate shame.
We were driving to Home Depot.
We got there, and he was sitting on a glider, staring off. Jackie was saying something, there were birds flying around the ceiling, trapped in the warehouse. All I could do was look at him and wonder where he was.
We knew that he had changed. We could feel it. It was like walking on eggshells, and pretending that none of us had felt the terror of gunfire and roadside bombs.
But my grandfather and I sat next to each other at a bonfire one night, and he held my hand because I was weeping. He started to weep with me, even though we were broken in two different ways.
He wept for Dan and how you can't come back with the same innocence. I wept because I felt I was shell of a person, and that you weren't supposed to go into the beginning of real life feeling like you were hollow inside.

We've since been healed, the three of us in different ways, although my grandfather is blind now, and my heart doesn't beat the same way because of what the last three years have done to it. But I think what I mean is that I miss the Midwest.
The holiness of empty fields and eternal sunshine.
The roots you put down one time, and seeing that they still give you a foundation later on.
The only place you ever found unconditional love.

Yeah, the first time you met Jesus.

"It's always a good story if it has tamales. Its just true that everyone likes tamales."
-Matt Kilpatrick

what we need is just what we want

It wasn't that I didn't like Jeff. I just take a really long time to warm up to very outspoken people who try too hard to get me to like them the first hour I know them. So he automatically thought I hated him.
"Can you remember a day in your life that you were nice to me, Rachel," he says to me one day. I pause for a very long time because I am vacuuming coffee grinds. I close my eyes and grit my teeth. Finally I just go along with it.
"No, not a specific day, Jeff."
"Funny, neither can I."
"I don't hate you Jeff. You don't understand me or my humor."
He made me a nice mix tape for Christmas anyway. It had a Vampire Weekend song I'd never heard, a Ryan Adams song and a Pinback song that make me cry, a good Cat Powers jam, a Spoon favorite remixed...and so on. It took me a while to think that maybe I should be nice to him. The Stars song was what did it.
So one day I started a conversation with him about the music that was playing at Starby's. We were talking about the band's last album and how it'd been a while since they'd come out with something.
"It was the end of 2006," I told him.
"Yeah, you're right. It was like, October. Because that was when she told me she didn't love me anymore, and I was foolish to think she'd get excited about me telling her about that album." But the way he said it wasn't like how most sappy guys are trying to go for pity. It was matter of fact. I respected him for that, because I realized he was a deeply sad person, but never shows this. Its always about the dumb jokes. He doesn't open up. I like that.
"Yeah, I remember stuff like that by the relationships too," I admitted to him.

And we still piss each other off. But we kinda don't try to kill each other anymore.

some things I know.

I know its hard to find things in your truck when the overhead light doesn't work for several years. I know that somehow your skin adapts to 20 degree weather, and that the bus driver doesn't remember your face no matter how many times you thank him, with snow in your hair. I know that for some reason old scars do go away after a while, and that this is a blessing. I know that coffee ruins and saves lives. I know that the neater the piles, the more pieces of myself I can find laying around my house, and stuff in my bag to sort out later. I know how to work the washing machine. I know about the other girls the rock star is writing, in the other towns. I know to floss now. I know which things to keep secret in the freezing car, and which ones to admit to. I know I miss medicine, and the race, and purpose.

I don't answer the phone if I do not know who's calling, but I guess the whole point is that we never know really.

no taste for you left, even if my hair grows long.
if that carpet was vacuumed up and the cell phones were charged
We're clean
unhappy
carbonated
and can't find out all the secrets.

Little girl on the bus: "I'm gonna throw snow at my daddy. Like, roll it in a ball and say, "whoops!"
Her brother: "Can I throw snow at my daddy too?"
Their mom: "You can put some in the freezer and save it for when he comes back from California."

I spent a lot of time on Mass Transit today. And went to the mall with my backpack on, which is awkward, especially at a store like Urban, or Lolabella. "Hi, I'm just a crazy weirdo with a backpack on. No I'm not stuffing clothes in it. I'm just a student. Sorry."

Done with:
-5 weeks of school
-1/2 of my total papers due in critical theory
-cafe rio (never again)

eventually our mouths will just turn to dust

I know when I get to heaven, I will be stoked about a mansion and stuff like that, like not having headaches, and hanging out with my friends and peace.
But really what I want, is to just read through stacks and stacks
of
reports.

Rachel , welcome to Heaven. Yep. You died at age 63 of complications of cancer. The good news is you're in heaven now, and we just thought you should know that you:
listened to Acid Tongue by Jenny Lewis 18234 times
over the course of your life you used 32424000 rolls of toilet paper
you ate 792 bowls of pho
you went through 46 bottles of shampoo (it would have been more but remember when you were working on dreadlocks?)
845 bowls of mac and cheese
you saved 1200 gallons of gas by taking the bus and riding your bike
You got 1750 bruises, but only 24 were bigger than a baseball
you ate 3 rocks and 2 starfish that were as hard as a rock, and swallowed 9 spiders because you slept in the basement.
Yours truly,
The counters


It would be something cool like that, but more color coordinated.

For some reason, I told Amalia my entire love-life this afternoon before leaving Celisse's house. She gave some very sound advice in her Spanish accent for 20 minutes, and then I laughed and went to the Dentist.
I worshipped God with Jason Mraz the whole way there, but Mraz doesn't know this. With an entirely numb face and a generally optimistic outlook towards mankind I set off into the world.
I'm feeling pretty good from diet and exercise. I haven't smoked in ages, and God walks with me where I go. Despite all of my friends getting pregnant or married and settling down all around me, I feel like the majority of us are on the verge of something life changing (as if those things aren't life changing). Like a balloon ride above the pollution here, only more hardcore. Like where we are going to go.
Perhaps because LOST is back on.

In the beginning of January I was smacking my head in my hands thinking how many steps backward I had taken since the January prior. I felt burnt out, tired of "church", and ready to join the army, or something equally brash. But as quickly as it's gone, the first month of this year has made me realize that despite losing a lot of the amazing things that were keeping me going a year ago, I am always growing, God is always teaching me new things, and that if your friends are any good in the first place, then they are easy to graft back into, whether you chopped off your branches, or they helped you out with it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, that after learning a lot about self-discipline from John McArthur, from quitting coffee, from working out and going to bed early, from sleepovers with Celisse, and after packing away Christmas and the other depths of winter, my heart is finally ready to heal over, and begin again. To be best friends with Jesus first, to have new plans of hope, to have new destinations.
And starting this adventure alone doesn't bother me, but leaves me young and gutsy and free.

Yes, I'm slaying dragons every morning without coffee.

Murder me Rachael, I've made a mistake

My Writing teacher has a tattoo sleeve that he keeps barely hidden, he casually mentioned that he eats pho (by accident), and he's a grad student who drinks water almost as nervously as I do.
I think I have a crush on him.

In other news, I really have been feeling blessed by a few things

-I don't even carry pills around with me when I leave my home for days because I haven't been having headaches
-sleeping at the Momberger's; always. Its wonderful not waking up to a house full of dogs, and Celisse is pretty great too. Ha ha.
-being free: I hardly ever worry anymore about doctor appointments, homework assignments, working 40 hours, money, men, anemia, going to church, band practice. It's like I hit the easy button.

It could be because I've been listening to rap from Jeff the Vegan.

I've been wrestling.

I don't know what I'm up against but I keep fighting and it feels amazing. I throw punches and someone is smiling.
I sat in the dark last night because there was a huge power out. Lit candles and tried to fall asleep without white noise, thinking about what my life is going to be like when its over, and it just looks white, like the end of a book. Like snowfall. When you end up turning the next page and there's nothing?

I run. I run for me, and someone else out there I don't know yet; I keep running. And I am flawed if I'm not free.


"I could follow you into the rubble, or stay right here and save myself some trouble."
-Aimee Mann

My eyes and lungs hurt from the very short time I've spent outside today, waiting for the bus in the pollution.
It wears me out.
And so do annoying English majors.


But God is pretty cool, and I have faith that it has to rain or snow sometime. If it doesn't I'll probably hop a flight to anywhere.

I thought Kayleigh died, but it turned out she just broke her phone, and she's been right here, the whole time, playing Halo with her boyfriend.
I woke up to a text from her, "Rachel rachel rachel rachel, hi hi hi hi hi hi how are you?"
So it turns out that she is even more than alive. She is shooting aliens or something, and she picked one of the six guys, and finally settled down. It made me smile in a fog of alarms as I was waking, to know that she is back from Dixie and that she didn't fall down a mountain, which has happened to at least one person I love very much.

I was trying to decide if it really was worth taking the bus over the train, and I just don't have any answers yet.
I was galloping out to my truck in the warm night air (Well, it's practically summer by now, here, of late) with a flash light, happy to collide with any massive objects made out of metal and collecting pieces of my day to play over again after chicken, polenta, and salad with basalmic vinaigrette, and I just thought,
"Why not?" smile and think of old text messages when you were happy a hundred years ago, or maybe 2008. "Why not be completely, utterly, and divinely happy, despite it being the season of despair?" You can still vacuum the carpet and hear happy accordion music whether or not Darrell hates it. You can even like Ed Hardy, whether or not Darrell hates it.

And I did buy 4 pens today, which is probably why I'm in such a good mood.

"When you're little you think that you'll never catch on fire, but it's really surprising that so many people actually do."
-Celisse, on the Stop, Drop, and Roll method

Dear Kayleigh,
where are you? I am really starting to worry. Every time I see snowboarders or girls with their hair braided down the side of their heads, I think, "where is my Kayleigh?" and you are nowhere to be found in this moment of now.

Please tell me that you are not in an avalanche.
Goodbye,

Rache

Its funny how when your classes are over, you really don't know if you'll see your classmates ever again, and so I said to Katie the other night, "Well, have a good life." Although this is a very small town in someways and it is quite possible that you will run into them again unless they move to Europe or California. But then, you could possibly run into them in Disneyland. It's happened before. I've at least seen Casey three times this semester on campus, and he'd been the one last year to tell me, "Okay, have a good life, and walked out of Building D on Murray Campus.
I was thinking about it during the last train ride with Luke, and how I probably wouldn't ever see him again, but I'd meet the same guy a few more times before I graduate. I'll have several more boyfriends to ride the trains with, or talk about Norma Jean concerts in Ogden, or be upset about Spanish with.
So....so long Luke, and Katie with the tattoos and there was Charles whom I had loved a year ago in ENGL 2500, or William that I went to the Art Barn with who was tall and had smart glasses, and I could never tell if he was all the way straight...
I will meet you again, or I will not meet you, and no hard feelings.

One day, as I was playing reruns of her in my head, rereading all the notes she'd written me in short and sporadic meter and thought, I wondered if maybe she knew she was crazy. That she'd realized long ago that it worked for her, whether or not a person could appreciate her the same way I could, because they would at least like her, if not love her the same way I do. Her hair kept changing color, and maybe I couldn't reach out for her, but she'd still be there with her eyes open wide and her laughter would wake me up after I'd been awake for hours.
Whether she knows still, that she is crazy, I don't really know and I'll quit caring. But I can't stop loving it from hours and hours away.

"Is this the way that my life was supposed to play out, Liz? The kid who paid his way through Princeton by working day shifts at the graveyard, and graveyard shifts at that Days Inn?"
-Jack on 30 Rock

For a minute yesterday, I forgot the word leg.
This is not as bad as 3 days of forgetting the word jar, but leg is a word you use a lot more frequently than jar.
I kept poking my leg, on TRAX, thinking "Pants? Pants. Pants." Getting frustrated cuz that couldn't be the right word. I started saying it out loud, hoping it would come to me. Pants. Pants? "When I wake up in the morning, I put my jeans on my....pants," I whispered. Nope. Wait, leg. The word is leg. I put my pants on my legs.

I'm doing a little better today now that I had so much sleep. But seriously.

"Well I think that we should all be a little suspicious of a person who does not have piles in their home."
-Judy

I live on fremont ave. that's the small duplex, you can even see it from the train. right there: with the green door and that's my blue honda civic parked out front. the man next door is gay. his name is harry and he teaches classes at the community college and high school but no one really knows he is gay.
He lives alone also, although I didn't always live alone. I lived with a man named James and he was handsome and we'd watch law and order together and make pancakes on the weekends but we don't do that anymore because one day he woke up and said that I wasn't what he always wanted out of life and he ended up going back to Pennsylvania in the spring and I looked into the mirror day after day reciting poetry I'd memorized a long time ago. I looked older but I still lived in the duplex.
I spent several evenings with a bottle of wine in my hands, consulting a good friend here or there over drunk conversations on a cellular telephone. The next morning I'd realize I was really going to be fine, and wrote down grocery lists in a little red notebook that would fit into the back pocket of paper denim jeans, sliding slightly off my hips now that I'd lost a little weight.
The sun would creep up later over the buildings and the shadows would make us colder than normal, but it was always alright on Fremont.
Staring at a baby: you don't have to stare back to them if you don't want. No one will know if you don't look that baby back into its eyes. It won't tell anyone, cuz it's a baby, I thought and then went weak in the knees, thinking of James and staring out that window instead of a baby.
And there's my duplex. Here's the stop, sorry, man, I've got to go, but call me later, okay Sara? OF COURSE, she replies, coughing into her coat and pretending.
She always pretends.
And I found out today that my gay neighbor Harry; his sister died. His mother was at his side of our house weeping, but I don't know Harry well enough to console either of them until she takes me into her arms. I make them dinner and she says,
"Lucy was a good girl, she was with a horrible slut of a man, but she was a good girl," and I've got to frown a little bit. I'm making them spaghetti and Harry is in the other room flipping channels, and I forgive him for not weeping over his sister, he is coping, I tell myself.
I pet his mother on the head, wipe her tears off a little bit and tell her something nice, something about love that I won't believe for a long time,
but that's how it is on
Fremont.