BLUESEAURCHIN

The Other Place - New Yorker Fiction

2011-02-15T19:27:00.000-08:00

The Other Place
By Mary Gaitskill in the New Yorker

In the short story, “The Other Place”, the narrator, observes his own flawed DNA through his young son Douglas whom he believes to have inherited his undesirable traits - speech impediment, a slight tremor and more ominously, a penchant for enjoying violence against woman. He studies Douglas's oddities with concern, fear and an eery personal understanding that pulls him back to his own troubled childhood in search of the wounds which have created a dangerous fascination with pain and destruction. He traces the path that lead from his frustrations at failing to communicate adequately with the girl next door while being burdened with an emotionally turbulent mother pushing him to create an escape in “another place” where he is the oppressor and not the oppressed. He fantasizes about these moments into which he escapes into. Unable to build a romantic relationship nor to leave his oppressive household his pain crescendos and he buys a gun to unleash his unhappiness onto someone else. He does not count on the possibility that the person has more problems then he does, and that she does not cower as he envision she would, but instead refuses to go along with his plans and eventually orders him out of her car. She has forced him out of his “other place” his escape to a more violently empowering self, but now strangely years after he encounters her again in his sons dream he realizes he must be there for his son now.

The Dungeon Master by Sam Lipsyte

2010-10-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

New Yorker short story “The Dungeon Master” illustrates the playfully funny yet sometimes seriously dramatic journey from a difficult childhood to a perhaps more complicated adulthood. In this piece the main character bares witness to a troubled friend whom he accompanies with other peers through the imaginative world of Dungeons and Dragons as they struggle with their insecurities by waging imaginary wars and stealing dragon's treasures. The insecure dungeon master consistently overstepping his claims of power and control by bullying both the narrator and his peers through the game forces the narrator to finally rebel and break free of his control.

Having broken away from the unstable group he struggles to find his own identity in the world. These adult struggles provide him with some maturity and enough distance from his former friend to see the issues that plague him. At the end of the story the Dungeon Master asks “No hard feelings?” to which the other puzzles at the stupidity of the comment when he contemplates how difficult feelings really are. It is clear that the Dungeon Master has failed to successfully develop into adulthood by refusing to confront his own feelings namely about his being kicked out of his house and his precarious future living arrangements. The strange question jars the narrator into realizing that his friend has graduated from troubled child to possible future suicide and that his own prospective is perhaps not much brighter.

The Warm Fuzzies by Chris Adrian

2010-09-21T21:59:00.000-07:00

The Warm Fuzzies, a short story about finding finding one self through love in the confusing circus of life.

Peabo waltzes into Mollies heavily confining world, dancing to his own beat, untethered by the family's stern judgements and controlling behavior, sauntering strait into her bed.

Molly suffering her extreme family environment with bouts of an cynical alter ego voice finds a momentary escape with Peabo who mesmerizes her by rocking to his own beat remaing serenely impervious to the insanity around him. The family's music stops but he continues to hear own music, create his own verse, making his own rythms and rules so that when the father karate chops his family into silence Peabo not noticing continues happily to groove on. He is not dependent on them to keep his behavior in check or to be happy. He is free.

By the end of the story Molly loses the cynical alter ego voice through which she unwittingly sought independence from her controlling family because she too has learned to be free of them, making her own dance and music long after her family has stopped playing.

The Landlord by Wells Tower

2010-09-16T16:30:00.000-07:00

“The Landlord” is a story of astonishingly stubborn passivity in the face of situations which necessitate decision and action. The theme if not common in contemporary literature is relevant as reflection of the complacency that plagues modern culture today.

Lord of the manor, lord of the castle, landlord, alas the narrator is none of these. He is fact tottering towards peasant-hood, having owned 52 properties but which has now precariously dwindled to a mere nineteen by his apparent inaction. These few properties, including the house in which he lives, are also threatened to be seized so that he is forced to envision selling the cottage his parents left him and which he had hoped to retire to.

Enmeshed by his inaction with comically troubled characters that take over his lifeless life as he simply follows the direction they push him sending him to and fro like an empty bag caught in the wind. Berated by his worker, manipulated by his tenants, chastised by his daughter, he accepts everything meekly trudging day by day in the decadent growing squalor which threatens to swallow him while never once rebelling.

From the first paragraph is another character with this passive tendency, a tenant who is waiting for life to knock on his door as he sits around reading motivational books from which he quotes to his landlord while accepting his lot of living in one of the most filthiest apartments. The tenant owes three months rent which instead of paying he has the audacity to tell the landlord that a man like himself should wear tailored shirts. The landlord instead of growing understandably angry at being told what to do with his money by this tenant who owes him thirteen hundred dollars and threatening him with eviction allows the conversation to drift casually.

Todd Toole, his employee casually and systematically bombards him with a flow of rude insults which he accepts as his due. His daughter who has moved back home and apparently has the means to help her father does not but instead obliviously humiliates him as a way of expressing herself. Then there is the tenant, Connie, who does not do her part at keeping her apartment pest free but orders the landlord to fumigate which might not be a necessity had she keep her food in a more sanitary manner. She then brazenly takes this moment to explain to him that she legally does not have to pay rent which she declares is her right covered by the constitution. After claiming this absurd idea she foists food on him which he doesn’t want, doesn’t like, but meekly accepts and just as he is about to escape her presence, she makes a date with him which he feels obliged to go on.

Finally at the end of the story, grasping at some initiative much too late, he arrives at Armando’s apartment to find it entirely empty and stripped of all hardware including fridge and stove with only a small note which the tenant had evidently left to himself. The note explains the key to all this complacent thinking, a self deluded dream that no action is required for success.

“Money comes easily and frequently”

The narrator puts the note in his wallet demonstrating his belief in this illogical idea while bringing our attention to a wallet we fear will soon hold nothing but the note if he does not abandon the foolish notion. ♦

An Arranged Marriage by Nell Freudenberger

2010-09-01T15:47:00.000-07:00

“An Arranged Marriage” singles out that brief moment in life when children abandon safe hand-holding parental guidance to reach for their freedom to create their own world.

Amina who considers her mother a partner is wrong in this assessment, the mother holds a more powerful influence then a simple partner which implies that decision are shared, which is not the case here where her mother makes the most personal decision for her. Like a child she allows her mother to select her husband by following her strict list of requirements even though she doubts she can find one that will fulfill them all thus risking never marrying and most likely never going to America. Amina then also dutifully submits to her mother a perspective mates shortcomings based on her mothers requirements risking his disqualification. He enjoys Heinkens but "together" mother and daughter decide that he is "still a good man". However if the requirements and the value system being used is that of the mothers, then the judgment that he is “still a good man” is that of her mothers. Her mother is selecting her daughter’s husband.

This control over her daughter is again witnessed by Amin’s desire to put her picture online but patiently succumbing to her mothers refusal even though she knows it is likely to leave her with a smaller pool of perspective husbands to the very few unlikely men who do not care about looks.

Then even as her daughter is in America, her mother attempts to control the wedding while in India via telephone, insisting that she wear a sari though he daughter who has Western taste and who is being married in American to an American would obviously prefer a western styled dress.

Now she is in American and if the marriage was somewhat arranged by her mother’s stipulations of who Amina’s husband she be, Amina now has the freedom to decide what kind of relationship they will have. On just her third night in American deciding to use her newly found freedom she disregards her mothers orders not to have premarital sex and is completely unrepentant the next day when she explains her surprise at waking up next to George and not regretting it.

The phrase in the last paragraph stresses the theme of gaining independence well when Amina says “In Desh, you can make your plans, but they usually do not succeed.” What Amina is describing is in her own country, under her mothers dominance, plans can be precarious because her mother has power to cancel them and Amina must acquiesce. This is also explains why once married she is “dumbfounded” to the point she forgets to kiss her husband during the ceremony by her sudden realization that she does not need her mother and is entirely free to make her own decisions from then on.

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/09/06/100906fi_fiction_freudenberger

The Science of Flight by Yiyun Li - New Yorker Fiction

2010-08-26T05:01:00.000-07:00

"The Science of Flight" is a touching portrait of a woman whose difficult past has created a desperate fear of intimacy coupled with a conflicting desire to have friends which drives her to invent stories to hide behind, to preserve her few weak relationships through and to dream with.

Zinchen was born out of wedlock to spite her father, kept by her grandmother to spite her daughter while being reproached her existance by all. Forbidden to exist, she secrets her self away into fragments of other peoples memories and assumptions about her to be snagged by the sharp edge debris of her memories.

The title, the study of flight, denotes the manner in which Zichen survives her past to build "a life of flight, of discarding the inessential and the essential alike, making use of the stolen pieces and memories, retreating to the lost moments of other people’s lives."

The word Flight in the title describes someone soaring, victory, leaving the nest, surpassing difficulty; yet it also has the more troubling meaning of fleeing, "to take flight", to escape. The title uses both positive and negative connotation of the word in that Zichen manages to escape to a better life in a another more prosperous country but she is always trying to escape her past, never landing, never still, never allowing herself to be herself. ♦

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/08/30/100830fi_fiction_li?currentPage=all#ixzz0xYDB4r7b

blueseaurchin at g-mail

Second Lives by Daniel Alarcón

2010-08-12T15:58:00.000-07:00

“Second Lives” is the oil / water separation between starting a new life and being tied to an old one through family responsibility. Families hold the key to our history and ultimately to our identity while starting a new life forces us to adapt and reinvent ourselves. The two situations never blend but remain separate leaving the main character to abandon his family in the middle of a revolution and a neighbor to leave his wife to the neighborhoods ridicule of her situation.

The main character illustrates this idea through his older brother, Francisco’s whos first letters describes the weather as a bather might notice the pools temperature while not committing to dive. Then by the fourth letter, immersed in his new life “he omits to ask the family how they are instead focusing the content on his developing social life at school.”

Then a again a few line down the main character notes “We did eventually get a photo of the few American friends Francisco acquired in those first months, and perhaps this could have clued us in about his eagerness to move on.”

The name of the family Francisco stays with is, Villanueva, means new house. Francisco who no longer shares his family’s experiences, instead lives in a new house, with a new family, in a new culture. The word “new” itself seems to imply a relacement of that which can now be considered old which in his case is his past, his family, his origins.

Francisco having completely acclimated to his new life continues to move from area to area even though this makes it difficult for his parents and brother to get their visas through him enabling them an escape from a difficult revolution. The main charactuer surmises that Francisco’s attitude must stem from him wanting to forget where he had come from in order to be american. After all, this is what the Villanueva’s children were attempting in their refusal to learn the Spanish language and which was stressed again when they warned Francisco immediately upon his arrival that they didn’t speak his language even though their father was Spanish and a Spanish teacher.

The younger brother soliloquizes that he understands the need to have a second life which he compares to peoples interest in avatars and virtual realty. He himself imagined an American life for years bolstered by his brothers experiences, and pictures as well as through his attempts to learn American culture.

Then their was another character that underwent this transition as well. The neighbors husband who left his wife to live with a mistress is another way of starting a new life. The writer draws out the treachery the wife suffers of being left behind which forces her to evaluate how well we know each other and perhaps who we really are.

She asks the mother “where are your people from?” then she continues “How well do we know each other, really, Monica? Do I know what you do?”

In the end, we comprehend this need to adapt and shed an old life but we are torn because we also cannot help but feel compassion for those left behind just like the little brother who hurt and bitter attempts to forget Francisco but fails.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/08/16/100816fi_fiction_alarcon?currentPage=all#ixzz0wQom6qYa

The Train of Their Departure by David Bezmozgis

2010-08-03T06:57:00.000-07:00

The Train of Their Departure by David Bezmozgis describes a powerful and unavoidably common theme found in society and literature today, a disconnected impersonal isolation from ourselves and those we should be closest to.

All of the main characters appear to have little emotions for themselves or those around them starting from the very beginning where it is explained Polina did not fall in love for Maxima but allowed him to pursue her into dating, sex and eventually marriage based on curiosity over his impersonal and "robotic” advances.

Even the secondary characters we never meet seem destined with the same fate: “her friends did not fall in love but descended into infatuation.”

Maxim, her futures husband is not immune from this disconnect isolation from feeling as he is described being attracted to her as one might a future business partner citing her hard working and serious minded attributes. Even when it describes how he brings her flowers it is viewed a perfunctory act by both Maxima and Polina with the phrase “he had established a habit of bring her flowers once a week.”

During abortion procedure, which is perhaps one of the most personal procedures one can have it is described by a physical sense of disconnectedness: “Like a magician’s assistant, Polina felt as if she had been split in two. The doctor and the nurse pretended that her top half didn’t exist and dealt only with her bottom half.” Her top half, her self is divorced from the operation.

During the operation she also describes focusing on only her top part pretending that what happens below is very far away as if the operation isn’t happening to her but a remote situation unconnected to her.

Then when she wages a bet with Alec to determine whether or not they would see each other again Polina makes an effort to shoot well “as if to win” as if to avoid seeing Alec again but not because she did or didn’t want to see him but simply because “she could not perform otherwise”. She should be able to make a decision whether she would like to see him or not and moderate her efforts towards those ends to win or lose but instead she explains she has to perform well as if she is at work and the outcome of the bet are of no consequence to her.

Later Polina discovers she is pregnant and confronts Alec tht she is “almost certain” the child is Alecs and not her husbands. “Almost certain” indicates she continued to have martial relations during her relationship with Alec just as Alec had keep himself occupied when he did not see Polina. This is not a story of passion and love but of people in the motions of doing things as one might find in a factory which appropriately enough happens also to be where they both work.

Although Polina is upset with the situation she isn’t passionate or even remotely emotional about where this might leave her relationship with Alec. When questioned by him about her plans she explains she can raise the child with her husband, alone or with someone else. The very possibility that she can think of someone else at this moment signifies that she is not overly attached to her relationship with either her husband or her lover or even a desire to be alone.

The ending is quiet ironic, as the one thing Polina seems to want vehemently is to avoid a 2nd abortion and the only thing Alec appear to care somewhat about is the welfare of the unbord child yet they decide to have the abortion anyway to preserve a relationship which seems at best based more on companionable convenience then about deep feelings.

This idea can be witnessed in the last few paragraphs when Alec decides to offer her to come with him out of Russia as a conciliatory/consolatory gesture for having the abortion which she responds to in kind by cautioning him not to “try to hard next time he will be telling her he loves her.” The title “The Train of Their Departure” can be viewed as a departure from the only thing both main characters hold dear, the unborn child which in the end, they don’t feel strongly enough about to keep.

New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/08/09/100809fi_fiction_bezmozgis

Blue Water Djinn by Téa Obreht

2010-07-27T23:09:00.000-07:00

Blue Water Djinn

There is a sense of pervading isolation in this story starting with the main character a young boy named Jack. Little Jack is left alone at a hotel in an Arabic country . He is placed in a context of a foreign country, immersed within a foreign culture amid a hotel with foreigners from different countries all as displaced and separate as he is but perhaps more so because he is the only child. He lives in the hotel alone with little supervision from adults which enables him to slip in and out at night and witness the drowning of one of characters labeled the Frenchman. Unable to make sense of this adult drama he keeps this secret to himself as he watches everyone search for the disappeared man whose clothes have washed up on the shore. The secret further separates him from those around him and weighs heavily on him.

The Frenchman like Jack is also isolated by being in a foreign country, but also being set apart from everyone by his substantial weight. When they find his clothes washed ashore they laugh at the size as they lay it on the sand, he is considered more of a joke then a person. The Frenchman does not have a real identity or a name and is instead referred to solely by humorous references to his portly size and his nationality.

The Frenchman’s drawings of things caught in the fisherman’s net is a symbol of creatures pulled out their habitat similar to the plight of the main characters: the boy and the Frenchman. It also speaks of the creatures final separation from earth, death. The Frenchman is aware of what they symbolize as the author describes him “There was something cowed and lonely in the Frenchman’s face when he looked at the things that came out of the water.” Then later again he is confronted by a turtle which has been hurt and pulled out of its habitat which it struggles with great effort to return to as it takes eight men to hold it in place. Again the Frenchman is aware of the turtles isolation as the author describes the scene through Jacks eyes. The Frenchman clearly wanted to touch the turtle, but the struggle on the beach made that impossible. The phrases bespeak of isolation of being ripped from the familiar but also the isolation found in death when the Frenchman questions the hotel employees about the crack on it’s back. He experiences a sense of lonely association with this suffering animal but even here he cannot touch it or connect with it because of the situation.

In the last scene the child is again alone on the beach at night looking through the port hole of sunken boat for the Djinn that the hotel employees have told him reside there which is off limits to all guests because of the dangers it represents. He is able to access the boat because of the low tide and we wonder if the tide will come in seperating Jack from the living like the Frenchman.

The Dredgeman’s Revelation by Karen Russell

2010-07-21T17:05:00.000-07:00

This story seems to investigate the strangeness of life and death, being and not being, living and not living. The main character, Louis is born dead to a dead mother and then as if he reverses his decision to be dead decides to live. Unfortunately for him he is sent to a family where he describes his escape from them as a coming alive, while also alluding to having killed his adoptive father. Simple put he has killed not to save his life but in order to live.

Louis later signs up for work on a barge where the crews lives our put on hold so that they are waiting their return to land in order to live again while Louis wants to avoid this return to land and perhaps to living to the point he fantisizes about sabotaging the ship.

Then, the end of the story, the ship does not return to land but instead catches fire which kills a crew member attracting scavenger birds. Louis discovers before being killed by these birds that he does in fact want to live just as death is at his door step and it is to late for him to do so.

An Honest Exit by Dinaw Mengestu

2010-07-15T17:01:00.000-07:00

An Honest Exit by Dinaw Mengestu

There are two exists in Dinaw Mengestu's story in which both man intentionally leave something behind to take back their identity and through this their dignity. Their exit is described as honest since it is departure from their compliant roles.

The son who teaches at a prestigous class leaves behind a job he feels he has unwittingly played the part of a trained monkey teaching class concerning a history which is not his own effacing his own identity as a black man. His father's death acts as a catalyst for him to grasp at his own immigrant history to reaffirm who he is.

Then there is his father who is forced to play the compliant puppet obeying Abrahim in order to leave Africa but who once in Europe rebels reassuming his independent identity and his desires.

Then their is also the fact that there is something not so honest about either mans exit from their former behavior. The father is breaking a pact he agreed to maintain with Abrahim, and the son has invented parts of his father's history. In order to be true to themselves, as adults, they realize that things are not so simple as the son students beleive them to be and that sometimes being honest is not a luxury we always have.

New Yorker: Lenny Hearts Eunice

2010-07-15T14:10:00.000-07:00

New Yorker: Lenny Hearts Eunice
by Gary Shteyngart

The Game of Love is the salt on the twisty pretzel knot of life demonstrating how a little love helps us to endure the meadering knots we all work through which also perversly make us appreciate life, love, and pain all the more.

Lenny knows he will struggle, fail, lose his job, be abandoned by new generation and suffer their redicule but will hold on to love and savor the moments he has.

The salty pretzel is appreciated because of it's twists, gaps, and finite quality. Enjoy it now, it's almost gone.

Gossip Girl: I want my friend back this will be easier done with serena out of the picture.

2010-04-15T20:16:00.000-07:00

Chuck: I want my friend back - this will be easier done with Serena out of the picture.

He's not referring to Nate. He can always be friends with Nate even with Serena in the picture. It makes more sense that he is speaking of Blair.

He needs Serena to stay away in order to win her back. Chuck knows that if Serena returns she will act as a moral compass guiding Blair to stay away from the "bad" influence Chuck is based on her decision to trade a night with Jack in exchange for the return of his hotel. In order for her to stay in Florida Chuck is encouraging a rift between her and Nate so that she won't have any reason to return to quickly giving him time to get closer to Blair.

Blair's Moral Compass: I feel as if Blair is playing the part of Scarlett in the movie "Gone with the Wind" where she is attracted to good morals in an esthetic sense, while not truly believing in them. Blair and Chuck are not bound by the same morals as everyone else, it's what makes them so similar and spectacular.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSfniJXUC9E

Midnight in Dostoevsky by Don DeLillo

2009-11-23T12:24:00.000-08:00

Two young students invent an imaginary world to evade their inconsequential one, when one continues left alone during vacation break and the other returns to find they are unable to reconcile what has been created a revolution erupts.

Don DeLillo makes a fine use of the characters Robby and Todd to demonstrate the human need for control by dictating our interpretation of the world. He also reveals what little power actually resides in these ego-driven interpretations which are often flawed and ultimately insignificant. Life continues regardless of what we think and argue it to be and the old man unchanged by the boy’s arguments concerning his identity continues to take his walks unperturbed, hands clasped behind his back.

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/11/30/091130fi_fiction_delillo?currentPage=all

Indianapolis (Highway 74) by Sam Shepard

2009-11-20T13:19:00.000-08:00

Two souls in limbo collide at holiday Inn and find a little comfort where they least expect.

Loops

There is an ongoing theme of loops and characters stuck repeating mindless behavior. Stuart is “crisscrossing the country again without much reason.” He explains how “sometimes places pop into his head and he just goes” Giving us a sense that this is character who is lost and is evading himself and all which is and who are familiar to him. He is caught in a senseless loop repeating his mindless actions with no target or strategy.

Stuart also has social loops by having what he describes as a “bunch” of children with various women. Seemingly not investing in these relationships but constantly creating new ones.

Then there is his dog that is running in a circles in the back of the car. The fear of the storm making him also behave illogically.

There is the senseless loop of violence playing on the television where robbers kill employees who don’t have the key to the safe, but shoot the victims anyway. The receptionist can’t lower the volume or turn the channel because it’s on a computer system she has no control over which makes it an inescapable repetition of events.

Then Becky whose husband kidnapped her daughters and have disappeared is stuck in her own loop of false leads, despair and going from her house to the Holiday Inn.

Two souls collide breaking the impenetrable loop

Becky’s words “I was so in love with you” breaks through all the senseless and mindless loops which hold the characters in a state of compliant and perhaps willful aloofness throwing them into a type of urgent intimacy.

Stuart can no longer maintain his passive uninvolved escapism. He is affected by Becky's words and because of this he feels a need to destroy the televisions, the coffee tables, the lobby and flee but realizes there is no escape to what has been said. Instead, he leaves the hotel and is driven back by the blizzard and by the whirlwind of his emotions that suddenly overwhelm him forcing him to face Becky’s emotions and his feelings.

In the end, Becky's voice causes Stewards façade to shatter and the loop to end.

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/11/23/091123fi_fiction_shepard?currentPage=all

Premium Harmony by Stephen King

2009-11-04T11:19:00.000-08:00

Premium Harmony
King’s cynical portrayal of husband who happily trades in his wife’s death for a free purple ball, a soda, and the freedom to smoke in peace.

The Purple Ball
The couple in this story are caught in a power play about insignificant issues such as difference between a few cents, Little Debbies, purple balls, and cigarettes. Life revolves around the more bizarre and insignificant aspects of our society. A need for a certain color ball, a t-shirts which say “My Parents Were Treated Like Royalty in Castle Rock and All I Got Was This Lousy Tee-Shirt, and a husband itemizing the purple ball and the soda the managers offers him on the house, when his wife just died, but then noticing that the offer does extend to the cigarettes.

The Mechanical Rabbit
By the end of the story, the husband, same as the mechanical rabbit King invoked in his first few lines, fails to be changed by his wife’s death. His life remains as meaningless as before he lost his wife and in the end the reader is left with a grim picture of a husband enjoying his cigarettes in an air condition car, indifferent to his wife and her dead dog in the back seat. From this vantage point, the reader can only imagine he will continue to lead this apathetic meaningless mechanical life and the plastic rabbit continues to run in circles.

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/11/09/091109fi_fiction_king

While the women are sleeping by Javier Marias

2009-10-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

Grasping for logic

The main character and Alberto each try to apply their logical perspective onto the other person in order to make sense of the situation and of their world. The main character is grasping for logical explanation of why Alberto relentlessly films Ines’s body every day. This leads Alberto to explain that he is trying to capture her last day. Which causes the main character to question his logic that she will be the one to die first as she is apparently in good health and least 30 years younger. Alberto explain his obsession with Ines can not last for ever and so she must be killed. The main character counters the logic of the argument by explaining how this can’t be true because of how unlikely it is that he would share information in which he is a guilty and for which he would be able to alert someone and stop him before Alberto could act. Alberto counter attacks by explaining that they are leaving tomorrow, that the main character will choose to disbelieve him, and that Ines may already be dead, same as it’s possible that his wife who he has left sleeping in her hotel room may have died. The main character calms himself by drawing a parallel between both wives, and reassures himself with the fact that as he knows he is wife is alive and asleep in their room, Ines must be alive and asleep in her room. Then when his wife comes out on the room terrace and call him, he notices that there is no one on Ines’s terrace. This makes him doubt his logic and what he felt certain of just moments ago. Alberto could of killed Ines already.

The passive partner, the child

The main character who hides behind the hat to watch the couple and later who refuses to believe that Alberto may kill Ines can be seen as passive. We cannot imagine that his wife would react the same way if she had heard the story. Then in the end of the story the main character describes Luisa as calling down to him like a mother saying their child’s name, same as he had described Alberto saying Ines’s name twice as mother’s do, earlier on in the story. Ines is the passive one in this couple. She barely moves, barely talks, and seems only preoccupied in preening herself as Albero requires of.

Perspective

Two couples, one couple watching Alberto and Ines, Alberto watching Ines, Ines watching herself. The main character watching through the fibers of the sun hat and Alberto watching behind the lense of a video camera and Ines investigating her own body through a mirror. The story is about logic and perspective. Ines is so taken in with Alberto’s obsession of her beauty that she cannot see that his feelings are unhealthy and potentially dangerous.Alberto must kill Ines to save her from aging to ensure that his passion for her will not wane. The main character who warns no one that Alberto plans to kill Ines because it refutes what he thinks is logical and thus he refuses believe it. Each character caught so deeply in their own perspective that no one can influence the other enough to save Ines, not even Ines herself.

While the women are sleeping by Javier Marias

Procedure in Plain Air by Jonathan Lethem

2009-10-19T11:44:00.000-07:00

Superfluous society becomes immune to the humane condition.

This story comments on access and the superfluous preoccupations of our society. Stevick, the main character, goes to the coffee shop for a caffeine boost not for the taste, nor for the atmosphere which he finds excessive. His moment there is juxtaposed with the other café denizens who are preoccupied with the wifi, their cell phones, the perfectly tuned Ipod, whether the coffee has a soapy after taste, the other denizens in the shop. Stevick sits outside to escape the mind numbing convoluted society inside.

Outside, he witnesses a man being placed into a hole in the ground. Outraged by his being left there with little protection from the rain he stands above him with an umbrella. His values again are being juxtaposed with people concerned over the property value, walking their dogs and just doing their jobs as was the case with the men who inserted him into the hole.

He is later accosted in the street by what he terms a yuppy who is belligerent that his presence is lowering his property value. Fueled by his anger over the situation of the man in the hole and his beliefs he starts fighting. The fight quickly ends as both parties get bored and go back to perspective lives.

The uniform changes everything

Charlotte, his ex-wife, belittles his efforts much as society seems to, that is when they even notice him. The uniform in the bag changes everything for him, he is now part of this enterprise and this strengthens him isolating him for the superfluous judgmental denizens, “Charlotte, like much else, was receding from view.”

The Man in the hole

The man in the hole is also symbol of the purely functional necessity driven lifestyle. At first outraged by the mans condition, he later muses that he himself may one day be placed in a hole. Which makes me think, to each his own obsession. What he once thought of as heinous, he concludes, he is happy to be a part of.

Integration is unavoidable

He is happy to be part of an art installation which shuns the superfluous, the fancy, whimsical the unnecessary. However this installation and the idea of art represents all those things. Integration is unavoidable.

The Lower River by Paul Theroux - New Yorker Magazine Fiction

2009-09-10T11:55:00.000-07:00

The Lower River becomes a game of cat and mouse where Altman becomes caught up in his own pride and need for domination which is happily nutured by the village that caters to his weakness in order to better manipulate him and extort his money. His self indulged, self importance, becomes a mockery towards the end of the story in which he himself realizes that he must appear to Manyenga like a poor monarch in dirty clothes with a skinny girl and a disfigured dwarf.

You can never step into the same river twice

When all hope is lost and everything is up the wall, he often thought, reassuring himself, I can always go back.

There is a strong theme of idealizing going back, juxtaposed with the impossibility of going back because everything changes and evolves. The river is never the same. The Village has grown from the innocent and naïve people that Altman once knew to a cunning, greedy, bitter and manipulative group. They have adopted behaviors from the new colonist who reside in Africa to promote tourism. Manyenga, who befriends Altman is corrupted and spurt out terms such as pipleine, agenda, program, intervention which bespeaks of a managing people and ideas.
Mr Altman has also changed because of his return in the village. Alman was a volunteer who goes where no missionary, not even the Africans will go and stays not the 2 year term but a record 4. He was sought out to write and read letters, Where he was once vain with self importance he leaves the village without hope and somewhat broken. In the beginning of the story sitting with the elders of the village he wishes someone in the states could witness him but in the end, all hope for improvement of the village is gone and crippled with residual illness and morally diminished he flees to save his life.

When the ruled become the ruler

He wants to be the great benefactor and explains he would of handed out money, except that would create a mob scene, instead, he smiles and in a “chiefly gesture” he salutes them.
He arrogantly orders them and refuses to heed their caution, but instead dominates situations such as when the bank teller cautions him to “be careful, sir”. He replies “almost “as a rebuke,“I used to live here. I was here at Independence. The Lower River.”.
Then later he berates and the taxi driver who tries to change the departure time and again later when he refuses to pay the extra fee to bring him further then the destination but orders him to stop the car.

The villagers on the other hand and especially Manyenga play to his need to dominate and to be served and to be considered admired. They call him father and chief and give him a young girl who is beautiful to serve him hand and foot. They make him comfortable and pretend they don’t understand when he says he is just visiting the village for a few days but instead speak of his program to extend his stay. They then slowly and subtly rob him so that not noticing he is being robbed he will return to the village with more money.

The Snake
The changes in the shift in power from Altman to the villagers and then back to Altman can be traced to the snake and to Altman’s use of it. When he first arrives to Malabo as a vulteer he uses to snake to set himself apart from the villagers who fear snakes, he uses the snakes to guard his money, and later he publicly kills the snake gaurding his basket with his money, permitting the villagers to take all of his money so that they will allow him to leave the village to get more. Manyena refuses to bring Altman out of the village because he pretends to have seen a snake on his path, but he really doesn’t want Altman to leave with the money. Having no way to leave the village, Alman becomes his prisoner. Later, when all the money is gone, and Manyena needs him to leave in order to get more, he Atlman is staring at a snake on the ground, and Manyena is afraid to approach him. The snake holds the village's fear, which is Altman’s power.

Distant Relations by Orhan Pamuk

2009-09-04T20:36:00.000-07:00

I have been reading the New Yorker Fiction and have been diligently working through their archives in search of what makes a good story, good. I have thus far not succeeded in discerning this quality so that I might steal some for myself. What has become clear in my studies is that these stories seem cryptic in that what they are trying to say but yet clear about conveying a sentiment. You don’t understand why you feel this is a sad story or happy story because you don’t see a resolution, but you do feel the emotion. Its as if the stories don’t really have a clear plot with a resolution you can point to but yet you do get a sentiment that something has been resolved or something has evolved or something has shifted.

Growing fond of this style which seems less feigned then most stories and more real life, and relevant, I have tried to adopt this way of writing which once irked me as being obscure to the point of being only understood by the writer and perhaps the few who know him/her. My results are that I seem to have irked my few close acquaintances with them.

This is why I picking stories and blogging about what makes them tick? Why do they light up? What makes them breathe?

I am starting with Distant Relations by Orhan Pamuk.

Distant Relations by Orhan Pamuk

Class Struggle

The main character describes a culture and a family who are newly bourgeois and sensitive to be seen as upper class. The narrator’s family is smitten with his fiancé because of her Sorbonne education and refined ways. The marriage will be an affluent affair where everything is planned to demonstrate the families wealth as the author describes how the rehearsal dinner must be as opulent as the marriage itself, the lace that must be imported and the fiancee friend will arrive from Paris.

The main character seems to be striding two worlds, like most nouveau bourgeois, one universe in which he strains to be a part of and the other in which he feels more comfortable, but which reveal his more humble origins.

When his fiancée, Sibel asks him to return a bag he had purchased for her because she explains it’s a fake and thus impossible for her to wear, it becomes evident she suffers from the same predicament as he does. She is afraid to show her newly humble origins. Having come from a more wealthy backround where her father sold off all his land and is now retired, she tries to romanticize her past ancestors. She cannot be seen with the bag because it will tarnish the image of her as the wealthy bourgeois that she has worked hard to create and maintain.

The main character on the other hand has trouble with the idea that Sibel refuses the bag based on notions that the bag is a fake, not genuine, not good enough for her, when his families surname still denotes their origins as humble clothe makers, so that by returning the bag, he refutes his origins. He himself is not a genuine bourgeois but a new bourgeois based on a twist of fate that his family had retained proptery, in an area which had become affluent making them newly rich.

Later when he enters into the shop to return the bag, he meets up again with Husun who had entered into a beauty contest which is considered a shameful act in Istandbul.. Her backround is more modest as well, and his family looks down upon her social station but yet he is attracted to her because he says she resembles him in a way that his fiancée does not. He is attracted to her because she is from the class that he once belonged to and because of this she feels more familiar. She and him both share the same humble origins.

The Yellow Canary

Another interesting aspect of the story is the way he uses the color yellow and a little yellow canary he notices at that boutique. The canary can be seen as beauty and elegance that is encaged same as the nouveau bourgeois. The bourgeois are wealthy but they are not free. They are tied to very strict ideas of what their class deem acceptable. Then there is the symbolism of canaries used in coal mines to indicate deadly gases. I wonder if the author may have also been using the canary to indicate the danger that the main character would be in by turning his back on these bourgeois customs and perhaps even that Fusun was the canary, which embody danger itself. The danger of him breaking his engagement with Sibel to start an affair with the less respectable Fusun. This danger is emphasized again by the very last line where the mother presses the key in his hand giving him a look to “warn (him) that life held unsuspected dangers.”

The Color Yellow

Then there is the use of the color of yellow and how it seems to embody the freedom but also the danger of him taking this freedom. So that danger and yellow and shame become linked by the yellow items. The unrespectable Fusun attracts our main character with her yellow pump and her yellow skirt, and she is the yellow canaris that represents the danger to the main characters reputation. Finally at the end of the story, there is yellow vase, that he purchases after having made plans to meet Fusan at an empty apartment far from prying eyes. And around this yellow vase, he says his father and mother will eat in front of it then later he and his mother will eat in front of it and his mother will look past it at him with eyes filled with pity and shame. He also mentions that neither his mother nor father ever mentions this yellow vase that he brings them, unlike all the other items he has brought to the house as if the yellow vase was a symbol of the unrespectable turn our main character had taken. Then neither girl friends are mentioned as eating on the table with the vase so we can only assume that his fiance learned of his betrayal and that his family never accepted Fusun as an acceptable wife. Then at the end we learn even though he has escaped his cage, and chosen freedom to have an affair with Fusun, he still suffers the scandal of the situation because the yellow vase reminds him of the time when he chose to unleash his misery upon himself.

Lifeline

2009-08-23T06:03:00.000-07:00

We were trained for these situations. We were told during training that one day there could be an accident, that we could be lost forever in space. We were trained to stay calm and meditate so we would not hyperventilate in our helmets before the crew could plan a rescue mission.

Getting ready for our first few outings we would joke about it. “Tod just wanted to thank you for your cot with the window, being best buds and all.” “You better hall your shit out of my space bugboy.” Then out of the hatch one of us would go. Sometimes there was no time for a quick rebuttal and you would do your best to show them the finger with those overly thick space gloves.

Being the only girl I got a lot of “hey baby it may be your last chance”. At which point I would pull out my laser cutter and smile. I don’t get a lot of those lines anymore but now that I am out here floating and my rigger has blown I think of them and those clowns. As the only girl I had to be tough, but now drifting, I am left here to ponder if I didn’t go to far. Did they check my rigger, the cord? It was routine procedure but we have been busy with the pod getting older and needing more work so that a lot of routine procedure was neglected.

There was the time I snapped a picture of Tom nude in the cleaning pod and forwarded it to the crew. It was suppose to be just a simple forward to ourselves but somehow it was sent to Earth space station as well. That did not go well. No, not well at all.

Then there was Dem. Dem was sending me messages anonymously for weeks till finally I was able to trace some of the content back to something I had read in his personal files about his love for bugs. Enraged I forwarded all his message to the crew, destroyed his cover and nicknamed him bugboy which stuck.

Before finding him out though, I had gotten into a Tiff with Nick. I had been so sure it was Nick.

The confined space, the monotony, the incessant sound of the air system, and the emails were beyond anything training could have prepared me for.

When we were on computer maintenance duty I accused him. He denied it. “Come on” I hissed “only someone as dumb and corny as you could write stuff like that.” He grabbed me and pushed me against the console. I clawed aimlessly because his arms were too long. That night, I stole Nick’s picture of his wife and through down the hatch during a regular garbage dump. That was a golden rule here. Never touch anyone stuff. It was there life.

Through my closed eyes I could imagine the picture frame floating by with his wife accusing eyes staring at me.

Alone floating in space, I tell myself not to cry but I know my face is wet, when suddenly and very gently, I feel a hand on my shoulder.

Beneath the Fir Tree - writing assignement #7

2009-08-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

T

his is a very hard assignment I had in creative writing class. We had to write like a young man who just murdered someone describe a lake, yet we could't mention the murder. I think I sort of failed at making the voice into a young male...

I feel very sorry for myself when i get these horrid assignements. They make me re-think my goals of becoming a writer. They also make me cry in frustration....

Sitting on the small wood pier Buddha style, hands lying down palms facing heaven I watch the day fading. The light growing weaker fails to penetrate the water but instead reflects dully the evening sky and surrounding trees back up like dead eyes. The reflection below becomes a darker simulation of the real world. Through this upside down place I see the last of the geese escaping south leaving mournful cries behind them which reverberate against the hills in a strange decadent way. Perhaps these were the older geese, crying out, upset that they were finally being forced to leave after all, knowing that they might not make it back next year and that death itself pursued them like the wind.

The lake has already lost it’s golden summer hue and was turning more monochrome as winter made it’s approach. Most of the trees lost their leaves and stood there, arms raised, as if they were waiting for someone to come dress them or perhaps imploring the sky for warmth and sun or simply begging God for salvation. A few meters away there is one who has a lost a limb and whose cut had closed over itself so that it looks like a gaping mouth howling at me.

In the distance there are a group of dark birds in a tree which fly off squawking loudly as if suddenly disturbed by an unseen danger. The pine trees dark silhouette cut the dim sky in a jagged territorial pattern claiming the little light left in it. Then there is everything that lies hidden below. Underneath the forest of seaweed, the plankton, the fish. Deep down. Even that would become it’s own little separate world cordoned off by the ice which would spread on the surface. A large silver casket sealing off the sun, the sky, the oxygen. Fish will sink to the bottom of the frozen lake like weighted corpses anchored to the ground. The carp uses his tail to bury himself deeply beneath the dark murky mud. He will wait for his moment in the shadows as I had waited, and he will know, as I knew.

I think of lighting up a cigarette but refrain, understanding and cooperating with the preparations and the restraint the earth around me requires. I admire the purity that winter demands of everything in it’s path. The crickets begin to chirp quietly in their secretive way pulling the strings of fate irrevocably forward towards the lake and I become lost in their compelling calls and the messages held within.

Nature is perfection but people fail to understand their part. Their humanity has been compromised by their gadgets into a false sense of believing they rule the earth. They no longer see the lake or the world they live. They have become mindless zombies imitating the other mindless zombies they see on their flat screen high definition televisions. But when they see me they remember who they are when I stand tall before them and say “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do ..."

I pick up a small stone lying next to by foot, white as bone, cold as forgotten, and I kiss it.

Night bus

2009-08-07T04:22:00.000-07:00

I squeezed into the packed bus shutting the night out behind me. Making my way to the last empty seat I brush through the other passengers like a car moving through the bristles of a car wash. Having made it, I can now see that the woman in the other seat has left her hand bag intentionally where I had planned to sit. I turn to move back towards the door I usually leave from but there is a family arguing about where they are going to go next; each seemly have their own destination in mind, with the young daughter being the most adamant. I swivel back and look at the hand bags owner. “Excuse me.” “What?” I look at the bag. She stares for a while, her eyes narrow, taking her time to remove it from the seat as if making a point; to begrudge me what little room remains on this bus. Unzipping my coat and unwinding my scarf, I settle in allowing my weight to rest down hard against the seat. I pull my feet out of my furry half boots, alternately tensing and relaxing them until resting them on top of the suede boots, naked, they suddenly seem fragile and delicate like porcelain doves nestling close to each other. Slouching slightly, growing more accustomed to the light tone murmur on the bus, I yawn.

I look out the window and watch the people hurry from store to store in the city streets until my eyes get stuck on the stillness of a couple whose arms are wrapped in each others open coats like a human silhouette shaped salt and pepper set I have on my kitchen table which interlock by means of their complimentary shape. The man moves his head away from the woman’s neck to look at her as if to see her reaction to what she is saying or to allow the sincerity of what he has said to shine through his eyes. I recognize the man. He is my husband.

Little Boats

2009-07-22T15:12:00.000-07:00

Little Boats

Looking over the people sitting in the outdoor café enjoying their meals and their conversations I marvel at how they are all so seemingly intent on enjoying one of the first beautiful spring days on tables under trees with green leaves just beginning to sprout – a promise of new era. The tables spread about like little happy boats swaying on playful waves under a big blue sky and unbelievable happy sun while I sit and fester aboard a damp cargo ship. The fact is, I was more prepared for anger then tears, but if I give him a moment it should subside then I can finish my drink pat him on the arm and be on my way. Taking a long slow sip I brace myself and think of a suitable approach to comfort him, when the busy waitress squats to our table level to take the order over the restaurant noise. “I’m afraid we are not ready yet”, I say motioning discreetly with slight irritation towards Jake with my martini.

Jake wipe his eyes slowly and looks at her, finally able see the cold exterior everyone always cautioned him about. Her eyes monitoring the crowd of diners around us worried about their reaction to my emotions. Her perfect weather forecaster hairstyle irreproachably impersonal and always perfectly the same like a wig or an antennae or something fabricated to remain constant under any condition. The restaurant, the weather and the happy dinners indifference to our table is like a slap in the face. The tears slowly make there way down his face again but he can’t help but stare and remain slightly in awe of her facial expression which remains proudly raised with a small smile as if listening to an amusing anecdote.

The waitress crouches down once more letting her arms lean slightly onto their table, holding her much battered Bick pen over her small blue pad which suddenly feels to her like the pretext of a prop in a play made to legitimize her role. She cautiously look at the handsome man. “Are you ready?” she asks. “I’m sorry”, the woman says in a voice that shows she clearly isn’t, “we won’t be staying for lunch.” “I’m not leaving” he says, straitening up and wiping his face. The waitress pulls out a receipt for the blond, handing it to her face down and places a blue page with a phone number in front of the man. He looks up stunned and questioning. She shows him the back of her hand, “do you see the white line on my ring finger, it use to be an engagement ring from my fiancé who was having an affair with my friend and whose honeymoon I should now be on. So maybe it’s about finding the wrong guys at the right time and knowing when to grab the right guy at the wrong time.”

I couldn’t believe it. I just sat there with the blue page and the number between us, Jake’s fingers holding it down against the table as if a breeze might pass.

The Moon

2009-07-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

When she notices the lights in the bedroom go off, she pries her sneakers using the heal of one foot to unhook the heal of the other foot standing at door in the hall and moves quietly through their bedroom room towards the bathroom. Grabbing the toothpaste, she notices him lying in bed through the mirror and she hastily squeezes the tube so hard a large thick gob flies out. She can hear his fake snoring noises and this makes her bang the tube down against the marble counter. She closes her eyes putting both her hands against the counter and counts colorful numbers disappearing into bubbles which float away. She then goes into her yoga pose bending over at the waist allowing her body to hang downward and practices her mantra until she notices some spots on the white tiled floor.

“How much are we paying Anita to clean” she mumbled furiously under her breath. Pulling out all the cleaning products and lining them up like an arsenal on the table but unable to locate a mop she starts rubbing the spots with a tiny face towel. Noticing more spots she moves onto them using a furious circular pattern. She breaks down and does the entire floor till it is a as spotless as the day it was placed. Ready to put the supplies away she notices her husband has stopped snoring and hears the bed creak under his weight. she suddenly pulls out another face cloth and kneeling on the counter she works on the mirror and makes an involuntary hmph sound when staring past her reflection she notices a dark lump under the covers. She cleans the mirror until it seems a window onto somebody else’s life like a good painting that says something beyond the objects represented.

Sitting on the counter she massages her knees and undresses to take a brief shower. Playing with the plug in the tub, which is wedged between her big toe and its slightly shorter neighbor she pushes it in with finality and the tub begins to fill with a soft gurgling sound of a brook cascading into deeper water. Completely submerged in the tub with the water off she can hear the incessant ticking of the clock in their room and her tub slowly becomes filled with a silver glow. She gets up and pokes her head through the small window and watches for a moment the moon who has shed her clouds triumphantly. She then gently leans over standing in the tub to grab a towel when the pile spills over to the floor. She stares at the jumble of colorful towels on the floor, ignores them, and walks out of the bathroom wrapped in her robe leaving the pale light on behind her. She dresses quietly in the dark keeping her eyes averted from his side of the bed and carefully positions herself at the very edge, which she lets her hand hang casually from to keep her self safely anchored.

The Big Day

2009-07-07T10:06:00.000-07:00

The pretty blue pills lie on his shaking hand. One pill is reasonable, but perhaps his situation requires two. He walks in the other room setting his instruments on the table. Did he take one already, maybe not, maybe he didn’t, maybe he just thought about it. He closes his eyes and sees her face looking up at him, he hums loudly, putting the pill on his tongue, “my God” he sets the beaker down quickly. He almost drank from it. What was in that beaker again? Now where is his glass? Maybe it’s in his coat pocket or hiding under a rug. Did he leave it in his desk ? Opening the desk, a vast array of peacocks climb elegantly out forming a disciplined single line. They are almost ready for the cocktail party. He had forgotten about them. How careless of him.

The vet shakes the empty vial of pills he has stored in his pocket. He glances at his watch and calculates morosely that he has 4 hours left. Shaking his head, there should not be four. It was almost time to go, he had been here all day, he is tired and it is not possible that it's still so early, when it clearly was'nt so befor. He pats his pocket down once more and pulls out the vial again, open its dark brown plastic container and brings it to his eye like a telescope. He should set place cards for the peacocks he reasons to himself, this is very clear. It's important for them to have proper seating arrangements. He shakes his head, Waterford crystals are out of the question, it’s not that type of a reception. His fiancé in her wedding dress was holding both of his hands between hers. The cufflink ladybugs are scared of him, they see him coming and crawl away, using their dots to confuse him. His eyes tightly shut, yet her words float in on feathers which belonged to, to, to, the peacocks who have come to sing. No, it's not time for the cocktail party. Not yet, there are so many more things to do. He can hear her explaining that she can’t...but her words are falling deep into a well. He will cover the well with butterflies. They know how to hide things so well.

He will take the lace veil, the one she ordered and he will make a big wonderful tent which will cover everything. The magnificent lace tent will conceal all the shadows and the flaws, it will be everywhere like snow. It will be great. Everyone will be in awe. But this time no doors.

Watching, waiting

2009-06-28T13:51:00.000-07:00

She will be laying there immobile all day regardless of noise, movement, sun or rain, seemingly dead to the world, until her sixth sense guides her to quietly disappear. Her hiding places are innumerable and always growing. Under beds, behind the folds of curtains, narrow areas between open door and walls, improbably high closets, extremely low storage areas and even chair seats that are tucked under tables. Unfortunately for her, her snore is unmistakable, the loud rumble guides me to her. It’s low vibrations deceptively sound as if they are eminating from a much larger object, perhaps a motor or a man.

Down on all fours, stretching my arm under the bed I grab the scruff of her neck and pull her lank muscular body slowly towards me. Her eyes staring, evaluting me quietly, allowing herself to be reeled in while waiting for a moment to counter attack. She was good at waiting, having cornered green grass hoppers under furniture, she would casually wait lying down on top of obtrusive furniture like some owners wait in front of restaurants to reclaim their due from valet parkers. Now she was playing the other side, she was the one who was caught and needed to escape. This did not seem to matter so much to her, she still had that same focused look on face and exuded the same sense of expectation and quiet confidence.

Bound in a towel, I lie her down back against the checkered blue and white bathroom floors stomach up and still she has not released her gaze. She does not protest but maintains her stare as if trying to read my face or hypnotize me. Refusing to succumb to my fear, I take the needle and work to steady my hands while turning my eyes away from her face to look at the cool white fur on her stomach. I then carefully proceed to start the injection when sensing the needle, she instantly and violently un-skins herself, causing the needle to fly in the air as we both watch, her in victory, and me in horror as it twirls like majorette's baton in a lively parade and lands just inches away from my arm.

Between my hands, still as if she had never moved, she watches me.

2009-06-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

2nd Assignment

2009-06-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

We were trained for these situations. We were told during training that one day there could be an accident, that we could be lost forever in space. We were trained to stay calm and meditate so we would not hyperventilate in our helmets before the crew could plan a rescue mission.

Getting ready for our first few outings we would joke about it. “Tod just wanted to thank you for your cot with the window, being best buds and all.” “You better hall your shit out of my space bugboy.” Then out of the hatch one of us would go. Sometimes there was no time for a quick rebuttal and you would do your best to show them the finger with those overly thick space gloves.

Being the only girl I got a lot of “hey baby it may be your last chance”. At which point I would pull out my laser cutter and smile. I don’t get a lot of those lines anymore but now that I am out here floating and my rigger has blown I think of them and those clowns. As the only girl I had to be tough, but now drifting, I am left here to ponder if I was perhaps too tough. Did they check my rigger, the cord? It was routine procedure but we have been busy with the pod getting older and needing more work so that a lot of routine procedure was neglected.

There was the time I snapped a picture of Tom nude in the cleaning pod and forwarded it to the crew. It was suppose to be just a simple forward to ourselves but somehow it was sent to Earth space station as well. That did not go well. No, not well at all.

Then there was Dem. Dem was sending me messages anonymously for weeks till finally I was able to trace some of the content back to something I had read in his files about his love for bugs. Enraged I forwarded all his message to the crew, destroyed his cover and nicknamed him bugboy which stuck.

Before finding him out though, I had gotten into a Tiff with Nick. I had been so sure it was Nick.

The confined space, the monotony, the incessant sound of the air system, and the emails were beyond anything training could have prepared me for.

When we were on computer maintenance duty I accused him. He denied it. “Come on” I hissed “only someone as dumb and corny as you could write stuff like that.” He grabbed me and pushed me against the console. I clawed aimlessly because his arms were too long. That night, I stole Nick’s picture of his wife and through down the hatch during a regular garbage dump. That was a golden rule here. Never touch anyone stuff. It was there life.

Through my closed eyes I could imagine the picture frame floating by with his wife accusing eyes staring at me.

Alone floating in space, I tell myself not to cry but I know my face is wet, when suddenly and very gently, I feel a hand on my shoulder.

Safely Aboard a New Ship

2009-06-19T08:29:00.000-07:00

Changing class is hard work once you have missed the deadline. After exchanging much bickering emails with 2 Gotham Writers Workshop administrators, in which I strained to remain polite while maintaining a firm and aggressive attitude, swishing my sword, cornering my opponent and jumping to avoid their close swipes, I was finally awarded the right to change class!

Jumping Ship

2009-06-17T13:53:00.000-07:00

Hello,

I wanted to know if it would be possible to change classes with another teacher. I don't feel I am getting enough out of the class and that the teacher is thoroughly reading my assignment.
For example, my first assigment was only 390 words and she had missed the fact that the only 2 characters were sisters even though it clearly states this. Also she didn't seem to participate so much with our responses to her first lecture questions but gave us a generic "very good" reply.
I would like to take another fiction class if possible but I am open to sci-fi and creative writing as well. I do not mind being placed in a class that has recently started if there are openings. I am also open to any day of the week.

Thank you for your help

Second Opinion-s

2009-06-17T13:06:00.000-07:00

So much for my call to arms from my fellow students. I have only received 2 quiet responses from my request to exchange writing assignments for critiques a motion which I had feared I might cause a revolution by circumventing our less then entheusiastic teacher. I'm not quite sure where any of my revolutionaries are. They are not in class. No one has responded to the teachers questions and yet they did not jump at the opportunity to learn from a peer to peer exchange of work with me. They are very quiet.

One of the students who responded to me has asked me not to judge the others too harshly ensuring me that they must be busy with their own agendas. I assured her she must be correct but I can't help but think that they could exchange assigmnments that had been completed and could probably review my short assignment in a few minutes.

I have also checked the workshop's refund policy, but unfortunately that window of opportunity has past, I am locked in and apparently there is no help.

Second Opinion

2009-06-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

I want a second opinion. I don't feel as if the teacher carefully read my 1st assigment judging by her comments, especially the fact that she assumes the two and only charcters are friends, when one of the few lines mentions that they are sisters. There were so few words (under 400)that for her to skim over this fact leaves me feeling her criticism are irrelevant.

I noticed today that she has posted her new lecture at 12:00 am with 2 participation questions, yet it is now 4:00 pm and nobody has posted answers. Are all the students sulking over what they also feel may be unmerited negative criticism of their work?

Or perhaps its her comments on our first comments to last weeks questions, an umbrella "ok very good"blancket variety which left us unentheusiastic to participate again.

Maybe they are all jumping ship and trying to get into another class as they won't receive a refund. Would I be able to do this...or have they set up such a hornets bees of requests to jump that all new requests are being denied.

So due to my disappointment and lost faith in my teacher's compentance and because I have decided to try to squeeze a little more mileage from my Gotham Writer's Workshop, I have asked fellow students if they want to exchange assignments for comments. I wonder if this might seem a bit renegade, as if I am circomventing the teacher, but what is there left to lose?

First Assigment

2009-06-16T12:21:00.000-07:00

Do your best to keep your work on the assignments under 500 words. The brevity will help you focus your work. If you really need to run longer, keep it under 750 words
Write from A to Z. Each sentence will begin with the next letter of the alphabet. For example, "Any way you looked at it, Jim and I were over. Because of his obsession with jigsaw puzzles, I was leaving him. Could I really leave him? Don't doubt it." You get the idea. Let yourself go and see how the letters lead you. There are only two rules: You need one fragment and one 100 word sentence that is grammatically correct within this story

Assignment 1 :

Red

Are you really going to do it?

Buy the laptop?

“Come on,” she answers in her exasperated voice.

Damn right I am. Eliminate the weak points, that’s the rule I now live by.

Fine but think about it, about what it means.

Granting him the opportunity to move on with his life, while allowing me to eliminate excess baggage that is holding me back?

Hell, that’s harsh. If I remember correctly, he put you through med school.

Just because he helped me, which I’m not say he didn’t, does not mean I have an outstanding dept or a life long obligation. “Kenneth Cole shoes?” she holds daintily a pair of sparkly red shoes with impossibly high heels.

“Let me see them. Maybe you can get one of those counselors.”

“No, we are definitely beyond counseling and have been for years actually.” Opening the antiqued microscopic buckle and pushing her foot into the opening while using her sister’s shoulder to balance herself she peers into the mirror. “Perfect, I love them”.

“Question is, where are you going to wear them if you need my shoulder just to stand?”

“Right, well perhaps I can use them in bed” she says kicking her foot out jauntily.

“Sex, you mean they will be for sex. Testosterone stilettos. Un-useable, in your situation”

“Valentine’s day is coming up, I could easily have a voraciously good lover which would require these shoes.”

“why are u doing this?”

“x-rays are strange if you think about it, I was showing one of my patients her x-ray this week and coming from China she spoke very little English so I had planned to point her heart out to her in order to help explain, and to emphasize the great importance of taking care of the heart, but suddenly I was kind of standing there with my pointer in my hand and from the side of my eye I saw her nodding as if she agreed with me or rather as if she was assuring me I had come to the correct conclusion about my own life.

“yea, so what does that have to do with anything.”

“Zero, it has absolutely nothing to do with anything, it only has everything to do with me getting these shoes, she says precariously wobbling towards the busy sales girl while pointing at the shoe.”

Bio for Gotham Writers Worshop

2009-05-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

Bio

I was born on a small island that no one had ever heard of until the last few years at which point it became synonymous with stars, models and unbridled wealth.

I pursued my studies in NY, with the exception of a BA in Lit. from UCSB in Santa Barbara, California.

Upon completing my BA I then returned to my small island to build a small house on property my parents had inherited and given to me. As I was completely unhappy with the architects generic blueprints, I threw them out and designed my own house which is composed of as many open doors as there are exterior walls. Then in order to maintain my privacy as the land around the house was slowly being built on, I then made walls around the land, which also help keep my trees in.

Consequently, I share my house with native birds that fly through occasionally, turtles that come asking for water during droughts, and few other insects that are much less desirable, such as mosquitoes, centipedes, and scorpions.

At the moment, I am presently working on renovating the house and the garden, and enrolled in this writing workshop (Gotham Writers Workshop). In the past, I was formerly employed at Roche Bobois US headquarters in NY as translator and then later in an Arabic investment firm where my employers seemed unsure of my position but provided me with generous bonuses.

(My bio for the workshop will end here. )

The only thing that I retain from this job is the memory of the desks reminding me of horse stalls which might suddenly be sprung open during which I and my other stall mates would take off like mad, as during a horse race. The only way I can account for such a strange idea is that perhaps I wanted to run away from the very sterile, stifling environment and free my colleagues with me, even though my closest stall neighbor was a Russian girl who was in a perpetually miserable mood and had a surprisingly rude temperament. I imagine she would bite me as te doors would spring open.

Rereading this, I can see that my last remark seems irrelevant except for my desire to prove to you that by wishing to save even the most difficult of people I am a nice or at least a decent person. However, if I am truly honest with myself, as well as with you, I suppose I should admit that I don’t really want to save my slightly delusional supervisor. But then, I suppose it could be argued that he didn’t look like he really needed saving, but from himself, which goes sadly beyond my level of expertise. If it was possible for me to save one from ones self, I would save myself.

Bio coming soon

2009-05-21T09:44:00.000-07:00

The Gotham Writing Course requires that all students post our bio.

The part of me which tends to be private finds this a tad disturbing. People will read my stories and go back to the bio. Then what if they judge me on my bio, decide they don't like me and give my stories bad reviews.

Then part of me is curious to read other people's bio. An online writing class could be fertile ground for interesting people or bios.

The more cautious and hobbit like part of my nature thinks I can make up a bio and still have access to other people bio. How fun and no one is harmed.

The more reasonable and honest part of me frowns at the former idea and dominantly take over the project and so with a sigh, I reluctantly decide to post an honest description of my life.

Not there is anything to hide I suppose. It's just, well, very exposing, kind of like being naked. And like being naked, it's not very suprising, all the body parts are there in normal proportion. But then i guess it's human nature to take peeks and compare.

I will be posting my bio on this blog as well. But it is not climatic, or a tv season finale full of gasps and "oh my(s)". Much of my bio info has been spread around here and there. The bio will just create more of a timeline a structure for all my past rambling.

Gotham Writers Workshop

2009-05-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

I will be commencing Gotham's Writers Workshop June 9th.

Now part of me is skeptical, it seems a waste of money as I will be taking it online (I am presently living in St. Barth). I have doubts as to whether an online course can be as significant as sitting on hard classroom chairs which demand focus and provoke contemplation. Then also, I wonder if writing can be learned or improved upon through a course? Then also, is this workshop the correct solution? And also this, perhaps I shouldn't even be focusing on writing, but some other more suitable creative outlet.

However at the same time, I reason, I have been trying to write for a while with little success of actually setting my progress to paper. For this, I entirely blame the internet on, as it creates a distracting outlet for searches that invariably lead to new searches, till you forget what you were initially searching for. Now with this class, I am counting on the assignment deadlines to make me more prolific (which according to their website there are 2) and on writing feedback describing the enticing, thought provoking, interesting, merely edible, disinteresting, and yes, coma-tizing about aspects of my work (which again according to website is provide by both a professor and fellow students).

Let the lions in.

This happened

2009-04-13T12:35:00.000-07:00

A large fish fumes in the bottom of the sea
An angry woman on a small island slams her door
A large boulder rolls down a cliff
A man fishes on a small boat
A large wave surges
A small boat crashes
A large fish investigates
A small man swims
A fish flashes large white teeth
A small man grabs a fin
A fish takes a large jump out of the water
A man takes a gulp of air and makes a small prayer
A large bird grabs man's shoulder
A small man pulls a birds legs
A large bird crows and drops a man
a man falls onto a small island
A large boulder rolls towards him
A small woman yells loudly
A small man jumps behind a large tree

I sleep with one eye open now

2009-03-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

Living on this rock, where things can go wrong quickly, I have adopted the habit of sleeping with one eye open. My mind continuoulsy scanning for wrong noises, the hum of the water pump which means my cistern is losing water, the clomp of goats in my yard tearing away at my little garden or the sploosh of a stranded dog diving into my pool. It is amazing that all this is done when there are so many other noises that can interfere with wrong noises. There are crickets and bird noises, and turtles that while moving through the garden can make goat like sounds, and wind in the trees, but yet my scan is never wrong. It is infalliable. I am alerted to danger even as my mind burroughs deeper and deeper into its own secret subterrean world entertaining me with strange ideas, new dimensions, while creating problematic situations, which it then rushes to find solutions for before the sun rises and a new day begins.

Reading

2008-10-18T08:16:00.000-07:00

I have recently started reading in a new way. In the past, I would drive through a book from beginning to end, navigating carefully between the commas, exclamations and paragraphs to move in geographical sense from the title to the very last word. Now, after having come across some books which i had forced myself to finish in order to find meaning, not wanting to have robbed myself of discovering something new or having wasted my time, i would plug through much like someone at the slot machine who refuses to leave because of all the quarters, times, and prayers, they had put into their endeavor. I have since realized that this method brings me no comfort, and so i have since veered into just putting the book away and leaving it alone, refusing to skip or skim pages to discover the end, fearful that this might become an addicting forming habit in which all my readings could suffer this race car driver fate, robbing me of great novels.

However I soon noticed that sometimes this too was not ideal as my mind would drift upon the fate of those characters, and wonder what happened, where could that story have been going? Which has brought me to another phase, the phase, i was initially avoiding, the race car method, which consists of shortcuts much driving violations, and yes, the danger of becoming addicted to a quick ending in detriment of an enjoyable reading. A method that I fear, are remote controls, and high speed online surfing has infected us with.

I became aware of this when I had started reading revolutionary road by Richard Yates, which is about the confinements of suburbia, which seem to linger too much at one point, and although a fine novel, I had become tired of hearing the characters whine and I raced toward the end. I just had a difficult time feeling anything for the characters and although their issues seemed justifiable and even relevant to today, and to the world in which I live, I just failed to become embroiled in the narrative, but felt as if i were drifting slightly while watching a bickering couple.

Is destiny telling me to go home

2008-10-08T12:58:00.000-07:00

If i am to make a list of all the things that happened to me since I have returned to NY the acronym is GO HOME.

I was mugged and my expensive thick leather bag was ripped with a knife in the process, my stupid neighbor decides its a good idea to keep his stupid relentlessy barking dog locked in the hall accross my bedroom window, after a sleepless week where i try to plead with them to no avail, my boss tells me I will yet again be responsible for the work that we had agreed I would not do, as the person who was previously completing the tasks was leaving the company. I send him an email letting him know I could/would not do the task but was willing to leave if it would make things more convenient. He then not only asked me to leave right away, but he walks repeatedly back and forth in front of my desk as if to motivate me to leave "sooner then right away" to "immediately".

I can only wonder is this bad luck condensed in less then a months time or is the world plotting for me to return to my little island as fast as my little feet can take me?

Never mind, no more signs, i am leaving.

2008-10-08T08:44:00.000-07:00

bलुएसेऔर्चिन

Lets hold her up to some light

2008-09-30T09:31:00.000-07:00

.
My sister is the type of person who instructs you what to do and what not to do with the certainty that she does no wrong.

Except well, she happens to be human, and she does do things wrong, and it just happens that she does lots wrong, as many of us do, hrrhmm, myself of course not excluded.

Perhaps its due to this inevitable reality, that I never developed an interest in keeping a score card and also because I am a little lazy, that I have always overlooked her errors, but now that she is adding to her list by finger pointing at me, I feel obliged to remind her that she may want to rethink this action, or perhaps, she may want to practice it in front of a mirror to herself until she has enumerated and improved all her faults before scolding other for theirs, namely me, for mine. See saying "about glass houses".

Just in case she also suffers from poor memory in this partularly sensitive and often obscure area or just lack of clarity, as alas, much of us do, I am kindly posting her a (kindly because I haven't added her name and picture above, at least not yet) list below.

Mortal Sins of a Mortal Girl:

She didn't follow up with the paper work for her morgage causing my mother much frustration as she scrambles to help her by providing her with money.
She sent the bank the wrong building plan, one that was not approved part of her construction permit.
She quit her job even though her loan was thrown out for faulty paperwork and even though she was not very good at overseeing the construction as she accumulated many costly errors.
She refused help with the ongoing construction of her house until she had committed so many errors she didn't know how to solve them then she went crying to our mother. Which makes the construction that much more costly and difficult.
She dumped her dog who she refused to train not to jump on the couch and obey simple commands on my mom to babysit. Even though my mom was tired of cleaning the balacony with that oily residue his fur leaves behind, constantly washing the throw covers of chairs and sofa, and running after him every time he escaped.
She thinks the dog is her first priorty and wastes hours everyday dropping him off at my mothers and walking him, leaving my poor mother to do much of her work on the construction site.
She visits the vet every 2-3 months because the dog has an incurrable illness, spending all her money on him, leaving my mom with the financial obligations of her house, which she insisted must have very costly ammenities.

Well, look at that, when we hold her up to the light, she does have lots of cracks after all.

Bark, Bark, Bite

2008-09-29T06:17:00.000-07:00

Thursday I am awakened by C my neighbors dog at 4:00 am. I graciously await 11:00 am to leave a message on there answering machine. When I come home that night, they are not home, but C is still unrelentingly barking up a storm which has the effect of slowly and painfully unhinging my back bone. At 9:00 pm I spot the daughter making her way to her door. I explain, that her dog is very cute, but I am finding it hard to sleep, she looks at me blankly, as if I am explaing something that does not relate to her. After my babbling a bit which is due to my incomprehension on how to state the obvious without seeming rude, she says she will tell her parents. A full 15 minutes later of more barking she brings C out. I am relieved. My issue is solved, by pain is coming to an end, I keep focusing on the light at the end of the tunnel. I go to bed, feeling a sense of accomplishment.

4:00 am C begins her incessant and piercing barking, much like an alarm I can't turn off. Frantic I call my mother for help, support, guidance. She tells me to leave a note as if everything can be resolved with a simple note, what she doesn't understand is that these neighbors are not normal, nor have they ever been. They think that the entire block is their domain and that the other people living are there serfs...or perhaps at best, loiters, they must put up with. Sitting there with the early morning light making its way through a dreary rainy morning, drinking my extra strong green tea in hopes it will keep me awake, I spot the neighbor with the vociferous canine. I go up to him "your dog is really nice but really loud and unfortunatley she started barking at 4:00 am. He looks at me blankly. Does this family suffer from some sort of brain disorder I begin to wonder. I suggest helpfully, "maybe you can move him into another room". He replies, grumpily and stubbornly "there is no other place". I try to encourage all my brain cells to unite in an effort to find a reply which will not offend said neighbor, but will not sound like I except his explanation as a solution. I push on bravely "Well we need to do something, because as I said, she is cute but really loud". "so its a morning thing, she usually doesn't do this" "well I push on yet again, its also in the day and the evening" "when do you come home?" he asks. "fivish" I reply and thinking he has find a solution or in the mist of finding a solution, or befor he goes off in the wrong direction, some way to get out of correcting the situation, I thank him and turn around to leave. Well now its finally over.

It wasn't pleasant, no one appoligized, but I am getting some peace and quiet. Its over.

When I arrive home that evening, it is blissfully quiet. No barking. I sigh...see everyone is right, communication is key.

I go to sleep, and still not a peep from C.

It's 4:00, and we are back where we began. I work on being patient, he must be working on the problem I tell myself. Not trusting myself to talk to him without telling him he is a dumb moron with no etiquette nor a shadow of a brain, I decide not to leave a second message. I tell myself he is trying to walk her later it just didn't work and he will see that for himself.

Saturday, I must be so tired I don't hear C. I wake up refreshed.

Sunday, C barks continuously from 4 to 5. At 5 AM someone opens a door and he quiets down immediately.

Ok, so now they see it doesn't help and she is still barking at 4. They will try something else now.

Monday, C starts barking at 3:00! She has moved her barking cycle up an hour! Furious I sit at my desk to pen a letter, which I finally deem is polite, but some what firmer, which I tape to the neighbors door. A nice long piece of tape I decide in a half crazed mood must show my determination.

3:40 a door opens again, and like magic C stops barking. I check the window. The note has disappeared.

The only reason why I have not called the police yet is because they are geographically very close neighbors and because they seem to be trying to solve this issue even though they seem awfully slow witted about their attempts. Perhaps its after all not there fault if they are not bright.

But this is it, they have 48 hours and then I bite. I will call 911.

Time sponges be gone

2008-09-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

I had a head hunter who emailed me when I was away on vacation. I emailed back explaining I wouldn't be in the states for another month. He replied "enjoy".

Then I received a voice mail from him on my return, which I promptly returned. To be contacted twice with such a time gap may mean a position that may be hard to fill. Perhaps a position which requires proficiency in French. Perhaps this is something lucrative. I reason, if it's hard to fill, and they really need someone, it should pay well. Excitely, I call him the next morning on the train to work and we scale through polite formalities quickly.

"So is anything on your radar I ask?"

"What?" (as in he needs to buy time to lie).

I repeat my question.

"oh i'm not at my desk". (meaning, he just needs to look busy by interviewing people as there is probably a lul)

"Can you call me back later" he asks.

"Sure", I lie.

If there is something on the table I know he will contact me to give me the details. I don't call back. A week later. He calls me "why don't you come in to meet the office so we can get you set up with something?" I am doubtful, but I think it would be nice to have a nicer position. What can it hurt? Then, the day of the meeting, I think to myself, I don't feel like trecking over there for a position that doesn't exist and come running back to work worrying about my suspicous lateness. Besides, I reason, I really don't want to see J. the head hunter, who keeps insinuating that we should go out and who doesn't seem to pick up on the fact that my avoiding responding should clue him in. Obviously, he cares little about my discomfort, and less about my time, and wasting it. Five minutes before my appointment I call him and leave a voice mail that I won't be able to make it due to playing catch up on my 1 month long vacation in St. Barth.

Sigh. I am trying hard not to be bitchy... but I hope it hurt.

Avoiding small talk of the painful variety

2008-09-23T12:28:00.000-07:00

Taking my little pizza box I make my way over to sit in front of a fountain with other fountain gazers enjoying the last remants of the summer sun.

Since returning from the caribbean, and also perhaps, since being almost mugged, I have become more aware of my surroundings. I look more closely at people, and perhaps this is how i notice there is a man with an orange pants and green shirt. My eyes linger. He looks like my ex. However it couldn't be, because my ex would never own much less wear such colors. Maybe the green top, but never the pants. Yet I am fascinated in a disturbed sort of way, I try looking closer, I squint. As this person occasionally looks around him briefly. He grabs his ear and starts rubbing it. A gesture I think he did, in fact, i am pretty sure. I try to calm myself by focusing on the fact that I am sitting behind him so maybe he won't notice. Then even better, I think I need to leave before being noticed. I scoop up my stuff, just when i see from the corner of my eyes, he is making his way to my corner. Calmly, I get up so my back is facing the sidewalk he is making his way to, then I coyly turn and make my way to where he just left, quickly leaving him behind.

I need a personal manager

2008-09-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

I need a personal manager who walks up behind me and gives me taps on the back of my head whenever I stray from what I am suppose to be doing. They wouldn't need to be heavy duty amnesia provoking taps just irritating enough for me to desire to avoid them and also serve the purpose of redirecting me when it does occurr. "tap". Back on course.

Grey day

2008-09-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

Today is grey and kind of gloomy. The kind of day you stay in bed for with a good book under the covers. I am coveting my pillows. One for my head, the other my arms.

It is 4:00 the worst part of my day. My lunch is settling in like an anchor pulling deep into the depths of sleep. A world impervious to my supposed office duties.

I can feel the pressure growing on my face, my eyelids, my cheeks, encouraging me to succumb. My entire body, turning itself off. I am fighting with out much intent to remain awake like a lone sailor trying to navigate a large yacht who has lost all crew.

I protest quietly while i feel myself slipping irrisistibly away. I just need a second.

Almost mugged on the E line

2008-09-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

I was almost mugged standing in the Subway. It was overcrowded and I felt as if I was being unnecessarily leaned into. I move around to adjust my position to create more room, but he is definitely leaning into me and it seems intentional now. I switch my bag to the front of me and squeeze my bag feeling for my wallet. It's there. I look at him to see what kind of person, he looks thuggish. I have my wallet and my cell phone, I start focusing on my exit so I can make it as quickly as possible through the thick unyielding crowds. I go to the rest room at my office and I notice my bag has been ripped open with a knife.

I go back to the platform and they call officers to come and meet me. They take down his description and show me tiny pictures on laminated cards. He is not on their cards.

I seem to be an oddity for them. Remembering the person, providing a description, and not really having had anything stolen. They grow to a group of 8.

Maybe it's my stance. I am not ranting, or crying, but determined. Cops seem to be judgemental creatures, it's their job to assess people quickly, and I feel as if they are not quite sure what to make of me.

They take down my info and I thank them as we part.

St. Barth Tomorrow

2008-08-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

My ex tenant has moved out and has left me wood bar stools, a desk, an antique kitchen scale, some more furniture, candles, and a fat cat named Meow who and which I will see for the first time tomorrow.

My brand new taupe bags are not yet packed because I ordered them late and are expected to arrive after I leave which is of course not beneficial to me. My cousin has lent me his suitcase but which i have thus far refused to pack as I optimistically hold out hope that my luggage will arrive today. Speaking of which, I can't help but feel as if he is harboring some jealously or animosity connected to my leaving.

My lengthy shopping for my mother who is in St. Barth is completed.

The house has been cleaned, the garden trimmed, and the lawn mowed.

Everything I plan to bring is stored together awaiting with an expectant air for their future bag.

Yet I have this anxiety that I am missing something which will come to me only once I am on the plane or perhaps, I am just anxious, anxious about seeing my house again, or the trip, or leaving all my plants in my father's care.

Yesterday, I was so anxious, I had to remind myself I could stay if I wanted to. Which I really can't, I suppose, as I will need to work on my house. But I mean, it's strange to be so anxious without a definite reason and since I was not quite sure what I was anxious about, it was difficult to reason with myself.

Blue jay killed

2008-07-30T13:20:00.000-07:00

We had an accident in my backyard. A bluebird was killed. There was a cat lurking under the trees that ran off upon seeing me. A guilty cat.

The blue jay was majestic. Its feathers, what fashion designers fail to attempt, untouchable breathtaking beauty. A mixture of grace, grandeur and humbleness. A quality of frailty and strength.

Its blue striped feathers dotted the lawn like the scene of a tragic opera. Looking at it lying there, I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do. The story finished before I could interact or intercede.

Touched, I went to retrieve a little box with tissue paper. I dug a hole. It helpted to do something. Gently placing the bird in the silver and white paper, then in the box, which seemed inappropriate for something that seemed so pure and blue, like a piece of the sky broken off, I placed him in the ground and covered him with dirt. I found blue flowers which I placed at the site.

Life seems quite ambivalent to it's little creatures.

Walking away

2008-07-29T08:02:00.000-07:00

I'm going away for one month to take care of my house in St. Barth. I am not sure returning to NY is such a great idea. I am not really invested in my job, which is thoroughly unfulfilling, nor do I have an apt I need to hold on to, nor do I have anyone here to return to.

I can just walk away...

SWIM

2008-07-24T11:10:00.000-07:00

I want to submerge myself in clear blue water and swim until I can't move anymore, then i want to devour cheese puff balls with Heineken, and collapse in a white hammock, focusing on my rhythmic breath.

Study of the unwitting development of evil

2008-07-22T09:33:00.000-07:00

I once had a subway conductor who would seemingly, intentionally, and quite cruelly refuse to leave the stations in a timely manner. First he would fuss for ever with the doors, then once closed, he would wait a full minute to 3 minutes before launching off as we all held our breath fearing the doors would pop open once more. This, while rush hour is in full swing and everyone has run in a frenzy to make this subway so they can make their train, which will leave you behind regardless of any sadistic conductor you may meet. Our eyes glancing in a repetive tick-like motion to our watches our faces a combination or resignation, frustration and anxiety.

Having missed my train, I leisurely walk up to his window and glare at him, he takes off right away.

For a very brief moment, I had an insane, yet repressed desire to take on a gypsy accent and say I curse you, your family, your children, their children, their grandchildren, their great grandchildren, in fact I realize I am cursing all of humanity, which is probably in a small subtle way what this conductor is attempting.

I exhale and go for flying saucer ice cream.

Leaving for St. Barth in 2 weeks

2008-07-22T06:28:00.000-07:00

I still don't have luggage. I still don't have any capris which are so very necessary there (pants being too hot, shorts too casual, dresses to fussy, capris generously leave mosquitos that window at their disired ankle area for them to gnaw on). My house is still not cleaned. My shopping is still not done. I am still fussing over the baggage requirments and pondering the possiblity that they may really make me pay excess baggage from St. Martin to St. Barth. I am caught between the desire to play it safe and bring the only 40 pounds per traveler permitted and sneaking in extra pounds based on the fact that the airline is generally pretty customer friendly and has allowed me to do so in the past.

I am caught one foot hovering in mid air, the other staunchly anchored to the ground.

I realize that this is also a very accurate description of my life. This perpetual over sucrutinizing of possibilities that I lack enough information to make a logical decision about coupled with lots of unfinished business that may never be attended to. So I stand perplexed, not moving forward, yet also not moving backward, a foot in mid-air.

Leaving for St. Barth in 3 weeks

2008-07-15T13:33:00.000-07:00

I am leaving for St. Barth in 3 weeks to take care of my house. My tenant who has grown into the habit of habitually paying late and is presently 3 months behind has promised that if he were not able to provide me with the full payment by the July he would leave. Which I suppose I should be grateful for as it didn't require legal intervention to have him removed. He opened a restaurant which apparently is not working out as he expected so I can only be understanding, these things happen and he said he would pay me the past months in increments.

Then just as I thought I was becoming use to this idea and make plans to visit my house for renovation and enjoyment, the neighbor who borders my little pool and the back side of my house, has recently taken to massacre the native palm trees that divide his property and my house. I am thankful I am not there to see those poor trees that took decades to grow in harsh dry land lie helplessly on the ground looking up at the sky wondering what they did to deserve this. My privacy vanquished, my house standing there with large multiple doors open allowing the birds to fly through is now also on display for these neighbors.

The natives on the island seem to suffer from a strange affliction, of chopping down all the trees on their property and sometimes even on other peoples property that borders their land. Then they complain that it's hot, it doesn't rain, that there's no water to be had. Try to tell them that trees provide shade, maintain humidity and encourage rain and watch as they look at you like you mentioned that they need to plant magnets in order to make refrigerators. I won't mention to them that trees are attractive, I am sure to get a look of pity.

I am building a wall. I may not be able to stop them from destroying their land, but I will preserve mine and the wall, which holds humidly and will reduce the wind that batters my trees will serve to protect them. It will also thankfully separate me from those people.

Grandmother Florestine Left

2008-07-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

I woke up early this morning feeling something was amiss. It was too early to wake up and I had gone to bed sinfully late. But, there I was looking at my watch, struggling to make sense how it could be so early when my body felt like to move, roam, run, eat, and move forward with my day. I feel a slight anxiety, an obscure excitement. The phone rings, I hear my cousin speaking from the other room where the answering machine is. I am amazed he would call me so early. I think about getting up to check but my sleeping mind cannot put together any possibly alarming scenario that would warrant depriving me of possible sleep which might come to me, which I would appreciate later in the day, like a traveler lamenting the weight of his bags but thankful for the contents later. I twist and turn. I worry about my not being able sleep. I am generally a good sleeper. Something is not right. Something, but what. I run over in my mind my day and fail to find anything that would cause me this flighty feeling.

Later when its time to get up I play the answering machine, apart from my cousin's call, there are 2 other messages on it from my uncle. He sounds very sad but does not mention why he calls. I think about my grandmother. My mind draws up an image of her in her wheel chair, thin, sad, but perhaps worse than these, she is resigned. I wanted to visit her more often but that look and the fact that she couldn't hear me stopped me from visiting as often as I wanted. She tells me about taking care of my teeth. My family reassures me that this is what she says now.

I remembered how she like to wear pants when everyone else on the island her age only wore dresses. I remember appreciating how she kept her house spare. Giving away things that took up room. All these years I had thought it was the architecture of the house that appealled to me, but having returned their later, I realized it was also the way she kept it so that air and sun could flow through. It was all simplicity and lightness. I share with her the way she liked to garden and see things grow.

For years I avoided seeing her because of some issues we had, when i returned, she was gone in a way and now she has left entirely.

I will light an candle for her tonight so that she may find her way.

sibling chattttter (Apple is drunk chatting) (M avoiding work at work)

2008-06-24T10:59:00.000-07:00

*Rose (left): Mom's cat

Apple:
knock
knock

M:
knock
knock
knoc

Apple:
no i am the one knocking
not u

M:
oh i am knocking too

Apple:
what up

M:
see you knock on one side and i on the other

Apple:
does not make sence
your logic is flaud

M:
depends what you desire from the knock
flawed.

Apple:
???

M:
as is your spelling

Apple:
oh lala

M:
maybe i just want to understand
the cultural phenomenon of knocking
or partake in it

Apple:
maybe you should just open the door

M:
is rose still in hiding because of your dogs brutish behavior
ha but what would be the fun

Apple:
i think it would make a lot more sence
no

M:
sense
it depends
we can communicate by knocks
there are angry knocks

Apple:
what makes u say that

M: urgent knocks

Apple:
she not hiding

M: mom said she was in hiding

Apple:
oh well not anymore

M:
when your dog mauled poor baby rose
anyway i guess she is a bit of a snob, i suppose ur dog would take offense to that

Apple:
oh llaala
i have something to ask

M:
no

Apple:
do yo know

M:
no

Apple:
u know there is a name for the history of words

M:
boo doo boo doo boo doo boo doo

Apple:
i forget what it is
the orgin
of a word

M:
entymology

Apple:
oh i know you are genious

M:
no no
i am God
;-)

Apple:
i love looking at where the name originated from

M:
why are you a nerd
jay you can't chat for shit
whata re you doing

Apple:
nothing i am looking up words

M:
hold on

Apple:
on online etymology dictionary

M:
why
are u going to be an englsih major
and me i will be a computer engineer
but people will hate me
because if they are mean
i will have to teach them respect by way of sabotage
diliberate karma
jajajajajajajaj
jajajajajajajaj
jajajajajajajajaj
jajajajajajajajajaj
jajajajajajajajajaj
ajajajajajajajajajaj

Apple:
(entymology of name copy pasted here)

M:
yes i know that
and jay is the gift to men
;-)
but that is relvant
jay you are FAILING your chat duties
how was work
did you have fun with Theirrry
is he building you a shrine
will he collect your bones before you leave
to complete it
does he follow you around with holy water
kuma sa
Kuma sa
YOU SUCK

Apple:
got to go mom is next to
me

M:
GOOD
BECAUSE YOU ARE NO GOOD CHAT PERSON
GO

Apple:
fuck u
u thnk that u are so great at it think again

M:
HA THEY MUST BE HAPPY YOU ARE LEAVING

Apple: what did you bring to the conversation

M:
AT LEAST I CONVERSDE

Apple:
nothing at least i found where your name orginated

M:
AND INFORMED U
OF YOUR STUPD WORD
HA

Apple:
what ever warrior

M: WHAT EVER

Apple:
i am boring u

M:
HOW CAN YOU NOT
I AM HAVING A MONOLOGUE
I CAN DO THIS IN WORD
BY MYSELF
ALL ALONE
WITH NO HANDS
NO TONGUE

Apple:
i was just curious
ok bye
then

M:
that is the most words you have written yet
bye
if u are there
please get me mom
she is more chatty

Apple:
i am there but u ar too rude

M:
that is fine
i don't feel likek staring at my own words

Apple:
yea of course because she just says yes a listen what ever u want to talk about

M:
no
that would be "toi"

Apple:
what anybody else has to say u are not interested in

M:
that is not true

Apple:
i will get you a parot

M:
i am very interested
thank you but i fear i already have one
perhaps we should of stayed with the knocking

Sent at 1:58 PM on Tuesday

Tummy Troubles

2008-06-19T09:10:00.000-07:00

These are things nobody wants to hear of course. I have been suffering from IBS or some other naughty bowel disorder. I now hate my bowels with more hatred then i knew i had in me.

I have been cleansing, eating gross nutritious food, researching, trying, failing, researching, trying failing for more longer then i care to admit.

I am frustrated, angry, tired and depressed and know more about the digestive tract then I ever hoped to. I also feel alternately hungry but am too fearfull to eat a full meal. This illness has a hovering presence that looms over me and preys on me relentlessly.

Many believe IBS to be caused by anxiety which is strange because I think it is IBS that causes me anxiety, sort of like a thief calling a victim a thief.

In any case, I will now be buying and trying 5-htp to raise my sertonin level! Yay!

Time zone

2008-06-12T13:33:00.000-07:00

My supervisor likes to work on things early, which in my time zone, is me trying to decipher between dream and reality, as well as wondering if the uncomfortable subway ride with people pressing into me due to lack of space, is some kind of atonement for past sins I can't quite recall but which are no doubt numerous as the sequence repeats itself every a.m.

Movement

2008-06-12T13:13:00.001-07:00

There is someone who works in my office who lurches, shoulders and head hunched as if he is use to walking in a low cave. He has slight snarl on his face. His upper body pitching slightly in front of him. We also have someone who struts. Then we have waddlers and the usual walkers, more or less adept.

I use to be very cool

2008-06-12T13:09:00.000-07:00

I use to be very cool, until I realized how the ground beneath my feet was much harder then I had previously thought, now I tread cautiously.

it was very painful and in memory it still is

2008-06-11T12:04:00.001-07:00

Trying to turn a lunch hour into an interview which instead turned into a terrible display of babbling. Simple questions seem to come out of some deep unfamilar place...What does your company do, what do you do, my mind wistfully pondering her inquiries in a meandering way. Pondering but not answering, perhaps not even focusing. Just purusing here and there, these subjects like someone taking a liesureley walk in the garden, leaning over a bush to take note of its flowers. English, became a foreign language. Stringing together a coherent sentence becomes like searching for an endangered insect in a lush forest.

The coup d'etat: I managed to crash into one of the agents who had asked me out in the previous visits and who was now flirting with me again. It's times like these when I think I need a new me or at the very least an escape/eject button.

Ms. Leaf

2008-06-05T06:25:00.000-07:00

Eating my pizza beside the very tall building where I work, while appreciating a book, I notice a little leaf shaped bug making its way imperiously across the sentence I am reading.

Later when I take the subway, I pull out my book, and Ms. Leaf makes her way across the borders of the book, precariously hanging on the edges. Appalled by her audacity of having hid in my bag all this time, and about to shake her off my book, I become amused by her bright green shape and leaf color, and of course, her audacity, and I take pity. Instead at the end of the ride, I decide to free her outdoors but unfortunately, I must hurry to make my train. Rushing in the station, she gingerly walks around my hand. I brush her off in my bag and put the book there too. Upon removing the book, she crawls out again. I think to myself, she stayed all this time under my desk at work but she can't stay put for a second now as she seems to crawl endlessly till my 3rd attempt of brushing her off in the bag where she remained ominously hidden. Had she crawled off or flown away, I peak. Not in the pockets of the bag, nor my hands nor on my book. Would she remain on this air conditioned, tomb of a train to die a sad death, I worried while trying to read Stardust by Neil Gaiman.

As the train slows down to make my stop, she playfully crawls up my arm. So she has made it this far, I will free her by the trees outside, away from the station. Cupping my hand over her, I make my way and look at her. She looks back. I keep walking and instead decide to free her in my lush garden, if she will stay on till I make it back. I look at her when I walk, she looks at me and she waits for the garden. Opening my old wooden gate, I show my garden to her, which is now her garden too, and let her down on a little thorn bush I think she will like. Upon some prodding, she looks back at me one last time, and then satisfied walks off.

Most Terrifying Moment of the Day

2008-05-30T12:36:00.000-07:00

.
Looking into a 10X mirror.

The mirror, a cruel looking glass, made my pores into ominous cesspools of bacteria and dirt, and there were other things, things i never noticed before, things i don't want to think about. There they are in my head. They are not going away. These thoughts that live there too now.

Of course the mirror was on sale. what type of person would buy a mirror which only creates self doubt and an uninhibited desire to spend an obscene amount on facial cleaning product? Only a small fringe of crazy people who are innately drawn to purchase sales items regardless of value, need, or function.

I am going to buy the mirror. This is war.

Preface to "My Muse"

2008-05-30T10:55:00.000-07:00

Now, upon having received 2 comments from people believing that I describe in my previous post "my muse" a Hollywood “love/hate/love & live happily ever after scenario", I need to disillusion you.

We are not interested in a relationship, we just had, and perhaps he is still has, an unnatural and unhealthy propensity for putting ourselves/himself in Machiavellian situations. I can only recall a vague attraction for why we were drawn in as being a weakness, a predilection, for the power play that our situation had turned into.

I can’t speak for the young man (ha, over 15 years my senior), but please let me assure you I now have better ways to waste my time.

My muse

2008-05-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

I have decided to follow my muse. That is, I have decided not to think but to go by instinct. My past has been about over analysing which i fear are tendencies which may have held me back from opportunities. I hope honing in on my muse skills, I will make better more powerful decision.

Based on this idea, after having 2 dreams with a sort of ex, sort of friend, sort of soundboard, sort of lover, I sort of decided to give him a call. I just felt like I had to call him but I couldn't explain why. I could think of many, many, reason why I shouldn't. But since I was no longer following reason, but inner instinct, i called.

This is a person I had met in the Caribbean years ago, went out on a date, and then intentionally avoided him until he left the island. Having suddenly a change of mind, I decided to meet him the day he said he was leaving only to have missed him and crashed into another ex who happened to work in the tiny airport.

I then proceeded to hunt out his friends on the island and ask for his phone number, not judging the time difference, and ecstatic I had finally attained the number, I called him at 3am.

We eventually met up in LA, fought, and I was pushed into leaving. A year later, same scenario. LA, fight, only this time I was older, a little less crushed and a little more logical as I insisted that he pay the difference of my ticket.

Three strikes, but there was more. I somehow invited him to my island. For the life of me, I can't remember why. I think I had some vague notion that I wanted someone to vacation with. It didn't work, we fought, and I kicked him out right before a hurricane. But for good reasons, which even he eventually called to admit, though a few years late.

Occasionally we exchange emails. Very simple exchanges. We weren't looking to start over this painful process. I guess we just wanted to wave.

He recently felt inclined to respond to my im title "who dare knock on my door". Of course, he dares, he knocks. But I think he, mostly wanted to make me jealous that he was going to Mexico. He sends me the resort website. He asks me if I am coming. I "hahahaha" him. But upon his departure, in order to tease him, I change my title, to "I'm going to (resort name)". This probably was not ideal, as when he logged in his gmail, his girlfriend I didn't know about may have been hovering around.

In any case, I dreamed he lost his leg, he was surrounded by lots of dark skinned larger men. That he was very upset. (i mean in the dream he did lose a leg). I become anxious and think of calling him, but then think, he's in Mexico and you are here in NY working. Of course his legs are fine. So I don't call. then a few weeks later, I dreamed that he was a friend living in Santa Barbara (he recently moved to Santa Barbara from LA) and that he was driving me to see him, a lover in LA. Then I wonder in the dream how my friend will feel about this lover/ex and how they will get along. The dream hovered about me all day till finally i decided to exorcise it with a call to him.

The phone rings five times. (he has caller id)

My hand is on the hang up button and I sigh relief. See I tried.

He picks up.

"I wasn't going to pick up."

"I was going to hang up."

I go sit in my backyard to soak in the rest of the sun before it descends any further in the sky. I sort of mention the dreams and ask how his vacation went. It was a disaster he explains. The eco-resort was made up of a bunch of flimsy cottages on the sea with only slats and no real walls, privacy, or way to filter the sounds from neighboring cottages. The shower water was salty and cold, the accommodation were below expectations. He complained to the resort. The resort offered him credit to be used on their amenities.

Deciding to make the best of it, he uses some of the credit to book an afternoon massage, they encourage him to go for the night message instead, which he does. He describes the massage as being naked, and cold in front of the windy ocean in the middle of the night as a much larger woman (he has a thin frame) plops and smushes tepid mud onto him. I say, well it can't get worse. He assures me it does. He goes to the restaurant in order to burn more credit and fears he may have contacted food poisoning. They eventually leave the resort to go elsewhere but cannot figure out how to activate the a/c during the long hot ride which does nothing to alleviate his mood nor his health issues. Arriving at the hotel which has no close parking, they must haul up their bags down the streets, while he still feels ill.

Later Sitting at a busy cafe on one of the busiest streets in Mexico, he turns to his girlfriend and says "I think I am going to pass out". Which he promptly does. He comes to on the floor seeing the blue sky, and hearing his girl friend yelling call 911. He also realizes he has defecated on himself and must now get up and walk to the bathroom as all eyes stare in his direction. He proceeds to lock the bathroom door to clean his pants as people begin knocking on the door worried. They are insisting he open the door. "un momento por favor" he faints again. When he comes to there is feces all over, the smell is atrocious, and he only has a itty bitty napkin hiding his penis, he hears his girl friend say "oh my God" while covering her nose.

Well, the momentum and tone of the trip pursues him back to California where he suffers skin poisoning from bad henna ink contracted through a henna tatoo, and in trying to help a friend to the hospital is stopped by police for breaking the speed limit and threatened with jail. Which seems to horrify him more then everything that happened to him in Mexico, as he explains he seriously doubts he would be the biggest, baddest guy there.

Now i feel like I am suppose to tell him, well, that he may be perhaps bringing this bad luck upon himself by going out with people and giving them false hope that the relationship is blossoming into a commitment. His actions and behavior are unintentionally hurting those he dates. He is sort of like a drunk driver who does not mean to run people over, but ends up doing so. He is an irresponsible dater.

And yes, after all of this, he is thinking of dumping her, as he has done with all his previous girlfriends.

Now I ask my muse, why me, why must I explain what I suspect about his karma and his life lessons?

Blueseaurchin

2008-05-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

I am just going to live with this thorn.

Skin upon skin

2008-05-16T14:20:00.000-07:00

Skin upon skin
A complex combination of smile and grin
Layer upon layer
Not one has a prayer
A kaleidoscope of people within me
A costume for each, you agree
I shield the birds eye view
My time spent with each of you so few
No one can claim me
for any price or fee
It was such a nice game
Until he called my name
Mephistopheles do you see
And like that I was free
But he turned to leave
It was His trick to deceive
Cut open once more
As only lions roar
Vulnerable and unbound
I was lost and then found
I had thought him so fair
But his tricks laid me bare
There I lingered too long
lost in the song
Captivated in his trap
I lose all bearing, mark and map
Here he reveals his price
My heart will not suffice

The matter is currently in litigation.

2008-05-07T08:55:00.000-07:00

As island time obeys a different and much slower speed then most places in the world, and the French legal system is renown to be efficiently and ludicrously bureaucratic, he may decide to find a different road before he dies of natural causes.

May justice reign.

A Piece of Land - Part II

2008-04-30T09:22:00.000-07:00

I was in the bathtub with a red candle flickering by my foot somewhere in the mist. The phone ringing somewhere behind the door. It's my mother. The bull dowzers have returned to my grandmothers property, they have knocked down a stone wall and are now shoveling so close to her little house it has become a health hazard. The family have once again called the lawyers who had initally instructed the family to stand down and not block the bulldowzers, so that they could prove the apposing party at fault , however, now, seeing how how much they have shoveled the lawyers apparently believe we have enough proof and have encouraged my family to take their own bulldowzer to block the entrance. It seems most of the bulldowzers on the island are reserved for construction or there owners are on vacation. My family plans to use their cars until a bulldowzer attained.

I have no heard news back since yesterday.

I have prayed a rosary. Is this how it's said? It feels like I am a very tiny thing knocking on a very large imposing door asking for help and not sure anyone can hear me.

Bryant Park 8:30 a.m.

2008-04-30T08:44:00.001-07:00

It is finally a little sunny in NY. I woke up early so I could walk to work instead of being pushed and shoved on in the dark clammy E line subway. I walked to Bryant park picking up an onion bagel from a street vendor on the way and had breakfast on little european park tables tucked between the fountain and the Great Lawn. The sun in my face, the sound of water trinckling and tiny birds are playing in puddles created by the fountain. One little bird pops up on the chair opposite me, looking more baby chic, then bird, its down a hazy fluffy aurora instead of feathers. It is trying to charm my breakfast from me and has has succeeded. I throw a piece down and without thank you, as if expecting its due, it swoops grabs it and flies off. Leaving all the other tiny birds to look at me from the ground. I resolve to look ahead at the lawn and ignore their stares. Until another one comes on the same seat, i toss a crumb on the table top. It jumps up, and grabs it and leaves. As the other birds remain on the ground to watch me I wonder what makes some bird dare to perch on the seat accross me. Is it hunger, courage, greed, a mixture of the three? I am sure I understand the first bird, he was relying on his fluff factor.

WARNING: Fake blogger Kazilar sending viruses

2008-04-28T16:52:00.000-07:00

Warning: I just received a comment on my blog from blogger going by the name Kazilar. Apparently he is not too bright because his message just says "click hear". Which of course I found suspicious so decided to google his name instead and right click to see the properties of the hyper link he had listed. Please send the warning out to everyone you know.

Here is a link I found with someone who had a message from the same user:

http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help-howdoi/browse_thread/thread/c980f9d3cd72b8b4/a9f9e3d2ff8220e6?lnk=gst&q=

It seems that some people have such pathetic lives they anonymously strike out at random victims.

A piece of land

2008-04-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

It’s a normal morning. It is raining in NY. My alarm, crickets sing, I hit snooze. It is grey. I snuggle with my pillow under my covers, my little cave. I wonder at how much more precious my time in bed seems to me when I have so little of it left to savor. I am sure the covers never felt so nice in the weekend when I can linger at my leisure. The morning blur of electric toothbrush, makeup, lotion, shower, getting dressed finding my bag, my keys, running to catch the train, and finally finding my way to my desk.

My mother calls from St. Barth, there is a bulldozers tearing up the acacia native trees on my island. Trees that have taken an eternity to grow in those desert conditions and battered by sea salt and wind in the valley of Grand Fond. Trees that we have made of point of keeping to preserve the islands identity and to help the wild life that depends on its thorny branches to hide nests in. My mother tells me she stood in front of the shovel forbidding it to advance and she threw stones at it. The family gathers around the workers to protest the thoughtless onslaught on the property that lays beside my grandmothers house. Ligne de St.Barth, the ruthless and soulless owner of a company who makes lotions of what he claims are natural ingredients on the island, has decided to build another factory, storage or building. My uncle follows him and berates him for taking land from people who trusted him while leaving them with nothing. My aunt calls the lawyers to see if they can put a legal halt to his desecration. My grandmother, I imagine must be sitting somewhere trying to make sense of the commotion.

I am so far from my little island. One of the few places left on earth that still feels a little natural. My home. The land my ancestors refused to sell even as they had no money to eat so that they could one day pass it to the next generation. It is brutal to see how this same land is being taken over so thoughtlessly by foreigners who throw money around and who fail to respect the nature, but even more malevolent is to witness the gold diggers who drill at the islands surface, carving her rocks to spit what they hope will bring more money in their pockets.

I once heard a horrible story about an island called Nauru, that lost her soul. I wish I could stand on the tallest hill of my island and tell her story. Tell them to remember Nauru.

*Nauru is an island that was once nicknamed Pleasant Island for her natural beauty but has since has suffered her entire interior land to have been carved for the mining of phosphorus. Where the island was once a tropical jungle full of birds, crickets and animals, it is now a white pit leaving the inhabitants to ponder their actions on the edges of the island. They now worry that rising sea levels due to global warning will erradicate what slim outline of land they have left.

http://www.utne.com/2006-11-01/EndTimeintheSunshine.aspx

Codeine Smile

2008-04-20T11:14:00.000-07:00

If it were possible to remove all painful moments as simple as deleting unwanted files from a computer would we be happier, more adventurous, more loving people. Would we be slightly niave, slightly stupid commiting the same error multiple times never to gain insight into our failure. Would a smile be worth less if it's filled with codeine and laced with ignorance?

Who am I

2008-04-20T10:50:00.000-07:00

I mimic you and dress like you. I don't think i fool you. You are a foreign culture and i am a small bird from another land posing as one of yours so that I can live amoungst you. But at times, regardless of all your effort I am unsure who you are and what you want from me. I attempt to assume a competent comprehending gaze in your direction but wonder if you see through it. I hope by not saying too much or too little, or being too fidgety or too stiff to avoid your curiosity and eventually your analysis and your judgement of who it is I am. But I wonder as your gaze recedes what do you think of me?

As I sleep

2008-04-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall,
My heart has experienced them all
do i dare repeat the sequence once more
should i risk a heart so sore
do i shrink away and hide
should i chance another ride
do i turn away and leave
how much more can one grieve
do i leave my heart behind
should anyone be apt to find
an object as obscure
as if to lure
a love so deep
As I sleep

Eclipse February 20 2008

2008-02-24T13:17:00.000-08:00

February 20, 2008. The moon stood momentarily in the earths shadow making her a petulant rusty orange. Sitting with my head leaning on the window, my phone pressed to my ear speaking to my mother temporarily stationed in st. Martin and my broken glasses missing one arm laying slightly crooked on my face, I hailed the new red moon like one might hail a new era years ago when these oddities might be declared an omen. Behold the red moon, good news awaits us.

I did not know what awaited me. I did not think that much about it except to think how lucky I was to witness such an event in such a clear sky. Our next full lunar eclipse only appearing in 2010 and who knows what weather we will have.
The next day, feeling slightly blessed and slightly fuzzy by this great big red moon I settled down behind my desk at work. When i was called by my boss into his office I wondered at the possibility of what this even would mean. The post moon happy feeling being eclipsed by a remote but growing sense of anxiety. In his voice I could tell he meant to discuss something as he didn't sound his usually distracted self. I thought of my line of defense. Reasons I had not completed all I had. etc. The list was growing fervently in my mind. Tiny mice working tiny type writers listing my deeds. No lawyer in sight.

I sit and decide to enact a calm demeanor. He is telling me only good things about my performance. I brace myself. I know, good first, then the jab. I am waiting for the jab, I tell myself not to flinch. I hold my head up high. I know i will see this through. He discusses my raise and my bonus. I am surprised. I didn't think I would receive one. I consider showing my surprise or should i enact mild thankfulness withholding surprise to temper his consideration of whether this bonus and raise was perhaps, too considerate.

But i am happy. I am delighted. I send my love to the red moon who blessed me.

Solo

2008-02-15T23:05:00.000-08:00

Ooops I kind of missed V-day in that I was solo and happy for once about it. This time it came as sort of a relief considering that I have a red-heart, hand-holding, eye-gazing allergy. I am simply not a fan of dramatic emotions and gifts I don’t especially like but are expected to gush over while worrying about how i am going to avoid using/wearing/keeping them. Exclaiming "you shouldn't have" while wondering will it break, perhaps I can say it was stolen, or maybe lost.

There is also the fact that I am a creature of comfort and I don’t like getting dressed up and all the fuss of being into it. I don’t like maintaining conversations and listening. I don’t like sharing my bed, bedroom, or bathroom. I would rather sit in a café and fall into a good book. I want to go when I feel like, and leave when I want, and not have to think of calling or explaining. I don’t like demands, expectations, compromising and that is invariably what relationships are about. I would rather write. I would rather explore. I would rather google. Relationships are great but I have to have lots of room. I like to feel air. I like quiet. Yet being in one can be interesting at times because I have learned tons about myself I don’t think I would have learned otherwise…its just…I kind of like being solo. I wonder if this is selfish or wrong. I mean why can’t I be like everyone else and want the same things? Not that being unusual is wrong, but maybe isn’t it?

Adieu, good bye

2008-02-12T07:50:00.000-08:00

You wish the best for me
But the room is now cold
You did not mean to hurt me
Yet I sit in the dark room
You tell me it will be ok
To stop my tears from falling
You kiss me on the head
Wishing me goodbye
You tell me it’s not my fault
Then you walk to the door
You look back before you leave

I only have the footprints
You left in the snow
I think about putting my feet in them
To see how they would feel
I did not think I would keep using them
But yet here I am at your door
I offer you my heart to keep
Because I won’t use it anymore

A Wave

2008-02-07T19:40:00.000-08:00

I was innocently wasting my time looking at funny cat videos on U-tube when I happen to come across music from the Swingle sisters - harpsichord concerto #2 largo JS Bach. It was such a powerful and mellow piece that accompanied a little kitten trying to sleep that I immediately had to find it, which I did, and which I downloaded to keep in my treasure chest of music. The music picked me up like a wave carrying me off in a floating sort of lazy jellyfish way. Then as I was playing it, and floating, before I realized what I was doing, I forwarded it to a friend I had stopped speaking to after a petty argument ...but perhaps had stopped communications for other reasons that the argument which may just have been a culminating point in our fading friendship. This argument, I fear, as is usually the case with most arguments, may have served as a focal point to a larger agenda of things we feel we can no longer accept from someone. But there it is and my email has irreparably been sent.

I drew this wave as therapeutic relief.

2008-02-01T17:39:00.000-08:00

Blackie sits and waits

This

2008-01-31T13:42:00.002-08:00

No Patience

2008-01-27T16:45:00.000-08:00

I have no patience. I am like a 3 year old child. I just started looking for a new position and already I am so impatient about my situation I want to give up. I went to the interview this week and they seem to like me. They said they would call me for a second interview. But still, there it is, this gut wrenching feeling that there will never be another job and that I will be forever stuck where I am. Which is simply not not not possible. However, If i am to be reasonable about it there is really no logical reason for me to feel this way as I was contacted by another head hunter Friday for a possible interview, and yet I can't rid myself of this loathsome heavy cloak that's dragging me down. It's not even a feeling its more of an infection. Spreading through me from my body, to my head, to my heart, causing me to be morose, sullen and aggressive. Even my legs refuse my direction and sit planted firmly to the ground like roots. I am torn between allowing myself to wallow and wanting to yell. Possibly Scream at the top of my lungs. I consider throwing a 3 minute tantrum full of punching my mattress and hot tears. Will that work? Oh no, I think , I am 3 years old. How can this be? And will they still hire me?

Time to find a new job

2008-01-20T12:51:00.000-08:00

I am searching for a new job in the thick of NY winter. I have decided to adamantly refuse to interview for positions which refuse to quote a salary or who quote a salary below my requirements.

I have refused to see job agents that don't have an office in the city or a real website. If I can't take them seriously, I doubt the larger companies I would like to work for know they exist or care.

I will do my best to win over my interviewer and make them like me in a professional way. I accidentally was working on the "like me" tactic when a head hunter asked me on a date....too much "like me", I make a note to tone it down.

Smile, people want to hire happy people, who wants to hire someone morose. I have time to be grouchy later.

I will practice the I am so great at "blah blah" list before I enter the interview. Everyone needs marketing.

I will look into the eyes of my interviewer and I will look sincere. I good storyteller believes his tales.

I will make a point of remembering names. Yes I remember your name because you are important to me and so is this position, so why don't you give it to me?

ok.....I am so ready, I think.

The ghost that stole my apartment

2007-11-23T13:11:00.000-08:00

Someone stole my apartment - quite possibly a ghost. I found a little apartment in alphabet city (Avenues A,B,C,D) for sale. The broker told me she believes I could make a fair bid asking 30,000 less the price tag. I like it a lot. I cannot say it is true love. I am rarely in enamored by anything being skeptical by nature. The add says "bright" which I assume meant sunny. Apparently this is not what they meant as there is a wall perhaps 5 feet off from 2 of the main windows making it rather grey. So while I was pondering whether I should make a bid the broker emails me that someone has made a bid for the full asking price and if I want to make a matching bid. Um, no I think, not unless the neighboring apartment blocking the sunlight can be moved allowing me to have the bright apartment mentioned in the add.

Being of a sinister and pessimistic NY nature, I wonder if there is an actual bid or rather a bluff from the broker with the intention of encouraging me a full bid.

Hudson valley area

2007-11-03T15:59:00.000-07:00

I want to move the Hudson Valley Area in some rural property. I want a farm house that's immersed in a forest of trees. I want a trail that will take me to a stream. I want to smell the earth after it rains. I want to hear nature and nothing else. I want to be able to sit in nature and not meet another soul for hours and reflect on the beauty of it all.

I don't want to commute. I don't want to work in an office. I don't know what I shall do.

Fall

2007-11-03T15:48:00.000-07:00

It seems fall suddenly crept up on us. It's November so I suppose we can consider it late.

The chilled winds are howling and and shaking our trees and their remaining leaves like mother nature cleaning up and blowing summer away. The sky is a serious grey as if clothed in some dark suit awaiting some momentous occasion and I am hiding in my bath tub with a fine book listening to the house creak with the sounds of heat being pumped up. Its funny, during these colder seasons it seems there is no better place to be then at home. There is no want, need or desire, just the here and now and my tiny pink toes sticking out of the water.

Three trees one listens

2007-09-26T13:45:00.000-07:00

The Liar

2007-09-20T15:53:00.001-07:00

I am not getting enough sleep. I am an 8 hour sleeper. I can even push 9 if convenient or sometimes even when not convenient but much needed. In any case I seem to be getting to bed later and later, most unfortunately the time I must awaken to make my train has not changed. And it is always too early and apparently getting earlier as I am sleeping later. Now you think that a reasonable person with fine analytical skills would go to sleep earlier in order to escape this painful routine. And in the morning, as my alarm rings and I tap the snooze button thinking about how I will make up the time, to catch said train on time, I promise myself in the most sincere manner that tonight I will sleep earlier. I promise this to myself like a gift. I look forward to it and placate my desire to remain in bed with it. I fool myself, I trick myself, I lie to myself, because as the hours tick away at night, I become involved in mundane web searches, listening to music, or reading. The hours tick away without my notice. And then in the morning as the sun rises and the alarm rings the deceit recommences once again.

Escalators

2007-09-20T15:48:00.000-07:00

Escalators. So here you are behind a line of people that are moving politely up the elevator when you get close to the top the people at the very end suddenly become elevator edge shy. And they just stop as the edge looms closer and everyone behind them must sit and wait for them to do the simplest task of stepping over the edge. Why is this so difficult for some? Surely they must understand that the people behind them are staring angrily at the back of their necks muttering curses …. But no, it seems it's the edge is what they fear most.

Just wondering

2007-09-07T14:05:00.000-07:00

I wonder if i scare off potential readers with my childish pictures. Perhaps they open it and think....this is a childs blog how cute, click, exit.

I am prone to childish behavior and I wonder if somehow this doesn't sabotage me....in an adult world.

The Children

2007-09-07T13:42:00.000-07:00

She was supposed to keep the children for one week. One week would be ok she thinks. She couldn’t say no. Not after what had happened. She closes her eyes trying to remember their faces. She has pictures but they are in dusty boxes she hasn’t opened. She sighs…One week, only one week. She books her itinerary and throws her beige suitcase on her antique bed. Her mothers old bed, who had once belonged to her grandmother. Now it was hers.

Sitting on the plane rubbing her hands together she realizes she has made the same gesture for too long, her neighbor looks at her uncomfortably and her hands are pink. Its strange her sister asked her to take care of the children, the new children. I mean after the accident, it wasn’t her fault of course. But anyway, that was long ago. Someone taps her shoulder hard she looks up at the stewardess who from what it appears on her face has been trying to get her attention for a while. “Chicken or beef?” “What? Oh, yes ok chicken, Thanks.” Still its strange she hasn’t heard from them in so long. She can barely eat but keeps looking at her watch. She doesn’t understand why she is so anxious and thinks perhaps it’s the house and them, all those memories. She falls into an anxious sleep where she sees the childrens bodies lined up in the grass. She is cold and clammy. She discreetly swallows 2 blue pills. One week, next Monday she will be back in New York. One little week. One little week. She keeps repeating to herself.

The taxi rides in the middle of the dark night is so long it is as if it will has no end and that the drive itself is the objective. Or perhaps there is not objective but it’s a lesson in futility. There are pines trees on both sides of the road enclosing them in somber tunnel. Its very cold and the taxi driver has let the window open which blows in the back seat making her shiver. Instead of saying anything she wraps her sweater tighter. Its seems to her that all the streets they take lead to nowhere and there are no street lights so its like they are always on the same street and have not made any progress. If there are houses they must be off small roads or deeper somewhere…she thinks. Why all these roads, there is nothing here. All this space and all these roads and nothing but dark pines and a moonless night. Her mind wanders to when they were children and her mother use to lock them in the basement as punishment….but that was a long time ago.

Her sister welcomes her with a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for coming. Listen we know this is all very last minute, but Dan’s heart is troubling him again and we were lucky to get this appointment with this Doctor, its just a shame he is so far.” She opens her mouth to ask her sister how far, and where, but closes it promptly knowing it will be taken badly. “if you don’t want to do this just tell us.” Her sister motions to her to take off her shoes and they climb upstairs quietly. She opens the door, see, your same room. She can feel her self suffocating. She tries to breathe but coughs. Concerned her sister looks at her “Do you need some water?” She shakes her head and follows her sister out of the room. Now listen, all our info is in the kitchen drawer, numbers, hotels and you have some friends numbers as well. OK, so it seems you are all set. She moves in to give her quick hug. She feels herself stiffen “you are leaving right away”. Her sister smiles, and pats her you will be fine, “Dan left a few hours ago on an early flight I want to help him get settled in you know how it is”.

She walks her sister out. And notices she doesn’t have any luggage. “Don’t you have any bags?” “No, Dan left with everything, it’s only a week you know me, I don’t need much.”

She can see that a taxi has been waiting for her behind some dark pine trees on the road and she wonders how long he has been waiting and how strange it was that she didn’t hear him call. I mean surely even in this remote location and especially in this remote location they should call upon arrival. Her sister looks at her for a minute without saying anything and then just vanishes in the taxi. She looks at the house. It casts a shadow over and she can now see things she didn’t notice when she first came in. The paint is pealing and one of the window panes are broken. Its just a slight fracture, but it really could have been fixed. The house is dark, there is just a little light in the living room. Last time she was here there, there was no tv, something about reception. She thinks absently, she will just have to read and the children are sure to keep her busy.

Standing at the foot of the steps she wonders should she look in on the children. She was sent pictures of them but she hardly remembers how they look. She starts going upstairs to check on them, maybe they woke up, but then she stops at the third step and realizes she can’t go up the steps alone. She tries to laugh, which sounds strange in the silent house. She holds the banister strongly willing herself to climb but unable. I am just tired, its been a long day. I will go eat something then I will go upstairs. It’s fine. But the house is so quiet, she is not use to such a silence. She tries humming to cover it. It sounds hollow and small as if the house is mocking her. She humms louder as she tries to find something in the kitchen. In the kitchen she finds some bread and she tries to open a drawer which refuses to open. She humms lounder and pulls harder. But it refuses to budge. It must be stuck. She spots a spatula and across the room and reaches for it to wedge it in the drawer as she hears a squeak and the drawer lies open. She stops humming doesn’t move. The silence resumes. She loses track of time but feels she has been standing motionless a few feet from the drawer and leaves the kitchen keep her eye on it. A cold sweat forms behind her neck which feels stiff.

She sits on the sofa and doesn’t move, doesn’t hum, doesn’t sleep. She can feel her heart beating hard, she is shaking. In her mind she sees the drawer open. Perhaps she opened it. She must have been tired, she must of opened it and turned her head when she spotted the spatula. She left all the light on and found a stereo she turned on lightly afraid to wake the children but turns it off. She can’t hear anything if she turns it on. She sits back on the sofa until the sun comes up the next morning. She feels better and the house seems warmer. She was tired. It took a lot out of her to come here. She looks at the steps but starts shaking at the thought of going up. She looks at the phone and thinks of calling a taxi. She could take the kids to NY, it would just be a matter of booking a few tickets. But this is ludicrous, what would she tell her sister, she is being ridiculous. No, she will just wait for the kids to come down and make breakfast and she thinks of the drawer and and feels cold. She left the drawer open. She closes her eyes and tries to calm herself. She is shaking again.

Its noon the sun is overhead and there is no sound in the house. She calls them from the landing but nothing. Then she sees a ball roll down the steps. She picks it up at the landing and goes up the steps calling the children. She open the doors and the bedrooms are exactly the way the other children. There are no new children. There are no children. There never have been. She drops the balls on the ground and feels her legs barely holding her. She runs to the bathroom and throws up and then again. Her face is white and when she looks in the mirror she thinks she can make out a small shape moving behind her. She screams. Bracing herself she walks to her sisters room to call a taxi. This must be some sort of punishment. She is crying. After all these years she never forgave her. The phone is dead. She must of cut the lines. She can’t believe this. Well they must have the truck. She walks out of the house, and past the garden angels when she stops and looks down. These are not garden statues, these are tombs of the children. She bends down to look. She had said she wanted them close to her but she never thought she would bury them here. A little further away there is a little globe, to my beloved husband with the year of his death, exactly one year after the children. She never told me.

She walked to the truck to which had dust on it, the keys were not in the ignition. She picked one up. Finally having enough she decided to walk surely she would find a neighbors house a deli something where she could call a taxi. She begins walking not even entering the house again to get her sneakers she had brought but deciding to make do with her heeled loafers. She set out in the direction she knew the cab had come from and walked with purpose. After about 1 hour of working in which the road ended abruptly at an unkempt abandoned barn she crossed over to take another road she had spotted on the other side of stream which bordered the property. Here she took off her loafers to cross the stream and continued walking to the stream, where she proceeded on the road which after a few hours had become a dirt road and then a little path, too late to turn back she pushed on. She was hungry and thought about the bread at her sister house. The drawer was just stuck. She was so stupid. After crossing the stream a few more times further up in the path she ends up in front of a river where she sees two little white crosses. This is where it happened. But it couldn’t be, she had walked miles. She sat down crying, she had come full circle. She couldn’t have been more then 5 minutes away from the house. She had to leave the area, the crosses seemed so clean and fresh as if they were just placed to make her crazy and she tried to make her way across the river when she fell and hurt her ankle. Having taken a stick she continued on the path which she knew would lead her back to the house. The door was opened but the top window is lit and she can she can see her sister’s shadow with her two children; she hears her breath leave her body like a balloon deflating and not able to run she collapses where she is.

4:30 a.m

2007-09-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

I awoke at 4:30 a.m.

I believe it was the empty feeling of un-fulfilment that pulled me out of my slumber.

I think 4:30 a.m. is not a good time to wake up when I had planned to be up by 7:15 a.m. And I tell this to myself as I shut my eyes attempting to return to my nocturnal activity.

I was not enjoying my dream. I was calculating figures and thinking about my bank account. I squish my eyes shut trying to force them backwards into REM. I feel anxiety seep through my sheets engulfing me as I turn over to ignore it. I reach for another pillow holding it close to protect me and and while trying to squelch these overflowing thoughts I try reasoning with them: "I am in bed, i am trying to sleep, its very late for all this, I have to wake up soon, very early," but inexorably they push on.

I am just too small to stop them. If only we could have a magical spray to spray them away.

Face Fatigue

2007-08-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

In Manhattan nobody looks at anyone, in the face or in the eyes. They look toward you but not at you. they have been bombarded by all types of eyes, noses, skin, ears, and lips to last them some time. Their mind can no longer process and their eyes have developed a dull glaze that reverberates all images back out like a pair of reflective glasses. I am not immune to this fatigue. I have it as well. That is why I must go back to LI to see space, air, grass, leaves, trees and nothing. Absolutely nothing.

And nothing can be pleasurable.

Mummy's coming!

2007-08-28T15:58:00.000-07:00

Mommy's coming! My mommy is flying in Thursday. And I am so very excited to see her again. I still have much to do. I have my room to clean up, vacuuming, laundry, mowing the lawn and all this before Thursday!!!

I think we will go to the MoMa museum on Friday, then as the weekend should be nice we can walk around the city or go to the botanical garden. I want her to have a great time as she is always working so hard in the Caribbean taking care of the family property and dealing with my fathers "Adam's Family". Even he doesn't want to deal with most of them, but happily lets my mother do it. She is so very patient....Too Patient. I have to teach her the word "NO". Two little letters...yet she has so much difficulty saying them.....

Icicle feet

2007-08-28T15:57:00.000-07:00

I keep sneezing, sniffling and my tiny feet were like to icicles this morning at the office.....sitting like this for 8 hours was just out of the question. And yet this always happens, its cloudy making the day cooler and they keep the a/c amped up, which means i am shivering with my jacket on. Well I found my little floor heater and I am now as warm and cuddly as a little rabbit.

I was once told they keep the office cool to keep people awake. However if we are sick and uncomfortable we simply cannot work.

Green

2007-08-28T15:55:00.001-07:00

1:00 PM

I am at the office and just beginning to wake up. I notice that my nails are green. Not an even nail-polished-intentional-green as if I am stylish (which I occasionally attempt), but rather spotted smudged green as in "I have a younger child" (which I don't have), or"I am an artist" (which is also not true), or I dumpster dive for stuff (also not true), or I have been removing disintegrating and sticky paint on my binoculars for bird watching (true) which has now attached itself in an unsightly way to my nails. Oh, so much less exciting.

BLUESEAURCHIN: Hurricane

2007-08-22T17:13:00.000-07:00

BLUESEAURCHIN: Hurricane

Hurricane

2007-08-22T10:06:00.000-07:00

It's the third day of rain and cold and its like August is having an identity crisis. I wonder why I can't have some sort of crisis so I can stay in bed and not run to catch the train, run to catch the subway and hobble my way to work in freezing cold office. The VP here has asked me to modify some faxes, which I do and try to hand it to him with a smile. He does not seem impressed, but I think sullenly how is that my fault? I am soorry the pages don't entertain you, they do even less for me.

Then there was my silly argument yesterday with my silly friend. I am still weighting whether I should be relieved or upset that we are no longer speaking. I think relieved. She is a lot of work and has a very irritating personality when things don't go her way. And they aren't going her way. And they won't go her way any time soon until she gets rid of her Italian-gigolo- boyfriend.

She accused me of being lazy, I accused her of being a gerbil on a tread mill. We took jabs, here and there till she couldn't type strait anymore sprinkling spelling errors as she finally and (i can assume) angrily disconnected her Gtalk.

She can be great, but she can also be a reckless hurricane full of problems that need listening too, appropriate nods and responses, and offered solutions that will be debated against and ignored. Then when things fail, as they tend to do with her, she takes jabs at everything around her. Still I am upset that I let myself get thrown into the hurricane. I should of just let it sweep past me.

I just had to test the wind and stick out my tongue.

;-P