Cafe Microcosmo

• 4:00 am: Skunk fight outside my window. Ends predictably.
• 6:30 am: Stench wears off. Alarm chirps.
• 7:30 am: Arrive what I think is a half-hour early for work, enough to get my tea and breakfast and sit peacefu... FUCK, Old Lech is here and wants to whisper sweet garlicky nothings in my ear. Hide in the basement.
• 7:57 am: On the floor in apron, hat and forced smile. Informed I am still one half-hour early. Learn I have the same exact schedule as the Special Needs Girl, because both of us are a bit useless and together might make up a whole person on the floor. Shittiness sinks in.
• 8:15 am: Punch in anyway. Proceed to be pushed around by grumpy Monday Morning types. Try to keep up with Regulars in a fairly cheery fashion, meanwhile dropping $30 worth of pastries on the floor, getting yelled at for cleaning too thoroughly, and nearly killing myself on the stairs.
• 9:30 am: Inform shift manager that an artist is coming for us to review work for us to put up on our walls. She shrugs. I try to get her excited and fail.
• 10:48 am: Behind the bar, cranking out drinks frantically, manager and friend both go on their half-hour breaks at the same time. Artist's wife arrives for conference. I send her around a corner with a free drink and frantically yell for help. While scurrying for whipped cream, someone tells me I need to be off the floor to help with sorting tips. My elbow catches a milk pitcher, sends it flying sideways, dumping its 180 degree contents down my calf and ankle, soaking my sock, seeping into my shoe...
  
• 10:49 am: "Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit...."
• 10:49:23 am: Yank off shoe and sock, rip apart First Aid pack for a burn pad, slap the slimey thing on my ankle, wiggle my shoe back on, and go to interview the artist's wife.
  
• 10:55am: Artist's wife schools me on corporate procedures about these things. And here I thought I was the resident expert. Shamefacedly shuffle downstairs to print out necessary paperwork.
• 10:58am: Changing in "dungeon," Special Needs Girl argues about who gets to do tips. In my underwear with floppy wet burn thing sliding off my foot and a whip-smart artist's wife waiting for me upstairs while our printer pops out one. letter. at. a. time, I simply say, "Please be quiet." Tears well up in S.N.G.'s eyes.
  
• 11:00am: Shove paperwork at artist's wife, bumble through polite farewells, run/limp out door with co-worker.
• 11:01-11:40am: Take sloooow train over Longfellow Bridge, which may be breaking beneath us, to bank where our coins stop up the counting machine three times. Gossip about the cafe half-heartedly while praying I get enough tips to cover groceries for two weeks.
• 12ish to 1ish: S.N.G. is off the clock, but waiting in the basement for us to sort out the cash, staring and making terrible social gaffs. I can't stand other humans anymore so I start drawing bananas on each person's tip envelope. Banana scenarious include but are not limited to: Banana Tourist, Banana Incognito, Banana Silent Treatment, Banana Olympics, Banana in a Hammock (literal, not sexual), Banana Nun Loaf (banana in habit with little poop - terrible, I know, but my brain fell apart), and Banana in a Hot Air Balloon. Why not?
• 1:34pm: clock out, but stay to read and decompress and enjoy A/C. Regulars look at me like I'm a little pathetic to spend all my time here. In return, I begin to feel a little pathetic and take myself home.
  
• 2ish pm: Run into current favorite Irishman from Chorus. Reunite joyfully and plan on gettin' the gang together. Heart pitter-patters with hope and promises are made for future rendezvous.
• 2:20ish pm: On the train in my non-cafe clothes, I still reek of coffee. It smells like skunks to me. I try to make sense of the day. I get out of my seat so a three-year-old girl with Downs Syndrome can sit safely with her Mom or nanny or whoever. She waves eagerly. I feel like a puke as I think of S.N.G., who isn't nearly as needy as this little girl but is almost always as joyful. I think of how little joy I return to her.
  
• Later than 2:20ish: Feeling abruptly returns to burned foot on train. Swallow scream.
• 3ish pm: Forge through Coolidge Corner to pick up ginger root and pork and a sense of self.
  
• Afternoon and onward... Cook from Arahsae's 3rd cookerie 'zine. Spray things with bleach. Calm heartbeats and hatebeats. Eat near roommate, but not with roommate.
  
• Now: Full stall. Literally full of yummy pork. Muy consada.
  

Learning blows.

This, apparently, is the week for old friends to come back from my checkered past to make me feel like a pile o' somethin' smelly. I assume they don't mean to do this. I have the proclivity to travel pile o' shitwise these days. At any rate, these people somehow draw out my worst traits and I tend toward several unlikable behaviors:

1. intellectual oneupmanship,
2. bluffing,
3. and sundry manipulative affection-demanding gestures.

While standing by the mailbox on the street with my roomie walking toward me and my world crumbly around the edges, I had an epiphany. It went like this:

I act exactly this way with my father and brothers. I am repeating impossible relationships in my life in hopes of solving a massive problem, i. e. my family. Instead of changing my behavior, I fall back into subconsciously ritualized behaviors as a last-resort survival tactic.

Epiphany, Part the Second: the rituals never work.

You can imagine how useless they are considering they go like this:

1. Oh yeah? Well I'm super smart and stuff!
2. Then I don't give a shit, I'm just fine over here and not miserable at all!
3. But I'm cute as a button, right? Don't you want to touch me?

No one ought to be on the receiving end of that, even if they deserve a little confusion in repayment for all the shit they put me through.

That's the end of today's psychology lesson. I hope you learned something.

I hope I learned something.

But what is she DOING?

Because people seem to be wondering, I shall provide you with the following mundane list of the crap that fills my days.

1. Avoiding phone calls.
2. Making unavoidable phone calls.
3. Carefully timing all checks sent to landlord and utilities.
4. Putting various band-aids on various lacerations/blisters/vulnerabilities on my still-mostly-dead foot.
5. Making corporate coffee. Avec smile. (Sometimes genuine.)
6. Buying more band-aids whilst postponing rent checks.
7. Babysitting a ten-month-old baby girl who screams at the top of her lungs for the first fifteen minutes. EVERY TIME I WATCH HER.
8. Lying awake.
9. Avoiding you. Yes, even you, although I love you and want to have something wonderful to say to you about my life. I don't, and so I am quiet.

Edenic

The young family comes out around seven every night. The babysitter trades off with Mom and Dad, and the two little girls run sloppy laps around the ersatz courtyard, squealing and giggling for a half hour until they're tuckered enough for a bath and bed.

Last night they sat on a blanket, Mom and the girls at first, reading and playing. The sky rolled in with gray furrows and distant mutterings. As I rose to close our ancient pulley windows the littlest one stood barefoot on the blanket, her feathery hair blown over her eyes, chubby hands fisted. She looked out as though she could see the thunder approaching and would take it down a peg once it reached her. The older girl clung to her mother and shuddered. She jumped as I slid the windows down, craning her neck to find the source of the rumbling too-close noise.

Usually I say hello to the little family, but last night I was distracted and awed by their impunity. Even mother nature didn't dare rain on them. The father smiled gently as he gazed in the direction of his toddler's stare.

and dreams

Lately it’s every time I go through Park Street station; there he is, packing up his guitar, wrapping up cords, zipping bags and gathering gear. I always miss the music.

He has brown eyes, big bear build, colorful, detailed tattoos sleeving strong arms. His head is shaved shiny. He wears brown and jeans and has a wallet chain. When he sings into his mic, his voice surprises me with its flannel softness.

In my work I don’t waste time with shyness, or coyness for that matter. The café is a stage and I act my ass off. The day flies by in a series of vignettes – this customer likes to be courted with sweet how-was-your-weekends and how-is-your-handsome-sons, the other one likes to be teased, told we’re out of his favorite things, made to pout before delivering his order exactly as he likes it. Old Man T comes in for his bagel, toasted darkly, one butter, small coffee, and sings vaudeville tunes to me as I hustle for him, trying to smile in appreciation when I can.

It’s funny that Park Street Guitar Guy leaves me tongue-tied. Musicians in general, performers in general, leave me tongue-tied. Perhaps it’s my own discomfort as a performer – it’s nice to be told someone enjoyed your performance, but also unmanageable. You say, “Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed it,” and try to sound sincere, but really you know all the little things you missed and mangled and want to tell everyone how unworthy of praise you feel at the moment. And so what do you say to an artist you admire?

As I lean on the fourth metal column, past the second fan, across from the big subway map, I think of how to talk to him.

“My timing’s off. I always miss your music now…”

What would he say to that? Sounds like the start of an awkward conversation. And even though we make eye contact fairly often, I don’t know if he remembers seeing me. If he does remember seeing me, perhaps he won’t like the familiarity. Who needs a stalker?

“So, do you make any real money?” Hmm, seems rude. As does, “Do you play anywhere… else? Like, real gigs?” How could I put that better? “Nice elbows.” Thinking that, I laugh to myself. He looks up and I hide behind the column for a minute.

Well, I console myself, he could be a douche. He does play a lot of Dave Matthews, after all. He’s probably like all the pseudo-hippie frat boys I’ve learned to avoid, trying to get laid with a little heartfelt tune here and there, playing the misunderstood, suffering artist. Ugh. If he has a pocket-sized dog-eared copy of On the Road or Howl on his person at all times, it’s already over.

Still, there's something to be said for hormones and dreams, isn't there? A crush is a crush. It makes your heart bubble, makes you sweep your hair back, straighten your back, and hope.

Regular customer: Hey, Jo, when's your chorus concert?
Jo: It's this weekend actually, on Saturday.
RC: Oh that's great! Are your parents coming?
Jo: Yep, coming in on Saturday and staying the night.
Mitch (from across the cafe): Goddammit!
RC: (bewildered expression)
Jo: Mitch hates it when I see my parents.
Mitch: She's freakin' useless for like a week after.
RC: That bad?
Jo and Mitch together: THAT bad.

they're coming.

If you should see these people on the streets of Brookline... pray for me.

remember when i was a writer?

I don't.

I did have some creative fun making this today, however...


... for a Chorus fundraiser. I've done more cheerleading than raising of funds, since I'm historically terrible at asking people for money. (Thanks, however, to the good, kind, much-too-nice-for-their-own-good people who have helped out. Sweet nothings shall be whispered in your general direction.)

waking is a struggle of birth
body tossing spirits away
mewling against the light of day
still tethered to the heaving earth

Sunday Mornin' Saffron Pancakes

Start by pouring a half cup of boiling water over a generous pinch of saffron. Seal in airtight container, allow to steep for a few hours (or a few days).

A couple years later, prepare some pancake batter, like so...

Dry ingredients in one (bigger) bowl:

1 1/2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 tbs sugar

Wet ingredients in another bowl:

1 egg, lightly beaten
3 tbs melted butter
1 cup ROOM TEMP milk (fattier milk works better)
1/4 c saffron infusion
1/2 tsp lemon juice

Lightly mix wet into dry. Fry up in a buttery pan (or on a griddle if you have one). Sprinkle pancakes with powdered sugar and devour. They should be thin and light and perrrfect.

Keep cooking batter until all important matters which you have been avoiding finally catch up with your conscience. Clean the kitchen instead of dealing with these matters. Write blog entry about procrastination to pretend that said procrastination has ceased.

People don't suck. Not always.

I need to leave my job, and I know this, quite solidly, but every time I think I'm gonna scream some amazing customer makes me reconsider.

We have a young nanny who comes in after dropping off her charge at the local nursery school. She sits in a comfy chair and reads, naps, chats, reads s'more. At noon she takes off to pick up the little one, but before she goes we talk a little about books, music, nannying, Boston... anything. The other day we talked about children's lit. Next morning she paid for her drink and handed me a big ol' book - a collection of short stories by Roald Dahl.

Then there's the big T. He comes in two times a day and gets the same thing in the morning: the NY Times, a multi-grain bagel toasted twice with butter, and a large coffee. He's about 65 and works odd mornings at a school somewhere, and works as a tour guide in some historic site on the weekends. He studies furiously for both jobs, highly nervous about them. He insists that I should be an actress. He also insists that Sinatra, if he'd put as much work into acting as he had into singing, could have won an academy award. This gentleman talked up Bonnie and Clyde with such reverence that I eventually felt I had to rent it to see for myself. He fairly glowed with happiness when I shared my review with him. "I saw it at every theater in Boston on its opening night. The audience... You could hear them gasp in that last scene..."

One of my customers started out surly. He's a young Irish researcher affiliated with the hospital in some way. He'd come in and order a large coffee, dump half of it in the trash and fill it up with milk. One day I yelled at him: "Dude, just order a small coffee in a big cup. You're throwing away a good fifty cents every time you come in." Since then he's warmed up a bit and we've had jokes back and forth. When I came back from my surgery he announced loudly, "Oh, I thought they'd finally fired you!" Thanks, dude. One of the girls I work with said something like, "Whoa, I didn't know he could talk." Since then I've set out to sweeten him up with everyone else. This mission resulted in a contract trading 20 seconds of Irish jigging for 14 days of free coffee. He turned purple with embarrassment but eventually signed it and taught me a simple jig. Now he comes in with a big ol' tip ready for whoever serves him.

The nanny, just so you know, was so intent on her reading that she missed the jigging. Woe is she!

Smoky Night

This video (title link) shows footage of a fire that consumed a house behind my apartment building. Those evacuated include my roommate and myself. She woke me with panicked shouting and we blundered into shoes and out the door. I was sure our roof was on fire - the sky glowed orange and sparks flew up and over, floating into our courtyard. Running out to the street, we stepped over hoses and around trucks and spun on our heels to watch out for the next truck as sirens wailed. Wandering through the peculiar desolation of Coolidge Corner at 4am, we finally pulled out our phones and tried to find a place to sleep for the night. Melis had couches and blankets ready. Somehow, when our hearts stopped pounding, we slept.

(Pictured here, the site where a house used to be. The brick building with the iron porches is my building. Too close for comfort.)

Today, a house is gone, another house is damaged, three firefighters are injured, and a whole neighborhood is investing in new batteries for smoke alarms.

focus

I had an interview today for an interesting but possibly not career-oriented job, and found myself saying all kinds of things about my passions that I don't want to believe. I was saying that Children's Literature is a private endeavor, has no application in my real life or career. That writing is a personal pleasure and not a profession. That my education was fun but completely self-indulgent...

The thing is, I'm beginning to believe those statements. And truthfully, I have no idea where I go from here.

silhouette nouveau

Got m'hairs cut. One of my regulars insisted on cutting it as I would be an instant advertisement for his shop. Smart, and he gave me a deeep discount. He also insisted on coloring it. I'm not so comfortable with the highlights, but hey, it's only hair.

My brother's lung, oh worriers, is on the mend. They've blown it up, done some confusing surgery and sealed him shut. He's still in the hospital and they'll release him when he's able to take pain medication orally. Should be soon.

I'm going home for Easter.

Sigh.

My brother's lung

... went POP again.

He's okay, it's re-inflated, they're planning surgery, he's not in much pain, the babies are taken care of...

but I guess I'm going home for Easter.

Because I need to see him

and poke him for myself to make sure he's still alive. And then beat him up for not quitting smoking when he said he would. And then hug him but not too hard lest he burst something else important.

Morning rituals

By the time Bostonians are restlessly tossing in their early Sunday morning hangover beds, I'm standing in the freezing cold, waiting for the Green Line trolley to amble its way down the hill. The driver and I exchange polite grunts and I stow myself in a forward-facing seat. I take out my book and try to get my eyes to focus. Sometimes I succeed.

The other people traveling at this time fall into categories.

Category 1: The people who run Boston so you can pretend YOU'RE running Boston. I'm talking T drivers, cleaning crews, Dunkies' and Starbucks staff, more cleaning crews, and construction workers. I'm sad to say that the hours before the morning rush hour are the only time I tend to see people of any significant shade of color other than pasty-ass white on the Beacon St. train.

Category 2: The mentally ill/retarded/homeless. One Downs dude, two tiny asian trash-pickers and one lady wearing seven-thousand layers and reeking of pee all fall into this category. One dude must have a municipal job. He wears a clean but ill-fitting suit, has the narrowest face and the biggest cartoon hawk nose, bouffant hair and the most irritating voice I've ever heard. When he recognizes someone he talks incessantly about his health in that nasally whine. "...But I stopped seeing that doctor because my mother said I should get a second opinion..." This man is probably in his fifties. His mother must be pretty old to be that domineering.

Category three: Financial district workaholics and workoutaholics. It has to be pretty bad if you get into the office not only before dawn, but before all your co-workers could collectively manage to spell the word 'dawn.' I guess that's a competitive edge. Women in yoga pants with their work shoes in chic shopping bags (Neiman Marcus is a popular choice) belong in this category. Some of them have showered and made themselves up for the train ride. Yes, the 5 am train ride that takes them to their workouts.

I don't spend much time evaluating the crowd anymore. The train rocks along and I read or sleep the open-mouthed, drooling sleep of the truly exhausted. At some point I wake up and say, "Whoa, where the hell am I?" As yet, I have not screwed up so badly as to pass my stop. I have, at least thrice, had mini-heart attacks upon realizing that I wake up AT my stop as the doors are closing, at which point I leap up and scream and roll out in the nick of time Indiana Jones style.

Then I switch trains.
After limping down the stairs I stare at the same people across the Red Line tracks. There are two Brazilians who know each other but seem to only talk while waiting for the train. They cease conversation once they board. There's an older black dude with a cane who sits on the far side of the bench so the Brazilians can chat. There's a challenged woman who walks waaaay too close to the edge of the platform. She wobbles, too. It's disconcerting.

Because I'm challenged in my own way, I travel one stop, exit with all the people who work at the hospital, and yield to the right, toward the elevators. The same women board the elevator every time I use it. They are round, short, one's southern black and one's West Indian. They are both middle-aged and tired. Every time we enter the elevator, one of them exclaims something faintly religious.

"Ah Lawd and Save-yah!"

"My Lawd God in Heav'n!"

"My sweet baby Jesus..."

These exclamations seem to mean the following things in the inarticulated early morning conversation: "It's fucking cold, it's fucking early, and I can't believe I'm fucking working."

At least, that's my interpretation. I never open my mouth in these exchanges but smile knowingly and nod in agreement. I give my, "Hooo doggies you're dead on!" look and let them exit the elevator first like a good little girl who was brought up right.

So you can imagine, by the time I get to my Starbucks, apron-up, clock-in and set up the store, I've done a lot of living considering how long I've been awake.

And this, all this, is why I can manage a half-smile and a "Do you want room in your coffee?" by 6:00 in the goddamn morning. With a two-hour lead time, it's almost like I'm awake.

Wake-up call for Miss Biv...

Tomorrow morning my therapist will call me at 9:45 to tell me a joke.

Several reasons behind this:

1. I'm afraid of the phone, and have many scary phone calls to make tomorrow. The first phone interaction, by his decree, will be easy.

2. I have the day off (kinda) and would sleep all day, or pretend to sleep, if I didn't have a concrete reason to do otherwise.

3. He really, really wants to help keep me afloat and doesn't know what I need, so I asked him for some very basic survival help. The phone call is his idea but dovetails nicely with other help I've asked for. (I believe my phrasing went something like, "I need consistent kicks in the ass.")

What would Freud think, I wonder?

DJ Jazzy JoBiv

Last night I helped out my Canuck Melissa with a wee project. She's running an event (a benefit gala) for her work and needed a soundtrack. Now, last year we developed a short album of carefully chosen songs that would bring people in for hors d'oeuvres and then kick them out at the end of the event. I sat and wrangled tracks from all over my CD collection, flexing and stretching to appease the client.

This year, I was prepared. Having lots of time on my hands these days (artificially, anyway), I put together 38 tracks of possibilities, choosing with Canuck's pickiness in mind. The songs had to be clean, classic, and not too adventurous. I, of course, insisted on putting in a few gems that she simply had to hear, 'though I knew they wouldn't make it to her compilation.

So after two hours, two bowls of homemade chili, two pudding cups and too much music, she walked away with three perfected soundtracks, hand-picked and groomed. Some great things got left out (my favorite version of Chet Baker's "My Funny Valentine" got blacklisted for its extensive, but I think understated, drum solo) but some greater things will get an introduction (Madeleine Peyroux, Jamie Cullum - new school meets old school).

All of this is to say that I was shocked at how happily I drifted off to sleep last night, completely immersed in my music. I was full of my expert status and gleeful after sharing music that's informed my vocal personality (including non-vocal tracks, mind you). The silly thing is, I forgot about this. I forgot that I'm good at something. Or some things. I forgot how good it feels to share and teach the things that make me passionate.

Let me cling to it a little longer. There has to be a way to use this in my life, right?

i rambini

Bizarro Sunday…

On my way home from a sad, painful little shift at the Bux, I wound up on the T across from two teen-aged boys. At first I was zoned out, buried in thoughts of how to initiate a few big discussions with various people (my manager, therapist, surgeon, roommates…) and was shocked out of my anxious meanderings by mention of guns.

“He’s got this rifle that’s like old Civil War but like way better and it reloads faster and the bullets are like made with…”

Inspecting the kids from across the aisle, there were no outward signs that they’d be in much contact with firearms. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the whiteness, the abercrombie-ness, the general we-live-in-Brookline quality was baffling to me. And they would. not. shut. up.

“… And there’s this gun where like the bullet’s like this big (gesturing with hands to the rough size of a basketball) and you can only shoot one and it’s like all your ammo for like weeks but it like tears shit apart and then you can’t shoot it for like a month but it’s like this big…”

What? Video games maybe?

“…he was just in the Airforce which, like, they don’t even have real guns because they don’t shoot people like Marines, so I don’t think he even saw a gun but there was this cool one that this Marine kid had and he can carry it anywhere and wouldn’t it be cool if I got a gun and I could...”

Yikes.

This reminds me of my mother’s take on the Second Amendment. Her theory is that the founding fathers would be overjoyed if those who still insist on upholding this particular amendment may only do so in an historically accurate manner. That is, they may carry 18^th century bayonets, which are impossible to aim, take about five minutes to reload and require such constant upkeep that really, how much damage could a person do with one? I don’t think this argument is particularly helpful, but charming thought, no?

Anyway, the Gun Fiends got off at my stop and lurched behind me for most of my limp home. My rough estimate on the time invested in their deep conversation… twenty minutes or more. On GUNS. This is the kind of instance that makes me think that I could never write convincing enough characters for a good novel because my brain would never conceive of a person, much less TWO people, who could sustain that kind of conversation for more than five seconds. I'm (appropriately) blown away.

Found an old notebook...

I was looking for blank pages so I could take notes on my scary phone call of the day (Mass Rehab) and found pages of doodles and poetry. Only a few pages had anything on them and I believe all the of the material came from my trip to NYC last year. At the time I was unsure of The Novelist and of myself, in a very dark moment.

How's this for indicative poetry?



Shoes and Lovers

Shoes and lovers hurt you
From knowing you too little
And knowing you too well
You can never know how long
You linger in the middle
The best days of the pair


I should tell you that I had a date last night -- a good one, I thought. It involved tea and a bookstore, so how could it be bad? The slight complication is that the gentleman in question works in the same offices as The Novelist. I don't want to hurt my wee writer. Well, I mostly don't want to hurt my wee writer... There's a part of me that is still angry.

un edit ed

I don't know where to start, so I'll just start. I worked a my first shift back at Starbucks yesterday. My doctor said I could go back to work so I took a shift that someone bailed out on. Three hours in my scar started puffing up. By the time i got home it was bleeding. I was tired, of course, and aching everywhere and not even useful in the store and completely unsure of how many hours I could work, and then... bleeding.

I have no money coming. My surgeon's assistant never mailed the forms he was supposed to mail, despite my constant calls, so I missed the file date with my insurance. My parents finally got a big fat envelope of forms postmarked january 7th. Clearly the guy didn't touch it til at least a week after he got back from vacation. By the time my parents forwarded the envelope, I opened it to find out it said I could go back to work immediately. Good? Not good? I had no idea, considering I hadn't seen the surgeon again.

I had an appointment the next day, actually, and brought up the forms. I asked my surgeon to extend the date because I couldn't get hours at starbucks and can't afford to shut off the income from the insurance til i start getting hours. This is all assuming that the insurance will work out.

As an extra happy surprise, I got several statements from my insurance detailing my surgery and the parts they'll cover. Apparently I owe about $3,000. Honestly, it wouldn't matter if it were $30, I can't pay anything. I've saved that freakout for another day.

So now... today... I dunno. I have to call Starbucks and tell them I'm bleeding and I do want hours but I can't DO anything. I should maybe, okay definitely call the surgeon's office to let them know the wound opened up and find out if that's a big deal or not. I have to call insurance people every day for the rest of my life until they can help me. I have to take a shower and brush my teeth and wear clothes and read mail and every little thing seems impossible.

I'm so tired. How do I stop being tired?

I've been going on dates willy nilly, too. I was going to omit that, but it's important. I'm in this very juvenile frame of mind these days where I need constant approval and attention, and so I throw myself at people and beg beg beg them to like me. I'm so fucking pissed that I have to wear a brace and can't walk properly can't earn money and I want some proof from the world that I'm still some kind of adorable human being. So I let men buy me dinner and tell me all the things about their lives that would normally make me say, "I think I hear my mother calling," and leave. I let them kiss me and try to feel convinced. And of course, as predicted, none of it works for the positive, except maybe getting dinner or coffee for free.

It's my brother Chris's birthday today. Also The Novelist's. My chest kind of squeezes around that weirdly. Everything, everything is so uncomfortable.

Trying to find a positive note, but then again we talked about that, didn't we? How i try to be positive for you sometimes, try to make other people more comfortable with my hardships. Maybe I don't have the strength today.

First day back at work

and my stitches opened up. That's right, five hours of work and I'm BLEEDING.

This can only end in tears, as they say.

'strange' is wunnathose words

Walking out of a long, high-tension movie (Atonement) with my friend, she stood waiting for me to put myself together. As I put on a sweater and a coat and a scarf, something strange happened.

I feel that this thing was so private and harsh to my friend that I can’t tell you about it, yet I need to write something because my head is spinning. And so, in a sort of prophylactic attempt to save her story I’ll tell one of mine.

It was a hard Thursday last year when I hadn’t managed to get out of the apartment for a week or so. I’d missed therapy and was about to miss group therapy. I found myself spending hours playing checkers online with strangers, who are much easier to talk to than the people who care about you when you’re in a mind to hate yourself. I’d decided to meet some guy I’d met through Match or checkers or something else. I’d decided to put on make-up and go out for a flirty, meaningless coffee because I couldn’t stand to take myself to group therapy. Mostly, I couldn’t stand to deal with my own shit that day.

And of course, while I was walking with this person, having just met in Coolidge Corner, a man from my therapy group was getting into a cab on his way to the hospital. He spotted me and yelled out a Hulloo.

“Oh, hi,” I said, careful not to use his name, because it’s strange territory among… groupees, “How are you?”

“Well, I’m headed over there right now. I’m going to be a little late but I really need to go. It’s good for me to go even when I don’t want to go…” etc. etc.

At some point it dawned on him that I wasn’t going and that I had company.

Now it was equally impossible to introduce this person I’d just met. I felt it wasn’t my right to give his name or to exchange it for the groupee’s name. All I could do was stand there and look stunned.

“I left a message with the secretary,” was all I said.

“Okay, well, hope to see you next week,” said Groupee.

Even though no one had been hurt, and only I had suffered some embarrassment, I still remember that cold, tight feeling in my abdomen of every single thing having gone wrong somehow, of all my deep and terrible secrets being bared, and worst of all, of those secrets becoming so instantaneously stupid and tiny.

Rationally, I knew that, in fact, nothing had happened, yet my mind twirled in inflated confusion for days afterward. I know my friend is feeling some of that now. I could see it on her face. Just as no one could soothe that feeling out of me, I knew that anything I said would only make her embarrassment more acute.

How do any of us sleep while so many people are hurting?

As we left each other tonight I apologized for my long silence over the past months. I said, "I'll try not to be such a stranger."

She said something like, "Oh, don't worry, you're not a stranger, you're just strange."

"Strange" is one of those words that if you say it over and over and over it loses meaning and sounds foreign. In fact, it makes everything more strange. strange. strange. strange. strange. strange. strange.

my left foot

THAT's why she's so grumpy. She can't feel her foot and the doctor told her that's not a good sign but too bad it could be like that for the rest of your goddamn life so let's just get that brace altered and send you on your way to a life of ugly too-big shoes and unsexiness and oh my fucking god...

Effing brace. I'm so sick of it I could SCREEEEAAAAAM!!!!


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHGHHHHHHHHHH!

the momanomaly

On day five after surgery, I awoke from the last shards of morphine into a new version of my life. In this version, pain and discomfort was constant but normal, I was fairly helpless all the time, and my mother lived on the floor of my bedroom.

I need to tell you about those days with my mother because it was so otherworldly. She was not the same creature I’ve grown to accept and fear. She was placid, strong and giving.

Even better, my roommates seemed to calm in her presence. One of them got sick that first week and we spent a lot of time letting my mother baby us. We had our rituals of tea and TV and simple meals. When I felt well enough we walked to Trader Joe’s and I tried to keep my mother from bringing the whole store home.

And despite irrationally blaming my mother for my tanking love life (as though I’d have dates lined out the door a week after surgery [or ever]) and my flailing social life (think I’m bad with the phone when I’m NOT on narcotics?), the days were mostly lovely in that, “wow, she expects absolutely nothing of me,” kinda way.

By week two, several changes had occurred. One, my mother ran out of her nasal nicotine cigarette-replacement spray. At home she would have been pacing and gnawing. In my apartment she calmly drank tea and tooled at crossword puzzles. Also, I had gotten well enough to regain my rigid sense of personal space and felt a bit claustrophobic. Because I’m predictable, I ended up crying to my mother about how hard this must be for her, to give up her routines and her privacy to help me.

Here’s the cool thing: she totally caught me out in my pathological game. My mother, whom I’ve been defensively mothering for at least a decade now, coolly dissected my reactions and let me be upset about the things that upset me. I cried on the couch where I couldn’t quite sit comfortably and she told me it was okay, that life sucks, that THIS sucks. She allowed my puerile manipulations and excused them and in the end she was simply there.

And then Dad’s phone calls kept her phone buzzing off of tables. My roommates got used to saying, “It’s PapaBiv!” whenever they heard the ringtone. It was always PapaBiv. He had decided to pick us up.

It wasn’t until my father had called from Schenectady that I noticed my mother unraveling. She started having coughing fits and slipping snide comments into her usually gentle instructions. She made and edited lists out loud, urging her frantic energy onto my plate and begging for me to pick it up.

The night before my Dad rolled in I was able to hear what she’d been saying for a few days. “It’s been so nice to be here, among girls. I never had that. I never lived on my own with a bunch of girls and had my own life.” By the time Dad reached Springfield, those phrases became a spite-tinged litany.

On Christmas Eve, when my father had become completely irascible, I caught my mother’s eye and said, “Y’know, there are a lot of nice men in Boston.” There was a true wistfulness in her eye as she washed out wine bottles in a series of deft, well-practiced movements.

A week in pictures (and poverty)

There was snow. It was purty, and impossible to walk on with only one good foot.













Eggs and bananas. Bananas and eggs. (And toast, at the time, although I've run out of bread since.)












Proof that I left the apartment and made it to the movies with my roomie. Good Jo! Tut tut.












Dressed up for dates, because if I go on dates someone else will pay for my coffee/drinks/dinner. And I'm less bored. Okay, and I like boys.











Proof that I still love Boston, even though I've been dealt the worst blows of my life here (and they just keep coming).

Art therapy.

I thought I felt like this today.


Turns out this Ramona is a gross understatement.































*No Ramonas were harmed during the making of this post.
** I would tell you the story of today but it's an internal one and completely boring. Let's just hope it's a temporary funk a la Ramona.

Forgotten poem

I wrote this when I was with The Novelist and never published it here. Trying to get back in my poettish frame of mine, so I'll share it, even tattered as it is.


I've noticed that we've learned to fit each other.
We take turns, leave space in our breath
for each other. We crawl around time
and give hours to each other. We
slice open our inner ears for each other.
We leave our hands empty and wait
for each other. We break all our eggs,
but tiptoe for each other. Perhaps
we save up our best lies for each other.
(And I wonder; would one of us die
for the other?) We keep sacred one drop
in the eye of the other. We conquer
the others, submit to each other.

3/26/06

riding the crazy train

I got my brace fitted on Monday, New Year's Eve. It's purple with bright planets on it, because that's how I roll. Er... limp. Understand, please, that I need the brace because my foot is still dead and my calf muscles only partly work. This, according to my surgeon, is not a hopeful sign.

On Tuesday I decided to test out the brace a bit and took myself downtown to my former place of work. The T ride was the most entertaining part of the day. Of course there were the hungover young folk still wearing their stained party clothes and reeking of greasy food and appletinis. Then there were First Night families trying to figure out why Boston SUCKS on New Year's Day when it was ever-so-fun the night before. I sat facing one family with three middle school aged kids. The littlest one was absolutely beautiful with her awkward glasses and sweet cowlick.

Then two blue-collarish guys got on, walked past me and sat lengthwise across back-to-back double seats, so as to assert their masculinity, one can only guess. One was a short latino with ridiculously long eyelashes and a baby face. The other was red. Red hair, red skin, red bloodshot eyes. I caught him looking at me and looked right back, then turned away. Apparently, this was an invitation.

He got up while the train was in motion. He sat across from me on the edge of a double seat, knees jutting into the aisle, leaning forward.

"Hi," said Red.

"Hello," said Jo.

"Do I know you from somewhere? You look so familiar to me," said Red.

"That's funny, because I have no idea who you are," I said, countering my rudeness with a wee smile.

"Oh. Well I just thought I knew you..."

"I'm pretty sure I've never met you," I said.

"Okay. Well. How was your New Year's?" asked Red.

"It was okay." (Actually, it was dead quiet. I didn't manage to leave the apartment.) "How was yours?"

"Oh mine was... blah blah... worked all night... been driving... blah..." he said, I think. There were huge gaps in his speech during which the train squealed or rumbled and he spoke too quietly and I couldn't hear a thing he said.

"What?" I said.

"I was driving with my buddy from... ...and we .... and then... so we're tired as hell..."

"Do you get to go home and rest?" I asked.

"Yeah, we're headed to the North End. I'm staying in the North End," said Red.

"Cool," I said, nodding and smiling.

"You have a really nice smile," he said.

BLUSH, I said. "Thank you."

Awkward silence.

"So," I said, "You're not from around here?"

"No," he said, "I'm from... ... up by... ... just in town for a while, thinking about moving here..."

I nodded, not bothering to have him repeat. At this point I realized the entire First Night family was watching us fiercely, especially the little girl. Her eyes fled from one face to the other like she was watching a ping pong tourney. I thought I should be a little more polite.

"And you? Are you from here," he asked.

"No, I'm from western New York. Six hour drive away."

"Ohh, and you live around here?"

"Yep, I'm not going back," I said. "I found a good place in Brookline."

"Brookline," he repeated.

"I came here for grad school and I'm staying," I said.

"Grad school," he repeated.

It was then that I realized I sounded like a prick. Red lost some of his gusto as the interview continued. For some reason, I felt like I had to efface myself a bit to make him more comfortable. I started babbling about how my grad degree didn't lead to a good job and I'm barely making it, like everyone else in the city. Through all the jabbering there were longer moments of stilted silence. When was he getting off this train? We'd been on it from Kenmore.

"I'm Chris, by the way," he said, reaching out his hand for me to shake.

"I'm Jo," I said, finding no reason to lie to him.

"It was really good talking to you, Jo."

"Yeah, well I hope you get some rest. It was nice talking to you, too."

"So could I get... ... if you don't..."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Could I... ...my number? Or could you... ... your number?"

My mind raced a bit. The little girl across from me peered intently, watching my every gesture. I thought about myself first, all the things that are currently fractured in my life and how undateable I am right now. I thought about him, not really living here, just some random dude to whom I was not all that attracted. I thought about getting a free dinner out of him - a practicality I could certainly use. I thought of excuses I could give him to make him feel better. In the end I said,

"No, I don't think so."

He smiled and took it well, then repeated the whole "It was nice talking to you" bit.

In the sudden and absolute silence there was nothing to do. I looked out the window at the dark tunnel, I looked across to the little girl, who was squirming in shared discomfort. I smiled back at Red a bit. I decided to get off at Boylston to end the awkwardness. I could just hop on the next train and keep going.

I got up, gathered myself, and just then remembered the brace. Red's baby-faced friend got up, too, hovering by the stairs. Shit.

"This is my stop, too," said Red.

Shit shit shit.

"You really do have a great smile," he said.

"Thanks," I said, flushing from the compliment and the coming gaff.

The doors opened and I let myself down the stairs one at a time. Red followed. I limped along and Red and Baby-face passed me. Red said a nice goodbye. Baby-face turned around, pointedly looked at my leg and gave me a pitying look. "Have a good New Year," he said.

I thanked him and whipped out my cellphone, pretending to check messages, not wanting to pass the gates and have to pay again.

A man waiting for a Lechmere train saw the whole thing. I waited for the next train, leaning on a column, regaining my composure. I bent to hide the brace a bit more. No use.

This, I thought, is your New Year.

The Post-Opera

Our last report from JoBivlion hinted at an upcoming surgery. Here, in its entirety, is the drama of the event, which I like to call:

The Post-Opera

Aaaaaand... Curtain!

Act I: A Rude Awakening

Waking up from surgery sucks. I suggest you never try it. All of the doctors – the anesthesiologist, the surgeon – were careful to tell me every little thing they were doing. The put me out, then flipped me onto my stomach, performed the surgery, flipped me back and let me wake up. There’s this lapse point between the pain medication they give you during surgery and the stuff they give you once you’re awake. That part SUCKS.

And then there was: “Have you told my parents I’m okay yet? Please tell them I’m okay…” I had this vision of my mother chewing through naugahyde. “No, I know I’M okay, but do THEY know I’m okay…”

Eventually, they said they’d talked to my dad and I shut up.

Actually it was the drugs. I had this lovely self-metered morphine drip thingie which I could press once every six minutes for relief. I don’t know why they don’t make that automatic, because it took me exactly ten minutes to find out the excruciating pain resulting from missing a dose. From then on I was trained better than Pavlov’s puppy. Nary did I speak, nap, or sip for longer than five minutes for the next two days.

Act II: Enter Chorus

My mother looked about seven years older than I’d left her. Walking in with dad she was trying not to react to something. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I reassured her and Dad with smiles and weak jokes. We all strolled together (well, I rolled) to my hospital room, watched people poke me, talked about how amazing the staff had been, etc.

Eventually I was alone except for the woman in the neighboring bed. She spoke Spanish and had gray hair. That’s all I could know of her.

I drifted and woke and drifted again. The world shrank to a microcosm of my pain, my magic morphine button, tiny beeping noises and constant buzzing of electricity. And hacking coughs from the little lady, followed by, “Ay, Dios mio! Ay, Maria!”

At some point I realized my parents were in the room again. I faked sleep, too tired to acknowledge them, but then the pain grew too intolerable and I had to push my button.

Now, according to my parents, we had an hour-long, incredibly lucid and relaxed conversation about art and literature, during which I said several important things which no one recalls. I remember my parents glancing at each other in disbelief, and quietly responding with mysterious smiles. My mother later told me that she wished I was on morphine all the time: I was so at ease in myself, defenses down, pure intelligence. I think I have the key to future doctoral work.

Act III: The Great Battle Scene

Probably the ickiest bit of the post-op play comes when the nursing staff expects you to answer questions, drink, eat, and generally use your body, which feels pretty unusable. This was my least favorite part and I prefer not to dwell on it. Let’s just say that I was in such oblivion that I had no idea I’d been catheterized until a nurse brought it up.

I couldn’t eat or drink without extreme nausea. My surgery resulted in a tiny nick in my spinal cord, which would cause migraine-esque headaches if I tried to sit up. My left leg pain was gone, but in its place was this searing wrongness at the site of the incision, and constant muscle pain in my back. I was rendered helpless. It’s fortunate I couldn’t reach my hair to pull it out.

My parents hovered all day until they were forced out, and then came the long night. My neighbor, it turns out, was the cutest little lady anyone had ever seen, but she was restless and didn’t want to sit in her bed all day. She constantly bungled her escape plans by forgetting that her bed had an alarm on it. The nurses would rush in, none of them Spanish speakers, and coax her back into bed. Eventually, she won, and they rolled her out into the nurses station so she could see some action.

My night nurse was a sweet guy. He kept me company (mostly to get away from the Ay, Marias, I think) and we talked about all kinds of things – where he’d gone to school, Boston rent, my non-career. When he left to do his work I would try to sleep. The problem was, it had finally caught up with me in my short dreams that I was in the hospital. My weird memories of my last hospitalization settled over me. When my nurse came back I wanted to ask him to stay and watch me.

I got through that night somehow, not sleeping, trying hard not to think. The morning seemed blessed to me, like I’d made it through a long, deep tunnel. I hadn’t known I was fighting until the exhaustion swept over me with the sunrise.

Act IV: Our Heroine Emerges Victorious

Midmorning, my new nurse took me off the morphine drip and had me take a pill. She brought me breakfast (beef broth, yogurt, jell-o and tea) and encouraged me to try eating. I was confused and encouraged.

My parents appeared suddenly, happy to see me looking more lively, eating real food (kinda) and actually awake. By afternoon the catheter had been removed and I had to try to walk. It was bizarre, each little movement a huge effort. Getting out of bed was the worst part, but I was cheerful about it. My mother kept admonishing me to go slowly, not to hurry, stay in bed if it feels better. The nurse quietly shushed her and encouraged me.

A few hours later I was walking slow laps around the nurses station. My new nurse showed me how to manage stairs. I felt like a working prototype. It was time to go home.

Act V: The Homecoming

Somehow, I dressed and cleaned myself and got into a car and arrived (three minutes later) at my apartment. I managed the stairs with my parents’ help. My father ran out for necessities and my mother eased me into bed.

At some point I was up, staring into my bathroom mirror at my slackened, dry, discolored face. I looked like the undead. I realized then how I must have looked to my mother when I came out of surgery – much worse than this, surely.

My father drove back to Rochester. My mother set up an air mattress on my floor. We drank tea and she watched me dissolve medicine, appearing to help whenever she could. It took nearly a week for the morphine to wear off. There was one day when my roommates and my mother pronounced me living. I looked in the mirror and saw my pink lips and flushed cheeks. I ate with more vigor. I grew bored and restless. The worst was over.

Back in Action

Kinda...

My bro asked me to edit a bit for his family's safety from an evil witch - long story - and it took me FOREVOR.

Shall post soon, m'loves!

Surgery Eve

What I Did The Night Before Surgery, By Jo Biv

I was aaalll ready to make myself crazy, running around the apartment, picking up all the stuff that I haven't picked up (because it hurts) and distracting myself thusly. Then my roommate came home and said, "Hey, First Light is tonight."

Waah... How did I end up missing it? First Light is my favorite Brookline thingie! It's basically the official beginning of the holiday season when they turn on all the lights. Tons of local businesses sponsor performances and give away freebies.

So Amy and I ate dinner and planned our boring nights. Eventually I said, "Amy, change outta yer pj's. We're goin' to First Light."

These photos come from my marvelous phone. My favorite First Light tradition happens at Party Favors. They clear out their huge front windows and make it a cake workshop. Standing outside, you can watch the pastry chef decorating impossibly beautiful cakes. We watched him create a gorgeously ornate Christmas tree cake, and then he made a princess with a doll stuck into a big bell-shaped cake. These pictures show him whipping off the skirt. He made a dozen frosting roses, each one taking less than five seconds. It was cooool.

So then we limped home (I limped, Amy walked), and as I finished up some laundry (pj's for the hospital), Amy had started Elf in the living room. Who can clean when there's Christmas on the telly?

And now I'm watching Food Network and pulling out my hair. What a busy night!

See ya post-op.

The knife.

Soooo I don't think I told you that I can't feel or move my left foot. It's been two-ish weeks now and my doctor has been frantically shoving me to various appointments - MRI's, x-rays, orthopedic surgeons.

This morning, a verdict. I have a severely herniated disk.

Doctor: Not the worst I've seen, but certainly tied for second.
JoBiv: Um... is that some kind of honor?
Doctor: [chuckle]
JoBiv: [stare]

He's a charming, congenial, not to mention youngish and handsome kind of man and I want to like him. He gave me a slideshow of my body from various angles and cross-sections, explaining that if it were just the disk, he wouldn't suggest surgery. In my case it's nerve damage. A herniated disk heals itself; nerve damage can be permanent.

He suggested surgery for tomorrow's bill of fare.

JoBiv: (after an hour of careful Q&A replete with models, posters and various pokings) And is there a chance I could get muscle control back in my foot without surgery? With physical therapy? Anything?
Doctor: Honestly, no. You could wear a brace to support your foot so you don't drag it. I've had people decide to do that. Meanwhile, the longer you wait to get surgery, the longer it will take for you to regain that control.
JoBiv: So... [panicking] I'd have to... [panicking further]
Doctor: [incredulous] Are you crying?
JoBiv: [crying] Yeah, I guess I am.

Doctor: [hustles to find tissues while muttering self-consciously about the badly stocked exam room, places inadequately tiny box of phyllo-thin tissues beside me.]
JoBiv: Hooonk. [sniffling. breathing deeply.] So this is how I operate...
Doctor: [with clear relief, but not picking up the pun] Yes! Tell me.
JoBiv: I'm going to go home, freak out, make some phone calls and do some research on my own. Then I'll call you with the questions I come up with and we'll figure it out. There's no way I can go into surgery tomorrow.

The doctor wished me good luck with my freaking out and gave me a number to call that wouldn't lead to endless voice-prompts and myriad receptionists. I guess he means business.

And now I've done my research, I've left my messages, I've consulted friends and parents. I'm waiting for my doctor to call me back, to let me know if I should see a neurologist or a second orthopedic surgeon. And then... the knife?

R.I.P. Maurice III, IV, V

My plant has passed on. It was a lovely dracaena - three plants, actually, that came in one pot, which I transferred to a very large ceramic urn. They lived happily for a while, spiking out their happy leaves from sad apartment to sad apartment. They accepted, with aplomb, over-watering and starvation. They bent, they shriveled, they flourished, they... died.

I don't recall when I named the first Maurice, which I got from a grateful parent back when I worked at the YMCA camp. That little plant lasted through the end of college, my first rented apartment in Ithaca, a brief sojourn in Victor while I was away in Ireland (Mom sent me polaroids to assure me of his health), and the first year of grad school.

Maurice the first was tough. He died the same week Shane died. I came back from the funeral and found him crumpled, brown, and beyond rejuvenation.

Maurice the second came puny and remained puny. He liked his little life on Beacon Street, looking out the fifth floor window at the manicured patio below. He withstood a bit of Christmas decoration and several tipping accidents, but then he got bored or fried or something, and he gave up the ghost riiiight about the time I found out the Big U was semi-dumping me.

Les Maurices III, IV, V died last week, really, only I haven't gotten around to a proper burial until now. These fine fellows loved the front porch of my otherwise delapidated house on Winchester Street. It's actually a very good thing I never brought them inside, because we had some kind of larva infestation that surely would have snuck into Maurices' gorgeous green locks.
And then here, on Longwood, Les Maurices seemed happy. They gave all outward signs of health. I mean, they leaned a bit longingly toward the big front windows - the only windows that get any kind of steady natural light - but it seemed to me like a winsome, sweet leaning. Alas, when my brother's dog whined out at the world by that window, she knocked Les Maurices over, as well as a few other fragile things, and the poor dears were less anchored than I thought. Their roots torn, their summer light fading, they perished within a month of Tom's visit.

Here's the eerie thing; when I went home for Baby Girl's birthday, I found out that the same week Les Maurices passed on, so did my great-uncle Doc.

Spooooooky...

Anyway, here's to Les Maurices! All five of 'em! That's the end of dracaenae stewardship for me, my friends. It's just irresponsible to buy another, both for the plant's sake and the fragile threads of my sanity.

dirty laundry indeed

Some day, I often think, I will cross Beacon Street with a little too much confidence and a trolley will flatten me. Smoosh. Game over. And then what’s left of me in the world?

There’s a spiffy but worn-out wardrobe, a gorgeous collection of books, one kickin’ music library, and… all this writing, doodles, paintings, letters never sent, obsessions.

Morbid, I know, to think of one’s leavings, and sometimes I’m in a self-pitying morbid mood. Other times I simply strive to comprehend what I’ve made in this world, whether any of it is worthy of existence.

I know I wrote a post once upon a time about including as much as I can on this blog. I try not to edit and I don’t go back and delete embarrassing posts. I still insist there’s some value in the awkward moments. Usually I’m able to look back on them with some self-forgiveness. It’s like the photos my mother took of me giving myself a bath in the bathroom sink when I was about four. For years I cringed when I saw that photo, and now it makes me giggle uncontrollably. I like to remember that weird little person I was and try to imagine having her thoughts again.

Still, looking at the Collected Works of Me, I find it very hard to swallow all the melancholy. Even harder to face-- all the feelings toward my family. If I catalogued myself, there would be a mighty section for family anxiety. It’s too bad, because they’re the only people who would spend the time to look through all these things if that trolley flattens me.

All this is to say, in anticipation, that I’m so sorry. I love you people. I don’t think I belong to you, but I love you so fucking much.

Parents and pain - oddly synonymous

Due to my sniveling cowardice, my parents are probably coming to my next choir concert. I could have said, “I don’t want you to come,” or something kinder riddled with lies, but I couldn’t do it. Instead, I passive-aggressively forgot to look up the date for them. That didn’t work.

I’m imagining M&P seeing me on that weekend and saying, “It looks like you’re lost weight.”

I shall say, “Why, yes I have. It seems I have a parasite. His name is Billy, and he’s quite keen on my innards.”

That would also be a lie. What I will have to tell them… what I always end up telling them, is the truth.

Mom, Dad, I was in the hospital again, this time for back and leg pain the likes of which I have never suffered before. It’s kept me from eating, sleeping, shitting, speaking, writing, working... I didn’t tell you because… Well, I’ll come back to that.

I’ve been in all kinds of pain before. I can only liken this to having a constant Charlie horse that will not loosen up. I can’t stand up straight and mostly hobble from bed to bathroom to living room. The other day I attempted a trip the bank out of pure necessity, and hurt myself badly enough to stick to my bed for the following 20 hours.

In short, I’m 84 years old without warning.

So parents, I didn’t tell you because you’d want to come help me, or drill me about every conversation with every doctor, or tell me I should sue someone, or offer some other kind of ridiculous advice that would only make me intensely angry. And if you came to help, there would be nothing you could do since you won’t drive in the city and you can’t donate a new spine and you have no money at all yourselves.

Think that’ll work on them? Me neither.

So today’s goal is to walk as far as the T, take a little trip, see how much it hurts, maybe get my paycheck from Starbucks if it seems possible. The Bucks expects me to work this weekend. I’m trying to see if that’s logical in any way. I have this sinking feeling that I already know…

joblivion revisited

I am very small. Teeny, tiny, shrinking, minute. I come home full of the reek of the cafe, my efforts there, the people there, and I shed it all to disappear.

This is how: remove shoes, place keys on plate for keys. Put away pursey thing. Trade pants for pjs, shirt for t-shirt. Stare at the bed. Will self to find some other healthy thing to do than stare at the bed and/or get in it.

Give in. Fold self into sheets and blankets and cold and panic. Disregard outside noises as they disregard you.

There. You don't exist.

This doesn't actually work, I realize, as much as I pray and hope and will it to work. I close my eyes and wish sleep would shut my brain down. Sleep never shuts anything off for me; it recycles, rekindles, reimagines... Lately I dream of dead bodies cornering me, all of them replicas of myself. I battle them one at a time until I'm so exhausted that I have to wake up. In these dreams, each injury I inflict on the dead bodies lacerates my body as well.

I don't know why I feel like writing about that dream. I usually keep my nightmares and daymares to myself because they make me feel completely out of control and crazy. I have this weird feeling that writing about them makes them more permanent, as though I have some power over them at all (which, it turns out, I don't.) I've tried so many weird little things to keep my dreams as ephemeral as possible. Nothing really works. I might as well write about them.

Last night as I tried to relax myself for sleep after a fitful waking, I thought again of how I used to stretch my arms across the bed when I was little. I must have been tiny - I remember wanting to be able to reach both edges of the bed and not quite being able to. I wonder how, at such a young age, I'd garnered this sense of having to hold on tight to the world in my sleep, as though it would continually attempt to buck me off. These days I wonder how I can reconfigure myself to let go.

Once again, I have to admit that it will do me no good to give a play-by-play of a weekend at home. It must suffice to say that things have gotten worse. My father has dug himself into so deep a hole of self-hate that the rest of us are powerless to help. My mother has chosen to ignore all of the deep conflicts by relishing in town gossip and cattily cutting into the people she loves the most (besides my father). My brothers are, respectively, newly jobless, increasingly whiny, and voluntarily absent. My niece and nephew strain between bored negligence and hyper-vigilance.

I can't open my mouth there, for fear of hearing what I might say.

Abstractions on love and grapes

A few years back I had a friend try Concord grapes that I had bought. This friend was very surprised by the taste. She said, “Oh, it tastes like purple popsicles.”

This was remarkable to me for two reasons:

1. Are we really at the point in our national diet that artificial flavors are our base experience, and the natural flavor is the abstraction?
2. I’ve had a fairly earthy life so far, growing up around vineyards, farm stands, real cows, etc. I forget that these things are soooo far away from the urban childhood.

You may cut me off at the pass here and realize that I’m trying to get myself excited about going home to Le Victoire. I called my mother last night to tell her I’d be able to make it home for the Beanie’s birthday (she’s turning four.) My mother broke out in tears of joy. TEARS OF JOY, people.

She asked me, as she always does, if there’s anything I’d like to eat while I’m home. This is sweetness masking compliment-fishing. I suppose that’s okay.

“Concord grapes,” I said, musing on the fact that I haven’t been able to get them in the city yet this year.

“Concord grapes,” she repeated, unenthused. I think she hoped to hear, “Gee, Mom, I’ve been dying to get a taste of your spaghetti sauce.” I have, actually, but I had this nightmare vision of the hours spent rolling meatballs, the masses of Tupperware (because she always makes way too much), the days of teasing tomato stains out of linens. In our house, nothing is simple. Even spaghetti sauce comes with guilt and grief.

Concord grapes stain, too, I realize. She’ll probably go to the extreme and try to make a grape pie, which is the most tedious pastry ever invented. Ever de-seeded 200 grapes to find that you still don’t have enough to fill a pie shell? It’s a special kind of hell. You lean over the sink, back aching, eyes blurring, fingers raw, deep red stains up your arms to the elbow. It is NO FUN.

Of course, there’s a part of me that loves my mother for wanting to do these things in my honor. There’s a part of me that wants a red carpet unfurled when I go home because, goddammit, it’s hard for me. There should be some kind of reward for going through it all, right?

That sentiment doesn’t last, though, as I sit on the couch at night, up later than my parents, and they each touch my head before they go to sleep. My mother sweeps my hair behind my ear and tells me not to pull. She gets a little teary-eyed and says she loves me, she loves to see me sitting there, she loves having me home.

I think of her love for me and how she says you can’t know how a parent loves a child until you are a parent. I think how maybe all the love in my life is the purple popsicle, and her love for her children is the grape.

Coffee, pants, or coffeepants?

Yesterday I got to sleep in til about nine, which was very nice, but it was my first lie-in for about, ohh, sixhundredandthirtyseven days. I woke up tired, sat up (eventually) and contemplated the following:

Pants. To put on one's pants, one must arise from the bed. Alarming how far away one's pants are. Even more alarming how far away one's feet are. The whole ordeal is quite overwhelming.

Coffee. Perhaps if there was some brewing, one could be stirred to put on pants. Should one put on pants before coffee, or should one hope coffee-making will jettison oneself into pant-putting-on fervor?

My thoughts oscillated thusly for a long, long, embarrassingly long while.

My roommate, godluvver, said nothing while I made coffee in my undies. I tried to explain the whole feet-being-too-far-away thing. She nodded and smirked, and helped herself to coffee once I offered.

The coffee/pants conundrum solved itself later in the day while I was at work. I was ducking out of someone's way (we have a new girl who is tall and has titanium weapons-grade elbows) and I leaned against the coffee spout in such a way that I poured coffee down my own pants.

It was hot.

I yelped.

So, where before I believed that coffee and pants had a tidy sort of relationship - that is, one facilitates the getting of the other - I now understand that the two are more intimately acquainted, and their love affair is much more complex than I erstwhile believed.

And I burned my ass.

transference in the laundry room

To fold a fitted sheet, you put your hands into two corners so the seam makes an inside-out mitt. You tuck those mitts into the other corners, then fold those two on top of two. In the end there is one gathered corner. Folding the rest is easy.

My mother taught me this. Likewise, she taught me that the print side of the flat sheet goes face down on the bed. This is so it’s pretty when you fold down a corner before bed. Printed sheets with a frilly top edge show this: the print seems to be upside down, but really it’s for the effect of the dainty sight of a perfectly turned-down bed.

She showed me how to sew buttons, how to sew patches, how to hem skirts and darn socks. In the quiet summer days when the boys were elsewhere, we did our minuet with the laundry, folding queen-sized sheets between us in the bright hot family room. We'd stir up hurricanes of dust motes and carry two chin-high piles of towels up the stairs to the second floor. I'd nestle my chin into the soft pillow cases on top, and sniff them.

Folding a queen-sized sheet in a muddy-floored laundry room with nothing but a rusty table and a collection of linty forgotten bikes... well, it leaves something to be desired. I want two more strong hands. I want a friend who knows the steps.

I think of my mother at home with her piles of towels and sheets. She must be lonely when she folds laundry without me.

Jock Incognito

Oh yeah baby, I'm a jock.

Yesterday I went kayaking on the Charles River, and I didn't flip the kayak or kill any people or wildlife or drown or nuthin!

It was FUN!

I forget how much I like flailing around in a semi-sporty way.

SOOPRISE!

Welcome to Boston, Tom. Say hello to the nice people.

"Hello, nice people."

Good lad.

Tom called me on Thursday night. The conversation went like this.

"Hey, I'm in Pee Body. Isn't that close to you?"
"Peebiddy Mass?"
"Yeah, Pee Body... I'm near Boston, right?"
"What the hell are you doing in Peebiddy?"
"I have this job driving a truck. I've been driving and I ended up in Massachusetts."
"Whoa. That's... Yeah, you're really close! How long will you be here?"

After a few confusing conversations, we decided he should come down to Boston and visit. Three days later we have conquered East Boston traffic, a serious parking problem (he has a 24-foot truck), a skunked dog, incredible poverty, a broken phone, torn contacts, and constant hunger.

AND, we've seen Boston. To be more specific, we've seen Fanueil hall, Coolidge Corner, Government Center, Harvard Square, Coolidge Corner, the freedom trail, Revere Beach, Coolidge Corner, Trader Joe's... wait, that's still Coolidge Corner. Anyway, we've done pretty much everything there is to do without spending money. We're impressive, no?

I'll tell you the real story in 2010, when I'm no longer exhausted.

I got a camera phone.

This has prompted several strange phenomena:

1. A renewed sense of self-created loneliness upon realizing how few people call me and how few calls I can force myself to make
2. A yearning for a real camera (which I cannot afford, nor would I have any idea on how to use one at this point)
3. A game with Papa Biv

The game started the day after I got the phone, when I was excited and sent a photo of government center, asking my father to figure out where I was.

My father called me, sounding peeved, asking what the hell I sent him and why and he didn’t understand it. I gave a lame, giddy schpiel about how pretty Boston can be, and can he guess where that photo’s from, and blah blah.

He seemed unamused, but then again, he guessed wrong.

A week or so later, I sent this inscrutable gem.

No reply, until I called my mom a few days later and she asked about “that nice photo.”

Then today I had a date that ended… weirdly. I was left in downtown Boston during MBTA rush hour and decided to walk around. With the changing landscape I grew increasingly self-pitying and antsy and exhausted, having woken up at four for three days in a row. I headed toward Ugly, for some reason, and looked around me, trying to peer outside of myself. I counted trees, tuned in to birdsong, and watched the Fort Government Center swell and ebb in foot-traffic.

The paved, bricked, molded world was quiet. My legs ached. I was alone. The benches, I kept thinking, are so uncomfortable, but wide enough for the homeless to sleep on. I became a speck in an artless Speck that was trying to be a SPECK. I was disappearing.

My father’s voice is jubilant on my voicemail.

“Well my guess is – the picture you sent, is again, it’s from gov’t center, and it’s on the North Station side looking towards—umm the Oyster House .. and the Haymarket area, on the lefthand side of the square, um, where the ugliest iron sculpture ever created is. That’s my guess. Let me know if I’m right. Love you darlin’. Byeee.”

He’s right. But why did I send that picture?

When I was small I used to try to sleep on my stomach with my arms spread. I would reach for the ends of the mattress, and wonder about the day when they would reach – how good it would feel. I felt I couldn’t truly sleep until my hands could grip the sides.

Now I look down my arm as I lie in bed, think how long it’s gotten. I try to remember my small arms, before chicken pox scars, countless summer burns, bumps, bruises, accidents and temper tantrums. Before I was heavy enough to make much of a dent in the mattress. I wonder if I felt myself set precariously on top of it, like I was balanced on the dome of a zeppelin. Why did I need to hold on? When was I first afraid of sleep?

winds of change

When I come up from the Government Center station at 5:24 in the morning, I have to force optimism. Anyone would, I think, when greeted with a wide expanse of dusty brick nothing overseen by the harrowing jumble of dark concrete they call city hall.

I force myself to look around the corners of that building. I look around the drunk newspaper guy and the haunting scent of urine. In the corners of the world there is soft, felt blue sky and seagulls. The air moves in unpredictable ways, and every four seconds a whiff of sea air reaches me.

Some days that's enough. I stand there for a second and sniff it in and pretend that the ocean is two steps away, that I'm not really sallying forth to serve coffee to the masses. I put into my head a mantra something like "I live here. I actually live here in this city." I think of all the things I love about it, and that they're all within reach. I calm myself.

And THEN I sally forth.

What, I always wonder, propels me? Is it boredom or greed or curiosity? Maybe general embarrassment. At any rate, something is pushing me now. Maybe it's fall coming. I love that season and always feel most capable when the leaves start to turn. I'm sure it has something to do with the rhythm of school - how school was the strongest link to my teeny ego for twenty years. I feel like maybe my brain clicks on in September and all of my life hurdles bow down a bit.

I'm trying to keep this feeling under my skin as much as possible. I can do this. I can look into the world and withstand its long stare back at me. I can do this.