fragile stuff

Faded Roses, Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Elizabeth was the kind of girl who would silently hold a grudge for a good long while if you, say, didn't say "please," when asking her to pass the potatoes. It wouldn't be the kind of grudge that turns into a vendetta, just a strong demerit in her overall tally of your trustworthiness and respectability. So, yes, she would take it personally if you forgot her birthday. She would find a way to mention it in passing to send a shock of shame through you on the sly.

I've been trained, therefore, to start feeling guilty right around the beginning of September. I start thinking of sending her a card or a little gift - maybe a cookbook - and then I think of how she doesn't accumulate crap, really. She has maybe a dozen shirts and washes and wears them carefully. She purges her kitchen, her library and her office regularly, gleaning only the necessary pieces. Every space she rules is elegantly composed and purposeful. How do you give a gift to a woman who has chosen every small detail of her life?

Well, almost. She did not choose to get pregnant while she was here in Boston and had several credits to finish up on her Master's degree. She didn't exactly choose to move in with her in-laws in Santa Barbara. She didn't choose to have her sweet cat served up as lunch to the local coyote. She most definitely did not choose cervical cancer.

I suppose that by now we know that I have the fairly human need to distance myself from things that hurt. I practically shunned my friends from St. Bonaventure after Shane died. I can't bear to speak about my mother's mother, or even go into the part of my parents' basement where I cried myself nauseous after returning from the ER. And here I am again, in full ability to communicate with people I respect and love, who supported me in my intellectual growth and personal flounderings, but I do not want to talk about jLiz. I won't forget her; no, I will curl myself around my guilt for every birthday I missed, for the times I didn't call, for not knowing how bad it all was. I'll cultivate and feed that guilt and make very sure it continues to sink its teeth deeper into my flesh.

I asked the Current Man in My Life if he noticed that I know a lot of dead people. Then I immediately said, "well of course you have. I keep inviting them over." How can I know what I'm doing and not stop it?

A few weeks ago, Labor Day actually, I snuck home on an overpriced flight to see family. Remember when this was a terrible idea for my sanity? Well, clearly, I'm old. And things have changed. Possibly it's this sense of entropy... that if I don't take every moment I can to see my nieces and nephew and brothers and parents, they will wither away and fade from me. The human body, it appears, is made of nothing terribly permanent. We are composed of fragile stuff.

And so I got on that flight on a whim, asking my roommate to throw a few things in my backpack and meet me at work so I could make the trip. My Uncle Maui was home on what he called his "Aloha Means Goodbye Tour." My grandmother Biv is 93 years old and pretty much takes it personally that we allowed her to get so old and worn out. She doesn't want to make it to 94. Uncle Maui spent days with her, just letting her bitch and watching her nod off while reading, sitting by her while she slept. He got infuriated and bored and fell in love with her - all the truest familial feelings a person can have. And he said goodbye.

I didn't see her at all because his time with her seemed too precious. I didn't want to interfere with this capsuled moment that I wish I'd had with Shane or Elizabeth or... well let's not list. But on the flight back I found myself thinking of her hands, my mother rubbing lotion into the soft, lax skin. She likes rose scents and rosy hues, and the backs of her hands are so much like rose petals after they droop on the stem. Soft, too soft, and fragile. The coils of your fingerprint seem to bite into that thin and tender petal and it wants to rip or fall.

I am so painfully aware of the ephemeral. I am aching for the strong people who, ultimately, fade and rip and fall limp in scattered petals.

Clearly, shoving this awareness into a tiny Box of Awful To Hide Away... well, it's not working. Not only that, it's created a sort of mottled lens through which I obliquely see the world, one that I know is beautiful and captivating but have not felt I could bear to see at full strength. I'm vowing, again, to be alive, in full knowledge of the complicated contract we sign when we decide to be hurt, overjoyed, ignored and thrilled and disappointed. I'm vowing to allow all things, again; to be a cog in the machine in faith that it will produce incredible joy alongside the suffering.

I will try, anyway, and I will tell you about it. Maybe you will hear me.

good grief?

Watching one of my closest friends deal with the slow whittling away of her grandfather, I’ve been a valuable support because I’ve seen it. I can sympathize. I can do what she needs me to do, which is mostly to exist in common knowledge; to share the onus.

And then, when she’s not looking, I choke on my memories and the freshly overturned soil of my past losses. I ache in that weird spot in my chest where my heart must be squeezing itself in useless, useless grief.

How is it that my life is most punctuated by funerals? I’m trying to figure this out: is it that there have been more in my life than in others? Or was it timing? I started going to funerals when I was eleven, so it’s possible that I’ve clung to those experiences because of the absolute shock to my eleven-year-old mind with the first one. Psychologically it makes sense that I’m still ruminating over something that was so bewildering then. It left a big messy pile in my brain that won’t right itself.

Then I think that maybe this is natural, too. The grieving process has no set time limit. Who can say how long a person can hurt? Memories can blindside you whenever they surface. I can catch a scent of beeswax and find myself transported to the Russian Orthodox church, kissing a paper crown on my grandmother’s forehead with my brain whirring away, trying to figure out if I killed her with inaction. Countless hospital patients come in and out of the café with their tired gaits and pinched faces, all evoking the Via Dolorosa of a passage to death. Without warning I’m eleven again, pressing myself against the too-clean wall of a hospital corridor, desperately seeking the courage to go in and look at my dried-out grandfather, speak to him, smile at him, bring him some last comforts, avoiding the leering ghosts in wheelchairs who cough around their dismantling bodies.

The truth is that I forgot about the healing process entirely. I’m separated enough from those family and friends, those with whom I mourned, to have forgotten the period of communal laughter and tears. My friend had piles of pictures with her last night. There she was with various embarrassing hairstyles and awkward body shapes, laughing and loved by her warm grandfather. Here’s the beach house where they spent their Augusts together, the whole family. Here’s the graduation party for her brother. Here are the countless times she got stuck or lost and he reached in to untangle the problem and deliver her to safety. Here are the jokes and the memories – stories she’d never heard before and the stories they’ve all memorized by rote.

The wake is tonight. Shane’s was the last wake I attended, inappropriately dressed and manic with proprietal grief. I remember the vast line, the clogged funeral home, his parents smiling and sharing memories, graciously, so graciously making a space for the rest of us to mourn him. I’d turned over a box of artifacts to them: livid paper towel doodles of inside jokes and odd notes that showed his bizarre and contagious sense of humor. I finally got to meet his high school friends and the all the people who’d watched him go through his childhood dramas. We all poured our love and grief into the middle of that space. We fed off of it desperately. I gave and took angrily, not knowing what I would need for my own stores in the coming years without him.

I hope for my friend that her process is more cathartic. God, that sounds almost clinical, but I do mean it. I hope she cries her heart out and then finds that space that hurts with emptiness, and slowly gathers memories to fill it in again over the years. There will be the spot on the pew where her grandfather should have sat at her wedding. She will tell her babies about how he would have loved to meet them. She’ll be caught off guard reaching for the phone when she needs to know which back road leads to her destination, realizing she can’t rely on Gramps this time. It will hurt, but it will also slowly heal.

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.

of cabbages and kings

Are we sick of Shane posts?


Me too. Just have him on the brain.

Had another panic attack at work and it got me on a crying jag that would not stop. I figure it has more to do with medication issues than anything else, but it's significant that it was Heart Day, and I had a strong memory of Shane.

And then a daymare.

I remembered the physical feeling of Shane running at me, leaping into my arms like a four-year-old, and then in my mind's eye and touch, I felt the back of his shirt growing wet, his skin peeling away in front and back, his heart boiling out of his body, arms loosening their grip, face resigned... fading... gone.

I think it's my peculiar morbidity that keeps Shane so alive in my sadness. I don't know how his other friends feel him and remember him, but I'm getting worn out by how I feel him.

Before I lost my mind, I used to ritualize everything, and it seemed to comfort me. If there was something to DO every time I felt a certain way, I at least knew what would happen next, even if it wasted my time, hurt me, didn't change the feeling. Things were simply more knowable, and that's always comforting.

When Shane Days came, I would find a way to push a cabbage into people's lives. I would push myself into this super-social wacky persona and shout the gospel of the cabbage to anyone who would listen. Since last February I've grown so tired. I let my memories rise and sink in me as they come. All of this life remains within the borders of my skin.

I think I'm unable to express and spread the joy of Shane because he's now linked with my own private difficulties, which are incredibly embarrassing to me. Shane relates to college, which reminds me of the brain I no longer have and the friends I've abandoned, which reminds me of how my whole life is in constant entropy, which reminds me that I'm a waste of cellular material, etc.

Shut up, JoBiv.

Okay.

My sheet has a long horizontal rip in it. I’m not sure when it happened, and I think this is because its happening wasn’t a singular thing. It’s not like a bolt of lightening felling a tree or a balloon popping. This tear began one day on a microscopic scale. It widened and festered and unzipped slowly. I noticed it, peripherally. I did nothing. Besides notice it, I mean.

Also, I lost my job with the foundation. This was a singular thing. It happened yesterday. I had it, and worked hard at having it, and then yesterday it was taken back.

Also, it's death day. This past weekend I ended up staying over a friend's house. Everyone seemed to want to conk out early, so I asked for nighty-night books from my hostess. She gave me Truth and Beauty, by Ann Patchett, whose work I love. I couldn't read the book, however. Within the first chapter I was introduced to Shane's female counterpart - an underweight flamboyant mascot-of-the-campus woman who flung herself physically into people's arms.

This rip is really big; that's the thing. I can't just go on pretending this sheet is useful. I'll have to take it off and throw it out.

Remember my friend, Jack Sprat? Whelp, he's getting married this weekend and I'm going to NY to witness it.

He's getting married at Saint Bonaventure. This is the first time I've had to return to the campus since Shane's funeral. I think I'll take a walk around campus on Saturday, along the Allegany/Allegheny/Allegeny River. (Seriously, can't remember which one's the town, which one's the River, and which one's the mountains, but I'm pretty sure they're all spelled creatively.)

The back of the St. Bona's campus goes from athletic fields to woods to river. The woods have these amazing raised pathways and ancient trees, occasionally deer, occasionally bears, occasionally grottoes with crudely and sincerely made altars. It makes sense if you know anything about St. Francis and his love and respect for nature. I plan to walk through the woods and visit those places. I don't think God watches me... Well, I have trouble thinking of God... but I do get this sense of the trees and the river and grottoes opening for me, making room, allowing my presence.

I'll have to go down the river trail to the park, too, of course. Must have a ceremonial swing on the swingset. I won't escape Shane there. It's past time to let him catch up with me.

At first, we thought it was laughter. The Novelist and I lay on my bed, on top of the quilt, mumbling about things; how nice the day was, I think. Suddenly we heard it, and we both grew quiet. Then the only sound was that of my hair brushing the pillow as I turned toward the window to hear it.

Laughter? We lay perfectly still, straining to hear.

No, not laughter; hysterical tears. It was a young woman’s voice, overlapping with a strong tenor speaking loudly but patiently. I didn’t realize how tense I was until The Novelist uncurled my hand from his. Show me it’s not violence, I prayed to the noises. Don’t let it be violence.

The sobs jerked out of the woman like each one was a labor pain. She was inarticulate, arrhythmic, sometimes choking and gagging on her own cries. I envisioned her curled up on the floor, hair sweeping the tile, rocking and sobbing.

Was she pleading? Was she angry? The Novelist said, “I thought she was laughing.”

“Me, too,” I whispered. We held our breath, listening.

The man raised his voice again. “You need… settle… be fine… You’re okay.”

“Stop it!” screamed the girl between choking fits. “I have to cry… Stop it!”

We listened for a long while. My ribcage seemed to shrink. I had to remind myself to breathe while I thought and remembered.

That’s the sound I made when Shane died. I didn’t know where the sounds were coming from. I remember those sounds and how much they hurt. It was like dry heaving for hours. I remember the actual sensation… Feeling like my face would crack open in its contortions, feeling the pain in my chest, where my heart was.

Those were the sounds I didn’t make when Grandma died. I started to cry. Someone silenced me. We were in the hospital. I’d disturb people. Those sobs are all the sounds I stopped making.

At some point the cries became a song.

Uaahh huh huh huh huh
Uaaaahh huh huh
Uaahh huh huh huh

“That poor girl.” I had almost forgotten he was there. He turned closer to me and I turned to him, his head below my chin, my hand brushing through his hair to his neck, soothing him. I kissed the top of his head.

“It’s stupid to tell her to stop.” We were silent again, listening.

“It’s a terrible thing to hear a soul being ripped apart,” The Novelist said. For some reason, this angered me. I found my throat clenching and my leg muscles flexing.

“That might not be what it is,” I snapped. “She’ll be… I hope she’ll be fine.”

“It’s amazing how close laughter is to crying, and how laughing can lead to crying and…”

“Crying can lead to laughter, yeah, I know.” Was I being bitchy? Why?

I rolled onto my back again, now holding The Novelist’s hand across my belly. We were still and quiet. Quiet and still.

“I wonder what the purpose is… of laughing and crying,” I said. “I mean, how would crying be a more desirable trait in a mate? How does it work with evolution?”

“It’s probably just something that developed,” said The Novelist. “I don’t know if it’s evolution. Maybe natural selection?”

“Maybe. I just wonder when it started. And whether it’s a trait of a more sophisticated animal. How does it help us?”

“Well there’s so much we don’t know about the brain…”

“I know,” I said. We both took a breath. “I wonder if it’s a trade-off, somehow. Like we get these complicated brains that are capable of amazing things which got us ahead, but there’s a glitch in the system. This brain makes us cry.”

“Hmm.”

We mumbled a while longer, until I was so mumbly that The Novelist declared beddy-bye time. He patiently helped me out of my skirt and let me lie like a dying fish.

I woke a few times, opening my heavy eyes to see him awake, staring at the ceiling. Then awake, sitting cross-legged, noticing me. He swept my hair back.

“I get so tired,” I said.

“I know you do,” he said.

boithday

There was summa dis










And summa dat













Not so much of this














But a very spicy dash of
THIS!

A prezzie from Becca and co.! Framed! Matted! BIG!







Aaaand, itsy bitsy sharpies, telescoping pens, squishy hold pens, sketchpad, colored pencils... all from Sir Novelist! Cuz he's the bestest!

I'm not even going to tell you how I got peed on today, then rained on, then abandoned, then to 4 hours of chorus dress rehearsal... That was all just fine, because it all ended with a 80 voices singing Happy Birthday in perfect harmony, and tiramisu and chocolate bomba at Vinny's Testes with chorus friends.

Tired.

Old.

G'night.

Ladies and Gentleman...

Light your cabbages!

(It's Heart Day.)

I used to be able to whip up words for any celebration, tragedy, or current drama. People would call upon me for Occassional poetry, a speech, a few words of advice or pith.

These days... I can't find many words to soothe myself, much less soothe others. I try to push away this feeling that any good thing in my life is just a precursor to a kick in the figurative balls, but honestly...

So, Gary Thomas died. No one can tell me how. His memorial service is next Sunday and I won't be able to make it. Besides pure logistics, it's too much - seeing all the ghosts of my high school, Shane's death day (today), my general state of mental unhealth.

Of course I've had more than my share of self-pitying moments this... year. But add this to the list and let it be a kind of eulogy. I always thought that if I ever got talented enough or someone could possibly risk thousands of dollars on me on the faintest whim and I got myself recorded, Gary Thomas would be numero uno on my dedication list.

Why? It's occasionally easy to explain and occasionally... odd. I mean, there's the obvious fact that he was a music teacher, and I spent half my high school career in his room, learning, singing, letting him watch our small dramas unfold. But then I think of the times he wrote me lesson passes so I could get out of study halls or math class because all I needed to do was cry. He let me hide myself in his room because he caught that look in my eyes some mornings. I would drag my sad body into school with tears encrusted onto my face from the previous night's sleeplessness or nightmares. He would ask, "JoBiv, are you okay today? Will we see you at lunch?"

When I was really, really losing it my senior year, there was a carnation sale for St. Patty's Day, raising money for some club. I remembered that day because it was god-awful. My mother had taken me to physical therapy that morning. I had stayed home for a part of each day that week. I had spent so much time in the bathtub, floating, hating myself, wanting to drown. I got school that day, and Mr. T had bought me a carnation. No one else, just me. The message that came with it was appropriate (surprising for him, really), but showed utter faith in me.

Two thoughts cross my mind now - how sad he'd be that I'm still going through all this, and how proud he'd be of my successes. If he could even hear my voice, how strong I can be remembering his faith in me... Does that sound saccharine?

The Park Dedication

Apparently, I wrote this when I got an invitation to a dedication for Shane's park. I don't know when that was, but the papers I wrote it on were sort of hidden. I found a few other poems, as well, but this one surprised me. I didn't fudge with it as I normally would before showing it. This, after all, is my blog, where I put my least finished thoughts. So, no, the line breaks don't always make sense. And the word choice could be tweaked and simplified. And it wanders. I'm strangely attached to it despite all of those faults. I'm surprised at how... I guess the right word here would be vitriolic... I had a great sense of isolation every time I had an invitation to join others in mourning.

They must have gathered

On the still-seamed sod—

Sod treacherous to high heels,

Though I can guess who wore them:

His girlfriend, first and only,

Girlfriend of two weeks, carrying her grief

Like a halo, or merit badge, surely

In high heels. His mom, a nurse,

Would have more sensible shoes—

Flat sandals, very likely. But the

College friends, the girls, all the

Fake flirtations, the girls who pulled

Him closer for effect, to be able to

Say, “you know that heart transplant kid?

I’m tight with him,” not knowing his

Mal-nourished, underdeveloped body

Produced hormones, too, for them.

I’m glad I didn’t go. Two years

Since the first eulogy, why are we

Addicted to mourning Shane? His

Death day, his transplant day, his

Birthday, his favorite holidays, we

Send each other yet another eulogy.

Maybe we feel collectively cheated,

Having listened to the priest glorify his

Christianity (which, in truth, was incidental)

And talk of his love for school, his

Academic dedication (which was

Mythical or errant). We, who knew

Him, fight his canonization, argue

For his sins and transgressions, tiny

As they were. Confessing them

For him—does it cleanse us,

Make us more holy?

I didn’t go this time. It’s unnatural

Anyway, to force this fraternity

Which, had he lived, would have dissolved

Three months after graduation. This,

The sod, is all we have in common—

The compulsion to eulogize, the feel

Of our heels piercing through, sinking

In, it’s such a comfort.

If he’d known about the park, I think

He would have rolled his eyes,

Huffed about his mom, in the familiar

Loving way we huff when moms

Straighten ties or tuck a shirt tag in. He knew

The ramifications of dying young, the hopeless

Gestures of community to shift out of the terrible

Embarrassment of having seen this coming.

So I chose to stay away as he

Chose to die—out of laziness?

More like exhaustion, too-thorough knowledge

Of how all these things unfurl if one goes forward.

The initiations, the pain of each step,

The explanations, and wondering when

The morning will come, if it will ever come,

The dawn of having all of it gone,

Behind you. I think of each of us

Like gear-work clocks haphazardly engineered—

Each gear creating new problems, each

Solution too quickly executed, filling

Us with redundant movement, the

Original problem eased infinitesimally—

Throw it away, he thought. Throw

The goddamn clock away.

I assume the mourners function better,

Cloistered against this truth—his willingness,

I mean. And I keep trying to allow all things

At once: grief, nostalgia, entropy, whatever.

Oh, I should also say relief.

Apartment. Money. Brothers. Shane. Money. Insomnia.

And today, Stefan walked into Anna's. I thought he wouldn't see me, but he did. He walked right over. More on that particular catastrophe later.

Can't wait to see Sarah...

HEY-ee you've got to hide your love a-way

I woke up today with the astounding realization that I have merely three days to wait before I hear about the fellowship. Not The Fellowship of the Ring, the BPL Children's Writer in Residence fellowship.

I'm trying not to care too much, but my heart actually quakes a bit whenever I think about it. Poor lil heart. It can hardly take it.

And speaking of hearts, our favorite Three-Hearted Fool, Shane Tamika Colligan, has this park named after him in Wellsville, NY. The dedication is on his birthday, July 3rd. In Wellsville. Which is not a bustling metropolis, not easy to get to, no major hotels nearby. I could fly into Buffalo and stay with my favorite David, Doktor Blouin. Or I could go to Rochester and stay with Teenie or my friend Leah and drive down with someone. I could Amtrak, Greyhound, Segway... many options.

Maybe by then I will have used my Masshealth for the powers of Good, gotten myself some therapy, organized my finances just so. Or maybe I'll dig a little hole, per usual, and pretend that none of it is happening.

I'm still feeling like a BIG ASS about Leah and her cancer craziness. A mantra runs through my crowded brain, fairly often, and it goes like this: "Be a better friend. Be a better friend. Be a better friend."

Perhaps it's not sinking in? Why am I so hesitant to throw myself into the loving arms of my St. Bonaventure friends? Why was I so freaked out by the sound of Leah's voice when she called the other week? Why, oh WHY, does a reunion with Shane's friends feel like an impending and terrifying torture?

I know I'm being childish. I'm caught between this sort of defiant, possessive emotion, a kind of "but Shane was MINE" feeling, that keeps me from sharing my memories of him with other friends who knew him. At the same time there's this squishy, ultra-vulnerable, perhaps partially rotted piece of me, this VERY childish part of me, that whimpers something more like, "None of you were here. None of you could help me when I needed it. I won't let you help me now."

My solution, and I admit it's a flawed plan, is to pretend to have a strength that's actually beyond my capabilities. For everything. For my nerves regarding singing, the fellowship, anything having to do with Shane, my family... It goes directly against my self-imposed law that I should be more honest. What's my deal?

Don't answer that.

heart heart heart

I wrote that other post in hopes that I wouldn't write this one. But here I am.

It's Heart Day, the anniversay of Shane's last heart transplant, so of course, I have Shane on the brain again.

Heart Day was hard when Shane was alive, too, because it forced us to think of Shane on the operating table, his ribcage cracked open for the second time, suspended in a short death before the surgeons put him back together again. It forced me to think of his mom and dad in some waiting room, thinking of everything that could happen, everything they'd survived, trying to be ready for whatever happened next.

You're never ready, that's the thing.

I have signed the back of my license to show that I want my organs donated. So did the black girl whose heart lived in Shane's body for two years. I think of how she signed it and wondered for a moment if it would ever come to pass... that she would be young and healthy enough for her organs to be of use to someone when she died. Maybe she thought she'd die suddenly, if she died young, in a car accident. That's what I always think of, since we sign our driver's licenses in NY State to show willingness to donate.

She didn't die in a car crash. She was stabbed to death, fourteen times through the chest by an enraged boyfriend. Her heart, though... it was immaculate, unscathed, a jewel lifted from one ribcage to be set within another.

I had this weird daydream today that Shane was here with me, walking toward me, wearing his cargo shorts and one of his hawaiian shirts. In the dream, his big eyes watched me with a kind of serenity, and he wasn't smiling at all. I tried to move closer to him, and suddenly felt that if I could just unbutton his shirt, press my lips on his chest, something would slip from my soul to his heart. It would beat stronger. It would keep beating. Never stopped.

Of poop and popes

I haven't been writing like I used to, but I'm feeling a bit scattered. It's homecomingitis, I think, but nonetheless, I should try to write.

So, I shall tell you my opinions on several things.

On Heart Day*: Despite an invitation to go to St. Bona's (from Shane's girlfriend of three minutes), I don't feel like I'll be missing anything if I can somehow wrangle up a flaming cabbage this weekend.

On the Conclave: The cardinals should elect Michael Jackson. I'm pretty tired of child molestation jokes about both MJ and the Catholic church, and I think that both would come to a swift end if the Prince of Pop became the Prince of Pope.

On our longtime neighbor from El Victoir, Mrs. G, ramming her car into Tina's basement and surviving to tell the tale and seek therapy: Holy cow. I didn't know things like that could happen in real life.

On my brother Dan assuring me that he will be around all weekend while I'm home: HA! I'm not falling for THAT one...

On the Pea's uncanny ability to sense that we're three minutes away from leaving the house and carefully choosing that moment to blow three days of Gerber Peas out her butt: Wha? But how?

On the scary coincidence of my brother Dan and the Big U mentioning the same postcard to me: Not cool at all. NOT cool. The card, according to both boys, has a weird psychedelic purple design on one side. The card reads, "This is a very freaky card." The reverse says, "The kind you don't send home to mother." They're both right. I would love that card. ::Shudder:: It creeps me out when they prove they've been paying attention. And it's not like I can tell either of them that the other thought of it, too. Oh, I am all in a tizzy.

On the prospect of spending a weekend in July with dear Sus and dear jLiz: How did I ever get so lucky? And how will I ever get the money together...


* Heart Day is the anniversary of Shane's last heart transplant. On this day we imbibe, frolic, and let the old cabbage flame in honor of Shane Tamika himself. And we do not wear sunscreen. And we play softball. Poorly. And we dance in such a manner as could harm others and ourselves, preferably on a coffee table. And we celebrate the fact that we are alive, goddammit, simultaneously testing fate on that very matter.

Shane used to put his pj pants on his head and call it his "Long Beautiful Hair"

Have you read The Crying of Lot 49? Have you read it in Dr. Anthony Farrow's class at St. Bonaventure University? Well then, you will know that all extra meaning we give to life events is always a figment of our overactive imaginations. This is not just a theme of the book, it is true. According to Dr. Farrow. Who looks remarkably like the Lorax.

I think of this because I'm thinking of cutting my hair, and I've always placed a symbolic value on my hair. It's rather Victorian of me, and you would think it's an affectation, but I think you can easily stop affectations, and I can't escape my little hair problem.

I mean, besides the pulling.

The Other hair problem swam beneath the surface until I allowed my mom to treat me to a haircut at her salon on winter break. I think I was a junior in college, maybe a sophomore. At that time I was none too comfortable wearing my hair down, and when I did I was feeling pretty good about myself. It was so long... it reached my waistband if I pulled it straight. And back then I wasn't pulling it, so it was very thick and crazy and sometimes cool.

It was around New Year's, and I know this because this is where the artificial meanings come into play. On New Year's Eve I went to a party in Rochester. This older guy, a friend of the hostess, picked me up. And then later, he picked me up... Umm...

I remember that someone had spilled her screwdriver down my shirt, that I was wearing a long skirt, that my driver and I were the only non-Goths at the party, and that my hair was down and he could not stop touching it. The rest is pretty blurry. (Or I'm too much of a lady?)

Two days later, Mom and I went to the salon. The woman cutting my hair was my mom's age and had clearly given my mother the exact same haircut she had. I was worried but tried not to panic. She marveled at my hair - how curly, how thick, how long... "You know, people pay big money to get their hair like this," she said. So why, I wondered, would you want to do anything to it?

She cut it. And then she kept cutting it. And then she did something else weird to it. And then she cut it s'more. And in the end my hair was 10 inches shorter.

And no, this did not mean my hair was short by any means... It still reached past my shoulders. But I definitely took it badly. I had lost control somehow, and it was due punishment for losing control on New Year's Eve. Of course the part of me that had lured this man into temptation should also be the part that got a brutal chopping mere days later.

So if I cut it short now, what will it do to me? Will I feel less feminine, somehow? Or perhaps I will walk out of the salon with a sudden lightness, a weight literally and figuratively lifted from my shoulders.

And then there is the threat of the Ronald McDonald effect...



But Sarah looks awful cute with short hair. There is hope.

Oh you flawed girl, you

Katya, being lovely, lent me her old laptop so I could work on my proposal. It's coming along. It should be finished, actually, but I keep changing my mind about things. It's silly to bother changing my mind now; if I get the fellowship I'll have something like 4 months to change my mind before I even get a key to the office.

Anywho, I had this computer to help me get work done. Even more helpful than simply having this computer was the fact that it does not hook up to internet. Very very good idea to promote work-doing. Of course, I found another way to procrastinate. I went through a few old floppy disks and wondered at their strange contents. There were lots of snippets of writing, piss poor poetry, old papers from as far back as freshman year of college... all kinds of good stuff.

And, at last, I found the disk with the original camp story. The one I re-typed to submit as a writing sample for this proposal. Grr.

On the same disk, languishing in some folder or other, there were two files, one named "Shane" and one named "Shaney Shane Shane." The first was a collection of emails I had saved from my St. Bona's email account before it poofed away forever. Keep in mind, I saved these while Shane was still ticking. He was always that precious. The second file was a mournful, self-pitying, angry and honest reaction to his death. I don't know how both of these files ended up on the same disk, but it was quite the experience to read them over again.

Last night Meera said something about my entry of a few days ago, the one that was a bit testy about college friends writing a chain of emails. I was embarrassed as soon as I posted it. I know I have the power to delete my own posts if I don't like them, but there's another part of me that feels it's necessary to remember these things. Even the embarrassing parts. Especially the embarrassing parts? It's inescapable in real journals. (And by "real" I mean bound paper.) One can't very well rip out every entry that annoys one. The book would fall apart eventually, for one thing.

But also there's something dishonest about deleting those things, like not disclosing a nose-job at the sperm bank. We are all flawed, and that's human. Maybe I hope to read the awkward bits over again until I can react with a sort of calm acceptance of my humanity, rather than embarrassment.

SDD

Yesterday was Shane's Death Day, 2nd anniversary. A college friend started a chain of emails remembering to remember Shane, and I just didn't feel like joining in. It felt like people were putting their note in to either show off their writing or out of some compelling sense of obligation. Not that they didn't love Shane, not that they don't still miss him, but the reasons still seemed wrong. I felt this weird pressure to say something, when actually all I wanted to do was hold him a little close to me and hate that he's gone.

I hate that he's gone.

But when the weekend's over, and Monday rolls around

... I end up like I start out
Just cryin' my heart out


(From "I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good - fave standard of the day)


That song has little to do with how I feel today, but the weekend is, indeed, over, and Monday has rolled around. Howdy, Monday. Whatcha got for me?

The weekend was a tad symptomatic. I'll break it on down for ya:



Friday:

I accompanied Meera and Ross to see Jenn's second-year med student show. It was this crazy mock-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with many a dance number, with a cast of incredibly enthusiastic and talented med students who shamelessly mocked themselves and their faculty. I got... some of the jokes. Mostly I sat there stunned by the thought of the untapped talent in medical field. I imagine off-duty residents perfecting tap numbers and singing madrigals to pass the time. I really was amazed.

The only part of the show that bugged me came toward the end when they lowered a screen and ran a slide show while a girl, the director actually, sang this version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." If you haven't heard it, Israel Whatshisface sings this very laid-back vocal over a simple guitar playing a sort of reggae beat. His voice is a little scratchy, earnest and yet relaxed, and surprises you when he plays with the melody, then grafts in "What a Wonderful World" flawlessly. The girl who sang it on Friday night gave a painstakingly correct delivery with a classically trained voice. Her voice was beautiful, yes, but she killed the character of the song and for that she must die.

Er... I mean... that was uncool of her. Dammit.

Enough of my vocal snobbery. Moving on.


Sateeday:

Kate's birthday party started at nine, which gave me plenty o' time to gather my Flaming Cabbage supplies. You'd think. I went to the Tappan St. Stah Mahket. They had cabbages of a moderate size, Lil Smokies and no Sterno. I bought the Lil Smokies, figuring that I'd have to stop somewhere else for the Sterno and I didn't want to carry a cabbage around all frickin' day.

Next stop, the Party Favors store, also on Beacon. I picked up some fancy toothpicks and headed back home to shower, etc.

Out again... to the Russian store, Bazaar, which I don't frequent for fear that they will pick up my quarter-Russian scent and stare at me accusingly when I can't converse fluently in their dialect. But I knew they'd have some mean cabbages. I picked one up for $0.39/lb, it cost me $2.40. That's a lotta cabbage. It was HUGE, I tell you! But alas, the Russians had no idea what I was talking about when I asked for Sterno. Nor did the guy at Liquors Foods who always asks about Stefan (because they're both Salvadoran).

I got on the T with my cabbage, Lil Smokies, marsha-mellohhhhs, and toothpicks, planning to go to the Stah Mahket near Fenway and pick up the elusive Sterno. I stopped at the Tiger Mart first. The guy looked at me funny and said, "Why don't ya go ta Stah?" Right, buddy, off I go. I wandered up and down the aisles of Stah, knowing where Sterno SHOULD be, finding it missing (favorite idiom of the day), and eventually asking at the service desk while fighting back tears.

Some guy with a manager's badge went to check himself. Nope, all out. So sorry.

By that time I was pretty upset. If I couldn't find Sterno then I couldn't have a flaming cabbage, and if I couldn't have a flaming cabbage I'd be letting Kate down, although she might not really care that she couldn't dig into the Lil Smokies and marsha-mellohhhs, being vegetarian, but it's the principle of the thing, and reall the flaming cabbage is all about two things: spectacle, and Shane. And if the cabbage doesn't flame properly, where IS Shane? Have I lost him somehow? Is the elusive Sterno some kind of punishment for something I'm not doing for him? Oh my god, I'm the worst friend EVOR and the cabbage is a ruin and life as we know it has narrowed to this one failing...

Of course, I got to the party, blathered about my search for Sterno, cut a hole for a candle instead (vanilla-scented. ew.) and people still gathered 'round the cabbage in bewildered fascination.


Sunday:

All I had to do... and this is pretty simple, folks... was meet Arnie at his place in Belmont at 2pm and call my friend Tina. Not so much to ask, right?

Tina's boyfriend-whom-we-don't-call-a-boyfriend has mylofibrosis, a rare form of cancer, on top of some other scary cancer that he's been battling a lot longer. Tina's my nextdoor neighbor from Victor and we've known each other since 1982. She and Danny Welch are the only two people I bother to see when I'm home. Yesterday Tina threw a fundraising party to help pay for Eric's medical expenses, and I know she could have used me for moral support. I couldn't pay for the ride home, much less make a donation, but I wanted to call and touch base.

I opened my address book to the proper page, pointed at her number (her cell; I have her home number etched into permanence somewhere in my brain), and I could feel my heart start to pound. I could feel my pulse everywhere - my pinky toes, my eyebrow, and of course my chest. And then, as I held the phone, ready to turn it on and dial, it rang. I dropped it and yelped a bit, feeling a sweat break out on my forehead.

It was too much. I had to email her instead.

So I went to Kinko's en route to Arnie's and wrote her a nice, supportive, sorry-I'm-such-a-jerk email. Nice of me?

And then off to Arnies. The short story is the only story you need if you've ever experienced the MBTA bus system: I had to take two buses. On a Sunday. I started out an hour and 15 minutes early and got there 45 minutes late. I actually WAS in tears when I got there, feeling horrible for Arnie, who had informed me earlier that he wasn't sure he wanted to jam since he had to put his cat to sleep on Saturday, but finally mustered up the chutzpah to give it a go. He looked pretty frantic and helpless when he noticed my flustered face, and quickly appeased my request to be led to the bathroom. I ran some water, looked myself in the eye, breathed deeply. I couldn't get my heart to stop racing or the tears to stop rising. It took five long minutes to settle and go out to greet Arnie properly.

The jam session was a bit sloppy on both sides. We were both exhausted and it showed, but we also got a lot done, and I think Arnie felt better having some company. We added some upbeat tunes and thought over what the Nahth End gig might require of us. (I'm understocked in the Sinatra/Tony Bennett department and might not be able to take requests unless I catch up.) There were several times during our session when I felt my pulse quickening - when I couldn't get the rhythm how I wanted it, when I kept missing the same word or note repeatedly, when I couldn't find a song I wanted in the 400 pg fake book...


What I'm saying is that I noticed a theme this weekend. This is actually a good thing, that I noticed it, so don't go assuming I'm panicking about this, too, but... The OCD is getting worse. Those anxious reactions and out-of-control moments are all symptoms. That need to have things Just How I Want Them, that feeling of all of it crawling around under my skin until I could scream with the discomfort and self-loathing... it's gathering speed, picking up pace, gaining on me.

Souvenirs from younger years

When people leave your life, of course they don't leave completely. You may want them to take every last hair with them (especially if you're Sus and stray hairs gross you out), but they don't. They leave little reminders, like a red eyelash, the toilet seat left up, a song they inexplicably memorized and performed complete with heartfelt air guitar.

Other people change you, too. Besides adding to the library of memories, people in my life have made me more careful and thoughtful about things I hadn't noticed before, or habits I hadn't known were habits.

Knowing Shane, for instance, has left me with a heightened awareness of skin. His would turn a scary color when he was sick - actually very yellow and dark. He would joke that it was the black woman's heart leaking afro-juice into his system. Of course, before Shane I could recognize someone who was sick, but never so many shades of sick. The talent was, say, unhoned.

And Paul, the guy I almost dated at the YMCA camp, the vegetarian who played jazz guitar and promised to drop everything and go on tour if I only asked... (Why haven't I? He's full of it.) One day at camp, a nine-year-old girl unthinkingly squished an ant in his music classroom. He... well, he NEARLY flipped. He gave the girl a very serious look and said, "That ant had life. You took it away. Why?" Of course the girl didn't have an answer. What a weird uber-hippie thing to say, right? And yet I don't kill bugs since knowing him.

And Stefan had this nearly creepy love of dogs. Well, to be fair, he loved and reacted to dogs the way I love and react to children. But kids are cute... dogs smell. Okay, kids smell sometimes, too. Anyway, he and I didn't argue over it. I just began to notice dogs more, and then one day I actually found myself kneeling by a beagle puppy making affectionate, incoherent noises, and I realized I'd been converted.

Each person I've met has left something like this, unveiled something seemingly miniscule about this life. My life is mostly made of the miniscule, I think. Maybe that's why I can't tell a story in any straightforward manner. Every story is just a haphazard linking of minutia, which, once ordered, become somehow dramatic.

Anyway, before I got on that tangent, I wonder what I leave with other people? Do I change people? Is it the same thing with everyone? Are there, say, three major leavings I happen to sow among my friends like wild oats? Maybe that's why I'm always trying to share the minutia of my life, hoping some of it will catch hold and I'll travel on with people to regions unknown.

And why is THAT a good thing? Rather imperialist of me, isn't it?

O, fie on thee, education in literature! Thou hast a ruined maiden made.