the quarry

becoming a homeowner

i'm not too keen on the truth these days. i'm not too keen on ruining my own fiction.

but here it is. buying a place seemed like a joy. for a year, we looked and looked, seeking perfection, finding none. we found something close and jumped at the chance. we emptied our bank accounts. it was high-stakes gambling, and it made us quite high.

since then, paperwork. complications. issues. dare i say, even some drama. over letters. over figures. over bookshelves. and i wonder, how did we get here? not we, me and b, but we, us humans? how did things get so complicated? it's a simple trade. you get money, we get your house. the bank gives you money fast, we give it back slow. where did these rituals come from? who decided this asinine, convoluted process?

"you should be a lawyer," the lawyer said, and i'd heard it before. i devoured every last clause. i asked questions he'd never been asked. "i enjoy this, discussing contracts with clients who are legally-minded. it happens so rarely."

i love the dubious things. i love seeking them out and destroying them. i love iron-clad, air-tight, open-and-shut. i am a nerd.

and now we wait. some annoying stuff happens, and we wait. more annoying, more waiting. for three months this has been happening. three months straight.

and there's the other stuff i won't speak of. the other stuff that matters most. "he's not!" i laughed, not remembering quite what you had implied. or quite what i had said.

in the end, this is how it will be, how it will count -- not the place i choose to live, but the person with whom i reside there. i hope we will be happy. i hope i will remember the reasons some day when they become aliens of my past. the future is big and wide, an autumn moon on the horizon, growing brighter and smaller as the night goes on.

snippets

it's 4am. insomnia is good for my blog. it's been a long time since i've been up like this, awake in the night, surfing and searching and wanting to pop. it's been a long time and i have been here all my life.

i'm to be married, you'll know by now. the ring on my hand weighs ten pounds. i twist it every chance i get, twist it and pull it on and off. i must see that it is easily removed, or i get a bit claustrophobic with it. in the mornings, when my fingers are swelled up with the night, this is the hardest time.

i don't know my hand now. i don't know what to do with it, where to hold it, in a contsant state of flaunting or hiding. it looks like a mom hand, my fingers suddenly long and lean. he didn't know my size and neither did i. i have never worn a ring.

it turns out i am the average. it turns out that average is a perfect fit. it sparkles even in the dark, and i never knew i'd find such pleasure in such things.

i don't know how to be engaged. i don't know how to get married. it's not the being together that is the problem... this i can do. being part of this couple -- i have somehow never been quite as equipped for anything.  and with the ring came the surety. it was the grand big gesture. it wasn't my doing, and i didn't ask for it, and that made it all of the things i needed it to be.

i'd marry b tonight without a second's thought. i'd wake him from his slumber, i'd drag him to an all-night chapel in the country. i'd fly to vegas. i'd knock off work and visit city hall. he's the one for me, and that's it, and i'm loving that more with every day. my imagination is a better place, and i'm not going to suffer for it anymore.

why is it so hard to be happy? why is it something we must learn? each day it gets easier, each day i remind myself. i can be everything still, and that is the best part of all.

the impending wedding, however, is the worst part of life right now. there is no joy in it for me. i do not know where, i do not know when, i cannot figure out how many. the idea of getting all dolled up in a white dress, of walking down some grassy aisle with my father's phantom and a hundred eyes on me, the cake eating and thank you note writing and disco dancing -- all of it eludes me. i really don't get it. i don't want it, and no one hears me, no one understands.

i just want a moment to ourselves. i want some quiet and some reverence. i want not to feel crushed by details.

do what makes you happy, people say, but that is not an end statement. it is a prelude to telling me what they want. do what makes you happy, but do what makes me happy and i'm sure you'll like it too. that would be more honest.

i want it to happen now and i want our lives to begin. i'm tired of hurdles. i've had enough of those and i'm ready for clear paths and free sailing.

he's there in the bed now, dreaming, relieved to finally sleep. the cat woke us up, again and again, excited about something we'll never understand. i'll join him soon, and i hope the sleep will be as peaceful, and will come as quick.

last lines

for years it went forgotten, those words, that phrasing, sleeping like bears since the first time i knew them. twelve years ago, the spring, sentiments spilling between us, we gushed, eager as a pants zipper, coming undone in the hands of another. it came back to me, like a loved thing set free, the line to end all lines, the last thing i'd write when i wrote it all. something to race towards. and with it, you, a stranger in name only, a king in my checkered past, a bug in the dustpan, swept in as you once were prone... the memory, like my sentence, lighter than words, thicker than air.