the quarry

let the river run, chapter 11

i have a lot of good excuses for why i haven't posted. and why i haven't cleaned my apartment, and why i haven't called my mother. i'm not sure why i always need to explain myself in terms of excuses, but that's how it's always been for little a.d.d. me.

i'm going through something weird at the moment. i don't know how else to describe it. by weird i don't mean out-of-the-ordinary. or even particularly unusual. there are no anomolies here.

my mother tells a story sometimes of how hyper-focused i was as a child. whatever i did, i was happy. but try to pull me away for the next activity, and i threw fits. i screamed and cried and carried on. nothing ever ended too soon. once i settled in to the next event, i was fine, but there was no amount of logic or pleading that could convince me of what the future had in store. i was getting while the getting was good and that's just all there was to it.

it turns out i'm still a big baby. i only have room for one present at a time. and my present now is work, is the job that i actually, kind of, dare i admit, hope i don't jinx, like. omg i said it.

it just happened today. but there's been this gradual thing, this oh, is it seven already?, this skippy feeling in the morning, this general eat and live out of a box, hit and run check ins with myself kind of consumption. i am consumed.

well, and then there's b. b in the morning and b at night.

and there's those two other jobs, and that impending school thing. my life as a corporate hack diminishing rapidly. me not wanting to go.

how is it that i finally get to a place where i see a career i might want, a life i might want... i decide to go back to school. i apply. i get in. i kill time until it starts. i take a series of easy, non-commital positions to pay the rent... and suddenly, three months before my Life Of The Future starts, this job happens?

and this job, this job that happens, is like the exact perfect combination of all of the things i've done and liked, and wanted to do but didn't think i could, and nice smart people to work with who actually enjoy where they are, and a company that's not a few thousand dollars away from belly up... and, and, and... i don't want to go!

and so i've hunkered down and hoped that nothing would change if i held on very tightly. there's this little box that has formed around me, and i'm not letting anyone in.

and i'm sick. i have the flu. this post? feverish hallucinations. remember the rain from a few weeks ago, how it rained and rained for days and days on end, and you kept thinking it was going to let up, and it just got worse and worse as the days went on? and it went on forever and forever and you almost couldn't remember life that wasn't gray? that's this sickness. that's me.

and i'm in a huge fight with typepad. i can't tell you why, but things are bad between us. really bad. might move to blogger bad. i'll keep you posted. no pun intended.

so i'm here and i'm kicking and breathing and not just hanging on but hanging on very tightly, hanging on every word. i still have some surprises up my sleeve. no one will be surprised but me.

seasonal defective disorder

yesterday i walked on the beach, autumn sand in my sneakers, eyes squinting in the wind. i touched the ocean and my hand froze, not at once but in installments, as the cold seaped into my skin. i knew it. my life flashed before me, quietly, simpering, not wanting to tread.

the weird thing about this blog is that it punishes me when i've been away. i've considering cutting it loose and freeing us both, but somehow i can't quit muster the strength. i am doomed here, doomed to be here, stuck in and sullied by the mud. there's a more beautiful thing and she can't quite push you aside.

i don't make sense to myself anymore, but there's hardly time to figure it out. i have three jobs. i work all of my living hours. sometimes it is escape and sometimes it escapes me, and i'm torn in twelve directions all stoking the fire of my ego, the panic of my self-esteem.

it's a puzzle, all right. wind-fed and reborn, i am ready for the fall.

occasion

nights like these, the still and the new, early snip in the air like a crisp case of cold, reminding us of the beginnings, the startings again. i've always had a crush on you, he said. for years.

your friend is cute and i told you so. i imagine doing him and naughty things. these girls they are just like my freshman year roommate, thin and tall and full of boys. we're letting our hair down, they said. our jobs have become too much.

i start on monday and it's a wonder. i have the rhythm of a new tune in my head. i smile unintended, not sure what my gait is, not sure if i can keep up this tread.

tell me your favorite story of him. you asked me and i went blank. there are too many, i lied. too many to pick from and i could never decide on just one.

another favorite story came to mind. atlantic looked flat and wide and the cabs were plenty. remember when we imagined how it would be? i'd meet you and you'd meet me? this world we created, it's where i lived. my favorite place, my favorite story, a song of perfection where i once knew i'd end up. knew it like the fingers on my hand.

the lights spill onto the street and i'm not sure where they end, improbable they take up space like stars. their fairytale seems like nothing, not the one you promised. i am dull here now, kissing people on the cheek, hugs all around, faking the only thing left. the world is not big enough for this question.

picnic

i could swarm here, buzz and flicker, your honey so electric it makes my screen glow.

death comes like a shot, a pinch and a scream, a sudden gushing and it all fades before my eyes. now i am useless, i'll think, my last thought.

no ache to be entered upon lightly.

commuting

the way -- every day -- the 1 and the 2 are sitting in the station already, so you must push your way through a throng of acending zombie-like inhumans, only to miss the trains by an instant, suffering mild humiliation as the doors mockingly bing-bong in your face, suddenly drenched with the kind of sweat only subterranean sprinting can produce, forced to face the resulting wait in a state of menopausal heat-flash hysteria... this i won't miss. routinely smelling piss, vomit, old garbage, horse shit, dog shit, unidentifiable shit, sewer steam, mysterious toxic puddles, and a variety of other stenches so foul they could make a clown kill children... this i won't miss. the same two paperboys from their competitive free-press establishments who daily fail to recognize me as the girl who just yesterday was all "i don't want a fucking paper!" as the train roared into the station two flights down, causing me to miss it due to their pointless, entry-clogging, ad-revenue-driven peddling... them, i won't miss. lecherous leering man, fuck you. ipod that can't play a song for 30 seconds in a row, fuck you. times square tourists, fuck you. swipe again at this turnstile, fuck you!

i'm really looking forward to my last day.

shying away

sometimes i hit up my drafts for ideas. there are a lot of them. drafts, i mean. there are a lot of ideas too but in a different way. it doesn't usually help.

i'm inspired but i can't commit. i'm a deaf mute in a phone booth. there's this one scene, this one song, again and again in my mind, so perfect, so moving, so utterly uncreatable. and you come along with your blanket statements and you think i'll just let go.

it's not like you can just count to three and then do it. you're not a child on a diving board. you're not at the public pool.

i have lost all sense of right, of true, of meant to be. i'm happy and i'm sad, i'm puffed up and sick and pounding, i'm a robber's rubber feet, plodding and dumb. i found inspiration where i least expected it. i wanted to be up there too.

there's so much i can't say now. i can't even say what that now means, or what it is to can't say. i'm reading these letters in the dark as my fingers pop along the keys, pixels lighting my face, circling me like wagons at a war, like a halo on a saint.

holding my horses

this is the first saturday i have spent in new york in six weeks. i've only been up for an hour and i have all these things to do, but already i'm feeling a nice weekend slowness about me. these things, they are not urgent, and they have two whole days in which to be accomplished. there is also always next weekend.

not that i wouldn't rather be at the cape. last weekend was so amazing and wonderful i hardly dare to ascribe words to it. we swam, we biked, we ate at my favorite restaurant, we rode the ferry out to martha's vineyard to stay with my two sugar daddies who spoil me rotten at all times. we sucked down fresh oysters. we saw fireworks. we napped in the sun on the beach. we got tossed around in the surf. we watched the tides come in and out and smelled the sweet salty air, and at night there were a million stars. the moon was new. we made a pact.

also, i decided to quit my job. life, i decided, was inherently good, was sadly short, and i wasn't going to spend another minute torturing myself just because it paid well. i will miss the money for sure, but i feel like i've claimed my life back. i can finally be myself again. maybe even sleep through the night.

now it's a waiting game. two more weeks? three? it doesn't matter. i have set myself free.

tonight

the lights are on tonight, and by the lights i mean the spears that head straight up into the sky, the points of rememberance. i recall, after all, the people jumping and the exploding and the crashing burning falling ending gall of it all. they died all at once and somehow this was worse. worse than what you knew, which was already bad.

i quit my job yesterday and i was elated and then sad and then elated some more. no one ever tells you that when you quit you earn respect. people love you for it. i'm a fucking goddess.

i don't love these people but i'll miss them all the same. my cat glances hungrily around the room, looking for mice that will never come. i'm having babies, i tell her. i'm having babies and they are named after you.

even in my fantasies, i don't wear tiny shorts, and i do not play the drums. we can dream this later and we can pretend it means nothing. on a whim. it will be flippant, and by that i mean it will be the best, better than what we set out for, which frankly wasn't ambitious to begin with, which frankly never suited me all the same.

i'm not out to make sense. i'm jealous and ecstatic and cold. i did not do drugs.

sick2

i'm having a hard time writing anything. i got halfway through a boring story about my sickness. it was going nowhere.

i have a disgusting eye infection. yesterday, i thought i was going blind. my eyes were tearing and stinging like i'd been cutting onions, constantly, with no relief. i have never cried so much. i have run out of tears.

***

yesterday, after being sent home from work, i overheard the following conversation on the street:

"you know i'm a married man, right?"

"yeah. of course."

"okay well i just wanted to make sure you understand what we're talking about here."

"how old is she?"

"she's 30. and i'm sure not getting any younger. this might be my last shot."

"so take her out for a nice meal and let her know you're in."

"i might not get that kind of time with her. i might only be able to grab her for a soft drink or something."

i turned to see who this man was. he was not unattractive but short. he had graying hair and piercing blue eyes. he was 50ish and i wanted to spit in his round face. i felt sadder for the 30-year old than i did his wife. the light changed and i moved on, my broken eyes blinded by the sun. i wept unemotional tears. they streamed down my face, leaving spots on my shirt.

***

yesterday, i found out that a childhood friend of mine was kidnapped, raped, and brutally murdered by a stranger, one night after meeting some friends for drinks. she was stolen right from her car. i abandoned her in the 5th grade when another friend told me that she was uncool, and that if i continued to hang out with her people would think i was uncool too. she lived up my street. she was the only friend i had whose house i could walk to. i practically lived there. she had all the best barbies, the dream house, the plastic pink corvette.

i didn't really know how to react to the news.

***

i'm nervous, yes, my heart skipping beats. there was so much more.

sunday

i don't sleep now, not even at the cape. i've become like a character in a book who says he never sleeps. you think, well no, no one could possibly not sleep so much, it must be more hyperbole, it must be dramatic effect. but the night comes and i'm afraid to close my eyes. i know my brain won't rest.

ask about prose, ask about dreams, ask about the surf. there is so much to talk about and we'll have so little time.

i'm reading a wonderful book and it's cloudy and i'm woozy with the night still with me. it's funny, i don't feel tired. two weeks of this now and the exhaustion hasn't come.

my heart for you swells like tides. sometimes high, sometimes low. sometimes very cold.

the sun was out once, for a moment, and we hardly knew what to do with it. we could hardly enjoy it enough. now with the gray the time moves more slowly, the time is thick with fog like soup. i need it this way. i need to slow down, to stop, to rest for a moment, to make my heart stop pounding.

we ate muffins for breakfast and they tasted like cake.