Old Steno Notebooks

Still unpacking I read through my steno notebooks from the last few years. This is the good stuff:

Sometimes it feels like everyone is going crazy. They are going crazy or getting hit by cars.

I hate it when summer is ending and the fall is beginning. It's always cold as fuck in the morning and hot as hell in the afternoon.

The big windows, watching the planes slowly taxi in and out, their take-off and landing dance.

We hugged but he was wearing his backpack and I didn't get to feel the muscles of his back, that valley of his spine, the curve of his waist.

She unwrapped a Hershey's Special Dark and felt the corners soften under her saliva. She folded the gold foil wrapper into smaller and smaller triangles.

The teenagers seemed to speak a language with their eyes as they ate their chili leaning against the kitchen counter. I used to know that language, Aggie thought. I used to be fluent in that language.

When you create your world it needs to be solid--and believing in that world is like pouring concrete. It makes everything hard and immovable. My world was flimsy--a used hanky, made of tissue paper and full of holes.

I want to drink milkshakes, lots of milkshakes.

It's like trying to herd cats. It's like trying to push a snake by it's tail.

Park Blocks--3:41 pm: Girl climbs on the Abe Lincoln statue so guy can take a picture of her. Her head is by Abe's crotch. Boy says, It looks like you are blowing Abraham Lincoln.

San Francisco

In San Francisco the weather is gray and moist. Krista's apartment is stuffy and we open a round window. It's not the frame but the actual glass that is round. "Be careful, " she says, as it's opened. "My landlord says these are really expensive." The window faces the street. The apartment is on a hill. "We are across from a rehab place, not like drugs, but like injuries, and it can be noisy all night with ambulances and trucks backing up." She sleeps with ear plugs.

For a late dinner we head to a ramen place. We walk mostly down hill. The restaurant is tiny and the four of us sit at a small table with barely enough room for our bowls. Cities are like this. Tight and cramped, things built on top of other things. Dirty, chaotic, they feel like they are on the edge, teetering on the brink of non-existance, they are so wild and out of control. Yet they work, there is an order, even with everyone and everything pushed together tight. I am struck by the amount of homeless people. They lean in doorways muttering to themselves and scratching their crotches, or they are walking towards you on an angled path dressed in layers and not really seeing you. I already knew this but had to relearn it: never look at a bum's exposed feet or ankles. The swollen skin with open sores will make you wretch. There is also a woman standing outside a fast food chinese restaurant shoveling food in her mouth off a paper plate. Her face is covered in meth sores.

We walk a lot, up and down hills, to the donut shop around the corner where an Asian women in a visor cooks donuts and watches TV all day. She tells us what is fresh and we order that, apple fritters or old fashioneds with maple glaze. We walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. The day is clear and you can see city and then turn and see out across the Pacific. The beginning of the walk is crowded and we dodge in and out of families with strollers and couples stopping for photographs. As we get closer to the midway point the crowds thin and there are just a few other walkers. The noisy rush of the cars is relentless, like the constant crash of a waterfall, the wheels on the road, the wind make it so you nearly have to yell to be heard. Or you have to walk close, arms linked, like you are telling each other secrets. Krista and I only walk halfway and turn to go back. I don't know what we talk about or if we talk. When we get back I say I have to go to the bathroom again. She is surprised and I feel old. In line there are two french women in front of me and they are joking and laughing with each other in a language I don't understand. I am jealous of their friendship and joviality. I imagine that if they were speaking in english I would join in with something funny about how the bathroom smell. Krista and I wait down by the water for the boys to get back. We sit on a rock wall and she explains to me what a diva cup is.

The next day we will drive over the bridge but it will be so socked in with fog that I won't be able to see the top of the red cables as I peer up through the windshield.

During the entire trip I have been uncomfortable in my skin, wishing I could wear a disguise, a fat suit and a muu muu with a hat and sun glasses. Anything that would make me feel different than how I feel, anything to take me out of myself--not like drinking can, and I do drink but even it isn't the same as it used to be, my hearts not in it-- something that makes me feel new, something that makes me feel like I am a city, cramped all my insides pushed together, teetering over non-existance.

Saving Lives, One Blog Post at a Time

I didn't do anything today. I googled the name of a former classmate, Zina Helzer, because I can't find her on Facebook and the first entry in the google search was my old blog. I had written about her in an article entitled, "starbucks and j dubs." I was a little alarmed that my blog came up as the first thing. I imagined this Zina googling herself--she would probably have to use her maiden name, she must be married-- and coming across my blog. In the post I mention that she was totally awesome so that might make her day when she comes across it. It might turn around her whole sorry life. My old blog might be life changing for Zina. It's amazing. Here is my favorite line from that blog post. The post was mostly about getting a latte and going shoe shopping--riveting stuff:

This all happend in the first hour after I woke up. It was one of the longest hours of my life. I like that sometimes though, like time has slowed down and I can notice things that I hadn't before.

So of course I spent sometime slumming it on my old blog. I read most of the entries from April to August 2005. I had one semester left of college. I noticed that I blogged about my cat a lot, not my current cat, Maebie, but Salvador the cat I ended up giving to my mom because Daniel hated him. HATED HIM. I also noticed that a lot of my blogs were about feeling bad because I didn't have a job. I wish I could have patted myself on the back back then and said, "Don't fret, in five years you will have a job that you like a lot." I also blogged about being hungover, or at least mentioned being hungover a lot. I used to drink a lot more than I do now. I also smoked a lot more. This is from my post about my 24th birthday when I went bowling:

It would have been cool to skip school and go bowling. Too late now.

And from a post about Tara's wedding, which I was TOTALLY hungover at. The bachlorette party consisted of Tara and I drinking vodka tonics out of big plastic cups and smoking cigarettes:

I don't know half the people there but while outside smoking two gay guys (groom's side), go ga-ga for my eyes.

"They're so clear," one says.

"it's like i can see...i can see...tomorrow," says the other. 



"you're different," they tell me. "you're different than those other people in there. you're mature. you're supposed to be an actress." 



why do gay guys always think i should be an actress?

While bumming around on the Facebook I followed a link to the blog of another teacher at one of the studios I work at. The blog was all about loving God and being a mom. (sing song)BOR-RING.

Disappointment, Starring the Babysitters Club

After realizing that I hadn't read Babysitters Club Super Special #9: Starring the Babysitters Club!, I ordered in off Amazon and it arrived in the mail yesterday. It was a great mail day. So last night I got cozy in bed and started reading it. First bummer: The book starts with Jessi's narration. She's one of my least favorite characters. Even though she and Mallory are like totally for sure in the club I always think their problems are juvenile because they are only 11. They aren't even teenagers. In some areas of the country they wouldn't even be in middle school, they'd still be in grade school. Maybe because of starting out less than stellar I was having trouble over-looking the absolute awfulness of the story. I didn't even get to the second page before I was sick of the formulaic writing of the book. I know! That's what they're all about, but for whatever reason I just couldn't handle it last night. Ann M. Martin uses parentheses too much and always in the same spot. The narrating character says how she and her friends are part of this club called the Babysitters Club, or the BSC, and they in parentheses she goes-- (more about that later). She does it in every book. I think I was imagining reading the "more" part and knew that I could recite the function of the BSC in my sleep. I am surprised at myself. I never thought I'd see the day where I would get sick of these books.

I'm not sick of the characters though. It's like I said in my earlier post--I want to know what they are doing now. I found myself saying things like, "Oh please Kristy, you know Bart is your boyfriend and you totally want to bone," in my head while reading. I'm sure I'll push through Starring the Babysitters Club regardless of how terrible it is. I'll just skim it, like it's something I have to read for school.

I know the picture isn't from the book, but I thought is was funny.

Work it Out Workshop

I went to this writing workshop today. It was put on by VoiceCatcher, a journal I've been published in. I was a little worried that it would be lame--women just sitting around writing about their feelings. YACK! But it was really great and I wrote a lot and some of the other writing was really good. This is one of the pieces I wrote today--it was prompted by this poem:

Double Feature

by Theodore Roethke

With Buck still tied to the log, on comes the light.

Lovers disengage, move sheepishly toward the aisle

With mothers, sleep-heavy children, stale perfume, past the manager's smile

Out through the velvety chains to the cool air of night.

I dawdle with groups near the rickety pop-corn stand;

Dally at show windows, still reluctant to go;

I teeter, heels hooked on the curb, scrape a toe;

Or send off a car with vague lifts of a hand.

A wave of Time hangs motionless on this particular shore.

I notice a tree, arsenical gray in the light, or the slow

Wheels of stars, the Great Bear glittering colder than snow,

And remember there was something else I was hoping for.

This is what I wrote:

Double features frequently leave me feeling like I need more, like I was supposed to do more. All those hours in the dark, taking part in someone else's plotline. That's why we go to the movies, to put our lives on hold. They are a pause--they are what makes that wave of time hang motionless. And it's funny that it was suggested we write about something we haven't before. I just went to a double feature on Friday and told Paul as we looked out the second story window of the Hollywood Theater that sometimes I really, really missed working in a movie theater--the popcorn smell, the ice noises, the mechanical sound of soda being poured, the pure simplicity of my job. Tear a ticket, butter popcorn. It wasn't even hard to smile. Paul said he missed it, too. We were looking out on Sandy Blvd. and I asked, "Do you think that man down there is happy or sad?"

"He's in between." And he was exactly that but I said, "I think he is happy." Paul probably thought I was stupid or at least silly.

I got two boyfriends working at the movie theater. One was five years older than me, short, skinny, with a constant 5 o clock shadow. He had gaps between his teeth and later when I would talk about my time with him my brother would ask, "Why?" And I wouldn't have an answer.

The other was a mormon who was just breaking up with a Bolivian woman he'd met on his mission. He had full lips and a torso shaped like a V. When he would walk into the theater lobby my friend would nudge me and say, "Your boyfriend is hot." I thought I knew more than him and told him what beer to drink, and which shirt to wear and how much eye-liner to put on when he played a show. The idea that we wouldn't spend every waking second together shocked me and he spat, "You don't want a boyfriend, you want a puppy."

After him I stopped working at the movie theater--gave up my free movies and popcorn and soda. I have to deal with the small amount of jealousy I have for the girl in the box office who looks up from her book to ring up my ticket.

Old Friends

I just came across a blog that was all about how this gal is re-reading all the Babysitters Club books in chronological order. In chronological order of the publication date because it's impossible to read them in order according to the dates in the books. They start in seventh grade but then enter a time warp in which they never leave eighth grade. I think they do actually graduate from middle school when the series ends but I've never made it that far.

This blog that I found makes me think of a fews things, like:

1. I am always doing stuff like this, re-reading books from my childhood. Why didn't I ever write about it? July 2005 I read a Judy Blume book a day for the entire month. Sounds ripe for blogging about, but I didn't. I guess I'm just good at blogging about all the things I wish I would have blogged about.

2. Ann M. Martin, bless her, came out with a Babysitters Club prequel. I don't care about what those girls were doing before they joined the Babysitters Club. In fact, I know what they were doing; they were babysitting. They were babysitting all the time! They turned it into a business. I want to know about what happened after the Babysitters Club broke up because Kristy, Claudia, Stacy and Mary Anne all started high school and got concerned with other things. I can imagine Kristy and Mary Anne really fighting to keep the club together but Claudia and Stacy wanting to go to cool high school parties and drink and smoke cigarettes. Jessi and Mallory might as well be dead to them. They are in seventh grade and all the other members are in high school. Claudia and Stacy definitely smoke cigarettes. I bet they still smoke cigarettes (I think they would be about 36). That is if Stacy isn't dead--she does have diabetes. Oh, and Dawn! Dawn will definitely because a burn-out with dreadlocks. She's a total hippie!

3. So thinking of "Where Are They Now, Babysitters Club" just makes me think of "Ramona Quimby, Age 28" and how I really need to know what she is up to these days as well.

The Road is My Home

A few days ago I was following a UPS truck and they pulled over in front of Vernon Elementary school hitting the branches of a cherry tree in full bloom, causing the petals of the blossoms to fly through the air and to the ground, like confetti. It was the most beautiful thing I saw that day.

Today I've noticed the lilacs are blooming and was able to stop and smell some of them. Lilacs are my favorite flowers. We had trees of white, light purple, and dark purple in our backyard at Lafayette. We also had an apple tree, a pear tree, walnut trees, and grapes. There was a wood stove in the living room and a bowl of walnuts in their shells, shell cracker right by the bowl, was always placed next to it. In the backyard there was also a hole in the ground that was covered by a lid that would come open if you stepped on the handle. The lid was heavy and rusted. That hole scared me. It was where my dad put the dog poop he'd clean up before mowing the lawn. When I was seven our brittany spaniel had puppies and half of the litter died from Parvo. It was really sad, and after that I imagined that the hole had dead puppies in it and that we were always throwing poop on them.

When I was younger it seemed like grown-ups were always getting these odd obsessions or interests. I guess I did it when I was younger as well--when I was ten and eleven I really liked suns and then I really liked cows. Even though I stopped caring people were still buying me birthday cards with cows on them or t-shirts with a holstein print. My mom got into buying these tiny British cottages that she kept in a mirrored, lit, corner case in our dining room. My dad went through phases of being really interested in old coins. He had about 30 vintage fishing lures framed. My uncle would always come visit toting a catalogue with the latest gun or knife that he wanted to buy. He'd show me the picture, as if it meant anything to me, and tell me all the specs. He still does this really. Their interests always seemed odd to me, but I supposed my obsession with holsteins was pretty ridiculous. I feel like now I'm getting my first adult obsession--vintage travel trailers. I really want one. I spent over and hour researching them today. I don't even have a driveway to keep it in. I'm not sure what the draw is. I definitely have romantic notions of cross country road trips pulling something like that 1965 Terry trailer I have pictured, of living simply and owning little. I know my Terry trailer would sit untouched most of the time, and I would probably be too lazy to do whatever small amount of upkeep it required. Maybe when I grow up a little bit more--when I have a driveway. When I have more things to call my own I can buy something that lets me pretend that all I need is its 13 feet of living space. My life in a tin canned.