traveling swallowing dramamine

if you peas.

from stosh's "online journal" post today:

I wanted to speak a little on what it means to have accidently stuck an eraser in your ear or a battery in your nose or a pen-cap in your throat. These are real problems, needing your love and sympathy, needing your understanding, and, most of all, needing your solutions.

so this is a story for stosh, full of love, sympathy, understanding, and most importantly, solutions.

one sunday when my brother was maybe three, which would have made me maybe eight and a half, we were in the backseat of my mom's car, going to my grandma's house. and michael was playing with a mardi gras bead. not a whole strand of beads, just one bead that had been twisted off. michael referred to a whole strand of beads as "beads," but just the one bead was referred to as a "ball with string in it."

so i'm reading in the car, and michael is playing with his ball-with-string-in-it. and he was generally a chattery little kid--so i had a bad feeling when i realized, in the midst of my reading, that michael had gone completely silent. i looked over at him, and he looked at me, panic-stricken, and said: "the ball-with-string-in-it is stuck in my nose!"

apparently he had put it up one of his nostrils and couldn't retrieve it.

anyway, my mom slams on the brakes and is like "you WHAT?" (this was before she started therapy--she had a rotten temper). so she's doing the whole "just STAY CALM. WHATEVER YOU DO. STAY CALM."--which is not making me calm at all--in fact, i am suddenly terrified that he's gonna inhale the bead and asphyxiate. so i'm trying not to cry--because although michael was annoying, he was my brother! i didn't want him to die! and of course michael is totally freaking out.

so we get to my grandma's house, the three of us nervous wrecks. and we go into my grandma's bedroom, and she very calmly tells michael to cover the unobstructed nostril and blow. the bead pops out, hits the hardwood floor, and rolls underneath the bed.

we went to my great-grandma's house later that day and told her our success story--and she was, by that point, a little bit senile--and when my mom told my great-grandma that i had been "hysterical," my great-grandma smiled at me and said that she understood why i had been "historical."

the strangest part of the whole thing was that, a few hours later on that same sunday, my aunt meg came into my grandma's house telling us that they had finally gotten the rock out of my cousin brady's ear. brady is a year older than michael. anyway, apparently brady had been on the school playground and found a little pebble and put it in his ear. and it had stayed there for a week, or something, and brady had kept rocking his head back and forth--presumably to feel the pebble rolling around in his ear canal. and my aunt and uncle were like, "why the hell does he keep doing that?" and finally they took him to the doctor, who flushed his ear out.

so after she tells us this story, someone retrieves brady from the backyard, where he had been putting bricks up against his ear--to see if they would fit.

then another cousin, kurt, who is also my brother's age, stuck some peas in his bellybutton while we were eating lunch.

it was a day of orifice infamy.

talk commas to me.

let's see if i can gather my thoughts and shape them into something coherent.

ben called me every day this past week--from friday to friday. every day. which wigged me out a little bit. but not because i didn't want him to call me. it was because he was calling and i didn't mind. he asked me if i wanted to watch a movie on monday night, and i told him i couldn't, because i had to write a play.

so we watched a movie tuesday night instead. which meant, of course, that we spent a half hour in blockbuster trying to figure out what to rent, and then we went home and turned on the movie and turned off the light and then didn't watch the movie at all. i don't even know what movie we rented. i told him to pick--i figured it wouldn't matter anyway. he noted afterwards that we didn't even make it through the opening credits. which was pretty sweet. it's been a while since i've not watched a movie with someone. i sorta feel like i'm in high school again. in the good way. with lots of sexual tension. and my own bed. and a closed door.

thursday we were going to go to '80s night again, but i just couldn't muster up the energy. there was a lot of "i'll go if you go" and finally he said "well, do you wanna do something else?" and i said "what i really want to do is be very quiet somewhere without smoke" and he laughed and said, "that sounds really nice." and i said "can it involve my joyce homework? is that too dorky?" and he said it was fine, because he had to do the reading anyway.

so we went to charlie's coffee and he got an iced chai and i got some really kickass iced tea and we split an eclair. he was looking at the dessert stuff in the little fridge display thing, and they had tiramisu, and he told me that sometimes he'll get two or three pieces of tiramisu and eat that as his dinner. which is really silly and cute and the thought of it gives me a sugar headache. anyway, we did our homework and talked a lot--we were there for about three hours. and he told me stuff he had learned about obsolete punctuation marks and i got all swoony. (i told this story to michael, who cocked an eyebrow and said huskily, talk commas to me.)

friday i didn't even mean to hang out with him--because i'd seen him thursday night--but he asked me and i said yes before i could even think to say no. i hung out at his house before i went to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with rikki and co. and as i was leaving he said, "so you're coming back after the movie." and i pretended like maybe i would and maybe i wouldn't but of course i did. he was leaving at 9AM--he's spending spring break in NYC--and he told me that he'd made me a mix CD and to remind him to give it to me. so when i left i woke him up and asked him where it was and he showed me and i took it and kissed him and left.

i didn't listen to it until i woke up that afternoon and drove to NOLA. it's called "nine things i'll be thinking." he didn't provide a track listing. i employed what little musical knowledge i have and my trusty sleuthing skills (aided by my invaluable friend Google) to decode the mix CD. because, you know, that's what you're supposed to do. especially when the mix CD is called "nine things i'll be thinking."

so here, in order, are the nine things:

1. Talking Heads :: Life During Wartime
2. TMBG :: Man, It's So Loud in Here
3. Beck :: Nicotine and Gravy
4. The Magnetic Fields :: Underwear
5. The Postal Service :: Such Great Heights
6. Indigo Girls :: Mtns of Glory
7. Erykah Badu :: Kiss Me on my Neck
8. Dispatch :: Two Coins
9. Ani DiFranco :: o.k.

once i figured out the songs i read the lyrics--lyrics are so important to this kind of thing--and i have concluded that this mix is proportioned perfectly. it is sorta silly, occasionally sweet, and mostly hot. the fact that there's a Talking Heads song on there pleases me greatly. what makes me even happier is that the CD is not entitled "nine things i'll be thinking about." (he told me friday that i needed to get over my hang-up with prescriptive grammar. and i told him to shut up because it wasn't my fault that i hadn't taken linguistics yet. swooning all the while.)

anyway, he is totally fucking up my plan. i had a plan. it was a great plan. my plan was to stay single at least until i got back to the states in august. i don't want a boyfriend over the summer because i'm going to be in natchitoches in june and prague in july. and frankly i'm tired of having to be all forlorn because my loved one is far away or whatever. plus, if i were single in prague, i could have a torrid love affair or perhaps a random meaningless fling. at any rate, this thing with ben is, in faulknerian terms, not adjunctive to the forwarding of the design.

and it's forcing me to acknowledge something that hadn't really occurred to me--namely, that i'm scared shitless of starting a new relationship.

coming out of my last relationship, i've developed this [admittedly cynical] notion that relationships are basically a slow and painful process of watching the person you love learn to like you less and less. you know, the beginning is always a big fucking honeymoon, and everyone's on their best behavior. and then you learn each other's idiosyncracies, and if you're lucky and in love, you think the flaws and quirks are cute. but in this last relationship--by the end of it i basically felt like i was a neurotic bitch, and that i was being tolerated--my presence was being suffered--but no pleasure was taken in my company. i only felt that way with my boyfriend. when i was with my friends i felt like a normal human being. within the context of my relationship, i felt like shit.

i know it doesn't have to be that way. but i can't help being a little bit wary about getting back into something serious. because "serious" implies that you'll be spending a lot of time with that one person. and right now i'm spending a little time with a lot of people, and i feel great, and not like shit at all. and i'm afraid that if i commit to spending a lot of time with one person, somehow i'll be found out--exposed for the insufferable bitch that i truly am--or something--and i'll go back to thinking that really i'm insane and intolerable .

i can't bear it. i just can't.

so to avoid that whole situation, my plan to stay single keeps me from being subjected to the demystification process. i can keep people at arm's length and they can never make me feel like shit.

it's a good plan; it's been working out well so far. but now: i discover that i like being around ben, and he seems to like being around me. in fact, part of the reason i like being around him is because he seems to like being around me. if that makes any sense. it makes me feel nice, that someone likes me enough to want me around. (adam, i concede that much to you. but please note: i am happy independently of this. having someone who wants me around is just a fabulous fucking bonus.)

so he keeps asking me to hang out and i keep saying yes, and i am filled with dread as i think forward to the seemingly inevitable point when he will no longer be so excited about having me around--past the point of taken-for-granted--when the things he used to think were cute have become merely annoying. when my presence is something to be tolerated, suffered, but not enjoyed.

i guess that's when you break up. and then the whole thing starts all over again.

this is why Eternal Sunshine was so brilliant. one of the reasons, anyway. what if you could start a new relationship with all of the freshness of discovery but with none of the pain? what if you knew from the beginning all of the things that would piss you off or drive you nuts? and you wouldn't have to go through the process of learning to hate each other. you'd already know but it wouldn't matter because you'd be simultaneously falling in love.

i don't know.

what is up with these long posts? jesus. anyway, that's why i'm hesitant to start something serious. i suppose i'm jumping the gun on this over-analysis. true to form. because i don't know what his intentions are. and i don't intend to ask him. at this point i've got all the symptoms of a small and rapidly growing crush. i just don't know how much i should indulge it. so far it seems like i'm afraid to get involved and yet every time he asks to see me i say yes and yes. even though i'm scared. so i guess that's healthy enough. scared but not stopping.

in other news, i went home saturday and had such a good visit with my family. i ate crawfish with my dad and michael--finally--i'd been desperate for crawfish for weeks. and my dad told a joke with the word "fuck" in it--which is major progress. (he bitched at me on a fishing trip in november for saying "jesus christ" when i was trying to bait a lure with a live shrimp.) and then we went back to his house and i played the piano for a while and then he played his guitar and we tried to sing harmony and occasionally succeeded. we did some simon and garfunkel and CSNY and beatles--but kept forgetting the words: "hello darkness, my old friend...i've come to talk with you again...because the vision something....fleeting...left its something something...something...something something...something...sound...of silence..."

then that night i stayed up late talking with michael--we were talking about crushes and dreams--apparently all these girls are having dreams about him--my favorite: this girl told him that she dreamt they were in McDonald's together, and michael was dressed like Ronald McDonald, and she went up to him and honked his nose and kissed him. i was like, i can't believe she actually told you that. and he was like, yeah, she's bold. she's got balls.

and i told him all the shit i'd been thinking about relationships. and he said--kind of out-of-the-blue--that i've changed so much. and i asked him what he meant. and he said, "from year to year--you've changed so much. you're not the same person you were a year ago. and a year ago you were different from the year before." and i said, "like how?" and he said that i seemed to know what i was about. and that i seemed much happier.

and boy did i need to hear that.

the next day my mom made panéed meat for lunch. (that's fried pork chops to you people.) and i asked her if i could bread the pork chops, and she looked at me like i was nuts and said "yes of course" because apparently she hates breading pork chops. i just don't get that. how could anyone hate breading pork chops? you stand, barefoot, in your pajamas, against the counter--crack an egg in a bowl. break the yolk and stir. roll out a sheet of tin foil, pour out some bread crumbs (italian, store-bought). pick up a pork chop--boneless, thin-sliced--dip it in the egg. lay the cold dripping chop in the crumbs. press it down, flip it over, press it down, repeat. repeat. repeat. it's so tactile. the raw egg, the bread crumbs, your bare hands, the soft uncooked meat.

after lunch i took michael to get ice cream. and i gave him his birthday present: Welcome to the Monkey House (Vonnegut) and Found magazine (issue #3). i had a hard time picking out his present, and i wasn't totally pleased with my gift selection, but he's at that age where he's almost ready for a lot of books but not quite. and i can't buy him music anymore; he's light years ahead of me with that stuff. in fact, i take my recommendations from him now.

i needed that visit home more than i had realized. on the way back to baton rouge, i felt like i was breathing again for the first time in weeks.

turn, turn, turn.

so i'm bored and experimenting. approve or disapprove?

also. the second essay. sort-of essay.

----------

Your dad has his home office in the large corner room. At night he sits at the big oak desk and you lie face-down on the brown shag carpet, breathing in. The carpet smells musty and sweet. The desk is the same color as the carpet but a little less gold and a little more red. On the desk are: a mail holder that commands, in fake-gold letters, DO IT NOW. Business cards that say Steven G_____ and Guste Barnett & Shushan and One Shell Square. A paperclip container made of dark smoky plastic. The top of the container is black plastic with a hole in the middle lined with magnets. You like to dump out all the paperclips, silvery and small, onto the gold-brown shag carpet, then try to slip the paperclips back into the container, one by one, without letting them get sucked onto the magnetic sides. Sometimes your dad sits you on his lap and lets you write stories on his electric typewriter. The typewriter is black and the keys feel solid underneath your fingertips. You write the stories and he reads them back to you:

Once upon a time I went to Grandmotherdear’s house. We played pick-up sticks and solitaire and concentration. Lulu and Nutmeg ran around outside and made gold dollars.

You stop him and request that he read what it really says. He reads: “akdjaklaj fijoa kjf f 9 8akldjfkladj jdfOIUW#Oru9u oshf adfiojaweoiur 3w.”

You laugh until you are breathless.

When your brother is born, the big oak desk moves to the living room. Every room in the house has either tile floors or that brown shag carpet, except for the living room, which has blue carpet and blue curtains and is therefore known as the blue room. The big oak desk sidles up against the floor-length curtains adorning the French door, which is not a door at all but a window that doesn’t even open. The desk is broad, with its desktop surface extending two feet beyond its sides, like wings. Underneath where the edge of the desktop meets the blue-curtained French door, you find a space enclosed on two sides, with a roof. The desk is high enough, and you are small enough, so that you can sit comfortably without bumping your head on the underside. You get nice light from the door-window. You can hide things behind the curtains. This is your fortress. This is your office. You move in.

Your Archie comic books are safe here, tucked away from the grubby grasp of your brother. You spend hours sketching in the gauzy filtered light: pointe shoes, ballgowns, a dancer poised in perfect arabesque. You write a novel detailing the misadventures of you and your friends, who have started a club of superhero ballerinas called the Nature Fairies. When your cousin spends the night, you sit together in your office, whispering secrets back and forth till midnight. She sleeps under one side of the desk, you sleep under the other. It is dark and the wood is silent.

When your parents divorce, the desk moves to Mississippi. So does the kitchen table. There’s an extra table in the blue room, but it’s too bulky for the kitchen. (You’d tried sitting under the blue room table once, just to see, but it wasn’t as good.) You get a new-old kitchen table from your aunt. It seats four, but it is round instead of rectangular, and it looks wrong in your kitchen. One day you come home from school to find that your mom has folded down one of the leaves of the table and pushed it up against the wall. Three chairs. You turn on her. “Do you have to rub it in?” you ask.

“You’ll get used to it,” she says mildly, as if it doesn’t hurt her as much as it hurts you. As if she did it for your own good. But you know she did it for herself. This is a reality and an absence unrecognizable in the abstract. One must rely on one’s furniture to provide the concrete terms.

how to ring in the new year when you don't have a bell:

i'm eating my way through a bag of dove dark chocolate that my mom got me for christmas. it's the kind with little messages on the inside of the foil wrappers. the last three announced: Joy to...You. whatever that means.

i have my favorite fortune cookie proclamations taped up on my computer monitor. there are twenty-two up there right now. actually, three of them are taco bell fire sauce packets, and one is a bottle cap that says "A new chapter in your life is being written." the ones from the cookies say things like You love sports, horses, and gambling, but not to excess and You will awarded some great honor (sic). i got one that said Be yourself, and you will always be in fashion three times in a row. i like that one. i also like the one that instructs me to Say 'bless you' when you hear someone sneeze. sometimes the fortunes have chinese lessons on the back: LEARN CHINESE -- Are you Mr. Bush?

but my absolute favorite is the one that says You will be the best.

the best at what?

oh, you know. just in general. The Best.

for two weeks rikki and i had been debating What to Do for New Year's. it went a little something like this:

ann: what are we doing for new year's?
rikki: hmm.
ann: we could have a party.
rikki: oh, we could totally have a party.
ann: let's have a party.
rikki: we need to call people.

days pass. no effort is made to actually plan a party. then--

rikki: i think ian and groh might be having a party.
ann: who's going?
rikki: i think maybe the lafayette high kids. mike's in town. but it's still up in the air. i think no one has decided to have a party or not have a party, and everyone's waiting to see what everyone else will do.
ann: well, we should just decide to have a party.
rikki: we need to call people.

later.

ann: what are we doing for new year's?
rikki: we could have a party.
ann: we should totally have a party.
rikki: if all else fails, i think there's going to be a bathtub bonfire on ivanhoe.
ann: really?
rikki: well, leif said no one's made any actual plans or anything, but it will definitely happen. somehow. i mean, something will happen. whether it's a bonfire or not. somehow something will happen somewhere.

meanwhile, i get a voicemail from becca saying that i should call her back because she has big news. and her big news is that she's moving to new orleans with brice. like, this week. when i hang up with her i sit and stare at the phone for a while, feeling like i've been punched in the stomach. two years ago i was living in tiger plaza with elizabeth, breton, becca, and the signicant others: travis, jason, anna, and jesse. now elizabeth is in boston, breton is in paris, travis is in georgia with jake, jason is in france. i rarely see anna and practically never see jesse. matt's in england. ben's in new orleans. i haven't even fucking graduated yet. everyone should still be here. everyone should still be friends.

i saw brice at the promis show. we were talking about how we didn't know what we were doing for new year's. i told him how i used to get really sad on new year's eve. i used to cry. "but mom...1992 was such a good year, and 1993 will be different." i've never been good at change.

it's a college town, i know. we're supposed to scatter like this. but i wasn't ready. or maybe i was. i've been looking at internships for when i graduate in may. it sucks all the breath out of me to think about it. but there's nothing left for me here.

that's what becca said. "it's not that you're not enough for me to stay." she smiled and shrugged. "but, you know. you're not."

i'm looking at the northeast. i'm always looking at the northeast.

it looks cold and lonely. and very far away. and where i want to be.

then i got a letter from breton. really it was more like a very small package, with little notes and a CD of christmas-in-paris pictures to the tune of "Jingle Bells" in french. (breton, i think my favorite was the man peeing in the metro.) the outside of the envelope was covered in scratch-n-sniff pickle stickers, which breton knows are my favorite. i had been so sad all day, thinking about becca leaving. but this package from breton made me giddy. i sat on my front porch and read the notes and sniffed the stickers and laughed to myself. then i heard ross next door playing guitar on his front steps, so i ran over to show him. it was the happiest i've been in weeks.

at midnight on new year's eve rikki was at ang's apartment and i was next door watching the boys blow things up. i was hoping to get a kiss out of the whole thing, but no dice. it was me, ross, paul, the other ross, his girlfriend, and their dog. and not really a moment where kissing would have been appropriate. it was more like "hey, what would happen if we taped these three bottle rockets together and put spinner things on the sides and then stuck it under a clay pot / inside a box of stale cornflakes / in a Big Gulp cup filled with birdseed?" and me cowering behind whoever was closest. but at the stroke of midnight (i was watching the clock on my cellphone) ross did come stand by me. which is something. i guess.

i managed to get happy new year's wishes over the phone from my mom, my dad, barrett, adam, jessie, cat, and becca. so that made me feel loved. and at one i went and hung out with adam at chelsea's, where he was working the door. and then i met up with brice and becca and went to the ivanhoe bonfire, which did actually happen. mike and crawford were there, along with the usual bonfire gang. i went home sober and happy and fell asleep at two.

the next morning i drove into new orleans for the umpteenth time this week. i might be too old to hang out with my grandparents and cousins on new year's eve without feeling really lame--but new year's day belongs to my family. and black-eyed peas will be eaten. and that is that.

breton had given me knitting needles, practice yarn, and a copy of Stitch N Bitch for christmas last year--we were supposed to learn to knit together, but that didn't happen. it's hard to learn from a book; you end up holding onto your needles with yarn rolling off your lap, trying to keep the book open with your elbows. so when i saw my aunt meg knitting a cool scarf at christmas, i asked her if she'd show me the ropes. new year's day was like a knitting festival--mimi and aunt pattie had busted out the knitting supplies too, and aunt kay was learning. they took turns sitting by me and giving advice.

things i learned:

-- beginners tend to be tense, and their stitches are tight as a result. tight stitches are hard to work with. tension makes your upper back hurt. also you wake up the next morning as sore as if you'd done fucking push-ups the night before. repeat to yourself, with each new stitch: loose, loose, loose.

-- you don't have to count every row, but you should keep track of your stitches; otherwise you cast on twenty and wind up with thirty-one. and then your relatives will laugh at you. and your knitting will take on an unusual pyramid shape.

-- a pencil eraser (the removable kind that you buy separately) caps off your needles nicely so that your five-year-old cousin can't yank them out and unravel all your work.

-- knitting is addictive. at night you will lie in bed and close your eyes and have visions of needles sliding in and out of yarn. yarn slipping off the needle. slowly slowly fall asleep.

late afternoon my cousin kaylen announced that she and kelsey, her sister, were going to starbucks with erin and genna. genna and kaylen are sophomores, kelsey is in eighth grade, and erin is in seventh. occasionally i will take them all out for a girls' night, or we'll go on walks or hide in a bedroom at mimi's house and have girl conversations. they ask after my boyfriends. i don't know if they think i'm particularly cool, but i probably get points for being in college; college is of course the coolest thing ever.

kaylen: i can't wait till college. so i can get away from here. 
kelsey: i can't wait till you go to LSU and i can come spend the day.
kaylen: uh, first i'd have to invite you.
kelsey: yeah, but by the time you're in college you'll probably like me.

anyway, i told the girls i'd go with them to starbucks. kaylen, with her freshly-minted license, was driving. of course there are no starbucks in st. bernard, so we had to go all the way to metairie. on the interstate. the other three girls were in the back and michael and i were both buckled into the front seat, which prompted kelsey to repeatedly voice her concern that we would all be arrested. "shut up or get out, kelsey," kaylen said. michael pointed out that she'd have to stop the car first.

we approached the 90-10 split. "what do i do?" kaylen asked, panicky, and i said "right, right," and pointed to the right. she went left. "you have to point," she said. um, i did.

so i'm coaxing her through it. "okay, get off, it's no big deal, get off, left lane, okay, left at the light, okay, we're going to make a U-turn. watch the cars. okay. now we're going to take a right at this light." there were cars approaching--they were far enough away so that she could have gone for it, but she hesitated. so i'm saying "okay, you could--no, wait--" but she was already starting to go, and the cars, and i'm saying "wait, well, okayGOREALLYFAST" and the kids are sort of shrieking in the back and i'm clutching on to michael and this guy driving a truck laughed at us.

at starbucks the girls drank "frapps" in various flavors and i had a hot tea and ripped out all my knitting. the boy cousins had gotten BB guns for christmas--mostly semi-automatics, but michael and kevin got fully automatic ones. so erin is on kelsey's cellphone, with her legs crossed daintily and her frapp in hand. she's talking to her mom: "so wait, you got me a gun? is it fully automatic?" and i'm hoping none of the other starbucks patrons can hear this conversation.

we made it home in one piece, going 45 all the way. i thought about telling kaylen to speed up and then remembered it took me a while to work up to the speed limit when i was first learning to drive. and she was doing okay. back at mimi's, aunt shannon had put on The Sound of Music and we all sat around knitting and singing along. grandpa kept getting pissed and muting the movie: "okay, sing! go ahead! get it out of your system! you want to sing, sing!"

julie andrews: (singing) gone are your old ideas of life / the old ideas grow dim / lo and behold you're someone's wife / and you belong to him...
ann: 'and you belong to him.' some lyrics.
uncle jamie: that's right. many a happy marriage started that way.
ann: (shooting him a dirty look)
uncle jamie: i'm serious. i tell my wife what to do, and she listens.
ann: brilliant.
aunt pattie: we are nothing but chattel. 
aunt shannon: and you know, fifty percent of the people in those marriages are happy!
kevin: (running in from outside) come see! uncle mike got two christmas trees off of people's curbs and he's lighting them on fire!

(general clamor, everyone standing up)

aunt meg: tim, pause the movie!
aunt ellen: jesus, mike, the fire station is right next door...
grandpa: i hope they come arrest him.

(cast exits stage left to view burning trees in vacant lot next door.)

happy new year, ya'll.

happy father's day

i'm out of the habit.

not that i haven't been thinking of things to write about.

and there are many things to say that i can't.

here's something: i rented a movie thursday night. The Piano Teacher. that's the name of the movie. set in vienna, french with subtitles. it's possibly the most fucked-up movie i've ever seen in my life. it makes Secretary look like a cartoon. it's like Secretary but kubrick. i don't know. i was going "oh my god" the whole time.

i watched it alone, in reid's bedroom, eating snowcaps.

i'm looking at the candy box right now. apparently they're sno-caps. and the official movie-watching snack of my childhood. every time my dad and i watched a movie--and we watched a lot of movies--we always got sno-caps. we did lots of things always a certain way and i'm so weird about routines now.

like i always get dr. pepper at taco bell, which isn't so weird because the other taco bell drinks are gross (stupid pepsi)--but i also always get dr. pepper at bud's broiler, and they have regular coke too. i only just realized that they had coke a few months ago. and usually i drink coke if i have the option. but at bud's i get dr. pepper because i always got dr. pepper with my dad. because he ordered everything for me. i didn't realize taco bell served food other than bean burritos until i was twelve. late night, i could never sleep and we'd sit up in his garage while he worked on his R/C planes, and he'd say you can stay up but you have to read this book--and he'd hand me a thick paperback copy of isaac asimov's I, Robot--i'm like seven or eight years old, slogging through "Bicentennial Man"--it was way above my reading level but i really didn't want to go to bed. and on the good nights he'd take me to taco bell. small dr. pepper and a bean burrito with extra onions. not because i liked onions, but because he did. i still order it that way. and when i go to bud's it's always a #4, sauce not chili, extra onions, and cut in half. because that's how it was. (what it is, what it was, what it shall be. right, michael?) i've never even tasted anything else from bud's. besides the french fries, of course, which i dump a load of pepper on, because that's how he fixed them.

so i'm in blockbuster renting the movie, which i know i will watch alone. and i pick up the box of sno-caps. i can't remember the last time i had sno-caps. and i think oh god what if i'm turning into my father.

my father.

whom i remembered to invite to my graduation two days before. because i figured he needed a formal invitation, what with all the michael/lsmsa stuff going on, and after what happened the last time i graduated from an academic institution. i called him wednesday and said "oh by the way, apparently i'm graduating on friday, and you're invited, you're welcome to come"

and he laughed and said "are you going to the ceremony, because when i graduated from UL i didn't go"

and i laughed and said "yes well, my parents would kill me if i didn't go to the ceremony"

and he laughed and said "trust me, your parents don't care."

and i said "well. my mother would be upset."

and he said "oh i didn't mean i didn't care"

and then he said that thursday night at zephyr's field they were having a promotion thing for his insurance agency, he'd bought twenty seats and they were putting the name of his agency up on the scoreboard for like five seconds during half-time (or whatever, it's baseball). and so how many seats should he save for me?

not "can you make it" or "do you want to come" or "i'd like for you to come" or "i want to introduce you to my clients."

"how many seats should i save for you?"

i told him i was coming in town to shop for a graduation dress but i had to get back to BR that night--but maybe i could go to the game for a little while.

then i called my mom. she said, all urgently, "have you spoken to your father." yes, mom. "have you invited him to your graduation." yes, mom.

she said, "i talked to him earlier and he was upset that you hadn't invited him"--

i told michael: "he gets mad because he thinks he's not invited, and then when i invite him he acts like he doesn't want to come--"

and michael said: "you do realize that it's two separate things for him. if you don't invite him to the graduation, that's one thing, and that's offensive to him. and if he actually has to go to the graduation, that's something else, which is also offensive, because it's inconvenient. two separate things, both of which are offensive to him."

and he's right, of course. and it sucks.

thursday i visited becca at cafe rani and traipsed around the quarter and magazine street. it was hot and i was wearing a camisole and torn jeans and flipflops.

i called my dad to see what the plan was for the baseball game. i told him i could go, but just for a little while. and he said "great, that's fine. i can show you off. you can be my trophy daughter."

you can be my trophy daughter.

i paused. and said, "you know, dad, i'm looking pretty sloppy today--you might not want to show me off--you might want to hide me in a corner or something--"

and he laughed.

he said "listen, how important is it that i come to graduation?"

i said it was important. and that i would like for him to be there. and that i was getting special recognition, not just graduating summa cum laude but also with college honors, because i did a thesis project.

and he said okay. he asked me what time the ceremony was for, and i told him the main commencement thingy was for 8:30 and the diploma thingy was for 12:30.

he said "pm?"

i said "well yeah. noon-thirty."

he said "so wait, the first ceremony is in the morning?"

yeah.

he paused. "i'm sorry, ann, i thought it was at night. i can't go. my secretary is quitting and she's training the new girl and she's not going to be in the office on friday."

oh.

"what a bummer," he said. he sounded disappointed. he said, "get someone to tape it."

i told him it's going to be boring anyway, i don't even want to go, no one will ever want to see a tape of it.

and he said "no, it's not boring" and i said "it's not a big deal, don't worry about it" and he said "it is a big deal." like he really did feel bad about it. and he said to be at his house for 6:30 to go to the baseball game and to pick up my graduation present.

at 6:30 michael and i are sitting in his driveway. it is my fault that my dad isn't coming to my graduation. like if i had told him earlier. but maybe it wouldn't have mattered. i told him a week in advance about my dance concert, and he called me that morning to say he couldn't make it. he didn't give a reason. when i went to louisiana school, he said he would never come see me perform because natchitoches was too far away and inconvenient. then he refused to sign the financial aid forms for my out-of-state colleges because he thought it was a "bad idea" for me to go to school far away. as a result i couldn't afford to go to school anywhere but LSU. but when i perform at the LSU union theater, he doesn't show up.

i cut the engine and turn to michael and make a crack about being the "trophy daughter," how i'm sure dad would like to hide me in a corner.

we knock on the front door. i tug self-consciously at my tank top, which is not particularly hoochie, but then this is the man who once forbade my mother from removing her shawl at a gala, lest she reveal too much skin in her off-the-shoulder ballgown.

my dad answers the door, takes a look at what i'm wearing, and his face drops. "oh ann," he says.

"what?" i say, defensive. i'm still pulling at the top of my shirt. 

"you don't have anything else you can change into?"

no, dad. i told you i was messy.

"are you sure?"

i told you. i didn't realize it was going to be a dressy thing.

"it's not--" (it's a fucking baseball game.) "--but sixteen of my colleagues are going to be there."

well i'm sorry. i was outside all day, it was hot.

"you don't have anything else you can wear?"

no, dad.

he shoots another disapproving look at my camisole, and says, "well. come get your graduation present."

it's a stack of 100 one dollar bills, and an envelope with a card. the card has a mouse on the cover, pushing an elephant up a hill. the inside of the card shows the mouse with the elephant successfully wrangled up the hill--and five more elephants waiting at the bottom. signed "love, dadeo."

"wow, dad," i say. "this is a depressing card." awkwardly i hug him and thank him for the money.

"you really don't have anything else at home you can put on?"

"look," i tell him, fucking furious. "if you don't want me to go to the game, just say so. i have plenty of other stuff to do."

he pauses. "your feelings won't be hurt?"

"yes, my feelings will be hurt. but i'll suck it up." 

"well," he says. "have a safe trip back to baton rouge."

stunned, i drive home.

he didn't call me on friday to say congratulations.

i didn't talk to him for two weeks.

michael said dad felt bad about the whole thing. over lunch, my dad told him that he didn't know how to handle it. he asked michael: do you think she'd be offended if i offered her money to buy new clothes?

finally he called me. he said, "i haven't heard from you in a while."

no fucking shit.

there was no mention of graduation or the baseball game. we like to pretend that things don't happen. we imagine that everyone forgets.

water under the bridge. love does not keep score.

my dad is full of these catch phrases. he always talked about how impressionable our minds were, and how we should be careful of what we expose ourselves to--garbage in, garbage out--which was why i wasn't allowed to set my clock radio to B97, because howard stern was what woke me up for school in the morning. he made us watch zig ziglar tapes about positive thinking. i don't even remember what was on those tapes--probably because i've blocked it--but i think zig ziglar was where he got the phrase "garbage in, garbage out." the incessant positive thinking/brainwashing lecture pissed me off as a kid, but as i've gotten older i've realized that there's really something to it. especially the part about how we can passively absorb information and it'll stick. like the way we can all sing along with the winterfresh gum commercial but we've (hopefully) never actively tried to learn the words. or whenever i pull into a parking lot, how i hear echoes of my dad asking, rhetorically, "who gets the best parking spot?" you gotta believe!

water under the bridge. love does not keep score. the truth will set you free.

i called him saturday when i was in town. we went to this hole-in-the-wall metairie restaurant for dinner. all three of us ordered steak. as michael applied his utensils to the meat, he said how he always remembers to "let the knife do the cutting," like my dad used to say.    

and for every scrap of food i've cut in the past two days, it echoes in my head. all these patterns and sayings we're destined or doomed to remember. and repeat.

we're home. ambrosia. what's the magic word, ann, say the magic word, what's the i didn't hear you what did you say? 

and the ones we're not aware of. the things we absorb without knowing.

gungagalungaporfavorpleasestop.

what we pass on or inflict, the whimsical and the damaging.

what it is, what it was, what it shall be.

the thing is, a burger from bud's doesn't taste right without a dr. pepper.

i'll meet you here tomorrow

thoughts gathered while listening to the click and shudder of the A/C unit cycling: off and on as i lie awake, sober:

:

i love you in the battery of ways it is possible for me to love you, none of which is the way i'd like to: simply: you, me, verb, without context.

:

you told me once that i was just like my father. you said it because you knew it was the worst thing you could say, and it remains the single cruelest thing anyone has ever said to me. it didn't hurt, because there was no way for you to know whether or not it was true. but you said it anyway, and i have never quite forgiven you for that.

:

that school ruined my relationship with my daughter
how was your relationship before
it was fine she was happy she did plays
did you go see her performances
of course
can you name one play she was in
well no but there was i remember a lot of singing and dancing

:

smell of curry i used to be afraid that my house smelled (to other people, who didn't live there: my guests, my friends) like something identifiable the way maria's house smelled like all hispanic people's houses smelled at the time i associated it with poverty and plastic-guarded furniture but now i think it must be one of the spices she cooked with because i come home from work every day smelling like (i say enchiladas but really) maria's house. this is irony.

:

once i came home and i hadn't been home in a long time and my house smelled like mimi's. i thought: maybe house smells are genetic.

:

i have kept my guard up for so long that i think i've forgotten how to drop it. settle into myself and bitch about being single but really i don't know what i'd do with another person to fit around. this is what i've come to: no one is worth trusting. i don't think it's true but i do think it. why waste my energy when i'm going to be betrayed eventually. betrayed is a strong word, and too direct, but that's what it feels like when someone decides you're not enough.

:

i can't even tell anymore. introverted extroverted open shut. other people seem to find me emotionally available and reckless ("willing to make yourself known" ross said once) but it doesn't cost me anything. i don't give away anything that costs. my stories, the sad ones, have been told so many times they are little more than a well-rehearsed performance.

:

my girlfriends tell me about being In A Relationship and always it is the Ideal Relationship and always they are self-deprecating stories about how they (my girlfriends) are crazy and annoying and difficult. it makes my stomach hurt. the last time i almost started to let go was the time he (again) ran away and i became one of those nagging but it was because i was afraid. so i pull. or cling. and how can that be our fault if we cling when you're pushing us away.

:

and how do you keep from being spiteful. how do you just say okay, and let go.

:

i want to hurt you as much as you hurt me.

yes it could be worse

and that doesn't really make this any better.

friday catherine came in town. i met her after work at the mellow mushroom; the mixed nuts were playing 80s covers. it was a bunch of drunk mount carmel girls smoking cigarettes and i felt uncomfortable, like always, i guess. cat watched me tired, held my hand and bought me a jack and coke. then i took her to louie's and it was like taking another version of myself around baton rouge. the me who stayed. except i'm not catherine, and i was never on student council like the rest of them. i was a theatre kid.

she slept next to me and we had our real conversation in the morning, in bed. she's supposed to be going to england on the 1st. i don't know where she's flying out of.

then saturday ross's niece was born, and her name is katherine with a k i think.

then there was this hurricane.

i called my mom saturday afternoon to see what she was going to do. becca was already headed to lafayette. my mom is the first to evacuate, always. we always evacuate together. "i don't know yet" she told me. mimi and grandpa were already in baton rouge. i said what do you mean, you don't know. she said "they don't know which way the storm is going, and besides the traffic is so bad right now."

finally i said "well what is fran going to do" and she said carefully "oh he might go visit his family in boston. and if not, he'll be with me. and you have cats, don't you" (because he's allergic)

so when she woke me up sunday morning, shouting into the phone that it took her an hour to get from our house behind dorignac's to clearview and she's not going to make it to baton rouge, she'll have to go north-- i told her well no one is surprised.

then she called me three hours later, i was at work and she said "now you're the closest one to the storm, maybe you should leave baton rouge, maybe just get into your car and drive to natchitoches, stay in the girls' dorm" and i said no. i said "is fran with you" and she said oh well no he's up ahead a little ways. they were "tentatively" planning to meet up.

ie she waited to evacuate because she wanted to see what he was doing. which is why she didn't make it to baton rouge. and now i haven't heard from her in three days. the phones don't work. i think she's in mississippi somewhere. i was so mad at her that when i was calling my relatives frantically all day monday i didn't even try to call her. i called my dad and michael and aunt pattie but not my mom. not that it mattered, because i couldn't get through to anyone. but i felt like--she picked fran over me, and now she can't get in touch with any of her family, and i'm sure she's frantic and i feel like she deserves it. this, i know, is ridiculous.

except that yesterday i finally got in touch with my aunt pattie. they're staying at a hotel off siegen. she came to visit me at work, along with aunt ellen uncle tim cullen aunt shannon leigh kurt mimi and grandpa--and i kept watching the door for them--and kept waiting for my mom to walk in. i wanted her to. i wanted her but she never did. then my family was at the door and i ran across the restaurant and tackled my uncle. aunt shannon cried when she saw me. i don't know why.

they'd let me use the office phone to call the hotel. when i got my aunt pattie on the phone--this was at about 6pm tuesday night; the last relative i'd spoken to was my brother at around 10pm sunday--she signed off our phone conversation saying okay i'll see you, i'm so glad you called, mimi and grandpa are coming, i'll call the restaurant if something changes but i'll see you in a little bit--

then she paused and said, you know everything's gone, right?

i didn't see the news till monday night. i knew st. bernard (where my family lives) would be underwater. i was sitting with abby, barrett, jacob and his cousin and brother--we're from metairie, the west bank, destrehan. we're watching CNN at barrett's house (barrett said why is this crap still on and jacob's cousin said 'she hasn't seen it yet'--my house didn't have power, still doesn't) and we're identifying neighborhoods, or trying to, from the helicopter shots--but it all looks like houses and water, houses and water, and that same pan across the clearview mall parking lot, target and zia's with the roof torn off. i'm learning the geography of the city from this aerial view. i didn't realize the 17th street canal was the one right by my house, at the end of vets, separating jefferson and orleans parish. all i knew about the 17th street canal was that it was between "eight-by-yo-mama's" and "six-pack-a-dixie" in the Yat Days of Christmas song. we're watching CNN and they're talking about the breach in the 17th street canal and i sang, "17th street canal" and abby paused and sang, "dix pack of sixie" and i was glad to be with a bunch of motherfucking new orleans refugees right then.

all day yesterday i was so glib because none of it is real. i had a hair appointment on magazine street at 1pm today. it wasn't until i was reading the WWL tv forum and watching the live feed online--it wasn't until i saw blanco crying and landrieu saying, with great force, "you should get down on your knees"--that's when i lost it. i was alone at rikki's house doubled over. then i went to work.

i cried over cheese and onion enchiladas (the lady said she didn't want the onions) and people were tipping like crazy. like crazy. you could tell the new orleans tables, they were the families with little kids and the parents slamming back beer and margaritas. the husband at 53 said he wanted chicken quesadillas, 86 peppers and onions, and i asked the wife if she wanted the peppers and onions on her quesadillas. she looked at me blurrily and said "you know, at this point i really don't care" and i said "what part of new orleans are you from." they were from kenner. i told her i was from metairie and hadn't been able to get in touch with my mom, dad, or brother since sunday; she looked at me like a horrified sympathetic mother. the table behind them was from covington and then the shackletons sat down at 81 when my aunts and uncles left. i wouldn't have known it was them except the dad was wearing a white polo with St. Catherine of Siena Men's Club embroidered on it. i touched his shirt and said "i graduated from there" and as it turns out, sydney and adam are sitting right there, unrecognizable now to me, but i was on quiz bowl with adam when i was an 8th grade girl and he was a 7th grade boy, and sydney was in michael's class. this is what happens when new orleans comes to baton rouge.

i walked out of work with 120 dollars on a tuesday night and went to chelsea's, where shuchin bought me a lemon drop, and pj's friend serendipitously brought out a bourbon and coke that he didn't want, and then he bought me a tequila shot because i'd never done one and he's from new orleans and so is pj and everyone at chelsea's was a refugee and we toasted to that. i was too drunk to drive home so anson brought me to barrett's, where i showered and slept.

today i got voicemail messages for the first time since sunday. my phone hasn't rung in three days. my dad says: i am safe, please get in touch. my brother says: have you been able to get in touch with mom, because the first extended is this weekend and uh i don't know i'm doing.

i told barrett: i've got to figure out a way to get michael home.

he said: what home?

sweet or unsweet

and for every one person he rescued there were ten bodies he had to push aside
hacking their way out of the attic with a
the reason is because they issued a no fly-over with the helicopters and the news cameras
with an axe and a bat they
they said it was too gruesome
the second floor of chalmette high as a morgue
found an axe and a bat in the attic that's what they used
huey p long fieldhouse as a morgue
20,000 body bags
and the new orleans i was raised to fear gutted and splayed across the national news i am ashamed
this is what happens when new orleans comes to baton rouge
don't take terrace back to your house you'll get raped
R U SAFE?
twice
fucking animals
these are not bad people
busses and gas, not food, not supplies, busses and gas
looking like third-world refugees but this is not
where's the national guard? where's the national guard?
where is the national guard?
candace who cut hair what's your mama's maiden name that's right that's right can you believe that pattie can you believe i remembered no mama i can't
(in the middle of all of this, every conversation still beginning with where you from where you went to school what's your mama's maiden name and my aunt pattie actually making a flow chart, an actual chart, i asked her and she said 'he's my neighbor!' as in, he's got the next room at the marriott, evidently such connections merit graphs)
alliterative disaster rhetoric and unwater isn't a word it isn't a word they couldn't have made a dewatering committee it's
surreal it's so surreal it's surreal it's just surreal it's surreal and i'm not going to believe it until i see it for myself
(i'm not going back i'm never going back i don't want to see it just give me the money i'll get and you can raze the lot we're going to tennessee it'll be like a vacation just a week we'll go to dollywood)
and all these connections lost
you're born in new orleans, you live in new orleans, you die in new orleans. everyone knows this. a whole city can't disperse. neither can it be homeless. and the joke no one gets-- did you hear the one about the speaker of the house (rep. dennis hastert, R-illinois) and it's funny how touchy people get at the suggestion that new orleans could or should be bulldozed since it's below sea-level because in fact new orleanians have been saying it for years

thursday night we went to sogo it was supposed to be rebirth brass band but instead it was the refugee brass band two guys from rebirth and the rest from the mike foster project five dollar cover and two dollar everything me barrett bitoun wade josh breton clinton jacob ravi alanna shuchin and another scattered few dancing barefoot and the guy from tulane up by the stage with crazy eyes (i lost everything i had) shouting fuck you katrina to the beat we had a chorus then they played oh when the saints and i ran to the bar grabbed a fistful of napkins and passed them out we second lined around the dance floor then the band came down and led us out the door i told barrett i'm so happy right now is that corny and he said we lost our houses and that's kind of corny so

proud to crawl home

once bitten twice shy

to all who are concerned:

my family is, for the most part, fine. everyone is alive, i'm pretty sure. my house in metairie didn't get water, no broken windows, the oak tree kind of fell on it in the back. my dad's house looks okay from the outside. the water level at my grandparents' house rises and falls with the tide. according to my mother, who does have a gift for exaggeration: my uncle e.m. (my grandmother's little brother, the baby of the family, whom mimi refers to as 'my first child') is still down in st. bernard. he stayed at the st. bernard voice office until the storm took the roof off, then he walked along the levee to the sugar refinery. he took shelter there for a while, then went back to my granny's old house, which is a whole story above ground. there he remains, with food, water, guns, and lots of ammunition. he's formed a posse with some local police guys and they're protecting the parish from looters and rescuing people off roofs, in boats. parts of this story are true. i don't know.

now i'm going to write about something else.

this boy sat at the table behind me the other day at highland. i was sitting towards the back; he took the back table with the umbrella, where matt h. usually sits. this boy was relatively cute. for all my bitching about being single, it occurs to me that rarely do i come across a new boy and think, "oh, he's cute." not even random passers-by. it's not that my standards are high; they're just peculiar.

like the shoe thing. if i meet a guy i find mildly attractive, i look at his shoes. he loses points for cross-trainers, though sauconies are acceptable. flip-flops are a turn-off, but that's because i think feet are gross and i'd rather not look at them, boy-feet especially. pumas and adidas (not shell-toe) are alright; metrosexual pseudo-bowling shoes are not. as i've said before, i'm weak for boys in converse, preferably high-tops; low-tops are for nancy boys. but i'm also suspicious. boys in converse are often self-proclaimed 'hipster' fascists. the only thing worse than a hipster is a self-proclaimed one.

this boy was wearing flip-flops, a red collared shirt, khaki cargo shorts of an acceptable length. he was either cute or gay, i can never tell these days. i returned to my book; my back was to him.  after a while i heard this weird sizzling sound behind me. i turned around--there's not much call for sizzling sounds at a coffee shop--and he was holding this coal-looking thing, with tongs. on the table he had set up a largish glass hookah.

a hookah.

and maybe it's not absurd or pretentious to bring your hookah to highland coffee. maybe it's just me. maybe i wouldn't be so alarmed by the hookah boy if he didn't seem to sum up the very reason why i'm going to be single for the rest of my life.

mallory

katie r. had a slumber party for her birthday when we were in second grade. and her mom told me, laughing, "your legs look like toothpicks!" and i cried.

in my head i'm still stick-limbed and small.

i didn't develop, in the judy blume sense of the word, until the end of my junior year of high school. i continued to make flat-chested jokes for a long time afterwards, out of habit, and people would look at me strange.

it's the same way that i'm startled when i'm around girls who are shorter than me. i was always the shortest. now i'm just slightly below average. the average american woman is five-foot-four. i'm five-foot-two. but there i go again. i'm not really five-foot-two, i'm actually more like five-foot-two-and-three-quarters. practically an inch taller than i claim. but i've been 5'2" in my head for so long that i can't reconcile the extra three-quarters of an inch.

similarly, it's hard for me to reconcile the shape of my body now--the curvy parts--with the skinny kid i used to be, and still am in my head. it's like the platonic idea of myself. not perfect, but habitual. it's like the way my aunt meg kept talking about her jet-black hair--she and her sisters all have jet-black hair--and finally one of them, aunt kay maybe, gently informed her that her hair was, and had always been, brown. not black. aunt meg alone of the five girls had brown hair. she was shocked to discover this.

i mean i don't think i'm fat or anything

(but)

and my mom, she has food issues. like i think she was anorexic for a while. she denies this still. she gained weight after michael, and then she got mugged when i was in fifth grade, and it was sometime around the mugging and before my parents got divorced, i don't remember, but she lost a lot of weight. she bought a scale like they have at the doctor's office, and she used to weigh herself every morning, and i remember going into her bedroom and the scale was on 115. my mom is about 5'8". and i guess we were in sixth grade, at gulf shores with all my aunts and uncles and cousins, and ben or meghan or someone told me your mom is anorexic and i went to her crying. she said, what are you talking about, you saw me eat dinner, i ate a big bowl of red beans and rice. and don't listen to them. they don't know what they're talking about.

she says that now, furiously, when i bring it up. which is very rarely. it's one of those things we don't talk about. remember when you were really skinny.

she eats cardboard food like protein bars, and she works out every day. but she's fifty now and it's not working like it used to. her body is spreading past the boundaries she's set.

they say that eating disorders are about control. i always thought of anorexics as people with an abnormal need for control. but i think people feel betrayed by their bodies on lots of different levels--weight gain, pregnancy scare, acne--how many different ways are there to get rid of body hair--we all fight to get our bodies under control. some semblance of it.

and what does it mean to resign yourself to the inevitable. because ultimately it's a fight we're going to lose. for the most part i think we're vain until we're pretty much dead. i tell myself every summer that even though i feel self-conscious in a two-piece bathing suit, i might as well wear one now. because eventually i'll be too old to pull it off. enjoy it while it lasts. i wish i could enjoy it. i think about how i'm going to look back in twenty years--i'll be wearing a matronly one-piece--and i'll see pictures of me from this summer and i'll think how great i looked. and if only i could have realized it when i was twenty-one and stupid.

i think my mom has given up on being a size four. she used to say that she couldn't afford to gain weight, literally, as in she couldn't afford to buy new clothes to fit her. but i think she bought some new jeans. they're cute. i can't help but notice that her ass is bigger. it upsets me that i notice. but it's also payback. for all those times my mom has told me "you look good, you look like you lost weight." beginning my junior year in high school, when i went away. why would you say that to a sixteen-year-old girl.

and the time i actually did gain about ten pounds, between eight and ten, which on me is a lot. my jeans were starting not to fit. and my mom set me up: a book with calorie counts for every food imaginable, a membership card to curitan's, and a lecture on how to do the math. it was the summer between my junior and senior year; i'd hurt my back dancing and had to take a break from ballet. i didn't have normal work-out clothes. i was the one on the treadmill wearing a thrift-store shirt, jazz pants, and blue converse. easy mac has 250 calories. but an apple only has 70. so. i was reading cookbooks for fun. i was hungry all the time. i've never been so obsessed with food in my life. i didn't even lose weight until i went back to school and started dancing again.

never again, never never.

but i can tell you that a double-stuf oreo has 70 calories. a regular oreo has 50.

you've lost weight.

this is a compliment.

janey saw me at the end of the summer and told me, you've lost a ton of weight.

even if she doesn't mean it as a compliment, i take it that way.

breton told me when she came back from france. you've lost weight. but when she says it, she means: what the fuck is wrong with you?

here: i've been waiting tables thirty-five hours a week since june. i haven't bought groceries in four months. i eat whatever i scavenge at work. a piece of quesadilla will keep me going for a few hours. maybe one full meal a day. and i'm on my feet, running my ass off, serving queso-covered fried stuffed jalapeños to a woman who orders a salad on the side, and a diet coke to drink. my idea of a joke.

and even though i look like shit. look at my facebook picture, i'm gray in it, and that was partially because of the hurricane but i don't think i looked all that healthy beforehand. even though i look like shit, and breton is saying "you're too skinny, eat this," i still take it as some fucked-up validation.

it's like when girls say oh i haven't eaten all day. oh god i'm getting so skinny. how unhealthy of me. when they're secretly proud. it's like when breton, even breton, says "i always get skinny waiting tables." and it's not skinny in a good way, but it's still skinny like a fuck-you merit badge.

i weighed myself a few weeks ago. my roommate has a digital scale in the bathroom. 100.5 pounds. that's the lowest my weight has been in a really long time. i can't manage to weigh myself again, though. i'm sure it will be higher, as it should be, but i'd rather not know.

my mom was taking ephedra back when it was trendy. she knows better. she's a registered nurse. i couldn't convince her to lay off. she finally did, i don't know what prompted it, but then she moved on to some other "supplement" that was supposed to kick up her metabolism. or suppress her appetite. she said it made her "pretty spunky." like aggressive.

i don't want to become this. i want to tell her to be a healthy example.

in ballet class i stare at the other girls' stomachs. mine isn't flat. some of the girls have flat stomachs but occasionally i catch them in an unguarded moment, relaxed instead of pulled-up, and their bellies curve out. these are fourteen-year-olds that i'm comparing myself to. these are prepubescent girls. i am almost twenty-two.

there's one girl, mallory, who's been gone about six months. she's the reason i wrote this post. mallory is about sixteen, i think. she was a strong dancer, muscular. you know how some people say muscular when they mean chunky. i don't mean like that. i mean she had great muscle tone. swimmer body. then early last spring, she started looking like she was about twelve years old. she dropped all this weight. she didn't have any excess weight to begin with. she got so small, bony arms, pink tights sagging at her ankles. she was obviously going through some shit, obviously had an eating disorder, but still coming to class. week after week. it kept getting worse. finally i asked another little girl if she knew what the story was. she told me mallory swore she wasn't anorexic but her mom was making her drink ensure.

finally mallory stopped coming to class.

i saw her back for the first time on thursday. she looks about the same as when she left. but she's out now, she's got an acknowledged eating disorder. she wants to be in nutcracker but she had to gain half a pound by auditions on saturday. i kept staring at her during class. the bones of her, childlike, the dark sunken cavities in her face and the lines carved around her eyes. childlike but scary old at the same time. fuck-you skinny. i went to get water between combinations and there's a picture of the 2004 senior company on the wall. there's mallory grinning up at the camera, full face, broad smile. i wanted, a little bit, to cry.

but at the same time, inexplicably, i was angry all class. i wondered how she looked at the rest of us, what she thought. did we disgust her. i looked at the other girls and for the first time i didn't see stomachs and thighs. instead it was all this flesh, muscle, it seemed so extravagant and beautiful. and we fight it every fucking day. hours in front of the mirror in a leotard and tights. no one likes it. so what the fuck is wrong with you. that you would do this to yourself. we're all in it but we cope. we're in it together, except for you, off in the corner, fighting your body for your life.

gutting houses

today i drove with michael to mimi's house. not the one in st. bernard. the new one, off oneal lane, way on the other side of baton rouge. i looked over at michael: this is weird. we're going to mimi's. this is how we get to mimi's house now.

when we got there, claire ran up to me and threw her arms around my waist and wrapped her legs around my leg and clung there, hanging, hello.

kaylen, kelsey, kevin, cullen: how is it? how are you?
great! we're great!
i fixed myself a plate of beans and rice and sat down and asked them again. how's school?
we hate it. it's horrible.

they're all ready to go home. except their parents bought houses in baton rouge, and they're enrolled in schools here, schools they hate, kids who don't want them. kelsey explained: at st. michael's, where the male/female ratio is like 1:3, the new orleans boys are welcomed and the new orleans girls are 'intruders.'

(aunt shannon and uncle tim went in together on a house and it's spacious, room enough for uncle tim, aunt elly, aunt shannon, leigh, kurt, cully, erin. there's a pond in the backyard, a fake one with a plug-in fountain. i told uncle tim, this is nice, weird but nice, and he said, you know, yeah, it's nicer than my old house--but it's in baton rouge.)

the party was at bethy's house, the whole extended family, mimi and her two sisters and the kids and grandkids. seeing everyone there was bizarre; it was my family but not our house.  still: bethy lives five houses down from uncle tim and aunt shannon. mimi lives two streets over, and aunt kay lives right behind mimi. it's not st. bernard but it's exactly like it was in st. bernard.

i was so happy to see everyone. mimi was so excited i thought she would bust. i hadn't even talked to her since the week after the hurricane. i miss them all, and i've been wanting to visit, but the traffic is so bad that i've stopped driving during the day unless it's within five minutes of my house and i can take a back way to get there.

aunt kay and i were talking while she snuck a cigarette and mimi came over, fussing. aunt kay was like, "mama, not in front of ann," and i thought mimi was trying to take her cigarette away. but then she took a drag and told me: kay's teaching me how to smoke. it took me a minute to realize she was kidding. she smoked in college. i said mim, what are you doing? and she said, completely serious, well, ann, you know, i didn't really want to take up drinking, so. she said the other day, grandpa confessed that when he saw aunt kay's virginia slims on the counter, it took everything he had in him not to sneak one.

that's when i realized how bad it is for them.

and still we are the lucky ones.

aunt kay has all the old pictures up in her new house, mimi as a little girl, granny and her sisters on the beach in 20s bathing suits. she’d put the old pictures on the second floor of her house in st. bernard before they left. but all the pictures of her own kids were downstairs. they’re ruined now. that’s all i had cared about, before i knew about my house. the home movies and the baby pictures. i can’t imagine them gone.

i played frisbee at bethy’s with a little redheaded girl, no relation, who looked like a ten-year-old katie p. she had her hair all curled up on top of her head and she was good at throwing the frisbee. uncle mike’s two-year-old, ryan, was running around in a batman costume. he looked at me and the little redhead and he put his hands on his hips and he said OOOOOOOOOH YEAH. then he ran around in circles and shouted it, again, OOOOOOH YEAH OOOH YEAH OOOH YEAHHHHH. ooooooh yeah.

kelsey told me to come sit in her bedroom. she and kaylen are sharing a room now, they bought new posters today: led zeppelin, jimmy hendrix, bob marley, pink floyd. they bought them, i think, at bed bath & beyond. which is probably the same place they got their matching reversible purple/teal bedspreads. kaylen asked me about waiting tables, she wants to get a job, she’s got too much free time because her new school is easy and she has no homework. i asked the girls what they do in baton rouge for fun, and they exchanged glances and said: we walk. sometimes, they said, we get chased by dogs. claire came into the bedroom and kelsey, irritated with the girl-talk interruption, told her to get out. kelsey is claire’s surrogate mother and it was weird seeing her fuss. 

--but kelsey—
i played barbies with you today.
--no you didn’t--
yes i did. on the internet, remember. (get out.)

sibling bargaining. michael was like that, he would chase me around the house wanting to play and i'd run into my room and slam the door, or try to, and if he caught it before it closed he’d stand on one side leaning and i on the other side leaning till the wood bowed or i could get it locked. and he would cry. and then if i would play with him, it was never enough. and he would cry. his adoration was thorough, endless, there was no satisfying him, and i felt horrible all the time. but he was almost six years younger than me. and it’s not like we could play barbies together. he dismembered my barbies. and besides, i played barbies better alone. if i sat on the sofa he had to sit next to me. and if i snuggled with him it only made him want to snuggle more. i told him, when we were both little, that he was a black hole of affection. my dad used to sit me on his knee and tell me how i was emotionally scarring michael for life. that made me cry. just like every time michael got hurt, scraped knee busted lip, that time when he was three and nearly impaled his right eye on the coaster holder at grandmotherdear’s, i drew him a band-aid.

hey, fix me a coke.
how many ice cubes?

this morning when i woke up, he was lying awake on the sofa in my apartment, it was 12:30 and we were supposed to be at mimi’s for 1. i told him get up. and do you want a shower. (yes.) so get up. (he lay there.) now. get up. hurry. (so he did.)

later, after the party, we’re driving down siegen to the bus stop so he can go back to natchitoches, and he’s being quiet and i’m worrying about him, and i think: there’s no one else in the world i can talk to like that. who else can i tell to wake up, now, and take a shower, and hurry up, and he'll actually do it. this is a weird point of sibling affection, but it’s true.

in kaylen and kelsey’s room, aunt kay and aunt ellen have joined us and they’re sitting on the carpet. beth comes in and says uncle mike’s on the phone. she puts it on walkie-talkie mode so we can all hear him. 

aunt kay says: well, mikney?
he says: your house, the downstairs, is gutted.

to me this sounds scary, but evidently for her it’s good news: and he took the kitchen cabinets down by himself: and next weekend, saturday and sunday, they’re doing more work, he wants kaylen and kelsey to come help him pull nails.

i think: i want to go, i'll pull nails.

and aunt kay will bring a radio with batteries: there’s power now in some st. bernard neighborhoods: there’s running water at her house.

aunt kay says: power and water, what more could you ask for?

kelsey sits up straight.

can we go back?
yes, my girl. but not yet.
--when--
not till may, kelse. at least.
--we could live upstairs--

kaylen stops her. (shut up. it’s not going to happen. stop asking.)

aunt ellen says: michael, listen to me. don’t touch my house. are you listening. don’t touch it. i want it bulldozed.

she looks around at us and nods. she says: i never want to see it again.

there’s a trampoline out back, i take off my shoes, i haven’t been on a trampoline since i was twelve. kelsey is jumping and talking to erin on her cellphone. claire climbs up with me, and sean patrick, and colin. then ryan, still in his batman costume. he sits on the trampoline instructing the other boys to stop jumping. maybe he’s scared, so i sit down with him and he climbs onto my lap. he’s got his arms around my neck, he’s saying something like “jump me,” and i bounce with him, sitting. then i stand on the trampoline and pick him up, he attaches himself to me, he’s heavy, i’ve got him. he whoops and we jump.

revisionist history

aim conversation with michael/highland coffee/8:45pm

deface the facts: it's actually pretty interesting stuff
deface the facts: unfortunately the author can't write
deface the facts: it's all the sneaky ways by which slaves attained literacy
grapity purple: ...was the author a runaway slave or something?
deface the facts: no, worse
deface the facts: a ph.d
grapity purple: nooooo
grapity purple: i puked this week!
deface the facts: ahh
deface the facts: why
grapity purple: meds
grapity purple: i think
deface the facts: for what
grapity purple: i think it was the combination of lortabs and penicillin
grapity purple: for my teeth
grapity purple: i told you about my teeth, didn't i
deface the facts: ah
deface the facts: yeah
deface the facts: ow
grapity purple: i haven't thrown up in almost three years
grapity purple: i'm not a big thrower-upper
grapity purple: when's the last time you threw up?
deface the facts: that time when i was like five and i had a stomach bug
deface the facts: and i kept eating chicken noodle soup
grapity purple: and then you kept eating the pizza
grapity purple: and throwing it up
grapity purple: no, it was fucking papa john's
deface the facts: ewww
deface the facts: i thought it was soup
grapity purple: miss norma was babysitting us
grapity purple: and we'd ordered pizza
deface the facts: hahaha, poor woman
grapity purple: you were like four
grapity purple: and you would eat a piece, we were watching a movie or something, and then you'd jump up and run to the bathroom
grapity purple: vomit, come back, grab another slice, sit down in front of the TV
deface the facts: hahahahahaha
grapity purple: i couldn't believe it. i still am terrified of throwing up
deface the facts: i was the coolest four year old on the planet

drawing blood from a rock

my aunt pattie drove me up to natchitoches at the beginning of my senior year in high school. my mom was out of town for work, so she couldn't take me; my dad, as one of the conditions for signing the permission form for me to go to lsmsa, had said he would not, under any circumstances, drive to natchitoches.

so aunt pattie, my godmother, my mom's eldest sibling, loaded up mimi and grandpa's car and made the five-hour drive. we talked the whole time. my mom says aunt pattie is like a dog with a bone. she's relentless. sometimes she's right. often she is inappropriate. my family thinks she's insane. she is a little insane. she always means well.

when i was in fifth grade, aunt pattie came over to our house to borrow something from my mom, it was something makeup-related, and my mom wasn't home but i showed her where mom kept her makeup stuff in the bathroom. when i opened the makeup drawer, aunt pattie gave a little gasp and started laughing. i asked her what she was laughing at. she pointed to a tube of something and explained that it was for a diaphragm. i didn't know what a diaphragm was. she explained that, too. my mother hadn't told me she used a diaphragm. she'd told me that they used the rhythm method. i felt like she'd lied to me. it turned into this whole ordeal where i confronted her about her 'lie,' very uncomfortably, and we had this awkward conversation about birth control. this is the kind of trouble we get into because of aunt pattie, who doesn't give a shit about anyone else's boundaries.

it's not so much that she's brutally honest as she is tactless and compulsive. on the drive up to natchitoches she told me a lot of stories about our family, things you could file under 'family secrets you never wanted to know.' some of it still sickens me to think about. nothing particularly illegal or immoral. just hard to hear.

there was this one story, though, about my uncle steve. he's the second-born, right between aunt pattie and my mom. there are eight kids total, and my grandparents were militantly strict. all of the kids felt compelled to sneak out of the house at some point or another to have a little bit of unsupervised fun. if they were caught and questioned, they lied their asses off. except for uncle steve. he stood straight up and told the truth, every time, and every time he got a beating for it. the other kids cringed to hear it and waited for him to learn his lesson. not the one about sneaking out. the other one, about lying when you get caught. but he never did. he just kept taking the beating.

aunt pattie said, "i guess it was noble, or something. mostly i thought stephen was stupid."

---

i, unlike my uncle steve, will lie to get myself out of trouble. i forgive myself for this by saying that sometimes the trouble you would get into by telling the truth is disproportionate to the delinquent act you performed. it is an excuse. i do not have the courage of uncle steve, who fucked around and accepted the consequences. also i am a terrible liar, and plagued by a pervasive sense of guilt even under normal circumstances. thus, as a cowardly, incompetent, guilt-stricken liar, i try to avoid any situation that might get me into trouble. i am, for the most part, a pathogical rule-follower. there is nothing noble about this, because it is entirely motivated by fear.

---

my car got totalled a few weeks ago and i bought a '99 corolla to replace it. it is my first car, the first car that is mine. the other one was in my dad's name. my dad had been making noise for a while about how run down the old corolla was. i thought maybe he would help me buy a new car. my mom isn't in a position financially to help me out at all. my dad, on the other hand, just bought an airplane.

so it's the day after christmas. michael and i are on our way to dad's house to open presents. at this point i'm not sure if i'm going to repair the old corolla or buy a new one. either way it's going to cost money, which my mom doesn't have. also, the night before, on the drive to new orleans, an eighteen-wheeler passed me on the interstate and threw a rock, which hit the windshield of the rental car. i heard the rock hit, and looked for a mark in the glass, but didn't see anything--but now, in the daylight--on the way to my dad's house--a crack about twelve inches across and curving downwards. i hadn't taken out the rental car insurance, because i'm cheap.

i walk into my dad's house and tell him about the windshield and he says, did you take out the insurance? and i say no. and he says, you just bought yourself a windshield.

he and michael babble on about how it's about time that i got a new car, the only thing dad liked about the old corolla was that it was so ugly he never worried about me getting carjacked.

and none of my christmas presents are car keys.

i realize that whatever happens with this car business, it is coming out of my pocket, and mine alone.

i cry for an hour. then i realize that i now have total control over what happens to my car. i cry for four more hours, but also tell my mother to stop talking at me about the car stuff, because it doesn't matter, because she's not going to pay for it, because she can't, and dad's not going to pay for it, because he won't. so i'll pay for it, so it's my decision. so just stop. and let me cry.

she says, i don't know, it sounds like dad might help.

and i said, no, he won't.

and he doesn't buy me a car.

instead, he is on the phone. he is offering advice. it's not the usual advice i get from him, like "garbage in garbage out" or "choose to be happy" or "the truth will set you free" or "you are emotionally scarring your brother for life." instead it's how to buy a used car, which is all i can reasonably afford. and it's not even 'how i think you should buy a car' but objective information on the process. what to say on the phone when you're cold-calling someone about an ad in the paper, questions to ask, what to look for, what to believe, what to avoid. the third time i called him, i asked him, "are you sick of me yet?" and he said, "no."

so he is on call, always picking up the phone on the first or second ring, always willing, always patient. when it comes time to ask this guy from the houston craigslist about coming to look at his car, my dad says to haggle with him over the price. i don't want to. he says, "it's your money, and your decision. if it were me, and a thousand dollars out of my pocket, i'd try to haggle. the worst he can say is no."

i tell him, "i don't know what to say. i'm scared." and he says, "let's practice."

we rehearse the conversation, and i feel sick, and i say, "i might cry."

he says, "and then--what would happen?"

i'm tearing up already. i don't know, what.

"your face would be wet. that's what would happen."

and he told me, you're doing the best you can do, or anyone else, you're doing a good job. if you keep on just like you've been, you'll be doing very, very well.

and i already knew that i didn't want him to do it for me. but i hadn't realized, until he said it, that i wanted reassurance. and coming from him.

at some point in the middle of everything i think i am grateful that i am being forced to buy this car myself. that this is part of being a grown-up and my dad is doing me a favor. it's good that i have to pay a $250 deductible towards a new windshield for the stupid fucking rental car. i have all sorts of backwards gratitude like this towards my parents. i'm grateful to my mom for being a working mom while all my friends' moms stayed at home and baked cookies. even though she was always too busy. i'm grateful to my parents for hiring a housekeeper from nicaragua, who kept me in her house like i was her own kid. who else gets that kind of opportunity to live between class and cultural boundaries. even though i hated it at the time. and in college i paid my own rent and my own bills. and hired my own moving trucks. other kids' parents pay their rent. other kids' parents help them move. but i do it myself.

other kids' parents buy them cars as graduation presents.

my dad gave me a hundred dollars cash for graduation. in one dollar bills. and that card about the mouse pushing elephants up a hill. that was for college. he left my high school graduation early. and then we didn't talk for four months.

i am grateful and angry.

mostly grateful.

or, i shove the angry part down and live with it.

finally i found my car, the '99 corolla. i bought it from this guy out in prairieville who had just gotten a new truck for his family. it was $5250, which put it within my 'comfortably affordable' price range, with low mileage, and a CD player. it hadn't been flooded in the hurricane, unlike the 2003 mazda protege they tried to sell me at lakeside toyota. it hadn't been bought at an auction by an auto broker. it had never been a rental car.

really my criteria was: an affordable, not-old corolla, with a CD player.

the guy i bought it from is a state farm agent named david. he is buddies with my uncle mike. uncle mike is my insurance agent, also with state farm. he and david are state farm best friends. uncle mike stayed at david's house for the hurricane.

but i didn't know any of this. i found the guy's ad in the sunday advocate, new year's day, and called him up.

when i went to david's house to sign the bill of sale, he told me he'd left the purchase amount blank. he explained that a lot of people claim on their bill of sale that they paid much less for their used car than they actually did. this saves them money on taxes for the car. i knew it already, the houston craigslist guy had told me, but i thought it was kind of sketchy so i didn't tell my dad about it.

david says, it's totally up to you. pretty much everyone does it. but if you tell me to write $5250, i'll write it.

and i hesitated. and i explained to him about being a pathological rule-follower. or, as my mom likes to say--although i really hate it--a weenie.

he said it was fine, and he wrote in the full amount.

so i called my dad afterwards and told him all about it and told him that david had offered to write in less but because i am pathetic i said to write the full amount.

and my dad was quiet for a minute.

and he said, "you told the truth. there's nothing pathetic about that. how much money would you have saved if you had written in '$1' for your car? maybe you would have saved five hundred dollars in taxes. but is your conscience worth five hundred dollars?"

he said, "i'd been wondering what you were going to do when that situation came up. you told the truth. you did the right thing. i'm proud of you."

i can't remember the last time my dad was proud of me.

holy mackerel!

i went to see mimi yesterday. she had potentially scary heart surgery last monday; they were going to put a stent in. but instead of having 70% blockage, like the first doctor said, she had no blockage at all. the surgeon said she should lose thirty pounds, though. she's had all sorts of complications from her diabetes and now she says she gets short of breath if she walks half a block.

the last time i went over there, i asked her, "so mim, how are you?" and she smirked and said, "fat and sassy."

she made me a porkchop for dinner, with half a sweet potato, which she always said would give me rosy cheeks.

gathering crumbs from the tabletop with the gold scraper--like the one i used to play with at granny's house on sundays, funneled tongue depressor, after french bread--she said my hair gets darker every time she sees me. she said i get prettier as i get older. i told her it's like being examined through a soft-focus lens. she can't see too good. not that i mind.

when i first got to her house, she was helping uncle mike wash the boys: sean, colin, ryan, ian. sean is six, i guess; colin must be four; ryan is two or maybe three; ian is walking now but the last time i saw him he was an infant. beth is pregnant again. uncle mike always wanted a big family, but finally they went and talked to their priest--with four kids under six--and the priest said god must want them to keep having children. so. beth is pregnant. again.

i told my mom: oh, her poor vagina. and she covered her mouth with her hands to keep from laughing.

i went to say hello to mimi in the bathroom with the babies, but the boys were all naked and so i sat on the sofa and talked to grandpa instead.

finally sean came out in his spiderman pajamas and sat next to me. we watched the men's halfpipe competition. he told me: my mom's pregnant.

i said: i know.

he said: maybe it's twins.

he's excited. he can't wait. i told him even if it's not twins, he's going to win the contest for having the most siblings out of all the cousins. (currently it's a tie between aunt kay, uncle steve, and uncle mike, each with four kids.) he seemed pleased by the prospect. even without twins.

it must be a big responsibility, being the oldest of all those boys, i told him.

and we watched as the other three emerged from the bathroom, each in his pajama set--i think colin's had robots on them. i can't tell the three little ones apart unless they're standing next to each other so i can get a sense of proportion. colin found a square black scarf and was stomping around humming the darth vader theme. ryan and ian were ping-ponging off the living room chairs, sometimes humming along with colin. ryan is a full head taller than ian and he would shove him into the sofa and ian would shove him back. both good-natured. ryan is curly-haired and perpetually smiling. he looks like the kind of kid who enjoys butting his head against furniture.

sean said to me: you laugh too much.
i told him: it's funny.

so we watched them together and he watched me laughing and he laughed too.

after uncle mike took them all back to laplace, we sat in the kitchen and mimi said she thinks uncle mike is so good to beth, bathing all those boys. and doody, remember how you used to help me wash the kids?

she said it kind of sly, and grandpa shook his head, no honey i can't say that i recall.

we talked about something else, maybe how mimi had five kids by the time she was twenty-seven. eleven years younger than beth. and the bathroom at the old house, the downstairs one, how big it was, and with five kids already (pattie-stephen-cookie-shannon-meg-and-tim-on-the-way), when they moved into that house on friscoville, mimi looked around the downstairs bathroom and said this will work out nicely.

and i'm thinking about the two or three kids i'd have by now, at twenty-two. and how could you stare down bathtime alone.

but then she looked at grandpa directly, with serious eyes, she told him: and for the record, you did. you did help me bathe the kids. you sat in the bathtub and i handed them off to you. you don't remember?

when the boys were getting ready to leave, the babies came around to give kisses and ryan approached me with big eyes and a round rosy mouth. wet baby kiss. i don't think he knows me yet. he smiles anyway. they were all barefoot and we were putting on their coats and zippering them up. i think the jackets were reversible, i had it fleece-side-in but then the zipper tab was on the inside and i was confused. i said, aloud, do i have this inside-out? and ryan told me no. then i hoisted him onto my hip and we went out to the car.

four carseats, lord almighty.

most lovely pancakes

i am missing my grandmother.

i just drove down christian street and the second-to-last house on the left had a red rosebush.

and i'm thinking about going to grandmotherdear's house, where new people live, and cutting some roses from the bushes in the front. i've thought about it before. the sweet cool smell and the clear vase on the kitchen table.

every time i see ham and eggs i think of her.

and the day last year i was sitting on the porch at violet street. rikki and i were on an iced tea mission.

my mom had spent much of her marriage trying to make iced tea like my grandmother, to my father's satisfaction. she'd try lipton and he'd say it should be luzianne. she'd try luzianne and he'd say maybe it was lipton. it needed mint. it needed lemon. more sugar? although when grandmotherdear made it for him, she made it without too much sugar, how he liked it.

my mother's tea tasted like a caricature. it was always good but never right. it had so much of everything.

rikki and i went to winn-dixie and they were out of mint. mint is essential. and i remembered there was a ton of mint growing by perky's apartment on carlotta, so i called him and he said his neighbor wouldn't mind if i cut some.

so we made tea.
and i'm sitting on the porch reading and drinking the tea and
it was like
it was like exactly like her tea. it tasted like she made it. it tasted like she was there sitting next to me. i didn't know what. i don't remember if i was happy or sad or both or what. i called my mom and told her it was the mint, it had to be fresh. that was the whole thing.

my grandma grew her own mint.
she had turtles, too. they hung out in the backyard. one of them was named red bean. i can't remember the others. i think red bean might have run away at some point.
slowly.

my grandma was on prozac for a long time. she was depressed. when you asked her something she would give a big sigh and say, 'oh, honey.' we made fun of her for that.

when she found out she had cancer, she refused treatment.
she died in four months.

they said it was perverse to want to die.

i thought it was brave.

she'd been so depressed.

uncle vin delivered the eulogy. he told about her garden and the turtles and the birdfeeders and the dogs, lulu and nutmeg. he said she loved having life at her fingertips.

i'd never thought of that.

it occurs to me now that the new people, whoever they are, probably don't live in her house anymore. and the roses probably aren't there either.
there's nothing much growing in chalmette.

when i grow up maybe i will have a rosebush.
for now i think i'll start with some mint.

so much love to come your way

i can't write this as a coherent thing
but i have to write it anyway because i want to remember
i wish i'd had a tape recorder.
i wish i could put it all in a letter and give it to every member of my family.

yesterday my mom called to tell me that ben's girlfriend is pregnant.
mom had been crying all morning about it.
they've been dating for three months.
he brought her to easter at mimi's.
no one knew yet.
she was playing with the babies and the little kids were whisperinging about her three tattoos.
ben just started chiropractor school in houston and has three years to go.
mimi told mom she didn't think they were getting married
but they were moving in together in january
and no one is too sure whose baby it actually is.

i was riding to lunch with brett and josh and this kid mark and i wondered aloud: what do you say to your cousin who's just knocked up his girlfriend? and they asked me how old ben was, and i said, "my age." and josh was like, "well, i mean, he's old enough to handle his shit." and i said, "yeah, i'm not worried about him not doing right by the baby's mama...i'm worried about him doing more right than he needs to."

all day i thought: undo it. "maybe if ben explained to her that he didn't love her, then she would give it up for adoption or have an abortion." my mother actually said that. and i tho