traveling swallowing dramamine

fresh bruises.

on my heart?

on my knees. as promised. and also one, inexplicably, on the inside of my left ankle.

so right as i'm getting really frustrated--you know, the trials and tribulations of a single girl--i talk to breton and she tells me, tearfully, about how lately when she and jason lie in bed together, he sleeps with his back turned towards her. and my stomach kind of knotted up--because i remember that feeling so well--and i know breton and jason will be okay, but suddenly i was so grateful that i wasn't in a relationship and didn't have to deal with all the emotional bullshit that goes along with it. all of the work. i mean, i have to deal with emotional bullshit too, in my newly single state, but at least it's a different kind of bullshit. at least it's kind of novel.

i'm sure the novelty will wear off soon. but in the meantime, at least i'm not wasting time and energy on stupid fights, or feeling bad about myself.

a story:

when i was in seventh grade, i was crushing hard on that guy joel--the one who called me annietoes--the one who asked out my cousin. i remember the day he asked her out. actually, it all started the night before--the infamous Skate Night. when meghan--my cousin--made her grand entrance. her debut.

meghan had always been the sweet one, the popular one, wholesome, all-american, apple pie. she had even, white teeth and she drank a lot of milk. and up until The Infamous Skate Night, meghan was generally running around in a t-shirt and umbros. she was outdoorsy. she was athletic. she was...the exact opposite of me. so it's the beginning of seventh grade, and i won't be developing breasts until, oh, somewhere in the middle of my senior year in high school, but meghan's just busting out all over the place. and it's Skate Night for the 7th grade class. that means that Airline Skate Center (or maybe it was still Skate Country back then) rented out the rink for our grammar school's junior high. They had different nights for the different grades, and it was kind of a big social event. so my mom stops by meghan's house to pick her up for Skate Night, and meghan comes out in this tight white baby doll t-shirt and white shorts. short, short shorts. the rumor among the boys that night was that meghan didn't have to bend over for you to see her ass. so meghan comes bounding out of her house, and my mom and i exchange glances, because, as i said before, this was not meghan's usual attire.

so we go to Skate Night, and of course the boys are falling all over themselves. and when it's all over, i go home and go into my bedroom and i am freaking out a little bit, because i can sense that something big is happening, something is changing, things are never going to be the same again. meghan and i had been best friends since first grade. Skate Night was the turning point in our relationship. it all went pretty much downhill from there. it wasn't just me that saw the change--i've talked to other girls from my grammar school and they all point to that night--The Infamous Skate Night--when meghan wore that white shirt and those white shorts--that was where it all started. or ended.

(let me say right now that meghan is currently at LSU--i think she's pre-law--making excellent grades and enjoying the company of her long-term boyfriend. she didn't turn into a prostitute or anything. i know i'm making this all sound very ominous. from my 7th grade perspective, it was. she did go a little bit wild in high school. and it did all start in junior high. on that night. and we really never were that close again. which is sad, because she's a wonderful person. it's just that, ever since that night, it seemed like we didn't have much in common anymore.)

so i'm in my bedroom and i'm weirded out by my cousin's aggressive entrance into the world of hormones and boys and tight, white t-shirts, and i say to myself: this is not a big deal. this is not a big deal unless, like, joel asks her out. and joel won't ask her out, because he wasn't at Skate Night tonight, and he doesn't even know who she is. satisfied, i went to sleep.

the next day i couldn't go to recess because i had math counts practice. yes, i'm a huge nerd. anyway, the bell rang and everyone came inside, smelling like puppy dogs, and we’re supposed to be quiet in the halls but there’s usually chatter--but that day there wasn’t chatter—instead, there was a strange buzzing noise. the halls were buzzing and it was strange and i grabbed my friend amanda and i said “amanda, what’s going on?”

and of course joel had asked meghan out.

i went home that afternoon and i said to myself: if joel is so stupid that he’s going to ask out some girl he doesn’t even know, just because she has boobs--if he’s so stupid that he would pick her over me—well, then i guess i can’t really respect his taste in women, and i don’t need to waste my time worrying about him.

and from that point on, i was over him.

i mean, more or less.

i look back on my 7th grade self and i wonder where the hell that confidence went. i’ve been missing it these past few years. i want it back.

(the postscript to that story is that joel broke up with meghan a month later—he told me he dumped her because her last name was “poo.” he then proceeded to follow me around for the rest of my seventh grade year. when i campaigned for 8th grade student body president, he took a sheetful of my campaign stickers and plastered them all over his body. one girl told me that he wrote “i love ann” on some of them. funny how that stuff works out.)

madam, i never eat muscatel grapes.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce):

He did not want to play. He wanted to meet in the real world the unsubstantial image which his soul so constantly beheld. He did not know where to seek it or how: but a premonition which led him on told him that this image would, without any overt act of his, encounter him. They would meet quietly as if they had known each other and had made their tryst, perhaps at one of the gates or in some more secret place. They would be alone, surrounded by darkness and silence: and in that moment of supreme tenderness he would be transfigured. He would fade into something impalpable under her eyes and then in a moment, he would be transfigured. Weakness and timidity and inexperience would fall from him in that magic moment.

still raining. my feet are cold. they were cold and wet all day. cold wet feet make me cranky. i can’t wait for summer. summer rain is better, infinitely better, than winter rain. summer rain makes me want to walk around barefoot and wiggle my toes in warm sidewalk puddles.

plus in the summer i can wear tank tops. i’m tired of sweaters.

it is nice, though, hearing the rain against the window and, very softly, on the sidewalk. pattering. i love it when it starts raining hard and everyone feels compelled to say to each other: man it’s raining hard. really coming down. pouring. storming. even when you’re inside—over AIM, say—and you IM someone and you say “it’s raining”—and you pretend to be disgruntled but secretly it gives you a kind of cozy feeling inside. i think listening to the rain when you’re inside, warm and dry, is cozy. my mom always said that it made her want to curl up in bed with a crisp apple and a good book.

(breton bought apples today at the grocery, and they are beautiful apples, red and shiny, and i told her: those apples look delicious. and she paused mischievously and said: they are. red delicious.)

so when i’m listening to the rain, and i’m talking to someone far away, and the other person is also listening to the rain, i feel as though we have a cozy secret bond.

maybe that’s because when it’s raining what you’re really supposed to do is curl up in bed not with a good book but with a warm person.

smothered bones and gravy.

had our weekly required faulkner "co-mentoring session" at serrano's yesterday afternoon. it was supposed to be just me, cameron, and courtney, but about half the class ended up joining us. courtney had just gotten paid, so she treated us to margaritas, which i desperately desperately needed after the week from hell. we had so much fun. we even occasionally talked about faulkner.

becca and elizabeth's green party highlights:

ben's baseball pants: which we found at the family thrift center off florida blvd, and which he only wore for half the party and then exchanged for his less-revealing jeans ("i'm the only person at this party wearing tights!" he complained). i can't really call him a sell-out for changing out of his green pants, though; i had bought a $2 green taffetta dress at the thrift store, and cut it up into a skirt, but i wound up wearing something else to the party, because the skirt made me feel fat. (becca said, "well then you did the right thing. you should never wear anything that makes you feel fat." fuckin' A.)

jake's borrowed accordion: i parked at highland coffee and met up with stosh and jacques and groh, and we walked over to state together. we passed in front of jason and travis' house on the way, and jake was standing outside with the accordion he borrowed from the music school. apparently he just went over there and asked if they had an accordion lying around that he could borrow, and they did indeed. jake then demonstrated his mad accordion skillz by playing a godawful rendition of The Sweater Song. it was very, very entertaining. also a little painful. i tried my hand at the accordion, but it was really bulky and awkward, and i probably needed to adjust the shoulder strap but didn't. also i was, er, holding it upside down. needless to say, it didn't work out too well. but man, i would love to figure out the accordion. that shit is crazy.

stosh's declared ambition of becoming a break-dancing master: he informed me that he's been living in his imagination for too long, and needs to show a little follow-through with all his brilliant ideas--for example, he decided that he wanted to learn to break-dance--and by god this time he's really going to do it. i told him he was lame for wanting to break-dance--but looking back on the evening, i guess i have no room to talk. after all, i don't think my desire to play the accordion falls under the category of Really Cool Things To Do.

breton's outfit: because it looked just like mine. why does that always happen? it's the worst with the bandanna things. somehow we always wear them on the same day. there was one day last semester--i was wearing my pink bandanna, and i was walking to the library, and breton and becca were standing out in front chatting--and they were both wearing red bandannas. they called me over and we stood there laughing because we looked so ridiculous together--finally i left--i told them it was too humiliating to stand there with them any longer.

stosh's brush with death: he left the party and came back maybe half an hour later to tell us to be careful. his story, which he told much better than i'll be able to: he was walking back to his car, which was parked on chimes street, and this dude was like "hey. hey!" and stosh turns around. and the dude pulls out a switchblade. and stosh is like "uhh...goodbye," and starts to walk away.

and the dude is like "haha, no, man, just kidding." he puts the knife back in his pocket and then asks stosh to help him find his car--a silver vw beetle. they look along the street and in the parking lots on the campus side of chimes street--and then the dude asks him to help him look on the other end of chimes--the dark, deserted end. and stosh kinda hesitates, and the dude is like, "don't worry about it, man. you don't have to if you don't want. but i wouldn't jack you. when i jack people, i don't put the knife away."

this could only happen to stosh. because this is the absurd world in which stosh lives. a guy pulls a knife on you, and then puts it away, saying haha, just kidding.

reason #487 that i cannot live alone:

jesse told me today in kierkegaard that i looked tired. (i do look tired.) (in fact, i am tired.) (i am really fucking tired.) i told him it was one of those "if i can only make it to sunday" weeks. he said it was more like one of those "if i can only make it to the end of the semester" weeks. i agreed.

i spent two and a half hours in the library doing research for my goddamn faulkner paper. finally i decided on six articles to print up from JSTOR--over a hundred pages of text--and i didn't have enough money on my tigercard. so i went to the website to add more money--and the site was down. and i didn't have cash so i couldn't use the machine.

so i was going to go to office depot to buy ink to print up the articles--because i need to get this shit done tonight--but it was like 9:05. i thought maybe office depot closed at 10. but they don't. they close at 9.

i went home and got the model number of my printer and drove to wal-mart to get an ink cartridge. i hate wal-mart. i hate it. it's a miserable experience. and i've had to go like three times in the past two weeks. so i don't want to go to wal-mart but i'm so desperate to get my shit done. so i go to wal-mart and of course they don't have the cartridge i need for my printer. i stood there for fifteen minutes staring at the cartridge numbers, hoping that maybe the right one would suddenly appear. it did not. i drove home.

breton had made cheesy broccoli rice stuff from a box and it was sitting in a pot in the fridge. i hollered up the stairs to ask her if i could eat some, and she said yes, eat the rest. then i stuck a coffee mug full of water in the microwave so that i could have hot tea (blackberry), because i'm going to need the caffeine. and breton came downstairs and she asked me if i was in a grouchy mood, and i told her about my paper and that i was frustrated and freaking out and she said she knew how i felt. and then i opened the cabinet to get the sugar, and remembered that she had said this afternoon how she had made kool-aid but we ran out of sugar. so i open the cabinet, and i'm like "oh, fuck me, we're out of sugar, aren't we?" and she says "yeah" and i am preparing to totally lose my shit, and she looks at me wide-eyed and says, urgently, "you can use honey! honey is good in tea! or sugar cubes! we have sugar cubes! sugar cubes are even better because, you know, like, 'one lump or two'!"

thank god for breton.

needle in the hay

THE TRAVEL LOG
(transposed and abridged)

July 7, 2004 / 9:42pm

ah elliot smith in the evening.

i'm so fucking tired. oh my god.

class went well today--i like the shit i ended up writing for homework, and we did an in-class writing assignment that got me pretty juiced. i'll end up continuing it for homework on monday. and i gotta print out what i typed up this morning. i sent it to ben--he said he wanted to read whatever i've been working on.

workshop went well--they read it well and made really good, constructive suggestions--not condescending at all. jeremy said i had done a good job with the edith's character, and that i had a good eye for detail. most of the time we talked about stakes, which consistently troubles me the most.

went to modern art musuem--barely made a dent in it--cool shit--i loved the czech artists--the part on socialist realism was creepy ("The More We Produce, The Better Life We Lead!"--with the rosy-cheeked toothily-smiling Aryan family)--crazy seeing it after reading about it in those Kundera novels.

at dinner i was sitting across from rikki at our little 2-person table--she was picking at a scab on her right shoulder--and i thought--what was it like before i knew her? when i first met her? it was in ronlyn's 2005 class--rikki and i were each other's great defenders in workshop--kindred writing spirits--that's what our friendship was based on. we agreed to be writing buddies. it was only after ballet, our first class at Dancers' Workshop, when we sat at Wendy's for two hours and talked--that we realized we both knew stosh and jacques and groh--

anyway. i'm thinking all this, and she's picking at a scab, and then she announces that after dinner she wants to sleep--but potty first--and i tell her that i've been thinking nostalgically, as if we were some old couple, about the beginning--and she bursts out laughing--i'm like, "who could have known that, a year later, we'd be sitting here, prague, you and me together, eating dinner, you picking at your scab and talking about how you need to potty--"

anyway. i'm gonna eat trail mix.

i said goddamn.

so.

last night i invited myself along with breton and meghan to chelsea's. i didn't particularly want to go out, but i'd be damned if i stayed in this apartment for another fucking minute.

first we went to clint's house and the girls rapidly drank a bottle of wine. jesse was there, he'd been shooting tequila since 6pm. he was drunk. he and clint and jay came out to chelsea's with us, and we met becca there. meghan jokingly suggested that we play cards, and asked if anyone had a deck in her purse. i did, in fact, have a deck of cards in my purse. randomly. so we played presidents & assholes. i don't understand why drinking games have so many confusing and arbitrary rules. you can't possibly figure out the rules when you're drunk. after we gave up on p&a, we played go fish. none of us could remember how to play: meghan made five pairs on her first turn, then triumphantly threw her hands up in the air and said "i'm out!" we pointed out that the object of the game was to make the most pairs, not get rid of all your cards first. then it was becca's turn, and becca had to go fish, so she went fishing. she didn't get a pair, so she kept on fishing. blatant cheating. disgraceful. we ended up throwing the cards at each other and shouting "i win!" a lot. it was most exciting.

although i think the highlight of my evening was when jesse, from his drunken sprawl on clint's living room floor, started waxing poetic about the righteousness of drinking wine straight from the bottle. which is how we were drinking it. i noted that while it was right and good to pass the bottle, it was also kinda sexy having a wine glass in your hand. and he said "yeah, it's all fun and games until someone accidentally pours wine on his penis." and i couldn't stop laughing. that was probably november of our sophomore year. i'd never seen anyone look so sheepish.

i talked to haritha for a long time yesterday. hari is one of those friends you can trust to tell you shit straight-up, and not just what you want to hear. and she instructed me to take it one hour at a time.

so.

today i woke up and read a magazine.
i ate a meal.
i watched some of Pulp Fiction.
i walked down to burbank and picked up my car from the shop.
i ate another meal.
i took forty-five minutes of ballet. my legs were shaking.
i sang in the car.
i took a shower.
i met becca at highland and we talked and went to izzo's and talked and went to perk's and talked. i left feeling grounded in reality rather than mired in self-pity. few friends have that ability; it's something i greatly appreciate.

i stopped by subway to see if adam was going to bingo at chelsea's, and he was. so i met up with him and jessica and laura and aaron and aaron's brother whose name i didn't quite catch. meghan and nicole were there, and ryan, and andrea. i told adam about the break-up and he was kind. i smell like smoke and my ears are ringing, but goddamn, i say goddamn. i got out of the apartment. and tomorrow i'm going to start moving into my new house. i can't wait to get out of this place. it's got bad energy. two major screaming fighting break-ups lived here. mine and breton's. i'm ready for a new neighborhood.

maybe tonight i won't dream.

out of the hot thin air.

the "confrontation" and-i-use-that-word-loosely with ben on wednesday took maybe ten or fifteen minutes. i said all i wanted to say, and he said all he wanted to say, and then we sat in awkward silence. not knowing where to look, and not wanting to look at him, i watched an ant crawl across the white plastic patio table. ben was wearing his red united way shirt, which i had returned to him the night before, when he came over with sharky. it was the first shirt he ever left at my house, and because it was soft and smelled like him--like dark wood and something warm and boyish--i took to wearing his shirt to bed. i slept in that shirt almost every night for four months. even after we broke up. by that time it smelled like me. i returned it to him unwashed, and he was wearing it the very next day, and i was thinking how can he wear that shirt, it smells like me. boys are so clueless. and it looks better on me anyway.

i blew on the ant. i looked up and ben was watching a different ant--his was examining the corpse of an ant that had been squashed against the plastic table top. "ew," i said. he laughed and cried out, in a mournful ant voice, "daddy!"

which made it possible for us to then sit there for an hour and talk about everything else that's been going on. in a pleasant sort of way.

and it's a good thing, too, because if that conversation had ended with us shouting obscenities and storming off to our respective houses, i'd be destined to suffer a tense semester. seeing as on thursday, i ran into him four times. the first time was on my walk to campus for our 10:30 class. we met on the corner of iowa and geranium and walked together. i went and took care of some paperwork for my independent study. then we had that class, which is on india and the short story form. it's a discussion class, and whenever he would contribute something i would add to it, and vice versa, so it ended up being a sort of conversation between the two of us mediated through the teacher. which was a little bit weird.

i ran into him again as i was walking to campus for my 1:30; he was walking home. i turned a corner and there he was. i was running late, so i didn't break stride--just laughed and said "creepy," and he shrugged, smiling, to the effect of "we live a block away from each other, what can you expect." and called "bye" over his shoulder. then i was walking back from my last class at 4:30--i was in front of coates, and he was walking to the union--i didn't even see him coming, he came up behind me and tapped me on the back--he turned to look at me as he passed, and i said "ben. i mean. really." because it was ridiculous at that point, and he was laughing.

the reason i was standing in front of coates was because i was waiting for janey. who is in my russian lit class, as of thursday. i was walking to the classroom, thinking "i hate the honors college, i should drop this class" and then there she was. and i thought "well, at least this will be interesting." i sat next to her and we had a brief and standard "hello, how are you, how was your summer" conversation. then she looked at me and narrowed her eyes and asked "so who are you seeing?" which is such a janey thing to do. and i said "actually, i just got dumped."

so on the walk back from class, i told her the story, and she asked me who ben's new girl was. (what a question.) and i told her "georgia. who works at louie's." figuring janey would know her. and of course she exclaims "oh, georgia! oh, i love her! she's so wonderful. i mean, she's just wonderful." and i rolled my eyes and said "great, janey, i don't want to hear this." and she kept going: "oh, she's just amazing!" and i shushed her. what a ridiculous thing for her to do. and so bitchy. but you know. i can't be seriously annoyed with her about it. four years going on five, and some things never change, and by some things i mean janey.

laren called me wednesday night to see if i wanted to go to the spanish moon for '80s night on thursday. and i said yes of course. but i called breton on thursday afternoon, and she told me she was going to twiropa in the warehouse district for '80s night with jesse and clint and jay, and i should come. i told her that i had already made plans with laren, and besides, i had an 8:30 class on friday morning.

but the more i thought about it--

she's leaving for france next thursday. becca asked me if i wanted to go with her to the nola airport, but i can't because i have class. and it's breton's last weekend--and twiropa sounded like fun--

so i called laren to see if she wanted to drive down to new orleans with me--she couldn't, but becca said yes definitely, so i picked her up and off we went. on the way out we stopped at the CC's drive-thru on perkins, and becca wanted a tall caramel mochasippi, no whipped cream. so i say "one tall caramel mochasippi, no whipped cream--and--uh--actually, make that two tall caramel mochasippis, no whipped cream--no, one with whipped cream, and one without--wait, are there flavors other than caramel--okay, so, one tall caramel mochasippi and one tall chocolate mochasippi--" and the guy over the PA says "do you want whipped cream on the chocolate?" and i say "no. yes. no." and he says ".....alright, drive around." and becca is cracking up laughing. we pull up and there are two CC's girls in the window, also laughing, and one of them leans out and drawls, "are ya'll fucking stoned?" and becca loses it completely, and i say, sincerely, "no, i'm sober and i'm really this retarded."

twiropa was fun, but i think the spanish moon is funner. the new orleans crowd is so self-conscious. at first i thought the boys were cuter, but then i realized they were just trying harder. which is too hard. it was great to see breton again, though. she was so excited that we came. and as i was getting my hand stamped to get in, i saw this guy sitting on the front steps who looked a lot like a boy i knew in high school named bryan f___. and then i realized that it was, in fact, bryan f___. i stared at him and he looked back at me unfazed, like, "of course it's perfectly normal that i haven't seen you in three years, since the flogging molly show at the shim sham, and it had been three years before that, but here you are at twiropa for fucking '80s night and here i am sitting on the front steps."

bryan was a senior at jesuit when i was a freshman at mt. carmel, and he and his friend tommy did theatre with me. ironically. as in, they did theatre in an ironic fashion. they were straightedge hardcore punk rock thrash metal, and they adopted me as their very small innocent and uninitiated little pseudo-sister. bryan made me mix tapes and tried to get me to write for their 'zine, The Hatemonger. tommy and i have kept in touch through email off and on since i moved to natchitoches. they are the reason i'm on my fourth pair of chucks (not counting my fifth grade high-tops). they are, in fact, the reason boys in beat-to-hell converse make me weak in the knees. as a freshman i had little schoolgirl crushes on both of them, simultaneously. they were smart and funny and i could never take anything they said seriously, but they were always kind to me.

so that was kind of crazy. also strange: we were inside, there was this lanky brunette chick dancing next to me, and she was wearing a black sex pistols t-shirt with a red plaid skirt. upon closer examination, i realized that it was the st. catherine of siena uniform plaid. i grabbed her skirt and i said "DUDE. you are wearing my grammar school UNIFORM." and she laughed and said she got it from goodwill, which i had presumed already. i told her i had three skirts just like it in my damn closet. then i asked her what her name was, and she looked at me kinda funny and said "izzy." and i realized that i had met her two weeks ago at breton's going-away party. she's jason's ex-girlfriend, pre-lsmsa.

so rikki and reid are both leaving for the weekend, which is depressing. but i'm trying to remind myself that i do, in fact, have friends. in support of this notion: laren called me wednesday, adam apparently called me last night at 1am, jeff wants to hang out saturday night, becca's going to come help me break in my new clothesline at some point this weekend. i think i'm going to go through my cell phone, write down the names and numbers in my phone book, and tack the list, entitled You Have Friends, to my wall.

and if the weather's nice this weekend, i'm going to sit in the sun on my front lawn and drink lemonade.

deconstruction

our internet had been down for about 36 hours. reid said, "man, there's nothing to do. the internet's out, we don't have cable--" and i was like "oh god, we might have to actually talk to each other."

so rikki and i skipped ballet and we all made dinner and ate together and cleaned up together and watched Family Guy on DVD and played with the cat. it was really nice. this morning the internet was still down, and i called cox and figured out how to fix it. but i was almost reluctant to do it. it's nice sometimes when we all emerge from our internet holes and, you know, communicate in reality.

our little house is becoming a home. it's got a nice vibe. fred is really happy here, i think. he's got more room to play, and three people who dote on him constantly.

on that note: i'm taking an independent study on creative non-fiction with jim, and my first essay assignment was on location and description and how style reflects attitude. i wrote two essays because the first one didn't come out quite like i think jim expected. i told becca about the essays and she said i should post them. they're first drafts, and they're written a little differently than i write my posts, because they're aimed at a different audience. but anyway. here's the first one.

------------------

Becca came over at one-thirty this afternoon to help me set up for my Labor Day Pickanick Party. She started cutting up strawberries for fruit salad while I unearthed the cleaning supplies to ready the house for company. But first—

I inserted a CD into the living room stereo and turned the volume up: the Indigo Girls: Retrospective. “In honor of the Fortress,” I told her.

The Fortress of Women—or “The Fortress” for short—was the name bequeathed to my first college apartment. There were four of us living in a three bed/three bath at the Tiger Plaza apartment complex: Becca, Breton, Elizabeth, and me. The other three girls were a year behind me; we’d gone to high school together at a boarding school for academically and artistically gifted juniors and seniors, where we’d paradoxically absorbed both the fine art of cynicism and all the words to the Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine.” I’d spent my first year of college in the honors dorm, which brought my sum total to three consecutive years of dorm living. The Tiger Plaza apartment meant, finally, my own room, a full-sized fridge, and a shower that didn’t necessitate flip-flops. I was satisfied—even despite the fact that we lived directly behind a bar that featured shitty and excruciatingly loud live music on its open patio four nights of the week. I didn’t even mind the dumpster view from our “backyard”; at least it meant shorter walks taking out the trash.

The apartment was full: of clutter, of drama, of people. All four of us had significant others who were spending the night more often than not. You were never alone in that apartment, but you were never lonely. I think it was the night we decided to decorate the Christmas tree. We got drunk on red and green sour apple martinis, courtesy of Elizabeth’s boyfriend Travis, who was the only one of us old enough to buy liquor, while Becca’s girlfriend Anna broiled a rich buttery steak she picked up on sale at Winn-Dixie. As my roommates and I played Bing Crosby Christmas records and strung up stolen restaurant forks on the tree, my boyfriend Jesse turned to Travis and slurred: “This apartment—it’s like a fortress. Of women. And not every guy is privy to the secrets of the Fortress. Only the select few are allowed to enter.”

To which Travis responded: “Yeahhh. It’s a fortress. A Fortress of Women.”

When the lease on the Tiger Plaza apartment ran out, the Fortress split up: Becca and Elizabeth took an apartment on State Street, and Breton and I moved to a townhouse a block away from our old place. The living room furniture moved with us. I unpacked and re-shelved the boxes of books and CDs and VHS tapes. I arranged the kitschy knickknacks on my desk exactly as I’d had them before. The pictures I put up on the wall next to the desk still had tape on them from the last apartment.

The stereo in our living room had a three-disk changer, with the Indigo Girls’ Retrospective always on rotation. Any major cleaning operation—mopping the floor, washing a giant load of dishes, preparing the apartment for a party—required the Indigo Girls’ musical accompaniment. We sang along, in harmony, at the top of our lungs: “Ghost,” “Watershed,” and of course, “Closer to Fine.”

Breton and I swore we were never moving, ever again. We liked our apartment and we were staying put. But Breton is a French major, and she decided to spend her junior year abroad, so when our lease ran out at the end of the summer she went off to Paris and I moved to my current house, a three bedroom I share with a writing buddy and her little brother. Elizabeth likewise transferred to an art school in Boston, and Becca has a new roommate at her old place. The Fortress has been effectively dismantled; but somehow, the more things change—

I realized as I packed up my apartment and transferred it, box by box, to the new house, that I have moved once a year for the past six years. By now I’ve got it down to a science: the order of my bookcase, the arrangement of trinkets and bottles on my dresser, the box in the back of my closet containing crap I’ve accumulated over these past six years which I have no place for but can’t get rid of. Jesse, now my ex-boyfriend, recently moved into a new apartment. He has arranged his living room and bedroom furniture exactly as he had it in the old apartment, which makes his new place seem familiar, but in an uncanny sort of way. I get the same eerie sense from my own bedroom, which structurally looks nothing like either of the bedrooms from the other two apartments, but is still filled with my stuff; thus my new bedroom resembles my other rooms in that they have all been my rooms.

You leave home in stages. You are fifteen and your mother buys you a new comforter and a new set of sheets for your dorm room, so that when you’re in town for the weekends your bed is still the same. But the walls of your bedroom are different, they look war-torn and hastily abandoned, with pieces of leftover masking tape still marking the places where your favorite posters used to hang. The posters have moved with you. The posters are what make the dorm room feel like—

The first time you refer to the dormitory as “home,” it is the middle of your junior year, you are walking with your roommate across the parking lot, and as soon as the word inadvertently leaves your lips you cover your mouth with your hand. You and your roommate exchange a guilty horrified look. Your mother would cry.

But eventually you give in. And the closets of your childhood bedroom slowly fill with your mother’s dress clothes. And, when your grandmother dies, the spare furniture. The day you realize that your bedroom has been relegated to household storage is the day you realize that home has become the place you visit.

That realization has left me with a sense of rootlessness and questions about the difference between house and home. I’ve had six rooms in six years, all of which I’ve briefly considered my “home.” Physical space and structure have become interchangeable, and have thus been rendered somewhat irrelevant. Location has become the variable in my life. So what is the constant?

Well, there’s the accumulated crap. That seems to follow me pretty effectively wherever I go. But there’s also Becca, and standing in the kitchen preparing for a party, with the Indigo Girls blaring, with Breton and Paris in the back of my mind. There’s Jesse stopping by the new house to say hello, and Travis, Elizabeth’s ex, coming late to the party after work, followed by Anna’s new girlfriend Mary. My circle of high school friends has extended and unfolded and enveloped this complex community that, on the good days, feels like a family, and on the bad days, feels like a long and semi-incestuous string of exes. On the bad days I wish I could get the hell out of this town, cut all ties, meet new people. On the good days I remember with satisfaction that these ties and these people are what make this town my home.

sherbert.

i haven't posted in almost two weeks. partly because i hated that blue/gray design, it made me not want to look at the site. and partly because i've been really content, for the first time since i've been back from prague. for the past two months i'd been writing compulsively as a way of coping. so now that the need to cope has been alleviated, i need to find some other feeling to write out of.

also, i had a short story due, so that was taking up a lot of time.

anyway.

i love my house. i love, love my roommates. i love being at home. it's kind of bad, actually. i fear that it will be detrimental to my social life. er, "social life."

we seek out the cat from the dark underbelly of the bed, from his lazy sprawl on the ottoman, from atop the washer. we seek him out and we lift him up and we present him to each other. look, here's the cat. he is my gift to you. he's the best kind of gift. warm and furry and recyclable. i am reading on the uncomfortable sofa in the back room, the "parlour," with the piano and the cool lamp from my dead grandmother. i am curled up with a book and reid comes in beaming, brandishing the cat. "fre-ed," he sings out, depositing the cat at my feet. then he leaves, and so does fred, because, well, he's a cat and cats do that sometimes. but it's the thought that counts.

my dad emailed me this afternoon to ask what my BR address and phone number was. then he called at nine-ish and told me he was in town and that he had chinese food for me. he hadn't seen the house yet, so i ran around like an idiot pretending to clean up. the house wasn't really messy. it was a matter of principle.

i gave him the grand tour and introduced him to rikki (reid disappeared into his room, presumably to take a shower, though maybe he was hiding, who knows). and then we sat down in the back room and my dad and i played piano and sang. and rikki giggled. she said when he left that he was cute and had a good sense of humor. and that i must have gotten my "charm" from him. the thought of my dad being "charming" is strange. i suppose he must be, on some level, since he's doing very well with his insurance agency. but. you know. he's my dad. the one with whom i have the schizophrenic relationship. and anyway my mom is the vivacious one.

speaking of which, i met fran. i had to. he evacuated with my mother and michael when ivan was gunning for new orleans. my mom told me that my family was going to abbeville, then she asked if she and michael could sleep here, then she called back to say that fran needed a place to go. and i said fine, and then i called back and said that i didn't want him in my house, because in the almost two years they've been together, or pseudo-together, i'd only met the man once, for five seconds, in my driveway when he came to pick her up. and it's one thing for him to sort of invade my family life as i'm being very intentionally kept out of the loop. but for him to invade my home, which is, at this point, the only place where i feel safe. i thought that was a bit much. and i knew that he would end up here regardless, but i wanted my mom to know that i wasn't happy about it. so we ended up crying on the phone for an hour. we'd needed to have the conversation anyway. and as it turns out, fran is allergic to cats. thanks, fred. i owe you one.

actually fran was okay. he's a decent guy. very, very decent. friendly and outgoing and decent. kind of a putz, though. and my mom needs more than decent. she needs something closer to brilliant. and besides that, he's not in love with her. it's painful hearing her talk about how they're just good friends because really the infatuation period was short-lived and now he works for her office anyway and really, truly, they're just friends. when it's glaringly obvious that she wants it to be something more. i'm past the point of seeing my parents as superhuman; i know my mother is flawed and merely mortal. but it's still strange and awful to see her in this vulnerable position. it's a little bit pathetic; it makes me embarrassed for her. she's so logical and straightforward and strong. and she's my mother. she's the one who tells me when the guys i'm seeing are full of shit. she's the one who points out the red flags. for me to be the one to tell her, repeatedly, that he is totally mind-fucking her--it's a weird reversal.

i don't much like it.

i got my second graded problem set back from my linguistics teacher today. i fucked up an entire section of it, but i still got a 96. my teacher wrote across the top: What are you doing in creative writing?!? mcgee used to write that sort of shit on my papers for his class. it always makes me feel really good.

except after linguistics i went in for my creative non-fiction independent study with jim. and we went over my essays and revisions. and i left wondering the same thing. what am i doing in creative writing?

nothing i write fits where it's supposed to fit. my fiction is too essayistic. my essays are too narrative. my plays are non-existent. i have no sense of structure. i feel so mediocre.

and i'm graduating in may and rather than make plans for it, i'm just sort of pretending it's not going to happen.

this is frustrating.

but. becca came over the other night bearing ice cream: Bluebell's raspberry sherbet-and-vanilla swirl. i didn't think they still made that stuff. remember the night when i was dying of a sinus infection, 103-degree fever and i'd just broken up with jesse, and becca and breton got me ice cream? they looked all over for the raspberry-vanilla, but they couldn't find it, so they got sherbet and vanilla separately and mixed it by hand. talk about love.

talk about. i mean. really.

this one goes out to The Fortress.

from The Tennessean, dated Wednesday, 10/13/04:

SPRING HILL — A bright ''yellow ducky'' vibrating bath sponge and its angry owner took on Spring Hill City Hall yesterday — and won.

If only by default.

After hearing about a business promoting personal pleasure and adult toys at Saturday's Friends of Spring Hill Library flea market, held on the grounds of a Presbyterian church, city officials said they would cite the owner into Municipal Court for violating the city's sexually oriented business ordinance.

But yesterday, after consulting with their attorney, city officials decided not to issue the citation.

''When police officers arrived at the flea market, she had already taken down her booth, and so we've declined to prosecute because of a lack of evidence,'' City Administrator Ken York said. ''We also talked to nearby vendors, and they didn't want to testify in a case like this.''

The booth in question displayed the ''yellow ducky'' vibrating bath sponge, along with other products Katherine Williams described as ''PG-13,'' including lubricants and body lotions from her Spring Hill-based business, Passions & Pleasures.

''Nothing we do is nasty, unless you have a nasty mind,'' she said, turning a knob on the yellow ducky's tail to make the sponge vibrate. ''My 3-year-old son loves to play with this duck in the bath. He puts it on his neck and on his head; there's nothing inappropriate about it.''

Williams said she was pleased the city had changed its mind about issuing the citation, but she didn't like the way she was treated when she went to City Hall yesterday.

''I asked for a copy of the ordinance from Ken York, and he refused to talk to me,'' she said. ''Then he called a detective, who got right in my face and told me I needed to leave the building.

''Well, I pay Spring Hill taxes, and they can't throw me out of a building my taxes pay for,'' she said.

York said Williams was ''loud and vocal'' when she entered the building. ''It was necessary to escort her out of the building,'' he said.

When she returned an hour later to pick up a copy of the ordinance, again she was loud and was escorted out, York said.

Outside City Hall, Williams came face to face with Effie Heiss, the president of the Friends of the Spring Hill Library, which sponsored the flea market where Williams had set up her controversial booth.

''You sure shocked a lot of little old gray-haired ladies like me,'' Heiss told Williams.

''Well, I have a lot of little old ladies who buy my products,'' Williams shot back.

''And I only had two negative comments, but I got a stack of people who signed up to win my gift basket,'' she said, indicating a 2-inch-high stack with her index finger and thumb.

Williams said she intends to set up again at next year's flea market.

''If she does, she'll be cited into court,'' York said. ''That duck is a sexual toy, and it was on display. That was a vibrator on display in public view.''

check out a picture of the offending ducky here.

it's a lifestyle.

friday we threw groh a birthday party. he wasn't there, but it was still fun. we were supposed to go to the MC chris show after, but it sold out. instead, we had an eight-hour fiesta. the velveeta-and-rotel was really good, rikki. mexican style. ay caramba.

kimmy said she wanted to learn how to knit, but she couldn't find any left-handed explanations. so we sat down with my Stitch N Bitch to look at the continental-style instructions, and i (clumsily) showed kimmy how to cast on and garter-stitch. left-handed! she'll probably have to look at a book to refresh her memory, but still. i felt useful.

thursday i'd left a note for ross and paul about the party--i figured they wouldn't come, but it seemed courteous to at least invite them. friday i ran into paul--i hadn't seen him in like two weeks--and i told him he should stop by the party to have some cake. we had a conversation in which he told me that yellow cake with no icing is best, because it's more like bread that way.

so i made a round yellow cake with chocolate icing, but i left a little square un-iced. and i went next door and told paul i had a piece of cake for him. and he was like "oh, awesome." and i said "but you have to come over to get it." so he walks over with me--rikki said he walked in all shy--and i show him the cake and say "that part without icing is for you" and he says "oh, that's really cool." and i'm like "i know" and he says "no, i mean, that's really cool." i cut him the piece and we're standing there and he looks at me and says "our water bill went down."

saturday i went to new orleans with rikki and leif. they'd never done mardi gras in new orleans and i wanted them to see it. but we got a late start and missed all of iris and most of tucks. we ended up at becca's house, where i drank a coke-and-unidentified-whiskey very quickly. breakfast had been a long time ago. rikki drove us to juan's flying burrito and i was already drunk. then we ordered a pitcher of margaritas. serrano's are better. leif got me a glass of water. stosh showed up, inexplicably. the service at juan's is terrible. brice said they were walking down to lee circle to watch endymion, which i knew was a terrible idea, but we drove down there anyway. there were barricades and the police were being all strict about crossing. and we were standing behind these tall, broad men who wouldn't let us get in front. i would say things to becca like "god, i can't see anything" and these guys would turn around and go "we've been here since 9am, we're not moving." what the fuck. i'm five foot two. i think you'll be able to see past me, you enormous fucking wall.

then one of the huge guys turns to becca, who is dressed like a pig, and he says "you know how you kill and eat a pig?" and he says you hang it in a tin shed and light a fire under it and the skin starts bubbling up and that's called cracklin. and i'm like "that's disgusting." and he's like "no it's not, it's good." and i say "no one here eats cracklin. where are you from?" and he says he's 'from here' but by that he means north louisiana. and as we all know, north louisiana is somewhere else entirely.

so we're standing behind huge, annoying men and we're not catching shit. we see marisa tomei, and gene simmons, and stanford from Sex in the City. becca and brice start talking about going somewhere to eat. i tell rikki and leif that we're in a shitty spot, and have they had enough of the parade and do they want to go eat? and they say alright. i don't know. i felt like the day was sort of a bust. and that i failed as Ambassador to Mardi Gras. or something. they didn't look too miserable, though. actually they looked like they were on a date. so that's good, i guess.

i missed breton. and carrollton. but i was really glad to see becca.

sunday becca called to tell me ben was having a barbecue. he and andrew live on magazine, between upperline and robert. it took me maybe eight minutes to get from metairie to the 10-90 split, and twenty-five minutes to get from the split to the tchoupitoulas exit. then i drove in circles uptown for another half-hour--i was blocked in at napoleon and prytania because of the parade route. i finally parked at camp and marengo and walked through the parade. 10 blocks. what should have been a fifteen-minute drive took an hour. at that point i didn't even want to go to the barbecue. i showed up out of spite. i'd be damned if i wasted an hour in parade traffic with nothing to show for it. happy mardi gras.

of course instead of barbecuing ben decided to make a small pot of curried rice, or something. because apparently there were two vegans at the thirty-person party. typical. i was starving. andrew was like "here, fill your belly with beer from the keg!" his girlfriend meg is sweet. she told me i could probably get my purse fixed by a cobbler. i was like, that's the most brilliant idea ever. i was just gonna superglue it.

so then ben comes up to say hello. i hadn't seen him since the semi-disastrous trip to new orleans in early december. he's like "okay, so we're having this barbecue because it's deanna's birthday." he points. "there's deanna. that's who i'm dating now." and i nod and think why is he telling me this? he always feels compelled to announce this stuff to me, and i never know how to react. it's not like i expect him not to date people. it's just awkward having him tell me point-blank. like, hey, remember when we used to go out? well, here's this new girl, and i'm going out with her now. well. let me shake your hand, buddy, and offer you my hearty congratulations.

later we're talking and he says something about the party being weird. it was an even mix of rene's hippie friends, andrew's metal friends, and deanna's hipster friends. i said "well, you know, between you and andrew and rene there's a sizeable age range at this house. so it's understandable that the party would be...you know...range-y." and he laughed and told me he wanted to give me a hug. then he said, "i ought to introduce you to deanna." and i say okay. and he says "you won't be impressed." and i'm like "what?" and he says "i mean, she's cute and all, but."

he looks at me. "you know. actually, i'm about to break up with her." and my jaw sort of drops. i'm like, "ben, that's horrible." he shrugged and said probably it was just because he's a flake. they've been dating for four whole weeks. i told him he was a terrible person. jesus. it's almost funny. and really it's only funny because i've been on the receiving end of his bullshit, and i know what it's like. which, logically, would make it less funny. you'd think.

deanna comes up to us--possibly honing in with her ex-girlfriend radar--and she tells andrew that the music sucks and she wants to put on a CD. andrew retorts, "it's not a hipster party, it's a keg party." poor girl. abused from all sides. boys are such assholes. it's almost funny.

so, having confirmed that all of the things my friends said about ben post-breakup were in fact true, i left the barbecue satisfied. but starving. i ate dinner at my grandma's and watched the superbowl up through halftime. we all tapped our feet through paul mccartney's four-song set. grandpa made disparaging comments about the music and the rest of us argued about the significance of "hey jude." just another sunday at mimi's house.

when i got back to baton rouge there were like five cars parked next door. ross, paul, adam, the other ross, and andrew were all sitting on the porch. adam's girlfriend katie was inside. i hung out there till 1:30. chess and boxing and rope swings. the usual hijinks. i'd only seen ross once last week--accidentally--and it was awkward. but last night was un-awkward. actually it was fun.

saturday morning when we left for new orleans, that girl's truck was parked in the driveway. i'm just going to keep telling myself that he's fucking her.

since i've been in college, i have dated three boys. and i have almost-dated three boys. over the course of the weekend i hung out with all six of them. jesse and i used to have this recurring fight, where i'd ask if we'd still be friends if we broke up and he'd tell me no. i always thought that was silly. i don't believe in burning bridges. real human connection is hard to come by. blah blah blah.

all six of them.

i can't decide if that's a sign of maturity or masochism.

slur when you say it.

omg i'm soooooooooo drunk oh migod.

no but seriously

rikki and i had this long nice conversation/discussion about god and organized religion and cynicism and the so-called sheep-like masses and cognitive development and then ross and paul told us that they egged our house. and i was knitting. and really they did.

and then i went over there and i was like "i'm hungry" and they were planning to cook--they never cook--all they ever have is bread and turkey. even though ross cooks at restaurants for a fucking living. and paul washes dishes at louie's but nevermind.

so i invite myself to the grocery with them. and we buy a pound and a half of tilapia, and some citrus fruit, and we eat half a loaf of french bread in the store, etc.

and we go home and i wash the dishes and paul starts up the barbecue pit and ross cuts up stuff and seasons fish with it.

and we were going to buy a bottle of yellow tail shiraz but then paul wanted to buy three-dollar strawberry champagne. because it tastes like juicy fruit, or jujubees, or something. so they bought cheap strawberry champagne. but while we were cooking, ross found a bottle of wine that he'd won when he worked at ruffino's--$160 cabernet. except he looked it up on the internet and really it was sixty dollar wine. but i told him we could pretend and he said okay.

so there was grilled tilapia [with lemon and lime and orange and garlic and butter and olive oil] and asparagus and [slightly burned] french bread and expensive [no matter which way you slice it] cabernet sauvignon.

then i did my american lit homework on ross's computer. which involved arguing with paul about media fear tactics, and then posting a short essay on an internet discussion board. drunkenly.

seriously, this might have been the most interesting valentine's day ever. if only because it was utterly impromptu.

red wine is the best drunk ever.

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?

"really pleasant"

maybe a week ago: breton and i walked to the chimes to look for her blazer. she thought she left it there. the host guy was like, "well, honestly, we do have a lost-and-found but the waitresses dig through it and bring the good stuff home. but i'll check for you." and he came back and was like "yeah, no, sorry.." and breton was like "uh-huh," smiling and nodding because the host guy was like really cute. and we walk out the door and i'm like "dude. he was really cute." and breton's like "i know!" and we giggle idiotically. and it feels even more idiotic because i never say that kind of shit.

so then wednesday we go to chelsea's for the hairy apes show, which was not hairy apes but righteous buddha. we went en masse. i'm very pro this "en masse" approach to going out. let me see if i can reconstruct the list: me breton clint barrett josh adam karen paul adam katie donna eric jacob jacob andy john perky alanna keel ricky celine anne-laure sarah...and we were pretty much all dancing up front by the stage. i danced with so many people and they were all my friends. that's such a good feeling. so before righteous buddha came on, there was this opening band called elevator. we were all sitting out on the patio. and breton comes up to me and says "ann, oh my god, it's the cute boy from the chimes. he's playing right now." apparently he's the front man for this band. vocals and guitar. but he was wearing camo pants that were rolled up around his ankles. you have to dock points for that.

anyway so then i got pretty drunk and i was waiting for the girls' bathroom and he was waiting for the boys' bathroom and he leans in and shouts in my ear, "my name's benjamin." and i suppose i told him my name. i told him that i'd seen him at the chimes when me and breton were looking for her blazer. then we started dancing and he twirled me. then we went our separate ways, ie., to the bathrooms.

then he's up at the front also dancing and breton's there so i get her to start dancing with him and i'm dancing with someone else, i don't remember who. and then we kind of spin out and switch. so i'm dancing with the cute boy, and then after a while i twirl myself away and go find someone else.

breton catches me later and she's like "what happened? you were dancing with the cute boy. it was really cute. did you get freaked out?" and i shrug. it's no fun dancing on one person all night, especially if you're there with your eight million friends.

then me, john, and barrett went back to andy's and barrett threw up for like two hours.

so last night after the game let out, me and breton went to the chimes to eat a hot fudge brownie sundae. and she stole the cherry. and i was like "keep an eye out for the cute boy." he told me he was a host and also a busser. he said "busser" like he was embarrassed. i was like, whatever dude, i work at a corporate McMexican restaurant. so i'm like "keep an eye out" and breton says, immediately, "there he is." then she looks at me with big eyes. i say, "well, that was easy" and she says, "that was weird." we're sitting so that we can see the host stand and when he passes i try to catch his eye but can't. then he walks back and when he's gone breton's like "ann. he just saw you and did a double-take. like an actual double-take." and she demonstrated. which was funny.

a little while later he passed again and smiled and said something to me like "hey" and i gave him a high-five/handshake kind of thing. breton stared at me. "what just happened?" and i said, "i gave him a high-five."

on our way out i kept my eyes straight ahead. he was sitting at the host stand. at the very last second i looked over my shoulder at him and smiled and he was following me out with his eyes.

teehee.

breton was like, "he was wearing old man pants. that's so cute." and i said i didn't even see the old man pants because i was too busy looking at his shoes.  (converse.)

so that's something nice to think about. but here's the best part: it's cool if the cute busser did a double-take when he saw me. what's better is that i've got a friend who'll tell me he did, demonstrate it, and be really excited about it.

the buses pouring poison but the flowers surviving

5:33pm / highland / on a napkin

went to bed suffocating woke up sick of myself so restless all i can do is sit on the sofa staring the cat is shedding everywhere must be summer and today i'm not sure what i'm doing here
but
karen and i raided her fridge for: blueberries, orange juice, cooked veggies, turkey sandwich
and
i'm in the homestretch of herzog
and
it's patio weather at highland
and
i got a full stamp card from becca
so
(maybe just a little longer)
ok.

what you get

last night at chelsea's after the show we were standing in that little hallway in front of the bathrooms on the bar side. saying how i liked meeting new people but right now it feels so tedious, the whole getting-to-know-you thing, which i think i used to enjoy.

but i feel like there are these fundamental things about me. there are themes. there are certain words. like: dad. anyone who knows me at all knows what weight that word carries. and i find myself making the face when i hear it--the face that means "my dad and i have a strange, strained, dysfunctional relationship (although right now it's going pretty well)"--but we haven't gotten to that yet, and that's not really a starting point, is it. you don't start with that kind of stuff. but it's so big. these things are pervasive. how can you understand me at all if you don't have the context? this is the value of old friends who already know. right now i feel like i don't have the energy.

so we're standing in front of the bathrooms and the people walking by and i say, "i hate explaining myself."

and karen says wait. and she gives me a hug. she says, "oh ann. it's just you seem stressed lately. and like you just now got really worked up."

and she says, "are you tearing up?"
and i say, "i have pms."
and she says, "well, you can't tear up because that will make me tear up."

so we stand there blinking.

i tell her how i went to highland earlier to work, and i didn't want to walk because it was cold, so i drove my car around the block but the parking lot was full, and so was tequila's, and i came back around to the front of the apartment but now all the spaces were taken because of fucking serranos, so i parked in the artful dodger front lawn, and walked in the cold, and set up my computer at highland, and realized that i'd left the papers i needed in my car. so i stamped my foot.

she said, "that's it? you stamped your foot?"

well yeah. that's what happens when i have pms and am full of rage.

we walk to my car and sit inside for a while with the heater on. and she tells me about going to katie and adam's new apartment, and how excited they are, and that it's good for them, because it's time. it's time and katie said that she's not sleeping at the old apartment anymore and those are the words that carry the weight because it means it's over. and she's crying a little in the car because she's got pms too and we are sitting there blinking.

she said why does it happen all at once? and this is a hard time in our lives. because change is hard. always always.

and i'm thinking about moving to new orleans and how it depends on where my friends are. and i'm counting the ones i see every day and realizing that the difference is in the friends i don't see every day but i see everywhere. the friends that mean: no matter what bar or coffeeshop i go into, no matter what night, i always know someone there.

and i'm thinking about barrett, how he's in pennsylvania without his coat on, and it's cold, so he's probably cranky. and he says he doesn't know if penn state is worth "giving up everything." but if he stays at LSU for grad school i will think he's a pussy. and i don't want to tell him that, so from now on i'm going to have to watch my mouth when we talk about it. because i understand that you want to be in a place where you're happy. but the difference is only hard at first. and you are resilient. and here's this opportunity. and it's time.

karen says: we need to get out of here. but it has to be break-all-ties. and i say yeah. if i'm going to go, it's got to be someplace new where i don't know anyone at all. and i thought it was because i wanted to start over. but it's because i don't want to choose.

i drop karen off at her car. she's hungry and there's no food at her house and it's too late for taco bell, or the line is going to be long, or something. i kiss her on the cheek and drive home.

at the light on may and dalrymple she calls me. do you maybe want to go to louie's? and i say of course, i'll meet you there.

at louie's we know everyone and all the waitresses hug me and richard cooks karen an omelette the size of her head. beki says there's no ticket so i leave her all the cash i've got (four bucks) and karen leaves a five on the line for richard. we sit outside with him and paul smoking and beki comes out and janey and this new cook talking about opium, and which dishkid got fired for smoking weed in the walk-in. i've got my pepperjack hash in a go-box and richard is making lewd comments about my breasts.

when we leave i ask her if she feels better.
i feel better.

this, this. this is everything. this is the everything i don't know how to give up.

you don't want what's not good for you.

sitting up in bed in the dark dark, i'm staring at the curtain and thinking of polite ways to say: i think this is shitty, and stupid.

after long silences i say, "i think this is shitty. and stupid."

it's other things, too, like upsetting and disappointing and, especially in the context of past relationship-type things, infuriating. what is with these chickenshit boys?

staring at the curtain, in the dark, dark, sitting up in bed, another long dark quiet, he asks me what i'm thinking about. except this time i'm not thinking about anything. i'm looking at nothing in the dark, tired, and there's a random pavement song idling in my head.

(but your vulgar display caught me off-guard)

he asks me what i'm thinking about

(tied, tied, tied to the tracks)

and i say "there's a pavement song stuck in my head."

the chorus comes around.
it occurs to me that the song stuck in my head is "ann don't cry."
for fuck's sake.

i didn't, of course.
i got dressed and left.

.

i met paul and clay uptown yesterday afternoon and we sat in clay's living room, passing a half-drunk bottle of terrible wine: everybody wants somebody. but i also don't want to be with anybody.

paul said, "this guy sounds exactly like me. god. i'm really sorry."

clay said, "the thing is, you know, if you're looking down the line and you know that whatever you care about is going to be wrenched from you eventually, and there's going to be all this emotional anguish, what guys have figured out is that it's easier to just not bother getting into it at all."

i sat up hard. no shit. and of course it's easier. it's easier but how can you live your life like that? holding your heart in one hand and shielding your balls with the other. we're all on short schedules. we're all passing through. say i've got six months left in this city. what if i meet someone cool? i can say i don't want to get emotionally involved, because soon enough i'll have to leave, and it will hurt.

but that's six months of your life that you could spend with someone cool. you could have a good time and deal with some eventual inevitable heartache. or you could do nothing, you could sit there for six months, disengaged and waiting.

what good is holding back? holding back is wasting time. i don't see the point.

this is me quoting myself.
how is it possible that i've wound up here again?

the first time he said he wasn't sure if he wanted to get emotionally involved with anyone, i looked up at the ceiling and thought: you have got to be fucking kidding me.
and i considered getting up and leaving.
and i thought, well, i might as well give it a shot.

but that means waiting to see if the other person picks you.
inevitably they don't.

i offer myself up for rejection.
that's what it costs to be emotionally available.
and that's how i choose to live my life.
i think it's right.
and i am resilient.
and i worry what will happen to me after enough of these.

.

karen said she loved me before getting off the phone.
meghan said to stay away from boys who listen to indie rock.
breton said i did exactly as i should have.
then she got trashed and fed me liquor and we danced our asses off.

just how much of people's lives was spent waiting for hot water to run hot, for cold water to run cold

it's all so desperate when you try to wash something unclean in unclean water.
---------------------martin amis, london fields

saturday night at chelsea's, breton was already drunk with meghan and nick, and they were expounding their relationship philosophies and offering analyses of noncommittal men.

breton waved her hands in the air and said the thing is, i need so much in a relationship, i mean, i need, i really need a lot from the person i'm with.

and i looked at her, and she looked at me, and she said, well. but you're not really needy like i am.

no, i said. i'm not.

but partly, maybe, because of the people i date: i can't need anything from them. because they would freak out. because they've got nothing they can afford to give. they're scraping themselves together as it is.

.

you can't need them, so you don't. denial is a skill. you depend on it to survive. if you tell yourself that it doesn't matter--desire, expectation, disappointment--eventually you believe it enough to get by.

this takes practice.

but then sometimes i've wondered if my (pre-emptive) refusal to need makes it worse or harder for them. i've occasionally gotten the feeling that the mortally insecure ones would be happier if i gave them a chance to feel needed. or even competent. like an extended version of the pickle-jar syndrome.

it is nice to feel needed, after all.

.

also, or conversely: what i want more than anything is to feel taken care of.
like bone deep desire.

i might talk shit all day but if a boy cuts an apple for me i could fall through the floor.

.

i am not so foolish as to let on about it, though.
only with the ones i trust.

.

i am willing to walk around in muscle and bone, open, i want to, but i want the same in return. i require it. otherwise i shove down myself so far. i can tell when i'm hitting walls and i don't like being denied. a long time ago i learned not to ask. and you wind up with this mute girl on your sofa looking terribly uncomfortable hours on end. 

.

so passive, all this waiting, someone else's signal, someone else's comfort, someone else's convenience. i get disgusted with myself but i don't know how else to be. passive and resentful.

.

why should you get to have it both ways when i get to have it none?

.

he said i don't think i've been acting inconsistent

i said you told me you weren't sure about getting involved but you acted like you liked me

he said but i do like you. do you expect me to act like i don't like you?

i said the thing is, it doesn't matter how good it might seem like it's going, if you say you're not totally emotionally involved i can't ever get comfortable, i can't ever just settle into it because it's like the bottom could drop out at any moment

he said i feel like that all the time.

.

oh.

.

here's one way nothing happens.

he says he isn't sure if he wants to get emotionally involved. also he likes you, he says he likes you, he acts as though he likes you.

you like him, you say you like him, and you are willing to get emotionally involved. but he isn't, so you act distant.

you act distant and he thinks you don't like him.
he acts distant and you think he doesn't like you.

having both confirmed your respective fears and insecurities,
you back off and you back off.

.

ross told me once, it was an accusation, he said "it's so all-or-nothing with you." and i had no idea what he was talking about.

but he was right. because he wanted it both ways. and it's also what i meant when i told ben i couldn't half-ass a relationship. i physically cannot. i can't function unless both parties are fully emotionally present.

and i have this penchant for boys with fractured egos.

this is where i get into trouble. doesn't it seem like if i tried hard enough i could fix it? doesn't it seem like if we both understood that we were stupid insecure we could just communicate better? and then we wouldn't be insecure anymore, we would be perfect and open and good enough.

the last one sings in me

i feel like writing this down.
i am having a nice sunday.

i woke up around 11, put on the trrrr album, did not put on pants. yesterday afternoon i straightened up the whole apartment, so today it's all tidy. i made myself breakfast: turkey-egg-and-cheese on a whole wheat english muffin, and plain yogurt with chopped black cherries, raspberries, and blueberries. i ate and went back to sleep. then i woke up again and played piano for an hour and a half. not totally full-out, because i'm shy about the neighbors, but more so than usual. it was sweaty, which means i meant it. then i sat on the sofa and fred sat on my stomach and looked at me lovingly and i read some of bird by bird.

friday night breton called to say she was in town and i cried on the phone. for no particular reason. just cried. and she said she'd be at my apartment in an hour and i went to the rec in the meantime because endorphins are good for this. we sat on the sofa and i told her everything, so that makes six, and i told her how i was doing laundry at home last week and my mom offered me storebought cookies to take to baton rouge, and i said no no i just went to the grocery, i just bought two hundred dollars worth of food. and i paused, and said "i hadn't bought groceries in five months." and i paused, and said "i've been a little depressed. for the past year and a half."

i've said this a couple of times, and i've said it to her, and i've always only been half-serious. and i'm still only half-serious. but i can tell by the looks on my friends' faces that they know it, better than i do, because i still feel like me but maybe i seem different. and michael says he's been worried and he says something totally offensive about how he thinks baton rouge is sucking my soul and draining me of all passion and ambition. as if i would let that happen. as if i would ever be fucking complacent.

friday afternoon, sitting on the sofa, breton looked at me with that same distantly worried look and said "yeah, actually. i think you have been depressed. i don't know what to do about it."

i told her i didn't think there was anything to do about it, beyond what i'm doing already. which is to keep going and stay self-aware and try to respond in healthy ways until it passes.

i mean i don't think it's a big huge deal. i think it's largely, if not entirely, circumstantial. it's been a hard year.

before, i'd hung up the phone and quit crying and got dressed for the rec and got in the car and tried to figure out why the fuck i'd been crying, i'd cried off and on all day, and sort of all week. and i remembered out of nowhere, sophomore year, telling jesse i felt inexplicably drained of all joy and purpose, i'd never felt like that before, and it lasted a week and then it went away. it wasn't a big deal but it was such an unusual feeling for me. the only way i could explain it to jesse was that i felt like i'd lost the joy of living, which is a silly way to put it, and i didn't mean i was suicidal. but i couldn't think of how else to say it. and years later talking with ross about his depression and telling him that i'd felt it, briefly, but a terrible feeling, and i couldn't imagine feeling like that all the time. and i'm driving to the rec friday afternoon and it occurs to me that i do feel like that all the time. no. not all the time, but the days that are good are the ones that are noteworthy now. i never thought it consciously back then, but to say i'd lost the joy of living implied that usually i felt joy in living. that was the baseline feeling. these days the baseline feeling is something i fight against. i have to find ways to stay up.

i can't believe how long it's been.

and i will think of this like a cloud and i will tell myself that i've been crying because i'm coming out of it, like how with my mom i'm telling myself that it's about to get better.

i half-believe it.
like i told michael, nothing's actually different, it's just i bought groceries.

at any rate. i had a nice afternoon. and now i'm going to drive to new orleans in the rain and see a show and take care of becca.

good visit

last saturday / in the pouring rain / taking pictures behind bud's broiler on city park ave

(A parks the car in front of a stripmall with a patio and a black spraypaint X on the brick storefront.)

B: we could take pictures on the patio until the rain dies down. is there an awning?
A: yeah. "park on premises at your own risk." jesus christ.
B: weird.
A: maybe it's because the stores are all closed?
B: no, see, that hair salon has a big banner that says "open and hiring."
A: oh. cool. well, let's go.

(A opens car door. rain rain rain. B hasn't moved.)

A: well?
B: but...i mean, do you think they really are open and hiring?

(beat)

A: i don't think it really matters. i mean, are you looking to apply for a job?

---

monday night / metairie

A: what's up?
B: i'm not sure why i called. i can't keep track. ooh, guess what i got!
A: a vibrator!
B: no. i have one of those already.
A: oh, i knew that.
B: yeah.
A: so what did you get?
B: daiquiri mix!

---

monday night / the wank / the dinner table

B: so now all the rooms are covered in sawdust. and we're going to clean up the house, but elizabeth didn't bring any gross clothes from boston, obviously, and i just got rid of all my gross clothes. but ben left a basket of his clothes for me to sell if i could, but they're all pieces of shit, because he was doing construction in them. so we cut off the shirts and made bandannas and i had on these nike soccer shorts that were all cut up the sides, they were, like, well-ventilated. so we're walking down the street--
E: wait, tell them what i told you.
B: oh yeah, before we left--we were going to walk down to get a snowball--and i was in the bathroom trying to fix my hair, and elizabeth's like--
E: don't worry, honey, you look so nasty no one's gonna wanna fuck you.
B: so then we're walking down the street and this mexican guy is walking toward us, and he starts, you know, hey baby, what's your name...and i'm like fuck off! but he keeps talking! and we look disgusting! and we pass him, and he's still talking, what's your name baby, what's your name, and finally elizabeth turns around and yells TACO!

---

A: fpoon.
E: thpoon.
B: oh my god. say it again! fpoon.
E: thp...thpoon.
(everyone dying laughing)
E: i don't know what you're saying!

---

A: so i'll plobably see you tomorrow.
B: not plobably. actily.

---

tuesday night / uptown / becca's new apartment

A: so i told him about my epiphany and he said he thought it was about fat people on a diet. ...so then we looked it up on the ninnernet.
Br: you could plobably find it there.
Be: not plobably....
All Four of Us: actily!
A: and you know what it means? ....you can't have the bost of best worlds.

---

four girls, fortress, a few more days. and then scatter, another years and years until we are all together.

i finish the song, turn around, look at them, they look at me expectantly, smiling, they say let's do that one again.

car trouble / lunch conversation

ann: am i an idiot?
mom: no. you are not an idiot. you know lynn in my office, she once killed a car because she hadn't gotten the oil changed in, i don't know, eight months or a year or something. no, actually, she had never gotten the oil changed. and her husband glenn killed a car the same way.
ann: actually becca hebert went something like eight months without changing her oil once.
mom: and you know, the difference between lynn and glenn, and you and me and dr. hebert, is that--
ann: --what does my orthodontist have to do with this?
mom: didn't you say dr. hebert?
ann: no. becca hebert.
mom: oh. well. the difference is that lynn and glenn have the money to buy a new car if they kill the old one. and you and i have to know how to take care of the stuff we already have.
ann: yeah. i thought you'd come up with a new expression...you know, "just between you and me and dr. hebert..."
.
mom: the three things i know about my car are how to check the oil, how to put air in my tires, and how to put water in the radiator. and even then, you know, i have a slow leak in one of my tires, and on the way back from gulf shores i stopped at a service station to put air in it, and i didn't know it but i was using the water thing instead of the air thing.
ann: so you put water in your tires?
mom: well, no, that would be physically impossible, because air is coming out. but then i didn't understand why my tire was deflating. so i drove home like that, a nervous wreck, and then fran showed me again how to do it, and i thought for sure this time i knew. and i went to another service station a week or two later and i did it again with the water thing. the guy came out, he said he understood how i could confuse the two--he was very sweet. then i called fran and cried.
.

becca: no, it wasn't because he was nice. you got it for free because of your boobies.
ann: i know. i didn't want to say it.
breton: you guys! that never happens to me.
ann: oh, bullshit.
breton: i've never gotten stuff for free.
ann: remember when the oil change guy gave me a discount "just because"--who was i with?
breton: me.
ann: and i asked why and he said "because next time i want a baked potato from wendy's." and we brought him a baked potato, and all the guys at the car place gave him a hard time, and he asked for my number, and i was like "um, um, i have a boyfriend" and he was like "well does your boyfriend know you're bringing other guys baked potatoes" all mad. and then jesse got mad at me too! it wasn't sex!
becca: nope.
ann: i mean, it wasn't even an approximation of sex!
becca: no. it was a baked potato. a baked potato is not sex. the opposite of sex is a baked potato.
.
becca: and at the end of class we did an om circle. have you done one of those yet?
breton: no.
becca: everyone does the om at their own pace, on their own breath, and you can hear it going around the room. it's really nice. it's like om in a round.
ann: om, om, om your boat...(stops and looks around in horror, slaps her own wrists.)