unsettled

The peace of our neighborhood was rattled by the homecoming of our military neighbors. You Fucker (the only name for him that gets screamed out their window) and the Bland Guy were out washing their cars after a welcome-home squabble with the live-in girlfriend/roommate, the Shrieker. Pretending to check the mail, I went out to eavesdrop. I ignored them and they ignored me as we all side-eyed each other. You Fucker went inside and got his digicam, then surveyed the mountains and the parking lot with it while narrating to his unseen audience, "And there he is washing the car..." I herded Gavin off the road and looked over to see You Fucker pointing his camera at me. He looked at his camera, I looked in the lens - a standoff on opposite sides of a viewfinder - then he turned casually and went back inside without indicating that he had noticed me. Hmm.

I wonder where Mike is from minute to minute. Driving? Sleeping? Eating? I tossed all night despite a dose of Tylenol PM, my dreams were unsettling. I finally got out of bed at 6am and stood in front of the bathroom mirror in my underwear. My eyes are usually a bit puffy in the mornings, giving me a more innocent look. This morning they were just fat from crying in my sleep. I sang quietly to myself as I scrubbed my face, my voice a growl because of the illness grating my throat. I quietly got dressed, went downstairs, and ate cheerios in front of the computer as I plugged in my diet for the day. Saturdays are long and hungry. Today I am weak and trembly from my chest cold, so my mother dropped me off at work although she didn't need to. I feel disorganized and uneasy, but basically okay. The week to come is a rough one. I have also been booked for another figure modeling gig, the Friday after next. Much of my nervousness over the last session was due to the fact that I was emerging from the woodwork; now the calls won't stop until I move again. Artists are desperate for reliable warm bodies; at least I'll have cash for Christmas presents this year.

I'd like a nap. 8 more days until Mike comes home.

the sickness

A couple nights ago I came home late to find Gavin watching tv while my mother chatted with a neighbor. He was zoned out in front of America's Next Top Model, which, although mentally appropriate for 2 year olds, would not be my first pick for him. "And America's Next Top Model is..." I flipped the channel. Gavin sat bolt upright, his eyes wide with alarm, "No mom! I watch! Give me back remote!" and he punched it back to VH1 and slumped back onto the pillows as the quivering girl sobbed off her mascara. Huh.

My sniffle crawled into my lungs. My mother, unwilling to surrender the couch to her sick daughter, pulled out the couch bed and piled it up with pillows and blankets. This was the first time since my wedding that we had touched the thing, and the musty old sheets sent particles of dust up my nose as I sunk into the springs to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas with the family. The dust did nothing good for my chest cold, so I knocked back a couple Tylenol PMs and crashed like a log in my own bed for the rest of the night. I need sleep.

Mike be gone

If you set a butterfly free and it doesn't return to you, it was never yours to begin with, but if you smash it and it reanimates as a zombie and comes after you for eternity - that's love.

(My god that will be really unfunny if Mike's plane doesn't make it.)

So I've somehow found myself with 2 interviews within a week, both for places I am uncertain about living in. But you know, when you're 26 years old, sharing a bedroom with your husband and child in your mom's house, something has to give. Eventually I have to actually pull in the bacon. It's the circle of life.

Mike and I have said goodbye at airports more than a dozen times in the past 8 years. In college, we were apart for 3 months at a time, during summers. 2 weeks for his brother's wedding will be a snap. We mashed Gavin between us in a bear hug before waving goodbye. Between the mini bottles of liquor and complete works of Douglas Adams stuffed in his backpack, his 10 hour flight should be easy. Have fun at Lake George. Don't knock over any tour boats.

Since Mike took the camera, I will be reduced to posting pictures from the internet until further notice.

work

Reference question of the day: "This library?" Yes, yes it is. And no, we don't have any books.

Good librarians smile at their patrons. Bad patrons take this as their cue to leer with their staring eyeballs peeled back and their teeth bared every time they walk by the reference desk. Not sexy, man. Eyes front. It was just a newspaper I handed you.

Oh crap, it's Friday

mom: what do you want do today, Gavin?
Gavin: daaaah [grannie], it's cookie day. [duh]

Who am I to argue? I've got cookies baking now.
 

Last night Mike had the evening off, so we linked arms and walked up to the store. We rented A Lot Like Love and flopped onto the floor with popcorn and candy. Mike went to work halfway through the movie, leaving me in front of Ashton Kutcher all by myself. He climbed over me at 1 am and went to sleep. I woke up at 5:30 am and stood under a hot shower, debating whether I would rather have shaved legs or warm leg hair while modeling in the cold art building. I compromised by shaving one leg. Sat in the dark early morning and listened to the downpour of rain while I drank my tea. Gavin and I body slammed Mike awake as the sun came up. Mike hugged me. I pulled at his curls and patted his stubbly cheeks. His flight leaves on Monday afternoon.

Oh damn. 4 hours until showtime.

Wound up

Macy's says it is Christmas. It is September. Shopping for a wedding present for Mike to bring next week to New York, I walked through the giant Christmas tree displays with Gavin, admiring the ornaments. I seriously considered buying the happy couple a heart-shaped silver platter covered with ugly fruit and vines, but settled on a kitchen thing instead. At least I can drag out the awful crystal wedding frames we received at our wedding and re-gift them. Ha ha ha. (Um, the frames are beautiful, thank you so much, we just never got photos printed.)

Marketing works again. I chucked the Diet Dr. Pepper back into the case and snatched up a Diet Coke because of a sign that said, "1 in 6 wins a free 1 liter Coke product!" Once, in high school, I won a free Sprite, won another free Sprite from that one, won yet another from that one, and got kicked out of the grocery store by the manager (which was ok, since I was about to throw up a gallon of Sprite by that time anyway). I twisted off the cap and did a happy dance in the car. I'm a winner! So special.

But I was cold in class. I ran down to the vending machine at break time and bought a cup of brown swill with boiled ants instead of a cup of hot cocoa. I was prepared to drink it anyway, but after fishing out the 28th ant I gave up and dumped it in the bushes. I begged nickels off my classmates until I had enough for a cappuccino, threw that down on top of the coke, and shook like a leaf through the rest of the evening.

Thursdays. I didn't write a proper cover letter, as my assignment is due today, so I ran off the simpering cover letter I actually used for a job I applied for last week instead. I hope he doesn't mark it all up with red ink, as this will dash my feeble hopes of landing the job, seeing as I already mailed it in. I buttoned up my librarian shirt, slipped on my sneaky new black shoes, put on my jacket, and listened to my mother fret the whole way to the university. I hope she has a better morning.

a bunch of nothing

I hate hearing about other people's dreams, unless they involve me.

Lucky thing all my own dreams are about me. Last night I had a dream that I got stabbed in the library. Pissed off, I grabbed the crazy drama student who had done it (because of a chat session gone awry), who  blamed one of the library hobos, and I became confused and hauled them both down to the police station (in my car, still bleeding from the shoulder). While the police officers shackled them to the walls, I broke into the donut vending machine. 

I'll have to find a dream interpreter to explain the symbolism of getting stabbed by hobos (or cops and donuts - wtf is that wacky combination all about?).

I watched the Discovery Channel again. It said, "A woman wants one man to fill her every need. A man wants every woman to fill his one need." Thinking about that today.

In other news, the Devil Car has sabotaged itself. After locking us into and then out of itself, rolling our arms up in the windows, and setting off the alarm just for fun, the car has inadvertently re-activated the broken automatic key - which Mike had cracked in half and put through the washing machine. Ha. We are back in control.

Hand massage

Turned to help C. with a patron. The man over the counter looked like the average Bahai hippie I grew up with on Molokai, so I smiled and gave him my hand when he asked me for it. "I have a gift for you," he said, rubbing my hands vigorously and murmuring about the virtues of meditation and oxygen to counter the toxins in our systems. I humored him and breathed deeply when prompted, with C. only inches away to rescue me if the hobo tried to pull off my arm. "You bless me with your smile, thank you," he said quietly as I took back my hands. C. smirked. Y. came out to check on us, wheeled around on her heel, and called security. "That's the same fucker who has been petting our female workers all week," she hissed at me when I slipped into the back room. That would explain why poor C. was never offered any special hand therapy.

"Don't touch me with your hobo cooties!" Y. said.
"Oh, come on, I've had way skeezier massages than that."

A Story

I was an art model at the university for 5 years. During my first year, nobody thought to ask me how old I was, and I was too dumb to know that 17 was a bit young (read: illegal) for the job. There were about 30 regulars who came to draw every week. As I stiffly unwound myself from an excruciating pose after 25 minutes, one of the the 30-something guys offered to rub out my shoulder. Not wanting to be rude (and unable to escape on my numb legs), I let him, consoled by the crowd of witnesses while I let the blood back into my limbs. He was a bit brisk, and seemed honest enough. So when he offered to give me a better back rub during lunch break, I shrugged and said "ok".

So it was that I found myself in an empty classroom with the fellow. "It would be better if you took off your shirt," he said matter-of-factly. I hesitated, but, well, hadn't I been naked all morning anyway? I pulled off my top and lay on my belly in only a wrap-around skirt. As soon as he straddled my back, I knew that somehow things had gone very wrong. He began stroking my back calmly, then with increasing pressure. Soon he became rough, grunting slightly and breathing heavily. I felt his growing erection through his shorts, and suddenly exclaimed, "My, that feels better! Thanks so much, I have to eat lunch now before it's time to get back to work!" and I forcefully shouldered him off me, grabbing up my shirt. He was flushed and unrepentant, smirking at some goggle-eyed students who had peeked into the room seconds earlier. I went into the bathroom and scratched my back against the wall like a bear on a tree, somehow hoping to scrape off some of his germs.


and so...

Y. made a face. "Don't tell me your gross pervert stories! Hey, did I ever show you that picture of a lady breastfeeding a monkey?"

I swiveled on my seat and watched security haul away the cuddly homeless guy. C. cruised by on his way downstairs, "How are your ankles? Need them rubbed too? I like how he slapped you a bit at the end," he said.

Shut up.

Pas de shitkickers?

I went on a hunt for shoes. Shit-kicker boots, specifically, so that I could ride on the motorcycle without Yuri breaking a vein in her forehead about me getting my feet chewed off. I found boots, yes, but less suited to kicking shit than skewering turds. Who buys boots with pointy heels? If I wore those back on the reservation I would have gotten myself pegged into the mud and been left there to windmill my arms while everyone took pictures. The hunt continues.

Sometimes you hear hilariously tragic stories about sex that required medical separation. This is what happened to my car key as I locked the car last night; the door seized it and refused to let go, stranding Mike at home and costing him $45 in locksmith fees. Meanwhile, in class, I was shaking with silent pink-eared laughter with Yuri prodding me as our professor went on a 15 minute rant about the stupidity of bloggers. "Zese people are sooooo stupid, zey are spending 95 percent of zer time blah-de-blah on zer computer, using it as a surrogate for human interaction, all ze time *mwah mwah mwah* kissing up to eachozzer and writing - with tears in zer eyes - about the latest person to criticize zer blogging." At last he noticed Yuri's grin and my purple face and called for a show of hands to see how many of us had not yet started a blog. All hands shot up but mine and two others (all of us sinking in our seats), and he stared over his glasses at me, a look of evil delight on his face. " 'Sooooo stupid,' " whispered Yuri. Yes, and remorselessly so.

Mike was still stuck at home when we went down to our Scottish dance group. I hit the natural food store while my mother danced, garnering only a few suspicious looks for my fake-leather jacket as picked up tea and chocolate. "Intensely dark chocolate with cocoa nibs", said the wrapper. "Cocoa nibs", as it turned out, are ground up bean hulls that lodge between your teeth, not the sweet little nuggets I had envisioned. Bah. I hope the Amazonian fruit bats appreciate the $2 I threw their way for that lesson in flossing.

dirty laundry

"I feel like we're going backwards pretty fast," said Mike as he drove me to work. I had a lump in my throat as I opened the library, sliding back the rusted glass doors and looking out at the city. I tried not to over analyze it, whatever It was, but the more I tried to shrug it off, the more it felt like impending doom. "Counseling is the most fun you can have on insurance," Yuri insisted. I have a bad attitude about counseling. I don't even know what the problem is. Mike said he wanted to get back to a place where we could just be comfortable around each other again. I didn't even bother asking, You're not comfortable around me?

It is easier to get angry than to feel sad or scared. I'll buy a ticket to Arizona, run away, start over. Screw everyone, I can take care of myself, I don't need to answer to anyone. As if I wouldn't remember, or love, or still have sore joints every morning. Like it would be easier to start a new life than have an uncomfortable conversation.

Besides, dammit, I've actually been happy. Weighed down, under pressure, stressed out, and fighting panic attacks, but I actually love what I do, love my family, and have a few friends. Not too bad, really.

Now if I could just tell that to the lump in my throat and the pain in my heart.