Random Crap
the dark is a good place to hide.
coffee tastes best at night, right before bed.
I wrote you a letter. And then threw it away.
silence
when it's time for sleep, I lie down in the middle of the bed, adjust the pillow under my head and pull the covers to my chin. My eyes close and nothing happens except an endless stream of untidy thoughts begin to march down the center avenue of my brain.
it's been years since I've seen the ocean.
I wrote a story once about a girl who returns to her hometown after the death of her parents in a car accident. she arrives at the house, the house where she grew up, and finds everything just as it was when she left. the same coffee mug used by her father in the dish drainer. her mother's chenille robe hanging on the hook on the back of the bathroom door. the typewriter given to her by her father for her sixteenth birthday on the desk in her old bedroom. she sits in her father's chair, picks up the newspaper that's still on the table beside her, and begins to read. never mind she's reading the headlines from three days ago.
she'd gone to New York on a dream that didn't come true and fallen in love with her boss, who had a wife and two daughters across the ocean.
isn't that what usually happens to girls who run away?
there's another story locked away somewhere about a guy who keeps seeing his ex-girlfriend everywhere he goes. he goes to a club, she's there, hiding in the shadows just out of reach. he goes to the local diner for breakfast, slightly hungover and stubbly, and as he looks up from his notebook where he's been writing his next hit song, he catches a glimpse of her coming out of the restroom. she brushes past a woman with a toddler on her hip and before her name can escape his lips, she disappears in the crowd at the order counter.
it's true; she's been following him. trying to stay hidden and trying to be seen at the same time. waiting for him at the pier or on the bridge, thinking he might take one of his long walks like he used to in order to clear his head. she wants to see him, wants to touch his face again, watch him close his eyes as she strokes his cheek with the back of her hand and see his smile that always started at one corner of his mouth and slowly eased across to the other.
but what would she say? it's been a while and words were never easy.
I guess I should mention that she's dead.
and so he thinks he's lost his ever-loving mind. the grief's gotten to him, that's all. it's bad enough she died after breaking his heart, but now he's seeing her everywhere and he thinks he's on his way to the crazy house.
wrote a story about a woman who decides to leave her husband. in the first draft, she had kids too, but as one of the girls in my creative writing class pointed out, because the kids were only background in my story and that wasn't realistic because a mother probably wouldn't abandon her children and her husband both to chase a dream, I took 'em out of the story completely. I suppose I have a hard time writing stuff with kids--perhaps because I don't have any of my own.
and really, it's hard for me to imagine having any. oh, sometimes I think I wouldn't mind having one or two, but at the same time I wonder what kind of mother I'd make. the idea of being responsible for another human being like that scares the shit out of me. I could totally fuck this kid up permanently and I don't want that kind of responsibility. I have a hard enough time dealing with myself most of the time; what would I do with a kid?
and it would be so hard finding the happy medium between being too strict and too permissive. I don't know how my mom managed to raise me by herself, I really don't.
that's why, even though she drives me nuts at times and has this remarkable ability to piss me off at the drop of a hat and/or hurt me terribly, she's my hero.
some people idolize movie stars, models, rock stars...not me. my mom, she's the one I look up to more than anyone else. she had nothing at times when I was a kid but we always had a place to live--not the best, not the fanciest, not the Ritz--we always had food on the table and I always had clothes to wear. she was tired when she came home from work and it hurt my feelings sometimes when she didn't want to play with me, but now I understand. I don't remember ever being spanked, but then she never had to. she just had to give me that look, a steely glance that told me if I didn't quit whatever it was I was doing I'd regret it, and I knew I'd better not push her. my mom's quiet, reserved, and comes across as very hard and gruff to those who don't know her, but she's got a heart of gold under all that toughness.
you just have to dig for it. or stick around long enough and it will show.
when she gets mad, it's not pleasant. she doesn't lose her temper like I do. it's not a volcanic explosion where shit gets thrown against the wall or anything. no, it's ice. the atmosphere turns so cold, icicles form. she just acts like you don't exist and no amount of pleading or apologizing will get you anywhere until she decides she's over it.
and for other people in the family besides me, she doesn't get over it. she might decide to talk to you again, but there will be a wall up.
a long time ago, I had a psychic tell me my mom and I had spent many, many past lives together. made sense to me. for some reason, it seems to me we were sisters once upon a time. that's about all I can tell though.
I'm no psychic, real or phony, but I think I have a good sense of those things. seen too many things, had too many dreams about things that turned out to be true to not believe. get hunches about people too--what they'll be like, what they're thinking, what kind of a person they are, what their true essence is, that kind of thing. a lot of people think that's all bullshit and maybe part of me does too, but I can't help it when it happens. it just pops into my head, the way things are or what a person's like on the inside.
unfortunately for me I don't always listen to what that gut feeling tells me. and I can't tell what's going to happen for myself; it doesn't work like that.
otherwise I would have heeded that blinking neon sign above Kevin's head that screamed "WARNING! BRIDGE OUT AHEAD!"
I still remember the night I met him. September 9, 1996. Was out with Jen and Quint and Quint got a page from one of his friends to meet at the Taco Bell on National. So off we went. And there was the friend, sitting outside at one of the cement tables. Hello, hi, how are ya, and we sat down. I'd already met the one friend but had never seen Kevin before. And right away, I knew he liked me. usually I have a hard time telling when someone's interested in me--okay, that's not exactly true; I can tell, I get a feeling about it and just know but I ignore it or question it because I have a hard time believing someone would be interested in me like that.
it's like, what? me? why me? and I look in the mirror and see the same face I see everyday and think, well, there's nothing special about me at all, nothing remarkable to catch anyone's interest, so what's the big deal? as if love only comes to people who are special, people who are remarkable in some way, people who have something wonderful...
something that I don't have.
and when someone loves me, I question that as well. again, why me? I'm just...me. like I have to earn it or something. love was just another thing to separate me from everyone else because everyone else seemed to get it so easily and I didn't. even my relationship with my mother is like that--I have to do things to get her love, or at least her goodwill. there's always been some sort of emotional manipulation on her part and on mine as well, I guess. not exactly healthy, but it is what it is.
and so I never felt at ease with love. it always meant pain, suffering, and losing something I could never get back.
well, life certainly is a learning process, and I'm figuring out as I go along what love is and isn't, what I want and don't want in a relationship, and most importantly, what I need and don't need. because sometimes what you want and what you need are very different things.
I still have my moments where I think
I want love, but it's impossible
a man like me, so irresponsible
a man like me is dead in places other men feel liberated
I can't love shot full of holes
don't feel nothin', I just feel cold
don't feel nothin', just old scars
toughenin' up around my heart
but those holes, those scars, they're healing. it just takes time.
and someday, I'll look in the mirror and catch a glimpse of the woman she sees. I'll smile that smile she loves so much and tell the woman in the mirror, not bad. not bad at all.
coffee tastes best at night, right before bed.
I wrote you a letter. And then threw it away.
silence
when it's time for sleep, I lie down in the middle of the bed, adjust the pillow under my head and pull the covers to my chin. My eyes close and nothing happens except an endless stream of untidy thoughts begin to march down the center avenue of my brain.
it's been years since I've seen the ocean.
I wrote a story once about a girl who returns to her hometown after the death of her parents in a car accident. she arrives at the house, the house where she grew up, and finds everything just as it was when she left. the same coffee mug used by her father in the dish drainer. her mother's chenille robe hanging on the hook on the back of the bathroom door. the typewriter given to her by her father for her sixteenth birthday on the desk in her old bedroom. she sits in her father's chair, picks up the newspaper that's still on the table beside her, and begins to read. never mind she's reading the headlines from three days ago.
she'd gone to New York on a dream that didn't come true and fallen in love with her boss, who had a wife and two daughters across the ocean.
isn't that what usually happens to girls who run away?
there's another story locked away somewhere about a guy who keeps seeing his ex-girlfriend everywhere he goes. he goes to a club, she's there, hiding in the shadows just out of reach. he goes to the local diner for breakfast, slightly hungover and stubbly, and as he looks up from his notebook where he's been writing his next hit song, he catches a glimpse of her coming out of the restroom. she brushes past a woman with a toddler on her hip and before her name can escape his lips, she disappears in the crowd at the order counter.
it's true; she's been following him. trying to stay hidden and trying to be seen at the same time. waiting for him at the pier or on the bridge, thinking he might take one of his long walks like he used to in order to clear his head. she wants to see him, wants to touch his face again, watch him close his eyes as she strokes his cheek with the back of her hand and see his smile that always started at one corner of his mouth and slowly eased across to the other.
but what would she say? it's been a while and words were never easy.
I guess I should mention that she's dead.
and so he thinks he's lost his ever-loving mind. the grief's gotten to him, that's all. it's bad enough she died after breaking his heart, but now he's seeing her everywhere and he thinks he's on his way to the crazy house.
wrote a story about a woman who decides to leave her husband. in the first draft, she had kids too, but as one of the girls in my creative writing class pointed out, because the kids were only background in my story and that wasn't realistic because a mother probably wouldn't abandon her children and her husband both to chase a dream, I took 'em out of the story completely. I suppose I have a hard time writing stuff with kids--perhaps because I don't have any of my own.
and really, it's hard for me to imagine having any. oh, sometimes I think I wouldn't mind having one or two, but at the same time I wonder what kind of mother I'd make. the idea of being responsible for another human being like that scares the shit out of me. I could totally fuck this kid up permanently and I don't want that kind of responsibility. I have a hard enough time dealing with myself most of the time; what would I do with a kid?
and it would be so hard finding the happy medium between being too strict and too permissive. I don't know how my mom managed to raise me by herself, I really don't.
that's why, even though she drives me nuts at times and has this remarkable ability to piss me off at the drop of a hat and/or hurt me terribly, she's my hero.
some people idolize movie stars, models, rock stars...not me. my mom, she's the one I look up to more than anyone else. she had nothing at times when I was a kid but we always had a place to live--not the best, not the fanciest, not the Ritz--we always had food on the table and I always had clothes to wear. she was tired when she came home from work and it hurt my feelings sometimes when she didn't want to play with me, but now I understand. I don't remember ever being spanked, but then she never had to. she just had to give me that look, a steely glance that told me if I didn't quit whatever it was I was doing I'd regret it, and I knew I'd better not push her. my mom's quiet, reserved, and comes across as very hard and gruff to those who don't know her, but she's got a heart of gold under all that toughness.
you just have to dig for it. or stick around long enough and it will show.
when she gets mad, it's not pleasant. she doesn't lose her temper like I do. it's not a volcanic explosion where shit gets thrown against the wall or anything. no, it's ice. the atmosphere turns so cold, icicles form. she just acts like you don't exist and no amount of pleading or apologizing will get you anywhere until she decides she's over it.
and for other people in the family besides me, she doesn't get over it. she might decide to talk to you again, but there will be a wall up.
a long time ago, I had a psychic tell me my mom and I had spent many, many past lives together. made sense to me. for some reason, it seems to me we were sisters once upon a time. that's about all I can tell though.
I'm no psychic, real or phony, but I think I have a good sense of those things. seen too many things, had too many dreams about things that turned out to be true to not believe. get hunches about people too--what they'll be like, what they're thinking, what kind of a person they are, what their true essence is, that kind of thing. a lot of people think that's all bullshit and maybe part of me does too, but I can't help it when it happens. it just pops into my head, the way things are or what a person's like on the inside.
unfortunately for me I don't always listen to what that gut feeling tells me. and I can't tell what's going to happen for myself; it doesn't work like that.
otherwise I would have heeded that blinking neon sign above Kevin's head that screamed "WARNING! BRIDGE OUT AHEAD!"
I still remember the night I met him. September 9, 1996. Was out with Jen and Quint and Quint got a page from one of his friends to meet at the Taco Bell on National. So off we went. And there was the friend, sitting outside at one of the cement tables. Hello, hi, how are ya, and we sat down. I'd already met the one friend but had never seen Kevin before. And right away, I knew he liked me. usually I have a hard time telling when someone's interested in me--okay, that's not exactly true; I can tell, I get a feeling about it and just know but I ignore it or question it because I have a hard time believing someone would be interested in me like that.
it's like, what? me? why me? and I look in the mirror and see the same face I see everyday and think, well, there's nothing special about me at all, nothing remarkable to catch anyone's interest, so what's the big deal? as if love only comes to people who are special, people who are remarkable in some way, people who have something wonderful...
something that I don't have.
and when someone loves me, I question that as well. again, why me? I'm just...me. like I have to earn it or something. love was just another thing to separate me from everyone else because everyone else seemed to get it so easily and I didn't. even my relationship with my mother is like that--I have to do things to get her love, or at least her goodwill. there's always been some sort of emotional manipulation on her part and on mine as well, I guess. not exactly healthy, but it is what it is.
and so I never felt at ease with love. it always meant pain, suffering, and losing something I could never get back.
well, life certainly is a learning process, and I'm figuring out as I go along what love is and isn't, what I want and don't want in a relationship, and most importantly, what I need and don't need. because sometimes what you want and what you need are very different things.
I still have my moments where I think
I want love, but it's impossible
a man like me, so irresponsible
a man like me is dead in places other men feel liberated
I can't love shot full of holes
don't feel nothin', I just feel cold
don't feel nothin', just old scars
toughenin' up around my heart
but those holes, those scars, they're healing. it just takes time.
and someday, I'll look in the mirror and catch a glimpse of the woman she sees. I'll smile that smile she loves so much and tell the woman in the mirror, not bad. not bad at all.