I tricked Blogger!!

So I'm editing the blog for my job. And I stay signed in with my employment sign-in all day in the Internet Explorer browser. I like Firefox better. So I always open Gmail and other stuff in a Firefox browser window. And anybody with more than one google account knows that they automatically sign you out if you sign into another one in a new window (or tab) of the same browser. [I have like 4 gmail accounts. It's a thing.] But they DON'T if you do it in different browsers. Woo Hoo! Take that, Google!!

Sheesh. I wish I'd discovered Pandora Radio sooner.

Hoorah!

Crazy Youtube Video, even though I never embed them.

This is wicked cool. It makes me want to video Pearl. vid-eee-oh.

I ordered business cards

So like I keep saying, I'm so unhappy in my current job. Sad Days. I'm not an unhappy-in-my-job kind of girl. I like working, generally. I generally like my job. Just not this time.

So I went to Vista Print and ordered business cards for two companies I'm starting. (I suppose when I decide to take charge, I go all out.) One is April Line Writing, and that's the one I'm most serious about, and the one that already basically exists since I have three proper clients. The other is Mama Lirpa's Cookies.

I only have a groovy slogan for Mama Lirpa's Cookies. "We take the hassle out of home baking." The idea is that I'll sell cookie dough (or prepared cookies). I also like the idea of being a cookie caterer. I show up with the cookies and keep the coffee made and the cocktails refreshed so that the host(ess) can enjoy her party. That'd be fun. And I'd be wicked good at it. So anybody know anybody?

I joned LinkedIn. But seriously, NOBODY I know is on LinkedIn.

I think I'll change my employment on all the other social networking places.

Wednesday, I'm making cookies for a local B2B netoworking group.

Things are looking up.

Coincidences

Went to Starbucks to look for a job. Ran into Robin Kaye who is a novelist. She does not even live in PA. She lives in Maryland and brings her daughter to Carlisle 4x a week for CPYB. I introduced her to the new Espresso Truffle at Starbucks. YUM. Anyway--one thing leads to another, and Robin and I have a coffee-with-writing date on Wednesday. Cool!

Received, interestingly, a Plaxo request from Pearl's grandmother (her father's mom) who, approximately a year ago, bailed out on meeting her. In the request, she classified me as "family." Odd. But interesting because I'd just been thinking how I should get back in touch with her.

Really, do. I mean it.

Check out the Blogs of Note section at your homepage for blogger. Perhaps this is an obvious suggestion, but I have never taken the time to before today when I am wasting my last hour of work the way I have been wasting produce lately (please don't make me admit all the moldy tomatoes I have recently discarded). Greedily. Full of capital slime.

Blogs of note is neat. Tons of stuff about Knitting which is a tres hipster thing to do these days. Tres urban chic.

There is an important person in my life who insists that I am a hipster. I do not know if it is meant to make me itch under my skin or if it is meant to flatter me or just as a casual observation gone horribly awry.

I have been thinking a lot about what a hipster is. I do not know, really. Does anyone? I should consult Urban Dictionary. I bet they know. I am too lazy and tummy-rumbling just now.

And Oh My God Online Radio

So, somebody recently pointed out to me that a lot of the music I like is either folk or David Bowie-sounding.

So I recently learned all about Pandora. (This is going back to that whole Luddite thing I've mentioned--I think it is probably decidedly unhip to only be learning about Pandora online now, right??) I like the Pandora interface better than Last FM. Just now, Pandora is playing some Rolling Stones for me. I feel like a jerk, but I find the Rolling Stones to be terribly boring. gasp.

Anyway--I'm liking this business of I tell it music I like, and it figures out my taste.

So far, it has not played me a single David Bowie song. bwah ahaahaha. I bet if I put in David Byrne it'll give me some David Bowie.

It's giving me way, way too much Velvet Underground. I like the Velvet Underground, but I've heard most of their stuff. I want to hear new stuff. So do I tell it Velvet Underground, then it quits playing so damn much??

I'm gonna' try it.

Oh kay. Now I want it to give me a bunch of brit-a-billy. (I just made that up. But I tricked you, didn't I? I made you think I know stuff).

And Oh My God the Crockpot

I had this revelation. I mean, maybe it wasn't so revolutionary as I think, but, ahem, It occurred to me that maybe the wrong approach is making recipes in the crock pot. So far I have been displeased by my crock pot efforts. They have consisted of artichokes, mac & cheese and chili. The chili was the best thing so far. Not that the artichokes were bad, but I grilled them once, and I don't think I'll ever come up with a satisfactory alternative to the artichoke grilling. Grilled Artichokes is boss. Anyway--I've been thinking lately that the crock pot could make my life easier in some ways, and cheaper, too, so I should consider learning to use it more adequately.

So I invented a fall stew this morning that is crock potting on low as I type this.

It contains the following:
(more or less) 1 lb of left over steak, cubed
2/3 of a small peeled acorn squash, also cubed
1 small onion, chopped
1 small zucchini, sliced & halved
3 ribs of celery, chopped
1/3 c. frozen peas
small handful of wheat berries
2 giant garlic cloves chopped coarsely
bay leaf
cinnamon stick
salt, pepper
shake of cayenne pepper
bit of clove and nutmeg
2 T (+/-) tomato paste

I want it to be fragrant and wonderful. It looked like it would be. It was also quite pretty. I considered putting potatoes in it. I also considered carrots, but decided against b/c of the acorn squash. Anyway, I'm totally stoked. If it is tasty, I'm calling it "Election Stew" and going to make it every election year on Election day. This evening, Pearl and I are going to my folks' house for some nice Election Partying. We'll sit around being coy about our politics and bitching loudly about how partisan it all is.

November is Novel Writing Month

I toyed with what to call this post, since it'll undoubtedly be so totally manic since it's been like ever since I blogged. July 20? Sheeit!

Here were some of the titles in the running:

Election Selections: Mad Musings from a Frustrated Libertarian
BYOB--and other nifty slogans for breast cancer awareness bumper stickers.
Do you understand Facebook? I totally don't.
Blah Blah: Boring my friends one at a time

But I went with November is Novel Writing month since it has crested in my noggin today, since I have not done any of the 15 pages I promised myself I would have done by today. 5 pages a day x 30 days is 150 pages. So it's going to be catch up a bit, but I think I shall manage. I have good ideas and a depressed streak going for me. I'm often the most productive writer when I'm feeling a bit low.

I saw a Breast Cancer Awareness sticker this morning that had a pink ribbon in a little white oval (like the kind people get when they go to the Outer Banks) that said "ta-tas!" I loved it. I thought another fun one would be "Bring your Own Boobies!" and "Titillating." I mean, maybe these are totally trite. I mean, no maybe. They are totally trite. But such fun!!

I am deeply frustrated by this fine election we're having today. The failure of the two-party system is so deeply implicit in it, and everybody's talking about the wrong stuff. Or maybe they're talking about the right stuff, but not letting enough people talk about it. It's like the government thinks we're stoopid or something.

I'm on a crazy job search. I apply for like 2 every day. I'm so finished with my job. I am not adequately compensated. And that is most of it, but there are other things too. Since I'm boring all my friends with the play-by-play of my frustrating and burdensome quest for a new job, I'll keep it to what I've just said.

And there's facebook. Sometimes I forget that facebook is something most people check all day every day. Yesterday I changed my status to that I was weeping, and I was. That's not something that I find to be so earth-shattering. I weep fairly often. I think it is healthy. So everybody I know posted a concerned response to my staus and I was startled. It was sweet, so very sweet, but I felt all guilty and stuff for having caused so much worry. It was really nothing--just the obligatory pre-menstrual weeping. I've wept a bit today already and will likely continue to do so. Anyway--I am really confused about facebook. The people I know who are supposed to be confused by it seem to get it way, way better than I do.

Maybe I am a luddite deep in my soul. Tuff. I'm applying for a job with Apple, Inc. later today. That's right. I want to increase Steve Jobs' wealth so that Obama can spread it all around and McCain can be like, "I have more houses than he does."

Go Vote, People!!

And Look for more-frequent updates.

What I just realized about my Blog

First, I want to express why I think that writing is my art of choice. I never tire of reading my own words. I re-read each e-mail, I just read the last dozen or so blog posts I've put here.

When I have considered other artistic pursuits, I have been moodily turned-off by the notion of absorbing my own work.

I have jokily talked all summer of starting a band with my siblings, but that's just an excuse to hang out together, and to use my garage to its more, um, young? fun? romanticized? purpose. The thought of hearing the songs I write played back after I sing them to myself actually causes some serious anxiety. I always HATED critique in art class. It felt so invasive and primitive.

For some reason, critique in writing classes was exhilarating and awesome. Maybe because I thought we were talking about something? I don't know. But I know it was.

Anyway, one of the luxuries of loving the construction of one's own sentences is that I just really ENJOYED noticing that for the last 3 months (at least), about every other blog I've written has said basically the same thing about coping with adulthood.

I'm going to work on that.

Don't quit reading this silly blog, if you've been feeling fed up of my whining and self-absorption. I think I can promise some pretty interesting fiction writing soon. I've got some thinks in the works. YESSSSS.

I hate my job and the coffee there.

People who shop on the internet are the most endlessly passive-aggressive people in the whole freaking world. Plus, everybody hates car dealerships, and if you're not right in front of the shopper, it's a lot harder to make him love you with your winning personality and surpassing cuteness.

The coffee here, though the woman in charge of it claims that it is the second-most-expensive commercial coffee available, is the worst swill I have ever sipped.

Quitcherbitchin, you say. You're right. I should quit complaining and just be pleased that it's free.

I think I shall risk offending the aforementioned person-in-charge-of-coffee and bring my own coffee maker & fine grounds. No more CVM mochas* for me!

*CVM mocha: 6 oz black coffee, 2 oz phony powdered creamer, 1/8 of a packet of hot cocoa. Add sugar or sweetner if you like. It's almost drinkable.

I like rain, but on the Fourth of July????

?! I was all psyched to do a barbecue.

I always want to spell Barbecue with a Q. Now i wish I could go shopping. And nap the day away. :-(

Alas.

How do the wealthy get wealth?

Since I have joined the ranks of the gainfully employed (don't get me wrong, I have always worked, always been employed, never before as gainfully as now, but still), and since I lived in poverty for an unfortunate period of time, and since I developed a deep seed of greed, I have been looking around me.

A lot of people work really, really hard and barely scrape by. Shop at Wal Mart, drive junky cars, live in passable homes that can't get sorely-needed renovations in a timely fashion. They're planning to use the equity in their home for their retirement. These folks look forward to yard sale season, go to church, have decent credit and are genuinely good people. I come from a family full of such people.

But some people work their faces off for about 20 of their most energetic years and along the way become wealthy, well-to-do, upper-upper-middle class. They have tons of dough squirreled away for retirement. They own beautiful homes with nice furniture and classy autos. They can afford subscriptions to fashion and gourmet magazines and the best cable package, new computers every year and the $50-$150 bottle of Tequila/Gin/Vodka/Whiskey instead of the nasty $8 one that needs to be diluted to be drinkable. They order beautiful pieces of furniture and jewelry to give as wedding gifts from shiny catalogues and use American Express cards which get paid off, in full, every month. They are also folks who go to church and are genuinely good. I have met several families of such people.

Neither of these two groups work harder than the other. There is nothing better about one than the other in the final, philsophical analysis. But wouldn't you rather belong to the latter group? I sure would. I'm not thinking I will ever be Martha Stewart--that woman is a bottomless well of opportunism, energy, savvy & WORK, but I want to be able to HELP Pearl with college. I want to have the resources to help take care of my parents in their aging so that their small estate for which they have worked their whole lives will not be absorbed by a nursing home.

So what's the difference?

Here're the only things I can come up with: what they do with their excesses and disciplined saving habits.

Those of us who just get by, we have little windfalls--tax returns, bonuses at work, unexpected inheritances of a couple thousand bucks. What do we do with them? We pay off a credit card, or buy a few gallons of paint or a fresh toilet or a new dishwasher or put it down on a new washer/dryer set, because the 700-year-old set we inherited from our grandmother's grandmother has finally puked--then we put the rest in checking, waiting for when it is needed. None of those things are wrong or bad, but they're not think-ahead kinds of things to do.

People who wind up rich save, save, save. They max out IRAs and contribute the max % to their 401K at work. They look for ways to build passive income. I think the IRS calls that kind "unearned" and taxes it more. They buy a few well-researched stocks with their few hundred extra dollars, then those few hundred extra can buy more stocks and can grow into thousands extra. It's not as mystifying as you think it is. Starbucks closed at just over $15/share on the first, and at the end of June, Hershey Foods stock was only at $37/share.

And there are free ways to learn about that stuff. My credit union offers free financial consultations. INGdirect offers a free high interest savings account (it earns 3%APY) and a very user-friendly, gradual entrance approach to investing in stocks through Sharebuilder. A friend introduced me to The Motley Fool which is a bunch of articles written about investing in plain English by entertaining, clever folks. At the end of each article, the writer-bio gives a bit of info about the kinds of stocks that particular person owns. NPR's Marketplace segments can be downloaded in podcast form, and are an extraordinarily deep well of information.

Home Equity: In the latter category above, I would be willing to bet big dollars (which is something those in that category would likely not do) that when they buy a new house and sell one, they do not roll every penny of equity into their new house to get a lower mortgage payment. They instead take ten or twenty (or more) thousand dollars and put it in a high yield Mutual fund, CD or they invest it in stock. Maybe they put it down on a rental property or make another physical investment that will appreciate.

Making choices like these, I can see how in a much shorter time than one might expect (10 or 20 years instead of 50), one can come out in a really good spot of the world of personal finance.

So here's my process to both resurrect my soiled credit and become one of the latter category: baby steps. I started by paying my bills on time, paying ahead where applicable. By forcing myself to consider non-necessary purchases for a week before making them. After several months of that, I started using low-balance credit-repair type credit cards. Using them responsibly but carrying balances (small ones, under $20--I don't think they care how much interest you're paying, just that you're paying it). I got a car loan on a pre-owned car. Car loans are equally arguably a super or a retarded financial choice. But for me, it's about my credit, not about my investments, because I don't have any of those yet. I force myself to save $200/month to an interest-earning account. That's not a ton of money, but right now I can't afford more. And before the summer is out, I will own some stocks. I'm doing reading and research and looking around me first. In August, I'll be eligible for my 401K through work. By winter, I'll own at least one CD. By 2010's end, I'll buy my mortgage from my dad, do some renovating, sell it, move in town and invest some of my equity. Where? Who knows. I don't think I have landlord's chops. But I might be able to be a flipper. I have an eye for design and potential. Who knows--by then perhaps I'll be a stockmarket guru and writing for Motley Fool myself.

at the lip of a downward spiral

Today is the first day I feel like myself again. Since our little run-in with the law, I have been sort of revelling in self-pity.

Despite Cash Bash (where I got money, free food & booze and an iPod Nano just for selling some Subarus!!), hanging out with groovy peeps, QT with Ms. P, getting at least one new fan of my blog and having some small successes at work.

I tried to explain to my mom and sister earlier why I think it is healthy to allow periods of wallowing in the dark of self-loathing & pity. It did not work. I told them I'd be even more insane if I didn't. I do not think they were impressed (or convinced).

For example: I made up this thing that I say when I burp or fart: It's like a parody of the 23rd Psalm. "Pardon me, for yea though I belch in the valley of the shadow of gastro-intestinal anguish, I shall fear no flatulence." My sister told me that I must be quoting Monty Python. She said that tomorrow I may admit that I'd made it up about making it up.

Who gave the DVD players brains?

There's this fairly marvellous feature in my DVD player--it always begins where it left off. But when it leaves off on the main screen, it begins at the beginning of the previews. Who made this happen? Who's the genius of marketing and memory and many other things I can't begin to remember?

Pearl's first run-in with the law.

My mom and sister and I took Pearl to Hershey Chocolate World Saturday.

Then on the way home, we stopped at one of my all-time favorite eating establishments in Carlisle, Scalles. I would recommend it, but I can no longer bear the thought of doing so.

It was 2pm. There were not a lot of other people at Scalles.

Pearl was playing one of her fun toddler games which involved running between the table and the bathroom. It was making me nuts and scared, so I made her sit in a high chair. Pearl hates nothing more than encapsulation.

Pearl was screaming, at the top of her lungs, for like maybe 2-and-a-half minutes.

It used to be a good idea to take Ms. Pearl off to the bathroom or outside or something to get her to relax. Those tactics no longer work, in fact they often make it worse. She is stubborn and loves to make me look bad in public.

The owner of Scalles came over and said, "Hey. What's the problem over here? Nobody wants to hear that" to Pearl. It was funny and it startled her, so she shut up for like 20 seconds.

Then the owner went to where we could see him watching us and stood there, glaring.

When, about 1-and-a-half minutes later, Pearl finally started to seem like she'd relax, the owner came and asked me if I could take her outside and get her calmed down. I was hot and tired and hungry and annoyed by the negative energy emanating from his skinny shoulders, so I grabbed Pearl, put her under my arm and told my mom to call me when she and my sister were finished and I'd come get them. I bumped Pearl's head on the door as I left.

My mom, also annoyed (and sympathetic to the plight of a child who may or may not behave on no recognizable schedule), said, "No. We'll come too."

So they did. We left. We put enough money on the table for the food we'd consumed. Only 1/3 of the food had come to the table.

I took Pearl home and tried (to no avail) to get her to nap.

30 minutes later, a police officer came to my door. He told me I had to call the Carlisle cops.

I called the Carlisle cops and spoke to the NICEST police officer EVER. Officer Darhower. The owner of Scalles had called the cops on me, telling the officer the worst parts of the story to make me look like some white-trash weirdo who makes a habit of rolling on her food bills. Officer Darhower indicated that the reason for the call was that the owner of Scalles would like the bill to be paid.

I explained to the officer that I'd gladly pay the bill if the owner of Scalles would deliver the food to my door. I explained that the owner of Scalles had asked me to leave.

The officer explained that it was actually my choice to leave, and the owner of Scalles had just asked me to take my unruly child outside and get her under hand.

Silly me.

I was very angered and weeping through all of this. It stressed me out in a way I can't remember being stressed out as a parent so far--and being a parent is fucking stressful.

I may be excessively sensitive to the ways in which people who are not caring for children, working full time, keeping a house, and paying all the bills ALL by themselves judge the bits of my parenting style that come into public view. In fact, I know I am. But I don't think it's wrong to want privacy and tolerance from people in the World.

I don't go around telling couples who make out in public to stop because I'm really deprived, and it's unbearable for me to watch. I don't go around asking people with too little clothes and too much flesh to get dressed because they're grossing me out. I don't ask people to stop smoking or doing other things which may or may not irritate any number of other human beings. I endure my own irritation, most of the time, with a smile. Or if I am incapable of doing so, I absent myself.

So Officer Darhower called the owner of Scalles and then called me back, saying that the owner of Scalles was REALLY concerned about the bump to little Pearl's head. And that I'm welcome to come back to the restaurant if I come settle my bill. They'd saved my food in the refrigerator. Wasn't that big of them?

Blog Envy

Okay. I know why I do not read other people's blogs.

INSANE JEALOUSY.

My blog is so boring and un-funny. Other people write funny blogs. Even other people named April. In Wisconsin. Right Here on Blogger.

I have serious blog envy and I am linking her over on the right, because she is cool and she has my name.

How many uncool Aprils do you know?

Toaster Ovens & Stranger Than Fiction

I LOVE the movie Stranger Than Fiction, and as I'm watching it, I've noticed that the apartments reflect each character's personality.

Harold Crick's apartment is full of IKEA's minimalist tables and vintage late 70s/early 80s half-upholstered seating that is really geometrical. Mustard and Beige and Mossy Green. It's in a yellow brick building, all squares and big windows. It feels very 80s/Miami Vice/smoky lighting. Like those Molly Ringwald movies. John Hughes? Right. That guy.

His co-worker, Dave's apartment is in a concrete building with very, um, futuristic? lines. He eats vegetables that look like they were grown on Mars.

Ana Pascal's apartment is in a house--on the second floor of a row house. Her furnishings are eclectic and draped in beautiful tapestries from mixed eras--present, 60s, etc. Beautiful Orange and pink and yellow and turquoise. The lighting feels organic.

Also--this movie is plain beautifully written. I've heard Emma Thompson talk about "honoring good writing." It seems to me that she chooses movies that are extraordinarily well-written. Have you ever seen Treasure Planet?? It's a Disney film. It's FUN and good. Emma Thompson does the voice of the captain. She says, "I said something rather good this morning. What was it?... A ludicrous parcel of drivelling galloots. There you have it: poetry." I love literary movies. I love literary people.

Today, I replaced my toaster oven. I was trying to live without one. I was trying to just go with my regular Toaster. In the place I lived before here, I had just a toaster oven, no toaster. Then it caught on fire shortly after I moved here, so I bought a toaster because the one I wanted was on sale, and thought I'd do without the toaster oven. But I adore toaster ovens. They help. You can make small oven-meals in them without warming up the full-sized oven and wasting all that energy. And now that the weather is, forgive the language, FUCKING hot, it's great to be able to use just a cubic foot of HOT instead of 7 cubic feet of HOT when I make freezer pizza or jalapeno poppers or anything else that is small enough to go in the Toaster oven.

My friend Katney says that she has endured Ridicule because of her toaster oven. She has heard folks say, "It's not the eighties anymore, dude."

I'm sorry ridiculors. You are wrong. Toaster ovens are better than almost all other small kitchen appliances. They especially trump Microwaves. Microwaves are the work of Satan.

Convection is cool. Maybe someday I'll have a bunch of convection ovens and a beautiful, cast-iron, professional-grade Gas Range.

I also dig the front-loading washing machine. It truly does marvelous work. It makes clothing clean, but makes it look less-worn-out. Especially if it already looks worn out. I have to say. The only thing about living in the suburbs I wouldn't absolutely trade in if I moved in town is on-site laundry. I LOVE having laundry at home. Only thing is I wish it were either upstairs or in the basement. I know. Poles. But I am a woman of many polar distinctions and tastes. Nobody's holding a gun to you and making you read this. And if they are, well, thank you. But I see no reason to be so extreme.

Anyway. I think I wanted to say something more philosophical about my toaster oven, instead of analyzing the appliances in my life.

Update on my man hating: I am this close to starting to spell all words ending in men myn or min, depending. Womyn, Specimin.

Update on my urban/suburban quandary: I would like to live in town. I would be safer and happier. I'm having a hard time being patient, but I want to be. Patience is a virtue I do not yet have.

Update on Pearl: She had perfect potty-usage yesterday. Near-perfect potty-usage today, and her slip-up was my fault, not hers. And even though she's even not feeling all that well, she is a fabulously loving and calm. My new work schedule helps her with that.

What do we become?

This morning, I woke at twenty to six, shut off the a/c, padded downstairs. I unrolled my Yoga mat for the first day of my mid-year-resolution: Yoga at least 4 mornings a week. 45 minutes of Yoga later, I put on the coffee and went out for the Sunday paper, which I signed up for at the supermarket because of the $20 gift card they offered. I unloaded the dishwasher and had coffee and the paper on the porch while the air was still wet, before the sun had her way with all of us.

Little Pearl came downstairs at around 7:30. She got her juice and her freggie and began her day with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory A la Mr. Burton.

I put in some laundry, wrote some lists and planned the menu for tomorrow evening when my sister, Ellen and her new boyfriend, John will join us for Dinner. Then I remembered the Challah I bought the other day and made some french toast for our breakfast. Pearl still preferred a hot dog or Dog!, though she fed her toast to the air and the couch.

We saw Kung Fu Panda. It was great.

The point of this minutae is that I am really happy with this day. 8 hours later, I'm really still energized from my Yoga with Shiva Rae, and I'm looking forward to dinner at my parents' house.

A friend just told me on the phone about his, er, encounter with a young lass on a Porche 911 in an alley in our Fair Nation's Capitol. A few months ago, I think the tale would have made me rather jealous and nostalgic for my own days of steamy encounters. Today, though, his story made me worried and glad that I no longer have those worries.

I've been giving myself space and permission to really hate men lately. To really bad-mouth them like my angry-bra-burning-super-political sisters and mothers of yore did. I have been angry in a way I never wanted to be, in a way that would have disgusted me because of the ways in which "feminism" seems to fail to notice or accept responsibility for the way it has affected (ahem, confused) men. I am still disgusted, but I am healing. It is easy to be angry at men because I work with a lot of them. It is also easy to pity them. And it is easier than it has ever been to fancy myself in a domestic relationship (with a man) wherein I accept the "female" role. It is easier to get peace with the hate when I indulge it. It is easier to see ways around it, to imagine the possibility that not all men are ridiculous swine.

I hope this process seems obvious to some of you. I hope that more of you have never felt the need to hate men, though they are loathesome creatures on a great many levels. I imagine some men feel the very same way about women, and with good cause. But they are not allowed to express it. If they do, they are suspected of the desire to beat women or to rape them, and these are unspeakable things.

I used to romanticize unhappiness, depression, self-hate. I have always been able to barrel through those periods of my lfe, but lately I have been seeing fewer of them.

So what do we become? Are yoga and a slow morning the answer to all of my problems of adulthood? Of identity? Where does this peace for today come from? I have become, in a short almost-four-years just about EVERYTHING I never wanted to be. A mother, a (looks like) permanent resident of South Central Pennsylvania, sentimental--openly and sloppily, a junior spinster, a man-hating feminist, a car-salesperson, a manager, celibate, complacent, a fan of chick flicks, fat and happy.

I suppose the good news is that I have not actually become my mother. Yet.

A Pen that lights up

At work last evening, there was a pen on my desk that said on the side, "Jesus is Light Daryl and Barbara." It was clearly a favor from some pair of zealots' wedding.

Slightly cool about this pen: the top quarter of the pen was a clear plastic cylinder with what appeared to be a DNA helix in it (ironic, right??!), and there was a little button below the clear plastic part that, when pushed, lit up the little DNA helix with this lovely bluish light.

But to me, there was no dispute about whether or not to keep and use the pen. The punishable "Jesus is Light" is far too corny to grace my coffee cup full of pens.

So I gave the pen to the boy who sits in the cubicle on the other side of my cubicle's wall who does--in earnest--believe that Jesus is Light.

Later, I found that my other colleague left it on my desk, thinking that I'd have a quandary: the pen is cool, it lights up. The pen is uncool, it's about jesus. Keep it? Get rid of it?

If I had know that part of the story, I might have kept it as a souvenir of the fact that somebody besides me had put that much thought into my pen taste.

John Cusack & Nick Hornby

I'm rereading High Fidelity because it's great, and because I just rewatched the movie--or, after three consecutive evenings of falling asleep at various key points, put together something like a viewing--and there is, surprisingly, nothing at all offensive about the way Nick Hornby's books and the movies made from them coexist in my head.

Now, and because my New Car has a six CD changer in the dash, I am analyzing myself as an appreciator of music. Here's what's in my six CD changer, in order:

1. Amy Winehouse's Back to Black
2. She & Him Volume 1 (it's incredible how MySpace can make even famous people seem kinda' normal!)
3. The Proclaimers, This is the Story
4. Robyn Hitchcock, I Often Dream of Trains
5. Joanna Newsom, The Milk-Eyed Mender
6. The Shins, Chutes Too Narrow Which is the only Shins Album I can't seem to get enough of.

Reading High Fidelity makes me wonder the following things:
1. Would Rob, Dick & Barry approve of this selection?
2. Why would I give a shit if they did or didn't?
3. Why is it that on this reading, I'm more focused on the music than the way in which the book seems to be Cliff's notes for the (often) dysfunctional workings of the male brain?
4. Why don't I have time for farting around with songs of my own anymore?
5. What's with the English snobbery toward the word "horny" when they use words like "snog" and "shag" for adults-only activities?

I've also been thinking of the ways in which my music taste has calmed down a bit over the years. I was, in my (much) younger incarnation, one of those obnoxious people who considered themselves "punk" about 10 years after anybody was authentically punk. By the time my posturing occurred, everything about punk had watered down a bit. Though I will say, in my own defense, and maybe even to my credit, that I was aware of all of that, even then, and I did try VERY HARD, which now seems far less admirable than it did then, but isn't it true what they say about hindsight?

In some ways, what I like now is (appallingly and startlingly) like what I listened to before I could choose, my mom's music: '80s radio country, and the AM station 960 which was then "The greatest hits of the forties, fifties and sixties!" She also likes and liked The Carpenters, Barry Manilow (gasp!), and Neil Sedaka.

I do still listen to Led Zeppelin's IV from time to time as well as Green Day's Kerplunk and The Violent Femmes, which are still far less hardcore than the music I convinced myself I liked 12-15 years ago.

There are some living affections for me, best among them They Might Be Giants.

Where do I find the time to read?

In the time during which I am not doing things I should be doing, like now, when I should be cleaning, washing bed linens, working on a pasta salad, etc.

my life is REEEEEEEALLY exciting

I wish I'd been saving up millions of interesting things to say. But I haven't.

lately, I've been daydreaming and brainstorming about my linen closet, the presentation I'm supposed to give at the Pennsylvania Poets' society conference on May 2, the creative writing classes I'm supposed to teach this summer at Carlisle Arts Learning Center, how to fix my house, how to save money, and how to eat only the food that is required to sustain my life without feeling like I'm NOT indulging culinarily, being a FEMALE car salesperson, how to get employed from home without going in the toilet financially.

She&Him: Volume 1--that Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward thingy I alluded to in the last blog that I heard Teri Groce talking about--is fucking awesome. If you don't have it, get it.

Get The Shins (forever--they'll change your life, just ask Zack Braff)

Been watching a lot of Spongebob & Northern Exposure.

Spongebob is awesome. Everybody should have such a great attitude: I'm Ready!

Love,
-April

Should the blog have a particular topic?

I've been thinking. Maybe if I want my blog to serve a purpose, I should use it to do something that I HAVE THE TIME to do, instead of trying to think of it as writing practice and possible venue for the rougher draftings of the novel pages, short story tries, etc.

Wouldn't this blog be cool if it were devoted to reviewing movies? Kids' movies? Surf's Up was fantastic. It is satirizing this other movie that I didn't see. It's smart, funny and extremely well-casted.

I heard this thing on Fresh Air about Zooey Deschanel and how she's also a singer. If I'd seen Elf I would have already known that.

See how writing only about movies wouldn't work?

Then I thought I could spend a lot of time writing about Sales. But I don't know anything about Sales.

Food. But the Food network is already saying it. So is Epicurious.com, recipegoldmine.com, foodnetwork.com, marthastewart.com, et al.

So I will continue to write about whatever occurs to me.

And it will continue to be boring and vain sometimes.

And I will continue to feel conflict over the whole idea of blogging and whether or not I'm the kind of self-promoter who does it. I am. But I have guilt. Thanks Protestantism. I am so glad I was raised in your clutches.

I think I converted my brother to the Libertarian way of thinking this past week.

This boy I used to love asked me if I would vote for Obama. I said I would not. He said I should vote for Hillary because she is a girl (do you see why I no longer love him?).

Why doesn't Hillary have a last name? All the other candidates are known by their last names. Hillary is just Hillary. Is the notion that women will not always have the same last name so deeply ingrained? I don't have a last name at work. I only introduce myself as April, even though I love my last name.

Busy Busy Busy Busy

Sometimes, yes. Being a grown up does suck immense amounts of donkey schlong. But being a grown up rocks sometimes:

When I make decisions that will save money (canceling the cable aspect of my bundle and cutting the extra media cost in half, changing the cell phone bill, making more coffee at home).

Small successes at work (beating the senior member in sales during March).

Being able to replace the broken washer and dryer.

Light at the end of the EXTREMELY bad credit tunnel.

Small, nice things that make my highly overwrought mother's obscenely difficult life just a wee bit easier (cooking dinner sometimes and enrolling Pearl in day care for two days a week).

Staying up late with Northern Exposure and a glass of wine (that was on sale).

Doing all of these things and still being able to drive to Baltimore on my day off to visit my younger, fabulous sister, get Pearl new clothes for Spring, and go to Trader Joe's for good cheese, inexpensive organic milk and marvelous produce.

Oh sometimes life is just good.

Craigslist & what's happening to me?

Something has happened to me. I don't know what it is, but Craigslist is no longer my favorite thing in the world. Wow.

Perhaps I am suddenly eager to be upwardly mobile. In all areas of life, but especially financially. And perhaps this yearning for upward mobility has cast a shade of snobbery over the notion of Craigslist and its grassroots, nonprofit shtick. Or perhaps it is because I no longer have an urban Craigslist, there's not a lot of super interesting stuff and pages, pages, pages of it. Harrisburg "gigs" are all links to those "work from home" ads, and the job postings are few! Instead of at least one page under each heading each day, there are 0-3. Maybe 4 or 5 on some select days.

I've sworn off internet dating. I have a profile over at OkCupid, but rarely check it (unless I get a message about having a message), and sometimes when it is late, I get a kick out of answering those personality questions, taking quizzes, seeing what OkCupid has to say about me, and skulking around the "Who's viewed you" profiles, often being positively horrified by arrogance, ignorance, sub-literacy or blatant lies.

Anyway, I was just trolling the Craigslist Personals. I used to get a big kick out of them. But today, they were annoyingly transparent and pathetic. I was also surprised to find that an overwhelming majority of the ads were from very, very young men (under 21) looking for "the one," men my age (25-35) hoping to start a family, and middle-aged to older men (42-59) looking for "NSA" encounters and/or discreet kittens on the side.

Perhaps the reason I found the personals so distressing today is because I have not been feeling so malcontent in my aloneness lately. I mean, who wouldn't like to get laid?, but I guess I've just determined that a love relationship is probably not in the cards for me until Pearl's older and all the men who are now married to the beautiful, vapid girls they dated in high school are divorced.

In fewer words, I didn't feel like one of the posters today. I didn't have an intense surge of empathy or of desire or of anything besides pity, really.

Additionally, I have been experiencing a great amount of feminist rage lately. I am very upset with men. All of them. They are whiny and obnoxious mostly. Except I really, really like them.

Anyway. What's happening to me? I feel like it's Puberty the Second. Everything's changing, and it's doing so without my permission.

Saving Grace

This show is totally boss.

Holly Hunter Rules, and what I really wanted to say is how much the first part of this episode made me want to take line dancing lessons. How much fun would that be?!

Anybody want to take them with me??

the lovely hair salon

My friend from High School, Justin Kelly, owns this salon, Studio 3. It's this fabulous high-ceilinged space over near the Target Plaza in Carlisle. He's got his own line of products and tons of Ikea furniture.

He says he's living the American Dream. He has a house and two dogs and a partner and a Volvo and his own highly successful business. If I wanted him to do my hair, I'd have to book 2 years in advance.

And I LOVE giving him and his stylist Jeannean my money. And I LOVE the whole grown up hair salon experience. I had a cut and highlight, and it cost $80, which is probably more than I've spent on ALL the haircuts I've had in the past 10 years, but I swear--I got my head shampooed and conditioned not once but TWICE with this awesome Studio 3 Mint shampoo, and the most excellent moments of utter self-indulgence and femaleness and estrogen-laden energy.

I'm finding that indulging all of this womanhood, or maybe not womanhood because I am a woman every day and I'm mostly comfortable with that. Maybe I mean that I'm experiencing a new kind of comfort with my own femininity, my own interest in prettiness, in nice hairdos, in nice creams, lotions and skin treatments. I have started moisturizing my face and getting excited about eyeshadow, mascara, moisturizing conditioners. I'm finding all of this to be both an extension of my newly realized militant feminism and in reaction to the fact that my job puts me in the presence of almost exclusively men on an hour-to-hour basis. And the whole thing kind of freaks me out. I'm not comfortable in this comfort or in my level of involvement in the comfort.

I have to admit that it's also a bit about Pearl. How am I going to be a mom to a very feminine little girl who will eventually have very feminine little friends who will pressure her to get her eyebrows waxed? How will I negotiate? How will I navigate unless I learn myself?

I don't want Pearl to be 20 before she learns that people actually do wax their eyebrows. I also don't want her to be shocked. Perhaps I should like it if she found the whole thing to be an horribly barbaric expression of cultural vanity, but I'm not holding my breath. I think she might possess her father's disinterest in a critical inner life which is another thing I shall have to learn to negotiate.

Mazel Tov.

Dillsburg & Fates

Tonight I drove back from York via Pennsylvania Rte 74 N.

York is a gorgeous town. It's huge, urban, fabulous. There is a vacuum hospital. Can you imagine? I don't need to imagine anymore!

But about 20 miles later, 74 cuts through Dillsburg, and as I drove through I was swept back in time a dozen years. I was in high school and not long for my profession as a Christian. I'd switched churches and started hanging out with this girl Lorraine. She and I met from Bible Quizzing. Bible Quizzing is the only thing from church I still miss. Competitive memorization and smartness. Boss.

Anyway, Lorraine's family (which was just her and her mom) had more money than any family I'd met to date. We ate a lot of Crab Rangoon and Ben&Jerry's from the Giant grocery about 1/2 mile from the house L and her mom shared. The money thing is only relevant inasmuch as the exoticness of people-with-money I perceived and the awe I felt. They weren't people who acted like they had money, and now I'm not even sure they had soooo much money, it's just that they had more money than anybody I'd ever met.

I've lost track of a lot of friends, but Lorraine is one of the only friends I've consistently regretted losing track of.

And recently, I've been selling cars to some of her High School cohorts.

I think this is what the Cosmos does when it wants me to relocate old friends.

Sympathetic Roast

I dreamed last night--the image has been with me all day--that I baked a live pig. Actually a Piglet because it fit nicely in my little 2 gallon dutch oven. It was contained similarly to a lobster (with pretty colored gum bands) when I purchased it from the store.

The piglet baked for hours, plain, smelling fabulous, but emerged from the oven still alive. It wasn't squealing (I read someplace that you don't hear in dreams. I don't think that's true because I heard all kinds of horrifying things in one of my pre-Pearl's-birth nightmares), but it was wincing as we cut into it, its flesh did not bleed but did not juice; and there was a pulse. The most distressing things were the Piglet's eyes: expressive and alert and begging, "No! Don't cut me! Don't eat me!"

Is this some kind of plea from my psyche to become a vegetarian?

Since the recurring nightmare of my childhood that ended in my being chased through a giant labryinthine rubber mask shop by a rotten man, there hasn't been such a vivid and plaguing image from my dreams.

SNOW DAYS

Today's a snow day. Today is now several days ago, the day on which it snowed.

I had nostalgia on my way to work this morning about the glory that was. Snow days used to be marvelous, peaceful days ensconced in family, leisure and reflection. Sometimes also baking. Some of my favorite memories of my late grandma took place on snow days and involved much yeast, flour & kneading. I know now what an act of generosity it was for my mom to allow her kitchen to be hijacked by a woman who never really accepted her. I am glad she did. This is the sort of thing I should tell her. It will make her feel vindicated. "You know, like in the theory of retribution," said my 21-year-old co-worker.

As I inched along the highway behind silly snow drivers bracing myself for the angst there'd be at my job where we are required to show up especially on snow days, I wondered why snow days, like so many other things, are soiled by the process of becoming a grown up.

I was thinking today (actually today, no snow) about what age I'd go back to if I could, and you know--know all the stuff I know now.

I think I would be 18 again. The world was fresh. I was unjaded and out of high school. I had enough money for everything I needed. I had an apartment, a car and good friends. Life couldn't have been better.

Not that life now is bad, it's just that I'm kind of annoyed by this whole grown-up thing. I totally dig being a mommy, but I could live without so many bills, or with two incomes. But I don't really want any of the other liabilities of partnership. So basically what I'm saying is that I'm an un-satisfiable whiner. Yup. That's me.

Oh yeah--and the walking definition of the self-indulgent.

I'm so...

busy. Blindingly so. Weeks and weeks have escaped without my notice.

My mind is mush. It's barely after 9pm and it feels to me like 2am after some late nights.

There is still so much more to do!

Today I bought file boxes for establishing my files. I've been seriously remiss in my use and maintenance of invoices, organization & adult responsibility.

I also cleaned up my house. It was filthy. It was distracting to live here. I'm about half way through the laundry with 2 12-hour work days coming up. I've started replacing my light bulbs with the high-efficiency ones. They're a little more expensive, but I remember a time when they were $14/bulb. I bought 2 for $6 at Target recently. And they have like an 8 year life running 4 hours a day!

Ms. Pearl is so cool. I took her with me tonight to work--it's my day off, but we were having a 2009 Forester preview night and some of my customers were showing up--and she played so well with this fantastic family to whom I sold a car a few months back. She's such a polite, delightful child. Surely she's intensely busy, and has the normal 2-year-old stuff, tantrums, lack of fear, etc. But she's such a little individual.

She makes me proud to be her mommy. She makes me want to be a mommy again. I don't really think that's in the cards for us, but it's true. I could dig a more-traditional family experience, and I bet Pearl would get a big kick out of having a sibling. But totally unlikely.

This is what happens when April doesn't sleep much, when April is working too too hard, when she doesn't keep up with her friends--she writes boring, boring, boring blogs.

She also has intense, intense dreams & anxiety. She is considering psychotherapy, and considering a full-time switch to discussing herself in the third person...

I am a greedy capitalist

It's painful and rhetorically complicated to admit that. But it's true. In a perfect world, I would be a raging liberal and be comfortable with that. "liberal," as a rhetorical tool is a heavy, effective, efficient one. It increases my credibility with people I love, admire & respect.

Politics is not a defining factor for people I enjoy, admire, respect or love. The world is too gray for me to believe that a label, "liberal" or "conservative" actually means anything terribly important. But I might be alone in that assessment.

I do not define myself as "conservative." But I think the reason for my avoidance of that particular label is the rhetorical weight it has. "Conservative" means everything associated with evil: anti-humanist, hateful, narrow. But I am a registered libertarian which means that I am so completely involved with peoples' right to choose their thoughts, persuasions, loves, medical care, use of money, use of firearms--really, everything involved with living--unconditionally.

The underlying principle, besides freedom (which ain't a state like Maine or Virginia, instead a state of mind) is trust in humankind: the notion that people are inherently good, or if they aren't, they'll behave themselves because of their inherent notions of right and wrong.

Unfortunately, following unconditional freedom to its logical end means making few laws. Means allowing all free speech, gun rights, homosexual marriage, prostitution, drug and abortion rights and other things that "liberals" and "conservatives" view as offensive or wrong.

My girl knows right from wrong. She hides things behind her back. She apologizes and gives sweet hugs when I express anger, disappointment or sadness. And she does not even know how to go pee in the potty on a regular basis yet. She has a vocabulary of 20 words. She does not pronounce all the names of the grownups who're involved daily in her life. To me, that is powerful evidence of an inherent moral compass.

Aside from sociopathy, how can we fear absolute freedom? And even in our present state of governance, sociopaths are to be feared. But they are the exception not the rule.

I am afraid of laws. Laws could limit my ability to work myself into a work-from-home life. Laws could limit my free access to the internet. Laws could insist that I make reproductive choices I might not otherwise make. What good are these things?

It's not really possible

That almost 10,000 people have visited this blog, is it? I have that counter thing set to "unique hits," too.

I got it here.

Any savvier-than-I folks care to weigh in on this matter? Jim already told me where to get a good web counter, but I forgot, so I just did a google search. You know, when i was a girl, google was not a verb.

By the way, folks. It's snowing. Don't that just beat the band?! It's a good thing my dad lent me the giant car that sucks in the snow & has transmission issues, since the fan in my car's broken.

Maybe I should be like that woman who was in serious credit card debt and started a website/blog soliciting donations to help her out of it, making absurd (but funny) promises about how she would not spend her credit once she got it paid down. I mean, if she can get out of like 100K of credit card debt, surely I could raise 20K to buy a car as a single mom, right?

What's more--that woman got a job working as a fashion writer from her desperation and financial irresponsibility! WTF?! I can't find this woman online, but I read about her in some print medium. Maybe one of you 10,000 readers saw the same piece and will better remember where to find it. Post a comment link, fools.

Speaking of single-mom-dom, here's this very affirming link for folks who find this single mom thing amazing, or for those of you who are single moms (If there are really almost 10,000 hits, you can't all be my friends, can you?)---

In Praise of Single Moms

Thank You, Thank you very much.

It has reached the point of

exhaustion, tiredness & pain wherein I am mindlessly surfing the web, entering contests to win cars. I could win a car, then sell it to my job. I am trying to win that 09 Nissan Murano off NBC.com. Then I could buy the car I want in cash and buy an insurance policy, too. Problem(s) Solved. My car is starting to act reeeel funny. Like my last car did just before it was retired. Awesome. Thank Christ for Tax Season. Also, I am really into poking at my sinuses to figure out where the hell the pain's coming from. I think it's nasal.

The nice things: it's raining outside. I love the sound of rain. And episodes I haven't seen of Law & Order: Criminal Intent with Vincent D'Onofrio & Kathryn Erbe are on. I don't like the ones with that guy from Sex and the City as much.

I've seen all the ads I've been missing--the ones that people talk about.

And I think I've discovered a new favorite musician. I love the song on the MacBook Air Ad. Yael Naim. I've heard her before, I think. Bitchin.

bye bye,
wish me better.

We're Sick.

This is precisely why I think blogging is vain. One has the impulse to write all kinds of minutiae that does not matter to anybody but the writer.

But it's true. We're sick. Ms. Pearl and I have the flu. She's got a fever and is napping off and on all day. I am achy and stuffy and taking lots of fluids. It's impossible for me to stay up longer than 3 hours. Day Quil and Ny Quil. Ms. Pearl's on cocktails of tylenol for fever reduction and robitussin between Tylenol doses.

Here's the thing that kind of makes me grumpy.

All week last week, two of the fellas I work with came in sick. They were all snotting and hacking all over the place. Each two days at least. Nobody told them to go home. Nobody acted like they were some kind of icky disease transmitters.

Of course, the first day I go to work all sicky, I get sent home when I'm not there for a full hour. Does that seem fair to you? My right to spread illness is less than my colleagues'?

Of all of my colleagues, I suspect I am in the least good financial position to take days off, for any reason.

Maybe it's really true that they are trying to get the illness out of the building. Maybe it is really true that they are sick of the sickness. But why send me home and not them? Why wait until I come in sick to start to try to get rid of the sickness?

Am I annoyed by this because I am constantly on guard because I am a woman and as such the rules are different for me? Am I annoyed because of the implicit double standard? Am I annoyed because I am sick and feel like utter hell? Am I annoyed because I had no patience for Pearl today?

We're sick. And we wouldn't be if the show room hadn't been filled with icky sicky for four out of six days last week. I just hope my other two colleagues don't get it. If they do and they're allowed to come to work, I am going to throw a fit. Maybe I should throw one now.

My Boss has Karaoke in her office

My boss is really fun. She's full of creative ideas and always has chocolate kicking around her office. There is unflattering speculation regarding her level of productivity. But I have few doubts.

But this Karaoke machine in her office--sober karaoke is therapeutic. Possibly cathartic.

The trick is, I think, turning off your self-censor and feeling okay about public buffoonery, especially if the place you work is unkind to your gender and makes you feel rather demoralized but strong.

In fact, it is just this delicate recipe of conflict that allows me to feel as though Karaoke in the boss' office is something that I will grow to use as therapy. There is something so freeing and mood-elevating about belting terrible early-90s soul, doing both the boy and girl part badly, in the midst of would-be-business.

I faced the wall and the skinny black window and watched the screen and thought about nothing but me, in the moment, being anything that even resembles competent when it comes to the vocals. Belting, swaying, dancing. My throat got raw.

It was exhilarating like driving too fast crooning loudly to Green Day.

The non-present-just-a-wall-away audience empowered my noise. I let it hang in my throat. It felt rich like stout. Perhaps for the same reason marginalized populations assert their presence with noise, or ruckus, or passive-aggression; I did not apologize for my warbling. I did not even feel shame (once I got started). I just sang. Into the mic with the echo-box built in. With the volume way too high.

Damnit Jim!

1. I didn't even need to watch the show, "How to Look Good Naked," only see the ads to know that it isn't anything at all how I critiqued it.

2. I am a bad friend who is apparently incapable of making phone calls.

3. I still don't want to watch "How to Look Good Naked," but I somehow feel obligated to do so in order to engage intelligently on the matter for the sake of you, Jim, and for the sake of my devoted blog readers (you know who you are).

4. I have better things to use my marvelous brain on.

5. For example: ending sentences prepositions in: edit: "I have better things on which to sic my marvelous brain." Indeed. Occasion for much more interesting adjectives. Oooh goody.

6. Isn't that word, sic, interesting?

Being a Grown Up Sucks

Because it means that my life constantly exists on two planes: excellent and nose bleed.

These are the excellent things: I threw my first body shop party solo this evening. I did well, with cards. I am not a script-follower generally. I got a solid, positive, promising lead on some consistent freelance work today. I had two decent prospects at work today. I entered the body shop order in record time, and figured out how to order some stuff I didn't know how to order before. My sisters' friends' mom, Cathy, is a very, very cool woman, and I chatted a bit with her this evening. She is inspirational because she gets paid to do art. My dearest friends in the world, Noelle and Feike, will be visiting next weekend. I have been holding myself to New Year's resolutions and being proactive in doing things that will make me happier.

These are the things that cause nose bleeds: I am broke. Poorer than I've been since moving home. Patience, I keep telling myself, Patience! I need to buy new underwear. My cat, Oolong, is [in heat, retarded, sick???] and she keeps peeing on things. She has been living in the basement for 3 days. I want to take her to the vet, but i can't afford it. She needs to be fixed. I haven't had the time to write e-mail or update this thing in 5 to 7 days. All words for numbers ten and under should be spelled out, and I have screwed that up at least 5 times today, once in the e-mail to the promising-freelancing-work-guy. I am terribly sexually frustrated. The laundry is piling up, and I have more food in the fridge than I can consume before it spoils. If only unspoiled food could be traded for cash.

Often, when I am seeing the hardest edges of my adulthood, both planes are going breakneck.

I have no philosophical mental spew to soften these edges. I have no real idea of what to do except for to keep doing.

I get that Beatle's song, "Help!" for the first time, ever.

Look Good Naked

On the TV Guide Channel, I learn more about the ways in which I am horrified by current TV offerings than I learn about what I want to watch.

My least favorite listing is Look Good Naked. Presumably, this show has a how-to format. I would also suspect that its demographic is heterosexual females aged 18-25. I have this suspicion for a number of reasons. I suppose I could watch it and find out for sure, but I am fairly certain I would be disgusted. I would probably feel bad about myself. It would also take all the fun out of this blog post.

1. Men don't care how they look naked, their partners will usually accept them unconditionally.
2. If men do care how they look naked, they probably don't need any tips on the how to.
3. Fact: men have higher metabolism than women, their bodies are designed to retain less fat.
4. I like to hope that people of substance over the age of 25 have realized that looking good naked is at the bottom of the list of necessary attributes in a partner. Or, if it is important, it is less important than it was before the age of 25.
5. There are many, many more depictions of nude or nearly nude women across cultures and publications than there are depictions of nude or nearly nude men, which is how we can guess with fair certainty what exactly they mean by "good."

Here's how to look "good" naked if you are a normal heterosexual female ages 18-25.

1. do not, under any circumstances, have a baby.
2. always do it with the lights off.
3. if you must eat, eat only things that say protien, vegetbale, fruit or water on them. No more than 1 lb of food daily, fewer than 500 calories.
4. Drink lots and lots of black coffee.
5. Smoke 4 packs of cigarettes a day.
6. Never engage in activity that may cause bruises, if you do get bruises, you should do it in the basement with the lights off.
7. Wax everything, every 3 days.
8. Save your pennies for 2 words: Gastric Bypass.

Here's how to look "good" naked if you are a filthy rich heterosexual female ages 18-25.

1. Hire a personal trainer.
2. Hire Oprah's cook.

Here's how to look good naked if you are me,

1. be me
2. don't worry about it
3. have pride in your stretch marks and hips
4. eat well

But here's the thing.

Looking good naked is totally subjective.

The TV program Look Good Naked is one of the many symptoms of the ways in which we have committed, as Americans, to a particularly unhealthy desire for sameness, narrow ideas of attractiveness and resisting individual thought.

Fried Dill Pickles!

I'm making some!

Recipe to come.

I Bought Shitting Tea!

I was at the grocery store with Pearl, right? And anybody who knows knows that shopping with a 2-year-old should get people nominated for Peace prizes--the 2-year-old and her intense social and physical discovery, the umpteen million shoppers who believe that they would do a better job being a parent to your child than you're doing, the dimwit 13-year-old cashiers and the Senior Bagging Clerks.

So I find myself in the tea/coffee Aisle. My colleague, bastard-who-did-not-create-myspace-url, has been talking up tea. But the tea at work is the dime-store variety and frankly, I am a bit of a snob. Coffee is drugs, and I'll drink tepid bathwater if somebody writes coffee on it, but tea--tea is like English or something, right? Should be savoured (see what I did there?) and enjouyed (again, less artfully). And I'm thinking, gee. I could go for some decent fruity tea for work. I wonder what's on sale!

Why I didn't just stick with Stash, I shall never understand. Oh wait. It's because I'm a cheap-ass single mother with too much to do and not enough time.

There's a beautiful red box. It has a marvelous Eastern pattern on the front. It says, "licorice," "individually wrapped," and the best, "slimming." The combination feels right and a tantrum and 15 minutes later, I own the beautiful red box. [Is it a coincidence, I wonder, that I purchased 2 red shirts and a red scarf at the Old Navy a short 2 hours later?]

I am feeling rather proud of the purchase, I am thinking, "even with my toddler, I make savvy and attractive impulse buys!" Wrong. For so many reasons.

I get home and the toddler monster is napping. I think I shall have a cup of tea. A trial run.

I read the box. I notice that the fine print looks awfully fine.

As it turns out, the tea is an "intestinal cleanser" made as a "dietary aid" during "weight loss programs."

I thought slimming was a word to get monkeys to buy stuff like coffee is a word that gets me to drink stuff. Slimming always has fine print, like, must do 500 50 lb curls daily in order for this to actually do any slimming. Right?

Not only does the tea seem to intend to deliver exactly what it's promised, there are about 4 box-sides worth of instructions. I am too afraid for the trail run. All I wanted was pomegranate or raspberry. Licorice sounded good, too!

Don't drink more than 16 ounces of this tea daily.
Don't use if pregnant or nursing.
Don't consume next to a fella named Ron.
Brew two minutes during initial doses. Eventually work up to personal taste.

I'm not making this up. (except maybe for ron.)

I took the pretty red box to work anyway.

I made a cup of tea.

I did not, as is my tradition, allow the bag to steep during the entire tea consumption. I brewed it fewer than 2 minutes.

The tea tasted a bit like warm dirt.

The tea did, in fact, make me shit.

A lot.

It also gave me gas.

Moral: check tea boxes more carefully in future. Understand implicit oxymoron in "savvy impulse buy."

This Dream I had

First, the major players:
1. A boy I know, have slept with and know I shouldn't talk to anymore. We'll call him Dilbert.
2. His Girlfriend. We'll call her Angie.
3. A boy I know, have not slept with, and to whom am not sure I should have stopped talking. We'll call him Aaron.

Cameos:
1. My dad. We'll call him my dad.
2. A swell girlfriend of mine.

So Dilbert, Angie and I are conversating. That's right, conversating. As one often does in dreams. Angie is cool. She is talking about Dilbert's later-life circumcision (In life, Dilbert is Jewish). She says, "oh, he needed it. Like drawers need bottoms." I am listening with earnest intention.

Spontaneously, Dlibert breaks up with Angie and announces that he would like to do it with me. I argue and resist, since Dilbert has behaved so badly. And I am--in real life and the dream--in utter conflict over whether or not I should like him. at all. even as a friend.

My swell girlfriend calls and tells me that her physician has told her that she has every kind of flu virus in her body, and that that is very unusual, but he has not prescribed medication.

Then as suddenly as the conversation about Dilbert's circumcision began, Dilbert and I are having [very good] sex. (In real life, Dilbert is not much of a lover.) But the whole time, I am--aware of conflict and irony in a dream in ways I have never been before--pretending that Dilbert is actually Aaron. In my dream, that is how I explain the sudden transformation of Dilbert's skills in lovemaking. Aaron is almost certainly a very good lover.

This is when my dad appears. Somehow, there is nothing at all perverted about his appearance, just odd. He comes into the room where Dilbert and I are screwing and asks me to make him a hot sauce cocktail with the two bottles of hot sauce he's brought with him. He says, "take your time." He says, "don't mind me," and means it.

Then Dilbert begins to interview me about Aaron after my dad disappears. He tells me that he loves me because I love someone who isn't him. He asks a thousand questions that I am happy--and even more greatly aroused--to answer.

I wake up just after Aaron, as a floating head, has appeared to Dilbert (Aaron has no awareness of my presence or of the nudity) and Dilbert asks him if he loves me.

Aaron, of course, does not answer before I wake.

And now I puzzle over whether or not to break my fast from him and tell him about this bizarre dream. I think I shall'nt, for I fear rejection, and his fear.

Another Busy Day at the Car Dealership

I did the Cryptoquote at work today. I often play the word games in the Harrisburg Patriot and the York Daily Record.

The quote was, "I hate the Pollyanna pest who says all is for the best." Franklin P. Adams.

The quotation is divine because it adequately reflects my rare mood of misanthropy and laziness coupled with fatigue and genuine malaise. It is also divine because it rhymes a bit. It's quippy and clever, like Constance Crawford's poetry. Constance is a member of Pennsylvania Poets and a retired English teacher. Her poems are wry and feminist and they remind me of Ogden Nash.

Sadly, I can't find anything online that could link you to info about Constance Crawford or the Pennsylvania Poets--at least not the particular PA Poets with which I am allied.

The most annoying thing about Blogging is

That I formulate these marvey ideas when I'm away from this face-color-sucking screen.

The places I often come up with these brilliantly conceived mind candies are:

1. On Test Drives
2. When my hands are immersed in soapy water
3. While Driving

Why don't I get a voice-activated dictaphone implanted in my shoulder? Good question. My answer: I am not Bill Gates.

And Speaking of Bill Gates--I am most-aggravated that none of my particularly acerbic political rants have wound up here. They always seem to get wasted on my dad. Not that my dad's a waste. It's just, well, my dad is not the whole world wide web. He's just this one guy who always tells me "[I'm] tough" when I start to follow the logic of my politics of choice (libertarianism) to its nether regions. Being a libertarian is distressing and frustrating in today's political schema because it'd be like what happened if we got Hillary all dressed up in R. Limbaugh's suit and made him wear her panties.

I had this lovely little sauna-of-mind the other day about Marcy Playground. You remember them, right? That weirdo band from the early 90s that had their little pagan/wiccan/fantasy-readers'/trendily-retro songs. I mean, that's some complicated music! It's a little self-indulgent and overdone in spots. I think it came up at the wrong time. I mean, Radiohead hadn't reached its peak of pop-saturation yet, and I bet MP got accused of riding band wagons (man-oh! I'm a pun-ishing machine).

So I was sort of involved in one of those cult-like events of football fandom recently. As you probably know, Cathy Day is publishing this book Comeback Season, and not that I've been actively setting out to get into football or something, but I guess the notion that it might be kind of cool to be a girl who likes football seems a bit less offensive to me in my old age. I mean, I am softening. My ideals are getting all squiggley around the edges. Anyway. So I went to this restaurant with some of my colleagues who were watching the big Green Bay and Seattle game on Saturday night. And I wore green. On purpose. Because they were rooting for Greenbay. ?! I know. Who's eaten my sense of self respect and irony? Is this what happens to a gal who finds herself in a part of the country that baffles her? Am I so bored? Am I so desperate for peers?

Anyway, Cathy's MySpace made me remember the only good joke I've ever heard this blockhead I work with tell:

Q: Whats the difference between a BMW and a Porcupine?


A: With a Porcupine, the Prick's on the outside.

So I'm going to be updating my little linkeys over yonder. ------->

If you want me to link to you, I will. Please return the favor. If you've already linked to me, please e-mail me your proper URL.

Columns 2

on birthing

My friend the nurse recently became a mother. Becoming a mother is a beautiful, scary thing. I became a mother two and a half years ago. When I was pregnant, I read everything I could about the medical practices and procedures surrounding childbirth. I was terrified and knowledge is power.

I asked my friend where she planned to give birth. I'd toyed with the ideas of a home birth or a birthing center and relished the thought of a lively discussion of alternative birthing practices and the risk of commonplace medical interventions like epidural and episoitimy. She said, matter-of-factly that she would give birth “in a hospital with an epidural.” She stopped me cold. I do not dispense unsolicited advice, and it was clear by the definitive finality with which she spoke that the matter was not up for discussion.

But why? I thought. Aren't all matters up for discussion? I am not denying that some deliveries present serious medical risks and require intervention. I question the idea, however, that every pregnancy requires intervention. I question the purveyors of this thinking's motivation. I wonder why the fact that Labor and Birth were a women's affair, sans medical intervention, for thousands of years never seems to arrive on the table when such is up for debate.

My thinking is, why mess with a good thing? Any medical procedure, even the most benign, comes with its share of potential side-effects and risks. When a nine-month pregnancy has gone off dazzlingly, it is maddening to me that so many women embrace the notion that a doctor has something to add—especially when that thing comes with a laundry list of potential dangers and requires a knive, needle, I.V. or anesthesiologist! To me, even a one in a million chance of injury is too high.

We live in a culture that aggressively judges pregnant women who consume a glass of wine or anything caffienated in public. There have been court verdicts demanding that a pregnant woman act in the best interest of her baby. Why then is the same pregnant woman encouraged to get shot up with drugs or narcotics when she's in labor?

My daughter was born without the assistance of narcotics, knives or needles. But my physician was so intent on sticking me that she insisted Pitocin be administered to birth the placenta. I was too pooped and blissed out to argue, but several hours prior I might've argued that I know somebody who hallucinated on it and mightn't we try it without? Fortunately, I experienced no side effects with the Pitocin. But the next time I have a baby, I hope he will be born at home with a midwife attending. I hope to stay as far away from a hospital as possible.

I am by no means dispensing medical advice. Nor is my mind narrowed to exclude an opposing view. But my friend's ideas and unwarranted trust in the procedures seems to be pervasive enough that someone should say something. I am that someone and this is that something.

On blogging, for print.

I made a resolution about it and I began a blog. The third to be truthful. But this one's gonna stick. I hear blogging is a good way to get attention. Blogging is something I must do. Everybody I know has a blog.

Everybody I know has different literary savvy, so the blog content is as varied as my friends are. Carlos writes about his new son. Sharon writes about infomercials and pet peeves. Mike writes letters to the people of Brazil. Carolyn reviews books.

Still, each time I sit down to add to my blog, I can't stop thinking about how incredibly vain it is. I typed in all of the poems I've recently begun tinkering. I added links to my other online presences, my daughter's website and to my side job. Who cares? I ask myself. Why? What's the point?

The point is that it's now. It's here. And what's that old adage? Misery loves company? So does company. A blog is a way to do something you're not ready to do. A blog is proof that cosmic feelers seeking camaraderie will not return empty, it shows that other people like the same stuff I do. A blog is affirmation for my narcissism.

We got Cable

Yes. We did. So far, my brother watched most of Mission Impossible. I have watched one episode of house, and now am watching The Office on tbs. This show is pretty ridiculous.

Our Cable Guy, however, though terribly sweet, was utterly inept. A VERY nice fellow. But hopelessly stupid. Kind, but bad at life.

Bruce McCulloch says, "never trust a man who repeats himself." In this case, never trust a woman who...

Anyway. Since you're not supposed to trust me, I'm going to tell you now about my Cable Tech's Mac Faux Pas. Apparently, my cable tech is "not real familiar with Macs." He actually gave me the tippy-top-secret IP address, login name and passcode to allow the techs to register each new user. Then, he called at least 4 people to try to figure out how to configure a Mac with the system. I have a Gateway wireless modem. But because we set up a security protocol (or maybe for some other reason), the password for Airport isn't the same as the password for comcast. soooo, my inept Comcast tech went away saying, "I've done all I can do." Which, of course, he had.

So I ran an errand or two and returned to try something that it seemed that my Tech couldn't figure out how to do: use the actual WEP passcode to log on to the april line network with Airport. I did. It worked. And now I'm wireless. So are you.

We've got not strings.

My Mac is Durty and so is my mind

I need to dust and clean my computer. This is madness.

Pearl and I need to settle in to some scrubations.

The oil man is here, filling the tank. Very good, methinks.

I have filthy, filthy dreams far too often. I think I shall scrub my synapses.

I recently read an e-mail that I wrote to someone some years ago. Back when I thought I was stupid and a failure. I used the sentence, "it feels like someone is knitting with my synapses." Ooh I am a clever devil.

Ohmigod! I totally lost my Robyn Hitchcock CD

Have you seen it? Cute. About 4" in diameter, green.

I have several copied Robyn Hitchcock CDs. A buddy in Connecticut made them for me. But now I'm missing the only one I own legitimately. I thought it was in its case, and when I went to play it yesterday, it was MISSING.

It was the one called I Often Dream of Trains, and it was this groovy "special edition" with extra tracks.

Losing Robyn Hitchcock is like losing friends. I've lost friends before. But this week, I'm all finding them. In The Patriot News (Harrisburg's Daily Rag), I've been reading a lot about my friends in Horoscope. Yesterday, it said one of them might be braver than I am. Bullocks, I say. Nobody is braver than I! But I have relocated 1 old friend, and had satisfying correspondence with two others. These humans are all brave, true. But I am braver. The reasons are too many for enumerating. You'll have to use your imagination.

Maybe you could also use your telepathy and show me where I put Robyn Hitchcock.

My Ugly, Shitty Job

Today, my boss said, "You gotta sell thirty cars in three months, or else!" He said it in his usually perky, utterly unoffensive & wildly approachable tone, so I bit. I said, "Or else what?" Then he made a little spit-in-the-air and shoved his thumb over his shoulder. It was exactly the same thing my Grandma Flo did late in her life when moving, especially out of chairs, became difficult. As if the sound could somehow decrease her inertia. I think Gary Larson notates it thusly: pfffffft.

Anyway, so these boys are sitting in the show room talking to a very pretty woman who used to work here (gathering from what I overhear), and I'm here sending letters & working. Except for when I got angry and decided to make a blog entry. I spoke with my friend, Deanna, yesterday. She recounted, "Oh of course women are equal with men! Just look at Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. But Ginger did it backward and in high heels." I'm wearing high heels today and a skirt. One of the mikes looks like he dressed from the laundry chute.

I think I'm going to get a job waitressing. Maybe I can do the lunch shift over at the Hamilton. Five hours a day, fifty bucks a day, five days a week. that is what I want.

Here, I might just as well sit in silence. Answer phones, make xeroxes, direct traffic. That is what women do in the automotive industry in South Central PA. This place has leapt across the threshold of chauvinism and landed enthusiastically in misogyny.

A word on those Orson and Edna ones

Poetry really isn't my thing, folks. But I dig these Orson and Edna people. They're just so weird. And they have a really rich life inside my head. I know Edna a bit better than I know Orson, he can tend to be reduced to a stack of stereotypes. And poetry is where they should live. Truly. Like, what would have happened if Barryman had tried to put Henry or Mr. Bones into prose? Um, He probably wouldn't have been the poet laureate, or be renowned for insanity.

If I want to be noted for something after my death, or late in my life, I want that thing to be massive eccentricity, insanity or substance abuse. I think Orson and Edna are more-likely to get me there. But most of what ends up here in blogland will more-than-likely be prose.

Poems, for me, are easier to fit into my retardedly busy life, and I find that they're also easier to work on in very short clips of time. Like blogs. Hence this self-indulgent pile.

The Feelies

Has anybody ever heard of the Feelies? I got this CD a few months ago at a tag sale, I think. Of course, since a lot of people who deserve recognition in the music industry don't ever really get it, I'm in the habit of testing out music I've never heard of before--especially if the price is right. I believe I Picked this up for about $0.25.

But this is seriously, honestly, the WORST CD I've ever heard. It's like what would happen if the younger, half-retarded brothers of Velvet Underground, Weezer and The Beach Boys all got together and engaged in a 10-track project full of too many totally boring bars of repeating licks. I should have turned it off after the first track.

It is self-indulgent.
It is boring.
It is non-memorable.

At this point, finding out the title of the album would require too much energy. But I'm pretty sure this is their only one. YUCK!!

Anyway. If you find it in the Wal Mart bargain bin, leave it there.

On Opening a Passion Fruit

The fruit was black tinged magenta, waxy outside like ink.
it felt hollow if I squeezed it. like dried orange. It weighed 2 grams,
two paper clips.
I pushed the knife into the fruit, dented before sliced, jaundice juice bled on formica.
When I halved it, it yielded to me sections the color of bile, seeded like pomegranate nestled in a golf-white hemisphere of rind lined rind, a perfect separation between white and dark: tangy, sweet, minty, tingling, each with a black pit like termite's skin or beetle's.
There were three prickled areas where the seeds attached their membranes. There were fine purple veins inside.

I teethed the seeds in one half, they juiced my ivories. The pits slid down, gathering to a knot like players on ice at a puck: in a place just below my uvula.
I saved the other half.

Orson and Edna epistolary poems

With Love, Your Raisin Muffin

Those years since then
when you smiled
down across your flat
brown nickel-nipples and
into me, when we broke
our fast with love-sausage and salt-muffin,

Have dreamt me imageless:
her in your mirror-eyes
when I look for me.
I am a steak of you that
offends your vegan.

I am a raisin of who
I was when I teased your
nickels warm, and you
trusted my safe
with your roll,
our mutual fund,
our fidelity.



Dear Raisin Muffin, It's Not My Fault


You know I love you,
simpering twit!
We swung once, remember?
I said I would love you,
we could fuck them.
I still love you, fuck them.

You're what's changed,
muffin. My two dollars is
still invested.
But I don't get my apples-peach-pear return.
You guard them love.
You stopped letting me see.

So I stopped eating meat!
You stopped cooking.
Stopped serving.
Stopped being.

Edna spent an hour in the bathtub.

she floats in the tub, her breasts erect, nipples islands. she feels her bladder shift, full, and press against her uterus. it is odd to hold her pee underwater. last time was ages ago because an older kid told her there was a chemical that turned pee red to catch pool pissers. she remembers being afraid of getting sucked down the drain as a child; compressed, tubular, and spat out into a world of mome wraths and scum monsters who dealt cards. now she reads a romance, watches the pages crimp under her wet touch. giggles at the thought of a wet touch. wishes for her own plastic lover, like fabio-on-the-cover. hopes for warm palms to cover her tits: submerge them in water and love.

Dead: haiku

Orson ate poisoned
chocolate chip cookie and he
almost choked to death.

Edna inhaled, deep,
blinked once: smiled, danced and whooped
boots are made to walk.

Orson spies on the neighbor in the shower

He bleats like a goat
when she takes off her
clothes, steps -- toes first --
into the mildewed tile box.

He streams like the Conodoguinet
when she lathers up under
the water's massage, hopes
she'll never realize he can see
through the sky light, thrugh
the fog, her dark layer of hair
trail like seal skin down her back,
pink roses bloom on
her cheeks and her shoulders
under the hot water.

he liquefies like burning tallow
when she opens her mouth and
it fills with water, spills over the
corners, down, over the crowns
of her breasts, converges
below her naval, drips down the drain
from a beaded curl at the vortex of
her thighs.

He hardens like brick when he
remembers that this is not his wife,
this is not his house, his skylight, his
soggy toilet paper: that he has to
return to Edna, queen of a chill
aimed at him.

Orson Likes Eggs Benedict

The way the hard-yolk-colored
hollandaise joins
the shiny canary of the soft-yolk

Pink slice of pork, tastes
vaguely copper, blood-like as the
muffin soaks it and he sucks it
off the fork at the diner.

The perfect fusion of flavors,
colors like cotton candy, like
babies. His Edna doesn't cook.
He can only be satisfied like this
away from home.

The Weekend Edna Turned Out to be Elvis

At the Casino, she glided
between islands, tossed
ones in the air. Met the hands
of a dark stranger, kissed behind
his ear on her toes. Whispered
come hold me tight, kiss
me my darling. Be mine tonight.

Tucked in her bra strap,
a wad of ones to fake-
out the dealer. She read
how in a story once. Thought
It's now or never.
In her garter, a Russian self-
loading 7.62 Handgun, no
bigger than her palm.

Thought of Orson only once, when
in the elevator, her garter slipped,
dropped the gun by the stranger's feet.
He thought it was sexy, gripped her
waist, toothed her ear, Orson hates
Blue Hawaii.

Edna's Id

Id was perfect until
she took that course
at the Community college.
Id is everything: the sticky
perimeter of morning's
mocha, Orson's
bald-spot-wink in sun,
her garter's red seam after
twenty-odd years, cellulite.

After that class, all of id
changed, moved up and
down and left her at the
bottom on her bottom,
wishing she still wanted
Orson's bottom
always cold and rough in her
hands at night, afternoon,
morning. His impotent sting,
vacant song. Id is what she
wanted. Knew she couldn't
get id back.

Edna's Brick Feet

Edna actually wears
a seven, but she buys a
nine-wide. She mashes
her archless, heavy meat-pods
into pumps and sandals,
the sides gap, reveal red rub.

At night she can smell
the day's wear like over-salted
cashews,dusts them with
Gold Bond Medicated and
remembers how grateful
she was when Orson, her
husband, was charmed y her feet.

He'd peeled her knee-highs
said her feet were
tender, womanly;
pulpy red toes, stale edges of
callous notwithstanding.
She believed him. He rubbed her
feet until she was cooked spaghetti.

Edna's Miscarriage

She sat on the seat,
felt pain like cinderblocks
scrape her innards,
let some of the mess out
of her mouth to splash
the floor.

More, she let spill
into the pink toiet water,
sound like state-fair
ping-pong balls in goldfish cups.

She stood, wobble-kneed,
looked down, thought she
saw an arm, leg in the black
clotted mess. Wept.

The pain ended like punctuation. What is
left are the cuts under her heart
from the cinder block, gashes
in her iron stomach's wall
that will puss, ooze, take
years to bruise.

The Costume Party where Orson and Edna First Lied to One Another

In 1977 they were young,
Edna did aerobics, Orson ate
Wheaties and yogurt. They had
matching tuxedo-striped sweat
suits, hers canary and his azure.

Maria, their literary friend,
invited them to a party.
They could dress as Billy Budd,
Ishmael or Bartelby, as Thoreau,
Whitman or Hawthorne.

Orson was Dimmesdale.
Edna was Hester, he grasped
her waist as they danced. She
whispered hot breath in his ear,
promised the unmentionable.

As if the ghost of the old-young
reverend breathed through Orson's
nostrils, he palmed his chest. Fluttered
his eyelids. Slicked his forefinger's
tip with waxed vapor from his ear.
Pressed it to Hester's cheek,
I'm Sorry darling. I need space.

A hundred years' indignant rage flushed
her cheeks. I'll not attend your sick bed,
Arthur. Nor any of your beds. She slapped
him. Removed his arm from her waist, picked
up her gray skirt and absented herself.
The guests applauded.

Orson's Schwinn

Dented metal
in the garage each
spring, when he gets his 60-
grit sandpaper and
buffs rust. Buys
paint the original olive
drab.

Remembers the first time
he waxed anything
was with his father, summer
of '66. put yer back in it, boy!
with a thump there, for
emphasis.

Thirteen, the Schwinn
sparkeled down the street. A
perfect tick of chain-in-cogs.
He saw Edna on a corner,
in her pink sweater, new
points in polyester bra. He
asked her to a cherry soda.
Sure she smiled. He walked
the bike beside her.

When he returned too late,
his father'd locked him out
so he slept curled in the space
between the rims of his felled
machine on driveway asphalt

Edna finds him
each June 7th morning,
resting under the
workbench, can of
wax open at the wheel
of the bike. She remembers.

Draft Pages 2 (ugh, very rough)

My most-recently-bethrombosised colleague was addicted to gambling. This is another symptom my colleagues view as weakness. But it looks to me as though the self-delusion in which one must engage to become addicted to gambling (an affair that is always stacked miles against the player) is of a similar sort to the kinds of lies and half-truths we must all erect to ourselves, our customers, and those that our employers actively shroud us in.
This particular colleague was so convinced that he would hit the jackpot—any jackpot—that a myth circulates here about his one almost win. Sal, this colleague, bought a Powerball ticket one day. He was is not a man who does research, or who plays odds smartly. In fact, his skills at assessing risk or income-potential are so lacking that he does not even attempt to penetrate the market the way the rest of us do, carrying with us a stack of business cards, writing letters, dreaming big of a day when we work by appointment. In the eleven years he has worked for this company, he has sold hundreds, hundreds of cars. He has never once followed up with a customer, instead prefers to skate those who “belong” to others. He bought a ticket of random numbers, picked by the lottery machine. And the next morning, as all sucked on coffees to ease our hangovers or our depression or perhaps just to increase the odds of having a heart attack and getting to retire early, Sal whooped with such vigor that everyone (not me, this tale predates my employment) thought he was having another heart attack. Rushing to his red-faced side, the smile that had paralyzed his face was broken by five words, “fuck you all, I quit.”
True, however, to Sal's unparallelled ineptitude (and simple bad luck), The Pine Times later issued a statement that there had been a misprint in the paper. Sal hadn't, in fact, won the lottery. His numbers, 24, 13, 46, 18, 9 were off by one digit. The winning ticket was 15, 13, 46, 18, 9. A sad sack Sal returned to this ugly building to beg for his job back. Since