thomas just said that - i swear there's something wrong with him sometimes. what's so great about this house? everything! every time i'm here, i look around in wonder at the home we've created. it's 2008 - we moved here june 1, 1998. ten years of memories, here in this home. each painted wall, clothed table, polished chair, soft pillow... this house is amazing. i think i'm going to take pictures of it next time i'm here.
i'm going back home tonight or tomorrow. i miss mark.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
life's surprises
my ex-friend is having a baby. well, he's not having a baby. his girlfriend is having a baby. this is weird.
i don't know how to explain how, exactly... we stopped talking months ago. it had been a slow crawl toward disaster from the beginning.
i think we met at cold stone. i had taken to going there with a girl friend and her friends from the academy. at the time, i lived only a few miles down the boulevard, and i desperately needed the company. she and i had known each other since we were thirteen or fourteen, and we finally had time to see each other and catch up. sometimes i drove out there, sometimes i took the train. she would always show up with a hoard of guys, maybe a few girls. one time he was in there with two other guys. they remarked on something about me being irish - i can't remember if i was trading tattoo stories with a friend or wearing a shirt from ireland. all-in-all, it wasn't remarkable.
the memory meeting came after ring dance - he had to check out of his hotel room, so he came to stash his stuff in ours. another of the girls introduced us briefly, but we were more concerned about ditching him and navigating the confusing hotel to find our friends for a lunch date. a lunch date at a place that only took cash, it turned out. i ran across ninth avenue to an ATM, and on the way back i caught him on the corner. "hey, aren't you... ?" after a smile and a reintroduction, he was off with our group for the rest of the day.
of course, the endless trade of facebook pictures, comments, friendings, etc., followed the ring dance like normal for any computer-savvy twenty-something these days, but his stuck with me. we got to talking more often, and even hung out. i went on board sometimes to visit with him - the two of us scampering around, climbing up roofs and into the chapel and laughing. i became an honorary member of the academy's dance team, making trips on board twice, three times a week, for long practices and routines.
i was glad for the friendship, and wasn't aware of anything more.
tom was the apple of my eye, a graduate of the academy who was then at flight school in florida. he remembered tom, and didn't like him. i would sometimes vent to him, which i know now wasn't fair to do, but most of the time he just allowed me to have fun and take my mind off of the poison apple. i visited tom in florida, once, and i called him while tom flew a kite on the beach. he was surprised to hear from me, and immediately picked up on my disappointment in the success of the trip.
he told me that he loved me the week i got back, and i told him that it had to stop.
the next month was a torrid affair of break-up and make-up for my doomed relationship, and he was annoyed that i didn't tell him when i broke it off for good, finally. his best friend cornered me on the street during an all-academy celebration at a bar. i was drunk and i made something up about recovering from the breakup.
really it was that i didn't like him at all. i couldn't. we talked and laughed and had good times together, but there was nothing there for me. honestly i thought i was dead inside, killed by tom, but that wasn't it. in a matter of weeks, i had fallen smitten for another guy at the academy, a fellow dancer and friend.
within a month, i met mark - the man i will marry. i never again thought of the many male distractions, but half-tried to maintain the friendly facade i'd cultivated with my friend. things remained rocky for a few weeks. proposals were made and denied, late-night love confessions thrown aside, and when the embers of my desperation-driven cigarettes burned out, our friendship had failed.
recently, i thought again of him. i asked mark what he thought of a friendly email, just to check on him. the academy class had graduated, all were off to jobs. i had given up contact with many of them after the debauchery of last year, but i still wondered. the email was too friendly, ostensibly happy and not nearly as solemn as it should have been. he wrote back today, saying that he is fine - "life is wonderful." i know his content tone, and yet he only used periods in his writing. he will be sailing for a company this fall, and he is expecting his baby girl in mid-september.
my mouth hung open as i pointed to the screen and sat back to let mark read the message. "mid-september? must've knocked her up in january, then." mark wanted to know why i seemed upset. it's just... i asked him how he would feel if he found out that one of his friends was expecting - surprised, no? he assented but his eyes were still questioning.
the girl is from his hometown. i vaguely remember some old photos of parties after we'd stopped talking, before we finally gave up. i also remember his catholic virginity, his free spirit, his desire to sail tours in alaska for little pay and more adventure. she's pretty, the girl. dark hair and a solid smile, tan skin and short for him. they look happy enough in his photo, though she's not wearing his hat.
a baby girl? him? ohh... i don't know how to feel about it.
"wish it were you? jealous?" mark's snide jealousy cut through my thoughts, and i looked up at him, surprised. no, and no. it wouldn't've been me, any way you look at it.
we used to share with each other our thoughts, our hopes. once, we sat on the roof of the boathouse on board, right on the edge of the long island sound. the orange-lit dark sky with all its airplanes above us, small ships out before us, a bridge or two and so many people in the distance. i was fearless in his eyes and he was comforted in mine. we stayed there all night.
i wanted to be in the academy, he wanted to be at a liberal arts college studying writing. we were opposites and jokingly argued, but we were kindred in so many ways. he encouraged me to rise up out of the rut and place myself firmly in the clouds again.
i've made huge changes in my life since i lost my friend, and i wish he could see, understand, that he had something to do with my motivation to do so.
i want to know where he went. i didn't deserve his friendship, because i didn't know what to do with it. but i want to know where that dreamer went. i want to know if he'll pass that along to his daughter - if he ever took his girlfriend up to the boat house, if he still talks the same way he used to. i want to know if he still reads and writes, what his hometown is like, and why he's sailing merchant vessels in the fall.
i want to know what happened to my friend, and i'm afraid that i had a hand in what's become of him.
i don't know how to explain how, exactly... we stopped talking months ago. it had been a slow crawl toward disaster from the beginning.
i think we met at cold stone. i had taken to going there with a girl friend and her friends from the academy. at the time, i lived only a few miles down the boulevard, and i desperately needed the company. she and i had known each other since we were thirteen or fourteen, and we finally had time to see each other and catch up. sometimes i drove out there, sometimes i took the train. she would always show up with a hoard of guys, maybe a few girls. one time he was in there with two other guys. they remarked on something about me being irish - i can't remember if i was trading tattoo stories with a friend or wearing a shirt from ireland. all-in-all, it wasn't remarkable.
the memory meeting came after ring dance - he had to check out of his hotel room, so he came to stash his stuff in ours. another of the girls introduced us briefly, but we were more concerned about ditching him and navigating the confusing hotel to find our friends for a lunch date. a lunch date at a place that only took cash, it turned out. i ran across ninth avenue to an ATM, and on the way back i caught him on the corner. "hey, aren't you... ?" after a smile and a reintroduction, he was off with our group for the rest of the day.
of course, the endless trade of facebook pictures, comments, friendings, etc., followed the ring dance like normal for any computer-savvy twenty-something these days, but his stuck with me. we got to talking more often, and even hung out. i went on board sometimes to visit with him - the two of us scampering around, climbing up roofs and into the chapel and laughing. i became an honorary member of the academy's dance team, making trips on board twice, three times a week, for long practices and routines.
i was glad for the friendship, and wasn't aware of anything more.
tom was the apple of my eye, a graduate of the academy who was then at flight school in florida. he remembered tom, and didn't like him. i would sometimes vent to him, which i know now wasn't fair to do, but most of the time he just allowed me to have fun and take my mind off of the poison apple. i visited tom in florida, once, and i called him while tom flew a kite on the beach. he was surprised to hear from me, and immediately picked up on my disappointment in the success of the trip.
he told me that he loved me the week i got back, and i told him that it had to stop.
the next month was a torrid affair of break-up and make-up for my doomed relationship, and he was annoyed that i didn't tell him when i broke it off for good, finally. his best friend cornered me on the street during an all-academy celebration at a bar. i was drunk and i made something up about recovering from the breakup.
really it was that i didn't like him at all. i couldn't. we talked and laughed and had good times together, but there was nothing there for me. honestly i thought i was dead inside, killed by tom, but that wasn't it. in a matter of weeks, i had fallen smitten for another guy at the academy, a fellow dancer and friend.
within a month, i met mark - the man i will marry. i never again thought of the many male distractions, but half-tried to maintain the friendly facade i'd cultivated with my friend. things remained rocky for a few weeks. proposals were made and denied, late-night love confessions thrown aside, and when the embers of my desperation-driven cigarettes burned out, our friendship had failed.
recently, i thought again of him. i asked mark what he thought of a friendly email, just to check on him. the academy class had graduated, all were off to jobs. i had given up contact with many of them after the debauchery of last year, but i still wondered. the email was too friendly, ostensibly happy and not nearly as solemn as it should have been. he wrote back today, saying that he is fine - "life is wonderful." i know his content tone, and yet he only used periods in his writing. he will be sailing for a company this fall, and he is expecting his baby girl in mid-september.
my mouth hung open as i pointed to the screen and sat back to let mark read the message. "mid-september? must've knocked her up in january, then." mark wanted to know why i seemed upset. it's just... i asked him how he would feel if he found out that one of his friends was expecting - surprised, no? he assented but his eyes were still questioning.
the girl is from his hometown. i vaguely remember some old photos of parties after we'd stopped talking, before we finally gave up. i also remember his catholic virginity, his free spirit, his desire to sail tours in alaska for little pay and more adventure. she's pretty, the girl. dark hair and a solid smile, tan skin and short for him. they look happy enough in his photo, though she's not wearing his hat.
a baby girl? him? ohh... i don't know how to feel about it.
"wish it were you? jealous?" mark's snide jealousy cut through my thoughts, and i looked up at him, surprised. no, and no. it wouldn't've been me, any way you look at it.
we used to share with each other our thoughts, our hopes. once, we sat on the roof of the boathouse on board, right on the edge of the long island sound. the orange-lit dark sky with all its airplanes above us, small ships out before us, a bridge or two and so many people in the distance. i was fearless in his eyes and he was comforted in mine. we stayed there all night.
i wanted to be in the academy, he wanted to be at a liberal arts college studying writing. we were opposites and jokingly argued, but we were kindred in so many ways. he encouraged me to rise up out of the rut and place myself firmly in the clouds again.
i've made huge changes in my life since i lost my friend, and i wish he could see, understand, that he had something to do with my motivation to do so.
i want to know where he went. i didn't deserve his friendship, because i didn't know what to do with it. but i want to know where that dreamer went. i want to know if he'll pass that along to his daughter - if he ever took his girlfriend up to the boat house, if he still talks the same way he used to. i want to know if he still reads and writes, what his hometown is like, and why he's sailing merchant vessels in the fall.
i want to know what happened to my friend, and i'm afraid that i had a hand in what's become of him.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
chapter one: le petit mori
chapter one: le petit mori
mark and i have been very, very bad at unpacking this place. rather, i should really say that i have been very, very bad at unpacking, because nearly all of the roughly opened overflowing boxes in the sweltering attic are, in fact, mine.
today i'm on assignment: i'm supposed to finish up the second drafts of one chapter and one whole manual. i'm a bit peeved at my team, because i received feedback from only three people out of twelve. and yet, who's going to throw a fit when a particular point isn't addressed perfectly? those other nine.
whichever way, this afternoon i happened to be up in said sweltering attic looking for a printer cable. yep, i, the glorious goddess of packratness, managed somehow in the jump from new york to delaware to lose the one-and-only cable for my one-and-only printer. good job. i lost count of how many dead things i found tanning themselves on top of box flaps, i hit my head more than i'd like to admit, and i think i let cancer seep successfully in through the soles of my feet. and i didn't find the printer cable.
but i did find my old address book, three ziploc bags of pencils and markers and pens, and a blue notebook.
i used to have a thing for blue notebooks. in high school, i had a thick five-subject bright blue notebook that contained all of my deepest thoughts, lurid fantasies, wannabe song lyrics, and hate lists. all the boys in our group wanted into that notebook, and no one ever got it. now it's in one of the boxes in the attic - the ripped front covered with duct tape and permanent marker designs.
this blue notebook is a lot thinner, a small 70-sheeter. it was bright blue at some point, but now it is all scratched up - blue, black, and white. on the inside cover, written in blue marker that matches exactly to the color that the cover was:
CALCULUS
MW 10-11:40 ~ NAC 6/114
Prof Kaminetzky
ah, yes, that old failed calculus course. that one class might have been what got me into this whole mess in the first place, come to realise. the rest of the notebook holds clues to the rest of the trouble: a class schedule, a written copy of a course syllabus, scribbled notes to friends, assignments, doodles, notes from at least three different courses... this is it. the beginning of the end.
on the fourth page, written carefully at the top in the painstaking script dad grilled into me:
Obituary assignment:
Obituaries let the public know, remember
- any age you want to be
- who you were
- what you did
- where you lived/ were born
- write about self in past tense
- use creative process (column, article, front-page, etc.)
oh, oh, the hopeful, glad, happy obituary assignment!
some of my classmates lamented that this, this horrible professor, this horrible assignment. how dare she make us think about death - about our own death! well, peers, you're in a 300-level death in renaissance course, but all practicality aside, it's not that macabre. this is our chance, our dream, our hope! we can make ourselves whatever we want to be! we can take that self outside of the darkness of our brain, the emptiness of thought; take it into the brightness of day, the lines of page! we can invent ourselves again with all the promise we squandered!
three pages later, in furious half-script, lies the draft of my obituary: long-hand math in the margins to figure out "my" age; scribbles through proposed marital surnames; arrows here and there to indicate a frenetic order; bullet points for "married" "children" "grandchildren" along with names.
ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of a hopeful, glad, happy obituary. "obituary, due 29 august 2007," we hardly knew you. you were scribbled on a half-torn-out page of a blue notebook, familiar only to your author. a heavy blue star adorns part of you, laden with a note to check the NYT obits. you were used and abused to reflect the foolishly ideal life of your author, but you knew better. you knew that you were more intelligent, more telling, than the crisp white printed paper your author gave to her professor. you were more deserving of the prominent check-plus in purple ink on the page, knowing what you know now. your author looks at you now with laughing eyes, how could she have been so silly then. "then," not even a year hence. obituary, thank you for your faithful, proving, true service. thank you for proving her wrong. amen.
mark and i have been very, very bad at unpacking this place. rather, i should really say that i have been very, very bad at unpacking, because nearly all of the roughly opened overflowing boxes in the sweltering attic are, in fact, mine.
today i'm on assignment: i'm supposed to finish up the second drafts of one chapter and one whole manual. i'm a bit peeved at my team, because i received feedback from only three people out of twelve. and yet, who's going to throw a fit when a particular point isn't addressed perfectly? those other nine.
whichever way, this afternoon i happened to be up in said sweltering attic looking for a printer cable. yep, i, the glorious goddess of packratness, managed somehow in the jump from new york to delaware to lose the one-and-only cable for my one-and-only printer. good job. i lost count of how many dead things i found tanning themselves on top of box flaps, i hit my head more than i'd like to admit, and i think i let cancer seep successfully in through the soles of my feet. and i didn't find the printer cable.
but i did find my old address book, three ziploc bags of pencils and markers and pens, and a blue notebook.
i used to have a thing for blue notebooks. in high school, i had a thick five-subject bright blue notebook that contained all of my deepest thoughts, lurid fantasies, wannabe song lyrics, and hate lists. all the boys in our group wanted into that notebook, and no one ever got it. now it's in one of the boxes in the attic - the ripped front covered with duct tape and permanent marker designs.
this blue notebook is a lot thinner, a small 70-sheeter. it was bright blue at some point, but now it is all scratched up - blue, black, and white. on the inside cover, written in blue marker that matches exactly to the color that the cover was:
CALCULUS
MW 10-11:40 ~ NAC 6/114
Prof Kaminetzky
ah, yes, that old failed calculus course. that one class might have been what got me into this whole mess in the first place, come to realise. the rest of the notebook holds clues to the rest of the trouble: a class schedule, a written copy of a course syllabus, scribbled notes to friends, assignments, doodles, notes from at least three different courses... this is it. the beginning of the end.
on the fourth page, written carefully at the top in the painstaking script dad grilled into me:
Obituary assignment:
Obituaries let the public know, remember
- any age you want to be
- who you were
- what you did
- where you lived/ were born
- write about self in past tense
- use creative process (column, article, front-page, etc.)
oh, oh, the hopeful, glad, happy obituary assignment!
some of my classmates lamented that this, this horrible professor, this horrible assignment. how dare she make us think about death - about our own death! well, peers, you're in a 300-level death in renaissance course, but all practicality aside, it's not that macabre. this is our chance, our dream, our hope! we can make ourselves whatever we want to be! we can take that self outside of the darkness of our brain, the emptiness of thought; take it into the brightness of day, the lines of page! we can invent ourselves again with all the promise we squandered!
three pages later, in furious half-script, lies the draft of my obituary: long-hand math in the margins to figure out "my" age; scribbles through proposed marital surnames; arrows here and there to indicate a frenetic order; bullet points for "married" "children" "grandchildren" along with names.
ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of a hopeful, glad, happy obituary. "obituary, due 29 august 2007," we hardly knew you. you were scribbled on a half-torn-out page of a blue notebook, familiar only to your author. a heavy blue star adorns part of you, laden with a note to check the NYT obits. you were used and abused to reflect the foolishly ideal life of your author, but you knew better. you knew that you were more intelligent, more telling, than the crisp white printed paper your author gave to her professor. you were more deserving of the prominent check-plus in purple ink on the page, knowing what you know now. your author looks at you now with laughing eyes, how could she have been so silly then. "then," not even a year hence. obituary, thank you for your faithful, proving, true service. thank you for proving her wrong. amen.
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